The Alewife

Pallette Palipatations by Julie Burba

Let's get through Thanksgiving

[Julie Burba, a certified culinary professional, taught at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts at 2020 Mass. Ave., before becoming its communications director.]

Greetings Holiday shoppers! As I write this there are 55 days until Christmas. Christmas you say? Let’s just try to get through Thanksgiving first, shall we?

Upon moving to Massachusetts a dozen years ago, Thanksgiving and its family traditions began to fade into memory. That crazy Nixon-hating spinster aunt, drunk Uncle Charlie, creepy cousin Patty, and other miscellaneous relatives asking all-to-personal questions about my life are out of state—for this holiday at least.

Now my Thanksgivings are spent with boyfriends and their own dysfunctional families or with my friends, transients who have families who live elsewhere. When my friend Mike was single, he had a Thanksgiving mantra he said year after year, “This is why I’m thankful on Thanksgiving: My family is in Chicago and my girlfriend isn’t pregnant! Let’s do beer bongs!” Woo Hoo.

Julie Burba

Celebrating with friends, single and coupled, adds a new dimension to the idea of Thanksgiving tradition.

No one brings green beans baked in a can of cream of mushroom soup.
We all agree that deep-fried turkey drumsticks constitute gourmet cooking. We don’t care if one of us gets drunk. We all still relate to getting home at 3 a.m. instead of getting up at 3 a.m. to cook, and no one feels slighted if someone opts out early to go on a date.
We do, however, want full details later.So I got to thinking about Thanksgiving food and what to serve this year for my band of vagabond friends and what the day really meant: a giving of thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest and for still being alive.

After doing a little wine-fueled research for some T-day history, I decided to put a little quiz together about Thanksgiving and giving thanks to God (and Al Gore) for the Internet all the while.

1) The first ever ‘Thanksgiving’ meal was held for what purpose?
a. To eat all of the food harvested from the fall crops before those pesky Indians did
b. Summer was over and it was time to fatten up for the winter; besides, it was no longer fashionable to be bone-rail thin; meat on the bones was in vogue in all the English fashion magazines
c. Governor William Bradford had the munchies
d. It was the first-ever elimination challenge: the person who cooked the worst dish using corn, dried fruit, and fish had to pack up their knives and go

2) What foods probably did not show up at the first Thanksgiving meal?
a. green bean and mushroom soup casserole
b. green bean and mushroom soup casserole
c. green bean and mushroom soup casserole
d. green bean and mushroom soup casserole

3) Why didn’t anyone cook a turkey for the first Thanksgiving meal?
a. Real men didn’t eat turkey
b. Governor William Bradford gave the turkey a presidential pardon
c. The Separatists were afraid of being reincarnated as the ugly fowl
d. Martha Stewart wasn’t around to teach the Pilgrims how to cook one

4) What did the people at the first Thanksgiving meal do for fun and entertainment?
a) They drew up blueprints for the first Indian casino
b) Played pin the tail on King James I
c) Invented “Pilgrims and Indians”: Indians 0, Pilgrims 300 million
d) Watched Thomas Tinker carve the first birdhouse out of a gourd

I hope you all have a belly full of good food, have the sense to laugh at your dysfunctional families and enjoy them while they are around, and let that weird cousin have the turkey leg because karma can and will be a bitch.
Happy Thanksgiving! Beer Bong anyone?

Palette Palipatations

I dare you to eat this!

To this day I remember one of my culinary school instructors describing haggis. The very description made my stomach give a little heave ho.

Maybe it was the thought of eating stomach my stomach didn’t like. But really, what sort of sane peoples eat this stuff?: sheep’s liver, lungs, and heart chopped up with onions, oatmeal, fat, and spices and then stuffed inside a sheep’s stomach and boiled. Try making your kid eat that.

It sounded like the most repulsive food concoction on the planet, next to eating bugs and worms and such one sees on Survivor; at least I know that is for the sake of ‘good TV.’ Yet there it was: haggis was featured on nearly every menu at the 32nd Highland Games.

There, in all its repulsive glory, for real people to eat, not TV actors.
Haggis, claimed by the Scotts as one of their traditional dishes, is a dish that utilizes all of the ‘leftover’ parts of the sheep, which tend to spoil quickly.

So cooking these parts by stuffing the chopped organs into the stomach and boiling it (think sausage or hot dogs) kept the meat edible longer, good for long distance travels through the highlands down to the urban areas.

What’s wrong with jerky? Or those hard tack biscuits and salt cod the Pilgrims ate on the Mayflower?

Is it any wonder that Scotch whisky was invented? Get blitzed on the whisky to kill the taste of the chopped lung stuffed stomach. Which is exactly what I did at the Highland Games.

I needed a bit of that liquid courage, a dulling of the tastebuds, before I could muster up to the idea of eating the haggis and the lesser of the evils: Scotch eggs, bridies, and rumbledethumps.

Palette Palipatations by Julie Burba

The taste of Cambridge 2007

Near 100 degree temperatures did not seem to deter the masses last month as restaurants gathered at MIT Tech Park for the 5th Annual Taste of Cambridge.I was surprised that some of my favorite eateries were not there, like Oleana, Rendezvous, and Salts. However, I did manage to taste some amazing offerings.

Always delicious, Craigie St. Bistrot served a silky pork rillette on toasted baguettes.
This pork rillette is to die for. I could eat it by the spoonfuls. It’s a shame that Tony Maws, the award-winning chef at Craigie St., doesn’t sell to-go containers of the stuff. “I’ll have the squab and a gallon of rillette to go,
thanks.”

Julie Burba

In addition to the rillette and all of the other food I managed to shove into my gluttonous mouth, my favorites were shrimp ceviche on a corn chip from the Blue Room; muffaletta and an oreo from All-Star Sandwich Bar; grilled lamb on focaccia from Rialto; the chocolate pots de crème from Finale; the pork rillette; Ratatouille a la Remy from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts; and the fromage fort and a Ballantine XXX from Formaggio Kitchen.

If the event were a quick fire challenge on either Bravo’s Top Chef or Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen, the hands down winner of the event would have been the Redline’s tender, juicy, tastes-like-chicken chicken drumstick.
It was the last dish I ate at the event; already stuffed, I asked my friend Denise who was taking a last “should-I or shouldn’t-I” bite if it was worth it.

Boy was it.

The Redline could teach the Colonel a few things about chicken.

I could just hear Colicchio saying, “Chicken drumstick isn’t very imaginative and not a true demonstration of culinary skill, but it is spot on.”

“Yes, spot on,” parrots Padma.

“Bleeping delicious. Cooked bleeping bleeping right,” shouts Ramsay.

I say, “I’ll take three more, for my, umm, friends.”

Despite the heat and the fact that the event was moved from its original date to the raindate, the Taste of Cambridge offered abundant food and drink, live music by Jazz in the Air, an enthusiastic crowd, and an entertaining pre-event bocci ball game.

Let’s hope it helps get at least one drunken partier a safe ride home, counseling for at risk youth and college students, and training for Cambridge’s beverage servers and sellers because I’m sure we’ve all been overserved at some place at some time.

Organized by a subcommittee of the Cambridge Licensee Advisory Board (CLAB), the event evolved out of the original Taste of Central Square. Over the years the event has grown into an annual summer event raising more than $40,000 for local charities.

The keyword here is local.

Like many food-centric fundraising events in the city, committee members don’t send funds off to headquarters in Washington.

Because of this event, small organizations devoted to Cambridge and Somerville community health and wellness programs continue to provide safe rides, counsel against relapse, and promote mental health and addiction treatment services.

Not that the event was intended to lecture about the evils of alcohol, I couldn’t help but notice a few things.
How many business provided beer and wine to the Taste of Cambridge? Ten.

How many chefs and servers were seen openly drinking at the event? At least a dozen. How many buzzed attendees? None; it was too friggin’ hot. Without being preachy, the TOC committee chooses to donate the proceeds to Cambridge/Somerville non-profits.

This year’s recipients were the North Charles Relapse Prevention Program, the Cambridge Saferide Program, the Cambridge Prevention Coalition, and the Cambridge MIT/Harvard Collaborative.
Diverse as the hungry ticket holders, the food offerings represented a wide range of restaurants, from upscale to chain, from Korean, French, Mexican, to everything in between.

Palette Palpitations by Julie Burba

Tales, angst of the amazing spooging coffee lids

I’ve tortured my friends and colleagues for years now with rants about the Starbucks coffee cup lids so I’ve decided to extend my thoughts here, hoping others will jump on the bandwagon.

I’m curious how many of you, dear readers, have had a Starbucks coffee magically shoot like a fountain of liquid fire from the lid, ruining clothes, car upholstery, and carpet.

So far, I’ve submitted a total of $60 to the Starbucks Company for reimbursement for cleaning my car’s carpet from coffee spooges. These lids are possibly the worst coffee covers on the planet. I’ve had coffee squirt as if possessed sitting at traffic lights in a smooth stream all over the inside of my car.

I’ve startled my friends by screaming profanities at the lids as hot coffee levitates from the lid all over my arm.

Imagine holding your coffee cup in one hand, purse dangling from an elbow, juggling with car keys and with the slightest grip on the cup, just as you are sliding into the car, half the cup erupts to drench seat, door, and body. Now imagine a string of the most vulgar swears from a petite redhead. What is it with the design where steam collects under the lid and defies all scientific law by reaching Kelvin temperatures the longer it sits?

One would think with an enormous R&D department, the company would have the Lamborghini of coffee lids rather than the Geo. Hell, even Cumberland Farms has a better coffee cup lid than Starbucks.
At least my pals at the Somerville Ave. Starbucks empathize with me and automatically put a flat lid on my medium drip.

Speaking of the Starbucks R&D department, why on earth are the baked goods so truly generic?
I’ve asked the staff at no less than two dozen Starbucks who supplies the baked goods. Each response is the same, “A local bakery supplies all of the baked goods.”

Palette Palipatations by Julie Burba

Mmmnn, that smell!

Driving down Huron avenue one Saturday, I got a big whiff of smoky goodness. The folks at Formaggio Kitchen had stoked the grill and opened their Saturday barbeques.

Nothing like the smell of meats cooking on an open flame to make one’s stomach growl.

Not exactly the roadside open pit bbq one finds on country roads in Texas and Tennessee; however, this European-style food shop does it right for the bbq starved New England set.

A barrel-sized Weber burns hardwood briquettes as the grillmaster bastes half chickens and racks of ribs. Zesty pots of pulled pork, chicken, and lamb simmer on the sidelines.

Crunchy and cool cole slaw and Boston baked beans serve as traditional sides. The mouth-watering “piece de la resistance”, however, are the hot dogs. Fat, juicy, beefy hot dogs—the kind of dogs that put the greasy ballpark franks to shame. I’m obsessed with these quarter pound all-natural Fearless Franks from Niman Ranch.

I actually crave these dogs in the dead of winter when I’m fantasizing about living somewhere warm. Thankfully, places like Formaggio, Russos, and Whole Foods sell 4-packs in the freezer section all year long.

Kurt and Jason, the comedic duo who expertly work the heat at Formaggio and entertain the block-long lines of patrons, keep everyone happy as they wait in anticipation for their smoky goodness.

Pallette Palipatations by Julie Burba

How do you say culinary?

I attended the Women, Men, and Food seminar last month at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.

The conference convened scholars, authors, pop culture icons, and foodies to discuss the relationship between food and gender.

Luminaries such as Ruth Reichl, Laura Shapiro, John Willoughby, Sidney Mintz, and professors of all things history, geography, English, French, psychology, and economics presented topics on how men and women throughout history have shaped food and how food ways have shaped male and female roles.

Not your usual Food Network banter.

Thankfully, nothing about celebrity chefs and the cuisine de jour. Although I did notice a common theme throughout the presentation, or not so common, depending on how you look at it.

The word culinary was pronounced three different ways. Oh the horror! For whatever reason, I found the various pronunciations to be distracting and curious.

Fixated on each speakerís elocution, I tried to determine if the correlation was to one's level of education, culture, or level of coolness. The soonto-be Harvard University President Drew Faust, an eloquent and lyrical speaker, oh, and the first female to lead the prestigious institution since 1636, began the pronunciation duel with the haughty sounding "kyoo·luh·ner·ee".

Not to be outdone, a scholar from ndia offered "kool·uh·ner·ee." Whereas, one of the journalists, no doubt trained in the flat Midwestern style of elocution, projected the more common "kuhl·uh·ner·ee." So, which is right?

Palette Palipatations by Julie Burba

I may be a bit behind in my Rachael Ray news but I nearly had a stroke when I saw that The Oxford American College Dictionary gave Ray a certificate for “coining” the term EVOO on her show.

The dictionary people announced that the next addition will include “the term EVOO and it will become an official part of our language.”

Huh? Are these people on crack?

FYI people, the term EVOO has been around since before those guys from the University of Illinois developed Mosaic, it’s pre-Internet and it’s pre-Food TV and I’m fairly certain the term has been around long before Rachael Ray began torturing the general population with her cutesy catchphrases.

Julie Burba

Blogger Annie Barrett snarks that the term EVOO has been around for so long that “If you play ‘Strawberry Fields’ backwards, John Lennon even says it.”

On Ray’s Web site, she says “I first coined ‘EVOO’ on my cooking show because saying ‘extra virgin olive oil’ over and over was wordy, and I’m an impatient girl—that’s why I make 30-minute meals.”

Yet, each time she says EVOO, she feels the need to define it, “E.V.O.O., you know, extra virgin olive oil.”

Yeah we know and yeah, defining it over and over doesn’t save time. Impatient? No, crazy.

She said in an interview with the Washington Post via e-mail that receiving the certificate was “cool” (Ray’s picture soon to be added next to Oxford’s ‘cool’ entry).
She also said with the dictionary now recognizing EVOO that it is isn’t “a made up word anymore.” Made up word? It’s an acronym you moron.

Why hasn’t anyone stopped this woman?

Here’s a tip for my dear readers who watch Ray and actually cook with EVOO. Don’t do it!

At least not with your expensive bottles.

Use an affordable brand, like Colavita or 365, for cooking or a combination of olive oil and EVOO.

Save those delicious expensive extra virgins for drizzling on the finished dish, bread, salads, vegetables, anything already cooked. Cooking destroys the chemical composition, which causes the flavor to change.

Reading the blogs about Ray is laugh-out-loud entertaining.

Called Satan, ditsy, trailer trash, among other things, her cult following is endless.
One blogger proclaimed the nod from Oxford as “the beginning of the apocalypse.”

Take comfort in the fact that Ray is laughing all the way to the bank.

Her famous quote sums it up “I’m underqualified for every job I’ve ever had.”
My good gravy!

Palette Palipatations by Julie Burba

Get Your Pint On

[Julie Burba, CCP, is the director of communications at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, 2020 Massachusetts Ave., (617) 354-2020, ext. 121]

An old Irish friend once said that the first business to open on the moon would be an Irish pub. I’d forgotten about his statement until I was in Rome this past November and the most popular spot off of the Piazza Novena was indeed an Irish pub.

Julie Burba

Since I’ve lived in Boston I’ve noticed an infatuation, a love affair of sorts with all things Irish by those unlucky enough to be born non-Irish, especially Irish pubs. Nothing beats the cozy atmosphere of a pub on a cold winter’s day.

To warm our souls, one of my drinking accomplices and I decided to hit Somerville’s most popular Irish pubs on one cold, gray, icy Sunday winter afternoon.

We chose the usual suspects in our mini-pub crawl: the Thirsty Scholar, Tir na nÓg, the Independent, Sligo Pub, and the Burren. No rhyme or reason to our choices, other than these were the most convenient locations and accessible to public transportation, since we don’t advocate slamming a gazillion pints and navigating electric cars.

During our adventure we learned the proper head height for a pint of Guinness, the history of the Black and Tan, why men fake Irish accents to meet women, why fifth generation Americans claim that they are Irish, that the Sligo is still the hangout for Irish locals, that the Independent has pretty darn good macaroni and cheese, and that a pint means Guinness, period.

We started at the Thirsty Scholar and became rather enamored of the bartender, who claimed to be suffering the curse of too many pints from the night before.

Palette Palpitations

Washing my greens

by Julie Burba

Despite the huge turnout at the recent Global Warming conference at MIT, the weather has turned cold and the sky has grayed up. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Winter approaches.  The full holiday scrum will soon be upon us. Malls throughout the land prepare with white lights and plastic trees.

Just before Thanksgiving, I was called up for jury duty.

As I sat in a courtroom in the Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse in East Cambridge waiting to find out my fate, my mind kept wandering along two divergent strains of thought:

1. Of a more legal nature, and on a slightly elevated plane, I mused: Ours is a profound system that vests a 12-member jury of everyday ordinary citizens with the ultimate responsibility in determining the guilt or innocence of an accused.

There is no special qualification or training for “jury member”, just a willingness to sail as close to the wind of impartiality as possible.

The simple truth of the jury system makes it all the more moving: the full pressure and prestige of the government can be offset -- no, trumped -- by 12 ordinary citizens ... amazing and humbling.

2. Of a more parochial nature, I could not help but wonder: how is the new Middlesex County Clerk of Courts, Michael Sullivan, going to like his new job? He’ll be taking over from his uncle Edward. EdwarAd J. Sullivan has served as clerk for 48 years.

In a system that handles 80,000 cases a year, can Michael be effective in both his elected roles -- as a Cambridge City Councillor and as the Clerk of Courts? It’s a lot to ask, even for a man who answers all his emails on the same day.

I ran into Michael at the opening ceremony for the recent Trolley Square development, the newest addition to affordable housing in North Cambridge.

The project, designed by the architectural firm Mostue Associates and developed by Homeowner’s Rehab, is an improvement on upper Massachusetts Avenue.

At the event Cambridge City Manager Bob Healy waxed nostalgic.

Cuisine Klatch by Julie Burba

The drive for oysters

Fall knocked on New England’s door last month, ending our summer before it got started.

The autumn in New England is legendary for foliage, apples, cranberries, and the sweet, briny gems of the sea—oysters. All of which are the subject of some sort of October festival throughout New England—my last opportunity to hustle to small town celebrations for the last bit of fresh, seasonal goodness before the winter sets in. My destination on the weekend of Oct. 14 was the Wellfleet Oyster Festival.

I set off early that Saturday morning for the two-and-a-half hour drive to Wellfleet from Watertown on possibly the most gorgeous day of the fall.

Julie Burba

The drive on Route 3 south was simply beautiful: the trees were a-blaze with golden yellow, fiery reds, and bright orange leaves and the sky was of the bluest blue.

My roommate thought I was crazy driving that far simply for oysters, little does she know my passion. Plus, the thought of the plump delights harvested that day for the festival made my stomach earn for the sea-salty goodness.

I met up with two friends in Brewster and we jacked ourselves up on coffee and hit the road. The small Wellfleet town center was teeming with hundreds of people.

Most of the oyster action was in the activity tent, with a half dozen or so oyster farms plus a few restaurants shucking to the beat of the live music on the center stage and Buzzards Bay and Westport Rivers Winery pouring their respective libations. There were, however, a few food vendors peppered here and there among the arts and craft tables. The most popular being the Sausage King.

The Sausage King made a live appearance in full regal attire, scaring all of the kids, while their parents stood in line for that late-night culinary delight that reminds most of being drunk on Lansdowne Street or Faneuil Hall—sausage and peppers.

The melee in front of the Sausage King cart by the 40-somethings was a sight to behold. Did my heart good seeing that.After a quick tour of the goods for sale, we headed to the action. We didn’t attend the oyster shucking contest or many of the scheduled events. By 3:30 many of the oyster farms were low on product.

I didn’t let this deter my mission of tasting a few oysters from every vendor.

Each oyster farm offered the succulent mollusks on the half shell, shucked to order, with all the fixin’s. My friends stuck to the crustacean offerings: shrimp cocktail, lobster bisque and lobster rolls.

Palette Palpitations by Julie Burba

30-minute meals & me

I’d been waiting for about a week when my latest must-have kitchen accessory finally landed on my doorstep: a navy blue body suit. I quickly changed out of my chef’s whites and into the body suit and the tightest pair of jeans I own. Off to the kitchen I went, a la Rachael Ray.

Julie Burba

My mission, to cook a number of recipes from Ray’s infamous 30 minute meals to see if I, a trained cook, could indeed make one of her recipes in 30 minutes.

Okay, I admit I’m mildly fascinated with Ray. I’m not a fan and I don’t necessarily dislike her. I think I’m more fascinated by how many people think she’s the culinary antichrist.

It seems self-proclaimed foodies, gourmands, and chef-razzi take issue with the notion that Ray isn’t a real chef and that she’s cute and perky. Since when did perkiness become the blight of our society?

So what if her perkiness has a trailer park edge to it? People relate to her.

Burba joins The Alewife

Read the first column by Julie Burba, from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, on food and dining in the September edition of The Alewife.