If you read the PIttsburgh Post-Gazette this morning, maybe you saw a little piece in the Food section about cookie night at the Frick Park Lawn Bowling Club. As promised, here are some of the recipes that wouldn’t fit into the newspaper:
I raised the question in a recent post of why it is that you can go into most any coffee shop and know exactly where your cup of joe was sourced, but it’s never really clear where espressos come from. I had a chance yesterday to ask David Diorio of La Prima, and it turns out that it’s because of the nature of the drink.
There are two basic types of coffee beans: Arabica and Robusta. Arabica beans are recognized to be of a higher quality, but they are more difficult to grow: the trees only grow at altitudes above 3,000 feet; and they are more disease-prone than Robusta trees are. As a result, Robusta beans are easy to find: they’re used in Maxwell House, Folgers, etc.: the types of coffee where quantity is more important than quality, and you’d better drink it hot because once it cools down, the flavor profile changes to nasty. Coincidentally, Robusta beans also have a higher caffeine level than Arabica.
In order to meet the definition of what it means to be a classic Italian espresso, the coffee that is used to make the drink should be a blend of at least five different beans, one of which must be a Robusta. The beans are blended in order to take advantage of their different qualities: the body of one, the acidity of another, the flavor of a third, etc. What the Robusta beans bring to the table in the mix is more than just the caffeine kick that an espresso offers: they are also in large part responsible for the crema, the frothy foam that is found atop a well-made espresso.
I can tell you from personal experience that freshness also has a big impact on the development of crema. An Arabica bean that has been roasted within the past 24-48 hours develops a beautiful head of crema; the same bean a week later won’t perform as well.
La Prima offers two espresso blends that fit into the traditional definition of an Italian Espresso. The one I’ve seen most often is La Prima Espresso, which they describe as “…a darker roast with a richer, fuller flavor. Consider this as more of an American style espresso.” If you want the real deal Italian espresso, seek out the Miscela Bar (which I don’t believe I’ve knowingly had), which La Prima describes as being “Roasted in the classic Italian style and sweeter than most American espressos with a smooth and rich crema.”
Their third espresso is an organic espresso blend, which contains only three beans, all of which are Arabica. I don’t believe I’ve tried this one either–but what I’d really like to do is to try all three in one sitting so I can really detect the differences for myself.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports today that Produce Grown Here (aka the PGH project) is going to begin a push to get more local foods into restaurants and consumers by focusing its efforts on Eat ‘N Park and Giant Eagle. Providing assistance to these two corporations in finding food seems akin to offering the Red Sox and the Yankees assistance in finding baseball prospects.
I, of course, fully support the idea behind the PGH Project: that everyone ought to be using as much locally-grown produce as possible. On the other hand, it seems to me that targeting their efforts at the big boys of the local food chain doesn’t make all that much sense. After all, both Eat ‘N park and Giant Eagle have massive amounts of resources at their disposal. Eat ‘N Park already has a Director of Sourcing and Sustainability on staff and Giant Eagle has a vertically integrated food supply chain and handles all of its own warehousing and distribution. Surely these corporations could use some of their muscle to get local foods without having a nonprofit give them assistance?
Why not target smaller operations that don’t have as many resources behind them? Really, I want to know. Anyone out there associated with this effort? I’d love to hear your reasoning.
I’d also love to see you throw a bone to the little guys.
I should’ve had my camera with me on Saturday when I went to visit Garden Dreams in Wilkinsburg, because it was tough to believe the thriving garden that was hidden there. Fortunately, Google Maps has streetview for Pittsburgh, so you can get a glimpse of a preview for yourself until such time as I can get back out there and take a couple of photos.
An old Victorian house sits at the corner of Center and Holland. Anyone looking at it can tell that it used to be quite stately; it’s plain to see by the many boarded windows that the building has known better times. The yard behind it is another matter altogether. I’d not hesitate to gamble that it has never known such care and cultivation as it knows now: kale, tomatoes, leeks, fennel, peppers, and more…. and that’s just what they’re growing in their small ‘farm.’ On top of that, there are plants aplenty for the home gardener to purchase and transplant—and expert advice to go with it.
When Aurora and I were buying our tomatoes (two plants that we chose from 80+ varieties in their catalog), we were advised not to be afraid to plant them deeply. We hadn’t even known that most gardeners plant their young plants up to their first set of branches, but the helpful attendant (who recounted his winter spending 80 hours a week caring for seedlings in the basement to get ready for the summer) advised us that if we cared to, we could go even deeper. “When we plant, we use a post hole digger and put them down to about here,” he said, gesturing towards a spot just a few inches below the plant’s top. “They’ll grow roots the whole way down the stem and it gives them a much sturdier base.”
Pittsburgh continues to astound me with the breadth of resources available here—every time I think I have a good handle in what the city has to offer, I discover something ‘new.’ If you’ve been accustomed to getting your plants from the big box retailer, swing by Garden Dreams and experience what a wide selection, knowledgeable help, and attentive customer service are like. Anyone who’s been buying their plants from outside the Co-Op (as Aurora and I have done) should visit to find out where those plants actually come from. Anyone interested in finding out the best way to care for their tomato plants might stop in periodically over the summer and keep track of their experiment in progress: three rows of tomatoes to be staked three different ways: with stakes, with cages, and with a bamboo cone. Really, it’s a great resource for anyone who wants to garden better.
Garden Dreams is located at 810-812 Holland Street in Wilkinsburg; and can be reached by phone at 412-638-3333.
I have an odd random question for you. My dad was from Pittsburgh, and he always wanted his steak “Pittsburghed” (meaning it was pink/red in the center but blackened on the outside). Is this a real thing, or is it just something my dad made up? I never thought to ask while he was alive, but my husband and I were talking about him the other night which made me think of this.
–Courtney
Courtney:
Pittsburgh rare is indeed an actual way of serving a steak: burnt on the outside, raw in the center. In recent years, some people have taken to asking for their steaks ‘Pittsburgh medium’ or even, I recall, ‘Pittsburgh well’ (overcook it and then burn it to a crisp, please!).
The story behind this phenomenon dates back to the steel mills where, as I understand it, workers would often take raw steaks with them for their lunches and then slap them on the mill’s furnace to cook them. Problem is, the furnaces were so hot (they were designed to melt steel, after all) that the outside of the steak would singe before the inside even cooked.
Funny thing about food is how you can develop a taste for something (I think of the story Larry Lagatutta [Enrico Biscotti's owner/ head baker] tells about the old Italian woman who would go into the bakery asking if they had any burnt bread because it was what she ate as a child and she really enjoyed it). Stranger still is how you can pass that taste along. The end result is that while not exactly a popular way to eat steak, restaurants will have occasional requests even from people who never set foot in a steel mill to serve their steaks Pittsburgh Rare.
Do you have a question about the world of food? Email me and I’ll do my best to provide an answer.
It’s strawberry season in southwestern PA, and after just plucking them out of the quart and eating them raw, shortcake is one of my favorite treatments of this fruit.
I made the shortcake according to a standard biscuit recipe (3 cups flour, 3/4 tsp salt, 1.5 tablespoons baking powder, a stick of butter, and a cup plus two tablespoons milk/cream mixed together) with a few alterations: I added the zest of an orange, a square half inch of grated dark chocolate, a teaspoon or so of sugar, shake of cinnamon, a bit of nutmeg, and a pinch of cloves into the dry ingredients.
I rolled the biscuit dough out, trimmed the edges, then sliced it down into twelve large biscuits. The scraps from trimming the edges were enough to shape into two more biscuits. After I transferred the biscuits to an ungreased baking sheet, brushed their tops with cream to help the browning process, and sprinkled them with coarse turbinado sugar for decoration and a bit of sweetness, I baked them in a 450F oven for 15 minutes.
Once the biscuits had cooled slightly, I split them and spooned several strawberries onto the bottom half, followed by a small dollop of whipped cream. This extra bit of cream helps out with the crucial cream: biscuit ration on the final few bites, and it also helps keep the top in place for presentation (instead of having it slide off to the side). I spooned more berries around the edges and topped the biscuit with a full dollop of cream and a strawberry on top.
The results? Tasty.
Pittsburgh’s East End Food Co-Op has issued a challenge to Pittsburghers: eat as local as possible for one month, from July 15–August 15. “It’s an honor system-based [challenge]; those wishing to participate will simply sign a large poster at the Co-Op and try their best.” For the purpose of the challenge, they define local as being within 100 miles. To encourage participation and help participants along, the Co-Op is inviting people to enjoy a potluck recipe swap and celebration of local fare every Wednesday during the challenge, starting at 7:00 PM. The first event will be on July 16.
I doubt the Co-Op will be distributing Fiji at these events, but should a local food challenge participant wish to, he or she could quite easily wash down their spinach salad, sauteed kale, local-beef loaf, and berry cobbler with a bottle of Fiji water purchased from the Co-Op’s shelf. In other words, you could wash down a 100-mile meal with a 7600-mile beverage.
I have complained to the Co-Op about the presence of this non-local product on the shelf of our local food co-op, and how the very idea of a substance as basic as water being shipped halfway around the world is in violation of the concepts upon which the co-op is built. I received a reply on the topic in October from Mark D. Perry, the Co-Op’s merchandising manager:
I just got back from lunch at the Three Rivers Arts Festival and much of it is the same as it always is: vendors similar to what I’ve seen in the past several years are selling art that’s similar to what I’ve seen in previous years, flanked by food booths similar to what I’ve seen in previous years. The big change at the Arts Festival this year is how they are handling the waste generated through the sale of food. In past years, recycling has been either nonexistent or spottily enforced, resulting in comingled waste streams: it didn’t matter what the bins were labeled, they likely contained preety much the same cross-mix of food, paper, cans, and bottles.
This year, there are three separate waste container areas: composting, recycling, and trash; trash by far represents the smallest percentage. In order to ensure that the waste streams are being treated properly, begloved volunteers monitor festival-goers as they dispose of their waste and rifle through the bags to police their contents. In other words, they’re making certain that the recycling bags are recyclable and the compost bags are compostable.
The breadth of what is being composted is quite impressive: all food waste, both from inside and outside the festival; paper products, including waxed; the corn-based plastic flatware being distributed at festival food booths; corn-based plastic cups (recycling number 7). Doesn’t leave much in the category of ‘trash’; those bags were practically empty even as the other categories filled.
The composting stream is being handled by Indianola-based Agrecycle, Inc. (no website available). They have picked up one load of compost from the Arts Festival and are processing it today: grinding it to reduce the particle size and putting it into one of the composting windrows at their Washington County composting site.
It’s thrilling to see that the Arts Festival is doing so well with making certain that the waste inevitably generated by feeding so many people in an open air market is being handled in as sustainable a manner as possible: until everyone starts carrying their own napkins and cups, strictly enforced public composting and recycling is a beautiful sight, indeed.
When you see ‘raisins’ in a recipe, feel free to think beyond dried grapes. Look at that word as a placeholder for ‘dried fruit’ and think of all the variations that are possible.
Larger fruits, such as the apricots and plums, should be cut into smaller pieces for most purposes (who wants to get a cookie with a whole prune* in it?), but once chopped down to raisin-esque size may be substituted and/or combined without hassle. Apricots are known to match well with pistachios; prunes I tend to use in conjunction with other fruits in order to add a new layer of flavor. Tart cherries and cranberries have almost endless possibilities in my mind, and I’ve taken to including them in many of my salads.
Perhaps the classic manifestation of raisins where few people ever think to make substitutions is in the Oatmeal-Raisin Cookie, which most people make with just plain old raisins. Last night, I made a batch that included a mix of raisins, golden raisins, cranberries, and tart montmorency cherries. My recipe: the supposed Neiman Marcus $250 cookie recipe with dried fruit substituted for the chocolate chips
Pittsburghers have several options for where they can find good selections of dried fruits at bulk prices. My favorite three are (in alphabetical order): the East End Food Co-Op, Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, and Trader Joe’s. We tend to ‘cherry pick’ as it were, choosing which fruit to buy where based in large part by how well priced it is. For instance, raisins tend to be the best deal at the Co-Op; cherries at Trader Joe’s, and cranberries at Penn Mac.
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Footnotes:
*At this juncture, i think it prudent to put in a word in defense of dried plums. Admittedly, not every prune is good (Dole, for instance, packages a prune which I find to have a somewhat slimy texture)—but a good prune has very sweet flavor and a somewhat chewy texture. Fresh plums aren’t associated with grandparents and regularity–so why are the dried variety? I recommend the ones sold in the bulk section of Pennsylvania Macaroni Company to any Pittsburgher who enjoys this delicacy.
+ Should you decide to make this recipe as a chocolate chip cookie recipe, I strongly suggest that you either omit the Hershey bar or substitute a higher quality chocolate for it. Any recipe with the supposed price tag of twelve and a half scores of dollars ought not include such a low quality chocolate.
There was apparently minimal fanfare nor reaction to La Prima’s decision at some point in the last several months to eliminate Monsoon Malabar from its menu of coffees. During my last visit to their roastery, I ordered a couple of pounds to begin my order. The man at the counter looked briefly alarmed and grabbed for their printed list of coffees, “Don’t tell me that’s still on there!” It wasn’t. They had recently canceled it, he explained, in short, because it hadn’t sold well.
I was surprised. The first time I had tasted coffees, Monsoon Malabar was the sleeper hit: the bean I’d never heard of that captured my palate with its smooth balance and unique aroma. The one that proved all coffees aren’t created equal.
