Andy Baraghani Is Living For Masks and Mortars Right Now
Andy Baraghani
It’s the post-holidays part of winter—that time of the year when it’s less about going out and more about staying in. The things I have on rotation right now are all about bringing me comfort, whether it’s my current favorite record for afternoons on the couch, a face mask to restore my skin from the cold weather, or a bright and bracing lemon dressing to wake me up when it’s only 4 p.m. and already dark.
I’m obsessed with these little cazuelas I bought during a trip to Barcelona several years ago. I use them for marinated olives (plus a small one for the pits), dips, and other snacky things.
Stockings Are Meant to Be Stuffed with Tinned Fish
Alex Beggs
Excuse me, is that a candy cane? No, no, no. That will not do. Some of us need stocking stuffers that appeal to flavors we actually love and crave: sardines, smoked oysters, the salty sea air. Just imagine waking up on Christmas morning to a stocking so heavy with aluminum tins that you can barely lift it. Portuguese sardines in olive oil with piquillo peppers? Oh Santa, you shouldn’t have! I mean. You should. This year, give the gift of tinned fish with our handy guide to the best possible options available online right now (but if there are any importers reading this, please make more tinned delicacies available to the U.S. market!). And hey, you don’t even have to wrap them, the packaging’s so good. Hereeee fishy fishy.
Conservas de Cambados
We run into these gourmet Spanish beauties at some of our favorite wine bars and tinned fish-eterias and would looove to run into them in a holiday scenario. In a stocking, gifted by a secret Santa—whatever it takes to get our hands on some swanky squids.
Buy it: Conservas de Cambados squids in olive oil, $15 on Amazon or $58/case of 4 from La Tienda
A Holiday Gift Guide for Food Lovers
Rabitos Royale bonbons are made from dried Spanish figs stuffed with ganache and dipped in chocolate. The Trio gift collection comes with three versions: a dark chocolate shell and brandy ganache filling; a milk chocolate shell and salted caramel ganache filling; and a white chocolate shell and strawberry ganache filling. $21.95 for nine pieces (three of each flavor), $37.95 for 18 (six of each flavor). Available at Tienda.com.
The Food & Wine Holiday Gift Guide 2018
Melanie Hansche and Nina Friend
La Tienda Tapas Party Gift Box -
Make like chef Josiah Citrin (Melisse and Charcoal, Los Angeles) and head to La Tienda for all kinds of edible Spanish gifts. “You can get sampler packages of jamón, Spanish cheeses, olive oils, wines—anything and everything for your food-loving friends,” he says. ($115; tienda.com)
Stems & Skins shares tips for how to celebrate the holidays ... with tinned seafood
Mary Scott Hardaway
The Stems & Skins crew wants you to forgo the pigs in a blanket and sad artichoke dip this year.
If you've stopped by Stems and Skins in Park Circle, you know that they know how to elevate seafood from a can into a light, satisfying, and unique bite. But if you thought that that kind of experience was limited to hip wine bars, you'd be wrong.
Here are a few tips from S&S co-owners Justin Croxall and Matt Tunstall for an at-home holiday happy hour spread that will have your out of town guests saying, "incroyable!"
1. Invest in high quality tinned seafood (think spicy sardine pate, yellowfin tuna belly, trout in escabeche.) Celebrity chef Jose Andres developed a brilliant line of tinned seafoods which we serve and sell at Stems & Skins.
2. Hit up your local bakery for fresh bread. We prefer thinly sliced baguette from EVO but another French loaf would also work well.
3. For brightness in both presentation and flavor, prepare a simple salad of arugula dressed in lemon vinaigrette (fresh lemon juice plus extra virgin olive oil).
4. Fill a small bowl with flaky seas salt (we use Bulls Bay Sea Salt) and another small vessel with butter. Look for a small-batch churned butter (like Banner Butter) for exceptional flavor and texture.
5. Instruct your guests to take a piece of baguette, spread butter on it, add seafood and sea salt and top with a little arugula. Wash it all down with a salty, crisp, coastal white wine.
This Winter, Throw the Kind of Party Your Friends Would Hate to Miss
Esquire Editors
Parties are a lot like the coming apocalypse: Your chances of surviving depend on what you’ve got stocked in the bunker. The finest blowouts happen on the fly, when friends wander in and genial minutes turn into feverish hours and the spirit of impromptu celebration gradually disrobes and dismantles the home that you worked so hard to make tidy. Ideally, as a social being, you should always be prepared for just such an insta-bash. And if you happen to have on hand all of the items we list here, the sudden arrival of revelers shouldn’t faze you in the slightest.
When you’re serving food at a party, your mission is simple: Get the best. Welcome remarks along the lines of “Wow, where did you get these olives?” and “This is the best chorizo I’ve ever tasted!” do not happen by accident. Snacks don’t have to be glamorous, but going the extra mile for quality is worth the effort. Stocking your pantry, your fridge, and your freezer with premium items—Calvisius caviar from Italy, bars of Compartés chocolate and tubs of McConnell’s ice cream and loaves of Manresa bread from California, charcuterie from Pittsburgh pork savant Justin Severino’s new Salty Pork Bits, olives and almonds from La Tienda, etc.—will make you look like the smart and generous host you strive to be. (These items can all be shipped to you.) In a moment you have a meal, and in a matter of minutes everyone’s partying like it’s the end of the world. Here are some of our favorites. —Jeff Gordinier
The 14 Best Specialty Food Stores to Buy From in 2018
Brett Moore
Spanish cuisine is very hot right now and for good reason - it's delicious! La Tienda, a family-owned business in Virginia, carries hundreds of fine foods from artisanal and small family firms in Spain. Ibérico Ham, Serrano Ham, Chorizo & sausages, Olive Oils, Artisan Spanish cheeses, Chocolates & other sweets, Seafood, Spices, and other fantastic foods can be found at La Tienda.
4 Awesome Sources for Mail-Order Meat
Mantry Staff
3. La Tienda
With over 800 items, ranging from jamon to chorizo, La Tienda is a Spanish food lover’s haven. The Spanish Ham sections will have you drooling.
2018 Holiday Gift Guide
Practical or luxe, quirky or classic, these gifts will send just the right message to the people you are oh-so grateful for this year. Sort by interest or price, or browse until you've checked everyone off your list (and maybe discovered a few gifts for you, too!).
Olive Oil Taster
$15
I cannot travel without this T.S.A.-friendly extra-virgin olive oil taster set from the Spanish chef Jose Andres. The oils are cold pressed in Spain, and a drizzle makes anything I order taste better, whether it’s a salad or an omelet.
An Eye-Catching Wine Server
$26
Made in Spain from recycled hand-blown glass, this “porron,” as it’s traditionally called, comes with a cork and is a creative way to serve wine at your next party. It’s popular throughout Spain.
Morsels in the Kitchen
Lucy M. Casale
Pop this lid for an instant cocktail party bite: Octopus in Olive Oil by Ramón Peña TIENDA.COM
How to Buy Jamón Ibérico: What to Look for and Where to Get It
This Spanish ham is some of the best that money can buy.
Jackie Bryant
To the untrained eye and palate, a ham is just a ham—usually, one entire pig leg or shoulder, sliced into short, rectangular, paper-thin sheets. But with so many types of ham on the market, it can be difficult to know which is the best and why. When it comes to Spanish ham, knowledge is power.
So if you're looking to buy some of the best jamón, or Spanish ham, that money can buy, make sure you know what you're looking for.
The different categories of jamón
Understanding the distinctions among the different kinds of Spanish ham is a good starting point, as each type is carefully designated by law.
Jamón Serrano is made from white pigs—usually Landrace or Duroc breeds, which have white hooves and are typically raised indoors and fed a mix of grains. The product is less fatty than Ibérico.
Jamón Ibérico is made from farm-raised, usually crossbred Ibérico pigs that are raised indoors and fed hay.
Jamón Ibérico Cebo de Campo is the next level above that and is made from crossbred free-range Ibérico pigs that are fed a mixture of acorns and hay.
Jamón Ibérico de Bellota, finally, is the premier level—the type that has inspired cult-like following—that is made from free-range, black-hued and footed Ibérico pigs that subsist solely on acorns.
Why acorns? The dehesas, or meadows, of western Spain serve a variety of economic and environmental purposes. The Holm and cork oak trees provide high-quality wood that is exported for the global wine industry (as well as for other purposes), and is the ideal canopy for the region’s flora and fauna. The acorns that come from the trees also happen to be the perfect food for free-range pigs: each pig can eat about 10 kilos of acorns a day and the result, after a long curing period of two to four years, creates a nutty, rich-tasting product that is high in monosaturated fat, high in oleic acid and low in saturated fat.
What to Look For
When possible, opt for hand-sliced over machine-sliced jamón, because master carvers slice in a way that properly distributes fat among the entire piece—something that cannot be replicated by a machine. Also, only buy ham that's been vacuum sealed.
But there's more to it, of course. One thing to notice is that there are three colors, which range from bright red in the more well-cured areas, to pink, says Teresa de la Cierva, Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Gastronomy & Vice-president of the Gastronomy Academy of Madrid. “White marbled fat deposits a sheen when the meat is exposed to room temperature and small white “crystals” denote low salinity and gradual, slow curing. Hints of pink shown in the muscle fiber indicate prolonged curing, along with the purity of the breed.”
Then, there are the different cuts, many of which are not known outside of Spain. An Ibérico ham leg has four distinctive parts to it: the punta, babilla, maza and jarrete. Each has its own distinctive aroma, flavor and texture and, in southern and western Spain, can be paired with a different kind of Sherry, depending on whether it’s sweeter or drier, fatty or more fibrous.
“The meat in the top third of the ham, the maza, is soft, juicy and unctuous. It melts in your hands,” de la Cierva says. “The babilla, or contramaza, which is near the bottom of the ham and jarrete, which comes from a small area next to the ankle, feature a more fibrous and firm-bodied consistency which increases the chewing time and enjoyment.” The jarrete is the rarest cut of all—it takes a significantly skilled carver to be able to extract it from around the bone. The hard-to-reach punta, at the tip of the ham, is a bit sweeter and significantly more marbled.
Where to Buy It
The most premium brand from Spain, Cinco Jotas (5J), is also one of the main exporters of cured ham around the world and sells to the United States via its online shop. But specialty shops around the country, like Despaña in New York City, carry Jamón Iberico too, as do other online stores, like Virginia-based La Tienda, or even on Amazon.
Father's Day Gifts For Dads Who Love To Cook
Sick of Father's Day gift lists that assume dad only knows how to grill? For kitchen-proficient dads, skip or supplement the go-to grill-related gift and treat him to something he can use in the kitchen for many months to come. Here are a few last-minute ideas (all available ASAP online!) to stock dad's pantry in a snazzy way and encourage his kitchen hobby, which, well, really benefits everyone.
Traditional Paella Kit
Meal kits have become everyday items at this point, so skip the obvious subscription box and give dad a fun kit he can use to whip up a special feast (even on a weeknight!). Imported from Spain, this kit includes all the nonperishable ingredients (veggies and seafood can be added) a home cook needs to make an authentic paella, and the steel pan can be reused to make Paella night an annual, or weekly, event! $88, Tienda.com
