Summertime Sales and More by Teri Hiben July 23, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment Summer slows us down. The days take on a casual and fun-loving flavor. We’re ready to jump in and get outside to go for a bike ride and stroll around the farmer’s market to pick up some of summer’s bounty. We enjoy outdoor concerts, parades, food on the grill, lightening bugs… In Glen Ellyn, one sure sign of the middle of summer is the annual Sidewalk Sale (this year from July 26-28). And the weather forecast is looking good! Historic Main Street is closed to traffic, there’s music in the air, tents and tables full of bargains line the street. The stage is set for a Glen Ellyn street party! It’s a great time to grab a friend, put the kids in the wagon and head downtown to wander among the tables loaded with discounted merchandise. You’ll run into friends and neighbors and have time to catch up for a bit. Maybe you’ll discover a new store or two in the process. I know at Marcel’s we’ve been carefully selecting merchandise for the sidewalk sale this year. We’re motivated to generously discount items to make room for fun new merchandise coming this fall, so our tables will be full of bargains. We’ll be offering some summery accents for your home you can use right away for the rest of the summer or you may find seasonal decorations for the holidays ahead. Be sure to stop by our tent to discover some especially tempting surprise discounts awaiting you. You’re sure to find a few treasures for your home. Don’t miss the fun! We’re looking forward to seeing you there!
Rigatoni with Broccoli and Sausage July 5, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment Rigatoni with Broccoli and Sausage 2018-07-05 19:04:44 Serves 4 Print Ingredients 3-4 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced Extra-virgin olive oil 1 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage Salt and pepper 8 ounces rigatoni 1 pound broccoli, stems trimmed and peeled, stems sliced crosswise into ¼” coins, and tops cut into florets ¼ teaspoon dried chile flakes ½ cup Whipped Ricotta (recipe follows) ½-1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano ¼ cup dried breadcrumbs, optional Whipped Ricotta (Makes about 1 ½ cups) 1 ½ cups whole-milk ricotta cheese (from Marché) ½ teaspoon kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil Instructions Put the garlic in a small bowl and pour over enough olive oil to cover. Shape the sausage into 4 balls then flatten them like a hamburger patty. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt until it tastes like the sea. Add the pasta and cook just shy of al dente according to the package directions. Meanwhile, heat a small glug of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage patties and cook until nicely browned on one side, about 4 minutes. Add the broccoli coins and the sliced garlic, including the oil, to the skillet. Flip the sausage patties and keep cooking until the sausage is just about fully cooked, another 4 more minutes or so. Break up the sausage with a spoon into bite-size chunks. Add the chile flakes and cook for 30 seconds or so. With a ladle, scoop out about ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water, add it to the pan to stop the cooking of everything, and slide the pan from the heat. About 3 minutes before the pasta should be al dente, add the broccoli florets and cook all together until the pasta is ready. Scoop out another cup of pasta cooking water, drain the pasta and broccoli, and add to the skillet. Return the skillet to the heat. Add ¼ cup or so of the pasta water, the whipped ricotta, and half the Parmigiano. Season the pasta generously with salt and black pepper. Shake the pan to combine the ingredients, put back over med. heat, and cook for a couple of min. to warm everything through and make a nice saucy consistency. Serve with more Parmigiano and top with the breadcrumbs, if using. Whipped Ricotta Directions Put the ricotta, salt and 20 twists of pepper in a food processor and start to process. With the motor running, add the olive oil in a thin stream. Pause and scrape down the sides if needed. The mixture should get lovely and creamy. Taste it and adjust with more salt, pepper. Or a bit more olive oil – you should be able to taste the oil as well as the ricotta. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week. Notes From the book: Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/
Summer Vegetable Gratin June 28, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment Summer Vegetable Gratin 2018-06-28 16:41:25 Serves 4 Print Base 1 garlic clove, minced 1 15 ounce can tomato sauce 2 teaspoons italian seasonings Gratin Ingredients 2 large beefsteak tomatoes 1 red onion 1 large eggplant 1 zucchini 1 summer squash 8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese 4 sprigs fresh thyme Salt and pepper, to taste Instructions Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Stir together base ingredients in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Wash the vegetables. Cut each vegetable into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange vegetables and cheese over base, alternating colors. Top with fresh thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Cover with foil and bake for 39 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes. Notes This is a great side dish and can also be a main served over pasta. Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/
Lessons Learned At The Table by Kelly Sears June 14, 2018 by Jill Foucre 1 Comment There are 275 countries in the world; 19 major world religions; 6,500 spoken languages. Food is the one universal. Food has no language barrier, is borderless, and is entry: entry to people, their culture, their families, their lives. In a tribute to his friend Anthony Bourdain, Anderson Cooper shared “in places near and far in the world, he talked, tasted, with open mouth, and eyes, and open heart and mind.” Simple, yet with depth; raw and honest, much like the man we think we knew as Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain expressed “…everywhere in the world, we go, and we ask these very simple questions, what makes you happy, what do you like to eat, what do you cook? We tend to get some really astonishing answers. People are telling you a story when they give you food. If you don’t accept the food, you are, in many cultures, whether in rural Arkansas or Vietnam, you are, rejecting the people.” When you sit down with someone and share their food, you are sharing their story. People are telling you something about themselves with each bite, each sip, each serving. No matter how small the size of the offering, the gesture is large, and the moment is magic. We all tell a story through our food. If you listen closely, the dish will share more than the cook will reveal in standard conversation. It’s the ingredient not listed in the recipe, not found on the grocery list. It’s the depth of flavor, the peek inside, that if you are lucky enough, you can taste in each bite. My husband is a landlord to college students. Our tenants represent the melting pot of not only America, but also the world. If you stay within the confines of your job, the relationship is tenant/landlord. But if you take the time to say hello, learn a name, discover what part of the map is home, doors open, and magic happens; you share a table. He calls them by name, they call him Mr. Dan. Two young engineering students from a small village outside of Beijing invited us to their apartment to make dumplings. Multi-generational, mom and grandmother were visiting and deftly rolling out dumplings with the speed of a twelve-person assembly line. Every dumpling is the exact shape and size. Once all the dough was ready, it was time to fill. Their dumplings were perfect, beautifully shaped, properly proportioned. Ours, overstuffed and unable to close. With direction, “the dumpling is the purse, the meat filling the money. Don’t let the money fall out of the purse.” An “ah ha” moment for sure; our dumpling skills improved. The meal was set out on two card tables, served on paper plates, with lots of chairs crammed around the tables. Make room for what’s important, worry less about what’s not. Several young men from Saudi Arabia invited Mr. Dan to stay for coffee after he fixed their leaky faucet. They set a cup in front of him and filled it half way. Mr. Dan said, only half a cup? The host then shared that his father, and his grandfather before him, taught him that you invite someone to stay by only filling their cup halfway. This way, the cup will constantly need to be filled, a little bit at a time, encouraging the guest to continue to stay and visit. When you fill the cup all the way, you are inviting them to leave; as in, This WILL be your only cup! Half full leaves you room for more. We invited some new tenants, a lovely Hispanic couple, over to teach us how to make tamales. We spoke with our hands, so we could understand one another. When I was about to add water in with the masa, my hand was tapped, and an index finger waved no-no. She pointed to the pot where the pork had slow cooked and then back to the masa bowl. Yes, of course! Water tastes like water, but pork juice tastes delicious!! We followed the leader and tied the husks. We counted hands and realized twelve hands make a hundred tamales easier than two. Share the work and it doesn’t feel like work. After long holiday breaks, some would return with gifts for Mr. Dan, gifts from their home: tea leaves as fragrant as the small-town countryside, homemade candies and sweets from their villages, silk scarves, a Qur’an. Share a dumpling, a coffee, a tamale; open a door to a connection. This is me, this is how I live. We spend a lot of time watching food TV, taking pictures of food, posting food but how much time do we spend breaking bread. We look down into phones instead of up into experiences. We can probably identify people by the parts in their hair rather than the colors of their eyes. How much time do we spend listening and connecting (the wireless kind). Whether it’s a kitchen table, dining table, picnic table or folding table, pull up a chair and gather round. Eat what’s offered off the fork. People open up when you nod and say “yes please” to the plate being passed. More tales are told, more stories shared. It’s the first step to a connection, to listening. May your purse hold money, your coffee cup never completely full, may you talk and taste with an open mouth, and eyes, with an open heart and mind. I know you’ll never leave hungry. Bread can be sliced, dipped, slathered or torn, goes with any meal, can be served piping hot, toasted or stale tossed in a salad. Most recipes make two loaves, or in this case, rolls. Break Bread and Connect. Pepper Bacon Bread 2018-06-14 13:36:00 Yields 20 Print Ingredients 340 grams Russet or Yukon Gold Potatoes 70 grams reserved Potato Cooking Liquid 14 grams reserved bacon fat (can substitute butter here) 1 teaspoon instant yeast 332 grams all-purpose flour 9 grams sea salt 72 grams bacon, cooked and crumbed (fat reserved, see above) 5 grams coarse black pepper (may prefer 3 grams if making rolls) Instructions Preheat oven to 400 degrees one hour prior to baking (baking vessel too) Boil potatoes (unpeeled) until tender, about 15-20 minutes Reserve 70 grams of the cooking water; set aside potatoes and liquid to cool Once cooled, mash the potatoes In a mixing bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, reserved cooking liquid, bacon fat and instant yeast. Stir to combine Add half the flour and stir well (the mixture will be crumbly) Add the rest of the flour and the sea salt and stir. The mixture will seem very dry Use your hands and squeeze, press, and knead the mixture until it comes together as a dough Scrape the mass of dough on to a work surface and knead the dough 5-6 minutes. The dough will start out quite stiff and dry but will moisten over time Press the dough into a rectangle, top with bacon and pepper. Knead for a couple more minutes to incorporate the bacon and pepper Place in an oiled container, cover with plastic and ferment for 30 minutes After 30 minutes, fold the dough, cover again and let rest for 30 minutes After 30 minutes, the dough is ready to be shaped (loaf, batard or rolls) Proof the dough for 45 minutes to an hour; it should swell nicely and have a springy texture Once the loaf has risen, score the top from end to end Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden browned Adapted from Zingerman’s, Ann Arbor, MI Adapted from Zingerman’s, Ann Arbor, MI Marcel's Culinary Experience https://www.marcelsculinaryexperience.com/
My Love of Marcel’s Cooking Classes by Graeme Reinhart May 30, 2018 by Jill Foucre Leave a Comment Welcome to our guest blogger Graeme Reinhart who has been taking classes in the Marcel’s kitchen since we opened and is currently enjoying his time in our classes for 12 – 16 year olds. Read on for more about Graeme and his love of cooking. Thanks for sharing, Graeme! ************************************************************************************************************ How long have you been taking classes at Marcels? I think I’ve been taking these classes for close to 6 years. I know I was really excited when I got to start going to the Mid-Kid classes. Now I’m in the Big Kid classes. What do you enjoy most about the cooking classes? I enjoy learning how to cook and learning new techniques, such as when we learned different knife skills. The first trick I remember Chef Jamie teaching us was to always crack your eggs into separate bowls in case one egg wasn’t good. I also remember the tip about washing your hands with a metal spoon to get rid of the garlic smell. And of course, I like getting the discount to use at the end of class so I can get some new cooking gadgets. What are some key things you have learned from these classes? The tips and tricks; why certain things in cooking are the way they are, and what gives certain foods their taste. How would you like to use these skills in the future? I want to continue to learn more advanced skills because it seems like we are refining our skills in these classes. I like to know the correct way of doing things because the correct way is usually easier and if it is the correct way, it usually tastes better! Chef Robin told us to always cut peppers with the skin down, that way it’s easier to cut them. She also taught us the right way to cut an onion, and I’m still trying to remind my mom not to cut the root! Can you tell of a time you made the recipes outside the cooking class? I’ve made the jalapeño coleslaw chicken sandwiches for out of state friends. I make the egg drop soup every so often as an after school snack. I also liked recreating the lemon chicken, lasagna and a lot of the desserts too. I still need to make the clam chowder that was so good. Do you have a favorite kind of food you like to eat? I’m pretty adventurous. I love trying new things so I wouldn’t say I have a favorite. Any thoughts of becoming a chef? No, not at all. I think it’d be difficult job, but I do want to learn how to cook better. What kind of class would you like to see that you haven’t experienced yet? I’d like to cook foods from exotic countries and learn more advanced techniques. To register for one of our fabulous kids classes, click on the appropriate age below: Little Kids (ages 6-8) Mid Kids (ages 9-11) Big Kids (12-16)