I love this time of year. Its often a bit warmer out, the kids are out of school, and zucchinis are in season. Although you can easily get zucchinis all year long, they just arent as fresh when shipped from hundreds of miles away (usually from Mexico) in the winter. As a fan of this versatile squash variety, I have been indulging in its seasonality, purchasing and eating it pretty much every week, all summer long. I prefer to buy zucchini at my local farmers market, where there are a range of varieties (light green, dark green, with a ribbed exterior, with yellow stripes, and the list goes on) that are usually just-picked and on the small side. They are also pretty easy to grow at home. Zucchini is best barely cooked. Baked, fried, or simmered too long, and it looses its moisture content and becomes soggy. Al dente and raw zucchini recipes highlight the squashs naturally subtle sweetness and crisp texture. It’s unfortunate that so many people overcook their vegetables anyway, but with zucchini, it is — as my mother would say — a sin because you lose its innate nutty sweetness. Following are four of my favorite recipes which I think capture the summer flavor of zucchini best. I hope you like them.  read more »

Menu for Hope 4 kicks off today and in case you didn't know, this fabulous charity event that is the brainchild of Chez Pim and involves food bloggers (and others) from around the world each donating something to be raffled off on-line for charity . This year's campaign will run from the 10th to the 21st of December 2007. We are supporting the WFP's school feeding programme provides a daily nutritious meal to nearly 150,000 school kids in Lesotho, many of them orphans. After five years of drought, it is estimated that disease and malnutrition in Lesotho claim the lives of one in 12 children before they reach the age of five. Chronic and persistent vulnerability prevails in Lesotho. The kingdom is confronting the triple threat of increasing chronic poverty, rising HIV/AIDS rates and weakened government capacity. This threat takes a heavy toll on the households of the rural poor in Lesotho, who are faced with a limited number of coping strategies to respond to the intensifying hazard. 56% of the population live on less then $2 per day. Think about that. That's less than a pound. However many raffle tickets you buy, you will be greatly improving the lot of these school children and contribute to giving them a fair chance in life they so dearly deserve. Below is a list of all prizes sponsored by foodbloggers and associated restaurants and companies in the UK. The global list of prizes is hosted on Chez Pim . For details on how to donate, please read on.  read more »

Vincent Ricard farms seventeen hectares of vineyards in the Touraine, located outside the village of Thse la Romaine, near the banks of the river Cher and not far from Chenonceau, in the heart of central Loire Valley chteau country. Vincent Ricard, circa 2005 (photo: B. Celce) When first I met Vincent in February of 2004, he was a young man of 27 years, just beginning to get his feet wet yet already taking a strong stance in the Touraine wine scene. Actually, given his relative youth, his experience was fairly extensive. He returned to his family's property in 1998 after a two-year internship with Philippe Alliet in Chinon and a short stage with Franois Chidaine in Montlouis. It took him only a year from that point, with help from his father, to declare and incorporate Domaine Ricard. Like so many other young vignerons before him, Vincent was the first in his family to make the move to winemaking following many generations of family farming. Prior to 1999, the fruit grown by his family had always been sold to the local cooperative. Its only in the last dozen years, he told us, that a small handful of producers in the Touraine, mostly young guns like Vincent, have moved to estate bottling and export market sales. The large, hodgepodge Touraine AOC is still dominated by ngociant houses and production of commercial vin ordinaire. That dominance has created a market supported by self-fulfilling INAO guidelines that expects very simple, fruity, quaffable and eminently uninteresting wines. Ricard, in contrast, aims for structure on the palate, the possibility of bottle aging and the development of secondary characteristics. His philosophy does not stem from his time in oenology school where he tells us, Average methods are taught. Rather, hes taken influences from the people hes worked with like Alliet and Chidaine and placed himself along with them, as he sees it, among the avant-garde. Hes not shy about considering his wines atypical to the region or about occasionally butting heads with the INAO. Along with a few of his peers, he is pushing for the establishment of a new appellation for his immediate area. If granted, this new AOC Chenonceau would allow for reds based on Malbec (Ct), Cabernet Franc and Gamay as well as whites from Sauvignon Blanc.  read more »

Kevin Pike, Director of National Sales & Marketing for Michael Skurnik Wines, paid a visit at Tria Fermentation School recently to present a double-header look at a goodly portion of the Michael Skurnik/Terry Theise Champagne portfolio. During an afternoon session, he focused on presenting the portfolio to restaurant wine buyers from the Philly area. I headed to the evening session, a public seminar geared primarily at bringing the charms of grower Champagnes to the attention of the students in attendance. Kevin Pike hard at work. The welcome wine of the evening was Henri Goutorbes Cuve Prestige Brut , a non-vintage blend of 70% Pinot Noir, 5% Pinot Meunier and 25% Chardonnay from various villages in the Valle de la Marne. Golden and dense, generous in texture and laden with hazelnut and fresh bread notes, it was a solidly centrist starting point. As guests mulled over the first of their many wines of the evening, Kevin blazed through a whirlwind overview of the Mthode Champenoise, followed by an overview of the geography and primary terroirs of the Champagne region. Following those geographic lines, the tasting portion of the seminar began in earnest with an exploration of a grower Champagne from each of the three primary terroirs being discussed. First up was Pierre Peters Cuve de Rserve Brut NV , representing the Cotes des Blancs. Typical of the Cotes and its chalk based soil, this is a Blanc de Blancs, 100% Chardonnay grown in the 100% Grand Cru villages of Oger, Avize, Cramant and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. With 11 grams of residual sugar, this was well under the Brut cap of 15 grams but one of the most highly dosed of the wines wed taste from the Skurnik portfolio non-Brut styles aside over the course of the evening. That hint of sweetness was well masked and balanced by the wines fine acidity as well as by a hint of maturity; the cuve was based primarily on wine from the 2000 vintage and was fairly recently disgorged. Still, plenty of primary fruit emerged, with suggestions of meyer lemon, winter melon, green apples and a gooseberry twang. Ive had rough luck with Peters Champagnes over the years, encountering far too many bottles that were beat up or tired out; this was showing well. Representing the Valle de la Marne, a cool, frost prone region running from outside Chateau Thierry in the west to Epernay in the east, was the Brut Tradition NV from Gaston Chiquet . Because of its frost resistance its a late budder and an early ripener Pinot Meunier is the mainstay of the Marne. Thats reflected in Chiquets wine, made up of 45% Meunier, 20% Pinot Noir and 35% Chardonnay, with a dosage of 8.8 grams. This would be a good savory course wine, particularly with white meat and poultry courses, given its firm texture and flavors of red fruits, including fleshy red apples.  read more »

Port Meadow is a large and ancient grazing ground in Oxfordshire. It is a floodmeadow, flanked by a thin, brambled-over stretch of the Thames, and no matter the season it is hung with a sense of the sodden. Mud and mists linger above, but there is also the feeling, as you make your way across the soft ominously soft ground, of something congressional below. Obscure half-paths emerge from out of the turf, criss-cross briefly, then disappear. The enameled colours of the narrow boats that sidle up against the abrupt riverbanks are the only real brightness anywhere. Cows, sometimes ponies, happen alongside you sudden companions, made of meat and vapour. Freemen and Commoners of Wolvercote have grazing rights on this wide, flat ground that has never once been ploughed, and it is a place where peripatetics become dwellers, and the more conventionally lodged briskly out for walks in their green wellies - are the transients. One November day on the meadow I stumbled across a small and straggly television crew interviewing a group of Travellers. The water-proofed interviewer asked his wrap-up question: So whats the one thing most necessary in life?  read more »

Eric Akis' Skillet Mac and Cheese (yes, I know, I used penne and I served it in ramekins; I am quirky like that). It is interesting how the world works sometimes. Just before our household grew from three to four , I was offered the opportunity to review not one, but two books on the subject of quick meals for busy cooks. Everyone seems to be talking about how hard it is to find the time to cook.  read more »

Tyler Wiard (pronounced wired, not weird), the executive chef of Elways Steakhouse in Denver, won this years Taste of Elegance for his cumin roasted pork loin and braised shoulder with green chile, posole cake, smooth avocado and red chile. Thats a very Coloradan dish, featuring the green and red chile of New Mexican cuisine, which we Coloradans have adopted. Its a tough event. Chefs compete regionally, and then the winners all meet for the nationals. This year 22 chefs were supposed to compete, but only 21 did as Patrick Ponsaty, the local winner from Bernardo in San Diego, had to back out suddenly.  read more »

The Kitchen Detective

Pasta Primavera is an easy, any-night-of-the-week dish that uses the season's freshest ingredients.