Epicurious.com: Editor's Blog

If You Were a Pastry, What Would You Be?

Patricia Reilly — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:24:17 -0400

A salty-sweet Pretzel Croissant (left) and sticky-sweet pain au raisin Inspired by the intriguing question editor-in-chief Tanya Steel fielded recently and the ongoing Cronut craze chronicled last week by Sara Bonisteel, a few of us editors got to contemplating where we might end up if we were to shape-shift into something sweeter and possibly rather flaky. Interestingly, answers came easily and ranged from quintessentially NYC selections to a Southern classic to America's common doughnut denominator, Dunkin' Donuts. "A Payard pain au chocolat!" exclaimed Kemp Minifie. Bonisteel, though fresh from her Cronut run, also chose a pain au chocolat. "I'd be chess pie from The Picnic in Nashville," Lauren Salkeld offered. "I'm going to have to go with a Napoleon," said Kerry Acker. "I confess that I relate to the vertically challenged emperor of France for which the delectable was named--not because I am a tyrannical French emperor but because I am short in stature. Also, when I think about all the buttery dough and heavenly eggy custard I have consumed over these years, I may actually be 2 parts Napoleon pastry." "I'd rather be a pie," Esther Sung ventured. "But I suppose being a tebirke from Bien Cuit wouldn't be half bad. Poppy seeds, almond cream, buttery goodness. Yum." "Assorted Munchkin donut holes--not the cake ones, the yeast-based ones," responded Kelly Senyei. "Rainbow cookies," chose editorial production manager Michele Zotos. "A Pretzel Croissant" from City Bakery, New York's original hybrid, was Siobhan Adcock's pick. Me, I'd be a pain au raisin from Bread Alone, or possibly a homemade cinnamon roll… Where would your sweet tooth take you?

Tracing the Recipes of America's First Restaurant Empire

Sara Bonisteel — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:00:00 -0400

by Anna Fixsen Before farm-to-table restaurants, there were train-to-table restaurants; before Emeril, there was Fred. Fred Harvey, (1835-1901) founded America's first restaurant empire, a chain that revolutionized the way in which people thought about food and dining. But it's been largely forgotten. Now author Stephen Fried is working to assemble an online cookbook of the restaurants' original recipes. Fried discovered Harvey on a trip to the Grand Canyon in 1993 and quickly became a "Fred Head." He compiled years of research into a Harvey biography, Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West, and is currently compiling an online recipe collection called the Harvey Girls Cookbook Project. Fried and his team have posted hundreds of recipes that haven't been followed in more than 80 years as a sort of living Americana cookbook, in the hopes that chefs and the culinarily curious will test the recipes. Harvey's restaurants strung along the Santa Fe railroad like beads on a necklace, starting in Kansas and eventually stretching west to California and north to Chicago. Harvey employed some of the best European-trained chefs around, and a pretty staff of waitresses, known as the Harvey Girls, served food to weary travelers. The chain became wildly popular and the family-run restaurants enjoyed a multi-decade heyday from the late 1870s until World War II. At Harvey restaurants, fast food met slow food. The brevity of the train stops meant that the eats had to be made fast; cooks cranked out gourmet meals in minutes. Menus featured eccentric mixes spanning the gastronomic spectrum from haute cuisine to classic diner food, democratizing mealtime. Even the creators of the atomic bomb--Robert Oppenheimer and other members of the Manhattan Project--enjoyed celebratory Fred Harvey food after successful test detonations. But throughout his research, Fried had a mystery on his hands: In spite of the vastness and success of the restaurant chain, the actual recipes were few and far between. What began as a brief appendix of recipes in the back of Fried's book grew into a full-blown quest to find more recipes. Epicurious: How did you discover Fred Harvey? Stephen Fried: Right at the rim of the Grand Canyon are these old hotels built 100 years ago. They were built by the Santa Fe railroad for Fred Harvey, and they decided they were going to make the Grand Canyon into a tourist site. I didn't know any of this. I just went into the hotel just thinking "How the hell did anybody build a hotel at the lip of the Grand Canyon?" And when you go into the main lobby of the hotel there is a portrait of Fred Harvey. It was like we were supposed to know who he was, but of course we had never heard of him or knew anything about him. Epicurious: What were train restaurants like before Fred Harvey? SF: The way they would feed people in the West was to have eating houses on train lines;...

Food Photographers, Professional and Amateur

Lauren Salkeld — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:56:00 -0400

As part of an on-going series of interviews with food photographers, Bon Appétit recently chatted with Manhattan-based Peden+Munk, AKA Taylor Peden and Jen Munkvold, who regularly shoot for the magazine. In the Q&A, Peden+Munk share their backstory, offer food photography tips, and dish on what it's like to work with restaurant chefs. To read the Peden+Munk interview, head to BonAppétit.com. Speaking of food photography, as we peruse Epicurious' Community Table, we often find ourselves drooling over many of the recipe photos. Recent highlights include Food Fanatic's Rocky Road Bread, a quick bread studded with chocolate chips, marshmallows, and almonds, as well as the luscious Mocha Sorbet contributed by Pastry Studio's Gayle Gonzalez. And it's not just desserts that are catching our eye. The Asian Quinoa Salad from Two Peas and Their Pod is bursting with color and texture, while Leslie Stowe's Burrata Salad photo captures the dish's freshness and simplicity. For more recipes and food photos, visit the Community Table. (Photo: Peden+Munk, courtesy Bon Appetit)

10 Tasty BBQ Rubs

Joanne Camas — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:03:35 -0400

This summer I've vowed to be more creative with my grilling (I grew up in chilly Britain, so cut me some slack!). So far I've mastered the skewer and a variety of tasty kebabs. Next I'm on a quest for the perfect spice rub. The grocery store has plenty of options, but finding a recipe to adopt or customize gives you more flexibility. Plus, you can make a batch ahead of time and dip into it as needed. Our Grilling Guide has a great summary of rubs, marinades, and sauces. What's your favorite BBQ rub recipe? Chipotle Rub Dry Chimichurri Rub Anise-Seed Rub Classic BBQ Rub Chicken Spice Rub Rustic Rub North African Spice Rub Porcini and Rosemary Rub Adobo Rub Lemon-Pepper Salt Rub Check out tips and recipes from Bobby Flay, Steven Raichlen, Chris Schlesinger, Pat and Gina Neely, and more.

A Toast to Robert Mondavi

Esther Sung — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:00:00 -0400

Today, June 18, 2013, would have been the 100th birthday of American wine icon, Robert Mondavi. Although he passed away a little more than five years ago, the influence he had on the American--as well as international--wine community is almost unrivaled and continues to be felt. With more than 150,000 annual visitors to the Robert Mondavi Winery in California's Napa Valley, consumers continue to learn about Mondavi wines. And to mark the occasion, Robert Mondavi Wines--as well as Continuum Estate --have celebratory events planned, including a public toast and a concert with a fireworks show. His widow Margrit Mondavi, chef Jeff Mosher, and director of winemaker Geneviève Janssens each shared with Epicurious what Mondavi's impact has been--and continues to be. Plus, get two recipes to try at home, including Lemon Verbena Ice Cream. Epicurious: How did Robert Mondavi generally celebrate his birthday? Was there anything special that he liked to eat or drink? Margrit Mondavi: Bob was a simple man. His favorite dish was my pastina in brodo: Chicken broth made from scratch, homemade pasta, vegetables in the broth. [With] a little Parmesean cheese, a fresh loaf of bread and a good wine, he was happy. Bob's favorite pastime was just enjoying a good bottle with good food around a table with family and friends, and the same was true for his birthday. Epicurious: It's no secret that Mondavi enjoyed drinking Moscato d'Oro, especially as a slushy. What was it about the wine he loved so much? And how did the creation of the Lemon Verbena Ice Cream come about? What is it about the two that pair so well? Chef Jeff Mosher: Moscato d'Oro is a wine that has incredible fruit and floral notes, ripe apricot, orange blossom and a touch of honey--and of course that flutter of light effervescence on the finish. I think it is a nice symbol for how Robert approached entertaining; fun, approachable, and a delight on the palate. To this day, if Margrit is hosting guests in the Vineyard Room at the winery, she requests that the Moscato be served as a slushy; it's something they both loved. At the winery we have a garden behind the kitchen where we grow all kinds of fruit, herbs and vegetables year round. I really enjoy taking a single item from the garden and highlighting it, the way I've done with the lemon verbena ice cream. The creamy texture, lemon notes and slight herbal quality is a perfect complement to the Moscato d'Oro. Epicurious: Can you speak a little about the Mondavi style of winemaking, and how it's changed (or stayed the same) over time? How has the Mondavi name impacted the California/national/international wine scene? And how have you experienced that as a winemaker? Winemaker Geneviève Janssens: Robert Mondavi's philosophy for winemaking was to highlight the best grapes from the best vineyards to make the best wine possible. He also believed that wine should be part of a lifestyle, harkening back to the pillars upon which this...

The Mystery of the Norwegian Safety Straw

Michael Y. Park — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:00:00 -0400

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had a trip planned to Norway to accompany an old college buddy as he visited family in Norway (he has a sister in Stavanger). Well, I'm back now, and I'll be describing our edible misadventures there in a bit ($20 beers! $50 sandwiches!), but first I have a mystery to unravel. And I was hoping you, the worldly readers of the Epi-Log, could help me solve this riddle. As you probably have already guessed, from the title of this post and the big picture of a straw right underneath it, the subject of this mystery is a straw. And if you hadn't figured that out ... well, I could still use your help. So here's the scene: Waking up the morning after our first day in Oslo, in a slight panic after having spent the previous 16 hours learning how goddamn expensive everything in Norway is, my pal Matt and I began the loathsome tourist-y exercise of trying to estimate how many kroners we'd be dropping on a breakfast of, say, a small hot coffee and a stale piece of buttered toast (10 bucks, maybe?) Instead, we discovered the hotel had left two breakfast bags at our door -- basically a ham-and-cheese sandwich, mini bottled water and a juice box of OJ. It's that last item that's important. When I whipped out the straw and impaled it in the box, I discovered that it was no ordinary straw. The drinking end of the straw had been fused shut, and instead of the regular big hole at the end that I was used to from once being six years old, there were four smaller perforations at regular intervals just before the end. It's probably easier just to show you a close-up from another angle: A bunch of us have tried to figure out what the point was. Here's what we've come up with so far: -- Norwegian children have a long and sordid history of squirting each other with juice boxes, and it got bad enough for the straw-making industry to come up with a design that made it impossible for naughty Norwegian kids to accurately target each other with eye-stinging fruit juices. -- Norwegian children are notoriously clumsy and devoid of depth perception, and a series of accidental eye-gouging incidents in the 1980s led the government to require all children's juice boxes to come with safety straws that eliminated the "sharp" cut drinking end. (The problem with this theory is that the edges of the fused end are probably sharper than a regular old straw would have been.) -- In an infamous case outside Bergen in 2002, a child with a congenital lizard tongue and inability to suck properly somehow got said tongue lodged in a drink straw in the Norwegian version of the Jessica McClure story. In memory of this straw victim, all juice-box straws are now manufactured so that it's impossible for children to get their tongues stuck -- unless...

The Trouble With Red (Lettuce Leaves)

Regina Schrambling — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:00:00 -0400

Maybe one of the mysteries of shelf life has been solved. I finally got an answer on why the red leaves in mesclun and other mixed baby greens inevitably turn slimy first, and fast. Usually we try to avoid those colorful but troublesome leaves, but yesterday this was the only mix on offer at the closest Greenmarket. So I got up my nerve to ask the farmer that pesky question. At first he looked as if I'd dissed his carefully cultivated crop, but I said the problem is a problem even with the mescun sold in plastic boxes with a sell-by days and days away. His explanation is that the red leaves, which look and taste sturdier than the perky/crispy green ones, are actually more delicate. And they're much more vulnerable to water, which has been coming out of the sky in hourslong downpours lately. I read a little more when I got home, about washing and thoroughly drying and carefully storing salad greens, but I'm still separating the darks from the lights after doing that lettuce laundry.

A Q&A with 'Cocktails for a Crowd' Author Kara Newman

Sara Bonisteel — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:00:00 -0400

Finding the right spirits for a party can be daunting. Buying a stock bottle of every base spirit can be expensive, and settling on a single cocktail might keep you, the host, tied up for the entirety of the event mixing drinks. Kara Newman's new book, Cocktails for a Crowd: More than 40 Recipes for Making Popular Drinks in Party-Pleasing Batches (Chronicle Books, $19), is filled with punches, premixed bottled cocktails, and pitcher drinks that will satisfy a group and let the party giver have a little fun. We spoke with Newman about the book and asked her for some crowd-cocktail making advice. Epicurious: What inspired the book? Kara Newman: We're talking multiple inspirations here. I can't throw a decent party without finding myself trapped behind the bar making one cocktail after another, and everyone's waiting and waiting and waiting. And at the same time, I was also inspired by bartenders who seemed to be able to pull it off with absolute effortlessness and ease at cocktail conferences and other events. They're just whipping out the cocktails one after another, and they're so good: they taste like they made them just for you. I found myself saying "Why can't I pull that off?" So I went to the source and asked the bartenders, "How do you do it? How should I do it?" Epicurious: What are people doing wrong for making crowd drinks? KN: Probably the biggest issue is not preparing ahead of time. I was instructed to do what chefs do: mise en place, where [in the bartender's case] you press everything ahead of time. The lemon juice is squeezed all ahead of time without trying to do one wedge at a time into a drink. Prep all of the garnishes ahead of time. Measure out all of the liquor into a big batch. Mistake No. 1 is not having that mise en place. Mistake 2 probably is not premixing the drinks. That was the other professional trick that I've seen and not really thought about, the measuring out and combining of all the ingredients, at least as much as possible ahead of time. Then at the very last minute you can add the things that would otherwise not work, like sparkling wine should be added at the very last minute. Then you just put it all together and measure it out for one person, and prebatching, voila! It sounds so simple. Epicurious: Often it's the simplest things that people don't think of. KN: I definitely spent a lot of time during the research period saying, "Why didn't I think of that?" Epicurious: What are some of your favorite drinks from the book? KN: The ones that I like most I think are a lot of the bottled cocktails because I'd never really seen anyone do anything like that. Putting drinks into bottles and serving them that way. You see a lot of punches and pitchers but it never occurred to me that you could do The Last Word--which...

Food and Drink Events

Joanne Camas — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:04:05 -0400

California: San Diego International Beer Festival (June 21-23) Illinois: Chicago Craft Beer Festival (June 21-23) Louisiana: Louisiana Catfish Festival (June 21-23) New York: Brockport BBQ & Music Festival (June 21-23) Ohio: Riverside Wine Festival (June 22) Tennessee: Taste of Music City (June 22) Utah: 6th Annual Savor the Summit (June 22) Vermont: Burlington Wine & Food Festival (June 22) Wisconsin: 26th Annual StrawberryFest (June 22) Wyoming: Beer, Brats and Bluegrass Festival (June 22) Colorado: 24th Annual Colorado Brewers' Festival (June 22-23) Nebraska: Duncan Ribfest (June 22-23) New York: Cherry Festival (June 22-23) Alabama: Chilton County Peach Festival (June 22-29) Kentucky: 21st Annual Taste of Frankfort Avenue (June 23) Maine: Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation (June 23)

Doable Challenge: Eat Some Super Beans and Other Legumes!

Megan O. Steintrager — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:00:00 -0400

If you're like me, when you think of superfoods, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a fruit like blueberries or trendy acai. But when I interviewed nutrition experts for this month's Doable Challenge: Eat a Superfood Every Day, beans and their larger family of legumes (including peas, lentils, and peanuts) got the nod from not just one, but two of my 12 sources: Lilian Cheung, D.Sc., director of health promotion and communication at the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and Allison Righter, M.S.P.H., R.D., of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Beans are loaded with nutrients, including protein, fiber, iron, potassium, B vitamins, and phytonutrients, calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium, and healthy polyunsaturated fats, and consuming them can reduce risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. The fiber in beans and other legumes also keeps you feeling satisfied so you're less likely to overeat (and it helps to keep you regular, too). And, of course, beans are also cheap and convenient. I always have canned and dried beans in my pantry because with the addition of a few spices and vegetables, they can easily become the centerpiece of a quick, filling, and healthy meal--a salad, soup, stew, pasta dish, or hearty dip. If you're worried about choosing the best bean, Righter and Cheung say not to be, because they're all great. "Kidney beans and black beans, I would say, are probably the most well know and well researched in terms of health benefits, but typically all beans and legumes are lumped together in one category when looking at health benefits," explains Righter. "So I say to use whatever you have on hand or can easily find, either canned or dry, and don't be afraid to try them all or mix and match!" So along with your black beans and and kidney beans, remember chickpeas, black-eyed peas, lentils, limas, giant beans, white beans, adzuki beans, favas, and edamame (let me know what I forgot in the comments section). So will you join me in this legume challenge and make beans your main course at at least one meal this week? Epi has more than 200 healthy bean recipes to inspire you, and many of those are quick and easy and/or vegetarian. Bonus points for working beans into breakfast, brownies, or cookies. Pictured: Three Bean Salad