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I'm heading for the sun for a few weeks, so this blog will continue to be maintained by my food-crazy colleagues.
I'm hoping to check in myself occasionally. Hope you'll continue to eat well in my absence and keep me apprised of same. Bon appetit and all that.
Be back April 1 (call it April FOOD Day.)
In my column Wednesday, I talk about the growing appreciation of butter as a real food, touching on how many different types of butter are now sold in an average-sized supermarket. It's s not just a matter of salted or unsalted, these days. European style butters with increased fat content are readily available, too.
Each tastes different; each has a different mouth feel and there's no question that the number of varieties will continue to grow. If we're lucky and if governmental regulations permit, some might even be produced in small batches in local farms.
I'd put locally made artisan cheese on my wish list too while I'm at it. There isn't much of that around here right now. (Yes there are good cheddars but that's a commercial operation, even though it's small.)
|I do wish that some divinely inspired dairy person would jump into it. Admittedly, such a cheese or butter would cost more than commercial stuff. and that's probably not much money to be made. At the moment I know of only one farmer who might do it. And that would be Patrick Lango of the White Cow Dairy in East Otto, whom I wrote about a couple of years ago and who was written was written up in the New York Times last week .
Lango is already bringing his wonderful yogurt to farmers' markets in the area and sells at the prestigious Murray's Cheese Shop in Manhattan. Let's hope that someday soon there will be more like him.
Eggplant Parmesan Pizza. Garlic Shrimp Pizza. Philly Steak & Cheese Pizza. Steak & Dandelion Pizza are on the menu. The sign at 888 Main St. that says "Gourmet Pizza" may well be right.
Anyway, it's a cute little place in a building that's been empty for years and once where a restaurant named Chin's used to be. (It was probably Buffalo's first fancy Chinese restaurant.) The place is fixed up now with handsome red walls, beautiful booths and a good looking bar that serves beer and wine.
The restaurant does have a name -- Campieri's -- and regular hours (Tuesday through Saturday 5 to 11 pm), but it doesn't do substitutions. It doesn't do half-and-half pizzas, and it doesn't do takeout either. Maybe that's why I can't find the telephone number.
If you're in the area try it. And let me know how you make out.
In my food story today, I asked some of the best cooks I know about their favorite pans. And it was no surprise to find that despite the fact that some of them were the proud owners of $150 casseroles and all manner of imported cookware, their choices were pretty basic and simple.
I knew this in advance, I guess, because I have two favorites myself. One is made of tin, I think. It's a painfully fragile-feeling little saucepan that holds about 2 cups. I think I bought it years ago at Woolworth's, one of three for about $3. The other two are now missing.
The reason I love this pan is because it heats so fast. There isn't much between it and the burner.
My other favorite is not really a pan -- it's a ring mold and I used it much more often several years ago when molded salads were popular. It has two sides - you put the ingredients to be molded on the deeper side. and then refrigerated or baked it. Then, when you were ready to put the thing on a serving plate, there was no anxiety. You simply turned the mold over and positioned it in the plate and poured (very carefully) a little boiling water into the ridge exposed on its top. That loosened the contents just enough so they just slid out.
It took a genius to invent this thing and I think West Bend manufactured it. (I lost the box) but I hereby declare it favorite kitchen utensil of the month.
Any other nominations?
The weather is chilly so its time to think desserts. After all, we Western New Yorkers must take our comforts where we find them.
Two locally made sweets come immediately to mind: One is the Parfait Halvah at the Falafel Bars on Elmwood Avenue and Sheridan Drive. The thick rich sesame seed/honey mixture is lightened with beaten egg whites which only makes it easier to eat in great quantity, I guess, but I'm crazy about the exotic blend of flavors.
The other is the Floating Island at Rue Franklin (it's not always on the menu, sad to say). There are egg whites here too -- am I beginning to sense a theme here? But these little puffs rest gently on soft mild custard and I'm ready to nap right along with them.
Any other nominations for desserts actually worth the calories? I'd like to hear from you. The only stipulation is that they have to be made in -house. We don't want any Sysco stuff here no matter how good you may think it is. I'm listening ...
No matter how confident we are about the food we eat; no matter how we laugh at the "crazy clean" people who scrub the outsides of bananas and oranges and read recall notices as assiduously as trash novels, we all become aware of how vulnerable we are when a food emergency comes along.
Just look at the hordes who turned up at the county hepatitis vaccination clinics when a Wegmans employee was discovered to have the disease.
Way over 5,000 people had shots and after being stunned at the size of the crowd and what that indicated about the amount of produce the store must sell, I think that the situation seemed to be handled quite well. There was a temporary shortage of vaccine, the lines were long but by and large the thing went smoothly.
Of course it brings up the inevitable question. Would everything have gone so well if the emergency had been more extensive than it appears to have been? Let's hope the alert acts as a reminder that an emergency may come up at any time and that our health officials must remain at the ready.
One star for poor; two star for fair; three stars for good and four for extraordinary. The News awards stars to reflect the overall dining experience in a restaurant with the greatest weight given to the quality of the food. Sounds easy, doesn't it?
Truth is, stars are hard to award because there are so many factors at play. Speaking as a restaurant critic, let me tell you that a single stroke of a computer key cannot capture the nuances.
Sure, the stars are easy to read. And in a time-pressed word they function as a kind of shorthand. But you have to read an entire review to capture the essence of a restaurant.
So do yourself a favor if you're really interested in food -- read the not-so-fine-print in addition to the stars. Then you'll really know what you're getting.
Is it not enough to make sure you have holeless socks, tieless shoes, and 4-ounce see-through containers of skin lotion before you board a plane these days?
There's more. In a Miss Manners column in The Buffalo News there's a letter from one of her readers complaining about a passenger having smelly food on board. More and more people are carrying their meals and snacks with them, the letter writer says, and "bringing odorous meals on an airplane is rude and socially unacceptable."
The letter writer points out that the smelly foods - -not that it's any of her business -- are unhealthy as well.
"Granola bars are benign but french fries are offensive. Grapes are harmless but pizza slices are impertinent " she says. An odd use of that word I think. But the funny thing is that Miss Manners (sort of) agrees with her. Something else to worry about when you're traveling by air, guess. "Not only am I going to have to spend four hours on the tarmac," you can say to yourself, "but this blue cheese I'm eating is making the guy sitting next to me feel sick."
Your thoughts on this very important subject, please?
