Roasting Butternut Squash Seeds

© Gentl & Hyers

© Gentl & Hyers

© Quentin Bacon
Marathoner Joe Bastianich's white bean stew with swiss chard and tomatoes
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!
© Quentin Bacon
• 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


© Chris Quinlan
A student gets pointers

© National Pork Board
German Cuban Reuben Pork Burger
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.

© National Pork Board
Kristina Vänni wins the Next Pork Personality.
© Marlo Hunter
Eating Their Words reinvents dinner theater.
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.

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

© Sfoglia
Sfoglia's new cookbook shares the restaurant's best recipes.
© Cedric Angeles
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
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