Smart Shop
Shoppers’ Paradises
We all know about High Summer in the Garden State and how its produce shapes our meals during that season. Now comes the time to employ a different kind of procurement plan, one that feeds our needs for a succession of holiday dinners and get-togethers and aids in neighborly gift-giving and family stocking-stuffing. It’s officially High Food-Shopping Season and we’re offering recommendations on where to score favored eats from authorities throughout New Jersey.
Antoinette Boulangerie
If the mood strikes on Halloween, it’s fine to think of certain pastries as substitutes for candies. Treat yourself to a sampling, for instance, at this French-accented bakeshop in Red Bank, which is the right kind of confectionary for indulgence when our annual sweet-and-scary holiday rolls around.
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Global Domination
Foods emblematic of their far-flung lands of origin are the emphatic favorites of all eaten during the past two weeks. They come from Peru, the Republic of Georgia, France, China and far Eastern Europe to ports of the Garden State where they’ve been expertly interpreted.
Sunday Kitchen
Pulled Lamb
Happy start of holiday season! That’s right: With Halloween on the docket Friday and the calendar flipping to November on Saturday, those never-lazy, always-crazy days of fall holidays are here. Today, we present a simple and seasonally correct supper that’s at once special and home-style, right for family or guests. It’s aromas-from-the-oven time.
The Solo Sup
We asked those who toil in the culinary professions what food they most love to eat when dining independently, be it out in a restaurant or at home without any obligations. What a range of answers we received!
Colorful Cauliflower
Pretty and more flavorful in purple and orange, two members of the current crop of the cruciferous vegetable don’t need a force field-strength shield of seasonings and sauces to make them lovable. Go accent-free, and appreciate their natural charm.
Sunday Kitchen
Stella and Her Smoked Fishes Groove
At NetCost, a new concept in smoked fishes inspires a new wave of meal ideas. It’s decidedly Eastern European, a trifle Japanese, a bit old-school deli, ultimately light on time and joyful to prepare.
Spotted Horse Provisions
As a college professor, Amanda Newman guides students to developing the skills needed to become art educators. As the artisan behind an acclaimed line of preserves, she teaches much the same lessons using produce, sugar, spices and vinegar to craft pantry staples that fuse creativity with culinary precision. The result reflects a union of art and science – and her own blended heritages.
Brussels Sprouts
Once again, it’s time to tout Brussels sprouts. Only this time, let’s not proclaim it the vegetable of the new year, but one we need to get to know better as we shed preconceived notions and experiment with its versatility like some of our favorite chefs have been doing for decades.
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Best Shots
Giving anything your all is a monumental task. The talented folks who conceived and executed this quintet of favorites did just that, making food memories in the process.
Sunday Kitchen
Broc & Buns
The bun may not have come out of your own oven nor the broccoli from a backyard garden. But once you secure them – or their like – at a farmers’ market, you’ll be able to put down that phone, break yourself of the takeaway habit and eat supper without waiting for delivery or standing on line for pickup.
Pairings for Pears
A behind-the-scenes partnership between two farmers reveals the kinship a fruit we already know and love can have with other familiar foods. Let a meat-cheese platter act as a veritable diorama of fruitful potential then follow that up with … ice cream?
Food Find
Phillips Farms Multi-Fruit Ciders
At a farm in Holland Township that’s been run by the Phillips family since 1806, ciders ratchet up both the fruit content and the container size to make for sweet and extended quaffing.
Sunday Kitchen
Pretty in Peppermint
Raita, a condiment indispensable in India, gets an extra dose of the loveliest of mints to make it even more versatile at the table. Whip it up today and use it all week long.
Fruited Acres
Southwestern Hunterdon County’s Ducks’ Flats is where Brandon Damato is cultivating a future in growing fruits and nuts to both help feed a community and encourage residents to plant their own edible forests on a home-size scale.
The New Locals
Curd & Cleaver and Pennyrose Coffee Co., around-the-corner neighbors in Newton, are independently owned and proud to display local pride and heritage by serving up what locals and visitors want to eat.
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Old Favorites, New Looks
Pasta, meatballs, rice, chicken and a mini version of a familiar fruit each get new life from culinary pros determined to lift them up from roles typical and perhaps a bit tired. Each of our five favorites from the two weeks just past brings zing to our tables.
Sunday Kitchen
In the Greens
The bounty of the new season is verdant and versatile – and it’s ready to be cooked. Not overcooked, mind you. But stir-fried into one of the quickest, most nutritious meals around.
Power to the Pawpaws
What ramps are to early spring is what pawpaws are becoming to autumn: A cherished, limited-edition, not-easy-to-come-by crop that’s a harbinger of the many new items of produce that will be popping up on our farms and in our farmers’ markets. P.S. If you’re culinarily curious, attend Pawpaw Day tomorrow – Sunday, Sept. 21 – at the Hunterdon Community Farmers’ Market.
Kiwiberries
Uncommon and uncommonly refreshing in a zesty-sweet way, this vine-grown fruit is now being cultivated by a handful of Garden State farmers. One bite is all it takes to make a fan.
Sunday Kitchen
Apple Stew-Stuffed Honeynuts
It’s a supper that’s a happy collision of early fall ingredients and is customizable for vegans, vegetarians and carnivores. It makes the most of two universally loved staples and requires no techniques that necessitate completion of a cooking school course. Ready, set, eat.
Hot on the Trail
Costa Rica, in East-Central Somerset County
The classic dishes of the Central American country that borders both the Caribbean and the Pacific and sports mountains and rainforests in between are on display in eateries devoted to its foodways in Bound Brook and its neighboring communities. Take a culinary vacation courtesy of these family-run spots in our very own Tico Town.
At Mitsuwa, It’s Hokkaido Crab Time
Once again, Garden Staters are in for a worldly treat, one available at America’s finest Japanese uber-market, located along the Hudson River in Edgewater.
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Tico & Atypical
Call these a rather eccentric quintet of favorites: Three dishes that seem imported directly from Costa Rica, a curious specimen that’s North America’s largest native fruit yet not found in supermarkets, and a burger hardly fit for grill or griddle. These are the chart-topping five from the two weeks just past.
Sunday Kitchen
Charred Beans with Lemon Yogurt
Enter a border-free zone and make supper out of an in-season vegetable by taking what’s on hand, zapping it with spices you favor and bringing it all together on one plate.
Garden State Groceries: Feeding Ourselves
Where do you shop for food? Farmers’ markets, box stores, supermarkets, specialty markets, ethnic markets, on-farm markets and stands? Dollar stores or convenience stores? A combo of many? There’s another option and it’s one distinctly suited to New Jersey.
Food Find
Lizano Salsa
A condiment with a smoky-tangy soul that’s indispensable in Costa Rica proves its worth as a spirited accent to a wide range of foods common on tables in the Garden State.
Sunday Kitchen
Tomato Cobbler
Ease tomatoes into autumn with a twist on the sweetened fruit standard that’s flexible enough to accommodate a topper of ready-to-bake canned biscuits or your own scratch-made soft and flaky quick-breads. In the end, it might be the treatment given the fruit that matters most.
Food Find
Weirdough NJ Bagels
Tangy, chewy and born of sourdough, a home-baker’s distinctive breakfast rounds need no embellishments to let you start your day on a roll. In fact, on better than a roll.
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Taking It for a Spin
The next time you might be tempted to take for granted a tomato, bagel, bowl of ramen or spaghetti, or big ol’ hunk of meat, think about this quintet of five new favorites and realize what a pro can do by re-thinking a process.