Who is James Beard?

On 6th April, we had a special guest at Dante. On quiet wednesday night, that guy came into the kitchen to see the chef, Dante.  We have a chef's table at kitchen and a lot of customers are interested in seeing the kitchen and they so often come to the kitchen to see us that I thought that guy was one of " regular" customers, and I wouldn't even try to talk with him. ( even though I had known him, I wouldn't have spoken to him though.. )

The gentleman from J.B.F. and Chef Dante

After he left the kitchen, I figured out that he came to tremont to sight the restaurants from James Bread foundation. I thought that guy was Jeams Beard himself, and I was surprised still he was alive! But it was my misunderstanding, he already passed away 26 years ago. Maybe that guy was his son??? ( but James was gay, so maybe not.)

Every year in May, there is really honorable award which is called James Beard Foundation Award and it is often called " the Oscars of Food". The chef dante was nominated to that award many times. The recipients receive a bronze medallion, but no cash prizes. In 2009, the chef Michael Symon, at the restaurant Lola, received a medallion of the Great Lakes Chef.

Well, who the heck is James Beard??

In 1950s, he brought French cooking to the American cooking, and he is regarded as the father of American-style gourmet cooking. 

What is Folic Acid (葉酸) ?

What is Folic acid?
Folic acid is know as Vitamin B9 or Bc, and named from the Latin word for "leaf".

Beneficial Folic acid or non-beneficial Folic acid?
Some scientists say that Folic acid is essential to numerous bodily functions such as synthesizing DNA, repairing DNA, and methylating DNA. Also it is very important in aiding rapid cell division and growth. In that point, Folic acid contributes to retaining the youth. But other scientists warn that high folic acid intake from supplement may actually promote some cancers as well as precancerous tumors and lesions.

Preventing Anemia
Children and Adults both require Folic acid to produce healthy red blood cells and prevent Anemia!

Which food contain Folic acid?
Leafy vegetables, such as spinach, asparagus, turnip greens
Legumes, such as dried or fresh beans, peas, and lentils
Egg yolks
Baker's yeast
Sunflower seeds
Liver
Kidney
Certain Fruits, orange juice, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, grapefruit, banana, raspberry, strawberry
Certain vegetables, beets, corn, tomato, broccoli, brussels sprouts, romaine lettuce, beer

The Character of the Folic acid.
Folic acid is susceptible to high heat and ultraviolet light, and is soluble in water ( so don't wash it away! ). It is heat-labile in acidic conditions and may also be subject to oxidation.

The compatibility of Folic acid
A number of drug interfere with the biosynthesis of Folic acid. Valproic acid, one of the most commonly prescribed anticonvulsants that is also used to treat certain psychological conditions, is a known inhibitor of folic acid.

The other benefits of Folic acid
1. possibly contributing heart disease and stroke
2. cancer
    Folate deficiency decreases intracellular S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), which inhibits cytosine methylation in  
    DNA, activates proto-oncogenes, induces malignant transformations, causes DNA precursor imbalances, 
    misincorporates uracil into DNA, and promotes chromosome breakage; all of these mechanisms increase the 
    risk of prostate cancer development.
    The association between folate and cancer appears to be complex and mixed.
3. Obesity
4. Depression
5. Memory and mental agility
6. Schizophrenia
   .....

Smoking! ( from on food and cooking )

The temperature of charred wood and smoke is below 1,800°F / 1,000℃

Charred wood and smoke are products of the incomplete combustion of organic materials in the presence of limited oxygen and at the relatively low temperatures of ordinary burning( below 1,800°F/ 1,000℃). Complete combustion would produce only odorless water and carbon dioxide. 

The nature of wood

The wood consists of three primary materials; cellulose, hemicelluloce, lignin

Cellulose and hemicellulose are both aggregates of sugar molecules and form the framework and the filler of all plant cell walls.

Lignin is a reinforcing material that binds neighboring cell walls together and gives its strength. The higher the lignin content of the wood, the harder it is and the hotter it burns.

How burning transforms wood into flavor

Wood component % of dry weight	Combustion Temperature	Combustion By-Products and Their Aromas
Cellulose ( Cell-wall frame, from glucose )  40-45 %	540 - 610°F     280 - 320°F	Furans: sweet, bready, floral Lactones: coconut, peach Acetaldehyde: green apple Acetic acid: vinegar Diacetyl; buttery
Hemicellulose  (cell wall filler, from mixed sugars )  20-35%	390 - 480°F    200 - 250°F	the same as above
Lignin  (Cell wall strengthener, from phenolic compounds )  20-40%	750°F       400℃	Guaiacol: smoky, spicy Vanillin: vanilla Phenol: pungent, smoky Isoeugenol: sweet, cloves Syringol: spicy, sausage-like

The smoke flavor is determined by the variety of wood and the combustion temperature.
The combustion temperature is partly determined by the wood and its moisture content. Maximum flavor production takes place at relatively low, smoldering temperatures, between 570°F - 750°F / 300 - 400℃. (at higher temperatures, the flavor molecules are themselves broken down into simpler harsh or flavorless molecules. )


Smoke flavor itself is unstable
Though smoke helps stabilize the flavors of meats and fish, smoke flavor itself is unstable. The desirable phenolic compounds are especially reactive, and largely dissipate in a few weeks or months.

The toxin in wood smoke!
In the beginning, smoking was not just a way of giving food an interesting flavor; it was a way of delaying their spoilage. Wood smoking contains many chemical compounds; formaldehyde, acetic acid etc( these make the smoking pH acid - pH2.5).
Many of the phenolic compounds in wood smoke are also antimicrobilals, and phenol itself is a strong disinfectant. The phenolic compounds are also effective antioxidants, and slow the development of rancid flavors in smoked meats and fish.

PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons)
This is an antihuman compounds, substances that are harmful to our long-term health. PAHs is formed from all of the wood components in increasing amounts as the temperature is raised. The deposition of PAHs on meat can be minimized by limiting the fire temperature, keeping the meat as far as possible from the fire.


*This is from other article... ( the condition of PAHs formation is different though... )
PAHs are typically formed during the incomplete burning( relatively low temperature?) of organic material including coal, oil, gasoline and garbage. PAHs are also found in crude oil, coal tar, creosote and asphalt. PAHs are associated with human activities (the combustion of fossil fuels) and natural occurrences (such as forest fires), and they are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment at some level. 

( ref. http://www.mass.gov/dep/toxics/pahs.htm)

PAH cancer risk

Liquid Smoke

Liquid smoke is essentially smoke-flavored water. Most of the flavor and preservative compounds do dissolve in water to some extent. Although PAHs are insoluble in water, some of them exist in smoking water and aggregate and sink over time. So it's best not to shake bottles of liquid smoke before use! Leave the sediment at the bottom.

Everyone needs fat!

Once a while I crave for healthy non fat vegan food, but basically I love fatty rich food. These days a lot of people care about their health and they are trying to get high quality organic food. I think it is a good trend. But sometimes people tend to believe that not taking fat at all is the best for health, and they are making non fat and non flavor food. Once I had a non fat brownies and I remember that I wouldn't eat those food again. 

I found some article about canola oil. They said fats and oils play an essential role in human nutrition. Fat is part of every cell in the body and is a valuable source of energy. It aids in the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K as well as beta-carotene and slows digestion so that you feel full for a longer period.( http://www.ciaprochef.com/canola/moreinfo.html )

Canola oil is high in monounsaturated fat.

Canola oil contains the lowest level of saturated fat of any common culinary oil. It is high in monounsaturated fat, which has been shown to reduce blood cholesterol levels, and has moderate levels of essential polyunsaturated fats. Canola oil is a good source of plant-based omega-3 fat and vitamin E. Like all vegetable oils, canola oil is cholesterol-free.

Canola oil and rapeseed oil

Canola oil is pressed from tiny canola seeds produced by beautiful yellow flowering plants of the Brassica family. Cabbages and cauliflower are also part of the same botanical family! Through traditional cross-breeding, canola was created by removing the undesirable characteristics from rapeseed in the mid-1970s. Canola, however, is NOT rapeseed -- their nutritional profiles are very different.

Canola oil is officially defined as having less than two percent erucic acid and less than 30 umoles of glucosinolates. This is a strict internationally-regulated definition that differentiates canola from rapeseed. Oilseed products that do not meet this standard cannot use the trademarked term "canola." High-erucic acid rapeseed, although still grown, is now confined to production under contract for specific industrial uses.

What is erucic acid?

Erucic acid is a predominant component of rape (Brassica napus and B. camestris) and mustard (B. hirta and B. juncea) seeds. Rapeseed oil contains up to 45% erucic acid.  Food grade rapeseed oil (also known as canola oil, rapeseed 00 oil, low erucic acid rapeseed oil, LEAR oil, and rapeseed canola-equivalent oil) is limited by government regulation to a maximum of 2% erucic acid by weight in the USA and 5% in the EU, with special regulations for infant food.

Before the advent of genetic engineering, plant breeders were aiming to produce a less-bitter-tasting multi-purpose crop from oil-rapeseed that would appeal to a larger market by making it more palatable and safer for cattle and other livestock. Whilst it was possible to breed out much of the pungent-tasting glucosinolates that was the cause of the problem, the traditional methods of plant breeding, resulted in one of the dominant erucic acid genes also getting stripped out of the genome in the process, so greatly reducing its erucic acid content.

 Although this latter effect was an unintended consequence of the breeding program, it was noticed from studies on rats that they show signs of lipidosis (metabolic disorders ) when fed high quantities of erucic acid.

Orange Savarin

When I was flipping through the CIA's baking book, I found a recipe for Pineapple Savarin. I didn't have any idea what savarin was and I looked up that on the internet.

What is Savarin?
Savarin is a French cake named after Brillat-Savarin, the famous 18th century gastronome and writer. The cake is almost a bread and is leavened with yeast. In fact, it does have some similarities to Brioche, though it is a bit less rich and much less time consuming to make. The yeast caked is not very sweet and primarily has a buttery flavor to it. After it has been baked, while it is still hot from the oven, a sugar syrup is poured over the cake to sweeten it and make it incredibly moist.

This is right after baked before being soaked in the syrup. It has a lot of pore 

because of the yeast leavening and it is really light. This pore absorbs a lot 

of syrup and traps them. That's why savarin is super moist. 

We had a lot of Tangerine Orange and some of them began to be rotten. To save these miserable oranges, I used them instead of Pineapple. For garnish, I made a cute orange chips. Once I had a pink grapefruits chips at restaurant and it was really beautiful. I wondered how to make it and this time I could make it using orange. It was super easy to make it and I think we can make other kinds of fruit chip; grape chip, kiwi fruit chips, cherry chips...

The recipe called for a Chantilly cream for a garnish. For a developing chef, this was new word and I looked up than on the internet... 

What' the heck Chantilly Cream?

Chantilly ( pronounced "shahn-tee-yee" in France; "shan-ti-ly" in America) is French for "sweetened whipped cream. Some chef use confectioners sugar in their whipped cream. Actually I used it to make whipped cream for the first time and I thought I could make a lighter whipped cream than a whipped cream made with granulated sugar. 

From this experience, I got a new idea. I think it would be nice to make a chocolate Savarin! I'm gonna make dark chocolate Savarin and that will be soaked into the flavored melted chocolate. Once the chocolate gets cooled down and gets solid, I think it would be interesting texture!

INTELLIGENTSIA

This is our recent favorite coffee beans. In Cleveland, unfortunately there was no good cafe, and before we found this coffee beans, we had been thinking that cafe LOOP was the best. The cafe Loop is located in tremont OH where is neighborhood of restaurant DANTE. It's not a big cafe, and there are tables and chairs on the first floor. On the second floor, they are selling CDs and records. Sometimes we found some special edition of CDs for Japanese sales.   

 Once before, our friend told us that they had a good coffee at MOCO cafe in downtown and we tired it. The coffee bag is bright red color and there is brand name on it. The color of coffee bean is not too dark but a little bit light brown color. When I open the bag, I could smell of good smoky and bitter coffee 

aroma.

Actually this coffee is not MOCO cafe's original coffee, but they are just selling INTELLIGENTSIA coffee. When I searched about INTELLIGENTSIA's web site (http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/about/about-us ) I found out they are well-known coffee and tea shop in the US, and mainly they are doing business in LA and Chicago. But besides there, they have a lab in NY and they are selling coffee in couple big cities. 

Michael Philips who is a barista in INTELLIGENTSIA chicago and also contributing in educating people for coffee and tea has won the 2010 World Barista Championship held at the Olympia Conference Center in London, UK. According to the web site, Philips is the only consecutive US Barista champion, wining in 2009 and 2010. 

I'm really happy to see such a great coffee here by chance! I hope I can have a coffee from Michael Philips when I visit to Chicago in the future.

Home made Pizza

Eggplant & Pineapple Pizza

Pizza is one of my favorite food. There are several styles on Pizza; stuffed pizza, thin crust, thick crust... I prefer thin crust pizza and my favorite is Hawaiian Pizza with extra Pineapple. When I was kid, I hated the cooked fruits like pineapple in 酢豚, apple in curry, and cooked tomato in gratin. But as I got older, I changed my taste in food and now that I love cooked fruit in savory dish. 

We made a pizza from scratch. Mostly pizza is composed of 3 parts; dough, sauce and topping. For making pizza dough, usually people use "00 flour ( Doppio Zero)" in Italy. But we didn't have 00 flout at home, so we used AP four as a substitute. 

What is "00 flour?"

In Italy, flour is classified either as 1, 0, or 00 and refers to how finely ground the flour is and how much of the bran and germ have been removed. 00 flour is the most highly refined and is talcum powder soft. Sometimes people assume that 00 flour is low in protein and therefore particularly suitable for making pasta. But this is wrong! 00 is a category name for refining and flours of varying protein levels can be milled to the 00 category. Some one said AP flour does the "most consistently satisfying job"in standing in for the doppio zero. 

Some recipe calls for Semolina flour for pizza dough. Usually this flour is used for making pasta.

What is Semolina flour?
Typically hard durum wheat which has been ground into flour. The resulting product is high in gluten and is used for making pasta and breads. You may want to store it in your fridge if you don't use it up within a  month or so as it tend to get rancid because it contains wheat germ.

What is Durum flour?
Durum in Latin means "hard", and the species is the hardest of all wheat. Its high protein and gluten content, as well as its strength, make durum good for special uses.

We used eggplant, red pepper, artichoke hearts, pineapple, Mozzarella cheese, and hot sausage for topping. My favorite was a roasted eggplant. Because it was roasted and the water evaporated, it had a smokey and condensed flavor.

evaluation 5/5