Yeehaw! Pizza throwing!

I want to learn how to throw pizzas like these guys:

American Pizza Chefs Study with the Master - NPR

Can I go try, too? Who needs graduate school when you can get a degree in Classical Italian Pizza?!

And an excerpt explaining why I, too, take the seeds out of tomatoes when making sauce:
"[I] deseeded all my San Marzano tomatoes, took all the seeds out," said Gemignani. "Lot of guys didn't do that, the seeds are bitter. People might say, 'Why's he doing that? Yield isn't good in the sauce if you take out all the seeds.' It was the best pizza I've ever made." - Tony Gemignani

In the news: TV Nuns, Organic Farms and Rosh Hashanah

How's that for a mixed bag of news goodies?  I think I enjoy scavenging for good food news almost as much as cooking, so here are some morsels from the past week.

TV nuns show how to cook by the good book - Giles Tremlett (The Guardian)
Cloistered nuns, Sister Liliana and Sister Beatriz of the Concepcionistas Franciscanas in Segovia have their own show on Spanish cable TV called Bocaditos de cielo (little mouthfuls of heaven). They specialize in recipes (mostly sweets) that have been handed down over the generations in the convent. Sounds fabulous and if anyone knows how to watch this online - let me know! [By the way, the guy who wrote the article, Giles Tremlett, is a great writer. I highly recommend his book called Ghosts of Spain: Travels through a country's hidden past.]

Organic farm blossoms in Kenya's largest slum - Xan Rice (The Guardian)
A garbage dump is turned into a prospering organic garden.

Rosh Hashana Recipes - The New York Times online
The Jewish New Year celebrations start 29 Sept! Celebrate with some maykholim (delicious) recipes courtesy of the NY Times. These go beyond kugel to Moroccan beet salad and other exotic, seasonal fare.

UPDATE 11.30pm:  We ate the Moroccan beet salad tonight as per the NY Times recipe and it's really good.  That is, if you like beets.   

China toxin scandal moves to liquid milk - The Guardian
An update on the horrifying milk scandal.

Tainted Milk

This latest Chinese milk scandal makes me sick.

Worried Parents in China Wait for Answers on Tainted Formula - NY Times

An excerpt:

Melamine, the contaminant, is used to make plastics and fertilizers but banned from food production. In the past, it has sometimes been illicitly blended into agricultural products as a cheap way to raise protein levels.

Milk producers sometimes inflate their supplies by adding water. But the diluted milk has lower nutrient levels, so melamine, high in nitrogen, is then added to restore those levels artificially to meet protein requirements. Infants who drink the formula for sustained periods can develop kidney stones and suffer kidney failure.

Hong Kong Recalls Dairy Products - BBC News

Tetilla: a buxom cheese

That caught your attention, didn’t it? 

Traveling back to Spain and its culinary wonders, today I’m going to talk about tetilla cheese. It’s called that because it’s shaped like a breast. It’s a Galician specialty, made from cow’s milk and is smooth and creamy. I don’t know how easy it is to find outside Spain, but it’s worth hunting down when you are there. It’s readily available in any supermarket, unwrapped and sitting on refrigerated shelves. Tetilla can also be known as perilla (because it could also be a ‘pear’ shape).

Here is a website on cheeses in Spain with more detailed descriptions of tetilla: Cheese from Spain

In Santiago de Compostela, tetilla is proudly displayed in food shop and restaurant windows in the old part of the city. Each window tries to lure you in with their decadent displays of octopus, cakes (tarta de Santiago) or tanks of live lobster. Below are some photos.

Octopus, clams, razor clams, scallops, tetilla, pimientos del Padrón...

Lobsters!  Bogavantes and langostas, to be specific.

Al Dente

Copyright © supinfocom 2007

A friend sent me a link to this sweet animated short film about an evil Italian chef who makes ravioli out of little children. This is to keep you amused while you wait for more stories from Spain.

Al Dente - short movie

My morning window

Though it's a bit off topic for my blog, a friend of mine sent me a meme and passed it on to me: publish a picture of what you see through your window when you wake up. I don't read enough blogs by people I know to pass it on again, but this is my typical morning window. A grey day in London - fancy that! In the mornings I look out to see what sorts of wildlife I can find. Usually it's cats, but once there was a fox (see photo below). The dark curtains are for keeping summer morning light (which starts at 4am) out. They are material for making saris. I got them in Vancouver several years ago and they used to hang on my wall in university. Now they are bleached by the sun on one side (the rooms faces south), but I like them, so they are here to stay. Outside the window is a view of the many gardens our neighbors keep. Typical London. Overgrown and wild. The elderberries are just past peek and we're trying to salvage tomatoes, but mostly it's a losing battle because we can't mow the lawn - it rains almost every day.

Cider (Sidra)

I’m just back from a cycling tour in the regions of Asturias and Galicia and plan to devote a few posts to my culinary experiences. First, a drink.

In Asturias, where we were only for about a day and a half, I had the feeling they were really into their cider – hard cider (5-8% alcohol), know as natural cider (sidra natural). We spent our first night in a fishing village called Cudillero and the streets reeked of cider. I think the fact that they’d just had a fiesta didn’t help matters, but the peculiar way of pouring the cider was the main culprit.

When we ordered our cider, what made its way to the table was quite a large, green bottle, but only one glass. The reason for this, we were told, was that you have to share the glass, and the bottle. We weren’t allowed to pour it either. Only one waitress knew how to do that – see photo. This takes away some of the natural bitterness of the cider and gives it a bit of air (it tends to be a bit flat). The ‘shot’ they give you to drink in one or two gulps is called a culín (little butt). Each person gets a quick drink and then you have to wait until they come back to give you another.



It’s a messy process, though our waitress was pretty good. Inevitably some gets on the ground, hence the smell of cider everywhere. Once we were thirsty and just poured a bit for ourselves. When the waitress saw, she came over, shocked, dumped it out onto the ground (we were outdoors) and poured it properly for us.

In the Basque country (especially somewhere like San Sebastián) they have similar cider. In bars it is shot out of a barrel of some sort and the cider has to be caught in the glass. The Spanish Pig (who was my traveling companion) recently went to an event at a sidrería in Navarra. They also had cider shot into the glass, but this time straight from the barrels used to preserve it (photo).



According to my guide to Asturian gastronomy (produced by the Principality itself), the Asturian cider is made from three different types of apples combined – sour, bitter and sweet. It’s quite dry and has a wonderful, almost smoky taste and should be golden in colour and can be a bit cloudy.

This site looks interesting if you’re hunting down real cider and they have a special link for Spain: http://ukcider.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page