Home chefs take 'Valley Fresh Fare' spotlight

May's "Valley Fresh Fare" brings a departure from the usual format. Not in the KYVE program's focus on locally grown ingredients, but in the two guest chefs. Instead of proprietors or chefs from local restaurants, Jan Mendenhall and Kay Carbery are each known for entertaining and feeding family and guests with flair.

The episode premieres at 7 p.m. Monday on KYVE-TV 47. It will repeat at 7 p.m. May 9.

Veteran restaurateur Gayla Games hosts the show.

Mendenhall says, "You hear folks talk about their 'happy place,' mine is cooking in my kitchen for family and friends."

After sharing world-class meals with college housemates from Japan, France, Sweden, Norway and Longview, who cooked from their heritage, she says she decided to up her game of "Chicken of the Sea Over Romaine With Watered Down Italian." She began her love of reading cookbooks at bedtime and becoming an "adventurous eater."

Mendenhall says she's found that Yakima, "with its wondrous bounty of fresh foods and the blossoming locavore movement, is the ideal spot to hone culinary talent."

Carbery says her interest in cooking was kindled by her mother and learning about the "process and possibilities" while watching her prepare meals each night.

Families when she was growing up didn't eat out and didn't have fresh produce available year round, she says. Her mother, who studied to be a dietitian, made sure "what we could afford was balanced and healthy, and included a wide of foods," Carbery says.

A college foods class that stressed the chemistry of cooking taught her basic lessons she still uses today, she says. And she participated in cooking schools and classes in Seattle, California and Paris.

They will be preparing Cassoulet and the following recipe:

Apple, Pear
or Potato Galette

(2 large galettes,
serving 10 to 12)

2 sticks butter, frozen

3 cups flour

3/4 cup cold water

5 apples (or pears, or maybe 3 potatoes)

1/3 cup sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon (for apple)

1/4 to 1/3 cup turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)

4 tablespoons butter, melted

4 tablespoons apricot jam

1 to 2 tablespoons cognac or brandy

1. Grate frozen butter into flour (or cut butter into pieces and pulse with flour in a food processor). Stir and add water all at once. Stir with fork to form a ball. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Take 1/2 of dough and roll directly onto silicon baking sheet and place on cookie sheet.

2. Peel, core and slice apples 1/16- to 1/4-inch thick. Chop ends and scatter over dough; sprinkle with about 1/2 of the turbinado sugar. Then make concentric circles with slices. Sprinkle generously with the sugar/cinnamon mixture and drizzle with the melted butter. Bake 65 to 75 minutes at 425 degrees F in top part of the oven.

3. Heat apricot jam and thin with cognac or a little water. Remove galette from oven and brush with apricot jam mixture.