December 2009
12 posts
November 2009
31 posts
so i’m working on my application for miami ad school in san francisco, and i slowly recalled the 4/20 day shindig that my vegan couchsurfing hosts threw, complete with some type of confusing cigarette (cough), pencil mustaches, la mujer de mi hermano, and sitting in the kitchen talking to a guy called curtis and not really listening to him because i was face down in some papalote salsa.
it was so good that i ate half a jar of it. and it was a big jar.
(please excuse the baffling site. what they make up for in bad html is greatly made up for by flavours.)
(apparently their food is otherwise quite average, and the salsa is the only reason to go.)
in 1932, italian futurist filippo marinetti published the futurist cookbook, as an anti-bourgeois move in order to revolutionize how italians ate, and unburden them from the tradition of pasta and heavy meals.
although this photo seems to suggest otherwise. i don’t blame you, filippo. who can hate on pasta?
here are 3 recipes quoted in alain de botton’s status anxiety (from which i read this little gem about bohemian cooking).
ricotta was never a big part of my lifelong cheese appreciation. it never appeared in my life until i moved back to sydney, where suddenly it was in everything — ravioli, pastizzis, savoury tarts. although almost everyone i knew loved it, i had no appreciation for it. flavourless soggy cheese that resembles crumbled tofu? no thanks.
it wasn’t until i had my first spoonful of baked ricotta cakes, at agata’s italian cooking course in melbourne, that i discovered the sweet cuddley joy of still-steaming-from-the-market ricotta — held together only with egg whites, a modest amount of honey, and a sprinkling of lemon zest.
still, i wouldn’t go out of my way to eat bucketloads of ricotta — as opposed to gouda, camembert, or a nice sharp vintage cheddar. but as an excuse to make these ricotta cakes — which are actually more of a pudding than cake — then hand me my spoon.
baked ricotta cakes (serves 4)
(recipe courtesy of agata, from amoré cucina)
- spicy food
- deep fried food
- barbecued / cooked-on-open-flame food
- anything straight from the fridge; everything needs to be “acclimated” to room temperature before consumption
- frozen food
- excessive amounts of coffee
- alcohol
so no malaysian, indian, izakaya (kushiage and yakitori), fried chicken, gelato, bloody marys, and more than 1 cup of coffee a day.
basically, all the things that make me happy. oh, what’s the point.
there was a 60 minutes segment on sunday night on australian piggeries. most other countries have strict animal welfare rules on how pigs are kept, so it’s painful to see how far behind australia is.
pigs being the intelligent animals that they are, the best way to empathise is to basically imagine yourself in a sow stall.
sow stalls are now banned in parts of europe and some states in the US. in 2017, sows in australia will no longer be allowed to stay permanently in sow stalls, except for their 6 weeks of pregnancy. yet the producer can still extend the amount of time a sow spends in the stall at his/her own discretion.
tastebud evidence already shows that free range animals yield tastier meat (see: chicken, beef). and if a consumer revolution can force supermarket chains to stock more free range eggs over cage eggs — then i’m all for making pigs happy.
when I went through my brief vegetarian phase, a hardcore vego friend of mine recommended tempeh for protein. but man. it’s a baffling thing to cook. apart from eating it plain, slightly pan fried, i had no idea what you’re meant to do with it. and it’s pretty uninspiring when it’s plain.
3 years too late, I come across this tempeh curry recipe. dammit!
ten things that help combat 40-degree weather:
- franziskaner hefe-weisse
- pineapple, apple, ginger and mint juice from cafe giulia
- a chilled bottle of moscato
- cucumbers. especially after heavy, spicy, sweaty meals
- teh ‘O’ ais limau — ice tea with a splash of fresh lime
- nightly trips, past the filth that is kings cross, to gelato messina
- grass jelly. not in those crappy cans you drink out of, but in a tin and cut up with a knife, old school styles.
- mum’s universally-approved green bean soup
- a golden gaytime
- melons, of any kind
(yes, i know. gaytime, melons. i saved the best til last.)
apparently coffee causes too much internal heat, especially in the stomach. but so does stress.
so can i just NOT work instead?
i got a phone call on tuesday, gushing about morgan’s coffee and how mindblowingly beautiful it was. if good coffee warrants a call at 8:30 in the morning, then it’s srsly good.
my first morgans was about half a year ago, pulled by a barista who actually worked for morgans. the beautiful thing about morgans for us sydney-siders is that it’s roasted just 2 hours outside of sydney in emu plains — so you can capture it during that magical 2-week freshness when all the stars align and the angels break out in a heavenly chorus, before the beans go stale and you’re left with good, but comparably regular coffee.
morgan’s beans are a little rare, but you can find them in bean or ground form at the essential ingredient, or drink it in pulled espresso form at the coffee cup on crown street, surry hills.
article in a nutshell: the americans were against using wine as a marinade, until us australians hit back with a counter-argument. of course we would.
i know, the article dates from 1986. but after i made carne adobada y guisada en vino tinto (beef marinaded and stewed in red wine), i couldn’t help but wonder why boiling the hell out of meat on a pretty feisty flame didn’t render it completely tough and inedible.
you see, after 23523508 ruined curries, experience suggests that it does. but, as it turns out, i have marinating beef in acid and alcohol to thank.
(for those of us who can’t afford to fly across the planet for the sake of toast, then perhaps a train ticket to kings cross is the answer.)
why would you buy something that you could make in just 20 minutes?
lemon curd / crema de limón
(recipe tested and modified from 1080 recipes by simone and inés ortega)
this is what happened the second-last time i asked for a grey goose martini:
me: can i have a grey goose martini please?
bartender: what?
me: (loudly) a grey. goose. martini.
bartender: okay…sure
(turns to head bartender, gestures to grey goose bottle, motions suggesting inability to make the said martini. head bartender says something, points around the bar. bartender nods, turns around:)
uh, so, how do you want it?
me: (starting to regret not sticking with a gin and tonic) very very dry, please.
bartender: (not completely understanding) okay sure.(bartender turns back to head bartender, relaying this new bit of information. head bartender points around some more.
bartender gains confidence, then proceeds to pour grey goose into a glass tumbler without ice…
at this point, i averted my eyes, unable to bear the sight of grey goose abuse.
eventually, when i faced the bar again, i was presented some form of grey goose, maybe with vermouth in it (i wouldn’t know), in a cognac glass.
then i was asked to pay $25 for it.
srsly.
it’s the next big thing in slow food, but still, the idea of slowly steamed fish makes me gag a little.
hi [you],
kinokuniya was having a 20% all cookbooks sale, so i couldn’t help it. think of it this way — it’s 1080 ways of saying that you love me (and my new love handles).
h
p.s. if it makes you feel better, i’ll make you a tarta de limón.
I write a lot, but not enough about food.
Some people read what I write, but I think if I wrote about food more often, then people would read my stuff more often. Not that I’m trying to get book sales or anything, it’s really just to feed my small sense of self. So I can go to sleep every night, knowing that I’ve registered briefly in your mind as a rumble in your tumblr — I mean, tummy.
I would like to bless the commencement / inauguration of my nomblr with the following food proverb:
“You can’t get butter out of a dog’s mouth.”
And you know that I love butter.
