Brown-Bag Lunch Challenge from FN's Healthy Eats & Day 1: Eggplant Parm Pizza

In the spirit of back-to-school Food Network's Healthy Eats blog is challenging us to bring a healthy lunch to work everyday for the month of September. This challenge really speaks to me because it is something I struggle with every work day. Hopefully, together, we can explore some great ideas for what to take to lunch and overcome the obstacles that keep us from making lunch the night or morning before work and find us spending $10 and extra time during our lunch break to buy lunch out. 

My lunchtime story goes like this: most days I buy lunch, spending as much as $60 a week on food (a BIG chunk), the days I bring lunch I am excited about what I brought and looking forward to eating it 50% of the time, the other 50% of the time I either don't eat it or have to supplement my meal with a snack bought at Duane Reade or Starbucks because I didn't pack enough food to fill me. My main hurdle in my food not being appealing 50% of the time is that my office does not have a microwave, let alone a lunchroom or cafeteria. I work by Central Park so I usually sit on a bench to eat my homemade lunches, but some days eating cold food, especially in the colder months, has no appeal to me whatsoever. I am constantly on the lookout for delicious, filling meals to take at lunchtime that I'll still want to eat by the time 1:30pm rolls around. It is a real challenge. 

Fortunately I've gotten the month started off right. Today I will be enjoying a homemade pesto and eggplant parmesan pizza. Its homemade in every which way; I made the pizza dough last night, the pesto last week and the eggplant parm is leftover from a dinner I made. Last week I made a similar pizza with the same dough, same pesto and mushrooms and sauteed onions instead of the eggplant. Happily, I brought it three days in a row to work and was not sick of it! It's a keeper. My trick to enjoying it cold? I take it out of the fridge one hour before I plan to take lunch, this gives the crust time to warm up and soften. 

Are you taking the Brown Bag Challenge? If so leave me a comment! 

What are your favorite lunches?

Any tips for what to eat and enjoy without use of a microwave? 

An Evening with Patricia Wells: Salad as a Meal

By far one of the best decisions I've made since moving to Manhattan was becoming a member of FIAF (French Institute : Alliance Française) this past Bastille Day. Tonight found me at another great event in Le Skyroom with my good friend Kyle (also a FIAF member). 

Kyle waiting for the talk to begin

FIAF welcomed Patricia Wells for the American launch of her brand new cookbook Salad as a Meal. Tonight's event was the first in a series of 3 talks and a city-wide tour titled Gardens for Gourmets. Each talk will have a notable guest to guide the conversation and tonight we were happy to welcome the well-known Ina Garten who is a long-time friend of Wells. 

Garten introduced Wells as the second most influential person in bringing French cuisine to America, of course, after Julia Child. Salad as a Meal is Wells' 12th book. One of her best-known works is The Food Lover's Guide to Paris (which I believe Wells said would be coming out in a newly revised and updated version soon). Garten remarked that Salad as a Meal is a combination of what Wells loves - fresh, simple market ingredients and easy, beautiful cooking. Garten recollects that when she and Wells go to fresh markets, Wells is always asking the growers what they do with their bounty; 'well what do you do with those raspberries?' Finding out what the people who are bringing the food to the table do with it in their own homes is a way to come up with new ways of using ingredients. 

Wells and her husband, Walter Wells, split their time between Paris and Provence. The couple moved to Paris in 1980 when Wells' husband was offered a job as an editor for the  International Herald Tribune (and he has a piece in the recently released, excellent collection of works about Paris, Paris Was Ours). They stayed on in Paris for Wells' job as a restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune. Before becoming the cookbook author and Paris/Provence home cooking school teacher she is today, Wells worked extensively as a journalist and restaurant critic. When speaking about what it is like living in France she mentioned how a foreigner is always an outsider looking in, never fully part of the "club." As a journalist she found this exteriority to be a helpful perspective, aiding in giving a view  on a subject at arm's length.

As the first of a series of "Gardens for Gourmets" talks, Wells spoke to her own growing philosophy. In Provence she has a beautiful garden (there are some stunning photographs in the book), Wells encouraged audience members to grow something (same advice Marion Nestle gave at a talk I attended in June 2010). Rosemary was her best suggestion for a good, hearty herb to grow on an urban windowsill (if only I had windows!). Boasting an impressive garden, last year she had 40 varieties of tomatoes and even has her own vineyard producing a Côtes du Rhône. (You can find her wine at Eli Zabar's W.I.N.E next to TASTE on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.)

Kelsey Nixon Teaches the Essentials: Tips, Tools, Techniques, Pantry and More!

This past Tuesday I attended an excellent class taught by chef Kelsey Nixon sponsored by The Learning Annex.

Kelsey Nixon

Going into the class I wasn't sure what to expect. My fellow audience members and I were wondering "where's the kitchen?" when we entered the room at the Midtown Hitlon East. The description given by the Learning Annex didn't say there would be cooking, I think we just assumed Kelsey would be showing off some of her kitchen skills to help us learn them. 

Instead of cooking, we receive a very informative and fun presentation from Kelsey and great discussion with a room full of experienced home cooks. Kelsey gave a detailed background of her journey getting to where she is today. She has had great experiences from interning with Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, to working on her own cooking show in college: Kelsey's Kitchen, to earning a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu Hollywood, working on Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade, to being a contestant on The Next Food Network Star (which is where I know her from best) and finally to being one of Cooking Channel's leading chefs with Kelsey's Essentials. 


Kelsey's presentation covered the essentials in terms of Tips, Tools, Techniques, Pantry, and how to stay organized and implement these into your routine. Some of the essentials are no-brainers that any practiced home cook will have learned, hence why they are essential. But others are very smart ideas that can make a big difference in the kitchen. Here are 6 Essential Lists from Kelsey. More information and comments from Kelsey have been given in italics. 

New York City Wine & Food Festival Part 2: The Grand Tasting(s)! (aka the Rest of the Best Weekend Ever!)

After the demo my mom and I sauntered into the West Village for some truly delicious Manhattan brunch at Tartine. She had an omlette full of veggies and ham and cheese and I enjoyed eggs benedict (I can hardly resist-- i'm hooked on poached eggs!). If you have never been to Tartine and live in the city-- go ASAP! It is a teeny tiny restaurant with a short menu but everything you have will be delicious-- and you can bring your own wine! What could be better? Also their desserts/pastries are irresistible. 

During brunch my mom had a celeb chef sighting-- she saw Ming Tsai getting out of a car in front of the resto. Not sure where he was headed but he had a culinary demo about an hour before Alton's! (How cool is he? his website is www.ming.com)

With happily full bellies we ventured into the Saturday afternoon madness of Chelsea Market-- always a little crazy on the weekends it was extra crazy due to the Festival. On the way we passed by the Cooking Channel ice cream truck which has been different places over the summer to promote the new programs and give out ice cream.

We headed into Chelsea Market and it was as insane as expected. Difficult to get through the door, people with wine glasses around their necks (from the Grand Tasting), tons of orange swag bags, and generally flocks of foodies going in all directions! As we entered, just past the newsstand at the front entrance I had my first dumbfounded brush with culinary celebrity.... 

I saw a large man with the clear coiled ear piece and I knew without thinking that he must be someone's bodyguard so I look just past him and see Rachel Ray wearing big sunglasses, flanked at the back by yet another security guard. I gawked at her while squeezing my mother's forearm and trying to whisper to her out of the side of my mouth... "Mooom..... Rachel Ray!!!" all the while my heart is racing and I feel utterly foolish. 

I completely realize that this makes me a little bit of a tool-- ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that Rachel literally grew up about an hour away from where I did (She in Lake George, me in Albany). Maybe that just makes her more of an inspiration to me-- I never plan to have fame, let alone Rachel's, but success even half the size of hers would be nice. This had me feeling jittery, excited, and blushing in a little bit of culinary shame because I felt so starstruck by anyone throughout much of the afternoon. Moving on...

Destiny Calling. The New York City Wine & Food Festival Part I: Alton Brown's Cooking Demo

By bouts of good fortune I had one of the best weekends of my life this month during the New York City Wine & Food Festival October 7th through 10th. 

First and foremost my good friend Marlie of Marliese's Sweet Treats offered me the awesome opportunity to work the American Lamb Board table during the second session of Sunday's grand tasting and the opportunity to attend the first session on Sunday as a guest. The chance to participate in this important part of the festival got me throughly excited for the upcoming weekend! I was living in New York last year during the festival but since I did not have tickets to events I did not even think to go loiter around Chelsea Market (which I recommend you do with or without tickets during the Festival-- lots of activity and foodie celeb sightings!l!).

During the week leading up to the event my Twitter feed was a-buzz with #nycwff attached to all tweets about chef appearances, events, details, and the most fortunate tweets for me-- giveaways! My love of Twitter and Whole Foods combined to bring me what would become great fortune....

Welcome Autumn! Squash, pumpkin, and all things orange!

"When autumn comes, it doesnt ask. It just walks in, where it left you last." -John Mayer

Autumn is by and large my favorite season! I love all the colors, the crispness of the air, the smell of fallen leaves, and all the warm delicious food that comes back after a summer of cool foods and homes too hot to cook in. Many a harbinger signals the change of seasons before the equinox arrives; children head back to school, the temperatures start staying below 80*, Starbucks brings back my favorite drink- the Pumpkin Spice Latte, and you see the vibrant colors of the summer harvest mixing with the muted colors of fall-- dark green acorn squash, pale sandy colored butternut squash, bumpy gourds, bright orange pumpkins, light and dark green mini cabbage- brussel sprouts, flowers of deep burgandy, marigold yellow, and rich burnt orange. 

Notes on my Favorite Food Magazines

In light of some awesome June and July issues that are out on the stands now and this digital revival of Gourmet magazine it seems a good time to share with you my favorite magazines and why I love them.

Here are the food magazines I subscribe to and suggest that you should, too! 

If you like magazines but hesitate to make a commitment, remember it is always saves to subscribe!:

Saveur

Okay I'm going to come right out there and declare Saveur my *favorite* food magazine! 

I didn't really know about it before I started watching Top Chef masters last year (Hi, James Oseland!) and I had not noticed it on newsstands until I moved to Manhattan and started shopping at Whole Foods. I bought my first issue this year and subscribed right away from one of the insert cards and have been salivating and learning every month since. 

Carrot & Pineapple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting -- Thanks to Ina Garten

Along with yesterday's Fresh Direct delivery came a free Peak Produce item --- a pineapple!

I'm not much for eating pineapple cut up and am really not a fan of pineapple juice, so I figured I should bake it into a dessert for my dinner guests tonight and tomorrow. I wasn't keen on the idea of a pineapple upside-down cake so I searched for desserts with pineapple on the Food Network website. I discovered a wonderful recipe for Ina Garten's Carrot and Pineapple Cake. The recipe seemed easy enough and the photo of the finished cake looked elegant and mouth-watering, so I deemed this to be an excellent use of my peak produce! I went to the store to get the additional ingredients I needed as well as cake pans (it is a true crime I do not have layer cake pans of my own-- hi mom!). There were no 8" round cake pans, as the recipe called for, so I opted for 8" x 8" square pans which worked out great and make for a fun shape.

The cake came out lusciously moist and also crunchy, these textures with that of the silken cream cheese frosting made for a surprisingly welcome dessert.

Josh with the cake we enjoyed after our dinner of Chicken Pot Pies-- his favorite!