Monday, July 30, 2001
News from Me, Regional Italian Restaurants & Fabulous Ice Cream
Dear Friends,
A few weeks ago, you got an e-mail from Topica, which is the new service I will be using to communicate with readers of my website, off the website. I want to assure you that your e-mail addresses will not be abused. They will not be used for any commercial purpose without your permission. [more]
Friday, July 27, 2001
Laurie Colwin's Spice Cake
There is a beautiful tribute to the late writer Laurie Colwin in this month’s Gourmet magazine. Written by Anna Quinlan, the piece points out, among many other things, that Laurie’s food stories, which she wrote for Gourmet and are collected in two books, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, are even more popular than her 10 novels. [more]
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
Answering More E-mail
Q. I don’t know whether you count calories when you travel, but a good friend of mine does. And it’s not easy when you go to Europe where everything is listed in “kcal.” Do you know how to recalculate those “kcal” into the familiar calories that we have on every food package in the US?
--Olga [more]
Monday, July 23, 2001
Answering E-mail
I get E-mails sent to me at WOR by the hundreds. In fact, I get so many, it has become impossible for me to even read all of them. It’s up to Becky Bennett, my producer, to sort through the comments, questions, requests, recipes, and suggestions I am sent daily. Sometimes I answer a few of them on the radio. Here are some that may have general interest. My new Food Maven resolution is to post as many of these as I can. You never know, you may have the same question. [more]
Thursday, July 19, 2001
Wine Buy: Joseph Phelps Red Pastiche
Joseph Phelps, Red Pastiche, 1999 drinks just how we like our summer red wines to: It packs lots of power, but doesn’t overwhelm. It is bold, yet soft and likeable. This big, rich red wine is produced at the Joseph Phelps Vineyard in Spring Valley, California by winemaker Craig Williams. The Joseph Phelps vineyard has enjoyed a great reputation for producing high quality wines since it’s founding in 1972. In fact, their commitment to producing a superb product is emblazoned on the main page of their website: www.jpvwines.com - “excellence from the ground up.” [more]
Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Lemon-Mint Syrup
Today I came home to what has become a familiar sight: Sean sprawled out on the floor of my small office. He was trying to organize my recipe files and apparently he finds it helpful to cover every inch of the floor with paper. One advantage to this technique is that when I glance down at the floor, I get to revisit recipes I haven’t seen in years. [more]
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
Formidable Fromage
Today I revised the menu for my last meal. It still must have ricotta ravioli with fresh, simple tomato sauce made with onion and basil. It still must have a pastrami sandwich from Katz’s delicatessen. It still must have vanilla ice cream – I’m not sure which brand yet. But now it must also have raw milk gorgonzola dolce, the creamiest, sexiest cheese in creation (in my opinion), and two or three or four other artisinal cheeses; that is, cheeses made by hand, preferably from milk that has not been pasteurized -- raw milk. Raw milk cheeses are still alive with enzymes and micro-organisms that give cheese character and do no harm. [more]
Sunday, July 15, 2001
Wine Buy: Crianza from La Mancha
Condesa de Leganza, Crianza, 1997 is a red (very red) wine from Spain, a rare gem from the very overlooked region of La Mancha, best known for Cervantes and Don Quixote. (I hate to bring it down to this level, but La Mancha as in the musical Man of La Mancha.) [more]
Friday, July 13, 2001
Gary Regan and Gin Drinks
We often associate summertime with total relaxation. But I don’t know about you, my responsibilities do not end on July 4th. If anything, my stress level often rises with the mercury. [more]
Wednesday, July 11, 2001
Wine Buy: Buena Vista Sauvignon Blanc
Buena Vista Sauvignon Blanc 2000 comes from the oldest vineyard in California, said to have been started in 1857 by a legendary figure in California wine, Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian who approached the governor of California with the idea of transporting grape vines into the state from Europe. Buena Vista now encompasses 1,360 acres in Sonoma that produce 500,000 cases of wine a year. From that you should deduce that there is so much Buena Vista wine that it is a very widely available label. This week’s wine buy is not our typical esoteric bottling. It should be everywhere. [more]
Monday, July 9, 2001
Panzanella & Other Bread Salads
Bread salad seems to be quite the fashionable thing this summer. Panzanella, the Tuscan bread salad, has come up on Food Talk twice in the last two weeks. And no sooner had a listener mentioned it than I started to see some version of it popping up on menus around town, and articles about it in newspapers and magazines. I figure I should put in my own two cents. I’ve been eating it and making it for 30 years. [more]
Saturday, July 7, 2001
David Rosengarten's Newsletter
I had the pleasure of having David Rosengarten on the show recently to chat and to introduce his new newsletter, “The Rosengarten Report.” David, as you may remember from his Food Network programs, is always full of enthusiasm and great information. David’s newsletter is, too. He reports on practically everything he eats. Okay, everything he tastes. The premiere issue, which came out in late April, included taste comparisons and helpful comments on BBQ ribs, eating in Modena, Italy (an essay I handed out to my WOR group while we were there last month), dim sum, french fries, and Beaujolais. From this varied list, you can see that each “Rosengarten Report” will be bursting at the seams with useful information. The only problem is that we now have to be careful not to burst out of our seams.
To order David’s newsletter, check out his website davidrosengarten.com
Thursday, July 5, 2001
Culinary Careers
Not everyone who wants to be a chef is cut out to be a chef, and being a chef isn’t nearly as glamorous as the media makes it look. A fraction of a percent make it to the executive chef position, where you are not usually stuck in a hot, stressful kitchen all day, but supervising people who are stuck in a hot, stressful kitchen all day. A miniscule percentage of a percent make the leap to celebrity chef, to TV personality, product endorser, you get the picture ... big money-maker. As I say frequently, with, truly, no demeaning meaning, chefs are blue collar workers in white uniforms. [more]
Wednesday, July 4, 2001
Red Fruit Provençal Wine Punch
I suppose you can think of this as French Sangria, although I wish you wouldn’t. Then again, it is very closely related to Sangria and I have no good reason for you not to think of it that way. Certainly, I have not come up with a better or catchier name in Red Fruit Provençal Wine Punch. [more]
Monday, July 2, 2001
Braised Roman Beans with Fresh Garlic and Tomatoes
Both the stringbeans and Roman beans were young, thin and tender at the Greenmarket this weekend. Braising them may be a small injustice. It’s usually a method I use when the beans get bigger and more fibrous; when, for instance the Roman beans have developed substantial beans in their wide pods. But I just came back from Greece and Turkey where greenbeans are most frequently braised and stewed, no matter their maturity, and I just had to keep the tastes of my trip alive. [more]
