Thursday, May 31, 2001
Wine Buy: Mas de Gourgonnier 2000
Rosé wines – pink wines -- like sweet wines, didn’t used to be considered worthy of sophisticated drinkers. It’s true, many rosés are either acid-edged, thin-bodied cousins of red wine, or cloying off-dry wines with a candy character. Many French rosés are examples of the former. White zinfandel, which is truly a pink wine, is a good example of the later. [more]
Monday, May 28, 2001
Poached Apricots Filled with Cream
Arzu Yilmaz is a native of Izmir, Turkey, who lives in Short Hills, New Jersey, where, with her Turkish husband, she is raising two, now-teenage children, cooking Turkish food most nights, teaching Turkish cuisine at local cooking schools, writing for the Turkish magazine Sofra and the Turkish edition of Harper’s Bazaar, and, as if that wasn’t enough, doing a little catering on the side. I met Arzu through the New York Association of Cooking Teachers (NYACT) and it was love at first sight. She proves my premise that the best home cooks -- I should say women home cooks – are, once they take their aprons off, among the most beautiful and glamorously groomed women around. My maternal grandmother, Elsie Sonkin, was a woman like that and I can’t count how many others I’ve met in my long career in and out of the kitchen. [more]
Saturday, May 26, 2001
Corfu-style Greens
This is one of the recipes I will be demonstrating on the cruise I am taking listeners on in early June. It’s a recipe from one of our ports, Corfu, which is considered the lushest of the Greek islands. It is profuse with wild greens that are eaten in many ways. Even the sheep graze on them and because of that the island’s lamb is said to be particularly flavorful. I can’t wait to taste it. We’ll be able to eat only one meal on Corfu, lunch, but I’m seeking out some of that lamb. [more]
Thursday, May 24, 2001
Wine Buy: Dry Creek Dry Chenin Blanc
Who doesn’t like Chenin Blanc? Only those people who mistakenly equate pretty, floral wine with sweet wine, and, further, don’t like sweetness because they are under some snobbish assumption that sweet wine is not sophisticated. [more]
Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Mozambique Shrimp Curry, Julie Sahni's Curry Powder
This is a recipe, actually a group of recipes, from my friend, the accomplished Indian cooking teacher, food writer and scholar (and fellow Brooklynite) Julie Sahni. She demonstrated it, along with a few other curry recipes, at the conference of the International Association of Culinary Professionals in Minneapolis last month. In my not humble opinion, the conference needs to feature more workshops like Julie’s, cooking demonstration sessions by experts in their field about the esoteric subjects they are studying themselves. Julie, already the author of several books on Indian cooking, and on cooking with spices, is writing a book whose working title is “Curries.” It is a vast subject, originating with but not at all confined to Julie’s Indian heritage, and a subject that is full of misconceptions and misunderstandings. To explain a very little, let me quote a piece that Julie wrote for the February 2001 issue of a scholarly journal called “The National Culinary Review:” [more]
Sunday, May 20, 2001
Wine Buy: Marques de Borba
In the words of Carol Berman, who selects each week’s Wine Buy:
“Marques de Borba is a Portuguese gem produced by J. Portugal Ramos, who is one of the most prominent figures in Portuguese wine production. His wines have a very distinctive style -- great balance and noticeable elegance. [more]
Saturday, May 19, 2001
Linda The Garlic Lady
I have beautiful braids of garlic hanging in my kitchen and they are not just decorative. Whenever I need a fresh head, I just clip one off the braid and use it. It’s hard to believe, but the garlic, even the braids I have hanging in the hotter part of my kitchen, near the stove, which is about as far from ideal as you can get, will stay plump, moist and fresh for nearly a year. The braid hanging in a cooler spot remains usable even longer. [more]
Friday, May 18, 2001
Sultan's Delight: A Turkish Dish
This year the WOR cruise aboard the Radisson Diamond goes to three ports in Turkey, ending in Istanbul where I will stay a few days, so my interest in Turkish cooking has been renewed. (We leave for Bologna, Italy on June 9, but the ship boards in Venice on June 13.) [more]
Wednesday, May 16, 2001
Chimichurri from Argentina
There are many, perhaps even an infinite number of versions of chimichurri, the sauce condiment that Argentineans serve with grilled meats and poultry. [more]
Saturday, May 12, 2001
Chicken Savoy
I wasn’t on the radio with my own program for more than a few weeks – that was nearly 10 years ago -- when someone called to ask how to make Chicken Savoy. Who knew this was the state dish of New Jersey? So to speak. [more]
Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Paccheri with Ricotta and Tomato Sauce
I taught Neapolitan cooking at the Culinary Institute of America yesterday. My lecture and cooking session is part of the new 15-week Italian Culture and Cuisine program now offered to graduates of the CIA courtesy of funds given by the Italian Trade Commission. [more]
Saturday, May 5, 2001
Cecilia's Visit
You could not ask for better houseguests than Baronessa Cecilia Bellelli-Baratta and her dear cousin, Giuliana di Lucia. [more]
Thursday, May 3, 2001
High Temperature Rib Roast
For some reason, I have been getting more questions about rib roast than ever before. Maybe, finally, everyone is realizing that beef tenderloin (filet mignon), although it is the most tender cut of beef, and because it the priciest, seemingly the most luxurious, it is also the least flavorful cut of beef. It a great cut to use as a foil for a sauce or elaborate presentation, but when you want an impressive hunk of beef, a great roast, nothing compares to a standing rib roast. Okay, I also love a whole shell of beef for roasting – you know, what you get as a sirloin strip, aka shell steak, aka New York strip steak at the steakhouses, but all in one long roasting piece. [more]
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Wine Buy: Cannonau di Sardegna
Cannonau di Sardegna (pronounced Can-no-now di Sar-dain-ya) is the Grenache grape in Sardinia, or, I should say, the Grenache wine in Sardinia. I know Grenache mainly from California, where it produces light, fruity wines with distinctive strawberry and raspberry notes. I don’t usually use that kind of wine language but in this case its really true. Even a novice wine geek would describe Grenache as smelling and tasting of strawberries and raspberries. From Sardinia, at least judging by this wine from the highly regarded producer Sella & Mosca, the Grenache grape makes a lusher and bolder wine, but also a wine that I think should be drunk when it is relatively young and still fresh. Here’s a case where the vintage date is less important as information about the wine crop than it is for knowing the age of the wine. [more]
