London

MAN, I am so slow. I was behind on my vacation posts from a vacation that happened 2 months ago and never got around to writing fully about London and Cornwall, and now I've lapped myself. Trench-coat clad, I had some roast duck, roast pork and more roast pork with some delicious vegetables and more rice than I've had in a month, which can only mean that I am in London.

I am also very jet lagged.

After a long long long and restless flight, I spent the 3 hours after it sleeping across 3 chairs in a transit lounge in Zurich with a hoodie pulled so far over my head that it covered my eyes. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in a haze and groggy. Now I am so alert I'm not sure what to do with myself.

My grandpa wanted to take me to The New Covent Garden in Vauxhall tomorrow morning, a wholesale market that is what the original Covent Garden was. However, it is a little hardcore. It starts at 4am and ends at 10am. Should I still be awake at 4am, I will know where to go. Instead, I'm opting for normal person hours, a kick start to the day at Roast (voted Best Breakfast by The Times....which Times, I'm not sure, but I'm sure we'll have good times), overlooking Borough Market. Then we will feast on ice cream as we feast our eyes on fresh produce and mountains of cheese. (As I'm typing, I'm getting more and more curious about this wholesale market......I think I will go on Monday morning at the crack of dawn.)

But rewind to two months ago!

I was soooooo sick, so soo sick in London, I didn't really eat much of anything except for some yogurt, fresh picked strawberries and coffee. So during the time I was well enough to stand on two feet, I perused the candy aisle at Harvey Nicks (above) and found ADORABLE cakes at M&S.



A HEDGEHOG cake?! I wanted desperately to have a hedgehog themed birthday party with hedgehog themed loot, but it fell through in a major way....if only I had access to this cake!!!!!!!



Then I spent an afternoon contemplating chocolate and cute candy at Fortum & Mason after seeing the Waterhouse Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art.

Wiping out the fridge

In an attempt to finish all the fresh produce in my fridge before I leave tomorrow for a week and a half, I woke up early, frantically shucking corn and carving up leeks so I could toss the scraps in with the rest of my compost so I could haul it to the farmers market and dump it out.



I'd already made my college speciality the night before – zucchini and mint sauce with Parmesan, all ready to be frozen. It sounds odd, a zucchini and mint pasta sauce. But I remember having lunch at an Italian place with a friend that I have never been able to find again and they had a zucchini and mint pasta. I was determined to replicate it and I've made this so many times now that I'm not sure what the original tasted like. But this has a load of zucchini, a bunch of mint (be very generous), cook them together in the pan and blend with olive oil. Then mix in Parmesan and sprinkle some of it on top. I ate it with some sirloin and what I thought were the last of the tomatoes.

Then I made blueberry sauce with the 2 pints of blueberries I impulsively bought 2 days ago. And then I planned something for the fairytale eggplant and the swiss chard.



When you roast fairytale eggplant, it is exactly like a fairytale and more magical than Cinderella's glass slipper. The long dark purple ones were my favourite. Then I made the corn and the leeks and set them aside.

The ingredients seemed to be growing by the minute. I have a quart of milk to finish. I hate milk, so I have plans to turn it into chocolate milk before bedtime. Then I unearthed a potato. Then a bunch of onions. Then I remembered the heirloom tomatoes. How did I squirrel away so much food?! Then to my dismay, I uncovered 2 ENORMOUS artichokes. They are so large that only one of them fits in my little pot at a time. I had a little one two days before.



So tiny and so cute.



But this one was a MONSTER. Once I found it, I immediately consumed it, and was rewarded with a big juicy heart. So now I only have one more to go.

In between loads of laundry, I have to squeeze in loads of eating in a rush to save all my food from spoilage. I bought some flounder to go with the vegetable overload that I'm subjecting myself to. And just when I think that all is calm in my kitchen and my stomach and everything is under control, I remember the container of vichyssoise in the fridge.

Pancakes, again. and again. And a blueberry massacre.

Grumpy invited me over for breakfast last week for pannncakes and a delicious time. I brought some orange juice and stinky cheese (Gres des Vosges) It is incredibly stinky. It is actually supremely stinky. But its bark is worse than its bite..it is light, creamy and tastes a little yeasty, like beer.





Perfect fluffy rising pancakessss...one on each burnerrrrr. They were light and delicate and delicious.

I can't really go a week without having pancakes. It's like I'm on a timer – not the compulsive caffeine frenzy routine every morning to avert a headache and minor mood disasters, but more like a flip of a switch and the swift automated assemblage of dry ingredients and dairy early on Sunday mornings.

I invited Melissa over for brunch and decided when my feet hit the floor that I wanted to make blueberry sauce to go with chocolate chip pancakes.

(Melissa's romper matched my chair)



So I went to the farmer's market opposite the low income housing in the lower 90s on 1st Ave. I was horrified. Whoooooooooooooo in their RIGHT MIND charges $2 a head of garlic when you're trying to sell to sell to people who probably can't afford to pay that much for some garlic. Even I am unwilling to pay $2 for garlic. Are you CRAZY Norwich Meadows Farm? And $5 for half a pint of raspberries is outrageous. Think about who you're selling to. I ignored the farm stands and went across the street and bought 2 pints of the most legit blueberries I could find in the store.

Anyway. Melissa brought the orange juice and we had some lemon curd biscuits, while the blueberry sauce stood by. I poached some eggs. Fished out some roasted beets from the fridge. Made some toast. And some coffee. And tea.



I adapted the pancake mix and blueberry sauce from Ask Aida. She says to use 1 1/2 cups of blueberries and 1 cup of maple syrup. No wonder type 2 diabetes rampant. I used a pint of blueberries and probably about an eighth of a cup of maple syrup (maybe a little more) and simmered it until it was thick and luscious. She also calls for half a cup of melted butter into the pancake mix, which I also think is questionable. I put in probably about 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter and used some whole wheat flour.



They were a little more cakey and thicker than Grumpy's, but still as delicious. Every pancake is different and special. I loooove pancakes. It totally made up for my failed spätzle experiment which yielded delicious spätzle, but I ended up with dough all over the stove, all over the sink, all over different pots and all over myself. It was a right mess. So were these chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes, but at least it was a result of eating and not in the making process.



The blueberry massacre. Delicious sauce.

Vichysoisse with some je ne sais qua

It is too hot to be thinking about dutch ovens but if I had one, yesterday would probably have been the most useful day to have one. However, that did not deter me from making some vichysoisse in a free (small) pot that a neighbor left out on the landing a couple of years ago that has served me extremely well. I now have three days worth of cold soup in my fridge. Delightful.

I'm not sure which recipe I used. I think it was something like 2 cups of potatoes, 2 cups of leeks, some onions, 2 1/2 cups of chicken stock and 2/3 cups cream and a bunch of ice, adapted from maybe 4 or 5 different recipes off tastespotting.

P.S. This heirloom tomato is beautiful. I have tomatoes spilling out of my fridge, but I had to add this one to my bounty

Kitchen Envy

I went to Broadway Panhandler the other day to oggle at kitchen appliances. The thing about going to a kitchen supply store is that inevitably, I want everything there and consequently come away with nothing because I am too overwhelmed. That, and carrying home a 30 pound apparatus in an unwiedly box would deter many from an impulse purchase. Instead I tote bag in small increments little useful things: spatulas, multipurpose clips, a meat thermometer (in the same color as my apartment walls), but none of the big stuff. No food processors, seltzer water makers, pasta rollers, pasta pots, 12 inch skillets that double as weapons or multiple saucepans. Besides, my kitchen wouldn't accommodate such wares since it is about the size of half a shoebox. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my kitchen but that doesn't stop me from lusting after other kitchens.

In aura blue...




In chirpy yellow to match all my robins egg blue accessories and appliances




LOTS OF SPACE




General coziness



I think when I next move and if my kitchen opens out into the living room, I'm going to buy a huge prep table from ikea and use it as a fake island and plant it in the middle. I think it would be spectacular.

Speaking of kitchens, I gathered up all the similarly colored things in mine collected over time and uncovered this ridiculous spectacle:

Blueberry Cake

How fortuitous that I saw this on tastespotting.com and discovered some blueberries at the back of my fridge, waiting patiently to be TURNED INTO CAKE. Also, miraculously, I had all the ingredients except for the cloves, but I don't think I missed them in the cake. It made up for yesterday's failed falafel and late late LATE dinner appearance (11pm). Also I think the glaze went overboard with the sugar (3 cups JUST in the glaze? Get real. That's three times the amount of sugar that's in the cake), so I made my own glaze: 3/4 of confectioners sugar and 1/3 cup of lemon juice.

(Incidentally, Stephen Colbert had Marion Nestle on last night to talk about the sugar shortage.)

I have a silicone angel food cake...mold....that is extremely easy to unmold (I guess I can't really call it a pan?). The cake popped right out with no incident and now I have too much blueberry cake to know what to do with. If you're in NYC in the next 48 hours, you're welcome to over for some cake and coffee!

Making things

Originally uploaded by Molly | Orangette

I'm currently reading a book by Molly Wizenberg, called A Homemade Life. It's part biographical, part cookbook, as her narration revolves around the kitchen and it really brings the story of each recipe to LIFE. She talks about how her father made perfect french toast and delicious potato salad and generously shares the recipes. She also recently opened a restaurant in Seattle which I am very curious about...it's not often I have restaurant envy, since I am fortunate enough to live in New York and anything and everything I could want to eat (save for real Chinese food, which I am convinced does not exist in America) is within 45 minutes of stepping out of my apartment. And she takes lovely photos.

It's a little strange because I was always a little food averse growing up. It was a bit of a bother because you were always eating constantly and it became a bit of a drag. I also suppose it's because I had no part to play in feeding myself or making sure I put food on the table when it was dinner time. All I really had to do was show up. And there is no magic in food if you are not a willing and active participant in its making or in its flavors or in what it tries to impart to you in an experience. My biggest triumph was making a pot of instant noodles with an egg stirred into it in secret at midnight for a snack when I was about 12. And it was magical because I made it.

Stuff that happened in the kitchen was a bit of a mystery to me. Even today, I am hesitant to make this earl gray angel food cake because I remember when my grandmother made those cakes they seemed SO tedious and her mixer was deafeningly loud and the wire whisks were pretty frightening to me. And then we had to wait around for it to bake, then it needed to hang out upside down for a while before we ate it. This is preposterous because I know the elaborate ice cream custards I've made have taken forever to manifest themselves as frozen treats. There was one time when my dad asked me if I'd like to help him make some chicken and I asked if he was going to make it from scratch. He said of course. I was thoroughly disappointed when I saw him pull a chicken out of the fridge and said "I thought you said you were going to make it from scratch." In my mind, making chicken some scratch meant either raising it from an egg, or gathering together stuff like salt, seasoning and other sand-like substances to make a chicken, I suppose, out of thin air.

I think making things takes a lot of the fear out out of doing things. Vipin asked if we could make falafel again this week...and by 'we' he means me. Partly because I don't want to deep fry, don't wish to deep fry, but more importantly don't really know exactly what goes into falafel, anddd until recently haven't broken out my blender in a while, I've been skirting around falafel for a while. Besides, anyone and everyone can have perfected falafel for $3.50 at Rainbow Falafel at Union Square. I thought of it as an unnecessary cooking endeavour. But then why make bread or ice cream or potato chips (or beet chips) or pizza or grind your own beef patties or make your own meatballs? So tomorrow, I hope I'll make some falafel.

In other new eatings, I bought artichokes and made them at the last minute. I have only heard about the hassle of eating artichoke, but I wanted to see for myself. It's actually not that tedious and I'd rather eat barrels of artichokes than have sticky peach and mango juice dripping down my arms. I steamed them according to this, and later squeezed the mushy garlic clove into the olive oil and balsamic mixture held in an egg cup. And yes, the egg cups have feet on them.

Melt My Heart with Cast Iron (and other food)

All of sudden, I want a dutch oven. I had no desire to make stews or casseroles, but now I want nothing more than to brown some beef and make some bourguignon. This Le Creuset dutch oven is so adorable, and it melts my heart. A while ago I watched Julie & Julia and while I hated Julie Powell's character with a burning passion, Meryl Streep made a wonderful Julia Child. I nearly started crying when Paul Child bought her an ENORMOUS pounder for a Valentines Day surprise.

But no matter. I have a blender that was a present from an ex boyfriend...might as well make the next best thing to stew: soup.

I was at Le Pain Quotidien buying a medium latte with maximum shots of espresso at 8am as I flipped casually through the Food and Wine magazine and saw a recipe for zucchini soup which looked so green and refreshing for a hot hot HOTTTTTTTT day ahead. I'd already bought all the ingredients, including some purslane on a whim, which is a strange coincidence because I've never bought purslane before and I suppose it is an unusual thing to buy on a whim. After yesterday's epic day of cooking and wilting on my part, I thought I'd take it easy and eat leftovers today. But...NO REST FOR THE WEARY. POTS OF SOUP! INTO THE BLENDER. INTO THE FRIDGE. I've reached new limits of bursting at the seams fridge, I almost need to ram into the fridge to make sure it stays closed.

Hopefully this pays off. It's been so hot lately and I'd like nothing better than to drink cold soup all day, ESPECIALLY since I was too lazy to make some and ended up with food poisoning from some tasty but lethal gazpacho. Nevvvver again. Time to make my own soup.

Here is what it is!



I realised it wasn't quite chilled enough yet (it is a HOT day and my fridge is a little overcrowded), so I've popped it back into the fridge for a while. I'm sure it is delicious.

Then, I felt an impulse to poach some eggs even though I have never done it and have only heard stories about how it went wrong. So as I was watching tv, I casually watched a 2 minute video on the side on how to do it, went to the kitchen and repeated what I saw. Since it was a rousing success, I decided to make an impromptu brunch: poached egg on smoked salmon toast and salad with apples, beets, goat cheese and balsamic with a sprinkling of lemon thyme.



FINALLY. The result of countless weekends of brunch now manifests itself in my tiny New York City kitchen. I am overcome with joy.

Handy Dandy

I've been making a lot of ice cream lately because I don't feel like shelling out the money for something that's packed full of sugar and 'natural flavors'. It's either that or paying an arm and a leg for regular exotically flavored ice cream when you can just as easily make your own. Besides, it's empowering when you know you've MADE THIS FOOD WITH YOUR BARE HANDS. RAWR. It's modern day hunting and gathering.



Mint chocolate chip ice cream




Vanilla ice cream



Earl Grey Ice Cream

Basil Ice Cream (custard making as I type) & lavender honey ice cream (eaten)

I like David Lebovitz's recipes the best (do not balk at the number of egg yolks and cream, I usually use 5 yolks instead of 6, 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1 1/2 cups of cream instead of 1 cup of milk and 2 cups of cream...I like the consistency of it a little better this way). There are many many many ways of making ice cream and everything calls for something to be done a little differently, so I'm always confused as to what to do.

When I found this handy dandy most useful ice cream recipe maker, I was overjoyed.



What you do is drag all the ingredients you want into the window and when you're done, it'll spit out a recipe. Perfect! No more scouring the interweb for Lebovitz recipes! Fantastic.

So now, the basil custard is in the making, the milk simmering with the entire basil plant that I decimated. I saved one stalk and made some heirloom tomato, basil and mozzarella goodness (with some olive oil and some 8 year old aged balsamic vinegar) and it really screams to be sitting pretty on this plate from Fish's Eddy. Hmm....I sense a considered impulse purchase. Together with the grid paper tray that I want to serve cheese on so that I can cut my cheese into precise squares and rectangles.




My little appetizer is sitting pretty with some lovely yellow flowers Luke from the farmer's market gave me in exchange for some fresh baked muffins on Saturday. I love barter. These flowers are scattered in various vases, containers, old vinegar & wine bottles around the apartment.



Left: Bottle of 2006 Monpertuis, Counoise (an all-Counoise grape wine). It's $12 and won't bust your budget and goes great with red meat. Very delicious, light and crisp. It's the only red wine that hasn't knocked me out. I had 3 glasses at once with a big steak and was very happy.
Right: Bottle of White Balsamic Vinegar from O&CO. It is DELICIOUS with some Basil Olive Oil on salad.

Things on my chopping board and fun with mushrooms

I saw this enormous guy at Keith's Farm at the green market a couple of weeks ago and promptly beamed the image to Pamplemousse. I love peace loving vegetables. It also looks like a large slug. (It would be like bringing home a pet.)

I tote home all this produce on the weekend in overflowing bags. Almost all of them end up on my cutting board at some point which hmm...sounds a little ominous. I love fresh produce especially when they aren't perfect – it gives them CHARACTER. Let's see your BATTLESCARS, little tomato! It's like it fought to end up on your plate. I pull stuff out from my grocery bags, and every so often Vipin will ask what character I've brought home this time.



Baby heirloom tomatoes from Eckerton Hill Farm & a little kirby from S&SO. They were so happy to be in my salad. CHOMP.



These guys were from my family friend's garden up in Ipswich. They're little pattypans which I think look like pacman ghosts. These are tiny tiny, but I also have the mothership in the fridge the size of a baseball glove. I love how the little ridges on these two point down on the left one and up on the right, like fraternal twins. If you are gentle and stir fry them lightly with some garlic they are pretty amazing. Think airy zucchini.



SPINY cucumbers. These taste surprisingly sour....I'm not sure if I liked them.



This was the most delicious heirloom tomato I have ever tasted. It was also one of the prettiest and most astounding when cut open.


the TROUT



Trout are such funny fish. They look so grumpy like they're saying mrmph I'm a trout. I went to the Lobster Place at Chelsea market which was a HUGE fish market where I bought some escargot and lots of fish. It's probably the closest to a wet market I've been to in New York and I felt really empowered when I left with my bounty because I used to go with my grandmother as a kid and whine and complain about how smelly it was and how grubby it was and walked gingerly through the market like an ordeal. Now it was just me and my stomach.

I was so excited to buy the fish that I didn't check to see if they were gutted. Great. So I watched countless videos online of how to gut fish, was all prepared and almost fearless, wielding a knife. So when I unwrapped them, I was delighted and very relived to realise they had their insides taken clean out. SCORE!



So I'm probably not as fearless as Julia Child, but I'll get there.

Anyway, I broiled these with a special Fridge Raid concoction sandwiched in their bellies. I mixed up a good handful of basil, parsley, some garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, pepper and olive oil foraged for in the depths of my fridge and slathered into the fish and popped it into the oven.

The Trout! They Beep! And are EXTREMELY delectable, one of my favourites.




This is from the night before when I produced two bunches of mushrooms, oyster and brown as they undulated in the air conditioning when I took them out. These were half cooked in a little butter and garlic and then spread out over a small baking dish with two big cuts of turbot on top. Douse with soy sauce and a little water. Cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes. Voila, ticket to heaven!