Matters of Taste

NEW! NEW! NEW! Recipe, Gadget, Gourmet-to-Go

Last night was experimentation night in the kitchen. Inspired by a ready-to-cook Chicken Tenders Curry that I found last week at Trader Joe’s, I got out a new gadget and an old cookbook and went to town.

The curried tenders, which come 1 ½ pounds in a sealed plastic pouch (about $4), were boldly flavored with traditional curry spices  and ridiculously easy to prepare. Though the “tender” texture is a bit odd (I’m assuming they are pounded with great gusto), the meat cooks on a grill or in a fry pan in about 5 minutes and is easily shredded for casseroles, sandwiches, salads and rice dishes. That was pleasant surprise #1.

#2. Needing an interesting but easy dish to accompany the grilled chicken, I turned to “Yamuna’s Table,” a 1992 vegetarian cookbook of powerful Indian flavors by Yamuna Devi. In terms of flavor, texture and temperature (it’s served at room temperature), her Carrot Slaw with Cashews was the perfect partner. The recipe is below; the book is still available at Amazon.com for about $20 new, $4 and up for a used copy.

Pleasant surprise #3: the Speed Prep One-Handed Mandoline Slicer. I’ll try any new gizmo that allows me to do two things at once in the kitchen. This mandoline, made by Lifetime Brands, is easy to use -- just squeeze the handle with one hand -- and to clean -- dishwasher safe, though a pound of carrots left one blade slightly orange. There are three stainless steel blades for grating, slicing and julienning. (Devi’s recipe calls for shredded carrots: I found the julienne produced by the mandoline a more desirable texture.) The blades work well on carrots, squashes, onions, leeks, peppers, and firm cheeses.

Of course, this mini-mandoline is no substitute for a larger, faster food processor or a sturdy professional mandoline from Zyliss or Oxo. However, it’s ideal for anyone with limited storage space or limited budget (the Speed Prep mandoline costs about $20 in most housewares departments and at Amazon.com). It’s a great gift for young people cooking for themselves in dorms and tiny apartments.

Here’s Yamuna Devi’s recipe for Carrot Slaw. You’ll find other appetizing dishes, such as Shredded Beets with Fresh Coconut, and Cauliflower and Cheese Croquettes in her book, “Yamuna’s Table.”

3 cups finely shredded carrots

1 quart boiling water

½ Serrano chili, seeded and minced

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

½ tablespoon maple syrup

2 tablespoons chopped cashews, pan-toasted until golden

1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro

Place the carrots in a colander and pour the boiling water over them. Drain well. Combine the chili, lime juice and maple syrup in a bowl and whisk with a fork. Add the carrots, cashews, and cilantro and toss to mix. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

 

 

Presents Perfect -- Making the Happy Couple Happier

WEDDING BELLS are ringing across the land, signaling the start of another summer season of taffeta and tulle, showers and champagne, toasts and tuxedos,  Mendelssohn and the Macarena.

It also means a mad scramble for wedding gifts that are clever, useful, and memorable. 

Here are some ideas, both budget-minded and blow-out, that are sure to please.

• The Scanpan Classic Nonstick Double Burner Grill straddles two stovetop burners, gets hot enough to make handsome grill marks on meat, chicken, fish and vegetables, and is a breeze to clean. Made in Denmark of heavy cast aluminum that’s coated with ceramic-titanium non-stick surface, it’s durable and especially suited to cooking with minimal fat. Pair it with a copy of BBQ guru Steven Raichlen’s book “Indoor! Grilling.”  The Scanpan brand is available at most upscale home stores and at Amazon.com. At about $145, the Grill is a splurge, but one that will be appreciated by the bride and groom for decades to come. The paperback cookbook costs about $13.

• Once upon a time, only fancy-schmancy wines from older vintages ever saw the inside of a decanter. But today’s containers are larger, roomier, more casual affairs. And wine lovers are rapidly learning that every wine  can benefit from a vigorous dance in a decanter. One of my favorites is the Luigi Bormioli Captain’s Decanter from Target. It contains 68 ounces, costs just $22.49 and does a masterful job of “opening” up a wine and making it shine. Target also carries the Accademia decanter for about 15 bucks. If you’re looking to spend more, check out the elegant crystal decanters from Riedel. The top of the line decanters from this Austrian company look like graceful swans and cost anywhere from $150 to about $400.

Latte lovers on your shopping list? You can’t go wrong with the Froth Au Lait, an electric milk frother that does the job better than the most skilled barista…even the most skilled Italian barista. It’s $52.99 on Amazon.com. A budget-conscious alternative is the BonJour Automatic Milk Frother that doesn’t take up as much counter space and costs just $15. The slim batter-operated wand comes with a countertop storage stand. It’s widely available in stores and on-line.

• They’ll fall in love with this Culinary Herbs Pasta Bowl Set that is so bright and realistic you can almost smell the rosemary! The sleek contemporary bowls are hand-painted ceramic and cost $35.99 for a set of four at Target’s on-line Web site (not available in most stores).

•  Flummoxed by the vast array of pots and pans dangling in front of you in the housewares department?  I can’t really tell you a single pan that will fit the needs of each individual cook. But I can tell you two pans on my rack that I could never live without: The All-Clad 12-inch Stainless Steel Fry Pan which I like for its sloping sides, its durable surface that lets foods brown well, and its easy clean up. Also available in 8-inch and 10-inch, they cost between $80 and $150. On the other hand, my 12-inch KitchenAid Red Nonstick Stir Fry Pan costs only about $40 in most department stores and on-line. Don’t think that this is just for Asian stir-frys. I use it for everything and love the way foods move around in the pan, browning evenly and easily.

• Everything looks better by candlelight. The Lolli Candleholders from Crate & Barrel come in six colors, accommodate standard tealights and votives and cost just $6.95 each. Or give a single elegant Cabochon Votive from  wedding princess Vera Wang. The shimmering crystal holder costs about $45 at Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy's and Amazon.com.

• Borrowing an idea from ancient Chinese philosophers – “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” – consider giving the lucky duo a hands-on cooking class. Most cities offer a variety of classes at such stores as Macy's and Sur La Table.  In San Diego, there's an extensive selection of classes at the popular Great News! Cooking School in Pacific Beach. Wrap up a store gift certificate with the latest class catalog, and let them choose from such tantalizing subjects as “Foodies Night Out: Mediterranean Style,” “Paella Perfection,” “Tapas and Sangria,” and “Thai One On.” Most classes are held in the evening, run about 2 ½ hours, provide enough samples to be considered dinner (and wine), and cost about $50 per person. If you’re looking to make a splash, consider pairing Katherine Emmenegger’s class “Basic Knife Skills” with one really good knife. My pick: The Wüsthof Classic 8-inch Chef’s Knife which goes for about $100.                                                                                                       

• Young people are particularly enchanted by the Riedel “O” Collection of wine glasses. The  stemless, egg-shaped glasses look cool, feel great in the hand, and facilitate the  swirling routine that brings out the best in a bottle of wine. Several shapes are available, each designed to maximize a varietal’s flavor: Cabernet  Sauvignon/Merlot; Chardonnay/Viognier; Pinot Noir; Shiraz/Syrah; Sauvignon Blanc/Riesling; etc. They cost about $10 each and come in sets of two. Widely available, including at Bed Bath & Beyond and on Amazon.com.

                                  

High-Tech Hydrating

In the latest salvo in the war against bottled water, Kor Water has introduced the KOR ONE, a stylish (one might even call it elegant), lightweight, BPA-free, re-usable water bottle. 

The designers are clearly hoping that the copolyester  -- “A groundbreaking new plastic” – container will have the same cachet as, say, the glass Voss water bottles that many restaurants hype.

I tried it, and liked it. The slightly oval shape makes it easy to grip and slip into briefcases and handbags. A small release button allows easy opening with one hand. The hinged cap stays attached. And the mouth is wide enough for ice cubes but slim enough to discourage splashing.

Though it’s probably no more efficient than the hundreds of other bottles out there, this one has the advantage of looking “urban,” as opposed to looking like mountain trekking gear.

Of course, when you’re charging thirty bucks for a water bottle you had better deliver something more than a few ounces of plastic. In the case of the KOR ONE case, it’s a bit of New Age-y nonsense that includes #1 calling the bottle a “personal hydration vessel” and #2 providing a space in the cap for a card printed with a “daily affirmation of user’s life goals and dreams.” Really? Really.

The bottle comes with four “statements” cards – including “Never Settle” and “Laugh Often”  -- and a blank round for your own personalized pronouncement.

But, hey, I can live with the silliness if the shape, safety and convenience of this bottle lure more people away from the disposable water bottles that are overwhelming our landfills.

The KOR ONE is available for $29.95 at Amazon.com   and the Kor Water Web site.

Kitchen Gadgets I Really, Truly Can't Live Without

We’ve been in our Vienna apartment for two weeks now and have settled into a great routine that includes a brisk hour-long walk along the Danube Canal every morning (with a bakery stop for fresh breads on the way home); breakfast on our rooftop “terrasse” (which like most apartment terraces here has a view of other rooftops); wandering aimlessly in tiny cobblestoned streets, museum visits, opera performances, and sampling the delights of the Austrian kitchen.

Why Vienna? All our friends and colleagues ask the same question.

It’s because this is a remarkably vibrant town…vastly different from its dowdy, depressed personality 30 years ago when we lived in Innsbruck and visited the capital city. The array of cultural events is staggering. There’s a fascinating museum for every day of the month. The sense of history (the bad along with the good) pervades every little street and gasse  (tiny alleyway).  And the food is terrific.

So my husband and I rented an apartment on-line…through Vienna Center Apartment...and found “home” in a building that dates to the Austrian Empire and overlooks the Danube Canal (which flows into the Danube a mile or so away).

 

Mercifully, our apartment was built in the last 20 years…tacked onto the roof of the splendid courtyard-centered structure. That means we have sloped ceilings but lots of light. We also have a very usable kitchen (rare in European apartments) that was remodeled last December.

Since we wanted to visit the city’s famed open-air markets and cook at home,  the kitchen was a determining factor in the choice of Herminengasse, 4 as our temporary home.

And, since compulsive and organized are two words that have on occasion been used to describe me, I brought with me to that kitchen all the tools that I knew I couldn’t live without.

Here are the lists of "THINGS I KNEW I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT" and "THINGS I DIDN’T REALIZE I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT"

WHAT WENT INTO MY SUITCASE

1. My favorite Wusthof  8” Chef’s knife

2. Small paring knife

3. Serrated knife (from Del Mar Fair hawker)

4. Cheese plane

5. Small rasp grater

6. Zyliss vegetable peeler

7. Froth Au Lait, my beloved milk steamer contraption that turns 6 ounces of low fat milk into a huge cloud of froth for cappuccino and lattes

8. Tazo Zen tea bags.

9. SportTea for iced tea

10. Anglesey Salt (from Victoria Gourmet)

11. Battery-operated Graviti peppergrinder, filled with multi-colored peppercorns. (Actually I somehow forgot this…it must be on the bed at home…and I’ve had to resort to one of those McCormick spice bottles with the grinder on top.)

12. Four placemats and four cotton napkins. (Rental apartments never provide these and I didn’t want to  spend time shopping for them when I could be sightseeing or hiking.)

13. One pair rubber gloves for washing dishes

14. Pillar candles for candlelight dinners. (This is the one thing I could have omitted. There are plenty of reasonably priced candles here.)

15. Last, but certainly not least, one small plastic tub of Trader Joe’s Mini Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups.  Coals to Newcastle? Not really. Sometimes you just want a tiny bit of familiar sweetness at night and not a towering whipped cream wonder.

The photo, right, shows a dinner of Austrian grostl, a jumble of sauteed squash, potatoes and onions served with a spiegei (sunny-side-up egg) on top.

THINGS I DIDN’T BRING TO VIENNA BUT QUICKLY LEARNED I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT

1. A large-mouthed mug/cup for caffe latte with lots of foam.  In this part of the world, folks drink their coffee and tea from standard-sized cups-and-saucers that hold, maybe, 7 ounces.

2. Small poly cutting board (everyone uses wood here…and mostly cheap, splintery, hard-to-clean wood).

3. A measuring cup. Even when I’m not following recipes, I have found this a critical tool.

4. Scotch tape. Sounds dumb. But trust me, don’t leave home for a month without it.

5. GOOD wine glasses. Nothing is more frustrating that trying to appreciate all these unfamiliar and exciting new wines in a doofus cut-glass “goblet” that holds about 5 ounces.  I bought two Riedel “O” (stemless) crystal glasses and will attempt to get them back to San Diego in 2 pieces.

6. Ice cube trays. C’mon. What IS it with these people? They are genetically incapable of putting more than 2 weensy ice cubes in a drink…and their ice cube trays reflect that affliction.  However, since we didn’t have cocktails at home often, and since there is probably not an American-style ice cube tray on the continent, I decided to “rough it” (!) with the ONE tray in our freezer. It gives 12 cubes at a time…each is 3/4-inch by3/4 inch. Essentially that’s one gin and tonic on a sunny day.

Oh, yes. The “THINGS I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT AND SO HAD SENT TO ME IN VIENNA” list.

It’s a short one. My husband says I should be embarrassed to include it. But I’m a newspaper person, through and through, and so…here goes.

1. My favorite newspaper sections from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

I ask you. What good is a fabulous caffe latte in the sunshine on your rooftop terrasse if you don’t have the NYT Dining In or WSJ Weekend sections to read?

Yeah. Yeah. I know I could read these things on-line, but it simply is not the same experience.

Our son Ben dutifully gathered my favorites (which also included NYT Escapes, Travel and Home) and mailed them Express Mail each week. OK. So each packet cost about 25 bucks. But they provided unbeatable entertainment every morning.

Bag it!

Under a proposal announced this week by Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, that city's shoppers will be paying a 20-cent "green fee" for every "paper or plastic" bag they use to carry their loot away from supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores and the like.

According to a New York Times story today, the proposal will probably be taken up by the City Council (which is expected to pass it) this summer. The fee would go into effect early in 2009.  Nickels says the goal is to reduce waste, reduce production of paper and plastic and "help ensure a truly sustainable city." Though San Francisco recently banned plastic bags outright, it appears that Seattle will be the first city to impose fees on both types of shopping bags. I'm guessing that more and more cities and/or chains (Costco got rid of all bags last year) will follow suit.

Seattle being one of the "greenest" cities on the planet (and I'm not referring to rainfall), the proposal will be handled by the citizenry with some grumbling but plenty of soul-searching. too.  Let's face it: How hard is it to keep a couple canvas bags in the trunk of your car? Or a bunch of used paper or plastic bags (though the plastic ones really don't last more than one or two shopping trips). 

Anyone arguing against the notion of re-using bags sounds downright stupid. Sure, we need to change our habits. And, re-train our brains. (I routinely get into the check-out line before I remember that I left the canvas bags in the car.) But it seems a reasonably painless way to deal with our mushrooming waste problem. (The bag on the right is available at Bags on the Run for $1.99 each, minimum order of ten.)

When I lived in Innsbruck, Austria about 30 years ago, I went to the supermarket one day, loaded up my little cart, watched the old frau enter the prices into the cash register, then swoosh my groceries along the shiny metal counter into a big heap.

After I paid, I realized the big heap was still there. Waiting for me to load, into my bags. In those days, no one had figured out that you could make a few extra bucks off shoppers by selling bags.

I left the store with an overstuffed handbag, cheeses hanging out of my pockets, a strand of sausages around my neck, bread under my arms and my hands full. It was not pretty.

But I never went to the store without bags again.

Doggone Delicious

There's still time to say you're sorry for not getting your furry best friend a box of designer truffles for Valentine's Day this year.  Soft, squeaky, plush chocolate truffles, that is.                                                                                                      
Hautediggitydog.com can make things right with a regular box of meticulously decorated "bonbons" (available in San Diego at Muttropolis and Dexter's Deli) or, even better, with a "Muttgarita" for the Cinco de Mayo holiday. The clever line of toys  also includes a very realistic bagel (sesame, of course), a fortune cookie (with message "You're barking up the wrong tree"), and a bottle of "Dog Perignon" champagne.