When good salami happens to bad people
March 13, 2006
You know how you sometimes get a song in your brain that has absolutely no reason being there?
'Jesus is just all right, Oh yeah.'
Well, I'm just glad I wasn't responsible for naming this Languedocian kilo of pork product as big as your head.
Dang the Salaison de Chateauneuf de Randon! In a time of (staging) the torching of embassies, this seems to me a rather subversive name for a salami.
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
On the bright side, the Netherlands has shrugged off the shackles of right-wing popular support. Lordee!
Posted by debra at 02:38 PM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
Git yer frites on! What we'll probably all be wearing this Fall
February 24, 2006
Daddy's favourite outfit from the Jeremy Scott Fall 2006 collection, image used entirely without permission
This is no time to bitch I mean kvetch about healthier alternatives. Just plunk down a honqin' load o' dosh and git yer dang frites on, bi-haa-whoa. It's New York designer Jeremy Scott's Fall 2006 collection, and I'm sort of all over it.
From the Jeremy Scott Fall 2006 collection, image used entirely without permission
Really dig the pizza robe, but unless I keep the yurt up all winter, I just don't see it fitting into my lifestyle. It is mind-boggling though how well haute couture goes with a yurt. I keep telling everyone it was a practical choice, but you just have to keep the bigger picture in mind for that to become clear. Jeremy Scott is part of that bigger picture.
My new lounge-about-the-yurt robe from the Jeremy Scott Fall 2006 collection, used entirely without permission, although, soon I'll take my own dang pictures
Who wears Jeremy Scott besides me? Björk, Cammy Diaz, Chrissie Aguilera, Kylie Minogue, the artist formerly known as Esthertje and the geologist formerly known as my Dad.
- Check out Jeremy Scott's 2006 Fall collection in NY Mag
- Elle mag on Jeremy Scott Fall 2006
- FlyPaper on Jeremy Scott's high glycaemic fashion
From the Jeremy Scott Fall 2006 collection used entirely without permission
Posted by debra at 12:24 AM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Happy spoon
August 29, 2005
Yurt down, lad gone, summer's end. You can hardly blame a gal for eating choco-hazelnut paste straight out of the jar. The spoon came out of my mouth making a mockery of my attempt at food-medicating.
Please read more... "Happy spoon"
Posted by debra at 02:37 PM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
Black Beauties, wafting truffles from Occitania
March 07, 2005
It wasn't a conventional Valentine's Day gift, but I do think it should become one. I am lucky enough to have dear friends that live in a part of the world where these elephant-skinned nuggets grow underground. Fortune would have it that 2 days before their arrival up here in the Polar Circle a local Occitanian Truffle Fête was in full-swing. and JT and Kristi were wise to bring a bag filled with the little nodules.
They present me with the bag, grinning from ear to ear. I put my face inside, and inhale deeply.
I am confronted with the most glorious, heady aroma, a combination of rich, loamy earth, wafting diesel fuel, fresh ground peanut butter, and fart. Now in just the right combination, that's a good thing.
Here's what I prepared for the 3 of us the very next day:
- Knolsla (celeriac cole sla) with truffled mayonnaise and beet ravioli
- Truffled Chicken in salt crust with 'basically raw broccoli' and truffle butter
- Pots de Crumbly Crumble (truffle-free)
Never have I received such a wonderful Valentine's Day gift; I was given an object but got an evening-filling experience. Thank you JT and Kristi!
Please read more... "Black Beauties, wafting truffles from Occitania"
Posted by debra at 09:42 PM | Comments (5) | post to del.icio.us
Back in the saddle with an Occitanian sausage
February 25, 2005
A rather large Occitanian sausage! Before bad eating habits comes pork sausage and after bad eatings habits comes pork sausage. Could John T. have brought a nicer gift for the folks from the Virtual Platform than this? This is a prime example of a man using his... noggin.
Posted by debra at 08:01 PM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
The Wild Boar Thing
November 07, 2004
It was the leitmotif, right down to the marrow. For the 5th annual Museum Night (Museum N8 and pronounced Museum Nacht) Mediamatic hosted a salon including presentations by Esther Polak (locative media MILK), MIT's Kelly Dobson with her Blendie, (a blender that grinds to the gutteral), Henk Boverhoff's wild boar charcoal drawn dresses, Rob van Kranenburg's wild ideas, and the RE-launch (until you re-learn) of the Culiblog at it's BRAND NEW DOMAIN - right heah, right now, by the author of this very culinary weblog.
Please read more... "The Wild Boar Thing"
Posted by debra at 02:22 PM | Comments (6) | post to del.icio.us
The Wild Boar Thing
It was the leitmotif, right down to the marrow. For the 5th annual Museum Night (Museum N8 and pronounced Museum Nacht) Mediamatic hosted a salon including presentations by Esther Polak (locative media MILK), MIT's Kelly Dobson with her Blendie, (a blender that grinds to the gutteral), Henk Boverhoff's wild boar charcoal drawn dresses, Rob van Kranenburg's wild ideas, and the RE-launch (until you re-learn) of the Culiblog at it's BRAND NEW DOMAIN - right heah, right now, by the author of this very culinary weblog.
Please read more... "The Wild Boar Thing"
Posted by debra at 02:22 PM | Comments (6) | post to del.icio.us
Halalchisch
November 06, 2004
What's wrong with this image?
Posted by debra at 07:52 PM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Learning through your Ass: The Return of Laurel's Kitchen
October 08, 2004
When I became a vegetarian at the tender age of 13, my parents, fearing that I would stunt my own growth gave me what was considered at the time to be a good introduction to vegetarian nutrition, amino acid chains and global food politics. It was my first cookbook ever and its pictureless recipes for soy-milk, cashew cheese and other 'technically advanced' foodstuffs threw me completely for a loop.
It was California in the 70's but my Mom wasn't about to go foodshopping in a store filled with goat-knitting long-hairs smelling like garbanzo farts, and I didn't know that you could simply go to an Asian supermarket and BUY a ready-made block of tempeh. So when one of Laurel's recipes called for say, soy milk and said, (see recipe page 138) I would actually make the soy milk - often with unsavoury results.
Due to a series of 'intrusive kitchen disasters' my mother decided that I could only do the big preparations for the week's food on Sunday. (Not the fresh things, just the... legume-rich things.) Considering that I had turned the family kitchen into a soybean laboratory it wasn't entirely the cruel thing to do. I would prepare my vegetarian food for the week ahead and microwave it warm each day. For an experienced cook, preparing food in advance wouldn't have posed much of a problem but I had very little PRACTICAL cooking experience. I couldn't tell beforehand if a recipe was difficult and mistakes I made on Sunday were the grits on the table the livelong week. This educational technique is known in some cultures as 'learning through your ass'.
I was cooking outside the repetoire of my family and Laurel wasn't helping. Laurel's Kitchen, although an amazing source of 1970's California anthropology was absolutely a crap book for an inexperienced cook.
But yesterday when I brought home Roxanne Klein and Charlie Trotter's R A W, the first thing I did was pull Laurel from my shelf for one more read.
Please read more... "Learning through your Ass: The Return of Laurel's Kitchen"
Posted by debra at 01:09 AM | Comments (7) | post to del.icio.us
Ik lust je R A W
October 07, 2004
Wing flapping all around! Today I indulged myself and bought a cookbook that I have wanted to own for quite some time. R A W by Roxanne Klein (a culinary approach to vegan and raw food cooking) with Charlie Trotter, one of the US's most innovative chefs. Regular readers know that porkatarians like me can't also be vegans but I am still so very excited by this pairing of the minds.
A browsiebrowse through and so far there are lots of recipes that look like watermelon spit-up (maybe she took Trotter's 'froth thing' a little bit too literally) and I think that bit about preserving the enzymes is a load of halookie. If you put a blended something in a dehydrator for 5 hrs I doubt very seriously that there will be any 'living' quality left in the foodstuff. TEST: Put yourself in a sauna for 5 hrs and see how you feel. Now imagine yourself to be a carrot!
B U T
The book is brimming with beauty, love of a rich variety of ingredients and new techniques (new since *Laurel's Kitchen) and I swear I'm going to take cashew cheese seriously this time.
* You're going to have to wait until tomorrow's entry about Laurel's Kitchen, written in 1976 it was THE quintessential bible of Californian hardcore vegetarianism.
Posted by debra at 05:52 PM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Changes
October 04, 2004
This recipe for Chalupsie has been hybridised to the hilt. Pronounce it however you like, it's just Stuffed Cabbage or Chou Farci and up here in the Polar Circle we need hearty winter fare like this.
C H A N G E S :
It was my Gramma's recipe from the 'old country', from HER mother, but Grams used minutemaid frozen lemon juice concentrate ? something the 'old country' never had. I dropped 'that ingredient' like a load of so much cement over Tchernobyl and replaced it with a spoonful of thai green curry paste plus every single part of a fresh lime.
Some other changes that I have made include fractalising the prep time from 2hrs to 20 minutes. Now instead of reminiscing about chalupsies we can actually eat them. I also replaced the old country hamburger helper and changed the kind of cabbage to one that can be denuded of its leaves in one fell swoop.
Posted by debra at 11:15 AM | Comments (6) | post to del.icio.us
Google Recipe Finder
October 02, 2004
The fabulous R.vT. came up with this Google Recipe Search link.
http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/recipe.html
Forget typing in turkey, or wild boar. It's just a search engine, go crazy and try tofurkey + lemon curd or monkey + banana + camenbert! Suddenly nothing seems wierd anymore. (Does this mean that I miss China?) Anyway, it's Sukkah, a Jewish harvest holiday conveniently scheduled each Autumn when 'God wants you to try eating something new'. Yeah.
Which reminds me, my brother Aaron made up a game when we were little in which the sole aim was to make the other person barf. The rule was that you had to concoct a mixture of edible substances (no poison allowed) and dish it up to your sibling � and they had to eat or drink it. Yes. Try it sometime, it's much harder than it sounds.
In this game we discovered that toothpaste is surprisingly versatile as an ingredient. Aaron came up with a toothpaste-orange juice and tabasco sauce smoothie that was fairly effective in getting me to gag and I came up with a peanutbutter and toothpaste sandwich which was impossible to swallow. Toothpaste, who would've thunk it?
R.vT. offered to shop for me since my ankle was sprained Wednesday in a bike accident. It's difficult for me to accept graciously because I am able to stand and walk. Even so, he was a right sweetie today and helped me do my shopping at the hippy market. This is what it's going to be like being an old lady. Carrying a shopping bag with the aid of a friend.
(Respect also to the super lief MM, who cooked and shopped and was a rock of gezelligheid when I couldn't walk, as well as neighbours GS and BK who brought packs of frozen beans to discourage swelling.)
Please read more... "Google Recipe Finder"
Posted by debra at 10:35 PM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Will Weed for Food
July 26, 2004
Ikea's new packaging strategy. Actually this is part of an elaborate sneaky garden design by Kristine and Fred. We're looking forward to the recipes but by the looks of these leafy babies we'll only be making weed butter.
Please read more... "Will Weed for Food"
Posted by debra at 11:53 AM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Surf and Turf
July 24, 2004
The results of our adhoc fish and sausage fry, on a private beach along the shaded banks of the Vis. It was a perfect summer's day, a wonderful and unusual conglommeration of people, each one more interesting to me than the next. The day unfolded from pleasure to pleasure, the company, conversation food and location(s) all were perfect. I am so happy to be here.
Please read more... "Surf and Turf"
Posted by debra at 12:30 PM | Comments (4) | post to del.icio.us
Presentation is Everything
July 14, 2004
I feel like this little raisin.
Please read more... "Presentation is Everything"
Posted by debra at 11:38 PM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
No Rest for the Rugged
July 13, 2004
There you are, a pre Iron Age chef and you want to whip up a fine bouillon for tonight's f�ete. It's easy as pie... read on.
Please read more... "No Rest for the Rugged"
Posted by debra at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
If it Bleeds, it Leads
July 12, 2004
That's was one of the more memorable lines in Michael Moore's, 'Bowling for Columbine'. Moore is speaking to a TV producer, asking him to explain why there are so many fear evoking images on the US nightly news. The TV producer replies self-evidently, 'If it bleeds, it leads'.
I thought the line was a fitting title to the next few entries of Culiblog in which I will document a workshop that I followed at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht this last February. Onno Faller led a workshop titled, 'Cooking as Genre' the last two days of which were devoted to a little dead wild boar. Above you see Natasha and a handsome bald bloke, BOTH VEGETARIANS, skinning the poor dead beast.
Although I have killed hundreds of animals for food and skinned them and prepared them, I never find this an easy task. I find myself gritting my teeth as I remove their jackets. I am not repulsed, but I feel sad for the animal, I feel the extreme tension of the killing and of a death that I initiated by wanting to eat the animal. Every animal, even a lobster, fights for its life as we would do. And it never ceases to amaze me that once the animal is skinned, it becomes just a piece of meat to me and my mind switches to the matter of the marinade.
Please read more... "If it Bleeds, it Leads"
Posted by debra at 01:28 PM | Comments (4) | post to del.icio.us
I Love Smoking: Tea-smoked Salmon and a Dessert Borscht fit for a Foot Massage
July 11, 2004
In 6 steps from upper left;
1. Line a wok with aluminium foil and place a handful of any sort of rice on the bottom.
2. Place a goodly amount of delicious loose tea on top of the rice. Earl Grey is the best choice. You are about to create a smoker in which the rice and the tea are the smoldering fuel.
3. Place some granulated sugar on top of the tea.
4. Set a slab of salmon in a bamboo steamer over the rice, tea and sugar heap (other fatty fish work well too). Dust the fish with sea salt, freshly ground pepper, lime zest and sprinkle with lime juice. Cover with the top part of the steamer.
5. Wrap the entire contraption in alu foil so that the smoke from the soon-to-be-smoldering rice and tea can only go through the bottom of the bamboo steamer and delicately smoke the fish.
6. Place the wok+steamer on a large flame and blast the hell out of it for a good *2-3 minutes. Turn the flame down almost as low as possible and wait until you smell the heady burning tea escaping from the smoker. Every now and again place your hand on top of the bamboo steamer - it should be hot hot hot. After 15-20 minutes open up the smoker and poke your finger through the fattest part of the flesh. It should be cooked or almost cooked.
Serve immediately.
*(Be careful not to smolder the tea too vigourously or you will get a bitter smokey flavour. Instead, just relax.)
Guest and composer Daniel Carney has come all the way from Baltimore and said that this tea-smoked salmon is the best thing he's ever eaten 'ceptin the last dinner you made me'. (Better count the silverware.) His t-shirt says, 'I love the Korean alphabet!' The dessert borscht (actually just hangop, lime zest, lime juice and a wee bit of the 'ol white death - baroquely drizzled with beet caramel) is inspired by the chilled Polish summer fruit soups and as well the Polish summer borscht. One bite of borscht and Daniel exclaims, 'Dang, I do believe this is the wierdest dessert ever to have crossed my lips!'
Orly is ecstatic with the dessert borscht and asks, 'What, you want a foot massage?'
(not pictured, Orly's husband and Waimes piano restorer, Gijs Wilderom)
Posted by debra at 04:14 PM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Taiwanese Bean Beverage
July 01, 2004
Yesterday Dan said that Latvians are lucky.
But today is another day and for breakfast I decided to serve up this Taiwanese Bean Beverage to my Latvian guest *Emils. Just a little good morning experiment. Emils remained cheerful throughout the tasting although shortly after fulfilling his task as guinea pig he dashed out of the house supposedly to buy a shirt - but I think he hauled off and got a bagel.
Discorea Mixed Congee ingredients: water, sugar, adlay(?), discorea rhizome (?), chickpeas, glutinous rice, red beans, kidney beans, millet, oatmeal, oats.
* Emils Rode is a Latvian artist currently participating in the show BREAKTHROUGH in Den Haag. This exhibition in the Grote Kerk spotlights artists from the new European member states. http://www.grotekerkdenhaag.nl
Posted by debra at 02:41 PM | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us
More Chinese Food!
June 25, 2004
Yes, that's a hedgehog riding a donkey! This Chinese cookie is made from fortune cookie dough. Normally I never eat fortune cookies, but these were so beautiful... that I can't eat them either.
Please read more... "More Chinese Food!"
Posted by debra at 11:59 PM | Comments (4) | post to del.icio.us
About 10,000 EURO worth of ham
June 10, 2004
An image of the ham fridge at one of Barcelona's bistros. This is clearly the ideal way to store the serrano hams until the neat shavings land on a plate near your bread.
Please read more... "About 10,000 EURO worth of ham"
Posted by debra at 05:51 AM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Camper's Flagship Restaurant
June 07, 2004
The wall mural menu at 'Foodball'. These last days in Barcelona I had the opportunity to meet up with designer Marti Guixé to talk about our food-related projects. He showed me the newly opened Camper flagship restaurant that he designed.
Please read more... "Camper's Flagship Restaurant"
Posted by debra at 11:34 PM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
Edibility Stamp
May 29, 2004
Stamp found on a block of tempeh.
Edible, drinkable.
You can eat it, and apparently you can also drink it.
Posted by debra at 01:11 PM | post to del.icio.us
The Single Most Delicious Pork Fat
April 14, 2004
Cubes of marinated and roasted pork fat atop aromatic stewed seagrass. So far this is the most delicious thing I have eaten in China.
Please read more... "The Single Most Delicious Pork Fat"
Posted by debra at 11:33 AM | post to del.icio.us
Eaten Alive
April 04, 2004
"Well you see, my maternal grandfather was a merchant marine and he was actually EATEN ALIVE one day by an octopus and ever since that day I just can't eat octopus anymore..."
"No, not even if its dead and skewered."
Posted by debra at 10:37 AM | post to del.icio.us
Duck Entier en plastique
March 25, 2004
Duck under plastic wrap at a food-court style restaurant in Nanjing, PRC
Posted by debra at 08:12 AM | post to del.icio.us
Culinary experimentation dream
September 29, 2003
Culiblog dot org was launched in October 2004 from a series of entries written since May of that year. This entry was originally sent as an email to friends and was later added to the culiblog collection.
Last night I had a very long and vivid dream that I won't get into just now, (because it was long and vivid and completely unsuitable for a culinary blog, that's why!) but one of the funniest parts of this dream was a cooking moment making it my first ever culinary-experimentation dream.
<dream>
I was preparing an informal dinner for my extended family and friends in what seemed to be our communal home, tastefully decorated in entirely too much white. le plat du jour? a bolognese of jumpers on a duck-feather duvet!
happily I began the preparation of this gargantuan pizza-like course on top of the large white (naturalement) kitchen work-surface that somehow invisibly contained a heating element. I was carefully warming the duvet (no, not a new one) on the large surface, cheerfully ladling liberal amounts of an excellent homemade bolognese sauce onto the jumpers that I had laid out on top of it. the jumpers were soaking up the sauce greedily and I seemed satisfied with the direction the meal was going. mmmmm mmmmm good. my cousin rebecca looked on and we chit-chatted as I continued with the cooking process.
at some point I left the duvet to fend for itself (yes, on a low flame) and became pre-occupied with the re-purchase of our neighbour's recently stolen brompton folding bike from some junkies. (they were only asking 25 EUnits and if you changed gears in a certain way the brompton became amphibious, sporting a self-inflating colourful rubber dinghy.) an amazing shower of events ensued (the vivid part) but eventually I returned to my cooking only to find that my darling duvet bolognese..... was burnt on the bottom. damn! how the gods punish the non-chalant cook!
</dream>
Posted by debra at 03:12 PM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
