FoodTalk with Barbara Kafka

The Intolerant Gourmet

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:08:00 +0000

Thank you to all the commenters and readers...Great support

The Intolerant Gourmet

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:15:00 +0000

Well, it is out. I and the press seem to be pleased. Do visit The Intolerant Gourmet and buy it if you like it at the major chains and most booksellers

broken

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:57:00 +0000

It turns out that when I fell I broke both my neck and spine as well as several ribs. Wildly, I seem to be surviving with good surgery and medical care, but it is certainly clear that hospitals have no notion of how to make a lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant pleasant. They all need my forthcoming book. Makes me feel useful.

No Milk or Butter

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 16:26:00 +0000

my forthcoming book, The Intolerant Gourmet, has recipes with ought any dairy. Dairy is the largest group of intolerances in the world. There are pills that can be taken, but they leave some residual discomfort. Following my book you and your friends can eat safely and very well. enjoy

soba gome

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:18:00 +0000

These are the small hulled Japanese buckwheat groats. After playing around, I found that mixing a given quantity--say 1 cup--of the groats with twice the quantity of of water--say two cups--of other light liquid such as stock and letting them soak and swell for a half to a whole hour and then cooking gives the best result. This keeps the groats from getting mushy. The amount of liquid needed for the actual cooking will depend on what is being cooked with them. I used large scallops and small mussels which gave off plenty of liquid. I cooked this in a wok with the seafood on top, tightly covered. I had seasoned the soaked groats with a large handful of fresh tarragon leaves and a good quantity of kosher salt and pepper. The dish took about fifteen minutes of actual cooking, or until the mussel shells opened. It served four as a light main course.
Vegetables, fish and chicken would be good alternatives.
Now the fun begins.

Another Grain

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:22:00 +0000

I thought when I finished The Intolerant Gourmet that I had covered all the grains. Well, it turns out that there is still one more, buckwheat groats. This is a tiny form of buckwheat that grows wild. I found some in a few days of experimenting I should have some solid data. the groats, like all buckwheat, are not a wheat but a non-gluten seed.
As they used to say on the radio in my childhood: "Stay tuned."

Nature's Gift

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 18:14:00 +0000

Of course one can buy cultivated Pleurotus oestreatau (oyster mushrooms); but as a rare gift, one comse accross a tree with soft scale like growths that are these mushrooms in the wild. Recantly this good fortune came our way and we cut down a large bounty. From these I made soup. They weigh very little so a large mound is deceptive. I cleaned the mushrooms by cutting off the hard part of the stems and cut them into strips about a quarter inch wide following the lines of the gills. This gave me a pound of prepared mushrooms which I put in a sauce pan with five cups of chicken stock. I brought theme to a boil and reduced to a simmer and let cook about fifteen minutes. I stirred in three quarters of a cup of white miso and that was that. It was also a good opening for a meal of composed salads.

It is also gluten and lactose free.

The Intolerant Gourmet

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:28:00 +0000

Life is strange. The Intolerant Gourmet is the title of my forthcoming book--end October, early November. I have been working on it for four years. It turns out that by hideous coincidence that there is a book with the same title by an English writer and published in England using English weights and measures.

I hope that you will wait for my book or order it now. Many of you have enjoyed my recipes over the years.

If you want my book with my recipes and fitted to our kitchens, it is important that you specify that you are ordering The Intolerant Gourmet by Barbara Kafka.

I hope that you will. I am very proud of my book and I think that you will enjoy it and its food. Also in addition to being gluten free it is lactose free. Many people have a great deal of trouble digesting milk products.

I hope that you have wonderful food using my book and that you are healthier for it.

Let me know what you think and be patient until you can get a copy of my book.

Quinoa starvation

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:38:00 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about my feelings of guilt over the high demand for quinoa. In large part, I feel responsible. I wrote about it several times as the ideal replacement for milk. Several people asked for more information. I snooped around on the web on line. The best information I found about this Andean grain was at: Quinoa Bolivia Starvation. Try it and worry with me

FoodTalk with Barbara Kafka: Quinoa

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:39:00 +0000

FoodTalk with Barbara Kafka: Quinoa
The New York Times had extensive coverage. I will try to find you more.

Gluten-Free hero

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:32:00 +0000

Novak- Djokovic voluntarily goes gluten-free...no evident intolerance--and becomes the world's best tennis player. this comes under the heading of things I never thought that I would write

No Dairy

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:42:00 +0000

A help for those who keep kosher.

Quinoa

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 13:21:00 +0000

I am suffering from acute quinoa guilt. I started writing about it and everybody jumped on the bandwagon. Now, the mountain people ofPeru are starving from lack of quinoa. Try teff or chickpea flour, both nutritionally good.

However, i should point out that quinoa pasta ahd just come on the market. It's not the greatest and takes longer to cook than the package directions, but would be good for vegans.

The rest of us can eat meat.

Gluten and Lactose Intolerance

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:23:00 +0000

Come the hot summer heat, we, the intolerant don't have much trouble with wheat, but many cold summer soups are drenched in dairy. Coconut milk can help with some particularly if they are robust enough to dim the coconut taste. Various gazpachos and other vegan soups, borscht without cream for example work splendidly. Non vegans may want to thicken their soups with egg yolks or use a sstarch such as arrowroot. Soups with rich stock that gels are beautiful and festive. However, I often heed my Russian grandmother's words and remember that hot soups as well as hot tea push the body into emergency mode and that air drying cools. Only the kitchen gets hot. Eat outdoors.

Exotic ingredients

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:25:00 +0000

Making foods from different cultures almost always leaves me with odds and ends of special ingredients which I then try to use in other ways. That is how I found out that tamarind paste (Asian) goes well with harrisa (Middle Eastern) and Coconut milk (far east). As in the old slogan, "try it, you'll like it. The combined flavore go well with chicken, fish and pork. Use the seasonings to taste.

scapes

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:32:00 +0000

I just realized that I had left the thinly cut across garlic scapes from two-days-ago's recipe. I have now added them. For those without a garden or at a different season, a greater quantity of chives can be substituted. Scapes are the green shoots that are out growth of those pesky green germs in oldish cloves of garlic. Their peskiness is off set by these old cloves being planted to make new heads. They can be cut off the plant when about eight inches long. This will not hurt the plant.

Another Happy Kitchen Accident

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:27:00 +0000

Actually, this started out because of a mix up. I thought that i had invited some people over for drinks. It turned out that they thought it was for the following week. So there I was with a pound of peeled shrimp and only two extra guests who would now have dinner instead of cocktails. What to do.
Once again I rummaged around in the kitchen. I found an open jar of harissa left from another meal and a opened can of Thai coconut milk--the thick kind--I always have some chicken stock around from boiling up the carcasses of the many chickens that I roast. So this is what I did. However, unless you like to eat your sauce with a spoon as I do, you might want to cut the sauce ingredients in half. Rice is essential for the sauce in any case.

Sauce ingredients:
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup Thai coconut milk
2 tablespoons harissa

1 pound cleaned shrimp--smaller are better
1/3 cup canola oil

At this point, it goes very quickly. It's a good idea to have the rice ready.
Put the oil in a ten inch saute pan. Let it get to the shimmering stage. Put in the shrimp and cook tossing them around until the outsides are opaque. Pour in the remaining ingredients and cook for about two minutes or until shrimp are cooked through. Serve and eat.

Happy Kitchen Accidents

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:45:00 +0000

That's what I call the dishes that occur when I find myself without my usual ingredients for a dish and am too lazy to go out or am in the country far from a store.
This past weekend we were going to be four for dinner. I had a steak and asparagus from the garden for a main course, but couldn't think of what to make for a starter. Then, i realized that I had seven large scallops left from a prior meal. A little skimpy to serve on their own. Rooting around provided me with a red and a yellow bell pepper and a bottle of ginger teriyaki sauce. I removed the hardish exterior muscles from the scallops and cut them in half from side to side making two thinnish rounds out of each. I seeded the peppers and cut them top to bottom into thinnish strips. I sauteed the pepper strips in canola oil until about half cooked without browning.
I added some snipets--about a heaping tablespoon of garlic shoots that the present guests had brought.I added the scallop pieces and cooked until opaque and stirred in a dollop of the sauce. It was quick, pretty and enough for four and was declared delicious.
Next will be a recipe for an accidental shrimp dish.

Mexican with Class

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:55:00 +0000

Yesterday night we were going to seee Arcadia at the Barrymore Theater. We were looking for a good place to eat before the 7:00 curtain. A quick reading of the current Zagat for New York City brought us to Hell's Kitchen at 679 Nineth Avenue between 46th and 47th streets. ( 212 977 1588).
The name is not for a hot sauce but for what this area of the city was called in the old days. I really think it is worth while going too--even without theater. Be sure to reserve; it is small and gets crowded.
It is both definitely Mexican and creative at the same time. They make their own tortillas both wheat and corn. They were very sensitive to my gluten problem. The wait person suggested that I have plain white corn tortillas rather than having fried as chips to dip into my excellent guacamole. She explained that they are fried in the same oil as food using wheat and there was a slight risk of contamination.
Similarly, they spontaneously substituted a delicious papaya salsa with chunks of fruit for a forbidden side dish.
The salmon I ordered was well seasoned without having the spice overwhelm the fish. The fish also came moist and slightly under cooked as requested.
There were many other alluring dishes that I will try another time. I will stick with the excellent anajo margarita; but there is a large selection to choose from.

Cocktail Party

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:08:00 +0000

Today is a beautiful hot day in the country. Dinner will be minimal. Last night after the jam-packed opening of my friend, Wolf Kahn's. A large group of us headed back to his studio. Then began the nightmare of the gluten intolerant, a cocktail party with hors d'ouevre that were meant to substitute for dinner. Everything was on pieces of bread or wrapped in wheat noodles. We went out to dinner and that is why there will be a chapter in the forthcoming book filled with food that is safe for me. It also has no dairy food in it as there aree even more people who are lactose intolerant than the gluten intolerants.
I think that there can be good and delicious food for cocktails that don't proclaim their restrictions.

Disgrace...Doughnut holes

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:09:00 +0000

Today, I was mortified. I was asked by the art director at Artisan Books which will publish my forth coming book, The Intolerant Gourmet, which is about all kinds of food from snacks through main courses to desserts to make some of my delicious Chestnut Doughnut Holes to be photographed for the back cover of the book. These are particularly tasty snacks due to the subtle sweetness of chestnut flour.
I have made them at least a dozen times and they were light and crisp and gobbled up. I'm a fanatic about having my recipes work. Well the first batch was a disaster. I made another but it wasn't perfect. I realized that things to be fried crisp don't work well in desperately humid weather such as we are having. I got just enough to get some decent pictures. If you make them from the recipe in the book which is, of course, gluten and lactose free, do it in late fall or winter.
Then you won't be ashamed as I was. I must add that the misshapen, crisp bits were not discarded, but eagerly eaten by those around.
Good luck and try a soup or stew without flour as a thickener.

Paper Towels in the Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:22:00 +0000

I never thought of paper towels as equipment--merely a convenience. Now I have found two new uses for them. The first is in the microwave. I had run out of plastic wrap and wanted to cook some cauliflower in the microwave. I layered three sheets of colorless paper towel and wet the thoroughly and proceeded to microwave as usual. Perfect result.

The second trick--usage--was shown me by my assistant, Clara Park, for the forthcoming book, The Opinionated Palate. When putting a hunk of meat to marinate in the refrigerator, cover it with paper towel that hangs into the marinade. The towel wicks up the marinade keeping it moist without turning.

Fish a new way...Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sat, 21 May 2011 16:59:00 +0000

I thought I had tried every way of cooking fish: steaming, boiling, grilling, broiling and microwaving. Well the other night brought me a new variation. I had two beautiful fillets of wild striped bass--skin on--gently lain in a shallow roasting pan just large enough to hold them. I put them to one side while I concentrated on the salad and potatoes.
Fortunately, I had remembered to turn on the oven to my usual 500 F. with one rack at the top and one near the bottom. I washed the salad and got the dressing ingredients ready. Unlike most people I sdon't make the dressing apart and ahed. By now, I know what it will take.
I put the baby--creamer--potatoes in another roasting pan and slicked them with olive oil. I slipped them onto the lowest shelf thinking that they would take thirty minute about twice the time needed for the fish, around three inches thick.
I put the potatoes on the bottom shelf, set the table, made apitcher of water and tossed the salad. I looked at my watch and to my horro realize I haad only left about seven minutes for the fish. When I took the potatoes out and checked the fish and, of course, it wasn't cooked. What to do? I thought that the bottom shelf was hotter. I quickly put the fish pan on it.
Miracles: the fish came out beautifullu cooked.
I wil try this on purpose another time.

Intolerant Gourmet

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:37:00 +0000

Proofs have been read two times. Photos have been taken. I'm beginning to believe this book will come out. I hope you like it.

Good Food; Good News

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:33:00 +0000

At least for me. The mother of all colds has finally left me and I see a strong "GO" sign that says my book, The Intolerant Gourmet, will be out this Fall. I have seen the cover--most unusual, but I hope that you will all like it. The photographs have been ataken. Copy editing and proof reading have taken place. The Index is yet to come. I consider that important as it avoids the "I know its there somewhere dilemma.
Now I have to think of a next project. I go bats without work. Memoirs? New recipes? I m opend to all suggestions. Help