Fields Corner, Dorchester (photo: PreservationNation/Flickr)

LOCAL BITES

A New Market Opens
This Sunday, Jan. 8, Dorchester’s Codman Square Great Hall will be the site of a grand opening. The Dorchester Winter Farmers’ Market–called the first step toward a full-scale brick-and-mortar cooperative store in an area of low access — will open its doors as one of Boston’s only winter markets, and the only city market to accept EBT/SNAP and Boston Bounty Bucks. Hours are 12 – 3 p.m. on Sundays, Jan. thru March. The market will feature produce, breads, meats, cheeses and value-added products (jams, honeys, etc.), in addition to local arts, crafts and performances. Mayor Menino, State Rep. Russell Holmes and other dignitaries will attend a ribbon cutting at 2 p.m.

Dine Out
Restaurant Week in the Dorchester/Milton neck of Boston is fast approaching. Save the date, Jan. 15-30, Sun-Thurs night! Nine neighborhood eateries will participate, offering prix-fixe menus for $30.12 and including Savin Bar & Kitchen, Ledge and Ashmont Grill. (Check out the Grill’s Give Back program, in support of the Dorchester Community Food Coop; it’s their market efforts, above!). Online info coming soon. Check back in.

Veg-out a Few Days a Week
Local-food visionary JJ Gonson of Cuisine en Locale is introducing a vegetarian version of her ONCE-a-Week shared food program. This means you can eat local and eat vegetarian, with JJ and gang sourcing and preparing meals for you a few nights a week. Contagious enthusiasm and more info at the Cuisine en-Locale site. Continue reading →

Robert Hoover of Erbaluce (Photo: Susanna Bolle/WBUR)

In theory, Rob Hoover, the man behind the bar at Erbaluce in Bay Village, operates at a disadvantage. The restaurant doesn’t have a full liquor license. This means they can only serve beer, wine and cordials.

Sometimes, however, such a limitation is the mother of invention — and the cocktails at Erbaluce have invention in spades.

Erbaluce’s current winter bar menu includes a Matsutaki Flip (house-made mushroom tincture, marsala wine, honey and a duck egg), a Squash Bellini (mace-infused squash puree and prosecco), and a Sleighride Smash (Luxardo cherry liqueur, the whey from burrata cheese (!), basil and lots of ice). They’re all imaginative and really lovely to drink,   and the lower alcohol is a nice plus in what has become a sometimes spirit-heavy cocktail scene here in Boston. (You can find the recipes for all three drinks at the end of this post.)

The cocktail menu at Erbaluce is borne out of close collaboration between the bar and the kitchen. Continue reading →

Photo: ugod/Flickr

Radio Boston host Meghna Chakrabarti recently visited Harvard’s Schlesinger Library to speak with curators Barbara Ketcham Wheaton and Marylene Altieri about the Schlesinger’s rich archive of cookbooks.

As many of you may know, Harvard is home to one of the world’s most outstanding collections of historical cookbooks, including its most famous possession: the papers, recipes and cookbooks of Julia and Paul Child.

But did you know of the African American cookbooks in the Schlesinger’s collection? Or its holding of Eskimo cookbooks from Sarichef Island off the Alaskan coast, an island now literally disappearing due to warming trends? Besides documenting recipes, such cookbooks document historical milestones and ways of life from the past and in the present.

Food — very much like art — serves as a unique historical lens. Through it we view gender and race relations, immigrant communities, social behaviors and changing social norms. We understand the impact of economies, politics and religion. Specifically, we learn what foods were available, which were prized, how food was prepared, how it was preserved, and how it was served at the table.

According to curators Wheaton and Altieri, however, the careful reader of cookbooks also gleans “…fantasy, practicality and attitude” from its authors. Their voices from the past are ones we might not otherwise hear. And, to the curators’ mind, the printed cookbook won’t disappear any time soon.

Listen to the interview.

Photo: grongar/Flickr

Happy New Year, everyone! We’re kicking off 2012 with practical local info and a laugh.

Mid-wife Sarah Kleinman, whose inimitable Boston Eats restaurant reviews appear monthly on PRK, ate at Grumpy White’s Restaurant & Pub in Quincy over the holidays. Sarah reviews Grumpy’s comfort food with two Quincy natives, born and bred, who even had their first date at the pub!

Can you say can you say “butt-ah”?

Previous Boston Eats reviews on PRK:
Area Four, Cambridge
Kosher Vending Machine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Oak Room, Boston

Photo: e_calamar/Flickr

Happy 2012 to each and all of you! Public Radio Kitchen looks forward to sharing great stories, delicious food ideas and important food news throughout out this new year. Check back in soon!