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Chef David Garcelon and his Wal­dorf Salad

NEW YORK — Pinch me!

I’m on the 18th floor of the famous Wal­dorf Asto­ria in mid­town Man­hat­tan stand­ing beside the hotel’s exec­u­tive chef David Garcelon while he makes a Wal­dorf Salad. (You can lis­ten to my con­ver­sa­tion with David here.)  Read more…

Tanya Steel is editor-in-chief of epicurious.com

You know that often mis-quoted say­ing: “The proof of the pud­ding is in the eat­ing.” (Mis­quote: The proof is in the pudding.)

Well, in the case of the new “Epi­cu­ri­ous Cook­book,” the proof is also in the mak­ing of said pud­ding — or Minia­ture Gougeres, Red Wine-Braised Duck Legs, Shaved Brus­sels Sprouts Salad, Bour­bon Chicken Liver Pate and Cran­berry White Choco­late Bis­cotti.  Read more…

The annual South Beach Wine & Food Fes­ti­val took place this year from Feb­ru­ary 19–22 in Miami.
As usual and even in tough eco­nomic times, this glitzy, pricey, never-dull four-day event spon­sored by, among oth­ers, the Food Net­work and Food & Wine mag­a­zine, was sold out.
Attended by more than 30,000 peo­ple and founded by a fel­low called Lee Schrager in 2001, it is the biggest culi­nary cel­e­bra­tion of its kind in North Amer­ica.
Watch this space for news on my inter­view with Martha Stew­art at this annual fest — an event I’ve attended for the past five years.
She and famous New Orleans celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, who are friends and busi­ness part­ners, were front and cen­tre this year.
Martha hosted a trib­ute din­ner hon­our­ing Emeril who has been on hia­tus for a while. My the­ory is that his health hasn’t been too good. I say this judg­ing by his bloated appear­ance. How­ever, he was in fine form at a lively cook­ing demo dur­ing which he wow’d the crowd with his clever antics.
Here are a few spots you should def­i­nitely try for spe­cial­ties I’ve sleuthed when in South Beach:
Devito, 150 Ocean Drive: Yes, you guessed, this is Danny Devito’s restau­rant and one of the newer spots on the Ocean Drive strip. I rec­om­mend lunch — it’s extremely rea­son­able — and try­ing the lob­ster bisque and/or one of their amaz­ing main-course sal­ads. They serve you deli­cious, free antipasti and por­tions are large. The com­fort­able arm­chairs on the on the cov­ered patio are a plus.
Joe’s Stone Crab Take-Away, 11 Wash­ing­ton Ave., is a casual cafe and take-out empo­rium adja­cent to the vet­eran and always-packed restau­rant of the same name. This is the per­fect place to sam­ple a slice of the best Key Lime Pie I’ve found in the Miami area.
Mar­tinez, 4000 NE 2nd Ave. Located in the Design Dis­trict — about 20 min­utes from by car from South Beach — this is the newer of two Miami restau­rants owned by tal­ented chef Michelle Bern­stein. I found the wel­come warm and ambi­ence extremely pleas­ant. The tapas dishes fea­tured here were uneven but I would def­i­nitely return for the beans with duck sausage and divinely creamy flan (the Latino ver­sion of creme caramel) made from her mother’s recipe.
News Cafe, 800 Ocean Dr., is a 24-hour land­mark on the South Beach restau­rant strip known for its hearty break­fasts, excel­lent Chur­rasco Steak and deli­cious bread pud­ding. It’s the best place I know to people-watch from a side­walk or patio table as the friendly staff wait on you. This is where Gianni Ver­sace had his last morn­ing cof­fee on the day he was mur­dered — a rather grim claim to fame.
Puerto Sagua, 700 Collins Ave. A cou­ple of blocks from the News Cafe is this cheap-and-cheerful, bustling Cuban eatery. Always busy, it’s a great place for grilled fish, a sand­wich or — my favourite — the roast chicken spe­cial ($7.95 as I write). This fill­ing meal is a large piece of suc­cu­lent chicken accom­pa­nied by a large mound of white rice, sticky fried plan­tains and a bowl of black beans. The staff are friendly and efficient.

It took a flurry of e-mails and phone calls between pub­li­cists and p.a’s but I finally obtained an audi­ence with Martha Stew­art: one of the most pow­er­ful women (up there with Oprah, methinks) in North Amer­ica and now the come-back queen of cui­sine.
She was one of the stars at this year’s annual South Beach Wine & Food Fes­ti­val: a four-day feast on the beach that took place from Feb 19 to 22.
Like every­thing in Miami — home to the SUV, boob-jobs, tanned abs and obscenely large restau­rant por­tions — the event was a non-stop, over-the-top wing-ding. Celebrity chefs cooked up a storm, the King and Queen of Spain attended cel­e­bra­tions of Span­ish food and there were all man­ner of before– and after-parties at swanky hotels like the Raleigh and Delano. Need­less to say, the booze flowed freely.
But meet­ing Martha was a pleas­ant, easy-going sur­prise.
I inter­viewed her in Toronto in 1987 when she was begin­ning her rise to star­dom with pub­li­ca­tion of her sec­ond glossy book called Wed­dings. It fol­lowed her first book Enter­tain­ing which came out in 1982 and to which she is cur­rently writ­ing a sequel.
Known as a per­fec­tion­ist, con­trol freak and over-achiever, Martha attracted a loyal fol­low­ing and her fair share of ene­mies dur­ing the ‘80s and 90s.
I had a love/hate rela­tion­ship with this home­mak­ing doyenne, find­ing her impe­ri­ous and cold in per­son. Also, I dis­liked her mes­sage that women can do any­thing — even sand-blast a house as she did in full gear on one of her TV shows — in the name of cre­at­ing the per­fect home.
But the Martha I met in South Beach this year dur­ing our 20-minute, one-on-one con­ver­sa­tion was a gen­tler, kinder woman.
Maybe spend­ing 5 months in prison from 2004/5, then being con­fined to her home with an ankle bracelet for another 5 months — this result­ing from con­vic­tions of illicit behav­iour on the stock mar­ket — has, it seems, hum­bled and mel­lowed her.
What­ever the rea­son, she was affa­ble, polite and even warm as we chat­ted in the fest’s green room before her cook­ing demo dur­ing which she made sweet-but-simple green and potato sal­ads to go with the lob­ster she’d boiled. Dur­ing the demo, she showed a social con­science by ask­ing the audi­ence to buy these crus­taceans as the reces­sion has hurt lob­ster fish­er­men and proces­sors badly on the East Coast near where she lives.
Her cur­rent projects include a radio chan­nel, a line of house­wares for Macy’s, a TV show (shown in Canada on CBC), a line of eco-flooring made from recy­cled car­pet and her stal­wart mag­a­zine Martha Stew­art Liv­ing.
Her new book, Martha Stewart’s Cook­ing School, is a kitchen bible that offers step-by-step tech­niques for every­thing from mak­ing veg­etable stock to carv­ing a turkey. I highly rec­om­mend it.
She told me she wants to teach bud­ding cooks the basics. She likes to learn and loves to teach. Hence her low opin­ion of TV real­ity shows (Gor­don Ram­say, step right up) that are “schlock, demean­ing and sloppy.“
Martha even spoke out in favour of reha­bil­i­ta­tion in a Christ­mas mes­sage dur­ing her prison stay — a stay that seems to have elicited com­pas­sion and humil­ity in a woman who showed lit­tle of either some years ago. Then again, she is 67 years old and they say wis­dom comes with age.

U.K. — In Jan­u­ary, 2009, I wound up my annual trip to Lon­don to visit my mother with din­ner at Gor­don Ramsay’s newest restau­rant York & Albany located at 127–129 Park­way in my favourite neigh­bor­hood, Cam­den Town.
After lack-lustre meals at long­stand­ing veg­e­tar­ian eatery Manna — bland fare that cried out for sea­son­ing and meat — and the newish Mar­ket — bland mod­ern British fare that cried out for salt and oomph — it was a god­send to dis­cover a place in this trendy, gritty part of the city that had all the ele­ments needed for a won­drous meal out.
Our wel­come by man­ager and host­ess was warm. The ambi­ence in the down­stairs din­ing room (I highly rec­om­mend request­ing this rather than the much nois­ier room upstairs) was womb-like with red tapes­try walls, red vel­vet chairs and cur­tains, and red table-coverings under glass that exuded a retro cozi­ness aptly described by one British reviewer as “early bor­dello.“
But it’s the food that takes the cake.
Ramsay’s part­ner and chief pro­tege Angela Hart­nett is in charge of the open kitchen, also down­stairs.
She and her team have mas­tered the tricky task of cre­at­ing food that’s packed with taste and tex­ture, is unpre­ten­tious but imag­i­na­tive, and is rea­son­ably priced.
A starter of Pump­kin Risotto laced with melted gor­gonzola is sub­lime. Like­wise for entrees Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce and Sea Bream with Shrimp and Cucum­bery But­ter Sauce.
But the high point of our din­ner was Rice Pud­ding with Prune and Arma­gnac Com­pote: a divine con­fec­tion served warm that melded, sweet, smooth, tangy and tart in what is pos­si­bly the best dessert I’ve eaten.

I can’t think of a dish more sooth­ing or suit­able for frigid win­ter days than Spaghetti Bolog­nese. So when I recently invited friends over for a casual Sat­ur­day night sup­per, I set aside an after­noon three days ahead when I was at home writ­ing to sim­mer this won­der­fully sat­is­fy­ing sauce with ground meat and toma­toes as its base, giv­ing it time to sim­mer for sev­eral hours and then mel­low before the din­ner party.  Read more…