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This is the third in a series of B&W vineyard photographs by Rosa Mayland, author of our column Rosa’s Musings. She also runs a popular food blog, RosasYummyYums.
Related articles
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This is the third in a series of B&W vineyard photographs by Rosa Mayland, author of our column Rosa’s Musings. She also runs a popular food blog, RosasYummyYums.
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This is the first in a series of B&W vineyard photographs by Rosa Mayland, author of our column Rosa’s Musings.
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Rosa Mayland is part of The Rambling Epicure staff and author of the column “Rosa’s Musings.” This is the second in a series of her black and white photos of vineyards.
You can more of her work on her blog, Rosa’s Yummy Yums.
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Rosa Mayland ponders on the meaning and significance of food in everyday life in her column Rosa’s Musings. She has the advantage of growing up in an incredibly multicultural environment and speaking many languages. She runs the site Rosa’s Yummy Yums. “Terroir with TLC” is the word chez Rosa — quality ingredients, regional and seasonal produce, made with tender loving care — and this is reflected in the recipes she creates.
Rosa recently started photographing in black and white and we find them delightful. This is her first one-woman show of B&W food photography.
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Cooking is an art and patience a virtue… Careful shopping, fresh ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing — love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things you can be an artist — not perhaps in the representational style of a Dutch master, but rather more like Gauguin, the naïve, or Van Gogh, the impressionist. Plates or pictures of sunshine taste of happiness and love.—Quote by Keith Floyd, “A Feast of Floyd”
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by Rosa Mayland
In this brief history of the sandwich, you’ll learn that a sandwich is an extremely versatile and universal food item consisting of two slices of bread in the middle of which is encased a filling, or of a single slice of bread garnished with a topping (tartines/bruschetta, smørrebrød, canapés, etc.). In both cases they come in an infinite number of varieties that differ in flavour, style, texture and size.
The origin of the term dates back to 1762 and saw the light of day in East Kent, England. According to legend, John Montagu aka the Fourth Earl of Sandwich was so busy gambling that he did not want to stop his activities in order to dine, so he ordered the waiter to bring him slices of roast beef enclosed in two wedges of bread. In this way, he could continue playing while eating and would in no manner dirty his fingers. That is how this quick and improvised snack became known as “sandwich”.
Even if the Earl gave his name to this popular “speciality,” it is to be said that bread has been served with meat and/or vegetables for centuries before this “invention” and that its forefather probably already existed in Neolithic times with the advent of the domestication of wheat. The first form of sandwich is attributed to the ancient Jewish wise man Hillel the Elder (~1st century B.C.) from Babylon who apparently put meat from the lamb sacrificed for Passover and bitter herbs (horseradish, chicory, sow thistle, eryngo, and lettuce) between pieces of matzo (kosher cracker-like, unleavened bread). Another genre of sandwich was common during the Middle Ages: thick slabs of stale bread called “trenchers” were used as plates and can be regarded as the precursors to the open-faced sandwich.
At the beginning, sandwiches represented a humble and simple lower-class meal, but by the middle of the 18th century, the aristocracy started serving them as a late-night collation, and they were considered very chic. Then with the breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and its hordes of restless workers slaving away in factories, sandwiches became a working-class luncheon, since they were practical, easily accessible, nourishing (calorific), inexpensive, portable and could be eaten in a rush.
After having first appeared in England as well as Spain, the sandwich rapidly spread through the rest of Europe and the United States, where it was first promoted as an elaborate main dish. The 20th century saw the rise of the sandwich in the U.S. and the Mediterranean when bread became an indispensable component of people’s diet and started being consumed in much larger quantities than in the past.
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by Rosa Mayland
Some people are not afraid of the cold and others regard it with utter contempt. Even though I can’t say I savor every season or mid-season of the year, I nonetheless definitely prefer the fresher season as I hate sweating excessively or getting sunburned like a shrimp on a barbie.
Sometimes I wonder if those predispositions are linked to my DNA or whether is it just a personal preference. What if our genes influenced our manner of conducting ourselves and our traits of character? Hmmm, that is quite a difficult question to answer, but I believe that if our health can be defined by our bloodline, then there are chances that our emotions, temperament and identity are also outlined by it.
You see, my father’s ancestors were Swiss mountaineers who might have had Danish or English origins (my family name is NOT Swiss at all). Then, on my my mother’s side they came from the rugged areas of Northern England where Viking settlers made themselves at home and also from European Russia, a place which is known for its dreadful cold.
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A cook, when I dine, seems to me a divine being, who from the depths of his kitchen rules the human race. One considers him as a minister of heaven, because his kitchen is a temple, in which his ovens are the altar.—Marc Antoine Désaugiers
by Rosa Mayland
Even though being betrayed by your camera or computer, denied access to your blog platform, or lacking all inspiration is bad enough, having your cooker die on you is probably one of the worst things that any food blogger and pastry lover can experience, as it leaves you feeling completely lost and powerless. Without this essential home appliance (my personal favorite together with my KA), your major working tool, you are absolutely nothing! Well, that’s exactly what happened to me not long ago and it was one terrible and stressful nightmare, especially wince we were quasi-penniless and could not afford to buy a replacement straight away.
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Salt is the policeman of taste: it keeps the various flavors of a dish in order and restrains the stronger from tyrannizing over the weaker.--Margaret Visser
Salt plays an important role in our daily life. Not only is it a vital substance for all living creatures, as it regulates the water content of our body, but it is also makes food taste better. Nobody can survive or cook without sodium chloride.
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