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The Chefs’ Bookshelf- Part 2

The Chefs' Bookshelf

The Chefs’ Bookshelf
Cookbook Recommendations from Blue Moon’s Favorite Chefs: Part 2

Max Hansen
Chef and Owner, Max Hansen Catering, Max Hansen Carversville Grocery, Bucks County Plenty
Recommended Cookbooks: Plenty (Yotem Ottolenghi) and Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way (Francis Mallmann)
As a committed carnivore, Seven Fires is Max’s absolute favorite with its “amazing meat cookery.” Plenty, a vegetarian cookbook, Max references frequently as well- “it popped back into my consciousness yesterday in about 10 ways!” Seven Fires is South American-top chef Francis Mallmann’s ode to the art of cooking over fire. Mallmann details seven different approaches to grilling, sharing unpretentious recipes with a true love of his craft. On the other end of the spectrum, Plenty, by Israeli-born and London-based Ottolenghi, showcases the authors’ love of ingredients, with vegetarian dishes featuring fresh flavors and combinations.

Aaron Fitterman
Executive Chef, Aretsky’s Patroon, New York Charchuterie
Recommended Cookbook: Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing (
Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn)
Chef Aaron recommends Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing as a “great book that takes the craft of charcuterie and makes it very accessible.” Charcuterie is a culinary specialty, originally referring to creating products such as salami and sausages, that refers to the art of preserving foods with beauty and taste, using a range of preparations such as salting, smoking, and drying. Ruhlman and Polcyn expand the term to mean things preserved or prepared ahead of time. The cookbook provides 125 recipes, opening the world of charcuterie to both professionals and home cooks.

Joe Monnich
Executive Chef, The Dandelion, Philadelphia
Recommended Cookbook: Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best – Over 700 Recipes Show You Why (Darina Allen)
ChefJoeMonnich Chef Joe had to spend some time considering this question, as he spends a good part of his income on cookbooks. After careful consideration—not just of his favorite, but also if he is ready to share it with everyone—Joe recommends Darina Allen’s Forgotten Skills of Cooking. Allen is the founder and chef instructor of the Ballymaloe Cooking School in Ireland, and passes along basic cooking skills that may have skipped a generation or two in this 600-page tome. Between the recipes, Forgotten Skills of Cooking is about the joys of working for our food, relating to nature, and celebrating with friends and family. “She has a true connection with food. Her philosophy and ideals are what have influenced me on what true cooking is. This book is not just a cook book, it’s a textbook.”

Chris Oravec
Executive Chef, Domani Star, Bucks County
Recommended Cookbook: Rustic Italian Food; Il viaggio di Vetri: A Culinary Journey (both by Marc Vetri)
Chef Chris recommends Philadelphian Marc Vetri’s cookbooks, Rustic Italian Food and Il viaggio di Vetri. Il viaggio di Vetri is part memoir and part cookbook, covering Vetri’s 18 months of culinary education in Italy, with recipes celebrating meals with family and friends. In Rustic Italian Food, Vetri provides a precision how-to for a wide range of classic Italian dishes, advocating a back-to-the-basics approach to cooking. Chef Chris says that Vetri is “certainly a great chef but more importantly he does things simply, without much fuss and lets the food speak for itself.”

By admin|September 20th, 2013|News|Comments Off

Relocalization’s Triumph

Pick up a menu at Triumph Brewery New Hope and you’ll notice something special: it’s all local.

That’s right.

For just under a year now, the upscale brew-pub has been committed to sourcing exclusively from local farms, wholesalers, distilleries, and vineyards. It’s the kind of quixotic experiment you privately shake your head at—until it succeeds.

“When we first began,” General Manager Paul Foglia says, “we were unsure about availability, so we only did half the menu local. Once we realized the simplicity of it, and that it was doable, we moved forward.”

A big part of this transition was Zone 7, a natural foods wholesaler based in Lawerenceville, New Jersey. Zone 7’s vast purchasing power and enormous inventory enabled Triumph to consolidate their orders, expand their menus, and keep from pulling their hair out in the process. It certainly didn’t hurt that the product was of markedly better quality—shorter traveling distances and more conscientious growing practices, after all, make for more appealing dishes.

And ultimately it was the quality that sealed the deal for Foglia et al.

“It was never our intention to jump on a bandwagon; we wanted to separate ourselves from other restaurants in Bucks County and New Hope, to showcase what these great farmers and purveyors have in the area.”

River and Glen, Rushland Ridge, Alba Vineyard, Dad’s Hat, and Blue Moon Acres are just a few of these purveyors. River and Glen supplies meat and seafood; Dad’s Hat provides rye whiskey; Alba and Rushland Ridge, local wine. (Dad’s Hat also donates spent barrels, in which Triumph ages select beers, the barrels lending overtones of smoke and caramel to the brews.) Moreover, Buck’s County-based Freedom Fuel uses Triumph’s spent fryer oil to make soaps and degreasers which Triumph then uses to keep its kitchen spic and span. (Freedom also uses fryer oil to make biodiesel which we at Blue Moon use to power our farm equipment!)

Virtuous though all this may sound, relocalization is not without downsides. The wintertime can be especially problematic: with produce limited to root vegetables, chefs’ creativities’ are put to the test. Even at the height of summer, menus must be updated daily to reflect an ever-changing availability.

Says Executive Chef Tony Sauppe, “The biggest challenge is guessing how much product I’m going to go through in a week for an entire menu. You don’t want to waste product, but you need enough to get you through the following week.”

Despite the challenges, both Sauppe and Paul agree that relocalization is the way to go.

“I never ever want to go back to a regular menu,” Sauppe says. “Never want to not do a local-style menu. It just makes so much sense.”

Bucks County, it seems, agrees.

By admin|September 13th, 2013|News|Comments Off

The Chefs’ Bookshelf- Part 1

The Chefs' Bookshelf

On Monday night I asked 20 different chefs for cookbook recommendations. By Tuesday morning I had received more than 10 recommendations. I was shocked and incredibly excited. Getting answers from chefs, when you aren’t in a kitchen with them, can be difficult. So it seemed that I had stumbled upon the perfect question, with answers we all are curious to hear.

Below you will find the first three recommendations from our favorite chefs. I’ll reveal more recommendations monthly, so be sure to check back in.

I hope you find these recommendations- and the insight behind them- worthwhile.

The Chefs’ Bookshelf
Cookbook Recommendations from Blue Moon’s Favorite Chefs: Part 1

John Melfi
Chef de Cuisine, Blue Duck Tavern, Washington, DC

Modernist Cuisine

Recommended Cookbook: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking (Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, Maxime Bilet)

Chef John just says that this cookbook/encyclopedia/guide to the science of contemporary cooking is “unbelievable.” Modernist Cuisine is a six-volume guide covering history and fundamentals, techniques and equipment, animals and plants, ingredients and preparation, plated dish recipes– everything the modern chef needs to know.

Sylva Senat
Executive Chef, The Saint James, Ardmore, PA

yes chef

Recommended Cookbook: Yes, Chef: A Memoir (Marcus Samuelson)

Chef Sylva is just starting in on this cookbook/memoir, which was recommended to him by his chef friend Travis Sparks of Seed to Plate Catering in North Carolina. The book is “intriguing” so far, with mentions and pictures of Acquavit and Mercer Kitchen, where Sylva starred as a chef in New York.

Junior Borges
Executive Chef, Amali, New York City

Recommended Cookbook: Origin: The Food of Ben Shewry (Ben Shewry)

Origin
This is a “beautiful cookbook,” “full of stories and amazing recipes.” The author, Ben Shewry, is chef at the award-winning Australian restaurant Attica. Shewry is known for his foraging, and using what the earth provides without depleting its resources. Chef Junior recommends Origin as a storytelling book about Shewry’s family, how to forage, and how to appreciate nature.

By admin|September 6th, 2013|News|Comments Off

It’s a Banana Split Kind of Weekend

Maybe you’ve had a long week. I know we here at the farm have—big harvests, small harvests, sudden intense rainstorms, launch of a new database… we are just Spent.

Luckily for all of us- at least, those who live within a 50-mile radius of central Bucks County- our friends and neighbors and oWowCow have a weekend of wonders planned. It is Banana Split Weekend at “The Cow,” featuring a special homemade topping of local peaches and blackberries. Delicious (like, super-delicious) ice cream, formed into that awe-inspiring creation known as the banana split? I’ll definitely be heading out to oWowCow at some point this weekend!

banana split

With locations in Ottsville and Wrightstown, oWowCow is our go-to treat stop for Blue Moon employees here in Buckingham. We also carry pints of their ice creams at our Pennington Farm Market, so the farm crew there does not get neglected. (Banana caramel, cinnamon bourbon, kava strawberry sorbet? Definitely not neglected!)

John Fezzuoglio is founder, owner, and Chief Ice Cream Maker at oWowCow. He makes each batch- with flavors ranging from Chai Cream to Chocolate Jalapeno- by hand at the Ottsville store.

John is serious about the integrity of his ice cream and his brand, and takes incredible care in sourcing the ingredients locally. The dairy comes from happy grass-fed cows at Way-Har Farms in Berks County. Eggs come from Rick’s Egg Farm in Kintersville and Gail Hooker’s hens in Durham. The lavender (in my favorite honey lavender ice cream) comes from Peace Valley Lavender Farm in Doylestown. The peaches for the banana split topping this weekend come from Amy and Gary Manoff at Manoff Market Gardens in Solebury, and the blackberries come from a gentleman named Lamar in Kintersville, who has been growing organic blackberries for decades.

If you are out of town this weekend (because why else would you miss Banana Split Weekend?), next weekend is Bacon Weekend! John and his team will be making bacon ice creams and toppings using 36 pounds of organic nitrate-free bacon from Hendricks Farm in Telford.

Pretty impressive, right? Just wait until you try the ice cream!

owowcow ice creams

By admin|August 23rd, 2013|News|Comments Off

Farm to Camp Out- September 20-21, 2013

Join us in Pennington September 20-21, 2013 for our first Farm to Camp Out.

This will be a fun and casual family-orientated event, filled with grilled pizza, farm tours, fun kid’s activities and s’mores and storytelling by the campfire. All this followed by a sleepover on the farm (bring all of your own camping supplies), and a farm fresh breakfast.

Interested in attending? Call or stop by our Pennington Farm Market- 609-737-8333, at 11 Willow Creek Drive.

See you by the fire!

farmtocamp

By admin|August 19th, 2013|Events|Comments Off

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