It's a PRESSURE COOKER!

Got a great e-mail from foodie Dan McMahon about a small, independent movie (is there any other kind?), and the teacher and students who inspired it.

Dan writes:

"Unorthodox Culinary Arts teacher Mrs. Stephenson is a tyrant known throughout her Philly public high school for her hoarse rebukes of her students' creations. She may be disarmingly blunt, but she cares about the final product. Last year, 11 of her seniors got scholarships to top culinary schools across the nation. Here, we follow three of Stephenson's dedicated inner-city kids with circumstances stacked against them whose best hope for the future depends on the perfect results.

'Pressure Cooker' is finally about to be released in Philly this June. .....made in North Philadelphia, it shows how cooking can help students. they get $ 750,000 in scholarships---- getting good reviews."

Gordon Ramsey got NOTHING on this woman. Here's the trailer for the movie. Can't wait to see it!

PRESSURE COOKER

Crazy for Crawfish at The Station Bistro

The cozy Station Bistro in Kimberton has found its groove. And yesterday, that groove was decidedly Cajun with a chorus of spicy crawfish singin' loud and proud. The sleepy little Chester County village was enveloped in the seductive aromas of Louisiana cooking. Folks traveled from as far away as Havre de Grace, MD to chow down on big red trays of juicy, salty, fiery mudbugs, earthy jamabalaya and Sly Fox beers. Man, what a good time.

The kids and I made the 90 min. trek early Sunday afternoon, and when we got to Kimberton, the restaurant was packed.


Owner Nancy Miller arranged a small table near the fireplace with coloring books, puzzles and Legos, and Ben and Sophie quickly settled into coloring with the Miller's two sons, WIlliam and Edward.

Over 450 lbs of the critters were flown into Philly on Saturday, and boiled up in small batches by Chef Craig Miller every 15 min. or so all Sunday afternoon. Craig worked two boil kettles under a tent outdoors all afternoon, carefully adding the peppery boiling spices at just the right moment, tossing red potatoes and corn-on-the-cob chunks and onions in at another moment, carefully tending to the process like the secret Cajun master that he is. The crawfish were big and meaty, still a bit of work for the reward, but the other highlight of this special event was Miller's jambalaya, with complex layers of flavor and generous slices of real andouille. The dish could stand on its own every day, and I hope they add it to the Station Bistro menu permanently.



I chose a Sly Fox Dunkel with my tray of bugs, and what an inspired pairing: malty and mellow, it was just the tasty foil I needed for those hot crustaceans. I opted out of stopping at the nearby Sly Fox Brewpub in Phoenixville for a growler or two, owing to the 90 min drive back home and my priceless passengers in the back seat. A growler of any Sly Fox beer is tempting temperence.

Rolls of paper towels were stationed on every table, and you really did need a lot of them. The boiling spice on the crawfish found every gardening nick and paper cut on my fingers, and my forehead was moist with sweat after just a half tray of munching. At least I wasn't alone; at almost every table, people were sweating and whooping and whistling and laughing. Lots of Sly Fox and Victory growlers on those tables, too, a good sign. Some folks opted for platters of the restaurant's excellent baby back ribs instead of crawfish, but the vast majority of eaters were groovin' on the crawdaddies.






Nancy made hot dogs and fries for the kids; they wanted no part of the mudbugs, especially after Nancy took the kids into the kitchen freezer and showed them crates of the crustaceans still wiggling. I figured Sophie, who loves spicy food, would try a few, but she was firm with her dad: "Get them away from me," she said very seriously.






But what do kids know? The Crawfish Boil was fantastic, and the Station Bistro made a lot of new friends and surprised some of their regulars. I hope we can persuade Craig Miller to cook Cajun more often. Man has a gift.

Crawfish in Kimberton!

I don't do restaurant promo posts as a rule here at all, but I just gotta do this one. Friends Nancy and Craig Miller own The Station Bistro, a terrific BYOB in Kimberton, PA, in the western burbs of Philadelphia, with good, straightforward cooking and some of the best house-smoked ribs, turkey and shaved pork I've ever had.

But it’s May, prime crawfish season, and Craig and Nancy are itching to do a crawfish boil.

For years with them it was a Louisiana-style backyard thing at their home, and now they have this 1-1/2 yr. old restaurant in a bucolic village in Chester County....well, it just makes sense to open the thing up a bit.

Save the date: May 17, 12-7PM

I don't know of any place that does a real crawfish boil anywhere near Philly, so that's why I'm mentioning this one here. I've been to a few of these, and it just doesn't get any better than a Craig and Nancy crawfish boil.

“We have the crawfish flown in fresh from Louisiana that day,” Nancy tells me, “and we use an authentic seasoning blend to flavor the boil. It’s the real deal.”

Diners will have a choice of getting All-You-Can-Eat crawfish, jambalaya, coleslaw and a beverage for $28.95; OR a full helping of Craig's now-famous, smoked-on-site baby-back ribs, french fries, coleslaw, and a beverage for $25.95.

There will be some Sly Fox beers for tasting, but since the Station Bistro is a BYOB, Craig suggests you also bring a few good beers to pair with his down-home Cajun feast: “A good, crisp pilsner such as Sly Fox Pikeland Pils or Victory Prima Pils, or an amber lager like Yuengling’s will taste great with my crawfish, as would a hoppy beer like Victory HopDevil or Sly Fox’s Belgian style Saison Vos Farmhouse Ale But definitely a beer that can stand up to the bold flavors.” Personally, I'll be grabbing a growler of Pikeland Pils, Rte 113 IPA or the new Dax Maibock from nearby Sly Fox Brewpub in Phoenixville.

Reservations can be made at (610)933-1147 or via the restaurant’s e-mail link at http://www.stationbistro.com/. I'm going to try to put a group together for this; if ya likes the Cajun food, cher, this is a good day in the country, I gar-on-tee.