Chufi

Thanks for clearing that up guys. You know, I have been lying awake at night, wondering how this all started.. You look really happy together. How wonderful that you share this love for food! And wow is this blog off to a great start with this party! All the food looks wonderful, and so elegantly presented. and there is chocolate tart even in Ling's first post!! I have a very busy week ahead of me but I already know this blog is going to bring me some welcome distraction. Blog on! edited to add; also, very timely, this blog, because I will be in Seattle one week from now! woohoo! I hope to pick up some more tips (I already have lots printed out from Henry's last blog!)

Oh no Pontormo now you're making me think that deep-frying them would make them even more delicious! but no, they are really good the way they are. Really...

Vanessa, I was in Dublin earlier this year and had breakfast there.. it was too cold to sit outside so I sat upstairs with my coffee and croissants and the newspaper.. while my husband was in the hotel with food-poisoning It is a really nice place!

here's another recipe my friend gave me: Mercimek Köfte (lentil köfte) Boil 1/2 cup of red lentils in 2 cups of water until they are soft and mushy. Put 1 cup of fine bulgur important to use fine bulgur, it should say "for kofte" on the package) in a large bowl and add the lentils (don't drain). Mix well. The heat and moisture from the lentils will soften the bulgur. Meanwhile, fry 2 finely chopped onions in olive oil until soft. Add a tablespoon of tomatopaste and a tablespoon of red pepper paste. A pinch of red pepper flakes if you like. Add 1/2 cup of water and bring to the boil, cook briefly. Add salt and pepper. Add this mixture to the bowl with bulgur and lentils. Mix well. If the mix seems dry (it should end up a bit pasty, you're going to make balls out of it) add a bit of hot water. Add lots of chopped parsley and chopped spring onion. Squeeze into torpedo shaped 'balls' (köfte) and serve in lettuce leaves.

yes, all the recipes I've seen tell you to do that, presumably because the filling is rather heavy with all that rice. I do think it made the crust slightly to thick for my taste, so I probably would not do it next time. (just make sure there are no holes in the pastry and that it's not stretched too thin).

Thanks Megan. I wasn't really happy with any of my pictures today, so I am glad you liked it! Pontormo, yes, ofcourse you could add things to the filling. Limburgers would pronounce that sacrilege ofcourse I was thinking, just now, while we had a large slice after dinner, that it would be nice with some sort of fruit sauce on the side. Spicy cinnamonny apple sauce maybe. Or some kind of berry coulis. Also, sometimes you see them with a topping of grated chocolate. Very good that is too. The crust came out a bit more crumbly than I'm used to with vlaai. The crust is usually more dense and compact.

happy belated birthday May! cake looks and sounds delicious. I made rijstevlaai today, a traditional Dutch cake - a yeast pastry with a creamy rice filling. details here

I am sorry that I've been absent from this thread for a while. The fact is, I had some culinary mishaps in the Dutch kitchen.. My husband is not a picky eater, and will most of the time happily eat everything I serve him, and will even find praise for dishes that I'm not that satisfied with. So when he says a dish is not good enough for this thread, you'll have to take his word for it! Today was a good day though Limburgse Vlaai Vlaai is the pie that the southern province of Limburg is famous for. It consists of a yeasted pastry with a filling, traditionally fruit - for example the cherries that grow abundantly in Limburg. see here for a picture of the Kersen (cherry)vlaai. The fruitpies have a latticed pastry on top. Other famous versions are Apricot, or a filling of pureed prunes. Nowadays national company Multivlaai makes al sorts of abominations, vlaai filled with tiramisu or chocolate mousse. Don't let them fool you, that's not real vlaai! (btw vlaai is also the word for cow's droppings. You have to admit the shape is somewhat similar..) When I was 12, 13 years old my parents rented a cottage in Limburg for the summer. On our outings we would usually stop for coffee somewhere and every single cafe in Limburg offers vlaai with their coffee. My favorite was always rijstevlaai - a very rich pie with a creamy ricefilling. I wanted a piece of that every day Anyway, today I made one. Here's the recipe. For the dough: 250 grams flour 1 sachet (7 grams) dried yeast 50 grams sugar 100 mil lukewarm milk 50 grams soft butter 1 egg pinch of salt Dissolve the yeast in the milk, then mix everything together until you have smooth dough. Put in a warm spot and leave to rise for about an hour. In the meantime, make the filling. This is basically a creamy rice porridge, sweetened and flavored with vanilla. I used 100 grams of quick-cooking porridgerice, 500 mil. milk, 100 grams sugar, and the seeds from 1 vanilla pod. This rice cooks to a porridge in about 15 minutes. But you can use any type of shortgrain rice and cooking method you prefer, as long as you end up with something like this: Leave to cool. When your dough has risen, knead briefly and roll it out on a floured surface. Line your pie plate. This amount of dough will cover a 12 inch pieplate. I only have a 9 inch plate, so I had dough left over. Traditionally, the edges of vlaai are not scalloped or ridged, but even. Roll out scraps of dough and use these to thicken the 'walls' (the filling is heavy) Leave to rest in the tin while you finish the filling. Seperate 2 eggs. Stir the yolks into the rice mixture, together with the grated zest of half a lemon and a sprinkling of nutmeg. (a thought: cinnamon would be good too, but is not traditional). If the rice became very stiff on cooling, add a couple of tablespoons of milk so you have a creamy mixture again. Beat the eggwhites until stiff and fold into the ricemixture. Pour this into the lined tin. Bake at 200 C for about 20-25 minutes. The pastry should be brown and the fillng set, but still slightly wobbly (it will firm upon cooling). Serve with whipped cream. Yes, it's heavy and rich, but delicious!

Well. Where to begin? The Internet in general, and eGullet specifically, has changed my life. I love to eat, cook and write and talk about food. I have always had friends for whom I can cook, but only when I found eGullet, did I find a community of people with whom I could discuss endlessly every single aspect of food. I have spent hours just browsing thorugh old threads, learning so much. It still amazes me, every day, how people are so generously willing to share their time and their knowledge and expertise here. The Dinner! thread is like having the entire world as a guest at your table. The inspiration. If it wasn't for the cook-offs there are many dishes I would not have attempted. It's so much more fun to do it together. I have met wonderful people here. Some of them, on the other side of the planet, are right now organizing a party for me for when I come visit them in September. How cool is that? I still love my cookbooks though. I buy a bit less, maybe, and when I buy I look for books with a distinctive voice, or with lots of stories and background info. Books that I can take to bed for a good read. So the answer is, the internet has changed my life, the way I cook, the way I eat, the way I deal with food. I love eGullet!

check out this thread, where Carlovski is doing exactly that.

Thanks everybody for the kind words about my photo. I was trying something different.. guess it worked! Now that is something wonderful to look forward to! and that galette is so gorgeous. and Deborah, my apologies, but this is a belated Happy Birthday!! Your cake looked great!

Patrick.. chocolate croquettes??? deepfried chocolate... wow I want them! This is nothing fancy but it sure tastes good.. I got a bag of non-descript plums from my aunt, she doesn't know what kind they are, very small and red and hard and tart. Chopped them up and stewed them with sugar, and ginger and gingersyrup from the gingerjar.. served with thick joghurt.. it was dessert but it's going to be breakfast tomorrow too!

What goes into the Goan salad besides avocado? this could be his avatar for when he grows up and joins eGullet speaking of avatars.. is the dog in your avatar, yours and will he/she be appearing in the blog? Looking forward to this week!

Michelle, I have been busy but am now catching up.. still haven't made the Siniya... I'll let you know when I make it! This is a beautiful blog. I love the diversity in the food and all the pictures of the streets, markets and shops. Thank you so much for doing this. You said at the beginning that this blog is not a celebration, and I can understand why you said that, but I really feel that you are spreading love with it, your love for your country, the food, and your David!

I like explanations as to why I should or should not do something. Instead of "let the toasted hazelnuts cool before decorating the cake" I like: "don't put the hazelnuts on the cake while still warm, or they will melt the frosting". This will stop me in my tracks beause I am always impatient. I guess I don't like too detailed instructions or rules. I was recently reading through Bugialli's Southern Italian book, and in almost every single recipe he tells me to put some sort of mixture "in an earthenware or glass bowl" (I'm paraphrasing, I forgot the exact words, don't know why after reading them 50 times? ) anyway this just annoys me.. I have stainless steel bowls all over the kitchen that are just as good to put a ravioli stuffing in as a glass bowl.. unless he has some sort of reason for glass, but then he should tell me!! These are just details though. I agree with Ludja that I like the voice of the author to come through. Marcella's voice is not Julia's, but there is a time for both. I do find that has I collect more and more books, and sometimes not have the time to read them as carefully as I'd like, that pictures can be a big help to lure me into a recipe.

In the Netherlands, cheeses like that are mostly eaten on bread, and maybe little cubes of it to go with beer or wine (most pubs serve cubes of cheese as a snack, with a dollop of mustard and some pickles on the side - goes great with a glass of jenever). Traditionally, the Dutch don't cook that much with cheese. You could ofcourse make these Gouda cheese biscuits, if your goatscheese is firm enough to grate, I think it would work in that recipe. Dave, that brie melting all over the plate is just gorgeous.

I do eat meat, but not a lot of it, and most of the time I look at it as an addition to my menu, instead of the main player. Going vegan would be difficult for me though - I do love my cheese! Anyway, I just wanted to recommend one of my favorite cookbooks, Anna Thomas' The Vegetarian Epicure. The recipes are organized as menus, both simple and fancy, and all of them are the kind of food that you can serve to meat-eaters and only after dinner they realize they ate a vegetarian dinner She has a nice website with lots of recipes, although it isn't updated regualrly anymore. I just love her approach to food. Vegetarian Epicure

what a glorious spread. and this: sounds fantastic. Is it the bright green stuff in the middle?

Those sheep's milk cheeses look delicious. Such a variety! And I agree with Anna N, that the combination of flavors in that salad (spinach and all the fruits) is very intriguing. I really love this type of food and I don't cook it often enough. I looked up a recipe for Siniya on the web, and I'm going to make it sometime this week in honor of your blog Thank you for inspiring me.

I won't answer that! But I can't wait to see it! Oh that siniya looks so good. I love the combination of ground beef and tehina. Is the tehina warm or cold (baked with the dish or put on top afterwards?)

I'm no botanist, but I do like to google around. It seems that peterseli is just peterselie.. according to this website, the word peterseli was borrowed from the Dutch (among many other words in bahasa Indonesia like kroket and makaroni). This site gives peterseli as the indonesian translation for Peterselie/parsley, and does not even give an Indonesian translation for coriander/cilantro. It seems a bit unlikely that peterseli would be cilantro in Malaysia.. but, I'm no botanist And why would they not use parsley in Indonesia? that sounds really interesting. I'll be looking for that.

Hi Michelle, I am very much looking forward to this. Just last week I read through your first blog, it was wonderful. Thank you for having us as your guests.

Alinka, thank you for showing us Moscow in all it's bright, sunny, colorful, beautiful glory. I love it when a blog makes me feel like I have discovered a new place. Another city on my travel wish list! Take good care of yourself and I hope your work- (and family!-)schedule will eventually leave you some time to share more of your beautiful food with us.

Peterselie is Dutch for parsley. I don't think it's an Indonesian word?

This thread amazes me,all that cooking some of these 'snacks' look like dinner to me! for me, it's just crackers with lots of slices of cheese , smothered in ketchup (or sriracha, since I discovered that) and mayo. and a couple of spoonfuls nutella/ peanutbutter, straight from the jars, for dessert. she can post it in the PMS thread!!