New Chocolate from Taza
I am a big fan of Taza Chocolate and was excited to see them locally at Peregrine Coffee… and even more excited to run into them at the Fancy Food Show in DC. They have just released a new chocolate bar, with 87% cocoa. The first batch came out of the molds last Wednesday and they brought a couple.
As expect, a bar with 87% cocoa has a big chocolate flavor. They roast the nibs a little longer, which you can taste, but there is still a lot of fruitiness. Unlike all of their other chocolate, the chocolate for this bar doesn’t come from the Dominican Republic. This helps give it a different flavor profile. Had I actually taken notes, I could tell you where the chocolate was from, I think it was Bolivia. It was great to run into them and see their chocolate getting a wider distribution. If you see a bar, try the 87%; and if you are in Somerville, go on their tour!
Fancy Food Show – DC
Yesterday I attended the Fancy Food Show, which was a completely overwhelming experience. The expo is put on by the National Association for the Speciality Food Trade. It is basically how buyers from the store you like to shop at get all of the cool items you like to buy. It is fascinating to see how huge this market sector is and how little of it ends up making it to our shelves. The DC Convention center is a huge place, yet the show managed to fill it up.
The show is business to business focused and not open to the general public. Luckily, I was able to get a press pass. I guess blogging has become a little more legitimate. The show focuses on lining up producers with distributors. Some of the products here are only being distributed regionally or in very small stores and come to the show with the hopes of going big time and being distributed by Whole Foods.
There was also a larger presence from different countries trade councils. I actually only heard about the show after someone from the Italian Trade Commission reached out and let me know that the show was in town. The Italian pavilion was massive; they must have had the largest presence at the show. The most impressive thing about the purveyors/producers in the pavilion was the level of quality in the products they offered. They were clearly targeting higher end speciality shops, like Eatly or Dean & Deluca.
Here is my prediction; I think we are going to start seeing a resurgence or renaissance of Italian products. The Italian product market is currently crowded with Importer labeled products ( Sun of Italy, Cento ) or American products with Italian sounding names (Classico). Italian products that are able to demonstrate their heritage and craftsmanship should be able to easily distinguish themselves. While I think that consumer have become much more savvy and are now very capable of picking up on subtitles, programs like the Denominazione di origine controllata should make it very easy to tell what is the real deal… assuming the D.O.C. maintains its rigor.
On the other side are legacy Italian retailers, like Vace in DC, that have been around forever and have strong roots in the area. The product lines they carry are not the most sophisticated, which is not a bad thing because they are affordable. However, what they carry used to be unique but now there is a lot of overlap between their stock and Whole Food’s, or even Safeway’s. I think there is a real opportunity for these Italian Speciality stores to expand what they carry, start stocking higher end products and do a better job of telling the stories of the products they carry. Upstarts like Eatly show there is a lot of potential here.
Of course a lot has changed since Italian food first trended and the consumer market has become much more global and sophisticated. I think Spain is putting up a pretty good fight in a lot of Italy’s product categories ( mmm… yummy Jamon Iberico ). Spanish food could just be another passing trend though. Either way, it should be interesting and tasty to see how things develop.
Expect a couple more highlights on things I saw at the Show in the next few days.
Red, White & Blueberry Pancakes
My parents were in DC for the 4th of July and it was Elena’s half-birthday, so I decided to do something special for breakfast. Overnight pancakes are great when you are cooking for company. I cut down the amount of yeast to 1 tsp and skipped the cinnamon and instead went with a little grated nutmeg. Since you make the batter the night before, everything is ready to go in the morning. All you need to do is heat up a griddle and start turning them out. Even with a large griddle, you will still need make them in at least 2 batches. To keep the first batch warm, heat you oven to the lowest setting and place them on a baking rack inside. The rack helps keep them from getting soggy.
Since it was the 4th of July, I decided to go with a Red, White and Blue theme; Strawberries, Whip Cream and Blueberries. It is easy to add fruit to the pancakes, simply push them in as the first side cooks. To get a some of the juice out of the strawberries, I tossed the cut pieces with a bit of confectioners sugar. I also whipped up a batch of fresh whip cream, which is easy enough to do if you have a hand mixer. Simply add a little bit of vanilla and confectioners sugar to some heavy cream and beat until you have whip cream.
iPad – My Favorite Kitchen Gadget
Luke | June 24, 2011 |
Don’t let that blender there fool you. I still love it, but my new favorite kitchen tool is the iPad. These days most of recipes and cooking tips we use are from the Internet. When I am useful, I sometimes print them out at work. However, most of the time I end up running back and forth between my laptop and the kitchen. I could of course bring the laptop into the kitchen, but there goes a lot of counter space. There is also a very good chance that some of what I am making will end up in the keyboard.
The iPad is a great kitchen companion though. Using the cover as a stand it takes up almost no space. The battery lasts forever, so you don’t have to worry about running for the power adapter half way through a recipe. Best of it is mostly glass and metal, and very easy to wipe clean. It you are extra worried about spill, you can always through a piece of Saran Wrap over it. Best of, you have the Internet right at your finger tips. This is really handy when you realize you need to substitute an ingredient half way through a recipe, or have no idea how to tie a leg of lamb and need a quick video on it.
It looks like there are some great iPad apps for cooking, but I haven’t tried any out. Do people have any recommendations?
Apple iPad 2 Tablet (64GB, Wifi + AT&T 3G, Black)
DC Restaurant Inspections – Mapped!
I have been working on a bit of a side project. DC has great map data online and they also have all of their restaurant inspections online. Unfortunately, the two systems are not connected… so I decided to fix that. I used the excellent software from Development Seed, TileMill, to create a custom map and overlay interactive points on top of it. I scrapped the restaurant inspection site to get all of the information from their inspections. The result is maps.cookography.com
Scroll over the different points to learn more about them and then click on the for details. If you click on the restaurant’s name in the info box it will bring up all of the records for it. From the drop-down up top you can also browse and search through lists of records. I will try to regularly update this with the latest information, but poke me if things are looking stale. Let me know how it works and if you can think of any improvements.
The Best of Cookography
