Mouthing Off

During the election season, our food-obsessed features intern, Kaitlyn Goalen, became a hard-core political-news junkie; now, in its wake, she has been getting her fix by following the Obama transition. Here, she shares why the rest of the food world should also be watching:

Inauguration day is drawing near (41 days to go!), and as a foodie, I’m anxious about the Secretary of Agriculture pick. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Michael Pollan, Rick Bayless, Dan Barber and 80 other food activists signed a letter to the new President offering up nominations for the position. Alice Waters, who also signed the letter, has gone so far as to offer her personal services in the creation of a White House organic garden.

The timing is particularly crucial: As the economy continues to stumble, the challenge for small, local and sustainable producers to survive is bigger than ever. The demand for organic food has slowed considerably in the last two months due to its traditionally higher prices than conventionally grown food. If change is really the backbone of Obama's presidency, then it’s time we see a farmer, a chef or a true food activist in office.

                      
  

In our December issue, we give a food-and-design-savvy insider’s guide to Miami’s Design District —a must-read for anyone headed to Art Basel Miami Beach. The sister fair to Art Basel Switzerland—and the most important art fair in the U.S.—kicks off tomorrow and runs through the weekend. Here, insider’s tips on where to eat and shop while navigating the art-filled weekend.

Retail design extraordinaire Murray Moss tells the New York Times which bars have the most incredible crowds.

F&W dishes on what Miami’s local art-and-design crowd orders at their favorite Design District hangout, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink.

Nisi Berryman, cofounder of the incredible style store NiBa Home, e-mailed me today to say Senora Martinez, the new venture from Miami darling Michelle Bernstein, opened last night and has a stellar tapas menu. For shopping, Nisi says Marni just opened last night, Tomas Maier opened last week and En Avance recently moved locations from SoBe to the Design District—all are a couple of doors up from Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto’s boutique, Y-3, and close to Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink.

Stephanie Monserrat Laurent has plans for a Miami branch of Buzina Pop, her superstylish Brazilian restaurant on New York City’s Upper East Side. Tonight, she’s taking over Miami's Maison d’ Azur and will be serving Buzina Pop’s signature dishes (grilled prawns over honey-ginger coconut quinoa) and cachaca-spiked cocktails and debuting her new bikini collection.        

Le Tourment Vert, an authentic French absinthe, makes its South Florida debut this week with a special tasting tomorrow night at the Florida Room in the Delano Hotel featuring cocktail recipes created by master mixologist John Lermayer.      

      

                                                  

              

Last week, writer and beer aficionado Christian DeBenedetti invited me to a superintimate craft-beer dinner at Gramercy Tavern hosted by Julia Herz, Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association, and David Katleski, president of the New York State Brewers Association and owner of Empire Brewing Company in Syracuse. I’d just read Burkhard Bilger’s superbly written, compelling 10-page New Yorker article on the state of American craft beer and was excited to see what unusual seasonal brews Herz and Katleski would bring to the table. The revelatory five-course, beer-paired meal lasted nearly six hours and now has me obsessing over the idea of drinking beer seasonally. Here are some highlights:

* Harpoon’s Winter Warmer is available only from November through January. Its pumpkin-pie-like finish of cinnamon and nutmeg was a lovely complement to a duck breast served with quinoa and shiitake mushrooms.

* There is a growing trend in fresh hops beer (it was even added as a new style category at this year’s Great American Beer Festival). Great Divide Brewing Co.’s Fresh Hop Pale Ale, a supergrassy seasonal beer is an exceptional example of the style. We tried it with a pumpkin soup with peekytoe crab and celery root – delicious!

*A special treat was ODell Brewing Co.’s limited-edition Woodcut No. 1. The Fort Collins, Colorado, brewery released just 120 cases of this unusual oak-aged ale (it sold out in one day) before retiring the label. We poured bottle 125. It surprised us with an oaky Chardonnay-like nose, but it tasted of vanilla, almonds and aged fruit and worked brilliantly with the grilled sturgeon with brussels sprouts and chestnuts.

*Every year on election day, Empire Brewery releases a barley wine, and David brought a growler of the potent, malty brew (12.5% alcohol) to pair with our excellent desserts. We also tried Brewery Ommegang’s Chocolate Indulgence, a decadent chocolaty-malty drink that was a dessert on its own.

If the thought of pairing beer with anything other than wings and pizza sounds intimidating, check out the Brewers Association’s easy-to-follow beer-and-food-matching chart.

Wednesday night I had the privilege of listening to some of the world’s leading conservationists speak at the Blue Ocean Institute’s fifth annual gala. Held at the Tribeca Rooftop in Manhattan, the event honored three environmental stewards: Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium; National Geographic Society explorer, Dr. Enric Sala; and Grammy-winning composer Paul Winter, who treated the crowd to a riveting live performance that ended with him howling like a wolf.

Other highlights of the evening:

*Dr. Carl Safina, president of the Blue Ocean Institute, showed a clip from his new TV series, Saving the Oceans, which explores real-world examples of positive and constructive developments in ocean environments.

*The evening’s master of ceremonies Trevor Corson (occasional Iron Chef America judge and author of The Story of Sushi) threatened to perform a strip tease in order to get the bidding up for some of the night’s auction prizes. People started bidding before he could even get his shirt off. Corson seemed thoroughly amused (and flattered) when the fiercest bidding war of the night broke out for the chance to win a private sushi dinner for ten hosted by him.
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*Guests got a sneak preview of the brilliant new sustainable sushi guides being published by Blue Ocean Institute, Environmental Defense Fund and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Each organization has developed its own color-coded consumer guide ranking popular sushi selections based on whether they are prepared using seafood that’s caught or farmed in ways that harm the ocean. Freshwater eel (unagi) and bluefin tuna (hon maguro/kuro maguro) are on the “red list” while wild-caught Alaska salmon (sake) and Pacific halibut (hirame) are identified as more sustainable choices. The guides will be available at each of the organization’s Web sites October 22.

 

 

Thank goodness for the jump button on the remote control; I seem to have one that works even with greasy fingers. Sunday night I'm going to be hopping between the Emmys on ABC and the Packers-Cowboys game on NBC. Now I just have to decide on snacks. There's our pigskin roundup, where chef Tim Love recommends Ro*Tel chiles and Velveeta. Then this week our resident television gurus, Grace Parisi and Christine Quinlan, created their own ingenious pairings, both cocktails and finger foods for some of their favorite nominated shows, so maybe I'll make a Wry Manhattan (Parisi writes: "Elaine Strich is nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress for her performance on 30 Rock as Colleen Donaghy, Jack Donaghy’s insane, emotionally withholding, alcoholic mother. This cocktail is perfect for her: It’s lethal and sneaks up on you.") But that might get in the way of my channel surfing. Decisions, decisions.

This Friday, September 12, is the start of NYC Craft Beer Week. The ten-day celebration of great craft brews kicks off with the third annual NY Brewfest. For the first time, the festival will feature international brewers, particularly a large number of Bavarian breweries—some dating back to the 17th century, if not farther, like Miltenberger and Zötler Bier. Participants will also include standout American brewers like Allagash and Otter Creek as well as organic brewers like Peak. The organizers are also going green this year—part of the festival is being powered by 15 megawatts of wind energy donated by Community Energy.

Josh Schaffner, director of NYC Craft Beer Week, described Friday’s beer festival as a good introduction to beer novices who want to try different styles (they’ll be able to choose from more than 300). But Schaffner developed Craft Beer Week, which is in its first year, for more serious beer drinkers. In addition to events and dinners, Schaffner has organized neighborhood pub crawls that reinvent the frat tradition into a more sophisticated, educational experience. “The goal is not to get as drunk as possible but to explore new neighborhoods, bars and beers,” he says. Schaffner has 52 bars signed on to pour a total of 97 beers from 37 breweries. Unlike NY Brewfest, Schaffner’s events focus on beers that come from the Northeast, between Maine and Maryland.

The beer extravaganza ends with the second annual Manhattan Cask Ale Festival, September 19–21, which gives people a chance to taste 45 different craft-brewed, cask-conditioned ales.

This has the scent of a publicity stunt, but it's still pretty cool. KFC  announced that the Colonel’s Original Recipe, that secret blend of herbs and spices invented by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1940, would be transported this Tuesday to a temporary location  in an armored car, escorted by off-duty Louisville police, in a briefcase handcuffed to security consultant (and MSNBC analyst) Bo Dietl, while Dietl's recommended improvements are made to build a new more secure container for the ingredient list.

The security measures already in place are straight out of Get Smart: According to KFC, only two company executives are allowed to know the recipe, while a third executive knows the combination to the safe where it’s kept; the three are not allowed to travel together. But the company recently decided that a locked safe wasn't quite enough to guard something that helps bring in $5.3 billion in annual U.S. sales. They're not the only ones: At this year's Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, DineEquity chairman and CEO Julia Stewart described similar security precautions taken to guard the recipe for the IHOP pancake. Perhaps instead of pursuing intellectual property rights for recipes and restaurant concepts, restaurant chefs will instead start investing in lockboxes.

Starchefs.com has just released the stellar lineup for its International Chefs Congress taking place later this month in New York City's Park Avenue Armory with, amusingly (oddly?) enough, a catalog featuring two underwear-clad, cut-out chef paper dolls. But the humor doesn't stop there. Among the talks and workshops led by some of the food world's most talented personalities, two get the prize for most creative name: "Voulez-vous sous vide avec moi (ce soir)"? (Paul Liebrandt at the soon-to-open Corton) and "Gin... The Other White Meat" (Audrey Saunders at Pegu Club).

Poor John McCain faces some tough competition tonight at the Republican National Convention: the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. While McCain is delivering his much-anticipated speech, the 2008 NFL season will have officially kicked off as the reigning Super Bowl champions face the Skins. Some of the sports-crazed staffers at F&W have put together the ultimate F&W NFL package that delivers delicious recipes to get you through five months of football as well as predictions, opinions and obsessions from our favorite football-obsessed chefs.  
 
We’ll be updating our NFL package throughout the season. Still to come:

*David Chang’s prediction for the Washington Redskins's season.

*New Orleans Saints fan Susan Spicer’s favorite game day foods.

*Frank Ruta on which player he’d most like to be on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

 

 

Americans may have recently lost their “King of Beers” to the Europeans, but U.S. craft brewers are now challenging, if not out-doing, the Germans and Belgians with some remarkable beers.

Some truly unique American craft brews that have recently come across my desk at Food & Wine:
 
*Buckbean, a five-month old microbrewery in Reno, Nevada was co-founded by Daniel Kahn (former brewmaster at Buzzards Bay Brewing in Westport, Mass.) and is slowly gaining buzz in the craft beer world. Its Orange Blossom Ale is made from caramel malts, American hops and orange flower water resulting in a refreshing, light, zesty beer that comes in eco-friendly 16 oz. cans.

*I’m usually biased toward lighter beers but Maui Brewing Company’s Coconut Porter, brewed with six varieties of malted barley, hops and hand-toasted coconut, is alluringly complex.

*I have never tasted anything quite like Hugh Malone, a barrel-aged and cellared beer from Maine’s Allagash brewery. A friend described it as a heavenly beer milkshake and I agree completely.

*For the guy who finds himself flying solo at the bar, there is now WingMan American Lager. The new brew, the result of a collaboration between El Monte, California-based Skyscraper Brewing Company and the Academy of Fine Beers in nearby Santa Ana, is light, smooth and superflavorful. Plus, there’s the added hilarity of the cheesy pick-up lines on the labels (“Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again.”).

Stay tuned for my upcoming blog on NYC Craft Beer Week, further evidence that American brewers are revolutionizing the beer scene.