Did You Say Food & Wine?? Yes Please!!

Well, it’s that time of year again. Football season is in full swing, the leaves are starting to change colors and there’s a little nip in the evening air (at least up north). Here in Florida though, ‘tis the season for tricks, treats and blood curtailing screams. Most people are excited about the Halloween activities at the local theme parks: Halloween Horror Nights, Howl-O-Scream and Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. All these events are great fun to go to, but they’re not something that I really look forward to.

Once a year, from the end of September thru the beginning of November, Disney World holds the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. They set up booths throughout the World Showcase area that offer food and drink items from various countries across the globe. While it is an additional charge for these items, everything is reasonably prices and portion sizes are comparable to the price.

This year there are 30 booths offering various delicious and sometimes unusual treats. The booths this year include: Terra, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, Singapore, China, South Korea, Africa, Cheese, Brewer’s Collection, Germany, Poland, Italy, American Adventure Coffee Cart, Hops & Barley, Florida Local, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Belgium, France, Ireland, Canada, Greece, Refreshment Port, Desserts & Champagne, Hawai’i, Scotland and Craft Beers. Obviously not all of these booths are countries, but they all have unique offerings for visitors and each area usually offers 2-3 food and 3-4 drink options. There are many things, drinks in particular, which I would not have tried otherwise.

The festival has been going on for two weeks so far and I have been there 3 times thanks to my Disney annual pass. All 3 trips have been great opportunities to try new things and partake in the things I already know are good grinds. To date, I have visited 15 of the 30 booths and tried a cornucopia of amazing food and drinks.

Since I’ve been to Food & Wine three times so far, I’ve decided to pick out the 3 foods that really stick out in my mind. The first has to be the Lemongrass Chicken Curry with Coconut & Jasmine Rice from the Singapore. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I love curry. It is one food that has been in my life since childhood. My Aunty Jane and Uncle Alfred make the best curry I’ve ever tasted, hands down. However that does not prevent me from enjoying all sorts of curry dishes. I had high hopes for this dish and was really bummed when it was handed to me. It was more like a curry soup. I had to use a spoon to scoop up the little bit of chicken and rice that was in it. The flavor was pretty decent though. The yellow curry, cumin and coconut were the prominent flavors in this dish. There was also quite a bit of oil or grease that seemed to float in the curry which didn’t really help its appetizing factor. I didn’t taste lemongrass or the jasmine from the rice. It was a definite let down and I ended up throwing half of it away (and I NEVER throw away food). If I had to rate this, I’d give it a D overall.

In the 3-4 years that I have been going to Food & Wine, there has been a dish that I’ve always been curious about but have never had the guts to try. This year I sucked it up, walked over to the France booth and order Escargots Persillade en Brioche. That’s garlic and parsley snails in brioche, for all you non-French speakers. Yup, I ate snails and they were pretty good. The key was not to think about what I was eating, but to focus on trying a new food. My biggest worry was the texture. I had heard that snails can me a little tough to chew. These little guys weren’t tough at all. When you get your plate of snails, it’s basically 3 mini brioche (bread) bowls containing one snail each. The first snail I ate was by itself, no bread to mask the flavor or texture. It had the strong taste of garlic and parsley, but it was smooth and melted in my mouth. The other two I ate with the bread bowls, but I will never bad mouth snails again. This was a strong B overall.

There have been many good foods over the last few visits, but if I had to choose my favorite food so far it has to be the Craisin Bread Pudding with Grand Marnier Anglaise from the Hops & Barley booth. This is a basic bread pudding where the raisins are replaced with Craisins and the vanilla sauce is replaced with the Grand Marnier anglaise. When I first ordered this, I had no idea what “anglaise” was. I just figured that since I liked Craisin, bread pudding and just about anything with Grand Marnier in it, I should like this dish. Boy oh boy, was I right! This turned out to be my favorite food item so far this year. When they handed me my plate, my eyes went wide and I’m pretty sure I started to drool a little. The portion size was much bigger than expected. The bread pudding was perfectly cooked with a little crunch on top and a soft, smooth finish. The Craisins gave it a slight tartness, while the Grand Marnier anglaise sweetened it slightly and contributed to the smooth finish. I liked it so much, that I went back and had it again on my second trip to the festival. Overall I’d give it an A+.

I’m looking forward to going back to Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival many more times this month. Until then, here’s a list of the other foods and drinks I’ve had so far this year. I've also given them my overall rating. There are a also a few pictures of some of the things I've tried thus far.

·         Argentina: Beef Empanada  (B)	·         Mexico: Tequila Flight  (A)
·         Africa: Spinach and Paneer Cheese Pocket  (B+)	·         Cheese: Almond Crusted Blue Cheese Soufflé with Fig Jam  (F-)
·         Germany: Schinkennudeln - Pasta Gratin with Ham and Cheese  (B+)	·         Morocco: Kefta Pocket (B-)
·         New Zealand: Lamb Meatball with Spicy Tomato Chutney  (A-)	·         Hawai’i: Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet and Sour Dole Pineapple  (C+)
·         Scotland: Scottish Banoffee Tart with Bananas, Scotch Whiskey Toffee, Walkers Shortbread Crumbles & Sweet Cream  (A-)	·         Ireland: Warm Chocolate Pudding with Bailey’s -Custard  (A-)  /  Chilled Irish Coffee featuring Bunratty Potcheen  (A-)
·         Italy: Ravioli de Formaggio all’Emiliana – Baked Cheese Ravioli with Creamy Beef Bolognese Sauce, Parmesan & Mozzarella  (B+)  /  Cannoli al Cioccolato – Chocolate Covered Cannoli filled with Sweet Ricotta, Chocolate & Candied Fruit  (A+)	·         China: Chicken Potstickers  (C+)  /  Happy Lychee with Vodka  (A-)

  

Lamb Meatball

Escargot

Scottish Banoffee Tart

Kalua Pork Slider

Happy Lychee

Almond Crusted Blue Cheese Souffle

Warm Chocolate Pudding and Chilled Irish Coffee

~MLS~

Potato Goodness

So I started out the day thinking that I was just going to have leftovers and I wouldn’t have to cook a thing today. That went out the window the minute I came across some potatoes I forgot I had bought last week. I remember buying them specifically for this Hasselback scalloped potatoes recipe I came across while on Pinterest a few months back. I had most of the ingredients and I didn’t want the potatoes to go bad so I attempted the recipe.

One thing you should know me and my kitchen experiments is that I will attempt just about any recipe as long as I have 75-80% of the ingredients.  I like to improvise and a challenge is always a good thing. I’ve had a pretty high success rate on recipe substitutions so far.

This modified recipe only ended up having 5 ingredients: potatoes, butter (sliced), cheddar cheese (sliced), olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese. The prep wasn’t too bad. The biggest challenge was to cut the potatoes into thin slices without actually cutting all the way through the potato. It was simple from that point on. You take your slices of butter and cheese and alternately stuff them into the slices of potato. After that it’s a little drizzle of olive oil and pop them in the oven at 400 degrees. After about 45-50 minutes they are removed, have more grated cheddar and Parmesan cheese put on top and popped right back into the oven for another 10 minutes.

When all is said and done, these things come out all bubbly and gooey from the cheese and butter. This is by no means a low calorie meal, but for a potato lover like me it’s heaven. The original recipe called for whipping cream, so I think I’ll try that next time. I also think it might be good with a little heat added to it. I just need to figure out which dry seasoning will work best. I’m always open for suggestions, so send them my way if you’ve got any.

~MLS~

Beginnings

Well, I've been playing around with the idea of doing a food blog for a while now. I'm hoping this will be a great creative outlet for me, both in the kitchen and here on this blog. I don't have any food reviews or kitchen experiments to write about this time around. Instead I thought I'd give a little insight into what my food history.

When I was in middle school, I discovered the Food Channel. Whenever I got the chance, I was watching some sort of cooking show. At the time, my favorite show was Iron Chef. I loved how those chefs made entire meals based off of one extremely unusual ingredient. It was just amazing what they could do in the kitchen. Seeing that I was so involved in these shows, my Dad suggested that I look into the new culinary program that had started at one of the local high schools. A year and a half later, I was enrolled in the prep course as a freshmen.

I spent my freshmen through junior years of high school in that culinary program. It was a sanctuary from all things high school. I learned so many things in my time there. It's where I learned my knife skills and attempted to conquer baking. I first learned to network at the luncheons and dinners we catered. I competed in regional and than state VICA (Vocational Industrial Clubs of America) competitions for culinary arts my junior year. There I learned the importance of trusting in yourself and persevering when faced with difficult challenges.

That high school program taught me a lot, but in that time I was also injured multiple times ending in 3 knee surgeries. The surgeries resulted in me having a very hard time stand for long periods of time. In the end, I switched my focus to getting an Associates degree in business that I could use to as a bridge into the Hospitality Industry. Seven years, three states and one Bachelor's degree later I find my love for food and cooking has not lessened. If anything, I think I'm more adventurous in my food choices than I ever been.

If you ask my friends, they would probably say I'm willing to try anything once as long it won't kill me. So hopefully, through this blog, we will all discover what's behind the fork.

~MLS~