French Cooking and American Blogging

I opened up the Bucks County Courier Times/The Intelligencer yesterday to the Food Section (of course). I’ve become a follower of Betty Cichy. She does great, creative articles on local food people, restaurants and stores. I wish I could link to more of her stories but the newspaper doesn’t post Lifestyle/Food pieces online. Hmmn. I think there’s a letter to the publisher in my future.

Betty is running a contest involving food and blogging. How could I not like it? If you haven’t heard, a movie-based-on-the-book is coming out in August called, “Julia & Julie.” It tracks the famous cook and TV chef Julia Child’s beginnings and career. For those of you not old enough to remember anything before the Food Network, Julia WAS THE FIRST. The book was written by blogger Julie Powell, a New York office worker, who decided over the course of a year to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blog about it.

Now Betty has thrown down the potholder, so to speak. She is challenging folks to try a Julia recipe and blog about it. Here are the contest rules:

We’d like you to be like Julie on a small scale. Pick a recipe from one of Julia Child’s first four cookbooks, follow it step by step, and blog about your experience. Choose a recipe that challenges or intrigues you in some way …

Make your post as interesting and personal as you can. Tell us why you chose that particular recipe. Describe the problems and disasters you had along the way, from shopping to serving. Look back over the experience and reflect on what you learned from it, and whether you think the recipe is worth making again. If you did make it again, how would you change it? Are there ways you’d update or simplify the recipe for 21st century cooks?

Take some pictures and notes as you follow the recipe, and when you’ve finished, tell us how it went in a post on the Julie/Julia blog we’ve set up on phillyBurbs. When all the entries have been posted, readers will be able to go online and vote for their favorite blogger.

As for judging, the top vote-getter and two bloggers chosen by a panel of experts will compete in a cook-off at Manny Brown’s in Neshaminy Mall on Aug. 5. Each of the three finalists will put on a little cooking show, demonstrating key steps in the recipe and then showing off the finished product.  A panel of judges will choose the grand-prize winner and two runners-up. Then the contestants and the audience will attend a free screening of “Julie & Julia.” Go to the newspaper’s website for the full contest rules.

I must admit, I’m intrigued – and intimidated. I started cooking in the ’80′s and by that time classic French cooking was considered passe, and Julia Child, well, I think Saturday Night Live took a few jabs at her (or was it she just sounded too much like Terry Jones from Monty Python?) I will admit, publicly, that I don’t even own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But I’m seriously considering it. I mean, after all, what kind of food blogger would I be? I’ll keep you “posted.”

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Slow Food Dinner at Linden Hill Gardens

Driving to Linden Hill Gardens for the Bucks County Slow Food Farm to Table Dinner the evening of June 26th, Lynne and I got caught in one of this summer’s downpours. As the black sky flashed blue bolts of lightning and gray rain blew sharply across the road, we imagined ourselves huddling beneath a tent with a bunch of good natured souls trying to make the best of a wet situation.

We needn’t have worried. Kimberly Kaufmann, of Slow Food Bucks County, and Kristen Perry, of the Kitchen Potager at Linden Hill Gardens, had set the dinner up in the lovely stone barn of the Gardens’ owner, Jerry Fritz. As we ran from car to barn, Jerry himself pulled open the door to welcome us inside.

About forty people attended the dinner, and since we all had a common interest – good food – introducing ourselves and chatting wasn’t much of a chore. But we were a bit distracted, not by the rain, but by Pit Master Hugh Mangum’s pulled pork, marinated chicken and dipping sauce cooking in the wood smoker outside. Let’s let chef Ron Spada speak for himself:

With the main course came home-made Buckwampum Egg Noodles, Swallow Hill Farm Kale Casserole and Milk House Farm Market Beet Salad, by Linda Jacobs of Soup to Nuts Caterers in Washington Crossing, Rise Bakery Artisanal Baked Bread, and ice cream from oWowCow Creamery in Ottsville and fruit pies by Tabora Farm & Orchard in Chalfont.

Kimberly and Kristen are hoping to stage another farm to table dinner later this summer. We’ll pass on the details as soon as we get them. We’ll see you there.

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Impulse Turn #3: Pasqualina’s Italian Market & Deli

Bucks County Taste has moved! See this post on our new server.  

One Saturday this past May, we struck out with our friends, Sharon and Mark, to attend the 2nd Annual Breakfast on the Bridge in Perkasie, run by the Bucks County Covered Bridge Society.

One of the benefits of maintaining our calendar of Food Events in Bucks County is that I find all kinds of great stuff to go to. Case in point. Where else can you enjoy a delicious pancake breakfast (provided by Joseph’s Italian Market in Perkasie), sitting on a historic covered bridge, satisfied in both body and conscience? It was a lot of fun, as well as educational. Make sure to look for it next year.

On our way to Perkasie, we passed Pasqualina’s Italian Market and Deli, in Blooming Glen, and I made a mental note to waylay our little culinary party on the way home. It wasn’t difficult. Sharon, as our intrepid readers may remember from previous posts, doesn’t need her arm twisted to stop at an Italian market.

Pasqualina’s is a gem. From the moment you walk in, it sparkles and beckons, enticing you with sights, smells and tastes. Cheeses, pastas, meats, olive oils and vinegars, homemade sauces and meatballs, Italian and Mediterranean groceries, and fresh hot and cold sandwiches – all in one compact, clean and inviting space.

First let’s get the Blooming Glen thing over with. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Blooming Glen? Huh?” It’s actually not as remote as it sounds to all you folks in Central and Lower Bucks. Go up Route 313, past Dublin, to Route 113, turn left (west) and go two miles. Voila. You’re there. There’s also a number of interesting food places on that stretch of Route 113, including Blooming Glen Catering (Big Bob’s BBQ), Tussock Sedge Farm Beef, Bolton Farm Market and the Blooming Glen CSA Farm.

Patty and Brian Gianfelice opened the market almost four years ago. Patty’s a native of Bucks and the couple raised their family just down the road. The market was Patty’s dream, and she nurtures it like a good Italian mother. (“Pasqualina” is her Italian name.)

“This is like one of my children,” she explains. “My name is on this. It was the name of my grandmother whom I adored, the best cook, the sweetest person. It has a lot of family strings for me.” Patty even has her cell number on her business card so customers can call if they have a question or need help with one of her recipes. Brian, who’s been married to Patty for many years, raising children and grandchildren, has come to appreciate her in a new way. “I’ve learned how incredibly talented my wife is because this is a very difficult thing to do. “

Pasqualina’s has many delectable things, but let’s start with cheese since it’s my favorite, and their selection is deep and interesting (rivaling Wegmans). The market carries over 90 kinds of cheese – from Italian classics like asiago, parmigiano-reggiano, and mascarpone – to others from all over Europe. My newest favorite is Ravenno, a Dutch cheese with “the nutty, caramel flavor of parmesan yet the sweetness of gouda.” They’ve laid out small tasting stations throughout the store, with freshly cut pieces to try, and informational signs.

“We’ve cut over 8 1/2 tons of cheese,” says Brian, a bit surprised himself, including cracking more than one wheel of parmigiano-reggiano. It’s worth stopping by frequently since they always have something new, and Brian loves sharing and teaching about cheese.

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The Taco Burger

One of the things I love about Basically Burgers is the sheer creativity behind their food. (There’s taste, too, but I’m going for something a little deeper here.) To hear Wes Goddard tell it, many of the stalwarts on the menu stem from his son Jay’s insomnia, when it’s one in the morning and he can’t sleep. There’s the ranch burger, the jalapeno popper burger (one of my favorites), and the taco burger. All of them show off the Goddard family’s approach to food: local ingredients, prepared fresh, with strict attention paid to quality, flavor and fun.

The Goddards were nice enough to let us cram into their kitchen one recent night so we could watch them at work. Rather than describe it at length, see it all for yourself. Here’s Jay on making a taco burger. (The video runs 3:41 minutes.)

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Heaven on a Soup Plate

I first met Karen McGinn over a bowl of soup. Well, several bowls of soup, to be precise. I attended a cooking demonstration last March hosted by Network Now. You could say that Karen was the main act. She cooked, we watched, we ate and we drank. It worked on so many levels, as the saying goes.

Karen is the chef and proprietor of Heaven on a Plate, a personal chef service, which means she plans menus with her clients, does the menu-related grocery shopping, prepares the meals in your home, packages and labels the meals, and cleans up your kitchen afterwards. With today’s busy families, it’s a service many appreciate because it gives them more time with family and friends.

That cold and dreary Sunday in late March was warmed considerably by Karen, who entertained and educated us about food, nutrition and cooking techniques. Over the course of two hours, she made four soups which we all got to eat along with an appropriately paired wine.

What impressed me most about Karen at the time was how she easily juggled cooking, teaching and serving, never flummoxed, and enjoying every moment. I knew I wanted to interview her for Bucks County Taste.

After playing phone and email tag for a couple of months, we finally settled in on some rocking chairs at my house, and I admitted to Karen that I was using the interview as an excuse to get to know her better. I had a feeling we had a lot in common, and I was exploiting my “press pass” to become friends.

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Tidbits: Tea Time For Students

If you think following good tea time manners is difficult (“pinky up!”), try doing it when you need your hands to “chat.” That’s what a group of high school students from the New Jersey School for the Deaf  learned when they visited the Talking Teacup in New Britain recently.

You’ll find the interesting article in yesterday’s (Sunday, June 7th) Intelligencer describing the students’ experience, learning how to make small talk while munching on highbrow finger food. One of the students, Erin Gasque, had read about a tea house and wanted the experience firsthand. She suggested it and teacher Sherri Anderson, a communications instructor, set up the trip for Erin and other interested classmates. Anderson wanted to give the teenagers a real-world experience with making polite conversation while eating – “no simple task when your hands are required for both.” We probably all know some non-hearing-impaired teenagers who could use the lesson too.

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MaxHansenCaterer Now At The Michener

A great place to have a party just became even better. MaxHansenCaterers is now the exclusive caterer at the Michener Art Musuem.

Max Hansen is “a Carversville resident who understands our mission and appreciates Bucks County’s artistic heritage,” explains Hollie Brown, the Museum’s Director of Visitor Services and Retail Operations. “Max has built an impressive reputation for offering not only the finest and most innovative food, but also an unmatched level of service and devotion to detail.”

Max Hansen with Bruce Katsiff, Director/CEO of the Michener Art Museum

It’s an exciting time for the Museum as they prepare to unveil a new 5,000 square-foot upper level gallery in September, one that is large enough—and flexible enough, to accommodate major nationally touring exhibitions and the permanent collection. The patio area of the Patricia D. Pfundt Sculpture Garden will be covered with glass, creating a premier indoor event space for large public programs and private events. The second phase also includes the renovation of the Ann and Herman Silverman Pavilion which will include, among other things, an expanded museum shop and café.

Museum visitors can now enjoy MaxHansenCaterer’s great food at the café, adjacent to the Museum Shop. “We’re excited to introduce a new menu at the café, featuring healthy options such as yogurt, granola, fresh fruit, smoked salmon and bagels, salads, sandwiches and seasonal soups, as well as our homemade chocolate chip cookies and brownies, plus delicious scones from J. Scones in Doylestown and freshly roasted coffee from Rojos’s Roastery in Lambertville,” says Hansen.

MaxHansenCaterer is working with the Museum’s staff to schedule weddings, bridal showers, gala dinners, cocktail receptions, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, corporate meetings, workshops and luncheons onsite at the Michener Art Museum’s various event spaces. For additional information or to set up a consultation, interested parties should call Rita Gehkt at (215) 766-3439.

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The Pineville Tavern: The Right Recipe

Bucks County Taste has moved! You can read this post on our new site.

When you walk into the Pineville Tavern , a couple of things hit you right off the bat. It’s warm. Everyone – staff and customers – seem to be in a good mood. There’s a buzz of people enjoying themselves. And it feels like it’s been this way forever.

In fact, the Pineville Tavern has been around since 1742 (see its Web site for more history). It sits at the intersection of Route 413, and Pineville and Township Line Roads, straddling two townships, Buckingham and Wrightstown, in central Bucks County.

Like a lot of good things, what seems natural and effortless has a lot of intention and hard work behind it. As regulars at the Pineville, or PVT, we were curious as to how the staff was doing it and what got them there.

To find that out, you have to go to Andrew Abruzzese, owner of the PVT for the last twenty years. It was our pleasure – Andrew is a wonderful storyteller – to sit down with him and his son, Drew Abruzzese to talk about their history and their future.

“Cooking has always been a passion of mine,” says Andrew, almost as soon as we start. It began when he was a young boy, helping out in the kitchens of his grandmother and aunts, and at neighborhood events in the Italian section of Baltimore, where his mother was from, and then South Philly, his father’s childhood home. Both families’ roots go deep into Italy, his mother’s from Naples, his father’s from the mountains of Abruzzi.

His father’s father was a chef, his aunt was a chef, his father a “natural” cook. On his mother’s side of the family, his aunts catered and sold baked goods. You get the picture. Andrew comes from food.

But he was also inquisitive. He spent a lot of time hanging at everyone’s elbows to learn all he could about cooking. “I knew I could get anything out of any cook if I helped clean up,” he says. “I became an expert at cleaning up.”

That passion continued into his marriage in 1976, when Andrew became the “one who cooked dinner,” and then after the kids came along (Drew, then Phillip), entertaining for friends and family.

It wasn’t until 1988 this love of cooking and entertaining took shape in the form of a restaurant. And it almost didn’t happen. Originally, Andrew’s plan was for a family-style restaurant, designed with help from his friend Jim Hamilton (of the Hamilton Grill in Lambertville) in a property further south on 413. The deal fell through, and while sitting at the bar of the Pineville Tavern, crying in his beer so to speak, an idea was born. Joe Turner, then owner of the PVT, said, “Why don’t you buy this place?”

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Why Sharon Decided to ‘Go Organic’

Last month we talked with Sharon Schwartz about her evolution into a fine home chef. This month, we offer part two. Sharon talks about why she decided to “go organic,” and her favorite sources for ingredients in Bucks County. In her own words…

I started to get interested in healthy food choices when I was pregnant with my first child, Jennifer. At the time (this was the 1970′s), we were living on Long Island, and I decided to join a food co-op. They offered bulk food – mostly organic – at cheap prices.  It was the quality of the food that attracted me, and the fact that we had to work there sometimes, and I could meet like-minded people. 

We were also fortunate to live very close to a poultry farm where they raised their fowl and offered eggs that were raised with organic feed. To this day, those were the most incredibly delicious chickens we’ve ever had.  I bought the chickens the day they were killed and got eggs the day they were laid.  You can’t get better than that, and without having to do any of the work!

In those days there was not much organic farming being done in our area. The vegetables at the health food stores tended to be limp and old because they did not move quickly enough.  About the only decent veggies I could get were organic carrots. I did my best to buy produce from local farmers in season, and we did have a vegetable garden (organic of course) in our yard by the time the kids were 3 and 5 years old. 

It was also around that time that an especially great health food store opened in our town on Long Island, and I got very involved with macrobiotics.  I practiced it pretty strictly for myself, and offered it in the house, with much resistance from the kids and Mark (my husband).  In keeping with my “style,” I did take macrobiotic cooking lessons and learned to get pretty creative with my veggies, beans and miso soup.  After finding that my body needed more protein, I kind of gave up on it, but tried to find food choices that were as pure as possible for myself and my family.  I didn’t go back to eating beef or veal, however, because of the ways in which the animals were raised.

When we moved to Bucks County in the mid-80′s, it became more difficult to find organically raised chickens and eggs, and even fish choices were not as fresh or varied as what was available on Long Island.  I did the best I could, but loosened my standards a great deal out of necessity.  I was happy if I could find locally grown food of good quality. 

It has only been recently, with the advent of more local organic farming, and the arrival of Whole Foods and a few other sources, that I have gone back to my purist organic food choices.  Between the organic sections in most markets, the better selections in health food stores, and the arrival of a great wholly organic meat department at Whole Foods (and some at Wegmans) I can get most anything I want (beef and veal included) at the level of quality I want.  Hallelujah!

These are some of Sharon’s favorite places to get ingredients, both in Bucks County and nearby. (Sharon lives in Central Bucks, so she is partial to places nearest to her.) In alphabetical order:

• Altomonte’s (Doylestown and Warminster): assorted Italian ingredients, including oils (Iliada Greek Olive Oil) and vinegars, and cage-free, organic eggs, handmade ricotta
• Blue Moon Acres (Buckingham): organic salad greens and herbs; “I’ve even gotten beautiful, big zucchini flowers in season from them which I use to make ‘Ricotta-Stuffed Zucchini Flowers.””
• Buckingham Seafood (Buckingham): good quality, wild caught fish
• Cote & Co.  (Doylestown): they carry Max and Me Smoked (organic) Salmon, oils, vinegars
• Heller’s Seafood (Warrington): good selection of fish
• Jamie Hollander (New Hope): organic aged strip steaks, good take-out, interesting grocery items
• The Larder (Doylestown): great bulk food, specialty items, cashews
• Newtown Farmer’s Market (Newtown): from the Amish stand, chicken, other types of poultry, organic, cage-free eggs; good quality fruits and vegetables from the Asian produce stand (although not organic), and “the falafel guy is great!”
• None Such Farms (Buckingham): Antibiotic-free, hormone-free, locally raised meats; local produce. “I can even get a brisket with the deckle (fatty part) still on – which makes a superb brisket!”
• Wegmans (Warrington): for organic produce and other natural foods, in particular, baby artichokes and handmade ricotta
• Whole Foods (Montgomeryville, Jenkintown, Princeton): for everything organic, but especially meats (Jenkintown store has complete butcher shop). The Princeton store is “huge and fantastic.”

And Sharon’s favorite in-season farm stands:

• Doylestown Farmer’s Market (Saturday mornings)
• Manoff Market Gardens, great selection of apples
• Solebury Orchards, especially for apples
• Wrightstown Farmer’s Market (Saturday mornings)

What are your favorite places to shop for ingredients? Please let us know.

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Beyond Foodie

I remember a piece Elaine Tait, the former food critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote 15 or more years ago. She predicted that in the year 2000, people who cook for themselves would become minor celebrities. Amidst all the convenience foods popping up in supermarkets in the 1990s, Tait saw the demise of home cooking. And this before Wegmans ever came to Pennsylvania!

I often think about this prediction. On one hand, I disagree. Who could’ve foreseen the success of the Food Network? Or that cooking would become a spectator sport? Americans seem more into cooking than ever.

Then, on the other hand, part of me agrees with Tait. At the risk of sounding immodest, I sometimes cook or bake things that people don’t believe I actually made. “Where did you buy this?” they ask. “You made it? No!” I think I’m a decent cook, but I’ve eaten in enough fine restaurants, not to mention in the kitchen of my brother, a former professional chef, to know my place in the standings.

And then there’s Sharon.

Sharon in her kitchen

Sharon Schwartz isn’t just a good cook. She’s not just a foodie. Among our friends, her cooking is legendary. An invitation for a meal at her house is always accepted. I hope you’re fortunate enough to have a friend like this, the kind of person Elaine Tait may well have been thinking of when she wrote “minor celebrity.” In Sharon’s case, anyway, the moniker fits.

When I sat down to interview her a few weeks ago, Sharon provided for lunch an exquisite Greek lemon soup, made moments before, followed by a simple but perfect Greek salad. Mark was jealous. All in a day’s work for me.

I wanted to interview Sharon for several reasons. She’s lived in Bucks County for twenty five years and has seen the changes to its food scene up close. She’s also evolved from someone who simply likes good food to a discerning, semi-professional cook.

Professional chefs live in a different world from the rest of us. Their kitchens are set up for cooking. Their equipment is top-notch. They have studied. They have sweated. They are not like the rest of us. Really. Just watch the Food Network.

So I was fascinated by Sharon. How did she make the transition from Mom-cook to Wow-cook? I also wanted to pick her brain about where to get the best ingredients in Bucks County, but that will have to wait for another blog, a kind of “Sharon Schwartz: Part Two.”

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