The Art of Tasting Wine with James Flewellen: The Birth of a Wine Glossary
We are proud to announce that James Flewellen has started a wine glossary. It’s just the beginning, but we will be building on it soon.
Click here to see it.
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Food Art: White Chocolate & Speculoos Mousse, food photography by Meeta Khurana Wolff
Food Art: White Chocolate & Speculoos Mousse, food photography by Meeta Khurana Wolff
See more food photo compositions at Meeta K. Wolff or in our Food Art category.
Bio of Meeta Khurana Wolff
Meeta, that’s my name given to me by my dad. I was born back in the summer of 1972, one beautiful day in Bombay, India. I was practically delivered in a hotel. That’s where my father has worked for most of his life and it’s what injected the hotelier’s blood into my veins. This hotel lifestyle enabled me to travel the world, get close to many cultures, learn a few languages, and experience many great adventures.
Knowing only a hotel life, I decided to follow my dad’s footsteps and studied Hotel Management, specializing in Marketing and Guest Relations. I trained in one of the finest luxury hotels of this world in Doha, Qatar. That is when a tiny spark for food was ignited in my soul.
I now have settled down in Germany, with the two men I adore, Tom, my loving partner for almost 10 years, and Soeren my adorable son of 5 6 7 years.
Hotels are not a part of my life in Germany. After graduating I came to Germany and worked in an advertising firm, an architecture and design firm and a couple of software firms. Don’t ask how that came about – it just happened. Glad it did too because along this path I bumped into and fell in love with Tom.
We are now in Weimar and you’ll laugh when I tell you this my traveling feet have begun to itch again! Let’s see where life takes us.
I love photography, always have, but it was with the start of this blog that I discovered the world of Foodography. Since then the passion for photography I developed has taken a complete new angle and opened so many exciting doors. I try to capture shots that speak a thousand words, that makes one feel as if they were a part of the scene and experience the photo with their senses. You tell me if I am succeeding!
You can see more of Meeta’s work at What’s For Lunch Honey.
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Food Quote: Nelson Mandela on Food
Nelson Mandela on Food
I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free. Free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother’s hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies [corn] under the stars … It was only when I learnt that my boyhood freedom was an illusion … that I began to hunger for it.–Nelson Mandela
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
has provided “the backdrop and occasionally the primary cause for momentous personal and political events in the life of Nelson Mandela.” In his autobiography, he took an innovative approach to history and showed that a great man’s life can be measured out in mouthfuls, both bitter and sweet. With this title, the reader can cook and taste Nelson Mandela’s journey from the corn grinding stone of his boyhood through wedding cakes and curries to prison hunger strikes, presidential banquets and ultimately into a dotage marked by the sweetest of just desserts. Tales told in sandwiches, sugar and samoosas speak eloquently of intellectual awakenings, emotional longings and always the struggle for racial equality. He was always motivated by hunger, either longing for food he couldn’t have, or depriving himself of food in the name of freedom.
“Only the truly food obsessed would read such a statement and consider the stomach from whence it came, but I did and the result is a gastro-political biography entitled Hunger for Freedom, the story of food in the life of Nelson Mandela,” he told Ana Trapedo of The Guardian.
When in prison, he wrote to former wife Winnie: “How I long for amasi (traditional South African fermented milk), thick and sour! You know darling there is one respect in which I dwarf all my contemporaries or at least about which I can confidently claim to be second to none – healthy appetite,” he told Trapedo.
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Switzerland: Best Meat Restaurants and Steakhouses in Geneva
Switzerland: Best Meat Restaurants and Steakhouses in Geneva
Au Carnivore, French cuisine, 30 place du Bourg-de-Four, 1204 Geneva. Tel. (+41) 022 311 87 58, open 7 days a week.
L’Auberge au Renfort de Sézegnin, French cuisine, 19, route du Creux-du-Loup, 1285 Sézegnin (Athenaz). Tel. (+41) 022 756 12 36.
Bistrot du Boucher, French cuisine, 15, avenue Pictet-de-Rochement, 1207 Geneva. Tel. (+41) 022 736 56 36. Closed Wednesday lunch, Saturday lunch and Sunday.
La Broche, French cuisine, 36, rue du Stand, 1204 Geneva. Tel. (+41) 022 321 22 60. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday dinner.
Restaurant Café de Paris, French cuisine, 26 rue du Mont-Blanc, 1201 Geneva. Tel. (+41) 022 732 84 50. Open 7 days a week, non-stop from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Restaurant/Café de l’Ecu, French cuisine, 65, route de Rougemont, 1286 Soral. Tel. (+41) 022 756 33 50. Open 7 days a week, non-stop from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m.
L’Entrecôte Couronnée, 5, rue des Pâquis, 1201 Geneva. Tel. (+41) 022 732 84 45.
L’Entrecôte Saint-Jean, French cuisine, 79 boulevard Carl-Vogt, 1205 Geneva. Tel. (+41) 022 321 99 41, Closed Saturday lunch,, Sunday, and Monday.
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Outdoor Activities in English in Switzerland
Outdoor Activities in English in Switzerland
Yvette Evers grew up camping, hiking and skiing in the Swiss Alps. A Canadian with Dutch roots, her career in international development allowed her to explore mountain areas around the world. Since moving to the Geneva area in 2009 with her husband and two teenage daughters, she also works as a sustainability consultant specializing in tourism. She refers to her work as “slow tourism,” says Know It All.
Yvette is the founder of fraiche air, an outdoor club that fills a gap in the market for global locals who are looking for information about outdoor recreation and tourism in English. The outings in small groups provide a wonderful opportunity to discover new outdoor activities and join an active community of like-minded athletic friends – power walks, hiking, snowshoeing, ski-touring, and family days.
Here’s a recent outing: Slow tourism along the Lavaux vineyard terraces. The first vines in Lavaux were planted in the 12th century, according to Know It All. The area between Lausanne and Vevey is now a UNESCO World Heritage site with stunning views of the Alps and Lac Léman, referred to as Lake Geneva in English.
FraicheAir is located in Geneva. For more information, look on their website at http://www.fraicheair.ch/ or call them at (+41) 79 904 46 22. Visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/FraicheAir.
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Simple Sustenance: Summer Indulgence — Cardamom-Infused Mango Milkshake
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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Food Quote: The Tragedy of the Absence of Hunger, by Amélie Nothomb
Food Quote: The Tragedy of the Absence of Hunger, by Amélie Nothomb
We have yet to focus on the tragedy that the absence of hunger causes.–Amélie Nothomb, The Life of Hunger, 2006
L’absence de faim est un drame sur lequel nul ne s’est penché.–Amélie Nothomb, La biographie de la faim, 2006
Amélie Nothomb was born in Japan in 1967 to Belgian diplomats. She has had long periods of anorexia, which she swears to have conquered, and truly knows the feeling of hunger.
Her eccentric, complex personality, behavior and dress have made her somewhat of an icon on the French-language literature scene. She publishes one novel every fall in September, drinks champagne while she works, always wears a tall black hat similar to a witch’s hat, and only sleeps four hours a day.
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Indian Curry Through Foreign Eyes, Part 1: Hannah Glasse’s 18th-century Curry Recipe
Indian Curry Through Foreign Eyes, Part 1: Hannah Glasse’s 18th-century Curry Recipe
by Laura Kelley
I have long been fascinated by concepts of “I and other”, or the many ways we separate what is familiar (self) from what is not familiar (non-self). By defining what is not self, we are in fact defining self. One can hear small children do this when misclassified by gender; most adamantly declare that they are not members of the opposite sex. “I and other” are also evident in beautiful symbolic ways when considering the movement of ideas and beliefs through societies. The newly introduced idea is at first foreign, complete with unfamiliar trappings. As the idea flows through society and is adopted, the foreign elements are shed and replaced by the familiar.
Depictions of Buddha: Caucasian and Asian
One place to see this is operation is at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which houses an expansive collection of Asian art. As Buddhism moves out of India and across Asia, first to the west and then the east, early iconography clearly depicts Buddha as Caucasian (Gandahara style), even when the work is from the Himalayas, Burma or Western China. As time passes, and Buddhist ideas are adopted across the east, however, religious iconography begins to depict a wide variety of races and ethnicities. Noses become smaller, epicanthic lids are added as the face changes from Caucasian to Asian. Expressions usually remain contemplative and serene, but the varying shapes of the faces are evidence of the triumph of the ideas across space and time.
The “I and other” concept is also of interest in historical cookery, especially when one group is attempting to recreate the cuisine of another. I’ve been looking at early recipes for Indian curry written by non-Indians. So far, I have a small collection of English and American recipes from the 18th and 19th centuries that show curry powders and recipes developing from recipes that merely reminiscent as Indian in the eighteenth century to those that are nearly indistinguishable from modern recipes broken out by geographical region by the end of the nineteenth. The earliest amongst them (so far) is a recipe from Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747.
The Art of Cookery, 1774
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Club Prosper Montagné’s List of Top Restaurants and Food Shops in Geneva, Switzerland
Club Prosper Montagné’s List of Top Restaurants and Food Shops in Geneva, Switzerland
The Club Prosper Montagné’s list of the top restaurants and food shops in Geneva is in alphabetical order. There is no point system, so I’ll list them in the same way.
More Cookbooks than Sense describes Prosper Montagné as follows: “…Prosper Montagné, best described as the Thomas Keller of his day. Along with his (slightly older) contemporary Auguste Escoffier, he was one of the superstars of fin de siecle gastronomy. While not quite as revolutionary as the Big E (think of Escoffier as the Ferran Adria of the age), Montagne was no slouch, cooking his way around some of the biggest kitchens in France, notably the venerable Pavillon Ledoyen (currently Christian Le Squer’s three-star lair).
“Anyhow to cut a long story short, after many decades behind the range Montagne decided to kick back a little and starting writing books. This culminated in the 1938 publication of Larousse Gastronomique, co-authored with a Dr Gottschalk and published by Larousse, leading purveyors of encyclopedias and other doorstops.
“What Escoffier did for French cookery in practice, Montagne did for French cookery in print. Larousse was a staggering confection of history, dishes and recipes. The heart of the book is its coverage of French cuisine – from humble to haute. Montagne systematically went through every French region, dish, and garnish in the classic repertoire. He also provides pen-pictures of famous chefs and personalities, and added articles on history and on many notable ingredients (guess what, foie gras and truffles have some of the longest entries).”
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Culinary Travel: Jonell Eats her Way through Paris in June, a Photo Essay
There’s no better time to eat your way through Paris than in June. It is abundant with local fresh fruits and vegetables, sunshine and flowers. It’s a sensual experience that one must experience at least once in a lifetime.
This slide show gives you a glimpse of just how beautiful and sensual it is. Enjoy.
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