Gastarbeider Dating,
the Hungry Man’s
recipe 4 luv
February 6, 2008
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Suggestive profiling image from Mediamatic’s Gastarbeider Dating Site (now in beta!) and used entirely without permission
Because 2008 is about solving all of life’s little problems, one of my New Year’s slash Tu Bishvat resolutions was to start dating. Now I always like to throw in a little bit of achievability with the lofty and ambitious resolutions, and although dating is proving to be a smidgeon more difficult than improving one’s handwriting (and 81 times more time consuming), it is no less satisfying.
So when Mediamatic, one of Amsterdam’s best cultural platforms announced that they would start a dating site for people in the arts, media and design, it seemed like a more aesthetic solution for me than duking it out on J-Date.
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Blog author’s kimchi butterflies in her stomach
Here’s the Mediamatic dating site blurb:
A liberal use of the F-word in my profile, (now removed to preserve some anonymity) landed me a few gents willing to talk about food and food culture in our initial dating correspondence. I was betting on food’s broad metaphoric value to get things revved up, but now I’m thinking that us art and design types should cut to the chase when sniffing each other’s butts.
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Suggestive profiling image from Mediamatic’s Gastarbeider Dating Site (now in beta!) and used entirely without permission
The dating site is an art piece by Mediamatic, but it’s very real indeed. Ten days on and the dating pool is thankfully growing, so that it doesn’t get more incestuous in this town than it already is. Single alpha males above and beyond the age of… 35 (!) will not be disappointed with the throngs of super fab cultural sector ex-patriettes that grace the Gastarbeider Dating site. Please feel welcome and invite your brethren. (Maybe a good idea to ask them to invite their brethren as well.) Plus it would be very helpful if some of the more festive gays would come over and show the hetero art & design nerds how to yuck it up a little.
Here’s an original recipe that I got from Bachelor #1 (not his real name). Looks yummy, so I edited it a bit and thought I’d publish it entirely without his permission. Is this a hot recipe?
- Pumpkin and smoked mackerel salad with orange
1 smoked mackerel (in the NL they call these steamed, but they are most definitely smoked)
1 orange, preferably a blood orange
1 orange pumpkin, the size of a 2 yr. old child’s head
2 tbs roasted almonds
goodly drizzle of olive oil
goodly pinch of the following: sea salt, freshly ground pepper and cumin seed
Preheat the oven to 190° c (~375 F)
While the oven is still heating up, roast the almonds in an oven dish, they don’t mind the fluctuation.
Place thinly sliced pieces of pumpkin on an oven tray, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast in a medium hot oven until soft. It will start to smell sweet when it’s almost ready, so focus pocus.
Whilst the almonds are toasting and the pumpkin is roasting, skin and debone the mackerel with all the care in the world. No one likes fishing through their mouth for obstacles. Feel around the ’seams’ of the filets that there aren’t rows of bones hiding. Separate into obvious chunks and set aside.
The almonds are probably done by now. Remove them from the oven and on a wooden cutting board, crush them sloppily with the flat end of your vegetable knife. Set aside.
Filet the orange into sections thusly: do not peel it with your hands, instead cut off the skin leaving no trace of white pith. If you’re worried about wasting food, you can candy this peel and use it for something else. But the white part of an orange just doesn’t belong in this recipe, so cut liberally.
When the orange is a naked ball, hold in your helper hand and cut along the section membrane towards the centre. Stop just before you get there and go around the other side of the section membrane back ‘out’ again to release the section. This is a technique to get nicely shaped and juicy pieces of orange for salads.
By this time the pumpkin is probably ready, test with a fork, to see if it’s perfect. Just out of the oven, dust it with the black pepper and the cumin seeds which on the warm pumpkin will release their aromas nicely.
When the pumpkin is more or less room temperature, toss it into a large bowl with some more olive oil. Try to not break it up too much. Add the chunks of mackerel and the orange slices and ‘tussle’ more than toss, to not break up any of the ingredients. Heterogeneïty is better in this case than homogeneïty. Sprinkle with the crushed almonds and if you want, a last dusting of the salt, pepper and cumin seed.
debra at 1:34 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Bone marrow
January 30, 2008
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Roasted cow bone right out of the oven.
Maybe it’s because I was sick with flu for the past 2 months and had no appetite. Maybe because bone marrow used to be considered a restorative food for ill people. Maybe because yesterday, going to and from yoga practice, I just wore 2 pairs of sweats under my pants. Maybe because my friend Marlein gave me that great cookbook with a yummy bone marrow recipe, Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson. Maybe because I’ve got carnivorous house guests.
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This picture represents a perfect food pyramid for omnivores with a healthy mixture of green, purple, alive and dead.
Whatever the reason, I was so happy to be hungry again and bone marrow was on my mind. Why these buttery goodness sticks aren’t roasted and sold on every single street corner as the most delicious snack you can spoon onto toast, sprinkle with salt flakes and pop into your mouth is a mystery to me. I mean, if most of the year you eat like a hippy vegetarian, a little bone marrow every now and again will only produce a state of bliss. Plus it’s nice to eat more than just animal T&A.
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debra at 4:14 | Comments (5) | post to del.icio.us
Recipe for sweet pea hummous
January 26, 2008
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A vat of sweat pea hummous warms itself in the bleak winter sun just south of the Polar Circle
Recently, democratic presidential candidate hopeful Barack Obama was reported as saying, ‘Ooh Mama, lay yer hummous on me!’ I know, that’s just preaching to the converted. Gawd knows few things are more handy than a big ‘ol vat of hummous to combat an unexpected pang of hunger or the impromptu droppin’ by of guests. Countless are the times that the hummous snack course has evolved into a full-fledged dinner.
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Peas and soybeans thaw briefly in a warm bath
Recipes for traditional hummous with chick peas, tahina, garlic and lots of lemon juice are legion, but this recipe gets us the hell out the Middle East and Central Asia and home to where the ginger and kaffir lime leaf can release an ‘enlightened’ sensibility. Sweet pea hummous, which sounds so much better than ‘pea dip’, also works great as a ravioli filling for when the vegans show up. For the vegan version just substitute olive or peanut oil and a dash of sesame oil for the butter component.
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Sweet Pea Hummous
- fresh frozen organic peas
- (optional) frozen edamame soy beans (will give it more body than if you use just peas - depends what you’re going for)
- semi-salted butter (for the vegan friends, olive or peanut oil w/a dash of sesame oil)
- fresh ginger
- fresh garlic cloves
- fresh kaffir lime leaves
- japanese style brewed soy sauce
- (optional) fish sauce (just a few squirts)
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Just thaw, don’t cook
To thaw the frozen peas and soybeans, pour boiling water over them and wait a minute. The water should be cool and the beans cool to the touch. Do not cook the thing that must remain raw. Colour is a good indicator, bright beautiful green is good, brown is bad.
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The ingredients before blending, thawed peas and beans, butter, garlic, ginger, kaffir lime leaf, a few squirts of soy and fish sauce
Strain off the water, put the peas and soybeans in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients and blend away. If you feel you need to add some liquid because the hummous is too thick, try adding some of that cold green tea sitting in the teapot on the counter. Don’t over-blend the pea hummous or it will look like wasabi. This is a case when hetero is just way better than homo.
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Serve sweet pea hummous with crackers or bread or green or orange or white things
Covered in the fridge this hummous will keep a few days. Don’t refreeze the thing that was already frozen. Instead use the leftovers from an overly ambitious batch as a ravioli filling. You can also make a bright green pea soup by thinning the sweet pea hummous with dashi or coconut milk and creme fraiche. Carefully heat in a pot until it’s the proper temperature for soup but do not cook the soup that must remain green.
debra at 16:37 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
