The Elegant Sufficiency

Words of Note 5

My extracts du jour — more good stuff found online:

“If you ever wanted proof of the commercial juggernaut that is called dieting — this is it. Kraft Foods is rolling out a vending machine stocked with South Beach Diet branded food. Apparently the machines are already in service in Florida. The machines are only stocked with foods that are compliant with Arthur Agatston's South Beach Diet.”
The Diet Blog barely contains its horror at the wickedness of the diet industry.

“There was polenta topped with chunks of meat, grilled white asparagus and a lot of melted butter. There was crespelle, a kind of crepe, with a mascarpone, ricotta and herb filling. There was the creamiest risotto made with more white asparagus, which was at its peak when we visited. I was starting to think that I might have eaten enough when the main course came: thin slices of roast pork from the farm with sautéed potatoes and salad. Oh, and with each course there were earnest offers of seconds.”
Rosa Jackson tours the Veneto.

“Honke Owariya, like a lot of other folks in Kyoto, is very, very particular about the water that they use. They won’t open a restaurant in Tokyo because the same dashi cannot be made with Tokyo water. When they opened their Shijo Teramachi branch which is in a department store, one of their terms was that they would drill their own well for water.”
Ahead of my departure for Japan next week, I'm checking in frequently with the Kyoto Foodie.

“The landscape of American fast food is looking up. Dotted across the country at roadside exits and on bustling city street corners, the classic grub-on-the-go is getting a mighty makeover. Here are a few drive-thrus we’re digging …”
Rachel Cole on Mighty Foods, a blog about "the who, what, why and how of natural foods".

“Since then, whenever I see cabbage salad on a menu, I just have to order it. There’s been the gorgeous shaved red cabbage salad with gorgonzola, walnuts and raisins at my current fav Italian joint, a tavola. And then there was the white cabbage and mint salad with shaved grana padano and a fresh zesty lemon dressing at Love Supreme. On the home front I’ve dabbled with Karen Martini’s version with fresh mint and caraway seeds as a side to rich roast pork belly.”
More inspiration from Jules at Stone Soup.

“Fiddleheads are the young, tightly coiled leaves of the Ostrich fern. The springtime delicacy was eaten by Maliseet Indians, who lived in what is now known as New Brunswick, and is believed to have been introduced into the colonial diet in the 1700s. Today commercial fiddleheaders harvest the leaves in parts of coastal Canada and the northeastern United States.”
Syrie, from Taste Buddies, writing from Vancouver.

“I had a recommendation from a local and before he could say ‘ouvre la bouche’ I had devoured a damn tasty sandwich from Sporeboys's mushroom stall prepared using their magnificent looking wild mushrooms in a small fry pan and extreme wind conditions.”
Scrambling Eggs at the Broadway Market in Hackney, London.

“A highlight was definitely the donkey salami.”
Helen at Food Stories visits The Real Food Festival in London.

"Over the course of three days last week I ate, I would wager, as much lechon baboy (spit-roasted pig) as most Filipinos eat in a year. Thanks to 72 hours of intensive training, I now know a good one from a bad one, and could probably rate any lechon on a loosely calibrated scale of, say, one to five. Hardened arteries be damned."
The wonderful Robyn at Eating Asia after a visit to the Philippines.

“It’s exactly eight years since we closed the restaurant, and tonight we embark on the first round of prep to get up and ready to open again. Stock has always been at the base of all our cooking and I wrote the piece below for The Australian in 2000 with a deep melancholy that only now has begun to thaw, so what better way to begin a new era than starting the first foundation stock?”
George Biron prepares to reopen his restaurant in country Victoria, Sunnybrae.

Words of Note 4

Here’s another, long-long-overdue, instalment of engaging blog excerpts discovered during my online wanderings:

“I'm terribly bored of self-indulgent writers who instead of communicating the febrile joys of appetite, try to make like Keats and pen something more akin to An ode to a Grecian Urn. This is dinner we're talking about, not a walk through the daisies, and it demands a language which reflects that.”
The very clever Guardian writer Jay Rayner on Word of Mouth.

“In between meals we visited Padma’s friends and their farms. On one such visit, one friend was informed of the birth of a calf, and asked if she would like to take some of the colostrum-rich first milk from the cow. She declined and I was heartbroken. It is not everyday, rather never, that I can get kharvas in Delhi.”
Anita on A Mad Tea Party describing a visit to the south-western Indian state of Karnataka.

“Or you could recall the words of Australian writer Carmel Bird in her book Dear Writer: 'You have the choice of a clean house or a finished story. The choice is yours.’ ”
Ask the Bronte Sisters explores writers' procrastination — the magical lure that housework has when there’s writing to be done.

“Anthony (Bourdain), it's time we talked. The thing is, you've been talking a lot of shit. And you've been doing a lot of bitching and moaning about how we joy-hating terrorist vegans ruin your day. ... And I know whenever one of us sets foot in one of your tourist traps of culinary mediocrity, you huff around like Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer, roll your eyes, slice some eggplant, charge us $25 for it and take another smoke break. That's cool. We're not overly concerned. Because, Anthony, you're kind of tragically wrong about us. … So we aren't just going to "enjoy" food, we're going to enjoy vastly improved, veganized versions of your masturbatory, blood-oozing recipes. And then we're going to compile them, sell them in zine form, and donate the proceeds to vegan outreach organizations and farm sanctuaries — in your name. Anthony, I have to say, I'm really looking forward to the great work we're going to do together for veganism. This is an open call to vegan cooks of all stripes: professional chefs and bakers, cookbook authors, food bloggers, amateur cooks, and — perhaps most importantly — ordinary, everyday people who just want to live their lives and eat their dinners without unnecessary heckling from the heroin-addled peanut gallery.”
The call to arms of “Monsieur Tofu” on Hezbollah Tofu.

“Casual drinkers beware, cocktail nerds have a new way of ordering drinks in San Francisco. No longer satisfied with set menus or even with drink specials du soir, the true cocktailian now knows how to order custom-made drinks, and it's definitely the in thing to do. Don't believe me? Next time you go to a bar, take a listen. There will probably be at least one or two patrons who, after sampling a few drinks on the bar menu, will leave their next drink up to the bartender. They'll probably give clues like, "I'd like something with Bluecoat gin and ginger" or "I'm looking for something with a bitter edge, but not Campari-bitter," and then sit back to wait for their custom drink.
Stephanie Lucianovic on Bay Area Bites discusses the new kind of barfly.

“A year and a half ago I started talking to my seafood supplier here in Sydney to see if he knew anyone catching shark for the fish-and-chip industry in Victoria,” Gilmore says, ”because they use flake down there, and I thought if they were using the whole fish I could justify using the fin. No one was interested, but then I was speaking to my guys over in Western Australia at Mulataga, Chris and Dennis. They supply me with some marron and pearl meat, and get abalone and all sorts of great fish; their big business is exporting West Australian lobsters to China and all over the world. Anyway, they asked if I’d be interested in shark fin, and I said, tell me about it. …”
Quay chef Peter Gilmore on his controversial use of shark fin — on the Gourmet Traveller blog.

“Here is a step by step on how I use tuna spines as a great dish. … One chefs trash is another chefs dish.”
Chris on the sometimes confronting Offal Good. (If you can stomach it, take a look at this too.)

“Recently I read somewhere that they now have "sparkling sake" as an up-and-coming item, especially among young women (yes, like myself!) who usually steer clear of sake; now produced and sold by an increasing number of sake breweries, sparkling sake is fast finding its way in restaurant and household tables.”
Chika on the Japanese blog She Who Eats.

“Salty preserved lemons. … Once you’ve got the taste for this uniquely Moroccan specialty you’ll find yourself slipping a finely chopped chunk or two into almost anything. A tray of potatoes, roasted with wedges of red onion and a chopped red pepper or two then tossed with olive oil are lifted by a last-minute addition of the lemons. Fresh coriander, smoked paprika and cumin, a downright addictive combination, even love that salt when tossed with fresh young broad beans (double-peeled) and tender chickpeas for a salad doused in grassy olive oil and fresh lemon juice.”
Lucy on the Melbourne-based Nourish Me shares more good ideas.

Words of Note 3

Clever words from clever food bloggers found during my procrastinating rambles through my Bloglines:

“A drop of honey is a collection from the souls of flowers. It is complex photographic impression translated into taste of a specific moment in time and place, each element of the equation bearing consequence upon the other. This magical recipe has been enchanting cultures for ages because the formidable efforts required to create such an elixir are shielded by the unseen and ineffable. Honey has been prized by ancients as money, medicine, preservative, offering to the gods, and as a symbol of love and fertility. It perfectly embodies the constant diligence needed to sustain life as well as being a sensuous balm that makes those efforts worthwhile.”
—From brilliant New Hampshire blogger Callipygia.

“It was an eight-hour drive from Nice to the village of Piandicastello in the northern part of Le Marche, with only about 10 houses but an active social scene. Each night the locals would gather at a communal table overlooking the gentle hills in muted shades of green for a kind of impromptu party, often retiring to one or the other's house to continue the festivities.”
—French blogger Rosa Jackson on holidays.

“I don't think I like hillwalking very much. This is what I told Gareth about five minutes into the walk. Specifically, ‘This SUCKS. And so do YOU for making me do this’.”
—Shauna on the Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl tackles Scotland’s Ben Lomond.

“Our little garden is a wild place and I love it. Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, onions, Swiss chard, lettuce, lavender, strawberries, sage, mint, cucumbers, rosemary, tarragon and basil are gathered together like an outrageous green family. At times you have to strain to see through it all lest you miss a perfectly ripe tomato, ready to be plucked. The strawberries and the tarragon bush hang over the cracked concrete wall that holds up one side of the raised garden bed. That same side is covered by an old makeshift trellis built by my father, many years ago, as a support for his grape vines.”
—Ivonne on Cream Puffs in Venice writes about her Toronto garden.

“I think they asked, ‘What do you look for in a restaurant?’ And I think I gave my standard answer ‘One: waiters who sing an ORIGINAL RESTAURANT SONG on your birthday and put candles in the cake. Two: crayons on the table with WHITE paper placemats, don’t give me that brown s**t. And Three: Instead of a men's room and a women's room, the bathrooms should be marked #1 and #2 because no one wants to smell a stinky when you're eating out.”
—The Amateur Gourmet's Adam, whose first book has just been released.

“When we made this recipe, a Grizzly sow and her two cubs descended on us, as they couldn't resist the enticing smell of the pancakes. The bear family ventured down about 20 metres away from our camp and sniffed the heady air for a few seconds but decided that perhaps it was better just to stick to plain berries for now. We were quite relieved.”
—Vancouver resident Syrie, of the blog Taste Buddies, goes camping.

“Kiam chai boi, a sour vegetable stew, is a Malaysian leftovers dish. What stale bread is to panzanella, cooked vegetables from a roast are to bubble and squeak, and lechon is to paksiw, meat (usually pork) doggy-bagged home after a Chinese wedding banquet or other celebration is to kiam chai boi.”
—Robyn on the striking Eating Asia blog.

Words of Note 2

Here’s my second spin around the block trying out the idea for a new Elegant Sufficiency regular column, Words of Note … And the idea behind it? When I find something interesting, amusing or essential on another blog, I’ll send you in their direction:

"Zafraan (Persian)/kesar (Hindi)/kong (kashmiri) or saffron, is the most expensive spice in the world, worth more than its weight in gold. In India it has always been measured in tolas, a unit of measure used for weighing gold (approximately 12gm). Kashmiri saffron with its long and deep maroon strands and a delicate aroma is the most valued in the world.
If you were ever disappointed with your Kashmiri saffron, and wondered what the fuss was all about, it is likely that you received saffron that was blended with the less expensive Spanish or Iranian saffron. A few months back my Mom got hold of a little of the real stuff through a cousin working in Kishtwar (Kashmir). Despite having all her culinary secrets revealed here she gave the entire lot to me! Isn’t she the best?"
—Delhi resident Mad Tea Party on one of the planet's very special ingredients.

"There's nothing more unnerving than placing food in your mouth only to have smoke billow from your nostrils as though you were Puff the Magic Dragon throwing a hissy. We both stared at each other in amazement as this tiny piece of chemistry worked its magic and dissolved."
—Ms Fits, aka Marieke Hardy, on Reasons You Will Hate Me, discovering molecular gastronomy.

"Forget about the hot dog or the hamburger, for my money, the Cobb Salad is one of the best examples of 'American cuisine'. It was invented in America, it combines American ingredients with American excessiveness and good old American seat-of-the-pants ingenuity. It also has a little bit of Hollywood flair. The story goes that, after the chef had gone home, Bob Cobb, the owner of The Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, created a late-night snack for Chinese Theater owner Sid Grauman by pulling out a bit of this and that from the refrigerator and the popular salad was born."
—Amy Sherman discussing a great American tradition with theatrical antecedents on Cooking with Amy.

"Being on vacation makes it easier to see the world in a different way, and one thing I’m trying to do – now, and when I get back home – is to notice the light.
The sun’s strength at different times of day – the shapes and colors of clouds – the clarity of the atmosphere – shadows – moonlight – I’m making a conscious effort to notice and appreciate it all."
—The Happiness Project's Gretchen Rubin searching for ways to make the world look more beautiful.

"… Among the ice-cream flavors we had were:
Ispahan: Litchi and rose sorbet with raspberries;
Caramel au Beurre Sale: Caramel ice cream made with salted butter;
Plentitude: Chocolate ice cream with flecks of chocolate and fleur-de-sel’;
Satine: Orange, passionfruit and cream cheese;
Montebello: Pistachio ice cream with strawberry sorbet."
—Jetsetting blogger Dorie Greenspan making shivering Southern Hemisphere-ites green with envy.

"The key to cognitive reserve is not to wait until you’re in your 60s (or even 50s, 40s, 30s, or 20s, for that matter), but to challenge yourself intellectually as early and often as possible. Further, a comprehensive “neuroprotective lifestyle” involves not only brain activities, but also physical activity and a healthy diet."
—A public health announcement on Lumosity, the brain health blog.

"There is nothing — and I mean nothing — like eating Maine lobster in Maine. It's just one of those experiences that anyone who loves food should have at some point in their lives. I say this honestly — and you may think I'm crazy — but a Maine lobster caught in Maine and served in Maine tastes NOTHING like any lobster you've had anywhere else. It's sweeter, juicier, and smacks of the sea and all that's good about eating sea creatures. The
Sterns say something in their article about the water being colder in Maine and that having something to do with it. I don't know. But this lobster at Mabel's Lobster Claw goes into my record book of one of the best things to eat in the world ever.
[Side note: we saw a family outside the Clam Shack with the book 1001 Things To Do Before You Die. The mother said, "Oh this is the place! This is the place in the book!" So we watched them get in line and watched them order and then they all walked away with platters. Of hot dogs.]"
—Adam Roberts on The Amateur Gourmet discussing one of the food world's most pleasurable experiences.

"I'm not exactly sure how it happened. I got all dressed up to go to dinner, an al fresco barbeque at Rebecca's, and before the day is over I milked a sheep, witnessed a magical — if ever so mildly yucky — moment of piglets being born – the piglets were cute and pink and spotted and got big floppy ears, but before all that they were wet and mucous-y and bloody and stuff. Eh.
And to top it all off properly, we came home with a cow. OK, not a whole cow. Honestly. We just became a part owner of one. And now we get two gallons of her milk weekly — unpasteurized, non-homogenized, raw milk, just the way the gods intended.
What to do with raw milk? The possibilities are endless. I'm thinking homemade butter, crème fraiche, clotted cream, et cetera et cetera.  I'll try it all, I think, and will tell you all about it. Meanwhile, I'll just introduce you to Nutmeg, our gorgeous Normande cow."
—Pim of Chez Pim on the new member of her family.

Words of Note 1

A new idea, a variation on Recipe Scout I suppose: once a week or so, I'll dig out some of the smartest, wittiest, cutest, most inspired or most evocative (mostly food) lines online and lead you to their makers. Tell me what you think? How’s this for a start:

"I liked last year’s Hell's Kitchen. And I like a good fat joke as much as anybody. Making fun of the lame, the halt, the dim-witted — surely there’s a place for it in comedy. But this season’s Hell’s Kitchen is — even for me — an exercise in pointless cruelty so ugly, cruel and squalid in its half-hearted, ritualized beat-downs as to shame all who take part — and all who watch.”
—Michael Ruhlman on Ruhlman, writing about the third series of Gordon Ramsay's culinary boot-camp.

“The more needs you have, the less you’re bound to enjoy. Picky eaters convince themselves that they have needs — that they need to avoid anything salty or they’ll get bloated, anything peppery or they’ll choke, anything spicy or they’ll schvitz. Dieters “need” to have three servings of fruit a day, 10 glasses of water before they exercise, and 40 bites of something green at least 80 times a week.
Needs can be exhausting. And, more essentially, they take all the pleasure out of food. Hypochondriacs will never know the joys of a rare juicy steak. They’ll never experience a frothy eggnog made with beaten raw egg or, for that matter, an authentic Caesar salad. Those who “need” a big piece of meat at every meal, will never celebrate summer with a simple seasonal salad.”
—Adam Roberts on The Amateur Gourmet, on people with food needs.

“… we’ve just entered the great state of Wyoming. I didn’t think that the sky could be any larger than it was in South Dakota, but I was wrong. Cattle and sheep pepper the landscape. They’re a refreshing contrast to the feedlots I’ve become familiar with through my research on industrial livestock production— although as Dan O’Brien reminds us in his book Buffalo for the Broken Heart, which I’m currently reading, the prairie isn’t cattle’s natural habitat any more than a feedlot is. This land was built for buffalo.
But the cows sure do look nice out there.
Everything from that ubiquitous bucking-bronco image on the license plates to the bow legs and boots on the guy next to me at the diner is designed to make you remember that Wyoming is the land of the cowboy.”
—Elanor on the Ethicurean, just before she visits a "small-scale slaughter facility".

“…I turned around to see her holding up an old Patons knitting pattern book. And she was right. It really was fucking me. Just loungin’ in a cream cableknit with some of my ‘peeps’. Note ladylike pose. I still sit like this, interestingly. No wonder I meet so many nice men..."
—Ms Fits, aka Marieke Hardy, on Reasons You Will Hate Me, op-shopping with her mother.

“…Like pictures of partially unravelled mummies in Britannica or the unexpected discovery of a writhing silk bag of tent worms, fungi both fascinated and repelled me. No small part due to the company they kept: pill-bug-infested logs, rotting leaves, nefarious trolls and poison-tongued frogs. Hesitantly I poked at live spongey flesh which exuded the natural damp glow of perspiration. They looked rather like disembodied parts, cherubic cheeks and bottoms, or perhaps cartilaginous ears dead and partially buried. Earthy, rank, feeding off the dead, mushrooms-of-the-forest looked nothing like the pristine white buttons slivered upon my Gino & Joe’s pizza.”
—Callipygia on Food Chair, on eating fungi, "a bit like a sacrament, food for the gods but one still bound to the ground".

“… p.s. Please don’t hate me for having an iPhone, it was a birthday/anniversary present and my old phone was really, really old and dying...”
Amy Sherman on Cooking with Amy, obsessing about her new gadget rather than food. (I'm soooo jealous!)

“So when the holiday weekend began this past Saturday all I wanted to do was lie on the couch with a box of Kashi Heart to Heart Cereal and our DVR, which was filled to 98% capacity with the television shows I haven’t had time to watch.”
Ari on Baking and Books, chilling, and sharing a recipe for Spaghetti Squash with Pumpkin Seed Pesto.

“At the moment, cherries are everywhere here in Switzerland. Roadside signs proclaim ‘Kirschen’ or ‘Chriesli’ (the Swiss-German dialect for cherries), luring you to farms and fruit groves and farm stores. They’re on sale at the Migros supermarket too, for the busy person to pick up in a hurry.
When I get started on cherries, I can’t seem to stop until I’ve had my fill, and I do mean fill, of that sweet, dark juice with a hint of sourness. Fresh cherries are so good that I just can’t bring myself to do anything more than pop them in my mouth one after another, methodically spitting out the pits. I know there are numerous cherry recipes out there, but as delicious as things like cherry pie and cherry clafouti are, there’s really nothing to beat the naked, unadorned cherry.”
Maki on Just Hungry, rhapsodising.