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DishCompiled by JANET K. KEELER © St. Petersburg Times, published November 15, 2000 deconstructingexplanations from the inside out pomegranate
The hard, red-skinned fruit is native to a region from Iran south to the Himalayas in northern India and has been cultivated there since ancient times. It is now grown in arid parts of California and Arizona, as well as Asia, the East Indies and tropical Africa. The ones you find in the produce section most likely come from California's Central Valley. Once you crack into a pomegranate, you'll find lots of small, juicy seeds embedded in membrane walls of white, spongy, bitter tissue. The seeds are the edible portion of the fruit. To extract the seeds, score the fruit, pull it apart and pick out the seeds with your fingers. Eat them out of hand or scatter them in a salad; the sweet juice and slightly bitter, crunchy seed add a festive zing. The fruit is packed with vitamins A and C and potassium. One medium pomegranate has 105 calories, which you might burn off picking out the seeds. Lately, it has been touted as a cancer-fighting antioxidant. The juice can stain clothes. Some recipes call for pomegranate juice, which can be purchased at Mideast specialty food shops and health food stores. Pomegranate molasses, dibs rumman in Arabic, is a heavy syrup used in Mediterranean cooking. constant comment"Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."
cooking classWhen buying a turkey, estimate about 1 pound per person, which will leave enough for leftovers. Larger turkeys, more than 15 pounds, have more breast meat. This size bird will allow you to serve more people or make servings bigger. this Web site cooksThanks to TV's Food Network, we know more about celebrity chefs and their restaurants than we do about the chefs in the kitchens of our hometown restaurants. Now you can know even more about the uber chefs. Bios for Mario Batalli (Po, Babbo in New York City), Alice Waters (Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif.) and Norman Van Aken (Norman's in Miami), among others, are mingled with recipes and interviews on this site. If you want to be a star chef yourself, check out the culinary jobs section. Last week, an unnamed "exclusive" restaurant on Longboat Key was looking for a sous chef for about $32,000 a year. An experienced sushi chef is needed for another central Florida restaurant. That salary is $45,000. E-mail addresses are given for questions or resume submissions. it's coming
McBratwurst?There's lots cooking in McDonald's test kitchens. A menu shake-up looms at the chain's 12,700 U.S. restaurants after years of sluggish results from new products. Burritos, bratwurst, brownie sundaes, Southern breakfast biscuits -- all have emerged recently from McDonald's testing, and more changes are being cooked up for release soon. fruity fun
Flour powerGold Medal flour is updating its packaging with a new resealable bag. It's the company's first packaging change since 1915, when it traded in cloth sacks for paper bags. The bag will be in stores soon, and its wider opening will make it easier to scoop out flour with larger measuring cups.
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From the Times Taste section From the features wire |
As if you need proof that the holidays are just around the corner, take a stroll through your grocery store. Baking supplies, including bags of nuts and cookie cutters, wrapping paper and other signs of the season are in abundance. To avoid the last-minute rush, figure out now what you might need and stock up. Some items will be difficult to find in the waning days of shopping. Christmas is still 40 days away, but you can wipe your nervous brow with tissues from spirited decorator boxes by Kleenex.
