July 27 – Hot Sauce Cookbook & LocalWineEvents.com

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Guy

First up is Robb Walsh with his latest:  “The Hot Sauce Cookbook” – this definitive guide to the world’s most beloved condiment is a must-have for fans of dishes that can never be too spicy.

Here’s a cookbook that really packs a punch. With dozens of recipes for homemade pepper sauces and salsas—including riffs on classic brands like Frank’s RedHot, Texas Pete, Crystal, and Sriracha—plus step-by-step instructions for fermenting your own pepper mash, The Hot Sauce Cookbook will leave you amazed by the fire and vibrancy of your homemade sauces. Recipes for Meso-american salsas, Indonesian sambal, and Ethiopian berbere showcase the sweeping history and range of hot sauces around the world. If your taste buds can handle it, Walsh also serves up more than fifty recipes for spice-centric dishes—including Pickapeppa Pot Roast, the Original Buffalo Wing, Mexican Micheladas, and more. Whether you’re a die-hard chilehead or just a DIY-type in search of a new pantry project, your cooking is sure to climb up the Scoville scale with The Hot Sauce Cookbook.

In the second half my old friend Eric V. Orange, aka EV, who joins us to share an update about his most useful web site for food, beer, spirits and wine lovers – LocalWineEvents.com

Eric, a former “Wichita Wino” who worked for one of our local beverage distributors started LocalWineEvents as a central repository for posting food and wine events all over the country.  While it is still that, it is so much more!  Easy to use and basicly free, you can post your local event and it’s accessible to anyone on the web or the more than 230,000 subscribers to the weekly news letter.  You not only learn about events, you often buy tickets to the event of interest.  Join us and learn more!

Good Life Guy’s Wine of the Week:
Something light, fresh and fun for summer

 

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July 20 – Salt Block Cooking & Beer!

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Guy

We begin this show with Mark Bitterman and his latest book “Salt Block Cooking.”

A precious pink mineral mined from ancient hills in Pakistan’s Punjab province has arrived on the American cooking scene as an exciting and enticing new form of cooking. Himalayan salt blocks, for years the stuff of Iron Chef panache, are today available at specialty retail stores around the world. And the market is growing. This is the first book to address this subject, along with 70 recipes designed for using this unique cooking tool.

This is the definitive text on Himalayan salt blocks, written by the man who wrote the definitive text on salt. Enough with salting your food—now it’s time to food your salt!

Mark Bitterman

“Mark Bitterman knows more about salt than anyone else on the planet. If you’ve ever wondered what to do with those handsome slabs of Himalayan salt you see at cookware shops, Salt Block Cooking will inspire you with wildly innovative uses you’ve never dreamed of, from cocktails to candy, from curing to grilling, and from ceviche to pizza. Along the way, you’ll learn the half-billion-year history of the only food that starts as a rock.” ––Steven Raichlen, author of the Barbecue! Bible series and host of Primal Grill on PBS. www.saltnews.com

In the second half we are going to talk BEER!  It’s hard to believe, but in addition to it being a hot summer and a great time to enjoy a handcrafted brew (is there ever a bad time?), the Midwest Beerfest is right around the corner.

Sabrina LoPiccolo from Stone Brewing Company joins us to talk about this fine craft brewing operation and then Rob Miller, local beer guru joins us to talk about a great beer event next week.

Good Life Guy’s Wine Beer of the Week:
Stone Brewing Company – Arrogant Bastard Oaked Ale

This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory — maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beer will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make a beer taste better. Perhaps you’re mouthing your words as you read this.

 

 

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July 13 – Masumoto Peaches & More

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Guy

My guest this week is David Mas Masumoto.  The Masumoto family have been producing heirloom peaches that are sought after by restaurateurs and consumers alike.

A cookbook showcasing the luscious flavor of peaches in 50 sweet and savory dishes, drawing on the life stories and experiences of America’s foremost peach farming family, the Masumotos of California’s central valley.Enjoy the luscious versatility of summer’s finest fruit with fifty sweet and savory dishes.

The Masumoto family’s amazing heirloom peaches—which are available for a few weeks each year at the best produce markets and top restaurants in the country—are widely considered the best peaches in the world. Their debut cookbook gathers the family’s favorite recipes, from classics like Hearty Peach Cobbler, Peach Chutney, and Slow-Cooked Pork Tacos to inspired combinations such as Prosciutto-Wrapped Peaches, Caprese with Peaches, Spice-Rubbed Pork Chops and Grilled Peaches, and Stuffed French Toast. And the pristine flavor of a just-picked summer peach can be enjoyed year-round with the easy-to-follow instructions for drying, canning, freezing, or jamming the best of the harvest.

David, Nikiko and Marcy Masumoto

With rich recipe and location photographs fresh from the orchard, this beautiful cookbook paints an intricate portrait of an organic farm that has been in the family for four generations. Accompanied by eloquent essays that evoke the soul of family farming and the nuances of a life filled with peaches, The Perfect Peach is for anyone who longs to savor the flavor of a pristinely ripe peach.

Then Tricia Carr, AKA: The Concoctologist joins the party to share some “Peachy” drink ideas for summer fun!  Tricia is Director of Mixology for Southern Wine and Spirits, Southern California and President of United States Bartenders Guild Los Angeles Chapter.  In her own words:

Tricia Carr

“I have been inspired by the craft of the cocktail since I first experienced how “cooking” a cocktail with fresh and quality ingredients is like creating a delicious entrée.  I travel all over training professional and home bartenders how to concoct libations from a place of passion and thoughtfulness.  I am passionate for this work because it is means of communication; it brings people together!   Learn more here and follow Tricia on Facebook & Twitter.

 

Good Life Guy’s Wine of the Week:

Let’s keep the peach theme and talk about Trenel Crème de Pêche de Vigne

The small “pêche de vigne” (wild peach) is so named thanks to the tint of its flesh, which evokes the colour of wine lees. Made with wild peaches gathered in Burgundy, Trénel’s Crème de Pêche de Vigne is a beautiful brilliant golden colour, with an amazingly fresh and pure, intense nose that exudes the distinctive fruity notes characteristic of this variety of peach.

The fruity flavours explode on the palate, powerful and rich but never cloying. – Learn more here!

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July 6 – Fabio’s Italian Kitchen

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Guy

My guest this week is Fabio Viviani with his latest book; Fabio’s Italian Kitchen.  If you were lucky you got to see his Wichita cooking demo at the Kansas Star Casino a few months ago.  But now you can learn even more about this dynamic Chef and his new book.

When Fabio Viviani was growing up in a housing project in Florence, Italy, the center of his world was the kitchen, where his mother, grandmother, and especially his great-grandmother instilled in him a love for cooking and good food.   Now he shares the best of Italian home cooking while telling the story of his hardscrabble childhood, his success as a chef in the United States, and the women in his family who inspired him. In more than 150 delicious recipes, Viviani takes us from his family home, where his great-grandmother taught him to make staples like Italian Apple Cake and Homemade Ricotta, to the kitchen of a local trattoria, where he honed his craft cooking restaurant favorites like Gnocchi and the Perfect Tiramisu, and then across Italy where he studied each region’s finest recipes, from Piedmont’s Braised Ossobuco to Emilia Romagna’s Perfect Meat Sauce.   Learn more at www.fabioviviani.com

A gorgeously illustrated cookbook, Fabio’s Italian Kitchen is a celebration of food and family that brings all the joy, fun, and flair that Fabio Viviani embodies to your kitchen.

Fabio Viviani

Fabio Viviani was born in Florence, Italy, and became a sous chef at Il Pallaio, a trattoria in Firenze, at the age of sixteen. He now works as the owner and executive chef of Cafe Firenze, a renowned Italian restaurant in Ventura County, California, and Osteria Firenze, a Los Angeles Italian eatery. He has appeared on Top Chef (season five), Top Chef All Stars, and Life After Top Chef.

Get a copy of this cool book today and start cooking Fabio Style!
Click here to order from Amazon 

Good Life Guy’s Wine of The Week:
Something great from Italy 🙂

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Jun 29 – Bacon Nation, Blueberries & Mercer Canyons Red

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Guy

Everything tastes better with bacon. One of those flavor-packed, umami-rich, secret-weapon ingredients, it has the power to elevate just about any dish, from soups to soufflés, braises to bread pudding.  My first guest is Peter Kaminsky!

Peter Kaminsky and Marie Rama know just how to employ it. Peter is the author of both Pig Perfect—a paean to the noble swine—and, most recently, Culinary Intelligence, which argues that the healthiest way to eat is to eat less but really well. He and Marie know that adding irresistible bacon transforms an ordinary dish into an extraordinary one.

Bacon Nation is a bacon-lover’s dream, a collection of 125 smoky, savory, crispy, meaty, salty, and sweetly sensuous recipes that go right through the menu. Starters like Spiced Nuts with Bacon; Bacon and Butternut Squash Galette; Bacon, Pear, and Humboldt Fog Salad. Main courses featuring meats—Brawny Bacon Beef Bourguignon, Saltimbacon; poultry—Paella with Chicken and Bacon; fish—Flaky Cod Fillets with Bacon and Wine-Braised Fennel; and pasta, including an update of the classic Roman dish Bucatini all’Amatriciana. Even dessert: Rum Ice Cream with Candied Bacon Chips and Chocolate-Peanut-Bacon Toffee.

Or, as Homer Simpson would say, Mmmm, bacon.

In the second half I’ll be talking to Lance Chastain of Chautauqua Hills Farm in Southeast Kansas.  Lance and wife Elisabeth started a blueberry farm as a hobby…now it’s a full blown business with demand for their nickle size blueberries, fresh asparagus, blackberries and garlic increasing at an astronomical rate.

We purchased the ground on which Chautauqua Hills Farm now sits a few years ago with recreational enjoyment in mind for our family and friends.  As we worked on developing the farm into a place we could enjoy, we discovered some interesting and unique characteristics about our climate, water, soil structure and interestingly, an over-abundance of native pollinators (native bees, bumblebees, carpenter bees, etc…), which led us to explore what could be grown there – with a couple of caveats – we had to really enjoy eating what we grew and it must be really healthy!

After many months of research, time and work, we settled on growing blueberries, blackberries and asparagus.  Since then we’ve been nurturing and growing healthy, maturing plants and refining the conditions in which our plants grow and produce.  We use natural, sustainable and organic products and methods in our growing operation.  Learn more about the farm and available picking times!

Good Life Guy’s Wine of the Week:
2009 Mercer Canyons Red Blend
84% Merlot, 8% Syrah, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Petit Verdot.  This wine is deeply complex with notes of ripe black cherry, cocoa powder, warm spices and char. On the palate the wine is full and rich with supple tannins and lush fruit. The balanced acidity and tannins lead to a lingering finish of dark fruits, earth and spice.  Wine Spectator 89 


A BIG red wine that mirrors the aromas and flavors of blueberries! 

Get some at Jacob Liquor Exchange on North Rock Road
Hurry it’s going fast!

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