So You Said to Yourself You Wanna be a Foodie

When I haphazardly (no, that's probably a lie) decided I wanted to be more of a foodie,
^{foodie: n. syn. epicure. a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment. (especially good food & drink)}
and consider going back to school to train as a chef, I failed to realize that waistlines
would reflect my efforts.

Charity Fundraiser: Blogging for the Pachyderms

Hi all!
I wanted to take this opportunity to promote a charity fundraising event I'll be participating in at the end of this month: a 24-hour charity blogging scheme called ODAHQ. You have have heard of this in the past, a blogger chooses a charity to raise money for and commits to blogging twice an hour every hour for an entire day.

This year, I'll be raising money for Elephant Family, a charity who seeks to reverse the impending extinction of the Asian Elephant. What can you do? You can pledge & sponsor me! For more information please go to my charity blog: www.24hourelephant.blogspot.com and say you'll make a pledge!

:)

Gluten Free Pork Parcels Stuffed with Star Anise Apricots and Cashews

Do you ever get the feeling that you have a sixth sense about food? Or that ... your palate talks to you? I get that feeling sometime. It normally happens when I'm in the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards, trying to plan out my menu and I see something and a spark ... er, sparks, in my brain & suddenly I'm bombarded with a thousand different combinations of ingredients that I could whip up to make a dish.

This is what happened while eating some dried apricots yesterday. Mmm, I thought, these will be good with pork. Mind you, this isn't a radical combination. After some research I realize that pork and apricots have been paired together in countless dishes. But what is radical is that this was only the second time I had ever had them. For me to instinctively know what they could be paired with is a bit ... weird but cool.

To make a long story short, I kept gnawing (metaphorically) on this idea of pork & apricots. Mmm, maybe with some star anise, I said to myself, thinking the complimentary colors would look good on a plate. Suddenly, a dish was born: Pork Parcels Stuffed with Star Anise Apricots and Cashews.

Today was D-day, as it were & I made the pork parcels using pork fillets. After pulsing the cashews in a blender (which was a mistake, I think, because they tended to lose some of their flavor) I brushed each fillet with olive oil, sprinkled some of the cashew crumbles on the pork and then topped with the dried apricots.

Tip: when cooking with dried food, remember to allow to soak in nearly-boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes. You can also soak them in wine or liquer. To bring in that smoky, licorice flavor, I dropped a few pieces of star anise in and allowed it to fuse with the water. 
To bind the parcels, I simply pierced with a skewer and dusted with brown (demerera) sugar. Placed them on a lightly greased baking tray and poured the water over them and allowed to bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F). While that was happening, I whipped up rice with mushrooms and a steamed broccoli, green bean and carrot mix.

When the parcels had finished cooking, I moved them onto a plate to rest, deglazed the pan and poured the contents into a saucepan. I simmered the mixture until nearly boiling, removed from the heat and stirred in two ounces of ruby port. Finally, I added a few sprinkles of all-purpose/plain flour to thicken and served.

I think the best thing about this dish is the combination of flavors. You have that unmistakable earthy pork with the sweetness of the brown sugar married with the plump fruity apricots and the subtle nutty cashew coming through. The port works well to balance them all and to bring out those earthy pork flavors as port tends to have that distinctive bite, a little stronger than wine but no more assuming on taste. 
Next time I make this, I'll be sure to soak the apricots in port instead of water to really bring out the flavor of the port throughout the entire dish and to keep the cashews whole or halved at the very least so they don't forfeit any of their flavor. I might consider substituting the cashews for another nut. Perhaps an almond.

Gluten Free Beacon Hill Cookies

Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, home to such notable Americans as Louisa May Alcott, authoress of Little Women, the poets Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and politicians John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and the actress Uma Thurman. For decades, Beacon Hill has showered greatness in the world in the form of dynamic individuals. Not to be ignored, however, is a little-known dessert hailing from that metropolis of culture and history, a tiny beacon that packs a delectable punch, the Beacon Hill Cookie.

Unlike most other cookies, the BHC cooks in just 10 minutes, which, in the cookie-world is instant gratification. Even better it is whipped up from ingredients that already occupy our kitchens. All you need is chocolate, egg whites, sugar, cocoa powder and nuts (if you're so obliged). The meringue-based center of this cookie makes it super rich and chewy, a naughty treat in the middle of so much chocolate! The basic flavors in this cookie mean that you can make however many substitutes needed to created your perfect beacon.

Review: Mr. Kong & the Revitalization of Chinese Food

 

  Society is used to bad Chinese food.

    There, I've said it. The thing that every Chinese person knows and what every non Chinese person is shocked to discover.

It is one of the few national cuisines that has been manipulated, adapted and exploited by non Chinese eaters. We have become accustomed to demanding a different quality of Chinese food, and in some extreme cases (such as Fortune Cookies) a type of Chinese food that doesn't even exist in China!

    Such was my state of disdain with Chinese food two days ago when, in the back alleys of London's China Town, I stumbled across the quaint, green-trimmed establishment of Mr. Kong's. Its very unassuming name certainly didn't draw me in and since I was in China Town and couldn't tell from which restaurant which smell was coming, it wasn't that either.

Simple Gluten Free Spaghetti Carbornara & Stuffed Peppers

Call me superstitious, but at one point in my life (well, a recurring point) the word carbonara makes me cringe. Something that tastes this good, how can it not be bad for you?! Carb is in the name! That's a snippet of the conversation I have with myself whenever I see carbonara on a restaurant menu. Incidentally, I normally flip a few pages back to Insalta, trying to (unsuccessfully) trick my palate into believing it doesn't want carbonara at all.
I'm sure you can figure out who wins the contest between palate and waistline.

Gluten Free Grilled "Baked" Potatoes

You know how sometimes you just get a mood for a certain food?
The first chilly day of Fall and I get nuts for homemade chicken noodle soup, or if I'm sad and want to a wallow for a bit, a rich and decadent cheesecake is my pity party companion. Mood can dictate our food and food can certainly dictate our mood. It's so fascinating how the two are related. It's been said a million times, "You are what you eat," which is true. So that makes me a potato. And quite happily so, I might add.


What the hell am I waffling on about?

Well, comfort food. Nothing can lift my spirits or make me feel safe and comfortable the way a piping hot potato can. I don't care if it's a good ol' American Idaho Russet Burbank potato with its odd elongated plumpness and thick skin. Or it can be one of my personal favorites, the lesser-known South American Adirondack Blue Potato, chock full of antioxidants with a slightly sweet and crisp taste. Even a traditional Irish potato, which, although it may seem blasphemous, tastes a lot better than an American potato any day. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Irish potatoes grow deep in the rain-cultivated, chilly Irish earth or what, but they taste heartier, have a subtle sweetness and an undeniable potato taste. Much more tasty than their English neighboring crops.

Giorgos Seferis

One of the things I love most about Gmail is that it comes with this launchpad type homepage thing called iGoogle. On iGoogle you can customize your gadgets to see what you're interested in before you get to checking your emails. On mine, I have areas dedicated to the weather, previews of my inbox, a calendar, these really cooky googly eyes that follow your cursor around the page and, of course, I have various poetry and literary-related things.
Today, underneath my Daily Literary Quote section is this quote from Giorgos Seferis:

Don't ask who's influenced me. A lion is made of the lambs he's digested and I've been reading all my life.

Pretty powerful, if not a bit odd and a tad bit graphic, no?
The beautiful thing about this quote (other than the fact that every avid reader and writer is probably nodding their heads after having read it {and after having scribbled the quote down on a Post-It Note}) is that it is a perfect reflection of the best components of a Seferis poem.

Gluten Free Pavlova

This classic Australian dessert is a cinch to make and is perfect served with fruit.

Feeds 2 adults For a good bulk of my TV-viewing life, I've been a fan of domestic shows. IE: cooking shows, decorating shows, buying, selling or flipping property ... . When I'm in America, my TV is constantly tuned to TLC, Home and Garden and the Food Network. Here, in England, it's a bit of the same. Recently, I've been indulging in foodie shows such as "Come Dine With Me" and "MasterChef," and "Cook Yourself Thin."

In addition to being shows about making and or serving food, there has been a common denominator amongst all three of these and that is the classic Australian dessert, pavlova. I had never eaten a pavlova but it looked easy, yummy and I've been wanting to improve my dessert-making skills. So, on a whim, I went out on Thursday and purchased the ingredients necessary to make a pavlova, per Delia's recipe.

to know the beginning is to know the future

Blogging is so hard for me. It seems slightly blasphemous that this is the reality since 1. I am a writer and 2. I am of the generation in which blogging became a thing. Surely, that should equip me with everything I need to fashion a blogging storm and plug away at my laptop for hours and hours! Alas, it doesn't. I seem to go through blogs the way newborns go through diapers. I'm constantly throwing them out, starting over, blah blah blah. Well, here's to attempt number 288397240174.

I wonder how many people (Lorelai Gilmore not included) automatically think of "Fame" when they read my blog title? How could you not? Cheesy '80s at its best, the hair, the Jane Fonda leggings, that crazy, the world-is-amazing bounce. Oh yeah, you're gonna see me and cry.

Anyway, I was thinking the other day about the word know. About how much its connotation has morphed over time. I mean, in the biblical sense of the word it's about a certain type of physical intimacy, isn't it? In later decades, it became something to which you could attribute something to--ie: I know such-and-such a person. Now? We've kind of killed it.