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November 19, 2009
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Big Things from Small Business - Which Inspires You?
Small Businesses are the driving force behind growth and innovation in the American Economy, and their inspiring stories reverberate across all industry sectors. American Express and NBC Universal are proud to support the small business community, so they've partnered to create the Shine A Light program in order to honor standout small businesses everywhere.
It's down to the wire with three finalists vying for the winning nod. And who provides that winning nod? You do! Your votes will determine which of these three hard working small businesses will receive $100,000 in grant and marketing support from American Express.
Read through the inspiring stories of these three finalists - a telecommunications company, a paint and hardware store and an organic baby food company - and cast your vote for the most inspiring story. It means a lot and can make a real difference to one inspirational small business.
Our favorite photos from Photograzing, our photo sharing site. Add yours today!
Last Week's Contest Winners
Cook the Book: Gourmet Today: Louisa, Jilly, leighana, Michael Z, and gramvo. Winners have been notified by email and also appear on our Contest Winners page. Thanks to all who entered.
Cakespy: Brooklyn Basbousa
Note: Jessie Oleson (aka Cakespy) drops by every Monday to share a delicious dessert recipe.
[Photograpy and art: Jessie Oleson]
When I was in college, I waited tables at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. While the restaurant specialized in homemade falafel and pita bread pizzas, our secret weapon was really a simple semolina cake called basbousa.
Basbousa was basically our quick fix for any situation. Complaining customers received it as a pacifier. Friendly guests received it as a reward. Homeless people who were denied the use of our bathroom received a slice as consolation.
The cake's virtue is its simplicity: it's sort of like cornbread, only made with semolina. What really makes it shine, though, is that it's topped while still hot with a sweet glaze which oozes into every little nook and cranny of the porous cake. Finished off with a sprinkling of almonds on top, it makes the perfect complement to a strong Turkish coffee. This recipe tastes very similar to the Brooklyn version I remember.
Street Food Profiles: Green Truck in Los Angeles, California
Note: It's time for another edition of Street Food Profiles. This week we scoot to the West Coast.
Name: Green Truck
Vendor: Bobby Allen
Location and hours? Multiple locations around Los Angeles, typically from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Follow @Green_truck on Twitter for updates.
The "Mother Trucker" burger: a homemade vegan patty with heirloom tomatoes, sprouts, and mixed greens, topped with "Trucker sauce."
What do you sell? Organic, vegan-friendly food, including burgers, chicken burritos, Niman beef hot dogs, line-caught albacore tuna sandwiches, falafel wraps with tzatziki, fries, and fresh melon frescas.
How long have you been street fooding? The company formed in 2006 and we've been rolling around Los Angeles since early 2007.
Cook the Book: Dashi and Japanese Chicken Stock
Cook the Book keeps me on my toes, culinarily speaking. Each week, the featured cookbook dictates not only what I am going to cook but where I will do my food shopping. This week's Japanese Hot Pots by chef Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat had me headed to the Japanese supermarket. Though I love pretty much all grocery shopping, Japanese markets are some of my favorite places to shop—all of those fascinating ingredients, the cute packaging, and the insanely appealing prepared.
After gathering all of my supplies, I made two stocks that will serve as foundations for all the hot pots this week. The first was a classic Dashi, or preserved kelp and bonito flakes steeped in water, then strained. And the second, Japanese Chicken Stock, which is just chicken wings and bones boiled in water (nothing else). The stocks used for Japanese hot pots are clean, simple bases, not meant to be used on their own. Instead, they should be flavored in the second round of cooking by other ingredients that get tossed into the hot pot.
Cook the Book: 'Japanese Hot Pots'
The hot pot or nabe in Japanese is more than a meal—it's a social event, a reason for people to gather around the table and enjoy not just a meal together but one from the same pot.
In Japan there is a common belief that str sharing a meal forges closer relationships among diners. You might not have shared a steaming hot pot before, but anyone who has tackled a cheesy, bubbling pot of fondue with friends knows it's a fun, though a bit messy, way to eat with friends.
Japanese Hot Pots by chef Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat, Japanese food aficionado and creator of the comprehensive Japanese food culture bolg, The Japanese Food Report sets out to bring this Japanese dinner time staple onto all of our tables.
Japanese Hot Pots is full of beautiful photography. A quick perusal will make your stomach grumble for a steaming bowl of broth with all kinds of vegetables, proteins, noodles, and tofu. If your knowledge of Japanese is limited to California rolls and shrimp tempura, recreating these stunning hot pots at home might strike you as a daunting task. But let me assure you—these hot pots are a breeze to put together, most of them coming together in less than 30 minutes. Hot pots are more about assembly than complicated cooking. Even the soup bases don't require a long time to simmer.
Video: 'So Fine' By Telepathe
Telepathe is a Brooklyn-based electronic band of two girls who released an album earlier this year called Dance Mother. Along with the expected mod bangs, flannel shirts, and dancing in dark alleyways, this music video for their song "So Fine" involves bowls of tangerines, marshmallows roasting in candles, and the spice aisle at the grocery store. The video, after the jump.
One of the Best Burgers I've Had in Asia at Hanoi's My Burger Mỹ
Editor's note: A few months ago, Daniel O'Sullivan contributed a review on Kraze Burger in South Korea while teaching English there. Now he's traveling around Asia for the next two months and documenting the goodies on his blog Street Foodie. Today, he brings us his review of a burger joint in Vietnam.
[Photographs: Daniel O'Sullivan]
My Burger Mỹ
5 Hang Bac, Hoàn Kiếm, Hanoi, Vietnam (map)
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: Good quality burger with toppings to match.
Want Fries with That? Yes; you might want more than what it comes with.
Prices: The Works Mỹ Burger, 69000 VND
In a busy street in Hanoi's old quarter, amid the souvenir shops and tour operators, a simple chalkboard sign hangs unobtrusively on a tree. "Char grilled Burgers, Mexican food, 1m" it announces with a slight flourish. Follow the arrow, and you've reached Mỹ Burger My.
Owned and operated by American chef/writer Daniel Hoyer, My Burger Mỹ is an unassuming sort of place. The menu consists simply of a few burgers, a handful of sandwiches, some Mexican favorites, and a bevy of cold drinks—an essential nod to the unrelenting fury of the Hanoi summer.
Talk!
50+ baked potatoes
Results of Michael Ruhlman's BLT-from-Scratch Challenge
One Hungry Chef's DIY BLT flowchart.
Earlier this summer, food writer Michael Ruhlman challenged his readers to make BLTs from scratch and to go as "from scratch" as possible.
This morning, Ruhlman announced the winners on his site. Among various categories--Best BLT Photo, Best BLT Interpretation, Most Inspirational BLT--was the Best Over All BLT, made by Jared Dunnohew of One Hungry Chef. As his cool flow chart shows, Dunnohew did almost everything short of raising the pig and growing the wheat.
He foraged in parks for herbs for the bread, the homemade mustard, and the pork cure. He harvested his own sea salt (25 liters of ocean water yields 1 kilogram of salt, he reports). He grew his own tomatoes, lettuce, and chives. And he made his own vinegar cider (used in his homemade mayo).
In addition to Dunnohew's creation, there's just a wealth of BLT ideas here. I particularly like Feeding Maybelle's BLT savory pie.
Standing Room Only: Tropic Island Jerk Chicken
"Jerk wouldn't be jerk without the heat."
[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]
Tropic Island Jerk Chicken
419 E. 79th Street, Chicago IL 60619 (map); 773-224-7766
The Short Order: Juicy jerk chicken, laced with spices.
Want Fries with That? No, but you'll definitely get some rice and red beans.
Want Ketchup? Just some mind-numbing hot sauce.
I knew Tropic Island Jerk Chicken would be good the moment I walked inside. It's not like you can fake this kind of authenticity. Who needs any coherent design theme, level floors, or more than one rickety table that nobody uses? I mean, the owner was speaking in what sounded like a Jamaican accent, but that wasn't even necessary.
All I needed was the unmistakable sent of allspice and smoke that hits your nose and won't let go. Jerk chicken is one of Jamaica's most famous food exports, and in this southside Chicago neighborhood of Chatham, it's found a home as a take-out dish. And I'll say right off the bat: I am insanely jealous that I can't get this in my neighborhood. Let me count the ways.
Dress Your Kid Up as Colonel Sanders for Halloween
The only thing better than a toddler toddling around is one wearing a wig and spectacles, masquerading as Colonel Sanders. A woman on the craft forum Craftster shared this photo of her daughter from Halloween last year in a thread about wig-making. Somehow a kid posed as a geriatric chicken icon is really adorable and not creepy at all in this scenario. [via Neatorama]
Related
Best Food-Inspired Halloween Costumes
Foodie related halloween costumes ideas anyone? [Talk]
Colonel Sanders and Leon Trotsky Look Alike
Talk!
jazzing up white rice
Healthy & Delicious: Yellow Tomato Soup, Three Ways
Note: On Mondays, Kristen Swensson of Cheap, Healthy, Good swings by these parts to share healthy and delicious recipes with us. Take it away, Kristen!
A few weeks ago, I fell into possession of 40 yellow tomatoes, which eventually became a lovely salad, lots of salsa, and enough of Bon Appétit's yellow tomato soup to feed the entire cast of Glee until graduation. The soup was a particular highlight, not only for its health quotient and deep, smoky flavor, but for its seemingly infinite adaptability. We froze a full gallon of the leftovers, and it's been a ball devising new ways to serve it.
One night, with the simple addition of elbow macaroni and cannellini beans, it became a filling pasta e fagioli dinner. A few days later, I added thin slices of cheesy bread to make a satisfying first course lead-in to a fish entrée. And of course, we've been eating the soup plain, with perhaps a side salad for light lunches. No kidding, this stuff is the best.
While I suspect similar alterations could be made to any tomato-based soup with excellent results, I like the yellow tomato-bacon-chipotle base combination here. It's unexpected and feels like cheating, though the soup remains incredibly light. With only 123 calories and about four grams of fat per cup, you can indulge a little with add-ons (see: bread, cheesy). And for a healthy eater, it doesn't get better than that.
Meet Your Farmers: David Gilson, Gilson's Herb Lyceum in Massachusetts
"Farming takes time to do well. Only a weed grows overnight. Everything else takes a lot of time and nurture."
Name: David Gilson
Farm: Herb Lyceum at Gilson's in Groton, Massachusetts.
How many acres? Four acres, but that includes fifteen greenhouses, a restaurant in a refurbished carriage house, and probably about an acre of European- Tuscan or Provencal gardens where people wander about before entering our farm restaurant.
[Photograph: Doug Macomber]
Your crew: Our seasonal crew includes a wonderful combination of local working moms and Cambodian and Jamaican workers. This diverse group brings extensive farm experience, as well as unique humor and perspective. We also have a long-standing tradition to include high schoolers, who provide energy and learn the value of work and the experience of working with our eclectic crew.
Hours: We usually start between 5 and 6 in the morning and end between 7 and 8 at night and that's seven days a week.
[Photograph: Penny Cherubino]
What you grow: Our specialty is herbs. We do probably two hundred varieties of herbs. In the fall we also grow mums, asters, inside herbs, and windowsill gardens.
Today's Specials
In Season: Figs
There are more to figs than the Newton cookies. One of the most luscious fruits, ripe figs can be thrown onto sandwiches, used in pork dishes, made into preserves, and more.
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