chayday Food Journal

(Promoted from the Diaries - K)

If you, like me, found yourself stuck partway through Omnivore's Dilemma, here is Michael Pollan at Google -- speaking on food versus nutrition.

Triptych Part II: Indonesia

When I lived in Sumatera, oh so many years ago, we'd go away on weekends -- from Medan to points further east and south. On the road from Medan to Berastagi, I used to get sick every single time. Not all-the-way sick. Just severe wooziness. 90 minutes of driving with "pull over!" on the tip of my tongue.

(Language detour: Woozy is a satisfyingly emotive word, like onomatopoeia for feeling nauseous. Just drag out the sounds. WoooOOooooozZzyy. If how you felt made a noise, that'd be it. Works with queasy too... But word to the wise, don't do that when you're actually nauseous. It'll tip you over the edge.)

It went on like this for months. I loved going to Berastagi, but I hated the winding bumpy drive to get there. Until I learned a critical tip about traveling somewhere unfamiliar.

Eat what they eat.

Your body might already be resisting where it is and what you're making it do. My body was used to a well-paved, relatively flat urban landscape, and a bumpy, twisty, uphill ride was jarring to my delicate Canadian senses. It's like resonance. My soft and squishy organs were not in harmony with my spicy Indonesian surroundings. So I decided to try acclimatizing myself from the inside out.

Instead of doing What I Would Normally Do on a car trip, I paid close attention to what our hosts were doing, and did that instead. Start the drive on an empty stomach. Stop for sweet tea. Eat the assortment of small fried snacks even when no one can tell you what they are (anchovies anyone?). Crank up the techno music. Drink deep of that sickly air freshener smell.

It doesn't exactly sound like a remedy, but danged if it didn't work.

It worked on car sickness, but it worked more permanently on my day-to-day life in Medan. Squishing my tastes to fit what was going on around me changed them forever. Which was perfect for the year I was there, and was so effective that it's left me feeling like half my favourite food options are stuck in kitchen cupboards and restaurants on the other side of the planet. Dang it. Win some lose some.

Below is a (possibly ever-expanding) mini-inventory of the dishes I grew to love, and keep a special place for on my plate. The plate in my heart. My heart plate.

Indonesia

Babi (Chinese)/ Char-Sui

I put these up alphabetically, but it works that this dish is at the top. Because like so many of these (and other) dishes I grew to love in Medan, they're very specific. I'm referring here to a particular dish, from a particular place. Not just any Char-Sui -- even though there's nothing bad about that.

But what I miss is "that red pork noodle dish from the open-air restaurant on the corner, about 10 minutes west of the taxi stand". Because even in that one neighbourhood there might be 5 or 6 places that all sell a special char-sui noodle dish. Quite possibly all bumped up beside each other. But, for the magic, you need to find that particular one...

Bungkus

Bungkus!! What's inside? Who knows?! Oh wait, you do, because you chose it all, then they wrapped it in a banana leaf and sent you on your way. De-friggin-lish. Especially from a Padang restaurant. (Careful: sometimes they use staples to keep the banana leaf together. Don't eat 'em.).

Read more! »

As I mentioned at Christmas, my family excels at taking sugar, and finding new and exciting ways to combine it with more sugar.

The piece de resistance in my family's sugar lovin' recipe repertoire? Fondant Easter Eggs.

They're originally an Eagle Brand recipe I think. But the original recipe (which finishes with an elaborate royal icing decor) has been edited down to its key elements. One colour of fondant, wrapped in another, dipped in chocolate. Resulting in:

*gurgle*

What you're looking at there is sugar and condensed milk, the inner died yellow, the outer left alone, and the whole kaboodle dipped in chocolate. Yummo.

(Clear a path around your house before you eat one though, because you're going to have to run in circles for a while on the sugar high this baby delivers).

Fondant Easter Eggs

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cup (1/2 can) sweetened condensed milk
• 6 cups (about 1 1/2 lbs sifted icing sugar)
• yellow food colouring

Makes 12 large sized eggs.*

1. Cream together butter, salt, and vanilla.
2. Add sweetened condensed milk and blend until smooth.
3. Gradually stir in icing sugar.
4. Mixture will become very stiff -- kneed until all icing sugar is combined.
5. Place fondant on board or waxed paper and continue kneading for several minutes, until mixture is very smooth and not sticky.
6. Cut off 1/3 of the fondant and add a few drops yellow food colouring for yolks. Knead until the colour is evenly blended.
7. Cut 12 portions and roll into balls for the centre of the egg.
8. Cut remaining fondant into 12 equal portions and pat out flat, then mould around egg yolk and into egg shape.
9. Chill for a short time, then, if necessary, remodel gently.
10. Chill for several hours or overnight.

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(from the diaries - K)

Copied from YesButNoButYes, who recovered it via Google's cache, who rescued it off of BrowniePointsBlog.

I have not made it or tried it, but what a thing of beauty.

Bacon Vodka

Makes up one pint

• Fry up three strips of bacon
• Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit in the jar. Or you could go hog wild and just pile in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps.
• Optional: add crushed black peppercorns.
• Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks.(No need to refrigerate)
• At the end of the three week resting period, place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Strain out the fats through a coffee filter to yield a clear filtered pale yellow bacon vodka.
• Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy.

(Originally published on BrowniePointsBlog.)

From xkcd, the most excellent "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" (and sometimes, apparently, food):

I don't know that I'm entirely on board with the results (oranges don't deserve that slander), but to each their own fruit sorting algorithm.

The nasty side-effect of traveling is that it broadens your horizons. Blah blah open mind blah blah cultures, sure (and true). But I'm talking here about important things. Like food.

What on earth do you do when traveling gives you a taste of the good stuff, but the good stuff is a specialty that will usually be located many thousands of miles away?

I get addicted to tastes. I'm a 'craver' (what? That's a real thing). My tastebuds get a thought in their heads, and they won't let it go. Sadly, my tastebuds are modestly well-traveled. Partly because I've actually taken them new places, and partly because my basta... *ahem* good friends bring back treats when they go abroad, or when they visiting here from where they live.

I gripe, but not seriously, because I'm extremely glad that I'm lucky enough to experience new and excitingly different kinds of yumminess.

So I thought I'd put up a list post of some of what I've sampled and become addicted to, and for the most part can't access regularly. In part it's just an exercise for myself, but go ahead and torment me by letting me know your own hard-to-come-by addictions.

I'm breaking it out into three parts, hence its triptychiness: this one is international foods I have virtually no access to; then foods from Indonesia I still, and will forever, long for; and, to make myself feel better, some of the awesome specialty foods that are just a public transit ride away.

Much of what follows are sweets. I think that's because the average mouth (like mine) is more easily stuck on an unfamiliar kind of sweet than an unfamiliar kind of savoury. But sweet and savoury, I have a place in my heart and on my plate for them all.

Denmark

Danish Salad Pizza

I'm sure it has a real name (and that's not it). I don't know how to explain this one. One evening we had pizza. Which was mightily good. And one of the pizzas we got was quite the little timesaver. Side of salad? No need! Just put it right on top of the pizza! Then put some salad dressing on there. Side, main, why draw a line...

Guf

I'm kind of surprised I can't find an online reference for Guf. It's a soft light pink marshmallow topping. To have it the right way, you get a waffle cone, put three kinds of ice cream in it, top that with soft-serve, and then top that with the guf. You'll be surprised (we were), it sounds like a ridiculous serving, but the ice cream is so... light? Creamy and delicious. And then you put the marshmallow stuff on... I have to stop describing now, on account of the drool.

Karrysalat

Curried Macaroni and Herring Salad. Like many things I now crave, I'm pretty sure I didn't like it the first time I had it (I'm thinking of you Yerba Mate). And then I had it again. And then I had it on a sandwich. And then they ran out. And then we had it again. And now I've left the country and I have a Karrysalat need and no hook-up. I just have to wait for this to catch on in Canada. Clearly it's only a matter of time. We like curry, we like macaroni, we like soused herring... Wait. Let me try again...

Read more! »

(Promoted from the diaries - K)

I find pre-made cookie commercials really bizarre.

10-minute just put in the oven cookies! Yay!

But... wait. How long do cookies usually take? Isn't this like putting "phosphate-free" on a package of flour? So that you're supposed to suddenly look around and wonder how much phosphate the other guys are sneaking past you? Even if that makes no sense at all?

Yes, people are busy. Yes, it's still nice to have homemade cookies. Who doesn't like homemade cookies? (People who are dead inside, that's who). But "just put in the oven" cookies... what in the heck else would you do with them?

"Oh, these just go in the /oven/. Well that's a relief. I guess I can put the George Foreman grill away...".

Lots of cookie recipes take zero time to make and are beyond delicious and are not full of whatever disgusting junk you have to add so you can fly dough-in-a-tube all over the world.

So, to put my recipe where my mouth is, this is the cookie mix our little household relies on. I believe it originally came from a Baker's chocolate chip package. It's ridiculously forgiving, works if halved, can be mixed start-to-finish in a blender, and takes 8 minutes to cook. Maybe 8 minutes 45 seconds if you count blending time.

Ooo. Burn Pillsbury, burn. That's 1 minute 15 seconds of my life I just got back.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
2/3 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips (more or less)

Preheat oven to 375F. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

1. Beat butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy.
2. Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt until well-blended.
3. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Drop by spoonful onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

One of the many great things about working from home is how weird you can be.

You can put together formal proposals in your jammies (sadly I don't, because I'm sure you can hear the jammies in the text). If the work is slow-going and not satisfying, you can throw a load of laundry in to bump up your sense of accomplishment.

And you can have 3 o'clock pork chops.

I like to eat what in some circles are considered unusual things at unusual times, and working at home means I can indulge easily in my naturally offbeat rhythms. I lived in Indonesia for a year and the two of us (Indonesia and I) were fantastically on the same page. Fried chicken and rice for breakfast? No problem, just one question -- what kind of chili sauce would you like on that?

So these days, I get to follow my gut, and when my gut says "pork chop" I start heating up a pan.

But over the last few months I have learned that I am not alone in my pork chop cravings. There is another person in my house who is a die hard pig-chewing fiend. And just how do I know this person wants all piggies to die, be carved up and fed to her? Just look into her cold, pig-killing eyes:

And pull back a little...

That's Chelsea. Our furry little friend. Who, unbeknownst to us for lo these many 9 years, is desperately keen on pork. Predictably, doing things in the kitchen like opening tins will cause her sudden appearance (though exactly why, when we've never fed her tinned food, is a bit of a mystery), but throw a bit of pork on the stove? Man. Alive. I've never seen any animal move that fast.

Pork hits pan. "Meow? Meow? Meow? Meeeeeoooowwww?" And I'm all "didn't I walk past you sleeping in a sunbeam only seconds ago?"

"MEOW?!"

She's not subtle in her interest, and it's a little hard to focus on your 3 o'clock chop when this is staring you down:

Chelse noticed me taking her picture and tried to look casual, but she doesn't fool me. If that isn't a sidelong look at a piece of pork, her name isn't Chelsea (which it is, cuz that's what we named her. Even though I wanted to call her "Spike").

Is my little weirdo alone in this? Or is this a 'cat thing' and all our adorable wee kittens really want is 5 minutes alone with a pig, something sharp, and a spit roast?

Well, it's really more like a shrub. But the point is, hazelnuts didn't grow on them this year.

On Monday morning, my radio woke me up with a groggily received dose of 'things you might not know about hazelnuts':
1) The majority of hazelnuts come from Turkey (about 75% or 625,000 tonnes);
2) This year, they didn't do so well.

Turkey is by far the world's largest supplier of hazelnuts. The tasty little nuts are used as a flavouring for cereals and as an addition to chocolate, and they are all harvested in a two week period. And those two weeks mean economic life or death for thousands of people who have invested time, land and energy in growing this one crop.

But the harvest this year was poor. And when the only crop going tanks, so does the economy of the region.

~from CBC radio's The Current

The gist of the documentary (which you can listen to here) is that much of the income in Turkey's Ordu province is either completely dependent on, or heavily subsidized by the money made from the hazelnut harvest.

Apparently Turkish hazelnuts taste better and store well. But that's not insurance against a sometimes saturated market (in 2007 Turkey was unable to sell approximately 200,000 tonnes of hazelnuts); an increasingly erratic climate (causing this year's notably poor harvest, with unusually hot weather burning hazelnuts while still on the branch); or the IMF (who are successfully pressuring the Turkish government into reducing their guaranteed price and cutting subsidies).

The Irish woman inside me is silently screaming about potatoes. While hazelnuts may not be a dietary staple, total economic dependence on one crop, as international pricing and climate become ever more unpredictable, can have very unfortunate repercussions.

(Promoted from the diaries - Kate)

Oh I'm gonna link those two together, don't you worry.

How? Through the magic of Ikea. (Bear with me, I'm starting with a furniture rant, but I end with food.)

In my formative years, my parents had a tape of Nancy White singing about the fortitude and unholy persistence you need to shop at Ikea. One of the lyrics being "Ralph Nader help me please". Smart as they are, I don’t think my parents could have known how prescient they were being, and how crucial a life lesson that was.

Ikea accomplishes the scientifically impossible by managing to both suck and blow simultaneously. Rather unfortunately, they also remain one of the best one-stop places in or around Toronto to buy furniture. On top of that, they are one of the better places to find sustainably produced furniture (possibly because no actual wood is harmed in the making of their products: it’s just glue and sawdust). On top of that, their modular solutions are still one of the best options for walk-up apartment dwellers with hairpin turns.

Dang it.

But it was armed with that early life lesson that I was not at all surprised at my inability to locate IVAR cabinet 600.337.62, 39×30x83cm.

We already have many pieces in our IVAR storage system. It populates a good two-thirds of our dining room wallspace. We own lots of 600.337.62’s little friends, including the double-wide version of the same cabinet, 400.337.63. But it turns out that 600 is the last unicorn of the Ikea catalogue. When the husband and I were in the Ikea warehouse buying the rest of our IVAR, the only evidence we could find that 600.337.62 actually exists was an illustration of what someone thought it looked like, and a hollow empty space where it would go (”here there be shelving units”).

So I am left stopping in at 600.337.62’s empty shelf whenever I find myself in an Ikea warehouse. Maybe leaving little bolts and allen keys in its lair in a futile but ever-hopeful attempt to lure it back...

But I digress. (And how). Though I have explained how Ralph Nader is involved.

I think Ikea is beginning to sense my frustration with missing cupboards, broken uprights and chipped veneers. Their peace offering? The "Swedish food market" just past the checkout. No, not the little hot dogs, but the marketplace just beside them. Where, in addition to inoffensive cheap furniture, Ikea has branched out to also sell whipped fish, Flädersaft, meatballs and other goodies.

Now I have no idea if there is any authenticity to most of these products. Although I don't imagine there's a huge market in inauthentic whipped fish. So while I'm not exactly doing my grocery shopping at Ikea, I am definitely enjoying getting some 'colour' items while I'm there.

Like Lingonberry bread mix ("Just add water"!):

We have a bread machine that I, frankly, have a bit of a crush on. We make just about all of our bread in that bad boy. But sometimes, you just wanna knead some dough. You wanna get in there. You wanna be involved. You wanna make the magic happen.

I wanted to make the magic happen. But I also didn't want to completely give up being lazy about it. So yes, while buying "just add water" bread mix is definitely a bit ridiculous, gosh darnit, it's also definitely fun.

So last Saturday morning, I dumped a bag of Lingonberry bread mix and a couple of yeast packets (included) into a bowl, added some water (not included), followed some simple instructions, and BAM! Swedish-y bread.

Well, bread dough at any rate:

But 40 minutes in the oven, and BAM! Swedish-y bread:

As for taste and texture, it was surprisingly good. Quite hearty and dense (ignoring the suggested rising time and letting it go for longer probably would have solved that), and not nearly as lingonberry-flavoured as the picture on the package would have you think (it's a photo of a loaf of bread, nestled on a stump in the middle of a lingonberry shrub: what I can only assume is the bread's natural habitat). But the loaves I made were definitely fresh-out-of-the-oven soft and thick and tasty. And a perfect complement to the weekend breakfast made for me by my beautiful and talented husband.

And that's where I'll end this six degrees of Ikea separation rambling, with an extreme close-up of Husband Breakfast (shine fatty goodness shine...):