Carlovski
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Posts posted by Carlovski
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I live in a house share, but we mainly cook for ourselves, so I am in a similar position, but with added complications of limited storage, and shared use of the kithen.
Most of my meals tend to be one pot kind of affairs, or one pot plus some pasta/rice - cooking separate vegetables/sides for one is a bit of a pain, plus it hogs all the burners.
Stir fries, obviously are well suited to the solo diner - cooking for any more without a high powered restaurant style burner is difficult anyway.
It's the shopping I find tricker than the cooking itself - it's fine when I have had time to do a proper shop, somewhere where I can get things loose, so can get just what I need, but I often end up relying on trips to small supermarkets or convenience stores, where veg is pre-packed, and fish/meats always seem to come in packs of two.
The best thing about cooking for yourself is that you can make things as spicy, weird and experimental as you like!
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Careful - you will wind up with a bakery that sell the odd necklace on the side! Said in jest - but i've seen a similar situation where an art store which sold the odd coffee and cake on the side discovered that it was much more profitable. It's now a very popular cafe/tea shop which sells the occasional painting.
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People in general are terrible at estimating time and effort - they estimate based on what they would like to happen rather than what is likely.
Also, don't do like I did last weekend and invite people round, relying on an internet shopping order arriving a couple of hours before. It didn't arrive until about half an hour after I was suppose to be serving!
But on the flip side, I think people do need to relax a little. Unless you have another pressing engagement or issues controlling your blood sugar then waiting a while for dinner shouldn't be the end of the world - an hour or even two without food isn't going to kill you. Or are we all too used to having food right now, whenever we want it?
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Totally called that menu wrong. If it were me I would have had Murchison's duck and pineapple, Simon's Lobster, Daniels Chicken and Stephen's bronze, silver or gold which would have put together a menu of beautiful full flavoured and slightly luxurious ingredients with impeccable presentation across the board. The winning combination of quail. mackeral, chicken and pearsjust doesn't float my boat so I guess it's a good job I've mislaid my invitation to the banquet
It would definitely have been a bit more colourful - the winning menu did seem a bit beige!
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I think the problem is that they are trying to shoehorn the sort of food that is usually produced as part of a tasting menu in a traditional 4 course meal (because they can't mess with the original format, presumably driven by the fact that the Queen likes a fish course?). Weird and wacky can work in small doses, as part of a progression of dishes. Also means you can be fairly purist about each dish as you don't need all the elements of a 'course' on each plate. using things like spherification, foams etc are supposed to be about getting the pure flavour out of an ingredient. the effect is somewhat diluted when you have to plonk them on top of some meat, potatoes and gravy...
Thought that Simon Rogan did really well with the limitations - each of his dishes probably had more elements on the same plate than he would do on one of his menus (The 'clamped' vegetables probably would be a dish in their own right for example) but they did seem to make sense.
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Hi,
Not sure how well the concept translates in America, but in the UK there have been a number of startups where existing premises are used which would not normally be open or serving food in the evenings - Pubs and Cafes normally. One guy locally kickstarted his business that way, cooking (Very good, and more modern) Indian food in a local pub and now has a number of very succesful restaurants. Another cafe opens as a restaurant, just on weekend evenings along with the occasional specialist sri lankan night midweek.
How the finances and contracts work in such an arrangement I'm not sure - I imagine negotiating where liabilities lie in terms of health and safety could be tricky, and no idea what it would do to any insurance policies, but it could be worth a look?
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Tomato pasta sauce - my issue is apart from the fact that it's no more effort really to cook down some tinned tomatoes is that they tend to be over sweet, too homogenised and gummy in texture. Unfortunately the economic argument doesn't stack up though - you can buy jars of sauce cheaper than a decent tin of tomatoes.
I used to use them a lot when I was a student living in college - can keep them in a drawer and cook with a single pan on an electric ring!
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I started a rant about pre-chopped veg once, until somebody mentioned that a relative, who had arthritis found them a godsend as she could still cook despite not being able to chop comfortably (A butcher will cut meat to order for you - a greengrocer doesn't!). Made me feel quite bad!
I'm sure 90% of sales aren't for these reasons, but I'm glad they are available for those who need them.
Jarred tomato sauce I don't understand, pre-made pasta sauces aren't things I buy in general, but I can sort of understand you might not have all the ingredients in for a puttanesca for example, or wouldn't use anchovies or capers for anything else, but a plain tomato sauce?
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Was going to make a separate thread about this, but hijacked this one! Ocado now appear to be stocking some of the Natoora line. Great for me as I like the Ocado service, the website is the best of the online groceries IMHO and the delivery times and rates are good. could never really justify a full Natoora order for a few speciality items, plus wasn't sure if I'd be in for the delivery.
Got a few items delivered this morning, by the world's friendliest delivery man! Got some pancetta, artichokes and some pink fir apples. Was looking at the Guanciale, but it implied it was quite thinly sliced (but not clear). I'll try some next time. Was upset that they had ran out of N'duja though - fancied trying it.Not on commission from Ocado, or Natoora by the way - just a fan of the service!
Can see my already high Ocado bills going through the roof though....
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I always have multiple forms of chilli heat on hand - I've come back from shopping before to realise I have bought 6 or 7 variants!
I'm similar with mustard - normally always have at least prepared english, french, a wholegrain plus mustard powder on hand. Normally have at least one or two artisnal or flavoured mustards on hand too.
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Yeah, we'll see. I haven't tried the MC recipe in lasagne yet.
For those of you who compost, what do you use in your kitchen to hold the scraps? This is my compost bucket, next to my cutting board:
What, you don't pocket mulch?
Sorry, obscure simpsons quote..
Great blog by the way - loving the mix of molecular gastronomy (Hate that term really though!), mexican food which I know nothing about and the realism of occasional burgers and eating leftovers!
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Strange, that's the second time in a couple of days I've seen the 'fold the bottom lasagne sheets over the top' technique having never seen it before - which makes really good sense (Saw it on a tv program, but he did put a final thin layer of sauce on top I think). I'm a fan of the more compact lasagne.
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Dark and Stormy - definitely a drink that is more than the sum of it's parts, although dependent on the quality of the ginger beer used. fortunately it is one thing that is very easy to get hold of in the UK. I sometimes add a dash of bitters to it as well, especially if I'm using a lighter rum.
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Sounds like a fairly straightforward hypothesis to test? Although probably difficult to get funding for an extensive study!
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Got my copy ordered now (Along with the Pieminster cookbook - slightly differing ends of the spectrum!). Was going to get the Ferran Adria family meal one too, but flicking through it in waterstones, I wasn't that taken with it.
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Strange, is this an American thing? I've never really heard of giving 'upwards', i.e employees getting gifts for their boss - OK, if you were friends, or happened to come across something unusual you know they would really like on holiday, but to receive gifts en-masse at christmas? Sounds a little bit feudal....
Maybe it will spread - like the one-upmanship arms race of buying gifts for teachers.
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Slight over simplification but bread with oil is really a vehicle for the oil, butter is there to compliment the bread (unless it's really good butter).
But in general the popularity of the 'Mediterranean' diet has fooled people that it should be olive oil for everything, despite the fact that the dish from their favourite restaurant they are trying to replicate was probably started and finished with a hefty slab of butter!
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In the uk the dips with pizza thing really kicked in a few years ago. I'd never even considered it but when ordering (bad!) Pizza for poker night a load of my friends started ordering extra dips of all kinds (a couple seem to come as standard). They thought it was weird that I didn't want any, they basically went through a small tub per slice. The dips are pretty nasty to my taste too!
On a related note a colleague of mine doesn't eat cheese. Went to a pizza place with him that offered a few cheeseless pies but he ordered one with and then peeled it all off. Turns out that he only likes pizza that has had cheese on it but doesn't eat the cheese!
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I always find it odd how tourists are drawn into the Crown and Anchor pub in Winchester - it must be my least visited pub in the town (Nothing particularly bad about it mind you - just not a lot of positive either!)
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I'll double check, but I think it was white flour, and from a freshly opened pack.
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Don't think there was any canola oil involved.
The Berries I guess would be the prime suspect, but I'm almost certain a few went in the cook while she was cooking and she didn't say anything! I suppose a few rogue ones could have caused it.
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My housemate made a batch of Blueberry Muffins at the weekend, she is quite a keen baker and normally everything comes out pretty good.
I had one with my morning cup of tea - first to try one, and it was a bit odd, for some reason it tasted a bit fishy (Also was a bit lacking in sugar, but that's a minor point). She asked me what I thought, and I was a bit reluctant to mention it, I wondered if it might just be me, but when she had one she almost spat it out.
I am sure I have noticed this before, but with commercial products and put it down to using cheap fats/eggs, but all the ingredients appeared to be fine.
Anyone come across this phenomenon before?
She also baked another cake, same oven, similar ingredients (Although a chocolate one which may have masked anything funky), and that was fine.
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Neither of those 2 cuts are what I would consider offal - a regional thing maybe?
"Food and Drink"
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
Posted
The piece about how wonderful things were in France was somewhat annoying. No, not everyone in France buys the finest, local artisan produce daily. But equally, if you do want good bread that will last past the morning then you don't buy a Baguette - there are plenty of other french breads that will last, and Michel Roux presumably knows that.
Another top recession busting tip of putting the oven on to refresh half a leftover baguette too....