Admittedly, I am not a hard woman to please when it comes to food. I have high standards, but I will eat anything. If it tastes good, I’ll sing your praises and tell everyone I know. This is the case with 320 Market Cafe. I’d venture to say that some folks in Media were hesitant to try this place because of the establishment that preceded it. Some people just don’t like change. I get it. But this change is good.

I walked in there one day when I was on the way home and I ran into someone I know from church. I’d never been in there and he was genuinely concerned about the Pico de Gallo in my hand. He wanted to know if it was the last one. I assured him it wasn’t. I thought he was joking. As it turns out, their Pico de Gallo is AMAZING and it sells out pretty quickly. I don’t think he was going to fight me for the last one, but he was concerned. Here’s a picture:

You would fight someone over this Pico de Gallo. Trust me. After tasting it, I was hooked. It was also the end of the semester and cooking for myself was out of the question because finding time to do that among my mountain of papers to grade was out of the question. 320 Market Cafe has so many choices that I was able to eat something different every time I went in there. They have amazing grilled cheese sandwiches made with fresh bread and locally made cheeses. They also have soups. You can do a soup and grilled cheese combo for $8. Yes, please. The grilled cheese (bread and cheese) changes daily so it’s best to check their Twitter stream before popping in.

My favorite item on the menu is the Italian Special Hoagie. The menu lists it as having: cappocola, genoa salami, pepper ham, sharp provolone, prosciutto, roasted red peppers, and fresh basil. It is, hands down, the best Italian hoagie I have ever eaten. And it’s massive. It comes on a 12″ roll. I took half of one to my mom one day for us to share and we almost fought over it. This hoagie is so good, you may fight you momma over it. (Do you notice a theme here between good food and fighting? It’s a fat kid thing.)

I had to stop going in there so much because it was getting embarrassing. My semester ended and I am fully capable of cooking for myself, so I have been exercising restraint and not going in there for the food or to visit the adorable tattooed boy behind the counter who makes the best. hoagies. ever.  But if you go in there and you order one, make sure he makes it for you. Trust me. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.

I thoroughly enjoyed being the art columnist for Fig, but I didn’t always feel I could put my best into it. I don’t always understand art. I know it’s up to individual interpretation, but I have no experience with art. Not really. My approach to the art column was to interview the artists. I better understood their work by listening to them tell me their stories. I understand stories. I understand people. I am grateful to these artists for sharing their stories with me so that I could best use my words to represent their work in my column. Admittedly, I struggled with my last art piece for Fig because I didn’t talk to the artists first. I went to a gallery and took pictures and tried to piece it all together. I think it was successful, but it was a struggle. What it comes down to is that I have an appreciation for art, but I have a deep reverence for food.

I plan to use a similar approach when it comes to the food column. Media, PA is home to a lot of restaurants. I’ve eaten in a lot of these places and the reputation of the food has been well documented. A simple Yelp search reveals that. What I have yet to discover is the story behind the food. This is what piques my interest the most.

I want to explore questions like how are Seven Stone Gallery and Seven Stones Cafe connected? Who had the idea to open an Irish pub on State Street?  And I am really eager to find out the story behind the French, self-taught, theater loving executive chef of La Belle Epoque and Picasso.

So many restaurants. So many stories to hear and tell. I am very excited to see where this goes. I’ll continue cooking and posting recipes here. I will also be posting links to my Fig pieces here so you don’t miss anything. I may end up using this blog as overflow to the things that don’t make the cut for my columns. I like that idea. You definitely won’t want to miss this.

I think about bees a lot. Even before I watched the bee documentary last night. I think about them a lot. The picture above is of a swarm of bees that decided to try to make a hive on the exit sign on my back deck. It was not a great place, so I did what any other person who is preoccupied with the well being of bees would do – I called a beekeeper. I located one that lived in town and he came and got the bees. He explained to me (and anyone else who would listen) that the honey bees wouldn’t sting because they were all singularly focused on constructing a hive. I got pretty close to them, but the closer I got, the  more they buzzed past my ear and I didn’t like that too much. I think we’re all programmed to believe that anything that buzzes by your ear is out for blood, but that’s not always the case.

Honeybees are gentle and vital to our ecosystem. I’m a big tree hugger and I love all bugs except flies. (I draw the line at those nasty things.) I have a particular affinity to lady bugs and I have a deep respect for honey bees, even more so now that I watched “Vanishing of the Bees.” This beautiful documentary explains the workings of a bee hive and it delves into the problem of disappearing bees. The problem, know as Colony Collapse Disorder, is when worker bees inexplicably leave their hives in droves. No one knows where they go and there aren’t any dead bee bodies left behind. This leads me to believe that they don’t necessarily die, they just leave their hives, but I could be wrong. I read an article today that says that parasitic “zombie” flies may be to blame for the disorder. (This would not surprise me because flies are disgusting and fully capable of something hateful.) Even so, something about the new discovery doesn’t seem right. I am no scientist, but the documentary I watched said nothing about finding larvae in the bees they collected and studied from various hives throughout the country.

The documentary did reveal that the bees were suffering effects from systemic pesticides found in seeds commonly used in factory farming. Systemic pesticides coat the seeds of the crop that are then planted in the ground. They are designed to grow and get in the soil and prevent bugs from eating the plants from the seedlings on. The poor honey bees go out and do their pollination thing and they get all confused and disoriented because the plant they’re fertilizing is juiced up with pesticides. It’s the saddest sight to see a poor honey bee struggling to do its job when it’s feeling the effects of the juiced up plant. I get pest control, but I don’t get trying to kill the honey bees that are responsible for pollinating the crops. It seems, well, counter productive.

“Vanishing of the Bees” came out in 2009 and I am not sure if the honeybee shortage has gotten any better. What I do know is that I want to be a beekeeper. I want hives. If I thought my neighbors wouldn’t flip out, I’d put one on the back deck. Judging by their reaction to the swarm of bees last summer, I am fully confident they’d take to my hive with a lighter and can of bug spray the second I turned my back. They wouldn’t do it maliciously. They’d do it because they are programmed to think innocent honey bees are going to sting them for no reason. I’m not saying honey bees don’t sting because some of them do, but they only do so when they feel threatened. And then, poor dears, they die. A honeybee has to be so scared that it’s willing to give its life to sting you. I think that’s pretty profound.

Last night, I decided I wanted to make garlic knots. I often do that before bed; I decide what I want to make and then I spend my last waking moments searching for recipes online. I go to sleep before I get too involved with figuring out how to sub out ingredients to achieve the desired result. I found a recipe online that was exactly what I was looking for, but I was three steps ahead of them. I already had the dough. A friend of mine threw a pizza making party last week and he let me take home the extra balls of dough. I was fully planning on making pizza, but I figured garlic knots would be easier since we all had a hard time rolling out the dough during the party. The blog post I found helped with that, but it didn’t help the fact that I either don’t have the ingredients for or can’t eat the “garlic” part of the garlic knots.

Garlic knots call for a combination of butter, olive oil, garlic, and parsley. I used all my parsley making dumplings the other night and when I went to the store the other day, there was not a single bulb of acceptable garlic in the bin. (I’m a produce snob.) Also, I never have butter in my house. Since the temperature is not forecasted to go above 30 degrees today, I decided against walking to Trader Joe’s. (Plus, their garlic is hit or miss, too.) I had all but given up on the garlic knots until I remembered I had spices! I used EVOO, chervil (sub for parsley. You love how I have chervil, but not dried parsley, right?), garlic powder, and sea salt for the garlic bath. I didn’t measure it when I did it, so what’s on here is an approximation.

Long story short, too late I know, this is a quick, fun, and easy recipe for garlic knots. I enjoyed them with a bowl of Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. (Recipe forthcoming) Enjoy.

You’ll need:
Pizza dough (See step one)
A wooden cutting board
Sharp knife or a pizza cutter
Cookie sheet
Slip Pat or Parchment paper
Oil
Flour
EVOO
Garlic powder
Sea Salt
Dried Parsley
Microwave safe bowl

1. Call around to your local pizza shops and ask if they will sell you pizza dough. Go get the dough. (The local pizza place sold four of their jumbo balls to us for $12.50. This is one half of one of the jumbo balls. You do the math. No, really. You could get store-bought dough, but they are LOADED with unpleasant stuff. Pizza shop dough is flour, water, salt, and yeast. That’s it.)

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wet a paper towel and place it underneath your wooden cutting board to prevent it from sliding around while you work with your dough. Oil the cutting board and your hands. Drop dough onto cutting board to flatten it a bit and to show it who’s boss. Then start edging the dough out to the edges of your cutting board. In no time, it will look like this:

3. Cut the dough in strips and then sprinkle with flour. Pick up each strip and roll it between your palms to create a rope just like you would if you were making a pretend snake with PlayDoh. Then tie it in a loose knot and place on your lined cookie sheet. Repeat. When you get to the longer strips in the middle of the circle, you may want to cut them in half and make that row into two knots. It’s up to you. When you’re finished, your cookie sheet should look like this:

4. Bake for 12-15 minutes in 400 degree oven. Whilst the knots are baking, make the garlic bath. In a microwave safe bowl, place 1/4 cup of EVOO in the bottom and then layer in the rest of the spices. I’d say to use about 1 tablespoon of each ingredient EXCEPT the salt. You only need a pinch to a dash of that. (If it’s in a shake container, a dash is a single shake. A pinch is a half a shake. This makes sense in my head.) Microwave for 40 seconds and stir with a fork to get the yummy garlicy stuff off the bottom of the bowl.

5. When they’re done baking, use a pastry brush to bathe the knots in the garlic bath.

0

After baking, before garlic bath

That’s it. I’m not sure of the yield, but I was able to make two batches of these with the half ball of dough. Rough estimate: yields 24 garlic knots.

I won’t dwell on how long this post has taken me or offer an excuses as to where I’ve been. I was not here, but now I am. Let’s live in the present, shall we?

I missed blogging regularly and on the stroke of the new year, I knew it was something I needed to get back to doing because I enjoy it so much. One of my goals for this year is to write more. Actually, it’s to “get over my fear of writing.” I wrote a novel in 2011 and I am now in the process of editing and trying to figure out the publishing industry. In the mean time, my fear of writing has been crippling. It’s not my best look. I am going to fix that in 2012 and what better place to address the issue than here on Cooktivism, a blog I started with a friend of mine in January of 2010.

I don’t know how often I’ll be blogging or how many dishes I’ll feature each week. What I do know is that another one of my goals for 2012 is to cook more. So far, so good. I’ve acquired an immersion blender and a new attachment for my mixer since we’ve been apart. I’ve added these tools to my arsenal of kitchen gadgets and I am terribly excited to use them to create beautiful dishes.

Most of all, I look forward to sharing these recipes with you. If this is your first time on Cooktivism, welcome. If not, welcome to Cooktivism v. 2012. It’s sure to be new and exciting and most definitely yummy.

Life has a way of subtly telling you what it is that you’re supposed to do. At least this is how my life works. When I am lost and trying to figure out what to do next, I try my best to turn off my brain and listen to the world around me. Maybe it’s a really hippie, dippie way of looking at life, but I’m a hippie dippie kinda gal and it works for me.

I’ll give you an example: when I see a lot of lady bugs, I know something big is going to happen. I love lady bugs and I don’t see them that frequently, but when I am on the precipice of a large change, they appear everywhere. I have seen them appear in one form or another since the end of July. I haven’t seen them in a few weeks, but I think the surge of lady bugs was supposed to serve as a warning of things to come. I rest assured knowing that I am prepared for whatever change is coming because of those lady bugs. After all, there are only so many times that I can be smacked in the face with something before I perk up and pay attention to it.

That’s what happened when it came to “Life, on the Line” by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas. In late July, I read about the book in People magazine. I thought it looked good, but I didn’t have time to read another book because I was so busy prepping for the classes I was scheduled to teach in the fall. This summer, I started working at my local library and the book and I crossed paths two more times. I remember being so taken aback by the image on the front. The cover art is two pictures of Chef Achatz: one from the profile and one from the front. It’s the profile picture that strikes me. He stares at you from the cover of the book. It’s like he’s staring into your soul and daring you to open the book and see what’s inside. The third time I saw the cover, I opened it and started reading it. I really liked the chapter or so that I read, but I stopped and put the book back on the shelf where it belonged. A few weeks ago, the book was mentioned again, but this time in church. It was at that point that I realized that I needed to read this book. I still didn’t have time to read, but I do have a lengthy commute to the University where I am teaching classes, so I ordered the book on CD and I am so glad I did.

I am a purist when it comes to books. There is nothing that compares to the physical feel of a book in my hands. I love it, but listening to the book on CD was ideal for my situation. My iPod broke and I was growing weary of making a new mix CD every time I left the house. The audiobook served the purpose of reading me a book and simultaneously keeping me calm in the event of a traffic jam, which comes with the territory when one commutes. (Again with the everything happens for a reason thing.) As I was listening to this amazingly well written book on the way to and from classes where I teach writing (see?), the book began to motivate and inspire me. “Life, on the Line” (which is a double entendre, by the way) is an amazingly written book. It tells the story of how Grant Achatz came to be the chef owner of Alinea, one of the best restaurants in the country. Chef Achatz, as you may already know, is a survivor of tongue cancer. Tongue cancer in the mouth of a world-renown chef is the cruelest of ironies. I mean, really. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

Chef Atchatz worked his ass off to get where he was only to be diagnosed with a cancer that threatened his livelihood. The reader is invited into his world and given a first hand look into his life, his choices, and his relationships. Though personal relationships seems to be an area in which he struggles, his friendship with Nick Kokonas is undeniably solid. Mr. Kokonas, co-founder of Alinea and close friend to Achatz, seemed to have met his match when it came to the young chef. For as much as Achatz pushed his creativity and talent to realize his goal, Kokonas pushed back with practicality and logic. Together, they have the perfect balance. Grant had the creative vision and the talent, but he fell short on how to make his restaurant work on a business level. Kokonas had the business savvy, but didn’t understand why it was important to Achatz to have top-of-the-line tables for Alinea. When they joined together in this partnership, they built a foundation that was able to grasp the abstract concepts and the philosophical underpinnings of business. In short, it just made sense.

I fully admit that my love of fine dining is theoretical because the confines of my budget severely limit my access to such establishments as Alinea and The French Laundry. Without access, my love is more an admiration and respect for the art form. What I do fully understand, however, is a well written story from people who are passionate about what they do. “Life, On the Line” is a very well written memoir in which the reader is given intimate information about the subjects. To me, it’s written more like a journal that Achatz started when he was younger and handed to Kokonas at the beginning of their friendship. And they passed it back and forth as their relationship blossomed and Alinea came became a reality. You get both sides of the line in this book. You get both reactions to the situations that arise and it’s beautiful, intense, and kind of perfect, which I think was the point.

My favorite part of the book was the epilogue. Not just because it was the end of the book, but because it was the place where the reader is given the most unfiltered view of the Achatz and Kokonas. I sincerely appreciate any person who dares showcase the depths of their humanity. I am not the kind of reader who needs a happy ending. I have spoken to many, many people who need it in order to feel like the time they invested in the book was worth it. I respect that, but I am not that kind of reader. I don’t feel the need to put that much pressure on an author because writing a book is hard enough as it is. Trust me on this one, I know. “Life, on the line” has an appropriate ending, which I found deeply satisfying and, again, perfect.

I am glad I kept seeing this book come across the desk. I am glad I was haunted by the cover for days after shelving it. If I had ignored the signs, I am sure I would have eventually sought it out, but I am happy I read it when I did. The timing was perfect and the fact that the book was so well written gave me hope during the week that I spent grading poorly written papers from my college freshman. The book will keep me motivated this semester as I teach and continue to work toward getting my first novel published.

Next up: Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton.

In the last few days, I have been inundated with the thought and the idea of pancakes. After hearing someone talk about pancakes this morning, I decided to get up and make some for myself. I have been using this online calorie tracker thing lately and according to yesterday’s food diary, I did not eat nearly enough. I normally don’t do the calorie counting thing, but I am training for this year’s Tough Mudder by doing The Couch to 5K Running Plan and I want a way to track my progress. I’m into tracking things and writing things down. I’m a Virgo. This makes sense.

Hurricane Irene is set to touchdown in the Philadelphia region tomorrow at 5am. Though the storm has weakened, it’s still going to cause some damage. I am a weather nerd and though I acknowledge this storm is displacing folks and has a lot of people sitting in the dark, to me, it’s still very exciting to watch it form and track it.  I am a HUGE fan of NOAA.

Irene has folks in my area in a panic. There is no food left at any of the grocery stores. The bottled water is gone. I didn’t do a whole lot of planning for this storm because, well, there isn’t much for me to do as an apartment dweller. I got cash. I should have put gas in my car, but I just painted my nails and I can’t be bothered with pumping my own gas right now. (Jersey girl for life, y’all).

In order to prepare for this storm, I decided to bake some muffins. I had to get creative with some of the ingredients because going to the grocery store is not an option. I used Apple Banana Crushers Fruit Sauce from Trader Joe’s, which is basically baby food. (What? It’s good. It’s my on-the-go food when I don’t feel like smelling banana peels.) If you don’t have any of it, feel free to sub it for 1/2 mashed ripe banana or 1/2 cup of applesauce.

Ingredients

Gotta love my creative cooling rack

I am biased when it comes to tomatoes. I believe Jersey tomatoes are the best. Though I now live in PA, I scout out farmers markets who sell Jersey tomatoes. At Wolff’s, all the tomatoes are lined up and most are grown close to Lima, PA, but I make a beeline for the Jersey tomatoes. I can’t help it. You can take the girl out of South Jersey, but you can’t keep her from her tomatoes.

I have a job in town and someone brought in some big, beautiful homegrown heirloom tomatoes. I selected a few to bring home with me the other day and I really didn’t have any idea what to do with them. I was in the midst of a tomato overload. I had the Tomato Sandwich for Fat Kid Friday. Yesterday, I made a tomato and cucumber salad and last night I had a sliced and salted cucumber tomato with warm Lavash. By this morning, the tomatoes I had left were staring me down.

It’s a rainy afternoon here in Media and it’s reasonably hot in my kitchen so I thought I’d make myself a nice, warm dinner.  This is an update of a recipe I posted in November of last year. I updated it using what I have left in my kitchen (I don’t cook or buy spices during the summer inferno) and the tomatoes I had leftover from my tomato fest. I decided to include the heirloom tomatoes in this recipe because, well, they may never get the chance to be as awesome as my single remaining Jersey tomato. I also pulled hoisted out the cast iron pot that my mom gifted me. I’m testing it out for when I do the cooking for my birthday party next week. I am VERY happy with the way this turned out. Enjoy.

Ingredients

6 tablespoons Canola oil
5 green cardamom pods, smashed*
1 cinnamon stick
1 large white onion, chopped
3 teaspoons ground ginger
3 tablespoons of Trader Joe’s crushed garlic
1 pound skinless chicken pieces (dark meat, white meat will dry out)
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
Sea salt
3 large tomatoes, cut into quarters
Short grain brown rice, cooked according to instructions or intuition (I use a little of both with my stove)

1. Heat the canola oil in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Add the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick, and fry for about 30 seconds. Add the onion, and continue to fry for 4 to 5 minutes, or until caramelized.

2. While the onions are caramelizing, blend the tomatoes, ground ginger and crushed garlic in your blender.

3. When the onions have caramelized, add the tomato mixture, coriander, and garam masala to the pan, and stir well. Salt to taste before you add the chicken. Next, add the chicken pieces and nestle them in among the tomato curry. Simmer this chompie for at least 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Oh, yeah. Somewhere in here you should prepare your rice. I did it as I set the curry to simmer. I found the timing was ideal doing it that way. Also, at about minute 35 of simmering your curry, I HIGHLY recommend fishing out the green cardamom pods. They are lovely for flavoring the dish, but they are most unpleasant to bit into. Trust me.

5. Serve over rice with naan or flat bread (optional).

For you food nerds, here’s a definition of the word ‘curry.’ You’re welcome.

I grew up in South Jersey, which is the polar opposite of North Jersey. You won’t find any Jersey Shore-esque guidos down here. I saw did see one once at Target when I was in college. Actually, I smelled him first…from three aisles away. It was most unpleasant.

When you grow up in South Jersey, locally grown produce is an integral part of your summer fare. I crave Jersey tomatoes every summer. If you haven’t had them, I assert that you’ve never really tasted a tomato. They are sweet and fresh and they smell like earth and sunshine. I really can’t describe them any other way.

In my house, we regularly had tomato sandwiches for lunch. My aunt would go out to the garden, pick a ripe tomato off the bush, and then she’d make these sandwiches. They are so simple and so pleasant. The taste of them brings me back to my childhood. I don’t know if tomato sandwiches are common anywhere else in the country or even in the rest of South Jersey, but we ate them and they are, by far, the best thing I ever ate.

Another perk to tomato sandwiches is that they are super inexpensive to make. I think the tomatoes were the most expensive ingredient and they were .98 cents a pound at my local farmers market. Here’s the break down and the list of ingredients:

Jersey tomatoes – .98 cents/lb
Kaiser rolls – .65 cents each
American Cheese – $1.04 for 1/8 of a pound (4 slices)
Mayonnaise – you only use a smear of this. Maybe 1/2 teaspoon.*
Salt & Pepper

1. You can use your choice of bread. I got Kaiser rolls because they were fresh and the rest of the bread in ACME was loaded with preservatives and soy.

2. Smear mayo on either side of your choice of bread. *Mayo is expensive, if you have to buy it for this recipe, the cost of the meal will increase.

3. Layer on cheese and tomato slices. Top with salt and pepper.

You can make it fancy by adding avocado slices or green leafy vegetables, but I don’t recommend it. The tomatoes are the star of this sandwich.