BJ's Brewhouse Fun And Food

BJ's Brewhouse is one of those places where you have to take friends. It offers a wide variety of different dishes and best of all - ales. The chain lives up to its' name , for sure , although it has many other offerings too.

I finally got to visit the one in my area yesterday and was not disappointed. I was always near it in the Teterboro's restaurant row even parked in BJ's parking lot when the other chains had no parking. The eatery had been on my radar for almost two years and I was excited to go. Yes, it is a chain, started in 1978 but unlike other chain restaurants it offers a wide variety of different house made beers.  The most intriguing right now is their pumpkin ale (does it have the same spices as the lattes?) and Piranha ale. I'm not a beer drinker by any means , but my next visit will probably include a mug of the last, - a citrussy tasting brew. They even have hard cider - wild berry, made with raspberries and blackberries instead of apples. That's another quaff on my radar.The chain has won several awards for its' brews , including the North American Beer Awards. Another plus is their home made sodas  that include root beer and black cherry. There is wine too and even champagne for those who want to celebrate a special occasion. I like their iced teas and the fact diners receive free refills even when the first large glass is only half drunk.

The menu itself is mind blowing, being more of a thick book with so many different choices. There is everything from handcrafted burgers to  lighter fare called Enlightened Favorites. BJ's Brewhouse is also famed for their pizzas which come in four(!) different sizes from a mini six inch to the largest fourteen inch. There's even a lower calorie  flatbread version with the same sort of topping choices. I went for the lighter fare . First it was the avocado egg rolls with huge chunks of avocados. This is a meal in itself and should be shared. I loved the tangy dipping sauce which went well with the avocado , along with the shredded carrots and cream cheese with it. Then it was the Englightened Favorites, Enlightened Lemon Thyme Chicken. I loved this dish !!!! It is two herb roasted chicken breasts rubbed with Big Poppa's Desert Gold Rub  - a mix of lemon, honey and a host of spices such as garlic and paprika. What made it for me are the roasted Brussels sprouts which were many. They made the dish. There were also red peppers, onions and tomatoes over arborio rice. It was so huge that I had to take it home for a second meal. I would have liked to have had BJ's signature dessert the pizzookie, a giant cookie,brownie or monkey bread  topped with ice cream, syrup and whipped cream.

Try BJ's Brewhouse not just for the house brewed ales but for the delicious dishes.There are so many to choose from. You won't have just one favorite - you'll have several as you become addicted to this fun restaurant.

Celebrating Coleridge

Today is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's birthday and mine, I've always felt that the first, one of the greatest poets in the English language should be celebrated . This writer - not too much.

Birthdays now are hollow to me. No matter how much I celebrate, with all the dinners out and cake in , it's not the same without my Mom. I miss those days when she would make my favorite  - risotto Milanese , the creamy Milanese dish of arborio rice, mushrooms and, of course, saffron. Nothing will ever come as close as her delicious pot of sunny yellow rice. Imagine molten sunshine and that's what the dish looked like. One day I will make it. My cooking and baking is getting to be as good as hers - I am trying - not to brag. It's a tough legacy to handle and surpass.Yet  I am trying, Some of it is coming out good and I can imagine her saying "What a good cooker" a phrase  she took her her aunt, my great aunt who knew a  thing or two about Piedmontese cooking and was an excellent cook herself.  However back to Coleridge who , unlike his latter Romantic counterparts, Byron, Shelley, and Keats never went to Italy. They probably dined on risotto, Mr Coleridge may have had only a rice pudding. the closest he'd ever get to anything with rice.

 He did come from Devon which had excellent dairy and beef along with lamb and mutton.Maybe soon I'll celebrate STC with a proper cream tea. There's clotted cream to be had, this I can easily get from either Amazon or Myers of Keswick in New York's West Village. It's a thick cream created by heating full cream cow's milk over a hot water and steam bath. The result is a lovely, thick, yogurt , (its' origins may have come from yogurt, the Phoenicians ate during their trips to ancient Britain. They traded goods for tin mined from Cornish mines).It's mild tasting and delicious on hot English muffins and then topped with any jam or jelly. A variation of it is "Thunder and Lightening" , bread topped with it and a layer of honey. I'd go with the jam, preferably blackberry or the cherry one I bought from Cherry Republic, in Traverse City Michigan. That to me is the perfect way to celebrate this famed Devon author.

Another birthday for Coleridge and myself. I've celebrated him for years, with cream teas and clotted cream. It's time to bring out the last again and slather it on a hot , toasty English muffin.

Deep Flavors - A Deep Love of Food

When a food lover writes about  cookbook, you know it's going to be full of goof advice and good recipes. That's the case with of Deep Flavors: A Celebration of Recipes For Foodies In A Kosher Style (Inspire On Purpose Publishing 2019). it was written not by a chef, or a restaurant owner but by a lawyer! His passion for good food and cooking were the impetus for this  must have collection.

Kenneth M. Horwitz is a lawyer in Dallas, Texas. He has no formal culinary background however he did win the Texas State Fair Blue Ribbon for his spinach-mushroom lasagna.  Yet his love of fresh and natural ingredients plus learning how to cook from his mother and grandmother was all he needed to get into the kitchen with his wife, Bobbie. Her influence is strongly felt in the book too. I love this cookbook. It's not written in a lofty style.It's like your best friend, the foodie everyone goes to for help, is doling out all sorts of good advice. Every novice home chef should buy this book and read the first chapter entitled My Philosophy. It's how his ideas were formed about grocery shopping and cooking.Another aspect that I like is that there are some unusual chapters  such as Breads and Pickles. along with Dressings and Grains. Mr. Horwitz grew up in a kosher kitchen and keeps it on holidays so there is a chapter on traditional Jewish food from both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic branches . There is also a chapter on vegetarian non Jewish which features the award winning spinach-mushroom lasagna. Of course Mr. Horwitz includes chapters on the different meats and fish along with sides. Desserts are divided into sections on cakes, cookies and fruits/custards.

The recipes are amazing and I want to try every one of them. The one that stood out is the Savory French Toast, enhanced with dill. I can see making this and serving it with grilled tomatoes. Another stand out recipe is the matzo brie or fried matzo. Imagine making this and serving  with different veggies as a side. The aforementioned Ken's Blue Ribbon Mushroom -Spinach Lasagna is a tasty marriage of different mushrooms with fresh spinach , Marsala and ricotta. My vegetarian household would love this for a Thanksgiving meal . The mushroom mixture also figures in a pie with a homemade crust - his wife's Bobbie's creation. Even the sides could be vegan or vegetarian main dishes. The roasted cauliflower or cabbage  would be great solo or as a supporting dish for roast chicken. The same goes for the grilled veggies. The Indian style lentils is on my must cook short list. It's a spicy blend of the beans with the addition of Garam Masala and tikka masala. It would go well with warmed naan as a dinner on a cold night. There are meat dishes too, such as smoked brisket and a deconstructed turkey, the perfect Thanksgiving recipe for any holiday home chef. The desserts are all must makes. Pecan pie is one of my favorites and I am definitely baking Mr. Horwitz's for the upcoming holidays.Another one, perfect for holiday entertaining is the chocolate pinwheel cake, - a giant Swiss roll filled with creamy buttercream.Bobbie's Cold Chocolate Souffle is another dish  that can end a delicious meal with guests. The cookie recipes are drool worthy, especially the gingerbread one.

Deep Flavors : A Celebration For Foodies In A Kosher Style  is a must have for any kitchen library. It is full of good advice and good recipes. It will be your best  friend for cooking and baking help.

Into The Mix

Cake and cookie mixes can be time saving yet they really don't let home bakers get all too creative. However there's nothing wrong with adding to the mixes, spiking them up with flavor or color. It makes for fun baking and eating.

One of the easiest mixes to doctor are brownie ones.Yes, they're good on their own but they can be amped up. I recently did this with Duncan Hines Milk Chocolate Brownie mix. The mix does produce a delicious treat but I wanted something extra. Walnuts are the perfect nut for brownies, they go hand in hand.I added a small package of broken pieces or chips and they gave so much to the recipe.  You could add pecans or peanuts too if you wanted to. The Duncan Hines site has recipes for amaretto brownies along with ones spiked with ground red pepper. If you're adding this, experiment with various pinches of pepper. What you may think is not hot may be a four alarm fire for someone else. Cake mixes can also have an add in or two. Coffee granules can elevate any dark chocolate cake. A small dash of liquor  or even soaking a cake mix cake in rum. The last is the ultimate holiday cake, especially with a homemade hard sauce. Sprinkle cakes are still the cake of the moment. Just remember to add ONLY  quarter of a cup.  I used a full cup once and ended up with  two layers of unbaked disaster. Keep in mind that the sprinkles don't always have to be multicolored. Have all pink or all blue for reveal cakes. Use red and green for Christmas and orange ones in a chocolate cake for Halloween.

Cookie mixes can also be zinged up with all sorts of add ins. Over the years I've added mini chocolate chips to the Betty Crocker oatmeal cookie mix and red and green sprinkles to their sugar cookie mix. Any of these are fun add ins  - especially for a holiday tray or bake sale. M &M's are another great add in, whether they're the regular size or  the mini ones.One of the best additions is Hershey's Kisses to make Blossom cookies. They can be the traditional peanut butter ones or use a sugar cookie mix. Dust with cocoa powder after they're baked for an extra layer of flavor.If you're craving something healthier then think about tossing in some Raisins or Craisins - dried cranberries. They both add an old fashioned sweetness and color to any cookie, especially the spice and oatmeal ones. Nuts can also be a nice add in.  Put the nuts in a chopper first for a finer texture.Think pecans or walnuts to add more of a buttery flavor. Another fun idea is turning the cookies into sandwich ones.The filling is an easy mix of confectioner's sugar, vegetable shortening, butter and a few drops of vanilla extract. You could sub in cocoa powder for vanilla for a fudge-y kind of frosting.

Don't be afraid to add to any cake or cookie mix. Put your own spin on these. A half cup of sprinkles or raisins, a shot of brandy or red pepper will make these average ingredients your signature mark

Nonna Vision

Imagine having a nonna  -grandmother who can teach you everything about pasta making and then some. You can thanks to the You Tube Channel, Pasta Grannies. It's everything home chefs need to recreate good Italian home cooking.

Kim Severson wrote about this amazing channel and the person behind it in yesterday's New York Times Food section.Pasta Grannies is the brainchild of Vicky Bennison, a former British business person. She had always been interested in food , seeking out local specialties when she traveled to such places as Turkistan , Siberia and Kenya. Ms. Bennison soon was writing a series of food based travel guides and then a cookbook. The Pasta Grannies came about when she and her husband, Billy Macqueen, the children's TV producer behind Teletubbies, bought a house in The Marche region of Italy fifteen years ago.  Some local cherry wine makers invited her over to dinner of rabbit ravioli. The grandmother who made it had to be cajoled to come out the the kitchen. Then there was the pasta making lesson from another local nonna.Ms Bennison became obsessed with the importance of homemade pasta in an Italian household and the women who created it. Initially she had thought to write a cookbook about these home chefs and their recipes. However pasta making is very physical. Pictures were not going to cut it. Video was needed.

She first made one video a month, posting them on YouTube as a way to organize the work and to show publishers  that it was a worthy idea.It start as a hobby but then viewership expanded to 5,000 subscribers. Then the videos started to appear on Facebook and food sites. The catalyst was an article in a 2018 Business Insider which featured an article highlighting some of the rarer pastas. A video by Cesaria, a Sardinian nonna who made filindeu, a kind of woven pasta and lorighittas, braided pasta rings , garnered millions of page views. (Cesaria was nonplussed by this and laughed her head off at her newly found fame). The videos  caught the eye of YouTube executives and even green lit a documentary on the women for their Spotlight channel. The videos are informative and show pastas , from all over the Italian Republic, from Puglia in the south to Lombardy in the north.. It's not just pasta  being made from scratch but mouth watering sauces and fillings as well. Most anyone can make the recipes at home and they're varied thanks to the regions. The women are inspiring , with age - one has reached the century mark - not stopping them. They roll out sheets with ease, cut into neat little squares or strings with a flick of the wrist. Now there is a cookbook , Pasta Grannies  (Hardie Grant Publishers 2019).

Pasta Grannies or Nonnas are a must see. Vicky Bennison has created the perfect channel for pasta lovers and home chefs. It is full of good recipes and advice from talented nonnas  from all over Italy.

Environmentally Correct Shrimp

There's more scrutiny over a simple plate of shrimp than ever.There are questions about its' origins , and its' impact on the environment. what about overfarming and its' impact on other species? Most importantly what the right kind to eat and will it increase or decrease our carbon footprint on the planet.

Melissa Clark discussed these points in her article along with recipes in today's New York Times Food section.The author of the issues weekly A Good Appetite has unearthed some eye opening facts on American's favorite seafood. we eat more of it now than ever, with forty-nine per cent of families eating it in 2018. It used to be a luxury food, only being seen at weddings, usually next to caviar. Now it's affordable with some shrimp going for $5.97 a pound.The problem is that the popularity comes with a cost.Farmed shrimp, what most of us eat , originates from mostly from Southeast Asia, namely Vietnam. Workers are basically slave laborers harvesting disease ridden crustaceans from antibiotic swamps (!) amongst dead mangroves in some cases. Some of the shrimp also come from India and South America. There are facilities that do have transparency , don't misuse antibiotics and overcrowd their ponds. American shrimp farms are rare , with only one percent of all shrimp coming from the US. A new company Tru shrimp, out of Balaton Minnesota is working to improve water recirculating systems. That means no antibiotics in the water and more shrimp being raised here, not abroad. This will lessen our carbon footprint.

Then there is wild shrimp. It is fresh caught , a delicacy only available to those living along the coast. Ms. Clark went to Galveston, Texas , home to many shrimpers. She met with fisherman, Buddy Guidan, who has been shrimping for forty years. He is successful, with a fleet of forty boats, a retail store, Katie's seafood Market and a restaurant, Katie's seafood House. They shared boiled shrimp   - an entirely different eating experience. The meat has a firm, plump texture with a saline taste similar to lobster.It was like heaven to her,especially with the shrimp being dipped in melted butter. Unfortunately this may be a thing of the past. The number of wild shrimp is finite and fragile. Our appetite for it will not stop , meaning it could be on the endangered species list. We've over fished areas where they were rampant, off the coasts of  California, Maine, Washington and Oregon. There are few exceptions such as wild Alaskan spot prawns which are popular right now with West Coast chefs. Right now all the wild caught ones are from the Gulf of Mexico, and off the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia. Another problem is outfitting the shrimp nets to not include turtles. Keep in mind that wild shrimp can also be chemically treated too to preserve them. some boats have plate freezers which freeze the shrimp without any interference, yielding a much more delicious crustacean.

Knowing all this should we eat more shrimp? My advice is to cut down on it if you care about the environment and the species' future. Make it for a special meal with family and / or friends. Treat it as something rare.

A Quick Fall Remodel

Autumn is the time for any  kind of remodeling. Lord knows my kitchen needed it, with a thirty plus year old microwave table and an old broken dishwasher used as a pantry. It was definitely time for a quick upgrade.

 Thank heavens for Lowe's I was able to buy two cabinets that could be used for either a kitchen or laundry room. Each cost $160 each - not bad.

They were more or  less easy to assemble, with the biggest head ache being the handles.They fit perfectly in my postage stamp sized kitchen and hold most of my junk.

You can see it's roomy and one can hold a lot.

The other side is sheer mess but that will be straightened up. Honest.

What I love is that it can be customized. Right away I had to add matching hooks (that I bought at Target) for my many pot holders.

They are kind of like twins to the door and drawer handles.

Then there is the hook is on the side., again bought at Target.

My extension cord is multipurpose, being used for the microwave and toaster oven.

Sometimes all it takes is just a small addition to make a kitchen bright again. My new cabinets did just that. It's an easy fix - and one that will last a long time.