Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

This weeks clip features the irrepressible Olly Smith who can make wine tasting feel like a really great fun experience as opposed to those erudite types with their fingers up their bums. FeedBlitz subscribers should visit the site to view.

I'm reading: Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Dilly Diner of the Week

This week’s Dilly Diner is claimed by it’s founders to be "the world's first open source restaurant “. At the Instructables Restaurant, which launched as a pop-up event at the historic Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag in Amsterdam, patrons receive not only creatively-cooked food but also instructions for preparing everything they see, eat and use—including the furniture. For example, someone seeking the recipe for the Tom Kha Gai soup they just enjoyed can either claim it at the restaurant or download it online; and anyone interested in making their own versions of the restaurant's recycled 50-gallon barrel chairs can do likewise.
Everything in the restaurant derives from Instructables, a web-based documentation platform where people share their expertise with others, whether it's cooking, pottery or woodworking. Even the instructions for creating the restaurant itself are now available on Instructables.com.
(via Springwise.com)

I'm reading: Dilly Diner of the Week

That Was The Week That Was

Good news for all those people in America who hate tomatoes. No longer do they have to order their burgers without the offending mushy red bit as this week fast-food restaurant chains such as Wendy's have stopped automatically including tomatoes in sandwiches; now customers have to know to ask. A shortage of tomatoes from weather-battered Florida is forcing restaurants and supermarkets to ration supplies amid soaring prices for America's most popular fresh vegetable. Fresh tomatoes are in short supply because of the unusual spell of freezing temperatures that affected Florida in January. The cold temperatures that dented citrus production also destroyed roughly 70% of the tomato crop in Florida, which is the largest source of U.S.-grown fresh tomatoes at this time of year. Prices have risen over 500%



Meanwhile on to tomatoes of a different type as the website www.rottentomatoes.com hypes up the Oscars ceremony and gives their predictions for the various awards. They are predicting via the technology of their famous RT Tomatometer that The Hurt Locker looks like the front runner for this year's Best Picture race. Avatar and Locker appeared to be headed to a photo finish in their poll, but the Iraq War drama pulled away in the latter part of the week to take a sizable lead. Other winners predicted by the Tomatometer include Jeff Bridges as Best Actor and Sandra Bullock as Best Actress. No awards for The Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes.



One guaranteed winner is celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck who will arguably be busiest man in Hollywood once the best motion picture Oscar is handed out Sunday night in Hollywood. The 60-year-old celebrity chef must ensure the expected 1,600 guests who attend the post-Oscar Governors Ball, given by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will be fed within 90 minutes. And beyond the Governors Ball, Puck will juggle two more affairs the same night -- an AIDS fund-raiser for singer Elton John and a bash at his own flagship restaurant, Spago. Still, Puck's first priority will be the Governors Ball, an event he has catered for the past 16 years. To ensure everything runs smoothly, nearly 1,000 people including 300 chefs begin working around the clock starting Saturday, the Austrian-born chef said. This year, guests will dine on crispy potato pancakes with smoked salmon and caviar, followed by black truffle chicken pot pies. They will end their meals with baked alaskas served along espresso ice-cream, chocolate sorbet and hazelnut meringue. To end the three parties a high note, guests can take home their own Oscar statuettes made of chocolate and dusted in 24-carat gold. Puck and his staff are preparing 3,500 of them. No tomatoes.

I'm reading: That Was The Week That Was

You are what someone tells you to eat.

I’m not sure who’s more stupid – the manufacturer’s of food products who make downright silly claims about their product or the more gullible members of the public who actually believe the claims. It’s really rather sad to see obese people waddling down the supermarket aisles desperately seeking out the reduced fat, low calorie, slimline, healthy rubbish. Recent studies by the Food Standards Authority in the UK came to the conclusion that there is no added health benefit gained by purchasing organic food products so what hope do you think there is for the slew of “healthy” foods screaming out from the supermarket shelves.
I followed with interest for example the preposterous claims that yoghurt manufacturer Dannon made about their “probiotic” (don’t ask,I don’t know what it means) Activia and DanActive yoghurt products claiming that specific living organisms in the yoghurt, namely bacteria Bifidus Regularis are "scientifically proven" or "clinically proven" to help regulate the digestive system. Ballocks! Now Dannon have been forced to settle a law suit in the USA by setting up a fund of $35 million to reimburse qualified consumers for the cost of buying the products. I don’t know if that would ever happen here but my advice is that everytime you visit the supermarket and see the words “boost immunity, added minerals, heart healthy anti-oxidents, supports the immune system,” descriptions of that ilk then you walk briskly towards the fresh fruit counter and fill a bag of apples and by the way, they don’t have to be organic!

I'm reading: You are what someone tells you to eat.

Conveniently mediocre

I must be very old fashioned in my thinking. I reckon electricians are the guys who fix electrical problems, plumbers are the guys who fix water pipes, cooks are the guys who prepare food and shopkeepers are the guys who sell food products to the consumer. You see in my world it's all perfectly simple and in fact in most people's worlds it's all perfectly simple. My neighbour, Barry the plumber, seems to have no problem with this set up and he doesn't do takeaway pizzas with each U bend that he sorts out. The last time I had need of an electrician he didn't arrive with some freshly baked croissants so I can't for the life of me figure out what sort of arrogance these bloody supermarket operators have, that they honestly believe they can move away from the tinned baked beans and start trying to sell me take away sushi ?
It all started innocently enough. They had a quick squiz at what restaurants were serving and decided to expand their food horizons. Early offerings were perfectly disgusting beef and onion stew TV dinners and fish in some sort of wallpaper paste masquerading as a white wine sauce with little bits of cardboard which were in fact mushrooms. Then they started buggering up some of the classics such as Beef Stroganoff and Duck a l 'orange by eliminating the tried and tested ingredients and replacing them with chemical components and E numbers in " new, improved recipes " Still it didn't bother me too much because I felt a certain disdain mixed with pity for those poor souls who were subjected to eating this rubbish and I was secure in the knowledge that not only would these products never darken my doorstep but that no-one would ever have the brass neck to serve them to me at a dinner party.
But now increasingly, the supermarkets, in their quest to attract more of our hard earned cash, are trying to demonstrate their sophistication and " move up market " and flavour of the month is sushi. It's obvious that they have no conception whatsoever of how sushi should be served, at what temperature the rice should be and that they have absolutely no respect for the integrity of the dish. So what can we expect next ? Perhaps we can look forward to the multipurpose frozen steak tartare - defrost it for your foodie friends and serve with a little rocket salad but if the inlaws drop in unexpectedly your can always toss a few on the braai and slather with that genuine Texas barbeque sauce you got a bottle of last Xmas.

I'm reading: Conveniently mediocre

In a froth

In a bold move the Italian government have taken a swipe at poor old Ferran Adria and his style of molecular cooking. Italian Ministry of Health Secretary Francesca Martini has decreed that they want to exclude “ chemical additives” from restaurant food. Italy says that “for the security of its citizens” it wants to eliminate and make it no longer possible for restaurants to use certain additives many of which are commonly referred to as “powders” – of which one of the most famous brand is the “Texturas”-line from Albert and Ferran Adrià .
Italy’s cuisine is based on tradition, and tradition alone and a lot of Italy’s famous chefs hold a hostile attitude towards this “science based cooking” – accusing it of “ruining an already perfect cuisine”. The government is also trying to ban the use of liquid nitrogen, calling it a “gaseous substance”. Their aim is to regain people’s (and voters’) confidence promising them to protect Italian products and have restaurants serve fresh and healthy food. Much as I think molecular gastronomy is a load of tosh I’m not sure this is the way to go about it although like many of Ferran’s dishes it will certainly have people frothing at the mouth.

I'm reading: In a froth

XXX OOO

I’ve got to be honest, I’m not much of a Marmite person, (apparently they’re known as Marmararti by the way), so I doubt that I’ll be rushing out to get a jar of the sticky goo which has just been given a makeover. However some ponytails felt either that it was time to make the product a little more vile or if they couldn’t persuade current devotees to up their intake levels by a few notches then they would find a way to charge them more for the same thing. The savoury spread, which people are said to either love or hate, is made with yeast from four specially-selected breweries but Marmite Extra Old, or XO, which will hit supermarket shelves from March 8, is the result of the secret blend maturing for 28 days - four times longer than the standard product. The XO recipe was developed with the help of the 'Marmararti' - a group of committed and vocal Marmite fanatics who tried samples and gave feedback on the flavour. The extra maturation period allows the flavour and texture to intensify, creating a spread so strong and full-bodied it can only be appreciated by the most devoted fans, according to the manufacturer.
'Whilst the overall characteristics are the same as the original recipe, the longer maturation period allows the flavour and thicker texture to develop to a much higher level.The resultant blend creates an intense sensory experience that can only be appreciated by the most extreme Marmite devotees.' Now call me a cynic if you like but this is a lot of bloody cobblers. I’ve never seen a jar of Marmite in my life that hadn’t been happily maturing of it’s own accord in the top of people’s fridges. I reckon there’s not only already XO out there, there’s bloody XXXXXOOOOOO.

I'm reading: XXX OOO