Kakigori -Ice For All Year Round

We may be on the cusp of fall but pastry chefs are turning out mounds of delicious ice for dessert. Kakigori or Japanese shaved ice is hot right now as American chefs are adding it to their dessert menus, It's a different take on a frozen treat but just as satisfying and delicious.

Tejal Rao, a regular contributor to the Wednesday New York Times Food section wrote about this trend yesterday,Kakigori is different than Italian ice in the respect that it's fluffy and light as opposed to dense and packed. However like Italian ice, it was once reserved for the noblity and the ice brought down from the mountains,specifically from frozen lakes. It began during the Heian period, from the Eighth Century to the Twelfth. Now every Japanese family has a kakigori machine according to Norie Uematsu, a pastry chef at the Cha-an Teahouse in the East Village. She, herself, makes it, all year round , Kakigori is more similar to the Hawaiian shaved ice than to Sno-Cones (although all three are relatively similar) The difference is the texture Kakigori and to a lesser extent, shaved ice has a fluffy melt in your mouth texture. Snow cone ice is gravelly and pebbly, There's a definite  crunch to it.because of it's texture, Snow -Cones have all the flavor at the bottom of the paper cone.Shaved ice hold the syrup so every spoonful is highly flavorful.Depending on where you are, shaved ice is more prevalent, being sold at roadside stands and trucks. Snow Cones are usually sold at carnivals , state fairs and oceanfront boardwalks. Home chefs can buy kakigori or shaved ice machines and serve the treat year round.

For those thinking about buying a shaved ice machine, try to emulate the Japanese masters of this dessert/treat. You could buy different flavored syrups or you could alp it up. Yoojin Chung, the general manager at Stonemill Matcha in San Francisco serves the traditional ujikinoki , with green tea or matcha flavoring with a topping of red bean paste.Homemade coffee jelly(!) and soft mochi, soft Japanese rice cake top it..Cha-an Teahouse has been serving this kind as well as other flavors. Chef Uematsu developed  a white peach flavor , wrought from poached peaches and other fruit and decorated with house made peach gummies cut into star and heart shapes..Marc Johnson, chef de cuisine at David Chang's  Los Angeles based Majordomo used citrus, namely blood orange and grapefruit pieces layered with the ice.Now he's putting a Mexican spin on it creating a frosty version of horchata.Rice pudding is put at the bottom of the bowl, followed by coffee syrup and a strong brew made with horchata a ground milk like beverage made with tiger nuts. He hid pockets of caramelized sweetened milk and whipped cream. This was similar to the kakigori Ms, Rao tasted at the cafe Kuriya Kashi Korogi at the University of Tokyo The ice had fresh soy milk and sweetened condensed milk layered with whipped cream. There were stripes of red bean paste and topped with a sweet and salty puree of fresh edamame.

Kakigori is definitely the rising star of the American dessert scene. It elevates shaved ice to new levels, with it's unique flavors and toppings, This ice will be hot all year round.

The Rise Of Ranch Dressing

Ranch dressing has become an American classic , much like burgers and fries, or apple pie. Except unlike those it's everywhere - from our veggies to pizza - yes - pizza. This simple dip has not only taken over our kitchens but our lives as well. It's  as much a part of our culinary landscape as Thanksgiving turkey  or apple pie

Julia Moskin wrote about everyone's favorite dressing in today's New York Times Food section.Americans  love this uniquely American dressing.In fact in Europe ranch is simply known as American, that's how much it's entwined in our culture and identity.The reason for this lies in the dressings truly US' roots. It was first created in Alaska, by former plumber Steven Henson, a Nebraskan from Thayer Nebraska. He was on a construction crew and sometimes cooked for his fellow workers. In that part of the US, fresh ingredients such as dairy, herbs, garlic and onions were hard to come by. They had to come in powder form which served as the basis of ranch  dressing. by 1954, Mr Hensen and his wife , Gayle, had bought a ranch north of Santa Barbara California which they renamed Hidden Valley. There was a guest ranch house and a steak restaurant also on the property with the latter becoming more popular. The reason - a creamy , garlicky, spicy salad dressing. According to their son, Nolan,  diners were bringing mayo jars to be filled with it. Ranch dressing was being poured on everything, from steaks and veggies to salads. The senior Hensens created much easier to carry   envelopes of the dried ingredients to be mixed with buttermilk or mayonnaise at the diner's home The base for ranch is not a new idea. French onion dip is a precursor as is Mediterranean aioli and Middle Eastern toum.

It took until the 1980's for the dressing to become nationally known.It has spread eastward in the Seventies however it wasn't until 1986 when Doritos introduced Cool Ranch Doritos that ranch became a phenomena. Everyone loved the cool flavor and crunch and the chips opened the door for ranch to go from salad topper to dip. People were dipping french fries into it, chips and even using it on Buffalo wings replacing blue cheese dressing.As for the pizza and ranch marriage, it was Domino's Pizza who first used it on their wings. Consumers then realized it went well with their leftover pizza crusts.Before long the Millennials were dunking whole slices of the pie into it.There was resistance at first , but now Domino's and other pizza chains offer pies drizzled with it. Even upscale fancier places such as Emily's , owned by chef Marc Hyland and his wife , EMily offer ranch  topped pizza. Because of it's popularity - it was voted America's favorite dressing - other eateries are making their versions of it.Williamsburg Brooklyn's Samesa offers a Middle Eastern version made with labneh,a thick yogurt alongside chicken wings crusted with the zesty za'atar. Parcel 32 in Charleston, South Carolina has a cumin buttermilk aioli  while at Compere Lapin in New Orleans jerk roasted corn is served with ranch infused bread crumbs, thanks to chef Nina Compton's creativity.

We love ranch dressing. What's not to love?It's a mix of cool and spicy that goes well with everything. It definitely is the star of the American culinary scene.

Dog Food For Thought

Our fur babies are sometimes the last we think about when it comes to nutrition. Yet, their health and diet is just as important or even more so than ours. Luckily there's a new cookbook - yes cookbook for dog parents that can guide them to feeding their pups better. Use it and there's a guaranteed difference.

Dr. Judy Morgan, a vet, and her husband, Hue Grant, wrote this informative and interesting book. Yin And Yang: Nutrition For Dogs, (36 Paws Press) It's based on the Chinese belief of yin and yang. There are diets for humans based on these principles, in which certain conditions such as diabetes and  arthritis are lessened  thanks to eating fresh foods and herbs. What is great about this book is that it's chock full of tables and guides. There is a page on how much to feed your dog based on his or her body weight. Another plus is the complete list of toxins . from chocolate to raw salmon and trout. This page should be Xeroxed and taped on every dog parent's fridge. Dr. Morgan and Mr. Grant also have a page debunking popular myths regarding certain meat and veggies. Parents will also be surprised that their pooch's coloring figures in greatly in what foods to give . The second surprise is that the dog's tongue also factors into what to cook for him or her.Also where the breeds originated are also part of the dietary factor.. For example, Huskies, , Malamutes and Samoyeds need what's known as cooling food. while Chihuahuas and Chinese Crested must be fed warm foods  such as goats and chicken as their ancestors were fed.

Do you need to be a good cook to use this book? No. You should be a conscientious one. Some of the ingredients you can find in your local grocery store. Some may take a trip to the butcher's.There are dishes that require rabbit or venison meat. (No worry, Google where to buy them in your area and pages will pop up).The instructions are super easy .It's just mixing such ingredients as butternut squash and turkey with salmon and parsley , and then cooking it all together in a loaf pan.. There are also fancy ingredients like portabella mushrooms and sardines along with everyday ones such as celery and chicken gizzards. Are there dog treats? Of course! Dr Morgan does recommend giving fresh fruit and veggies. Most fruit like melon and bananas are OK along with carrots and celery which can be cut into bite sized nibbles. There is a recipe for dehydrated treats along with ginger cookies spiked with cinnamon. Pup parents  can even make a fruit cake for their fur kids,It's loaded with antioxidant rich cranberries and blueberries. There's even a recipe for the trendy kale chips that owners can steal for themselves.

Yin And Yang ,Nutrition For Dogs is the must have cookbook for all dog parents. Using it will  make your pooch  happy and healthy, with a constantly wagging tail. That alone is the reason to buy this book.

The book can be found at Amazon.com.

Greek Cuisine from Ancient To Modern

One of the oldest, established cuisines in the world is Greek. Its' recipes ,much like  Italian and Chinese, date back to antiquity and still have a lasting effect on 21st Century cooking. It is varied, reflecting its' relationship to the sea in the south and the Balkan Mountains in the north. The result is a cuisine, rich in flavor and ingredients.

The country's cuisine dates back 4,000 years.It's considered the forerunner of European cooking, as it spread its' culinary influence to ancient Rome The earliest dishes were fraught with frugality and was founded on the Mediterranean triad of wheat, olive oil and wine. Early diets were primarily vegetarian with meat rarely being eaten. It changed when Byzantine cuisine became prominent and offered tastier , spicier fare. Various cheeses  were introduced as were eggs. Omelets were a popular dish among the commoners. Nutmeg became a staple as did basil and lemon, the last two figure heavily in today's cuisine. Modern Green cuisine uses the most spices of any Mediterranean cuisine. Modern home chefs use everything from dill to oregano and mint. Dishes may also contain bay laurel along with garlic and onion.Northern Greeks use cinnamon, usually reserved for sweet dishes in many recipes calling for meat.  Fennel or anise is also used in some dishes too.

Modern Greeks and their Greek American counterparts enjoy spanokopita a savory, spinach and  cheese rich pie.As with many Hellenic dishes, the base is phylo dough , a thin flaky kind of bread made with only flour,water,salt and olive oil.Also made with the dough are the popular kotopita, chicken pie and chortopita, one made with various greens like dandelion and romaine lettuce. Gyros (pronounced heros which is where we get the word from).are another treat that the Greeks are known for and have joined the American cuisine landscape. It is shaved lamb or beef and served on a fluffy pita usually with tomatoes , onions and tzatzki sauce. The last is made with salted strained or diluted yogurt mixed with cucumbers,, garlic and olive oil. along with lemon juice and herbs.Everyone loves baklava, sweet syrup soaked layers of phyllo dough usually filled with ground walnuts.It was brought in through the Ottoman Empire and has variations throughout the Middle East and Balkans. Another toothsome treat is kouribiedes, the buttery almond cookies that are drenched in powdered sugar. These are pure heaven with a buttery, nutty flavor and are usually made at Christmastime or for baptisms.

Greek cuisine will endure for another thousand years. It is delicious, full of spices and flavors that have endured for centuries. It's is both modern and ancient.

Macedonian Cuisine An Interesting Mix

  Macedonian cuisine is an interesting blend of flavors and ingredients, celebrating the country's long and varied history.It has tongue searing peppers, tasty kabobs and citrus spiked pastries. It's a mix of of Slavic and Turkish,  celebrating the country's resources.

I visited the St Nikola's Macedonian Orthodox Church in Totowa, New Jersey for their annual feast. I was very curious about the food, wondering if it was similar to Greek (both countries are part of the Balkans) or was it similar to Slavic. It's sort of like both and not - being unique in its' own way. There's a lot of Mediterranean influences and, thanks to five hundred years under the Ottoman empire Turkish. Middle Eastern influences are obvious  as well. Red peppers figure hugely in it and the festival  featured them.. They were roasted and pleasantly slick with oil. The taste was mild at first them the heat hit -a fire that highlighted the pepper's natural sweetness.They also had stuffed peppers, both filled with beef and rice. There was also tavche gravche or baked beans.This is not the sweet Boston version, rife with brown sugar. Garlic and hot peppers - the mouth searing  vezeni - spike up the legume's bland flavor. The Turkish influence is strongly seen in their kabobs, There were pork and chicken .I tried the chicken.The meat was flavored with vegeta, a Macedonian spice mix of turmeric, garlic powder and dehydrated carrots. I suspect they also put this on their Macedonian burgers too.

The pastries strongly showed their Ottoman heritage. There was baklava, which was not as gooey as the Greek and Palestinian versions. The phyllo dough was crisp, even though it had been drenched in a honey syrup. It was filled with a light tasting ground walnut paste.I also sampled their walnut cake which has the delicate taste of orange. They looked dense, with a packed crumb but were not as heavy as they looked. The church bakers also had a kind of jelly doughnut, popular at street fairs and in homes along with ravanija. This is a dense, eggy cake ,sometimes made with semolina and coconut , but theirs had a thick vein of chocolate going through it. Homemade tolumba  -a kind of churro, was also on sale. These are ridged tubes, made with flour, eggs, butter, and sugar and deep fried, like the Southern Italian zeppoli and soaked in sherbet, a honey  syrup. The feast also sold mastica, the kicky liqueur made from the mastic tree and rakia - Macedonian moonshine, made with all sorts of fruits, from grapes to plums to peaches.


If you're in Totowa, stop in and visit St.Nikolo's annual feast.. The food is different, both fiery and delicate, savory with spices and sweet with honey. It's definitely worth trying.


St Nikola's Macedonian Orthodox Church,
55 Wentick Street,
Totowa, NJ ( right off Rte 80  - exit is the Union Boulevard exit)

Nourishing Help

Hurricane Florence has practically decimated the Carolinas. If you are there, know that everyone from around the country is praying and hoping for your best. If you're near the the area, and want to help.then donate food. It will be greatly appreciated.If you live far away, then consider bake sales to raise funds to help.

One of the biggest ways to help is donating money. Consider Harvest Hope Food Bank which is a regional organization that supplies food to the towns of Lexington, Columbia, Greenville and Florence , South Carolina. Their website allows you to donate meals affected by the crisis. To do so just select disaster relief when you fill out their online form. A mere ten dollars can feed fifty(!) people. Donate $100 and you;'ve fed a fraction of a town. (Remember to print out your receipt and keep it with your tax data. It is a considered a tax deduction)Also remember to donate to the American Humane Society as well. They give out food and water to those displaced animals , staying with their owners in shelters.Animal shelters taking in the lost and abandoned cats and dogs also need bags and cans of food. Stores like Pet Smart have set up tables where you donate money or pet food. If you are buying food, keep in mind to also donate puppy and kitten chow as well as specifically designed for for senior cats and dogs.

Even if you're several states away, you can help. It's still summer and you can easily help the kids set up a lemonade stand. Another money making idea is the classic bake sale. This can include several of their friends or classmates to offer a variety of different sweets and treats. Also instead of one day, think of a two day sale - again to garner more funds.Try to get local news to cover it, to bring awareness of those affected by the hurricane as well as bringing in more customers. Bigger groups such as houses of worship and civic groups can throw a sit down barbecue where guests can pay for an all you can eat hot dogs and hamburgers along with salads and other sides.Restaurant owners and chefs can also get involved in hurricane relief as they did with Hurricane Maria, last year. Some of New York's best chefs flew down to Puerto Rico and fed residents and volunteers for weeks on end,. Southern chefs with Carolingian roots can also come together and cook such Lowcountry classics as gumbo, Charleston Red Rice and Hoppin John,

Florence is a devastating superstorm. There are so many people and animals that need our help and food. Donate any way you can. Help them now.

A New Spin On Spinach

Spinach as been the main or secondary main ingredient in a lot of dishes. It adds color and flavor to omelets, spark to quiches and sparkles as the star of spinach pie. Now imagine it as a condiment. Cooked down to its' essence, it becomes a must have for meat and fish dishes.

Great chef and baker, Yotam Ottolenghi wrote about pkaila (or sometimes known as bkeila).It is a cooked down condiment that Tunisian Jews make.It's a variation of cholent,the cooked down beef stew  eaten by Ashkenazi Jews.It can be cooked with the leaves or Swiss chard. It's basically frying down spinach leaves in a generous quantity of olive oil. It cooks down to a greasy black paste, basically the essence of the plant.The paste is packed with flavor, a rich blend of spinach and olive oil. There are two methods of creating this. One is chopping fresh leaves and cooking them in a Dutch oven over a medium heat in a Dutch oven. Use a wooden spoon to stir it about. Start adding oil when the spinach is almost done and releasing steam. Continue to stir and add oil at regular intervals. Do this for about one hour or one hour and fifteen minutes. The spinach should be blackened but not burned. The quicker way is taking two pounds of drained frozen spinach and microwaving it with olive or even vegetable oil Use five spoonfuls and do this for three times after microwaving the leaves for fifteen minutes each time.Once completed , puree the spinach mixture in a food processor or blender until finely chopped. Store in jars , adding more olive oil before sealing.

Chef Ottolenghi pairs pkaila with halibut.It won't over whelm the fish but will definitely shine, Most Tunisian home chefs use the condiment to make tfina pkaila,a stew made with oxtails, and butter beans.The fish is cooked with chickpeas and the two are marinated in a spicy blend of cumin.cloves and coriander. Chef Ottolenghi also uses a mainstay of Middle Eastern cooking powdered Persian lime. You can buy it at any Middle Eastern grocery store or on Amazon. You can also make it by taking the dried fruit and roughly crush it with a side of a knife. It's then grinding the lime in a spice grinder. The fish filets and chickpeas are fried separately. They re then placed on the pkaila which has been zinged up with more dried Persian lime powder and cinnamon for sweetness and, cumin, cloves and Anaheim green peppers for zest. A lemon peel salsa is sprinkled over the finished dish for more tang. There is also another recipe,with fresh cooked spinach and cooling yogurt, along with the chickpeas and the spices and powdered Persian lime  that Chef Ottolenghi loves.

Try pkaila as a new way of having spinach. It is a great way to experience the leaves in a new and different way. It's an exciting and exotic spin on a classic ingredient.