'Burma Superstar'

Burmese cuisine is hard to find in Europe. Personally, altough considering myself both well-travelled and well-feed, with experience in various diverse kitchen from around the world, I can't remember one single Burmese restaurant. Otherwise, I would have know a little bit about this cuisine, before starting to read Burma Superstar.

Therefore, I've read this book as a non-fiction one, more than as an account about the menu served in Oakland's restaurant with the same name. A foodie fix in the area for decades, with affiliates inaugurated in other destinations across the USA, Burma Superstar mixes the gourmet inspiration with the basic ingredients of the meals - most of them street food - served in this part of the world.

A popular neighbourhood restaurant is able to reflect in its menu the culinary Asian melting pot. Which is a good news, especially for those aiming at reproducing those recipes at home, as you can easily find ingredients in the various Asian/Indian stores from across the world. You can easily find the spices and the sauces - oyster or Sriracha - the oils and the specific oils and the rice, the special spinach. The only thing I am not sure I can find is the laphet - the tea, used not only for the brewed drink, but usually in salads or as a dried snack. Something I might be interested to find and try out more about soon.

But besides the laphet, there are many more recipes to try, like various curries and salads, dish and dried lentils or samosas. The list of the ingredients is long and it might take a time until getting used to the flavors but adding them to the recipe is easier than expected. You only have to add them to the pan and learn how much time you need to mix them until you obtain a completely new taste out of all the diverse flavors. Beware, the Burmese cuisine is using generous amounts of oil.

The book introduces Burma/Myanmar not only as a food destination but also scatters various political and historical references - mostly Wikipedia style, neutral and not necessarily critical, but for someone finding out about this country it can be a steady beginning.

What I've found a bit under my usual visual standards was the photography, but when it comes to visual representations, everything at a great extent is relative. I love the kind of photography which completes and beautifies the writing and makes the wording attractive which was not the case here.

Personally, I would not hurry up to prepare any recipe at home until I will eventually have a taste of the professionally prepared one. For the sake of the authenticity, I need to figure out first how my personal creation should taste like. But I am so looking forward to it.

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

Russian Food Stories from the Far East

Although I have an ever-growing collection of food memoirs and cookbooks from all over the world, I will always have a big weakness for those who are sharing more than cooking tips and recipes. All my favorite ones are bringing me closer to a special table culture, unique ingredients and historical approaches to food and nutrition.

T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks by Sharon Hudgins and Tom Hudgins is my latest addition to the category of favorites. It is not only because it features a cuisine that I am fearfully approaching as a cook but due to its variety of dishes and certain familiarity. Over the years, I made peace with the thoughts that most probably will never made my own borscht - the Russian version to do not antagonize those who have a different story about the origin of this liquid meal - or Napoleon, but will always enjoy both, and many more, over a Samovar-made tea and a good story. 

Although most of this book is made by recipes - with detailed directions that made me dream that maybe I can do at least one of them too - the cultural and anthropological background helped placing the recipes in their specific context. 

You - at least I am guilty of such subjective thoughts -  may rarely expect something outstanding coming up from Siberia and the Russian Far East. Nevertheless, while on various academic assignments in the mid-1990s and during late visits, Hudgins is revealing a world frozen - no only literally - in old culinary times, burgeoining from a visit to another following contact with new foods and eating habits, slowly arriving after the opening of the country to the Western consummerism. 

The recipes are spiced with personal accounts of their encounters with local Russians and additional information about specific holidays and traditions, or literary references to food. As an unique American-authored book about Russian Far East, T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks is not only a culinary resource but also an anthropological account of the local mentalities, histories and customs.

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

Everything You Need to Know about Ramen

I had a lot of ramen bowls in my relatively short life, but never thought seriously about the possibility of preparing my own ramen, from step 0 onwards. After all, I suppose that exactly as creating your pasta requires more than cooking skills but also a deep knowledge of texture and combinations of ingredients, for a non-Asian like me, homemade ramen is only worth a try without a guarantee of originality. 

Ramen at Home by Brian MacDuckston is written for someone like me, keeping up with the 'real thing' recipes, but keeping in mind the Westerners. If you are living outside Japan, at the end of the book there is a long list of online resources that helps to source the right ingredients. 

Very often in Japan, the popular saying goes often that many unpleasant things - like strong winds or cold or rains - are coming from China. But there are still some things that are actually pleasant and delicious too, like ramen, which are in fact Chinese noodles whose widespred consumption started only around 1870, during the period when Japan decided to end up its centuries old isolation. It took another century almost until the ramen style actually entered the food fashion. 

Generally, those noodles are made with wheat flour, water and kansui which is an alkaline salt which binds the ingredients together until the usual chevy texture is produced. 'A good bowl of ramen is something personal. Some people like a lot of big, in-your-face flavors, while others want subtle elegance. Some people want huge amounts of fat; the more oil the better. Some bowls can be spicy, some mild. Some people want their ramen to resemble a pizza tomato sauce with a side of anchovies. Nothing is off the table. Good ramen is good ramen'. 

However, experts like Brian MacDuckston - whose culinary encounters can be read on his blog Ramen Adventures - consider that there are two main flavor components of ramen: the impact - usually created by the dried fish spices - and the after taste - the smooth, umami full taste. Last but not least, the tares - the sauce - is the main player in this story, as it can bring the taste or destroy completely the bowl harmony. Yeah, it seems things are getting more and more complicated...

But after reading the book - once, twice, as often and many times you need it to figure out what all the fuss about ramen is all about - you can easily risk a recipe or two. The directions are relatively simple, the recipes are very well organised and even if you fail at least you can slurp your pathetic ramen while looking at the beautiful photos of the real thing. It also helps to offer information about how to match different ingredients or what the recommended side dishes are - pickled cucumber, mayo, friend gyoza, among others. 

Although I am not sure if I will be brave enough in the near future to make my own ramen, at least I am sure will taste my bowl using a completely different angle of (ramen) critical thinking. This is how good cookbooks operate to the foodie brain, probably.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Smörgåsbord - the Swedish way of eating

Many of us are experiencing the Swedish food as the tasty reward of long hours of IKEA shopping, but obviously it is much more than that. The beautifully illustrated Smörgåsbord offers an extraordinary lesson of food history, providing not only recipes and interesting directions about preparing a real Swedish meal, but also explains basic principles of life philosophy and style. 

Smörgåsbord means a buffet set up with many small dishes, including bread, butter and cheese, cured fish, meatballs. The dishes can be up to 100, but there is a specific order that shall be followed: first, the pickled herring, the hardboiled eggs, the potatoes and aged hard cheese; after, the fish and seafood dishes; the charcuterie, pickles and salads; the warmer dishes, meatballs or gratins; thereafter, the sweet table with fruits, whipped cream, cookies and cakes. 

Plentiness doesn't mean greediness. 'Overloading your plate just make you unhappy'. Instead, you should learn to enjoy life in small portions, one small dish at the time. 'Take small portions and eat slowly', and this direction helps to keep the balance not only in food, but in life in general. 

The book is also rich in recipes, from various types of Swedish breads to how to make sausages and pickles. 

A good read recommended to any food lover and an inspiration for the food writer and illustrator too.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Cookbook review: Dining at the Ravens

American cuisine and restaurants in general are frequenty badmouthed by the other part of the world for their lack of rafinament and unhealthy ingredients. In the last decade however, the number of good American gastronomic practices changed dramatically and more and more secret healthy gourmet spots are revealed to the whole world.

One such revelation is The Ravens restaurant in Mendocino, California, where the menu is plant-based, mostly using ingredients produced in the own organic gardens and farm. A book published last year offers over 150 vegan recipes regularly served, with interesting details about the life and food philosophy of the owners, who are the authors of the book. 'I really love food that not only tastes amazing, but also reflects my values and ethics'. 

The book details the various daily stages of the menu, starting with the breaksfast that, 'at the Ravens, is an expression of mindfulness'. The day seen and tasted through different meals looks very appealing and healthy too, with interesting unique combinations. One of the meals that stayed obsessively with me - and will keep doing so until I will offer my own interpretation of the recipe - is citrus polenta with a braised garden greems and a creamy toasted cashew sauce. The recipe is so convincing, especially for someone so reluctant to prepare and taste polenta as I am. Cashews are often used in many meals, from breakfast platest to sauces. 

Part of the owner's philosophy is to treat bread as an accidental companion to the meal, rather than as a necessary presence at the table. 'We look at ordinary wheat breads more as condiments than substantive parts of a meal. At Ravens, bread is available only by request. Some of the bread recipes that found interesting are: jalapeno cornbread and rustic bread. 

Passing through the list of sauces and dips, a kale sauce sounds like a very unique experience, followed in my list of preferences by white beans hummus and mint pesto. For those less familiar with various green ingredients, the chapter dedicated to salads includes a list of possible salad ingredients.

The more I was advancing into the lecture - good writing, with easy directions that make you feel like you are good enough to submit your CV to the Ravens for a chef opening position - the more temptations arose. What about a roasted zucchini soup with pistachio cream and fresh mint - it seems that in the case of many recipes, there are more than 3 ingredients mixed, which is my perfect case scenario for me, especially when it comes to vegan food? Or a seasonal wild mushroom crepe or some eggplant cannelloni too? Maybe the Ravens Sea Palm Strudel, a staple dish of the restaurant?

Last but not least, take a look at their desserts too. 'Their ingredients stimulate the release of endorphins, providing a sense of well-being, aiding digestion, and ensuring that we receive the greatest nourishment from the food we have eaten'. As sweeteners, there are used maple syrup, agave and vegan sugar - such as beet sugar. The list includes, among others: basic sorbet, candy cap mushroom creme brulee - my first time ever when I've heard about candy cap mushrooms - or chocolate ganache tart. This chapter of the book is less spectacular in terms of recipes and ingredients. 

The book is a real star among my recent cookbooks, and an example that vegan food can be sophisticated and tasty, As for me, there is one recipe that I will try in the next days, not a spectacular one, but it makes it a tasty ingredient of burgers, for instance. 

My only disappointment was the relatively simple quality of the pictures, but somehow, after reading the book, this is the only minus of an interesting and balanced book.

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

In the back kitchen of the famous Poole's

Poole's and its chef Ashley Christensen are becoming one of the iconic successes of the new American cuisine. Often despised in Europe for its lack of sophistication, the chefs on the other side of the ponds worked hard and succeeded to change the stereotypes about the US food culture.

The book is attractive not only for the interesting recipes and the story behind them - mostly happy childhood tasty memories - but also for the mouth-watering pictures, here to prove that, indeed, you should give a try to the recipes. 

This foodie version of the American dream, Poole's in Raleigh, means also a different philosophy when it comes to creating new dishes: 'For each and every dish, we start by breaking it down, piece by piece and examining it, from the ingredients on up through every single step. We pay meticulous attention to the details to make sure every thing is in balance and the final product is absolutely delicious while still respecting its identity and original story'. 

Labeled mostly as 'Southern kitchen', the cuisine tasted at Poole's go beyond any geographical attribution. It uses an eclectic mix of spices and ingredients, it creates new food habits and explore new tastes. What do you think, for instance, about 'popcorn with Dijon, olive oil, and Parmigiano Reggiano'? Or 'thuna tartare with Piment d'Esplete and cucumber'? Or cornmeal fried okra with tabasco mayo? I am particularly tempted by the watermelon with avocado, goat cheese, basil and sweet onion, featured on the cover. The recipes presented cover all the usual meals, from the entrees to the cocktails and sweets. I must confess that maybe there are too much liver-based recipes for my poor taste, but this is my one and only problem. As for now, I wish I have the strength to test the challah bread pudding with whiskey, apples and sour cream. Because it is never too late to try something completely new in your life.

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

The Pho Cookbook, by Andrea Nguyen

The Vietnamese food is a relatively latest addition to my Asian food preferences - with Japanese food as number 1. It took me a long summer to get used with the special taste of herbs and spices added at the spring rolls and the vegetables soups, but the cold coffee was a love at first sight. I keep trying new and new foods but I feel that probably, until I will go to Vietnam and enter the spirit of the place and see the original ingredients, I will still not be a faithful lover. 

The Pho Book, by the Vietnamese food expert Andrea Nguyen brought me closed to this special Asian cuisine. 'Rice is the dutiful wife you can rely on, we say. Pho is the flirty mistress that you slip away to visit'. With such a description is hard not to want to know more, including about how to make your own Pho at home - not as difficult as one may think.

What I appreciated about the book in the first place, is the careful research, including in Vietnam, and the anthropological investigation about this meal. Based on a deep knowledge and years of practice - her mother has a Pho restaurant too - the reader is offered more than a cookbook, but a rich food story book. Useful - particularly for a reader outside the Pho-realm - it is also that there are many details about preparations and possible meal matches. 

Surprinsingly for me, Pho can be eaten any time of the day, in various combinations, including meatless, a variant which 'seemed surreal, if not as absurd as a drone aircraft'. However, instead of meat one can use tofu or seitan variants. Anyway, the 'ultra' traditional Pho has: broth, noodles and cooked beef. 'A bowl of steamy pho and a glass of ice coffee is an unbeatable Viet food pairing'. The author also recommends coffee with coconut milk, which I tried once but was not happy with. 

I recommend this book to anyone interested in Vietnamese food, and for any foodie writing lovers in general.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher via NetGalley.com

What you need to know about London food culture

Out of many city and foodie choices in the whole world, London is one of my favourite places to discover new cultures and tastes. With a high diversity of gourmet restaurants that turned every simple foodie item into a piece of art, this exquisite city developed in the last decade a high culture of good food and pleasure of tastes. Thus, a book fully dedicated to its delicious stories makes a lot of sense and brings a significant amount of inspiration. 

In the author's words: 'London has become a city of passionate eaters and beloved restaurants'. The mission of the book is to discover and reveal these culinary secrets. Although it has a big share of presenting recipes, success stories of different restaurants, this book has the merit of going beyond the pure gourmet curiosity. It introduces the history of British tastes - with an initial bad reputation, by the way - as well as the city itself, with all its fancy or less known corners. 

It happily combines careful and inspiring food writing with beautiful travel recommendations, for any writer with a tasty heart. 

The book is organised up to various meal categories: vegetarian soups, sea food, fowl etc. The recipes are presented in the finest detail, most of them easy to make at home - including the famous food staple of fish&chips or the inspiring tahini cookies introduced by the well educated chef Ottolenghi. 

Overall, it is an inspiring book, recommended to both the travel and foodie writer, as well as to anyone keen to known the gourmet history in the making of a city that is much more than its politics. 

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

Foodie movie review: Julie&Julia

When I am not langurously waiting for the spring and eventually summer, I am fighting to keep my writing mood at a good level. Although I did not keep too much the pace with my blogging schedule, at least I assume that I am voraciously preparing for new professional writing challenges. Especially in the field of food writing when I was pretty lazy lately.

Julie&Julia I wanted to watch for a long time. When I first watched the short add in a movie theatre, I instantly added Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my 'To read' list on Goodreads, but in the following years I forgot both about the book and the movie. Till this Sunday when I finally got into the right mood for the movie (I hope I will not need the same impressive amount of years till will catch up with the book). 

It is an easy, not badly played movie, a contemporary commedy about the final success of an unhappy cubicle worker, Julie, that made her way through the 524 recipes of Julia Child's first book within 365 days. The blogging struggle of Julie - I wonder why it seems she never makes photos for her Salon.com blog - interwins with fragments from the life of Child, from the beginning of her life in Europe as a US diplomat's wife during the Cold War, till her return and the beginning of her cooking career in the States. Child wanted to bring the French cooking to the American kitchen, while Julie wanted to push forward her efforts of becoming a writer, an alternative to her unbearable professional life, besides cooking delicious dishes to forget about working in a cubicle. Although the two of them will never meet, they both succeed because were able to follow with obstination their hobbies. Both fight more or less diplomatically with family or political pressures, various insecurities or the terrible standards of the famous French Cordon Bleu cooking school. 

Especially for those trying to juggle with many professional and personal hats, this movie is an encouragement to go fast forward and keep following your passions. Doesn't matter where you are now, depends how do you see yourself in the near future and how you plan to reach your goals!

Learning to cook: Mary Berry How to Cook

It is never too late to learn how to cook. I am a vivid example that there are always second chances for born-to-fail type of chefs. In the last 5 years, I started from the scratch and succeeded to bake my own bread and challes - without a recipe, lately - and to share cooking tips with experienced ladies. As in many other situations, the determination to succeed are fundamental in the success of the project.

Even though I can consider myself middle management level, there are still a lot of things that I don't know, mostly because I did the learning by myself or from books. 

Mary Berry is a brand name in the history of British cuisine. Educated at Cordon Bleu, she is a top English presenter and food writer but also considered one of the best dressed over 50s women in the relatively fashion sophisticated United Kingdom. 

How to cook is mostly a collection of basic recipes, accompanied by practical tips about the boiling time, the quantity of ingredients needed for a tasty meal as well as some descriptions of the practicalities of some of the tools that can help to cut correctly your veggies or your lemon. 

I learned a couple of cooking tips, that I am keen to share it:

- An egg should be left around 30 minutes out of the fridge before boiling.

- Before you make an omelet or your fried egg, be sure that the fat or oil in the pan is already boiling. It will also help to prevent the egg to get glued on the pan.  

- There are different boiling times for rice: 12-15 minutes for the parboiled long grain, 10-15 minutes for basmati and around 30 minutes for the normal rice.

- Before cooking, add some salt to the eggplant as it will help to eliminate the bitter taste.

- Wash the potatoes with a brush in order to properly clean the rests of earth and other impurities.

- When you want to cut fruits with core, try to first cut them circularly and at the end, separate the halves around the core. This goes as well for the avocado, that gave me a couple of headaches and hilarious moments when I first tempted to halve it. 

With so many new tips, I know that my life in the kitchen will be much easier than never before!