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Cooking Little is a kitchen shopping and tips blog for urban dwellers and anyone who cooks in a small kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, we feature diversions such as culinary travel spots, classes and tasting events. |
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Back on the beat! Heading out tomorrow to both the Fancy Food Show at Javitts and the Unfancy Food Show at the
Bell House. Topics
A hiatus is in order to work on other types of food writing. But since you are here, please feel free to look around the archives. If you have a cooking, food, or culinary travel story idea, please email use the submit a product link to contact. For continued food and cooking musings, please follow Cooking Little on Twitter.
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 No one and no day deserves ersatz coffee. A day like today, a summer Saturday with blue skies and air clear from the night’s rain, this sort of day, calls for an epic cup of coffee or at the very least, primo. But no…
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READ MORE ON Ersatz Coffee.
 At first look, the Fancy Food Show seems like the typical trade show -- a massive and intense event where the pace of a year's commerce is set. And it is all those things, that's just a business reality. Yet, as we want to know more about where our food comes from those producers who are making food with intention stand out. Tim McCollum is founder of madecasse, a chocolate and vanilla company that cultivates its products from the grassroots agricultural level and makes the products in Madagascar where they ingredients are grown and sourced. Impeccable taste merged with fair business. The Rozendal Family, from Stellenbosch, South Africa, make vinegars that are presented as much as a aperitif as an ingredient. Their Mixed Vinegar is macerated with green tea, chili, carob, lavendar, sweet pepper and kelp for a balance, refreshing and quaffable vinegar. They also ask us to seek truth in our food and realize how much of what is labeled balsamic is merely vinegar finished with burnt sugar. Augusto Zuffa, is a poet and winemaker, who in New York for the first time, is thrilled to share his culture and history through the organic wine made on his family farm for many generations. Then there is Aris Kefaloglannis, founder of Gaea, a Greek food company, who by all planing and preparations, should be in politics right now. Instead he is making and exporting traditional and authentic Greek foods. Gaea foods include award winning olives oils, sauces and olives -- all certified to their regions. Gaea also is presenting the first carbon neutral olive oil. They reached this benchmark by first reducing energy use then offsetting the rest. Aris felt that this was necessary to keep the products pure and in line with the essence of the Greek lifestyle. Having tasted several Gaea products, Aris' choice of food over politics, is a happy outcome. More on these and other Fancy Food products in the coming weeks. Topics
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READ MORE ON The Science of Romance.
 February This is one hard working month. In only twenty eight days we celebrate St. Valentine's Day or spend energy ignoring it. There are also the more cultural and intellectual remembrances such as Black History Month and President's Day. The foods inspired by African heritage and dishes signifying matters of the heart are wonderful way to mark these holidays and a lovely panacea for the mid-winter blues. Topics
 It was my first day waiting tables at an infamous Mexican restaurant in Denver called "The Riv" and someone asked me for a red beer. Mystified, the bartender's answer hardly helped, "Tomato juice and draw." Soon I learned that "draw" meant draught beer and that some people *just* like red beer, it's not only a hangover remedy. This memory and a recent blood orange debate inspired this weekend's beverages -- Red Beer, Two Ways -- to be served at a mid-day brunch. The menu is TBD but the event is set -- a festive meal before the annual Movie Marathon on Super Bowl Sunday. Way 1: Add to a chilled glass 1 part tomato juice to 2 parts lager or similarly weighted beer. Have available salt and lime because this is the type of drink people customize. Way 2: Pour the juice of half a blood orange into a chilled beer glass. Top with wheat beer or a Belgium white ale. Any beer that is usually served with a lemon slice will do. Garnish with a slice of blood orange. Depending on what type of beer and what variety of blood orange this concoction can be a cloudier than usual beer or a contrast of gold and magenta. Red beer should be drunk cold and fast. Whether it's the Super Bowl or a movie marathon that you are looking for to..have a weekend. Topics
 Farmland Fundraiser Just as more people nationwide are eating more local food, farmland is increasingly at risk for development. Applewood Restaurant, a delicious spot in Brooklyn, is acting locally with a fundraiser featuring a silent auction. Cocktails will ply the bids and the hors d’oeuvres served will be made
with produce from Lucky Dog Organic, the fundraiser beneficiary. Where the money goes...New York State is considering a development rights easement grant for part of the land where
Lucky Dog Organic farms. Money raised from this fundraiser and others will help pay the portion of the easement grant not paid by the New York State.
Admission is $20. which includes hors d’oeuvres. The party is Sunday, February 8th at 6 pm. There will be a cash bar. If you can't make the fundraiser and want to help save a patch of land in upstate New York, checks can be sent to the Applewood Restaurant mailing address made out to Farm Catskills, an advocacy group assisting with the cause. $20.00 AT APPLEWOOD RESTAURANT Topics
 Is Foodie and Frugal Oxymoronical? Are we still foodies? Maybe; maybe not. First off, such monikers have never set easily for me. The reason isn't modesty. In fact, on a good day I've been known to rate my cooking as fine art. It's the clash of my two cooking influences that make this label uncomfortable. My mother, clearly in the wasting food is a sin camp, would have thought the word foodie to be just south of blaspheme. The professionals who instructed me, culinary teachers and chef bosses, would put the word foodie on the other side of the line between us and them. So if the foodie hierarchy is just the latest causality of the economy, in my opinion, there's more upside than down. I like the idea that there will be more progressive dinners and pot lucks with everyone in the kitchen pitching in. Maybe being a foodie separates us from who we are feeding. A cook whipping up food on a budget for friends, she's a mensch. Topics
 If you are rethinking your flair in the kitchen, you aren’t alone. People first cut back on restaurant visits and now, it seems, many of us are adjusting how we are cooking at home. Beautiful food and healthy food is still pursued, but it must be frugal too. Americans are said to waste on average 14% of the food we buy and in the UK it is as high as a third. Two enlightened resources of information on reducing food waste are Wasted Food by freelance writer Jonathan Bloom for ongoing news and innovations and Love Food Hate Waste, the well organized UK food waste education campaign. Read on for more on this topic… share frugal kitchen ideas here Topics
READ MORE ON Reducing Food Waste.
 Over 10,000 New York Times readers answered the question "What is the one dish you must have every Thanksgiving?" Naturally, there were the stuffing and sweet potato fiends, appalled vegans and Tofurkey bashers, but Richard from Edgewater, Florida answered simply. The cook.
Read MORE RESPONSES HERE Topics
 The Experiment Begins The recent Treehugger article about hot box cooking got me thinking. It's energy saving for sure, but hot box cooking, which uses insulation rather than continued heat, is actually perfect for small kitchens and holiday dinners in particular. A lemon garlic rice dish is now cooking in stoneware casserole wrapped in a towel and closed in a Styrofoam shipping box. Results coming soon. Tells us about your Hot Boxing Tips |
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