Posts Tagged ‘Stephen Ball’
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Playboy Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole serving "notdogs" outside the Capitol.
Wearing nothing but strategically placed lettuce leaves, Playboy Playmate of the Year and vegetarian Jayde Nicole handed out veggie hot dogs on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The action marks National Veggie Dog Day – PETA’s answer to the meat industry’s National Hot Dog Month.
So, why do Jayde and PETA love veggie dogs?
“In my business, looks can make you or break you, and nothing has helped me stay fit, trim, and energetic more than kicking the meat habit,” says Jayde in a statement released by PETA. “The best way to safeguard your health, reduce your carbon footprint, save animals’ lives, and look your very best is to go vegetarian.”
The event is supposed to coincide with the American Meat Association’s National Hot Dog Day (a holiday that I annually observe), but for the second straight year, AMI pulled the proverbial wool over PETA’s eyes by scheduling their Annual Hot Dog Lunch a week later than originally planned. For those that like the real thing and think that meat is yummy, AMI’s annual Hot Dog Lunch will be held next week on July 22. — Stephen Ball
Blue & Gray Brewing Moving to Bigger Location!
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Yes, you read that right: Blue & Gray Brewing in Fredericksburg is moving to a bigger, better location.
The new spot, nestled next door to the former one, features an additional 1,800 square feet, which will allow Blue & Gray to open a restaurant later this year; though that project is still in the early planning stages.
We got in touch with owner Jeff Fitzpatrick, and he assured us that the new location will still continue their tours and tastings, and that they’re in the process of developing growlers that may be filled up at the pub at any time.
The new address: 3300 Dill Smith Drive, Fredericksburg.
Oh, and don’t forget about Blue & Gray’s Oktoberfest, September 25-27.
–Stephen Ball
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Iron Chef America judge Aiko Katayama makes her way through the tasting line with Ayrshire chef Rob Townsend.
Quick question; if given the opportunity, could you taste the difference between 10 different breeds of chicken if they were all raised the same and cooked the same? On Monday, Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, Va., set out to find the answer to that question and invited me and group of local farmers and chefs to come along for the ride. The result— Ayrshire’s first Chicken Choosin’.
Sponsored by Ayrshire, Slow Food USA, the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Humane Farm Animal Care (a certifying body) and Chefs Collaborative, a nonprofit group that advocates for a sustainable food system the event showcased heritage birds.
The distinction of being a heritage bird means that the bird must be an American Poultry Association standard breed, it must have been allowed to mate naturally (big breasted chickens cannot mate naturally), the bird must have lived for 16 weeks with a slow growth rate and the bird must be allowed to live a predominately outdoor life. Side note: According to the APA, industrial chickens live approx. 4-6 weeks and grow at an alarming rate. If a child were raised the same way, they would weigh roughly 349lbs. at the age of two.
For the event, Ayrshire purchased four birds from each of the 10 breeds specifically for the event and raised them exactly the same way (except for the Cornish Cross which was killed at eight weeks due to its rapid growth rate). Each bird was given the same amount of pasture time, organic feed and killed at 16 weeks.
Once prepared by Ayrshire chef Rob Townsend, each bird was given a number to ensure anonymity. As guests worked their way through the tasting line, score cards in toe, the celebrity guest judges were sequestered in a back room to make their own judgments.
The judges came from a wide array of backgrounds and it showed up in their own score cards. Overall scores were based on the chicken’s flavor, texture and appearance.
Chef Tony Esnault, the former chef in Alain Ducasse’s Essex House, has been awarded nine Michelin stars throughout his career and, to amusement of many in attendance chose the Faverolle, a French breed that was developed in the mid-19th century, as his favorite.
Michelin star rated chef Tony Esnault samples one of the 10 breeds of Heritage chicken
Akiko Katayama, a frequent judge on The Food Network’s Iron Chef America, chose the Cornish Rock as her favorite, sighting its “nutty, almost coffee-like flavor.” Editor’s note: What? “Nutty, Coffee-like flavor?” Weren’t these birds roasted and served lightly seasoned with only salt and pepper? Well, yes. Then where did she get the nutty, coffee-like flavor from? I don’t know, I guess her palate’s a little more sophisticated than mine. Or she’s full of bunk. That too, I guess.
R.J. Cooper, executive chef at Vidalia in D.C., chose the Dorking as his favorite (which was also my favorite as well). Known for its fine-textured white meat, the Dorking was extremely tender and full of flavor in both the white and dark meat.
Bob Perry from the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture and a member of Chefs Collaborative, favored the Buckeye, just because it tasted good.
As for the crowd, the overwhelming majority sided with me and Chef Cooper. The Dorking finished with the highest amount of first place votes and nearly everyone who didn’t vote it first, had it rated in their top three.
Now comes the tricky part though, where can you get a Dorking of your own?
Right now, it would be tough. According to Susie Hass, wholesale manager at Aryshire, your best bet is to request it from your local butcher. Even if they don’t have it, if customers continue asking for it, they’ll get it in stock eventually, though after Monday’s tasting, Hass said the results may motivate Aryshire to start raising some Dorking. The only obstacle would be the cost in raising them the additional 12 weeks. Right now though, Aryshire’s Cornish Cross (the second place winner) is available through Home Farm Store in Middleburg.
Afterwards, I caught up with several area chefs to see if the tasting would influence their menus in the near future.
Mark Zahuranec, executive chef at Hunters Head Tavern, said that for him, the key is to determine whether or not his customers would pay a higher price for heritage chickens. “I think diners as a whole have become so much more educated in recent years,” he said. “I really think that our client base would appreciate and make the necessary investment in higher quality meats.”
My Score Card
Victor McLawhorn, executive chef at Griffin Tavern, told me that he came to the tasting to determine whether the heritage chicken was worth its cost. “There’s a big difference in cost, I can pay $1.19 for a whole chicken, frozen.” McLawhorn said. “These are a little over $3 per chicken.” Asked if the tasting had influenced him, he replied, “That’s the reason I came, to see what I liked and what everyone else liked and actually the one I’ve considered purchasing (Cornish Cross) did really well today.”
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Staff Sergeant Nolan Kniss competing at the US Army Culinary Arts Show, Ft. Lee, Va.
It’s not often that I read something that gets me fired up enough to call out another writer, but enhancing an inaccurate stereotype of a group worth respecting is reason enough for me.
Let me be clear in saying that my purpose is only to correct the stigma most food writers and civilian chefs have towards military chefs and pointing them out when I see them.
The target of my angst today is Washingtonian food blogger Melissa McCart and an article she wrote for Gourmet magazine about soldier-chefs taking courses at a local D.C. culinary school, Culinaiere.
Full disclosure – for eight years, I was a military chef. And as a former military chef, I was offended by Ms. McCart’s portrayal of military chefs as cooks forced to rely only on their hot sauce to get by. More importantly, several of Ms. McCart’s claims are just plain inaccurate.
“But Army cooks only have one cooking school available to them — the Quartermaster Center and School, based in Ft. Lee, Virginia — and it offers a choice of just two courses: Basic Skills Training (also known as IET), during which they learn culinary and baking skills for 10 hours a day over the course of eight weeks; and Advanced Culinary Skills Training Course (ACSTC), which emphasizes knife skills, menu development, buffet platter production, table service, and purchasing. While Quartermaster courses provide basic culinary training, career cooks such as this crew found themselves hungry for a deeper understanding of ingredients, flavor dynamics, and cooking techniques that their classes hadn’t had time to cover.”
Yes, Ft. Lee does have one culinary school with both the Basic and Advanced skills programs. However, Ft. Bragg, the base these soldiers are assigned to, has an Advanced Culinary School of its own, taught year round by an American Culinary Federation (ACF) Certified Executive Chef. Additionally, Ms. McCart fails to properly check the accuracy of her source’s information when she quoted Master Sergeant Arthur Vernon as saying:
“It was difficult to convince the Army that a civilian cooking school was good for our unit, since it’s expensive and somewhat of an experiment,” but he argued that improved skills would cut down on waste, saving the Army money. His request was funded. As far as he knows, his group is among the first cooks at Fort Bragg and elsewhere to formally train among civilians.
While it was kind of Ms. McCart to qualify the quote with “As far as he knows,” a quick google search would prove that military chefs have been formally trained among civilians for several decades now. Heck, two paratroopers from Master Sergeant Vernon’s Ft. Bragg, N.C., unit just finished a training program at a local country club.
Several points need to be made here; first, there are numerous units locally and around the world who work hard to give their soldiers the best training possible. Locally, an over whelming majority of military cooks in the Washington D.C. area have at some point been sent to a civilian culinary school or apprenticeship for more training. Additionally, Stratford University was teaching culinary classes in kitchens at the Pentagon, Ft. McNair, the Naval Yard and Ft. Myer as early as 2000. One local Air Force unit has a partnership with several Northern Virginia restaurants that allows the airmen to train in those kitchens for several weeks at a time. And finally, the Army as a whole has sent numerous soldiers to train at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., at no cost to the soldier. (Heck, even Bobby Flay came to Ft. McNair in 2002 to do a post-9/11 show on military chefs.)
I’m not even going to get into the fact that the Army has an annual Culinary Arts Show; an Iron Chef-like competition that has been covered in the past by the Food Network, where teams of cooks come to represent their base in numerous static and live cooking competitions judged by ACF judges. Or that the Army Culinary Arts Team (USACAT) has dominated culinary competitions worldwide for several years.
The bottom line is this, yes, it’s great that the chefs from Ft. Bragg were able to take classes at Culinaiere, but military chefs are not what they used to be. Even in a combat environment, culinary skills are trained and nurtured by good leaders. While it is true that many meals in combat environments are ready-made, those too can be enhanced by talented chefs, not just hot sauce.
-Stephen Ball
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
I’m not sure if any of you saw this over the weekend, but The Food Network premiered a new show, “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.” In it, each of the Food Network stars share the best thing they ever ate (pretty self explanatory right?). Anyways, it got me thinking the obvious question, what’s the best thing I ever ate?
To get me started I surveyed each member of our office staff and got some pretty good answers:
Courtney (Account Executive) - ”Crespelle di Mele at Il Fornaio (Reston) – - I picked it because I like caramel and Crepes!”
Hana (Design Director) – “For me, I’ll take dessert (I wouldn’t claim it to be the best …tough to think of “best” right now): Polish water ice at Ocean City Boardwalk because the incredible smooth texture took me by surprise from the very first mouthful. I was expecting something similar to a snow cone, but boy was I pleasantly wrong in both flavor and texture.”
Terry (Account Executive)- “Venison tenderloin au poivre, grilled over a campfire in bacon grease. It was fresh, taken that morning.”
Laura (Graphic Designer)- “After a full day of moving into a new apartment in the snow, and having skipped lunch, my husband and I were staaaaarving and had no idea what there was to eat in our new neighborhood. We stopped at the first place we saw – Hamburger Hamlet - and I had the very best (or at least most-appreciated) burger and beer I have ever consumed. Even thinking about it now I get a little warm fuzzy glow in my belly.”
Carla (Administrative Assistant)- ” The best thing I ever ate was the crispy rice spicy tuna at Katsuya Restaurant in L.A. it was delish and my mouth waters just thinking about how good each little bite was!! I picked it because I like rice, tuna and anything spicy so this was perfect!”
Susan (Assignments Editor)- ”Seven-piece chocolate dessert from The Inn at Little Washington. Why? No one eating there that night wasn’t ordering it. It was irresistible.”
Natalie (PR/Copywriter)- ”I guess it’s a toss-up between the heavenly cheesy tapas in some little cafe in Barcelona or the authentic Greek salad (with a big chunk of feta) I had in Santorini on my honeymoon. As for why I picked the cheesy tapas: tired after a long flight, craved some comfort food. As for the Greek salad, I love fresh veggies and was looking for something refreshing for lunch on a super hot day.”
Kristin (Editorial Intern)- ”Triple Chocolate Meltdown from Applebee’s.I’m obsessed with chocolate and anything sweet. This melt in your mouth dessert hits the spot every time without hitting the wallet too. It’s my choice for a dessert any day.”
Warren (Food Editor)- ”Not necessarily the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but certainly the most memorable dish in recent memory: Momofuku Ssam Bar’s spicy rice cakes: pan-Asian medley of scallion-laced sausage, assorted hot peppers, crushed garlic, Chinese broccoli and pillowy Korean rice cakes sears every taste receptor in my mouth, but I still raced to shovel the sensory-inflaming stir fry into my face.”
As for me? Well I tend to appreciate the more simple things in life. Having grown up in Southern Md., I know a good crab cake when I see one. So far, (and really the competition hasn’t been close) Stoney’s in Solomon’s Island Md., has the best in the Mid-Atlantic. Picture lightly fried crab, roughly the size of a softball, just enough filler to hold it together, seasoned perfectly but not overwhelmingly. Two words: Love It!
Next week, I’ll invite some local chefs to share the best thing they ever ate, but until then, use the comments section to let us know what the best thing you ever ate was!
-Stephen Ball
