Eastern European Christmas Traditions

One of my colleagues (and a fellow Baltic-state family lineage) shared the following article from the NYTimes about the Estonian House in NYC and their traditional blood sausage making "party" in preparation for Christmas.  As someone who has worked to learn traditional Lithuanian cooking, I'm excited to see the same attempt to pass on these culinary traditions in the Estonian-American community.  Not to mention, finding another ethnic group that uses beets as a staple in their menu is aces with me!

This Ain't No Starbucks

First I must disclose that I am no longer a coffee addict.  I do enjoy the taste of coffee but haven't drank it on a regular basis in Lord knows how long.  However, this departure from the caffeinated beverage did not prevent me from trying Rim Cafe in South Philly.  At the recommendation by a third degree relationship, I willingly accepted the invitation.  The experience was beyond what I ever could have expected.

When I was told of the place I figured it was just a hyped up coffee joint.  Located in the Italian Market in South Philly my expectations were moderate to say the least.  But what I experienced once I met Rene (the owner) life just has not been the safe.  First, you have two basic options: coffee or hot chocolate (the volcano).  Given my adversity to coffee, I went the hot chocolate route.  What came to be from that is just simply to hard to explain in words... even for me.

The most extraordinary part of the experience was the homemade chocolate by Rene.  I made the mistake of asking him where he got his chocolate... oops.  He makes it himself.  My hot chocolate was everything but just hot chocolate.  The glass was first filled with whipped cream and then steaming chocolate was poured on top.  Rene proceeded to top my drink with shavings of about nine different chocolate "flavors". There was no, "yes, I'd like the pistachio chocolate but hold on the kiwi..." Rene shaved it all.  My favorite flavor was his "God Only Knows" flavor... apparently he was drunk when he made it.  Loved this place even more at that point.

The hot chocolate was delectable yet not the over-rich that I was expecting.  Rene's personality paired with his penchant for photography (he is amazing - he even made me look good) made the experience.  Sure, the cost is not your McDonald's special but if you find yourself in Philly, I highly recommend making the trek to Rim Cafe.  Not to mention, you can pair it with a trip to the DiBruno's Italian Market location just a few blocks down.

Dominos Cool New Feature

On a recent business trip I decided to order pizza instead of head out for dinner.  I was sorely disappointed when I found out the local Papa John's stores did not deliver to my hotel (out of the chain pizza joints Papa John's has been a longtime favorite).  So, not to be disuaded by the lack of deliverability, I checked out Dominos.  I hadn't had Dominos in forever but at this juncture, pizza is pizza.

I was pleasantly surprised by all the features Dominos offered - several different dough styles (I tried the Brooklyn), sauce options and of course, plenty of topping options.  But I think the coolest feature was the timeline that shows the progress of your pizza - the prep, the cooking and when it leaves the store.  At each stage a voice alerts you to the newest stage of your pizza.  At first I thought this was a little silly and unnecessary (kind of like the backup cam in the car I bought last year - now I love it).  However, have you ever ordered pizza (or Chinese for that matter) and wondered, after what seems like the 45 min delivery they promised, "what has happened to my pizza"?  I know I'm not the only person who has either had a way too long of a wait for their food (two hours for Chinese once) or called the store to check on the order and they simply just didn't have a record of your order.

It's amazing how the little things matter and because of this little thing, I may just order from Dominos again.

As for the whole raw diet departure this pizza brought me, that's another story for another day.

Ani Phyo Does it Again

I'm going on week three of the raw diet and can say that it has been pretty easy to stick to.  However, I knew that I needed some variety beyond the typical foods I've enjoyed.  Breakfast and snacks have been the biggest challenge since I haven't had a lot of choices.  It has been pretty much fresh juice and/or apple slices with peanut butter. While not terrible, I knew it was going to get old, fast.

Several months ago I purchased Any Phyo's "Raw Food Desserts" just because I wanted to have as much material on raw food as possible.  However, I never really took the time to read it since I'm not much of a dessert person.  This afternoon I am so glad that I did!  I discovered her recipe for "breakfast toast" which I cannot wait to try.  But it is the "Banana Bread Biscuits" that caused me to write this post.

If the "batter" is any indication, these things are going to be good!  With a mix of nuts (I used walnuts instead of her recommended cashews), ripe bananas, vanilla and pecans - the taste was beyond delicious.  Imagine real banana nut muffin batter but without the salmonella ridden raw eggs.  The ripe bananas provided a tremendous amount of sweetness and the vanilla extract provided that home-baked taste. 

The "biscuits" are currently in the dehydrater and it'll be about 6-8 hours before they are ready.  The big bonus of this is that the biscuits will, according to the book, will keep for several days (or longer) in the fridge - depending on how dehydrated they are.  As I've discovered with raw food is that it doesn't keep for more than just two-to-four days.  There are days that I come home and simply just don't want to "cook" so things like these biscuits and other recipes in the dessert book will come in handy over the coming weeks.

Yes, Beets Again - But This Time its Raw!

A few months ago I took a stab at the "raw" diet - a lifestyle changing cuisine that I immediately enjoyed.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stick with the diet for a number of different reasons.  However, a couple of weeks ago I returned to the "raw" life and must say that I haven't felt better. 

While there are challenges to eating "raw", especially for someone like me who travels a lot, it is surprisingly tasty and fulfilling.  I've relied heavily on Ani Phyo's cookbook, "Ani's Raw Food Kitchen"; a great start to eating "raw".  Of course, not every recipe fits my fancy (such as the sweet corn chowder) but many have (the real cheezecake and the Thailand Tom Kha Gai soup).  Tonight I branched out a created my own recipe.

As everyone knows, beets are my favorite veggie.  I love beet soup both hot and cold.  So today I attempted a "raw" version of my favorite soup.  I have to say, it tasted great and I just had to share the recipe for the fellow beet lovers out there!

Ingredients
2 large beets
2 medium carrots
Juice of 1 lemon
2 stalks of celery
1 ripe avocado
1 medium cucumber, peeled
Fresh dill (handful)
2 cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste

Put the beets and carrots through a juicer, using only the juice (however, using the pulp is up to you and your tastes). 

Add the lemon juice, celery, dill, avocado, water and beet/carrot juice to a blender and blend until smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

If you don't have time to chill the soup in the fridge, add a couple of ice cubes to the bowl of the soup - the soup is best enjoyed cold.

Beets Fresh from the Garden

This year I decided to try beets in my garden.  I only had a small plot of garden area left so I threw in a bunch of seeds.  Amazingly enough, they grew despite the hard summer we've had!  Today I picked the first of the full size beets and made my favorite salad - Lithuanian beet salad.  Of course, anything from my own garden will always taste better in my personal opinion but truly, fresh beets from the garden are delicious.  I also did one other thing different (other than grow my own beets) and that is add diced Tony Packo's Sweet Hots pickles instead of traditional dill pickles.  The Sweet Hots made the salad, which says a lot since I love this salad no matter what.  Hopefully later this week I can start on the hot pepper jelly!

Dining Out in Philly

Chef's tasting menu

I can't say enough about my Friday night out with a great girlfriend of mine from DC.  She was in town for work so we took advantage of proximity and indulged ourselves at Amis Trattoria (412 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia).  Since we are both "foodies" I took the liberty of asking for the chef's tasting menu that evening since there was so much I wanted to try but didn't want to commit to some of the more adventurous offerings on the menu.  We pretty much had to roll ourselves out of the restaurant following the meal as the plates were more than generous and five courses were well worth the money ($85pp plus cost of wine).  To the right is the menu for the evening.

I'd say there were three categories of food for the evening: the most adventurous (lamb's tongue); the most unique (mortadella mousse) and the most tasty (eggplant Parmesan lasagna).

First the lamb's tongue... this was my first foray into this um, "cut" of meat.  Lori described it best when she said it tasted and had the consistency of fried corned beef.  I couldn't agree more.  Coupled with the pickled onions, it was better than I ever thought such a dish could be.  The mortadella mousse was outstanding.  Something I would never consider "moussing" it had the saltiness of the mortadella meat with exactly the right consistency to accompany the toasts.  This is something I'll likely try at home as it would be a great alternative to salmon mousse hors d'oeurves for the non-fish people out there.  The last category was certainly the hardest for me to consider since EVERYTHING tasted amazing.  The roasted lamb shoulder was beyond words - I just wish I wasn't so full by the time we hit the fourth course.  I chose the eggplant Parmesan lasagna for this category simply because it was the absolute lightest lasagna I've ever had and incorporated the taste of eggplant without the thick heftiness of the slabs you normally get.  Instead of slice of eggplant the chef pureed the eggplant into what I assume was the ricotta cheese mixture.  It was excellent. 

I also found a new favorite wine during this dining experience... Villa Calcinaia, Piegaia Rosato di Chianti, 2009.  Essentially this was a rose Chianti and what a wonderful wine.  With such hot weather this summer I've explored roses more than ever since even the lightest pinot grigio seemed heavy in the heat.  I really enjoyed this wine that presented a tart cherry taste keeping the taste nice and dry.  I enjoyed a glass pre-dinner and it paired well with our second course that included the charred prosciutto wrapped figs, lamb's tongue and braised squid.

If you're looking for a varied menu with an energetic atmosphere, Amis is a wonderful location to check out.  The staff were incredibly accommodating (doing the chef's menu for us on a Friday night) and very friendly.  I think the only challenge I had with the restaurant was the wood design of the table... I know this sounds odd but the "stripes" of the table tended to disorient me, especially after a couple of glasses of wine.  If you are easily disoriented with stripe patterns my recommendation is to keep your head up.  The food is well worth it.

Second Course: Braised squid (bottom left), charred prosciutto
figs (middle), lamb's tongue (right) and the risotto balls at the
top.