dining in and around Easton, Pennsylvania
Got a copy of the cookbook last week and i think it turned out great! Here’s a shot of the final cover (which you won’t see on Amazon), a chapter opener and a recipe. The recipes are broken down into four seasonal chapters that correspond with the grape growing seasons and the fresh ingredients available in California wine country. It’ll make a great xmas gift – i know i’ll be giving them to any cooking-inclined family and friends.
Just got word that the cookbook I designed has finally been printed. I was nearly finished when i first mentioned it way back in March, but a last minute reordering of the recipes required that I turn the design over to Chronicle’s in-house team for finalization. We also had some difficulties getting an approval on the cover design. The cover on Amazon is one of the twenty-or-so i created, but I know it was further revised by Chronicle after i turned over the files. Regardless, it was a nice change of pace from packaging design, and i can’t wait to get my hands on a copy this week!
From the Amazon description:
Seasons in the Wine Country brings the flavors of the Napa Valley and the expertise of instructors at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone into your home with over 100 seasonal recipes. Beat the winter blues with a hearty helping of Cabernet-Braised Short Ribs with Swiss Chard and Orecchiette and distill the fresh flavors of spring with Lemon-Glazed Pound Cake with Rosewater and Strawberries. With simple step-by-step instructions from the world’s foremost culinary authorities including suggestions for wine pairings as well as primers on culinary techniques and equipment Seasons in the Wine Country is the ultimate resource for those who desire to live the good life and cook like master chefs!
A friend just sent me the news that Emeril Lagasse and Sandy Levine, owner of NYC’s famous Carnegie Deli, are teaming up to bring 2 more restaurants to the Sands Casino in Bethlehem – a gourmet burger joint and another Carnegie Deli.
I’m always down for a good burger, but I have a bad impression of the Deli. When my wife and I were interning in NYC back in 2000, we would spend most weekends hitting all the landmarks. We checked out the Deli one day and i ordered a ginormous turkey sandwich to share – which seemed like a great deal since we didn’t have much $$ to throw around and the sandwiches are monstrous enough to satisfy a family of four. But here’s the rub: They insist on charging you an additional maybe 3 or 4 bucks if you want to share!
They charge you more if you want less food!
They charge you more if you don’t want to waste food – which is what happens because no one wants to carry a pound of pastrami on a sightseeing jaunt through Manhattan in the middle of effin July.
They coerce each member of your party into buying a reedonculously wasteful sandwich since it’s completely against all logical thought to fork over more cash so that someone can help you finish a novelty-sized pile of bread and meat. (And when you’re a minimum wage intern, it’s hard to fathom spending an additional $3 on top of a $13 sandwich.)
The rationale has to be that they don’t want non-purchasers taking up valuable table-space in the tiny dining room. Space is always at a premium in New York, but that argument falls flat at the spacious Sands. And continuing a policy that wastes money and food isn’t exactly en vogue in the current climate.
Just got back from a brief trip to Chicago. A few reviews and a bunch of pics to share soon. No deep dish pizza or Polish sausages though.
Based on the recommendation of a visitor to the blog, we checked out The Blue Sky Café on 4th St. in Bethlehem last Sunday. I didn’t remember the street address so we crawled down 4th until I spotted the tiny sign and circled the block to find a parking space. I anticipated some difficulty due to the proximity of Lehigh U and the post-church crowd. I got us within a block. Our timing was decent – just a couple people ahead of us for a table.
It’s a lively spot with a busy open kitchen and contemporary style. The menu has all your standard options with a lot of custom creations and seasonal specials – the pumpkin pancakes with maple-walnut butter sounded great. I was tempted but I went with the Sweet Potato Quesadilla instead. Creamy mashed sweet potatoes inside the tortilla, topped with cheese, scrambled eggs, black bean salsa and sour cream. I highly recommend it if you have a big appetite.
My wife was verry happy with her Steel City omelet. Smoked bacon, shallots, wild mushrooms, tomatoes and smoked gouda. They gladly made it with egg whites only.
Definitely check out Blue Sky next time you’re in Bethlehem. We’re excited to try their lunch menu or stop in for a casual dinner.
We dropped by Ocean, one our Easton faves, on a recent Saturday evening sans reservation. It seems we’ve built up some cred with the manager as he overruled the hostess to give us a better table than the one she’d found for us. (I’m sure it was that he recognized us as semi-frequent patrons – not that he’s aware of the vast influence of The Fork City.) His gesture made me feel a little bad that we hadn’t visited since March, but we’d tried most of the menu by that point and wanted to branch out a bit for the blog.
We immediately noticed a bunch of new dishes (maybe 20% of the menu?) and were excited to check them out. They’ve also changed up the complimentary dish from hummus and crackers to a black bean dip and tricolor nacho chips – a bit less premium but tastier I thought.
For my appetizer, I had the phyllo-wrapped herbed goat cheese with honey and pine nuts and my wife had the stuffed scallop with braised cabbage and red beet cream. Both were great. I’ve been in love with the combination of honey and goat cheese ever since i encountered it maybe 5 years ago in Bermuda.
I combined two tapas dishes for my dinner. I sometimes attempt to combine complementary dishes but i failed this time. English pea soup with lobster and potato hash and Korean braised pork belly with house-made kimchee. The portions were more generous than i was ready for. And even though the flavors didn’t work very well together, the sweet soup help put out a bit of the fire from the kimchee.
My wife had the fish special on a bed of root vegetables and lobster. We can’t recall the kind of fish, but it was great as usual.
We barely had room for dessert but we had to try the new stuff. I had the mini carrot cake with cream cheese ice cream. My wife had the dessert special which she wanted mainly for the honey gelato (which in fact is the only part that i can recall – we think the garnish was a peanut brittle but the type of cake escapes us). The cakes were rather dry – almost like someone kept them in a warm oven too long to reheat them before serving.
We can’t wait to go back and try some of the other new dishes. I have my eye on the panko fried prosciutto wrapped mozzarella salad, the lemon risotto, and the shortbread & blueberry napoleon.
Since it always seems so difficult to pick out birthday presents, going out to a nice meal has become our default gift. My wife chose Emeril’s Chop House at the Sands casino in Bethlehem to celebrate her birthday last weekend. They’ve removed the phone number from the website – instead directing you to OpenTable.com to book your reservation. While it’s always reassuring to make a reservation with an actual person, web reservation sites let you see what times are available. I originally tried to book a table for Saturday but nothing was available between 5 and 10pm. Yikes. Friday’s options were 6:45 and 9:15. We went with the 6:45. That Emeril’s was so booked up was a fair indication that the food would to be good. We’d heard from a friend who attended the restaurant’s opening that the food was so-so. We optimistically assumed they just hadn’t worked out all of the kinks. Then my mom chimed in that the food was “too salty” at the Emeril’s in Las Vegas, though my dad said otherwise. We were undeterred!
We forgot the camera but snagged some inferior pics on my wife’s phone. I’ll post them if I can clean them up in Photoshop.
They started us with some toasts covered with a mouthwatering mushroom paté. I ordered a half-bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and my wife had their sangria – a delicious mix with a subtle taste of cloves. It took a while for the waiter to return to take our food order, but that was our only criticism of the night. We started with salads – the iceberg wedge slathered in Pennsylvania blue cheese for me and the grilled peach and chevre salad for my wife. Both were great – fresh and flavorful. And mine was so filling that I got a bit nervous knowing I had a 22oz ribeye on the way! My wife had the shrimp arrabbiata for her entrée.
Their steaks are accompanied by 3 sauces including bearnaise, Worcestershire, and horseradish. They were good but the steak was seasoned and cooked so well that I used the sauces only sparingly. Side dishes must be ordered separately, but I wanted to save room for dessert.
I was excited to see Penn State Creamery ice cream on the menu and was definitely going to get the Bittersweet Mint if it was one of the selections. It wasn’t (though they did have Peachy Paterno) so we shared the coconut cream pie. Yummm.
We had a great night and highly recommend it. The decor is great, the waitstaff was professional and the food was top notch. It was one of the pricier meals we’ve had in a while (though my steak and wine threw off the curve) but i can confidently say that we got our money’s worth.
Outside Easton, on Tatamy Road across from Palmer Nursery you’ll find a little strip mall with a The Breakfast Table at one end. We’d heard good things from friends and here so we gave it a try the other weekend. We were out that way to grab some raw milk at Klein Farms so I could try my hand at making some homemade mozzarella. (It was time consuming but the results were good in case you care.)
The staff was extremely friendly and the place was clean and neat. They had a number of quiches that all sounded great but i went with the Bananas Foster French Toast special. Really good – maybe a bit too much syrup. And real whipped cream would have held up better than the canned stuff that melted almost immediately in the warm syrup. I love whipped cream, so it sorta forced me to wolf it down before the cream totally vanished.
My wife continues her search for the perfect omelet. She hasn’t found any better than those that she’s had at Tracy’s Cafe on Cattell St on College Hill. (Tracy’s homefries are also the best.) This one was good but the mixing-the filling-with-the-eggs technique is a definite turnoff for us. I guess it makes the omelet easier to execute, but it seems to make the whole thing somewhat more dry.
I’d say each dish averaged a buck or two more than we usually pay for breakfast, but the portions were good and the menu had a number of contemporary options you won’t find at your average diner. We hope to try more of the menu though we’re not into driving for breakfast unless we’re multi-tasking like we were that day.
Far and away the best food value on Kaua’i was the stuff we got from roadside carts and stands. We had a couple nice dinners at higher end restaurants but they really weren’t that memorable. Really we had the most fun during the day, hitting beaches, sightseeing and building up our appetites. Our on-the-road meals simply became enmeshed with the rest of the amazing experiences we accumulated, and trying every roadside stand we came across became another “must do” before being exiled to the mainland.
In Hanalei Bay on the North Shore you’ll find Pat’s Taqueria. Their tacos and burritos are good enough to make the pages of Food & Wine and Time magazines.
Along the South Shore, we stumbled upon this tent on our last day. Burritos to the left and sausages to the right. I’d just eaten a big plate of tacos but i still grabbed a spinach and garlic dog with mango salsa.
The parking lot near Tunnels Beach gets a lot of traffic so it’s a good spot to set up a stand. Grabbed an organic banana bread with macadamia nuts from this friendly woman. The round gentleman behind us was selling coconuts (with straws inserted for drinking) out of the back of his pickup truck.
We didn’t get all of our food out of strangers’ cars though. Tropical Taco in Hanalei was a favorite (and we aways knew where it was parked). We hit it right after a 7-hour hike on the Na Pali coast. Glorious.
And one of the few bright spots on the South Shore were the shrimp tacos at the Shrimp Station. Seriously, the South Shore is a desert. Spicy shrimp weren’t exactly at the top of my wishlist in that climate, but they were damn tasty.
Just heard on the radio this morning that, in addition to the new restaurant planned for the old Lipkin’s building at 3rd and Ferry Streets, the Easton zoning board has granted permission to put a health food store in the Suzie’s Mixing Bowl location on N 2nd Street. My wife will be bummed that we procrastinated and never checked out what Suzie’s had to offer. We didn’t even notice they were out of business!
Both are slated to open in the beginning of 2010. We can’t wait for the restaurant (informally being referred to as “Third and Ferry”) since we heard it would be seafood-centric. We always wondered why Ocean, just a few doors down, doesn’t offer more seafood just based on their name? Every good restaurant in downtown Easton has a couple of seafood options, but sometimes you’re just in a seafood mood and it would be nice to have a full menu to choose from.
Go feed yourself