Food to Fund
Restaurants around the state join together this week in the Rally to Raise Funds for Massachusetts Tornado Relief Efforts in western Mass. 15 restaurants, including The Beehive,  Burtons Grill and Dante, are donating a portion of their proceeds to the American Red Cross to assist with relief efforts. The event is week-long, ending this Sunday, June 19th.

Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry season is now in full swing. All month local farms will be welcoming visitors to pick their own and participate in berry festivals. Connors Farm in Danvers, for one, is celebrating their crop with a Strawberry Festival to be held this Saturday, June 18th, 9 am to 6 pm. Statewide, learn more about local farms and strawberry-related events through this handy map. If you can’t (or won’t) pick your own, learn more about the 40+ Mass restaurants currently serving fresh and local berries to benefit the Mass Farmers Markets Strawberry Dessert Festival.

Sealing the Deal
This week Massachusetts Agricultural Officials announced the creation of the Commonwealth Quality Seal Program. This new initiative allows the placing, literally, of a seal on Mass-made products that meet specific standards for freshness, safety and sustainability. 20 farms from across the state will pioneer the use of the Quality Seal. Read more about participating farms and licensing criteria here.

Celebrating the Science of Eating
Mark your calendars! On Saturday, June 25th, the Museum of Science is hosting the “Let’s Talk About Food Festival” on the Cambridge Parkway as part of their ongoing series “Let’s Talk About Food.” The day features demonstrations, samplings and public discussions with culinary masters. Guests can look forward to talking with and learning from some of the city’s great chefs, and taking a lunch break at a Food Truck Food Court. PRK will feature this event in detail in next week’s posts. Stay tuned… Continue reading →

We love trees here at Public Radio Kitchen. After all, that’s where mangoes come from! And lemons! And avocados!

On the other hand, I’m not a fan of those little energy bars you can get at the gym – call me a snob, but when I want a cookie or a candy bar, I’ll eat one without pretending it’s healthy because it has 30 grams of protein in it.

Still, when one peddler of those little energy bars – Odwalla, to be exact – says it will donate a tree for every person who goes through the process here, I’m not exactly conflicted about it. Yeah, Odwalla is getting some good publicity out of it – but more importantly, with a few clicks, our commonwealth can become a little greener. The company has $100,000 worth of trees to donate; so far, that’s translated into a scheduled 81 trees for the Bay State.

It’s not a bad idea – but if all this online activism has got you beat, might we suggest making your own energy bar to refuel?

I grew up not understanding the pickle-lovers of the world. Pickles, to me, were an unloved deli garnish – an ill-placed pickle on a sandwich plate could ruin entire potato chips and make rye bread unpleasantly soggy.

Now that I’m older, however, something has switched. I find myself craving vinegar – ordering wurst plates, topping hot dogs with liberal amounts of relish, even forgoing the classic salad dressing ratio for a 50:50 mix of vinegar and oil. Maybe it’s a sign of my German heritage finally coming through – I even dipped a soft pretzel in a pleasantly sour mustard several weeks ago. At this rate, I may have to start dressing up like a St. Pauli girl.

Needless to say, these pickled beets and onions from Boston Globe writer Sally Vargas look amazing to me. Now, even the biggest fans of pickled cucumbers will admit that they’re not the prettiest of foods (they look like weird sea plants, to me, enclosed in a snot-colored brine). Beets, though, make everything they touch a lovely purple-pink – and jarred with a few scattered fronds of dill, the colors remind me of Christmas.

Of course, in actuality, this is summer food at its finest – a yummy addition to a barbecue, as Vargas notes, served with some grilled red meat.

In local cocktail circles there are a few legendary characters, but perhaps none as beloved and influential as Brother Cleve. He is often referred to as the Godfather of the city’s cocktail revival, inspiring Boston bartending luminaries like Misty Kalkofen (Drink), Jackson Cannon (Eastern Standard/ICOB), John Gertsen (Drink), Dylan Black (Green Street) and a list of others that’s probably too long to mention.

His apartment in the Uphams Corner part of Dorchester is brimming with old cocktail books, vintage drink menus and other spirit-related paraphernalia from shakers and exotic glassware to coasters and kitschy cocktail magazines. It is the height of cocktail cool. The kicker, though, is the small bar that is the focal point of the living room — It’s one of the swankiest home bars I’ve ever seen and one can only imagine the vast array of liquor nestled within and behind its funky studded duo-tone leather exterior. Brother Cleve is a seasoned collector and he’s got style. Continue reading →

Summer weather means an explosion of fresh produce suddenly at every cook’s fingertips. This is certainly apparent at Faneuil Hall’s historic Haymarket, which has sizably expanded and where the quality of the produce is superior now than at any other time of year.

But Haymarket can be overwhelming. A Moroccan friend recently confided that Haymarket reminds him of home! It is no surprise, then, that if Haymarket is reminiscent of Marrakesh,  some of us might feel daunted trying to navigate this open-air produce market.

Here are five tips to help you move around the market, find the freshest produce and make the best use of what you take home… Continue reading →

Today’s Food Therapy comes as a pair.

Tania, The Musing Bouche, has done some wonderful writing of late, chronicling her recent fishing expedition in Stellwagen Bank on the Cape. She hooked some cod — real “keepers” in her words — and the first of a season in which she plans to forego a CSF and catch her own fish instead.

In lieu of a formal recipe, Tania philosophizes about catching said fish and offers tips on how best to enhance its natural flavors. She wants us all to enjoy cooking cod.

Afterwards, we read about CAKE. Not cake of the super sweet or decadent chocolate ilk, but a blueberry-laden, butter and cinnamon-sugar number that meets fundamental criteria for a successful treat at sea: no forks required, doesn’t crumble, can be eaten while standing, stays intact (think: rolling waves!). Though I doubt she needs such a ‘bribe’ for her fellow fishermen, Tania brought her Blueberry Boy Bait out to Stellwagen Bank. It, too, is a keeper.

Barbecue sauce is not something home cooks typically think of making by themselves – but, if you give it a shot, you’ll find it difficult to go back to Sweet Baby Ray’s. Not only are homemade variants surprisingly easy to make – usually, all that’s required is a quick thickening on the stove – the taste is a whole different experience than what you’d get at a supermarket (think: thick molasses in place of high fructose corn syrup, fresh rosemary instead of dried, your best vinegar in place of their bottom-shelf variety).

My favorite recipe has long been this bourbon barbecue sauce from Gourmet, which I’ve poured over everything from chicken to grilled pineapples (if you’re not much of a drinker, I find those miniature bottles of booze they sell at liquor stores come to almost exactly fourth of a cup). But there are as many different kinds of barbecue sauce as there are barbecue fans, and with three weeks left until July 4, avid grillers have plenty of time to find their favorite in time for Independence Day. Here are some recipes from around the web that are worth trying; your guests will be seriously impressed. Continue reading →

 

It’s been quite a delicious week for the ears here at WBUR.  In case you missed some of these delectable stories, here is a short round-up.

On Point took on sustainable seafood in an interview with chef and conservationist Barton Seaver. Locavore chef JJ Gonson was on hand to provide some culinary assistance.  (Don’t miss the fab recipes).

Here & Now visited the new food plate (displacing that crusty old pyramid) and asked listeners to send in their own plates. The photos are classic–my fave is the Dunkin Donuts box + ruffles chips + banana.  YIKES.  Later in the week, Robin Young chatted with Milo Cress, a nine-year-old in Vermont who started BeStrawFree, an organization that urges restaurants to use fewer straws.  The interview is fantastic–what an incredibly eloquent young man.

Radio Boston did a talk segment about the European E. Coli outbreak and took your calls and questions. RB also caught the city hall ceremony which established an unofficial official cookie for the city of Boston: the Haley House chocolate chip. On Thursday, Adam Ragusea took a closer look at the latest developments on the planned Whole Foods store in Jamaica Plain. Those opposed and in support are still engaged in some serious drama. Radio Boston ends the week with a sweet Farm to Fork segment, visiting the Copley Square Farmer’s Market with Tremont 647’s Andy Husbands.  Let’s just say this: your strawberry shortcake’s will thank you.

Anna Pinkert, ever-adventuresome, of WBUR’s “Radio Boston” attended the American Craft Beer Festival last weekend at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. The beer was excellent. No surprise! But what did surprise Anna is that she might not drink those beers again on the East Coast. At least not til next year. Why? Some out-of-region craft brewers such as Todd Haug of Surly Brewing Co., MN, are adhering to a hyper-local philosophy — for what they see as the best of reasons.

Anna Pinkert
Guest contributor, Radio Boston

At the American Craft Beer Fest regional Smackdown, you might expect a lot of smack talk. Instead, I found a group of brewers more likely to hug it out than throw it down.

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LOCAL BITES

A Wine Time in Rhode Island
The annual Coastal Wine Trail Festival is happening Sunday, June 26th, at Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton from 1-4pm. Guests can taste from the nine local wineries which comprise the  Coastal Wine Trail. The evening also features samples from nearby farms, restaurants and bakeries. To make a reservation, call 1-800-998-8486 x116.

Strawberry Season
Land’s Sake Farm in Weston is hosting a Strawberry Festival on Saturday, June 18th, 10am – 2pm. The day includes pick-your-own berries and strawberry shortcake. If you crave more, Verrill Farm of Concord is having their own Strawberry Festival on June 25th, 11am –  3pm, featuring live music and a recipe contest.

There’s a Truck for That…
Food trucks have exploded in number and creative fare over the past few years, fascinating hungry college students, urban employees and high gourmands alike. A recent Boston Globe article highlighted some of Boston’s best meals on wheels, with high praise for Bon Me Truck outside City Hall Plaza and Lefty’s Silver Cart located on the Greenway at Dewey Park.

Continue reading →