eG Foodblog: Marlena - Life is Delicious Wherever I am

[marlena spieler]

whats your favourite umbrian thing?

Marlena

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My favorite thing is...the Umbrian people!

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[marlena spieler]

I can't find a decent bagel here, even Montreal bagels dont measure up to NY Bagels...... 

Have you ever tried making them at home?  I heard the recipe in Bread Baker's Apprentice was good.

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I don't know about the Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe.

But i do know that once upon a time i used to organize make-your-own bagel singles brunches at the san francisco jcc: it was so much fun! i'd make a big batch of dough--i used the recipe from the sunset bread baking book, i'm sure it wasn't the worlds best, but the fun part was the shaping and the boiling and the adding our own goodies. This was in the days before everything bagels; i would put out poppyseeds, sesame seeds, onion, garlic, coarse salt, caraway seeds, everything, and all of the singles would shape their dough, boil their bagels, dip in various seeds and goodies, lay it out on the baking sheets and i'd keep it all going: the boiling water, the hot oven and baking trays, the conversation. i'd also prepare the rest of the meal which involved eggs, and really yummy tray-baked hash-browned potatoes with whole cloves of garlic.

we would have about 50 people, and couples were always getting together, some got married! i was single in those days, and always too busy working the dough, working the pots and working the ovens to get even a date!

but it was wonderful, they were really fun gatherings. and the bagels were not too bad. better than brick lane, not as good as....new york. nowhere near as good as new york. but nice and chewy: we boiled the hell out of them. oh yes, they were c h e w y. but good.

[marlena spieler]

I think we should plan an eGullet long weekend in Umbria and all stay here.

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Count me in! (except i couldn't pull up the old convent on my computer?).

[Swisskaese]

I made my lemon-garlic chicken tonight. I put oregano, garlic and lemon peel under the skin and stuffed it with lemon quarters, garlic, oregano and rosemary. Then I placed lemon and garlic around the chicken.

Here is a picture.

[hathor]

I've got a big house, with a big kitchen. Before we go pulling up to convents.... come onna my house come on! (My stove is terrible, but its adds to the challenge! Seriously, when it heats up the knobs would fly across the room!).

I never answered your queery about strongozzi. You know, its something I just don't care for. Its just too....chewy. Seems to show up more in Southern Umbria, although it may just be that my brain glosses over when I see it.

I need to check out your Jewish recipes, are they all Sephardic? The lemon and grape chicken sound delisious. My husband is Sephardic and one of our cherised possessions is a hand written community cookbook. And I must say, I make a fine shicksa (sp??) matzoh ball, Sephardic style!.

[Abra]

Marlena, blackberry season is always in August, and then it depends on the weather whether it's July/August, or August/September. Come on out and our great local group will show you a good time!

Me too I first made bagels from that Sunset book. Those were the days before I'd ever had a wood oven baked bagel a la Montreal, so my standards were lower. But it was really fun, and I was inordinately proud of myself. I've recently acquired the Breadbaker's Apprentice, so I should try his and see how they compare.

[marlena spieler]

I've got a big house, with a big kitchen. Before we go pulling up to convents.... come onna my house come on!    (My stove is terrible, but its adds to the challenge!    Seriously, when it heats up the knobs would fly across the room!).

I never answered your queery about strongozzi. You know, its something I just don't care for. Its just too....chewy.  Seems to show up more in Southern Umbria, although it may just be that my brain glosses over when I see it.

I need to check out your Jewish recipes, are they all Sephardic? The lemon and grape chicken sound delisious. My husband is Sephardic and one of our cherised possessions is a hand written community cookbook. And I must say, I make a fine shicksa (sp??) matzoh ball, Sephardic style!.

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Lets go to your house in umbria! egullet weekend in umbria!

The grape and gingerroot chicken is really good; i make it in about a zillion variations, i think the one that michelle has contains orange juice and/or white wine for the sauce, and is on my website: www.marlenaspieler.com as a recipe of the month. i adapted it from a classic north african jewish dish, but added the fresh ginger, expanded the types of grapes, in fact i'm not sure if the original has grapes at all. in any event, its a good recipe. i make it in pieces if i don't have a whole chicken, or if i want to make chicken for a crowd (pieces are easier).

where is your husband from? my recipes are from all over the place; my family is ashkenazi but i've lived in places with sephardim, and also my brother married a couple of different separadim or had relationships with them. the persian family especially were wonderful cooks. i love a lot of the sephardic foods and spicing; in israel i learned so much about them. so fragrant and zesty. invigorating. while the ashkenazi food i grew up with, eastern european fare, anything but invigorating. except i do love the sheer amount of garlic my family always used.

michelle, our shiksa=matzaball=maker hathor, abra, calipoutine, daniellewiley, and everyone else out there: shabbat shalom!

x marlena

[jgarner53]

it was so good that when i was biting into it i was thinking: I wish I had TWO MOUTHS! so could eat it in both at the same time!

Crisp edges, tons of seeds and onion and garlic, just enough butter that i put on only to sort of warm it not to melt, and since the butter was sweet (unsalted) i sprinkled the tiniest amount of salt flakes here and there.

That is so how I feel about a good bagel! Especially the everything ones, slathered with cream cheese and smoked salmon. CaliPoutine's right about the Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe - it does make some damn good bagels. Adding baking soda to the water helps make the outsides good and chewy. See?

Well, you can't see the chewy, but trust me, it's there!

I think I remember reading somewhere that you're partial to Acme's bread when you're in the Bay Area. You have had Bay Bread bread, I'm sure - it's in half the restaurants in town (as well as the bakeries). I think we (since I work there) do make some damn fine breads.

[marlena spieler]

it was so good that when i was biting into it i was thinking: I wish I had TWO MOUTHS! so could eat it in both at the same time!

Crisp edges, tons of seeds and onion and garlic, just enough butter that i put on only to sort of warm it not to melt, and since the butter was sweet (unsalted) i sprinkled the tiniest amount of salt flakes here and there.

That is so how I feel about a good bagel! Especially the everything ones, slathered with cream cheese and smoked salmon. CaliPoutine's right about the Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe - it does make some damn good bagels. Adding baking soda to the water helps make the outsides good and chewy. See?

Well, you can't see the chewy, but trust me, it's there!

I think I remember reading somewhere that you're partial to Acme's bread when you're in the Bay Area. You have had Bay Bread bread, I'm sure - it's in half the restaurants in town (as well as the bakeries). I think we (since I work there) do make some damn fine breads.

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I LOVE Bay Bread! I just sometimes forget to say so! Last year I was eating at Piperade and was totally loving the bread--i asked where it was from and they said Bay Bread! I went looking for Bay Breads last month on a bread rampage, but was tight on time and also didn't have an address (how wacky can a girl get--did i think i was just going to sniff and find the place, well i think i did......).

Your bagels look beeeauuutiful. i love when bagels are just all laid out, fresh from the oven, they look so peaceful and beckoning.......mmmmbaking soda in the water. i might have to give the bagel baking thing another go. but its the sort of thing that its more fun if you have other bagel eaters around, i think that bagel baking is a communal thing, at least thats my fond memories.

My solitary ny bagel this morning was garlic. exquisite. but a calamity struck: i ran out of butter and could only eat half, well about a third cause it was a fat rascal of a bagel and i had cut it three ways. that damned treacle sponge pudding used up so much butter than i had only enough for half of my bagel.

interestingly, i just got a readers letter--i get letters from readers all the time and really really adore the whole process. its like doing a foodblog 24/7 sometimes, and sometimes people want travel advice or help in putting together a recipe, or they are a little crazy and want to rant, but mostly they are the most wonderful letters and they fill my little office with thousands of voices, thousands of hungry, happy eaters voices! anyhow, this letter this morning was a very angry letter about a throwaway line I wrote, about butter.

but he attached with it a letter that included a lot of research on the health benefits of butter, and it seems as if i--a butterhound who tries endlessly to reform herself--don't use enough butter!

the irony of it still has me laughing, as one of the things my editor said was : try not to use too much butter in your super foods recipes! (i'm famous for loving butter!).

What do you do at Bay Breads? Sounds like you're a baker. Tell us everything!

x Marlena

ps but i actually like my bread without butter if there are rich sauces involved; its the french thing: dip the bread in the sauce, swoon. if there were butter on the bread it would change the delicate balance of the sauce.

[marlena spieler]

Breakfast update:

Okay, so there was no butter left and I had eaten half the bagel. I was chompin at the bit for the rest of the bagel.

So I ate it with a swipe of mustard (light brown, mild but flavourful, that i brought back from germany), with a few grains of coarse salt, as if it were a street soft pretzel.

yum. it was good. the bagel was crisp edged like before, soft fleshed, from being toasted from frozen, with the contrast of chewy flesh and crisp edge.

now for another cup of coffee. i have work to finish!

[Swisskaese]

It is funny. When I lived in the States, I couldn't survive without a bagel or I would make my own bread because the bread was so bad where I grew up. I really disliked sandwich bread growing up.

My family would have to drive to Atlanta (before I-20 it was a 3 hour drive one way, then 1 hour 45min one way) to get bagels. Then, they started selling them in Birmingham (45 min drive) and we could buy them there.

Then, I moved to Europe and forgot about them and since I have been living in Israel, I don't have them at all. I couldn't tell you the last time I had a bagel. I think it was a couple of years ago when I was visiting my parents.

We don't eat a lot of butter. I only bake with it and I cook our weekly omlette with butter. Are you picky about the butter you buy? For example, I have friends that will only buy French or Dutch butter.

Daniel Rogov told me that the best Israeli butter is made at the Buffalo farm I went to last weekend.

[marlena spieler]

It is funny. When I lived in the States, I couldn't survive without a bagel or I would make my own bread because the bread was so bad where I grew up. I really disliked sandwich bread growing up.

My family would have to drive to Atlanta (before I-20 it was a 3 hour drive one way, then 1 hour 45min one way) to get bagels. Then, they started selling them in Birmingham (45 min drive) and we could buy them there.

Then, I moved to Europe and forgot about them and since I have been living in Israel, I don't have them at all. I couldn't tell you the last time I had a bagel. I think it was a couple of years ago when I was visiting my parents.

We don't eat a lot of butter. I only bake with it and I cook our weekly omlette with butter. Are you picky about the butter you buy? For example, I have friends that will only buy French or Dutch butter.

Daniel Rogov told me that the best Israeli butter is made at the Buffalo farm I went to last weekend.

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When i was a student in Jerusalem about a thousand years ago, I used to buy bagelah's, round pretzl-like things, sold on a hanging string. they were so chewy, i loved them! there was something to dip them in, maybe it was sesame, or salt, or perhaps it was za-atar, is that possible? mmmm, speaking of za-atar, maybe that will be my tomorrows breakfast, with flatbread and olive oil........now that i'm i've had two days of bagels, the thrill is fading a teeny bit. i like to keep a thrill going by not getting tired of anything, by keeping it all fresh and exciting (but i do always come back to bagels. true love in a chunk of boiled and baked dough).

Yes, there is butter and there is butter. I get very dissappointed when I'm in California cause much of the butter is bland, i think it is the milder weather and the cows are too mellow, they eat a lighter diet, the weather is gentler, who knows? New York butter is better, though some of the artisanal butters in California are good. (i think i'll make an informal survey on my upcoming trip there. perhaps i'll put a thread up in the california section?) Funnily enough, when I'm in California I end up buying a French butter that over here, in Europe i tend to look my nose down as its good, but overshadowed by the many fabulous butters--especially French butters--we have here. Also, though, the Dutch butter we get is pretty good, as is the Irish, New Zealandish, and some of the English.

I like sweet unsalted butter usually, as i love the contrast of sweet cream and crunchy briney salt (i do a little sprinkling on top), cause salted butter has a slightly briney flavour and as it can keep longer than unsalted, it never tastes quite as sweet and fresh. But sometimes I love a salted butter too. We have many French butters, and they are so wonderful. There is one from Brittany that is unsalted but studded with coarse seasalt: divine. you don't cook with it, you simply spread it and appreciate it. i'm not terribly fond of the italian slightly fermented butters though.

When the shops have an overload of cream and are selling it cheap, i'll buy a lot of it and make my own butter; it tastes so fresh and creamy! when we lived in our warehouse flat in london with lots of friends all around i would do this and then bring all my friends and neighbours little crocks filled with the glorious stuff. my neighbours in Hampshire aren't really into this sort of thing so we'd have to eat it all ourselves! (and I know we could, that is the problem).

There are so many wonderful butters here that we are really spoiled. And I hate when my husband buys an ordinary supermarket house brand butter (its irrisistible price-wise, and he is an accountant, read: bargain hunter par excellence) as its alright for cooking, but its a butter-appreciating opportunity missed!!!!

I bet Danial Rogov is completely right about that buffalo butter; you should go get yourself a nice creamy slab of it! and describe it all to us (I actually have had to wipe the edge of my mouth, an errant drool just thinking about it.)

One Melting (as in butter) Marlena

Edited January 7, 2006 by marlena spieler (log)

[marlena spieler]

Sheep. Lamb.

I forgot to mention that when I awoke this morning I remembered that I had had a very happy dream: I was cooking lamb. I could even smell it, and the lamb pieces (some sort of chop but i don't remember any bones, there was a good balance between lean and fat) were browning on some kind of stove, and they were very fragrant and rare inside, and when i woke up i could swear i could still smell the lamb.

I'm sure its because I visited the egullet thread on lamb last night before i went to sleep.

Am I the only one here who dreams about cooking lamb? (at least it wasn't a baaah-d dream, please forgive me for that....).

Marlena

[Swisskaese]

I bet Daniel Rogov is completely right about that buffalo butter; you should go get yourself a nice creamy slab of it! and describe it all to us (I actually have had to wipe the edge of my mouth, an errant drool just thinking about it.)

One Melting (as in butter) Marlena

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Actually, the butter they make is cow butter. We asked them why they do not sell buffalo butter and Irit explained that you can make buffalo butter, but it is white and they didn't think anyone would want to buy it. The reason it is white is because the buffalo metabolises the beta carotene which enables cow butter to be yellow.

It reminds me of when margarine used to be white and it didn't sell very well, so the margarine manufacturers came up with an ingenius idea of coloring it yellow and it sold like hotcakes.

BTW - She said the buffalo butter was very good. Maybe I can convince her to give me some or I will buy the 40% cream that I wanted to dip David in and lick it off him, but I figured I needed to lose some weight instead and therefore, I didn't buy any.

Edited January 7, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[Swisskaese]

Sheep. Lamb.

I forgot to mention that when I awoke this morning I remembered that I had had a very happy dream: I was cooking lamb. I could even smell it, and the lamb pieces (some sort of chop but i don't remember any bones, there was a good balance between lean and fat) were browning on some kind of stove, and they were very fragrant and rare inside, and when i woke up i could swear i could still smell the lamb.

I'm sure its because I visited the egullet thread on lamb last night before i went to sleep.

Am I the only one here who dreams about cooking lamb? (at least it wasn't a baaah-d dream, please forgive me for that....).

Marlena

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I dream about it, but I can't afford it. I also dream about dates stuffed with minced lamb.

[marlena spieler]

Its really cold today. and very grey. I've been chained to my computer, and thought i was finished with my work, and then i noted that for the final tranche instead of 1 spread (2 pages ) i needed to produced 2 spread (4 pages) and am trying to figure out how to do that. i thought making 1 spread was going to be enough of a challenge to be honest.

anyhow, as haven't eaten since morning bagel decided to whip up a little dish of something spinachy. You can take the girl out of Greece but you can't take the Greece out of the girl!

So i cooked about a pound of spinach, squeezed and chopped it up, mixed it with chopped green onions, fresh dill, a beaten egg, a bit of feta, a bit of sharp Cheddar, and some grated Parmesan. nutmeg too. and a little cream to hold it together.

i'm serving it with toasted thin slices of french bread brushed with oil. will report on it after we eat it. it smells delish, very melty cheesey and spinachy.

Marlena

[hathor]

We've gone from puddings, to cheese to butter. What an indulgent, hedonistic blog. I love it!

My husband's family is from what used to be Turkey, but is now Yugoslavia, from a town called Monastir, but now it has another name that starts with a 'B' but I can't remember it. His grandmother was a spectacular cook, even making her own phyllo dough. The first time I made her matzo ball recipe, I swore I felt her presence looking over my shoulder. However, it may have been that she was trying to warn me. I didn't know the balls grew in the pot! These matza balls are meant to be about the size of a large gum ball (and are full of walnuts). I put them in at that size and they started to grow to golf ball size. In a panic, I took them ALL out and cut them in half. 25 years later I'm still teased about my half dome matza balls!

I can buy bufala butter at our market in Italy. It is white, it is delicous, but expensive, and I'm not convinced its worth the expense.

I don't dream lamb per se, but I do dream smells. Thanks god I'm not the only one!

[marlena spieler]

Hathor, have you ever gone to visit the place your husband's family came from? is anyone left? when did they leave? what other specialities do they prepare?

And i like the idea of half moon matzo balls. i have a soft spot in my heart for eccentric matzo balls and wacky matzo ball stories. in fact, i have a matzo ball dream, but don't know if i'm going to put it up in this blog. one, it might sound a little crazy and two, someone else might do it before me.

anyhow, the spinach mixture was really good. we didn't eat it with the toasts in the end, cause it was better on its own; i had baked the mixture in an individual chinese sandpot, and it came out like an italian sformato: but denser, with tangier greek feta flavours. wonderful on a cold afternoon.

[ruthcooks]

I also want to try Marlena's "Sephardic Roasted Chicken With Two Kinds Of Ginger And As Many Kinds Of Grapes As You Can Find" when grape season begins. That really sounds delicious.

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Which cookbook is this recipe in? I love cooking with grapes.

Great blog, Marlena. We don't need no steenking pictures.

[marlena spieler]

Here you go, Ruthcooks:

Sephardic Roasted Chicken With Two Kinds Of Ginger And As Many Kinds Of Grapes As You Can Find

Serves about 4

(Adapted from a recipe in The Jewish Heritage Cookbook)

* 1 3lb. (1.5kg) chicken, whole

* About 4oz. (110g.) fresh ginger, grated

* 6–8 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

* 1 cup dry white wine

* 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

* 3 large pinches cinnamon (very large pinches)

* Salt and black pepper

* 3/4 lb. (350g.) green seedless grapes

* 3/4 lb. red seedless grapes

* 3/4 lb. any other grape you like (if its seeded, cut in half and remove seeds — italia or muscat grapes are delicious, as are champagne grapes or flame grapes, purple grapes...)

* 5–7 shallots, chopped

* 1 cup chicken broth

* 1 to 2 cups orange juice

* Small amount of sugar, to taste

* Squeeze of lemon juice if needed

Mix the ginger, garlic, 1/4 cup of the wine, the olive oil, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Rub half of this into the chicken. Leave to marinate as long as you can: 30 minutes is okay, so is overnight. Both will be good, but the longer you leave it, the more the flesh of the chicken will be perfumed.

When ready to cook, stuff as much of the grapes as can fit into the cavity of the bird, along with some of the shallots and place in a roasting pan. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C), put the chicken in the oven, and leave it to roast for about an hour. A meat thermometer will help you gauge the temp (it's really the best way to go about it). On the other hand, I never use one. Just don't overcook the chicken to the point that the breast is dry. I prick the fleshy thick part of the thigh with a skewer to see what color the juices are. Pink juices mean not quite cooked; as soon as they are clearish, remove from oven.

Place the chicken on a plate and tent it with a piece of foil to keep warm.

Pour off any fat from the pan (reserving juices and sediment) and add the shallots. Cook over medium low heat about five minutes, or until softened, then pour in the remaining wine and cook over high heat until reduced to a few tablespoons, then add the chicken broth and do the same. When the chicken stock is simmering, add the remaining ginger garlic spicy paste, then the orange juice, and cook over a high heat until it all reduces to a strongly flavored sauce. Add about half of the remaining grapes, simmer together ten minutes or so, until it all forms a thick and juicy sauce, then add the rest of the grapes, warm through and remove from stove. Taste for seasoning, sugar and lemon to taste.

Carve the chicken, pouring the juices from the platter into the grape and sauce pan, then serve the chicken with the grape sauce.

© Marlena Spieler 2003

Recipe of the Month Archive (www.marlenaspieler.com website)

[Abra]

Thank you for that chicken recipe - it looks scrumptious! I can hardly wait for some grapes that don't come from Chile, so I can try it.

I have the simplest possible question. I always mentally pronounce your name in German (mar-lay-na) but it occurs that you might say mar-lee-na. Having a hard-to-pronounce name myself, I always like to get other peoples' names right. What say you?

[marlena spieler]

I always mentally pronounce your name in German (mar-lay-na) but it occurs that you might say mar-lee-na.  Having a hard-to-pronounce name myself, I always like to get other peoples' names right.  What say you?

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right the first time! mar-lay-na

[Swisskaese]

I am always curious about how people make their matza balls because my family makes them different from other families.

This is my paternal grandmother's recipe.

How do you make yours?

Edited January 7, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[marlena spieler]

Michelle, your matzo balls sound lovely; i had an old friend, ida, from vienna pre and intra WWII, and she always liked to put a pinch of ginger in her matzo balls too.

i love the way you have crushed whole matza as well as matzo meal. they sound marvellous.

i play around with my matzo balls a lot, having not grown up with a standard. my mother didnt make them, and i don't remember my grandmother making them. but my aunt has, in recent years, become the queen of the knaidlach. she always has them in the freezer (they do freeze well) along with chicken soup, and is ready for any illness of a relative or friend. sometimes when i make matzo balls i add chopped parsley, other times.......chopped cilantro! also, when i ran a little cafe in san francisco's jewish community centre, i used to sneak into the kitchen for a snack, and that snack was: a matzo ball dipped into the salsa of the day (i made a different salsa every day). so matzo balls and salsa remains one of my personal comfort foods.

anyhow, its 8.30 and we're having dinner. husband is into his scots heritage phase. it must be the time of year: cold outside, and burns night is approaching, and i won't be here when it comes. and as we missed the whole christmas in britain thing, he is making up for it. he came home with 4 tiny weightwatchers christmas puddings (really!) and is now making noises about steaming them. i'm trying to put things off for awhile....because dinner is really good.

we're eating: a dinner in advance of burns night: haggis, and neeps with tatties. its really simple, and if i had had chicken breasts i might have stuffed the chicken breasts with the haggis and made a whisky pan sauce to go with it, just cause you egulleteers are here for dinner tonight. but i didn't have a chicken breast. and besides, boiling the whole haggis is very dramatic, we even gave a little burns night recitation of Burns' (Scotland's national Bard) celebrated ode, great chieftain o' the puddin' race....... i was the one to stab the pudding.

let me describe it to you: very meaty, nice and peppery, totally umami. little textural nubs of oats, or......? (in a haggis you don't ask). awch, i think i'll have a wee dram as i write this.....anyhow while we madly search for the whisky, i'll tell you about the neeps and tatties. neeps is a nickname for turnips, (turneeps, neeps, get it?) which in fact are not turnips at all but are swedes, well they are rutabagas but are called swedes in England and turnips, or neeps over the border, in scotland. anyhow, i boiled then mashed the cut up rutabaga and potatoes, then whipped them with a bit of butter, cream and thinly sliced green onions. we're sipping Duncan Taylor & co ltd whisky: The Big Smoke 40. If you like your whisky smoky, this is your friend. and sips of whisky drunk along with bites of haggis and neeps/tatties is one of life's most delicious pairings.

slainte (scots gaelic for cheers!).

an ancestor of my husband is in the encyclopaedia britannica for compiling the first dictionary of scots Gaelic. (when he was a wee bairn he used to tell people: 'my mum speaks garlic, you know!') he meant gaelic of course.

the scottish theme of our evening has its poignant side tonight, as a relative of ours, through my husband, has been splashed across the national news as having resigned as leader of the UK Liberal Democrat politcal party. we're saddened by this turn of events.

Edited January 7, 2006 by marlena spieler (log)

[marlena spieler]

still sipping the whisky, its time for dessert. my husband, as i may have neglected to mention, has been doing the shopping this week. he often does the shopping in the uk as he doesn't mind trotting up the hill to the waitrose and shlepping the groceries down the hill, and i'm usually working hard at the computer. this week i've been working especially hard as have had a deadline (almost have it met!).

so i've been a bit of a cooking captive to his shopping habits. for instance, the haggis, and the christmas puddings. this is not my kind of food! luckily, today he found a shop selling all its fruits and vegetables for 50% off, a promotional thing, so he brought home a veritable celebration of freshness.

we have eggplant, three cucumber (the big kind!), two bags of salad, three containers of cherry tomatoes, a bag of multicoloured peppers, (these ARE my kind of food), six containers of beetroot (he LOVES beetroot) and so it goes. also the worlds largest turnip (swede). i don't know how he carried it home it was so heavy! actually, it was so heavy he needed to make two journeys by foot, and when he got back to the shop for a second round of shopping, the clerk said: oh, have you eaten that all already?

anyhow, tonight he wanted haggis and neeps/tatties which i have already narrated. and for dessert, he bought: wait for it: a weightwatchers christmas pudding, no actually there were four of them (he said: they will make good gifts to take to america!). and a container of brandy butter.

And i'm telling you: i hate to admit it: it was good, it was really good. it might be because anything with brandy butter melting on it is good, but i think it was second only to duchy originals and my own pudding. i don't know, maybe after all these years of living here its wearing off on me. but it was really good, weightwatchers or not!

i'm eating an orange now to clear my palate and keep everything digesting.

i usually decide on what we're eating, and we tend to the savoury mediterranean side of things with an asian accent here and there, and a big french and greek slant. so i've been giving in to his requests while i work at my project, and he goes and shops and brings home the bacon (oh, he brought home bacon today, which i would have expected: it being his number one comfort food to eat in a sandwich: a british bacon sandwich,nothing like a BLT. bacon is soft and lean, bread is buttered not slathered in mayo. and there is no tomato or lettuce. bacon sandwiches are his passion).

anyhow i feel as if he has hijacked my blog a bit with his pudding and pudding and more pudding and haggis, (with my striking out on my own with a bagel, one of the worlds heaviest substances). i think he is just so excited that i'm not testing recipes for a column or article, so its his opportunity to eat his heritage-y things. actually its been very very tasty albeit a tad heavy. tomorrow: lets do something with that.....salad stuff and that eggplant!

tomorrow i'm going to check on my sauerkraut and olives; how many people go on vacation to make pickles? me me me! (i once made some fabulous kosher dills in san francisco with my friend kamala).

x marlena