Chicago Foodies

The Sixth Sense of Dining: Inside the StarChefs Conference

Want to rub elbows with the nation's brightest culinary stars? The 6th annual StarChefs conference opened yesterday in New York with a star-studded roster of speakers.

The event is open only to industry professionals, however for culinary students and restaurant workers, this is a dazzling opportunity to ask questions and get your hands dirty with a workshop from your favorite kitchen god (or goddess). There is also opportunity to walk away with a dash of fame; 20 rising pastry chefs are in fierce competition to win the International Pastry Competition.

This year's theme was "The Sixth Sense: Intuition, Emotion and Experiential Evolution in Dining." Lots of fancy words, to be sure, but there is nothing pie-in-the-sky about Grant Achatz's determination to enter your psyche as a diner, as he spoke about the broadening role of food as entertainment.

The StarChefs conference is certainly smaller than other industry conferences (like the National Restaurant Association show), but the more intimate vibe allows you to dive in without feeling overwhelmed. There is a good smattering of equipment vendors, food suppliers and other merchandise to check out, but the real meat of the conference is not the Australian lamb, but the main stage presentations and workshops.

Want to hear about building a charcuterie empire? Daniel Boulud will enlighten you. Interested in making ethereally light macarons? Pierre Herme has traveled straight from Paris to guide you in an interactive seminar. Curious about the thought process that pushes a concept to a plate? Laurent Gras demonstrates visual storytelling through a fish eye and Picasso paintings.

More highlights and photos from the StarChefs conference after the jump:

Changes in the Las Vegas Scene and Discoveries – Salo-Salo

Las Vegas over the past few years has received a number of accolades for its restaurants, even to the extent that Michelin gave star ratings to restaurants in 2009, a move that has since been "temporarily" discontinued.  There are some great restaurants in Las Vegas, many of which are run by star chefs that have built their reputations in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New Orleans.   If you go to the strip, you can't help but notice Emeril Lagasse's shameless self-promotion of his restaurants.  Dig further and you'll find impressive reviews given to restaurants like Chicago's Shawn McClain restaurant Sage.  

Some of these restaurants haven't survived the recession, among them being Charlie Trotter's Charlie, a victim of not only the recession but perhaps also an oversaturation of pricey eating establishments and a lack of a local market that can sustain them.  Traveling gamblers, some of whom have had the benefit of an expense account, can only provide so much in a metropolitan area of only 2.2 million, less than twenty-five percent of Chicago's metropolitan area.   Additionally, the foodie scene in this desert city is not exactly mature compared with more cosmopolitan cities such as Chicago and New York.    According to the Center for Business and Economic Research at University of Nevada-Las Vegas, spending in 2009 was down 14 percent from 2007.  Perhaps even more significantly, convention attendance was down 27 percent in that same time period.   

Inside Salone del Gusto, Italy’s Artisanal Foodie Mecca

Clockwise: whole prosciutto from San Daniele on display; a band of two accordions, a guitar and a hurdy-gurdy (the bearded man on the right was making animal puppets out of a hankerchief to entertain the kids); a self-service milk truck parked outside Salone del Gusto; Puglian women stringing cherry tomatoes by hand

After a long morning of seminars, I was sipping a glass of Left Hand beer, when the sound of drums and horn began thundering down the hall. It was Macedonian folk ensemble Akud Mirce Acev, beating a lively rhythm and whipping a crowd of Asians into a frenzied dance. Heads bobbed, cameras flashed, women in hanbok dresses waved their arms in the air. Just another day at Salone del Gusto.

Salone del Gusto is an international food fair and celebration of the artisanal producer, on a decidedly not small scale. In the exhibition rooms of Torino's Lingotto Fiere, 65.000 m² of space will encompass 910 exhibitors from 17 Italian regions and 46 countries. In 2008, the fair attracted 180.000 visitors and I would guess that this year's show attracted just as many, if not more attendees. The event is a combined effort of Slow Food and the city of Torino, and as you might expect, the environmental impact is minimized through the use of ecofriendly materials. For instance, the flooring for the stalls is made from Ecomat material, made from the residual pulp left from olive oil pressing mixed with new and recycled polypropylene.

Sherman's Dairy in South Haven

Home to the Blueberry Festival and Sherman’s Ice Cream, South Haven, MI is a weekend get-away gem! My family has been visiting this mecca of relaxation, breathtaking sunsets, and good food for over three generations.  Located on Lake Michigan and just a two-hour car ride from Chicago, South Haven is a great place for families and couples alike. Besides sun, ice cream is the only other thing sure to lift spirits time and time again! Most sane people can agree that ice cream evokes feelings of leisure, joy, and happiness.

Started in 1916, Sherman’s Dairy and Ice Cream is still a place worth waiting in line to enjoy.  Generation after generation, children love the tuti-fruity flavor of Sherman’s Blue Moon ice cream, while adults often prefer ice creams like chocolate turtle (my favorite) or pistachio or strawberry cheesecake or peanut butter cup or black cherry… and the list goes on. They offer over 45 flavors at very reasonable prices for the size.

Swiss Eats: Cheese, Chocolate and...Pasta?

Clockwise: Beef carpaccio and Swiss cheese rolls with olive oil and rösti from the Cafe de Paris (Interlaken); luxemburgerli from Confiserie Sprüngli; raclette with potatoes, pickles and pickled onions; confections to celebrate Swiss National Day (Aug 1)

"I might be done with cheese after this week in Switzerland," I joked to the waitress. She looked at me with consternation. "Oh no, I could never be done with cheese!"

From soft to extra-hard, holey to solid, in all shades of white, amber and yellow, the Swiss love their cheese and produce about 450 different varieties of it. Whether melted in fondue pots or simply sliced in thin sheets and eaten atop bread, cheese is ubiquitous on menus and the core of most traditional Swiss dishes. Fondue is fairly common in the US so I bypassed that, but for a (relatively) less intense cheese option, you can order raclette, which is both a type of cheese and a dish featuring this cheese. The cheese round is heated, then scraped (from French racler, meaning "to scrape") onto the diner's plate, and usually served with boiled potatoes, pickles and pickled onions. Another popular Swiss dish is rösti, or grated, fried potatoes similar to hash browns. Be warned that if you order rösti, you will often get an entire plateful of potatoes, in the shape of the frying pan. The rösti can come topped with cheese, speck, onions or other condiments.

Puglia Food Products: Olive Oil, Capocollo, Wine, Cheese and Seafood

Crystal Cun is spending the next year in Italy studying at the University of Gastronomic Sciences. She recently traveled to Puglia (the heel of the boot) for a one-week school field trip. For more information, you can check her blog at Lady Parmalade.

Though some time was alloted in Puglia for activities not requiring mastication, the bulk of the trip was spent at food production sites, restaurants and agricultural lands. I realize that this must sound like the best foodie vacation ever, but eating rich foods nonstop for a week is not as pleasant as it may seem. Some of us had the added stress of documenting the trip in detail because there is a paper and presentation required after the stage. By the end, we were all thoroughly sick of cured meats, cheeses and each other. A few people actually became ill, though I cannot say whether this was due to food poisoning, general infection, or the stress of traveling and eating from 9 am to 1 am every day. My advice for anyone who goes on these trips is to ingest plenty of fiber and choose your roommate carefully. 

Moving on to the actual food. Puglia's dry, sunny climate makes it difficult to grow many crops, but the hardiness of olive trees in times of drought has resulted in their widespread cultivation. The trees dot the Puglian landscape with their graceful, twisted trunks and branches, akin to a pair of ballet dancers. We were told by one farmer that the trees twist according to the Earth's rotation, and that olive trees planted south of the equator would twist in the opposite direction, similar to the rotation of water draining from toilets. This is a romantic idea, but since the Coriolis force has been shown to have a tenuous effect on toilet water, I am somewhat doubtful of the tree-twisting claim.

 Still, the trees are majestic to behold, knotted and gnarly, reminiscent of the baobab tree in The Little Prince. The one pictured above actually belongs to a Russian who admired the unique shape of its trunk. So, he bought the tree for €5,000. In return, he gets to keep the olive oil milled from the olives of this tree, which comes to 10-15 liters of oil per year. He also comes to visit his tree annually. If you are interested in owning a piece of Italian real estate and having a lifetime supply of olive oil, you too can invest in one of the 50,000 available trees for the low price of €500-1,000 by contacting Olio Cazzetta.

University of Gastronomic Sciences

My fellow Chicago Foodies,

It has come time to confess that I am a turncoat and have abandoned Chicago's wonderful community of foodie cognoscenti. Why? For the last week I have actually been living in northern Italy, in a little town called Bra. I will be here for the next year attending a master's program at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Food Culture and Communications. If you are wondering what on earth gastronomy is, let me explain. It is not the study of gaseous stars, but the holistic study of food and its relationship to society, history and the environment. The program delves into sustainable production, and is cosponsored by Slow Food. Course titles include “Medieval Food History,” “Sociology of Food Consumption” and “Food Economics.” So far, the hours have been long, but the studying has been delicious. 

I will return periodically to Chicago Foodies to post about my gastronomic findings in Italy, but you can also follow me day to day at http://ladyparmalade.wordpress.com or on Twitter.

Also, I am happy to field questions if anyone is traveling through northern Italy or wants more info about the University.

Alla prossima,

Crystal

Six Plates in Durham, NC

Serendipitously, right before my most recent trip, the NYT published an article expounding upon the push for local ingredients in Durham. The result is a rising number of low-key restaurants that source hyper-fresh and artisanal ingredients, reinventing Southern classics like biscuits and grits with a sophisticated touch. The movement is further aided by the abundance of farmer's markets and long growing season. Not that I don't love Chicago's farmer's markets, but North Carolina is about 30 degrees and a growing month ahead of us, and the difference in offerings is stark.

One of the restaurants mentioned in the article was Six Plates, a wine bar featuring a varying list of (you guessed it) six small plates each night. Each plate is paired with a carefully chosen glass of wine. There are also 2-3 additional small plate options, which are permanent mainstays on the menu. The plates range between $7-9, and our group split four items and a bottle of wine for only $20 and change.

Signs that you are not in Chicago anymore: nice restaurants are frequently located in strip malls. And, there is no need for a reservation, even for a prime Saturday night. We called Six Plates to find out if we needed a reservation, particularly since the restaurant had been recently written up. The bartender assured us that this was unnecessary, and sure enough, we were able to snag seats without a problem when we arrived.

Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen in Chapel Hill, NC

Though I was technically born a southerner in Louisville, KY, my family later moved off to New England, where I quickly lost my habit of saying "ya'll" and acquired a penchant for saying "wicked." Thus, I am somewhat ashamed to say that I have never had a slice of Derby pie, and the only fried chicken I tried while in Louisville was the KFC variety. Having been safely ensconced above the Mason-Dixon line for a number of years now, I figured I would simply have to make do with whatever ersatz barbecue joints I came across up north. Then, my old college roommate moved to North Carolina, in a "temporary" relocation. And so, over the last few years, I've made several trips to NC, traversing the state from the Research Triangle to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Oh boy, an exciting opportunity to explore my Southern heritage anew, pimento cheese, collard greens and all!

Buttermilk biscuits are another foodstuff that is ubiquitous throughout the South, but Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen is unique in their single-minded devotion to creating carbohydrate perfection. Here, the biscuit is elevated from a mere side starch to an entree unto itself. These are flaky, buttery pillows, a downy blanket carefully cradling a meat of your choice. 

Dark Lord Day – Pot Luck Beer.

Friday night was Whiskeyfest. Saturday morning my friend Mark browbeat me into waking up at 7:30 and driving to Munster Indiana to stand in a line, in the rain, and wait to buy beer. I didn't do this for the iPad. What the hell could he be thinking? I don't know how he got me roped into this but I owe him big time. He's a beer blogger and his partner Shaun (from Mark & Shaun's Beer Blog) was flying in for the event – so that must mean he knows what he's talking about (ha!).

How do you compare Dark Lord Day and Whiskeyfest? It's beer and whiskey. It's also $160 vs. Free (less the price of the Dark Lord, (if you're lucky enough to get a ticket) and the price of whatever you buy and bring to share). You get to meet the distillers and reps for all the great whiskeys vs. people who bring and share their favorite beers.

What's in common is enthusiasm, a want for knowledge and a need for stamina. I was overstimulated and certainly couldn't keep up with all the many, distinctly wonderful, beverages from Indian Whiskey & 70 year-old cognac to a 2006 Wee Heavy and Founder's Kentucky Breakfast.

But what happens at Dark Lord is different. Take this guy. His name is Brendan and the first thing he said to me is "where's your glass?". He then poured me a few ounces of an '06 Wee Heavy... at 10:30am. It was one of the best beers I've ever had. There was no spiel. There were no companies shilling. Nobody was being paid. Brendan didn't even tell me what to 'taste' or why he was sharing this. He simply flew in from Seattle to pour free beer for strangers. You can't buy advocacy like that. That's a picture of Brendan showing off a bottle of the Perfect Storm a bit later in the day. Brendan's the best.

So while hundreds of people waited in line to buy 4 bottles of Dark Lord, I made some very nice friends from Seattle, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and surely other places. I also tried some extremely nice beer from Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Belgium... and others.

Out of State, Not Out of Mind: Chelsea Market, NYC

For the past several months I’ve been lucky enough to call New York home for the occasional weekend. So when I’m not feeding on Bon Chon chicken in the village or Indian food in Queens I’m taking advantage of one under-hyped aspect of food in New York, the food market.
 
The one in walking distance for me is the Chelsea Market, which at first glance resembles Navy Pier. It’s kind of got this overpriced, lame, touristy vibe. And while there may be cheaper places in certain areas, the selection and prices here put Chicago to shame. On a whim I can find beautiful short ribs, skate wing or monkfish for around $8 a pound. Veggies are even more affordable and available. Giant trumpet mushrooms, fresh bunches of thyme for $0.85 ($3 at Dominick’s), fingerling potatoes for less than the price of sweet garnets in Chicago… it goes on and on: Torpedo shallots, hydroponic carrots with lush parsleyesque tops, literally on and on. I went a bit overboard and my bill came to $7 and change.

Tokyo for Foodies: Kawagoe and the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum

Fourth and final post in a series

Further afield: places just a short train ride outside of Tokyo

Kawagoe

Inspired by this NYT article, I ventured to Kawagoe for a day, a town nicknamed "Little Edo" for Tokyo's ancient name. Many of the town's old kura (warehouses) survived WW2 bombing, and thus, you can get a glimpse of what the Tokyo of yore looked like. 

Today, the kura are used for retail space, and you can get a variety of candies, crackers, pickles and kimonos by peeking under the half-curtains. Kawagoe's most prominent agricultural crop is sweet potatoes and yams, so you can find all manner of candies, crackers and sake made from the sweet potato. I promptly snapped up a few bags of candied sweet potatoes, seaweed crackers and fruit-shaped cookies.

Tokyo for Foodies: Sake Plaza, 100-Yen Shops, Street Food, Imperial Palace

Third post in a series

Sake Plaza

The Japan Sake Brewers Association runs a small tasting room where you can try five sakes for just ¥525. The sake list includes notes on each sake's type, prefecture, sweetness and alcohol content. Be sure to pick up the English pamphlets which include a glossary of terms on sake bottle labels and a guide for how to taste sake. The location on Google Maps is accurate.

Tokyo for Foodies: Depachika, Namja Land and Kappabashi Dori

Second post in a series

Depachika (Department Store Food Floors)

Picture going to Nordstrom's to view designer clothing and jewelry behind enclosed glass cases. Then picture going downstairs to find a bustling floor of food counters, fresh produce and meats, and vendors shouting as they try to draw your attention to their toro tuna. The basement levels of Japanese department stores include depachika, or food floors, which sell all manner of vegetables and meats, prepared meals, baked goods, teas and imported cheese and hams. Sometimes you can pick up samples. All this is done in a noisy, crowded environment, far removed from the subdued refinement upstairs. I recommend checking out the big three department stores in Ginza (Matsuya, Mitsukoshi, Matsuzakaya) since they are all located together on the same street.

Tokyo for Foodies: Tsukiji Market & Tsukiji Soba Academy

The first of a series of posts inspired by a recent trip to Japan

Having recently returned from a stint in Tokyo, I must say, this is a city that is Very Serious about eating. Here you will find cuisines ranging from French to Indian to Japanese and everything in between. The city has more Michelin stars than any other, more than NYC and Paris combined. In Ginza, I saw a cantaloupe on sale for $233. Or, you can walk into any corner ramen restaurant or try some grilled squid from a street vendor and be rewarded with a delicious meal. They truly value good food and gastronomy as a culture, hence the city is a magical wonderland chock-full of fun activities for foodies.

There are no specific restaurant recommendations here, since you can find exhaustive listings in a wide variety of guidebooks. Besides, many of my meals were spur of the moment picks and turned out great anyway. In my 10-days here, I never had a bad meal, and moreover, I never had an unattractive meal. Even the random $2 pork chop sandwich I picked up at a train station was fabulous, and was impeccably wrapped to boot.

Many restaurants in Tokyo have English menus or plastic displays to model their menu offerings. If you'd like to know a little more about what you're eating, or be able to read Japanese menus, I recommend picking up Robb Satterwhite's What's What in Japanese Restaurants, which gives you the characters for popular menu items in various types of Japanese eateries. If you have more time, I'd also learn katakana, the Japanese alphabet for (mostly English) loanwords. This will instantly give you a Japanese vocabulary of a couple thousand words, and allows you to look at a menu and read ｻﾗﾀﾞ (sarada) for salad, ﾁｷﾝ (chikin) for chicken, and ｽﾐﾉﾌ (suminofu) under the Vodka section for Smirnoff.

Without further ado, here are some fun things to do in Tokyo:

Congee – Comfort is King

Spending a long weekend in Manhattan is something to look forward to... especially when it comes to food. 2 hours after landing, before I could even be homesick, I found myself at Congee Village on Delancy and Allen (1st). When the place has congee in the name and the yeasty scent of rice fills the room, you know what to make sure to order. Clue two is that when a table of Brooklynites, especially one in the city to photograph disappearing Jewish eateries, compare the medicinal benefits of congee to chicken soup you need to take notice.