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 Modern leftovers -- and of course, a pizza stone. I love pizza. I am a pizza purist. I eat thin crust, margherita pizza, preferably with fresh basil. Nothing fancy, nothing weird, nothing fundamentally fattening. I’m talking fresh mozzarella, imported parmigiano reggiano, real tomatoes. I don’t even like pepperoni. And even if I did, I wouldn’t eat it on pizza.
I don’t eat it all that much pizza – which is probably why I still think of it as special, and honestly, there’s also usually a huge salad involved. I’m a nutritionist’s dream. I eat the best takeout pizza I can find.
In the New Haven area with some of the best pizza anywhere, that generally means sending my husband tearing out to Modern Apizza. It’s not that I don’t like Pepe’s pizza, I do. It’s not that I don’t like Sally’s Apizza, I do. But I’m really not a big fan of abuse on my pizza, and Modern seems to have left that, mercifully, off it’s menu. Not so much the other guys.
Many years ago I invested in a pizza stone after equally many years resisting a pizza stone. What was I waiting for? Who knows?
I stick the stone in the middle of the oven, crank up the gas to about 500 while my husband heads out for take-out pizza. When he gets back – in go the slices; I turn off the oven, which is still super-hot; and minutes later – fresh crispy pizza.
A pizza stone absolutely is worth it. It’s not expensive and it’s great for baking and/or heating bread and a whole host of other things. And of course leftover pizza. Tastes like fresh – so go for it.
Remember though – NEVER put a stone in a hot oven. Put the stone in a cold oven and let it heat up with the oven. Let it cool down in the oven before washing. Wash with hot water and a steel scrubber. NEVER use soap.
And if I’ve offended anyone at Pepe’s or Sally’s – too bad. They should learn to be nice to their customers.
 I’m a kind of populist when it comes to food – especially how the media handle it.
Since everybody has to eat, it seems to me media entities would have way more relevancy dealing with food safety and health and affordable meals and real-life food preparation than with insanely expensive restaurants where you can’t get a reservation anyway and even if you could you would be disinclined to eat their, say foie gras.
The worst offender, in my book, is the Food Network. It staggers me that in this day and age it can justify the financial and culinary waste of things like Iron Chef. I find it impossible to watch without thinking about how many people could be fed (like in Haiti right now, let alone all the financially strapped people in our own country) for the cost of the high-end ingredients. And Oh! The waste!
Maybe someone should try a food challenge show to develop healthy meals for schools, or packagable food for emergency situations.
Sometimes you truly need a little reminder of what food’s role in society can be aside from a life necessity. The Melville Charitable Trust has harnessed food as a social change agent in a way that is at once unique and obvious. It seems to be working in their single experiment at Billings Forge in Hartford. The good news is there are lots of inquiries about it and one day you could see this replicated in other places around the nation.
You can read more about it in my story here in The New York Times Metropolitan section.
 The store shelves at Hindinger Farm are a bit bare at this late date, just a few weeks before it closes for the season. The last of the farm-raised produce consists of acorn and butternut squashes, a lone cabbage or two and a dozen or so different apple varieties – all of them pock-marked by the hail that might have otherwise meant doom for something of a lesser constitution than this fourth generation family farm that sits high atop Hamden’s hills with a southern view that takes your breath away – all the way to Long Island.
But it didn’t mean doom.
And that’s the point here.
“I was up in the middle of the night when it was hailing,” Liz Hindinger says. “I could hear it. I’m sitting there looking out the window freaking out. Everything was just like – you put it through the shredder the next day.”
And then Liz and her brother George, who own and run this farm founded in 1893, went on and finished their season. They farm 100 of its 138 acres, and that includes about 50 acres of orchard. And they’ll be out there pruning their 18 different apples and their pears and peaches and nectarines and plums again this winter.
Not a stone’s throw away, it would be a different outcome for Nature’s Mirror Farm in North Haven – a half-acre spread is all that’s really left of hundreds of acres that once belonged to the Melillo family in the area that is now home to the Route 40 connector.
After a few years farming and selling at area farmer’s markets and to restaurants, the farm is changing course – looking at raising quarter horses and in general looking for more land elsewhere.
These are stark reminders of three things – farming is really tough, financially difficult work; farming is really tough, financially difficult work; farming is really tough, financially difficult work.
Get the picture?
Liz and George have seen the changes. “In Hamden there were a lot of farms,” Liz says. “Mix Avenue, that main avenue where all the apartments are was all farms and there was a farm down that way,” she says pointing south, “Mr. Benham’s farm. And then there was a farm adjacent to ours.”
All gone – as are most of the folks who used to freeze and can fresh food for the winter.
“I wish they’d get back into it, because it would be great for us,” says George.
“We used to sell so much bulk,” adds Liz. “We used to sell peppers by the bushel left and right. We used to sell eggplant by the bushel left and right.”
“Corn like crazy, broccoli by the box,” George finishes. “The problem is really you can get whatever you want 12 months a year. It’s not like you can’t get broccoli in the winter anymore or red peppers or corn or eggplant. You can get anything all year, so I think that’s where it started to change a little bit.”
But the Hindingers are still here.
“That’s the way we make our living,” George says. “We don’t want it to be a trend,” he says of the Buy CT-Grown campaign and local and fresh and all that. “We want it to be a habit,” he says.
An interesting way to view things. Think about it the next time you eye that asparagus in January, and actually consider buying it.
 Let’s face it, Thanksgiving has pretty much become all about the meal. Not too much unlike Christmas, which has become all about the consumer fix. Truth: we pretty much eat ourselves senseless from Thanksgiving until New Year’s.
Every year I threaten to forgo all culinary indulgences and offer my services at the nearest soup kitchen. But honestly, I’m on the fence about whether I really want to give up the food and especially the cooking. Hanging out in the kitchen all day, rummaging through recipes, concocting a new dish or two or three, peeling, chopping, rolling, whisking. Watching those cranberries pop. I mean – this is fun. This is the reward I give myself for … I don’t know, something.
Can you rationalize just feeding your family as genuine giving? If you’re just thankful for your life, is it thanks enough? I don’t know.
I have stood in the Connecticut Food Bank warehouse in East Haven and seen pallet upon pallet of food, and seen those in charge terrified that it will be nowhere near enough. The Food Bank is just that, the bank for all those soup kitchens and pantries. When the Bank runs out, they run out.
The Food Bank’s website says it will feed 300,000 people this year. That’s a lot of people in a small state like Connecticut
“Throughout 2009, soup kitchens and food pantries served by Connecticut Food Bank have reported an average 30 percent increase in demand for their services.
‘Some of our programs saw increases higher than that average,’” it quotes Executive Director Nancy Carrington. “‘We are seeing more people who are seeking food assistance for the first time.’”
 That’s also what Carrington told me this time last year, which means the situation is worse, not better. She also told me that the Food Bank can leverage money into more food than you or I could simply go out and purchase, but they’re happy to have whatever you can give.
It’s that simple — the giving and the thanks need not be high profile – but they need to happen. The Food Bank relies on the kindness of strangers. Easy to sort it all out on the Food Bank’s website
And for the record – I am cooking again this year.
 Tennis star Lindsay Davenport tastes dishes from Geronimo at the New Haven Food & Wine Festival 2008 Wimbledon has its strawberries and clotted cream. The Pilot Pen – well if you’re thinking New Haven pizza would be about it for local fare (not that there’s a thing wrong with New Haven pizza!) you’d be missing a whole world of cuisine.
Literally.
For a second year, the Pilot Pen will feature among its special events, the New Haven Food & Wine Festival. It’s a tent-ful of tastings from about 20 area restaurants that represent a veritable United Nations of Food. It’s again hosted by Madison resident (and tennis fanatic) chef, cookbook author, man-about-food and longtime friend-of-Julia — Jacques Pepin.
 Jacques Pepin at the New Haven Food & Wine Festival 2008 The festival came into being last year in kind of a roundabout way, according to tournament director Anne Worcester. “Because of an extraordinary cluster of high quality restaurants in New Haven, my longtime dream was to mount a full-scale food and wine festival for New Haven,” she said. “There’s this critical mass of very high quality restaurants that are award winning, have international diversity and unique concepts.”
But 18 months of research showed a standalone festival to be prohibitively expensive, so a plan was devised for a mini food and wine festival using the already existing infrastructure of the Pilot Pen – its tents, sponsors, staff. It was one evening of tastings combined with a premier ticket to the tennis. Popular? Oh yeah — it sold out three weeks before the tournament even opened.
“The veal cheeks from Union League Café,” Worcester said in a big hurry when asked what she remembered most. “Something at Ibiza’s. The beautiful cheese from Caseus, which was such a nice compliment to all the other foods and wine and easy to eat on fly.
“But what struck me really was the buzz.”
Enough of a buzz that over the winter, the participating restaurants said they wanted to do more. So this year there are two tastings.
Here’s the deal: Both tastings are on August 26. Each tasting can accommodate 250 people. Afternoon is 12 noon–2 p.m. Evening is 5-7:30 p.m. Afternoon ticket is $105, evening is $125. That includes food, wine and a box seat for the tennis. Evening is sold out, but there’s room in the afternoon.
Participating restaurants (see below) provide a savory and sweet offering – bigger than a taste, smaller than an appetizer. The dishes are decided ahead of time to avoid duplication.
“Last year everyone wanted to do gazpacho,” Worcester said. “This year everybody wanted to do ceviche.”
There is also wine tasting – though the wines are not local.
And next year … “It’s still my dream to stage a full-scale standalone event,” Worcester said.
Participating this year with their savory then sweet dishes, and a little heavy on the coconut and tres leches:
116 Crown – Mediterranean Vegetables & Israeli Couscous; Watermelon Pudding
Barcelona – Gazpacho Barcelona; Flan Catalan
Basta – Penne ala Vodka with Local Sausages; Handmade assorted Biscotti
Bentara – Vegetarian Spring Rolls with a Sweet Sambal Sauce; Sweet Malaysian Mocci with fresh Coconut
Bespoke/Sabor – Pan Roasted Sea Scallops served with Cauliflower Puree and Indonesian Vinaigrette; Banana Tres Leches served with fresh Banana Gelato
Caseus – Assorted Cheeses; Goat Cheese Brownies
Central Steakhouse – Tuna Rice Roll; Banana Coconut Rice Pudding
Claire’s Corner Copia – Puebla Salad; Assorted Mini Cakes
Foster’s – BBQ Wild Boar Slider on home-style Butter Roll; Orange Creamsicle cake with Vanilla Bean Drizzle
Geronimo – Blue Corn Meal Tamales with Rice, Shrimp and Hatch Green Chile Sauce; Bison Adovado with Avocado Crema
Ibiza – Ceviche; Arroz con Leche
John Davenport’s – Northeast farms New York, Cambrozola Cheese; Port reduction Petit Fours
Kitchen Zinc – Artisan Meats, local Cheeses, Olives, fire roasted Peppers, Artichokes & Figs
Miso – Pepper Corn White Tuna; Orange Ct Roll
Pacifico – Reina Pepiada Shrimp, Avocado Arepa sandwich; Coconut Tres Leches Pound Cake
Thali – Baby Shrimp Chorizo; Chilled Coconut, Green Pea and Cucumber Soup
Thali Too – Ragda Patties; Garlic Sea Salt Green Chilies
Union League Café – Braised Veal Cheeks; Peach Parfait
Zinc – Chilled Quinoa “Risotto” and garden Mint Pesto; Poached local Stone Fruits and Basil
 Tomato plant at Urban Oaks with a touch of late blight. Still standing ... so far. Latest victim on the late blight front is the Tomato To-Mah-To Heirloom Tasting Feast, which had been scheduled for August 23. Slow Food Connecticut, which has sponsored the event for its eight years said aside from soaked ground at Upper Forty Farm in Cromwell where it’s usually held, it’s not clear that either host farm – Upper Forty or Urban Oaks in New Britain is actually going to have any tomatoes.
 Part of a now empty row at Urban Oaks where tomato plants had been. They were yanked after developing late blight. This week, Mike Kandefer at Urban Oaks showed me some gaping holes on his farm where his much-heralded organic tomatoes used to be. “We have late blight big time,” he said. “I’ve pulled up four rows of tomatoes already.
“Some spots have it, some spots don’t. The place I got it of course is closest to somebody who has a garden on the other side of the fence.”
He’s also got a little on his plants in the green house – so even that’s no guaranteed hedge against it. He’s still smiling – but with tomatoes as his biggest crop, he’s definitely concerned.
I’m being optimistic,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get something out of them.”
Kathryn Caruso at Upper Forty said so far no late blight, but she is fighting a host of other maladies related to loads of rain and little sun. The tomatoes are running very late, she said. “I don’t expect to have a big crop this year at all. Mother Nature’s the boss this year.
“I’m looking forward to next year,” Caruso said.
Slow Food Connecticut said it’s establishing a Tomato Fund to be split between Urban Oaks and Upper Forty. Donations are tax deductible and should go to: Susan Chandler, 1870 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06117. Note “Tomato Fund” on the memo line.
Still Happening Despite the Weather
The Connecticut Wine Festival at the Goshen Fairgrounds this weekend. More than a dozen Connecticut vineyards are participating. Did you even know there were more than a dozen Connecticut vineyards?
Taste of Hartford is hanging in for an extra week. You can continue to pay $20.09 for a three-course meal at 32 area restaurants through August 9.
The Celebration of Connecticut Farms at Graywall Farms in Lebanon on September 13. It’s an absolute who’s who of farms, chefs and restaurants in the state. More on that in the coming weeks.
 Dinners at the Farm is back for a third season with the first of its multi-course gourmet local farm dinners running July 16-18.
The concept and format remain the same as last year: Four locations over the course of the summer, three nights each, and $3,000 in proceeds from each set going to a different cause.
In return for $150, each diner gets to eat under the stars at a quintessential Connecticut farm. Yes there’s a tent, weather has been known to be less than cooperative. Bug spray isn’t a bad idea. I’d skip the sandals if I were you.
It’s a starve-all-day dinner.
 Jonathan Rapp plating appetizer scallops last summer. In the past, creator Jonathan Rapp of River Tavern in Chester, with the help of Drew McLachlan of Feast Gourmet Market in Deep River have been known to deliver more than 10 courses plus appetizers and wine.
 Scallops with salsa and purslane mole served last July for a dinner that benefited Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantries. Now it’s a more manageable usually seven courses. (Seriously, who’s complaining?)
And of course there’s that fire truck – the 1955 classic that has been converted into an outdoor kitchen. Just about everything is cooked there. And save a few spices, an avocado or two and a touch of citrus – OK flour, sugar, stuff like that – everything major that goes into the meal is local – from farms, fishing operations and other food-makers around the state.
Click here to read about one of last year’s dinners (when it did NOT rain) – and it will give you a sense of how the meal comes together and the type of food you can expect.
This is the schedule, but warning, warning, warning – I am told some of these are already selling out. Go to the Dinners at the Farm website to purchase tickets and learn more.
July 16, 17, 18 Stanton-Davis Farm, Pawcatuck
Benefiting Stanton-Davis Homestead
Aug. 12, 13, 14 White Gate Farm, East Lyme
Benefiting Connecticut Farm Land Trust
Aug. 27, 28, 29 Barberry Hill Farm, Madison
Benefiting CitySeed Farmer’s Market
Sept. 10, 11, 12 Old Maids Farm, South Glastonbury
Benefiting Working Lands Alliance
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