A Literary Culinary Journal
Sabor de Almeria, the brand behind a number of recent food initiatives aimed at attracting tourism to Almería Province, is to attempt its most ambitious project yet. They have today announced their intentions to launch a new and exciting International Food & Drinks Festival, to be held in Mojacar during May and June 2012. The festival is to be named Sabor de Almeria – Festival Internacional de la Alimentación y Bebidas.
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The From Plate to Page food photography and writing workshop will start on Friday, May 20, 2011, lasting until Monday, May 23, 2011, in Weimar, Germany.
Rambling Epicure contributor Meeta Khurana Wolff, a professional food photographer and stylist whose photos appear almost daily in the slider at the top of our home page, is one of the four professionals giving the workshop, along with another Rambling Epicure contributor, Jamie Schler, author of our Destination Dessert column.
From Plate to Page is an intensive hands-on food workshop aimed at food bloggers, writers and photographers looking to enhance and hone their photography and writing skills while finding their own unique style and voice, both for their blog and for professional work. This exciting, one-of-a-kind workshop will intended to pull food bloggers and photographers out of their creative ruts and start them on their way to a more professional style.
Rather than follow the style and program of traditional food blogging conferences, From Plate to Page is a workshop encouraging active participation by each attendee in the ultimate learning experience. Working alongside four of Europe’s most popular and respected food bloggers — each one of whom has turned her own blog into a springboard for a successful freelance writing or photography/styling career, participants will spend an extensive part of the weekend working on assignments designed specifically for the food blogger. All dedicated activities throughout the weekend will be the source of a writing or photography experience followed by analysis, critique and discussion.
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by Eric Burkel
Don’t allow the wool to be pulled over your eyes by supermarket organic food!
While discussing the issue of sustainable agriculture and the virtuous model of direct-channel (straight from the producer) with a friend the other day, she told me proudly that she usually buys organic food at her supermarket.
It made me think that most of us do the same and therefore we are content in the knowledge that we have most duly earned some sacrosanct “organic” brownie points!
However, it is a pact with the devil for dupes, when you boil it down. In a direct-channel model, whereby middlemen are cut out, the producer/breeder/grower gets decent compensation for his or her efforts. In a supermarket chain, the same “squeeze-the-supplier-till-he-squeals (or dies!)” modus operandi applies. How else can you explain that the major chains in France are offering organic deals at 1 € a day, for instance?
Organic growing is inherently risky and mechanically more expensive than intensively grown food. Weeds? They have to be pulled out by hand, not sprayed with the latest and greatest herbicide. Bugs? You can’t just spray the nasty freeloaders with a new-fangled pesticide.
When I asked our favourite organic Bordeaux wine-grower if he had sold out of his 2007 production (there was none to be found on his price list), he responded matter-of-factly: “We had a fungus that year and lost our whole crop.” You can imagine that it would have been soooooo much easier to spray some fungicide and make it all go away.
After factoring in such vagaries of organic farm life (without forgetting that yields are invariably lower on organic farms), someone needs to explain how in an ideal world you can have the cut-price organic prices we see in commercials all the time. Unless of course, someone is still getting shrift in the loop, as is often par for the course in our zero-sum world.
Some supermarket chains have understood the nuance and are trumpeting their programs to promote “local” procurement. This is a step in the right direction, no doubt.
So great, the chains have brought organic food to forefront our collective conscious and that must be goodness. But we must keep them on their toes to ensure that they are not just surfing the latest fad and using it their sole advantage, to sucker us once again.
Or better yet, go out of our way and support the direct-channel by joining a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) or buying directly from local producers.
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by Cozette Russell
I’m a filmmaker interested in the relationship between people and landscape, so in 2008 when I read an article in The New York Times about the trend of young people moving out of the city to farm, I knew this was a story I wanted to film. I wanted to find out why highly educated people would walk away from specific career paths to choose a life of farming. Why would they embrace the risks of a life of hard work that offers such little security?
My film, Brookford Almanac, a cinema verité documentary currently in production, tells the story of Luke and Catarina Mahoney and their lively farm apprentices who run Brookford Farm in Rollinsford, New Hampshire.
Luke and Catarina are first-generation farmers. They came to farming through their desire for a connection to the land, not from their family’s expectations. The Mahoneys have embraced the rewards and frustrations of a life centered on the small-scale production of local food. But without inherited land, a major obstacle for first-generation farmers, they must lease their farm with little security for the future.
I discovered the Mahoneys through my father, John Carroll, a professor at the University of New Hampshire who has written several books about New England farming. I decided to spend a year documenting the Mahoneys lives at Brookford Farm because they are not only new to farming but also run a biologically diverse farm and organic dairy. Before long I found myself filming at the breakfast table, riding in the tractor, slogging through cow pastures, attending business meetings and farmer’s markets, and hanging out in the pasture with the cows well before dawn. I learned the dedication it takes to farm and how the rigorous labor of each day is always interrupted by an inevitable drama such as animals breaking out or tractors dying or storms approaching. For a filmmaker the tensions of life on a farm are exciting and unexpected.
Every documentary filmmaker starts out with one idea for their film and watches that idea ebb and flow as life unfolds in front of the camera. When I began, I envisioned Brookford Almanac as a celebratory portrait of a year in the life of a farm family. At that time, I could not have predicted the changes that would take place both on the farm and in my film. Luke and Catarina have expanded their operation considerably. With this expansion has come problems with their landlord, a strong-willed, retired farmer who holds different opinions as to how things should be done. Sadly, because of these divergent philosophies, the landlord has decided not to renew the Mahoneys’ lease.
The issue of land access – something almost all first-generation farmers struggle with – is now no longer just a looming issue for Luke and Catarina; it is a harsh reality in their lives and it has come front and center in my film. The making of Brookford Almanac continues as I film life at Brookford Farm for a second farming season.
To continue this second year of production I am raising money through Kickstarter, a popular online crowd-funding tool. To learn more about the film and to join the production, please visit my Kickstarter page by clicking here below by April 30th.
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Cozette Russell is a documentary filmmaker. She is currently a fellow at Harvard University’s Film Study Center, and she lives with her husband and creative partner Julian Russell in Lee, New Hampshire.
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by Jonell Galloway
The best chocolate is indisputably to be found in Switzerland, and despite the much talked-about cocoa shortages, I would guess Geneva still has the highest concentration of high-quality, original Easter chocolates, so I thought I’d give you a little help in finding the perfect chocolate for your needs.
There is much discussion among natives of Geneva as to which is best, but purist that I am, no matter how many chocolate shops I try, I always come back to the same one: Chocolaterie Auer, located downtown in the main tram street.
They offer the traditional dark, milk and white chocolate bunnies and eggs, and even if their creations are perhaps not as aesthetically original as some others, the quality of the chocolate cannot be rivaled. There’s nothing like chocolate made straight from the bean. Industrial cocoa powder just doesn’t cut it in my book.
(While you’re buying your gifts, you might want to pick up one of their divine chocolate macaroons and a package of their not-so-fattening chocolate-covered almonds for yourself …)
Nearby, Chocolats Rohr produces some smashingly beautiful Easter bunnies and eggs made of top-quality chocolate.
La Bonbonnière, across from the Fnac, also does good-quality chocolate “works of art”, including chocolate fountains and a wide range of Easter themes. Their chocolate pignons are as light as angel wings.
At the other end of the street, Gilles Desplanches offers a wide variety of original figures and mixtures of flavors, as well as the traditional dark, milk and white chocolate, with an extended range of eggs (some topped with dinosaurs and other interesting figures that children will love), as well as bunnies, fish, chicks, etc.
When I discovered Chocolaterie-Confiserie Christophe Berger a few years ago, the man took my heart away. He’s always coming up with new combinations: dark chocolate with figs or slivers of crunchy candied ginger; every visit brings another surprise. For Easter, he keeps to the traditional, but then Easter is a traditional occasion, isn’t it? His pastries and cakes are also of excellent quality and really worth a try, although since the shop is small, he can’t keep many in stock, so it’s best to order a few days ahead of time. And please don’t let the shabby awning put you off. There’s nothing shabby about his products!
Today I tasted a single piece of dark chocolate from Les Ephémères in Lausanne and would like to taste more. Their website shows some exquisite fine-lace chocolate eggs, some highly original flavored truffles, including absinthe and ginger, wild strawberry, and coconut and vanilla, as well as organic chocolate. This is definitely a place to check out. The organic chocolate is also available at Bio Servette in Geneva.
The best chocolate is indisputably to be found in Switzerland, and despite the much talked-about cocoa shortages, I would guess Geneva still has the highest concentration of high-quality, original Easter chocolates, so I thought I’d give you a little help in finding the perfect chocolate for your needs.
There is much discussion among natives of Geneva as to which is best, but purist that I am, no matter how many chocolate shops I try, I always come back to the same one: Chocolaterie Auer, located downtown in the main tram street.
They offer the traditional dark, milk and white chocolate bunnies and eggs, and even if their creations are perhaps not as aesthetically original as some others, the quality of the chocolate cannot be rivaled. There’s nothing like chocolate made straight from the bean. Industrial cocoa powder just doesn’t cut it in my book.
(While you’re buying your gifts, you might want to pick up one of their divine chocolate macaroons and a package of their not-so-fattening chocolate-covered almonds for yourself …)
Nearby, Chocolats Rohr produces some smashingly beautiful Easter bunnies and eggs made of top-quality chocolate.
La Bonbonnière, across from the Fnac, also does good-quality chocolate “works of art”, including chocolate fountains and a wide range of Easter themes. Their chocolate pignons are as light as angel wings.
At the other end of the street, Gilles Desplanches offers a wide variety of original figures and mixtures of flavors, as well as the traditional dark, milk and white chocolate, with an extended range of eggs (some topped with dinosaurs and other interesting figures that children will love), as well as bunnies, fish, chicks, etc.
When I discovered Chocolaterie-Confiserie Christophe Berger a few years ago, the man took my heart away. He’s always coming up with new combinations: dark chocolate with figs or slivers of crunchy candied ginger; every visit brings another surprise. For Easter, he keeps to the traditional, but then Easter is a traditional occasion, isn’t it? His pastries and cakes are also of excellent quality and really worth a try, although since the shop is small, he can’t keep many in stock, so it’s best to order a few days ahead of time. And please don’t let the shabby awning put you off. There’s nothing shabby about his products!
Today I tasted a single piece of dark chocolate from Les Ephémères in Lausanne and would like to taste more. Their website shows some exquisite fine-lace chocolate eggs, some highly original flavored truffles, including absinthe and ginger, wild strawberry, and coconut and vanilla, as well as organic chocolate. This is definitely a place to check out. The organic chocolate is also available at Bio Servette in Geneva.
If you’re buying gifts for adults, you may want to steer away from the bunnies and eggs. The After the Rain spa offers chocolate baths and wraps followed by a Turkish bath for couples. All year long, Gilles Desplanches’ chocolate bar proffers up rich hot chocolate that can rival Angelina’s in Paris, as well as cold chocolate. There’s a flavor for everyone because the choice is large: salted-butter caramel, white nougat, wild mint, coconut, amaretto, Cayenne pepper and Tabasco, orange and cinnamon. We’re not talking about powdered cocoa to which you add hot water, but the “black gold” variety.
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by Jonell Galloway
So El Bulli is not in the top 50. People’s tastes change. That doesn’t make El Bulli bad; it was not included in the list simply because it is closing.
I’ll always remember that magic moment, so many years ago, when I first drove over the dirt track in the hills above Rosas to get to this little bistrot Michel Trama had told me about. I was enthralled, and that moment will remain with me forever. My tastes change, all our tastes change. We have moved on, going more toward a regional, traditional cuisine, much in the spirit of Slow Food, more in sync with the world’s needs, but that magic moment will always remain.
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by Jonell Galloway
Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, contributor to The Rambling Epicure, has written more than 20 books on subjects as varied as Umberto Eco, anorexia and, in October 2010, his masterpiece, the Dictionnaire Universel du Pain, or “Universal Dictionary of Bread,” a veritable encyclopedia about every facet of bread from all corners of the earth. The dictionary — not yet translated into English — covers the history of bread, as well as anthropological, symbolic, emotional, sexual, agricultural, botanical aspects . . . well, absolutely everything you might want to know about bread, literally from crop to crust (to borrow Dan Lepard‘s term), with every technical step in the process of bread baking covered in minute detail.
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by Jonell Galloway
Roberto Benvegnù, head chef at the Le Jardin restaurant at Le Richemond in Geneva, Switzerland, is celebrating the rites of spring with an impressive menu centered on asparagus, the most glorious of spring’s green vegetables, from April 1 to 10, 2011.
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by Christina Daub
According to the Huffington Post, Easter is about to “be killed” and Passover “injured” due to the continuing political unrest in the Ivory Coast influencing the rising costs of cocoa.
Yes, forty percent of the world’s supply is still being held up in the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro, and the costs to chocolatiers and consumers continue to rise, but enough to leave all the chocolate Easter Bunnies sitting on the store shelves, certainly not.
In fact I have seen more chocolate Easter products on the shelves of DC area stores than ever before. The Harris Teeter chain seems to be loaded with “sale” Lindt chocolate rabbits, carrots and eggs. World Market is a cornucopia of Easter treats and the CVS stores were giving out dollar coupons one could use to buy Dove chocolate eggs recently.
The chocolate world may be suffering a major setback, but please let’s remember the real victims in the chocolate war are the Ivorian growers and pickers, their livelihoods threatened by the two men vying for government control.
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
by Jonell Galloway
