The Grape Once Again Proves Its Versatility
Florence Fabricant
Balsamic is not the only mellow Italian vinegar with a pedigree. Centuries ago, the Este family of Ferrara produced sopraffino. Unlike classic balsamic, it is made from red grapes (not white), which are not cooked but instead concentrated by natural evaporation during aging, similar to Spanish sherry vinegar.
In 2000, a descendant of the Este line began making the dark, lush, well-balanced vinegar again, to drizzle on grilled fish or chicken, or in another season, on ripe tomatoes.
Spain is the source of a different richly concentrated grape product, arrope. It is similar to Italian saba, but more viscous, with toasty opulence. Spoon it on cheesecake, over poached pears or on fresh pineapple. A variation, arrope y tallaetes, is more syrupy, with pieces of candied pumpkin, and is delicious alongside cheese or cured ham.
Mitica arrope y tallaetes is $9.95 for 8.4 ounces from tienda.com.
The Best Online Grocery Sites
From bakeries to mushroom foragers, most small-scale food purveyors now have e-tail websites. If you're felled by a hankering, chances are one of them can fill it. Meanwhile, here are a few of our favorites.
La Tienda: This is your one stop for ingredients and prepared foods from Spain, including salt-packed capers, roasted peppers, chorizo sausage, and cod croquettes. LaTienda.com
The 2010 SAVEUR 100 List
Michael Klashman
They're like a crispbread but more luscious; a tortilla but crunchier; a cookie but not as sugary. Whatever they are, Ines Rosales Olive Oil Tortas, made by hand according to a century-old recipe in Seville, Spain, are heavenly. I'm addicted to the sesame–sea salt variety and the sweet anise kind, which I eat with slices of Serrano ham.
Essential Spanish Ingredients
Amy Albert
A soulful mix of bright, briny, and smoky, Spanish food is one of the most enduring trends of the year. Down-to-earth yet sophisticated, these flavors are best served simply. Here are six exciting ingredients that will bring the taste of Spain into your cooking.
1. Matiz Organic Piquillo Peppers
Of all the delicious piquillos we tested, these wood-roasted organic peppers were the standouts. With their silky texture and resinous kick, they're ideal as a topper for goat cheese crostini or stuffed with high-quality canned tuna.
2. Ibérico de Bellota Ham
A splurge, but it's prosciutto's rock-star cousin (cured for more than two years; made from free-range pigs that feed on grass and acorns). Buttery, nutty, and hauntingly sweet, a little goes a long way. Perfect with a glass of cava (Spain's famed sparkling wine). $49 for 4 ounces; 800-710-4304; jamon.com
3. Mild White Anchovy Fillets in Oil and Vinegar
Firm, bright-tasting, yet not salty, white anchovies, or boquerones, are a universe away from the canned variety. Try them draped over romaine lettuce and drizzled with olive oil. $13.50 for 3.17 ounces; 800-710-4304; latienda.com
4. El Rey de La Vera Smoked Paprika
If there's one spice that shouts "Spain," it's the paprika known as Pimentón de La Vera. Made from oak-fire-dried peppers, it lends smoky sweetness to spice rubs, scrambled eggs, and salmon cakes. There's sweet (dulce) or spicy (picante), which packs heat.
5. Señorío de Vizcántar Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Varieties like Picual, Picudo, and Hojiblanca are what give Spanish olive oil its distinctive flavor. With full-on fruitiness balanced by a peppery bite, this one would be great over soup, salad, or a bowl of white beans. $17.95 for a 17-ounce bottle; 800-710-4304; latienda.com
6. PataCabra Goat Cheese
You know about the terrific sheep's-milk cheeses from Spain, but have you tried Spanish goat's-milk cheese? PataCabra is semisoft, tangy, and creamy, with complex flavors and subtle earthiness. This would make one deluxe mac and cheese or grilled cheese sandwich.
Photograph by Jamie Chung
Top 10 Sites for Mail-Order Delicacies
Elizabeth Large
At this point if you haven't gotten your holiday shopping done and are a sane human being, you probably don't feel like going to the mall to finish up.
I vaguely remember a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote about only giving things that are transitory, like delicious food. (He probably didn't say "like delicious food.") At this point your best bet is to pick up the phone or get online and order something wonderful to eat for your ungifted friends and family.
I know you know about Harry & David. I sometimes think if we all just picked up the phone and ordered a box of Comice pears for ourselves, we would eliminate the circular giving and not have to write a thank you note. This list is different.
This Top 10 Tuesday of the best sites for gourmet goodies should give you some new ideas: ...
Amadeus Vanilla Beans: for the serious cook, gourmet vanilla beans from Uganda, plus all sorts of vanilla extract.
Avocado of the Month Club: If your friend loves avocados as much as I do, this is the perfect gift.
Cajun Grocer: Here you can order a turducken (not sure why you'd want to), but also crawfish, gumbo, boudin, sauces and marinades and sweets.
Great Alaska Seafood: Wild salmon, smoked salmon, king crab legs, shrimp and free shipping. (Of course, this isn't a budget gift.)
La Tienda: Spanish delicacies including cheeses, Serrano ham, chorizo, saffron, olives and sweets.
Liberty Ducks: This is one food gift I promise will not be duplicated: large, meaty ducks (the kind preferred by restaurant chefs) from a Sonoma County farmer.
Mackenzie Limited: A Baltimore company that ships all sorts of gourmet treats, some of them local, including Smith Island cake.
Spice House: An impressive selection of gift boxes with themes, like the Curry Lover's Gift Box, the Peppercorn Gift Box and the Salad Veggie Lover Box.
Sweet Maria's: Coffee aficionados should try roasting their own coffee beans, and this place has a huge selection of green coffee beans plus all the info and equipment you need.
Young Plantations: Pecan lovers will appreciate the variety on this site. You can send anything from premium pecans to pecan pies from this South Carolina company.
(Photo courtesy of Mackenzie Limited Web site)
Cyber Monday: Local companies bank on Cyber Monday shoppers
Veronica Chufo
A La Tienda packer stuffed a cardboard box with chorizo, cheese, chocolate and cookies.
The products, imported from Spain, were packed in a Toano warehouse and destined for Key Largo, Fla. — another Cyber Monday order fulfilled.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday has emerged as a popular day to continue online the holiday shopping that started during the Black Friday weekend. Internet retailers mark the day with sales and promotions, and local retailers with an Internet presence are no different.
La Tienda, a Toano-based company that sells products imported from Spain, has been offering specials all weekend. On Cyber Monday, it unveiled a free shipping promotion, good on orders of $99 or more through Sunday.
Cyber Monday is generally the second-biggest day for the company's sales. The biggest is two Mondays before Christmas, said Tim Harris, co-CEO.
"Lunch, it peaks," Harris said of La Tienda's Internet sales. "I hate to admit it, but it's during the work day that the majority of ordering happens. We see a slight jump after dinner, before prime time."
La Tienda started in 1996 as an Internet-only operation. The catalog came along about six years ago, followed by a retail location that opened last week at 1325 Jamestown Road in James City County.
The Thanksgiving -through- Christmas season is about 30 percent of the company's business, and the company's staff more than doubles from 20 to 50, Harris said.
Christmastime makes up 85 percent to 90 percent of sales for Smithfield Specialty Foods, a division of Smithfield Foods, said Alexa Ricketts, director of catalog marketing. The division includes the Genuine Smithfield Ham Shoppe retail stores in Smithfield and Williamsburg and several Web sites, including smithfieldmarketplace.com, smithfieldhams.com, smithfieldcollection.com, basseschoice.com and thepeanutshop.com.
This year's Cyber Monday sales could outpace last year's, Ricketts said.
"Things are going pretty good," she said. "We're very pleased with what we're seeing."
Last year, Cyber Monday Internet sales doubled in volume for the Virginia Diner despite a Web site that was hard to navigate.
The popular restaurant on Route 460 in Wakefield also operates an Internet and mail-order business selling peanuts and ham.
Christmas is 80 percent of its Internet and catalog business, said Chris Epperson, president.
This year, the company launched a new Web site a month ago to be ready for the cyber-shopping rush. It offered a $10-off-$50 promotion on Monday.
This is the first time Taste Unlimited, headquartered in Virginia Beach, offered a Cyber Monday promotion, said Amy Jordan, director of marketing and public relations.
Most of its business is through its six retail stores, including one in City Center at Oyster Point.
"Christmas is huge for us," she said. "A lot of people think of us for lunch, but we're also very much in the gift business."
Cyber Monday is one of the biggest Internet sales days for the Williamsburg Marketplace, which sells Colonial Williamsburg-inspired items to benefit the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, said Tom Shrout, a Colonial Williamsburg spokesman. The site, williamsburgmarketplace.com, offered 25 percent off Monday.
Whitley's Peanut Factory (whitleyspeanut.com) wasn't offering any Cyber Monday promotions but saw an increase in sales Monday, said Dee Kattan of Whitley's. The company, which has a factory in Hayes and retail stores in Gloucester and Williamsburg, plans to launch a sale today.
Women's fashion catalogs Newport News and Spiegel offered 25 percent off Monday and saw a 50 percent increase over a normal day's sales by mid-afternoon, said Geralynn Madonna, president and CEO. The company operates a distribution center in Newport News.
For Rock Bottom Golf, which has a warehouse in Suffolk, Cyber Monday is one of the biggest sales days of the year, if not the biggest, said Brian Schwank, director of marketing for the Rochester, N.Y.-based company.
It offered a 15-percent-off promotion that ran Nov. 24 until Cyber Monday.
"We should definitely end up better than last year, from the stats that I'm seeing so far today," he said. "It'll definitely be one of the biggest days of the year."
What is Cyber Monday?
The Monday after Thanksgiving has become the day that Internet retailers offer their own sales and promotions to offer consumers a chance to continue their holiday shopping after the Black Friday weekend sales.
Winter 2009 Gift Guide
Red Gold
Roxanne Webber
Gathering gift ideas is almost as satisfying as receiving gifts. But not quite. Make the people on your list happy with the wide variety of options here, from cheap to splurge and from delicious food products to products that enable delicious food.
A luxurious gift for the food obsessed, this saffron comes from a 10-acre, family-run plot in La Mancha, Spain, that yields a harvest of about 50 pounds of saffron per year. It takes about 1,400 crocus flowers to fill the tin. Quarter Ounce Tin of Saffron by Princesa de Minaya, D.O. La Mancha, $79.95
Haute Stuff
Crystal Chow
Oh, goody, you received an invitation to a sumptuous dinner party or weekend stayover. Aside from what to wear, now you need to figure out a thoughtful hostess gift. Here are some edible presents that just might help score a repeat request for the pleasure of your company.
A mini paella kit from La Tienda contains all the fine ingredients needed for this hearty dish except the cook's choice of fresh meat, seafood and vegetables. Perfect for the hostess who wants to savor a taste of Spain. Serves two. $49.95 at www.tienda.com.
2009 Conde Nast Traveler Gift Guide
Julia Bainbridge
Roureda Licorella
"One of the hazards of writing about wine is that you can transform a previously obscure region suddenly into a star. That, in turn, brings star prices. Six years ago I watched this happen to the wines from Priorat, a rugged enclave southwest of Barcelona, after I reported from there in this magazine (For Whom The Wine Pours, December 2003). Some of the Priorat reds I tasted then were selling for $70 a bottle, and soon they were hitting $200. So here's the good news: You can find a 2005 vintage Priorat red that in every way is the quintessence of the region for $27.95. It's called Roureda Licorella (the flavors mingling in Priorat include a signature hint of licorice). Moreover, it's being offered at a discount by La Tienda, a specialist in gourmet products from Spain (including the finest olive oils and hams), so you could pair the wine with an exceptional ham, a sampler of Iberico de Bellota ($34.50), from a rare breed of acorn-fed porkers, a marriage made in foodie heaven."
Recommended by Clive Irving, Senior Consulting Editor
Season's Eatings
Black Gold
Oliver Slosser
Unavailable in the United States until 2008, Ibérico de Bellota is one of the world’s most coveted cuts of meat. The swine from which the bone-in ham is produced must be at least 75 percent black pig, a species found in parts of Spain and Portugal. The free-range pigs used for Ibérico de Bellota are fed an all-acorn diet, giving the meat an oily, nutty flavor that develops during two years of aging in the mountains near Salamanca, Spain. The Spanish-food importer La Tienda (800.710.4304, www.latienda.com) offers Ibérico de Bellota both sliced ($50 for 4 ounces) and whole ($1,400 for approximately 8.5 pounds).
Test Kitchen
Samantha Seneviratne
Sweet and succulent with smoky, tangy notes, piquillo peppers come from the village of Lodosa in the Navarra region of northern Spain. Named for their distinctive beak-like shape (piquillo means "little beak" in Spanish), these bright red peppers are handpicked in the fall, fire-roasted, and peeled. Some are even roasted right in the field after being harvested. You’ll find them in jars or tins packed in olive oil or their own rich juices. Look for the D.O. (Denominación de Origen) distinction on the label to be sure they’re the real deal.
Traditionally, piquillos are stuffed with either seafood or meat, but their uses extend far beyond. Swap them in wherever you would use regular roasted red peppers for a deeper, more intense flavor. Try them slivered on a salad or layered onto a sandwich. They can be blended for pasta sauce or chopped and used as a delicious and dressy relish garnish. We also like them straight out of the jar with a chunk of crusty bread and a sprinkle of salt.
You might find piquillos at a well-stocked grocery store, but they're generally more of a specialty store item.
$9.95 for an 8-oz jar, tienda.com, 800-710-4304.
Hate to shop? Cyber Monday may be your answer
It's not quite a Hallmark holiday, but Cyber Monday has been gaining traction over the past few years as a well-known day to score shopping discounts.
Always on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday earned its name after Shop.org — a division of the National Retail Federation — noted that people were flocking to the Internet to shop, often at their work terminals. Web sites were created to focus on specific Cyber Monday deals, and a virtual shopping holiday was born.
Some bargain hunters, like Mike and Jerry Tietjens of crazytowndeals.com, say that the pickings weren't all that impressive last year. Most of the deals were carried over from Black Friday promotions. But this season's highly competitive atmosphere may push retailers to take advantage of Cyber Monday press.
Touted as the official Cyber Monday Web site, cybermonday.com aggregates deals from major retailers around the Internet, such as Target's "Daily Deals" Web site. Special codes and coupons are also compiled on the official site.
Other sites to check if you're hoping to score a deal: Amazon.com's Gold Box section, crazytowndeals.com and deals.woot.com. Big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, J.C. Penney and Staples are also hosting special Cyber Monday sales, with some of the sales lasting for several days.
Although Internet shopping is common, there are still precautions you should take. The National Consumers League gives these tips for shopping safely online:
Don't shop on an unencrypted or open wireless network: Don't use a public wireless connection, like a coffee shop or airport network, to shop. Entering personal and financial information over an unsecured connection can leave your computer open to thieves.
Secure your own computer: Before connecting to the Internet, install anti-virus software and install a personal firewall.
Know who you're dealing with: Check out the seller and the physical address of the vendor. Be wary of sellers you have never heard of before and who don't have a track record.
Pay by credit card: Traditionally, credit cards offer more protection against fraud than debit cards. Check with your bank to learn about the specifics.
Look for the "s:" When providing payment information, the Web site URL should begin with "https." Sometimes the URL will be "shttp." That indicates the Web site can accept secure payments.
Turn off your computer: People who leave their computers running all the time are more susceptible to scammers who try to install malicious software on your computer.
For more tips on how to shop online safely, visit fraud.org.
Shop locally, online
Several retailers who call Hampton Roads home are also offering cyber-Monday specials. Among them:
Tasteunlimited.com
Headquartered in Virginia Beach, Taste Unlimited sells gift baskets and wine. It also has stores in Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.
Tienda.com
La Tienda, headquartered in Toano, sells products imported from Spain.
Smithfieldhams.com
The Genuine Smithfield Ham Shoppe, which has retail locations in Smithfield and Williamsburg, plans to notify customers who opt into e-mail promotions about cyber Monday offers. It sells hams, sweets, nuts, breakfast foods and other items.
VAdiner.com
The Virginia Diner in Wakefield also plans to notify customers on its e-mail list about a Monday promotion. It sells peanuts, nuts, ham and other items online.
