I know, I know, Valentine’s Day was over on February 14th, 11:59 pm,  a month and a half ago.  But for me, my celebration ended this weekend.  On Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend surprised with me tickets to see Beauty and the Beast on stage.  As a die-hard Disney fan, I could not have been more excited! Unfortunately, the tickets were not until the end of March!  Read the rest of this entry »

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[Image courtesy of Petanque & Pastis]

As a Recipe4Living editor,  I receive a lot of emails with questions and tidbits about food and recipes and the like. The other day a woman sent me an e-mail about Beaujolais Nouveau with a little poem she wrote about this apparent wine. She touted: “This my little item about 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau. It’s funny, because I just met a group of people who had never heard of it - then, they thought they would have to buy a case if they had it ordered! Oh well, it takes all kinds, I suppose.”

Well, I have a confession to make: up until this e-mail, I had no idea what Beaujolais Nouveau was! In fact, I’m still not quite sure I’m clear on the concept but I am intrigued and I would totally be one to want to try a case of the stuff in spite of my lack of knowledge! So, I want to know: Am I alone in this? Did you know what Beaujolais Nouveau was and did you buy some this year?

Read on for an explanation of Beaujolais Nouveau.

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Hey there! Does everyone remember when I went wine tasting at Cork and Canvas? Well since then I’ve developed a bit of a crush on wine tasting, and have now been corresponding with wine sommelier Mick Ter Haar. Fortunately for us, he has joined our team for a little seasonal advice in the way of wine. Please give him a warm welcome! - Hillary.

And now, here’s Mick:

Fresh spring dinners, lazy, hot summer days, weekend family outings, and picnics at Ravinia, all call for rosé wines.

And here is a little trivia for you - 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of the invention of white zinfandel. It was crush season of 1973 at Sutter Home Winery in St. Helena, CA when owner Bob Trinchero was looking to give his red zinfandel more color and flavor. He used an old French trick called saignee, or “bleeding.”

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Over the weekend I had plans with an old friend. Actually, my oldest friend to be more precise, as we’re going on 15 years of friendship (quite a bit for a 22-year-old). It all started in 3rd grade when she joined my elementary school, and by some twist of fate we gravitated toward each other, like magnets. We were instantaneous best friends.

And so we remained, all through elementary and middle school. High school and college brought about separation in terms of the schools we went to but we still and always knew we would have a bond that dated back to our 3rd grade days. Sometimes now I think about how different we are, but then I realize that my favorite part about our friendship is how different we have always been.

I learn a lot from Talia (we’ll finally call her by her name). I learn a lot from her every time we have plans. And these days, she teaches me a lot about my relatively newer hobby of food and wine, a realm she has kept up with far longer than I.

So on this particular Saturday, during these particular plans, we went wine tasting.
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I have lovely friends.

Some of my friends are so lovely that when it’s their time to take a break and relax (aka they’re on a break from med school), they spend all week planning a wine and cheese night instead. And what do I do? I just attend. Man, how unhelpful am I?

So I go, since that’s my one and only duty, and I’m greeted by a fabulous spread of much more than wine and cheese. I thought I was in heaven but it turns out it was just a med school dorm room full of bakeaholics.

There was homemade…
…banana bread, and carrot cake (w/ homemade frosting) and blueberry pie…

Oh yea, and wine and cheese. The wines were a choice between a German Riesling (the white) and an Argentinean Cabernet Sauvignon.

And the cheeses were cheddar, pepper jack, and an ammmmaazing pepper goat cheese which i devoured with pita chip after pita chip.

My friend also served homemade guacamole with tortilla chips, and later on, by request pulled out some of her mom’s homemade strawberry jam for dipping.

Can you say your wine and cheese night turned into dinner? I can.

And if you’re clueless about wine tasting (like me), click here for a guide to wine.

-Hillary, hoping for a relaxing weekend
Editor, Recipe4Living

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Oh man, I’ve always wanted to be like Clotilde Dusouilier from Chocolate and Zucchini and name a post “On meeting ____” where the blank is filled in with some famous person’s name. And now I am; I never thought it would happen so soon. But for now, my version of “meeting” has a very different meaning than Clotilde’s. She has gotten to cook with Sadaharu Aiku, and sign a copy of her own book for Jude Law, and I…
I got to sit in an audience and watch Morimoto cook.

But, you won’t hear any complaints from me! Watching THE Iron Chef Japan Masaharu Morimoto cook two of his favorite dishes in person, right before my very eyes, was pretty damn awesome. I was definitely a happy camper (aside from the car issues I had along the way.)

The event was actually a book signing put on by Kendall College and the Chicagourmets organization. Morimoto recently released a new book called “Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking” - which by the way is FANTASTIC - and he was coming to Chicago for its debut. The event coordinators threw in a cooking demonstration and a food and wine tasting. Sweet!

The wine was provided by Chandon wines, as in…the Chandon guy himself was there to explain them, and as in, I rode the elevator with him on the way out! They were featuring two of their newly released wines: a Rose Brut and a Blanc de Noirs. But anyway, back to Morimoto…

The two dishes he prepared were Tuna Pizza and Daikon Fettucine, both of which are in his book.

He started with the Daikon Fettucine, a recipe he said came from his mother. Daikon means Japanese radish and he showed us three different ways to prepare the radish into fettucine-like shapes, some simpler than others. If you’re Morimoto and have amazing knife skills, you could peel layers off the radish in a circular motion, and then slice the layers into pieces of “pasta,” or, if you’re like me, you could just use a vegetable peeler! Either way, he showed us how to do both and I was very grateful.

Here’s the final product. He cooked the radish in a tomato sauce that he made from fresh garlic, onion, and tomatoes.

Next he made tuna pizza. Tuna of course, refers to sushi tuna and he showed us two ways how to make it. One way was to carefully slice (again with his amazing knife skills) sashimi pieces of tuna and place them in a circular pattern around the already-made pizza crust. The other was to finely chop the sushi tuna so that it becomes almost a sauce, and spread it on the pizza crust. He used the latter method and topped it with some jalapenos, tomatoes, onion, and anchovi aioli. Here was the final product:

Now, when I signed up, I thought the food tasting meant I would get to taste his food, but alas, these two small dishes were not enough to pass around. Instead, the students of Kendall College culinary school prepared appetizers that, while I was disappointed they weren’t Morimoto’s, were pretty excellent.

BUT, a funny thing happened. While I was in line waiting to get Morimoto’s autograph, the line curved around the cooking demonstration table. When I was at the point in line where the two food dishes were right next to me, a Kendall college student jumps in front of me to grab a piece of the tuna pizza right off the plate! At first I think he is obnoxious and rude, and said to my friend “Umm why does he think he can do that?” but then after many others followed his lead, a series of other thoughts ensued and now I’m thankful to him. Two small plates of food were somehow split between the hundred or so people in the audience, or at least the people who were around to scavenge (we surely did look like scavengers who had never eaten in their lives…)

So I bet you want to know how it was. Well…I went into the event thinking I would love and rave about the tuna pizza, but it turns out I liked the Daikon Fettucine much more! His tomato sauce, or I should say his mother’s, is to die for. But now I can say I have officially tasted food prepared by Masaharu Morimoto himself! And here’s a picture to prove it (and to break up the text :o) ):

After the cooking demonstrations, the audience and Morimoto went through a little Q&A action. A bunch of typical questions came up to which Morimoto would frequently answer “I consider cooking more of a passion than a skill,” and claim that he cooks for himself, not for anyone else (motivationally, not physically.) But the Best Question Award goes to….drum roll please…the person who asked “Will you be opening up a restaurant in Chicago?” He actually sat there and pondered it. It was adorable. Most people would maybe chuckle and say “maybe,” etc. But he said he’d consider it and then asked how the Japanese food market was in Chicago. I think we collectively yelled “IT’S GREAT!” Right now he has only one restaurant, located in Philadelphia. So if Chicago happens, I will definitely brag about being the witness to that idea. Haha.

Anyway, I think that everyone should go out and buy Morimoto’s book. It sells at a somewhat-hefty $40, but it has the most amazing photographs and illustrations of food I have ever seen. Morimoto goes through his techniques step-by-step, and it was definitely worth using my Border’s 20% off-one-item-coupon for. Not to mention, he was a hell of a nice guy, and if that doesn’t sell you, well, I don’t know what would.

After he signed everyone’s books, he said goodbye and did one of those polite head nods as he left. I was across the room unprepared for his leaving, so I did one of those reflexive jump up and waves. He turned around and waved back, and that made my day! Am I starstruck or what? After that I left to go deal with my broken car, and guess who drove by to see me (and my dad) under the hood? If only he would have stopped to help me! Haha.

Either way, that’s the story of how I met Masaharu Morimoto. It was awesome.

-Hillary, still taking in the eventful and tiresome weekend
Editor, Recipe4Living

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