CT Berry Picking is On!! Ingredients Kids Bites Local Farm kids activity Farm Fresh Kid Friendly Dessert Stephanie Webster July 19, 2010
A Truly Excellent Apple Pie @ Stew Leonard's Ingredients Features Specialty Market Farm Fresh Dessert Stephanie Webster July 15, 2010 It's a few hours before your guests arrive for that big family BBQ. You're scrambling to get the prep done before the doorbell rings….and oh no…you realize you forgot the dessert!! Fear not my brave Fairfield County residents. Stew Leonard's has the perfect solution for you…and you'd never guess it wasn't homemade. Named "best pie in America" by Gourmet Magazine as well as the Wall Street Journal (a dubious food critic, but we'll go with it), Stew's is now carrying The Elegant Farmer's "Apple Pie Baked In A Paper Bag." I know what you're thinking. 1. Stew's? Really? and 2. Doesn't the bag go up in flames? Yes and no. We were introduced to this gem by a CTbites reader, and had to check it out for ourselves. This Wisconsin based pie shop uses apples fresh from their farm, and they make their pies just how I like them. Read More
Chef Talk: Seared Stonington Scallops w/ Corn "Risotto" Features Chef Talk Recipe Farm Fresh Stephanie Webster July 09, 2010 Photo: Michelle Parr PaulsonEven if you don't make it to Dinners At The Farm this season, you can still capture some of the culinary magic that Chef Jonathan Rapp brings to each and every meal. Jonathan is the chef and owner of River Tavern in Chester, CT and the creator of Dinners at the Farm. This recipe for Seared Stonington Scallops with Fresh Corn "Risotto" is a dish you may find on the menu at one of his unique local dinners. Sure, you may not have the candlelit white tent glowing brilliantly against the farm backdrop, or the truck outfitted with a kitchen in which to cook your dinner, but set up a communal table and enjoy this delicious seasonal dish. Seared Stonington Scallops with Fresh Corn "Risotto" Read More
Top Summer Cocktails: A Connecticut Blogger Round-up Ingredients Features Amy Kundrat July 08, 2010 The summer cocktail season is in full-swing and rather than mindlessly reach for the shaker and ice we decided we needed a lesson or two (or ten). We asked ourselves, what are all the cool people drinking? To answer this we went to the source and rounded up a few of our favorite food and drink bloggers in Connecticut to share their favorite summer cocktails with CTbites. I guarantee these cool summer drinks will have you planning meals AROUND your drinks. And if you feel inspired, please share your favorite summer cocktail as a comment below. Cheers! Read More
Gin Tasting @ NRG Wines Ingredients Cocktails Events Amy Kundrat July 06, 2010 If your preferred cocktail is a gin martini or the summer staple, a gin and tonic, there is an event happening this week you will not want to miss. Peter Troilo at Nicholas Roberts Fine Wines will be hosting a gin tasting this Friday July 9 beginning at 5 pm at their shop located at 1053 Boston Post Road in Darien. Usually known for a great selection of wines, NRG is mixing it up and will be presenting four gins with equally different styles and approaches to taste. If you’re on the fence about the juniper substance, you may want to read my love note to the stuff as inspiration, Bringing Back the Martini. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let’s meet our contestants. Read More
This Week @ The Westport Farmers Market Ingredients Farmers Market Liz Rueven July 04, 2010 On July 8, from 10-2, Bill Taibe, executive chef and owner of LeFarm in Westport, will be offering some special dishes at the market. Taibe’s commitment to local growers and artisans is the concept upon which LeFarm is built. This 30 seat, cleaned up barn-like dining room in Colonial Green offers its diners meticulously sourced, deceptively simple, always exceptionally excellent fare. Taibe will be wow’ing visitors to the market with Nasturtium Honey Blunts. You got it! Taibe cleverly refers to rolled cigars here. For this preparation, Taibe sources the largest leaves of the Nasturtium flower (no more than 2-3 inches across), rolls them around a filling of chopped black olives, La Quercia prosciutto, Red Bee honey and Beltane Farms goat cheese. The variegated, bright green leaf has a peppery, arugula -like flavor which contrasts unexpectedly against the creamy cheese and the sweet honey. How’s that for finger food? Taibe will also offer pickled veal tongue served with bright, local tomatoes. Read More
Honey Tasting @ Sport Hill Farm Ingredients Easton Events Local Artisan Local Farm Farm Fresh Dessert Stephanie Webster July 01, 2010
Great Wine Buys for An All American 4th of July Ingredients Features Holiday Wine Chat JoAnn LoGiurato June 30, 2010 Our nation’s birthday brings out the patriotism in me. I like to make a toast to American winemakers by celebrating with all American wines on the 4th of July. Whether you are at the beach, the pool, picnicking in the park or on your boat, here are some wine recommendations and things to consider before the fireworks get started: 1~The wine needs to quench my thirst—for that I prefer wines with good acidity and crispness. I’m thinking-- a crisp, juicy Sauvignon Blanc. I like these California producers Girard ($16), Merry Edwards ($35), and LEED certified, organically grown Hall Napa Valley ($20). I also really enjoy the smokiness of Ferrari Carano Fume´Blanc ($17). Sauvignon Blanc is great with green salads, vegetarian dishes and anything with goat cheese or fresh tomatoes. Read More
100% Gluten-Free @ Cafe Cogolulu Ingredients Restaurant Bakery Special Dietary Needs Lunch Kid Friendly Amy Kundrat June 29, 2010 Most of us don't think twice about trying a new restaurant, taking a night off from cooking with takeout or browsing the aisles of a grocery store. But for a small percentage of Americans, these simple and daily rituals can be excruciating. Celiac disease is a digestive disorder that affects, by some estimates, 1 in 133 children and adults by compromising the ability to process certain proteins found in gluten. An oasis for sufferers has emerged in Fairfield County in the form Cafe Cogolulu, a reopened and 100% gluten free cafe in Wilton offering families suffering from this inherited autoimmune disease some much-needed respite. Read More
Meet Michel Nischan @ The Westport Farmer's Market Ingredients Cookbooks Events Farmers Market Stephanie Webster June 28, 2010
This Week @ The Westport Farmers Market Ingredients Events Farmers Market Liz Rueven June 27, 2010 Kausik Roy, Executive Chef and owner of TAWA, Stamford, will be the guest chef at the Westport Farmers’ Market on Thurs. July 1st, from 10-2 Roy will offer two of his restaurant patrons’ favorite dishes. This self described “rule breaker” seeks to present authentic ethnic cuisine while incorporating an abundance of locally grown veggies, which are not commonly found on menus in Indian restaurants. His desire to alter how his customers think about Indian cuisine is evidenced in his re-creating many traditional dishes. A bright and crisp chilled native corn and asparagus salad will highlight the tail end of the asparagus crop Read More
The Double L Rises Again! Ingredients Farmers Market Local Farm Westport Farm Fresh Christy Colasurdo June 24, 2010 My friend Lloyd Allen is crazy. At least that’s what people said years ago when he decided to go into the fashion business (yet wound up igniting a rage for trendy rain ponchos), publish a book about former neighbor Martha Stewart (despite the fact that she had just been indicted) and, two years ago, re-open his 1980s farm stand, the Double L (in a ramshackle red-barn structure in Southport). Still, when Lloyd gets an idea into his head, there’s no stopping him. Perhaps it’s his “just do it” quality that makes people root for him against all odds. So when the rickety red building that housed the Double L was finally too dilapidated to be useful, Lloyd teamed up with Michael Van Haaften and set out in search of a site where they could create a year-round indoor farm stand Read More
Cheese Wheels: Smile and Say, “CHEESE!” Ingredients Features Catering Specialty Market Sarah Green June 23, 2010 There’s something udderly amazing going down in Fairfield County. MOOOOVE over Pizza and Taco truck and make way for the new cow in town! For the sophisticated palate, Westport’s Mirabelle Cheese Shop is going portable with "CHEESE WHEELS." Andrea Itin, co-owner (with her husband) of the Fromagerie since 2008, has decided to go mobile, and she’s coming to a Farmers’ Market or private function near you. Here’s the (not-so!) skinny: No matter what you’re into, there’s curd for you! Headed to your favorite wine shop for a tasting? Don’t be surprised if you see a reproduction 1940’s Tear Drop Trailer parked in the lot. As you pass, wafts of delectable cheese caress your nostrils and you go inside for a glass. As you sip the wine merchant’s favorite red of the month, you will be treated to divine local cheese on top of Isabelle et Vincent’s (1903 Post Road in Fairfiled) crusty baguette. Paired perfectly, cheese and wine are a marriage made in heaven. Another wine, another cheese, and you are in the zone. Read More
Thomas Keller...Only Minutes Away.... Features Cookbooks Events Amy Kundrat June 22, 2010 Don’t miss Chef Thomas Keller signing copies of his "ad hoc at home" cookbook this Friday, June 25 at 12 noon at The Westchester in White Plains. Chef Thomas Keller is the last chef whose cuisine would be described as “accessible” or “approachable.” If you’ve stepped across the threshold of any his celebrated restaurants including The French Laundry, Bouchon, Ad Hoc, or Per Se, you know no detail is overlooked. And if you’ve thumbed through his exquisitely detailed and daunting tomes such as The French Laundry Cookbook, let alone even try to cook from them, you know Chef Keller’s recipes take no shortcuts (and no prisoners). But accessible he will be. In his cookbook "ad hoc at home," Chef Keller brings us simple but beautiful recipes inspired by his more casual Yountville eatery, Ad Hoc. Read More
This Week @ The Westport Farmer's Market Ingredients Events Farmers Market Liz Rueven June 20, 2010 Executive Chef, Erin Hunt, of Barcelona Wine Bar and Restaurant in Fairfield, is the guest chef at the Westport Farmers’ Market on June 24 between 10-2. Chef Hunt will be offering shoppers cups filled with two chilled Spanish soups: tomatillo gazpacho and Valencia gazpacho. During the warm summer months when local tomatoes are easily accessible and reliably flavorful, this summer staple often reappears as a refreshing, seasonal favorite. Highlighting the creative variations on this traditional dish, Chef Hunt will blister the tomatillos to bring out the slightly tart flavors of this tomato variety. These charred, bright green beauties are then combined with Spanish onion, garlic, shallots, cilantro, a drop of hot sesame oil and a splash of mild, rice vinegar. Read More
Asian BBQ & Grilling w/ Corinne Trang: Part 1 Features BBQ CTbites Team June 17, 2010 Corinne Trang is an award-winning cookbook author, Asian food historian, radio and TV personality. Lucky for us, she also recently moved to Westport. She is very serious about her BBQ…Asian BBQ that is, and she will be sharing her grill tips and recipes with us all summer. Here is her first installment including recipes for Five-Spice Soy Sauce Marinade, Grilled Bok Choy, and Mushroom Fried-Rice with Shitakes. I’m excited that grilling season is finally here. For me, it marks the end of a harsh Winter and wet Spring, and the beginning of the bright hot Summer ahead. It also means firing up the grill just about everyday from now until Fall. I think it’s fair to say that BBQ is all the rage these days. It’s been in the news for the last several years in a big way, and touted as a culinary tradition that can be as complex and refined as French or Chinese cooking, for example. I’ve tasted, seen, and engaged in lively and passionate conversations, and agree that barbecue is no small subject with regional variations to satisfy just about any palate. Read More
Dough Girl Baking Co: Rowayton's Sweetest Secret Ingredients Bakery Catering Farmers Market Dessert CTbites Team June 16, 2010 Any time I am invited to a birthday party, I offer to bring the cake. I have been completely won over by a local baker who creates the most artistic, delicious and personal cakes you could ever imagine. The first cake was for my brother's surprise 40th birthday party in New York City. The event caterer directed me to a patisserie on the upper east side, but I was determined to try a local baker, Laura Jayson, a.k.a. The Dough Girl of Rowayton, who works out of a small kitchen in Norwalk. When she offered to deliver the cake in a box fit for travel, the deal was sealed. For the party, Laura recommended her biggest crowd-pleaser: a super-moist chocolate cake (she shared her secret ingredient: coffee) topped with vanilla frosting. In the center, at my request, she created a molded figure of my brother kite-boarding. The art work was playful and the figure true to form Read More
Food Network Star Daisy Martinez Comes to Westport Features Cookbooks Events Recipe Stephanie Webster June 15, 2010 On June 22nd, Daisy Martinez—star of the Food Network’s Viva Daisy!— is coming to Fairfield County! She will be at Barnes & Noble is Westport on Tuesday, June 22nd at 7pm with her new book, DAISY: MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT. Bringing Your Family Together with Everyday Latin Dishes. Daisy has been a “Foodie” from a very young age. She grew up cooking alongside her mother and grandmothers. On her 40th birthday, her husband surprised her with a gift of attending the French Culinary Institute. Her idol, Jacques Pepin, welcomed her personally. After a stint as a private chef, she hosted Daisy Cooks! on PBS. In early 2009, she teamed up with Rachel Ray and her production company to ramp up the Latin flavors of the Food Network. A launch pad to explore the food of Latin America, the second season of Viva Daisy! premiered in July 2009. In the introduction to her fresh and inviting new cookbook, Daisy says, “To say that I am a bit obsessed when it comes to Latin food Read More
Wine Chat: Summer Wine - A Bottle Full of Sunshine Ingredients Features Wine Chat JoAnn LoGiurato June 11, 2010 JoAnn LoGiurato is the founder of Dancing on Grapes, specializing in private wine tastings. Her passion is wine pairings with a focus on events tailored to women. Here are her picks for great Summer drinking with a buying guide for specific labels. The sun’s out, there’s music in the air, and you’re ready to throw an outdoor party. You might be thinking, “Should I serve Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay or Cabernet to my friends?” Well, why not drink something different? There are so many great wines that work with summer foods; some are just perfect for sitting by the pool or sipping at the beach. Others are perfect with seasonal picnic and barbeque foods — grilled meats, fish salads and veggies. Here is a list of sassy sippers that will get you out of your wine doldrums: Read More
