Fair Trade Dinner at Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro

Hi, have we met? If we had, you'd know I love my coffee. I blame my aunt for taking me on summer walks to get iced coffee when I was a kid and my father for brewing multiple pots every morning. My friend Melody calls me a "champion" coffee drinker because I can slug down a cup like it's going out of style. So when Green Mountain Coffee (which I just visited in Vermont) got in touch with me about a series of Fair Trade events in Boston, I just had to find out more.

October is Fair Trade Month, and Green Mountain is calling attention to it through a new website, Eat, Drink, and Be Fair, and by hosting events in Boston, which will be declared a Fair Trade city in 2010. They have challenged a few local chefs to a Top Chef Masters-type event to cook with Fair Trade ingredients, which I'll write about next week.

I got the chance to attend something of a test run for one of the competitors, Chef Richard Garcia of Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro in Foxboro. Chef Garcia uses local or Fair Trade ingredients as much as possible in the restaurant, so he seems like a perfect choice to create a Fair Trade dinner. In fact, he took the coffee theme all the way and included coffee in each of the courses, and not in typical ways like crusting a steak in coffee. The dishes were interesting and adventurous and absolutely delicious.

To be honest, when I sat down and saw our menu for the evening, I was not excited. There was nothing (not one thing) that I would ever order. But I figured I could at least enjoy the wine and coffee and then find something to eat when I got home. But then something miraculous happened - I loved almost every single thing presented to me. If the regular menu at Tastings is anything like this, I wouldn't hesitate to go back.

We started with a sea urchin cappuccino, served in the sea urchin shell. In reality, it was a creamy parsnip soup, blended with local sea urchin and coffee used instead of stock, and topped with a vanilla froth. The sea urchin lent a bit of umami to the puree, and the sweetness and creaminess of the parsnip combined with the coffee was definitely reminiscent of a cappuccino. I would have licked the bowl clean if it hadn't have been for the sharp spikes.

Next up was coffee cured Hamachi, topped with a grapefruit vanilla citrette, heirloom red peppers, Marcona almonds, and fennel fronds. The fish was sweet and tender, and the almonds on top served as a crunchy foil to the rest of the dish.

The main entree was duck two ways, highlighting a delicious heirloom breed of duck. Lola ducks are deep red in color and taste more like pork or beef (at least to me) than duck. Chef Garcia describes them here on his blog. The coffee-smoked duck breast was like a nice steak - juicy and meaty and satisfying. The real star of the dish, though, was the confit leg with French roast duck jus. It was so tender and perfectly salty - it reminded me a bit of corned beef or pot roast.

Dessert was the weakest part of the meal, but it still had its strong points. The highlight was coffee- and cardamom-infused dates. Cardamom is often added to coffee in the Middle East (in the Boston area, I know Karoun in Newton serves their coffee this way), and the dates were a great vehicle for these flavors. I could have eaten a whole plate of just the dates. They were served with a coffee gel which was perhaps a little too solid - I was hoping for something more like Durgin Park's coffee jello. But did I mention those dates?

During the meal, we were accompanied by Sandy Yusen, director of PR for Green Mountain Coffee. We spent the whole evening discussing fair trade and local foods (and, well, food in general). After dinner, Sandy walked us through a cupping, or tasting, of two different types of Green Mountain Fair Trade coffee. I enjoyed tasting the Kenyan and the Sumatran side-by-side because I got a much better sense of how they compared to each other. Sandy explained that coffee has about twice the flavor compounds of wine, so using wine tasting techniques can help with identifying flavors. The Kenyan was bright and acidic and earthy, and Sandy compared it to a sourdough bread, while the Sumatran was more full-bodied with a warm and round flavor, more like a Russian rye bread. I'm so used to doctoring up my coffee that actually tasting the profile of the coffee was a nice change - I might have to do cuppings more often!

I'll write more about Fair Trade next week after the Eat, Drink, and Be Fair event. To learn more about Fair Trade, visit the Eat, Drink, and Be Fair website and take the pledge.

Rainbow Colcannon

It's funny, but I feel like every Bostonian has a little bit o' Irish in them, regardless (or should I say irregardless?) of their actual heritage. Everyone celebrates St. Patrick's Day (to some degree), and Danny Boy seemed to make an appearance every year in my school choir's repertoire. And when I went to Ireland, I shouldn't have been so surprised to see badges from police and fire departments from almost every Massachusetts town hanging on the walls of the pubs I visited.

Which is why, every St. Patrick's Day, I find myself longing for a good ol' Irish meal. I've been craving corned beef for days, but I've had no time to cook it. I decided to go with the quick and easy dish of colcannon instead, just so St. Paddy's wouldn't go by without a heaping of root veggies.

Colcannon is basically mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale. My version is a little fancier, with parsnips and rainbow chard in the mix. For a more traditional version, trade out the parsnips for one more potato and the chard for kale or cabbage. It is also traditionally served on Halloween, with a coin or ring buried somewhere in the mix, but really, it's good at any time throughout the winter months, when you need a hearty side dish.

Rainbow Colcannon
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 3 or 4 large chunks
1 leek, finely chopped
1/2 pound rainbow chard, finely chopped
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk (whatever you have around is fine, I used skim)
salt and pepper

In a large pot with salted, boiling water, cook potatoes and parsnips for 10-15 minutes, or until tender. Strain with a slotted spoon and place in a large bowl; put pot back on the pot and bring back to a boil. Add leek and chard to the boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the chard stalks are cooked through. While greens are cooking, add butter and milk to potatoes, and mash until the potatoes are creamy. Drain greens and rinse with cold water; squeeze dry before adding to mashed potatoes. Stir to combine, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Addictive Roasted Parsnips

I fell in love with parsnips last fall and haven't been able to get enough of them since. A relative of the carrot, parsnips are sweet like their cousins but are not quite as enjoyable raw. They're perfect roasted or in soups and were probably introduced to many people (myself included) via Terra Chips.

So as much as I love chopping parsnips into cubes and roasting, I wanted something a little more crunchy this time. Something a little more sweet and starchy, like what you find in that Terra Chips bag, but - you know - a little less fried.

Due to crowding on my roasting pan, some slices ended up very crispy while others were cooked through but not crunchy at all. I actually ended up liking this better than if they had been uniformly crispy. This would serve better as a side dish than a snack, especially alongside the turkey this Thursday.


Addictive Roasted Parsnips
1 pound parsnips (the fatter the better)
3 Tbsp butter, melted
1 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
1/2 Tbsp Penzey's Tsardust Memories (or a blend of salt, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, and marjoram)

Preheat oven to 400°.

Using a carrot peeler, peel off skin of parsnips and discard. Peel the rest of the parsnips into strips using the peeler (you will be left with a small stub that is too hard to peel). In a large bowl, toss parsnip strips with the rest of the ingredients until coated. Arrange strips on a foil-lined baking sheet in a thin and even layer. Roast for about 30 minutes, tossing the parsnips occasionally to ensure uniform browning. Remove from oven when most of the strips are at least golden on the edges and they are all cooked all the way through.

Carrot Parsnip Ginger Soup

Mmm, root veggies. One thing I love about fall is the abundance of sweet, earthy vegetables that are awesome just about any way you prepare them. I don't really have a story about this soup - it's just quick and easy, hearty and delicious. If you're not a huge fan of ginger, you might want to bring it down to a 1-inch piece instead of 2-inch.

Carrot Parsnip Ginger Soup
4 cups chicken stock
1 pound carrots, peeled and chopped
1 pound parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 inches of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced finely across the grain
1 1/2 cups skim milk
1 tsp sugar
salt
white pepper

Bring the chicken stock to a boil over medium high heat. Add carrots, parsnips and ginger and reduce heat to medium low. Cover and simmer until the veggies are tender (about half an hour - the carrots are the hardest, so check them for doneness). Remove from heat and blend with an immersion blender (you can also blend in small batches in the blender). Blend in milk, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Yep, that's it.