Almost Famous

Just a quick update regarding the “Blogging to Fame” contest, where my blog has been nominated, and has received a surprising number of votes (to me at least). I think I’m one of the top foodie blogs in the running, and I’m assured of a spot in the final 500 blogs that will be considered by a jury to choose the top blogs. Of course, I did do a whole post and email blast basically begging people to go to the BTF site and vote for me. Anyway, thanks to everyone that took the time to go and vote. And special thanks to Nora from County Durham, England, who is my biggest BTF fan (and ballot stuffer) and head cheerleader.

I recently heard that you can now vote for your favorite blog once a day (did you hear that Mom?), so even if you voted for me the first time I asked (begged), apparently you can legally vote again. I won’t bore you again with the details, but if you are new to this blog you can click the link below and read the short, but scintillating, original post explaining this contest. Thanks!!

Click here to read the original post: Am I Blogging to Fame?

Black Pepper Crusted Pork Tenderloin with Black Cherry Reduction

This succulent dish has all the things I love in a recipe; an easy piece of meat to work with, a super simple sauce that tastes like something that took hours, and the classic flavor combination of hot/tangy with sweet/fruity.

Our meat choice, the pork tenderloin, is one of the most user-friendly cuts ever. It requires about 3 minutes of trimming and you’re ready to rock. The sauce is made in the pan after the meat is cooked and the sweet and tangy fruit sauce pairs perfectly with the spicy black pepper crust on the pork. Since most of these tenderloins are pretty standard size at about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds each, 20 minutes at 375F after a good sear in the pan is going to give you a perfect medium almost every time.

By the way, you can use any vinegar and fruit preserve in this recipe and it will be great, although there is something about cherry and black pepper that’s magical. Enjoy!

1 pork tenderloin (not loin)
1 clove garlic
1/3 cup white vinegar
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup black cherry preserves
salt to taste
lots of cracked black pepper
2 tbl butter

Watermelon and Feta with Toasted Cashews – Old footage, new narration, watercolor filters, and one really amazing summer salad!

I vaguely remember eating a slice on watermelon as a young child and watching in shock and horror as my grandfather started sprinkling salt on his slice. I said whatever the 5 year old version of “what the hell are you doing?” was. He said something like “it makes it sweeter.” What? Needless to say that didn’t make any sense at the time. Fast forward 30 years later to a café in San Francisco where I was served a green salad garnished with sweet, juicy watermelon, crumbled feta che ese, and toasted cashews. Wow, it was amazing! What a combination of sweet, salty, juicy, creamy, crunchy, and just…mmmmm. Ah ha! I finally understood what grandfather was doing. Better late than never.

This video recipe was pieced together with footage I shot last year when I was just playing around with my new webcam. I found it and decided to add some new voice-over and show you this great salad. Yes, it’s a bit unusual, but one bite and you will be hooked. You’ll get to see and hear both sleeveless and blurry 2006 Chef John, as well as the new and improved 2007 Chef John. So, here’s the clip, a whole year in the making, as they say. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
1 small ripe watermelon
4 oz feta cheese
1/2 cup toasted cashews
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
*optional garnish: some fresh mint or basil

Mo’s Bacon Bar and the Creative Process of an Avant-garde Chocolatier

In yesterday’s Halibut and Bacon post I mentioned a woman who had combined bacon with chocolate. I discovered her on a fellow foodie’s blog, Catherine’s “Chocolate and Sage.” Her name is Katrina Markoff, and she is the Owner and Founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat. This video is a lecture she gave at the TASTE3 conference which was presented at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa. In it, she explains the four step process she uses to create these very unusual chocolate collections.

Yesterday I said I found the lecture both inspirational and ridiculous. After watching it for a second time, I changed the word “ridiculous” to “perplexing.” Ridiculous sounded too negative, which wasn’t my intention. While I was truly inspired by her passion and obvious love for what she does and creates, I was sometimes lost during parts of her explanation of the process. It’s probably because I have no intentional or formal thought process with my cooking, and actually try NOT to think about what I’m doing too deeply. Anyway, I realize it’s a long lecture, but it’s worth watching, and I’d love a spirited discussion and/or debate in the comments as to what your thoughts are regarding her approach. Is she thinking too much, or am I not thinking enough? Or should we all just eat a piece of chocolate with bacon and smile?

I've posted this before, but could this Simpsons clip have been the real inspiration for this candy bar?

Wild Halibut Steaks with Warm Bacon Dressing – Mmmmm….Bacon

Yes, it’s true what they say, bacon makes everything tastes better. Even bacon tastes better with bacon. Recently I saw an online lecture by a woman who makes specialty chocolates and she had actually done chocolate with bacon. So, now it’s really official, bacon goes with everything! By the way, I plan on posting her lecture, which I found equally inspiring and perplexing, but that’s for another day.

Today we’re making a very simple warm bacon dressing to go over some pan cooked halibut. With just a few ingredients, and a very simple procedure, we’re going to produce some amazingly delicious results. The smokiness of the bacon is such a great match with the meaty halibut, and the slightly sweet/sour profile of the fresh lemon and rice vinegar brings this all together. Usually at this point I tell you a few ways you can alter the recipe to match your personal tastes…forget that. Make this exactly like I show you. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
2 halibut steaks (about 3/4 to 1 inch thick)
1/2 lemon
1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
4 strips of bacon
fresh parsley to taste (about 1/2 bunch for me)
salt and pepper to taste
* I served this on baby romaine, but any greens would be nice

Hello World! It’s me, Chef John…the man behind the hands

I knew this day would eventually come. I realized I couldn’t hide behind George Clooney’s photoshop’d photo forever. When I first start filming and posting cooking videos on the internet about a year ago, I made the decision to never appear on camera. I wanted to be the anti-Food Network Chef, which seemed to be more and more about the Chef, and less and less about the food and the cooking. I also found that most of the amateur cooking videos people were posting looked like audition reels for Hell’s Kitchen. So, since I wasn’t going to appear in the videos, I decided I would just remain completely anonymous. I liked that people would email asking for pictures of me. I liked being mysterious (I had never been mysterious before).

So, why show myself now? I have too. I have recently been contracted to do some “professional” cooking videos for several online outlets (to be named later), and as part of the production I must be seen introducing the recipes. Since I knew it would only be a matter of time before one of my blog visitors saw me on one of these other sites and recognized my sultry voice and nimble fingers, I decided to out myself today.

By the way, just because I’m now using my real photo on the blog, the video recipes will not change. I will still never appear in the recipes, mugging for the camera nor doing puppet shows with an oven mitt. I will not deviate from my original vision of what these videos should be about…the food.

Happy Birthday Valerie!

One thing I am VERY careful about when it comes to authoring this blog is preventing it from becoming a “blog.” When I go to read another blog about wine pairing or Thai food, that’s what I want to read about, I don’t want to read about the blog author’s ear infection, or that their cousin just got back from Nova Scotia and wants to share some photos. So, I’ve kept this blog 99.5% about food, with the one exception of wishing my Mom and now my sister Val, a happy birthday. She is a police officer in western New York State, and I should add, a great cook in her own right! I love her famous Chicken Kiev, which is why it’s pictured at the beginning of the post. So, you thought you were going to see a Chicken Kiev video…psyche! Although, the next time I’m in NY, I will be sure to film her making this delicious, garlic butter-soaked recipe.

Since I ripped Paul McCartney’s cooking skills yesterday I thought I would show him doing something he’s good at. Here’s a video of Paul singing Happy Birthday to my sister.



Chicken Kiev photo credit