Food Events Abound

It is the beginning of summer and food festivals are tempting our adventurous palates. We will keep you aware of happenings in different parts of the country once a week. If you get a chance to attend any of these events please write a comment or review for your fellow readers

Cooking For Solutions kicks off their annual event on Friday night with a program featuring Chef of The Year, Suzanne Goin accompanied by Rick Bayless. at The Monterey Bay Aquarium. This event is about bringing awareness to seafood production and consumption in a more sustainable manner to bring keep our oceans healthy. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program is the beneficiary. Great cause and many talented chefs preparing tasty food. Purchase tickets at their website, http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/vi/vi_events/cooking/default.aspx

Tour de Champagne takes it’s event to Atlanta this weekend. A one night event featuring pours from more than a dozen champagne producers and restaurants. This event benefits Angel Flight of Georgia. Purchase tickets at http://www.tourdechampagne.com/atlanta.html

Some of the best grapes grown in the US will put on a grand display at the Paso Robles Wine Festival in Paso Robles, CA. The food offerings and educational are provided by some of the region’s most talented chefs, featuring farm to table dishes. This weekend event has a lot to offer. Get your tickets at http://www.pasowine.com/events/wine-festival-tickets.php

Coastal Uncorked continues through the weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC. This Wine and Food event benefits a great cause…our future culinary professionals through donations to local culinary and hospitality programs. Be sure to check out the Food Fight Gala on Sunday. There will be food sampling and wine pours as you enjoy an Iron Chef style competition of area chefs. I know, you were thinking more pie in the face fun. But this is sure to please your palate without creating a huge dry cleaning bill. For more information and tickets visit http://www.coastaluncorked.com/

Train Food. How about a delicious food festival and the music of Train? The taste of Addison kicks off on Friday with more than 60 participating restaurants. Cousin LuLu tells us that Addison has more five star restaurants in a five mile radius than anywhere else! So this is bound to be a tasty treat. In addition to the food they have some great music lined up. Train is to perform on Saturday Night. Purchase tickets by visiting http://www.addisontexas.net/events/TasteAddison/

All things Sicilian in San Diego! This Festival of culture will take place in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood on Sunday. It features food, entertainment and cultural artisanry. You can even attend a traditional Sicilian wedding for a Sicilian American couple. It’s sure to be a good time in the southern California sun.

Have a delicious weekend. Did anyone make it to the Soul Food festival in San Antonio last week? We would love to hear about it. 

Awe Summertime. Food Events Abound!

It is the beginning of summer and food festivals are tempting our adventurous palates. We will keep you aware of happenings in different parts of the country once a week. If you get a chance to attend any of these events please write a comment or review for your fellow readers.

Friday Night marks the opening of the North Beach Friday Night Farmers Market. This is one of the most fun regular food happenings on the Chesapeake Bay. Though we are still very partial to beer and bushels for whiling away a sunny afternoon.

In San Antonio you can get closer to God beginning Friday morning at 10 am. A gospel choir will open the San Antonio Soul Food Festival in La Villita Square. This is a free event and you are asked to bring a canned food donation.

San Francisco will get you all worked up before watching or running with the colorful runners in the Bay to Breakers. The Annual OysterFest will take place on the Great Meadow in Fort Mason Saturday beginning at noon. This event promises great food, quenching brew and fun music to keep you on your toes starring Cake. This is a quintessential San Francisco weekend.

If you want a stinky good time, get to Seattle for the Seattle Cheese Festival to be held at Pike Place Public Market on Saturday and Sunday. Sponsored in part by DeLaurenti Food and Wine shop, one of our favorite Seattle food purveyors, this event will host more than two dozen international and domestic cheese makers. Wish we could be there as this event gets better every year.

If you are in Los Angeles, you can still get on the waiting list for FERMENT. Sue Conley from Cowgirl Creamery will present on the art of making cheese while touring you through samples of her highly regarded Mt Tam cheese at various ages. She will have musical integration from Chris Kallmyer making this a multi-media presentation. Machine Project, an innovative art collective that bridges art, science and craft, presents this event. Visit machineproject.com to get on the wait list.

Taste of Arlington, VA takes place on Sunday from noon to 5pm at the Ballston Common Mall. This year’s event has shown more growth and has added a bigger footprint with more food and wine options. You can buy your tickets at the event or on their website, Tasteofarlington.com.

Have a delicious weekend. We are headed to a family campout with our eyes peeled for farm stands along the way.

Mother’s Day Brunch-Eggs for Dinner

This last Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day with a brunch. This may sound all too common but in our uncommon family we served it as an evening meal. Cinnamon rolls, omelet bar, fried potatoes, fruit, it was all a brunch should be. Most of us have experienced having a breakfast meal for dinner. After all, is there any thing more comforting than pancakes drenched in butter and syrup? It has to be the ultimate comfort food. It reminded me of a time I had invited some friends for dinner and found little in the pantry and refrigerator but worst of all little in my wallet. So as any good cook does, I improvised. I had some fresh corn, peppers, squash and tomatoes that I had purchased at the farmers market. I also had a dozen eggs, that’s four times three good eggs;-). I decided to make a corn waffle, top it off with ratatouille and a poached egg covered in hollandaise. The meal was a smashing success. My friends still talk about the creativity of the meal. I was glad because it only required I buy a lemon from the store. It left me money in my wallet to buy a sherbet to end the meal.

Eggs are a great protein that is highly appropriate to serve at dinnertime. In the early nineties I use to frequent a lovely little French bistro in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Café Jacqueline served soufflés and salads. It was my habit at first to have dinner at one of the great Italian restaurants, then walk over to Café Jacqueline for a dessert soufflé to share. One day I took a look at the complete menu and vowed to come back for a romantic dinner of a shared salad, shared savory soufflé and a shared sweet soufflé. It is still one of my fondest food memories. Now I find myself in Dallas and had discovered a restaurant called Rise in University Park. I was only lacking a companion to go and share a meal with me. Rise serves individual soufflés as well a plethora of other contemporary Bistro food. But I was there for the soufflé. The soufflés were light and moist. They were the perfect size for an entrée followed by a salad. The dessert soufflés also come in individual servings though we ordered just one to share. So it seems there is plenty of good reasons to have three good eggs for dinner.

Corn Waffle Recipe

2 ears corn, grilled
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups milk
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Remove kernels from cob and puree in a blender.
Pour into a mixing bowl with eggs milk, vanilla and oil. Mix well.
Add mixed dry ingredients of flour, salt, baking soda and sugar to the wet mixture. Stir with a whisk until wet. Do not over mix.
Pour batter into waffle iron according to directions.

Note: If using a Belgium Waffle Iron I always separate the eggs and whip the egg whites to a stiff peak, then fold them into the other ingredients.

We've Gone Nuts!

It's been a damp, cool weekend here, so we decided to go nuts and make some sweet and spicy pecans. These are easy to make and make great, unique hor d'oeuvres for cocktail parties. We enjoyed snacking on them with a nice martini and olives.

Below is the recipe and you can add the seasoning to taste. We like ours with a nice kick, so we use the full amount of cayenne and Tabasco, but you can certainly reduce those if you want it less spicy.

1 extra large egg white
1/2 cup sugar
2 T sweet paprika
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
2 tsp cayenne pepper (if you don't like it too spicy cut in half)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 1/2 cups raw pecan halves

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a bowl whisk the egg white until it is frothy. Then whisk in the sugar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce,  Tabasco, cayenne pepper and salt. Add the pecans and gently toss, coating them completely.

3. Place on parchment paper and arrange into a single layer. Place in the oven and cook. Since Worcestershire sauce has a tendency to burn, stir the nuts every 20 minutes. Cook for approximately 1 hour until the nuts are dried out.

4. Remove from the oven and loosen the nuts. Set aside to cool. Note: Let nuts completely cool before placing them in a container or covering them. You do not want the humidity from the heat to build up in the container and make the nuts soft.

Enjoy!

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Food Paparazzi

I love photography. I love taking photographs. I adore going to museums to see great photographs. Since I was young I've been taking pictures of just about anything in front of me. Sometimes with success. Most times not. Well now, since starting this blog, I've been taking pictures of nearly everything I eat, and I've also noticed that the tables next to me are doing the same thing. The LA Times has referred to us as the "Food Paparazzi". And it is a growing phenomenon. 

The waiter delivers the plate and immediately cameras are taken out and flashes are popping. Often people get up to photograph the chefs in the kitchen as well. Not only is an open kitchen performance art, it's also become a photo shoot.

In New York, foodies have always been alive and well, but why the new fascination with photographing our food? We don't have lightboxes set up that allow these pictures to look amazing. Most of mine are taken with an iPhone. The lighting is what the lighting is. And often it isn't conducive to beautiful food photography.

I love the Payard croissants and had them often until they closed their New York location. When I was in Las Vegas I was ecstatic to find a Payard outpost and had an almond croissant almost every day. For as delicious as the croissant was (and as patient as I could be before devouring it), I never mastered the shot. Always taken on the sly, too, in the middle of a casino where cameras are not exactly welcome.

I try to take photos for this blog. Many times the meal (and the photo) are unremarkable and never get their day in the sun. For others their photos are reminders of good meals (although you take the photo before you know how good or bad it is.) Fascinated by food and photos, I will continue to make the best out of my iPhone. I am hoping practice makes perfect, because as you can see, I have a long way to go. Perhaps I will get pointers from the table next to me. The table with four diners snapping away. Flashes popping. Shutters clicking.

Please share some of your food photos. Good food is good art. Click away.

All this talk of Burgers

Today in New York GO Burger (from the fine folks at the BLT empire) opened a food truck bringing gourmet burgers to various NYC neighborhoods. For the lucky few who got there in time (we are glad to be included in this group), today they gave away free burgers. You have to love "practice runs". Under a perfect, warm spring sun, we ate our burgers, and they were delicious. Perfectly cooked and topped with onions, lettuce and sweet pickles. We look forward to being able to add fries and a vanilla shake to the order.

So with all this talk of burgers, it made us wonder who has the best burger? In New York you have the Shake Shack lovers who swear the 45 minute line is worth it. The perennial favorite is always the Corner Bistro, although besides the good location that love affair completely escapes us. Do the new outposts in town like Market Table & Little Owl outperform the old standards like JG Melon and PJ Clarke's?

It seems it's been a good year for burgers for us. For such a "lowbrow" meal, it has packed a lot of flavor. When we were in Las Vegas we had a late night burger at Bradley Ogden, and we are convinced it could make a vegetarian eat meat again. We have a friendly debate among ourselves, but some are convinced that Bradley Ogden has provided the best tasting burger ever. A spicy mustard, a tasty bun just add to the perfection that is the deliciously seasoned meat. There is an argument in favor of The Grape in Dallas. Another for JG Melon in New York City. 

Where is your favorite burger? And what made it the best?

One thing we do know is that with the weather getting better, we are excited about new outdoor burger joints even if we do have to chase a truck.

Hola amigos

Greetings from Barcelona, Spain.

Recently we spent a week in Barcelona, and like the Catalans, we didn't miss an opportunity to eat ham. This is snack time in Spain. Thinly sliced, sometimes added to a little bread with a drizzle of olive oil, jamón ibérico was our afternoon treat. The British have tea, the Spaniards have jamón ibérico and Rioja.

This photo was taken at La Vinya del Senyor right across the street from Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar. One spring afternoon, as we were sitting on the square, a newly married bride and groom walked out of the church to cheering locals and tourists alike. No one left their seats, but many chants and raised glasses were sent their way. Quite a scene.

Once we had finished our jamón, manchego and rioja snack, we walked through the el Born barrio, taste-testing in chocolate shops, shops roasting nuts on the premises, and those specializing in Spanish olive oils. Barcelona is a food lovers' delight, and el Born offers everything you could want. El Born is part of the older Barcelona and with its narrow streets, small shops and small alleys, has the old Europe feel. Tourists mingle at the tapas counters with many trendy locals.

The food throughout Barcelona is plentiful, almost always delicious and often innovative. After our day of snacking and shopping, it was time for dinner at Cal Pep. Like many others, waiting for a seat is expected, but once you get one you won't regret it. With no menus, you are given a choice of any or all - seafood, meat or vegetables, we chose all. And Pep delivers. Artichokes, peppers, fava beans, cod, shrimp, calamari, sausage, chorizo, and on and on. Just when you thought you were done, another round came. And of course, we were given more jamón to try, as well as a lesson on the finer points of eating with your fingers- all told in catalan with much gusto. A few glasses of cerveza later, we had cleaned our plates (if you didn't Pep was there to put the rest on your plate). Since the Catalans claim to have invented creme brulee, called crema catalana, we couldn't leave without trying it. Whoever invented it, we are glad they did.

Next it was time for some late night cocktails behind a nameless wooden door to take it all in. Just another day turning to night in Barcelona.