chez pim

happy last day of the year, and the new year too

Have a very happy last day of the year everyone, and an even better new days to come in the next year. Yet another year of blogging chez Pim continues to be so much fun, especially because you are around to read it. Really. This year marked a huge change in my life, and together on the blog we laughed, we cried, we cheered, and even jeered. We also cooked a bit. And again we ate and drank our way around the globe, through bad meals and good meals and even better meals. We even got around to doing some good for a change.

Chez Pim has gotten probably more than its share of accolades, but ultimately -all ego and snarkiness aside- this is just my silly blog. I eat because I live, and I write because I love it. I am happy that you are around to share it with. My best wishes to you and yours for tomorrow and many more days to come.

Let me take us into the new year by showing you where I've been hanging this holiday season -yes, dodging hot pans, sneaking a taste of this and that, and all around trying not to get in the way at Manresa. Click on the collage above to see more holiday dinner rush action in Manresa's kitchen. Cheers everyone!

(P.S. Remember to check back tomorrow for the list of raffle winners from the Menu for Hope II.)

Unloved greens

A brief interlude from being a goodie two shoes, I'm going to go on a little rant. A couple of Saturdays ago at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, I wandered over to Mariquita farm stand and saw a pile of the most beautiful baby greens. They looked like happy vegetables. They really did, all bright and green and curly and cute and little. I didn't know what they were, so –as one does- I picked one up and took a bite. It was spicy and crunchy, with a deliciously complex flavor, like fresh salad greens with a little dose of wasabi. That little baby has got a lot going on!

Best Urban Food Blog, said Gridskipper

So Chez Pim just won an award. The 2005 URBS, Urban Blogging Awards, over at Gawker Media's travel blog extraodinaire Gridskipper. That GridPerson was happily skipping by quite a few times this year, so it's nice that his readers found Chez Pim worthy of being part of the, um, URBS.

That's not enough to stop me feeling so cranky today however. Not even with a mention in the CS Monitor yesterday. Why, you asked? Well, as it turned out, that super generous $5,000 donation to the Menu for Hope II was a fake. This was someone's idea of a joke apparently. I wonder who in their right mind would find it funny though. Someone's got to find better things to occupy their time than messing with other people's ernest effort to do something good for a change. We still ended up raising over $17,000 -which is no peanuts mind you- but that sound of $22,000 was so, so, so, so nice. Oh well, à chacun son Karma and all that, I guess.

If you stop by Gridskipper to see the list of award recipients, make sure you check out The Beloved Universe, the winner of World's Best Urban Photoblog, my favorite find from that entire list. Congrats all around and happy holidays to everyone, whatever holiday you chose to celebrate.

P.S. Don't forget to check back here on January 1st for the raffle results. Cheers.

Remembrance Day

South-east Asia earthquake and tsunami remembrance day.

Image credit: Gerhard Richter's Kerzen

Hope is alive and well

we
are
over
$20,000
now

sorry
for
typing
funny
but
i
fell
off
my
chair
and
hit
my
head

Twenty one thousand four hundred eighty six dollars and thirty two cents
to
be
precise

and not monopoly money.....

thank you thank you thank you

Last chance for hope

Last chance to help us on our Menu for Hope II. We've been at this since last Monday, and we are ever so close to raising $15,000 for UNICEF to help support the funds for Kashmir quake victims. If you havn't donated yet, do take another look at the line up of our all star raffle prizes. Perhaps there is something here you wouldn't mind dropping a fiver for a chance at it. We have even more gifts for you, see the entire menu here: in writing, in pictures. Please donate now.

Menu for Hope update: campaign ending tomorrow

We have raised almost $13,000 for our Menu for Hope II campaign, which is scheduled to end tomorrow. There is still time to drop another $5 for another raffle gift you perhaps overlooked before. Do we dare to hope we might make it to $15,000 before the end of day tomorrow? We will never know until we try, yes?

You can take a look at the entire menu, or just see the photo collage of the gifts.

To read more about the plight of the victims of the Kashmir earthquake, see these articles: The Guardian UK, CNN, BBC, Seattle Times.

Thank you so much for you help.

Menu for Hope: in pictures

Here it is, another presentation of our Menu for Hope II, this time in pictures. Move your little mousie over the images and you will see a description of each one. Click on it to see the details at the host blog. Don't forget to drop a few fivers for a chance to win these cool gifts and support UNICEF's funds for Kashmir earthquake victims -but you already knew that part, didn't you?

Over the 10K mark, and unloved gifts

We are, as of this very moment, only $291 away from raising $10,000! (We did it! We are now over $10,000!! Woohoo!) A huge thank you to everyone who pitched in. A million thank you. But we are not quite finished yet, not until this Friday anyway. You could help us get there help UNICEF raise even more money by taking a look at these unloved gifts and put down a few fivers for them. Our food blogging friends have been so generous with their raffle gifts, as a result, more than a few fantabulous gifts are yet unloved -or not adequately loved- in our raffle. I've put them up in this little collage for you to browse at your leisure. I am sure you will find something else you or someone you loved might want for the holidays.

A few people have bought our raffle tickets as holiday gifts. That is such a fabulous idea, don't you think? Get your loved ones something fun for the holidays and help out a very very good cause. If that's not good karma for the new year, I don't know what is.

woo hoo $8,500!!

We made it over the $8,600 mark earlier today. Wow. I am ever so grateful for everyone who contributed, and for all the bloggers who have been so generous with your gifts. Let's keep on rolling to the end of our campaign, midnight PST this Friday!

Also, I seem to have overlooked one contribution, from Belly Timber, who contributed Island Insanity Gift Package. What island? How insane? You just have to go there and check it out.

Donate today and win all these amazing gifts!

We are back!!! And even more cool gifts!

My apology for the not so brief technical difficulties. We are back online again. Let's hope we didn't lose any momentum. Reaching the end of our 5th day on the Menu for Hope II campaign, we've raised over $6,500 to help UNICEF support the victims of the earthquake in the Kashmir region of Northern India and Pakistan. I hope we raise even more as our campaign continues until next Thursday.

I have yet more gifts that our friends and neighbours far and wide have made avialable for our raffle. For a fiver and a bit of luck you might get to shadow Michelin-star chef Stéphane Molé of Les Ormes for the day. Of course you'd have to get yourself over to Paris, but for this kind of chance who wouldn't? This wonderful gift brought to us by Vivian at A Life in Food.

A mixed case of 6 Austrian wines (value at $200) have been added to the campaign by the generosity of the good folks at Winemonger.

Our friend Graham the pieman in Vietnam is offering a copy of Saigon Street Cast DVD and some vietnamese coffee or whatever it is that the post office let him sneak in.

If you are in New York, the Hungry Rose will take you and three friends for a historic walking tour of NY Chinatown.

Another set of lovely gifts contains a book, a box of chocolates, and a surprised kitchen tool from Dreska at Little Fancies.

Also, last but not least is dear Viv of Seattle Bon Vivant, who put together a few of her favorite things, including everything from Christine Ferber jam, purple mustard, Fauchon tea, and two Seattle favorites, a dessert wine and a book from a local chef.

Don't forget to look at the rest of the menu. Plenty of fancy gourmet prizes that haven't even had any takers yet. Books, food, gift certificates, I can't begin to talk about them all. Spread the love around people!

On tax deduction

I've answered a few emails about tax deduction so I thought I'd explain it here. When you make a donation, FirstGiving will send you a receipt. That receipt is going to be extremely valuable for those of us who will need to deal with the Grim Reaper -the other one- come April. Just thought you might want to know.

So there, all the more reason drop a few more fivers for UNICED for more chances at even more delicious gourmet prizes.

Menu for Hope II: yet more additions

I don't know what to say. Our Menu for Hope II campaign has garnered such a tremendous support from all quarters, and we are at over $4,500 this morning. Thank you so very much for all your support. I am ever so grateful. And, this morning we have even more wonderful blogs joining our campaign of hope.

Slice, the definition blog on all things pizza, is throwing in two prizes to entice their readers, and you too, to donate. One is an invitation for two to the Slice Grilled Pizza party at their headquarter in New York, where you could join the Slice editors and shoot the breeze about pizza while eating some delicious fresh-from-the-grill pies. The second is a pizza-making kit: "For those of you who are not in New York City, unable to travel here, or who just find the idea of dining with Slice all too odious, we'll send you a pizza stone, pizza peel, and Peter Reinhart's American Pie, which is chocked full of great pizza recipes and inspiration."

Also joining us this morning is Pascale, whose C'est moi qui l'ai fait is the most popular French language food blog around. She is throwing in a gourmet box of a cool Zyliss peeler and some fancy chocolates from the fabulous chocolatier Michel Cluizel in Paris.

My good friend Jen of Life Begins at 30 finally reveals her mystery prize, three gorgeous prints from her partner Jason, a professional photographer. You have to go to her blog and check them out. They are just beautiful.

And, to help sweeten the pot, as though donating a personally autographed copy of his delicious chocolate book is not enough, my other darling David Lebovitz is throwing in an afternoon to savor Berthillon ice cream with him on Ile Saint-Louis. He is buying the ice cream, of course. Let me tell you how hard the man is to track down -even if you are his other girlfriend- so if I were you I'd drop about $100 for that chance!

Oh, yes, for those who are interested in Japanese food, there is a second box of Japanese goodies on offer from Obachan. The box contains very hard to find items like dried Yuzu zest and Anko, azuki bean paste powder. Hardcore Japanese food lovers should go put your fiver down right about now!

Menu for Hope II: more update and new additions

Our second day into the campaign, and we have raised over $3,400! Thank you everyone for such an outpouring of generosity.

Don't stop being generous just yet though, we've got even more bloggers pledging gifts, including a wine class, chocolates (and more chocolates) fair-trade coffee, baskets of gourmet goodies from Southwest France, Oregon, and even Japan, a treasured cast iron Kadai, $100 to buy cool things, and more cool books. Check out the new additions here.

Meanwhile red, red hot the raffle circuit -besides hanging with Clotilde and Adam- are Sam's cool hampers full of Bay Area goodies and a firstborn ewe lamb! Check out the entire array of fun, cool, and unique prizes on our Menu! (Thanks to Flo it is in French and also to Melissa for the Spanish version.) And remember, each $5 will get you one chance at a prize of your choice. There's nothing stopping you from putting down a fiver for every single one of them! Give now!

A Menu for Hope II: update

It has been less than ten hours since our Menu for Hope II went live, and we've already raised over $1,400 to support the victims of the earthquake in Kashmir. Thank you so much for all who donated, and all the bloggers who provided our campaign with a menu's worth of the coolest food-related prizes. We also have a bunch more bloggers who have decided to participate in our second Menu for Hope campaign. Check out the late additions here.

And one clarification, a few people have emailed to ask about shipping policy for the prizes. The kind and generous bloggers have all agreed to ship their prizes anywhere, except for a few perishable items which wouldn't be practical. So, no gift is restricted to certain geographic locales unless specifically stated otherwise. Check the donating blog of your desired prize to be sure.

And for the $200 dinner at Manresa? Yes, it can be shipped anywhere. The gift certificate part, that is. For the dinner itself you would have to get yourself over to Los Gatos to enjoy it! No way we are going to ship the entire tasting menu to Minsk!

What are you waiting for? Go and donate now, your amazing prizes await!

A Menu for Hope II

Welcome to the second annual A Menu for Hope campaign. As another year of our blogging adventures draws to a close, and as we are preparing to celebrate the holidays with our families and friends, we would like to take advantage of the season to ask you –our kind readers- for a little favor. Last year, we raised a substantial sum to support the victims of the Tsunami in Southeast Asia. This year, a group of us food bloggers would like to ask our readers -that would be you- to help us raise funds to support the victims of the devastating earthquake in the Kashmir region of India and Pakistan.

But what fun would it be just to come begging you for some dough, even if it is for a great cause? So, in order not to turn our otherwise fun blogs into the PBS pledge break bore, we've put together a huge list of cool, fun, and personal gifts -like only we could- to entice you to donate. Each of those gifts is offered as a virtual raffle prize. All you have to do is donate $5 and you will be eligible for the raffle drawing for a gift of your choice.

On our menu this year is everything from a chance to have an afternoon tea with the one and only Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini, to a personalized Napa Valley itinerary created by über-wine blogger Alder of Vinography, to a chance to be in the Amateur Gourmet Adventure video with Adam himself, to three very fancy hampers featuring the true artisanal flavors of the San Francisco Bay Area put together by Sam of Becks and Posh, and many, many more.

We are once again using the site FirstGiving to collect the donation. In the interest of transparency, FirstGiving will do all the collection and forward the funds directly to Unicef, our recipient organization. The fund will be earmarked to support the victims of the Kashmir earthquake.

Recipe to participate:
1. Find the gift you would like on our menu.
2. Go to A Menu for Hope II donation page and donate $5 or whatever sum you could spare.
3. Tell us in the comment section of your donation form which gift(s) you would like have. Each $5 donation will give you one chance at winning the prize of your choice. (Yes, if you donate more than $5, you are allowed to specify more than one prize.)
4. That's it!

Our campaign will end on December 23rd, and the winners will be announced and the prizes sent to corresponding winners after January 1st 2006.

(See the entire menu after the jump.)

How fat was that duck again?

"Get thy arse back in the kitchen", that's the message from François Simon, not to Heston Blumenthal, the subject of his article, but to enterprising French Chefs. Who is François Simon, you asked? Why, only the eminent French culinary critic, whose influential words -or poison pen, depending on whom you are speaking to- grace the pages of Le Figaro, the Parisian paper of record, every week.

The good Monsieur Simon just wrote a review of The Fat Duck in Madame Figaro the other day. No, it's not the rave review that the Independent UK thought it to be, but a good review nonetheless. He asked French diners a rhetorical question, have you been there? "But why..", replied his imaginary counterpart. "Because it is good, sometimes very good", Simon retorted.

And what was that about whose arse again? Well, the more I read the piece, the more I find that it is far less a review of the Fat Duck than Simon's insidious way of making snide comments at the lauded French chefs –the ones whose empires rule far and wide yet are rarely seen avant le feu (citing, by name, Ducasse, Robuchon, Savoy, Bocuse), and the ones whose cooking is 'timid', taking no chances (Marx, Decoret, Barbot, Camdeborde). Like a father praising the children next door to his own brood, Papa Simon used The Fat Duck's Heston Blumenthal's creative cuisine -somewhere between Mary Poppins and the fabled chefs' chef Alain Chapel- and the fact that Heston's behind is seen -yes- behind the line day in and day out to shame his children into behaving.

Awarding season again

That Gridskipper has been seen skipping happily by this way again, this time with an URBS (Urban Blogging Awards 2005) nomination in hand. Chez Pim is up for World's Best Urban Food Blog. Frankly I would have been much happier if our friend Graham of Noodle Pie made it through this round as well. No one blogs street food like the Pieman, and if that's not urban-y goodness I don’t know what is.

Alas he didn't make it, but Chez Pim did. So did our blog friend Aun of Chubby Hubby and four other food blogs. Unfair? Quite likely. But, really, Graham dear, if you want to speak of injustice, shan't we start with how I lost the Hottest Urban Blogger nomination to some dude with a mannequin!!

Go drop a vote in for us, dear friends?

P.S. Also, Kate at Accidental Hedonist is taking nomination for this year's Food Blog Awards. Check her out.

Green Garden Restaurant: Vegan in Paris, no I am not kidding

I often get emails from vegetarians seeking help for finding places to eat while in Paris. Frankly, I used to think that finding a vegetarian meal in a meat happy town like Paris was something of an impossible task. And if you are vegan on top of that, forget about it. Live on baguettes and water, I guess.

Happily, I just found a wonderful little place way out in the 13th. It is not just vegetarian even, but completely vegan, using only organic produce and no meat, dairy, or GMO food. And you know what? It was even delicious. There I said it, delicious!

The vegetarian tradition in many Asian cultures dates back centuries, most notably amongst the followers of Guan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy. Because of this long tradition, many Asian cuisines have developed recipes and means to manipulate soy protein to resemble meat in texture, forming the basis of most Asian vegetarian cooking today.

The restaurant, Green Garden, serves up precisely this tradition. On the menu, you will recognize many stir-fried and braised dishes common to Chinese menus, but they are all made with soy and not meat. And, in the tradition of refugees from Southeast Asia who were washed up on many shores by the fierce political winds in the 1960's and 70's, they also served some Thai, Laotian, and Vietnamese inspired dishes as well.

L'Ambroisie

Oh, the fortuity of being au chômage in Paris...

I wandered in for lunch at L'Ambroisie yesterday. A perfect specimen of a torchon of foie gras -if there ever was one- to begin. A perfect bowl of soft eggs a la florentine with an ample supply of shaved white truffle on top to *really* begin. A gorgeously done piece of sole with black truffles and green almond drizzled with a bit of coriandar oil, accompanied by a 'terrine' of leeks layered with black truffle slices for the main part of the meal. Drank a delicious Chablis, '99 Domaine de l’Eglantière with everything -good acidity and minerallity but even more amazing nose and taste of acacia honey, just wonderful.

Gave up cheese for dessert, and was amply rewarded by it...

A new dessert not yet on the menu but was offered to me was a biscuit de pain d'épice à la clémentine...sounded so tempting I had to try it, but not after agonizing a few minutes over foregoing my Favorite Chocolate Tart in the World.

So the biscuit de pain d'épice it was. A fabulously delicate, and simply fabulous little round cake, crispy and crackling on the outside, with a molten center of pain d'épice cream and bits of clementine confite, served with fresh segments of -what else- clementine on the side. This was one of the two best desserts I had this year.

After clearing my dessert place, and basically reaching the limit of my ability to eat, I was looking forward to a long stroll to lighten myself up after such a huge meal, but yet another set of silverware was placed in front of me, with Pascal grinning ear to ear, brimming with mischief.

Oh no I wasn't done. Evidently not. Another plate arrived from the kitchen, my tarte fine sablée au cocoa amer! They insisted they could not possibly let me out of there without my favorite dessert. So I had to eat it, all of it, the regular-size slice no less. How could I not in the face of such generosity. So I did. And I am paying for it still....

Had coffee to wake myself up enough for the walk home....didn't even touch a piece of the generous mignardise...couldn't possibly have....

an urbane life

It is market day, a day to be out, enjoying the crisp, clear weather. Parking yourself on a public bench next to an old friend, perhaps for an animated conversation or each staring out into the crowd in silence, together in solitude. A bottle of wine is no less agreeable than a cup of coffee, even at nine in the morning, so long as it is shared among friends.

No, this is not fancified or forced whimsy far too easily found in many an urban farmers market, nor a fierce shopping-cart race under the fluorescent sheen of your local Safeway, but an urbane way of life that is still trucking along nicely in some damn lucky parts of the world.

Meanwhile, back in the good old U.S. of A., you are what you eat has never been so right on.

(Click on the photo for more market day pictures.)