Posted by Anita on 12.20.07 12:07 PM
You remember last week’s mad locavore dinner streak? This week: Not so much. OK, sure, we managed to hit our baseline — two dinners made from 90% local ingredients over the course of a week. But with the holidays and crazy work deadlines looming, there simply wasn’t time to show off.
Still, we ate pretty well. Our first Dark Days Challenge meal of the week revolved around a fabulous batch of carnitas tacos — Range Brothers pork tucked inside Rancho Gordo tortillas — with Happy Quail poblano chile rajas, Primavera salsa, and a side of Rancho Gordo heirloom beans. Our usual Friday night pasta-fest — Eduardo’s linguine and our homemade sauce — featured a shaved fennel and apple salad made from homegrown fennel, Apple Farm apples, Point Reyes Blue cheese, and Bariani olive oil. As quick weeknight meals go, they weren’t too shabby… even if we only managed two dinners from within our foodshed this week.
But, as I keep having to reminding myself, there are 14 other meals every week.
Pretty much every breakfast we eat meets our challenge criteria. Our eggs and butter are Clover Organic, the bread comes from Acme, the preserves are usually gifts from friends (who use local fruit) or bought from June Taylor. On the weekends, our Saturday market ritual involves a stop at Primavera, where the menu proudly displays the names of the farmers who grow their delectable ingredients. And on Sundays, we fancy up our weekday fare with Fatted Calf or Range Bros. bacon, or homemade breakfast sausage.
Lunch, though, is a mixed bag. When leftovers aren’t an option, things can be pretty grim. The area around my office is mercifully light on mega-chain fast food and rich in gourmet-ish choices, but none of them are particularly locavore-friendly. There’s a branch of Out the Door, the quick-service sibling of San Francisco’s famed Slanted Door restaurant, but the best they can do is “organic whenever possible”.
Twice a week, my options improve significantly.
On Tuesdays, I hop the streetcar down to the Ferry Building for the lunchtime farmers market. During the market, Prather Ranch sells hamburgers on Acme buns, and Donna’s sells tamales and “enchamales”, locally made with some local ingredients.
There’s an array of not-quite-there options inside the Ferry Building itself, mostly local but non-organic, or vice-versa. If you’re feeling particularly wealthy, I suppose you could lunch on Tomales Bay oysters and Bay Area microbrews at the Hog Island bar overlooking the bay, but that’s a wee bit rich for my everyday budget.
On Wednesday, I head to the decidedly un-chic Heart of the City farmers market at Civic Center. I pick up a few midweek provisions, but my real goal is a quarter of a spit-roasted Fulton Valley chicken and a side of basted potatoes from Roli Roti. All things considered, it’s probably my favorite locavore lunch option, and relatively cheap by comparison.
All in all, my best bet for Dark Days lunches is planned leftovers. But, given how unsuccessful we’ve been this last week at actually putting food on our table, it’s a good thing that other options exist.
locavore, lunch
1 Comment »
Posted by Anita on 12.18.07 4:28 PM
I hope you can all forgive my stunned silence on this subject over the last couple of days:
We awoke Monday to discover that we’d been named this year’s Best Blog Covering Drinks in the Well Fed food blog awards, in what I am assured was an incredibly close race. I’m absolutely floored that we were even nominated in such auspicious company, much less that we won!
(I guess we’ll keep working on Drink of the Week, eh? Not bad for a weekly feature that we weren’t sure would survive.)
Thank you — truly, deeply — to everyone who voted for us, and all of you who stopped by to offer congratulations while we were still dumbstruck and unable to post. We hope you’ll stop by and congratulate our co-winners, favorites both old and new:
Food Blog of the Year – 101 Cookbooks
Best City Food Blog – Becks and Posh
Best Family Food Blog – Lunch in a Box
Best Group Food Blog – Serious Eats
Best Industry Food Blog – Michael Ruhlman
Best New Food Blog and Best Humor Food Blog – French Laundry at Home
Best Food Blog Photography – La Tartine Gourmande
Best Food Blog Post – Gluten-Free Girl
Best Rural Food Blog – Farmgirl Fare
Best Theme Food Blog – Fat-Free Vegan
Best Food Blog Writing – Bittersweet Blog
drinks, other blogs, other stuff
9 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 12.14.07 7:02 AM
Before we get on to this week’s cocktail, we have two bits of housekeeping: (1) Enter to win a chance to bring Drink of the Week to your house by buying a virtual raffle ticket for our Menu for Hope custom mixology prize. (2) Please remember to vote today for your favorite finalists in the WellFed Food Blog Awards. If you’re a new visitor, here’s a handy link to just our drinks content.
—
It’s hard to think of Prohibition as any sort of positive force, but indeed there are a few improvements in the world of drinks that we can lay solidly at the feet of the Noble Experiment.
In the early years of the 20th century, the few females found in city taverns tended to be …professionals, of one sort or another. With the emergence of speakeasies, it became fashionable for daring young women to join their male friends for a night on the town. By the time of repeal, the presence of the fairer sex in bars was accepted fact in all but the most masculine enclaves.
Another odd side-effect of the dry years was the export of our uniquely American cocktail tradition to other climes. Rather than ply their trade with bathtub gin and other questionable potations, many mixologists took to the seas, heading for saner lands.
One such man, Harry Craddock, left New York in 1920 to become head barman at London’s famed Savoy hotel. Almost single-handedly popularizing the pantheon of mixed drinks in a land where strong ale was the roughest stuff poured, Craddock was obviously a force to be reckoned with. A beacon for ocean-hopping Yanks and Londoners alike, the American Bar’s popularity under his leadership drove the 1930 publication of a drinks manual called, simply, The Savoy Cocktail Book.
Amazingly, the Savoy’s current head barman, Salim Khoury, is only the seventh to hold the title since the 1890s. (There must be something in the, er, water?) He trained as assistant to the legendary Peter Dorelli, and has himself been employed at the American Bar since 1969. Perhaps even more remarkable, The Savoy Cocktail Book remains in print — an updated printing of the latest edition debuted last month — and the American Bar maintains its place as a London cocktail mecca… at least for those with the means to spend £12 ($25) or more on a single drink.
But like all legends of a certain age, the American Bar is in need of a spot of nip-and-tuck. Tomorrow night, in fact, the entire Savoy will close for a 16-month, £100 million restoration. No mention is made in press clippings of plans for the American Bar, specifically, but one must imagine that the hotel’s current caretakers realize the pitfalls of tampering too greatly with such an international icon.
There are least four eponymous Savoy drinks to be found in Craddock’s book. Lacking the sloe gin needed to attempt the Savoy Tango, and the nerve required to build the Savoy Hotel, we were left with two versions of the Savoy Hotel Special Cocktail. Although variation #2 is distinctive, the original below is our preference.
Savoy Hotel Special Cocktail #1
2 oz dry gin
1 oz dry vermouth
2 dashes quality grenadine
1 dash absinthe
lemon peel
Shake* well and strain into a cocktail glass. Squeeze lemon peel on top.
—
* Traditional mixology calls for clear drinks to be stirred with ice, and cloudy drinks (those with dairy or juice, in the main) to be shaken — a guideline that appears to be disregarded not just here but in numerous recipes throughout The Savoy Cocktail Book.
The preface to the 1999 British edition (and possibly others) adds to the confusion. After quoting Peter Dorelli on the subject of the proper way to chill a drink — “…the ice should travel the length of the shaker, so that you awaken the drink. If you don’t do this, you are cheating…” — the unnamed prologuist informs us that “There are, in fact, three ways of shaking a cocktail: If opaque or cloudy, shake it; if clear, stir gently; if solid, blend it.”
Hm.
He seems to be using “shaking” as a synonym for “chilling and diluting”. But, then, why are there plenty of recipes that clearly call for a stir?
Obviously, some in-person investigation is required, perhaps a direct follow-up with Mr. Khoury himself. Who’s up for a London trip in, say, spring 2009?
Drink of the Week, drinks
12 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 12.12.07 1:06 PM
Thanks for sticking with us through last week‘s pity party. I’m slightly embarrassed that I bemoaned the end of avocado season and the near-disappearance of local tomatillos, when any locavore worth her salt would just suck it up, file away those recipes for the winter, and learn to love what’s left.
I mean, hell, it’s not like we’re in some snowbound location where all we have to eat from October to May is bitter greens and root veggies. And it’s called Dark Days Challenge for a reason — if it were simple, what fun would that be? So, in the spirit of pushing our eating habits into new territory, we ate seven local dinners in a row.
That’s right, kids: Last week, Sunday to Saturday, we ate within our foodshed every single night. Some meals were a stretch, and we fell back on our exemptions and our “90% local” metric with a vengeance. But we were shocked and awed by the number of specialty ingredients that we could source from right in our back yard if we really looked hard enough.
Case in point: For our first meal, potstickers and a long-bean stir-fry, we were happily amazed to find gyoza wrappers made a few miles south of the house (although almost certainly from non-local flour) at our neighborhood Asian grocer. For the filling, we ground Range Bros. pork butt from the Prather boys. All of the various veggies — ginger, scallions, cabbage, and long beans — came straight from the farmers market. We hit our 90% target easily: everything except soy sauce and sesame oil was local.
Another night, we tackled a new recipe for bibimbap. Although it required imported gochujang — a fiery Korean condiment — for the topping, and both soy sauce and sesame oil for the marinade, everything else (meat, rice, veggies, eggs, sprouts, nashi, and even kimchi) hailed from within our 100-mile radius. Surprised we could cook not one but two authentic Asian dinners from 90%-local ingredients? I sure was.
Rounding out the week, there was a pot of chili with a skillet of sage cornbread, a pan of cheesy lasagne, a big batch of pot pie, and Friday night’s traditional linguine Bolognese — with salads on the side and either local wine or SF-brewed beer each night. We were a little stunned to discover that all of these meals fit our challenge ground rules; We even used local flour for the pot pie’s biscuit crust.
Our last local dinner (pictured above) was the most successful of all, in so many ways. We’re helping a friend recipe-test his upcoming cookbook, and one of the recipes he sent us involved a dish we’d probably never have made on our own. Without divulging too many details of this as-yet-unpublished masterpiece, I think I can say that it was totally worth the lunchtime schlep over to the Berkeley farmers market to get Full Belly Farms wheatberries for this dish, rather than opting for one of the substitutions the recipe allowed.
As an added bonus, this was a 100% local meal — perhaps our first? — using Marin Sun Farms beef, homemade chicken stock (from local chicken carcasses), farmers market veggies, Bariani olive oil, homegrown herbs, Anchor Steam beer, and a jar of those Mariquita tomatoes from our home-canned stash. Not a single exemption to be found beyond salt and pepper… Mmm, delicious.
Now, I’d love to share the recipe for that stunning beef dish, but alas I am sworn to secrecy until the book is published.(EDIT: Matthew, the book’s author, kindly corrected my oversight: A very similar recipe was published last spring as part of his Culinate column, Unexplained Bacon.) In the meantime, I can highly recommend our second-favorite meal of the week. This recipe makes enough to serve 8, so we froze half of the filling to use later in the winter. For a quick weeknight meal, all we’ll have to do is whip up a batch of cheddar biscuits, reheat the filling, and wait patiently by the oven.
Chicken Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuit Crust
– adapted from Gourmet, November 2007
Filling:
1 onion, chopped
2 large carrots, medium (1/2-inch) dice
2 celery ribs, medium dice
1 large parsnip, peeled, cored and cut to medium dice
1 tsp chopped thyme
3 T chicken fat or olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup flour
3-1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup shelled English peas
4 cups leftover chicken, medium dice
Crust:
2 cups flour (we used 1/2 all-purpose and 1/2 whole wheat)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup coarsely grated sharp Cheddar
1/4 cup coarsely grated Dry Jack (or Parmesan)
4T cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2T leaf lard, well chilled and cut into 1/2 pieces
– (or substitute 2T more unsalted butter)
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1/4 cup cream, half-and-half, or milk
Sautee the vegetables and thyme in the chicken fat or olive oil over medium-low heat until soft but not browned; add salt & pepper to taste. Sprinkle the sauteed vegetables with flour and cook, stirring well, for 2 minutes or until the flour loses its powdery consistency. Stir in the stock, scraping up any browned bits. Add the peas and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chicken, and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
The filling can be cooled and refrigerated (or frozen) at this point. Cook refrigerated filling within 24-48 hours; frozen filling will last 3 months if properly stored. If using immediately, lower heat, cover, and keep warm until topping is ready.
Place an oven rack in the middle of the oven, and preheat oven to 400°. If using previously made filling, reheat thoroughly over low heat before proceeding.
To make crust: Sift together all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add the cheeses and toss to coat with flour mixture. Add butter and cut into the flour using a pastry blender or your fingers until dough resembles a coarse meal. Add the dairy products and stir just until dough comes together; do not overmix. Set aside.
Transfer the filling to two pie pans or a 13×9 casserole. Drop the biscuit dough in 8 large portions on top of the hot filling, leaving space for filling to bubble up, if possible. Bake for 35 minutes, or until biscuits are risen and golden brown. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
cooking, locavore, recipes
9 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 12.10.07 8:00 AM
EDIT: A warm welcome to all the folks clicking over from WellFed Network. Our homepage is rather focused on Menu for Hope right now, so here’s a quick link to all of our drink-related content.
—–
Right alongside Menu for Hope, there’s another big event in the food-blogger community this time of year: Well Fed Network’s Food Blog Awards.
Cruising through the categories, I was jumping up and down when I saw so many of our friends recognized for their talents: Jen (Theme and Blog of the Year!), Shuna (Chef and Industry), Sam (City and Photography), Matt (Photography), Biggles (Theme), and the Ethicurians (Group, of course).
And, please, someone tell me how I can possibly choose between my two Seattle pals Molly and Shauna — oh, no, and Shuna again, too?! — in the Best Post category!
So you will understand why I am tickled pink that Married… with Dinner has been nominated as a finalist in the Best Blog Covering Drinks category, alongside a pair of well-known wine bloggers and such august cocktailians as Paul Clarke (the inventor of Mixology Monday) and Jeffrey Morgenthaler (the father of Repeal Day).
Wow. I’m flabbergasted… thank you. As they say in Hollywood: It’s truly an honor just to be nominated in such amazing company.
If you’d like to VOTE for your favorites, the polls are open until Friday at midnight.
other blogs
5 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 12.10.07 12:05 AM
For two weeks every December, food bloggers from all over the world offer a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Last year, we raised $62,925 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry. This year’s campaign runs December 10 to 21. Every $10 donated earns you one virtual raffle ticket for the prize of your choice.
(To learn more, read the Menu for Hope IV FAQ.)
If you’re interested in winning one of the fabulous prizes we’re offering here on Married… with Dinner — the Ferry Building gift basket, the Drink of the Week photocards, or the custom mixology service — here’s how to enter:
- Check out the other cool items available on Rasa Malaysia and Chez Pim. (We know you want OUR prize, but you might want to bid on others, too …you generous foodie, you.)
- Go to the donation page for Menu for Hope IV. Just like last year, funds raised will go to support the United Nations World Food Programme.
-
Make a donation! Each $10 pledge will give you one virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you’d like in the “Personal Message” section in the donation form when confirming your donation.
- Don’t forget to mention how many tickets you want to allot per prize, and please use the prize code — for example, a donation of $50 can buy 1 ticket for UW-06, 1 for UW-07, and 3 for UW-08.
- If your company matches your charity donations, please remember to check the appropriate box on your submission and fill in the information so Menu for Hope can claim the corporate match.
- Please also check the box that allows the contest administrators to see your email address so that they can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone else.
- Check back on Chez Pim
at the end of the month on January 9, when Pim will announce the result of the entire raffle. (We’ll also announce the winner of our prizes here.)
Good luck to everyone, and thanks for supporting such a worthy cause!
Menu for Hope
Comments Off on Menu for Hope IV
Posted by Anita on 12.10.07 12:03 AM
Custom Mixology Service
The “cocktail geeks” from Married… with Dinner will create a pair of personalized beverages for your soiree, based on your preferences. We’ll do all the prep beforehand, then serve your signature selections to up to 12 of your closest friends.
We’ll provide all the necessaries: Ice, mixers, syrups, garnishes, plus any tools we’ll need. We’ll even bring suitable glassware: No cocktail cleanup!
(Please note: We’re happy to shop and schlep, but due to liability issues, the winner must pay for the alcohol.) This prize is limited to San Francisco Bay Area redemption — unless you’d like to pay travel expenses… let’s talk! — and is subject to a mutually convenient schedule.
This item is Menu for Hope prize UW-08.
– Click here to make a donation and enter to win.
– Read the Menu for Hope overview to learn more.
drinks, entertaining, Menu for Hope
Comments Off on Menu for Hope: Prize #3
Posted by Anita on 12.10.07 12:02 AM
“Drink of the Week” Cocktail Notecards
Be the envy of your cocktailian friends with this one-of-a-kind set of photo-postcards featuring images from Married… with Dinner’s popular “Drink of the Week” series.
These cards feature 20 different images selected from the best examples of more than a year’s worth of tempting photos, including a number of award-winning images. Use them for thank-you notes and party invitations, or hang them in your home bar for inspiration. This set of postcards is professionally printed by Moo — the same folks who make those miniature calling cards that all the bloggers love. They’re printed on heavyweight cardstock and laminated on the front, with a final size of approximately 4×6 inches.
Worldwide shipping is available for this prize.
This item is Menu for Hope prize UW-07.
– Click here to make a donation and enter to win.
– Read the Menu for Hope overview to learn more.
Drink of the Week, Menu for Hope
1 Comment »
Posted by Anita on 12.10.07 12:01 AM
“Best of the Ferry Building” Gift Basket
An assortment of more than $100 worth of treats from San Francisco’s legendary Ferry Building Marketplace: Peet’s holiday blend breakfast tea, Scharffen Berger chocolate sauce, Recchiuti burnt caramel almonds, Bariani olive oil, Rancho Gordo hot sauce, Prather Ranch marinade, Eatwell Farm rosemary salt, lemon-infused Sonoma Syrup. You’ll also receive a copy of the popular Ferry Plaza Farmers Market Cookbook.
To give you something to remember us by when all the goodies are gone, this prize also includes the winner’s choice of an 8×10 print from our collection of market photos.
International bids are welcome, but winners outside the Continental US will be asked to pay for any shipping fees over our US$25 limit.
This item is Menu for Hope prize UW-06.
– Click here to make a donation and enter to win.
– Read the Menu for Hope overview to learn more.
farmers markets, Menu for Hope
1 Comment »
Posted by Anita on 12.07.07 7:03 AM
After going to all that trouble to find our favorite sweet vermouths, it seems only fitting for this week’s drink to highlight vermouth’s strengths. So many recipes that call for sweet vermouth use just a splash, or drown its subtleties under a lot of strong liquor. But the Americano — essentially a highball Negroni, minus the gin — takes advantage of both vermouth’s sweetness as a foil and its bitterness as a complement to the drink’s other main ingredient: Campari.
Not surprisingly, Campari’s distinctively bitter bite pairs best with a less-herbal sweet vermouth. (Monseiur Prat, your services will not be required this evening.) Most recipes call for a 1:1 ratio of Campari to sweet vermouth, but I like my Americanos — and my Negronis, for that matter — on the wetter side. Especially when using a specialty brand like Carpano Antica, this slight imbalance helps the vermouth emerge from Campari’s assertive shadow. This is definitely one of those times to use the Cinzano, if you have it. Its sweetness isn’t as problematic here, and actually helps balance the bitterness.
A tall, cool drink may seem an odd choice for December, but consider its merits: The color’s a festive red, and the flavor’s sassy enough to hold its own alongside rich holiday hors d’oeuvres. With seltzer’s sparkle and a relatively low alcohol content, the Americano makes a savvy choice in a season that’s often filled with back-to-back parties. There aren’t any tricky measurements to remember, and the Americano’s strength is infinitely adaptable to the drinker’s taste simply by adjusting the spirit-to-soda ratio. In short, it’s the platonic cocktail-party option, a seasonal spritzer extraordinaire.
Americano
1 oz sweet vermouth
3/4 oz Campari
soda water
lemon twist (optional)
Add the vermouth and Campari to an ice-filled highball or rocks glass. Top with soda water and stir to combine. Garnish with a lemon twist, if desired.
Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
4 Comments »
