Biscuits & Brioche

Culinary WebTV

I don't have cable. It's been several years since I've enjoyed a lazy weekday afternoon where I’ve gotten off of work, plopped down on the sofa, and immersed myself in hours upon hours of mind-numbing, yet highly informative, tele-vegetation. The day that I received my ridiculously high cable bill was indeed the last time I'd question "Well, of course I want to go to Paris. But what about The O.C.? Are we on the same season?"

So once I cut the cable cord, I had to find other things to occupy my time. Thus came the usual; writing, reading, spending more time with friends, hanging out in coffee shops, etc. Oh, and that etc. includes what became an ever-increasing obsession with the Internet. Yes, my friends, just 'cause you get rid of one vice doesn't mean there isn't one just as big, bright and shiny waiting for you right around the corner; though this one includes getting to talk to other humans (via a computer) and an 'in' to superb culinary (and other) research.

About two months ago, someone mentioned they wanted to launch something completely new and different. Wouldn't it be nice to watch videos online? Huh? Well, unfortunately I don't think this person had done much research or he would have known this had already been happening (and growing like mad) in the last few years. I, unfortunately, had to be the one to inform him of that, and since he has moved on to writing for a newspaper.

You can watch some superb (and not-so) videos on YouTube, LuluTV, VideoWebTown, GrindTV, and wwi has a list of international TV links. But to my friend, and to other readers, I'd like to offer a very short, but top choice, list of video sites with culinary content out there. Please feel free to offer more ideas. Always looking for a good Internet/TV fix. Happy culinary video 'vicing' and bon appetit!

Devour
Ifood
Sneaky Sunday
Cook Show
Taste
Crash Test Kitchen
Thai Food Tonight
Manjulas Kitchen
Tasty Food

GigaChef.com

When I was a little girl, I remember watching “Great Chefs of The World,” and wherever else they wanted to guide us, with my mom. While both national and international chefs immersed themselves in the preparation of their dishes artfully chopping and sauteing, the voice of Mary Lou Conroy soothed our delighted voyeuristic curiosity. Along with Mom’s education of what “foreign” ingredient was what, our fancy menu perusing, and my family’s natural inclusion on the plate of anything fresh from the farm, the joyous ritual of watching “Great Chefs…” prepared me for a culinary future I had no idea would even be available.

Since then, I’ve been more than fortunate to have met and worked with (outside of the kitchen) some of the world’s most talented chefs, and I now have a greater understanding of how much work, passion and time is put into running a kitchen. While I’ve been lucky enough to allow myself an occasional hour or two per day or week, depending on the chaos level, to get the latest lowdown on how to cook what, and where to find the freshest this and that, chefs don’t usually have the luxury of spending hours doing research. They need one place they can quickly jump to for everything.

Luckily the site GigaChef.com was just launched this month. While some other ‘professional’ chef sites offer a few recipes but focus more on entertainment news, GigaChef.com was created by culinary professionals who know exactly what chefs need and are looking for, so no time is wasted. Divided into seven easy-to-navigate categories (The Recipes – The Vendors – The Craft – The Trade – The Library – The Career – The Fat), it includes news and tips, recipes in large quantity, what to buy and where, ingredient vocab, a visual gallery, a message board, school and career assistance, restaurant HR help, and that doesn’t even explain the half of it. Constantly adding more indispensable information to the site, GigaChef.com and its team have an incredible future ahead of them. And chefs and other culinary professionals now have one direct source to which they can turn. Great job, GigaChef.com! I look forward to seeing you grow. And the flaming burner on the main page? Exquisitely scrumptious!

Oh Where Oh Where Has My Coffea Gone?

What’s your coffee poison? Starbucks? Dunkin’ Donuts? Community? Stumptown? Are you traditional black insisting that anything more would taint the true java experience? Or is it the triple venti nonfat half-caff soy latte with a caramel swirl that you crave? Do you opt for your traditional cuppa Joe with free refills by waitress Molly at the local diner? Or are you partial to the Fair or Direct Trade at the oh-so existential artists’ café no matter if it is across town and takes you three bus changes to get there? Has the caffeine gone to our brains? Have we been bitten by the Seattle bug? Oh, wait, wasn’t there some history having to do with Italy or something?
One of our local coffee houses, Cafe Bonjour (formerly Mello Joy) is closing this week. The interior was not particularly exciting. The coffee was not the most awakening. There wasn’t even any latte art to ooh and ahh about. But it was the only cafe in Downtown Lafayette, and our essential meeting spot. Jack’s nearby closed a few months ago. They sold hot dogs and coffee from Oregon. It was good, but it was a drive-thru. A new Art Cafe opened recently, but it’s bright and the owner claims to serve “fresh” food (“just take it out of the freezer and pop it in the microwave” fresh). I don’t find it inviting, which is probably why I’ve never been there. So, I should probably shut up about it now since I’ve never even had the coffee.
I am living in a small city drenched in tradition. Fantastic tradition. Tradition that I’ve never found anywhere else, and that I crave when I’m away. Tradition that I beg my out-of-state friends to travel to and experience, promising them they will never be disappointed. But I live within walking distance to downtown. And while I have taken mainly to making my own coffee (black) in my Italian Moka Express in the mornings, I still yearn for meet-ups at the local coffee shop. I revel in reading the NY Times Dining Out section on Wednesday mornings before work while sipping on an iced mocha and greeting friends coming and going. And while our current downtown may manage to exist without a bounty of boutiques and funky shops, how can it without a coffee shop? I think that just may be sacrilegious. I could rant about a few other changes going down in the center of town that I don’t necessarily agree with, but let’s keep it about coffee today.
There are plenty of ‘perfect’ spots to open up a new coffee shop nearby (the one closing will become office spaces – eek), and I’ve been enjoying a bevy of revolution-wreaking conversations with friends about what ‘our’ new cafe should look, smell, and taste like. This, in turn, has prompted me to do a little research, realizing that I do love coffee, but what do I really know about it?
In the 11th century, coffee (from a genus of plants known as Coffea) made its way from Africa, up through West Asia, and spread throughout the Mediterranean. Once folks realized it wasn’t a pagan elixir, the trend caught on, and finally made its way up to England (thanks to the British and Dutch East India Companies), back down to France over to Austria, and then eventually to the Americas. France was our main link to coffee due to colonization and coffee plantations.
Coffee seems to first have landed in the U.S. around the 1600s, and prospered mainly in the Italian-American immigrant communities of New York, Boston, and San Francisco. But it soon spread throughout the country as a cowboy campfire and diner counter staple. In the 50s and 60s coffeehouses offered more than just coffee, however. Folk musicians and philosophers reigned finding their niche where they might debate the world’s future as well as their own existence.
San Francisco was well known for its superb coffee; however in 1971, Starbucks opened its first store, which eventually led to Seattle being known as THE home of coffee in the U.S. Many a small coffee shop has opened up since then offering everything from traditional drip to masterpiece brews and artwork, and can also include anything from cupcakes to sake.
So here we find ourselves today shaking up to our eyeballs in caffeine, foam and Splenda (ew), with coffee as a natural part of our day... what gets us started... what keeps us going... and what feeds our souls. So what do without a place to gather together and experience that?
It’s all up to you, where you find your niche… your second home. While either grabbing a quick espresso at a counter or spending all day with your laptop or a good book, there is a cafe out there for everyone… it just might not be in your town... or could be found in the comfort of your very own living room.

I’ve listed some helpful and interesting sites on coffee for your perusal. I wish you good java hunting and bon appétit!

P.S. Thanks, Tony, for all your lovely wisdom. It’s definitely being put to good use.

Coffee Articles - NY Times
History of Coffee - Wikipedia
National Coffee Association of the U.S.
History of the Coffee House - Wikipedia
Northwest Shade Coffee Campaign
Cowboy Coffee
History of the Diner - Wikipedia
Coffee Dictionary
Espresso Glossary and Lingo
Buying Coffee Equipment - About.com
Seattle Coffee Work
Latte Art Photos
Latte Art Techniques

Slow Down... Taste Life.

Today, a room full of locals and tourists were blessed with the reminder that food must be tasted… not simply swallowed. Sometimes we just need to remember the lil bits of life, those small details that should seem so obvious.

Jacques Puisais, renowned master of wine, gastronomy and taste made much more than an appearance at NuNu’s Cafe in Arnaudville this afternoon. While the all-female group Bonsoir, Catin cranked out some slammin’ Cajun tunes, and guests sat engulfing an astounding grits brunch bar featuring grillades, gumbo, rice, crawfish etouffee, sausage, and a bloody Mary bar, Monsieur Puisais sat in a back corner tasting, sipping, and note taking to prepare for his food and wine pairing (and appreciating) to follow.

Approximately two and a half hours later, Jacques Puisais (Vice President of l'Institut du Gout), accompanied by his interpreter Debbie de la Houssaye from the French Consulate in New Orleans, unleashed a philosophical and poetic explanation of how to taste. Describing it as a theatre, where the food is the wet thespian awaiting the union with his dry love (wine + food), noting what to look for when pairing the two, as well as that food should not be swallowed without first tasting it. Your food has character, or rather is a character. And it would just go down disappointed if you swallowed it without even acknowledging its existence and place in this world. Eat and drink with feeling. See it. Smell it. Taste it. Take pleasure in it. Swallow it. Be happy.

These days, we just rush through life without taking notice of what’s around us, what we’re putting into our bodies… the instruments that keep us going through life. My grandmother recently reminded me to slow down, noting that a heart attack knows no age. Point taken, Nana… and Jacques Puisais.

Slow down. Enjoy it. And… Bon Appetit.

June 19: "The Art of Tasting" at Restaurant Melange, Ritz-Carlton

Sweet & Savory... Genius!

A few years ago, I went to a chocolate buffet in Paris right before summer. It was the last time the chef and avid chocolate fan, Hughes Pouget, would host it since the new summer season would be calling for fruit.  Chocolate, after all, was for the cooler months. The idea I extracted from that was “well, of course that makes sense. After all, summer was hot, and the chocolate would melt.” I just accepted it as fact, and moved on.

But wait just a minute. I can understand cooking with chocolate might be a little messy during the warmer months, but what about all of us chocolate fanatics out there? If everyone’s heading to berry land, where do we go for a little cacao fix? Well, lucky for us, not all chocolatiers must give in to monsieur soleil.

I remember a couple of years ago hosting a chocolate tour during the Fancy Food Show in NYC. What a blast it was going from shop to shop sampling sweets and savories along the way. One of my favorite spots was Vosges because of their variations and marriage of sweet and savory. My latest trip brought me right back to the SoHo confectionary connection for take-home gifts plus a tiny treat for me. The Chicago-based organic manufacturing facility specializes in gourmet chocolates for the ultimate cacao adventure. Mixing hickory smoked almonds and grey sea salt with 41% cacao deep milk chocolate in the Barcelona Bar is at first unusual. But as you allow the chocolate to melt on your tongue, you are soothingly transported to the Mediterranean. Who hasn’t enjoyed chocolate-chip pancakes with buttery syrup and a side of crispy bacon? Well owner/chocolatier Katrina Markoff employs her childhood breakfast experience into Mo’s Bacon Bar with applewood-smoked bacon, Alder wood-smoked salt, and deep milk chocolate. An interesting combination that I couldn’t wait to sample, this delight did not disappoint. Shop online or in your nearest Whole Foods.

Also combining sweet and savory is California’s My Chocolate Affair. Owners Jamie Carota and Elizabeth Overton present their signature treat… chocolate-caramel dipped pretzels. If anyone’s ever tried buttery salted caramels or chocolate covered potato chips, then you’re in for a very pleasant experience. “Crispy sourdough pretzels dipped in buttery caramel, creamy milk chocolate and adorned with rich white chocolate,” they won’t stay around for long. Sharing them with a couple of colleagues, I realized I was creating chaos when the next day they came around begging for more. Sorry, all gone. The look on their faces was heartbreaking. Why can’t we go right out and buy some? Well, because boys & girls, we must realize they are gourmet, fun, and a real treat. So, luckily we can’t scarf them down like mere beer snacks at a moment’s notice. Fine foods are meant to be savored slowly. Well, if you don’t have the option of jumping on your private jet for a chocolate shopping spree, and can’t wait until your next vacation to California, New York, or Chicago, shop online. Definitely worth it.

My Chocolate Affair also offers gift baskets for birthdays, corporate functions, weddings and other special occasions, and includes beautiful packaging catered to each event.

Sweet & savory is genius.  Bon appétit!