Entries from December 2006
Malone, who has been known to leave a comment here now and again, was in Italy the weekend before Christmas. He called from Treviso to find out if there were any foodie bits I’d like brought home. After some head-scratching, I came up with 10-year-old balsamic, given that it’s much cheaper there than here and I couldn’t very well ask him to lug a wheel of Parmesan home with him.
The balsamic is superb – you could nearly drink it neat in shots – but I was even more pleased with his other gift, a hunk of Alto Adige speck. I’m ashamed to admit that I had never had speck before because I wasn’t entirely sure what exactly it was and the name sounded horrible.
Well, it’s specktacular and I’m delighted with it. I’m already one of those people who eats Parma or Serrano ham at the fridge door when I supposed to be putting away the milk so I should have realised I would love this smoky, salty, cured ham too.
As per Malone’s suggestion, I tried frying pieces of it very lightly in some olive oil for a couple of minutes, adding cream and stirring the lot into pasta. Fettuccine, in this case, but I doubt it matters. I tried it again last night but added mushrooms so the husband wouldn’t look askance at his three-ingredient dinner. Divine done both ways, tastes of so much more than the sum of its parts and beyond simple to do. So mille grazie to Sgr Malone for that.
Categories: Italian food · Pasta
The lack of posts here in the last few weeks tells its own tale. I’ve been far too busy being festive to write, or cook, anything much. Of all the eating and drinking I’ve been doing, the highlight was probably a trip to Guilbaud’s, courtesy of some high-flying financial types.
We ate in the private dining-room, which was lovely, although I would have preferred to be in the main room, soaking up the atmosphere, that is, if lots of rich, middle-aged people chowing down at lunchtime create much of an atmosphere.
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Categories: Eating out · Restaurants · french food
What I’ve eaten in the past three days.
Christmas Day
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and truffle oil. Bucks Fizz. Coffee.
Lunch: Smoked salmon. The mother-in-law’s Christmas turkey, ham & trimmings (lovely). Christmas pudding. Wine. Chocolates. Coffee.
Dinner: Sandwich of the mother’s turkey (equally lovely), stuffing & tomato. Sour cream & onion crisps. Coke. Chocolates.
Yesterday
Breakfast: Slice of seed cake. Two cups of coffee.
Lunch: Cold turkey, ham & spiced beef (the mother’s again – yum). Veg. Roast potatoes. Wine. Chocolates. Coffee.
Dinner: Cocktail sausages. Pistachio nuts. Pretzels. Beer.
Today
Breakfast: Soluble Solpadeine. Dioralyte. Half packet of chocolate fingers. Two cups of tea.
Lunch: Crunchy bread roll with turkey, stuffing, mayo & relish. The other half of the packet of chocolate fingers. Coffee.
Dinner: Nothing as of yet. Really not hungry.
Throughout the three days
Enough vodka & tonic to float an armada. Enough cigarettes to push my voice down an octave.
Categories: Christmas
The husband is a clever man. He knows that good books are a way into my good books. Good cookbooks are an especially good way into them. So he arrived home this evening with a shiny new cookbook, simply called Baking
.
If I ever crawl out from the pile of work under which I am currently snowed, I shall have a very lovely time getting lost in its pages.
Categories: Baking · Cookbooks
I know I seem to say it regularly but Boing Boing really does come up with some gems. The latest? A Catalonian device that allows you to cook cubic hard-boiled eggs.
It’s pathetic but I really, really want one. I want other things - like a pair of Manolos, a new kitchen, world peace, all that stuff – but not quite as much as I want a Kubikou. I wish this was a video blog so you could see me here stamping my feet like Veruca Salt and screeching “I want one NOW!”.
Categories: Eggs · Quirky
Another two delicious Lebanese recipes – baba ghanoush and kofta. Pairing these with the two from yesterday (hummus and tabbouleh) makes a lovely casual supper if you’ve people coming by who don’t mind sitting around a coffee table and helping themselves.
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Categories: Mezze · Middle Eastern food · Recipes
I did promise earlier to post some of my yummy mezze recipes, so here goes. These are adapted from a little French cookbook called Cuisine Libanaise that I was given as a present when I was moving home from Toulouse about a hundred years ago.
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Categories: Cookbooks · Mezze · Middle Eastern food · Recipes
Slate has an interesting review of Claudia Roden’s cookbook, Arabesque, saying it provides an excellent primer on Middle Eastern history, society and culture, as well as on the food of Lebanon, Morocco and Turkey, which it is ostensibly about.
“A subtle and comprehensive introduction to Middle Eastern food, it offers a different but equally enlightening angle on a part of the world that most Americans think of only in terms of politics. And, unlike many books that attempt to explain the Middle East, it’s not weighed down by arcane historical details and ideological crossfire.”
Will have to add that to the wishlist. I adore Middle Eastern food – the legacy of once hanging around with lots of Lebanese chefs in Toulouse. Hummus, kofta, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, it all zings with fresh flavours and it always seems really healthy too. Have yummy recipes so will post those later.
Categories: Claudia Roden · Cookbooks · Mezze · Middle Eastern food
Still trying to get into the Christmas spirit so it’s a seasonal set of links today. Yule love them. Sorry.
Categories: food
I love Christmas. I’ve been excited since October at the thought of getting the decorations out of the attic. But I’m failing badly in the kitchen. A proper food blogger would have a pantry full of Christmas goodies at this stage. I have not made so much as a mince pie. My brother always provides a humdinger of a Christmas pud so I don’t need to worry about that but otherwise our Christmas larder is bare.
I’ve no-one to blame but myself and my weakness for Christmas parties and related socialising. I’ve been doing a whole lot of eating and drinking and little to no cooking.
At least I’ve been eating well. Had the best homemade tiramisu I’ve ever tasted at a friend’s dinner party at the weekend (must get the recipe) and enjoyed one of Fallon & Byrne’s fine fine steaks for lunch yesterday. Somewhere along the way in the last few days, I also paid 75 quid for a pretty so-so meal in Jaipur. First and last time going there.
So now I’m feeling vaguely dyspeptic, flushed with alcohol and guilty about the utter lack of nutmeggy, cinnamonny, fruity Christmas things in our house. And my boss has taken to calling this blog ‘a walk up and down Bollocks St’, which is funny but ever-so-slightly disheartening.
About the only thing to do is have a curative glass of wine, I think. Tomorrow, I’ll start the Christmas ingredients shopping list.
Categories: food
