Latest News from Zester Daily

Globe-trotting Cookbooks

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:13:47 +0100

With the economy the way it is, I didn't get to travel this summer as much as I wanted. Luckily I found a few new cookbooks that made me feel as though I had been to some exotic countries and even taken a haphazard trip across the country. Food-tripping through Vietnam Kim Fay is a noted expert on travel literature and Viet ...

Does Napa Have Terroir?

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:34:48 +0100

Debates about terroir are as hot as ever, especially when it comes to California. My big question is always: Do wines from individual vineyards display a distinctive sense of place in, say, Napa Valley? It doesn't help that Napa produces hundreds of wines made by producers who are all over the map in their approach to winemaking. So when I had a chance to sample 63 wines made from Stagec ...

A Summer of Oysters

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:48:47 +0100

I am allergic to shellfish through some mysterious act of the gods, yet oysters have marked my summer and are on my mind as the season once again turns to a month with an "r" in it. The dictum not to eat oysters in months without an "r" in their spelling is a long-standing one and may have to do with the months in which the mollusks traditionally spawn. However, with the advent of ...

Egg Recall Reveals Scrambled Priorities

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:51:23 +0100

The recall of a half billion eggs from two Iowa agribusinesses, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, because of salmonella contamination is still dominating the news. Earlier last month the news was the withdrawal of a million pounds of E. coli tainted hamburger. That was ...

In Search of Good Eggs

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:27:17 +0100

I'm living dangerously. I just make a sunshine cake whose main ingredient is (gasp!) eggs. I even licked the bowl. And the spatula. And the beaters, too. But I have not a shred of fear, because the eggs came from my brother Henry's farm. He has a few dozen hens, and I know exactly how healthy and happy they are because I visit with them every time I bring ov ...

Turkish Breakfast Club

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:09:30 +0100

Van, in eastern Turkey, is known for its lake (the country's biggest), its ancient citadel (popularly known as the Rock of Van), and the Van cat, a rare water-loving breed with long white fur and one green and one blue eye. The city's other claim to fame: its breakfast club, possibly the world's largest. Every one of Van's mor ...

CSI: Olive Oil

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:36:49 +0100

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Paul Vossen remembers the typical Italian olive oil junket of 30 years ago. Visiting olive oil professionals witnessed vats of fresh olive oil pressed from olives taken straight from nearby Tuscan olive groves. But the tour also went to another area of the facility, says Vossen, which was shown to them proudly and without secrecy. Here, olive oil of lesser quality was refined ...

Scenes from the Desi Food Truck

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:03:52 +0100

Parked on the corner of 27th and 5th, right across the street from the Museum of Sex in the Flatiron District, is the Desi Food Truck, reviewed yesterday by the Wall Street Journal. When I read it was just a stone's throw from my office, I put on my Ray-Bans, stuck in my headphones and hipster-walked my way over (that’s where you actively try to look like you don’t care w ...

A Recipe, Not a Formula

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:27:13 +0100

A new food channel has been launched, the Cooking Channel. More celebrity chefs and TV personalities are writing cookbooks. Tables are stocked with Mario's, Giada's, Tyler's smiling faces.Â But where is the charming little cookbook "The Cuisines of ____(fill in the blank)"?Â Weâre slipping away from those rich cookbooks of yesteryear that became our favorites, ripe as they were with information ...

Greek Vineyard Feasts

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:00:10 +0100

Before my first trip to Greece this summer to visit some of the mainland's most ambitious wineries (which I'll be writing about separately), I'd been told that often the best Greek food is found in people's homes. I concur. Our little group ate colorfully and well in the few tavernas we visited, but we were treated to three exceptional meals by the women of the wine ...

Boozy Whipped Cream

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 03:28:26 +0100

In a world where culinary trends come and go like so many rumaki on an enamel platter, one can truly appreciate the inevitable collision of food and alcohol in one perfect serving. Consider, for instance, the classic Jell-O shot, or this season's wildly inventive array of booze-spiked popsicles< ...

Summer-Perfect Corn

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:38:15 +0100

You can keep it simple by grilling corn on the cob, or boiling it and slathering it with butter seasoned with sea salt and pepper. You can cut it off the cob and saute with garlic and mushrooms as a side dish, add it to soup for a chowder, mix it into clam fritters, toss it in a salad or bake into zucchini bread. It's peak corn season and Â there are innumer ...

Foodies at the Museum

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:00:00 +0100

Chef competitions on TV, front-page articles in daily newspapers, cover stories in mainstream magazines: Everyone, it seems, is talking, writing, blogging, dreaming about food. And getting serious about it. We're finally gaining some much-needed civic momentum to do something about obesity, about our food safety standards, about salt and suga ...

Japan's Fruit Fetish

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:38:35 +0100

Second in a four-part series on Japanâs unexpected wine scene. See Japan's Zen Winemakers, the first story in the series. What's wrong with $200 melons, $100 mangoes and $50 clusters of grapes? The answer to such an absurd question is less obvious if you are Japanese. The custom of giving expensive fruit as a bus ...

Mark Aubert to open new winery

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:25:37 +0100

Fans of Mark Aubert's amazingly sublime chardonnays and pinot noirs should be happy to hear Aubert and his wife will finally have a winery of their own, having purchased a new facility in Calistoga, right along the Silverado Trail. It is slated to open in January 2011 after an extensive renovation to both the winery and visitor's area. A winemaker and consultant for some very fancy names, including Peter Michael, Sloa ...

Air-dried Stockfish

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:49:23 +0100

Air-dried, cured by the salt breeze from the sea without the benefit of salt or smoke, Viking longships never left home without it. Leif Eriksson chewed it all the way to Newfoundland. It was traded for gold and slaves up and down the west coast of Africa. You'll find it sold at Easter and Christmas in the villages, towns and cities of the Mediterranean littoral, a reminder of the days when Roman Catholic ...

Goodbye Buttermilk Blues

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:19:46 +0100

If you’re like me, when you buy a bottle of fish sauce and use a tablespoon of it, the rest has a good chance of spending the rest of its life in the back of the pantry. When you buy a carton of buttermilk to make salad dressing, say, or pancakes, the remainder of the quart glares at you every time you open the refrigerator door. “Just drink me,” it pleads, which (unless you’re my father) you won’t do. Finally, when it hits its expiration date, you guiltily toss it ...

Fight Honey Laundering

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:47:03 +0100

I was a teenage beekeeper. And a geeky one at that. I knew that one bee, in her brief lifetime, collected nectar enough for only a half teaspoon of finished honey. I knew that she and her sisters together flew more than 50,000 miles, dropping in on about 2 million flowers to produce just one of the one-pound glass jars that I filled with glowing liq ...

Growing Demand for All Things Organic

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:22:28 +0100

By now, any chef worth her salt will extol the virtues of organic produce. Whether tomatoes grown using synthetic chemicals will hold their own in a taste test against an untainted harvest is rarely even up for debate. That food grown without pesticides, herbicides, hormones ...

Rice, Dal and Family

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:47:18 +0100

My food memories with my cousin Zaheen are fond and varied. Last night I went to his wonderfully stylish Lower East Side apartment for dinner, as I do almost every week, where we easily decided upon our favorite meal from childhood. It was both of our first solid foods as babies, a staple of our family for thousands of years back and, quite frankly, the fastest and cheapest possible option.&nbs ...