Culinary Trend: Blood Oranges

Every so often, various ingredients and dishes go into vogue. Recently, foods such as kale and chia seeds made their way to the culinary forefront by way of blogs, magazines, and health fads.

Now, I'm noticing a previously obscure fruit that is gaining popularity in the foodie world– that is to say, the blood orange. Popping up in blogs and grocery stores alike, this underrated citrus is finally finding its way into America's kitchens.

Photo Credit

Blood orange gets its name (unsurprisingly) from its dark, blood-red fruit that distinguishes it from its cousin, the navel orange. In terms of taste, the two are relatively similar; though personally I find the blood orange to be a little more on the sour side (a subtle distinction from the navel orange's acidity) with a unique aftertaste. Of course, the taste is contingent on the orange's specific cultivar. When in season, many blood orange varieties boast a noticeable sweetness defining their taste.  

Now, I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to citrus fruits– I love to eat my oranges and grapefruits raw and unsweetened, or freshly pressed. However, these blood orange inspired recipes and foods are good enough to make me break my rule:

Talenti Blood Orange Sorbetto

Blood Orange Cake 

Recipe here.

Blood Orange Sangria

Recipe here.

Blood Orange & Clementine Galette

Recipe here. 

Goat Cheese Crostini with Blood Orange Marmalade

 Recipe here.

Restaurant Review: Haru Aki Café

As a food nerd, it's tough going to college in farmville (literally) and not a city. UConn doesn't exactly boast a diverse culinary scene like NYC or Boston.

The lack of food culture at UConn especially makes itself known when I want to try new things. For example, I read about Bubble Tea in a blog and immediately wanted to try it. (Bubble tea can come in many forms, but it's usually found as a tea-based iced drink mixed with fruit syrup, milk, and tapioca pearl boba.) I searched on Yelp, and I saw a Chinese place just off the UConn campus offered bubble tea. But when I ordered my tea there, I watched in horror as they boiled some water, added some really artificial-looking powder to it, then shook it with ice. Even worse– it tasted more artificial than it looked. No thanks!

Luckily, less than a year later, the Haru Aki Café opened right next to my apartment building. "Haru" and "aki" mean spring and fall in Japanese, which speaks to the café's ethos concerning seasonal cuisine. But more importantly, they offer an amazing bubble tea menu.

Images from the Haru Aki Facebook page

Unlike other Asian-fusion restaurants in the area, the Haru Aki Café utilizes actual tea in their bubble tea (and not that synthetic powder). So far, I've tried the green tea with honeydew, peach, and lychee, and they've all been delicious. I could drink their bubble tea all day if my wallet allowed it.

In addition to the great bubble tea selection, they have delicious savory offerings as well– sushi, donburi (rice bowls), scallion pancakes, salads, and croquettes. 

Scallion Pancake

One day as I was buying a Honeydew bubble tea, I was lucky enough to run into Ron Liu, who is co-owner of the café. I asked him a bit about his background, and it turns out that he was a business student at UConn who had always dreamed of opening a restaurant. A few years after his graduation, he found himself in a financial position where he had the means to open Haru Aki.

Ron told me that while he is one of the main sushi chefs at the café, his girlfriend (who is also a co-owner and a fellow UConn alum) is the main force behind the menu. I told him how glad I was to have such a great restaurant nearby, and assured him that I would be back.

- - - 

This post really exemplifies why I love discovering new eateries and writing about them– because every small, locally owned restaurant has a unique story to tell. Food isn't just food... it's humanity. It's history. It's memories of your mom teaching you how to cook, or your grandmother sharing her secret recipe. And above all, it provides the medium through which people of different cultures can connect and learn from each other. 

Club W

One of the hardest things about food blogging is figuring out what to write about next, especially where wine is concerned. It's fine to go to the liquor store and pick up a new bottle at random, but I like a more systematic way of picking out wines.

Enter Club W. I first saw them in an ad on Facebook (of all things) but decided to check out the website.








To start your Club W membership, the site asks you to take a Palate Profile quiz.

The quiz includes questions about your preferences for different types of flavors, like citrus fruits and earthy flavors (like truffles or mushrooms). Then, based on your answers to the questionnaire, the site gives you personalized recommendations from their curated selection of wines.

You can choose how many recommendations you receive (i.e. two reds and one white, etc.) in addition to browsing the other wines that weren't matched to your palate.

Club W's information about the wine is concise without being snobby. For each wine, they post a quick fact sheet that gives you the "vitals" of the wine, and a video where a sommelier describes the tasting notes.

I received my first Club W package in the mail a little while ago... more to come on my reaction to the wines!

New Foods @ Whole Foods

What's great about Whole Foods is that they offer a lot of options (especially in produce) that aren't commonly found in traditional grocery stores.

This is what I picked up today:


1. Pomelo

Pomelos aren't very common in regular supermarkets, but I've seen them here and there at Whole Foods. I remember looking at them over in the produce section, just thinking they were some sort of mutant grapefruit. Little did I know that pomelos are the original grapefruit; and that grapefruit itself is thought to be a hybrid of pomelo and orange (who knew?!).

Admittedly, I had to google how to properly prepare the pomelo for eating (no shame here). However, going against internet advice, I just ended up cutting off the rind with a knife, then cutting the fruit into supremes (that is to say, cutting the fruit wedges away from the membrane), like so: 

Image Credit: Foodie Journey

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend the supreming technique for pomelos... the fruit segments aren't aligned in such a symmetrical way like the other citrus varieties.

The type of pomelo I bought had the ruby red colored fruit within, belying its similarity to grapefruit. However, most pomelos have a light green or yellow fruit. 

This is what mine looked like:

The taste of the pomelo was like a mild grapefruit, except with twice the work needed to eat it. While it was great to try a new citrus, I think I'll stick with grapefruit and oranges.



2. Challah 

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Whole Foods carried challah in their bakery. It's not something I usually see in regular grocery stores (to my chagrin).

Challah is a traditional Jewish bread that is chewy, eggy, and delicious. In accordance with Jewish religious law, it is not made with dairy. However, it still maintains a rich texture in a similar way to brioche (a French bread).

The Jewish religion and culture is to thank for a variety of delicious eats– lox, bagels, pretzels, and pickles, to name a few. But challah (in my opinion) is one of their best culinary achievements. 

3. Kombucha

Kombucha is one of the newest health fads, following in the footsteps of trendy superfoods like kale and kefir.

Kombucha is basically a fermented, effervescent tea drink that contains probiotics (like yogurt). As someone who's not a huge fan of yogurt (unless its frozen), I was hoping to get some good bacteria from Kombucha.

First, let me say that I really wanted to like this drink. I'm not discriminatory when it comes to tea at all– I can handle anything from the most pungent black teas to bitter green varieties. But when I tried the Kombucha, I almost gagged. It tasted like vinegar beer. I even checked to expiration date to make sure the vinegar taste wasn't a result of spoiling. But alas, the expiration date was many months away, leaving an inexplicable (and disgusting) taste of vinegar.

So I googled the method of making Kombucha, and it turns out its brewing process is similar to the way vinegar is made. Apparently Kombucha develops the vinegar taste as the fermentation progresses... if the tea is fermented for a shorter period of time, it won't taste as vinegar-y. So I'm not ready to completely cross off Kombucha (at least not yet), but I definitely won't be buying the GT's Multi-green Tea ever again.