Stories: Memorable Meals
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And I had a flatmate who used to bring home leftovers from SCA feasts. I don't actually know how you get cabbage to go bright purple, but there are reasons why we don't eat the way we did in the Middle Ages.
Eventually he got so bad the rest of the flat would get together at uni every Tuesday and come up with something to do that meant we wouldn't be going home for dinner.
Great meals? The lamb rack at Hay's, eaten in company with my favourite people. The glazed lamb roast I made for Christmas dinner two years ago when we had Christmas at home, just the four of us. The most relaxed Chrissy I've had in my life. We're staying home again this year, no extraneous family. I asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas dinner, and they said 'spaghetti and meatballs'.
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Hi Public Address,
I haven't posted in ages which some of you may consider a great favour so,
*lodges cotton wool in cheek*
"Now maybe you can do me a favour"
The school I work at has entered and has made the final five of a competition to create and produce a song around the integrated use of ICT in our school and classroom. There is a rather large portion of prize action up for grabs and I'd like you to help us win it. If you go to the url below,
http://contest.interwritelearning.com/contestant/90/
and vote for us I'd be ever so greatful. You have to create an account to vote which will cost nothing but a little of you time and an email addy. You get to watch a video which is based around our school and stars some of our kids and some guy who shall remain nameless, heh.
P.S. I'm going to spam this message on loads of threads and if this irritates you, I do apologise. -
Ah student cooking - the horror, the torture, the humiliation. Oh the inhumanity!
Even the mists of time have failed to soften the memory of a meal a new flatty cooked for us when he first moved into our residence. This was back in the days when I was an undergraduate at Canterbury University and was sharing a place with three other blokes (a recipe for disaster if there ever was one).
Anyway the new chap, Damien, was delegated to cook Thursday nights and on his first attempt he managed to come up with the second worst meal I have ever eaten in my entire life.
The concept was fairly simple. Mince, boiled potatoes, carrots, and mixed veg'. Not haute cuisine by any means but not the sort of meal that you'd expect would be too challenging to execute.
Unfortunately poor Damien was flatting for the first time and had come straight from one of those upbringings where mum did all the cooking. The whole concept of seasoning was well beyond his capabilities so the mince turned out as a grey anaemic mush.
Another thing that he was culinarily challenged on was the necessity to clean vegetables before cooking them. Into the pot went the unwashed potatoes with clumps of mud still tenaciously attached. The spuds too ended up dull shade of grey, though with an extra gritty texture.
The water that had been used to boil the potatoes was then used to cook the carrots (also unwashed and unpeeled) and the mixed veg'. I had never before, nor have I since, ever seen carrots, peas, and corn, prepared in such a way that they end up grey in colour. How he managed it was quite beyond us all.
The look of trepidation upon our faces as he dished up this frightening fare was a sight to behold. We were a little reluctant to berate a person who'd just moved in (after all we needed to pay the rent) but the spectacle was such that something had to be said.
"Umm Damien"
"Yeah"
"Dude, WHAT THE FUCK!"And to prove that we were young and stupid we even let him try cooking one more time. That's when he made the worst meal I have ever encountered in my life.
But that's another story.
(Thursday subsequently became fish and chip night)
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Ah student cooking - the horror, the torture, the humiliation. Oh the inhumanity!
You poor thing... I am beginning to realise how lucky I was in my student house (in Vancouver... nearly 30 years ago). Our student house was huge and owned by one of us, Michael, who charged next to nothing. All of us had travelled, some had lived in other countries and all of us could cook, most of us rather magnificently. Ah, where to begin?
Gord had spent the ages between 10 and 16 in India (his dad was a civil engineer) and he had not only learned to speak pretty competent Urdu and Hindustani, he had also learned to cook like a master chef.
Gord was a lanky, sweet faced blond and at 10 was taken under the loving wings of all the women who worked in his parents' house who not only lavished adoration, praise and gifts on him (for liking their food, he told us) they taught him how to cook. So Gord could make just about anything you could possibly imagine, but my favourite dish was called "The Priest Fainted" as in he fainted in ecstasy as it was so delicious. It's a small ball of puri dough, stuffed with a small amount of dahl (Gord had countless dahl recipes) and then, when deep fried, the puri puffs up and the dahl makes a delicious spicy filling. He'd serve these with homemade chutney and a yoghurt/coriander/mint dressing. He used to make all sorts of desserts too, especially the best rosewater and pistacio kheercas I've ever tasted.
Both myself and another student, Carol were brilliant, competitive bakers. Between us, as we were always trying to outdo each other, there were always cakes, cookies, blueberry buttermilk pancakes, cinnamon buns, brownines, tortes, tarts, fools (raspberry, huckleberry, gooseberry), Napoleons, Copenhagens, Bear Claws, the wonderfully named Cold Shape, old fashioned ice cream (frozen custard) waffles, vaucharin, bars, trifles, cheesecakes, pies, cobblers, loaves, muffins... I am also an excellent jam maker, Carol a first class marmalade maker. Name a dessert and I bet one of us made it
Between us we also covered the field of Chinese/Thai/French cooking.
Robyn and Richard, Tony and Paula were also excellent chefs of Indian food, having also spent time there, but Gord was better than any restaurant chef, so they left that cuisine to him and capitalised on their strengths in Italian, Lebanese/Greek/Turkish, and took care of barbeque duties, with a particular proficiency in salmon of every style.
Michael had become very proficient in Mexican food, even making his own hot sauces, tortilla chips and pickled jalapeneo peppers. He also used to make 20 loaves of truly famous bread a week for the house, though these were quickly devoured and we were reduced to the store bought stuff for about four days of each week anyway.
I still use several hundred recipes from my student days... Carol's simple marinade for all vegetables:
olive oil
crushed garlic
pepper
tabasco
worstershire
white wine vinegar
saltsteam any suitable vegetable: beans, asparagus, artichoke, mushrooms, cauliflower, etc for only 1.5 to 2 minutes, shake off any water and plunge into marinade piping hot. Cover and let sit for at least 4 hours, will keep for up to 4 days. Delicious as a side dish or to as an addtion to a hero sandwich...
I'm going to make my chocolate-raspberry Napoleons with vanilla custard.
My mother in law and I bonded mightily over the sheer pleasure of cooking for her son. We swapped recipes and tips and lamented the fact that really Paul will eat anything and that it would be good if he were in fact just a little fussier.
His early school days were filled with homemade bacon and egg pie (first class homemade puff pastry) exquisite sandwiches, excellent cakes, lamingtons and tarts (Neenish was his favourite). His friend Phil said he used to turn up at primary school with vegemite and lettuce sandwiches, a fejoia and a couple of wine biscuits while Paul would have this incredible spread and never fewer than 2 homemade desserts. Phil says he became quite skilled at making Paul feel guilty enough to share... Paul says he was born into a food God Realm.
Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?
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For me, one of my most memorable meals ever was a boxed picnic breakfast, courtesy of our hotel, which my friend Geetha and I ate sitting in front of the temples at Abu Simbel. I don't remember the breakfast so much, although I think it included bread rolls and a banana, but ohmigod the location. We'd gotten up in the dark for the hour long flight from Aswan, and sat there in the brilliant early morning sunshine absolutely stunned by it all.
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Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?
Did my mother's inability to cook make her a good feminist?
It certainly ensured that I picked up few abilities in the kitchen.
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Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?
Nope, the way to our hearts is through our stomachs :-). And with menus like that, the sisterhood might not be totally on board with the means, but they'll have to accept that the ends - men grovelling at your feet - must justify them.
I just came home from a delightful dinner out with my sweetie at En Q here in Hamtown. The service was friendly, the ambience refined but relaxed. But the food Mmmmmmmmmm. After the waitress took our orders, she popped back with little demitasse cups with a shot of creamy tomato soup, with a crouton, to spark up our palates - compliments of the chef. Then a cute little homebaked cupcake-sized mini-loaf of bread.
The entrees - I had the venison on spring greens, which was a nice wee salad. Mands had the warm goat cheese on poached pear with chorizo, which was amazing - creamy almost melted feta-y cheese on sweet pear slices with a zing of chorizo. I could have come up with the cheese and pear combo, but I never would have thought of including the spicy sausage, but that just made the dish.
After a decent pause for conversation, the mains came. I had the slow cooked lamb steaks on a potato mash with aubergine. They were delightful - I could have thrown my knife away they were so tender. They came with a tiny and delicious shepherd's pie which was very cute. The merlot that was the recommended match was indeed well matched.
Mandy's beef fillet on roasted baby potatoes with bacon and butter beans was similarly delicious, although she only let me have one bite of it...
We couldn't resist, we ordered dessert. The banoffie pie was the pick of the bunch - a deconstructed version with a toffee pie topped with a banana, topped with a blistered banana fritter and chantilly cream on the side. The 'decadent chocolate hazelnut pot with macaroon biscuit' was nice enough, but couldn't match the banoffie for yumminess, although it did come garnished with a pretty chocolate butterfly.
So now I'm at home, on the couch, working up the energy to pour myself a wee dram of my ill-gotten gains from the world cup slogan comp to top off a not perfect, but pretty-bloody-great meal. -
I don't actually know how you get cabbage to go bright purple...
First, buy one of those purple cabbages ...
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Memorable meals, there have been a few. My first meal of snails - I was about 10 I think, and we were at the White Heron hotel restaurant. Loved those. Rare roast beef on Sundays when I worked at a wee pub called the Inn on the Pond in the depths of Surrey. Hated the people I worked with, loved the food. My mother's gin chops. Fantastic. All the Xmas meals I've ever had with my family. The venison steaks my brothers cook. The lamb fillet my brother Marcus cooks. Any meal that includes potato salad - the anglokiwi version is lovely, but I adore the Cook Island version way more. Mayonnaise is the BEST. (Pronounced Minus, or at least that's the way my mate Aue says it). As a child, my father took us out to dinner alot - and in those days, the only good places to eat in Auckland were in hotels or places like Four Steps to Heaven or the Gourmet or the Tony's restaurants, or even places like Michaels in Takapuna. And funnily enough, it was Tony's Britannia in Takapuna that gave me one of my major thrills as a child. They had a salad bar, and sizzling steaks and baked potatoes with sour cream. It was paradise, or that's how I remember it at least.
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So Gord could make just about anything you could possibly imagine, but my favourite dish was called "The Priest Fainted" as in he fainted in ecstasy as it was so delicious. It's a small ball of puri dough, stuffed with a small amount of dahl (Gord had countless dahl recipes) and then, when deep fried, the puri puffs up and the dahl makes a delicious spicy filling. He'd serve these with homemade chutney and a yoghurt/coriander/mint dressing.
That sounds so good.
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I cooked my vegetarian girlfriend a tofu meal once. I 'mashed' it (an unappetising square of Tofu) with a potato masher to make it look like mince, then I fried it with soy sauce till it was brown (to make it look like mince), and served it up with spaghetti and pasta sauce. And some green pepper on top for good measure.
She appreciated the gesture, despite my obvious attempts to make it look 'meaty'. (The only way I could blardy eat it!)
Ah, tofu, my cultural heritage. It's used in plenty of dishes with meat, I have a delicious traditional Japanese dish using paper thin slices of beef, ginger, miso, tofu and sping onions in and almost sublime combination.
In my circles, they say the only two things besides desserts children can be relied on to like are tofu and noodles, and usually tofu is served in combination with these.
Here are a couple for vegetarians.
In my circles, they say the only two things besides desserts children can be relied on to like are tofu and noodles, often they are served in combination.
Soft tofu:
Almost Instant Miso Soup:
(serves 2)Mix:
* 4 packets instant miso soup (best flavour and nutriiton is the kind with kombu (type of seaweed) already in it... easy to find in foodtown now)
* 3 - 6 Tbsp ginger juice (peel & grate ginger, wring out and discard the pulp)
* 1.5C waterPrepare and ready to add:
* 2 - 3 spring onions, sliced into razor thin rounds
* 1 very small carrot (or only 1/2 large) - peeled, sliced into thin rounds, then into matchsticks, (aim for exactly the same thickness as your soba noodles)
* 3/4 C. washed brocolli, carefully trimmed, tough bits peeled off, separated into nice trees, stems julienned like the carrot
* 1/2 block silken curd (Japanese style) tofu (very soft, so cubed very carefully)
* 1 small handful buckwheat soba noodles - boil in unsalted water for 5 minutes, drain & rinse in cold water.To serve:
Bring miso soupmix/ginger juice/water mixture to a boil, add the soba noodles first, the vegetables immediately after. Divide tofu cubes between bowls, serve soup over tofu (too fragile to mix in soup, you want to retain a few cube shapes as you eat it). The vegetables should not be in for any more than 15 - 30 seconds before serving, the aim is that the vegetables be very, very close to raw, just hot when it's served. They soften slightly in the hot soup. Serve with chopsticks and a china soupspoon.
Not soft tofu: (Very Chewy)
Press tofu between several layers of paper towells & weights - cutting board and frying pan work well - for about 15 minutes. Cube and plunge into marinade of ginger juice, soy sauce and a dash of mirrin. Or sherry. Set aside at least 30 minutes.
Drain really well, and fry in a red hot pan with peanut oil, trying not to be scarred or blinded by spitting oil. Drain with relief (the frying process should only take 3 or 4 minutes) and use these deliciious, chewy morsels in either in fried noodle, rice or vegetable dishes. Or smothered with this sauce, with rice or noodles (the permutations are endless) and a (prefferably red hot chili) vegetable stir fry:
Coconut Curry Sauce:
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 onion chopped fine1/4 tsp tumeric
1 Tbsp rice flour or arrowroot
300 mls light coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
salt to tasteFry onion & garlic in 2 tsp peanut on med heat 3 minutes, add tumeric, coconut milk and thickener (already mixed to a smooth paste with a small amount of coconut milk), cinnamon stick and star anise. Keep moving in frying pan or sauce pan over fairly high heat until thickened (about 3 - 5 minutes). Serve immediately over fried tofu.
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Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?
Nope, the way to our hearts is through our stomachs :-). And with menus like that, the sisterhood might not be totally on board with the means, but they'll have to accept that the ends - men grovelling at your feet - must justify them.
Nah, it's not really. Cooking for their eating pleasure just impresses them, amuses them. They do like it, but it doesn't make any feeling
run deep.If you really want to find the way to a man's heart, so you can collect his very soul like a dead, chloroformed butterfly pinned to corkboard... um, getting carried away... you cook in ways that can alleviate illness; I think that's what that old adage really means, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I mean it doesn't say "through his tastebuds". They count, but are really secondary to the real powers of food.
I haven't got a whole degree in anything (though a couple partial ones) but I have long been fascinated at that point where food and medicine intersect. I have long been collecting recipes as medicine, from historical cook books, medical guides, pumping elderly people for information... it's kind of a lost art, but people have known a lot for a long time.
You can devise menus that chase away depression, increase energy, fix chronic indigestion, improve complexion. You name it.
If you can make anyone feel better they are tame for life.
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“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” Mark Twain
Aha, the 'Like Water For Chocolate" principle. Sounds like a fascinating field of study indeed. No problems finding guinea pigs I'm sure!
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Ah, tofu, my cultural heritage. It's used in plenty of dishes with meat
Yes, and I always feel cheated when I find it in my Chinese takeaway. I'm sure the Chinese word for Tofu is Pad Ding (actually that could be Thai)
If you really want to find the way to a man's heart ...
Yeah, yeah ... lest any women think they're on to something here: can I just remind you that cooking is the second best way to a man's heart. I may be stating the obvious but if you're not doing the first then I can't imagine any meal that could be good enough to make up for ... to make up for ... make up for ... for ... mmmmm ... donut
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Aha, the 'Like Water For Chocolate" principle. Sounds like a fascinating field of study indeed. No problems finding guinea pigs I'm sure!
Well... more like the Nicholas Perricone/Sir Cliff Tasman-Jones/Linus Pauling/David Barker/Ranjan Rajnik field of study, really. Looking at optimising nutritional content, recognising which foods cause inflammation, and which foods are less prone to causing inflammation.
I'm also very interested in the direct link between gingival health and overall health - even very low level gum disease can badly affect aspects of your health from arterial plaque to all forms of arthritis, and dozens of other conditions as well.Basically everything that goes wrong in your body comes down to inflammation, in a way.
I worked on two med/sci conferences on obesity - the first at the SOPH, looking at paediatric obesity, the second at AUT looking at obesity as in relation to sociocutural and ethnogenetic heritage. Plenty of interesting facts I never would have believed were presented... too much to get into here. How's this: abdominal fat acts like a sinister pancreas, secreting harmful hormones that make you sick and depressed. This is known as the HPA axis (hypothalamous, pituitary, adrenals axis) and is... bizarre.
Stress (elevated cortisol levels) willl make you store fat on your abdomen - you take identical twins and feed them exactly the same things, and stress one and not the other, they will store fat differently and that stored fat will behave differently. Who would have thought such a thing was possible?
You can eat your way to liver damage - again, I would have thought you needed booze to do that (and indeed, some patients were believed to be lying about their drinking habits, but no, they'd simply had bad diets over a long period). The production of the hormones that help us sleep or feel joy - these can be hugely influenced by diet. This is fascinating to me. Not to mention very handy.
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On the subject of the crazy stuff that goes on in our bodies, yesterday's Observer had an article by Gary Taubes considering the (controversial) idea that exercise does not cause weight loss. Yay?
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It really is fascinating that the more the human body is studied, the more complex it turns out to be - the simple basic things we all take for granted turn out to be not only more complex, but often the opposite of what would seem logical.
Everyone knows that to lose weight you need to eat less calories than you burn, but some people, given the same diet and the same exercise, will gain fat, while others will burn it off.
For example the chaps at the Liggins Institute in Auckland found that the predisposition to obesity can be programmed while the fetus is still developing in the womb - if the mother is nutritionally deprived, the baby is more likely to stockpile fat at the drop of a hat, while well fed mothers have babies that tend to stay slimmer - even given the same food as the chubby kids. The genes are the same, but they get activated differently depending on their enviroment. And similar things happen with stressed mothers vs relaxed ones. -
I was going to talk about my extreme cuisine-related luck in being born half-Cajun, but since the conversation has taken a health-related turn, and since Cajun food is basically Obesity on a Stick, perhaps I won't go into it in such detail...
I would like to note a few memorable things, though. My Aunt Wanda in Simmesport, La., makes a chicken and andouille sausage gumbo (with whole boiled eggs in it!) that is of such profound joy that we speak of it in reverent tones. I can make a decent gumbo myself, but there's something about hers... I can't explain it. My grandmother Ruby, who died in the late 80s, made dirty rice (rice with chicken livers) and grillades (intestines in gravy - trust me, it's awesome) that I can still remember from twenty years ago. In the middle of nowhere in Louisiana, at a gas station in Cajun country, you can get boudin (blood sausage) at the front counter out of a crock pot when you pay for your gas and buy your Diet Coke. And it's usually fantastic. And the pounds and pounds and pounds of boiled shrimp and crawfish I've eaten in my life... or the Christmas shrimp and oyster stuffing made by my other aunt in New Iberia... it's nuts. Food-related joy in Louisiana is practically endless. Sigh.
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if the mother is nutritionally deprived, the baby is more likely to stockpile fat at the drop of a hat, while well fed mothers have babies that tend to stay slimmer
<glib>so fat people have thin children and thin people have fat children?</glib>
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Philippines, 1998, I was hiking among the hill tribes on Mindanao and Palawan with a medical team. We were hot, sweaty, thirsty and tired one day when we came to a village on the top of a hill with a gorgeous view of surrounding valleys and forests. Out came a tray of mugs with possibly the most delicious liquid I have ever tasted. It was very strong, very sweet coffee, grown, roasted and ground in the area, mixed with a bit of ground corn. It was just the perfect thing.
Europe, 2007, traveling with a bunch of mates after a work conference/party we were sent over for. We walked up to the top of the hill in Lyon had a look around and then got lost walking back to the centre of town. We found ourselves in a maze of small, crooked back streets and stumbled across a small bakery with a line of locals almost coming out the door. The chocolate eclair I bought in there was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my life. It sounds crazy, but it made me feel warm and happy and alive. Such a simple thing, but the chocolate and pastry and chocolate mousse/cream substance that it was stuffed with were all so well executed that it became something truly spectacular.
Finally a pizza from a side street shop in Rome, fresh tomatoes, basil, and very fresh buffalo mozzarella, which it turns out is creamy and fluffy and not very cheese like. All on the classic italian pizza base that is also freshly made and so well executed wherever you go over there. Simply divine.
I actually do love complex, involved food as well, but these three really stand out for me.
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I've posted about the bad, now it's time for the good.
This is a little gem I picked up from a chef I worked with in Scotland about 10 years ago. It may sound a bit weird but is absolutely delicious.
First take one large chunk of pork belly/loin (skin on). Score the skin and rub all over liberally with coriander, salt, pepper, and freh ginger. Marinate for at least one day in copious anounts of brandy and orange juice. Remove from liquid (don't throw it out as it can be used for the sauce) and pat dry. Wrap securely and tightly in tinfoil and slow roast for 4-5 hours. For the last 20-30 minutes remove from wrappings and crisp the skin (mmm crackling).
For the sauce reduce a good red with diced shallots, add a bit of demiglace, and the juices from the marinade. When the pork is done remove the fat from the pan and deglaze and add the leavings to the sauce mix. Strain to get rid of all the chunky bits and further reduce until you get a nice rich sauce.
Serve on a kumara blue cheese mash, garnished with caremalised red onions, and a nice fresh salad on the side.
I swear to god the pork will be the tenderest you've ever eaten and will literally dissolve in your mouth.
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This is the only culinary war story I have: in China, at the end of November last year, I went out for dinner with my girlfriend's family. It was a very nicely decorated restaurant which, I was told, specialised in turtle soup. I assumed the gas-fired pot in the middle of our table was for steamboat-style cooking of vegetables etc.
Girlfriend asked me if I was sure I was comfortable with turtle soup, to which I said, sure, why not? Soup is soup. A minute later she asked again, and I again said it was fine, a little uneasy about it now.
Someone came out with a tray about ten minutes later upon which sat a large, mud-brown river turtle, about nine inches long. It jerked its head away nervously into its shell as some of our party inspected it for freshness, and then it was taken away - and brought back five minutes later, when it was slipped gently into the boiling pot, pulling in its head as it went.
I had some of the soup out of good manners - and a kind of manic morbid curiosity - but politely declined when I was offered the head.
I hadn't realised that turtle was on the menu, but thought I'd pass on it and leave it at that. Well, I wasn't to be so lucky, because a live river turtle was brought to our table for our inspection, then plunged directly into the boiling gas-fired pot in the middle of the table.
The blood made good soup, but I couldn't go as far as actually eating the meat once they'd taken the body away and prepared it for table. And that's all I have to say about that.
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Oops... should have edited that a bit better. But yeah, you get the idea...
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yes well, meat is always murder. Many folks manage to keep a certain distance from the slashing and torturing part though. Seafood slaughter doesn’t bother as many for some reason.
Would you be interested in some human kebabs or a Lecter like oyster perhaps Sam if your girlfriends family was that way inclined also?
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