Archive for August, 2009

A weekend of Thai food and more

My Pad thai

The red thread this weekend was Thai in the whole fabric of food that was M’s visit. My friend, M. My darling friend who says ‘Food is a form of expression’ – so you can guess what the rest of the weekend involved!

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Another Hollandwood plaque

Flickr…Thank you.

Through Flickr, I got one of my photos of St Stephen’s cathedral in  Vienna published in the 8th edition of the Schmap! I got an email one day asking if I’d like to submit my photo for the guide. If it got accepted they would let me know.

I had nothing to lose so I said yes and ….a few weeks later (yesterday), I got an email saying it was included in the guide. Paving stones to Hollandwood!

St Stephen's

Click here to see the guide.

I’m in celebratory mode – by which I mean, off to bed shortly. Yes, my celebrations these days are sleep, food, talk.

Pear Tarte Tatin…my inspiration

Upside down cakes….I love ‘em. The first one I ever had was a pineapple upside-down cake. That was long before I became allergic to some varieties of pineapple. Yes, allergic.

One edge

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Things I’m thankful for…

Rainbow in the sky

It all started when I opened the door…and stepped outside this morning
To behold the beauty and colour that a rainbow brings
Hope and courage were built up in my heart
as the rainbow I saw arched over skies
the grey and the blue, side by side, as clouds must be
for a rainbow to form and for you, it to see
While dark clouds hover and raindrops fall
Little rays of sunshine keep pushing through
And truly my eyes and heart opened up to see
that sometimes the rain a blessing can be!
 
Today I am thankful to God for all  the things of beauty around me…and how they help me enjoy food even MORE.
 
And as John Keats would say, A thing of beauty is a joy forever! 

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Steak Bling, Bling

Show me a man who doesn’t like sizzling steak, and I’ll tell him who he is….he may be vegetarian and not know it. No offense.

I like the idea of steak – a smoking hunk of beef on a warm plate – tasty, rested – heaven! I wasn’t raised on steak, a natural born steak eater and cooker, not.  Good, stewed beef – yes; de-skewered Suya (Nigerian version of Satés) - yes; in soups – for sure but as a slab for dinner – no, never.  

Yes we had BBQs too, thank you very much, but we ate our way through tons of marinated chicken, ram and goatmeat but never beef. Its not just our culture.

Almost ready to go 

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Indonesian Satés & Soul

Talk about melangés…talk about Indonesia and its delicious patchwork of influences from all over Asia – peanut sauces and hot chilies from Thailand, Vietnamese nam pla (fish sauce) and terasi (shrimp paste), Indian spices, Chinese stirfries… a conglomerate of tastes and techniques all rolled up.

More often than not, a typical Indonesian meal combines sweet, sour, hot and spicy, even throwing in a bit of punch. Some may find it too sweet but if it’s served right then you just love it.

Anyway, this weekend past, I got invited to a Braderie (dutch for fair) to celebrate Indonesia’s independence from Dutch rule (August 17th, 1949), conveniently close to where we live. Or so I thought till we arrived. To police. To no parking slots. To masses of beings… from all corners of the dutch earth. My kleine dorp (little village) was overflowing.

People

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Peanut Butter Chicken

Cupboard love – you have to have it.  Those days when nothing will do but something simple. Guaranteed, full-proof. We all have some of those – the sandwich that quenches all hunger, the drinks that cool all thirsts and the chicken….. that satisfies the desire for creamy, succulent, fragrant and all with something straight from your cubby.

Food is served

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Greek salad extraordinaire

Dinner's ready

I have a recipe book, a recipe address book where I write down my recipes. The recipes that go in there are those that make the cut and hit the mark. Those recipes are forever immortalized in my food hall of fame. You’ll be glad to know that this salad has reigned there for almost a decade since I first discovered it while at University.

I think everyone should  have an address book for writing recipes…assuming you love writing like I do even in this computer age of online everything. Why I like the address book chronicling is that it allows you index your recipes alphabetically and hopefully retrieve them… very sophisticated. Anyway, the recipe for this salad is recorded under the ‘S’ tab as ‘My favourite salad – ever!

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Target tips

 Recognise this pattern?

Bull'seye

Maybe you do… but I didn’t, at first. I’ve never been to America. Please don’t laugh…..

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