the arugula files

Next Celebrity Chef...You?

Now is your chance to launch your career as a celebrity chef/food network personality. 
The Food Network is casting for their super popular show, The Next Food Network Star.  There is an open casting call in the DC area this Friday, October 3 from 10am to 3pm at The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Washington.  The application is here.

Emeril's new show Emeril Green, featured on the Discovery channel, is casting guest chefs.  According to the website, "this is a chance for amateur chefs to receive cooking tips and recipes tailored specifically to their needs by America's most beloved chef-Emeril Lagasse!"  More information is here.  The show is filmed in DC. How much fun would it be to hang out with Emeril?  Do it, do it, do it!

Photos:  Food Network and the Emeril Green Show

Italian Sausage, Arugula, and Squash Soup

 
Fall, is that you?  I didn’t recognize you since you are wearing sunglasses, a tank top, and sweating like Sarah Palin at a press conference. 

Welcome to DC where there is no such thing as fall.  It's 85 degrees today.  I hate to sound nostalgic, but I miss fall in Boston.  Big sweaters, crisp air, and apple picking are a few of my favorite September things.  Last year I went apple picking in DC.  When I asked where the Macintosh apple trees were, the farmer laughed and asked if I was a Yankee.  I told him I had never played baseball in my life.  Apple picking just isn't the same without Macintosh apples, especially if it's too hot to drink warm cider.

I’ve lived in DC for twelve years and while there is a long list of things I love about this city, I will never stop complaining about the weather. 

Here’s a soup to welcome fall.  It tastes good no matter where you live.

I HEART Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay makes me smile.  This short video shows him picking snails from his garden with his kids.  It's a sweet video, especially the kid's reaction to the taste of cooked snails. Ramsay has a terrific series that highlights him traveling around and catching his own seafood.  It's better than the food network.

Catching king crabs in Norway.

Trapping crayfish.

Diving for scallops.

Spear fishing sea bass.

Food Writer at Olsson's in Dupont Circle

Jen Lin-Liu, the author of Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China, will be speaking at 7pm on September 23, at Olsson's Books in Dupont Circle.  I'm currently addicted to "food stories" and this looks like a great read. 

From Olsson's website "As a freelance journalist and food writer living in Beijing, Jen Lin-Liu already had a ringside seat for China's exploding food scene. When she decided to enroll in a local cooking school—held in an unheated classroom with nary a measuring cup in sight—she jumped into the ring herself. In Serve the People, Lin-Liu gives a memorable and mouthwatering cook's tour of today's China as she progresses from cooking student to noodle-stall and dumpling-house apprentice to intern at a chic Shanghai restaurant. A food critic for Time Out Beijing and the coauthor of Frommer's Beijing, she also has written for Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and Food & Wine. She is the founder of Black Sesame Cooking School in Beijing."

Keswick Creamery, Pennsylvania

Cheese is my favorite food.  I couldn’t live without it, although I try to limit my cheese intake to one meal a day.  I accomplish this goal only about half the time. My favorite local cheese is from Keswick Creamery.  Keswick makes their cheese with milk from Jersey Cows and sells it at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market. I think the prices are fair and affordable—about $5.00 for a block of feta.

My favorites types are Dragon’s Breath, a hot pepper jack, and the Feta de Provence, which combines creamy feta with rosemary, basil, tarragon, and lavender flowers.  This cheese is so good you can sprinkle it on some fresh bread, drizzle it with olive oil, and you have yourself a delicious lunch. 

Lemon Poppy-Seed Tea Cake

I tend to like lemon-y cakes.  This recipe, from Martha Stewart's Every Day Food, is lemonlicious. 

Figs and Bacon, Avec Eric

I've been looking for figs at the Farmers Market with no luck. My goal, when I eventually find them, is to make something salty and sweet, like this little treat from Eric Ripert's toaster oven madness series.

Where to Eat Maryland Blue Crabs

If you have ever set crab traps, you know that live blue crabs are aggressive and will charge at you when approached.  I learned this after my first and only attempt at crabbing.  I was staying at a summer house in Virginia appointed with some crab traps and a small dock.  Fascinated by the whole catch-my-own dinner experience, I cut up a few chicken breasts, placed the bait in the trap, and waited.  The next day I found one lonely crab in the trap. He was mad as hell.  When I tried to take him out, he snapped, charging at me with the confidence of a Spanish bull.

I've heard that blue crabs hurt when they bite, sort of like a long, mean pinch from your older brother, so I got a set of kitchen tongs.  The crab saw the tongs as his opponent in the ring, so to say, snapping at them every time I reached into the trap.  With help from Marcus, I finally got him out, setting him in a pail while I decided how to prepare him.  Then it hit me, I didn't want to kill this crab.  I couldn't do it.  He was a fighter.  I know it sounds absurd, but he wanted to live too badly.  So I brought him down to the river, turned the pail over, watched him run off the end of the dock, and plop into the water like a fat kid performing the last canon ball of the summer.

Clearly, I have no career in the fishery arts.  Now if I want crabs, I rely on someone else to catch 'em and cook 'em. And for that there is no better place than Cantler's Riverside Inn, in Annapolis, on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Cantler's is a Maryland institution.  For about 35 years, crab men have docked their boats and sold their catch to the restaurant.  Cantler's steams the crabs for about 12 minutes in old kegs converted to steamers.  I wonder what a live crab thinks when they are placed in a steamer and all of a sudden it's raining Old Bay?     Don't think about it.

Try to get a seat outside by the river.  Order some steamed crabs and shrimp, and a few beers.  Settle in. Forget about the rest, "like time is not a thing for you to lose." 

How to pick a blue crab like a pro video.

Notes on the sustainability of Maryland blue crabs.