marlena spieler

Maybe the sheep and goats pronounce it in reverse to the Greeks, you know the way Hebrew is read right to left instead of left to write. Maybe the sheep and goats do the same thing. and don't you LOVVVVVVE sheeps milk yogurt?! Marlena

Welcome Helen! I feel like we're in dueling foodblogs, and i love the fact, as you state it, that you and i are here for 24-hour a day food quibbles, queries, questions and everything! that is true! i'm here when i'm awake, and when i'm sleeping, there you are on the other side of the world, ready to dish it up! mmmmm.....i smell potatoes roasting. i'd better get over to my side of the blog, so they don't burn. i don't have a clue as for what you're having for dinner. i'd better just check in and find out. just for the record though: i LOVE udon, and as for lamb: oh those sheep, those talented sheep. they are adorable to look at and delicious as well. x marlena

Michelle (and David) your blog is WONDERFUL. so evocative and heartfelt and beautifully photographed, i felt as if i were there with you! your pomegranate tart is GORGEOUS, and it is simply a delightful portrait of your life and lifestyle at the table, and for all of the glimpses of everyday israeli life and what goes in to bringing this lovely food to your table, i thank you for sharing it! i'm also a big fan of israeli cottage cheese; when i lived on kibbutz a million years ago in another lifetime, saturday night was when they often served cottage cheese with lovely rolls. depending on how the week went, it could be a highlight, i'm telling you. (interestingly, it was the same kibbutz that amos oz was living, and he was the 'kibbutz' father/family--as they gave volunteers a family to go to for tea and a connection to the place-- to my best friend). again, thanks michelle, and david. how very touching and delicious your blog has been!

Oy, Zora and Mochihead, so glad you're better, both of you! Zora, my husband had pericarditis, which was terrible but he recovered completely! he was in the whitechapel hospital in london's east end (where we lived). the food was so bizarre that i wrote a whole column on it. i can look it up and see if its in the archives or not. in fact, the food was very school dinners sort of thing: lots of boiled white things, and when the dessert lady came around with her tubs of jelly (jello), stodgey heavy steamed puddings, ice cream (or what passes for it) and custard (ditto, what passes for it), the patients were besides themselves with glee. i thought it inedible but then i didn't go to school in the UK. I've recently spent a lot of time in hospitals in the usa as i was sick a few years ago, then my mother has been in and out of hospital with serious problems. when i see what they serve sick people i want to cry. esp the sodium content. and the glop factor. but my most outstanding experience in hospital food was when i had blood poisoning in Provence and was carted off to the Pasteur Institute in Nice, France. I was very ill and in hospital for about two weeks. the food was divinely provencal, totally nicoise, and though i was really too sick to eat, all of my guests were enjoying meals chez moi, especially as the portions were HUGE! half a loaf of baguette with each meal seemed to be the portion size. bowls of cafe au lait for breakfast. when it was time for a meal no one had to announce it as the smell of garlic wafted down the halls. not everything was wonderful, but there was always at least one dish that made the meal worth its while. one day i watched as my room mate--an elderly lady--tucked into her lunch. she ate with such gusto it was a joy to watch. oh, she muttered this and that about growing old and having to put up with the troubles that accompany it (she was in for something to do with her knee) but she was so full of life, especially when mealtime rolled around. this was not a fancy expensive hospital for foreigners, this was the local national health hospital, in fact rather downtrodden, and i was the only american they seemed to have ever had there. they called me: l'americaine. and when i left all the doctors and nurses lined up to shake hands with me and say au revoir! they were wonderful and saved my life. of course when i was in a california hospital with the same prob they also were wonderful and saved my life. but the food wasn't as good. heres to health, and our being appreciative of it, marlena

a year or two ago i went to a special balsamic vinegar dinner at oliveto, and one of the courses served was one of the most exquisite things i've ever eaten: a fresh rich egg, cloaked in a fine layer of crumbs and deep fried. The egg was poached, the crumbs practically grease free. the egg came on a bed of some kind of wild bitter greens, and just a few of them so it wasn't a salad, with shakes of the deepest most flavourful balsamico. i've tried to replicate this many times with no success. it was so simple, and superb! Marlena

Guys, it is so great to be back! Irish Cream: You are very sweet for your kind words! and also for being a sister in melty cheese. But I mean: whats up with Amazon! not having my book for the Christmas season, don't they know that I get royalities! (seriously, i feel sad that you wanted to get the book and couldn't). I know: why don't you get in touch with the senior editor of cookbooks and tell him you wanted it and couldn't get it: thats: bill_leblond@chroniclebooks.com he should be able to point you in the right direction. or, if you are in bay area, i'll be there in a few weeks time and can give you a copy of my book as a prezzie. email me separately and i'll give you my usa cellphone. i mean, a fan of melted cheese must have melted cheese! Mochihead: am glad you picked up on the subtleties of my greek feta cheese monger conversation: the difference between goat and sheep (cow is self explanatory). goat: mehhh-meehhhhh, and sheep: baaaaah-baaaaahhhhhh. i did know the word for goat, which is gidas, and no, which is oxhi, but i wasn't sure if arni is the word for ewe, or only for roast lamb. figured that goat and sheep bleating would be a bit surer a way to get that good cheese. what was funny and wonderful was the way the cheese monger immediately identified which animal was which. i tapped into a universal (cheese) truth in greece! did i mention that the cheese was (and is, the little we have left of it) superb! Michelle--swisskaese-- and Jackal 10: Wonderful to be with you guys again, here on egullet! omigod its almost lunchtime! I don't want to let down the blog by missing a meal! x Marlena

Drinking a cuppa right now, something magical and compulsive happens to us when we return to British shores: we just have to drink tea: strong he-man tea, with milk in it. i know i'm going to have to address this subject throughout the week. In Greece we were drinking either coffee--and lots and lots of it!--or faskomilo tea, which is wild sage, gathered from the hillsides. Whenever we go out for walks we often find wild sage and gather it up to dry it for tea. My suitcase was filled with bunches of it on my way home! It is fragrant, and wonderful for chestcolds, bronchitis, or asthma (so they say in Greece). I just know that it is soothing when hot. And any leftovers I let go cold and drink it as iced tea, much to the horror of my British husband. He views all attempts at making iced tea as horrific. Oh, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed Michelle's foodblog from Israel! am just now catching up with it, as couldn't read it last week: our greek shepherds hut was without electricity. Marlena

Greetings--at this moment, I'm in the heart of Hampshire, England. Its 9 a.m. and I would have started this blog earlier--say about 3 hours earlier when I first woke up--but couldn't figure out a good title for it. I'm still not convinced, but I'm getting thirsty for caffeine and hungry hungry hungry, so figured I'd better tap something out before I spent all week fretting and never got a posting made! I decided on the title because I lead an unusual bi-continental lifestyle. I live in the Hampshire countryside of the United Kingdom, and write a food column--Roving Feast-- for The San Francisco Chronicle. i also write cookbooks, do broadcasting, and have a daughter in new york city. I'm here, I'm there, I'm inbetween, sometimes I want to cry out: who am i and where do i live? This week I'm actually at home in Britain working on a project that will keep me tied closelly to the kitchen; more about that later. Last week we were in a shepherds hut on a greek island perched high above the sea. we were there for several weeks; i love greece, and this week will probably still be making a few greek dishes in an effort to extend the well being i get when i think of being there. plus i love greek food which is seldom made well in american or british restaurants, or even in many restaurants in greece either. shortly after i do this blog, in a week or two, i'll be back in san francisco catching up on the tastiest stuff going on. so this is a good time to write a foodblog as will have time to devote to writing about each and every delicious thing we eat. this week should be fun, too, because it is the tail end of christmas, and having missed the original olde english christmas, my british husband is trying to catch up with the christmas pudding, mince pies, and all the things he went without during our sojurn in greece. and most of all, i'm really really glad to be doing this blog, because its getting me back in the egullet.org mode: i've been away tooooooo long working at things that seem so important! now i know that nothing is as important as egullet! right? okay. i'm off to brew some caffeine. having brought back that finely ground coffee from greece. This morning instead of my usual dark roast french press, its going to be greek coffee, brewed in a briki, the little long handled traditional pot. i take my greek coffee metrios, that is with a medium amount of sugar. its thick, and strong, and fragrant, it smells like being in Greece! in keeping up the theme, and because i've already been awake hours without eating and figure its lunchtime at least, i'm making us feta cheese omelets. usually i only make omelets for lunch or dinner, but hey, i'm not really locked into any time frame for any meal. i pride myself on being able to eat anything at any time! Feta cheese omelet: learned to make this from a greek mechanic a long time ago in another lifetime when i drove my vw van to greece and broke down somewhere near patras. the mechanic fixed our car, and fixed us an omelet that i've been making in variations ever since. today I have some really excellent feta cheese that i bought in the athens central market. it is made from sheeps milk and is very creamy and rich. i had a lot of fun speaking with the cheese monger there in my pidgen greek; i ended up making a lot of baaaa-ing noises in an effort to differentiate between goats, cows and sheeps milk. I break up a few thick slices of feta, so that they are bite sized, and add them to beaten eggs; probably 2 ounces of cheese to one egg. i'm using three eggs for the two of us. Heat the pan with a little extra virgin, then pour it in; the edges sizzle in the hot oil; then i turn the heat down, and pull up the crisp sizzled edges every so often for the liquid egg to run in. I like to keep the cheese dispursed evenly throughout the pan. When the omelet is golden on the bottom, invert it onto a plate then turn it over in the pan and brown its top. Sometimes I do this under the broiler instead. Okay, its ready to go; though i usually sprinkle dried oregano over it, today i have fresh dill, and green onions; i'll chop them and sprinkle them over the top. i also have some pita--the greek pita without pockets--that i also brought back from athens. i'll warm that up too. Speak with you later, after we've eaten and digested. Marlena

if i remember correctly, udipi palace is kosher (it is vegetarian). it serves dosas, things that are perhaps more lunchy, but then, i was there for lunch, perhaps dinner is different. i went there with indian food writer julie sahni, and we had such a wonderful time as she narrated this and that as we tasted this and that, and we left so stuffed (the dessert was a final straw, that one rich spoonful too many) but in the happiest way. udipi palace is on lexington, quite close to kalustyans,..... marlena

I'm echoing this plea, though in my case it IS a matter of: I"m going to die if I don't have one! (Seriously, I would like to write about them and run the occasional recipe for them, but if they are not available, I cannot! I want to spread the utter joy of this exquisite fruit!). and they are healthy too! x m ← Come visit me, we have beautiful passion fruit here. ← Michelle, you know, I am definately coming to visit you one of these days! do passion fruit have a season? israel has been growing some fabulous mangos that i've been buying here (in britain) lately. really sweet and fragrant. and kitwilliams! you know, i'm in LA for a family wedding this sunday through tuesday, and i was thinking: oh, if only I have a chance to get away, I can go get passionfruit til my hearts content! never mind, it was a sweet sweet offer. and michelle, i must send you my favourite summery drink with passionfruit, cranberry juice, amaretto and blackberry vodka, and fresh lime. sounds strange, tastes divine! x x m

36 on the Quay is the main reason for Emmsworth calling itself, or locals calling it, aspirationally, a foodie village. its a cute village, relatively unspoilt. i reviewed a restaurant there, allwoods, for the portsmouth news. it was okay. but okay doesn't a foodie village make. have i said that friday night the only line outside a restaurant that i've ever seen in these here parts, is at the KFC? sad but true.

if all goes according to plan, a little birdie told me that wholefoods will soon be opening up throughout europe, and i would imagine that paris would be up there in places that they would be looking at. Marlena

yeah, but they're in the NORTH, Jason, what do they know about pizza in the north?! x m :

rough-hewn dark sunflower rye bread, with raw garlic and onions. Breakfast of champions! but......why am i spending my morning so alone? marlena

Cabbage, chopsticks, chorizo........ this ignorant loutish behavior reminds me of what my late cousin Marc once said: "Science has discovered that there is, indeed, a limit to human intelligence. Alas, there is no limit to human ignorance!" x marlena

I'm echoing this plea, though in my case it IS a matter of: I"m going to die if I don't have one! (Seriously, I would like to write about them and run the occasional recipe for them, but if they are not available, I cannot! I want to spread the utter joy of this exquisite fruit!). and they are healthy too! x m

Marlena Spieler enthusiastically recommends Promenades Gourmandes. Paule's web site reads as though it were exactly what you're looking for. ← Marlena, here, seconding John's seconding my own praise of Paule Caillat's Promenades Gourmandes. here's how a promenade gourmande goes: you all meet up at a cafe, and then Paule takes you to a morning market near her home, a charmingly untouristy market in the 3rd (marais). you shop, she badgers the vendors, shows you how to get the best of this and that, h ow to choose fish, fruit, whatever, and afterwards you go to her purpose built apartment with cooking class kitchen facilities. before the class she will ask you if there is anything you are particularly interested in, such as fish, souffles, etc. she is tres tres francaise, and after a morning with paule, you will be too. so its: morning shop, cooking class, have lunch together of the food you've bought and prepared. If you opt for a whole day programme she can take you further afield to speciality shops etc. Paule is a very outspoken Parisienne, and I recommend spending a day with her. You'll find youself pursing your lips meaningfully for weeks afterwards. I've been to about 5 of Paules classes already, and it is a wonderful way of being totally submerged in being parisian (cooking and eating). and she gives good advice about where to find things, buy things, etc. you'll learn good classic cooking skills, too, esp if you opt for one of her tarts (a marvellous unorthodox crust), souffle, etc. x marlena www.promenadesgourmandes.com or you can go to my link page on www.marlenaspieler.com where i have her listed as favourite things and places......

Himalayan truffles can easily last a week and since they're more about odour than flavour, it makes sense to leave them with the eggs longer. ←

Piemonte is especially rich with cheeses and the tradition of a cheeseboard after the meal. I remember once in the countryside around Alba sampling my way through a big tray. what i was impressed with was that so many of the cheeses were local. i especially liked the stories behind the cheeses such as when one of the cheeses was pointed out: Ah this cheese is made by the local youth detention centre (ie the nun and the bad boys). Marlena

my old neighbourhood (actually, poplar/bow). lived there 15 years, and the change in food availablitliy is enormous. a few suggestions might be: when we left there were some turkish places opening up on Roman Road (of course you can always nip over to hackney to the turkish food centre etc, north but not too far). the other thing, is if you like vietnamese stuff, there is a little Vietnamese grocer right across the street and to the right when you get off at All Saints/Chrisp Street Market on the DLR, lots of fresh stuff: asian basil, the lot! its called: Alans, and i think the sign is a garish pink unless they have changed it i haven't been there in a few months. also in chrisp street which is basically a horrible market, but a new polish russian shop has opened, lots of pickles etc. yum.

best truffle oil comes with a few little morsels of truffle floating in it. it lasts longer and its flavour has more fidelity with its truffle essence....... i find a good truffle oil, a few drops of it, is very good at oomphing up a bit of fresh truffle. also, because to my knowledge there still is no fresh truffle worth eating in the usa, and because tinned or jarred truffles are a far cry from the real bliss thing, you need to be near a truffle source to eat dishes with just truffles alone as it needs to be very very fresh. the moment a truffle is unearthed, it starts to lose its fragrance. this is especially true of summer truffles. i always thought they had no flavour, even recently i was in umbria and ate summer truffles on spaghetti and no flavour, bought a jar of summer truffle condimento, and i had to oomph it up with a drop of oil. and then i went on a truffle hunt near bergerac. our truffled omelet was amazing, the truffle a mere hour or two from the ground. the hunter said this was the reason, though of course i know there are truffles and there are truffles. but i'll never pooh poooh summer truffles again. i 'll just make sure they are very fresh. eggs stashed overnight with truffles are wonderful. you can eat the truffled omelet, and still have more truffles to eat in something else! i like truffle sandwiches myself. i love truffles big time non stop 24/7. Marlena

Thank you. As a layman, I found it highly suspectible that in these days when economic considerations start to dictate virtually every aspect of life, such an important motif is not mentioned at all. "Cost-cutting" as a no-no word in the holy halls of flavour and texture? ← My first heads up to sous vide cooking was about four years ago when i was hanging in the kitchen of Paris' Restaurant Le Cinq and a great deal of the meats/seafood/etc were cooked sous vide. Then the wave of gastro molecular sous vide popularity. so...when i found myself not long ago sitting outside on a warm summers night in Bergerac, France, with a group of winemakers, as we ate the most ethreal foie gras souffle with asparagus and hazelnuts......I thought I would lead the discussion to sous vide and see what people were thinking. "All of the important restaurants use them" I said. Le Cinq, El Bulli, WD-50....". with much oooohing and laaaa-ing, everyone was like: oh, really, do you think? They were agast in a pleasant, interested, way. (the wine was divine!). So we called the owner of the restaurant and the chef over for their opinion, and they were very enthusiastic, saying: oh, yes, though we do not do it here, it is the future, as IT IS MORE ECONOMICAL AND YOU CAN MANAGE YOUR STOCK better. As for me: i have mixed feelings. I"m a hands on, sensuality, feel it, smell it, sniff it, girl. i don't like cooking in plastic, don't like precision, don't like thermometers, instead like to touch touch touch. On the other hand, if a technique or tool can do something that makes a different result thats intriguing. Would love to play with that anti-griddle freezing thing. but am not really fond of sous vide (actually its not the sous vide, its the low low temp) meats, they are too tender, too flabby. but hey, thats just my humble opinion. I'd like to taste per se's watermelon, and I'd LOVE to taste the korean pickled garlic that Chef Zadi found in Korea. Marlena

Le Cheval Blanc in Troo? (I like staying there as they give you a farm egg fresh from a nearby chicken, for breakfast which makes a change from the usual bread, jam, and croissants...... and the quality of the bread and croissants was excellent. ) marlena

I L O V E spices. I love the way a hit of ginger can transform a simple tomato coulis. i love cinnamon in meatballs, cardomom in sauces, i love being smacked on the face with a mysterious concoction of spices and enjoying the discovery of flavours in each bite..... i feel totally dismayed when ethnic dishes are prepared by western chefs or for western palates and refined to the point of dul. sometimes this happens esp with vietnamese food, either in paris or in trendy us restos. mexican too but less so. you can't have mexican food without a few basic spices. and fresh herbs. maybe i'll start a thread on whats you favourite herb? when i wrote my book hot and spicy, a million years ago in the 80s, people were like: oh chiles and spices are not refined, they couldn't be really real food, not real cuisine, not the sort that fancy refined people like us take seriously in our foodie magazines and pretentious restaurants, i mean life was like that then........but americans suddenly went chile mad, and chile became chic. which it should be, but then again, i think if its delicious, its chic. refined is often akin to pretentious, in that its all about form rather than substance. anyhow, spices belong in certain foods, don't belong in others, some cuisines have herbs instead of spices, many cuisines have a tradition of one and not the other (genoese with their fresh herbs, say pesto, say no more.........) or spices and not herbs. oh i said i wasn't going to post this morning and detract myself from actually doing some work. but i love spices so........(and herbs). now i'm going to have breakfast, and have to amend my breakfast to suit the very spicy herby state i'm finding myself in, x the very unrefined marlena

Yes, locals have told me that Henry Miller really loved Perigord...... you might try visiting the truffle eco-musee in sorges, also what about visiting a foie gras farm? i always think its good to see the farmers raising the animals well, the more people who see this thing the better.