Everything but the Kitchen Sink: Les Dames d’Escoffier Gourmet Garage Sale
January 11th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Some of what I'm offering a la carte thanks to Chef.
To unearth buried treasure, look in the right places.
A trove of high quality kitchen goods sourced and curated by women who know food for a living will be ripe for the picking at the annual Les Dames d’Escoffier Gourmet Garage Sale on Saturday, January 29, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
As a new member of the Miami chapter, I’m excited to participate for the first time. My donation will be dish and glassware which in their past lives served as props for chef Michael Schwartz’s cookbook shoot last year.
Proceeds support our various fundraising efforts to foster regional agriculture, sponsoring organic school vegetable gardens, better nutrition and cooking education for area youth and our region’s farm labor force, as well as annual culinary and farming scholarships for exceptional young South Florida women.
More details, including the address to type into your Google Maps app, after the jump. See you out there.
Pepper Steak and a Letter for Brother on Occasion of His London Study Abroad Send-Off
January 5th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
12:40 a.m. this morning.
It was a great last meal.
Although that’s hardly fair since not only has food in the UK undergone a recent renaissance and shaken its reputation for being, um, terrible, but my brother Kevin who leaves for London today for his first experience in Europe will be able to see and eat, well, all of it.
Best of luck to him on this great adventure, and may he soon forget about last night’s amazing steak au poivre delivery from Michael’s as new profound experiences flood his present to replace it!
Crazy how 10 years ago last month, I had just returned from my fall/winter semester based in Florence, Italy. Unlike me, Kevin will have the modern convenience of smartphone technology at his fingertips. Google maps, Twitter — even blog platforms, should he choose to accept the challenge and delight of keeping a published travelogue… To think that in 2000 we actually used real maps. Train timetables in book form. Now even the Prince of Wales has an official Twitter account for updates on events of interest, like the upcoming Royal nuptials. Certainly this access to both more and more intimate information is a blessing, but I can’t help but mourn the loss of much simpler days when ‘slow travel’ was the going way of the wanderlusting world. There’s nothing quite like allowing yourself to get lost in a new city. It’s getting harder and harder to disconnect and go with the flow these days.
But maybe slow travel, as we too hope for slow food, will prevail. And maybe like me, Kevin will wake up early at least on his first day in London, cell phone safely ensconced in pocket, for a morning run through his neighborhood to get the lay of the land, the feel of the place, as merchants accept their first deliveries and open up shop to greet the new day. The memory of when I did that at the start of my great adventure abroad is a good one.
XO Kev, and Bon Voyage!
P.S. You can follow Kevin on Twitter where he says he’ll offer at least more than infrequent bursts of 140 characters of what we can only hope to be an entertaining mix of American and British English at @k_sayet.
Hard to beat, but study abroad should just about do it.
Adventures in Teena’s Pride CSA Continued: Broccoli Rabe & Purple Cabbage
January 2nd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I find my share comes in handy most when a couple of herbs and a veggie or two can play supporting roles in a great dinner. Like tonight’s colorful meal. Wild sockeye salmon was on sale (again) at Whole Foods, so I picked out the pin bones of a skin-on slab, poured on a favorite oriental marinade (not unfamiliar to this blog,) and grilled it quickly under high heat on the Salamader. While the salmon was cooking, I sliced discs of a small purple cabbage and sauteed them over medium heat in olive oil with some crushed whole garlic cloves, adding a bunch of broccoli rabe. By the time the fish was done, so were the veggies. I pulled them off first to plate as a bed for the salmon, served whole. A quick salad came together around the spearmint and tarragon from the share. Flowers and leaves were tossed with spring mix lettuces, fennel in matchsticks, raw corn, and diced avocado. I dressed it lightly with extra virgin olive oil and a mix of cider and champagne vinegars, but seasoned generously with sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper. Dinner was simple and served.
