Thursday, March 25, 2010

Good Food From Local Farms to Manhattan Tables


Miz Mamacita, a soon-to-be guest blogger here, found out from her Mommies' Group about a new grocery delivery service, Basis Good Food to You. Some of the Mommies have started ordering organic, whole, hormone-free milk from Basis, and it is catching fire in the press, too!

Every week, subscribers (subscriptions run for four or ten weeks) choose from a list of 100% traceable farmers market food and either pick it up at a point near their apartments or have it delivered directly home. Prices are incredibly reasonable -- 12 servings of fruits or vegetables for $19, for instance.

To boot, Basis uses a zero-emission fleet of cargo tricycles to make deliveries south of 59th Street in Manhattan.

To learn more, call Basis at 212.334.5544 or email them at goodfood@basisfoods.com.

Friday, March 19, 2010

How Cooking Helped Save the Marriage of Traumatized War Correspondents

Foreign correspondents Paula Butturini and her husband John Tagliabue suffered bullets, police beatings and a battle with depression that almost tore their marriage apart. Paula's new book is about how cooking and eating together got them through. She writes about eating's capacity to trigger the brain to hope and the comfort of daily routines.

KEEPING THE FEAST
One Couple’s Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy

By Paula Butturini
259 pp. Riverhead Books. $25.95.

Food can't cure clinical depression, but it can "jump-start a journey toward solace."

Friday, March 12, 2010

Food Poem Fridays: Connie Wanek's HONEY


Honey

by Connie Wanek


Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,

honey fills the jar

with the concentrated sweetness

of countless thefts,

the blossoms bereft, the hive destitute.

Though my debts are heavy

honey would pay them all.


Honey heals, honey mends.

A spoon takes more than it can hold

without reproach. A knife plunges deep,

but does no injury.


Honey moves with intense deliberation.

Between one drop and the next

forty lean years pass in a distant desert.

What one generation labored for

another receives,

and yet another gives thanks.

Monday, March 8, 2010

An Oscar Potluck

Two of my closest friends work in media/entertainment, and I've been left with a rather large television, so they and some others came over for some noshing, dishing, and Oscars-viewing.

We had so much food! laid out - not like an etherized patient, more like the antipasti table at a trattoria. Everything we ate last night was light, refreshing, tasty, simple but high quality, easy to prepare. The floral honey, bright green parsley flavor and crunch in the chickpea salad, and raspberries felt like harbingers of a much-awaited spring, while the depth in the blood oranges and dark, woodsy, berry tang of sumac felt like a poignant last look at winter.

*Popcorn tossed with Sumac

*Queso de Murci Curado, a six months' aged raw goat's milk cheese from Murcia in Southeastern Spain (with unspeakably delicious raw Manoir des Abeilles honey mixed with freshly ground black pepper poured over it)

*Red Kardoula Peppers stuffed with Feta and marinated in olive oil, garlic, and basil

*Green-and-black Olive Tapenade (with pita chips): Simply, pitted green and black olives food processed with fresh parsley and thyme, red chilli powder, a small amount of capers, and a slice of preserved lemon.

*Stuffed Grape Leaves

7-layer Bean Dip



*Blood Orange and Treviso Salad: I sliced two heads of treviso on the bias and laid supremed blood orange slices over that on a platter, scattered some sliced scallions on top, and dressed the salad with a vinaigrette of blood orange juice, pomegranate molasses, cider vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

*Roasted Chickpea Salad: I tossed cooked chickpeas with olive oil, salt, sumac, red chilli powder, and cumin, and roasted them spread out on a baking pan for 45 minutes in a 350-degree oven, then tossed them with shredded red cabbage, lots of fresh chopped flat leaf parsley, and a simple vinaigrette of lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Farmers Market Quiche

*Raspberries with Honeyed Greek Yogurt



* = organic