Don't let this happen to you.

Thanksgiving is upon us! Which means ’tis the season for holiday cooking disasters. But don’t worry – the Capital Region’s newest supermarket has you covered.

ShopRite’s Chefs on Call hotline will be available to answer your Thanksgiving cooking questions – whether you’re wondering how to thaw your turkey (a hint – if you haven’t started thawing it yet, you might be in trouble), or how to prepare a traditional dessert.  Members of ShopRite Chefs On Call are available at 1-800 SHOPRITE from from now through Thanksgiving Day, during the following hours: Wednesday 10:00am-7:30pm and Thursday 8:00AM – 2:00PM.

Customers can visit ShopRite’s Facebook page for special Thanksgiving Turkey Tips (including videos). You can even download and print a handy brochure on Turkey Basics from their website (www.shoprite.com).

You probably have to have a lot of patience and a great sense of humor to answer those turkey hotline calls. I can only imagine the kinds of things people ask. Like these gems, actual questions and situations posed to turkey hotline operators:

• If I put my phone in the turkey, can you tell me if it’s done?
• I’ve never cooked a turkey before–is it like cooking a raccoon?
• A woman called to find out how long it would take to roast her turkey. To answer the question, the Talk-Line home economist asked how much the bird weighed. The woman responded, “I don’t know, it’s still running around outside.”
• Is it okay to thaw my turkey in the bathtub while bathing my kids?
• Can I brine my turkey in the washing machine?
• Can I take my frozen turkey into my sauna to thaw it faster?

Have you ever experienced a Thanksgiving cooking disaster? Let’s hear it!

1. Preserved Lemons.  I understand the process of preserving them, but I do not understand how exactly they are used.  Do you rinse them off before using them? Do you peel them, or just chop them up whole and add to a recipe? Do they taste lemon-y, or salty/preserve-y?  So many show hosts and foodies extol the virtues of preserved lemons, but they just presume that everyone knows how to use them.
   

   These are preserved lemons. I have no clue what to do with them.

2. Chicken Stock.  I must be doing it wrong.  Are you supposed to remove all of the chicken skin before simmering, or has it been predetermined that once refrigerated, your stock will transform into a gelatinous goo?
3. Trussing a Chicken.  Is it necessary?  If so, how is it properly done?
4. Deep frying.  Is it okay to use vegetable (soybean) oil in my deep fryer?  It so much cheaper than peanut oil, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong.
5. Tipping.  What is the going rate for tipping these days?  I try to tip between 18-20%, but I’ve been reading lately that the acceptable percentage is creeping up into the 20-25% range.  Personal note: I truly resent the practice of tipping, because it has become my responsibility to pay the wages of a waiter, instead of the responsibility of his employer.  But, I also know it’s become so ingrained in our culture that it’s never going away.  So I tip.  Mostly because I really am cheap, but I don’t want anyone to think I’m cheap.
6. I don’t like fish.  Or, more accurately, I don’t like most fish.  Am I really missing out on key nutrients, or am I okay with the occasional shrimp and maybe a fish fry?
   

   ...because they are slimy and gross

7. Why would anyone buy this?
8. And aren’t you glad I didn’t mention cupcakes at all in this post?

No clue?

Then you’ve obviously never tasted cilantro.

Coriandrum sativum. What we call cilantro is actually the leaves (and stems) of the Coriander plant. Coriander is believed to be named after "koris", the Greek word for "bedbug" as it was said they both emitted a similar odor.

Cilantro is a leafy green herb that figures prominently in Southeast Asian and Latin American cuisine (it’s what gives salsa that fresh grass-like aroma and taste), and Americans either love it or hate it. I fall squarely into the “love it” camp.  I buy it almost every week, and search for recipes in which to use it.  Hummus, melon salsa, chopped and tossed in with salad greens…

Those who love it don’t give a second thought, but those who hate it think it tastes like soap or hand lotion. And they will tell you all about it – haters seem to be quite vocal about their aversion.  There are several cilantro-hater blogs out there, as well as an a couple of  Facebook pages dedicated to…well, to hating it.

Better than Farmville, I suppose.

Even people that you think must love everything hate it – including Julia Child.  Larry King interviewed Julia back in 2002, and asked her what foods she hated.  The exchange:

JC:  Cilantro and arugula I don’t like at all. They’re both green herbs, they have kind of a dead taste to me.

LK: So you would never order it?

JC: Never.  I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.

Why do some people love cilantro and some people think it tastes like soap?  Is it something to do with our taste buds?  Anatomy?  Physiology?  Evolution?  Geography?  Chemistry?

Harold McGee, preeminent food scientist and author of the food chemist’s bible: “On Food and Cooking”, did a brief interview on a recent episode of The Splendid Table, and provided a fascinatingly satisfactory scientific explanation for cilantro revulsion: it’s all about the aldehydes, my friends.  Isn’t it always?

Chemistry first.  Turns out, the molecules that give soap and hand lotion their distinctive odor are the same ones that give cilantro its flavor – aldehydes.  Aldehydes are the byproduct of soap-making (called “saponification”), a process which breaks down large fat molecules into smaller fragments using strong chemicals, leaving behind the distinctively odoriferous aldehydes.

And then, evolution comes in.  Followed by conditioning, and finally, acceptance.

I’d explain it, but McGee does a much better job, plus I’m the one who ended my career as a chemist because I thought it was boring.  You can listen to the interview here.

And tell me, on which side of the cilantro fence do you fall?

Whatever you do, don't buy cilantro in this form. Blech. Buy fresh!

Do what the sign says: PLEASE DON'T THROW TOMATOES AROUND

While on a recent stop at my friendly neighborhood produce stand (Paquin’s stand at the corner of Moe and Grooms Roads in Clifton Park), I noticed the sign above.  Never being one to let a good opportunity pass her by, I asked the guy at the stand: “Do you really have a problem with people throwing tomatoes?”

I honestly don’t know what answer I was expecting, but the one I received gave me something to think about.  I hope you’ll think about it too.

The guy (I’m so sorry I didn’t ask his name – I hate calling him “the guy”) explained that people tend to rummage around the tomato bin as if they were rummaging through their laundry basket in search of a clean-ish pair of jeans: tossing stuff about willy-nilly and throwing whatever they don’t want to the back of the pile.  There’s also some uncalled-for squeezing going on.  All of this results in bruised, damaged tomatoes that cannot be sold to the general public who prefer unblemished produce.

I was startled when the guy told me that he ends up throwing away fifty pounds of tomatoes a day, due to all of this egregious manhandling.  FIFTY POUNDS A DAY.  Think of how many people this could feed.  Or how much sauce this could make.  What a waste.

And since he has to throw so much away, his inventory is decreased and he has to sell at a higher price in order to get the same income.  He told me that last week he charged $1.99 per pound for the tomatoes, but now he’s been forced to sell them for $2.49 per pound.   That’s a 25% increase for all of you out there who flunked calculus.

I don’t know a whole lot about tomato processing (besides eating them), so I asked if the bruised ones were completely worthless or if they could be used for SOMETHING.  Apparently, they are great for canning.  Too bad I don’t know how to can.  Perhaps next summer I will learn.

And, as it turns out, it’s not just the poor tomatoes that suffer at the grimy hands of overzealous produce customers: peaches get fingernails driven into them, and cucumbers get pressed until they “bleed”.  I’ve also noticed people who insist on shucking every piece of corn before they buy it, leaving the mutant ears to the latecomers.  I’ve always understood that an ear of corn was like a fortune cookie with your takeout Chinese: you don’t open it at the restaurant – you wait til you get home!  Corn is supposed to be “luck of the draw”!

Anyway – the moral of the story: Be kind to the produce.  There are other people here, you know.

$2.49 per pound. Because YOU couldn't control yourself.

• Was a TV writer
• Went to Bennington College in VT
• Food writing career was inspired by a woodchuck who destroyed his first garden (he called the incident his “horticultural VietNam”): the woodchuck kept destroying his garden and, much like the Bill Murray character in Caddyshack, tried unsuccessfully to drive him out: he picked up some woodchuck roadkill and stuffed the carcass into the burrow to “teach the woodchuck a lesson”; another time he
  (unwisely) poured gasoline into the burrow, dropped a match in, and accidentally set himself on fire; finally he managed to exorcise the woodchuck by simply erecting a fence.  This series of events inspired him to write about the garden as a place, like your plate, where you can’t be just a spectator.
• His son was a horrible eater and would only eat “white foods”: bread, rice, pasta, etc.  The kid was so particular that they used to bring their own boxes of Barilla pasta with them when they traveled (only kind he would eat), and had to make sure the hotel rooms had a kitchen or at least a hotplate.  But the kid would complain anyway because he didn’t like the taste of the water it was cooked in – it wasn’t the same water as home.  Egads.

I didn’t get to watch the Q&A session because LOST was on tv, and I had to get on Twitter to live-tweet with my LostBuddies, Sarah and Chris.

The lecture was interesting, and basically reiterated Pollan’s “Food Rules”.  I always enjoy listening to Michael Pollan – I think he has an amazingly soothing voice and he just makes so much SENSE.  Though I was a little annoyed by the attitude of the Gaucher College President, who at one point made a comment that suggested that only liberals were smart enough to understand ethical food choices.   Small-minded elitist liberal arts college jerk.

I am at a point now where I’m perfectly at peace in heating and serving sauce -gasp- from a jar. It’s not cheating if I’ve tried to no avail, and have ultimately accepted my ethnic-culinary limitations.

Is it?

Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Bronx) has introduced legislation that would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and serving of food in restaurants.  I’m not going to go into a point-by-point dissection of the idiocy of this proposed legislation (Steve Barnes over at the TU did a pretty exhaustive explanation of the necessity of salt in both food and the human body), but I do want to say this:

We don’t need lawmakers telling us what we should and should not eat.

Most of us are perfectly reasonable, fairly intelligent, and fully capable of making our own decisions when it comes to what we put into our mouths.  I am tired of politicians trying to legislate common sense.  First the trans-fat ban, then mandating calorie count listings on food menus, then taxing soda and sugary drinks, and now salt.  Where does it end?  Banning sugar?  Excise tax on chocolate?  Prohibiting FOOD?

Leave me alone, please.  If I want to eat potato chips, I’m going to eat potato chips, and assume all risk for doing so.  I know what’s in them, I know how many calories and the amount of salt they contain, and I know they will make me gain a pound.  But, this America, and I am free to pursue happiness.  Potato chips make me happy.  Eating potato chips is MY CHOICE.  If you want to educate people about proper nutrition, that’s fine.  More than fine, in fact.  More people should know how to feed their bodies in a healthy way.  But, there’s no need to create laws that ban entire food categories.  NECESSARY food categories, I might add.  Without sodium, you WILL DIE.

According to Steve Barnes, Assemblyman Ortiz (who elects these morons?) “admits that prior to introducing the bill he did not research salt’s role in food chemistry, its effect on flavor or his bill’s ramifications for the restaurant industry. He tells me he was prompted to introduce the bill because his father used salt excessively for many years, developed high blood pressure and had a heart attack.admitted that he did no research into salt’s role in the chemistry of food.”

So, basically, this guy’s father didn’t know when to put down the salt shaker, so New Yorkers should suffer the consequences of his poor decisions?  I don’t think so.

I understand that the likelihood of this legislation going anywhere is practically zero (I hope), but it galls me that this type of lunatic law gets proposed at a time when our state is going through one of the worst fiscal (and ethical) crises that it’s ever seen.  How DARE he waste the taxpayer’s time, and insult our collective intelligence, by proposing something so ill-conceived, poorly researched (read: no research at all) and idiotic?

New York State has become a joke, both inside our state borders, and throughout the nation.  I am embarrassed to live here.

Kitchen Tools

This is a list of some cool tools – some essential, some whimsical, some probably ridiculous.  But they will no doubt make your foodie smile!

• If money is no object: your foodie NEEDS a KitchenAid Stand Mixer.  No self-respecting foodie should go without this essential tool.  It can be used for everything: kneading bread, mixing cookie dough, combining meat loaf mix, whipping cream.  And, if your foodie already has a stand mixer, you can always get them an attachment or two: meat grinder, sausage stuffer, grain mill, citrus juicer, pasta roller, ravioli maker, slicer/shredder, ice cream maker….
  

  Onion Goggles

• A powerful blender.  My pick is the KitchenAid 4-Speed Blender.  It REALLY crushes ice!  About $99, available in four colors.
• Onion Goggles (available at ThinkGeek for $24.95, at other places for various prices).  Tears no more!  These nifty little goggles prevent the noxious sulfur compounds from reaching your eyeballs, so you can finally chop onions without crying a river.
  

  The Beverage CADDi

• Nutmeg Grater (under $20).  My fave is this one by Cuisipro.  I no longer buy ground nutmeg, following a harrowing incident with a moldycontainer bought in the grocery store.  I now buy whole nutmegs from Penzey’s, and grate them as needed using the grater.
• OXO Electronic Kitchen Scale (around $50, available at kitchen stores and at www.oxo.com).  Every kitchen needs an accurate food scale that can measure in pounds and kilograms.  This one is great  – measures up to 11 pounds.
  

  The Happy Man Bottle Stopper. He sure is happy!

• The Beverage CADDi – it allows you to hang on to your coffee with one finger!  Price: $5.50 (“the cost of your last spilled latte,” according to the Beverage CADDi website).  I haven’t seen it in stores, but it’s available online.
• The Happy Man Bottle Stopper.  I think the picture says it all.

Other Foodie Gift Ideas

• Cooking classes – many local kitchen supply stores offer cooking classes, teaching a wide range of topics.  Here are a few:
  • Different Drummer’s Kitchen (Latham Cooking School and Northampton Cooking School)
  • Spoon & Whisk
  • Saratoga Restaurant Equipment Sales
  • Mimmy’s House Personal Chef Service (offers one-on-one classes)
• Wine Course from Wine Spectator School.  The Wine Spectator, a recognized name in wine culture, offers online wine education courses, on a variety of topics.  I’ve taken a few of these courses, and I think they’re great.  Courses last about 6 weeks, students set their own pace, there are guided tastings, and after passing the course exam, the student receives a certificate and a cool graduation gift (I got a mousepad last time)!  Cost varies, from $39 up to about $149.
• Gift Certificate to Penzey’s, the only place to buy spices.  I will never ever buy grocery-store spices again.  Penzey’s is the best quality, ships fast, and they’re inexpensive.  Plus they’ve got awesome gift collections, if you’d rather buy a pre-boxed set.  They also have cool catalogs, which arrive *very* frequently.
• Foodie DVD’s – Julie & Julia, Chocolat, Sideways, SuperSize Me, Food Inc., Eating Alaska.  And those are just the ones I saw.  There are many more – check out this Amazon.com list for other suggestions.
• Omaha Steaks – Bob and I are big fans of ordering meat online.  Their beef is outstanding, pork is great, chicken is okay, desserts you shouldn’t bother ordering (except the Caramel Apple Tartlets – delicious!).

Well, that’s it for now.  If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.  Deck the Halls, and all that jazz.

What would you prepare if a friend sent a bushel of Chesapeake Bay Oysters (live, unshucked) to your home as a gift?  The approximately 100 oysters will be packed so as to keep for 2 weeks and come with two oyster knives.

Your friend,  Joanne

What nice friends you have!  A very thoughtful gift.

I personally do not like oysters, and thus have never prepared them myself.   Can any of you out there offer Joanne some guidance?  The only thing I can offer is a wine suggestion – a very dry sparking wine, perhaps Gruet Brut from New Mexico.  One of my personal favorites.

From SCCC’s website:

Since Spring of 1993, the Casola Dining Room has been serving gourmet meals to the patrons of the Capital Region of Upstate New York. The Casola Dining Room is open for business during the college school year, generally from the first week of October to the first week of December and from the last week in February to the first week in May. Reservations are required.

Menu selection and themes are changed weekly. In the fall semester, menus are themed for Regional American Cuisine. In the spring semester our students prepare International classics. Guests choose one appetizer, a main course and a dessert from the choices. Guests are encouraged to bring in their own wine to compliment the meal experience.

Gail and I had a meeting at SCCC last week with Chef Chris Tanner, to plan the upcoming Culinary Boot Camp (details coming VERY soon), and Chris told us that this week’s cuisine was Puerto Rican.  We were very intrigued – neither of us had ever eaten Puerto Rican food – so I called to make reservations for the three of us (details about making reservations can be found here).

The Casola Dining Room has undergone extensive renovations over the last few years, and it has truly become an elegant space.  The walls are a lush chocolate-brown, the pillars and moulding are off-white, and the walls are decorated with colorful and intricate pieces of fiber art.  I forgot to find out if they were produced locally – I’ll have to make phone call.

It isn’t a very large dining room, with only about 10 or so tables, but it is very warm and welcoming.  The chairs have rounded backs, and are comfortably upholstered in moss-green fabric.  The tables are set with crisp white linens, and are complete with a full flatware service (including soup and coffee spoons).  The decorator was obviously looking to recreate a fine dining experience, and it definitely works.  So far, so good!

We were seated immediately, and one of several servers welcomed us, handed us menus, and took our drink orders.  It was a while before he came back.  When he did finally return, we placed our appetizer and entree orders:

Gail ordered Ensalada De Pulpo: grilled octopus sliced thin and tossed with Spanish onion thinly sliced into rings, crushed garlic, lime juice, virgin olive oil, white vinegar, chopped celery

Nell and I ordered Sacocho: A classic Puerto Rican stew that features the tropical life with yucca, yam, cassava, plantains, corn, beef short rib, and ham with tomato sauce and broth.

We all ordered the same entree: El pargo de cacerola-quemó con Salsa de Criollo, which is pan seared red snapper fillets with pumpkin fritters and avocado-tangerine salad, accompanied by yellow rice and pigeon peas garnished with plantanos.  (don’t normally order fish, but the thought of pumpkin fritters was so enticing that I thought I’d risk it.)

More after the jump…

The dining room was a bit chilly, but seemed to warm up a bit the longer we sat.  And sit longer we did.  We did enjoy some of their homemade bread while we waited.

Our server brought us our appetizers after a bit, and they certainly looked appetizing:

Sancocho

The sancocho was very good – though it was very underseasoned and benefited tremendously from the addition of salt.  I understand sometimes chefs are afraid to overseason, so they err on the side of caution.  And the fact that these chefs were students (and probably unsure of themselves) likely made it worse.  The soup was light and tomato-ey, with generous chunks of beef short rib and ham.  There were 4 or 5 of what appeared to be meatballs sitting in the middle, and neither Nell nor I could ascertain what exactly they were made of – though we did agree they were quite bland.  I think the soup would have been enhanced by a bit more of the exotic ingredients – yucca, casava, and plaintain.  The cilantro garnish added a nice refreshing element to the soup.

Ensalada De Pulpo (octopus salad)

Gail assured me that the Ensalada de Pulpo was delicious, and I took her word for it.  I do not eat octopus.  The presentation was lovely – a neat layered stack of ingredients.

Our entrees soon (well, not really “soon”) arrived, and I was pleasantly surprised with the dish.  As I mentioned above, I do not normally eat fish, so it has to be very good for me to enjoy it!

El pargo de cacerola-quemó con Salsa de Criollo

The snapper filet was seasoned with a *very* spicy rub, and it was perfectly cooked – the crust was crispy, and the flesh was white and flaky.  Yum.  The pumpkin fritters, the very reason for my ordering the fish, were disappointing.  They were very chewy, with an almost leathery texture.  The flavor was excellent, but I think they had been deep-fried much earlier and sat out too long.  Nell had never had pumpkin fritters before, and she really enjoyed them.

The plantains were wonderful – I love their pasty texture, and unassuming flavor.  Gail did not care for them.  The yellow rice with pigeon peas was quite tasty.  I’ve never before tried pigeon peas, and was surprised by their nuttiness and “al dente” consistency.  They worked very well with the rice.

Perhaps my favorite part of the entree was the Salsa de Criollo: the tangerine/avocado salsa.  It was bright, creamy, citrusy, and sunflower seeds added just the right amount of crunch.  Spectacular!  I’m on the hunt for the recipe, and will be making it at home!

On to dessert.  The server wheeled the dessert cart over, and this is where it got…interesting.

The Dessert Cart

Our choices were:

Chocolate Tres Leches: A light chocolate sponge soaked with a trio of chocolate milks topped with a meringue crisp

Banana Torte: A rich banana flavored butter cake filled with fresh banana slices and topped with a coffee flavored butter cream

Mango Sorbet: Mangos pair with simple syrup for a light refreshing ice served with a coconut cookie

The waiter tried valiantly to explain each of the desserts to us, but it was painful to listen to him try to pronounce “meringue” and “sorbet”.  It was apparent that his teachers sent him out into the dining room very unprepared.  Oh, well.  He will learn!

It was a pleasant surprise when we each ordered something different.  I had the Banana Torte.  Overall, it was very good: the cake was a tad dry, but the coffee-flavored buttercream was great.  I think that perhaps the kitchen did not let the cake rest long enough out of the refrigerator, because the icing was a bit hard.

Banana Torte

Gail had the Chocolate Tres Leches.  It was very chocolatey, with a very light spongey texture.  The presentation left something to be desired.

Chocolate Tres Leches

Nell ordered the Mango Sorbet, and while it looked delicious, I didn’t try any because I am not a fan of mangoes.  For some reason, I think they taste like dirt.

Mango Sorbet

Overall, a good meal.  And a GREAT value – the price per person was only $16 (coffee was also included), and tips are not permitted.  If you came for dinner, you would only be out $22.  The college does not serve alcohol, but you can bring your own bottle and the servers will pour for you, for only a $3 corkage fee.  It’s an incredible deal – you should get there if you get the chance.

Lunch is served Tuesday, Thursday and Friday with seatings at noon and 12:30 p.m.  Dinners is served Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with seatings at 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.  Reservations are taken exactly 2 weeks in advance of the date you wish to reserve, beginning at 10am.  The number to call is 518-381-1391.  Seatings fill up quickly, so plan ahead.  The dining room schedule is available here, and menus are available here.

Bon appetit!