Eat/Cook | Page 27 of 44 | The Rambling Epicure

And here are the winners of the 6 Kuhn Rikon knives at our Expat Expo drawing

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, October 4, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Husband Peter and I and Rosa Mayland, author of our column “Rosa’s Musings,” had a great time at the Expat Expo Geneva on Sunday. It’s a great way to make contacts in Geneva.


Jonell Galloway at The Rambling Epicure’s stand at Expat Expo Geneva 2011

We had a drawing for 6 red polka-dot Kuhn Rikon knives.


Kuhn Rikon Knives Drawing, The Rambling Epicure, Expat Expo Geneva

Here are the winners:

Paula Davies-Smith
M. Rowe
Peter Zornow
Sayjel
Alison Farley
Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter

Congratulations. You are now the proud owner of knives made by one of the most reputable brands of cookware in the world, and they’re made in Switzerland!

Brisket and Love: A Tribute to Beatrice Beckenstein Levine, or “Granny Bea”

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, October 3, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Rosh Hashanah beef brisket brings back so many fond memories. It makes me think of how by mother-in-law would start preparing the brisket and the feast days before we arrived. The children were accustomed to eating European food, and in their earlier years had serious misgivings about brisket.

Granny Bea’s brisket was saucy like this one, but the sauce was not beer. It was made with carrots and onions that had been slow-cooked to the point that they formed a sweet sauce, “making it healthier,” she would say.

It was all made with such love and we felt that love in the air as we ate; it created a bond so strong that it will stay with us forever. Every time I hear the word “brisket” I remember the good old days, when she was alive, when we received all her love through her food and her loving, gracious manner, and tried to give it back to her as nobly as we could. Now we can only do that in our thoughts and prayers.

And now when the children hear “brisket”, I can see on their faces that they too feel that love, that bond.

Food made with love and shared in a spirit of love does that to you. Food helps you transmit your love; it also teaches you how to receive love.

This is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Beatrice Beckenstein Levine, the apple of my eye. I love(d) you, and I think of you every day and my heart still gets all warm and I shed a tear or two, and a taste of your brisket comes to my mouth. I’m going to ask for Granny Bea’s brisket once a week when I get the heaven.

Click here to read Mark Bittman and Daniel Meyer’s version of an up-to-date beef brisket.

Braising Brisket – Perfect for Fall and Rosh Hashanah
Eat: Mark Bittman: Bye, Bye, American Pie, The New York Times
Mark Bittman Explains ‘How To Cook Everything’
Central Texas Dry-Rub Brisket

Switzerland: Rosa’s Musings: Butterzopf, The History Of A National Sunday Bread

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, October 1, 2011 Permalink 0

by Rosa Mayland

Switzerland (also known as “Confoederatio Helvetica” or “die Schweiz”, “la Suisse”, “Svizzera”, “Svizra”) is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons and 4 different linguistic and cultural areas (German, French, Italian and Romansch). It’s therefore not surprising if its cuisine reflects its rich heritage and highly diverse cultures. It is rather like an island in the middle of Europe, like a tiny kingdom.

Each region and canton has its very own traditional dishes and specialties as well as produce, and they defend and even protect it fiercely, because there are dishes, cheeses, wines, breads, and many more food items that are now protected by AOCs in Switzerland.

Even if this tiny piece of land stuck between Germany, Austria, France, Italy has its own highly diverse culinary identity, one cannot refute that each part of the Swiss Confederation has, to a certain extent, been influenced by its neighbors, and vice versa. For example, a sausage resembling the anise-flavored Geneva sausage called Longeole can also be found in Chablais (Haute-Savoie); a cheese similar to Valais raclette is made in Savoie too; the Swiss German spätzli seem to be of Swabian (German) origin. Then there is polenta or risotto which evoke the Apennine Penninsula, and are often found in Ticino, and, well, the list goes on. As it is the case with every place that is not in total isolation, the borders are quite permeable, so it is pretty understandable that ideas, information, arts and science cross back and forth across the borders.

Switzerland: Coop’s Pro Montagna Label: 5 Years of Protecting Traditional Swiss Food Products

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, September 30, 2011 Permalink 0

Switzerland: Coop’s Pro Montagna Label: 5 Years of Protecting Traditional Swiss Food Products

Please join us on Sunday, October 2nd, at the Expat Expo Geneva, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Palexpo, Hall 7. We’d love to meet our readers and make our contact more personal.

We’ll have booth No. B8 against the well, and one of our most popular authors, Rosa Mayland of the column Rosa’s Musings,will be present.

Click here for all the details.

Hope to see you there!

Jonell Galloway, Editor of The Rambling Epicure

It’s apple season: Matefin à la pomme / apple pancakes/pie

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, September 29, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

O Délices discovered this recipe on blog de Guillemette.

This is a traditional recipe from the Savoy, so it’s not so far from us in Switzerland.

The original name comes from the French mâte faim. Peasants prepared these potato pancakes in the morning before going to work in the fields. It was meant to keep them going until lunchtime.

This version uses apples instead of potatoes, and is perfect for the apple season, which has just started here in Switzerland.

The state of the school lunch tray and efforts to improve kids’ health

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, September 29, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

School food revolution? The state of the school lunch tray and efforts to improve kids’ health. Click here to read more about the Healthy Food, Healthy Farms Webinar Series and sign up for this fascinating Webinair on Thursday, October 6, sponsored by the Healthy Food Action site.

Lunch Wars: Food For Thought
School Lunches I Have Known
School Lunch: The Most Important Meal of the Day?

Food News Daily: September 27, 2011

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, September 27, 2011 Permalink 0

Mainstream Anglo Media and Press

Nigel Slater’s classic salsa verde recipe, The Guardian

Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?, The New York Times

Small Factories Take Root in Africa, Wall Street Journal

For Rosh Hashanah, honey, you have options, Los Angeles Times

A new generation of student cooks?, Is the accepted wisdom about students being uninterested in cooking still accurate or is it a myth kept alive by those who graduated years or decades ago?, The Guardian

Asian snack time is all the time, The Seattle Times

Munch ado about Doritos, one man’s iconic snack, The Washington Post

Best of the Anglo Food and Travel Blogs

From Polenta to Peach Cobbler, Measure Free Hippie Cook

David Downie: Gallette, Italian Riviera Sea Biscuits

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, September 27, 2011 Permalink 0

by David Downie

gallette del marinaio, sea biscuits, panificio maccarini

Everyone knows about the focaccia of Genoa and the Italian Riviera. But who remembers the region’s hardtack?

Sea biscuits: those hard, dry crackers that sailors would take with them on long journeys, because normal bread got moldy within days?
In Italian, sea biscuits are called “gallette.” The same word is used for the surf-worn, flattened stones you find on beaches. That’s because sea biscuits look very much like those stones, with pock marks.

There used to be hundreds of bakeries up and down the coast of Italy, and in America too, that baked sea biscuits. Now only a handful continue the tradition, most of them in Liguria, and only one makes gallette in the old-fashioned way, meaning the way they were made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Destination Dessert: Nectarine Crisp

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, September 26, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jamie Schler

EATING MY WORDS

I spend my days at the computer click-clacking across the keyboard, playing. You see, since I began my blog I have fallen in love with writing. Oh, I have always loved words, sentences, ideas, searching them out, chasing them, grabbing them as if they were butterflies and I was romping across fragrant, wind-tousled fields, butterfly net in hand. I have always been a great reader, spending most of my childhood, youth, adulthood curled up with a book. I love a great plot, fascinating characters, but not only. Mastery of language is a rare skill; making words dance in the reader’s head like music is a treasure rarely found. Many aspire to greatness, so few achieve it. But when they do, it is exceptional, stunning! Placing word after word, just the right ones in just the right order; it is magic and I have read such stories that simply the words chosen, the ideas created, the mastery of the language have taken my breath away. I must close the book, lay it gently beside me, shut my eyes and catch my breath as I savor the beauty.

Food News Daily: September 23, 2011

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, September 23, 2011 Permalink 0

Mainstream Anglo Media and Press

Kosher cuisine: Beyond the bagel. Traditional Jewish food is homely, hearty and intended to be shared. Now foodies of all faiths are joining the feast, The Independent

Female Farmers Sprouting: More Md., Va. Women Lead Farms, The Washington Post

Fancy a Peruvian? Andean state pulls up a seat at the food world’s high table: Gastón Acurio, the ‘Peruvian Jamie Oliver’, is at the forefront of the country’s latest gastro-boom, The Guardian

After His Brother’s Killing, a Chef Turns to Israeli Food, The New York Times

On Nutrition: Are egg whites just a bunch of feathers? (and other important questions), The Seattle Times

Curry — it’s more ‘Japanese’ than you think, The Japan Times