March 5, 2011

Spring Tasting Wednesday March 23rd.

CELEBRATE SPRING.
Fresh. Catering Tasting.

Wednesday March 23rd, 5pm.
Join us as we unveil the newest classics.

RSVP TO:

Can’t make it but want to learn more?
Call Avianna or Stacy. 908-719-9100

Full Catering Menu Online.

February 21, 2011

Serving Cage Free Sauder's Eggs.

As part of our ongoing efforts to serve the best (healthiest, tastiest, sustainable & local) ingredients possible - we're proud to serve exclusively cage free eggs.  

Fresh. serves only Sauder Eggs, a 4th generation family-run egg producer from Lititz, PA.
Cage-Free chickens are raised in a stress-free environment and are not in cages. They are kept in large heated and air-cooled growing houses where they can roost and socialize freely, participating in their chicken behaviors and pecking orders, and laying their eggs in dark, quiet nests.



February 14, 2011

Mexican Tortas.

I heard you're serving a mexican-style torta - that's awesome! PS - What's a torta?

Dense, filling and delicious a Mexican torta is a sandwich traditionally layered with beef, pork or chicken, cheese, mayo, avocado, lettuce and tomato. Defined by adaptability as much as recipe - the torta reflects the best ingredients of the region in which it’s served.

The one seemingly unbreakable law of the mexican-style torta is French bread, either telera (soft round rolls) or bolillo (torpedo shaped with a crust) perfect for texture and maintaining outside containment.

French bread on a Mexican sandwich - how did that happen? As with most history - actual events & myth married forming legend; leaving torta history in the hands of the teller. Our crackerjack research team has a hunch the torta is an indirect result of France's 1862 Invasion of Mexico. At war thousands of miles from home, French soldiers saw no need to deprive themselves good bread; building bakeries & introducing techniques long outlasting the invasion.

Ever wonder what you were celebrating on Cinco de Mayo? Of course you already knew it was Mexican militia men prevailing over the French at the Battle of Puebla which is why you always serve tortas at your Cinco de Mayo parties.

Mexican torta...there's others? South America, Italy, Philippines and even Mexico serve what's referred to by locals as a torta, with ingredients, technique and style unique to their country or regions within the country.

Why you care. You're playing the deserted island game with foodie friends - pick torta and free yourself from endless theoretical culinary monotony. Then drop your impressively extensive torta knowledge all while watching their faces knowing you're winning friends and influencing people.

February 7, 2011

Easier Being Green.

BIG thank you for supporting Fresh. By choosing a GRA certified Green Restaurant you're helping to make a difference - recognized in the letter below from Environmental Defense Fund, National Resource Defense Council and the Surfrider Foundation.

Who knew doing the right thing could taste so good?


February 1, 2011

Most revolutionary cookbook you've never seen.





What happens when a Cambridge quantum theory cosmologist collaborates with a futurist on a cookbook? What if they got real crazy & invited an award-winning nature photographer to contribute and a former Chief Technology Officer from Microsoft tagged along? What if they were all one person and his name was Nathan Myhrvold?


After earning a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics at Princeton, working with Stephen Hawking on curved spaced time and quantum field theory at Cambridge and serving as chief technology officer for Microsoft, what's left to accomplish? Turns out write a cookbook.


Typical of Myhrvold, it's not a typical cookbook. A 6 volume 2,400 page revolution described by luminary chef and molecular gastronomist Ferran Adria as changing the way we understand the kitchen. And for $625 Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking can be yours. In March. Probably - the date has been pushed several times.

(Notice the preview pic only had 5 volumes)

Learning of Myhrvold and Modernest Cuisine in Saveur I was intrigued, determined to purchase a copy. Until I saw the price. Holy wow. Why so expensive? Turns out the high cost is pretty simple if only midly less frustrating. With a custom laboratory/kitchen designed and built for the research and a staff of 20 researchers - they had to write the book on writing the book. And then publish it themselves.
And the Myhrvoldian cherry - he developed new photographic techniques to document the research contained in the book.

From the book's site:
In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inven­tors, and accom­plished cooks in their own right—have cre­ated a six-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired tech­niques for prepar­ing food that ranges from the oth­er­worldly to the sub­lime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astound­ing new fla­vors and tex­tures by using tools such as water baths, homog­e­niz­ers, cen­trifuges, and ingre­di­ents such as hydro­col­loids, emul­si­fiers, and enzymes. It is a work des­tined to rein­vent cooking.

Also worth checking out - The Modernist Cuisine blog.

With postings on Inside the Lab with the team, sick photos like this one of a cutaway wok while cooking, or you just want to check out a high speed video of The Leidenfrost Effect - should keep you occupied while you're saving.

The Pad Thai Cutaway fea­tures a halved wok con­tain­ing siz­zling hot oil, noo­dles, and the dish’s other components.

All Filler no Killer?

Ever wonder how they can pay the chihuahua so much & still afford to sell a $1 burrito?

From Tacobell.com
"We're cooking with a proprietary recipe to give our seasoned beef flavor and texture, just like you would with any recipe you cook at home."

Remember when grandma used to use her special autolyzed yeast extract & soy lecithin recipe
with the silicon dioxide and sodium phosphates?

Ingredients for Spicy Beef
from Tacobell.com
Beef, Water, Seasoning [Isolated Oat Product, Salt, Chili Pepper, Onion Powder, Tomato Powder, Oats (Wheat), Soy Lecithin, Sugar, Spices, Maltodextrin, Soybean Oil (Anti-dusting Agent), Garlic Powder, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Cocoa Powder (Processed With Alkali), Silicon Dioxide, Natural Flavors, Yeast, Modified Corn Starch, Natural Smoke Flavor], Salt, Sodium Phosphates. CONTAINS SOYBEAN, WHEAT

January 28, 2011

Supermarkets Inc.


CNBC's new documentary Supermarkets Inc. goes behind the scenes of the nation's biggest supermarket chains.

With 48,000 items in a typical grocery store, ever wonder
who decides what to carry & where it's placed?
Why is milk always at the end of an aisle?

Ever imagine heat mapping is involved in the process?
What does your customer loyalty card really say about you?

For a preview click here.
More info, air dates and show times click here.

January 20, 2011

Help Save Full Day K in Basking Ridge

Wanna help the kids? Donate to help save full day kindergarten in Basking Ridge. With over $416,200 raised to date there's only $3,800 to go. Check out: http://brfulldayk.org/

January 14, 2011

Love watching Jose Andres as much as we do?
Check out The Magic of Saffron & Cervantes from his
cooking show Made in Spain. Hulu has all 24 episodes of Season 1 for free.


January 10, 2011

Top Ten Restaurant Ads of 2010

Though Fresh. is noticeably absent (apparently you have to have an ad to be considered),
we present to you the Top Ten Restaurant Ads of 2010. We dare you not to laugh. Make that double dare.

December 17, 2010

GB House 2010 - Open House by Appointment Only

Check out Stacy's FIRST EVER, SUPER-DELUXE, Gingerbread House. With only 8.5 hours logged, clearly she rushed it only taking time to add a wreath, pond, snowman, pavers & woodpile.
Holy wow.


Go Stacy! If Ace of Cakes wants you - please don't go...

December 6, 2010

Change Coming for Pacific Fisherman

From KQED.com

California fishermen once hauled in groundfish, like rock cod and sole, as if there were an unlimited supply. But over the years, fish stocks have plummeted. Now, in an effort to protect both fish and jobs, the West Coast's largest fishery is trying something new: "catch shares."

Beginning in January, fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington will become owners of the fishery, much like shareholders in a company. But as Lauren Sommer reports, not everyone is happy about it.

Host: Andrea Kissack

Reporters:

  • Lauren Sommer

December 2, 2010

Holla! Braided Challah Recipe from Saveur

Braided Challah sound too difficult to master?
Check out these easy to follow. step-by-step instructions
from Saveur. Click here.

November 27, 2010

Lancaster County Eats

Avi and I have been eating our way through Lititz and the surrounding countryside this Thanksgiving weekend.

First, dinner with the family (saffron noodles & brown corn are probably two of the most under appreciated foods ever in the all-time history of eating), Thanksgiving leftovers, Whoopie pies from Stauffers, Moravian Sugar Cake from Achenbach's and breakfast at The Pancake Farm.


If you're ever headed down this way, let us know. LOTS of great foodie haunts to check out, especially in the warmer months where there's a farm stand every few miles along the winding roads; skirting fields bursting not just with corn, but tomatoes, strawberries, beans, cantaloupes, watermelons, cucumber and potatoes.

November 19, 2010

Fresh. Blue Plates for Winter 2010.



Catering Tasting - December 9th

Join us as we unveil
the newest classics.
a
Thursday
December 9th

5 to 7pm
a
RSVP
a
Can't make it but
want to learn more?
908.719.9100
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Ask not what you can do for your country.
Ask what's for lunch.

-Orsen Welles
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