On today’s show I speak with Giovanni Ponchia, lead Enologist for the Soave Consortium. Soave is the most produced white wine in Italy, and hails from the Veneto region in Northeastern Italy. I speak with Giovanni about the Garganega grape, the chalky volcanic soil of the region, and what foods go well with Soave.

www.ilsoave.com

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Gilded Fork. www.gildedfork.com

Jennifer could not resist sharing her favorite bread recipe with us. Also known as New York Rye or Jewish Rye, the scent is so overwhelmingly mouthwatering that many eager noses have been burned just trying to get a whiff.

Yields 2 large loaves

Ingredients

1 ½ cups rye bread pieces (see Preparation)
3 cups Rye Sour (see below)
1 package dry yeast
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp caraway seeds
4 cups bread or unbleached flour, approx.
1 egg, beaten, mixed with 1 Tbsp water

Preparation

Soak in water half a dozen crusty slices of a previously baked loaf of rye (store-bought is fine). Squeeze dry. Set aside 1 ½ cups for this recipe; the balance can be refrigerated or frozen for later use.

Using the plastic dough blade, place the bread pieces and the sour in your food processor work bowl. Pulse several times to make certain the two are thoroughly blended. Add the yeast, salt, and 1 Tbsp caraway seeds. Pulse, and leave for a minute or two for the yeast particles to dissolve.

Add the flour, ½ cup at a time (pulse quickly after each addition), until the batter becomes solid and is carried around the bowl by the force of the blade.

Keep the machine running and knead for 45 seconds. If the dough is too dense for your machine (this is likely for smaller mixers), turn it out onto a floured surface and proceed by hand.

Place the dough in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Punch down the dough and turn out onto a floured work surface. Divide into 2 pieces and form either round loaves or long plump ones. Place the loaves on a baking sheet that has been dusted with cornmeal.

Cover the loaves with wax paper and put aside to rise for 30 minutes to proof three-quarters in volume (not the usual full proof of double in volume).

Preheat the oven to 450˚ (if using a convection oven, 400˚) 20 minutes before baking, and prepare 1 cup hot water to pour into a pan on the bottom shelf a few minutes before putting in the loaves. This will create the steam needed for a beautiful, crisp crust.

Cut the top of the loaves into a pattern with a razor blade or sharp knife. Try a tic-tac-toe design or diagonal cut across the top. Brush with the egg-water mixture. Sprinkle with remaining caraway seeds.

Place in the hot oven. Midway through baking, turn the loaves around so they brown evenly. The loaves will bake to a deep brown in about 40 minutes. Turn one loaf over and tap the bottom crust to determine if it is done. If it is not hard and crusty, return to the oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

Place on a metal rack to cool.

[Ed: Try not to burn your nose as you inhale the luscious scent.]

Rye Sour
Yields 8 cups

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
4 cups rye flour, stone-ground preferred
3 1/2 cups hot water (120˚-130˚ degrees)
2 packages dry yeast
1 Tbsp caraway seeds
Length of cheesecloth

Tie the onion pieces into a bag made with the cheesecloth. Put aside.

In a large bowl measure the rye flour and water. Stir to mix. Sprinkle on the yeast and work it into the rye mixture. Add the caraway seeds.

When the mixture is thoroughly blended, push the onions down into the center of the sour. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and put aside overnight (no more than 24 hours). Do not refrigerate.

Lift out the onions, scrape the sour off the cloth, and discard the onions.

The sour can now be used as part of the sponge in all sour rye breads, or refrigerated for later use. (May be kept alive in the refrigerator for several weeks with occasional stirring and feeding.)

Recipes adapted from Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads. Copyright © 1995 Bernard Clayton, Jr.  Tested for The Gilded Fork™ by Donna Marie Zotter. Photo by Donna Marie Zotter.

Originally published March 2005, a time when Jennifer could still eat gluten

Our Pennsylvania Wine adventure concludes with a visit to the charming Lehigh Valley Wine Trail, close to Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City, and rife with great wineries and picturesque towns.

The wine trail comprises nine family owned wineries in Eastern Pennsylvania. Here we visit Clover Hill, Vynecrest, Blue Mountain and Galen Glen Wineries.

Along with tasting wines, we visited charming towns like Bethlehem and Jim Thorpe, sometimes referred to as “The Switzerland of America”, and “Gateway to the Pocono.s”

The Lehigh Valley Wine Trail is one of eleven unique wine trails in Pennsylvania. Check out LehighValleyWineTrail.com to learn more. Learn about the other trails at PennsylvaniaWine.com.

You can also get trip ideas for your Pennsylvania getaway at visitPA.com.

Disclosure: This video series is a paid project for our client, the Pennsylvania Winery Association.

Our Pennsylvania Wine adventure continues with a jaunt along the Susquehanna Heartland Wine Trail, which offers a perfect getaway for people who want to combine wine tasting with outdoor activities like hiking, biking and boating.

The wine trail comprises seven wineries in Central Pennsylvania, just north of the state’s capital in Harrisburg.

Along with tasting wines, we visited charming towns like Lewistown, Mifflinburg, Selinsgrove and Lewisburg, which are all a short driving distance from State College, PA, home of Penn State University.

The Susquehanna Heartland Wine Trail is one of eleven unique wine trails in Pennsylvania. Check out pawinetrail.com to learn more. Learn about the other trails at PennsylvaniaWine.com.

You can also get trip ideas for your Pennsylvania getaway at visitPA.com.

Disclosure: This video series is a paid project for our client, the Pennsylvania Winery Association.

If you’ve been paying attention on Facebook or Twitter (because we’re the center of your universe), you might have noticed that Chef Mark and I spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania recently. We’re now delighted to share with you Part I of our project, for which we shot a video series for the Pennsylvania Winery Association, featuring 4 of their 11 wine trails throughout the state. Did you know they had wine trails? Now you do.

We started at the farthest point west, on the shores of Lake Erie, which is home to the largest grape-growing region in the U.S. outside of California. Also known as a region for growing Concord grapes, used in jellies and grape juice, the winemakers there have worked tirelessly to show they can grow wine grapes, including specialty hybrids from Europe that are producing some great wines.

We’ll let the winemakers tell you themselves.

The Lake Erie Wine Trail is one of eleven unique wine trails in Pennsylvania. Check out LakeErieWineTrail.org to learn more. Learn about the other trails at PennsylvaniaWine.com.

You can also get trip ideas for your Pennsylvania getaway at visitPA.com.

Disclosure: This video series is a paid project for our client, the Pennsylvania Winery Association.

I’m BAACK! Thanks for being patient with me during my summer hiatus. I needed some time to recharge and regroup, and I’m back with a vengeance. I’ll be bringing you new shows weekly again, starting with THIS ONE:

This week, I speak with Susana Eiley of El Fogon, an eatery in San Pedro Belize, which is centered on a traditional hearth fired wood oven. I just got back from a quick trip to Belize last week, where I got a chance to have a whirlwind tour and discovery of the great foods in this unique nation of mixed heritage.

I’ll have many more blog posts, audio podcasts and of course videos from this trip. look for them on the Gilded Fork.

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

Travel and accommodation provided by the Belize Tourism Board. www.travelbelize.org

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Gilded Fork. www.gildedfork.com

This week I’m live from Broadway in New York City. We have had so many great food experiences here in NYC I just had to tell you about them. We visited old haunts and some newer ones like Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles. Come with me as we take a journey around Midtown Manhattan. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week from Chicago.

This week, I speak with cheese expert Max McCalman the Annual Fancy Food Show, where he was leading a seminar on Spanish cheeses, particularly the ubiquitous and sublime masterpiece that is Manchego cheese. We speak about Spain, the emergance of Partuguese cheeses, and the proliferation of artisanal cheeses made here in the United States. We also get into some food science and the politics of cheese in America.

ArtisanalCheese.com

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Gilded Fork. www.gildedfork.com

Whilst I was running amok at Peru’s La Mistura culinary festival, I grabbed Chef Maricel Presilla to help me learn the secrets of picarones, a fried dough dessert that had me addicted from the first bite. Every culture seems to have a fried dough, and that’s as good as street food gets. I thought from Maricel’s description that these were gluten-free, but alas, they do have flour. This presents a fabulous challenge for me to come up with a substitute — I bet tapioca flour would be ideal. Light and fluffy, and slathered with sugary syrup, picarones are made from sweet potato or squash. You can see a sample recipe here.

A production of the The Gilded Fork.
gildedfork.com

Travel & accommodations provided by Prom Peru.

This week, I head to the Annual Fancy Food Show, where thousands of food producers show their wares to buyers, chefs, journalists, and gourmands who can’t get enough. Next week, I”ll have a couple of interviews with NEW discoveries from the show, but this week, I catch up with people I’ve interviewed in the past, and see what’s new and how they’ve grown their business since the last time we spoke.

www.chocolatekekua.com
www.collierscheese.com
www.tamayagourmet.com

Here’s the video from last year’s show where I interviewed Isela Hernandez of Kekua: Chef Mark’s Quick Bites

ReMARKable Palate #152: A Powerful Taste of Wales

Buy Carica online: Tamaya Gourmet

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

This Week in Food #234: Chicago Restaurant Favorites

This week I am all alone in the podcast loft. Often, I am asked which are my favorite restaurants in Chicago. My wife and I visited one of our those restaurants last night and I decided to talk a few of the restaurants I visit the most. They are Tavern at the Park, R.J. Grunts and Mon Ami Gabi. These three represent the best in food and good service. When you visit Chicago, I think you should try them.

ReMARKable Palate #246: The Allure of Irish Whiskey

This week, it’s back to the Park Hotel in Kenmare Ireland, where Jennifer and I had a chat with John Moriarty, the barman, about Whiskey, both Irish and Scotch. I joined John for a hike along the Kerry Way earlier that day, so I was ready for some refreshment in the form of Whiskey! John knows quite a bit about the malted spirits, and taught us a thing or two!

www.parkkenmare.com

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Travel and accommodation provided by Tourism Ireland. www.discoverireland.com

ReMARKable Palate #245: The Mystique of Mastic

This week, I catch up with my old friend Aliza Green, author of many cookbooks and culinary reference books such as the Field Guides to Meat, Seafood, Herbs & Spices, Starting with Ingredients, and many more. Today she’s here to talk about mastic, an unusual ingredient to North Americans, but with a storied history and exotic allure, which finds its way into special dishes in many Mediterranean cultures.

Fragrant Fields and Turkish Delights: Exploring Aegean and Ottoman Cuisines, October 1 to 16th, departing and returning from Athens. www.epicopia.com