| Recipe: Basic Pie Pastry
1. Sift together the flours, sugar and salt. Put into a bowl or food processor. Add the pieces of shortening and butter; cut in by hand or use the pulse butter on the processor until large flakes are formed. Add cold water and work just until the dough begins to hold together. Transfer to a sheet of plastic wrap and form dough into a flat disk. Refrigerate at least an hour or overnight. 2. Lightly spray a 9-inch pie pan with cooking spray and set aside. If dough has been refrigerated overnight, remove about 30 minutes before rolling. 3. Roll dough between lightly floured sheets of plastic wrap to a 14-inch circle. Remove top sheet of plastic and invert dough over pie pan. Use plastic to mold dough into the pan, then remove and discard. Crimp top edge of dough and chill until ready to fill.
France's unsung wines play well in snow
Few wines belong on a ski trip more than those from France's Savoie region. Clean and light, they revive the spirit like the mountain air that flows from the nearby Alps. Just ask the skiers and hikers who quaff carafes of the local beverage after a day of outdoor exercise. Savoie vintners, small growers who speckle the region's nooks and crannies, produce rivers of generic white wine for these tourists, and this flood has tainted the area with a reputation for wines that travel poorly. "Things have changed since I first went there about 30 years ago," says Berkeley importer Kermit Lynch. "Back then, there wasn't much of an attempt to make anything but ski station wines, but now quite a few people are making more serious wine." Regional pride and a well-heeled global market have spurred vintners, but even the best bottles do not yet rival France's greatest.
Eating Smart
Since it is February and the month is associated with hearts, I thought it would be appropriate to talk a bit about heart health. We all know that by exercising, not smoking and eating healthy we can take better care of our hearts. However, recent studies show that as part of eating healthy we must cut out trans fats from our diets, as they appear to be the least healthy of all the types of fats we eat.
What exactly is a "trans fat?" Trans fats are created when hydrogen is added to liquid oils to make them solid at room temperature. This extends shelf life, acts as a preservative, makes foods less prone to rancidity and also enhances texture and flavor. These fats are called "partially hydrogenated" or "hydrogenated" and are used in foods such as commercial baked goods, margarines, peanut butters, frozen and processed foods and fast food french fries, to name just a few.
At Boqueria, Weird Tapas, $32 Sangria Pitchers: Alan Richman
Boqueria, a tapas bar and restaurant in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, isn't perfect. And I figured the food would get worse on subsequent visits, once I got around to ordering the weird, worrisome fishy things that are a mandatory aspect of the tapas experience. Of the 10 dishes we'd tried, the Serrano ham slivers on tomato-topped flattened baguette slices were dry and boring. (Serrano ham in New York is almost always dreary.) The soft, cumin-soaked lamb skewers -- they're called ``pintxos'' -- tasted like Indian food. And the meat of the suckling pig was overly chewy, even if the crunchy skin was a paradigm of porkiness. The other seven dishes were undeniably impeccable: seared foie gras, meltingly rich, with caramelized apples, atop toast; sea trout belly, sashimi-like, with sliced caperberries; truffled lentils with a poached egg, more intense than the suckling pig; blistered peppers as irresistible as salted peanuts; sobrasada, a soft sausage reminiscent of French rillette; fried dough almost as good as what I've eaten in Mexico City, although here a dessert and there a breakfast; and the most intense of custards, made with egg yolks and showered with a melon ice.
Family and a holy mole sauce is a winning recipe
Recently, Jose Marmolejo, 25, forgot to order the tortillas for Puebla Mexican Food, the takeout and delivery restaurant on First Ave. in the East Village where he has worked with his mother since he was 14. The place consists of a few tables and chairs, a counter to order from and a small kitchen behind the cooler full of American and Mexican sodas. Marmolejos uncharacteristic forgetfulness toward ordering supplies caused a rare rift between mother and son. He made an emergency run to a tortilla factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn, to remedy the situation fast and win his mothers forgiveness.
Marmolejos mother, Irma Marin, 43, was born into poverty in the town of Santana, in the central Mexican state of Puebla that their restaurant is named after. She was one of 12 children.
Garlic - a tasty addition to food but useless for lowering cholesterol
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine say they have found that eating garlic raw or taking it in supplement form does not lower "bad" cholesterol levels. Despite decades of conflicting studies about the herb's ability to improve heart health, the researchers say their study provides the most rigorous evidence to date that consuming garlic on a daily basis, in the form of either raw garlic or two of the most popular garlic supplements, does nothing to lower LDL cholesterol levels among adults with moderately high cholesterol levels. Christopher Gardner of the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California, says despite the widespread claims of the herb's power, it does not work. Gardner says there is no shortcut; good health is achieved by eating healthy food and there is no pill or herb that counteracts an unhealthy diet.
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