High School Chefs Set Their Sights On the Best Teen Chef Competition 2008

The International Culinary Schools at The Art Institutes are summoning the best teen chefs across the U.S. and Canada to strut their culinary chops in The Art Institutes Best Teen Chef Competition 2008.
Open to high school seniors in the U.S. and Canada, the Best Teen Chef Competition was created to encourage and recognize young culinary talent.
Now in its ninth year, the Best Teen Chef Competition awards more than $250,000 in tuition scholarships to The Art Institutes schools. Top prize winners in the Competition can win a full-tuition scholarship toward an associate s degree, certificate or diploma program, to study culinary arts at one of the more than 30 participating Art Institute locations. According to Chef Michael Nenes, Assistant Vice President of Culinary Arts for The Art Institutes, this year the stakes are higher than ever before for the young competitors. As the Competition has built a reputation in the past eight years, the skill level of those students entering has risen exponentially. In addition to a full-tuition scholarship and the title of Best Teen Chef 2008, the first place winner in the national competition, in partnership with Food Network, will be an “Intern for a Day” at the Food Network Kitchens in New York City. The winner will also receive a tour of the Food Network Studios, dinner for two at a Food Network chef s restaurant and a library of Food Network Kitchens cookbooks. To be eligible to participate in the Competition, high school seniors must first send a complete Entry & Release Form to The Art Institute school where they wish to enter the competition or fill out an online entry form at http://www.artinstitutes.edu/Competitions/BestTeenChef.aspx?prid=btc 1207 004 pr, by February 8, 2008. Deadline for entries to be received into the competition is February 29, 2008. Local Best Teen Chef Cook-off Competitions will be held at participating Art Institutes locations on April 12, 2008. The National Best Teen Chef Final Round Competition will be held on Saturday, May 17, 2008, at The Art Institute of Las Vegas. For more information on The Best Teen Chef Competition, visit http://www.artinstitutes.edu/Competitions/BestTeenChef.aspx?prid=btc 1207 004 pr.

The Art Institutes (http://www.artinstitutes.edu) is a system of over 35 education institutions located throughout North America, providing an important source of design, media arts, fashion and culinary arts professionals.
Contact: Jacki Muller Vice President, Public Relations The Art Institutes jpmuller@aii.edu
Devra Pransky The Art Institutes 412.995.7685 dpransky@aii.edu

Best Recipes: Cherry Tomato Corn Salad

For a bright alternative to tomato and lettuce, you can make this salad of corn and tomatoes with its refreshing mixture of olive oil, cucumbers and lime juice. This cherry tomato corn salad makes a great impression on any table, and it is easy to do.

1 / 4 cup fresh basil, minced
3 tbsp olive oil
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1 / 2 teaspoon salt
1 / 4 teaspoon pepper
2 cup frozen corn, thawed
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped

Directions

In bank with a glass lid tight installation, add the basil, olive oil, lime juice, sugar, salt and pepper. Close lid and shake until the pot ingredients are well mixed.

In large bowl, add corn, tomatoes and cucumbers. For dressing and toss to completely coat the salad. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Veal: A Few Notes

Veal is a calf under one year-old with the teeth of a young animal, weighing less than 600lbs. and of approximately four months of age. Today young calves start eating forages of various type and unfortunately, often with added hormones, quite early. The true veal must have been fed only with milk. This kind of feeding confers to the meats the characteristic delicate flavor and offers to gastronomy one of its delights. The “paiata”, an Italian delicacy, consists of the first part of the tenuous intestine that, as soon it is removed from the animal, gets tied at the extremities so that the inner milk does not come out. Lamb and kid “paiata” are delicious too, when they are from milk fed animals.

Boiled, if cooked to perfection, veal remains one of the fundamental dishes of international cuisine, for flavors and for the role played in the preparation of other dishes. Boiled it can be served warm, with the many various vegetables, but it can also be used to prepare salads with herbs and spices, vegetables, olives, eggs, cheeses and anything imaginable. Boiled with crustaceans is one of the best delicacies you can offer to your guests. The resulting stock is indispensable in cuisine: beyond soups it can be employed in risotti, sauces, jellies, polentas and minestrone. In order to roast veal must be certain to enrich it with lard. Ideal for consistency and flavor, extremely thin slices of lard will help to make a perfect roast. Lard, melting during baking, confers flavor and fragrance to the meat. As par beef, another fundamental rule is that the cooking must not dehydrate the meat: if there is fluid in the baking container, the veal was improperly roasted. Not only will the consistency of your preparation be fibrous, but also the taste will be insipid since part of the flavor will have gone with the juices. In order to avoid dehydration some rules should be followed.

First, the meat must be salted when a little external crust has formed which prevents spillage of juices. An other rule is to use pots that allow fast and effective heat conduction: the best tool is the iron frying pan. Moreover it is fundamental that roasting is short (same as beef). Meat slices must be cooked fast on a live fire. Roasts must maintain a pink color inside. Cooking continues when the roast is taken out of the oven, so this also must be considered.

Finding the Best Green Tea to Drink

Today one of the most popular drinks in America is fast becoming green tea and for good reasons. Green tea is known for its taste and health benefits far and wide, including weight loss assistance, reducing cancer risks and adding antioxidants to your diet.

It is something of a challenge to select the best green tea, especially if you are new to the green tea world. Some of the best green tea examples available on the market today are found below. There are also some excellent ways to bring out the wonderful flavor through brewing.

Sencha green tea is one of the most popular types of green tea. As an introduction to the green tea family this is perhaps the best green tea since it is very economical and has the most recognizable taste of all green teas for sale.

Kabusecha is another choice and it considered one of the best green teas today. It remains a favorite with customers throughout the world because it is taken from the first and finest harvest. It has a signature scent that is a grassy aroma associated with the best green tea.

A Japanese green tea option is Myou-Kou which is a green tea that is deep steamed. This tea has a thicker, bolder flavor compared to the lighter green teas and is considered the most unique and best green tea available.

Brewing Your Cup of Green Tea

How green tea is brewed is half the enjoyment as any fan of green tea will tell you. Unlike your normal oolong and black teas it is unfermented so the brewing method is a little different for green tea.

When brewing the best green tea the one thing you need to remember is that the tea leaves need room to expand and add their health benefits to the water that they are infused in. To the flavor of the resultant tea can be hindered by tea bags or tea balls. Allowing the tea leaves to sit loosing in the water and steep for a few minutes is the best way to brew green tea and then is should be strained if desired.

A matter of taste and preference is the best way to find the best green tea. Try a number of different types to see which is your favorite green tea.

Introduction to Italian Wine

Each year, it is not uncommon for Italy to find itself at the top of a number of wine-related lists, not the least of which ranks it as the largest producer, exporter and consumer of wine in the world. This fact is all the more impressive when you consider that Italy is not a very large country – indeed it is less than three-quarters the size of California. Even considering the roughly 8 billion bottles of wine it produces each year, the country manages to stay true to wine styles that go back four thousand years. As a result, Italy not only has more local grape varieties than any other country, but it also has some of the most distinctive wines on Earth.
One of the major considerations with Italy s unique wine style is the wide range of diverse cultures that exist throughout its twenty wine regions. Each of these cultures has a robust sense of pride that translates directly into wine making. At best, understanding Italian wine is intimidating, at worst it seems all but impossible.
Like any journey of significance it s best to take it one step at a time. While Italian wine is both vastly complex and inconsistent, there are some concrete starting points.
First, let s take a look at the general qualities of Italian wine:
Italian wines tend to be high in acidity – This is because wine with a strong showing of acidity tends to pair better with food. No surprise then that the food oriented cultures of Italy have opted for wine that compliments their amazing dedication to cuisine! This means white wines tend to be crisp and red wines tend to be firm.
Subdued, earthy aromas – One of the overriding characteristics of Italian wine is the touch of the land that one can smell and taste in every bottle. The nose might have hints of mushrooms, soil, minerals or grass. These qualities are commonly referred to as an earthiness that prevents the wine from competing with food.
Medium Body – Though there are some excellent heavier wines in Italy (such as Barolo), the majority are more medium bodied in nature. Again, more suitable to the wide array of food dishes that perform better when not overwhelmed by a heaviness.
Distinctly Italian Grapes – While Italy does grow most of the grapes found throughout the world, it also has many, many local varieties that are only grown in their respective regions. Nebbiolo, for example, is the grape used to make Barolo and is only found in Piedmont and Lombardy. Because the Italian climate is perfect for grape growing, many varieties have evolved over thousands of years to respond specifically to one region. As such, it is extraordinarily difficult to try and transplant them to different countries.
Major Red Grapes
There are over twenty major types of red grape varieties in Italy, but we can start with what are arguably the most important three:
Sangiovese (san joe VAE sae) – Planted in plenty throughout the country, particularly in Tuscany and Umbria, this is the major grape of Chianti and the popular Super-Tuscan wines. Medium in body, the grape typically carries strong tannin, high acidity and flavors of herbs and cherries.
Nebbiolo(nehb be OH loh) – Specific to the Piedmont region, this grape makes two of Italy s most notorious wines: Barolo and Barbaresco. These wines are a shoe-in for anyone building a cellar because they age particularly well. The grape is full-bodied with high acidity and strong tannin, invoking flavors of strawberries, mushrooms, tar and truffles.
Barbera (bar BAE rah) – This grape runs neck and neck with Sangiovese as the most planted in the country. It is a lighter grape with little tannin and high acidity. The fruit flavors tend to be more pronounced than in other varieties and as such it is an excellent summer red and great on its own.
Important Italian Whites
Pinot Grigio(pee noh GREE joe) – The Italian version of Pinot Gris, this white grape has won widespread acclaim all over the world. Though not as rich as its French counter-part, it carries flavors of peach with a high-acid, minerally quality.
Trebbiano (trehb bee AH noh) – Though undeniably common in Italy, it has also suffered from casual growing habits. It is primarily known for producing inexpensive whites that are crisp and bland. It is a wine that at best pairs well with food, particularly shell-fish, and rarely can be enjoyed on its own.
Tocai Friulano (toh KYE free oo LAH no) – Fans of Pinot Grigio tend to be pleasantly surprised by this grape. With characteristic Italian crispness and acidity, it can also carry rich and full textures that are more complex than is typical for whites. It grows primarily in the Friuli region.
Verdicchio and Vernaccia – These grapes have some of the same body, crispness and acidity as Trebbino, but with a bit more spunk. Richer flavors and aromas including hints of lemon and sea air are common. They are typically un-oaked.
One could spend a lifetime learning all there is to know about the dozens of grape varieties grown in Italy, particularly when you explore how they are best paired with foods from their respective regions. Further articles will explore some of the rules governing wine production in Italy, including how to sift your way through wine labels, but having a familiarity with the major grapes listed above will form a firm foundation for discovering the distinctive personalities of Italian wine!

Blended and Varietal Wines

Novice wine lovers soon come across the concept of blended and varietal wines. The two questions that spring to mind are, what does it mean? and does it matter?
At the basic level, the difference is quite simple. Varietal wines are made from a single grape variety, while blended wines are made using two or more. The most obvious example is the difference between the two great red wine styles of France. Burgundy red wine is composed of the single variety Pinot noir. Bordeaux red wines are most often blends of up to five varieties, Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit verdot. There are a few Bordeaux wines made from a single variety, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule.
So much for theory. The distinction between varietal and blended wines is less clear in practice. Many varietal wines are made from blends of wine grown in several regions. Australia s iconic Grange is such an example. Each year hundreds of samples from many vineyards are tasted and evaluated before the final blend is decided upon. The result is a blend of regions, rather than varieties.
Many more modest Australian wines with lesser claims to fame are also regional blends. The process of selecting the blend is similar but much more simplified. The clue on the label is often the words wine of South Eastern Australia . This is almost as general a statement that you can get about the origins of an Australian wine.
Some wines made from a single variety are blends of several different vintages, but this is quite rare for table wines.
While on the topic of labels, you should be aware that many wines bearing a single varietal name can legally contain up to fifteen percent of other varieties. If the wine is labelled as a blend, then the variety with the largest percentage composition should be named first, for example wine labelled Cabernet Merlot, should contain a greater percentage of Cabernet than of Merlot.
Our second question is does it matter? Well, if you find a wine that you enjoy and it is a blend, then you should continue to drink it.
However if you wish to extend your wine knowledge and thus enhance your wine experience you should try varietal wines whenever possible. There are hundreds of varietal wines available, each with a special subtle difference waiting for you to discover.

Dessert Parties

Dinner parties are a hot trend and a great way to get together with all of your friends. But do you and your friends have a serious sweet tooth? Do you get more enjoyment out of the desserts than dinner? Why not host an evening dessert party? A dessert party can actually be hosted any time of the day, but a late evening party is typically best.
With desserts, the tiny touches really do completely the big pictures. For instance, doilies on dessert plates when serving a fine piece of cake is a beautiful touch. A nice espresso goes well with pastries.
If have a tasty pound cake and want to make it look beautiful when serving? Use wine or champagne glasses and a flavor or two of ice cream to serve desserts a la mode. Serve flavored coffees and teas with some fresh fruit. All by itself, it can serve as a dessert. Just don t forget the decaf! Frozen desserts are a great idea for an unexpected get-together. Most of the fancier desserts can be frozen and thawed in warm weather for only about an hour.
Need a quick cake decoration? Keep some butterscotch, chocolate, and caramel sauce on hand. Nice thin swirls of a flavored sauce across the dessert plate works especially well with a nice torte or cheesecake. Mini chocolate chips are fabulous when coupled with fresh raspberries and a rich chocolate cake.
Any particular season coming up? A seasonal dessert leaves a great impression on your guests.
Chocolate-coated strawberries are an ideal dessert party treat. You can begin with a carton of large ripe strawberries with stems. Melt two to three large dark or milk chocolate bars per carton in the microwave, in a pyrex measuring cup. Be very careful not to burn the chocolate. Hold strawberries by the stem, dipping them one by one into the cup. On a large plate coated with wax paper, rest the strawberries (which should only be dipped just over halfway) and chill for about forty-five minutes. Serve with Columbian coffee or a designer coffee drink. If you re crafty with drinks, you could concoct a drink specifically for your event!
Always pre-slice cakes, but serve to guests one at a time. Do not have the cake already on a dessert plate, unless the event is directly after a dinner.
Dessert parties are becoming more popular and a little more sophisticated, so soft lighting, candles, and appropriate music are a must. Remember not to serve pies, as they are informal and casual and interfere with the class and mystique of a dessert party.

An Overview of Wine – The Drink of Gods

Wine has been called the drink of the gods. This may be debatable, but it has definitely been the drink of the ages. Here is an overview of wine you can sip on.
An Overview of Wine The Drink of Gods
Wine is one of the oldest drinks known to mankind. Although historians may not be entirely sure that this is how the fermentation of wine started, an overview of the history of wine is full of interesting tidbits.
Made of fermented grape juice, wine is an alcoholic beverage that is both made and drunk in many parts of the world. The history of wine starts over 5000 years ago. It was said to have been discovered when grapes were left for too long in amphorae or earthenware jugs. These grapes somehow became tainted with wild yeast, which caused the grapes to ferment. Some courageous individual took a drink and realized the fermentation process had produced something that would be come known as wine.
There are several different basic types of wine. The most basic breakdown is red wine and white wine. When the grapes that make these varieties of wine are combined, a rose or blush wine can be created. If the wine is allowed to ferment in a way that produces carbon dioxide bubbles, it becomes a sparkling wine. If the sparkling wine comes from a particular region in France called Champagne, it is known as Champagne. There are also fortified wines these wines are also fermented from grapes, but additional amounts of alcohol from other sources are added to the wine to raise its alcohol content. An example of a fortified wine is brandy.
Making wine is not an easy process the fermentation of a really good wine may take years or even decades to complete. The type of oak barrel that wine is typically fermented in is also the result of a difficult process. Out of the 400 species of oak that grow on Earth, only 20 species are used in oak barrels for winemaking. Of those 20 species, only 5 percent of the wood taken from these trees is deemed good enough to be made into wine barrels.
The amount of grapes needed to produce quality wine is another of the many mind boggling wine tidbits known. Generally, it takes four clusters or 300 grapes to produce just one bottle of wine. Since there are only about 40 clusters of grapes produced on a grapevine per year, this means that each vine is only capable of making 10 bottles of wine. Given this fact, it is pretty amazing that wine is as cheap as we find it.
As you can see, wine is a not a simple fermentation process. The next time you drink a glass of your favorite chardonnay, think about the difficult journey that it made from grape to bottle.
Xavier Moldini is with WineriesforYou.com – a directory of wineries.

Drinking Tea

The second most consumed beverage behind water is tea. Interestingly enough the 3,200,000 tones of tea produced worldwide come from only one plant species, named “camellia sinensis.” But how a plant becomes a beverage? Tea is made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush in hot water for a few minutes, a great variety of tea tastes, aromas and colors can excite even the more skeptical drinker. If you do like tea drinking, but simply never had the opportunity to learn more about it beyond the fact that you enjoy it, you should know that there are thousands of kinds of tea offered on today s market. Shades in flavor derive from the region of cultivation and the method of processing the tea leaves. It is the processing techniques that produce the four simple tea categories are considered the art of tea making. In its most basic form, processing is the taking of the raw green leaves and deciding whether or not, and how much oxidation (or fermentation) should take place before drying them out. Oxidation is the reaction of the enzymes contained in tea leaves when they are broken, bruised or crushed.
The first category is that of black tea. Black tea is nothing more than the leaves of the camellia sinensis after being exposed to 8-24 hours of open air. After the leaves are picked up they are spread out to let the water they contain evaporate. You have probably witnessed it happening to a flower that is left without being watered. The foliage curls up and begins to dry. After this part of the process, the tea leaves are balled into rolls that encourage oxidization. When fully oxidized, the leaves turn into a rich black color. Tea producers then put the tea leaves into the final drying period before sorting and packaging them.
Oolong tea is another tea category and is considered to be the most difficult of the four types of teas to process. The best way to describe oolong tea is that it is somewhere in between green and black tea. This is because the leaves are only partially oxidized during the processing. As with black tea, the leaves are spread out to dry for 8-24 hours, but after that, they are tossed about in a basket in order to create a bruising and partial exposure to the air. The final step involves steaming the leaves, which neutralizes the enzymes in the tea and prevents further oxidization.
Green teas, like white teas, are closer to tasting like fresh leaves of grass that the other two tea categories. This type of tea is also lower in caffeine and has higher antioxidant properties. The whole process of creating green tea revolves around preventing oxidization from taking place in the leaves. Though the tea leaves are sometimes laid out to dry for a few hours, then, in order to neutralize the enzymes and prevent further oxidation, the leaves are steamed or pan fried. It is this very technique which results in the preservation of the enzymes which have recently become the focus of medical research. After steaming, the leaves are rolled up, still quite green in color.
Finally, white tea has recently become a popular item in the west as it is the least processed tea and thus tastes the most like fresh leaves or grass. White tea is made of the little buds of the tea plant. Again like green tea, white tea is steamed or pan fried to prevent any kind of oxidization, and great care is taken to avoid bruising or crushing the tea. The dried buds have a silver-like appearance because the tiny white hairs of new growth are still present.