Tomatoes, olive oil, oven
"Remember, there is no such thing as “past their prime” tomatoes, only tomatoes looking forward to getting absolutely roasted." Alison Roman I'm getting close to finalising my menu for Monday's lunch which doesn't need to be summery - even though we are well on the way to summer. Not Monday however, it's going to be wet and cold - well cool for us Australians. I currently think I am going to make this dish as my starter which is constructed from Alison Roman's Perfect oil-r
2 days ago
Sussex Smokies
My sister lives in Sussex, and the other day she, her daughter and grandson went into Winnie-the-Pooh country for a walk, with lunch in a gastro pub nearby - I think the The Gallipot Inn - where they ate a Sussex smokie for lunch. This is what she is talking about - it's from a Trip Advisor photo of the actual one. It can be eaten as a starter or a main dish. I suspect this is is the starter version. Anyway I was intrigued. Before too long I was deep into the world of Sus
3 days ago
The stages of lunch with friends at home
"Having friends over is a performance of sorts." Diana Henry I've sort of realised that my current writer's block crisis is because we are having friends around for lunch on Monday and I am in about stage three of preparing for it. It is taking up most of my brain, along with other background worries like finding the time to read my book group books which are also coming up soon. Trivial worries of the time and money rich really. Nevertheless maybe I can cobble something
4 days ago
Fresh thoughts, sformato and beige food
"so much cooking is simply repetitive behaviour seasoned with fresh thoughts." Rachel Roddy 'Fresh thoughts' I'm not sure that these exist, except in the brains of those handful of geniuses scattered throughout history. The rest of us just have the same thoughts recycled over and over again. 'Repetititve behaviour' if ever there was any. It's one of those non days - nothing happening except a trip to the dentist for a checkup and clean - not a joyful thing - and nondescri
5 days ago
Pasta cakes
"peak What I Want In A Recipe" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen I'm trying to clear my email inbox a bit. Some of the emails in there are newsletters from various foodie sources, so today I checked the oldest of these, a newsletter from Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen which celebrated 20 years of writing her blog by posting 20 of what she considered to be the 20 most iconic recipes - the 'peak What I Want in a Recipe' thing that I have quoted above. There are some pretty good
6 days ago
Hainan chicken - so much more than I thought
classics, celebrity chefs, cultural appropriation, tourism, fusion cuisines ... So much more to say than I thought there would be that I don't really know where to begin. Maybe at the starting point - a lucky dip that David chose - Charmaine Solomon's Family Recipes, which is a book of cultural fusion in itself. However, I opened it at a recipe for Hainan chicken rice, which she describes as "the most useful Asian recipe I know". Stirring words and it was opposite a gorgeo
Oct 26
So simple but so cheffy
I almost gave up on writing a post today. I dabbled with a couple of ideas, but could summon up no enthusiasm. It's the sort of day on which it's difficult to be enthusiastic about anything. Just too much rain to go for a walk and so therefore a mild feeling of disappointment with myself for not being braver. After all, how hard is it to hold an umbrella over your head if the almost mist turns to almost rain? So I decided to just chill out with a game of sudoku, but befor
Oct 24
What can I say about parsley and garlic?
"Such an Italian flavour" Giorgio Locatelli "Parsley loves garlic, and their marriage rarely fails to be a happy one." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall/The Guardian I'm very slowly working my way through this book - another Op shop find and gift from my friend Monika. It will take me a while as there are a whole lot of mini, and not so mini essays scattered throughout the book about Locatelli's life, and also about ingredients. One of the earliest of the ingredient ones was ab
Oct 23
Too easy - that book
"It's a noisy world out there, and simple cooking is our solution." Yotam Ottolenghi The quote is both on the back of the book and begins the Introduction - the latest Ottolenghi and co blockbuster book. It's probably sold millions. And I rushed to buy it too, although I think I took the time to order it from Amazon because it was cheaper. And before you are outraged at my use of Amazon - yes I felt very guilty. Apologies to my favourite bookshops. It's actually a co-aut
Oct 20
So - Robert Carrier classics
"He made making food seem a joyful art." Dennis Barker/The Guardian In our family some of our very favourite recipes are courtesy of Robert Carrier. Possibly the collage of photographs on the left that I took for a kind of cookbook I produced of our COVID cooking classes, really demonstrates the joy that Carrier often talked about. My grandchildren are making Robert Carrier's spaghetti and meatballs from The Robert Carrier Cookbook shown here in 60s style in my copy of the
Oct 19
So much from one plate of food
Somewhere or other I had a quote about there being a whole world on a plate of food. But I have lost it. Mostly this kind of quote -and I have seen this kind of sentiment in several places, refers to the history of the dish itself, and its ingredients. What I am looking at today is rather more personal but it has indeed been a ramble. As I have intimated in the last few posts I'm working in my head towards a post on Robert Carrier classics but then the night before last I
Oct 18
Tiny satisfaction, tiny problem(s)
"a source of joy" Nigel Slater I said I would report back on the ricotta experiment so here I go. I have to say I am pretty satisfied. This is the finished result with the milky residue below. And it was so, so easy. I used Anna Jones recipe for Home-made ricotta in The Guardian. Literally all you have to do is heat up some milk with a tiny bit of salt, take it off the heat, add a precise amount of white vinegar, stir until the curds form, leave for a couple of hours, a
Oct 16
Chbab rubyan and friends
"It's a labour of love for sure" Noor Murad It's lucky dip time, and the book chosen by David was Norr Murad's wonderful book Lugma. Honestly you could cook almost anything in this book and it would be delicious. Alas I won't be cooking this dish (a) because it's prawns and (b) because it's a time consuming dish. And possibly I should include that it has dried limes as one ingredient and so far I have not found a source for them. So, once again, I almost thought I would
Oct 15
Bruschetta first
"How could something so basic be so good?" Nigel Slater First in so many ways - a first recipe, a first dish in an Italian meal, and possibly one of the first foods eaten around the Mediterranean, at least when the skills of making bread and olive oil had been learnt. For, as you probably all know, bruschetta does not involve tomatoes. Tomatoes did not come to the Mediterranean until the 14th/15th centuries and even then were not used for a while. I know I have written abou
Oct 13
A massive bunch of silver beet
"They encourage you to stretch boundaries, take a few chances , and be a bit left-field with your combinations and seasonings." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Yesterday we went on an excursion with our friends into the Dandenongs hinterlands, finishing up in their house, where the lovely Monika handed me a massive bag of goodies from her superproductive veggie garden. Flowers too on this occasion. The star was this massive bunch of silverbeet - it's just one plant - she had s
Oct 9
Pickings
"something that is picked or picked up: such as gleanable or eatable fragments - Merriam-Webster Dicitionary "something, especially money, that can be obtained from a particular situation in an easy or a dishonest way" Oxford Learners Dictionary Odd that the Americans and the British seem to have a different meaning for pickings. Of course once you start adding descriptors to 'pickings' you narrow down the meanings somewhat - slim pickings, rich pickings, easy pickings, gri
Oct 5
Smashed
“ugly delicious” food is preferable to anything too neat." Julie Lin (chef) It's a trend. A recent one I thought, but of course it's not. Smashing food that is. And more about that in a moment. First the inspiration for this post? Well two things reinforcing the concept of smashed in my head. First this brief note in a recent Guardian list of food trends in Britain: "Smashed tacos, smashed burgers, smashed croissants, smashed smash. We’re all for crispy edges, but not a
Oct 4
Pasta, flying saucers and grannies
"a personal undertaking to try every single type of pasta available the length and breadth of Italy" Jacqui De Bono Time for a look at a foodie blog and the next one on my list is The Pasta Project, which is probably one of the first that I recognised and visited from time to time, so I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to it with my website posts. I probably came across it long ago because - well it's pasta isn't it and I guess we are all pretty much obsessed with
Oct 3
"Probability not possibility"
"Hell, it's only food. Just enjoy it." Jill Dupleix I have a long list of ideas for blog posts in my little notebook, and of late I have been making an effort at getting rid of some of the older ones. This one comes from one that I called 'Confidence/reality - Rachel Cooke' -Rachel Cooke being a most thoughtful contributor to The Guardian, and actually the daughter of Katherine Whitehorn - one of our favourite columnists of the 60s. Alas Rachel died recently - last year I
Sep 27
Duchess potatoes - posh or humble?
"a rather precious way of serving mashed potatoes." Elise Bauer/Simply Recipes I think the above version of Duchess potatoes are as served on the Orient Express from a recipe by Escoffier no less on a website called Tasting History with Max Miller. I'm featuring it first because it's the polar opposite of the Duchess potatoes I remember my mother making in her tiny kitchen in a 50s gas-fired oven as a treat for us kids. Or maybe it was a way of getting us to eat mashed pot
Sep 26