Over the weekend, the Manhattan Cocktail Classic came to town, starting with a grand gala at the New York Public Library on Friday and continuing through Monday night at the Andaz Hotel with specialized seminars, spirit-sponsored suites and a gallery full of tasting tables. With the alcohol flowing so freely, it's only natural to witness some odd behavior and walk away with TMI. Here, a few oddball experiences and tips. >
BY
Chelsea Morse
| POSTED MAY 20, 2013 AT 11:38AM EDT
'wichcraft's tuna sandwich with lemon confit. Photo courtesy of 'wichcraft.
Chef-humanitarian Tom Colicchio (who recently co-produced the excellent anti-hunger documentary A Place at the Table) did NYC office workers an honorable service a decade ago when he opened 'wichcraft with chef Sisha Ortuzar. Now with 17 locations in New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco, the cheffy sandwich chain celebrates its 10th anniversary all month with videos about signature condiments like lemon confit posted daily on wichcraftnyc.com. READ MORE>
Food & Wine's senior recipe developer, Grace Parisi, is a Test Kitchen superstar. In this series, she shares some of her favorite recipes to make right now.
One of my favorite trashy (not really trashy but just not that healthy) treats is queso fundido—a sinful melted cheese and roasted chile concoction. As if it's not dangerous enough as is, I like to stuff it between two burger patties and pop it on the grill until the cheese is all ooey and gooey. Make sure you have plenty of napkins and have not scheduled blood work for a few weeks. SEE RECIPE »
The rest of the year, I get my Jamaican fix at Miss Lily’s, a great little corner spot in Soho that’s also home to a record store, a radio station and New York City’s maverick Juice Master, Melvin. The restaurant’s consulting chef has cleverly figured out how to bottle all that Jamaican goodness in a new line of marinades and sauces. The jerk marinade is chunky, fresh tasting and fiery, as it should be, packed with scallion, allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers—a one-stop flavor fix for marinating chicken, pork, shrimp, lamb, and my favorite, goat. If you’re not sure you’re into jerk, you’ll love the more familiar BBQ sauces—I like the super Rass Hot BBQ sauce, with its habanero kick, but there’s a milder version, too, for beginners.
Bartenders who love in-season strawberries for their bright, floral flavor and gorgeous color, are now debuting complex spring cocktails with contrasting ingredients like chilies, egg whites and vinegar. At Donna in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, bar manager Jeremy Oertel pairs the springy fruit with tequila and serrano peppers in the Strawberry Sky. MORE >
I don’t understand why Cabernet Franc is less popular than its offspring, Cabernet Sauvignon—I love its herbal, tea-leaf scent, its lighter body and its vivid acidity. It grows well in a wide range of places, like France’s Loire Valley, northern Italy and Tuscany, California, Chile, even New York’s Finger Lakes. Here are three to try.
2010 Russiz Superiore Collio Cabernet Franc ($26) Friuli, in Italy, makes aromatic, medium-bodied, herbal Cabernet Francs. This one is a great example.
2010 Lang & Reed North Coast Cabernet Franc ($24) Bright berry flavors are the hallmark of this red from California Cabernet Franc specialist John Skupny.
2008 Arcanum Toscana ($100) A layered, complex Cab Franc blend from the vast Tenuta di Arceno estate in Tuscany; it more than rivals super-Tuscan bottlings of the same price.
Family meal night across America just got easier, and so did entertaining on a budget. Don’t wait for August to make ratatouille; paired with roast chicken pieces, it’s a classic combination that even your kids will devour. If you care to, this dish works equally well with turkey quarters on the grill: Use the same marinade, but roast using indirect heat over wood coal for about 80 to 90 minutes for dark quarters, and 70 minutes for turkey breast. SEE RECIPE »
Food & Wine's senior recipe developer, Grace Parisi, is a Test Kitchen superstar. In this series, she shares some of her favorite recipes to make right now.
Corn and poblano chiles are a magical combination—the sweetness from the corn mitigates the bitterness and heat of the poblanos—and the blend is amazing on savory, meaty skirt steak. In this superfun recipe that uses only three ingredients, not counting oil, salt and pepper (c’mon, that’s not a cheat!) I’ve grilled corn and poblanos, then pureed half with olive oil to make a sort of creamy allioli, then chopped the rest to make a salsa.
If I’d been allowed to add one more ingredient (the article held me to a rigid three) I’d have added some lime to brighten the whole thing up. Still and all, I think it’s pretty durned delicious. SEE RECIPE »
BY
Tina Ujlaki
| POSTED MAY 10, 2013 AT 9:00AM EDT
Courtesy of Scrumptious Pantry
F&W food editors apply their incredible cooking knowledge to explaining what to do with a variety of interesting ingredients.
In the Food Department here, many of the products we try every week are condiments—jams and jellies, oils and vinegars, sauces, pickles and relishes, spice blends and flavoring salts. It’s actually a huge field, and a hard one to stand out in because there are so many good products. I normally wouldn’t use a seasoning salt, as I have a huge arsenal of herbs and spices at home, but there is one exception that I’ve bought again and again. It’s made by a company called the Scrumptious Pantry that’s based in Chicago, but sources its products from family farms in Italy in addition to the Midwest and California, where the owner used to manage a biodynamic winery.
Of course, it makes me feel good to know that the salt comes from a good place, but what I really love is the fresh, vibrant flavor that gets Italy just right. Whether you’re seasoning porchetta or bistecca, or just sprinkling the Herbed All-Purpose Salt on olive oil-roasted carrots and potatoes, its balance of salt, sage, rosemary, bay, lemon and garlic is just right; there's nothing musty about it. The salts are available at specialty food shops or by mail order from thescrumptiouspantry.com.
Smart videos (demos, progress reports and the like) are often essential to securing crowdfunding on sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. But the owners of The Market Restaurant in Gloucester, Massachusetts, went for all-out charming in this pitch for donations to their new pizzeria, Short & Main. Newlywed chefs and Chez Panisse alumni Nico and Amelia Monday, with friends Matt Cawley and Howie Correa, created a short narrative featuring baby and wedding photos, plywood shots and pizza porn—and secured more than $20,000. (Incentives didn’t hurt, such as a copy of F&W’s America’s Greatest New Cooks cookbook, which features the Mondays' recipe for smoked fish chowder.) While the donation period has ended, the video, above, offers a great preview of Short & Main, as well a lesson on how to attract a following before a project is even off the ground.
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