In the vast and glorious world of Gastronomy, you wouldn’t think sardines ranked very high. Last I checked, sardines were segregated in the ethnic food section of supermarkets, but there, and almost everywhere actually, sardines are universally present, sometimes even, as odd as it seems, the object of covetous collections and unconditional worship.

A pelagic fish, she can be found in all seas of the globe, and, in cans, conquered the world from Monterrey, CA to Porto, Portugal, and from Cabo San Lucas to Barra do Jucu, a small port in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo. In Marseilles, France, where the spirit of sardines shines brighter than elsewhere, everyone would tell you that a sardine, as tiny as it actually is, once blocked the entrance of the old harbor. People of Marseilles have a tendency to exaggerate, however, and history tells us that the popular story may have initiated when a 1799 frigate called “la sartine” sank to its demise in the depths of the Mediterranean, between Fort St Jean and what is now Palais du Pharo, right at the entrance of the harbor.

It all, eventually, makes sense. Even the feverish enthusiasm of some for a common little fish in a can. Believe it or not, sardines are so en vogue. Some hip restaurants in Paris or New York serve “sardines de collection”, vintaged and packed in extra virgin olive oil, directly from the can. Some sardine companies such as Penn Sardin in Brittany, France, offer dated collection sardines of various preparations and origins. One could, for instance, purchase a can of special edition “Douarnenez 2000”, or a “first sardine of the season, vintage 2003”, or the very sought after “Connetable millesime 1996” for about $20, subject to availability. But profit is no object. The company’s website note that orders are limited to 1 can per series, a very anti-capitalist measure if you ask me.

Aficionados also vintage-date their cans on their own and patiently wait a few years to eat the contents. The quality and aging pattern of each subsequent series of sardines is then discussed in some culinary circles.

If you actually wonder, the point here is that food ages in cans. Like wine, canned sardines improve with time. The oil or sauce permeates the fish in such a way that a fresh sardine squeezed up in tin will taste better after 5 years, providing the can is turned over every couple of months. Actually, it is documented that the fish improves for about 7 to 10 years, and then hits a plateau.

Note that we ultimately owe the canned sardine to Nicolas Appert, who invented the canned food process at about the same time that sardine blocked Marseilles’s harbor. He died broke and in misery.

Canned sardine is as popular a food as it gets. But the avant-garde chefs from Spain or elsewhere are currently experimenting with this principle, and serve the result of their research at their elite restaurants. The author of Cannery Row, John Steinbeck, must be flipping over in his grave.

Those same chefs declared in a recent haute cuisine manifesto that “all products have the same gastronomic worth, regardless of price”. That’s too bad for the sardines of the world’s oceans, with their tiny silvery dress and protruding jaw, but a good news for amateurs.

I too feel a little connection with our friends the sardines. Perhaps because sardines stories cradled my childhood. My grandmother’s idea of fast food was sardines from a can, skin, bones and all, fork-mashed with homemade, salted butter from Brittany (Recipe below). A beautiful thing on toasted bread. On a 1989 trip to Greece, during summer break from chef school, I lived off canned sardines. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day for 3 weeks. That kind of diet builds strong relationship with sardines for life, you know.

I also knew someone who, in the middle of a nasty dispute with a next door neighbor over the location of a brick and mortar grill, promised that, if he were to win in court, he would celebrate by organizing a ’sardinade’ or sardine grill party, with the sole purpose of copiously stinking up the neighbor’s property. Ironically, he lost and the neighbor, out of victory-stimulated excitement, made a ’sardinade’ of anthological proportions.

RECIPE

Ingredients
4 slices of toasted bread
4 canned sardines in olive oil
2 ounces of salted butter
2 lemons
Chopped fresh dill

Preparation
Soften the butter. Mash the sardines with a fork. Add dill. Add butter and the juice of the lemons.

What are you waiting for, huh?.. Don’t you realize?.. Grab your skillet, it’s the beginning of wild mushroom season, people!

In fact, it’s the end of morel season (at least in the Northern hemisphere), and the very, very beginning of porcini, chanterelles and black trumpets. Granted, you won’t find those in Florida, where I reside and cook, but I know some good people who will get them to you at a reasonable price. And then, oh then, in a rush of adrenaline, you will reach shroom heaven, and this is no elogy for illegal substances.

 I recently orderd wild porcini, othewise known in some circles as Le King of Shrooms. Elusive, expensive, these chubby, plump, sponge-like fungi suggest noble thoughts of recipes and hyperactive appetite. Certainly in abundance they do.

Porcini grow wild up in the coniferous forests of Europe, from Scandinavia to Greece, along the Mediterraean coast and down in Southern Italy. A cosmopolitan fellow, Le King of Shrooms is spotted all over North America, China, India, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. The northern hemisphere season, roughly from mid-summer to the end of autumn, starting each time in a precise fashion, dictated by a delicate balance of many factors such as moisture, temperature, humidity, variance between daytime and nighttime temperature, soil acidity and other seasonal elements.

I remember that from the early days of my childhood when, as a summer ritual, I hiked around hilly, musty under-woods with my tribe, friends and family led by my grand father, the patriarch who knew “the spots”. We paced up and down, an old pocket knife and an onion bag in hand, in search of porcini, chanterelles and black trumpets, sorting through shoots and decaying leaves around dead or dying elms and pines, our shoes muddy and our feet wet, excited when successful, exhausted when we failed.

Porcini (in Italian), cep (in French) or Boletus Edulis (its scientific name) were the most elusive, prized of all foraged mushrooms, and usually played hard-to-get. The more common Boletus Satanas, a close relative and porcini look-alike, was usually abundant. But the indifferenciating foragers, those who picked and tasted Boletus Satanas in self-contentment are no longer among us to share the details of their fatal mistake.

Porcini are truly appreciated by gourmets. Those, like me, who own reminiscent memories of hikes in the woods know that the uncertain, tiring foraging is an experience best culminated by a plateful of the warm, simply sauteed mushrooms. The fruit of your labor, you know. But mainly, it’s the deep, musky, unique taste of the wild that is just priceless. Especially with a nice, structured red wine from the same region. 

While some of you may be intimidated by the floating culinary mysteries surrounding wild mushrooms, rejoice and fear not. Cooking porcini is easy as pie.

Recipes are plentiful. Delicious as an accompaniment with veal, pheasant, or even chicken and beef, fresh porcini don’t need much embellishment. If you ask me, simpler is better. Dressing them up with complicated techniques and headache-triggering lists of ingredients would be a confession of gastronomic failure. Like all wild mushrooms, it’s nice to just saute’ them in butter, with a little sea salt, freshly ground pepper and chopped parsley. An important point, they will give water, which will eventually reduce under high heat, disappear, and they will take a nice buttery texture: time to serve.

Other classics involve au gratin recipes: sautéed and passed under the broiler with Alfredo sauce, freshly grated Parmiggiano Reggiano and breadcrumbs. Try to make a wild porcini soup, maybe with the next day’s leftovers. Alternatively, making porcini sauce is also a rewarding experience: Sauté in butter with shallots, flambé with cognac and deglaze with Chardonnay, stock and cream, then reduce. The sauce is delicious with beef tenderloin or over pasta.

Of course, my favorite source is the good folks at D’Artagnan. Check out their online shop but I recommend you call them; it is my experience that the owner, French chef Ariane Daguin, has many things in her basket that actually never get posted on the website. All you have to do is ask. Most likely, the answer is “oui”.

Other good sources include Oregon Mushrooms, and Gary’s. Heck, even Ebay sells fresh porcini! Just remember, though, what I just said about the Boletus Satanas. May this serve as my disclaimer.

As always, my advice to first-timers is this: just buy ‘em! And know that if you need me, I’m always here to accomodate individual requests. Just shoot me an email or post a comment.

• Book signings:

Friday June 11 from 11 am to 3 pm at the Art Institute of Tampa. (click here to see a map)

Thursday June 17 from 4 to 6 pm at the Rolling Pin in Brandon (click here to see a map)

August 2-5 at the ACF National Convention in Anaheim, CA (click here to learn more)

•  Cooking demonstrations:

Thursday June 17 from 6 to 8.30 pm at the Rolling Pin in Brandon (click here to learn more)

As a reminder, the Itinerant Cookbook Project tracks 10 cookbooks as they travel around the world. In May 2009, we released 10 cookbooks to 10 local home chefs in Tampa Bay, FL. We encouraged them to make a recipe and pass the book along to a friend, wherever that friend lives, who in turn does the same to keep the project going. We ask every generation of home chef to email us before making the recipe, and after. We then track the cookbooks with Google maps as they travel across the planet.

The goal is for every cookbook to travel from hand to hand, kitchen to kitchen, city to city, continent to continent, with all “traveling” being recorded and documented.

A year later, the 10 original cookbooks took very different paths from each other. 2 of them have never left Tampa Bay. Interestingly enough, they were originally handed over to two of my friends who happened to be very busy food editors for large local newspapers. I’m not that kind of guy so I won’t tell who they are. I don’t care if you torture me or not; I will NOT spill the beans. Ok. Fine. If you insist, they are Janet Keeler of the St Petersburg Times and Jeff Houck of the Tampa Tribune. They are otherwise extremely competent at what they do (write about food) but hey, I encourage you to write them and give them a (little) hard time. I already warned them I will give them a hard time. But I digress.

So yeah, 2 cookbooks never left Tampa Bay. A couple others took a route and then stalled. That is the case for “Baking Unplugged” (now in California), “The Bon Appetit Cookbook: Fast Easy Fresh” (Now in Michigan) and “Big Green Cookbook” (now in New Jersey). I am expecting to jumpstart their journey again and they will likely move along to other destinations very soon.

The “Wings” cookbook is a more well-traveled little thing. It started in Largo, FL, then went to Madeira Beach, FL, then seemed to gravitate in the Southern United States: Brandon, MS, Columbus, GA in 2 households, and is now in Slidell, Louisiana.

And then there are the heavy travelers. “Burger Bar” sneaked out of the country and went on to educate the French on the All American delicacy. From Nice, France to Bar-sur-loup, France, it stayed in the south of France for a while then went off to Exeter, England where it remains at the date of writing.
The “Helen’s Asian Kitchen” traveled from Tampa to Ontario and is currently there in Canada.
The “California Pizza Kitchen Family Cookbook” is probably the most traveled of all. It went to Gainesville, FL, then Amsterdam, Netherlands and then to Tokyo, Japan. We’re trying to track it down now but it looks like it may be back to Europe in London, UK. More on that later.

You can follow all the cookbooks with Google Maps. Click on the interactive map below to have access to all the cookbooks and their location.
View Itinerant Cookbook Project in a larger map

What is this blog about? Read the first post here.

You can check out and buy all itinerant cookbooks by clicking here.

Where are the Itinerant Cookbooks now?

View Itinerant Cookbook Project in a larger map

Here are the Itinerant Cookbooks:

Started in Tampa, FL with Margaret. Was in Tampa, FL with Noel, in Mt Elgin, Ontario with Rosemary. Now in York, Ontario, with Janice.

Started in Brandon, FL with Dave. Traveled to Flagstaff, AZ and back to Brandon, FL with Dave.

Started in Nice, France with Marc-Antoine. Was in Bar-sur-loup with Faye. Now in Exeter, UK with Judie.

Started in St Petersburg, FL with Janet. Now in St Petersburg, FL with Janet.

Started in Dunedin, FL with Janis. Traveled to Chicago. Now in San Francisco, CA with Liz.

Started in Gainesville, FL with Esther. Traveled to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Now in Tokyo, Japan with Martin. Was supposed to leave Japan for London, UK but didn’t. Instead book got lost and found. So still in Japan.

Started in Plant City with Lynne. Traveled to Ann Arbor, MI with Horace.

Started in Largo, FL with Marty. Was in Madeira Beach, FL with Carol, in Brandon, Mississipi with Sharon. Now in Sliddel, Louisiana.

Started in Brandon, FL with Debbie. Now in Tampa, FL with Jeff.

Started in Dunedin with Bob. Traveled to Chicago with Bob. Now in NY with Dan.

Thank you to our book sponsor, Wiley. Please check their website here.

Ok. By now, if you follow my blog and its numerous posts on plating food, you should have a good idea of what we are looking for, especially in the general areas: right plate, right colors, a nice crust for proteins, play with textures, etc…

Today, I wanted to talk about the little kitchen tools that make a difference. Sure, there are many to list, but these 8 tools will get your plating skills well started.

Of course, you first need to be well-equipped in terms of kitchen knives, cutting board, plates, etc…

Apart from that, the number 1 tool in your kitchen MUST be the Cuisinart Hand Blender, not only for plating, but for your home cooking in general. Small price; essential tool. I go through 2 or 3 a year; that’s how much I use them. The Cuisinart hand blender is an essential tool for plating, by the way, because it can be used as a GREAT emulsifier, hence making your soups, sauces, dressing ultra-smooth and attractive.

 Check out Cuisinart hand blenders on amazon.com

photo courtesy of finecooking.com

Next, we have a Silicone Baking Mat, also known as “Silpat”. A Silpat can be used for baking (nothing sticks to it, so you can bake your cookies, roasted vegetables, chicken, etc… on it with confidence. No oil, no butter, no nothing.), but it can also be used for caramel or chocolate decoration, which REALLY makes a basic dessert look professional. Interesting fact, when I started chef school back in 1986, a silicone mat was sooo new and trendy, and it costed about $100. Some 25 years later, prices are drastically reduced and you can get one of these for well under $20.

 Check out silicone mats on amazon.com.

Boy do I love my Microplane Grater/Zester! The Microplane is a super-sharp (yet safe!), ultra-precise grater/zester that you can use in a wide variety of ways. Chocolate is easy and beautiful to grate. Zest citrus and the result is thin, tiny, beautiful bits of flavors. Grate Parmiggiano-Reggiano and you get the perfect sand-like cheese for your pasta. Works great for garlic and ginger too. 
Mainly, though, I use my Microplane in association with the silpat to create thin Parmesan crisps that look like that:

photo courtesy of foodnetwork.com

 
Check out the Microplane Grater/Zester on amazon.com.

You will also need a food stacker. Even though professional chefs now tend to use less challenging, more natural ways of plating their food than, say, in the 90s, home chefs can use the food stacking technique to bring height, creativity and pizzaz to their plates.

photo courtesy of starchefs.com

A food stacker is a small, inexpensive ring of metal (chef tip: cut-out pvc pipes work very well too!) that you put on the plate before plating, and layer the different elements of your dish. When all elements are stacked, remove the ring and voila, the “tower” adds height, verticality and elegance to your plate.

 Check out stacking rings on amazon.com.

For saucing, professional chefs have been using tiny spatulas to get the effect below (the mustard-colored effect at bottom right corner). A very trendy plating technique that looks very good.

photo courtesy of starchefs.com

Check out decorating spatulas on amazon.com.

 Or a simple brush to get colorful “brush strokes” on a white plate:

photo courtesy of starchefs.com

 Check out brushes on amazon.com.

A “garde-manger” kit, as it is called professionally, comes very handy when decorating fruits and vegetables. Great for carving, too. With this kit, and some practice, you can do stuff like this:

photo courtesy of fotobank.ru

Check out garnishing sets on amazon.com.

 
Last but not least, little squeeze bottles are essential. They make very precise lines to give a sense of direction, dynamism to a presentation, or tiny dots of colorful essence to complement your dish.

photo courtesy of starchefs.com

 Or (check the four little red dots):

photo courtesy of starchefs.com

Check out squeeze bottles on amazon.com.

 Oh, yes… you will also need a good old tablespoon; the must-have, ultimate plating tool.

The award ceremony is taking place on Friday April 30th 2010 at the Don Cesar Beach Resort & Spa in St Petersburg Beach, FL. We can put you in contact with the organizers if you wish to attend.

Meanwhile, here is my publisher’s press release:

Feb. 26, 2010– The Chef’s Répertoire, written by Chef Gui Alinat and published by American Technical Publishers, has won a Culinary Academy Award for Literature in the Culinary References category of the International Annual Cookbooks and Culinary Arts 2009 Awards Program.

Noreen Kinney, founder of the Cordon d’Or—Gold Ribbon, developed the awards to raise interest in good food. The honor and reputation of this award continues to grow throughout the culinary world.

Chef Gui is a certified chef, food writer, and food photographer. He is an instructor at the Art Institute of Tampa and the Jacobson Culinary Arts Academy in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Gui’s reference book is for foodservice and hospitality professionals, food writer/bloggers, and culinary enthusiasts. It includes over 1100 modern classic dishes found on American menus and incorporates information from pronunciation and origin to ingredients and techniques. It is divided into 12 thumb-tabbed sections and easily slips into a chef’s apron pocket.

“Chef Gui has created a quick-reference inventory that every American working in the hospitality industry should own,” said Rick Tramanto, Executive Chef and Partner of TRU.

The Cordon D’Or—Gold Ribbon awards presentation is set to take place on April 30, 2010, at the Don CeSar Hotel in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Winners from across the world attend the event and accept their accolades. The event is open to the public.

For additional information on The Chef’s Répertoire and Chef Gui Alinat, please contact American Technical Publishers at 708.957.1100 or visit www.go2atp.com.

American Technical Publishers continues to work closely with industry leaders to develop training materials that set the standard for training excellence.                      

You can download the press release by clicking here.

Unfortunately, the overall beauty of a food presentation most often relies on the specific beauty of each of its elements. No need to add anything. In other words, if you want to plate a chicken breast, some mashed potatoes and a few sauteed vegetables, you’d better FIRST pay attention to how the chicken breast, the mashed potatoes and the sauteed vegetables look individually, BEFORE you even pay attention to the overall presentation.

We have already talked about the importance of blanching vegetables for color. Today, I wanted to focus on what may be the best way to enhance the look of meat: the Maillard reaction.
I know, for those who don’t know, the Maillard reaction sounds like a new movie with Tom Hanks in it. It’s not. The Maillard reaction, in a nutshell, is the chemical reaction happening when you sear or grill a piece of meat; The brown crust that smells and tastes so good. I already wrote about it so I invite you to take a look at the post I wrote a few months ago.

I don’t really know what the exact scientific explanation of it is, but I know that when we humans come close to a rib eye steak grilling, or a rotisserie chicken roasting or bacon being sauteed to a crisp, we just go crazy. We just do. And the thought of it right now just makes me want to stop writing and start cooking.

The Maillard reaction looks good too. Look at the photo below and tell me if that is not a niiiiiiiice roasted turkey!
So my point here is that if you succeed in obtaining a beautiful crust on your protein element, you have a beautiful chance of getting a niiiiiiiice presentation. Nice crusts don’t happen randomly. There are really 2 ways of making them happen. Both are called “searing”. You can sear meat (usually smaller items like a steak or a chicken breast) in a saute’ pan (or alternatively on a grill) and you can sear meat (larger pieces like a whole chicken or a veal roast) in an oven.

For the former, you need to heat up your pan to a moderately high heat, add just enough oil and/or butter (butter is better for taste and color but burns faster) to coat the pan. Add the piece of meat in the hot pan (make sure you hear the characteristic sound “pssshhhhh”) and keep it still to give it a chance to brown. Work on the crust on the other side too.

For the latter, the crust is made by pre-heating an oven at about 425F, brushing the piece of meat with oil or butter, and putting it in the oven. We usually wait a third of the total cooking time has passed and the crust has formed, before turning down the oven to a less violent temperature. This is called, of course, roasting.

Searing a chicken breast, if you pay attention to the steps I described above, is easy. But making a nice crust (niiiiiiiice crust) is a little trickier. You’ll need a little more practice and experience. But see the results:

This picture has been (accidentally. I promise) seared too long. Over-maillarded, if you will.

Now, in the following picture, a properly seared chicken breast, and it’s easy to see that a nice Maillard reaction greatly improves the look of proteins. And actually, still taking a look at the picture below, it feels like not only the presentation of the chicken is improved, but also the overall presentation of the plate. Even the vegetables look fresher and more vibrant.

This post is about the technique of cooking vegetables so they keep their natural, vibrant colors. 

In culinary arts, the importance of color is easy to grasp. One must see a black & white photo of a dish and compare it with a nicely colored one to realize that color is essential to bring unity. And unity is what we’re shooting for.

The complexity of color

When I first got seriously interested in color for culinary purposes, I realized that the physics of color is extremely complex and far beyond the scope of this little tiny blog of mine. I’m no dummy, but I’m not a theoritical physicist either. I’m just a chef trying to understand how using color helps me and others plate my food. Check out the Wikipedia page about color; if you can understand it, you live in Florida, you work for Nasa, and they send you in orbit once in a while.  

The way we perceive colors is complex. We see colors because the human brain perceives through the eye different stimulations from the spectrum of light associated with objects. Our eyes can distinguish millions of different colors. For that reason and others, composing a colorful culinary display is a challenge.
To make things even more complicated, color composition is utterly contextual. A physical color not only is subject to physical and psychological perception, but our perception is also influenced by environment and how colors interact with each other. In other words, a color does not have very much impact on its own, but at the contrary needs others to reinforce itself. For instance, the color of a carrot in your veggie plate may look more or less orange depending on where it sits next to. This point, of course, represent the greatest challenge for a chef dealing with attractive color composition.

I’ll stop right there; I already lost enough readers between the beginning of this post and this sentence. In reality, it’s a little less abstract.

Why is color so important to the food we eat anyway?

The dominance of color

In the wild, for instance, herbivorous primates select appropriate leaves by their color, because it is the best way to collect information about the environment. As humans, we are programmed to look at food items and their colors to determine what is edible, ripe or spoiled. Today, we are still very receptive to the color of our foods, and we remain sensitive to those closely connected to nature. Blue food, for instance, is naturally rare, so we do not respond to it as much as other colors. As a result, the color blue is considered an appetite suppressant. On the other hand, bright green, red or yellow colored vegetables, extremely abundant in nature, are colors that we easily recognize and therefore are naturally attracted to.

Some scientific studies have shown that color actually influences taste on diners. Research volunteers in one study could for instance taste imaginary differences between two identical food products, one of which had previously been darkened with food coloring and thus had a different color. The same volunteers also tasted no difference between identically-colored food items, even when one of these was sweetened enough to alter its taste. In other words, the color of food dominates its taste. This is why brightly colored foods seem to taste better than plain foods. (via Erick Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation)

Diners expect carrots to look bright orange, spinach bright green and salmon a deep pink/orange. Therefore, the techniques used to prepare or cook ingredients must take into consideration the intention for the finished product. Respecting colors means respecting cooking techniques. 

Which brings me to my next point: Let’s concentrate, for instance, on what is arguably the best way to bring sparkling colors to your plate: Blanching vegetables.

From Wikipedia again:
“Blanching is a cooking term that describes a process of food preparation wherein the food substance, usually a vegetable or fruit, is plunged into boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocked) to halt the cooking process.”

Blanching somehow saturates the natural, vibrant colors of vegetables. That way, you can convey a sense of freshness, seasonality and joviality to the plate. There are two very important points. First, you need to plunge vegetables in BOILING water. And second, you need to shock them in an ICE BATH. Cold; then hot. It’s that thermal shock that fixes the pigments in the vegetable. Green vegetables (chlorophylle) look greener. Orange or red vegetables (carotene) look more vibrant too.

I will add the following comment, though: For the purpose of blanching vegetables to enhance their color, “steaming” is actually good too, and I’d say even better than using boiling water. There is no lost of flavor/color in the water.

The timing for blanching vegetables is important. In restaurants, we often use the term “flash-steaming”. Because really, most vegetables benefit from being just in and out the steamer (or the boiling water) in no time. Beginners often are afraid of undercooking vegetables. But really, we can eat our veggies raw and they don’t taste that bad: carrots, radishes, peas, asparagus, peppers, all can be eaten raw. So beginners, please take the risk of undercooking your veggies.

 Disrespecting the classic technique of blanching or steaming, for instance by falling short of using an ice bath, may turn green vegetables brown, resulting in a less appetizing result.

For instance, you will see on the left the difference between a set of vegetables (above) that have NOT been shocked in ice water, and a second set of vegetables (below) that have been. I know that at first, the difference is minimal. But you will notice that the radishes on the top, for instance, have a duller color than the more vibrant set at the bottom. Same with the asparagus and, less noticeably, the carrots.   

Quick advices when using color for culinary presentation:

• Always choose the freshest ingredients.
• Keep the finished result in mind.
• Choose cooking techniques that will enhance color, not dilute them.
• Take the time to sear meats, fish or vegetables in order to make a nice crust (see my post on the Maillard reaction).
• Avoid dullness.
• Increase color saturation by cooking with the appropriate techniques.
• Small, high contrast elements have as much impact as larger, duller elements.
• Large, white plates usually provide a high contrast to plated foods.
• Think in terms of color palette.
• Playing on the unusual color of ingredients creates a focal point. For instance, using green tomatoes, or yellow raspberries or blood orange brings creativity to the plate.

Examples of commonly-used colors:

• The orange of saffron rice
• The sparkling white of steamed halibut
• The bright green of edamame beans.
• The dark purple of balsamic reduction.
• The saturated red of confite tomatoes.
• The deep maroon of chocolate.

I won’t even start with the notion of contrast; this will be the topic of another post. But as a general rule, chefs will want to increase the contrast in their composition, in order to enhance appearance with vivid, saturated and colorful presentations, and contrast those colors with their support (plate, platter), as I have already explained in an earlier post.

Common visually-appealing, high-contrast combinations include:

• Brown and white:
  Chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream
  Chestnut and turnip
• Red and white:
  Tomato and mozzarella salad
  Nigiri sushi (raw tuna atop oval-shaped rice)
• Orange
  Fried, sunny side up egg
• Green and white:
  Sea bass and spinach
• White and blue:
  Panna cotta and blueberries
• White and black:
  Rice and beans
• Cream and brown:
  Flan (custard and caramel)

What is this blog about? Read the first post here.

Now, as much as I like Chef Colicchio, I really take issue with his disappointing (from a nutritional, ethical and conviviality standpoint) “Eat tastefully campaign” in association with Diet Coke, the American Diabetic Association and the CIA (not the spies, the chefs!).

You can read the press release here: Eat Tastefully Campaign: Diet Coke, Renowned Chef, Pop-Up Kitchen Reveal Secrets to Great Taste, Living Well

Chef Colicchio touts the merits of a soda because “it’s not overly complicated”. I’m not a physician or a nutritionist but talking about enjoying uncomplicated things, I’ve long known that our body only needs one, count them, one beverage: water.

Sure, milk is part of a healthy diet, and so is, in moderation and for many different reasons, wine, especially red wine.

But soda?.. Why would soda be part of a healthy diet? Something you pour on your corroded battery so you can start your car? Really?.. Come on, Chef Colicchio can’t really be serious. A soda is a soda. You don’t fight childhood, teenage and adult obesity, diabetes and poor nutrition habits with more of the same. Drinking “Diet” soda is a very easy, uneffective way out of a bigger problem: changing our nutrition habits once and for all.
The fact that Diet Coke has no calorie and no sugar is totally irrelevant. The (bad) habit of drinking a soda with your meal is a tough habit to break. Regularly drinking soda with your meal can’t be a good thing, no matter what Chef thinks. And actually, I don’t find him very convincing when he struggles to explain the gourmet meal/Diet Coke pairing at 1:30. Citrus bite to it? Caramel flavors?..

This is not the first time I scorn at celebrity chefs teaming up with junk food corporations. A few months ago, I commented on Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi’s commercial for Carl Jr’s.

Now, I know, I know, all this sounds very hypocritical. I’m a chef who follows a healthy, natural way of eating and cooking. But if only I could get rid of some of the junk food publicity on my blog, that would be a good thing too!

What do YOU think? Post a comment below and take the poll.

Well, look no further, you have come to the right place.

For your reading pleasure, I am posting excerpts of my favorite cookbook. It is appropriately named: “how to cook a turkey!” and it is written by my 5-year old son’s pre-K class.

Now, all recipes on this cookbook may not be perfectly suitable for what you want to do. But they are, however, all worth a look.

So here are the kids’ recipes on how to cook a turkey.

Julian writes:
“Ingredients: hot sauce, rice and broccoli”
“Directions: Bake at 16 degrees for 6 hours”.

Brook has a different idea. Not quite in terms of how to cook that turkey, but she’s being creative in her list of ingredients:
“Ingredients: sprinkles, seasoning and hot sauce”
“Directions: Bake at 1 degree for 2 hours”.

Rachel favors “popsicles and candy” and doesn’t hesitate to add that to the list of ingredients. For Xavier, it’s “marshmallows” that needs to be added, or the turkey wouldn’t be good enough. He has a point.

Elena is more radical in her cooking style:
“Ingredients: salt, rice”.
“Directions: Bake at 1000 degrees for 4 hours”.
Probably for a nice, golden, crispy outer skin.

More subtle (from Ray):
“Ingredients: turkey, chicken”
“Directions: Bake at 1 degree for 1 minute”.

And my personal favorite, courtesy of chef Andrew:
“Ingredients: turkey, eggs, milk, food coloring and chef’s clothes”
“Directions: Open turkey, put food coloring in it, add eggs then put on chef’s clothes. Put into oven on warm for 2 minutes.”