jwg | Entries tagged with food

We just returned from a fantastic trip to Southern Africa. It was Road Scholars trip to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana (3 countries to add to our list). We flew via London and spent a day there, and then 3 days in Johannesburg before flying to CapeTown to join the trip. Several big features of the trip were a Rovos Rail (a luxury train - with 3 nights) trip from Pretoria to Victoria Falls and a number of game drives in small vehicles or boats where we saw many different animals and birds. At the end of the trip we went over the checklist they gave us and the species count was 30 mammals, 7 reptiles, 87 birds, 15 trees, and 11 bugs.

This artwork was on a custom-made Tshirt for our trip that several of us bought.

The guide/leader was excellent and gave us a bunch of lectures on politics, history, and animals among other things. There were 17 travelers in addition to the guide and all were very nice people. It was our first Road Scholars trip and certainly not our last one.

After visiting the Rouen cathedral while walking around town on the way to the railroad station we saw a nice market. What looked liked an ancient carousel was operating out in front.

Short video of the carousel:

Click below for some pictures of the market. The last four are a shoe repair shop, a nearby street and a bicycle repair activity in the Railroad station.

Short Video in the Market

I've never been a fan of stout in the US, but draft Guinness in Ireland has a completely different taste. A pint for lunch or dinner just hit the spot.

Needless to say there were lots of signs promoting Guinness.

Here are a few images

a fragment from our Household Operating Manual is here:

Elegance Level definition
E4: Dining in Dining room with fresh cooked food
E3: Dining in Kitchen with fresh cooked food
E2: Dining in Kitchen with "original" leftovers
E1: Dining in Kitchen with "storebought" leftovers
E0: Dining in front of TV set for sporting events

Plate Service
E4: "Heirloom" dinner, salad, & dessert plates
E3, E2, E1, E0: Regular plates, salad served on same plates, no dessert served

Beverage Service
E4: Wine in wine glasses, water in water glasses with ice; water pitcher on table
E3: optional Wine in wine glasses - generally left from prior occasion;
if no cocktails before dinner: beer glasses on table, beer bottles on table;
if no beer: water in water glasses with ice; water bottle on table
E2, E1: water in plastic glasses, water bottle on table
E0: water in plastic glasses, water bottle on tray

Bread Service
E4, E3: Fresh bread required, unsalted butter in butter dish
E2, E1: If fresh bread, unsalted butter in butter dish
if not fresh bread, bread is toasted, butter optional, but usually always served in E2
E4, E3, E2, E1: loaf of bread nearby on bread board for extra slices
E0: not fresh bread, no butter, no bread loaf available

Napkin Service
E4: cloth napkins
E3, E2, E1, E0: paper napkins

Meal Cooking and Cleanup
E4, E3: person who shops, cooks
E4, E3: person who cooks puts away uneaten food, other person does dishes
E2, E1, E0: person who sets up, puts away uneaten food and puts dirty dishes in sink; dishes get washed only at breakfast by whoever gets up second

I'm a big fan of Adam Gopnik who writes columns for The New Yorker. A few years ago he lived in Paris and his book Paris to the Moon, a collection of articles while he was there is hilarious and quite insightful as well.

Last night, my bedtime reading was his What's the Recipe article from the Nov 23 New Yorker. He makes lots of fun of trends and points out the many flaws of cookbookery. Needless to say there were lots of giggles and it was hard to concentrate.

I don't think I'll take a recipe seriously from now on (not that I do anyway since I like to improvise).

An excerpt

The cult of the cooking vessel—the wok, the tagine, the Dutch oven, the smoker, the hibachi, the Tibetan kiln or the Inuit ice oven or whatever—seems to be over. Paula Wolfert has a new book devoted to clay-pot cooking, but it feels too ambitious in advance; we have tried too many other modish pots, and know that, like Elvis’s and Michael Jackson’s chimps, after their hour is done they will live out their years forgotten and alone, on the floor of the closet, alongside the fondue forks and the spice grinder and the George Foreman grill.

At Thanksgiving we went to Distrito, a Mexican tapas restaurant in Philadelphia (which was quite good) and had margaritas. We decided we should try making them.

rsc bought some Tequila the other day and tonight was the night. I looked up recipes and found several - tequila, lime juice, and Triple Sec -- even parts of each or various combinations of 3-2-1. Cointreau was a documented substitute.

I had gotten some limes and we had some old ones so I squeezed them and a new one which had decidedly more juice into the little citrus squeezer that isn't calibrated. So I poured what I got into a small liqueur shot-like glass. Not knowing how big it was I took another one and filled with the same amount of water and poured it into a 1/4 cup measuring cup. It was full and since

rsc said that 1/4 cup was two ounces that seemed like the right amount.

Not having a cocktail shaker I decided to use a jam jar as the cocktail shaker (it was clean). Robert added the tequila from our brand new bottle of José Cuervo, struggling a bit to open it - a little more than 2 ounces.

We had no Triple Sec, nor Cointreau but did have some Grand Marnier. It was quite old. I noticed a piece of cork in the bottle but there was an intact replacement cork in the bottle. That is it was intact until I tried to get it out. It broke at the bottle top. I tried a corkscrew but the cork was so dried out that the the corkscrew pulled out with a few pieces of cork. More attempts with the corkscrew and a knife finally made it's way through but there were lots of cork bits floating in the Grand Marnier as well as some stuck to the inside of the bottle neck. I poured the Grand Marnier through a fairly fine strainer into a measuring cup which was almost large enough. The strainer took out most of the cork bits but there was a little bits left. I then strained into another measuring cup using a paper towel as a sieve which worked pretty well except for the Grand Marnier that spilled on the bread cutting board. I used a spoon to remove the last bits of cork from the measuring cup. I poured some into the shot glass and then poured that into the jam jar. The leftover Grand Marnier was placed in an empty Wheat Germ Jar (a small one that was large enough in spite of a certain person claiming that it was too small). During this whole process there was a fair amount of ambient noise with questions such as "why are there paper towels in the sink?"

I put the jam jar (with lid) in a measuring cup with some water and ice cubes to cool down while hors d'œuvres were made. Robert did that while I cleaned up a bit of spilled Grand Marnier from the counter and the floor.

We didn't use salt on the rims of the glasses. This is probably just as well since there would probably be salt everywhere including spilled into the drinks. I did notice a margarita salt kit in the store the other day along with margarita mix that had no lime juice but did have citrus flavoring in it; I bought neither of these.

The margaritas were quite good. And next time it will be much easier.

The other day I'd bought some Arctic Char (salmon like fish) and there was a recipe at the fish counter which said place on parchment paper on a baking sheet, cover with broccoli, use ginger-soy dressing and roast at 450 for 15 minutes. Cook noodles, drain off most of the water, add lemon juice and then mix in the broccoli with the noodles. Serve by placing the noodles broccoli mixture on the plate and cover with the fish flaked into small pieces.

Having no parchment paper, I used aluminum foil. Although I oiled it, the fish skin stuck to it which wasn't a big tragedy. I improvised ginger soy dressing with grated ginger, soy sauce, some herbs and pepper, and olive oil. It was quite good. And since we always make more than we can eat at once, we had leftovers twice, microwaving to heat.

I bought parchment paper.

Then I bought boneless chicken thighs. I googled chicken parchment paper and got a bunch of hits (for chicken breasts). My improvised version was this:

A veggie mixture out of julienned carrots and yellow peppers and a can of no-salt-added tomatoes and lots of thyme, basil and pepper.

I then took pieces of parchment paper, placed some of the veggies on the paper, placed 2 thighs on the veggies, and then more veggies, folded and crimped the parchment paper to make pockets and baked for 30 minutes at 400.

It was quite good, the flavors merged and the chicken was very juicy and we have more for another meal.

I guessed at the 30 minutes and 400 degrees since the various recipes had different temperatures and times. There were about 3 cups of veggies to 6 thighs.

Today's a big day in the Gender-role-free Contra Dance world. We are having the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of this twice a month dance series in Jamaica Plain. We have an afternoon dance for experienced dancers and an evening dance for everyone with potluck snacks, supper, and dessert at appropriate times. Six callers and three bands. And commemorative t-shirts for sale.

We're bringing a cranberry bread (made last fall) for snacks and I just made a stirfry for supper.

StirFry
Spiced chicken sausage
red peppers
carrots - juilienned
mushrooms
okra! (usually found only in crossword puzzles)
snow peas
thyme, oregano, pepper, and vegetable bouillon

I made this up as I went along using stuff I found at WholeFoods yesterday plus stuff in the house. I sautéed the veggies in appropriate order in olive oil adding the bouillon near the end and covered it so the steam would stay in. I sautéed the sliced chicken sausage separately so it would get browned. (I did the okra first to see what it tasted like).

Cranberry bread
2 tbsp butter
1 cup sugar (1/2 white , 1/2 brown)
2 eggs
1 orange cut up removing pips
blend
mix into this
2 cups whole wheat flour
Why no wheat germ? **
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 /12 cup cranberries

bake 30-35 minutes @375
We usually double the recipe and use 3 loaf pans

** all the recipes in this series (from Adele Davis, but probably modified by my ex-wife of many years ago) have wheat germ. I've been making this recipe for 40 years - usually around thanksgiving time. Sometimes we add wheat germ ~1/2 cup

orrechiette
shrimp
snow peas
mushrooms
grated ginger
mustard
olive oil
lemon juice
balsamic vinegar
dill
pepper

And we can go by the T

No, we don't have such an appointment.

While eating some Carr's Whole Wheat Crackers¹ I was musing about the By Appointment to H.M. The Queen on the box and wondering how you get it and more important what happens when the Queen dies or abdicates.

The Royal Warrant Society issues them. The most significant criterion is that you have to have done business with the Grantor for at least five years. The Grantor can be HM The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinborough, or HRH The Prince of Wales. I also read that when the Grantor dies the Royal Warrant expires after 5 years. Seems to me there is a timing problem since it would take 5 years before the new sovereign can apply, but what do I know.

Another important a question suppose that a firm has a HRH The Prince of Wales appointment. Now if the Queen dies and he becomes king does it easily or automatically convert to a HM The King?

The RWS site doesn't completely explain how a firm loses its appointment but they do list some factors. (Chivers Jam used to have it but no longer does. I wonder what they did - probably something to do with ownership changes - oh yes I just read that in 1999 Chivers became 100% Irish owned. We still buy it when we can find it).

----
1. Carr's Whole Wheat Crackers are called Correct Crackers in our household because once when

rsc saw whole wheat crackers on the list he bought some of different brand and which were different (the Carr's are slightly sweet which goes well with jam). I said what he bought were incorrect, thus...

I've had this plastic bottle of Findlay's Finest Scotch Whisky lying around for a long time - it was my mother's (she died 1997) so it was aged and I've been thinking about using it up. When we drink scotch it is one of several kinds of single malt which doesn't come in plastic bottles!

I made a quick search on the internet to look at scotch mixed drinks - I looked at a bunch, sort of remembered a few and then went onto the kitchen. I added dry Vermouth (I saw recipes for dry and sweet vermouth but had no sweet vermouth although I considered using Dubonnet), the juice of a lemon, I couldn't find the Grand Marnier (some recipes called for Triple Sec, nor could I find the Angostura Bitters so they weren't added though they were in some of the recipes), the juice of half a lemon and a bit of confectioners sugar and mixed them up with some ice. I measured nothing but used up the scotch which had about 3-4 ounces. When I brought it into

rsc I said it's Don't Ask. It was actually OK but of course i can't make it again the same way...

There's another fuller bottle of scotch in Gloucester and I know the Bitters and Grand Marnier are there. So, next summer....

We had some of this beer for dinner tonight along with roasted root vegetables, pan sautéed Tilapia and some nice Rye bread found at the Central Square farmer's market.

In fine print around the edge of the label was the following:

"Like Adam and Eve, Isaac and Ishmael, Mao and Confuscious (sic), Good and Evil, Day and Night, Hittites and Visigoths, John and Lorena, or Groucho and Moe, Ales and Lagers are as different as can be. Still we must love each for who they are, separately but equally, with liberty and justice, for all. Cheers!"