May 2010
Exciting Events at the Kitchen
May 25th from 7:30 AM to 9 AM.
We’re making the food, you bring the morning energy. Strong coffee included. Please register through the Chamber and join us for good food and good company!
Join Paulding & Company and Eden Canyon Winery on Wednesday, May 26th, starting at 7PM, for an evening of food, wine and spices, culminating in a showing of the evening’s installment of Top Chef Masters, on the big screen, in the Top Chef Season One kitchen!
You’ll get fed—spice-rubbed baby back ribs, coleslaw (which I’ll demo), potato salad. You’ll get wine—tastes of Eden Canyon’s finest. And, you’ll get spice, as we’ll also be doing our inaugural Sense Lab, concentrating on two facets of spice—the spices whose elusive flavors you’ll identify in the wine, and the spices that would make a great rub for the Memorial Day barbecue you’re already thinking about. You’ll go home with a little envelope of your custom bbq blend, after doing some interesting experiments with smell and taste, some of them enhanced by the absence of sight! Wearing blindfolds, can you identify the olfactory keys to the flavors? The cost is only $50 ($5 discount for Eden Canyon wine club members. You can register now, through Eden Canyon’s web site, so yes, you can use a credit card for the event. And, after you register, as an added perk, you will get an opportunity to place an order for something to rub those spices on. Our friends at Star Meats will be taking pre-orders for several luscious cuts to season, and you’ll just need to pick up your meat on the appointed day, at their Claremont Avenue store. The price will be right, the quality top-notch, and the convenience can’t be beat! Space is limited at this event, so don’t delay registering!
The evening schedule:
- 7-8PM– Lab: Olfactory tests, blind wine and spice tasting. Participants will be blindfold while trying different spices and wines.
- 8:-9PM – Dinner: Baby-back ribs, herb potato salad with spring peas, and coleslaw.
- 9PM – Experiment: Make your own, inspired spice rub, then have some social hour time before the Big Show
- 10PM – The show begins! Pull up a chair and have some fun cheering for your favorite chef.
The key to being able to get some of the kids who most want to come to camp in, is having a fundraiser for camp scholarships. There are always more eager kids who can’t pay full price but would love to come to Tracy’s summer program, than there are those elusive extra dollars to help them out. Tracy has devised a unique event where you will get treated like royalty, AND help out these great and talented kids.
You’re invited to participate in the COOK! Culinary Programs’ Scholarship event. It’s on June 6, from 5 - 8 PM at the Kitchen. Ticket cost is $125/guest, or 8 (one table) for $900. Proceeds will go toward scholarships for our Youth program, nurturing healthy eating through culinary education for 9 - 17 year olds.
The evening will be a sensory delight, combining Japanese traditional arts and cuisine with local, seasonal foods and sake. You will start with Chanoyu: Guests will participate in a traditional Tea Ceremony presented by Urasenke SF.
Next, a demonstration of sushi making, while you nibble on sushi and sip sake, by Chef Miyuki, of Chaya Brasserie.
Finally, you will enjoy a sumptuous sit-down dinner, prepared by Chef Miyuki, Toshiko-san and Chrsity Bartlett from Urasenke, and Tracy Paulding. The presentation will be a tenshin meal, prepared with special attention to seasonality, texture, appearance, color and aroma - guaranteed to delight the senses!
Sake: A sampling of complementary sake will be generously provided by Takara Sake.
Silent Auction: Items to be announced (auction donations welcome, please contact us if you would like to donate an item!)
Even More Summer Camp News
Find out all about Cook! Programs on the website. An exciting and fun filled summer awaits budding chefs from age 9-17 in the kitchen, with the summer laid out in a seven-course meal of one-week classes. We’re at wait-list level for Into the Oven (baking I) and close to that level on some of the other camps, so signing up soon is advised. Our old friend Samantha Smith, an extraordinarily creative chef, will be flying in from from Hawaii for the summer to help out. Former camper Kevin Imah, in his last summer before matriculating to Stanford, will be our photographer and blogger. Many of our inaugural year campers are returning, and the great reviews and recommendations we’ve gotten for this camp on Berkeley Parents Network and elsewhere have gotten the word out—registrations are pouring in!
Classes
Saturday May 15th, we have Selome Haileleloul’s great Ethiopian class. If you’ve not tried her food, it’s marvelous. Selome is from the family that runs Cafe Colucci, the always-packed and always scrumptious Oakland Ethiopian restaurant. Just follow the link in the listing to sign up directly with Selome, and bring your appetite!
On the 21st, Rosetta Costantino’s Pizza class still has some space! Don’t miss this opportunity to learn to make a variety of great pizzas, from learning to make the dough and form the pizza, to even making one for dessert. Sign up at her website. You can also sign up to get the feed from her blog at the website—an inspiring Bay Area gardening blog, which will give you a glimpse of Calabria in Oakland. Rosetta’s book, My Calabria, will be out in November after several years in production—and you can now pre-order it on Amazon. There’s an easy link from the blog.
Make Your Own cooking class! Contact me if you have a group of friends or family that wants to set up a fun class. If you have 12 or more people, I’ll schedule a private class for you—if you have less, I’ll do the work to find other people who might also be interested. Choose your subject matter, and your date—and take advantage of my 22 years of teaching experience to learn exactly what you want to learn!
Knife Sharpening class will be back on Monday, July 19th—Eric Weiss will go back to teaching blade sharpening basics, after a serrated knife class last month. It is going to be his 18th class at the kitchen—there are a lot of Bay Area folks who are happier in the kitchen with their hand-honed knives because of it. Like I have always told my students, good knife skills start with a good, sharp knife!
Team Building News
There’s still time to take advantage of our exciting drawing for FREE catering! That’s right, if you bring your work group in for a group team building session at normal prices this spring, you will be entered in the drawing where you will have an excellent chance to win a catered lunch for up to 30 people at your office! It’s our way to say thanks for bringing in your group in these uncertain times.
In the Market
Cherries. When I started thinking about writing this newsletter, they were what came to mind—just about the only thing on my mind. For two days, the one word looked back at me when I sat down to write. I just kept thinking about cherries. Bright, succulent, sweet and juicy harbingers of springtime. Which have just started showing up in the market, but just barely. By mid-month, they’ll be abundant. Caveat: with the late spring rains, there are a lot which have burst their skins, and need to be eaten right when you buy them, or they’ll go moldy fast. They’ll get better as the weeks go by, and the weather warms. The early varieties are always less flavorful, but I found great ones at Berkeley Bowl today. The season will be extended until well into July with Washington Bings, and by then, apricots will have come and gone, and there will be peaches, nectarines, berries of all sorts—and even their more savory cousin, the flavorful summer tomato.
You can tell I get excited about spring produce. Not to leave out the veggies—I bought Romano beans the other day, and we’ve been feasting on English peas. My garden is full of tender fava beans, and the cucumber varieties in the farmers market are starting to expand. There’s a new hybrid, a cross between the Persian, with it’s tender and crisp skin and delicate temperament (they spoil fast!) and pickling cukes. These are pickle-shaped but larger, sturdy, straight, with thick bumpy skins, but flavorful, crisp flesh and small seeds. I’ve been eating them every day. Asparagus and artichokes are at their peak. Morel mushrooms are finally here. Tis the season to go to a farmer’s market—see what you discover there, there’s too much for me to list it all!
Recipe of the Month
First, a reminder: on the website, there’s an archive of all the Recipes of the Month, and there are some great seasonal recipes from years past. Check out the shaved fennel, asparagus and fava bean salad, and the cherry clafoutis for some seasonal inspiration on your next menu.
This month, I thought I’d put together a really basic primer on vinaigrette salad dressings. Spring greens are tender right now, and I’ve talked with several people in the last few days who say they are mystified by salad dressing making—and judging from the number of bottles in your average grocery store, they are not alone. I find dressing salads to be very easy, most often by simply using the age-old Italian method, apply very good extra-virgin olive oil (from my friends at Big Paw Grub, available at many of our local farmer’s markets), a little salt and pepper, toss, and drizzle in a good flavored vinegar (Big Paw has many varieties) to taste—but if you want something a bit less whimsical, this will give you the means to achieve your own perfectly balanced, unique dressing, and then play with making another, and so on.
See the recipe » |
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