The Cat That Got At The Canapes – Happy New Year! And, Bloggers Unplugged tag!

This blog has been quiet over the holiday season.

Ramses and The Salmon Snacks

This is why.  Because in between all the preparation, running around, baking, making tiny snacks, and two bazillion other things, this is, perhaps, the only photo of what we’ve eaten that got taken.  And, right alongside it is the fact that not only did I not have a chance to photograph the food, I didn’t want to be bothered with remembering.  After all, this blog is something I do for fun, and while I frankly enjoy the heck out of writing this, when I am entertaining or being entertained, it may not be the first thing on my mind – nor should it be.

So here, you get treated to a photo of the Cat That’s Got At The Salmon Snacks – and yes, both of them (he has an equally beautiful other half, who is even more pampered) are well-behaved gentlefelines, who do not stick their noses into the food – and they did get treated to both, salmon and snippets of silkily-pink entrecote (ribeye) roast that was served, and much happiness and prosecco (because I like it better than champagne) was had by all!  Belatedly, I also realised that since I was the one taking the photos, I do not have a single one of myself in my floor-length black dress, but fear not – both the dress and I survive, and the one for whom I put it on (other than the mirror!) got to see it, and that’s what matters.

The salmon snacks in question were my real-quick solution to “we need canapes and we need them an hour ago and I am not at home” – tiny crostini topped with bits of folded smoked salmon, dill leaves, a bit of fish roe (not beluga caviar, I’d not treat it so!), and sprinkled with lime juice.  Instant classy canapes!  No recipe needed, and feel free to add what you like – a dab of cream cheese under the salmon, sub lemon for lime or parsley for dill – the crostini is your canvas!

As to the several gorgeous roasted joints of meat we’ve eaten over the holidays – the rack of lamb over saffron rice, the tenderloin with horseradish, and the entrecote roast for New Year’s Eve … no photos.  I will just have to get another one (or several!) and photograph it before it gets eaten!

Oh and speaking about roasts – and gifts – I may not be very commercial-oriented but everyone loves gifts, especially thoughtful ones – I give people fudge.  They think it’s lovely and thoughtful.  Everyone loves fudge!  But, as it happens, I received two amazing foodie gifts from T’s parents – a butane kitchen torch (the pyro in me is hopping up and down like a crazed squirrel!!!  BUTANE TORCH!!!  And, it’s RED!), and Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall’s (aka The River Cottage dude’s) monumental Meat book.  A short browse told me I am as in love with this book as I thought I’d be, and there will be recipes cooked and posted from it, I promise you!  And, I totally need to figure out what to do with the torch.  I am not a fan of creme brulee, but we’ll figure something out!

And now, the other thing!  While I was off partying, cooking and eating and petting the cats, the illustrious deft-fingered Ping of Ping’s Pickings has tagged me in one of those Bloggers Unplugged answer-questions-about-blog things!  And, knowing myself, I do not want to get sidetracked with the eleventeen projects I have planned for after New Year’s (i.e. now), so here we go!

1. What, or who, inspired you to start a blog?

The who is easy – the veritable army of my friends who love eating my food and wanted recipes and all told me I should start “one of those food blogs with pictures and all” and that it’d be great.  They were right.  It is!

The what was slightly different – and it was wanting a place to say what I think about food, eating, food industry, food scams, and other things which outrage me professionally and personally and make me want to stomp my feet and throw things.  That, in combination with loving the idea of typing up my recipes with pictures and all (as suggested) is what resulted in this blog.  Thanks to all those who encouraged it!

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?

There are many.  Since I am entirely self-and-book taught, I do not have a foodie inspiration in my family (no offense, folks, I cook better than any of you!).  So, in no particular order – and at a risk of sounding cliche – of the well-known ones, I have Nigel Slater, Ina Garten, Nigella Lawson, Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall, Andreas Viestad and Marcus Samuelsson.  But, and I would say even more so, I would have to thank a host of other great but lesser-known (perhaps they are less photogenic, or just don’t have what it takes for TV fame, I do not know) cookbook writers such as Debra Mayhew, author of the Cook’s Encyclopedia of Soup, Michele Scicolone for Italian food, Joanna Farrow and Jacqueline Clark, and Louis P DeGouy, whose ancient (originally published in 1911!)  “The Soup Book” taught me what I needed to know years ago when I realised that I love soup and can’t, for the life of me, cook it.  In fact, I think I will have to write several blog posts about my favorite cookbooks and why the are such to do them all justice – watch this space!

3. Your greasiest, batter-splattered food/drink book is?

Mediterranean: A Taste of The Sun by Jacqueline Clark and Joanna Farrow.  With several runner-ups.

4. Tell us about the best thing you have eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

“Another country” to someone like me who’s lived in five different ones, is an interesting thought.  All right, thing I’ve eaten in a country where I haven’t lived – I’ve had the most amazing rock lobster tail broiled with lemon and garlic butter in Yucatan, Mexico.  The special thing about it was that it’d been fished the morning of the day I ate it – and nothing, nothing compares to shellfish when it is this fresh – nor does it need any more frills or trimmings to make it truly shine!

5. Another food blogger’s table you’d like to eat at?

Uuu… so many!  There’s Ping of course!  Though at her table, I might just stare at all the pretties she makes and be afraid to touch them!  There’s Zoe (tag coming your way, Zoe!), whose taste is a near mirror-image of mine (I’m sure I’d eat most anything found on her table at any time!), and there’s Gary whose passion for good meat and wine I share wholeheartedly!  There’s Rufus at whose table I would probably get spectacularly and gloriously drunk on beautiful cocktails and fall under said table happy.  I could go on but like Ping said, it’ll be one humongous table and that’s that – the only caveat I’d add is that I am not sticking any “huge” names on this list.  Why?  Because I suspect some of those people’s tables would be like a tasting menu – lots of frills and not much substance.  Call me eccentric, but I love having some food in front of me, not just a fancily folded napkin on a plate decorated with chocolate sauce and gold sprinkles!

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

I am greedy.  What I would like, is a larger kitchen, to be very honest, or a house with a yard where I can have a properly huge grill.  Barring that, I would love an Electrolux Assistent (Swedish answer to Kitchenaid Mixer), or another large stand mixer like it – I am tiny short (154cm in my socks!), and though really high heeled house slippers help (15cm and platform!), using a hand mixer over a bowl on a counter made for people 15-20cm taller than me is exhausting to the back.  That said, my original wish was for a dishwasher for same reason – handwashing dishes over a tall sink is painful! – but my amazing bf bought me one already.

7. Who taught you how to cook?

Self taught, entirely.  See #2.  As I don’t watch TV (haven’t owned one in years), it’s cookbooks all the way!

8. I’m coming to you for dinner, what is your signature dish?

A large piece of good beef, roasted medium-rare, with green salad and homemade sourdough bread.  Preceded by some sort of soup, and followed by either a cheese board with fruit, or a cake.  That said, I now have a new favorite signature dessert and that’s Margarita cookies!  Ye gads, and now I want to go make a batch of those again!  No!  Not till the happy pounds are off!  Only meat and fowl and seafood and greens and tons of butter and cheese till then!  :D  Don’t you just love my weight-loss habits?  The boyfriend does!

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?

Cola (coke or pepsi) light (sugarfree) and Twix™ Ice Cream Bars.  I did say diet because I can’t stand the sugar in the regular – but I still think that the drink is a vile commercial brew that I shouldn’t touch.  Yet when I am out and it’s hot and I need caffeine, there I go.  And the twix ice cream?  No words.  Just try the stuff, it’s dangerous!!!

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Uhm… other than things that really don’t need to get mentioned on a food blog, I am not sure, actually!  I babble a lot about everything, and I tend to be really upfront about my origins, education, likes, dislikes, etc.  But… there was this one time that I got so distracted chatting over skype with my then freshly-new long-distance boyfriend (still my much-beloved boyfriend I live with now) that I burnt an entire potful of fudge.  Completely and irreversibly ruined.  The horror!  The sacrilege!  Yep, I was already that much in love!

I hope you enjoyed reading the ramblings and babblings, and didn’t fall asleep till we got to this point!  And now, for the last bit:

Zoe – tag, you’re it!

Of Ruined Fondue And Unnecessary Disappointment

The following post is half a rant and half the instructions for those wishing to avoid the aforementioned disappointment.  And I will try to go gently on the rant bit, as I try to avoid those without a good cause.  Sadly, this is a good cause.

I make no secret of the fact that if I have to pick my one favorite celebrity chef for cookbook-buying (I don’t normally watch TV so I have no idea of how entertaining or useful their shows are, so I go by the reading and cooking quality of recipes myself), it’d be Nigella Lawson.  (If I had to pick two, the other would be Nigel Slater, and if I could have three, Emeril Lagasse deserves an honorable mention.  Just so you know.)  Now, as she herself says, her qualifications regarding food are not those of a chef, but rather of an eater – and, incidentally, also a cook.  Which is also fine by me.  I tend to find her recipes easy, good to eat, and generally have nothing but positive things to say of her.

Which makes last night’s occurrence all the more sad and disappointing.  The story is simple – I had some decent smooth-melting-type cheeses in the fridge which needed to be used, leftovers of a box of white wine, and a freshly-baked loaf of sourdough bread and I thought I’d make a lazy dinner of fondue.  Now, I’d not made fondue before, but being a decently good cook, I did not feel it should be too difficult if I got a good recipe and followed the instructions.  And because I like and trust Nigella’s cookbooks, I did not turn to my usual internet-scouring for tips, but opened up my Nigella Express book and found the fondue recipe I’d seen it on previous read-throughs.

Note, that I am not saying the book is bad in general – in fact, I’ve cooked out of it, and done so successfully, and the food was gorgeous as always.  But not this recipe.  I have followed it to the letter.  Unfortunately, the instructions were, simply put, wrong, and my cheese clumped despite my best efforts.  Again, I had at first thought the fault was mine, but a bit of research on the net (something I should have and would have done before ruining the cheese had I not trusted said cookbook so well) showed that there are several steps and an ingredient omitted in the recipe as it is written which actually have to do with cheese clumping prevention.

So, here are the steps you’d need to take in addition to the aforementioned recipe to make it workable:

1. Add 1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice to the white wine.  Most traditional fondue recipes have this, and one or two helpfully explain that it helps break the cheese down.  Why it is omitted from generally lemon-in-fridge-assuming Nigella book, I do not know.
2. Preheat the wine.  Nigella’s recipe says to add wine and cheese to the pot and heat it.  No, no and no!  Preheat wine with the lemon juice, specifically until hot but not quite boiling to help melt the cheese as you later add it.
3. Add cheese to hot wine in little batches and stir in figure-8 to avoid clumping.  Add cheese as previous batch more or less melts.
4. Use low heat once the wine is hot and while you add the cheese.  The recipe simply does not mention the heat setting and sadly, it really should have.
5. There is also the additional bit where the cheese should ideally be at room temperature and not straight from the fridge, but I suspect if the previous 4 items are followed, this step could theoretically be skipped as cheese does not have a very high heat capacity (unlike meat).

So there you have it.  A recipe that would have been fantastic had it been actually complete.  That is to say, it still tasted good, it just was clumped and not pretty enough that I’d have served it to any visitors.  T and I ate it, and were happy, but it was a bit labor-intensive with the long cheese-gone-stringy bits in what should have been smoothly melted sauce.

Better luck next time, and I will make it with the addition of lemon juice and the above instructions and feel confident that it will work just fine.  And taste fine again, which is why I will be reworking it.

I am by no means disappointed in the food writer herself, nor in the book as a whole, but I think – shame on you, Nigella, you really could have easily done better.  And, in my opinion, should have.

The Kitchen Bookshelf And The Internet

The inspiration for this post is credit to Rufus at Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide and his post about his favorite cookbooks and the use thereof.  It began with me going to comment on the post, and quickly realising that I’m writing an essay and that I should cut it short and go back to my own blog and write it here.

Pictured - "Handbook Of New Finer Cooking" by Margareta Nylander, 5th ed, 1831

So, here I went.

In the age of the Internet, the foodies among us search its murky depths for recipes and inspiration and just to look at other people’s food photos and admire.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I do.  After all, the Internet offers a virtually infinite amount of recipes, pictures and people’s ideas about what something should be prepared like, and how they like to eat it.  This is a very good thing, by the way – and in many ways, as it contributes to global food culture, and – hopefully! – inspires more people out there to go, buy some produce and actually cook rather than popping a frozen pizza in the oven.

Maybe I am an idealist, but I hope that food blogging does help others who wish to go down the culinary road in their own kitchen.  In short, food blogging and the Internet are a Good Thing™, and I do it myself, a lot, though perhaps less often than I should.

On the other hand, a lot of people have raised the question whether cookbooks are still needed and/or wanted by foodies, with the Internet being there and all.  It’s a question with a rather unilateral answer of “YES!” – at least where I am concerned, and judging from both, Rufus’ article and cookbook sales (even if they do become little more than glorified coffee table books in some cases), I am not alone in that conviction.

So, what is it that makes cookbooks so attractive to me?  There are many reasons, and all of them are good ones.  First of all, I love books in general.  The real, hold-in-your-hand paper variety, that get worn with use, and you can scribble in the margins (or in case of some cookbooks, in thoughtfully provided blank “Notes” pages), and unlike the page you pull up on the laptop to cook with, they bear the splats and spills of book life with grace of an aging noble.  (Laptop. on the other hand, just fizzles and dies in indignation.)  So reason number one – they are tactile, and reason number two – they bear history and show use.  I am not one of those people who try to keep their cookbooks in the pristine condition they came from the shop in.

But, an even more important reason why I love cookbooks so is that the recipes in them do not change very much.  Yes, that’s right.  You see, the recipes on the internet are often temporary, and they change – either due to websites having new “favorites” up, or the bloggers/posters themselves modifying them after some time, or because some disappear and others take their place.  In other words, the Internet is very fluid – which is a great thing in itself, for innovation and new variations on old themes, but there is still a place for keeping and being able to refer to those old themes, un short-cutted, un-modernized, and not made more easy for the fussy and spoiled modern cook.  Why would I want those?  The answer should be obvious – I want those because sometimes it is important to understand what the dish came from and try to taste it as it was prepared traditionally before I try to modify it to my own taste, and it makes much more sense to do that from the original (or as original as one can get with such an evolving field as cooking) rather than from someone else’s variation on the theme.  And, unlike the internet posts, cookbooks on my shelf stay where they are, and the recipes I know are there, will still be there.  Not to mention that some of these cookbooks are written with a lot of peripheral information which may or may not be there on the net when you do locate the recipe.

Another point in the favour of cookbooks – though some do fall prey to it, if not nearly as much as the Internet does – is the passing influence of food fads, and the fact that not all which is fashionable, is good.  There are new ways to season things, and there are new ways to combine them, but let’s face it – food wasn’t invented yesterday, and produce certainly wasn’t!  So before throwing oneself headfirst into every new emerging fad, it may be a good idea to consult a cookbook from the region that the new faddy foodstuff is coming from, and learn how (since it wasn’t invented yesterday!) the traditional preparation is done.  It might save me from a dish of pressed pigs’ ears or something equally revolting at a trendy restaurant – or from ruining perfectly good cut of meat I’m unfamiliar with by doing (or not doing) something to it which is essential to getting the most out of whatever it is.

The book pictured above – Margaretha Nylander’s “Handbook of New Finer Cooking” (freely translated from Swedish), and one that makes such a good illustration to the graceful aging of books, is actually my newest cookbook.  Newest to me, I mean, though it is by no means the oldest cookbook I could get my hands on (there are fantastic antique book shops in Stockholm!).  It was a bit of an impulse purchase, and my Swedish is still improving, but by now it is well enough that I can read this without too many problems and only occasional reference to a dictionary.  I have not yet tried the recipes, and I imagine – like in case of any old cookbooks – that the meat dishes are going to be questionable at best (most old cookbooks I’ve seen suggest overcooking meat to death – likely for health reasons relevant in those times), but I do look forward to exploring the seafood (Sweden is famous for the salted and marinated fish dishes after all!), canape and salad sections, and – come Autumn – the traditional fruit and berry preserves.  The fact that the book, in 1831, was at the stage of 5th edition, makes it rather convincing that at the point of 5th edition, the cookbook was already successful (why else would it have been published multiple times in the days when books were prohibitively expensive?), which – hopefully! – says something about the quality of food it was helping to produce in the well-to-do households of those days.  And obviously, should any of my experiments with it prove successful, I will take the time to show them off here in all their recreated glory!

This should by no means suggest that I’m about to give up the Internet, food blogs, and the gorgeousness that is modern cuisine for the purism of learning to simmer gruel “just like they did in old times” (Pffft!) – but I imagine the comparison can and will be interesting.  And, hopefully, tasty.  You know, like your great-great-grandmother used to make!