September 2009


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Finding a Happy Home for Hash Browns

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It’s one of my favorite times of year—there are a shit ton of tomatoes everywhere. The tomato soup I made last week left an awesome taste in my mouth and I couldn’t wait to create that on a bigger scale.  More tomatoes. More garlic. More wine.

This time around I again roasted the tomatoes, but I also sauteed an onion while the tomatoes were in the oven. Oh, and before I roasted the tomatoes I strained the juice and reserved that for later in the process. So onion, roasted tomato, garlic, juice of tomatoes, red wine vinegar (no wine opened) and then some fresh sage.

Ah. Fresh sage. I was at my uncle’s house this past weekend and holy lord he has a serious garden. I lugged back 3 or 4 bags worth of rosemary, sage, basil and this herb that smells so strongly of lemon (lemon balm?).

Actually, here’s my uncle with a tomato. He also grows raspberries, blueberries, hot peppers, mustard greens, purple beans, okra and lots of other goodies. One day I’ll have a backyard… (or maybe I can stay in the city and take advantage of a rooftop!)

unclesheldon

Anyway, the soup was crazy chunky and I just wasn’t perfectly pleased. Then my sister grabbed leftovers from lunch: hash browns from the diner. She conducted a search for a snack while I thought up dinner, but concluded cold, old hash browns were not the snacking answer. They were however, the answer to dinner.

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in Cheese / Recipe / Veggie 5 comments
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An Outstanding Dinner in the City…Er, Field

Honey Glazed Pork Rack

A quiet Sunday in late August on a nondescript corner of Manhattan’s Alphabet City. The corner is walled by the branches of a decades-old willow tree and an array of urban flowers, and a sign sitting on the sidewalk reads “Farm Dinner.” A hundred-odd people have gathered for a dinner experience that has traversed the country and rests at this location for only two nights. The location is La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden, the chef is  Josh Eden of Shorty’s 32 and the host is Jim Denevan, founder of Outstanding in the Field.

Denevan and his Outstanding in the Field team travel the country in a bright red bus offering a roving five-course dinner with a simple concept: source your ingredients locally (including the wine), find a chef who is celebrated regionally, then invite all of your closest friends. OK, so the last part I ad libbed. The elaborate event was more like a wedding where everyone was giddily excited but no one knew each other. Fortunately, no one was seated at the kiddies table. After a glass of wine or two, it wasn’t a problem — we were all old friends catching up over a great meal. I was fortunate enough to be seated across from the photographer of the OITF website and cookbook, who was a host of knowledge on the food, which made my experience ever more fascinating.

More on the OITF menu, and some drool-y food shots, after the jump.

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in Personal / Photos 0 comments
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Lists Are Decieving

I’m not entirely sure how these magazine “Top fill-in-the-blank” lists are generated. There clearly must be some genuine merit in the list making. But there may also be some pay-for-play going on. But, whatever, lists are fun. Clearly here on ES we’re a bit obsessed.

Fortune (in conjunction with CNN/Money—conglomerates are unclear) released the 2009 50 Most Powerful Women list. When I saw the link via Twitter I was totally pumped. I love girl power.

But as I scrolled, I couldn’t even make it past the top 3. They all worked for food-based companies. You’d think as a food writer I’d be totally pumped. But no, these women worked for huge companies that are contributing to our current obesity epidemic and the overall poor health of the nation and the environment.

I really do usually try to provide women-friendly commentary, but I have to say that I’m embarrassed that these women promote such unhealthy eating habits. Although it’s been proven that when a woman breaks through the glass ceiling it will help other women in that company attain promotions and pay equity, I’m just not so sure I want today’s working women to follow this path.

Maybe this woman’s though.

Here are the top 3 women in Fortune’s list and their offenses:

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in Lists / Rants & Raves 5 comments
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Please, Sir, I Want Some More…Mark Bittman

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It’s not every day that I find myself advocating for more exposure of a middle-aged food dude with a somewhat elitist tone to his voice, but I have to say, we could all stand to be getting a higher daily allotment of Mark Bittman.  Sure, his weekly column in the NYT is terrific and his cookbook, How to Cook Everything, is plenty good enough that we would be happy if that was all we got, but relegating him to the printed page or computer monitor is a bit of a disservice.

So I’m calling on the TV gods to grace us with even more Mark Bittman.  He manages to bring obvious authority and knowledge to the audience while providing sound, simple recipes and tips, finding the difficult balance between being a food snob and a just-get-it-on-the-table home cook.

Not convinced?  He’s got a few other things going for him.  Here’s three compelling reasons Mark Bittman should be turning up on or TV screens at least as often as Guy Fieri.

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in Celebs / TV / Veggie 8 comments
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First Class Virgins

turkey-florentine-roll1

I happened to be one of the fortunate few who survived the Labor Day weekend unscathed from flight delays and lost luggage, unlike a lot of my friends, so I thought I’d spend the time reporting back some of the culinary experiences I had at 36,000ft. When flying coast to coast, my preferred choice of airline is Virgin America.  Not only do they provide an excellent flying experience, but they’re also able to give me a taste of home, thanks Sir Richard. And, since Travel + Leisure recently named VA home of the best airline food, I had to check this out in more detail.

We all know that airline food is over priced and totally sub-par, so I wasn’t prepared to spend a lot of cash on poor quality airline food. Yes, my expectations were high going into this as you can tell. With that in mind I upgraded myself so I wouldn’t feel cheated when ordering the food — it also enabled me to skip the security lines and get drunk in the air on the free champagne- what else was I to do on a 6hr flight from IAD to LAX?

The good, the bad, and the soggy, after the jump.

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in Food Travel / Personal / Rants & Raves 7 comments
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Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

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– Belmontmedina has an important addition to Bliz’ list of the Top 10 Tailgating foods:

And let us not forget the most important tailgating accessory- the red Dixie cup. (That’s a solo cup for you northerners.)

– Which has Leah out on the investigative trail:

Speaking of solo cups..has anyone noticed they changed them? They took out the interior line. I mean seriously, how am I supposed to measure now…from mixed drinks to beer pong..not cool.

– Nick is getting into Ted Allen’s new gig:

After watching a bunch of episodes… I actually think Chopped is maybe the hardest of the cooking reality TV shows to win.

I’m really surprised that more contestants don’t completely botch the meals.

My favorite botch now that I’m on the subject was when a guy was making some sort of cake and got the salt and sugar mixed up… never tasted the batter… OOPS.

What about the rest of you? Are you liking Chopped or still dedicated to Top Chef?

– Oh, and a big thanks to everyone who has been dropping their bonus bacon recipes on our 100 ways to use a stick of bacon post. Check out the new additions, and keep ’em coming!

in Bacon / Drinks / Pig / TV 2 comments
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Time to Social-ize

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Social’s savory spin on the traditional Louisiana pastry, the Beignet.

Brace yourselves people… I’m about to gush. Last Saturday I went to Social – a new D.C. restaurant located at the north end of Columbia Heights. Social is the first lounge-y, Dupontish-style joint to venture north of Columbia Road, but it thankfully forgoes the snooty downtown attitude in favor of warmly welcoming waitstaff and hosts, and a design that encourages you to stay and hang out all night (and get Social – get it?).

The service was superlative, the lounge-y setup is comfortable (think low lights, candles, comfy black couches and chairs, softly stuccoed walls, and plenty of cherry wood tables to rest your drinks and food upon), the drinks were fun and dangerously delicious, and the food … the food was incredible.  Period.

The food is Creole/Cajun and Asian fusion inspired. This is a serious claim to make in my estimation – as much of my mother’s family hails from Louisiana.  I get pissed when restaurants purport to be Creole or Creole-inspired and then fail to come through with the requisite creativity and spicy zestiness that typifies Creole cooking. But Social delivers creative menu items ranging from meatball pomodoro sliders (a large portion of which our group scarfed down in less than five minutes) to “Mud Bug” Beignets (the crawfish fritters, pictured above. Sometime ES blogger Edubs described these fritters as shredded and deliciously spiced crawfish goodness, surrounded by a lightly fried batter). Edubs also fully enjoyed snagging bites of her husband‘s Sonoran Mahi Mahi Tacos — corn tortillas filled with an unexpectedly intricate blend of southwestern, Mexican, and south pacific flavors – the crisp citrus tones of the grilled and marinated white fish were accented by jalapeño cabbage and mango salsa and were topped with tomato and garlic sauce.

The menu is organized in a really interesting fashion.  It’s built to handle parties of varying sizes.   You can order 3 different portion sizes, which was perfect for our birthday group, as we waxed and waned in size throughout the night.

More stories about gorging on cheftastic kitchen creations and dodging skeezey dudes after the jump…

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in Cheese / Drinks / Restaurants / Veggie 9 comments
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