White Gate Farm in East Lyme, CT, a favorite eastern Connecticut farm stand and Dinners on the Farm venue, is unveiling their new commercial "Farm Kitchen" and a series of cooking classes featuring talented Connecticut chefs.
The series will officially kick off this Friday at White Gate Farm for what they are calling a "Grand Unveiling" on August 24 at 7 pm ($10 per person). The evening will feature a preview of the hands-on kitchen and farm-fresh hors d'oeuvres, wine and chef's presentations. They will also unveil the full season of classes, dates and participating chefs this evening.
Interested in showing off those latte art skills? Or perhaps you just want to learn the basics and sip your way through a fun evening. Either way you are in luck. Espresso NEAT in Darien is hosting their inaugural Thursday Night Throwdown (TNT) Latte Art Competition on July 12. A $5 buy-in will get you into the evening's event. This first event of the season is a customer invitational (everyone is invited). Prizes and sponsors to be announced.
Greenwich has a new kid in town. The J House, a boutique hotel in Riverside, has opened eleven14 Kitchen and The Chocolate Lab. The hotel's modern and playful layers of lounges and indoor/outdoor dining areas, paired with a culinary program led by Chef François Kwaku-Dongo most notably of Spago, make it a place you’ll want to explore this summer.
The Mexican-inspired food trend is at a fever pitch with the opening of the third Chipotle in Fairfield County today on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, CT. The tenth location in Connecticut and third in Fairfield County, their soft opening is tonight, April 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. They will be offering patrons the entire menu and fountain drinks at no charge for today only. A liquor license is pending.
Chipotle is now open at 49 Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, CT. Hours are Monday through Sunday, 11 am to 10 pm, tel: 203.625.5394.
Add this to the CTBites’ mantra - Sharing seven different and unique pizzas is a great way to spend an evening.
Several of us performed the enviable task of judging six of the great pizza combinations that readers submitted to determine which would be included on the menu of Pizzeria Rosso’s new location in Greenwich and the combination that will earn the title of “CTBites 2012 Pie Combo.” And true to the mission of CTBites of guiding our readers to delicious food, all of them were so fantastic that Owner / Chef Pat Pascarella agreed that ALL OF THEM will be included on the Greenwich menu.
So congratulations to each of these winning combinations:
It must have been good karma to take over the former Wave Hill bread kitchen in Wilton, because the AMG Cooking School, which opened it’s doors in July, has truly found the right ingredients for success.
Alison Milwe-Grace and her partner, Olivia Savarese, are not new to cooking having run a catering and event planning business for years. When the professional kitchen space at the old Wave Hill Breads came on the market, they saw an opportunity and jumped at the chance to open a cooking school. They have been hosting both adult and kids classes ever since.
The good friends added their own personal touch to the space. Gone are the wooden bread racks and flour dusted floors. A cozy candlelit living room and dining area serves as the entrance, while the kitchen features a huge work area complete with famous chef quotes on chalkboards to serve as inspiration.
Pizzeria Rosso is opening up not one, but two new locations in Connecticut in addition to their original Norwalk take-out outpost which has been open just under a year. [Read: Pizzeria Rosso Opens in Norwalk, June 2012]
Pasquale (Pat) Pascarella is the chef and founder of the successful yet still young pizzeria. His second Pizzeria Rosso is set to open at 960 Main Street in Bridgeport in just about three weeks. The new Bridgeport location will be open seven days a week and boasts forty seats with two four-pie Baker's pride ovens. The menu will be largely the same, but more of a focus on pizza and less pasta and will be BYOB with the possibility of a future liquor license. With Webster Arena just up the street and the Barnum Publick House opening across the street, Pizzeria Rosso will be open until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday night.
A third location will open in Greenwich, giving Pizzeria Rosso the run of Fairfield County.
The expert butchers at Craft Butcherywill be kicking off 2012 with a comprehensive butchering curriculum. Owners, Ryan Fibiger (seen above) and Paul Nessel will be providing both hands-on butchery experience as well as lecture and demonstration segments. For cooks and eaters who are serious about their meat, these butchering classes are designed to give attendees an up close look at the techniques that are use to break down pork, lamb or beef into their individual cuts.
"Butchery 101: Swine" will be held on January 10th and 24th (more information below), but Craft Butchery is happy to customize these classes and demonstrations to create a more consumer or professional chef-focused discussion based on your level of interest. Classes can be done on a half or whole pig, lamb or side of beef. It provides the chance to really experience all aspects of how an animal is butchered and the audience will take home a lot of Craft Butchery's excellent meat. Boys night out anyone?
Fairfield County Foodieis a local blogger who is passionate about her food. She had me at "It’s no fun going out with folks who only ever order salads." Here is her recap of our recent CTbites Invite: Da Pietro's cooking demo & lunch event.
I laughed, I learned and I ate scrumptious food all in one afternoon.
Today I attended a fabulous, intimate event organized by CT Bites and Da Pietro restaurant in Westport: A cooking demo and lunch with Chef Scotti. I found out about it through “CT Bites Invites” that I had signed up for. Man! Am I glad I did!
The moment I entered the restaurant, I noticed all the happy smiling faces. Everyone was simply delighted to be there … after all, who wouldn’t be delighted to spend an afternoon with Chef Scotti?
The white truffle. Available for only a few months a year, this buried treasure is sold for $2500 a poundand is one of the most sought after ingredients on the planet. They are elusive, hidden underground. No longer sniffed out by pigs who had the audacity to occasionally eat them, the white truffle hunters have been replaced by the more trust-worthy canine. Their complex delicate taste is revered be chefs and diners everywhere, but you can only find white truffles in one place...the Piedmont area of Italy...and Fairfield County.
October-early December is white truffle season, and in celebration of these sublime fungi, Chef Matt Storch of Match Restauranthosted a 12 course White Truffles Cooking Class at Clarke Culinary Center in Norwalk. Each course featured raw shaved white truffles (added at the last possible moment to preserve the taste of their ethereally earthy flesh). The smell alone could have kept the foodie in me satiated for days.
And now a word from our 10 yrs old food critic....
Cake, bacon, and cinnamon; these are the words that my nose told my brain as soon as I walked into the kitchen at Aux Delices. I was so delighted that I was going to be cooking a scrumptious meal and not trying something that a professional chef created.
The cooking class that I went to was instructed by Lynn Manheim. She is also the cooking school director. The first recipe that we made was scones. Most of the ingredients were out on the table but the sugar and the flour were in two big bins. Mrs. Manheim shows everyone exactly how to do each step and how much of each ingredient to use. She will wait for everyone to finish one step before she goes onto the next, and if you need some help Mrs. Manheim will always give you a hand (especially if you’re grating butter like I was).
The Wine Mapp, a unique wine and spirits boutique, recently opened its doors in Greenwich. The store is nicely sized, cozy and intimate. There’s a feeling of warmth at The Wine Mapp that eludes the larger competitors.
The store is owned by Allyson and Charlie Do of Norwalk. It was Charlie who first had the idea of opening up such a shop after visiting a restaurant in New York City where a waiter came out with a list of wines that were stored on an electric tablet of some sort. He knew, at that moment, that he was going to open a wine shop that would incorporate technology - more specifically, he knew he was going to incorporate the iPad to give customers the best possible shopping experience.
What can pizza be? ReNapoli in Old Greenwich answers with one kitchen, two ovens, and three distinct pizza styles. Dining at ReNapoli isn’t just a meal, it's the equivalent of a three-credit course in pizza.
Owner and pizzaoilo Bruno DiFabio has been making pizza for thirty years. A fact made more interesting when you consider he is only 42. A first generation Italian American, DiFabio was already working the lead sauté station at age 16 in his grandfather's restaurant kitchen. Fast forward a few decades, several restaurants, five World Pizza Championship titles and stints at the famed ovens of Spacca Napoli, Da Michele and Trianon in Naples, and you have the genesis of ReNapoli.
I recently had the pleasure to sit down with Ramin Ganeshram to talk about her cookbook; her newly released Stir it Up! a novel written for young adults, as well as her involvement in the community.
But before you start reading...In Stir It Up! heroine Anjali Krishnan enters a video cooking contest for a shot at a reality cooking competition show on Food Network. She does such a good job she makes it to the finals. If you have a young aspiring chef in your family, check out Ramin's video contest below.
Ramin, who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, was greatly influenced by the cultures of her Iranian mother and Trinidadian father. The marriage of two different heritages and lifestyles would result creating in new traditions; food was one of them. Ramin explained, “We had access to Middle Eastern markets growing up, but all Middle Eastern ingredients are not the same.
Master ChocolatierFritz Knipschidlt, owner of Café Chocopologie in South Norwalk uttered these words that inspired his upcoming October 20 class at Clarke Culinary Showroom.
"This is the time of year that everyone starts thinking about pies and baking. The holidays are coming, and thoughts turn to Thanksgiving and what to make for dessert to serve after the turkey," continues Knipschildt, who will share his secrets of creating fabulous pies during his class at the The Clarke Culinary Center on Thursday, October 20th from 6-8PM.
Pre-registration for this and Clarke's impressive fall class line-up are required and can be done online at www.clarkeculinarycenter.com or by calling 800-842-5275, ext. 206.
The first annualGreenwich 2011 FOOD+WINE FESTIVAL will take place on October 22nd and 23rd to benefit Breast Cancer Alliance. This grand event is presented by Serendipity magazine, and if you like food and celebrity chefs, you'll want to keep reading...
The weekend-long event at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich will include a Culinary Village tent with more than 60 exclusive food, wine and spirit experts, BBQ Grill Masters, Sunday brunch specialties, a Market Place, celebrity book signings, private event tents and live performances by Rusted Root, Entrain and Sister Hazel among others.
It may draw inspiration from the cantinas of New Mexico and the mid-century Americana of Rt. 66, but Boxcar Cantina in Greenwich is most deeply rooted in the soil of Connecticut.
Locally sourced and organic ingredients have been a signature of Boxcar’s New Mexican-inspired menu for the past seventeen years well before Farm-to-Table was a claim to fame. With a weekly presence at the Westport Farmer’s Market and a green restaurant certification, the first thing you may notice upon arriving at this Greenwich restaurant are several small raised herb and vegetable garden beds filled with a variety of lettuces, herbs, tomatoes and peppers (depending on the season) that will invariably make it onto your plate. If you're as curious as I was, when I stopped by earlier in the growing season, an impressive lineup of lettuces included: Emerald Oak Lettuce, Mascara Lettuce, Lollo Bionda Lettuce, Lollo Rossa Lettuce, Gourmet Lettuce Mix, and Claytonia.
Attn. Fairfield County fro-yo lovers. Pinkberry has some big news and great new services coming to their Fairfield location! And if you reside further South, they've got something for you too. Downtown Greenwich store is opening soon.
Curbside Pick Up
For those times when you need your Pinkberry fix but you don't feel like braving the parking challenges of downtown Fairfield, let the fro-yo come to you. Yes…I kid you not. Just call in your order 15 minutes prior to desired pick up time and sidle (or idle) up to the curb. One of Pinkberry's friendly servers will happily walk your frozen dessert to your car.
