Kaleb Gaudinier GreenField FoodYield

Serving up steak is not for amateurs  – Sous Vide, Brasserie-Style . . . There is no shortage of methods to prepare steak in the culinary universe, and no scarcity of chefs to create them. Chef Tesar of Dallas’ restaurant  Knife , has developed a seering technique using canola or grapeseed oil, that he features in his new book,  Knife: Texas Steakhouse Meals at Home .  His method relies on a a cast iron, or carbon steel pan. It is also dependent on removing as much liquid from the meat as possible before cooking. Three to four days in the refrigerator unwrapped, lying on a regularly refreshed swath of paper towel, will do the trick. Tesar’s method is supposed to yield up the most succulent steak ever tasted. This method honestly reminds me of cooking tofu – the steak alternative, which also relies on liquid removal with paper towels before cooking. But steak is not tofu and tofu is not steak. More on tofu later… If you are looking for the ultimat...

A strange thing came across my radar the other day – after a lifetime of waking up in a blind stumble towards the coffee grinder at 5 a.m. – and a near lifetime of living gluten free, someone told me that people with gluten sensitivities are not able to digest the protein in coffee. In fact, 10% of coffee is a protein that cross reacts with gluten antibodies and can cause the same immune system response that causes health problems in celiac disease. Those problems include: Immune disorders, migraines, neurological issues, hormone and thyroid problems, certain forms of cancer (lymphoma), as well as, gastrointestinal disease. Apparently, if you are reactive to gluten, you are more than likely immune reactive to the cross contaminant protein in coffee. Coffee is the most common cross-reactor to gluten – which means a cup can trigger your body to launch a full scale attack on what it perceives as a foreign invader. Immune responses cause inflammation resulting in brain irr...

If you are a chef, best sharpen your knives on the notion of fantasy food – and lean forward into creative cuisine as you have never known it before. Don your toque blanche with a sprinkle of magic dust and find your bearings in the tumultuous sea of make believe menus. The new dinner theatre and historical fiction readings demands a high degree of authenticity and specificity to satisfy the scrutiny of today’s discerning diners. Patrons desire not only dinner entertainment, but authentic immersion dining which bathes the palate in the tantalizing tastes of times gone by, and sometimes simulates the taste of days that have yet to come, or will never be. Hobbit haute cuisine? Begin with a plate of Balin’s spiced beef (marinated 12 hours) and move on to a lovely cottage pie topped with buttery mashed potato crust, swilled down with a glass of ale from Middle Earth. Or why not savor your last repast before the Titanic sinks, as diners in Winston-Salem North Carolina at the ...

                                                            There is guacamole and then there is guacamole. There is the kind you get in the supermarket in round, plastic tubs. This is plastic guacamole that has the slippery feel and taste of the container it comes in. It is a little too pea green, face-foundation pureed, and useful only for a first rate Mexican food emergency. No guacamole should ever represent such panicked urgency. Then there is kitchen-made guacamole. You hope the avocado is ripe enough. The knife neatly slashes the pit and is ejected into a bowl for puncture with toothpicks, water emersion and sprouting later on in the dark of the cabinet below the kitchen sink. It is masticated by a fork and doused with a shot of salsa. In the end, it will work on tostadas, or as the final dollop on a taco....

It's Sunday and a breakfast club is in order. Breakfast clubs are a new phenomena springing up all over the country. These syrupy gatherings are popping up as regular Sunday Meetups and as early workday kickstarters. Breakfast  tête-à-têtes  are a way to share ideas, network, or even meet that perfect Cheerio chum for an afternoon trail mix in the mountains in the afternoon. Sunday breakfast club gatherers idle over coffee and conversation, while the before work clubs grab a quick bite, glance at their watches, and move on to a day already rife with professional connection and camaraderie. Weekday breakfast clubs meet at the crack of dawn, six, seven, - on route to the office, while Sunday clubs tend to convene later - anytime for eight to ten. Workday conversations center on projects, bosses and trends. While the weekend clubs focus on anything from recipes, to religion. Epic topics linger on weekend tongues, combined with maple marinated pancakes, grapefruit wedges a...

Surrounded by nutritional nothingness? In the corner of America where convenient stores are the major source of anything edible - is sustenance possible? Putting a meal together in a place where sugar, salt and saturated fats are the rule is like trying to make literature out of tabloids. Peanut candy bars and peanut butter could be the only actual protein, while the sole produce choice might be a can of tomato juice. If you live in the poorest places in America, you can no longer pick an apple, or grapefruit off a tree. There are no victory gardens, there are no collard greens and turnips. Being poor used to mean you ate less food, maybe less expensive food, but the food you ate was still real food. Potatoes might have been all your budget could bear but the potatoes were organic, they were not sprayed with pesticides, nor infused with saturated fat like and stuffed like a pack of pencils into a dioxin bleached paper bag. Being poor used to mean you ate the cheapest cut...