Cooking With Ideas

Broad Street Market

Harrisburg's Broad Street Market is a wonderful set of buildings where you can buy both prepared food and a whole assortment of produce (both local and not), butchered meats and poultry, and even an occasional bit of seafood. Among the prepared foods that I have tried: some very very good ribs and some Indian food (the latter from a place called Curry in a Hurry that is the same folks as Harrisburg's Passage to India). Lunch is great -- I had some very good spinach curry with vegetables and bread. The hot sauce was really spice-y and nice.

What else can be found there? Well, I have purchased cranberry beans and frozen some, taken home a bag of sweet potatoes and baked them (and eaten them with butter and lime juice), and various bits of other produce. And, when I had company, we purchased a lovely (rather large) roasting chicken which was notable for its yellowish fat rather than being a bleached white looking chicken. I roasted it with a lemon and some thyme (from elsewhere in the market) in its innards. And, I roasted, as well, its neck -- the first time I ate chicken neck and I was wrong -- it was not not not yucky. It was rich and dark and wow. Along with the chicken I served roasted root vegetables from the market - cubed parsnips, carrots, sweet potato, red potatoes, and . . . . I also bought some farm butter (not, I think, pasteurized) which is very hard and quite buttery tasting. Hmmm. And, some pumpkin pie. . . Oh wait. I also bought some quite sharp provolone. One of the things I saw there was lebanon bologna of various sorts, which made me think of a childhood concoction involving relish, mustard, lebanon bologna and potato chips on white bread. I love that combination. Anyway, that's nostalgia, this is now.Yes, I like this market.

All in all the place is a wonderful combination of people, food, and history. As you can see, I have been there at lunch time. That's not all -- I have also been there in the early morning on Saturday and mid day Sunday -- and every single time it is a community gathering place. The Broad Street Market is, claims its web site, the oldest continuously operating market house in the U.S., having opened in 1860. Once having housed 725 vendors, there are currently about 40 (with a few signs of new ones arriving). And there is a very visible presence of Amish and/or Mennonites.  The market is managed by the historic Harrisburg association. 

And for a full day, wander across to the Midtown Scholar, a dandy bookstore across from the Market, which also serves coffee (and an occasional pound cake and once I had a cheddar scone). And the books are -- well, wonderful. There is, for us foodies, a really good food related section of books, with essays and much much more. Check it out.

Marketing, Positioning and All That Jazz

Rubies in the Orchard arrived on my doorstep ages ago and I have finally read it. It was a quick read -- and a pretty interesting one. Yes, in some ways it qualifies as "about food" and/or about things we drink. The book is about POM juice (and related phenomena) and Fiji water. But it is also about, for example, the Franklin Mint -- which I grew up thinking about as the maker of weird Christmas gifts (coins) which are now in my basement largely because one of my relatives worker for them. What do they have in common? Turns out: Lynda Resnick (and her husband) are the marketing phenomena that pushed them into really really big profits. Yes, they are the ones who brought us pomegranate juice, including funding much of the research arguing for its anti-oxidant power (and thus their many imitators -- which includes many which have little if any pomegranate juice). In fact, they brought us the pomtini -- as a marketing ploy.

The book is, in fact, about Resnick's career as a marketer of what she calls values -- and honesty -- and about products. This includes the green campaign of Fiji Water ("untouched by human hands") which she says actually has a negative carbon footprint. And it includes, as well, the most memorable story in the book -- in which the Franklin Mint purchases Jacqueline Kennedy's fake pearls -- for over $200,000 -- and then sells replicas (also fake) for $200 a pop, thereby making much much more than they paid for the "original fake pearls." Yes, they are selling something like fake authenticity. Wow. And the transformation of Teleflora she depicts is about selling gifts along with the flowers -- all those teddy bears and coffee mugs and. . . in which flowers now come.

Having said that, the book actually says pretty much what many marketers say -- though she positions herself over against them. In fact, she argues against the trend to out-of-the-box marketing in favor of in the box -- which for Resnick is looking very seriously at what you are selling, and selling what it is really all about -- selling, that is, its value. And she has some pretty interesting things to say about the role of the internet -- both in making for difficulty for businesses and in their potential for building community (aka brand loyalty and connection). A pretty quick read, selling in part her the wonders of her own products, you also get a sense of what sort of ego it takes to do what she has done in life. . . .

Whether you are selling juice, flowers, water, or whatever (hey, colleges? education?) the issue for her is finding something that is central to it (aka mission) and selling that, not changing your mission to meet market demand but changing the market demand to show the true  value of what you are selling. Hmmm.

Would I have read it if it had not arrived on my doorstep? Probably not. Am I glad I read it? Well, actually, yes. Though I could marshal criticisms, it was fun -- and reminded me of my love of Magritte in my youth. Here, on the book cover, instead of a floating apple, there is a floating pomegranate. And yes, though I did not grow up with them  (I am indebted to someone in my adult life for introducing me to their wonders) I do love pomegranates. And I have, in fact, used POM juice to make my very own pomegranate molasses because I was too lazy to start with the fresh fruit itself. Plus, she is such a name dropper that it felt like the guilty pleasure of reading the gossip rags in the checkout line at the grocery store. And who knew that she was the woman (then named Lynda Sinay) whose photocopier helped ensure my generation's immediate recognition of the phrase "The Pentagon Papers."  

For Resnick's blog, click here. For more on Resnick's book, see here or here.

A Totally Great Whim

Some time ago, my main inspiration read a piece in the Globe and Mail about an event then upcoming at the Ancaster Old Mill Inn in, you guessed it, Ancaster (in Ontario). Never heard of it at the time.  Now I have and I am terrifically glad. (And no, there is not an inn involved.) On a whim, on our way from the Toronto Airport to Niagara on the Lake for a bit of the Shaw Festival, we dropped by the Inn for the launch of a cookbook written by their chef, Jeff Crump, and their Pastry Chef, Bettina Schormann. The best whim in years -- the food was great, the music swell and the cookbook (signed by both) has lovely possibilities. (And end paper send ups from the likes of Michael Pollan and Deborah Madison seem sincere rather than the usual industry folderol. [if forced to choose who I would be in an elevator with between these two, it is definitely Madison. Less polemic and equally if not more influential].) The event was a blast -- mainly people who lived right there in Ancaster, friends and family and loyal diners at the Ancaster Old Mill Inn, all eager to tell us how long they had known Jeff and Bettina not to mention the wonders of the food. And the two co-authors were endearing in the ways they revealed themselves to be moved by the event. Nice to see foodie kindness and fun not pretention.

Let's see, what did we have? First, of course, I had a watermelon martini, which involved pouring vodka through a watermelon. Pretty darn tasty ad a tad dangerous. And there was Inniskillin white wine. But, more importantly, there were several places to get food: (a) a vegetable display with "edible dirt" (and yes it looked like dirt) with absolutely beautiful vegetables (small beets, turnips, vari-colored carrots); (b) a from the sea sort of table ranging from oysters to a ceviche and salt baked artic char; (c) a meat table which had lovely ham (though my piece was a tad fatty), braised brisket, duck, sausage and more. (Oh, the smell of that meat cooking.) At each table there were some delightful sauces too -- including a very nice horse radish one that simply sang. All this does not even get us to the desserts -- which included profiteroles and homemade ice cream (surrounded by clouds of -- well, not smoke, the fog of dry ice melting). I think there was a cherry and a peach (with bourbon if I recall correctly). MMM. Not to mention one of the best brownie-like things I have had in years.

The coffee was ok. The food was wonderful. And, the event itself was a blast, as I said. The ambience too was appealing. The Inn is built (okay, this seems obvious as I start to write it, but trust me, it was lovely) over the running water that used to work the mill (and perhaps still does?). The appearance - and sound -- were just right, as was the somewhat rustic sense to the place. (And this despite the more suburban feeling crowded sense that has grown up around the mill.) Very nice.

The cookbook launched that night is entitled Earth to Table: Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm. Given this, of course, the event involved some hurrahing for the farmers involved too, the folks of ManoRun Farm. Though Crump and Schormann tried, they could not be persuaded to say anything though they were definitely present (and appear in the book in fine form). The book itself is beautiful and has a recipe for duck confit that does not involve duck fat. I have been threatening to make duck confit for nigh on a decade. Hmmm. Might this be the moment? Crump is a founder (I think) of Slow Food Canada. 

Here's the Earth to Table site. And for some reviews of the cookbook, check here or here or. . . here. (The first one is one of my new favorites in the contest for most fun food blog name, a context that wil never end since every time I get on line there are ore food sites with more entertaining names.) Wanna Youtube 'em? Try here. And hey, Ruth Reichl likes the cookbook -- in fact, she was instrumental in ensuring it got published. So, hey, check it out. 

I can't review the restaurant - but if the food at this event was even half as good -- well, it will be a great place to have dinner when we return. Meanwhile, here's what urbanspoon thinks:

Wow -- What's Coming Now?

There is so much coming along it is almost hard to imagine. Here are things I have read that I have not gotten to write about . . . and will eventually:

Gourmet Rhapsody -- an airport find by Muriel Barbery. She was born in Casablanca of all places and also wrote The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which apparently everyone but me has read.

Not to mention, the new version of the magazine Cooking Light. I got a copy of the September issue gratis and . . . well, have been too overwhelmed to get to it. I am a fan of the magazine. One of my favorite sets of recipes is actually an Indian meal -- linked to the Super Bowl of all oddities -- from Cooking Light. So, keep watching and one day I will get to the new format! Maybe two months late?

Perhaps there will be something involving Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant (murder mystery authors too)!

What else? Well, you never know!I do have a whole raft of cookbooks that have arrived in the mail.

Katherine Neville on Careme

Katherine Neville wrote a book that loads of people liked entitled The Eight. Yes, a chess-based across- centuries adventure cum mystery, filled with ancient lore and alchemical notions and. . .  well, for those who have not read it, a sort of Da Vinci Code thing but (in my view) loads better. And the whole premise has to do with a mystical (Sufi) chess board. Symbols and hermeneutics -- across families, history, continents. And yes, Neville (finally?) has a new novel out (newish?) entitled The Fire.(Thanks to eldrbarry.net for the picture.)

So, why does it appear here? Not because it is a mystery. Not because I read it though I did. Because it involves Careme -- who if you do not know who he is, you are truly not a foodie interested in history -- not to mention a fictitious restaurant where pretty darn high falutin' stuff is cooked over an open hearth. The insight into the labor that goes into building and sustaining a fire for such a restaurant is only the tip of the iceberg (well, now there's a truly mixed metaphor). Who is Careme? The man, perhaps, who invented the notion of high end chef -- chef, for example, to Talleyrand. And who is Talleyrand? Click away and find out -- remember, while Neville is a novelist, in her genre, everything is connected to everyone. Truly. And yes, the foodie theme continues because there is a key character who flunked out of the CIA (by which I do not mean the Central Intelligence Agency but the  Culinary Institute of America, obviously). This character is a major one for Neville -- though I have to admit she (the character) does not strike me as the sharpest mind ever. Definitely not.

The novel is pretty fun, though I confess I sort of glazed over for some of it, and I found it less entrancing than The Eight. But, then this one does involve food -- and, well, that does matter. Not to mention the alchemical marriage of opposites a la Carl Jung. All in all, I was surprised by the food connection, expecting just a romp through history in a sort of swashbuckling fashion. Everything goes better with foodie foodie connections,

Bake Sale Murder

Remember those old political buttons and t shirts that said: What if our taxes went to schools and the bake sales had to be held for, say, the military industrial complex (a term famously used, remember, by Eisenhower). I think maybe it was planes that the bake sales were for, and education was funded fully, but hey. Who remembers? In any case, that has absolutely nothing to do with Leslie Meier's Bake Sale Murder which is a quick read cozy featuring an amateur detective type (actually a journalist for a newspaper called The Pennysaver) seeking a murder suspect. The same amateur, of course, who featured in a novella previously reviewed here with others collected in a book entitled Candy Cane Murder. Her name? Lucy Stone. (and no, as I noted in the previous review, no link to the Lucy Stone of historical significance around the women's movement.) This is Meier's 13th in her series featuring Stone and was published in 2006.

The book brings together some interesting themes, including tensions between a group of women who had been friends for years and newer, I assume younger, women who move into their area, into a new subdivision. The newer women have, in several cases "opted out" of the land of corporations to raise children, and show their fierce business acumen in a bake sale they organize. (In the end, the two groups get along, but the telling of the tale may seem familiar to some who have tried to reach across any divide among women. Not necessarily a pretty sight.) Also evident in the book are the generational consequences of violence, though there is a bit of a conservative thrust to the pejorative characterization of the 1960s. The foster care system comes in for a pretty negative portrayal, while journalism here appears not as corporate business but as local color. Set in the fictional town of Tinker's Cove, Maine, there is a tiny shade of Jessica Fletcher and Cabot Cove here.

And food? Well, there is the bake sale -- complete with debate over how to successfully raise money through a bake sale and the requisite jokes about very very tasty chocolate as over against more apparently healthy baked goods. The bake sale even includes home made dog biscuits, though the few recipes at the end of the book does not include these (ostensibly made with raw liver). While unimportant to the plot, the food is definitely front and center in some characters' minds.

Not great literature, but a great treat . . .

For another review, click here or here.

So, Tell Me: Do You Have A Sweet Tooth?

I have a sweet tooth (thanks to kellyskornerblog.com for the picture), so given the combination of that and my love for food-related murder mysteries, it is weird that I am only now encountering the "Candy Shop Mystery" series written by Sammi Carter. (Ok, that sounds like a pseudonym whether it is or not!) And, as sometimes happens, I began not with number 1, but number 5 in the Candy Shop Mystery series: Sucker Punch. Featuring amateur detective/sleuth Abby Shaw, owner of a candy shop named Divinity in a small town called Paradise in Colorado (hmmm. . . a theme?) and post-divorce heterosexual woman ambivalently involved with a policeman, I have no idea why the book has this title (though I guess there are lollipops as a side note?), Shaw is a fairly engaging if occasionally irritatingly stupid sleuth. Another somewhat cliched aspect: the dog, a Rottweiler named Max who is, it turns out, sweet. Hmmm.

Why, though, the book focuses on the candy shop's preparations for and coping with Valentine's Day which is, indeed, the biggest sales day for candy in the U.S. is unclear to me, other than to provide moments for Shaw to worry about whether she is letting her staff down because she is running around dealing with a mystery rather than spending every moment in the store.  Is Valentine's Day recession proof? I do not know. How this relates to the many way-too-early months of holiday stuff we see everywhere, well, who knows. It is August as I am writing this and Wegman's already has Halloween stuff out. Now, as this gets posted it is October and maybe Halloween candy seems more sensible in stores? A far cry from Valentine's Day, I know, but the point is more general perhaps.  Check out this 2006 piece. And then ask why I was reading a book about Valentine's Day in August -- the reason, of course, is that it was for sale and I saw it and I had no idea it was not quite August material!Maybe next year, I will find a Halloween candy story.

So. back to the main point, the mystery I did read!  Sucker Punch is not badly written and the candy store as backdrop had some novelty effect for me. The ending moved more quickly than the middle of the book, which lagged a bit after a snappy start, but. . . (I only took a glimpse of the recipes for candy in the back of the book. Not my forte!) Interwoven with the candy shop backdrop are themes of amateurish (ok, semi-pro?) theatricals with famous locals dragged in, friendships over decades with deeply hidden secrets, the experience of African Americans in small towns in Colorado, and the requisite odd characters such novels seem to need to flesh out what they mean by "small town." My only real quibble is the sleuth's pseudo-tension about Valentine's Day -- and the author's need (with way too many other authors of this sort of book) to make heterosexual romance between sleuth and policeman (and I use the word man advisedly) the only way that the female sleuth can obtain forensic information, crime scene data, etcetera. This bugs me. There is, in this case, a gay couple (who run a local B&B) and some righteous indignation about overt homophobia, which was a nice surprise. Maybe the world is getting a tad better? Nasty characters get a fairly nasty end, which is always satisfying, but [SPOILER ALERT RISK] I have to say that I wish the author had struggled a bit more with the moral dilemma of punishing a murderer whose life has been ruined by a nasty (very nasty) individual -- or at least been a little more tempted to think ill of the solution of jailing the person who kills off said nasty individual and written just a bit more sympathetically of those pushed over the edge by truly yucky yucky people.  Whether, though, such yucky people must be celebrities and their ilk, of course, is another story entirely. . . .

Anyway, this not so sweet tale took the edge off a night's insomnia. Thanks to Sammi Carter for a new addition to "Murder on the Menu." While it did not cool off a hot August night, it did make me remember that February's cooler (and even greyer) weather will be here sooner than I think

For candy recipes, from Sammi Carter, try here. For another blogger's views on this book, click right here! Or here!

Rotten to the Core

(Thanks to blog.lib.umn.edu for the picture!) Cliche-amatic with apples. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Apples never fall far from the tree. The apple of my eye. Don't upset the apple cart. Rotten to the core. The latter is the title of Sheila Connolly's 2009 mystery title, the second in her Orchard Mystery series with apple-y titles. (The first was One Bad Apple and this, of course, is Rotten to the Core.) Connolly has been, according to her bio, an art historian, an investment banker, and lots of other things. Now, she's a writer, with a third book in her series due out in 2010. And, she has another series of glassblowing mysteries written under another name.

So, yes, this series is focused on a woman amateur detective, Meg, faced with death(s) on an orchard property that she inherited and is determined to make productive again. She works with academic experts in the area as well as others, to learn and learn and learn about raising, harvesting, storing, and selling apples of various sorts. Set in Massachusetts (it could be upstate NY!), this novel focuses on tensions between agribusiness and chemical deterrents, and more organic approaches to agriculture. There is, of course, a romantic interest (yes, heterosexual), a bit of political commentary (for example, on Jamaican migrant laborers), a bit on the tensions between those who try to to farm thinking it a lark and those who, for generations, have done so. Not to mention, bargain shopping for farm machinery and the acquiring of goats. And tensions around maintaining farm and orchard land versus developing that land for other commercial purposes.  Hmmm.  There is also a bit of reflection on the many ways that women and men interact in college and university settings. Hmmm. Not so pleasant, that part of the book, I have to admit. Beyond that, when it comes to apples, I learned, for example, that storage of them between picking and selling, requires very careful balancing of oxygen and other gasses in the storage facility. I had no idea, either, that the University of Massachusetts had such apple education; check this site for their Fruit Advisor or this one for Cold Springs Orchard or here for their apple information management. here are even a few (unnecessary) apple recipes at the tail (tale) end of the book.

Meg is also restoring a very old house, which was in much disrepair when she moved into it from Boston -- and this time she deals with floors which she both strips, sands, and. . . well, all that work leaves her with a beautiful floor (which needs new appliances and. . . . Meg's financial worries will seem familiar to every owner of an old house.

All in all, Rotten to the Core made me think of the fall with less trepidation, with an eye to the lovely apples that come from Red Jacket -- remembering (or learning for the first time) how much work goes into those beauties.

For a review on another blog, try here. Or, here.

ARC: Holiday Grind

I have a new acronym in my vocabulary (and I have a lot of acronyms these days): ARC. What does it mean? An "Advanced Review Copy"  -- at least that's what it means as defined in a letter I got with my ARC of Holiday Grind from Cleo Coyle. Yes, as she says in her letter, one does have to "put up with typos, minor errors, and styling mistakes" (for example) all (or most) of which will get fixed in the final version. But, I can attest: these in no way interfere with the wonders of getting a copy early and being able to tell you all to read Holiday Grind, the 8th in Coyles' series of Coffeehouse mysteries.  Due out in November, in hardcover, you can read an excerpt at her site. to early to read a Christmas-y tale? Well, it will still make a good gift for someone you know who loves a cuppa and a mystery.

Yes, Coyle's fictional coffee shop features in the story -- as well as various efforts at holiday season coffee mixtures (by which she really means Christmas, though there is a nod to Chanukah and Kwanzaa) and a [POTENTIAL SPOIL ALERT BUT NOT REALLY UNLESS YOU STILL BELIEVE. . . ] murder of a Santa. One theme that Coyle pushes is the ways that one can be truly charitable during the holidays -- and why so many of us are then in such very minor ways when the remainder of the year leaves us, well, cold and not-so-charitable in any sense of the word. Hmmm.

In any case, the characters remain charming, the fictional sleuth's (Clare Cosi) romance has moved along a bit, and the plot itself percolates along fairly well. As always, you better leave your urge for utter realism behind (after all, Coyle is herself a husband/wife team so even the pronoun use asks for us to suspend our disbelief), and sit right back, take a sip of some coffee, and read along.

By the way: Coyle is featuring a local coffee on her site right when I am writing this: Gimme Coffee! Who knew? May be gone by the time this makes the blogosphere, but at least you know she knows good coffee when she smells it! Wait! Wait! Wait! Coyle interviews founder and CEO Kevin Cuddeback at Mystery Lovers Kitchen! Who knew? My favorite: Piccolo Mundo. What's your favorite gimme coffee? Your favorite Cleo Coyle?

For prior reviews of Coyle's books here at Cooking with Ideas, click here. Or, for an interview with Coyle published elsewhere, try either here or here.

(More) Places To Eat in Harrisburg

Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania and it situated along the Susquehanna River. Not a huge city, it does have restaurants, perhaps for civil servants or? In any case, thanks to maps.google.com for the visual! And yes, there are a whole array of tastes to try. Among the places I have been to lunch over the past week or so are:

Simply Turkey and More : This is a sandwich (and more) place which specializes in roasting its own turkeys and making sandwiches. No, this is not all they serve, but the place smells delightful and the sandwich I had was the best of the day after thanksgiving -- multigrain bread, turkey, stuffing and cranberry. I had it with an iced tea and it was splendido. The ambience was not much, but the food definitely was. It is sort of the best of quick food, lining up and ordering away complete with plastic utensils, but the tastes were much better. There are two locations -- one on each "shore" of Harrisburg. Check out their menu and more here.

Mangia Qui is a fancier place where I actually had Sunday brunch. It even involved table cloths and nice silver ware. I went for a long walk and ended up here where they serve tapas and more. They have a Sunday brunch between 10 and 2:30, which is pretty important since loads of places seem to be closed on Sundays in this town. Their coffee was thick and strong and quite good. (The milk I asked for came in a shot glass which meant I spilled a little each time I added some to the coffee, but still, it looked cute.)  I ordered a special, fried green tomatoes with a poached egg on top and a sort of tartar sauce like topping with shrimp in it. As the waitress warned, it was a tad heavy -- and I actually must have been really tired since I am not a huge fan of (especially runny) poached eggs. But, this was still good. I did not get the best seat for a person dining alone -- but I did enjoy the meal. And this despite the fact that the orange juice I ordered (which cost $3.75) was served with ICE. What gives? Yes, I will return. Maybe I will even try the tapas -- or something else. But really, what gives? (For their site, click here.)

Apparently I was eating like mad this week. So, I also went to Alvaro Bread and Pastry Shop where they make their own pasta and serve cheap, good Italian food. No, the owners are not Italian. This place I ordered carbonaro, and had it on ravioli. MMMM. The ravioli had a meat filling, which I was not expecting. Here, you line up and they heap the food up and hand it to you. Very inexpensive. We ate outside, and my only quibble was with the yellow jacket which really really wanted my coke. And the fact that the meal was so filling I did not eat the very good roll that came with it. Next time I will either take it home or avoid it entirely.

Passage to India has a place at the Broad Street Market (not where I ate) and a restaurant as well. It is in a hotel - and a bit further than I am likely to walk. I had been missing spicey food so was glad to try out their lunch buffet. The food was reasonably well spiced (though not hot) and the only peculiarity was the pakoras, which were a bit like french fries. I have no idea what the crepe like plate was I also received but it was swell (especially the coconut chutney that came with it). I had (I think) some chicken curry as well as a vegetable curry which featured peas. All in all, a good meal.

Not hte Harrisburg I ever knew before, but. . . . let me know if there are better places to try!