[2] A more traditional poke bowl. Here’s how to customize your own from Kirbie Cravings.

Poke is a raw fish and vegetable dish served as an appetizer or salad course in Hawaiian cuisine.

A relative of ceviche, crudo, tartare and tataki, poke is a combination of raw fish and vegetables, served as a light lunch or appetizer.

Poke is Hawaiian for “to section” or “to slice or cut.” The most popular recipe, ahi poke, is made with yellowfin tuna marinated in sea salt, plus soy sauce, roasted crushed candlenut (inamona), sesame oil, limu seaweed and chopped chili pepper.

You can customize poke however you like, using local or seasonal ingredients. For vegetarians, here’s a tofu poke recipe.
 
HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE POKE?

Actually pronounced poe-KEH, it is mis-pronounced POE-key or POE-kay by enough people that the latter pronunciation is becoming an accepted alternative outside of the Hawaiian Islands.

Poke is Hawaiian for “to section” or “to slice or cut.” Here’s more about it.
 
HOW DO YOU RIFF ON POKE?

Sujan Sarkar, Executive Chef at Indian bistro Rooh in San Francisco, re-shapes poke as Tuna Bhel, an Indian-seasoned version of the dish.

Inspired by bhel puri, a traditional Indian chaat* made from puffed rice, vegetables and tamarind sauce, Chef Sarkar took the traditional poke base of ahi tuna and mixed it with puffed black rice, crunchy chickpea snack, boiled potatoes, red onion, green apple and green mango, baby radish and avocado.

He then seasoned the medley with seasoned with chaat masala, chutney, and a sprinkle of the Japanese chile-based spice mix, shichimi togarashi, on the plate.

You, too can create a designer poke dish (or apply the lesson to any other conventional food preparation).

Take this poke recipe from Kirbie Cravings (photo #2) and think of what flavors you’d like to add.

Avocado and scallions are popular, but how about:

 
Let the sky be your limit: orange zest, castelvetrano olives, rice sticks. We might hold the line at potato chips and pretzels, but you don’t have to.

In his presentation, Chef Sarkar garnishes with watermelon radishes and edible flowers. Here, you can use something fun and crunchy (freeze-dried edamame?).

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*Chaat are savory snacks that originated as Indian street food. They are now served as hors d’oeuvres or first courses in Indian restaurants. The word derives from Hindi for tasting. More about chaat.

Once every five or ten years we see a product innovation that we would be delighted to consume regularly.

Some never make it commercially.

We still lament the pizza cone, made from pizza crust shaped like an ice cream cone. You could stuff with your favorite pizza ingredients—mozzarella, pepperoni, sauce, etc.—and eat your cone on the go.

The latest innovation that we hope will be a big success:

Folios Cheese Wraps. The Gourmet Retailer awarded them the 2017 Editor’s Pick for Best New Products.

You can take the 100% cheese wraps and use them to wrap, roll, melt, crisp, or crisp and shape. See their versatility in the photos.
 
 
WHAT ARE FOLIOS CHEESE WRAPS?

Folios Cheese Wraps (photo #7) are all natural, 100% cheese circles/slices.

They are used instead of bread, flour-based wraps or corn-based tortillas; and can be shaped into bowls, pockets and taco shells.

They have no fillers or additives and are rBST free and gluten free (all cheese is gluten-free; gluten only occurs in certain cereal grains).

And, they are also lactose free. That takes an extra step in production, for which lactose-sensitive cheese lovers will be grateful.

The wraps are 7 inches in diameter, but are not simply sliced from a block of cheese.

Rather, a lot of research and development went into a process involving baking the slices (that’s the only secret divulged), to end up with a slice a cheese that looks like…a slice of cheese.

They are made in three varieties: Cheddar, Jarlsberg and Parmesan.

Each slice has 13g of protein, plus just 1g of carbs and 150 calories per slice.
 
 
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE CHEESE WRAPS?

Use them instead of bread, wraps, tortillas and other carb-laden bread substitutes. You can:

 
You can shape, bake, microwave or enjoy them in their natural state.

Some ideas:
 
For The Cheddar Wraps

In addition to the uses above, substitute in Tex-Mex dishes:

 
You can get even more creative by, for example, pressing jalapeño slices into the Folios (photo #6).
 
For The Jarlsberg Wraps

 
For The Parmesan Wraps

 
A natural pairing is with foods that typically contain Parmesan cheese.

 
Experiment to your heart’s desire. For recipes and videos, head to CheeseFolios.com.
 
 
ABOUT LOTITO FOODS

Folios Cheese Wraps are made by Lotito Foods, a fourth-generation family business that sells retail, consumer and private label food product lines.

Their products are available nationwide.

[1] Jarlsberg Folios Cheese Wrap with roast beef and a drizzle of balsamic reduction. You can make it or buy balsamic glaze (all photos courtesy Lotito Foods).

[2] A Parmesan Folios Cheese Wrap is turned into a bowl for a Caesar salad. Just heat it and shape it over a bowl.

[3] A Cheddar Folios Cheese Wrap becomes a taco shell. Heat it and shape it over a form.

[4] Fold up into a tart or galette.

[5] Cut a wrap into pinwheels.

[6] Press in slices of jalapeño.

[7] The varieties of Folios Cheese Wraps: Cheddar, Jarlsberg and Parmesan.

Folios Cheese Wraps are made by Lotito Foods, a fourth-generation family business that sells retail, consumer and private label food product lines.

Their products are available nationwide.

[2] A mix to bake your own (both photos courtesy Simple Mills).

Simple Mills sent me their vegan, gluten-free and paleo-friendly Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies (photo #1) and their Chocolate Chip Cookie Almond Flour Mix (photo #2), along with the promise of something revolutionary.

The use of almond flour in both products piqued my interest. I ate the ready-made cookies from the box, and I baked a batch from the other.

Both products are Certified Gluten-Free and Non GMO Project Verified.
 
Simple Mills Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies

That first tender bite, still firm enough and not over-chipped, got my attention. But the cookie simply disappeared before I had a chance to process all of its various gifts.

So I reached for another, and another…and it pretty much went on like this until the box was half gone.

My first impression was the yielding softness of the cookie, followed soon after by an appreciation of the its almost amaretti-like airiness: a moist delicacy balanced by hearty almond undertones.

But this is not an esoteric cookie experience. It’s a cookie that will appeal to young and old; accessible enough for the Cookie Monster in all of us, but dimensional and subtle enough for a foodie.

As it wins your heart with its tenderness, its flavor and slightly lower sugar content will appeal to your reason. The Soft Baked cookies contain 6 grams of sugar per 2-inch-diameter cookie. That’s 25% less sugar than in natural cookie counterparts
 
Simple Mills Chocolate Chip Cookie Almond Flour Mix

Want to bake? The Cookie Mix, with a very quick assembly and bake time, resulted in a slightly crunchier outer rim and a softer middle.

The advantage of the mix is its ability to customize crunchy-to-soft ratios and include enhancements. I made half of my mixture chips-only and tossed a handful of chopped pecans into the rest. Future plans include ground coffee and dried apricot add-ins.

Simple Mills cookie products (which are also soy-free and dairy-free) are available via the Simple Mills website as well as at stores nationwide (store locator).
 
—by Georgi Page-Smithr

This year, American Craft Beer Week is celebrated from May 14th through 20th. It’s about celebrating the artisan ingredients, and techniques, that make a craft beer so much more tasty and special than a mass brew.

There are more than 6,000 breweries in the U.S., and 99% of them are defined by the Brewers Association as small*, traditional and independent.

One of the problems in Beerland is that the huge global beer companies purchase hot independent beer brands†, and then apply their corporate protocols to chip away at the quality. Two we once enjoyed, Blue Point and Goose Island, simply aren’t as exciting as they used to be.

How can you tell if a beer is made by an independent U.S. craft brewer or is part of a global conglomerate? Look for the independent craft brewer seal on the packaging (photo #2).

The independent craft brewer seal was launched in June 2017 by the Brewers Association, the membership organization dedicated to promoting and protecting small and independent craft brewers in the U.S., and publishers of CraftBeer.com.
 
 
7 WAYS TO CELEBRATE CRAFT BEER WEEK

1. Try a new beer style. See if you can find one of the new coffee beers or tea beers, which add coffee or tea to the brew.

2. Get a growler to go and invite some friends.

3. Try new beer and food pairings.

 
4. Take a brewery tour. More than 80% of drinking-age Americans live within 10 miles of a brewery, according to the Craft Brewers Association. Find one with their interactive guide to breweries. Or, try a simple browser search for “craft breweries near me.”

5. Check out how to make a homebrew. It could become your new hobby.

6. Give a shout-out to your favorite craft beer in social media.

7. Plan a summer beercation.

[1] Craft lager (photo courtesy Uno).

[2] This seal establishes that the beer was made by an independent craft brewer (image courtesy Craft Brewers Association).

If you want to receive communications from the American Craft Beer association, send them your email.
 
 
BRUSH UP YOUR BEER KNOWLEDGE WITH OUR BEER GLOSSARY.
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*There are four different category classifications. A regional brewery is defined by an annual production of 15,000 to 6,000,000 barrels. A microbrewery is one that produces less than 15,000 barrels. The other two categories are brewpubs, which produce the smallest amount, and contract brewing companies, which producer beer for companies that don’t have their own facilities [more].

†In the space of four years, for example, Anheuser-Busch InBev purchased beloved local breweries like Chicago’s Goose Island, Patchogue, New York’s Blue Point Brewing Co., Bend, Oregon’s 10 Barrel and Seattle’s Elysian Brewing [more].
 

The beer taps at West End Hall, a beer garden in New York City that sells craft beers on tap and in bottles (photo courtesy West End Hall).
 

[2] There would be no fluffy pancakes without baking powder. Here’s the recipe for these Banana Bread Pancakes from The Baker Chick (photo © The Baker Chick).

[3] Baking powder from Clabber Girl, one of the original brands still going strong—it’s the number-one seller in the U.S. (photo courtesy Handle The Heat).

[4] A tablespoon of baking powder. Here’s how to tell if your baking powder and baking soda still have potency, from Still Tasty (photo © Still Tasty).

Either way, these high-rising biscuits, along with tall layer cakes and fluffy pancakes, owe their height to baking powder. When first patented in 1856, it was a revolutionary product.

Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent, a mixture of an alkaline sodium (e.g. bicarbonate) and a weak acid salt (e.g. cream of tartar).

When combined with a liquid, the acid-base reaction releases carbon dioxide into the batter or dough, which increases the volume and lightens the texture. This is the definition of a leavener: a substance that creates this chemical reaction.

It was so important to cooking, that a vicious battle for brand domination in America arose in the latter half of the 19th century. Read about it in Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking.
 
 
BEFORE THE INVENTION OF BAKING POWDER

According to a review of the book in Extra Crispy, which begins its story in 1700s colonial America, the mark of a woman’s cooking skill was the quality of her bread. Was it soft or leaden?

Bread was a large component in Colonial meals. A woman who couldn’t bake a good loaf was not a good woman, wife or mother.

Yet, housewives had only wild yeast for leavening—an ingredient used since the dawn of baking.

However, it required that the wild yeast fly through the window and settle on the dough. Commercial yeast from the Fleischmann Brothers would not be sold until 1868 (the history of yeast).

Desperate housewives experimented with other household options.

 
One day in the late 1700s, some Native Americans shared the technique of leavening bread using pearl ash or pearlash, potash, carbonate of potash, salts of tartar and soda ash. These are the chemical compound potassium carbonate.

Scoop out the ashes from the fireplace (or use other burned plant material), soak them in water and you get a dilute form of lye. This mixture was used to make soap and gunpowder.

It turned out to be the best-so-far leavener for baking.
 
 
BUT WE’RE EATING LYE?

Some readers will recognize potassium carbonate as the base ingredient of lye. For those wondering about how people can eat lye:

It works in dilute forms (low concentrations) and is used to make other food products. Olives are traditionally brined in lye water. Pretzels get a lye bath, as do hominy, ramen and nixtimalized corn/masa that is used to make tortillas. The Scandinavian specialty, lutefisk, is soaked in water and lye. O.K.

However, pearl ash wasn’t perfect. It didn’t dissolve that easily, and wasn’t good for batters that contained ample fat (butter or oil).

There, it generated a soapy taste, which was no surprise since soap was then a combination of lye solution and fat. So the search continued.
 
 
THE BIRTH OF BAKING POWDER

Let’s start with baking soda, the chemical compound sodium bicarbonate.

We know that as far back as 3500 B.C.E., the ancient Egyptians used a form of it (natron, primarily comprised of sodium carbonate) as a soap-like cleaning agent and in the mummification process.

Sodium bicarbonate expanded in use: to brush teeth, to wash laundry, as an antacid and more. More recently, it has been turned into a deodorant for self, and fridge and cat litter.

It’s also a main ingredient in fire extinguishers, which is why consumers are told to dump baking soda on grease fires.

In 1843, baking soda crossed over to food.

Around the same time, Dr. Austin Church, an American medical doctor from Connecticut, developed his own version. In 1946 he joined with his brother-in-law John Dwight, who had his own Cow Brand of “aerated salt,” called Dwight’s Saleratus. Salertus is a combination of pearl ash had carbonic acid, which creates potassium bicarbonate.

The brand eventually became Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.The familiar logo of Vulcan’s* flexed right arm holding the hammer wasn’t added until 1878, after an earlier family venture, Vulcan Spice Mills, which used a similar logo [source].

Baking powder is a combination of baking soda, also a leavener (sodium bicarbonate), mixed with an acid salt, usually cream of tartar, and cornstarch (as a thickener).

Baking powder was not just an American phenomenon. It was commercially launched in England in 1843 by Alfred Bird (better known for his invention of Bird’s Custard, an egg-free powder that was reconstituted with water).

In 1856, a Harvard chemistry professor, Eben Horsford, developed an improved baking powder under the Rumford name, using monocalcium phosphate, a compound he patented. By 1896, the U.S., population 76 million, was using some 120 million pounds of baking powder annually.
 
 
WHAT ABOUT EGG WHITES?

French chefs used whisk-whipped egg whites to add lightness to baked goods like sponge cakes, and other foods like mousse.

But unless you had major upper arm muscles, you waited until the end of the 19th century, when mechanical egg beaters were invented. (The first U.S. patent was in 1859, with an improved version patented in 1870. Cooks had to wait until 1908 for the first electric mixer.)
 
 
BAKING SODA VS. BAKING POWDER

Baking soda and baking powder are the two modern leaveners. They’re not interchangeable; they have different additives and strengths. Here’s the difference.
 
 
FOOD TRIVIA: STALE BREAD

Because modern food preservatives did not exist, bread quickly became stale.

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*Vulcan is the Roman god of fire and metalworking. He came to be known as a symbol of industry. Variations of the arm and hammer are used by other companies, universities, and organizations in the U.S. and Europe. It’s on the state flag of Wisconsin and the symbol of the Socialist Labor Party of America. Here’s the history of the arm-and-hammer image.