New England Cooks

This is a basket of spicy goodies donated by our friends at Tabasco and a lucky member of our studio audience is going to take this home Thursday night!

If you haven’t yet, get your tickets to see Berlin, N.H. firefighter Bill Maddalena live in studio Thursday, October 25 at 7 p.m.

Bill will be making deep fried mac-and-cheese and his award-winning dessert, the famous Twisted Brownie Sundae. Viewers in our studio audience always get to sample the recipes at our shows.

Of course, we will have our usual giveaways as well, including a brand-new Keurig from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

You can get tickets at Number 9 boutique in Barre or Montpelier, or at the door. Give us a call to reserve tickets for you at 476-1085.

See you there!

Cheers!

Tony

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Here’s the thing about Bill Maddalena’s award-winning spicy dessert, the Twisted Brownie Sundae: he’s never tasted it.

“I don’t like chocolate,” said Maddalena, a Berlin, N.H. firefighter for 18 years. “I’ve never tried it.”

Maddalena will be in the Videovision studio in downtown Barre Thursday evening for a live taping of New England Cooks. In addition to his dessert, Maddalena will also be preparing Deep Fired Mac-and-Cheese.

The brownie sundae won Maddalena $5,000 and second place in Tabasco’s annual Cook and Ladder competition in New York City earlier this year. Half went to Maddalena and half went to the Berlin FD for a new cooking range for the firehouse. The dessert includes a few shakes of chipotle pepper sauce.

“I’m not afraid to try different things,” said Maddalena.

How do you deep-fry macaroni-and-cheese?

“Here’s what happened,” said Maddalena. “I had a half a casserole sitting around and you know how it gets when it’s been in the refrigerator? I cut a hunk of it off, breaded it and deep fried it. It came out really good.”

Maddalena will prepare that as well Thursday night, but he confesses his real cooking love is Italian.

“When my grandfather died a while back, I found an old metal box in his kitchen,” remembers Maddalena. “ It had all of his family recipes from the old country, near Naples. That was an emotional discovery. That box and those recipes mean an awful lot to me.”

His favorite, both to make and to eat, is lasagna. He’s made it for the boys at the station and at an annual Christmas Eve buffet he puts on at the station for anyone – EMT’s, police officers, nurses – who are working that night.

“I’ll make a stromboli, a lasagna, a real feast,” he said. “People look forward to that buffet every year.”

Maddalena says he learned to cook out of necessity.

“When I go out of the navy, I came back home to Berlin and joined the fire department,” he said. “I could barely afford to pay the mortgage so it was either cook or die. I got hold of a crock pot and a recipe book, and off I went.

“And I’m a cook, not a chef. I have a cousin in Rhode Island, he’s a professional chef. I’m just a cook.”

A cook who obviously is not afraid to try new things.

Join us Thursday night for a taste of Bill Maddalena’s passion for cooking.

Cheers!

Tony

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Good news! We have finalized the winter/spring portion of our schedule, adding nine more shows beginning January 10.

I’ve listed the shows below, and you can see the entire remaining schedule here.

January 10 - Jessie Price, Eating Well Magazine, Charlotte, Vt.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

January 24 - Trina Beaulier and Meggen Beaulier, Simply Divine, Brunswick, Maine

“Heavenly Brownies”

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

February 7 - Chef Teresa Tan, Mangowood Restaurant at the Lincoln Inn, Woodstock, Vt.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

February 21 - Paul Lucas, Jessie’s, Hanover, N.H.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

March 13 - Jean-Luc Matecat, Cinco, Nantucket, Mass.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

March 27 - Robert Dekeersgieter, Spirit of the Ethan Allen III, Burlington, Vt.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

April 10 - Juergen Spagolla, Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe, Vt.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

April 24 - Josh Nylin, Red Jacket Mountain View Resort, North Conway, N.H.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

May 8 - Francis Lynch, Tilley’s Cafe, Burlington, Vt.

New England Cooks Studio 7 p.m.

And don’t forget, Berlin, N.H. firefighter Bill Maddalena will be here on Thursday, October 25.

We will have an interview with Bill in the blog later this week.

Hope to see you at the next show!

Cheers!

Tony

1 Comment »

Well, we are all still recovering from last night’s epic show, and we have a lot of people to thank for pulling it off.

First off, thanks go to Ed Schwarz, one of our two resident wine experts. Ed volunteered at the 11th hour to fill in as our guest chef and, aside from a few broken glasses, he was terrific. For those of you who missed the show, Ed (above, with Tony and Carol) prepared a shrimp appetizer and a pork tenderloin with lentils. We will have the recipes up on www.newenglandcooks.com very soon. If you have a minute, please visit Ed’s web site. He and his father run Fine Wine Cellars on the Mountain Road in Stowe.

Also, congratulations are in order for Adam Coulter and his wife. Adam, of the Perfect Pear Cafe in Bradford, was scheduled to be our guest chef, but had to cancel because he and his wife had a baby! Congratulations to all! We hope to be able to bring Adam (and maybe the rest of the family) sometime in the future.

Lastly, we would be remiss if we did not thank our wonderful studio audience. We had a lot of first-timers in the house last night, and in case they did not notice, we feed off the energy off the crowd. There was a lot of energy there last night, all of it good! Along with our devoted regulars, we hope all of you first-timers will come back to see us again.

Lastly, we are less than two weeks from a visit from firefighter Bill Maddalena of Berlin, N.H. Get your tickets now, we expect a full house!

Cheers!

Tony

1 Comment »

Adam Coulter of the Perfect Pear Cafe was scheduled to be our guest chef this evening but had to cancel.

In his place, we will have one of our new wine experts, Ed Schwarz, appear in his place.

We will have more details on Ed’s menu for this evening shortly.

Cheers!

Tony

1 Comment »

Well, show number two is in the can (and the editing room) and we were thrilled to have NECI chef Curtiss Hemm on hand to prepare three soups for us and talk about his project, The Pink Ribbon Cookbook.

Curtiss spoke eloquently of his wife’s battle with breast cancer (she’s doing great) and the soups he prepared are three of her favorites. In case you did not realize it, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so the visit from Curtiss was both timely and informative.

Curtiss has collected more than 100 recipes for the new cookbook, and proceeds will benefit Susan G. Komen for a Cure. To learn more about the Pink Ribbon Cookbook or make a donation to Komen for a Cure, click here.

The cookbook is due out in a few months, and we will have details on how you can purchase it as soon as we get them.

In the photo above from the show, Curtiss and co-host Carol Day have a carrot-peeling contest. Carol claimed victory.

Hey! We would like to hear from you. To drop us a note here at the blog, simply click the “comments” link at the bottom of any post, and let us have it!

We hope to see you in the studio. Our next show is Thursday, October 11, featuring Chef/Owner Adam Coulter of A Perfect Pear in Bradford, Vermont.

Cheers!

Tony

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Fans who have attended our first two shows of the season (and if you haven’t … shame on you!) know we have a new segment on fine wines this year.

Our thanks to Harrison Lebowitz of Snow Farm Vineyard in South Hero for joining us on the show.

After years of research, Harrison and his wife Molly started Snow Farm Vineyard, Vermont’s first commercial vineyard and grape winery in 1996 as a way to keep land in Vermont open and working.

Harrison has an extensive background as a lawyer. From December, 1991 until Snow Farm became his full-time occupation in 1996, he was an assistant attorney general with the State of Vermont.

In his three years of research into the feasibility of starting a vineyard in Vermont, Harrison consulted extensively with leading experts in cold climate growing of grapes, including those from Michigan State University, Southwest Michigan Research Center, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (Cornell University Extension) and University of Minnesota, traveled to Minnesota at the invitation of the Minnesota Grape Growers Association, and studied at the University of California, Davis.

Through his research, he met Patrick Barrelet, Snow Farm’s winemaker and vineyard manager. Patrick, an international award-winning winemaker, received his education in France with a degree in viticulture from CFPPA de Beaune and a Diplome Technicien Oenolgue from the Universite de Dijon and studied under Michel Roucher-Sarrazin of Puligny-Montrachet, considered one of the top five winemakers in Burgundy.

Harrison and Molly live with their two children, Tess and Jared, and their two semi-worthless dogs in South Hero.

In the picture above, Harrison and Tony discuss appropriate wines to pair with the soups prepared by Chef Curtiss Hemm on a recent show.

Also, notice the wine chime toasting bar on the table. You can learn more about the wine chime here.

Cheers!

Tony

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