Cookie (Not Cheffy)

People often ask me how I got the awesome gig as author of The Whole Food Almanac. Well, when I was getting into freelancing I wanted to get my name out there again with some fresh portfolio work, so I wrote this article on the Neighbourgoods Market for The Argus for free. Jeremy Borraine from Jonathan Ball, who was looking for someone to write a good food guide, saw it and gave me a call. So the free article paid off!

I loved this timeous article in the New York Times, combining that recession tummy-filler pasta with green sensibilities. Yes, you can cook acceptably edible pasta using at least a third less water than is commonly believed. And you save energy too – NYT’s Harold McGee estimates half a million barrels of oil in the US alone (whoa!) For a fresh (or not so much) twist on recycling, he even suggests reusing pasta water. The starch-muddy water helps thicken sauces and intensifies the pasta’s flavour. Seriously! It’s done in the best restaurants for culinary reasons, why not at home for following 2009’s hottest trend – frugality?

*Thanks to eviltuna7 for the Flickr photo.

Well, this little campaign has most people up in arms. Okay, the idea of “rebranding” fish as sea kittens is about as subtle as fishing with a hand grenade, but don’t blame Peta, it’s just trying to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Sure, Peta supporters are not exactly envirolectuals, but their buckets of red paint coagulating down the fur coats of flabbergasted models have taught a lot more people about the fur trade than reams more EC (environmentally correct) information. Let people get the point, let them understand that just because they don’t find a species loveable it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth saving – then they can start to wax lyrical about the zen of angling. (I actually love this little flounder in a catsuit – it reminds me of cellphone charms of Hello Kitty dressed as an adorable squid I saw in Korea.)

That said, I would only sign up for the campaign if it were about raising awareness about commercial fishing and fish farming. Instead, Peta wants to ban recreational fishing. I’m not against one-on-one hunting of wild animals (as long as you eat what you kill). So, I guess I do find the campaign shrill, actually more little-girl squealy (with pink sparkles).

But let’s not give up on finding ways to educate people about fish. As that loveable rogue (*koff koff*) George W Bush once said, “I know the human and the fish can coexist together peacefully.” Amen.

Trendhunter has released their top 20 trends for 2009. Some of them scare me a bit (kitten rentals, “brag materialism”) and some of them I just don’t agree with: I don’t think “style will trump tradition” (although, sad about Wedgewood, isn’t it?) – I think people will be looking to spend what little money they have on solid, durable, timeless goods; things they can pass on to their children, like our grandparents did. But there are a couple I’m totally in sync with.

At number 13 there’s Urban Gardening. Says Trendhunter: “Fake and real gardens are springing up outside traditional yards. From indoor urban spice gardens to living furniture, our green obsessed society is finding eco outlets for city dwellers.”

And it comes in last, but it’s there: Return to the Kitchen. “Fuelled by the credit crunch and food as a fashionable hobby, we’ll see a return to the kitchen, especially for the celebrated meals,” claims Trendhunter.

At number 14, they cite Ageless Inspiration (older people are cool) and that’s where I found out about an 80-year-old grandmother teaching traditional Jewish recipes on YouTube. Here’s Feed Me Bubbe’s recipe for latkes. So, be trendy and get into the kitchen next Hanukkah!

Trendhunter’s number one trend is Credit Crunch Couture or DIY fashion. They’re talking about Vivienne Westwood making clothes out of towels, but I think I need to ask my mom whether she still needs that sewing machine…

Last month I was in Knysna for their annual slow food festival Gastronomica. A brilliant demo by île de pain’s Markus Färbinger inspired me to write this rather breathless piece (damn, that bread was goo-ood).

Bread is one of those things in life that’s so simple that it inspires fascinated contemplation. A three-hour demo with Markus Färbinger only breaks the crust of what bread’s all about. “If you tell people it’s a basic breadmaking course no one will come, but say it’s a master class and you’re completely booked out!” laughs Markus. “But whatever you call it, there’s not more to it than this.” Flour. Water. Yeast. Salt. Work with these four things in slightly varying proportions and in different weather and kitchen conditions for years and years. There lies the mastery.

I didn’t know much to start with, and Markus really packed it in. I learned that a bakers’ macho drag race equivalent would be to aim for equal amounts of flour and water in their dough (the wetter, the better!). That salt is a yeast inhibitor (and bread is inedible without it). That it takes 72 hours to make a proper wholewheat loaf. That a rainy morning after a warm night can affect the lightness of your loaf by changing the temperature of your kitchen. That folding the dough allows the gluten to “knit”, making a sturdy, smooth dough and a light, robust bread. That pizza dough should be rolled with a dowel and always from the middle out, to give you crispy edges (yum!) That smaller breads should be baked at high temperatures (and on baking paper, as an oiled tray smokes). That France’s best bakery has their bakers working in catacombs and their top-of-the-range oven had to be cut into four pieces and lowered down a manhole before being reassembled. That the secret to a snappy crust is bubbles that go right to the very edge of the bread – so always fold and shape your loaf gently.

The whole time he was giving us tips and telling us stories, Markus (assisted by his appie* Justin) was mixing and folding dough, shaping and slashing loaves, twisting breadsticks, topping pizzas… he made about four loaves, 10 breadsticks, 8 pizzas and a dozen bialys (indented rolls filled with caramalised onions and feta). As these emerged from the ovens, he would cut them open and discuss them. And then, finally, we got to eat them. It was not only that they were beautifully made and fresh that made the breads taste so good, but the knowledge that thousands of years of thought and mastery had gone into making this simple food.

PS. Since my beloved Ixus’ tragic “blue screen of death”, I’ve been taking photos with my camera phone. Eh. A camera OR a phone, I say, but until I get a windfall (or at least ’til we’ve paid off the wedding) this will have to do.

* Cape Town builders slang for apprentice

Last week Michael Pollan – author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food – wrote an open letter to America’s President-Elect about the crisis of industrial agriculture. Here’s the crux:

“When we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.”

The way we’re making food these days is not sustainable, it’s not healthy and it has to stop. Bring on the sun!

As a newly minted food author (rah!), I’ll be at the Natural and Organic Show this weekend, doing a demo at the Conscious Cooking Corner. It’ll like being a TV chef, without the make-up, or retakes, or assistants who chop things – so just scary bright lights and the opportunity to set my sleeve alight on the gas hob in front of one hundred adoring fans sixteen people. The demo won’t really be about the recipes – the dishes are just simple illustrations of some of the stuff I’ve discussed in the book: getting creative with your veggie box, doing actual grocery shopping at markets and minimising food wastage with clever meals. Ultimately, you can’t eat healthily without cooking for yourself, and I think it’s nice for people to see that making fresh, wholesome food can be very quick and easy. I suppose, looking on the bright side, it’ll be nice to cook communally – company in the kitchen and around the dinner table make good food even more enjoyable. Maybe I should get some people to come up and chop a few things for me? Now there’s an idea…

The Natural and Organic Show is at the CTICC on the Foreshore in Cape Town from 17 – 19 October. I’ll be doing 45min demonstrations at the Conscious Cooking Corner:
Saturday 18 October at 1.30pm
Sunday 19 October at 2.30pm

Again, it’s been far too long since I last posted. But this time I have a really good excuse. Arthur and I were away in Seoul all of last week. It was the first time I’d been anywhere in East Asia. Of course, it was really exciting (sometimes too exciting) from a culinary perspective.

Korea is really dependent on seafood and seaweed for nutrition. If it’s not obvious (and by obvious I mean whole small crabs in stir fry and whole dried octopuses on sale as a snack in the Seven Eleven), then it’s used as a seasoning (don’t be surprised to find tiny dried shrimps in your mashed potato). But the thing that’s most ubiquitous is kimchi. Kimchi is pickled, spiced cabbage (there are a number of varieties, but I guess it takes years to learn the distinctions). It can be eaten hot or cold; for breakfast, lunch, supper or a snack; as a side dish, a soup or in chocolate. You can even buy cellphone ornaments showing Hello Kitty dressed in a kimchi suit. (more…)

They say that when you eat organic, the first thing you must become comfortable with is eating “not perfect” food. I bought these eggs at Woolworths. I hadn’t seen an egg like this from a shop before, but I was pleased that it wasn’t thrown out, because there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. If anything, its elongated shape possibly shows it was laid by a more mature hen. It looks like it was a squeeze for her, but I’m sure she’s pretty happy – as fowls go – the rest of the time!

I think that with eggs, like meat, you can really tell a big difference between commercial and organic. A blind-tasting panel of hotel employees on Rick Stein’s Food Heroes of Britain agreed, by the way, so don’t take a converted greenie’s word for it!

Using stone ground flour, organic eggs and butter, and local fruit and jams in your baking is one thing. Building a gingerbread house that’s green is taking responsible baking to a new level. Bake for Change ran a Home Sweet Home competition for sustainably-sussed bakers: the rules were that there had to be a minimum of four enviro-friendly building practices visible on the gingerbread house and that everything had to be edible.

Wouldn’t it be fun (and sustainable!) if our homes were really edible? When I was a kid I used to dream about living inside a giant jellytot, that I would gnaw my way into to go to bed. I would stare up at the domed, jewel-coloured ceiling as I dropped off to sleep… But as an adult, I have to admit that guava roll bedsheets and marshmallow pillows could get rather sticky. And a sugar bath would dissolve when you filled it. And the jelly stove would melt when you lit the gas. Ah, okay, I’ll give it up then.