Beets in hibiscus salt crust

November 22, 2005

Preheat oven to 220°c/475°F. Mix in just enough water with the salt to make sandcastle-style sand. Add dried hibiscus flowers to the mixture in a few swift turns of the fork. On a baking sheet covered wtih baker's parchment, pack the beats in the salt. Bake for 20 minutes. Crack open and serve the beets piping hot.

Posted by debra at 07:10 PM | Comments (2)

Beets in hibiscus salt crust

Posted by debra at 07:10 PM | Comments (2)

Just experimenting with raw cruciferous vegetables

November 16, 2005

It would be absolutely no problem for me to go on and on about the conceptual and nutritional inconsistencies of the raw food (culture) diet, but I have to admit that this raw food culinary experiment has seriously increased my intake of *cruciferous vegetables. And that's good a thing because all cooked cruciferous vegetables taste to me like fart. And that's a bad thing.

* cabbages, kale, broccoli, bruxelles sprouts, cauliflower, get it?

Posted by debra at 02:20 PM | Comments (4)

Just experimenting with raw cruciferous vegetables

* cabbages, kale, broccoli, bruxelles sprouts, cauliflower, get it?

Posted by debra at 02:20 PM | Comments (4)

Audible gasps caused by morphogenetic fields

November 15, 2005

I was perusing my daily share of food writing, food photography and food porn, when what should I spy with my little eye? An aged eGullet entry about Grant Achatz' tasting menu at his much praised restaurant, Alinea. I know, I know, everyone's been eating honeycomb since time immemorial, but honey is apparently extra hot right now and Grant Achatz uses Ohio honeycomb at his restaurant, whereas I use Turkish and Dutch honeycomb... at home.

Images from l to r: honeycomb dessert image attributed to eGullet contributor 'yellow truffle' in his October 14, 2005 entry on Grant Achatz' buzzy restaurant, Alinea (hopefully used with permission), a prototype of my honeycomb cocoa nib bonbon photographed by the author herself

Posted by debra at 12:50 PM | Comments (6)

Audible gasps caused by morphogenetic fields

Posted by debra at 12:50 PM | Comments (6)

And now for something completely simple, honeycomb cocoa nib bonbon

November 14, 2005

Images r to l: bonbon prototyping, the box it came in

Recipe for Honeycomb Cocoa Nib bonbon

Cut a piece of honeycomb into desired shape.
Place the dripping honeycomb on some raw cocoa nibs.
Alternately, place some raw cocoa nibs on the dripping honeycomb.
Serve.

Posted by debra at 02:02 PM | Comments (10)

And now for something completely simple, honeycomb cocoa nib bonbon

Images r to l: bonbon prototyping, the box it came in

Recipe for Honeycomb Cocoa Nib bonbon

Cut a piece of honeycomb into desired shape.
Place the dripping honeycomb on some raw cocoa nibs.
Alternately, place some raw cocoa nibs on the dripping honeycomb.
Serve.

Posted by debra at 02:02 PM | Comments (10)

Food Subculture Club visits a raw food (un)cooking workshop

November 13, 2005

Images r to l: raw food workshop organogram, guruji Juliano, raw sushi in process

When cooking with meat or dairy, it's always easy to create foods that are delicious, rich and complex in flavour. By combining processed grain flours with an oven, or brown rice and a rice maker, it's simple enough to make comfort food. But I have always been curious as to whether a diet of raw food could fulfill the very normal culinary hunkerings for diversity and satisfaction. By this I mean, the potential nutritional benefits of eating a raw food diet aside, is it possible to make an interesting raw food repetoire that is well-suited to the Northern European winter?

On my cookbook shelves there are two cookbooks about raw food cuisine; Roxanne Klein & Charlie Trotter's R A W, and Juliano Brotman's Raw, the UNcookbook. I had tried several recipes from R A W, but found that I always had to 'pump up the volume' to make them palatable. I found it difficult to incorporate these recipes into a dinner in which the other dishes required cooking. Some dear friends of mine had given me Juliano's Uncookbook, but I had never used it for anything other than looking up soaking times for nuts. The amount of ingredients for any given recipe just seemed too long to be feasible. When I heard that raw food chefs Juliano Brotman and Ariel from Santa Monica's Planet Raw were coming to give a week of workshops I was most enthuasiastic to be able to participate.
Just from a culinary prespective...

The workshop, held in an anti-squat in exceedingly picturesque Broek in Waterland just north of Amsterdam, ended up having a lot in common with one of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, except that I'm nowhere near as charming as Louis is/was and the workshop was in the middle of the week. During the introductions I inadvertently started things off on the wrong foot by not giving the correct answer to the question, 'how raw are you?' My answer, 'Pretty dang raw, but I'm not a vegetarian' caused more than a few of the other participants to gasp audibly. I could have known that by trying to explain my omnivorous culinary bend that I would become the pisspole of raw food guru-ji Juliano.

Personal affinities aside, it is only fair to mention that I found all of the food that we prepared in the workshop to be 'rock my world' delicious and most of my prejudices with regard to this subculture's cuisine were quickly dispelled. The food wasn't all wet and cold, it didn't taste like 'health food', it didn't taste like vegan food, it was neither bland nor monotonous. In fact, at the end of the workshop, I really started getting cravings for something SIMPLE, like a piece of undressed lettuce. Juliano prepares foods like a parfumier makes a scent. He composes flavours and textures out of his ingredients. His knowledge of the flavour characteristics and textures of the ingredients he uses is impressive. Were it not for this fact, I would have been so out of there, having very little tolerance for statements like 'cooked food is pure poison', and 'I know someone that has been raw for six hundred years'. There was an unspeakable culture clash, but boy can this guy (un)cook.

One of the things I appreciated most about the workshop is that due to Juliano's conviction that everyone in the entire world should become 'raw' immediately, he was eager to explain a feasible methodology for running a raw food kitchen and/or household. I had reported earlier that raw cuisine is labour intensive, and compared to throwing ingredients into a rice maker or grilling up some flesh, it is, but Juliano explained how to make some basic ingredients that could be worked into meals over a period of a week that made the idea of raw food meal preparation less daunting.

Please click 'please read more' to see an interview that I conducted with Juliano and Ariel that will probably answer some of your burning (sorry) raw food questions.

Posted by debra at 08:31 PM | Comments (0)

Chef Thor, Croqueta d'Amor, Medaille d'Or, Cultural Sectór!

November 04, 2005

images l to r: the chef formerly known as Thor, Croqueta d'Amor in process, Chef Croquette works on a Croquette Japonais

At a top secret location in Amsterdam's PostCS cultural hub, Chef Croquette and the Croquette Family get to work on the hundreds of croquettes ordered for a weekend filled with cultural events. It's as if the PostCS (home to the Stedelijk Museum, Mediamatic, Club 11, numerous artists' initiatives and one of the thirty-eight locations for the 6th annual Museum Night) suddenly needs it's very own croquette chef. Of course croquette commissioners from the cultural sector are the most demanding of all. To posh up their menus this weekend they unanimously chose two of the newest creations from the chef formerly known as Chef Thor; the Croqueta d'Amor ('No More War!' '7 Sabors!') and the Croquette Japonais.

Just like Willy Wonka's Magic Chewing Gum, each bite of the Croqueta d'Amor and the Croquette Japonais yields a different taste explosion, seven flavours in all. In the film as well as the book by Roald Dahl, the magic chewing gum is still in beta when bitchy Violet Beauregard (chewing gum expert and glutton) snatches a piece of the gum to give it a chew and to sell the recipe to a rival candymaker. Due to the side-effects caused by the experimental nature of the gum, Violet blows up into a giant blueberry and has to be juiced forthwith!

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Chef Croquette joked to me, 'er zijn kapers op de kust' , which is a charming Dutch way of saying, 'many is the chef that would pirate this recipe.' Indeed, as we prepared the croquettes in a location deep under the earth's crust, at least five chefs happened to 'pop in for a little chat'. I think they could sense that Chef C. had perfected the technique of creating an entire meal in ten cubic centimetres of croquette with no ill side-effects. That or the fact that the location was also a central storage place for beer. Either way, the concept of Open Source is not alive and well in the culinary world.

Posted by debra at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)

All I really really want is locative food

October 01, 2005

That is, food that tells me where I am and where it's from by it's very name and nature (without the use of an RFID tag). And all I really really want is to have one major train station and one major airport in one country that sells food that is not created by food product designers but by local people from local ingredients and reflecting the diverse local food culture already present.

Imagine Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport... Could the experience of Schiphol be enriched if you knew that this was the only airport in the world where you could exclusively buy locally grown and produced Dutch food and regional specialities? Was it already one and a half years ago that Doors of Perception and Urban Unlimited organised a cultural experts meeting for the city of Breda, a new node on the line of the High Speed Train. If I recall correctly, we recommended just this very thing.

The images above were taken within a period of 4 minutes. Friday afternoon, chip eaters abound at Amsterdam Centraal Station. Just imagine the possible effect on the environment and the state of agriculture and upon the local economy if these chips were made from a diverse range of local potatoes, fried in oil grown and produced locally. Imagine if you could order chips from a menu sporting 8 different kinds of potato! Imagine if the product of the finger fried potato embraced diversity.

And then there's the mayo...
And the knowledge economy that could sprout up from bringing the local boutique producer's products to the transportation hubs of the world...

Frites eaters: images of people eating chips taken on Friday September 30, 2005 from 16:23-27 at Amsterdam CS and on the train to Rotterdam.

Posted by debra at 09:53 AM | Comments (2)

How to feel a food mile

September 19, 2005

If it takes me eleven days to really feel at home, just imagine how a piece of fruit must feel after travelling under much worse conditions and for a far greater distance! No wonder one must go to great lengths in the urban environment to find tasty fresh food. My head finally adjusted to being here this morning, which makes me think that I would have adjusted faster if I didn't have one.

The photos above are of the things that I am missing the most since I've returned to the North. Although the sun does occasionally shine, I've been forced to hide my pedicure de campagne under woolen socks and fabulous boots. Life is one big give and take.

Posted by debra at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

Today's fig-related transactions

September 01, 2005

Went to bum a cigarette from my kitchen garden neighbour ElGouche,
and was invited to sit around eating figs and play with Abel's toes for awhile (Abel is 3 months old, so it's OK).

Received a fig tree as a present from Abel's parents, Amad & Lila,
and gave them some leafy greens.

Gave some tomatoes to neighbour Patrick across the stone wall,
and was given a huge jar of fig preserves that utterly rocked my world.

Inquired whether Patrick would like an assortment of leafy greens from my kitchen garden,
and received an apple on top of the wall, which I think was an 'exchange-a-thon' joke.
It's not really apple season yet.

Gave Patrick an assortment of leafy greens.
Gave Mme Afkir an assortment of leafy greens.
Have decided that tomorrow while watering the Family Afkir's kitchen garden, I will eat some of their figs when no one is watching.

images l to r: the gifted fig tree (black figs of yet unkonwn variety), corn stalks drying and all my leafy greens thriving, divyying up the leafy greens for those that want them:

Posted by debra at 12:23 AM | Comments (1)

Sushi Occitania

August 10, 2005

It's a chic-free zone and we're not fussed about what we wear in the kitchen or anywhere else for that matter.

Sushi Occitania

yaki nori
brown rice prepared in fresh gazpacho (aka homegrown bloody mary mix)
courgette spaghettini
pesto
olives lucques
rosé (just a few drops to glue the nori shut)

Roll up the ingredients and eat. If you don't have a sushi mat you can use a piece of baker's parchment folded double. If you don't have yaki nori, use barely blanched and wrung-out swiss chard as the outer leaf.

images from l to r: sushi occitania, messy kitchen, pantry chef making tomato chutney

Please read more... "Sushi Occitania"

Posted by debra at 02:19 PM | Comments (5)

So except for the vodka...

August 06, 2005

We thought that homegrown bloody marys would be an appropriate drink to celebrate his 44th birthday and to give the yurt a proper yurt-warming. All of the ingredients except the ever-important electrolytic enhancors were homegrown or grown within 2 kilometres of the yurt. Thankfully more homegrown (from only 4,5km away) was gifted later. Gawd bless us.

Posted by debra at 12:48 PM | Comments (1)

Terrine du terrain

July 15, 2005

This will be a recipe after the busy party days end. Mille pardons, but I find cooking for 14 and 60 still quite difficult to combine with self-actualisation in other areas of my life, yurt set-up, being a warm friend and hostess, kitchen garden ownership, and going to watch to Tour de France.

Posted by debra at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

It was an accident

June 29, 2005

Puffed quinoa is delicious and has a surprising texture. I heated it in an a lightly oild pan but a paint stripper will do a better job in the future. The plan was a chapati with a puffed quinoa 'layer'. That plan still needs a bit of work and I'm hoping that Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking will help me sort out the differences between quinoa, sorghum and millet, water absorbtion, and the gelatinization of starch.

Posted by debra at 11:41 PM | Comments (3)

Sometimes I'm irreverent and I take the easy way out. Here's how...

June 15, 2005

Granitas shown clockwise from 10 'o clock; duoi uoi nuoc hot e (let's just call this, banana and acceptably gelatinous seed drink), ice coffee, green tea tofu, lychee soda, passion fruit&juniper berry&ume boshi, mango tofu. Center; guava disk.

The motivation behind this granita sampler was the desire to make some recipes that involved little more than ripping open a can of Chinese soft-drink, freezing the contents for two and a half hours and then giving it a good scratchin'.

Posted by debra at 02:30 PM | Comments (2)

Sometimes I'm irreverent and I take the easy way out. Here's how...

Posted by debra at 02:30 PM | Comments (2)

Hibiscus flowers

June 12, 2005

One million years ago, when I was a little girl, I had a piano teacher called Miss Pierce. She was an elegant and graceful woman, and ancient, as far as I was concerned. She was the secret girlfriend of Mr. Greenjeans, from the chilluns' TV show, Captain Kangaroo! We lived in a university town full of orange and date orchards on the edge of the desert, and Miss Pierce was probably one of the few people there that fulfilled for me, in her own wierd and spinster way, the notion of what it is to be 'fabulous'.

I used to arrive at her strangely decorated house for lessons with my neighbour Michelle, who was even more of a tomboy than I was. The two of us played so rambunctiously that Miss Pierce decided to give us 'lady-lessons' at no extra charge. We agreed to the lady-lessons because we just loved listening to Miss Pierce blather on and on about table manners and gentlemen as we sipped hibiscus tea and nibbled girlscout cookies, all the while kicking eachother surreptitiously under the table.

Miss Pierce liked her hibiscus tea incredibly sour but I never added sugar because sugar was 'white death', and I was trying to get my head around enjoying sour things. Hibiscus flowers in their wet form, alive and still on the tree, are forever connected in my mind with my father and his battle against vast herds of aphids. But hibiscus flower in its dry form and as a tea still reminds me of my piano teacher, Miss Pierce, patiently battling to turn me and Michelle into ladies.

Today I'm experimenting with using hibiscus flower as a souring agent in a batch of quick pickles and a vegetable broth intended for a summer borscht although 12°c doesn't really qualify as summer.

Please read more... "Hibiscus flowers"

Posted by debra at 02:25 PM | Comments (5)

Hibiscus flowers

Today I'm experimenting with using hibiscus flower as a souring agent in a batch of quick pickles and a vegetable broth intended for a summer borscht although 12°c doesn't really qualify as summer.

Please read more... "Hibiscus flowers"

Posted by debra at 02:25 PM | Comments (5)

Fortunately the food was slow and dry

June 10, 2005

When the 'slow' is the Slow Food Movement and the 'dry' is Dutch design agents Droog Design, the combination of slow and dry is a good thing. In Dutch, droog means 'dry', and it refers to the dry humor of many of their designed objects. Droog is celebrating their Amsterdam Staalstraat location by hosting a temporary 'fastfood' restaurant to showcase their food-related design items (open until Sunday 12.06). The menu is quintessential fast food; burgers, chips, shakes, but all the ingredients are sourced from local ingredients, made by artisanal suppliers and prepared with the love and attention of Slow Food Movement volunteers. I decided to be a lady who lunches and give their grub a try.

The foodstuffs arrive in round-bottomed ceramic bowls - all of which you may take home with you after eating! The strawberry shake contained a goodly portion of fresh, local strawberries. The burger bun was made from brioche dough, the burger, real chopped all-organic beef, dripping real meat juices! And so the story goes, good ingredients prepared with love from barnyard to burp. The restaurant is primarily about letting folks try out design objects in a real food context so not surprisingly the portions are mini-petit. This sweet and small design choice reminded me of the way Pee Wee Herman used to eat baby corn on TV; kernel for kernel typewriter style! After finishing my slow fastfood lunch, I wasn't hungry but I did have a little hunquering to take home some more of those cute little round-bottomed bowls.

Posted by debra at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)

Art is, art was fluid last Sunday

June 08, 2005

Due to the good company and delightfully engaged audience, artist initiative Artis in Den Bosch showed this Sunday (05.06.2005) that they really know how to throw a happening. Margriet Kemper opened the salon with a presentation of her book, Speak, Image! (unfortunately only in Dutch) in which she talks about how the image is actually a performer. Kemper cited Allan Kaprow, the Daddy of the Happening, explaining to us the choice of the title of the event, Art Fluid.

A.K.: 'I want the line between art and life to be as fluid as possible'.

A presentation of culiblog was next on the menu followed by a breathtaking poetry reading by Robert Gray (AU) and the Dutch translator of Gray's work, Maarten Elzinga. Wafts of rosey caramel in-the-make were the only distraction as both Gray and Elzinga read for the better part of 42 minutes to a rapt audience.

Now there's only so much reflection and interior thought that an audience can take, and just when we thought we would forever be living inside of our heads, the shy noise band, SPASM performed invisibly from the guts of the cavernous gallery. It was just the lightness that the moment needed and everyone started to beam with smiles so broad they barely fit on their faces. Everyone except the young children who ran around annoyed with fingers in their ears.

What could be a better follow-up to a poetry reading and a concert of noise than a cookery presentation! Together with my fabulous assistants, Stefano and Kaj, I rejoiced in showing other Dutch people how to make the traditional Dutch 'hang-op'. The hang-op had been dripping whey all the livelong day in linen bags hanging from pink string, defining the space of the kitchen. Stefano removed the linen bags from meathooks and helped Kaj scrape out the 'hung' yogurt from within. Kaj then proceeded to beat to a satiny smooth consistency, the yogurt with rose flavoured whipped cream. I know, it was very, very sexy.

While the audience enjoyed a film by Annika Ström and a presentation of Jan van Toorn's (re)releases from the oldies but goodies of avant-garde sound-art, Kaj and Stefano prepared the banquet table with rose petals, rosey caramel, organic local strawberries and little bowls of hang-op.

Aan tafel, I sort of whispered into the microphone.

Posted by debra at 09:57 AM | Comments (4)

Recipes without words

June 05, 2005

Right image: olive oil, green tea powder, ume boshi vinegar. Left image: olive oil, grass powder, ume boshi vinegar.

The images above are from a cookbook of mine in-the-making titled Recipes without words. Or rather, with very few words. More later. I’m about to do a presentation about culiblog in the ‘s Hertogenbosch artists’ initiative Artis. This Sunday’s programme is titled Art Fluid and culiblog is just one of several interesting programme pieces. We will be making Hang op with rose caramel and local strawberries.

Sugar, soy sauce, shrimp powder...

Posted by debra at 03:19 PM | Comments (2)

Pasta that is pasta

May 27, 2005

Posted by debra at 11:01 AM | Comments (7)

Pasta that is pasta

Posted by debra at 11:01 AM | Comments (7)

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.

Posted by debra at 09:01 AM | Comments (2)

Pasta that is not pasta

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.

Posted by debra at 09:01 AM | Comments (2)

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.

Posted by debra at 01:30 PM | Comments (4)

Garlic and beetroot

May 13, 2005

Sliced garlic, marinated with beetroot, lime zest, lime juice, fleur de sel and extra virgin olive oil.

Posted by debra at 01:23 PM | Comments (5)

Garlic and beetroot

Sliced garlic, marinated with beetroot, lime zest, lime juice, fleur de sel and extra virgin olive oil.

Posted by debra at 01:23 PM | Comments (5)

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'.

Posted by debra at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

Pepesan sans pep, don't let this ever end

For the recipe click 'please read more'.

Posted by debra at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

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

Posted by debra at 10:19 AM | Comments (1)

Paan virgin spits like a girl

March 15, 2005

Everywhere in Old Delhi, on every cornerpost of every building there is a terracotta haze. For a while I thought it was just the build-up of iron oxide dirt and dust - and so much of the architecture (for example the Jantar Mantar observatory) has this colour. But after a few hours of walking around I saw a few fresh splotches of red and realised what it was. Paan spit.

Paan is a 'digestive'. A leaf, painted with all manner of spices, flecks of gold leaf, sugar crystal and proportedly even opium. You take the leaf roll in your hand from the paan-wallah who has lovingly prepared his special version from 20 or so fine tins of ingredients and ingest it like chaw, I think. This morning, before the coffee I tried my first chew.

Posted by debra at 06:57 AM | Comments (2)

Lacking and craving

February 08, 2005

Supposedly craving a certain food is your body telling you that your diet lacks a certain something. But what is it that my diet lacks if I get cravings for 1000 year eggs with Cheese in a Can Soup? Could the lack of light and earthy outdoor fun up here in the Polar Circle have made me wood ash and lime deficient? Do I need to get my tochas down to Occitania where I never crave these elegant looking duck eggs?

1000 year eggs are raw duck eggs that have been coated with a paste of salt, wood ash and lime and then rolled in rice chaff to keep them from cementing together. They are placed in a ceramic pot and rotated every few days for two weeks. After this time the insides of the eggs have become 'softboiled' and turned dark transluscent amber (the white) and greenish greyish black (the yolk).

The design of my old Mac G3 laptop (a Pismo) always reminded me of a 1000 year egg. I find this colour combination extremely elegant - the 'white' of the 1000 year egg is like a golden amber aspic, sometimes with fractal designs forming in it!

Doesn't it just make you wonder how a preservation technique like this develops?

Posted by debra at 10:23 AM | Comments (8)

Cooking Challenge, Pôts de Crumble

February 07, 2005

In French that's pronounced poh and the term can mean everything from a pot to piss in to a pot to plant some blood orange apple crumble in. Recycling fool that I am, these pôts originally contained storebought creme caramel but serve as excellent ramekin substitutes.

This past weekend was the Paper Chef Challenge, a little game some food bloggers like to play not dissimilar from the BBC television show Ready, Steady, Cook. The group agrees to use a group of ingredients in a recipe over a finite course of time. Wheat flour, cinnamon, blood oranges and creme fraiche, with extra points for using broccoli, chorizo, stale bread and something else. After a botched batch of stale cornbread French Toast (which in Dutch amusingly translates into a dessert called Turning Bitches), I decided to do something very un-Debra and stick to the menu.

Desserts based on the apple crumble principle have always been my back-up dessert. I actually never eat dessert but perform it exclusively when I have guests and consequently dot dot dot. The blood oranges in this dessert give it extra tang, for those of us that truly don't have a sweet tooth.

One thing - the only kind of orange I like is a blood orange, and I use every single part separately.
Another thing - there are many sorts of cinnamon but for baking only Sri Lankan stick cinnamon will do. Ignore the dried pre-powdered kind and buy a proper stick of very thin bark. The thick stuff is for making meat stews anyway. You pulverise the cinnamon into splinters between your fingers - and there are few things finer than biting into a cinnamon bit, an explosion of flavour reminiscent of the RedHots candy of my childhood.
Oh and another thing - Whole meal chappati flour 'is not just for hippies anymore'. This finely ground wholemeal is definitely light enough to use for baking.The trick is to work with a light hand and to not over-mix the thing that should not be over-mixed, in fact, to become light yourself.
Ohm and one last thing - Creme fraiche (d'Isigny) is best taken straight up, with a spoon.

Posted by debra at 10:05 AM | Comments (3)

Cooking Challenge, Pôts de Crumble

Posted by debra at 10:05 AM | Comments (3)

I hate bread

February 04, 2005

Except sometimes and some breads.

I love cornbread and I love my little cornbread iron. Maybe because it's bound up in a possibly made-up memory or maybe it was something that really happened. But I believe that I became covetous of my Auntie S's when she dished up some cornbread 'ears' for Thanksgiving at least 2 decades ago.

A cornbread iron is a perfect iron age tool. You heat it up, grease it up, heat it up some more and then pour in the cornbread batter. Shove the lot in the oven and the cornbread takes half the time and finishes with an excellent texture and crumb.

Please read more... "I hate bread"

Posted by debra at 10:37 PM | Comments (5)

I hate bread

Except sometimes and some breads.

Please read more... "I hate bread"

Posted by debra at 10:37 PM | Comments (5)

More raw beets for the neighbours

January 31, 2005

Raw beet ravioli. Delicious, beautiful and here I am hybernating. It was time for all of my vegetarian architect neighbours to meet over dinner. Click below for recipe.

Posted by debra at 11:36 PM | Comments (10)

More raw beets for the neighbours

Raw beet ravioli. Delicious, beautiful and here I am hybernating. It was time for all of my vegetarian architect neighbours to meet over dinner. Click below for recipe.

Posted by debra at 11:36 PM | Comments (10)

Gullet Girl

January 24, 2005

This is the correct Dutch way to eat a herring.
By firelight.

Please read more... "Gullet Girl"

Posted by debra at 09:31 AM | Comments (5)

Keeping one's vows

January 19, 2005

Remember in October when I had just bought Roxanne Klein's R A W and I reported how it made me homesick for Laurel's Kitchen? And then upon rereading Laurel's Kitchen I made a vow to 'take cashew cheese seriously' from now on?

Well, I have been taking cashew cheese making very seriously indeed, and I believe I have improved upon the Good Ladies' recipes. Pictured above are some of the steps in this easy process (from l to r: placing the blended cashew butter in a cheese cloth, cheese cloth hanging in the window, cheese cloth dripping with cashew milk and dark winter sky).

Posted by debra at 05:09 PM | Comments (3)

Like raw beans in a hippy's beard

January 18, 2005

In less than 2 months I will be heading off to India again and as I prepare the Indian version of the Nomadic Banquet Workshop I find myself hunquering for Indian food. I'll be writing about the Nomadic Banquet in future culiblog entries.

Hippy Beard is the nickname I gave to the Southern Indian (Karnatakan) mung dal salad that I adored in Bangalore and adapted to my own liking once back in the Heimatt. If you thought that nothing good could ever come from eating raw beans, you really need to try this simple recipe. The salad is very light and the good kind of crunchy with no negative... uh, aspects.

The cukes I replaced with zukes and unfortunately I had to omit the 'curry leaf' because I can't find it anywhere in Europe. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to figure out why I call this salad Hippy Beard and just like in a real hippy beard this salad keeps for a few days. I'll ask my buddy Zeenat Hassan (who is neither a hippy nor does she sport a beard) for the real name of this refreshing snack with the cheerful 'mouth-feel'. It was her menu choice for that fine afternoon in Bangalore... (recipe follows).

Posted by debra at 07:01 PM | Comments (2)

Like raw beans in a hippy's beard

Posted by debra at 07:01 PM | Comments (2)

Enough with the raw food already

January 03, 2005

We just couldn't eat them all so they've been in the fridge in a wet tea towel since the 31st. I wouldn't have guessed that after so much time you could still eat them raw, although upon opening more than 2/3rds of them were perfectly delicious looking, smelling and tasting. Those deemed not perfect were only a bit dehydrated, not unlike ourselves after overdoing the champies.

I decided to warm them in some melted butter, chopped garlic, rosemary sprig and bay laurel from le chateau.Gawd damn do I love oysters! It was J's first time on New Year's and we told him that eating an oyster is like biting into fresh and solid seawater. Now he sees oyster eating as a superior option to actually going swimming.

Oh and here's what else was going on... JT, Kristi, Fred, Kristine, un grand tour de leur chateau, aussi la Palmiére, la cascade, et toutes pour lui.

Ici

Posted by debra at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

La Peche qui brule

November 16, 2004

That was the title of the smoldering peach course on that eventually sultry August evening. We placed the carmelised peaches on the pôts de creme au chocolate brulée. You can't eat one without eating the other.

And that's exactly what a French speaker would say, 'You can't heat one without heating the other.'

As with the previous slideshow, these photos are courtesy of Kristine Malden.

View the slideshow here.

Posted by debra at 05:59 PM | Comments (1)

The Banquet Years

Guess what we did last summer... we had a banquet!
Maybe because my last entry looked so pitiful, the colourful cakes and the leaden November sky. I thought it was high time to upload some images from this summer's culinary activities - and not just to some dank place in the culiblog archives.

As a community we ate off two, 8 metre long rolls of homemade pasta lasagna, into which sage and beet leaves had been pressed (see composite photo above) and when we were done, we rolled up the entire table.

Click for the slideshow here. The images in it are all photographs by Kristine Malden, a friend who thankfully was our guest that August evening.

Posted by debra at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)

Sunday Tea, Fruit Boom

November 14, 2004

We can all use a bit more para so a visit to the Witte de With Paraeducation Department was the order of the day, this Sunday. The salon-format programme titled Facts of Chance (authored by artists Anne Schiffer, Marcel van den Berg, and Frank Koolen) was satisfying, like when the cookie tin stays open; an interesting collection of videos, slideshow, film and included a performance by Koolen. Pictured above is an inadvertent recipe featured in the slideshow titled Fruit Boom or in English, Fruit Tree. Now is that fruit + balance or fruit + skewer + time?

(image courtesy of Frank Koolen)

Posted by debra at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)

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.

Mediamatic Salon

Posted by debra at 02:22 PM | Comments (6)

Hash Shakes are sooooooooo passée

November 05, 2004

Well, what were You eating one and a half years ago?

Bhang Shake (serves 3)
Aditya and Arjun (not their real names) dosed me with the vivid high of this sublime hash milkshake one and a half year's ago.
What were we THINKING!!!

Posted by debra at 08:58 PM | Comments (7)

Taking Cashew Cheese Seriously This Time

November 04, 2004

In my October 6th entry I report on buying R A W and how it made me nostalgic for the vegetarian classic, Laurel's Kitchen. I said I was going to take cashew cheese seriously these time and I am a woman of my word. Roxanne Klein's recipe calls for 'fermented bean water' but I just used kim chi (pickled cabbage) juice to sour the nut mash - worked great.

It's not called cheese because it tastes or feels anything like cheese - but it's really delicious, delicious enough to eat frequently. It will suffice for comfort food in these grim days.

Posted by debra at 09:28 AM | Comments (2)

Poppyseed Mustard

October 26, 2004

It tastes just like it looks, dark and musty. Even though I mixed this batch with a roasted garlic clove I still think it would taste great with chocolate! Poppyseed 'mustard' makes me long for strudel and as soon as I am done with this juice fast I'll develop a savoury strudel with poppy seeds and mushrooms.

Posted by debra at 10:46 PM | Comments (4)

Autumnal fasting has begun

Today I started the Autumnal Fast. I'll be recording my menus and recipes (!) here. If you always thought fasting was a torture read here to see that the opposite is the case. SO far it is the first day and I'm not interested in juicing, very interested in cooking - so I made some cashew cheese and poppyseed mustard.

Day 1 (of 6)

- coffee (don't say it...)
- sauerkraut juice (Brother Aaron and I used to fight eachother to drink this.)
- fresh orange juice
- apple mint juice
- miso soup with roasted garlic (see nature's garlic entry)
- mushroom bouillion with roasted garlic (idem ditto)
- pear ginger juice with jogi tea
- sleepytime tea

Posted by debra at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)

Cook 'em with Dirt and All

October 18, 2004

A Norgwegian harpsichordist once taught me an easy way to peel potatoes, a way that preserved precious vitamines. You dump them in a pot, dirt and all and boil them up good. When they're soft enough, you drain them (and the mud) and plunge them into cold water and let them sit a bit. They'll stay hot, don't worry. In the cold water you can easily peel the potatoes with your fingers - the outer skin just falls away. Saves a bunch of time and is a satisfying job in a pick your scab sort of way.

Pictured above are my art students (from the Dutch Art Institute) helping me prepare dinner after a long day's work. Clockwise from 2 o 'clock are students from: Tracey; Jamaica/Canada, Viktor; Bulgaria, Ruth; Germany/Nederland, Ju Hie; South Korea. Not pictured and therfore not peeling are Macha; Kazachstan/Israel, Mu Xe; PRChina, TsuiLun; Taiwan, and Anne; Germany/Nederland.

Posted by debra at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

Possible Epiphany

October 05, 2004

She's going to try one of my recipes. And I'm scared.
What if she doesn't understand and makes a dog's breakfast of the thing. She might stop trying my recipes forever.

Although I have cooked since I was a child, I am new at writing recipes for other people. I am new at explaining cooking to people that have a different experience level or culinary background than I. What if I use too few words? Too many words are confusing. I don't know if someone will understand, 'the shoulders of the cabbage', or not. I want to convey my enthusiasm for cooking but I know that folks that don't make a sport of expanding their cooking repetoire also don't have the sticktoitiveness of someone who does. (stick-to-it-ive-ness - it's a real word).

I was thinking about this this morning, when she told me she had bought some ingredients to try the chalupsies when I realised, most cooking is taught by example. Most often you have seen and tasted the dish before you try to make it. You have watched it being prepared, seen the in-between stages. You build upon the techniques you learned at home when you try to copy something you have eaten in a restaurant or when you follow a recipe.

I learned how to cook because my father, who loves cooking, fried omelets every Saturday morning using daring combinations of food. My Aunties and Grams used to 'practically' compete with one another to see who could make the most delicious, most beautiful dinners. My Mom, a self-admitted non-cook, learned how to make her excellent tomato sauce based dishes from my Dad's friend Campinella.

Reading a recipe, even with explicit imagery will not bring ease into the kitchen. Ease comes from practice, ease comes from enjoying every moment of touching, smelling and looking at the marvels of the food. Ease comes when folks hang out in the kitchen and start 'yakkin' (that has nothing to do with yaks or the 'Y' word). Like with anything, ease comes when you make 'it' your own.

Posted by debra at 10:11 AM | Comments (3)

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.

Please read more... "Changes"

Posted by debra at 11:15 AM | Comments (6)

Changes

C H A N G E S :

Please read more... "Changes"

Posted by debra at 11:15 AM | Comments (6)

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.)

Posted by debra at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

Google Recipe Finder

The fabulous R.vT. came up with this Google Recipe Search link.
http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/recipe.html

Posted by debra at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

Autumnal Juice Fast Experiments

September 28, 2004

On the left, a mixture of opal basil, spearmint, and apple juices. On the right, beet and red pepper juices. I'm getting ready for a culinary juice fast in 3 weeks time:
apple + mint = great
apple + opal basil = great
apple + beet = great
apple alone = great
apple + red pepper = yuck, (hollow, woody and burpy)

beet alone = too intense, too sweet, woody, badly needs something sour
beet + mint + apple = good
beet + opal basil = too dark, needs to be cut with sour
beet + red pepper = delicious, nectaresque, versatile (soup?)

red pepper + mint = wonderfully fresh, cheerful
red pepper + basil = yuck (woody and burpy)
red pepper alone = delicious

Posted by debra at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

Tomato Brains

September 20, 2004

It usually takes me 2 weeks to get back into cooking once I have arrived home in Amsterdam from being away. Funny, because when I'm travelling I want to cook all the time. I think that it has to do with the scarcity of diverse ingredients and lifestyle here in Amsterdam and not the fact that it is home. Fruit doesn't fall from the trees, grand dinners are rare and mostly at my house and chez a precious handfull of friends.

But no need to despair, on the fun side of the agenda I'm preparing a workshop for the FunLab at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and designing some food for the Museum N8 with and for Mediamatic. This means that there are test dinners to come. The nonsensical financial model called 'give me a gig and I'll invite you over to dinner' is born.

Pictured above are of course tomato brains - everyone's favourite part of the tomato. I'm currently experimenting with the brains and meat separately.

Posted by debra at 12:53 PM | Comments (2)

Leafy Greens

August 16, 2004

Up here at the Chateau there is no shortage of appreciation for leafy greens. Tonight we eat our salad with rapt attention as Kristine sings the praises of yesterday's salad, plucked by a visiting chef. Claire and Valerie recount that their Grandmere not only goes mushroom hunting but salad green hunting in the mountains. They tell us that they have eaten salads of wild greens plucked from the environs with more than 20 species of leaf.

We sprinkle a very subtle vinaigrette onto Fred and Kristine's homegrown leaves, some bitter, some succulent, some meaty. I eat each besprinkled leaf with my fingers. It is ten o'clock at night and the skies have just opened up their guts. We eat the salad together in contented silence, the 5 us, as a precious dessert under an umbrella'd table in the rain.

Posted by debra at 11:56 AM

Peach Lessons

August 02, 2004

Janine Digout is going to give me peach lessons tomorrow. We ate these for dessert last Wednesday and I have to say I have never in my life eaten either a peach or a nectarine as delicious and perfumed as than the ones that she served us that night. And I used to live in California! And we had a peach tree growing in our gardens!

Still there is one thing that Occitania lacks (I can only think of one)... Meyer Lemons. If the Langue d'Oc would have this superior sort of lemon it would be in fact the most perfect place on earth.

Please read more... "Peach Lessons"

Posted by debra at 09:20 AM | Comments (1)

Regime Change

July 28, 2004

Now that the Tour de France is over we've decided to cut down on our calorie intake. Gazpacho for lunch. Blend ingredients, chill and serve.

Please read more... "Regime Change"

Posted by debra at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by debra at 11:53 AM | Comments (2)

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)

Aligot

July 22, 2004

Aligot is melted Aubrac cheese, chunky mashed potatoes, and coarsely chopped garlic stirred and stirred and stirred in a special p�t d'Aligot until it gets nice and stringy.

Please read more... "Aligot"

Posted by debra at 09:24 AM | Comments (1)

Presentation is Everything

July 14, 2004

I feel like this little raisin.

Posted by debra at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

Presentation is Everything

I feel like this little raisin.

Posted by debra at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by debra at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

No Rest for the Rugged

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.

Posted by debra at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

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.

If you want to see the entire process, click further.

Posted by debra at 01:28 PM | Comments (4)

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)

I Love Smoking: Tea-smoked Salmon and a Dessert Borscht fit for a Foot Massage

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)

Moralist hangups

June 20, 2004

It's a day for raucous rejoicing when an immigrant to the Netherlands can help the natives remember their culinary traditions. Hangop is a Dutch summer dessert. It is simply yoghurt hung up in a wet tea towel until all of the whey has drained out of it, thickening the yoghurt in the process.

'Why drain yoghurt yourself?' you may ask. Indeed, why hang up yoghurt when we can now buy perfectly delicious, hyper-thick and fatty yoghurt at Turkish shops. The Turkish version even comes in a handy tub that when recycled works brilliantly as vernacular tupperware.

The reason you should drain your own yoghurt is that this process is beautiful to behold and it yields a urine coloured water called 'whey'. Drink whey as a thirst quencher. Served ice-cold, there is no subsititute for piercing through the thick wall of mucous produced by an 80 kilometer cycling adventure than a good glass of whey.

Please read more... "Moralist hangups"

Posted by debra at 04:35 PM | Comments (3)

Moralist hangups

Please read more... "Moralist hangups"

Posted by debra at 04:35 PM | Comments (3)

The Breakfast of Champions

June 19, 2004

Breakfast Menu for when the Champion has a hangover.
- 2 fried eggs over HARD with crumbled canned fromage brebis
- 2 delicious cups of coffee
- 1 red pepper eaten from the fist

Posted by debra at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)

Carrot Caramel with Poached Peaches

June 14, 2004

Sometimes you make something so tasty it just boggles the mind.

Carrot Caramel with Poached Peaches

Have ready at hand:
- peaches: poached, peeled and portioned
- fresh carrot juice
- juice of one lemon
- a great deal of white sugar
- a big sheet of baker's parchment laid out on a heat resistant surface

Posted by debra at 04:52 PM

Carrot Caramel with Poached Peaches

Sometimes you make something so tasty it just boggles the mind.

Carrot Caramel with Poached Peaches

Posted by debra at 04:52 PM

Comfort Food

June 12, 2004

Since I was 14 I've been a huge fan of kimchi (korean pickled cabbage). And lately not a day goes by when I don't eat it. And lately I eat it with noodle-cut tofu, 'white cheese soup', black sesame seeds and wasabi peanuts.

I love the way the different textures of cabbage and daikon radish feel on my tongue, the prickling of the ferment, the mild, soothing tofu, the crunchy sesame seeds and the pungency of the wasabi peanuts. A pool of 'white cheese soup' (recipe follows) with spring onion provides contrast to the kimchi, balancing the flavours.

- fresh bubbling kimchi
- fresh raw tofu cut into 'noodles'
- a white cheese soup (recipe follows)
- sprinkling of black sesame seeds and wasabi peanuts

Please read more... "Comfort Food"

Posted by debra at 04:11 PM

Rhubarb Marmalade Terrine

June 01, 2004

Because I grew up in a California household in which the sweet granules were often referred to as 'White Death', I sometimes encounter a little psychological barrier walking 500 metres to the market and dishing out 1 euro 40 to buy some sugar. Meanwhile, I seem to be the only one in my family to have taken the 'White Death' bit seriously.

Luise coming to dinner and I'm plum out of sugar because I used it all up last week making a massive batch of orange marmalade. My situation is not unlike the Weapons of Mass Destruction Scenario that was plaguing 'that Man'. I have lots of marmalade, and I know that it's just chock full of sugar because I put the sugar there in the first place.

I served this Rhubarb Marmalade Terrine with a stiff hangop (joghurt from which the whey has been drained) sweetened liberally with THAT's RIGHT homemade marmalade! I spiced the hangop with saffran and rosewater and spooned it into quenelles to serve next to the Rhu.

Posted by debra at 09:10 PM | Comments (2)

Rhubarb Marmalade Terrine

Posted by debra at 09:10 PM | Comments (2)

KimChi Monkfish Papillot

May 31, 2004

On a piece of parchment place 6 cloves of roasted garlic, a hunk of monkfish, fresh kimchi, butter, scatter with fermented salted soybeans, and drizzle with beer.

Fold and staple the parchment to form a sealed package. Place in preheated oven at 200� for 15 minutes. When it smells good, its ready.

Posted by debra at 09:53 AM

KimChi Monkfish Papillot

On a piece of parchment place 6 cloves of roasted garlic, a hunk of monkfish, fresh kimchi, butter, scatter with fermented salted soybeans, and drizzle with beer.

Fold and staple the parchment to form a sealed package. Place in preheated oven at 200� for 15 minutes. When it smells good, its ready.

Posted by debra at 09:53 AM

Nature's Bouillon Cubes

May 18, 2004

Roasted cloves of garlic thrown into salted water seem to work as nature's bouillon. I roasted the cloves for about an hour in a hot oven (200� c) and had been adding them to soups like bouillon cubes, but now I'm just popping them into my mouth and eating them like raisins.

Posted by debra at 08:42 AM

Nature's Bouillon Cubes

Posted by debra at 08:42 AM

Juice fasting, Soup fasting

March 20, 2004

enokisoup.jpe

In preparation of my trip to PRChina I am fasting this week. Liquids only� primarily fruit and vegetable juices, but also broths and froths. It is exciting to present myself with the opportunity of creating new juice and soup recipes as well doing a survey on rice, soy, and barley 'milks'. I had never fasted during the winter and this gives me the opportunity to focus on developing satisfying and warming liquid foods of culinary interest.

Enoki mushroom and roasted garlic broth:

enoki-th.jpe

Posted by debra at 10:32 PM

culinary experimentation dream

September 29, 2003

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)

00ze: GooseFood4HumanFood

September 15, 2003

00ze. That's zoo spelled backwards, sort of. Natalie Jeremijenko has asked me to be the culinary artistic director of her 00ze project - bat bars and goose-steraunts. Animals and humans come into more competitve contact in a situation in which they actually share the same menu.

The Goosesteraunt is gearing up for a November gig. I have been experimenting and so far there is high-res documentation and 24 distinct recipes. Invite yourself over if you're interested in a taste-testing session. Recipe testers needed.

'Mock Larva' Dumplings
(description: rice flour dumplings. Looks like larva)
- Watercress dumpling
- Seeds (black seeds) dumpling
- Sea coral (nl. zeekraal) dumpling
- Seed and sea coral 'worm-cigar' dumpling

Posted by debra at 05:50 PM | Comments (2)