| |
If you would like to advertise on Delicious Musings please email me at this address: kitchens.sharon@gmail dot com. |
| |
|
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
|
|
Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Sunday, November 4th, 2012
New York, New York my heart goes out to everyone… I love you. Images from the past week.
Gorgeous cover, telling.
From Swiss Miss, an intimate design lab in NYC. Good deeds abound.
Rockaway Queens (part of Long Island). Devastated.
Brooklyn Grange (urban farm) lost 18 hives.
And, happier times…a couple years ago British architectural artist Stephen Wiltshire drew Manhattan’s skyline from memory. Wiltshire was diagnosed with autism at an early age. This extraordinary drawing was accomplished after a 20-minute helicopter ride over the city.
 Share on Facebook
Posted in Do Good, Friends, Media, Travel | No Comments »
Monday, October 15th, 2012
The other night I was invited to a cooking class with Ana Sortun at Whole Foods Market in Portland by the truly wonderful Barbara Gulino, the store’s marketing team leader. Should anyone from the Whole Foods national exec team read this – I want to first applaud you for having the sense to hire her and second tell you I sure as heck hope you know how lucky you are to have her. Barbara’s energy, straight shooting no nonsense talk, big heart and passion for food make her a respected member of the Portland Maine food community. At this store (and I’m saying this from my personal perspective w/ no ad $ involved) there really is an emphasis on team and supporting local. I can’t say that’s true about some other Whole Foods stores in communities where a couple friends live (fyi in huge urban environments). I just know Barbara’s hard work goes a long way and gets people like me in the doors more frequently than I might otherwise. I’ll be at Friday night’s Cellars at Jasper Hill Cheese & Wine Pairing and depending on who’s playing that day the Beer Tasting there on Saturday, October 27. Hope to see some of you at both/either!
And now to Ana Sortun. Before winning a James Beard award for her Cambridge, MA restaurant Oleana (thank you again James for one of the best birthday treats ever – dinner there..xo) she spent time apprenticing with a Tunisian chef and traveling through the Eastern Mediterranean. Julia Moskin’s piece in The New York Times is the best I could find on Sortun’s background. This review in Saveur of Oleana is spot on.
Attending a class with her was a wonderful experience. I recommend it if you have the chance. *Contact Sofra or Oleana as she does do classes on occasion during the winter. The other best bet is to keep an eye on what is going on at Stir (Barbara Lynch’s demo kitchen/bookstore next door to their produce stand in Boston’s South End).
Sortun was at Whole Foods as part of her publicity tour for her new Chef Sets, her “chef-inspired homemade meals” in a box. In the class she made the “from scratch” version of Couscous with Moroccan Spices & Almonds with Chicken (Vegetarian instructions are on the Chef Set site).
Sortun opened up by telling the 20 some people in the room above the store about Moroccan food. They use steaming as a primary cooking technique, which is what makes couscous light and fluffy when served there (* Sortun said when cooking couscous soak in a little liquid at a time so it has time to “grow” slowly and stay light – she said “you want it to feel like feathers when done”). Sortun explained the art of eating a couscous dish is to “add liquid broth little by little as it’s consumed” – in Morocco she explained they put the couscous on top of the meat/vegetables so it does not absorb all the sauce. Moroccan cuisine we learned, also emphasizes balancing earthy and sweet spices. Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, Sortun’s informative and easy to follow cookbook, is organized by spice and herb groupings or families. If you want to learn more about which spices compliment each other and the individual qualities of each spice this would be a good book to own.
I wanted to make the Chef Set of Couscous with Moroccan Spices & Almonds with Chicken before publishing this post, but I have leftovers and ingredients that need to be eaten/used up before I return to the market. Soon as I do I’ll share my impression, though it shouldn’t count for too much. I say this, because each individual’s cooking experience is going to be completely different based on time/taste/cooking knowledge/kitchen utilities… For $6.99 I recommend you pickup one and spend the 15 minutes cooking it (plus “x” amount of time and $ @ a market picking up additional ingredients). I also recommend you pickup her book and at least skim through it first to get a flavor for her and her cooking. It’s $34.95, but a great investment if you are interested in Moroccan/Eastern Mediterranean cuisine. **Think holiday present to yourself. Oh, in which case if you do gift say her book and the set please also consider getting one each of Nancy Harmon Jenkins and Paula Wolfert‘s cookbooks on Mediterranean cuisine. That would be an amazing (!!) gift for you/a cook in your life. p.s. Nancy is a truly good person so support her and from what I can tell of Ana so is she. Maybe some day I’ll be fortunate enough to meet Paula. xo
Chicken with Moroccan Spices & Barley Couscous as inspired by Ana Sortun’s Chef Set, Recipe by Ana Sortun
Ingredients:
4-5 oz boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into 1″ cubes
2 large onions, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced into very thin slices
1 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon; divided
1 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch saffron
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp honey
1/2 cup blanched almonds, toasted
1 tsp demerara sugar
Kosher salt to taste
3 Tbsp and 3/4 Tbsp EVOO
2 cups couscous (not Israeli kind, it’s bigger and not good for this recipe)
1 tsp harissa
1/2 cup pitted green olives, like picholine or lucques
1 tsp orange flower water (you can buy some at Sofra, it’s beautiful smelling)
Heat a large saucepot over medium heat (Sortun always uses medium not high heat). Add 2 Tbsp EVOO, chicken, sliced onions, carrots, 1 tsp cinnamon, ginger, saffron & turmeric. Cover w/ 2 cups of water & simmer for 15 minutes, until the onions are soft & the chicken is cooked through.
Meanwhile, bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Place couscous in a large mixing bowl with 1 Tbsp of EVOO and some salt to taste. Add 1/2 the boiling water & stir to coat the couscous w/ water to start hydrating. Let sit 5 minutes & add the rest of the water. Stir w/ a fork to fluff.
(Topping) Use a food processor, fitted w/ a metal blade, finely grind the toasted almonds w/ the remaining 3/4 tsp of cinnamon, demerrara sugar, 1/2 tsp kosher salt (something flaky & light, just not Morton’s) & tsp EVOO.
Check the chicken for seasoning, adjust by adding more salt if necessary. Stir in orange blossom water, honey, olives & harissa. Spoon the chicken & vegetables into a deep bowl & top w/ 1/2 cup of steamed couscous & 1 – 2 Tbsp of almonds.
Share on Facebook
Posted in Books, Epicurean Events, Holidays, Media, Portland Maine, Recipes, Shop, Travel | No Comments »
Thursday, October 11th, 2012
Better late than never??! While in New Orleans last month (yes, this is my final for a while New Orleans trip post) I visited an Edible Schoolyard site at one of the FirstLine public charter schools in New Orleans.
The garden at the Samuel J. Green Charter School in the Freret neighborhood of New Orleans. Food grown in the garden is used in cooking classes.
The blue line in the cafeteria represents how high the water was after Hurricane Katrina. The school had only been open ten days into the school year when the storm hit. The school reopened in January, 2006. That fall Edible Schoolyard stepped in and began integrating hands-on organic gardening and seasonal cooking into the school curriculum, culture, and cafeteria programs. *Here is a solid piece on the corruption before and after Katrina in the New Orleans school system – sickening!
If you would like to donate cookbooks to their new family Cooking Matters classes and/or gardening hours… let me know and I’ll be happy to help coordinate with the folks in New Orleans. They are wonderful and the work they are doing so important.
p.s. The New Orleans Saints organization sponsored the athletic field at the school and their football team the Green Giants have been league champions to years in a row! Go Green Giants!!
Share on Facebook
Posted in Do Good, Travel | No Comments »
Friday, October 5th, 2012
My friend Amanda tried to take me to the Backstreet Cultural Museum in New Orleans last year when I visited, but we missed it - all that dancing … so last month when I as in town we went.
The Backstreet Cultural Museum is located in the historic New Orleans neighborhood of Faubourg Treme, and for the past decade has accumulated an incredible collection of costumes and memorabilia, etc. from Mardi Gras Indian public performances, Second-Line Parades and Jazz Funerals.
Amanda is what I’m going to call an aficionado of the Mardi Gras Indians and is my primary source of background on their culture. They are a symbol of New Orleans known for their colorful hand-sewn costumes, secretive traditions, music (ever heard “hoo na nae”) and celebrations. It is a privilege to work on a Mardi Gras Indian costume. The elaborate beadwork and feathers on the “suits” requires thousands of dollars (raised via private connections and social clubs) and hours (by a limited group of friends and family who each take on a patch at a time during the course of several months). Each suit when finished can weigh a couple hundred pounds. Last year Amanda and I met a local quilt maker and her daughter, both of whom we were very excited to learn have worked on suits!
Mardi Gras Indians come out on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) and St. Joseph’s Day. They have no set parade route (the police want them to and they are philosophically opposed to it) and roam the streets for hours in their neighborhood (so go to Treme not the French Quarter for the authentic experience - Amanda goes by bike and pedals around for hours in the middle of the night with fellow strangers following the Indians – SO COOL!).
At one time Amanda explained to me, Mardi Gras Indians were rival gangs – up until the 1970s/80s they actually fought while in costume! One costume we saw at the museum had a tomahawk covered in beads (an actual tomahawk). Tootie, “the chief of chiefs” of the Mardi Gras Indians (read his obit in the NYT) took the suits to another level and stopped the fighting turning meetings into ceremonial face-offs. Now when Indians meet in the streets of New Orleans they dance and show respect competing for the best (“prettiest”) suit. Each year a new design is unveiled by each tribe on Mardi Gras.
What I also found fascinating is the hierarchy of the tribes - The Spy Boy goes ahead of the procession and scouts for trouble/other gangs (Indians) and signals (by sound or dance) to the Flag Boy who signals (with a flag or stick) back to the Big Chief.
Before Katrina the tribes were more distinct coming from uptown and downtown – now some of the costume traditions/designs have blended.
For more information: Check out this terrific PBS piece on the Indians. My FB buddy Matthew Hinton took this gorgeous pic of Mardi Gras Indians at Jazz Fest (his last day at the Times-Picayune is coming up – look for his pics everywhere soon). A fun video of Mardi Gras Indians at Jazz Fest.
Bead work on Mardi Gras Indian Chief costumes.
Share on Facebook
Posted in Friends, Media, Music, Southern Life, Travel | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 25th, 2012
Some posts take longer to write. This was one of them. Sure, I’ve been sidelined by bees, a puppy, chickens, charity work and work that pays the bills…but this subject also means a great deal to me.
Leaving New Orleans didn’t feel like going home, it felt like being pulled from it. I felt sad forcing Bacchus to leave a place we love. Earlier in the day I tried to eat lunch unsuccessfully (that’s a big one for me if you consider I devoured a pizza today). It all probably had a great deal to do with my fear of flying, but sitting on my friend’s porch taking in the sounds of the people on the street, the rooster (it crowed all day) I couldn’t do much but hold onto the rails. As much as I love my life in Maine, New Orleans also feels like it should be my home. I want to do both, I must. It’s not just what you might think – the food, music, weather (would you think that anyway as humid as it is and what with the generous hurricane season)…it’s….
The people, they come from different walks of life.
The noise.
The man fishing for his turtles on the Bayou.
The dentist who drives a luxury car with tinted windows that’s seen better days and markets himself as Dr. Gold Teeth.
The strangers who welcome you to their table and talk to you on street corners.
The occasional bit of shade and breeze along the Bayou.
A place where you see the oddest things, and there they just make sense.
The takeout Chinese food that might be the best you’ve ever had from a place in Mid-Town you’ve been told not to walk to. In New Orleans! Good Chinese takeout!
The folks who painted their out house (why they have one in their front yard, who knows it’s New Orleans) Saints colors.
The horn players, the best the only ones today who recall an age before I (and likely) and you were born.
The need to dance in the street, in the bars..the impromptu jazz parades.
The Tulane student studying the Mardi Gras Indian dialects for linguistics class.
The woman I met in a bar who makes headdresses for Mardi Gras.
and so, so much more…like the great writers that come from there….case in point…Chris Rose’s incredible 1 Dead in the Attic, a collection of stories he wrote for The Times-Picayune between August 29, 2005 and New Years Day, 2006 recounting the first harrowing year and a half of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It is surely one of the best books I’ve read ever and sums up everything I love about what may be the last outpost where you can be who you want to be and letting it all hang out is a right not a privilege. The book sits you down on a front porch Uptown in a (blue tarp covered) devastated wasteland with survivors and those who’ve come back home – hands you a beer and invites you to South Louisiana. You trod through the waste and the life with Rose waking to the reality that this city and her people will always triumph not because they can, but because they must. New Orleans won’t wash away, this city won’t ever drown….and thank everything for that New Orleans folk.
xo
A few favorites:
Maple Street Book Shops where I purchased a (new) copy of 1 Dead in the Attic.
My friend Amanda in the French Quarter walking towards Frenchmen Street.
The Spotted Cat Music Club on Frenchmen Street
Amanda playing the bones. Are my friends the coolest or what!?
The next night at Kermit Ruffins’ Treme Speakeasy. He played an early set (around 7pm) and then several musician friends from NYC, 9th ward…joined him. We “soul trained” – danced in the bar in a line. SO MUCH FUN!!!
I don’t know why, but I thought this was beautiful – outside Kermit’s place.
Share on Facebook
Posted in Books, Music, Southern Life, Travel | No Comments »
Thursday, September 20th, 2012
If you like art check out the New Orleans Museum of Art’s Sculpture Garden the next time you are in NOLA and want to check out something outside the French Quarter. Maybe after Friday lunch at Galatoire’s (arrive several hours in advance for a seating on the first floor where first come, first serve still holds true…do NOT do the lame ass thing and make a reservation for the second floor…just go to Amelie or another nice French Quarter restaurant). Fridays, the museum and garden are open late with really cool events.
(from the website) The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art occupies approximately 5 acres in City Park adjacent to the Museum. Atypical of most sculpture gardens, this Garden is located within a mature existing landscape of pines, magnolias and live oaks. The garden design creates outdoor viewing spaces within this picturesque landscape. A reconfigured lagoon bisects the site and creates two distinct halves: a mature pine and magnolia grove adjacent to the Museum, and a more open area of 200-year-old, Spanish moss-laden live oaks across the lagoon near the New Orleans Botanical Gardens.
An Untitled reflective, stainless steel 78 inch tall cube sculpture by British,Indian-born artist Anish Kapoor, created in 1997 and is a recent acquirement.
and inside…
Share on Facebook
Posted in Southern Life, Travel | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012
I stayed in Mid-City, which conveniently is where Cheryl (who rescued Bacchus) lives (her house is amazing – front porch, iron gate, backyard w/ a patio, floor to ceiling windows in the front, tall ceilings and so incredibly New Orleans). Each day we’d walk Bacchus and one of her Chihuahuas along the Bayou and through City Park. Quintessential NOLA: I chatted with a man fishing in the Bayou for his turtles. He said they didn’t like the food from the pet shop and this was a nice way to spend the morning. I couldn’t have agreed more. Lovely fellow, hope he finds what he’s looking for. Another day, in City Park, Cheryl pointed out members of the 610 Stompers who looked to be working out.
Bayou
City Park
Share on Facebook
Posted in Southern Life, Travel | No Comments »
Sunday, August 19th, 2012
Two of the three nights I was in Vermont to attend the Farm to Cafeteria Conference, I dined at Shelburne Farms. First with my dear friend Ellen and her husband at the inn and the next night at the Local Foods Reception. Two very different, but equally impressive experiences (though the intimate dinner at the inn is one I treasure for the opportunity to spend time with a close friend and to explore a former Vanderbilt estate).
Shelburne Farms is a nonprofit education organization, 1,400-acre working farm, and National Historic landmark. Its mission is to cultivate conservation ethic for a sustainable future.
It was established in 1886 by William Seward and Lila Vanderbilt Webb as a model agricultural estate, with the talents of landscape architect Frederick Law Omsted, Sr. (the father of landscape architecture; designer of the U.S. Capital gardens and New York’s Central Park).
Today, Shelburne Farms offers educational opportunities for learners of all ages, from preschoolers to teens to adults. Its pastures, woodlands and farm serve as the real-life campus where learners can discover and nurture their relationship to the natural and agricultural world. The Farm also operates a dairy of 125 Brown Swiss Cows, a cheesemaking operation and a season inn – enterprises that support the work of the nonprofit.
These are the only pictures I took my first night at Shelburne Farms. I put my phone/camera away to truly enjoy the experience. The first shot is of Ellen and her husband at the bar ordering the first round of martinis. The second is of the ground cherries the Farm grows, which I am now researching (finding seeds, growing tips…and will attempt to do next year (it may be hard to see, but they each look like tiny Japanese lanterns). I only have a tiny bit of regret that I did not photograph the gorgeous red wallpaper in the formal dining room. We ate outside (the only appropriate choice on such a perfect night), but one passes through the dining room into a back hallway with wood paneling and an almost grand staircase (reminiscent of a Downton Abbey) to use the bathroom.
My meal: Summer Squash and Green Bean Salad (Vermont Creamery goat cheese, sunflower seeds, carrot-chipolte vinaigrette). Fish w/ Arugula Mashed Potatoes (yes, they were GREEN and absolutely delicious…I must find a recipe). For dessert (I almost never order dessert after a meal, especially not dinner…but here I made the exception) Chocolate Hazelnut Dacquoise Cake (chocolate mousse, blackberry sangria sorbet, salted caramel).
There were ample food options, beer and Ben & Jerry’s. I enjoyed Summer Gazpacho Soup and Green Mountain College’s Garden Ratatouille (picked up recipes for both to make when my eggplant and tomatoes really come in).
Right after this picture was taken one of the staff had to remove the calf as she was getting feisty about having her picture taken with so many people (I couldn’t argue with that). Ellen loves cows, so I’m glad we got the photo.
Meet Trudy, the world’s smartest chicken. She prefers to live with the cows …waits till they walk away from their food bucket and dives in. She literally sat there…watched..waited..and walked right over. One of the staff said they have to really watch her or she’ll just eat and eat.
Share on Facebook
Posted in Drink, Epicurean Events, Friends, Gardens, Local Flavors, Luck and Pluck, Travel | No Comments »
|
|
|
|
|
