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Events in Season
Castroville Artichoke Festival
Castroville, CA
May 15-16

California Strawberry Festival
Oxnard, CA
May 15-16

Cooking for Solutions
Monterey, CA
May 21-22
 Cooking with Leeks
Would you rather eat a "poor man's asparagus," or "the gourmet's onion"? Actually, they're the same vegetable: the leek. Cooks appreciate this member of the onion family for its sweet, delicate flavor. When we asked thisLeeks month's featured chef, Mark Peel, which vegetable to showcase, he didn't hesitate about suggesting leeks. "They are sweet, tender, and only mildly oniony," noted Peel. "I love their gentle flavor and their pale, translucent green color."  

Leeks get used in many dishes: pizza, tarts, foccacia, salads, flan, bouillabaisse, and, of course, the famed leek and potato soup vichyssoise. They're in season all through spring, but available year-round. Wild leeks, or ramps, are native to North America.

Whatever the reason, Americans don't use leeks as much as Europeans - particularly cooks in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, where they're "indispensable," notes chef and food writer Aliza Green in the Field Guide to Produce (Chronicle Books, 2004). Maybe our featured recipes will help change some habits.

Family tree: Member of the onion family. Relatives include garlic, shallots and chives.

History:
Cultivated since as early as 3000 BC. Native to western Asia and the Mediterranean. Thanks to European settlers, leeks have been cultivated in the United States since the late 1700s.

Health info:
One cup has just 54 calories. Rich in beta-carotene, vitamin K, and manganese, according to Harvard Medical School. Good source of iron, folate, and vitamins A and C; 2 grams of fiber per serving.

Cultivation:
France, Belgium and the Netherlands are leading producers. In the United States, leeks are grown in parts of the East, Midwest and West. California production totaled 6,450 tons in 2008.

How to cook:
Typically only white and pale green portions are eaten. Good roasted, baked, braised, saut�ed, grilled, steamed, raw. Green, the chef-author, suggests deep frying matchstick-sized pieces until crunchy; sprinkle with salt. To clean, cut in half and rinse well to remove dirt trapped inside.

How to buy:
Look for firm, straight white stalks with brightly colored, fresh-looking green leaves.  


 Featured EVOO Leek Recipes

Courtesy of Our Featured Chef Mark Peel:
 
Leeks Vinaigrette Artichoke Fresh from California




Additional Recipes:


Braised Leek and Potato Salad
Reprinted with permission from: Michael Chiarello's Flavored Oils and Vinegars (Chronicle Books, 2006)
 

Oven Braised Leeks with Orange & Thyme
Courtesy of Marie Simmons

Chiarello Potato Salad
Spanish Tortilla with Spring Vegetables
Reprinted with permission from: Fresh From the Farmers' Market, By Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books, 2008)

Spring Vegetable Ragout with Crostini
Courtesy of  Kendall-Jackson Culinary Team 

 Featured Chef
Mark Peel
Campanile
624 South La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 938-1447
Mark Peel received his bachelor's degree a few months ago. The irony is he never graduated. It's been more than 30 years since the acclaimed chef was a student at his alma mater, California Polytechnic State University. Cal Poly was willing to cut the 56-year-old Peel some slack for his degree.
Chef Mark Peel
"They decided to give me a senior project credit for the three cookbooks I've written," Peel laughed.  

Not that he needs the degree. The chef has left a major mark on the California culinary scene. He helped launch a number of famed restaurants including Spago and Michael's. Later, in 1989, he opened both La Brea Bakery and Campanile in Los Angeles with then business partners Nancy Silverton and Manfred Krankl. He continues at the award-winning Campanile as chef-owner, in addition to overseeing two newer eateries.

Peel is both a night owl and an early bird. He gets home late from his restaurants and typically gets up at around 7 a.m. In his spare time? "I don't have any," he told us, noting he's got two young children in addition to his three restaurants.

But he does find time to cook at home. He prepares "simple" meals as well as dishes from his latest cookbook, New Classic Family Dinners (Wiley, 2009), including a sophisticated tuna noodle casserole featuring a confit made from fresh albacore tuna. The cookbook draws on the popular Monday night family dinners started at Campanile more than 10 years ago.
Chef Mark Peel's Hands
A California native, Peel landed his first restaurant job in high school in Healdsberg. He washed dishes, receiving 20 cents an hour more than the minimum wage. "I needed a job," he said. Peel later began helping the chef, preparing such dishes as pepper steak and the French dish sole meuni�re. "The sole was all frozen, of course," recalled Peel. But he realized he had a knack for cooking.

He cooked his way through college. The work convinced Peel to transfer to the hotel and restaurant department at Cal Poly. He'd been studying history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "I didn't want to be a teacher," he explained. "I come from a long line of teachers."

Soon after leaving college, Peel landed a job peeling vegetables for Wolfgang Puck at the famed West Hollywood bistro, Ma Maison. He worked his way up to be in charge of seafood, before heading to France for stints at La Tour d'Argent and Le Moulin de Mougins.

There, he marveled at the skills of the French chefs and the quality of the ingredients. "That was more of an epiphany. If they can do it," Peel reasoned, "we can do it in the United States."
Chef Mark Peel making pesto
In 1979, Peel returned to L.A. and began working at Michael McCarty's ground-breaking restaurant, Michael's. He then moved north to Alice Waters' Chez Panisse and, finally, back to L.A. to open the original Spago as Wolfgang Puck's chef de cuisine.

"It really turned fine cooking on its head," Peel said of Spago. Pizza was served, for example, but in a whole new way. It was topped with Santa Barbara prawns, Sonoma goat cheese, or proscuitto.  

At Campanile, Peel has created a rustically elegant restaurant. Dishes vary. Mondays are family night. Thursdays feature a grilled cheese menu. � la carte dishes range from roasted beet salad to grilled Alaskan salmon and vanilla cheesecake. More recently, Peel has opened two less formal L.A. eateries: a supper club, the The Tar Pit, and a takeout-and-delivery, The Point.

Peel describes his cooking as "very simple, very straight-forward with great attention to details." He uses fresh ingredients. But while ingredients are important, Peel noted, the key is "how you do" the dish.


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