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Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton |
Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton are a culinary dream team. The duo were among the heavyweights that created
Saveur magazine. They're famous for their wonderfully simple, seasonal recipes and groundbreaking, realistic food photography. In 2006, Hirsheimer and Hamilton launched their own culinary publishing powerhouse that's definitely worth an online visit:
Canal House Cooking, where you'll find boatloads of great recipes and drop-dead gorgeous photographs.
The Canal House moniker reflects the fact that Hersheimer and Hamilton's office - a test kitchen as well as photo and design studio - is perched along the Delaware Canal towpath, in New Jersey . There, they produce a beautiful online food magazine plus a steady stream of highly regarded cookbooks: the
Canal House Cooking series of books.
"I get goosebumps every time I receive a new seasonal Canal House cookbook," Mario Batali, the celebrity chef, gushes. Speaking of which ... the Canal House duo have just published a gorgeous new book:
Canal House Cooks Every Day (Andrews-McMeel Publishing, 2012). It offers a year of seasonal recipes for the home cook.
What's your earliest food memory?CH: Believe it or not, one of my first food memories is artichoke vinaigrette. The artichoke was so much fun to eat - pulling the flesh from the leaves with your bottom teeth. And I loved to dip the leaves into mustardy vinaigrette. Guess I have always loved the flavor of good olive oil.
MH: I remember picking and eating strawberries in my Mother's garden. They never have tasted sweeter.
How do you come up with ideas for new dishes?CH/MH: We call ourselves "salt & pepper" cooks, so we really rely on cooking the best we can find in a sensitive, simple way. We count on good flaky sea salt, freshly ground Tellicherry pepper, a high fat butter, and always a very good extra-virgin olive oil.
We are always moved and inspired by the ingredients. If we have beautiful big ripe tomatoes we might make something classic, like an authentic gazpacho, but we might veer off and make a modern version of a Caprese salad with sliced tomatoes, tiny cubes of smoked fresh mozzarella, little croutons, a scattering of basil leaves and a good drizzle of
Arbosana extra-virgin olive oil.
How do you like to use California Olive Ranch extra virgin olive oil in your cooking?CH/MH: To be honest we were thrilled to find
California Olive Ranch olive oil at our local grocery store. Before that we would mail order some expensive Italian olive oils to use to finish dishes and make dressings for salads. It cost us an arm and a leg! And we would buy any recent harvest Italian all-purpose olive oil to cook with - but it was a bit of a guessing game to know if the oil would be any good. Now we cook with COR's Everyday Fresh oil and we finish dishes with Arbequina or Miller's Blend. We pull out the
Limited Reserve for something very special.
What's your best piece of advice for home cooks?CH/MH: Buy well-locally and seasonally - and cook simply!
What do you like to cook at home?CH/MH: We are home cooks and we do cook every day for ourselves and for our families. Right now we are for duck (duck with potatoes and caraway, duck confit, duck apples and onions, duck Sarladaise, duck soup ...), shell beans (fresh cranberry beans in umido), apple tarts, and pumpkin everything. We are always turned on by what is in the markets.
What do you like to eat when you're too tired to cook?CH/MH: We are never too tired to cook! But it might be a nice piece of cheese with some good toasted bread rubbed with garlic and drizzled with the best olive oil.
Do you follow recipes, or wing it?CH/MH: Since we write recipes for our
Canal House Cooking series we have to test everything. We weigh, measure, and time everything as we go to be sure that our readers have all the right directions to succeed and make something delicious. But when we are just cooking for ourselves we sometimes follow recipes and sometimes we wing it! It is a bit hard for us to diligently follow a recipe. We kind of know where we are going, so how we get there doesn't really matter.