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Here are all the facts you need to know about how your body uses the calories from junk food in comparison to those from real food. This article is a fascinating read, and a keeper! See Precision Nutrition.
Here’s an excerpt:
Remember:
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The Vergers d”Aigle et d’Yvorne is tucked into the heart of the Chablais region in French-speaking Switzerland. For more than 40 years now, they have been growing a wide range of fruit, grown under strict environmentally-friendly conditions. This fruit expresses the true terroir of the Chablais region.
Their fruit, including more than 40 varieties of apples both antique and modern, are available at producer prices, much fresher than store-bought apples, with more than 20 varieties available. The website lists the expected dates for each fruit grown.
In September, they also sell the cherished Fellenberg plums.
In season, you can pick your own cherries, with a choice of over 10 varieties.
Bertrand et Martine Cheseaux also offer a wide range of local artisanal products, including oils, vinegars, apple juice, eggs (great quality!), honey and fresh vegetables.
This year, in the context of the Semaine du Goût, or “tasting week”, which runs from September 13 to 23, 2013, they will be offering guided tours of their orchard of some 10 varieties of antique apples, along with tasting. This will take place on Saturday, September 21, with visits at 10 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. It is advisable to reserve a place. To reserve, call 41 (0)79 397 59 72 send an e-mail to info@vergers.ch.
Les Vergers d’Aigle et d’Yvorne
Bertrand & Martine Cheseaux
Route d’Evian 32
CH – 1860 AIGLE
Switzerland
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From the archives
The first and most important thing is to buy tree-ripened apricots. By definition, this means local ones, since ripe apricots are soft to the touch and do not travel well.
If you plan to eat them fresh, they should be soft, but not blemished or bruised. The riper they are, the more flavorful they are.
If you are using them for cooking, the riper the better, and you can even get by with blemishes as long as they are not rotten-looking. As a general rule, the softer the sweeter.
You will often see crates of extra-ripe apricots discounted in farmers markets. Look them over, and if there are not too many black or rotting ones, they are actually the best for cooking purposes, especially for jams, cakes and sauces.
Note: With all apricot recipes, the amount of sugar used depends on the acidity of the apricots. The acidity depends on the ripeness, origin and variety. With so many factors coming into play, taste tests are indispensable and the quantity of sugar should be determined by taste, using the quantities given here as a guideline.
Apricot Jam Recipe
The basic formula is 900 grams/2 lbs of sugar for every 2 kilograms/4 1/2 lbs of fruit used. This holds true for apricots, apples, cherries, nectarines and plums. If you like your jam really sweet, you can put equal weights of fruit and sugar.
Use cane sugar for more taste. I often halve the quantity of sugar in dessert recipes, but with jams this can be tricky, since sugar is what makes the jam set. It also serves as a preservative. If your fruit is extra-sweet, you might try cutting the quantity of sugar a tad.
Wash and rub apricots until perfectly clean. Remove any rotten spots with a paring knife. Dry well. Cut in half and remove stones. Save about half of the stones for later use.
Place apricots in a copper confiturier or a large stock pot. Add sugar. Let it sit overnight.
If the apricots are not ripe enough, they will not render any natural juices. If there are no juices, add 500 ml/1 pint of water to the pan.
Slowly bring to a boil on low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. This can take anywhere from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours, depending on the water content of the apricots and the type of pan and stove or cooker you are using. Scrape the sides of the pan from time to time so that the mixture doesn’t crystallize.
The jam is set when you can dip a wooden spoon in it and it completely coats the spoon. Let jam settle for about 15 minutes before putting it into jars.
Pour jam into sterilized glass jars. Leave to cool. If you see the jam hasn’t set properly, you can put it back into the pan and boil it again, adding a little lemon juice.
Add two stones to each jar. Cool. Seal jars.
Once again, the amount of sugar you use depends on whether you want it to have a tart flavor or a sweet flavor. If you’re going to pour it onto a very sweet cake or pie, opt for a more acidic taste. If you’re eating with something that is itself a little acidic, you might want to make your sauce sweeter. And once again, the sweetness will always depend on the ripeness of your apricots, so you’ll have to do a taste test in any case.
Wash apricots. Remove stones.
Put 300 grams/10 ounces of cane sugar (labeled sucre de canne roux or cassonade in Swiss and French supermarkets) and a vanilla bean (cut open in the lengthwise direction) into a saucepan. Slowly bring to a boil over medium heat until it begins to thicken and sugar has completely dissolved, i.e. until it forms a syrup.
Put 500 grams/18 ounces of apricots into a food processor, or run them through a food mill or chinois. Add apricots to the liquid sugar mixture and mix with a wooden spoon. Heat mixture until it is thick enough to completely coat a wooden spoon.
This apricot sauce can be eaten warm or cold, depending on what you are using it with. It keeps for several days in the refrigerator.
Apricot coulis is a perfect accompaniment to a dark chocolate cake, but can be used to make ice cream sundaes or parfaits just as easily.
It can also be used in savory dishes, for example with cold chicken breasts or cold pork roast. In this case, you would of course considerably reduce the amount of sugar.
Preheat oven to 250° C or French mark 8. Wash apricots. Cut in half. Remove stone.
Lay apricot halves out on a roasting tin or broiler pan, or in a large casserole dish. Sprinkle lightly with brown cane sugar and just a tad of butter, distributed evenly in small bits, so that it will form a natural sauce. (This can also be done on a barbecue grill, but you’d lose the juices.) Put in oven, and immediately turn temperature down to 220° C or French mark 7. Turn when top side is browned. If butter starts to burn, add a few drops of water.
When soft and slightly browned and caramelized, remove from oven or grill.
Distribute on individual plates. Serve with a scoop of salt caramel, coffee or walnut ice cream. Lightly sprinkle with vanilla powder (labeled poudre vanille or vanille en poudre in supermarket; easy to find in France, but difficult to find in Switzerland), cinnamon and a high-quality chocolate or cocoa powder. Drizzle a little maple syrup over it. It is now ready to serve.
The great French chef Michel Guérard, who started the Cuisine Minceur movement in 1974, has a recipe for a sugar-free version of a coulis. This is adapted from the 1976 edition of Michel Guérard’s Cuisine Minceur, now out of print:
Wash, halve and pit 12 ripe fresh apricots. In a saucepan, add apricots, 1/2 cup of water, 1 vanilla bean (cut open in the lengthwise direction, down the middle) and artificial sweetener to taste, the equivalent of about 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar. Simmer for 10 or 15 minutes, until mixture is reduced by about one third.
Remove vanilla bean. Put mixture in a food processor to make a purée.
This sugar-free sauce can be served in the same manner as the traditional apricot purée or coulis recipe above.
This article was originally published on GenevaLunch.
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Chocolate fountains are the rage these days. You see them at dinner parties, weddings, all sorts of celebrations. This article gives you all the in’s and out’s, from mini fountains to giant ones.
Most Swiss chocolate makers make a special chocolate to be used in fountains. I would advise asking their opinion before attempting this, because it can be tricky and even dangerous. Last winter, I heard a story about a naked teenager falling into an oversized chocolate fountain in a party in Cologny and then running through the cold streets of Cologny before ending up in the hospital (escorted by the police).
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Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist who lived from 1864 to 1941. “He was a key member of the New Munich Artist’s Association (Neue Künstlervereinigung München), Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group and later the Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four),” says Wikipedia. There is very little biographical information about him in Western literature.
Every artist works within a tradition. I am a native of Russia. My Russian soul has always been close to the art of old Russia, the Russian icons, Byzantine art, the mosaics in Ravenna, Venice, Rome, and to Romanesque art. All these artworks produced a religious vibration in my soul, as I sensed in them a deep spiritual language. This art was my tradition.—Alexej Georgewitsch Von Jawlensky
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by Renu Chhabra
Ponder well on this point: the pleasant hours of our life are all connected by a more or less tangible link, with some memory of the table.–Charles Pierre Monselet
Summer afternoon and a glass of cold milkshake! Mango milkshake. Something I am always ready for. Why wouldn’t I be? It brings back memories of my childhood — fun and comforting memories.
Growing up in India, summer meant boxes of mangoes showing up in our house throughout the season. Not just one or two varieties, but several of them. Different sizes, tastes, and textures to relish, and we all had our own favorite.
It was the summer fruit to indulge in — messy but syrupy sweet and wonderfully juicy. Most of all, it was fun to sit around the table; and enjoy this tropical fruit and celebrate the season.
And with such abundance pouring in, we were treated with mango ice cream, mango custard, mango salad, and not to forget mango milkshake, the simplest of all for warm summer days. Simple because it can be put together in no time.
Its creamy texture and sunshine yellow color always lifts my spirits. Simply said, it’s a happy reminder of my childhood. Little moments that enable us to travel miles away!
I have accented the mango shake with cardamom in this recipe. Cardamom, as I call the soul of Indian desserts. Just a hint of it makes the recipe sing fragrant notes. A little goes a long way; otherwise it gets bitter. Like we say, “Too much of a good thing can be bad.”
I used honey as sweetener, but you can use sugar or agave to taste. The amount will also depend on the sweetness of the mango.
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Jane Le Besque hosted a “mesolithic dinner” on June 30, 2013, in her home in the Pays de Gex just over the border in France, an event sponsored by Slow Food Geneva. The dinner was cooked using ancient flavor combinations and techniques, and served on split logs onto which slate plates were placed and used as plates.
Although Jane’s dinner was labeled “Mesolithic”, it was indeed much more than that. She covered the evolution of food from the post-glacial hunter-gather periods, through the Mesolithic and Neolithic, and going on to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, centering on Europe.
It started with the Mesolithic era, with an assortment of coastal and lake fish, eel, root vegetables and wild greens. The meal then slipped in to the Neolithic era with galettes made from ground lentils, peas and barley, served with spit-roasted boar. The menu ended with an Iron-Age “travelers pack” of dried fruits and dried-porridge slices fried in cumin and butter. The Bronze Age brought blue cheese and butter.
Drinks consisted of mead, more often referred to as “honey wine,” more in the style of the ancient Greeks and Romans than of more ancient peoples, and beer.
As a reminder, the Mesolithic Age refers to the pre-agricultural period between 10,000 and 5,000 BCE in Europe, and variations of this period in other parts of the world. The term “pre-agricultural” is key in understanding what ingredients were available. The three terms paleolithic, mesolithic and mesolithic refer to what is generally called the “Stone Age,” i.e. the post-glacial hunter-gatherer period, when humans started to use stone tools and food was gathered rather than farmed.
During the early Stone Ages or paleolithic (2.6 million years ago to around 10,000 BP), humans used some stone tools and utensils, but many tools were made from organic matter such as bone, fibers, and wood. Hunting and gathering were the chief ways of providing food. During the neolithic, starting around 10,200 BCE and ending between 4,500 to 2,000 BCE, depending on the location, we saw the beginning of farming. The mesolithic overlapped the other two ages, once again, at different times in different places. Metal tools brought these three Stone Ages to an end.
Early Stone Age cooking was generally on leaves or directly over the embers, although clay cookware has recently been found in China dating from 19,2000–20,000 years ago, during the ice age. Stone Age plates usually consisted of a rock or other flattish surface found in nature, such as the flattened split logs Jane used in the same manner as we use wooden tables today. Earthenware did not appear on the dinner table until much later.
What did they eat? Pretty much whatever they found and killed that was edible: meat, fish, wild plants. The specifics of this depended on the location, climate and season. Meals included the day’s finds. This might consist of berries, wild greens and other wild vegetables and plants.
Meat and later fish were not an everyday affair. They were difficult to come by and difficult to preserve, depending on the location (salt was found in Romania as early as 10,000 years ago). Stone Age people ate very little grain, since agriculture didn’t exist yet. Hazelnuts and other nuts were often roasted, and stored for winter. Wild boar was common; dairy products and cheese were on the menu, although a limited variety.
Jane Le Besque lives and works with her family at the foot of the French Jura, a few minutes from Geneva, in the foothills of the Jura mountains.
She was born in England and has a Breton grandfather, hence the name. Since graduating from Birmingham Art College in 1986, she continued her studies at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. She afterwards lived and worked in Toulouse, London, and now outside Geneva.
Jane has always painted. She is her happiest walking through the woods and gathering berries, mushrooms, acorns, flowers and leaves to use in her cooking and painting.
One might say Jane has been interested in mesolithic cooking even before she learned the word. As a child, she spent her time gathering the wild things she now uses in her paintings, making dresses out of them.
Her paintings are an intense reflection of her “gatherer” spirit. The Mesolithic dinner was held in her studio, lined with her paintings of flora of all types.
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When you talk about rhubarb cream in Switzerland, you mean rhubarb cream, not pudding or custard. This naughty dessert is one of the easiest rhubarb desserts around, and is so thoroughly Swiss.
1 lb. / 500 g rhubarb
3/4 cup / 200 g cane sugar
2 egg yolks
Cinnamon or lemon juice, according to which taste you prefer
3/4 cup / 0.2 l whipping cream
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