Fondue?

[lsanderson]

A Little Nostalgia, a Long Fork and Lots of Cheese
By MELISSA CLARK

ONE chilly afternoon, my mother dropped by with a small shopping bag filled with fondue forks.

“I thought you might find a use for these,” she said before rushing out the door.

But wait, I called after her, what happened to the fondue pot?

“Oh, I used it to plant an amaryllis,” she said.

I think she meant for me to use the forks for tasks like removing the last olive from a tall, narrow jar, or spearing a stray cherry tomato that had rolled onto the oven floor.

But I had another idea. Why not make fondue? More

Recipe: Classic Fondue
Recipe: Sweet Gorgonzola Fondue
Recipe: Queso Fundido
Recipe: Italian Fonduta


On Martha’s Vineyard, Using Scallops as Currency
By JOAN NATHAN

Chilmark, Mass.

FOR year-round residents of this Martha’s Vineyard village, winter is time to relax. In summer, when the island’s population soars from 15,000 to 75,000, locals like Jan Buhrman have to make a year’s living in just a few short months. Ms. Buhrman, who is 50, caters weddings and dinner parties for the seasonal crowd. When winter comes, she tends a local school library, among other jobs, and she cooks.

Even in January, her hours in the kitchen have a purpose. Sitting in the bright oak post-and-beam room built by her husband, Richard Osnoss, a carpenter, Ms. Buhrman explained that she tries to eat only food raised on Martha’s Vineyard and to go down island to the grocery store in Vineyard Haven as little as possible.

Some of her groceries she grows herself. For much of the rest, she trades with her neighbors.

Following Ms. Buhrman for a day or two as she gathers ingredients is a lesson in how to eat locally, even in the coldest days of winter. Because she seems to know everybody on the island who raises, catches or forages for food, it is also a glimpse of an alternative economy of eating, one in which modern capitalism takes a back seat to a looser, island-grown style of bartering.

In summer, for instance, Ms. Buhrman hands out ice from her freezers to help the local fishermen keep their catch cold. In winter, they repay her with fish, oysters and bay scallops. More

Recipe: Beet Curry Soup
Recipe: Scallops With Preserved Lemons on the Half Shell
Recipe: Long Island Heirloom Squash

At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee
By OLIVER SCHWANER-ALBRIGHT

SAN FRANCISCO

WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company. More

One Pot
By ELAINE LOUIE

IRON pot chicken is a childhood favorite of Michael Huynh, the executive chef and a partner at Bun and Mai House. He learned to cook it by watching his mother in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam, as she sautéed chicken with caramelized sugar and fish sauce. The dish, which takes only 12 minutes, is a bright, palate-awakening blend of salty, sweet and spicy. Best of all, it all comes together in a single pot.

The world is full of such one-dish meals. They range from quick Asian stir-fries like iron pot chicken to complex Mediterranean stews and braises that spend the day on the stove. Making them is usually not complex, although the flavors are. Mr. Huynh’s mother’s recipe, for instance, has not been adapted for home cooking. It is home cooking.

Dishes like this are not only easy to cook, they are also communal by nature. If the pot is big enough, you can feed as many guests as you like.

Recipe: Iron Pot Chicken

Comments

[carbonel]

This time I used a good extra-sharp Cheddar cheese and stirred in a little Irish whiskey in place of the kirsch. We devoured it in minutes, and my friend didn’t even notice the absence of a Sterno can beneath the pot.

Hmm. I have two pounds of extra-sharp Cheddar and some Irish whiskey. I also have a fondue pot sitting on top of my refrigerator.

Wait!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Back away from that cheese... I'll be right over! ;-)

Re: Wait!

[carbonel]

Does this mean you wouldn't come over to eat cheese fondue?

(It's good, but not great sharp cheddar, from Costco.)

Re: Wait!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

No! No, it doesn't mean that.