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April 26, 2012
Robb Walsh shares Lone Star culinary heritage, recipe for Franklin's Espresso BBQ Sauce in new book
This one, “Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook” (Ten Speed Press, $25) covers the state geographically, culturally and historically, touching on almost all the native (and non-native) culinary traditions that have blossomed over the generations, including Cajun, Vietnamese, Indian, Czech, German, African American, Italian, Tex-Mex, Mex-Tex and good old-fashioned Americana.
Like most Walsh books, historical research, interviews and recipes go hand in hand, and Austin gets its fair share of pages, but this book features all color photographs, many of which were taken by Laurie Smith, a former Austinite who has shot a number of cookbooks, including Hudson’s on the Bend chef Jeff Blank’s “Fired Up.”
Walsh will sign books at two area H-E-B stores this weekend. From 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, he’ll be at the H-E-B Plus at 1700 E. Palm Valley Blvd. in Round Rock, and from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday, you’ll find him at the H-E-B at 5800 W. Slaughter Lane.
Franklin’s Espresso BBQ Sauce
4 cups ketchup
1 cup water
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
6 Tbsp. brewed espresso
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. coarsely ground pepper
In a saucepan, combine all of the ingredients, stir well, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer gently for 20 minutes to blend the flavors. Use immediately, or let cool, cover, and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. Makes about 7 cups.
— From “Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook” by Robb Walsh
Photo by Mike Sutter for the Austin American-Statesman.
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October 19, 2011
Gypsy Picnic, book festival make for a busy weekend for foodies
Poor us.
Too many fun food things to do this weekend, and far too little time to enjoy them all.
The Gypsy Picnic Trailer Food Festival and the Texas Book Festival are the two biggies, but dozens of smaller events are also taking place this very busy weekend.
In today’s food section, we tried to hit on as many subjects as we could, telling readers about what really motivates Gypsy Picnic founder Tiffany Harelik and why authors Virginia Willis and Hugh Acheson think Southern food is the focus of this year’s free book festival at the Capitol.
If you’re at the festival this weekend, look for a special pullout section that has interviews with some of the book festival authors, a schedule to help you figure how who is speaking when and an overview of almost all the food sessions — there are about a dozen to choose from over the course of Saturday and Sunday. (The special section is tucked inside today’s newspaper for you lucky home subscribers.)
On Sunday, I’ll be moderating a panel with Ellen Sweets, whose new book, “Stirring It Up With Molly Ivins” reflects on her longtime friendship with the beloved newspaper columnist. Here’s a link to today’s story about Sweets’ book, as well as “A Mess of Greens,” a fascinating look at Southern food and gender by UT professor Elizabeth Engelhardt.
Alton Brown and Paula Deen are the big food names, but I’m hoping to catch the session with Lynne Rossetto Kasper, whose “Splendid Table” radio show premiered on KUT last year.
Photo by Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman.
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October 17, 2011
Zephyr Wright's legacy lives on through famous LBJ chili recipe
The legacy of the LBJ family’s Pedernales River chili has lived on long past the first family who made it famous, but the story of Zephyr Wright, the longtime Johnson family cook who created it, isn’t as well known.
The chili is simple by today’s standards: ground meat, onions, tomatoes, salt, cumin seeds, chili powder, hot sauce and two little old cloves of garlic that would blush at the number of ingredients that go in most chili pots these days, including my own.
But more than 50 years after people first started requesting the recipe from Lady Bird, the Johnson family chili recipe is still making the rounds, most recently in a new book called “Eating With Uncle Sam,” that was published in conjunction with a National Archives exhibit about how the government, including presidential recipes, affects the American diet. Last week, as I was writing a story about the book and its Texas ties, I realized that there was far more to this chili and the cook who created it than the recipe indicates.
Wright often cooked chili for the family on their famous Stonewall ranch, and after Johnson had a heart attack, out went the beef suet. So many people requested the chili recipe that the White House printed it up on recipe cards that could be easily mailed out, and the recipe has been printed in a number of books and newspapers in the half century since Johnson took office.
“For everyday eating, Lady Bird brought along Mrs. Zephyr Wright, the Johnsons’ cook for 21 years,” a Time magazine reporter wrote in an article in December 1963. “Zephyr is an expert at spoon bread, homemade ice cream and monumental Sunday breakfasts of deer sausage, home-cured bacon, popovers, grits, scrambled eggs, homemade peach preserves and coffee.”
Wright is rarely credited, but her work didn’t go unnoticed and her impact on the Johnsons goes far beyond peach preserves and chili.
The top photo of Wright and Luci Johnson is from a 1965 birthday party that the family hosted for Wright, and the families were so close that some in Johnson’s administration believe that the Wright and her husband Sammy, who was the family chauffeur, directly influenced Johnson’s decision to make civil rights a priority.
In fact, Zephyr Wright was in attendance when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and when the president was done signing the bill, he gave her the pen he used.
” ‘You deserve this more than anybody else’,” Leonard H. Marks, director of the U.S. Information Agency during the Johnson administration, recalls the president telling her.
(You can hear Wright talk briefly about her days at the White House in this 2008 NPR report from the Kitchen Sisters about the complex history of presidential cooks.)
I was thinking about Wright when I cooked a batch of her chili last week for the story. She died in the 1988, but her legacy lives on through her recipes, even if her name isn’t in capital letters at the top of the page.
Photos of the Johnsons and Zephyr Wright from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum archives.
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September 20, 2011
The wait is over: 'Homesick Texan' hits bookstores
The blogger behind “Homesick Texan” has released her first book, a definitive work that will be hard for the former Austinite and Houston native to top. Fried catfish? Check. Cow head barbacoa?
When Fain, who lives in Manhattan, started writing about all the traditional Texas foods she missed and loved on her blog in 2005, she had no idea that the topic would resonate with so many people. In an article earlier this year, I talked with Fain and other popular food bloggers about how they turned their blogs into books. “Bloggers aren’t reaching as many people as, say, a TV person, but the audience they have is very engaged, and it’s a two-way conversation through comments, e-mails and social media,” she says.
Fain knew that neither her publisher (Hyperion) nor her fans would want a replica of the blog, so she reused some of the “greatest hits” from her blog, such as migas and chicken-fried steak, but two-thirds of the book is completely new content, including photographs, which were all taken by Fain.
“My pictures are part of the package and the brand,” Fain says. Even the choice of typeface, color palette and design elements in the book are based on what already exists on her blog. You’ll even notice a shade close to burnt orange all over Homesick Texan. “Even though I didn’t go to UT, I’m a secret Longhorn,” she says.
Fain will be in Austin next month for the Texas Book Festival as well as a book signing on Oct. 24 at BookPeople.
Photos by Lisa Fain.
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December 29, 2010
Turn your family recipes, food blog into a cookbook
The wonderful thing about the Internet is that it allows anyone to publish just about anything, but at the end of the day, you don’t have anything tangible to show for your work.
As blogs continue to grow in popularity, especially food blogs (speaking of, did you notice the newly updated blogroll on the left? No blogs that haven’t been updated in more than a year, plus about a dozen new ones.) we’ll start to see more sites that allow you to print books from your online content. FastPencil, BookSmith, Blog2Print, Lulu and Blurb are just a few of the sites offering bookmaking services, but none have reached out to foodies like Blurb, which specifically promotes cookbook making.
Blurb has two ways to create a book: You can either download free software to work on your book offline or use the web-based Bookify program, which is more limited but faster to complete. (Books start at less than $5.) You can “slurp” your blog, which imports text and photos, or flow in text from another document. You can also sync with an online photo management program like Picasa or Flickr.
Not a blogger? You still might be interested in weaving together family recipes, photos and stories into a real book. (Not that I don’t love my mom’s three-ring-binder version.)
Photo from Blurb.com.
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December 1, 2010
Blackbird Bakery owner bakes her way out of gluten-free depression
Karen Morgan, owner of Blackbird Bakery and author of “Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free” whom I profiled in today’s paper, says it’s easy for people like her who have celiac disease to become depressed after being diagnosed.
Food is such an important part of our lives that finding out you can no longer eat a sizable part of what you’ve been eating your whole life can take an emotional toll. Morgan says that she was depressed for about a year before setting out to find a way to bake around the gluten.
Oh, and did I mention that she is a blogger, too? Morgan’s blog, The Art of Gluten-Free Cooking, is one of a number of Austin food blogs nominated in the Republic of Austin’s first ever Austin Blogger Awards. (I’m honored to be in the company of Out and About’s Michael Barnes and KUT’s Texas Music Matters in the category of best blog from a traditional media outlet.) You can vote online and the awards will be given out at Austin Eavesdropper and Ultra8201’s Austin Bleet-up on Friday.)
Sunday Morning Pancakes
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. almond flour
1/2 cup millet flour
2 Tbsp. glutinous rice flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. guar gum
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup organic buttermilk
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
Safflower oil cooking spray
In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and stir with a whisk to blend. Add the eggs, buttermilk and melted butter and stir until smooth. Heat a large skillet or a griddle over medium-low heat. Spray the pan with safflower oil spray. Run your hands under the faucet to wet your fingertips and then shake them over the hot griddle. If the water dances across the pan, the heat is just right to begin making your pancakes.
For each large pancake, pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan; for small pancakes, use 2 Tbsp. of batter. Cook until bubbles form on the top of each pancake; turn and cook until golden brown on the bottom. Transfer to a baking sheet and keep warm in a 200-degree oven while cooking the remaining batter.
To save time, mix all the dry ingredients in advance and keep in an airtight container in a cool dry place for up to 3 months. Makes 8 big pancakes or 16 small ones.
Photos by Knoxy of Knox Photographics.
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November 2, 2010
Gourmet cookie book gives magazine second life
After 68 years of publication, the last issue of the prestigious culinary magazine “Gourmet” filled the mailboxes of its devoted readers last November.
By order of Condé Nast Publications, Gourmet, along with the magazines Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, and Cookie was axed.
The front page of the lavish culinary magazine’s last issue was ironically simple: “Gourmet” in burnt orange with a glossy spread of a Thanksgiving turkey atop a lace tablecloth.
But Gourmet has managed to live beyond the grave, with today’s release of “The Gourmet Cookie Book,” ($18.00, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The richly illustrated book offers one cookie recipe selected from each of the magazine’s years of publication, 1941-2009.
So, why did Gourmet disappear? Blame it on the decline of print journalism, the rise of the Internet, or perhaps blame on the decline of Gourmet and the rise of the Food Network, but there stands one undeniable fact: losing Gourmet was losing a part of culinary history. At its untimely end, the magazine stood to be the oldest culinary magazine in the United States
“People used to learn from grandmothers and elders, so here comes the Internet and what a marvelous tool it is to learn how to cook,” Kemp Minifie, the executive food editor of Gourmet said. “There are some exciting things to come in the food world, and this a terribly important dialogue to have.”
Aside from the cookie book, Gourmet still has its say in other through other mediums as well. Gourmet’s website archive is still active, an iPad application “Gourmet Live” for the magazine was recently released, and several special edition magazines are set to be released.
“I think that the arrival of the cookie book is a great example of how Gourmet lives on. It started out as piece on the web, and it was so graphic and so gorgeous that it just begged to be turned into a book,” Minifie said.
The cookie recipes themselves are a testament to the evolving trends and tastes of the U.S. history. The honey refrigerator cookies from 1942 uses honey instead of sugar, as a result of the World War II sugar rationing. From the 1960s to 1970s, European travel was increasing and the souvenirs people brought back to Gourmet magazine included foreign recipes, such as the Dutch caramel cashew cookie from 1972.
“I think what is reflected in the cookie book is the passion that readers have and editors had and still have,” Minifie said. “There is a real passion for curiosity in food and wanting to understand everything behind it: where it came from and why it is the way it is. That continues today.”
In compiling the recipes for the book, Minifie said she noticed one change from the magazine’s early history to the later years: the way in which recipes were written.
“You didn’t have to say much in the 1940s because people already understood certain kitchen tricks and terminology,” she said. “You can’t do that anymore, you have to spell things out now. [In the 1940s] they didn’t list the ingredients at the beginning. It was written in paragraph form.”
As for whether or not we will ever see Gourmet will ever return to print publication (Cook’s Illustrated managed it in 1993), Minifie said never say never.
“I have no idea what will happen, but what I can say that we are living in the midst of revolution in media and how we absorb content,” she said. “Who knows what the future holds.”
Minifie said choosing a favorite recipe from the book is next to impossible. However, she said the mocha cookies from 1990 were a testament to the culinary trend of the decade.
“The 90s were about more chocolate and more richness,” Minifie said.
Mocha Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen cookies 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into bits ½ cup all-purpose flour ½ tsp. double-acting baking powder ½ tsp. salt 4 large eggs, at room temperature 1 ½ cups sugar 1 ½ Tbsp. instant espresso powder 2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat over to 350 degrees. In a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the unsweetened chocolate, 1 ½ cups of the chocolate chips, and the butter, stirring until the mixture is smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, the baking powder, and the salt. In a bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until the mixture is thick and pale, and then beat in the espresso powder and the vanilla.
Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then fold in the flour mixture, and stir in the remaining 1 ½ cups chocolate chips. Let the batter stand for 15 minutes.
Drop the batter by heaping tablespoons on to baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until cookies are puffed, shiny and cracked on top. Let cookies cool on baking sheets, then transfer to racks, and let them cool completely.
— Adapted from “The Gourmet Cookie Book,”
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October 22, 2010
The Candy Girl: Dylan Lauren
Her father Ralph Lauren has affirmed his status as an icon in the world of fiercely fashionable fabrics and designs, but daughter Dylan Lauren has her own candy land full of colorful gumballs, chewy gumdrops, and creamy chocolate.
As the owner of the world’s largest candy store, Dylan’s Candy Bar in New York City, Lauren is always looking for innovative tastes and flavors to incorporate into her candy mecca.
Now, Lauren is releasing a book, “Dylan’s Candy Bar: Unwrap Your Sweet Life” ($35, Clarkson Potter) that touches on how to use candy in designing, cooking, and entertaining.
“I just love the colors and the array of tastes you get when you bite into candy,” Lauren said. “I consider what I do an art form. I love what I do.”
Lauren said her passion for the sweet treats came from a childhood that was exposed to worldly travel and exposure to the arts.
“My whole family is full of artists,” she said. “When I traveled I always loved to see the different colors, packaging, and collections of candy. I wanted this book to be an artistic book for lifestyle, entertaining, and cooking. [The book is] for the hip woman in her twenties or thirties.”
So in the 5,000 different candies and chocolates she carries in her store, what is the one that Lauren can’t resist?
“I love Marshmallow Fluffs and Swedish Fish,” she said. “Candy Corn is my favorite Halloween candy.”
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cookbooks, Desserts
October 15, 2010
Eating and Tweeting?
Some recipes take a handful of pages to explain. Some just take a 140-character tweet. “Eat Tweet” ($14.95, Artisan) is a new cookbook that compiles a number of recipes posted from the beloved Twitter account @cookbook.
The small cookbook is an ode to the waves of social media that seem to even be gripping a hold of even recipe texts. So, pray tell, can you decipher what this Risotto recipe directions are saying?
Risotto: Heat, stir c Arborio/T buttr&oil@med; + 1/2c wtwine; +1/2c hot Stock until absorbed. Rpt Stock ~8x over~24m. Mix+1/2c parm/s+p.
In other words….
Risotto: Heat, stir cup Arborio rice and 1 tablespoon [of] butter and oil at medium.
Add 1/2 cup white wine
Add 1/2 cup hot stock until absorbed.
Repeat the hot stock step about eight times over about 24 minutes. Mix, add 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and salt & pepper.
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October 14, 2010
Hesser to talk about New York Times cookbook
The New York Times has documented the evolution of cuisine since the newspaper’s beginning in 1851.
Now, almost 50 years since the last New York Times cookbook was published by Craig Claiborne, a new cookbook from the publication has finally hit the shelves: “The Essential New York Times Cookbook” ($40, W. W. Norton & Company).
Author and New York Times writer, Amanda Hesser will be in town this weekend for the Texas Book Festival. She took some time to discuss the inspiration behind the publication’s newest cookbook.
The initial idea for the book started over a lunch, and has since become the resulting bulky 960 page cookbook, Hesser said. However, the long hours and creative effort that went into the creation of the cookbook would take six years. From the beginning, Hesser was aware of was how much readers’ input she would need. After all, the book was a compilation of beloved reader recipes stretching the breadth of America’s history.
“The first thing I did was put out an author’s query,” Hesser said. “The response was amazing. I got thousands of emails. People sent in were these recipes that have resonated with them.”
The book’s recipes are organized chronologically by each of the 18 chapters with the oldest recipe being an 1856 Café Olé. Hesser believes the book provides both a historical and nostalgic view of American cuisine.
“There is a sense of an adventure in the book,” Hesser said. “People are always thrilled by cooking, and this book gives a great mix of interests.”
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September 15, 2010
Cooking for Geeks talk tonight
Tonight, author Jeff Potter will be giving a talk about his new book, “Cooking for Geeks,” at the Whole Foods Market on 525 N. Lamar Blvd.
After years of working in computer science , Potter became interested in exploring the mysteries of food science, so he devoted himself to a year of daily research to uncover the roots of food science. Along the way, Potter discovered that food science is fundamental to becoming a better cook. He believes his resulting book can equally benefit both master chefs and home cooks.
“I was a good home cook, but I didn’t know why things are done,” Potter said. “Having a solid model and a wealth of information can change everything.”
In addition to signing his book, Potter plans to answer questions, show of various pieces of food science equipment, and demonstrate various food science tricks.
The talk begins at 6:30 p.m. and the book ($35, O’Reilly) can be purchased and signed at the event.
Permalink | | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food in the news, On the road, Playing with your food
September 8, 2010
Mexican Food 101: Diana Kennedy's Black Oaxacan Mole
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
At an event at the Blanton earlier this year, the 87-year-old Kennedy said that this cookbook will likely be her last but that her efforts to preserve the culinary traditions of her adopted homeland will continue. In today’s food section, we ran a profile of Kennedy but ran out of room to print this Black Oaxacan Mole recipe.
This dish doesn’t exactly fit into the “Mexican Food 101” category in terms of cooking. Mole is infamously complex, and Kennedy herself reprimanded me for wanting to print the recipe for readers. In response to an e-mail question to clarify part of the directions, she admonished me for picking a recipe that only aficionados or chefs would be interested in making.
Well, aficionados or not, I know that Relish Austin readers will enjoy having this recipe on hand. After all, you never know when the impulse to make such a traditional mole a la Ms. Kennedy will strike.
Black Oaxacan Mole
This black Oaxacan mole and that of Puebla are the most famous of all the moles in Mexico. This version is served with homemade tortillas and platters of white rice, and you can freeze any paste that you don’t end up using.
Note: The recipe printed in Kennedy’s book makes 5 pounds of mole paste, which is enough to serve more than 100 people. We’ve reduced the recipe by a third, which will still leave you with enough mole to serve about 35 people. No matter how much you make, the mole paste freezes well.
For mole paste:
3 oz. chilhuacles negros
3 oz. mulato chiles
3 oz. pasilla chiles
5 chipotle mora chiles
Approximately 3 oz. melted pork lard
3 oz. sesame seeds
3 oz. shelled peanuts
3 oz. almonds
1 1/2 oz. walnut
1 1/2 oz. pecans
3 oz. raisins
3 oz. plantain, peeled
1/2 small semisweet roll (pan de yemas), sliced and dried
3 oz. white onion, cut into wedges and toasted
1/2 head garlic, toasted, cloves separated and peeled
1 inch of a cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
3-4 whole cloves
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
1/3 tsp. Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram leaves
1 bay leaf
3 oz. Oaxacan drinking chocolate
3 oz. sugar
Salt to taste
Remove seeds and veins from the chiles, reserving the seeds and leaving the chipotles whole. Toast the chiles carefully on a hot comal or cast-iron skillet. Cover with warm water and leave to soak for about 1 hour, no longer. Strain. Toast the chile seeds in an ungreased pan until very dark brown but not charred. Rinse in two changes of water and strain.
Heat a small quantity of the lard in a skillet and fry the following ingredients one at a time, removing from oil after lightly frying: sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, walnuts, pecans, raisins, plantain, bread. (Add more lard as necessary as you fry each ingredient.) In a mortar or blender, grind these ingredients with the onion, garlic, spices and herbs to a paste. (Add little water at a time if the ingredients aren’t coming together.)
Heat the remaining lard in a heavy casserole, add the paste, and fry, adding a little boiling water from to time to time to prevent sticking. Stir continuously over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Add the chocolate, sugar and salt and continue cooking for about 1 hour more. The consistency should be that of a thick paste, and you should be able to see the bottom of the pan as you stir. Makes 11/2-2 pounds mole paste.
For mole sauce:
2 Tbsp. lard
18 oz. tomatoes, roasted
18 oz. mole paste
5 cups chicken or turkey broth
Salt to taste
Heat lard in a casserole. In a blender, puree the tomatoes until smooth and heat in a skillet until reduced, about 10 minutes. Add the mole paste with 3 cups of the broth and cook over medium heat, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking, for about 20 minutes. Add salt to taste and more broth, if necessary, for the mole to be of medium consistency. Makes enough mole sauce for 24 portions.
— Adapted from ‘Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy’ by Diana Kennedy
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June 4, 2010
BBQ, beer and a book signing with Robb Walsh on Sunday
Houston food writer Robb Walsh will be in Austin on Sunday for a book signing party at Franklin Barbecue.
The former Austin Chronicle restaurant critic’s new book “The Tex-Mex Grill & Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook” isn’t for barbecue wannabes. Walsh’s new book follows the pattern he’s set with previous Tex-Mex and cowboy books by including recipes as authentic as the taco truck owners and pitmasters he profiles in it.
(Want to know what’s in his fridge? In early 2009, just before a book signing event in Austin for “Sex, Death & Oysters,” it was stocked with, you guessed it, oysters.)
The party at Franklin Barbecue, just south of Fiesta on the northbound I-35 frontage road, on Sunday starts at noon and will feature barbecue, beer and, of course, Walsh signing copies of his book.
Photo from Robb Walsh.
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May 3, 2010
Diana Kennedy on Oaxacan chiles, cookbooks and why tamales aren't tamales without lard
Diana Kennedy must cringe every time someone calls her the Julia Child of Mexican cuisine.
Kennedy, who was born in England, has been living in Mexico almost as long as Rick Bayless has been alive, and for almost 40 years, she’s been writing definitive cookbooks on Mexican cuisine. A vocal advocate for preserving Mexico’s culinary traditions, she travels the country dispelling myths about what is and what is not Mexican food.
“I wish more people who went to Mexico could try some of these unique things,” Kennedy told a packed auditorium on Thursday night. The spry and energetic author flipped through photographs of her travels through her adopted homeland, explaining regional specialties such as cheese-filled epazote and tamales made with corn silk, bean or pollen. (One thing that all tamales have in common: “You can’t make tamales with anything but lard,” she said.)
“Markets are disappearing,” she said, “or they are importing cheap things like coffee that are making indigenous groups even poorer.” Imported ingredients such as corn, garlic and hibiscus force farmers to have to look for work elsewhere, including the United States. She’s also worried that they will become markets for knock-off CDs and DVDs instead of traditional ingredients.
She encouraged people who are buying Mexican ingredients in stores in the U.S. to pay attention to where they are grown. If you do go to Mexico, “when you go to local markets, you should drop as much money as you can to support the local economies.”
When cooking from cookbooks like hers that call for exotic chiles and other ingredients, use the Internet to seek out producers rather than just substituting with something more commonly available. “Create a market. Your neighbors need it.”
Talking to audiences like the one in Austin is only one way she’s preserving the culinary history of Mexico. After “Oaxaca” is published, she’s going to spend the majority of her time working on a foundation that will preserve the biodiversity of the region.
She left the audience with one final note about cookbooks: “I want you to be reminded of this: A good, well-researched cookbook that tells a real story is not expensive,” she says. “A novel you might read two or three times, but a cookbook is on your shelf for 30 years.”
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cookbooks
April 14, 2010
Fresh favorites in new Lebovitz book 'Ready for Dessert'
The talented — and hilarious — pastry chef David Lebovitz might be known as the king of custards and ice cream (his 2007 book “Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments” made him a household name among foodies), but in his new book, “Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes” ($35, Ten Speed Press), the Paris-based author goes back to his all-time favorite desserts: cheesecake brownies, ginger cake and raspberry-fig tarts.
From the complicated (Champagne Gelee With Kumquats, Grapefruits and Blood Oranges) to the comforting (Plum-Blueberry Upside-Down Cake), bakers and cooks will find the former Chez Panisse pastry chef’s humor, a classic mix of snark and self-deprecating sarcasm that keeps his 20,000 followers on Twitter entertained, woven between the recipes that might soon become their favorites, too.
Fresh Fig and Raspberry Tart with Honey
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
2 large egg yolks
3/4 tsp. almond extract
Filling
1/4 cup raspberry jam
12 ripe fresh figs
1 1/4 cups raspberries
3 Tbsp. honey, warmed
To make dough, grind in a food processor fitted with metal blade the flour, almonds, sugar and salt until the almonds are very fine. Add butter and pulse until it is pieces about the size of grains of rice. Add egg yolks and almond extract, then let machine run until dough starts to come together. Transfer dough to a work surface, knead it briefly with your hands until smooth and press dough into a disk.
Lightly butter a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, or use one with a nonstick coating. Transfer dough disk to the pan. Using your hands, press the dough as evenly as possible into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Freeze the dough-lined tart pan for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Set tart pan on a baking sheet and prick the frozen tart dough about 10 times with a fork. Line dough with a sheet of aluminum foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake tart shell on baking sheet until dough is set, about 20 minutes. Remove foil and pie weights and continue to bake until tart shell is deep golden brown, about 10 minutes more. Let cool completely.
To fill tart, spread raspberry jam in an even layer in the bottom of the cooled tart shell. Trim hard stem ends from figs and quarter them lengthwise. Arrange figs in tart shell in two concentric circles, cut sides up, fitting them snugly against the sides of the tart shell and each other. Arrange raspberries snugly in the center. Drizzle warm honey over the tart.
Remove tart pan sides by setting tart on an overturned bowl or other tall, wide surface (a large can of tomatoes works well). Gently press down on the outer ring and let the ring fall to the countertop. Set the tart on a flat surface. Release tart from the pan bottom by sliding the blade of a knife between the crust and the pan bottom, then slip the tart onto a serving plate. (If it doesn’t release cleanly, simply serve the tart on the pan bottom.)
- From ‘Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes’ by David Lebovitz
Photo by Maren Caruso.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking
April 7, 2010
Learn how to preserve your family's food history
Family food traditions are as embedded in family trees as our genetic code.
Don’t believe me? Thanksgiving might seem like an eternity from now, but imagine your family’s Thanksgiving dinner with roasted parsnips instead of mashed potatoes, Brussels sprout salad instead of green bean casserole, a grilled pork tenderloin instead of turkey and cookies instead of pie. Think you could pull that off without protests from nearly everyone at the table?
Holiday food rituals are the biggies, but the everyday traditions — moosebread, applesauce muffins, Mexican casserole and chicken and dumplings are just a few examples in my family — are just as rich with meaning.
Dawn Orsak, culinary guru and past executive director of the Hill Country Wine and Food Festival, is getting ready to teach a two week informal class at the University of Texas about capturing family history through food.
The Recipes for Family History class costs $38 ($44 for non-residents — people who are not faculty, students or staff; members of Texas Exes, Wildflower Center or the Littlefield Society, or 65 or older) and will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on April 14 and 21 at UT. Register online or by calling 232-5277 (class ID number is 7630.601).
For Christmas presents a few years back, my mom collected family recipes in a three-ring binder to create a cookbook that is as rich in memories as it kooky dishes like Trees and Raisins and Champagne Salad. She included at least one recipe connected to each of us, and she shared a story to go with each one of them: My grandmother’s coffeecake and chicken noodles, my mom’s turkey manicotti and my dad’s gumbo.
I look forward to putting something like this together for my family members, but I’m also really looking forward to Dawn’s class to learn some other ways to capture my family’s unique past through the food traditions it has passed down from generation to generation.
Permalink | | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, Playing with your food
April 5, 2010
Austinite's appetizing shot at $1 million Pillsbury prize
“I’ve watched (recipe contests) on TV and thought, ‘I could make that,’ ” Mobley says. She incorporated two Pillsbury products into an appetizer based on a beef tenderloin that she served to her family at holiday dinners, and the Razzle Dazzle Beef Bites earned her one of 100 spots in the bake-off final, which takes place April 12 in Orlando.
Starting at 8 a.m., she’ll make her recipe three times and submit the best of the three to judges, who will announce winners in four categories that night. Then, for the first time in the contest’s history, the four winners will then fly to Chicago to appear on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on April 14, where the queen of daytime TV will announce the $1 million overall winner.
Mobley says she’s not too worried about making her dish for the judges. “My recipe is pretty foolproof, so I’m not too worried,” she said last week en route to Georgia, where she was picking up her sister-in-law who would join her for the finals in Florida.
Razzle-Dazzle Beef Bites
1 can (8 oz.) Pillsbury refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 package (3 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp. lemon-pepper seasoning
1/2 cup Smucker’s Red Raspberry Preserves
1 Tbsp. prepared horseradish
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 oz. shaved cooked roast beef (from deli)
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
Heat oven to 375 degrees. If using crescent rounds, remove from package, but do not separate rounds. If using crescent rolls, remove from package, but do not unroll.
Using serrated knife, cut roll evenly into 16 rounds; carefully separate rounds. Place 1 round in bottom of each of 16 ungreased regular-size muffin cups. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Immediately press back of rounded teaspoon into center of each baked round to make indentation. Remove rounds from muffin cups to cooling rack; cool 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix cream cheese and lemon-pepper seasoning. In another small bowl, mix preserves, horseradish and mustard.
Spread 1 tsp. cream cheese mixture into each round; top with 1⁄2 tsp. preserves mixture. Divide beef evenly among rounds; top each with 1 rounded teaspoon preserves mixture. Sprinkle with parsley. Makes 16 appetizers.
— Sharon Mobley
Photos from Pillsbury.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Cookbooks, Food in the news
January 11, 2010
What apps do you use in the kitchen or eating on the go?
Just a few weeks into life with an iPhone, I’ve already found it to be an indispensable tool in the kitchen, not just for tweeting while I’m cooking.
As you can see, Epicurious is my recipe application of choice so far. I’ve downloaded the All Recipes app, but haven’t used it, and more than once, I’ve found myself wishing that Fine Cooking had a dedicated app.
As for using my iPhone to find something good to eat, Yelp and Urbanspoon have both been helpful. Mando Rayo of TacoJournalism.com pointed me to the journalistas’ new app, iTacos, which helps you find taco joints in Austin.
Statesman tech writer Omar Gallaga says it’s worth the $4.99 to upgrade from Grocery Gadget Lite to help make grocery lists, but I’m still pretty stingy when it comes to paying for applications that I’m not sure I’m going to use.
But here’s where you tech-minded folks come in. Seeing as how most of you are easily a year or two ahead of me in the world of food apps for your phone, I’m hoping you will give me tips on what is worth paying for and what isn’t.
What are your must-have apps for pairing food and wine? What about menu planning or tweeting food photos? Do you keep track of your calories through programs like Livestrong’s calorie counter?
Over the next month, I’ll be diving into this world of food apps for an upcoming story, and I’d love to hear your favorite ways to use mobile technology to be a better cook and a better eater.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Chewing the fat, Cookbooks
December 1, 2009
Top 5 cookbooks to give this year
Cookbooks are an awesome gift.
In tomorrow’s newspaper, I explain why all these free recipes roaming around on the Internet make a curated book of recipes an even sweeter gift for the cook in your life.
I picked out about 20 books that we hadn’t written about yet this year for the round-up in the paper, but we’ve featured tons of new releases in the paper throughout the year.
So, here’s my pick of top five books to give for Christmas this year:
- “Ratio” by Michael Ruhlman
- “The Pioneer Woman Cooks” by Ree Drummond
- “The Pleasures of Cooking for One” by Judith Jones
- “The Silver Spoon for Children” by Amanda Grant
- “Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It” by Karen Solomon
Ree Drummond’s first cookbook is as charming and appealing as her oh-so-famous blog. Michael Ruhlman’s latest effort has already become a must-have for serious cooks.
Judith Jones, best known for editing Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” wrote a book that tackles the under-appreciated act of cooking for yourself. If you learned how to cook a pasta by using “The Silver Spoon,” now you can grant kids the same pleasure with a fun-to-read, easy-to-use kids’ version of the Italian classic.
And last but not least, Karen Solomon’s book taps into the do-it-yourself wave that has taken over America’s kitchens. Everyone I know is curing bacon, pickling green beans or making their own mustard, and this book is a good guide to get your started on all of it.
Now’s your chance, cookbook geeks, to share your favorite books that came out in 2009. Or, what books do you hope Santa will bring you in a few weeks? Tell me in the comments below.
One of the books that was definitely in my top 20 was from Christopher Kimball’s team at America’s Test Kitchen. Kimball and crew put out several cookbooks a year with recipes from Cook’s Country, Cook’s Illustrated and the PBS television show, which turns 10 this year.
Here’s a make-ahead breakfast recipe from the 10th anniversary book, “The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Cookbook’” that you’ll want to keep on hand for when you’ve got company this month.
Breakfast Strata with Spinach and Gruyère
A classic breakfast dish, strata is easy to prepare, presents a variety of flavors, can feed a crowd, and perhaps best of all, can, and indeed should be made ahead of time. Too often, though, it is overloaded with fillings; we wanted a savory bread pudding with a balanced, well-seasoned filling.
8-10 (1/2-inch-thick) slices supermarket French or Italian bread
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
4 medium shallots, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1 10-oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
Salt and ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
6 oz. Gruyère cheese, shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)
6 large eggs
1 3/4 cups half-and-half
Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 225 degrees. Arrange the bread in a single layer on a large baking sheet and bake until dry and crisp, about 40 minutes, turning the slices over halfway through the baking time. (Or leave the slices out overnight to dry.) Let the bread cool completely, then spread butter evenly over one side of each bread slice, using 2 Tbsp. of the butter; set aside. Heat 2 Tbsp. more butter in a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the spinach and salt and pepper to taste and cook until the spinach is warm, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside. Add the wine to the skillet, increase the heat to medium-high, and simmer until reduced to 1/4 cup, 2 to 3 minutes; set aside.
Butter an 8-inch square baking dish with the remaining 1 Tbsp. butter. Arrange half of the bread slices, buttered-side up, in a single layer in the dish. Sprinkle half of the spinach mixture, then 1/2 cup of the shredded Gruyère, evenly over the bread slices. Arrange the remaining bread slices in a single layer over the cheese. Sprinkle the remaining spinach mixture and 1/2 cup more Gruyère evenly over the bread. Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl until combined; whisk in the reduced wine, half-and-half, 1 tsp. salt and a pinch of pepper. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the bread layers.
Wrap the strata tightly with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap against the surface of the strata with two 1-lb. boxes of sugar, laid side by side, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.
Remove the dish from the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Uncover the strata and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup Gruyère evenly over the surface. Bake until both edges and center are puffed and the edges have pulled away slightly from the sides of the dish, 50 to 55 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Serves 6. Photo by Daniel J. van Ackere.
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November 17, 2009
Be part of a farmers' market cookbook
The Sustainable Food Center is putting together a cookbook.
The nonprofit in charge of the Austin Farmers’ Market downtown and at the Triangle has tons of other projects going on all year long, but this holiday season, a cookbook is in the works.
If you want to submit a recipe that uses local, seasonal ingredients from any time of year, submit it along with the story that inspired it through their Web site. The SFC team will test the recipes and compile them for a book. (They are still seeking a publisher, so if you have connections with a printing house who wants to support an Austin nonprofit, contact Susan Leibrock at 512-236-0074 ext. 111 or afmcookbook@gmail.com.)
Marshall Wright of Eat This Lens will be making the photographs for the book, which they plan to release 2011. December 1 is the deadline to submit online or via mail. (Send recipes via snail mail to 1106 Clayton Lane. Ste 480W, Austin, TX 78723.)
Permalink | | Categories: Cookbooks
October 6, 2009
Chef John Besh brings tale of New Orleans recovery to Austin
As the recovery continued, he expanded his restaurant empire (La Provence and Luke) and got to work on a cookbook, which came out this month. “My New Orleans” (Andrews McMeel, $45) is more than a collection of recipes; it is a tribute to one of the richest culinary cities in America. He’ll be in Austin on Sunday for a talk and book signing at BookPeople at 3 p.m.
Permalink | | Categories: Cookbooks, Playing with your food
October 5, 2009
Alton Brown brings blend of weird science, cooking to Whole Foods
To celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary, Brown has published “Good Eats: The Early Years,” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $37.50) which chronicles the first 80 episodes with recipes and tips written in Brown’s signature funny-man style.
From 1 to 4 p.m. on Oct. 18, Brown will be in Austin to sign copies of the book at Whole Foods Market, 525 N. Lamar Blvd. To get books signed, they must be bought from BookPeople, which will sell them at its store at 603 N. Lamar Blvd. and inside Whole Foods during the event.
Permalink | | Categories: Cookbooks, Playing with your food
September 16, 2009
Bullock sister writes about life as a baker in new book
Gesine Bullock-Prado, (second from left) baker and sister of actress and Austin restaurateur Sandra Bullock, got to know Central Texas while she was here to help open Walton’s Fancy and Staple on West Sixth Street earlier this year.
In the book, she chronicles the ups and downs and funny and not-so-funny moments of becoming a full-time baker, and the book includes 19 recipes for treats such as scones, espresso cheesecake and apple pie, some of which are available at Walton’s.
Walton’s staff photo by Jay Janner for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Cookbooks, Desserts
September 10, 2009
A lesson in peace, love, bread-slapping from MFK Fisher
(Making bread) is pleasant: one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with peace, and the house filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells. But it takes a lot of time. If you can find that, the rest is easy. And if you cannot rightly find it, make it, for probably there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
I’ve always loved to make bread. More specifically, it is the act of kneading bread that I have found so rewarding. In her 1942 book “How to Cook a Wolf,” MFK Fisher couldn’t have more accurately expressed how I feel about making bread nearly 70 years later.
Not only did I deeply connect with her chapter about bread, it also just happened to feature a recipe called Addie’s Quick Bucket-Bread, which came from another feisty Addie, a friend of Fisher’s.
I say feisty because what other kind of women in World War II would use this description in slapping and shaping bread:
Addie slashes her dough into pieces with a sharp knife and then slaps it into shape as if it were a Bad Boy…but any good recipe gives as logical, if less lusty, a procedure.
I set out to make this bucket bread for a food book club meeting tonight where a group of cooks, bloggers and foodies will discuss and eat dishes inspired by Fisher’s book about cooking in uncertain times.
Although Fisher published the book during World War II, when basic commodities were being rationed, there are many lessons to be learned now, when we’re all trying to stretch our food budgets while at the same time feeding our families hearty, nutritious meals.
In another generational mash-up, to make Fisher’s bucket bread, I used several bread-making techniques outlined in Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio,” which came out earlier this year and breaks down cooking and baking into ratios instead of recipes.
Ruhlman does a great job of explaining, both in his newest book and his blog, the nuances of each step of baking, important information that many older cookbooks, including Fisher’s, leave out.
Instead of completing the kneading and rising cycles in three and a half hours, as Fisher suggests, I completed the first round of rising last night, kneaded the bread again and then let the dough rise for a second time in the fridge overnight. (It nearly poured over the edge of the pot. Note to self: Buy a bigger bowl.)
The slow rise made for light, tender dough, which I shaped into three loaves and a boule, which I baked in a Dutch oven with the lid on for the first 30 minutes. (Here are the pages in “Ratio” that fully explain this technique.)
After less than an hour in the oven, I pulled out these gorgeous loaves. The sight of the perfectly browned boule, which I’m resisting cutting into so I can show off at the book club tonight, gave me the deepest satisfaction, the kind best described by MFK Fisher at the end of the chapter called “How to Rise Up Like New Bread”:
Cut for yourself, if you will, a slice of bread that you have seen mysteriously rise and redouble and fall and fold under your hands. It will smell better, and taste better, than you remembered anything could possibly taste or smell, and it will make you feel, for a time at least, newborn into a better world than this one often seems.
And with the rain and smell of good bread lingering in the house, I feel like a newborn, too.
Well put, Ms. Fisher.
Addie’s Quick Bucket-Bread
1 cake fresh yeast [or 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast]
1 cup lukewarm water
3 Tbsp. shortening
1 quart whole rich milk
1 1/2 Tbsp. salt
3 Tbsp. sugar
10 to 12 cups all-purpose flour
grease, butter
Dissolve the yeast in the water. Melt the shortening in the milk, but do not let it boil. Combine the two liquid mixtures in a big bowl. Into another big bowl or kettle sift the blended salt, sugar and flour. Pour the liquid gradually into the flour, mixing well, and when feasible knead until smooth. Put the dough into a heavily greased pan, cover with a clean napkin or towel, and let stand in a warm place until double in size. Knead lightly, and let rise once more (about 3 1/2 hours altogether). Make into loaves (Addie slashes her dough into pieces with a sharp knife and then slaps it into shape as if it were a Bad Boy…but any good recipe gives as logical, if less lusty, a procedure), put into well-greased pans, and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Brush butter on the tops when once they start to brown, and again when the loaves are removed from their pans.
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September 9, 2009
Volumes of food at Texas Book Festival
If Halloween candy is already on the shelves at grocery stores, that means the Texas Book Festival is around the corner.
The free festival, which takes place the first weekend in November, is one of Austin’s best public events, showcasing the best of the book world. Big-name authors are always a draw — Buzz Aldrin, Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Walls among them this year — but cooks will be thrilled at the food lineup for the festival, which will take place at the Capitol on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
Frederickburg resident and owner of Rather Sweet bakery Rebecca Rather, whose newest book, “Pastry Queen Parties: Entertaining Friends and Family, Texas Style,” comes out Oct. 13., will be there, alongside cookbook authors Lidia Bastianich, Ellie Krieger and Guiliano Hazan.
Wyatt McSpadden will talk barbecue, Robb Walsh will talk oysters and Texas State educator James E. McWilliams will dig deeper into what it takes to create a sustainable food system.
Other authors of food-related books slated to speak include Woody Tasch, Elizabeth Engelhardt, Melanie Haupt, Jason Sheehan, Glenda Pierce Facemire and Jonathan Safran Foer, the “Everything Is Illuminated” author whose first non-fiction book, “Eating Animals,” is about vegetarianism.
The schedule of events will be released in the next few weeks.
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August 31, 2009
Sheila Lukins, 'Silver Palate' author, is dead at 66
Sheila Lukins, best known for her cookbook “The Silver Palate Cookbook,” has died after a short battle with brain cancer.
Eat Me Daily calls her “one of those rare cookbook authors who actually changed the way we eat,” and the New York Times has this obituary about the woman who helped “usher in the new American cooking of the 1980s.”
Former Statesman food editor Kitty Crider says her chicken marbella was the dinner party dish.
Do you have a favorite Lukins’ recipe?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Cookbooks
August 27, 2009
In a cooking slump? Hit the library
641.
That’s the number you need to know if you find yourself in need of culinary inspiration and without the dollars to drop on a set of new cookbooks.
Sure, you can find just about any recipe you’d want online, but there’s nothing like flipping through a tangible book of recipes that can coax your hands into whipping up something special.
Libraries house a vast number of cookbooks, both classic and newly released, and they are all filed under 641 of the Dewey Decimal System. (The 600s, if you’ve forgotten since elementary school, is the technology section, and 640 is reserved for “home economics and family living.”)
Good luck finding a library copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child these days, but why not explore other culinary riches, as Statesman social columnist Michael Barnes of Out and About is doing.
Barnes is taking a page from Austinite Julie Powell’s “Julie & Julia” to cook his way through classics including Marcella Hazan’s “The Classic Italian Cookbook.”
I’m eagerly awaiting the cooler weather to dive back in the kitchen. Like most of you I presume, I’ve been assembling food rather than cooking much of it in recent weeks, but don’t be surprised to find me tucked away in the nonfiction section of the library with my oven mitts planning what I’ll do when the kitchen itch strikes again.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking
August 26, 2009
Austin's 'Kitchen Diva' hits Hulu.com, 'Today' show
The author of “The New African-American Kitchen” said just before heading to the NBC studios for a rehearsal on Wednesday that the short cooking segments that air on KVUE on Saturday mornings at 8:15 will also start appearing on Hulu.com in October.
Medearis, who is a veteran of these morning show cooking segments and has appeared on shows such as Bobby Flay’s “Throwdown,” said she’ll be making Mozambique shrimp and a corn and shrimp salad with the hosts during the latter half of the show. The two recipes are from her next cookbook, “The Kitchen Diva Cooks,” which will come out next year.
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May 27, 2009
Diana Kennedy signs with UT Press
For more than 50 years, she has been studying, cooking and writing about Mexican food, giving her a culinary expertise matched by few other chefs or authors. Her books include the 1989 classic “The Art of Mexican Cooking,” which was recently reiussed, “The Essential Cuisines of Mexico” and “From My Mexican Kitchen.”
For much of the past decade, Kennedy has been focusing on the region of Oaxaca for “Oaxaca al Gusto,” which at 400 pages, is a tome of a reference book that was first published in Spanish in Mexico last year.
Kennedy, who lives in Michoacan, Mexico, is pushing 90 and still going strong. UT Press sponsoring editor Casey Kittrell, who is working closely with Kennedy on this book, says she took many of the photos herself as she was researching.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Cookbooks, Food in the news
December 24, 2008
Note to self: Check out Backyard BBQ in Morgan's Point
I’d never heard of The Backyard BBQ, nor its location — Morgan’s Point, west of Temple — but Clay says it’s the best in Texas. I randomly drew his name as the winner of last week’s book giveaway.
Thanks to all of your for your comments and participation in this streak of holiday cookbook giveaways! Should be fun to do again in 2009.
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December 9, 2008
Win a copy of Rebecca Rather's 'Pastry Queen Christmas'
For next week’s giveaway, I have a copy of Rebecca Rather’s “Pastry Queen Christmas.” Rather is the pastry chef behind Rather Sweet Bakery and Cafe and Rebecca’s Table in Fredericksburg. Next year, Rather Sweet will celebrate 10 years of serving the finest pastries in the Hill Country. Rebecca’s Table has been offering locally sourced dinners since 2007.
She also recently judged a throwdown with Bobby Flay for the Food Network where the Casserole Queens went head to head Flay at Speakeasy. No word yet on the air date.
To win her holiday book, tell me about your favorite Central Texas holiday tradition.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Cookbooks
December 2, 2008
Win a copy of Rachael Ray's new book
Congrats, Leslie! You’re the winner of Jose Andres’ “Made in Spain” cookbook! (Pad Thai has always given me troubles, too.)
But mainly we talked about how the heck she keeps up with this busy schedule of hers. With the magazine, the cookbooks, the nonprofit and, of course, the television shows, she’s got to be exhausted.
She sure sounded like it.
When she called en route to one of her Manhattan studios, I made the mistake of asking her if she was sick. (I didn’t even recognize her voice she sounded so hoarse.) She bristled but eventually warmed up. She, too, sounded conflicted about working 80-100 hour weeks, at times defensive and at others self-deprecating. Work is affecting her health; she’s having vocal surgery in a few weeks to remove a benign cyst. “It’s a bummer that I have to be hospitalized to stop working,” she says.
I’m sure the crowd on Sunday will be strong. I just hope her voice holds up to greet everyone.
So, for next week’s question: What food person — cookbook author, chef, restaurant owner, food writer, etc. — would you wait in line for hours to meet?
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November 25, 2008
Cookbook giveaway question
Hopefully Martha Stewart’s new book will help reader Holly’s sister-in-law learn how to throw a successful Thanksgiving dinner. (Cold, pink turkey is never a good sign…)
For next week’s book, “Made in Spain: Spanish Dishes for the American Kitchen” by PBS host Jose Andres, tell me about your favorite ethnic dish you wish you could pull off in your own kitchen.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Cookbooks
November 24, 2008
Note to self: Don't serve Ina Garten a pumpkin pie
Ina Garten is not a pumpkin pie person.
Instead, she serves desserts such as pumpkin banana tart or pumpkin mousse parfait; this year, she’ll be making a pumpkin roulade filled with mascarpone (recipe below) on Wednesday to serve for her husband and six guests on Thursday.
These informal gatherings at her house are the focus of “Barefoot Contessa,” which is in its seventh season. A second show, named after her most recent cookbook, “Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics,” premiered last month and is also filmed in her own kitchen.
“I try to include more information about cooking” in the new show, she says over the phone this morning from her kitchen/office in the East Hamptons. “Tips, what you can make in advance…It has a slightly different energy.” Filming both shows in her home was part of the deal from the beginning. “I wanted it to feel real. My friends, my family, my home, not in a studio,” she says.
“Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics” has been in the works for four years, even though its publishing happens to coincide with rough economic times when many people are heading back to the kitchen. “Many of my recipes are basic anyway, so I couldn’t make it more basic,” she says. “So I decided to write about how to get the most flavor out of the ingredients.”
“I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, ‘This economic thing is a disaster’,” she says. There is a silver lining: It’s reminding us what’s important this holiday season. “It’s not all about the stuff and the Santa cards, but it brings you back to bringing people closer and spending time with family and friends. ”
She also had a few thoughts on Michelle and Barack Obama. “I am so thrilled and so excited for his intelligence, his deliberateness and centeredness and how grounded he is,” she says. That is so important for the economy. (She should know; before she became a celebrity cook, she worked on budgets in the Ford and Carter administrations.)
She also says that Michelle Obama is the perfect person to show what is so great about this county. It’s not about entertaining; it’s about showcasing the best of what we have, from food to clothes to theater, she says.
I couldn’t help but point out that the forecast for Thanksgiving in Central Texas is a warm 77 degrees. “You can spend it in your bikini,” she says with a chuckle.
A few people on Twitter had some additional questions for Ina:
@csharo: “Back to Basics” often calls for “outdoor grill.” Any Contessa-approved alternatives? Will grill pan do? One of the most popular recipes from the new book is the Tuscan lemon chicken. I’ve heard of people broiling and baking the chicken and it turned out fine, so you don’t have to grill many of the dishes.
@natanyap: What advice do you have for those who want to change careers like you did and move from a non-food related job to a foodie job? Just jump off the cliff, she says. Focus your attention and you’ll figure out how to do it. It’s not an easy transition. I love the food business. It keeps me up at night, which I love. You have to roll up your sleeves and dive in. I don’t know that blogs would create a professional base for you. I think you really need to be out there in a kitchen or with a food store or with a culinary degree. Work your way up. Be prepared for a few years of learning your way through the food business.
@allenweiner: What about low fat alternatives? I do have some recipes that are quite high fat, she says. I like to balance a meal with things that are low fat and things that are richer. People feel better when they have a balance, she says. I tend not to substitute, but I will make a recipe that’s lower in fat.
@dquack: I’d also be interested to hear your take on the sustainable food movement. I think everybody needs to look around their neighborhood and see what’s made there. There’s a chicken farm in East Hampton, so I cook a lot of chicken. I buy Italian sausages made in a store near here. I write a menu around what’s available and what’s in season. Focus on the ingredients that are available, then fill in the gaps.
Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Buttercream
For cake:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus extra for dusting
For filling:
12 oz. Italian mascarpone cheese
1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1/4 cup minced dried crystallized ginger (not in syrup)
Pinch of kosher salt
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 13 inch by 18 inch sheet pan that’s about an inch deep. Line the pan with parchment paper and grease and flour the paper. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt and stir to combine. Place the eggs and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed for three minutes, until light yellow and thickened. With the mixer on low, add the pumpkin, then slowly add the flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated. Finish mixing the batter by hand with a rubber spatula. Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake the cake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the top springs back when gently touched.
While the cake is baking, lay out a clean, thin cotton dish towel on a flat surface and sift the entire 1/4 cup of confectioners’ sugar evenly over it. (This will prevent the cake from sticking to the towel.) As soon as you remove the cake from the oven, loosen it around the edges and invert it squarely onto the prepared towel. Peel away the parchment paper. With a light touch, roll the warm cake and the towel together (don’t press!), starting at the short end of the cake. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, make the filling. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone, confectioners’ sugar, and cream together for about a minute, until light and fluffy. Stir in the crystallized ginger and salt.
To assemble, carefully unroll the cake onto a board with the towel underneath. Spread the cake evenly with the filling. Reroll the cake in a spiral using the towel as a guide. Remove the towel and trim the ends to make a neat edge. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve sliced.
Serves 8. You can make this a day before serving. Be sure to serve cool, so bring it out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Cookbooks, Playing with your food
November 18, 2008
Win a copy of Martha Stewart's new book
Now for this week’s giveaway question: What is the worst Thanksgiving fiasco you’ve ever witnessed or played a role in?
I’ll draw names next week for a copy of Ms. Fiasco herself’s latest, “Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Cookbooks
November 11, 2008
Win a book: Tell me which beer is worth fighting for
A $2,000 meal in San Francisco in the dot-com days and a Valentine’s Day dinner at Zoot won Matt and Maggie this week’s fancy cookbooks.
A copy of “Shine On: 100 Years of Shiner Beer” will go to the randomly drawn winner.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Cookbooks
November 5, 2008
Cookbook winner and next week's giveaway question
The Halloween smells of pumpkin seeds and licorice won cookbooks for Ann and Dirty Snowflake! Congrats and thanks for sharing!
For next week’s cookbooks, tell me about the most expensive meal you’ve ever eaten (either that you’ve made at home or spent money on in a restaurant)…
Two fancy-pants cookbooks up for grabs: “The Complete Robuchon” by French chef Joel Robuchon (whom Mark Bittman calls the unofficial World’s Greatest Chef on the back cover) and “Barefoot Contessa’s Back to Basics” by Ina Garten.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Cookbooks
October 28, 2008
Cookbook winners and next week's giveaway question
For next week’s giveaway, we’ll stick with a Halloween-related question and book.
To win a luscious book about chocolate (“A Year in Chocolate” by Jacques Torres) or a guide to diners, drive-ins and dives by a frightening man with brass knuckles and spiky blond hair, tell me, what smell do you most associate with Halloween?
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Cookbooks
October 21, 2008
Cookbook winner and next week's giveaway question
Congrats, Katharine and Sheryl! You are the winners of this week’s cookbooks. In addition to the newest Williams-Sonoma cookbook, I’m also giving away a copy of “Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Money Saving Meals”.
The question: What is the holiday food you would be happy to never ever eat again? Too-dry turkey and ambrosia were the objects of the winners’ dissatisfaction, but cranberry sauce, green bean casserole and several incarnations of gelatinous salads and sweet-potato casseroles were also on the list. (I’d be happy to never eat one of those marshmallow-covered casseroles again in my life, too!)
Next week’s question: What is your favorite food or drink blog?
I’m giving away a copy of “Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris” written by madam food blog herself and author of Chocolate and Zucchini, Clotilde Dusoulier.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Cookbooks
October 14, 2008
Cookbook winner and next week's giveaway question
In the second week of our cookbook giveaway, Emily Barrett is the (randomly selected) winner of the very colorful and surprisingly profound “Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin.” Congrats, Emily!
Thanks to all the commenters for your favorite Thanksgiving tasks!
The question for next Tuesday’s giveaway of the new Williams-Sonoma Cookbook:
Now, a treat for everybody else: Kenny Shopsin’s recipe for chicken-fried hamburger, after the jump.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Cookbooks
October 9, 2008
Cookbook winners (and a surprise)
Thanks to everyone for telling such wonderful tales of Thanksgiving side dishes! We’re going to do a story the week of Thanksgiving with some of these dishes (and photos and recipes!) so don’t be surprised if you hear from me in the next few days about coordinating that.
Now for the real surprise: Christina, Natanya and Just a girl will all three be getting cookbooks this week. There were just too many great comments and e-mails (nearly 30 all together!) to only give away one cookbook.
Part 2 of the surprise: We’re going to be giving away cookbooks each week through Thanksgiving (and heck, maybe even Christmas!). Because I’m going to be in Houston at the Association of Food Journalists’ conference for much of next week, here’s the question for next week’s giveaway:
What Thanksgiving-related food task or errand is your favorite? Baking pies with grandma the day before? Eating donuts during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade?
Leave a comment or e-mail me and I’ll pick a winner sometime next week.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Cookbooks
October 6, 2008
First-ever Relish Austin cookbook giveaway
I’m so buried in cookbooks I can’t even see what color my desk is anymore, so I need your help getting rid of some of them before the holiday deluge really hits.
How it works is this: I get a good number of cookbooks a week, put aside the ones I know we’ll eventually write about and put in a box the really bad ones, which go in a semi-annual book sale, the profits of which go to charity.
That leaves stacks and stacks of fabulous books without a good home!
I’m hoping that you, the dedicated Relish Austin reader, will step in and take some of these books off my hands. Who wouldn’t want a copy of Giada de Laurentiis’s newest book “Giada’s Kitchen”? Or maybe you’ve been hearing about Kenny Shopsin’s memoir/cookbook that just came out.
Rather than force y’all to arm-wrestle (though that would be very entertaining, indeed), all I want is to hear about your best Thanksgiving side dish, a topic on my mind as we plan our upcoming holiday coverage.
We’re looking for out-of-the-ordinary tales of homemade egg rolls (a highlight of my Filipino sister-in-law’s Thanksgiving spread) or the gosh-darn-bestest potato and cheese casserole you’d be proud to serve to the Queen of England.
You can e-mail me or leave a comment below. We’ll pick a winner by the end of the week.
I’ll give away Giada’s book this week and Kenny’s book next week, so if you don’t have a Thanksgiving dish of note, be thinking about your favorite pre-T-day dinner task or errand.
(Related note: The System of Things requires that I approve comments before they are posted, and although I wish I really could dedicate my life to waiting for comments, I can’t, so it might be a few hours before your comment appears, especially if you post it at 2 a.m. Don’t let that stop you, though! I love each and every comment and will post them ASAP, I promise.)
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Cookbooks
August 26, 2008
Do these beans make me look fat?
Finally, a book celebrating the oft maligned crown jewel of the food pyramid.
The book, which is by author Jennifer McLagan and comes out September 16, goes into far more detail about fat than most people would enjoy, but the fabulous recipes will cure your hankering for bonafide refried beans (see recipe below), brown butter ice cream and, should you so desire, whole roasted veal kidney.
Fat is beautiful in so many forms, but lard in particular is a food darling right now. I grew up using Crisco in cookies and such, but can’t recall cooking with the real deal. You can get lard everywhere and, if you keep it in the fridge, it will last a long time. Pie crusts made with lard are legendary in their flakiness and taste, and we all know that refried beans aren’t really refried beans unless they are made with lard.
Lard — and, let’s face it, fat altogether — have gotten the short end of the butter stick for decades. No fat, low fat, good fat, bad fat have taken over our culinary vocabulary, replacing responsible fat consumption, which people were exercising for hundreds of glorious food years before the f word became so cursed.
So, to get you started thinking about how you can use lard in your own kitchen, here’s the official “Fat” recipe for refried beans. (I particularly like the last instruction.)
Refried beans
1 1/2 cups pinto beans
2 onions
generous pinch of dried epazote
2/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp. lard
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Soak the beans overnight in cold water to cover. Drain the beans, discarding the soaking water, and place them in a saucepan. Cut 1 onion in half and add it to the saucepan. Add the epazote and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, lower the heat, and simmer until the beans are very soft, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Drain the beans, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Using a potato masher, mash the beans. Finely chop the remaining onion. In a large, heavy skillet over medium heat, melt 2/3 cup of the lard. When it is melted, add the chopped onion and cook, stirring, until softened.
Add the beans to the onion and gradually stir in 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid to make a soft puree. Continue stirring until heated through, adding more of the cooking liquid if the beans become dry, and season well with salt and pepper.
Serve drizzled with the remaining 2 tablespoons of fat, melted, if desired.
Did you know? According to “Fat,” epazote, an herb available at many area grocery stores and Latin markets, is a carminative, meaning it relieves flatulence, as if you needed another excuse to try this particular bean recipe.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, Recipes
August 18, 2008
Rachael Ray's alter ego
Cause I know you can’t get enough of America’s favorite 30-Minute-Meal maker, meet Rachael, er Rachell, the smiling faux chef behind Every Freaking Day with Rachell Ray, a parody book out that’s sure to have Ray Ray boiling in her JCrew booties.
Or maybe not. Ms. Ray, who recently topped the list as the top-earning celebrity chef with her $18 million a year salary, seems like a light-hearted gal most of the time. Maybe she, too, can get a laugh at herself.
I sure did, especially with features “Oh My Buns! Burgers of the Month,” “Swell Swill: Wines under $5.99” and an RR drinking game, in which you take drinks each time she says “totally” or “EVOO” and drain the bottle when she calls the guests on her show “kids.” (The real Rachael’s Web site has a Rachael-isms page to explain her lingo, in case “delish” or “yum-o” isn’t clear.)
Watch out for “floater” recipes — including one whose ingredients consist of flavored gelatin and Chex Mix — and a how-to on getting from the fridge to the counter with every single flippin’ ingredient you need in your grasp.
What would we do without you, RR?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Chewing the fat, Cookbooks
July 12, 2008
What to do with all these recipes?
I admit it; I’m a pack rat, especially when it comes to magazines. I have magazines piling up on the dining room table, leaving us hardly enough room to have dinner, and my slightly OCD husband is quickly tiring of the ever-growing mess.
I’m a magazine freak, subscribing to many and collecting the local free ones wherever I go. I’m obsessed with what’s inside: the front-of-book tips, the photography, the fashion spreads, the profiles, the design, and, most importantly, the recipes.
I’d like to start going online to fetch the recipes I find in print, but then I’m stuck without a way to collect them all in one place.
So here’s my problem: The recipe clutter online and on my computer is already overwhelming! I have recipes stored on del.icio.us, Google Reader and, of course, my inbox. I’ve tried to stick with Epicurious, AllRecipes or one of the other recipe sites, but that only lasts a day or so. I’ve even started Word files to cut and paste recipes in! (You can guess how long that lasted…)
With so many recipe databases out there, there’s bound to be one that lets me input, import and collect recipes easily.
Maybe I just am out of the loop, but I haven’t found a site that works for me. What do ya’ll use to find recipes online and keep ‘em all straight?
