Operation #TasteATL: Code Name "Downtown"

We arrived at Alma Cocina at the prescribed time where we met our handlers from Brave PR and were lead to our table where we were given our directives. The mission: five teams embark on a clandestine operation from their assigned checkpoints to four surreptitious locations to sample the goods and report back to our respective followers on the upcoming Taste of Atlanta 2014. I (along with two other operatives) had been assigned to team “Downtown.” We ordered drinks from a list of carefully crafted libations and exchanged bona fides.  

I ordered an “Italian Tourist” while my comrade tried “A House in the Hamptons” both of which suited our palates nicely. As we were consulting our ciphers for the ELINT on Twitter, our inside man, Chef Chad Clevenger, brought out a tray of Chicken Tinga Tostadas and a platter of Fried Avocado tacos with poblano pesto. Those were soon followed by Chef’s signature Pork Pibil tamales, which he was keeping under wraps (of corn husk that is.)

As we were finishing our surveillance activities, our Controller contacted our transport agent from Uber to take us to our next target. We soon arrived at Smoke Ring where we were presented with Wine & Shine Sangria made especially for the arrival of our team. A salver of delectable deviled eggs and fried green tomatoes with goat cheese were set on the table. A bang and burn was carried out just in time for pork belly burgers with caramelized onions, melted Fontina, and secret recipe Steak Sauce along with another original concoction, “The Modern” to be brought for our consideration. The darling owners of the establishment, Erin and Jordan Wakefield made an appearance at the table to provide intelligence on the site and the items we were sampling making us feel that we had entered their home rather than their eatery. They seemed unconcerned by our cloak and dagger operation.

Again, our Controller arranged transport and within moments we were whisked away. We exited the Uber vehicle and entered the W Atlanta Downtown and were escorted into a private dining room at BLT Steak. We all were made to feel as members of the Royal family and were concerned our covers had been blown, until we were assured that everyone is treated in this manner at this venue.

We were served a chicken liver mousse with grilled country French bread, “obnoxious” popovers (the term used by our confidential informant), perfectly cooked steak with a luxurious corn compote (which will be the sample to be shared at TOA) and my favorite libation of the evening, which I will call the “Gin Jammer” for purposes of this report. An impressive parade of assets introduced themselves to our party describing various aspects of the location including Chef Joseph and Pastry Chef Sarah whose mini carrot cakes and chocolate chip petit fours were truly icing on the cake.

We were facing palate fatigue as we boarded yet another vehicle in the Uber fleet to descend upon our final covert objective. As we pulled up to Max Lager’s, we entered with new strength and resolve. There was food and beverage here that must be consumed in order to complete our assignment. Our unit would prevail! As we passed giant copper tanks and industrial milieus, we found ourselves seated at a comfortable table with rowdy conviviality in the background. We found ourselves facing an almost insurmountable task: to drink six beers of varying flavors for the sake of recording our findings for our cohorts. Bowls of creamy, perfectly textured grits with shrimp in a spice-filled gravy made a good backdrop to assess the malted beverages.

Just as we thought our mission was complete, a tray of fried cheesecake morsels was presented for our trial. Although we thought we might burst, we sacrificed ourselves for the sake of research and dove into the decadent nuggets, obliterating all evidence of their presence.

Our handlers, gathered the team and ushered us back to our original launch point. Once there, we vowed to maintain contact before parting ways and returning to our respective agencies.

The Take: Atlanta’s biggest foodie festival, Taste of Atlanta literally hits the streets at Spring Street and 5th from Friday, October 24th through Sunday, October 26th. This year, restaurant booths will be grouped by neighborhoods including Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, Virginia-Highlands and Decatur.

Team "Downtown" - Secret Identities Revealed

The agents assigned to team 'Downtown" are confident that you will find the offerings of Atlanta’s downtown restaurant district to be outstanding examples of the amazing menu items offered throughout our fine city! And, since we know that given this inside information, you will purchase tickets to this event post haste, we are offering you our top secret code; enter promo code “TWEET” when ordering your tickets at TasteOfAtlanta.com and receive a $5 discount on General Admission or VIP tickets until October 20th.

Crunchy Roasted Chickpeas

We are still on a quest for healthy munchies to replace standard bar snacks to nosh with cocktails. Chex Mix and Corn Nuts are definitely out, and although peanuts are rich in protein and "good" monounsaturated fat, the purchased salted versions are loaded with added oil and sodium for taste. Peanuts are also highly caloric which is not a checkmark in the healthy snacks column.

Enter chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans or ceci beans). They are a trifecta of goodness: low calorie, low fat and cheap. Roasted chickpeas contain a considerable amount of protein and dietary fiber as well as calcium, magnesium, potassium and folate. Chickpeas are also slow to digest, which helps keep you feeling full for as much as two hours after eating. You can even add them to a salad in lieu of croutons for a protein boost to meals without introducing meat or unnecessary fat to the dish.

2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Dry the chickpeas on a paper towel to remove excess moisture.

Place the chickpeas in a large bowl and toss with oil and spices until evenly coated. Spread the chickpeas in an even layer on a baking sheet and bake until crisp, about 30 to 40 minutes.

That’s it! Easy huh?

Pro-Am Winning Black Pepper Pineapple Cranberry Cobbler

To celebrate the Grand Opening of their new brick and mortar facility in Marietta, High Road Ice Cream hosted their First Annual High Road Pro-Am Cobbler Gobbler. Six teams comprised of a chef and an amateur cook making an original cobbler in the on-site kitchen and serving it with either our Fleur de Sel or our bourbon burnt sugar, with guests voting to determine who gets to claim bragging rights and a year’s supply of High Road ice cream!

I was thrilled to be partnered with Pastry Chef Kathleen Miliotis from Davio’s Atlanta. Having tasted Chef Kathleen’s desserts at her restaurant, I knew I had a fabulous teammate. We chatted on the phone a few days before the competition to determine our game plan.

We wanted to prepare something completely original. We discussed several different flavor combinations such as pumpkin-persimmon and quince-apple, yet some of these ingredients were not in season or hard to acquire fresh. Chef mentioned that she was currently using a black peppered pineapple to top her life-affirming panna cotta and an idea was born. We decided to go with a filling of black pepper pineapple and cranberries. We wanted a kicked up topping, so Chef suggested a crust suffused with ginger and cardamom. We agreed that we needed a team name as well. The pineapple evoked a tropical theme and remembering a stash of pirate paraphernalia, we became the “Pineapple Pirates” a.k.a. “The Whisking Wenches.”

The morning of the competition we met early in the High Road kitchen to make our cobbler. Two other teams converged upon the galley at the same time each vying for use of counter space and equipment. I set to work trimming and chopping pineapple while Chef and her assistant (and daughter) Kora set about making the crust. The cut pineapple went into a huge pot (I mean really huge!) on an equally size gas flame to caramelize a bit before the other ingredients were added. We added a splash of rum to the filling too – we were pirates after all! Working under time constraints, we assembled two commercial-size baking dishes using our hands to pat out the crust, as there was no rolling pin in sight. The generously sized confections went into the oven and we turned our focus on setting up our table.

We decorated our table in full pirate regalia replete with flags and treasure while we waited for the cobbler to cook. Once the bubbling cobbler came out of the oven, it had only a few short minutes to cool before guests lined up to taste our odd sounding concoction we were serving with High Road Fleur de Sel ice cream. The competition was fierce with Deb Wise of Cooking Light, Tony Patton of Nashville’s Whiskey Kitchen, Kamal Grant, of Sublime Doughnuts, Anna Gatti of Canvas Foods and Kyle Anderson of Hyatt Regency as competing chefs and with fellow food bloggers Linda Carmical of Do.Food.Better, Gisela Carapaica of Sprinkles & Tiaras and Michelle Valigursky of Savor the Salt competing as amateurs on the teams. There were several different variations on peach cobbler like peach-blueberry, peach-blackberry and peach-rhubarb as well as a mixed berry cobbler competing with our cobbler creation. The voting was done digitally so the suspense kept building while we all continued to serve our cobbler and dance to the Eighties soundtrack in the background.

Finally, the time came for the winner to be announced. We gathered around our nearly empty pans to hear the announcement of the winning team… “And the winner of the First Annual High Road cobbler completion is Black Pepper Pineapple & Cranberry!” All the hard work paid off! The Pineapple Pirates had prevailed! After cleaning up and saying our goodbyes, we all packed up and headed home exhausted, a little sunburned, and stuffed full of cobbler and ice cream!

It is with great pleasure that Chef Kathleen and I share our winning cobbler recipe with you. So without further adieu:



Cardamom & Ginger Pie Dough
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon ground cardamom
12 tablespoons (11/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 cup chilled water
2 tablespoons cold whole milk, plus extra for brushing
Granulated sugar for sprinkling

In mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, cardamom and ginger). Mix to thoroughly combine. Slowly cut in butter until small pea-size balls are formed. Drizzle in water and milk. Mix until dough starts to come together. Do not over mix.

Divide the dough into 2 balls. Put the dough in the refrigerator to chill for 30 minutes to an hour while you prepare the filling.

Black Pepper Pineapple & Cranberry Filling
1 stick of salted butter
1 fresh pineapple, cut into 1” cubes
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 cup pineapple juice
11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla paste
11/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1 cup whole cranberries
¼ cup dark rum (optional, but Arrrgh!)

In a large pan over medium heat, melt the butter and add pineapple, cooking until juices start to form. Add the sugar and brown sugar, vanilla, 1½ cup of the pineapple juice and black pepper, and then cook for about 20 minutes until pineapple is tender. Now it is time to add the cranberries, if added earlier they would turn the entire filling a brilliant pink.

Once the mixture returns to a boil, add the cornstarch that has been mixed with the remaining ½ cup pineapple juice to form a slurry. Cook until the starch is fully incorporated, and then pour in the rum. Cook for an additional 5 minutes. Filling should look clear and thickened. Pour the filling into a large greased baking dish.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Roll the dough out to cover your filling. Brush with milk and dust with sugar. Remember to place your baking dish on a baking sheet to catch any filling that may spill over the edges. Bake until golden brown and bubbles form and come out the sides; about 30-40 minutes.

Let the cobbler rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with ice cream or whipping cream.

JBF's Taste America® All-Star Chef Barbara Lynch Brings Butter Soup to Atlanta

Saturdays usually provide an opportunity to sleep a little later and linger over coffee and the newspaper, yet this morning I was up and out early so as not to lose my reserved seat at The James Beard Foundation’s Taste America® cooking demonstrations at the Sur La Table store located in North Point Mall.

Taste America® “Local Flavor from Coast To Coast” is a national epicurean tour celebrating America’s culinary diversity. From September 12 through October 25, 2014, the program will stop in ten cities over five weekends, including Atlanta, Phoenix, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. and will feature in-store celebrity chef appearances, cooking demonstrations, book signings, tastings and more at Sur La Table stores around the country.

Taste America® All-Star Chef Barbara Lynch, winner of the 2014 James Beard Foundation Outstanding Restaurateur award, was the featured chef for the morning’s program activities. As we were lead into the demonstration kitchen, we could see chef Lynch’s mise en place of fresh clams and what looked like a large mixing bowl of canary yellow frosting which aroused everyone’s curiosity.

The mystery was solved when Chef explained that she would be making her signature “Butter Soup” to be served with shellfish and a honey milk foam. What we had mistaken for frosting was fresh artisanal butter from Diane St. Clair’s Animal Farm in Orwell, Vermont. “This is the most amazing butter you will ever taste. I even know the name of the cow it came from; her name is ‘Hopi’!” Chef started the soup base by melting butter with water in the style of a traditional Buerre Monté sauce. Solid butter is an emulsification of butterfat, water, and milk solids. Beurre monté preparation is a way to manipulate the emulsification into a liquid form by adding a small amount of water to chunks of butter and whisking over moderate heat, the melted butter remains emulsified.

While the seafood was gently steamed and the beurre monte warmed, Chef Lynch made a honey milk foam by warming milk in a saucepan with honey until the honey is dissolved. The honey milk is added to a mixing bowl with an egg yolk and pulse with an immersion blender until foamy. If you do not have an immersion blender a regular blender or even a whisk will work just fine.

1 pound unsalted butter, cubed
½ cup water
1 teaspoon lemon juice
One 1½-pound lobster
8 littleneck clams
8 mussels
4 ounces crabmeat
1 cup milk
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon local honey
1 ounce black caviar
1 tablespoon chopped chives (optional)
Kosher salt

To prepare the shellfish, remove tail and claws from the lobster body (save the body for another use). Steam the tail for 5 minutes and the claws and knuckles for 6 minutes and immediately place in an ice water bath to shock. Once cool enough to handle, remove the meat and chop into bite-sized pieces, set aside, and discard shell.

Steam the mussels and clams in a covered pot with ¼ cup boiling water until just open. Remove with a slotted spoon and allow the shellfish to cool just until you are able to handle them. Remove the meat from the shells, set aside, and discard the shells.

In a medium sauce pot, bring 5 tablespoons water to a boil. Reduce heat to low and slowly whisk in the chilled butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, until emulsified. Add the lemon juice to the butter mixture and salt to taste. Hold over low heat. Do not allow the butter mixture to come to a boil or it will separate. If the soup 'breaks," whisk in more warm water and stir until re-incorporated. Add the crabmeat, lobster, mussels, and clams to the warm butter mixture and heat gently all the way through.

To make the honey milk foam, pour honey into 1 cup warmed milk and stir to combine. Whisk in an egg yolk and using an immersion blender, blitz mixture until foamy.

Using a slotted spoon, divide the shellfish equally among 4 small warmed soup bowls. Pour butter soup over the shellfish to cover (approximately 3 tablespoons for each serving; there will be some leftover which can be refrigerated and gently reheated for future use.

Garnish the soup with 1 teaspoon honey "foam," a small scoop of black caviar, and sprinkling of chopped chives (if using) and serve immediately. You may wish to have extra napkins on hand for those who simply cannot resist the urge to lick the bowl to get every last droplet!

And as if Chef Lynch’s Butter Soup was not decadent enough, High Road Craft Ice Cream was on site dispensing corn meal spoon bread and tomato marmalade with scoops of their sinful Vanilla Fleur de Sel ice cream as part of the Taste America® mission to showcase local artisanal flavors.

To learn more about the James Beard Foundation’s Taste America® tour please visit jbftasteamerica.org. The full Taste America® program calendar is as follows:

September 12-13:        Atlanta: All-Star Barbara Lynch*/Phoenix: All-Star Sherry Yard*
September 26-27:        Dallas: All-Star Patrick O’Connell*/Seattle: All-Star Marc Murphy*
October 10-11:            Los Angeles: All-Star Aarón Sánchez*/NYC: All-Star Daniel Boulud*
October 17-18:            Chicago: All-Star Grant Achatz*/Washington, D.C.: All-Star Charles Phan*
October 24-25:            Boston: All-Star Ludo Lefebvre /San Francisco: All-Star Paul Qui*

*Notes James Beard Award Winner

Super Crispy Kale Chips

I am a certified chip-aholic. Frankly, no crispy, salty snack is safe in my presence. I am not proud to admit that in my twenties, I was known to make a full meal of a bag of chips and some sort of dip. Of course, at that point I had the metabolism of a hummingbird. Now, not so much.

Finding a more suitable alternative to a kettle chip is no small achievement. Rice cakes; ugh. Pretzels; dry and dusty. Nuts and seeds are okay, but missing the satisfying crunch, not to mention the higher fat content. And then there are kale chips. Yeah, I know what you’re going to say, but hear me out.

Kale is a super food, plain and simple. It is ranked number one on the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI), which ranks foods by the amount of nutrients per calorie. Kale builds better bones with more calcium than milk and is high in magnesium that, along with vitamin D, helps the body absorb calcium. Kale improves your immune system and lowers the risk of chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and blood disorders. It's low in calories, has zero fat, and is available year-round. Super.

Unlike spinach or lettuces, kale is sturdy enough to withstand some heat and still maintain some rigidity making it a good candidate for a chip substitute. There is, however, an art to making the perfect kale chip, which is preferable to purchasing them. Store bought kale chips tend to be expensive and highly over seasoned.

1 bunch fresh kale
1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 300°F. Rinse and thoroughly dry the leaves before beginning. Really dry! A salad spinner works pretty well, but I usually pat them down with paper towels. Remove the stems by grabbing the base of the stem with one hand and pushing outwards along the stem to slide off the leaves. The stems do not cook as fast or thoroughly as the leaves and will retain moisture if not removed.

Tear leaves into large pieces. Pour some of the olive oil in your clean hands and literally massage the oil onto the leaves. Work in batches if necessary. It is important to coat the leaves, but not drench them in the oil. Oil prevents the leaves from crumbling and helps the spices stick to the leaves. Avoid adding liquid spices like hot sauce or Worcestershire sauce. Remember dry, dry, dry, dry!

Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Place kale on the sheet and sprinkle the spices over the kale and toss to coat evenly. We use the above mix, but you can use your favorite spice mixture instead. Just remember to be judicious in the amount. Spread kale into a single layer on the baking sheet to prevent soggy, unevenly baked kale chips. Bake for 10 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for another 12-15 minutes more until the kale begins to firm up. The kale will look shrunken, but this is normal.

Let the kale cool on the sheet for 3 minutes before devouring. This really makes a big difference! Enjoy immediately as they lose their crispness relatively quickly. Store in an airtight container and be prepared to reheat in the oven if they succumb to moisture in the air.