With December upon us, Kitchen on Fire has officially moved into high gear for the holidays.  It’s fun for the whole team because with so many end of year parties that people throw at Kitchen on Fire, we feel like we get to know half of the folks in the Bay Area!  This year is a particularly exciting time of the year for us for several reasons.  December marks the start of the newest addition to the crew, the Kitchen on Fire Expansion Set (also known as our new second location inWest Berkeley).  In fact, as I write these words we are putting the finishing touches in our new space and will be open for business on December 3rd!  Hang in there MikeC, we know it will get finished in time!  With almost twice the space as our original location and being conjoined like a twin to Rocket Restaurant Resource, it’s definitely going to be every passionate cooks’ fantasty kitchen.

Another great piece of news is that Kitchen on Fire has found the perfect gift for your family, friends and pets. Here’s a hint: It’s a book and it’s based on our 12 Week Basics of Cooking Series.  That’s right, it’s  our book:  Kitchen on Fire!  Mastering the Art of Cooking in 12 Weeks (or less)!   And it’s officially out in bookstores across the country.  Woohoo!  You guys out there in reader-land sure are smart.  Below you will find the dates and locations of the book signings. Come meet chefs MikeC and Olivier Said, see a cooking demo and get your book(s) signed!

Moe’s Books – Tuesday, December 6th from 7:30pm – 9:00pm  (Berkeley)

Alexander Book Co. – December 8th form 12:30pm – 1:30pm  (San Francisco)

Book Passage Bookstore & Cafe – January 24th from 6:00pm – 7:30pm  (Corte Madera)

Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market – February 4th from 11:00am – 11:45pm  (San Francisco, Ferry Building)

The last big move happening in the next coming weeks will directly involve yours truly.  That’s right, I am moving away after three years of service at Kitchen on Fire.  Unfortunately for the team, I will continue to submit some articles and photos from my upcoming travels to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and then finally winding up back in Costa Rica (my old home before Berkeley) where I will continue my culinary odyssey doing…well…I’m sure I’ll be doing something.  Please come cook with me in the kitchen one last time at one of my final classes in January:

Latin American Party Foods – Wednesday, January 4th at 6:30pm

Californian Seasonal Vegetarian Cuisine – Wednesday, January 11th at 6:30pm

But until then there is still a lot to get done and lots of great people to cook and learn with.  Happy Holidays, and be sure to join us for some great seasonal cooking classes as we welcome a whole new network of chefs to the Kitchen on Fire team!

By Yihshyong Leong

Agriculture is the ancestor to most modern economies. Communications, banking as well as transportations industries were originated from the need to trade and passage food. Existed for as long as human civilization, it plays an imperative role in our everyday live. Apart from securing food source for the ever climbing population, it generates spiritual wellbeing through its development by maintaining the organic relation between human and Mother Earth. Much effort is needed to cultivate and produce food successfully; subsequently the harvesting of them often involves festive celebrations. For many centuries, live music, dances, rituals and food were elements associated with such social events.

Different climatic zones determines the duration of planting seasons and their specialized crops therefore varied the dates on which harvesting is celebrated. Nations located within the tropical region do not experience four seasons would celebrate this significant day in conjunction with the beginning or the end of monsoon season as rain plays a pertinent role in determining yields of crops. Given the variation in climates and crops around the world one could experience a transition in taste preferences as she travels along the world atlas. During these celebrations, a variety of symbolic foods are prepared and eaten. Commonly they consist of ingredients that are drawn from crops that come to maturity around the time of the festivals, for fruits and vegetables taste their best during this period. In many cases, the preparation or the mere appearance of these foods has come to serve as regional symbols and family traditions.

Hop on a flight to Munich – Germany, one could indulge in overdoses of funfairs at the Oktoberfest where beer, sausages, potatoes and cabbage hit the center stage; while here at the Cleveland – Ohio County Fair, caramel is in serious shortage due to high demand during the Annual Apple Festival . Countries where wines are produced, overcrowded yet joyous grape stomping contests can be seen. The Mid-Autumn Festival (Mandarin: 中秋節) popularized by the Han people is celebrated throughout the world where Chinese are found. Within the mainland, agricultural-focused communities and tribes celebrate it as 丰收節 (English: Festival of the Abundant Harvest). Spherical-shape dumplings (as complete rounds represent a gradual and continuous distribution of energy that resembles the solar cycle) made from glutinous rice and arrays of baked goods (often sweet) are made in every home to be shared with friends and family members. More precious offerings which may be difficult to come by regularly are presented to the elderlies and children as a symbol of well wishes and comfort. Simultaneously, special rituals are held to pay respect to the ancestors. Thanksgiving (Mandarin: 感恩節), a day of extending gratitude and grace to good harvest. In the US, this day marks the beginning of the holiday season where family and friends get together to celebrate a year full of hard work. Spending spree begins and gatherings peak approaching Winter Solstice – the longest day of the year. Thereafter, the warmth of the sun returns bringing another crop-filled year.

Apart from crops, Mother Nature has her charming way of sustaining the ocean foods. An interesting fact worth knowing: for Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with the Harvest Moon (time of the year when the full moon is closest to the Autumnal Equinox, mid-September to beginning of October each year), crustaceans are found to be most scrumptious and succulent as they reached their peak mating season. Along the habitable coastlines in Southeast Asia, restaurants will feature these goodies as specials every evening on their menus. The Shanghai Mitten Crabs (Mandarin: 大閘蟹, Latin: Eriocheir sinensis) were made famous during the past two decades and now becoming widely available globally.

In today’s dynamics where globalization is the norm, most of us could easily misplace the emphasis of the root of food and its related celebrations. Fortunately many modernized communities have contributed unrelenting efforts to reenact nature-focused living styles. In schools and homes, children are taught cultural traditions and sustainable farming.  Locals as well as migrants and travelers alike could now enjoy a piece of the faded past with greater opacity.

Water Buffalos are used for pulling ploughs to aerate the grounds in micro plantations in Langkawi Island – Malaysia.  Photo Courtesy of Terra Organic Farm – Cameron Highlands – Malaysia [Ref-10192011-Blog-KOF-Festival]

Be on the look out for Chef Shy’s upcoming classes at Kitchen on Fire in the new year!

By Gilad Chudler

In the world of nutrition, there are only three macronutrients and these are the fundamental building blocks of life itself. They are protein, carbohydrates and fat. That’s it. So if my calculations are correct, most modern “nutritionists” and “diet books” would have us believe that at least one of these are the axis of evil as far as what causes poor health in Americans. The first and most villified, fat, has become a rallying point for fear mongering pharmecuetical sponsored researchers to get us to consume vast quantities of cholesterol reducing drugs, as well as a selling point for consuming diet pills. Now here is some food for thought (pun intended); cholesterol reducing drugs are now one of the most profitable drugs in America yet there is no sign of the disappearance of heart disease. Carbohydrates have also been demonized by many diet books and by some doctors because “this is what makes us fat”. If we continue to follow this train of thought, then it’s only natural that we are deathly afraid of whole foods and instead consume diet pills. These pills are essentially legal methamphetamines, but the government tells us they are perfectly safe even though they essentially make our appetites disappear, greatly increase stress on our hearts and are perfect for partying all night (at least there’s some good to this). For today we will focus on fats and we’ll leave the carbohydrate conundrum for another day.

So if we listen to this advice, the only thing left to eat are steamed greens and chicken breast, sounds tasty doesn’t it? The funny thing is that most of us have swallowed this lame advice for half a century without even trying to understand the role of fats in our diets and without questioning the endless amounts of processed foods scientists have come up with for us to eat instead of just eating the foods that sustained our ancestors for thousands of years. So what role does fat and cholesterol play anyways?

First and foremost, fat is absolutely essential for nutrient absorption. A vast amount of nutrients in our food are fat soluble. If you eat fat free margarine, fat free yogurt, fat free milk and fat free anything else, you are absorbing almost nothing from the food you are eating. Without fat, these nutrients simply pass through our body, wave good-bye and vacate without leaving anything of value to us. More simply than that, fat is the macronutrient that leaves our body feeling satisfied and is the bulk of our long-term energy source, so without fat we constantly feel hungry and keep our bodies in a state of high alert for more energy. Without fat in our diet our most readily available source of energy is sugar and we all hopefully know that processed sugar in junk food is really the big problem here, not high quality butter and olive oil. We also make up for this lack of satisfaction in our food by eating huge amounts every other kind of food throwing our diets in complete misbalance. Point being, eating good quality fat is essential to a healthy diet, cholesterol and all.

Most of us still believe that cholesterol is bad for us but do we even know what cholesterol is for? Cholesterol is manufactured in our livers as needed by our bodies, and it is what repairs damage in our arteries. Beyond that cholesterol has numerous beneficial roles in our bodies. Without cholesterol we would not live long, yet we are being told to cram cholesterol reducing medication down our gullets without question. In the meanwhile we get sicker and pharmaceutical companies get richer. Scary stuff, I know. Personally, I hate having my arteries repaired naturally by my body and prefer to eat chemically altertered laboratory fats and take even more pills to see absolutely no improvement in my health. Doesn’t everybody?

What most of us don’t know is that all that fake butter weirdness we’ve been eating for decades is essentially bastardized fat created in a laboratory and completely molecularly different from anything our bodies can recognize. Don’t believe me? Do a little research on how margarine is made and find out for yourself just how scary that stuff is. In fact, a great deal of artery damage is actually caused by these chemically altered fats because our bodies cannot process them. So who’s really the villian here, the fats we’ve been eating for millenia that we were naturally inclined to eat so we could live, or modern laboratory created fats made by scientists that only leave our bodies guessing what to do with them.

The moral of the story here is that we need to come back to our senses and learn to listen to our bodies again. We must eat real food again that is made by mother nature, not food created in laboratories and factories. Fortunately many of us are slowly starting to realize that eating whole foods and eating everything in moderation is the key to good health, not taking several pills and eating fake versions of real food that come wrapped in seven plastic bags.

I have always been fascinated with food. I left India and traveled around the world, and finally settled in the Bay Area. For a chef, living in California is like hitting the jackpot. The abundance of fresh and delicious produce, available at our doorstep, gets me excited beyond belief. I have never in my life, seen nor tasted such amazing and delicious produce, ever. This was the perfect scenario for a chef who specializes in Indian cuisine. If there were a cuisine that harnessed the power of the vegetable, Indian cuisine would be it.

I have a Cooking Channel on Youtube called “Cooking with Chef Dama”. The goal of the videos are to showcase the wonders of Indian fare, but stepping out of the proverbial box, and integrating flavors, techniques and ingredients from other worldly cuisines. I call it “Indian fare with worldly flair”. This motto was tested recently, when I received a request from a long time subscriber to my show. It was a request to create “Vegetable Biryani”.

Biryani, is a delicious one-pot meal, of meats, either chicken, lamb or goat, marinated in myriad spices, yogurt and seasonings, layered with rice and crispy fried onions and baked. It’s origins stem from Persia and the Middle East, and was brought over to India by the traders of the 16^th century. The word Biryani comes from the Persian word ‘Beryan’ which means roasted or fried. This dish is a classic, and is prominently featured at grand feasts and weddings.

The Vegetable Biryani was created as an after thought, to appease the vegetarians at these feasts. It is prepared using the same techniques, but with a handful of vegetables, such as carrots, cauliflowers, potatoes, French beans and peas. In my opinion, this dish is plain and simple, BORING!

So, featuring Vegetable Biryani on my cooking channel became quite the challenge, as you can imagine. I had to find a way to elevate the simple and uninteresting flavor palate to something extra ordinary. And that’s when I realized how thankful I was, for being a California resident.

Vegetable Biryani became one of my favorite dishes, after this exercise. It gave me the opportunity to take advantage of the abundance of California’s produce. I went to my local Farmers’ market and went pretty much crazy. I picked up a variety of vegetables, namely Golden Beets, Celery root, Patty pan squash, purple potatoes, sweet potatoes, and then some. It was truly exciting to see how these wonderful vegetables contrasted and worked with other, to bring forth a truly majestic dish.

The next variation I implemented, was to roast the vegetables, instead of boil them, as dictated by most recipes. Roasting vegetables is a far better technique, as it causes the natural sugars in vegetables to caramelize, and this enhancing the flavors of the same. It also guarantees that the vegetables do not turn mushy.

I used these abundantly varied fire roasted vegetables, and followed a time tested Vegetable Biryani recipe, and the results were unbelievable. You can check out the video, and learn about this dish in detail, at this link : Roasted Vegetable Biryani

Sometimes, stepping outside the box makes for wonderful discoveries, and delicious adventures. I suggest that the next time you are at the local market, pick up a vegetable you have never eaten before. Experiment with it, look up the information on the internet, and give it a try. You are guaranteed to embark on a very pleasant culinary adventure.

Chef Dama is Kitchen on Fire’s new expert Indian cuisine chef; we love working with him and we know you will too!  Come take his next class at KoF, A Taste of North India, on November 8th.

For more info and to REGISTER:  https://kitchenonfire.com/classes/view/id/1718/