Favouritism, preference, bias ...
"people usually see what they're already looking for, that's all.” Veronica Roth I have spent a large chunk of today and a bit of yesterday trying to decide what to cook for a lunch with our friends on Friday. (Actually on Tuesday and Wednesday - it's now Thursday. To me this is a pleasure, but it's also increasingly difficult. I mean where to begin? As you know I have masses of cookbooks, there are the supermarket magazines once a month and there is, of course, always the
Apr 2
The sea, the sea
"Childhood memories of building sandcastles, rummaging in rock pools and splashing in the surf stay with us like little else." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall The above photograph is from my collection of long ago negatives digitised on my scanner, complete with scratches, like the crescent moon-like one above my son's head at the front of the boat. We are in the Maldives with my young nephew in tow - he was on a trip to Australia with us, after our own trip - business associat
Mar 25
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
Nigella on Instagram - a sort of postscript to yesterday Nigel
"Instagram is a visual medium, no less than television, so it’s always going to favour photogenic food, but still, it can make a cook despair." Nigella Lawson Nigella is a friend of Nigel's so it's sort of appropriate to turn to her thoughts on Instagram - a visual medium, as she says - if ever there was one. And obviously she eventually succumbed, because this is her Instagram logo - 3.1 million followers - huge. Moreover - I have just thought - Nigella - the brand anyway
Mar 14
Stunningly and simply beautiful or pretentious?
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." By now you will have realised that I am a sucker for beautiful things. Appearance is sometimes all. But of course, what I think is beautiful is not necessarily what you think is beautiful. So that's one thing to bear in mind as I launch into today's musings. The second thing you will have realised by now is that I am an ardent admirer of the work of Nigel Slater - both as a recipe creator and foodie inspirer and also as a writer. A
Mar 13
River Cottage fruit
"If one food was designed, unambiguously, to be eaten, then surely it has to be fruit. We consume it, we spread the seed, more fruit grows, everyone's happy." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Bearing in mind the words above, it's perhaps appropriate that the frontispiece photograph in my next River Cottage Handbook - Fruit - is a perfect photograph of blossom. Potential. From little things big things grow and all that. It's also appropriate because the book is mostly about h
Mar 12
Rick Stein and British food
"It shouldn’t work, but, like most of his work, a bumbling anti-charm somehow wins through." John Merrick/Vittles I've never really been a follower of Rick Stein. I once watched a very short extract of the series in which he was floating down the Canal du Midi in France and I was somewhat underwhelmed. But I did buy this book recently - from Readings bargain table because I thought it was about time I discovered what all the fuss was about. Is he just good at promoting hi
Mar 11
Still a demon dish
They almost look alright don't they as they sit on our dinner table ready to be eaten last night? Even almost pretty good. But reader - alas - I failed yet again. Pizza is still my demon dish - perhaps I should say top demon dish - I have others. They look almost as good as the Smitten Kitchen version but obviously a long way away from the real deal on the right. But then I was never expecting to reach those heights. And actually, now that I look at all three, I'm wond
Mar 10
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
Sandbagging the David Chang way
sandbagging - "To force or coerce someone to do something." The Free Dictionary "Hiding the strength, skill or difficulty of something or someone in a sport or competition" Wikipedia I'm struggling a little today. Well I have all the past week really because of various minor troubles bubbling around, which have limited my powers of thinking coherently. So perhaps those two definitions above apply. I'm sort of forcing myself to write a post every day - except when I obvio
Mar 6
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
Handwritten
"a small labour in these copy-and-photograph times." Rachel Roddy She means copy and paste surely? Yesterday I was a bit uninspired and so I started looking through the Ideas pages in my little notebook of various nudges into blog posts and there at the top of the page on the right is an idea from Rachel Roddy, which I wasn't really up for yesterday, although I did check out the article, which was, as always with her, an interesting one. So today, having survived the threa
Mar 2
The last day of summer
“Summer is a state of mind." Unknown As I sat down to write this post after a somewhat dismal day, I realised that it is indeed the last day of summer. Technically that is. Of course it isn't actually. And in fact we shan't know when it is. There is not even an astronomical date for the end of summer - maybe the autumnal equinox? But then a large part of the world, doesn't even have a season that could be called summer. On the equator you could say it's summer all the ti
Feb 28
Preserving with 'Pam the Jam'
"they waste not, so we want not" Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall This is a first recipe book and I have come to a boxed set I bought at some bargain price ages ago - because I was interested in the River Cottage vibe. It was a bit of a mistake really because it is heavily British. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his River Cottage come and go team are very much into foraging, and so most of what he forages is British - and not available here. I think I can say that really the
Feb 27
Celery and beans - a quest
"Celery and white beans are an Italian truth" Yotam Ottolenghi I was very taken with that quote which appeared in a recent Ottolenghi newsletter - Chickpeas, lentils and every bean in between - and I definitely thought it was a good start for a post, and yet I cannot find a single recipe from Ottolenghi that combines the two - white, green, or every other kind of bean there is. So what on earth is he talking about? And to add to that, I couldn't find a classic Italian re
Feb 24