marlena spieler

yeah, sounds like banoffi, and as lexy says, a delish mixture of toffee and bananas. usually a bonoffi is made into a pie, ie a layer of toffee made from boiling evaporated milk, a layer of banana, a topping of whipped cream, all in a graham/digestive biscuit crust. oh and a sprinkling of chocolate on top. a big scoop of both dulce de latte and banana ice cream, and a sprinkling of chocolate along with a few crumbled digestive biscuits would probably come close. wish i had a bowlful now.

worst food of my life in Malta, very excellent food in Crete, though none of the 'fine dining' that you are describing. just back from a conference in athens in which i had quite a few samplings of the type you describe: some delightful, some just pretentious. i'm not sure that cyprus is the place for you to go looking for fine dining. when i was there last (friends lived there, so i got the skinny on what was going on) there wasn't even the pride of what is the best olive oil on the island, they just wanted to please their guests/british/foreigners who were bringing in the bucks so to speak. but there was wonderful home fare. traditional fare. my recent visit to athens, following the whole modern european (in this case modern greek) brought home to me the fact that when modern food goes past the pretentious state, past the part when they add all the fusion foods and new ideas which might be good somewhere else but are merely derivative, anyhow, when they get past them and really embrace their own quality, revel in their own traditions but seen with a fresh eye, and perhaps the finesse of doing occasional stages in Paris or Spain, anyhow, that is when the real fine dining and modern cuisine stuff kicks in. until then it is merely copy-cat with a few bows to local ingredients. a recent trip to umbria underlined this too. wow. there we were in a culinaryily rich area of the world, and this highly acclaimed restaurant was serving what was basically 1970s nouvelle cuisine, with some very silly flavours, little in the way of satisfaction on the plate, and much pomp. good luck! the things i found that were the best in cyprus were: bread baked in a woodburning oven; ditto for lamb. homemade yogurt. anything stella makes. some very interesting tubers, and leaves. great artichokes. we had a yummy time! heres to your having a yummy time too! Marlena

i'm very saddened. Doris was indeed, a grand voice, eloquent and elegant, a passionate observer and note-taker of whatever caught her interest, a classy act in the bay area food arena..... i loved her book about the restaurants of sf area, i think it was called cooks tour. i just loved it! marlena

aha, i've found it! the name of the restaurant is to porizin, in the village of mesoyi, a few miles out of paphos on the road to polis i believe. the owners are stella and louis, stella does all the cooking and she also reads the tea/coffee leaves to tell your future. really yummy food, its all done in meze fashion: a start of little dips, a parade of tiny portions of yummy things, then they end with a dab of something sweet and a little fresh fruit. sometimes there is a shot of something strong at the end. i hope they are still around, its been a few years since i was there. we ate there nearly every night for 2 weeks and never got tired of it, the food always varied and always satisfied. we'd be swimming in the afternoons, or driving around on an expedition of some sort, meanwhile having this conversation: i wonder what stella is cooking tonight....... enjoy! marlena

my foolproof way of finding good places to eat in cyprus is to ask the taxi drivers, and NOT the hotel staff. hotel staff, esp at the four seasons, is most likely to stear you in the direction of a touristy place. maybe a fun place for dancing and singing, but probably not very good food unless you like a deep fried meze dinner...... there is a wonderful place, i call stella and louis, in a village near paphos. i have to look up their address, but its worth it. they just make a meze meal, you give them an idea of what you're interested in, and they keep bringin tiny plates of that and whatever else they think you'll like. a gem. will write name and address later, hopefully i'll find it. x marlena

years ago--maybe in 2002 or so--le fooding had a week of soups of the marche. throughout paris one day would be devoted to one star chef and one market. the chef would prepare a yummy soup from the seasonal produce and the punters would eat. i enjoyed a salt cod and potato soup at marche st quentin, served by by yves camemborde. and a mushroom and peanut soup, at.......i forget exactly where. but it was an alain passard soup, and i might forget where, but will never forget the flavour and depth it had. it was such a lively event, so excited, about food, about soup, about chefs, and markets, and......really lovely. they put the recipes on the website afterwards; the event was in conjunction with 10 a day (fruits and vegetables, a gov body set up like the uk's (now defunct) five a day).

Divina! ! WISH that i could see you in feb, but i'll be in california! Tuffle salt, TRUFFLE SALT? I WANT SOME!!!!! esp on boiled potatoes. who makes it? where do we get it? have fun in london, again, sorry i'm missing you. x marlena

Grazie, mille, tutti! thank you so much for your suggestions! marlena

No charge to you? then how do they finance the site? do they recommend restos which are paying to be included in their service? you seem to know a lot about the site.

i ate a dill pickle chowder last year! well, it wasn't called chowder, though, it was potato, carrot, onion, cream, and.....dill pickle. with lots of fresh dill as well, and i added some dill pickle juice too! i ran it in one of my columns, so you could go onto either www.marlenaspieler.com or sfgate.com and check out the archives. about a year ago...... x marlena

Ciao Hathor, Divina, and all....... and so we meet again! I was looking for an italian restaurant in london for an italian chamber of commerce for one of their big delicious regions, and then thought i'd drift on down to the italian board....and what do we have here, a veritable party goin' on! cauliflower in lard, agnolotti that are floating beautifully, veal encased in salt! the most delicious looking crisp grissini! mamma mia! piemonte: the best thing i've ever eaten there should be on any piemonte menu: but you need fresh white truffles. fresh utterly fresh and gorgeous eggs, fried in butter, firmish white runny runny yolks, then lashings, a soft pile, of truffle shavings on top. Eat it and whimper with pleasure...... x marlena ps i think a bed of sliced artichokes might be very nice, topped with those eggs and truffles too.

What sort of recommendations? what sort of suggestions? is there a fee? Marlena

Does anyone have any suggestions for excellent italian restaurants in london? i've got a chamger of commerce from italy coming to london wanting to stage an event in several different italian restaurants, pasta events of course! they are going to be doing similar events throughout europe. i want to be able to suggest to them good restaurants that they can work with. gennaro contaldo is a very nice guy with a lovely soul and palate, so i thought of his place, passione. river cafe is always good but i was hoping for something more italian. carluccio neal street might be a possibility. ditto georgio locatelli. but i just know there are other places out there, and YOU EGULLETEERS, will know about them. Thanks in advance, Marlena

yes, hasn't british food improved so much, come such a long way. i mean, just watch that wonderful show ready steady cook and see how truly excellent and delicious looking the food, what a wonderful performer and educator ainsley is. oh me oh my, who would want to eat any place else????? and gordon, what a great example for young people, with his individualistic approach to job satisfaction and running a happy and successful business! And jamie, yes, a good example of what hard work (and being photogenic) can do. yes, they've all done so much for the 'little people' of the land.

Hathor, here is the soup. and it is lovely, and fragrant, and very simple to whip up. and the combination of flavours is kinda unexpected. only thing is that it is an original recipe, inspired by southern indian cookery, but original, and will be included in a book i'm writing. therefore, it is copyrighted. if anyone out there is reading this, please make note that if you'd like to use it, contact me for permission. South Indian Potato-Coconut Soup Serves 4 Pale pink from the tomatoes and thick from simmered potato and coconut, this is a subtle and delightfully rich soup. It is simple and it is complex. You must make it with no further delay! You could also serve this sleek, rich and aromatic soup in small shots as a stylish appetizer-canape. If so, you could serve 12-16. Creamed coconut is sold in a block, a sort of dehyrated chunk of coconut milk/cream, able to make anything its added to instantly coconutty. If unavailable, use 2 cups coconut milk in place of 2 cups of the broth. 1 tablespoon butter 1 teaspoon cumin seeds Pinch of asafetida 1 lb potatoes, peeled and diced (any type of potato is fine) 2 ripe medium-large tomatoes (including their juices) Salt and pepper 2 cups water 2 cups vegetable broth 5-6 ounces creamed coconut In a heavy bottomed saucepan melt the butter and lightly toast the cumin seeds in it, sprinkling in the asafetida as you do. When the seeds begin to pop, add the potatoes and tomatoes and cook together over a medium low heat for several minutes until the tomatoes begin to turn saucey. Sprinkle with salt and pepper as they cook. Add the water and broth, bring up the heat to high and bring it to the boil. When it boils, reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. When the potatoes are tender puree either by mashing with a masher, passing it through a sieve, using a hand-held blender, or a food processor. Return it to the pot, and stir in the creamed coconut, heating over a medium low heat, stirring, until the coconut melts. Taste for seasoning, and add a little sprinkling of ground cumin to boost the cuminseed flavor, if needed. Serve right away. ------ and so, to end this madcap eat-a-thon, i hope you all know that i've loved every minute! and can hardly wait to do this again! and thank you sobaAddict70 for making this all possible, meanwhile, you all have my email address. stay in touch, let me know what YOU'RE having for dinner! Marlena exits stage left. and starts to pack her suitcase for the Big Apple and beyond.

Breakfast time, egulleteers! I'm continuing with the breakfast theme that i've been intermittently devoted to all week: bagels! i only have a few left in my freezer so they are really really treasured breakfast fare. (and i'm going to new york later this week to replenish.) yesterday at waitrose they had a wedge of my favourite brie de meaux, very very ripe. i like brie riper than most french people who always eat it a bit firmer than my taste. i like the brie so ripe that it is as if it had already melted, so that when i put it on the bed (edit note: wow, freudian slip: i meant to say bagel! ) it just falls into a delicious melty heap. the heat of the toast and the crispness of the toasted bagel is a wonderful contrast to the soft, runny cheese. once when i was on a long bike ride through le Loir, our French bicycliste guide, Didier, or should i say, the adorable Didier, once described his favourite way to eat brie: not as runny as i, but still pretty ripe, sliced and laid on top of good baguette that already had a nice layer of sweet unsalted very delicious butter. On top of all that, he sprinkled a little coarse salt. but you can only do this with the cheeses you get in france, because i swear that the cheeses in america are salty, or have been salted perhaps for export? or maybe its just that the transatlantic trip renders them not quite right for this little tartine. but the ripe brie on toasted bagel is always right! with it, i like to drink a cup of dark UNION ROASTERS Coffee! yay, they had it at the market yesterday so i bought a big bag! i hold union roasters personally responsible for getting my daughter through medical school. i mailed her a bag each and every two weeks or so, and she too, if you ask her, will agree. i think she wanted them named as co-graduate on her medical diploma. but then again, she is also a stockholder in peets--when they went public friends and family knew the right gift for her! okay, i'm thinking that i can squeeze in one more posting before i hand over this blog. i'm testing a recipe, and i think that you and i will have time for just a little shot of it (its a soup) before i head off into the sunset. x x m

so glad about dr shakshouka! every so often i get the urge to go there, when my daughter ate there she emailed me and said: the food tastes as if Bachi (my grandmother, daughter's great grandmother, very beloved of us, and a wonderful cook!) was cooking in the kitchen! She continued: i don't understand it either, as bachi was ashkenazi and didn't use spices at all! but it was more like, the heimish quality, the homey cooked with love quality, the long cooked meat and vegetables quality. i don't know. but i loved going there! once i ate couscous and the weather was so hot, and i'm thinking: its too hot to be eating this, but i couldn't stop eating at all! PS: thank you, Michelle, for the lamb-stuffed dates with pomegranate! they look wonderful! i'm totally going to try it in the not too distant future!

Pam R, have you or anyone else out there, made the stuffed fried matzo? some are turkish, some are south american and probably originally turkish, some are more greek, spanish, north african...... the ones that are intriguing me right now are the ones in which you basically soak rectangles of matzo gently in water then squeeze gently to keep their shape. then you basically treat it like filo dough, fill it in with savoury meat or cheese or veggie such as spinach, then fold it over and encase the filling, then brown it in a pan! i've done some in which the soaked matzo was filled (i used broccoli and cheese) then baked, but i think the fried version sounds better. i almost fiddled around with experimenting with this batch, but its the middle of the night, and i had to have it in my totally comfort mode. but maybe one of these days......or nights! Marlena

As we are still together until tomorrow about midday my time, i took this opportunity as my last foodblog night, to get up in the middle of the night and have a midnight snack! its still freezing cold, and the bbc world service is playing some warm exotic music that sounds as if its very african-brazilian, music that is kinda sexy, bubbling and warm. i've decided to make matzo brei! matzo brei is, like bagels, Jewish a culinary comfort classic. Most people eat it for breakfast or brunch--every sunday when i was growing up my grandmother made a big pan of it-- but i find that it has the right stuff for comforting middle of the nights, and also for making when there is almost nothing else in the house (we usually have matzo and eggs). matzo brei might be one of the those things that you need to have grown up eating; my husband doesn't really care about it, though if i leave some leftover in the pan he'll chomp it up pretty quickly. its made from matzo, soaked in water or milk (i like water), the pieces either big or tiny (i like big though when it cooks some of it gets tiny, oh yes, and deliciously crisp!), mixed with egg and then fried. some like it with a lot of egg, some like it with only a small amount. I like: Rackusin's matzo if i'm in britain (they are so light and crisp), but any of the israeli matzot if i can get them. they are also nice and crisp, and the pieces are bigger! I use only a small amount of egg--1 egg to every 2 sheets of big matzo or 3 sheets of Rackusins. after you soak the matzot for a few minutes, you pour off the liquid, then add some beaten egg (i just let the egg beat themselves as i toss them into the soaked matzo mixture). then i heat a heavy nonstick frying pan, add a tablespoon or two of evoo (some people cook matzo brei in butter, vegetable oil, even chicken fat--me? i gotta have evoo!). add more fat as you cook, to keep the edges browning and crisping. you don't want it too greasy, but just greasy enough! Some people like their matzo brei cooked in a pancake shape, all together, but that is mostly the larger amount of egg camp. when you have only a small amount of egg, it falls to bits. So i like my matzo brei starting out in big chunks, then tossing and turning it as it fries crisply on the bottom, until it has formed big chunks and also tiny little crispy bits. Its a whole variety of shapes and sizes, all crisp-edged. so crisp, in fact, that i have to eat it with my fingers so that the fork doesn't break up any of the fritter-like chunks. inside the crispness of the big chunks its tender eggy-matzo. some people eat matzo brei with sugar, some with jam, some with sour cream. i like mine sprinkled with seasalt. totally delightful. its so cold in my little room as i tap this out, but my fingers are warm from the hot matzo brei! and greasy, too. i'm licking them like crazy, and worrying that my keyboard is so greasy i should probably lick it, too! mmmmmm yummmmm. Marlena

okay, i was going to make some gratineed pineapple topped with pinenuts to go with our comparative taste testing of vanilla ice creams but hubby was chomping at the bit for ice cream, so we thought we would go ahead without the pineapple. it would give a better result, and anyhow we were all wanting to throw ourselves into ice cream. in addition to the vanilla, we had a back up of chocolate and chunky monkey. as a reward for the work of tasting the vanilla. (they had little tiny one-cup 100ml containers on special offer today, just to avoid the temptation of eating ourselves silly on ice cream.) this excercise was inspired by a posting on another internet food group i belong to which i thought gratuitously slagged off ben and jerry's and praised green and blacks. i wanted the truth. i mean, knowing the best vanilla ice cream is a blessing when you want something to go with your roasted peaches, your pears poached in wine syrup, your deep dark chocolate cake. Tasting the ice creams next to each other was the only way forward. Our little controlled experiment went like this: tasters (my husband and I) were blindfolded, and the choice of vanilla ice cream was: Ben and Jerry's, Green and Blacks. We wanted to include Hill Station as it is such an exceptional ice cream, but it wasn't on the shelf at our nearby Waitrose. Neither of us had any idea of which way the tasting would go. In any event, the results were unanimous, and surprised us both: Ben and Jerry's won hands-down: it had more clarity of flavour, and intensity of vanilla with more focus of its cool sweetness. The vanilla flavour was very pronounced. The Green and Black, on the other hand, was pronounced "nice enough" but compared together there was no contest. hubby said that the green and black tasted flat, and claggy, with a bit of an artificial edge. he felt that the mouth feel was a result not of artificial flavour but of too much in the way of stabilizers. the b and j's didn't contain the locust bean nor the xanthan gum. both had guar gum. b and j's had carrageenan, a seaweed. but as we all know, there is no accounting for taste. someone buys the buckets of cheap ice creams that line the supermarket freezer aisles! by the way, in san fran, i love double rainbow. and when i'm in paris, berthillon, despite the fact that my friend has a bit of a vendetta going on with the berthillon family, all over a snippy interchange about a hot fudge sundae. but we won't go there. (and when i go there, i have to wear a disguise so my friend doesn't feel that i've betrayed her. its worth it for the ice cream though. its yummy!). x marlena

Our Last Dinner with Egullet: Very Paris Bistro First of all there were no artichokes. and then, i said I wouldn't get cheese for mac and cheese. and then i said i wouldn't serve something boring like a plain piece of meat. if you remember to earlier this afternoon, i was even considering going the cassoulet route. after all, we've all been together a week now, we're family! but since i got so tired from swimming and all the walking, and as i see a cassoulet headed up the turnpike, aiming for this blog space for next week, i ended up making macaroni and cheese, steak, and salad, but in a very paris bistro way. really perfect for such a frigid evening. we had the macaronis au gratin (macaroni and cheese, baked in an oven until top is crispy) Rare sirloin steak, seared in the pan, with a sauce of sweated shallots and a deglaze of red wine Salad of baby greens with a beetroot vinaigrette: thinly sliced shallots, a little garlic, a little mild dijon, white wine vinegar, evoo, s and p, and diced beetroot added to the dressing, then the whole thing tossed with baby greens. the greens were sturdy, the beets earthy, the dressing tangy. everything has just gone so well together. no culinary handstands but very very good. dessert is a comparative tasting of two vanilla ice creams: ben and jerry and green and blacks. i wanted to include hill station, as i love those ice creams, but they were gone from my waitrose! i'm going to make a little pineapple gratinee with pinenuts to go with the two vanilla ice creams. but not just yet.

so i got the energy and will to take myself swimming. i left the house at 1. pm and am just arrived home, still recovering. its not the swim per se, it was a good-ish swim. i try to swim every day and hadn't for awhile. so it was good to be....back in the swim as they say. anyhow, its a one hour walk, an hour swim, then a one hour walk back, except on the way back i stopped at waitrose. (do you think that waitrose should pay me for this week-long commercial?) (though i emphasize that you should never ever ever pay regular price. and tonight when i sampled the olives from the olive bar they were vile, they are always vile. in some kind of horrible oily oil. yuk. just put good olives there, foget that bad marinade! okay. so i was thinking what to make for our last nights dinner, i'm really going to miss you all at my table, its gonna be so lonely! and i wanted to do something really exotic and ambitious, and when i got to the waitrose, i said to myself: no cheese, girl! (husband had been mewing for macaroni and cheese as our last meal chez egullet). but when i got there there were all these fabulous cheeses on offer, on sale, on special discount! how could i say no? and as much as i always say : no mac and cheese as a side dish, there was also a gorgeous sirloin steak, quite small in size but small in price too. i already have a lovely big bowl of banana-shaped shallots, so here is the menu: macaroni and cheese with chopped shallots, mature cheddar, grana padano, danish blue, mild cheddar, dry mustard, three types of alliums: green onions, shallots and chives. bechamel AND sour cream. a whiff of nutmeg and a sprinkle of paprika. it smells fabulous. and i'm getting the shallots sweating in the pan to go with the little morsels of steak. and we'll have a salad of baby greens. full report later. pour that cabernet sauvignon! x x x marlena

I saw a tapa recipe once that had chorizo packed in dates with... possibly an almond - 15min in a hot oven. I believe a spicy heat would be called for to offset the date's sweetness. And how about a wrap of somekind? ← i ate the chorizo ones as a tapa in san francisco a month or so ago. at, lets see, baraka, the meze and sortof middle eastern place on potrero hill. the chorizo-packed dates and yes, i think an almost was involved, oh it was so yummy that we had to order a second portion (there were three of us. we nearly ordered a third. marlena

I love anything with olive oil, cumin, cilantro, hot sauce (am a zchug fanatic, love other peoples,love my own, think i could make eggplant salad every day of the year and it would never be the same except not all of them would be middle eastern.). i really love middle eastern food. i love making a pumpkin dip from libya (is there still a restaurant in jaffa that specializes in libyan food, dr shakshouka? i got inspired by their pumpkin dip thing). speaking of shakshouka, how much do i love shakshouka!!!!!! pilaffs and grape leaves, anything with eggplant and /or chickpeas, i love things slathered in lemon juice. love meze and little plates. love big plates of things like couscous. love mint tea. sometimes with a little plate of pinenuts alongside. love middle eastern coffee with cardomom. love LAMB. braised with spices, with eggplant, with honey and prunes. i love a good schwarma (but it has to be made very well). love a good felafel (and all the salads that go with it, tel aviv style). i love brik a l'oeuf. and tunisianne sandwiches and tunisian meatballs with peas. i love middle eastern meatballs and middle eastern koftas. love fish cooked with tahina, and anything simmered with quince. love machshi of stuffed vegetables. i'm sure i've left stuff out. i really love middle eastern foods so much. i have a natural middle easterner living right inside me that calls for it whenever i haven't eaten it for awhile. marlena

WHATS FOR DINNER? last night of blog, a farewell dinner. i'm skipping lunch for a nice long swim. one hour, i usually do it every day but have had about three weeks without swimming and am now shaped like a potato! so during my swim i'll think about dinner. i feel hubby's tug away from my more exotic desires and his comfort ones: macaroni and cheese is something he is lusting after. (i haven't made it in a long time). me, i'm thinking of a cassoulet. there is a restaurant in paris that serves a lovely one and i always have it when i'm there. and whenever i'm in the southwest of france this time of year, i gotta have it there too (but of course, in their home territory!)........ but i haven't made mine--full of duck or goose confit, pork, sausage, saucisson, oh, and fabulous beans which aren't soaked, so maybe i'll just put them up to soak in case we need them. i even add a little lamb, too, sometimes. and my garlicky homemade crumbs, and i do have some excellent stock stashed away, and some duck fat and goose fat.......oh it is tempting. can i make a good cassoulet in a day you might ask? well, who cares what time we eat? and if its a cassoulet breakfast tomorrow morning, well i have no problem with that! on the other hand, we have macaroni and cheese. on the other hand.....i just might stop by waitrose on my way home from my swim and see what hops off the shelves. i like a big salad of greens with super-excellent English bacon in chunks browned and tossed hot into them.