Always look on the braai 'd side of life

Now I know that 2008 had a few of you crying in your beer but 2009 is going to be great and here's the first uplifting news for all you okes standing round the braai, commiserating about the cricket, the return to work and the lack of Julius Malema jokes so far this year - you have finally been proved right!
For years many of us, myself included, have shaken our heads in exasperation as you braai okes interspersed your intellectual conversation with occasional, almost ritual, movements of pouring some beer over the chops and steak as they gently charred to a frazzle. "What are you doing? What a waste of good beer?" "Ach no man, I'm just adding a little bit of flavour to the steak." Well it turns out that as suspected you weren't adding any bloody flavour to the meat but unwittingly you were decreasing the carcinogenic effects of cooking over open flames. It would of course be better if you did it before starting to braai but it is a step in the right direction. It seems that if you are frying a steak and mindful of your health, then marinate it in either beer or red wine. So say food scientists who measured amounts of a family of carcinogens found in fried steaks after steeping them in booze. Cooking food increases levels of cancer-causing compounds called heterocyclic amines (HAs). Fried and grilled meat are particularly high in these compounds, because fiery temperatures convert the sugars and amino acids in muscle tissue into HAs. Various substances can reduce HA content: an olive oil, lemon juice and garlic marinade cut HAs in grilled chicken by 90 per cent, while red wine reduced HAs in fried chicken. Now Isabel Ferreira and colleagues at the University of Porto in Portugal have looked at the effects of beer and red wine marinades on fried steak. Six hours of marinating in beer or red wine slashed levels of two types of HA by up to 90 per cent compared with unmarinated steak. For a third type of HA, beer was more efficient at reducing its content than wine, cutting levels significantly in 4 hours, while wine took 6. Tasters also preferred the smell, taste and appearance of beer-marinated steak. So now you can baffle them with science when they laugh at your little quirk.

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Dens of deceit

Restaurants are really weird places aren't they ? It seems to me that the moment anyone is in one of them they cease to tell the truth, whether they be chef, waitress or customer. It's quite bizarre because everyone is telling everyone else lies! I don't think there are many other public places where this happens with perhaps the exception of hospitals where the patient keeps telling everyone he is fine and no-one wants to tell him that he's actually not fine.
It starts with the waitress..." Good evening, I'm pleased to see you, thank you for choosing our restaurant tonight." Nonsense, she couldn't care less whether you are there or not because she's already worked out by your greeting,appearance and body language that there's going to be no big tip at this table. Then she'll tell you the fish is fresh, the steak is the best in town and the calamari special is absolutely delicious, in fact she had some earlier on for supper. The truth is that the fish is frozen because high winds have kept the boats in port for several days, the steak comes from exactly the same abbatoir as every other steak in town and if the calamari was on special and being served up as a staff meal on the same evening then it's only because they want rid of it before it walks out of the kitchen.
Then there's that great work of fiction presented to you as the menu. It's riddled with lies..homemade, yes but in who's home?.....our chef's secret sauce, well perhaps it should be kept a secret, our own special baste, which comes from the supplier in 5 litre drums....fresh vegetable selection.....flown in daily....from an award winning recipe... it just goes on and on and we as customers are stupid enough to accept it. That's just the descriptions on the menu because the other great deception is when what you think you ordered and what you get presented with are at opposite ends of the culinary spectrum.
But to be fair it's not just the staff telling lies. "How was your meal Sir?"......
" Ah, ah, great, really great, couldn't eat another thing " and as she waltzes off to the washup with your half eaten meal you lean across the table and growl in a low conspiritorial tone "That was bloody rubbish, it's the last time we're coming here!" So I suppose at the end of the day we all deserve each other but what we don't deserve are those silly little comment cards with the smiley faces because any comments written on them are also a pack of lies and the only purpose they serve is to flatter the ego of some jackass manager who actually is living in a different dimension to us all and is oblivious to the deceit we practice on each other.

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The Frog that cooked the golden pie

The French have a tradition of baking almond-paste tarts in January of each year. The tarts, or galettes des rois, symbolise the feast of epiphany on January 6, when the three wise men - or kings - visited Jesus in Bethlehem. Because the kings brought gifts, the galettes contain a hidden token or toy. Whoever finds it is the "king" of the feast of Epiphany and wears a paper crown. A young Normandy baker faces a goldrush this year when he opens his doors today after the New Year bank holiday.
French baker Julien Vitrebert has announced he will hide two gold ingots inside two of the traditional almond-paste tarts sold by his shop in January. Two tiny ingots of real gold - worth 400 euros each - will be hidden in two of the galettes. One will be hidden in a tart in the first half of the month and the second after January 15. M. Vitrebert has had the two tiny ingots of 18-carat gold engraved with the bakery's name. They weigh 3.63 grammes - enough, M. Vitrebert says, "to make a decent ring if melted down". His galettes range in price from 9.20 to 17.60 euros.
"The ingots could be in a big tart or a small one. I will be the only person to know," he said.
"I'm not even going to tell Gwendoline, my wife".

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Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

I sure everyone is sick of cooking by now so here is a novel ??? idea from Germany demonstrated by British TV chat show host Jonathon Ross. Who said the Germans had no sense of humour ? FeedBlitz subscribers should visit the site to view.

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Dilly Diner of the Week

The News Cafe will just never be the same again after having stumbled across this week's Dilly Diner, the News Room in Minneapolis which is a newspaper themed restaurant comprised of different rooms decorated and themed according to sections of a newspaper such as Travel, Sports, Business etc with the main bar being a 2 masted sailing ship complete with a wooden mermaid on the prow reading a strategically placed newspaper. Giant sized, rolled up newspapers are suspended over tables like some sword of Damocoles about to crash down on anyone daft enough to eat here and in the different rooms the walls all look like enormous real historical newspapers inset with multiple television sets. The Arts Section shows movies, the Sports Section a plethora of sports channels, the Business Section news channel broadcasts - you get the picture. I wonder what they show in Classified under the Personal Columns ?
Of course the problem is that when they spend so much money on decor it means only one thing and that is that they are out to attract people who are more impressed by bizarre surroundings than palatable food, the experience is a visual rather than culinary one and so the News Room soars to much the same gastronomic heights as your standard Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood or even, dare I say it, News Cafe. Starch is high on the agenda so anything deepfried or stuffed in bread works, and if you can slather it in sugary sauces and dress it with limp lettuce then so much the better. Dishes are plundered from ethnic cuisines around the world and bastardised to fit in with what the kitchen crew are just about capable of and to further impress gullible guests, menus run to 6, 7 or 8 pages. Just to stock all the items required is a logistical nightmare, to expect anyone to be able to prepare them all with any degree of freshness or taste is just plain wacky. As the Romans put it so succinctly, Caveat Emptor, let the buyer beware !

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The Year of the Chicken

When the Chinese celebrate their New Year they name it, in rotation, after an animal. This year starting on the 26 January will be the year of the Ox. I think it's a great tradition and one which we should adopt. As this pesky credit crunch continues to bite I hereby nominate this year, 2009, as the Year of the Chicken.
Fancy expensive food is out and all you need to know about the food scene this year is that comfort food is definitely back in vogue - comfort food in less expensive restaurants and comfort food at home. It's going to be chicken, chicken, chicken with a bit of pasta and a few beans thrown in for good measure. Now more than ever the TV cooks should forget about frying up gunge on exotic beaches and get back into the studio kitchens to help people rediscover the simplicity of quality home cooked foods. Forget about bloody motorbikes, speeding luxury motorboats,exploring the world in all manner of vehicles, it's time to get back to base and get back to basics. Of course Ferran will continue with his science fiction cuisine and Heston will pursue the perfect banana split, unscathed by the economic downturn, but real people will increasingly demand real food.
Foams, froths and frivolities are fanciful but it'll take more than a spoonful of snail porridge to get you through this tough year ahead. Consumers will be looking for value for money and I reckon you need look no further than the faithful Mr Chicken.

I'm reading: The Year of the Chicken

New Year Revolutions

So, as with everyone else, the reality of the last 7 or 8 days is beginning to sink in and you're feeling a little bit bloated, a little bit tight even in your new Xmas clothes, you really want something simple for lunch today and you're probably reaching for the Coke Lite instead of that bottle of red which you intended to drink today. Congratulations you're no different to the rest of us and no doubt you're in that same crazy frame of mind where the thoughts of New Year Resolutions are rising to top of mind. Forget it ! No resolution will make a blind bit of difference to your weight or girth by the end of the month of January. You don't need a resolution, you need a revolution.
Any diet that you embark on which involves deprivation in any form is doomed to fail - you will naturally concentrate on those food items which you can no longer enjoy. Rather incite a food revolution in your lifestyle and for any good revolutionary there are a few basic rules to follow.
Firstly, you can't have a decent revolution without a Freedom Charter so declare yourself free from automatically eating the rubbish which is so readily available under the guise of convenience foods, buy fresh vegetables, free range chickens and fresh fish - it's cheaper, just as quick to prepare and the difference in taste will immediately prove to you that the fridge is mightier than the deepfreeze. Successful armies have always lived off the land.
Secondly, solitary revolutionaries generally fail. There's strength in numbers so avoid at all costs eating on your own, rather turn each meal opportunity where possible into a social occasion. The physical aspect of fueling the body ignores the more satisfying, communal quality of preparing and enjoying food. Sure, food is fuel but try to appreciate the aromas, the colours, the flavours, the sharing of the moment with family and friends, the feeling of bon-homie. All the great courts and conquering generals fully understood the significance of the dining experience and your own revolution should concentrate on fully exploiting each meal opportunity in a special way, with friends, neighbours, family, eating outdoors, having a picnic, sitting in the car at the coast watching the sun go down or even as simply as discovering, cooking and conquering a new or special ingredient.
Thirdly, revolutions may start with rhetoric but they are brought to successful conclusions with strategy and careful planning. It's only TV Chefs who pop down to the market to see what's available, the rest of us plan in meticulous detail, with fall-back positions and often with secondary meals in mind for any potential leftovers. Make sure your armoury or pantry is always fully stocked with essential ingredients and you'll never be caught short if the fishing boats haven't come in yet.
Follow the usual rules of engagement - they're fairly logical, avoid starches, bread, pasta, white rice etc, cut down on oils and fats, drink wine rather than beer, eat plenty of fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, fresh non processed foods but always remember an army marches on it's stomach and every so often they have a bit of a blow out when they celebrate a victory - don't forget to celebrate your own private victories.

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