The Lunch Break Chronicles

1/17/2010

Lidia Bastianich, of the popular PBS cooking show, Lidia’s Italy will appear at Stew Leonard’s Wine store in Norwalk this weekend. Every time I see her show I have the uncontrollable itch to make homemade pasta, though I don’t know how. One of these days…

FROM THE RELEASE:

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, “The First Lady of Italian Cuisine,” returns to Stew Leonard’s Norwalk Wine store to meet fans and sign copies of her newest cookbook, Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes. The cookbook is the companion volume to the new season of her public television series, Lidia’s Italy, which began airing in September 2009. Stew Leonard’s is offering the cookbook at a special book signing price of $21.99 or two for $40.00.

Stew Leonard’s wine specialists will sample a selection of Bastianich wines for customers to taste including:

Bastianich Friulano
Bastianich Refosco Rosato
La Mozza Morellino di Scansano
Vespa Rosso

Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes, Lidia brings to us the culinary treasures of 12 lesser known regions of Italy, including Molise, Liguria, Umbria, Abruzzo, Calabria, Valle d’Aosta, Le Marche, Trentino Alto Adige, Basilicata and Sardinia. She shares new recipes and highlights local ingredients from the north, sheep country, the farmlands and coastal areas, including new pasta dishes from all of these regions. The cookbook also includes passages from Lidia’s daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, who shares her love of Italy and its art.

WHEN: Saturday, Jan. 23 1-3 P.M.

–CP

ABOVE: What three bucks gets you in Thailand.

1/17/2010

From the category of: people emailing me with food photos trying to make me jealous.

Well it worked.

Sarah Lipman of Shesinlovewitheworld.com and a former Advocate editorial assistant is traveling the world and will be writing a column for the paper. Look for her this week.

–CP

1/6/2010

Good news for those of you who wanted to catch the much-hyped “Iron Chef America: Super Chef Battle” but couldn’t after the Food Network was yanked from Cablevision subscribers this week.

From the Wall Street Journal:

“Food Network’s “Iron Chef America: Super Chef Battle,” featuring a guest
appearance by First Lady Michelle Obama, will run Sunday evening on Tribune
Co.’s WPIX in New York, and WTXX in Hartford, Conn.”

Read more about the dispute over rates in the Advocate’s story by Amanda Cuda: here.

According to The Journal, viewers will not only see the Iron Chef’s battle it out in Kitchen Stadium, but also see Scripps argue their case in the court of public opinion:

“The broadcast will be accompanied by a new marketing push about the
dispute, featuring Scripps’s on-air hosts, the latest in a series of salvos
from each side in the programming dispute. Cablevision, for its part,
launched an advertisement on its local cable systems Tuesday that named
Scripps’s chief executive, Ken Lowe, and described Scripps’s actions as a
“blatant attempt to hold viewers hostage while they demand a $20 million
rate increase” annually.”

Stay tuned.

–CP

1/5/2010

Cablevision, are you kidding me? No more Food Network?

I’ll be canceling my account if the Food Network isn’t back on my box when I get back to Stamford. Work it out.

But you can keep Rachael Ray and Paula Deen.

Ridiculous.

–CP

ABOVE: The view from our New Year’s Day brunch in Del Mar, Calif. (Photo/Elizabeth Preovolos)

1/4/2009

Thus far, food adventures in the new year have run the gamut. From scouring the barrio in San Diego for tacos al pastor to the ridiculously awesome prix fixe dinner at Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc in Yountville, California, 2010 is already shaping up to be a very good year. I’ll keep you posted.

Happy 2010.

–CP

ABOVE: Miscellaneous San Francisco; clockwise from top left, a cappuccino at Four Barrel Coffee, my sister Steph and I at Tartine Bakery, a croque monsieur and Coit Tower.

12/31/2009

As many of you may know, I’m back home in California visiting my family in the Bay Area. It’s been mostly family time here in Vallejo, a solidly working-class former shipyard town.

In the decade I’ve been gone, there have been some changes, or maybe I just never noticed before. While visiting my favorite taco stand I realized it’s possible to visit a huge Filipino seafood market, eat Phở, lunch on “the best lechon” in town, grab a killer burger from a local landmark joint, and feast on $1.25 tacos, all with a quarter mile stretch of Hwy. 29.

If you kept on driving another 15 miles on the same road, you’d find yourself in Napa and from there, epicurean possibilities are endless. We made a short venture into Napa County yesterday, visiting the Boon Fly Café at the Carneros Inn, and the relatively new OxBow Public Market, which holds under one roof delicacies like Ritual Coffee Roasters, Taylor’s Automatic Refresher (get the Wisconsin burger) and Hog Island Oyster Company (their Kumamoto oysters are beyond excellent).

Conversely, I’ve already made note of the drawbacks; seeking to obtain the necessary ingredients to make orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage, the produce guy at the local market told me he could special order the vegetables for me if I was going to be around next week, but that broccoli rabe would be “a hard sell around here.”

And hot and sweet sausage? Forget about it.

–CP

POST SCRIPT: I’ll be in San Diego for a couple of days and then back up north, in-and-around the Bay Area and San Francisco. Drop me a line if you have any foodie suggestions.

ABOVE: Chili Chicken. Watch out for the peppers, they are no joke.

12/30/2009

CHILI CHICKEN: 19 HIGH RIDGE ROAD, STAMFORD

Basically, I’m too lazy to keep maintain a schedule of frequent postings. And then there’s the self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder. And, you know, I’m broke and haven’t been eating out much lately.

But mostly, I’m lazy.

So, while photographing Chili Chicken for an Advocate food review, one of the partners asked me why I haven’t blogged about his new restaurant yet.

He has a point.

I met him a while back another restaurant review photo shoot– at Tawa, an upscale Indian restaurant in downtown Stamford – and I had briefly blogged about Chinese Mirch, which like Chili Chicken is an Indian/Chinese fusion establishment, but isn’t even open yet.

Long story short, the Advocate did review Chili Chicken and their eight dollar buffet in last week’s Go section and based on what I tasted there, I concur with the favorable review.

We had an interesting conversation at Chili Chicken regarding the state of restaurants in Stamford, particularly the recent mini-explosion of Indian restaurants in Stamford.

Are we over-saturated?

In downtown alone Coromandel and Tawa are soon to be joined by the aforementioned Chinese Mirch and a vegetarian Indian restaurant slated to fill the vacant Mona Lisa spot on Atlantic. This echoed a similar discussion I had with an Indian-American family while working on our Kitchen Culture series.

What do you think?

–CP

ABOVE: Amnah Kiani prepares a salad for a traditional Pakistani dinner at the Kiani’s home in Stamford last week.

12/28/2009

The latest edition of the Advocate’s Kitchen Culture series brings us to the Kinani’s a Pakistani family living in Stamford.

We found Hamid, the father and his son Fahad on the cricket pitch at Lione Park a while back and when asked, they graciously offered to share their food and cooking culture with us for this series.

Everything Mrs. Kiani prepared was delicious, the spicy chicken, tender goat and the pakora potatoes, breaded in chickpea flour and spices and fried.

The story runs later this week but here is a preview of the recipe:

Pakora potato pancakes:

WHAT YOU NEED:

Potatoes, sliced thinly about 1/8 of an inch on a mandolin or using a kinfe

1/2 cup chickpea flour

3/4 cup water (more or less as needed to obtain the correct consistency)

1/2 teaspoon red chili powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon of coriander seeds

1/2 tea spoon cumin seeds

fresh cilantro and parsley if desired.

WHAT YOU DO:

Mix the flour, water and spices in a bowl and let stand for 15

minutes. The mixture should not be too thin so it will stick to the

pancakes.

Dip the potato slices in the mixture and fry them in a thin layer

of vegetable oil until both sides are brown and crispy.

–CP