Acorn squash is one of the many vegetables I look forward eating in the fall. Aesthetically, Acorn squash is nature's masterpiece with its distinctive longitudinal ridges and sweet yellow-orange flesh and its shape that resembles that of an acorn. Although it's available in the fall, acorn squash belongs to the same species as summer squashes, such as zucchini and yellow crookneck squash.
The sweetness of Acorn Squash makes it a delicious vegetable to eat baked, sauteed, and steamed. It's high in fiber and potassium. Not only can you eat its flesh, but you can also toast its seeds and snack on them.
Last year, someone to whom I was selling cheeses urged me to taste Hooligan. I was sorry that I had not tried it sooner. I was automatically struck by its supple creamy texture speckled with holes. The stinky meaty aroma intrigued me. The smell is more pungent than the taste on one's palate. It rates high up on my list of favorite American raw cow's milk cheeses.
The sharp flavor of Hooligan pairs well with dried cranberries and toasted whole wheat bread. I prefer not to melt Hooligan. Although, you can melt it and use it in place of Raclette. Hooligan tastes superb with a selection of different dark nutty beers.
Visit Cato Corner Farm! Hooligan's name comes from the fact that it tends be unruly during the cheese making process. If the wheels are not attended to and constantly washed with a salt water brine twice weekly, the cheese will not turn out. The cheese is produced in Colchester, Connecticut at Cato Corner Farm by Elizabeth MacAlister and her son Mark Gillman. When you visit the farm, you'll be able to taste the 11 other farmhouse cheeses that they handmake from the milk of their 40 free-range Jersey cows. Suggestions on where to purchase this cheese can be found after the jump.
When I think back on my childhood and I recall fall desserts, sweet potato pie comes to mind. Every Thanksgiving, I remember looking forward to my aunt's luscious delicious cinnamon-flavored sweet potato pie that had marshmallows melted on top. As an adult, I've come to appreciate the many different varieties of this succulent autumnal dessert.
Fall is the season for eating sweet potatoes and for transforming them into sweet pies. Last fall, I tried the most incredible decadent version: sweet potato rum pie with walnut-gingersnap crust. Recently, I tried a sweet potato pie with a marshmallow meringue. What are some interesting ones that you've tried?
People associate Swiss cheese with Emmentaler, a cheese covered in holes. Tomme Fleurette, my favorite Swiss cheese, defies the image of the stereotypical Swiss cheese. Firstly, it has a soft delicate texture without the holes characteristic of Emmentaler. Its incredibly rich smooth creamy texture tastes fresh and milky. Its soft paste slowly melts on your palate and leaves you wanting more.
Tomme Fleurette is a raw cow's milk cheese modeled after Tomme Vaudoise. Both cheeses come from the canton of Vaud . Tomme Fleurette is handmade by Michel Beroud in the town of Rougement. Beroud ages the cheese in damp ripening caves. The damp caves allow the cheese to maintain a high level of moisture and to develop its natural pristine rind.
All you need is a warm fresh piece of whole grain bread to accompany this cheese. You can also enjoy Tomme Fleurette with a rose hip jam. Formaggio Kitchen recommends its exquisite rose hip jam from the Franche-Comté. Suggestions on where to purchase this cheese can be found after the jump.
Many of us who purchase artisanal cheeses are often surprised at the difference between how the cheese tasted at the cheese shop versus at home. Why is there this discrepancy in flavor?
For me, pumpkins conjure up memories of going pumpkin picking, and going on hay rides, drinking hot apple cider, and eating as many candy apples as possible. When I reminisce the days of my childhood when I'd paint faces on Halloween pumpkins, I think about how unfortunate it was that I never cooked them.
Growing up, pumpkins were merely symbolic of the season. Many people, like myself when I was younger, are not aware of the many different ways pumpkins can be consumed besides in a pumpkin pie. Pumpkins are a type of squash. They're pleasantly sweet.
Not too long ago, I tasted a creamy mildly crunchy cow's milk cheese called Pleasant Ridge Reserve. The exquisite flavor of this cheese is due to the fact that the cow's are grazing on 300 acres of lush Wisconsin pastures from early spring through the fall. This is a crucial difference between many industrial cheeses and artisanal cheeses. Artisanal cheeses, like this one, use milk from cows grazing a natural pasture.
Pleasant Ridge Reserve's complexity of flavors makes it the perfect cheese to pair with different jams and honeys. I encourage you to taste it with mirabelle jam. You can also eat it with freshly sliced apples and pears. Like any artisanal cheese, you don't have to pair it with anything to savor its array of aromas. Nevertheless, condiments seem to highlight this cheese particularly well.
Visit Uplands Cheese Company! Pleasant Ridge Reserve comes from a small dairy farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin that's operated by two families: Mike and Carol Gingrich and Dan and Jeanne Patenaude. The cheese was inspired by French mountain-style cheeses, such as Comté. Besides finding this cheese in Wisconsin, you can purchase it from Saxelby Cheesemongers in NYC. It's well worth the $26 per pound from Uplands Cheese Company.
Are you not sure what to dress up for this Halloween? I've got an idea: the 14th-century king Henry II! Soon, you'll be able to recreate your own medieval feast.
Just this week, tech-blog Switched posted a story on a new online cookbook that reveals 200 recipes from the chefs of King Henry II. The director of the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library, Jan Wilkinson, will put the cookbook online along with 40 other rare manuscripts that have already been photographed and placed online.
So, are you wondering what medieval cuisine includes? The online British Library explains that food at banquets included everyday jellies, pies, fritters and stews accompanied by magnificent animals such as peacocks, seals, porpoises, and even whales. The Telegraph states that the online cookbook will include blank mang and mortrews. The first is a sweet dish of meat, milk, sugar and almonds. The second is ground and spiced pork. Does that sound appetizing or what?
Going apple picking with friends is one of the many reasons I look forward to the fall. Choosing the right apple is easy and involves knowing some basic facts.
Restaurants part of the chain Nobu, partially owned by Robert De Niro, were caught last weekend selling endangered fish. It looks like De Niro should keep a closer eye on his investments. The people over at Greenpeace tested the DNA of fish served at a Nobu in London and discovered that it came from endangered bluefin tuna. Apparently, Nobu's principal manager carelessly labeled the endangered fish with an asterisk on the restaurants' menu, rather than stopping to serve it.
The eco-blog Planet Save posted an article harshly criticizing the fact that Nobu had not taken the fish off the menu and that De Niro hasn't taken a stronger stance against the decision of the chefs to serve the fish. Refering to an article from The Telegragh, Planet Save explains that although bluefin tuna is not illegal, a crisis meeting will take place in November to discuss a possible ban on fishing it.
Do you think restaurants have a moral obligation not to sell endangered species? To me, this seems like an obvious yes! However, the problem arises when the food being banned is part of a culinary tradition. In other words, if you outlaw an ingredient, you may neglect cultures that depend on it for sustaining its cuisine.
This summer, it became apparent that France wanted UNESCO to recognize its cuisine as a world heritage. In a post from July, Shayna Glick points out that the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO protects cultural heritages by deeming certain monuments and actual places as a world heritage, in other words, physical objects or sites. Nevertheless, criteria number three of the committee leaves the topic open to cuisine.
A more recent article, from the New York Times, discusses a strategy session that just took place with 6 French chefs, including Guy Savoy, and culinary experts, such as France's pre-eminent food historian Jean-Robert Pitte, with the goal to preserve French cuisine. Together they compiled a list of regional delicacies that should be saved. But, can France compete with the cuisine from other nations? Spain just revitalized its own ambition to win culinary recognition. The Times points out that Italy, Greece, and Morroco all joined the fight.
Ideally, it makes perfect sense for French cuisine to become a world heritage. However, what will prevent every other country from making its national cuisine a world heritage? It seems to me that the criteria needs to be readdressed. In 2003, the Committtee adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This needs to be more specific. Why not create a specific sub-organization to deal with protecting global culinary traditions.
As much as I love French cuisine, I cannot help but think that making it a world heritage would seem elitist and dismissive of foods from other countries. Isn't there a better way to preserve French cuisine?
One of the activities that I look forward to the most in the fall is going apple picking. The variety of apples available is extraordinary: Gala, Golden Delicious, Empire, Granny Smith, and many more. Ah, the gorgeous bright colors shine off each fruit! I highly encourage everyone to embrace the fall and go apple picking.
Once you've gone apple picking, you may think that you have more apples than you know what to do with. This is impossible! Besides eating them plain, or dipping them in peanut butter or nutella, or drizzling honey over them, you can also cook them. Below are 8 ways to cook apples:
Shropshire Blue is the bright festive cousin of Stilton. Its bright orange color seems appropriate for the fall season, especially Halloween. It's essentially produced the same way as Stilton, except that annatto is added to the recipe making the interior orange. Shropshire Blue is even more luscious and creamy than Stilton.
The story of this cheese dates back to Scotland during the 1920s. Dennis Biggins, who actually made his living grading Cheshire cheese, created the first wheels of Shropshire Blue. Today, the cheese is produced in Nottinghamshire, England by Richard Rowlett and Billy Kevan at Colston Bassett Dairy. The cheese is aged for a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks.
Shropshire Blue pairs excellently with sliced pears, apples, and quince paste. If you're going to snack on this cheese with crackers, I suggest whole wheat crackers to balance out the striking pungency of the cheese. Similar to Stilton, it tastes exquisite with a glass of port. You can find this cheese at many different specialty food stores and cheese shops, namely Zabar's, Artisanal, Formaggio Kitchen, and Whole Foods. It sells for about $30 a pound at most stores.
This week, I was excited to see one of my new favorite honeys in an article from the NY Times. Jujube honey is not like any other honey that I've tried. It has a fascinating balance between bitterness and a bright sweetness. A spoon full of this honey is like diving into a field of flowers and being completely absorbed by nature while hearing Debussy's ethereal Clair de Lune being performed from a distance. In short, it's a magical culinary experience. Everything about this honey is harmonious from it taste to its luscious creamy texture.
This honey is produced from bees that pollinate flowers growing from jujube bushes in the the middle Atlas mountain range in Morocco. The jujube bush grows a small three centimeter edible fruit that's green and tastes of apples. As it matures, the fruit turns a dark red to purplish-black and eventually looks like a small date. It has a pit similar to that of an olive. I'm not sure where you can find this fruit in the U.S. Typically, they're used in Chinese cuisine to flavor wine and tea.
New York Times Magazine's food issue
Chicken McNuggets frolic at New York City pet store
Eat your broccoli orbs! 
