Chile 2012 Food and Travel Slideshow
By kim ~ May 15th, 2012. Filed under: food and travel. Email to a Friend
By kim ~ May 15th, 2012. Filed under: food and travel. Email to a Friend
Fresh Herb and Raw Beet Salad Recipe
By kim ~ May 14th, 2012. Filed under: Food, recipes. Email to a Friend
The other day I was craving something fresh and light that also packs a lot of flavor. I had also come across a reasonably-priced Japanese mandolin slicer, which I love for shaving super thin slices of vegetables for raw salads. Chad Haynes, our test kitchen director, likes to tear the herbs rather than chopping and bruising them.
| Herb and Shaved Beet Salad |
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Recipe type: Salad, Appetizer
Author:
Serves: 6
Piled high with fresh herbs, this raw beet salad is light and makes the most of fresh raw vegetables. Use your favorite combination of herbs, including parsley, chervil, dill, mint, etc. If possible, use a mandolin for super thin slices.
Ingredients
- 2 large beets (about 2 pounds)
- 1/2 Vidalia or other sweet onion such as Walla Walla
- About 2 cups fresh herbs (mint, parsley, dill, chives)
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Fleur de sel or other finishing salt
- Fresh cracked black pepper
- Lemon juice or white wine vinegar
Instructions
- Peel, trim and halve beets; thinly slice beets and onions, preferably using a mandolin slicer. Toss together with a bit of oil, lemon juice or vinegar, salt, and pepper.
- Pile beets and onions on a large serving dish. Drizzle with a bit more olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon and finish with some fleur de sel or Maldon flaky salt.
Notes
This is excellent chilled the next day or layered into a sandwich.
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Spring Peas, Shoots, and Leaves
By kim ~ May 11th, 2012. Filed under: Food, Seattle, Video. Email to a Friend
As much as I love long-simmered stews, bowls of polenta with lots of butter and cheese, I’m always happy to forgo (temporarily) daube Provençale or cassoulet for the color, flavor, and crunch of these moments before summer.
Photos below are some shots of spring I’ve taken over the past year or so:
1) Pea “chutes” from the Saturday Farmers Market in Portland. I love these tossed in a salad with a simple lemon vinaigrette, piled onto sandwiches, or simply sauteed with a bit of garlic and shallot.
They also make a great snack to take on the plane, wrapped with jicama or Kohlrabi and prosciutto di Parma.
Pea Shoots, Kohlrabi, and Prosciutto di Parma
2) A single pea pod from a photo shoot at Frances Mayes’s home in North Carolina.
3) A silky delicious salad of green beans, peas, roasted shiitake, and roasted sesame vinaigrette at REVEL in Seattle. Everything at Revel is a joy, from the counter seat dining to the delicious cocktails and the hints of Korean flavor.
For those of you into competitive eating, check out this Revel dumpling-eating contest. That’s chef Seif Chirchi in the grey t-shirt in the middle.
No-Cook Freezer Jam Recipes
By kim ~ May 10th, 2012. Filed under: Food, North Carolina, recipes. Email to a Friend
Blackberry Lavender Freezer Jam photo by Thomas Macdonald
One of my favorite cooks and eating partners, Sara Foster, has once again shared some brilliant recipes. This time she offers us ways to capture the sweetness of summer without overcooking. According to Sara, in this Organic Gardening article, freezer jams are “another, easier way to get that sunny flavor in the middle of winter… Unlike traditional canned jam, these preserves do not require long days of preparation, exact cooking times (or any cooking at all sometimes), sterilizing jars, and hours of time.”
It’s hard to choose a favorite flavor combination between Blackberry Lavender, Balsamic Strawberry and Fig Apple. Knowing Sara, each is a winner; I think I”ll start with Blackberry Lavender.
Sara Foster with Oscar
Here are Sara’s cookbooks. You can’t go wrong with any of them. The recipes are simple, fresh, and always delicious.
New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival: First Bites
By kim ~ May 4th, 2012. Filed under: food and travel, Local Flavor, New Orleans. Email to a Friend
Here are some first bites from the 2012 Jazz and Heritage Festival in my hometown of New Orleans. I always start with these tastes of home: Brown Jambalaya made by Catering Unlimited; Fried Softshell Crab Po-Boy by Galley Seafood Restaurant; Cochon de Lait Po-Boy by Love at First Bite, and (not pictured) Pheasant, Quail, and Andouille Gumbo. Going back for more today. Brown Jambalaya with Chicken and Andouille
Soft shell crab po-boy
Cochon de Lait Po-Boy
Best music of the day: Jimmy Buffet definitely rocked the house but FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE was breathtaking. An exotic bird in her beautiful black cape, her powerful angelic voice. The crowd was joyful. The best quote from Florence: Last time I was in New Orleans, it involved a graveyard, a Cadillac, and a handgun….Enough said.”
Savoring Puerto Rico: Words and Images
By kim ~ April 27th, 2012. Filed under: food and travel, Local Flavor, Video. Email to a Friend
Puerto Rico Slideshow from kim sunee on Vimeo.
Some quick fast notes from Puerto Rico:
Faded cerulean blue cobblestones
Rice and Peas
Powder sugar-dusted mallorca and papaya milkshake
La Bombonera
Jesus from Lares
Old man in the doorway
Yellow blossoms, achiote
Rice and Peas
El Yunque, Arabica
Oceanside salsa and piña colada
Prince, J. Lo, Ricky Martin
La ruta del lechon
El Morro, San Cristobal
Crunchy caramel-colored cuarito
Alcapurria, Morcilla, guyabano
Saborea!
Puerto Rico does do it better!
Where to Stay/Eat/Shop: in Old San Juan, Hotel El Convento where, presumably, Sally Field’s The Flying Nun series was based. A few streets from El Convento is the Restaurant El Jibarito, one of my favorites for old-school Puerto Rican cuisine, including red beans and rice, pernil (roast pork), and super-light yuca mofongo with garlic shrimp. For ocean views and world-class Alain Ducasse cuisine, stay at the W Hotel in Vieques. Other places: La Bombonera (toasted mallorca and papaya milkshakes), La Casita Blanca, Kasalta. Stop in at the Hilton Caribe for a piña colada where legend has it that after one taste of the famous rum cocktail, Joan Crawford announced that it was better than slapping Bette Davis in the face. And bring back bottles of the 3-Star Ron del Barrilito Rum. Only 11,000 cases are sold annually and most of the bottles stay on the island.
Homemade Marshmallow Recipe
By kim ~ April 14th, 2012. Filed under: Food, recipes. Email to a Friend
I don’t know why I was compelled to make marshmallows, especially since I’m not a huge fan of them, but I like a culinary challenge. And I was tweeting with Ray Isle of Food and Wine Magazine about what to do with my bottles of Vin Jaune and vin de paille from the Jura region of France. I came across this epicurious recipe for marshmallows using Lillet Blanc, one of my absolute favorite apéritif (I like it chilled with a slice of orange). I also love to poach peaches in Lillet Blanc (recipe in Trail of Crumbs).
The epicurious reviews mention the simplicity of the recipe and the subtle flavor. It is surprisingly easy to make, as long as you conquer the stickiness of it all; tip: a lightly oiled pizza cutter or mezza luna is a great way to effortlessly cut these.
What I loved about this challenge is that it allowed me to practice using Lillet Blanc, which is more accessible this side of the Ocean than the more obscure Vins du Jura. Now that I have the confidence to make these, next up will be marshmallows with vin de paille, a sweet straw wine.
The Tuscan Sun Cookbook by Frances Mayes
By kim ~ March 20th, 2012. Filed under: Books, food and travel, Italy, Tuscany. Email to a Friend
The gorgeous and lovingly crafted cookbook by Frances and Ed Mayes is finally here.
I was very fortunate to spend some time with Frances and Ed and the talented photographer, Steven Rothfeld, as we cooked and photographed recipes for THE TUSCAN SUN COOKBOOK.
This collection of recipes is a love letter to the people and food and flavors of the beloved Tuscan region that Frances and Ed fell in love with more than twenty years ago. There’s poetry on every page–in the ingredients and table settings and landscapes.
Some of my favorite dishes in the book include Semolina gnocchi, a simple yet surprisingly delicious warm gratin of semolina, butter and cheese; the pasta dishes; all the artichoke recipes; the stuffed vegetables, and pizzas….I guess it’s hard to choose. So, pour yourself a glass of wine, pick any page, gather your friends, and get cooking.
To see Frances on tour, check out her Website.
Maui Dreaming
By kim ~ March 17th, 2012. Filed under: Hawaii. Email to a Friend
I’ve escaped the mid-winter snowfalls and landed right here, on Maui’s Big Beach, for just a few days. My friend, Angela, calls to remind me that when she left Maui she cried for days.
As I sit staring at the ocean with its swells and gigantic turtles, drinking guava juice, eating fresh papaya with lime, slices of Maui Gold pineapple, I realize the joy of letting go and not tormenting myself with the constant: “I should be doing ….”
Right now, I am where I am supposed to be.
Where are you?
Mahoney’s Po-Boy Shop, New Orleans
By kim ~ February 24th, 2012. Filed under: food and travel, New Orleans. Email to a Friend
French Fries smothered in gravy.
Day 1: Meat and Three
By kim ~ November 1st, 2011. Filed under: Alaska, food and travel, recipes. Email to a Friend
Meaty day. Started out driving with local celebrity Chef Al to Mat Valley Meats where owner, Nate, who will be the star of a new Discovery Channel show, has generously offered his location for a salumi-making extravaganza.
Our fearless leader is François Vecchio, a 3rd-generation Swiss master butcher/Salumiere. Today, François is working with the first of 3 barley-fed pigs to be butchered and sorted, weighed, measured and photographed before being transformed into coppa, saucisses, paté, boudin, and more. Minneapolis chef Mike Phillips has joined us as well as Emmy award-winning filmmaker extraordinaire, Elizabeth Pepin SIlva, who is here to help document the event…more on that soon.
With all the meatiness of the day, dinner is a salad that started out in Greece (feta, wild thyme a friend brought back from the island of Limnos, sweet onion and cucumber) and went to finishing school closer to the Alps; I sliced some savoy cabbage I had in the refrigerator and tossed it in with a red pear. Thought about toasting pine nuts, but the salad is already confused enough, sitting there in a wooden bowl from Vermont against a window cold with the first Alaska snow. Luckily, tomorrow, we (salad not included) head to Oahu for a quick business trip.
Dessert will be leftover panna cotta with candied lemon zest. The ratio of 2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin to 3 1/2 cups milk/almond milk/cream/yogurt/buttermilk works very well; I don’t like rubbery panna cotta. There’s a bit (OK, a lot) of scraped vanilla sediment in this one but it tastes good..Oh well, it can’t always be perfect.
Santa Barbara and Darth Vader of the Sea
By kim ~ August 14th, 2011. Filed under: California, food and travel. Email to a Friend
A perfect day for me is waking up early, basket in tow and heading to a local market, like the one in Santa Barbara. I recently visited friends and we spent a good part of the mornings tasting our way through the various offerings–golden raspberries and local avocado honey, caviar limes (aka Australian finger lime), stone fruit–and cooking everything from burrata with heirloom tomatoes and basil oil to several pints of salted caramel pine nut ice cream. We came home that first day with fresh lavender, Sungold tomatoes, fresh linguine, cranberry beans, green garlic, peaches, plums…
Then we headed over to the Santa Barbara Fish Market, a tiny gem busting with fresh oysters, Santa Barbara uni, and my favorite catch of the day, a whole black cod, that a friend nicknamed “Darth Vader of the Sea.”
We stuffed Darth with Ojai oranges and grilled him, along with peaches wrapped in prosciutto di Parma, and tossed up some salads–fingerling potato with dill and spring onions; tomato, mint, and feta; fresh beans, green garlic, jalapeño, and cilantro–and later, walked along the ocean. Darth proved to be silky and delicious with nothing dark about him.
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