A Literary Culinary Journal
by Renu Chhabra
The essence of pleasure is spontaneity.–Germaine Greer
Spontaneity in the kitchen can be fun sometimes and a challenge at other times. But it does get our creative juices rolling, and pushes us to bring out our best. Often times, with no set plans, and working with what we’ve got produces great results. New recipes are born, and new talents are discovered. That’s the beauty of spontaneity. Who wouldn’t like that?
|
|
by Alice DeLuca
We’re turning down the new thermostat daily, stubbornly staving off the inevitable start-up of the furnace for the coming home-heating season. It’s the hot soup season and the knitting season also, so there are reasons to celebrate. Animals are busy storing everything they can get their paws on, for a long winter of curled up dreaming. I picture them underground and know why some people covet their fur coats. My coat of choice is made from the knitted wool of sheep, and to the sheep I am grateful.
Our new Nest thermostat is “smart” in that it knows what we are doing, but we maintain the illusion of control by tweaking it via tablet technology, even from remote locations. The designers thought of everything, down to the specially designed stickers for labeling the wires during installation. We’re hoping we won’t have to fool this new thermostat in to turning on when the temperature dives like a submarine, the first week of January; nor will we be tempted to put a space heater under it to keep it warm so it won’t activate the furnace, as my father used to do with his mercury-switch driven thermostat from those days.
When the temperature drops, the Canada geese start making tracks. Often they are flying south, but sometimes they appear to be confused and fly east or north, which is because some of them winter-over. The V-formations of confused geese overhead is another clear indication that the time has come to consider hot soup.
Japanese soup
|
|
by Jonell Galloway
Click here to keep up with the latest in world food and wine news.
Photo by Prerna Singh
|
|
by Jonell Galloway
Click here to keep up with the latest in world food and wine news.
Black and white chocolate cocktail dress, Salon du Chocolate 2011, Zurich, Switzerland.
|
|
by Amanda McInerney
The celebrity cooks and chefs of the United States, the UK and Europe are frequently familiar to Australians too, but I sometimes wonder if the reverse is true. We’ve bred some truly remarkable kitchen talents down here in the antipodes — both in Australia and New Zealand — and we well and truly have our share of local celebrity chefs on TV shows and cookbook shelves. While the international Masterchef franchise has blazed across our screens and spawned an entire new crop of culinary household names, there are plenty that have been steadily and consistently doing their kitchen/foodie thing without all of that fanfare and I’m taking this opportunity to introduce you to one of them.
|
|
Do not be afraid to talk about food. Food which is worth eating is worth discussing. And there is the occult power of words which somehow will develop its qualities.–X. Marcel Boulestin, Simple French Cooking for English Homes 1923
Xavier Marcel Boulestin was a French chef, restaurateur and the author of cookbooks that popularized French cuisine to the English-speaking world. The Restaurant Boulestin, known as the most expensive in London, opened in 1927. Its fame, and the long series of books and articles that Boulestin wrote, made him a celebrity. Among those influenced by Boulestin was the English cooking expert Elizabeth David, who praised Boulestin in her writings, and adopted many of his ideas.
|
|
by Simón de Swaan
Summer cooking implies a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the essence of the fleeting moment.–Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David was a British cookbook writer who, on her return from “exile” in Egypt after WW2, decided that action had to be taken with regard to the quality of food in Britain. She was outright hostile to second-rate cooking and the use of frozen, canned and out-of-season ingredients, and is, in many people’s mind, a precursor of the concept of Slow Food. In any case, she was a primary mover in bringing true traditional home cooking using quality ingredients back into the mainstream in Britain.
All her books are listed here, and most are still available at Book Depository or other online independent booksellers.
|
|
Meeta Khurana Wolffis a freelance food photographer, stylist and writer, currently living in the culturally rich city of Weimar in Germany with her German husband and their 8-year-old son, where she enjoys preparing multicultural, home-cooked meals using fresh organic ingredients. When she is not styling, photographing or writing about food, Meeta loves to travel the world, exploring new cultures and capturing it all on camera. The unique mood that Meeta creates in her food photography is also found in her travel, still life and landscape photography.
Born in India, Meeta was brought up in and went on to train in some of the world’s finest hotels, where food was always an important part of her life. Her love for food photography stems from her passion for food itself, and she combines her two greatest enthusiasms on her multifaceted, award-winning blog, What’s For Lunch, Honey? The recipes she develops and creates are documented by her powerful, yet refreshing, food photography and styling.
See more food photo compositions at Meeta K. Wolff.
|
|
by Simón de Swaan
The artichoke above all is a vegetable expression of civilized living, of the long view, of increasing delight by anticipation and crescendo. No wonder it was once regarded as an aphrodisiac. It had no place in the troll’s world of instant gratification. It makes no appeal to the meat-and-two veg. mentality.–Jane Grigson
Jane Grigson was an English food writer. Grigson’s growing interest in food and cooking led to the writing of her first book, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery (1967), which was translated into French, unusual for an English food writer. Elizabeth David read the book and was impressed by it, and recommended Grigson as a food columnist for The Observer, for which she wrote a column from 1968 until her death in 1990.
|
|
Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
