Fried Shrimp and Oyster Po’Boys
Po’boys are to NOLA as tacos are to L.A. Putting all sorts of things between the slices of French bread has been a way of life for a long time in NOLA- hot sausage, fried shrimp, oysters, catfish and soft shell crabs.
read moreA Personal Touch-the Wedding Cookie Table
Orange Almond Biscotti- a favorite recipe for your wedding cookie table.
read moreA Post-Thanksgiving Brunch- with Cheese Blintzes on the Menu
For several years now, I’ve been privileged to cater a post-Thanksgiving brunch for one of my clients on the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving. It’s a great way to kick back with friends, and watch all those college football games, after the big T-day holiday.
read moreA “Centerpiece” dish for the vegetarians at your Thanksgiving table
One of my brothers has eaten no flesh food at all for over 30 years now, I have an uncle who only eats fish and seafood from the animal kingdom, and still another brother who flits back and forth from carnivore to semi-vegetarian. Just what's a hostess supposed to do at Thanksgiving! The Thanksgiving meal is centered around a big whole turkey as its focal point at the center, right? While it's true that the Thanksgiving meal is centered around a big showy "centerpiece" dish, we've learned at my house over the years, that centerpiece doesn't have to be turkey alone. In fact, that quintessential harvest vegetable, the pumpkin lends itself perfectly to stuffing and being a showy centerpiece. It may be stuffed with a traditional bread or corn bread stuffing, or you can do what we do- stuff it with wild rice, mushrooms, diced red peppers and corn, with pecans and ginger thrown in for a little character. It makes a beautiful presentation, and fits perfectly at the center of the meal. The rest of the table can still be filled with all those sides you're used to- mashed potatoes, great fall veggies dishes, like brussels sprouts, roasted beets and winter greens, and pumpkin, pecan and apple pies. Your vegetarian and meat eaters will be...
read moreJohn Besh’s and My New Orleans
John Besh dedicates his newly released cookbook, My New Orleans: The Cookbook, to the people of New Orleans, and to those who hold the city close to their hearts. Indeed, it is a must add to the library of anyone who loves New Orleans, or anyone who has flirted with the possibility of falling in love with the city. While Besh’s New Orleans is not exactly the same as mine, and I found myself quibbling over the details of recipes for basic dishes like gumbo and jambalaya (New Orleanians can be very proprietary about their recipes), I realize that the wonderful thing about this city is that it’s like Rashomon. We all see different sides of New Orleans, and defend our view. Yet unlike other cities, there is so much commonality that is essential to life as a New Orleanian- like the extraordinary love of food (“In New Orleans, folks live to eat; they don’t just eat to live”) and festivity (“there’s a Mardi Gras taking place in every household and every neighborhood of New Orleans on Fat Tuesday”)- that binds us together. And our fierce love of New Orleans binds us further together. “After Katrina, being from New Orleans became the focus of my identity,” he writes in his introduction. I hear ya, brother! I had just begun to write about my early life in New Orleans when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. I remember e-mailing a fellow writing workshop member that it seemed trivial to be writing about backyard family parties, and okra and shrimp and gumbo at a time like this. He wisely responded, “that’s precisely what you should be writing at a time like this. Food is a means of preserving culture.” And so, Katrina was the impetus for beginning this blog. Likewise, Mr. Besh felt the urgent call to preserve the culture of New Orleans, using food as his window. Besh acknowledges, and his book embodies “…a tension in New Orleans cooking between preserving the classics and modernizing them for today’s palates, between home cooking and restaurant food.” He offers some updates of classic dishes which reflect NOLA’s evolving demography, like Shrimp Creole infused with lemon grass (keep reading-recipe’s coming) to reflect the arrival of the Vietnamese and their imprint on the city and its cuisine. And because he trained as a chef at the Culinary Institute of America, and apprenticed in Europe, he also offers us some modern reinterpretations of the classic ingredients and dishes, like Grilled Watermelon, Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad, with a knowing aside, “where I grew up, grown men did not eat grilled figs with baby greens and artisanal goats’ milk cheese.” Besh’s book is not just another cookbook. While it contains 200 recipes, it’s also a beautiful coffee table book with gorgeous archival and present day pictures of NOLA and its families and characters at work and play, at Mardi Gras, on the waterways, and at the table. Its contents are not organized in traditional cookbook “appetizer to dessert” order, but rather by ingredients, seasons and feast days- some of those days meriting their own chapter- like Mardi Gras and Thanksgiving. Speaking of ingredients, the book is also full of sidebars with background notes on the glorious ingredients available to New Orleans cooks-i.e. Creole...
read moreAutumn at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market
I have shopped for many years at the Santa Monica farmer’s market. Those of us who do, happen to think it’s the best farmer’s market in the country, btw. When I started my catering business, it was a natural to purchase my produce there. Produce from a grocery store or a big purveyor will never match the taste and freshness of produce allowed to ripen on the tree or vine. The farmers pick it only a day or two before coming to market, and then I hand pick it to meet my produce needs. Yes, it takes a bit more time, but in my opinion, if you care about good food, it’s completely worth it. There is no substitute for a vine ripened tomato in a Caprese salad. No amount of poaching and sugar can make up for the flavor of a fully ripened peach in a cobbler, and compared to a farmer’s market starawberry, a grocery store strawberry is not even worth eating. Autumn is probably the best season at the farmer’s market- it is after all the season of the harvest. Here are some pictures I’ve gathered over the last couple of months for you to enjoy. Bon Appetit, Gisele ...
read moreAll Cuisine is Fusion Cuisine- and Asian Spiced Duck Tamales
A New Mexico Chef shares his Asian/Latin duck tamale recipe.
read more“Traditional” Thankgiving?
November is here, and my thoughts are turning toward Thanksgiving dinner. We all have our own favorite foods, you know -the ones that show up year after year, and that we wouldn’t think of replacing with a new dish. And we sometimes have a tendency to think everyone serves those foods. The truth of the matter is, though, that America is a land of immigrants, and each successive group of immigrants has brought its own favorite foods to the Thanksgiving table. If, like me, your roots are Southern, oysters probably show up in some way on your table, candied yams and macaroni and cheese are favored over mashed potatoes, and you probably prefer pecan pie to pumpkin. Italians have included pasta-maybe a lasagna, the Chinese use rice, often making a turkey stuffing with it, and a Mexican American turkey might include a mole to sauce it. Thanksgiving feasts have been multi-cultural since the very beginning. As far as that first Thanksgiving dinner goes, it’s widely believed that since lobster was so available off the coast of Massachusetts in those early days, that it surely must have been served (hey -that would work for me). Potatoes were unavailable in those days, so no mashed potatoes. It’s unlikely that cranberry sauce was served, as sugar was an extremely expensive item. Pumpkin may have been a part of the meal, but not as a pie (they had no flour or ovens yet), nor were apples present in Plymouth at the time. What are some of your special “ traditional” Thanksgiving dishes? I’d love to hear about them, and invite you to leave a comment. In return, I’m giving you a link to a recipe at Food and Wine that has, no doubt, become a “tradition” in many Chinese American families. Asian Roasted Turkey with Sticky Rice Stuffing Bon Appetit! Gisele...
read moreFrom Ain’ts to Saints- and a Sandwich in Their Honor
In honor of the New Orleans Saints, I’m offering my Cal-Italo version of a New Orleans Italian classic, the muffelata.
read moreBlogHer Food 2009’s Local Reunion Lunch Meet Up
I was privileged to enjoy a wonderful poolside lunch a few days ago with fellow food bloggers (we met last month at the 1st annual BlogHer Food conference in San Francisco), in The Dining Room (under the care of Executive Chef Dakota Weiss) at the newly renovated Shangri-La Hotel in Santa Monica. Thankfully it was Thursday, and not Wednesday, when our whole region was under a deluge. I couldn’t help noticing during my drive to Santa Monica that grateful Angelenos wasted no time in "untopping" their convertibles. The Shangri-La is a perfect “Chamber of Commerce” spot of an oceanside boutique hotel retreat (and speaking of “Chamber of Commerce- it was definitely a “Chamber of Commerce” day). The hotel houses a luxurious poolside bar and several cabañas- which I hear can be reserved if you’re looking for a more private meet up. The Shangri-La graciously hosted our group, as they are seeking to build rapport with the local food blogging community. Kudos to the local food blogging community- we’re actually building a community here in notoriously community challenged L.A., and lunching at the Shangri-La was a great first step in the right direction. I arrived a bit early, and had three menus placed in front of me as I sat down- the regular lunch menu, an "executive" lunch, and as it happened to be DineLA week, there was a special menu for that, too. It was the one to focus on for most of us. There were lots of yummy sounding options. The first thing that caught my eye was a Goat Cheese Custard with Arugula under the appetizer portion of the menu. When I ordered the Goat Cheese Custard, our server said- "Oh-the Grilled Figs", which it happened to be accompanying. Isn't that the way it is- the sides are so often the make or break factor. The Grilled Figs/Goat Cheese appetizer seemed quite popular among us, although one or two went for the Herbed Crusted Abalone, and the Lobster Pumpkin Bisque with Salted Vanilla Cream for first courses. The Grilled Figs/Goat Cheese Custard arrived with a thick crusted, chewy bread filled with dried fruit and nuts, to spread the custard on- divine! For my main course. For my main course, I went with the Roasted Capon (with a fennel stuffing) served on a Preserved Lemon-Chick Pea Puree. The clear winner in the group among entreés, though, was the Ling Cod with Saffron Pumpkin Risotto. See-the sides make all the difference. Erika Penzer Kerekes, blogging at In Erika's Kitchen and also penning the L.A. Cooking Examiner column had dined at the restaurant previously, so she knew to ask for the fabulous flatbreads that didn't happen show up on any of those menus. Several of them appeared topped with all kinds of goodies- pulled barbecued rabbit, burrata and cherry tomatoes, prosciutto and arugula, and my personal favorite, tapenade, artichoke hearts, and frisée, sprinkled with goat cheese- now how can you go wrong with that? The Dine LA week menu paired wines with the various menu options. As befits any great restaurant serving a sunny climate, they offered a Rosé (Chateau Desclans " Whispering Angel"). It was paired with the Ling Cod- Pumpkin Risotto entreé, but any blush wine lover knows a good dry Rosé pairs well with almost any...
read more
