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Ron Yan - Cooking with Strawberry Tsunami

I was the happy beneficiary of the culinary expertise of Ron Yan on New Year's Eve 2012, and I'm belatedly sharing the details!

Ron is a graduate of the International Culinary Center in The French Culinary Institute’s Classic Culinary Arts program in New York City. He maintains a blog showcasing his kitchen creativity, Cooking With Strawberry Tsunami. 

Eight of us gathered at a friend's for this extravaganza a la Rob.

The menu:

Beet Frisée Watercress Salad with Orange Suprêmes & Candied Zest

Cauliflower Soup with Shimeji Mushrooms, Edamame, Haricots Verts & Celery Leaves

Seafood Medley with Seared Coconut Risotto Cake

Cranberry Gelée with Ginger Granita (Photo)

Seared Halibut with Farro, Chestnuts, Wild Mushrooms & Blueberry Balsamic Reduction

Dark Chocolate Custard with Mint Chocolate Soil & Raspberry Coulis

You can like Strawberry Tsunami on Facebook and sign up for his RSS feed (apt!) so you never miss a recipe.

 

Ales...plus art, bread, and a choir. The British community pub. (From York Press)

It is the first [pub] in York to be community owned, a cooperative of 189 members now deciding how it is run, and it has rapidly become much more than just a pub.

via www.yorkpress.co.uk

A lot of pubs in Britain outside of urban centers are in crisis. The Brits are staying home and going online. One solution might be the pub as local cooperative and multi-use venue. 

In November 2012, the Golden Ball Cooperative Ltd took over the lease at The Golden Ball pub on the corner of Cromwell Road and Victor Street in Bishophill, York.

About 180 investors have raised more than £75,000 by investing £400 each in shares in return for a say in the pub’s running and an annual dividend of up to five per cent.
.....
[Investors include] ex-pats living as far away as India, China, Peru and Norway who had decided to get involved.
.....
The pub, which is Grade II listed, is regarded as having the most complete inter-war layout of any pub in York, having been remodelled in 1929 by John Smith’s and left virtually unchanged since then.

You can Like them on Facebook.

Surströmming - Manhattan User's Guide

Surströmming is one of the world's foulest-smelling dishes. Thank you, Sweden. When the can of fermented Baltic herring is opened, all smell breaks loose. It's probably more myth than anything else that the cans explode a lot, though they do expand as the fermenting takes place. In any case, the airlines, again sensibly, will have nothing to do with it. We've never seen it in New York, not that we've looked that hard. For some reason, there isn't much demand in these parts for canned fermented herring. When we mentioned to someone at the Swedish Consulate that we wanted to track down some surströmming, he said, "Oh, I don't think that's a very good idea."

via manhattanusersguide.com

Martin Luther's Unbirthday, But Not Mine

 

By the Episcopal calendar, my saint is Martin Luther. Good. Like many Episcopalians, I love irony.

The distinctly not-sainted Martin Luther lands on the Episcopal calendar by virtue of the Protestant elements of the church's Anglican heritage, in accordance with which all Christians together comprise the Communion of Saints; saints aren't limited to those deemed to be saints by pointy-hatted types in Rome. We have our own pointy hats, thank you. And there's no afternoon "riposo" in Canterbury! Thus, Anglicanism begets an empire upon which the sun never sets; popery begets an Italian building complex with a post office. But the wallpaper is great, I admit.

Luther was kind of a jerk. He declared, "women and maidens are all bold and coarse in their speech, in their demeanor wild and lewd." He penned Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, and On the Jews and Their Lies, which had nothing to do with the falsehood that gefilte fish is good. He spent hours at a time on the crapper. This is probably because beer consumption dehydrates. He also called God a "bulwark." I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty bad.

(Learn more here without cheek or my tongue stuck in mine.)

Memorial Day

Mr. Colombia, An Angel in Queens (PHOTOS)

Seven days a week, 365 days a year, Jorge Munoz serves 140 hot dinners to day laborers in Jackson Heights, Queens.

"When I see these guys in the street, it's like seeing me when I came to the U.S.," Munoz said, explaining his motivation for helping the immigrants, most of whom are homeless. "I had nothing."

The crusade of this 46-year-old Colombian-American bus driver who earns about $650 a week is largely self-financed. The food is prepared in his family's home in Woodhaven, Queens, by his 70-year-old mother and his sister, Luz, with the occasional help of volunteers.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Brown’s Celebrated Indian Herb bitters bottle made in 1868 realizes $36,960 at American Bottle Auctions

An outstanding, mint condition Brown’s Celebrated Indian Herb bitters bottle, patented Feb. 11, 1868, sold for $36,960 in an Internet and catalog auction held Oct. 29-Nov. 13 by American Bottle Auctions.... It was the 51^st auction held by the young firm, which has become synonymous with vintage bottle collecting.

via antiques-collectibles-auction-news.com

Inflation: It's what's for breakfast

The consumer price index rose just 1.1% annually at last count, but that fact might be hard to swallow at the breakfast table these days. Prices for many of New York's favorite breakfast ingredients are soaring at double-digit rates, pinching purses at home and profit margins at restaurants and food companies.

via www.crainsnewyork.com

The article looks are price rises for OJ, milk, bagels, coffee, bacon, eggs, and maple syrup. Breakfast cereals' prices are rising, too:

A scorching summer hurt harvests around the globe, fueling higher feed prices that have spiked the costs of breakfast meats. And the Russian wheat crisis will soon make bread, bagels and cereal noticeably more expensive.

176th Oktoberfest - Sept. 18, 2010

Oktoberfest begins tomorrow when the mayor of Munich, currently Christian Ude, taps the first keg at noon. (He'll declare, "O’zapft is!" -- "It is tapped!”)

It's the world's largest fair. The total seating of the 14 main tents is about 100,000. In 2007, about 6,940,600 litres of beer were served, 142,253 pairs of pork sausage, and 38,650 kg of fish. 

A litre of beer will cost €8.30–8.90 this year.

The official website: Oktoberfest.de.

Lion Stout

I had a pint of this Sri Lankan stout this summer in Atlanta. It's not as smooth as Guinness, but very tasty, a bit more chocolaty. I assumed I'd never encounter it again. Last night, I suddenly spotted it in West Side Market--the original one on Broadway near West 77th Street--a 6-bottle carton. Obviously, I bought it. I would be inclined to speculate that the distributor is taking something of a gamble with this one. But, they've probably tested various markets, run their numbers, and decided it's worth a go in the Big Apple. So, I expect to see it sooner rather than later on the menu of some restaurant I'm at.

Such a handsome critter on the label, too. I'm a sucker for big cats.