Category: Food and drink

…Patak’s have stopped importing their pickles to the Netherlands!

This is an absolute f***ing disaster! No more Hot Lime Pickle or Brinjal Pickle? My Indian cooking will not be the same. What are we to do?

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Rhik Samadder’s review of the Egg Master

So I did both.

The comments are worth reading as well. A&E units – you have been warned…

I’ve always had a barrier about eating insects. Sea crustaceans, no problem; but insects in general? Well no, thank you.

So cricket broth, or wax moth larvae mousse are not exactly what I’ll be sitting down for.

Unfortunately, it’s probably the future.

Courtesy of Nicholas Whyte, here’s a list of kitchen gadgets.

Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don’t use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of.

I wonder how many apple corers, pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese boards, cheese knives, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, (it was a free gift, honest!), piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks, cherry stoners, sugar thermometers, food processors, bacon presses, bacon slicers, mouli mills, cake testers, pestle-and-mortars, and sets of kebab skewers languish dustily at the back of the nation’s cupboards.

Mike, this is for you. Andy, I suspect that you eat out too much…

Damn, I see that the chef, Santi Santamaria has died of a heart attack – he was only 53. We have made three visits to his three-Michelin-star restaurant El Racó de Can Fabes in the sleepy town of San Celoni near Barcelona, and each time we really enjoyed it.

I first heard about Can Fabes from my friend and food critic, Andy Hayler. Although Andy reported that the standard of cooking in Can Fabes was not what it once was, we were fortunate enough to be able to visit it when Santamaria and his staff were cooking at, or very near, the peak of their powers.

When I was living in London, back in the 1970s and early 80s, I was fortunate enough to be able to dine at L’Escargot in Soho a couple of times. The restaurant was ruled over by Elena Salvoni, the tiny, but formidable, maître d’. Well, I say formidable, but she was also charming, and put me completely at my ease.

Incredibly, she’s still going strong at 90 years of age. She’s a Soho institution.

Foie Gras – simply delicious and simply cruel in its method of production. An article in today’s Guardian puts both sides of the argument well:

Foie gras is objectively, indisputably cruel. What a tragedy, then, that it should be so delicious, with an incomparable interplay of sweet and fat, the semi-solid and semi-liquid, the smooth, buttery earthiness and the velvet blush of offal. For many who love food, it has a kind of beauty, even though that beauty was wrought from agony.

Yes, I’ve tasted it – and it is every bit as good as described above. However, knowing now what I know about the method of production, I would think hard about eating it again.

I see that yet another series of Masterchef is starting on BBC TV tonight. It hardly seems any time at all since the last one finally ground to a halt. I have to say that I have a sneaking attraction for the series (although personally I prefer the non-“Celebrity” flavour) and the hosts, rather like the attraction a deer has for the oncoming headlights of the car that will deal it disaster. Part of it is the undoubted schadenfreude over some of the people who for some daft reason think that they can actually get anywhere in the competition.

But then again, I know my limitations, there is no way that I would have the effrontery to partake in this modern version of the gladiatorial arena. And for those that do, some at least have the wit to be able to write about it in an engaging fashion.