Iranian Seder in Beverly Hills

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.

Iranian Seder in Beverly Hills - NY Times

The almond cake with cardamom and pistachio sounds divine.

Celebrate Passover Iranian style!

Goat Heaven

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.

Lazy cooks

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.

The rise of lazy foods - BBC Magazine

And thus follows my rant:

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!

Rant over.

Fish farming - the ecological model

Watch this great talk by chef Dan Barber.

From ted.com:

"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."



(thanks M2)

Best news EVER

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!

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi - info



I'm drooling already.

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.

"Dying for a biscuit"

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.

BBC News - Panorama - Orangutan survival and the shopping trolley

You can watch it on iPlayer in the UK as well for the next week:
Panorama: Dying for a Biscuit

Food Harmony

A Carew Pigs Dinner, 22 Feb 2010

A lapsed 'Jew', 'Muslim', and 'Catholic' sit down to a dinner of pork ribs during Lent.

Clearly our religion is food, uniting us in our blasphemy.

"We need a food revolution"

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...

Sausage making - learn all about it!

This looks like fun! Learning how to make Italian sausage. :-)

From the Guardian - A family affair: Italian sausage-making

And you should watch Four Men and a Pig, too. It's the first part of the series. Enjoy!

I hate McDonald's and the Italian govt.

Dig this:
The 'McItaly' Burger Row
Gross!

Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen

Read this series:
http://www.theslowcook.com/2010/01/19/tales-from-a-d-c-school-kitchen/

Comments later if I can get my act together.

Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all (all five of you reading the blog...)! I hope it's a wonderful long weekend full of family, friends, and of course lots of glorious food. Plans here in London are shaping up nicely. The turkey will be ready to be picked up on Saturday morning from the butcher and I've got my menu planned and the shopping list drawn up. Besides the traditional Italian Christmas turkey, we're having an Ottolenghi salad and their delectable broccoli recipe in addition to some cute croquette canapés and a friend's to-die-for 'pumpkin' butternut squash pie. I'll report back! Enjoy your meals everyone!

Anyone eating something exotic? I have a friend whose mother is steaming crab. Wonderfully inspired and gets my thumbs up.

Canapé Chic

First, just so you all can relax, I've found bags of 100g of star anise - for only 60p. You may all breathe a sigh of relief. My saviour? Longdan supermarket, 25 Hackney Road, E2 7NX. I love you guys...

Now, onto the subject of this post. Thanks to a college friend who sent this to me this week with the only text of the email being, "Me want."



And here's the link: Party Accessory: Fingerfood Plates from FRED (www.thekitchn.com)

They're pretty stupid, I have to say. I know the whole drinks and canapés thing is a bit awkward, but having to balance food on my finger would be even worse! Think if you suddenly forgot about your accessory when your conversation got a bit animated (especially for those of us who talk with our hands) and you flung a bacon roll onto some lady's silk dress?

Also, just randomly I found this:
London Gastrowalks

Looks kind of fun.

staring... anise!

OK, who knew that it is impossible to find star anise on the Tottenham High Road?! I mean, WTF? Doesn't anyone appreciate the glorious taste of liquorice? Not even flavouring could be found! I realise that star anise is a Chinese thing, but seriously now... They have nigella seed and sumac coming out their ears in these shops, but no anise!

Good news is that our local, wonderful butcher (as mentioned in the previous post) is now open on Sundays. Now that's just awesome.

Off to cook an entire meal out of the New York Times Jewish Cookbook, a substantial tome of over 800 recipes that I highly recommend.

Turkey

Amusing moment of the day:

I walk into my local butcher shop on Tottenham High Road (a traditional English establishment with wood shavings scattered on the floor, run by three or four men in white coats and pink, plump, smiling, mischievous faces) and the main guy smiles and says, without saying hello, "Isn't it about time to order your turkey for Thanksgiving?" Slightly stunned that he has remembered this for the forth year in a row, I stopped and replied that yes, it was about time. I told him the date of my dinner and he instructed me to come by the week before and it would be fine.

It's nice to know that you can still have these kind of interactions, even in the biggest city in Europe. I know he's just looking for business, but that takes some skill to remember! I guess in my neighborhood of African, Turkish, Eastern European and Roma immigrants, I'm probably the only American in the area. Or at least the only one who wants to buy my turkey unfrozen, free range and from the local butcher. Let's hear it for local shops.

More on my recent trip to the States with some foodie recommendations coming soon.

Wishing I was here...

Could there be anything as desirable as spending a morning at the Santa Monica Farmers Market?
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-sm-farmers-market-pg,0,4438445.photogallery

OK, maybe the Mountain View Farmers Market? :-)



Also, el Día de los Muertos is coming up, so check out this special from the LA Times on yummy things to cook at this time of year. Bring on the pan de muertos!

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-halloween-recipes-pictures,0,7983260.photogallery

Photo from the LA Times by Ricardo DeAratanha

How to cater a Roman orgy

It's been a while, but I miss posting the weird and the wonderful of the press about food. Thanks to a friend for the following.


The Atlantic: How to cater a Roman orgy. By Corky White

Enjoy.

This is kind of cool too:

Tutti fruity

If you're in the UK, check out Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour this week. It's up for a few more days. It's all music based on the theme of fruit!

Thursday 26 March 2009 - Theme Time Radio Hour - BBC Radio 2

A sea of double entendres... Don't squeeze my peaches!

My worst nightmare

A friend had this posted on their gmail:

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

I think I'm not going to sleep well tonight.

It's the cheese

As I sit here contentedly digesting some French cheese I bought in Paris yesterday (Tomme Fermière):

Apparently Bush put a 300% tax on Roquefort imported to the USA?! Repeal, repeal!
Video: French anger at US cheese tax - BBC News Online

More in French food news... Norway wins the Bocuse d'Or, kind of the Olympics of cooking.
Norway Wins Bocuse d'Or Competition - NYTimes.com

I ate at Chez Janou in Paris this weekend (check out the film they made on their site). For the entrée I had Toastades de Saint Nectaire (two generous slices of crusty bread smothered in melted Saint Nectaire cheese, surrounded by a salad) and for a main I had an extremely tender leg of lamb with the biggest heap of mashed potatoes I've ever seen - they also happened to be exquisitely creamy with a bit of garlic. This was surrounded by various red wines. Their crème brulée was not very good - 'like scrambled eggs' was what a few people said - but they also had chocolate mousse on the 'honor system'. You are served a huge bowl enough to serve an army and then are expected to take a reasonable serving for yourself. A round of exotic liqueurs was ordered and sampled and we were then given a smooth melon liqueur on the house. Prices are reasonable, the portions generous, so the next time you're in Paris, check this place out. It's cozy and in the classy 3rd arrondissement.

Other things I consumed in Paris: croque monsieur, the best hot chocolate ever, rucola salad with chicken gizzard, quiche lorraine, croissants, and confit de canard.