A Day in Tunisia (in Little Silver)

By Pat Tanner

My first trip abroad, shortly after I was married, was to Morocco and I have had a special place in my heart for the foods of North Africa ever since. So on October 29 I plan to make the much shorter but still exotic trip down to Sickles Market for special tastings and demonstrations. Special guests, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day, will be members of the Mahjoub family, whose Tunisian estate produces olives, sun-dried tomatoes, harissa, olive oils, and other traditional, authentic condiments. The event, which is free and open to the public, will introduce a new line of specialty food from all around the Mediterranean, Tunisia included.

Shortly after my Moroccan adventure I came across the recipe below in Deborah Madison’s first cookbook and it as been one of my go-to party dishes ever since. It can be made in any season, looks gorgeous in a big glass bowl (you can add black oil-cured olives for contrast), is inexpensive, and can be assembled in a matter of minutes. The carrots are sliced lengthwise into thin, fettucine-like ribbons. Using a swivel-action peeler like Oxo’s makes the job a snap. If you haven’t used orange flower water before, be advised that a little goes a long way. Start with half a teaspoon, taste, and add quarter teaspoons after that.

MOROCCAN CARROT SALAD
“The Greens Cookbook” by Deborah Madison, Reed Business Information, 1987

1 pound carrots
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
Orange flower water to taste

Peel the carrots and discard the peels. Continuing to use the peeler, scrape the carrots lengthwise, working your way around them, removing strips of carrot about 3/8 in wide. Set them aside in a bowl. Mix together the remaining ingredients. Taste and add more orange flower water if needed. Pour this dressing over the carrots and toss them very lightly with your fingers. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour before serving.
Makes 4 cups, serving 4 to 6.

Sickles Market is at 1 Harrison Avenue, Little Silver, 732.741.9563, sicklesmarket.com

Submitted for Your Consideration: The Heirloom Bean

By Pat Tanner


Have you noticed how the economic downturn has generated countless stories in the food press on how to cut corners on your food budget? Frankly, I resent that food is the first place we are expected to economize. How about scaling back on clothes, cars, cable TV, and electronic gadgets? In my book, cheap foodstuffs that are inferior in taste and nutritional value should be a measure of last resort.

There is, however, one food source that has always provided bang-for-the-buck, high-quality protein: dried beans. They happen also to be devoid of cholesterol; are high in fiber, iron, and vitamins A and B; and have as much calcium as milk. I am a bean aficionado but realize that not everyone is, which is why I submit for your consideration dried heirloom beans – true treasures native to the Americas. Regular dried beans are to heirloom beans as imported hothouse tomatoes are to farmers’-market heirloom tomatoes.

This became clear to me when I ordered the “desert island” assortment from Rancho Gordo of Napa, CA. With extraordinary, highly distinctive flavors, Rancho Gordo’s leave regular supermarket beans in the dust. The assortment varies during the year: mine included Midnight Black, Vaquero, Runner Cannellini, Yellow Eye, and Christmas Limas. The last are my new favorites - they have a pronounced chestnut flavor inside tender beans that stay intact through the cooking process. I also went through my stash of Yellow Eyes in no time flat, making batches of authentic Senate Bean Soup using the recipe on the company’s website.

All but one of Rancho Gordo’s seventeen varieties sell for $4.95 a pound – amounting to a frugal $1.24 per main-course serving of high quality, delicious protein. I also found heirloom beans at my local Whole Foods, which sells the Gourmet Valley line at $6.49 for twelve ounces.

Food Finds: The Flaky Tart

By Pat Tanner

I can’t say what I adore most about this bakery-plus that opened in Atlantic Highlands last August, but the cheeky name ranks right up there. There is nothing flaky about proprietor Marie Jackson, who followed up a business degree with learning to cook at the NY Restaurant School, but she does have a magical way with tarts, as well as all her sweet and savory gems, from macaroons to mac and cheese.

This is how good the latter is: most days it comes out of the oven around 11 a.m. and is gone by 11:30. Her croissants have been rightly deemed as good as any in Paris, yet they vie in popularity with her cinnamon rolls, pecan sticky buns, and scones, which have a perfect balance of heft and airiness. (The ginger-pear scone is a revelation.)

While perched at the sunny counter at her cute little shop, I and a friend sampled as much as we could manage and took home a passel of goodies, failing to find anything less than stellar. Selections change daily, but among the typical offerings are ham and gruyere croissants, lemon meringue tartlets, pain au chocolat, raspberry sandbars, blueberry muffins, and mini carrot-cake cupcakes.

Prices are lower than in my neighborhood - and probably yours. A goodly serving of homemade beef chili comes with cheddar, crème fraiche, and a buttered baguette – all for $6.

The Flaky Tart
145 First Avenue
Atlantic Highlands
732.291.2555

Food Finds: Winter Farmers Market

By Pat Tanner

It seems like a wacky idea: a farmers market in the dead of winter in frosty New Jersey. But three years ago when organizers of two market organizers approached Jim Weaver, head of the Central NJ chapter of Slow Food, to turn over his restaurant, Tre Piani, to the venture, he agreed to open up all three floors (“tre piani” in Italian) on a blustery March Sunday.

To everyone’s delight, about 400 people -- obviously hungry for fresh Garden State produce; eggs, dairy, and meat from pastured animals; artisanal cheeses, breads, ice creams; and other local goodies -- came out that first year. More attended the second and, the organizers now expect, even more will show up this Sunday, March 9, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Participating farms include Terhune Orchards, Cherry Grove Farm, Valley Shepherd Creamery, and ARC Greenhouses, the producers of Mr. McGregor’s herbs, among other wonders. Also on hand: Farmer Steve Organic Popcorn, Cape May Salt Oysters, Jersey Clams, and Bent Spoon Ice Cream. Prepared foods by Chef/owner Weaver and Tre Piani’s staff, and NJ wines and beers will be available for dining in or taking out. The restaurant’s first floor will resonate with live jazz and will feature cooking demos by Jersey Fresh chefs every hour beginning at 11:15.

Tre Piani Restaurant
Forrestal Village (Route 1)
120 Rockingham Road
Plainsboro

For directions, visit www.trepiani.com

For more information, phone 609.577.5113

Food Finds: Better Living Through Quinoa?

By Pat Tanner One of the liveliest workshops I attended at last month’s conference of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey was one led by a tag team from Hopewell: Sharon Vecchiarelli, a private health counselor who teaches organic baking and cooking at Mercer County Community College, and Will Mooney, whose restaurant, Brothers Moon, was among first in the state dedicated to using local, sustainable foods.

While Mooney put the finishing touches on a quinoa salad, he confessed, “I have been an awful eater my whole life. Until last year I used to eat at fast food burger joints and go on fad diets, only to gain back more weight than I lost.” What changed? “I found it increasingly hard to get up in the morning. My bones ached and I was gaining weight. So, I decided to start eating the good foods I was making at the restaurant.” Not only has he lost weight, but he no longer snores and he swears that his hair is growing back!

Mooney's salad reminded me how much I like quinoa, an ancient grain from the Andes. Vegetarians and vegans like its high protein content, while individuals with Celiac Disease rely on it because it’s gluten free. I’m partial to its fluffy texture and mildly nutty flavor - and that it’s no harder to prepare than rice.

QUINOA AND ROASTED RED PEPPER SALAD
Will Mooney, Chef/Owner, The Brothers Moon, Hopewell

2-1/2 cups cooked quinoa
2-1/2 cups roasted red peppers, diced small
2-1/2 cups cooked green beans, diced
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
4 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons best-quality extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients. Serve at room temperature. Makes 2 quarts.

Food Finds: Supertaster?

By Pat Tanner

It seemed like a good idea at first, but when the day came to be tested I had serious misgivings. I had met Dr. Beverly Tepper, director of Rutgers' Sensory Evaluation Lab, through friends, and when I learned that her area of research involved taste perception, I thought it only natural – fun even - to offer up myself as a test subject. And to subsequently report on where I fall on a scientific scale that measures, in effect, the sensitivity of one’s taste buds.

But as the appointed hour approached, I began to fret. Where would I test out along the spectrum of supertasters, tasters, and nontasters? What if I, a food writer and restaurant critic, had to confess to being a nontaster? Not a smart move.

Tepper uses a compound called PROP to measure the ability to taste bitterness. It turns out that perception of bitterness is a genetically based indication of how sensitive a person is to a whole range of tastes, including sweet, fat, and spiciness. Research indicates that supertasters – those whose sensitivity to bitter is highest – also have more taste buds.

So supertaster is what I wanted to be, or so I thought. Supertasters, it turns out, typically dislike a lot of foods, in part because they experience them so intensely. A typical supertaster dislikes the bitterness of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and dishes with hot chilies. Hmm…not the best qualifications for a food critic.

Where people fall depends on their response when a piece of paper embedded with the PROP compound is placed on their tongues. Supertasters experience an overwhelmingly unpleasant, acrid sensation. Tasters detect some bitterness, but not to the same get-this-abomination-off-my-tongue degree. Nontasters wonder what all the fuss is about, since they detect nothing at all.

Tepper says that research has consistently shown that 25% of Caucasians are nontasters, 50% are tasters, and the remaining 25% are supertasters. “Other ethnic groups have different breakdowns,” she says. “The split around the world is quite different.”

Learning all this did little to ease my tension as I walked into her lab. She tried to reassure me by saying, “If you are a nontaster, it’s OK. Being a taster - or not - has no bearing on flavor detection,” since, as she pointed out, the majority of flavors we perceive come through the aromas our noses pick up.

It took just a few moments in the testing booth before I got the (wait for it) bitter results. I am, in fact, a supertaster.

Tepper can explain this apparent contradiction. “I have come to realize that supertasters fall into two behavioral categories: those who are adventurous eaters and those who are not.” Well, I am nothing if not adventurous. (Oatmeal-toasted mealy worms, anyone?). My own theory is that adventurous supertasters probably enjoy the intensity – the frisson – of pushing the limits of their sensitive taste buds. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Want to know if you’re a supertaster? A kit, containing two tests per order, is available commercially for $4.95 at: http://supertastertest.com.

Food Finds: Pierogi Plus

By Pat Tanner

Once a month the good people of St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Hillsborough cook up a dinner of authentic dishes from their Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Slovakian heritages. From when the doors swing open to the public at the unfashionably early hour of 4 p.m. and until they close at 7, about 400 diners feast on tasty, made-from-scratch stuffed cabbage rolls, kielbasa, potato pierogi topped with sour cream, buttery bowtie pasta with cabbage - even mashed potatoes and gravy. A downright steal at $11 ($5 for children) this bargain meal is rounded out with salad, rye bread, sheet cake, and hot and cold drinks.

The driving force behind the dinners is Ted Petrock, the church’s resident executive chef, who is also a parishioner and who runs the church’s catering arm, Heavenly Catering. He learned to cook in the military – at the Pentagon cooking for the likes of Colin Powell and Caspar Weinberger – then attended culinary school in New York, and was at one time executive chef at Rutgers University.

St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church is at 1900 Brooks Boulevard, Hillsborough. The next Slavic dinner takes place on Wednesday, February 13, from 4 to 7 p.m. Just show up hungry – very hungry - on the appointed day and time and eat hearty. For more information call 908. 725.0615.

Want to try your own hand at making pierogi? Or any of 100 varieties of filled dumplings, pockets, and little pies from around the globe? Then Edison-based author-photographer Brian Yarvin’s newest cookbook A World of Dumplings (Countryman Press 2007) is for you. His color photographs are invaluable for demonstrating dough making, shaping, steaming, and frying.