Imagining a Sustainable World

By Andrew Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

Teaching children to think and live sustainably is an obligation we have to our children, ourselves and to our planet. Sustainability can be fun and it certainly should be delicious. Children are passionately curious. Digging hands into dirt, planting seeds and harvesting is an experiential way for them to learn about food from its source.

A recent day with Dan and Nanette Bercu at Sunset Ranch showed the fifth grade class from our boys’ school the cycle of life, from planting and harvesting to eating healthy and delicious food while it’s still warm from the sunshine. For city kids in Los Angeles, it’s not every day that they get to pick dry-farmed tomatoes, fetch warm eggs from a chicken coop, carve home-cured prosciutto, pluck squash blossoms, wild basil and pungent red onions, and eat the fruits of their labor on wood-fired pizza on a mountaintop farm in Malibu.

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Autumn Grilling, Cayman-style

By Andrew Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

Each January, Chef Eric Ripert and Food & Wine magazine host the Cayman Cookout at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman – a festival celebrating food, wine and the beauty of the Caribbean. The roster of chefs is impressive and features Anthony Bourdain and Jose Andres and, of course, Eric Ripert.

I was honored to be amongst this cadre of chefs from around the world. The first night’s dinner, called The Barefoot Barbecue, is on Seven-Mile Beach. As I manned the grill, sandwiched between Eric and Tony, I could hear the waves crashing, steel drums rumbling and wine glasses clinking. It’s an evening, a view and company I’ll never forget.

My contribution to this walk-around event was Grilled Niman Ranch lamb loin chops with a “Hong Kong-style Gremolata.” The boys have been asking me to make this dish at home on the Weber Kettle. It’s actually quick and easy, so give it a try.

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Autumn Apples

By Andrew Hunter

I remember the old days in Michigan going out to the country orchards to pick apples, drink hot cider and eat cinnamon fry cakes. Well, guess what? The same autumn excursion is available two hours east of Los Angeles.

Instead of woolen sweaters and mittens, the boys wore shorts and flip flops, and instead of diving into piles of golden leaves, they moved a pile of old black bark to discover two shy lizards that darted away as quickly as they appeared.

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Umami Crisps

By Andrew Hunter

All this week, Special Fork bloggers are revealing what’s in their pantry, with tips for using pantry staples. To celebrate Pantry Week, Special Fork has teamed up with Zojirushi, the Japanese maker of top-quality kitchen appliances, to offer a fabulous sweepstakes prize: the 5.5-cup capacity Zojirushi Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer ($192 MSRP), which not only cooks rice flawlessly, but also steams foods and bakes cakes. Menu settings include: white/sushi, mixed, porridge, sweet, brown, cake, steam and quick cooking. Enter to win!

The joke about a chef’s refrigerator is it’s filled with condiments, but nothing normal to eat like fruits, vegetables or meat. This is because condiments make everything taste better and because many of us shop for the immediate meal ahead instead of doing a weekly plan.

This week is “What’s in Your Pantry?” week at Special Fork. All week long, we’re blogging about our go-to pantry staples … the essential items we can’t live without.

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Crab Season’s Coming

By Andrew Hunter

If you ask someone from Baltimore what’s the best crab, they’d say blue crab, with a local’s pride. But if you ask folks up and down the Pacific Coast from San Luis to Juneau, they’d say Dungeness. Regional food pride is one of the things that makes our country’s cuisine great!

Personally, we like Dungeness because we can get it from local fishermen, and we associate it with the holidays because crab season starts in November and peaks in December. Yes, you can get it through June, but our opinion is it’s sweetest in December. So use any kind of crab you like in this recipe; just buy local when you can.

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