MAD2 food symposium in Copenhagen: some highlights

The second annual MAD food symposium spearheaded by Noma chef Rene Redzepi took place this week under a blue and yellow circus tent pitched on a hay-strewn meadow at the edge of Copenhagen. An audience of international food devotees lucky enough to score tickets descended on the Danish capital to hear speakers address the role of the chef in a world whose food system is increasingly complicated.

MAD is a tantalizing mix of high-minded intentions and the best chefs in the world (with occasional moments of the sanctimonious, bizarre or poorly translated) in a Nordic setting free of the telltales of commercial sponsorship (i.e., demos equipped by All-Clad). There was smorrebrod (open-faced sandwiches) for lunch and Coffee Collective coffee to help the jet-lagged, or the hungover (one assumes that’s also what prompted David Chang to board the morning shuttle boat with a tallboy of Carlsberg and Johnny Iuzzini to pass around a bottle of bourbon before entering the tent).

This year’s theme for MAD (which means “food” in Danish) was “appetite,” and speakers included food suppliers, academics and chefs such as Dan Barber, Chang, Leif Sorenson and Ferran Adria. (You know it’s MAD2 when you spot Bryan and Michael Voltaggio, Ludovic Lefebvre, Wylie Dufresne and Bertrand Grebaut on the same night at Christian Puglisi’s Relae restaurant in Norrebro.)

The conference accommodated 550 people, up from 300 last year, says Noma director Peter Kreiner. Redzepi announced next year’s MAD conference will be curated by Chang and the producers of his quarterly magazine Lucky Peach, to be held Aug. 25 to 26, 2013, with the theme of “guts.”  

Among the 20 talks at MAD2, more than a handful especially stood out. Some quick-and-dirty highlights follow:

2012 San Sebastian Gastronomika kicks off Oct. 7

Start planning now! The 2012 San Sebastian Gastronomika kicks off Oct. 7. And this time the French are coming as the Spanish Basque gastronomy conference pays tribute to “the country that brought us Carême (a.k.a. 'the king of chefs and the chef of kings'), Escoffier and Nouvelle Cuisine.” 

Who’s crossing the border for the 13th annual event? So far super-chefs Alain Senderens, Pierre Gagnaire, Michel Bras and Alain Passard. Representing the great legendary restaurants, Anne-Sophie Pic (the only woman in France to have obtained three Michelin stars) and Michel Troisgros and for the new wave bistros, Iñaki Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand and Yves Camdeborde of Le Comptoir. Many more chefs, both young and in mid-career are promised, including a strong contingent of pâtissiers from France. Could that mean macaron king Pierre Hermé?

And those stellar names are just the guests of honor. With Spanish Basque chefs so much in the news and on the check lists of gastronomes around the world, the San Sebastian food event draws top chefs from all over the globe to participate, hobnob with friends, and fan out to eat in San Sebastian’s best restaurants. For participants, there will be workshops, classes and lectures, plus bartenders competing in the 2nd International Gin and Tonic Contest. 

With five months left to go, the program is still in the planning stages. One piece of advice: If you think you might like to attend, make a hotel reservation now. You can always cancel. The site has a list of hotels and bed and breakfasts starting at 80 euros (about $98).

For more information on the Oct. 7 to 10 conference, go to www.sansebastiangastronomika.com.

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-- S. Irene Virbila

Twitter.com/sirenevirbila

Photos: 2011 San Sebastian Gastronomika. Credit: San Sebastian Gastronomika

International foodie spring flings

If you're thinking about traveling this spring -- and not by car -- here are a few international destinations to consider:

The world's largest cookbook fair will take place in Paris in the spring. "Ooh la la" is right. The Paris Cookbook Fair happens March 7 to 11 with the first three days set aside for professionals to gather, with the final two days opened to the public. The fair brings together cookbook devotees for book presentations, cooking demonstrations, cheese and wine tastings, food exhibitions and of course cookbook purchasing. For more information, check out www.cookbookfair.com.

The Mast Brothers, Rick and Michael, are heading to Belize to connect with their cacao suppliers and celebrate chocolate during their first annual Chocolate Week in April, from the 14th to 21st. The two brothers own and operate Mast Brothers Chocolate in Brooklyn where their handcrafted bars of chocolate are individually, not to mention beautifully, wrapped and sold at their tasting room, on their website and at online stores such as Dean & Deluca. The brothers are inviting chocolate lovers to join them on their voyage to Belize to visit their farmers, eat, drink and partake in other adventures while abroad. For more information, email chocolateweek@mastbrothers.com.

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Paris by mouth: Any dining suggestions for our restaurant critic, S. Irene Virbila?

 
I’m going to Paris for a four days soon and (way too late) have just begun to think about where I want to eat. What can I say? I've been busy and the time just got away from me. I did manage to snag two reservations this afternoon. Which leaves me with the two most difficult: Sunday and Monday, when many restaurants are closed. I'm stumped.

To research what’s new and interesting, there’s no better site than the year-old Paris by Mouth, a group site and blog from a star-studded lineup of Paris-based food writers. It’s a great resource namely because the contributors really know what they’re talking about. They include journalist and editor Meg Zimbeck, Clotilde Dusoulier (the blogger behind Chocolate & Zucchini and author of what I think is the best guide to Paris eating, “Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris”), Patricia Wells ("Food Lover’s Guide to Paris" and a slew of fine cookbooks) and Alexander Lobrano (former European correspondent for the much-missed Gourmet magazine) as well as cookbook author Dorie Greenspan, author most recently of “Around My French Table,” winner of this years IACP award for best cookbook.

Poke around the site and you’ll find Paris by Mouth’s guide to Paris restaurants divvied up by arrondissement (addresses would help, just a thought). Also Paris pastry shops, bakeries and wine bars, even ice cream shops, all organized by neighborhood. Print the list or lists out to carry with you or make PDFs and stick them in your smart phone.

Meanwhile, anybody have good ideas for places open on Sunday and Monday night? So far, I’ve got the wine bars Le Baron Rouge and the newly expanded Le Verre Volé. At this point I'm hoping I’ll get lucky and one of my friends will invite me to dinner so I won’t have to think about it.

Why can I never remember to avoid Sunday and Monday when planning a trip to Paris?

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—S. Irene Virbila

Photo credit: Paris, as seen from the foot of the Eiffel Tower. (Associated Press /Remy de la Mauviniere)

Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila declares her pasta allegiance

Declare your allegiance to pasta asciutta -- dry pasta as opposed to fresh noodles -- with this necklace from Monaco jeweler MissBibi. She's rendered a single penne in silver or gold and simply strung it on a chain. And it's on sale right now for 50 euros (about $71 at today’s rate) instead of the normal $150. (Shipping to the U.S. is 10 euros or about $14.) 

 She's also designed a necklace or ring featuring a gold farfalla (butterfly-shaped pasta) and a pair of mismatched pasta earrings -- one penne, one farfalla. Guys can order them as cuff links.    

Those pasta earrings? I could easily see wearing a pair. Nothing like wearing your allegiance on your, er, ears.

MissBibi, Le Park Palace, 5 Impasse de la Fontaine, MC-98000 Monaco; 011-377-9798-1828; missbibi@missbibi.com

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-- S. Irene Virbila

Photo credit: MissBibi

 

The next big thing in street food? The wearable grill

In Berlin, I found this wurst vendor staked out on the pedestrian bridge leading to Museum Island. While Berliners sunned themselves in canvas beach chairs sprinkled on the grassy banks of the Spree, this fellow sweated under his umbrella grilling wursts. For 1.5 euros, or about $2.25 at the current exchange rate, you get a freshly grilled sausage in a bun.  

This guy's wearable grill is pretty ingenious: The rectangular grill is worn in front , cigarette girl-style, counterbalanced by a brace and supply box at the back. An umbrella is part of the outfit too, shading  him (barely) from the  sun. He looks strong and fit, but even so, what a hard job. I wonder how he got there. Did he wear this getup on the subway or the bus? Or does it come apart and stow in a canvas carryall? Another day, I saw a sturdy blond woman in a similar getup working the crowd.

The wearable grill may be new, but the idea of street food vendors hanging their goods on their bodies isn’t. Somewhere I have a collection of images of street food vendors from, I think,  the 18th century. (My books and papers are all boxed up right now so I can’t find it.) Instead of a big umbrella, though, they usually wore a hat with a wide brim for shade. 

-- S. Irene Virbila

Photo:  S. Irene Virbila / Los Angeles Times

Restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila: A delicious quiz

Browse through "The Slow Food Dictionary to Italian Regional Cooking" and it will take you only a page or two to realize how very limited the repertoire of dishes cooked in L.A.’s Italian restaurants really is.  I thought I knew a lot about Italian regional cuisine, but on every page I find dishes I’ve never encountered, one after the other. 

OK, here’s a short quiz to test your Italian food knowledge (with answers below). What are:

1. castagne d’o prevete (“priest’s chestnuts”)

2. farecchiata

3. kizoa

4. 'ntuppateddi

5. paniscia

Answers: (I would print them upside down if I knew how.)

1. These are oven-roasted chestnuts splashed with grappa and white wine and tightly wrapped in a cloth to let them rest before being skinned and eaten. Campania.

2. A thick porridge made by mixing the flour of wild peas with water. Flavored with garlic and anchovies. Umbria.

3. Small leavened focaccia typical of Castelnuovo Magra, in the province of La Spezia. The surface of the dough is pressed with the fingers to create dimples, which are anointed with oil and filled with pieces of sausage. Liguria.

4. Dialect name for operculate snails ... in Syracuse, cooked a 'mbriaca (drunk), stewed with onion, oil, black pepper, red chili salt and red wine. Sicily.

5. A risotto made by “toasting” rice in butter with onion, lardo and crumbled salame. The mixture is bathed with red wine and, when this has evaporated, progressively supplemented with a soup made with strips of pork rind, beans, coarsely chopped celery, carrot, tomato and Savoy cabbage. Piedmont.

Poking around in this book is dangerous: I got so hungry, I had to raid the refrigerator for a hunk of Parmigiano. Some of the definitions, as in No. 4, are so detailed, you could cook from them. And I just may.

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-- S. Irene Virbila

Follow me on twitter.com/sirenevirbila

Image: "The Slow Food Dictionary to Italian Regional Cooking" (575 pages, $34.95). Credit: Slow Food Editore

Sampler Platter: L.A. street food festival, giant lobsters, Bar Keeper wants liquor license and more

Gargantuan lobsters rising from the seas and enslaving the human race... It sounds preposterous, but it's a potential and very real downside of global warming, which is building bigger lobsters without increasing the world's butter reserves. Perhaps someday, when the age of peak butter has passed, we'll look back at bread baskets and flaky, golden tarts as the harbingers of doom for a society on the brink of collapse. Until then, I salute our crustacean overlords.

-- Giant lobsters from rising greenhouse gases? NPR
-- Bar Keeper in Silver Lake is looking to get a liquor license by June. Food GPS
-- Palm oil production devastating Sumatran forests. CNN
-- Salami and Parmesan cheese used as weapons in supermarket battle. Telegraph
-- The search for the world's perfect stove. New Yorker
-- Arrowhead water bottles reduced by 21% (from 1 gallon to 3 liters). LiveCheap
-- Learning to appreciate cognac in Cognac. Los Angeles Times
-- L.A. Street Food Festival scheduled for Valentine's Day weekend. LAist
-- Vertical Wine Bistro changes it up with new chef Doug Weston. Eat LA
-- Roaming Hunger food truck tracking site goes live.
-- Tootsie Roll goes kosher. Palm Beach Post
-- Greek, Indian, Chinese and more: Vancouver's many cuisines. Los Angeles Times
-- Spicy kettle corn and more recipes from bigLITTLe. Goop

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Vintage bar signs on the wall at Bar Keeper. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

Sampler Platter: Reviving British food, hipsters make PBR more popular, Stefan Richter says something arrogant

Stefan Richter surprises no one with his arrogance, agribusiness throws its weight around and more food news in today's roundup.

-- Sorry, hipsters. Your ironic consumption of Pabst Blue Ribbon made it more popular -- and more expensive -- than other lowbrow beers. NBC Los Angeles
-- "I think America knows that I won Top Chef," says Stefan Richter. LAist
-- Sweets and schadenfreude: Cake Wrecks makes it into the New York Times.
-- California agribusiness pressures Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to nix Michael Pollan lecture. Los Angeles Times
-- Don't wear your sweatpants to Wolfgang Puck's restaurant. Washington Post
-- A recipe for bite-sized bacon caramels. The Kitchn
-- Bears love eating from minivans. Los Angeles Times
-- Hoping to incite “serious contemplation of a robust culinary tradition,” British Food in America, a new online mag “dedicated to the discussion and revival of British foodways,” launches. News items will appear “forthnightly." Cheerio, old chap.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Canned food from explorer Ernest Schackleton's 1907-09 Nimrod expedition in Antarctica, part of Britain's "robust culinary tradition." Credit: Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune.

It's an oyster-shucking throwdown at the annual Galway International Oyster Festival

The Guinness World Oyster Opening Competition in Galway, Ireland, recently brought together the creme de la creme of competitors in the oyster-shucking universe. The contest is the annual highlight of the three-day Galway International Oyster Festival.  

The Europeans call it oyster opening. Americans call it shucking. Either way, for one of the participants that assemble from 14 countries, winning in Galway is like snagging gold at the Olympics. 

Click here to read more about America's William "Chopper" Young and the 13 other competitors that come from all over the globe to determine who is the world's best shucker.

Photo credit: Necee Regis