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Perfecting pizza, one ball of dough at a time

Perfecting pizza, one ball of dough at a time

Posted on by Pat and David
Rosario Del Nero bites into a slice of pizza and savors it for a moment. “It's not Neapolitan, it's not Roman,” he says. “It's rustic, provincial Italian pizza. It's not as wet as Neapolitan, which is what most people have, or as thick as Roman.” He is not even considering the toppings. Del Nero focuses on the dough that cooks up into the crust. It must be just so. “Flour, water, yeast—it's simple,” he says. “But the secret ingredient is time. You cannot rush the yeast.” He pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil and draws a graph. “X is quality,” he explains. “Y is time.” He draws a curve that peaks at about 40 hours. “Anywhere between 36 and 48 hours of...Read More

Kitchen garden at Chatham Bars Inn is really a farm

Posted on by Pat and David
Chatham Bars Inn stays Cape Cod's gastronomic top dog because it grows its own food in Brewster on the north side of the Cape. The entire operation covers eight acres. Crops grow on four acres, with about a third of the crops in massive hothouses. “It's tricky to grow on Cape Cod,” says farm manager Josh Schiff. “The weather is unpredictable and the soil is poor.” As a result, the farm grows some of its most temperature-sensitive crops inside greenhouses, including a forest of tomatoes that fruit from May into December. “We start everything from seed,” Schiff explains.“We grow tomatoes and lettuce in compost with hydroponic irrigation.” More sprawling crops, such as cucumber, summer and winter squashes, and pumpkins spread across plowed fields. The farm...Read More

Home cooking rules at Highway Inn

Posted on by Pat
Monica Toguchi has to smile when diners at Highway Inn take one bite of their beef stew, lomi salmon or kalua pork and cabbage and ask—only half in jest— “is my mom standing in the kitchen?” Toguchi's grandparents Seiichi and Nancy opened the first Highway Inn in 1947 and “we've tried to preserve their recipes,” she says. “My focus is on serving local people—from workers in the neighborhood to governors, congressmen, and presidents of banks. You leave your pretenses at the door.” No one, it seems can resist chef Mike Kealoha's secret-recipe smoked meat or the lau lau of pork shoulder and salted butterfish placed on a bed of luau leaves and then wrapped tightly in ti leaves and steamed for two hours. “Hawaiian food...Read More

Irish whiskey tells the country’s tale

Posted on by Pat and David
Judging by the job posting at Teeling's Whiskey, the first new Dublin distillery in 125 years is finally getting ready to open its visitors center. The job? They're looking for fluent English speakers with at least one other language to give tours. The center, located on Newmarket Square in the Liberties section of Dublin (that's Dublin 8 for those who understand the city's postal codes), will be open daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Exactly when it first opens for business is still unannounced. Meantime, Dublin hardly lacks for whiskey attractions, some of which we outlined today in a story in the Boston Globe travel section, "Even its whiskey tells an Irish tale". The story includes the new Irish Whiskey Museum (inaugurated in January) at...Read More

Dublin gastropub’s inspired sweet potato soup

Posted on by Pat and David
Pubs have always had some kind of grub to sop up the suds, but pubs all over Ireland began to take the quality of their kitchens seriously about 10 years ago. The turn toward better food was a matter of survival. Pubs lost a slew of customers after March 29, 2004, when Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace — including restaurants, bars, and pubs. Once a few pubs introduced quality food with strong Irish roots, it became clear that the gastropub concept was the way to win new customers. Two years ago, the Restaurant Association of Ireland began giving out awards for best gastropubs, and in the two competitions since then, one of the top contenders in...Read More

Traditional Norteño barbacoa at Casa Hernán

Posted on by Pat and David
As we suggested in the La Gloria post that started this San Antonio series back in June, chef Johnny Hernandez has been helping San Antonio reclaim the Mexican side of its culinary heritage. Easy-going venues like La Gloria and The Frutería focus on the simplest of Mexican food — street food, really — but at his special events venue Casa Hernán, Johnny gets into some of the more complex traditions. [caption id="attachment_2542" align="alignleft" width="350"] Brunch at Casa Hernán[/caption] Hernandez does a grand Sunday brunch about once a month at Casa Hernán, sometimes featuring barbacoa in the South Texas/northern Mexican tradition. In some parts of interior Mexico, cooks will roast an entire animal in a pit, usually a lamb. In northern Mexico, barbacoa usually signifies a...Read More

What a great thing to do with an egg!

Posted on by Pat and David
We've been lucky enough to visit Sevilla's Taberna del Alabardero every few years over the last few decades, but it's possible that our most recent meal was the best yet—even though it was off the modest bistrot menu instead of from the haute cuisine fine-dining menu. Now with sites in Madrid and in Washington, D.C., Taberna del Alabardero began as a social-work program launched by a priest to teach marketable skills to boys from the streets. It's evolved into one of the top hospitality schools in Spain. The original location in Sevilla near the bullring is the laboratory where all that hospitality training is put into practice. The townhouse mansion has fine dining rooms upstairs with a menu that would have made Escoffier smile. (The...Read More
Pimento Cheese for holiday South in your mouth

Pimento Cheese for holiday South in your mouth

Posted on by Pat
Chef Matthew Bell hails from Montana, but after about a decade in the South, he felt confident to head the kitchen at South on Main restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas. It's a collaboration with the Oxford American, the magazine that chronicles the literary and cultural life of the South and is often called the ''New Yorker of the South.'' ''We are taking our cue from the magazine and keying in on the cuisine from all regions,'' Bell told a gathering of writers who previewed the restaurant and performance place while it was still under construction. ''Arkansas cuisine is a microcosm of the whole South with influence from the Ozarks and the Smokies,'' he said. ''We have a long growing season and close access to the...Read More

An Istanbul take on mideastern muhamarra

Posted on by Pat and David
One pleasure of dining in Istanbul was getting reacquainted with muhamarra, the walnut and pomegranate spread found all around the Middle and Near East. We buy it at home from Samira's Homemade in Belmont, where Lebanon-born Samira Hamdoun fashions all sort of tasty spreads. But we found it on every mezze tray in Istanbul, and decided we had to learn to make it for ourselves. Fortunately, our friend Elif Aydar of the Marti hotel group gave us her own recipe. It was a bit of a challenge to adapt, since we can't pop into the grocery store for red pepper paste or sour pomegranate condiment. Moreover, colloquial kitchen measurements differ between Turkey and the U.S. and the breads have different textures. But with a little...Read More

Recapturing a great flavor of New Hampshire

Posted on by Pat and David
Our latest book, Food Lovers' Guide to Vermont & New Hampshire (Globe Pequot Press), just arrived two days ago and it brought back fond memories of the research. One of our favorite meals was at the Bedford Village Inn, when Benjamin Knack, fresh from a season on Hell's Kitchen, had just take over the dining program for this romantic destination property. It so happens that Ben makes a killer gnocchi, which he claimed was so simple that even his then 4-year-old daughter could do it. There are a couple of secrets to getting just the right texture. The potatoes should be cooked so they “squeak like Styrofoam when you squeeze them,” he says. And they should be pushed quickly through the sieve so the potato...Read More