Blogger Kendra Bailey Morris

by Kendra Bailey Morris on

Where was your photo taken? At the 17th Street Farmer’s Market in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. I’m a produce stand junkie. As soon as market season begins, you can find me sifting through piles of fresh veggies, meats and other locally made delicacies nearly every week.

Where do you live now? Richmond, Virginia, where I spend the majority of my days writing, cooking, and planning where to go next and what to eat.

Scariest airline flown? Can’t remember the airline, but you can bet I remember the flight. Went like this. Hopped a flight from Richmond to Newark. Plane takes off late at night. Enter massive Southern-style electrical thunderstorm. Plane gets tossed around like dice on a craps table. White knuckle it for about 10 minutes before huge lightning strike creates a power outage inside the plane. I begin bawling like an infant-complete with moments of hyperventilation. (I’ve never been a great flyer.) Plane finally lands. Exit aircraft, knees still knocking. Greeted by a cabbie, who takes me to a nearby bar, where I promptly buy a six-pack of Miller High Life and drink it in the backseat of the car. Note to self: check weather status before flying.

Favorite city/country/place. My grandmother’s kitchen in Bluefield, West Virginia.

Most remote corner of the globe visited. Spent the night on Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano which overlooks the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, with nothing but newspapers to sleep on, and a decent bottle of Scotch to keep warm. Woke up in the middle of the night to the distant sound of bagpipes and discovered a wild red fox sleeping next to me. Legend has it that Arthur’s Seat is the original home to Camelot, so to this day, I have always thought that fox was the ghost of some noble knight sent to protect me.

Favorite guidebook series. Been a big “Let’s Go” fan ever since college.

The most unusual food I’ve ever eaten is…raw monkfish liver. Tastes like a fishy foie gras.

When I’m not writing for Gadling, I’m…cooking, eating, or thinking about eating.

Favorite foreign dish? Restaurant? Poached beef marrow with coconut bread (served straight from the bone) at Poleng in San Francisco. Steak frites in Brussels. Doner kebab while walking the streets of London at 2 a.m. A bottle of cheap Bordeaux, a baguette and any park in Paris. Stewed Opihi’s (snails) at Paolo’s Bistro on the Big Island in Pahoa, Hawaii.

Favorite trip: Eloping to the Turks and Caicos to marry my husband, Tim, on Grace Bay in Provo, with an Italian couple and a handful of locals serving as our witnesses. Truly magical.

Dine on the Queen’s efforts at Tichwell Manor

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The menu at Tichwell Manor has what you’d expect: sea bass, pork loin and sole, among other staples. They are prepared prudently and presented with an aim to impress. The trained eye, however, will find a gem that’s not exactly hidden: organic red poll sirloin. The first label will catch the attention of the environmentally engaged, but “red poll” means much more – the former cow on the plate traces its roots back to the Queen.

Tichwell Manor sits across the street from a sea-adjacent marsh in Norfolk, England. The boutique hotel emphasizes a sense of home, with a teddy bear on every bed and old fashioned metal keys instead of the now ubiquitous key cards. Ostentation is eschewed in favor of the serenely mundane … which seems to be the underlying theme. What elevates Tichwell Manor to brilliant, though, occurs in executive Chef Eric Snaith’s kitchen.

At only 29, Snaith is a surprise in the top culinary job. He took the position to help the hotel’s owners, Ian and Margaret Snaith. Eric is their son, and the first taste of the first course of any of his meals makes it pretty damned clear that he’s doing much more than a favor to the family. The self-trained chef turns standard fare into edible masterpieces through the instinctive use of presentation, ingredient pairing and local sourcing. The last of these evokes plenty of passion from the main man in the kitchen.

[Photo of Sandringham Estate (where the cow used to live) by chris friese on Flickr]

For Snaith, the menu starts as close to home as possible. Herbs are pulled from the on-property garden that several guestrooms face. From there, he tries to stay within a 25-mile radius, as long as the goods are of sufficient quality – for scallops, for example, Snaith has to reach a little farther. The chef believes that it’s important “to have a source [for ingredients] that we can put on the menu.” Provenance matters – from confidence in the food to satisfying the guests.

This is a trend that’s gained importance in Britain over the past several years – provenance has arguably overtaken the other “green” factors considered in the food product space, such as organic. In general, it’s a point of pride, especially for that “red poll” sirloin.

Sandringham Estate lies not far from Tichwell Manor. It bears the distinction of belonging to the Queen (not the state) and is known for the quality of the organic livestock. The meat provided by Sandringham is distributed only to Tichwell Manor and two other restaurants, making it a rare product. Snaith balances the red poll sirloin with peas, oxtail, horseradish and risotto to craft an experience that is not to be missed.

You can find a solid executive chef at any number of English hotels, and Snaith measures up. But, Tichwell Manor is where you’ll come closest to dining with the Queen.

Disclosure: Visit Britain shelled out some cash for this experience, and British Airways supplied the flights.

Fill your stomach, save your wallet

by Tom Johansmeyer on

You’ve heard a lot about cheap flights and amazing hotel rates lately. Well, restaurants are getting into the game, too. Prix fixe meals for between $25 and $40 are being offered at upscale restaurants across the country. Hey, if you’re not likely to spend big cash on travel, maybe you can splurge a little on a great local meal.

The restaurants are suffering just as much as the hotels and airlines, so they need to get diners in the door.

This year, the National Restaurant Association (yes, there is another “NRA”) expects restaurant sales to drop 1 percent this year – as it did in 2008. That would be the first time drops happened in consecutive years since the association started to keep score back in 1970. This isn’t as bad as the U.S. Travel Association‘s forecast of a 6.7 percent slip in travel spending, but for restaurateurs from coast to coast, it’s certainly cause for concern.

So, if you’re willing to sacrifice dinner at home from time to time, you stand to win. National seafood chain McCormick & Schmick’s for example, is offering a steak and lobster dinner special (with dessert) for $29.95. Realistically, the company has no choice. Up to 40 percent of its customers are business travelers, and sales are down 13 percent from last year.

To find some real bargains, keep an eye out for prix fixe menus. These deals allow restaurants to offer a better value to guests without having to turn to coupons and discounts that would bring prices down relative to specific menu items. Also, every party of four is likely to have one or two people who pull from the regular menu … and they can always nail you on the liquor.

The new face of army food

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The U.S. Culinary Arts Team … yes, there is such a thing … faced an incredible challenge. The team had to cook 150 three-course meals in six hours without the benefit of a real kitchen. The crew had to work “in the field” – as the army calls being away from the plumbing, walls and heat of the barracks – which is never an easy task.

The IKA/Culinary Olympics, which occurred back in October, is where chefs come from 53 countries to vie for the top spot in categories such as community catering, regional and military. The civilians take advantage of state-of-the-art facilities, while teams in the military competition were shrouded in camouflage and fueled by propane.

Like any military operation, the team from the United States had rehearsed tirelessly, nailing down its menu.

Salad: seared tuna, smoked trout, and poached salmon over a seaweed salad

Entrée: herb-infused turkey breast with sweet potatoes, cranberry johnnycake, and bacon-wrapped green beans

Dessert: chocolate-mousse crunch cake with apricot-and-cherry sauce.

The military category consisted of 10 countries in total, including Hungary, Sweden, Germany and Slovenia.

The results? Our team finished a strong second, much to the surprise to anyone who has been assigned to Fort Sill, OK (trust me). The Swiss took top honors, and Great Britain shocked all by: (a) not finishing last and (b) serving something that the judges could actually taste.

[Via The Atlantic]

The most expensive delicacies in Moscow and where to find them

by Neil Woodburn on

At some point over the last decade, Moscow magically transformed from a city of terrible restaurants and horrific food to a gourmet capital rivaling Paris and New York for pure culinary opulence and high-end extravagance.

In fact, just over ten years ago, there were only one or two “ethnic” restaurant in the entire city. Today, every food imaginable is served here, including some of the most expensive delicacies in the world.

If you don’t believe it, pop on over to the Moscow Times where Stas Shectman’s Taste of Luxury takes us on a culinary adventure to the city’s top restaurants where near-fabled foodstuffs are carefully doled out to the Muscovite elitny.

Shectman gives us the scoop on where we can order blowfish, truffles, caviar, saffron, bluefin toro, aged balsamic vinegar, Jamon Iberico, and Kobe beef–providing, of course, you have rubles to burn and enough bodyguards to watch the entrance while you chow down. Do me a favor though, and let me know how that $100 bluefish sashimi is at Opium Restaurant. I’ve been dying to know.