Category: Food

I like to make pasta on weekends — it’s quick and easy. The spaghetti & sauce that I use are cheap, but I don’t skimp on the cheese. I try to always have some Parmigiano-Reggiano on hand.

Parmesan was known as early as 1348. In the writings of Boccaccio (in the Decameron), he invents a ‘mountain, all of grated Parmesan cheese’, on which ‘dwell folk that do nought else but make macaroni and ravioli, and boil them in capon’s broth, and then throw them down to be scrambled for; and hard by flows a rivulet of Vernaccia, the best that ever was drunk, and never a drop of water therein.’

During the Great Fire of London of 1666, Samuel Pepys buried his ‘Parmazan cheese, as well as his wine and some other things’ to preserve them. [Source: Wikipedia].

My house smell of shallot onions and garlic.
It’s from a caramelized paste that I had cooked earlier.
The stuff is potent, and enough for 5 or 6 days to scoop onto fried eggs, or use as is, on toast.
The shallot onions and garlic are sliced thin and cooked down in olive oil.
After a while, l add in a small tin of anchovy fillets, tomato paste and salt & pepper.
When the tomato paste has turned a deeper red – it’s done!

There is a case before the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) in Karlsruhe in Germany, over the right to exclusively use a 4×4 square design for chocolate slabs. German chocolatier Ritter Sport introduced it way back in 1932. In 2010 Swiss company Milka started using it as well.

Now Ritter Sport alleges that Milka violates its patent that had been registered in 1993.

Update Thu 7/23: A ruling in favor of Ritter Sport came down from the Bundesgerichtshof. Milka will no longer be allowed to copy the square design of the Ritter chocolate slabs.

I made a late-night grocery run on Saturday (the Safeway store on 23rd Ave).
There was enough of every kind of food. I do try to make sure that I always have two or three weeks’ supplies of all my staples.

Some shoppers go completely overboard,  or post pictures of empty shelves on social media. (Don’t do that. It just stirs up anxiety. Yes, the store may have run out of some items, but they are usually quick to restock the shelf).

I made pasta tonight – out of a box, but I made the sauce from scratch. (The sauce is usually out of a bottle, but I always use authentic Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese).

The sauce recipe called for shallot onions, garlic, tomato paste, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.

Here’s a new-ish New Zealand beer (first brewed 2017) that caught my eye in the store yesterday.
The claims made on the packaging, are definitely tongue-in-cheek.
– With the beast’s razor sharp tusks at his throat, Great Uncle Kenny drew his BBQ mate and slew the rare but ferocious guinea pig, thereby saving his Tinder date (Peru 1936). (No internet, no Tinder in 1936).
– The ‘#1 five-star award’ was by the ‘Miniature Horse Monthly Magazine’ at the ‘Australasian Beer Awards in 1648’. (No Australia in 1648).

Let me buy a pair of these Cosmic Crisp apples, I thought, to see what the hullabaloo is about. These apples are a new variety, 20 years in the making, by the University of Washington. The first harvest hit the shelves in grocery stores just recently.

Well, the apples are heavy: they feel like little bowling balls in one’s hand.  The flesh is very firm and at the same time, quite juicy. The taste is crisp, a little tart, and a little sweet.

My first impression was that they are not as sweet as the popular Honeycrisp from Minnesota (1960), and not nearly as sweet as Washington State’s Red Delicious (originally recognized in Iowa in 1880).  The verdict: I am still deciding which one I like most, between the Honeycrisp and the Cosmic Crisp.

I was out of marmalade (for my peanut butter-and-marmalade toast), and I found a can of the good stuff at the British Pantry store in Redmond. (Redmond is across Lake Washington from Seattle, and is where the sprawling Microsoft campus is).

Marmalade has a centuries-old culinary history.  The word first appeared in the English language in 1480, borrowed from the French marmelade which, in turn, came from the Galician-Portuguese word marmelada.

The preferred citrus fruit for marmalade production nowadays, is the Spanish Seville or bitter orange, prized for its high pectin content, which sets readily to the thick consistency expected of marmalade. The bitter taste comes from the peel [all this information from Wikipedia].

I eat Marmite on toast almost every day – the yeasty, vegetable extract concoction that has been around since 1902, similar to Vegemite in Australia.

Now I see  Marmite peanut butter has hit the supermarket shelves in the UK. Some call this move by Marmite ‘more divisive than Brexit’.

So, the equation to verify with a taste test is,
if ❤ Marmite
+ ❤ Peanut Butter
=  ❤❤ Marmite Peanut Butter !

I will have to get my grubby hands on a jar, ‘spread the love’ on my toast (as it says on the cap), and find out!

It is International Waffle Day.
Money cannot buy happiness, they say .. but money can buy stroopwafels, and is that not the same as happiness?

I read everywhere that we all need to eat more lentils and beans.
So when I saw this recipe (New York Times account needed for link) for a vegetarian shepherd’s pie made with French green lentils, I went for it.
It was a bit of work, but my efforts paid off nicely in the end!

Here’s a beautiful red onion that I put into a roasting pan tonight, with sweet potato wedges,  butternut squash and Brussels sprouts.
It’s a little tricky to get everything to roast evenly, without some pieces getting burnt – but I’m learning!