Sarasota Trifecta, Part 3 - Owen's Fish Camp

I am quite certain that Sarasota is chock-full of great restaurants. And yet, like many people I know, I always seem to find myself at the Columbia Restaurant in St. Armand's Circle when I find myself in Sarasota for the day.   That has all changed with my introduction to Owen's Fish Camp.

From the menu at
Owen's Fish Camp

First, how can you resist a restaurant that calls itself a "fish camp"?  The mere name conjures up delicious down home food and a laid back atmosphere.  And if the name doesn't sufficiently entice you, just take a look at their website.  (You can find it at  http://www.owensfishcamp.com/.)  The minute the page opened I wanted to jump in the car and drive there.  

Susan, Steve, and I headed over to Owen's after seeing the matinee performance of South Beach Babylon at Florida Studio Theater.  The restaurant opens daily at 4:00, and I had worked up quite an appetite from our day of culture.

Susan, Tate and me

Owen's is nestled on Burns Lane in downtown Sarasota.   (It is next door to the Sarasota Film Society, an indie film house. Another great find!)  The building is incredibly inviting with screen doors that you can imagine kids running in and out of all day and lots of fun art.  The old gent in this picture with Susan and me is "Tate" (not Owen, as we had assumed). (Thanks are due to Bruce and Dorrit both for telling me about this place and for correcting me on this point.)

Steve and Susan

Since we arrived at the restaurant on the early side, a table was immediately available.  Seeing how taken we were with the decor, though, the waitstaff encouraged us to look around before we took our seats.  We loved the patio where you can hear rock music on Friday nights and  blue grass on Saturdays.  If you don't want to stand around while you listen to the music (or wait for your table), you can have a seat on the tire swing after helping yourself to a beer from the wooden barrel bearing a sign "Honor System Beers -- $2".  (Our waitress told us that they get a few IOUs and miscellaneous notes every night.)

Then it was time to eat.  I am delighted to tell you that Owen's did not disappoint.  The only problem was trying to decide what to order.   I settled on four huge scallops topped with pulled pork that sat on a bed of cheesy grits with succotash.   Susan tried fish tacos for the first time, and Steve opted for garlic snails (they wouldn't dare call them "escargot" here) with sweet wine and chorizo with sides of collard greens and black eyed peas and andouille sausage.  I couldn't say which of us was more happy with our selection. Are you drooling yet?

Owen Burns

It turns out that there's an interesting history behind Owen's Fish Shack that we missed entirely during our dining experience. Thank goodness Bruce and Dorrit were paying attention during their recent visit.  Owen Burns arrived in Southwest Florida in the 1910s when Sarasota was filled with, well, fish camps.  Burns ended up owning much of what is now Sarasota and became the premier developer of the area (as Bruce said, the "Trabue" of Sarasota, a reference we'll leave for another day).  His projects included St. Armand's Circle, Long Boat Key, and Ca d'Zan (John and Mable Ringling's home on Sarasota Bay).   Owen's Fish Camp is an homage by the Caragiulo family of restauranteurs both to Burns and to a simpler time.  (As an aside, the five Caragiulo brothers have two other restaurants -- Caragiulos, which features Italian-American cuisine, and Nancy's Bar-B-Q.  Definitely on my "to try" list.)

The next time you're in Sarasota, check out Owen's Fish Shack.  You are in for a real treat.  

  

     

IYC Happenings

Work has been so busy the past couple of weeks between preparing for tomorrow's tutor training and working on next week-end's Chocolate Festival that I've barely had time to participate in the non-work events on my calendar, much less write about them.  Rest assured, though, that I've managed to fit in a few fun outings.  Here are the highlights:

Bike Ride to Webb Lake.  The featured event during the last day of my friend Wendi's visit was a bike ride at Webb Lake.  I clearly hadn't explained to Wendi that this was an IYC event because I heard her say on the phone that we were going on a ride with "a couple of people."  Yes, the ride was with 43 of my closest friends!  Dorrit and Bruce did a great job organizing the outing, and the ten mile ride along 395-acre Webb Lake was peaceful and pretty.  Wendi hadn't been on a bike in about ten years and her experience gave credence to the expression "it's like riding a bike!"

IYC's Got Talent.   When I was growing up, I took piano lessons.  I loved it at the time, but can't even read music any more.  Some IYC members have kept up their skills, however, and they put them on display at the Club's annual talent show.  Jim Griffiths' banjo playing was terrific, and I loved Marsha Carpenter's rendition of Eileen Quinn's "If I Killed the Captain."  ("...if I killed the captain, really, who would know, we're two weeks out of port, we've got one more week to go, and all that it would take is a timely little shove, how swift the course the heart may run to hatred from true love, true love, true love...")  Commodore Rick Kilmer's comedy act got a standing ovation (and only a bit of trickery was involved!)  And Courtney's steaming hot performance of "All that Jazz" brought the house down.

Cooking Demo with Chef Phillip.  The "Admirals" meeting this month featured Chef Phillip sharing his "boat friendly" gumbo recipe with the ladies.  Chef's instructions say that "[the roux] needs to be the consistency of wet beach sand, smell a bit like toasted nuts, and be as dark brown as you can possibly make it without burning.  Some Cajuns will tell you this process takes about three beers or forty minutes..."     With his toasted flour, though, it didn't take long to create a beautiful golden roux that provided the base for a chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo that the ladies greatly enjoyed.

The next few days promise to be exhausting but fun, with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra tomorrow night, the Superbowl on Sunday (go, Giants!), and final preparations for the Chocolate Festival.  The Festival is being held at the Port Charlotte Town Center Mall from 1:00 - 5:00 on Saturday, February 11th, and is being sponsored by the Adult Learning Center to raise money for our tuition hardship assistance program.  Over 15 local businesses and organizations, including IYC, will provide chocolate treats for attendees, and there will be music and raffles and chocolate making demonstrations and probably some other surprises along the way.    (To hear more about the Festival, tune into the Golden Hippo's radio show on 1580 AM on Tuesday morning around 8:10.)   It will be a fun event for a good cause.  Hope to see you there!  

A Taste of the Florida Keys

I'm sure it won't come as a shock to hear that the seafood in Florida is delicious.  Maralee McGowen of Harbor Seafoods, one of our local seafood purveyors, recently started giving cooking classes as a supplement to their retail business.  Great marketing idea, and a great way to spend an evening!   After perusing the schedule, Dorrit and I decided to take a class called "Tour of the Florida Keys."

Maralee welcomed us into the shop, which had been set up with two high tables with a good vantage point of her cooktop.   One thing that made the evening so much fun was that there was lots of interaction among the six students.  In fact, Maralee often had to make an effort to get a word in edgewise!  Our classmates included two gentlemen who seemed to be quite the chefs.  John owned a breakfast and lunch place back home in Massachusetts and it sounds like he still does a good amount of cooking for his wife (and, on occasion, her eleven siblings and their families).  Patrick is a transplanted New Yorker who, among other things, was related to the late Phil Rizzuto.  (Go, Yanks!)   We shared a table with them and got a pretty good sense of their life stories.  I somehow suspect that they came away knowing nothing about either of us, but that's fine with me. 

Back to the reason for being there--the food!  The class featured recipes adapted from the cookbook Flavor of the Florida Keys by Linda Gassenheimer.  The first course was Shrimp with Ginger Lemon Glaze with fresh cilantro and is definitely a keeper.  (In fact, Maralee gave us all doggie containers of the glaze to bring home.  Dorrit recreated the butterflied shrimp and I seared some scallops to serve as the vehicle for the glaze and both were delicious.)    The recipe for the glaze (which is actually a cross between a glaze and a sauce) can be found at the bottom of this post.

The next course was Island Grill Tuna Nachos.  This was actually my least favorite of the dishes since it was a bit fussy and the sauce didn't really add anything to the incredibly delicious piece of sushi grade tuna that Maralee used for the dish.   Maralee's husband Tony joined the class to tell us a little bit about how tuna makes it from the ocean to the fish case.  Tuna boats can power for as long as three days to get to their fishing grounds.  Once they arrive, they throw out over 50 miles of net with more 1000 hooks (and radar buoys so that the boat can find them).  The fishermen are lucky if they end up with fish on 10% of the hooks.  When it's time to haul in the catch, they pull in about three miles of net at a time.  Once the tuna are on the boat, their tails and heads are cut off and their blood is drained because it makes the fish bitter.  When the boats arrive back at the dock, potential buyers make a tail cut to check the fish's color--the redder the better--and fat and oil content.   It is really quite a process, and hearing this gave me a better understanding of why tuna is so expensive. 

The entree was Salute's Snapper Salad.   The snapper was dipped in a panko-cashew breading and fried in oil.  Then it was topped with a salsa made with pineapple, red onion, red pepper, jalapeno and some spices.  It was accompanied by a salad with avocado and tomatoes topped with a citrus dressing.   This was a great light dish that left us with room to enjoy the Key Lime Cake that Maralee had made in advance.  (We also got to bring some cake home!)

All in all, a fun and tasty evening, and quite the bang for the buck.  For $35, we had some lively conversation, ate some delicious food and came home armed with recipes to try the dishes on our own.   Now if I could just get myself from the stage of gathering recipes to making them......


Ginger Lemon Glaze

2 1/2 c. water
2 c. rice wine vinegar
1/3 c. lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbs. powdered ginger
2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4 c. combined lemon and lime zest
2 Tbs. corn starch
1/2 c. water

Place the water, vinegar, lemon juice, ginger, zest and red pepper in a suacepan. Bring to a boil. Mix the cornstarch in a small bowl with the water. Add to the saucepan and bring back to a boil over high heat. Cook until the glaze is thickened. Makes at least 12 servings. Can save in the refrigerator for several days (and it gets more kick!)

Cooking Demo with IYC's Chef Philip

The Isles Yacht Club has so many different groups doing fun things that it is virtually impossible to participate in them all.  All women members of the Club are automatically members of the Isle-Ettes.  Unlike most of the groups, the Isle-Ettes don't have one particular "mission"; they just have programs and outings they think will be of interest.  For one reason or another, I haven't been able to make it to many of the Isle-Ette's meetings, but I made it a priority to get to this month's meeting, which featured a cooking demonstration by Chef Philip with a fun twist. 

The announcement of the meeting invited us to wear an apron (and noted that there would be a competition.)  I don't typically sport an apron while I cook, but my friend Pam happened to make one for me this summer (how's that for prescience???) so I was ready to go.   The cooking demo started after a long list of announcements of future Islet-Ettes events.  These women are busy!   Upcoming outings include trips to the Dali Museum  and a production of Carmen put on by the Sarasota Opera.  If you don't feel like traveling, you can join them for a fashion show and there might also be a reprise of a self-defense class that got a good response over the summer.  Fun!!!

To determine the winner of the apron competition, an entrant was chosen from each table.  Shockingly, neither Dorrit nor I were selected from our table (hello--take a look at those cute aprons!) but that worked out just as well since we were front and center for the cooking demo.  Carol Nuzzo wore the winning apron and her prize was to man (or would it be "woman"?) the second cooking station.  Carol is great fun and has the absolutely most expressive face so she was a perfect choice. 

The luncheon menu was roasted chicken with glace de poulet and a roasted peach and vidalia onion salad.  Chef Philip started off his demonstration by showing us how to cut up a whole chicken.   It reminded me of a quick fire challenge on Top Chef (one of my favorite shows.)   I have to say that I was pretty darn happy at this point that I was in the audience rather than in the spotlight!  He went over some knife skills and showed us how easy it is to cut the chicken up if you just cut through the joints.   Once the chicken was in pieces, the breast was put on the stove to cook (skin side down so it would turn out nice and crispy.)  (FYI, the chicken is typically done in the oven, but with no oven available for the demo, Chef Philip decided to give it a go in the saute pan.)  Carrots, celery and onion (a "mire poix") went into the stock pot along with the chicken carcass and enough liquid to cover the chicken and the veggies.

With the chicken and stock underway, Carol and Chef Philip turned to the salad.   As always, the trick to a great salad is fresh ingredients.  Georgia peaches are the best for this recipe (you want them to be firm for roasting) and a Vidalia or other sweet onion is a must. To roast the peaches, all you do is halve them and take the pits out.  Leave the brown "stuff" since that's all sugar!  Cook them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.  Once the peaches are done, you slice them nice and thin and toss them with slivers of the sweet onion, some grape tomatoes, celery and a bunch of cilantro.  The dressing was just some lemon and EVOO to bring out the freshness.  

Once the salad was ready to go, Chef and Carol turned back to the stock to make the glace.  (As you can see, they worked in perfect synchronization.)  Of course, to make stock takes longer than we had for the demonstration, so there were a couple of carafes of pre-made stock at the ready.  The glace was basically reduced stock, butter, thyme, salt and pepper.  I loved the fact that Chef Phlip didn't get fussed if things didn't go quite right during the demo.  The heat on one of the portable cooktops kept flickering on and off and made if difficult to make the sauce without it "breaking."  He took it all in stride--after all, the sauce that we would actually be served was safely being done in the kitchen away from our prying eyes!  

With the demo behind us, we were treated to our lunch, and it was delicious.  The chicken was moist, the skin was crispy, the sauce was delicious and the salad was a great accompaniment with its unexpected flavors.  We ended our lunch with cake to celebrate the Isle-Ette's 35th birthday.   All in all, quite an enjoyable (if fattening!) meeting.

Halifax Seaport Farmers Market

For weeks before I arrived in Nova Scotia, everyone was talking about how terrible the weather has been.  Rain, rain and more rain, with a good measure of cold mixed in.  My first day here I woke up to gorgeous sunshine and shimmering waters.  I spent the day in the garden and joined some friends for the Thursday night sailing races (as ballast!)--it was too nice a night not to go out on the water.  Friday was a bit less nice and then Saturday the reality of what people have been living with came home.  What a day!  Teeming rain all day and temps in the 50s.  Obviously, my golf game was not in the cards, so I decided to check out the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market, which opened last year.

I loved the old market (which is still open).  It is located in a former brewery in a neat stone building.  It was easy to get lost in there, with hallways jutting off in different directions and small rooms with only three or four vendors.  You always were turning a corner to a surprise.  I'm not sure why they decided to open the market at the Seaport, but it is definitely a much cleaner lay-out.  To call it a farmers market seems a bit of a misnomer, though.  It's really more of an artisans' market with some food products thrown in to round out the market's offerings. 

I did have a mission in mind when I set off on my outing.  I bought some belts at the market a couple of years ago and wear them constantly.  I was hoping that I could find the vendor and stock up on a couple more.  I made my way through the aisles looking at all the fun--and sometimes quite tempting--products.  Of course you can find flowers, produce, organic beef and chicken, and lots of sweets, including these beautifully displayed cupcakes.  You can grab lunch there, sampling some international cuisines that we don't get here in Chester.   I had a lovely Caribbean curry soup that really hit the spot on a cold and dreary day.
 
The market also boasts an assortment of more original products, ranging from doggie treats to pottery to handmade soaps.  I had to laugh when I came upon the "Weiner Man" display, and of course I asked whether this creation was in response to Congressman Weiner's recent indiscretions.  The vendor said it was not a new product, but that the controversy had certainly helped his business.  (There's always a silver lining!)  

I was just about to give up on my belts when I made my way up to the second floor where a few vendors are housed.  Success!     The belts are made from used clothing ("upcycled" is the favored term) and it was funny how some belts could be immediately associated with certain eras.  When I looked at some of the paisleys, I cringed, remembering some of the hideous dresses that we wore in the 80s.  After shaking it off, I bought a couple of belts to spice up my wardrobe and, mission accomplished, made my way to the door. 

On my way out, I noticed that there was a balcony to the outside.  I have to imagine that they have tables out there when it's nice, and I did see a reference to a rooftop cafe which was totally out of the question on this Saturday.  The rain had settled into a mist, so I popped out to check out the view.   Even on a dreary day, not too shabby.   All in all, not a bad way to spend my first Saturday morning in Nova Scotia. 

Cooking Up a Storm with Chef J

If you watched the commercials during this year's Superbowl, you might remember an incredibly politically incorrect ad for Groupon that featured Timothy Hutton.   (This might actually be advertising at its most clever because it has stuck with me since then.)  Groupon negotiates discounts with businesses and then advertises those discounts to people who've registered to receive notices of deals in their area.  My friend Dorrit first discovered Chef J when she received an e-mail with a Groupon coupon for a cooking class at Chef J's Bistro and Cooking Studio in Cape Coral.  It sounded like a fun birthday present for a friend and off they went to a class on Spanish cuisine.  They had a great time so we decided to check out his class on French cooking this week.   For $35, you get the class and dinner, so what did we have to lose?

Chef J is a real charmer.  He's from the Cayman Islands so he has that laid back Caribbean air about him--the perfect personality to make cooking something challenging feel accessible.  He's also an instructor at the Business and Entrepreneurial Academy at the Oasis Charter High School, so he knows how to teach as well as cook.  

We started off our evening learning how to prepare a great appetizer to serve in the hot summer months--cucumber provencale with French goat cheese and roasted red peppers.  Since you eat first with your eyes, presentation is important and he shared a great secret with us--balsamic glaze in a squirt bottle.   The plating converted this light, easy and delicious appetizer into something really impressive for your guests.  I have to say that cucumbers are one of the two or three foods that I have an aversion to, and even I really enjoyed it!

We then moved on to a delicious papaya salad.  Again, the idea was something light but full of unexpected flavors.   The first surprise was that he used iceberg lettuce for this dish, which seemed very unsophisticated with the more exotic greens that we are used to seeing these days.  There was a method to his madness, though--iceberg lettuce provides crunch and coolness without the flavor that other lettuces have so it supports the salad while letting the other ingredients be the stars.  Who knew?   Ultimately, the salad included papaya, toasted almond slivers, cherry tomatoes, asiago cheese, red onion and cucumber (which he kindly left off my plate since I had now shared my distaste with him).  The real star of the dish was the dressing, though--an extraordinary vinaigrette that took this salad to a different level.   While making the dressing, Chef J shared a secret with his students--you need to whisk the vinegar for three to five minutes to make sure it's warm before you add the oil to it.  When the vinegar is warm, it combines beautifully with the oil and develops a nice consistency rather than separating.  He also uses salad oil rather than olive oil to keep the dressing light.   Truly delicious.

We were now ready for the main course--sauteed chicken breast with an orange truffle beurre blanc and garlic basil fingerling potatoes.   Rest assured that any dietary credit that we might have gotten for eating light in our first two courses was wiped away with this sauce, which included almost a pound of butter for the 14 of us plus some heavy cream.   The potatoes were beautiful with their different colors and the smell of fresh basil wafting from the plate made them irresistible.   The chicken breasts were incredibly juicy after having been browned in a skillet and then baked until cooked through.  Chef J poured wine over the chicken before putting it in the oven to keep it moist, another great tip to file away.   The sauce was the star of this dish, though, and was truly to die for.  (Just ask our arteries!)  The combination of fresh orange juice, white truffle oil, butter, cream and garlic was a knock out, and would be great on a white fish as well as chicken.

Chef J knew that his students would be too full for dessert (although I could have used a taste of sorbet or a square of chocolate to round out the meal.)    Three hours after we arrived, we waddled out of the restaurant, having had a great dinner and an evening of entertainment.  Plus we have new recipes to try out on our friends and family.   During the class, we were studying the schedule of classes to figure out what we should try next.  Caribbean cuisine?  Seafood with an Asian flair?  Hawaiian night?   (You can check it out yourself at http://www.chefjcatering.com/.)    Whatever we decide, you can be sure that you'll read about it here.  Now I think it's time to head to the gym to work off some of that beurre blanc sauce!

Montreal with Mes Amies

Nanette, Ellen, Andrea and Suzanne at L'Hotel

It's almost impossible to believe that it's been 25 years since my first day on the job as a corporate lawyer at the now-defunct Breed, Abbott & Morgan.  I'm sure I was nervous on a number of levels.  Would I like being a lawyer?  Would I be good at it?  Would I enjoy working with the people there?  (I'm also sure I was wearing something frightfully Working Girl but I digress.)  Any fears I had would soon be assuaged--at least with respect to the people side of the equation.  I still remember another new lawyer named Ellen inviting me out for drinks after work with some other folks from the firm. I can't remember whether Suzanne (another baby lawyer) and Andrea (a seasoned third year associate) joined us that evening, but I do know that the four of us quickly became friends and have been friends ever since.

We decided to celebrate our 50th birthdays with a week-end get-away to Montreal.  This was no mean feat--Andrea is the general counsel of the US Tennis Association, Ellen and Suzanne each have four kids at home and I of course am very busy soaking up the sun in Punta Gorda.   But we managed to get it all together--and what a wonderful week-end it was!

Warhol's take on Marciano

When I was thinking about what to write, all I could really come up with was "Talk.  Walk.  Eat.  Laugh.  Repeat."    We arrived on Friday afternoon at L'Hotel, a boutique hotel in the Old Town of Montreal that we learned is owned by Georges Marciano of Guess jeans fame.   (Georges was actually on the premises and I had a quick chat with him in the elevator to tell him what a fantastic staff he has.  He was quite nice.)  Georges has decorated the lobby and corridors of the hotel with signed lithos and sculptures by artists from the 1970s Guess jeans era--Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine and Robert Indiana to name a few.  Music from the '70s is piped into the lobby, which makes you constantly feel like dancing.   No wonder the staff seems so happy to work there!

At Parc du Mont-Royal

The forecast for the week-end had not been good--chilly and rainy--but the weather gods smiled on us and arranged for perfect conditions for walking the city.  We took in Parc du Mont-Royal  ("Montreal"--get it???), enjoyed a great view of the City, and stopped in lots of interesting little shops along the way.  We had some great meals while we were there.  The first evening, after enjoying some music by a bossa nova trio at the hotel, we went to a trendy place called Restaurant L'Appartement.  I think we were the oldest people there but it was fun and the food was great!  The second evening was Modavie, another local place with a jazz trio providing the entertainment.

On Sunday night we went to Au Pied de Cochon, a hot restaurant that is a favorite of my friend Wendi.  (The chef at M. Wells-- where I had eaten the previous Thursday night in NY--came from PdC, as it's called.  Check out my post on "36 Hours in New York" to read about it.)   Everyone we mentioned our reservations at PdC to nodded knowingly (although they did seem to wonder how we had found our way to this place.)  Wendi had paved the way for our dining experience, pre-ordering starters of fried pork rinds (which kind of tasted like popcorn), codfish fritters (delicious!) and succulent foie gras poppers.  (Did I mention that the restaurant is known for its foie gras?)  From there it was on to the Plogue a Champlain, a decadent appetizer that included a homemade crepe at the bottom with, among other things, foie gras and an incredible sauce that incorporated maple syrup, and steak frites.  We had decided to do a birthday twist on Kris Kringle and had each been assigned the name of someone to bring a present for.  Lots of sentimentality ensued, with photos and frames and hand towels with sayings about friendship embroidered on.  Since it was my actual birthday, I was the recipient of a pink birthday tiara that I proudly wore throughout the evening.  By the time the complementary birthday dessert arrived (topped with a sparkler, which was much nicer than a big 5-0 candle), I had had the nicest birthday that I could possibly imagine.  

Montreal was a special place to celebrate my birthday--it's a great city and I'd love to go back sometime--but the really special thing was being able to spend time with these wonderful friends away from the demands of our everyday lives.  Talk. Walk.  Eat.  Laugh.   Repeat.  Really, who could ask for anything more? 

36 Hours in New York

Going back to New York is something of a bizarre experience for me.  On one hand, things are so familiar and welcome.  On the other hand, things are so different than life in Punta Gorda.  The streets are crowded with people of all ethnicities at all hours of the day and night. There are restaurants of every variety that you can imagine, theaters and galleries for your visual entertainment and of course the wonderful stores with all those items that you had no idea that you needed.   I'm finding that I love coming to New York as a visitor.  I can see my friends and do fun things without being on a train schedule or having to worry about traffic through the tunnel back home.  So when three of my friends and I decided to go to Montreal to celebrate our "big" birthdays, a stopover in New York on the way was in order.

I was on my own the first afternoon, and decided to go to see a movie at the Angelika.  One thing that I've yet to find in my new home is a theater that shows indie films, and I do miss that.  I went to see Win Win with Paul Giamatti (of Sideways fame and, incidentally, the son of Yale President and MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti.)  What a great flick!  Laugh out loud funny at some points, introspective at others, with a cast of quirky characters that you can't help but like.  I was tempted to sneak into another film when Win, Win was over, but I'm just not that much of a rule breaker.    Dinner was at an Asian-fusion place around the corner from my friend Andrea's apartment then we settled in for an evening of American Idol.

The next day my friend Wendi and I toured a few exhibits at art galleries in Chelsea for her "Art of Viewing Art" class at the New School.   Each week her homework assignment is to go to specific exhibits at galleries or museums in the City that will be discussed in that week's class.  Fun!!!  You quickly realize that going to a gallery to view an exhibit is an entirely different beast than going to a museum and the experience itself is one of the topics discussed in the class.  The galleries in Chelsea are somewhat inhospitable.  Many are behind metal doors that you practically need a special knock to get into.  The sense you get is that you have to be in the "know" to even view the exhibit.  The exhibits we saw were very avant garde and difficult to place in a context.  As Professor Zissner said, these galleries have moved beyond "the mere mortal concerns of 'who wants this in their living room?'" and are advancing "art" for art's sake.   I found the exhibits interesting if not aesthetically pleasing but don't think I would enjoy seeing them without the benefit of a tutorial.  The art we viewed is difficult to describe, but here are a couple of highlights:

Kilminck's Avengers Exhibit

--Karen Kilmnick's scatter art used the "Hellfire Episode" from the 1960s British TV show The Avengers as its inspiration.  In Zinsser's discussion of this work, he mentioned that Kilminck is a meek woman who lives in suburbia with a washer-dryer and a driveway, at which point the members of the class laughed derisively.  Was I the only suburbanite on hand?  In any event, I don't really get why this qualifies as art but some of her work goes for hundreds of thousands of dollars, so there you have it.

--Gary Hill's exhibit included a 3D video (for which you donned the original 3D glasses) of a gentleman speaking in tongues and analyzing what we learned in class was the molecule for LSD.  I didn't understand this exhibit either, but Hill was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1998, so obviously the deficiency is on my end.  (MacArthur Fellows awaken one morning to receive an unsolicited call from the MacArthur Foundation telling them that their work is very important and here's $500K to go forth and create.)

 --David Wojnarowicz' collection of works contained an image of Christ on a crucifix with ants crawling on him that was pulled from a recent exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. entitled "Hide/Seek:  Difference and Desire in American Portraiture". Admittedly, I am not particularly religious but the image was not offensive to me, just bizarre.  In my mind, this does not compare to Robert Mapplethorpe's explicit images that caused so much controversy in the early 1990s and I have to think that it was the theme of the exhibit combined with the specific image that triggered the uproar. 

Devin and Hugue at M Well

That night I went with Wendi, her significant other Lee and another friend to the cool and hip restaurant M. Wells in Long Island City.  The restaurant was written up in the NY Times in January as one of the "ten restaurants in the world worth flying to eat at" and received a 2 star rating from the NY Times restaurant critic just last week.  (The review is so well written and has such a great story that it made me really excited about eating there.  Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/dining/reviews/06rest.html?_r=2.)    Just to add to the buzz, Hugue Dufour (who owns the restaurant with his wife Sarah) stars in a reality TV show in Canada called Wild Chef that people are, well, wild over.  Wendi and Lee are good friends with Sarah, Hugue and all the rest of the staff and have given the restaurant their stamp of approval.  (Being James Beard House regulars, this actually means something.)  So my expectiations were quite high. 

Russian Breakfast

The evening was lots of fun.  The menu is eclectic in the extreme.  They sent us a special appetizer to start with that was a kitchen sink medley of rock shrimp, apples and lots of other interesting stuff on a homemade pancake.   We were then into escargot with bone marrow (I tried to cut into the bone, rube that I am), "butter" chicken, which is a take on chicken tikki masala, whelks and blood sausage with potatoes, Russian breakast and veal brains (which I wasn't brave enough to try).  We passed on the "tripe as pasta" dish, but Lee assures me it is delicious.  The restaurant was a very happening place, and I have to admit to feeling quite a bit out of my element. With all of my senses satisfied by the activities of the last 36 hours I headed back to Andrea's apartment for a good night's rest before heading off to Montreal.

Think Global, Eat Local, Part II

Eva showing Johnny's Seed Catalogue

I mentioned in my last post that Jay and I have become members of Worden Farm, a local farm.  We go each week and select our allocation of vegetables, some of which are old favorites and some of which require us to stretch our culinary horizons a bit.  Last Sunday, we went to a class at the farm called, "What Do I Do With All These Veggies?" that was taught by Eva Worden, one of the owners of the farm, and Cindi Florit, a member.    

The class started with how to identify the vegetables (which isn't as straightforward as it sounds).  Since we live locally, we are able to go to the farm to select our weekly vegetables and we get the benefit of labels saying what it what and pick accordingly.  Members who don't live locally go to a central site each Wednesday and pick up a box of freshly picked veggies.  For those members, there truly can be some mystery ingredients to work with!  One tip was to have a copy of Johnny's Seed Catalogue on hand.  (You can order one at no cost by calling 877-Johnnys.)  The catalogue has handy pictures of various fruits and vegetables that will help you know what you're dealing with.

Once you know what you have, their strongest recommendation was to prep the veggies so that they will be ready when you are.  Most everything should be washed and stored in the frig in a container or a dish towel.  This is apparently important to maintaining an appropriate humidity level for the veggies.  (Unlike veggies purchased at the grocery store, they shouldn't wilt with some water.)  They encouraged the members to freeze what they aren't going to use in the next few days, either in raw form or as a soup or sauce.  We learned that some veggies do better if they are blanched before being frozen.

Then we were on to the "cooking" portion of the class.  Eva and Cindi shared several favorite recipes with us, with liberal samplings.  They showed us how easy it is to incorporate veggies into your daily meals.  For instance, there was a "tatsoi" egg bake.  (What is tatsoi, you might ask.  We still don't know for sure because they didn't have any on Sunday so they used swiss chard instead.  It's all about using what you have on hand!)   This was basically a brunch item--eggs, milk, cheese and whatever veggies are in your frig.  Simple and tasty.  The eggplant parm and ratatouille were my personal favorites of the day.  The most surprising (and weird) tasting was a smoothie that had bananas, apples, water, ice and--you guessed it--kale.  It actually tasted pretty good but the green color was a bit offputting.  Cindi said her kids love the veggie smoothies but I'm a bit skeptical.

Both Cindi and Eva encouraged the participants in the workshop not to be slaves to recipes when working with their veggies.  Throw caution to the wind and throw some dandelion greens in your salad or (as we did last night) make slaw using daikon.  For people who need a little assistance, the Worden Farm website (www.wordenfarm.org) has recipes under the "Crops/Recipes" tab organized by vegetable.  Here's to a happy, healthy and vegetable-filled 2011!

Think Global, Eat Local, Part I

Jay is one of the most industrious people I know.  The week after we moved to Florida, he had his real estate license, poised to sell homes to our friends who decide to follow us south.  (This week, that seems like a bit of a bait and switch--the temperature is supposed to get down to 29 tonight!)  Our good friends Jacques and Jill thought that setting up a southern foothold sounded like a good idea and came down to Sarasota in July to look for a condo.

Just to digress a moment, Jacques and Jay have done some competitive cooking on New Years Eve over the last few years.  I call Jacques my "Iron Chef" and Jay my "Top Chef" (which Jay takes some offense at since Iron Chef is a higher accolade.  If you saw the things that routinely come out of Jacques' kitchen, though, you would be astonished.)   Obviously, then, it was important that Jacques and Jill, with their trusty real estate agent in tow, check out some of the local dining establishments before making the move to make sure they were up to their culinary standards.  In the course of their travels, they talked to some restauranteurs about where they got their produce and Worden Farm in Punta Gorda was the answer.  Our curiosity was piqued.

Jay learned that you could become a member of the Farm, which we did.  Starting in early December, our membership entitles us to go to the Farm once a week and choose fresh produce that they picked for their members that morning.  We are entitled to 200 "servings" over the course of the season.  A serving might be anything from two avocados to a bunch of French breakfast radishes to a head of kale.  I've been the last two weeks and it is a lot of fun.  There are bins labeled with the names of the vegetables, some of which I've never heard of before and many of which I've never cooked with.  I'm sure that I'm much less adventuresome than Jay would be in his selections but in the last two weeks we've made a couple of new dishes with our produce.  The first week I got some bok choy and we made a delicious stir fry with shrimp.  I also picked up some kale and made a kale, white bean and sausage soup that's one of our favorites (and was first introduced into our repertoire on one of our New Year's Eve culinary adventures with Jacques and Jill.)  This week I was excited to find okra and Jay made a great gumbo with shrimp and andouille sausage.  I also picked up a papaya and some star fruit, which is surprisingly good with our morning yogurt.  And I was thrilled to find that sunflowers were among this week's selection.  Being the Kansas girl that I am, sunflowers are one of my favorites (sunflowers are the state flower of Kansas, in case you didn't know!) 

On some weeks, the Farm has "you pick" extras that you can go into the field and collect that don't count towards your allocation.  I haven't tried this yet but am looking forward to checking it out.  The property has a barn with a kitchen where you can "chat and chop" after you've picked up your veggies (more about this in my next post about the class we took there).    They always have a couple of soups going in the barn as well that you can sample (and buy, but that seems kind of crazy with all the veggies you are already bringing home!) and sometimes there are other products for sale as well.  Last week there was goat cheese by the ounce as well as home made soaps. 

I am excited about having our own local farm here in Punta Gorda to help us expand our culinary horizons.  Maybe those old Kansas roots are pushing through my psyche after all these years.  As the saying goes, "There's no place like home!" 

Salad Days

With this ongoing heat, the phrase "salad days" seems appropriate (although according to Wikipedia, the term actually refers to someone at the peak of his or her abilities). Hopefully I'm working up to that!

One nice thing about this summer has been trying some new recipes. Three new salad recipes are being added to the repertoire:

--Beet and goat cheese salad. I've actually done this before but was inspired to try again after hearing about Nicola's inclusion of beets in her recent cooking class. Michelle shared some little baby beets from the market with me and I roasted them per Nicola's instruction (cut off tips and tails, salt and pepper, wrap in foil and bake at 425 for 1-1/4 hours--skins then come off easily). I roasted string beans as well (don't know why this has been intimidating--just add a little salt, pepper and olive oil and put them in the oven at 425 for about 25 minutes, turning occasionally--they just need to carmelize a bit--delicious!) I cooked them early in the day and then let them warm to room temperature before serving (which took about five minutes in this incredible heat!) To round it off, I added toasted walnuts and goat cheese. Really tasty and colorful!

--Island Pork Tenderloin. This dish was served at the ladies' golf luncheon at the Club and it was quite delicious. It takes a bit of prep work with the searing and then the brown sugar glaze (which I think is what puts it over the top) but it is easy and fairly light. Will report back after I serve it at my own ladies' luncheon (which is getting bigger by the day--I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew, so to speak!)

--Arugula Salad with goat cheese, toasted or candied walnuts and carmelized red onions. I tried this salad after buying a huge thing of arugula so that I'd have a couple of sprigs to put on my strawberry goat cheese bruschetta (another interesting dish--maybe I should have that as the starter at the ladies' luncheon...) I think the trick to this dish is the carmelized red onions--finishing them with a bit of balsamic seems to add to the dish. (I happened to see this on a food show with Ina Gardener but it was also in the recipe.) One note: you can never carmelize too many onions--they shrink down incredibly! I liked the toasted walnuts better than candied, although that might have been my poor job of candying them as they turned out sticky.

That's my take on Julia and Julia for the day!