Not Eating Animals

I just finished reading Eating Animals.  Written by Jonathan Safran Foer, the book gives an in-depth, fact-filled run down of factory-farming in the United States. Whether vegan or the most hard-core of meat-eaters, I suggest reading the book, if only to give a greater sense of connection to the origins and journey of the food you are eating before it reaches your plate.



For me, learning about the total insanity of factory farms that produce poultry, pork and beef was a lot to stomach.  From the amount of gene-fucking to the ample drugs that the animals ingest (and that we then ingest) to the severely detrimental living conditions in which the animals exist I learned a lot about the industry's goal - to keep the animals just well enough not to die before slaughter. Slaughter, done at slaughter facilities, is more gruesome than you'd think - not because it's sad to see life end but because of the seriously fucked up ways that workers deform and traumatize the animals.

Poking their eye balls out, skinning them alive and slicing off their noses and rubbing salt in them are just a few things the workers do for fun.  But I can't blame them - most are in such dire need of work, many are illegal workers bussed over so that they are completely dependent on the industry and essentially don't have rights to speak up... you've got to go insane working that job.

Foer talks about how humanely raised meat is better but most of it still goes to those slaughterhouses. And he talks about fish, though not as much, as another no-no.  Eating fish, he argues, is more of an environmental hazard (trolling shrimp brings up tons of by-catch that dies on the boat and then just gets chucked back into the ocean dead).  Then again, he does talk about the fish farms, underwater factories, in which fish are kept so close together that the tanks are filled with their shit, which they start to eat.

In any event, it's a harrowing tale. All true. And, though we know his stance, it's relatively unbiased.  He presents facts.  And those speak for themselves.

***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED***

Gourmet Closing? Wha?

Gourmet Magazine just announced it will be closing. Wild.

Yogurtland in NYC

Last week in LA, my buddy turned me on to Yogurtland. It's a newfangled yogurt chain a la Pinkberry and Red Mango but this one is self serve. That's right, you pull your own yogurt. You also have about 10-20 flavors from which to choose and about that many toppings - that you also do yourself. Hence, my green tea, taro, strawberry combination each flavor with its own topping. Ahhhh...

Tasty iApps

Having trouble keeping up with all the latest foodie iapps?  I am! Luckily, my boyfriend reads Gizmodo.  Last week he came across this wonderful post.  The usual suspects like Yelp!, OpenTable and Epicurious are reviewed, but there are also lesser known projects worth taking note of: VegOut is a vegetarian's guide to eating out in NYC; Global Eater Food Dictionary helps you to amp up the snobbery while dining by cluing you into exactly what agedashi tofu is and how spicy you should ask your gaeng phet to be.  Michelin Guide and a wine guide are also listed - for times when you really want to bouge it up.

Grandmother's Birthday Poem

My Grandma Sylvia emailed this Birthday Poem to me today. I am a lucky girl.

Since I could not sleep last night
I thought I 'd stay awake and write
a little poem for my precious Jill
Whom I  love dearly  and always will
Hope I can hang in there so we can celebrate many more
After all- what are Grandmas for?

Happy birthday xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Love you

Cheap Green

Pretty basic be-cheap-and-green advice from Serious Eats, but nonetheless always good to hear. Bringing your own bag to the grocery is always a good idea... but WOW! I never thought of coming across a $5 Le Crueset at a yard sale. Excellent call. Read more here.

Photograph from rusvaplauke on Flickr

Dos Caminos Classes

A friend mentioned taking a few classes at Dos Caminos this fall. At $65 each, the restaurant is offering a lot of bang for the buck.  Check it out and then start salivating. Mmmmm, corn festival...

If you just want the book, get it here.

The Dying Art of Recipe Cards

A while back I worked at I M P. It's the company responsible for numerous continuity programs, the most famous of which are it's cooking series and Wildlife Explorer- a never ending subscription to various one sheet card stock of well, wildlife.

In any event, when I was working there, I headed up recipe development and adaptation for two products: Home Baking and Great American. Development was a continous round table discussion of what else we could possibly do with chicken. Adaption involved examination of recipe cards from the company's other markets and seeing if we could rework them, without changing the photo. Recipe cards streamed in from around the globe; my job was to measure if they'd go over well stateside.

Why am I revealing this now? Well IMP happens to be a Swedish company. As a result, I spent a fairly lengthy amount of time looking at Swedish recipe cards. They always looked so odd to me- the photo was so stylized. And always so much lace and powdered sugar! Well after cooking at Appelfabriken for almost a month, I had a chance to see the card in context! Flipping through a recipe book, my coworker Judith found a recipe for Kanelbulle, perhaps the most classic Swedish sweet. As a met her at the table, I saw the recipe was in fact not from the book but instead an IMP card that had been wedged into it! I recognized it instantly. I'd adapted it two years prior (to Cinnamon Buns). After speaking with Katarina I learned that though she was no longer receiving the cards, she had for a good stretch. I was unflinching with respect to the imagery on the card- seemed normal from here! What do you think?

Jill & Jeffzilla

Jill's brother Jeff arrived in Sweden yesterday and they officially hit the road today. Here's an excerpt from his blog describing the first day of their adventure. Click here for the original post with pics.

Eggs and toast this morning at the Appelfabriken, then Jill and I hopped in the car, bound for Gothensburg.

The first stop of the day was Drottingholm Slott, the Swedish royal family’s day to day home. Great gardens, a huge lake, and we found a giant hedge area, with hollowed out hedges and secret pathways inside….nifty.

Our next stop was in Gränna, a small town on the edge of lake Vattern in central Sweden. Granna is known for their peppermint sticks, and the whole town looked and smelled like a life size candyland. We chatted with the locals for a bit, then had lunch on a deck looking out on the lake. Seating was a little tight, so to get us a table fast, I friended the bus girl and helped bus a few tables. Before leaving Granna, Jill got some tasty ice cream from a little booth, and the girl working there, our age, let Jill practice the Swedish ice cream scooping herself!

Back in the car on our drive to Gothensburg, the highway cut through some spectacular evergreen forests. Right before getting into town, we stopped at a gas station to economically fill up our flex fuel VW Golf with E85 – ethanol.

In Gothensburg, we’re staying at a friends apartment (while they are away on vacation), and are walking through downtown now, on our way to dinner. Free wifi on the streets is great!

Park Avenue Potluck Celebrations!

That's the one and only Florence Fabricant, writer for The New York Times and editor of many cookbooks. A couple of years ago, she co-authored Park Avenue Potluck, a collection of recipes assembled by The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center meant to raise money and awareness for patient care, research and education.  Well, the ladies who are known to lunch did so well with their first book that they decided to release a follow up: Park Avenue Potluck Celebrations. The book gives composed menu ideas to occasions such as Valentines Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.

At the press luncheon, hosted at Le Cirque, we got the chance to sample some of the best dishes from the book.  Artichoke Soup with Oysters, though I was at first hesitant, turned out to be a fantastic hors d'oevre.



Our lunch started with a simple, peppery arugula salad with proscuitto. Quite simple but quite perfect to kick off a 3-course lunch in the middle of the week.



Our main course was a Le Cirque specialty - Halibut pierced with a bay leaf, nestled in a pea broth and topped with a fried squash blossom purse of pea purée.  It was all at once light as well as structured.  I was surprised to see elegant ladies around me cleaning their plates.



Dessert was a perfect fruit sorbet - a recipe from the book.  Surrounded in macerated fruit, a pale purple scoop of liqueur-infused sorbet nestled in the bowl.



We all received Tate's wheatless chocolate brownies as our to-go dessert.  They, too, were excellent. Nibbling on them for days after the event, I couldn't help but salivate in anticipation for October when the book will be available on Amazon.com.  Luncheon attendees had the chance to see excerpts and they are nothing short of spectacular.  All photos were shot in these ladies homes - both dotted along Park Ave as well as their abodes in the Hamptons.



If that's not enough to get you to pre-order, there's also the fact that purchasing the book could help find a cure for cancer.

GET THIS BOOK! 834 Tips from Cooks Illustrated!

I recently came across this book put out by the Cooks Illustrated gang: 834 Kitchen Quick Tips - It's about the coolest book I've seen in a while.  It's perfect for your son heading to college... your newlywed daughter... even your husband!  585 pages of tips like, "restart the grill with a hairdryer. Use chopsticks to dry wine glasses spot-free. Peel a kiwi with a spoon. Skewer cheese using pretzel sticks. Leak-proof a cone with mini-marshmallows. Slice strawberries with an egg slicer. Protect a cake during transport with toothpicks with mini-marshmallows.  Soften butter with a rolling pin. Prevent a scorched saucepan with marbles. Clean a garlic press with a toothbrush. Melt chocolate with a coffee maker. Pit cherries with a paperclip. Drain lobster with a pair of scissors"  This is for MacGyver lovers and culinary afficionados alike!

Joobili

Not specifically related to food, Joobili, a new traveling site, is about the coolest thing I've seen. You can choose dates you want to travel and the site generates a list of events going on from food festivals to fashion to jazz to sporting events that might pull you to one destination or another. It's really incredible.  Did you know there's a Beer & Trotters festival going on right now?

Vital Juice

The Dish's Dish was written up in Vital Juice today!  Check it out... we give some killer brunch recipes.

Still Tasty?

I have been using the website Still Tasty lately and thought I might share!  ST is "Ultimate Shelf Life Guide" and answers the tough question: "keep it or toss it?"  Culinistas from The Dish's Dish are always fielding this question since they make a week's worth of food for each of their clients in one day.  However, if you don't have a Culinista to answer this questions for you on a case by case (err dish by dish) basis, this is the website for you.  They get down to the nitty gritty - differentiating between fresh and frozen, whole and cut up produce.  The fish/shellfish category is extensive.  The site also includes excellent articles about topics such as "best by" and "use before" markings as well as tips for safe defrosting.  Check out the site today before slathering that lunchtime sandwich with mustard or mayo...

food.com

Today I discovered food.com.  What is this?  It's a handy little application that lets you search through recipes indexed from the best recipe sources on the web, and allows you to store the ones you like - all in one place.  The 'net, not being my strong suit, I decided to try my best to explore what this is.  It turns out, it's really easy to understand and use.  Simply download the application, log out of your browser, and then when you re-enter, you'll have a little recipe toolbar:

I first serached for banana bread, reasoning that there are a ton of recipes for banana bread. And there were! But the 2587 search results within food.com came out super organized and from reputable sources (epicurious.com, foodandwine.com, etc.).

The recipe I liked was Caramel Banana Bread Puddings - not exactly what I was looking for; perhaps better?  It had received 4 out of 4 forks in Epicurious' ratings so I clicked "Add to my recipe box." You can click the URL to see the full recipe or, once you've added it to your recipe box, you can access it (from the toolbar) that way.  I am still exploring this app, but so far so good.  I can create recipe collections and specify my favorites.  I can also upload my own recipes - non-internet based - so as to manage those as well.

Food.com is still in beta, but that doesn't mean you should wait to start using it.  I can't count the number of ripped-out recipes I have stashed in various file folders around my office and apartment... not to mention the random ones I have bookmarked.  Food.com's toolbar, with such an easy searching capacity, has already guided me towards a collection of recipes that I want to try - and I don't have to worry about losing them in clutter.

Clean Plates NYC

A few years ago, I had an idea to start a consulting company that helped people in New York pick the healthy options at restaurants - the idea being that if no one is going to give up eating out but still wants to loose weight and eat healthier, they'd have to start being savvy within the confines of the menu.  I was still in college when that thought flashed across my mind and by the time I had graduated, I was already onto my next endeavor.

So, when Jared Koch showed me his recently completed book, Clean Plates NYC, I was thrilled.  Someone else - in a more appropriate position - had capitalized on this idea in book form.  And the book is glorious. It's a pocket-sized field guide to 75 restaurants that he and New York food critic Alex Van Buren deemed both delicious and beneficial to the body.  The restaurants aren't what you think.  Well... sure Angelika Kitchen is in there, but so, too, are Babbo and Elettaria. This book sounds too good to be true, huh?  Well, that's because Jared put a ton of backend work into it.  He (and Alex) created a master list of restaurants that he first exposed to a health check.  He'd call each establishment as a potential customer and ask (for example) about the meat - is it hormone and antibiotic free?  He'd ask about the water - is it filtered? He'd ask about the produce - local? organic?  That whittled down the options quite a bit.

Thereafter, the duo would dine at the restaurants and ask more tough questions, while always keeping the criteria of a pleasant dining experience in the back of their minds.  Neither wanted to sacrifice ambience, taste or decor, reasoning that "healthy" eating can equate to pleasurable eating.  Of course!! But people really seem to forget that - a lot.  They also seem to forget that eating mindfully will inevitabely lead to (according to Jared) more energy, mental clarity, emotional equilibrium, fewer minor ailments, reduced risk of major illnesses, more graceful aging, and looking far, far hotter with clearer skin and a sexy bod (page 18)!

This book, out April 28th in New York, is for anyone - vegans, vegetarians and carnivores alike.  Jared goes extensively into his food philosophy in the first part of the book, setting forth his pillars of health and well-being.  They are refeshingly simple, logical and flexible ideas that have a very common sense, anyone-can-play quality.  The rating system for the restaurant as well as the symbols/legend make it easy to find a restuarant that will please anyone and everyone.  Pick up your copy of Clean Plates NYC asap - ...at least before you eat out for another meal.

Devour This!

A friend recently told me about Devour.tv—a website comprised mostly of video and all about food.  The webisodes range from travel entries about dishes you must try before you die to the fundamentals of cooking such as how to blanch vegetables, sear a steak to perfection, and make mayonnaise.  These basics are especially good if you need to reference something in a pinch.  The video format is great for really internalizing the information and putting it to immediate use.
Check out the wine snob clips as well as the Wylie Dufresne segments on the bickering foodies for a real laugh.
Approach the site with a sense of adventure.  It’s a bit like getting a free meal at an avant-garde restaurant—you never know what is going to be your new favorite dish until you try it!

Cooks Illustrated No. 96

Cooks Illustrated is my favorite culinary magazine; it is also, I think, the most underrated.  The articles are in depth and truly explain why and how the chefs in the test kitchen came to each specific recipe.  After reading a recipe, and the steps the team takes to get to that recipe, I always have complete certainty that the dish will work—and that I will know what happened if it doesn’t.  There is literally no room for error in these formulas.  It doesn’t have the glossy color photos like other food mags, but it doesn’t have any misses, either—only hits.

In this issue, I read about tandoori chicken and how to make in about a two hour-long process instead of the typical 24.  I liked reading the article because it gave me so much background and depth about the dish.  I feel as though I could serve it and really talk it up. Though I didn’t try them, the recipes and accompanying articles, for wiener schnitzel and French omelets were also very illuminating.  The discussion of the crispy coating on the pork cutlets led me to ponder other deep fried dishes and the general quest for getting the perfect fry.  Josh DeChellis had a short-lived but tasty restaurant on Carmine Street a few years ago that dealt whole-heartedly with this issue.  His fixation was even in the name: BarFry.  I have found fantastically fried asparagus at Barbone in the East Village and impeccable onion rings at Walter Foods on Grand Street in Williamsburg.  The omelet article references Julia Childs’ 11-page doctrine on French omelets and then gives a much easier method.  Noted, and next time I will try.

Most of all, I love the Quick Tips page.  This is a spread of little kitchen tips, submitted by cooks across the country.  It is, hands down, the most useful collection of information out there.  Ideas on how to keep an avocado green, how to keep syrup warm, and how to un-lump pudding were in this issue.  If you do not have a Culinista cooking your meals, the quick tips are a must read!

Ruma-Lahd

“You seem disgraced,” I delivered in the form of a question to my Southern dining companion. We had just taken our first bites of Blue Ribbon’s grilled shrimp remoulade very late on a Saturday night and I could see he was offended. “Where’s the remoulade? I didn’t even know it was there—there was only enough of a dollop to glue the shrimp into position on the plate.” The sauce, which is classically a combo of vinegar, mustard, paprika, horseradish, oil and green onions, was, it seemed, in short supply here at 3am.

We’d come to eat because, just a few days prior, we’d experienced extremely authentic barbequed shrimp at Blue Ribbon Bakery, the restaurants sister spot about which I often extol. The Louisiana boy had honed in on the many Southern-influenced dishes—that I’d mostly missed in all the dining hours I’d racked, opting instead for roasted heads of garlic and steak tartar. We’d wondered what connection the Bromberg brothers had with the South and when we tasted the barbequed shrimp layered atop fluffy saffron rice, we figured it must have been a strong connection.

Apparently not so, we learned after biting into the shrimp remoulade. Not that the New York remoulade was bad, but for the Southerner, it was like a New Yorker getting a slice at Pizza Hut. It’s definitely pizza, but if you grew up around Avenue J, it could be kind of distressing—“this is what they are calling pizza these days?!?!?!” On rare occasions, I can be up for Pizza Hut; but I wouldn’t expect it in celebrated hot spot like Blue Ribbon.

The next day, I took out my River Road Recipes, a cookbook compiled by the Junior League of Baton Rouge. There were a couple variations on the theme, and like I said, the NY remoulade wasn’t bad, it was its usage. Southern shrimp remoulade is supposed to be a dish in which the shellfish are swimming in sauce. This isn’t a secret. Even a remoulade recipe from Gourmet Magazine from August 2004 instructs, after grilling shrimp, to “push shrimp off skewers into rémoulade, then toss to combine well.”

After reading up about this meant-to-be decadent dish, I could see how the Blue Ribbon version was such a hoax. Of course the components were fine—shrimp fresh and spring-y, remoulade tangy and simultaneously creamy—but oh brothers! We needed so much more remoulade!

Weelicious

A friend of mine told me about Weelicious; and, though I don’t have a baby of my own, I cannot help but visit this website at least once a week. A new mother who lives in LA and is devoted to coming up with new and exciting purees for her fourteenth-month-old baby boy posts the content.

This ambitious mommy whips up little dishes like avocado and cherimoya mousse and Hawaiian Snapper. Her recipes are mostly purees, as is driven by the age of her child; however things like cilantr’os have recently snuck in to the blog—she makes a cilantro-olive oil sauce, mixes it with O-shaped pasta, and tops the mix-up with cottage cheese to add tang and protein (I’m jealous!).

These are great ideas if you’re looking for new ideas or hoping to turn your tikes into gourmands!