4 posts tagged “food”
It's Thursday here in Oz. I reckon that's close enough to the weekend to be thinking about friends over for lunch or dinner. And that means I get to indulge my guilty, not-so-secret pleasure of ... yup! ... recipe contemplation. (You thought this was going to be something about oil parties and underwear swapping, and you were wrong!)
There are thousands - nay, I venture to say, millions! - of recipe sites on the Internet. I've got a fair number of them in my collection.
I don't always cook what I choose from the 'Net, of course. Life is busy and intervenes in my plans far too often. I usually read the ingredients and method, print off the recipe, store it in a ringbinder, and that's it. As a dear friend of mine says, we've eaten many meals with just our eyes.
I'm determined, however, to start trying some that appeal the most. Since my friend loves chili, and I'm beginning to tolerate it in warmer doses all the time, it seems a good starting place.
LotD - Pepper Fool's Recipe Pages
Where to start? The richness of it all!
From appetisers to vegetarian, and with recipes even for candy, desserts and drinks in between, there are hundreds (possibly thousands) of chili dishes on this site.
How about ... Cranberry Jalapeno Cookies?
Or Mango Habanero Icecream?
Perhaps Chicken Vindalager and Lime tickles your fancy?
Why not try a different stuffing for this year's Thanksgiving feasts - Cornbread, Green Chile and Pinenut? That'll wake up Uncle Dillard, snoozing into his turkey halfway down the table!
Besides flavour, the other beaut thing about chilies, of course, is that they're good for you - full of vitamin C and capable of revving up your metabolism for natural weight control.
I'm a big girl. Big hips, big bum, big boobs - built for igloo weather, not for hot and humid.
Trouble is, I hanker after a banquet that I'm never likely to taste, because I would need to travel to its country of origin and I couldn't take the climate there. I don't know of anywhere in Australia where it's offered.
It's the Indonesian/Dutch fusion culinary masterpiece of Rice Table, or Rijsttafel.
LotD - Rijsttafel
This site explains in detail what Rijsttafel is, and provides links to some recipes.
I'm going to make some of these dishes myself, but nothing will take the place of the full-blown experience.
I've had Gado Gado, the wonderful salad of cucumber, bean shoots, carrots and other vegetables, and hard-boiled eggs, dressed with a savoury peanut and kecap manis sauce.
I've eaten Nasi Goreng, rice with a fried egg and sweet shrimp and a fiery aftertaste of chili.
There are 98 other dishes featured in Rijsttafel, so I've got a way to go down Tastebud Highway.
If you're in Indonesia, or get the chance to go there, have a Rijsttafel banquet for me!
Remember sniglets? Do you have any favorites? Have you ever made up your own word? (Now's as good a time as any.)
My friend Wayne and I made up a couple of words.
The first of these arose because of a word he'd already created: mizlet. A mizlet is the finest slice of cheese possible, when it's so thin you can almost read through it. Mizlets are easier to obtain on hard cheeses such as a good parmesan, than they are on a crumbly cheddar or a camembert.
The word we invented together was the opposite of mizlet, as I adore cheese and we needed a word that described the largest piece one could cut from a block and leave ... yes, you guessed ... only a mizlet behind. We went multinational and came up with El Glutomaxigrande. The emphasis is on the maxi part, and your voice should rise in both volume and pitch when you get to it, lowering again on the grande.
Our second word relates to the feeling one gets when playing pool and just barely misses a shot. Again, we borrowed from a language other than English and devised Ratzenpoophe (pronounced RAT-zen-poop-ee). The "a" has an umlaut but I don't know how to put it into this site. The word should be spat out, rapidly and with the kind of vigour used by actors playing German guards in WWII prisoner-of-war movies when they yell "Raus, raus, raus! Schnell!" to get the Allies moving.
If someone offered you aamchur, would you:
- slurp it;
- snort it;
- mix it into something; or
- barbecue it
to make good culinary use of it?
What if you were provided with quiabo? Is it something that you'd serve for dessert?
If you're interested in food beyond the mass-produced burger, the processed cheese spread, the pre-digested stew-in-a-can, then this site should appeal to you.
LotD: Practically Edible
Billed as "the world's biggest food encyclopedia", Practically Edible has the answers to your food questions and inspiration for those days when the lure of the "instant anything" is strong. Aamchur, by the way, is mango powder and is used to give sourness to dishes, particularly in Indian cuisine. Quiabo is another term for okra, and I think you'd never have dinner party company again if you served it for dessert (although Kelly Cline (extraordinary food stylist and recipe maven) might find a way to make it palatable!) You'll also find tips and tricks, recipes, and information on four cuisines.
