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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 22:10:48 GMT -5
Published on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 by the New York Times A Side Order of Human Rightsby Eric SchlosserAnd now a word of good news from the world of fast food. Last month, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group that represents farm workers in southern Florida, announced that it was ending a four-year boycott of Taco Bell. The most remarkable thing about the announcement was the reason behind it: Taco Bell had acceded to all of the coalition's demands. At a time of declining union membership, failed organizing drives and public apathy about poverty, a group of immigrant tomato pickers had persuaded an enormous fast food company - Yum Brands, which in addition to Taco Bell owns KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W All American Food Restaurants and Long John Silver's - to increase the wages of migrant workers and impose a tough code of conduct on Florida tomato suppliers. "Human rights are universal," said Jonathan Blum, a senior vice president of Yum, adding that under Taco Bell's new labor rules "indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden." The need for a corporate edict against slavery in the United States reveals just how bad things have become for farm workers. But it also suggests that the fast food companies now sitting atop America's food system can prevent the sort of abuses that state and federal officials seem unwilling to address. Migrant farm workers have long been the nation's poorest group of workers. Although wages and working conditions greatly improved during the 1970's, thanks to the efforts of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, the rise of illegal immigration and anti-union sentiment later eroded those gains. In California, where more than half of America's fruits and vegetables are grown (and mainly picked by hand), the hourly wages of some farm workers adjusted for inflation have fallen by more than 50 percent since 1980. - www.commondreams.org/views05/0406-23.htm
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 23:00:09 GMT -5
As Cash Flows In, India Goes Out to EatBy MONICA BHIDE Published: April 20, 2005 BANGALORE, India YOGURT hasn't traditionally been a source of family tension among the Indian middle class. But things have changed in this most traditionbound of countries. "Much to my mother's chagrin I use store-bought yogurt," said Rujuta Jog, 24, a recently married office worker. "And my mother-in-law was upset when she saw that I use Pillsbury flour to make rotis. She still prefers to buy wheat and grind it fresh." Ms. Jog's mother, like most Indian women of her generation, has always cooked everything from scratch. But unlike her mother, Ms. Jog works 40 hours a week outside the home. She and her husband often just order from restaurants, which are more varied and widespread than ever before in cities like Bangalore. Millions of others are doing the same. The amount spent nationally on meals outside the home has more than doubled in the past decade, to about $5 billion a year, and is expected to double again in about half that time, according to Euromonitor International, a market research company. As India has opened its doors to foreign trade, millions of its people have found themselves with more lucrative jobs, less free time and greater exposure to foreign influences. In the process, what they eat and the way they eat have changed. - tinyurl.com/8cv2b
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 23:09:25 GMT -5
Bar Etiquette 101: Or How To Get Served A Good Drink Quickly Even When It's BusyFlagpole March 2002Someone once pointed out to me the fact that there seems to be a micro-economy in the service industry. Restaurant workers take their tip money out to bars and clubs at night and give it to the bartenders, who promptly return it to the waiters and waitresses the next day at lunch. The cycle is almost self-sufficient and is mutually beneficial. Knowing the pain of waiting on customers, each group tips the other well and never raises a fuss. These people do not need to be educated. The rest of you do. Many of us have stood in a noisy, crowded bar and asked, "What's a guy got to do to get a drink around here?" Well, you're about to find out. Here are some Do's and Don'ts that will keep the relationship between the bartender and bar patron running smoothly. - soulbar.com/etiquette.htm
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 23:26:39 GMT -5
Chicken Liver PatéThis inexpensive pate can be prepared quickly, although it needs 10 to 12 hours in the refrigerator to set. It yields enough for about 60 toasts. This is a precooked pâté. The cooked ingredients are combined into what is sometimes called a mousse, meaning "foam" in French, something that is beaten to produce an emulsion and a light texture. Dishes combined with whipped cream or beaten egg whites often take the name of mousse, such as chocolate mousse or scallop, or chicken liver mousse, akin to this pâté. This pâté, made with uncooked butter, is lighter and more digestible than one made with pork or chicken fat and cooked. It is important to respect the proportion of fat to liver. Excess liver makes the pâté dark, strong, bitter, and grainy. Be sure that the livers are free of sinews and of any part that is green, which indicates that some of the bitter bile has been in contact with the liver. Pale yellow livers tend to have a mellow, rich taste and are preferable to deep red ones. Pâtés usually do not freeze well, especially coarse country pates. The inside becomes watery and grainy. Because of its extra-smooth and compact texture, however, this chicken liver pate freezes perfectly. Do not freeze with the aspic or decoration. To freeze, cover tightly with plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. Defrost it slowly under refrigeration for 24 to 48 hours before decorating and glazing. Small soufflé molds are ideal for freezing because they can be defrosted in only a couple of hours. - follow link for recipeI've made this many times—for many people, who are happy that I did. Simple and delicious. I usually incorporate less butter (I prefer to use duck fat if I have it in the fridge) than the recipe calls for—experiment to find the flavour/texture balance you prefer.
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 23:41:35 GMT -5
21 Questions With Chef Anthony BourdainBy Gregory CartierWhen Anthony Bourdain set out to write a book about cooks, for cooks, in 1999, he never had worldwide acclaim and success on his mind. Now, years after Kitchen Confidential became a sensation and hot on the heels of A Cook's Tour (both the book and television series on the Food Network), Bourdain sat down with me in New York at Les Halles, where he is still executive chef, to discuss food, cooks, travel, and his future projects. Q: Tell me about Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking. This is a new take on the traditional cookbook genre, is it not? A: It is immediately recognizable as something that is designed to have food spilled on it. To be used in the kitchen, wrapped in brown butcher paper... this is not cocktail table food porn, where you look at it and don't do it. There are no original recipes in it, they're all recipes from Les Halles, all classic bistro, brasserie dishes. - www.askmen.com/fashion/wine_dine_60/94_wine_dine.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 23:51:15 GMT -5
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 Pasta alla CarusoWhile I've recovered from the little virus I had over the weekend, I'm still licking my emotional wounds over missing that 50 to 1 longshot in the Kentucky Derby. After all, he was named in honor of my favorite opera composer, Giacomo Puccini. Alas, when it comes to the bangtails, I spend far too much time trying to quantify a race's outcome with mathematics, rather than hunches. And I remain squeamish at the notion of parting with $2.00 on a horse with post time odds of 50 to 1. Nevertheless, the whole experience caused me to think about opera, which in turn, led to thoughts about one of my favorite pasta dishes, named in behalf of one of the greatest tenors in the history of opera: Pasta alla Caruso. So if I had a Jones for Pasta alla Caruso on Saturday, by the time I felt up to cooking pasta yesterday, I had a serious Jones. I rarely go more than two days without eating pasta. Enrico Caruso's passion for food—and cooking—nearly equaled his passion for opera. During his tenure at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, he sponsored the citizenship of more than a dozen chefs from his home town, Naples; possibly to repair his deprivation of the Napoletano cuisine he missed. Further, he helped them to open restaurants and pizzerias in Little Italy, and on evenings when he wasn't singing, he would spend time working in their kitchens. - skiplombardi.blogspot.com/2005/05/pasta-alla-caruso.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 14:24:53 GMT -5
ASIAN POP: SuperchompKorean-born Sonya Thomas is the No. 1 ranked female competitive eater in the USA.- Amy Moon, SF Gate Thursday, May 26, 2005 Sonya Thomas is thin. At 5 feet 5 inches and 99 pounds, the Alexandra, Va., resident is one of those people about whom you think, "She must eat like a bird." And, in fact, she does, but only because birds supposedly eat twice their body weight in food. Not surprisingly, her name notwithstanding, Thomas is Korean. Have you ever gone out for Korean BBQ? How did you feel when you left the table? Full? I thought so. (I once asked a Korean friend whether her parents approved of her white boyfriend (now husband), and she sighed and said, "Well, he's a good eater, so that was good.") Thomas, South Korean born, 37 years old and single, is the No. 1 female competitive eater in the United States. She is ranked second in the world, with 22 world titles, and regularly outeats men four and five times her size in contests held throughout the year, earning the self-appointed moniker the Black Widow." - tinyurl.com/889he
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 15:17:27 GMT -5
When the Sous-Chef Is an InkjetBy DAVID BERNSTEIN Published: February 3, 2005 HOMARO CANTU'S maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy. But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings. At least two or three food items made of paper are likely to be included in a meal at Moto, which might include 10 or more tasting courses. Even the menu is edible; diners crunch it up into a bowl of gazpacho, creating Mr. Cantu's version of alphabet soup. - tinyurl.com/65vts
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 15:26:32 GMT -5
KnivesArguably, the first cooking implement created was the knife. Knives were used for hunting and gathering, as well as for food preparation. Skipping forward a few millenniums, the knife remains one of the most important tools, if not the most important tool, in the kitchen. As important as the knife is, I am amazed when I visit home kitchens, both in France and America, to find a plethora of poor quality knives. Plus the knives are poorly treated, and their owners often don’t know how to use them properly. And my experience in professional kitchens hasn’t always been much better. Maybe my expectations are too high? After all, most knives aren’t sold with instructions for use. And if they were, who would read them? No one shows us how to use a knife when we are young. Maybe there’s some instruction in a cooking class, but was the instruction correct? (I’ve seen a lot of cooking teachers use knives incorrectly, too!) Maybe it’s all a conspiracy of the “Band-Aid” cartels! One proficiency that is required of French cooking students before they can apprentice in a restaurant is that they have excellent knife skills. Often, they don’t seem to know much else, but I’ve been amazed at their abilities with a knife. On the next few pages is “Knife Basics 101.” I’ll first review some knife anatomy and design. That page is followed by one with a brief discussion of knife materials — which are best and why. Next, there’s my version of how to use knives — the most important part of this article. Finally, there’s some information on caring fo, storing, and sharpening knives. This is not meant to be an exhaustive dissertation on knives, but a highly opinionated overview. - www.hertzmann.com/articles/2001/knives/
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 19:33:30 GMT -5
Chairman Mao Chocolate Oatmeal CookiesThirty-eight years ago today my mother caught her first sight of me in St. Joseph's Hospital in Chicago. I'm pretty pleased she decided to have another kid and I hope she still is too. I know there have been moments in the last 38 years where she was less pleased but now that I've presented her with a grandson I think I'm golden. Anyway that is neither here nor there. The point is that I like to bring something nice to work for my colleagues when it's my birthday. It's a nice modest way of acknowledging it's a special day and in return for a small investment in chocolate and flour I get treated nicely all day. And so last night I rummaged through the cupboards looking for inspiration. I found it in the shape of poor Chairman Mao. He was a little dark chocolate bust of the Chairman that my husband's former boss gave him for his birthday. I say poor Mao because he toppled one day from the counter and all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put him back together again. I decided to use the remains of Mao in a twist on one of my favourite cookie recipes: the Fannie Farmer Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies. I credit my brother with finding this recipe, which became a cornerstone of my baking life. He probably chose it because the oatmeal made the cookies vaguely healthy. I love it because the dark chocolate is dense, the oatmeal is chewy and the combination of vanilla extract and almond flavouring is inspired. How can you improve on such a great recipe, you may ask? Well, first off you can slightly increase the amount of chocolate called for in the recipe. (I've always done that!) Next you can add small chunks of Chairman Mao chocolate. And then you can add a few dried cranberries. The tangy cranberries are set off perfectly by the dark chocolate and they add to the chewiness of the cookie. And extra chocolate, well, how can you go wrong there? After some 30 years of making chocolate oatmeal cookies I can't believe I have actually found a way to improve them, but it's true! - follow this link to the recipe
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 27, 2005 11:10:09 GMT -5
A Field Guide to SakeFound out that if you can chew a piece of potato for around a minute without vomiting, it starts to becomes sweeter. This is because the enzymes in saliva start converting the starch into sugar. Why is this interesting? Because the first things you think of when you hear sugar is alcohol. Rice doesn't have sugar, it has starch which makes things difficult for novice cultures. The anecdotal origin of sake in Japan is that it was first made by chewing the rice, spitting it out, and then letting it ferment. It's also said that this skill was learnt by watching monkeys and their resultant more than usual silliness (dancing, unplanned copulation, kebobs...). Now obviously it's a lot slicker now, unplanned copulation may also require suave behaviour for example. Sake production has also moved forward in a way that's so complicated that I can't explain it now. Not that I don't want to but I think the more pressing need is a buying guide. The first rule is that if it has the roman characters "o" "n" and "e" on top and the roman characters "c" "u" and "p" below, it is to be avoided, unless desperate, same for ones in cardboard containers. After that, it's a little trickier. Click on the two label pics and you'll find notes attached explaining each kanji character. There aren't that many kanji characters so it isn't that hard. - spiceblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/field-guide-to-sake.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 27, 2005 14:08:31 GMT -5
September 07, 2004 Destination: Montreal, CanadaBeginning today (and continuing into next week as well), The Food Section travels to Montreal for the third edition of Moveable Feast. Previously installments of this ongoing feature have taken this site to Florence, Italy, and Washington, DC, for a snapshot of local food culture beyond New York City. While these earlier feasts have been helmed by guest editors, this time I will personally captain the ship as The Food Section ventures north of the border for a taste of Montreal -- from the city's French-influenced restaurants to its bountiful public markets. (A special thanks to Martine of Banlieusardises and Suburblicious for her e-mails guiding us to some of Montreal's best gastronomical offerings). But first, a few fleeting observations of Montreal, the city. * * * The first time I visited Montreal was last summer, when my wife and I went there to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. We had such a wonderful time on that visit that we were determined to travel there again, and we returned for a brief vacation this past August. Montreal feels at once very familiar and completely foreign. On the one had, the city is only seven hours away from New York. The same amount of driving time could take you from New York City to Cape Cod, but a trip to Montreal puts you in a completely new environment that is linguistically and culturally different than our own. I don’t think I’ll never get over the fact that you can make such a journey in a day’s drive. On the other hand, although there are moments in Montreal when you could mistake yourself for being in Europe, the city is distinctly North American. Take the cars, for example. As my wife likes to point out, the scale of the automobiles in Montreal is the same as what you would find in the United States -- you won’t find any Smart Cars bounding around and SUVs seem to be as popular there as they are here. And, although French language is on display everywhere -- in shop and street signs, bookstores, and newspapers, nearly everyone we came into contact with was bilingual, slipping easily from French into English, often without any discernable accent. - www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2004/09/destination_mon.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 27, 2005 17:03:11 GMT -5
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 28, 2005 16:32:36 GMT -5
Fish TalesSteve Kravitz finds the fresh and the fishy in Toronto's seafood marketsAt the City Fish Market on Dufferin St., I watch a fishmonger skin skate wings. He takes the sand-coloured triangles from a tote and slices back a tab of skin. With one hand he grabs the tab with a pair of pliers; with the other, he presses down on the meat with a potato-masher-like tool. Then he pulls. The skin makes a slurping, ripping sound as it's peeled off the meat. I peer into the tote at the unpeeled wings and pick one up. It's brown-spotted and covered with barbs. It's smaller than I'm used to, less than a foot along its length. The fishmonger tells me it's an Atlantic skate from Boston. That explains it. Before moving to Toronto, I worked on British Columbia fishing boats, catching skate, among other things. Among Pacific skate species, we caught mostly big skate, each one the size of a kitchen table. The fish were too big to keep whole, so we would "wing" them. I would pick up a live skate by the nose and stick a knife through its gill slits. Then I would cut along the length of the body, separating the wing from the torso. As I cut, the fish's guts would fall out in a lumpy orange-gray pile. Its mouth would still be gasping for water as I kicked its empty body over the side. - www.journalism.ryerson.ca/online/mosaic/ohcan/skravitz.htm
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 28, 2005 19:01:36 GMT -5
The Canadienne Cattle Breed is unique to Canada. The breed’s foundation is based on animals imported from the Normandy area of France in 1608 to 1610. Later importations came from Brittany and Gascony. There is no indication of what type of cattle were imported and no effort was made to breed the different types separately. The melting pot effect took over. With the population remaining largely closed to breeds they eventually took on an appearance and type of their own and became known as “The Canadienne” or “Black Canadian” or “French Canadian” breed. In 1850, the Canadian Parliament was advised that the Canadienne cattle were the only cattle in Quebec except for a few herds of Ayrshires and Shorthorn. In 1853 the Council of Agriculture began to discourage farmers from breeding these cattle so, by 1880 “there was hardly a French Canadian in the Province that thought enough of his cow to give her more attention that he would a dog”. At this time two or three men decided to save the breed from extinction by starting a breed society. In 1886 a herd book was maintained. In 1895 the French Canadian Cattle Breeders ‘ Association was formed. This new breed “La Canadienne” remains the only dairy breed today to have been developed on the North American continent. - tinyurl.com/7t7cy
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 28, 2005 19:29:54 GMT -5
The Better Burger BattleAmerican cuisine is identified around the world with this sandwich. We have taken the idea of placing broiled, fried or even steamed ground beef between bread or buns with a bewildering array of condiments to the point where the hamburger may be the icon of American food. In the Northeast, except for the steamed cheeseburger (see below), there are no clear regions of how the hamburger is treated but two of the claimants to the throne of the birthplace of this sandwich are in the region so it needs to be included. ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION Ground Beef and the Word "Hamburger"The origin of ground beef is accepted to have been with Mongolian and Turkic tribes known as Tartars who shredded low-quality beef from Asian cattle to make it more edible and digestible. Russian Tartars, possibly through other peoples in the Baltics, introduced it to Germany before the 14th century. The Germans flavored it with regional spices and either cooked it or ate it raw. It became a standard meal for poorer classes and in Hamburg aquired the name "Hamburg steak"(Panati 1987). Panati (1987) claims that the steak came to the United States with German immigrants in the late 19th century but another source (Mariani 1994) claims that "Hamburg Steak" appeared on a menu at Delmonico's (New York City) as early as 1834. By 1899 the dish was on menus as far away as Walla Walla, WA. ( 204.32.48.195/htm/chron/wldarcmtsf.stm#hmbr ) and in 1902 it is described in one of the most widely used cookbooks of the time, Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book (Mariani 1994). It is clear that the word "hamburger" predates the idea of putting the grilled beef between bread and came to this country with German immigrants. The Patty Between BreadCivic pride is not something to toy with and there is a lot of that associated with being the birthplace of the hamburger. If it were only one place there would be no problem, but I have uncovered four places in the United States (two of them in the Northeast) that claim to be where the hamburger, as a sandwich, was invented. All the stories have elements that are central to our culture - thrift, ingenuity, hucksterism and convenience. All the legends have strong local supporters and in three of the places there are festivals commemorating the birth, although none of the festivals is very old. To avoid playing favorites, I am going to recite the stories alphabetically rather than chronologically. - www.geography.ccsu.edu/harmonj/atlas/burgers.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 29, 2005 17:55:18 GMT -5
The Ins and Outs of Pots and PansI think much of what is important about cookware is a matter of personal preference. I like pots that in the best of circumstances work well, but are also somewhat forgiving if you do happen to overheat and burn something. While I try to use mostly wooden utensils, a pot that can't handle metal utensils is a real hassle for me. Bearing that in mind, some other things about cookware are close to universal. For example, thick is almost always better than thin to avoid hotspots. The cookware you select will inevitably be a compromise. Here are my experiences: - www.epicurean.com/articles/pots-and-pans.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 29, 2005 18:17:36 GMT -5
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremonyby Emily DoyleEthiopia's coffee ceremony is an integral part of their social and cultural life. An invitation to attend a coffee ceremony is considered a mark of friendship or respect and is an excellent example of Ethiopian hospitality. Performing the ceremony is almost obligatory in the presence of a visitor, whatever the time of day. Don't be in a hurry though - this special ceremony can take a few hours. So sit back and enjoy because it is most definitely not instant. - www.epicurean.com/articles/ethiopian-coffee-ceremony.html* Japanese Tea CeremonyThe Japanese tea ceremony (cha-no-yu, chado, or sado) is a traditional ritual influenced by Zen Buddhism in which powdered green tea, or matcha (抹茶), is ceremonially prepared by a skilled practitioner and served to a small group of guests in a tranquil setting. Cha-no-yu (茶の湯, literally "hot water for tea"), usually refers to a single ceremony or ritual, while sado or chado (茶道, or "the way of tea") refer to the study or doctrine of tea ceremony. Since a tea practitioner must be familiar with the production and types of tea, with kimono, calligraphy, flower arranging, ceramics, incense and a wide range of other disciplines and traditional arts in addition to his or her school's tea practices, the study of tea ceremony takes many years and often lasts a lifetime. Even to participate as a guest in a formal tea ceremony requires knowledge of sado, including the prescribed gestures and phrases expected of guests, and the proper way to take tea and sweets, and general deportment in the tea room. - www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/culture/japanese_tea_ceremony.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 29, 2005 20:07:21 GMT -5
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 29, 2005 20:12:37 GMT -5
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 1, 2005 18:03:53 GMT -5
May 31, 2005 Apple Gallette in PhylloThe gallette is a freeform pie or tart and is a great way to toss together something tasty when you don't have much time to make dessert: A little fruit, a little booze, a handful of pine nuts, a handful of raisins, some butter, some spices and some phyllo dough and you're in business here. It's the phyllo that's the real timesaver. I was used to phyllo being a real pain in the butt to work with until I discovered that there are more brands of phyllo that Pepperidge Farm. PF phyllo is very good but dries out quickly. I used Apollo Fillo #4, which doesn't have quite the amazing texture of thinner phyllo dough but is much easier to work with. The recipe here is enough for two galettes. One piece of advice - make sure the galette has completely cooled before you store it under glass or in the fridge. If there's any residual heat, the steam will make the phyllo soft again, robbing the gallette of its crispy crunch. - recipe and destructions
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 4, 2005 19:00:56 GMT -5
Friday, June 3, 2005 Kitchen Notes: Making ButterSometimes, buying cream in bulk is too good of a deal to pass up. For about the price of two cups (470 mL) of heavy cream at the supermarket, you can pick up a half gallon (8 cups) at the local wholesaler. But, unless you're cooking for a party, that's a lot of cream to use up before you hit the expiration date. After you've made a couple cream pies, clam chowder, and topped your angel food cake, you realize that you've only used four cups of cream! What do you do with the rest? Well. . . I make butter. I suppose I'm obliged to talk briefly about how butter isn't actually bad for you and how natural saturated fats can actually be beneficial to your body and, maybe, even necessary for good health. I'll try to keep it short: In an earlier article on the topic of Saturated Fats, Cholesterol, and Heart Disease, I wrote about the misinformation concerning saturated fats (the family of fats that butter belongs to) and questioned the link between cholesterol and heart disease. Scientific studies that make a distinction between natural fats and processed fats show that previous evidence that linked fat consuming with obesity and heart disease may not be as straightforward as the commonly believed notion that fat consumption increases weight gain and the risk of heart disease. More and more often, as studies are being conducted more accurately (by not lumping processed fats with natural fats in the same category of study), it is being shown that there is either no correlation between natural fat consumption and obesity and in some cases an argument can be made that the consumption of natural fats can actually promote weight loss! - tinyurl.com/dzxru
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 5, 2005 14:52:52 GMT -5
Inside the Tandoor, Secrets That StickSeasoning Is Always A Work in ProcessBy Walter Nicholls Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 16, 2005; Page F01 On a recent afternoon, chef Vikram Garg is bent over his clay pot tandoor, seasoning the oven. He holds a kitchen towel that has been twisted into the kind of whip commonly used in middle school locker rooms. It's dripping green globs. With a practiced hand, he twirls it inside his tandoor until every inch of the surface is covered. After a few hours of drying time, he will fire up the modern, gas-fueled tandoor to low heat and start a three-day curing process to prepare the oven for baking. At the hot, new Indian-inspired French restaurant, IndeBleu, chefs bake more than 1,000 pieces of bread on a busy night for Naan Provencal. That's executive chef Garg's leavened flat bread topped with fresh, chopped herbs and crunchy sea salt. But this volume of baking is tough on a tandoor. So Garg makes sure his is in shape by applying a traditional vegetable-based seasoning, a sort of do-it-yourself Teflon, to the interior wall. - www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36402-2005Mar15.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 5, 2005 14:56:19 GMT -5
Food 101 More Skinny On Trans FatsBy Robert L. Wolke Wednesday, March 16, 2005; Page F01 I have always told my classes that they may ask questions at any time. I wanted to avoid waiting until the end of the lecture to ask, "Are there any questions?" Because if no questions came forth, there were two possible explanations: Either my lecture had been so brilliant that not the tiniest point remained unclear, or the students were so befuddled they didn't know what to ask. I didn't want to have to guess which. So I didn't end my March 2 column on "fats for dummies" with the words, "Are there any questions?" -- not because I feared an absence of questioning e-mails. I knew my deliberately oversimplified treatment had left a lot of room for questions. Here, then, is a follow-up primer on fats -- not for dummies, but to fill in some of the gaps. Before you get too conceited about your knowledge of fats, however, remember that we are all fatheads. About 60 percent of the dry weight of our brains is fat. - www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36400-2005Mar15.html
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 5, 2005 16:38:31 GMT -5
Butchers' best-kept secretSeldom-seen flap meat is giving better-known steaks a run for the moneyTara Duggan, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Steak eaters are slaves to fashion. While a tender piece of filet or New York strip is timeless, restaurant goers are flocking to lesser bistro steaks such as hanger, skirt and flank. Though fibrous and chewy, they are packed with flavor. The popularity of these steaks -- among Latin American and Asian as well as French bistro chefs -- has driven up the price, making these once lowly meats either hard to find or more expensive than their rough texture might merit. That's where flap meat comes in. Also called flap steak, the unflatteringly named cut is similar to skirt and flank in that it comes from the less tender regions of the animal. Often cheaper than more popular cuts, this little underdog of the beef world has a wonderful meaty flavor and fine texture when prepared carefully. That's why it's starting to show up in more markets, from the butcher case at Berkeley's Cafe Rouge to 99 Ranch Market. "It's a beautiful steak," says Eduardo Martinez, kitchen manager at Bi- Rite Market in San Francisco, which sells marinated Niman Ranch flap meat. "It's a nice option to the more expensive cuts of steak, like the flatiron, which is kind of a commodity because all the restaurants use it." - tinyurl.com/ax473
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 5, 2005 16:51:41 GMT -5
Poori Chapati of FireThe final of this week's tryptich of recipes from Sunday's dinner is another from Yamuna Devi's Lord Krishna's Cuisine, the Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. Poori Chapati is a stovetop wheat bread that uses no oil during cooking and which puffs up beautifully. You may want the party guests in the kitchen when you make this because the inflation of the bread is fun. - www.toomanychefs.net/archives/001369.php
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 7, 2005 20:38:22 GMT -5
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie RecipeRhubarb is one of those strange vegetables that acts more like a fruit - the bright pink rhubarb stems that is; the leaves are poisonous. Strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my favorite pies in the world; in fact everyone here loves it. I made this pie for a party and had to make another the next day for my parents, who had heard me talk about it and couldn't believe I hadn't brought them a piece. We ended up making 3 pies this last week, one using a James Beard recipe, another a Best Recipe recipe, and the third what we thought ended up being the best combination. It's a little bit tricky because depending on how sweet your strawberries are, you'll need more or less sugar. We found the ratio of 3 to 1, rhubarb to strawberries, yielded the most flavorful results. - www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001137strawberry_rhubarb_pie.php
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 27, 2005 14:42:41 GMT -5
Friday, March 11, 2005 Introducing Megan McCormick - Been There, Ate That. Various LocalesFor the last few years I have done a bit of traveling for a show called Globetrekker. Talk about an eye-opening, mouthwatering experience! Through my “job” and some independent travel, I have visited almost 40 countries. Now, by saying that, I am not trying to brag, no, not me. I simply state the facts in order to help explain how I may have had the pleasure to sample such wonderful delicacies as “Fruit Bat tied with Yellow Ribbon” in Micronesia and “Cobra Heart with Rice Wine Chaser” in Vietnam. My friend Eddie has an even more adventurous palate and no one is paying him to do it! Mad respect to you, Eddie! That said, my eyes have been opened, my palate broadened and, here, on Deep End Dining, I am going to dish it! Tune in for all the gory glory about the things I have eaten on the road. The good, the bad and sometimes, the very ugly. - tinyurl.com/a7dwm
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 27, 2005 14:46:39 GMT -5
Wednesday, December 29, 2004 Menudo - Toms #1. Santa Monica, CA"Daddy drinks because you cry," I thought to myself as I looked blearily at my sleeping baby. I felt miserable and was still a little drunk. I was trying to find a scapegoat for my head-splitting hangover. Chloe just happened to be the first thing I could focus my bloodshot eyes on. My alcoholic aftereffects were so hellish even Nick Nolte himself would consider smoking a shotgun to end it all. It was another hazy, foggy, cotton-mouthed Sunday. It seemed for me every Sunday was the movie "Groundhog Day" only with a severe hangover. I could still taste the rotgut in my mouth and it was nauseating me. An Ashlee Simpson-esque acid-reflux was tearing up my throat and leaving a terrible taste of bitter bile in my mouth. Even worse, my head thumped like a cheap, ten-dollar subwoofer bought from a couple of guys out of a plain, white van. It was a punishing cadence that I wished to silence as soon as possible. The morning sunlight was objectively pleasant enough, I guess, but to me it might as well been a white-hot branding iron coming down on my eyelids. I was hurting. I was paying the price of too good a time (was there such a thing?). I found myself mumbling the familiar hangover prayer slash oath that I would never drink again if only somebody or something would please, please, please take this unbearable pain away!! Amen. There are no atheists in foxholes, and especially none the morning after an alcoholic binge. While I waited for my prayers to be answered I would chug a tall glass of pure, mountain spring water. That didn't seem to do much. The dull pounding in my skull now got louder and louder like Poe's Tell-Tale Heart. - tinyurl.com/96mlq
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jun 28, 2005 21:58:10 GMT -5
May 16, 2005 Maffe, Village du FromageThe one thing that may keep me from becoming an artisan farmer is how darn early they all wake up. Thankfully, everyone driving a car at 6 a.m. is going into Brussels, not leaving it. And once out of Brussels...everyone disappears. When I got to the farm, Mr. Guyet and I took off to go get milk, both whole and skim. The sun was rising, but behind a cloud cover so thick it was hard to tell what direction it was coming from--ah, Belgium! The cows had been milked half an hour before and were lazily munching hay, misty shapes staring into the fog with eyes glazed over. The farm cats recognized Guyet, in his torn bomber jacket and beret, and came closer. He pumped the milk into his tank, and foam gurgled out of the top hatch, a thin stream dribbling down one side. The cats lapped up the falling drops and stole off, disappearing too into the gray haze shrouding the barn. Back at the farm, Guyet poured the milks into two 500-liter vats. His eye was so precise that he’d only gone a liter and a half over. He set in motion a large paddle to keep skin from forming on the milk, and hot water coursed inside the walls of the vat around it, bringing the temperature up. The milk frothed and bubbled. “Have you ever bathed in milk?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted immerse myself in a big bowl of cereal, Cheerios maybe, big as inner tubes.” He hadn’t. - www.cheesediaries.com/archives/cheese_destinations/000339.shtml
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