Enjoy some high art with your fine dining at The Frog & The Peach in New Brunswick on August 6. Their “Night at The Opera” event is an evening of Italian Opera and food and wine, with singer Annamaria Stefanelli. Ms. Stefanelli will perform arias from some of the most beloved repertoire of Italian Opera, and Chef Bruce Lefebvre will … Continue reading
Cajeta
This is the happy result of having heavy cream in my refrigerator I needed to use up. I made cajeta! Yes, it’s usually made with goat milk and, frankly, not with cream. So I mixed some milk in with my post-expiration-date heavy cream, which I had never opened and which smelled fine. I added the tiny … Continue reading
Canal House Cooking Volume No. 4
Each new volume from Canal House Cooking thrills me. Number 4 is all about the bounty from farm markets and gardens, and you’ll find so many lovely, and often elegantly simple, recipes that you’ll almost wish this hot and humid summer would never end. I’ve sent gift subscriptions (there are three volumes each year) to a … Continue reading
Thai soup
I love Thai soups, and was inspired recently by Wegmans’ Thai cuinary stock to make a seafood soup, adding coconut milk, sliced baby bok choi, bean thread noodles (first soaked in hot water until soft), and shrimp plus leftover mahi mahi (more on that another time soon.) I also added some chopped lemongrass and galangal … Continue reading
High Times at the Americana
You don’t usually hear about special events at diners, but the Americana Fine Diner on Route 130 in East Windsor is having one that sounds like a lot of fun on July 21. Remember, these are the same folks who have Craig Shelton consulting in the kitchen of their Skylark Diner in Edison. The Americana is the … Continue reading
The distance between farm and table has never been shorter
Zone 7 Partners with Muth Family Farm and Eno Terra restaurant to present another event in their “Dinners on the Farm” series on July 18, 4-8pm. This one is at the Muth Family Farm, in Williamstown. With over 118 acres in production, the farm produces over 100 varieties of organic fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs from … Continue reading
Masala is Trendy
At the recent Fancy Food Show in New York, a panel of food experts honed in on the top five food trends of the year (and mentioned some of the products that exemplify each one): Great Vinegars – Innovative flavors include: Hibiscus, Walnut Champagne, Peach Balsamic, Lime Rice, and Apple Ice Wine Vinegar. Indian Products … Continue reading
I kid you not – try Jester’s Café
Praise be to Jester’s Cafe in Bordentown, where I had a very nice lunch with friends on Saturday. We started off to go somewhere else, but that place had closed for a long holiday weekend, which so many places seem to have done. (Finding a place for a friend’s birthday dinner on the Fourth was no mean … Continue reading
Have some organic potato salad on the Fourth
A current article in Nature, a highly respected peer-reviewed scientific journal, describes research showing that organic potato farming practices promote more “evenness” in predator diversity which leads to more balanced pest control. The end result? “…their study found that the increased evenness of organic farms compared with that of conventional farms led to 18% lower pest densities and … Continue reading
Down on the Farms (and in the city)
The New Jersey Museum of Agriculture is hosting a “Bluegrass Concert & Dinner” fundraising event on Saturday, July 10 from 6 -10 p.m. at the Mountain View Golf Course in Ewing. Tickets are $60 per person and the evening includes a catered buffet dinner, beer and wine open bar (cash bar for premium drinks), and … Continue reading
NJ SPICE 