One of the best surprise at the Fancy Food Show was to find Derek Brown mixing drinks in the Mexico pavilion. Derek is genius behind the Columbia Room and one of the best bartenders in DC if not America. He was putting together cocktails to showcase Tequila and Mezcal, and of course doing a little innovation.

I tried the Mezcal Watermelon Punch he was mixing up. It perfectly balanced the sweetness of the watermelon juice with the smokiness of the mezcal and the heat of the pepper. This was my first time trying mezcal and I am impressed. Mezcal has the bad rep of being the liquor with the worm in it (most likely a marketing ploy in the 40′s). Good tequila and mezcal are both made with 100% agave, however in mezcal the agave hearts are smoked and the liquor is only refined once. This makes mezcal a little rougher, but its got character and clearly in right hands makes a mean cocktail.

So how do you know if you are getting a good mezcal? Well, I have never bought a bottle, so don’t ask me for recommendations. Luckily there are some things you can look for. First, make sure it is made with 100% Agave. Second, make sure it is made in Mexico and has a CRT number. This means it meets all the guidelines to be a traditional mezcal. If you find both of these, you should have a pretty good mezcal. Now you must choose between Blanca, which is aged for only a couple months after distillation, Resposado, which is aged for 2 – 9 months in oak barrels and Añejo, which is aged a minimum of 12 months.

Derek was nice enough to send me the recipe for the Mezcal Watermelon Punch he was making. Fun trivia, a Tincture is an extract made by putting something in a high proof alcohol. Another fun fact; the Tasmanian Pepper, also known as the mountain pepper, is native to Australia and has a strong peppery flavor. While it is fun to make fancy cocktails at home, it is even more fun to have someone make them for you, other wise you end up lots of random bottles. Ask me about my Stinging Nettle Infused Vodka. If you do give it try, let me know how the punch turns out!

One of the more interesting parts about the Fancy Food Show ( I swear I almost done with posts on it ), was getting to meet the people behind different brands. It is even more finding out that products you like have a genuine heritage instead of being some corporate creation.

I was really excited to come across the Bar Harbor Foods booth at the show. I have been getting their canned fish from Whole Foods, mostly because it is delicious, but also because I really liked the packaging; it looks simple, clean and honest. Maine has a long tradition of packing sardines and other fish, but as tuna fish became popular Maine’s canneries began closing. Most of the large canneries have closed which is why it is great to see Bar Harbor taking a fresh approach to this product space.

I met the company’s owner, Mike Cote, at the booth. He had most of his career working for large food specialty companies and wanted to start his own. In 2003 he bought the 86 year old East Machias Canning Company and transformed it into Bar Harbor Foods. It is a small company, I think he said they have less than 20 people. His experience in industry shows though, the branding is very well done and it seems like a much larger company.

They are coming out with a new product which looks like it could be a little different and fun, Smoke Sardines in Maple Syrup. They suggested actually having them at breakfast instead of bacon or sausage. It sounds a little crazy, but I think it could actually work. They are a little sweet and a little salty, but not too much and the sardines don’t have an overpowering fishy taste. Next time I am at Whole Foods, I am going to pick up a can and give it a try. It would definitely be a lot more healthy.

There is something reassuring about getting to meet the people that make what you eat, especially when they are great people like the folks at Bar Harbor. If you see a can of their fish on the store shelf, give it a try. Canned seafood that is sustainably harvested are better for the environment and sardines and other “oily” fish have a lot of health benefits. Most importantly, it can be really tasty. They also make authentic chowders and beans, which I am going to keep an eye out for.

The winning entry:

There once was a man from D.C.
Who liked water, we could see
He got a new Camelback bottle and knew
He’d get water he wouldn’t have to chew.

You are going to love your new CamelBack Groove. We have really been enjoying ours. It could be the hot weather in DC, but we are definitely drinking more water.

In other winning news, congratulations are in order for the guys over at the Bitten Word. They won Best Cook Through Blog from Saveur. This is yet another reason why they are role model bloggers.

I was recently in Prauge for a conference. Light & Healthy is not really seem to be the focus of the food there. Instead, all the food either seems to be focused on things the are good to eat while drinking beer or things to eat after having drunk a lot of beer.

After a week there, I was getting a little sick of the standard fare. After Googling around a bit, I found that there was still a traditional dish I hadn’t tried yet… Smazný sýr, which is fried cheese. Instead of Fried Mozzarella Stick, think Fried Mozzarella STEAK!

Generally, Smazný sýr, or smaz for short, is eaten as a sandwich, in a hamburger roll, spread with mayo… and mostly likely after a night. However, since I am a classy guy I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sample the finest in fried cheese at an actual restaurant. Doba is located in the basement and has a nice cozy feel to it. Don’t let that fool you though, it got rated as having the best smaz by Prague TV.

It is a bit off the beaten path for most tourist, but worth the extra 15 minute walk. Look for the Fried Edam on the menu and you will be rewarded with 3 slabs of bubbling, fried goodness. Don’t ignore the rest of the menu though, the salad and chicken I also had were great.

Doba
Námesti Míru 16, Prague 2

Last time Carolyn’s parents came to visit, we cooked up a batch of Greek Shrimp with Feta. I had forgotten how good this dish is, so it was great to revisit it. It gets roasted in the oven, and the tomato, shrimp and feta flavors have lots of time to meld.

This dish is also great for entertaining. You can prep everything ahead of time and then just stick it in the oven when it is time to eat. One of the best parts is the juices, so make sure you serve it with some crusty bread!

So, FoodBuzz is running a contest to find the next food blog star, called Project Food Blog. There are are series of different challenges and people get to vote on which entry should win, just like those reality shows everyone loves. Well, we couldn’t resist an opportunity for self-permotion, along with some guaranteed product-placement.

Challenge 1:

The first challenge is to talk about your blog, to describe “…what makes your blog unique and sets you apart from other food blog brands”. Now that is a Challenge! Cookography is not some special snowflake of a blog, it is just a place for us to share some of the food we cook, restaurants we try and weird ingredients we find. If anything, instead of having some crazy angle like expat Russians trying to cook every recipe in the Joy Cooking while only using ingredients they raise, we just like sharing things we like.

Even worse than the fact that we don’t really have some crazy angle, I don’t really like writing. Carolyn does the editing, and I do the writing and photos. That is not a good thing for a blogger. I like eating, cooking and taking photos… but that whole writing about food thing I find sort of annoying. Truth be told, I actually find a lot of food bloggers rather annoying. So much of the writing seems contrived; the breathless retelling of food memories they find self-definition from, the bandwagoning of insular trends, and the cult of chefs which they worship (Jose Andres doesn’t count, cause he is awesome).

So what I am trying to get across is that we probably aren’t going to be the next Food Blog Star. We aren’t too good at being part of this self-cheerleading squad. We are about eating and cooking, two things everyone does everyday. It doesn’t have to be something special, unique or obscure, the important thing is that you enjoy it. And that is what this blog is about, those things that we like, not because that is what the blogging mass is currently about, but because we enjoy them.

If you are cool with all this, then give us your vote ! Lets not let the term Food Blogger become a shallow, media driven stereotype.

So I had a crazy dinner idea a couple of nights ago: Baked Egg Bread! … ( or maybe Egg Bread Bowl )

The thought was to combine my Baked Eggs with the “Egg McMuffin” recipe. Instead of using the muffin tray from the Egg Muffins, I made it in the ramekins from the Baked Eggs. I took a piece of dough from a batch of 5 Minute Bread, rolled it out and lined the inside of a buttered ramekin. I then added all of the goodies I would add in for Baked Eggs. This time I went with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella, sort of like an eggy pizza. I then topped it off with another sheet of rolled dough.

It ended up coming out pretty good. The dough bakes up a lot though and sort of overwhelms the dish. I think it would be perfect if just had the layer of dough on top. It would be like getting a piece of fresh baked bread to go along with the baked eggs and would be the just right amount of bread. All around, this is a fun dish and one I am going to keep working on it.

With all the bacon loving going on, I surprised it has taken me so long to come across bacon made out of something else besides pork. I found lamb bacon recently at the most excellent White House Farmers’ Market. Pancetta is an Italian style of bacon. Unlike American bacon, it is not smoked and instead of being in a flat slab it is rolled up into a cylinder.

This lamb bacon is labeled as Lambcetta and it is between the American and Italian style. It is pretty heavily smoked, but is rolled up like pancetta. I think they decided to roll it up because the cut of meat is a bit thinner than the one from pork.

The predominate flavor is smokiness with a fair amount of salt, but I think you can taste the lamb. With all the smoky, saltiness it isn’t best to have it as a standalone side. I decided to try it is a sandwich instead and that is where it really shined. Because of the Lambcetta’s extra smokey meaty flavor, I was able to got with a little more flavor in the other items. I went for some potato bread and arugula. All of this combined to make a great summer sandwich.

If you would like to acquire a little lamb-bacon of your own, swing by the White House Farmers’ Market in DC one Thursday and stop by the Garden Path Farms‘ stand. They also have a store if you are ever in Newburg, PA, on a Friday… because they are only open on Fridays.

I still have about a quarter of a pound left. My current thought on how to use it is: a butterflied leg of lamb, all wrapped up in Lambcetta. It would be an extra lamby delight. Do anyone of you out there in blog-land have a better idea on how to use it?

People go to great lengths to try and replicate authentic pizza at home. One of the main things separating the pizza you make from the pizzerias is heat. I read about one guy who used the cleaning cycle of his oven to get it really hot and then jerry rigged the latch so he could open it mid-cycle to retrieve the pizza before it turned into a crisp. That is pretty extreme. I also wouldn’t recommend it unless you are well insured and know what you are doing.

This concept is slightly less extreme. In order to achieve a similar level of heat you heat a cast iron pan on the stove, invert it and then use it like a pizza stone and cook the pizza under the broiler. The intense heat of the broiler, combine with all the hotness stored up in the pan, gives you an environment similar to a real pizza oven. Or at least it is supposed. I found out the hard way that you have to do a good job of rolling out the dough. Mine was a little too thick. I had a nice cooked top, a slightly charred crust and in between that was a doughy mess. It all tasted good, but there is definitely a learning curve.

I tried using a soapstone pizza pan I had and a cast iron pan. Both worked really well, so just use what you have. One limitation of this technique is that the bottom of most pans is rather small, maybe 10″ across at best (Pan diameter is measured at the top). If you really like this technique, you might want to check out the Cast Iron Pizza Pan that lodge makes:

It gets hot in the summer here in DC and we have our AC on for most of the time. One of the real advantages of this technique is that you don’t need to preheat the oven and get a large pizza stone hot. I think it will take a few more tries for me to perfect this method, but if it keeps the kitchen cooler and gives good results, I am game!

There is a good write up and some recipes that use this technique in the Atlantic and in Serious Eats. I followed the Serious Eats one when I gave it a try.

Over the past couple of months I have been working on a recipe sharing website, noshBot.com. I know there are TONS of recipe sharing sites out there, but I wanted to create one that catered to Food Bloggers. I love posting recipe to Cookography, but I have always been frustrated with the blogging software; it gives recipes no respect! Blogging software doesn’t “understand” recipes and all their information and treats them the same as a post about kittens.

This is where noshBot comes in. In addition to letting you enter in, search for and manage recipes like a traditional recipe site, noshBot can integrate with your blog. It is possible to post recipes to your blog directly from noshBot and you easily can import existing recipes from your blog back into noshBot. My thought is that noshBot can server as a recipe database for Food Bloggers. Using noshBot to manage your recipes gives you a couple benefits:

• It automatically formats them
• Makes it easy for you user to print, email and bookmark them
• Lets you track how many times a recipe gets view, printed or emailed on your blog
• Could help drive people looking at recipes on noshBot to your blog

I really need y’alls feedback though! Is this something you would use? Is it actually useful/helpful? Is there something that needs to be changed or added before you would think about using it? I built noshBot from scratch, so can in any cool features you guys come up with… assuming I have time! Also, since it is a work in progress don’t be too surprised if everything is layed out perfectly, well documented or doesn’t work the first time.

Checkout: noshbot.com

Thanks,

Luke

Eddie says:

February 3, 2010 at 4:24 am

I have a Nikon D60 and use a 18-200mm VR 3.5-5.6 lens. I am taking photos of foods for a book I am writing and need some help to choose the right lens.

The foods I photograph are at the restaurants that I buy them at, so lighting is dependent on each restaurant. I suppose I could use flash, but I don’t really want to get into flash photography inside the restaurants I visit.

I noticed with my lens that I have to zoom in to get the AF to work best. Also, the depth of field is pretty shallow, and shutter speeds become slow.

I started to consider using a macro lens, but I’m wondering if I really need one. I don’t intend on shooting anything smaller than a muffin.

My goal is to be able to shoot a plate of food and to have most or all of the food in focus. And to be able to do this in a restaurant where the lighting will most likely be less than perfect.

Can you give me some advice?

Hi Eddie,

Good questions! I sound like you are running into two different things. The reason you have to zoom in, in order to correctly focus has do with your lens minimum focusing distance. When you are zooming, what you are actually doing is moving the camera farther away from the food, but keeping the image the same. Lens have a minimum distance they need to be away from the subject in order to correctly focus. Most Macro lens don’t enlarge things any more than a regular lens. The difference is that they have no minimum focusing length. You can get as close as you want to, which works out great for shooting in a cramped environment(restaurant).

Both Nikon and Canon have a 100mm~ & 60mm~ lens. I have the 100mm Macro lens from Canon and I sort of wish I went for the 60mm version. With the zoom factor of my Camera (50D) that 100mm lens ends up being about 160mm and that is a lot of zoom. In order to fit plate in, I have to back up quite a bit. That said, it is an amazingly well made lens and great for taking close-ups of things. If you have a camera that does not have a full-sized sensor, a 60mm macro should be about perfect.

As for the shallow depth of field,that has to do with the amount of light in the restaurant. In order to increase the depth of field, you have to increase the f-stop number. For that to work though, the camera needs more light. You have a couple of options here. The easiest is to increase the ISO setting on the camera. That makes the camera more sensitive. The other option is to increase the amount of time the shutter is open, but that means holding the camera really steady. A small tripod might come in handy.

One other thing to look at is bring a piece of printer paper or a reflective disc. You can uses these to better help bounce light and fill in any shadows if the light is not right.

Here are some things you might want to check out:

Macro Lens -

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens

Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM Digital SLR Lens

Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor Lens

Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Micro-Nikkor Lens for Nikon DSLR Cameras

Tripods -

Joby GP1-EBEN Gorillapod Flexible Tripod

Lastolite 12″ Circular Collapsable Disc Reflector, Silver / White

There isn’t much to this recipe, but some nights that is not a bad thing. This recipe got “invented” one night when we were too lazy to cook much but we had veggies to use up. The result was a dilly summer hash top with a pair of fried eggs. It may sound a little crazy, but just think of it as a deconstructed quiche.

I am not going to bother typing up a recipe, this is supposed to be a quick and easy. The basic concept is taking a bunch of summer squash and even dicing them along with an onion. Saute the mixture with a good bit of butter, adding a healthy pinch of salt or two. After the vegetables have become tender add in a lot of minced, fresh herbs. I used dill, but I think you can get creative depending on what you have on hand. After you got this all mixed together, plate it and then fry up some eggs to place on top.

This recipe isn’t too crazy, but sometimes you don’t need to be in order to have good eats.

(So there, the title really says it all. This is a simple and refreshing way to enjoy the summer. All you have to do is add some cucumber slices to a pitcher of cold, filtered water. Let it sit for a couple of hours and you have one of the most refreshing summer drinks there is. It’s like being at a spa, but in your own home.)

(Can anyone guess where we “acquired” this pint glass from? Big bonus points if you can…)

Can you guess what this is?
Give up?
Well, it is a grain of salt from Bali! The salt is shaped like a little hollow pyramid. I zoomed in 60x with a toy digital microscope I have to get a better look. Below is a picture of the salt grain, but only zoomed in 10x. You can see its shape a lot better and the hollow indentation. The shape gives each grain a nice crunch.

As I hinted at in my last post on pickles, there are two kinds of pickles in the world–those that get their flavor from spice and those that get it from fermentation. The second type are known as sours, or brined, but some of the regular pickles you get from the store are fermented, too.

The basic difference is that with sours bacteria in the pickling liquid creates lactic acid which helps make the liquid acidic. The salt in the liquid helps encourage the good bacteria, and keeps away the bad bacteria. The good bacteria then raises the acid, helping to further keep away the bad.

The other approach is using vinegar to get the acid in there and then other flavors. Both approaches work, but I am a sucker for a good old fashion sour pickle.

Sour pickles can be a little daunting though. You are letting bacteria run wild in your food. That takes a little bit of cooking guts. The truth is that it is no tougher than making refrigerator pickles. People around the world have been fermenting vegetables for eons, so have a little faith in this, but just keep an eye if things seem a bit weird. Bacteria is at work, so there may be scum on the surface but that is normal. Instead look out for pickles that feel slimy or overly soft.

There are two aspects of brining pickles that control the pickling process: temperature and the salinity level. The bacteria that produce the lactic acid do well in a salty environment; lots of other bacteria don’t. However, the saltier the liquid is, the slower the bacteria reproduce. Bacteria also react differently to temperature and reproduce more the warmer it gets. If you work with these two controls you can create an environment that favors the yummy bacteria that you want.

This is my first pickle fermenting experiment in a long time. The results were really good, but a little salty. For the next go around, I am going with a slightly lower level of salt and using a recipe from another DC local. I will follow up with results from that batch. The higher level of salt in the first batch meant that it took longer for the bacteria to do their work. The second batch, with less salt, is moving along a lot quicker. The second batch should be much more sour and have a more pronounced tang.

I got the first recipe from a great website that focuses on fermented food from around the world. The author has a book on it and I think I am going to have to order it. I rewrote the recipe because I skipped a lot of steps and ingredients, so check the original for some additional flourishes.

There is of course lots of information on this subject and I am just scratching the surface. I will keep reporting back as I try more stuff. Here are some additional resources I have enjoyed thumbing through:

• A Polish dill pickle recipe
• Pickle Packers International – The trade org for picklers. They have good info on uses for pickle juice and a good overview on how pickles are made.
• A very detailed document on the science behind pickling. The website seems to have trouble though and isn’t always available. Keep trying!
• Learn more about how commercial pickling is done
• Another recipe for Kosher dills, fermented of course!
• A society dedicated to pickles, complete with recipes
• A nice and simple pickling container
• Traditional ceramic pickling crocks
• Make sure you read The Slow Cook, which is not only a great blog on food but also has great pickle recipes.

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

There are so many cute inns in Vermont, it was hard to choose! After the drive through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, we stopped at the Norwich Inn in Norwich for lunch. We were lured by the fact that they have their own brewery. We ate outside in the courtyard – tuna fish sandwich for Carolyn and turkey club for Luke. Both were really good! (And the beer, too!)

After visiting a cheese farm, a brewery and the King Arthur Flour store (more on all those in separate posts), we arrived at the Weathersfield Inn in Perkinsville. It was fabulous!

The chef at the Inn, Jason Tostrup, was awarded the Sante Culinary Arts Award for ‘Sustainable Cuisine – New England.’ He’s been a leader in the “Farm to Table” movement in Vermont.

We sat outside on the deck and sipped a pre-dinner cocktail. Dinner started with chilled asparagus soup. Then we had buckwheat and herb gnocchi with Summer vegetables and lemon ricotta cheese and a plate of local cheeses and meats for appetizers. For entrees Luke had ‘Happy Hog Farm’s’ pork and Maine scallops with cauliflower mash and braised greens with Long Wind Farms tomato; Carolyn had a special of the day – braised veal carnitas. For dessert we split a strawberry rhubarb and lemon yogurt pie. So delicious!!

After sitting by the fire pit for a while, we retired to a really comfortable bed! We woke up in the morning and the Innkeepers prepared breakfast for us…French toast. With real maple syrup, of course. We highly recommend this inn the next time you are in Vermont!

Kim is our friend. And this is actually her grandmother’s recipe. It’s a very old school Italian dish—hearty and filling. Perfect for a fall or winter evening. The main ingredients (besides the pasta) are carrots, celery and onions, which is the classic combination for starting any soup or meat dish. So, while you may not necessarily think of eating carrots and celery with pasta, trust me, the flavors work. One of the best things about this recipe is that it’s easy to scale up or down based on the number of people you’re serving, or how much leftovers you want. The dish might even be better the next day. Might. There is a reason this dish is called “yummy.”

Given the substantive nature of this dish, rigatoni or penne pasta works best—easy to scoop up all the goodness! Plus, the large diameter, combined with the ridges, makes them ideal to retain sauces on the entire surface, inside and out.

Two side notes about the pasta: Recently we’ve been going “sauce heavy” and “pasta light” with our pasta meals. All that talk about too much pasta not being good for you, blah blah blah. The recipe calls for 1 pound of pasta, but feel free to add more or less depending on your taste.

Also, for the past several years we’ve been using Barilla Plus Pasta (in the yellow box). It is a multigrain pasta with extra protein and ALA Omega-3 (whatever that is). Honestly, we can’t tell the difference between this and regular pasta. We’ve tried other wholegrain/multigrain pastas and like the Barilla Plus the best. (The Healthy Request in the brown box was our least favorite by a landslide!)

Manga!

My parents were in town last weekend and we tried making popovers for breakfast on Sunday. Unfortunately they did not end up doing much popping. They still tasted great, but half the fun of popovers is ripping them open having that little pocket in the middle. When they pop up, they are less dense and the outside gets much crisper. I am going to have to go double check everything and give it another try.

Update: A year later, we had popover success!