Year: 2013

Making PEI mussels like the mussel master

Posted on by David
As a native Belgian and as the man who launched mussel aquaculture on Prince Edward Island (see post), Joel Van Den Bremt has eaten his share of mussels over the years. When I asked him how he preferred to cook them, he thought a bit and told me, “steamed, but with the vegetables soft enough to eat. I like the vegetables, too.” I agree with him. Some diners will pass the mussels to someone else at the table and just concentrate on the mussel-flavored broth. I prefer the three-bowl plan: one for the mussels, one of the spent shells, and a third for broth and vegetables. Although you can steam mussels in a dry pan, relying on their own juices, many people add raw vegetables...Read More

PEI folks give new meaning to foodies

Posted on by David
I can't say I've ever see an island where so many people make or gather or process wonderful food. Between judging duties at the International Shellfish Festival I had the chance yesterday to drive around the island a bit, heading up to the north shore to see a mussel processing operation (more on that later on), pay a visit to a potato farm, catch a picnic in the fields, and visit Raspberry Point oysters. That's Scott Linkletter at the top of this post, hauling a cage of oysters to show how they're grown using an Australian system of posts driven into the soft bottom of shallow waters. The cages are suspended on lines that hang on the posts. Every few days he and his staff...Read More

Fishermen feed the world (especially on PEI)

Posted on by David
I met one of my heroes yesterday at the PEI International Shellfish Festival. I say “hero” even though I had never known his name until I met him, but Jozef Van Den Bremt changed the way a lot of us eat. A Belgian immigrant who wanted to find a way to contribute to his adopted country and his new home province of Prince Edward Island, he set out in the 1970s to figure out how to grow blue mussels. It's not that mussels were uncommon. They cling to every rock and pier in the North Atlantic–and every one of those wild mussels is full of grit in its flesh. To get sweet, juicy and grit-free mussels, you need to cultivate them on a substrate where...Read More

Tasty start to PEI International Shellfish Festival

Posted on by David
Mussels, oysters, or lobster? It's hard to choose among them on Prince Edward Island, the small Canadian province with the massive shellfish harvest. This year I'm getting my fill of all of them as a judge of Garland Canada International Chef Challenge. But before the competitions got started on Friday the 13th, I joined 500 other diners for the Feast and Frolic kickoff dinner at the Charlottetown Festival Grounds. Food Network Canada star (and Islander) chef Michael Smith played emcee, and the students of the Culinary Institute of Canada did the cooking. It was an auspicious beginning. The moderately deconstructed lobster chowder (above) consisted of a celeriac broth with foraged sea asparagus and green swoops of pureed lovage. A butter-poached claw and half-tail of PEI...Read More

Watermelon gazpacho around the world

Posted on by Pat and David
It's finally watermelon season in our part of the world, which gives us an excuse to resurrect a recipe we received too late to try last fall. It was for a fantastic watermelon gazpacho we ate at Miradoro at Tinhorn Creek Vineyards in the Okanagan Valley wine region of British Columbia. During this summer's research for the Frommer's Easy Guide to Madrid & Barcelona, we were surprised to find watermelon gazpacho on almost all the best menus in both cities. So now that we're home writing and local icebox watermelons are at the farmers' markets, we tried the Miradoro recipe from executive chef Jeff Van Geest. It is terrific. Here it is, tweaked for our small watermelons. (It tastes just as good without the incredible...Read More

Sea salt from Costa Brava brings home tastes of Spain

Posted on by Pat and David
When we shop for groceries overseas, we like to bring home salt. We never realized how acrid American table salt can be (and how bland kosher salt is) until we started using salt from other places. It's obvious that gray sea salt from the flats of Brittany or Normandy would have a distinct flavor, and we often use such salts for cooking. But our favorite, hands down, is simple supermarket sea salt from Catalunya, specifically the Sal Costa brand, which sells for less than two euros a kilo. Unfortunately, Spain has succumbed to the American penchant for adulterating food by putting in “healthy” additives, so the finely ground Sal Costa sea salt for table use has added fluoride. Like the iodine in American salt, the...Read More

Where to eat in Barcelona: Mercat Princesa

Posted on by Pat and David
Tucked into an out-of-the-way corner of El Born in Barcelona, Mercat Princesa {www.mercatprincesa.com) is the food court to end all food courts. Sixteen small vendors have transformed a nondescript medieval building into a welcoming space with great food at bargain prices. The building dates from the 14th century, and its courtyard has been glassed over to create a central dining space. Just 16 seats ring the area, though plans are afoot to expand into the basement for another 40. We'd been looking at and eating in restaurants all over Barcelona as we researched Frommer's Easy Guide to Madrid & Barcelona, due out in November. And apart from the city food markets like La Boqueria and Mercat Santa Caterina, we hadn't found anything like this little...Read More

Tortilla española at both ends of the day

Posted on by David
Few dishes are as versatile as the potato omelet served in Spain. Consisting of little but eggs, potato, onion, and olive oil, it is a recipe passed down in the genes of Spanish cooks. That every one tastes different is a mystery. This morning, as we set out researching the Barcelona chapter for Frommer's Easy Guide to Madrid and Barcelona, we decided to have breakfast the La Boqueria – technically Mercat Sant Josep, but only called that by city bureaucrats. It is the jewel of Barcelona's three dozen local food markets. All the way in the back, where the market comes out on Carrer Jerusalem, is La Gardunya (C/ Jerusalem, 18, tel: 93-302-43-23), one of the oldest and most venerable of the market restaurants. Contrary...Read More

Portugal: wines from the edge of Europe

Posted on by David
Having just spent a week popping around some of the wine regions of Portugal, I'm struck again at what good value modern Portuguese wines offer and, with the exception of port, how little known they are in the U.S. As noted in my last post (see below) even the port world is trying to catch up with contemporary drinkers, emphasizing cocktails with white port and (I think) somewhat less successful rosé port. Vinho verde is another category of Portuguese wine that a few Americans know. Certainly the low-alcohol, often bracingly acidic wines of the north coastal region are a perfect fit with summer dining. I stopped at historic Quinta da Aveleda (above), where the venerable low-end Casal Garcia brand with its blue and white lace...Read More

Symington shows how port can relax

Posted on by David
The fourth generation of the Symington clan that came to Portugal in 1882, Dominic Symington is one of a passel of cousins who run the wide-ranging port empire that includes Cockburn's, Warre's, Dow's, and Graham's, along with Quinto do Vesúvio and Altano table wines. When a group of us touring wine estates in the Douro Valley stopped in Pinhao to see the amazing tile murals at the train station (like the one above), Symington offered to pick us up for lunch – by boat. We met him at the town dock, where one of his daughters and a friend were helping him dock his small speedboat. “It's much faster than driving on the road,” he shrugged, as we sped a half hour upriver to the...Read More