Pablo’s Potluck party

Remember potluck parties?  Come to think of it, I haven’t been to a potluck party in ages.  As a matter of fact there are only a few that I can remember.  Growing up, my parents used to host several small parties a year, often gathering a bunch of friends who would come over with a tin foil covered dish or bottle of wine, placing it on the buffet table of miss-matched dishware.  I must have been 11 or 12 at the time, but I clearly remember the red and orange colored Tupperware, and the classic white Corning Ware baking dishes with 3 blue cornflowers imprinted on one side, being placed on the table.  Typically they were filled with, then, popular recipes like hearty beef stew, green bean casserole, Swedish meatballs, quiche, deviled eggs, hot crab dip, and monkey bread (yummmm, remember monkey bread?)  There was always a plentiful smorgasbord of home cooked dishes, brought over still warm. 

Flash forward 15 years and I remember a different type of Potluck dinner parties that I attended.  I must have been in my early 20’s and I remember making a pot of my Dad’s famous chili recipe, and placing the still hot crock pot down on the buffet table with slight embarrassment.  I looked at the table and saw only covered plastic platters of cubed cheese or pre-cut vegetables that still had the grocery store label on it.  I saw unopened bags of tortilla chips and jars of El Paso salsa.  I saw Cheddar cheese flavor popcorn bags, family size Doritos, and 2 liter bottles of coca cola.  The closest thing I saw to fresh food was a 6-foot subway sandwich that was cut into small wedges accompanied by a quart of deli macaroni salad.  Was this dinner?  Was this real food?  Where were the Corning Ware dishes? Where were the aromatic casseroles?  Why was I the only one who thought potluck meant homemade? What happened to the potluck memories I had growing up?

Flash forward again, to my most recently attended potluck party, which took me a little by surprise considering I haven’t heard the term “potluck” in almost a decade now.  My good friend Pablo, held a pre-Thanksgiving potluck party in the West Village last night, and I haven’t stopped smiling since.  It reminded me of potluck parties of yesteryears, (like the ones my parents threw), where people actual took time in preparing a well thought out home cooked meal.  The difference about this potluck party was the transformation of dishes of today.  Rather than beef chilies and meat stews or braised sausage and peppers, there was a wide array of delightful options for all eating styles.  There was a fresh baked vegetarian lasagna, split pea soup, Kale and beet salad, faro salad with butternut squash and wild mushrooms, steamy saffron rice with chicken, simmering herbed cannellini beans, spiced turkey pie with flaky crust, fresh cheeses and baked breads, warm pies and to boot a big bowl of fruit filled sangria!  I spent the entire night circling the kitchen island like a vulture, refilling my plate subtly every 15 minutes or so.  I was chatting with old friends and new friends I met that night, mostly talking about how tasty everything was.  It brought back the meaning of a potluck, where you experienced everyone’s tastes, personalities and food they cooked from the heart, not something that was picked up at a deli on the way down. 

It was a perfect way to kick off this week’s holiday.  I am so thankful for having a friend like Pablo, who put together this extraordinary potluck party and showed us the importance of good food and good company. Happy Pre-Thanksgiving!

Stop and Smell the Aromas

I first heard of “Slow Food” during my stay in the small walled-in city of Lucca, Italy. While walking through an open square piazza, boasting some of the quaintest cafes, trattorias, and restaurants, I noticed a place advertising its fight for “Slow Food”. It struck my curiosity, so we sat down and over the next 4 hours I enjoyed my first true slow food dinner.

A fellow Chef and friend of mine who was dining with us that evening, explained to me the fundamentals of Slow food, and before my second glass of wine, I understood that slow food means a lot more then simply braising meats for many hours over low heat. I soon realized that Slow food is actually a blend of political awareness, social consciousness, and savory passion all created over the dinner table. I also learned that in 1986, in a small town of Bra Italy, a man named Carlo Petrini founded an international, non-profit, eco-gastronomic organization, named Slow Food International. Interestingly enough, Slow food was actually born in direct response to the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Rome’s famous Piazza di Spagna.

The owner of the restaurant, overhearing our conversations, had come sit down with us. He poured himself a glass of house-made wine and offered his interpretation of Slow food and how he proudly positions his restaurant on the fundamentals of Slow Food. We continued to snack on spiced olives, young cheeses, platters of cured meats, pickled vegetables, smoked fish and crisp focaccia as the crowded table roared with gossip surrounding the popularity of Slow Food.

After starting our first plates of pasta, most everyone was now becoming boisterous with their emotional contribution to this focused and fast forward dinner conversation. One diner explained how slow food was created to counterbalance the high speed frenzy of chain store, fast food and fast life. It is to counteract the disappearance of local food and bring back the interest of tradition, value and sensibility to food.

Somehow, I don’t remember learning about much of Slow food growing up. And somehow, I am sure many others at the table can admit to frequently feeding into the American Fast Food market. In confession style story, I admit to the table I am guilty of often driving through one of the many circus-surfaced burger joints, ordering a super sized, paper-packed meal substitute, just to continue driving onto the crowded freeway, burger in one hand steering wheel in another, complaining about slow moving traffic.

A simple look of disgust was quickly followed by a nod and admittance of guilt from many others at the table.

With this I blurted out a few simple questions. Lets be honest, haven’t you ever cleaned out your car and found a petrified lonely French fry that managed to slip under your seat countless weeks ago, sitting lifeless next to a dirty quarter that was most likely dropped while trying to stuff away the received change from the drive-thru window? Have you ever come home after work and fished through your freezer to find a low cal, low fat, high energy meal sensation ready from your freezer to your microwave in 7 minutes? (Don’t most of us take more time then that to check our Blackberry)? How often do you eat at your desk while working throughout your lunch break, often polluting the air around your cubicle with the obnoxious odor of stale onions piled high on your overstuffed deli hero? How many times a week do you visit the local farmers market and buy sustainable grown organic ingredients to take home and prepare a fresh cooked meal. Or is it just easier to count the times you open your take out menu drawer and order number 5 from any random pamphlet?

Fast food is a way of life many of us are too familiar with. On any given trip the supermarket (more super then market), most consumers still fill there baskets with frozen dinners, boxed and bagged snacks, diet supplements, prepacked lunchables, and other ready to eat items. Only a small percent of the shopping cart seems to show fresh produce, meats and other fresh ingredients.

Now of course my native Italian friends looked at me with confusion and my American colleagues had a familiar look of shame. But we all understood the meaning of Slow food and its efforts to save traditional grains, fruits, vegetables and animal breeds that are disappearing due to the prevalence of convenience food and industrial agriculture.

After dessert was cleared, cordials of limoncello and sambuca accompanied our espressos and coffee and the table began to wind down and reflect on the beautiful meal we had all enjoyed over the course of 4 hours and laughed on some of the graphic, racy and sometimes naïve comments we made throughout the night. And after slowly getting up with full bellies and slowly walking away, I realized that Slow Food became more than curious topic of conversation, it unmasked into a passion of preserving our culture of regional food traditions, and celebrating a slower more harmonious rhythm of life.

eating green

With green being the new black, the latest eco-friendly trend has transcended into culinary concepts and food styles. One of today’s hottest food trends is to be not only organic, but locally grown, sustainable, hormone and antibiotic free, plus grown in animal friendly environments such as free-range, natural and grass fed. Eating green can also means spending green. Foods that are labeled with an array of terms identifying these special growing conditions generally cost more.

In addition to all the new terms used to identify the foods, newer trends of preparing foods have also taking the “green” spot light. In the past few years the dietary trend of “raw food” has become more popular. Some define a raw food diet as 70% of uncooked foods while other purists believe it is defined as 100% uncooked foods. Uncooked “raw” foods mean that nothing edible can be heated to more than 116 degrees. “Raw foodists believe that all raw foods have large counts of enzymes, which are fundamental to human health and digestion and metabolization of food, and which are destroyed when food is heated to above 116 degrees Fahrenheit” * (“The Science Behind Raw Food” by Virginia Culler)

I recently had the pleasure of dining “in the raw” for my first time at New York City’s trendy “Pure Wine and Food” located only a few blocks from the infamous Union Square’s “Green Market”. Pure Wine and Food is vegetarian and vegan and serves organically grown fruits, vegetables, and herbs. If you were to peek into the kitchen you will notice there are no ovens, gas stovetops or even range hoods. Dishes are prepared in blenders, juicers and dehydrators, with much of its focus on plenty of diligent chopping, whisking, and kneading. It’s the skill and talent of the hand that give this cuisine such a unique twist.

Both the wine list and the menu were tantalizing, with selections that could please even a carnivore’s palate. Each dish that I tasted surprised me with new blasts of flavor, that even as a Chef, I could not recognize. Nuts and grains and flavorful oils not only compliment the vegetables they are paired with, but often showcase the dish. One dish had a subtle splash of rosewater that enhanced both the aroma and freshness of the raw ingredients. The clever use of texture and temperature were so spot on, I can promise you will never once during the meal miss conventionally cooked hot foods.

There is something very seductive about raw foods and it is an undeniably healthy way of revealing fruits and vegetables in an unfamiliar yet completely satisfying way. When these foods are so delicately and skillfully handled they create an unforgettable meal.

Although I have no intentions of becoming a raw food purist and not enjoying cuisines of the meat variety, raw foodism has made me a believer that sometimes food is “greener on the other side”.

- Chef Keith DiLauro (www.keithdilauro.com)

- Photo by Reyes Melendez (www.reyezone.com)