Cooking Class

Gnocchi presentation with Chef Branden

Our veggies

My grilled steaks (despite the poor photo color)

Today I attended the "Farm to Table" recreational cooking class at Johnson & Wales University with about 15 other students  It was fun, and I learned a lot.  Chef Branden was a great instructor.  First up was a lesson on food prep safety and knife skills (yay!).  Then we returned to our work stations to tackle a course featuring local produce, meat, or seafood.  My partner Lynn and I ended up with grilled skirt steak with roasted asparagus, charred cherry tomatoes.  Lynn wanted to make something her 13 year old boys would eat so I let her choose.  I would have preferred something that I wouldn't normally cook but oh well.  Other teams were working on the following courses: carrot soup with candied ginger and coconut creme fraiche; marinated mushroom salad; pan seared cod fiddle head ferns with roasted garlic and chili; gnocchi with brussel sprouts, pancetta, and fresh herbs; lavender shortbread and honey gelato sandwiches; and cherry-apricot clafoutis with vanilla ice milk.

Somehow I ended up trimmin' and grillin' the skirt steaks and Lynn got to work on the veggie prep and marinade.  I think 4 instructors came over and told us how to trim asparagus.  Some were of the bend and snap camp, others were of the chop the ends camp.  Back to my meat.  Lemme just say, all the instructors (and some of the male students) were pretty impressed with the diamond grill marks on my steaks. When the steaks were done, one of the instructors helped me out with my knife skills since I didn't get a chance to practice while trimming the meat.  I learned how to safely chop things really small.  We were encouraged to go see what other tables were doing but that was hard for me, I got pretty focused on my own cooking.  But when my hands were clean, I walked around and asked questions.

A couple of hours later, our dishes were plated an laid out buffet style in a tasting room.  Our class and the Spanish cooking class (which was going on next door) got to taste all our dishes.  There was A LOT of food and it was all quite tasty.  Can't wait for Cape Cod Cuisine next month.

A New Garden!

Today I built a 5' x 5' x 8" garden.  It didn't take long but was quite laborious.  And, it's conveniently located right next to the compost bin! I put up a temporary "creature cover" to prevent it from becoming a giant litter box while I wait for the soil to settle.  Then I'll plant my seeds.  And if seeds don't work, I'll just stick some plants in.  Right now I'm planning for cooking herbs, radishes, spinach and beets.

Feeding the World in a Changing Climate

In a recent issue of Time Magazine, there's an article Climate Change and Farming: How not to go hungry in a warmer world.  Drought, increased rainfall, more intense storms, will have varied impacts on agriculture around the world.

New finds

With nothing on my shopping list at this weekend's Winter Farmer's Market, I decided to take the opportunity to "window shop". I learned about two new food items located on opposite ends of the food spectrum. First was sunflower greens (on the VERY healthy end of things). They were crunchy green sprouts growing out of the black sunflower shells. I have no idea what to do with them other than to toss them in a salad. But, they were tasty.

My second find was full of carbs, fat and sugar. And it was delicious! The ladies from Flour Girls Baking Co. in Marion, MA were selling cider donut holes from their truck. Not only did they have fresh cinnamon-sugar cider donuts but also fresh donut holes studded with cranberries. I got 6 holes (3 of each) for $4 and as predicted, they didn't make it home. In fact two didn't even make it to my car. Yummmm.

See what a local Tiverton family did: 2 weeks of eating within a 125 mile radius. Two weeks doesn't sound like a long time but they get extra points for the whole family eating vegetarian.

Honey Bees

Yep, the girl who fell into a yellow-jacket hive one summer wants bees. I've always been fascinated by the social and selflessness of the hive structure. But why now? Earlier this week I attended a showing of Vanishing of the Bees. As you might be able to guess, it was about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which has spread across the country. I first learned about this issue in the 2008 book "Fruitless Fall" by Rowan Jacobson. The documentary I watched provided some new theories on why thousands of honeybees are just disappearing and abandoning their hives. One popular theory has to do with pesticides. In case you didn't know, commercial beekeepers don't make their money from honey, they truck their hives cross the country following the crop blooms (almonds in CA, blueberries in ME, and cranberries in MA, to name a few). In the United States, about 100 crop species depend on honeybees for pollination —collectively, these crops make up approximately 1/3 of the U. S. diet, including the majority of high-value crops.

Historically, farmers would spray or dust their crops with a pesticide to keep insects from devouring their plants. Piles of dead bees outside of nearby hives indicated that these beneficial pollinators were also being poisoned. So, chemical companies changed their compounds and delivery method. Now seeds are coated with a systemic (as opposed to a topical) pesticide that stays with the plant throughout its life cycle. Even though the EPA regulates the environmental effects of the pesticides, it is up to the chemical companies to provide the research showing no harm. The company that makes the two kinds of pesticides of most concern has indeed tested the effect the chemical has on adult honeybees. Reports shows that there is no adverse effect. What isn't tested is what happens once that honeybee takes that treated pollen and nectar back to the hive and feeds it to her brood. Some apiologists (those that study bees) and beekeepers believe that the systemic pesticides have an unknown effect on the central nervous system of the larval bees that may present itself in the current or next generation. Maybe the bees fed the pesticide-laced food have weakened immune or nervous systems, causing them to become disoriented and thereby leaving the hive. Maybe the combination of different pesticides has a damaging effect.

Here's another piece of the puzzle. Europe had a similar threatened bee population 10 or 15 years ago called mad bee disease. However, the European regulators take a "better safe than sorry" approach when it came to pesticides. Questionable chemicals were pulled off the market and the honeybee population has rebounded. Hmmmm.....

So that's what I've learned from the movie which got me thinking about starting my own hive in a year or two. And here's a link to the RI Beekeepers Association.

Can it be true? A second post about oysters? You betcha! I finally made it to the Matunuck Oyster Bar this week. As I saddled up to the bar, I got a briefer on the raw bar spread out in front of me. Moonstone Oysters from Pt. Judith Pond, and a pile from Ninigret Pond and some from Matunuck. Very relaxed atmosphere but THE place to go in the area if you want fresh local seafood and shellfish.