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?

There is no reason a summer soup can’t be hearty… and this soup is! Between the beans and the chorizo, you’ve got a meal in a bowl. The spiciness from the sausage and the lightness of the broth keep it from weighing you down though. While soup may not be the first thing that comes to mind on a hot, muggy summer day – this one is worth a try.

The original recipe on Apartment Therapy calls from a mix of canned chickpeas and great northerns. Canned beans suck, and great northerns are an inferior white bean. I went for dried cannellini instead. When you cook dried beans with the minimum amount of water, the cooking liquid makes for a great flavor enhancer that can perk up any broth. You can also control how firm you want your beans to be. I like mine with a little bite left in them. If you want to really green things up, try tossing in some sliced kale or other green towards the end.

So I bet you wonder whatever happened to Garden? Good thing you have asked, it is doing pretty well. We got a late start to planting so we went with what was still in stock at the garden center. We planted 4 tomato plants, 3 basil plants, 3 pickling cucumber plants and a bunch of flowers. I also picked up a Shiso plant from our amazing cool local Japanese food store.

Everything is going great, except for one thing… RATS! This must be one of the fun, unique urban gardening things. Instead of bunnies or deers, we got rats. They have been having a field day with tomato plants in the community garden, and our cucumber plans haven’t been spared either. Luckily it does seem like they have a taste for basil because it has been left alone.

Our basil was growing like crazy so we decided to hop some down and make pesto. Carolyn’s grandmother makes great pesto, so the bar was set pretty high. The pesto we made doesn’t come close, but having it fresh adds something to it. You can make it using a food processor or blender, I am not sure what is better. I think I overprocessed it bit because the pesto lost its bright green color. That happens when it is exposed to air, so try to blend the minimum amount needed.

We had a ton of basil, so I just scaled to recipe up. In the end we had about a quart of pesto! Some of the “profits” had to shared with Carolyn’s brother because he helped out.

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!

The great things about dining in Argentina are:

1. The food is amazing
2. The exchange rate with the dollar makes it possible to be a little extravagant.

We definitely took advantage of both!

Here is a diary of our favorite meals. You’ll notice that most meals were our favorite! And of course, you can’t have meals with out some amazing Argentinean wine.  And I’ve included links to the restaurants/bars Web site when available. Enjoy!

Day 1 – Thursday, Nov. 22 – Thanksgiving

We arrived at our hotel (Sheraton Convention Center) in Buenos Aires around noon, or maybe later. After showering we ventured out into the city, walking along the very crowed Florida Ave. Billed as “great shopping” by the travel books, we were sorely disappointed. It was very touristy and the stuff was poor quality. Though we did amuse ourselves with all the Mr. Sweater shops Otro Mr. Sweater And we soon realized that there was a Christian Dior on just about every corner in Buenos Aires.

Anyway, Lunch… We were starving by this point! We visited the famed Café Tortoni for some Coke a Cola Light and bocadillos. I had Jamon Crudo y queso. Luke had a regular ham sandwich. It hit the spot. We also noticed that they had churros y chocolate on the menu!

Walked around a little bit more, and then hit up an ice cream parlor on Florida Ave. It was the most amazing ice cream ever! I had 2 scoops of Banana Split flavor. It was to die for! Luke had a scoop of dolce de leche and a scoop of tiramisu.

Before dinner we walked around the Palermo neighborhood and saw a bunch of cute restaurants, bars and shops. This was my favorite neighborhood in BA. We were looking for a couple of cool-sounding bars that we read about in the travel books. Unfortunately, some of them must have closed, because we couldn’t find them. We had a few pre-dinner drinks at Vace (1982 Fitz Roy).

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with a nice steak dinner? Our first night we went to El Trapiche (5599 Paraguay, Palermo Viejo). The steak was good, but this was actually my least favorite meal. The place was very cute though and it looked it liked they had good pastas, too. We had Trapiche Origen Malbec wine.

Day 2 – Friday, Nov. 23

We flew to Iguazu to visit the waterfalls. We were at the Hotel Esturion for 2 nights. We walked around the small town center, again looking for a cool-sounding bar/café that was listed in the book. It too must have closed because we didn’t see it. Instead we ate lunch at a pizza place, I don’t know the name, but the pizza was sooo good! We also order 3 empanadas that were to die for! Jamon y queso, beef and queso. And we got the large beer!

For dinner we ate at El Quincho de Tio Querido (Bompland Street) and ordered the mixed grill, which included some strange meats that we did not eat. But the steak, chicken, ribs and sausage were delicious!

Day 3 – Saturday, Nov. 24

We visited the national park and saw the waterfalls! They were soooo cool! There were all these trails that you could follow that took you right up close to the Falls. After a boat ride through the falls, in which we got completely soaked, we shared a jamon y queso bocadillo from the park café.

For dinner we ate at the hotel outdoor barbeque next to the pool – Naipi y Taroba. I don’t know what that means, but it was really good! We both got steaks and had Latitude 33 Malbec wine.

Day 4 – Sunday, Nov. 25

Back in Buenos Aires, we did an insane amount of walking around … visited the San Telmo street market. For lunch we went to Pizzeria Guerrin (1368 Corrientes). It was an old-time pizza place and the pizza was to die for!! For dinner we ate at Filo. I had pumpkin ravioli and Luke had meat ravioli. Both were amazing!

Day 5 – Monday, Nov. 26 – My birthday!

We returned to the Palermo neighborhood for some shopping! Had lunch at the most random, delicious, hole in the wall, authentic Spanish café El Preferido de Palermo (4801 Guatemala and Borges). First we were on the restaurant side of the place, but they didn’t serve the special that we saw advertised on the street sign, we had to go to the other side of the café, which was more casual. We ordered the “Maxi” plate of different meats (jamon, salami, etc) and cheeses. YUM!

After a little shopping, we regained the strength we needed to make it back to our hotel NH Jousten by stopping at Bar 6 (1676 Armenia between El Salvador and Honduras) for some fruit smoothies. I had raspberry and orange and Luke had pear and cilantro and lime. They were delicious.

We had a fantastic dinner down by the waterfront at Cabanas Las Lilas. This restaurant was written up by Tom Sietsema, Washington Post food critic. It was a little chilly that night, but we sat outside and watches stars emerge. At the restaurant, they started us out with a bunch of free appetizers – potato puff things, mushrooms, tomatoes and mozzarella, roasted red peppers, grilled vegetables and bruchetta and a spicy pesto like dip for bread. We were in heaven already! Tom had recommended the rib eye steak and potato soufflé, which were like airy French fries or potato chips – so that’s what I ordered. Luke had a strip steak, but it wasn’t like a NY strip steak… so, we would have to return again so he could get the correct steak. Oh, and we had beef carparrcio for an appetizer.

Day 6 – Tuesday, Nov. 27

Again, we did an insane amount of walking. For lunch we ate at Tancat (645 Paraguay, between Maipu and Florida) another Spanish tapas place. We were starving and went a little crazy with ordering – the waiter literally had to tell us to stop ordering because we had ordered a lot of food! We had tortilla espanola, mushrooms, jamon y queso, olives and a big jug of sangria. Yum! We didn’t get the try the gazpacho or the boqerones.

For dinner we ate at Gran Bar Danzon. This place was really cool! We started with some cocktails at the bar, then moved to the restaurant section and actually sat at the bar because we didn’t have a reservation. It was a wine bar, so we tried 4 different wines by the glass. I had Enrique Foster Reserva Malbec 2004 and Ben Marco Malbec. Both were really delicious, we brought back a bottle of each. Luke had Achaval Ferrer Quimera 2004 and Dona Paula Pinot Noir 2006. He liked them, but not enough to buy a bottle to take home with us. The food was also AMAZING here! We shared a couple of appetizers and an entrée ceviche and an apple and goat cheese tart to start and rabbit ravioli for an entrée. We had chocolate cake for dessert.

Day 7 – Wednesday, Nov. 28

We chilled out on our last day in Buenos Aires. Didn’t do too much walking because we knew we wouldn’t really be able to stretch out on the plane ride home. We picked up some Argentinean snacks from the Arcor factory store to send to my brother and some Havana cookies to bring into my office. Unfortunately, we left the bag of goodies on the airplane whoever found it had themselves a little fiesta!

For lunch, and our last meal, we went back to Cabana Las Lilas. Luke wanted to order the correct steak (the Chorizo Steak is the closest cut to a New York strip steak), plus it was our favorite restaurant overall. So, again, they brought us all the free appetizers. This time we ordered the veal empanadas, which were recommended by Tom. Luke ordered strip steak and I ordered the fish of the day – a white fish that came with mushrooms and tomatoes and 3 different kinds of dipping sauces. YUM! A perfect end to a great vacation.

Dinner was on the plane and it was not good. Luckily, Luke is Primer Exec. on United, so we got to go into the Red Carpet Club. We had a couple of beers, some cheese, nuts and crackers.

Does anyone know what type of squash this is?

Yellow Crookneck Squash

Green Pattypan Squash

Yellow Pattypan Squash

Miniature white cucumbers

Kirby Cucumbers

Ralph Rubio brought the fish taco to the US and San Diego in 1983. He first tried them while down in Baja for spring break. He tried to get the owner of his favorite taco stand to move up to San Diego… but he wouldn’t budge. Rubio lucked out though and manged to get his recipe, which the stand owner scrawled on a napkin. The recipe only included the ingredients, not quantaties. Through a bit of experimentation, Rubio perfected the recipe.

Rubio makes his fish tacos with a beer-battered and deep-fried fish filet, shredded cabbage, salsa and creamy white sauce that gets folded in a soft corn tortilla. He opened his first stand in Pacific Beach/Mission Bay in old Hamburger stand. It took a while to catch on, but now Rubio’s is a regional chain, with over 140 locations,

I ordered the 3 fish taco meal, which came with chips and a drink. It was excellant. The fish had a light crisp batter on them and the tortillias were thick and a little a chewy. The secret sauce brought it all together with a little tangy-ness.

The original stand is at 4504 East Mission Bay Drive in San Diego.

I found this recipe for Fish Tacos. I haven’t tried yet, but it looks good to me!

Classic Baja Fried-Fish Tacos

Baja street vendors aren’t big on written recipes, so we identified the key ingredients from the best fish-taco stands to create this recipe.

Prep and cook time: 25 minutes

Makes: 10 servings

• 1 cup dark beer
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• About 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 pounds boned, skinned lingcod
• Salad oil 20 warm corn tortillas
• About 5 cups shredded cabbage
• Mayonnaise thinned with a little water
• Tomato salsa
• Lime wedges

1. In a bowl, whisk beer, flour, and salt, blending well.
2. Rinse fish and pat dry. Cut into 10 equal pieces.
3. In a deep 5- to 6-quart pan, heat 1 inch salad oil to 360 [degrees]. Using a fork, coat fish pieces with beer batter and lift out, draining briefly. Slide coated fish into oil, about 5 pieces at a time. Adjust heat to maintain oil temperature. When fritters are golden, in about 2 minutes, lift out with a slotted spoon and drain briefly on paper towels; keep warm. Repeat to fry remaining fish.
4. To assemble each taco, stack 2 tortillas; add a fish fritter, cabbage, mayonnaise, and salsa. Squeeze lime over filling, fold tortillas, and eat.