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Food Art: The Food of the Dead for the Living, painting by David Olere

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, March 30, 2013 Permalink 0

“What is of note, is the survival of the arts within the walled ghetto. John Hersey’s masterpiece novel, The Wall, based on actual diaries (Emanuel Ringelblum), show the arts being practiced; theatre and music and fine art within a ghetto atmosphere mortified by repetitive eve of destruction. The record left by ghetto dwellers, camp internees, and displaced persons create snapshots of life and death under Hitler. Inmate drawings and paintings were legitimate articulations of man’s inhumanity and cruelty,” says Dave in Art of Insurrection and Resurrection.

Food Art: Still Life with Flutist and Fruit, by Italian painter Cecco del Caravaggio

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, March 23, 2013 Permalink 0

Cecco del Caravaggio (1571-1592) was born in Milan, from which he fled in 1596 to avoid the plague. He worked as apprentice for the Lombard painter Simone Peterzano for four years. His contract there listed that he was a pupil of Titian. He lived in Rome from 1592 to 1600, forging many great artists. The realism and dramatic intensity of many of his paintings was thought to be vulgar by many Romans, and even painters were divided by its distinct nature which opposed that of most other Roman artists. Nevertheless, between 1600 and 1606, he was considered Rome’s most famous painter.

Caravaggio was known for getting into scuffs, even in a time where this was commonplace. On May 29, 1606, “he killed, possibly unintentionally, a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Previously his high-placed patrons had protected him from the consequences of his escapades, but this time they could do nothing. Caravaggio, outlawed, fled to Naples.” He went from becoming the most highly regarded painter in Rome to being the most highly regarded painter in Naples. Soon after, he left for Malta. The rest of his life was darkened by brawls and scrapes with the law.

A wonderful biography of Caravaggio’s life can be read here.

Simple Sustenance: Quick and Easy Recipe — Goat Cheese and Avocado Toast with Pumpkin Seeds

Published by Renu-Chhabra + Wednesday, February 27, 2013 Permalink 0

by Serrano chilli, seeds removed and minced (optional)
Sea salt to taste
2 large slices of rustic whole wheat bread or of your choice
1 large clove of garlic, sliced in half
Extra virgin olive oil
2-3 oz. goat cheese or to taste
2-3 tablespoons yellow peppers, diced small
1 tablespoon unsalted roasted pumpkin seeds
Few mint leaves

In a bowl, mix avocado and lime, Add serrano chilli if you want a little heat. Add salt and set aside.

Instructions

Toast the bread slices and rub garlic on them while they are warm. Spread goat cheese to taste. Top with avocado mixture. Drizzle a little olive oil. Adjust salt to taste.

Garnish with orange peppers and pumpkin seeds.

Finish with mint leaves.

Eating is really one of your indoor sports. You play three times a day, and it’s well worth while to make the game as pleasant as possible.– Dorothy Draper

A warm toast with creamy goat cheese

Two ingredients that create magic for our taste buds. I know they create for me!

Goat cheese pizza or goat cheese panini, paired with some vegetables or fruits, they complement each other well. A drizzle of fruity extra virgin olive oil or a drizzle of aged balsamic, they add another dimension to the duo. Garnish of fragrant herbs add more flavor to them.

I have been enjoying warm toast with a generous spread of goat cheese topped with a healthy dose of avocado. The two together with rustic bread are a perfect combination of rich creaminess and a hearty bite. For this recipe, I topped it with some orange peppers and roasted pumpkin seeds. A little color and a little crunch. Mint added fresh flavors to this recipe.

It is a quick and easy lunch with some salad greens.

There are no set measurements for this recipe. Make it to your taste. Use as much or as little goat cheese or avocado. I have been on a joyride of enjoying the two generously. One large toast loaded with all the goodness was my lunch. You make it a meal or a small bite. Savor it slowly, a nibble at a time.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 large avocado, mashed chunky
Squeeze of lime to taste
½ Serrano chilli, seeds removed and minced (optional)
Sea salt to taste
2 large slices of rustic whole wheat bread or of your choice
1 large clove of garlic, sliced in half
Extra virgin olive oil
2-3 oz. goat cheese or to taste
2-3 tablespoons yellow peppers, diced small
1 tablespoon unsalted roasted pumpkin seeds
Few mint leaves

In a bowl, mix avocado and lime, Add serrano chilli if you want a little heat. Add salt and set aside.

Instructions

Toast the bread slices and rub garlic on them while they are warm. Spread goat cheese to taste. Top with avocado mixture. Drizzle a little olive oil. Adjust salt to taste.

Garnish with orange peppers and pumpkin seeds.

Finish with mint leaves.

, seeds removed and minced (optional)
Sea salt to taste
2 large slices of rustic whole wheat bread or of your choice
1 large clove of garlic, sliced in half
Extra virgin olive oil
2-3 oz. goat cheese or to taste
2-3 tablespoons yellow peppers, diced small
1 tablespoon unsalted roasted pumpkin seeds
Few mint leaves

In a bowl, mix avocado and lime, Add serrano chilli if you want a little heat. Add salt and set aside.

Instructions

Toast the bread slices and rub garlic on them while they are warm. Spread goat cheese to taste. Top with avocado mixture. Drizzle a little olive oil. Adjust salt to taste.

Garnish with orange peppers and pumpkin seeds.

Finish with mint leaves.

Food Art: Still Life with Bread and Bowl of Fruit, by Travis Schlaht

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, February 20, 2013 Permalink 0

Food Art: Still Life with Bread and Bowl of Fruit, painting by Travis Schlaht, contemporary. You can see more of Travis’ work at The Hidden Place.

http://thehiddenplace.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/travis-schlaht/

A Look at Slow Food’s Salone del Gusto, October 2012, in Turin, Italy

Published by Diana Zahuranec + Saturday, November 3, 2012 Permalink 0

by Diana Zahuranec

Salone del Gusto ended on Monday 29, but I can’t stop thinking about it.

Salone del Gusto, held in Turin, Italy, is a Slow Food biannual food fair and conference. To sum it up in these few words undermines everything else it is, too, and its importance as an event that brings together producers from all over the world. These are producers that grow ancient varieties of grain to save genetic biodiversity, that make Slow Food Presidia cheeses or salumi, that pipe their cannoli full of the freshest organic ricotta you’ve ever tasted, and whose principles and values align with your own and, it goes without saying, Slow Food’s – good, clean, and fair food for all.

The Slow Food mascot

For all things Slow Food, here are some links courtesy of Scoop.it and Slow Food. To understand a few of those words in the paragraph above, just look at the end of the article.

This year, Salone del Gusto was a marriage of the original Salone del Gusto, first held in 2006, and Terra Madre, first held in 2004. While both events had food artisans and producers from all over the world, different activities were held at each and were not all accessible to the public. Salone del Gusto focused more on the exposition and sale of high quality foods and products, while Terra Madre was a gathering of a network of food producers from around the world. Having never been to either of these before, I can’t offer judgment on the differences of before and after. What I would love to do is share my first-time impressions of this year’s.

To say Salone is a food fair means that, like your down-home county fair, the place is jumping with activity – with a few notable differences. The funnel cakes are replaced with French butter cookies in 20 different flavors, the groundhog whacking game is replaced with the foodie’s (divisive word, I know) form of fun, that is vertical Barolo wine tastings, and that feeling of riding the Zipper right after you eat your funnel cake is replaced by the feeling of pressing up against crowds right after you drink your Barolo wines.

Meetings with remarkable bakers: The baker from Kabul

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, October 19, 2012 Permalink 0

Jean-Philippe de Tonnac

Click here to read original French version

Translated and adapted by Jonell Galloway

Dan de Mirmont, the baker from Kabul

How did it happen that you discovered French cuisine and bread making in Burma, and that today you’ve decided to teach the inhabitants of Kabul about it? This is about Dan de Mirmont’s surprising path, and the reopening of Le Bistro Bakery in October.

: Ali, right, head of bread and pastry
baking, and Zobaid, left,
his assistant. Dan de Mirmont, center.

Coconut Pound Cake and Ratio Cooking

Published by Diana Zahuranec + Monday, October 15, 2012 Permalink 0

by Diana Zahuranec

It was soft and yellow-white with a thin, dark crust. The crust was not hard or chewy, but broke away perfectly from the rest of this pillow-y treat. It wasn’t a piece of bread, though it looked like one. Was it cake? It was on the end of a long table under a blue tent shading us from the summer sun. A gold cardboard plate presented perfect slices of this marvelous discovery.

I held the slice in my little sweaty hands, taking small bites that burst with butter, vanilla, and sugar. Its texture was half of the pleasure: smooth, moist, fine-grained, and soluble, I already wanted more. But the table was on the other side of the lawn now, and there were so many long tables laden with food with big people figures milling about, from one end to another. I never found it again.

Switzerland: Tasting Week (La Semaine du Goût) Program

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, September 20, 2012 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Click to see the Tasting Week program for the entire country. Tasting week runs from 13 to 23 September 2012.

This year many of the events are sponsored by Savoring a week of ‘slow food’ across the country.

Switzerland: Fresh Fruit Séré/Quark Cheese Mousse
Savoring a week of ‘slow food’ across the country
Jonell eats her way through Trieste: take a culinary and cultural stroll through Trieste
Switzerland: Summer in Geneva

Down Under: Cultured butter from South Australia’s Woodside Cheese Wrights

Published by Amanda McInerney + Tuesday, July 10, 2012 Permalink 0

by Amanda McInerney

There’s butter, and then there’s butter

Whenever anyone asks me what were the high points of our recent trip to Europe I always answer with two simple words: the food. We happily indulged ourselves whenever possible, knowing we would be walking it all off within days, and I was pleased to note that I came home carrying no extra baggage except for my shopping.

I was having a conversation about our foodie finds with my friend Kris Lloyd, the cheese-making talent behind South Australia’s multi-award winning Woodside Cheese Wrights, not long after we got back and was waxing lyrical about some butter made from clotted cream (cultured butter) which we had bought on our last day in London. It was part of a significant haul that we took home from London’s Borough Markets for a final feeding frenzy before we flew home and had made quite an impression. Kris commented that she had recently been “playing around” (her words) with cultured butter, including one which she had washed in whiskey. With the taste of the delicious, golden London lipids still lingering, to say I was eager to try Kris’ efforts would be something of an understatement.

Cultured butter is something of a recent discovery for many Australians, but has been in use for hundreds of years in Europe. The butter we are used to is what Europeans refer to as “sweet cream butter” — delicious, but lacking the depth of flavour of cultured butter. Cultured butter is made in exactly the same way as ordinary butter, but a live culture is added to the cream which is allowed to ripen for some time before being churned, salted (or not) and rinsed. Kris adds the culture to her cream 24 hours before she uses it to make butter, giving the cream time to “clot”. Cultured butter has a richer, deeper flavour, which some find somewhat tangy, and also comes with a little probiotic boost from the addition of the live culture.

Kris gave me three different batches to play around with — an almost unsalted butter, salted butter and the remarkable whiskey-washed version — and I’ve had a very happy day or two getting to know them. They are all truly delicious and definitely add an extra facet to the dishes I used them in: a Mushroom and Almond Bruschetta with Chèvre and Vanilla-Poached Oranges with Pikelets. I kept these recipes fairly simple in order to let the ingredients do the talking. There’s no point in using outstanding produce and then smothering it with other flavours and fancy techniques; good food doesn’t need to be tricky. The mushrooms I used came from Marco the Mushroom Man in the Adelaide Central Market and the sublime oranges were in our CSA box from Jupiter Creek Farm, all fresh, local and fabulous. I couldn’t help adding some wonderful Beerenberg Caramelised Onions to the mushroom dish. They finished it off perfectly.

Recipe

Mushroom and Almond Bruschetta with Chèvre

Prep time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins
Total time: 15 mins
Serves: 2
This made a good lunch for 2, but would also make an entrée for 4.

Click here for metric-Imperial conversions.

Ingredients

500 gms Portobello mushrooms, sliced
30 gms toasted almonds, ground as fine as your food processor will allow
100 gms Woodside Cheesewright chèvre
80 gms cultured butter
1 tbsp chopped thyme
1 good pinch of salt
Beerenberg Caramelised Onions or ones you make yourself
2 large slices sourdough bread

Instructions

Melt the butter in moderately hot pan, add mushrooms and salt. Cook on low heat.
When mushrooms begin to soften, add the ground nuts and the thyme. Continue cooking until mushrooms are cooked to taste.
Slice bread and toast. (At this point you may/may not choose to butter it with more of the cultured butter. I’ll leave you to guess what I did.)
Pile the cooked mushrooms on the toasts, sprinkle each with a teaspoon or two of the caramelised onions, then crumble the chèvre over the top. Serve.

The whiskey-washed butter was used in an even simpler dish of pikelets (small bite-sized pancakes) with vanilla-poached oranges, but the combination was absolutely stunning and much appreciated by the guests to whom I served it yesterday for afternoon tea. My good friend Meg is very partial to a wee dram or two of whiskey and her eyes glazed over just a little while eating these.

I’m sure everyone can work out how to make basic pikelets.

As for the vanilla-poached oranges: the oranges were simply peeled, making sure all of the pith was removed, sliced about 10mm thick and gently poached for ten minutes in a syrup made of 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, 1/2 cup of water and one vanilla bean, split open and scraped – hardly a recipe at all! I cooled them slightly in the syrup, buttered the hot pikelets with the whiskey-washed butter and layered the oranges and pikelets, topping with a dab of the precious butter. Eat, then swoon.

Tasting Australia: The Internationally Recognised Aussie Food Fest

Simple Sustenance: Chat and Chai — Nigella Seed Crackers

Published by Renu-Chhabra + Wednesday, July 4, 2012 Permalink 0

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by Renu Chhabra

Remember the tea kettle — it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings! ~Author Unknown

Last Saturday, I was invited to a fundraiser over Chat and Chai. A room full of lovely women, some dressed in Indian attire, were there to raise money for this noble cause in southern India. Colorful sarees and scarves were the stars of the show. They were displayed elegantly on a table for silent auction, creating a very exotic ambiance. A few guests were somewhat familiar with the Indian culture; whereas, others were inquisitive to learn about it. From food to draping of a saree, it was an enriching experience for many.

After viewing a short film about the cause, it was time to indulge in some Indian-inspired food — curried deviled eggs, lentil salad, tea sandwiches, and a variety of sweets and snacks. The table was full of mouth-watering choices, making it difficult to resist the temptation. Finding my way through this delicious spread was one big challenge. And I knew I wasn’t the only one facing this dilemma. Finally, a warm cup of fragrant chai completed the feast.

On my way back I kept thinking about mathri or mathi, a savory Indian snack. This salty and flaky cracker is laced with herbs and spices. Carom or nigella seeds add a flavorful punch, and black peppercorns give it a spicy bite. Traditionally, it is deep fried. The size and thickness can vary — large discs or bite size. It is a perfect tea-time snack paired with a cup of sweetened chai.

I have fond memories of making mathri with my great grandma. Sitting at the kitchen table, she used to flatten the dough balls with the heel of her palm. She did not use measurements, rolling pins, or fancy cutters. Just a pinch of this and a handful of that was the way to go for her. Her best tools were her hands to measure, knead, and flatten the dough — quite amazing. At the same time, the wisdom and stories that she shared while making this snack made the experience even more special. These are the moments most of us remember for years to come — rustic and soulful. And they linger in my memories as well, even decades later.

Inspired by my memories, I decided to make mathri today with a few of my own twists. Keeping them healthy, I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of regular white flour. Another detour from the original method was to bake them instead of frying – -a guilt-free indulgence. And they turned out quite delicious!

Recipe

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
11/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nigella seeds
1/4 teaspoon carom seeds
Coarsely ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup canola oil
1 /2-3/4 cups water

Click here for metric converter.

1. In a stand mixer with paddle attachment, add flour, baking powder, salt, nigella seeds, carom seeds, black pepper, and oil. Mix on low speed. Slowly add water to make firm dough.

2. If needed, bring the dough together with hands and knead to form a smooth ball. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes. You can also make the dough in a food processor or by hand.

3. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Roll the dough to 1/8 -inch thickness.
5. Cut the rolled dough into desired shapes.
6. Transfer them to the baking sheets, and prick with a fork.
7. Bake at 325° F for 20-25 minutes or until bottom is golden brown.
8. Re-roll the leftover dough and cut into shapes.

.