The best is to keep on hand a log of Laura Chenel goats cheese, a bottle of roasted pimenton (in olive oil–not vinegar), a bottle of picholine olives, a bunch of basil (or mint).  You will also need a fresh baguette.

To assemble cut the log of cheese into three pieces and place on a serving plate.  Cut the red peppers into stripes and put in three piles around the cheese; arrange olives and shredded basil between the piles of red pepper.  Pour over plenty of good quality olive oil and grind some black pepper over.  Serve with a basket of sliced French bread.

The idea is that the eater soaks the bread in the olive oil, and covers it with cheese, basil and olives. Do put out a little bowl for the olive pits.  Enjoy!

The Best of Tante Marie!

Although Tante Marie’s Cooking School in North Beach is closed, I am now teaching when asked in my home in lower Pacific Heights—where the proceeds go to Food Runners.  This winter I will be conducting six participation classes using old favourites from my 40-year career of teaching cooking.  This is a perfect opportunity for you to take the class or classes you have always wanted and/or to use that gift certificate you received years ago. 

The cost for the Series of six evening classes is $600, which is already discounted in case you miss a class or two.  The cost for individual classes is $125.   For gift certificates and individual classes, please call me at 415.885.1654.  There will be no more than 10 participants each evening.

Each night the group will prepare a dinner complete with appetizers, first course, main course, and dessert.  The topics, in order, are menues based on Eggs/Cheese; Pasta/Salads; Fish/Seafood; Chicken/Duck;  Pork/Lamb; and Vegetarian.  You are welcome to bring wine to share.  The Series starts  Wed,  Jan. 25th for six weeks. Sign up now!   Cooking with Tante Marie is fun!

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The amazing thing now, in the spring of 2016, is that rescuing excess food to help feed those in need is a hot topic—young people are holding conferences and developing apps; documentaries are being made; and its a popular media subject. In fact, in the last three months, I have been asked to speak at a half dozen conferences here in San Francisco on the subject. Here for you are some of the things I’ve learned.

There is no doubt that at least 40 percent of the food grown (and produced) in this country is discarded—and some estimates are as high as 50 percent. Of course, the farmer can’t pick and sell all his produce. Of course, the grocery store can’t put out bruised or blemished produce. And, of course, all the food purchased for the home is not always eaten. But, we as a country can do much better!

Let’s start with the FARM. It is said that 25 percent of California’s water goes to grow food that is wasted. Now, there is a movement to rescue what is called ugly fruit”” and secondary markets being created to market imperfect produce www.imperfectproduce.com. There are also companies processing products from unsalable fruit to make products like fruit juices.

What about the HOME? It is estimated that 20 percent of the food purchased for the home is discarded. John Oliver’s segment on Food Waste (July, 2015) is brilliant (YouTube). In it he shows a shopper in a parking lot dropping one-fifth of the food purchased and leaving it there. Also, you can check out my YouTube Video on how to cook up the tired old vegetables in your fridge to make a delicious soup www.tantemarie.com/recipes/soups.

We are in an amazing era where young parents are terrified of serving things like milk, eggs, and roast chicken after a sell -by date or a couple of days in the fridge. We are very grateful to David Chiu for proposing legislation in California this last Feb. setting standards for date labelling– specifically use-by dates. Until now, this has been totally up to the manufacturer. And, as I have said so many times before, don’t throw it out unless it smells. As our friend Robert Reid of SF Recology says Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and then Rot (compost).

Now for the GROCERY STORE? The best is for the grocery store to have a kitchen and a take-out counter. That way, old potatoes can be cooked and turned into potato salad. And, unsold rotisserie chicken can be made into chicken salad. The best is to rotate the raw ingredients and as all good cooks know, make something else with what is leftover. Great news is that in February of this year a law was passed in France barring supermarkets from discarding edible food—they must donate it.

So many times, when I talk about Food Runners, it is assumed that we pick up at RESTAURANTS in San Francisco. Actually, a well-run restaurant usually doesn’t have much waste. In San Francisco most restaurants cook to order and then order from their purveyor only what they need. Of course, they cannot retrieve and reuse what has been served to people at the table and there will always be lots of compostibles in the kitchen, such as coffee grounds; but a good chef knows how to turn the vegetable trimmings into stock or the bits fish and shellfish into a fisherman’s stew.

This brings us to HOTELS and CATERERS? There are a lot of hotels and some restaurants in our city catering to people coming here for conventions and corporate meetings. Estimates of number of people attending an event can be way off. Food Runners can pick up all those uneaten box lunches. Good chefs at good hotels know how to reuse food that has not been served to customers—often it is properly stored and turned into staff meals. It is important to note, however, that ALL food served at a buffet whether it is in a hotel, corporate cafeteria, or an event venue can be donated. The new trend of delivered meals to offices and homes has also resulted in hundreds of ready-to-eat meals delivered through Food Runners.

With all this attention on Food Waste, Food Rescue, and Food Recovery, you can help by spreading the word about our free service to any business in San Francisco to pick up their excess food. All they have to do it package, chill it, if necessary, and contact Food Runners at www.foodrunners.org. We will have someone there within a couple of hours to take it to where it can best be used. Is there a good reason not to donate? Not as long as there are hungry people in our city. What about Liability ? The donor is protected by both State and Federal laws. What about company policy? If the policy is to put good edible food into the garbage or compost, it is time to try to have that policy changed. When 50 million Americans don’t know where their next meal is coming from, there is no excuse not to donate edible food. Please tell everyone you know about our amazing organization and to become a Volunteer, call 415.929.1866.

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Now, The Truth about Chicken – the truth is that home cooks should consider chicken a special occasion dinner. The expression “a chicken in every pot” is a phrase commonly attributed to Herbert Hoover in 1928—when actually, he likely copied the idea from Henry IV of France in the mid-1500’s. And, its true! Through the advance of industrial farming and raising of food in this country in the 1950’s, we have become accustomed to considering chicken as inexpensive, ordinary food. And, even worse is the fat and stuff called chicken nuggets. In my opinion, this is not food!

What you want to do is always buy chickens from a responsible grower or where you know the chickens have been raised outdoors eating wild grains and seeds. You can roast whole as they often do for Sunday in dinner in France; or you can cut it up to make a sauté. It definitely will have more flavor if cooked on the bone. What I do is freeze the innards to make stock another day. I also save the chicken livers to make easy chicken liver pâté.

So, now I want to tell you about three different styles I have learned of this summer for chicken. First of all, there is the amazing Mugnaini Cooking School in Healdsburg where the fabulous teacher taught us how to build a fire for a wood-burning oven. Andrea Mugnaini then showed us several dishes that she cooked in the oven. I was so impressed. What she does with her chicken is make a mixture of coarse salt and herbs that she puts under the skin of the chicken. She also halves the chicken—removing the breasts bones. She gets a heavy roasting pan sizzling hot in the oven, then places the halved chickens skin side down and roasts them under a brick. They are delicious!

I love to stand in the doorway at Zuni and watch a chef called Andrew cut up the chickens coming out of the wood-burning oven to be served over bread salad. Zuni, of course, is famous for its chicken; and Judy Rodgers was the genius who developed it. Here the chicken is dry brined for 24 hours, then roasted in the wood-burning oven, and cut up and served over bread salad soaked in the chicken juices with greens. It is delicious!

Another favorite is the roast chicken at Florio on Fillmore St. Here the chef, Scott, puts the chicken in a wet brine for 2 days; he also cuts the chicken in half removing the backbone. To cook it he sears it skin side down on a very hot pan and turns it over and roasts it in a very hot oven. Here it is served with little potatoes and garlic tossed in the chicken juices. The amazing thing about Florio’s chicken is that the leg and thigh are served on the bone and the breast is boneless except for the little wing. All three are absolutely delicious.

So, you can grow your own chickens, you can put in a wood-burning oven, or you can buy a good-quality chicken from a reliable source and follow my recipe here. This is my interpretation of the chicken at Florio. Remember, have fun cooking! And its even more fun with a glass of Pinot Noir.

ROAST CHICKEN A LA FLORIO

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Last month I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at two conferences on this subjects; namely, REALIZING POTENTIAL: THE FUTURE OF FOOD Hosted by Esalen and the Detente Group; COOKING FOR SOLUTIONS—Sustainable Foods Institute—at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Not only did I meet and hear from some very inspiring people, but I was really awakened to how serious a problem we have in this country. Do you know that, as one of the richest countries in the world, we, Americans, pay a smaller percentage of our income on food than any other country in the world? Since the 1950’s, Americans have gotten use to cheap food. Generally, we eat mass-produced food – often, poorly prepared – and it not good for our health or that of future generations. Furthermore, it is estimated that 40 percent of the food grown in this country is discarded!

Here’s the good news! Awareness is growing! Across the country there are groups forming to glean the excess fruits and vegetables from in the fields after the pickers have gone through. There are organizations forming to capture and sell what is called “ugly fruit” that is deemed not attractive enough to put on the grocery store shelves but it still perfectly good for eating and cooking. We have been approached by many communities in the U.S. and Canada about starting Food Runners-type organizations. That is – groups picking up excess edible perishable and prepared foods and delivering it to neighbourhood food programs. And, I have even been approached by a group eager to start a service where eaters in restaurants can purchase their entree and donate half of it to the hungry. As I have been saying for years, “There is enough food produced in this country to feed everyone; it’s a problem of distribution.”

But, what can we, as consumers, do to help this New Food Movement? First of all, buy from the farmers; buy from the farmers; buy from the farmers! Organic has really lost its meaning. Big industrial farms can be called organic—for our food economy to be sustainable, we need to buy local from the people growing it in a responsible way; that is, if you don’t grow it yourself. (If you see someone at a local farmers market selling bags of oranges or cardboard crates of strawberries, they may have been purchased at the big wholesale market.) When a carton of eggs says, cage-free or free-range, the chickens still may be crowded in one huge cage or the door of the barn is open in case they want to wander out. It is best to look for eggs that are labelled pasture-raised. And, definitely look for really good quality chickens raised humanely (like the ones photographed here) – they live outdoors and eat seeds and bugs and pebbles. What about labels like Grass-Fed? Do you know most beef produced in the country is grass-fed—and it still can be finished in a feedlot eating corn. It is really important to look for beef and pork and lamb that can run free all their lives. It may cost more to eat real organic, real cage-free, and real grass -fed; but in the long run it will help with health, with preserving the earth, and with livelihoods.

The most important thing, of course, is to enjoy cooking and eating meals sitting down with family and friends. As the 350 Recipes and 35 Videos on www.tantemarie.com show it is not hard to make food taste good—its way easier than getting in the car to go by food cooked by others. And, as I keep saying cooked food last much longer than people think and can be easily turned into another different meal. The fourth big source of discarded food –other than the fields, the grocery stores, the restaurants and caterers–is the home. You can easily make soup with what you have on hand as I showed with my Turkey Chile Recipe and take it to a neighborhood soup kitchen.

Last week I was in NW Connecticut, and lucky enough to meet “the Jenkins twins” who are working at TRUELOVEFARMS.ORG – in Morris CT owned by Tom Truelove, a son of one of the twins. It was so exciting to see happy chickens outdoors and families of pigs outdoors and cows outdoors. Here for you are some photos of a real farm owned and run by real farmers. What I loved most besides meeting these dynamic women is that they had two Great White Pyrennees living with the chickens to protect them from the coyotes and wolves. Here for you is a recipe for a French dessert which is awfully fun to make—if it burns a little, just dust it with powdered sugar and say “That’s how the French like it!” And, always remember, Cooking is Fun!

Everyone usually has eggs, sugar, and some liqueur in the home; try this some evening after dinner—its delicious!

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Please tell everyone you know about the fun classes taught now at my home. We have added my teaching the Cooking of Paris – and Malcolm Teaching the Cooking of the Mediterranean through Olive Oils. Also, even more important is the One Week Course for Young Cooks in June – to learn more, go to www.tantemarie.com/classes.

“Is Tante Marie getting lazy?” The answer is definitely! That’s why I keep sending out old videos instead of real Newsletters! However, what would really encourage me to publish new and interesting Recipe ideas for the home cook, is your telling everyone you know about the Recipes and Videos on www.tantemarie.com/recipes – There are over 350 Recipes organized by categories and 34 YouTube Videos to accompany some of the Recipes. Please help build my list of followers through whatever social media you prefer and have them sign up on www.tantemarie.com.

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What “short” means to bakers is that it has extra butter (or other shortening) and extra sugar.  That means that the dough does not have to be handled carefully like regular pastry dough – it can just be pressed onto the pan – thicker is better.  Remember, a few grains of salt brings out the sweetness of cookies and desserts.  Also, shortbread should be a light golden – not too dark.  These shortbreads will keep for a couple of weeks in a cookie tin at room temperature.  Have fun!

Please check out the new Classes and Courses here and call me on 415.885.1654 to book your Private Event.  As always, Cooking is Fun!

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For the last three months I have been giving private classes to families of 8 to 12 students; a birthday party for eight year olds; and after school series once a week to private school 11-year olds; and, of course, I am still conducting Cooking Parties for groups of up to 40 people. And, the best is that the proceeds go to www.foodrunners.org!

We are also offering One-Day and One-Week Courses this winter; so, check them out on www.tantemarie.com. And, don’t forget there are hundreds of my Recipes and lots of my Videos on tantemarie.com. And, even more important is to Have Fun Cooking!

You may ask “what is Food Runners?” Food Runners is a group of over 200 Volunteers who are taking food in San Francisco from businesses with excess food and delivering it to neighborhood food programs. We also have a truck for large pickups and a couple of cargo bikes for the donations of leftover food from the start-ups South of Market. So much food is being donated around San Francisco that we could really use more Volunteers. To donate food, volunteer, or give a financial contribution go to www.foodrunners.org. You will also find there information on Food Runner type organizations in Marin, Sonoma, and the Peninsula. Make 2015 the year you do more to give back anyway you can! Happy New Year!

p.s. Why not use up your leftovers and donate the bucket of soup to a neighborhood feeding program? For my Turkey Chile Soup Video and Recipe click here!

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Here for you is a do-ahead main course for the holiday season. All three recipe suggestions are my adaptations from recipes from a hero in modern cooking, the famous caterer, restaurateur, and cookbook author from London, Yotam Ottolenghi. I hope you enjoy them! Happy Cooking!

What I did was to coat a whole turkey breast (without the legs) with olive oil. Then, I ground up equal amounts of whole cumin and coriander seeds, put it all over the turkey breast with a sprinkling of salt, and put it in a 400 degree oven for about an hour. If the bottom of the pan begins to burn, pour in some white wine or water.

For the yam dish, I washed them, cut them in slices, and arranged them in a baking dish with whole garlic cloves, torn sage leaves, and salt and pepper. It went in the same oven covered in foil. After about 45 minutes, I poured in enough cream to cover the bottom of the pan.

You can see from the photo, how fun the fanned small eggplant look. They were sprinkled with olive oil and salt and were roasted in the same oven for about 15 minutes.

To make the pomegranate sauce, I cooked some chopped onion in some butter in a saucepan until soft, added a couple of cups of pomegranate juice, and a cup of chicken stock and simmered for about 15 minutes. Then I stirred in enough cornstarch mixed with cold water to thicken and enough pomegranate molasses to taste good, about half a cup. (All of this can be made ahead and reheated.) The best is to let the turkey rest for 10 minutes, pour off the fat, and add the juices to the pomegranate sauce, let it simmer for another 5 minutes, then check the consistency and add salt and pepper to taste.

When ready to eat, reheat all three dishes, and serve on warmed plates, with some of the sauce on both the eggplant and the turkey. A garnish of mint or watercress would make if festive. Please let me know if you make this and what else you would like me to write about – mary@tantemarie.com and have fun cooking!

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Many years ago I wrote up a Recipe of a Farmers Market Salad after shopping at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. So, this last weekend while visiting friends in Houston, I offered to make lunch, thinking that I would make somewhat the same salad. The local farmers market was charming—it wasn’t hard to find new potatoes, green beans, washed lettuces, and farm fresh eggs—but what about the protein? The fish stand had beautiful cooked local shrimp! I bought enough for five people.

You too can be a favourite houseguest if you offer to cook lunch to be served outdoors on a sunny day. You don’t need a recipe—all you need is plenty of rosé wine. What I did was buy two potatoes per person, five handfuls of green beans, a bag of lettuce, a dozen eggs, a pound of cooked shrimp, a bottle of Texas olive oil, a lemon, and a head of garlic.

First I put the potatoes (unpeeled) in a large pot with four eggs and covered with cold water and added a sprinkling of salt. After 10 minutes, I removed the eggs and ran them under cold water. While the potatoes, were cooking, I trimmed the beans and dropped them into a smaller pot of rapidly boiling salted water. When they were tender when pierced with a fork, I drained them into a colander and ran under cold water, then added a few ice cubes, so the beans wouldn’t keep cooking. Potatoes should not be run under cold water. When they were cool enough to handle, I sliced them cutting off any ugly parts and removed the loose peels—but not all. Potatoes should be coated with olive oil before they cool completely and salt.

Now, if I were using smoked fish, or good quality bottled tuna fish, I could assemble the salad, using olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper as dressing. But, what to do with beautiful cooked shrimp? Not only would they be delicious with garlic mayonnaise, but so would the hard-cooked eggs and the boiled new potatoes.

There are two important things to remember when making AIOLI – all the ingredients need to be at room temperature, and it should be made by hand with a whisk because a food processor or other mixer will make the garlic turn bitter. So, first I smashed a large garlic clove and half a teaspoon of salt in a medium-sized bowl, with a wooden spoon, then added a room temp. egg yolk. (You can bring an egg to room temp, by putting it in a glass of tepid water for 20 minutes.) It helps at this point to have a cooking partner because the olive oil literally needs to be added drop by drop at first to make a creamy looking emulsion. That is, one person whisking and the other person dropping in the olive oil. When it starts to emulsify, the oil can be added more quickly. If the sauce breaks, you have to start over with another room temperature egg yolk, and add the broken sauce little by little.  If the mixture gets too thick add a tablespoon of warm water, and continue adding olive oil until you like the consistency.  Aioli should taste garlicky and somewhat salty (and it keeps in the fridge for a week.)

What I did was dress the greens with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, placed them on individual plates, and arranged the potatoes and green beans around (also coated in olive oil), then piled the shrimp in the middle, decorated with the eggs, and put a nice big dollop of Aioli in the center. (All the components can be made three days ahead, or you can have everyone helping in the kitchen while they sip their Rosé.) Hope you make this and have fun doing it! Please email me mary@tantemarie.com and let me know how you like this new format – a cooking lesson and a Recipe all in one!

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Here’s another truth!  Statistics tells us that most home cooks start thinking about what to have dinner around 5 p.m. the same night.  They may stop off at the store, then cook and serve dinner, and then discard the leftovers.  Why do leftovers have such a bad name?  The reason is because we are afraid if we don’t serve the exact same thing within a day or two, it will go bad.  Well, this just isn’t true.  Food doesn’t go bad that quickly, and there are so many things you can do with planned leftovers to make it into something quite different and appealing.  See my 2009 Newsletter for recipe ideas with planned leftover food.

Here’s advice from Tante Marie!  If it doesn’t smell bad, don’t throw it out!  Cooked chicken will keep for a week in the fridge.  Cooked seafood keeps for three days, cooked meat for five days.  Eggs keep for months in the fridge.  Dairy will keep for weeks after the sell-by date.  Butter keeps six to nine months in the freezer before it starts to lose flavour.  In fact, all foods keep for at least a year in the freezer.  Although it is recommended to recycle canned goods after they have been in your cupboard for a year, they will keep much longer.  The same is true of bottled spices; however, but they do lose colour and taste after a year.  Whole grains and legumes keep a very long time in the cupboard.  So, does dried pasta.   How about this?  Once a month, plan to make a soup with the aging vegetables in your fridge and add grains, beans, and/or dried pasta from the cupboard.  See my Turkey Chile Soup Recipe if you need one.   However, it is important to remember if you have a soup or casserole in the fridge for five days made with chicken, veal, or beef stock, it should be put in a pan and boiled for 5 minutes, then put in a clean container and chilled again—it was stay fresh another five days.  Then, you can boil it up and chill it again.  Remember, there’s nothing wrong with freezing soups and casseroles for another time.

We live in a world where we read more and more about people sickened by contaminated foods.  It’s just the media being alarmist.  Of course, people can get very sick from things like poorly processed chicken and mass produced ground beef that is mixed and shipped all over the world.  And, the worst is when a cook in a restaurant does not keep his or her hands clean.   However, a person who wants to provide good healthy meals for their friends and family should buy responsibly—hopefully from the person who grows the food—cook it well—and plan to make more meals with the excess—not throw it out.   It is much easier to say what shall we have for dinner?” when good healthful ingredients are in the cupboard and refrigerator. Remember, cooking is fun — especially if you plan to turn leftover food into another meal.  If you have any questions or comments, please email me at mary@tantemarie.com and do check out the many delicious recipes and fun videos tantemarie.com/recipes.

Here for you is a wonderful do-ahead hearty salad you can make with what you buy at the Farmers Market!  It is inspired by the fabulous team of cookbook authors, caterers, and restaurateurs in London called OTTOLENGHI – have fun!

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