Slam Dunk

Our family has a contest going on along the lines "What was mom thinking?" Mothers (and fathers) are meant to help raise their children to be strong and healthy. To do this, they need to feed their children a balanced diet. So, our contest is to establish acts of gross wrong-doing in meeting children's nutritional needs.

My brother once witnessed an act of pure genius... in some small Scottish diner, a mother served her children French Fry sandwiches for breakfast! French Fries between two slices of toasted white bread. (OK, there were doses of ketchup in between as well.)

So, my brother has held the record for the best bad meal for the last 23 years! Oh, we've tried, but no matter what we've seen, the Scottish French Fry Breakfast Sandwich has always come out on top. Until today...

I saw my prize at a school sport event. The parents had set up a breakfast buffet for the school children.  Right in the middle of the buffet table, on a big aluminum platter, was a mountain of soft white bread rolls with squished chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies in between. Here is the recipe,

1. Take one white bread roll
2. Slice through the middle
3. Take one chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies
4. Squish flat
5. Place between bread roll

I am not joking. Appalled, I talked to one of my friends about it. "Oh, I used to sneak to the local store and buy one of those on the way to school when I was a kid." This creation is not the invention of a crazy mother, it's actually tradition here!

Now, I am all for French fries and sweets, but for breakfast... Anyways, this creation is a slam dunk for upsurging my brother's prize, so I can't complain.

What is the worse you every saw a parent giving their children to eat?

Food for Thought

Over the years our family diet has changed from being a primarily alkaline diet to much more of a acid diet according to this chart. Part of the reason this has happened has to do with the fact of going local in our eating habits (e.g. more local fruits) and eating lots of pasta dishes. Will have to chew over the information for a while and see if there isn't anything that is easy to reintroduce into our eating habits rather than taking away.

Eyes - Postcards VI

She sits in the small terrace garden at her favourite restaurant. Alone, yet content. At home at the table with the lone white rose in an olive coloured bottle. Jazz music from the upstairs apartment seeps down the walls, crawling through the vines and peppers her food with unpretentious savoury pleasure.

Spiced Apples

My grandmother used to make all forms of marvellous produce with the apples from their apple trees. She would use Spice Island spices from Grenada to transform those tart apples into perfumed wonders of tastiness.

My parents lived in Grenada for many years. (My mother continues to do so.) During, what was called, the Revolutionary Years, the only imported food produce to be regularly found in the shops besides local produce was butter and cheese from New Zealand and apples from Canada.

There was something nicely symmetrical about that fact.

Cooking Course January 2008

It was just a fantastic day yesterday. But, boy, am I tired today. So, just to show you guys what we prepared, feasted upon, and delighted in learning to make…

(Claudia, can you send the descriptions of each of the courses?)

Note to all, we made Everything. No opening jars, or taking out of packages… the chefs were amazing at keeping us all busy beavers, even though it must be three times the amount of work to delegate instead of just doing it themselves. Three times… say ten times.

Entré I

Some sort of liver paté (didn’t eat since I’m vegetarian) with some sort of chutney

Entré II

A shrimp thing

Not an entré but don’t know what it is called…

Ravioli with goat cheese, something, something, and parmesan stuffing, Thai asparagus

Not an entré but don’t know what it is called…

Red snapper

Main course

Quail breasts, artichoke hearts stuffed with sweet potato mix with mozzarella melted on top, a flaky pastry stuffed with a potato/vegetable stuffing (I ate everything but the quail)

Dessert

A pineapple and estragon salad, a chocolate ball (when the hardened exterior is punctured, out pours liquid chocolate), and roiboos tea ice cream

A harmonious group of workers, considering the fact that we didn’t really know each other beforehand. Not complete strangers; two of my friends and I each invited two other friends and this is how the group of nine was formed.

Hats off to the chefs.

Stay tuned. The gods willing, there will be a slideshow in a few weeks time.

Cooking Course

I'm off to take a cooking course. A friend and I gathered up a group of people to attend this course. We don't know what awaits us. I might cook or I might just take photos and put together a slideshow of the course. I haven't quite made up my mind yet.

I'm still going and working in the kitchen of my favourite restaurant (also where the cooking course is being held) every Thursday afternoon. Great fun.

Shrimp Death

Pam of Nerd’s Eye View used to have the following statement in her profile,

“I don't eat four legged animals - it's just a preference, not a political act.”

Which is the sort of vegetarian I’ve been for the last thirty-five years of my life. It is a choice I made as a teenager and I just never got around to changing it.

Since I am the cook of the family, this means that we eat a lot of vegetarian meals. No exclusively; I do cook up the occasional meat dish, but probably only once or twice a month. I rely on my husband and children eating a good piece of meat when we go out to eat in restaurants.

When the children were in day care, they ate meat every day. So, I always assumed they weren’t squeamish about killing animals for meat.

That is until my five-year-old my son practically broke down one dinnertime as we were eating a rice, vegetables and shrimp dish. When I asked him what was wrong, he said pathetically, “I don’t know if I can eat this. It makes me sad to think of how they kill shrimp.”

Unfortunately, I think I started laughing. If there is one being on this earth whose death doesn’t make me wince, it is shrimps. Do they even have brains? At least I didn’t express what I was thinking when my son told me about his qualms, which was, “If you think that is bad, just wait until you find out about chickens, calves, lamps, pigs…”

Breakfast Atheist

What is the most important meal of the day? Breakfast. This is something everyone knows. What is my least favourite meal of the day? Don’t even have to think about it. No weighing in. It is… breakfast.

I keep hoping that by some marvel, a scientific study or religious dogma somewhere in the world will prove that breakfast is a thoroughly unnecessary event.

You might say, “That will never happen”, but just think about red wine, coffee, bitter chocolate, tea, eggs, etc. Think about how many “unhealthy” things have been proven not only delectable, but they are even good for our wellbeing. And, than think about how so many “healthy” things have come under severe critique: carrots, spinach, mushrooms, etc.

I know it is a lot to ask, but how can breakfast be so important when it means eating before I am hungry, and eating substance that are often contain masses of sugar and gelatine, or they are sugar-coated (most cereals) or taste like sawdust (the other sorts of cereals)?

This video show what my inner feelings about matters concerning the importance of eating breakfast are.

Mario

Mario owns a restaurant around the corner from where we live. It is a restaurant par excellence. One of the best in the city.

Mario is a very temperamental Italian, living and working in this cool northern German climate. Mario is either sun or storm. Northern Germans emotional climate changes range from a refreshing drizzle to relentless rain.

Mario loves making excellent food. He cooks for northern customers southern delights. What he ask for in return, is for those who eat at the restaurant to be seduced by good food and drink.

As long as you come to the restaurant for the food, and not for its reputation of being one of the best restaurants in the city, all is well. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like, how much money you have, Mario is only concerned about your taste buds: how curious and adventurous your culinary Geist is. He can detect a connoisseur ten yards away, a fraud from twenty yards.

And, Mario being Mario, never one to make compromises, thinks nothing of subtly and not so subtly, letting his customers know which category they belong to.

With those customers of discriminating tastes, he jokes and charms his way into your heart and belly. He tells tales about looking far-and-wide for this evening’s meat, searching for the freshly picked strawberries served with the to-die-for mascapone sauce. The more you enjoy your meal, the happier Mario is. He doesn’t talk much. He certainly never fawns over you. Yet, his gait becomes light: he almost dances back and forth between your table and the kitchen.

He watches the expression on your face, the attention you give to the food, the lingering over the wine… this is the praise he seeks.

No Baking Zone

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
Jane Austen

“Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world.”
Thomas Browne

Our oven has to be the least frequently used appliance in our home. I am a cook, not a baker. This is a shame really, considering how I come from a long line of bakers on my maternal side and live in a country where baking is still a housewifery art form, which is expected of every proper housewife. Store-bought goods, no matter how tasty, are considered inferior in every way. On some occasions, noticeably birthdays and anniversaries, to serve bought goods to guests is bordering on rudeness.

It is expected of every woman that she bake her own cakes on her birthday. Since you celebrate your birthday with your colleagues at the office, at home with family, and again with friends … you are talking about a lot of cakes!

The children celebrate their birthdays at home with close family and adult friends, at school with their classmates, at their day care, and on the weekend with other children. There are usually 10-15 relatives and friends at the first party, 20-25 children at in their classroom, 15-20 children in their day care group, and 10-12 children at their weekend party. I’ll leave it up to you to add up how many pieces of cake I am talking about here.

It’s not that I am trying to drum up your sympathy, rather just illustrate the extent of the cake baking logistics. It is also expected that the wives, girlfriends, and even mothers do the baking for their male counterparts. Having said all this, I have to confess that I don’t bake at all. Not for anyone.

All early attempts to acquire even the most rudimentary baking skill proved disastrous. The condescending looks at my failed projects, the all-you-have-to-do-is-follow-a-recipe advise from well-meaning friends (did they think I decided to make up the concoction out of my head?), the ever increasing number of baking books in my bookshelves, have yielded no encouraging improvement. So, I’ve adopted an I-don’t-do-that attitude and try to look ever so superior when a situation arises.

… The Old Man Is Snoring

Boy, it is teaming outside. Thunder. Lightening. Oh, the luxury of a dry, well-lit, warm living room, the delight of a pot of hot herbal tea, the comfort of a pair of soft woolly slippers, and the feeling of smugness with a four day weekend ahead and nothing planned. Nada! A blank calendar. Bliss.

My daughter is off for a day of visiting museums (Christian Dior 1947 to 1957 exhibit) and shopping in Berlin. Pretty sophisticated outing for a 12 year old, but it was her birthday gift from one of her (chosen) aunts. Mine is not to question… (I’m allergic to shopping).

It’s raining so much that I am tempted to forgo picking up our traditional Wednesday evening falafel takeout and cooking up a meal for the rest of the family myself. Well, maybe tempted, but I’m sure the falafel will beckon me beyond the warmth of our living room door.

Just looked out the window and the rain water on the street is surging past deep enough to carry a kayak. (Yes, an exaggeration.)

Food Poisoning

Bad tuna, bad night, trying to recover, well on the way…

Keeping with the theme of fish… try listening to Ron Hynes (here) poem. Just fantastic.

If you prefer to read about fish or fishing, or the life of a fisher, here are three excellent books:

Fishing with John, by Edith Iglauer

Voyages, At Sea With Strangers, by Joan Skogan

Tawler, A Journey Through The North Atlantic, by Redmond O’Hanlon

Ode to Olive Oil

After these last weeks of story writing, think I am going to switch to making collages again. This one was inspired by a new brand of Italian olive oil we are using.

When I was young, I remember my mother using Crisco Oil. It was a “cooking” oil. Meaning we used it for everything. Years went by, and she eventually did buy some olive oil. I believe she used two or three tablespoons when making certain salads.

I moved out of our home early on and, I don’t quite remember when it was that I first started buying olive oil instead of Crisco oil, but twenty years or so ago it became the oil of my choice.

We might be able to go weeks without butter, but we can’t do without our lovely olive oil.