As Fall approaches, I reflect on my first summer back as a Californian; it’s been a whirlwind of fun and lazy days, reminiscent to my childhood (after all, I did grow up here). The weather has been quintessentially Bay Area: cool, crisp air, a warm sun, which requires most to dress in layers for a cool morning, a warm late afternoon, and back again, returning to a chilly night. However, it’s starting to really warm up here, as a late Indian summer reveals itself and lets us know that Fall is around the corner. But it hasn’t been all fun and games…I did a stint in restaurant work, laboring for 12 to 16 hours a day, commuting back home for an average of 6 hours of sleep only to do it again the next day. Needless to say, although cooking is fun, restaurant life wasn’t for me. I left and found a more suitable position as a test kitchen cook again.

Back in my somewhat familiar routine, I have my weekends to visit farmer’s markets, and evenings for eating out or staying in and cooking (or enjoying someone else’s).

But I just wanted to share what I’ve been up to this past summer. Enjoy these pics from my visit to a farmer’s market in Marin County and an event I assisted with Chef Charlie Parker in Santa Cruz.

One of the best parts of being a California resident is the long season for produce. I just went to the market this past Sunday in Oakland’s Jack London Square, amazed to still find a plethora of ingredients to choose from. More to come, so stay tuned…

 

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Picture 1 from 16: Farmer's Market in Marin County.

I have spent the day reading blog posts from the Blogger Cooking Party and I have to say I am very impressed. I have not gotten through all of the posts, as I said, I am still trying to catch up from last week.

There are 20 bloggers posting recipes from Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders. They have only been given permission to post three recipes in full which include Tuscan White Bean Soup with Broccoli Rabe, Cajun Shrimp Stew and the Wok-Seared Duck Salad, but these guys and gals have been cooking up a storm. It is so interesting to me to read why people chose certain recipes.

While vacationing in Cape Cod, Shawnie Fox author of http://mangesmani.blogspot.com  cooked Portuguese Pork and Clams because she knew she could find incredibly fresh clams and because there is a large Portuguese population in the area. This is one of my favorite recipes in the book not only because it is delicious but also because Emeril’s mom, Ms. Hilda taught me how to make this dish.

Matt Weber, author of http://thymeinourkitchen.blogspot.com, wrote about the Banh Xeo:Vietnamese Crepe which is one of my all time most sought after Vietnamese dishes. There are only a few Vietnamese restaurants here in New Orleans that prepare this dish and it always seems like a treat. I am so thrilled to hear that he attempted to make this dish having never had it before. To me that is  what being a real foodie is about- adventure and experimentation. His pictures of this dish and really all of the photos on his site are wonderful.  I look forward to reading more posts from Matt.

Another blog I am thoroughly enjoying is www.30EATS.com, the photos of the Bouillabaise made me miss France. Susan does a lovely job providing her readers with a little bit of history behind each dish which I enjoy. It provides a deeper connection to the food, in my opinion.

I am slowly but surely making my way through all of the blogs and I am just so excited that everyone is really getting into the book. You couldn’t ask for better timing, Fall, football season, holiday parties and tailgating. I have been waiting impatiently for Sizzling Skillets to arrive on my desk so that I too can share these wonderful recipes with friends and family.

I have quite a bit more reading to do. If you want to follow along and get a full list of the participating bloggers go to:

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

Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders, Chef Emeril’s newest book, will hit the shelves on September 27, 2011. To promote the book we are hosting a One Pot, Three Weeks Blogger Cooking Party where 20 bloggers will be cooking recipes from the new book and discussing them on their blogs.

Last Monday was the big kick off for the One Pot Blogger Cooking Party. I will be reading and discussing the blog posts on our site. I have a little catch up work to do because the New Orleans culinary team spent the last week and half in New York working on a photo shoot for yet another book.

Reading through the blog posts has been so interesting. It is rare that we get such a detailed description of what other cooks and bloggers think of our recipes and I love hearing all the feedback. What a great idea for a promotion! We also get to see the beautiful photos that everyone posts. I look forward to sharing the posts.

I also plan to start cooking some of my favorite recipes from the book as well. Later this week I plan to make the Kimchi Fried Rice and the Congee. I have a bit of a cold and both of these recipes strike me as extremely comforting. I look forward to sharing these recipes and of course will talk more about what inspired us to create them.

Gazpacho

Earlier this summer I had an overabundance of cucumbers and tomatoes. I made salsas and sauces, ate them raw sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, added them to salads and sandwiches but after a few months I needed a new take on ingredients that were becoming kind of old to me. I had thought about making gazpacho but hadn’t quite gotten around to it until last week.

Chef Emeril was looking for a good gazpacho recipe for his next appearance on Good Morning America. He had been to Spain earlier this summer and had a gazpacho that with watermelon and strawberries, as well as tomatoes and peppers and he hoped we would be able to search our database for a similar recipe. Sure enough we had done a Spanish-style gazpacho for Emeril Green but I felt we should tweak and retest the recipe.

Gazpacho is not just tomato soup. It is a liquid salad, fresh, clean, crisp and cool. The perfect summer soup. The addition of watermelon and strawberries may seem a little odd but the sweetness of the melon and berries balances the acidity of the tomatoes and the heat from the peppers. I like my gazpacho on the thin side but this was definitely a point of discussion; everyone seemed to have a very definite opinion on the viscosity of this dish. In this version, which is fairly thin, I added a considerable amount of finely diced vegetable. I think it worked as far as giving the soup substance and the proper mouth feel.

As we approach the end of August and summer starts winding down, take advantage of those ingredients that in a few months we will only be dreaming about. The wonderful thing about gazpacho is that you never have to turn your oven on. Serve it with jumbo lump crabmeat, poached shrimp and a baguette.

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Check out Martha’s blog post today!

I have always wanted to visit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and hope to go for the day this September when I am in NYC. Stone Barns seems like heaven on earth, seriously I would just love to move right in.  It is a working farm that focuses on sustainable agriculture, raising heirloom vegetables and fruits, heritage varieties of pigs, chicken and sheep, as well as bees. There is so much happening there I could not possibly convey it all in a short blog. I have included a link to Martha’s blog as well as links to Stone Barns and Dan Barber’s site.

Enjoy!

http://www.themarthablog.com/2011/08/a-recent-visit-to-stone-barns-center-for-food-agriculture.html

http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/

http://www.bluehillfarm.com/food/overview/team/dan-barber

I recently met a wonderful woman, Pam Broom. She has an urban garden in Central City here in New Orleans.Pam Broom named her garden The Sun Harvest Kitchen Garden because the lot was initially planted entirely with sunflowers in an effort to remediate the soil. This summer I had the opportunity to spend the morning chatting with Pam about her garden. We sat in her office which consisted of two chairs under the shade of a mulberry tree.She started Sun Harvest about two years ago in a neighborhood that may be considered a food desert in Central City, New Orleans. There are very few grocery stores; those that do exist are really just corner shops selling mostly packaged foods. The garden is fully accessible from the street, fairly close to the New Orleans Mission one of our city’s largest homeless shelters. It seems all of the neighbors have great respect for both Pam and her garden because theft and vandalism are almost nonexistent

As a dedicated and serious gardener Pam is in her garden daily greeting friend’s and neighbors as they walk by. Pam’s garden is beyond a doubt an urban oasis.When I asked Pam what techniques she uses in the garden she quickly stated that she uses a French Intensive Gardening Method. In layman’s terms, this means the garden is planted mainly for heavy production using organic methods and sustainable practices. The garden is planted with traditional culinary herbs such as mint, basil, rosemary and chives but she also grows stevia, lemon verbena, lemon thyme, pineapple sage, lavender and anis hyssop, just to name a few. There is a large bed of about 50 Padron pepper plants grown exclusively for Emeril’s restaurants. She is also growing interesting heirloom varieties like black garbanzo beans, Longhorn okra, black lima beans and bronzed fennel. She is trying to keep heirloom and heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables alive by introducing the varieties to chefs and educating both the chefs and the consumers.

Cafe Reconcile is just a few blocks away from the garden. It is a non profit restaurant that assists in teaching life skills and acts as a training ground for job skills in the food service industry. The restaurant reaches out to young people who are at risk and helps them become a member of the community and the workforce. Pam, a member of the board, works closely with the restaurant and the staff. She assists with the curriculum and hopes to establish what she describes as an artisanal apprenticeship working in the garden. Life skills illustrated through gardening. The students will be able to harvest herbs and vegetables from the garden and use them in the kitchen at Café Reconcile. They will learn how to compost, build soil, plant, harvest and generally tend to the garden. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity.

Spending time with Pam was so enlightening because you really get a sense of how committed you have to be to farm. It is not an easy job to be a farmer, urban or otherwise. Farming requires knowledge of what to grow and how to grow it, how to maintain your soil, sustainable pest management systems, composting and irrigation systems. It is hard work, often in the hot sun or even the rain. You must have a market or an outlet to sell your produce or milk or meat. But often, urban farms provide food in places where fresh food may not be available.

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This is the last week of my Eat Local Challenge and I thought it would be nice to reflect on my experience.

First of all, I loved taking this challenge. It really made me aware and mindful of what I was eating and where it came from. I had to take the time to source all of my ingredients right down to salt and sugar. I allowed myself a few provisions coffee and local beer and eventually American wine. At first the biggest challenge was stocking my pantry but once I had bought all of the basics, which took a little longer than I thought, I was fine. My second biggest challenge was bread and anything made with wheat. Gosh, I really had no idea how much I loved bread and crackers! I made homemade goat cheese but wanted desperately to spread it on a slice of a toasted baguette drizzled with a little olive oil and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper. Instead, I ate it crumbled on tomato salads or sweetened it with honey and had it for breakfast with my blueberries. I was getting the hang of it. The third biggest challenge was cooking for myself. I realize I am a chef and this should not be difficult but I don’t always want to cook a big meal when I get home. It is so much easier to just pick something up.The same goes for lunch when I am craving Vietnamese food, I know it is literally minutes away. I did not succumb, I packed lunches that were quick and easy to put together. No sandwiches mind you, but lots of delicious summer salads and fresh fruit. Perfect for these hot summer days.

I learned that if I wanted to eat I had to be prepared well ahead of time. I tend to get “crungry”- you know that cranky feeling you get when you will eat just about anything. So I got into my kitchen on the weekends and began planning meals. I would begin with cooking, freezing or processing everything from my market basket that was extremely perishable. I would then make sure that I had several meals prepared in advance, like fresh local Lima beans with Gueydan rice or peppers stuffed with tomatoes, sausage and goat cheese. I made chicken stocks, soups and salads and packaged them in small containers so I could take them to work. I have enjoyed getting back into my own kitchen. When we test recipes or are working on a major project I just don’t cook at home. So it was nice to brush the dust off of my pots and pans.

The more I talked about the Eat Local Challenge the more people became involved even in small ways. One friend invited me to her house for fresh caught snapper and she made sure to have sides I could eat. Another went to Hollygrove Market for the first time because she heard me talk so much about it. People pulled out venison from the freezer just for me! People just started thinking about what was local and what came from South America or beyond. So in this way I feel the challenge was a huge success. I will continue to eat and buy as much local produce, dairy, eggs, and meat as possible and on occasion I will indulge in Vietnamese food. Right now what I really want is a burger- thank goodness the Fourth of July is just around the corner.

This summer Emeril’s restaurant in New Orleans is paying homage to local farmers. Chef David Slater is serving a few special summer dishes highlighting local, seasonal ingredients.

Covey Rise Farmed Greens and Pickled Beets, Fried Ryal’s Dairy Goat Curds, Spiced Louisiana Pecans, Jay Martin’s Raw Honey Vinaigrette

Gulf Shrimp Stuffed Vicknair Farms Fairytale Eggplant, Grape Tomatoes, Fekete Farms Cabbage Kimchee, Fermented Black Beans

Bronzed Local Speckled Trout, Stewed Covey Rise Tomatoes, The Monica’s Okra, Cajun Grains Brown Jasmine Rice, Mango Chow Chow

Special thanks to:

Covey Rise Farms in Husser, La

Vicknair Farm in Pontchatoula, La

Fekete Farms from the Hungarian Settlement in Albany, La

Ryal’s Goat Dairy in  Tylertown, MS

The Monica’s in Garyville, La

Cajun Rice in Kinder, La

Jay Martin New Orleans Bee Keeper

and to all of the farmers, ranchers, and fisherman in and around Louisiana who provide our restaurants with the freshest and best ingredients

Local menus are changing as they gear up for summer.

I just spoke with Chef David Slater at Emeril’s restaurant here in New Orleans and he is very excited about their new summer menu which features local ingredients from small farmers and artisanal producers throughout Louisiana.

I am looking forward to getting a copy of the menu from him on Monday which I will post. I will also provide a little bit of information about the farmers, where they are and what they grow.

Making flavored liquors and infused vodka is a fun and simple project you can do at home. (As long as you are over 21!)

Over the years we have experimented with a few in the test kitchen. The lemoncello and orangecello have been stellar and in March we started working on a homemade Kahlua, a simple coffee liquor, pear liquor and a surprisingly good ginger flavored liquor. The homemade Kahlua and the ginger flavored liquor are set to appear on Emeril’s new show on the Hallmark Channel this fall.

For the past few years I have made orangecello to give as gifts for the holidays. It’s a unique gift that people are really amazed that it is not only delicious but homemade. I package it in a small bottle with a handmade tag. (I got the idea from Charlotte who gave this to me as a gift one year and I absolutely loved it.)

It does take some patience because the the flavors take about two weeks to infuse and then the bottles need to be racked to allow any sediment to settle to the bottom.  But it is well worth it, the final product is exquisite  and your friends and family will be so impressed.

There are serious mixologists all  over the country crafting their own infused grappa, vodka, and making various liquors of all flavors. Emeril’s Delmonico has a Louisiana strawberry infused grappa on the menu for the summer. Cure on Ferret Street here in New Orleans makes not only it’s own bitters but also infused vodka and liquor. I love the fun cocktails they create. Of course, this is all the rage in NYC and has been for quite a while.

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