CUISINE

FOOD&WINE
Inside
Recipe Exchange
Margaret Warr shares
readers’ recipes, 2B
Contacts
Weekender /Food & Wine:
Julio Diaz,
435-8699
jdiaz@pnj.com
SECTION B/PAGE 1
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Pensacola News Journal
QUICK BITES
Seville plans
Torbreck
Wine dinner
S
eville Quarter Executive
Chef Jay Ammons is
cooking up another of his
fabulous wine dinners Aug. 12.
This time,
Ammons is
teaming with
Kim Woodyard
of Australia’s
Torbreck Wines
for a meal
pairing six
courses with
Torbreck’s rich,
intense wines.
Food & Wine Editor The impressive
jdiaz@pnj.com
menu will
435-8699
include lamb
porterhouse,
crispy salmon fillets with black
cherry compote and a summer
fruit tart with Muscat lemon
cream and fresh berries.
The cost of the dinner is $60,
and reservations are required.
Call Nancy at 434-6211 to
reserve your space.
I also hear that Seville Quarter
is planning changes to its regular
menu. I’ll have details on that as
soon as I can get them.
Julio Diaz
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Sauteed
chicken
with a
classic
veloute
sauce
served with
French
hard crust
bread and
vegetables
by Travis
Herr, chef
instructor/
coordinator for the
Pensacola
Junior
College
culinary
management
Program.
Viva la
FRENCH
CUISINE
Jahna Jacobson
News Journal correspondent
As plans move forward for
Pensacola’s 450th birthday
celebration Aug. 15, the
Pensacola Celebrity Chefs have
announced their contribution to
the big street festival.
Chefs Jim Shirley of The Fish
House, Irv Miller of Jackson’s
Steakhouse, Dan Dunn of H2O
and Gus Silivos of Skopelos on
the Bay will be serving Spanishstyle small plates (or tapas) from
6 to 8 p.m. during the festival
at the low, low price of $4.50.
You’re rarely going to get a
chance to sample these guys’
cuisine at such a low price, so I
heartily recommend stopping by.
Shirley’s planning a Spanish
dog with a house-made La
Morilla Blanca sausage on a
paprika pan de horno, with
caramelized onions, poblano
peppers, mahon cheese with
olive-spiked potato salad.
Silivos will offer anchovy-dusted
grouper with piquillo peppers
and manchego sauce. Miller’s De
Luna Hero has prosciutto, salami,
manchego cheese and Spanish
relish featuring olives and chorizo
sausage. And Dunn will present
chorizo and marinated shrimp
salad, manchego cheese with
a roasted tomato and cilantro
vinaigrette.
We’ll have the recipes for these
tasty-sounding dishes in an
upcoming Food & Wine section,
so keep reading!
Photos by Ben Twingley/
btwingley@pnj.com
Chef Herr works on
a batch of French
hard crust rolls.
Of all the world’s cuisines, French is considered to be the one with the most ooh-la-la.
The sauces, the seasoning, the recipes
that require a full day of mincing, chopping,
braising and buttering — all with a healthy
helping of wine to pull it all together.
To us it is highbrow and complex, wine
and truffles, rich and mysterious.
To the French, good food and a love of
cooking is a way of life.
But French food isn’t as difficult as its delicious reputation would lead us to believe,
said Chef Travis Herr, chef instructor/coordinator for the Pensacola Junior College
culinary management program.
“Once you understand it, what the basic
beginning what French cookery is, it isn’t
complicated,” he said. “French people have a
knack for being able to cook, and they pass
that down from generation to generation.”
In a nutshell: “It takes the basics and some
sauce work.”
See FRENCH, 3B
ONLINE
Foods of the Five Flags
A 5-part series exploring Pensacola’s
culinary heritage, leading up to Pensacola’s
450th Birthday Bash the weekend of
Aug. 14 and 15.
Chef Travis Herr, chef instructor/coordinator
for the Pensacola Junior College culinary
management program gives you a
TASTE OF FRANCE
Chef Travis Herr of Pensacola Junior College
demonstrates French culinary techniques in a video at pnj.com.
WINE TIME
Distinctive Kitchens featured
a “Red Wine and BBQ”
tasting at one of our stores,
and we were really impressed
with all of the wines that
complimented the rich smoked
flavors of the meats. We are
planning a repeat performance
Sept. 11 at our Pensacola
location.
When selecting wines for
barbecue, think BBQ: big,
bold, and quaffable. They
should be big wines, full
bodied, with a minimum
alcohol content of 13 percent
and plenty of fruit extract.
They should be bold, assertive
wines with forward fruit flavor,
spice and pepper along with
good acidity. Finally, they
should be quaffable — smooth,
delicious and easy to drink.
Here are two of the
selections that I found very
Finally, for those of us who
revere Pensacola Beach’s
favorite frosty adult milkshake,
don’t forget that this weekend
is the annual celebration of
that delicious treat. The 23rd
annual Bushwacker and Music
Festival starts Friday and runs
throughout the weekend at
Capt’n Fun Beach Club on
the Portofino Boardwalk. Get
complete festival coverage in
Friday’s Weekender and on
GoPensacola.com.
interesting
and
delicious!
■ Raw
Power
Shiraz,
Australia
($14): Unmanipulated
and “real,”
reflecting
the commitDirector of
ment and
Operations
authenticity
Distinctive Kitchens of garage
winemaking;
unpolished and raw with
plenty of power. Rawley
Power is the creator of this
fine drop. Rewind the tape
20 years, and Rawley Power’s
voice was being pounded into
the eardrums of punk music
fans throughout this southern
Curtis
Flower
land. More than 20 years on, a
different life is in full swing as
creator of this flowing red — a
different life with the same
“my way” approach.
■ Qupe Shiraz, California
($20): This wine is 98 percent
Syrah and 2 percent
Grenache from Santa Barbara
County. The wine is essentially
a blend of cool-climate Santa
Barbara grapes and warmclimate Paso Robles grapes.
The cool-climate fruit gives
spice, acidity and balanced
alcohol while the warmclimate fruit give softness,
roundness, ripeness and
more up-front fruit flavors and
aromas.
Distinctive Kitchens, 29 S. Palafox
Place, Pensacola; and 4790 Wharf
Parkway, Building F, Suite 208,
Orange Beach, Ala. 438-4688,
(251) 224-1776, or visit www.dk4u.com.
Gary McCracken/gmccracken@pnj.com
Qupe Shiraz, California ($20), left, Raw Power Shiraz, Australia ($14).
CHEF’S CORNER
In the heat of summer, chilled
or summer soups are fun,
refreshing
and fantastic.
Two of the
most popular
hail from
Europe:
French-style
vichyssoise,
consisting
of potatoes,
leeks and rich
Owner/Executive cream, and
a well-made
Chef Jackson’s
gazpacho
Steakhouse
that everyone
loves
— the Spanish-style purée
of tomatoes, bell peppers,
cucumbers, celery, garlic,
citrus and olive oil. Both
countries celebrate their
0000231092
Irv Miller
regional vegetables during the
warm-weather months.
My recipe was developed
to celebrate a more localized
harvest of ingredients. I have
created a soup to enjoy our
abundance of blue crab,
Florida avocado and bell
peppers using fresh herbs
and bold-flavor spices of the
Southwest. My recipe for crab
relish can be made hours in
advance and kept chilled in
the refrigerator. The avocado
soup should be made just
before serving to preserve
the brilliant green color and
velvety texture of the avocado.
I always recommend serving
a summertime soup in an ice
bowl or well-chilled soup bowl.
Chilled avocado soup with crabmeat relish
Pulp from 3 fresh Florida avocados or
4 Haas avocados
2 green chili or banana peppers, roasted,
seeded and skinned
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth, chilled
½ cup Vidalia or Texas sweet onions, rough
chopped
1 teaspoon Southwest spice blend
1 lime, juiced
4 tablespoons cilantro, rough chopped
1 teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon chipotle in adobo
½ cup half and half
Kosher salt and cracked black pepper, to taste
For garnish
3 tablespoons sour cream, thinned and chilled
4 tablespoons scallions, chopped small
1 corn tortilla, cut into strips and fried crispy
See CHEF, 3B
Gary McCracken/gmccracken@pnj.com
Chilled avocado soup with crabmeat relish by Chef
Irv Miller of Jackson’s Steakhouse.