New American food

As in Australia, immigration has meant great things for American stomachs. To celebrate cookbook author Joan Nathan's latest work, The New American Cooking, Zingerman's Roadhouse (the sit-down restaurant from the Zingerman's Deli folks) put together a menu of dishes taken from the book's pages. As a culinary anthropologist and glutton, I thought I should head out for some research.

New American Cooking, according to Nathan and the Zingerman's Roadhouse chefs, is:

- An appetiser platter with:
Grilled Californian Pizza with Duck Rillete
Mahammar & Pulled Chicken Canapés
Cambodian Lettuce Wraps
Chilean Empanadas
Caramelised Cherry Tomato Tarts
Stuffed Grape Leaves

- A bowl of Autumn Harvest soup

- Israeli Couscous and Pinenut salad

- A main plate with:
Stuffed Red Snapper
Chicken Marbella
Malian Lamb Stew
Capsicums stuffed with Jasper Hill blue cheese, polenta and pesto

with side serves of rice-stuffed onions and a lightly-spiced spinach stew with peanuts and pumpkin seeds

- Dessert of Gingerbread sponge with roasted caramel pears
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For ultimate indulgence, the dishes were paired with wines. The 'champagne' (seems they're still allowed to use the French name here) was an Argyle from the Willamette Valley in Oregon, a winery set up by the great Brian Croser of Petaluma (cheers from the Australians as the sommelier gave his wine pairing talk). There was also a Washington state semillon (L'Ecole no. 41), a Napa Valley albarino (Havens Wine Cellar), a delicious Signorello Napa cabernet sauvignon (the last of its kind for a while after the winery and wine stocks were destroyed in a recent fire) and a late-harvest dessert wine from Mayacamas in the Napa.

Our table of seven pronounced several hits on the menu: most of the appetisers earned an enthusiastic thumbs-up, particularly the mahammar (pepper, pomegranate, and walnut dip) and the caramelised tomato tartlets. The soup was sweet as fresh vegetables should be, with some bulgur scattered in the broth, but the Israeli couscous was too subtle for most diners. Adi, the Tel Aviv local in our group, cried "it's not our fault!" after the first taste. Perhaps a peppery olive oil would have imparted more flavour. The main dishes were all hits, although here I stopped taking notes on the food and knocked back the wine with gusto. I remember Birgit loved the snapper braised with fennel, leeks and onion, I remember the green Spanish olives with the chicken, the spicy portions and reddish hue of the lamb stew with dates and couscous, and the cheesy comfort food within the red capsicums. The dessert, from Gary Danko's eponymous food palace in San Francisco, was a spongy brick of gingerbread pudding beneath melting cream, alongside a caramelised pear. Bliss.