I have written in the past about the Northwest’s rising stardom in the world of artisan cheese, about the best way to assemble a cheese plate, about one of my favorite local cheeses. But it is safe to say the subject has never made me laugh so much as when I saw this video, previewing the American Cheese Society’s annual conference, a big-deal event coming to Seattle next year. It’s serious business, of course. Co-chair Kurt Dammeier tells me that the public will be in on the final awards ceremony at Benaroya Hall, with tickets sold for an extravaganza including “over 1300 cheeses to taste, food from Seattle’s best restaurants and an array of local wine and beer.” Tami Parr has the scoop here on Northwest winners at the 2009 conference, which was just held in Austin, and Sheri LaVigne of The Calf and Kid has an insider’s look here, but if you’re in a (have to say it) cheesy mood, check out the video to whet your appetite for 2010.
Fellow dessert lovers, who among us has not wondered about the technical differences between a crisp and a crumble, a galette or a buckle? Enter Rustic Fruit Desserts, a collaboration between James Beard winner Cory Schreiber and Portland baker Julie Richardson, a book whose usefulness is clear straight from the introduction, where the authors describe each pastry-fruit iteration. (A galette? It’s a free-form tart that does not require a pan. A buckle has cake batter poured in a single layer, with berries added to the batter.)
In summer’s heat, flipping through the pages of their seasonal desserts makes me want to load up on ingredients for Raspberry-Red Currant Cobbler or Stone Fruit Slump. The recipes are straightforward, but irresistable– a bite of ginger here, candied rhubarb ribbons there, flavor combinations like plum and vanilla, peach and caramel.
The pair will be in town Wednesday, July 29, for a Cooks & Books event, with the exceptional Neil Robertson cooking up their recipes. They answered some questions in advance via e-mail, including my unusually impolite inquiry about whether the “rustic” of their title could properly be considered a code word for “ugly”. (Read about that in my Christian Science Monitor post here.)
Here’s what they had to say. And if you want to nibble on more than just their words, tickets to the event are online here:
Hoping to make jam or pickles or other preserves, but not sure how? This year, we’re making it easy: Join Cans Across America, an event culminating Aug. 29-30 with home canning across the country. The project was dreamed up by Seattle’s own Kim O’Donnel, most recently of The Washington Post, who explains here how “with the use of internet technology, we are resurrecting a dying art that our grandmothers mastered.” (more…)
The big new Capitol Hill branch of Cupcake Royale opened July 22 with free babycakes for everyone who stopped by to say the magic words: “Legalize Frostitution!” After visiting for the pre-opening party, tasting more of the revamped recipes I wrote about a while back, and seeing the jumbo mixers and the 15-rack oven in the back kitchen, I think they’ll be prepared for the crowds descending on the pretty place. (Early bird note: The store will open for business at 6 a.m., and it’s at 1111 E. Pike St.)
Here’s a video to show you their techniques — we saw a few examples, using slightly different methods, but all with the same polished results. (Even on the last example on the video, where the froster — what a great job title! — is repairing my own clumsy first attempt.) For those of you who aren’t in the area, or who prefer baking at home, we also have a recipe for the shop’s new vanilla cupcake, scaled down for the home baker, which CR owner Jody Hall kindly shared. (The Medosweet dairy products would be tough for the home cook to find, and if you’re not in Washington you probably want to substitute your own local brands to follow the money-where-your-mouth-is ethos, but here’s how it’s done in these parts.)
Vanilla Buttercake Recipe
makes 1 dozen
2 3/4 c. Shepherd’s Grain cake flour
2 3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 c. local egg whites
1/2 c. warm water
1/3 c. Medosweet sour cream
5 ounces Medosweet butter
3 tbs expeller-pressed canola oil
1 tsp Gahara vanilla bean paste
Line a cupcake tin with your favorite cupcake wrappers, and set your oven to bake at 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients in a mixer and mix on low speed. In a separate bowl, combine water and sour cream. Add vanilla paste and egg whites to this mixture and stir until combined. Add the butter, oil, and 1/4 of liquid mixture to your dry ingredients, and mix on low speed until moistened. Increase to medium speed and mix for one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and gradually add the remainder of the liquid mixture in three doses, beating for 20 seconds after each dose. (Editorial note: Do you see now why it took 57 tries to develop the new recipes?) Scoop batter into wrappers. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until edges are slightly golden. Set cupcakes aside until they are cool to the touch, then frost ‘em up with real buttercream.
The summer months are supposed to be slow, but we’ve got an onslaught of can’t-miss food events coming up the next few weeks. Burning Beast is sold out, but you can still head out for free cupcakes or win a year’s worth of free chocolate or free tickets to a big-time dinner; you could learn about sustainable seafood or network with fellow food-lovers or snack on specialties from dozens of fine Seattle restaurants. Here’s a sampling of what’s in the works: (more…)
The winner has been announced in the Seattle Cheese Festival’s grilled cheese recipe contest, and it’s the “Grilled Suds ‘n Cheese” sandwich created by Cristal Ortiz. Ortiz will demo the sandwich during the festival, at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, and it will be on the menu at the cafe at DeLaurenti.
I’m in a hotel room right now and can’t test the recipe for you, but I’m willing to bet it’s good. Why? Because it calls for a half-stick of butter. Not good enough? It also calls for a pint of good German beer. Resistance is futile:
Of course having children changes our lives in fundamental ways. But what writers so often fail to remember are all the ways children don’t change us.
So if you knew Matthew Amster-Burton’s writing before his daughter, Iris, was born, I can tell you he’s still one of the sharpest, funniest food writers around. He operates with a scientist’s sense of kitchen adventure, a well-rounded palate (know anyone else who enrolled in a Thai language class because he liked Thai food?), and a well-calibrated bullshit meter for his own foibles as well as those of others. All these things — smarts, humor, perspective — seem to vanish when otherwise sane people start writing about children and food. That’s what makes Amster-Burton’s first book, Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater, a find that should be required packaging with every high chair.
The subtitle talks about raising an adventurous eater, but the book is mainly common sense perspective for anyone who plans to raise any kind of eater. At childbirth classes, I would hand out the chapter where he talks about the “terrible lie” that most new parents hear about breastfeeding (i.e., that it’s automatic and instantly fulfilling.) For any new parent investing in a blender and baby food purees, I would share Amster-Burton’s recipes for pad thai and bibimbap. And for anyone who doubts whether 5-year-old Iris can be for real, or whether a kid who eats what adults eat is as charming a literary creation as Sal or Frances, I would refer them to Boom Noodle. That was Iris’s restaurant of choice when I asked Amster-Burton if I could meet them both for lunch, and it’s where Iris politely requested a bento box of “crunchy shrimp,” while my own 2-year-old scarfed down his first plate of okonomiyaki. (Next I want to see if she’ll take my boy to Jerry Traunfeld’s Poppy, her next favorite.)
My sister’s birthday is today, and I’m trying to convince her a trip from Delaware to Seattle would make a great gift for herself. She got more of our mom’s cooking genes than I did — she’s the one who worked the counter at Cocolat and forever ruined my grading curve for chocolate cake — and the rare times we see each other, we create good memories around food. One year we ate a perfect dinner at Restaurant Zoe. One visit she made spaghetti sauce in our kitchen, even though she was the guest, just because that’s her way. And one of the most delightful days in Seattle I can remember was a clam chowder festival we attended, maybe 15 years ago. I love food contests. Dishes that all riff on the same theme are more interesting, somehow, than a collection of random bites.
You can see for yourself this Saturday, when the 13th annual Seattle Waterfront Chowder Cookoff takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., as part of the Seattle Maritime Festival. I don’t think it can be connected to the one I attended, which was in Gasworks, but the setup is the same. (more…)
Even before we got to the speakers part of the evening, the Palace Ballroom was a microcosm of Seattle’s food world last night. In line for “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food,” I was right behind Kim of A Mighty Appetite, followed a minute later by Bon Vivant and Lorna Yee and Jon Rowley. Then I turned around to say hi to Sheri and Barnaby from Foodista, and met Tea in person for the first time, and it went on from there.
We were all gathered for a book reading and panel discussion led by Maggie Dutton, featuring authors Matthew Amster-Burton, Shauna James Ahern, Erica Bauermeister, Kathleen Flinn, and Molly Wizenberg. The actual readings were fun — Kathleen Flinn turns out to do a mean Julia Child impression, and it was lovely to hear baby Lucy chirp from her father’s arms whenever Shauna spoke. What I enjoy most about these events, though, is learning a little more about the people behind the words. Here are some of the highlights:
Seattle has an uncanny concentration of fine food writers — it’s as particular a specialty here as our teenage jazz musicians — and six of them will participate in a Kim Ricketts event tomorrow titled “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food.” The marvelous Maggie Dutton will lead a talk with authors Matthew Amster-Burton, Shauna James Ahern, Erica Bauermeister, Kathleen Flinn, and Molly Wizenberg. The event is sold out (though you can try for the waiting list here), but I’ll be Twittering conversation highlights live from the Palace Ballroom. If you have questions for the authors, send them my way through the comments here, or by dropping me a line at rebekahdenn@gmail.com, and I’ll try to get answers. And, watch this space, because there’s talk of scheduling a summer cocktail event for Seattle authors with new drink-related books: Kathy Casey and Kate Hopkins. For a look at “What We Talk About…”, tune in here tomorrow night.
, a find that should be required packaging with every high chair. 