Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Early ORGANIC Tomatoes
Early Tomatoes with aged Balsamico, Extra Virgin Olive Oil/John Coltrane-Miles Davis and Swedish Sea Salt-plus a new cookie discovery (Almondina)
Early Tomatoes
With the recent spate of cold weather, my taste buds went back into their mid-Winter slumber. I imagined a wake-up call from a culinary standpoint that would drive me out of my rut and into the mindset of Summer. With the upcoming weekend promising warm, if not hot weather, vegetables that scream SUMMER are doing the trick to get me out of this phase. The other day, a box of greenhouse grown tomatoes were purchased. Usually I shy away from hot-house or hydroponic anything. In this case I am happily wrong.
Sunset Tomatoes come in a clear plastic box. They read on the lable: Goodness Grown Naturally. What does this mean? I did some research into these products and was happily surprised by what I found. Their ethos of sustainability must include mention of the Green Grass Project .
The first part of the project is the statement that their product is environmentally & eco-friendly. But how do you make a vegetable eco-friendly? First the company uses bleach free recycled paper for some of their products, recycled plastic for others. Low carbon footprint shipping is utilized.
PHASE 1 – GROWING
PHASE 2 – PACKAGING
PHASE 3 – DISTRIBUTION
Image reproduced from Sunset Foods Website (Thank you!)From Sunset’s webpage: “Our veggies are grown in a biologically controlled, herbicide-free environment.” Digging a bit deeper, I found that their greenhouses uses the following:
From the growing stages to the packaged product on the shelf, our company reuses, reduces, and recycles.
Product Conservation – Our produce is grown in an earth friendly medium using fewer chemicals
Recycled Fertilizer – Our fertilizer comes from recycled leech and reusable organic cocoa peat, rather than a product that would normally create waste
Greenhouse – State of the art greenhouses produce lower greenhouse gases and increases environmental sustainability
Water – Wastewater is treated and recycled, our greenhouses use up to 50% less water than field grown produce
Alternative Fuel Use – We use recycled ingredients such as wood shavings and other waste products that normally would have gone to the trash
Energy Conservation – Our warehouses use energy efficient florescent light bulbs, our buildings use natural light from skylights instead of bulbs in the summer
The Flavors: Spark of a Summer Tomato months before they arrive in New Jersey.
Taste: Pleasantly acidic, great foil for the best Olive Oil and really old traditionally made Balsamic Vinegar, if you use that “Supermarket” stuff, you don’t know what real Balsamic tastes like. It is not the same thing. I suggest finding products from the company called: Campo Bello Doro foods.
The combination: Campari brand tomatoes taste like late Summer. They are available at Whole Foods and other stores in the United States
The Recipe:
Slice three or more Campari brand tomatoes (or your choice of tomatoes)
Finally, scatter the some Fleur de Sel over the tomato, olive oil and balsamic to release the aroma and flavors.
Falksalt from Sweden
I drive a Swedish car. (Volvo) Love Swedish cameras. Swedish movies with their marvelous gray tones. I lust after Swedish food products too. A few months ago at the Roger Smith Hotel Food Writers Conference, I was introduced to a magical new product. Swedish Sea Salt. This is not your typical sea salt. The typical product screams SALT. This product says very clearly: OCEAN. Falksalt is crisp, saline and shimmering. They use Mediterranean Sea water. Seems like a long way from the Mediterranean to Sweden, but inside the blue box, designed in a somewhat retro hip fashion lies a magical potion for finishing a dish or a cocktail.Fleur de Sel Cocktail
Wild River Review Does Cocktails.
2 Limes cut into chunks
1 Juicy Pink Grapefruit cut into chunks
3 Shots (or more) Hendrick’s Gin
Preparation:
Muddle citrus fruits with a scant pinch of your favorite fleur de sel *I used Falksalt in the recipe*
Add the Gin and some freshly cracked ice to cocktail shaker
Add about a teaspoon of superfine sugar
Shake, Strain into a tall glass filled with fresh ice
Garnish with Pink Grapefruit slice and Lime chunks
Finish with another pinch (over the top) of fleur de sel.
Serve your friend and make another for yourself.
Falksalt
Almondina Cookies
Almondina Brand Biscuits
A recent visit to Linkedin revealed a new contact who distributes the product named Almondina. I hadn’t tasted Almondina in several years and this piqued my interest. The original recipe dates back to 1929! According to the tear sheet that came with my samples (Thank you to their PR department for sending me this product) Almondina is “Grandmother’s secret recipe with no fat, no cholesterol. Originally known as Petit Gateau Sec, Almondina is a crunchy, mere wafer of a cookie, with the warmth of roasted almonds, plump raisins and warm vanilla notes. Almondina is not your usual cookie. It has no trans-fats, nor does it have salt or preservatives. I found the cookie to be marvelous with cheese and wine, especially the chocolate and cherry variety. The Sesame version is perfect with a nice runny brie. The Cinnaroma brand is perfect with a spot of tea. All the varieties come packed in a segmented package that protects the fragile cookies from damage. Each of their products are Kosher and Pareve.
Ingredients vary, but the essential ones are: Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Sugar, Egg Whites, fruits-like raisins and cherries, almonds, sesame seeds and love. Ok, love isn’t on the label, but try one and taste the passion that only love brings to your plate.
They are a little slice of deliciousness!
According to the “tear” sheet, the company aims to: “Put a delicious and healthful cookie on every table.” Not a bad idea!
Close Up!
Flavors include: Original, Gingerspice, Cinnaroma, Choconut, Pumpkin Spice, Anniversary, Sesame, and my favorite-Chocolate Cherry.
They don’t taste like diet cookies.
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Wild River Review/ Wild Table editor, Warren Bobrow grew up on a farm in Morristown, NJ. A graduate of Emerson College with a degree in Film, he spent his senior year as a research assistant in visual thinking at CAVS / MIT.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
potlikker or pot liquor?
big mamma: Photo: Warren Bobrow
POT LIQUOR OR POTLIKKER? The Cultural Dichotomy of Potlikker vs. Matzo Ball Soup
Preface Originally Published: February 23, 1982 Credit: The New York Times
In an article on Senate debates on food that ran on this page Feb. 10, mention was made of a 1935 filibuster in which Huey Long lectured his colleagues on the merits of potlikker. Due to an unfortunate consultation with a dictionary, that great Southern delicacy was referred to as ”pot liquor,” prompting the following communication from a regional authority on the subject:
Dear Sir:
I always thought The New York Times knew everything, but obviously your editor knows as little about spelling as he or she does about Appalachian cooking and soul food.
Only a culinarily-illiterate damnyankee (one word) who can’t tell the difference between beans and greens would call the liquid left in the pot after cooking greens ”pot liquor” (two words) instead of ”potlikker” (one word) as yours did. And don’t cite Webster as a defense because he didn’t know any better either.” Sincerely, ZELL MILLER Lieutenant Governor State of Georgia
The Southern food heritage authority, John T. Edge wrote his masters degree thesis on the cultural relevance of Potlikker. Why can’t I explain my personal connection with Potlikker? All great Southern Heritage questions should be answered by those who are influenced by the South- for their own perspective on Southern Culture and Southern Cuisines. You don’t have to be a Southerner to be knowledgeable about the history of Southern Cooking. You can even be a Yankee Carpetbagger!
I’m a Damn Yankee, born and raised. Why should I be interested in potlikker? The explanation goes back to my childhood. The kitchen in the big house was the place that made me love bacon, cooked low and slow in a cast iron pan. To whit my first true memories were on the farm, in the kitchen next to Estelle cooking a rooster including all the parts into a stew. The collards, turnip or mustard greens were cooked until they oozed their very souls into a viscous, slightly cloudy fluid-thick with the rendered chunks of salty home-cured, country ham. The pan in which they cooked further flavored those greens. Then they were wiped out with the hunks of hand-cut “light as a feather” biscuits. I would sop up the likker and country ham with a still warm biscuit or hunk of cornbread hot from the old cast iron frying pan. Nothing went to waste. A pot of old black coffee was stirred into a pan of cooking greens. Why throw out coffee? If it tastes good, it will extend the ingredients and flavors in a more complex meal. A top round of roast beef cooked for a Saturday night supper would always have the collard greens on the side- and the potlikker. My earliest memories of family and table involve tasting the ground, the earth beneath my feet and a splash of Southern cooking through liberal application of the likker. Most of these earliest memories were in the kitchen of my grandparent’s “big house.”
Estelle was our cook. With her broad smile and determined yet friendly demeanor in the kitchen, food not only tasted differently, it tasted better. She was a strong willed woman who loved us deeply and not just because she worked for our family. That love translated through the warmth of her hands into creating food that didn’t just feed us, it sustained us. These memories I have are complete and true. They tie me to her kitchen and her teaching. The dishes that my mother cooked for my sister and I had no flavor or discernable memories. That’s not to say she couldn’t cook. She used excellent ingredients all from local farms and grocery stores. It’s just simple…My mother couldn’t cook like Estelle, she wasn’t meant to, after all, my mother is a Yankee, like myself. Estelle was from Georgia. I learned about potlikker at the knee of Estelle, who didn’t actually teach me how to cook, she just cooked and I watched. One of her favorite dishes was served in the fall when the greens were bright and available for next to nothing at the grocery store. Simple foods that speak of the soil are most pleasing after the first frost. They seem to grow better after being “hardened-off.” So far this season we’ve only had one hard freeze and several light frosts. To my palate, this is the best time for one thing and that’s GREENS and memories of meals gone past. The cultural analysis for greens, cooked low and slow, is what is left over after the greens have she their liquids. This likker slides around at the bottom of an ancient cast iron dutch oven- slick with the memories of all the greens cooked in the past. The cultural and historical dichotomy of connecting potlikker and the Jewish culture of matzo ball soup (chicken soup prepared with matzo balls/using typical Jewish ingredients such as a Pullet or an old Rooster is more than just a coincidence. The defining thread of these liquids is akin to the perceived healing properties of the liquid. Evidently, potlikker contains a metaphysical oral history many hundreds of years old, attached to healing, just as matzo ball soup (when made correctly) contains what is known as Jewish Penicillin. Jewish Penicillin is as much a part of the greater world of culinary delights as “potlikker” is mentioned as a cure for scurvy, Vitamin K deficiency and general malaise. Down South, the description of not feeling well is sure to garner the response: “have a cup of likker” as in NYC, where the words “have a cup of matzo ball soup, you’ll feel better” describes a similar experience and cultural history. They are both tied to our stomach and feeling of being… “better.” The combination of drippings from the greens and the broth of a bowl of matzo ball soup are tied into the deepest recesses of the culinary psyche. They both say “heal me from the inside out.”
I share with you Estelle’s greens. Cooked low and slow with a dash of Southern Georgia Pig.
I use salty Smithfield Ham slices or a few smoked ham hocks soaked of their salt
Collard greens are nutritious. You can grow them just about anywhere. The best soil to grow collards is sandy acidic soil, although the will grow almost anywhere that sun shines hot during the day after a cold night under the stars.
Drinkin and Dronin’ starts here while the greens cook down to their sweet essence.
Ingredients:
2 – 3 medium smoked ham hocks or 2 pounds smoked pork neck bones or a few slices of dry and salty aged Smithfield Country Ham
2 teaspoon of salt (if you use Smithfield Country Ham, then do not add any extra salt- it will be salty enough from the ham. Take 2 or 3 smoked ham hocks and put them in a large (6 quart) pot of water. Bring the water to a full boil and let it boil for about 2 1/2 hours. Add more water as it boils down. When the Ham hocks are falling apart you can add the collard greens. Just before they go into the pot wash them carefully in many changes of fresh, sweet water from your well. If you don’t have a well, get your water from someone who does.
Rinse the collard greens thoroughly, stack several leaves on top of each other. Roll these leaves together like rolling a cigar. Slice the leaves into thin strips using a wooden cutting board and large very sharp knife. Smile while you’re making this dish and play this. Rolling them together like a fat Cuban cigar speeds up the process and makes the job more enjoyable.
Next, add your cut and rewashed collard greens to the pot. Since this is a lot of collards, you will need to add them until the pot is full. Then allow them to wilt as they cook – then add some more. Add a bit of salt, only if using ham hocks, not the Smithfield Ham. Cover and cook for twenty minutes on medium heat. Stir every few minutes with an old wooden spoon to distribute the smoked meat taste evenly. Eat the ham hocks or neck bones right along with the collards. Heck, invite the neighborhood over and get a few cases of PBR. Have plenty of fresh cornbread handy to sop up the juices. On our farm we always had plenty of hot sauce (homemade of course) to sprinkle over the greens. The juices that flow from the greens are known simply as “potlikker.” This is the magic liquid that binds hundreds of years of Southern history in a scented broth. I knew a family that always kept a jar of this in the refrigerator, if not for cooking, but for general medicinal purposes.
Like a bowl of Matzo Ball Soup… “Potlikker” heals everything that hurts. Try some!
The wine for “potlikker?” May I suggest a Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. And thanks to Billy Reid for influencing my stomach.
Pig Tails? Photo: Warren Bobrow
from the rear view.. Photo: Warren Bobrow
time for feedin' Photo: Warren Bobrow
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