Get all the food experts in Boston together to talk about food on the banks of the Charles River. How cool! I worked the “Ask-A-Chef ” area of the Chefs Collaborative booth and met some really cool people: James Beard Award winning chef,  Jody Adams, Laura Trust (the President of Finagle a Bagel), and P.K. Newby, an associate professor of Pediatrics, Nutrition & Gastronomy at Boston University School of Medicine.  I even met Todd Saunders and tasted a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich from his Grilled Cheese Nation Food Truck!

With Louisa Kasdon, the creator of the Boston Food Festival

With Jody Adams at the Chefs Collaborative booth!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Laura Trust, the President of Finagle-A-Bagel

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical going into Mark Bittman‘s lecture on a homework-ridden Tuesday night in November at the Museum of Science. Sure, I had some of his cookbooks and liked his column in the New York Times, but I really didn’t get what he was coming here to talk to us about. Was it how to cook for the health of the planet, or for the health of ourselves? Soon, my questions were answered as I sat in a 150-person auditorium, perched upon a small velvet seat and hanging upon this bald man at the front of the room’s very words.

As his slideshow progressed, I started to become more and more uneasy. A plant-based diet future? Never heard of it. The cheapest food as the most unhealthy? Never thought about it like that. He promised that, at the end of his presentation, we would have some hope for the future, but I was left with only lingering worries. There is almost no one I know, save the odd vegetarian, that has an entirely plant-based diet. How could the food industry be so cruel as to take advantage of people who have fast food as their only option by packaging the least healthy things as the largest. How can America–how can the world–have gotten to this place. Food is supposed to be a basic need, a basic right, and how have we gotten so far away from the nutrients our body needs? How have we allowed that to happen?

December 24, 2010. One thing is for sure. Scooping mexican wedding cookies sure does build character. I stopped by the dessert section of the Snow Park Lodge at Deer Valley and, amidst the pieces of chocolate silk pie and truffle cake, spotted Chef Letty Flatt and was invited to come check out the kitchen again! It was exactly how I remembered it, and I was immediately put to work scooping cookies and bagging granola and generally soaking in all the hustle and bustle of the Park City pastry kitchen. After a thoroughly delicious meal the night before at the Mariposa, (ending with a chocolate snowball of course) I was so excited to see the inner workings behind the pastry scene of Park City. And what I saw was cookies, cookies, cookies and more cookies. James Taylor was playing, casting a cozy atmosphere about the small workplace. Pastry chefs wearing whites whisked and beaters whirred and wooden spoons stirred pots of melting chocolate with Letty watching over the whole place with the eyes of a hawk. I received my fair share of the “who are you” looks that always accompany a brief stunt in any kitchen. After about two hours in the warm little sugar haven I stepped out back around the dessert case, braved the wind, strapping on my skis and hit the slopes.

Enter Massimo Sola. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I’m sopping wet from the Hotel Villa del Quar’s pool. Trying to make my way back to the room inconspicuously, clad in only a light blue embossed towel and swimsuit, I find myself face to face with a chef-whites-clad Sola. After a several minute discussion, I am promptly invited into his kitchen with a “I will show you risotto.” The next morning at 11:00, I brave my way through the labyrinth of the Villa del Quar back hallways and find myself in the most beautiful kitchen I have ever seen. Sous chefs cradle wooden spoons between their fingers and coax bubbling fish stocks along while the chef watches over with a careful eye. Upon my arrival to the inner sanctum, I promptly realize how little I know about risotto. One Sunday night in 7th grade with Everyday Italian, a wooden spoon and a giant hunk of parmesan cheese definitely doesn’t count as experience. But that story is for a different time.

And we begin. I soon learn that the giant pot of boiling liquid contains only water and that no we won’t be using any sort of stock. I discover that only one kind of rice will do. And so there, in a hotel kitchen 3 miles outside of the Romeo and Juliet capital of the world, clutching onto a prized gift of one precious tin of Acquerello rice, my risotto tutorial begins. We toast the rice until a buttery, nutty perfume is released. In goes a dollop of butter, a little splash of white wine and as always our good friends salt and pepper. Once all the liquid has evaporated we begin with the water. With only one or two ladle-fulls at a time, the little stainless-steel pot dancing back and forth, off and on the heat, sometimes here, sometimes there. A separate saucepan is fetched, and in goes a dollop of butter and a drizzle of olive oil, and one precious porcini mushroom. Now we’re talking mushroom risotto. Once they’re golden brown, in goes only the most beautiful of beef demi-glace. But only a dollop. We’re all 15 minutes older and one gurgling pot of rice wiser, and it’s time. The pot with the rice gets a splash of heavy cream and a good handful of parm. In dip our spoons and my hand gravitates towards the tub of sea salt. The chef nods in agreement, and I sprinkle some on in. Mmmm mmm mmm, perfect. Oh right…those mushrooms. We release the pans from the stove’s fiery grasp and bring them over to one of the many ridiculously stainless-steel surfaces of Chef Sola’s kitchen. And in go the mushrooms, in all their woody and meaty splendor. The risotto is spooned with extreme care onto a clean white plate. And with a final rapping of the heel of a hand to fan it out beautifully, our forks dig into some extravagance-less good eats. When the amazingly al dente grains hit my tongue, I understand that I have not witnessed a normal act of culinary behavior in this kitchen today. For upon my fork were not merely grains of rice or slivers of mushroom but something much greater. Some kind of magical kitchen entity had swooped down and made those crunchy nuggets of starch into something so different, so flavorful that it could not have been made with just water, salt, and a few other things that are always shoved in the back of all of our refrigerators. I imagine I would surely have laughed at such a claim if I had not personally witnessed the miracle. And if you just so happen to be that one soul who is, indeed, sitting by their computer slapping their knee with hilarity, wondering just how a person could possibly get any flavor out of a risotto made WITH WATER OF ALL THINGS…then I entreat you to go grab your nearest tub of rice and try it out for yourself. You won’t be sorry.

Going to the Mariposa restaurant every Christmas vacation used to be one of our favorite traditions. We’d get all dressed up and I’d dust off my patent leather mary-janes for the occasion. I remember the first time that we got a chocolate snowball for dessert. It came in mini-version…dense and chocolatey cake with a hint of coffee peeking out from under big billows of whipped cream. When I was invited back into the kitchen one afternoon to check out how Letty Flatt, the pastry chef, did her magic I quickly rushed out to buy her cookbook and try my hand at her treats at home. I have to tell you that there is absolutely nothing that compares to Letty’s Chocolate Snowball during the long and pastry-free days of Passover. It’s really very easy to make at home, and so fabulously decadent.  My mouth is watering as we speak.

Last summer I was lucky enough to attend a taping of Ming Tsai’s show, Simply Ming. They tape the whole season of the show in only a few weeks at a kitchen showroom outside of Boston! What a cool experience to see all the hundreds of people who are behind a professional cooking show! Wow! On a whim I decided to make him a chocolate-cherry cake (I know it’s crazy, right?), one of my most favorite recipes that originally comes from an amazing restaurant in Hawaii.

I had such a fun time meeting with Sarah Smith – editor-in-chief of Kiwi Magazine in New York City!  If you haven’t heard of it, Kiwi is an awesome magazine aimed at organic, healthy living. It has a big section on cooking in every issue.  I even left the NYC office with the “Big Green Cookbook” by Jackie Newgent, a present from Sarah! I can’t wait to see what kind of planet-healthy recipes I can try out from the book!

Da Vinci is probably my most favorite Italian resteraunt in the Boston area. Granted, you can imagine my delight when I found myself behind that wide open window that I have always admired, on a stormy Friday afternoon. Before we begin, I think it is appropriate to let you know that, in my opinion, there are few foods on this planet that I enjoy more than gnocchi that is made well. Given that piece of information, there is almost no food that I enjoy more than Chef Peppino’s gnocchi. To say that he’s good at what he does would be a humorous understatement.

So, here I find myself in the depths of Chef Peppino’s pristine kitchen. And, as expected, what I find is a giant sheet pan of crumbly cooked potato, and a whole lot of Italian double zero flour. No, really. All he puts in his gnocchi is olive oil, potatoes and flour. WHATTTT? I know, right? He’s amazing. Chef Peppino, in the flesh, appears and, donning one of his chef white jackets, we begin. Watch the video (!!!), Gnocchi Making at Da Vinci with Peppino  and I swear it will feel like your own private tutorial with the Chef.

Now that was some good eats!