It's official! I'm going to the IACP conference!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: happiness, bliss, excitement
Topic: food writing biz

I'm so thrilled--I've decided to go to the IACP conference in New Orleans in April!!! Definitely cannot afford it but it seems worth it in terms of knowledge gained, contacts made, etc. And interesting, fascinating and fun. It doesn't look like I'll have a lot of time to soak in NOLA ambiance, as about 20 hours a day are scheduled for the four days I'm there, but it promises to be a wonderful experience. Emeril's gala is just too expensive for me, but I'll see scholar Jessica B. Harris, of whom I'm a big fan, and agent and media trainer Lisa Ekus, kind and good food writer John T. Edge (he wrote me a nice letter a couple years ago), and Mai Pham, who wrote Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table, one of the all-time best books on Vietnam and its food.

And my  new friend Jessica Bard is going to the conference, too. Jessica is a way cool, sociable, delightful, and very talented chef, teacher, food writer and stylist for Fine Cooking and other magazines who just happens to live nearby. After a brief e-mail correspondence we finally met and had lunch together on Tuesday, it was a real treat to meet her.

 

 

I wanna go!! Please please please!
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: I promise to be good if I can go...
Topic: food writing biz

It's that time of year again--time for the annual conference of the IACP (which in my case stands for the International Association of Culinary Professionals, but there are also the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy, the International Association of Canine Professionals and the International Association of Chinese Pathologists. Really).

Yes, it's that time of year again, depending on where the conference is being held, for me to wish and want and long for something too expensive for me to justify going. I went in 2000 when it was in Providence, because I could drive there and had a friend to stay with. I met Julia Child and various other important food people and it was a wonderful experience, one big four-day high to be surrounded by thousands of other people fascinated with food. This year it will be in New Orleans in April and I'm dying to go hobnob with people just like me, plus an assortment of editors, agents, publishers and people passionate about food and the outrageous potpourri of New Orleans.

Oh, there just has to be a way... 

P.S. Happy Birthday, Melissa Brown! 

 

Home with the kids
Mood:  blue
Now Playing: "sqwitz swackers" (Marco) and "I wish I was that soup so I could be warm" (Sofia)

A very odd thing is happening to me: a chronic digestive system illness (for which details have no place in a food blog) has come back to me after nine years with a vengeance. For the past few weeks I have no appetite, which means that I eat like a normal person instead of a pig who long ago burned out the wires on her full-ness meter. It's a very strange feeling to not be obsessed with food for a change, though, and I can't even bear to read about it or write about it, combing my giant collection of unread books for the rare volume unrelated to food. After losing lots of blood I don't have the energy or interest to even cook a meal, and so we've been living on take out for a while. Gorgeous fall vegetables are tragically rotting in the crisper drawer. Summoning up the energy and enthusiasm to write mouth-watering columns and articles on food seems beyond my capabilities as well.

I am glad to be eating way less but so ready for this to get better...sorry to bitch but you're the only one who will listen. 

Baaaa...
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: more cooking demos
Topic: food writing biz

Lat year I swore off doing cooking demonstations, because the preparation was too overwhelming. But like the parties I swore off a few years ago and still throw once a year or so anyway, I'm glad I didn't give up doing cooking demos. They really are a lot of fun, albeit stressful for an introvert such as myself, but it's tons of fun to spout off and share my love of cooking with other people.  I never used to think I could do cooking demos because I didn't think I could cook and talk at the same time, but if I find that if I plan every last detail ahead of time, I don't screw up more than once or twice per demo!

This is my third season of doing demos at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, during the Dutchess County Fair and now this weekend at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, where I'm limited to lamb and sheep cheese, which is fine with me, because I adore both. Tomorrow at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. I'll be doing a pecan-crusted rack of lamb, accompanied by circles of acorn squash with sage butter. Here I am last year, on the upper left, doing either Lambie Pies or Lamb on a Stick--I did both last year, with two recipes during each demo. Be there or be².

 

 

 

Curly & Purple
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MILES!!!
Topic: food writing biz

I love unnaturally curly veggies like the okra in this column, Okra ode, or this eggplant I picked up at my CSA yesterday, along with these gorgeous purple tomatillos.

My website www.jenniferbrizzi.com remains, after two years, a work in progress, as I continue to learn and struggle with it. I just learned how to put some frames and tables in it, in an attempt to clean it up and make it look better, but it still won't do what I want it to. I'm trying to move this blog over to the site too so everything is in one place. I doubt it will ever be perfect.

Thinking of taking a web design course to get me out of the house and  into civilization. I found myself envious of my son this morning when I dropped him off at his bus stop, that he would see so many people today. It's glorious to have 7 1/2 hours a day without the kids so I can get stuff done, but other than my husband's visits home at lunchtime, it's kinda lonely.

Two weeks til my next cooking demos, at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival--think I'll wrestle a rack of lamb, but not sure just how yet... 

 

 

Cooking Demo time again...
Mood:  silly
Topic: food writing biz

This week at the Dutchess County Fair I'm demoing cast iron cooking--hope the folks over at that booth that sells cookware won't be pissed! Audiences have often asked me why I use all that cast iron instead of something more cheffy. I'm just crazy for cast iron; watch for my column Friday about why. I'll be doing the same demo Wednesday and Friday at 11:00 a.m.

Mostly Traditional Southern Fried Chicken

One-Bowl North/South Cornbread

 

Be there or be².

Ten Sweet Years
Mood:  happy
Topic: food writing biz
This month makes ten years as a food writer for me, since my first food column "Jenny's Food Focus" came out in the May 1997 edition of the Hudson River Sampler. I've been doing columns ever since, through "Good Food," and now "Ravenous."

I was once asked if I was afraid of running out of topics, with so many columns to write so regularly. I haven't run out yet and don't foresee it ever happening. Writing about food, tasting it, thinking about it and cooking it, are a joy and a delight, most of the time, and food is a subject I know I'll never tire of.

So after ten years I'm waiting to turn into an overnight sensation. Maybe a few more decades are needed...

Back to work, doing radishes this week...

special mention for me
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: food writing biz
For years I have really really wanted to go to Greenbrier, the annual foodwriters' conference in West Virginia, which sounds to me like a few days of bliss on earth, hobnobbing with others as crazy for food as me, and who are making a living at it. Last year I missed the deadline for scholarship applications because of a messed-up link in my bookmarks. This year they extended the deadline and I barely got in with two columns, one on okra, the other on cephalopods. Lynn Swann, the coordinator, has been wonderful about answering e-mails and seems like an all-round good sort.

Well, I didn't get a scholarship, so I can't go, but they listed some special mentions in each scholarship category, and there were two winners of the Apicius scholarship, which awarded $500 towards the conference to "a professional food writer whose prose rings a clear voice and reflects the delicious joys of the table. In the spirit of Apicius, the first Roman to write cookbooks, the goal is to grant this award to that writer whose work will stand the test of time." After choosing two winners, the kind judges picked four of us for Special Mention and I was one of the four. The list.

This does make me very happy, even though I won't be able to go. Enough carrot to keep this donkey from giving up the food-writing thing, not that I really would, because I love it too damn much. But enough of a tease that I will keep trying until some day I get there. It's lovely that some judges who read 160 entries liked me enough to put my name down. Thank you, judges, you have made this food writer happier and prouder than she probably has a right to be, and hopeful that I can keep on doing what I love best after eating and cooking: writing about it.

New Lamb Recipes
Topic: Cooking
See my new lamb recipes from my cooking demos last weekend at the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival.
They're for South African curried lamb bobotie, shepherd's pie with roasted lamb, lamb tikka kebabs and Lebanese lamb kefta.

Appearances
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Me on stage
Topic: food writing biz
This past week I did two cooking demos at the Dutchess County (NY) fair and appeared as a tomato judge at a local farmers market. It was all lots of fun, although the demos were lots of work recipe developing and testing, planning, paperwork and washing dishes. My demos seemed fairly well-received, I was nervous as usual (that old public speaking bugaboo) but planned better this time, I think. I got some nice feedback from the audience on how good the food was and one couple said, "You're our favorite presenter," which tickled me pink.

Although I forgot to put the corn in the Grits Casserole with Corn in the first demo (Southern Sides with Fresh Corn), and the basil in the tomato sauce in the second one (Italian Ways with Zucchini), they seemed to go fairly well, not perfectly but okay with good and bad points. The second had a little too much dead air and "well, let's just pretend this is done," so I could move on--I'm hoping that better timing will come with practice.

My recipes are not for everyone, not innovative, wow 'em, cheffy nor wild. They're classic dishes with a twist, none of them terribly complicated, most yummy, and I think there is a certain audience for that.

Well, they have asked me back for the Sheep and Wool Fest, and maybe I'll do two recipes instead of three so I can focus and time them better--I have a couple months to figure it out.

And I may be doing some little farmer's market demos on hot plates, which should be a gas.

It is great fun though, and I think a good thing for a food writer to do. I'm seeking help and advice from experts on the nuances of food demos, on timing, recipe development, etc., so I can streamline and make them better, more entertaining. Lisa Ekus does a one-day media training for food pros that sounds wonderful but at $1800 for one day, $3000 for two, that will have to wait until I find a sponsor!

Oh, and a scrumptious heirloom "Mennonite" won the tomato contest, but I had to talk the other judges into it...

Pork story ... continued
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Cooking
The meat was a tad dry but undeniably tasty, and swabbed with a western NC-style mop, topped with cole slaw on plain buns, not bad. But the experiment didn't pan out quite as planned.

The part I thought would be the toughest, keeping the temperature between 200 and 250, was not as hard as I'd expected; it actually cruised along without the addition of coals at the right temp throughout most of the afternoon, spiking only briefly when I did add coals and stir them up a bit.

From my research I learned from many sources that such a chunk of slow-smoked pork would rise in interior temperature to about 160 or so and then arrive at a plateau that would take about two to four hours and then rise until it reached 190, 195, 200 which would be the perfect point of melting fat and collagens, and then it would be perfectly ready to pull (translate shred).

But that never happened. In the late evening it reached the plateau and just never left it. The temperature in the Weber kept right where it was supposed to be, around 225-240, the aromas were lovely, but the meat never did what it was supposed to. I didn't want to give up, and crazily kept at it until it had been on the fire for 19 and 1/2 hours, and I had been conscious for 24, at which point I simply gave up, spent and ready to sleep. So I just wrapped it in a couple layers of foil and a big paper bag, put it in a cooler with ice, washed some of the ashes off my filthy feet, and crashed. The next day I put in in the oven for a couple hours and the temperature still never rose about normal pork temp, although it did shred pretty well.

The meal was great; my mop was cider vinegar, water, brown sugar, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, salt, red pepper flakes, etc., nicely balanced, and a coleslaw dressed with mop, plus baked beans James Taylor style from Amy Rogers' Carolina cookbook. At the last minute I ditched the hush puppies I was going to make, but served a killer grits and fresh corn casserole, redolent of garlic, jalapeno and cheddar, that I did up in preparation for a cooking demo I'll be doing at the Dutchess (NY) County Fair on Thursday. Friend Erin brought a great green salad. As a goof, along the southern theme I made a blueberry jello "salad," which was actually great, although I don't usually go for that sort of thing. I did some lame sausage balls for an appetizer, but a nice peach cobbler for dessert, but that pork just didn't quite do what I wanted it to do and I m not sure that I want to try it again. I will ask my expert buddies at the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts and Letters, who know everything, what they think I did wrong.


Oh, and I took photos, but when I tried to add them they were too huge, so I will keep working on the technology of that, too...

Swine a comin'!
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: It begins...
Topic: Cooking
Today's the big day; I'm going to slow-cook me some North Carolina-style pulled pork. After poring over 102 pages of research culled from a variety of Internet sources, I'm ready for my first real attempt at the art of replicating this soul-of-southern-cooking specialty.

At 6 a.m. I rubbed a 9.75 lb. picnic shoulder with approx. equal parts coarse sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper, sweet sticky paprika from Penzey's Spices and dark brown sugar.

I won't be able to start it smoking until after I drop off the kids at camp, so if I can get it on the Weber by 9:30 or so I could conceivably be at it until about 1 a.m. when it gets to the magical internal temp of 190-200 essential for pulling.

Keeping the temp inside the Weber hovering around 225-250 degrees will be the tricky part. I'll be hoping I don't get a citation for stinking up the neighborhood with hickory and apple smoke!

Will keep you posted as the process progresses.


* * *

10:27 a.m.

The pork has been on the Weber for about half an hour, and at first the temperature was too high, well over 300, but now it is 230, which is perfect.

It's starting to smell mighty good and that's just the apple chips and hickory chunks; the swine isn't even melting yet. Now the challenge is to keep the temp from going too low, with a combination of continually adjusting the top vents and throwing on more coal and wood, while simultaneously writing an article about the food of Sicily for Global Writes!

I considered using all wood lumps instead of charcoal briquettes, but they tend to run hot and burn fast and I figured this would give more control over the cooking speed, which needs to be sloooooow.

I am terribly slow at everything I do--cooking, cleaning, writing, etc.--so to do something where lack of speed is a virtue is a rare treat!


* * *

2:32 p.m.

Cruising along now, looking yummy already although it may not be done for another 12 hours or so!! It has been at a nice steady 225 for a couple hours now, even without adding any coals. It's time to stop throwing in wood chips--it should be as smoky as it's going to get.

Shredded swine quest
Mood:  bright
Topic: Cooking
I'm on a mission. Having recently sampled fine examples of eastern North Carolina and western North Carolina barbecue (but not in sufficient quantity), I am planning to try to replicate it in the near future for a small group of victims. I did an improper but tasty one in 2000, and am ready to re-tackle it with lots of research. I can't decide whether I prefer the eastern style (whole hog, spicy vinegar sauce) or the western (shoulder only, vinegar/tomato sauce)--they are both unbelievably good.

Lacking the funds to buy a whole hog, I will buy a nice fatty, bony picnic shoulder. My next step is to find some apple wood chips--going hunting for that this afternoon. Then I need to set a date for the event--I will keep you posted.

For my recent column on N. Carolina food, look here.


Can't believe it's been three months to the day since my last blog entry--I will have to check in more often. And it seems that blogs just aren't blogs these days without lots of big juicy photos. Should I add some of those?

easter feastin'
Mood:  party time!
Now Playing: an intimate sit-down dinner for 15
Topic: Cooking
Readers of my columns know about the grand holiday feasts cooked by my father-in-law Angelo, a Tuscan expat who crossed the Atlantic more than two dozen times as a merchant marine and died five years ago. Every Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other occasions in between he would cook huge meals in his two tiny Manhattan kitchens, serving ten to twenty-five people dirty jokes, jolly camaraderie and fantastic food.

In his honor--and admittedly with my own desire to cook a big dinner--I offered to cook Easter dinner for my mother-in-law and an assortment of her friends.

I kind of surprised myself that I pulled it off, since usually timing the components of a meal for two is beyond me. I think Angelo's spirit was guiding me. I can't wait to do it again. The menu:


Crostini di fegatini (the classic Tuscan chicken liver pate on toast that Angelo often served in the living room before big dinners--mine was tasty but the texture a bit off, with no food processor on hand)
Olive (an assortment of olives from a Greek market on 9th Ave.)


Then into the dining room for:

Cosciotto d'agnello arrosto sulle cipolline primavera (a departure from italian dishes, to Macedonia, Greece, thanks to Diane Kochilias' The Glorious Foods of Greece: leg of lamb on a bed of scallion greens and fresh mint)
Involtini di pollo < saltimbocca > (homage to something Angelo might have made: pounded chicken breast wrapped around prosciutto, Italian fontina and fresh sage, but with my own added touch of Southern cream gravy)
Torta pasqualina con carciofi (a Neopolitan Easter tradition, a savory cheesecake with artichokes encased in puff pastry)
Lasagne < amerdicane > (also an homage to the way Angelo made lasagna for parties, studded with slices of Italian sausage)
Patate al forno (roasted potatoes the way Angelo cooked them, dried to shoe leather in a slow oven but scrumptious)
Scarole coi pistacchi (Sicilian in honor of my Sicilian mother-in-law Maria, escarole with pistachios)
Asparagi (topped with fresh grated Parmigiano Reggiano and butter, from Emilia-Romagna)
Piselli (peas with onion, prosciutto and white wine)
Insalata verde (three salad-in-a-bags plus thinly-sliced mushrooms)
Vini Italiani e Siciliani, rosso e bianco

Pastiera di pasqua (an Italian classic candied fruit-studded not-too-sweet cheesecake, purchased on 9th Ave.) ed altri dolci (cakes, tarts and other sweets brought by generous guests)
Caffe, te, liquori

It was lovely, a fun gang, some new faces and some old, tons of fun, lots of work, a joy!

IACPconf/I wish I were there
Mood:  blue
Now Playing: CRANKY!!
Topic: food writing biz
Man, life as it is is good, but how I have wanted to go to this year's conference, in Seattle, of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. I went in 2000 to the one in Providence, RI, and it was so incredibly great that I wanted so bad to get to this one, too, and to see Chandley, my best oldest childhood friend who lives there, and a family--the Kaplans-- who were in Vietnam with us, getting another son when we adopted our daughter, and my second cousin Mary Ann Gwinn, who is book editor of the Seattle Times--so many reasons to go, but not enough cash, not enough child care.

I am thinking of the crowds, thinking of the schmoozing, thinking of the tastes and smells and joy of being with thousands of other food-fanatics. In Providence I got to meet and talk to the recently departed and very sweet Sicilian food expert and actor Vincent Schiavelli, and also Clifford Wright and Julia Child, all of them pros and genuinely kind and friendly.

Alas, Child and Schiavelli will not be there this year. But I wish I was. It is all for the best, I know. I need to be here with my little ones. But man oh man how I wish I could be there, too. Cheers to all of you IACP'ers in Seattle right now. I hope you are having a fantabulous time.