chez pim

Blog Day 2007

Another year, another blog day. I've been at this blogging thing since ages past, and I still find it fascinating. Why, you asked?

...because my favorite crazy bean guy at the market now takes his crazy to a blog too.
Rancho Gordo

...because Nathalie has lunch with oddly captivating people like Phil Oh and you can eavesdrop on the conversation.
Can I buy you lunch?

...because a perfect stranger like Dylan goes to Yangshuo and I get to tag along.
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

...because even forum people – a forum founder no less – are now blogging.
At the Sign of the Pink Pig

...because even the pros are now blogging - and doing it in the proper spirit too.
François Simon
Dorie Greenspan
Rose Levy Beranbaum
Frank Bruni
Michael Ruhlman
Jay Rayner and the gang at the Observer Food Monthly
Andrea Ngyuen

...because some are trying hard to be the next food network stars, and the way they're going they might even succeed!
Wine Library TV
Ms.Glaze Pomme d'Amour

...because some bloggers clearly should be publishing magazines and not blogs
Food Beam
Rasa Malaysia
Matt Bites

...because everyone is blogging for good.
Baking and Book's fundraising for Hazon Foundation: Ariela's book raffle is drawing to a close in the next couple of days, and she's got some good books, like Simon Hopkinson's Roasted Chicken and Other Stories, up for grabs, not to mention Nigella's and Jamie's and more. Throw in a fiver and get your chance today!

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Travel back through time to my previous Blog Day celebrations:

Blog Day 2006
Blog Day 2005

Finally, a tea gadget worth buying

For the record, I think most tea gadgets are a waste of money: electric 'tea' maker that costs a hundred dollars, pretty yet pretty useless tea infusers, or - worse yet - iced tea maker made by Mr.Coffee. They are superfluous at best, and at worst entirely ridiculous. Perfect tea making depends on very few variables that are simple to control: water temperature, brewing time, and proper brewing pot with enough room for the tea leafs to unfurl properly. It is also important to remove the leafs immediately after brewing. I've written about it all before: read it before you waste any money on tea gadgets.

Then I came across something that got me to change my mind. It's been a while since I found a tea gadget worth buying, and this one certainly is. It's called UtiliTea, and I found it on Adagio Teas website (via Coolhunting). It's an electric kettle. (You have an electric kettle by now, yes? It boils water much more efficiently than the antiquated stove top kettles. One simply can't be a tea snob without one.) The UtiliTea is not just any old electric kettle, mind you, it has settings that allow you to boil water up to certain temperatures, so that the water destined for green tea can stop at just below boiling and water for black tea will be heated to full, rocking boil, for example.

This is such a brilliant idea I wondered why no one had thought of it before. No more watching the regular kettle so you can stop the heat at just the moment bubbles begin to form, and no more waiting for the water you accidentally let go fully boiled cools down enough so that it wouldn't burn a delicate green tea, like the Kawanecha I drank this morning. Brilliant idea.

How to taste a Riesling

Another great moment in gastronomy found on YouTube, this one from Posh Nosh. Not that posh nosh, the other one.

How to eat at a sushi bar

A marvelous video tutorial on how to eat at a sushi bar found on YouTube.

Just like the video in Ringu, it appears to have no traceable origin. Unlike the video on Ringu, you won't have to hide when your phone rings after seven days.

a little time out

Breakfast of champions

Ok, breakfast of this champion at least. What am I doing calling myself a champion, you asked? Hey, didn't you hear, self-affirmation is good for you. Ha.

I should tell you first I'm not much of a savory-beans eater - when I grew up in Asia most beans were in desserts. I haven't really been able to get over that childhood silliness. Not helping the matter is how most beans are hardly worth eating anyway - flavorless, old supermarket beans with a texture of decomposing bread, or Mexican refried beans as thick as cement paste.

Anyway, my friend Steve of Rancho Gordo gave me a bag of giant lima beans the other day. Before you jump on my case for taking and plugging freebies I should tell you I work for them beans! When Steve is alone at the Saturday farmers market - rare now that he's got his gal pal Joan helping out - I would keep his stall for him while he takes a pee break! Plenty of people have seen me selling beans. There may have even been photographic evidence.

These lima beans are giant, and, despite what I've heard about lima beans, Steve assured me they are muy tasty. So I took them, and yesterday morning turned them into this crazy good breakfast.

Spot a trend: have you gone raw?

It looks like we're pretty good at trend spotting, aren't we now? Last week I posted about our cow share and weekly supply of Nutmeg's raw milky goodness, and this week two major newspapers in the country published articles about raw milk.

The NYT asked, "should this milk be illegal?", and the Washington Post wondered if raw milk is udderly foolish.

And me? I'm on to my third pound of butter. Perhaps when I got to my tenth I'd have this figured out so I coould tell you all about it. Bordier, watch out, there's a new crémière in town. ;-)

Meanwhile, here is a whole other kind of raw. A tad, um, NSFW, if you asked me.

No children menu here!

Ici il n'y a pas de "menu-enfant"

C'est à dire, pas de steak haché d'origine incertaine, pas de jambon poly phosphaté, pas de poisson carré ni de "cordon bleu", pas de purée industrielle, pas plus que de ketchup ou de sodas ... Ici les enfants ont droit aux plaisirs de la table et à celui de découvrir les saveurs. Ici ils mangent de la vraie cuisine comme papa et maman. Le goût est culturel, il s'apprend et malheureusement ce n'est pas dans les cantines scolaires que nos enfants le découvriront. Peut-être est-il encore temps de réagir !!!

(Translation)
No children menu here.

That is to say, no hamburger meat of uncertain origin, no chemically treated ham, no fish sticks nor "cordon bleu", no dehydrated spuds, not even ketchup or soda. ... Here the kids have the rights to the pleasure of the table and the discovery of flavors. Here, they eat real food, real cuisine, just like daddy and mommy. Taste is cultural, it is learnt, and sadly it's not something our children can acquire in the school cafeteria. Perhaps there is still time to do something about it!!!

Found on the 'menu' at an underground restaurant with a super cute name, Le Lapin Tant Pis, in Forcalquier, Provence.

Nothing to add, really, well, except, AMEN brother.

(Image borrowed from Tagaland. Warning: that site contains low music.)

The green curry paste that got me seeing red!

I was just innocently channel-surfing, minding my own business the other day when something green got me all fuming and seeing red. It was on Ming Tsai's show, something about Thai green curry paste. The problem is, that paste is just as Thai as Yul Brynner huffing and hopping his way around the room in a simian imitation of King Mongkut. I don't have anything against Ming Tsai, mind you. I found him entertaining enough when I saw him in Aspen last year. I even think the format of his show made a lot of sense: teach one master recipe and how to adapt it into multiple recipes involving different ingredients. That's how most of us cook anyway. But I must take exception of this one recipe.

The master recipe I am talking about is a 'Thai' green curry paste. It was such an abomination that it ruined the otherwise innocent recipes that follow. It even entangled the cutesy Aaron Sanchez of Centrico into making a hybrid Latino-Thai version of a Mole. I am serious.

The recipe I found so distasteful has - amongst its many ingredients -€“ a substantial amount of mint, basil, and cilantro leafs. A whole cup each, which is - let me put it gracefully - YUCK.

I don't know where this weird trend really began, but the first time I encountered a green curry paste recipe like this was a recipe by Jean-Georges. He spent quite a bit of time in Thailand, right? You'd think he knew how to make a proper curry paste. Well, I'm sure he knows how to make very many proper things, but Thai green curry paste is not one of them. His recipe called for cupfuls of cilantro leafs. Cups of them! Do you know what kind of curry that paste would make? A Dr.Brenner's special green soap curry, that's what! And, as though JGV's recipe isn't bad enough, Ming Tsai took the concept and ran with it, adding not just the offensive cilantro leafs but also the incongruous basil and mint. And he is hardly alone.