Jacqueline Church's Blog

Posted by Jacqueline Church

After researching some of Boston's newest afternoon teas for another project, I had to revisit my earlier article, Welcome to the World of High Tea. "Had to" is not exactly correct, "got to" might be a better way to put it.

What a wonderful discovery - Boston's afternoon tea offerings have blossomed like a jasmine pearl in the bottom of your teacup!

Did you know?

1. Boston has nearly a dozen afternoon tea offerings
2. Many include tea service for guests under 12 with things like PBJ sandwiches
3. Several offer substantial cocktail teas as well as traditional sherries and champagnes
4. Boston has one of the first "tea sommeliers" in the world. Cynthia Gold at the venerable Park Plaza Hotel.
5. The new Mandarin Oriental luxury hotel includes local foods like cod or lobster
6. The new L'Espalier offers caviar and cheese courses

It just goes on and on. See The Lowdown on High Tea for more info.

Another Cuppa

Coffee's all grown up now too. Never mind Dunkin' Donuts' coffee which still is heaven in a cup to masses of Bostonians. The coffees I'm talking about are single estates, micro-roasted, fair traded and shade-grown. In Coffee with a Conscience I cover the latest ground (ahem, get it?)

There's even someone making biofuel out of coffee grounds. Talk about something to get you going!

Posted by Jacqueline Church

Culinary travel continues to top lists of Travel trends. See this article in Travel Biz Monitor.

Don't forget some of these culinary travel trends we visited before:

Cooking with Cesarine - the quintessential home cooking tour, Italian women keeping the traditions alive by entertaining culinary travelers in their own homes.

Cooking schools - like NECI in Vermont and Ballymaloe in Ireland, cooking schools offer a more hands-on experience for those home cooks looking to expand or deepen their own culinary skills and repertoire. Often you can find programs that focus on a particular genre such as pastry or pasta or as in the case of Ballymaloe, it's all about farm to table with their own organic garden right on premises.

Check this category, Global Gourmet Passport , of articles if you're thinking about trips in the new year.

Posted by Jacqueline Church

My old roommate used to call it motivation in a cup. Coffee is our morning wakie-wakie, or our afternoon pick-me-up. Biofuel we now know can have many ramifcations on the environment when corn is produced to feed engines rather than feeding people, it gets messy fast.

The American Chemical Society's (ACS) Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication recently announced that scientists collected spent coffee grounds from a multinational coffeehouse chain and separated the oil. They then used an inexpensive process to convert 100 percent of the oil into biodiesel.

The resulting biodiesel not only smelled like java - an added benefit if you ask me - but it also ran clean. The java based bio fuel ran more stable than traditional biodiesel due to coffee's high antioxidant content, the researchers say. Solids left over from the conversion can be converted to ethanol or used as compost, the report notes.

With a growing market for sustainable biofuel this could be a great business. Any investors out there?

And I came to this researching shade-grown coffee for my Coffee with a Conscience article. It's an idea whose time has come. We cannot ignore the loss of natural habitat from our agricultural practices. Some of the worst ones we export to fuel our coffee jones. It's ironic that the number one import to the US is petroleum and the #2 is coffee, which may someday replace at least some of the petroleum dependency.

This makes crazy good sense to me or maybe I just need a cup of Joe....

Posted by Jacqueline Church

Looking back at 2008, it was a disastrous year in food safety. Tainted and poisoned food, e. coli contaminated produce, melamine and other toxins pouring into our grocery stores thanks to our lax governmental inspection policies; doesn’t it seem even more important to have a better pick for Ag Secretary than the guy who’s in Monsanto’s hip pocket, the champion of big beef cloning companies and pharmaceutical companies?

Someone needs to talk some sense into the President-elect - enough with this reaching across the aisle business. That Vilsack-line is not one we want you to cross. He’s no advocate of the policies your supporters care about.

• The top 10 trends: locally grown produce, bite-size desserts, organics, healthy kids' meals, new/fabricated meat cuts, kids' vegetable/fruit side dishes, superfruits (including acai and mangosteen), small plates/tapas/mezze/dim sum, artisanal liquor, sustainable seafood.

Local, organic, sustainable seafood - with all the food safety issues this year, the poisonings, deaths and recalls of unsafe foods sitting on our grocers’ shelves is it any wonder that people are going to prefer local, organic and sustainably grown food? I always say “if your farmer doesn’t have a face, be afraid.” In other words, know your producers. Build those local relationships. If his kids are drinking the same groundwater he’s going to less likely to poison it, we can assume.

Even though Epicurious bloggers declared sustainable over, pitting it in a false dichotomy against value (!) we know that not only do you get better value (nutrition) from local, organic, sustainably grown food, we reap less public health costs and personal health crises when we are not polluting the land and our bodies with chemicals to make bionic food (bigger, faster, more productive).

Organic wines and micro-distilled liquors, culinary cocktails, organic coffees...I see these as connected to the same issues. Food integrity as well as food safety. Direct or Fair Trade is another issue that comes up, especially with things like coffee which is a huge import for the US.

• The top alcohol trends: micro-distilled liquor, culinary cocktails and organic wine. Top non-alcoholic beverage trends: specialty iced tea, organic coffee and flavored/enhanced water.

So read about the 2008 Best Food Finds here and see what else I predict will be hot for 2009.

Posted by Jacqueline Church

I have decided this year - more than ever - it's not about stuff. Never should be the purpose of holidays, but let's really take this to heart today.

Here are some ideas for how:

1. Focus on what's important

2. Make any gifts useful, practical gifts

3. Consumables are always appreciated

4. Books for cooks - you can't go wrong...

Now, to get you started:

Here's a whole shelf full of books I've reviewed here, books I've reviewed elsewhere, books I've been given, lent or picked up along the way...at least the ones that I recommend, among them:

• Fish Without a Doubt - Chef Rick Moonen's fantastic fish bible. Gourmet Magazine's #1 pick.
• 660 Curries - like a gateway to India, or maybe a gateway drug! I've gotten hooked. Even toasting and grinding my own garam masala now!
• Gumbo Tales - Sara Roahen's moving tale of a city that charmed her, and me.

In honor of the repeal of Prohibition, I'd say it's high time for a cocktail. C'mon it's 5 o'clock somewhere...

Why not make a Sazerac? Sit down with my tips and make youreself a nice old list for Santa.

Meanwhile, I'm hard at work on more practical and fun gift ideas...

Spice it up with a little "porn for women" perhaps? Must see it to believe it....relax, it's not X rated, I promise...actually could be a fun gift...more on the way!