Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Food & Wine

2021 DE WETSHOF LIMESTONE HILL CHARDONNAY ($20) Need a super-refreshing, palate-tingling Chardonnay for summer drinking? I had this zippy, un-oaked South African white from the country’s Robertson wine region maybe a decade ago at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen (where I loved it), and I revisited it recently. The verdict? It’s still a killer deal. 2021 DOMAINE DROUHIN ARTHUR CHARDONNAY ($42) Domaine Drouhin is probably best known for its impressive Pinot Noirs, which are some of the best in Oregon. But I chanced across an older vintage (2017) of their Chardonnay on a wine list and was just blown away by how well it ages—so precise and complex, and simply delicious. The current vintage is equally impressive. 2020 ARPEPE ROSSO DI VALTELLINA ($45) Finding a great summer…

EATING ICE CREAM straight from the pint has always been one of life’s simplest pleasures, and lately, that pleasure has been getting a lot more dynamic. A wave of ice cream makers are thinking of ways to enhance the pint-eating experience, designing gooey swirls, playful textures, layered flavors, and sundae-like toppings meant to be enjoyed straight out of the container. “What makes pints interesting to me as an ice cream maker is we really get to curate your experience,” says Hallie Meyer, owner of Caffè Panna in New York City. “You have a format that you can apply true infinitude to.” Here are four pints that we could not stop digging into. MARTINE’S PISTACHIO CAKE Crank & Boom, Lexington, Kentucky In collaboration with Martine’s Pastries, this pistachio-based ice cream is…

IT’S ESTIMATED THAT about 385,000 babies are born each day around the world. Approximately 99.9% will eventually have a birthday dinner at a restaurant, expecting the red carpet to be rolled out. What restaurants do for a guest’s birthday can be as varied as the quality of a grocery store cake: You never know what you’re gonna get. Assuming you’re going to be showered with free food and drink is a mistake. The kitchen might offer balloons, sparklers, and a complimentary pot de crème with your name written in chocolate, or nothing at all. So to properly prepare yourself for the big day, here are a few things to keep in mind. 1 HOW AND WHEN TO TELL THE RESTAURANT If you want the restaurant to know about your annual…

DISTILLING ALCOHOL FROM AGAVE and other desert plants is a tradition that has deep roots in Mexico. The most well-established examples of agave-based spirits are tequila and mezcal, but the category encompasses a range of other spirits, more and more of which now appear on U.S. restaurant menus and liquor-store shelves. We asked our favorite spirits pros to recommend the best bottles in this emerging category for your home bar. BACANORA Bacanora, the agave spirit of Sonora, was banned in 1915 by the teetotaling governor of the state, Plutarco Elías Calles; it wasn’t legalized again until 1992. Because of that, its production has stayed small-scale and traditional to this day: Agave is harvested and processed by hand, rather than through industrial methods. Unlike sotol and raicilla, which usually have…

Ask 30 participants about the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and you’ll get 30 wildly varying, occasionally intersecting accounts of what it’s like to be a part of this legendary 40-year-old food festival. And we do mean legendary. Since 1983, hundreds of the biggest names in the food, wine, and hospitality businesses have converged at this annual event to celebrate, network, commingle, educate, and serve the thousands of lucky attendees who find themselves in the rarefied Colorado air of Snowmass and Aspen Mountain for the culinary adventure of a lifetime. Do shenanigans ensue? Oh yes, they do—along with memories and relationships that last a lifetime. Here are stories (well, the PG-rated ones) only the insiders can tell. THE EARLY YEARS DEVIN PADGETT (Food & Wine Special Projects Producer): The Classic…

Icons & Innovators JACQUES PÉPIN has made thousands of crêpes in his 87 years, but on this particular day in his Madison, Connecticut, kitchen, while he is preparing Crêpes Suzette (recipe p. 124) with a camera capturing the action, the Cognac in his pan refuses to ignite. “Is this real Cognac?” he jokes, asking if someone added water to the bottle. Unfazed, he simmers the Cognac, sugar, and Grand Marnier in the pan down into an aromatic syrup, enveloping the kitchen in warm aromas of orange zest and foaming butter. Who cares about a flambé fail when the outcome is this delicious? “You do a recipe and repeat that recipe 20 times, and you never do it exactly the same way, except it comes out the same way,” Pépin says.…

COLD SMOKING SUMMER IS SYNONYMOUS with outdoor cooking—the warm weather calls for firing up the grill for burgers and dogs. But your grill is also an ideal tool for the often-overlooked technique of cold smoking. Unlike hot smoking, which imbues ingredients with smoke while cooking them, cold smoking adds a smoky, sweet fragrance without the addition of heat. It’s the technique to lean on when you want to impart a delectably smoky finish to otherwise ready-to-eat ingredients, such as a side of cured salmon, a delicate ball of burrata (see p. 46), or fresh fruit (p. 48), without altering the texture. Best of all, this versatile cooking method requires nothing more than a grill (charcoal or gas), ice cubes, and wood smoking pellets. To make Cold-Smoked Salmon (recipe opposite), begin…

IT’S ONE THING TO OPEN A RESTAURANT that nails a perfectly cheesy, crispy khachapuri, or to train a team capable of coaxing a stubborn Napa Cab–head into ordering a bottle of Georgian rosé. It’s an entirely different thing to build a business that supports small wine producers from Syria, Lebanon, and Georgia by assuming much of the necessary financial and logistical risk tied to bringing their wines to an American audience. “Small winemakers just need cold, hard cash up front for the nature of the work,” explains Rose Previte. Previte, owner of restaurants Maydan and Compass Rose in Washington, D.C., is also a cofounder of Go There Wines, a new kind of wine venture that coproduces vintages with small winemakers in countries that aren’t typically represented in bottle-shop aisles…

ON A TEMPERATE SATURDAY NIGHT in London, I followed the host down the stairs to the packed communal table at Kricket’s Soho location, one of three in the city (kricket.co.uk), to meet a friend. A play-list of Bollywood bangers and certified hits from the early aughts bounced around the restaurant, opened in 2015 by Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell, as the plates started to touch down at the table: super craggy and crunchy Keralan fried chicken topped with perfect circles of pickled radish and crispy curry leaves, a sweet-and-salty kulcha stuffed with dates and pistachios that easily could have passed for a more glutenous baklava, a comforting khichdi made with hunks of smoked haddock and a burst of corn kernels, and a thick slab of paneer swimming in a pool…

JACQUES PÉPIN’S HANDS are resting quietly on his kitchen table, and it’s taking every ounce of my willpower not to stare. I know these hands well, and you do, too. They’ve been photographed meticulously barding a roast or folding a tart in the pages of La Technique, whisking a crème pâtissière while bickering with Julia Child on a TV screen, curled around a knife handle and an onion half on the cover of Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pépin, casually wielding a flaming pan of crêpes suzette as he lovingly taunts his cook-off opponents at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. At the Mad Symposium in Copenhagen, I saw these hands projected many times their size on a screen above him, boning a chicken and rolling an omelet as he spoke to 300 silent, awestruck…

IN 2011, WE WERE STILL FIGURING OUT how to explain to people in the United States what kimchi was. And even today, many people still don’t know that there are thousands of types of kimchi—they still think of just one, baechu-kimchi, the kind made with fermented napa cabbage and gochugaru. On a trip to Korea in 2010 for a Food & Wine story that came out the following year, I went to Buddhist temples and had some of the most delicious Korean food I’d ever had, period. Because at Buddhist temples, all the nuns and monks do is pray, meditate, eat, and cook. I was especially inspired by their white kimchi, or mul kimchi. There’s several versions of it, but it’s typically cabbage fermented for a few days in a…

FOR DORIS HÔ`-KANE, baking has always meant more than just creating beautiful treats. “It’s always been so important for us to preserve our culture,” says the owner and founder of the Brooklyn-based Vietnamese-American bakery Ba·n Bè. “The easiest way to do it is through food.” On any given day, the offerings at Ba·n Bè could include multi-colored pandan waffles, mooncakes, bánh mì, tins of her signature bo˘ butter cookies, or tha·ch rau câu, fruit jellies that Hô`-Kane makes just like her grandmother did. Sometimes, she layers jelly made from agar, a gelatinous substance derived from seaweed, to make tha·ch rau câu dù˘a lá dú˘a, chewy confections with alternating tiers of pandan and coconut milk molded into a flower shape. If you’re lucky, she’ll have concocted her cà phê tha·ch rau…

PRETTY MUCH EVERY DESSERT looks better on a cake stand—pies, cupcakes, cookies, even Popsicles (for a fleeting few seconds). Not only are cake stands undeniably functional, making cakes easier to maneuver for icing and slicing and providing a spot for storing baked goods under an airtight cloche, but they also create visual drama around a dessert that professional food stylists and food photographers love. “The eye likes to travel,” says Food & Wine contributing photo editor Matt Taylor-Gross. “It’s all about levels.” Adding a cake stand to your table can create the same effect. To serve your next dessert in style, read on for four of our favorite cake stands that help bring a professional flair to your pastries. ESTELLE CAKE STAND Estelle Colored Glass founder Stephanie Summerson Hall commissions…

2022 F&W BEST NEW CHEF ROB RUBBA knows a thing or two about how to get the most out of a vegetable. At his Washington, D.C., restaurant Oyster Oyster, Rubba turns out some of the most creative plant-based cooking in the nation. Here, he shares four smart recipes that lean on flavorful sauces to enhance simply cooked summer produce. From charred flat beans with an agrodolce drizzle (recipe p. 56) to seared eggplant with a black garlic and tahini sauce (recipe p. 64), there’s something for everyone. —KELSEY YOUNGMAN Grilled Flat Beans With Agrodolce ACTIVE 25 MIN; TOTAL 40 MIN; SERVES 4 The well-balanced sweet-and-sour sauce brings heat from gochugaru and tang from rice vinegar to meaty romano beans, a broad, flat cousin of string beans. The beans should be…

ON A RECENT EVENING at Tequilas, a restaurant in Philadelphia, I was offered a small bowl of what looked like gnarled slices of dried pineapple. It was roasted agave, of the same variety that had produced the mezcal in the small glass cup in front of me on the bar. I chewed the agave, marveling at its sweet-savory balance and the subtle smoke flavor that emanated—nothing like the intensity that I had come to associate with mezcal. David Suro-Piñera, the owner of Tequilas, had brought the cooked agave back to the restaurant after his most recent trip to Mexico. Suro-Piñera is a longtime advocate for agave spirits and is the author, with ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, of the newly released Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals.…