September, 2010

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North Shore Blogger Consortium Weekend Picks!

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

North Shore Blogger Consortium Weekend Picks Sept 30-October 3, 2010

Week two of the North Shore Blogger Consortium Weekend Picks from our newly formed North Shore Blogger Consortium.

These picks feature each blogger’s very top cultural picks of things to do whether it be a museum exhibit, restaurant opening, sporting event, festival or anything that the individual blogger feels would be a great way to spend the weekend.

We’re rolling in week two. Next week we will also have entries from Abby Cahill O’Brien’s Fifth Joy and Julie O’Boyle’s Orchid Grey

And we’re off…………..

Jane Ward writes fiction and is the author of Hunger (Forge, 2001) and The Mosaic Artist (to be released). She is currently at work on her third novel, The Welcome Home. She also writes about food – in a weekly blog called Food and Fiction, and as a contributing writer to the online regional food magazine, Local In Season – because she loves to cook and eat. And so does everyone she knows.

Click Here for Author Jane Ward’s Weekend Picks

Food For Thought- Heather Atwood

As a painter and writer, Heather Atwood spent a lot of time waiting on tables in great restaurants. While struggling with color and line, she was also learning how to roast a great chicken, and what it means to balance textures in a dish. She’s been interested in good food ever since. Married, the mother of two daughters, Heather now lives in Rockport, Mass. and is the food columnist for the Gloucester Daily Times. She is featured regularly in Taste of the Times videos and her writing can also be seen in the Wednesday food section of the Times.

Click here for Heather Atwood’s Weekend Picks

Good Morning Gloucester brings you the best of Gloucester MA and surrounding communities. From the docks to the restaurants, the sporting fields to the art scene and anything in between, if it’s happening in Gloucester it’s generally covered on GMG.

Click here for Joey’s weekend picks

At its core, LynnHappens.com is a place to find out what’s happening in Lynn. It features an events calendar, local weather, arts and events coverage, photo galleries, complete City Council videos, letters to the editor and more.

Click here are for LynnHappens.com editor Seth Albaum’s picks for the weekend

North Shore Dish is your guide to restaurants and all things food related on the North Shore. Whether it’s gourmet dining or a hole-in-the-wall, if these gals have tasted it, they’ll dish up the inside scoop.

Click here for North Shore Dish weekend picks

The Two Palaverers are the husband and wife team of Rob and Laura Ciampa, two passionate New Englanders who have spent decades exploring the highways and byways of New England in search of regional character, culture and cuisine. Their goal is to recognize the people, places and things that exemplify the character of New England. Join them as they palaver about New England.

Click Here For The Weekend Picks From The Two Palaverers

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North Shore Bloggers Consortium Weekend Picks

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Weekend Picks

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Tags: American Farmland Trust, Boston Local Food Festival, Dine Out for Farms, Enric Rovira, Harvard SEAS, Rockport Chamber Music, Stravinsky's Firebird, The Market Restaurant

Gray September Sunday, David Tanis Baked Apples, & Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Never May the Fruit Be Plucked

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Tags: A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, David Tanis, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Roasted Apples, September

More Science and Cooking at Harvard

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

As I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, I’ve been attending a series of public lectures called Cooking and Science, offered by the Harvared School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The lectures are every Monday evening at 7:00. The first one, with reknowned Spanish chef and the father of “Molecular Gastronomy,” Ferran Adria, translated by equally important – and colorful – Spanish chef Jose Andres, was held at the Loeb Theater. The lecture was free but required tickets. It was sold out.

The next was with another Spanish chef and molecular gastronomist, Joan Roca. It was in a large lecture hall at the Harvard Science Center; I arrived at 6:45, and by then all the seats were taken (200?). They were letting people sit on the three flights of cement steps that ran up the sides. Who would have believed physics and cooking could have such box-office appeal?

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Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Yosses, Burdick's, Carles Tejedor, El Celler de Can Roca, Harvard School of Applied Science and Engineering, Joan Roca, liquid nitrogen, phases of matter, The White House, viscosity

The Cook and The Gardener at Wellspring House

Sunday, September 19th, 2010

Perhaps civilization perches on this image: a vegetable garden and a kitchen. Where we see this pair, we can trust that someone is planting, harvesting, stirring a soup, and serving the soup into bowls, life at its barest bones but the bones that build a civilized society.

Most people on Cape Ann are at least vaguely familiar with Wellspring House, the large brown house on the Little River In Gloucester whose mission is to provide shelter, affordable housing and basic lifeskill education.

But did you know that Wellspring has a vegetable garden and a kitchen? It has a gardener and a cook?

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Tags: Argentina, Humitas, Maria Rodrigo-Leaman, Mitchell Smith, Project Able, The Department of Labor, Wellspring House

A Visit to Cabot, a Vermonter’s graciousness, and my new favorite Greek Yogurt

Monday, September 13th, 2010

In my column this week you can read about the secrets of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar Cheese, a cheese which in its second year of production won “Best Cheese in North America” at the American Cheese Society Competition in 2006. (Even better, go taste some; it’s available at Duckworth’s Beach Gourmet, Willowrest, Whole Foods, and most serious cheese counters; one taste of its crumbly, butterscotchy flavors and you will be voting, too.)

This blog is about what began as a dreary August day in Vermont, with a car sick sixteen-year-old in the seat beside me, and ended up a sunny day inspired by the people at Cabot Cooperative Creamery. My cousin’s son, Noah, was my co-pilot and photographer. We started out late. He was nauseous from the winding roads, but trying hard to be cheerful, and to not throw-up. At the millionth turn in a road defined by a winding river bed, we saw this simple sign for duck eggs, and everything turned around.

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Tags: Cabot, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Cabot Cooperative Creamery, Marcel Gravel, Vt.

Ferran Adria and Jose Andres, Remy and Linguini, at Harvard

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

The photo is a “margherita” from the restaurant el Bulli.

Like electricity, Impressionism, Cubism, and the internet, the first moments of creative genius can at first appear strange, ugly, useless, and/or absurd.

Ferran Adria is the chef at el Bulli in Catalonia, Spain. To many, his food may fall into the “all of the above” category, but know that Restaurant Magazine declared el Bulli “The Best Restaurant in the World” five times.

Adria is much more than a chef; he is someone whom, even if you will never eat his food, you should know about, think about, listen to. Adria is sitting at the crest of a mountain looking out to what is beyond, while the rest of us are down below not sure we even want to climb.

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Tags: el Bulli, Ferran Adria, Harvard, Harvard School of Applied Science and Engineering, innovation, Jaleo, Jose Andres, minibar, Molecular Gastronomy