50 Women Game-Changers - # 45 - Diana Kennedy- Fresh Salsa Mexicana from Jerez

Wake up and smell the salsa.
This is not salsa made in New York City.
Nor in San Antonio.
This salsa is made in your house. On your cutting board. 
And not in your Cuisinart.

Plant your gardens and sharpen your knives.

This salsa is worth the time it takes to  grow the ingredients and make it by hand.  But you can make it in its glorious Mexican-flag colors this weekend in honor of Cinco de Mayo if you'd like!

50 Women Game-Changers in Food - #44- Nigella Lawson - Guinness Gingerbread

A tender, quite moist gingerbread from Nigella.

Gingerbread is Christmas, right?  Maybe New Year's Day?  Certainly a cold-weather dessert.  Except that I love it.  I'd eat it in July if I were willing to turn the oven on.  Which I'm not.*  So that's why it's April and there's Nigella Lawson's gorgeous Guinness Gingerbread on the blog. (Two "n's" and two "s's" in Guinness--tells you  alot about how much I know about Guinness.  I did tour the brewery in Dublin once and actually drank a tall one.)  If you've been following along on this trip, I've joined a group of great food bloggers who are each week cooking, testing, and writing about one of Gourmet Live's 50 Women Game-Changers.  And, you guessed it, this week (number 44) is Nigella's week--I'm so grateful.  After all, I needed a reason to make gingerbread in the spring.  Didn't I? (Cold and nasty in St. Paul today after a great, warm spring.  I was happy to have a warm kitchen.)
   *I have just installed a combination microwave/convection oven above my range.  This may help with summer baking.  More later!

50 Women Game-Changers in Food - #41 - Elizabeth Andoh - Udon Soup with Vegetables and Tofu

I'm always on the lookout for beautiful, delicious food that is also healthy.  To say nothing of the delight in making a meal that didn't empty the wallet at the check-out.  Enter this sweet and toothsome goodie, "Udon Soup with Vegetables and Tofu," that's just as far away from your capital T-typical noodle soup as it can get without falling off the edge of the comparison.   Add vegetables, lovingly cut PREE-cisely teensy of course,  a nice slew of tofu, and you're eating a recipe from Elizabeth Andoh, who is number forty-one on Gourmet Live's list of 50 Women Game-Changers.

Living in Japan for for decades,  Elizabeth Andoh attended Yanagihara Kinsaryu School of Traditional Japanese Cuisine (Tokyo), wrote several Japanese cookbooks (scroll down for list), and for years served as Gourmet magazine's Japanese food writer.  She also teaches cooking classes in Tokyo if you're ever out that way.   Most recently, Andoh published Kibo: ("Brimming with Hope)  Recipes and Stories
from Japan's Tohoku...

 

50 Women Game-Changers- #37- Ina Garten-Roasted Shrimp with Feta

how easy is that?

Ina's Roasted Shrimp with Feta from her 2010 book,  How Easy is That? served with salad.

  If I'm home in the afternoon, no one has to ask where I've disappeared to around 3.  I'm watching Ina, of course.  I'll admit that portions of the Food Network are not for me; I switch them off or tune them out.  But if Ina's on (or Tyler Florence), I'm probably watching.  It says a lot.  I'm not a tv person, with the exception of early morning political shows (love "Morning Joe"), a few minutes of TODAY, and the occasional film on the old-movie channel.  I have better fish to fry, literally.  Or I'm at the piano.  Or I'm walking Gabby and Tucker.  Loving Dave.

50 Women Game-Changers in Food -#38 - Darina Allen - Brown Soda Bread

That's it. I'm leaving home.  I always wondered where I'd get my cooking credentials (other than living in my kitchen) and now I know.  I'm going to the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland.  I'll see you later.  It's time I earned my toque... or at least an apron that says, " Ballymaloe."

Ireland:  Cliffs of Moher                                                                                                                         (copyright Alyce Morgan, 2003)

   Ok, I'm not.  But I'd like to.   Meantime,  just in time for St. Patty's Day, I'm baking some bread from the Cookery School's founder and Ireland's best chef-teacher, Darina Allen, number 38 in Gourmet Live's list of 50 Women Game-Changers in Food:

Women Game-Changers #37-Severine von Tscharner Fleming- Moroccan Carrot Salad

‘Farming is an attractive path for people who are getting out of school and feeling like there’s kind of a toxic consumerism and not feeling too excited about working for the Man, especially seeing as he’s been spoiling our politics and a lot of our ecology,’’ she said.  (Severine von Tscharner Fleming via NYT)

#36 on Gourmet's list of 50 Women Game-Changers in Food is Severine von Tscharner Fleming-- farmer, activist, and filmmaker...

50 Women Game-Changers - #36 Edna Lewis- Biscuits

"I married her for her beaten biscuits."

Edna Lewis' Best Biscuits

Ingredients

1. 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1 1/2 teaspoons single-acting baking powder or double-acting baking powder (see Note)
3. 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4. 1/2 teaspoon salt
5. 1/4 cup cold lard or vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
6. 1/2 cup buttermilk
7. 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted  

50 Women Game-Changers in Food - #35 - Delia Smith

Would you cook with this woman?  Meet Delia Smith.

In North America, we might argue over who taught us to cook.  While Julia really was on tv, I'm sure I learned to cook from a. my mother, b. James Beard, and c. SILVER PALATE.  (We all teach ourselves right in our kitchen, don't we?)  But in the UK, there's no question about who taught you to cook; Delia Smith, #35 in Gourmet's 50 Women Game-Changers in Food, did.  (photo courtesy BBC)

Women Game-Changers in Food - #34 Ella Brennan - Creole Bread Pudding

  Conventional wisdom says, "If there's bread pudding on the menu, order it."  Now that I've made Brennan's Creole Bread Pudding, I know why.  I won't say who it is, but someone in my house is saying, "Please let me stay out of the frig as long as that bread pudding is in there."

Creole Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce

For number 34 on Gourmet Live's List of Women Game-Changers in Food, there's the infamous and famous Ella Brennan, New Orleans restauranteur extraordinaire.   Hailed as the most influential person in the American restaurant business ever,

Women Game-Changers in Food- #33-Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer-Meatballs with Mint and Parsley

What if you wanted beautifully written recipes, tastefully conceived, and perfectly photographed--all from home cooks--for home cooks?

What if you wanted those cooks to have worked professionally (catering, restaurants, magazines) and to have traveled the world so they could bring the best dishes back to you?

Order book here

Enter Canal House Cooking, La Dolce Vita,  #7  in a series of self-published  volumes from a multi-talented duo who have worked at food, cooking, and food writing/photography most of their lives.  After leaving behind the corporate publishing/food world in order to spend more time at or near their homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Melissa Hamilton (above, right) and Christopher Hirsheimer (above, left; she's a she) began cooking together daily in a warehouse and keeping a record of it.   Out of that commitment comes this lovely, popular series of books that is their gift to those of us in the home-cooking "business."   An article from WSJ tells the story more thoroughly here.

To really get to know these women a little more, watch an enchanting tiny video about them and their food in Italy (basis for the most recent book)....Here.
 

50 Women Game-Changers Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, #32 - Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog

 
 Big bunch of bacon. (This is good.  I'm married to someone who eats anything with bacon.)  Next:  tons of onions.  Rice. Lots of shrimp, ahhh.  All cooked together in one lovely mess called a bog.  For those of us with no real connection to the south-eastern coastal states, a bog brings to mind cranberries in Maine or Wisconsin, even.  Or being stuck at work, as in:  "I'm all bogged down writing that article."  But this bog, this "Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog," is just what it sounds like:  mounds of steamed shrimp mixed up on top of a velvety oh-so-thick tomatoed, oniony, spicy rice--perfect for brunch or a lunch bunch.  If the words "comfort food" weren't so over-used and so inappropriate (comfort food being food you had a gazillion times as a kid...), I'd call this comfort food extraordinaire.  Comfort food x100.

Just for fun, here's the wikipedia definition of a bog:   A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens.

Food for thought, I'd say.  Read on:

Chinese "BBQ" Pork, Five Heap Noodles, and Wine-Explosion Soup for Chinese New Year

Set your table before you begin cooking.

While I missed blogging Barbara Tropp a couple of weeks ago for "50 Women Game-Changers in Food" from Gourmet Live, it didn't stop me from making some of her incredible food in honor of a good friend's birthday and Chinese New Year.

I started out by spending a bit of cozy time with one of Barbara's books, The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, just to see what I thought I'd like to make.  The choices were myriad and luscious... but I couldn't make all of them.  I did, however, want to keep reading forever; she wrote beautifully.  I decided on three separate dishes:  one a soup for a starter and the other two as a main course that could be eaten together, but that would also provide some great leftovers.  HA!  There were hardly any leftovers.  Do make extra pork; it's a perfect cold snack.

Ricotta, Chive, and Prosciutto Omelette-Donna Hay-50 Women Game-Changers in Food-#31

 

 Lydia Walshin (The Perfect Pantry) often has great recipe links on fb.  One day, she linked to a recipe for Stir-Fried Rice with Mushrooms from Jeanette's Healthy Living.  Jeanette's recipe came from the famous Chinese cook and cookbook author, Barbara Tropp, of whom I'm very fond.  The post title indicated the recipe was part of the 50 Women Game-Changers in Food blogging effort.  Each week, bloggers from all over the country feature the recipes of one of the 50 Women Game-Changers from the Gourmet Live List published last May.  I had to get in on this thing and here I am the very next week, blogging down-under Donna Hay's recipe for Ricotta, Chive, and Prosciutto Omelettes.  Thanks, fellow food bloggers, for the warm welcome.  I'm thrilled to be participating!