The CIA

     The sleepy little town of Hyde Park overlooks the Hudson River as it makes its way south to New York City.  It is known for its storied mansions where American royalty resided with names like Roosevelt, Vanderbilt and Astor.  But it is also the home of the "Harvard of Haute Cuisine" to borrow a quote from LIFE magazine.

     The Culinary Institute of America is an independent, not-for-profit college dedicated to provide the world's best professional education.  And that's exactly what it does for 2800 students and exturns.  The school dates back to 1946 when Frances Roth and Katherine Angell decided to found the New Haven Restaurant Institute to train WWII vets in the culinary arts.  That first year they enrolled 50 students and had a faculty of exactly 3: a chef, a baker, and a dietitian.   But by 1950 600 veterans from 38 states had graduated from the school.

     Two name changes later it became the Culinary Institute of America to reflect the broader influence of the school that offers both an associates and bachelors degree in the culinary arts, baking & pastry arts, and culinary science.  Enrollment grew to the point that they could no longer fit into the New Haven, CT location and in 1972 the Jesuit novitiate, St. Andrews-on-Hudson was purchased to accommodate all the students seeking admission.  Residence halls were added, along with a career planning center and a learning resources center.  The campus also is home to a 86,000 volume culinary library, second in size only to the Library of Congress.

 

      I had the opportunity to tour the beautiful and functional campus and marveled at the modern facilities for teaching and learning.  There are 41 kitchens where students participate in hands on education in courses as varied as High Volume Production, Mushroom Foraging, Modern Banquet Cooking, and Baking.  The bread class is taught beginning at 11:30pm to bake all the breads consumed in the restaurants and dining areas for the next day.  Special focus is made on precision, accuracy and speed.  The flowers created for specialty cakes must be botanically correct.  One of the mottos of the CIA is, "We eat with our eyes first."

     More tomorrow about their public restaurants...

Fish & Game

     Upstream from the Big Apple lies the little town of Hudson, a retreat of sorts, away from the hustle and bustle of city life.  It is so laid back there that the premier restaurant in town, Fish & Game, is only open from Thursday to Sunday for dinner.  Located on South Third Street just off the main thoroughfare, Warren Street, it is housed in what was the blacksmith shop in a former life.

     Saturday and Sunday they also serve a fixed 5 course lunch menu from noon until 2pm.  So our group decided to see what they had to offer from their hidden open kitchen.  We were greeted at the door and given a table of prominence in the center of the dining room where the wild boar's head was hung by the fireplace.  We were served 3 kinds of homemade bread to begin our meal.  They were all very good and still warm from the oven.  Our first course was a salad of watermelon, kohlrabi and cherry tomatoes pooled in something they called tomato water, the run-off from poached tomatoes that were hung and drained overnight. As strange as that might seem, it was nothing in comparison to the second course of smoked sea urchin, 3 beans and a nasturtium for color.



     The third course was a freshly hatched and fried chicken egg, sunnyside up, served over corn and poblano peppers and garnished with parsley from the chef's personal garden.  An additional fee intermezzo was offered and I enjoyed an oyster on the half shell topped with a hollandaise foam that had been heated and caramelized in a 600 degree oven for a few seconds and served with a rhubarb kimchee.

     Grilled swordfish with pork rind and jus arrived next at our table, decorated with cooked okra and tangerine blossoms.  And for dessert we concluded our meal with a scoop of thyme ice cream served with crushed hazelnuts and husked ground cherries and a slice of toasted brioche.



     Each course was uniquely plated and each time a new set of silverware was provided.  It was all elegantly presented and served.  The food was intriguing and appealing all at the same time.  But as we discussed our experience afterward we all decided that there was something critical that was lacking.  There was no warmth to the staff who served us.  They were as cold as the unlit fireplace.  And that is too bad.  For that could have made a good meal truly memorable.

Hudson on the Hudson

     



     The little hamlet of Hudson, NY lies on the eastern bank of the Hudson River.  It is 130 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, an unlikely location for an ocean going enterprise.  But that is where the Nantucket Navigators relocated their whaling company in the late 18th Century when the British shut down all the eastern seaports in a dispute with the newly formed United States.  By the early 1800's Hudson, once known as Claverack Landing, was one of the largest cities in the state thanks to the whaling industry and all the other businesses that whaling supported.  The Hudson Whaling Company was only one of four similar operations that found a safe harbor far from the British up river from New York.

     But it wasn't long before whale oil was replaced by other compounds and the industry floundered.  Hudson then turned to manufacturing with mills and foundries crowding the town and employing the citizenry.  But eventually that also fell on hard times and Hudson grew increasingly forlorn and tired looking.

   Once again Hudson is experiencing a renaissance.  Shop worn store fronts are being revitalized and entrepreneurs are moving in to vacant buildings with antiques and fancy fare.  And on Saturdays there is a wonderful farmers' market just off the town square.  Local farmers are selling everything from duck eggs to artisan cheese and breads.  Freshly picked apples and pears, kohlrabi and carrots are on display beside green leafy produce like chard, mustard greens and kale.  Baked goods abound, too!  I purchased a gingered pear pie that was amazing!

 

     Hudson today is still in transition.  It is a work in progress and clearly some buildings look better than others.  But there is a spirit of renewal at work.  Where else could you step into a historic firehouse that is currently a bar, bookstore and art supply center?

Antiquing along the Hudson

     Fall is a magnificent time to visit the scenic Hudson River Valley.  The air is delightfully crisp and dry with cool mornings and sunny afternoons.  Life is good in the little towns that hug the river, towns like Rhinebeck, Hyde Park, and Kingston.

     And while many people enjoy strolling along the streets and peeking in the antique shops for rare finds, I was doing some antiquing of another sort.  Fall is also the best time to savor the many varieties of apples that are grown there by generations of farm families.  The state of New York produces 28 million bushels of apples annually.  And of that amount 22 million are grown in the Hudson River Valley.  There are the familiar varieties like McIntosh, Empire, Gala and Honeycrisp that do well in the warmest growing region in the state.  But there are also some antique varieties that are lovingly nurtured in the acres of orchards:  heirloom apples like the Chenango Strawberry, Ashmead's Kernel, Cox's Orange Pippin and the Calville Blanc d'Hiver.  But by far the most famous heirloom apple is the Esopus Spitzenburg first cultivated by Dutch settlers back in the 1700s.  It's red and yellow skin is delicately striped and dotted with a golden flesh beneath.



     The uses of the Esopus apple are many.  It is an excellent baking apple, and is used for making cider but is also enjoyed right from the tree and can be eaten out of hand.  It's flavor actually improves with a few weeks of cold storage.

     The Hudson River Valley can claim apples as their contribution to Autumn.  But it is so much more! The story of my visit there continues.....

Going Up The River

     It's time again to conduct more culinary research!  This time I will be heading upstream along the Hudson River in The Empire State.  Lots to see and taste!  I will report on my discoveries when I return later next week.

 



Really Have It Your Way!

     If you have a hankering for a hamburger there is no shortage of franchise places to go out and purchase one.  Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's and White Castle are just a few of the burger joints around that will sell you an all beef burger.  But what if your taste buds are craving something a little different from the usual, "two all beef patties....."?



     Well now there's a restaurant chain that can serve you a burger made from elk that has more protein and less fat than traditional beef.  Oh, not interested in something made from Bambi's cousin?  At Bareburger you can also get an organic, all-natural, free-range burger made from turkey, wild boar, bison, ostrich, emu or goat.  They have veggie burgers, too.



     It all began in a small space in Astoria, Queens in 2009.  Three guys with an idea whose time had come.  Custom made burgers with quality ingredients and high class condiments.  Consider the options for cheese...artisan cheese, that is.  Colby, pepper jack, manchego, queso fresco, Gouda, pimento and Amish blue in addition to cheddar are all available.  And you can adorn your burger with veggies like alfalfa, wild mushrooms, jalapenos and 4 different kinds of onions.  And what's a burger without a "secret sauce?"  It's no secret that Bareburger offers 5: habanero mayo, buttermilk ranch, mint yogurt, smoke sauce and guacamole besides the standard mayo, ketchup and stone mustard.  And 2 different kinds of relishes: piquante, and pineapple and also a tomato and fig jam.  Finally you get to decide what kind of bun will hold all that: multi grain, tapioca rice, brioche, sprout, or hemp milk.

     Want a salad? There are 6 to choose from.  Other sides include fries, onion rings, pickles (dill, sweet, or spicy), wasabi carrot slaw, and chicken tenders.  All fried foods are prepared in 100% non-GMO canola oil.  Or maybe you just want a sandwich.  They have a Duck Duck Gouda sandwich on the menu that includes duck bacon and a fried egg.  You can wash it all down with a root beer float or a milk shake and then take a look at the dessert menu at one of their 18 restaurants located in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio or Pennsylvania.  

     But really having it your way does come at a cost considering that a mere milk shake will set you back around $5 and most of the desserts are nearly $7.

A Southern Sweetie

     "The revival of small scale sorghum production in the southern Appalachians is a symbol of cultural continuity..." so writes Kevin West in the most recent issue of Saveur magazine.  Sweet sorghum, sometimes referred to as sorghum molasses, has for many in the South been a traditional topping for biscuits, pancakes, cornmeal mush and grits.  It is also used as a molasses substitute in ginger snap cookies and baked bean recipes.  The National Sweet Sorghum Producers and Processors Association says, "There is hardly a food served today that sorghum will not improve."



     The sorghum plant is native to Africa, a heat tolerant and drought resistant member of the grass family that was imported to the New World in the 17th Century.  Resembling corn stalks but without the ears of corn it thrives under dry and warm conditions where insufficient rainfall makes it unprofitable to raise corn.  Fields of sorghum can be seen throughout the southeastern United States and into the southern Great Plains.  While the majority of sorghum is raised primarily for forage and silage, there are some who prefer to extract the natural juice from the cane and concentrate it by evaporation.  Boiled down it becomes a thick syrup redolent of caramel and wood smoke.  Producers claim it to be cleaner and sweeter than the popular sugar-based molasses.  Sweet sorghum can be substituted for maple syrup,  molasses, honey, or corn syrup.  It contains iron, calcium and potassium and was at one time recommended as a home remedy daily supplement.

     I wonder how it would taste poured on my morning scrapple?  



Dragon Ash

     One of my most enjoyable culinary pastimes, besides eating, is to visit the various farmers' markets that dot the country.  It's always a joy to savor the fresh fruit and produce available from the local folks who lovingly nurtured their trees and plants to fruition.  From coast to coast and border to border, from Washington State to Washington, DC and from St. Paul to New Orleans I have strolled the aisles and purchased fresh local fruits and vegetables to my heart's content.

     But there is one place that is really special to me.  And it's not far away.  Only an hour west of my home is the venerable Green Dragon in Ephrata, Lancaster County.  In operation since 1932, it is currently managed by the Rohrbach family on 30 acres of land.  Not only are there the usual collection of local vendors selling meats and produce, there are also bakeries, candy stores, snack food vendors and restaurants, too.  You can also find hardware, clothing, furniture and household goods as well.  And if you need a hundred bales of hay that is also available at the Friday auction.  As the saying goes, "If you can't buy it at the Green Dragon, it chust ain't for sale."

     That was until early Saturday morning.  At 4:35am the volunteers from Ephrata and surrounding communities were called out to a fire at the beloved sprawling market.  Preliminary indications are that the fire began in a building housing a furniture store and quickly spread to adjoining outdoor booths, many of them occupied by Mennonite and Amish vendors.  It was heartbreaking to survey the damage on Monday when I drove out to see for  myself the devastation in the center of the market complex.



     Bill Rohrbach speaking on behalf of the family has vowed to have the Green Dragon back in operation for their one day a week market on Friday September 26.  A lot of us are hoping so.

A Bum Wrap?

     Iceberg lettuce, once termed crisphead lettuce, has gotten an undue bad reputation by many healthy eating advocates.  The favored condiment for salads, sandwiches and wraps, iceberg lettuce is a good source of both Vitamins K & A, providing approximately one third of the recommended daily intake of those two essential vitamins.  A 2 cup serving is a mere 20 calories with 4 grams of total carbs and 1.8 grams of dietary fiber.  It is cholesterol free and low in sodium and also supplies potassium.  And for those wanting to supplement their fluid intake iceberg lettuce is 96% water.  So what's not to like about the cool enjoyable crunch that it provides?

     It is true, however, that iceberg lettuce is lower in nutrients that some other types of the members of the sunflower family.  First cultivated by the ancient Egyptians this hardy annual grows best in cool climates virtually around the globe.  Darker greens like romaine and red leaf  "power lettuces" do contain more nutrients.  By adding radicchio, arugula, spinach and Swiss chard you can enhance the enjoyable crunch that iceberg gives to a salad. The general rule of the garden is that "the darker the leaf, the greater the amount of nutrients."  The website Fitness Together calls them an "antioxidant gold mine."

     So don't pull the iceberg lettuce out of your sandwich.  Just give it some company!



Mything Recipe

     Brown Windsor Soup has been described as a British soup, thick, dark and meaty and often served with sherry.  It has been called "the very soup reported to have built the British Empire."  A Victorian favorite starter, it was quite popular during that era of history.

     But wait!  There is no record of it in any cookbooks of that time.  In fact, the first reference of Brown Windsor Soup appears in the 1953 movie The Captain's Paradise when Alec Guinness in his best sneery and condescending voice says, "I can thoroughly recommend the Brown Windsor Soup!"

     The best conjecture on the topic is that the Brown Windsor Soup is a parody on a soup made with rice that was served to royalty, White Windsor Soup.  Thus the brown version is mythical and emblematic of horrid English cooking and damp hotels.  It continues to enjoy a terrible reputation and has become shorthand for awful food, a staple of restaurant menus of British railways, "thick and stodgy, hated by all and made directly from the sewage outflow of Windsor Castle."  The very inference that the soup would be served on a moving train makes it suspect.

     And while you cannot find the recipe in traditional publishings of the era, it can be found in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook and also in The Downton Abby Cookbook.  That should secure it's place in literary history anyway.

Tossing the Bouquet

     Bouquet Garni is the French term for "garnished bouquet."  (The Spanish version is farcellet.)  It refers to sprigs of herbs that are bundled together to prepare soups, stock, stews and braises by gently infusing a mild aromatic flavor into the food and is cooked with the other ingredients but removed prior to consumption.

     That all sounds well and good, until one looks for a specific list of herbs and spices to use.  That's because there isn't one.  While it is generally accepted that thyme and bay leaf are common components, additional herbs can include at the chef's discretion: parsley, basil, burnet, chervil, tarragon, savory, marjoram and rosemary.  Peppercorns can also be added, along with certain vegetables like: carrot, celery with leaves, celeriac, leek, onion, garlic and parsley root.  But upon further research I've also found recipes that invite sage, cilantro, lemon and lime zest, orange peel, potato, cloves, coriander seed and oregano to the party.

 

     

     And the options also include the method used to contain the varied elements of the bouquet garni.  They can simply be bound with kitchen string (butcher's twine) or contained in a cheesecloth sachet or even a large tea strainer.  The traditional method, however, is to wrap them in a leek leaf and secure it with string.



  So the next time you plan to prepare a boeuf bourguignon or pot au feu, be sure to enhance its flavor with your own customized bouquet!



Colorful Cauliflower

     Related to other members of the cabbage family like cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, romanesco has been called psychedelic broccoli. Lime green in color, its spiraled buds form a natural approximation of a fractal with each bud in the spiral  being composed of a series of smaller buds that seem to follow a logarithmic pattern.  It is believed that romanesco is a result of selective breeding by Italian farmers back in the 16th Century.

     It can be prepared raw, lightly cooked or cooked through.  Noted chef Mario Batali has this to say about its preparation:  "I like to saute it slowly with garlic and lemon zest and punctuate with red pepper flakes for zing."

     Like all members of the cauliflower family romanesco has a sweet, slightly assertive taste but with a nuttier and more earthy flavor.  And the green tint makes it more nutritious because it contains healthy cancer-fighting flavonoids.  Look for it now at local farmers' markets as it is in season from late summer to early fall.



Al Dente

     Most of us are familiar with the culinary term al dente, meaning "to the tooth."  It's the way many like to enjoy their pasta, with just a little firmness to the bite.  But that is also the preferred way to serve wild rice, tender but with a little chew.

     Wild rice should be cooked until the grains look puffed but not broken.  When prepared this way, according to Joanne Smart who writes in the October/November issue of Fine Cooking, "Cooked this way--a bit firm outside but tender inside--the rice pops a bit with each bite..."

     "The best way to test for doneness is not by looking but by tasting," she goes onto comment.  "Because cooking times can vary, begin tasting early, and take the rice off the heat when it's just shy of being cooked to your liking as a little carryover heat will continue to cook it.  It's OK if some of the grains have split.  Just don't let them get to the point of curling, or the rice will be unpleasantly mushy."



     Tender but not split, wild rice will look swollen but has not burst.  Some recipes say to cook wild rice until it splits.  This means the rice will be softer.  Burst and curled rice, however, is overcooked and will be mushy and disintegrate easily.

The Seasonal Rhythm of Life

     Once again we are nearing the change of seasons.  This week I began again to make soup as I do each year when Autumn approaches.  This time turkey and wild rice were the prime ingredients.  I purchased the dried rice when I was out in Minnesota just a few weeks ago.  It's the official State Grain out there, and for good reason.

     For thousands of years the first Americans dried and stored it to provide food and nourishment for the long, cold winters.  The Ojibwa nation called it Manoomin, meaning "good seed."  They, along with the Sioux and the Chippewa, would collect the rice kernels that grew on the edges of shallow lakes and slow moving streams as a part of the seasonal rhythm of their culture.  Ricing season began during the transition from Summer to Fall when their villages moved from the interior woodlands nearer to the open waterways.


     Wild rice isn't really rice at all but an annual watergrass seed with a chewy outer sheath that shields a tender inner nutty, earthy grain.  It is a member of the zizania family.  At harvest time members of the community would go out in their canoes and gently tap the flowering heads of the slender stalks as their boat passed by.  That tapping would cause the wild rice kernels to fall, most of it into the hull of the canoe.  But some would end up in the water, seeds for the next year's future harvest.

     In Minnesota it is still hand harvested at this time of year by that same time-honored method as a part of the seasonal rhythm of life.

Well Shiver Me Timbers!

     There seems to be no shortage of new diets to follow, many of them with no substantiated testing to support them.  They come and go more often than I change my socks.  But there's a new one just announced called The Popeye Diet that deserves a second look.



     Scientists at Lund University in Sweden discovered that a spinach extract contained in the green leaf members called thylakoids can boost weight loss by as much as 43%.  It is being touted as the latest weight loss aid, curbing cravings by nearly 95%.  The findings are based on analysis of 38 overweight women and was conducted over a period of 3 months.  Food cravings, also termed "hedonistic hunger," are the urges people have for unhealthy foods, particularly sweets and fast food (and for me usually occurs around midnight).

     Ingesting thylakoids reinforces the body's production of safety hormones and suppresses hedonistic hunger, which in turn leads to better appetite control, healthier eating habits and increased weight loss.  It's those thylakoids in the green leaf membranes that gradually slows down the digestion process giving the intestinal hormones sufficient time to be released and signal the brain that the body is satiated.

     One of the study leaders, Professor Erlanson-Albertson, has commented:

     "It is about making use of the time it takes to digest our food.  There's nothing wrong with our digestive system, but it doesn't work well with the modern 'pre-chewed" food.  The thylakoids extend digestion, producing a feeling of satiety.  This means that we are able to stick to the diet we are meant for without snacks and unnecessary foods like sweets, crisps and such."

So now I wonder if that's how Olive Oyl stayed so thin?                                   

Pop-ular Grain

     The familiar food pyramid includes whole grains as an important part of a healthy diet.  And there are many to choose from including wheat, rice, and corn.  But even as they are similar, they are also very different.  Consider for a moment 3 types of corn: sweet, field and a favorite of movie goers, popcorn.

     Ever wonder how it pops?  Each kernel contains a small amount of water inside a circle of soft starch.  When harvested, popcorn is dried so that it contains around 14% moisture, exactly the correct amount it needs to pop.  According to an article in the Fall issue of Henning's Real Food magazine:

     "The soft starch is surrounded by the kernel's hard outer surface, the hull, which has just the right thickness to allow it to burst open when enough pressure builds inside.  As the kernel heats up, the water expands, creates steam, and cooks the starch inside, turning it into a liquid mass.  Pressure builds inside and finally reaches a point that breaks the hull open.  The contents inflate and spill out, cooling immediately and forming the 'popcorn' shape we know." 



     That little bit of water inside is essential and without it the popcorn can't pop.  Because of that it is vital to store popcorn in an airtight container in a cool location to avoid moisture loss.

     In addition to being a healthy whole grain, popcorn is also gluten free and is low in calories.  The air popped variety contains only 31 calories per cup and when cooked in oil the number is only slightly higher at 55.  Popcorn provides complex carbohydrates and is a good source of fiber. 

      And you don't have to go to the movies to enjoy it!

Sakuraniku

     Ever go into a high class restaurant that serves a cuisine unfamiliar to you and scan the menu?  I must admit that some of the names are confusing and at times even intimidating.  I've learned over the years that escargot is just plain garden snails, calamari is only squid and red drum is actually a fish.

     But if you're ever in an Asian restaurant that is serving sakuraniku, don't run, gallop out of the establishment.  That's just a fancy word for horse sashimi, a kind of sushi.  Horse meat,  while being repulsive to many in the Western world, is a regular part of the diet of millions of people, particularly in Central Asia.  It is high in protein, Vitamin B12 and zinc and is low in cholesterol.  It is said to be very tender with a sweet taste and is also high in iron content.  And it appears to be catching on in other parts of the globe.  Residents of some sections of Europe and South America also include horse meat in their diet.  It can even be found in butcher shops in the UK, Australia, Ireland and English-speaking Canada.  In fact, the top 8 countries that sell horse meat consume 4.7 million horses a year.

     There are currently no US slaughterhouses that butcher horses for human consumption.  But it may be only a matter of time before you see Seabiscut Burgers on the menu in your favorite restaurant!
 



Made in America

     When you think of pears, what varieties come to mind?  Names like Bartlett, Anjou or Bosc probably come to mind first.  They are all European in origin and are imports.  But there is one, and only one, truly American pear variety that you should really get to know.  And that is the diminutive Seckel, sometimes called the sugar pear.  It is commonly believed that it originated as a wild seedling in the Philly 'burbs in the late 1790's and all present Seckel pear trees are descended from that first tree in Penn's Woods.  They are naturally resistant to the fire blight disease that can decimate other pear varieties.

  

     It is barely longer than it is wide but don't let its small appearance fool you.  In fact, it's their size and sweetness that makes them an ideal snack for back to school lunches.  Olive hued with a dark reddish blush they are bite sized and can be canned whole or used as a plate garnish, beautiful as they are tasty.  They are great served with cheese and are also good paired with salty, cured meats.



     Seckel pears do not change color as they ripen.  So feel around the stem and when it has a bit of a give to it, the pear is ready to eat.  Ripe pears can be kept at room temperature for about two days and can be kept refrigerated for up to ten days to prolong their life once ripe. They're too small and delicate for mass distribution, however, so if you see some now at the market, be sure to purchase them because they are now in season with the fall harvest that begins in September and runs through February.