The Vegetarian Option

I Don't Blog Here Anymore

2009-10-08T07:41:00.001-07:00

Dear Loyal Readers (that means you mom),
I'll be blogging at my new site from now on! www.chefkristine.com/blog.html I have finally launched the new Web site, so please feel free to check out the new digs. It shows my list of services and sample menus.

And if you're not my mom, (that means you Molly) thank you for reading my posts on this blog. It has been a really fun way to blather on about a topic that I am so passionate about.

See you at the new place!

Kristine

Update on the Obama Garden

2009-08-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

I just love how this whole thing is shaping out! The last time I updated about the garden, and let's remember, it's just a lil' ol' garden, it was about the big agro's getting mad about Michelle bringing the idea of local, seasonal, organic and sustainable into mainstream consciousness. They hate the idea of not getting their grapes in December.

The latest installment on garden-gate is that our wonderful young president is talking with his wife about starting a farmer's market in front of the White House. My goodness. Who's ever heard of such a thing? It's a simple idea with a gigantic statement. Man I love this family. Check out the full article from Grist here.

Every end is a new beginnning...or something like that

2009-08-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

It seems like only yesterday that I woke up 3 hours before class to shower, iron my uniform and compulsively check to see if I had all my supplies for the first day of class. Of course, it didn’t take very long for it to become a half hour before class, staggering into the classroom still buttoning my chef’s coat.

The last few weeks of school are now a blur. It seemed to be an endless series of tests – from written final, to cooking final, to improv final, to group project final. While in the thick of things, I felt like it was never going to end and sometimes like I hadn’t learned a single thing. In retrospect, nerves and a little dash of over-confidence can do that. Let’s just say that I dubbed my practical (or cooking) final as “hot garbage on a plate.” But all in all, I don’t regret anything that happened in those few weeks. I’ll be including a separate entry about our group project.

What can I say about ten months of learning about something I love, making new friends, and discovering a brand new path for my life? This period was an awakening and exorcising of a passion that had been building since I was child. It was truly a completion of a dream. Now I have even more dreams to accomplish. When someone asks me exactly what it is that I want to do with my culinary education, I’m a little stumped because, truly, the real answer is everything. I want to cook, write, travel, teach, become an entrepreneur, and follow whatever opportunity happens to come my way.

But what about the recent future? I certainly have a lot more to say…I like to talk. After finishing my internships, I will work on building my personal chef business, while searching for a part time restaurant job. I’m currently working on my Web site, chefkristine.com, and hope to launch it sometime next month (September 2009).

Epilogue

In the last year, I’ve had so many people divulge to me their secret dreams of happiness. More often than not, I always felt like these dreams were in the realm of possibility and would ask why they wouldn’t go for it. I realize that I am incredibly lucky to have a supportive partner, family and friends to help me through this journey, but I believe when there’s a will there is a way. When I decided to quit my job and follow my dream I was never one hundred percent certain that I would succeed. Um, I’m still not. What I am certain about is that my entire quality of life has changed, sometimes not the way I had hoped, but mostly it’s been pure joy.

As a child I loved the Happiness Is series by Charles M. Schultz. Each Peanuts character had their own version of happiness from French fries to a warm puppy. So complete this sentence: Happiness is …

Sigh for Ming Tsai

2009-07-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

Who knew that one of America's most famous mainstream chefs was so sensitive and in-the-know about food allergies? I love this guy! He just wrote a great article for The Atlantic about how his son's allergies towards the eight deadly sins (peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, dairy, egg, and shellfish) forced him to be more stringent about sanitation at his restaurant, Blue Ginger, and how it eventually led him to capitol hill.

Find the article here.

Making Greek Yogurt

2009-07-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

Don’t you just love Greek yogurt? It’s thick, creamy, and so satisfying. Similar to sour cream, it rivals in versatility. It’s also chock full of probiotics which aids digestion and boosting immunity. So why not keep a stock handy all the time? For one thing, it can be harder to find than it’s sugary and faux fruity counterparts; not to mention that it costs about twice as much.

But no more. You can make this delicious yogurt with the same stuff you find in your regular old grocery store, or the farmer’s market. All you need is plain yogurt, a kitchen towel (or paper towels), a small to medium strainer that can sit above a bowl, and of course a bowl.

Sit the strainer over the bowl and line the strainer with the kitchen towel. If you are using paper towels, be generous and lay paper towels over each other, leaving enough to drape on top of the yogurt. Pour as much of the plain yogurt that will fit into the strainer and let sit overnight in the refrigerator. You’ll be surprised to see how much liquid will escape. You can certainly do this with flavored yogurt such as vanilla, but I prefer to naturally flavor the yogurt myself.

Vanilla Yogurt

Add ½ teaspoon vanilla extract per cup

Orange Yogurt

Add 1 teaspoon all natural, unsweetened orange juice concentrate and ¼ teaspoon fresh orange zest per cup

Tsatziki (Greek Cucumber Dip)

1 cup strained yogurt

¼ cup diced and seeded cucumber

1 small clove garlic, grated

2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped

½ teaspoon dill, chopped

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients except the oil and let sit for at least 1 hour. When ready to serve, drizzle olive oil over the top. Serve with vegetables or grilled pita wedges.

Summer in the City

2009-07-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

I took a stroll through the Union Square Greenmarket yesterday before the crowds began to swarm. It was really incredible to see how much the market has come alive this early in the summer. And it's only going to get better!

Gorgeous gladiolas, sunflowers, snapdragons and fresh herbs.

A rainbow of beets and carrots.

I don't eat bacon, but I do love the enthusiasm.

Zucchini and yellow summer squash come in a variety of shapes in colors.

These are biggest pattipans I've ever seen. Great for stuffing!

The squash blossoms were 4 for a dollar! So delicious stuffed with something savory (or even sweet), dipped into a tempurah batter and fried to a golden delicousness....

One of the best bread stands in the whole market. Breads are always delicious and the cookies and scones are the size of your head.

More beautiful flowers...yarrow, lavender, hydrangea...

It's the time to have berries and cherries.

Sour cherries are all over the market right now. They are a great foil for savory dishes, or even in a pie.

Fresh garlic with the stalks. I just had a really tasty dish at a Sechuan restaurant with dried smoked tofu and chopped garlic stalks. Really yummy and has a lighter garlic flavor. Lots of great fiber!

Mamasay Mamasa Mamapusa!

2009-06-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

Regardless of how you felt about MJ you can’t deny his musical genius and indelible impact on music. To me, his music was the soundtrack of my childhood, and continues to be. I remember my older brother begging for (and getting) the MJ jacket and glittery glove to match. (I’m sure he’ll be pleased that I've shared this.) I also remember stealing his MJ cassettes so I could listen to Thriller, and at the moment of Vincent Price’s monologue I would throw my earphones across the room, because it was much too scary to hear his final eerie laughter. As an adult, I listen to Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough every year on my birthday. Rock with You even helped me cross the finish line at my first marathon.

I know MJ was a complicated man, but for today I celebrate, and remain grateful, for all the memories and happiness he gave me and countless other fans.

But it’s Fat-Free!

2009-06-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been hearing some troubling responses from my non-foodie friends when I ask people why they are eating fake foods: “But it’s fat-free!”

I want to take this opportunity to say that fat, in good moderation, especially high quality fat, is good for you. Bad quality fats, such as anything hydrogenized (aka trans fat), or canola, corn, and soy oils are not. Fats are not created equal, and your body actually needs fat to sustain itself. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned as a student of the Natural Gourmet institute is that certain cholesterols of the body are actually life-saving. And even more shocking to learn is that eating foods with cholesterol like butter and eggs does not raise your cholesterol!

I’ll give a brief overview of the fats I mentioned.

First, I’ll let you read about trans fats in my previous posting here. What about canola, corn or soy oils? Canola is, well it doesn’t actually exist. There’s no canola plant. Canola is another way of saying Canadians own this patent. Canola comes from the rapeseed, and without going deeply into this controversy, is a highly unstable and volatile oil. So are corn and soy oils. First and foremost, these oils are heavily genetically modified and contain a lot of synthetic chemicals such as pesticides so that farmers have the luxury of growing them in inhospitable environments. Second, they are very high in Omega 6 fatty acids. The western diet has a glut of the Omega 6’s and we therefore should be eating foods rich in Omega 3’s – like fatty fish, flax seeds, avocados and walnuts. (P.S. more good fats.)

What oils to use then? Try Olive and coconut oil - both intensely health-supportive fats.

Another high quality fat is raw, grass-fed, un-homogenized dairy from cows or goats – assuming you can tolerate dairy of course. This dairy is high in ALA, which is linked to raising your good cholesterol (HDL) and lowering your bad cholesterol (LDL). Because most people have a hard time finding raw and grass fed dairy, then I would recommend at least getting organic. You can feel a little bit better about the environment and how these cows are treated (a little). Though, pasteurized dairy will never contain the same digestive enzymes and helpful ALA’s. But do search for this dairy. Once you start looking for raw and/or grass-fed dairy, you will be surprised where you find them. I actually found organic and grass-fed milk at Fairway.

So never say fat free again. You need your fats – in moderation! I’ve barely broken through the surface about this controversial subject, so I highly recommend these books for further reading. Take a gander at Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon , Know Your Fats by Dr. Mary Enig and Real Food by Nina Planck.

Obacklash

2009-06-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my posting on Michelle Obama's organic garden I thought I would post this article from Slate on the current backlash of the garden. I think it's fantastic! The big agro's are getting so frustrated with the First Lady's effusiveness over local and organic. Getting in touch with your anger is the first step guys...

My favorite quote in the whole article, " The main problem, he says, is that local food is seasonal. For example, avocadoes grow in California during the summer months. Same with grapes. "What happens if you want some grapes during the month of December?" says Equihua. "What are you going to do? Not eat grapes?"

Hmmm. Tough one. Find this charming article here.

Article: The Gross Food Movement

2009-06-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

Sharing a fascinating article about the "Gross Food Movement" from Gourmet online. Take the title to heart. Kind of funny, very gross.

Happy National Egg Day!

2009-06-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

I'll hold off on any egg puns...for now. I am thrilled about today because eggs are one of my favorite foods. Oh the egg. Great as savory and great in sweets!

Coincidentally, I just took an Egg Tech class with Peter Berley last week and he began his class by quoting from Harold McGee's book, On Food and Cooking. I think this passage sums up today's excitement.

...from a light, insubstantial meringue to a dense, lingeringly rich custard. Eggs reconcile oil and water in a host of smooth sauces; they refine the texture of candies and ice creams, they give flavor, substance and nutritiousness to soups, drinks, breads, pastas and cakes; they put a shine on pastries; they clarify meat stocks and wines. On their own, they're amenable to being boiled, fried, deep-fried, baked, roasted, pickled and fermented.

What other food can do all those things? Hard to say, but that the egg makes me eggstatic. (I could only hold off for so long...) So go and eat an egg today but be sure to buy organic and pastured eggs, or straight from the farmer.

Soon...no more pencils, no more books...

2009-06-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
I know it's been a while since I've updated. I'm trying all sorts of futuristic vehicles of communication now. Like facebook and twitter. Still not sure how to maneuver them, but like that I can update much faster than one of my blog postings. Find me on twitter at gimmeyrcupcake or my facebook page.

School Update!
Lots of things to update about school. First of all it is ending in about 7 weeks. Written final in 2, eating final in 6. I am so proud of my final project with my chef team. It's an incredibly delicious and elegant meal. And, ahem, I worked really hard to create an original dessert recipe. Lesson learned: I am not cut out for pastry recipe testing. I get very curmudgeonly.

The menu:
Tomato Three Ways
Tomato Tart with cashew basil cream
Summer Roll with green tomato marmalade
Golden gazpacho with fennel and white truffle oil

Summer Vegetable Timbale
Herb crusted polenta, zucchini carpaccio, fava bean puree, sauteed greens, frizzled shallots and shitake "bacon" over romesco sauce

Coconut Panna Cotta with Raspberry and Blackberry Coulis
Raspberry Lavender Truffles

Internship Update!
Hooray! I am going to California and Paris! To say that this is fulfilling a dream would render my "hooray" deficient. California! Paris!
Check out the sites:
Mendocino, CA - The Ravens at the Stanford Inn by the Sea. I am so excited to intern at this vegetarian, animal-friendly resort with an amazing organic garden. All of these add up to my paradise.

Paris, France - The Catering Company. I have forever dreamed of cooking in Europe. Check out my very first posting on the blog to reveal how truly Francophile I am. I'm not exactly sure when my departure date is. I am hoping for September when Paris reawakens from the summer exodus. More details to come, and I will most definitely be tweeting my way through France.

Panel Discussion: Anthony Bourdain, Alice Waters & Duff Goldman

2009-05-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

My friend Molly just passed on this link with a great conversation between Chefs Anthony Bourdain, Alice Waters and Duff Goldman. You can find the original posting at Eat Me Daily here.

Lovely Lunch in the 'Hood

2009-05-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

Like many New Yorkers I've fallen into a restaurant rut in my neighborhood. Mind you I live in the West Village, so my choices aren't exactly hard to bear, but after a while you start to want a little more variety in your life. And as a cook, it really would benefit me to venture outside of my comfort zone. Today my friend Maria, who also lives in the neighborhood, introduced me to a couple of new eateries just a few blocks within radius. Yes, she's an enabler.

Keste
271 Bleecker Street, New York City

As you can see here, Keste produces beautiful brick oven pizzas. I had to take a bite before taking a picture. I was super impressed, and believe me, I am a pizza snob. There's a number of interesting choices for toppings - such as butternut cream and rapini - but we chose the classic Margherita pie. The crust is both crisp and chewy with a wonderful smokey flavor from the oven. I didn't get the full scoop on their special imported buffalo mozzeralla, but supposedly there's a story there. Regardless, the mozzarella is a creamy and buttery complement to their not-too-acidic tomato sauce. Keste will undoubtedly give John's (across the street) a run for it's money.

Berimbau
43 Carmine Street, New York City

Another recent addition is Berimbau, an upbeat Brazillian restaurant taking over the space previously used by Deborah. It's has a petite menu, but seemed to provide a number of interesting options. The vegetarian plate is the chef's option - whatever that means. Hoping for a light lunch, we ordered two salads off the appetizer menu - the Salpicao - a tossed salad with chicken, ham and vegetables - and the Tuna Salad - a mixture of rare tuna with potato sticks, greens and belgian endive. I wasn't quite wowed with either salad, and must admit to using the salt shaker a few times. Though I am giving this place another chance and ordering from the main dishes. Seeing as we did just have salad, we ordered the passion fruit mousse for dessert. It's both intensely passion fruit and intensely sweet, though not cloying. For this, we will absolutely come back. Front of the house is quite attentive, and as the only customers for lunch, our chatty waiter gave us complementary passion fruit caparainha shots. Not a bad afternoon.

Hail Seitan!

2009-05-03T14:42:00.001-07:00

Twelve Commandments of Food

2009-04-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

It's been quite some time since I wrote my last post. I'm knee deep in testing and planning for my final dinner at school, trying to make plans for my upcoming internship in July, and trying to make work more interesting than usual.

I really think that my final dinner will be a delicious and interesting one, while showcasing the many talents of the eight chef students in our group. I won't reveal too much, but that local summer fruits and vegetables will be a-plenty!

Last night I had my nutrition class and it made me reflect upon the food I eat daily. Even as a student at the Natural Gourmet I would probably give myself a B- when it comes to eating a health supportive diet. It made me think of Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food, and his twelve commandments to live by. Certainly, these axioms are not new, but I guess that's the point. So I thought I would post them here to remind myself (and you) that eating a healthful and environmentally sustainable diet shouldn't be much ado.

1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."

2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce."

3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."

4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."

5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."

6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."

7. "Pay more, eat less."

8. "Eat a wide variety of species."

9. "Eat food from animals that eat grass."

10. "Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food."

11. "Eat meals and eat them only at tables."

12. "Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure."

Palm Beach Greenmarket

2009-04-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

2nd St. & Narcisuss Ave.
West Palm Beach, Florida

I've just returned from a long weekend at West Palm Beach and had an opportunity to visit their greenmarket. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but wasn't surprised to find out that it was more chic than sustainable. Don't get me wrong there seemed to be a few local farmstands, but stand for stand there were more local eateries than farms. Hey, at least it supports local businesses.

A Pizza Only a Mother Could Love

2009-04-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Oh mama mia! Don't forget to sprinkle polenta on your pizza peal before laying down your raw pizza dough. Or it will never slide off and you will need two Japanese girls to help you move it.

But one important thing learned last night: Eggs are mamalicious on pizza!

Photo by Toshiko Sato

Day Two - Tuesday, March 24

2009-03-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

I arrive to Fran’s about 40 minutes early due to some miscommunication so she sends me off to buy some organic berries. I can see why some people view the organic movement as elitist: each half pint of raspberries is seven dollars.

As soon as I get back to Fran’s, she has me stuff 60 goodie bags for the Peter Max Studio employees and PCRM staff. This brings me back to my early non-profit days. I’m no stranger to stuffing paper in bags and zip through the 60 rather quickly.

Linda Long, a friend and neighbor of Fran’s, is accompanying us to take photographs of the food for Theo, and help with the food styling. Linda has recently published her new book, Great Chefs Cook Vegan. She photographed a number of notable mainstream chefs who created inspired vegan dishes, including Thomas Keller and Jean George Vongrichten.

Like seasoned caterers and (ahem) event planners, we arrive at the studio very early and with enough time to correct any possible mishaps. I immediately change into chef’s uniform and clogs and Fran doesn’t hesitate to start unpacking. She decides to spear the cupcakes with raspberries, some gold dust on the chocolate orange petit fours, and madras curry powder and sea salt over the chai truffles. Other caters begin trickle into the back room to prepare their food as well. Bonobo’s, Candle 79, some vegan cheese company I’ve never heard of are next to us. We start offering each other tastes of our goodies and I’m really excited to get a skewer of grilled seitan with chimichurri sauce. Everything seems to be coming together and before I know it an hour and half has passed and guests begin to arrive.

Dr. Neal Barnard, a contemporary vegan folk hero, walks into the studio accompanied by sharp dressed women. He is fit and trim and looks just like he looked when I saw him on Ellen. Staff walk him over to small table so he can sign copies of his new book.

Peter Max’s paintings are generously peppered around the studio, and a large bull statue is inconveniently placed right next to the caterer’s exit. While I am looking at a deafening sign that says, “No Photographs in the Studio” I hear the snapshots of Linda Long’s camera taking photos of Fran with her chocolates.

The event seems to be a success. After an hour the studio is now well-attended. As I am running a tray full of truffles to the front I see Morgan Spurlock straight ahead. He’s really tall, and more casually dressed than everybody else.

I decide to stand by the table while Fran answers questions. I want to hear her responses and make sure everyone else gets their questions answered. “So these chocolates are really vegan?” “If there’s not sugar, then what makes it sweet?”

There’s only 45 minutes left and I am wondering why I haven’t seen the two people I have been waiting to see all night: Rue McLanahan and Moby. Ok, I don’t actually care if I see Moby or not, but he’s my back up in case Blanche doesn’t show up. And sure enough, Rue phones Dr. Barnard to say that she cannot make it.

About fifteen minutes later, Moby shows up fashionably late. He walks in with a cute blonde punky looking girl. They dole out smiles very conservatively. He’s the biggest celebrity in the room, and he is made to feel so. Someone shoves a drink in their hand and a plate of food, while someone on the mic announces his arrival. He eyes our chocolates and then looks at me. I smile at him and his girlfriend, and he quickly looks away and walks straight to the seitan skewers.

Once the brouhaha over Moby disperses, Fran pulls me aside and introduces me to Chef Michel Nichan. I have no idea who he is until he walks away and Fran whispers into my ear, “He’s an amazing chef. He started a restaurant for Paul Newman. I wanted you to meet him.” Unlike Moby, Michel is warm and gives a rather substantial handshake.

By the end of the night, I have forced Moby to look at me a couple more times, met the owner of Candle and had some not so good vegan cheese. Fran in a very matter of fact way says, “I really respect your schedule.” Then she pulls aside another chef – a rather large and burly looking one – and tells him that I go to work at 4am. He says, “That’s good. It’s what separates the lions from the pussycats. And pussycats don’t last very long in this business.” I smile at him and begin to say something, but they walk away. On my way out, I pass Morgan Spurlock next to our table and I hear him say, “Her chocolates are incredible.” I walk to the train feeling proud for being a part of it.

Photos by Linda Long

PCRM Event with Fran Costigan

2009-03-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

This week I had the honor to work with Fran Costigan, known as the Diva of Dairy-Free Desserts. I assisted her for an event for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine held at the Peter Max studio in New York City. Here’s a recap of the two-day internship.

Day One – Monday, March 23

I get out of work unusually late today because I am preparing to free myself up to create my first special at the restaurant later this week. This isn’t the day to get out of work late. I need to head home, shove some lunch down my gob, shower and head out to the upper west side to meet Fran Costigan. I met her briefly last week at a book party at my school but didn’t have a chance to speak to her.

By the time I get to Fran’s I’ve shaken myself out of the usual afternoon nap time reverie. I am ready to work (again.) I get lost a couple of times trying to find Freedom Lane or Avenue or whatever silly name Trump gave his little condo estate by the Hudson river. I am announced by a doorman and brace myself. I don’t know how long or how rigorous this day will be, and I’ve already been up since 4 am. Fran meets me in the hallway. She is donned in a chef’s jacket and pink handkerchief for her hair. It reminds me of what I wear to work and I feel a little bit more at ease.

“Oh great. You’re here. I’ve been waiting for you. Get changed and we’ll get started.”

I quickly change into my clogs and she gives me an apron and chef’s jacket. Her strict desire to keep a sanitary kitchen catches my attention.

We start by making the batter for her Orange Ginger Crisps. After a few vegan and gluten free courses at school I am not expecting much from these recipes.She says, “I created this recipe because it’s very difficult to find crispy vegan cookies. So I made something that I wanted, and this is a really good recipe. I’m going to show you how I measure and this is how you will do it.” The internship begins.

She is very precise. She is using a piece of paper with 3 recipes on it but folds the paper so she only sees one at a time. “It’s easy for me to miss an ingredient so I only want to see the one I’m doing. You’ll read each ingredient to me, to make sure I’ve gotten all of it.” As she says, she does forget to add an ingredient. I don’t realize either as I try to keep up with her frenetic pace. I am realizing that she is distracted by me and I minimize my commentary to yes and no so she can concentrate.

Once the batter is done, she lets it rest in the fridge to thicken. I pick up on this step – something I would never think to do. “If you don’t like how your batter looks, then store in the fridge while you do something else and maybe it will be the consistency that you want.” She measures how much batter is made and jots down some notes so she can remember the properties of this particular batch.

We then make two chocolate cakes - one made with water and a gluten free. The gluten free is still not great, but still better than some that I have tried previously. Her signature cake is “The Chocolate Cake to Live For.” She has made this cake earlier, and has me taste one from the fridge. It lives up to the name and vegan cakes are forever vindicated in my mind.

Around 3 p.m. a graduate from her popular vegan baking boot camp class arrives to help. I am glad for another person in the kitchen. My exhaustion is beginning to surface and having a buffer is welcome. By now I have tasted at least half a dozen chocolates and infusions. I am hoping that I can glean whatever sugar or caffeine rush from the chocolate.

We then take the mini chocolate cakes we made earlier, plus some orange ones she made a day ahead and make petit fours by dipping them in melted chocolate. The orange cakes, sweetened with orange juice, pairs nicely with the bitter ganache.

Theo chocolate, the first organic and fair trade chocolate company in the U.S., (all organic chocolates were previously imported from the Europe), has donated all the chocolate we use today. All of it is 75% cocoa.

Next, Fran demos how to make the truffles by hand. First we taste the silky truffle filling made of extra bitter sweet chocolate. Then she spreads a spoonful of melted chocolate in her hand and swirls the truffle ball around quickly and drops it into a bin of Dutch processed cocoa. It’s about a 5 second preparation. “This is how real chocolatiers make truffles. By doing this you create a thin chocolate shell that gives a light crunch when you bite into the chocolate.” Heavens to Betsy. It is out of this world good.

Next we make truffle sticks instead of balls. They somewhat resemble little shards of bark, and are very elegant once the cocoa has dusted them. The truffle is infused with a curry mixture of ginger, turmeric, cardamom, coriander cinnamon, plus coconut milk and vanilla. I’ve never tasted anything like this before, and know that I am in the presence of a chef who has truly honed her craft.

Once the truffles are done, she lets me go. I try to help her with the clean-up, but she says, “No. You must be tired. I know you’ve been up for a long time and I need you fresh and perky for the event tomorrow night.”

By the time I reach home, it’s nearly 7 p.m. and my bed time is in an hour. The day has gone by so fast, and I am elated that all I’ve done today is cook.

Photo by Linda Long

From the Weird But True Files

2009-03-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

Really.

Girls Can't What?

2009-03-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

This site is too cute not to share.

The First Garden

2009-03-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well actually it's not the first garden at the White House. There's hasn't been a garden at the White House since Eleonore Roosevelt's victory garden during WWII that is. I thought this was such a positive article for the food world that I would pass it on. It's so refreshing to have normal people at the white house with logical priorities - like safe and clean food. Check it out here.

Getting Vegan

2009-03-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks at school have been vegan and gluten-free baking. I hadn't anticipated how different the conversion would be. At times it was a struggle, because I intuitively rely on the behavior of white sugar, white flour and eggs. A few bonehead moves on my part ensued. But they at least served as some comical fodder for my classmates. Oh well...

Here's a pic of a vegan and gluten-free almond tart. It all came together with the help of Toshi, Georgia, and Danielle. Thanks guys! And of course, a big thanks to Molly for reminding me to take a deep breath.

Fun day in Chinatown

2009-03-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Since I was kid my mom has been taking us to the various Chinatowns around New York City. Oh yes, there is more than one. You've got FlushingQueens and along 8th Avenue in Brooklyn. I realized today, that no matter how long I've been going to Chinatown it never ceases to surprise and thrill me. This day, mom and I wandered through Manhattan's Chinatown following the side streets off of bustling Canal.

We first ate at the famous Hop Kee restaurant downstairs in its 24-hour basement dining room. We feasted on pan-fried flounder and sautéed water spinach in garlic, while we looked at their proudly hung pictures of Bill Cosby, Conan O'Brien and Anthony Bourdain posing with the owner. I'm not ashamed to admit that I love those trans-fat laden fried noodles smothered in tasty duck sauce smacked with tons of high fructose corn syrup. Sometimes it hits the spot more than nachos and salsa.

First of all, I was not anticipating how much I would be told "no pictures please." For godsakes, you won't let me take a picture of your freakin sesame ball? Keep your balls then. I'll take it elsewhere. So these pictures aren't my finest work. At best they are taken in haste and in secrecy. Be sure to click on the pictures for a closer view.

We first stopped at a Chinese candy store. It's no Charlie in the Chocolate Factory that's for sure. I think most non-Western countries' desserts tend to be based on real foods, like fruit, so some of these "candies" were striking to me. No - jolly ranchers don't count. I found rows and rows of candied ginger in every available composition. Candied in lemon, candied in strawberries, candied in prunes (not cool). If the candy bouncer hadn't told me to stop taking pictures, I would've been able to show you.

Next we stopped in at a The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. A few interesting sorbets in this shot - Lychee, Mango-Papaya and Tangerine.

Here's a few treats that looked fascinating at another market a few blocks away. The foreign packaging is enough to make you want to try them.

Red bean and melon filled mochi. Boy do they love that glutinous texture.

I'd like to meet the person who decided beans would be a sweet treat. Like David said in the Lost Boys, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?

This is my favorite shot. Well of course these multi-colored twisty marshmallows are all Natural.

And in the same store, I found what appears to be pre-cooked and vacuum sealed cobs of corn (lower left) hanging out under the curing sausage. Click on the picture for a closer peek.

In one tea shop I receive a direct order from my mother. "You're grandmother used to drink this. You have to buy it." Yes sir! This particular brand of genmai-cha is a blend of green tea, toasted brown rice and popped sorghum.

An interesting trend that I noticed today is the availability of organic products in these small markets. According to Jay, "They probably just put organic labels on them." This might be true, Mr. Suspicious, but this new trend is a what Martha would call a good thing.

Here's a street cart selling whole sugar cane. Yeah, I thought about it. I decided to buy a tenth-of-the-size-lemongrass instead. I would've taken a picture, but wouldn't you know it...

Chinatown, the great grape mecca. If you ever find them, I urge you to buy concord grapes.

If only for this reason (as if the food wasn't enough) you should visit Chinatown for the assortment of dish wear, tea service kits, interesting cutlery, and utensils. They are beautiful and as you can see from this shot, they have a sense of humor.

Suffice it to say that my two cats have brand new dishes that each resembles them.

Other reasons to go, faux pradas, chanels, dolce's, jade jewelry and cutesy stuffed animals that probably have choking hazards.

The legendary hanging Peking duck. I tried taking a picture from the inside but, yeah, you know.

This part of the trip was always my least favorite - the fishmongers. First of all it smells like fish, and when you're a kid, not like now when I am training to be a chef, all you want to do is run away and get some bubble tea.

Check mom out. "Give me your best price!"

I am sparing you the shots that used to upset me - and want to start a vegan protest in the store - with eels and snakes and turtles..oh my.

But as I get older and learn more about the different manifestations of food around the world, I am less ready to do a sit-in. Food is born out of need. Making it actually taste good was just a boon.

We ended our day at the Dumpling Kafe sipping Taro bubble tea and eating strange boiled dumplings with sesame filling that tasted of hay and peanut butter, satisfied in the completion of another mother daughter adventure. Happy Birthday Mom! xo

I found my calling...

2009-02-09T10:20:00.001-08:00

I heart making vegetable animals! Meet Lance (the eggplant penguin), Dottie (the apple swan), and Simpson (the potato mouse).

Super Simple Scallops

2009-01-23T13:58:00.000-08:00

I don’t need to tell you how super yummy shellfish day was, but I had to include one of the best dishes we were taught to make that day. Favorite because A) it is super simple, and B) because it’s super tasty. We did use a different dressing at school, but this dressing has a lot less ingredients for you to search for. And, p.s. if you want to be very fancy, I would make the dressing in a squeeze bottle and squirt a few drops of the dressing around the plate to make a very impressive (but secretly effortless) presentation.

Super Simple Scallops

Yield: 1 serving

Ingredients

2 sea scallops

1 tbs. olive oil

lime vinaigrette (recipe below)

2 cups mixed mesclun salad

½ avocado sliced (about 1-inch thick)

2 slices of supremed grapefruit (click here for what the heck supreme is)

Lime vinaigrette

3 tbs. extra virgin olive oil

1 tbs fresh squeezed lime juice

1 tsp each of finely chopped fresh cilantro (or parsley) and fresh basil

salt and pepper to taste

Equipment

Small jar with lid or squeeze bottle for dressing

Kitchen towel

Skillet

Small pairing knife

Prepare vinaigrette by tossing all ingredients into a jar. Seal tightly. Cover the lid with the kitchen towel and shake vigorously until well blended. Refrigerate while preparing other ingredients.

Pat scallops dry with a paper towel. Generously salt and pepper each side. Have your hand be about a foot above the food so that salt and pepper are evenly distributed. Score the top and bottom of each scallop about 1/8 inch deep, as if you are playing tic tac toe.

In a hot skillet heat olive oil until the pan just begins to smoke. Gently place scallops and sear each side for about 3 minutes for rare.

Toss mesclun salad with the vinaigrette. Place the salad into the middle of a clean plate and top with avocado and grapefruit. To prevent discoloration, you can squeeze a little grapefruit juice over the avocado slices.

Top the salad with scallops for a lovely light lunch or first course.

Latin Inspired Feast by Molly & Kristine

2009-01-19T13:27:00.001-08:00

T-minus 22 hours to go!

2009-01-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Here's how we can be a part of the change.

Caught!

2009-01-13T13:05:00.001-08:00

While I just wrote the other day how disgusted I was by the looks of the flounder fish, Vanessa reminds me that I somehow manage to fill my big mouth with it... Ugly, but tasty.

Thank you for letting me eat you fish.

Eggciting!

2009-01-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Bad yolk, sorry.

My ongoing joke with my classmate Linda is that no matter how long we have been cooking, culinary school somehow has the ability to make you nervous cooking the most mundane of dishes -- like I don't know...frying an egg.

Yes! Of course I got nervous. Chef Alex pulled a Top Chef challenge on us by having us flip our fried egg in the air next to our competitor. And she made sure that everyone stared at you. (No, she's great actually.)

Egg day two was equally exciting because it surveyed the sweet side of eggs - my favorite! From souffles to sabayon - it was a great time. See my group's "perfect" meringue cookies. (Chef Richard said they were perfect, not me.)

Don't buy that expensive copper cleaner!

2009-01-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

Chef Richard says clean your copper bowls with salt and lemon juice. Voila! Shiny copper bowl, and the best medium to aerate your egg whites!

Freaky Flounder

2009-01-12T12:36:00.000-08:00

I needed to share my latest revelation. Flounder (aka fluke) is really weird looking. We had Fish Day last Saturday, and I spent the day gutting fish, flouring fish, steaming fish, searing fish, poaching fish, ok you get the gist. So as I’m about to filet the flounder I realize that it’s not so unlike a stingray.

The Flounder spends the first part of his life swimming happy as can be with eyes on each side of his head. Then at some point, evolution plays a big joke on this poor fish and he begins to turn sideways, with one eye migrating to the right side and starts to swim flat like a stingray. Ahhhhh!

Sorry. I had to share.

Shockingly Different

2009-01-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure how to explain the difference between working the 9-5: clicking away on a computer all day, sitting in my comfy chair tucked away in my cozy little office listening to my ipod; versus 4am to noon in a New York City restaurant. It's shockingly different.

I get up at 3:15 am, make sure my bag is packed with landmarc shirt, chef’s pants, kit, bandana, and trusty sharpie; slip on the contacts, and I’m out the door. It’s pretty darn cold at 3:30 in the morning and I quickly scan the street to make sure there aren’t any crazies looking to start some shenanigans.

After a couple of weeks, the station manager knows me and wishes me a happy new year. It’s not hard to remember the non-drunk people who take the train at this time. Lucky for me this Sunday morning I enter the train car with vomit on one end.

I finally reach the Time Warner Center and hear the birds chirping as I exit the station. When I get to the restaurant I change into my uniform, clogs and apron. It’s time to get ready. I wonder how the day will shape out. Will the pace be faster than usual or will I get out of here by 10am to enjoy the rest of the day?

It’s three of us this morning. The pastry team starts earlier than everyone else. One person starts the mise en place for the bread, one person the caramels, and I start the crème brulee and blueberry crumble. As I’m picking out the lemon peels out of the blueberry compote I look up and we’re ready to start rolling out the bread. It’s my favorite.

The dough is still warm and feels fleshy in my hands. I can smell the yeast, gruyere and caramelized onions. I love this. Throughout the day we’ll be prepping eggs, piping chocolate mousse, filling éclairs, rolling tarts, making tiramisu, and lemon curd. We devote the final hours to wrapping the fresh caramels. The time just flies by and standing on my feet all morning is now practically negligible.

After 3 weeks, I’ve begun to stop missing my comfy chair or checking my email, or wondering what I’ll do with the rest of my day. I’m still not used to having to go to bed so early, but lately, my body gives me no choice and I pass out on the couch around 8:30. Poor Jay is left to his own devices, and is beginning to accept that I’m really only good for the first 10 minutes of any movie. The other day I couldn’t even last the FBI warning.

I’m starting to forget the final remnants of my old routine. I won’t lie and say this work is all cinnamon and lemon zest. It’s hard, hard work. It’s hauling your ass on days that you weren’t sure you could haul some more. It’s dealing with a lot of people in your way scampering around a slippery hot kitchen, carrying really heavy things. The tingling in my hands from the marathon caramel wrapping is beginning to subside. I don’t wear pretty dresses or my favorite maryjane pumps to work. My life is just so different now. And I’m so thankful for it.

Where in the world is Kristine Sabenicio?

2009-01-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

I know. I know. I’ve been away for so long. Well I think you’ll forgive me, 2 ½ readers, for my absence because I’ve been on quite an adventure. Still am. A couple of months ago, I was revisiting everyone’s favorite existential quandary, “What the fuck am I doing with my life?”

I know I made a pretty proactive decision by going to culinary school, but was also wondering what was stopping me from completely immersing in the culinary world. Hmmm? That only took a second. Oh right. That would be cash. As awesome as it may seem to cook all day, at least to me that is, it sure don’t pay much.

Then I thought about a story that I heard second-hand about the founder of my school, Annemarie Colbin. Legend has it, ok not so legend she tells this story to hundreds of people at a time, that when she first started in the culinary world, she made a promise to “the universe” that she would never be too exhausted to fulfill her dream. She adds most importantly that just because she made this spit-in-the-handshake with the universe her road to her dreams didn’t have its challenges. Actually, it was really difficult. Since her promise, Annemarie has been a writer, teacher, speaker, and advocate of clean, nutrious, wholesome food. Her classes became a program and the program grew to be a school, and the school just became an institute. So there. A little inspiration for me to chew on.

So I took “sit-down” with myself and asked if I could really handle this life-altering decision. Was I really brave enough to let go of everything I was comfortable with? I had a good job that paid well-enough, I had friends at work and, truly, all I’ve ever known was working in the nonprofit sector. But then I thought about what I wished my life was actually like, trying not to factor in, you know, reality. I saw what I could be doing, and realized there was no reason why, at the very least, I shouldn't just try it. After all, no one can ever take away my 10 years of work experience. I can always go back. (But a couple of months later, I venture to say that I don't think I'm going back...)

I had long discussions with my mother and boyfriend about what challenges I would face and how it would affect them. I would no doubt need their help and, luckily, they were indeed supportive. What I basically realized was that if I didn’t take this risk now, I don’t think I ever would. Turning 30 last year, has really gotten me into the shit-or-get-off-the-pot-approach. So I took a deep breath and quit my job.

As Cuehlo says, when you’re doing something that you should be doing, the universe conspires to help you achieve it. The next day, I contacted my friend who is a Sous chef at the Landmarc restaurant, and asked her if she knew anyone who was hiring. She offered me a job as a pastry cook.

Thanks LLS!! I'll miss you guys too!

Pictures of Seitan Day

2008-11-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

What you ask is the most fun thing to do? Ever? Make Seitan!

It looks like disgusting witch's brew right now, but soon it will transform into oh-so delicious seitan.

The blur is our chef instructor for the day, Chef Eliot Prag.

The class hustling to finish their dishes for service and critique.

My classmates, Kelsey and Molly. Molly's responsible for the delicious seitan burgers with cornmeal crust. My partner, Eve, and I made the Seitan Bordelaise with rich red wine, shitake mushrooms and thyme, and as a side, some love in a bowl: roasted garlic mashed potatoes with a touch of horseradish and cream.

Indian kebabs with mango coulis dipping sauce and roasted winter vegetables with herbs.

My god that was a good cupcake

2008-11-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

What a coincidink that I just gave props to Jaime Oliver a few entries ago. I recently made his butternut squash muffins (really it’s cake) and topped it with a cream cheese frosting inspired by his runny frosty topping. And man it was awesome.

As he says, this recipe works under the same presumption as carrot cake. So if you don’t like the carrot cake, see you at my next posting. This was truly one of the easier cakes I have ever made. And the thing about Jaime’s recipes – which I’ve been trying for years now – is that they are always so well tested, and really, really work. For example, 30 minute meals by Mrs. Rachel Ray – I don’t think so. P.S. they take a lot longer.

So, back to the easy peasy. Didn’t have to peel the squash, didn’t have to cream or melt anything. Chuck in some squash, which ok, I will admit, had to weigh with my little food scale which I presume most people don’t have. I’d go with an educated guess of about 2 cups, then back to chucking in the rest of the ingredients: flour, lots of brown sugar, cinnamon (I went strong because my cinnamon was not so fresh), eggs, baking soda, walnuts, and the most interesting of all extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. Egads, this man is a genius. The olive oil may seem strong at first but as it cooks, it brings the whole cake together and even mellows out the intense sweetness of the squash. Truly – this is a revelatory recipe for me.

So unfortunately, I don’t think I can post his recipe here because I don’t want to get sued and all, so here’s the link.

My cream cheese frosting? Inspired by the variety of citrus in his frosty topping, I decided to go part traditional cream cheese frosting, and just a little bit crazy with a clementine. I’ll tell you right now: don’t use an orange, unless you have absolutely have to. Clementines have a more floral flavor that really suits the cake.

Kristine’s Cream Cheese Frosting that goes really well with Jaime Oliver’s Muffins
4 boxes of good cream cheese (24 oz) at room temperature
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
2-4 tablespoons of Clementine juice
Zest of half a Clementine

Zest half the Clementine and set aside. Juice half of the Clementine and set aside. In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese on medium speed to make the cream cheese lighter and more pliable. Add the zest, 2 tbs of the juice and sugar 1 cup at a time. Once incorporated, check to see how dense the frosting is. If it’s too dense, add more juice. Try adding 1 tbs at a time and let sit for a minute, before adding again. You’ll have some left over, and you’ll thank me for it.

Creepy or Refreshing?

2008-10-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

I wish I had tried these when I passed them in the farmer's market. Darn.

I heart school

2008-10-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

School has been going really well – great actually. Being around food, learning about it, tasting it, understanding the science and alchemy of it is changing my life. It's a feeling of fulfillment that I hoped would happen...especially after I dropped off my tuition.

Our classes have been going at a rapid pace, at least to me. We begin by lecture, demo, and then practicum (which means you get to do it.) We recently finished our grain and bean classes. In the midst of my courses I thought I would never want to hear, look, smell or taste another bean or grain. I have learned a few fun things. Brown rice risotto is not only a health-supportive (NGI buzzword) and passable option, but actually a delicious one. You'll never cook it like a "real" risotto tediously adding liquid and religiously mixing the rice so it doesn't stick. Uh-uh. You cook the short grain brown rice in a pressure cooker which does two incredible things: speeds up the process and provides a creamy texture to the rice, similar to refined aborio rice. I brought home my little victory, refrigerated it over night and made risotto cakes with panko crumbs the next day.

I should also mention the delectable millet grain. A grain that tastes like it's already been boiled in chicken stock. Jam packed with flavor and nutrition, it's quite a boon.

Jaime at Home

2008-10-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

He takes an old cookie tin, throws in some wood chips that he usually uses for his rabbit cages, fresh sprigs of rosemary and sage, and rests chicken wire on top it. He looks into the camera and says, “Now just grab your handy-dandy screwdriver and whack yer holes into the cover of yer tin.” Then he takes two ruby fleshed salmon filets and lays them on top of the chicken wire and secures the cover. “There you go,” he says in his slight cockneyed accent, “Yer get ye self a hot smoker in a biscuit tin!”

Jamie Oliver is one of the youngest and most hailed chefs in Great Britain. Anthony Bourdain says that in England Oliver is treated with the same reverance as the Rolling Stones. In his newest show, Jaime at Home, Oliver brings us into his home andshows us how he uses the spoils from his garden.

Each scene is filmed in a different section of his home: his back shed using an old oven circa 1960’s, in his backyard brick oven, and even in the center of his herb garden over a stone circled fire. It’s a much different show from his earlier production on the Food Network, the Naked Chef. His first show featured his urban flat in London while he prepared meals for his rugby teammates, his gas man, and even the construction workers on the street. This time Jaime seems to be cooking just for himself and perhaps wife, Jools, and daughters, Poppy and Honey.

“The next thing we ‘ave ter to do is make the salsa. Salsa,” he sighs, “Ssalllssaaa!” With confident precision he swiftly slices through chilies of varying colors, cucumber, tomatoes, spring onions, cilantro, and avocado. The jumble of vegetables resembles a painter’s palette. You could say that Jaime is an artist. Like a choreographed dance he moves with deft quickness around the kitchen. He grabs a dash of this and a dash of that, and manages to wipe his brow on his flannel shirt and maybe a quick scratch under his knit hat. There’s an element of mania in his whole process. He constantly uses the word, “Excitin!” to describe what he’s doing. You can see his eyes light up when he sees a vegetable scorch with grill marks or when a piece of flesh that he’s cooked for hours tenderly falls apart with the slight give of his finger. Jaime loves this and he wants you to love it too.

Finally, he takes the smoking tin off the stove top. “Please work,” he says to it, “or I’ll look like a real wanker.” He removes the top and shows the now auburn looking filets inside his homemade smoker. “Don’t worry it’s supposed to look like tha.” He takes a shining antique plate and spoons an initial layer of salsa, reverently places a filet, and spoons another layer of salsa. He lets a few cilantro leaves fall carefree onto the plate, using their haphazardness with great effect. Jamie looks at his masterpiece, tastes it, thinks for a few seconds, and words spill from his mouth uncontrollably. “Oh my god, tha’s delicious.” He smiles and performs a happy dance away from the fish.

A Vote for Obama is a Vote for Cheaper Ice Cream

2008-10-12T09:32:00.001-07:00

Add expensive ice cream to the bad things you can blame W for.

With this financial crisis getting closer and closer to rock bottom, I’ve been trying to tighten my purse strings any way that I can. So I decided to stop at the grocery store for ice ream instead of the bodega half a block from my apartment.

I was beyond surprised to realize how expensive ice cream has become. D’Agostino on Hudson Street charges $8 for a half-gallon of Breyers!! D’Agostino have you lost your mind? And they had the audacity to charge almost $6 for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

The good news? I never thought the day would come when shopping at Whole Foods meant getting a deal. But I’m happy to report that I purchased a pint of Organic Pomegranate Sorbet for only $2.99. And, no high fructose corn syrup.

Be sure you're registered to vote! Check your local board of elections office for mail and in-person registration deadlines. For New York City, check here.

Don't Fall for the Propaganda

2008-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the recent propanda by the Corn Refiners Association? Oh, isn’t it easy to champion ignorance CRA? Frankly, any statement that ends with, “It’s fine in moderation” is not a “food” that I’m willing to put my confidence in. Learn more about high fructose corn syrup here.

There's No Crying in Culinary School

2008-09-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

It’s Saturday morning at 7 am. I’ve had my second cup of coffee and running around my apartment checking for the 8th time to see if I’ve packed my complete uniform. Chef’s jacket, hound’s tooth pants, skull cap, name tag, apron, 3 side towels, over-ankle socks, and clogs. I ironed my uniform and checked everything last night but you can never be too sure.

I arrive 45 minutes early. I drop off my homework in Sue Baldassano’s mailbox, and walk straight upstairs to my locker and begin to change. Uniforms can only be worn inside school. So yes, if I need to skip out for coffee or some late afternoon snack, I need a wardrobe change.

Again, the outfit isn’t so hot, but this time I’m in a room full of people that look as unappealing in their uniform as I do. I take the same seat at orientation and wait for the rest of the crowd to trickle into the classroom. I’m not the first person to arrive. There’s a few people who commute from upstate and Massachusetts. Perhaps they don’t have culinary schools there, or perhaps it’s a testament to NGI.

Our first Chef Instructor comes in, Barbara Rich. She looks cool with a wrist tattoo and hints of a larger one on her upper arm. I immediately notice that she’s darted her Chef’s jacket. Sweet.

She begins by giving us a little background on her culinary experience. She's been in the culinary world for 20 years and was a former instructor at the Art Institute, now closing. Maybe they lied to people so much about their “part-time” program that they had to close.

Then she begins her tough-love speech. Coming from Catholic school, I love this stuff. She begins by saying that she will unequivocally bust our asses. That the culinary industry, specifically the restaurant world, is a tough place. You get yelled at, you’re busy, you’re hot, you’re tired, and you’re sweaty. She wants to prepare us and wants to ensure that we don’t take any of her ball-busting personally. So there. There’s no crying in culinary school. I heart her.

We start the day with a sanitation lecture. Going through the many possibilities of food intoxication and infection. It’s so gross; I’ll save you the details. Just that if you see a swelled can of mushrooms in the grocery store don’t choose that one. Or off to botulism you go.

Then we meet our knife kit. I hear church bells and see animated forest animals around my knife kit. I love it. There’s the French knife, the Japanese knife, pairing knife, steel, stone, and a bunch of other things that make you feel like you’re a blacksmith. I know there’s no crying in culinary school, but I get tingles up my spine. I must give her a name.

I’ve heard this before, but start to realize how truly physical being a chef is. How you use your body is supremely important. I prepare to begin slicing by making sure my weight is evenly distributed between both legs, my posture is straight, my shoulders are relaxed and I’m looking above the food not across from it. There’s an automatic sense of reverence when you realize how sharp your knife is. I grip the handle and imagine how this instrument will become an extension of my body. But I’m not there yet.

We learn the salad slice, sauté slice, chiffonade, julienne, dice and mince. Then we identify the different names of pots and pans, sauté, sautoire, stock pot… and other fantastically fun equipment like the robotcoupe (pronounced ro-bo-coo). She puts a frozen banana in a juicer, and turns it into a sorbet. It’s so good it almost makes me like show tunes.

It’s a good day. I’m ecstatic and decide to grab some lasagna from the West Side Market and open a bottle of champagne.

“Ladies & Gentlemen, Welcome to Cooking School.”

2008-09-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

And there it was. I finished my first full day of class. As I’m writing this I’m stuffing my face full of lasagna and glugging down a glass of champagne. I’m tired. Really tired. The kind of tired where your brain can’t seem to figure out what time it is no matter how many times you look at your watch. It’s the kind of tired that you need to do some kind of stretch session because your muscles are aching from standing all day. Don’t get me wrong. I feel good. I feel satisfied, even proud. I survived my first day of culinary school…and while I know there will be even tougher days, I still survived the first. And happy, or more so relieved, that I can safely guarantee that I’m not the dumbest or slowest in the class. (Knock on wood.) Actually, to the chagrin of my classmates, I’m one of the 3 or 4 people who ask a plethora of questions. (Well, hey, I want my money’s worth.)

So let me back up and start with my pseudo first day: last Wednesday evening, Orientation.

It’s the first time I see any of my classmates. Everyone is quiet trying to be as pleasant as possible. I sit at the first table, trying to strike the perfect distance from the front, but not so close as to be dubbed the nerdiest seat in the class. I look around and notice that there’s actually a range of ages. A few right out of high school, some mid to early 20’s, and (ahem) early 30’s, and a few mid-level career changers. I fall somewhere in the middle and delicately close to the older crowd.

Jenny Matthau, the school’s president, begins the program. Later on, school gossip reveals that she is the daughter of the late Walter Matthau. She tells us about her culinary past and how long she’s worked at the Natural Gourmet Institute (NGI). I find out other important details, like she also has two cats and that she loves her job. Seems like everyone that works here seems to love their job – that’s a great sign. She tells us that she’ll be asking all of us to come up to the podium to introduce ourselves and “share a little something.”

WHAT?! I didn’t prepare for this! I calm myself for a second and begin preparing my 2 minute speech. I decide that mine is going to be the BEST one. It’s going to make EVERYONE laugh. So with one ear, I listen intently on everyone’s story and begin to silently craft my two minutes of glory. Mine will be so good, even Steve Carrel will want to chuckle.

Everything is going well. The first person tells everyone twice that he just graduated from high school. The other one fumbles and says something about organic produce. (Yes, yes…. Keep it up.)

Then it’s my turn.

In two minutes I take the crowd from sad-inspiring to zany-inspiring. I touch on how my immigrant grandparents owned their own restaurant in their small province, how that started to make sense of my food obsession, how in the middle of my 6 hour marathon I decided that if I could complete the most ridiculous physical challenge of my life, I could also take the risk of enrolling in culinary school. I get a laugh! Did the applause seem a little longer than everyone else’s?

And for the next 3 hours, the Director of Education, aka our guidance counselor goes through each policy in “excruciating detail.” I like her a lot. Her Staten Island accent (with no use for the letter r) and dry humor bodes well. I’m happy and…nervous.

Carbo Loading at Piccolo Angolo

2008-09-02T06:06:00.000-07:00

621 Hudson Street
New York, New York

On the corner of Jane and Hudson Streets, this unassuming eatery in the heart of the West Village has recently struck me with cupid’s arrow.

After scanning their humble Web site, I was confident that this little Italian restaurant must often be overlooked. “No,” says a friend of mine. “If you come here on the weekends, there’s always a line out the door.”

Why have I never noticed this place?

I found myself very fortunate on this Thursday evening at Piccolo Angolo. I was with my running group, four vegetarians in a group of six, starving for a carbo-satisfying supper. It’s on a very rare occasion that vegetarians outnumber the omnivore. These numbers just don’t happen.

To start, the vegetarians ordered grilled portobello mushrooms, while omnivores began with homemade meatballs. I was a little envious of the meatballs. Yes, I make great mock meatballs, but the aroma of these fist-sized balls smothered in marinara sauce forced a bit of resentment of my meat-free ways. According to my carnivorous running partner, These meatballs are melting in my mouth like clouds.”

Then our portobellos sautéed in garlic and olive oil arrived. The strong smoky and beefy flavor hit like a thunderclap. “This is the mushroomiest mushroom I’ve ever had!” I blurted. Providing a nice (and more expensive) surprise, I not only found portobello, but pieces of grilled porcini as well. My meatball envy vanished.

The restaurant's décor is mediocre at best, not that anyone was looking up from their plate. Then I realized that I had failed to see the garlic bread. Made properly: pan-roasted garlic in olive oil, slathered on chewy, not cottony, Italian bread, sprinkled with fresh parsley and broiled to perfection. I looked up searching for an Italian grandma mastermind. What I saw were three Mexican guys in a kitchen the size of my bathroom. To my left I saw a waitress spying our table to make sure we had enough bread, red wine, and water in our glasses.

Acquiescing to the vegetarian majority, our two omnivores agreed to sharing 4 large vegetarian pasta dishes: asparagus ravioli with butter, rosemary and sage, pumpkin ravioli with a creamy nut sauce, fettuccini with sun dried porcini mushrooms in tomato sauce and homemade gnocchi with marinara sauce. I was impressed to see that the waitress showed no signs of being irked when the gnocci was ordered with its sauce on the side. Each pasta dish presented a unique character from Northern Italian cooking – creaminess, freshness and a wonderful array noodle shapes. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to carbo-load.

Sorry to my vegan friends. Aside from my portobello appetizer and garlic bread, I’m not sure what other vegan options they have. I won’t insult you by saying you can have ziti with marinara sauce. Vegans will have to do a little finessing with the entrees to make them vegan. You guys are usually good at that anyway. But like I said before, the wait staff will not be irked by your edits. This is the right audience to substitute olive oil for butter, believe me. I wholly recommend it after a good long run with a bunch of your vegetarian running buddies.

Summer Bounty

2008-08-31T07:33:00.001-07:00

This summer was all about salads for me. I experimented with a variety of fruits, nuts and cheeses to make a salad that was as much a meal as possible. I’ve also sworn off store-bought salad dressing, having the eureka-moment that dressings are actually a breeze to make – and you know exactly what’s in it. Here’s the best version from dozens of salads I made this summer. See you in the fall.

Crunchy Summer Bounty Salad

1 large head of Romaine lettuce (or any type you like) soaked in water, dried in a salad spinner and chopped (or torn if you prefer)* Use bagged salads if you must, but they are gassed with CO2 to maintain “freshness” for an unnatural period of time, which also add a strange after taste. Plus, they are 3x times more expensive.

1 ½ cups parsley roughly chopped (Chop as least as possible because they’ll serve as another salad leaf)

2 tomatoes seeded and chopped, or 1 cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes

1 small cucumber peeled, seeded and chopped

½ cup berries or grapes (strawberries and blueberries are my favorite and at the peak of flavor and affordability in July)

1 mango cubed into half inch pieces

½ cup roasted corn (I often use left over corn that I roasted the night before and slice off the cob. Trader Joe’s has a great bagged roasted corn in the freezer section.)

3 carrots peeled and chopped into thin discs

1 bell pepper chopped (Use whatever color you like. Green is always cheaper, but keep in mind that eating different colored plants is often the healthiest option.)

¼ cup toasted walnuts (Toasted, as in, put in a toaster oven pan for the last setting, or until you smell the nuts. OR, put in a dry pan over medium heat, and toss them around the pan until you smell the nutty goodness.)

¼ cup toasted pecans

Optional Protein Additions
2 hard boiled eggs, quartered
1 cup Quorn tenders
1 cup chick peas
1 cup beans such as kidney or pinto

Garlic Lime Vinaigrette
The juice of 2 limes
Zest of half a lime
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil (time to use the good stuff)
Small clove of garlic grated with a microplane
1 tsp of herbs such as basil, rosemary or thyme. (If using dried herbs, use half as much)
1/8 teaspoon or a really good dash of salt
1/8 teaspoon or to taste fresh ground black pepper
Jar with a top for shaking or a whisk

Two for one…. I couldn’t choose between which vinaigrette I liked more so I am including both.

Lemon Vinaigrette
The juice of two lemons
1 tbs maple syrup
1 tbs fancy mustard such as Dijon or stone ground with seeds
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp finely chopped fresh basil
1/8 teaspoon or a really good dash of salt
1/8 teaspoon or to taste fresh ground black pepper
Jar with a top for shaking or a whisk

Preparation
Toast the nuts. Prepare the vinaigrette by adding all the ingredients into a small jar with a top. Twist the top tightly, wrap with a towel (just in case) and shake vigorously. If you don't have a jar, toss ingredients into a medium sized bowl and whisk together until the dressing is emulsified, or no longer separated. Let sit in the refrigerator while you are making the salad.

In a very large bowl toss all salad ingredients. Serves 3 to 4 meal-sized portions or 6 side salads.

And you thought bathing suits made you look fat.

2008-08-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

I picked up my chef’s jackets today. Chef’s uniforms are beginning to shatter my idea of looking cool as a chef. Maybe since I am the equivalent of less than a freshman right now, I’ll eventually work towards getting an outfit that doesn’t make me look both short and fat.

The Outfit
My friend Veronica accompanies me to B&R uniforms on 25th Street and 2nd Avenue to pick up my chef’s uniform. She’s nothing short of enthusiastic about this excursion during our lunch hour. Later on she'll realize that we aren’t going to my actual school, but just a uniform store – the same one that nurses, surgeons and janitors use. Neither are we picking up my chef’s tools either. But the good friend that she is maintains a still-audible level of enthusiasm when we reach the store, and oh god, she brings her camera. For my mother’s sake, I am glad she does. For the sake of my dignity, I wish she hadn’t.

Another one of my Cuehlo synchronicities – the man who helps me is Filipino and asks me if I am too. I answer him in one of the few Tagalog words I know, but totally play it off as if I am completely articulate. I say "Oh, Oh" (pronounced Awh, awh), which means yes.

He gives me a size small coat, which must be small in ogre, because it’s still huge on me, and predictably long – that I was expecting. They don’t carry extra small.

Then come the chef’s pants, the tiny checker board pants that all chefs wear. He looks at my waist and says, what are you a 30 or bigger? My boyfriend is a 31 waist. I tell him that a 30 would be fine, hoping it would be huge on me and that he feels bad. I walk into the fitting room and, damn it, they just fit. These pants are unisex, so the waist fits about 2 inches above my belly button. How could this possibly be a size 30 waist? I defeatedly ask for a larger size, fearful that these pants would shrink in the wash. He practically tells the universe, like the lotto guy commercial, than he’s about to give me a SIZE 33 WAIST. Thank you sir. Everyone in Beijing probably heard you.

The size 33 is looser and how nice for me, it’s even higher above my belly button.

I get the rest of my gear – aprons and towels – and we’re off to the register. He tells me I’m all set, and I say my other word in Tagalog, “Salamat.” He says you’re welcome…in English.

When I get home I try it on hoping that it would look better once I am in the house and can make the necessary adjustments my way. By the look on Jay's face, it doesn’t get any better. He asks me to get ready for a picture. I tuck the jacket into the pants and take a hair clip and dart the back of my coat to give some semblance of a waist.

Apparently, looking cool isn’t going to be part of being a chef.

Personal Legends

2008-08-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

I’m currently reading Paul Cuehlo’s the Alchemist. I actually had no idea what this book was about. All I knew was that when I asked if this book was worth reading to someone who read it, they became rabid in me telling how fantastic it was. They were right. The book is great. Cuehlo’s fairy-tale style, coupled with his Siddhartha-like themes is enough to sweep you into his world. I can’t say that I appreciate his g-d overtones since I myself am not religious, but hey it’s a good story.

The Alchemist is about a young boy’s journey to discover and attain his personal legend – Cuehlo’s corny way of saying true quest in life. According to the book, once you discover your personal legend, the universe conspires to help you achieve it. I’ve been captivated by this book not merely for Cuehlo’s interesting writing style, but also because I am seemingly experiencing the same sort synchronicities now that I have chosen to attend culinary school.

Just this week, I received all the materials to ready myself for the first day of school. It’s so exciting. The timing of my program is bringing back memories of grade school. This week I shopped for my chef’s uniform.

The Shoes
I am tasked to find black chef’s clogs so I perform my research and ask my culinary friends on the best shoe to buy. Dansko clogs become an almost unanimous answer for the best clogs out there. Birkenstock is a close second. They are both around a hundred dollars, but I decide that I will suck it up and spend the necessary cash. I am also told that I don’t want Crocs because they have holes and no protection for your ankles. The last thing I need is a painful lesson about hot liquids on feet.

I do some research and realize that Crocs do have a professional line of clogs for chefs – and what’d ya know? Mario Batali has a special signature edition of his famed orange clogs. Can anything be lamer? I was wondering what he had in common to be friends with Rachel Ray.

I decide to look for Crocs anyway, against my better judgment. I should at least know how they feel before they are completely out of the running (excuse the pun). So I go to Paragon in Union Square to see what’s available. All Paragon has are the holey ones. I also don’t find any Birkenstock clogs. My next stop is West 8th Street. Surely one of the many shoe stores will have a decent clog selection. I stop for a second and reflect on the fact that I am searching for clogs. Ugly, ugly clogs.

I walk up West 8th and don’t see much beyond Chuck’s and some very alluring work pumps, but I refuse to be seduced and keep walking. Then out of the corner of my eye I see, “Clearance Sale! Store Closing! Everything Must Go!”

“Browsing a clearance sale can’t hurt,” I tell myself.

The remaining shoes were displayed at the center of the store. There was hardly any inventory left, but the ugliest of all shoes…CLOGS! How serendipitous. All clogs that were previously over hundred dollars were now all $50. I found the professional oiled Danskos that my friend, Meg, spoke of. For a clog, especially the forest green, Danskos were actually not bad on the eyes. But I had to get black, and they had none in my size. Then lo and behold I see another type of Danskos with a rubber bottom that sort of resemble my doc martens from high school, and I also spot another pair of clogs of even uglier caliber by a brand I have never heard of, Ariat.

I am surprised by the clog. They are one of the most deliciously comfortable shoes I have ever sunk my feet into. I see why chefs swear by them. Additionally, both have rubber bottoms to maintain traction on slick kitchen floors. I’ll deal with their uglier-than-a-nun’s-shoe-quality for the comfort. I decide that the Ariats are more padded and decide to purchase them.

I have a slight feeling of buyer’s remorse after the resounding Dansko fandom of my chef friends. So I do a bit of research and find out that there is in fact a small faction of chefs out there that believe Ariat clogs are more comfortable and stylish (if that’s possible) than Danskos. Ariat is an English equestrian boot company that also has a line of clogs. Well who knew? Further research tells me that my pair is a few seasons old and that the cheapest I can get them online are for $90. I still saved forty bucks.

But then I can’t stop thinking about the great deal. So I go back to the clearance sale and decide to buy the Danskos just in case (whatever that means) because when will I ever find Danskos for that price ever again? My boyfriend decides that he wants to buy them for me as a starting-culinary-school-present. Even better. At the store I find out that it is true: I will never find these shoes for $50 again. The store is even more desperate and the same shoes I tried on just a few days ago are now $40.

Thank g-d for the universe. And English cowboys.

The Vegetarian Option: Redefined

2008-08-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

To my 2.5 readers out there (who I am so thankful to have), my apologies for my posting moratorium. At some point I started to realize that as an avid cook, I actually cook at home a lot, and well, I don’t go out to eat as often as I would like to truly make this blog what I would like it to be.

So here it is: I’m changing the subject. There will still be posts about my latest cooking and baking discoveries (I just made the most scrumptious coconut cake), the latest of my book reviews (must let you know how Judith Jones’ memoir was. She eats a beaver tail and dubs it unctuous.) Perhaps some foodie-related events (Will also need to post on a Julia Child lecture at the New School I attended.) And, of course, there will be vegetarian options.

But next month, I am about to start something that I hope will change the rest of my life and bring further meaning to this passion I have for food. Somewhat recently I learned that my grandparents actually owned a restaurant in their small town in the Philippines. After finding this out, I started to realize why my entire family has so much knowledge, passion and sometimes obsession for food.

I had always thought that this love for cooking was merely because cooking makes food and, well, food is delicious. Then my mother told me that our family had a history. It changed the way I really looked at food and cooking. Even more recently, my uncle told me that my grandparents would hold contests together on who made the better version of a dish. That sounds like a heavenly date night to me.

Of course I don’t think of this passion as something that’s automatically coded into my DNA. If I grew up in another household, let’s say somewhere in the middle of the country, I may have thought it wise to begin each meal by opening a can of condensed mushroom soup. My childhood gave me a true appreciation of flavor, fresh ingredients, and being thankful to have this food available.

So next month I will begin culinary school. It isn’t exactly what my grandparents would have wanted since I will be going to a mostly vegetarian school. Yes, I still took the vegetarian option.

I will be attending the Chef’s Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts. (NGI) I chose this school for a number of reasons. First, as I perused the culinary schools in NYC I realized that I needed to make the decision that it was going to be ok for me to eat and work with meat again. I wouldn’t spend all this money on tuition so I could back out of my butchering classes like so many girls did in high school chemistry the second we had to slice open a frog. As a chef-in-training I needed to relieve this disquiet, and I never truly did. So NGI stepped in.

While the Institute for Culinary Education (ICE) seemed my number one choice, for so many of its distinguished reasons, it wasn’t the right school for me in the end. Frankly, their thirty thousand dollar tuition is absurd. The French Culinary Institute is a choke-worthy forty thousand dollars. The more I did research, the more it became clear to me that culinary school is just another business. Truly, if I wanted to be a chef, I should just get a job as a line cook somewhere and start from scratch. Most notable chefs start that way anyway. Though, I do not have goals in becoming a restaurant chef (at least for now), nor do I want to shatter my already miniscule piggy bank into pieces. (I’ll talk about my culinary goals in another posting.)

Another reason I chose NGI is the length of their externship – it’s about half as long as every other school. I know that could piss off a good number of chefs, but I don’t care. I have a full time job that I have no plans to quit, so I am taking two weeks off at the end of my program to complete my externship. And speaking of my full time job, NGI’s part-time program is really the best for people who have jobs. It’s only twice a week. The Art Institute (AI) has a “part-time” program of five days a week! Let’s call a spade a spade here, AI. You, sir, are hardly “part-time.”

Another school I toured was the Culinary Academy. It was the cheapest out of all the schools – about fifteen thousand. It’s the scholastic equivalent to Devry. Not that there’s anything wrong with Devry. (I wouldn’t want you to think I’m some sort of elitist.) But when I began to ask really hard questions from my admissions representative like can I have their course list, and perhaps a conversation with a chef instructor (since he certainly knew nothing about the actual program) he was suddenly nowhere to be found. By god, I went to a state college and I certainly can’t go through any bullshit bureaucratic nonsense ever again. I might as well spring another five grand to be at NGI.

So here I am. I hope you’ll stick around to read about my next adventure. I promise that I’ll be better about my postings. I hope to be more regular just to answer the question, “So how’s culinary school going?” I can also promise that this culinary story will be a different one as it is a vegetarian culinary school – there’s gotta be something more interesting there. If not, it might be worth waiting for me to discuss my poultry class elective. If you’re looking for drama, I can guarantee it for that class. So when you think you want to watch hell’s kitchen, the next food network star or the next top chef, skip it and come here. Mine won’t be as mean. Maybe.

Carrot Patties

2008-05-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

It's true. If you look inside your fridge long enough, you can find something to eat. After finding two old bags of carrots, some limp spinach, a couple of stale pitas, an old stump of parmesan cheese, and a bunch of other things languishing in my fridge, I was able to make this tasty and exceptionally versatile recipe for carrot patties. These patties have a great brunch quality, even though I made mine after a long day at work. I highly recommend a condiment of roasted tomatoes. Yes, I had those hanging around the fridge too.

Ingredients
2 stale pitas
1 teaspoon dry Italian herb blend or other herb blend such herbs de Provence
1 clove garlic
1½ cups steamed or boiled carrots (until al dente)
1 small onion quartered
½ block of firm silken tofu
1 cup fresh spinach
½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Equipment
Food Processor
2 baking sheets wrapped in foil and generously coated with cooking spray or olive oil

Preheat oven to 375°.

Process pita bread, herbs and garlic in the food processor until you have course crumbs. Remove from food processor and transfer into a large bowl.

Process carrots, onions, spinach and tofu until you have smooth paste. Add to the bowl of bread crumbs, with parmesan cheese, eggs, and mix until well combined. Drop ¼ cup of mixture and form into flat patties on baking sheets.

Bake for 15 minutes then turn each patty over. Bake for another 10 minutes. Serve with sour cream or roasted tomatoes, or both.

To Make Roasted Tomatoes
Mix 1 pint of grape tomatoes with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 10 minutes in a 400° oven or until tomatoes burst. Use as a condiment, side dish, or in a sandwich.

The Truth About Zero Trans Fats

2008-05-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

Most people by now realize that trans fats are pretty unhealthy for us. Trans fats come from vegetable oils that have gone through a process of hydrogenation – known to most of us as hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils. This process makes liquid oil into a solid. When it came to market in the 1960’s, it was thought to be a great boon to both our health and pocketbook.

Today, trans fats have finally been recognized to be a real detriment to our health. Trans fats are associated with increased risk of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. And more widely unknown, these fats are also linked with reduced fertility, decreased immunity, and asthma. No wonder New York City just unleashed the no trans fats law in restaurants.

The food market isn’t too slow on the uptake either. The new trend in processed foods is to emblazon the “0 Trans Fats” gold star. Even Crisco, the mother of all trans fats, developed a no-trans fat version of its original predecessor. But no matter what you read on the label, it still behooves you to read the ingredients of whatever you’re buying. As long as you see the word hydrogenated – whether it be whole or partial – it still contains trans fats. Invariably, the word hydrogenated equals trans fats. But how can that be you say? Federal laws allow for an accepted level of trans fats per serving. And when was the last time you ate something per serving? So, let’s say your butter-flavor spread reporting to be trans-free is 1 tablespoon per serving. That 1 tablespoon does contain trace amounts of trans fats. So when you’ve had your third serving on your second slice of toast, you can believe you’re ingesting trans fat. Or perhaps a more applicable example, try eating one serving of tortilla chips.

What to do? For every day use, a little bit of butter here and there isn’t too bad for you, and olive oil tastes better any way. For other uses, like deep frying, use canola or corn. And most importantly, start reading food labels. Know what’s going in your body. There’s plenty of healthy options out there to choose.

The Lows of High Fructose Corn Syrup

2008-05-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

In the 1970’s a food scientist discovered a way to breakdown glucose from a corn molecule into a simple compound to make high fructose corn syrup. Like a gift from the heavens, high fructose corn syrup became a staple for mass food producers for its cheapness (made of very abundant corn) and for its sweet factor (much sweeter than plain old sugar).

Over 30 years later, high fructose corn syrup has become the ubiquitous ingredient found in almost every conventional food in the market. Go ahead. Take a look at the food in your kitchen. Besides the obvious cast of sugary foods like juices, frozen desserts, or cereal, you’ll find this artificial sweetener rear its sweet ugliness in your crackers, ketchup, and even your breads.

Did I hear an “I don’t care,” out there? Sure, the occasional high fructose corn syrup probably won’t hurt you, but do remember that it is highly processed. Its elevated sweetness makes this ingredient more calorie-dense than sugar – did you ever think that was possible? And it doesn’t take a food scientist who knows how to breakdown molecules to know that calorie-dense diets causes both weight gain and an increase in our body’s use of insulin. Recent studies show that type II diabetes, the most common form of diabetes in American children, is attributable to a lifestyle of calorie-rich foods and lack of exercise. Our country’s over intake of high fructose corn syrup and skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes in the last 30 years just can’t be a coincidence. Of course, I’m not saying that high fructose corn syrup alone is the culprit. It’s part of a larger problem with our culture’s love of processed foods and sedentary lifestyle. But if we know this, why shouldn’t we do something about it?
But let's forget about our diet for a second, and talk corn politics.
Corn is:
Government subsized = not good for farmers
Uses fertilizer made of fossil fuels (nitrogen & coal) = not good for economy or the enviroment
Genetically modified = besides just plain creepy, not good for the environment or farmers

Fore more info about corn politics, read Michael Pollan's book The Omniovore's Dillema.

Review: Real Food by Nina Planck

2008-04-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

Nina Planck believes that there’s food and then there’s real food. Real food is the stuff that humans have been eating for thousands of years. Everything else is, well, food-like. These "things," known to us as processed foods, were developed in the last hundred years, and happens to coincide with the stark escalation of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other modern diseases.

No, she doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. Her controversial book, Real Food: What To Eat and Why, extols the virtues of butter, beef, lardo, and other conventially accepted bad foods. She puts many cholesterol researchers to shame for lacking insight into the genuine causes of arteriosclerosis, or clogged arteries. After all, people have been eating these fats for centuries, and only in this recent one has heart disease become the leading cause of death in the western world. Processed food, she thinks, is not food at all but a combination of chemicals and synthetic nutrients.

Another source of controversy for Real Food, is that Planck, a former vegan, believes that animal-free diets are extremely dangerous to our health. Again – we ate meat hundreds of years ago, why should we stop eating it now? Plank is a true champion of the farmer and believes that the industrialization of farming and meat production is the real reason why meat and vegetables are not as healthy as they used to be. Pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and the like are what’s killing modern society – not the meat itself.

I appreciated Planck's explanations of which foods she deemed good and bad – particularly because anti-oxidant-rich chocolate is on the do-gooder list. Yet, I found the downfall of this book to be her real-food dogmatism. She makes sweeping generalizations about certain foods, and while her sources are obviously abundant and well-researched, I don't buy her connections. And certainly, as a vegetarian, I disagree with her staunch belief that meat-free diets are unhealthy. I won't go as far as being hater, mind you. I'd venture to say that after she wrote her op-ed piece in The New York Times, "Death By Veganism," Planck basically made herself the Osama of the vegan world.

All in all, I found Planck's book to be extremely helpful in understanding the hazards of hydrogenized products, high-fructose corn syrup, and good vs. bad cholesterol. I would read this book as a general resource, not your real food bible.

Barrio Café

2008-04-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

2814 N. 16th Street
Phoenix, Arizona

After one visit to Barrio Café, it’s obvious that entrepreneurial partners, Wendy Gruber and Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza have more to offer than just great authentic Mexican food. They have an agenda. In a town where chain restaurants hold court, this restaurant stands as a reminder that there’s more to dining out than wait staff with enough pieces of flare – although Barrio Café certainly has a lot of it.

For instance, don’t call up days in advance asking for a reservation, even if you have a party of 6 or more. They’ll just tell you, It's first come, first serve. Oh and by the way, we have over 200 types of tequila while you wait at the bar. When you enter the restaurant you’ll see local artists showcased on the walls. If you happen to like these pieces, you’re in luck – they’re all for sale. Even the bathrooms are something to consider. Now an infamous destination to be seen, Barrio Café’s bathroom was once adorned with so many crucifixes you’d think a Madonna video was shot there. The bathroom has since changed it’s decor, but without a lesser mesmerizing theme: think Jack Black’s movie, Nacho Libre.

While Chef Esparza certainly delivers, even sentimentally, on the authentic side of Mexico, she also brings her own welcome nouveau spin on this cuisine. Innumerable reviews boast her 12-hour pork dish, Cochinita Pibil ($19), or the Churros Rellenos de Cajeta de Cabra ($11), goat cheese caramel stuffed churros.

The much-hailed pork dish delivered inconsistently according to my flesh-eating friends. Some loved it, while others snorted an “eh.” It was both the guacamole and the churros smothered in caramel and vanilla bean ice cream that transformed all the reviews from legend to reality. Yes, they’re that good. The pomegranate-topped guacamole is original, inspired and excitingly prepared in front of you. ($10.50)

So what’s a vegetarian to eat at the Barrio? I was eager to try the Tacos de Pescado ($14), or fish tacos, as well as their Mojarra de San Agustin ($21), an achiote rubbed tilapia filet grilled in a banana leaf. My favorite of the two fish dishes were the tacos, a crunchy and bright summery dish that was a perfect accompaniment to their well-executed mango margarita.

Like many of my other favorite restaurants, Barrio also has excellent coffee. And do they know it – you can buy bag of their beans at the end of your meal ($11). Which of course I did.

In a city where the strip mall is the place to go for a meal, Barrio Café has positioned itself as the city’s beacon of great independent fare. On a busy night, you might find yourself getting seated by Gruber. A noteworthy sign that this is the kind of place you want to be. The owners are there, and they care. Gruber and Esparza's heart, soul, and sense of humor are ever present in this restaurant, or I should say, this experience.

Vegetarian Options
Ensalada del Barrio ($7.50 side, $11.50 dinner portion) Spinach salad with pecans, Roquefort cheese, apples and roasted tomatoes
Enchiladas del Hongo ($17) Enchiladas with wild mushrooms, queso de cabra and white truffles
Torta del Barrio ($11) Roasted poblano pepper stuffed with melted Oaxacan cheese
Quesadilla de Chile con Queso ($10) Quesadilla with poblano peppers and mixed cheeses

My Top Five Gourmet Ingredient Shortcuts

2008-04-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

Any self-respecting foodie and serious home cook would never use a short-cut in the kitchen. Right? Microwaving chocolate! Never. Pre-bagged salad! You should be ashamed! Well, it may surprise you to know that many excellent restaurants and gourmet chefs use time-saving shortcuts all the time. These five ingredients won’t compromise the sanctity of your dish, and you’ll still respect yourself in the morning.

1. Pre-Peeled Garlic
Recently, I visited with the Pastry Sous Chef at the popular restaurant LandMarc in New York City. Inside the restaurant’s cavernous refrigerator, I was shocked to find plastic jars of pre-peeled garlic. Restaurants use pounds and pounds of garlic daily and pre-peeled garlic saves hours on the prep-line. Just make sure to buy your garlic whole, not pre-minced. Pre-minced garlic may have unnecessary additives that prevent discoloration and taint the flavor. Fresh whole garlic naturally contains anti-microbial agents that maintain their freshness.

2. Frozen Peas
Peas contain a lot of sugar and by the time they reach the market from the farm, these sugars will transform into starch. Frozen peas retain their natural sweetness because they are picked at their prime – when they are seasonally-abundant – then shelled and frozen. Try celebrity chef, Giada de Laurentis’, favorite way to use frozen peas. Right out of the freezer, add frozen peas to a cooked risotto. Mix into the pot and turn off the heat. The residual heat will warm the peas through.

3. Flavored Oil
British cookbook author, Nigella Lawson, believes that flavored oil can start off the simplest meal with the utmost complexity of flavor, or give salads a hearty punch. You can make your own by adding a clove of garlic and herbs into a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. Steep for at least 24 hours and store in the fridge. The oil will last up to 3-5 months.

Quick After-Work Pasta
Here’s a 10-minute recipe for an effortless after work dinner. Heat 3 tbs of garlic-flavored oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat, add a pinch of red chili flakes, and let it sizzle for 1 minute. Toss in 1½ cups of cooked pasta, 1 tbs of roughly chopped fresh basil or parsley, ½ cup of grated parmesan cheese and a final drizzle of garlic oil.

4. Vacuum-packed Chestnuts
You can find these pre-cooked and shelled nuts in many Asian and natural food markets. Sara Moulton, Gourmet Magazine’s Executive Chef, often uses these easy chestnuts in her rustic gratin dishes. You can use them in stuffings for Thanksgiving supper, puree into a smooth paste for an extraordinary nut butter, or make an autumnal sauce to dress pumpkin ravioli.

Creamy Chestnut Sauce for Pumpkin Ravioli
Melt 4 tbs of organic, unsalted butter over 4 tbs extra virgin olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add 1 sprig of fresh rosemary, 1 cup of finely chopped vacuum-packed chestnuts and sauté for 5-8 minutes or until the sauce is golden brown. Remove rosemary stem, add ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese and serve over one package of cooked pumpkin ravioli.

5. Frozen Puff Pastry
Gale Gand, restaurateur and past winner of the James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year Award, has no qualms about using the frozen stuff in her Banana Maple Tarte Tatin. Even the most expert pastry chefs take years to master the time-consuming process of making the perfect puff pastry. Puff pastry is a yeast-free dough with layers of butter that crisp and allow the pastry to rise. To make quick fruit tarts, use store-bought frozen puff pastry as an alternative.

Fruit Tarts
Quickly roll out the defrosted dough on a clean floured surface and cut into 5-inch squares. Fit into muffins tins that have been brushed with butter and bake for 8-10 minutes in a 400° oven, or until they turn golden. Cool and fill the pastry cups with custard or vanilla pudding, then top with fresh seasonal berries. If you’re feeling guilty about your store-bought shortcut, go ahead and dot each tart with a sprig of mint for added fanciness.

Do you have a favorite gourmet shortcut? Let me know!

New York City for Dinner

2008-03-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

106 West Houston Street
New York, New York

After quickly exiting the subway, I spied a little girl delightedly eating a slice from Joe’s Pizza. Joe’s, one of NYC's trio of venerable pizza joints of Joe’s, John’s and Lombardi’s, is on my daily path home. Each day I make a swift decision…slice or no slice? No slice tonight. My boyfriend dutifully made reservations at a restaurant that I have been eagerly awaiting to try.

Yet by the time I reached my apartment, I couldn’t stop thinking of that elated little girl and her slice of pepperoni pizza.

"Are you ready to go?"
“How about if you cancel our reservation and I call Arturo’s for a pie?”
“Sounds good.”

There isn’t any night of the week that he'll protest Arturo’s; especially when we have reservations to a vegetarian restaurant.

Eating something that you crave, while you are hungry to the point of feeling faint, is one of the most satisfying experiences a human being can have. When the door bell rang, cries of Hallelujahs sang in my head.

I opened the white box and found a Matisse-like pie gleaming back at me with orange, bright-white, red, and golden brown. The familiar smell was both comforting and intoxicating. Arturo’s really gives you the classic New York City pizza. In each bite, the slice yields, just a little, for the saucy cheese, and ends with an audible crunch. It’s a coal oven pie whose recipe never evolved. The thin, black-peppery crust is layered with creamy cheese, tangy tomato sauce, and finished with a dusting of salty parmesan. As the pie cooks an intense orange bubbles from the marriage of cheese and tomatoes. The accompanying side salad was a mere shadow in quality. It was an indistinctive salad with the requisite ingredients you might as well find at your nearby Olive Garden. But then I don’t go to Arturo’s for its salad, or its pasta, or even its many entrees that I’m sure are quite good. It’s all about the pizza for me. Oh and the Jazz. If I stop by Arturo’s any night of the week, I’ll get a free jazz show. And if I’m lucky, I’ll get a seat in the back room for a fantastically kitschy experience – enjoying my pie surrounded by walls covered in gaudy-framed paintings by Arturo himself.

(A big thank you to Marge Perry for her feedback!)

Mixed Citrus Curd

2008-03-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of assisting a friend who is a pastry sous chef at a well-known NYC restaurant. I had an excellent time learning how to make the lemon curd for their delicious lemon tarts. While it was certainly a bit work intensive to zest 36 lemons, I had great fun. I adapted my own recipe for home use. Enjoy!

Mixed Citrus Curd
Zest 2 limes and 2 tangelos (or clementines) with a microplane, juice them over a strainer – makes a little over ½ c juice
Add 6 tbs cold butter
1/3 c sugar
2 tbs milk
2 eggs plus 3 yolks

Mix all ingredients on medium heat over a double boiler (see image) stirring occasionally. The more frequently you stir, the less you will have scrambled eggs in the curd. After 15-20 minutes (or so) you should have a thick curd that coats the back of a spoon. Taste for sweetness. Strain curd for scrambled eggs. If there is none, then don’t bother straining. As long as you don't mind a curd with a bit of chew, you will have a gorgeous curd dotted with green and orange zest.

Eat over loaf cakes, or pour into a cooked pie shell and bake at 375° for 15 minutes. If you're feeling especially ambitious, use the left over egg whites to make a meringue and complete the whole production with a meringue pie.

Red Bamboo: A wonderland of mock meats

2008-02-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

The meat-free will experience symptoms of mania with this restaurant's no-boundaries menu.

You'll often find this cramped ultra-popular restaurant bulging out the door with food enlightened vegans and vegetarians from the local Greenwich Village neighborhood. At the peak of dinner service you can face a wait time of anywhere between forty minutes and an hour and a half depending on the number of your group. And there isn’t a bar to squander your time. To manage the bustle, the owner has developed a highly sophisticated system of scribbling your name and phone number on an old notebook allowing you to leave the restaurant. She is very emphatic about this. “You must leave your phone number!” Nostalgic of a Seinfeld episode, we found ourselves skipped and waiting an extra twenty minutes because we wrote “here” instead of a phone number, even though we were a mere foot away from the host. Yet, the young tattooed and pierced wait staff are quite pleasant and at-the-ready to help you choose your mock-meat goodie.

While the restaurant alleges a soul food theme, it not only serves Cajun and other Southern staples, but inspired plates from Filipino, Chinese, Japanese and Italian cuisines – making sense of the Zen-driven decor. Red bamboo offers a plethora of vegetarian adaptations that I didn’t realize even existed, such as salmon, cod, shrimp, and calamari. It was a revelation to find more than the usual seitan and textured vegetable protein labeled mock beef or chicken.

A ubiquitous Asian twist follows many of the savory dishes. The very American BBQ Steak Hero has notes of citrus and allspice in the sauce, tasting more like pork spare ribs from your nearby Chinese take-out. Their trademarked Creole Soul Chicken is so remarkably like real chicken, with a delightfully crisp exterior of panko crumbs and dried herbs.

Some dishes didn’t hold up as well in terms of texture, a largely important quality in mock meats. The sesame beef was a bit rubbery, and similarly, the BBQ ribs. The Buffalo wings have a softer center than I would like, but the crisp outside and buffalo wing sauce manage to make these artificial goodies one of my favorites. The best part was the little bamboo stick in the center posing as the chicken bone. What a much more pleasant and less gruesome thing to find inside your food. They provide a vegan blue cheese dressing to boot.

While many veggies will readily eat here as if just being freed from a bomb shelter, I am confident that many carnivores won’t have such a bad time here either. There’s plenty for them to savor as well. Italian favorites such as eggplant parmesan and 4-cheese ravioli serve as innocuous and straight forward vegetarian fare that many meat-eaters are willing to have without a single guffaw. But nudge even a little. They just might like the hearty “beef” stew with big hunks of meaty seitan, potatoes, carrots and mushroomy gravy.

The wine list is short, but some may appreciate the offering of very affordable organic beers and wine, both by bottle and glass.

The all-vegan dessert menu should not be overlooked, no matter how full you are. The Oreo cheesecake is firm, creamy and chocolatey with no lingering soy flavor. It’s not as creamy as a conventional cheesecake, but still a decadent variation. The carrot cake was the stunning underdog at our meal. The icing, like clouds of melted marshmallows, was surprisingly not as sweet as the cake itself. The cake was sumptuously moist and, to my pleasure, without a single trace of raisins. The soy ice creams, offered in a variety of flavors, were better than the stuff I’ve tried from the grocery store, but I’m not sure I would waste the experience of dessert just on ice cream. Wait staff will warn you to order the cakes when you can, as deliveries only happen once a week, and they will run out.

Recommended meal: What I really like about this restaurant is that you can vary your dining experience many times over – making you want to come back again and again. One day have a pre-superbowl meal with wings and steak sandwiches, and the next day have a spa-day luncheon with the sea vegetable salad or the lime-seasoned grilled vegetable platter over brown rice. This day, I choose to honor the NY Giants, but it wouldn't hurt to fast the day before.

Appetizer – Buffalo Wings and Carribean Jerk-Spiced Seitan Skewers
Beverage – Samuel Smith Organic Lager
Entrée – Creole Soul Chicken or BBQ Steak Hero
Dessert – Carrot Cake with a Scoop of Butter Pecan Soy Ice Cream

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

2008-02-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

In Alice Water’s latest cookbook, she offers a number of simple dishes, both for carni- and herbi- vores. Waters proposes a way of living that respects both our bodies and nature. This isn’t the latest in green living as proselytized by the nouveau greenies of the Al Gore fan club. If you didn’t already know her, Waters has been credited for starting the food revolution of California cuisine. She’s been living off sustainable agriculture practices since the 1970’s – one of the reasons she gives for the success of her first restaurant, Chez Panisse in the historically progressive city of Berkley, CA. She challenges the reader to eat seasonally, think about where your food comes from, and utilize your local farmer’s market by buying and getting to know the farmers.

I thought it was a bit peculiar that Waters provides a recipe for egg salad. Egg Salad. It’s like giving a recipe for PBJ. But after reading her passionate argument for living on responsible agriculture, I began to understand that a simple egg salad whose eggs came from a farmer she knew well, whose grass-fed chickens roamed freely, with pure homemade mayonnaise, fresh from the garden herbs and vegetables is probably a flavor experience radically different from what I’ve ever known. I’m not sure if I’ll ever achieve a lifestyle where I can commit to buying all of my food at a farmer’s market after having had a long chat with the farmer. Though, it’s certainly an aspiration.

Recommendations: Eggplant caviar, mushroom ragu, and the perfect egg salad sandwich.

To buy this book now click here.

Blue Ribbon Bakery: Casual Comfort Food with Slightly Snooty Prices

2008-01-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

35 Downing Street, NYC
Highlights: Mrs. Quicke’s Farmhouse Cheddar, Onion Soup and Banana Walnut Bread Pudding.

It was a last minute decision to eat at Blue Ribbon Bakery on our two-year anniversary. I had yet to try this restaurant, but was apprised of its general popularity with celebrities and foodie hipsters. So, I readied myself for a possible disappointment fueled by my suspicions of this aforementioned reputation.

Living only a couple of blocks away, I usually find this restaurant bursting with diners vying for entry. I stepped up to my bar stool and asked if they offered prosecco. The young bartender said no, but recommended Cava or Spanish champagne.

Suddenly I heard the man next to me burst, “It’s delicious go for it!”

Dryer than a prosecco with a bubbyly bite, it was a wonderful start to a celebratory meal. I thanked my enthusiastic bar mate for his encouragement. The duration of one drink at the restaurant’s tiny bar was all it took to get a booth by the window on this wintry Monday night.

The dining room is lightened by large glass windows, making your dining experience the envy of all passerby’s on this narrow West Village street. Booths and chairs are made of vintage-looking wood highlighted by sparkling lights providing an unpretentious yet modern feel. Staff is both prompt when serving and speaking to guests. This may come off as curt, but as the night led on I realized that it was simply part of their customer service plan: friendly but to the point.

We were swiftly given a bread basket upon seating. What’s an immediate mark of a good restaurant? A side of good butter. Not golden foiled pats mind you, but butter that is soft and yielding for the spread. Their breads were excellent – one would hope as they are called a bakery. They give you an assortment of three. A sweet one bursting with walnuts, dried fruit and cinnamon, a sweet and savory pumpernickel, un-overwhelmed by caraway seeds, and the standard white, but there was nothing standard about it. This home style white bread was chewy and bright with a thin crust. Later on, we spied someone delivering a fresh batch to the kitchen.

I started with the cheese plate. Rustic slices of Mrs. Quicke’s Farmhouse Cheddar from Devon, England arrived and a cloudy, citrusy honey for drizzling. I had to close my eyes to focus on only one of my senses. The cheese was firm, sharp and rounded by an earthy aged flavor like parmesan - offering a satisfying counterpart to the Cava. This wasn’t a complex cheese, but drizzled with honey, it was the ultimate glorification of sweet and savory.

My partner began with the onion soup. The stock, swimming with round slices of translucent onions, was bold and well seasoned. The onions had imparted all their goodness into the velvety soup. It was lucky enough to be topped with Blue Ribbon’s famous bread and, what seemed like, a pound of melted gruyere cheese.

Next course for me was grilled striped bass atop sautéed vegetables. The fish looked promising with its diamond grill marks, but was un-flavorful, including the vegetables. The white-wine cream sauce took center stage and added no real depth to the fish. Across from me was a rare burger with skin-on French fries. The fries were wonderfully crisp and made earthy from the potato skins. I can’t say that I took a bite of the burger, but was told with considerable seriousness that it was indeed great.

Dessert was a banana walnut bread pudding and hot fudge sundae. In all my years of loving bread pudding this was the first time I had it both crisp and gooey tender. It was finished with a banana caramel sauce reminiscent of bananas foster and luxurious vanilla ice cream. The other dessert was a simple vanilla ice cream fudge sundae studded with walnuts, prepared so lovingly and with obvious high quality ingredients.

The service was speedy, the food was all around impressive, save the grilled bass, which incidentally was the most expensive item that we ordered ($28). Brunch on the weekend is also an option if this is out of your price range. Also, while they aren't the most inspired dishes, vegans at the very least can be satisfied to know that they offer two options: a hummus plate with cous cous salad ($16.00) and vegetables with saffron rice($18.50).

Now I have two warnings. First, choose the right night to attend. They do not take reservations, except for groups larger than five. When you’re in the mood for comfort food, waiting is not so comforting. Second, if you’re at all thinking about shedding any post-holiday pounds, I’d save this restaurant for a special reward. Cream and butter are staples here. Though, I promise you, it will be worth it.

Vegetarian Autumn "Chicken" Salad

2008-01-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

2 cups Quorn tenders
½ cup corn (defrosted frozen is ok)
2 stalks of celery chopped
½ tbs red onion finely minced (or more if you like the flavor of raw onion. I do not.)
½ red apple chopped with the skin on (whatever kind you like)
¼ cup chopped toasted walnuts
1 tbs minced fresh flat leaf parsley
½ tsp lemon zest
1 tbs fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tbs whole grain mustard
¼ cup light mayonnaise (or use soy mayo to make this completely vegan)
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tbs dried cranberries (optional)

It’s not exactly autumn right now, but I am home sick, getting increasingly tired of having soup and would like to have the comfort of autumn-like food. My challenge was that I couldn't really go outside to get my supplies -- I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to venture outside today. So I looked around my fridge and decided to use colors as my guide.

To make this salad all you have to do mix all the ingredients sans the dried cranberries. And again, please use soy mayo if you’d like to make this vegan. It will still taste great. Once you’ve mixed everything properly, so that everything is coated, sprinkle the cranberries over the top.

Today I will have it on open faced whole wheat toast. Sounds enough like sick people food, no?

P.S. Ask a meat-eater to try this salad and don't tell them it's veg.

New Year’s Brunch Menu for Friends

2008-01-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

Menu
Banana Chocolate Chip Pecan Bread
Vegetarian Sausage & Cheddar Strata
Roasted Red Potatoes & Celery Root
Cute Fruit Salad
Bellinis
Spicy Bloody Mary’s

At the last minute I decided to throw a New Year’s Brunch for six friends. My original idea was to stop at the closest bagel shop, pick up some bagels, bialy’s and schmear. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make brunch a little more special – without the fuss. Ostensibly, it would be difficult for a vegetarian to prepare food for everyone else who is not a vegetarian. Brunch, however, is a great way to have a dinner party with friends, without a dinner that often necessitates a meat entrée – which a large group is often expecting. I decided to start preparing this brunch 2 days before so I could feel the least amount of stress. In the end we had a great time and drank just a little too much champagne.

One to Two Days Before
Banana Chocolate Chip Pecan Bread
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
½ cup sugar
2 large organic eggs
4 very ripe bananas mashed
½ cup chopped toasted pecans
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9 x 5 inch loaf pan buttered and floured

Preheat oven to 325°F. Defrost bananas (see below) if you are using frozen bananas. Toast pecans by spreading them on a mini sheet pan from your toaster oven or put in a dry skillet. Toast on a medium setting or until you can smell the nuts. If using a skillet, toast over medium heat until you smell the nuts. When cooled chop roughly with a sharp knife.
Sift dry ingredients together in medium sized bowl. In another large bowl melt butter. I usually do this by taking a very large Pyrex glass measuring cup and sticking the butter right in the microwave. The measuring cup doubles as your mixing bowl. Mix butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. Then add eggs one at a time, vanilla, and the bananas.
Often my bananas come right out of the freezer. I freeze my bananas after they’ve become inedibly over ripe. It’s only a matter of time when I make these bananas into bread or pancakes. Just microwave on medium for a couple of minutes to defrost them. You don’t even have to mash them before adding to butter/sugar mixture. Your electric mixer will do all the work. You also get a nice banana liquid after it defrosts that is concentrated in banana flavor.

Add dry ingredients a third at a time. When thoroughly mixed, add chocolate chips and pecans. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the batter into the loaf pan.

Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean after being inserted into the middle of the loaf. Enjoy warm or cold. This will taste even better by the time you serve to your guests. Make sure to wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

The Night Before
Vegetarian Sausage & Cheddar Strata
I was given this extraordinary recipe from a friend who is a culinary instructor. Lucky me! This recipe is extraordinarily easy to prepare, easy on the wallet and everyone, including the carnivorous, loves it.

Ingredients
5 cups of cubed bread, about 2 inch cubes (For this meal I found Colombian bread at the grocery store. You can use whatever white bread you like.)
12 organic eggs
3 cups milk (Feel free to use unsweetened soy. I wouldn't use rice milk for it's sweetness, or skim milk for its thinness)
1 teaspoon mustard powder
¼ of onion chopped finely
2 boxes Morningstar breakfast sausage patties
½ cup water
2 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Spread “sausage” patties onto a large skillet, add water and heat with a cover on medium for about 5 minutes or until patties are soft and steamed through. Break up patties with a wooden spoon or other non metal spoon. It should look like cooked chopped meat. Let water evaporate completely by raising the heat and removing the cover. Let the sausage brown for another minute and set aside. Chop onion and set aside.
Cube half the loaf, or 5 cups worth and layer the bottom of a large baking pan (think of lasagna pan). Layer sausage and cheddar on top of the bread.
Crack the dozen eggs into a bowl, break yolks, and add the remaining ingredients. Beat until custard is mixed thoroughly. Pour mixture over the bread, sausage and cheese. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. In the morning if you see that it needs a bit more moisture, (you’ll know by seeing pieces of dry bread) just add more milk.

Cute Fruit Salad
2 oranges segmented (Save the membranes and peels and set aside.)
1 mango cubed
2 pears or golden delicious apples or one of each
1 cantaloupe cubed (Be sure to smell it first. Only choose a sweet smelling fruit.)
1 package of strawberries sliced lengthwise
1 pint of washed blueberries (only in season)
2 star fruit sliced vertically so that you have cute stars
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh mint leaves

Here’s a couple of links in case you’ve never segmented, also known as supreming, an orange or sliced a mango. I certainly would have never known if it weren’t for the food channel.
How To Supreme Citrus

How to Cut a Mango by Chef Allen Susser

I threw all the ingredients, except the star fruit, into a trifle bowl and squeezed the juice from the orange membranes and peels over the fruit. Use any clear glass bowl. Gently toss the salad to make sure its coated with the orange juice. This will keep the pears from getting brown and sweeten any tart un-seasonal fruit. Then wedge stars in the side of the trifle bowl so there is periphery of cute stars. Take the remaining star fruit and spread over the top. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night. You can certainly make this right before your guests arrive. It’s not imperative to overnight this salad, but trust me, you’ll want to do the least amount of work in the morning. Inevitably, there will always be more things to do for the party than you realize.

Bellinis
It’s sounds very sophisticated, but bellinis are simply pureed peaches topped with something sparkly like champagne or prosecco. For any other time than the summer, all you need to do is blend a 15 oz can of peaches. In the summer, when peaches are at their prime, peel, core, and blend fresh overripe peaches.

To peel fresh peaches, simply submerge peaches in boiling water for a minute, then right into ice water. The peel will come right off with gentle pressure.

Ingredients
1 15oz can of peaches or 4-5 fresh over ripe peaches peeled, cored and sliced roughly
simple syrup or syrup from the canned peaches
Champagne or Prosecco

Liquefy peaches in a blender. If it’s very dense, add some syrup to make it more pourable and pulse in the blender.
Pour up to a quarter full of a flute glass with the puree and top slowly with the bubbly. If you pour too fast, the bubbles will overflow.

Spicy Bloody Mary (Large Pitcher)
Ingredients
1 64oz bottle of V8 juice
Juice of 1 lemon
1 and ½ celery stalks grated with a microplane
12 shakes of Tabasco
¼ cup prepared horseradish
4 tbs freshly ground black pepper
½ tbs freshly ground sea salt or regular salt (Don't worry about the sea salt not melting. The acid will absolutely melt the salt down.)
1 cup Vodka, plus some extra
Garnish: Celery stalks washed with ends cut off. Keep the leaves on the stalks.

This will make a lot of bloody mary mix, but it is delicious! Mix all ingredients together. In a perfect world this would taste to your liking. Though, most people will want more spicy, less spicy, more celery, and on and on. So I will confess that this is sort of a draft recipe. You truly need to keep tasting so that all the ingredients fit to your liking. Don’t get me wrong, this recipe is wonderful, but I suppose I’ve made it to my liking. Also, you can completely omit the Tabasco and hold back on the black pepper to make this a much less spicy concoction. Again – it’s all up to you and how you like this cocktail. I added a jigger full of vodka per glass. Some people didn't want to mix drinking vodka with champagne. Of course, if you want to make it with the alcohol before hand then add 1 cup to the mix right before serving.

The Morning of…
Roasted Red Potatoes and Celery Root
Ingredients
6 red potatoes washed and unpeeled, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 large celery root peeled and cubed the same size as the potatoes
1 chopped green bell pepper
1 large onion chopped
½ cup olive oil, plus some extra
½ tbs dried thyme or if using fresh 1 healthy stalk
½ tbs dried rosemary
1 tbs course salt
1 tbs fresh ground black pepper
1 very large bowl
2 baking sheets sprayed with non-stick spray

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Throw all ingredients into a very large bowl and mix ingredients with your hands. Make sure everything is well coated with the oil and herbs. If it seems dry add more olive oil.

Spread vegetables onto the baking sheets. Even if they fit on one large baking sheet, you should still use two to get crispier potatoes. They will otherwise only steam.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and bronze. Half way through turn the potatoes.
While the potatoes are roasting set your table. Pour the bellini and bloody mary mix into pitchers and slice banana bread. After the potatoes are done, knock down the temperature of the oven to 350° and wait a few minutes until the oven reaches the appropriate temperature. Bake the strata for 45 minutes. 10 minutes before the strata is done, you can transfer the potatoes onto one baking dish and stick into the oven on the top rack for the remaining ten minutes so the potatoes and strata are hot at the same time.

Take out the fruit salad from the fridge and sprinkle mint leaves over the top and serve. Happy New Year!

Comfort Me with Reichl

2008-01-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

I'm starting to realize that my fledgling new blog should really have a few more options, besides restaurant Vegetarian options. So to kick off the new year I will be including another favorite past time: Reading.

I’ve had the amazing opportunity to take over a week off from work. Eleven heavenly days to be exact. I have been consumed with Ruth Reichl’s first two memoirs of her trilogy. Like Star Wars I started with the final episode, Garlic & Sapphires almost exactly a year ago and went back to the prequels. Tender at the Bone was a fast read – full of coming of age yumminess about one of my food heroes. As a writer, I will concede that at various times in TATB Reichl lacked some segues to some of her more important feats. One day she's cooking for a unknown Berkeley collective, and in another chapter she's writing articles for the New Yorker. As someone who has dreamed of being a food writer, I wished she could have gone more into the trials of her career and demystified her achievements. Still, it was a great read and piqued my ever growing interest in food writing and food loving.

Reading Comfort Me with Apples makes it clear that she grew into an amazing writer. After just the first chapter Reichl demonstrates her growing expertise. It’s a great inspiration to see how a writer finds her voice. I've yet to finish the book, but I'm delighted to report that what I'm realizing is her most personal work, is fast becoming my favorite of the three, or truly one of my favorite books.

Now I have a tendency to become obsessed with the subject matter with which I am reading about. There was the Johnny Cash/Walk the Line faze. Then came Marie Antoinette with the movie, my trip to her home in Versaille (I did not go for that purpose, but boy was it was satisfying) and finally the still epic long read of Antonia Fraser's boring biography. Now, as you know it's Ruth. So fueling my current obsession, I wanted to share with you The Conversation, an ongoing NY Times video segment. This one focuses on Reichl. After viewing, you’ll know why she is one of my food heroines.

Click here to view video.

Vegetarian Tacos

2007-12-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

The Grey Dog's Coffee
33 Carmine Street
New York, NY

For a good year or so I was pretty devoted to this tiny café. Its exposed brick, kitschy country theme, and early twenty’s hipster staff, made me nostalgic for my college years in Upstate New York. The food has an ultra-comfort food theme with a slight cosmopolitan twist. For example, their thick sliced sour dough grilled cheese accompanied by dense corn chowder – thickest of the thick soups – helps me fall asleep at night. The cosmopolitan twist translates into their version of the quesadilla with wilted spinach, roasted tomatoes and goat cheese.

For me, what makes them so current and loved by their NYU followers is their thoughtful and delicious offering of vegetarian options for almost all their dishes. There was a summer where Jay and I went to the Grey Dog at least twice a week for their Caesar salads. His was topped with grilled chicken, mine with grilled tofu. And of course, the Grey Dog has excellent coffee.

So after being holed up in my apartment this one winter day, I decided to visit my old hang out. Stepping into the little restaurant I realized again why my bi-weekly visits had ceased: it was packed. I walked up to the counter and glanced up to their chalkboard menu. As if bright neon lights circled it, my eyes immediately closed in on one of their newest additions to the menu: Vegetarian Tacos. It looked appealing enough – vegetarian chicken, asparagus and carrot slaw. Hmm, and its vegan. To brighten my glum day, I ordered a banana strawberry smoothie.
The tacos arrived with a side of mesclun greens and diced red cabbage tossed lightly with balsamic vinaigrette and parmesan shards. Hold the parmesan and you can have a full vegan meal.
Jay summed it up best after taking a bite, “There’s nothing Mexican about it, but it’s still good.” He was right. The taco designation was indeed obligatory because the package arrived in tiny little wraps or soft tacos. Nonetheless, they were good, and I must say, very cute. The soft tacos were grilled after assembly giving the wraps a sort of quesadilla crunchiness. The vegetarian chicken, also grilled, had a nice smoky flavor, the asparagus was steamed and seemingly undressed, and the fresh carrot slaw gave the whole experience a clean and crisp ending.

I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the vegetarian chicken. It’s hard to get a good substitute in restaurants. My personal favorite right now is Quorn, which work well in soups, salads, and stir fries. I even used their little tenders to make a mock version of Ina Garten’s delicious Chicken Hash recipe. While I remain loyal to their Griller Crumble, I find that Morningstar offers the worst chicken strip substitute. They are mushy and flavorless.

Today I was satisfied with my selection, but as noted earlier, there was nothing Mexican about it. Which I suppose is ok. I support food appropriation or in culinary terms fusion. Actually, they reminded me of petite chicken wraps, especially when accompanied with a side of remoulade. So my final word is no they were not mind blowing, but I truly appreciated them. Sometimes I see my friends eating these convenient chicken wraps at catered luncheons and I’m envious. With my vegetarian option, I feel like I'm now part of the chicken wrap club.

Trying to Call Me Out

2007-12-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

For the record I do eat fish, which in formal terms, makes me a “Pesci-Vegetarian.” There are people who would take out the latter portion of that designation, based on the first part.

I understand where you’re coming from. I do. Fish are animals. Vegetarians, technically, don’t eat animals, ergo I am not a vegetarian. But really, what are the reasons I stopped eating meat? Is it because I morally object the consumption of animals? Actually, no. I’ve never actually come up with the answer to that question. I am an animal lover and watch nature shows on a regular basis. If you’ve ever watched a lion hunt down and eat wildebeast, it makes you wonder. Yes, I know we are the only the animals that have a conciousness, therefore we should know better – I know my Deepak Chopra. It still doesn’t answer my ethical question. I won't even go into the health aspects because I can slam down a plate of cheese fries with (mushroom) gravy faster than you can blink. Then is it because I’m an environmentalist? Did you know that the majority of the world’s grain production is actually used to feed livestock? Or that global water shortages and pollution have been, at least partially, attributed to the water consumption of the livestock industry? That must be it. Not really. Don’t get me wrong. You’ll find Seventh Generation dish soap in my kitchen, I separate my recycables, and before moving to NYC I’ve even kept compost heaps – even before it was en vogue to be green and people thought I was just a trash-saving-nut.

It’s certainly an added bonus to be kinder to the earth through my diet. Truly my vegetarianism came about after going to a DIY punk rock show. It was my junior year in college and a friend asked me to sell his band's merch while they performed. How fun! I watched the blaring bands, not really understanding their lyrics or how anyone could find enough of a melody to be tapping their feet or bobbing their heads. This really wasn’t my music – I preferred melodic, over-emotional pop rock like the Smith’s or New Order. So I watched a nearby television keeping close guard of my silk-screened beefy T’s, pins, and stickers. My stomach turned. I watched a chicken get hooked by its neck as it struggled down the conveyer belt. I watched pigs crammed shoulder to shoulder standing in their own filth. I watched a cow cry – yes they cry. Realizing that what seemed like an innocuous punk show was actually a vegan benefit, something changed inside me. I knew that what I was watching was wrong. More importantly, I knew it was unnecesarry.

I started by abstaining from red meat. I was never a big steak fan anyway. Then came the chicken, and other varieties of poultry. Luckily, I wasn’t exactly a regular duck or poussant eater back then. It made sense to think that fish came next. I felt empowered by my decision. I felt political.

Then I went home to Queens for the holidays. Maintaning a proud face, I dropped the news on my family days, or maybe even hours before our holiday meal. Having a Filipino background, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. If you know anything about Filipino cuisine – you’ll know that the foundation of it is pork. But after seeing what I saw at the concert, knowing full well that it was a propaganda video and feeling empowered by my newest political action, I was ok with eating sides and dessert for dinner. My family received my news with a grain of salt. I got a few “Of course’s,” some “Right’s,” and at least one “Are you serious?”

It’s an understatement to say that pork is merely the foundation of our cuisine. Truly it is part of our heritage. In case you don’t know, the Phillippines has a vast colonial history – from the Chinese, to the Spanish, and finally to the United States. The Filipino people have a diminishing indigenous history with its final remants only to be found in our food. Right now Filipino cuisine contains elements of Spanish dishes from beefy stews, to rich flans; and from the Chinese we’ve retained savory noodle dishes. The food is a wonderful amalgam of all that is great from these cultures. What have we retained from American culture? Unfortunately, it’s presence brought mainly a love of western designer fashion labels, malls, and fast food joints. Not too mention the braggard way of most Filipinos, including myself. But I’ll cut my diatribe short. I’m giving you an elementary review of our culture because, I will admit, that it is this that keeps me from being a whole vegetarian. You’ll see in many cultures that have sustained much historical damage that they often display a maniacal foodie streak. Jewish people are the greatest example. Culturally, they are one of the biggest foodies I know, and I don't think I need to go into their history. So much of their cultural and historical tradition lies in food. Italians and their love of curing meat and aging wine are another great example. Mussolini couldn’t kill off proscioutto di parma if he tried.

And so, knowing all of this and gaining a better understanding of my cultural history I’ve yet been able to kick the habit of eating fish ten years after that punk show. It makes my mother feel better that instead of using pork, she can use shrimp or fish in her Pancit. It comforts her to think that if we go to a Filipino restaurant together, she can order a whole fish, grilled in banana leaves. I should also mention the comfort that I gain. As an immigrant, it’s nice to have one foot, or fork, still firmly planted in the country I was born in. I know it sounds strange to put so much emphasis on consuming fish, but it’s true. I wholly realize that the fish industry has its own negative ramifications on the environment. I also know that all those rumors about fish not having feelings or their inability to feel pain is probably a myth as well. As my eco-friendly dish soap insists, I’d like to think that I’m only doing my part – albeit I could do more – to preserve our enviroment, and frankly some civility in treating animals.

You can use vegetarianism in technical terms. I like to think of it as a political one. You don’t have to agree with me, but stop calling me out on my fish eating, because at the end of the day I’m still doing less damage to the earth – and that's still a little bit better than most people.

The Grand Poobah of Food-dom: Viva La France!

2007-10-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

I know this made me entirely un-French to do so, but I couldn't possibly see how I would want an odorous plate of cheese for dessert.

My best meal during a recent trip in France was, surprisingly enough, not in Paris. You see, it was my first time in the city and as anyone who has been to Paris knows, it’s easy to squander hours wandering the city your first time. Yet, I had a few small victories.

My best food experiences in Paris were all in transit. I almost wept when I had my first nutella crepe next to the Grande Roue. Years before a friend had reminisced about an indulgent nutella crepe in front of the Eiffel Tower leaving me with such a curiosity of a Parisian crepe. Its comforting elastic texture blanketing the warm chocolaty goodness made me teary. I was finally in France!

Then there was that first sandwich across from my little hotel in the Saint-Germain district. Stale and hungry from a long flight, the first thing we did was stop at a sandwich stand hoping for real food in non-geometrical proportions. The sandwich was set in a beautiful multigrain baguette filled with Emmental cheese, sliced hard boiled eggs, ham (which I happily tossed), and rich butter. It was such a simple combination. I know that part of its comfort had to do with my exhaustion – sometimes when we’re tired simplicity is all we want. But I came to realize that its that simplicity of pure excellent ingredients coming together that makes French food (or most great dishes) genius. And so I walked with a smile on my face, delirious from exhaustion, as I ate my cheese and egg sandwich out of a white paper bag.

Château Jean Bardet, Tours, France

I rarely go to such elegant restaurants. And you should know that I am really all about food that is accessible. I know that a 4-star restaurant isn't exactly that, but how could I not indulge even a little? After all I was in France, great mecca of foodies.

My food story starts the previous day. As we pulled into the chateau’s driveway, pebbles crunching underneath our tires, I was ready to leave.

“This place looks haunted. I know it is. Something tells me that bad things are living here.”

My poor boyfriend looked at me. We had been driving around for hours lost in a dimly-lit, foreign town.

“Can we just give it a chance? You haven’t been inside yet.”

“But I know it’s haunted. I can tell.”

“We have to stay here tonight. Tomorrow we can drive around for a few more hours until we find a place that’s not haunted.”

We walked up to the doorway and a monstrous black dog and one-eyed cat greeted us. “See, there's cujo and one-eyed jack protecting the haunted mansion.”

He bent down to pet cujo – "See he’s very nice." While looking like a murderer, Cujo was actually a sweet bear of a dog. So feeling at the mercy of this enormous canine and Jay’s lack of patience, I offered no more battles or women’s intuition.

The next morning we ate our petite dejeuner and explored the vegetable garden. It was a delight - smelling so fresh and crisp of autumn and overripe vegetables. Everything was green and earthy, filling me with glee. I found a small row labeled as celery root, pondered on what one makes with it and moved on.

Hours later we arrived at Château Bardet’s four-star restaurant. Instantly I felt comfortable – something I didn’t anticipate at a French restaurant of that caliber. A young sommelier approached our table seeking to provide us with an aperitif.

“We, monsieur.”

Mixed with a sparkling rose, the cassis provided a vibrant and optimistic beginning. Upon reading the menu – or having it translated to me – I was seduced by an appetizer of celery root having seen its humble beginnings earlier that day. Second course would be grilled swordfish. Could I have a cheese plate? I know this made me entirely un-French to do so, but I couldn't possibly see how I would want an odorous plate of cheese for dessert. (Later in the meal, I would feel envious watching a young French woman devouring her cheese course with knife and fork.) Dessert! I pre-ordered my Grand Marnier soufflé. And with that I felt as if I had shook hands and sealed the deal with the food gods.

The amous bouche was a crostini topped with a salty white fish. Its tang immediately brought me to a family vacation in Mystic Connecticut. I remembered the foggy afternoon, the smell of fresh fish, and the petite bottles of malt vinegar at all the small restaurants.

Next came the celery root. I will forever remember the importance of this root. The veg was warmed through, which softened the sharp celery flavor, and crowned with an ochre-colored sauce tasting of mild cheese, butter and cream. It tasted very yellow. I looked out the window and remembered seeing where it came from. I closed my eyes and chewed every morsel slowly. I wasn't prepared to fall in love with this dish. How could just a few simple ingredients taste so heavenly, warm and nourishing? No meat, no fish, not even an herb to be found. It was like a gratin without the gratin dish. Jay started with a lobster carpaccio and had a similar heady experience.

After that, I can barely remember the swordfish. I'm also sorry to say that my pre-ordered souffle was actually a disappointment. The souffle was the lightest of all clouds, but as it melted on my tongue all I could taste was the astringent hit of the liquor. Still I will always remember this meal and that wonderful root. France for me was all things simple combined with a thoughtful creativity. There's a tangible feeling in France that the people always remember their past - from the architecture, to the art, and to the food.

The ferocious one-eyed Jack.