Le Fabuleux Destin

The Music’s Gonna Get You Through: Now Featured on PBS

2010-10-07T10:03:00.001-07:00

Yes I've been gone for a while, but I've been busy. I miss having delicious foods to write about.
I miss my crafting experiments.

But... I have been doing a few fun things. For one thing, I've been singing again, which has been amazing.

For another, I've been working a ton. And while that might not sound like fun, when it leads to something like this:

Our documentary The Music's Gonna Get You Through is airing nationally on public television. It's super exciting!! I started working on this film in 2003, it's so cool to see how far it's come.

I hope you get a chance to watch the film if it's playing near you!
(If not, email me for info on how to get it)

A Very Strange Fruit Indeed

2008-09-26T07:43:00.001-07:00

One of the most fascinating things I've run into EVER was something Anna's mother had made. She keeps jars of fruit in a sugar syrup, a variety of them... The first day, we had a sugared apricot. That took me back to my childhood: I used to love the super sweet apricots and their syrup.

The second day, Anna said it was some type of citrus. When I bit into it, I discovered it was bergamot rind. That was fascinating! I've never eaten bergamot before but know the flavour from Earl Grey tea and other flavoured things.

The last one was more perplexing. Anna asked me to guess what it was.

From a distance, the syrup in the jar was very dark reddish. I initially guessed prune.

But that wasn't it. Then Anna dared me to guess. Game on, I said. I didn't say anything for a while, as I examined the shape.

Finally, "It looks like a walnut." Anna threw her hands up in disgust (I'd gotten it right)
So I bit into it.

Now that's just crazy: it's the entire walnut, from the outer skin, through the shell, all way way in. And it's all soft, like a fruit. The flavour was only very faintly nutty, very sweet and intensely spiced (there were cloves stuck into it.) My understanding is that the walnuts are preserved and candied when they are still green.

Delicious, and quite unexpected.

Breakfast in Lefkosia

2008-09-24T23:24:00.000-07:00

I've been in Lefkosia (Cyprus) one full day now, and after my second breakfast, I've had a revelation: I love the breakfast here! Actually, all of my meals have been lovely so far, but the breakfast was the one that strayed furthest from my norm.

We sit at the table where a wide variety of bowls and plates hold an assortment of foods: a big bowl of fresh fruit, some sliced toasted bread, some butter, some jam... So far pretty standard. Somewhere near the bowl of fruit lurks a plate of whole tomatoes - I suppose that's not that odd... it is a fruit after all. A bowl of black olives, a bowl of green olives drizzled with lemon juice, olive olive and dried coriander - delicious! And then several cheeses.

It's not that strange, it's just not at all the way I usually eat breakfast. At home in the US, I'm more of a hot cereal or eggs girl, at home in Tunisia, I'm strictly coffee, baguette and perhaps a croissant (very rarely a ftira). Here, I take a whole tomato, slice it up, spoon some of the olives onto my plate, and then, best discovery of all, attack my cheese of choice: the dry aged halloumi.

In the US, I've only ever had fresh halloumi, sliced, grilled, fried... any number of ways. Dry halloumi is soooo much better. It's got that crumbly salty goodness of an aged parmesan. The saltiness of the cheese is wonderful with the fresh juicy tomato. Add to the bite a green olive and it's heaven. (I am not generally prejudiced in my black vs. green olive choices, but the additions to the green ones make them utter perfection.)

Sadly no photos yet, but I'll work on that, I promise.

The Omnivore's 100

2008-08-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

I recently heard of the Omnivore's 100 through Chocolate and Zucchini and was intrigued. The idea is that these are 100 foods that Very Good Taste (a British food blog)'s author, Andrew Wheeler, thinks every good omnivore should try at least once. So I've gone through and bolded everything I have tried and crossed out what I don't think I'll ever try.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses * Unsure, though I think I have
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. ~~Cognac with a fat cigar~~ * like the cognac, can't do the cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear (for some reason, not a fan)
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (but not at all recently...blech)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (my favourite beers are!)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads YUM!
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis - haven't had this yet but hear it's very similar to a Tunisian dish called Osbane...
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. ~~Roadkill~~ (Sorry - not interested.)
76. Baijiu but not since I was a teenager, oddly enough.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.* Unsure... I've had some fantastic tasting menus at amazing places but don't really keep track of Michelin stars.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse but don't really want to have any ever again.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa - no clue what the rose part means... Being a good Tunisian, I've had tons of harissa in my lifetime though.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So that's 13 Nos (of which 2 are nevers), and 2 unsures... That's not too bad.

New Camera and Little Weeknight Dinner!

2008-02-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

It's so much fun to play with a new toy and cook a yummy dinner all at the same time! I'm finally getting the hang (a bit) of the white balance though not as much of the focus with this lens I'm using... Still working on it.

But, without further ado, here's tonight's dinner:
I made a chicken tagine, with preserved lemons and green olives from the lovely Arabesque cookbook by Claudia Roden. It was a great excuse to finally use the gorgeous Le Creuset tagine that we got as a wedding present months ago.

The next two recipes, the side dishes, both came from my CSA's newsletter - submitted by different members of the CSA.

This is a delicious dish using Tokyo turnips (which seem to be smaller, more delicate turnips, about the size of radishes) called Easy Turnips with Cilantro and Lemon. The dish is very easy: quarter the turnips then brown them in some butter. After a bit, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of broth and let them simmer until tender.

Before serving, squeeze 1/2 a lemon and sprinkle two tablespoons of cilantro and salt & pepper.
Most delicious turnips I've had!

The Wilted Arugula Salad with Sauteed Green Garlic and Apples - utterly shocking! I've had apples in my salad before but not really sautéed apples and certainly not apples sautéed in Balsamic. I chopped one green garlic stalk and then sautéed it in some olive oil, then added a thinly sliced apple and sautéed it another minute. I poured in a healthy dollop of balsamic vinegar, lowered the heat and let the apple absorb the vinegar and cook a bit.

In a bowl, I assembled the cleaned arugula, then poured the apple mixture on top. I finished off the salad with walnuts and crumbled goat cheese. It was wonderful - the apple's sweet & tartness contrasted the bitter greens and creamy cheese.

The dinner was delicious and a great way to break in the new camera.

Little Projects

2008-01-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

Before I can move on to bigger and more fun projects, I'm starting small with little sewing modification deals. Every year, I've been attending* the Portland Marathon in Oregon.

Now Portland is a fantastic city to run in - very well supported, nicely organized, fun music along the way... However, the one place where they consistently fail is in the finisher's jerseys. Inevitably, they're boxy, shapeless men's cut shirts. So I've decided to modify one of mine to have it fit a bit better. I took a picture of one of my unfinished ones, to show you how bad it was.

Note the mock turtleneck, the baggy sleeves and the lack of waistline:
And now, here's my new and improved version (sorry, it's a different colour):

Exciting, no? OK, not really, but have no fear... I have much more exciting sewing projects to show off. Coming very soon!

*I say "attending" because while I've run the race several times now, I've also been injured a couple of times, and only run half or so to support my friend Laura.

Happy New Year!!!

2008-01-04T15:17:00.001-08:00

Sorry I haven't been around in forever, but hey, I've got some good news!!! I'm just about to buy this camera and promise to practice using it frequently and share the awesome results with you...

This should include some information about all of my newest projects, including sewing, fitness, chocolate & coffee and of course, cooking. I'll be in touch soon!

Vosges Haute Chocolat - Barcelona Bar

2007-05-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Oh Vosges - how I love your exotic chocolate bars...
The Barcelona Bar is a favourite of mine - I have gotten it many times before.

It lures me in with the grey sea salt and hickory smoked almonds and makes me forget that it is not actually dark chocolate but deep milk chocolate.

When I notice this little detail, I sometime hesitate and debate getting another bar, a higher percentage, but then inevitably I give in and buy this one. And every time, I am reminded of how much I love this bar. Vosges' deep milk is so deep that it can almost make you forget that it is milk at all, but then, the incredibly melty smooth creamy chocolate dissolves in your mouth, leaving you with tiny nuggets of almond, minute crunchy crystals of salt and little doubt that this is indeed a milk chocolate.

I love this bar and it may be my favourite of the Vosges Exotic Candy bar collection, but then again, I have yet to try them all.

Cacao power: 4.5 beans Meltiness: 5 beans Flavour Complexity: 5 beans

Mas (farmhouse)

2007-03-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

We went to Mas this weekend, when I was in NYC for some work, at the suggestion of some lovely person on Clotilde's Readers' Guide to NYC, cross-referenced with Yelp. In the blog, Yuj, who'd recommended the place didn't say much about it:

West Village.
French-inspired American-interpreted cuisine until 4 am. (Yuj)

The yelp reviews were a bit more effusive, and most importantly, the use of seasonally grown, mostly local and organic were the tipping points.

The evening was lovely! We sat in a small round corner table. After we'd selected our meals (I chose their prix fixe, which conveniently lets you replace any item with any other item from the à la carte section), they brought us our cocktails and an amuse-bouche - a goat cheese frittata, I believe. It was heavenly and the drink was amazing! I had a ginger daiquiri (really more of a ginger martini).

Every dish of the meal was delicious, the wine recommended to us by our server was spectacular, the service was completely seamless.

These are the things that stood out, in my mind:

A chicken roulade, stuffed with mushrooms, on a bed of puréed eggplant with wee little Brussels sprouts. The caramelized flavour was addicting.

Delicate little goat cheese ravioli were like clouds in a sea of green pea purée. They were fantastic!

And finally, lovely little truffles served to us after our meals were finished. *sigh*

Schoc Chocolates - Sweet Basil in Rich Dark Chocate

2007-02-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

Well, with a name like that, how could I not be intrigued? This was the second of my set of three Schoc chocolate bars from Raymundo and Kiwi and it definitely lived up to my expectations.

The word that caught my eye on the cover (which was identical to the last one, but different days see different things, I guess): trinitario. Now, my first search result on this word really confused me, but I guess I shouldn't expect the urban dictionary help me with my chocolate decoding. A better result found it to be a type of cacao, developed in Trinidad.

This chocolate was excellent! The dark chocolate Schoc uses is 53% cacao mass, and melts so smoothly! The sweet basil is an excellent flavour combination with the chocolate, and hints every so subtly at the liquorice that basil sometimes has. It was the perfect after dinner chocolate, sweet without being too sweet, complex, smooth and overall just plain delicious.

Schoc describes this bar as such:

Sweet Basil...for all of the reasons that you do fresh basil

Cacao power: 4.5 Meltiness: 4.5 beans Flavour Complexity: 5 beans

Oh how I wish that I could try their Olive bar... *sigh*

Ode to a Parsnip

2007-01-24T15:48:00.000-08:00

How is it that I have only discovered this root so recently? I've seen them around, and usually imagined that they tasted a bit like turnips. Recently, a friend suggested that I use them in my veggie pot pie that I made, and among all the other veggies I used in this dish, the parsnip stood out far above the rest.

So I bought some more. What would I do with them this time? I hopped onto epicurious and found a rosemary parsnip risotto recipe. Seemed simple enough, and I've made carrot risotto in the past, so I figured this wouldn't be too far off.

Oh, but I was wrong!! The parsnip and rosemary flavours complemented each other so well! The parsnip tastes like what the carrot only hints at, and when slowly cooked for a while, becomes even sweeter than its shorter, more colourful cousin.

The most fascinating part of the recipe was the drizzle of Balsamic vinegar right before serving. Don't skip this step! It perfectly complements the sweet and strong herbal
risotto.

PARSNIP AND ROSEMARY RISOTTO
Adapted from epicurious.com

I used Pacific Foods organic vegetable broth, which is orange in colour and gave the risotto a pretty orange hue. Otherwise, I'd imagine the risotto might turn a bit grey. This dish makes fabulous leftovers!

Ingredients:

8 cups vegetable broth

5 tablespoons butter, divided
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 1/2 pounds parsnips (about 7 medium), peeled, trimmed, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
5 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary, divided
1 1/2 cups (10 ounces) arborio rice
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Aged balsamic vinegar (for drizzling)

Instructions:
Bring broth to boil in medium saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to low; cover and keep warm.

Melt 4 tablespoons butter in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Stir in parsnips and 3 teaspoons chopped rosemary. Cook until parsnips begin to brown, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Add rice and stir 2 minutes. Add enough warm broth to cover; simmer until almost all broth is absorbed, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes. Add more broth, 1 cup at a time, and cook until rice and parsnips are tender, allowing each broth addition to be absorbed before adding next and stirring frequently, about 20 minutes total. Remove from heat; stir in remaining 1 tablespoon butter, remaining 2 teaspoons rosemary, and cheese. Season risotto to taste with salt and pepper.

Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and serve.

Makes 6 servings.

Schoc Chocolates - Lemon White

2007-01-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

One of the best rewards from owning an I.B.O.C.* is that friends visiting from far away remember this and often bring treats to restock it. My latest discovery came from Raymundo and Kiwi Kate, who were back visiting from New Zealand and brought us not one but three fabulous chocolate bars from a brand I'd never heard of: Schoc Chocolates - Real chocolate for real people.

The three bars were all intriguing flavours, two of them in a dark chocolate base, one in white chocolate. I'll describe the other two once I've gotten around to tasting them but today's review is Lemon White. This normally wouldn't have been the first one I would taste, because while white chocolate was a favourite of mine when I was much much younger, these days I lean more towards the darkest. But Big E chose this one to taste first and I was very pleasantly surprised.

But first things first: the tablets come in pouches covered in a variety of chocolate-related words, such as Mayan, Xocolatl, sensuous and... physio-physiology. Huh?
I'd seen the pouches before on Dolfin Chocolat tablets, and am quite fond of that particular style of packaging. Why? I'm not sure. There's something satisfying about the smoothness of the exteriour and how well it reseals once a piece or two are taken.

The flavour was excellent! Unlike other lemon chocolates I'd had before (which tend to use lemon rind and lemon oil for flavouring) this one uses bits of dried lemon. This makes for a surprising and very pleasing tartness that is the perfect contrast to the sweet rich creaminess of the white chocolate.

Schoc describes this flavour thusly:

Lemon...our own dried lemon in creamy white chocolate

The Cacao Power category is a tough one for white chocolate, so I'm going to make it not apply. That is not to say that this tablet wasn't packed with delicious cocoa butter... it's just different. However, dreamy creamy meltiness is much more easily achieved with the white chocolate. Lastly, the surprise factor of the real lemon makes the flavour do well in the complexity category, though I'd imagine that their lemon and cracked black pepper in dark chocolate is even more complex.

I look forward to trying the next two tablets, as well as hopefully many more visits from Ray and Kate...

Cacao power: n/a Meltiness: 5 beans Flavour Complexity: 4 beans

*International Basket (or Bowl or Box) of Chocolate

Good Coffee

2006-12-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about coffee this evening, craving a post-dinner espresso. Coffee that can make me close my eyes in pleasure when I sip the first warm taste. Not all coffee can do that... It is remarkably rare in fact. But I have been able to find places that make it just right.

It is not an addiction, my love of coffee. I can easily skip days or even weeks without any. In fact, if I'm in a spot where I haven't found any good coffee, I'd easily get a hot chocolate or another drink instead of drinking the bad stuff.

In my opinion, one of the most common problems with coffee in the U.S. is that the beans are burnt. "Dark roast" they call it, but charred to death is what it really means.

In San Francisco, there are a few places that can truly satisfy my longing: Blue Bottle is one of them, coincidentally named after something else that I'm quite fond of. Gabby took me there when I first began editing her film, after we'd discovered a common love of good food and, among other things, coffee. But now, you can find their coffee everywhere. My current favourite place to have a Blue Bottle Cappuccino is in Berkeley, at the lovely Guerilla Café, where they serve the most perfectly poached eggs and they have a waffle curator. Now that should give you an idea of how seriously they take their waffles.

Ritual Café (also in San Francisco) serves Stumptown coffee, another coffee that I love, which is shipped down from Portland, Oregon, where I drank their coffee for the first time.

And then, there was Café Organica which has mysteriously closed and left an empty place in my heart. No idea what happened, just one day, one sad saturday morning, I put a big fleece over my lounge-about-the-house-wear, and shuffled, half asleep, on over only to find the doors closed and huge metal chains keeping the door shut. And that was that. To this day the corner is the same: the remnants of the café are now strewn about the interior and it looks completely abandoned. And this came so shortly after they were written up as the number one best coffee in the city. Whatever happened to them?

*sigh* So only two places in the city right now whose coffee I love. Perhaps I simply need to explore more.

Tahoe Tday Foods

2006-12-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that I slaved over a homemade caramelized shallot and port cranberry sauce (ok, slaved may be a bit of an overstatement), I've been repeatedly informed over the years that Thanksgiving would not be Thanksgiving without the perfectly shaped canned cranberry jelly.

Naturally, we only have documentation of the canned stuff. Really, I did make the real thing! And it's all I ate, too!!

Pecan Popovers with Parsley & Thyme - These were more popunders than over. I had forgotten to bring muffin trays with me to Tahoe, so our bright, resourceful sous-chefs put together a plan that involved oven-safe mugs. It worked well enough that we ended up with tasty bread like rolls, but not quite well enough for them to work as popovers.

First thing I did when I arrived in Tahoe on wednesday night was start brining the turkey. I normally do a brine that involves some sort of sweetener (honey, maple syrup, molasses) but this was the first year that the brine was just salt water, black pepper and herbs. I then rubbed herb butter under its skin before roasting. The bird was quite tasty, very juicy and flavourful.

This recipe was originally supposed to be glazed carrot ribbons, but the baby carrots were so cute and fresh looking, I had to do that instead.

The carrots were boiled briefly then glazed with melted butter, orange juice and seasoned with salt and pepper. Some chopped parsley for garnish and they were ready to go.

In the Kitchen

2006-12-13T11:08:00.003-08:00

standing in the kitchen
Originally uploaded by snarshad.

I had the best slew of sous-chefs a girl can ask for. And a fabulous kitchen!!

Molly, Robert, the only vaguely sous-cheffy Schleef and me.

Molly the happy sous chef
Originally uploaded by snarshad.

Molly, with the glowing halo of the perfect sous-chef.

Me wearing Robert's Slow Food apron (mine's blue and I forgot to bring it)

Sara cooking
Originally uploaded by snarshad.

Sonia, looking more glam than sous-chef, was a sous-cheffing rockstar nonetheless.

Sonia
Originally uploaded by snarshad.

Endive and Beet Salad

2006-12-13T11:00:00.001-08:00

Endive salad
Originally uploaded by snarshad.

Based on an epicurious recipe, this salad was quite simple:
I used golden and red beets, boiled then sliced. The topping was crumbled roquefort cheese, chopped parsley and a dijon lemon dressing.

Delicious!

Fig in a pig

2006-12-13T10:49:00.001-08:00

Fig in a pig
Originally uploaded by snarshad.

Formerly known as Dates à la Paco, this dish does not actually contain any figs at all. A pitted date stuffed with a toasted almond and wrapped in bacon, then baked till the bacon is crisp.

Quite tasty, pretty decadent. Why we decided to go with "Figs in a Pig" or even "Figs in a Piglet" (better meter?) is a testament to the lovely champagne cocktails with which we kicked off our evening.

Thanksgiving Feast

2006-12-13T10:31:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays. Having never celebrated it all that much while growing up in Tunisia, I don't have any set traditions that I feel compelled to follow. So when I moved to the Bay Area years ago, I began hosting a strays' Thanksgiving for all my friends who weren't going home.

As long as I provided one can of the cranberry jelly (served in it's original shape), I could get away with making pretty much anything I wanted, and I began to look forward to this event as the perfect arena for me to practice a huge variety of new recipe.

So without further ado, the next series of posts will be the Tahoe Thanksgiving menu, taken from the lovely Flickr photos of Arshad the Magnificent.

Menu:

Hors d'Oeuvres
Fig in a Pig (formerly known as Dates à la Paco)
Endive Beet Salad

Soup
Butternut Squash & Roasted Garlic Bisque

Main Course
Herb-brined Herb-butter Turkey
Sara’s Stuffing
Herb-Butter Gravy

Sides
Mashed Potatoes with Garlic, Mascarpone and Caramelized Leeks
Cipollini onions slow cooked in a balsamic reduction
Casserole aux Haricots Verts - An updated version of the classic, Green Bean Casserole
Pecan Popovers with Parsley &Thyme
Orange Glazed Baby Carrots

Desserts
JJ's Pumpkin Cheesecake
Ms. Molly's Apple Crisp

Chipotle Bar - Byrne & Carlson

2006-11-27T22:19:00.000-08:00

The discovery of this chocolate (a week or so ago, during my first visit to Fog City News) has led me to create this new category for Le Fabuleux Destin: Chocolate reviews. I've always loved chocolate and had already been taking lovely little trips to Bittersweet and Café Cacao with some friends, but this chocolate is the first I've had that made me want to share it with the world! (The news that the chocolate, not the chocolate itself... I want to keep that to myself.)

The Chipotle Bar is described thusly:

Garnished with Sea Salt - 70 percent cacao. A robust bittersweet Venezuelan chocolate spiced with chipotle pepper and sprinkled with Welsh sea salt.

At first bite, I wasn't so sure I'd love it: it was quite hard and seemed dry but it quickly began a perfect, smooth slow melting. The sea salt on the top is delicate, not overwhelming and completely tantalizing. The chipotle is very subtle but definitely intriguing. I've tried my fair share of spicy chocolate, and this is by far the best I've had.

I now have to figure out how to categorize these chocolates. I have difficulty giving overall grades, so I think I'll break it down into characteristics I look for.

Cacao power: Intensity of the cacao. (I tend to like them dark and intense, so in general, higher percentage of cacao would rate higher)
Meltiness: This isn't always a factor of amount of cocoa butter used or cream... and sometimes darker chocolates can be meltier than milk chocolates.
Flavour Complexity: Not necessarily what spices are used... a lovely dark chocolate piece that has no additional spices can often be more complex than a multi-ingredient extravaganza.

So for this bar:
Cacao power: 5 beans Meltiness: 4.5 beans Flavour Complexity: 5 beans

Beard Papa Cream Puffs

2006-07-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Who know I'd fall for a cream puff? Well, perhaps Ivonne is onto something... I mean, not that I ever doubted it, but I don't think I ever fully understood it.

For Big E's birthday this past weekend, instead of a cake, we got a dozen cream puffs from my new friend, Beard Papa. Yum! They're phenomenal - the pastry is light as air, the cream... *sigh* Rich, flavourful, incredibly smooth.

They come in vanilla (with little specks of vanilla bean), chocolate, chocolate covered and the special flavour du jour. This time, the flavour was caramel. Swoon.

Basteeya at Aziza

2006-05-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

As any good Tunisian citizen, I'm stubbornly convinced that ours is the best of North African cuisine. More importantly, like many other Tunisians, I am somewhat inclined to believe that those Morroccans are just plain crazy with their sweet & savory mixtures. I prefer the intensely spiced tomato-based sauces with lots of garlic and onions.

Shattering these prejudices, I've eaten twice now at San Francisco's Aziza. Some of the best Morroccan food I've ever eaten is prepared by the somewhat amusingly named chef Mourad Lahlou (which translates to Mourad the sweet one).

There I discovered the basteeya. It arrives piping hot, a buttery phyllo pie filled with saffron braised chicken, ground spiced almonds and a sprinkling of powdered sugar and cinnamon. (The dish is typically made with pigeon, but as I haven't tried that version, I was quite content with the chicken).

The ground nuts and sweet crispy phyllo make this dish taste a lot like baklawa or other middle eastern sweet desserts. The spiced warm ground chicken is at first surprising but then incredibly satisfying and richly savory. The combination is divine.

I was told that couscous was considered by Morroccans to be the peasant food whereas basteeya showed a more elevated social status. Based on this specimen alone (and compared to Morroccan, but not to Tunisian, couscous), I would have to agree.

Argan Oil

2006-05-15T22:34:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, the description of how this oil is obtained may frighten some of you off, but be strong, be daring - Don't let it! This oil is a miracle of flavour.

Tonight, I made one of my quick dinner standbys: green lentils cooked with a chopped onion, some herbs and red wine topped with a poached egg. That's the basic recipe, but I always include something else to embellish the dish. Tonight, I broiled some asparagus, chopped them into a bowl and topped them with the lentils and egg, a sliced half avocado on each bowl, then drizzled some balsamic vinegar and Argan oil on top.

The Argan moved this quick meal from pretty good to a culinary treat. It added a certain earthiness, or perhaps, umami. Adding the merest drizzle was enough to change the entire dish, as much as adding truffle oil or a shaving of boutargue. The nuttiness of the oil was perfectly complemented by the slightly sweet balsamic. I need to stock up on this stuff.

Around the World in a Meme

2006-05-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ann, from A Chicken in Every Granny Cart, tagged me for this meme quite a while back and since I have to figure out how to answer memes properly in the Exploring blog, I've decided that this blog would be my solution. After all, most of the memes usually end up involving things that I like.

1. Please List Three Recipes You Have Recently Bookmarked From A Food Blog To Try.

Frangelico Honey Panna Cotta - A Blithe Palate
I just stumbled upon this blog this past week and am completely smitten. This recipe in particular is very timely and I've bookmarked it to try as soon as possible.

Lemon Digestif - Cream Puffs in Venice

Gnocchi de Pomme de Terre et poêlée de champignons - La Tartine Gourmande
I think it is quite likely that it is the photo that sold me on this dish, but when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make it. It's been a while since I've made my own gnocchi, so I'll have to set aside a weekend day, but I must try this recipe!

2. A Food Blog In Your Vicinity.

Me Eats
Discovered through the Food Bloggers Google Map, Me Eats seems to be incredibly close to me. Even more amusingly, seems to have also recently returned from a trip to Europe with luggage full of smuggled foodie bits. But I haven't done nearly as elegant a job of documenting my treats - I should take note!

3. A Food Blog Located Far From You.

Sal's Virtual Tapas Bar
Always a fun read, Sal's blog is currently letting me live my dream of moving to Spain vicariously. Or making me want to move there even more. Either way, I enjoy it very much.

4. A Food Blog (Or Several) That You Have Discovered Recently (and where did you find it?)

Life Begins at 30
I stumbled upon this recently when researching "Eating Locally" and enjoy it very much. I think I'll have to look into taking part in the challenge, if it isn't too late!

5 - Any People Or Bloggers You Want To Tag With This Meme?

Anyone I've mentioned in this post can consider themselves tagged!

Panna Cotta

2006-05-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Oh Panna Cotta! Lovely panna cotta, the traditional Piemontese specialty literally translated as cooked milk, was served to us after every meal in Bra. Each restaurant so pleased to introduce us to the local specialty. Each chef so proud of her recipe for this delicacy. Subtly sweetened, smooth and creamy, panna cotta is most often served with fruit or a sweet sauce, such as caramel or a fruit coulis.

This is a dessert that should be eaten oh so slowly, each spoonful savoured as the cream yields to the pressure from my tongue and dissolves in my mouth. In my opinion, the sauce is superfluous - the panna cotta is perfect in its simplest, purest form.

Miracle of miracles, a simple google search so quickly yields the recipe from the restaurant that served me the very best panna cotta I had in all of Bra, The Boccondivino.

DJ Don Pasta - Le Macabre, Bra, Italy

2006-05-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

Opening night of the Bra Slow Food & Short Film Festival, the afterparty at the Macabre, Bra's top night club. Bra's only nightclub.

The jazz band begins to play: an accordian, a drummer, a clarinet and a bass tackling John Coltrane's My Favourite Things. On the screen, a man's hands slice eggplant, beat an egg, hands reach into a bowl of raw ground meat and mix in herbs, bread crumbs, and other seasonings. Suddenly, a man stands up at the mic, scruffy and a bit disheveled. He reads from a sheet of white paper in Italian. He's describing what he's making, but he isn't reading a recipe, it is more like the poetry of cooking. The music plays on - chopping garlic and making a tomato sauce on the stove. The camera pans up to the cook's face and it's our poet - DJ Don Pasta. He's smiling down at the pot. Meanwhile, on the stage, he puts aside the sheet of paper and sits back down, tapping his foot to the music.

On the screen, he fries the breaded eggplant, then he begins to layer the various ingredients in a big ceramic dish: eggplant, tomato sauce, meatballs, prosciutto, grated cheese and so on. Don Pasta stands at the mic again and begins to read again. This time he speaks of the music being played and how it suits what he is making. His voice is hypnotic - I understand most of what he is saying but it is easy to get lost in the crescendo of the music, the frenzy of cooking is also building, the audience around me is rapt, swaying to the music, staring at the screen. Finally, Don Pasta sits down while his onscreen self presents the audience with a finished casserole, fresh from the oven, golden and bubbling, as the band reaches its grand finale. He calls the dish "il castello di leggerissime melanzane" - the castle of the lightest eggplant. The piece is entitled "My Favourite Parmigiana."

Restaurant La Diligence - Montpellier

2006-04-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

This smallish restaurant, tucked in the pedestrian downtown area of Montpellier, not far from La Comédie, was delightful. When we first walked in, I was struck by the coziness & warmth. Despite the high stone vaulted ceilings, the dining room wasn't at all austere or cold. The colours were rich and the lighting cast a softening glow on the walls.

First we sampled the house equivalent of a kir royale, where instead of kir in the champagne, they put a homemade raspberry liqueur. For my appetizer, I had the beef carpaccio, wisp thin, with shavings of parmigian.

The main course was my favourite, not only the dish I'd selected but also its presentation and side vegetables. I had chosen a Mille Feuille d'Agneau (thousand-leaves of lamb). Normally, mille feuilles are tons of layers of puff pastry filled with cream. In this case, it appears that the tender lamb was what replaced the pastry... A thousand layers of lamb - I swooned!

The mille feuille came on a large plate that ended up resembling a painter's palette: The lamb was in the center surrounded by splashes of colour - a tablespoon of carrot purée, a tiny stacked ratatouille (eggplant, tomato, and zucchini), a dab of Gratin Dauphinois (decadently rich potatoes, cream and cheese). Not one of the sides was more than a few tastes, and it was the perfect complement to the meat, just enough variety to keep tantalizing your taste buds without feeling like an overstuffed sofa.

The dessert, a tiramisu served in a parfait glass, was so light it floated onto my tongue and evaporated, leaving behind a mere hint of chocolate and cream.

Ristorante Da Cesari - Bologna

2006-04-21T02:22:00.000-07:00

Via dei Carbonesi, 8, Bologna - Telefono: 051 237710

One of my top three* favourite restaurants in Italy, Da Cesari draws me back every year for a culinary pilgrimage. Once you are seated, the waiter will list the items that were prepared that day. A limited menu, but this is perhaps due to that fact that the chef exclusively uses produce from the "Umberto Cesari" farm.

My most recent meal:

A spring antipasti medley:
A delicate artichoke flan with a rich creamy sauce
Roasted sliced artichokes with shavings of sharp pecorino romano
Steamed asparagus topped with a hard boiled egg topping

Hand-rolled spinach pasta with the local specialty ragù
Fresh tagliatelle with a basil pesto

Beef fillet topped with prosciutto and melted cheese

Semifreddi di Zabaglione - This dessert was a masterpiece: I was not able to dicern the liqueur used in the zabaglione but the burnt caramel topping was phenomenal - bitter, creamy and sweet.

* For the curious, my other two favourites are Ombre Rosse in Parma and the recently discovered Osteria della Piazzetta in Rimini.

Squaquerone

2006-04-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

I seem to forget about it while we're away, but perhaps rediscovering this cheese, every year upon our return to Rimini, is worth the small lapse. Creamy & cloudlike, squaquerone is the angel of cheeses. Our first day at the beach, we go to our Horned Melons welcoming outpost and I order a Piedina with Squaquerone, prosciutto crudo and arugula. The combination is perfectly salty, a touch of bitterness from the arugula balanced with smooth and tangy cheese. Heavenly.

Primus Olive Oil

2006-04-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

A meandering non-productive day led me to A16 right around lunchtime. I'd never been, so I decided to grab a little lunch there. I chose a lovely salad of beets, fennel & shaved pecorino romano, but more on that later.

On the side, I was given some fresh bread with a little dipping bowl of olive oil.
It was phenomenal: fruity and nutty, very flavourful. It reminded me of Ommi, my wonderful Tunisian grandmother, who always had a vat of Tunisian olive that she would scoop out in a little tea cup and occasionally let us dip some fresh baguette into. She often told us that most ailments could be cured with some good olive oil.

Back at A16, I asked what kind of olive oil it was and was told it was Primus olive oil. It was delicious.