Each year on Halloween, my husband and I carve a jack-o’-lantern and then roast the pumpkin seeds to snack on. So a few days ago, while I was cleaning out a butternut squash to make my daughter’s favorite soup, Curried Butternut Squash and Cauliflower Soup (pictured), I thought, Why couldn’t we roast the squash seeds as well? I cleaned the flesh off the seeds, then rinsed and dried them well. I tossed them with olive oil and salt, spread them on a baking sheet and roasted them for about 10 minutes in a 300-degree oven. (Take the seeds out when they start to pop and get golden, because they keep cooking after coming out of the oven.) The hulls are thinner than those of pumpkin seeds, and I think they’re more delicious as well, with a flavor a bit like popcorn.

 

While my colleague Kate Krader is on a permanent sugar high this week from her pre-Halloween candy binge, I am overloading on carbs in preparation for the New York City Marathon. The race takes place this Sunday, the day after Halloween.  This year’s field of 40,000 runners, the largest in history, includes a number of food and wine world stars who’ve been juggling 20-mile training runs with kitchen duties and late-night pasta binges. Mark Bittman, the New York Times Minimalist columnist, has been swapping cooking tips for training tips with America’s fastest woman marathoner, Deena Kastor (rumor has it she’s shopping around a cookbook while in town for the race). F&W Best New Chef 2005 Daniel Humm of NYC’s Eleven Madison Park has been training with a running coach from Kenya to help him beat his insanely fast time from last year.

I’ve been following winemaker and restaurateur Joe Bastianich’s game plan, fueling myself with the complex-carb-heavy recipes he shared with F&W in our October issue and throwing back an occasional beer (for more carbs).

For more pre-marathon carbo-loading recipe ideas, click here.

Our fantastic senior copy editor, Ann Lien (who reads every recipe with her eagle eye), is also a terrific cook. Here, she reports on a recent dinner:

Julie & Julia is coming out on DVD in December and I’ve already preordered my copy of the movie, which recently inspired me and my friends to do a Julia Child potluck. Armed with volume one of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, we attempted coq au vin, beef bourguignon, potage parmentier (potato-and-leek soup) with galettes du fromage (flattened gougères) and Queen of Sheba cake. While the recipes weren’t difficult, there were unexpectedly daunting tasks, such as the tearful peeling of 24 small onions (no way to make it go faster) and the hacking up of a whole, slippery raw chicken (roasting it partway helped us find the joints to tear the limbs apart, but we all shuddered). Everything came out utterly delicious—and irresistible. Long after I was stuffed, I was still reaching for more of the salty, cheesy, doughy, crispy galettes. We had so much fun, we immediately planned a second Julia potluck. If you want to create your own Julia Child party, check out our slide show for great ideas. In the meantime, bon appetit!

Tonight at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: a discussion on “From the Spoon to the City,” the current exhibition of 20th century design pieces named after Italian architect Ernesto Rogers’ famous declaration that he wanted to design everything from “a spoon to a city.” Our own way to honor the spoon is through these excellent stocks, stews, and chili recipes:

• Stews: 15 hearty stews like a Catalan chickpea stew with spinach and chorizo (pictured), a sweet and tangy Middle Eastern lamb-and-eggplant stew, and Yucatán pork stew with pleasantly bitter ancho chiles and lime juice
• Stocks: 3 versatile stocks to give a flavor boost to soups like Mario Batali’s chicken stock (excellent in a lentil and linguine soup), rich beef stock (superb in a Hungarian beef soup), and oregano-and-thyme-flavored vegetable stock (terrific in a 30-minute minestrone)
• Chili Recipes: 7 outstanding chili recipes like pork cheek and black-eyed pea chili, turkey chili with hominy, and fragrant, cumin-accented chili

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my grandmothers more than I can say. Nanny Quinlan taught me to mix a perfect cocktail and Nanny McGrath could make a mean Irish soda bread. But sometimes I wished I had an Italian nonna to show me how to make flawless pasta from scratch or a rich meat ragù. My wish came true this past weekend, when Dora Marzovilla of Manhattan’s I Trulli did just that at a demo in which she showed how to prepare classic Pugliese dishes, like a moist focaccia with tomatoes and oregano and handmade cavatelli with broccoli rabe and almonds. But what I really can’t wait to make is the panzerrotti (fried dough filled with tomatoes and mozzarella). I think it would pair perfectly with one of Nanny’s cocktails!

If you also crave nonna-worthy recipes, try these Italian dishes from Food & Wine's recipe archives:

Cavatelli with Spicy Winter Squash
Orecchiette with Cauliflower, Anchovies and Pistachios
Pappardelle with Veal Ragù

 

On a drizzly morning last week, I sat next to the Food Network’s Guy Fieri in a park near New York City's High Line to help the National Pork Board crown the Next Pork Personality. Judging the tastiest dish was easy: It was the German Cuban Reuben Pork Burger from chef Robert Burmeister of CHOW Gourmet on Staten Island.

 

First, he marinated pork shoulder with sweet pickle relish and mustard before grinding the meat and forming patties, which he then topped with a bacon-sauerkraut mixture, sliced Bratwurst and snappy rounds of dill pickle. But unfortunately, taste was not a factor in this competition, and each recipe's creativity only counted for so much; instead, the contestants' spiel about their dish was everything. Robert had that natural New York swagger and a thick accent to match—it was clear he loved pork, and not just from his pig tattoo. But it was tough to compete with actress and comedian (and former recipe contest winner) Kristina Vänni’s engaging routine. Although Kristina's "Spicy" Asian Pork Tenderloin, marinated and glazed with hoisin sauce spiked with five-spice powder—was not as impressive as Robert’s burger, she ultimately won the title and the $5,000 prize. But Robert might have received a better reward: Guy gushing about his burger during the awards ceremony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dinner-theater concept sounds like a throwback, but director Marlo Hunter is trying to make it hip again with Eating Their Words. Hunter enlists noteworthy writers and actors for an evening of short plays to be performed at a top NYC restaurant. As part of the action, the actors sit at a table and eat a dish; immediately after the performance, the audience is served everything they've just seen the actors enjoy. The next Eating Their Words event, on Monday, October 19, will be at Tocqueville restaurant, with works by Pulitzer Prize finalist Theresa Rebeck and playwrights Jonathan Marc Sherman and Sam Forman. Tocqueville chef-owner Marco Moreira has created a menu to complement the plays, including schmaltz roasted country chicken and a bittersweet chocolate tort. Tickets must be purchased before Sunday, October 18.

Last weekend I tried a few recipes from the new cookbook Everyday Harumi. The author, Harumi Kurihara, is a homemaker-turned-cooking-star in Japan, where she has a TV show, magazine, tableware line and restaurants. The photographs in her book are beautiful and the recipes are very doable. I tackled the Tofu Steak, a homestyle version of agedashi tofu, a popular appetizer in Japanese restaurants. I rubbed slices of tofu with grated garlic, dipped them in potato starch and pan-fried them. I then topped each piece with scallions, ginger, bonito flakes and a soy-mirin sauce. I've never grated garlic for a recipe before, but it was worth the effort—the flavor is more delicate and I don't think minced garlic would stick as well to the tofu.

If you can't get a copy of Harumi's book, try these delicious Japanese recipes from Food & Wine:

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The NYC Marathon is one month away, and while I’ve been pretty diligent about getting in my long training runs, I’ve been more lackadaisical about my diet. I’ve learned the hard way that late-night Momofuku pork buns and foie gras ice cream are not the best fuel for a 5 a.m. workout. So I’m making an attempt to cook at home more over the next few weeks, and I’ve found myself turning to the new cookbook from Ron and Colleen Suhanosky, the husband-and-wife chef team behind Sfoglia in Nantucket and New York City. Pasta Sfoglia features more than 100 recipes inspired by Sfoglia’s addictive pasta dishes. While I don’t always have time to make pasta from scratch during the week, I do have the luxury of being able to buy exceptional ingredients, like Sfoglia’s bread and house-made goat cheese, at Tutto Sfoglia, the tiny new market adjacent to the Upper East Side restaurant.

Summer may officially be over, but the seafood shack trend is just hitting its stride—New York City alone is expecting three new seafood shack-inspired spots this fall. Keep the beach vibe going with these superb takes on shack classics like a creamy clam and white bean chowder (pictured), fish tacos with lime guacamole, and crispy cayenne-spiced crab cakes.

More Seafood Dishes:
- 20 quick shellfish dishes like scallops with tarragon butter sauce and a shrimp and avocado salad
- 15 healthy fish dishes like spicy snapper sandwiches and monkfish in tomato-garlic sauce