Recently, I attended a chocolate tasting at Michel Cluizel, a chocolate store in ABC Carpet and Home. I've gone to cheese tasting and wine tastings, but a chocolate one? This was new territory.
The evening was led by Dina Cheney, the author of Tasting Club, a playful, instructional guide that teaches people how to host a tasting. In the book, Dina encourages readers to try both traditional tastings featuring cheese, wine and chocolate, and more experimental ones with things like honey, balsamic vinegar and apples.
I was seated with a group of women I'd never met before. Within minutes, we were oohing and ahhing over the different types of chocolate, while Dina instructed us to snap, smell and savor our way through each one. Together we called out the different flavors we were tasting (grassy, peppery and earthy were common responses), and before deciding if we liked a piece, we assessed how it melted in our mouths and if it left a particular aftertaste. By the time we reached our final piece, I wanted to start at the beginning and try each one again.
As someone who loves to entertain, the tasting concept is liberating. When preparing to host a dinner party, I spend hours poring through cookbooks and back issues of food magazines searching for the perfect multi-course meal. The day of the event, I run around my Brooklyn neighborhood picking up one ingredient here, another there and after hours in my teeny tiny kitchen, I'm just about ready to pull out my hair.
Luckily, I moved to an apartment with a brand-spanking new kitchen a few weeks ago. As eager as I am to start some serious cooking, this warm summer weather has kept me far from the stove. Perhaps a small, intimate gathering starring a plate of apples or some pots of honey is just what I need?
When my friend Martin asked if I would bring a lemon dessert to his Memorial Day Smoked Brisket party, I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for making a dessert that can really be served any 12 months of the year. I usually love to bake, but I was dreading the prospect of juicing dozens of overpriced lemons while waiting for my tart shells to rest. Baking a lemon tart (and that was already down-sized from his initial request for a lemon-meringue pie) was just one more chore in a very busy weekend.
But then, I spotted my bowl of perfectly ripe apricots, glowing with their vibrant hues of golden pink and orange, and the world was suddenly a rosier place. The short-lived apricot season is happening right now and I've always wanted to try the Apricot Upside Down Cake in one of my favorite summer cookbooks, The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market Cookbook. I love making upside down cakes — in addition to their old-fashioned charm, there is always that element of surprise at the end when you flip the fruits of your labor and lift the cover. I suddenly couldn't wait to start to baking.
The cake came out beautifully, but when I brought it to the party, it got a little lost on a dessert-laden buffet table. Mine was not the biggest (beaten by a cherry pecan pie) nor the flashiest (a banana cream pudding topped with Chess Cookies), but I think it won the "Understated and Elegant" award. It wasn't overly sweet and, served with a side of tart crème fraîche, had a sophisticated and grownup taste. Fortunately, with so many choices, about one-third of the cake was left over; when host Martin was giving away leftovers, I grabbed the cake and ran. The next day I served it to some different friends and it was a huge hit.
So what is the point of this? Cooking should be a joy, so pick a project you really want to work on. Professionally speaking, I'm weak on pastry, so I love the journey of baking when I'm home alone in my kitchen and no one is watching. The finished product is just, well, icing on the cake.
My CSA re-opened last week, officially kicking off my summer food life. So — what is a CSA, you ask?
In the words of farmer Ron Khosla of Huguenot Street Farms, "Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a relatively new concept in the United States that has really taken off. There are well over 1,000 CSA farms now operating here. It all started with just one, back in 1986.
The idea is simple: Members of the community buy a "share" in a local farm for one season. Shares are paid for in advance, usually by sometime in May, and the members then get access to a portion of the farmers' harvest from June into November.
Great-tasting vegetables at a price well below retail are the most obvious benefits to being a CSA member. Because you are buying directly from the farmer, you can choose vegetable varieties for taste, rather than how they ship, pack and look on store shelves.
Choosing to eat fresh seasonal vegetables contributes to good health and plays an important role in the local rural economy — helping to keep small farms small farms, not small subdivisions.
Your entire food dollar goes directly to the farmer and is not divided between fuel companies, freight lines and large produce distributors. You will see the difference this makes starting with your first distributions!"
I consider myself fortunate to be a member of Huguenot Street Farm CSA, which is no mean feat considering there is a huge waiting list — few members drop out so it's hard for new people to get in. The CSA always starts a little slow (it is only late spring in upstate New York, after all), works itself into a feverish crescendo in July and August, and then slowly tapers off to a winter squash and hearty greens finale in the fall.
Last Friday, after collecting my allotted mustard greens, Russian kale, tender lettuces and gorgeous purple scallions, I trekked out to the pick-your-own area for sugar snap peas. I had forgotten how therapeutic it is be in the Huguenot Farm fields, surrounded by the Shawangunk Mountains; rows of ripening berries and vegetables; weeds; and, later in the summer, zinnias, snapdragons and sunflowers of every hue. My husband and I are usually the only people out there (most members live in the New Paltz area and show up on Thursday evening) and we find it to be an emotionally cleansing ritual from our hectic weekdays in New York City.
Thirty minutes later, my husband was grilling scallops while I cooked the sugar snaps. All that was needed to lure out their vibrancy was to:
· Snap off the stem ends, pulling the fibrous string with them
· Steam for about one minute
· Toss over high heat with some extra-virgin olive oil and coarsely ground salt and pepper
I firmly believe that getting your food from a local farm or farm stand, and especially picking (or growing it!) yourself, teaches you how to taste again. You become aware of every nuance of flavor and texture in foods you might have taken for granted in the past. For example, when was the last time you felt compelled to write about sautèed sugar snap peas?
I love ice cream sandwiches any time of year, but nothing beats eating one on a sticky summer day. This year, I had my first frozen sandwich of the season at One Girl Cookies, a cheery blue bakery in Boerum Hill, my old Brooklyn neighborhood. Back when I lived right across the street, I loved peeking in at their selection of sweets each and every day.
One Girl Cookies offers two flavors (pumpkin or chocolate) and both come with creamy ricotta gelato. Similar in size to a whoopie cake, they are compact confections that you could easily eat in two bites. I purposely prolonged the process with slow, tiny nibbles.
In Manhattan, there's Three Tarts (a small shop near Food Network that serves sleek square-shaped ice cream sandwiches), Otto (Mario Batali's popular pizza joint where olive oil gelato is squeezed into a squishy brioche bun), Ruby et Violette (a midtown bakery with bulging brownie sandwiches), and 'Wichcraft (a gourmet sandwich shop that has a different flavor every day).
It's good to have so many places where I can satisfy my ice cream sandwich cravings, but sometimes, I just want to make this quintessential summer treat myself. What combinations have you tried before and are there any Food Network recipes you recommend?
One Girl Cookies
68 Dean Street
Brooklyn, NY
212-675-4996
Otto
1 Fifth Avenue (at 8th Street)
New York, NY
212-995-9559
Ruby et Violette
457 W. 50th Street (near Tenth Avenue)
New York, NY
212-582-6720
'Wichcraft
Various addresses in Manhattan
212-780-0577
Once considered compost fodder, garlic scapes are now the early-summer darlings of farmers’ markets. Scapes are the immature flower stalks of hardneck garlic. When they first burst from the ground, they are tender curly green shoots. If they're not cut off, the shoots straighten and harden and the garlic bulbs' growth is stunted.
I had never experienced a garlic scape before I joined my CSA three years ago, but now I greet their arrival with unbridled enthusiasm. Scapes have a crisp-tender texture and a distinct garlic flavor, but without the raw garlic bite. Besides making a killer pesto, scapes are great in frittatas, pasta dishes, stir-fries — anywhere you want a hit of garlic and a splash of green. Store them in a plastic bag in the crisper section of your fridge and they'll last for weeks.
This week I made Basil-Garlic Scape Hummus and served it with grilled whole wheat pita. A small warning: It is garlicky.
Basil-Garlic Scape Hummus
1 (15-ounce) can no-sodium chickpeas, rinsed
1 large handful (1 to 2 cups) fresh basil leaves
1/2 to 1 cup garlic scapes
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons (1/4 cup)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon kosher salt (or better yet, grey salt)
splash hot sauce
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Combine chickpeas, basil leaves, scapes, lemon juice, salt and hot sauce in a food processor. With the motor running, drizzle in olive oil and process until smooth.
A few weeks ago, I had dinner at Anthos, a Greek restaurant in midtown. All you Iron Chef America fans might recognize the owner, Michael Psilakis, from battle puff pastry. Cat Cora beat him. Don't let that deter you though. According to New York Magazine, he's the "Mario Batali of New Agean cuisine".
I forgot to bring my camera to the meal, so I'll have to warn you that this post isn't really about Anthos. But I will say that my hilopita (braised rabbit nestled on an egg noodle with black truffle and hanouri cheese) and my olive oil poached halibut with morels and ramps in a fava broth were excellent, and the loukoumades -- orange blossom donuts plump with bergamot cream and served with a side of burt honey ice cream -- will surely lure me back to midtown (a part of the city I try my best to avoid).
What I really want to tell you is that I spotted The Amateur Gourmet right as I was leaving the restaurant. For those of you who have no idea who I'm talking about, he's one of New York's most popular food bloggers. I know, I know, what's so exciting about a food blogger any way, but when you've been reading about a stranger's meals for the past year, hearing about their roommate Diana, boyfriend Craig and recent move to Park Slope, it's kind of cool to finally see that person in the flesh. It was hard to keep myself from looking over at his table every now and then, trying to see what he was eating and wondering what he'd say about Anthos on his site. For those of you who are interested, he was having dinner with his Mom and Dad (who I recognized from past posts). Despite my efforts to be discreet, I could tell they noticed that I recognized their son.
On my subway ride home, it got me thinking about food bloggers and how many have become mini-celebrities. There's Clotilde from Chocolate and Zucchini who recently returned from a tour promoting her first book (and gave Jude Law a signed copy!), and Molly, the lovely Seattle blogger who met her fiance Brandon through her blog, Orangette. Molly and Brandon's love story is so sweet that here at Food Network, we featured them in a Power of Food segment. (To watch, click on the lemon cake clip on our Power of Food page).
Ever since discovering Orangette last summer, I've emailed with Molly a few times about her amazing butternut squash puree and espresso-flecked chocolate chip cookies, and I'm sure I'd have no problem spotting her in a restaurant. Then there are some NY food bloggers I've met and whose blogs I read regularly, such as Luisa from The Wednesday Chef and Anne from Good American Wife. Who would have thought a few years ago that so many people writing about the same subject could gain such attentive audiences?
There are thousands of food bloggers out there these days. Which ones (aside from me and Suki, of course) would you like to spot in a restaurant, or actually meet?
Anthos
36 W. 52nd Street (near 5th Avenue)
New York, NY
212-582-6900
