create
Bought a ham and cheese sandwich in a store. It was rubbish. I had to throw it away. I wish I’d made my own. How much money (and food) do we waste for the sake of convenience?
I like museums, amusement parks, day-out places for kids, etc. I have yet to find one with food that is both reasonable and priced well. Sure, some might do a decent salad… but must you really have to pay through the nose for it? I reckon it always pays to take your own.
Make mine a picnic please.
Here’s a cool tip I learned last night from a chef who runs a take-out salad service. In order to keep the salad fresh-tasting and to avoid that soggy lettuce syndrome, he dresses only the parts of the salad that won’t wilt (beans, artichoke hearts, carrots, onions, etc). He then layers his salad, placing a bit of the dressed stuff at the bottom, then some leaves, then a little more of the dressed stuff, then more leaves and so on. When you transfer the salad from the container to the plate, it all gets mixed together and so it feels like the entire salad has been dressed as one. Nice!
I ate at Craft tonight… Angela’s treat. It was exquisite. There is inspiration in the chard (I think in the form of pickled chard roots). What a thing. I can taste it even now. More to follow when I am in less of a food coma.
Believe it or not, I usually choose any kind of cake ahead of chocolate cake. Tonight though, I had no choice… it was chocolate cake or nothing. It was purchased from from Al Gelato in LA. I urge anyone in the vicinity to get down there immediately and take a slab of it home. Eat it in bed. I don’t know quite why I say this… it just feels like the right place for it. Oh… it’s pretty good with whipped cream too.
Meat… you just can’t beat it.
Today I ate a wild lobster. I am not sure I have eaten one before… I may have, but nobody has alerted me to the fact. It was served up with a butter sauce. It didn’t need it. It melted on the tongue. It was sweet and succulent while still conjuring the ocean. What a treat.
Perhaps if you had pureed the eggs along with some broccoli and spinach and hidden that in your chocolate breakfast cake the meal would have been more palatable.
I had chocolate cake for breakfast. It didn’t go too well with my scrambled egg.
Forgive me… but it’s been more than a month since my last shout… (5 Bloody Mary’s and all is forgiven.)
Last night I had my first Chinese meal in an age. Peking Duck done well is one of the finest things, no? It is something I will never try re-creating at home as I know I will never do it as well. Sushi too. Does that make me a coward?
In such hot and sultry conditions as we experienced in LA today, it is hard to muster the energy to cook. Instead of a usual Saturday night feast, we laid our table with cheeses, cold cuts, salad and a loaf of French bread. It was as good a meal as I have eaten in some time. Moreover, we stayed at the table far longer than we would usually, nibbling on one last morsel of cheese to finish off the wine. I am so content now I think I shall sleep right here on the sofa.
Will someone please come and take this laptop away.
You don’t need to be Chinese to enjoy congee for breakfast. What a great stomach settler!
I cooked a really good steak last night seasoned only with salt and pepper. I am so off rubs at the moment.
I went to Starbucks and had the “light” blend. I took a swig, spluttered and spewed it out all over my magazine. Now that’s what I call coughee.
How not to dress a salad
I ate at a lovely Italian restaurant last night (Cafe Delfino just off the Pacific Coast Highway). I couldn’t resist the buratta served on a bed of rocket with baby heirloom tomatoes with a balsamic dressing. The dish arrived with, as I would have expected, a glorious mound of gooey cheese on top of the salad. The cheese had been drowned in dressing, none of which had fallen below on to the leaves. I flipped it and, using my fork, made it dance around the salad to coat the leaves and dry out the buratta a litle.
Come on chef! Dress the salad first.
Last night I ate a dish cooked by Andrew that I presumed I wouldn’t really like much.
It was definitely the best thing I had eaten since Sunday night.
The lesson here is don’t presume… just eat.
Oh, and Andrew, you better share the recipe!
No.
May I ask if you sent it back?
Last night I had an early dinner at one of my favourite LA restaurants (Locanda Portofino). I ordered spaghetti alla vongole (with clams). To my amazement, the clams had been washed in tap water and were overwhelmingly flavoured with chlorine. What a disappointment. Chefs should know better.
