A Return, Grill Repairs and Lazy, Lazy Grilling

Hey Everyone, and a Very Happy Summer to You!

Yes, I know it’s been a while.  In fact, it’s been about three months that I’ve spent away from blogosphere, both reading and writing, and thank all of you who have told me that I have been missed – especially Ping, Zoe and Juls!  I’ve missed you all as well (gods, do I have tons of blog reading to catch up on now – yay!!!), and trust me when I say that I have had a good reason – in fact, two good reasons! – to be gone.  I make no excuses, only that law school can suddenly drop buckets of workload on one’s head.  Or stacks of books, to be precise.  But, the essays for this half-term are turned in now, and the grade for the first one I got back is good, and I am also back from Barcelona (there will be pictures of food in upcoming blog posts along with restaurant reviews – the great, the good and the awful), and most significantly to my daily nom, I have repaired my kettle grill.

Oh, you didn’t know my grill was broken  - or that I had one at all?  I am not surprised.  You see, it was purchased broken – by design, not by defect – and after the spectacular inaugural failure of its first use, it sat on my balcony for a year, fading in the sunlight and snow, forgotten and unloved.  I rued the €20 or so that we had spent on it and wondered why the hell would anyone sell a grill so structurally bad as to be unusable.  To make it a bit clearer – inside the rounded bottom of it, it had a screw-in bowl thing which the coals were meant to be placed into – that did not have any vent holes in its bottom or sides.  None.  There were vent holes in the sides of the actual grill body around it, but according to the instructions, the bowl thing was to be screwed into the rounded bottom of the grill and the coals were to be placed into it.  I tried it, barely got any heat at all, and gave up on the grill as clearly too badly designed to use.

Then, upon having finished the aforementioned law essays, I felt uplifted and my brain uncramped – and also, it had gotten warm and sunny, and all the neighbors were grilling and … I had a genius idea.  What if I took out the stupid bowl thing and just put the coals into the rounded bottom bit of the grill which does have holes in it.  Would it work?

And – amazingly! – with the removal of the offending and useless thing, the grill was fixed!

To be quite honest, I still wonder why the thing was provided with the grill and why anyone bothered to make it and waste money on materials and such in order to render the grill inoperable.  On the other hand, the beyond-useless part is now resting in peace (or in the garbage to be precise), and we are grilling.  Well, not today – today it’s raining and thundering out, but we did grill yesterday and also a bit over a week ago before we went to Barcelona, and you know what?  That moment when the sizzling meat scents up the entire building and you are vindicated to all the neighbors who tormented you with their grill-scents for weeks – it’s glorious.

The food is, obviously, too.  I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like char-grilled food, be it meat, shellfish, vegetables or cheese.  Or even that thing I normally refuse to mention as food – tofu.  I do believe even tofu would be improved by grilling – but as I don’t eat it, you may have to ask a vegan about that.  Me, I go for meat.  I really ought to get one of those fish-grilling holders in order to do fish on the grill as well.  And seafood – but, it occurs to me that prawns would be great on skewers… but I digress (and drool).

Grilling really is one of the most rewarding ways of cooking – it has the ability to turn ordinary food into extraordinary just by the method of cooking, without any seasoning.  With seasoning added, it’s simply divine.  What follows is less of a recipe, and more of a description of how travel-fatigued and lazy, we managed to make and eat the above corn and pork-and-Padron pepper skewers.

Normally I am a stickler for making my own marinade, and letting the meat soak properly.  However, the skewers in the picture were a result of cheating – we were freshly returned from a week in Spain – exhausted, our fridge was mostly empty, and we wanted to grill but had no meat that was marinated, nor desire or strength to bother.  So, we bought a pork loin pre-seasoned in a vac-pack in the supermarket.  Typical supermarket marinade is pretty insipid but what it does do, is tenderize the meat and brine it.  So, while it does not really flavor the meat much, it does provide the shortcut of hours of marinating time, and when using small bites of meat, added seasoning soaks in/sticks on beautifully in just a few minutes.

I cut the loin up into skewerable pieces, added a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a good thick sprinkling of garlic granules, chopped up a large fat sprig of fresh rosemary into it, drizzled on white wine vinegar and olive oil, and gave the meat a couple of turns in the bowl to coat it thoroughly and distribute seasonings.  If the meat hadn’t been pre-marinated, I’d have added some salt, covered the bowl with cling film and stuck it in the fridge for 2-3 hours, but as shop marinade is mostly salt, I skipped that.  I left the bowl of meat to sit on the countertop while I prepped the corn for grilling.

If you have never prepped corn on the cob for grilling, there is a truly lazy way to do it.  I know, I’m the queen of lazy – particularly on vacation!  Here’s how you do it – you peel back the husks while leaving them attached, thickly smear the corn in lightly salted spreadable butter (the sort which has a bit of vegetable oil added so it stays soft – Lurpak may be available in the States, and I know this variety is available in the UK), and sprinkle on some of the granulated garlic and crushed cayenne flakes generously (or less so if you don’t like eating fire).  Then you fold the husks back over the corn and seal the tips with a bit of kitchen foil before sticking them into a potful of cold water husk-end down to soak.  Then you go light the grill.  Or, if you are lazy and/or happen to be me, you shout for the guys to go light the grill.  Trust me, guys are very easily motivated by the idea of impending grilled meat.

While the coals are heating up, skewer up the meat with whatever you like in-between (or nothing if you are that sort of carnivore).  My favorites are normally either bell pepper pieces, mushrooms, or baby tomatoes.  But, while I was in Spain, I have discovered a new addiction (it’s ok arugula, I still love you!) – I am now officially in love with the delicately scented and oh-so-full-of-flavor pimientos de Padrón.  I had snagged a box of imported dark-green beauties immediately when I saw it at the supermarket upon my return.  In Spain, these are sauteed in a bit of olive oil with flaked sea salt (and they are amazing prepared so), but since they are eaten with seeds, all you have to do with them for skewering, is wash, dry and halve them, and then toss in a bit of olive oil – which is all I did.  You could probably buy any sort of a bell pepper and chop it and it’ll work just as well – but it would be sweeter and with less concentrated pepper flavor (not to be confused with heat – these aren’t very hot, if at all).

Turn the corn once while you skewer the meat – or ask the guys to – and put into a baking dish into a 75C oven to keep warm.  Grill the skewers turning a few times until the meat is cooked through (it’s pork, it’s not nice undercooked), and serve with the corn.  And your choice of fruity white wine, or a cocktail or whatever really.

Then, put up your feet and enjoy the summer.  Here in Sweden, we have to hurry up to do it – as beautiful and sunny and warm as it is, it simply does not tend to last.  In the spirit of that, I’ve got a fridge- and freezer-full of meat and I’m not afraid to use it.  And once this travel fatigue goes away, I’ll be back with actual recipes, not just “what I’ve managed to slap together for putting on newly-invented *cough*repaired*cough* fire“.

In Defense of Vanilla

I’m a vanilla girl and I am not ashamed to say so.

If I have to choose between vanilla and chocolate ice creams, I invariably choose vanilla.  No, it is not because I am boring and have no imagination, or lack the refined palate that appreciates the chocolate in the chocolate ice cream.  My palate is very spoiled, thank you very much, and I prefer not to eat any ice cream than to buy one of those cones with something looking like plastic foam in it from the “fat-free sugar-free ice cream” stands.  Have you ever wondered about this – if it’s fat free and sugar free, pray tell me what does it consist of?  No, better not tell me, I am not sure I actually want to know.

But, I digress.  If the choice is between really good vanilla and really good chocolate ice cream, I prefer vanilla.  And I have come to resent the fact that this royalty of the flavor kingdom has come to be regarded as a synonym for ‘boring’, ‘unimaginative’ and generally ‘blah’.

I don’t need to search far and wide to know how we have arrived in this sorry state of affairs.  You see, the major flavoring component (but far from the only one!) in vanilla is vanillin (C₈H₈O₃), which is not a terribly complicated chemical to make (in fact I remember us making it in the lab early on during my organic chemistry course), and entirely unproblematic to produce industrially.  And it is a good thing, because the demand for vanilla far, far outstrips production, and a lot of the products in which it is used are not nearly expensive enough to justify the expense of using real vanilla from the industry’s point of view.  I mean, who’d want basic candy bars to shoot up in price without any notable flavor difference? (and no, with everything else in them, the difference wouldn’t matter, not really)

Why is it then, that natural vanilla is so expensive*  (*I’ll come back to this as it is very relative!) and rare?  Well, that’s very simple too, really – vanilla flavor comes from vanilla ‘beans’, which are unripe pods of the climbing orchid in the genus Vanilla.  And as such (being orchids), they are not easy to cultivate to fruiting condition, and even in optimal conditions, they are not easy to propagate, and require fairly specialized care – not to mention hand-pollination.  Yes, if you have handled or seen a vanilla pod in the shop, it was likely the result of a guy with a dry paintbrush tickling a yellow orchid flower half the world away some months prevously.  If the resulting fruit set, it was allowed to mature some, then gathered and cured to develop the characteristic flavor.  In short, the process requires special climate, is labor-intensive and long.

Cheap ice-cream manufacturers don’t want to pay the premium.  Vanillin is used because people want vanilla, and they also want cheap ice cream and chocolate (ice cream and chocolate industries account for about 75% of vanilla use worldwide according to wikipedia), and so the industry responds by manufacturing cheap chocolate and ice cream – with vanillin.  And so the vanilla-flavored ice cream is born.  Which well… it tastes blah.  Like sugar, and not a whole lot else, really.  And because most people actually like the flavor of vanilla (I’ve never actually heard of anyone actively disliking it!), even approximated so, it is the most commonly bought flavor of ice cream out there.  And so we fall into the trap of “blah”, for vanillin simply does not have the rich, lush profile of natural vanilla from beans.

In contrast, chocolate, which is a far stronger flavor, does not taste nearly as blah when it is made as cheaply – it tastes at the very least of cocoa (which is a lot cheaper than real vanilla), which is not a bad thing in itself.

And so the misconception of vanilla = boring is born.  I think it is a grave injustice.

Furthermore, judging from the consumer behavior (and we aren’t talking about high-end shops in better parts of town), a lot of people do not actually know how different and lush natural vanilla extract is, because I see “artificial vanilla extract” and “vanilla sugar: made with vanillin” fly off supermarket shelves – while the pricier bottle of natural vanilla extract doesn’t sell nearly as well, and neither do the test-tube packed vanilla pods.

On the surface, that’s market economy – people try to get value for their money and when they can get something-vanilla for cheaper they do.  In reality, it’s neither good economy, nor do you get what you pay for.  To the industry, manufacturing vanillin-based “vanilla sugar” is cheap.  For you, buying it is expensive.  And if you consider that “artificial vanilla extract” is just some water in a bottle with a few crystals dissolved in it, then it doesn’t look like such a great deal anymore.

Let’s look at it from a shopping-cart point of view.  A box of vanillin-based vanilla sugar or a bottle of the artificial stuff (about 50ml) can run about 1.5€ – while buying 1 vanilla pod right next to them is only 2€ or so. (I am talking average supermarket price here in Stockholm.  You could probably get cheaper vanilla pods if you order them on the net for example.)

But, that one vanilla pod, which doesn’t look all that big or impressive in its pack?  It gets you one heck of a lot more than a whole jar of vanillin-based sugar and a bottle of artificial extract!  I’m serious.

Remember when I wrote about the glorious and easy to make vanilla ice cream and how it tasted absolutely amazing because of the fresh cream and the homemade real vanilla extract?  Well, here’s the thing – all it takes to make real, rich and gloriously aromatic vanilla extract at home is a small bottle (blue or brown glass is best as it protects it from sun damage), half a pod (yes, I used the whole pod but that is because I wanted mine extra rich), and about 100ml of vodka or rum.

Cut your pod in half across, and then slice the half of it you plan to use lengthwise to open up one side of it.  Drop it into bottle.  Top up with vodka or rum.  Close and let stand out of direct sunlight for a week.  Your extract is ready to use.

The other half a pod?  Cut it lengthwise too, and stick it into a glass jar and cover with fine caster sugar (I recommend that rather than powdered sugar for this as it is less likely to stick).  Close and store for a week, shaking occasionally.  It will very quickly perfume the entire jar with a very strong vanilla scent!  There, real vanilla sugar, too!

So all right, 100ml of vodka may run you another 1€, and let’s assume jar and bottle are free (I wash jars and bottles for such uses and keep them), and the sugar will run you a few euro-cent (pennies, whatever).  For the price of about 3€ and about a week’s time, you have yourself a better extract than you could easily buy in any shop, and a jar of sugar already.  But, it gets far better!

You see, vanilla pods keep their flavor for a long time.  Simply put, there is a lot of flavor packed into it.  So when you run low on the extract, just top if off with some vodka or rum again, and if you run low on sugar, refill the jar – and keep using it another few months!

With this sort of economy, there is no reason whatsoever to touch the expensive, blah artificial vanilla again.

So please, do yourself a favor.  Go to the shop.  Buy that 1 pod of vanilla.  Make extract or sugar (whatever you think you’ll use more!), or both, and get reacquainted with the rich and wonderful vanilla as it is meant to be.

Trust me.  Whatever else you may think, you will never reach for the artificial extract bottle again.  And I sincerely doubt that you’ll use the word “vanilla” for “boring” either.

I know I’ve said it before, but we are not rich enough to buy “cheap” things – not to mention that you usually get what you pay for, and in this particular case, what you lose is the enjoyment which could (and should!) be yours – and besides, if you want something done right, do it yourself.  In this case, the difference is truly remarkable.

Moss Dish Garden Experiment – Day 1

UPDATE:  Please see this post for more and more correct information regarding moss dishes!

Today’s post is not at all about food, but about spring, and green growing things.  I love greenery, I’ve mentioned that before, but when the days turn sunny and the chill in the air is no longer a biting cold but a refreshing breeze, my fascination with the green stuff goes into overdrive.

I literally cannot have enough green things around the apartment, and preferably new and interesting ones at that.  Yes, I did say apartment – had I had a house, and a garden, there’d be a lot more green things around.  As it is, I have to fit my desire to see things grow into a city apartment.  Which means, windowsills and tabletops and maybe balcony… actually definitely balcony, as my lavender bushes not only survived the winter outside unprotected except by what snow fell on them, but are alive and sprouting happily.  I’ve trimmed them down and fertilized them and can now look forward to an abundance of purple and white flowers and a heavenly fragrance… but I digress.

Yesterday, a friend of mine informed me that if I do not yet have a moss dish garden, I need one.  Need.  And she showed me some photos, and I realized that yes, she is right and I do indeed need one, right now.  Right then it was too late in the day to go gravel-gathering, or moss-hunting, but that is precisely what I did this morning.

Why?  Because it’s green, it’s alive and because it is incredibly beautiful, at least to those like me who think just about anything in the forest short of animal poop is beautiful.  And a moss dish garden is very far from that end of the spectrum indeed – it is as small as you want to make it, elegant and stylish, and has the certain quiet beauty much admired by Japanese gardeners (who have encouraged moss to grow in their gardens for centuries before we have gotten the idea to do this – probably from them).  And it’s supposed (supposed does not = works out that way) to be pretty low-maintenance.  This latter part, we’ll see about.  Once it establishes, that is.

Important: before you rush out and strip the moss off the nearest boulder, first make sure that it is not protected or endangered wherever it is you live.  If it is, then you may be better off buying some from a nursery or get some (legally sourced) spores online.  Of course, collecting it in your own garden or in a garden of people you know works too.  Just – make sure you aren’t breaking the law and ruining the environment by gathering an endangered species – after all, the point of this (at least to me) is to grow something beautiful because you love green things, not to destroy what is possibly irreplaceable!  For reference, in Sweden, some lichens and mosses are protected, but it is legal to gather a little bit of other varieties for personal (non-commercial) use in public forests.  The variety pictured above is a species of Hypnum genus of mosses, a very common forest and bog moss.

After the ethical and legal concerns are out of the way, putting together a moss garden is apparently very easy – you just need a ceramic or glass dish, some gravel and pebbles, a bit of non-alkaline potting soil, and the moss.  However, and that’s a big however, I imagine it will take more than just putting it together to get it to establish and thrive.  So, this is my moss dish garden experiment – day 1.  I will update over the next several weeks on how the mosses are doing before I pronounce this a success *knocks on wood*.

So, what does one need to make a moss garden?

Apparently, not that much.  Mosses don’t like alkaline environment (at least most of the common ones don’t), and they dislike direct sunlight but like a bit of light all the same.  They also do not develop true roots the way higher plants do, and so must be kept moist but not waterlogged (except bog mosses that sometimes just float in bogs).  Most websites recommend watering with filtered or rainwater.  I agree in theory, but in practice, the tap water in Stockholm is clean and soft enough that it should not be a problem.  I did put a bucket outside to collect a bit of rainwater should it fall, but in the meantime, the moss will get the same water as my orchids do.

The basic idea is a layer of pebbles in the bottom of a shallow dish, then a bit of gravel (this is to provide a place for excess water to drain into, and also a reservoir for keeping the soil moist), then a little bit of soil on top of it, and then the moss itself.

After I have put everything together around lunchtime today, it looked like this:

It hasn’t rained for over a week before I went out today to collect it, so the moss was looking a little dry but not dead – we have a beautiful patch of untouched forest behind our apartment building, a landscape feature I love about Stockholm.  It’s very common here to build around old boulders and between them, leaving the actual forest biome intact between the houses.  It makes for a beautiful view out the windows as well.

So, as per instructions, I constructed the base, watered it thoroughly, and then gently pushed the moss patches onto the soft and wet soil.  For a while, nothing visible happened.  I took the above photo, then sprayed the moss thoroughly with a spray bottle and wandered off to do other stuff.

Then, after a few hours, I came back and looked at my dish garden – and the somewhat-unexpected (but not unwelcome!) has happened:

On left, photo taken at half past noon. On right, photo at half past four in the afternoon.

The moss has soaked up water, plumping up visibly – and turned a beautiful lush green!  And while I know it’s too early to be happily assuming that the moss will survive, it certainly does look happier already, which means I am happier too – how can you not be, looking at something turn beautifully alive nearly before your eyes?

All that remains now is an exercise in patience.  Check moss daily for drying out, mist and admire.  Water weekly (or as soon as the glass container looks dry on the side) by pouring water in.  Wait to see what happens.  I’m sitting on the edge of my seat here with impatience – I have never been the patient sort, ever.  I’ve always been told that patience is a virtue.  I suppose at least where growing moss is concerned, that has got to be true.

Wish me – and the moss! – luck.

Eight Years Without Cheesecake

With Valentine’s Day just behind us, and everyone being overdosed on chocolate and rich desserts, the last thing you may want to be reading about may be the decadence that is NY-style cheesecake.

Lemon and Orange Cheesecake with Shortbread Crust

Unless you are like me, that is, and have gone easy on the chocolate – or, unless you are like me, and the thought of proper, creamy, tender and oh-so-good real New York-style cheesecake makes all else not matter.  I am (last I checked) myself, and therefore I believe that cheesecake is always in time, occasion and season.  So if you are a fellow Cheesecake-worshipper, keep reading.  On second thought, even if you are an infidel among us Cheesecake-believers, you should stay and hear the gospel as well.

So what about the eight-year deprivation, you ask?  Well, as it happens, I adore cheesecake.  In fact, I ate it on any occasion that called for dessert when it was available, back when I lived in the USA, the holy land of cheesecakes.  You may not know it, but Americans actually have a restaurant chain called “The Cheesecake Factory”.  I am not kidding!  And as far as I am concerned, it has to be American cheesecake.  No, I am not interested in the ricotta cakes, or the Swedish traditional ostkaka, give me the tall, creamy but definitively non-gloopy beauty that is NY-style cheesecake any, any day of the week.

Except that I have not lived in USA since 2004.  That is… 8 years, people!  And in that time, between Sweden and UK, I have not had any cheesecake, because I refuse to have any that is less than what cheesecake, in my mind, should be.  And you know what?  Eight years is simply too long to go without cheesecake!

So, having gotten thoroughly cheesecake-frustrated, I have decided that I’ve had it, and I think I’ve completely talked T’s head off about the real cheesecake that I so desired, and in the end I ended up promising him to make the real thing myself.  Because, if you want something done right, you bloody well should.

There is a lot of talk, both in word-of-mouth and on the net and even in cookbooks about how difficult it is to make a cheesecake.  Some people say you have to cook it wrapped in foil on a water bath (really, wtf people, haven’t you heard of the invention of the this thing called an oven thermostat?!  It’s been around for several decades!*), and nearly all preach about how hard it is to mix, and how it will get air bubbles and oh god oh god crack and burn and explode and collapse and… guess what?  After reading a bunch of different sources and then making the actual cheesecake (I write this in a cheesecake-satiated glow after eight years of deprivation!), I came to the conclusion that it is all a bunch of over-hyped hoopla.  Similar, in some ways, to the way people describe sourdough bread-baking – anything to preserve the elitism and scare newbie bakers away from their holy grail.  So, pfft at them!  Making a cheesecake is really really easy.  You need to think about it, and there are some instructions you really ought to follow and not try to improvise, and you need to chill it overnight – but that’s really that!

And if the top cracks a tiny bit – who cares?  If you are serving it to guests, it should get topped with something anyway (melted, chocolate, caramel sauce, good tangy preserves or fresh berries – whatever takes your fancy!), and if you are just cutting a greedy slice to share over the morning coffee, then you can cut along the cracks.  Or simply ignore them.

So, if I have managed to impress upon you that to prepare this dessert royalty you really do not need much effort, what do you need?  Well… first of all, you need time.  Cheesecake must be allowed to set overnight in the refrigerator.  Which means you need to bake it the day before you are going to serve it (or several days – it keeps easily over a week in the fridge if wrapped properly!).

What else do you need?  Ok, here we go:

• An oven.  One of those modern ones with a thermostat knob.
• A mixing bowl.
• A mixer or a whisk and a really strong arm.  I use a small, handheld mixer and it works just fine.
• A springform pan, with bottom inserted upside-down (yes, I mean that!) – meaning, lipped side down, flat side up.  The upside-down bottom ensures there is no “lip” on it once the cake is ready, and it can be easily sliced, or transferred off the flat surface onto a plate.

Recipe is adapted fairly heavily from a saved recipe card that I got mailed as a promotion back when living in USA.  Adaptations include not being able to get my hands on brick cream cheese, not using egg whites, and removing flour from batter (because I like my cheesecake better without).

Ingredients:  (This will make one standard 9-inch form)

Shortbread crust:   Yes, I like that, but if you prefer crumb crust, it’s just some digestive biscuits crushed with a bit of melted butter.  In my personal and highly biased view (as in, it’s going to go into my mouth-biased), lightly spiced shortbread crust is far superior!

• 200g plain all-purpose flour (1.5 to 1.75 US cups)
• Small pinch of salt (1/5 tsp)
• 2 tsp ground ginger (optional, can be replaced with nutmeg or omitted)
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 dl confectioner’s sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 150g butter, cut into small pieces and slightly softened

Cheesecake batter:

• 1kg full-fat cream cheese.  In Europe that translates to 5 little tubs.
• 200g 10% (full-fat) quark cheese (Kesella or other brand – can be substituted with 10% Greek or Turkish strained yogurt)
• 1 dl full fat creme fraiche (I believe that is 34% fat here in Sweden).  This can be substituted with full-fat sour cream.
• 300ml caster sugar (I used golden caster).
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract.  I used sugar this time, as my vanilla extract isn’t ready yet (I make my own, it’s easy).
• Zest of 1 lemon+1 orange.  If you like your cake less citrusy, you can use either orange or lemon or half of each.
• 1 tablespoon (15ml) lemon juice from aforementioned lemon (try to avoid bottled lemon juice here, it does not taste nearly as good as fresh).
• 3 egg yolks
• OPTIONAL! 3 tablespoons of flour – I did not use those, but they can help the cake set and lessen the chance of cracks.  (Or so I am told.)

Method:

Make and bake the shortbread crust.

• Preheat oven to 175C.  Cut a circle of baking parchment to match the bottom of springform pan.
• Grease the pan and line the bottom with parchment.  Flour the sides thoroughly.
• Mix together all dry ingredients of crust except sugar.  Whisk to combine.
• In another bowl, mix sugar with butter until completely combined and light in color.
• Add egg yolks and mix until incorporated.  You may need to scrape down the sides of bowl at some point here.
• Add all the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until mixture resembles crumbs.  Remove mixer and squish with hands until dough comes together (should be very easy and quick).
• Place clumps of dough into the prepared springform pan, and push at it with your fingers till it is sort of uniform thickness on the bottom and up the sides.  Fork the bottom thoroughly to help avoid puffing up in the oven.  IF the bottom begins to puff up, open the oven, and fork it carefully at the edge of puffed up area.  That should deflate it.  Continue to bake as normal.
• Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes (watch it) until the top edge is just beginning to color and the crust is entirely baked through and opaque.
• Cool on rack without removing from the pan, until completely cool (this may take an hour).

In meantime, bring out the cheesecake batter ingredients out of the fridge and allow them to come to room temperature or close to it (don’t go nuts if it is a bit cool to the touch after sitting on the counter for that long, really).

A useful note on mixing the batter, which comes next – use low speed of mixer.  On low speed, you have far, far less chance of introducing excess air bubbles into it, and it is more than powerful enough to mix softened cream cheese, etc.

• Preheat oven to 250C (475F).  Yes you want it that hot!
• When the crust is completely cool, make the batter:
• Place all the cream cheese into a bowl.  I shook each little tub over the sink a bit to get rid of excess water that is sometimes found in the tubs.  Mix the cream cheese on low speed until it is smooth or close to.
• Add sugar, lemon and orange zest, and quark.  Mix to incorporate.
• Add egg yolks and mix in.  Add lemon juice and creme fraiche and mix until the batter is homogenous.

• Pour the batter into the cooled crust.  Some people suggest banging the cheesecake or such, but I did not bother as the batter mixed on low speed is not very bubbly at all.  It should more or less come up to the top (or over, which is fine) of your crust.

• Put your cheesecake on an oven pan to catch any drips, and slide that into the oven so that the cheesecake is roughly in the middle of it vertically.
• Sit and watch cheesecake for 12 minutes on 250C.  It may start to puff on sides a little bit towards the end of this period.  To reduce the chance of surface singing during this step, I turned the oven setting to only use the bottom element after preheating on top+bottom setting.  If the surface starts to brown at any point during this step, go to next step immediately.  Otherwise, proceed to next step at end of 12 minutes.
• Without opening the oven door, turn oven to use top+bottom elements (no fan setting if possible), and turn the thermostat to 95-100C.  Bake cheesecake at this setting for an hour and a half to an hour and a quarter, until the surface is set, but the center of the cake wobbles under the surface a little when it is jiggled gently back and forth.
• Turn oven off and use a piece of cookware (loaf pan?  Rolling pin?)  to prop the oven door ajar, or take the cake out of oven and set it on a rack to cool.  I used the oven method as it is supposed to reduce cracking.  I suppose I can use the take out onto rack method another time and see if that cracks more, but either is supposed to be fine.
• If using the oven to initially cool the cake, take cake out after another 15-20 minutes and continue to cool on the rack.  When pan is cool to the touch, carefully run a thin spatula or spreading knife around the crust to loosen it from the sides.
• Allow to cool until just warm to the touch before wrapping the springform pan in plastic wrap and placing in refrigerator.
• Refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours to set the cake completely.
• The next morning, check that the sides of the crust are not attached to the springform pan sides, carefully unlock and remove the sides.  Now you can either keep the cake on the bottom of the pan, or slide a thin spatula between the parchment paper and the pan bottom to loosen it and use the parchment to grab the cake and slide it over onto a serving plate.

The cake will keep for days in the refrigerator, but please do replace the pan sides (to prevent it from mashing and cover/wrap with plastic wrap to prevent it absorbing odors you and I would rather it didn’t – like garlic for example.

Now, I imagine this would have gone amazingly well with a topping, but after trying just one bite, my boyfriend decided he just liked it plain, and that the lemon-tinged lushness of this did not require any additional dressing.  So, I didn’t.  Does not mean you should not, you know.

The batter for this is very accommodating to added flavoring.  I think next time, I will get my hands on some pumpkin puree (or make it if I must), and make proper pumpkin-pie-spiced pumpkin cheesecake.  Or else go crazy and try a pineapple or mango flavored one, or plain with caramel and chocolate shavings… who knows?  The point is, because it is not baked on water bath, it sets much, much easier and less problematically.  If you are adding fruit or vegetable puree, I would suggest using the optional 3 tablespoons flour with the batter to help set the cake with lower cheese to batter ratio.  Or you know, you can always wait for me to test it first.  I promise you, I will.

Cheesecake baked in this manner, is both, easy, and incredibly forgiving, and yes, it tastes, looks and feels exactly like the really good luxury American cheesecakes that I had missed so much all those eight years.  The moral of the story is that if you want something done right, do it yourself.  I should have.  Years ago.

* As I understand it, the incredible necessity of the foil-wrapping cheesecake and cooking it in a tray of water in your oven harkens back to the times when you baked your cheesecake just outside your cave in the fire on that lightning-struck tree stump.  Yes, back then you’d have certainly needed a water bath to ensure it did not suffer from heat spikes when you tossed another log into the fire.  Or you know, if another tree branch got tossed in by the wind.  But really, with an oven that has 10-degree increments on a thermostat, saying water bath (and consequent mess, boiling water splashing, possible leaks and ruined soggy cheesecake) is necessary is just so much of you know what.

A Postcard For All The Winter Holidays

Happy Whateveritisyoucelebrate!

I have considered making an upcoming Christmas post, a Hanukkah post, a New Year’s post and then I realised that I also have friends who are Taoist, pagans of several different descriptions, atheists, agnostics and you name it.  Can you tell I don’t pick my friends based on their faith (or lack thereof)?  In the season of celebrations, it’d be silly to single out some and not the others, so this is a postcard to everyone, for whatever – really! – it is you celebrate.

I am posting this now because cannot promise to write with any regularity during the holiday season – the food that gets made between parties is generally leftovers, shortcuts and the like, and the food that gets made for parties may or may not get photographed, and then I may or may not have time to blog about it.  In fact, there are several things which I have wanted to write about, and a post which I had planned to reblog (with permission) that I will still write about as well – possibly after the holidays, when everyone is in New Year’s resolution mode (except me, I don’t do those).

I decidedly reject the commercialized nature of the holidays.  I’ve proudly bought a heap of holly twigs and some glittery spray-painted birch from a corner flower stand, and arranged it myself.  I will not cave to the plastic non-shedding tree fad!  I have found a couple of fir branches and hung them up on the wall to scent the apartment like evergreens.  But, that’s what I like.  Have you considered, for example, the color selection for napkins?  Red for Christmas or blue for Hanukkah?  Or white for … boringly politically correct stuff?  Bugger it, I like red and it’s not like Christians have a monopoly on Santa Claus or his red suit.  Or holly.  Because you know, some pagans I know may have a prior claim… so decorate your home as you like, celebrate what makes you happy, and above all, don’t forget what it is all about.

So with this, I will wish all of you a wonderful holiday season, glittering parties, beautiful clothes, eating too much and likely drinking too much (stock up on Alka-seltzer or Samarin, depending on where in the world you are!), utter absense of any hangovers, and in general, a wonderful time spent with friends and loved ones.  Let us all be thankful for the life we have and how amazing it truly is – because this, this is what there is to celebrate.  Best of happy whatever-holiday wishes to you all!

Unreconstructed Roasted Chicken

There are few things in the field of food, cooking and culinary arts which I detest more than overcomplicated recipes (note, not “complicated” but “overcomplicated” – as in, recipes which are made more complicated than they need to be, as opposed to recipes which are complicated by definition), and political correctness.

Preamle: I still don't have a camera. But I soon will again, I hope!

Though, to be honest, I can’t stand overcomplicated things or political correctness in any other aspect of my life (excluding business interests, but there I obey the general conventions for the sake of said business interests, not because I enjoy them), so hating these concepts with a passion where it comes to my favorite hobby (that being food) is not any sort of surprise.  Especially so since I am a firm believer in letting consenting adults do what they like in their bedroom – or kitchen! – so long as they aren’t hurting anyone (yes, that means no inhumane slaughter of something living for sake of artistic splattering of kitchen in blood – that’d go under animal abuse).  But, that – animal abuse, that is – is not the soapbox which I plan to climb today.

Today’s soapbox of choice is the fact that I think there is a downside to the foodie culture.  Gasp!  Yes!  Sadly, there is a downside to most everything, and the culture to which I belong by choice and calling has one too.  And the overcomplication of recipes and food preparation by certain pretentious popular personalities (no names as usual) is a pet hate of mine.  Why?  Because it’s unnecessary, wasteful and worst of all – it drives people away from wanting to even try home cooking.  Because let’s face it (or maybe let’s not, but hypothetically), no one looks happy at the prospect of staring at a recipe with a 3-page ingredient list given in fractions of a gram and requiring 2 different thermometres to achieve that “perfect” something or other.  All right, the professionals who view it as a challenge may, or the masochists among us, but not the average person, and certainly not I.

Roasted chicken is one of the easiest, most basic things possible to cook.  It is delicious, and most people don’t dislike it – it’s a both, very inoffensive dish, and well-liked at the same time.  It’s also one of the most frugal ones, so there are at least three good reasons to cook it right there, yet somehow these days, my generation and the younger ones especially, simply don’t consider it as an option when they shop for dinner.  Instead, they reach for the box of skinless portions, both much more expensive, more difficult to prepare, but, apparently, simpler in the people’s minds to deal with.  I can’t count how often I’ve had friends look at me strange when I suggested a roasted chicken as an easy solution for a meal.  You’d think I was suggesting to catch, pluck, gut and then marinate it for 3 days, the eyes I was getting!  One of the people I’ve served chicken to even termed it “grown-up food” and commented regarding how it is somewhat daunting to cook a whole animal, and on how nice a presentation it was to have it served.

I was beyond surprised – somehow, I never considered roasting a whole chicken to be difficult.  Why?  Well, here’s where we get to the whole issue of foodie culture overcomplicating some things – roasting a chicken is not one of those things which should be complicated.  Why?  Because it just isn’t.  True, there are things one can do to improve on just a basic roasted chicken, but even at its most basic (with salt), it’s still very good, and very, very uncomplicated.  And so this is me, calling on all of you to not try to reconstruct (in the political sense) the poor roast chicken.  Trust me, it’s a chicken.  You roast it and eat it.  And it’s delicious and comforting and cheap and good for you on top of it.  What the heck else do you need?

How to roast a chicken?  There isn’t, specifically, a recipe for this, because there isn’t any needed.  What you need is a roasting rack, a chicken, some salt, and whatever you can find in your fridge or cupboard in terms of “additional seasoning” (should you want any).  Butter, cream cheese (flavored with herbs or such is a bonus!), lemon, orange, ginger, garlic, onion, olives, fresh herbs, frozen herbs, dried oregano, black pepper… the list goes on, but past the chicken and some salt, it’s all optional!  Of course, you can also brine the chicken for a few hours, let it dry in the fridge for a few hours, stuff it, and there are about a hundred other things you can do to dress the chicken up – but the point is that, just for roasting the bird for a quick and easy dinner, they aren’t neecessary.

Here is what you do to roast a chicken:

• Buy a chicken and bring it home.
• Set oven to preheat to 250°C.
• Unpack the chicken, rinse in cold water and pat dry with some kitchen paper.
  • OPTIONAL STEP!  Make little incisions cutting through skin on each knee, and poke edge of knife at the tip of breasts above cavity, to separate skin from meat.  Stick fingers in and wiggle them between meat and skin on each breast and thigh.  Stuff in bits of butter, cream cheese, slices of garlic cloves, thinly sliced lemon (half-slices into thighs, full rounds onto breasts), etc.
• Lightly brush or get your hands oily and simply rub the chicken skin with cooking oil (helps prevent it burning).  Or, if you had used a lemon in previous step, squeeze some juice on top of it – gives crispier skin.
• Sprinkle with salt and optionally, pepper.
  • OPTIONAL STEP AGAIN!  If using an onion, cut in half and put into cavity.  If using a lemon, put the squeezed-out lemon in cavity.  Or some olives, or a quartered and cored apple.
• Place chicken on rack in a roasting dish, pop into the 250°C preheated oven, and lower heat to 190°C.
• Roast for 1 hour per kilogram of chicken.  Average roasting chicken weighs in at about 1.1-1.3kg, so the roasting time is about 1 hour and 10 minutes, plus 15 minutes resting time.

Yes.  It is that easy.

Carve off the breasts, and the legs if you are so inclined, and enjoy.

So, we have the easy covered – but hey, I promised it was frugal too?  And so it is – after eating the breasts and some of the legs, strip the chicken carcass of meat – that can be used in chicken sandwiches or salads, and then make stock which can be eaten on its own as chicken soup, or used in whatever else calls for it.

So there it is – unreconstructed roasted chicken – and absolutely no need to complicate it further.

Cooking From Scratch :: How To Shop

My wonderful other half has returned from Canada, and appears to have lost our camera.  Now, I love him anyway, with camera or without (not to mention the fact that he’d bought me a really fancy large bottle of Canadian maple syrup and a box of maple fudge – fudge which I will have to try to replicate at home.  I must, for I am not sure that I can live without it any longer, and we’ve only been reacquainted for one short night!), but for the moment my ability to photograph food is somewhat limited.  No, don’t blame him, transatlantic flights make everyone (I’ve ever heard of or from) brainless.  I’m just glad I got him back in one piece!  If the airline won’t find our camera, a new one can easily be bought.

In the meantime, you get yet another list-post.  Why?  Because I’ve been too busy to cook anything fancy (though ok, I did make that millionaire’s shortbread, but I will have to repeat it to make sure the recipe works with all the tweaks before I post it!), and because I’ve wanted to write this one for a while.

I have a Jewish thing with bargains.  This includes everything from utility companies to shoes, and, of course, food.

Fillet cut of Norwegian salmon

Now, wanting to get a bargain does not mean I would compromise on quality – after all, buying something cheap for cheap is no kind of bargain at all.  That’s so against my religion and philosophy on the subject, it is not even funny – but on the other hand, there are things, mostly what would be considered luxury food items, which in my opinion (unless you are allergic to them, or hate them with a passion) should always be purchased when and if they are seen on sale.

The reasons why that is so vary, but most of them have to do with things that keep, things that are typically expensive, and therefore in general, to improving the quality of what I eat while minimizing food budget.  The list is by no means exclusive of other things you may consider necessity and to be always bought for you, but as always, I give mine as a guideline and an idea, not a rule set in stone.

So, here’s the list of things I always buy if I see them on sale:

Salmon filet, fresh – by fresh, I mean not frozen, and not more than 1 day old (as in delivered to the store the day before purchase).  Salmon is not on sale often, not even in Sweden, and it freezes amazingly well in plastic-bagged portions.  It is healthy, good to eat in any shape from raw to marinated to salted (gravad) to broiled, grilled or pan-fried, to soup, or really whatever.  Most versatile fish in terms of cooking methods, it is fantastic with nearly any sort of marinade and spices, and it’s rich in Omega-3 oils to boot.  While not exactly expensive, it is nevertheless not cheap, and thus whenever you do see it cheap, it should be bought.  It keeps for months in a below -18°C freezer, and defrosts easily either in bottom of the fridge overnight, or in a bowl of cold water if quick defrost is needed.  Bonus to freezing it and keeping it frozen – 2 days at -18°C or below, and you can defrost and eat as suchi or sushimi or make gravad lax.  Deep freeze eliminates certain types of pathogens which otherwise may be in the fish.

Large raw (uncooked) prawns or shrimp, fresh or frozen – the either-or situation here is because they are biologically distinct, but gastronomically interchangeable, and both delicious and high in protein and microelements, like most seafood.  Be they fresh or frozen, I recommend keeping them in the freezer, since they go off very quickly if refrigerated and keep near-forever when frozen to below -18°C.  Fresh prawns freeze just fine portioned up in plastic bags, and frozen ones are usually individually frozen so that you can keep the bag in the freezer and take them out as many as you like at a time.

Good-quality bacon.  And Jewish or not, I don’t bother with Kosher (I’ll take the philosophy and leave the dogma, thank you very much!), and I simply love, adore, worship bacon.  Streaky for me, whatever floats your boat for you.  The reason I mention good-quality specifically, is that inexpensive bacon is often on sale, and is well… inexpensive.  And good quality bacon or pancetta 1 – keeps forever in freezer (or even a chill part of fridge if you have a meat compartment in the bottom), and 2 – can be a quick base for so many delicious things, either as a flavor addition (like to mushroom risotto or a root veg soup or… you name it!), or as a meat component of a dish in its own right.  Or, barring all, a good BLT sandwich, which is the ultimate homemade comfort food, simply requires good thick-sliced bacon.  In short, you want to have this at home.  Yes, you do.

Kalamata (or other) olives in vinegar or brine – canned or jarred.  Or olives in general if you dislike kalamata, but I adore them, and therefore specify so.  Green manzanilla ones as well.  Unopened olives last essentially forever (or a couple of years at least), and they (olives) are not cheap if they are good quality.  On sale = buy.

Dry salami – or any similar cured sausage by another name – whole, unsliced, still in the form of a dry, non-refrigerated sausage.  These keep for months in refrigerator, and longer in the freezer if you are worried.  Again, generally expensive but as they are used in large quantities in our household (we are rather antipasti-happy for lunch or any sort of meal), they are to me, worth buying if I can get them for less money and they will get eaten eventually.

Saffron, threads – the most expensive spice in the world is, by definition, always expensive.  However, a tiny pinch of this goes a long way, and it is absolutely amazing.  If you have never had saffron, try, and if you have, you’ll know the heady, rich aroma and just a few threads (crushed and sprinkled in) add a new dimension to soups, seafood, risotto, baked goods (oh yes!), cream desserts, and much more.  Also, unlike most dry spices (see below), saffron keeps very well so long as it is stored in an airtight jar.

Parmigiano Reggiano (or other hard cheese such as romano, gran moravia, grana padano, etc.).  This keeps forever in the fridge (we are talking months).  It is usually expensive, but sometimes you can buy it in larger chunks for less per kilo, and it is very very much worth it.  I shred this into pasta sauces, on top of pasta, into soups, on top of salads and any vegetables I’m roasting.  Even at full price, hard cheese is a bargain in terms of flavor vs tiny amount of it needed to impart it, and if you can get it on sale (and don’t already have a huge chunk, or do have space in freezer), do so.

On the other side of the equation are the things which should only be bought if you are going to use them soon, as they do not keep forever (even if some people think they do):

Tea and coffee – unless the coffee is vacuum-packed (in which case it keeps ok till opening), neither tea nor coffee keep very well, and taste best as fresh as possible.  Therefore, while finding a good tea for not too much money seems like a bargain, if you are like me and own a whole shelf of teas, you should consider carefully whether it will get used before it goes stale – or whether it’s best to finish what you have before buying this one.

Ground dry spices – the majority of ground spices do not keep beyond 1-2 years.  I can’t count the times I’d been asked to cook at a friend’s house (yes, they all know I can be counted on for that…), have opened their cabinets to find a store of sad, dusty glass jars full of unidentifiable grey flakes or powders.  The owners usually couldn’t tell me how old those were, or shrugged and said “…old”, to which I invariably suggested putting it all (or most) down the garbage and investing in a pepper mill and maybe 1-2 other jars of what they’d use.  An exception to this rule is salt with spice(s) mixed in – presence of salt tends to preserve the flavor longer, especially if kept in an airtight jar.

There are probably more things which ought to go on this list, or a similar seasonal one (which I think I should write seeing how we are almost done with fall, but winter is about to begin), but I think this is a good start and a year-round inspiration (at least to me it is!).

So, do you have an always-buy list?  And what sorts of things are on it?  Please do share, I’d love to hear!

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I’ve been up since too early for consciousness.  I mean, I’ve been awake since about an hour before the sun bothered to peek up over the horizon.  I’ve consideried going back to bed.

Why would anyone in their right mind do this (be up) if they didn’t have to?  Normally, I’d say they’d have to be out of their mind, but as it happens, T has gone to Canada for a seminar and his taxi to the airport was leaving at 6:40am.  So we’ve been up since 5:40am, and I made him coffee and then shared it, and so here I am, waiting for a text message, missing him already, and not asleep.  Normally, however, I would be.  Asleep.  I love sleeping.

And so, with my brain running mostly on neutral (and how well does your brain function this early in the morning?!), I’ve decided to write about things I love.  Other than sleep, that is.  The inspiration for this post came from the blog of the illustrious Sophie, which had a post somewhat like it, which I enjoyed reading.  A lot.  And not just because Sophie is a friend, but because reading the post way back last summer, I realised that it’s a list that is very much worth making for myself.

Why?  Because we all have a busy life.  Really busy.  Even me, studying from home as I do, I don’t actually have that much “free” time.  I have time to do things I want (read, write, study, cook, cuddle T, water my flowers, etc.), but I don’t have time I don’t have anything to do with.  In fact, I’ve always wondered about people who go “I’m bored…” and expect the world at large or their friends to entertain them, but that’s a story for another post entirely.  Back to the list of favorite things – after reading Sophie’s, I came to the conclusion that if one writes one’s favorite things to do, eat, have, look at, etc. down, they are on paper, and then they are much harder to forget about/ignore in the hamsterwheel of day to day life.  And before you protest that you don’t forget about your favorite things – I don’t know about you.  I know that when I think about it, I realise that I do, and if I don’t think about them, I don’t do them – the things that I enjoy.  Which is, let’s face it, pretty silly in a not-good way.

Another thing which I’ve talked to a friend about recently is how a lot of people have one favorite everything – a favorite color, a favorite flavor, a favorite X.  I realised that while I do have preferences, I don’t actually have singular favorites, and so listing the variations became even more of a good idea, in the sense that perhaps I am overlooking something I’d like if I thought about it more.

Also, reading someone else’s list made me think of a handful of things which I hadn’t ever considered, but which really ought to end up on my list.  And so, I am writing it.  In no particular order.

• Coffee.  A lot of it, medium-roast with loads of milk, sweetener, and possibly whipped cream.  Or a good latte made so it’s not bitter.
• Sleeping.  Sleeping well, at night, in a cool but not cold room, in a huge pile of bedding.  Preferably with T to curl up next to.
• Tea.  Green, oolong, black.  No, rooibos (red ‘tea’) is not tea!
• Really good shampoo and conditioner.
• Long black dresses which, when worn, make T stare happily.
• Writing.  Blog, poetry, prose, nonfiction, whatever.
• Reading.  A lot.  I’m a very fast reader, so fat books are a plus.
• Sharp bladed weapons (swords, daggers, that sort).  I guess good kitchen knives go under this category, too.
• Cast iron cookware.  Also doubles as blunt weapons or home bread oven.
• Really good lip balm.  Or just pure shea butter out of a jar directly onto lips.
• Cacti.
• Leaves turning in the autumn.

• Quinces.
• Coconut ice cream and saffron-honey ice cream.  Also, fresh strawberry ice cream.  And … ok, good ice cream in general.
• Bath+unlimited hot water supply.
• Bras in correct size.  Pretty ones.  With matching undies.
• M&S hold-ups with lace tops.  Black.
• Meat.  Preferably beef, preferably not very cooked.  Steak cooked bleu or rare is amazing!
• Cured meats (charcuterie) – French, Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, you name it, I want it.  Let’s not leave out the Germans and the Austrians, either!
• Oil paintings – mostly of pre-1930s.
• Mushrooms.  The sorts you eat, not the sort you get high on.
• Apricots.
• Outdoor swimming pools (with weather/climate to match).
• Candlelight.
• Beautiful ceramic dishes and vases.

• Dragons.
• Arugula (aka rocket or rucola)
• Curling up in a warm pile of blankets on sofa when it’s snowing or raining outside.
• Skinny dipping in natural bodies of water.
• Fancy dress-up events.  Or any rason to wear beautiful clothes.
• Cats.
• Tobias.
• Citrus trees.
• Soup.
• Wide-brim hats.
• Spending time with friends.
• Long dresses in colors other than brown, beige, pink, turquoise or teal.
• Really high heels.
• Fur.

• Old buildings.  Or ruins.
• Men in formal wear.
• Jewellery.
• Food magazines.
• Expensive scented candles.  Good perfume in general.
• Sunlight – at any time of year.
• Very cold prosecco in crystal flutes.
• Waterlilies.
• Restaurants that cook better than I do.
• Milk chocolate.

Meet my ORANGE dress. Also in this photo, an orange soup I met last summer.

• Really bright colors.  Especially purple, crimson red and orange.
• Egyptian cotton sheets.
• Being right.
• Libraries, bookstores, and any place full of books, old or new.
• Roses.  In any color that’s not pink or dyed.  Also to eat.
• White star chrysanthemums.
• Stationery.  Preferably Italian, preferably very pretty.
• Cast iron things other than cookware.
• Shiny, sparkly lip gloss.  I just wish it’d not get all over T’s face when I wear it.  (I swear, teenagers get away with this sort of stuff because they don’t actually smooch anyone a whole lot!)
• Boots No. 7 eye shadow and mascara – they stay where you put them.  Really, I kid you not!
• Cooking for people.
• Lanterns.
• Fresh blue mussels, cooked by me.
• Cashemere scarves.
• Leather gloves.

• Orchids.  Looking at, owning, growing.  Getting to bloom.
• Things made of terracotta.
• Koi ponds.
• The way I feel after a yoga class.
• Seeing new places.
• Canadian maple syrup.

I could go on.  And on.  And perhaps at some point I will, but this has gotten long enough already to make me think of things I should do, should do more, or haven’t done in a while because I’d not thought how much I enjoyed them in ages.  So, I am going to rectify that, starting with making myself some lunch.  Involving arugula.  And some prosciutto crudo as well, why the heck not?  Life’s too short not to do, see, eat and enjoy your favorite things.

Of Fresh Yellow Dates And Good Manners

Looking at my pale skin (it goes translucently pale-ivory under the Nordic skies), my friends sometimes forget that I am not (entirely) from around here.  And then we walk by a tiny vegetable stall with a huge vaguely Middle-Eastern or Indian guy presiding over it, and I squeak and run and pick up a bunch of something that to them, looks like yellow plastic things-on-a-string, and wave them around in apparent excitement, drawing blank stares.

Dates – the fruit of the Phoenix dactylifera (isn’t that a gorgeous name?!)

Then, they remember.  Having lived in Israel, and shopped at a traditional shuk (market) on a regular basis, I tend to bless every deity between Jerusalem and Tokyo and some other ones on top when I find a good fruit and veg stall, one that’d stock proper pomegranates, quinces (yes, I am a quince nut!), and, among other lovely fruit that is not found in a Western supermarket, fresh yellow dates.

Dates are the fruit of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), one of the oldest cultivated crops in history.  It is a beautiful tree that is both tough – it can take salty soil and dry climate and heat, and also produces an amazing fruit, which eventually ripens and dries to the soft, brown glazey consistency that most Westerners associate with dates they buy.  But, in the initial stages of ripenness, dates of a lot of the varieties (especially the more recently-developed ones) are also sweet, not too tart, and absolutely lovely to eat.

You can take a small bite and pull the pit out, then munch!

Fresh dates that are sold in this manner are not intended for ripening further at home (some people have tried it, but I’ve not heard stories of it being too successful, nor have I tried it myself as I like them fresh).  They are crunchy, with a texture reminiscent of a very firm pear, a lot of juicy sweetness, and just a tiny hint of tannin in the flavor.  I can go through a couple of stems of them without realising it, because they are utterly addictive, similarly to how good grapes, or anything sweet in small bites tends to be.

Now, this post isn’t a recipe, precisely – but that is because I do not think these need one.  Wash them in some running water, drain them so they don’t make a puddle, and eat them on their own, or alongside some tapas or antipasti (they go great with the salty charcuterie that I tend to favor).  I’ve heard they are also good pitted and wrapped in bacon and then fried, which I am yet to try – and plan to, and will write about once I have but as these have a short season, that may not be until next year.

Why?  This is why.

om nom nom NOM NOM… wait, where’d they all go?

That was the state of my plate hours ago.  By now, the situation has reached its inevitable end.  And so did all the dates I’d bought.

Perhaps if I go back to the stall this week there’ll be a little more of them left?  I can hope…

Yes. I want more of them.

And, while I am on the subject, I would like to again, thank all the immigrant-catering vegetable stall and small Mid-Eastern and Indian and Chinese grocery owners in the Western Europe.  Thank you.  Without you, I’d have been utterly deprived of all the yummy foods which I am used to, or at best I’d be paying utterly insane prices at the fancy market hall downtown.  I think more people should eat these wonderful things – and I certainly tell all my friends to frequent the veg stalls rather than the supermarket isles.  The small greengrocers do us a service, and their job is a hard one – the least we can do is patronize their establishments.

And this, this brings me to the ranty part of this post.  While googling dates and fresh dates to get references for this post, I ran across a blog which shall remain nameless (because I am polite like that).  Said blog also mentioned a person who encounters fresh yellow dates at a Middle-Eastern grocer, and then… this blog proceeds to slam said grocer’s dress sense and manners.

Now, I wasn’t there and I can’t say anything about the manners of the older gentleman that she so mocked.  Though, to me that still sounds rather suspicious, as even the West, most Eastern shopkeepers tend to adhere to their own style of doing business.  They offer a taste, they tend to be friendly, and they are happy you are shopping with them and not the supermarket 20 meters away.  Heck, the owner of our neighborhood dry cleaners always finds time to talk to us, and presses candy, and on a recent rainy-day visit, hot, freshly-brewed coffee on us.  So unexpected rudeness from one of those people is just that – unexpected.

I don’t even think I need to mention that mocking someone’s dress sense when you don’t know just where they manage to get their clothes, and for how little – probably because they are feeding kids or saving for their education – is such a trashy, common thing to do, I don’t have words to properly address it.  Not polite ones anyway.  And I’ve been taught proper manners, unlike some people.

To sum it up – visit your ethnic market or shop.  Ask the shopkeeper about things they are selling that look good.  Buy them.  Try them.  Who knows, you may discover something else you like that’s just as addictive as baklava and hummus, which by now have taken the West by storm.  Like halva.  Or golden or green raisins.  Or, these dates.

Vintage Swedish Copper Cake Pans

Today’s post is not about food, but about my love for quality, craftsmanship, and the usual habit of looking for a bargain wherever there is one to be had, which together tend to combine into a careful examination of any flea market that I come across, the search for hidden and unappreciated things that I would know the value of – and appreciate.

Things like this.

Swedish Tin-Lined Copper Cake Pans

Like many a cooking aficionado, I covet copper cookware.  I don’t necessarily covet it for cooking everything I can imagine in it (I am a big believer in using the right tool for the job), but I love the looks of it, and it is reputed to be better for doing a lot, if not all, kitchen jobs in.  Ah scratch it, I’d want it for the looks alone!

In any case, during my last trip to the local flea market, I spotted the gleam of copper and had to stop – and there they were, dusty and tarnished and rather sad looking, stacked together with an old, dried-on paper sticker (the sort that leave ugly residue when removed) on the side saying “from 1930s”.  No price.  I initially read the “30s” as the price (thinking, 30sek or Swedish crowns), so I offered a 50sek bill, which the seller gave me no change to – and when I looked confused, she pointed to the sticker and I realised that it wasn’t actually the price.  So when I apologized and enquired as to the price, she said that she’d meant to sell them for 20 sek each (~ €2), but that she’d let me have all three for 50.  Accidental bargaining, yay!

I took them home, removed the ^!£”%!^@ sticker (which took scrubbing and liberal application of household benzene – I keep it around for just this sort of thing), and polished them gently with a bit of salt and 24% vinegar, and the gleam came back near-instantaneously.

I’d originally assumed from their construction that they may be French, until a somewhat-indignant Swedish friend took it upon himself to explain to me that Sweden has had its own copper mining, and that, in fact, it has been the largest in Europe for over a millennium (see Great Copper Mountain), and its own copper industry for as long as anyone can remember (or at least ten centuries!), and that in his opinion, most copper items found in Sweden are most likely to be local.  Putting it that way, I have to agree with the voice of reason that these are, indeed, local.  Makes them no less attractive to me in any way – more so, perhaps.  I like things which have a local history, and it’s rather fitting that they decorate the walls under the tall, tall ceilings of our 1940s-built kitchen.

Used, aged and gorgeous!

So now, I am torn – with a tested cake recipe, I could now try baking in these (I have checked and the tin lining appears to be in good condition on at least two out of three), or I could hammer tiny hooks into kitchen walls near the ceiling and hang these up for decoration, or I guess I could take them down occasionally and bake in them, and then re-polish and hang them back up… I may have to go with option #3 here.  The temtation to do both is just too great.

There is no real moral to the story – well, beyond “if you see a flea market, check it”, but I figure that ought to be obvious!

That, and maybe, like with any other part of living space, if you do not love your kitchen enough (though I certainly do!), perhaps it just needs some prettier, interesting things in it which speak to you, to make it a more welcoming, happier space for you to spend time in – and therefore, to cook.

So, happy bargain-hunting and happy cooking to you all!