Chef Aaron McCargo Jr is a strong supporter and the official spokesperson for Share Our Strength.  His love for all things culinary began at age 4, when he learned to bake using his sister’s Easy Bake Oven. A graduate of the Atlantic Cape Community College’s Academy of Culinary Arts, Aaron worked for several east coast restaurants, and is currently star of the Food Network Show Big Daddy’s House. In addition to serving as chef spokesperson for Share our Strength, Aaron regularly speaks to youth at community schools and events to illustrate that they too can succeed.  In his honor, Camden NJ Mayor Gwendolyn Faison presented Aaron with  keys to the city in 2008 and designated September 25 as Aaron McCargo, Jr. Day.  In our featured chef recipe today, Aaron rewards Dineout supporters with a comforting Creamy Asparagus and Crab Soup.   Eat out this week, and make the soup next week!

Read on for the recipe

Cream of Asparagus and Crab Soup
Recipe courtesy Chef Aaron McCargo, Jr.

2 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup fine diced onions
1/2 cup fine diced celery
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 quarts chicken stock
3 pounds fresh asparagus (cut in bite-sized pieces reserving the tips and discarding 1-inch from the stem)
1 cup heavy cream
2 pounds jumbo lump crabmeat

In large stock pot over medium-high heat, add butter, onions, celery, Italian seasoning, and black pepper. Stir until translucent, then add flour and continue to stir creating a roux. Add chicken stock, and whisk until smooth. Add all but the tips of the asparagus pieces, and continue to stir. Reduce heat to medium-low and let mixture continue to cook until asparagus are tender. Once asparagus is tender and soup is smooth, turn off heat, add heavy cream, and stir. Fold in asparagus tips and crabmeat. Ladle into serving bowls and enjoy.

Serves 8
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

© www.fallflavours.ca

He’s a well known celebrity chef in Canada, but for those in the US and elsewhere who aren’t familiar, we’d like to introduce you to this James Beard award winning culinary gem.  Michael Smith attended the Culinary Institute of America in NYC, worked for several restaurants both abroad and in NY, and is currently stars in Food Network Canada’s tv shows “Chef at Home” and “Chef at Large”.  He also is a cookbook author, and you will see him soon in a future Iron Chef episode.

Chef Michael currently lives in Prince Edward Island, (P.E.I.), a beautiful Province and Island in northeast Canada, close to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. He was recently named the PEI’s ‘Food Ambassador’ and will be a star of the PEI’s Fall Flavours food festival from September 25 – October 4, 2009.  Fall Flavors features over 150 culinary events, including delicious tasting workshops, ale and wine tastings, and interactive education including how to catch lobsters or harvest oysters.   We will miss the event this year but are already RSVP’ing for 2010!

You will love this chef recipe video from our friends at Le Gourmet Tv:   Michael shares a wonderful (and quick)  Smoked Salmon Penne Pasta with a a lemon, dill, dijon and caper cream cheese sauce.   You may download the printable PDF from Le Gourmet Tv here.  Try your best to use fresh dill, but if it is not available, typically 1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed equals a four-inch sprig of dill.  That said, add as much as you wish according to taste.

Smoked Salmon Penne Pasta
Chef Michael Smith

Ingredients:
1 lb penne or your favourite shaped pasta like bowties, long pastas like spaghetti don’t work as well
1 cup room temperature cream cheese
1 bunch of fresh dill, chopped
4 green onions, sliced
1 lemon, juiced and zested
1 heaping spoonful of Dijon mustard
1/4 cup capers
8 ounces smoked salmon, or more
sprinkled sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method:
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Season it liberally with salt until tastes like a day at the beach on Prince Edward Island. As the pasta cooks it will absorb the salted water and become properly seasoned. Cook al dente, until the pasta is cooked through but still pleasantly chewy.

Scoop out some of the starchy cooking water. Drain the pasta but not quite all the way. Leave it a bit wet. Toss the pasta back into the pot along with a splash or two of the reserved water, perhaps a half-cup or so in total then immediately add the rest of the ingredients. While the pasta is still steaming hot it will easily melt the cream cheese and form a rich creamy sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve immediately.

For more delicious salmon chef recipes check out:

Salmon Carpaccio
Salmon Gravlax Pizza with Jacques Pépin
Apple Salmon
Wild Salmon with a Cranberry Compote
Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon

Not your average hostess, and no standard questions will be heard here!  Just hilarious foodie silliness as Betty brings out the lighter side of her favorite tasty chefs, check it out!

Hungry for more Ming? Our friend Jennifer from Daily Blender scored a great interview with him as well in Aspen, check it out here.

Owner and Executive Chef of Lola and Lolita in Cleveland and Roast in Detroit,  Michael held the title of a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 1998, and is recently was named as a James Beard Best Chef in America in the Great Lakes Region for 2009.  He has also been a winner on Iron Chef America, and a host on the Food Network show Melting Pot, as well as Dinner Impossible.  An wrestler in high school, Michael’s strong presence is softened by his frequent high pitched laugh, and even the most timid of foodies are sure to feel comfortable after a few minute of hearing him speak.   I attended his cooking demo entitled “In Praise of Pork” (who could miss that one?) with Chef John of Food Wishes to my left in our prime 2nd row seats.  Chef John caught an amusing moment on video of Michael Symon describing his conversation with Tom Colicchio on how to rename “Pork Belly” on his menu for greater customer appeal in the restaurant.  This truly is a must see,  check it out!

In the demo, Michael prepared a braised pork belly with pickled green tomatoes.  Mr “meatcentric” admitted to loving all portions of pork, such as pork tenderloin, but said that he is  partial to the fattier portions of the animal such as pork belly for having the best texture and flavor.  Here is the recipe for you to make at home, courtesy of Michael Symon, thank you!

Braised Pork Belly

Ingredients:
2 lbs of pork belly, skin removed
2 tbsp of kosher salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
Grated zest of 1 orange
1 red onion sliced
1 carrot sliced
1 bay leaf
1 cup of white wine
1 quart chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick

Mix together the salt, sugar, coriander seeds, crushed red pepper, ground cinnamon and orange zest. Rinse the pork belly and pat dry. Coat the pork belly with the seasoned salt and place in a sturdy resealable plastic bag, and refridgerate overnight or for 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 275F. Rinse the seasoning off of the pork belly, pat dry. In a large pot, combine the onion, carrot, garlic, bay leaf, white wine, chicken stock and cinnamon stick, bring to a simmer. Place the belly in a casserole dish or dutch oven and pour the liquid over it. Cover and bake for 7 hours.

Remove the casserole from the oven and let the pork belly cool in the liquid, let cool until ready to serve.

In the demo he cut the pork into sandwich friendly slices, making a savory baguette sandwich topped with pickled green tomatoes.

I had several questions to ask him after the show, but had to put on my nursing hat for 10 minutes, ask Chef John about that one!    All and all a very memorable lesson in pork, and if you are lucky enough to live in Michigan or Ohio, absolutely pay a visit to one of Michael Symon’s restaurants.  Also be sure to  visit Amazon and preorder his new cookbook due for release in November, Michael Symon’s Live to Cook: Recipes and Techniques to Rock Your Kitchen.

For more delicious Michael Symon recipes, check out:

• His top 100 Food Network recipes
• Pickled Chilli Peppers
• Greek Meatballs and Tomato Salad from the Dinner Impossible show
• For Scallops with a Warm Ginger Vinaigrette, Roast Salmon with Ancho Chili Ginger Sauce and Couscous,Pork Shoulder braised in Ginger Beer, and Ginger Mango Rice Pudding with Thai Basil recipes go here
• Spicy Sriracha Chicken Wings a must try recipe receiving 10 5 star ratings from food network reviewers
• Spicy Tomato and Blue Cheese Soup
• Creamed Corn
• Cheesy BLT’s
• Famous Mac and Goat Cheese
• And a delicious looking Sopressata, Prosciutto, Mozzarella, Egg, and Basil Breakfast Sandwich recipe.

Also be sure to feast on savory Food & Wine Classic in Aspen photos from our slideshow!

Taste this! Only a handful of amazing visions to be seen at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen 2009, Average Betty and I have taken our best shots and embedded them into a slideshow. Who will you see? Celebrity chefs Michael Chiarello, Giada De Laurentiis, Mario Batali (and his clogs!), Top Chefs Hosea Rosenberg, Stephanie Izard, Richard Blais, and Fabio Viviani, Ming Tsai, Michael Symon, Jacques Pépin and his daughter Claudine Pépin, Joe Bastianich, José Andrés, Gail Simmons, Tom Colicchio, several of the Food & Wine Best New Chefs, event volunteers, and random people watching photos. Enjoy!

I was lucky to have the opportunity to interview Devin Padgett, the Producer of Special Projects for Food & Wine, and master of all things green.  Here’s the scoop:

“Heidi:  We are here with Devin Padgett of Food & Wine Magazine, Devin, can you tell us about your role in the event?

Devin:  I am the Producer of Special Projects, and this is my 21st Classic.  I direct the Aspen side of the event and work in tandem year round with the New York office team to make this all happen.

Heidi:   I’ve read about your green program in the brochure, and I see the recycle bins everywhere, but can you tell me more about it? What’s new for 2009?

Devin:  It’s a really important initiative for us.  It’s something that we’re really proud to have started.  Probably 14 or 15 years ago we began with recycling glass.  Of course there’s 10′s of thousands of wine bottles that roll through the event.  A successful Classic has lots of empty bottles, right?  We’re pround to be a founding business partner of Wally’s Recycling Service.  So we’ve been recycling for quite a long time now.  About three years ago, we partnered directly with the city of Aspen and the Canary Initiative to really ramp it up and take the next step.  An that was not because it was the popular, politically correct thing to do, but because living here in the Roaring Fork Valley, we live in a community that is charged with doing things the right way.  And we want to be a part of that.   With the Classic, it’s really important for us to try to lead the way in the green event field.  Now with our partnerships, we compost, we recycle,  we have our three tier (recycling) stations at all of our venues.  We have 18-20 recycling stations here in the Wagner Park Grand Tasting area, and not only are they manned by an amazing volunteer green team, but we’ve taken all of this event wide, including our programming venues.  Three years in, and we’ve go a lot of good data working with the Canary Initiative.   One of the things that we’ve put a lot of energy in over the last couple of years is with our registration bag, the gift bag that our audience get when they check in to to get their passes.  We’ve had a lot of heat and pressure over this, because it’s a marketing engine.   We’ve made an active change, and developed a set of criteria to try to fix that.  I’m very proud to say that this year, we’ve lost 10 pounds with our reg bags.  We went from 17.1 lbs in 2008 (last year)  to a little under 7 lbs this year.  Last year the Classic pulled a 67.9% diversion rate.   What that means is that 67.9% of all of our waste generated from the Classic was diverted from the landfill.  To give you a little perspective on that, the city of Aspen annually has a diversion rate of in the mid teens.  So we’re really really proud of that quadruple percentage rate for a 3 day event here in Aspen, and hope to do even better this year.  We have some measureables and really great data that support our efforts.

Heidi:  Great work and your team deserves to be proud!  Thank you Devin for your time!”

So, absolutely a stellar project led by Devin and the numbers prove it. It would be great to see other culinary and musical events in Colorado, and nationwide, follow this impressive example.

Peter Jacobsen, who calls his work “tantric farming” began the talk discussing food as an agricultural act. He requested that everyone become a farmer of sorts, and suggested planting basil, in order to understand and become involved in the agricultural process. He also suggested “voting with your fork”, making your economic decisions on which restaurant to dine in, ask questions, and find out if your venue is using local and sustainable food.

Chef Michael Chiarello, cheerfully admitting to having a slight red wine hangover, took the stage next. He talked about the process of taking over a piece of land that had previously been a non organic chemical farm, and transforming the land into organic, and watching the process over 7-8 years as the plot developed a new life and an entirely new ecosystem.  He now has several new quail on the previously barren land, as well as cattails, frogs and ducks.

Michael discussed how grocery store produce, and even organic produce from places such as Trader Joe’s , create a huge carbon footprint with gas and transportation, with the added insult of bringing in goods from hundreds of miles away. He stated that his goal with his restaurants is to have every food item come from within a 100 mile radius.

During a question and answer session, I asked him a tricky question which I have always been perplexed by.  When given the choice to choose between local (non certified organic) and non local certified organic, what should we do?  Chef Chiarello said to always choose local.  He touched base on the fact that some farmers do not use chemicals however do not have the resources to become “certified organic”.  He went on to say when you know the farmer that you are buying from, (and used a tomato as an example) you will respect the tomato and will not let it go to waste.  He stressed that having a connection with the local people your food comes from will ultimately affect the flavor and the overall tasting experience as a result of the connectivity.   “Having a relationship with your food is one of the most important things you can do”. I truly love this concept, and have been musing over it ever since.

(At this point I immediately had a flashback to the Thursday night Tapas party. The roasted lamb was prepared, seasoned, and nurtured by Jacques Pepin and Jose Andres, and sliced with master skill by Jose Andres. Sliced morsels were fed by hand, from Jose, directly into several Top Chef winner’s mouths. I apologize for not capturing this on film! The sight was slightly sensual to say the least, and while not completely spot on with Michael’s points, still a delicious example of connectivity and food).

During the talk Michael made a basil infused olive oil (recipe here), and added a touch of it to an amazing pureed and strained tomato water martini (sans alcohol, recipe below) with homemade mozzarella boccacini and cherry tomatoes.  Jen from the Daily Blender,  Sara from Average Betty, Chef John from Foodwishes and  I have been craving more of it all day long.  Cheers and thank you so much Peter and Michael for enlightening us with your knowledge!

©foodwishes.com

Chef Michael Chiarello’s Tomato Martini

* 3 cups clear tomato water, set aside from Tomato Puree, recipe follows, refrigerated
* 1 green zebra tomato, thinly sliced
* 4 fresh mozzarella boccacini, each 1-inch in diameter
* 4 cherry tomatoes
* Gray salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 8 large fresh basil leaves
* Basil oil, optional (recipe link above martini photo)

Directions

You will need enough tomato water to fill your martini glasses, so measure their capacity, probably something between 5 and 9 ounces. Chill the martini glasses in the freezer, if there is room, or refrigerate 1 hour ahead of serving. (A freezer gives a heavy frost.)

Place 1 slice of green tomato in each glass. Halve or quarter the bocconcini if they are larger than 1 inch in diameter. Thread a bocconccini, and a cherry tomato onto each of 4 wooden skewers 4 to 5 inches long. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with basil oil, if desired. Working quickly, divide the tomato liquid among the chilled martini glasses. Balance the skewers on top of the glasses, then take a leaf of basil per glass, and rub it around the glass rim, before placing on top of each glass, near skewer. Serve immediately.

*Cook’s Note: It is impossible to give a specific amount for the tomatoes because how much “water” a tomato releases depends on many factors, including the growing season and the variety. Do not let the tomato pulp go to waste. Use this recipe as an excuse to start your quick tomato sauce season. You can freeze or can your sauce and then have it on hand for quick meals.
Tomato Puree:

20 tomatoes, core removed

Bring 2 large pots of water to a boil. Lower the tomatoes into the water, blanch for 45 seconds to 1 minute. Place blanched tomatoes on a baking sheet, and peel the loosened skins. With a colander over a bowl, squeeze the seeds and innards out of each tomato. Set aside and refrigerate the clear strained liquid for other uses. Slice the peeled tomatoes into 1-inch chunks, and place chunks into blender. Puree thoroughly. Pour into bowl.

Recipe makes 10 to 12 cups.

The Italian Top chef charmer showed up on our radar Saturday, and in true Fabio form was spotted chatting, hugging, and story telling with chef comrades throughout the afternoon.  Feast on this:

Fabio reunites with former competitor and Top Chef New York winner Hosea Rosenberg under the tasting tent. Wouldn’t you like to know what sweet nothings he’s whispering into Hosea’s ears?

Fabio sharing smiles with Chef Bobby Flay!

Italy and France unite! Top Chef Fabio Viviani continues sharing his love with the legendary chef Jacques Pépin.

Coming Soon: Chef interviews on dealing with the pinches of today’s economy, musings on Michael Chiarello and his farm to fork philosophy, off the grid after hours fun with food writers, and several top 10 lists. And of course, we will be returning to the chef recipe videos soon with some fresh talent that may surprise you. Stay tuned!

We’re off to the 2009 Food and Wine Classic in Aspen for three days of delicious bliss!   Stayed tuned for tasty updates as Savory Tv joins Average Betty and Plum Tv for coverage of the event!   In addition to our team, we are also looking forward to meeting Jen from Daily Blender, Chef John from Food Wishes, and Danny from Foodie Aspen.   Cheers and safe travels fellow foodies and epicures!   À bientôt!

Photo used with permission and taken by Jeremy Parzon, thank you!

Very exciting news! Thanks to Plum Tv and American Express Publishing, Average Betty and I will be covering the 2009 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen !

Every year in June in beautiful Aspen, Colorado, the Food and Wine Classic boasts the brightest stars in the culinary and vintner sky.   Here are some of the chefs that will be shining this year:   Mario Batali, José Andrés, Jacques Pépin, Ming Tsai, Mario Batali, Richard Blais, Top Chefs Stephanie Izard and Hosea Rosenberg, Tom Colicchio, Giada De Laurentiis, Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, Michael Nischan, Danny Meyer,  Michael Chiarello, Michel Richard, Nancy Silverton, Michael Symon, Steven Raichlen, and Mario Batali!

3 days of absolute foodie bliss, and together Average Betty and I will be working with Plum Tv to bring you the delicious inside scoop!  And recently we found out that Chef John from Food Wishes will be in town to bring even more fun to the mix!   (Apologies for the severe overuse of exclamation points but it cannot be helped!)  We will keep you posted as the event begins on June 19th!