The Center for Science in the Public Interest is encouraging Americans to participate in Food Day on October 24, 2011. Food Day is an initiative to inspire the nation to improve their diets, focus on food policy, expand access to nutritious and healthy foods, support fair working conditions for food and farm workers and support sustainable agriculture which will in turn protect our environment. Food Day is modeled after Earth Day, a day which brings awareness to environmental protection and conservation. Like Earth Day, Food Day events and activities begin at a local level and can range from teaching children to plant vegetable seeds in the community garden to hosting a dinner derived from only local ingredients to going to your local farmer’s market and talking to a farmer.

Food Day is all about bringing attention to what we eat, how we eat and where our food comes from. It is about transforming our lives through our diet.  It is also about supporting our local community and hopefully beginning to solve our communities’ food problems such as food deserts and hunger. Food Day is supported by Slow Food USA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the Farmers Market Coalition, Chefs Collaborative and is backed by an advisory board that includes Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Alice Waters, Dan Barber Nora Pouillon, and Michael Leviton, the chair of the Chefs Collaborative Board.

Food Day’s motto is “eat real”. So what does that mean? It means eating meals that are centered on fruits, vegetables and whole grains and eating foods that are minimally processed. It is about getting Americans to think about food in a whole new way; creating healthy eating habits that support a just, sustainable, and affordable food system for all Americans. It is imperative that we go out to the farmers markets, the local co-op, or get into the garden and then get back into our kitchens and start cooking. It is important not only for our health, but for the health of the environment and the health our communities.

Goals of Food Day

Events are being held nationwide to celebrate Food Day. You can go to the Food Day website to find a local coordinator for events being held in your region. I have noticed that there is not a single event posted for New Orleans yet Anchorage, Alaska has five events posted. Come on New Orleans! Host your own food day event by giving a cooking class, visiting a farm, planting an herb garden or hosting a healthy pot luck dinner and then post your event on the Food Day map. Together we can make Food Day successful.

I will be attending Chefs Collaborative National Summit here in New Orleans on Food Day. Chefs Collaborative which is a non-profit organization for chefs and culinary professionals that focuses on “changing the sustainable food landscape using the power of connections, education and responsible buying decisions.” I am really looking forward to attending this event and learning more about how I can help my community.

This Friday the Culinary Team at Emeril’s Homebase will be attending a culinary symposium at Loyola University. Our colleague Daphne Derven will be a speaker at the event. She is speaking about fighting hunger in New Orleans in her speech titled Food and Social Justice in New Orleans: A Plenary Session on Fighting Hunger. I have just finished reading her paper written on the subject and am amazed by  some of the facts and figures regarding hunger not just in New Orleans but throughout the United States.

The symposium covers a wide range of topics such as Culinary History as Public History, Foodways as Cultural Identity in New Orleans, and the geography of food. It all sounds incredibly interesting and I am really looking forward to the lectures.

Live to Eat Symposium

 Jap Chae is a traditional Korean noodle dish made with sweet potato noodles otherwise known as glass noodles. It is a simple stir fry of fresh vegetables, mushrooms and beef. The sauce is made with sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, sesame seeds, Korean chili powder, and a little minced garlic. It is a fairly light and healthy dish since the beef can be optional and it is loaded with veggies.

What I really love about this dish is the noodles because they have a chewy texture that is much different from Vietnamese or Thai noodles. The main thing to know about the noodles is that they should only be cooked for about 5 minutes, which is half the time on the package directions. Once cooked, they should be rinsed with cool water to stop them from cooking. They don’t retain that delicious texture if they are over cooked.

The recipe calls for a Korean chili powder which has a pungent, spicy kick. If you cannot find this ingredient you can substitute cayenne pepper or red chili flakes. I have even substituted chili garlic sauce.

Once you have assembled your ingredients the dish comes together very quickly.

This dish has tons of veggies and you can add more as you see fit. I like to add lots of greens, whether it be spinach, tat soi or cabbage.

There really aren’t any Korean restaurants here in New Orleans so when I want my Korean fix I have to make it myself. I have made this recipe at least four times in the past two months. I have turned my friends on to Korean food and cooking and now they crave it just like me. We exchange recipes and get together for Bulgogi on the Balcony, a Korean barbecue.

This post has made me laugh all day!!

Kristy Still’s post on her blog, Mommy Hates Cooking  about her Labrador Retriever May helping out with the photos of the breakfast casserole is hysterical.  I have had a few Labs in my life and I know how sweet and wonderful they are pretty much all of the time. Maybe with one exception, when there is food around.

I had the opportunity to visit Stone Barns Agricultural Center which is a non-profit farm, educational center just north of Manhattan in Pocantico Hills, New York. I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that I have always wanted to visit Stone Barns. For one thing, I just love upstate New York. My father’s family was from there and I spent my summers in Westchester. The farm at Stone Barns is centered on sustainable agriculture and one of their main goals is to teach people about what sustainable really means. They host workshops on soil building, green house gardening, foraging, egg collecting, bee keeping and more. If I lived closer I would be there every weekend possible. It is an amazing resource center.

After a long week working in Manhattan I convinced my friends Liz and Steve to go up for the day. I didn’t have to work very hard to convince them. They often take workshops up there and love getting out to the farm. It wasn’t really the nicest day, overcast, sort of cold and threatening rain but it didn’t much matter to me. I was just thrilled to explore the farm.

I was anxious to check out the green houses because I had heard so much about them. They cover 22,000 square feet, half an acre, which is intensely planted with dozens of varieties of crops grown year round. Some of the more interesting features are the retractable roofs and dirt floors. I was also impressed by the irrigation system.

Garlic, shallots and onions as well as winter squashes are put up in the green house for storage.

I headed down to the barns. My first stop was the brooder barn.

The little chicks are precious, I just wanted to pick one up and put it in my pocket.

We headed down the hill behind the barns and into the forest. I was told there were several litters of piglets. Unfortunately, it was lunch time and most of the piglets were nursing. This big momma was taking a break, some much needed lounge time.

As we wandered through the forest we saw a coyote and a few little rabbits hanging around.I get so excited over wild life! Even a rabbit.

Out of the woods and up the hill to see the turkeys.

Are they fattening up for Thanksgiving?

The sheep are pastured and moved almost daily from pasture to pasture.

Colorful bums.

The sheep dog was dutifully tending his sheep.

I’m not sure if these chickens are layers or meat chickens.

The bee hives are colorfully painted and just swarming with bees. (P.S. I have always wanted to keep bees!)

Stone Barns is simply incredible. I only wish we had been able to stay for dinner. Blue Hill at Stone Barns is only open for dinner and unfortunately we had to head home. Most of what is grown on the farm is used at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill in Manhattan. I will have to schedule another trip just to eat.

Stone Barns hosts numerous workshops on gardening, foraging, composting, bee keeping and more. I highly encourage people to visit the center. I left feeling so inspired.

Stone Barns Program Calendar

I am planning on getting back into the kitchen today to cook another recipe from Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders. The newest cookbook from Chef Emeril Lagasse hits the shelves today! As a form of promotion twenty bloggers have been chosen to cook recipes from the book and post about them. I have been reading the blogs daily to see what everyone out there thinks of the book and the verdict is out. So far, all of the bloggers seem to love the recipes and have chosen to cook a variety of recipes. Everything from pulled pork and chuck wagon chili to Vietnamese crepes and veal Marsala. The one thing you can definitely say about this book is that it has an international flavor. There are recipes ranging from the Southwest to Seoul.

There is a complete list of bloggers and links to their posts here:

http://thesecretingredientblog.com/2011/09/20/one-pot-blogger-of-the-week/

Milisa Armstrong from Miss in the Kitchen   posted some beautiful pictures of the Cheddar Cheese Soup with Chicken and Peppers. She makes this humble soup look so elegant.

Heather Scholton of Farm Girl Gourmet recently shared some great shots of the Chuck Wagon Chili. This is such a great dish for tailgating and is perfect for those of you that actually have fall weather.

Donna Currie from Cookistry was busy in the kitchen this week with both the Ancho-Rubbed Flap Steak with a Corn and Black Bean Relish and the Chorizo and Potato Quesadillas with Cilantro-Chile Crema. Yum I could go for either of those right about now.

Really all of the blogs have been great, it would take me too long to list all of them. It has inspired me to get into the kitchen and cook.

Kamili, Charlotte and I spent the past week and half in New York working on a photo for an upcoming sandwich book. We have spent quite a bit of time over the past few years working with Chef Emeril on cookbooks. Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders is set to be released on September 27. I don’t think most people know how much work goes into putting a cook book together.

The process begins with brainstorming ideas about recipes, dividing those recipes into chapters, testing and developing recipes, the initial editing process, and then we begin to think about the photo shoot which includes the tone and style of the book, the props, and food styling ideas.

The photo shoot is a project all of its own. We have to decide which recipes are the most photogenic or which recipes require multiple photos to convey an idea. Then there are the lists- I am a chronic list maker so I actually enjoy this part. I love crossing things off, preferably in black marker. Done! Finally we shop for the perfect ingredients, prep all of the recipes, style the plates and photograph the dishes.

The days are long, sometimes twelve hours or more standing behind hot stoves and then under hot lights fussing with the details of each plate using tiny tweezers and minuscule spritzers. Once the photos are taken, decisions must be made about which photos look the best. Welcome to the world of digital photography where there could be fifty photographs of the same thing. In a way digital is a blessing and a curse.

Eventually, the final photographs go off to the publisher along with the manuscript and the publisher works their magic on these raw materials, forming and shaping them into a book. It is a magical experience when you see the finished book, so shiny and new, gleaming at me and just begging for me to bring it into the kitchen to cook from.

I have attached just a  few behind the scenes pics.

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Prepping for the shoot

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I am not a big fan of fried rice, that is, the stuff you get from your local Chinese restaurant. To me it always seems a little dry, the little tiny shrimp don’t have much flavor and on its own it is not satisfying to me. Years ago, while living in Manhattan, I really got into Korean food and still go to Korea Town every time I am in New York. One night a friend ordered Bibimbap and I had a sudden feeling of dread. We always share everything and I thought “please, no fried rice”. Well I was in for a big surprise!

Bibimbap is a Korean rice dish often served in a hot stone pot. The rice is on the bottom, topped with cooked and sometimes pickled vegetables, a smattering of meat and right dab in the middle is a cracked raw egg. When the dish comes to the table the waitress will ask if you like it spicy and if you want her to stir it up for you. In general, I agree to both of these things because I love spicy food and I don’t want to be the one who makes a mess at the dinner table.

While brainstorming for recipe ideas for Emeril’s Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders, bibimbap came to mind but I had a hard time selling this idea. So I went back to the drawing board to think of a new way to sell this idea. Fried rice was the answer. The Kimchi Fried Rice has all of the elements of bibimbap and everything is cooked in one pot, a wok. Ok, well the rice is cooked in a separate pot but it can either be done ahead of time or you can use leftover rice. All in all, this dish is extremely easy to prepare even if you have to cook the rice.

The recipe calls for short grain rice but I used a Thai jasmine rice because we had an abundance of it leftover from the Congee. I also used a type of bok choy called chingkangchoy which looks a lot like baby bok choy. I think you can use any type of green that is available to you. Our Asian market carries a delicious brand of kimchi much better than the ones I have gotten from the local grocery. I suggest trying several types of kimchi to find the one you like. I personally like my kimchi to be spicy and made mostly with cabbage. The other ingredients include soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, carrots, zucchini and scallions. Nothing too exotic.

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Starting next week Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders will be available through our website here at www.emerils.com and of course at your local Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Quick cooks note: Today I was unable to find the proper “teeth” for our mandolin. I wanted to use the mandolin to julienne my carrots. I searched high and low but (grrrr) could never find the part. Instead I found this kinipira peeler, an extremely cool tool that had been hiding in the drawer for years or so I suspect. It worked famously for my carrot julienne. I cannot believe I have never used this before and I am so happy to have found it.

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Finally! One of the first copies of Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders has landed on my desk! This long awaited arrival of our latest cookbook project has me and my team reminiscing over some of our favorite dishes from the book. We couldn’t wait to try some of them again:  congee, kimchi-fried rice, jap chae, only to name a few. With the One Pot, Three Weeks promotional blogger party going on, we felt we had to join in on the cooking fun. Stacey has plans to make kimchi-fried rice tomorrow, but I happily spent time in the test kitchen today making our beloved congee.

A friend of mine turned me on to the Chinese rice soup known as congee (a.k.a. jook) several years ago. After introducing it to my colleagues here in the test kitchen, it quickly became one of the Emeril’s Culinary Team’s favorite go-to dishes. It is a comforting dish that is always well-received, especially when rainy and cool outside. In the simplest terms, it’s a thick rice soup made from long, slow simmering of rice in broth. We usually make a stock with pork and chicken, with hints of aromatic ginger, garlic, scallions, and cilantro. Here it is simmering away!

Once the broth is just right, it is strained, the meats are shredded for garnish, and then the rice is cooked low and slow in the broth until it literally falls apart. Here is the strained broth simmering with the rice. Sometimes I can’t resist adding a few additional pieces of ginger and scallions to make sure it’s extra flavorful. (Just make sure you remove these before serving.)

The finished soup is then garnished with the shredded meats, cilantro leaves, crispy garlic, crispy shallots, sliced scallions, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, and spicy sesame oil – all to taste. It’s one of those dishes that you can easily tailor to use what’s available. Today I used an already made pork stock and so the soup turned out a bit darker in color than the recipe created for Sizzling Skillets…but boy, was it good. The crispy shallots and crispy garlic can be purchased in Asian markets already prepared if you’re not up to frying at home. Friends and family love garnishing their own bowls to taste with just the right amounts of stuff so please, don’t even think of skipping the garnishes – they elevate this soup to something truly special.

Kitchen tip: The small Japanese mandolines work well for slicing the garlic and shallots to the same thickness, which makes a big difference when frying. This way all the pieces end up done more or less at the same time. Once you’ve done this a few times you’ll see how important this is!

This is just one of the test kitchen’s favorites from Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders…on sale in bookstores next Tuesday or order online at emerils.com by clicking on https://www.emerilstore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=10CB116! If you want to see what some of the other bloggers have been cooking, check out my latest favorite blogger/photographer partnership at http://freshlybakedbyphotokitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/emeril-lagasses-cookbook-sneak-peak_19.html and http://mangesmangi.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-pot-wonder-collaboration-with.html The photos are amazing!

I am still trying to catch up with all of the blog posts. I am reading as fast as can but the bloggers are cooking up a storm which makes me want to get into the kitchen and cook.

I am going to make the Kimchi-Fried Rice a dish that I love mainly because I love Kimchi. This dish is a take off of Bibimbap, which I will talk more about soon.

For now I am going to get into the kitchen and start cooking. A colleague just popped her head into my office and asked if the fried rice would be ready by lunch time. Hmm. Not sure about that but better get started if we are going to have it for dinner.