Cooking With Ideas

Scones and Bones

Laura Childs has a new one due out in March and it is, in fact, entitled Scones & Bones. An entry in her popular tea shoppe series, set in Charleston (South Carolina), this cozy features Theodosia Browning, tea shop owner, and her trusty side kicks (including the dapper Drayton). There is, again, some tea information, and as always some commentary on fashion, southern history, and Theodosia's romantic dilemmas. In this case, the major sub-theme, hinted at in the title is bones: skulls and bones in particular. And if that is not specific enough for you, think PIRATES. No, not Johnny Depp (though his name is mentioned) -- in this case, Blackbeard. While not a big pirate kinda person myself, some of the information that seems to startle Theodosia and her side kicks -- like his name Edmund -- or is it Edward -- Teach, even I knew. But other bits are, well, fun. Not to mention the tiny insight into Childs' views of academia offered in her characterization of the one professorial character and the College of Charleston which gets a mention.

On the foodie theme, the main issue is a tea and cheese evening, which seems like a set of odd pairings. The suggestions made are, possibly, great, but I could not swear to it. Not my cuppa. (Though there are sites that look at the possibility such as this one or this one.) And yes, there are a few scone recipes (lemon in this case) not to mention an occasional remark about chess pie. The end of the book includes the requisite tea information -- ranging from web sites to books. I do once in a while get tempted into investigating the history Childs alludes to -- there are a few possible sites to investigate if you're interested including this one and  this one and this one.

While not my favorite in the series, in part because some of the characters are getting almost as tiresome to read about as the eye-rolling implied that accompanies Theodosia's comments on them and in part because the mystery itself seemed a bit forced, the book was still -- fun. And, I keep thinking -- I should visit Charleston.

Have you read it? What do you think? About the book? About tea and . . . cheese?

Mercato -- In Ithaca

So, on our regular-ish trip to Ithaca we tried a new place, recommended by people who had been there. Right there on Aurora Street, a sort of nice-ish place that made us feel like we were in a bistro. We took, and it was definitely y fault, the worng seat -- near the window -- and hence we were a bit chilly -- but the ambience was nice-ish and the food pretty ok. Not perfect (see below) but not so bad. A place that seems to think of itself as Italian with innovative cocktales, this is situated right among a variety of Ithaca standard restaurants.

What did we eat? Well, we began with chicken liver pate, which we shared. It came in a way that is apparently usual, but seemed interesting to me -- schmeered on to bread with pickled red onions on top. The onions were dandy, and the bite was just right - the sweet of the liver pate, the right crunch of the bread, the lightness overall, as the pate was more mousse-ish than terrine-ish. Very good. Then we followed with gnocchi that came with braised short ribs and cheese. The meat was just right and the gnocchi not heavy at all. Pretty good and yet not perfect. (Plus I think the $22 was a bit high for this, but that might just be cheap post-holiday thinking.) Somehow they needed salt and/or something more to be perfect. I had a blood orange cosmo which was acually qutie good (too many are too sweet or too something or other and some day I have to stop ordering cosmopolitans anyway). The wines came in either a 5 ounce or a 8.5 ounce; the first glass seemed quite short but the bartender sent out extra when we inquired. Dessert: a pine nut tart with vanilla ice cream with balsamic vinegar on it.The pine nut tart was sort of pecan pie gone italian, but hte vinegar on the ice cream was really really good.

All in all, I'd return -- even though I would like to see a bit stronger gnocchi. (Yep, one of my favorite foods.)

Details? Here they are:

108 N. Aurora Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 319-5171

Not your idea of perfection but still want to eat in Ithaca? Here's the new restaurants in Ithaca round up for 2010.

Locally Chopped: I Missed It -- Did You?

So, ages ago when I was at the Finger Lakes Culinary Bounty dinner at Geneva on the Lake, reviewed here, I heard that two local chefs were going to be on e television show I (somewhat guiltily) admit I like: Chopped. I got all excited. The chefs, as I understood it, were to be Samantha Izzo of Simply Red and Debra Whiting of the Red Newt. While I mostly eat their food at things like this Culinary Harvest dinner, not being a habitue  (how does one spell that?) of either restaurant, I was thrilled. Both are dandy and I have liked what they cook. Both are Finger Lakers. And, perhaps from my perspective most importantly, both are women.

Anyway, I had it in my brain, I had heard the rumor, and then I was away when the first episode including one of these wonderful women occurred: January 4th when Samantha Izzo was on. I admit I have no clue (zip, mada, none) whether Whiting also will appear later in the season. But the first half of the rumor turned out to be true so. . .

So, first: the premise of the Food Network show, hoosted by Ted Allen who I first encountered on the now defunct I think Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He seems to have parleyed that into endless food show presence. Anyway, the show basically involves 4 chefs, each of whom has to try to cook (in a limited amount of time) an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert using ingredients contained in a "market basket" of surprise ingredients. Each basket includes some utterly normal chef-ish ingredients - and then usually one odball thing. Cheetos. Or marshamallows. Or whatever. This is a show I actually enjoy, and sometimes fantasize about what I would do with the market baskets. Once in a while, the show is really not very competitive -- several people are really bad or everyone is -- but often there are real possibilities. Plus, I like the judges often.

As I understand it, Sam's episode involved the trendy food du jour: offal and, in particular, brains. She made it through the appetizer -- and then was chopped on the entree round.

Did you see it? Fill us in on the dandy details please!?!?!?!

For an interview with Izzo from elsewhere in the blogosphere, click here. For the buzz prior to the whole thing, check this out. And meanwhile, here's the (Rochester) Democract and Chronicle on Izzo on Chopped. And here's the Syracuse newspaper on. . . yep,  Izzo on Chopped. 

And, crucially, for a recipe of Izzo's to try out, for duck with sweet and sour cabbage, try clicking here. Mmmmmmm.

And let us know: did you see the show?

Blog Byte (Well, Acually, Two)

A tiny entry for your tiny little moment of procrastination:

No clue if this is local, but since it links to me, let me do turn around is fair play and send you all along to Dust Wrapper (which is a great name for a blog). My sense is it has a local to geneva NY connection if just for the list of restaurants. . . . .

And here's one that is definitely local: Ithaca's Food Web. Just click here. And it referenced a book on charcuterie -- wowzers. So, yep, click away.

The Grainery

So, on a recent play day, mentioned in THIS review of the Brown Hound Bistro, I spent a few hours hanging out in Naples, NY. Yep, Naples. What I mainly did was go to a place called The Grainery and drink coffee (two mochas) and have an egg sandwich on a jalapeno bagel with cheese and bacon. And, I read -- mainly the book reviewed here entitled The Grave Gourmet. The Grainery turns out to be a very nice small place, populated in terms of employees (from cooks to . . . well, apparently everything) by youngish women. They sort of exude the feminst vibe, but who knows. Anyway, diners ranged across ages and both men and women were eating away, on their own or in small groups. Basically, you went to the front, ordered and voila!

So, I already confessed to the breakfast sandwich (served here all day) which is a newish love of mine. This one was quite qood. I have always liked jalapeno bagels, and this one was not too jalapeno-y and just right. My sense is they make the bagels at the Grainery. I know, because I went to the (not too bad, but nothing to write home about) bathroom, which meant I saw the kitchen -- that the eggs were made to order. All in all the darn thing tasted . . . . well, tasty. And I felt comfortable hanging out. I did have one mocha too many (I had two, as I said) which meant I was a bit jangly. Also available are dog biscuits (I refrained) and some sweets. They seem to also sell paninis of various sorts, and sandwiches and soups.

A few unrelated side notes: the Naples library is right next store, which is great if you are hanging out, want to avoid spenidng too much money, and it is snowy. Also: they had a new-to-me Harold McGee book entitled Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Food and Recipes which I perused for a while. I liked it. easily readable, and likely to have solutions and suggestions for most cooking dilemmas. I have a  vague recollection of some weirdo solution to corked wine involving plastic wrap, but I may have misremembered. when I deserve a treat, which may not be for a long time, I may buy it for myself. It came out in October, and is even kindle-able. Hmmm. he e-book thing might be like the ipod-y thing; eventually you want one for each genre. (I do not have more than one ipod-y thing but in my imaginaion real music types would.) Anyway, the book was a good perusable while in the library . . . .

As for the grainery: I liked it. I would go back. Where? Right here:

110 South Main Street
Naples, NY 14512
(585) 374-8220

Brown Hound Bistro

Silly as it sounds, one of the best things about this place is the ambience. Yes, the food is really quite wonderful (see below), but what made me smile was the smallness of it -- and the bathroom. Yep, while it is itself tiny and right off the dining room in a way that made me worry strangers could hear me, it was filled with -- you guessed it -- photos of brown dogs with their names and things on them. Corgis and mutts and who knows whats. It made me smile.

More seriously: first and foremost this Naples eatery -- called, you may have gathered, the Brown Hound Bistro -- has been on my to-dine list for some time. It is really a smallish house, with the kitchen on the second floor. When you enter, you see a smallish (get the theme?) dining room and bar. Very very homey. Maybe 8 tables? We went on a wintry evening after I spent the day in Naples (see a review of The Grainery to follow that is the place I hung out at for part of the day) and then met up with my favorite cross country skiier. A few miles outside of Naples proper was the Bistro where we had a reservation so early (5:30) we joked about the early bird special. The porch was covere din snow (well, one of hte porches) and a chain across hte steps (wisely) and so we entered by the other door (the one they clearly intended for us to use).

Here's what we had:

First, we had two cups of cream of mushroom soup which was just right for a snowy day, especially for the skiier. It was peppery and the mushroopms actually had not been unduly chopped up, and I ate it just a bit too quickly. Mine was not terrifically hot, but otherwise it was great. And in fact that may have been why the taste was so good.

We had local wines and were pleasantly surprised (do I always say that)? A Heron HIll and an Imagine Moore. I picked mine for the name: Wisdom, something I seek but usually miss as it leaves the door. Accompanying the wine (yes, the otehr way around, but then. . . ) were, in my case, a yellwo fin tuna, barely spanked, with a ginger/wasabi/sesame sauce that was quite tasty. This is a sort of usual way to serve tuna and sometimes I find the sauce cloying or just too wasabi-y. This time it was just right -- and even smelled good. The skiier had a rib eye steak which she said was dandy. And both came with smashed potatoes (I had to ask for butter, which may be a good thing) and asparagus (cleasrly not a seasonal vegetable, but surely cooked quite nicely). We both got petite portions, which were not exactly small. . . . The main accomapniment was bread with olive oil; to my taste, the bread was too soft and the olive oil a bit bland. But. . . not everyone can be perfect, right?

We followed -- after some thought -- with dessert. I got peanut butter piue, which I had only had before in a homemade version (made by someone else) and this one was just as dandy. Not too heavy, not too peanutty. Just right. And the skiier had a white chocolate mousse-y thing with some chocolate cake in it. She decsribed it as sort of a giant oreo.

One quibble, beyond the bread: they had a very litied tea selecytion (no just plain green tea) and this forvced us into decaf coffee. On the other hand, they did give the skier a bit of a taste of the mousse-y thing so she could see if it would be too sweet.  and even though I was taken to eat, I do know the price was reasonable.

Here's urban spoon on the place:

 

Bow wow wow wow. Brown Hound.

The Grave Gourmet

No, this is not about getting serious, though I best get more serious about blogging as I have been a bit off I think. This is about -- a murder mystery! The author is Alexander Campion, so for a change a murder mystery about food by a guy? It is called  "a Capicine Culinary Mystery" so I suspect Campion and/or the publisher intend for this to be a series. (A romp around the web found he is due out with volume 2 in July 2011 to be entitled The Game Gourmet.)  In any case, kindling away, I enjoyed it. It is set in Paris, involves a young female police detective and her older restaurant critic husband, and is authored by Campion who himself seems to be a restaurant critic. While the story is a bit complicated -- perhaps unduly and especially in the latter third, the combination of a body in a restaurant, the restaurant critic as foodie resource, and the police detective works. I am a bit put off by one very caricatured male detective who simply leers away as though that is his principal function -- and then charmed by the use of the phrsse "natural feminist" to describe the heroine (and this despite her rather intentional use of her so-called feminine wiles occasionally. On the one hand, I like it that she's clearly intended to be extremely smart; on the other hand, the contrast of white collar to other forms of criminality is a bit forced in its representation of class. And, I nearly got whiplash from the last third's plot twists, but sort of liked them. Was unsure about a character named Jacques for what, if you read this book, will seem obvious reasons. And yet, I enjoyed the read. And the foodie bits were a delight as was the means of murder which I shall not spoil for you, simply hint that food and weapons are not as far removed as I had thought.

Some highlights: a few pages on ortolans -- how they are cooked, eaten, and the Parisian (and perhaps French) disregard for their illegality; snide comments about the potential of rendering foie gras similarly illegal; descriptions of the creation of a dish that involves chesnuts and scallops and truffles (and their consumption by someone whose culture finds this extremely disgusting much later in the book); and contrasts of French to American restaurant scenes (though I do occasionally tire of a sort of knee jerk anti-Americanism. Yes, imperialist. Yes, way too self-indulgent and uneducated in almost every way. But really, really tired of knee jerk anti-Americanism that is used to prop up other cultures that also have their flaws. Yes Campion is a New Yorker, now living in Toronto, who writes about Paris. But still.) No clue what an ortolan is? Click here for its inclusion in a list of foods that are a bit scarey to eat or here for a video or -- HERE for a recipe. Yes I had heard of all this before; and no I have never consumed one.

The mystery does allow for a bit of a focus on what is ostensibly one of the finest restaurants in Paris, and refers to things like staff meals in interesting ways. Also, there is a snide comment on a restaurant named "Hnad" here that may be about Spoon, where I have actually eaten lo those many years ago. And yes, the snide remark is warranted. I have no idea, by the way, if it is true that when restaurants begin to be too popular with tourists Parisians stop eating there. . . 

As I said, the plot gets a bit over the top by the end, with what perhaps is the requisite cop bullying, and complications around the auto industry (this is not a plot spoiler since the whole premise, revealed extremely eearly on, revolves around the death of a Renault president. No clue how they feel being featured in such a fashion. Nor how the very slow, but "cute" car owned by the detective actually accelerates. Another requirement, perhaps, is that the wealthy detective who enters the police force as a rejection of her parent's lifestyle actually benefits a lot from connections in that world -- is this cliche a way of just figuring out how she'll get information? Seems to be how a number of authors solve hat dilemma.

All in all, a nice romp, lots of fun foodiness (mostly restaurantish, though the husband/critic is also a very swell cook, and some nice Paris landscape that reminded me of my sole trip there. And, I emerged guilty that I do not make my own stock. May have to try it out!

For once, by the way, this author did not include recipes. Hallelujah! too often this is mere padding. Some do appear on his website, with a bit on the importance of avoiding shortcuts that will introduce you to the level of foodieness of the book; click here.

Canine Boutique

So, do stores that specialize in dog treats qualify to be reviewed on a foodie site like Cooking with Ideas? I have a vague memory of having reviewed a set of treats from a place in Harrisburg last year but even I cannot find that mention. Hmmm. Well, apparently my internal who cares index says -- if Bibliochef wants, Bibliochef can -- at least in this instance, Bibliochef had so much fun at a "canine boutique" buying little holiday treats for dogs that it seems reasonable to mention the joint here. It's name: Fido's Canine Boutique in Pittsford. The treats? Bubba Rose Biscuits. And now, all you have to do is click here to send treats to someone you love (or someone's dog you love) or both? I cannot review their taste (though they seemed to go over well with the intended recipients) -- but they sure looked dandy. And I just saw on the site -- an organic dog treat cookbook. So, i guess they occifically count?

What do you think?