DO Try This At Home

Over at New York Magazine’s Grub Street they’ve put together a list of NYC’s best PB&J’s. The good news is that it doesn’t take much to try your own version of a chef’s version.

1. The Elvis at Peanut Butter & Co.
“Excellent peanut butter, honey, sliced banana, and optional (but recommended) bacon on white toast.”

2. Chunky Peanut Butter & Jelly triple-decker at ‘Wichcraft.
“They grind their own peanut butter, make their own seasonally inspired jelly (rhubarb in the spring, Concord grape in the fall, and currently plum), and ingeniously layer it between three slices of Pullman-style bread with the jelly on the top and the peanut butter on the bottom, preventing this lofty concoction from becoming a soggy mess.”

3. Peanut butter, banana, coconut, and ginger at City Bakery.

4. The Memphis at Swich.
“Amy’s golden-raisin semolina bread lends this variation on an Elvis (peanut butter, banana, and honey) an unusual flavor profile thanks mainly to the fennel seeds in the bread.” (served warm from a panini press)

5. CB&J at Bouchon Bakery.
“… made with rich cashew butter instead of plebeian peanut…layered with apricot jam between two thick slices of brioche and meticulously squooshed in the sandwich press until the lavishly buttered bread acquires a St. Tropez tan.”

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the global garden and local grubbin’

right: cherimoya, left: rambutan)

Melissa’s Great Book of Produce: Everything You Need to Know about Fresh Fruits and Vegetables by Cathy Thomas (hardcover, $29.95, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)

I confess I couldn’t tell a jujube from a jackfruit. Nor could I reasonably assist you if you were to ask me how best to prepare red kuri squash or what a volcano orange might taste like. Just because I may be at ease in the presence of rambutans and tomatillos unfortunately does not mean I am prepared for the ever increasing globalization of the produce aisle. The vastness of my ignorance became clear as I perused a copy of the brainchild of Joe and Sharon Hernandez who’s company, Melissa’s/World Variety Produce, is the nation’s largest distributor of specialty produce (the company is named for their daughter Melissa).

A modestly sized, easy to read volume, Melissa’s Great Book of Produce will fit easily on your cookbook shelf. It’s mostly reference, sprinkled with recipes ranging from the straightforward (grilled stuffed Portobello mushrooms) to the exotic (cherimoya crème brulee). Most useful are the instructions for selection, basic prep and storage of anything and everything you might happen upon in your produce aisle. Anyone for gobo root mash?

Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen by Anna Lappé, Bryant Terry (paperback, $18.95, Tarcher Penguin).
Even if you fear seitan and tempeh, this book is worth a read. More food for thought (pardon the pun) than cookbook, Grub a non-preachy, straightforward education on what it means to eat with the greater good in mind. A bit frightening at times, as all books that tell the truth about agribusiness are, see The Real Food Revival) Anna Lappé, herself the daughter of Diet For a Small Planet’s Frances Moore Lappé) rights the bulk of the book’s first three parts that are meant to enlighten you as to the impact of eating seasonally, locally and organically. It’s a drum I’ve heard beaten over and over, but Lappé manages to keep things light and upbeat, insisting that her definition of grub is “real choice” and “freedom from fear of food…grub means pleasure and health.” And to aid the newest converts, there’s a cocktail party “cheat sheet” of grub talking points and a seven-step kitchen makeover.

Bryant Terry, a food activist and founder of bHealthy, spices up the last sections of the book with seasonal, ethnic menus (Tropical Corn Dumplings with Maple Syrup and Anise, Rosemary-Chile Mashed Potatoes, Coconut-infused Quinoa) and includes soundtrack suggestions and flavorful anecdotes from his culinary past.

Grub is serious stuff, but yummy and good for you.

Also new for spring:

• Vegetables by 40 Great French Chefs (Hardcover) by Patrick Mikanowski
• The Scented Kitchen: Cooking With Flowers by Frances Bissell

Here’s a chart of edible flowers!

Next week: The New Basics

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Vive La Cream Puff Renaissance!

I had no idea, when drooling over Michel Roux’s new book Eggs that there was perhaps a trend afoot. Donna Deane at the Los Angeles Times has a lengthy and incredibly informative piece on what she’s calling a possible pâte à choux revival.

“And what is pâte à choux, anyway?

Also known as cream puff pastry, choux paste is the basis of éclairs and profiteroles — that’s on the dessert side — and gougères (cheese puffs) on the savory side. Though most often baked, it can also be poached (for Parisian gnocchi) or deep fried (for beignets or chichis, the French version of churros).”

Deane goes on to include Paris-Brest, Bouchon Bakery’s Chantillys, and Michel Roux’s Choux buns with coffee and Drambuie mousse. You can find it all here.

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wwwednesday: only in america

Who needs Disneyland when you have the grocery store? “The latest shuffle of the American lifestyle menu has produced a new weekend diversion: trekking to ‘destination supermarkets,’ or grocery Disneylands, where, yes, tons of food is sold, but there is sooooo much more.” Click here for the full story from USA Today.

Dolly Parton has a new cookbook out, Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s. The singer explains how to make her banana pudding and more than 125 other recipes in the book, which will raise money for her Imagination Library, which provides a free book a month for children from birth to age 5.

Turn your Cadbury Creme Egg into a Fabergé Creme Egg with Pimp My Snack. via The Food Section.

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A Nation of Hotties

“If people really are what they eat, we are becoming a nation of hotties.” Click here for the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle.

If you want to become a hottie, don’t miss this round up of Mexican cooking techniques that will have you fire roasting fresh chiles in no time.

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