The Bitten Word

Apple-Fennel Sauerkraut with Caraway (Part 1)

Martha Stewart Living (October 2011)

Well, it's finally happened: We are rotting vegetables (but with purpose!).

We had never had much interest in fermenting vegetables ourselves, but we had two run-ins with kraut-devotees (kraut-heads?) over the summer. The first was at a farmers market near our house, where North Mountain Pastures sells a variety of fermented vegetables. We sampled and then immediately purchased "shiozuke" -- a jar of fermented vegetables including turnips, radishes, carrots, red onions, garlic, ginger, mustard seed and Himalayan sea salt. We loved the sample we had at the market. We have yet to use it at home, but we think it will be great on its own or with fish. 

Our other kraut-meister was Zach's mom, B, who has been fermenting a traditional sauerkraut in her basement this summer. She packs it in water and brine and then stores it at room temperature for several weeks while it ferments. Clay hasn't made it to Tennessee to sample B's recipe, but Zach had a taste when he was visiting home a couple weeks ago. It was sharp, pungent and incredibly tangy. (Although he's still trying to decide if he'd say it was "good.")

Before this, we had never even considered making kraut ourselves. We're all for pickling and canning and other methods of preservation, but it hadn't really dawned on us to make sauerkraut. 

Well, Martha Stewart Living's October feature on Farmhouse Culture, a small business in Santa Cruz, California, was all the inspiration we needed to get to fermenting.

Photos from the Summer: Maine, Outstanding in the Field and Other Adventures

Summer may be over, but before it's completely out of sight, we wanted to share a few photos of some summer adventures in eating.

A few months ago, we posted an album of some early summer photos over on The Bitten Word's Facebook page. In it, you can see photos from New York, some adventures around DC, and some long weekends we took in Florida (photo above) and Cape Cod.

This morning, we put up two more photo sets. 

The first is from Maine, recapping a 70/30 trip we took with Zach's family to celebrate the birthdays of his stepfather (his 70th) and sister (her 30th). We had an amazing time, and the food was spectacular. We essentially spent the entire trip trying to find the best lobster roll in Maine. (Our favorite? J's Oyster in Portland, Maine. We can't say it's the best in Maine, but we're certainly glad to do more research to find out for certain). 

One of many, many lobster rolls we ate in Maine

While in Maine, we also got to visit one of our all-time favorite restaurants, Chase's Daily, which we wrote about in our ode to fennel. In the Facebook photo set for Maine, you can see all the dishes we ate there. 

Beet Green and Bulgur Soup with Poached Eggs

Fine Cooking (October/November 2011)

Let's face it -- a Beet Green and Bulgur Soup sounds like something you might eat on a hippie commune. We're picturing patchouli, tie-dye and conversations about the merits of firm versus silken tofu.

Well, call us hippies, because this soup is not only simple and quick to prepare, it's also unbelievably delicious. 

Contest Winners + Things That Have Caught Our Fancy

Big thanks to everyone who entered this month's contest. We loved hearing your comments about the covers!  While most people praised either the Martha Stewart Living short rib potpies, the Saveur roast beef or the Bon Appétit pork loin, we were surprised to see how much you guys loved the Whole Living cover. Dozens of you were enticed by that roasted veggie salad. 

Before we get to this month's winners, we want to highlight a few items from recent magazines that we enjoyed. 

Bourbon is our favorite spirit, so we are enamored with Saveur's current feature on bourbons and whiskeys in their October issue. It's practically a crash course in whiskeys, with tasting notes for more than 20 varieties. Needless to say, we were very thirsty after reading it. The piece -- titled "Whiskey Rebellion" -- isn't online, but as an accompaniment to the article Saveur.com has an excellent gallery of 8 whiskey cocktails.   

The same issue has a feature on fermentation that we also loved. There are recipes for everything from Spiced Red Wine Vinegar to Fermented Beets. The photos are amazing, but the thing we loved about the feature was an two-page spread called "The World of Fermentation." It highlights 30 fermented products from around the globe. Some of them are staples -- soy sauce, raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar, cultured butter. Others are foreign but familiar, like Marmite. But it's the products we've never heard of that really got us curious, like Kefir, an "effervescent milk drink from Central Asia...bubbly with yeast," and black garlic, which we've been reading a lot about lately. Have you cooked with it?

Saveur's Fermented Beets with Orange and Ginger

In Cooking Light, check out the Halloween Treat Picker, a great chart that divides candies on an axis of Sugar versus Saturated Fat, so that it highlights those items that have Less Fat & More Sugar (Nerds -- the candy, not an accusation), More Fat & More Sugar (Reese's Peanut Butter Cups), and on and on in any combination. We're not big candy eaters, but we thought this was a great Halloween tie-in.  

This same issue of Cooking Light features their annual Taste Test Awards. We love reading about taste tests in Cook's Illustrated, but few other magazines seem to do them. The two winners we're most excited to try are Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Steel Cut Oats and the Whole Foods 365-brand Aged Balsamic Vinegar. You can explore the categories and some of the winners online. 

And lastly, there's a new food magazine of which we've become aware over the last few months. It's Chop Chop Magazine, which is focused on cooking with kids. Randomly, we both received an issue through our day jobs, and thought it was adorable. It features kids cooking and sharing their favorite recipes. If you have kids, it's definitely worth checking out.  

And now -- who won this month's giveaway?