Torta Pasqualina - an Easter tradition
"The quintessential spring dish." Stefano Arturi I have now been trawling the net for examples of this Italian - no - Ligurian - Easter dish - a pie filled with cheese and greens and eggs. I now have a large number of examples and a few things to say about it but didn't know which example to use as my header picture - so in the end I decided to go for the very first one I looked at from a website called Marcella in Cucina - after all, she's Italian and it looks pretty goo
4 days ago
Deliciously bland?
"you need to be proper greedy to do leftovers well." Jay Rayner I know this photograph of yesterday's soup - now cold, contrived from the leftovers in my fridge, doesn't look that appetising, but David said I should write the recipe down because it was so delicious. He almost sort of went 'wow' when he took his first sip which was flattering - and honestly I'm not at all sure it was that good. Good, comforting, surprisingly tasty. But also unrepeatable, because of the way
Apr 7
A post mortem of sorts
"Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so." Douglas Adams As usual I forgot to take any pictures of yesterday's lunch, and no that is not our debris, but I just wanted something to show that lunch was a success and this picture inside the back cover of Ixta Belfrage's book Meczla sort of says it all really. A good time was had by all. So I thought that for once I would give a rundown of the various dishes I had chosen - and written about in my previous post - and how they
Apr 4
From pirates to tax haven - the Caymans
"There are twice as many companies as people." Jacques Peretti/The Guardian The Caymans are mere specs in the ocean - the tips of an undersea mountain range between Honduras and Cuba - the large piece of land to the north on this map. The smaller chunk of land at the bottom of the map is Jamaica, to which it once belonged as part of the great British Empire. In fact it still is part of the British Empire - if you can call it that these days. It's now an independent Britis
Mar 30
Does disappointment trump joy?
"I see no point in putting pen to paper to preserve anything negative, sad or painful." Nigel Slater Well so says Nigel. To be fair he did go on to say that there was more than enough misery around, and probably in his life too. I doubt there is anyone happy all the time. He was simply saying he did not want to write about the bad things. The things that go wrong. However, I want to consider this in writing after my Sunday birthday party which was overall a joyous experi
Mar 24
Today
"it's those black clouds that make the blue skies even more beautiful." Kelly Clarkson In the spirit of yesterday's post about tiny moments of joy herewith a photograph. I was actually out in the garden trying to find something to match the above quote - it is now a blue sky day - when I saw this flower. I took the photograph not just because of its innate beauty, but because it is a small miracle attached to two tiny stories. First story - shortly after we moved into this
Mar 21
Marmalade and cake
"In my book, a cake stands or falls by how moist it is. Dry cake is fit only for trifle." Nigel Slater I don't really know why I'm writing about marmalade cake. Our marmalade stocks are low, so I don't think I shall be wasting it on cake - well David would see it as wasting. Or bread and butter pudding, mousse, soufflé, tart - or indeed any other dessert that involves marmalade. But this particular version - Breton butter cake with marmalade from Helen Goh in The Guardia
Mar 19
A smörgåsbord
"away from its homeland, smorgasbord is, all too often, an excuse for offering everybody a little of everything - or, for that matter, anything." Dale Brown/The Cooking of Scandinavia I chose that title as a suitable heading for an oddments piece, but got a bit diverted on what a smörgåsbord actually is - I almost turned it into a post about all to itself, but have now decided to revert to the odds and ends concept - or as Dale Brown puts it - "a little of everything - or, f
Mar 18
Provençal garlic soup
"[one of the] most delicious meals ... eaten by the poorest people in the world." Jamie Oliver And then turned into food for the rich: "Soups made with chick-pea water or chestnut water, or even garlic and sage water, are found in country kitchens today, or are translated into glamorous clear consommés complete with saffron or rose petals in the leading hotels of the region." Robert Carrier This is my lucky dip of the moment. Garlic soup in Robert Carrier's wonderful ode
Mar 17
Bibimbap - Korean leftovers
"The term comfort food doesn't quite suffice; therapy food is more like it, which makes sense, given that the notion of food as medicine is a fundamental one in Korean cooking." National Geographic I was flicking through my Ideas pages and came across Bibimbap, as originally mentioned in a Melbourne Food and Wine Festival review of a restaurant - Moon Mart - and decided to go ahead with this topic, because it had cropped up here and there recently. In fact it cropped up so
Mar 15
Demon dishes - mine is pizza
"Raise your hand if you never get pizza right when you make it at home" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen Those words began one of Deb Perelman's recipes on her website Smitten Kitchen - a recipe for Lazy pizza dough and favourite Margherita pizza . She had me hooked right there, because that's me. On the left is her finished Margherita for that post, above is a world-beating pizza from Anatica Pizzeria Port'Alba in Naples, so I don't think many of us are going to taste that
Mar 8
Nettle soup
"springtime in a bowl" I think I'm going to steam through my little collection of River Cottage handbooks, because a lot of what they present is pretty useless to us here in Australia, so it will give me a chance to see if these are some books that I should weed - yes weed - because it could be said that the whole collection is about weeds and the associated philosopy of foraging and making do. Today it's the turn of the beautiful British hedgerows as depicted here in the op
Mar 7
Fish finger sandwiches
"the UK equivalent of Mexican fish tacos or West African fish rolls" Felicity Cloake/The Guardian Although this particular post began with Rick Stein - possibly the British king of fish - at least in a commercial way - I'm beginning with Jamie Oliver, who has said of the fish finger sandwich - a peculiarly British institution: "As a chef I always feel I shouldn't be eating something like a fish finger buttie – but you know what, I think that makes it taste even better." T
Mar 3
Quiet satisfaction
"Cooking at home, you don't need to hit the bull's-eye, you just need to hit the target." David Chang This is last night's dinner. We thought it looked impressive enough to photograph and also because it illustrated for me some of what I was saying in yesterday's post - and elsewhere in the past - about how important it seems to be that things look good. In every aspect of life really - beginning with ourselves, and leading to just about every choice we make in life. We a
Feb 16
A quickie about a specific omelette
"the salty sharpness contrasts exquisitely with the rich fattiness of the eggs; against which too, the fresh hit of mint is positively exhilarating." Nigella Lawson Nigella is talking about what she (and lots of others) call a Corsican omelette - or Frittata incu a menta (e brocciu), as it's called in Corsica. Of course like those of us who live nowhere near Corsica, or even France and can therefore not obtain brocciu cheese, we will not be able to make the dish in an auth
Feb 14
Corn ribs
"The possibilities are endless" This post actually comes from my poor memory forgetting a postscript that I meant to add to yesterday's post. It was a postscript, because it was about vadouvan - that I wrote about a few days ago. The January Coles Magazine had a recipe for the above dish from Curtis Stone - Corn ribs with Vadouvan-spice butter and coriander chutney - in fact it had been my original inspiration for writing about vadouvan, but I failed to mention it I think
Feb 12
Arty brioche
"Rather a piece of bread with a happy heart than wealth with grief." - Egyptian proverb So it's the Met's first day of the week - Sunday - and facing my new week of happenings - actually a few this week - is a detail - the brioche, the flower and the peaches - from this painting - La Brioche - as painted by Edouard Manet in 1870 and now hanging on the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Well it's food, so I ought to be able to write something about it. Firs
Feb 8
Robert, Tessa or Rachel?
or maybe Elizabeth or Richard? What do they all have in common? Provence. Well every now and then not always. What do they not have in common? The years in between them all. The times. Why am I featuring them? Well this is another account of another potential meal, and how I decided on what to cook. On Friday we are entertaining friends for lunch together with my sister and her husband. Maybe, at least for some of the time my niece who is driving her mother to and fro
Feb 4
Koofteh berenji - Persian meatballs
Number 46 in the 80 meatballs from around the world are Koofteh berenji - as made here by Bunny Banyai. I made them last night for the family - we were welcoming back the European travellers - and of course I forgot to take photographs of mine. I was just glad to get it all ready for people to dive in, after working most of the day in the kitchen, so I forgot. I mostly enjoyed the day in the kitchen by the way. However, I was mildly disappointed with them, even though eve
Feb 2
Chicken Kiev - or Kyiv, or something else altogether?
"the only thing that really matters with a kiev is that when you cut into that crisp shell, you're rewarded with an eruption of vivid green, garlicky butter. And that's a pleasure that will never go out of fashion." Felicity Cloake Only beware, because if you cut into it too rapidly that hot butter could spurt out and all over anything that is nearby - the tablecloth, your clothes, your fingers. And it will be hot. The trick is to get it to ooze - as shown here in Nagi Mae
Jan 29