Tuna = Elephants

I was very upset yesterday. Emotionally gutted. It was a tough day at work and the news I read in the morning meant every poke was a bit sharper.

Remember when I said I'd tell you why eating tuna was like eating elephants?

We're fishing and eating the tuna to extinction. Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably already heard that. But then we do hear that, don't we? Cod, shrimp, salmon. Seafood in general, right? We eat/fish/farm too much and it's bad and we should stop but this one piece of salmon fillet won't matter and isn't it delicious?

But the animals we are eating to extinction have never, to my knowledge, been so endangered that CITES has been mentioned and international bodies have stepped in to make fishing a species illegal. That's how bad it is.

So on Thursday 18 March when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Doha, Qatar voted overwhelmingly to reject the ban on trade in tuna (and polar bears, incidentally), I was upset.

As Barry Estabrook writes, soon tuna may no longer be endangered, they may be extinct.

So go enjoy your tuna fish sandwich, while you can. Please make sure it's served with a generous helping of shame and a sprinkling of doom, because we all know that one species affects another and that this is bad news for more than just tuna.

Oh, and you may want to include a side of elephant. Because the convention will also likely lift a ban on the sale of elephant ivory and then you can tell your children that you ate the last of two extinct animals.

Full disclosure: There are two tins of tuna in my cupboard. They are the last tins I will ever buy.

Why I don't write about wine

Early morning wine on holiday in Venice

During my undergrad in Calgary I spotted a fancy new wine shop opening up just as the Winter semester was coming to a close. I liked the idea and didn't want to work full time at the hotel while doing one class over the summer and decided to apply.

This was the beginning, maybe the heyday, of speciality wine shops in Calgary and there were tons of young hip people with tons of wine knowledge and expertise buzzing round the city. I was not one of them. I believe I started my cover letter with "I know nothing about wine but I really want to learn." For whatever reason Sandra brought me in for an interview and gave me a job.

The store was gorgeous. In the cellar of the 100 year old sandstone Alberta Hotel Building (ancient by Western Canada standards), brick, old wood, we even had a ghost in the backroom. Because the store was new and in the downtown core after the business types went home the flow of people trickled down to almost nothing and so in the evenings whoever was in charge would pull us round the tasting bar and open a bottle and we would learn. We had access to a vast library of material and great brains full of knowledge - we learnt about the places and the history and why this glass and that grape. We held tastings which were carefully researched and themed. We ate a lot of cheese.  

We studied Le Nez du Vin daily, making up scent experiences like apple pie and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when we tired of gooseberry and barnyard. (At the time I didn't even know what a gooseberry was.) I got to meet local celebrity chefs who did events with us. Bernard Callebaut fed me truffles.

September came and I went back to school and down to one part time job (the better paying one) at the hotel.

For all the training that summer (and I kept up my education, let me tell you! There's a reason I have student loans!) I have never been able to describe a wine without feeling like a pretentious dick. I have an excellent palate for ingredients - I can usually dissect a dish and figure out what is in it - but not for wine. I am more likely to describe a wine with an emotion or memory than a flavour.

So I generally won't write about wine unless it's the story or context, or the emotion and memory of the bottle. Because at the end of the day unless you a wine professional or really into that type of analytical experience, you don't drink wine to dissect it. You drink it to savour it and melt into the moment. And it's those moments and that meaning that I want to remember.

Late Afternoon wine on holiday in Venice

Lahooh!

We went to the Imperial War Museum's exhibit called Ministry of Food yesterday. It was great! You should go - it's open til January 2011 so you have plenty of time to plan your trip and come to visit us. (We even bought a new bit for the art line!) While we were there I was thinking about what we had in our fridge and how we shouldn't be wasteful and that we had an awful lot of random food in the fridge (market day was particular heavy on the cheese AND I visited the Ginger Pig) and that I didn't have any clear plan for dinner.

And then I remembered the silly number of carrots in the fridge and this recipe for Hot Carrot Salad and settled back to enjoy the rest of the day, comforted to know that dinner was taken care of.

The recipe suggests serving the carrot salad on crumpets. We didn't have any crumpets and while I made some for brunch last weekend I thought if I was going to go to the trouble of making them I could go to the trouble of making lahooh, which is what Yotam says the salad would tradtionally be served with. Yotam has never led me astray so I looked around on the magical internet for some details about lahooh. And I found a new site with a whole new world of cooking - Somalia. I am so excited to poke around and taste some new tastes!

Anyways. Lahooh. SO easy! It's basically a spongey crepe, similar to injera and a perfect foil for the (SPICY) aromatic carrot goodness.

Didn't get it perfect the first time but I will definitely try it again!

Kingsley Amis’s admonition about dieting: “The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.”

Parsnips FTW!

Last night I discovered the World's Best Way to Eat Parsnips. Well, I didn't discover them. Simon Hopkinson did and he wrote the recipe up in the March Olive magazine, though it actually comes from his book The Vegetarian Option which is on my (long) list of books to add to my collection.  

You must make these. These are so awesome. And we didn't manage to eat them all and then we heated them up in the oven this afternoon and they WERE STILL GOOD. And how come no one has ever mentioned romesco sauce? It's my new favourite.

Cheese-crusted fried parsnip strips with romesco sauce 

Romesco Sauce of Awesomeness

40g skinned almonds, gently fried until golden in 2T olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced

1 small dried chilli

60g sundried tomatoes, drained 

60g roasted red peppers from a jar, drained

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

1 tbsp hot water

Toss everything into the blender. Blend until numbly but not entirely smooth.

3 parsnips, peeled and cut into 6 inch strips

Blanched until just tender, drained and left to cool.

Mix

60g white breadcrumbs 

50g parmesan, freshly grated (Original recipe calls for much more but this was sufficient)

1/2t cayenne pepper

pinch of salt

Then coat the parsnips strips in flour, run through a beaten egg and tossed with breadcrumb mix to coat.

Fry the parsnip strips in batches in a deep pan with about two centimeters of oil at 170C for a few minutes each, until they're crisp and golden. 

Drain and eat!

No pics. Too delicious.

How To Make An Octopus

Walking home from the Ginger Pig yesterday we poked our heads into the fishmonger's and I spotted octopus. I had never cooked an octopus before so we had a discussion with the lovely fishmonger and a 1.5lb octopus was purchased.

How To Cook an Octopus

How long is a piece of string? (C's note: This is a common British expression to express the inability to measure something abstract.)

Practical Suggestions from the internet and reference books:

1. Steam it in its own liquid
2. Braise it for hours
3. Pre-freeze it
4. Add a cork to the cooking liquid
5. Beat the octopus against a rock.

Hm. Ok.

I knew I wanted to do an octopus and potato salad, the way I'd eaten it in Italy but I also wasn't getting any super clear direction on how to do it so I took all the advice that made sense to me and made it my way. It worked. It was lovely. And so I will add my method to the internet's glut of how to cook an octopus. Without beating it.

How to Cook an Octopus like Leah did
(inspired by Mark Bittman, Jamie Oliver, Harold McGee, and the Silver Spoon – thanks guys!)



I decided to go with the slow braising method. I made a broth of lemon zest, chili, garlic and parsley stalks (and water, obviously). And lots of salt. Brought that to a boil and plunged the octopus in, then turned it down to a barely there simmer for 1.5 hours.

Just as the octopus hit the water it curled up on itself, so I pulled it out so C could see and take a photo - so cool.



I tested the octopus, to see if it was tender, after an hour and a bit - it was, so I added thick slices of potato for the last fifteen minutes or so to cook until tender.



Turned off the heat and gingerly removed the potatoes, adding them to a bowl with a bit of lemon juice. I let the octopus cool down in the water, as suggested (apparently it helps it relax after the cooking process). Finally I took it out, chopped it up, tossed it with the potatoes. Voila dinner.

Pizza in East London

Pizza seems to be in vogue here in London. It makes sense really: pizza is affordable, delicious and a sensible night out during times of economic hardship. I know that even Toronto's undergoing a pizza renaissance – some friends took me to Pizza Libretto on Ossington last summer and the place was packed to the gills, as if Torontonians had only just tasted proper pizza for the first time (sure Terroni's does a nice pizza, but it's not their focus).

So here's a look at the pizza scene here in East London.


The Stringray Globe Cafe
Sitting at the top of Columbia Road is the Stringray Globe, which is well known amongst East Londoners for its delicious, inexpensive pizzas. It's tough to get served though! Tables are usually in short supply and we've been refused take-out a couple of times just because the kitchen is so busy. Usual selection of wine and beer. Their Bosciola and Capricciosa (hold the egg) pizzas are favourites of ours.



The Lauriston
A bit of a hike for us, the Lauriston is actually a local pub just off Victoria Park that happens to have fantastic pizzas cooked in a proper Italian pizza oven. As its a pub, their selection of beer, ciders and wine is really quite decent as well. Throughout the week you'll find all kinds of Hackney hipsters lounging about, taking part in the Wednesday pub quiz, or even belting out tunes with Hot Breath Karaoke (don't worry, it's only held once a month). On the weekends, it's very family friendly with babies, toddlers and accompanying strollers everywhere. Apparently, they do a great breakfast and brunch as well.



Pizza East
The latest to the scene, Pizza East is definitely the current hip joint (the girl who checked our coats was wearing a sweater that may have formerly been an ostrich). Located over the main floor of the Tea Building in Shoreditch, it also has a nightclub, Concrete, in the basement, hence the dressed-to-impress crowd. Excellent pizza, a unique, fluffy soft crust and a wide range of delicious toppings. Do order the spicy sausage, mozarella, sprouting broccoli and garlic pizza – fantastic! Good selection of beer and wine as well; our Peroni and Moretti beers came ice-cold with chilled glasses. My only critique was the sparkling water (bottled in-house) was quite flat.


All three are quite different but equally delicious. The Globe probably gets most of our business, only because it's right around the corner from us. In addition to these ones, two more pizzerias have recently opened up – an Italian one in Broadway Market and a Sardinian place on Kingsland Road. More to sample soon enough...

Grill Lines

You know what's sexy? Grill lines.

 

And now that we have a grill pan everything is getting grill lines - courgettes, tortillas, steaks, green onions...

Sexy tastes awesome.

Grandma Lumsden's Pancakes

Every once in a blue moon I go through the RECIPE folder on my computer and do a thorough tidy-up/rediscover. I delete duplicates, make annotations, retitle for easy reference and pick through things I had forgotten I wanted to make. And I found a plain text edit file with my Grandma Lumsden's Pancakes recipe.

We make breakfast most Sundays. We used to go out for brunch just about every Sunday (ah Fire on the East Side and Amnesia!) but now it's a more occasional thing (ah Albion and Pavilion!) and we tend to make something at home. Often I get up early, putz about in the kitchen and bring C breakfast in bed and make him go on and on about how wonderful a girlfriend I am.

Anyways we make pancakes often - quick! easy! limited number of ingredients! - and have auditioned a few different recipes - Jamie Oliver's 1 Cup recipe, Joy of Cooking, German Oven Pancakes - all resulting in different, but mostly equally good, pancakes. (Though last week's topped with greek yogurt, cherry compote and maple syrup were especially delightful!)

I think though that I have discovered, in Grandma's recipe, the ultimate thick Americana-style pancake. They were fluffy. They were thick. They held their blueberries. They were filling. They were dead easy. They were a win.

So I think Grandma Lumsden's recipe will now be my go to recipe for pancakes. And after a few times making it, I can call it my own.

Pancakes a la Grandma Lumsden

Mix
1-1/2 cup flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt

Beat egg well
1 egg
Add to milk and oil (I actually used the equivalent of apple butter because that was there)

1-1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoon cooking oil
Add to flour mixture- don't mix much. Cook and eat.

Cheddar

With Broadway Market being a five minute walk from our house, L and I have buying our week's groceries there for over two years now. As such, we've become friends with a number of the vendors, in particular the staff at Norbiton Cheese, whom we visit nearly religiously.

This week, in addition to the usual delights, Bryan also had these beautiful looking cheddars to which L was immediately drawn based solely on their aesthetics (you don't often see purple cheese and L happens to like purple quite a bit).

On Meat

I'm a flexatarian with four kilos of pig in my fridge. (See the photo of one I prepared earlier - that one was even bigger!)

(As much as I hate cutesy terms and non descriptors I can identify with flexatarian. I'm not a vegetarian. I enjoy meat and I want to continue eating it. I'm not a pescatarian, a term which annoys me. So someone who doesn't eat very much meat and who regularly chooses veggie over meaty- yeah, I can work with that. )

Focus - FOUR kilos of pig. A pig shoulder which is currently nestled in the fridge with a rub (rosemary, fennel, garlic, chili, preserved lemon) waiting for the morning when I will pop it into the oven for six or so hours.

How does a flexitarian justify four kilos of pig? Isn't a flexi just a lazy, or uncommitted, vegetarian? Isn't FOUR kilos rather excessive?

Let me climb on my soap box and tell you want I think about meat...

I like bacon. I think there are few homier meals than a roast chicken. Steak makes me salivate. Food is a celebration and for us Anglo Saxons a big chunk of meat is traditionally the centerpiece. Food equals love. So I can't imagine becoming a full vegetarian and giving up these bits of comfort and love and tradition. But learning about meat, all about it, from health issues to ethical to environmental to consumer issues, makes it very difficult for me to eat it the way I used to and the way I cook and the way I eat has shifted substantially in the last few years.

We eat much less meat than we used to. It features as the centerpiece of our meals maybe once a week and gets used as flavour and side bits two or three (two rashers of bacon in pasta, a sausage in soup). The meat that we do eat comes from either the butcher in Broadway Market or the Ginger Pig and is brought up and butchered in a way that I feel good about. I feel good knowing that the meat that I buy satisfies every tickbox I have against the long list of "Meat is Bad".

I recognise that it is expensive. I recognise that I'm really lucky that I have these options. But it is a choice and a commitment that I am happy to make. (And since this is my blog it is my soap box and I can sing the praises of happy meat to my hearts content.)

As for the FOUR kilos of pig in the fridge. It's a lesser known cut, so less expensive, will be succulent and last us for many many meals- or at least one great meal with friends.

Join me on my soap box next time for "Why the tuna in your sandwich is like eating elephant".

Tartiflette

Is it cold where you are? Are you hungry? Do you have a small mountain of French cheese in your fridge?

You DO!?

Excellent. You should make a tartiflette for dinner then. You should probably eat it with little gerkins and balsamic caramelised onions and a crisp apple cider.

A tartiflette appears to be a dish of fried potatoes, pig bits and Reblochon cheese, but since the cheese choice is apparently the result of a trade union attempting to increase market share I think you can (and I did) use whatever delicious melty type cheese you have available. Except that mozzarella that you use for pizzas. Ew. Please don't put rubber cheese on this. Do that much for me.

Tonight's tartiflette was brought to you by Diana Henry's Roast Fig, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul. It also provided the recipe for our Christmas Goose (six kilos of bird with a brandied fig, chestnut and cranberry stuffing). It's a cold weather book that ought to be read under a blanket, preferably beside a fire.

This fed two of us with a bit leftover which we will nibble on for lunch...

1lb or baby potatoes, boiled til just tender then cooled and sliced

4oz of smoked bacon, cut in bigger than normal chunks (about four rashers- I know it was four ounces because I weighed it) (nerd)
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
4 sage leaves, roughly torn

2 big dollops of Crème fraiche (you could probably omit this if you live in a sad place without it - or you could make your own!)
Half a camembert (or 4 ounces of melty cheese of your choice)

Turn the oven to about 190.

Fry the sliced potatoes until golden, season, then set aside in an oven proof pan.

In your potato pan melt a dollop of butter and fry your bacon until nicely coloured. Turn down the heat, add your onion and cook til just colouring. Add the garlic and sage and stir for a moment or two. Fold the bacon mixture gently into the golden potatoes.

Dollop the creme fraiche strategically on top, then lovingly place slices of your cheese over the potatoes. Pop in the oven til the cheese is melty and delicious- this may happen quickly so keep an eye on it!

Take it out and eat!

Hiatus

C & I ate Kraft Dinner for dinner last night. No joke. We had two boxes, we made them and then ate them out of bowls while watching Mad Men. It was one of those nights.

But it made me think that C&C hasn't gotten any love lately. It's not that we haven't been cooking. We have. Killer marsala omelettes. Apple dishes galore. Lots. But we haven't been photographing anything and we've been eating everything before we get a chance to type up its story.

What I'm saying is, things have been busy. And will probably continue to be busy for some time. So we'll be back later. In the meantime if you need us, email.

We'll get back to you shortly.

Lemon Zucchini Pizza

I've been making the same pizza dough recipe for eons. When I still lived at my parents I watched Mario Batali on his show Molto Mario and he made pizza dough and I took it to heart, made it, loved it and made it my own.

But I've recently been given Jamie Oliver's Italy and I decided to go crazy and follow Jamie's pizza dough recipe to a T. Except I halved it.

I followed Smitten Kitten's inspiration for the lemon-zucchini topping (adding some roasted garlic to the goats cheese) and voila- lunch!

The new dough was fabulous, crispy edges, nice bite. I love the addition of semolina to the regular white flour. A winner. Jamie's pizza dough FTW!

12 oz. white flour
3/4 cup semolina flour
1/2 tablespoon fine sea salt

Just over a cup of warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 oz yeast

Combine the first three ingredients in your main bowl. Combine the last three ingredients, stir and let sit and watch the magical bubbles of yeast.

Make a well in the center of your flour and add the yeasty water. Start mixing with a fork. When it gets too difficult, get your hands in and mix and pull and knead the dough to a soft spring warm ball of luscious smelly dough. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes, covered on the counter.

Split the dough in two and roll out each pizza. Let sit for another 15 minutes, add your toppings and bake it in a ferociously hot oven on a fancy pizza stone for about ten minutes.

Adam's BBQ

Adam had a BBQ last weekend. I stressed about what to bring. I mean, we don't get to BBQ that often, so it had to be good. But it also had to be eatable with a bunch of strange people in a backyard, so I couldn't exactly go get steaks or do burnt aubergine.

So I made kebabs. Fancy ones. With rosemary sticks from the balcony. I've always wanted to do that. They look fancy and automatically special and the frangrance of the roasted rosemary was gorgeous.

Rump steak cubed and marinated in lemon zest, garlic, sage and olive oil.

Before

Cooking

We ate them in pita bread with salt and pepper chips and beer. A proper BBQ.

Mushrooms on Toast

I'm in love with Skye Gyngell. If I ever meet her I'm sure I'll be flustered and stuttering like a tween at a Twilight movie event when Robert goes through the crowd and like, totally, almost touches my hand. (For the record I thought Twilight was crap.)

Anyways. Focusing. Skye. A Year in my Kitchen. Everything I've made has been beautiful and a perfect seasonal expression of love and the Way Things Ought To Be.

We ate this back in March. Her recipe is called Morels on Toast. Mine is called Mushrooms on Toast, because I didn't get morels. We're in a recession here people!



Mushrooms, crème fraîche, lemon, mustard and parsley on chewy garlic rubbed bread. Delicious.


I love this book. Seriously. Broad beans with mint, ricotta and crisp Parma ham. Crab salad with nam jim. Pan fried salmon with wild garlic (which spawned a short obsession as we ate wild garlic leaves with everything for awhile). Mackerel fillets with roasted tomatoes and horseradish cream (C's new favourite way to eat his favourite fish). Lobster curry with tamarind, roasted coconut, ginger and coriander (made with still expensive monkfish).Baked aubergines with tomatoes, tarragon and crème fraîche. All love.

Italian Duck with Fennel Risotto

We ate this some time ago. It was rather lovely, subtle fennel permeating throughout. If I could remember exactly how I'd prepared it we might try it again.

Hm. Must remember to write things down with more detail...

Saturday Supper Strawberry Shortcake

C indulges me. In alot of things.

So when I said I wanted to make strawberry shortcake with the strawberries he merely nodded and went about his business, as I expected him to do. BUT. He didn't know what to expect. The Strawberry Shortcake that he knew was the one his sister played with and who is trademarked by Hallmark.

So he was rather pleased when I put this before him for dinner on Saturday night.


Simple, light and airy cakes (thin ones- I don't like them thick) still slightly warm from the oven. Sliced strawberries with a touch of vanilla sugar and a drop or two of balsamic vinegar. And ice cream. Not whipped cream. Ice cream.

Summer on a plate.

And yes, it was dinner. We're the grown ups now. We make our own rules.

You are what you eat

If you opened your fridge to a stranger, what would it say about you?

Mine would say that I'm an alcoholic with penchant for cheese and random things in old Bonne Maman jars.

Photographer Mark Menjivar did an entire series on the premise. Find them here under Portfolio you are what you eat.

Tart Tart Pie

When C & I moved to London 18 months ago, we left a lot of stuff behind. Books, sofas, daleks. But most importantly, kitchen stuff. We gave away, made friends take and sent to storage all manner of kitchen necessities that we had acquired while living in Toronto. Not that we came with nothing. Oh no. C & MM laughed, pointed and ridiculed me for the random things I insisted that we bring. One cooling rack (also serves as a trivet!), one decent knife (can't chop an onion with a Swiss Army knife), Riedel O wine glasses (I heart them- thanks Ebot/Gnomily!), et al. I'm so pleased I dragged it all here. Nothing has gone to waste.

Anyways, we've since started to repopulate our kitchen with even lovelier things, but I've been lacking certain baking implements, namely a pie plate and tart tin. I don't know why it's been so difficult to locate a pie plate. I thought England invented pie? Isn't it a traditional end to a roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy dinner? Shouldn't there be a pie shop on every corner? And tart tins? The ones with removal bases? Why can't I find them everywhere?

Sigh. I finally tracked both pieces of kitchen love down in a lovely kitchen store called Gill Wing in Angel. I should, perhaps specify that I tracked down appropriate versions. There were others but they weren't quite what I wanted. If you're going to bake love you need to have love bakeware. Right?

So! First off I made C's favorite - apple pie. It tasted great. It looked … well, the pie plate looked great. But sadly we ate the whole thing too fast for a photo. And really, do you need a recipe or photo for an average apple pie? I didn't think so.

However! The next week I decided to inaugurate the Tart Tin with the Chez Panisse Almond Tart care of David Leibovitz. I've wanted to make this since David posted it on his blog. But I've never owned a Tart Tin with a removal base. But now I do. And life just got that much better.

Here it is.



Isn't it beautiful? It wasn't perfect, I'm no pastry chef (YET!) but it was delicious and satisfying to make. I will definitely be making it again.

This week I decided to go with a more traditional crust and tart. A Pear and Frangipane Tart. The crust and I were having some difficulties so I tore it up and flung part of it on the table, which then splattered across the room. After a certain amount of swearing, fridge time and patience (and more swearing) the crust came together. Not quite as beautifully as I'd hoped (you mean second time STILL doesn't make me a pastry chef?) but delicious nonetheless.

They are so satisfying to make! So very homey but elegant and accomplished at the same time. Now I need further inspiration. Which are the most delicious, loveliest tarts? Which should I make next? Suggestions? Requests?