Farro Tricolore: How To Impress Your Foodgeeky Friends In Just One Picnic. Plus a Giveaway!

As if organizing a potluck/picnic for a bunch of food-obsessed parents and their toddlers wasn't enough to think about, I also had the mind boggling task of coming up with what the heck to bring to this shindig.

When fellow food blogging mommy Reservation For Three contacted me to see if I'd like to co-host our first ever GastroTots potluck picnic, I was thrilled at the idea of finally being able to hang out with the parents I frequently chat with on Twitter about food, restaurants, potty training and tantrums. But being that our guests were going to be some serious food nerds, I knew that a box of Albertsons cupcakes and Tostitos chips and salsa just wouldn't cut it. (Umm, not that I would normally bring that to a potluck anyway, right?)

First and foremost, I would need to bring something that tastes good.

It would also have to be something that didn't need to be reheated as we'd be meeting in a park.

And visually appealing.

And somewhat healthy as our kids would also be partaking in this feast.

And something that's somewhat easy to make since time is always so precious as a busy working mom.

Fortunately for me, my Gourmet Today cookbook came to the rescue with its recipe for Farro Tricolore--a colorful salad of farro, arugula, radicchio, Belgian endive, tomatoes and pancetta that fit all the above criteria. It's also a recipe that will be sure to make anyone look like they know what they're talking about in front of all of their foodgeeky friends. Farro? It means you buy your food at places other than Vons. And then if you bought locally farmed organic vegetables for this salad, you might totally be able to bond over farmers markets and green grocers! High Five!

By doing a little prep work of soaking the farro and cutting the vegetables up the night before, it's a fairly quick and easy dish to make. The contrasting flavors and textures in this salad are just insane: it's got all kinds of delicious al dente, crispy, wilted, bitter, salty, sweet, acidic, nutty and peppery craziness going on.

Farro Tricolore (adapted from Gourmet Today)

Salt
1 cup farro (available at Italian markets or specialty grocers like Whole Foods)
4-6 cups arugula, stems discarded, leaves torn into bite-sized pieces
1 head radicchio, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 large Belgian endive, cored and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 lb. pancetta, diced or sliced and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 basket of cherry or grape tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

First, soak the farro in water for about 8 hours. Go do other stuff--sleep, chop veggies, watch a Real Housewives marathon, whatever.

Bring the soaked farro and about 6 cups of salted water to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook until al dente, about 25 minutes. It will look like the photo above when cooked. Drain and set aside.

Toss the arugula, radicchio and endive together in a large bowl. Note: the first time I ever made this salad, I neglected to remove the stems from the arugula and to tear or cut the arugula, radicchio and endive into smaller pieces. The salad still turned out fine, but I noticed that the arugula stems and bigger leaf sizes made it a less cohesive salad so I made sure I went with the smaller pieces the next time. Yes, it's more of a pain in the ass, especially with the arugula, but so worth it.

Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook until slightly crispy. Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels, leaving the pancetta fat in the skillet. You'll need that fat for later, so do not dump it or you'll be sorry!

Add remaining 1 tbsp. of olive oil into the skillet and add the tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes until the tomatoes get soft and the skin gets kind of wrinkly but still stays on.

Add the balsamic vinegar scraping up any of those delicious smoky browned bits on the bottom of the pan and allowing the vinegar to reduce and thicken slightly.

Add farro and pancetta to the bowl of arugula, radicchio and endive. Pour the warm balsamic pancetta-fat tomato dressing over the salad and toss to coat. The greens should wilt a little bit.

The result is simply wonderful. And you will definitely not lose any cred with all your foodgeeky friends.


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But wait, there's more!

Normally, goody bags at kiddie get togethers mean fruit roll ups, snack packs, temporary tattoos, stickers and minature bubble bottles, but thanks to Reservation For Three, her husband Max of Morning Glory Confections and some very generous businesses, our goody bags were a tad more grown up this time. We got:

-A box of Morning Glory Confections' amazing Fleur de Sel and Peanut artisan brittle.
-A coupon good for 15% off your bill at Cacao Mexicatessen
-A token good for one iced or hot 12 oz latte at Cacao Mexicatessen
-A coupon good for a complimentary klein of Belgian fries w/ any food purchase at Wurtskuche
-An $8 gift card to Colorado Wine Co.
-A coupon good for one free scoop at Pazzo Gelato.
-A coupon good for 50% off your meal at Spitz.
-A $10 gift card to Cafe de Leche.
-A delicious and adorable individually boxed cupcake from Delilah's Bakery.

I was so excited about my swag that I want to share a goody bag with one lucky reader! (minus the cupcake...sorry, it's hard to ship, plus I already ate it.)

Just leave a comment with either your favorite childhood food OR your child's (or childrens') favorite food by 11:59pm Wednesday 9/8/10. I'll draw a random winner on Thursday 9/9/10. Be sure to leave an email address so that I can contact you if you win.

Good luck and thanks for reading!

Osteria Mamma: Love To My Mama and My Mamma (Mini Gluttony's Very First Blog Post!)

Hi, I'm Mini Gluttony!

You might know my Mommy. She's Daily Gluttony, the lady who writes this blog.

Well she keeps saying something about how there aren't enough hours in the day and how she's tired. I don't know why grown ups are always tired and want to sleep. Who needs sleep anyways? I don't! In fact, I like to wake up every night between 1 and 3am. It's super fun! Anyways, my Mommy is always doing nice things for me, so I thought I'd do something nice for her and let her sleep while I write her latest blog post for her. I'm a good boy.

My Mommy and Daddy and I went to this place called Osteria Mamma the other night for a family dinner out. We got there right when it opened because 1) my bedtime is 8:30 pm, which means the closer it gets to 8:30 while we are out, the closer I get to melting down from being tired, and 2) Mommy and Daddy said something about being considerate to the restaurant and the people who eat there. I have no idea what they're talking about.

We sat in the corner near a window so that Mommy could take her pictures. You should see my Mommy's bag when we all go out and she brings the big camera. It feels like she's carrying a bowling ball with all that stuff in there. Daddy thinks it's a giant pain in the patootie when Mommy takes pictures of food when we go out because he has to wait until Mommy finishes focusing and composing and all that fancy stuff before he can eat. Grown ups are silly.

First they brought us some bread which I thought was really cool since carbs are yummy. It was warm and sliced kinda thin and soft on the inside and crusty on the outside but not so crusty that I couldn't chew it with my teething gums. They also gave us a side of delicious marinara sauce that Mommy and Daddy had to help me dip my bread in. I'm not that coordinated yet.

Polipolata! I like that word 'cause it sounds like it could be the name of a cartoon character. But it is really the name of a dish of grilled octopus, celery, potatoes and lemon that we started our dinner with. I learned to count to 8 by squeezing the legs on some toy octopus at school. Somehow I don't think this was the same octopus, but it was mmm-mmm good. I like crunchy things like cookies and french fries, so the celery and potatoes in here were right up my alley. And then Mommy and Daddy kept using the word tender to describe the octopus. Do you think "tender" has something to do with the number ten? Hey, I can count to ten all by myself now!

I also made this really cool artsy deconstructed plating out of this dish. Yeah, I'm thinking I could win a future Top Chef competition one day, piece of cake.

Noodles and pasta are my favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world, so Mommy and Daddy ordered three kinds of pasta for me to try.

First was the Trenette Nere alla Bottarga which was black squid ink trenette with organic cherry tomatoes, shrimp and bottarga, which is Italian for dried fish eggs. Most kids my age would think dried fish eggs and black pasta made with squid ink are yucky, but not me. No sirree! This was super! The botarga and tomato made the sauce all nice and tangy and briny, and the shrimp were plump, just like my legs! I even learned some more new words: "al dente" which Mommy and Daddy said is the perfect texture for pasta. It means when something is cooked to have a toothsome bite which I could definitely feel in these noodles even though I don't even have all of my teeth yet.

Next we had the Tagliatelle Bolognese which was my absolute favoritest dish of the evening. I really, really, really, really REALLY like any kind of pasta bolognese. My Mommy can tell you because she makes me spaghetti bolognese at home. Even though I like Mommy's, I love Mamma's (sorry Mommy, you know I still love always you the best) The veal, pork, sausage and tomato sauce was so rich and hearty and the tagliatelle ribbons so (oooh, I get to use some new words I learned!) al dente, that I slurped almost all of this up by myself. The nice lady tried to take my plate away thinking I was done but I wasn't so I gave her some of my best stink eye. She just laughed.

Then we had the Ravioli Burro e Salvia which were (again-new words!) al dente pillows of pasta filled with spinach and ricotta cheese in butter and sage. Me and Mommy and Daddy thought this was good but compared to the squid ink trenette and tagliatelle bolognese, this definitely wasn't as awesome in flavors. Still, very nice and simple.

By this time, my little tummy was stuffed full with pasta, and I was a happy little boy, but Mommy and Daddy still wanted dessert, so they got the Panna Cotta with fresh berries. They said they liked it alot and that it was smooth and creamy and just real yummy.

I liked Osteria Mamma so much that I was a good little boy and behaved myself for almost all of our dinner, except when I tried to stick my hand in the purse of some lady sitting behind us, so I am hoping that Mommy and Daddy take me back here real soon. Mommy and Daddy, are you reading this?

Hey, this blogging thing is kinda fun. Maybe if I help Mommy write more, she will take me out to eat more.

Bye for now :)
Mini Gluttony

Osteria Mamma
5732 Melrose Ave
Hollywood, CA 90004
(323) 284-7060
www.osteriamamma.com

I OD'ed On Cute--Three Apples: An Exhibition Celebrating 35 Years Of Hello Kitty at Royal/T Cafe, Culver City

Leave it to my childhood homegirl Hello Kitty to throw a birthday party of epic proportions.

She's 35 this year folks, and instead of spending a low-profile, quiet evening at home like I did on my 35th birthday, she's going all out with a three-week-long birthday party at Royal/T Café called "Three Apples: An Exhibition Celebrating 35 Years Of Hello Kitty" in which she celebrates 35 years of being cute, fabulous, a style and pop culture icon, and most of all, a good friend to all us girls whose childhood and adolescent years were defined by orange-scented erasers, stamp sets, stationery, and plush toys all bearing none other than Ms. Kitty herself.
Yes, Royal/T's café still had its normal cosplay cafe menu of coffee, tea, sandwiches and snacks, and its waitresses dressed up in those ridiculously cute brown and white maid uniforms, but for this special occasion, they stepped it up a notch with a special Hello Kitty themed menu. I just had to have the Hello Kitty's Kawaii High Tea which included a pot of tea, two tramezzini complete with Hello Kitty grill marks, smoked salmon and spicy tuna canapé, a couple of mini cupcakes donning (*eek*) Hello Kitty rings, a mini brownie and green tea cake, and topped with my favorite...a Hello Kitty sugar cookie! It wasn't exactly a bargain at $25, and not haute cuisine by any means, but so worth all the girly giggles it gave me. Individual Hello Kitty themed food items such as the tramezzini and Hello Kitty shaped pancakes and waffles are also available and just as kawaii.

My husband wanted to order something more manly--as in a burger off the café's normal menu--but he still ate off my tea set. He was too embarrassed to show his face eating the cutesy sandwiches.

Nor did he find it amusing when I asked him to try on one of my Hello Kitty rings.

After we ate, it was time to celebrate some more by exploring the Hello Kitty art and artifacts exhibits at Royal/T. Everything was so freaking adorable that I OD'ed on all the cuteness, died and went to Hello Kitty heaven.

All the artwork was absofreakinglutely insane, and ranged from morbid to fabulous (a la Lady Gaga)

And I wished I could take all the Hello Kitty stuff displayed throughout the gallery home with me.

Look, they even have a Hello Kitty apartment! Every girl needs one of these!

But my absolute favorite part of the exhibition was seeing a ton of vintage Hello Kitty merchandise from the 70's and 80's that I either used to own or remember seeing as a kid. Those were the good old days.

Happy 35th Birthday to my old friend. You haven't aged one bit, and are still as cute as ever. Thanks for all the good times and good memories, and here's to many more happy years to come. Peace and love!

Three Apples is running daily from 10 am to 10 pm at Royal/T Café until November 15th. Please visit my SmugMug album for more photos of my visit to Three Apples!

Three Apples: An Exhibition Celebrating 35 Years of Hello Kitty
(at Royal/T Café)
8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 559-6300
www.royal-t.org
www.sanrio.com/threeapples

My Favorite Childhood Dish, Loud and Proud: Steamed Pork With Salted Duck Egg

Coming from where I come from--a podunk little suburb about 25 miles outside of San Francisco--growing up Chinese-American back in the 70’s and 80’s was tough work. As one of a small handful of ethnic minority kids in my grade school classes, I was always guaranteed that anything I did that was remotely culturally diverse was a free pass for taunts, teases and hurt feelings. Had I known then what I know today, those Slant-Eye-Ching-Chong-China insults would’ve been met with the finger and a resounding “Fuck You” from that little Chinese girl with the bowl cut. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that self-confident back then and resorted to taking the “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude in order to avoid being the laughing stock of my school.

I watched shows like the Brady Bunch to figure out how a stereotypical American family lives. Easy enough, right? Everyone calls each other "dear", they eat roast beef for dinner every night and they like to go camping. It would be my job to convince my classmates that these kinds of things were what my family liked to do too.

So when my 6th grade class was studying nutrition and had a homework assignment to keep a food diary and categorize those things into the four food groups, I was determined to replace stir-fried pork intestines and pickled mustard greens with pot roast and potatoes. I didn't think anyone in my class would understand that at my house, we ate from the vegetable, meat, and bread/grain groups as well as the offal group, the soy group and the various-preserved-foodstuffs group.

It was a total shame because my embarrassment and cowardice led me to leave some of my all time favorite dishes off of this food diary. What's worse, my parents somehow got a hold of this project and were crushed that I'd rather show people that I ate meatloaf instead of my favorite dish that they'd prepared with so much love: steamed pork with salted duck egg, or hahm dahn jzing jee yook.

I've been kicking myself in the ass for that food diary incident for as long as I can remember. How could I have been so stupid as to lie about something that made me feel so good? Knowing that it was my favorite dish, my parents always let me have the first scoop, and I strategically dug my spoon into the center every time so as to get some of the salty, velvety egg yolk. I'd plop the spoonful of this porky, eggy Cantonese village dish onto a steaming mound of rice, mix it all up, and start shoveling the stuff into my mouth. My parents would also purposely leave a little bit of the hahm dahn jzing jee yook in the dish because they knew I liked to dump the last bit of rice from the rice pot into it and scrape up every last juicy pork and egg bit.

I therefore made it my goal to make sure I knew how to make this dish for my own children. Even though my son is a little too young to be eating such a sodium and cholesterol bomb right now (hey, I never said this dish was healthy), it's comforting to know that I can one day make this dish for him the same way that my parents made it for me. And being that he's mostlikey going to be growing up in the Chinese-heavy San Gabriel Valley, I don't think he'll have a problem putting steamed pork with salted duck egg on his own food diary.

The basic recipe follows; sorry I don't really use exact measurements. Do like I do--trial and error until the taste and texture is to your liking. You'll be surprised at how super-simple it is!

Steamed Pork With Salted Duck Egg/Hahm Dahn Jzing Jee Yook

Ingredients:
-A large handful (about 1/2 lb?) of ground pork butt preferably chopped by hand for a coarser texture
-Sesame oil
-Soy sauce
-Shaoxing rice wine
-Cornstarch
-1 large chicken egg, beaten
-1 uncooked salted duck egg (available at Chinese markets such as 99 Ranch)

Put a swig each of sesame oil, soy sauce and wine onto the ground pork. Sprinkle with a little bit of cornstarch. Mix it all together with your hands.

Add the chicken egg and mix again with your hands.

Separate the salted duck egg--the big bulbous orangey-yellow yolk will remain intact.

Combine the salted duck egg white with the pork & chicken egg mixture and mix thoroughly with your hands.

Pour the mixture into a shallow dish and put the salted duck egg yolk in the center of the mixture.

Steam for approximately 20 minutes or until the pork is no longer pink.

Serve with steamed rice and enjoy!

Note to parents: I recently started cooking an alternate, lower-sodium version of this for my toddler. I simply omitted the salted duck egg and added an additional beaten chicken egg. It won't have that subtle salted flavor that the duck egg lends to the dish, but at least my kid can enjoy something similar now. It still has that wonderful aroma of steamed pork and sesame oil and the custardy texture of the steamed egg. He's already been eating it at daycare and loving it--he makes mama so proud!