More than a Noodle Soup Bowl

For the sake of SEO and other out-of-the context considerations, I will add the label 'cookbook' to this book. In fact though, it is more than a simple collection of recipes, but an anthopological journey of noodles, their meanings and local translations. 

'An epistemology of the noodle soup' - with a continual presence starting from the Bronze Age on the territory on what is today's China - may include the answer to the question: 'How do we know what counts as noodle soup?'. But happily, this book touches upon the limits of other issues associated with them. For instance, the bowl soup, to whose beauty a couple of paragraphs are dedicated. Obviously, 'not every bowl is intended for noodle soup', but there are more subtle observations as well: 'If you want to see through a clear soup, make sure it's a white bowl, either porcelain or made with a white slip'. The author, which for 2 and half years practiced noodle soups every morning for at least 15 minutes, makes bowls too, so the experience talks here too, it seems. Last but not least, keep in mind that chopsticks are 'crucial in constructing the entire noodle soup aesthetic'. In fact, every stage of preparing the noodles and the bowls as such are part of a larger existential exercise. Did you ever think that 'cutting soba by hand is a meditative practice'? 

'There is no denying that dried pasta is just about the most convenient food product imaginable; it's easy to cook, virtually indestructible and can be kept in your cabinet just for those occasions when you don't have a lot of time to fuss'. However, if you read this book seriously - with side notes and specific adnotations - you will realize that you can do your own noodles, but in fact it is not as easy as it sounds. It requires not only practice, but a rich imagination. Otherwise, how someone can figure out how to prepare a reconstructed - noodle soup - dish of a Reuben sandwich, or Baba ganoush?

As for me, I would rather keep reading this book, couple of minutes the day, for getting the right practices as much as my cooking abilities allows, in terms of matching stocks, types of noodles and, why not, bowls too.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Food52: A New Way to Dinner

I am a big admirer of the Food52  network, for the way in which makes every step of the kitchen management and any recipe achievement just a matter of time. For someone like me, growing up with the deep feeling that I will never be able to bake or cook anything but fried eggs, it is an invaluable incentive that helped me to go through the challenges of managing almost successfully a house with children and regular hungry guests. 

The founders of the website, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, kept up helping lost-in-the kitchen people like me. A New Way to Dinner aims at offering first-hand and long tested assistance to busy family - of four - for managing the chores and challenges of having every day something new, healthy and tasty on the plate. Scheduled as one-week seasonal menus, with ingredients that can be easily switched and combined to create new dishes, the recipes suggested are easy to make and require a minimal time investment. In addition, you are promised to save money on groceries and waste less food, improve the shopping and cooking habits. Sounds delish, isnt't it? The aim: 'Gone will be that nagging to-do anxiety about what you'll put together for dinner after work'. 

You are offered a weekly plan, with details about the time you need to spend in various days for cutting or cleaning the veggies or for the cooking per se. You have reheating directions, advice about how to store the veggies or meat, what kind of storage containers you need. 

The menus are meat-based, but most probably not impossible to substitute them with meatless variants.  Although the portions are aimed for a family of four, with a but of flexibility and imagination, the recipes can be extended or restrained for bigger or smaller households. 

As I am an instant lover of everything that aims to better organize and manage the time, I loved the book even more. However, there are also some of the recipes that I have in sight for the next days, so expect soon to read about applesauce cake with caramel icing, meatballs with onions and zucchini or watermelon puree. 

Strongly recommended to anyone interested in tasty dinners with a minimal time and financial investment.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Discovering the mysterious Basque cuisine

'Cooking is a perfect vocation for people who like to find and make connections' says the author of this exquisite Basque Book, and based on my experience, I particularly agree with. Food brought a lot of new friends and happy connections into my life, and helped me to start a journey of tastes and colours that I hardly imagined less than ten years ago. 

The Basque Book is first and foremost about a cuisine whose history and menu we easily ignore. After starting to read the book I tried to think about one single Basque restaurant I know in Europe, particularly in Germany or France or Switzerland. Nothing by far, and I am usually quite in my own element when it comes to remember unique food memories. 

The recipes, organised in chapter dedicated to main ingredients or cooking methods - Fish, Eggs, Stews, Vegetables - are the usual meal served at the Txikito restaurant in NYC. There are 114 recipes, based on 14 years of daily cooking experience, of a Basque chef and his Jewish-Argentinian wife. The ingredients are basically simple, but combined in infinitely delicious way. The success is a matter of practise: 'If you know how to pitch out good raw ingredients, you can cook Basque food'. The good news: it is not a highly technical cuisine, so all you need is to be in the right environment to learn the right moves and taste matches. Another good news: 'Basque food makes you a better cook. It teaches you to respect ingredients, embracing and amplifying their natural flavors'. 

More than a way of eating, Basque cuisine is also a high-end identity matter: 'Cooking is very much its own language and by maintaining their culinary traditions, the Basques kept alive a food-driven lexicon, assured many Basque words lived on even for urban Basques'. At the end of the book, an extensive lexicon is provided in order to offer to the reader the proper explanations for the terms  and ingredients used. For instance, did you know that the Basque version of tapas is pintxos bar?

The recipes presented can be easily organised in variants of menus to be served all round the week. Before the reader is introduced to the recipes as such, there are specific explanations given about ingredients such as salt - how to used, how much and why, often in combination with oils for various preserves too, how to develop your art of mayonnaise - if you have any, as I am a complete illiterate in this respect - or how to properly prepare the sweet onions 'the foundation of all the Basque mother sauces'.

Shortly, it is a book worth a read, interesting not only as a cookbook, but for the entire anthropological and historical approach. 

Disclaimer: Book offered by the editor in exchange of an honest review

Claudia Roden and her cooking stories

Claudia Roden writes more than simple recipes, but stories about cultures and old good times. Despite her multicultural, mostly European life, she continued to keep part of her heart connected to the colourful Middle Eastern cuisine whose stories she's telling over and over again.

iCookbooks

One day I will offer myself the pleasure to eat one of the meals made by Chef Meir Adoni, but till then, I would love to read about his recipes, on my iPad. This app, Look and Cook, is not only a source of inspiration for the most sophisticated gourmets, but it is also a challenge for the world of cookbook publishing. 

And, even you may be the most conservative cookbook reader - or eventually, writer too - you would love the amazing possibilities offered by the modern technologies. The visuals - video and photo - are very helpful for a successful cooking experience. In addition, you will not lose too much time by searching various tutorials on YouTube as you have all the necessary ingredients at the same place. 

An adventure in appetizers: melted onion dip

A couple of months ago, at the beginning of my cooking adventures, I set up the objective of cooking - at least - one new meal each week. Shy at the beginning, I advanced until reaching the level of around 5 new meals the week. My skills are improving, but I am still very very far away from the objective of a good and reliable family chef.

Due to my increasing interest for cooking, I added to my Kindle and book shelves many new books, new cooking books. Besides the literary and publishing aspects that I cannot got out of my mind, the new and fresh recipes are what I am looking for. 

For the last week, I browsed the pages of the 20 recipes include in Blair Daniels' book - An adventure in appetizers. Most recipes are simple, could be done in maximum 1 hour and are the perfect ingredient for people looking to taste something good while watching Super Bowl or anything it is interesting for you. You can also use some of the recipes to impress your friends at a party or for solving fast a difficult riddle about what to prepare in the evening after a long day at work.

As I am not a cheese-and-bacon type of person, I was very happy to find some nice ideas of drinks - Strawberry Lemonade Champagne Punch and Pina Colada Fruit Dip -, serious recipes rich enough for do not want anything else - baked potato dip or the melted onion dip.

The last one I chosed to experiment myself, but considered that will not be enough for the evening meal and thus, I added it to my Japanese noodle. The result was very good, but hard to digest and the next day we were on lemonade and decided to turn on diet for the next days. As in many other cases, I adapted the original recipe in the following way:

Noodles and onions

Ingredients:

2 large sweet onions chopped finely

2 Tbs. butter

1 cup Emmentaller cheese

2 gloves garlic minced - I tried the garlic+onion combination the first time and did not regret the decision. 

In the original recipe, it was recommended to ad 1/2 Tsp. Tabasco Sauce - not my favorite - and 1 cup Mayonnaise - that I do not want to hear about.

Preparation

First, I added in the pan - the original recipe is talking about oven -  the chopped onions with butter, followed by the garlic and the cheese. Because of the cheese, you should melt them regularly. Wait until the onion turns brown.

Bon appetit!

The cooking book of the week: At the Farmers' market with kids

I am becoming more and more addicted to cooking books. Most probably I will end up by writing one myself, but for the moment I explore the graphic and the style of everything I can see for free or not, on the Internet, my local bookstore or at the library.

The discovery of the week is a special kind of cookbook: At the Farmers' Market with Kids is dedicated to both children and their parents. It explains little by little, through 65-children friendly recipes how to chose and store various fruits and vegetables: apricots, asparagus, cucumbers, beets, radishes, turnips, melon or corn.

The pictures are extremely appealing and the design is equally interesting. Some of the recipes are more than surprising, while others are simply irresistible. Take, for instance, the case of the watermelon gelatin with summer berrrie! Can you resist the smell and taste and image? Hardly possible, I guarantee. In the surprising category I will include the chocolate beet cupcakes. Apparently, such a recipe is not only possible, but fully enjoyable by the little ones. 

I am not brave enough to try it for this Shabbat, but one day, for sure I will be back and will give a chance to this beet combination. Perhaps I will do it only for myself, as most of the members of my family do not have any patience for my food extravaganza. 

It is a cookbook for parents and their children as well as for educators interested to teach in schools what and why we should appreciate the value of fresh food. The good habits are acquired at an early age and thus, be ready to offer to your little ones the best culinary and literary experiences. 

The wonderful Food of Morocco

After I had a look through Paula Wolfert's book on the Food of Morocco, I know why I am so in love with cookbooks: some are so well done that even though you do not know how to open your heater you will still be happy to read this book over and over again. 

Shortly, the book is about how to cook the Food of Morocco and for each recipe you have a step-by-step description of what you should do for a successful meal. But, as cooking is not only gulping the food from a plastic plate, you will have the perfect ambiance for understanding the culture of Moroccan cuisine. The design of the book is very elegant and the pictures presenting various parts of Morocco are more than a hasty lecture of a hungry person. Till the end of the book you will learn how to cook with style and distinction.

If you are curious to see a sample of what the book could offer, you can access the free sneak peak. Isn't it gorgeous? I promise that soon I will do the sweet couscous recipe!

IKEA - Homemade is best

IKEA – Homemade is Best. from Forsman & Bodenfors on Vimeo.

Add some zucchini

I am not a constant vegetarian, but I prefer for a long time to limit the meat ratio to once the week, maybe. I can live without meat, but to stimulate my appetite I need to create various combinations of vegetables. And, here, my imagination is playing an important role. 

A couple of weeks ago - when I was decided to start writing about what I am cooking, hence the photos I tried to take as professionally as possible - I was about to prepare some ready-made tortellini, but I had the feeling that it will not be enough so tried to think a bit about a new combination.

I pick up from my special food closet:

- sunflower oil (100 ml.)

- sesame oil (3 drops)

- 1 zucchini

- sesame seeds (100 gr.)

- salt

Peel the zucchini and cut into small cubicles. Pour the sunflower oil in the heated pan, together with the salt, zucchini cubicles and sesame seeds. Mixed them together for five minutes, then pour the sesame oil. After 30-35 minutes, mix the composition with the tortellini and wait for another five minutes.

Ready to eat!

Welcome to the world of boiled words

Image via Wikipedia

A couple of weeks ago, during my long never ending process of reorganizing my writing life, I opened a blog dedicated to my writing journey - http://wildwritinglife.blogspot.com/ (which I kindly invite you to read and criticize). This is a diary about my modest efforts to improve and develop my writing skills - in another tongue that my mother tongue. One of the domains I wanted to explore is also the food writing, an area I am not familiar with though the high interest for this new intellectual challenge.

For a long time, for various reasons, I stayed away of the gourmet experiences. Not too much time, not experience in the world of tastes and food. But, for various reasons, practical matters equally, in the last two years I was faced with the necessity to start preparing healthy and eatable food. And, I embarked on this trip with lots of enthusiasm and courage. In most part of the cases, I didn't use recipes, although I have a couple of nice and colourful resources. I am using often Internet for various technical problems: as, for example, how to cut a mango fruit, but also for some inspiration - cookies, the weekly change of the menu.

I do not consider myself experimented cooker or expert. I learned a lot, but the most part of experience is waiting for me. This blog - I hope once to turned into an interesting resource for women like me - is the diary of my successful and unsuccessful experiment. Initially, I intended to host my food writing on my normal writing blog, but a couple of minutes ago I decided that it might be better to have a separate chapter of my life, as I am seriously thinking to gather all these experiences into an e-book one day. 

Once again, welcome into my world of tastes and looking back for advices, conversation, exchange recipes and everything interesting to share about food, learning and good life.