Storm aid: `enough to share'
By Carolyn Jung
Mercury News
For Sue Conley, co-founder of Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, New Orleans has always held a special place in her heart.
The celebrated artisan cheesemaker has family and friends there, and attends the jazz festival in the Big Easy every year. So when she saw the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, she knew she had to help.
This week, she will be sending 60 pounds of her famous cheese to Baton Rouge, where noted Louisiana chef John Folse has been organizing efforts to feed the thousands left hungry and homeless.
``We have a lot of cheese in our walk-in -- enough to share,'' she says. ``And we'll keep sending 60 pounds a week, until they tell us to stop. Our hearts are sick over this disaster.''
Cowgirl Creamery will be sending by Fed Ex its signature triple-cream, Mount Tam, as well as its washed-rind Red Hawk. When the chaos settles down, Conley and partner Peggy Smith are considering loading up their truck with donations from their cheesemaker friends and driving it all to Baton Rouge.
MORE AID FROM THE FOOD INDUSTRY: You can have the chef's jacket off the back of your favorite culinary star.
With the winning bid, of course.
Chefs for Humanity, a grass-roots coalition of chefs involved in charitable fundraising events, is auctioning off autographed chef's jackets from 23 celebrity chefs on eBay, Sept. 12-21. Chefs who donated jackets include: Mario Batali, Todd English, Elizabeth Falkner, Bobby Flay, Tyler Florence, Emeril Lagasse, Thomas Keller, Masaharu Morimoto, Ming Tsai, and Jacques Pepin. Proceeds will benefit UNICEF.
For more information on the organization, co-founded by Food Network star Cat Cora of Northern California, go to
www.chefsforhumanity.org.
CHEF ON THE AIR: The Greg Kihn radio show on ``KFOX'' (KUFX-FM, 98.5) might not be the first place you'd tune in for basic cooking advice and recipes. But think again. Chef David Cohen, formerly of Willow Street pizzerias in the South Bay, has been cooking on the airwaves for the past two months as a regular guest. Cohen is on the show twice a month on Tuesdays, generally for 10 to 20 minutes during the 8:30-9 a.m. time slot, and may soon be on weekly.
He's made everything from sandwiches to pastas to chicken tacos in the studio. And he also answers questions from callers. For more about the show or his local cooking classes, go to
www.chefcohen.com.
AUTHENTIC WASABI: Connoisseurs know how rare it is to get real wasabi at a Japanese restaurant. Usually, the green blob on the sushi plate is simply a mixture of horseradish, mustard and food coloring. The real rhizome is hard to grow and comes at such a pretty penny that many restaurants charge a supplement for it.
Now, you can experience the real deal -- in powdered form -- with Real Wasabi. Doug Lambrecht and Brooks Quinn bought a 75-acre farm in western North Carolina with just the right cold mountain streams fed with just the right mineral content to grow the finicky wasabi. They are introducing their first wasabi product, a powder that can be reconstituted with water into a thick paste.
Unlike the fake stuff, which is little more than a blast of heat searing the sinuses, real wasabi has a gentler, more complex flavor. There's less burn, and more nutty, toasty and herbaceous notes. Open the jar to take a whiff, and you'll detect green tea and alfalfa aromas. The powdered wasabi keeps for about two years, too.A half-ounce jar is $5.95; a 2 1/4-ounce jar is $14.95.
Order at
www.realwasabi.com.
MOON CAKE TIME: Celebrate the Chinese Moon Festival by enjoying a signature treat -- a freshly made moon cake. Ming's Chinese Cuisine and Bar, 1700 Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto, is featuring free moon cake-making demonstrations, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sept. 17.
Executive Chef Vincent Li prepares the confections with traditional wooden molds in two sizes -- mini and regular. A delicate pastry (almost like the exterior of a Fig Newton) encases a filling of red bean paste or crushed lotus seeds -- each with or without a salted egg yolk in the center.
The Moon Festival is celebrated each year on the eighth full moon of the Lunar calendar -- this year, Sept. 18. Fresh moon cakes will be available at Ming's until then -- $1.75 each for the small, and $5 each for the large. The restaurant also will offer a $24 per person, six-course Moon Festival Dinner, Sept. 16-18. For more information, call (650) 650-856-7700.
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