May 2011

The Raw Rhubarb Daiquiri

You can taste great food in your head long after you first experience it. That’s the case for me and the rhubarb cocktail I drank at Franny’s in 2009. Most rhubarb drinks have a cooked quality to them; the rhubarb is generally poached in a sugar syrup. The Franny’s rhubarb drink (which, apparently, is made with Aperol) is nothing like that. The rhubarb flavor (which comes from juicing rhubarb raw) is intense and sharp and the cocktail, as a whole, is incredibly bracing. It’s the kind of drink that makes you sit up in your seat, alert and ready for dinner.

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How To Make Authentic Guacamole

My first experience with guacamole was the one in The Barefoot Contessa book, a flavorful guacamole that has the requisite avocados, red onion and lemon juice, but departs from the norm with fresh garlic and a few hits of Tabasco. Up until last weekend, if I were sent to the store to shop for guacamole ingredients, I probably would’ve stuck to The Barefoot Contessa formula. But then my friend Mark entered the picture.

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Someone’s In The Kitchen With…Emeric Harney

This week on “Someone’s In The Kitchen With….”, I play host to Emeric Harney of the legendary SoHo tea emporium Harney & Sons. Learn how to brew green tea properly, what makes white tea white tea, which kind of tea has the most caffeine (the answer may surprise you) and how to pronounce “pu’er” properly (and what, precisely, “pu’er” is in the first place.) You’ll be happy to see that because I shot this on iMovie, we don’t encounter the same technical issues we encountered last week with Rachel Wharton (don’t worry, we’ll have her back!) Next week I’m playing host to Phoebe Lapine and Cara Eisenpress, the bloggers behind “Big Girls, Small Kitchen” who have a brand new book coming out (with a Foreward from none other than Ina Garten.) Make sure to follow me on Twitter so you can Tweet any questions you may have for them. And if you have ideas for future guests, leave them in the comments!

Joe’s Stone Crab

There’s a secret about Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami that’s so dangerous, so protected that the people who took me there for dinner do not want to be identified.

I could’ve chosen, of course, just to write about the meal like any other meal; focusing on the food instead of the secret, but the secret to me is almost as fascinating as the stone crabs are delicious. In fact, you’ll be waiting an hour and a half for stone crabs if you don’t know the secret.

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Rachel Wharton’s Pimento Cheese

Because we had some technical issues with the first broadcast of “Someone’s In The Kitchen With…”, I’m afraid many of you missed Rachel Wharton’s very winning recipe for pimento cheese. As you can see by the picture, this is a pimento cheese to be reckoned with: it’s spicy, it’s tangy, it’s creamy, it’s fluffy and it’s very, very hard to stop eating. (Cholesterol be damned.) So for those who missed the video, here’s how you make it.

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Someone’s In The Kitchen With….

Tomorrow at 3 PM EST I’m starting a new feature here on the blog, a live-streaming web show I’m going to call “Someone’s In The Kitchen With….” Each week, a different guest will swing by my kitchen to teach me how to cook something and, more importantly, they’ll answer your questions LIVE on the web. Our very first guest is none other than James Beard award winner Rachel Wharton who will be teaching me her secret recipe for pimento cheese. Go to the show page tomorrow at 3 PM EST to join the chat or just click back here and watch the action unfold. And if you have any questions you’d like me to ask Rachel, leave them here in the comments.

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