On two recent trips to India, chocolate and candy maker Paul Poole has been fortunate to catch an intimate glimpse into the lives of some Indian families. The key was the sharing of food, but not only meals. Paul taught his Indian friends how to make various types of chocolates and they shared the knowledge of local sweets. Great Taste listeners will not only hear about Paul’s adventures, but learn the recipes involved in this cross-cultural exchange.

Fairfield, IA craftsman Paul Poole began making chocolates, toffee, and other sweets in the late 70’s in San Francisco. At times he actually sold his creations, but for the greater part of three decades you might have received some as a gift if he made a custom kitchen cabinet for you. Even now you have to be lucky.  If you aren’t on his holiday list, then the “right place” (KRUU’s studio) is your best shot.

You won’t believe how easy it is to create these delicious treats in your own kitchen with proper instructions and tools. But, you’ll be amazed at Paul’s ingenuity when working under less than ideal conditions in simple Indian kitchens.

Tune in for the stories and how to make chocolates, toffee, and other tasty treats. Stop by to watch and have a taste at the studio if you are in the neighborhood. You’ll be in the “right place.” Alternatively, listen to the live stream from 7-8 PM on Wednesday or the rebroadcast Friday at 7-8 AM.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter where we tweet the Daily Dish, daily.

More about KRUU’s Great Taste program:

In case you haven’t picked up on the little nudge-nudge reminders from your sweetheart, Valentine’s Day is this Sunday.  Regardless of whether you subscribe to notions of roses, chocolates, or romantic love, this weekend presents a rare opportunity to dine out in Fairfield on a Sunday evening.

If staying around town is part of the plan, you’ve got options:

Revelations will be open for the occasion and offering a special menu.  Start off with creamy spinach artichoke dip or shrimp cocktail.  Salad options include fresh strawberry, walnut, and goat cheese salad or grapefruit, asiago, and pecan salad and the soup featured will be Greek tomato with couscous and feta.  For your main course, feast on seared chicken breast and mushroom marsala with whipped potatoes, carrots and green beans, seared Alaskan salmon with Moroccan couscous and green beans, grilled eggplant with local ricotta and zesty marinara with orzo pasta or Indian coconut chickpeas over basmati rice.  Satisfy your sweetheart’s sweet tooth with strawberry cheesecake, chocolate mousse or chocolate lovers’ cake.

At Vivo’s, in addition to the full menu, specials include clams oreganata as a starter and for the main course choose from gnocchi in gorgonzola cream sauce topped with herbed pistachios and steamed vegetables, braised tilapia with asparagus risotto, or rosemary chicken with kalamata olives, artichokes and capers with whipped potatoes.  Top it off with the triple chocolate cake dessert special.

More than one special friend to entertain? At Top of the Rock Grill you can enjoy a Valentine’s day menu all weekend long– specials include oriental scallops bruschetta as a starter and entrees of rosemary rack of lamb with potatoes, crab stuffed shrimp over basmati rice, and lobster ravioli in sherry sauce. Heart shaped apple pie headlines the dessert menu.

Café Dodici in Washington is offering specials all weekend as well– Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening as well as a Sunday brunch.  In addition to their regular menu offerings, special entrees include meatloaf wellington, blackened orange roughy, buffalo rib eye, vegetable pot pourri, Alaskan salmon, seafood cannelloni, and butternut squash ravioli.

If you’re prepared to venture a bit further and perhaps try something new.  I highly recommend taking a drive down to Bistro 322 in Burlington.  Featuring a blend of French inspired cuisine with a touch of Asian influence, termed “comfort cuisine,” Bistro 322 is a refreshing and romantic dining experience.  They also feature a variety of wine flights and fun specialty drinks.

There’s still time, make your reservations now! Invite your friends, lovers or neighbors. Who says food isn’t love!

[Note: this article was originally posted in July 2009.  It is now updated with the complete recipe - include at the end of the article - for making the Artisan Free-Form Loaf.]

My bread habits have come a long way in the past forty years. I started with Wonder Bread. In the 80s I moved on to a Whole Wheat bread which was basically the brown version of Wonder Bread from a nutritional standpoint. In the 90s I discovered real Whole Wheat breads (thanks to local co-op grocery stores) and explored the tastes of fresh baked artisan breads. And now, thanks to my wife, my family is learning that sliced bread isn’t the greatest invention after all. Instead, our family is now baking all of our bread ourselves, and what may surprise most people is that it’s relatively easy to bake enough healthy, great tasting bread to feed your family.

Over the past several months we’ve been buying fewer and fewer loaves of sliced bread, and baking more and more bread at home. Two weeks ago we decided to stop buying bread at all, and switch entirely to baking our own bread. So far it’s going well and I don’t miss store bought sliced loaves. Our routine is to prepare a high moisture no knead dough once a week, store that dough in the fridge, and use portions of it to bake bread (or pizzas) as needed throughout the week.

Baking all of your own bread may sound like a lot of work, and while it is more work than putting a loaf of bread in your cart at the grocery store, it isn’t as labor intensive as you might imagine (as I thought until recently).  Of course we were helped greatly by a book that was featured on The Splendid Table titled Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  The book provides detailed instructions and techniques on how to bake an Artisan Free-Form Loaf.  It’s what they call their “master recipe”, which once mastered contains all the skills required to bake the dozens of other recipes in the book.

Read the full story

My friends know the story: when my wife proposed that we move back to South East Iowa to live near her family, I could not conceive of making the move unless we found a town that had access to good quality, healthy, natural foods. When we identified that the small town of Fairfield Iowa was home to an established natural foods store, Everybody’s Whole Foods Store, we began packing.

During one of my first shopping experiences in Everybody’s I could not find pepperoni (for pizza) or grass fed ground beef. I asked an employee something close to “where’s the beef?” I can recall his reaction of shock, as if I had just walked up to him and spoken in tongues, “beazula mira mira azzzzkanam feed mew deeevil BEEEEEEF!”

Grass-fed roasted tenderloin with crab meat, by MJ Rehm

As with most of the common knowledge in this town, I was slow to understand that Everybody’s isn’t your average Natural Foods store, because after all, this is Fairfield, which isn’t your average town. While Everybody’s does attract non-meditator customers like myself, the store exists because it has primarily served the meditator community since opening it’s doors 1995. And the meditator community is largely vegetarian, and for reasons I have never been able to figure out, those that do eat some meats, are OK with chicken, turkey and fish.

When asked why Everybody’s doesn’t carry natural beef products, Manager Adam Pohlman explains, “The number one answer is the demand for beef and pork is greatly lacking especially for frozen. We have considered carrying a few items but found there to be push back by a number of customers when we conducted surveys. The combination of not having a lot of demand and the fact that those who did not want, really did not want it and were adamant in there comments on the idea.”

But there is hope for other Fairfield residents who enjoy the taste, and the ethics, of naturally raised, grass-fed beef – Yoder’s Natural Farm. Located in nearby Bloomfield, Iowa, Yoder’s Natural Farm offers grass-fed beef, pastured broilers and eggs, and pork. You can get an order form from them (call 641-664-2060) and have your meats/eggs delivered to the Farmer’s Market right here in town.

Raised on the family farm in Southern Iowa, Robert Yoder started Yoder’s Natural Farm in 2006. “It is my goal to maintain a farm that provides a superior natural product for my customers while still caring for the land, animals, and the environment in a positive and natural way.” I’ve ordered steaks, hamburgers and bacon from Yoder’s several times and their meats are delicious and affordable.

Why should meat eaters choose grass-fed beef? Read this article at FoodRevolution.org by John Robbins. In short, it tastes better, is healthier for you, and healthier for the environment.

Would you like to see more access to grass-fed meats at Everybody’s and Hy-Vee? Let us know along with any other thoughts (both omnivores and vegetarians welcome).

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why Grass Fed Beef is Better for Your Health (naturalbias.com)
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• How to Buy Healthy Beef (wholefoodandmore.net)

Many people are afraid of trace amounts of poison, especially in their food and water; failing to understand that the amount of poison is what really determines a food’s safety, not that the toxin exists.

Image via Wikipedia

We routinely tolerate toxic chemicals in the food we eat every day. Even organic fruits and vegetables contain extremely toxic chemicals. For every gram of artificial pesticide residue we consume, we eat over 22 pounds of natural toxins found the vegetables themselves.

As an example, I’ve prepared a sampling of a carrot’s ingredients; other than carbohydrates, fat, water, fiber, and protein, a carrot contains 371 measurable compounds, many of them extremely toxic to humans.

Listed below the ingredients list I have compiled a listing of the chemical properties of these chemicals. You’ll see that the chemicals in carrots are used as sunscreens, pesticides, tranquilizers, contraceptives, decongestants, refrigerants, preservatives, soap, sedatives, and rat poison. Many are carcinogenic and toxic to the heart and central nervous system.  We are able to ingest carrots and receive a net health benefit because the poisons are found in small amounts. As you can see, carrots are anything but “chemical free.”

A carrot contains:
ALANINE, ACETONE, ACETALDEHYDE, ALPHA LINOLENIC ACID, ALUMINUM, ARSENIC, ASARONE, ALPHA TERPINENE, BORNYL ACETATE, BORON, BROMINE, BUTYRIC ACID, CADMIUM, CAMPHOR, CHOLESTEROL, CHOLINE, CHROMIUM, COBALT, CYSTINE, CYSTEINE, ETHANOL, FORMIC ACID, FUMARIC ACID, GLUTAMIC ACID, HYDROGEN CYANIDE, ISOBUTYRIC ACID, ISOPRENE, LAURIC ACID, LEAD, LECITHIN, LITHIUM, LYSINE, MALIC ACID, MERCURY, METHYLAMINE, MYRISTICIN, NICKEL, OXALIC ACID, PHENYLALANINE, PHOSPHORUS, QUERCETIN, SILICON, STEARIC ACID, SULFUR, TARTARIC ACID, TIN, TITANIUM, TRYPTOPHAN, XYLITOL.

If an organic carrot were labeled with this (partial) list of its ingredients, how many of us would purchase one? It contains many chemicals that we might reject including Phytic Acid ( 52,700 ppm; a preservative with E number E391), Xanthotoxin (300 ppb; a drug with the trade name Oxsoralen), Oxalic Acid (56 ppm, a pesticide used to treat bee hives, fatal in humans at 71mg/kg), Methylamine (3,970 ppm, an industrial solvent and DEA controlled substance), and so on.

Carcinogenic, Cardiotoxic, CNS-Stimulant, CNS-Toxic, Contraceptive, Convulsant, Corrosive, Cytotoxic, Decongestant, Deliriant, Disinfectant, Diuretic, Expectorant, Fatal, Flatugenic, FPTase-Inhibitor, Genotoxic, Hallucinogenic, Hepatocarcinogenic, Hepatotoxic, Herbicide, Hormone, Hypnotic, Hypothalmic-Depressant, Immunosuppressant, Insect-Repellent, Insecticide, Irritant, Laxative, Lubricant, Motor-Depressant, Mosquitocide, Myorelaxant, Narcotic, Neuroexcitant, Neuroinhibitor, Neurotoxic, Ozone-Scavenger, Parasiticide, Perfume, Pesticide, Phototoxic, Pituitary Stimulant, Preservative, Refrigerant, Renotoxic Respiration Depressant, Rodent Poison, Sedative, Soap, Spermicide, Stimulant, Sunscreen, Sweetener, Surfactant, Termiticide, Testosteronigenic, Toxic, Tranquilizer, Tumorigenic, Tumor Promoter, Urine-Acidifier, Uterorelaxant, Vasodilator, Vasomotor Stimulant.

SOURCE:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/duke/plants.html

Our first annual Best Of Fairfield poll ended at midnight on New Year’s Eve.  Over 6,000 votes were cast by our readers and we are happy to announce the following winners.

Best Coffee – Cafe Paradiso

Java artisan Cafe Paradiso won our poll with 48% of the votes. In second place was Revelations with 24% and apparently a fair amount of our readers perform their morning coffee ritual at McDonalds, which received 7% of the votes. Check out Cafe Paradiso’s new location on the square, just west of George’s.

Best Musical Act – Porno Galactica

For two months The Jefferson County Green Band was running away with Best Musical Act in Fairfield Iowa. But a few days before polls closed on New Year’s Eve, brothers Philip Rabalais and Dominic Rabalais, also know as local electronic band Porno Galactica, launched a campaign on Facebook to get enough votes (35%) to take the lead from The Jefferson County Green Band (25%). If you don’t start dancing by the time Porno Galactica’s song Sea Best Released is over; then you just might be dead.

Best Restaurant – Revelations

How far they have come! Revelations, once a tiny book store serving coffee, is now considered by 39% of voters in our poll to be the best restaurant in Fairfield. In second place was Top of the Rock Grill with 20% of the vote.  Did you know you can order online at Revelations?

Best Civic Leader – Ed Malloy

Ed Malloy handily won our reader’s choice for Best Civic Leader with 52% of the vote. Those are some shoes to fill! Dave Neff came in second with 20% of the vote.

Best Entrepeneur – Francis Thicke

Francis Thicke of Radiance Dairy and candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, narrowly won with 35% of the votes, over Eric Schwartz of Cambridge (33%). Francis Thicke shows through the power of example how to build and operate a successful, sustainable agriculture business and his next step is to take that example to the capitol of Iowa.

Best Lunchtime Buffet – Noodle House

More votes were cast for this category than any other. With the lead changing daily between Noodle House (25%) and Arandas Mexican Buffet (23%). It makes sense to me – if I were to look back at the hundreds of buffet lunches I’ve eaten out since moving to Fairfield it would probably come down to a toss up between the Coconut Chicken at Noodle House and the Taco bar at Arandas. FYI – you can get Noodle House’s coconut chicken on Thursday’s.

Best Teacher – Kevin Hosbond

Fairfield High School’s English teacher Kevin Hosbond received 30% of the votes in this category. I don’t have the pleasure of knowing Kevin personally, but I’ve seen him recently dressed as the Mad Hatter and have had the pleasure of working with former students of his who give him the highest praise.

Best Art Gallery – Icon Gallery

The Icon Gallery ran away with this award by receiving 55% of the votes. The Icon Gallery continues to bring the quality and presentation of a big city art gallery to Fairfield. I often feel like I am transported to a space in Chicago or New York when I walk through their doors.

Best Spot for a Playdate – Chautauqua Park

My daughter agrees with the our readers response (31%) that Chautauqua Park is the best spot for a playdate. With multiple playgrounds, lots of room to run and trees to climb; it’s hard to beat Chautauqua Park whether your 4 or 40 years old.

Most notable “other” vote – Pizza Ranch

Pizza Ranch received several hundred votes between several categories, including Best Spot for Playdate, Best Lunchtime Buffet, Best Restaurant and Best Art Gallery.

Congratulations to the winners of our Best of Fairfield 2009 awards.  We’ll be featuring each of the winners on Fairfield Voice and providing them with plaques or store window stickers to show off their award.  If you have any feedback on how we can run our 2010 awards, please let us know.