Happy Birthday Julia

In celebration of August 15th, also known as Julia Child's birthday, a party was given in her honor last night in Tucson Arizona. The menu
needed to be worthy. Boeuf Bourginon might seem like an obvious choice of entree to some to celebrate and honor the original French Chef. After all, it was Julia Child who introduced a developing gourmet nation to it. Boeuf is now being newly rediscovered as a "star" dish by the original Star Chef http://www.starchefs.com/. With its star turn and attendant hoopla surrounding the marvelously wrought movie Julie & Julia corralling our culinary cultural consciousness, I am frankly surprised not to have seen the savory winey french beef stew in the now ubiquitous "red carpet" footage from the film's premier. The stew as much a star as Streep or Adams themselves. I can see the shot of a French cast enamel dutch oven carried by a kitchen wench in oven mits stopping to answer the shouts from the papparazzi along the velvet ropeline edge. Boeuf! Boeuf! Look this way! Click! Click!Click! As the obliging wench turns and gently tilts the slightly steaming stew pot just so, in order that a perfect picture can be captured and zipped around the planet for all to see and be inspired by. And to try to make at home. Hooray. It would be the sort of exalted and ridiculous attention that might just have delighted Julia. Because, this great dish deserves such attention and rediscovery. But during this otherwise dull, depressional summer of unseasonable rainy & cool temperatures all along the eastern shore. Our comfort food craving might reasonably be drawn to such fabulous, warming, fulfilling, hearty fare. I mean, who craves piping hot beef stew in the midst of a heat wave? Summer 2009 has been perfect Boeuf weather. The movie has also stimulated our Beouf fantasies and cravings. So simple beef stew with wine or Beouf Bourgignon it shall be for our celebration. Though let me say there is very little that is purely simple about crafting a Beouf from Mastering the Art of French Cooking http://www.ecookbooks.com/. Like all simple things, it is actually very hard to do well. Let alone perfectly. But Julia gives us a fighting chance with mostly precise direction and near fool-proof description. Assumptions for 21st centure culinary duncery notwithstanding ( ie; browning to a non-browning experienced cook). But this is not the eastern shore, and it is the wild west and it has been hot. And so on a really hot Tucson night, during the dog days of what has felt like the longest hottest summer in recent memory, Boeuf Bourgignon seemed a most unlikely menu choice for a table full of VIP guests from the worlds of food, science, medicine & entrepreneurship. Yet the circumstances of this unique moment in time, including our cultural clamoring for comfort, and collective thoughts of Julia made our desert dinner decision a no-brainer. So I dove in, like Julie Powell and a multi-generational sorority of women before me to make the now world famous version of this classic stew. Good wine, grass fed beef from Montana thanks to Bryant Family Farm Beef http://www.bryantfamilyfarm.com/, purveyors to the US Culinary Olympic team, perfect mushrooms, European butter.Check. The result was a grand success according to all those at table. But the most gratifying moment came when I recalled my own time with Julia and how she would have loved the fact that wonderful friends came together for a swim in the Arizona twilight, with joyful music playing and twinkling stars complying in the perfect desert sky. She would have loved that we toasted her and used her recipe and that it turned out per her instructions in Mastering. That the recipe for boeuf works and triumphs, even in the hands of a passionate serventless amateur cook-housewife like myself, would cause her to raise a glass in our honor right back. Happy Birthday Julia and Thank You. Bon Appetit!

Merci Julia & Les Dames d’Escoffier

At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink may be the subtitle of this great book. In reality COOKING WITH LES DAMES D’ESCOFFIER is the perfect preview to the upcoming release of the Julie/Julia project film. In their own words, none other than the incredible Alice Waters ( whose Chez Panisse is better than ever after a recent perfect luncheon) writes "With this book, we celebrate the delicious way to save the world -- by cooking and eating. Enjoy these splendid recipes from Dames who have shared wonderful meals and want to share them with you. The instructions are all laid out for you; there’s no expertise needed. All you need is to begin.”
—Alice Waters and Jerry Anne Di Vecchio (from the foreword)

This new cookbook gathers favorite recipes and food wisdom from Les Dames d’Escoffier. What if you could invite Julia Child, Alice Waters, M.F.K. Fisher, and Marcella Hazan into your kitchen as you make dinner? Imagine Julia looking over your shoulder as you prepare Julia’s Lobster Newberg, or Gina Batali giving you her prized recipe for Batali Family Stuffed Artichokes. COOKING WITH LES DAMES D’ESCOFFIER (Sasquatch Books; October 2008; $35.00/hardcover; ISBN-13: 978-1-57061-530-6) assembles a dream team of culinary stars to share their most essential dishes — the ones they make at home for family and friends.

Members of Les Dames d’Escoffier include world-famous chefs, founders of farmers’ markets, winemakers, food media, restaurateurs, educators, and many others. In the organization’s first national cookbook, the Dames share their most essential dishes — the ones they make at home for family and friends — including:

M.F.K. Fisher’s Black Olive Tapenade with Tuna and Hard-Cooked Eggs
Stuffed Figs (Georgeanne Brennan)
Smoked Whitefish and Nori Pâte (Betty Fussell)
Seared Scallops with Surprise Sauce (Dorie Greenspan)
Pork Rib Guazzetto (Lidia Bastianich)
Summer Salad of Watermelon, Feta Cheese, and Mint (Paula Lambert)
Greek Yellow Split Pea Soup (Joyce Goldstein)
Fresh Blackberry Cobbler (Edna Lewis)
And many more, all featuring a suggested beverage
Les Dames d’Escoffier (LDEI) is the premier association of women culinary professionals, started in 1973 in response to the all-male Les Amis d’Escoffier. Their story parallels the feminist movement that began in the 1960s. At that time the food, wine, and hospitality industries were no different from other fields: A woman’s place was squarely in the home, and those who ventured out into the workplace were not allowed the same opportunities.

Today the group includes 28 chapters in the United States and Canada, with more than 1300 members, including many of the most influential names in the food world. LDEI and its chapters have raised nearly $4 million for scholarships and grants for mentoring women in the food and beverage industries.

As LDEI grew over the years, many of its members have pioneered culinary trends so beloved in America today. Grand Dame Julia Child and Anne Willan encouraged our love of French food, Alice Waters and Judy Rodgers taught us about local and sustainable ingredients, and Flo Braker and Leslie Mackie have introduced us to artisan-baked goods.

COOKING WITH LES DAMES D'ESCOFFIER celebrates the collective wisdom of this impressive group of food professionals. A definitive resource, the cookbook is filled with insights and tips for the home cook, together with 125 of the Dames’ most essential recipes. Here are such delights as Lidia Bastianich’s hearth-warming Pork Rib Guazzetto; Susa Feniger’s Roasted Black Cod with Horseradish Coulis and Farmers’ Carrots; Anne Willan’s elegant Twice-Baked Spinach Soufflés; and Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet Soufflés with Nibby Cream. More than 120 recipes include appetizers, first courses, soups, main courses (including vegetarian options), sides, baking, and desserts.

The Dames also serve up a wonderfully eclectic and informed array of sidebars: the lowdown on screw-cap wines, how boxed phyllo dough can be a lifesaver, how to pair beer and food, new ways to enjoy caviar, favorite kitchen tools, and much more. The result is a wide-ranging and essential cookbook for anyone who cares about food and its many nuances. COOKING WITH LES DAMES D’ESCOFFIER offers a wealth of delicious dishes that invite cooks everywhere home for dinner.
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Tribute to Kay Williams, Room Service Manager Ritz Carlton Boston

My Great-Grandmother's Name was Kay Williams, but everyone that knew her called her Kitty and she love the hospitality business. Winter was spent in service at the grand hotels in Florida and summer in legendary sea side palaces like the Monmouth and the Essex in Spring Lake New Jersey. In her "dotage" she returned to her native Cambridge , Massachusetts to become the night room service manager at the venerable Ritz Carlton Hotel in Boston. As a very small girl I would visit this enchanted place. I discovered the "back of the house" there and have never been the same.

Nana Kitty is how we knew her and loved her. On her day-off, she would get a club sandwich boxed lunch from the kitchen staff, a jar of "Stingers" from the barman, a racing form from the newsstand, and a cab at the corner. She would travel out to Chestnut Hill, a suburb of Boston to stay with us and help my young Mom with the house while she was going "back-to-school". Her "day-off" was filled with chores. But it was filled with bedtime stories of glamorous life in the golden age of the great hotels. Nana Kitty always stayed in my room with me in the small house on Moody Street. She was a Great Dame, and even if I didn't fully understand the unique mix of hardworker & Auntie Mame whose savoire fare, panache, and infectous belly laugh began to rub off. I have a dozen or so pictures of her, and in every one she looks to be in mid-belly laugh. She looks like she loved life, It also looks like life was hard too, but she bore the load with incredible gusto.

When I began to find my own self as both a hardworker and a connoisseur, I did so with the legacy of Nana Kitty in my heart. While the long-retired doorman who used to give me a penny upon my arrival was gone, and a penny no longer got you a gumball, I looked forward to my visits like a homecoming. Later in my life on return annual visits to the blue crystal & gold dining room at the old Boston Ritz Carlton for my birthday dinner, "Tito"the Captain , who was himself a young man during Nana Kitty's tenure always greeted us like long lost family. And in the manner of authentically warm welcoming that pros know how to offer when favorite customers return whom one is genuinely happy to see, I became spoiled.

Nana Kitty has been gone for over 30 years, but I cherish the momentos of our connoisseurs collaboration. It spawned a collection of culinary artifacts that inspire, inform everything I do on The Food & Wine Radio network, on TV, in my consulting, writing, speaking, teaching & tasting. If you enjoy what you discover, go to the best hotel in town tonight and order a Stinger and make a toast to Kitty. She would really like that.

CircleofFood.com Reprint

Thanks to Circle of Food. com

Embark on an edible voyage of self discovery.
Every person has a unique fingerprint. Perhaps they have a unique flavorprint as well.
A person’s flavorprint is made up of all the flavors, foods, tastes, and aromas that please you most.
These are the flavors that enhance your pleasure and enrich your enjoyment of food and drink. Does the pleasure and satisfaction you experiences through food and drink feed your spirit?
Feeding the body and the spirit is what Flavorbank FlavorSchool wants to do.
You can start by checking out Tasting Classes in the Flavorbank FlavorSchool where you’ll learn to identify those flavors, foods, and favorite things that taste best to you. Think of it as an edible voyage of self-discovery.
Borrowing from the tradition of the wine world, Co-founders Master Sommelier Laura Williamson & James Beard Award Winner Jennifer English will prepare and present “Flavor Flights” that will allow students to taste four or more varietals of any subject in order to find a favorite. FlavorSchool helps the individual student (that’s you) to declare with confidence and expertise what tastes best.
The soon to be one hour Tasting Classes each tour the subtle as well as dramatic differences that distinguish one brand, varietal, or version of an item from another. Imagine tasting five different varietals of whole black pepper for the bold characteristics of each. Have you ever tasted the flavor, texture, and mouth feel differences of chocolates, cheeses, wines, butters, sea salts, pears, or pastes in side-by-side focused tastings led by a flavor expert? Their mission at FlavorSchool is to help you discover becoming the expert in your own world of the amazing flavors that uniquely taste best to you. In other words, to discover your own flavorprint.
Stay tuned for the class schedule. Flavorbank is located at El Mercado Plaza, 6372 E. Broadway Blvd (SE corner at Wilmot), 747-5431.

Wellness for Christmas

Wellness. It could be the official motto for Tucson, Arizona. Tucson is known worldwide for its healing. For decades many relocated to Tucson with an asthmatic child, a sick spouse or other loved one to the healing climate and culture of this beautiful desert oasis called the Old Pueblo.The sunshine, warmth and powerful geography combine with Tucson's "magic" to soothe and heal those who come here, whether it is a visit or a lifetime. Today visitors seeking wellness from all over the globe come to Canyon Ranch & Miraval spas, seek the advice of integrative medicine guru Dr. Andrew Weil (a Tucson resident) and to soak up the vitamin D rich sun.Tucson, is the perfect home for Flavorbank Spice Market. As a physician, I believe that we are what we eat. A comprehensive wellness plan must include a healthy diet. Healing can happen through one's choice of foods. With the right components, you can eat yourself healthier. Flavorbank Spice Market is one of the treasures of Tucson. It is a powerful, positive, inspiring sensory oasis of a spice market. I find exquisite whole spices for my own recipes. I am drawn to the "Culinary Apothecary" where freshly ground ginger, turmeric, cinnamon sticks as long as my arm and other exciting aromatics are displayed in a spice salon like setting. I have been all over the world and never seen anything like it anywhere else.Every time I go, I am inspired. Not only by the offerings, but by the culture and generousity of the owner to each and every one of us customers.Owner, Cancer survivor & MS patient Jennifer English lives her mission and her passion to help others achieve a path to wellness through her hands-on education. She takes time to help every customer discover the items that will be right for them. She helps you tate the love. "What's for dinner tonight"? I have heard Jennifer ask on many visits. She really means it, and will help you turn your chicken breasts, or veggies, or ribeye steaks into the best you have ever had with her Santa Maria Rubs, Afrikya by Marcus Samuelsson Berbere(my favorite) or exquisite Sarawak black peppercorn and Brittany Sea Salt ( no wait these are my favorites). I give gifts of cinnamon sticks to make cinnamon water to my own friends for their water bottles & dinner partes because it is really healthy for us.Jennifer usually gives away cinnamon sticks to customers too, as if to make sure they are doing that which is most easy and healthy to add to one's diegest.A picture or some words can not fully communicate and dimensionalize the soul, feeling, aroma and inspiration that is Flavorbank Spice market. Taste the love for yourself, visit Flavorbank.

Grand Dame of Southwestern American Cuisine: Jane Butel

Before Bobby Flay and Janos Wilder, Barbara Pool Fenzl, Rick Bayless, Dean Fearing, Park Kerr, Linda West Eckhardt, Donna Nordin, Robert Del Grande, Robert McGrath,Mary Sue Milliken, Susan Feniger, Stephan Pyles and the generation of people who populated the region and rode horses, there was the true founding Godmother of Southwestern Cuisine. Jane Butel.
Jane Butel is the leading international authority on the cuisine of the American Southwest and Regional Mexican cooking. Known for her clear, easy to understand recipes and culinary instruction—she has been recognized as the “Best in the US” by Gayot.com and one of the four best Cooking Schools in the World by Bon Appetit magazine.
She has authored 20 cookbooks, including many best sellers, hosted four television shows and national radio shows; conducts hands-on cooking schools, conducts culinary tours and sells her cookbooks on-line.http://www.janebutelcooking.com/Public/Products/Books/index.cfm

With over 20 books to her credit and tens of thousands of hours of teaching, Butel is a national treasure who surely belongs in the James Beard Foundations Who's Who ( Helloooo! JBF)
WE love "Real Women Eat Chilies" A dynamic work that incorporates the health & beauty benefits ( actual & proven) of the mighty capsicum. (Did you know that the beauty industry uses more chili peppers than the food industry?"

"Jane Butel is the Paula Wolfert of the Southwest" according to Jennifer English of the Food & Wine Radio Network. "She is authoritative, comprehensive, exhaustive, smart, accurate and useful. What more can one ask of a cookery book?" asks English

Don't be surprised if you see Butel's name on the 2010 Who's who list. All we can say is Muchas Gracias.

Letter to Christopher Kimball Blog

Chris
As a longtime admirer of your work, a fellow food media professional, James Beard Award winner and lifelong and passionate foodie I join you in your comments & observations. I wonder if how we think about "rising to the top" needs to change. Is the “top” like the top of the food pyramid? With a pointy small space to occupy. Rare real estate occupied by the rich fattening programs and “over-hyped food mavens”? Like the fatty,treats we need to enjoy “in moderation” for a well balanced diet?
But just like the rest of what’s wrong in the complex, complete cuisine culture in America. We want more than “moderation”. We want more than enough. And so like our continental waistline, we are practically food-media obese. Unsure of how to diet our way back to normalcy. We eat healthy stuff too. Afterall, we watch your programs, and Alton’s & Sarah’s. Just like we eat our veggies on our patty melts. Onions are veggies right?Are we losing our taste for the “real food” media mavens who, like you, deserve the attention and audience you earn through excellence (as well as media gluttony.) All the numbers count the same in a google index don’t they. The “converted” and the “hopeless” click just the same in the blogosphere. And on the radio.
Do we even recognize the good stuff anymore? Or have we become petulant spoiled-child media eaters? Do we need a culinary media personality to emerge that slips pureed veggies into our macaroni & cheese unbeknownst to us? Jessica Seinfeld does it for her own children for their own good, and in a cookbook for the rest of us tricky parents. As food media consumers do we need something so tricky? So remedial?
Or do we need to be reminded of what good is again? I had thought the Julie & Julia movie momentum would have done more to crystalize what really great looks like. Instead it celebrated both the best & the worst of our times. Boeuf bourguignon as latterday patty melt.
I too am middle aged, and will miss Gourmet. I will miss trusting the great people who wrought it to life.But I am fortunate to work in live radio and will make sure that the voices and bright lights that made that magazine special visit with us often. In our own small way we hope to turn the volume of quality up slightly above the din of the ordinary. Which is getting louder every minute. Keep up the good work and thank you.cheersJE