I had to stop watching this video because these guys were making me mental. It’s a gaggle of British geeks trying to put to the test Gordon Ramsay’s assertion that all of the recipes in his cookbooks are things that ordinary people could make at home. Except that these guys are either being deliberately obtuse or they are unimaginably stupid. Given that they’re geeks, we’ll go with a mixture of both — they are obviously trying to prove him wrong, but they also obviously know nothing about cooking when it deosn’t involve Hot Pockets (or whatever the British equivalent product is called) and a microwave. You might have more luck with it than I did.
Meanwhile, apparently Gordo’s been caught with his knickers down. The headline on that article is “Cheat And Two Veg”. HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Personally, I was hoping for something along the lines of a Spotted Dick joke, but it’s early yet. I also got a kick out of the Huffington Post’s charitable reference to the woman as a “Professional Mistress”. Oh, and here’s her blog, “Pillow Talk With Sarah J. Symonds”, in case you’re interested.
But back to the subject of food…
Maille mustard has been manufactured in Dijon, France since 1845, having been first invented more than 100 years earlier in Marseilles by Antoine Maille as a cure for the plague. Since then, Dijon has become world famous for the pungent, vinegary style of mustard that became popular in the United States in the 1980s with the success of Grey Poupon. However, as time went by, fewer and fewer mustards were actually made in Dijon except for Maille. Now there will be no more mustard made in Dijon, as the production of Maille products is moved to other factories throughout France. Back in 2000, global conglomerate Unilever, which owns everything from Slim-Fast to Vaseline, bought the Maille company, and they are consolidation production plants in France to cut costs.
This blog post at Epicurious takes a stab at predicting the food trends of 2009. Some of them are no-brainers: he preditcs that composting will be big (oh, really?) and that Starbucks’ popularity will die out in favor of local chains (with a 97% loss in profit for *$ last quarter, this is like predicting it will be dark every night). Some of them are pleasantly surprising: he thinks Portland, ME is about to become the hot new foodie town (actually, it’s been the “next big thing” for a decade, but it is about time indeed), and he says ginger is about to go big as the next must-try ingredient in cocktails. A couple of them score high on the “WTF” scale: Peruvian cuisine? Smoked foods? Anyway, save this for this same time next year to see how on-the-spot he was.
My friend Jo tipped me off to this story a couple of weeks ago: Ihsan Gurdal, the owner of the hallowed and much-loved Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge and Boston, has been selected to receive the “Merit Agricole” medal from the government of France for his exceptional role in bringing French cheese and other fine culinary products from France to the attention of American consumers. Vive Ihsan!
Lastly, a personal item. I would like it duly noted by one and all that I manned-up and ate a full serving of brussel sprouts with my Thanksgiving dinner. I kept our dinner menu simple this year and chose to make only one green vegetable to go with the mutant turkey breast, stuffing, and roasted sweet potatoes. Bridget implored me to make the Little Green Balls of Death, as they are a favorite in her family. Initially, my reaction was to say “Hell No!”, but after finding this Mark Bittman recipe posted at Serious Eats, I relented. I also decided that in the name of holiday simplicity, I would try them myself, since a good cook always eats his own food. Charlotte, on the other hand, would not be swayed and got a serving of frozen broccoli. The recipe, like most of the things Mark Bittman comes up with, was very simple — almost as simple as the traditional preparation of boiling the little bastards — and involved ample amounts of butter and wine, which I figured would probably do as well as anything to cover up the nasty flavor. And I was right. They were edible. Bridget and her parents absolutely raved about them, so if you are one of those people who (heaven forbid) likes the LGBoD, you will probably like this recipe, too. In the future, when I am pressed upon to make brussel sprouts, this will probably be my default recipe. You can pick up your jaws now.
