Morten

I found this articled on timesonline.co.uk timesonline.co.uk As im a history buff too, i found it interesting to read about a little about how food develops. Im not certain that a roasted hedgehog would be a headline creating dish if made today

I was in Warsaw for a couple of weeks this summer and must admit i thought it to be a wonderfull city. I lived at the old city square and its a must to visit it, the same with the kings palace placed right next to it. Over 95% of the town was destroyed at the end of ww2 and the effort to rebuild it is impressive. As me and some coworkers shared an appartment we rarely went out dinning, as food in the shops where cheap and most excellent. You have to visit a supermarket and try their sausages..i still have dreams about them A coworker and me went out the first night there for dinner and by chance we stumpled upon a place next to the old town square on the street Jezuicka. Here is their website http://www.restauracjasekret.pl/ Very good food, unique decor and a very good service. My coworker had Lamb shank served with a baked potato wich looked and smelled very good - He stated it tasted even better. I had the Pork tenderloin in mustard sauce, served with potato dumplings - wich was very impressive. Every time a dish passed to the other visitors - we both wanted to taste it - good thing we where on a daily budget:) Unfortunally we didnt have the time to go back there - work darn it hehe. I did one sunday take a walk (7 hours to be excact) around Warsaw. Mostly to visit the places of significant to the second world war (big interest and all that). The momement for Umschlagplatz was very moving. I then stumpled upon the Pawiak Prison Museum wich was very enlightning. I ended up at the Warsaw rising museum ( http://www.1944.pl/index.php?lang=en&lang_time=1 ) where the exhibiotions is very modern, informative and in english too. I did find the Palace of Culture given to Poland by Stalin was an impressive sight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Palace_of_Culture_and_Science ) even though most poles i talked with didnt like it that much. Its located near the center of the city and is surrounded by shopping areas - so for a casual stroll its a perfect startingpoint. As allready mentioned the Kings palace is worht a visit too.

THanks for the link Dougal. Ive dried half of them and the other half is pickled as suggested in that link. Going to be fun to taste what come out of it

Ive got a bug bunch of button mushrooms and want to make something nice out of them. Ive google some ways to dry them and discovered that drying them is nice and easy. So before going to bed tonight im gonna put them on some sticks and let them sit in the ovnen at the lowest setting (about 60celcius) until they are dried up. Im considering after drying them to put them in a jar with oliveoil as you can do with dried tomatoes. I know if you do it with dried tomatoes, their acidicity helps preserving them for a long time, but im fairly certain that mushrooms dont have that much acid in them, so im wondering what things i can do to keep them safe.

I got my sissors for lefthand 20 years ago and still have it. I must admit it feels good when a right handed mate picks it up Beside my peeler i dont use anything special in the kitchen

"we serve vegetarians just tell us how you like them" I found a poster for a resturant on the internet many years ago that stated that. Cant rember wich one, but it made me giggle

Great article! I got a question about the Cucumbers - how long can they be stored in the fridge and still be good?

Used a fork to fry some meet and veggies on my pan..then i used the fork to plate it and after that (forgetting it wasnt a spoon) i put it back in the pan (still very hot). Then use the next couple of minutes to plate the rest of the dish, when i suddenly noticed the fork with some small bites of what looked as pure heaven. By a mixture of greed and homer like joy i took the fork, but it in my mouth. Tonque, lips and all wrapped fully around it, when it hit me. Physically as mentally... HOT HOT HOT METAL IN MY MOUTH! Ill never do that again.. Another one - A small can of tomato puree left in window on a hot hot summerday - aah got to use that. When made the first hole with the canopener a fine steam of hot tomato puree was hitting the sealing and in my confusion and to emense joy of my mates over for dinner i started to fumble it. Tomato all over the kitchen...great fun

Well the question of meassurement or not is in my perspective a question about what you expect from the outcome. If you want to taste the a meal as close to the recipe - measurement is the way to go. And as said earlier use experience to use a bit more or less if you think a thing is to strong or to weak. If on the other side you do as i prefer to use a recipe as a inspiration for a meal. Well then i dont measure by scale or weight, but use my experience as guidence. When i started cooking i followed recipes strictly, but allways thought i lacked something in the process. It was both techniques and knowlegde of both taste of ingrediences and how they react to each other. This has come over the years with some classic mistakes and failures - so by now, for me, it has come down to my intrepretation of a dish. Where the recipe is the guideline and the rest is up to my experience and skills. Baking is a good example - My mom allways hated baking and it rubbed of on me. Until some years ago (im 38 so..hehe) when i started experimenting. Followed the recipe excactly - and didnt get the result i wanted. I read alot, failed alot and after a long time with mediocre homemade bread i started to understand the varibles involved in baking too. So today i dont measure at all when im baking - its about how the flour react to the water, yeast and so on. Does it give me the excact same result everytime. Nope but it do give me a unique experince everytime - and for each time i bake i add just some more knowlegde to it and become a bit better - and it shows in the breads. For example i just started to learn how to make cheese - lots of measurements and lots of timing. So for now its to gather knowledge and expericene, so when i learn the craft it is - i can start making my own creations. Its like being creative in other areas (like graphics my line of work) - when you know the craft, you can begin to devolop your own style. Until that happens - try, try and try again.

Click here Hope it havnt been posted before (and is in the right place and did a search first). But apperently fake olive oil is a major problem. I had no idea And as the article says somewhere - even the old romans had issues with it and meassures against this fraud. But that line alone made my day...

Back when i was a youngster and lived on Greenland for some years i ate whale frequently. The fat with the skin on, sliced in a comfortable bite size with tabasco is a delicacy and you wont encounter people more happy when gathered for a bit of that. Some has mentioned in this thread that it tasted like fish liver and some species really taste like that. Some dont. Wich species do or dont i cant rember (over 20 years ago). But i must say that i was glad for it. Being a picky teenager i usually got it with curry and rice. (how you can be a picky teenager and love whale meat, but loath onions in food is beyond me today, but hey! ) Tastewise my parents several times subsituted whale (the non fishy tasting type) for beef when we got guests. A few times even without the guests knowledge - wich was fun, until some guests once told that someone else has tried something simular and they never spook to them again. Wich made my parents go..whoops and then never told them what they had been eating. But as we said back then - the best thing about whalebeef you decide how big its gonna be :)

Ive just recieved my cheese making stuff a few days ago and yesterday i made my first batch of Feta cheese, as i thought it was a good way to get familiar with the process. Tomorrow half of it will go into some oil with some slightly boiled fresh spices and the other half will stay in the saltwater. So in a week i should have a lot of homemade feta - gonna be a good weeked The water left after i drained the cheese out produces 300g of ricotta and a portion of the water was used for breadmaking, and both bread and ricotta taste just great:) Tomorrow its creamcheese (if thats a word:) ) and monday my first try at a blue cheese. Must say that cheesemaking so far is quite fun and interesting

How do you cook them, especially those sawed? I love bonemarrow on a piece of rye bread with salt on, but its allways been a sideproduct of a dish made with bothe nes.

Almost everyda a new bread is popping out Lots of experiements going on, but most of them work and taste great