The Wonderlust Journal » Food

NYT Wednesday Dining >> Dinner Co-ops

Eliza Coleman — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:52:00 +0000

Similar to the community-helping/sharing themes of the NYT crop-mobs I posted back here, today’s dining section has a great article on the growing trend of homemade dinner co-ops… Check it out!

It’s about time >> Gelato on a stick >> PopBar

Eliza Coleman — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:38:00 +0000

PopBar, which just opened in the West Village, offers 25 rotating flavors of gelato on a stick, which are additionally offered dipped in all sorts of toppings from chocolate to pistachio to coconut.

Sophisication and delicousness of gelato + nostalgia of ice cream on a stick = brilliant.

via Grub Street.

Jidori Chicken: The New Kobe Beef

Eliza Coleman — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:45:00 +0000

Have you heard about Jidori chicken? It’s like the kobe of beef, but for chicken, and the craze is sweeping LA and catching the eye of eating-local junkies.

Check out this great article about a Jidori company in LA that is truly free-range, gets its birds from slaughter to table within 24 hours, and feeds them only vegetarian diets.

They even manage to do the processing in a way that really doesn’t have a gross-out factor. Did you know that the “chilling systems used by many larger purveyors tend to fill the birds with so much water that they often become poultry-scented popsicles”??? Pretty gross, right? Makes me only want to eat Jidori chickens, which don’t get processed that way.

Canal House Cooking

Eliza Coleman — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:43:00 +0000

I am loving this concept by Christopher Hersheimer and Melissa Hamilton. They are producing these books, that are somewhere between a cooking magazine and a cookbook, three times a year — a Winter/Spring edition, a Summer edition, and a Fall edition.

You can buy them individually, or you can get a subscription for $50/year. Wouldn’t a subscription make a great gift?

As the Kitchn said, reading it is like flipping through a friend’s recipe journal, complete with little personal notes.

You can also preview the books at their website, which is where I pulled these images from. The current issue is Volume III, Winter/Spring. It opens as a full screen pdf and looks pretty even on a computer!

The Kitchn published their recipe for the Lemon and Sea Salt Focaccia shown above… It looks so good! Click through below for the recipe…

From the Kitchn…

I made this delicious focaccia recipe last night with stellar results. The bread was crisp yet chewy and the lemon provided a bright, slightly bitter contrast to the olive oil and salt. The rosemary brought everything together, matching the lemon’s assertive notes with its lovely, piney perfume. And, it was easy!
Lemon and Sea Salt Focaccia
makes four 8-inch rounds
For the Dough
1 envelope (2-1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
6 tablespoons really good extra virgin olive oil
4 cups bread flour, plus more for kneading
2 teaspoons salt
To Assemble
Really good extra virgin olive oil
Leaves of 2-4 branches fresh rosemary, chopped
2 lemons, washed and very thinly sliced into rounds
Coarse sea salt

For the dough, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water in a medium bowl. Stir in 1-1/4 cups water and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil.

Pulse the flour and salt together in the bowl of a food processor. Add the yeast mixture and process until a rough ball of dough forms, 1 minute. Briefly knead dough on a floured surface until smooth. Shape dough into a ball. Put 2 tablespoons of the oil into a large bowl. Roll dough around in bowl until coated with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm spot until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Pour a thin film of oil into each of four 8-inch round cake pans. Quarter the dough and put one piece into each pan. Using your fingertips, spread dough out in each pan. The dough is elastic and will resist stretching. Let it relax for 5 minutes or so after you’ve stretched it as far as it will go. Eventually, it will cooperate and fill the pan.

Preheat the oven to 450°. Cover the pans with damp dishcloths and let the dough rest until it has swollen in the pans a bit, 30-60 minutes.

Uncover the pans. Sprinkle the dough with the rosemary. Using your fingertips, poke dimples into the dough in each pan, then liberally drizzle with oil so it pools in the hollows. Arrange just the thinnest rounds of lemon on top, drizzle with more oil, and sprinkle with sea salt. We like ours salty. Bake the focaccia until golden brown, 20-30 minutes. Drizzle with more oil when you pull the focaccia from the oven. Serve cut into wedges.

Dana’s notes: I used a KitchenAid stand mixer instead of the food processor and I imagine the dough can be mixed up by hand the old-fashioned way as well. If you don’t want to bake all four loaves, you can freeze the dough for future use–just wrap them in plastic right after you’ve quartered the pieces. Next time, I may try substituting 1 cup of the regular flour for whole wheat flour just to see how it is. Also, the kind of salt with large, flaky shards (like Maldon) does really well here but coarse kosher salt should do just fine, too. Finally, I used Meyer Lemons since they’re falling off the trees here in SF and my friends are starting to leave bags of them at my door (rough life, I know) but regular lemons should be just great.

Smitten Kitchen

Eliza Coleman — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:51:00 +0000

I adore the food blog Smitten Kitchen. It always puts me in the mood to cook.

I just came across this recipe for Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin in a hunt for what to do with Swiss Chard, and I just think Deb is the funniest, most likeable person. …Or, well, at least it seems that way from her writing… I feel like I know her, but I guess I really don’t. Ohh the deceptiveness of the internet.

Here’s how she introduces the recipe:

“Surely I’m not alone in this: When I’m eating starchy foods, I think I should be eating more greens. When I’m eating my greens, I wish I had heavier foods to balance them. And pretty much all of the time, I wonder why it has been so long since I made macaroni and cheese.”

Click here for the recipe, or here for her blog. I’m also presently craving the radicchio, apple, and pear salad she just talked about.

Limited Edition Cookbook

Eliza Coleman — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:58:00 +0000

I am actually allergic to pork, so this is a bit of an odd post for me, but I am well-aware of the popularity of the current bacon-added-to-everything and I can fully appreciate, on a conceptual and aesthetic level, Paper Pastries’ distillation of the trend.

A well-designed bacon-recipe book of 7 letterpressed recipes. They must be good if they chose only 7. A limited edition of only 13, each book is hand cut and bound.

Would make a great gift for a designy bacon-lover! Here.

Sugarbird Sweets (and Teas)

Eliza Coleman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:52:00 +0000

This Monday morning, I would love a cup of Sugarbird tea in this lovely sitting area off of Jenna Lyon’s* kitchen. Don’t you think you could linger here visiting with a friend over a pot of tea for hours?

Above, an Earl Grey and vanilla blend.

Sugarbird, in LA, is owned by Kei Okomura, who trained at cooking schools and restaurants in Paris and LA before going out on her own to start this cute tea shop and bakery.

I have a feeling that people are going to start getting into tea– the origins of the leaves, the craft, etc.– the way people have really gotten into coffee and beer, and places like Sugarbird that are creating these unique whole-leaf blends are leading the way.

Above, a rooibos, raspberry, vanilla, rosehip, and hibiscus blend.

I was also excited to discover Sugarbird as an addition to my list of places to try in LA.

You can buy their teas online here.

*Yes, I’m writing about her again, but isn’t her kitchen sitting area wonderful??

Beignets

Eliza Coleman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:30:00 +0000

Early spring is usually thought of as a dry patch for holidays… Christmas/New Year’s is over, and Easter and Memorial Day are barely visible on the horizon. But this year, we got a highly fortunate triumverate of holidays to break things up, and I for one, am not failing to appreciate it.

This is epic. We just had Feb 14: Valentine’s Day, Feb 15: President’s Day, and now Feb 16: Mardi Gras begins! Though President’s Day isn’t an excuse for any particular yummy food, it did allow time to regroup and think about yummy foods to make during Mardi Gras. Haha, just kidding. …Sort of… click jump for more.

I do love seasonal and holiday-oriented eating, and what better excuse than Mardi Gras to try my hand at beignets? With the legendary Huey’s now closed in Atlanta, I haven’t had a beignet since a New Orleans trip in 2008 …and that’s far too long.

I plan to try this recipe by Paula Deen… doesn’t it seem like she’d have a good one? She seems to be a master of anything involving frying.

photo at top from here and at bottom from Paula Deen

Cookies are the New Cupcakes

Eliza Coleman — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:02:00 +0000

Well, actually, I don’t know that that’s true, but I think Sugarbuilt’s cookies are almost too cool to eat! And if it does turn out to be true, then you read it here first!

Based in Brooklyn, which explains the clever local inspiration above and below, Sugarbuilt is owned by Amelia Coulter, who has a degree in sculpture.

Click the jump for the rest…

Found via Edible Brooklyn Magazine.

Also, check out these architectural cookie cutters Amelia posted on her blog.. They were produced for the moma in 1988 and she found them on ebay. So cool. Something like this would be such a great gift for a design nerd. It even came with this sheet that has little facts about each building!