I'm omnivorous, but have many "restricted diet" friends. None of them ever consume fake meat (and there is plenty available in the UK - from Quorn, through Linda McCartneys dubious nursery food substitutes to good old TVP pellets) since they acquire bountiful nutrition from a varied vegetable diet. So who eats this stuff? And why? Surely, if you choose not to eat meat, an industrially manufactured simulation is a perverse alternative? Or am I missing the point?
Good call, Jamie. I've recently been so engrossed in Serious Eats and a number of other US based food blogs (more exciting than most UK food media - mainly due to the openness, knowledge and enthusiasm of the writers) that this had passed me by. I shall be off to Neals Yard tomorrow.
Thirty-odd years ago and my parents were selling the house and moving cross country. They had read that the smell of baking was conducive to making a sale, and so I was tasked with a daily routine of cookie prep (I was heavily into baking for a seven-year-old). On a particular day, I was told to double quantities, as there was a church fete coming up. Keenly, I doubled sugar, eggs, butter, and flavourings. But forgot to double the flour. Four shelves off cookie mix melted, dripped off the trays and filed the whole house with smoke. No sale that day. But lesson learnt.
Forget the salmon and cheese - have a proper East London beigel loaded with thickly sliced hot salt beef and hot, sweet mustard.
Pedants corner (that is in no way intended to denigrate a valid commentary on the locavore fad) - it is MaldOn salt : www.maldonsalt.co.uk
It appears to be a common mispelling, however, as can be seen to it's best effect here: http://www.amazon.com/8-5-oz-Malden-Sea-Salt/dp/B0000U2R1A
Maldon salt comes from Essex, so is roughly equivalent in terms of UK geographical prejudice to, say, Coney Island salt.
Mrs Godstar has been going to Poland a lot on business recently, and is kind enough to bring me plenty of vodka (keeps me subdued enough to not complain about her TV obsessions). There is a real difference to be found - a couple of brands are smooth enough to sip at room temperature, while others are as grim as the main international brands. As yet, I haven't discovered a Ukrainian horilka that is palatable, and the occasional Bulgarian rakia that is pleasant tends to be kerosene next time I buy it - consistency is not a Bulgarian strongpoint. If I may suggest, have something with a little flavour - Balkan plum firewaters can be such fun, my personal favourite so far being Zuta Osa (the yellow wasp) from Serbia. Happy drinking.
What is the prevalence of farmed fish in the US? Farmed salmon in the UK is the new battery chicken - flabby from packed holding tanks/nets/cages, dyed flesh - no pink plankton to eat, toxic with heavy metals and other fat soluble nasties, and hugely polluting, both with their fecal matter and the vast quantities of anti-parasitic drugs and antibiotics needed to keep them in one piece. Taste and texture are very poor, too. Mind you, 3/4 of the population only eat fish if its skinless fillets in orange crumb.
BTW - the cycling fish comes from a feminist slogan (either Gloria Steinem or an apocryphal graffito) and was probably best refuted in the Guinness television advert from 1996 - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KTT2-TNuegM
Small tomatoes I confit in olive oil with a ridiculous amount of garlic (in its skin, and then extract the cloves and squeeze out to taste) - this is the basis for numerous pasta sauces - add pepper, chili, cheese, anchovies, crab, greens, or nothing.
Big ones I slice thinly, salt, lots of pepper, and at the last second some strong vinegar (even industrial chip shop malt vinegar works fine - it was what my Nan used to use in Mamnchester in the 1930's) and sandwich on brown bread.
I used to live near the MFC (bottom left in your picture) - we referred to it as MutherF***in;Chicken. The UK is full of these places, each more unpleasant than the next. It's not all Ramsey and Blumenthal.
Assuming you mean London, England, then I would always recommend St John Smithfield branch. On a budget, go to Kingsland Road for Vietnamese (Song Que is my preference) or north to Highbury/Hackney/Dalston for Turkish - there are too many greats to list and the exploration is part of the fun.
You can also order it from the Cheese Shop in Healdsburg, run by the brilliant Doralice Handal. I just got my custom cheese club order today, containing a half pound of Stichelton - yum!!! I'm British myself and though I have consumed much stilton in my life, have not yet tried the raw version. Can't wait...
Before mastering the art of basic pastry dough, I attempted a plum tart. I made the dough, thinking all was well-and-good, and put it in the fridge to chill. Then, I made the plum filling with fresh greenmarket plums. It looked, smelled, and tasted wickedly delicious. But, when the time came to assemble the thing...the dough was horrendeous.
I ended up trashing the whole thing and making a lousy plum cake.
Drat!
Way back when I first started cooking at home, my wife and I made a recipe out of Fine Cooking magazine. It was a pretty simple pasta dish with cheese, crushed tomatoes, garlic, italian sausage, and pasta. Pretty simple stuff.
This time I decide I'm going to make it myself and surprise her after a hard day at work. I survey the recipe, make at the grocery list and procure the said items.
All fired up, I start measuring out all of the ingredients. Took the sausage out of the casing, get the water ready for the pasta, open up the crushed tomatoes, and mince four cloves of garlic.
So I'm mincing, and mincing, and mincing. True, I was very new to the kitchen so my knife skills weren't that good. Dude, this is taking forever! How do these old Italian women stand this? No wonder they spend all day in the kitchen, they're mincing garlic! I bet you this operation took an hour. My eyes are on fire, my fingers stink, and I'm wondering why I even embarked on this ill-conceived journey.
I finally get everything combined and it looks just like the picture in the magazine. With a bag of iceburg lettuce and the best frozen garlic bread $2 could buy, dinner was now served. My wife was pleasantly surprised by my motivation to cook dinner. We sit down and eat.
I take a bite.
She takes a bite.
"Whoah! What in the hell is that?" she said (and I thought).
"That's got some serious garlic in it! How much did the recipe call for?", she asked.
"Four cloves, and it took forever to mince.", I replied.
"What took so long?", she wondered.
I go over to the garbage I show her the leftover garlic skins.
"Oh, wait a minute.", I said
I will conclude this story by saying the whole dinner went in the trash and I now know the difference between a clove and bulb of garlic.
Stichelton is in fact delicious and distinct from Stilton, though I have to admit I prefer the latter most of time. I sell it at Cowgirl Creamery in Washington DC and I used to sell it at DiBruno's in Philly. The fact that this cheese arrives in the US in excellent condition is testament to Neal's Yard's standard of quality.
I've had my fair share of culinary disasters, but I really want to share my favourite family story, and that belongs to my Dad. Back in the early 90s when he couldn't cook, my Mum went away for the weekend.
Dad 'made' my sister and I quiche which he must have found in the very bottom of our chest freezer. It was rank... even after 30 mins in the over it was basically a pastry case with raw egg and bits of ham floating around inside.
Being just into my teens and newly aware of things like food poisoning and salmonella, I refused to eat it on safety grounds. My younger sister did likewise. My normally mild-mannered Dad had obviously had a hard day looking after the pair of us and blew his top, saying we always ate what Mum put in front of us (well yeah, that was cooked...!) and banning us from leaving the table until we'd cleaned our plates.
Terrified of dying due to consumption of runny quiche and unable to call Mum in the days before mobile phones, we sat there with tear streaked faces for two hours until Dad admitted defeat and sent us to bed.
The next day Mum returned and the second she got through the door I ran out and shouted: 'Mum, quiche isn't supposed to be runny, IS it?' Mum just turned to Dad, raised one eyebrow and said: 'What have you done now?!'
These days, my Dad is a thoroughly modern man who makes a mean spaghetti carbonara. But we like to remind him often of the worst weekend of our teens and 'the day he nearly killed us with his cooking' :o)
I was trying to bake Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guiness Cake for an event at work. One of the steps is to cook the Guinness on the stovetop, along with butter and sugar. Unfortunately, I misread the recipe and made the rest of the batter in the pot on the stovetop. it started to cook, and after baking, the cake was filled with odd-tasting chunks. it was a total loss. Bad news.
I've loved to cook since an early age. I remember back when I was still in elementary school, I decided to try to create one of my Dad's favorite pies, pecan pie, for his birthday. It was the first pie I'd ever made on my own, but it sounded pretty easy. Got the pie crust done, the filling was in and I spent oodles of time getting the pecans to look just right on top of the pie.
Halfway through the baking cycle, I smelled the most horrible smell and entered a completely smoke-filled kitchen. My Mom and Dad kicked in from there and got the "pie" out of the oven. When the smoke cleared, we realized what I had done. I had used a pie tin that had originally house a pie purchased from the bakery that HAD HOLES PUNCHED IN THE BOTTOM OF IT! All of the pecan pie filling (except the nuts) had seeped right through the crust and had become a lump of charcoal completely stuck to the bottom of the oven.
Let's add insult to injury -- this was before self-cleaning ovens were available. Nuff said.
This weekend, we made a Black Forest Cake for an Octoberfest party. Unfortunately, the humidity got the best of the cake and the layers started to slide around. Not one of our best cakes...
a food disaster haiku:
home alone- first time!
.....gray macaroni and cheese!!!?!
hello garbage bin!
My absolute worst cooking disaster was back almost 30 years ago when I was a new bride just beginning to cook. Up until then, Mom had done all the day-to-day cooking, and there's just so many hotdogs you can eat. I had received a crock pot as a wedding gift, along with it's little recipe booklet. Hmmm. Cauliflour soup. Sounded pretty good, and within my skills range. Put everything in in the morning, and turned the pot on. Came home after work, expecting great things. Oh no. The aroma wafting under the door was not at all pleasant. The entire apartment reeked of rotten onions. I still use the crock pot, but that little recipe book went right into the garbage, along with all that soup.
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