Photo: SingChan/Flickr

Is ginger offensive to you?

That’s the question that Jess is asking at A Fete for Food, and I have to admit it took me by surprise. There are people who don’t like ginger? I wondered in horror, knuckles white, my worldview completely shaken. Ginger, to me, is one of those rare  ingredients like garlic or ripe tomatoes that seems to achieve a sort of Platonic perfection. It’s equally at home in an Asian stir-fry or a bar of chocolate, in kimchi and in soda. In some parts of the world, it’s used to flavor coffee and milk; in other parts, it’s eaten candied to sooth colds and upset stomachs. Dried and powdered, it’s wonderful on meat, on fish and on lentils. And I haven’t even mentioned gingerbread!

Luckily, Jess also loves ginger’s sweet-tart tang – and for those who disagree? “More for me,” she writes. She made a pitcher of ginger lime iced tea out of some tight and juicy discount limes, some minced ginger and just a tiny bit of honey. The resulting brew looks like lemonade and tastes, I imagine, like a sweet little vacation. She says it would be great after a workout; I’d make it with sparkling water, dreaming of pink sands and hot nights.

Photo: Sue McCrory's soda bread

A corner of our offices smelled delicious yesterday. Five of us brought in home-made Irish soda breads for a taste-off “Here & Now” is pulling together for their show today at noon.

After putting out a call for bakers, Producer Kathleen McKenna called for “a real Irishman” to be one of the tasters. So, of course I volunteered my husband, Hugh, who grew up outside of Cookstown, on the Derry/Tyrone border. His Granny McCrory used to bake fresh bread everyday — zip, zip, she never stopped moving, Hugh tells me, nestling warm treacle or soda bread in a tea towel for visitors to the house. How lovely sounding is that??

Now, since I can’t give away the winner before today’s show, let me just say that the ingredients that aren’t in a soda bread may surprise you. Eggs, sugar or caraway seeds? Check any one of those and your bread’s not soda bread. Raisins? Again, not the real McCoy. (Er, seeing that my bread, above, has raisins in it, you can guess how mine fared…)

To find out what IS in traditional Irish soda, according to enthusiast Ed O’Dwyer of the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, and which bread Hugh and Kathy Gunst (the show’s second formal taster) chose as their favorite, tune in today as noon to “Here & Now.” Check the program’s website, too, for all five recipes and some personal histories about each. Guaranteed you’ll laugh, and leave informed.

Listen to the audio of today’s show.

Ana Sortun / Photo: Oleana

March is a rough month in New England. It’s neither one thing, nor the other. Spring is clearly just around the corner (did you see the crocuses?), but still tantalizingly out of reach (did you see the snow?). It’s especially tough if you’re trying to eat locally produced vegetables.

In this wonderful interview posted on Local In Season, chef Ana Sortun of Oleana and Sofra in Cambridge talks about how she handles this lean time of year and discusses the challenges of sourcing foods for herself and her restaurants.

It turns out, even when you are married to a farmer (Sortun’s husband, Chris Kurth, owns Siena Farms), March is no picnic.

Photo: Siona Watson/Flickr

If you’ve never made butter before, here’s your chance! 

You can do it live, online, guided by two Irish enthusiasts and in the company of other butter enthusiasts from around the world. Tomorrow. Just in time to slather it on your soda bread. 

Irish broadcaster and journalist Ella McSweeney, who covers food and farming, is hosting a live event called Butter Live! from Tipperary, Co. Cork, this Wednesday, March 16th. The event celebrates Grow It Yourself Week, sponsored by the eponymous not-for-profit (GIY Ireland) encouraging folks to grow food.

Butter Live! is for everyone who has an internet connection. The idea is that people buy 2 pints of cream that day and log on from their kitchens at 7pm Irish time (3pm EST) with the cream, a bowl and a whisk.

Ella will team up with Cork dairy farmer Alan Kingston of award-winning Glenilen Farm to guide you through the process of turning fresh white cream into a block of yellow butter. (Their raw milk cream will come from Brochan Cocoman’s award-winnning Kildare herd.) In Ella’s words, making butter is “a surprisingly easy and satisfying process that requires lots of churning and a bit of skill.”

The more people who join in around the world, the better. Butter lives!

DETAILS (what/when/where/how)
Butter Live!
March 16th, 7 pm Irish time (3 pm EST)
What you need: 2 pints of fresh cream, a whisk, a bowl with iced water, a spatula, a computer
Log on to http://www.giyireland.com/ at the appointed time
Mmmmmm good.

Courtesy of La Tartine Gourmande

Happy Monday.

With the heavy news and images coming from Japan, I couldn’t help but seek simple comforts today.   I’m getting it from my morning coffee and from a beautiful post from Bea at La Tartine Gourmande. Her photos and recipes are always divine but a recent post about a family trip to Crane Beach seemed most fitting today. Plus the madeleine recipe makes any Monday morning that much brighter.

Read the post and get the recipe HERE.

Bea informs readers that her long-awaited cookbook will be published in 2012.

Photo: Flickr/Sahxic

Anna Pinkert, one of the fab interns at “Radio Boston,” came to us with this interview, in anticipation of the Extreme Beer Fest kicking off TODAY in Boston.

Anna Pinkert
PRK Guest Contributor

When I told an IPA-loving friend that I’d be tasting a sake/beer hybrid, his first reaction was “ew, gross!”

That’s the kind of reaction Cambridge Brewing Company brewmaster Will Meyers has become accustomed to over the years. Some folks taste his ecclectic beers and want to “leap over the bar” to hug him, others take one sip and toss them into the trash. But at the Extreme Beer Fest this weekend, attendees should expect to enjoy some strange brews.

I met up with Will on a quiet afternoon at the Kendall Square CBC restaurant. He poured me a glass of Banryu Ichi, his beer/sake collaboration with friend and sake home-brewer, Todd Bellomy. Banryu Ichi is a short pour (it’s 15% alcohol) and comes creatively presented in a Japanese cedarwood box. Will told me about the inspiration that goes into his beer, and the rhythms inherent in beer brewing.

The Extreme Beer Fest takes place at the Boston Cyclorama on March 11 and 12. Tickets are sold out, but you can find Banryu Ichi on tap this month at the Cambridge Brewing Company (1 Kendall Square, Cambridge MA).

Photo: Courtesy Kosher Blog/Ari Behar

Ari Behar of Kosher Blog has posted his delicious-looking attempts at making an unusual version of matsah (matzo) — that usually crunchy, unleavened bread.

Soft matsah!

Ari’s recipe is timely since many Jews abstain from eating matsah from Purim, fast approaching on March 20th, to Passover.

If you’re not Jewish, however, you can make soft matsah at home anytime you’ve got the time. I bet it would make for a great grilled cheese…

Photo: talliskeeton/Flickr

Imagine going outside during your lunch break this fall and picking an organic apple off the vine – from right outside your office. Pretty dreamy scenario, huh?

Good news, then: the Boston Tree Party – we wrote about them a few weeks ago – is still looking for “delegates” willing to plant pairs of apple trees in front of their office, school, church or otherwise large and publicly accessible organization. They’ve extended the deadline to April 1. What could be lovelier than apple blossoms to herald the spring?

I suspect Tree Party founder Lisa Gross agrees with me. A few days ago, she spoke to Stuff Boston about the project, the community, and the absolute travesty that is a Red Delicious apple. Says Gross:

I grew up in the DC area, and I always had this attraction to fruit trees. Every year we’d go apple picking. It was a touchstone experience for me. I lived in a suburban community with few trees. Going to the orchard, the idea of bounty – you could pick up an apple from any tree, take a bite, and throw it down on the ground. Such bounty! The amazing idea of getting food from a tree just stuck with me.