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	<title>Gayle Keck</title>
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	<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com</link>
	<description>Freelance Writer Specializing in Travel &#38; Food</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 03 May 2012 21:42:15 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Private Cellars</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/private-cellar/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/private-cellar/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 May 2012 21:27:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[North America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wine & Spirits Writing]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Private Cellars Auberge Magazine (click on title to open printable pdf file)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Fall-2011-Cover002.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-852" title="Auberge - Fall 2011 - Cover002" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Fall-2011-Cover002-809x1024.jpg" alt="" width="357" height="446" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Wine-2011002.pdf" target="_blank"><br />
</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Wine-2011002.pdf" target="_blank">Private Cellars</a><br />
<em>Auberge Magazine<br />
</em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Mixing It Up: Hand-Crafted Cocktails</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/mixing-it-up-hand-crafted-cocktails/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/mixing-it-up-hand-crafted-cocktails/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 May 2012 21:09:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[North America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wine & Spirits Writing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=849</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mixing It Up: Hand-Crafted Cocktails Auberge Magazine (click on title to open printable pdf file)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Fall-2011-Cover002.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-852" title="Auberge - Fall 2011 - Cover002" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Fall-2011-Cover002-809x1024.jpg" alt="" width="356" height="451" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Auberge-Cocktails-2011002.pdf" target="_blank">Mixing It Up: Hand-Crafted Cocktails</a><br />
<em>Auberge Magazine<br />
</em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>A Food Lover Journeys to Lyon</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/a-food-lover-journeys-to-lyon/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/a-food-lover-journeys-to-lyon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:46:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel Writing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=761</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I slide through the lace-curtained door, my glasses instantly steam up...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/a-food-lover-journeys-to-lyon/afar-lyon-cover002/" rel="attachment wp-att-765"><img class=" wp-image-765 alignleft" title="Afar Lyon cover002" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Afar-Lyon-cover002-794x1024.jpg" alt="" width="333" height="428" /></a><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Lyon-Final-PDF.pdf" target="_blank">A Food Lover Journeys to Lyon</a><br />
<em>AFAR Magazine<br />
</em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
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		<title>3-Star Philosopher: Chef Christopher Kostow Profile</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/3-star-philosopher-chef-christopher-kostow-profile/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/3-star-philosopher-chef-christopher-kostow-profile/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:15:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Food Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=736</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;My goal is to be evocative, not provocative,&#8221; Chef Christopher Kostow explains, describing his culinary philosophy. So while the 34-year-old chef has gained renown for[Read more]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;My goal is to be evocative, not provocative,&#8221; Chef Christopher Kostow  explains, describing his culinary philosophy. So while the 34-year-old  chef has gained renown for some unusual-sounding dishes at The  Restaurant at Meadowood &#8211; goat poached in whey, for example &#8211; he&#8217;s quick  to counter any notion that his food is edgy.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not here to shock anybody,&#8221; he says. &#8220;It just tastes really good.  There&#8217;s a lot of finesse, a lot of technique and it&#8217;s very delicate.  We&#8217;re not hitting you over the head with anything. I would say my food  is thoughtful.&#8221;</p>
<p>Kostow is more qualified than most to turn out thoughtful food: he  actually holds a degree in philosophy. But after college, Kostow  gravitated to his other passion—cooking—and moved to San Diego to work  with Trey Foshee, one of <em>Food &amp; Wine</em> magazine&#8217;s Best New Chefs 1998. By the age of 22, Kostow was creating his own dishes.</p>
<p>Seeking to hone his technique, the chef next ventured to France, where  he worked in a variety of kitchens, from a Paris bistro to the  Michelin-starred Le Jardin des Sens in Provence. Back in the States, he  was sous chef to Daniel Humm at San Francisco&#8217;s Campton Place Restaurant  and went on to become top toque at Chez TJ in Mountain View, earning  two Michelin stars of his own.</p>
<p>At Meadowood, Kostow continues to collect accolades, including three Michelin stars; a rare four stars from the <em>San Francisco Chronicle;</em> and a spot in the ranks of <em>Food &amp; Wine</em> magazine&#8217;s Best New Chefs 2009.</p>
<p>As the chef looks back on the mentors who taught him along the way, he  also looks forward. &#8220;I was able to come here because I worked for other  people who were successful,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Hopefully, now I&#8217;m creating  opportunities for other people; hopefully I&#8217;m teaching them the right  way to do things.&#8221;</p>
<p>The right way, according to Kostow is to employ flawless, innovative  technique that never steals focus from the food. &#8220;Some chefs use  technique to make things look unbelievably unique,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;We put  that on its head and say, &#8216;We have all this ability and know-how and  tools. Why don&#8217;t we use technique to make food <em>taste unbelievably good?</em>&#8216;&#8221; One example the chef cites is an unassuming <em>amuse-bouche,</em> the baked potato parfait. &#8220;It looks pretty basic, just a white cup with  a white <em>espuma </em>[foam] on top and a little caviar and oyster,&#8221; Kostow  relates. &#8220;But it actually has six layers of potato goodness in each  bite. People taste it and they love it!&#8221;</p>
<p>How does Kostow conceive his nuanced dishes? &#8220;Some start with flavor  memories I want to evoke in the guests,&#8221; Kostow says. &#8220;I think there&#8217;s a  degree of shared food memory. That&#8217;s when you really speak to your  guests—but it&#8217;s not about being derivative or making something taste  like something else. This is a starting point.&#8221;</p>
<p>One dish began with the idea of roasted chicken, &#8220;the interplay of meat  and skin, how that tastes and feels in your mouth,&#8221; Kostow explains.  That flavor memory is reborn (with considerable culinary alchemy) as  crispy <em>poussin,</em> turnips, tofu and white soy—a breast roulade  accompanied by a perfect mosaic of leg meat and braised greens—not  exactly what Grandma used to make.</p>
<p>&#8220;As dishes evolve, we develop certain techniques to achieve the desired  results,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;I think that&#8217;s the mark of a good restaurant. You&#8217;re  leading and developing the techniques that other people eventually  use.&#8221;</p>
<p>In addition to his passion for technique, Kostow is focused on  ingredients. One luxury Meadowood affords him is having a garden, as  well as greenhouses and chickens. &#8220;I sit down every season with our  gardener and we discuss what we&#8217;re going to plant and how much we need.  That way,&#8221; he says, &#8220;I can look forward to my menus for the season.&#8221;</p>
<p>When Kostow describes the blue barrow borage, finishing herbs, arugula and strawberries he&#8217;ll soon be weaving into dishes, he leans forward with excitement, then adds, &#8220;In the spring, we do an  additional tasting menu of just vegetables, based on produce from the garden,&#8221; clearly relishing the possibilities. &#8220;We&#8217;ll do a shelling  bean course, an artichoke course, turnips baked in the dirt from<br />
the garden…&#8221;</p>
<p>That ability to eagerly seek out the next challenge keeps him on top of  his game, the young chef says. &#8220;We&#8217;re very, very forward-thinking. We&#8217;re  constantly evolving. There&#8217;s elegance at Meadowood, but there&#8217;s also a  dynamism that comes from youth. And that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re successful within  the context of Meadowood. It just works.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Pirates of the Mediterranean</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/pirates-of-the-mediterranean/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/pirates-of-the-mediterranean/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:47:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel Writing]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Welcome to our nation-state. It is 43 feet long and 23 wide -- a bareboat catamaran, if you prefer...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-404" title="Turkey" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Turkey.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="263" /></p>
<p>Welcome to our nation-state. It is 43 feet long and 23 wide &#8212; a  bareboat catamaran, if you prefer. We are plying the Mediterranean coast  of southern Turkey, wandering at will among bays and coves, tying up  where we like, doing whooping cannonballs off the bow. Our chartered  craft flies the French flag, but we aren&#8217;t French. It makes us feel like  pirates.</p>
<p>There are eight of us &#8212; friends and friends-of-friends. We are bad  sailors with good attitudes. Our skipper is Captain Marco, a Californian  (like most of us) who last roamed these waters 15 years ago as a  charter captain. He will maneuver the boat with more ease than I could  pilot a bathtub toy, transform us into a crack crew and regale us with  tales of his past exploits &#8212; whether we like it or not. These waters  are known as the Turquoise Coast. They could well be the source of the  word &#8220;turquoise,&#8221; which is simply French for &#8220;Turkish.&#8221; If not, they  deserve to be. Looking out to sea, we summon up all the words we know  for &#8220;blue&#8221; and still leave shades unnamed. The water is so clear that,  in shallows, it glows incandescent from rays of sun bouncing off the sea  floor.</p>
<p>Over the next seven days we will sail from Marmaris to below Fethiye and  meander back up to Gocek. We&#8217;ll snorkel among shards of ancient  amphorae, cavort in mud and play amateur archaeologist. Two Dutch  yachties will stand on their stern, serenading us with harmonica  chanteys as we dance an impromptu jig. One morning, I&#8217;ll come up from my  cabin and spy Winston Churchill, reincarnated as a bulldog, strutting  along the deck of a sailboat docked next to us. Another, I&#8217;ll be  awakened by Pavarotti, the opera-singing donkey. We&#8217;ll fix cucumber  salads and fry up lamb chops onboard. We&#8217;ll wash down smuggled French  chocolates with duty-free grappa.</p>
<p>Our shoes &#8212; banished to the hold by Captain Marco &#8212; will ferment,  forgotten, sloshing in a splash of seawater.</p>
<p><strong>Food, Mud, History</strong></p>
<p>As Mamaris dims to a murmur in the distance, we test ourselves at sea,  taking the cat up to eight knots under sail. Stealing speed from the air  makes us giddy. We think we could go anywhere.</p>
<p>We turn east and overnight in Ekincik, at a restaurant-with-a-dock that  serves up food and hot showers to boaters. &#8220;I&#8217;m Captain Marco!&#8221; our  skipper shouts to the kid who comes to catch our stern line. &#8220;Captain  Marco! Remember me?&#8221; At most, the boy has seen 15 summers. Marco is  sweetly oblivious to math and time.</p>
<p>At night, we rock below deck, in four tiny cabins wedged into the boat&#8217;s  double hulls, lulled by the slap of waves and the groan of mooring  ropes.</p>
<p>In the morning, a battered wooden motor launch fetches us up the Dalyan  River, past a powdery crescent of beach where sinuous flipper tracks  from breeding loggerhead turtles disappear into the sea. We weave  through tall reeds to the harbor town of Kaunos, which lies marooned by  silt &#8212; as well as by history. It dates from the 9th century B.C.,  though the remains are mostly Greek and Roman. Outside an amphitheater  sited to catch sea breezes and dispense panoramic views, a goat climbs  halfway up a tree to snatch tender leaves.</p>
<p>Past the shell of a Byzantine church and ruined baths, down a stone  road, warehouse foundations and mysterious monuments are all that&#8217;s left  of the harbor&#8217;s bustle. One in our party helps a French woman descend  from a crumbling wall. &#8220;This is not the first time America has come to  the aid of France,&#8221; her husband says with a touch of irony.</p>
<p>Upriver, Lycian tombs dominate the cliffs. Their carvings mimic Greek  temple facades, with pediments and columns, hovering halfway up the rock  face. The Lycians ruled this slice of coast long before the Greeks  arrived. They had their own language and alphabet, created the first  known democratic union and were fiercely independent. Lycia was the last  holdout on the entire Mediterranean coast before finally being absorbed  into the Roman Empire in the 1st century A.D. These tombs are remnants  of their ancestor worship.</p>
<p>Further upriver, we wallow like pigs in a mud bath, coating ourselves in  sulfurous gray ooze, then letting it dry and crack in the sun. We look  like bush tribesmen but feel like fools &#8212; until we stand rinsing off in  communal showers and discover how soft our skin has become.</p>
<p>At Dalyan town, we forage beyond the tourist shops rimming the dock and  find a greengrocer who sells us strange, leafless branching vegetables  that look to have been bred on an alien planet. She breaks off a piece  for us to taste, and it&#8217;s salty. (Later, back home, I find out they are  &#8220;sea beans&#8221; grown in marshlands.) Through pantomime and a bit of  English, she tells us the freaky greens should be boiled then tossed  with olive oil and lemon. Her proud friend elbows into the cooking  lesson to show us photos of her son living in North Carolina. She points  to each person in the snapshots and explains all about them in Turkish.</p>
<p>In the Gulf of Fethiye, we anchor off of tiny Karacaoren Island, a  deserted, jagged mass of black volcanic rock pocked with ruins. We  plunge into the deliciously chilly waters. From the nearby mainland,  hopeful hawkers head our way in battered wooden boats.</p>
<p>Two men in a dinghy beckon, holding out ridiculously expensive tomatoes.  Then a woman pulls up, seducing us with gozleme, Turkish &#8220;pancakes,&#8221;  made fresh on her brazier and folded around salty, crumbled cheese and  sprigs of fresh dill. They are so good that we put in dessert orders for  more warm envelopes filled with chocolate, bananas and honey.</p>
<p>&#8220;Sorry,&#8221; we say to the hustler in a slick speedboat waving Magnum ice  cream bars. He seems to have raced over from another century.</p>
<p><strong>Tombs in the Stone</strong></p>
<p>Karacaoren is guarded by treacherous stones that jab up from the sea,  yet we want to explore its meager ruins. Captain Marco agrees to  maneuver our rubber raft to a landing point where we can jump ashore as  the waves heave our little craft toward the rocks. We leap onto parched  terrain carpeted with goat dung. Remnants of terra cotta roof tiles  crunch under our feet. Climbing to the summit, we find remains of a  modest church and small, vaulted tombs with traces of frescoes. We  suspect they&#8217;re Byzantine. We discover cisterns and ponder the hard life  on this sun-blasted knoll, with no fresh water source, in cramped  buildings built from dark stone. Were these people religious hermits?  Traders? Lookouts? Not a soul shares the island with us; maybe the goats  are ghosts, too.</p>
<p>Nearby Gemiler Island looks more welcoming, with pine trees and a bounty  of ruins. Byzantine-era docks and stone warehouses lie partially  submerged along the shore, and paths lead to remnants of five churches  built between the 5th and 6th centuries. It&#8217;s possible to catch glimpses  of mosaics and inlaid marble floors in the remains of a basilica on the  island&#8217;s highest point, a good hundred yards above the water. But what  saves our souls is the view.</p>
<p>Some say St. Nicholas, the original Santa Claus, once lived here, making  Gemiler a popular pilgrimage site back in the Byzantine era. The  island&#8217;s mysterious masterpiece is a long, enclosed walkway that snakes  down its center. It has spawned many tales, but my favorite says this  vaulted, fresco-decorated corridor was built for an albino queen so she  could promenade through the city without exposing her delicate skin to  the sun.</p>
<p>That night, we encounter the only siren&#8217;s song of our trip. It&#8217;s belted  out by Pavarotti, the opera-singing donkey of Cold Water Bay. We  succumbed to a little ad in our boat manual to anchor in this  harbor-with-a-restaurant because, really, who could pass up an asinine  aria? Pavarotti&#8217;s owner, Ali, plies us with grilled fish and boar stew,  cooked by one of his &#8220;boys&#8221; who squats by a fire built on the ground.  It&#8217;s the best food we&#8217;ve encountered on the voyage. Ali fires up a fat  cigar, commands an extra bottle of wine and joins us at our table under  the trees.</p>
<p>&#8220;Shut up!&#8221; Captain Marco suddenly shouts, and our group falls silent,  exchanging nervous, guilty looks. &#8220;Shut up!&#8221; he cries again, laughing.  &#8220;That&#8217;s how you order more wine in Turkish!&#8221; Ali doles out the wine, the  glow of his cigar punctuating his moves as darkness pushes in from the  sea.</p>
<p>Ali tells us his village lies on the other side of this mountainous  territory guarding the water, and he offers to take us there. The lure  is Lycian tombs and the deserted Greek town of Kayakoy.</p>
<p>The next morning, Ali makes good on his promise. Because Cold Water Bay  is cut off from inland roads by the coastal mountains, it&#8217;s a roundabout  tour. We pile into Ali&#8217;s speedboat and rocket along until we reach a  beach where a road runs inland, then all squeeze into his van and careen  over the mountains.</p>
<p>Ali shows us two types of Lycian tombs &#8212; modest versions of the  temple-facade-style burial chambers, carved into the base of a cliff,  and free-standing house-type sarcophagi cut from massive hunks of stone  and topped with thick, peaked slabs. There&#8217;s something of the South Seas  about these house tombs, a sensibility far different from the  Greek-influenced temple tombs.</p>
<p>We swing by Ali&#8217;s big stone house topped with a satellite dish and help  him load cases of wine into the van. Ali&#8217;s wisp of a mom comes out to  show us her flower garden and hand out hugs.</p>
<p>Nearby Kayakoy was abandoned in the 1920s by more than 2,000 Greek  families, who were &#8220;exchanged&#8221; by the government for Turks living in  Greece. Their forsaken, roofless, whitewashed houses march up the  mountain like rows of rotting teeth. In the small rooms, corner  fireplaces and bits of bright, painted decoration hint at what the  occupants left behind when the deportation occurred. A church with  beach-pebble mosaics waits forlornly for worshipers to return.</p>
<p>Ali spirits us back to Cold Water Bay, covering the sea distance in a  blink, compared with sailboat speed. As we lift our anchor and sedately  set out for open water, Ali waggles his cigar in farewell while  Pavarotti sings us off from shore.</p>
<p><strong>Backpackers, Beware</strong></p>
<p>We sail for Butterfly Valley, reachable only by sea &#8212; or by a deadly,  precipice-hugging path known to devour foolish backpackers. The  1,150-foot cliffs embrace a canyon that slices back from a beach of  rounded stones, luring hikers with a forest of oleanders that rain  candy-pink petals, while 35 species of butterflies flutter and flirt.  The path slowly constricts, grows more sinister, clotted with boulders  and tangled roots, but the prize at its end is a 200-foot-tall  waterfall.</p>
<p>Returning to the beach, I shake oleander petals from my hair and swim  out to our boat. We circle back to the Gulf of Fethiye, scouting the  island of Tesane. Though there are remnants of ancient shipyards, the  place looks desolate and desiccated, baked brown as an overdone sugar  cookie, with scraps of buildings poking up.</p>
<p>We sail on to Tomb Bay, beautiful despite a name filled with doom.  Scraggly tiers of old olive groves mount steep hills, with Lycian tombs  etched into high rock faces. We leap into the cool water and climb out  on stone steps, once part of docks where goods were hauled to the agora  above. As I scramble uphill, lost steps emerge from the brambles. Who  passed this way hundreds of years ago, stopping to gaze out at the gulf  &#8212; fearing pirates, not the package tour boats that we shun?</p>
<p>At Ruin Bay, we set anchor and tie up for the night, roped to a pine  tree. A shore party paddles over to see ruins of the baths where  Cleopatra soaked herself in asses&#8217; milk, so it&#8217;s said. Was this the  beauty secret that conquered Caesar and Mark Antony? The baths&#8217; crumbled  foundations lie mostly submerged, begging for someone with a grand  imagination to conjure the exotic queen.</p>
<p>The vision isn&#8217;t helped by the rusting hulk of a ship that hunkers at  the rickety dock, serving as restaurant and bar. We toss down a beer and  row back, holding plates of meatballs and chicken to serve with the  spaghetti simmering in our compact galley.</p>
<p>After dinner, we lie on deck, trying to pick constellations out of the  glittering, crowded sky. There&#8217;s talk of skinny-dipping. It seems  perfectly natural. The salt crusted in my hair seems perfectly natural.  No one wants to surrender our boat the next day. We wonder how far we  could sail before they&#8217;d find us.</p>
<address style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>© 2007 Gayle Keck </em></strong></address>
<address style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>Reprint rights to this  article, including complete service </em></strong></address>
<address style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>information, are  available for purchase. </em></strong></address>
<address style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>Photos are also  available.</em></strong></address>
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		<title>Chef Interview: Christopher Kostow</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/691/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/691/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:46:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=691</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["I think most chefs should just put figs on a plate. I’m fine with it – if it’s a good fig. In the hands of almost all chefs, I’d rather just have the fig."]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/culinary-trends-Kostow-cover.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-693" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="culinary trends Kostow cover" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/culinary-trends-Kostow-cover-756x1024.jpg" alt="" width="294" height="397" /></a><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Chefology-reprint-Kostow.pdf" target="_blank"><br />
Chef Interview:<em></em><em><br />
</em><em> </em>Christopher Kostow</a><br />
<em>Culinary Trends<br />
</em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
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		<title>The Dream Cream</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/creamed-in-cornwall/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/creamed-in-cornwall/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:31:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel Writing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=556</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It was London, the early 1990s. We had our first encounter at the Hyde Park Hotel. Then a rendezvous at Brown's Hotel. Which led to...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Cow-fixed.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-559 alignleft" title="Cow - fixed" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Cow-fixed-1024x720.jpg" alt="" width="551" height="387" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">
<p style="text-align: left;">It was London, the early 1990s. We had our first encounter at the Hyde  Park Hotel. Then a rendezvous at Brown&#8217;s Hotel. Which led to a brief,  unplanned interlude at Fortnum &amp; Mason. The affair was outrageous,  indulgent, decadent. I had fallen madly in love. With clotted cream.</p>
<p>Yes, I swooned over something that sounds like you should put a Band-Aid  on it rather than eat it. But, oh, the stuff was glorious: unctuous,  buttery, rich. Every afternoon of my trip, I slathered it on scones  snatched from tiered silver trays in hushed hotel tearooms.</p>
<p>And, like most of those smitten with a new love, I didn&#8217;t bother to ask  for details. I vaguely assumed it was heavy cream, whipped almost into  butter but stopped just short of that transformation.</p>
<p>Returning home to the United States, I pined for clotted cream. It  wasn&#8217;t to be found at even the swankiest hotel tea services, where  whipped cream was foisted on me instead. That started the questions:  What, actually, is this rich, golden goo? How is it made? And why are  the Brits keeping it all for themselves?</p>
<p>On a recent trip to England, I set out to find the answers &#8212; and the  best clotted cream the country has to offer. At first, my research  pointed me toward Jersey, one of the Channel Islands near France and  origin of the Jersey cow breed. Jersey cows typically give milk with a  higher percentage of cream, rumored to be the best for making clotted  cream.</p>
<p>But wait, it&#8217;s not just the cows; it&#8217;s what they eat. Turns out, the  lushest English grass grows in Cornwall, along the far reaches of  England&#8217;s southwest coast, where there&#8217;s a microclimate so different  from the rest of the country that palm trees thrive.</p>
<p>And, despite a bit of bluster from the neighboring shire of Devon, which  touts its version as &#8220;Devon cream,&#8221; I discovered that the country&#8217;s  largest clotted cream producer is based in Cornwall.</p>
<p>So my husband, Paul, and I point our rental car toward Land&#8217;s End and  set out on a meandering expedition to the Cornish coast. Besides clotted  cream, the region is famous for fishing villages, artists, gardens,  smugglers and the hand pies known as pasties (pronounced &#8220;PAST-eeze&#8221;).  On our tour we will encounter everything on that list that is legal.</p>
<p>The first thing I learn, strolling the constricted streets of Polperro, a  tiny village of whitewashed stone cottages arrayed on ocean-side  cliffs, is that Cornish tea isn&#8217;t a grand affair reserved for the  afternoon. The town is clogged with modest tearooms and cafes offering  &#8220;cream tea.&#8221; And though the fishing fleet still bobs in a little cove, I  suspect Polperro serves far more scones than mackerel to the tourists  who ramble the maze of pathways between the ancient abodes.</p>
<p>Here, &#8220;cream tea,&#8221; means two scones, a pot of tea and a hefty dollop of  clotted cream, and it&#8217;s served nearly all day long. Passing up a boat  tour (&#8220;nice dogs and happy babies go free&#8221;), we settle at an outdoor  table and order the &#8220;Scones From Our Own Special Recipe,&#8221; not an  uncommon claim here.</p>
<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;re you from, then?&#8221; the proprietor asks as a pink-cheeked  waitress delivers our tea. His bushy eyebrows shoot up when we reply,  &#8220;San Francisco&#8221;; they shoot up again when I ask for seconds on the  clotted cream. In the name of research, I know no shame.</p>
<p>The cream is cool, smooth and sweet (though not sweetened). It clings to  the knife as I spread it in artistic swirls, then melts just slightly  into the warm, round scone (containing no currants, blueberries,  chocolate chips, nuts or other distractions). It&#8217;s delicious, and I  confirm the source is Rodda&#8217;s, the country&#8217;s largest clotted cream  producer.</p>
<p>One requirement for Cornwall&#8217;s lush pastures is rain, and with storm  clouds massing, we decide to head indoors . . . to a garden. We motor  down narrow two-lane roads lined with solid walls of green hedges and  trees arching to meet overhead, past little towns with odd, Harry  Potter-ish names (Crumplehorn, St. Blazey Gate), until we reach the Eden  Project.</p>
<p>Imagine botanical gardens on the vast scale of an eco-amusement park,  and you&#8217;ll have an idea of the size. At the base of a 200-foot-deep,  37-acre quarry, two &#8220;biomes&#8221; covered with a series of huge  hexagonal-bubbled domes (cousins to Beijing&#8217;s Olympic Water Cube) are  the largest conservatories in the world, housing more than a million  plants, in addition to a large waterfall. They showcase tropical and  Mediterranean species, as well as the Cornish zeal for gardening and the  founders&#8217; passion for sustainable practices.</p>
<p>The next morning, at our tidy farmhouse B&amp;B, we get an alternative  review of the Eden Project. &#8220;That&#8217;s boring!&#8221; a fellow tourist pronounces  at the breakfast table as we tuck into eggs, bacon and baked beans.</p>
<p>After he classifies several other famous Cornish gardens as &#8220;boring,&#8221; I  finally discover he and his traveling companion are landscape designers  visiting from Germany, and they don&#8217;t even have plans to see the Eden  Project. Clearly, their quest (to find &#8220;acceptable&#8221; gardens) is less  satisfying (but certainly less fattening) than my search for the perfect  clotted cream.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been trying to contact an artisanal producer, Gwavas Jersey Farm,  but my e-mails and phone messages have gone unanswered. So instead, we  decide to do some sightseeing, since any self-respecting Cornish tourist  destination also serves cream tea.</p>
<p>St. Michael&#8217;s Mount will look startlingly familiar to anybody who&#8217;s  visited Mont St. Michel in France. In fact, the two island churches were  under the purview of the same Norman abbot in the 11th century. Several  hundred years of sackings and stormings later, Cornwall&#8217;s was taken  over by the St. Aubyn family, whose descendants still live there after  12 generations.</p>
<p>Unlike at Mont St. Michel, there&#8217;s no raised causeway to convey visitors  above the waters. Fortunately, we arrive at low tide and tread the same  stone pathway, inlaid with seaweed, that medieval pilgrims followed.  After a steep climb, we tour the family castle and take in sweeping  views back to the coast and straight down to the island&#8217;s gardens, laid  out like verdant skirts around the Mount.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s just enough time for cream tea at the cafe before scurrying back  to the mainland ahead of the tide. Alas, though the scones are tasty,  I&#8217;m given another little cup of Rodda&#8217;s clotted cream. Yes, it&#8217;s good,  but I&#8217;m beginning to wonder if I&#8217;ll ever find any other kind. Rodda&#8217;s  seems to have a lock on the market.</p>
<p>I chat up a chap in the Mount&#8217;s gift shop, who suggests we take our  search to a &#8220;farm shop&#8221; and recommends one near Hayle. We head up the  Cornish peninsula and discover two farm shops, emporia of local produce,  jams and dairy products.</p>
<p>At the first, Richards of Cornwall, we find (at last!) tubs of clotted  cream made by a smaller producer, Trewithen Dairy. I happily part with  some cash for a tub of my own. Then, at Trevaskis Farms, I buy a box of  fresh-picked strawberries, tiny and sweet. There&#8217;s also a cafe, where a  refrigerated case is packed with desserts. I stand in awe as servers  dish up pies, crumbles and sponge cakes, all served with a whopping  dollop of Rodda&#8217;s clotted cream on top.</p>
<p>We forgo this dessert wonderland and opt for dipping strawberries into  the Trewithen clotted cream. The texture is less uniform, the flavor  sweeter, a bit more intense. Rodda&#8217;s and I have had a lovely  relationship, but now I switch my fickle affections to Trewithen.</p>
<p>The seaside town of St. Ives is a feast of a different sort, a banquet  of Cornish light. The ocean seems bluer, the beach more sparkling and  the stone houses more boldly limned against the sky. That blessing of  light has made the once-humble fishing village an artists&#8217; haven for  more than two centuries. Many of the views Turner and Whistler painted  here can still be found, either by strolling the town or by visiting the  Tate St. Ives, a branch of the major British art museum.</p>
<p>We walk off our clotted cream and strawberry orgy on St. Ives&#8217;s cobbled  streets, stopping by galleries that display paintings, ceramics and  handmade clothing.</p>
<p>The summer light lingers late in England and, after surviving a  particularly hair-raising wisp of a road, we spend the evening&#8217;s last  rays seated in a cliff-top amphitheater looking out to sea. We are near  Land&#8217;s End, the most westerly bit of this entire country, watching a  play at the Minack Theatre. The performance is entertaining, but my eyes  keep drifting out to the cobalt waters and rocky headlands burnished by  the final shafts of sun that shine on England.</p>
<p>The next morning, we&#8217;re in luck. Will Bowman of Gwavas Jersey Farm rings  up and tells us to come on over. His farm is only six miles away, down  toward England&#8217;s most southerly point, on the Lizard Peninsula.</p>
<p>Gwavas is a father-and-son operation: 90 Jersey cows, a handful of  employees and Wiggles, the world&#8217;s cutest Jack Russell terrier, housed  on a farmstead that was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.</p>
<p>Will, who runs the dairy while his father watches the cows, takes us on a  tour of the fields and the dairy buildings. &#8220;I&#8217;m not what most people  around here would call a conventional farmer,&#8221; he confides, and I have  to agree: He&#8217;s sporting shorts, sneakers and a soccer jersey.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a bit more interesting than just farming,&#8221; he says, explaining why  he started making clotted cream and yogurt 12 years ago, &#8220;because it&#8217;s a  different challenge every day. If you enjoy yourself, you can make it a  little bit more unusual; if you&#8217;ve got the passion, you can make it  that much better.&#8221;</p>
<p>Will confirms my research about Jersey cows &#8212; that their milk has more  cream (5 percent vs. 4 percent or less for other breeds) &#8212; but that&#8217;s  not all. &#8220;It also has more lactose, more protein, more solids in  general,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>Despite the mysterious nature of clotted cream (do a Google search and  you come up with all sorts of conflicting recipes, including some  calling for sour cream), it turns out to be fairly straightforward.  &#8220;It&#8217;s a simple way of doing something with milk, but it has to be  precise,&#8221; Will explains.</p>
<p>Cream is separated from pasteurized milk by a centrifuge system, then  placed in large shallow pans that are heated to 194 degrees, not quite  boiling, for an hour. &#8220;Scalding it the traditional way gives it more  color and more flavor,&#8221; Will says. Water evaporates, the cream thickens  and a thin crust forms on the top. Then it cools, rests and thickens  more.</p>
<p>We watch as a white-coated worker scoops the finished product into tubs.  It&#8217;s a deep golden color, denser in some places, a bit runnier in  others. &#8220;It&#8217;s a moving product,&#8221; Will says. &#8220;As it gets older, it will  thicken.&#8221;</p>
<p>He picks up a tub and invites us to have a taste. We sit on a picnic  table outside his weathered stone house, while Wiggles and a resident  cat snooze nearby in the sun.</p>
<p>Digging a spoon into the clotted cream, I realize I&#8217;m going to be  mainlining the stuff: no scones, no berries. But one bite and I know  I&#8217;ve found clotted cream nirvana. The textures roll across my tongue,  buttery, rich and intense. It seems as if I&#8217;m devouring the distilled  essence of the Cornish landscape, the green that overgrows stone fences  and nearly chokes the roads.</p>
<p>&#8220;Good milk,&#8221; Will says by way of explanation, &#8220;has just got a fresh  taste to it, and the sweeter the grass, the sweeter the milk.&#8221; I ask if  we can visit the cows that produced this wonder, and Will leads us to  pastures bordered on one side by the ocean.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thank you, ladies!&#8221; I shout, holding up my tub of clotted cream, as the  nosy bovines come over to investigate us. They are fawn-colored, with  little topknots between their ears. &#8220;Each one has a different hairdo,&#8221;  Will points out, grinning.</p>
<p>Surveying the fields rimmed by wild foxgloves and bright-pink thistles,  he says: &#8220;We don&#8217;t need any more than what we&#8217;ve got around us. There  are lots of people who don&#8217;t have it so good.&#8221; That includes clotted  cream lovers who don&#8217;t live in Cornwall; preferring a personal  relationship with customers, Will refuses to sell his product outside  its borders.</p>
<p>After our visit, we drive a few miles to Kynance Cove, considered one of  Cornwall&#8217;s most beautiful spots. I hike across the cliffs clutching my  tub of Gwavas clotted cream. There is a little cafe at the end of the  trail, and I&#8217;m sure it will have scones.</p>
<p>As we sit outside, looking down at the turquoise ocean bashing and  frothing around craggy black rocks, I slather the cream over a warm  scone. The heck with posh hotel tearooms. This is the best clotted cream  I&#8217;ve ever tasted, and this spot, right here, is the best possible place  to eat it.</p>
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		<title>Chef Interview: Mai Pham</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/chefology-mai-pham/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/chefology-mai-pham/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 May 2011 22:50:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Food Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North America]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=836</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Chef Interview: Mai Pham Culinary Trends (click on title to open printable pdf file)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/culinary-trends-Passot-cover.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-720 alignleft" title="culinary trends Passot cover" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/culinary-trends-Passot-cover-759x1024.jpg" alt="" width="363" height="491" /></a><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Mai-Pham-story-only-high-quality.pdf" target="_blank">Chef Interview:<em></em><em><br />
</em><em> </em>Mai Pham</a><br />
<em>Culinary Trends<br />
</em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
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		<title>Taiwan: The Beauty is in the Details</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/taiwan-the-beauty-is-in-the-details/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/taiwan-the-beauty-is-in-the-details/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:44:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel Writing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=728</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Taiwan: The Beauty is in the Details AFAR (click on title to open printable pdf file)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/AFAR-Taiwan-cover001.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-729" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="AFAR Taiwan cover001" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/AFAR-Taiwan-cover001-804x1024.jpg" alt="" width="290" height="370" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Taiwan1Final.pdf" target="_blank">Taiwan:<br />
The Beauty is in the Details</a><br />
<em>AFAR</em><em> </em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
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		<title>Chef Interview: Roland Passot</title>
		<link>http://www.gaylekeck.com/722/</link>
		<comments>http://www.gaylekeck.com/722/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:28:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gayle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Food Writing]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gaylekeck.com/?p=722</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Chef Interview: Roland Passot Culinary Trends (click on title to open printable pdf file)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/culinary-trends-Passot-cover.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-720" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="culinary trends Passot cover" src="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/culinary-trends-Passot-cover-759x1024.jpg" alt="" width="316" height="425" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gaylekeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Passot-corrected.pdf" target="_blank">Chef Interview:<br />
Roland Passot</a><br />
<em>Culinary Trends</em><em> </em></p>
<p><em>(click on title to open printable pdf file)</em></p>
<p><em><br />
</em></p>
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