A Literary Culinary Journal
by Tamar Chamlian
Vitamin D is of vital importance to our bodies. Most of us know that simple exposure to the sun for up to 10 minutes a day is sufficient for the body to make its own vitamin D.
Now that winter is setting in, if you live in countries that barely see the sun for months on end, you will need to seek other sources of getting your vitamin D.
It’s actually simple and easy. Here are the top three foods that can provide you with Vitamin D, with suggestions on how to use them.
|
|
by Jonell Galloway
The word “fondue” means literally “melted” in French. In Switzerland, fondue is made by melting cheese with white wine, pepper, garlic and kirsch (cherry schnapps).
Photo courtesy of Fribourg Tourist Bureau.
Different regions use different cheeses and have different recipes however. In the canton of Valais, no starch, butter, or eggs are added, while in many other regions they are used for thickening. Today, many people use corn starch.
Fribourg fondue is different from other cantons in that it uses Fribourg Vacherin cheese. Both Gruyère and Fribourg make what is referred to as “half and half”, meaning they use half Gruyère and half Fribourg Vacherin cheese.In central Switzerland, it is common to use Gruyère, Emmental and Sbrinz, a hard cheese from central Switzerland that is claimed to be the oldest cheese in Europe.
|
|
by Simón de Swaan
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.–Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English writer and Anglican cleric. Long after his death, his memory was to live on among homemakers in the United States, owing to his rhyming recipe for salad dressing.
Two boiled potatoes strained through a kitchen sieve,
Softness and smoothness to the salad give;
Of mordant mustard take a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon!
Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt. Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar procured from town; True taste requires it and your poet begs The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs. Let onion’s atoms lurk within the bowl And, scarce suspected, animate the whole, And lastly in the flavoured compound toss A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce. Oh, great and glorious! Oh, herbaceous meat! ‘Twould tempt the dying Anchorite to eat,
|
|
A great little article about how to make porridge interesting, by Elly McCausland who runs the blog Beyond Baked Beans. Well worth the read. Another plus on her blog: lots of info about eating on a shoestring.
Click here to read article.
|
|
I passed an afternoon with the charming radio presenter Florence Farion, for her show La Fourchette du Dimanche, and this is the result: a Kentucky fried chicken feast, including loads of vegetables to help you digest the fat.
By popular demand, the recipe for my Kentucky Fried Chicken meal. Click on Télécharger l’émission at bottom of page to download radio show & pdf file of recipes (in French). Click here to listen, or go to the RSR site and find the July 3rd edition, listed at the bottom of the page:
|
|
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.
We had a drawing for 6 red polka-dot Kuhn Rikon knives.
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!
|
|
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.
|
|
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.
|
|
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.
|
|
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
From Polenta to Peach Cobbler, Measure Free Hippie Cook
|
|
Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
