Tag Archives: food writers

Sunday food links – 29 May 2016

Bullet journal - getting started

There aren’t really any food links this week, as I haven’t found much time for food reading. That’s not quite true – I have done some offline reading. The new issue of Delicious arrived, and I’ve also picked up this month’s Good Food. I’ve been dipping into some old books as well: MFK Fisher, Elizabeth David, and Nigel Slater’s third kitchen diaries. But it has been a busy week with work, so there hasn’t been much room for leisurely reading.

I have made good use of the weekend so far, though, by spending some quality time with a new notebook! I am a big fan of Bureau Direct, an online stationery shop run by serious stationery geeks (that used to have a real-life shop in Leicester Square). They have been  describing the virtues of a bullet journal in this month’s blog, and I decided that a fresh notebook, and a new month was the perfect time to get into it.

If you haven’t come across the term bullet journal (or #BuJo as the bloggers and pinners disturbingly insist on calling it), you can find the whole system explained very simply in a video by its creator, Ryder Carroll. Basically, it’s a to-do list combined with indexed notetaking, and relies only on a notebook and a pen. There are lots of others offering advice online, and I found Boho Berry’s post and video on combining bullet journaling with GTD particularly useful (and she has some beautiful page designs).

Basically, I’m hoping this is a good way to combine the part of me that loves good notebooks, and crossing things off lists, with the part that enjoys the comprehensive list making of GTD. We will have to see how that works in practice.

Recipes:

  • Baked pumpkin risotto – loosely based on both Donna Hay’s recipe in Modern Classics 1 and The Food Lab’s advice on risotto. I par-boiled the risotto rice the night before, and then when ready to bake, I combined a sweated, chopped onion (in the Thermomix) with finely chopped butternut squash, the rice and hot chicken stock before piling into a baking dish and cooking covered in foil for 30 minutes.
  • Yotam Ottolenghi’s butterbean and oxtail stew – made with beef shin instead of oxtail, and in the slow cooker. I can’t say this completely converted me to bkeila, the fried spinach condiment it’s made with, but it was very tasty nonetheless.

Without a recipe:

  • Pasta bolognese
  • Waitrose pizzas
  • Lasagne (made by my mother-in-law) with bread and salad
  • Pasta with sausage, tomato and broccoli sauce

Reading – books, rather than food online:

Friday food links – 28 August 2015

Fun in the country - getting to grips with a tractor :-)

This has been another week of holiday. We went to visit my Mum and Dad in Somerset with E. Despite the weather, we’ve managed a good deal of slides and swings, pigs and chickens, trolley rides and general messing about. All this meant a holiday from cooking (for me). But before we left, there was a lunch with friends, and while we were away, there have been some notes on things to make next:

Saturday lunch:

Plans to make:

Reading:

  • Ruth Reichl has been to London – and has a blog about the trip in three parts. She took in Barshu, Barrafina, Quo Vadis  and more (and that was just day one!).
  • And she also has a cookbook coming out this autumn – My Kitchen Year. As her memoirs are some of my favourite food writing, I’ll definitely be adding this to the wishlist.
  • I found this in Food52’s round-up of the best cookbooks that are coming out this autumn. The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats is another wishlist book.
  • Yet more cookbooks: this extract from the new Sally Clarke book suggests it’s going to be beautiful, and beautifully written.
  • Via Signe Johansen, a NYT collection of ‘Do It Yourself’ recipes for preserved lemons, fresh cheese and more.
  • Radio 4’s programme The Reunion was on Food Writers this week. It’s an excellent programme on food in Britain from after the war until the eighties, with Claudia Roden, Mary Berry, Prue Leith and others. Available on iPlayer now.

Cookbook exploring in 2012

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I have acquired a lot of new cookbooks this year. A lot. In fact, I’ve just counted 24 new books in 2011, including both cookbooks and food writing. Gulp. One of the problems with twitter is that I feel connected to the food writers I follow, and so I feel more or less compelled to buy their books when they come out. It’s like buying the book your friend wrote – it just feels like something you should do to support them. Of course, I don’t know these people personally, but I feel some of that obligation nonetheless. This is not helping my shelf capacity.

Like most people, I haven’t made most of the recipes in most of the books I own – and my habit of constantly acquiring new ones isn’t helping. So I’ve decided to pick a book a month to cook from this year (except December). I’m hoping this will ensure I spend some time really exploring each of these books. It can also be helpful to restrict your choices sometimes. When I’m short of time, I’m much more likely to choose something new to cook if I have a book choice of one, rather than having to navigate the whole bookcase.

This list isn’t just the new books in my collection. It’s more the substantial books that I don’t feel I’ve got into properly yet, and that I think will repay some sustained attention. I haven’t included baking books on this list – I bake so much that it’s not hard for me to work through those. I’ve already made quite a few recipes from Dan Lepard’s magnificent ‘Short and Sweet‘, and I’m sure I will make many more. I won’t be cooking exclusively from these books, or aiming to cook everything in them. This is more of a starting point for when I’m looking for ideas or a cooking project to tackle.

January: Far Eastern Odyssey by Rick Stein

I thought it would be useful to do these fresh Asian flavours in January, when I could do with some spices to brighten things up. A lot of these dishes are store cupboard based as well, and any seasonal ingredients are fairly out of season for us for much of the year, so having to use January produce shouldn’t be as much of a hindrance.

February: Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton

This is a reprinted version of a cookbook first published in 1845. This was the source for many of Mrs Beeton’s recipes. I’m hoping that the traditional English food will be just what is needed in February.

March: Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking: Scandilicious – Signe Johansen

I’ve really been looking forward to getting my hands on this one. I follow Signe’s twitter feed and blog, and there have been many tantalising glimpses of her recipes in the newspapers this year.

April: Nutmeg and Custard – Marcus Wareing

I’ve had this book for a quite a while, and made a few things from it, but there are so many tempting recipes here that I wanted to spend some serious time sorting through it.

[Having just received Heston Blumenthal at Home as a late Christmas present this week, I might have to switch this one]

May: Bocca: Cookbook – Jacob Kennedy

I’m a fan of the Bocca di Lupo restaurant, and even more so of their sister gelateria, Gelupo (it’s easier to get in for one thing). I haven’t looked at this at all yet, but wanted to give this a slot that would mean some good fresh produce was starting to appear.

June: Tender: Volume I, A cook and his vegetable patch – Nigel Slater

I’ve also had this for some time, but it’s such a huge volume, I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface. Again, having some good veg to play with feels important here.

July: Supper Club: Recipes and notes from the underground restaurant – Kerstin Rodgers

Kerstin’s book is definitely organised with entertaining in mind, so I’m putting this one in July with my birthday with the aim of throwing some parties that will allow me to use the menus as they are meant to be done.

August: Moro East – Sam and Sam Clark

This book was written around their allotment and the produce it generated, so August felt like a good month to tackle these fresh recipes.

September: The Zuni Cafe Cookbook – Judy Rodgers

I’ve owned this cookbook the longest of this set, but so many of Judy’s recipes feel like real projects, I have avoided many of them. This feels like a good time to really get into some of these multi-day recipes.

October: Made in Italy: Food and Stories – Giorgio Locatelli

I would like to get around to making some of the fresh pasta dishes and the more elaborate restaurant dishes from this. And maybe this is the year I finally break my rule about deep frying at home and make the banana chocolate beignets from this book.

November: The Family Meal – Ferran Adria

I bought this (and had it signed) when Ferran was in London this year, but again, haven’t made many of the recipes yet.

I’m stocking the kitchen now to tackle the pan-Asian flavours of Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey, so a few recipes from that will be coming soon.