I’m excited to be launching a brand new blog about the senses-pleasing, beautiful food in and around Rhinebeck, NY, where I live. It’s called The Rhinebeck Gourmandizer, a name I chose in hope that some of the mystique of trendy Rhinebeck will rub off on it, and the “izer” at the end honors the recently closed 200-year-old weekly local newspaper The Gazette Advertiser. I hope for it to be an up-to-date resource for residents or visitors seeking information on where to fill their bellies happily! Check it out at http://www.rbkgourmand.wordpress.com

I never write about wine. Although I love the stuff, I can’t describe it well, beyond “wow, smooth,” or some such. I let others say it better. Like this, translated from the Spanish:

“There are five reasons to drink wine: the arrival of a friend, the thirst of the moment, the thirst of the future, the quality of the wine, and any other reason.”

Or this, from my eight-greats grandfather Sir John Harington’s loose translation of an ancient Roman medical poem called The School of Salerno, in which the number five reappears:

“Choose wine you mean shall serve you all the year,
Well-savored tasting well, and colored clear.
Five qualities there are, wine’s praise advancing,
Strong, Beautiful, and Fragrant, Cool and Dancing.

And:

“White, Muscatel, and Candy wine, and Greek,
Do make men’s wits and bodies gross and fat;
Red wine doth make the voice oft-time to seek,
And hath a binding quality to that;
Canary, and Madeira, both are like
To make one lean indeed: (but wot you what)
Who say they make one lean, would make one laugh,
They mean, they make one lean upon a staff.
Wine, Women, Baths, by Art or Nature warm,
Used or abused do men much good or harm.”

I’m gearing up for the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival this weekend. This will be my fourth year of doing cooking demos at the fest, but this year I get to host and organize the harvest kitchen presentations, too,  filling in for Jack Ford who usually does it but has a family commitment.

I have on the schedule a wine presentation by David Pazdar of Pazdar Winery in Scotchtown, NY, a cooking demo of a lamb dish by Jessica Applestone of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats in Kingston, a sheep cheese tasting by Debbie Decker, the cheese dept. manager at Adam’s Fairacre Farms in Poughkeepsie, and a talk and tasting with Charles Derbyshire of Old Mill Wine & Spirits here in Rhinebeck. It looks like I’ll be doing a couple demos myself, too, to fatten up the schedule, a Greek sheep cheese pie with phyllo and a North African lamb and quince stew.

Here are my results of the Omnivore’s Hundred. In bold are the things I’ve tried; crossed out are the things, thing, actually, that I would eschew.

Go to www.verygoodtaste.co.uk or www.chocolateandzucchini.com to play.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Me, expounding

I had so much fun at my latest class at Warren Kitchen and Cutlery last week. This one was on Vietnamese cooking using readily available ingredients and we made beer-steamed shrimp, poached chicken with three dipping sauces, Vietnamese coleslaw, steamed jasmine rice, stir-fried eggplant with ground pork, coconut flan and Vietnamese iced coffee. Yum. The food was great and the students great company. Here are a couple photos taken by class coordinator (and expert food stylist) Jessica Bard.

Vietnamese Coconut Flan

The coconut flan was so silky and delicious I’m going to demo it again next week at the Dutchess County Fair in Rhinebeck, NY, just so I can have an excuse to eat some more of it! The demos will include crispy Vietnamese spring rolls and are scheduled for Wednesday, August 20, at 11 a.m. and Sunday, August 24, at 1:30 p.m.

Shrimp Steamed in Beer

Vietnamese Beer-Steamed Shrimp
Tom Hap Bia

Westerners brought beer to the Vietnamese, who, besides learning to enjoying a frosty glass of it on a sultry day, discovered that its yeasty flavors were great for cooking seafood. I use Rolling Rock but any light dry lager will do. In Vietnam this dish is made with fresh heads-on prawns but here regular shrimp stands in beautifully. I buy mine mostly frozen these days because they thaw quickly and you can control the freshness. Serves 4 when served with other dishes.

1 lb. large shell-on shrimp
3 scallions/green onions, sliced
1 ounce fresh ginger, peeled and julienned
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stalk lemongrass, cut in 1/2” slices and bruised with heavy knife
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 12-ounce bottle beer
Nuoc cham dipping sauce (see recipe below)
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced, for garnish (optional)

If shrimp shells are not already cut through back and deveined, slice into backs and remove veins, leaving shells on. Rinse shrimp and pat dry. Toss into a medium bowl with scallions, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, salt and pepper. Chill 1 hour.

Heat beer in large saucepan until simmering. Add marinated shrimp. Cover saucepan, lower heat, and steam 5 minutes, until shrimp is pink and cooked through. Strain and place on a platter with optional cucumber garnish (which is also good in the dipping sauce). Eat by peeling shrimp and leaving shells and chopped flavorings behind on platter.

Nuoc Cham Dipping Sauce

2 teaspoons chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)
1-2 Thai-type bird’s eye pepper, minced, OR pinch red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons sugar
3-4 tablespoons fish sauce, to taste
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1 lime)
3 tablespoons water

Mince together garlic and hot pepper and mix well with sugar (you could also use a mortar and pestle). Add fish sauce, lime juice and water and stir well until sugar dissolves. Adjust to taste and let sit a few minutes before serving.

I love epicurious.com, refer to it all the time for work or just making dinner. But it has never made me laugh so hard before. Look at this recipe for boiling water, but what’s funny is what you read when you click on “reviews”—789 of them.

And no, I didn’t read them all–I have a life–but I’d love to have time to.

Just back from lunch at Osaka, the Brizzi family’s favorite local restaurant. We started off our healthy fish and rice with an order of spicy lobster roll, a decadent confection of creamy sauce around lobster rolled up in rice and seaweed, dumped in tempura batter and fried. It was like the best of what’s best about tempura and sushi all wrapped up in delightful, delicious overkill. Warm, crispy, tasty, ooh baby.

Don’t tell my daughter–it’s her favorite place, too, and we went to Osaka without her while she was at school. She would be furious if she knew. Well, we bought her some artichokes (see below) as consolation if she finds out. As follow-up to my blog post about Sofia and her artichokes, see this week’s column on kids in the kitchen.

Of course, two days after the cooking class when I needed some promised fiddleheads, they showed up in the local supermarket. So I had to buy some anyway. They were 5.99/lb., which seems kind of steep to me (but everything does these days), but a half a pound makes a large portion to feed four, and that’s not so bad. I love fiddleheads–I trimmed and blanched these and drizzled them with lemon-spiked butter (8 oz. fiddleheads, 1 T. butter, 1 T. fresh lemon juice), salt and pepper. I love the texture and clean vegetal flavor of fiddleheads, their beautiful curlicued look, complete with baby fern fuzz. I’m loving them cold out of the fridge today, too. But it turns out Hubby isn’t that crazy about them, he admits, and my friend Danielle over at foodmomiac.com says they “don’t taste very unique.” I guess they’re only for a select few, discerning cognoscenti types such as myself (I’m just kidding–I’m not actually that bitchy). Do you like them? What do you like about them?

Addendum: I have just been made aware of a potential toxic effect of fiddleheads cooked less than 15 minutes causing stomach problems. See comments below and please be aware of that risk before seeking them out.