"10 Best Foods You Aren't Eating"

What's wonderful about reading the food sections of the big city newspapers here in Port Orchard is knowing that one, I'll find great reviews for wonderful restaurants that, more than likely, I'll never get a chance to eat at in this lifetime, and two, I'll come across recipes from a wild variety of ethnic groups and regions that I might otherwise miss.

Another thing that comes along with big city newspapers is exposure to a large pool of fellow readers. With the coming of the internet and blogging most newspaper articles and blog posts are now open to commentary. Take, for example, this article that I found in the New York Times a few days ago. It's a basic wellness article on different kinds of foods that are good for you, that you should find fairly easy on your supermarket shelves and that you need to incorporate into your diet for good health. Well, the article was short, which made it easy to clip and save in my wallet. But the comments! My! It was at 190 the day I saved the article for this post. Amazing. Alot of the commentary was in agreement with the author, but like an article I read recently on The 100 Most Important Books You Must Read it wasn't so much the article that thrilled, it was the lists and suggestions from hundreds of people with their own viewpoints on what I need to eat in order to live a better, healthier life.

With that list in hand I suppose it's possible to do just that. Incorporating cinnamon and cabbage and prunes into my life should be easy enough. Beets, well, the jury is out on them but if the doctor says so I'll give them a go in a salad. Let's take along that list to the market, pop those other things into my cart, take them home and stuff them in my pantry. Anything to help make my cooking more interesting is always fine by me. But more than that, anything I can build into my diet that will help my health along is a wonderful plus not only for me but for those around me that will get to hear a bit of healthy commentary out of me, too!

Cooks Talk!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/?em&ex=1214971200&en=49df7aef9ad8754e&ei=5087%0A

Interesting new cooking tool of the week!

It's no secret that I love to troll cooking supply houses and second hands and always come across a tool or a widget or a gizmo I haven't seen or used before. It's usually after the fact that I find out that I really want it or need it and then come to find when I go back to seek it out that it's gone.

The kitchen world is full of tools, many of them too focused on a task to be of any real use, but then again, some things are totally indispensible and are tools we can't live without. Sometimes we find that out afterwards, like when I came across a Rabbit knockoff wine bottle opener. I have had dozens of wine openers in my life but nothing opens a bottle of wine like that tool!

Then again, there are things like those rubber jar grips that I'm always scouting around for when I have pickle jar that doesn't want to give. I find that a rubber kitchen glove or even a gentle tap of the jar lid on the countertop and a damp rag will do it. We tend to get obsessed with tools, believing that with the right tool we'll be able to pull off the perfect meal. Sometimes all it takes is a quality chef's knife, a seasoned cast iron pan, a Swing-away manual can opener, a sauce pot and a handful of fresh ingredients. But try to tell that to the man with the food processor or the gal with a new full set of Caphalon pots and pans. We love our toys and if we're good to them they'll love us back for a good long time in the form of great meals and long use.

So, what I'll do is this: I'll find the tool and then it'll be up to you to tell me what it is. I'll maybe throw in a clue or two but the rest is up to you. I'll let you know next week what it is and what it does before I share a new one with you. Okay, here's an easy one. See you next week!

Cooks talk!

This week's cookbook finds!

We live a very spoiled life here in Port Orchard. Every week brand new cookbooks come into our lives. Some are spectacular, some are stupendous, some make me want to race home and fire up the stove to make wonderful and delicious things. But with this plethora of new cookbooks coming at us almost daily, that means that there are countless thousands of titles languishing on our library shelves,and if not here, on shelves of local big box bookstores and second hands alike. I am here to help fill in the gap between the brand spanking new and the books that are calling out to be seen, appreciated and used.

This week, in setting up a bibliography for a cooking resource class we will be holding later on this year, I came across three very nice looking titles. They represent three different types of cooking, are all fairly new, all slightly compact and lacking of gloss. But what they lack in "WOW" they give back in value, quality, incredible recipes and style.

The Produce Bible: essential ingredient information and more than 200 recipes for fruits, vegetables, herbs and nuts by Leanne Kitchen, forward by Deborah Kitchen,
Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2007

We can all use a good guide to vegetables around the house, if anything to take us out of that midweek rut that says that we can throw a salad or some steamed brocolli at the troops and everything will be alright. Take a cruise though your local supermarket or your local farmer's market and you might see a few or dozens of mysterious fruits and vegetables that you've never tasted or ever seen. Some may have landed in your crisper but languished and then turned into science experiments only because you didn't know what to do with them!

Leanne Kitchen's Produce Bible will help you out with that problem. This books is filled beautiful photographs, information on use, selection and storage, varieties and preparation of a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs and nuts. It is very user friendly, a guide that will help you feel good about using rutabaga and kumquats, okra and lemongrass, rhubarb and pomegranates again, or even for the first time. Highly recommended for beginners, but an asset for those cooks who want or need a refresher course in locally grown produce.

Recipes to try right away: Finnish Cream-baked Casserole, Pear Tarte Tatin, Sweet Potato Ravioli, Tsatsiki and Rhubarb and Apple Upside Down Cake.

Bake Until Bubbly: The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook by Clifford A. Wright, Wiley, 2008

There's nothing quite like coming home and opening the door and smelling that smell that only a bubbling hot casserole can produce. It's a combination of the senses..the heat as hits your chilled face, the way that your nose perks up to the scents of hot, bubbling cheese, the withering assault to your work fatiqued brain knowing you will soon engage your other senses..taste, sight and sound, when you spoon out a heaping portion of casserole and spoon it into your mouth and sigh. What a treat that can be.

So let it happen tonight or today or this week in your home. Clifford Wright's Bake Until Bubbly is a utilitarian compilation of recipes. Don't expect colorful photographs or how to illustrations here. This is a phone book sized cookbook chock full of the standards we all love, like Macaroni and Cheese and Stuffed Rigatoni, but also new and exciting recipes for dishes like Sausage, Red Bean and Apple Casserole, or Potato, Bacon and Gruyere Casserole, or that old Cape Cod favorite, Kedgeree. There are recipes here that you won't find elsewhere, such as Karelian Hot Pot or Tuscan inspired Roasted Vegetables of the Full Moon. It's full of ideas for leftovers, innovative in use of things you need to use up and turn into something else. Isn't that what casseroles are all about? Reinventing and recombining foods and turning them into fantastic new dishes?

The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of The American Southwest and Northern Mexico by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison, foreword by Mark Miller, Harvard Common Press, 1995

Is there such a thing as too many good Mexican food cookbooks? We are a nation addicted to Tex Mex, to cheesy, saucey and overly prepared foods lacking in spice, originality and freshness. We come away from all too many Mexican eateries without really tasting Mexican cuisine. Not that I'm complaining, but there's a world of flavors to be tried out there. Why not make some of them at home? Well, make them at home providing you have access to some fairly unusual ingredients, that is.

The Border Cookbook by the Jamisons is not only James Beard award winner but it's a mighty fine cookbook as well. The illustrations are sparce, but it is thorough and concise, friendly and nicely laid out. The recipes range from appetizers to desserts, and use all manner of ingredients you'll find in bigger supermarkets, larger cities and in smaller tiendas in the barrios of your communities. Be sure to try out the Green Corn Tamales, Sonoran Menudo Blanco, the classic Chiles en Nogada and a simple, unpretentious pot of Frijoles de Olla. Be sure to follow up those toothsome recipes with some tasty and easy to prepare desserts. Try your hand at fried Bunuelos with syrup, or Sopaipillas with honey butter, the Mexican bread pudding Capirotada or even a simple flan.

So take a look in one of these delightful books or take a peek in some of the many hundreds of other titles we have available in our catalog. The recipes will not confound you, they will console you and will happily send you straight into the kitchen to prepare many delicious things to amaze and delight your friends and family

Cooks talk!

Farmer's Markets in Kitsap County

Having plenty of fresh ingredients on hand are a hallmark of every great cooking experience. As produce is concerned, the closer you can get to the source, the more flavorful and nutritious your vegetables will be. Why go to a grocery store during the spring, summer and fall months when you can cook with the seasons at one of your local farmer's markets?



Every Saturday from mid-spring through mid-fall you'll find a farmer's market in the parking lot right behind the Port Orchard Branch library. Not only will you find an abundance of locally grown produce, but there are all sorts of other treats and treasures to be found: fresh baked goods from local bakeries, flowers of all kinds at very reasonable prices, trees and plants, locally produced folk art and plenty of vendors with tasty foods of the world.

Port Orchard's Farmer's Market is only one of many in the county and the region. Take a look at the link provided below to find out where the closest farmer's market is to you. I am certain you will find the change of taste worth the effort!

Cooks talk!

http://kitsap.wsu.edu/ag/markets.htm#market

http://www.pofarmersmarket.org/Vendors.html