Author Archives: w7

This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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404533_10150616991189629_510874628_8755423_179769866_nAh, not a bad effort this week:

Pork loin medallions, served with freshly made egg fettuccine and a mustard and white wine reduction. Just a good excuse for getting the pasta maker out of the cupboard.

Fresh tomato soup with poached egg, spiced yogurt and fresh sourdough bread. Not terribly exciting when made with winter tomatoes, but gave a promise of summer.

Grilled feta cheese with chorizo, tomatoes, onions and jalapeno peppers. Just another excuse to eat more of our own sourdough bread, which pleases us tremendously these days.

Calves liver, complete with caramelised apples, potato mash and gravy.

Oh, and this: a five course Italian meal. Begins with a welcome of a shot of tomato essence, served with fresh focaccia and a sample of salami and other meat produce. Then, a bread soup (will post the recipe soon), followed by three types of fresh ravioli (spinach and pine nuts, goats cheese and mushroom, and egg yolk) topped with a sage butter. This was followed by a sous vide cooked and pan-seared butterflied quail, served with fried cabbages and a fondant potato. To conclude, a Lemon Tarte and a Cream of Zabaglione ice cream.
All was lovely and much praised, but I will admit that this menu was a bit of a palaver to prepare, more than usual even by my standards. Worth it though.

(With thanks to Jane for the photo. Her complete gallery from the evening is online. Click!)

 

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False Advertising, Government-Style

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DSCF2189Advertising tobacco products is banned from British television, and rightfully so. Also banned are adverts with explicit sexual or racial content, for example. A commercial recommending a yoghurt-like product is banned in the UK for exaggerating its health benefits, and so is one advertising make-up, which was aired after heavy airbrushing and photoshopping.

There are plans to outlaw advertising cosmetic surgery such as breast enlargements.

There are even rules in the UK; restrictions on advertising which ‘might result in harm to children physically, mentally or morally’ and on adverts employing methods that ‘take advantage of the natural credulity and sense of loyalty of children.’ [ITC]

Unfortunately, there are no rules against advertising murder under the pretence of adventure.

The British Army, Airforce and Navy, in concert with the Territorial Army, are all happy to run TV commercials on British television, telling viewers how much fun is to be had in the armed forces. Their advertising is aimed at grown-up people, which is bad enough, but most definitely also aims at younger recruits: boys and girls barely able to enjoy sex without breaking the law, boys and girls not yet entitled to vote, to drive a car, or to work through the night in a 24-hour fast food outlet.

These boys and girls are welcome to join the military though, and learn to become a murderer, or be butchered themselves. When they return from ‘deployment’ in a coffin, the country mourns both in silence and in an outcry of shock about the devastating tragedy that this 17 year old soldier bit the dust, roadside in Afghanistan or elsewhere.

17 or 43, male or female, black or white or ginger. It’s murder all the same, and advertising it is a disgrace.

 

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My Motif

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motifA motif is the centrepiece of a Roman mosaic. Not the square yards over square yards of dolphins and nude girls, 3-dimensional optical illusions and fighting bulls, straight lines and wiggly lines, stars and ships and lizards, but the small piece in the very centre of a grand floor.

It’s the mosaic’s valuable part, the part you treasure, the part you take with you when you move from one villa in the south of Rome to another in the North, or whatever the Romans did.

Here is mine.

It’s made of approximately 120 pencils, coloured and standard “HB” ones, cut into 5..7mm discs (using my Dremel 3000 and it’s diamond cutter tool), laid upside down and cemented together with Copydex, a rubber-like arts and crafts glue.

We don’t have a Roman villa to surround it, and we don’t have a grand marble mosaic floor to surround it either, but we are quite happy to have it hang on the wall.

 

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This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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DSC_0294This week, we’ve been eating a mixed bag of mostly simple meals. I am restricted by other commitments, but with Masterchef 2012 and Raymond Blanc’s lovely The Very Hungry Frenchman…. OK, I’ll tell you about this TV program some other time. So, here are this week’s meals:

Seafood Spaghetti, served with a creamy white wine sauce. A yummy quickie.

Pot au Feu aux Lentilles a l’Anglaise, because this is a very rewarding and warming meal, and I was cold with a bad cold, and with very low outside temperatures. I’ll post the recipe to this some time soon, as it is one of my all-time favourites.

Steak Tartare and fresh bread. What could be simpler? What could be more delicious? Hardly anything, really. Raymond argues that an omelette takes only three minutes, and that your life is seriously screwed if you can’t afford those three minutes for a simple yet delicious omelette, but you know what? Steak Tartare doesn’t take much longer, and when push comes to shove, I prefer it to an omelette.
Which reminds me on those lovely one-egg omelettes I did for starters some while ago… Time to revive those! Onwards:

Lechon a Cubana; slow-cooked juicy pork, complete with spicy beans, rice, caramelised pineapple and plantains (see picture). Not quite a 3-minute dish (the pork takes 10 hours), but it worked out really nice. Everybody in the household liked it. Well, OK, all two-legged members of the household.

We finished the week by going out and enjoying a wonderful Vietnamese meal in Saigon, Saigon, King Street, Hammersmith. (See here for my review.)

Not so bad after all, upon reflection…

 

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Saigon, Saigon

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DSC_0940I promised a friend and member of the Sunday Night Curry Club to tell about our trying out of Saigon, Saigon, a Vietnamese Restaurant in Hammersmith’s King Street, so here goes:

We loved it.

We arrived at 7pm on a Saturday evening to a pre-booked table for four, and it quickly turned out that pre-booking seems essential: the place was packed, and the downside was that we had a slot from 7 to 9pm.

Staff was friendly and efficient though, and overall noise levels were pleasantly low, inspite of the many diners in the room.

For starters, we enjoyed fresh salad rolls with sliced shrimp & pork in soft rice paper, char-grilled quails marinated with honey, minced garlic & five spices and a sliced beef steak salad (medium-rare) with mixed herbs in fresh lime juice. All three dishes were so nice that none of us could pick a favourite.

For the mains, we had stir-fried spicy beef with morning glory, stir-fried chicken in a fruity tamarind sauce, shredded pork with lemon grass and black mushrooms, served in a clay pot, and seafood “on fire,” all accompanied by fried rice, sparkling water and a Sauvignon Blanc.

Maybe one of quieter nights will allow for more time. While we didn’t feel rushed through the meal and our 2 hour slot, in the end we were declined a coffee and asked to vacate the table for the 9pm batch. I think this is just acceptable given the overall quality to price ratio; they’d probably have to raise prices across a magical threshold in order to run the place at a single seating per table. Maybe 2 1/2 hour slots would be clever compromise move though.

The food was great. Prices are very reasonable for the area; we paid approximately £30 per person, which included a bottle of wine shared between four. The only downside is the two hour table slot business.  We’ll be back for sure, but maybe not on a Saturday night.

 

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A Butcher’s Report

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DSC_0187Here’s a follow-up on the earlier report of Salami making:

We have now sampled and enjoyed the first of the two pork salami made in early January. I declare it a victory with reservations: I used too much fat. The mix is too salty (as expected, due to an Oops! when preparing the mix). I also used a “salami spice mix” which came as part of a pack deal (which also included beef ‘middle’ intestines, curing salt and starter ferment) – this mix makes it taste like a box-standard salami. Boring.

All in all, however, it looks like a salami, feels like a salami and probably smells like a salami (a cold blocks my sense of smell right now), so on an overall verdict, we felt encouraged.

Thus enthused, we have now made four beef salami, two with a spicy paprika and chilli flavour, two with fennel. I also made three pieces of smoked belly of pork and two pieces of cured beef (topside), all of which are dangling from the box room ceiling right now.

We are now looking forward to February 15th (belly of pork), 20th (cured beef) and some time in mid March for the salami.

 

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This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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DSC_0249This week, or some time not too long ago, I’ve been mostly eating crispy parcels of filo pastry, filled with goats cheese, chestnut mushrooms and dill, served with roasted pistachios and poached pear. For the main course, a braised shank of lamb was served with a rich thyme jus, saffron rice and spiced yoghurt, followed by yet another instalment of freshly churned vanilla ice cream and caramelized apples.

Chicken thigh fillets, filled with a salsa from coriander greens, anchovy, capers and black olives, wrapped in home-cured, home-smoked and home-dried pancetta, served with sage butter fettuccine.

Lechon a la Cubana at the Habana Cuba Restaurant in San Jose, CA. This is slow-cooked pork (which was aromatic, satisfactory juicy, and not dry), served with back bean soup, rice, and plantains. Very rich for lunch, but very enjoyable. Cooking this meal is very high on my priority list now, I just hope that I don’t have to travel all the way to Brixton just for two plantains.

The welcome back home to the good wife, to civilization and, well, home meal was a tray of Paella, followed by Pudim Flan. Both are easy enough to make even with a worn-out body and jet-lagged brain, and both are easily among the tastiest dishes possible.

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New World Sports

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DSC_0144The Prime Minister hopes that the 2012 London Olympics will encourage more people to take on sports.

New world sports, I’m guessing:

Power Tweeting

Cross-terrain Texting

Speed Channel Hopping

Synchronised Facebooking

What’s your favourite new world sport?

 

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Corporate Meeting Results

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doodles_lowresI need to be on full alert in some meetings that I attend at work, while some other meetings require just listening in at a reduced level of alertness. When attending teleconferences of the latter kind, sometimes I make use of the spare capacity, get my graphics tablet out, and doodle around with Artrage. I like these six doodles shown here, which I drew in order from top left to bottom right.

Each is a very simple random doodle, filled with plain colour. None has any artistic merits, but I like the fact that you can see a plan emerging from a random doodle top left, to something like a flower bud in the bottom right. Oh, and I also like the bold colours.

The plan improves and colours are chosen more considerately, as I move from doodle to doodle. Predictably yet frustratingly, the spontaneity of the first doodle is lost. I need to learn combining the spontaneity of the first with the planning of the last.

Time to join more meetings. Bring it on!

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A Project Proposal

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DSC_0239No This Week I’ve Been Mostly Eating this week. I am stuck in a studio apartment with a tiny kitchenette and mediocre equipment. Cooking is limited to salads, sandwiches, pasta with simple sauces. Not very exciting.

Instead, let me tell you about an arts project idea that came to my mind:

You start by talking to those people who make the colour mixing machines found in the paint departments of supermarkets, D.I.Y. stores and hardware stores. Dulux comes to mind, but others have pretty daughters colours, too. Somehow, you make them surrender their colour mixing statistics: on this day, we produced 5 litres of a paint made of 3% apricot and 1% lime, and 2 litres coloured with 1% ochre and 0.5% bright red (plus the bulk in white), etc.

You’d collect this statistical data over a long time, preferably a year, and preferably in different countries and continents.

Then, you go and chose a colour chart. I like the idea of using a standard IT8.7 target, but some of the fancier colour rendering index methods with all colours of the rainbow, arranged maybe in a circle, could be a good start.

Next, you devise an algorithm that lets you plot this chart, distorted by the statistical data retrieved. For example, one might expect that bright yellow and lime colours play a larger role in spring than maybe in summer, or one might expect that ochre and beige shades play a larger role in California than in England. Will the winter be predominantly dark or bright?

It seems plain to me, even though I won’t normally shy away from making an effort, that this is a tiny little bit too large for me. I guess this could be a digital art major project for one or two students, for example, so if anyone out there reads this and plans on doing it, good luck, and be sure to show me the results.

 

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Whiter Than White

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bibendumThose who have been to the U.S. before will know them as the country of superlatives: strawberries are larger and sweeter than elsewhere in the world. Coffee cream is whiter, roads are wider, cars are bigger, supermarkets are larger (and so are the steaks), people are louder, portions are bigger and petrol is cheaper. In fact, the list of superlatives is longer than anywhere else.

When shopping for food in a local supermarket, I found another peculiarity previously unknown to me: eggs are white.

Back home in Britain, you’d struggle to find a white egg on the shelves; the vast majority of chicken eggs sold are brown eggs. Over here, I found a few brown ones on a specials shelf, but hundreds of cartons of white eggs.

I haven’t cracked a white egg in a long time, so I conducted an experiment over the weekend. This took the shape of Tagliatelle Carbonara with smoked salmon, with sauteed spinach and Shitake mushrooms on the side, and a soft boiled egg for Sunday morning.

The world is in order and I am at peace. The American white egg is just what it claims to be: an egg.

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A Cook, an Artist, And a Poet

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DSC_0738-largeA cook, a visual artist and a poet are among the professions required for a great chef.

Have you seen Claire Hutchings’ menu for an event at The Bunk Inn, Curridge Village, Thacham, 28th & 29th of February? Probably not, but if you want to, here is it:  http://pic.twitter.com/ZoT3p0Uf.

I don’t mean to be picking on Claire. I am certain her food looks stunning, and tastes every bit as good as it looks. I liked her on Masterchef Pro and even thought she could win it. I also don’t mean that she’s alone in this, but seriously? This is not a menu. It’s a list of ingredients. Maybe Masterchef spoilt her, since they seem to do this forever and ever: I made you a blah-blah-blah on whatnots, accompanied by this, that, and something else, with a jus from something and other and a foam made from whatever, topped with a shard of…

This is where the chef needs to put her poet hat on for a while, and invent a name of a meal, and a menu, that is not a list of ingredients or preparation methods. Something intriguing, something that arouses curiosity and imagination alike, something amusing. Maybe there’s a job opportunity here for someone with inspiration, language skills and a good understanding of food and cooking.

I am not offering my services here, and I am not claiming that my Christmas 2011 menu sets a standard, but honestly, I find it much more appealing to read and look at, and much more intriguing. Honest.

Would all aspiring chefs please give this more thought and come up with more original menus?

Thank you.

 

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