Chef makes eating fresh, local seem easy

Chef makes eating fresh, local seem easy

Paul Buchanan is one of the city's premier chefs. An educator, culinary consultant and caterer, Buchanan runs Primal Alchemy, which promotes using fresh food, in season, grown locally, whenever possible. You can check it all out on www.primalalchemy.com.

Q: Growing your own food or buying it at farmers markets is fine for produce, but what if you eat the occasional animal?

A: You can do that locally, too, or at least you can know where it's coming from. We have livestock raised for us by the Buena Park FFA (Future Farmers of America). We recently butchered a 240-pound Red Duroc pig.

Q: You didn't name it, did you?

A: No, of course not. "Pig" is what we called it.

Q: What did you have for breakfast?

A: Let's see ... I had lowfat yogurt with blueberries and granola. I bought the granola from Sconeage Bakery at the farmers market on Sunday. It's a local business.

Q: What's the best farmers market in the area?

A: It used to be the Friday one in downtown, but now it's been taken over by leaps and bounds by the Sunday farmers market at Alamitos Bay Landing behind the Whole Foods.

Q: Do you buy all your produce there?the farmers there. I'm not a health nut, but I want to know where my food comes from.

A: We grow a lot of our produce at gardens around town just for my family - me, my wife and our daughter. But I buy everything that we use in the business mostly at the farmers market. I know and am friends with most of

Q: I've seen some of the tomatoes you grow. They're beautiful, but don't they kind of gang up on you this time of year?

A: They do, but there are things you can do with them when you get too many. I grow about 15 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and several non-hybrid varieties. You can can them, make sauce, dry them. There's nothing easier than making tomato soup.

Q: Easy for you, or easy for me?

A: You just fill up a blender with tomatoes. Just take the stems out and throw them in to the top. Put in a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of kosher salt, three cloves of garlic and set the blender on high for one or two minutes. And after it's smooth, pour a slow stream of olive oil - two tablespoons at the most - down the center of the funnel. All you do then is pour it through a fine strainer to remove the seeds and the skin and you're done. You can make soup in all different colors - red, yellow, orange, green.

Q: Before I forget: Dogs or cats? I mean as a pet, not an ingredient. Or, you can do it as an ingredient if you'd like, but you're gonna get letters from the cat people.

A: I'm a dog person, definitely, for pets. We have a 13-year-old dachshund, a brindle named Ziggy, and we have another dachshund named Dasher.

Q: Labor Day is coming up. If I wanted you to cater it, what would you make?

A: I'd probably go with barbecued chicken chili. Chicken is good, but sometimes it takes too long to grill, so it's good to go with the chili. I'd serve it with sweet corn pudding; the corn is really good right now. Not too much bread, because it's too filling and not that great, unless it's a killer garlic bread, then it's worth it. I just smear some fresh garlic and butter on a good sourdough and grill it. Then, a big salad, or a big platter of heirloom tomatoes with a little basil and sea salt and balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I go to We Olive on Second Street in Belmont Shore and get their peach white balsamic vinegar. For a salad dressing all you need is that, with olive oil and salt and pepper. Maybe some diced shallots, and that's all you need.

Q: You ever just go out and grab a burger somewhere?

A: I'll eat at In-N-Out about once every three or four months. I have steak maybe about as often. Short ribs a little more often. In general, we try to eat better quality. I pay about twice as much for meat than you would at a grocery store, but I only eat about half as much beef as most people, so it comes out about the same.

Q: Where do you do all your cooking for catering?

A: My kitchen is at 19 39th Place. Anyone can come by. If the curtains are open, we're there.

'MasterChef' axes chef after failure to replicate Gordon Ramsay dish

'MasterChef' axes chef after failure to replicate Gordon Ramsay dish
By Lara Martin

Ben Starr has been eliminated from theMasterChef kitchen.

The travel writer from Dallas, TX lost his chance to scoop the $250,000 prize and title of 'MasterChef' on Tuesday night's episode of the Fox competition.

Ben had started the episode on a high, winning the Mystery Box challenge with a shepherd's pie that Gordon Ramsay called "delicious". The Mystery Box ingredients had included ground pork, ground veal, ground beef, vegetables, potato and rice, and Gordon admitted that he had never had a shepherd's pie made with veal until now.

Adrien and Jennifer were also in the top three for the Mystery Box challenge. The former made three different meatballs with three different sauces, although the judges thought it was too salty, and the latter made a meatloaf with roasted corn and homemade ketchup.

Ben's prize for winning the Mystery Box was to choose which dish personally created by Gordon the cooks would replicate in the elimination challenge. As an added advantage, he could ask Gordon three questions about the dish that would help his cooking, while the other chefs would have to cook without a recipe. He chose for the contestants to cook roasted loin of venison.

Unfortunately for Ben, he was forced to admit he "squandered his advantage" when he served an overcooked venison. Graham said: "This is a far cry from Chef Ramsay's dish and it's a shame to see a beautiful animal and a lovely cut go to waste."

Christian, Jennifer and Adrien were also criticized for their offerings. Christian's venison was too peppery and not the star of the dish, while Jennifer overcooked her meat, and Adrien was so unhappy with his dish he told the panel there were "no excuses" and apologized to Chef Ramsay for wrecking his signature creation.

Suzy, however, fared much better, despite earlier admitting she's never cooked or tasted venison before. She was named the winner for her well thought-out dish that was the closest to what Gordon had presented.

Jennifer, Adrien and Christian scooped the remaining places in the final four, meaning Ben was sent home. Before eliminating him, Gordon said the judges had "truly thought" he had a shot of making the final two or three.

Gordon said: "Your excitement and enthusiasm is legendary. You have a career in this industry and you have to take that and reach for the stars."

Before exiting, Ben predicted that Adrien would win MasterChef. He later said: "This has been a life changing experience for me and ultimately I go home with happiness and incredible friendship and such intense education because cooking is my life and I'm walking away from this whole experience much the richer for having spent the last few weeks of my life here at MasterChef."

Is it OK to breastfeed in restaurants?

Is it OK to breastfeed in restaurants?
by Michael Bauer

“That crying baby is really annoying,” I heard someone say at newly refurbished Dosa on Valencia earlier this week. “Why do people bring babies to restaurants?”

I followed the sound and looked over to the middle of the room to see the originator of the noise; instead saw the mother expose her breast and feed the baby. The baby quieted immediately and the woman went on talking to her dining companions.

I was surprised, and admiring, of the young mother’s seeming lack of self- consciousness. She made no attempt to hide the process, even when the waiter came over to take the order. Every once in a while I saw someone look her way, eyes widening as they took in what was going on.

It made me contemplate our public mores and my own surprised reaction. Most states, including California, have laws that allow mothers to breast feed in public. It’s certainly not a legal issue, though in some areas breast-feeding mothers will be cited for indecent exposure or public nuisance. It becomes more a conflict between the rights of the mother and the comfort of some diners.

It’s easy to dismiss this as the diner’s problem, but living in society is all about getting along, which entails compromise and looking out for others. As we’ve seen with the recent actions of Congress, compromise isn’t easy to achieve.

I may be offended by that woman in her purple and yellow outfit, or that man with the plumber’s butt hanging over the seat, but it’s their right to wear what they want. Is it the same with breast feeding?

Trying to dig deeper into the issue, I went on line and discovered that this is Breastfeeding Awareness Month, and last week was World Breast Feeding Week. Bump.com recently did its second annual survey of 1,600 women and found that 44 percent of women feel uncomfortable with public breastfeeding.

So what do you think? Please weigh in.

I know one thing: Seeing the mother breastfeeding was better than listening to a crying baby.

Chefs, culinary students bake birthday cake for 1000 at state fair

Chefs, culinary students bake birthday cake for 1000 at state fair

by Dermot Cole

FAIRBANKS — Students in the UAF culinary arts department have been baking and frosting about 30 square feet of sheet cakes to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Tanana Valley State Fair today.

I dropped in on them Thursday afternoon at the UAF Community and Technical College kitchen in Hutchison High School. Instructor Luis Martinez figures the completed cake will contain about 50 pounds of flour and more than a smidgen of sugar in the rolled fondant icing. The kitchen brigade featured nearly a baker’s dozen of helpers this week.

The eight sheet cakes are on individual pieces of cardboard topped by gold foil for ease of slicing and dicing. That is important when you try to serve 1,000 to 1,200 small pieces in a short period of time.

In the center of the sheet cakes, there will be a carousel. The fair theme will be expanded to the sheet cakes with decorations representing fair staples such as fireworks and giant cabbages.

The Midnight Sun Chefs Association, a local chapter of the American Culinary Federation, and students from the culinary arts and hospitality program have been working on the cake all week.

It is to be served about 2 p.m. today after a ribbon cutting and dedication of the new Usibelli Stage.

•••

TIMELY ITEMS: The time capsule at the state fair, a hefty container provided by Hector’s Welding, will be buried about 2:30 p.m. today as part of the opening day festivities.

Twenty years from now, when the Tanana Valley State Fair turns 100, here is some of what should be inside when the time capsule is opened.

Expect lots of fair documents, including the land purchase agreement, a 2011 fair schedule and poster, a 50th anniversary cookbook, a photo of the fair board and staff and exhibit guides from years gone by.

There also will be fair T-shirts, a GVEA shirt, a North Pole shirt, a Donut Man shirt, a borough pin, a North Pole coin, a folder from the Breast Cancer Detection Center, a Usibelli Coal Mine paperweight, a folder from Joel’s Place and a Glee Notebook autographed by Lauren Potter, an actress on the show.

There are several letters to the future. The authors include Fair General Manager Randi Carnahan, Sen. Mark Begich and the three local mayors.

Jan Mitchell Weaver has included a detailed fair scrapbook that covers the years 1970-1988, along with a letter asking that these be given to her daughter.

Fair Operations Manager Annette Gerlitz has written a letter to her son, Elijah David Gerlitz, and Carnahan also has written a letter to her children.

There is a vendor apron from Aunt Linda’s Funnel Cakes and another from Denali Cream Puffs, along with a letter to the future. A third vendor apron represents the Patty Wagon. There are photos of owner Don Burt, who was preparing the wagon for its 41st year at the fair.

There is an autographed copy of Miles Martin’s book, “Going Wild,” a food inspection certificate for Machos Nachos and information on Tim Welby’s history with the fair. Vendors Jeff and Nancy Anderson provided a rubber pork chop on a stick, which is sure to confuse people in the future.

Someone 20 years from now may remember the daily printed form of a newspaper, as the July 31 edition of the Daily News-Miner is included in the package.

There are two CDs, one from KUAC-FM and one from the KIAK-FM morning crew of Pete, Kathryn and the Cruiser. Anyone want to take a guess if there will be CD players in 20 years?

I’m guessing that someone in 2031 will know enough about ancient technology to enjoy what Pete Van Nort, JB Carnahan (aka The Cruiser) and Kathryn Harris had to say way back in 2011.

Eating healthy food costs more money in US

Eating healthy food costs more money in US
By Anna Yukhananov

Eating healthier food can add almost 10 percent to the average American's food bill -- and that is just to boost a single nutrient like potassium.

Researchers from the University of Washington looked at the economic impact of following new U.S. dietary guidelines, which recommend eating more potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium, and avoiding saturated fat and added sugar.

The diet recommendations try to fight rising rates of obesity in the United States, but the study findings underline some of the obstacles to adopting new habits.

In an article in Health Affairs published on Thursday, the researchers reported that eating more potassium, the most expensive of the four nutrients, can add $380 to the average person's yearly food costs.

Americans spend about $4,000 on food each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

At the same time, getting more calories from saturated fat and sugar reduces overall food costs, the study said.

Pablo Monsivais, acting assistant professor at the University of Washington and one of the study's authors, said the government should consider the economic impact of food guidelines.

"We know that dietary guidelines aren't making a bit of difference in what we eat and our health overall," he said. "And I think one missing piece is that they have to be economically relevant."

"They emphasize certain foods without much regard for which ones are more affordable."

More than one-third of children and two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese.

In the study, the authors collected questionnaires on the typical eating habits of 1,123 people in King County, Washington, and calculated how much each diet cost based on retail food prices in three local supermarkets.

However, they did not factor in costs for food bought outside grocery stores, such as fast food -- which would likely increase the food cost for each person.

The study also found that it is more expensive to eat more dietary fiber and vitamin D, and that people with higher average incomes were more likely to eat healthier food.

Monsivais said when talking about eating more fruits and vegetables, the government should also mention the most cut-price options. For examples, bananas and potatoes are the cheapest sources of potassium.

"(Guidelines) should tell people where you get the most bang for your buck," he said. "By putting the economic dimension on dietary guidelines, it would be very helpful for those on the economic margins, but also for everyone ... trying to save money in the current economy."

Grilled Cheese Should Be Made by Moms, Not Restaurants

Grilled Cheese Should Be Made by Moms, Not Restaurants

By JOSH OZERSKY

My heart sank a little when I read about a new restaurant franchise opening this month in San Francisco. Called the Melt, and founded by Jonathan Kaplan, the inventor of the Flip camera, it promises aerated soups and grilled-cheese sandwiches that you can order ahead of time via a smart-phone app. It's a great idea, like finding a soul mate in a strip club, or electing a government that can simultaneously protect the interests of 300 million people. But like those things, this restaurant concept will never work out. The very qualities that drew Kaplan to grilled cheese — its elemental character, its universal familiarity — are the very things that will be missing from the Melt.

The grilled-cheese sandwich may be the most perfect of all American foods. I say this with all due respect to the hamburger, pit barbecue, chocolate pudding, fried chicken and any number of other native wonders. I will even go so far as to say that it is my favorite food. But of course, I'm not alone in this. It's everybody's favorite food. That's why Kaplan wants to make it the centerpiece of his new venture, which he told me will be an "amazing fast-casual restaurant experience" that appeals to our nostalgia for this particular sandwich and its ability to make people happy.

(See the top 10 state-fair foods.)

But the problem with a restaurant serving grilled cheese is that the sandwich is too simple. It has three elements — white bread, American cheese and margarine — which are generally held in low esteem by the sandwich-buying public even though these ingredients come together in an amazing bite, simultaneously crisp and soft, double-buttery and starchy sweet, lush and delicate. Who could object to that? But as the judges recently told another aspiring grilled-cheese franchiser on America's Next Great Restaurant, to carry the weight of a restaurant concept, the sandwich needs to have what entrepreneurs call "added value": something that will make it worthwhile to the consumer to seek it out instead of just making it at home. 

So, inevitably, the white bread gets swapped out for some fancier, coarser, denser substance that will obscure and distort the sandwich's taste. The American cheese, whose supernatural meltability, evenness and quick-setting viscosity make the whole thing possible, gets replaced with waxy, greasy cheddar, smoked Gouda or whatever; and the thin, even coat of fat, which suffuses the delicate airiness of the white bread, gets tinkered with as well.

"Our technology allows us to make the sandwich with very little fat," Kaplan proudly told me the other day. As if that were a good thing! He also claims to have idiot-proofed the grilled-cheese sandwich, using nonstick silicone-coated sandwich presses that can crust up a sandwich in less than a minute, while at the same time shooting microwaves into its interiors, melting the cheese at a rate calculated by Cray supercomputers to coincide with the browning time.

The cooking technology sounds promising enough. The truth is there aren't enough skilled short-order cooks to make the sandwich well. I've spent a lifetime drunkenly pleading with or threatening inept cooks who couldn't be bothered to butter the bread or to brown a grilled cheese evenly. But regardless of whether Kaplan's high-tech panini presses can get their part right, the Melt, which is planning on doing a huge takeout business, will still have to wrap the things up. And that will almost certainly kill them even deader than cheddar cheese and nine-grain bread will.

(Read a Q&A with a cheese expert.)

Grilled-cheese sandwiches can't be wrapped up. That's why they are a dream of home life, an idyll of childhood. Someone (your mom) has to make them, put them on a plate and serve them immediately. The sandwich is only good for three minutes, and can't last even one second once it's been wrapped in any kind of container. The Melt will use unbleached paper, but that won't help — even if the sandwich were placed in a box equipped with a dozen tiny exhaust fans, I have trouble believing it would not steam itself to death, because, really, what is a grilled cheese but the quintessence of everything lightest and crispiest in our cooking? The violence done by wrapping it in paper or plastic or tin foil is almost sadistic; you might as well just pour a glass of water on the thing, and then throw it against a wall, before bashing your own head against it in frustration.

Of course, your mom would never do that to a sandwich. She doesn't care about the faux-progressive ingredients, the added value, the canned nostalgia or the need for speed. All she wants is to make it taste good and for you to eat it. If that moment and the meal it represents could be bought and sold, that really would be an amazing fast-casual experience. But fast-casual experiences, by definition, aren't amazing. And perfect foods don't get better when you change them.

Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award—winning food writer and the author of The Hamburger: A History. He is currently at work on a biography of Colonel Sanders. Taste of America, Ozersky's food column for TIME.com, appears every Wednesday.

See Denny's attempt at a grilled-cheese sandwich.

See the best restaurants for cheese lovers.

Monroeville Restaurant Ban on Kids Sparks Predictable Reactions
The restaurant has banned kids under 6. For us, it should have been age 10.
By Kelly Burgess

The news that McDain's Restaurant in Monroeville is banning kids under age 6 spread like wildfire, making the national news and talk show forums such as the RidicuList on CNN's Anderson Cooper, and sparking predictable reactions about discrimination.

Feedback seems to be pretty mixed, with some people welcoming the move and others pointing out that there are plenty of rude/obnoxious/smelly/whatever adults as well.  

This has been a hot topic in our household as well as we reminisced about not being able to go to a restaurant any more upscale thanMcDonald's until our oldest son was 10 or so.

No matter what we did, what distractions we employed, what threats we used, he always became restless and disruptive in restaurants. Our other two were fine from a very early age.

The thing is, at least we recognized that going to a restaurant wouldn't work with him. It's parents who don't seem to notice their child is crawling under my table or throwing mashed potatoes who are the problem.

My husband and I have both been to McDain's a number of times. Our youngest son used to belong to a theater group out that way, and we'd drop him off at his group, go hit a few golf balls (McDain's is also a driving range) and have dinner.

The owner is right. It is an adult atmosphere and not for very young kids.

We've definitely had our share of bad dining experiences having to do with children misbehaving in restaurants, but kids can be wild anywhere.

Recently, I did a story on fireworks safety and visited our local fireworks stand. While I was walking around looking at the merchandise, two little boys were careening up and down the aisles, screaming and punching each other and bumping into the other customers. Meanwhile, their mom and dad shopped, completely oblivious to the havoc they were wreaking.

A few days before that, my husband, son and I were at a rather upscale restaurant in Ohio and the two children at the table behind us were so loud we could hardly hear each other talk. It was the parents and grandparents who were the problem.

The parents, apparently wanting to show off their children's amazing recall, had them singing the "Fifty, Nifty United States" as well as math songs and "how many days in the month" songs at the top of their lungs until we were longing for earplugs. And the check.

Their relatives thought it was cute, but it was beyond annoying to those of us who were not actually related to those children. I also would like to add here that the son who was with me is known for his amazing voice, but I certainly would not ask him to start belting out something from my favorite musical while other people were trying to eat.

Not that he would have if I had asked anyway. He's 17 now, old enough to realize that's not appropriate restaurant behavior. Also, old enough to get annoyed when the small children at the next table are so disruptively loud. So, they do grow out of it, but it's up to us parents to keep them home, or just dedicate ourselves to kid-friendly places like McDonald's until they do.

Recipe: English Muffin Pizzas

As we reminisced about some of the crazy stuff our kids did when they were little, it prompted our kids to also start talking about some of the "kid food" we used to make that we hadn't even really thought of in years.

This was one of my daughter's favorites, and she said she wished we still made them. They're so easy and versatile and can be made for a quick lunch, a quick dinner, or by the babysitter while mom and dad go to a nice restaurant.  Let the kids help. They love to do so and are more apt to eat something they make themselves.

Ingredients:

• English muffins, at least one per child
• Pasta sauce or pizza sauce
• Mozzarella cheese
• Toppings of choice, such as vegetables, sliced olives, cooked meat, pepperoni, sausage, etc. If you like it, you can put it on a pizza.

 Directions: 

1. Preheat broiler
2. Split English muffins with a fork (you can toast them first, but don't need to)
3. Spread each half with pasta sauce
4. Top with favorite toppings
5. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese
6. Broil for about 2 minutes until cheese is melted