Bringing Back The Martini Ingredients Features Cocktails Recipe Amy Kundrat April 27, 2010 The gin martini deserves to be revered. Done well, it's a study in radical simplicity. Done poorly, and you’re better off using it as a cleaning solution. Each Monday I encourage you to celebrate the start of the week with a classic dry gin martini. A weekly ritual in our house, it should begin with good quality gin, a whisper of vermouth, combined with a shaker full of ice and finished with a twist of lemon served in a chilled glass. (If you'd rather not serve, but be served this classic cocktail, check out our "Martini Map" below.) An acquired taste for many, the juniper and botanical essence of gin over time will grow on you, especially when paired with an olive or olive juice (the dirty martini), perhaps a pickled onion (the gibson) and of course (my preferred pairing) the lemon twist Read More
Chef Leticia Brings Brazilian Cooking To Fairfield County Ingredients Features Brazilian Cooking Classes Education Deanna Foster April 19, 2010 You never know what to expect when you sign up for a cooking class. How much cooking will you do? Who will attend and what will they want from the class? How will the personality of the chef influence the experience? What if you could cut down on all those variables by gathering a group of friends with common food interests and visiting the home of a chef whose only motive is to ensure you have a good time and eat well? It would be a fabulous experience – wouldn’t it? Recently, eight CTBites contributors had just such a fabulous culinary experience with chef, teacher and cookbook author Leticia Moreinos Schwartz at one of her in-home Brazilian cooking classes. Read More
Learn While You Lunch @ Sport Hill Farm: Season 2 Ingredients Restaurant Events Local Farm Organic Recipe Farm Fresh Lunch Stephanie Webster April 10, 2010
EspressoNEAT: Home Brewing Basics Class Ingredients Coffee Darien Education Stephanie Webster April 05, 2010
Artisanal Honey Tasting Event @ Red Bee Apiary Ingredients Events Stephanie Webster April 02, 2010 Join us for a Tasting Flight of Seven Artisanal honeys with Red Bee Apiary's own Marina Marchese. Learn how honeybees make this liquid gold we call honey, how location and nectar source determines a honeys color and flavor and how honey is harvested and extracted from the comb. Marina will show us how to taste and evaluate honey using the Honey Sommelier tasting guide in her new book "HONEYBEE Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper." Each guest will receive one sample 2 oz. jar of Red Bee's signature Wildflower Honey. Go to the Red Bee website to RSVP and pre-pay to reserve your spot. Red Bee Honey Tasting Menu: Farmhouse comb honey Red Bee's signature wildflower Alfalfa honey Goldenrod honey Blueberry blossom honey Tulip poplar honey Star thistle honey Read More
Honor the Earth: "Retake Our Plates" Film Series Ingredients Education Events Stephanie Webster March 25, 2010
What Makes Great Chili? Where to Sample in FC? Ingredients Features Events Recipe Comfort Food Stacy Lytwyn Maxwell March 24, 2010 Stacy Maxwell is the author of the upcoming book, El Cheapo Gourmet—Thinking Outside the Restaurant Box: The Best Homemade Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner in Connecticut. Chili with…corn? Absolutely….That’s what some of the evening’s guests at this past winter’s Connecticut Audubon Society Center’s Adirondack Night felt about the three corn-laden crock pots full of chili while others at the event felt: absolutely not! Without doubt, the bright, sunny specks of color added aesthetic appeal to the Adirondack, Sweet and Vegetarian-style dishes that provided the main fare for one of three major annual fundraisers. Of course, when the palate is involved, beauty amounts to beans. As I sampled a cup full of chili while chilling next to a guest who was also hankering down on his eats, I commented, “Perhaps the corn in the chili is a Yankee tradition.” While chewing intently on the kernels, he shrugged off my assumption, saying, “This belongs somewhere in northern New York—far north.” Chidings in the chili world are not new. Back in the 1980s, I was part of a television crew Read More
Green Gourmet To Go in Bridgeport Ingredients Features Bridgeport Organic Elizabeth Keyser March 19, 2010 Originally written for the Fairfield Green Food Guide. It’s way too soon to change the name to Green Rock, but Black Rock is getting greener. Green Gourmet To Go, offering local, organic vegetarian and vegan meals, will open on Fairfield Avenue in April (yes I know the photo says March, but dates slip). The attractive little storefront, with its soothing celedon walls and coppery silk curtains will offer healthy and environmentally conscious hot and cold lunches and dinners. Chef-Owner Linda Soper-Kolton was a lifelong food lover and dedicated home cook before she decided to attend the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City. The recent NGI graduate is inspired. She wants makes to make eating healthy meals easy and approachable. “I’ll serve burritos, but healthy burritos,” she said in a recent interview. Think burritos filled with sweet potatoes, kale, black beans and grains. Her Dixie burger is made from black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes and served with chipotle sauce. Her hummus and avocado wrap gets punch and crunch from shiitake “bacon” crisps. Read More
GourMom's Homemade Organic Salsa & Simmer Sauce Ingredients Organic Specialty Market Recipe Farm Fresh Kid Friendly Liz Rueven March 18, 2010 Sarah Galluzzo waits with great anticipation for the ground to thaw and the spring to arrive in CT. OK, we are all yearning for spring.... but her product depends on it! GourMom's USDA certified organic salsa and simmer sauce is her scrumptious creation. She is committed to using LOCAL and CERTIFIED ORGANIC ingredients for this chunky, choc full o'flavor salsa. As a salsa enthusiast, I was enthralled by her story and her product. We chatted at the Pantry in Fairfield, one of her retail outlets, and she explained about the launching of this super local, super delicious product. Her excitement was contagious as she shared her story. In 2008 Galuzzo decided to get serious about selling her salsa and test the market. She had been dubbed "GourMom" by friends and family Read More
Great Wines for $15 & Less: Uncorked Event + Contest Ingredients Education Events Westport Wine Chat Stephanie Webster March 12, 2010 After a successful Restaurant Week, the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce is preparing for their next event, The Chamber-Uncorked, A Food and Wine Experience taking place on March 25th @6pm. The concept for this wine focused event will be “Great Wines for $15 and Less,” proving that fabulous wine does not need to break the bank. Wine enthusiast and shop owner Robert Appell of Westport's new Bottles Wine & Spirits, will be acting sommelier for the evening, lending his expertise to the tasting. Naturally, where there is wine – there is food! The cuisine for the evening is a virtual tour around the world, and will complement the diversity of the wine. There will be sushi presented by Matsu Sushi, BBQ from Bobby-Qs, Indian cuisine from Bombay, Caribbean dishes by Blue Lemon, an Italian bounty table by Collyer Catering, and sweet treats by CakeSuite. Here comes the fun part: Testing one’s wine knowledge, a pricier wild card bottle of wine will be poured among the many others for folks to see if they can taste the difference. Plus, a common food ingredient will be used by all of the restaurants/caterers – again, challenging one’s palate. Guess the wine, and receive the bottle. Guess the secret ingredient and receive a basket full of all things delicious! Read More
School is Back in Session @ Fairfield Cheese Company Ingredients Education Fairfield Specialty Market Stephanie Webster March 08, 2010 Fairfield Cheese Company classes are back in session and school has never been this delicious. Whether you are a cheese novice looking for a an introduction to the basics, or a cheese-aficionado seeking to expand your knowledge on a specific variety, they've got the class for you. I jumped at the chance to attend one of these sessions back in October and spent some time with owners Laura and Christopher who lead these entertaining and informative evenings. If you would like some background on Fairfield Cheese Company, check out our review, "Cheese 101." With wine pairings from Harry's Wine & Liquor, this is the perfect way to break out of that dinner-and-a-movie date night rut. If you attend any of the classes below, let us know what you think! Cheese School Class Schedule-Spring 2010 Read More
Taste Testing the NEW Sono Baking Co. Cookbook Ingredients Bakery Cookbooks Education Norwalk Dessert Deanna Foster March 06, 2010 A good cook book is like a map. It takes you to places in the kitchen you couldn’t have gone with out it. A great cook book is like a navigation device. It not only gives you the maps, but shows you points of interest along the way and tells you how to get back on track if you veer off course. The Sono Baking Company Cookbook is a great cookbook and it's on sale March 9th! From its thick, glossy pages to its gorgeous photos and instructive recipes, this book is an inviting and engaging kitchen travel companion. The first thing you notice about the Sono Cookbook is its beautiful photos. Much credit to Ben Fink, who makes the food pop off the page and look so stunning and real you’re surprised you can’t reach into the book and pick up the pastry brush to glaze a tart on the Table of Contents page. When we decided to do a tasting as part of the book’s review Read More
CTbites Shout Out: What's Your Guilty Food Pleasure? Ingredients CTbites Shout Out Stephanie Webster March 04, 2010 Ok CTbites readers, we all have our guilty food pleasures... a secret stash you hide in the back of the pantry, or a fast food stop you make mid-day when your kids aren't in the car? Here's what our contributors have hankerings for. What do you crave? Stephanie Webster: I've got a serious problem with S'mores. I make them in the toaster oven with dark chocolate...Also anything with bacon and grilled onions. Marcy Shinbaum: SALT SALT SALT! A great piece of artisan bread, well toasted, lightly buttered, and heavily salted. Perfection. Jennifer Spaide: My guilty pleasure is Fish Filet sandwiches from McDonalds... extra tartar sauce please! They are one of the worst things on the menu to order, and I don’t do it often, but they have a magical way of making me feel like a kid again. Damn you Micky D!!! Read More
Local Artisan: Making Maple Syrup with Mark Harran Ingredients Local Artisan Dessert Neil Gluckin March 02, 2010 Neil Gluckin is a writer, communication consultant and local food advocate who lives in Wilton, CT. He explores the links between food, self and community in his blog at forageprimeval.com. After firing up the generator that runs the vacuum pump, Mark Harran watches intently as liquid begins to flow through plastic tubing connected to a sleek spout protruding from the trunk of a tree. We are a long way from wooden buckets, tanks of sap on horse-drawn sleds and rustic smoke-filled sugar houses, but Harran is aiming at the same result: maple syrup, the addictive nectar that Americans have been distilling from the sap of the sugar maple since the legendary Chief Wokis first struck a tree with his tomahawk and made it weep sweet tears. A 30-year veteran of the food industry, Harran, now retired, has returned to his roots. He grew up on a farm in upstate New York that hung buckets from 5,700 taps, and he lives on one now, in Litchfeld, where he does the same thing albeit on a smaller scale. In addition to being a private farmer, he also serves as President of the Maple Syrup Producers Association of Connecticut. Read More
A Guide to Fairfield County 2010 CSAs Ingredients Features Delivery Service Local Farm Organic healthy Farm Fresh CTbites Team February 26, 2010 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a means for consumers to buy a share in a farm's seasonal production directly from the farmer. Consumers benefit from buying local, farm fresh, high quality produce at an attractive price and farmers benefit from pre-selling the harvest. It’s a clear win-win. CSA members typically pick up their weekly shares at the farm or a location in their community, but a new CSA option is delivered to your door! Community pick up locations generally involve a small volunteer commitment, perhaps two hours per season, during which the site is readied and broken down for weekly share distribution. CSA membership is not for everyone because in such a partnership arrangement, the consumer shares both the bounty of the farm's harvest and some of the risks inherent in farming. We have lost so much farmland in Connecticut that less than one percent of our residents earn a living by farming. Eat well, support your local farmer and do your bit to preserve farmland by buying a CSA share in one of our precious organic or IPM (Integrated Pest Management) farms. Back in January I announced that it was CSA registration month and shared that two organic farms were expanding and had opened their lists to new CSA families: Sport Hill Farm in Easton and The Hickories in Ridgefield. The CSAs from these two farms quickly sold out. The good news is that there are still a few CSAs open for new subscribers, but you should act quickly if you want to secure a share. Read More
Superior Snacking: BlueBelle Premium Granola Bars Ingredients healthy Kid Friendly Dessert Liz Rueven February 24, 2010 For some time now I have been making special trips to a Doc's, a Westport coffee house, just to purchase their hand made BlueBelle Granola Bars. I would look for any excuse to drive down their street in the hopes of finding my favorite flavor. Always on the hunt for talented small local producers, I recently tracked down the owner of BlueBelle Premium Granola Bars, Westport's Jerri Graham, to learn more about her take on this popular snack. Jerri's mission is to create healthy bars that are delicious, satisfying and enhance over all well being. She takes simple, nutritionally dense ingredients and combines them such that each one is identifiable and discernible. She is a creative soul with great business integrity, who understands the importance of a product to both enhance one's health and thrill the palate. There are currently 4 variations on the bar, all using the same base of organic oats and oat flour. The choices are Lemon Ginger, Fruit and Nut, Cherry Cranberry Almond and Chocolate Coconut, Read More
Road Trip: Old Lyme & Chester for Great Food and Fun Road Trip Restaurant Old Lyme Road Trip Shoreline East Elizabeth Keyser February 18, 2010 In these cold cabin-fever days of winter, a road trip to a country inn casts an alluring spell. Dreaming of a cozy dinner in front of a flickering fireplace, we hit the road to check out The Bee & Thistle Inn and Spa in Old Lyme. (100 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT) The Bee & Thistle has been an inn since 1930, but Linnea and David Rufo have breathed new life into the historic building since buying it 4 years ago. Linnea is a multi-talented, energetic and attractive woman with 20 years of experience in the hospitality business as a chef (she worked at Jean Georges Vongerichten’s Mercer Kitchen), innkeeper (The Inn at Stockbridge in Massachusetts) and award-winning events planner (too numerous to list). She’s the Bee & Thistle’s executive chef and hostess, and has created a cozy ambience filled with good food, art and music. Read More
Sustainable Dark Chocolate Tasting: 21 Bars, 12 Tasters... Ingredients Holiday Organic Dessert CTbites Team February 11, 2010 Last week, Analiese Paik, Editor of the Fairfield Green Food Guide, walked the CTbites staff through a sustainable dark chocolate tasting. We managed to consume (in very small pieces) 21 different varieties of chocolate...it was a very productive morning. Here's what you should buy for your loved one... If someone had told me there were more than 20 different companies that made premium, organic and fair trade chocolate bars, I might have doubted the veracity of that statement. But there I was in Whole Foods Market in Westport, in chocolate heaven, scrutinizing the sustainable labeling on beautifully wrapped bars of Dagoba, Equal Exchange, Newman's Own Organic, Kallari, Divine and 15 more chocolate companies, each just begging to be chosen for the sustainable chocolate tasting I was holding with the help of CT Bites. I couldn't choose; they all had to come home. It was only fair. Read More
