FN Dish – Food Network Blog: Go behind-the-scenes at Food Network featuring your favorite chefs, shows, recipes, events and more.

But we made him take a picture with us anyway:

Dave Mechlowicz, Culinary Purchasing Manager

It’s time for another round of “What’s Shooting Now?” Here’s how the game works. We give you clues, and you try to guess what show is shooting in the Food Network studios. Tomorrow, we’ll let the cat out of the bag!

THE CLUES

For years, I’ve listened to all of my older relatives rave about my long-deceased great grandmother Rose’s graham cracker cake. I never had the opportunity to taste it, as she passed away while my mother was pregnant with me, but everyone loved how pudding-like, dense, and delicious the cake was.

Rose never shared her secret of how to make it with anyone, but did leave behind a very cryptic recipe card with no instructions other than “beat egg whites separately.” Several relatives had tried it, but none could duplicate the pudding-like consistency. One of my cousins recently e-mailed me a scan of the card and I found the challenge to be irresistible.

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World famous figure skater, Brian Boitano is hosting a brand new show, What Would Brian Boitano Make? The FN Dish will sit down to chat with Brian on Wednesday, and this is your big chance to fire away with all your burning questions. Need some tips on your triple axle? Ever wonder what an Olympian eats for breakfast? Here’s your chance to find out. Post all your questions in the comments section, and we’ll pick a few to ask on Wednesday.

As noted by the sharp media critics over at EatMeDaily, the real star of the culture storm that is Julie & Julia turns out to be a book. Check the numbers: Since the film’s opening, Julia Child’s seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 has been Amazon’s overall number 1 (now 2) bestseller. Which leads one to wonder whether, in addition to rekindling America’s love affair with Julia, Julie & Julia will also mark a resurgence of interest in French cuisine. Is the movie likely to alter in a significant way the place of French cuisine in American culture? Does Julie & Julia shut the door on the era of the freedom fry?

The latter, a bit, perhaps. Maybe the film will make a tiny dent in our national Francophobia. But as for restoring French hegemony to matters of cooking and dining: very unlikely. While there have been anecdotal reports of cooking classes selling out (a trend the recession started) and bistros filling-up, the social forces behind the declining status of French cuisine — the globalization of taste, the democratization of fine dining and international travel — are just too broad and well-established. Today’s center of culinary gravity lies solidly in the Mediterranean, somewhere between Rome and Barcelona, perhaps inching in the direction of Athens, and for all their butter-drenched magnetism, neither Julia nor Julie nor Julie & Julia are likely to move it.

Jonathan Milder, Research Librarian

Melissa d’Arabian may be a Food Network Star, but let me tell you – she’s as real as they come. Between hosting Ten Dollar Dinners and taking care of her four little girls, she’s always on the move. Even still, she made time to chat with me about her new show, the big move to Seattle, and life after The Next Food Network Star.

Secretary Confidential: Can you give us a little sneak peek into Ten Dollar Dinners?

Melissa d’Arabian: I’m really excited about sharing my braised pork and black beans. That is actually a recipe from what I call “bean night,” which is really “inexpensive protein night.” At least one night a week I’ll make something that incorporates budget ingredients, like pork shoulder and black beans. It’s a great way to cut my grocery bill, but the dish still feels special. I used this recipe for a dinner party for 30 women and it cost me $58.
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Now is a great time to start thinking about saving seeds for next season, which will make next year’s crop an even bigger bargain. It’s also one of the smartest ways to encourage an increasingly healthy and abundant garden year after year, since seeds you save from this season are naturally engineered toward your distinct climate and soil.

Different seeds have different needs (for example, tomato seeds need special processing), but here are a few basic tips to help you get started:

• Chose fully ripe, healthy, blue ribbon veggies from your garden as seed saving candidates. Save seeds from peppers that have reached their final color, squash that is fully grown, healthy, and ripe, and mature, evenly-shaped beans.
• Separate seeds from the fruit or pulp if necessary, and rinse well in a strainer. Lay the seeds out in a single layer to dry completely for two to three days. A fully dried seed should crack in half easily (discard broken seeds). Beans can be dried in their pods on the plant. Then pick, open, and drop seeds into a pouch.
• Save seeds in an envelope in a dry, cool place, well-labeled with instructions for the next season.

Use your seeds within one year for best results, and swap them with your friends and neighbors for an even more diverse garden next season.

For a plant-by-plant guide for best seed saving practices, visit the International Seed Saving Institute at SeedSave.org.

Sarah Copeland, Recipe Developer and Good Food Gardens Spokesperson

The French Culinary Institute (my culinary alma mater, though I do have to admit it was not nearly this cool when I was there) has a fascinating two-part article up on their site today about the Japanese Ike Jime method of killing fish, and its effect on fish’s neurobiology (and thus taste and texture).

It’s a little CSI: Fish, but entirely worth the read: Part 1 and Part 2. [via]

Rupa Bhattacharya, Culinary Writer

is why I live in fear of messing up at work — wouldn’t you, if this were your boss?

Danielle LaRosa, Assistant Culinary Producer

England mourns Benson, the 50-lb celebrity carp found dead recently under suspicious circumstances:

Photograph: SWNS.COM/James Stacey

Salient quotes far too plentiful to excerpt, but a taste:

“I had quite a rapport with the fish, and when she was caught, I used to talk to her, tell her to go make one more angler happy and look after herself in the meantime,” Mr. Bridgefoot recalled on Thursday.

and:

In the history of carp angling, Benson and Erica are not new. There have been other great fish like Sally and Heather the Leather – so called for her complete lack of scales.

Rupa Bhattacharya, Culinary Writer