Mary Brown Malouf

Breakfast either is or isn’t the most important meal of the day. It depends on who’s paying for the scientific study. Nutritionists continue to argue about that now, but I was brought up being told it was, and was served a bowl of Kellogg’s most mornings.

Even at the age of 6, I was skeptical: How could cornflakes be the most important meal of the day?

Now my breakfast is a glass of grapefruit juice, one antidepressant, one antihistamine, one giant smelly vitamin and a cup of coffee with lots of milk. I consider this a step up from my 20s when breakfast was a can of Diet Coke and three Tylenol.

Most of us start the day with coffee, which, thank God, has recently been found to have some health benefits: it increases energy, performance, alertness (duh) but it also has riboflavin, pantothenic acid, manganese, potassium and niacin.

But if you feel like you need a change for reasons of health, I did receive some information lately that suggested alternative breakfast foods: supposed superfoods, like acai, beets and sardines. (Sardines. The New Breakfast of Champions?) Alternatively, it suggests a Monster energy drink.

None of this sounds like something I could face in the morning. I will not be cooking up a mess of beets with a side of sardines while I listen to Morning Edition. But it made me wonder what our forebears broke fast with. 

• For hundreds of years prior to the early 1800s, the English drank beer for breakfast. In fact, beer was known as the breakfast drink. This still sounds like a good idea.
• Archaeological evidence suggests ancient Egyptians breakfasted on beer, bread and onions before heading off to build the Pyramids.
• In classical Greece, the day began with a meal of barley bread dipped in wine with figs or olives.
• The ancient Romans seem to have begun the day eating meats leftover from the night before (so don’t feel too bad about your cold pizza) along with olives, salad and a drink called mulsum, a mixture of honeyed wine and spices.
• In the Middle Ages, eating breakfast was associated with the sin of gluttony so real men didn’t eat it.
• In Japan, miso soup was/is a typical breakfast.
• Lebanese ate raw leeks with bread. 

If I did have time or sufficient consciousness and coordination to chew in the morning:

• I’d go to The Daily, which celebrated its one year anniversary yesterday,
• or Publik Kitchen because they have the best toast in town that doesn’t involve (I like cinnamon or avocado on top) or Les Madeleines because they still have the best pastries
• or Finn’s because they have the best pancakes. On the other hand, if I want a truly luxurious breakfast and have the time, I’d go to Caffe d’Bolla for a perfect cup of coffee.

But time is what I do not have in the morning. I’ll always opt for 10 more minutes of sleep instead of nourishment.

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Chefs travel with their knives rolled up in a special knife roll with pockets for their blades, large and small, maybe their filleting knife, a long slicing knife and a sharpening steel to take the tiny burrs off the edges. Home chefs usually rely on fewer special blades but nothing in any kitchen can replace a really good knife. So what’s that? Corey Milligan, owner and founder of the newly opened New West KnifeWorks in Park City, has lots of opinions about what makes a good knife.

“The toughness and the hardness of the steel are what’s important,” he says. Milligan believes he has come up with the “highest-performance kitchen knife in the world today.” (Don’t get him talking about steel, if you don’t have all day.)

While he admits there are other great knives out there, there are few as beautiful. The G-Fusion handles of many of Milligan’s knives are made of bomb-proof aerospace-grade, fiberglass epoxy composite. That’s great. But each layer is a different color and when polished, reveals a rainbow of color.  “Your tools should be beautiful,” according to Milligan. New West KnifeWorks, 675 S. Main St., Park City, 435-649-7219, newwestknifeworks.com. Learn more about New West Knifeworks here.

More Great (but not as beautiful) Knives

• Henckels Pro S Chef Knife
• Wusthof Classic Ikon Santoku
• Messermeister Meridian Elite Stealth Chef Knife
• Global Santoku (G-48)
• Shun Classic Chef Knife

Knife Tips

• Don’t put it in the dishwasher.
• Wash and dry it quickly by hand.
• Have it sharpened professionally. (Most high-end knives include lifetime sharpening service.)
• Keep the blade covered with a leather sheath or in a knife block.
• Don’t use your knife for anything but cutting.
• Be careful.

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It’s true, you gotta be a member, or be a friend of a member, to dine and drink at the venerable Alta Club. Luckily for those of us at Salt Lake magazine, the owners are members, so the staff frequently gathers in one of their private rooms or in the bar to noodle around about magazine articles, issues, philosophies, the future, etc. The kitchen serves club food—not at all terrible but nothing to write home about except for this one very simple and utterly brilliant dish: The Shot Glass Sundae.

We have a lot of good ice cream in Salt Lake: remember Alexis Norlin’s Normal ice cream—we served her ice cream sandwiches at our recent Farm to Glass Cocktail Party.

So simple. I always wonder why everyone doesn’t serve a version. It’s small, classic and manageable, a sweet reward to end a meal but without the baroquely over-thought architectural monstrosities so often served as a dessert. Literally served in a shot glass, a large melon scoop of ice cream topped with fudge sauce whipped cream and a cherry.

The holidays are coming: Relish the small perfections.

This would be a great dinner party or restaurant dessert. No trouble, mostly do-ahead, simple to make and inspiring a smile—an amuse-bouche for the end of the meal. Jazz it up: Use coffee ice cream with salted caramel and crushed nuts on top; or vanilla ice cream with a drizzle of limoncello and some candied lemon peel. Dark chocolate ice cream with a marshmallow drizzle and graham cracker crumbs.

Take a tip from the Alta Club: start scaling down and jazzing up dessert at the same time.

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James Beard, though he was never a professional chef, has had a greater influence on American cuisine than any other kitchen guru. (Yes, even Julia.) Largely that’s because of the James Beard Foundation, an organization founded more than 30 years ago in memory of the genial chef. The JBF, of course, annually presents the most prestigious awards in the American culinary world, but it has also created signature initiatives like the Women’s Leadership Programs, aimed at addressing the gender imbalance in the culinary industry; advocacy training through a Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change; and the James Beard Foundation Leadership Awards.

Plus, it hosts chefs from around the country to cook at Beard house—an opportunity regarded as a high honor.

High West’s James Beard Dinner Led by Executive Chef Michael J. Showers, the unforgettable evening will take place at the James Beard House in New York City on Friday, November 8, at 70 p.m. Secure your reservations here. Menu below.

This fall, High West‘s kitchen, led by Executive Chef Michael J. Showers, will head to New York City to present Utah cuisine paired with their spirits for an exclusive dinner on Friday, Nov. 8, at 7 p.m.  If you’re going to be in NYC or can manage to be there, dinner at Beard House is a unique occasion. And check out the menu at the bottom of this post.

Equally—maybe more—exciting is JBF’s recent announcement about changes in the culinary map used to determine the winners of their annual chef awards. (Utah has had several semi-finalists in the ranking (Jen Castle and Blake Spalding of Hell’s Backbone Grill, John Murcko, then at the Farm, etc.), but never a winner. 

For years, the New York-based organization has grouped together areas that deserve separate recognition—somewhat resembling the perspective of artist Saul Steinberg’s famous map of the U.S. To a Western food writer like me, the idea of lumping Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Oklahoma into a single culinary region is not only meaningless, it’s insulting.

Now Texas is its own region, as is California, but more importantly for Utah, JBF has designated a new Mountain region: Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. 

The new regions go far towards leveling the playing field—but as American cuisine grows and improves, even these divisions may prove to be too general.

Bon appetit, America. 

High West’s James Beard Dinner Menu

Seeing an eye staring up from a dinner plate used to be an off-putting experience for Utah diners. Fish used to be served cut into steaks, filets and fingers or formed into patties or pureed into a spread. But serving whole fish and making whole fish recipes has become the mark of a sophisticated kitchen. Whole fish—eye to tail fin—is showing up on menus all over Utah. And besides trout, silver-skinned, white-meat branzino is the fish you’ll most often see served whole in local restaurants. And home cooks are using whole fish recipes to brave the whole fish.

Aquarius Fish. Co. co-owner and fish expert Nick Sheldon says the reason for branzino’s current popularity on the plate is simple, “It’s a mild-flavored, mid-price and medium-sized fish.” Branzino is a European bass as opposed to the other chef’s darling, Chilean sea bass, which is a Patagonian toothfish. Also known as Greek sea bass, loup de mer, spigola and robalo, branzino is super easy to cook, according to Sheldon. “Just stuff the belly with herbs or lemon and let the fish speak for itself.”

The Simplest
Whole Fish Recipe

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Drizzle 1 Tbsp. olive oil into a large baking pan; add several slices of red onion seasoned with salt and pepper.

Place 2 cleaned fish, each about 1 pound, in the baking pan and stuff each cavity with 1 lemon wedge, 1 rosemary sprig, and some of the red onion. Pour white wine and lemon juice over each fish and sprinkle with oregano. Drizzle 1 Tbsp. olive oil over the fish.

Bake in the preheated oven until fish is opaque and flakes easily with a fork, about 25 minutes.

Gently slide a spatula between the bones to separate fish; remove all the bones.

Fish in the Fall Americans tend to think of fish as a summer dish–maybe because we associate fish with vacation beaches and lakesides. But it’s really a year-round dish and, like chicken, much of what makes it taste seasonal is the flavorings and side dishes served with fish. Don’t be constrained by the idea of fish and lemon–sage is as lovely with fish as it is with turkey and fish cooked in butter and red wine (recently on the menu at Bambara) is a traditional French dish. In parts of Italy, the Feast of Seven (or thirteen) Fishes is a Christmas tradition. In Poland, the same holiday calls for carp. For obvious reasons, Christmas dinners in Australia include prawns; during its famous Christmas seafood marathon, the Sydney Fish Market sells more than 120 tons of shrimp and tens of thousands of oysters. Aussies light up the grill to cook their seafood; here a festive winter fish is more likely to be served stewed, in a soup or, most impressively, like turkey, roasted whole.

Buying Whole Fish Where, How, When
For information and questions about the sustainability of the fish you’re buying, check out Seafood Watch, a service of Monterrey Bay Aquarium that tracks fishing and fish farming practices. Seafoodwatch.org

• Your best bets for buying fish locally are:
• Aquarius Fish Co., 314 W. 300 South, SLC, 801-533-5653
• Harmons, various locations. Harmonsgrocery.com
• Whole Foods Market, various locations. Wholefoodsmarket.com

The Delta Factor For those who might question the freshness of seafood served in a high desert restaurant, fishmonger Nick Sheldon has a one word response: “Delta.” Delta’s direct flights to its hub at Salt Lake International Airport have made all the difference to Utah chefs. Fresh-caught fish is only hours away.

Whole Fish on the Plate: 4 places to dine head to tail.

• J.Wong’s Thai & Asian Bistro
  Whole snapper is traditionally fried whole with sweet Thai chili sauce.
  163 W. 200 South, SLC, 801-350-0888
• Provisions
  Chef-owner Tyler Stokes put a Thai twist on whole fried branzino.
  3364 S. 2300 East, SLC, 801-410-4046
• Harbor Seafood & Steak Co.
  Harbor’s simple menu includes whole trout and other special fish, prepared with the diner’s choice of sauce.
  2302 Parleys Way, SLC, 801-466-9827
• Current Fish and Oyster
  Whole branzino shows up on downtown’s central seafood restaurant.
  279 E. 300 South, SLC, 801-326-3474. The hit of opening night at the city’s new seafood restaurant, Current, was whole branzino—Chef Logan Crews serves it with sautéed greens, marcona almonds, oil and lemon. The Paris serves it al forno—oven-roasted with fennel, onions, garlic and tomato. And Provisions chef-owner Tyler Stokes puts a Thai twist on whole fried branzino.

RECIPE: Whole Fried Branzino from Tyler Stokes at Provisions

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You might think this time of year is the last gasp for popsicles. Think again. Fun, fruity, low-fat and delicious, popsicles are finding their way onto menus year-round. First, forget the fake-flavorings and garishly colored delights that came on the truck during your childhood summers. Think of freezing that sweet memory into a sophisticated surprise

Chef Ryan has several serving ideas for putting a sophisticated polish on his popsicles.

*Prop it into a brandy snifter with some champagne, apple cider or dessert wine.

*Dip popsicles in melted white or dark chocolate. Roll in nuts and refreeze.

*Drizzle tart popsicles with local honey.

Popsicles, called paletas in Spanish, are a Mexican tradition—to get a true taste, stop by Angelitos in Rose Park. Half the space of the little cafe is taken up by a freezer case packed with a colorful popsicles, the glassine wrappers making them a pastel rainbow. The range of flavors puts Baskin-Robbins to shame: The strawberry one tastes just like a frozen berry; arroz tastes like frozen rice pudding. Try the mango; jamaica; coconut; nut; cajeta; guyaba; pineapple; tamarind—all vividly fresh-tasting. Or check out the mango-chile pop, rosy red and studded with yellow chunks of mango. The pineapple popsicle is all juice and shredded fruit. Shake a little tajine over it.

These would make a great fall dessert or intermezzo and, as Chef Ryan Crafts of Culinary Crafts catering says, “They’re “ve-e-ery easy to make.” He uses popsicles as a way to preserve the taste of summer fruit. “They’re a taste-echo of warm times. That way we can use local produce all year round,” says Ryan. “Utahns love ice cream and all kinds of frozen desserts. We serve them as a pre-dinner taste, or an interlude between courses. Guests love them—who doesn’t want to be a kid again?”

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