I love epicurious.com, refer to it all the time for work or just making dinner. But it has never made me laugh so hard before. Look at this recipe for boiling water, but what’s funny is what you read when you click on “reviews”—789 of them.

And no, I didn’t read them all–I have a life–but I’d love to have time to.

Just back from lunch at Osaka, the Brizzi family’s favorite local restaurant. We started off our healthy fish and rice with an order of spicy lobster roll, a decadent confection of creamy sauce around lobster rolled up in rice and seaweed, dumped in tempura batter and fried. It was like the best of what’s best about tempura and sushi all wrapped up in delightful, delicious overkill. Warm, crispy, tasty, ooh baby.

Don’t tell my daughter–it’s her favorite place, too, and we went to Osaka without her while she was at school. She would be furious if she knew. Well, we bought her some artichokes (see below) as consolation if she finds out. As follow-up to my blog post about Sofia and her artichokes, see this week’s column on kids in the kitchen.

Of course, two days after the cooking class when I needed some promised fiddleheads, they showed up in the local supermarket. So I had to buy some anyway. They were 5.99/lb., which seems kind of steep to me (but everything does these days), but a half a pound makes a large portion to feed four, and that’s not so bad. I love fiddleheads–I trimmed and blanched these and drizzled them with lemon-spiked butter (8 oz. fiddleheads, 1 T. butter, 1 T. fresh lemon juice), salt and pepper. I love the texture and clean vegetal flavor of fiddleheads, their beautiful curlicued look, complete with baby fern fuzz. I’m loving them cold out of the fridge today, too. But it turns out Hubby isn’t that crazy about them, he admits, and my friend Danielle over at foodmomiac.com says they “don’t taste very unique.” I guess they’re only for a select few, discerning cognoscenti types such as myself (I’m just kidding–I’m not actually that bitchy). Do you like them? What do you like about them?

Addendum: I have just been made aware of a potential toxic effect of fiddleheads cooked less than 15 minutes causing stomach problems. See comments below and please be aware of that risk before seeking them out.

The other night I did a cooking demo for eight people at Jessica Bard’s Kitchen-Class at Warren Cutlery here in Rhinebeck. I’ve done demos onstage in front of big audiences, and to people milling around at a farmers market, but teaching a small group like this was a first. I had lots of fun hamming it up and spouting off and cooking up a storm, all at once. I got there late (poor organization), forgot to start things in time, had trouble with the induction cooktop, all kinds of mini-crises, but I just had a great time and hope I get to do it again.

I made a southern-inspired dinner with Crispy “Smothered” Cornish Game Hens with Mushroom Gravy over Baked Grits (southern polenta!), New-fangled Collard Greens (the fiddleheads I promised were not to be found anywhere), Hoppin’ John Salad, Bourbon Pecan Pie with Julep Whipped Cream, and Strawberry Ice Tea.

On the right is yours truly mercilessly spatchcocking a poor helpless game hen. The photo below is my pie, photographed beautifully by Jessica Bard.

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I got scooped by The New York Times this week. Monday I sent Ulster Publishing a column about kids cooking, which included a round-up of favorite kids’ cookbooks. They’ll probably run it next Thursday–they’ve been needing a long lead time lately. Then on Wednesday I bought a copy of the Times, which I do once every couple of months or so, just to sort of see what’s going on in the food world. And lo and behold, they had a cover story on kids cookbooks, including the general trendiness of kids cooking.

Now to stroke my ego, my husband says the big food folk follow me around and see what I’m writing about so they can do it too. “Look, Saveur just did avocados–they’re following you!”–that sort of thing. But I don’t know how the old NYT can see something I did that didn’t even see print yet! Rolando says, “They’re hacking into your computer somehow, saying ‘Let’s see what Jenny B.’s up to.’” Pretty cute.

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And Ma, if you’re listening, those grits were a huge hit.

My girl sure loves her artichokes. My daughter Sofia, 6, is a vegetable avoider generally, but she loves artichokes every chance she gets. She polished off this grand specimen, almost bigger than her head, pretty much all by herself, with very little help from Mommy and Daddy. She even expertly removed the choke when the time came.

Pliny (23-79 AD) called them “monstrosities” and Goethe (1749-1832) sneered “The peasants eat thistles” after a visit to Italy. But Sofia and I disagree. Artichokes are the lobster of vegetables: luxurious, extravagant and so perfect in flavor and texture that they need at the very most a dab of drawn butter as embellishment.

But in the Mediterranean they’ve long been dreaming up wild things to do with them. In Sicily, where the artichoke may have originated, they eat frittedda in spring, a vegetable medley with young artichokes, early peas and fresh fava beans. In other parts of Italy they cut the hearts into wedges and fry them; my late Tuscan father-in-law Angelo would use an egg-based francese batter. With the tiny, tender, chokeless ones (not really babies but lateral shoots of the king artichoke from the top of the stalk), they slice them paper thin and dip them raw into good extra virgin olive oil with salt and pepper. Or they spotlight them in a risotto or frittata or merely halve and stew them with onion, garlic and parsley.

Another Italian preparation is to stuff the center and each leaf before baking with a mix of oily bread crumbs, grated hard cheeses, garlic, parsley and perhaps mortadella, prosciutto, pancetta, anchovies, olives, currants or capers. And there’s the classic flattened and flash-fried carciofi alla giudea, or Jewish artichokes, a specialty of Rome. The Italians even make an artichoke liqueur called Cynar.
In Greece they treasure the ‘choke as well, dressing it cold with olive oil and lemon juice, or stewing it with lamb, tomatoes and dill, or with veal, aniseed and egg-lemon sauce. In Spain their alcachofas con piñones are stewed quarters with bacon and pine nuts.

Moving to the U.S., we go to one of the artichoke’s first entry points, Louisiana, where they put them in their creamy classic oyster and artichoke soup, or gussy up a stuffing for them with bits of shrimp or crabmeat. A great brunch dish, similar to Eggs Benedict, is Eggs Sardou, with artichoke bottoms and creamed spinach standing in for the English muffin and Canadian bacon. Wish I had gotten to try these treats during my recent trip.
Old-fashioned American/French treatments for artichokes include dousing them with globs of cream sauce or cheese sauce, like in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Beck, Bertholle and Child. In the 1972 James Beard’s American Cookery he recommended an assortment of sauces for hot boiled artichokes that included black butter, hollandaise, béarnaise, mousseline, mustard sauce or herbed vinegar “for dieters.” He also suggested filling them with crab, lobster or shrimp salad, avocado cubes in Russian dressing, chicken or duck salad, “turkey hash” or sweetbreads.

Unadorned, an artichoke is low in calories and high in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Its cynarin and silymarin are said to regenerate liver cells. Like dandelions, it’s one of those spring tonic foods whose bitterness, vitamins and minerals give you what your body needs after a winter lacking in fresh vegetables.

“[…]leaf by leaf
we unsheathe
its delights
and eat
the peaceable flesh
of its green heart.”

–from “Ode to an Artichoke” by Pablo Neruda, as translated by M.S. Peden

Scientists Examine Giant Squid

How strange it was to be in a food mecca like New Orleans, choking down watery egg product and undercooked chicken sausage in a conference room with no windows. That was really the only bad meal I had, though…well, except for the undercooked steamed chicken breasts…But I managed to eat well anyway. Anyone who knows me knows I always do.

The first night I hopped off the plane and hightailed it over to nearby Cochon, about which I had heard raves from many trusted folk of fine taste buds. Although the presentation was nouvelle, the flavors were old-fashioned basic Cajun/southern and a real pleasure to the palate. See this post for more details. And my tight budget wasn’t dented much by Cochon, either, like the Antoine’s or August that I wanted to try; my total bill was $36 for appetizer, entree and two beers.

The following morning a continental breakfast of breads, yogurt and fruit was served as part of the roundtable discussions I attended, then that night there was a delightful reception offering much of Louisiana’s best, set amid lively live music and brisk breezes off the river. I got lost and got there 45 minutes late, so I may have missed some of it–the Sazeracs and Hurricanes were long gone–but standouts were Leah Chase’s sumptuous gumbo z’herbes with nine greens and a light roux, Ms. Chase told me, plus another excellent gumbo, a fine jambalaya, a divine bacon-wrapped shrimp over grits, a garlicky heads-on “barbecue” shrimp with bread for dunking (barbecue shrimp never sees a grill, is doused in generous quantities of butter and broiled–with fresh local gulf shrimp it can be exquisite–more on that later) and a couple of freshly shucked oysters (briny nirvana). A man pounded file powder from fresh sassafras leaves in a huge mortar and pestle and other local food artisans demonstrated the frying of calas, the making of brown-sugar/pecan pralines, the pouring of excellent local beer, and roux-crafting (light, medium and dark in cast-iron skillets with bread for dunking and tasting the difference).

The next morning was the above-mentioned breakfast from hell, but the consolation prize followed soon afterwards at my first panel of the day, a tasting of Southeast Asian street food with a delightfully fresh and balanced green papaya salad from Mai Pham and a spicy chicken satay from Robert Danhi. That night I went on a tour of the yet-unopened Southern Food and Beverage Museum that was supposed to end with a po-boy from Mother’s. But perhaps the 50 of us would have been too much for Mother’s, so we were led instead to Creole Delicacies at Riverwalk (a two-story mall) where we listened to an warm, funny local cook tells us New Orleans stories while we ate crispy crawfish croquettes and rich gumbo and she cooked and served us the best Bananas Foster I have ever had, or made, ever.

Friday night was the IACP awards ceremony, which was preceded by a cocktail reception where I planned to pig out on hors d’oeuvres and make a meal of it. However, other than some shrimp in sauce and a lot of crudites, most of what was on offer was sweet (I saw someone munching a lovely-looking lamb chop but couldn’t find them anywhere). So after the awards I was still hungry and went downstairs to dine at Drago’s which is part of the hotel but was originally opened in Metairie in 1969 by a Croatian immigrant. Fortunately, I ran into a couple of fellow conference attendees that I knew, so I didn’t have to eat alone. I had Drago’s charbroiled oysters, which were a tad gritty but otherwise good (butter, parmesan cheese, garlic and lots of tall flames), then a pretty good redfish with creamy crawfish sauce.

The next day was the culinary expo and cookbook signing which I preceded with a wonderful meal at Dooky Chase’s with some colleagues. The restaurant isn’t truly officially open yet, still getting up on its knees after Katrina, but will serve you lunch if you call ahead, since they’re understaffed and still struggling. But the place oozed history, was gilded with absolutely gorgeous African-American art, and the food was perfection–I had a moist fried chicken breast that put to shame any I’ve ever made, with some delectable greens and macaroni and cheese (my favorite “vegetable”) on the side.

Stuffed as I was, I didn’t stop, and kept on tasting at the Expo. I tried John Besh’s Creole Shrimp Salad with Louisiana Pickled Quail Eggs at the Zatarain’s booth, Rachel’s yogurt, Tabasco’s spicy Bloody Mary with pickled okra, an array of unctuous nut oils like pistachio and pecan from La Tourangelle and much more.

The next day was the last and thanks to my crappy cell phone I missed a chance to go to Willie Mae’s Scotch House, but I did get to go to Cafe du Monde for perky chicory cafe au lait and fluffy, crispy, oh-so-sugary beignets, twice in the same day, wearing a black shirt like the rube that I am–it got covered in powdered sugar. That afternoon I wandered all over the French Quarter, got kicked out of Acme Oyster House for not waiting in line (Line? Line? I thought it was just people outside smoking) but went on to have a perfect meal at the French Market Cafe on Decatur Street: a half dozen oysters on the half shell, at once chewy as a clam and creamy as pudding, metallic, tangy, sweet and swimming in their own tears in pearly tubs–I could have eaten three dozen. But better still was my “barbecue” shrimp, a mountain of huge heads-on shrimp bathed in butter and spice with bread for dunking, their sweet flesh succulent and delicate as a fine-textured lobster, the head-fat nearly funky as a crawfish’s and full of character, sometimes enriched with a nugget of coral or tomalley. Oh heaven, these shrimp, putting all other shrimp to shame. I tried so hard to “exercise restraint,” as my father used to advise me, but to no avail. I left only a pond of golden butter, a crust of bread and a heap of picked-clean pink shells.

No muffelettas for me this trip, no po-boys, no Sazeracs, no pompano crabmeat meuniere, but that’s okay (my last trip I got to eat at Commander’s Palace and Galatoire’s). I will be back. The Big Easy has burrowed forever under my skin. I’ve eaten very well in New York, L.A., Paris, Rome, Saigon and Bangkok, but never better than the city where they really know how to eat, in spite of paralyzing storms, that great wise voodoo queen New Orleans.

Did you go? Have you been? What did you eat?

JoAnn Clevenger has owned Upperline restaurant in New Orleans for 25 years, serving classic New Orleans “food with an adventure.” At the IACP conference in New Orleans last week, as part of a moving panel discussion moderated by Pableaux Johnson, the warm and elegant Ms. Clevenger spoke with great emotion on not being able to return to her beloved restaurant for a scary three weeks after Hurricane Katrina blew through town. She talked about the intense relief of seeing that her restaurant had sustained no flood damage and the horror of the putrid smells that wafted out of an establishment that had had no electricity for refrigeration all that time. Once they were able to clean up and reopen it was really hard to get what they needed to operate the restaurant well and safely, that many of the staff were no longer in town and most of the ones who had stayed were without homes, facing continuing difficulties in getting to work. One young man dutifully traveled three hours each way to get to his job at Upperline.

On my last night in town I dined on luscious raw oysters and huge heads-on “barbecue” shrimp at the French Market Cafe on Decatur Street in the French Quarter, an area that was not as affected by the storm and flooding as other parts of the city. But the quiet bartender who served me my dinner with some Abita Amber ale to wash it down told me that he had lost his home and had to relocate to Atlanta for 5 1/2 months. He was lucky, he said, though, because many residents of New Orleans had no cars and couldn’t afford to leave. “But at least something good came out of all the misery,” he told me, “The seafood has been incredibly good since the storm: the oysters, the shrimp, it’s all exceptional now.” He explained that all that water had somehow cleaned out the ecosystem so the seafood could sort of start from scratch. A T-shirt seller in a nearby store was looking at the bright side, too. Recently he bought a house that had flooded severely, for a song, and was now renovating it to live in. “It’s not all bad,” he said.

Everywhere we conventioneers seemed to go local residents thanked us profusely for coming and stimulating the economy of the still-hurting city. Service was warm and gracious; locals recognized you if you returned to an eatery or to the conference ballroom for a meal, open to talking about their personal experiences after Katrina. They seemed devastated, still down, working two or three jobs to get by, yet optimistic, trying to find the good in what had happened, hoping for the best for the future. Reba, a server in the hotel, remembered me at breakfast and told me that because she is the mother of young children she works only 12-hour shifts, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. but that some of her co-workers at the hotel were working 24-hour-shifts.

I felt like I needed for my knowledge of Katrina to extend beyond my late-night walk down Bourbon Street with a fellow conference goer named Katrina. The day before I arrived there had been a $55 four-hour tour of the most devastated areas. It would have been tough to see but surely worthwhile. I couldn’t schedule it in, so the closest I got to evidence was when a cab driver pointed out the waterline on a building. Next time …

For excellent overviews of how Katrina has affected the lives of the people of New Orleans, I recommend two books that I read right before my trip, 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose and Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen, the first emotionally intense and the second more food-focused, both beautifully written.

Also, my new conference pal Judith Klinger writes nicely about her take on New Orleans in her blog AromaCucina.com.

Warning: this post contains shameless namedropping.

I’ve barely dusted the beignet sugar off my sunglasses and have had barely a minute to breathe since I flew home yesterday, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the conference before I forget it all. House filth and work projects (many more since the conference) will have to wait …

Wow! Was it good for me? It was great, surpassing my expectations on so many levels–I’m jealous of myself!–professionally rewarding, endlessly inspiring and just plain fun.

The general sessions were moving and entertaining, and the seminars I selected mostly fascinating and educational. I attended two intimate roundtables at The Experts Are In, one on Perfecting the Pitch and the other Agent as Advocate (”Avoid Alliteration,” we were Advised). Then on to Southeast Asian Street Food: Rhythmic Sounds and Flavors (yum, a tasting of green papaya salad and chicken satay), The Future of Food Media: Video Blogging and Food Web TV, Environmental Responibility in Cookbooks, Magazines and Newspaper Food Sections (much more interesting than I thought it would be thanks to the erudite Russ Parsons of the LA Times), Have Laptop, Will Travel: How to Get Your Culinary Travel Stories into Print, and Memories You Can Taste: The Art & Craft of the Food Memoir.

For a semi-isolated writer, it was invigorating and intense to come face to face with so many people as into food as I am. “These are my people!” one attendee exclaimed. Although I’m shy by nature, there was an atmosphere of friendliness and talk-to-your-neighbor; the already-wildly-successful people I talked to were just as approachable as the ones just starting out in the biz.

Although there were over a thousand people there (I can revise this when IACP gives us a headcount), I tended to run into the same ones over and over because the Food Writers, Editors & Publisher’s Section is relatively small (not sure how many of us were represented there). I regret that I didn’t get to meet John T. Edge, writer extraordinaire and founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance, although a couple of his intimates told me “We call him John T.” and “That man is an angel on earth,” which I tend to agree with after a very kind handwritten letter he wrote me a couple years back. I got to see him close-up though, along with Bruce Aidells and Rick Bayless (I am a self-admitted food groupie). I wanted to meet Crescent Dragonwagon, who knows both my parents, and Tanya Steel, who runs epicurious.com and with whom I have a mutual friend. I would have liked to meet conference Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Jessica Harris as well, since I’m a big fan and have some of her wonderful cookbooks (Iron Pots & Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking, The Africa Cookbook, Tasting Brazil), and although the opportunity didn’t come up I got to listen to her deliver a stunningly moving talk about the rhythms and food of New Orleans.

I also got to glean the wisdom of Mr. Paul Prudhomme, Victoria von Biel and Kristine Kidd of Bon Appetit, Dana Bowen of Saveur, bloggers Ed Levine of seriouseats.com, Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim, and Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan of thekitchn.com.

I was also blessed to meet personally authors Kathleen Flinn (author of The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry and the FWE&P section’s brand new chair), Irena Chalmers (a former IACP president, CIA prof and extremely prolific author who lives near me), Antonia Allegra (director of The Symposium for Professional Food Writers at the Greenbrier), Russ Parsons, Mai Pham, Nancie McDermott (full disclosure: she was already a friend), Jill O’Connor, Fred Thompson, Judy Bart Kancigor, Robin Asbell, Suvir Saran (I’m still laughing), Pableaux Johnson, Fred Plotkin, Nick Malgieri and Ken Albala, winner of the Jane Grigson Award for Beans: A History. I sat next to Cynthia Nims at the awards ceremony but didn’t realize it was her until the next day when she introduced herself at a panel. I met literary agents Lisa Ekus-Saffer and Larry Weissman, magazine editors Lisa Gosselin of Eating Well, Gretchen VanEsselstyn of Chile Pepper, Todd Coleman of Saveur, Charla Draper of Southern Living, Editor Lorna Reeves and Food Editor Betty Terry of Taste of the South, bloggers Danielle Wiley of foodmomiac.com, Judith Klinger of AromaCucina.com, fellow writers Lia Huber, Cheryl Sternman Rule and Lesley Jacobs, made new friends Cynthia L., Kat G. and Polly A. (who lives only 20 minutes from me!) and met several charming restaurateurs, food stylists and cooking school owners and teachers.

I loved New Orleans, had been there once before ten years ago and was so glad to be back. But I’m going on too long already and will have to save my experiences with her food and music for next time. Yes, New Orleans is a she. A grand lady, venerable, ample and weathered, yet exotic and charmingly irresistible. As soon as you leave her house, shutting the door gently behind you, you begin to count the minutes until you can return. A couple years ago she broke both arms in a tragic accident, but she’s on the mend, ever optimistic and indomitable.

I heartily encourage you to join IACP if you’re not already a member, or if you are a member, go to a conference if you possibly can (I had to cash in some ancient stock to do it). If you are, and went, did you find it rewarding? Was it worth the trip? Post a comment and let me know how it was for you.

Coming soon: blog posts on Katrina’s Aftermath and What I Ate

I’ve been looking forward to this for so long and feel so blessed and glad to be here in New Orleans at the IACP conference. I’m all settled in and fried from flying, but all fired up to start tomorrow with some meetings with an agent and magazine publishers. And of course all my fellow conference-attenders, whom I’m very excited about meeting.

Got in late but had to grab dinner so I cabbed it over to Cochon for some boudin balls (deep-fried sausage–how can you go wrong?) with a sweet and spicy grainy mustard sauce and pickled peppers. I followed these delectable porky tidbits studded with liver and rice with more porky wonderment: the Louisiana cochon de lait, a classic country Cajun dish gone upscale, fine pig roasted and formed into a cake over peppery pig reduction, with luscious hammy nuggets, turnips and cabbage. I washed it all down with a nice bitter Abita amber which complemented the swiny sweetness better than any wine I could dream up.

Tomorrow the conference! Hip hip hooray!