With our food supply in constant headlines – the dangers of GMOs, the inhumane treatment and processing of animals, the use of poisonous pesticides used in our produce – we rely on our unspoken heroes, the Chefs and Farmers, to change the way we eat.

Luckily for Dallas’ love for innovation, community and food, this city is equipped with not only some of the best chefs in the nation, but award-winning artisans and farmers that keep our community well fed with the best local and seasonal ingredients that money can buy.

 (pictured from top to bottom: Stephan Pyles, Kent Rathbun, Dean Fearing, Brian Luscher, Jeff Harris, Hollie Dorethy, Chad Houser, Jeffrey Hobbs, David Anthony Temple, Jack Perkins, Graham Dodds, Andrew Bell and Jon Stevens)

We’re fortunate to live in a community where we have such a close family of chefs, farmers and artisans that are committed to sourcing healthily raised, high-quality products and bringing the best food possible to our tables.

(pictured from top to bottom: Cold Springs Farm, Edens Organic CSA, Texas Daily Harvest, Hudspeth Farm, Texas Worm Ranch)

It allows everyone to do the best job possible in their craft, starting from fresh ingredients and finishing with beautiful dishes. That’s what makes Texans special – we take deep pride in the things we do because when we do something, we’re gonna do it right.

(pictured from top to bottom: Texas Honey Bee Guild, Deep Eddy Vodka, Dude Sweet Chocolate, Vino Del Sol, Three Happy Cows, JJ&B, Mozzarella Company, Wrath, Texas Olive Ranch

Chefs For Farmers was a celebration of our leaders in the culinary world that set the bar sky high for not only Texas but the entire country and the farmers and artisans that work hard pouring true love and sweat into their fruits of labor.

(pictured from top to bottom: Oak Restaurant, Marquee Grill, Pyramid, Stephan Pyles, Lockhart’s BBQ, Private Social, Nosh, Ava, The Grape, Dragonfly, JJ&B, Bolsa, Sustenio, Mansion on Turtle Creek, Mozzarella Company, Parigi, Kent Rathbun, Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, Dean Fearing)

It’s purely culinary magic when you pair the two together that probably explains the incredible food that was witnessed.

(pictured above, Dean Fearing rocking out with his band — Lost Coyote)

Special thanks goes out to Matt and Iris McCallister, Lucian and Christina LaBarba of Freshpoint, Nanci Taylor of Edible Magazine, for hosting such an incredible event. Special sponsors included Whole Foods for supplying wonderful gift bags and Artizone generous donation of a $2500 check for the winning chef to use towards their restaurant and charity of choice.  And certainly an ovation to the chefs and farmers of Dallas that made the day a culinary delight – man I love this city. Rock on, play loud, and party hard!!

There’s something wonderful about Elotes — the refreshing aromas of lime and cilantro, the smokiness from the slight char, the sweetness of the kernels…it’s like this happy awesome party in your mouth and everyone is invited! Now traditionally, Elotesare a staple in Mexican street food — served on the cob, in a cup, topped with various toppings like chili powder, cheese, butter, sour cream, seasoned salt, lemon pepper…

With corn in season and our garden in full bloom, I wanted to utilize seasonal ingredients with whatever was affluent in our garden — currently it’s lots of chard, carrots, onion and KALE. But we’ll get to that in a minute…

Traditional Elotes is usually smothered in generous amounts of butter and mayo (my favorite) but seeing that Summer is right around the corner, I am trying to keep my thighs in check. With that being said, I simply just brushed the corn with melted butter for a slight buttery flavor and let the other flavors be carried out through the fresh lime and spices.

And I got lazy. And didn’t want to bug my husband to fire up the grill so I could grill two ears of corn.  So being the good wife that I am, I used the broiler to save him the pain .

Now what do you do if you made a crap ton of Elotes and now you have a bunch left over?? Never you fret my pet. Why not use them for some healthy lettuce wraps? Since I had Tuscan Kale growing in the garden, I made some “vegan” lettuce wraps and topped it with some creamy avocado chunks. I even tossed in a habanero to the left over mixture to give it a nice kick. Feel free to use any type of lettuce in place of kale.

Eating healthy aint all bad y’all! You can also use your leftovers and use it as a corn salsa or put it on top of a salad or protein. I actually used it as breakfast — I simply chopped up some kale, tossed it in lime and honey and salt, topped it with a fried egg, avocado slices and corn and VOILA — breakfast of champions.

This would be a great recipe for Cinco de Mayo this weekend, be sure to share the love! Have a great weekend folks…

My mother has been reiterating a message recently over our phone calls — “Always take care of yourself. Your health is most important.” I’m convinced my mother is Confucius in a disguise you see, she’ll often repeat these deep life lessons in simple 1-2 sentence structure that are seemingly so simple yet deafeningly profound.

A few examples:

“Take care of your eyes. Sit too close to TV, read in dark, you go blind.”

or

“Skin is most important on woman. You no take care of skin, you old very fast.”

and certainly my favorite…

“You eat too much, you get fat.”

It’s easy to become caught up in the natural groove of things — living in these modern busy lives of ours, we often set aside our health on the back burner. It takes a lot of time, discipline, and maintenance to eat healthy, exercise daily, and somewhere in between, to find free time for yourself.

But should it be that way?

The power of stress is often understated, yet it has become such a prominent part of our every day lives. We all owe ourselves the commitment to stay respectful towards our bodies — be good to your body and it will be good to you. Sometimes things are just as simple as that.

The weather has been beautiful here in Texas. Our garden is in full bloom, including our lavender that served as inspiration for this recipe. Originally this was made as an ice cream but I decided to go with a lighter version in popsicle form and replaced the sugar and cream with honey and a bit of condensed milk. It’s soothing and dreamy in every regard. Enjoy!

But before we went in search of sakura blossoms, we had to make a stop at Hakone to see the majestic Fuji Mountain as well as Hakone Shrine. We took the Hakone Ropeway, enjoyed the views, hopped on a pirate ship, met a pirate and enjoyed a stomach wrenching bus ride back to the station which left the majority of us car sick, except for speed racer, Alex-san.

Then off to Kyoto where we stayed at Gyo Zan En, a traditional Japanese hotel near the Ohara Sanzenin Temple.  We treated ourselves to a baller Kyo-Kaiseki, a multi-course dinner featuring traditional Kyoto cuisine prepared with seasonal ingredients. The experience was easily on my top 5 favorite dining experiences. The execution, attention to detail and technique of the dishes again reminds me of the many special qualities of Japan.  The hotel also featured “onsens”, which are natural hot springs — my favorite one was the one outdoors. There is something liberating about being completely stark naked, sitting in a hot spring, amidst a beautiful cove of cypress trees. I’ve added it to my must-haves for our future home. (Also ladies, dont’t worry, there’s a boy side and girl side. Luckily I had the entire onsen to myself!)

We woke up the next morning to the sound of rain softly pattering against the roof. We couldn’t see much around us last night as it was dark when we got in, but I quickly came to realize the city known for their cherry blossoms unfortunately was not ready for our arrival. I had wished too hard. As life always reminds us, we can only control so much and to make things more interesting, there would even be a typhoon later on in the day.

We braved the rain, grabbed a couple umbrellas and we were off — onward World travelers!

First stop: Kinkaku-ji or The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, one of the most famous Buddhist temples in Japan. There was something so peaceful about the rain  causing ripples in the water, the reflection of the temple danced between each pitter-patter and all was silent.

I couldn’t have imagined a better memory.

With warnings of the typhoon, we decided to duck into Nishiki Market — otherwise known as The Kitchen of Kyoto. This historical place has been here for centuries, with the first store dating back to as early as 1311.

The narrow streets were filled with hundreds of food stalls, selling every type of traditional Japanese food you could imagine — ranging from sweets, fresh seafood, dried goods, sushi, tempura and various different types of pickles, all locally farmed and produced.

A brief hail storm and bellyfuls of snacks later, the sun finally decided to come out to play. We went for one last stop: Kiyomizudera Temple, otherwise known as “The Pure Water Temple”.

The Buddhist temple is known for having some of the World’s purest water, sourced from the Otowa Waterfall. What better way to end the day? We pressed on and climbed up to the temple for our last adventure in Kyoto.

And I am so happy we did.

Stay tuned for parts 4 and 5 next week! You can find part 1 here and part 2 riiiight oooovveeeer here.

They came in all different forms — hipsters of Harajuku, the random groups of Elvis impersonators, a flash mob of all ages, dressed in brightly clad outfits rejoicing in the middle of a park.  The imagination, the wonder, and dedication to whatever their passions in life may be, was truly alluring. It was a place filled with a whimsical, vibrant energy, in even the most unexpected places.  Explore…

Part 3 to be continued…Kyoto bound! And for those of you who missed part one, skip on over here

We had the luxury of staying with a friend for this trip. A long time friend actually, one I’ve known back when we were just little twerps in high school.  It’s refreshing to see how far we’ve come along, how much we’ve grown up, and how our lives are gradually starting to take shape. Thank you Alex for your wonderful hospitality and time, to many more years of friendship (and headlocks)!

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow: Off to pick up Eric!

It’s hard to believe Super Bowl Sunday is almost here. To be honest, I’m not really an avid fan of football but I sure do LOVE the snacks: spicy wings, 7-layer dip, sandwiches and wraps…the commercials aren’t half bad either.

One of the biggest challenges I face when I entertain is spending less time in the kitchen and more time with my guests. Give yourself a break and set up stations that allow your guests to prepare their own food, leaving you with the freedom to just sit back, relax, and WAIT, WHAT???  Not have to cook?

I thought this DIY sandwich bar would be perfect for Super Bowl Sunday as all ingredients can be prepped beforehand. I chose kind of a spicy manly sandwich for the occasion but feel free to choose whatever assorted meats, cheeses, veggies you desire. Have fun with it and get those creative juices flowing!  I made things EXTRA interesting by whipping up a SPICY condiment — Ghost Pepper Mayo.  I found this wonderful Ghost Pepper Salt from a local spice store here in Dallas called Baked Spice they had a crazy selection of spices as well as awesome deals on vanilla beans (if you’re a baker you’d go insane).  Be on the lookout if you live in Dallas because Artizone will be delivering their products soon!

As you know I’m not much of a drinker. A genetic mutation causes my body to process alcohol as if it were poison. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t stop me when I’m out at an event, a dinner, or when friends are in town, there are times when cocktails are needed or in this case, wanted.

Citrus season is in full bloom here in Texas. Grapefruits, clementines, oranges, lemons and limes are flowing in by the truckloads and naturally the aromas are a playful awakening to the palate. I thought this cocktail would be the perfect celebration for Chinese New Year — the deep red from the sensuously bitter Campari, a sweet bite from the Hendrick’s, finished by the intoxicating aromas of grapefruit —  it’s meant to be sipped opposed to gulped.

This year we celebrate The Year of the Dragon — the only mythical creature out of the 12 signs. It is believed that the dragon possess great power and may even have magical control over the weather and water. We’ll be celebrating with Nian-Gao (Rice Cakes) and Hot Pot tonight as my brother in law was born in this year — Go Carter! I managed to give the house a good scrub to make sure we start off the year free of spirits.

I called my mom today and could barely hear her over the fireworks that were exploding outside her window in Shanghai. Hopefully one year I’ll be able to experience the excitement but for now, I’m more than complacent with my Grapefruit Negroni.  Thank you Esquire for the recipe.

Yes, it’s ridiculously delicious.

Chinese New Year is just around the corner and it’s the year of the Dragon! Apparently dragons love shrimp toast, bacon-wrapped shrimp toast to be exact.

…. or maybe I just made that up.

I made these in my toaster oven.

What???

I know, awesome right?

Even better, I utilized an old bag of hamburger buns I had laying around and cut out little circles using cookie cutters.

See? Eco-friendly AND scrumptious. Life is good.

Feel free to use old bread like baguettes, white sandwich bread, brioche…you get the idea.

Traditionally you use square shaped bread so you can cut it in 4ths or 8ths to make triangles. But I felt creative today and made them circular, don’t worry, it all tastes the same.

Use leftover shrimp paste for wontons, soups or even sandwiches.  Or simply just make more shrimp toast.

Perfect for parties, these can be made ahead, frozen and baked whenever you’re ready. It’s easy to make and fun to eat!

Now the trick to getting that bacon crispy at the end is baking it ahead of hand.

10 minutes at 450F (in a toaster oven or regular oven) to be exact.

That way when you bake it towards the end you get crispy, heavenly bacon — not the soft and rubbery kind. Because that’s sad.

Seeing that this recipe has been around for more than 100 years, I’m guessing it has to be good.  I just made it better with bacon.

Starting on Thursday, January 26, check out other potluck dishes fellow gojee contributors shared. Go to gojee.com and enter “gojeepotluck” into I Crave.  You can also follow #gojeepotluck on Twitter.

“ The nuns taught us there were two ways through life – the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Like to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end. I will be true to you. Whatever comes.”