Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 70
April 11, 2013
Cheese from Georgia
When I was in Birmingham for Food Blog South, I met a nice guy named Mat Willey who works for a company called Sweet Grass Dairy. “We make cheese,” he explained, “in Georgia.”
Cheese from Georgia? Even though I lived in Georgia for 7 years (Atlanta, to be exact), I wasn’t particularly excited about eating cheese from The Peach State. I mean, I wasn’t against the idea, but it wasn’t causing me to hop up and down with excitement. He kindly offered to send me some cheese in the mail (a risky proposition, but there are ice packs) and I almost forgot all about it until the cheese arrived at my door.
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April 10, 2013
Dinner Answer Man
Roger Ebert used to have a column called “Movie Answer Man” where he’d answer reader questions about movies. I know because I once submitted a question that he published concerning The Royal Tenenbaums when I noticed someone in the credits with the last name Tenenbaum who I thought might have inspired the story (Ebert reached out to Wes Anderson who said there was no correlation). Seeing as I’m on a blogging kick, I thought I’d try out a Dinner Answer Man in which you can ask any food or blog related questions you want to in the comments and I’ll try to answer them all. So have at it! In the meantime, if your question is: “What’s that dish in the picture?” It’s the cauliflower gratin I made for Easter Brunch before everyone devoured it.
My Best Grilled Cheese
This post is sponsored by Wisconsin Cheese which is hosting The 2013 Grilled Cheese Academy Recipe Showdown where you can win a $4,000 Gourmet Kitchenware Package. What really got me excited to participate was the opportunity for me to come up with the best grilled cheese I know how to make. And while I’ve made gourmet grilled cheese on my Gourmet Grilled Cheese night, I’ve never mastered the straightforward all-American grilled cheese. Until now.
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Discovering Amaro
Recently, the L.A. restaurant Sotto invited me in to experience their new cocktail menu. Having been to Sotto before I knew I couldn’t just go there for cocktails, the food is too good. So I made an actual reservation and while the restaurant comped two cocktails (I had the grapefruit-y Modest Mouse with Espolon reposado tequila, Averna, Punt e Mes, Angostura orange bitters, Pamplemousse rose, and grapefruit oil; Diana, my date for the night, had the lovely Swept Away with Martin Millers Westbourne strength gin, Saler’s gentiane, Nardini amaro, Benedictine, and house orange bitters) the alcoholic highlight, by far, was the Amaro they let us try at evening’s end.
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Hey! What Do You Do With Kohlrabi?
They look like the aliens in Toy Story, the ones that gaze up and worship The Claw; only those aliens are cute and kohlrabi, which I often see at the farmer’s market, is rather beguiling. What is it? What are you supposed to do with it? What does it taste like? Last week, I bought a few orbs and brought them home in order to finally unpack the mystery of kohlrabi.
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April 9, 2013
In The Night Kitchen
Right before Maurice Sendak died, he did a series of interviews (most notably with Stephen Colbert) that revealed him to be a lovable, slightly grouchy, artist of the highest caliber. I’d known his work, of course, from Where The Wild Things Are and, perhaps more obscurely, Really Rosie but I’m embarassed to say I knew nothing about In The Night Kitchen until I read it standing up, recently, at The Strand in New York.
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Socca (An Italian Beef, Cabbage & Potato Casserole)
What’s the heartiest dish you know how to make? Chances are, this is heartier.
Picture it: a pestata (or paste) is made with lots of garlic, sage, rosemary and olive oil. That paste is used to flavor sliced red potatoes and cubed beef shoulder which get layered in a giant casserole with cabbage. Then the remaining pestata is mixed with white wine, poured over the mix, which has been dotted with butter. Into a hot oven it goes for 2 1/2 hours, after which the whole thing is topped with grated Fontina cheese and returned to the oven for it to bubble and brown. I told you this was hearty.
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Smoothie Update: Coconut Water & Mint
Hey, so I read all your comments on my smoothie post and you all have good smoothie ideas (though spinach in a smoothie still skeeves me out). The other day I had an idea of my own: instead of adding orange juice to my smoothie, I added a little box of coconut water. My goal was to make it taste like the coconut-infused smoothie from The Parker in Palm Springs and, sadly, the coconut water didn’t have that effect. (I’m thinking coconut sorbet might do the trick, or coconut milk.) Still: since coconut water is good for you, it was probably a smart choice. The best part was I added some fresh mint this time around and that really made things interesting. So give coconut water and fresh mint a try in your next smoothie… it’s refreshing!
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