Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Oregon: Oregon Olive Mill at Red Ridge

Roasted eggplant brushed with spices and, of course, olive oil

Thanks to my in-laws, my husband and I were recently introduced to Red Ridge Oregon Olive Mill from Dayton, Oregon. I’m pretty obsessed with olive oil - or rather, obsessed with olive oil that tastes like olive oil should - and was thrilled to see the beautiful bottles with the rich green oil.

We tried three different kinds of oil from the Red Ridge Olive Mill: Tuscan new oil, Arbequina new oil and Arbequina extra virgin olive oil. Each one had a slightly different flavor, color and fullness. My favorite was the Tuscan new oil, but that's because it tasted most like my favorite olive oils from my time in Florence. 

To help give the olive oil the platform it deserved, I crafted a few dishes that would highlight it: Homemade Italian bread to dip in the oil (with some salt and maybe spices and garlic, too), light vegetable pasta sauces that benefit from an additional splash of oil before serving, and, perhaps our favorite, roasted eggplant slices brushed with spices and, of course, olive oil.

You can learn a little more about olive oil here. In addition, “Slippery Business” is an older article from the New Yorker about more origins of olive oil, but the basic issues still hold true. Why not avoid any possible mystery and buy your oil from a small farm?

How much olive oil do you cook with? Frankly, there’s rarely a meal in our house without some. Between us, I even put it on my hot breakfast cereal instead of butter. 

Buono!: Penne alla Vodka

“Tonight’s dish will be healthy,” I declare, almost every morning these days.

My husband responds, “Let me guess, you’re adding vegetables to our regular meal?”

That’s right. I still believe – deeply – in the purity of certain dishes. (I’m not one who takes, say, a bowl of nuts and calls it “nutty risotto.” “Risotto” means something and that something isn’t a bowl of nuts.) I do, however, want to be healthier this year. So, if we add something here or there, we've mostly retained the integrity of the original dish (I know, it is a stretch at times.)

To help make healthier meals happen, I’ve declared 2012 THE YEAR OF HEALTH. (When you say this, you have to bang your hands down on the nearest table for emphasis.) I declared it as a writer and now I’m declaring it as a home chef, food shopper and eater.

So, to start, I decided to make penne alla vodka. Ok, you’re thinking that the heavy cream and the vodka make this an obviously unhealthy choice. Here’s the deal: I want to be healthy, but I don’t want to be a. crazy, b. angry or c. deprived by not eating dishes like penne alla vodka. So, I’m preparing penne alla vodka and I’m adding broccoli. There, it is healthier. I’m also going to eat less of it and use a fiber rich pasta: Barrilla’s Piccolini Mini Penne Rich In Fiber. The best part of this pasta is that it tastes a lot like regular pasta and looks the same since it is white. 

I admit that I accidentally bought fat free heavy cream, which is a strange invention. It was too thin to fill out the sauce the way it should have. Oh, well. 

More or less, I followed this recipe from Epicurious. Instead of scooping out the garlic, I left it in (why take it out?) The main difference though, is that I added the hot pepper to the vodka and let it sit over night (well, a few nights, since I forgot about it the first night.) This step helps to make the dish even spicier. I learned this trick from my great Uncle Bruno.

How do you prepare penna alla vodka?

Re-Publishing Recipes: SOPA? Fair Use? Copyright Infringement?

You can always ask your librarian for help when you have a question about copyright issues 

(like the use of this picture I took of a library's poster using Batman's image?)

Readers sometimes lament that they can't find certain recipes on this blog. When I blog about someone else's recipe, I do not reprint the recipe. Instead, I refer to the original cookbook and encourage readers to purchase it. I know it would be easier for everyone if I retyped the recipe without permission, but this would be unfair to the original author.

Writers, at the very least, should be fair to other writers. And fairness is a two-way street that includes respecting copyright laws and fair use laws. 

In light of the recent SOPA discussions, writers need to be particularly aware of their rights. With this recipe example in mind, if I’m not creating something new (doing more than simply tweaking a recipe), then I don’t have the right to re-publish someone else’s work. Under current fair use laws, I have the right to comment upon and republish small sections of the recipe.

Writers can analyze or respond to something in the public sphere and/or create something new. SOPA works against what fair use currently allows, rather than supporting writers and other creators by protecting them.

In general, recipes (creations drafted, tested, retested and then clearly written out, edited, revised and eventually published) are only yours to reprint fully if you are the author or if you have permission from the author and/or publishing company. Like with photographs, poems or other creations, it isn't enough to simply give the creator's name and/or include the copyright symbol (if you didn't actually ask permission to use the work, it is even worse to pretend that you did.)

Especially as writers and creative people, we need to help protect each other's rights to our original work and the right to earn a living from that work. For more on Fair Use in creative writing, read the Poetry Foundation and American University’s “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry”. While focusing on poetry, it applies quite well to all genres of creative writing. You can also go directly to the U.S. copyright office’s explanation of Fair Use.

If you are using materials for educational purposes, check with your school’s policies or read through New York University’s clear Handbook for use of Copyrighted Materials.

I'm currently teaching a food writing workshop online at Fairleigh Dickinson University and this is one of the issues that we discuss in class. We read Will Write for Food by Dianne Jacob. If you are interested in doing food writing and tackling these issues yourself, I recommend that you refer to her book or blog for more.

What other resources would you recommend? 

Book Review: Notes on Cooking

I read Notes on Cooking from start to finish while sitting in a bookstore. Then, of course, I bought it. Later, I bought another copy as a gift for my Dad. That’s how great it is.

This clear, little book explains everything from understanding a recipe to straining stock to presenting your dish. The authors’ approach makes it seem possible to cook almost anything and enjoy it while you do. Here’s a great example from the chapter on temperature:

86. Never jump food more than one temperature state at a time.

There are four functional temperature states: 1) frozen, 2) cold, 3) room temperature, 4)warm or hot.

When you move food from one state to another (in either direction), don’t skip over a temperature state by, for instance, taking a roast directly from the refrigerator to the oven, or from the oven to the refrigerator. Only one state can change at a time.

Perfectly reasonable, understandable and helpful, right? The entire book is like that. I learned so much reading it.

When I teach writing, I remind the students how important it is to read. Read widely and read regularly. When you read something that you know in your heart you wish you wrote, you’ve come upon something great that you can learn from. I wish I knew enough to sit down and write Notes on Cooking. Luckily, Lauren Braun Costello and Russell Reich did. And you can read it, too. 

For more, see the Notes on Cooking website. 

Thanksgiving 2011

This year, as I plan our menu, my mind turns to those who passed this last year. As some of you know, this has been a very hard year for our family because we lost many loved ones.

At Aunt Dora’s funeral in April, a friend said that soon after his mother died, he continued to pick up the phone to try to call her. It was both a habit and a wish. Another friend who lost her longtime partner was only part joking when she that she wished she could just Google to find out where he is now.

I have the same instinct to want answers and continued intimacy.

I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with my aunt since I moved out of New Jersey in 2008. My parents have travelled to spend the holiday with my husband and I first in Michigan and now Washington, D.C. While I spoke with Aunt Dora almost every day around noon, on Thanksgiving the call would be earlier and last longer. She’d ask to speak with everyone and then check on the menu. She’d ask not only what I was making, but how I was making it. And she’d joke that I should save her a turkey wing, her favorite part of a bird she otherwise disliked.

Aunt Dora was always my go-to person when I had kitchen disasters. Even when I called from Italy, she walked me through hamburger patties that were falling apart and ruined caramel sauces that wouldn’t unstick from my pot. She was a confident and generous home cook. While she would sometimes laugh at my questions (there were, after all, some funny problems), she would always (eventually) answer me seriously. 

I wish I could call her to wish her a happy holiday. She’d end the conversation by asking, as she always did, “When am I going to see you again, kid?”

While there is no longer an answer to that question, there is a menu and turkey to attend to. She would expect me to. And the things I do, starting with cooking, keep her memories awake in my actions and thoughts. It is far from being the same as it was, but it is what we have. 

Moka Express: Italian espresso coffee at home

Every morning, I prepare Italian coffee (what we can “espresso” in America and the Italians call “caffe”) in my Bialetti Moka Express. I think I’m as addicted to the ritual as I am to the coffee itself.

My mokas last a few years each. And a new one is reason for celebration! It feels good to start even fresher than usual in the morning.

There is a certain art to making coffee in this pot. Fill the basket with espresso ground coffee (coffee that is ground much thinner will clog the machine.) Do not pack coffee down in order to squeeze in more coffee (this will make it harder for the pressurized water to push through the grinds.) On the stovetop, the flame shouldn’t be larger than the base. (At least two friends I know have melted the plastic handle with a much stronger flame. That’s always disappointing. And a mess.) For more details on how to prepare the prefect tazza (cup) and other Italian stovetop coffee pots, see this Under the Tuscan Gun video. 

After you’ve finished your coffee, be sure to let your pot cool off before opening it. You can run cold water over the pot while holding it by the handle. After making the coffee, the earlier pressure might make it hard to open the pot. The bottom container has flat sides. In the sink, balance the machine on one side in order to open it more easily.

The moka, a simple metal construction, requires easy cleaning. That is to say, cleaning without soap. Never put your moka in the dishwasher or use dish soap on the metal. A thorough rinse with hot water will clean your moka. Be sure to let it stand open in order to fully air dry after cleaning it.

To help eliminate any buildup or polish the surface, soak your moka in baking soda and use a clean sponge to wash the pot down. To help make yours last even longer, you can also buy the necessary replacement parts.


Help support this blog and buy your moka through our Amazon store. 

What kind of Italian coffee pot do you use? Do you have a favorite coffee roaster?

Buono!: Carbonara Sauce

Thank you to a reader for the Buono! question about carbonara sauce. She wrote, "I'm fascinated by carbonara recipes (egg yolks vs. whole eggs/ cream vs. no cream or broth). Would love to read how you do pasta coal miner's style."

I followed this recipe for carbonara sauce from Under the Tuscan Gun almost exactly. (Don't you love those two? Their videos crack me up.) I didn't have any spaghetti on hand, so I used a package of strozzapreti pasta (whose name translates to, "priest choker." Yikes.)

This creamy sauce is known as "coal miner's style" because the black pepper flakes look like the (hopefully apocryphal) coal that flaked off of the miners when they prepared these simple dishes. Traditionally, there isn't any actual cream in these sauces. The creaminess originates from the combination of grated cheese, slowly cooked eggs (mostly yolks), fat from the pork and water. The recipe calls for the water to come from the pasta water (the water serves to thicken the sauce because it is starchy from the pasta.)

You know I'm not a purist. I invite you to change the recipe anyway you see fit. If you are hesitant to lightly cook (and eat so many) egg yolks, you can cheat and use cream. Substituting broth for the water would add more flavor, although I'm not sure that's necessary with the garlic and pork. I wouldn't use too much broth because without the starch, it might thin the sauce too much.

If you choose to use a lower fat pork (bacon, pancetta or guanciale), you might need more oil in the sauce. I used a thin, lower fat bacon and added some extra olive oil. Butter or margarine could work, too.

A friend emailed me her mother's recipe for this dish and it included vegetables (mushrooms and peas.) I imagine that the result is delicious and I look forward to trying that in the future. I also think we would have enjoyed some hot pepper (dried or fresh) on top.

Next time! There's always a next dinner.

What's your secret to a good carbonara sauce? Share your answer below in the Comments section. 







http://underthetuscangun.com/food/pasta/28-spaghetti-alla-carbonara/