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Dear Chef Pisto, I just wanted to
say it is good to see a restaurant that serves real Sicilian food. My
family had pasta and pigs feet all the time. I am currently attending
the Texas Culinary Academy and plan on opening a Sicilian Restaurant one
day, and you can bet pasta with pigs feet will be on the menu.
Austin Travis, Texas
Man, oh, man do the folks on the Monterey Peninsula love pig's feet! We
had them lined up last week. Pig's feet and pasta (dinner of champions!)
every Thursday at the Whaling Station $14.95.
Q). I would like to know specifically what type of orchid flowers
are used to garnish food?
Leigh
Via e-mail A). Did I ever
tell the story about the time I was in Portland, Oregon (the city of
roses) and did a rose tasting at the city garden? I only took one petal
from each rose I tasted and I must have tasted 30 or
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40 different ones. The tastiest was the
white rose. So there you are - if orchids aren't available go for the
white roses. A word of warning: All flowers are NOT edible! I repeat, be
cautious and don't eat any unless you know and don't eat flowers from
the forest as they may have been sprayed. Here is a list of edibles:
Nasturtiums, chive blossoms, pansies, daylily, violas, almond, apple
blossom, chamomile, lavender, lemon, orange, grapefruit (I had some this
morning), peach, plum, squash, chrysanthemums, daisies, geraniums,
jasmine, lilacs, marigold and violets. Oh yeah, about those orchids, the
variety name is dendrobium.
My 20-year-old daughter left a note on my windshield a couple of weeks
ago also regarding edible flowers. So I called Jackie at Del Monte
Produce and ordered every edible flower available. That evening I
brought them home and as we were about to eat, I presented the two
containers, one of pansies and the other of various colors of stock,
chrysanthemums, carnations and
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borage. I put some vinegar, olive oil and
salt and pepper on the table and said, "Okay family, lets eat some
flowers!" I started with a medium sized chrysanthemum, put a little salt
on it and munched away, hmm, it tasted a little like apricots. I glanced
over to see Gia eating a whole carnation, my wife chomping on a sprig of
pink stock and Tawni, (daughter #2) eating pansies. I'm sure glad no one
walked in on us eating whole flowers with
petals flying all over. So, let me describe the tastes: Pansies have a
light floral taste and a slight bouquet with good after taste and a long
finish; Stock tastes very light with a short finish and a good nose;
chrysanthemums have a great bite, texture and a mild flavor and nose;
carnations have a great nose and a slightly metallic finish; borage with
it's hairy leaves and stems, is like eating a hairy bug - the flavor was
also like a bug - use only the blue flower or boil as a green (spinach);
orchids don't have much of a nose but do have a great crunch.
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