http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com finely crafted artisanal food for wineries, limousines, tours, B and Bs and inns, and local businesses in Napa Valley and nearby Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:46:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's raining lemons in California now. Beautiful, luscious meyer lemons. So my dear friend, Susan Mernit, asked me what could she make with lemons. So besides using lemon as an acid in just about any sauce or meat dish, I answered . . . lemonade, limoncello, lemon marmalade, lemon confit, preserved ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=54 The snail, the Summer 2008 issue of Slow Food's mag, has a fascinating article, full of little known "did you know" 's about vanilla. After completing a little additional research about this exotic and flavorful plant, I am ready to share some tasty tidbits. Did you know #1: The indigenous Totonic farmers of Veracruz, Mexico are cited as the ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=53 While perusing food blogs, I came across what looked like a good recipe for guacamole on definititely not martha, a defnitely cool food site. I thought I'd share my Mexican version with you. The history behind this recipe is that my Park Slope neighbor, Antonia Guerro - note the Mexican name ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=52 So, here it is, my simple recipe for roast chicken. Use a great chicken like the one I bought at Soul Food. Back east I used to buy D'Artagnan.   Brine1 gal        water 1 cup       salt 1/4 cup   honey 6 sprigs   thyme 3-4          peppercorn 1              lemon, halved and juiced 3              cloves garlic, smashed ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=51 I'm lucky enough to live down the road from Long Meadow Ranch, even luckier to have heard Ted Hall lecture on the benefits of heterogeneity, natural biodiversity, in yeast cultures for fermenting wine, and to hear their produce manager talk about how their portable chicken coops fertilize their garden. But this ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=43 Food is spiritual, connected to the earth. Think about our soil, created over thousands of years. The earth, the actual, physical earth we live on. Our caring for it, and bringing food forward from it, is an act of stewardship, an expression of the deep responsibility we have to our ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=42 The simple trick to pate a choux is to stir, making a figure eight, for 8 minutes after adding the flour. Do not believe the cookbooks that tell you one minute, or even five! Also, put the eggs in, one at a time, immediately after taking the butter, water & flour ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=41 While preparing for a sermon on food at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of North Bay, our inspiring, kind, and dedicated minister, Bonnie Dlott, sent me this poem to use in the service. I love it and I hope you do too! Were I to Teach a Course on God By Nancy Schaffer, ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=39 This post is exerpted from a slide show sent to me by an impassioned friend and colleague, Jill Schwartz, NYC.Data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency shows that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed world wide each year (National Geographic News, September 2, ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=38 In his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan traces number 2 corn, that's the corn that used to fatten cattle and produce cornstarch, corn oil, and convert the "oses" into fructose and sucrose, from the farm to the supermarket. In the process, he documents just how much oil is needed ... http://vineyardpicnicstogo.com/?p=36