Happy holidays everyone! This is probably my last post for at least a month because foodie holiday travel awaits. I'll be sure to report back in January.
It's freezing in London and we're waiting for a blizzard, so I thought I would post something cheery. Many of you are probably making holiday cookies (or will be soon), so the following from the New York Times is sure to delight. It's always great to play with food:
image: Christoph Niemann
Let it dough! - food art fun from artist Christoph Niemann's blog on nytimes.com
As a lover of After Eights, those totally addicting thin mints covered in chocolate, I was a disappointed to see the news that Nestlé, which produces After Eights, is set to close down their After Eights factory in Castleford, West Yorkshire, UK, after 40 years. Over 200 could lose their jobs if the After Eights factory closes. This comes as an additional blow to the chocolate production industry in the UK, which already was hit earlier this year when Kraft bought Cadbury's and shut down one of its plants in Bristol.
Here are a couple of food-related news items to get you going on a winter Monday.
First up is food fashion. Before Lady Gaga's meat dress, photographer Ted Sabarese directed a food-based fashion shoot. The artichoke dress is stunning. Check it out here:
Second is the great Pavlova debate: did Australia or New Zealand make the first pavlova cake? It was named after the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, when she visited the two countries in the 1920s. Seems like the debate is still open, but New Zealand seems to have won with the OED. Read the article here:
OK, I forgot the cranberry sauce. I know, I know. Pathetic. I even told people I had made it from scratch and then just completely forgot! I blame the pomegranate martinis.
Yes, Thanksgiving was a smashing success. I cooked a fruit-themed seasonal winter meal for 11 and they pretty much licked the plates.
Le Menu
Pomegranate Martinis made from freshly crushed pomegranate juice from Iranian pomegranates bought in west London. The colour was spectacular. Far better than the Turkish ones on sale and huge.
Stewed quince and dolcelatte salad from the new Ottolenghi cookbook, Plenty. It's a superb salad and I highly recommend it if you want to impress guests. So simple and tasty - an totally in season.
Italian Christmas Turkey from a recipe that my family uses every year. It's out of the excellent cookbook, Italian Cooking in the Grand Tradition. The stuffing features chestnuts, walnuts, fruit and sausage.
Brussels sprouts with pomegranate and basil. This is a recipe from an Ottolenghi holiday special in the Saturday Guardian magazine about two years ago. One of my guests proclaimed that brussels sprouts had never tasted so good - and she's a picky eater. It's got a maple syrup, pomegranate molasses and lemon rind dressing. The key is to cook the brussels sprouts at very high heat - braised. The only aspect of these that is out of season is the fresh basil.
Roasted mixed root vegetables including carrots, sweet potato, purple potato, normal potato, and parsnips with garlic, olive oil and rosemary.
Cranberry sauce (but I forgot to serve it)
Torta di noci, a flourless Italian walnut cake.
Butternut squash 'pumpkin' pie, made from scratch and so delicious.
Hot, spiced apple cider with ginger, cinnamon and cloves.
If you're cooking Thanksgiving or just want to get shakin' to some foodie tunes, you must listen to the Songs for Stuffing playlist from National Public Radio.
Yesterday was Julia Child Day at Smith College, now a college tradition started which started six years ago following her death in 2004. Julia Child graduated from Smith in 1934 and went on to be a legend. She donated her kitchen to Smith, too! [See the press release from Smith here] As a fellow Smithie, I'd like to pay a small tribute here. I think her amazing, crazy, confident videos speak best! A friend of mine posted the following omelette making video and I'm still laughing. "Lightly coagulated eggs!" Et voilá! I especially like the bit at 2:11. As Julia said herself, "Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it." Word. Enjoy. I love her...
Chocoholics beware - you could be paying a lot more for chocolate in the future.
Even if you're not addicted, we should all be aware that disease, demand, and unfair trade policies are putting huge pressure on the cocoa market. As stocks fall and demand rises, it's pushing prices up and up. Disease has killed crops in major growing regions and farmers who are not making enough money because of unfair compensation are closing shop and heading to the cities. All the more reason to be moderate in consumption and purchase fair trade chocolate. Support those local growers!
In my effort to be a better food blogger, I've got what's on the menu for tonight! The meal I've created is all about simplicity. (Sorry, posted a day late!)
Menu 16 Nov 2010
Potato and leek soup
Pasta with gorgonzola sauce
To make the soup, you roughly chop equal parts leek and potatoes. Tonight I used two huge leeks and about six medium to small potatoes. Throw the leeks into a heavy-bottomed pot with a tiny bit of roughly chopped onion and plenty of olive oil and a bit of butter. Cook on low with the top on the pot until the vegetables are soft. Then add the chopped potatoes and mix. Add enough water to cover the veggies and add vegetable stock cubes (1 for every 500 ml of water). If you're cool and have homemade vegetable stock ready, use that! Bring to a boil on high and then reduce to a simmer. Stir occasionally so it doesn't burn. Cook until the potatoes are very soft and crumble to the touch. Add freshly ground black pepper and blend with a stick blender until a smooth purée. If it's too thick, add a little water.
For the pasta, take 1 cup double cream and just over a cup of crumbled gorgonzola cheese (I used dolcelatte tonight) and heat them together in a non-stick pan. Stir until the cheese basically dissolves. Add a generous amount of pepper and turn off the heat. Cook the pasta in salty water until just 'al dente'. Mix sauce and pasta and devour with a good amount of grated parmesan on top.
Beautiful blog find: Cannelle et Vanille by Aran Goyoaga http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com/
I was just going through my Flickr page and saw that there was a feature on photos of citrus fruits. One photo stood out and it was by Aran Goyoaga, who is a Basque ex-pat living in the USA, pastry chef by training. I quickly went to her Flickr page and then her blog. The photos are just stunning and the recipes look tasty and wholesome. I don't post them here because I'm respecting her copyright and haven't had time to ask for permission to use her images, but do check her work out. You'll be drawn in by her superb artistry.
It's a week late, but I think next year a trip to Southall during Diwali is in order. A short little spot from The Guardian:
Southall celebrates Diwali: Navdeep Singh Kandola visits Southall to see how the west London borough's Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities celebrate the 'festival of light'.
Happy belated Diwali! Hrm... I have a sudden hankering for Indian sweets.
The first is about urban farming in New Orleans and local people's efforts to use the city's empty lots for farming rather than letting them fester. The amount of empty lots apparently tripled after Katrina - pretty shocking - but featured in this article are the stories of five farms working in the heart of the city. Great community projects and so inspiring. I just wish all of the allotments in London would have their own weekend farm stands where we could buy excess produce, of which there is plenty. I'd only have to walk five minutes to indulge!
It's rapidly approaching my most favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, and the Atlantic has a great feature on creative pumpkin recipes, including a pumpkin, leek, walnut, and cheese tart (sounds divine!). I may not use them for my Thanksgiving meal, but I will surely give some of them a try on another occasion. Now is the time of year to be eating all of those wonderful squash!
According to the Ottolenghi website, they're up to something....
"We know that we’ll be serving food around the clock in sharing size portions, that the flavours will be bold, that the environment will offer solid comfort. We also know that we won’t be selling food to go as we do in Ottolenghi and that we’ll be opening early in 2011."
A new restaurant with a new concept and a new name? Intriguing.
If you're one of those people who loves the products sold at London's Borough Market, but can't stand the crowds, there are two options.
1. Don't go on Saturdays.
2. Maltby St Market!
My mom, who is more up-to-date on all things London than I am (she's back in California, but reads the Financial Times), sent me this nice little article on the new Maltby St Market near Tower Bridge. It's not really a full-blown market, but it's where the purveyors of many of Borough's finest products have their shops and warehouses. These include Monmouth Coffee (best coffee in London as far as I'm concerned), and Neal's Yard Dairy, but also a lot of other wonderful companies I'd never heard of. Definitely worth checking out, I think, if you're a local like me who is sick of the tourists gawking and pushing around in Borough.
Alright. That's enough. I've put off the blogging for too long now. I'm going to try again! Thanks to those who have been commenting. Stay tuned for further posts!
Not that I'm in favor of women getting up at 4am to fix food for their family, but this mom goes to amazing lengths to entice her picky kid to eat healthy food. Cool photos of her food creature creations:
The 2010 "Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris" has been won by Djibril Bodian, 33, who beat 160 other professional contestants at the tasting. Sure, it's ruffled a few traditionalist feathers, but he's French, too, so well done! Now he gets to supply Sarkozy for the year.
Video from the BBC: click here Blog entry with more info from livingfrench.net: click here
You can try these award-winning baguettes for yourself at Le Grenier à Pain Abbesses, found at 38 Rue des Abbesses, 75018 Paris, France in the wonderful neighborhood of Montmartre.
Because air freight is at a standstill in the UK (and elsewhere in Europe I presume), lots of food is just sitting in warehouses, rotting. I want some of that salmon that is about to rot! Distribute to the poor! Sell on the market for cheap! And in Africa they could do the same.
Here's the video update from the BBC - click here.
Apparently there has been a massive typo made in a recently published cookbook...
"An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed "salt and freshly ground black people" instead of black pepper."
"They all worked fast, as the job demands, but Mr. Colson, the manager, said with some amazement, as he looked over the daily report, that two of the women, Lulu Orozco and Alma Rodriguez had packed 5,228 cans in 195 minutes, a dizzying rate. It was an extraordinary display of dexterity and focus, if not a little sardine showmanship at the end of the line."
Read this delicious article about Iranian/Jewish cuisine at Passover! There are some related recipes as well... Now I understand why the kosher shops in LA also sell Iranian food products.
As I sit here on a rather wet, London day, I wish I were in California with my mom and uncle who are lucky enough to be heading out to Harley Farms this morning to hug baby goats!
If you haven't been, it's worth the trip over to the sleepy coastal village of Pescadero. Harley Farms is on the edge of town and supports quite a herd of goats who dutifully line up each evening to be milked. Their milk is made into delicious, award-winning goat cheese which is available for purchase. At this time of year, the farm is overrun with newborn goats. Apparently they are expecting over 200 this year and the current count is at 173. You have to book to go see them, but what could be better than spending time with rambunctious kids? Sadly, Bart, the goats' 'guard llama' recently passed on.
The cheese is SO good at Harley Farms. You can sample them at the farm shop and read more about them here: http://www.harleyfarms.com/cheese.php My favorite is probably the cranberry-walnut cheese, but the ones with edible flowers are beautiful. They're all really tasty!
When you're weary of goats (how could you be, but I suppose everyone gets a bit of fresh-air poisoning), head down to Duarte's Tavern (pronounced "doo-arts") and have some of their world-famous artichoke soup and olallieberry pie! It's and old-style diner that's been around since 1894. I absolutely love their crab melt in the winter, but try out seasonal salads with locally sourced ingredients, too.
Finally, have a stroll around and visit the little shops and my favorite, Arcangeli's, which is stocked with cured olives, local jam, sauces, Harley Farms cheese and their own, wonderful variety of Italian-style breads. Delicious!
Watch this nice little video on Arcangeli's:
I usually come home from Pescadero very happy and incredibly full! On a nice day, head down to the local beach and digest as you watch the sun set into the Pacific Ocean. It's only an hour's drive from Silicon Valley - perfect for a day out.
Here's a slightly horrifying, but not unexpected article from the BBC Magazine regarding the rise in sales of pre-peeled and pre-chopped vegetables and fruit. There are some good comments at the end from readers.
I find it pretty ridiculous that people want to buy a peeled potato or a chopped carrot. You can perfectly easily eat those foods without peeling them, just by scrubbing them well and chopping them up, which takes no time at all. The peeling doesn't take long, either, if that's what you prefer. I think it's a sign of a really sick society when people can't even find the time to cook meals from scratch anymore. Why not gather up the family and make everyone chop something? It cuts the time and you still get to spend time with the family, right? Plus, you educate everyone about the work and rewards of cooking your own meal. I also don't understand this excuse of young professionals who have no time to cook. It takes a remarkably short time to prepare a nutritious, interesting meal. Why not cook up a batch of something that will last a whole week?
In addition, buying all this pre-packed stuff means more rubbish in the dump - plastic, plastic, plastic, petroleum, petroleum, petroleum. In the outdoor markets here in the UK, many of the vendors still force plastic bags on you. What is the problem?Why is it weird that some of us don't want to have any more plastic bags in the house? Education of the public is seriously failing, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
The more we distance ourselves from the tradition of cooking, the more people will be afraid of raw ingredients and society will continue down the ever more slippery slope of obesity. And we'll just keep adding to our overflowing landfills. Come on people! Try harder!
"Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love, and the foodie's honeymoon he's enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain."
There is a NEW Ottolenghi cookbook coming out on 5 May 2010!! This is the most exciting news since Ottolenghi cookbook 1. The recipes will be all vegetarian and based on Yotam Ottolenghi's column in The Guardian on Saturdays. You can pre-order with a 30% discount and get signed copies in their shops. I want one now!
If you live in the UK and haven't been to one of their restaurants, you MUST make the pilgrimage. Their sort of Mediterranean fusion cooking defies all stereotypes and will titillate your taste buds in ways you didn't know were possible. Culinary creativity to the max. These guys LOVE taste.
Read this horrifying exposé on palm oil and how it's killing orangutans by destroying rain forest. I've noticed palm oil listed on some products in the UK, including a lot of peanut butter (why the heck would you want another oil in peanut butter when it has its own natural oil?!), but I didn't know that they aren't required to list it as such. It can just be 'vegetable oil'. Apparently some companies like Sainsbury's are making an effort to highlight it on their own products and declare that it's sourced from sustainable sources, but it looks like we consumers could do more to make ourselves aware of what we buy.
As annoying as Jamie Oliver can be, he's got it right on here.
"I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."
Why we should know how to cook our own food... God...
A food-obsessed Californian living in London. I love fresh fruit and veg (preferably what's in season) meals cooked from scratch, food news and good company at a dinner party. Processed foods and hydrogenated oils make me nervous. **Please note that the contents of this site are copyright of Marina Vidor. Please don't copy my stuff for profit and always be good and credit!**
Read this horrifying exposé on palm oil and how it's killing orangutans by destroying rain forest. I've noticed palm oil listed on some products in the UK, including a lot of peanut butter (why the heck would you want another oil in peanut butter when it has its own natural oil?!), but I didn't know that they aren't required to list it as such. It can just be 'vegetable oil'. Apparently some companies like Sainsbury's are making an effort to highlight it on their own products and declare that it's sourced from sustainable sources, but it looks like we consumers could do more to make ourselves aware of what we buy.
