La Mancha Oro Brand Saffron 10% off All Month Long!

This month our Staff Selection was made by David Manikow

Saffron is often referred to as the "King of Spice" and rightfully so. Its flavor profile is so unique that most people are not able to completely express it, and it has a variety of uses in cooking & baking, as well as in health remedies and pigments. It's also the most expensive spice in the world, due to the labor-intensive cultivation methods. Each strand of saffron has to be hand-plucked from the Crocus flower and thousands of the strands go into a single ounce!

Saffron can be grown in many parts of the world, including France, India, Italy, Spain and even parts of the USA, with its origins from ancient Persia. The La Mancha region of Spain is famous for its high quality saffron as well as Kashmir and Iran. Its beautiful red color and distinct powerful aroma make it a treat to use.

Since saffron is so expensive, it's reassuring that you only need a little bit in cooking/baking. When working with saffron, it's best to steep the strands for at least 20 minutes before utilizing it in a recipe. While the aroma and flavor of the spice will be released after this amount of time, the full effect will last for up to 2 hours. I personally love making cream-based sauces with saffron, but some other complementary flavors are almonds, apples, cinnamon, citrus, fish stocks, most grains, potatoes and white wine. You can also use it to make your own infusions of vodka (think Bloody Mary's), honeys, syrups and other fun and tasty things! We also have a nice selection of saffron infused items in addition to the Mancha-Oro brand of saffron (from La Mancha, Spain) at Provenance, so come on by and check it all out! Cheers!


Here are some recipe ideas:

Cream of Cauliflower Soup with Saffron
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cream-of-Cauliflower-Soup-with-Saffron-107622

Coconut Cake with Saffron Cream
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/coconut-cake-with-saffron-cream

Chocolate Saffron Pots de Creme
http://www.food52.com/recipes/2723_chocolate_saffron_pots_de_creme_with_honey_cream_and_sea_salt

Chicken Scaloppine with Saffron Cream Sauce
http://www.food.com/recipe/chicken-scaloppine-with-saffron-cream-sauce-giada-289804

Food Rules #45-50

We're nearing the finish line of Food Rules! As you may recall, the 3rd and final section of Pollan's book, Food Rules, is subtitled "How Should I Eat?" And funnily enough, lots of self-help and beauty mags have touted these rules already...not to mention our physicians and nutritionists. I'm going to summarize several points at a time for the next couple of blog entries (not because I want to finish the book before the end of the year!) since these next several rules are pretty short & to the point.

Rule #45: ...Eat less (caloric restriction slows aging)
Rule #46: Stop eating before you're full (other cultures have sayings and practices that advise to eat til we are 67-80% full. And I think about those meals where I eat so much I'm actually uncomfortable! I'm trying to limit my food intake at meals and not go back for 2nds)
Rule #47: Eat when you are hungry and not when you are bored (THIS is my downfall! One trick I've learned? Drink a glass of water. Many times when we think we are hungry we're really a little dehydrated. It often works!)
Rule #48: Consult your gut. (Slow down; take smaller portions so you eat less and not feel obliged to eat the entire plate of a very large portion; take at least 20 minutes to eat your meal)
Rule #49: Eat slowly. (Savor your food; chew slowly - treat your bites of food like you are tasting wine: chew it up thoroughy and let the flavors permeate your mouth; put down your fork between bites)
Rule #50: The banquet is in the first bite. (Savor your bites longer and more slowly for the first few and stop eating sooner than you might otherwise)

So there you have it: rules 45-50. Pretty straightforward but applied regularly will help reduce our intake of food & thus calories, cut back on waste and help tighten our belts in more ways than one. Next week we'll see more of these simple and straightforward rules.

October Staff Selection: See Smell Taste Spices & Salts

This month's staff selection is from Jeff Tabels. Jeff chose the See Smell Taste line of spices & salts, which are 15% off the entire month! Read on for his flavor experience and some recipe ideas:

"Ahhh…fall, a wonderful season that’s all too brief here in Chicago. I love SEEing all the beautiful colors, the SMELL of the crisp breeze and the TASTE of what’s in season. They all come together to have a little fun with our taste buds. We are coming to an end of another season. The farmers market will end this month. (Here’s to hoping for another winter’s market.)

The shop started to carry a new line of spices that caught my eye. These tiny little tins of flavor are brought to us by SEE. SMELL. TASTE. (Irony intended). The goal of this company is to “offer the world’s highest quality herbs and spices”. They also state that “traceability and research are very important”. Check out their website: seesmelltaste.com. We have several of their spices and salts that make a person take notice. They provide whole spices as well as spice blends.

Fresh spices make a world of difference. The whole nutmeg and allspice would liven up any fruit butter or apple pie, not to mention all the amazing squash that is in season. Try roasting a butternut or acorn squash with butter and salt, then add a few quick swipes on the micro-plane and its flavor central. Or roast a few shallots and garlic cloves along with and all you need to do is throw all the vegetables in with a little stock. A quick go around with the emulsifier, finish with a little cream and you have got one delicious soup that is just steeping with the flavor of fall.

One spice blend I’ve had a chance to play around with is the Golden Vadouvan. A great blend of “aromatics and curry spices”. At a cook out recently I decided to give this stuff a whirl. I paired it with some beautiful scallops. At first I was thinking a marinade but didn’t want these two dynamos to fight for attention. Instead I went with curry butter and gave a healthy baste at the end.

On a side note, there was some concern about this idea. As some of my guests found out (afterwards of course) I have never cooked scallops before! Thanks to my wife hovering ever so diligently over my shoulder with advice, as well as constantly poking and prodding them we pulled it off wonderfully.

After the addition of this vibrantly colored, beautifully fragrant butter it was magic. The combination of the spices and seafood was unbelievable, visually and in taste.

I have to admit I used this Golden Vadouvan up quickly. Try some Quick Pickled White Turnips. They take the color on the outside and the flavor all the way through. Kind of like a smoke ring on a juice brisket after hours of smoking. When sliced and served on a relish try or salad great taste and a visual component that will pique your interest.

I have a few more that I bought that I can’t wait to throw into the ring. A Harissa Mix Based on the North African hot sauce. I’m thinking a nice crust for a pan seared whitefish or in the crispy crunch goodness of fried chicken. Also a curious thing called “Grains of Paradise”. After poking them with a stick for awhile I ate one and instantly thought red meat.

Spices in general are a great way to add depth and flavor to food. I am looking forward to playing around with all of the SEE SMELL TASTE products including a curiously named “Long Pepper”. Hmmm, that’s fun to say, Long Pepper."


Curry Butter

4 oz of butter room temperature

1-3 teaspoons Golden Vadouvan (to taste)

Blend thoroughly. Baste away.

Great with grilled seafood or vegetables.

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Quick-Pickled White Turnips

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup water

1 tablespoon salt

1 Tablespoon sugar

2-3 teaspoons Golden Vadouvan

Put all ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil.

While waiting for the brine to boil clean and trim the turnips. Put as many as you can in a typical mason jar.

Once the brine has come to a boil, using a funnel, carefully pour into the jar of turnips until full. Hand tighten a lid and place in the fridge overnight. A seal may form but it is not enough to store at room temperature. They should be fine for weeks in your fridge.

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Roasted Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients:

1 sweet potato (approx 12 oz)

1 acorn squash

4 shallots

Olive oil

5-6 garlic cloves, unpeeled

3 ¾ cups chicken stock

1/2cup cream

Fresh ground spices (nutmeg, allspice, cumin, cloves)

Salt and pepper


Cut the sweet potato, squash, and shallots in half lengthwise. Brush cut sides with oil. Place, cut side down, with the garlic in a shallow roasting pan. Roast @ 375 for about 40 minute.

When cool, scope out the flesh of the potato and squash and put in sauce pan with the shallots. Peel garlic and add to the pan.

Add stock and a little salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook partially covered for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally until vegetables are very tender.

Carefully puree until smooth. Return to pan and add stir in cream.

Add salt, pepper, and your choice of spices and season to taste.

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Pan Fried Fish

Ingredients

1 large or two small skin-on fish fillets, about 8 ounces (rainbow trout, small salmon, brown trout)
Kosher salt
Ground black pepper
Harissa Mix
Flour for dredging
2 tablespoon Canola oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoons capers, drained
1 lemon, juiced

Directions

Heat a heavy pan over medium high heat.

Season fish on meat side with salt and pepper. Combined flour and Harissa Mix. Use as little or as much spice as you would like. Lightly dredge fish in flour and shake off excess. When pan is good and hot, add Canola oil followed immediately by 1 tablespoon butter. As soon as foaming subsides, place fish in pan with the skin side down. Jiggle pan for the first 10 seconds to keep the fish from sticking. Cook until golden crust forms on meat. Carefully turn fish away from you and again jiggle pan for the first few seconds. Cook until skin turns golden brown. Remove to a warm plate.

Pour out the cooking fat, add remaining butter and quickly fry the capers. Remove pan from the heat, add lemon juice to pan and swirl. Pour sauce over the fish and serve.

Food Rules #44: Pay more, eat less

Rule 44 is the start of the 3rd and final section of Food Rules. This section tries to answer the question: "How should I eat?" and these rules become, for me, a bit more personal. I've been trying hard to be more conscious about what I'm putting in my body and when. I also run a business that sells foods made "the old-fashioned way" and I've made it my mission in a sense to preach the virtue of supporting small food entrepeneurs (without being too preachy, since I know that this is not necessarily a concern to many people who shop here). As my friend Dana Joy recently observed, they "are not just vendors, they’ve become my collective muse. They motivate and inspire me every day and I love that my stores are a platform for such tasty, sincere and honest work in the world."

So back to the Rule. "Pay more, eat less". It's interesting because yes, the cost of many if not most of the items on our shelves cost more than other "versions" of those items may cost somewhere else. Take for example the $9 jar of Sir Kensington's Ketchup vs. $1.99 for a 28oz squeeze bottle of Heinz. But is it really cheaper? Don't we end up paying for the tax cuts of the large conglomorates who own the factories and distribution systems which get the bottle of Heinz to grocery stores all over the world? Don't we subsidize the production of the corn that is made into HFCS? Don't we pay for the clean up of the water supply for the runoff of the chemicals from the phalates that are used to make the squeeze bottle "squeezable"? How about the health costs of kids with early onset diabetes? Ok, so maybe I am getting a bit preachy. But we need to think about these things. The phrase "nothing worth doing is easy" comes to mind. We've been so consumed as a nation about getting our food really accessible and really really cheap that until recently, we hadn't been aware of the negative impacts. We may balk at the cost of certain items that seem like they should be cheaper and think about why they aren't. Iliana forms her One Sister Pierogi by hand and makes her own dough and buys from farmers who don't use pesticides on their vegetables or hormones for their animals. The pierogi aren't filled with anything that resembles potato, then formed by machine to spit out a cheaper version of pierogi. Kris picks her own strawberries for her Nice Cream from local sustainable farms and hand labels her containers. Her ice cream is not filled with GMO-laden dairy, HFCS and run through a giant labeling machine in a factory somewhere (a factory that may also process soups and soaps). Her "factory" is the Logan Square Kitchen, an energy-efficient shared kitchen incubator that has a goal of being zero waste.

Now, I do understand that it's difficult for many of us to justify spending our little and hard-earned money on certain foods we've always deemed as "luxuries". But I challenge us all to think through why things are priced the way they are and the potential impact it has on us. And ask your grocer (that means us!) why if you don't understand the difference in price between a pint of the ice cream we sell and a gallon of Breyer's. We'll tell you the story of the producer, we know their name, the vendors and processes and ingredients they use, too. And chew on this: the average American spends 10% of their income on food, less than any other nation. Prior to WWII we spent closer to 30%. Now compare to the cost of healthcare then vs. now, environmental damage, obesity, depression...the list goes on. Even the smallest changes and awarenesses CAN help.

Ok, off my soapbox - but really, these things are important to me and through this blog I'm hoping to help educate and excite readers about why and how things can be better. At least when we're eating!

Food Rules #43: Have a glass of wine with dinner

This is the last rule of Section 2 of the book Food Rules and maybe I'm biased, but I really really like this rule. And I find it very very easy to follow! Obviously we've all heard about the presence of wine in the Mediterranean diet, particularly France & Italy...and many more of us here in America are incorporating wine into our routines. Decanter Magazine recently wrote an article about US Wine Consumption, stating that it rose 2% in 2009 (I believe that number is smaller than in should be, probably attributed to the recession). We certainly saw and continue to see wine sales grow at our shops. I attribute this to an increasingly-savvy group of wine drinkers! Our weekly wine tastings showcase wines new to the shops, many of unusual or rarely-known varietals. People are trying new things, and are really into all the great wine that's out there. More than ever we're hearing people ask for wines to match with certain dishes. People are really interested in the cynergy between wine & food, and with the weather turning and people cooking more, it's a welcome challenge to us to try to find wines that keep people trying new things but that will also complement the foods they're cooking now: risottos, more meat, fondues, soups, braised anything!

Wine can be so many things to so many people: it can be a complex drink that needs to be dissected with every glass; it can be a way to wind down at the end of a hectic day; it can just be something that complements the food we're cooking and allowing the flavors of the dish to shine through. Regardless, if you're drinking wine, let it be first be in moderation; and let it be something you enjoy! We hope our customers enjoy the $9 bottle as much as the $20 bottle, because wine should hopefully be about pleasure as much as possible!

This rule is the last before the start of the 3rd section of the book, entitled "How Should I Eat? (Not too Much)". You may recall that section 1 was called "What Should I Eat (Eat Food); Section 2 "What Kind of Food Should I Eat? (Mostly Plants)". I hope you'll continue with me on this blog thru the last few rules (there are 64 total). My goal is to wrap those up by year end so I can start a new topic to Blog about in the new year. That topic is still being decided, but it will be something that continues to be relevant to our mission here at PFW!

Food Rules #42: Regard Non-Traditional Foods w/Skepticism

Mmmm...remember Olestra? I found this on the Proctor & Gamble website:

"Olean is Procter & Gamble's brand name for olestra, a food ingredient giving foods great taste and texture without adding any fat or calories. Olestra is known as a fat replacer because it is used to replace fat in prepared foods. And, it is the first ingredient with similar properties to fat. It doesn't "break down" when subjected to high temperatures so it can be used in cooking and frying. But, like the insoluble fiber in apples, corn and bran, it is not digested by the body and passes through unchanged."

Sounds tasty, no? NO! This is essentially a chemical that was developed (in my opinion) to allow people to feel less 'guilt' for eating snack foods. Remember one of my recent posts, "Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you prepare it yourself"? Well, this is a good reason to heed that rule.

Pollan also writes about soy "novelty" ingredients that comprise the label of some foods. Why not just eat soy in it's traditional form, like tofu, tempeh and soy sauce? You'll also notice soy lecithin showing up in a lot of chocolate. This acts as an emulsifier and many small-batch chocolate makers don't use it. And I think they are better off for not doing so. Taste any of the single-origin chocolate bars we carry at the shops (Claudio Corallo, Askinosie & Rogue) and you'll realize chocolate this exquisite (and that is the first word that comes to mind when I taste these chocolates) doesn't need the soy lecithin.

Read more about these amazing chocolates here:

http://www.claudiocorallo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2&lang=en

http://www.askinosie.com/

http://www.roguechocolatier.com/about/

Food Rules #41: Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks.

I like this rule. I love all types of cuisine so this rule is easy for me to follow. Pollan's point? That compared to many other food cultures, the Western diet is heavy on processed foods and low on nutritional diversity. We also tend to eat a heck of a lot more often in our cars! Not just that what the bulk of Americans eat is different from other societies (though I am betting the percentage of people eating more processed food in other countries gets larger each year) but that how we eat is very different from other cultures. We always hear how the French and Italian mealtimes are lengthy and slow paced...compare that with the picture many of our commercials paint with mom or dad rushing home from work to put dinner on the table for the family, namely the kids who are rushing in from various activities...it kinda makes me stressed just watching it!

I remember as a kid eating dinner with my family - nothing ever overly-elaborate (Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, anyone?) almost every night (and both my parents always worked). I remember even more fondly going to my grandparents' house in rural Ohio and our big extended family dinners with numerous aunts & uncles and cousins (I remember peeling lots of potatoes, that's for sure!). Dinner was usually prepared for close to 20, including kids and after each meal the adults (& 'big kids') got to sit around afterwards and talk while the younger kids washed dishes. I loved the relaxed feeling those mealtimes - kind of like the long, lingering holiday mealtimes - brought. I enjoy taking my time, especially if I've cooked or helped to cook a meal. I wish I could find a happy medium with some Chicago restaurants with regards to the length of the meal. I want to be able to sit for a few minutes before being bombarded with drink/appetizer/dinner requests. I want the luxury of sitting for a while between courses and not having the server snatch up my plate while there is still food on it, even though I may still be eating. But I also don't want to wait for an hour after the meal to get my check. As usual, I digress...

But to get back to Pollan's point about paying attention to how other cultures eat: mealtimes may take a lot longer but portions are smaller, eating more slowly helps minimize over eating. And I would argue that eating real, whole foods leaves us more satisfied than merely the dinner from a bucket or plastic bag. I am certain the #1 retort to this from many of you would be "But who has time?" I don't have children to get washed and ready for bed at a reasonable hour. I know how to cook with a few simple ingredients and I'm not overwhelmed or intimidated by cooking. But I would argue that a little pre-planning, creativity and sense of humor does wonders! I think the idea should be to just see what things we can easily change with a little planning, with incorporating others into the meal prep and making a point to add conversation and calm into our meal time. That has to be worth something, I'm sure!