Eye Candy: Beard House

by jbfauthor on July 08, 2009

Roasted octopus with capers, smoked paprika, and endive, an hors d'oeuvre prepared by Joel Harloff at a dinner celebrating Hall Wines of Napa Valley. June 8, 2009, The Beard House, NYC (Photo by Michael Johnston)

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Eat this Word: Boiled Peanuts

by jbfauthor on July 08, 2009

WHAT? Dixie Dorito. With their quirky Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, Matt and Ted Lee brought this Deep South treat to the attention of New Yorkers about a decade ago. The Lee Bros. catalogue, which can be found online at www.boiledpeanuts.com, offers lots of tips about the snack, not to mention an “I brake for boiled peanuts” T-shirt. Their peanuts, the siblings promise, “are guaranteed to turn any party into a cultural event.” To make the snack, raw unshelled peanuts (either fresh “green” or dry) are boiled in salted water for as much as two hours. The resulting snack is closer to edamame than to roasted peanuts, and, like edamame, is eaten by popping open the shell and slurping the peanut and salty brine. In many parts of the south, boiled peanuts are sold as a roadside snack. In Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking, Southern food expert John Martin Taylor wrote, “No one knows the origin of our singular treat, but to

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Recipe: Hugo’s Texas BBQ Shrimp with Maytag Blue Cheese Slaw

by jbfauthor on July 07, 2009

This dish, from Michael and Wendy Jordan of Rosemary’s Restaurant in Las Vegas, is an old New Orleans recipe, named for the spicy, smoky nature of the sauce. The Jordans consider this version, served with blue cheese cole slaw, a signature dish. They make their own mayonnaise for the slaw; we saved ourselves a step and used a good store-bought brand, Hellmann’s, to which we added Maytag blue cheese.

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News Feed: July 6

by jbfauthor on July 06, 2009

Some of these misleading and trite menu phrases have got to go [Chicago Tribune] Boston shows off its own noteworthy pizza scene in this virtual pie crawl [Boston Globe] Vegan-friendly substitutions for butter, eggs, and white sugar can produce great baked goods—you just have to know how to use them [SF Chronicle] Putting wine-chilling contraptions to the test [WSJ]

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