A blog about food and cooking by Chris Norris
Tasty Toledo My parents are originally from Toledo, so we’ve had ample opportunities to visit Toledo and become accustomed to many of the food joints frequented by my parents during their childhood. My Grandfather passed away just a few weeks ago, and since he made […]
Hana Hou Hana hou. To do again, repeat; encore. [From the New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary by Mark Kawena Pukui.] My life is fully scheduled, filled with people to meet, decisions to make, children to tend to and adventures to be had. But what if life […]
Apples, Plums and Pigs
We have a Fuji apple tree in our backyard that is just starting to deliver ripe apples. Of course, the problem with large apple trees in your backyard is that there is no way the apples can possibly be consumed by the owners. This time of year is mostly a test of how many of our friends and neighbors can be convinced to take a shopping bag full of apples home. However, we try to make a small dent, and this weekend the kids collected a couple handfuls of the best looking apples they could find.
In previous years, we also had plum trees that ripen at the same time. The cul-de-sac where our house is located was once a plum orchard, so there are dozens of trees still scattered about. Unfortunately, in this part of California, trees that drop fruit like crazy attract insects like ants and flies. Even worse, they attract wild pigs! Every year the pigs begin making their evening appearances starting in late August, munching first on the free offering of fruit scattered on the ground, and then moving on to the sod and plants that we’ve call our front lawn. We’ve tried every idea in the book to discourage the pigs, to no avail. In fact, after the herd of several dozen pigs completely rooted up our front lawn, I threw in the towel. Which means our front lawn is currently barren of plant life, pending my delivery of a “desert landscape” design to our gardener. Fortunately, we’ve a got a fence around our backyard…
Anyway, I digress. Last year, after the lawn got wiped out, I eliminated virtually all of the plum trees on our property. However, our neighbors still have quite a collection of them in their backyard, enough to deliver over 800lbs of plums during this year’s harvest. Conveniently, one of the kids and I were wandering around the fence line and noticed a branch loaded with plums dangling over the fence that divides our property. We took the opportunity to pick a bunch of the best examples, and along with the apples, delivered them to my beautiful wife and expert baker for transformation into an awesome dessert. In short order, Laura, along with her mother, visiting from Michigan, came up with a simple apple and plum crisp that totally rocked. The recipe is in the recipe box on my website, www.itsfoodtime.com, or you can click here: Apple and Plum Crisp.
I hope you enjoy.
– Chris
Dinner at Josiah’s Josiah Slone is the Chef and owner of Sent Sovi, a high end restaurant in Saratoga, CA that was previously owned by David Kinch, now of Manresa in Los Gatos. One of the angles Josiah uses to put his own mark on […]
Eye Can’t See You It’s the Opening Night at your new restaurant: The Chef has his A-Game going and there will be no screw-ups in the kitchen. The Maitre’d promises to greet each arriving patron with a smile, provide reassurance that a table will be […]
Beaches & Booty
For the 4th of July just passed, Laura and I headed to South Beach, Miami for a few days of hard-core rest & relaxation. Which means no plans of any kind, not even dinner reservations. This trip was the follow up to a one-day excursion two years ago returning from a customer visit in Fort Lauderdale. Aside from some really good ceviche and pounding beers while watching hot chicks at Mango’s, we can’t remember much of that day, other than it ended some time around 3 am. Recognizing the potential for a very good time, we’ve been chomping at the bit for a chance to get back to Miami.
South Beach is the Miami equivalent of the Strip in Las Vegas or Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Ocean Avenue runs along much of South Beach, and is home to art-deco hotels, bars and restaurants that stretch for over 20 blocks along the beach. The place doesn’t come alive until afternoon, but then continues at full tilt until well after midnight. We know first hand that this part of town is still rockin’ at 2 am with some of the greatest examples of human diversity that you can find in this country!
The routine we like to follow is to sleep until about noon, which is only 9 am back home in California, suck down some coffee and lots of water, and start moving towards the door. We wander down Ocean Avenue looking for food and enjoying the warm tropical weather, which surrounds you like a hug. This isn’t Kansas anymore so expect to be immersed in every color and language of humanity imaginable.
After some fine Caribbean seafood and a few drinks, we cut over to the water and begin traipsing our way back the 15 blocks to the National Hotel, our home away from home on this trip. The walk along this part of South Beach is an experience to be remembered! Over this stretch of ocean are arrayed a collection of ad-hoc beaches with implicit themes so varied as to put Disney to shame. There’s the family beach, the romantic beach, the volleyball beach, the chicks with no tops beach, the gay beach, the black beach, the Puerto Rican beach, the hoitey-toitey “hotel guests only” beach, the old people beach and more, with people of all shapes, ages, sizes, and various states of undress crammed onto the hot sand or splashing in the 80-degree water. One word: Amazing!
Finally, with our calves burning from walking miles in the sand and our senses suitably shocked for one day, we’re back at the hotel pool, fortified with a mai-tai and a good book. So begins our “quiet time”, before we gear up for dinner and begin the evening tour of South Beach offerings. Much like Europe, a 9 pm dinner reservation is still at risk of being a bit early and lots of restaurants are still seating at 11:30 pm.
There’s a wide range of food, most of it traditional European or American, with Caribbean influence and lots of seafood. While the best restaurants in this area are not on Ocean Avenue, we’ve had some very passable food at A Fish Called Avalon, Pelican Miami, and Oriente at Gloria Estefan’s Cordozo Hotel. You can check out www.itsdiningtime.com for my reviews of these establishments. However, all of these restaurants pale in comparison to the very awesome food we enjoyed at Ola, located in the Sanctuary Hotel a few blocks off of Ocean Avenue. And don’t forget that Robert DeNiro’s restaurant Nobu (sushi) is at the Shore Club just a few blocks away.
The bars and clubs go on and on, seemingly without end. Jazz clubs abound. In fact, the last time we were here we found a great little Jazz bar that fills up with friendly locals situated right next to a tattoo parlor that fills up with nervous Midwestern tourists. It turns out the tattoo parlor is where Miami Ink is filmed! Still, we had more fun listening to Jazz and sipping Mohitos. And of course, no experience of the South Beach night life is complete without a beer at Mango’s, right on Ocean Avenue, and filled with the young ladies dancing on the bar. Mango’s is a Caribbean version of “Coyote Ugly”, only wilder!
We’ve never survived our evening adventures late enough to know when Miami actually starts to quiet down, but we’re happy that “what happens in Miami stays in Miami!”
– Chris
Stepford Chefs I’m catching up on my favorite TiVo’d Food Network shows and settling in for another excellent 30 minutes of Chef Robert Irvine doing his magic, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but another over-exposed celebrity, Michael Symon. It’s not enough […]
Something’s Fishy Farm raised fish, like salmon and trout, help us to avoid depleting our natural fisheries. For example, if I eat a farm raised salmon, that’s one less wild salmon that will be dragged out of the ocean before it’s had a chance to […]
Is That Really Pepper?
First, all four types of peppercorns ARE true peppercorns from the black pepper vine, in Latin, Piper Nigrum. The difference is whether the berries are picked before or after they ripen, and in how the peppercorns are processed after being harvested. The spicy hot flavor from peppercorns is caused by a chemical called piperine, which is different than the chemical capsaicin, the hot stuff found in foods like chili peppers.
Black peppercorns are picked green, BEFORE the berry ripens, and are then dried. The berry shrivels up and turns black, and results in the peppercorn we most commonly think of as pepper. Actually biting into a whole black peppercorn will release both a sense of spicy hotness in your mouth along with the characteristic “peppery” flavor. My mouth was burning after chewing on a whole black peppercorn.
White peppercorns are fully ripened before they are picked, and the outer skin of the berry is removed, leaving just the seed. White peppercorns are good for use in food where black pepper would hurt the aesthetics of the food. After I realized this point, I converted one of my grinders to a white pepper only grinder, so now I don’t need my separate bottle of pre-ground white pepper! By the way, biting into a white peppercorn will also cause your mouth to burn, but without quite the robust pepper flavor of the black peppercorns.
Green peppercorns start off identical to black peppercorns, in that they are picked before they ripen. But rather than being dried, they are preserved with one of several different chemical processes, such as freeze-drying, so they stay smooth and retain their color. What’s interesting about green peppercorns is that they are not hard and crunchy like the other three types of peppercorns. Rather, they are somewhat soft and chewable, and have a mild flavor.
Red peppercorns, like white peppercorns, are picked after they have ripened and turned red on the vine. Instead of having their outer skin removed, the peppercorns are preserved in a fashion similar to green peppercorns, preserving the berry’s color and somewhat smooth skin. Red peppercorns should not be confused from pink peppercorns, which are apparently from an unrelated genus of vine. The red peppercorns in my jar tasted just like white peppercorns.
Happy Grinding and Gesundheit!
– Chris
Be Elsie My last blog entry was a rant about obnoxious behavior on reality TV. I did, in fact, watch the first season of Hell’s Kitchen and feel compelled to highlight the bright light of that entire season. One of the contestants in the first […]
A food and drink blog – musings on food related items, restaurants, recipes, using the Komodo Kamado oven, brewing beer at home, and more!