Pasta that is pasta
May 27, 2005
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Pasta that is not pasta
Finalement, Pasta that is not pasta. In this recipe I use thinly sliced raw courgette/zucchini as spaghettini, and courgette/zucchini and beet slices as ravioli. The main ingredient of the sauce is Turkish pickled and roasted peppers, a product I love because of the bits of charred skin still sticking to the pepper flesh. There is nothing like fire to add flavour to food, as our ancestors, if only they could respond to this blog entry, would readily agree.
Pasta that is not pasta
- courgette spaghettini
- courgette ravioli
- beet ravioli
- roasted and pickled paprika coulis
- rocket emulsion
The beet ravioli recipe you can find here. For the courgette spaghettini, please click Please read more to read more.
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Play with a mandolin
May 14, 2005
The original recipe for Pasta that is not pasta is coming. But first you need to own a mandolin.
Orange rubber bangles, model's own, courgette rings and bangles, model's own.
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Garlic and beetroot
May 13, 2005
Sliced garlic, marinated with beetroot, lime zest, lime juice, fleur de sel and extra virgin olive oil.
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Chicken jail
May 12, 2005
A man languishing behind bars of a chicken jail. This image was taken near Connaught Place in Delhi and is part of an archive compiled by participants of the Nomadic Banquet workshop, Delhi March 14-26, 2005. For more blog entries and image archives, please check out the official Nomadic Banquet website as well as that of the Doors of Perception. Doors 8 Delhi: Platforms for Social Innovation.
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Pepesan sans pep, don't let this ever end
May 11, 2005
The first time that I tasted Pepesan I couldn't believe that something so delicious had come to me in the July of my years. Such a strange group of ingredients combined into something so perfectly perfumed that one often hears the first-time-eater utter the words, 'Don't let this ever end.' It's that good. Pepesan is a shredded coconut tamale filled with fatty smoked mackerel (that's the good kind of fat), sour tamarind, aromatic 'lime leaf', sambal djeroek (lime leaf sambal) steamed in coconut cream. Before people like me got their hands on it this recipe was Indonesian.
Pepesan is spicy but folks used to a bit of pep in their food will have no trouble with it. Up here in the Polar Circle where quite a number of people (and I count some of them amongst my friends) cannot tolerate even an ounce of 'pep' I dilute the sambal djeroek with pomodori pelati (I am becoming my Gramma, substituting one culture's ingredients with an another's) and it works rather well, even for someone who loves their food really spicy like me. The list of ingredients may look impressive, but you could also just imagine that it's handy to have these things in the pantry. At least that way you'll increase your chances for dazzling your friends with Pepesan more often. Twice a year, whether you need it or not is what I always say.
For the recipe click 'please read more'.
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Birthday is coming up December 24
May 10, 2005
And this is exactly what I want. Leatherbound. Its a collector's item so it may take some scrounging around. I already have the paperback.
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Which one is the fish skin wedding anniversary?
May 09, 2005
5th Wedding Anniversary Menu for John and Kristi
Pasta that is not pasta
- courgette spaghettini
- courgette ravioli
- roasted and pickled pepper coulis
- rocket emulsion
- even creamier cheese in a can
Pepesan sans pep
- grated coconut tamale with
- smoked mackerel marinated in tamarind and lime leaves
- sweet potato
- not very much sambal djeroek taking into account the delicate Northern palates
- coconut cream
Charlie Trotter's Banana and Chocolate Lava Cake
- w/ roasted mini bananae
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Ladies who drink bubbles on a Friday afternoon
May 07, 2005
Good friends and exemplary ladies Quirine and Helena celebrate the opening of their new offices in the Amsterdam Post CS with some bubbles. Their film Celebration, a documentary about the Florida town of the self-same name and the desires of its quirky inhabitants premiered in January at the Rotterdam Int'l Film Festival. Ladies Jans P., Quirine & Helena and I celebrate until the happy hour develops into a pale liquid dinner. We speak about all manner of things unspeakable, (food) taboos, anorexia in terms of objects, and we're glad we got that off our chests! We devise plans to optimise an upcoming Belgian shopping trip but there's really no reason to name names unless they want to start sponsoring us. Life is fine when one's own life is grist for the mill.
Monday evening 09.05.05 at 09.05 at Club 11, Mediamatic will host the Mobtagging Salon which will feature past works by our Ladies, including excerpts from one of my favourite of their films, The Tower, a spooky documentary about a castle inhabiting aristorcratic hippy family. That's my kind of people.
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Scared of a little granola perfume
May 06, 2005
In Dutch we have a term, 'doorheenbijten' that means literally 'to bite through something'. We use this term to describe the painful process of exploring unchartered territory. Think for just a moment about what could have motivated someone to invent such an idiom. Now, think about the circumstances that would have caused an entire culture to embrace this idiom enough to use it regularly!
The images above show the author about to take her first bite of paan without any idea what paan could possibly smell, taste or feel like. It is quite strange to try something with very little previous reference, and having never tried chewing tobacco, paan was unchartered territory for me.
In a neat little kiosk by the side of the road the paan wallah prepared the leaf for me with all manner of goos, crystals, flakes, shavings and sprinkles - none of which seemed familiar. Although I would like to say that I bravely put the roll into my mouth and enthusiastically started chomping away, the photograph above reveals the utter lack of trust and relax I had in approaching this new foodstuff. You can also see how such an utter lack of trust and relax results in a particularly unaesthetic portrait. That fact alone should be motivation enough to drop some food taboos.
Good news is that as I reported earlier, paan is delicious, something like eating granola perfume. And like the photograph that I keep of myself in the freezer to remind me of what I looked like in a bikini in 1998 (to avoid an over-consumption of ice-cream), I have decided to keep this picture at hand to remind myself to be more trusting of new foods.
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Restaurant for anorexics
May 05, 2005
Sehnsucht, (means longing in German) is the name of a Berlin restaurant for anorexics. Owner Katja Eichbaum, formely anorexic, started this project with private funding (only her father would lend her money) as a therapy for her own condition. The chef is anorexic as are several members of staff. Sehnsucht's menu items have names that don't include words for food to avoid confronting anorexics with the fact that they are about to eat. 'Hallo' (lobster bisque), 'Pirate's Eye' (2 fishfingers and a fried egg), and 'Heissehunger' (ravenous hunger = rack of lamb) are all dishes that non-anorexics might order in 'normal' restaurants. But one item on the menu consists simply of a fork, knife, and an empty plate. It is titled 'Thieves Platter' and facilitates the anorexic diner to steal (or share) from those dining with her.
As expected the restaurant has received a huge amount of international publicity. And although I have not yet eaten at there, relying solely on restaurant reviews to inform myself, if Sehnsucht is an attempt to create a location for anorexia patients in the guise of a regular restaurant for the people that love them, it is also a wasted opportunity.
Why not revel in anorexia? Why not serve food items so refined and 'stretched' like anorexics themselves create on the spot each night at the family dinner table? Anorexics are master chefs and food stylists when placed in the harsh context of the family; hardboiled eggs with the yolks surgically removed, crackers deconstructed so that their total surface area has been increased twenty-fold, slices of bread with each visible grain extracted and displayed on the edge of the plate, utterly dissected broccoli. I say this without having seen Sehnsucht's menu but hope sincerely that it is not just another do-gooder resto in which the real food on the menu functions only to lure the paying and eating guests.
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Far away is the new *onrein
May 03, 2005
Maybe it comes from the fact that I'm reading up on dietary law combined with reading John Thackara's book, In the Bubble about sustainability and design, but I'm starting to wonder if distance is the new unkosher. In Patrick Faas' Volkskrant article titled, The prophet Mohammed's favourite dish, (18.02.1997) about Islam's flexible standpoint on whether one may eat ostrich and camel, I couldn't help but wrinkle up my nose at the thought of ostrich farms far far away and poor slabs of beef having to travel first by air and then by freight truck to get to the supermarket and then our tables. According to In the Bubble we spend more time transporting ourselves to our grocery shopping than actually doing our grocery shopping. And I don't want to bring down any wrath upon myself, but it seems that a lot of religious dietary law is based upon cultural food preferences and taboos rather than hygiene. Proof? Both Jewish and Islamic law are quite arbitrary about which foods are considered clean and unclean. I can't help but wonder why in this day and age hygiene should have preference over sustainability when it comes to dietary law.
*Onrein means unclean in Dutch, unclean in the religious sense of the word.
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