Sometimes you want to root for the home girl.

Last weekend, we went to the Phoenix farmers market (the one downtown). I’d heard that Chef John Sharpe from La Posada in Winslow, AZ (yes, same town the Eagles crooned something about standing on a corner) was going to be at the market with his new cookbook.

Dang, he had strep throat and couldn’t make it.

So we meandered the market anyway. The Tamale Store had printed a huge new banner that had the cover of the March PHOENIX Magazine, and my article about their utterly delicious tamales on full display at their booth. Yeah!, but I’m getting off track here.

Back to rooting for the home girl…I found the coolest candles from Skinny Girl Desserts. Cupcakes, tarts, quick breads…all in candle form (hence the skinny part)… I bought the berry blast (pictured above).

Of course, I’ll never get to burn it unless Jeff is out of town (he’s not a fan of scented candles, and this one is SO scented…might not ever have to buy air freshener again). Still, I thought the idea was so cute and clever. When I got home, I realized I didn’t pick up her business card, or any other information about her. I can’t find anything about her on Google either.

I guess I’ll have to go back to the market this weekend. And, it’s a great weekend to go the market because they’re going to make a big announcement as part of their 4th anniversary celebration. Think it has something to do with their new indoor market space. Go to the market this Saturday, and if you can’t make it, check back here. I’ll post about it next week.

Tags: candles, Skinny Girl Desserts
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Image courtesy of Sun Pacific

What can you do with the darling little clementines known as Cuties? They’re so easy to peel that eating them out of hand is the simplest way to go.

They’re loaded with Vitamin C, potassium, folate and other B vitamins (and I just read a story this morning that scientists believe B vitamins can help vision in older women…I can use all the help I can get in that department.)

I’ve not seen the little Cuties for sale in anything smaller than a three pound bag, and most times it’s five or six pounds. That’s a heck of a lot of little orange orbs, especially for a household of two. The season is November through April, so now is the time to pick up a bag and add a little sunshine to your diet.

You can peel them and break them into sections to garnish green salads, cold rice salads or even a salad of just clementines and shaved fennel…maybe a few slivers of red onion, too, and dress it with a splash of extra virgin olive oil and a delicate vinegar, like rice wine vinegar.

Or, you can peel them, slice them crosswise into 1/4 inch rounds and steep them in a spiced sugar syrup, and then use them as a topping for whole grain pancakes, or serve them along side a nice scone. Here’s an easy recipe for spiced clementines. Make this the day before you plan to serve them.

Spiced Clementines

Serves 4

Ingredients
1/2 cup sweet white wine (like Gewurztraminer) or apple juice
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1 star anise pod
1/4 teaspoon whole cloves
8 clementines, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch rounds

Method
1. Bring the wine (or juice), water, sugar and spices to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring once or twice for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Place clementine rounds in a flat, shallow baking pan, overlapping if necessary. Pour hot syrup and spices over the rounds, making sure each round is moistened with syrup. Cool to room temperature, turn the rounds over, and then cover the dish and refrigerate overnight.

Tags: clementines, Cuties, ideas for cutie clementines, spiced clementines
Posted in Breakfast, Breads & Muffins, Recipes | 1 Comment »

My mouth is wide open, I’m flat on my back and two pairs of hands are inside my mouth. One of those hands is holding a drill. “So,” my dentist asks nonchalantly, “How’d you get that job?”

He’s referring to the food critic part of my multi-pronged culinary career. Unlike him, I need multiple streams of income to add up to a viable career.

Food writing doesn’t pay much. Neither does cookbook authoring, most chef positions and pretty much any singular focused culinary skill. But add them all up, and I can cobble together a decent paycheck. And generally a full tummy.

After my mouth is safe from prying hands, drills and syringes filled with lidocaine, I answer his question: The same way you got your job — I went to school, studied hard, got a degree, and started applying my craft. Duh!

OK, I didn’t say it that directly (I do have to go back to see him, after all) but it struck me as funny that my highly skilled dentist (and he is a specialist, not a general practitioner) was asking me how I scored the enviable job of eating for a living.

Truth is, it’s a legitimate question. Most people want to know how the heck you get a food critic position. And the reality is that in these times, anyone can become a food critic. There are TONS of blogs written by people who say they are food critics. (Although, I’m not sure about the guy who wrote “I ate here once and never will return.”)

Professional critics don’t have the luxury of passing up the second and third visits, no matter how terrible the first visit was. But there is room for all of us — the professional, the lay person, the kid (did you see the NY Times article about the 12-year old critic?)

Seriously…. we’re not talking brain surgery, rocket science or solving world peace. We’re talking about food. If you want to write about food (and get paid for it), start by writing. A blog. An article that you submit to your local publications with a letter of introduction. Just start writing. Oh, and eating. Actually, it’s eating, then writing.

Tags: food writing, how to be a food writer, restaurant reviews
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Now that’s a creative way to entice diners, don’t you think?

Cleverness aside, the Sunday through Thursday dinner only special menu is a smoking deal at one of the hippest restaurants in Scottsdale.

It’s a three course menu for only 30 bucks (excluding tax/tip/drinks, of course.)

Choose either a land or sea starter, a sushi entree and finish up with green tea mochi ice cream with fresh fruit.

Let’s see, would I like the tuna tataki with ponzu, daikon wrapped salmon, Kampachi with diced jalapenos, Kobe tataki, chicken tandoori skewer or miso marinated eggplant better?

Tough choice. Take a friend and get one of each. Sweet!

Details: Susi Roku (at the W Hotel) 7277 E. Camelback Road., Scottsdale, 480-970-2121 (www.sushiroku.com)

Tags: Deals, Restaurant Journal, sushi, Suski Roku
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Enough with the comfort food, already, don’t you think? Have you noticed that every single magazine related to food or lifestyle is peppering us with comfort food?

“You need comfort food in this economy” they say. Yet, if you keep your old magazines from years past, you’ll see that January through March, comfort food dishes dominate.

Why? Because it’s winter in most parts, and winter calls for pots of chili, thick stews and hearty casseroles. This year, it’s easy to add the economy as the reason we need comfort foods. It’s not enough that it’s chilly outside and we typically make these kinds of dishes in the winter anyway.

Don’t get me wrong… I love comfort food. Adore it, actually. But tying it to the tanking economy is going to ruin it for me. When we pull out of this (and we will) I don’t want to have a bad taste in my mouth about some outrageously delicious comfort food that reminds me of when the stock market was in a flat line, one gasp away from death.

I want to give specific kudos to Food & Wine Magazine, though. At least their covers (February and March 2009) seemed to be focused on healthy (and our nation is healthy, if a bit under the weather) comfort food.

The root vegetable gratin gracing their March cover adds an interesting, albeit sneaky, twist. Layers of sweet potato and butternut squash hide another layer of rutabaga (a step-child vegetable that’s good for you but never gets star treatment), all topped with a crunchy, olive oil-kissed bread crumb topping.

It looks worth the 30 minutes of prep time and 90 minutes of bake time. And I bet you could use leftovers, mashed, as you would pumpkin puree: in quick breads, pancakes, etc. Just guessing. That’s not to say that the homemade rolls on the Gourmet cover aren’t enticing (yes, Gourmet wants you to work for your comfort — no easy outs for Gourmet cooks). And the lamb and eggplant shepherd’s pie on bon appetit’s cover looks so scrumptious I can feel my hips widening just looking at the picture.

I guess a tanking economy is reason enough to hunker down at home and since it is chilly outside, a warm bowl of soup or a homey casserole seems to be just what the doctor ordered. Feed the soul at the same time as the tummy. But let’s do it for the reasons we’ve always done it… baby, it’s cold outside.

Tags: bon appetit, comfort food, Food & Wine, food magazines, Gourmet
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We may never surpass the Russians in vodka consumption but apparently we’re giving it our best shot, based on the expanded shelf space dedicated to the popular white spirit and the sheer number of new vodka-based drinks.

Now there’s an American “green” choice, giving double meaning to the “drink responsibly” mantra.

Distilled in Missouri, the 360 Vodka folks are serious about their “eco-luxury” vodka, billing it as the “world’s first eco-friendly vodka.” And they’re not just giving lip service to the green movement.

The company says they’ve been recycling since 2003. Last year, their employees recycled 210 tons of material and they moved to a four day, 10-hour work week. (I bet the employees love having an extra day to play and drink…and recover.)

360 Vodka is also putting its money where its mouth is, giving back through their “close the loop” program. Cleverly, the company is asking buyers to return the removable bottle closure and in return, they are donating $1.00 to domestic “recognized environmental causes.” They’re even paying the postage.

For more details, go to www.vodka360.com. You must be of legal drinking age to surf their site.

Tags: 360 Vodka, beverages, green vodka, vodka
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Grilling tomatoes for salsa brings a whole other flavor layer to the mix, a deeper, richer flavor. Unless you grill the tomatoes over a wood grill, you won’t get a big smoky flavor, but the charred skins will add depth.

Grill the chiles, too (jalapeno, serrano or other green chiles, like New Mexican green or poblano) and you’ll notice you get a bit more heat out of them than fresh chiles.

You can use fire roasted tomatoes for other things besides salsa. You can make a fire roasted pasta sauce, for example, replacing canned or fresh tomatoes in your favorite recipe with grilled tomatoes. Or you can grill some red onion while your at it, and then chop up the charred onion and tomatoes for a garnish for grilled chicken or fish.

Use either the round variety or the plum tomatoes (Roma). It doesn’t really matter. Even though it’s not tomato season, they’re available year round, and grilling them is a good way to boost their flavor punch when they’re not in season.

It’s really simple to grill tomatoes. Just put them on a fairly hot grill and let them grill until they’re charred to your personal preference. (I do core them before grilling, but you don’t have to.) I like to grill them until they’re black on one side (could take 5 to 8 minutes on the first side) and then flip them and grill on the opposite side. I don’t let the entire surface skin get black like I do with my chiles, but then again, I’m usually grilling chiles to get rid of the skin, and for the tomatoes, I keep the blackened skin for it’s flavor.

Tags: fire roasted tomatoes, grilling, how to grill tomatos, tomatoes
Posted in How To..., Tips & Tutorials | No Comments »

Finally, I had the perfect answer to a question I get on a daily basis. As a restaurant critic, people want me to recommend “the perfect” restaurant for them. Problem is, restaurants are a lot like clothes. One size or one particular style usually doesn’t fit all, and I rarely know enough about the stranger in front of me asking me to give him the perfect recommendation. It’s a complicated question.

But today, I had an answer. My monthly pest control guy happen to ask me what it was that I did all day long, squirreled away in my office clicking away on the keyboard. I mentioned that I wrote about food, specifically restaurant reviews for PHOENIX Magazine. His eyes lit up and he said, and I quote: “So, for Valentine’s Day, what would you recommend that would be special but wouldn’t break the bank?”

I got that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on my face because this question rarely leads to a happy situation for me or the inquisitive one. So I said, well, where do you live? He told me Surprise. Which is east LA (kidding, but might as well be since it is so, so far west from the center of Phoenix).

And then it hit me. Amuse Bouche. It’s in Surprise and it’s a cozy, French-inspired gem, with charming owners and outrageously delectable food…that won’t break the bank. I wrote about the young couple who own Amuse Bouche in a January story for PHOENIX Magazine called “Rising Star Chefs.”

I was so impressed with their food (and I clearly kicked myself out of the opportunity to review them since I met them in person for the story) I wrote to my editor before I left their parking lot. And I sent a note to my former editor at The Arizona Republic because I thought that the valley seriously needed to know about this adorable, cracker-box of a restaurant hiding out in the west valley.

So, finally, the inquisitive one was happy, I was happy and I’m pretty sure the young chefs at Amuse Bouche will be happy when they snatch another soon-to-be loyal customer, who happens to live around the corner.

Tags: Amuse Bouche, cozy French restaurant in Surprize AZ, restaurant for Valentine's Day
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She sits in the window, chin raised, eyes closed, bathing in the warm afternoon sun. Dogs love catching a few rays, but their masters physically need sunshine. Our bodies, the skin in particular, convert ultraviolet rays from the sun into Vitamin D.

Some nutritionists argue that we can’t get all the Vitamin D we need from food alone, and supplements aren’t absorbed as much as we think they are (and there is such a thing as too much Vitamin D). Food sources for Vitamin D include fatty fishes (like salmon) and fish oils (cod liver oil, anyone?) and many foods are fortified with Vitamin D, like cereals and milk.

Why do we need Vitamin D? Because it is essential for calcium absorption, and we need calcium for strong bones, among other things. Now, I’m not an expert on nutrition, but if I need more Vitamin D in my diet, am I going to take a swig of cod liver oil, or am I going to take a walk in the sunshine? What do you think?

Tags: cod liver oil, salmon, sunshine, Vitamin D
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