NJ SPICE

Groundhog day swooped right by me, but I’ve been meaning to share this photo of adorable hedgehog breads from Witherspoon Bread Company.  I took it when Terra Momo opened their Dispensa cafe in the Princeton Public Library; as with everything the Momo brothers do, it was a lovely, tasteful (ha!), opening.

But I digress; the real purpose of this post is to encourage you to attend the Tuesday night event at the Library, Princeton Foodies and the Places They Love.  The details are in a previous post on my blog; don’t miss this chance to hear a few of my similarly food-crazed colleagues talk about their favorite local places to dine and shop. 

And maybe, before or after, you’ll dine in one of the Terra Momo Group’s wonderful Princeton area restaurants.  A foodie’s life just would not be as richly varied without them.  (On Thursday night at 6:00pm, their Mediterra restaurant is holding a fundraiser for Trenton’s Children’s Futures; it’s a food and wine tasting featuring Greece/Cyprus, Call Mediterra for reservations 609-252-9680.)

Now, here is a huge food technology advance.  Finally, one of America’s favorite condiments catches up to the way we live now! 

A recent AP story described a redesigned Heniz ketchup packet.  Instead of that squishy plastic thing you end up tearing with your teeth, and then it shoots all over your kid’s clothes, or, gulp, maybe even your car (but you wouldn’t eat and drive, now, would you?), that ketchup is now available in a little tub with a lift-off cover, and it holds three times the amount of the original packets.

Heinz currently sells over 11 billion (yikes) of the little packets a year, and we’ll have to wait and see how many restaurants make the switch, since the new packet will cost a little more.  But if three old ones equals 1 new one, and customers like the convenience, we’ll likely see a gradual change over.

“Snowing, shoveling, sledding then dining,” said the email I just received from Brothers Moon in Hopewell, reassuring all that they’re open tonight,  They even included their list of specials, below, which sound scrumptious.  Great timing Will!

It was a beautiful snow.

Hope digging out wasn’t too bad.

We are open for dinner this evening.

It’s warm inside, the food has been delivered and prepared.

So grab a bottle and come on down.

Enjoy, Chef Will

Special Additions for Saturday Night ~ February 6, 2010

Soups for tonight 9
Billi Bi (Cream of Mussels)

Roasted carrot puree accented with curry and coconut

Appetizers
Mesclun greens salad, grilled chicken and harissa sausage, pickled quail egg, haricots verts and crispy red onion with a horseradish dressing 13

Cantaloupe melon and Prosciutto; arugula salad & balsamic vinaigrette 11

Small Plates
Grilled ½ Griggstown young chicken over roasted root vegetable risotto and pomegranate molasses 12

Orange-cumin glazed scallops over roasted cauliflower puree and Brussel sprouts 13

Main Courses
Sautéed striped bass over mashed potatoes, haricot verts, red peppers
and a curried celery root broth; garnished with crab and celery 28

Grilled Griggstown pheasant breast with glazed asparagus, cotechino,
red wine braised lentils 32

Desserts
Almond and apricot cake with fresh berries and whipped cream 9

Warm chocolate bread pudding, cream and berries; caramel sauce 8

Triple chocolate layer cake, berries and Chantilly cream 8

Carrot layer cake, cream cheese frosting, berries and Chantilly cream 8

Sunday is New Jersey’s Oyster Bowl XI, presented by Blue Point Grill and Nassau Broadcasting Partners.  The Oyster Bowl is an annual oyster eating contest to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure Central and South Jersey. Hundreds of spectators gather each year to watch contestants devour all the oysters they can in a two-minute period, enjoy the once-yearly chance to have lunch at Blue Point Grill, enter to win fabulous raffle prizes, and participate in family-friendly activities. 

There are many ways to support and enjoy this event, where the grand prize is a trip for two to the Carribean. Visit that website and get your slurp on Sunday on the sidewalk outside Blue Point Grill at 11:00am!

Time’s a wastin’ foodie folks - those reservations don’t make themselves, nor do the chocolates!  Reserve (or shop) now for that special day.  Or buy some excellent local products and cook up something special at home. Either way, bon appétit!

Buy delicious chocolates from Donna Toscana, in Cranford.  Strawberry and Passion Fruit are her two heart-shaped flavors this month.  Owner Diane Pinder’s elegant chocolates are truly extraordinary.

Enjoy dinner or brunch at elements restaurant in Princeton, with a 6-course tasting menu for dinner available Feb 12, 13 and 14 (on the 14th, only the tasting menu is available), or enjoy their regular brunch menu on  Valentine’s Day from 11am to 2pm.

Give your sweetie tickets to Princeton’s Taste of the Nation which takes place on April 26 at the Westin Forrestal. Get a discount with my special code, PRFAITH, when you purchase your tickets online.

Book a prix fixe dinner at Hanami, for a celebrASIAN of both Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year, between February 12-16. Hanami features inventive Sushi and Japanese and Chinese cuisines, from chefs whose resumes include NOBU, MEGU, and TAO in New York City.

How about a Cooking-Vacation trip for you and your sweetie, for spring or summer?

Head south to enjoy dinner at one of the featured restaurants on the SJ Hot Chefs website. For an example, check out the menu at Tre Famiglia in Haddonfield.

In my recent review of Blue Bottle Cafe in Hopewell, I raved about the little ramekin of Swiss Chard gratin that came with the tenderloin. My friend and I swooned over this deceptively simple accompaniment to a meal that was already a success. Our forks vied for every bite, and I resolved to try making it at home.

Sure, I could have just asked for the recipe, but I wanted to see if I could come up with something close on my own.  My delicious result is at the left.  I think I had too much cream in it (yes, that is possible), but otherwise it was amazing. 

It helped that I found high quality organic ingredients - Swiss chard from the Whole Earth Center, good butter, and very good grass fed heavy cream, not ultra-pasteurized, and buttery yellow.

Here’s what I came up with -

Chard Gratin à la Blue Bottle Café

One bunch chard, thickest part of stems trimmed (if you want to use them, julienne them).  Like other greens, chard really cooks down, so that huge bunch of chard makes one ~8-inch gratin dish.  It’s so rich, though, it could serve 4.

Rinse chard, rough chop into 3-inch pieces, blanch 2-3 minutes, shock in cold water, and squeeze dry.

Preheat oven to 375-400°.  (I tend to use high heat, as would a restaurant, but up to you)

In a frying pan, sauté a chopped shallot in 1/2 stick of butter.  Add squeezed chard, and stir with a fork to separate the clumps of chard.  (I used a wooden fork, and shook the clumps apart basically; per photo below.)

Add cream, a little grated nutmeg, and grated Parmesan cheese.  Put in gratin dish, top with more Parmesan, bake ~15 minutes, until bubbling and top is browned.

Of course, with this much butter and cream, you could use old cleaning rags in this recipe, and it would taste great, but still…I’m proud of my result, and hope the Blue Bottle Cafe would approve.

I recently enjoyed dinner at Sophie’s Bistro in Somerset (you can read about it in the February 17-19 issue of the Packet’s TimeOff), including their appetizer Pizza de Provence, topped with pear, bleu cheese, and sunflower seeds.

So good was it, I couldn’t resist trying it at home.  Please excuse my crust!  I bought pizza dough, and it was so elastic, I just could not get it to stay stretched out into a 12-inch round.  I’ve never had this trouble before, but I was hungry and it was getting late, so I threw the danged thing onto my pizza peel, topped it, and slid it onto the pizza stone in my oven.   A pale, doughy crust was the result, but the toppings were great! 

So, do as I say, not as I do, in this case.  Get yourself a thin crust, and top with very thinly sliced pear (if pear is hard, pre-cook it a little on an oiled pan in oven), sprinkle with bleu cheese and shower with toasted sunflower seeds (which I buy in little bags, pre-toasted).  Ten minutes or so at 400 or 425, et voila!

Watch Channel 7 (ABC) at 10:00am Wednesday morning (or catch up after online)! 

West Windsor resident Marie Calogero was recently taped to appear on the Rachel Ray show with her granddaughter, also named Marie Calogero.  The show airs Wednesday morning, January 27.  They competed in a grandmother/granddaughter cooking contest against two other couples.  Producers of the show taped the food preparation portion of the contest at Colagero’s home on January 17 and the contest portion of the show show was taped on January 20 in New York.   Come on out to root for the home team!

If you haven’t been to an old-fashioned burger stand drive-in lately, the kind with car hops on rollerskates, wait no more, Sonic Drive-In is here.  The national chain of 50s retro drive-ins has opened in Franklin Park and was doing a brisk business on Saturday afternoon when I visited.

As I drove in, I was directed to an open stall, where I read the menu board,  pressed a red button, and ordered over the intercom.  In just minutes a young server arrived with my order and took my cash (there’s a credit card swiper on the order board, too).  He returned a few minutes later to offer extra condiments from a tray, not needed, but a nice touch (tipping is in order here).

I ordered a California burger, lured by the Thousand Island dressing, although I’m not normally a fan of cold produce on my hot burger, and added a medium order of onion rings.  The burger was a good fast food burger.  (Maybe someday they’ll see their way to “naturally” raised beef?)  The onion rings were quite good, with a touch of sweetness on the crunchy breading.

I thought that was enough “sin” so just had a cup of water with my order, but plan to return to try their extensive beverage offerings, which include many flavors of shakes and malts, floats, blends, slushies, limeades, java drinks, smoothies, etc.  Quite a selection of beverages, clearly a specialty of theirs, and you can try them at half price during the afternoon Happy Hours of 2-4 pm.  Now when I’m heading home down Rte. 27, not having had lunch, as seems to often be the the case with my weekend wanderings, I have a place to stop off for a caramel shake or a chocolate malted.  Ahhhh!

Looking for the inside scoop on places that Princeton foodies like to frequent?  Here’s a chance to hear some dedicated noshers talk about their local favorites on February 9 at the Princeton Public Library.  I know two of them myself, Pat Tanner is my longtime colleague and fellow In The Kitchen columnist at the Packet, while Linda Prospero is on the board of Dorothea’s House in Princeton, and started her own beautiful blog, ChowCiaoLinda not so long ago after a career as a professional journalist.

Princeton Foodies and the Food and Places They Love
Community Room
Tuesday, Feb. 9, 7 p.m.

This panel of Princeton area “foodies” will talk about all things edible - from ethnic restaurants and family-friendly places to farmers’ markets and their favorite food blogs - in a discussion followed by questions and refreshments. Panelists are Princeton Food Examiner Sue Gordon, bloggers Phyllis Knight and Linda Prospero, and critic/columnist Pat Tanner. Gordon taught cooking for more than 20 years, including a stint at Princeton’s Whole Foods Market. She is a graduate of the Cordon Bleu School in London. Knight’s blog is popular among the food-obsessed. She and her husband plan vacations around food and love nothing more than wandering the aisles of food specialty stores. Prospero’s blog focuses on home-cooked Italian food, a topic she knows well from spending a year living in Italy. Tanner is well-known locally for her articles and reviews in New Jersey Life, The Star-Ledger of Newark, The Princeton Packet, The Times of Trenton, and several other publications.