April Bloomfield’s Rhubarb Fool with Cardamom Cream and Pistachios

COOKING ‘from scratch’ is the hottest food term in the restaurant world at present, Add seasonal, local, and artisan, and you are right on the button.

Talk about things coming full circle. Chefs are boasting about cooking everything from scratch for their menus, doing in-house butchery, making house-cured bacon and charcuterie, homemade tomato ketchup, pickles, relishes etc.

My son-in-law just back from Portland, Oregon, tells me there are over 400 food trucks and 40 artisan breweries in a city with a population of less than 600,000. The micro-distillery movement has also taken off. Chefs are infusing alcohol with wild foraged herbs, berries, and fruit and using them in cool house cocktails.