A small taste of Detroit

A colleague of Gourmet Underground Detroit, Nicole de Beaufort, was assembling a small recipe book for a souvenir for a number of German Marshall fellows. Heady company. The goal: to send them back with a taste of Detroit.

It was a quick project and a number of folks dived in, including Detroit Food. The end result is a charming, well-designed and tasty look at some of the delights of Detroit cooks. There's some talk of an expanded book -- a welcome addition to Motor City chow!

Detroit Food's (aka Gary and Martha Shea) contributions are Sloppy Joes and hamburger gravy -- iconic foods of junior high school and a highlight of Catholic school lunches.

Read it here:   Detroit Delicacies

Harvard + Science and Cooking

Harvard: The Michigan of the East


Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science

This is the first course I've taken through HarvardX , the online learning portal for Harvard. 

It's pretty rigorous and not a beginner cooking class. Per class syllabus: "At the end of the course, students will be able to explain how a range of cooking techniques and recipes work, in terms of physical and chemical transformation of food."

Each week we virtually visit a world-famous chef, who shows some of the secrets of their cooking. These include:  Jose Andres, Nathan Myrhvold, Dan Barber, Ferran Adria, David Chang, Wylie Dufresne as well as author Harold McGee and food scientist Dave Arnold. We're using Harold McGee's "The Science of Food" as a textbook. 

We'll have homework each week of the 10-week course, and a new lab exercise every Tuesday, where we can experiment with the scientific concept of the week. We'll submit home and lab findings  and will finish with a final project where were can carry out our own scientific study of an aspect of cooking in your kitchen. 

As knowledge of high school physics and chemistry are useful, there are whole review sections on calculating density, pH, logorithms, geometry, and chemistry. Good combination of video and work pages. So I've been figuring volume of cubes, density of a solid in a solution,  and about to relive my chemistry class and taking multiple choice practice tests.  

Parts of my brain feel like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz --- rusty but starting to move. 

I'm excited about this, and including it on the blog so I have some accountability and push through the hard parts. 

Wonder if I need Harvard t-shirt? 

A simple pizza dinner

Homemade pizza

A busy couple of days, and today a bunch of games. No time or inclination for a full dinner.

But we had some simple, delicious ingredients; tomato sauce made from Marcella Hazan's tomato/butter/onion recipe, fresh mozzarella, good olive oil and garlic and homemade pesto. 

Threw it all on a simple crust brushed with the garlic oil, tossed on a couple of pepperoni slices, good cheese and a short stay in the oven. Here's what emerged. 

A good early evening - good chow, Michigan won, Michigan State did, too. No pizza left for watching the Tigers. Maybe next game. 

Chickarina soup

Serious Eats is one of my favorite food blogs, great food cred, smart writing, good research and a site that you can count on as solid and yet always new.

Italian wedding soup is always a favorite, but Serious Eats introduced chickarina soup just last week. Basically, it's a great chicken soup with chicken meatballs, and pearl pasta added to a  basic chicken soup.

Today was the day to try. After a number of autumnal nights, including clicking on the heat, soup was calling for dinner.

The recipe is pretty simple  -- chickarina soup

The chicken meatballs emerged from the food processor just as the recipe called for. The soup meat came from some chicken tenders, chunked and browned. Skipped making the stock from scratch but used a good chicken broth.  A bunch of onion, garlic, carrot and celery browned up in a soup pot, along with a bay leaf and some gentle long cooking gave the stock a real home-cooked flavor .

Dropped in the chicken meatballs = awesome and fun to watch they float upwards! The recipe calls for baking soda that added that lightness to what would otherwise be meatballs. These really were chicken meatball dumplings, which were just delicious.

With all the ingredients melding, some spinach from the fridge called and a couple handfuls added some color and texture.

Crostini with garlic, buffalo mozzarella and fresh tomatoes added to the meal.

A good first outing for what will be a standard soup dinner - and probably a regular come colder weather.

Honeyrocks rock!

Honeyrock melons taste like summer

Honeyrock melons have been out for a little while and one of them lasts about a day and half at Detroit Food's table. One of the best tastes in the world, honeyrocks rock out tomatoes. Sorry tomato fans, but they just do. 

A big bowl of chilled honeyrock in the morning makes life worth living, makes you an optimist and a better person. The season is short, don't settle on a cantaloupe. Michigan honeyrocks should have their own Pure Michigan commercial. 

So I'm going the fridge, right now. 

New old-fashioned chicken salad

About once or twice a month a couple of bone-in chicken breasts go in the oven with good seasoning to bake until done. Sometimes we have a bit for dinner.

But the best is left for chicken salad. The basic one - chicken, mayo and diced celery, a little salt and pepper and that's it.

Except tonight.  A wonderful meal in Brooklyn started a jones for arugula salad, simply dressed with olive oil and fresh lemon juice and shards of good parmesan. One of the best salads ever.

So, with the ideal chicken salad just made, a small arugula salad followed, generously lined the plate and complemented the salad.

Fresh lemon, chicken salad's new best friend

The bite of the arugula and the blast of citrus from the lemon gave a whole new dimension to our much-loved chicken salad.

Blasted a squeeze of fresh lemon juice in the leftover salad and - wow - it really popped!

It's never too late to love a favorite in a new way.

Behold! The new grill= Broil Master

After a number of years buying Home Depot, etc. grills that last about four years (or less) and conk out we stepped up and about doubled our budget to get this Broil-King grill.

Now, on day two/dinner two we're using it again. Ramps up to fiercely hot in 6 minutes, is so solid and well-built, we are so happy we moved up a big step. And, while not American built, it's built in Canada, which makes us happy, too.

We're in the shallow end of Broil-King, but it's worth every dollar.