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Old 04-21-2007, 06:39 PM
SamIAm SamIAm is offline
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Default My dinner with NPR\'s Lynne Rossetto Kasper (w/ recipes)

My parents gave too much money to NorthCarolina NPR during their last fund-drive, so got two tickets to an event with The Splended Table (an NPR food show). NPR will bring in three local chefs and LynneRosettoKasper (the host of the show) for a cooking class/dinner. My father wasn't too interested, so I drove in from Atlanta for the event (and to see my parents). Turns out it was well worth the drive. I thought I'd write a trip-report for the forum. CliffNotes at the bottom.



The event was at A Southern Season, a fancy-schmancy cooking store/market. They have a second floor where they offer classes. It was a beautiful room with gorgeous appliances and huge flat-screens on the wall. Later an assistant sat at a laptop with focus/zoom/pan controls, able to switch between hidden cameras pointed at the chef, the counter-top, and the stove-top. Very FoodNetwork. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] There were 8 tables of 6, with full place-settings. Each seat had 3 wine glasses, so it was clearly going to be a good night. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The event started at 6:30 with wine & cheese. Nothing too fancy. I actually liked the red and a couple of the cheeses, but didn't catch their names. No big deal; this is just pre-food.



At 7:00 we all took a seat. The NPR folks thanked everybody for giving to public radio, and gave an introduction for Lynne Rossetto Kasper. I always knew her as a very nice talk-show host who got excited about whatever her guest was excited about. If a listener called in with a question like "Ugh. What do I do with too much <some obscure ingredient>?" Lynne would say "Oh, man! You have Yellow Polka-Dot Eggplant? I love Yellow Polka-Dot Eggplant!" Of course she's also written some books (They've all written some books.) but hers is the only book to win 'Cookbook of the Year' from both the JuliaChild and JamesBeard awards. That's pretty impressive, actually.

When Lynne got up, she was charismatic and friendly. She introduced the other chefs and did a little soapboxing about buying local food and supporting farmers and stuff. I dig it. Then we got to the chefs.



Bill Smith's the head chef at Crook's Corner. He founded Cat's Cradle in ChapelHill, so he's a local guy. He was sorta subdued while LRK was talking, but perked up when he was on stage. He worked hard at cooking while also telling jokes.

His greens were local and the meat was local, and he talked a lot about the farmers' market and his butcher. But he really liked Maple View Dairy, where he got the crottins. Check it out if you're around RDU, I guess. (Keep in mind that I drove a few hours to get to the event, so his "buy local" was different than my "local".)

They paired the salad with 2005 Lis Neris Tocai Friulano, an Italian dry white wine.

-----

Wilted Greens & Warm Crottin Salad

Serves 4-6

2 lbs asparagus
3/4 lbs spring greens
1 T dried cherries
1/2 C red wine vinegar
4 crottins goat cheese
4 T unsalted butter
1/2 C sidemeat lardons (rendered)
1/2 C chopped scallions
oo
sea salt

Grilled the asparagus and tossed them in olive oil and salt. Arrange the asparagus and greens on a large plate.

In a saucepan, steep the cherries in the vinegar for half an hour (before we got there), and then remove the cherries.

Place the crottins on an oiled baking sheet and put in a 350degree (toaster) oven. 3-5 minutes. Slide one crottin per plate onto the greens.

Put the butter in a small saute pan over high heat. Swirl it aruond for 30 seconds to melt and add the lardons, continuing to swirl for 3 minutes. Add the scallions and the vinegar all at once and pour over the salad.

-----



Andrea Reusing is one of the chef-owners of Lantern, a classy Asian restaurant in Chapel Hill. Gourmet called it the 47th best restaurant in the nation, which is pretty high.

Andrea was super into the local food thing. She heads the local Slow Food cell. (A group politically opposed to Fast Food.) I thought her pot-au-feu wasn't the most interesting, though. It tasted great, but she said "You could do this with other meat if you had it. Or other vegetables if you had them." So it's meat & vegetable soup. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

They paired the soup with 2005 Le Calle Campo Beo Rosso Toscana, an organic red wine from Tuscany.

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Braised Grass-fed Beef Short Ribs and Oxtail, and Spring Vegetables with Sea Salt and Fresh Horseradish

3 T veggie oil
4 meaty short-ribs
4 thick rounds of oxtail
1.5 C dried porcini mushrooms
2 Qt water
salt
pepper
2 lb washed, trimmed seasonal vegetables (leeks, green garlic, spring onions, turnips, carrots, radishes, ramps, or potatoes)
.5 C fresh horseradish, peeled & grated
1 T white vinegar
.25 t salt

Pre-heat to 275. Season ribs and oxtail well with salt and pepper. Heat a dutch oven over medium-high and sear the meat on all sides until deep golden brown.

Remove the fat from the pan return the meat with enough water to cover by 3/4". Bring to a simmer and skim. Season the liquid with salt so it's slightly less salty than you want the broth to be. Add porcini mushrooms, cover and slow-cook in the oven 4-5 hours, till tender.

Remove the meat, de-fat the broth, and re-season. Add the broth back and bring to a simmer, adding the vegetables in order of cooking time.

Grate horseradish, wait 3 minutes, and combine with vinegar and salt. Serve next to soup.

-----



Karen Barker is the executive chef-owner of the Magnolia Grill. Somehow the Magnolia Grill was ranked an the 11th best restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine, which seems a littly crazy to me. It's a good restaurant, but it's not 11th in the whole big nation. On the other hand, Karen won the James Beard best pastry chef in 2k3, so maybe I just didn't have enough dessert when I went. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

She was very fun and had a lot more food stuff to talk about. Her dishes were more complicated and she had more ideas about how they should be prepared. Definitely my favorite of the three. While she was making it, we realized that the recipe is kosher for passover, so maybe we'll make it next year.

They paired the desert with 2005 Chateau Roumieu - Lacoste Sauternes, a honey/apricot dessert wine that everybody at my table really, really liked.

-----

Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake

12 T unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean
1.25 C chopped, toasted hazelnuts
1.33 C confectioner's sugar
6 T AP flour
zest of 1 orange
5 large egg whites
.25 t kosher salt
.25 C sugar

Preheat to 350. Butter a 10" cake pan and line with parchement. Butter parchement and set aside. Place butter in saute pan. Slit vanilla bean and scrape seads. Add contents and pod to butter. Cook over medium heat 8-10 minutes, till bottom browns. Allow to cool and discard the pod.

Combine hazelnuts, confectioner's sugar, and flour in food processor. Process until nuts are finely ground. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add orange zest. Whip egg whites and salt until frothy. Gradually add the sugar and beat to medium-stiff peaks. Fold half the dry ingredients into the egg whites followed by half the brown butter. Repeat, folding until the mixture is just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake about 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and feels set. Cool cake on rack. When cool, turn onto parchement-lined plate. Remove paper liner and invert onto serving platter.

Serve with a generous dollop of buttermilk sabayon (following) and lightly sugared strawberries. (She made a strawberry sauce at the event, w/o recipe.)

Maple View Buttermilk Sabayon

8 egg yolks
1 C whole buttermilk (preferably Maple View, as mentioned above.)
.125 t kosher salt
.75 C + 2 T sugar
1 C heavy cream

Combine yolks, buttermilk, salt, and .5C+2T sugar in a stainless steel bowl. Whisk to combine. Place over a double-boiler, whisking constantly until mixture is thickened and very hot to the touch. (But not scrambled eggs.) Remove from heat and chill over an ice bath.

Whip cream with remaining .25 C sugar to medium peak. Once sabayon has cooled completely, lighten mixture by folding in 1/3 of the whipped cream. Fold in remaining cream. Use immediately or refrigerate, covered, for up to 8 hours.

-----

At the end of the night, they gave everybody a signed copy of LRK's book, which was nice since I was going to check it out anyway. Before we left she answered questions and told a neat story about polar expeditions and food technology, but this post is too long already, so I'll tell it later in the thread.
-Sam

<u>CliffNotes</u> I went to a fancy cooking class for NPR, and local chefs preached about buying local before showing how to make a great wilted-greens salad, a good beef stew, and an amazing torte.
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  #2  
Old 04-21-2007, 06:55 PM
Sniper Sniper is offline
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Default Re: My dinner with NPR\'s Lynne Rossetto Kasper (w/ recipes)

Sam, when can we expect to see pics of your attempt to follow the recipes you learned?

Sounds like a fun time!
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Old 04-21-2007, 08:49 PM
John Cole John Cole is offline
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Default Re: My dinner with NPR\'s Lynne Rossetto Kasper (w/ recipes)

Well, neither she nor I did the cooking, but I had dinner once--along with three others--with NPR's Jackie Lyden. Interesting woman with great stories.
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