New England Public Radio

Over on The Salt, NPR’s Dan Charles has tracked the efforts of salad green companies to keep dangerous microbes out of the lettuce you buy at the grocery store. But once they get that lettuce safely into your shopping cart, what’s next? NPR’s Audie Cornish asks Molly Wizenberg, of the award-winning blog Orangette, about the best way to go about salad.

How do you keep lettuce from rotting in the fridge?

“The first thing that I always do when I bring home a head of lettuce is I go ahead and the minute I take it out of the shopping bag, I wash it, I layer it in paper towels, put it in a closed ziplock bag and its ready to go whenever I want it. That’s sort of my No. 1 way of making salad easy and enjoyable.”

What lettuce do you like best this time of year?

“I am a big fan of Bibb or Butter lettuce. It’s great at any time of year, but particularly at this time of year, we’re starting to get some that’s really fresh, really delicate — these soft, velvety leaves … At some grocery stores it comes with the roots still on it.”

What are your favorite salad dressings?

“I think one of the hallmarks of a really comfortable home cook is having a dressing formula that you can pull out at any time. So my dressing formula, what I almost always use, is a one to three to five formula. It’s 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons vinegar of your choice and about 5 tablespoons of olive oil. And then, depending on the vinegar, you might want to scale up on the oil, maybe even up to 7 tablespoons. Basically you’re going to get this really wonderful, bright, mustardy dressing that I in particular like on these spring vegetables, these spring lettuces. Because who doesn’t love a little bright, vinegary kick on your leafy greens?

“… One of my favorite spring dressings in particular, it’s called Green Goddess Dressing and it’s a creamy green dressing. It’s kind of festive. It uses special ingredients — some mashed avocado, some cream, olive oil and lots of fresh herbs and that is in particular delicious on Bibb lettuce.”

Recipe: Everyday Vinaigrette

By Molly Wizenberg

This bright, mustardy dressing is my go-to for any salad, and it’s very easy to make. You can use any vinegar you’d like, but my two favorites are red wine vinegar and Champagne vinegar. The latter is especially nice on delicate spring lettuces.

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 to 8 tablespoons olive oil, to taste

In a small bowl or jar, combine the mustard, vinegar and salt. Whisk to blend well. Gradually add 5 tablespoons of the olive oil, whisking vigorously to emulsify. Taste — does it need more olive oil? Types and brands of vinegar vary quite a bit in their strength, and depending on the vinegar you’ve chosen, you may need to add more olive oil. I often add 1 to 2 tablespoons (for a total of 6 to 7 tablespoons in all), but it varies. The finished dressing should be lively but balanced; it shouldn’t beat you over the head with vinegar.

Yield: about 1/2 cup

Note: This recipe yields more vinaigrette than you’ll probably need for one salad. Extra vinaigrette can be stored in the refrigerator indefinitely.

Recipe: Green Goddess Dressing

By Molly Wizenberg, Brandon Pettit and their restaurant, Delancey

This dressing is delicious on almost any salad, but especially a salad of Bibb lettuce, bacon, sliced avocado and fresh herbs. (And in the summer, the same salad is even better with the addition of some slow-roasted tomatoes.) Green Goddess Dressing is also wonderful as a dip for raw vegetables.

3 tablespoons cilantro
3 tablespoons basil
1 tablespoon Italian parsley
1 tablespoon tarragon
1 large garlic clove, peeled
1 oil-packed anchovy filet, rinsed
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 a ripe, medium avocado (about 7 oz.)
3/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1/4 cup heavy cream

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the first 11 ingredients (cilantro through vinegar). Blend until evenly minced. Add the avocado and process until smooth. With the machine running, slowly and gradually add the olive oil through the feed tube; blend well. Add the shallot and cream, and pulse to combine. Taste for seasoning, and add salt if needed. Cover and chill for at least 3 hours before serving. Then let stand at room temperature for about 20 minutes, re-whisk and serve.

Yield: about 2 cups

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Back when refrigeration wasn’t up to modern standards, Fat Tuesday was a time to clear your house of indulgent foods. This led to lots of rich recipes, from Shrove pancakes to King Cake. In Sweden, the specialty is semlor. A group of people in Portland, Ore., are keeping that dish — and a few other Swedish traditions — alive.

Picture soft, sweet rolls, sort of like brioche, piled with creamy almond filling. Now picture them being made by a room full of young, mostly blond children speaking Swedish.

These semlor are being made by children at Svenska Skolan, a Swedish school program that meets Saturday mornings. During the last class, the kids baked the rolls and stashed them in the freezer. Now, they’re whipping cream, grinding almonds, and then putting them together. Nine-year-old Sophia Donato and 11-year-old Linnea Nilsson explain:

“Right now we’re putting in the …” Sophia starts off, “… filling for the semlor,” Linnea picks up. “It’s made of almonds, and you cut the top of the semlor off, and then you make a little hole in it, and you put the filling in there, and then you put the lid back on.”

Traditionally, the treats were made for Shrove Tuesday, as a sort of last hurrah of fat and sugar before Lent. But these days Sweden is fairly secular, and semlor are just a general treat for the winter season.

And though the Swedish school rents space from a church, it’s secular too — actually part of a program subsidized by the Swedish government called Svenska Utlandsskolor.

It’s for children with at least one parent who’s a Swedish citizen, and has branches all over the world. And a lot of them are probably making semlor right now.

“It started for Swedish families who were abroad and were coming back,” Gunilla Rohdin-Bibby, one of the Portland teachers, says. “And so they wanted their children to be able to just go back into the school system. But now there are a lot of families, not necessarily will they go back to Sweden, but they still want to have their children part of the Swedish language and culture.”

The classes are taught entirely in Swedish and cover history, music and traditional crafts. And they can also be a lesson for the parents. Cecilia Peterson grew up outside of Stockholm and has a daughter in Swedish school.

“Some of the things I have forgotten about, the Swedish school reminds me of,” Peterson says. “They said, ‘OK, in a couple of weeks we’re going to make semlor.’ I was like, oh yeah! Semla! I haven’t made that in a long time.”

Some parents, like Lena Braun, just appreciate the opportunity to catch up with other Swedish-American families. “Yeah, it’s just fantastic to get together on Saturdays, just hanging out and having a good semla and a cup of coffee,” Braun says. “And the kids are playing and having fun.”

Although the kids, like Sophia Donato, have some American ideas about how to improve the semlor. “It would be good if we had chocolate, and the bread was chocolate, and the almonds was chocolate, like melted chocolate,” she says. “And then it would be whipped cream with chocolate.”

Even without the chocolate, these semlor are a big hit with the kids. Their Shrove Tuesday roots may be more or less forgotten. But the tradition of coming together around Swedish culture and food — and a good strong cup of coffee — is just as sacred a practice.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

In the U.S., wine drinking has held its own during these hard economic times, and even grown in some unlikely corners. Moscato, for example, the Italian dessert wine, has gone from relative obscurity to the toast of the town.

Hip-hop singer Drake, in his song “Do It Now,” gives it a shout-out. It’s also the wine Kanye West orders for special parties. And it’s the wine Real Housewife of Atlanta NeNe Leakes has just started selling under the label Miss Moscato.

Until a few years ago, the ancient Italian wine could have been described as obscure — what one wine expert called “a little backwater grape.” Now the words used about the rise of moscato are “breathtaking,” “phenomenal,” “insane.” Industry watchers say they’ve never seen anything like it.

Danny Brager, vice president of the alcoholic beverages division at Nielsen, says moscato madness is not just on the coasts, and it’s not only in cities — it’s everywhere.

According to Brager, a Nielsen analysis found moscato sales up 73 percent in the 12 months ending Jan. 7. That’s on top of the 100 percent growth from 2010. It is the fastest growing varietal wine in the country.

Brager says every wine supplier is racing to get on this trend.

They’re combing the world for more grapes and growing their own. It’s no longer only small Italian wineries. Jugs of Barefoot moscato are sold at BJ’s Wholesale Club. It’s on the menu at Olive Garden.

What’s up with that?

Well, it’s inexpensive — generally $8 to $20 a bottle. That’s a good price point in a recession.

It’s low in alcohol and has a lightly sweet, fresh flavor with hints of peaches, apricots, pears, orange blossoms and rose petals. And sweet wines are selling big, especially to the under-40 crowd, who grew up imbibing sugary drinks.

Moscato is being called a gateway beverage for new wine drinkers.

Then there’s the whole hip-hop, edgy thing: Drink moscato and you’ll be cool like rapper Waka Flocka — which marketers pick up on (or start), and the whole thing goes round and round. It happened with Cristal champagne, Hennessy cognac and Patron tequila.

But why moscato, once a niche after-dinner wine, nice with fruit desserts? It may remain one of life’s mysteries, but as hip-hop artist Ab-Soul sings: When things get hard to swallow / We need a bottle of moscato.

Bonny Wolf is the author of Talking with My Mouth Full and contributing editor of NPR’s Kitchen Window.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Until this fall, chef Molly Baz was working at an upscale Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. But she decided to give that up to go on a road trip.

Molly wanted to learn everything she could about variations in American barbecue, so she planned a tour of the country’s most renowned barbecue regions and invited her dad, photographer Doug Baz, along for the ride. The pair documented their travels on their blog, Adventures in BBQ.

Molly tells NPR’s Audie Cornish that her love of pork is what inspired her to take the road trip.

“I’ve always been, I guess you could say, ferociously obsessed with pork,” she says. “I find the pig to be an incredible animal in terms of its versatility in the cooking world — and that’s the world that I live in.”

Doug shares his daughter’s love of pork, and while he was never intensely interested in barbecue, he tells Cornish that he didn’t hesitate when Molly invited him to come along.

“When your 23-year-old chef daughter asks you to go on a road trip with her, I think it took me maybe three or four seconds to answer, ‘Yes, I’m there,'” he says.

Learning From The Pit Masters

What Molly and Doug had in mind wasn’t your regular foodie tour. They wanted to learn the art of Southern barbecue from the tradition’s venerable — and often overlooked — pit masters.

“A pit master is the man who tends the fire, generally speaking, in the back of the barbecue shack,” Molly says. “He will be there from 2 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon shoveling coals into a fire and tending to whole hogs and pork shoulders.”

Molly learned how to work the pits from the likes of Keith Allen, owner and pit master of Allen and Son BBQ in Chapel Hill, N.C. The walls of Allen’s barbecue pit have been darkened by years and years of smoke, but those years have translated into barbecue mastery for Allen.

“I think the only light in that room was the light of the fire itself,” Doug says. “[Allen] would open the exterior doors in order to control the draft, in order to pull a lot of smoke out of the room or to allow it to collect. It’s a very smoky environment.”

‘Texas Blew Our Minds’

Molly and Doug set off on their trip on Oct. 30. Thirty-one barbecue joints later, they don’t hesitate when you ask where they had their favorite meals.

“I think that we pretty much hit the jackpot in Texas,” Molly says. “Truly, Texas blew our minds. I’ve never tasted a more delicious piece of unadulterated meat in my life.”

Molly says part of what makes Texas barbecue so different is the meat. Where North and South Carolina traditions are pork-centric, Texas is all about the beef: beef brisket, beef sausage, and massive beef ribs.

“The first stop that we made in Lockhart — the barbecue capital of Texas — was at a place called Smitty’s,” Molly recalls. “We ordered one sausage known as a ‘hot ring’ and bit into the sausage, which was so juicy inside that as soon as you bit into it, it literally popped and fat and juices from the meats were actually dripping down my arm. And it was so bursting with flavor and with moisture; I’ve never tasted a sausage like this before.”

Ready For Seconds

From Austin to Memphis to Atlanta, the pair covered a good amount of ground, but they also missed some pretty essential stops, like Memphis’ Rendezvous — an Audi Cornish favorite — and Kansas City, Mo.

“That’s going to have to wait, I suppose, to part two,” Doug says.

“We do plan on picking this trip up where we left off and hitting up all the spots that we weren’t able to make it to,” Molly adds. “So, fear not, Kansas City is in the near future.”

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Come 2012, there’s a new food vocabulary: authentic, craft, small batch, artisanal, rustic and, of course, local. It’s the opposite of processed, mass produced and factory farmed.

What might be called urban neo-ruralism has apartment dwellers canning tomatoes, keeping bees and churning butter.

The small farmer is the new gastronomic superhero, sourced on restaurant menus. Independent butcher shops are opening across the country with unfamiliar cuts like Denver steak, petite tender, flat iron. Expect more specialty meats, too, like bison, elk, goat and rabbit.

Whole pigs and fish are prepared in restaurants, and there’s more interest in nose-to-tail dining, where no piece of the animal goes to waste. Think internal organs. And bone marrow. It’s being smoked, tossed with pasta, or served with tamarind sauce.

Bars, too, are speaking the language of authenticity. Local craft distilleries are making small batches of bourbon, rye, vodka, gin and bitters. There are absinthe and mezcal bars.

Modern moonshine is also on the ascendency. If it’s made legally, it’s called “white dog” or “white whiskey.” Like the hooch made in unlicensed stills, it’s raw, unaged corn whiskey. Can you get more authentic?

Look forward to even more attention to detail in food and drink. There are microroasters of organic coffee, where each cup is individually brewed. There’s even craft ice. One New York bar freezes 300-pound blocks of ice — free of impurities and bubbles — and it’s someone’s job to harvest the ice.

Craft beers aren’t new, but now they’re being paired with artisanal sausages at German-style beer halls, complete with house-made condiments and communal tables.

The international flavor of the moment is Nordic. A few years ago, a group of Scandinavian chefs signed a culinary manifesto promoting purity, simplicity, freshness and ethics. The most famous practitioner is Rene Redzepi, who runs Noma in Copenhagen.

Noma was just named the best restaurant in the world by The San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Redzepi’s staff forages in the woods, and the menu includes such things as sorrel granita, musk ox, pork skin and chicken skin, as well as accents of hay, pine, moss and juniper. For dessert? Jerusalem artichoke ice cream. Savory ice creams should be popular this year, too.

“Nordic” might not be the best way to describe the new cuisine, however. Redzepi told New York Magazine he thought it should be called “regional” or “authentic” instead. That would be a good fit for the menus of 2012, too.

Bonny Wolf is Weekend Edition‘s food commentator. She’s currently working on a book about the foods of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

‘Tis almost the season, and what would the holidays be without our favorite foods?

There are the traditional standbys — like turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, or latkes for Hanukkah. But many people also have a special dish they eat only during the holidays. For example, one NPR reader raves about lefse, which she says is a potato-based staple for any traditional Norwegian-American holiday dinner. It’s “best served hot with butter. Or cold with butter and sugar. Butter is key,” she writes.

For this year’s festivities — from Thanksgiving to New Year’s — NPR will feature some of these dishes, on-air and online. Our reporters across the U.S. will be reporting on their personal favorites, but we also want to hear about yours. So please tell us in the form below about your unique holiday dishes — recipes that are significant to your family or region.

Note: Photos may be requested for the dishes NPR selects.

Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.