food blog

[marlena spieler]

Marlena...... Youall shop everyday,no? Or do you have American sized cold storage? I would love to walk to the markets everyday and shop at leisure. How good is that?

Hi Mabelline......chez spieler we do shop every day....... we're not totally continental, for one thing we don't have such lovely markets, we must go further afield for goodies. Unfortunately, supermarkets have taken over Britain as they have America. and people have much bigger refrigerators than they used to--american fridges are very fashionable! but most people have cute little ones that you can't even figure out where they are, hidden here or there under a cupboard. and some people take great pride in keeping foods in cold rooms such as pantries (known as larders) instead of fridges.....

anyhow i love to shop for food, could not live if i had to shop for a weeks worth of food at a time and eat like that. for one thing, i like everything as fresh as possible, and also i like the possibilities of what to cook to be constantly changing. i like the challenge.

we're planning on moving to paris and one of the things i so look forward to is the food shopping. i like the sensual stimulation. ilike the human interaction. we don't get that in british shopping to be honest, though i do a lot of shopping up in london in ethnic markets and also in berwick street, and both of these places i get a nice supply of human interaction to go with the food, and sometimes the human interaction is as sustaining as the food is.

my husband does much of the shopping locally, he likes climbing the hill, and he loves the bargains. at the end of the day our local waitrose (a posh supermarket with excellent quality and choice) discounts big-time whatever hasn't sold. it means we can have surpluses of strange things, such as bags and bags and bags of treviso, or pounds of goats cheese, or..........one of these days of my blog i'll write about one of our excursions.

its the middle of the night and i'm drinking a cup of tea; almost out of pg tips and i notice that the husband has brought back a box of twinings english breakfast. a funny thing is happening to husbands shopping trips this blog. we're having a little bit of a power struggle food wise, but more about that later. now i think i'll finish my tea, listen to the world service, and go back to sleep.

details on last nights dinner to follow.

[marlena spieler]

details on last nights dinner will indeed follow as promised.

but first, i must be true and honest to my blog and to you.

so while i was making my tea, i had a bit of a revisit to the chicken carcass. yum. then a handful of strawberries which were intended on being our dessert for lunch today. i couldn't help myself.

see you in the morning.

[marlena spieler]

saturday night 21 feb v. informal dinner party

friends brought wine and beer: australian chardonnay, and cobra (the first okay, the second my favourite beer). non alcoholic drinkers drank: elderflower cordial mixed with bubbly pellegrino......

we nibbled on crisp little sardinian rosemary flatbreads as we shmooosed, and as the chicken roasted. sardinian flatbreads=we've been addicted for several months now, since we spent christmas with an italian contessa and her friend the sardinian importer. it was nonstop rosemary flatbreads, and we couldn't stop when we got home.

here's how to make: pane carasau--the paper thin sardinian bread, though i use turkish lavosh when i can't get pane carasau which is most of the time--lightly toasted on each side, then drizzled with extra-virgin, and sprinkled generously with sea salt and dried rosemary leaves which i crush in the mortar and pestle. (the rosemary leaves came from the westminster abbey where my friend is the gardnener. we get all of our rosemary from westminster abbey when its pruning time.)

salad: thinly sliced bulb fennel, red onion, sweet red pepper (bought it at turkish neighbourhood instead of supermarket so has more flavour), cucumber, fresh dill, those black olives that i have mentioned many times already. a sprinkle of salt, a few drops of wine vinegar and lemon juice both, then a slick of extra virgin. i have a soft spot in my heart for the combination of fennel, red pepper, onion and olives as the first time i set foot in italy i ended up in a marketplace in liguria and within an hour or so on the beach, barbecuing fish and eating this salad.

The Chicken: it was raised in freedom, the label told me, in the forests of france, with not only the freedom to be free of physical pain, but also free of mental stress and trauma, and free to express itself in the ways of its breed.

that said, i rubbed it with salt and garlic early in the day and let it sit. when it was time for the oven, i stuffed its little insides with whole garlic cloves of course, lemon chunks, and big handfuls of fresh tarragon. then rubbed it generously with duck fat and plopped it into the oven, surrounded by little par boiled baby potatoes.

i roasted it up and down temperature wise because i can never decide: both the slow and the high heat blasting method make sense to me, so i just play it by ear: i improvise the temperature. i go with my feelings. one of these days i'll realize that a meat thermometer would be easier. meanwhile my roasted things turn out so well.

the weather is quite cold, which is why we're roasting so much this week.

and by the way, i'm usually very lazy about heating the plates, but for the blog: in this cold weather, i'm heating the plates.

when the chickens skin was brown, and crisp, and so were the potatoes, i made a little pan sauce: deglazing it with stock, chardonnay, and a little splodge of cream at the end. carved it, napped it with the sauce, and sent it out under a shower of fresh tarragon.

Cheese: a creamy little blob of st marcellin leftover from a few days ago. no bread or toast or crackers, we just ate it from a spoon.

dessert: grapefruit segments--without a tiny speck of white pith or membrane--tossed with maple syrup and chilled. this is a dish i came up with when i did a radio programme on BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme about maple syrup. my challenge was to prepare lots of dishes using maple syrup. this was one of them, and it was very exciting: i love dishes like this: a somewhat surprising and very limited number of ingredients, a refinement or two, and a thrilling outcome.

the slight bitterness of the grapefruit brings out the bitter edge of the maple syrup, and the grapefruits sour qualities balance the sweetness of the maple syrup. i had a really good maple syrup from canada (clarks). good strong flavour. when the grapefruit and maple syrup chill together the juices mingle sociably, and the maple looses its edge a bit. solve that by giving it a last minute drizzle before serving.

i have forbidden myself breakfast until i wrote up last nights dinner, and have tried to extend it to washing last nights dishes--we don't have a dishwasher!

but how can i be so mean to myself? husband can do the dishes, i gotta eat breakfast!

[John Whiting]

The Chicken

Marlena, I'll never forget the Chicken in Truffled Cream Sauce which I watched you make, taking notes as you went. I've done it regularly since, and regard it as an ostensive definition of heaven.

[marlena spieler]

Breakfast:

Despite the previous two mornings breakfasts of relatively sweet things: toast with cream cheese, jam and strawberries; or fresh fruit; today I am returning to my usual breakfast which is:

garlic or onion in some form or another, usually with pain poilane, or a good pita (turkish, israeli, or homemade). Today i cut slices of pain poilane--always get the unsliced so that the slices you make can be as thick or thin as you like, and the hand cutting gives a nice irregular edge to the bread which crisps under the broiler in a varied way, and also gives a good rough surface for scraping garlic flavour when you rub it on.

So i rubbed the toast with garlic, and spread it with goat cheese (that big bargain purchase i remind you) and then topped it with handfuls of watercress and two whole green onions per toast.

husband supplemented his usual breakfast of 2 prozac and a viagra with one of these little garlicky tartines.

my coffee is in a big bowl (cups are still dirty from last nights dinner) (also my lovely portuguese and french bowls for coffee have all cracked and chipped into worthlessness, i'm now reduced to a big world cup football bowl that kelloggs gave away last summer with purchase), half union roasters half lavazza, made french press method, with hot foamy milk.

[marlena spieler]

eeeeek! forgot to include my lovely gingered puree of carrot and parsnip in my blog. we ate it with last nights dinner--the sweet roots and pungent ginger were first boiled (!) together in a medium amount of water--enough to just cover, not to drown) to which i added a generous pinch of salt and sugar. When the vegetables were quite soft--unfashionably soft i might describe them as--i drained and reserved a little bit of the water, and whirled it in the food processor, adding a few spoonfuls of the cooking liquid to make a smooth puree.

How can I describe it: such a delicate sunset colour, okay, orange to you and I, with a consistency of soft smooshy peaks. You could put it through a sieve for refinement but i'm no refined girl. I didn't bother.

But I did divide the delicious mush into two batches and whirled a few spoonfuls of farmhouse butter into one and left it out of the other. not a surprise that the butter-mounted puree was even more deliicous, but the non butter one was very good too.

interestingly, the ginger-scented earthy roots were perfect with the tarragon of the chicken.

[marlena spieler]

Lunch:

Sunday 22 Feb 2004

Husband and I got into a state trying to book flights online to barcelona (on tuesday). nervous breakdowns all around and by the time we were off the phone we needed something invigorating but not heavy cos we were such wrecks we might not have been able to digest anything at all........

husband said: make me a smoothie. but i don't want fruit. what about a vegetable smoothie? so into the food processor went: carrot, raw spinach, watercress, cooked beet, shallots, garlic, celery, fresh dill, cilantro, lemon juice and tomato juice. i mean, sort of a chunky gazpacho-ish, borsht-ish v-8 juice, really. and quite wonderful: at the end we seasoned it with a short of white wine vinegar and a sprinkling of maldon's sea salt flakes.

to go with it: sliced poilane bread (untoasted) with somerset country butter from a farm.

we feel better now.

and hey! we're going to barcelona!

(for the world gourmand awards)

and i'm taking this blog with me!

[marlena spieler]

Sunday evening:

Dinner.

roast beef, rare roast beef, rare prime rib roast beef. i don't know why we're eating so much meat, except that someone sent me that wonderful pig early on in the blog, and then husband has been doing the shopping and he's a carnivore who thinks that anyone who had a choice would eat lovely meat.

and this meat is lovely, i'm telling you. i rrubbed it with olive oil, salt and pepper and a little bit of flour then roasted it at a high--mark 7, is that about 400F--until it sizzled and browned, and got a bit crusty too. how long did i roast it for? who knows.

but it was so divine: first of all, the meat was from scotland, and as with all good meat in this post-mad-cow britain, i had the story of its life and of its ancestors and relatives all laid out in front of me. it lived happy, and died happy, i was assured. and it was delicious. i did a very naughty thing with it however, something i hate to tell anyone really but here goes: i trimmed off the fat and roasted it in the pan. oh, i poured off the grease as it melted off, but i had strips of bits of fat, salted and sprinkled with flour just a sizzling in the pan with the meat. it got crisp. it got gorgeous.

to go with it: herbed yorkshire pudding. chopped chives, chervil and parsley added to the batter. light and crisp.....who am i kidding, it was a bit on the hefty side, but very delcious anyhow.

salad: wild rocket leaves, butter/green lettuce, segments of satsuma and a splash of extra virgin and white wine vinegar.

oh, and for a little something on the side--in case you were hungry, folks--a bit of imam bayildi. this dish of eggplant stuffed with onions, tomatoes and itself, is one of my favourite dishes and the second thing i ever cooked. turned out terrific as usual, but its the sort of thing that can't help but be terrific: you do need to love eggplant, onion and tomato. if you don't, this is probably not the dish for you.

we've got leftovers of the eggplant--not much of the meat--and i know the leftovers will be even better tomorrow eaten cold with yogurt. this is the way we usuall eat. peasant food.

I drank pellegrino water before the meal, tap water during.

dessert?

i think i'll make a nice fruit soup, really a gazpacho of fruit: i see on my shelf: pysalis, passion fruit, mango, banana, pomegranate, pears, satsumas.........oh, and some leftover grapefruit with maple syrup. thats an idea.

post-dessert dessert: i shall eat a teeny tiny chocolate valentine, leftover from last week. i'd like to say that husband brought me a nice box of chocs on valentines day, but that would only be part of the truth: in fact he waited until the day after and go a big box, at that special price. actually i think i'll eat it right now and make the fruit soup afterwards. lets taste the chocolate: dark and smooth, with some sort of ganache inside......is it tea-scented ganache........earl grey tea-scented ganache i think......better have another one to be sure.

[ruthcooks]

Marlena, I am enjoying your scrumptious food descriptions immensely.

Do tell, what are pg tips?

[marlena spieler]

Do tell, what are pg tips?

Dear RuthCooks,

PG tips are the sort of mainstream everyday workhorse of a tea. Everyone drinks pg tips even if they don't admit it. no idea as to what it stands for initial-wise, but it doesn't matter to me. it makes a nice strong "cuppa" the sort of brew that saves lives, repairs traumas, the tea you see builders glugging down at midmorning break inbetween tearing down a building or two.

PG Tips is not genteel, but it is good. Though it comes in loose leaves, most people seem to buy it in bags. And ashamed as I am to admit it, giving those hot steeping bags a good ol squeeze with two spoons, or with my heat-resistant asbestos fingers, extracts all the goodness.

i used to have a saying that you wouldn't be able to make a good cup of tea until you were finally granted your permanent residency. it was some sort of magic ability that came along with residence in the uk. some flights of fancy such as this are dispelled by time, but not this one. co-incidence? the week i got my residency, everyone started saying: Nice cup of tea!

Word of warning: don't let anyone tell you that you can use the bag more than once, though my late scots father in law, took pride in the times his teabags had a swim through the hot water. he used to hang them up on a little clotheline sort of string. actually my aunt in california does this as well.

but don't you do it.

[jackal10]

http://www.pgmoment.com/

http://www.unilever.ca/products/index.asp?http://www.unilever.ca/products/index.asp?...CateId=6&type=1navLev=5&NavId=729&PCateId=6&type=1

[Mabelline]

Marlena, Hello! Your food is absolutely fabulous! Imam biyaldi: the imam fainted, one of my first excursions in things Med. along with ful mesdames. Love them!

Are you nominated at Barcelona? If so many prayers and wishes go to you. Besides, the Basset Caucus is siding for you!

Now you've got me wishing the eggplants would shape up and quit looking like used kitchen sponges.I love your blog!

[marlena spieler]

Thanks jackal10 for the URLs for pg tips.

in fact, i've just gone to all the websites you listed--the british one is definately the cutest, though please don't accuse me of chauvinism--anyhow, i've emailed them asking what the pg stands for. hopefully they'll get back to me before this blog ends.

i hope its not something boring like: procter and gamble. i hope its something like: proper gorgeous tea. or..........?

And Mabelline! I'm going to collect an award on behalf of a pretty famous usa foodwriter who is also one of the most delightful people on this planet, and a dear friend. so i'm pleased to be going on her behalf since she couldn't go.

this year i'm not nominated, but its more than fine: last year i got such a big award, for my career, and collected the prize in a big chateau in the loire valley, at a ceremony with monsieur edouard cointreau. the chateau, the splendid surrounding and happy people and being awarded, made me feel as if i were a princess. and thats the kind of feeling that lasts awhile, even up to the next year. which is now.

since i started this blog on thursday, and since i'm off to barcelona on tuesday, i'll continue my blog for a little while from there.....well, if its okay with everyone else, right on through to the friday night gala dinner? it might be worth the descriptions for all of the catalan-el-bulli-ish-ness of it all.

[marlena spieler]

Grated ginger!

I made our fruit soup which was really a sort of smoothie; in a glass=smoothie, in a bowl eaten with a spoon=fruit soup. it was composed of a little of every fruit in the house: banana, grapefruit, lemon, mango, passion fruit, pear, physalis, satsuma, strawberry and pomegranate.

I sweetned it with elderflower cordial but it probably just got lost and a spoonful or two of sugar would have been fine instead. I added a handful of ice cubes to the whole whirling thing too.

and a few leaves of sweet mint.

and it was good but not great.

then i added a little tuft of fresh ginger grated on top.

divine.

[jackal10]

PG Tips is an Orange Pekoe tea.

I think the PG originally stood for Pekoe Golden Tips

Golden indicating young growth, and tips the top bud and two leaves

Nice to see another UK blog. Are you a member of the Guild of Food Writers http://www.gfw.co.uk/ ?

[marlena spieler]

Nice to see another UK blog. Are you a member of the Guild of Food Writers http://www.gfw.co.uk/ ?

yeasssss, yes, i am.

are you?

and if so, who are you?

[marlena spieler]

video tonight!

marlena's movie snack:

truffled popcorn and irn bru.

truffled popcorn is sublime. i've munched on it in a few hoity toity bars.

its very easy: you simply pop the corn--aka maize as is on the label at waitrose where we bought the kernels-- then melt a bit of butter in a pan. remove from the heat, spoon in some truffle paste or shake in truffle oil, then pour it all over the hot popcorn.

If I am using white truffle oil or white truffle paste i'll add a little chopped garlic when i add the truffle; garlic goes well with white truffle, though black truffle, not necessarily.

truffled popcorn is at its best with champagne, but tonight we're drinking irn bru. irn bru i suppose could be called the champagne of fizzy drinks. it is bright garishly orange in colour, which is said to mimic the colour of rust as its motto is: "made from girrrrrrrrderrrrrrrs" (scots accent). It tastes like bubble gum, ever so refined bubble gum. it comes in cans and bottles but I swear tastes best in a bottle, and though they make a diet version, this is one instance in which the full octane, high sugar version is best. don't know why exactly, something subtle.

irn bru has a good website, in that it has a cute little sheep game to play.

i am not doing a plug for irn bru by the way. i've never recieved even a free bottle, but would if offered. i once carried a couple of bottles in my backpack to new york just to see peoples responses at the brunch we had scheduled. they broke into sponaneous scottish accent, learned, they said, from "the Simpsons" on television.

hmmmmm. i notice that our popcorn bowl is empty. thank god i still have half a jar of truffle paste left. but we might have to get off the irn bru soon. you can overdo a good thing..........

movie is about to start.

[bloviatrix]

Can you please explain physalis to me? I looked it up in the Oxford Book of Food and it says it's a family of fruits covered in husks. But I'm still cloudy. Do they look like mini tomatillos and have a faintly sweet flavor? (I think I've had them, but they were called husk cherries)

Edited February 23, 2004 by bloviatrix (log)

[Toliver]

Marlena, I can't speak for others but I certainly wouldn't mind a bit if your blog ran long! Will you be staying in Barcelona for the weekend after the ceremony? Or will you return home the next day? I ask because if you will be staying, I'd certainly like to have you share some of your Barcelona dining with us, in addition to the dinner Friday night.

[Pan]

I realize this is probably an off-topic question, but I still would like to know how it is that you are a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and live in England. Did you use to live in San Francisco? If you'd rather discuss this in a bio thread, please go ahead. Is the question somehow too prying? If so, sorry about that.

[marlena spieler]

biovatrix, you're right: physalis is also sometimes known as husk cherry, ground cherry, or cape gooseberry (tart like a gooseberry and grown in sout africa by the early settlers there), or chinese lantern (for their lantern-like paper-ish husk).

though they seem very modern, in fact, they came to England in the 18th century (from south america, they are also known as physalis peruviana). and records have Greeks eating the fruit in the 3rd century. I do believe they are related to the tomatillo, for the husk covering and tangy round smooth fruit inside that has a slightly sticky covering on its shiny smooth skin and tart firm flesh.

they are orange- yellow in colour, and tangy-sweet; perfumed in a tutti-frutti almost floral way, that i could only explain as exotic. delicious in just about everything, its nice to dice and add to fruit soup as its very distinctive and keeps its shape. a great garnish of course, and very fetching when you pull back its papery covering and expose the little golden globe inside. and as much as i pooh poosh chocolate dipped fruit, the physalis is quite tasty dipped in dark chocolate: nice contrast between rich dark and bitter and light vivacious fruity. plus the chocolate sort of hardens and the texture contrast is nice too. (the fruit doesn't seap, as a strawberry does).

And Pan--here's how i came to be writing a column for the san francisco chronicle from where i live in europe. And by the way--no question is too personal, you (and anyone else) can ask me anything as personal as it gets. and i promise i'll answer, though if it involves my age i might lie.

i'm from northern california originally, and wrote for the chronicle doing food features before i came to britain for a year's adventure (i looked at it as a self-organized adult exchange program). one year has turned into more than i'd like to admit, and along the way the world got email which enabled me to get my copy in instantaneously.

A few years ago I asked my editor, Michael Bauer, who has always been extremely supportive and taken chances with me, about doing a column from over here, it seemed as if my adventures in foodie-land, wherever i go and whatever i eat-- would be tasty and fun for Bay Area readers and give an international viewpoint foodily........

and toliver: thank you for your support, i shall be eating for you all in barcelona. and just been lying in the bath reading stylecity barcelona, and lonely planet's worldfood: spain by richard sterling. we're back on saturday but should be able to get a lotta lotta tapas in from tuesday to saturday.

[marlena spieler]

drinking my pg tips. i've decided to forgo coffee this morning as this afternoon i'm going to be meeting a friend in a cafe and i know i'll be drinking the hard stuf: espresso. and i won't stop at just one.

breakfast for husband: bagel (its raisin, he bought it, i don't know what gets into him because i thought we had made a pact and that the conditiions of my marrying him included the fact that he never ever buy a raisin (or blueberry) bagel. well, i suppose there are worse vows to break. anyhow he must have been reading something about life in america, or elvis presley's bio, because he has spread it with peanut butter (crunchy) and topped it with banana. if it were raisin bread instead of raisin bagels i'd be right there with him.

as it is, i have to stick with onion and garlic. it agrees with me so delightfully in the morning.

marlena's breakfast: lightly warmed turkish soft chewy pita-ish bread, a couple of slices of feta, sprigs of fresh young tender dill (whole sprigs laid right on top of the feta on top of the bread), whole green onions, a garlic clove to bite out of as i eat the sandwich. and a chunk of cucumber and a few black olives (those turkish beauties i waxed lyrically about earlier in the blog).

am packing a lunch for train: whole wheat bread, extra mature Cheddar, bransten pickle, watercress, red onion, green lettuce. butter on husbands sandwich, mayo and mustard on mine, as i am a bit of a condiment-whore.

in london this afternoon, i shall be attending a cooking workshop (put on by the guild of food writers) at plateau restaurant, on modern french cooking with tim tolley the former chef of the recently closed vong restaurant.

i love when english chefs do "modern french", and, having just written the williams sonoma foods of the world book on paris, am always interested in seeing what the take is over here on this side of la manche (the english channel).

about the w-s foodbook on paris, got the finished pages for introduction and features part of book and feel that sense of relief when you get material from a publisher and you think: ah, its charming! i mean, by the time it gets to this stage, the work that i've done is so far away time wise that little worries get blown into big ones.......and its delightful to see that its nice, very nice. and makes me want to be in paris asap.

which brings me to this plea: we are looking for a flat in paris, pref rental, so if anyone knows of anything please get in contact. it never hurts to ask........

will report back about afternoons workshop when we return this evening, and then: pack for barcelona, and most importantly: make dinner!

[marlena spieler]

from madeline the pussycat:

now that marlena is out of the house for the day, i can do my kittycat blog, because i am very particular about what i eat. and also, the temperature is as important to me as is the food itself.

my bowl must be hot! my bowl for wet food that is. and right now i've taken a chance in my taste and made the move from whiskas gelee meats which i've loved since i was a kitten, over to the meaty sort of pate-like textured chicken. duck may follow.

my favourite all day snack, and all night snack too, is iams dry food. so crunchy and fish-scented. i could eat and eat and eat.

i was named after a little girl in a ludwig bemelmans childrens book story called madeline. "in a little house in paris" (marlena is trying to find that for me right now), and "in two straight lines they broke their bread, brushed their teeth and went to bed......." but being a cat i'll never be in a line for anything.

all for now, i see a big shiney bug and its got my name on it!

madeline the pussycat extra-ordinaire

[pattimw]

Double post.

Edited February 23, 2004 by pattimw (log)

[pattimw]

finale: tea with milk, pg tips strong brewed, low fat milk. when i go to america i always bring pg tips with me to give as presents and also just to drink. i was going to say that pg tips are low brow but british husband got a bit aggrevated at that: they're middle brow he insisted. whatever that means.

funnily enough, we have a nice stash of tea for all occasions, and in fact have even taken tea with mr twining and his son, and nicer chaps you'll never hope to meet. and their tea is fabulous of course.  but call me low....make that medium....brow......i do like a nice cuppa pg tips.

oh heck, as long as we're drinking the tea, don't you think a sweet nibble is in order? nougat from corsica, redolent of the preserved citron they are so fond of, and also perfumed with a hit of cardomom (do i love cardamom or what).

very nice finish to the salady lunch and the tea.

I love PG tips! It's the only British tea i can find reliably in my area.

A question for you - do you think Twinings tea tastes different in the UK? I feel that the tea they sell here in the US as Twinings is insipid and weak. The Twinings I had there and have had friends bring back for me seems to have a fuller flavor, more satisfying.....maybe it is just wishful thinking?