All Hallows Eve Supper

By Katie Barreira

This Halloween, for the first time since moving to Manhattan almost seven years ago, I will be receiving trick-or-treaters. As someone who participated in the ritual candy gathering far beyond the socially sanctioned age (I was still casing the neighborhood for candy when most kids my age had a plan of attack that included toilet paper), I take my new role as purveyor of treats very seriously.

Since Halloween falls on a pesky weeknight, it’s important to be prepared. I recall sitting down to dinner and getting only a few bites in before the doorbell would begin to ring. So, for Halloween dinner this year, I’ve decided to make a bubbling cauldron of cheese fondue with seasonal veggies for dipping; it’s the perfect meal to be taken in bites between my ghostly guests.

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Grate Your Way to Great Risotto!

By Katie Barreira

Shredding the ingredients is the secret behind this seasonal risotto.

Delicata Squash: As its name suggests, this thin-skinned squash has supple flesh and a sweet, delicate flavor. Unlike a thick, gummy puree or chunky pieces, shredded squash incorporates seamlessly into risotto, while still retaining its fresh squash taste and toothsome texture.

To prep, trim the ends then use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin. Halve the squash lengthwise then use a measuring spoon (they have sharper edges than a soup spoon) to remove the seeds. You can grate by hand on a box grater, but the best way is to use the food processor fitted with the shredding disk.

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What to Cook? Pantry to the Rescue!

By Dave Hu

All this week, Special Fork bloggers are revealing what’s in their pantry, with tips for using pantry staples. To celebrate Pantry Week, Special Fork has teamed up with Zojirushi, the Japanese maker of top-quality kitchen appliances, to offer a fabulous sweepstakes prize: the 5.5-cup capacity Zojirushi Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer ($192 MSRP), which not only cooks rice flawlessly, but also steams foods and bakes cakes. Menu settings include: white/sushi, mixed, porridge, sweet, brown, cake, steam and quick cooking. Enter to win!

Sometimes I come home from work and there’s nothing in the fridge to make for dinner. This is when a well-thought-out pantry can be a lifesaver. Unlike Sandy, whose beautiful kitchen we use to shoot our videos, I have a very small kitchen and space is at a premium. Therefore my pantry is designed for maximum versatility with the fewest number of ingredients.

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Crab Season’s Coming

By Andrew Hunter

If you ask someone from Baltimore what’s the best crab, they’d say blue crab, with a local’s pride. But if you ask folks up and down the Pacific Coast from San Luis to Juneau, they’d say Dungeness. Regional food pride is one of the things that makes our country’s cuisine great!

Personally, we like Dungeness because we can get it from local fishermen, and we associate it with the holidays because crab season starts in November and peaks in December. Yes, you can get it through June, but our opinion is it’s sweetest in December. So use any kind of crab you like in this recipe; just buy local when you can.

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Brown Bag a Bento Lunch

By Sandy Hu

When Steve and I go on vacation, we love to poke around in local farmers’ markets and explore supermarkets to check out what the locals are eating. Our suitcases on the return home are always bulging with cans and boxes of transportable food, a few new cookbooks and some food magazines . We try to make our vacation last a little longer by replicating some of the dishes we enjoyed.

During our first trip to Japan in May, we fell in love with o-bento lunches (Japanese box lunches, artfully arranged in partitioned containers).We can buy them easily from Japanese markets in San Francisco of course, but in Japan, we could purchase them everywhere and in great variety. Whether from the fabulous food emporia found in the basement of every high-end department store, to train station kiosks and even the 7-11, o-bento lunches were uniformly tasty.

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