locavore

Recipe for Chive Blossom Vinegar

by Anne Maxfield on June 14, 2012

Accidental Locavore Chive Blossoms

Cruising the Internet the other day, the Accidental Locavore came across a discussion about chive blossom vinegar. Like tarragon or other flavored vinegars, it’s super-easy to make and will give a lovely, fresh taste to salads.  Added bonus: it’s really beautiful, isn’t it? I probably went overboard and beheaded all my chives, but you can do it with only a handful of blossoms. I recycled this bottle (and pushed the blossoms through with a chopstick), you can use any jar or bottle, just run it through a hot dishwasher to sterilize it.Accidental Locavore Chive Blossom Vinegar

  • 1 cup chive blossoms
  • Enough white wine vinegar to fill your container

Put the chive blossoms in a clean bottle or jar. In a medium saucepan, heat the vinegar to a simmer. Pour the vinegar over the blossoms (you may want to use a funnel). Cover and let sit for a week to let the flavors develop. Serve and enjoy!
To make tarragon vinegar, do the same thing with a big sprig of tarragon and cider vinegar. It’s great with chicken or in place of the lemon in mayonnaise.

{ 7 comments }

Do You Obsess Over Grilled Cheese? What’s Your Favorite?

by Anne Maxfield on April 2, 2012

Accidental Locavore Grilled Cheese

The Accidental Locavore often wonders why people get obsessive about certain grilled cheese sandwiches. Is it just a competitive New York thing? Not that I have anything against grilled cheese – it’s a great sandwich! It’s just that it’s not a big deal to make–two slices of bread, cheese, butter and a pan. Probably the second sandwich you learned how to make as a kid. So when I see restaurants, competitions and secret delivery services devoted to grilled cheese, it puzzles me, as it should be something that anyone can cook. When the Locavore makes a grilled cheese, these days it usually just comes down to whatever cheese is on hand, inside any bread that can be toasted and the results are pretty good as long as I don’t burn the bread.
Having said that, there are grilled cheese sandwiches that stand out above the rest. One of the best was one I had years ago at Macy’s DeGustibus. It was a class of holiday luxury foods and believe it or not, the grilled cheese was certainly that! Sweet French butter on great seven grain bread with Gruyere and shaved black truffles. Bliss!

Accidental Locavore Croque MonsieurThe one version of a grilled cheese that the Locavore does obsess over is that French classic, a croque-monsieur. Sadly, it’s something that is becoming harder and harder to find and most people, even in France don’t do it right. To me, the perfect croque, is made on the French version of a Pullman loaf, with Gruyere, a nice slice or two of ham and a slathering of béchamel on top, run through a salamander (broiler) until the cheese is melted, the béchamel is brown and bubbly and the crusts are almost burnt. Unexpectedly, an almost perfect version resides in a cafe in a Palm Desert (CA) shopping mall.

Accidental Locavore Organic QuesadillasMy brother used to say that almost every culture has their own version of a grilled cheese. The Mexican version, a quesadilla, while not obsession worthy (too easy to do right), is fun to mess around with. Like a classic grilled cheese, all you need are flour tortillas, cheese, some salsa and anything else after that is up to you. Plop the tortilla in a frying pan over medium-low heat, add grated cheese to half the tortilla and fold over the other half. You can add your salsa inside if you like it warmed, or just use it for dunking when it’s done. I usually start with the tortillas, some grated queso quesadilla (sort of like mozzarella) and my salsa verde. If there is some chorizo around, that will get fired up and added.

What’s your favorite version? French, Mexican, good ol’ American, or something entirely different?

 

 

{ 3 comments }

The Art of Conversation: Not Your Mother’s Tupperware Party

by Anne Maxfield on March 28, 2011

Accidental Locavore Michael White

Last week the Accidental Locavore won a TupperClub dinner for two for writing a haiku (mine’s the second one) on Eater.com about a bad dinner experience. My prize? Chef Michael White of Maera and Ai Fiori preparing a four course dinner in a “pop-up dining experience” for Tupperware’s Art of Conversation dinners. Tupperware wants you to have a new vision of the classic Tupperware party, and this was certainly the place! The venue was a floor-through penthouse on the 56th floor of the Setai tower on Fifth Avenue with 360 degree views. Imagine the Empire State Building staring you down as you sip a flute of champagne.

But you don’t really care about the views do you? You want to know about the food, right? To start there was a cocktail hour with signature Tupperware cocktails (in very cool Tupperware glasses), champagne and passed hors d’oeuvres. The best of them? The tiny tater-tots that turned out to be fois gras, lightly breaded and fried, that melted wonderfully in your mouth. Makes me think about getting a deep-fryer, although fois gras any way always tastes amazing.Accidental Locavore Table Setting

The dinner was served on the other end of the penthouse and started out with bits of lobster over burrata (a very creamy mozzarella, think butter) with grape tomatoes. Lobster and burrata is a less obvious (and maybe less messy) way of having lobster and butter, so of course it was delicious. That was followed by a pasta course of cavatelli with shrimp, calamari and basil. The interesting part of the pasta was tiny crunchy bits adding texture to the dish. If you’ve ever had a hunk of Parmesan, it was like the little crystallized bits you get. I asked Chef White about them and he said they were the soft insides of white bread, toasted in butter and olive oil. Definitely try it in your next pasta dish!

For the main course, veal loin in a pancetta cream sauce with cipollini onions, giving it sweetness, and grilled endive adding a contrast to the sweet and smoky. I don’t know whether Chef White makes his own pancetta, but it was much more flavorful than your usual pancetta. This is a dish that the Accidental Locavore would definitely try, although after reading the recipe for it, how can you go wrong with a quart of heavy cream for four people?

Dessert was a baba au rhum with tropical fruit and a coconut cream. I’m not usually fond of things soaked in alcohol, but the baba seemed to be soaked more in butter, than rum, so fine. All in all a lovely dinner with some wonderful Italian wines matched to the food.

Accidental Locavore TupperwareI’m sure you’ve all been to events and given goodie bags when you leave. Well, you haven’t seen anything to match the gift bags we got when we left. Let me put it this way, I could barely lift it (hope my trainer’s not reading this). There was every piece of equipment you would need to recreate the dinner, all the recipes (except for dessert), and plenty of Tupperware to store leftovers in. If you haven’t seen Tupperware in a while, you’ll be really surprised at how upscale and good looking a lot of it is. My biggest issue? Where on earth to store it in a NYC apartment!

Thanks to Tupperware for a great evening and if you’d like to know about the event that prompted the haiku, comment below, and I’ll fill you in, OK?

{ 8 comments }

Blogging Boomers Carnival 199: Retirement, Resiliency, Still Skiing & More

by Anne Maxfield on March 21, 2011

Accidental Locavore Carnivale

This week at the 199th Blogging Boomers Carnival The Accidental Locavore has the honor of hosting (hostessing?). In the meantime check out how I did with the latest Charcutepalooza challenge: corned beef. Did it pass the fussy locavore taste test?

The rest of the Blogging Boomers want you to know:

Do we become more resilient in midlife?  Do we face life’s challenges in a different way?  Here’s the Midlife Crisis Queen’s take on these questions.

SoBabyBoomer tells us that most boomers will never see themselves in the current crop of retirement ads.  There are two reasons why.

Dan, the Early Retired Man, tries to get a mortgage. But the rules are a lot more stringent than they used to be. Read more at The Boomer Chronicles.

Seaweed, an antidote to Japan’s reactor cloud? Read more at Vaboomer

Over at Contemporary Retirement, Ann has a video of a 90-year-old who is not only still skiing – she’s a ski instructor too!

And here at the Accidental Locavore, I was recently a winner of a contest to write a haiku about a dinner party disaster. The prize, a dinner catered by Chef Michael White, and the world’s biggest goodie bag. Check it out on next week’s blog. Don’t forget to print out this week’s cook-along recipe for blueberry caramel sauce.

What’s your favorite carnival blog this week? Please comment on the blogs and let everyone know what you think, we love the feedback!

 

{ 3 comments }

← Previous Entries