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THE NIBBLE’s Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
This is the blog section of THE NIBBLE. Read all of our content on TheNibble.com,
the online magazine about gourmet and specialty food.
Archive for Books
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November 9, 2009 at 8:58 am
· Filed under Books, Fruits & Nuts
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The Story Of Harry & David: Entrepreneur
Samuel Rosenberg had no farming
experience but was inspired in 1909 to
buy the orchards that produced the award-
winning Royal Riviera pears. |
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Harry & David, America’s favorite source for gourmet food gifts, celebrates its diamond anniversary this year. Seventy-five years ago, entrepreneur Samuel Rosenberg paid $300,000 for 237 acres of pear orchards that grew the Doyenne du Comice pear, now known as the Royal Riviera pear.
Developed in France in 1849, it was called “the fruit of kings” because it was favored by royalty. Difficult to grow, the Comice demaded a delicate climate and soil combination found in few regions of the world…but one of those places turned out to be Medford, Oregon, in the Rogue River Valley.
Introduced there in 1897, the pear—which can weigh as much as a pound—thrived in the Bear Creek Orchard, established in 1886. The original owner sold the orchard in 1900, and the new owner set a world record for crop yield. After seeing an exhibit of the orchard’s award-winning Comice and d’Anjou pears, Samuel Rosenberg inquired about the property.
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The interesting thing is that his two sons, Harry and David, attended Cornell University’s School of Agriculture with the intent of raising prize-winning merino ship. But the premature death of their father, from pneumonia, took them on a detour—and turned them into one of the most beloved names in fine fruit.
The Comice pear has a stubby, almost round shape with green skin; it often has a significant red blush on one cheek. It is best eaten as a hand fruit, or paired with blue cheese as a dessert.
You can buy the history of Harry & David, “First Names In Gifting: The Harry & David Story,” from HarryandDavid.com.
Read more about Royal Riviera pears.
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May 20, 2009 at 4:31 pm
· Filed under Books
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| Morton’s The Steakhouse has produced Morton’s The Cookbook: 100 Steakhouse Recipes for Every Kitchen. Now available at major bookstores, on Mortons.com and in all 81 Morton’s restaurants, the book is authored by Klaus Fritsch, co-founder and Executive Chef of Morton’s, with Morton’s Vice President of Wine & Spirits, Tylor Field III and Mary Goodbody, nationally known food writer and cookbook editor. It features more than 100 recipes, including Morton’s signature menu items and other delicious American steakhouse fare—accentuated by some international flavors inspired as the restaurant has expanded to the Pacific Rim.
Morton’s shares its wealth of information on how to cook your steak to perfection in enticing recipes such as New York Strip Roast with Three Peppercorn Sauce and Bone-in Ribeye with Rancher’s Rub. There are appetizers and classic steakhouse sides, such as Five-Onion Soup, Maine Lobster and Avocado Salad and Blue Cheese French Fries. And yes, there are recipes for those sumptuous desserts that one amazingly finds room for.
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Create your own Morton’s steakhouse experience at home. |
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Beautifully illustrated throughout, Morton’s The Cookbook might be the Father’s Day gift you’ve been looking for, for that steak-loving dad who loves to commandeer the kitchen. You can buy it now on Amazon.com.
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March 19, 2009 at 3:49 pm
· Filed under Books, Recipes
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Cut back on the high cost of takeout. That slow cooker that’s been tucked away in your kitchen cabinet is an easy solution for making delicious, cost-efficient entrees at the touch of a button. Slow Cookers For Dummies provides basic tips and troubleshooting, as well as delicious recipes that go beyond soups and stews. How about:
- Holy Guacamole Tomato Salsa, Peach Butter, and Rhubarb and Strawberry Jam
- Classic Vegetable Casserole with French-Fried Onions, Macaroni & Cheese and more
- Apple Bread Pudding, Chocolate Caramel and Peach Crisp
- Irish Coffee for a Crowd, Mulled Wine and Ruby Red Cider |
In addition to convenience and money savings, a slow cooker lets you feed your family wholesome, all-natural proteins, grains and vegetables, and steer clear of prepared mixes and convenience foods that are loaded with salt, hidden sugars and preservatives. Can’t beat that!
- Don’t have a slow cooker? Try this 3-1/2-quart one from Rival.
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January 15, 2009 at 9:00 am
· Filed under Books, Recipes, Vegan
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How popular is veganism? Popular enough to have inspired a gorgeous new cookbook, Great Chefs Cook Vegan, by Linda Long, with recipes by 25 of today’s most lauded chefs, including Dan Barber, David Burke, Cat Cora, Daniel Boulud, Todd English, Suzanne Goin, Thomas Keller, Gabriel Kreuther, Eric Ripert, Marcus Samuelsson, Charlie Trotter and Jean-George Vongerichten. Each chef contributes a three- or four-course vegan meal with beautiful photographs of each recipe. Examples include Baby Beet Salad With Pistachio Vinaigrette & Chickpea Fritters, Sweet Pea Ravioli With Sautéed Pea Leaves, Stuffed Baby Bell Peppers With Sunflower Seed Risotto, and Chocolate Cake With A Chocolate Truffle Molten Center. Yum—what time shall we be there for dinner? |
A vegan diet is more restrictive than a vegetarian diet. Vegans exclude any type of animal product, including eggs, dairy and honey. The diet focuses on whole grains, vegetables, fruits, beans and legumes, is low in fat, contains no cholesterol and is rich in fiber and nutrients. And, in the hands of great chefs, the food tastes as wonderful as anything else they cook, as you’ll see when you start cooking up a storm from this cookbook.
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December 17, 2008 at 9:00 am
· Filed under Books, Chocolate, Cocktails & Spirits, Cookies/Cake/Pastry, Gifts, Holidays & Occasions, Kitchenware, Kosher Nibbles, NutriNibbles/Organic, Sugar-Free, Wine
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March 8, 2008 at 6:26 pm
· Filed under Books, Fish/Seafood/Caviar, Food Holidays, Recipes
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The whitest, biggest chunks of crab—known as Jumbo Lump crabmeat—are also the priciest. |
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How can you celebrate National Crabmeat Day and still have change to spare? Here’s the secret: Those pretty puffs of lump white crabmeat on the buffet are up to three times the price of the darker body crabmeat. But the darker meat is actually tastier. If you’re mixing the crab into a salad for sandwiches (think crab rolls, like lobster rolls, or serve it on brioche, as a crabmeat BLT) or to stuff eggs or omelet, save money—and enjoy crab more often—by using dark crabmeat.
Also celebrate National Crabmeat Day by:
- Learning about the different types of crab and crabmeat, and what you should look for when you purchase canned crab.
- Read our review of Miller’s Select, our favorite brand of crabmeat (it’s shelf-stable too, no refrigeration required).
- Make one of these crabmeat recipes.
- Buy this nifty little crab cookbook: Crab: Buying, Cooking, Cracking, by Andrea Froncillo and Jennifer Jeffrey. |
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February 16, 2008 at 8:12 pm
· Filed under Books, Cookies/Cake/Pastry
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Elizabeth Falkner proposes everything from
The Real McCoy Ice Cream Sandwich to Blueberry Paper. |
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We put an ace baker to work, finding the best new baking cookbooks. After baking up a storm, here’s Part I of her recommendations (Part II arrives next month):
- Classic Stars Desserts, by Emily Luchetti, executive pastry chef at Jeremiah Tower’s pioneering San Francisco restaurant, Stars
- Elizabeth Falkner’s Demolition Desserts, recipes from the famed San Francisco sweet spot, Citizen Cake
-The Greyston Bakery Cookbook, by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, featuring recipes from a community bakery in The Bronx whose brownies are used by Ben & Jerry’s
- Pure Dessert, by Alice Medrich, one of the Bay Area’s legendary bakers, called “The First Lady of Chocolate”If you’d rather buy a great dessert than bake one, check out the Cookies and Desserts & Ice Cream sections of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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December 31, 2007 at 1:57 pm
· Filed under Books, Cocktails & Spirits, Tip Of The Day
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| Today is National Champagne Day. Most people bring a bottle of Champagne as a gift to New Year’s Eve parties. Add a book about Champagne, and your gift will be remembered long after the bubbles are gone. This is one of our favorites. (Find more of our favorite books in the Books Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine.) Happy New Year from all of us at THE NIBBLE! |
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No one expects to get through all 4,000, but there’s lots of educational information about Champagne itself. |
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December 9, 2007 at 1:44 pm
· Filed under Books, Gourmet News, Salts/Seasonings
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| The weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal devoted a lot of space to an article called “A New Taste Sensation,” umami. This was news two years ago when Anna Kasabian and David Kasabian wrote their seminal book on the topic, The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami. It was the talk of gastronomy circles, and THE NIBBLE wrote a long article on umami. But, like sous vide and Gewürtztraminer, it didn’t trickle down to most fine food enthusiasts—it’s just a bit too east of mainstream. We have often thought about teaching a course on umami, because the fifth taste is not as easy to understand as the other four: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Want to taste sweet? Sugar is unmistakable, and you can find that same taste in baked goods, fruit and other sweet substances. The same with salt, the sourness of lemon juice or vinegar, and the bitterness of arugula. But there is no one umami flavor (the word itself means “deliciousness”), even though it is described as “brothy.” Umami foods are characterized as having a high level of glutamate, an amino acid; MSG, a manufactured form of it, adds flavor to food, just as sugar adds sweetness, salt adds saltiness and vinegar adds tartness—all heighten the flavors of the foods they enahnance. |
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Parmesan cheese: salty or umami? |
| Yet, back to the argument: We can identify sweet, salty, bitter and sour. What does umami taste like? You can name foods and dishes that contain umami flavor, but cannot point to any single, easily-recognizable flavor attribute. Here are some of the cornerstone products that showcase umami: MSG, Parmesan cheese, anchovies, soy sauce, dried mushrooms, ketchup and konbu, a large seaweed used to make dashi. What do they have in common? If you asked, what do ice cream, chocolate, orange juice, cherries and marzipan have in common, one might say “sweetness” or “sugar.” What about ketchup and Parmesan, seaweed and anchovies? One might describe the first four umami ingredients as salty, and try as we can, we still can’t get brothy out of a tomato or konbu, until they are made into broth. And this is why umami, the fifth taste, has not “broken out” in the West. You can train people how to combine ingredients for heightened umami flavors, you can hand out umami-enriched recipes, you can print lists of umami-rich foods for people to memorize, but you can’t train them to identify them “umami taste” as you can sweet taste, salty taste, etc. If someone had you taste watercress, it wouldn’t be too hard to classify it as bitter. If given bacon, ham, salt pork or sausage, you’d put them in the salt category. But, umami claims them as well. We would find a tomato sweet; umami calls it umami. See? None of this is addressed by The Wall Street Journal article or any other article we’ve read. We lack the scientific expertise to say that umami isn’t the fifth taste, experts say that it is. We just think that it double dips. It seems to us that every food that umami claims as its own can fall within one of the four existing classes, whereas sweet, salty, sour and better are completely discrete. All comments are welcome. |
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December 2, 2007 at 11:10 am
· Filed under Books, Gifts
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Chef or emperor? Mario Batali is one of 50 memorable portraits by Melanie Dunea in her book, My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs And Their Final Meals.
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So many books…so little time. When we looked at all of the food books published this year to put together our holiday gift lists, we found wonderful ideas for everyone—and while the books stand on their own, we paired most of them with actual food products for an even bigger gift. A few were published in prior years, but they’re not so well-known; we find them so valuable that we’d be grateful to get them as a gift. To develop expertise in specific areas of food, we have books on chocolate, crab, oysters and truffles (the fungus). For food history, Alice Waters & Chez Panisse, Moveable Feasts, a book on the history of food from farm to table that is a real page-turner, and the snarky The Food Snob’s Dictionary, a good stocking stuffer. There are many more, including cookbooks. But one that every foodie must own is My Last Supper by Melanie Dunea, intimate portraits of 50 top chefs who describe their last meals. Dunea’s photography is stunning—each portrait is as special as Mario Batali’s, at left. Read the full review. See many more gift ideas in the Gift Finder of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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