One Man’s Attempt To Snack Like A Princess

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“Life,” the writer Shirley Conran once famously noted, “is too short to stuff a mushroom.”

Now however much I may disagree with her about stuffing mushrooms (gorgeous little button mushrooms stuffed with a brandied chicken liver mousse! meaty portabello mushrooms stuffed with brie and garlic and walnuts!), I must concede that Ms Conran was not on some anti-fungal crusade. She was, instead, making a much larger point about the uselessness of engaging in needlessly fiddly and time-consuming activities simply to prove their status or- even worse- their worth. Boiled down, if you think that presenting the world with a stuffed mushroom is what will finally show them all that you have it all and can do it all, you’ve probably got a very skewed idea of what having it all and doing it all actually means.

This thought, amongst a colorful array of others, occurred to me the other day when I faced up to the realities of a challenge I had set myself: making homemade potato chips. Continue reading “One Man’s Attempt To Snack Like A Princess” →

What American Food Means To Me

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Earlier today, on the eve of that Birthday of the United States of America, the 4th of July, Deborah posed a real, well, poser of a question:   “What is American food?”

On the surface, this was a very easy question to answer. “Hamburgers!” “Hot dogs!” “Apple pie!” “Chop suey!” “Barbeque!” “Pizza!” were amongst the most vociferously voiced suggestions. And despite the fact that each of those originated in another continent (if not country), I completely agree.

But as an amateur food historian, I could counter those with “Popcorn!””Peanut butter!” “Turkey!” “Cranberries!” as each of those foods are actually native to the USA. Well, … Okay, so peanuts are actually native to South America, and the peanut butter we eat today was possibly loosely based on a Cuban culinary practice-but it became peanut butter in the USA. And no, it was not invented by George Washington Carver, but I’ve covered that story here.)

And anyway, I started to think about the question in a different, more personal, way. Continue reading “What American Food Means To Me” →

Pickled And Baked – No, Not Like That!

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It’s not what you think.

I’m not wallowing in wine or whacked out on weed. (At least not right now.) I do, however, have homemade bread baking in the oven, and I’ve just put up a bunch of pickles.

Again, it’s not what you may think. I haven’t joined a commune in Vermont, delved too far into the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder, or taken up extreme right-wing ideologies and moved into a nuclear bunker in Tennessee. I’m just trying to stay hip. And for once, I’ve found I haven’t already aged out of the latest trends.

Both baking and pickling are tres chic here in the UK. That runaway smash tv show The Great British Bakeoff has taken the nation by storm over the last few years.

What was once the province of the WI has now become a national craze. Artisan bakeries are opening across the land, companies are holding their own employee cake contests, and near strangers are getting friendly jabbering about their Genoese sponges.

In the restaurant and television cookery worlds, pickling is equally de rigeur. TV shows like Masterchef: The Professionals are giving us weekly bites of the latest fine dining trends, and along with pistachios, apricots, cauliflower and cured mackerel, pickled vegetables adorn pretty much every plate. In fact, sometimes they’re all on the same plate, which strikes me as a digestive challenge.

Now I don’t, as it happens, have much of a sweet tooth. I’m not a big fan of cakes or pastries. And I’ve never before felt a particular need to knead. Nor do I, living on the third floor of an apartment block as I do, own acres of farmland replete with legumes that need preserving before they rot.

But still, a boy can get to feeling left out. Continue reading “Pickled And Baked – No, Not Like That!” →

Shakespearean Noshes, A Literary Nibble

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It is April 23 – National Cherry Cheesecake Day. Do we really need to expound on the glories of cheesecake? Don’t we all know it already. Instead, let us turn our culinary attention to Shakespeare. Yes, you heard me right. Shakespeare.

Today is the day of Shakespeare birth in 1564 (at best estimate) and his death in 1616. And on both those occasions, I bet food was prepared, served, eaten and shared. But which foods? Continue reading “Shakespearean Noshes, A Literary Nibble” →

The Art of Cooking. Now With Extra Art

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The other day, my friend Alexia (who ought to be writing her own food blog the way she rocks all things cooking and growing of her own produce) sent me a link to some beautiful illustrated recipes. Not illustrated with photos – we’ve all seen that. That’s the most expected thing in the world. No, these recipes were produced by an illustrator – Lucy Eldridge – working in watercolor.

Ms Eldridge not only produced some yummy recipes but some equally scrumptious illustrations to really tempt you into trying them. Well, OK – I don’t know if that’s why she did it. Maybe she just felt like illustrating them. But the artwork makes the whole thing even more tempting to me. I think I’ll try the carrot cake first.

That recipe and others can be seen in larger format on her site. While you’re there, take a look at her other work. Wonderful stuff.

Naturally, I went looking for other illustrators who might have done the same. Boy oh boy – am I happy I did.

I read about Felicita Sala in a post on Design Sponge (one of my favorite design and lifestyle sites). The recipe there was stuffed calamari and while I am a huge fan of calamari, I somehow have never had it stuffed. This situation must be remedied and I think this is the way to do it.

I can’t wait to try the risotto al radicchio as well. Check that one out as well as the others at Ms Sala’s own site  . I’ll tell you something else – the fact that you can purchase prints of these recipes has me rethinking the walls of my own kitchen.

There are even whole sites, dedicated to displaying and sharing the illustrated recipes of illustrators – sites like They Draw & Cook and Recipe Look. I’ve spent ages looking through them and I find it all really inspiring, both culinarily and artistically. I’ll definitely be trying some of these dishes.

What? Oh no – not drawing. The only thing I can draw is a bath. Seriously – I’m not being modest. I really suck eggs at that sort of thing. But these people rock not only the art of cooking but art itself as well. Cheers to them all.