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Portia_Smith

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  1. On a recent trip home to Australia I asked my Dad to show me how to make some of the wonderful cookies/biscuits that he provides every time the occasion demands something sweet. I consider myself a poor baker, and i have little patience for fiddly things - like folding cream cheese dough into small parcels - but i wanted to preserve a bit of family history and was determined to 'watch and learn' and then have photographic evidence. As I live in London and my family is in a small town in Australia, I can't stop by to ask questions on a regular basis! So I decided to create an album on flickr - entitled Baking mit George , complete with recipes and methodology. My father was born in a small village in what is now the Czech Republic, but I'm assured by George that the recipes are Austrian. I managed to get dad into the kitchen twice - first to make vanilla kipferl - a shortbready type crescent cookie rolled in sugar and then for Wiener Liebesbriefe (possible spelling issues here) which are parcels of jam filled cream cheese dough also sprinkled sugar. It was quite chaotic! I managed to annoy both my parents and do everything 'the wrong way'... but we had a lot of fun. recipes are included under the finished photos of all the products. I haven't attempted to re-create either product yet. i'll have a go in a few weeks - but i'd recommend this type of project as a great way for anyone to ensure that valuable family heirlooms (such as recipes for cookies!) are kept safe for posterity.
  2. Thank you for the compliments! whether it was beginner's luck or not, my next attempt will tell. the knitted fellas sadly are not mine - they were bought last year at the Andover Women's Institute market (friday mornings in the guildhall) 75 p each and I wish i'd bought more. They're designed to be stuffed with mini-eggs apparently - but i just like to have them hanging around. Happy Easter and enjoy the sunshine
  3. Mine worked out really well for a first attempt. I was quite worried about dealing with the whole yeastie beastie thing, but found the kneading all very relaxing and I'd probably add a bit more spice next time if I was being fussy. The recipe I used had a teaspoon of mixed spice, a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 a teaspoon of nutmeg. I made the crosses out of plain dough and stuck them on the buns before baking and then glazed them with a spiced sugar and water syrup when they were taken out. We've just eaten the last ones for breakfast today - a lot went fresh out of the oven and four accompanied us on our 12 mile walk from Tower Bridge to the Thames Flood Barrier yesterday - we ate them whilst looking at the river in front of Greenwich Naval College. All very Enid Blyton except for the lack of ginger beer... I had LOTS of photos of the entire creative process from dough to whoa - but, a camera mishap meant they were deleted and now, I can only give you these links to them on flickr. Click Here! and Here! the brioche dough ones sound fabulous - sugar seattle! And I need to add more mace to my baking lapin...
  4. I really like the idea of a blog being part of the venue's website 'experience'. It makes me feel like I'll be visiting somewhere with a person who is committed and passionate about food and wants to share. HOWEVER. Please, please, please make sure if you proceed with a blog that it is regularly updated! There is nothing more annoying than a website that is out of date - ie, the christmas and new year's menus are still up at easter. This would be even worse in a blog somehow. Also - my 2 cents worth. Make usability/accessibility of the site the priority - remember not everyone has broadband. Minimal flash, Minimal multimedia stuff. All I want is a menu, some pictures, a map and prices. And all up to date! I really REALLY hate music on websites. OMG. I've just looked at Sault's website and i'm very much looking forward to trying the food when i visit the parentskis back in central victoria next month!!
  5. ....and many more pennies if i went out and bought the loveliest looking ones from borough market today. they're SO expensive! so - with the inspiration gleaned from the pastry and baking forum, i've got up very early this beautifully clear good friday morn and started baking them myself. i'm quite excited! i've not a confident baker and have almost no experience messing around with yeast. i've already managed to cover most of the kitchen in flour, the dough is sitting in an oiled bowl rising away at the moment. If they're appalling. i'll come back to the experts here and ask questions based on the technique i used and the result. oh - i'm using a recipe from mary berry and marlena spieler's (i know she posts on eg, but not sure if she ever lurks in the pastry/baking forum) 'classic home cooking'. i'll be posting photos later and i hope that whatever spring holiday you are commerating/celebrating, it's a sweet one
  6. Respect the Sardine! I eat tinned sardines almost every day for my office lunch. They're amazingly healthy and provide me with lots of calcium, they're cheap and, between the sardine sarnie lunch and porridge with water breakfast, not only is my cholesterol fabulously low - but i can sometimes enjoy things like this! without too much ill effect the sardine sarnies also keep my boss a safe distance... Anyway, I eat Waitrose tinned sardines in tomato sauce on organic wholemeal bread - when lettuce turns up in my riverford veggie box, i add that too. but lo! My local Waitrose in Canary Wharf has not stocked any of the tinned sardines in tomato sauce for almost 3 months. this has led me to sample the sainsbury's brand sardines in tomato sauce (sludgy and wrong-tasting) and the marks and spencers sardines (fabulous, but twice the price, and my closest M&S at More London doesn't seem to stock tinned fishy things regularly). So, i've moved on to waitrose tinned sardines in olive oil and the occasional waitrose italian sardines 'al limone' and 'al picante'. very nice - but NO BONES! Hell, i only eat the fishy critters for the bones!!! But i've got lots of new ideas for them now - onion! garlic vinagrette! crackers...mmmm
  7. I'm really fascinated that this seems to be such a North American-centric thread. Where are the europeans? the australians? the asians? I note that there seems to be a general agreement that maybe reducing our carbon footprint is a good thing, but being a locavore is a bit of, well... trustafarian wank. OK if you're a well paid yupster who can thrill over the organic chicken at £20 a pop, but not ok if you are someone who needs to be more economically minded. I'm wondering how many of the posters on this thread who are debunking the food miles myth try to find other ways to make a difference to the planet or approach eating ethically? Do you walk to the grocery store? Buy meat from a traceable source? Support your local grocer and not the big scary chain? Or is this all part of the 'don't like being lectured to buy a lunatic leftie' argument too?
  8. i think daylesford for new years eve would be blissful. there's usually plenty going on and waking up on new year's day to the smell of hot eucalypt from the forests...ahhh, nothing like it. we spent new years eve at bhoj at dockland's last year. we were invited to two competing parties and decided to offend neither party and just have a little twosome thing going on. neither of us love new years eve, but bhoj was really fun. it was beautiful and hot outside, we sat near the water, there were fireworks at docklands, a nice atmosphere but no pressure to dress up and get the tiara out. very reasonably priced too.
  9. Pat's advice is spot on - I should really get organised and make sure we have enough food for an emergency. I've printed out the list - thanks. Although we're living in central London, I think it's wise to make sure one can survive for a few days without needing the supermarkets/power/water et al. It must be a hangover from the more disaster prone places I've lived. When I was growing up in Australia, my mum always used to tell me to keep a can of easy open cat/dog food in the car on long remote journeys. (we're from Mount Macedon - it's hardly the outback!) as you'd never, ever eat it unless you were terribly desperate - unlike chocolate, which - let's face it - will tend to vanish if stuck at the lights, let alone on a remote off road trip up the Birdsville track. I've never put the friskies in the glove box though.
  10. My battered copy of 'A guide to the chinese cuisine and restaurants of taiwan' by Holly Richardson Donovan, Peter W Donovan and Harvey Mole, published in 1977 provides much information about Taiwan's cuisine - while acknowledging that it does derive from the cuisine of southern fukien and was also influenced by the Japanese occupation of 1895 - 1945, the authors say that it's worthy of more respect. Interestingly - they also state that it 'resists exploration' because most taiwanese resturants (in the 70's at least) have no menus and other menus exlude the best dishes - while social patterns mean the 'main body of the cuisine has remained in private homes or moved into stalls in simplified preparations' The author's do describe a number of Taiwanese dishes - including bamboo shoot salad - the cooked bamboo shoots are sliced and served with mayonnaise. they state that this is only good in spring and early summer when tender spring bamboo shoots are available. 'blood clams' - the authors state that the taiwanese love this variety of clam which are served scalted with boiling water then served cold on the half shell with a ginger sauce. the meat and juices are reddish - hence the name of the dish. pork patties with salted egg yolk - literally 'dawn yellow pork' - hamburger like patties of ground pork topped with salted egg yolks and steamed. stewed fresh side of pork - fresh pork is browned then stewed in a soy based sauce until tender. oyster soup - shucked oysters cooked with minced ginger in a light broth baked prawns with sea urchin 'catsup' prawns slit open along the back are brushed inside with a paste made from the pickled ovaries of the sea urchin - dipped in egg yolk and soy sauce, then roasted. roast ribbonfish - large cross sections of the fish are grilled over a charcoal fire and served with lemon wedges and pickled cucumbers. Can anyone tell me how accurate these dishes are and if you've tried them? The book also states that one of the few places that offers a wide variety of taiwanese cuisine is the Swiss Hotel in Kaosiung - on 42 Ta Li Street almost opposite the kingdom hotel. They recommend the serrated crab with rice cakes and the deep fried cuttlefish balls as well as the shark's fin stir fried with osmanthus. i've done a google search and i don't think the swiss hotel is there anymore - that's the problem on using 30 year old guidebooks!
  11. note to self. don't drink and type. umm... sweden lost that one. i do remember that. i think it's just the post portugal saturation coverage of the england team that makes me think they actually played more games..against more teams than actually happened. or, alternatively - all i hear is england lose, england lose, england lose wherever i turn. i also had a v. weird rooney related dream on tuesday night. but that's another post
  12. I've been to Brew Wharf twice now - the beer is v. good - I'll say that. We went once on a Thursday night back in May - and while the bar was quite buzzy with lots of suits - the restaurant was strangely empty. We had some of the Meantime kolsch-style beer. The other half's verdict is that while it's a great beer - especially in hot weather - it doesn't really compare to true koln-style beers that you'd find in Germany. We shared some roasted chicken - it was ok - filled a corner, but as I've had to struggle to remember what it was we actually ate, it demonstrates how unmemorable it was. We've returned since - but it was rubbish. We met friends who work nearby for an after work drink - again on a thursday - and the bar was packed. the wanker quota high and the bar man distracted. Despite this, we stayed for a meal. The restaurant was crowded, the staff few. Our orders were wrong, half arrived late and all the frites were cold. eeeek. So, although the beer's pretty good, we won't be going back. Rather - we've visited the Union pub in Greenwich (we watched the Sweden v Germany game there a few weeks back) and the beer is the same (from Meantime) with the added advantage of it being a way nicer pub! oh - forgot to add.. we actually watched the match at the Crook & Shears pub in the small village of Upper Clatford in Hampshire. Of all the matches I've watched outside the house so far it was by far the nicest venue - a big plasma screen set up in the skittle alley. People with rattles - timothy taylors on tap and pimms for me. The disadvantages? Well - england lost and it's a long mile home when you have to listen to the entire match dissected in all it's horror and then sven's failings analysed etc, etc. We had thought about watching some of the other matches at brew wharf - but the second reconnaissance visit put an end to that - so the group games were seen at a works social club attached to an insane asylum in Wiltshire (don't ask) and a horrible pub in westminster, where we saw the trinidad v tobago match at it was 10 deep at the bar, smokey and full of c***ts. I'm fussy, aren't I?
  13. this could be an australian thing.... cold pizza - the left overs from the night before. hawaiian is by far the best - eaten for breakfast with diet coke. all the non australians i know are absolutely horrified by this - but it truly rocks. and was quite a common foodshame behaviour back at university. the other thing that i can't go past is a good old aussie sausage sizzle - the ones with the cheapest, sawdust filled thick n thins on pasty white sliced bread with white crow tomato sauce. i used to tell myself that i was helping with their fundraising - but it is ironic that i'll only buy posh snags from the butchers - organic, preferably - but i'm happy to eat the sweepings in catgut for a worthy cause. when i lived in california - it was all about the in and out burger. oh. my. GOD. i don't crave fast food usually - and i have to say when i've had burger king in the uk it's been hideous.. but what i wouldn't do for those in-n-out - in and out .... whatever.. fries.
  14. Here is an article on freegans in Melbourne, Australia Like some previous posters I'm revolted by the thought of eating manky and possibly dangerous food scavenged from the garbage. But I'm equally as revolted that perfectly good food isn't distributed in a better way to organisations and people who do need it and that this kind of excess is encouraged. I'm also a bit cynical about their emphasis on the green aspect of dumpster diving when they're cruising around melbourne in their toyota. if this is really an anti-establishment, radical green lifestyle wtf aren't they on bikes? or walking? why don't they join a group like Ceres who i feel are making much more practical headway in educating the community about sensible use of resources, and ethical approaches to food and transport. I think freegan energy would be better harnessed in the chook group
  15. in our home it's always a green salad, austrian potato salad with white wine vinegar and shallots and - weirdly - rice. my german cousins say the rice is a moravian/bohemian oddity inherited from our grandparents. either a desperate war-time need for carbs, or they were too poor to buy anything else. the rice/vinegar potato salad when mixed actually tastes really good. for me - sauerkraut with schnitzel would never work... sorry! i'm now having a severe schnitzel craving - not good as we're off to a pub for a sunday roast. damn it
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