Omnivore Atlanta

Breakfast in Sin City:

(Hat tip to Brad Lapin)

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STUFF IT! Last year's turkey, almost ready to eat

A few weeks ago, my family and I were in a bad car accident. Driving down Ga. 400 at about 60 miles per hour, my back right tire blew and my brakes failed. After a few terrifying seconds fishtailing back and forth, all my weight on a useless brake pedal, the car spun around and hit the concrete divider. The airbags deployed, and the car filled with smoke. None of us was hurt, save a nasty bruise for me from the seat belt, but we were badly shaken.

After the police, the insurance and the ride home, we tried to regroup. What to do? How to convince our befuddled souls, which in those seconds had prepared for eternity, that we were still firmly grounded in this world?

We roasted a chicken.

Continue Reading “Comfort food”

(Photo by Jennifer Zyman)

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Those wacky Chinese Southern Belles are doing a series of 20-minute, free cooking demos at Buford Highway Farmers Market (5600 Buford Hwy., Doraville, just outside I-285), starting this Saturday. You can see them at 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m. Here’s the topic lineup for the first four demos:

Nov. 14  – Express Sushi (veggie only or with fish)
Nov. 21 – Eggrolls ‘n’ Springrolls
Dec. 5 – Asian Noodle Crazy
Dec. 12 – Fusion Favorites

Check out their website for more details.

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File this under “news that totally sucks.” Elisa Gambino (right) has announced the closing of her store, Via Elisa. Although she will continue marketing her sauces under the same name, she will no longer be making her pasta, by far the best available in the city. She writes:

Via Elisa’s store – but not our sauces — will end what has been a glorious seven-year run in Atlanta at the close of business on Saturday, October 17, the latest victim of an unforgiving economy.

Though that will mark the last day we will make our award-winning pasta and the last day our store will be open, I want you to know that we will continue to make our sauces, whose sales have grown despite the economic climate.

Since the line of Via Elisa sauces sold at Whole Foods Markets throughout six states in the South does very well, I will focus on developing Via Elisa as a sauce company. All three of our sauces – Passionately Perfect Tomato, Diavoletta and Sofia’s Sicilian Caper – are available in 16-oz. and 32-oz. jars.

Between the flooding and the economy, there has been much sad news here in Atlanta, and when I think of the loss that so many people have suffered, this bit of news seems trivial in comparison. I am thankful to all of you who have supported Via Elisa since we opened our doors in 2002. I have been overwhelmed by your kindness and dedication to the success of Via Elisa and I hope you will continue to support the sauces as I streamline our business. I have always enjoyed delivering pasta to the people in the neighborhoods, markets and our store. I am confident I will enjoy promoting and selling our sauces as well.

A supply of Via Elisa pasta and ravioli is available at Whole Foods Markets here in Atlanta (as we have just shipped out a fresh batch). You know where to find it! We will also continue to accept your orders until October 16 and I hope you will stock up. Everything we make freezes well.

On a closing note I want to thank the incredible and dedicated staff of professionals who work here at Via Elisa. Without Dave, Tina, Bess, Noe, Maryland, Darnell and Dahlia, Via Elisa would not have been possible. Their dedication to Via Elisa has inspired me daily and has kept me going over the years. Their contribution to the business has been immeasurable. Please thank them when you come to the shop.

And please do come by, say hello and pick up your pasta, ravioli, sauces, meats, cheeses, vinegars and oils at least one last time. The store will be open and we will be here making pasta through Saturday, October 17, and we would love to see you.

As I have always said, a two-pasta day is a good day! And if you are looking for sauce, all of our 16-oz. sizes are still on sale at Whole Foods Markets in the South for only $3.49 until October 13th.

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Rathbun’s has just announced its 2010 cooking classes, which in past years has sold out in a few days. Here’s the press release:

In Rathbun’s interactive cooking classes, you are in the kitchen, working and preparing the food yourself. Four teams of four people create their dishes from scratch, and then return at the end of the day with their guest for a complete dinner with wine pairings. Each team actually prepares their own course and then sits down to dine on their own creations. For three hours, you prepare the ingredients and get ready to make the dish. You’re in the kitchen, not in the seat.

Sign up for the class by calling the restaurant at 404.524.8280. Cost is $350.00 per person. All classes include 1 person in the class, you and a guest for dinner, a complimentary Rathbun Logo Chef Jacket, and wine pairings. All classes take place at 112 Krog Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30307

Rathbun’s 2010 cooking class line up is as follows:

Sunday, January 17, 2010 – Mexico City – First class for Chef Kevin. Join us as we create dishes inspired from the heart of Mexico City such as mole’s, tamales, sopes and traditional ceviches. This class will surely sell out and will be recommended to your friends. Only 16 seats are available!

Sunday, March 14, 2010 – French – Back for another run, the first French class created dishes like foie gras, duck paillard, Scottish salmon quenelles, along with seared veal loin and morels. Then we paired classic French wines with the four courses and discovered that French food creates a great cooking class. Only 16 seats are available! (more…)

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In the third episode of “Top Chef”: Las Vegas, both winning teams use one common ingredient. A very common ingredient, but one that I consider quite special.  It’s probably sitting on your shelf right now. A container full of swagger and an essential, go-to-bottle for your next company quickfire.

Mustard.

In any form.

I consider it to be in the list of top five things to always have on hand in your pantry.

And as condiments go, it’s the R rated version to ketchup’s PG rating. The beer to soda pop. For that matter, alternative music to pop music…sex to making out. And the reasons why are pretty simple from a pure flavor standpoint. (more…)

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Help! My Estro-Profi espresso maker has given up the ghost after 12 years, and I’m in the market for something new. Honestly, I do not want to spend $500-plus dollars again.

Does anyone have a recommendation (besides a moka or AeroPress).

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Could you use an extra $25,000? Then, design a sandwich that includes at least two ingredients from the   Mezzetta product line. Enter the recipe in the company’s Make That Sandwich contest by Sept. 7. Besides the $25,000, you’ll also receive a trip for two to Napa Valley. Check out Mezzetta’s contest website for full details.

Above is the winner of last year’s contest — Edwina Gadsby’s Spanish-style grilled cheese sandwich.

(Photo courtesy of Mezzetta)

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SPLIT SCREEN: Meryl Streep as Julia Child

Julie Powell’s blog-turned-memoir Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen blended two unlikely ingredients: gourmet cooking and online journaling. The venture originated in 2002 as “The Julie/Julia Project,” with Powell recording her attempt to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s landmark cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking within a year. Sharing food, like posting a blog entry, can provide a way to connect creatively with people, but otherwise, the two activities seem unrelated.

Julie & Julia’s film version equates eating and cooking with living. The movie implies that blogging amounts to a pale imitation of life, but that’s not writer/director Nora Ephron’s aim. The creator of toothless romantic comedies such as Sleepless in Seattle, Ephron offers a well-intentioned chick flick that focuses on food and joie de vivre, rather than the tired tropes of courtship and clothes. In depicting the relationship between two women who never meet, Julie & Julia makes Julie look less like a pupil than a shadow of Julia. It’s like comparing beef bourguignon to marshmallow fluff.

Continue reading “Meryl Streep sizzles in Julie & Julia“

(Image courtesy 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.)

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What is it? A sex toy? Pancakes for astronauts? No, it’s Batter Blaster, aerosolized pancake and waffle batter. Just spray on and cook. And it’s organic! Organic food under pressure! EZ, convenient and oh-so-environmentally-friendly. Shake, point and blast.

This product has been around about a year and actually has received pretty good reviews. Reader Phil Mutz, who took this picture, says he couldn’t resist buying it during a recent shopping trip. He hasn’t tried it yet.

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I happened to browse through the June issue of Men’s Journal at the barbershop today and noticed an article about the 30 best neighborhoods in America. Writer Jonathan Lerner penned the Atlanta entry and bestowed the award on the Old Fourth Ward. The article featured a photo of Lotta Frutta, the kinky little cafe at 590 Auburn Ave.

The article isn’t online yet, but I did find a couple of other manly foodie items. There’s a brief piece on Chef David Conn’s version of the  “Bacon Explosion” at New York’s Channel 4 pub. He serves slices of the artery-clogger on slider buns. Perhaps Lance Gummere of the Shed on Glenwood could adopt the recipe for his Wednesday night menu of various sliders for $3 each.

The magazine’s May issue featured a piece about hunting and cooking wild boar in South Carolina. Author Manny Howard opens with a scene that would titillate Michael Vick:

“Manny, if this is gonna happen, it’s gonna have to happen very soon,” Allan Boyd, our guide, calls from the opposite bank of a five-foot-wide canal, where the water is so black there’s no telling how deep it is. With both hands he’s gripping the left hind leg of a 200-pound Russian boar sow. Cornered between two cypress, the pig hammers back at the four hunting dogs attacking it. One of them has locked onto its snout. With a vigorous, elliptical sweep of its broad neck and shoulders the sow swings the dog high above its head and slams it savagely onto the cypress roots on the swamp floor. The dog doesn’t loosen its grip. This happens four more times, even as the three other dogs tear at the boar’s face and ears. Now Boyd is annoyed: “Manny, these dogs are getting hurt. They’ve been up on her too long.”

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The Guardian recently published an interesting piece by Tim Lewis about the latest nontraditional male type — the gastrosexual. The term refers to serious male home cooks, not the men who have dominated restaurant kitchens for generations.

Much of his article is devoted to the way male home cooks differ from their female counterparts. Among his many observations:

The idea that food might take second billing to the overall experience is heresy to any self-respecting male cook. In the domestic context, an invitation to eat has become an opportunity to flex culinary muscles or make a statement of intent to his rivals (sorry, guests). Ben Miller went to a dinner party recently where the host, a stay-at-home dad, offered a fully organic rabbit stew cooked from scratch, only to be trumped by Miller bringing his Ramsay-humbling sponge and the other male invitee whipping out a Bavarian apple strudel. And the legacy of Come Dine With Me means that you can be assured that the evening is ruthlessly dissected on the way home.

The essay prompted Amy Benfer of Salon.com to write a reply, that concludes this way:

I won’t argue with the (female) chef who laughingly points out that “molecular gastronomy” — the test tube style of cooking with liquid nitrogen and the like pioneered by el Bulli chef Ferran Adria (incidentally widely considered the greatest chef in the world) — seems like a stereotypically masculine way of cooking (if one is the kind to think that little boys are the most natural audience for chemistry sets). And I’m pretty sure that Alton Brown’s fondness for bringing power tools into the kitchen and invoking food science explains a lot of his appeal to my boyfriend, but then again, I’ve rarely seen him (the boyfriend, that is) consult a recipe when making family dishes — like baked ziti, chicken cacciatore, marinara. Then again, he learned those recipes from his mother, an old-school Italian cook of the intuitive variety. It seems to me that the allegedly “male” cooking style sounds like the kind of cuisine that comes from thinking of food as a pleasure, a hobby or a performance, rather than an obligation, a job or a chore. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of analysis to see why those different perspectives might fall along disproportionately gendered lines. Still, as long as I have that ride from the boys at the bar to hunt down smoked almonds and French breakfast radishes — and a live-in partner who can make an awesome pizza crust while I pontificate on gender — I’m not complaining about much.

(Photo courtesy of Americanata)

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Do you often find yourself, while camping, in possession of a small animal that begs to be deep-fried rather than roasted over an open fire?

Fret no more! This is Coleman’s Frywell Instastart Portable Fryer. Just picture your family gathered around this amazing device as they return to nature without giving up the civilized comfort of deep-fried food. The Frywell will also make you the envy of tailgaters and picnickers. And it’s yours for only $159.99 (propane cylinder sold separately).

(Hat tip, Oh Gizmo!)

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Savor, the popular gourmet grocery and sandwich shop, has added panini to its menu, according to Brad Lapin, my perennial Friday lunch companion. …

Cafe Lapin (no relation to Brad) has opened in the same shopping center. You can order breakfast, lunch or dinner there (no dinner on Sunday). …

AJC critic Meredith Ford Goldman’s review of La Pietra Cucina is due out this week. Brad and I lunched there Friday (surprise!) on arancini (below) suffused with marjoram and a seafood risotto (above) turned velvety black with squid ink. It contained snapper, rock shrimp, mussels and calamari.

Members of the Atlanta chapter of the Accademia della Cucina Italiana ate at La Pietra recently and grilled Chef Bruce Logue within an inch of his life, since his cuisine neither complies with usual notions of authenticity nor regionality. He calls his cooking “progressive Italian,” since he must depend on locally available ingredients. …

Serpas has begun serving Sunday brunch, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.: “Menu items include New Orleans beignets with confectioner dust, house made granola with yogurt and fresh fruit, cast-iron sunny-side up eggs with hashbrowns and andouille, raspberry marscapone-stuffed French toast with crispy bacon, slow-roasted pork loin with smoked cheddar grits and creamy collards and fried oysters-eggs benedict with Tabasco hollandaise.”

(more…)

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OK, this is about the coolest thing I’ve heard about in quite a while.

Natalie Keng writes a blog called Chinese Southern Belle. She explains in her blog profile:

As a true “Chinese Southern Belle,” I was born a first-generation Chinese-American in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in what was then the small town of Smyrna, “Jonquil City.” My parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1961 on academic scholarships to graduate school. As the third girl in the family, my name is revealing and auspicious: “ti” means humanitarian and is composed of the characters for “heart” and “brother.”

Her blog is a fascinating read and that’s no surprise. She attended Vassar as an undergrad and holds a master’s degree from Harvard. Now she and her mother, Margaret Keng, have teamed up to teach an Evening at Emory course called “Eggrolls ‘n’ Sweet Tea: Explore Chinese Cuisine and Demystify the Asian Grocery Store” on March 26 and 28. You can register and get full details on Emory’s website:

Class includes: 1) An Asian grocery store fieldtrip and tour where you’ll learn to navigate Asian vegetables, meats, spices, noodles and more. 2) An interactive classroom session exploring the connection between Asian food, culture, and history; cooking strategies; and kitchen pointers. (While this is not a cooking class, samples of popular food items, recipe ideas, cookware, and creative shortcuts will be covered.) 3) A teaching tasting at a local restaurant where you’ll learn to order authentic dishes that may not be listed on the American menu.

Margaret Keng, besides working as a full-time teacher, also has an interesting background in food, according to Emory’s profile of the duo:

Margaret taught the first adult education Chinese cooking class in Atlanta in 1978, “before soy sauce was available in a regular grocery.” She also co-owned and ran the first full-service Chinese restaurant opened in a mall. Her repertoire included “Ginger Beef with Rice-a-Roni,” “Braised Rutabaga with Black-eyed Peas” and “Hot Hunan Catfish.”

(Photo of Natalie and Maragret Keng courtesy of Emory Center for Lifelong Learning.)

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The latest cycle of “Simple Abundance,” a series of cooking classes to benefit the Atlanta Community Food Bank, will begin this Monday, Jan. 26, at Cook’s Warehouse in Midtown.

The class, scheduled 7-9 p.m., will feature Chef Ford Fry of JCT Kitchen. His class is entitled “It’s
All about Bacon”:

It’s All About Bacon
Chef Ford Fry of JCT Kitchen
The Cook’s Warehouse – Midtown
($55, 7-9 p.m. Demonstration & Tasting)
This class is for all the bacon lovers out there. After all, everything’s better with bacon, right? Chef Fry brings his popular Southern farmstead cooking to Simple Abundance with a menu of Crispy Braised Bacon “BLT” with apple butter and brioche; Alan Benton’s Bacon-Wrapped Sea Scallop with arugula salad, caramel corn and spiced peanuts and Georgia apple vinaigrette; Sheep’s Milk Ricotta Dumplings with grilled JCT cured bacon, brown butter and crispy sage. Evening includes wine tastings and a chance to win tasty door prizes provided by Atlanta Beverage, Bella Cucina Artful Foods, Cabot Cheese and Via Elisa Authentic Fresh Pasta.
Location: The Cook’s Warehouse – Midtown: 549-1 Amsterdam Avenue, Atlanta GA 30306

Consult the Food Bank’s website for more information about classes and to register.

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EAT IT AND WEEP, POLLAN: Beet soup at Dynamic Dish

Trends of the last year?

Slow-roasted meats. More tapas. Local produce. Organic meat. Fancy burgers. Gastropubs. Fixed-price menus. Chocolate. Mainstreaming of molecular cuisine. Yummy scrap meat. Gluten-free dining. Tea. Chef-driven steak houses.

And then, looking ahead: poverty and bad health. No, they’re not exactly dining trends but they’re certainly beginning to play a significant role in our food life.

This hit home with me recently, when Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food,” appeared on the PBS program “Bill Moyers’ Journal.”

“People with more money generally have healthier diets,” he said, “but affluent people who don’t cook are not as healthy in their eating as poor people who still cook….If you don’t have pots and pans, get them.”

Pollan, whose research is first-rate, didn’t cite a source for the statement, but, as someone who has eaten out most days of the week for over 20 years, the space where my gall bladder used to be certainly intuits the truth of his statement. Fast food like McDonald’s is just about universally recognized as unhealthy. (See the film “Super Size Me.”) But we increasingly learn that what passes for “fine dining” may be anything but fine from our health’s perspective, too.

(more…)

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Rabid foodies will know that The River Cottage Cookbook has been available since 2001. But this year it’s been released by Ten Speed Press ($35) in a slightly Americanized version (for instance, in the introduction, the word “nappies” has been changed to “diapers,” despite the fact that nappies is a far better word).

Much like the elBulli book I wrote about last week, River Cottage is a book that inspires fantasy, although Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (shown on the cover happily holding two adorable piggies and presumably thinking “delicious!”) is selling a much different fantasy than Ferran Adria. Fearnley-Whittingstall lives in the English countryside in an idyllic cottage where he raises his own meat, grows his own veggies, and tries to live as self-sufficiently as possible. In the book’s introduction, he assures us that he knows complete self-sufficiency is practically impossible in today’s world, but that he hopes to inspire us to move in that direction. One look at the book and my husband was planning a small farm in our backyard, inspired by passages such as:

Contented pigs are quiet, happy animals and shouldn’t give you much trouble. Your neighbors may be more skeptical, but provided they are forewarned, they may come to enjoy the presence of your pigs as much as you do. A little bit of noisy squealing at feeding time is the worst they will have to put up with.

There’s plenty of information about growing veggies and cleaning wild game as well. (more…)

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Ugh, pie crust. Once you’ve had homemade it’s almost impossible to go back to the frozen variety. But it’s a conundrum – all butter crusts taste better but tend to get stiff. Vegetable shortening crusts are flaky but have that strange flavor. I found a great recipe in the Gourmet cookbook that combined the two, but it was such a pain in the ass. Half way through I’d be standing with my rolling pin cursing the poor pie before it even got to the pie dish. Our former Kitchen Witch columnist Kim O’Donnel claims to have figured it out.  It seems the secret is vinegar. Hmmm….

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It’s actually quite hard to characterize A Day at elBulli: An insight into the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adria (Phaidon, $49.95) as a cookbook. At least, I was not able to cook anything from this huge, fawning book covering the self-declared “best restaurant in the world”. The book does contain 30 recipes in its 600 pages, from the kitchen of the famously cutting edge chef in Northern Spain. But if any of them look doable, invariably something will trip you up.

Usually it will be a matter of equipment (what, you don’t have a candy-floss machine in your kitchen?). If not that, it will be a matter of ingredients. The two recipes I thought I might be able to cook left me stranded at the store, hopelessly staring at my shopping list. The first, samphire tempura with saffron and oyster cream, didn’t call for any machines or chemicals I was unlikely to have. Of course, I had no idea what samphire is. I was saddened to find that it is a plant that grows on rocks near the coast of the United Kingdom. Drats. My brother suggested we substitute another green vegetable – asparagus perhaps? But I felt that would be contrary to the spirit of the book, which is basically that almost all of this stuff is totally unattainable.

The second, pine nut marshmallows, looked almost easy (see recipe below). My problem was finding extra virgin pine nut oil. I looked for it in a lot of stores. I didn’t find it. If anyone has any leads, let me know and I’ll give it a shot.

(more…)

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My brother was in India last year for a month, and he came back smelling different and with a serious curry addiction. A year later, nothing has come close to curing his longing – that is until we came across 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer (Workman, $32.50). The book is so exhaustive, there are  25 eggplant-based curries, and 3 that have eggplant and potato as their primary ingredients.

The book also covers Indian breads, a few relishes and pickles, and many stories, tips and observations that make for a good read.

We decided on this cold and misty Atlanta afternoon to make Jairam’s Potatoes and Eggplant with a Garlic-Chile Sauce. Like many of the recipes in the book, the curry relies entirely on whole and fresh spices rather than blends. The resulting dish was spicy, hearty and incredibly comforting. The book said this recipe serves 6, but my brother and I ate up the whole pot for lunch. I see this is a bit of a trend this week, so the problem may not be the recipes but more that I’m a glutton.

(more…)

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Day two of my cook-my-way-though-this-year’s-best-cookbooks challenge, and I’ve finally found a rabbit to satisfy my desire to cook Mustardy Rabbit Pot. How could I resist a recipe with a name like that? Rabbits are not easy to come by in Atlanta – Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market tantalizingly has a big sign over part of its meat section reading “Rabbit”, but they were out and said they’d be unlikely to have more until Saturday. The folks at Star Provisions said they could order one for me, but it wouldn’t be in until Friday. But I finally located one – a local Georgia rabbit at that – at Harry’s Farmer’s Market in Marietta. The butcher there assured me that they keep rabbit in stock all the time.

So I was able to proceed with a dinner of mustardy rabbit pot and leeks with lardons, both from the wonderful Complete Robuchon by Joel Robuchon and translated by Robin H. R. Bellinger (Knopf, $35). Joel Robuchon is best known as the chef who holds the most total Michelin stars for his restaurants in France and around the world. As such, you would think his cookbooks would be aspirational, trying to convey the culinary acrobatics of his restaurants. Nothing could be farther from the truth – Robuchon writes for the home cook, and these recipes are straightforward and an excellent all-round guide to French home cooking.  Looking through the recipes, there was nothing that looked too complex, and much that looked doable and delicious.

(more…)

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For next week’s Holiday Guide, I’ll be writing a roundup of the best cookbooks of the year with the hope that it will help with all your foodie gift-giving needs. I thought it would be a fun project to preview that roundup with daily blog posts this week chronicling each book as I read and cook from it.

I was planning on starting out the week with The Complete Robuchon, but I picked a rabbit recipe to test and couldn’t find any rabbit yesterday. So hopefully I’ll come across a bunny today and have that report tomorrow. Instead, I turned to the drool-inducing pages of Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook by Mark Robinson (Kodansha International, $25). If you never cook a thing from this book, it’s still worth buying and reading, as long as you don’t mind the side effect of overwhelming travel lust. The book serves as a guide to Tokyo’s best izakayas (pubs), as well as a repository for those establishment’s recipes and a history of the izakaya. Author Mark Robinson says in his introduction, “I believe that the izakaya is overdue to become one of the biggest Japanese cuisine trends abroad since the sushi bar.” This book certainly makes me hope so. The recipes cover simple, snacky Japanese bar food, from a version of candied walnuts to shark fin aspic. Almost every page of the book inspired me to want to get my hungry butt to the Asian grocery store and start shopping – who wouldn’t want to eat fresh corn tempura, or simmered eggplant and pork loin, or sauteed small squid and celery? I settled on creamy crab croquettes, and greens in dashi and soy sauce.

If you’ve never made dashi before, it’s an incredibly satisfying and very simple thing to do. After making it last night I’ve pretty much decided that it’s worth doing every week or so just to have some on hand, much like I do with chicken stock. The crab croquettes were also easy – basically a mixture of crab, sauteed onion, hard boiled egg and a very light bechamel, breaded in panko and deep fried. They were crispy on the outside and melty in the middle – wonderful for soaking up beer. The greens recipe was for komatsuna greens, but I substituted spinach, as the book suggested (it said you could also use swiss chard or mustard greens). We boiled then shocked the spinach, and topped it with a 50/50 mixture of dashi and soy sauce – the perfect foil for the rich, crispy, slightly oily crab cakes. (more…)

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Jennifer Levinson, owner of Buckhead’s Souper Jenny, is releasing her first cookbook Souper Jenny Cooks. A launch party for Souper Jenny Cooks will be held on Dec. 11th from 5-10 p.m., which just happens to fall on Jenny’s notorious Grilled Cheese Night at the Buckhead hotspot.

Jenny’s father, Jarvin Levinson, authored the cookbook and included several of Jenny’s quick and simple recipes for the healthy eater.

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My post below about Lactaid’s poor performance as micro-foam prompted this email:

I read your micro-foam blog post yesterday and, upon learning that you are lactose intolerant, wanted to send you information about NICECREAM which you might enjoy in lieu of regular ice cream. The new non-dairy frozen dessert was created and produced for Jake’s Ice Cream by Dr. Leon Lashner, a chiropractor and naturopath.

The product is made from coconut cream and all organic ingredients – it does not sacrifice taste for health benefits. The organic coconut oil present in NICECREAM has several well-documented health benefits, including zero cholesterol, great for hair and skin, has anti-microbial properties, stimulates metabolism and helps balance blood sugar. It is available at all Jake’s locations (www.jakesicecream.com).

Available flavors include coconut, chocolate, vanilla bean, banana chocolate chip, passion fruit and double capuccino.

Actually, for inexplicable reasons I am not bothered by most ice cream or cheese. It seems only to be milk itself that makes me sick. But I look forward to trying the new product at Jake’s.

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