Author Archives: Sarah

A Palatable Truth

Posted by on Wednesday, 15th June 2011
Image credit: Moti Mahal's trio of Chicken Tikka
» Cheque Please!

Take off those Tiger beer goggles and reach for your curry-house wine menu.

Quirky food pairing evenings are often the last-chance saloon of food marketing. When naughty customers stubbornly refusing to drink/eat certain products in the way God (or the product’s CEO) intended, suddenly Old Speckled Hen Beer is super with turkey and Spaghetti Bolognese works better with beer.
But last Thursday, genial wine expert Tim Atkin achieved more stomach-settling results as he demonstrated that seared sesame-seeded scallops with coriander and tamarind might indeed work better with a grassy Grecian Santorini or gentle Austria Langenlois, than a bottle of Tiger. Continue reading »

Filed under Features |

Made in Ocean City

Found by on Wednesday, 15th June 2011
The Wrap
» The Wrap

All I ask of these cookie-loving Jersey Shore-style TV cooks, is they don't ditch the aprons in search of ratings.

Apparently, not even the Food Network is able to resist the all-powerful lure of all things Jersey these days. The network announced on Thursday that it's launching a new reality series, "Tough Cookies," which will chronicle the hijinks that ensue at Ocean City, N.J., bakery Crazy Susan's Cookie Company. The series will follow sisters Susan Adair and Linda Brand (pictured) as they attempt to wrangle the bakery's staff — consisting primarily of family members — while running a popular business and coming up with bold new recipes.

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Free Bread Pays For Itself

Found by on Tuesday, 14th June 2011
Good
» Good

The value of a social conscience? A loaf of bread.

Panera CEO Ronald Shaich opened up the first nonprofit branch of his 1,400-plus location restaurant chain in Clayton, Missouri, in 2010. At the time some thought his pay-what-you-want model, in which customers could simply take free food if they needed it, would be a disaster, especially in the midst of America's hardest economy in decades. Early indications, however, were that Shaich's idea, officially called the Panera Cares Community Café, might succeed. Now, one year later, people are certain: The free Panera is a hit.

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Why Oliver Wants More

Found by on Monday, 13th June 2011
Chef Sandwich
» Chef Sandwich

Time to watch Jamie’s peas and cucumbers

Jamie Oliver is launching a new chain of restaurants selling bent cucumbers and other wonky UK fruit and vegetables banned by the European Union, say insiders. The TV cook would only confirm that the new venture is to be called Union Jack’s – and insisted the concept, or even cuisine, had yet to be decided. But sources say he plans to highlight the plight of Britain’s farmers by only sourcing the 20% of UK produce that can’t be sold in supermarkets – because it does not conform to “crazy EU regulations”.

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Recipe for Google Success

Found by on Wednesday, 8th June 2011
Rambling Epicure
» Rambling Epicure

As Google starts ranking recipes, bloggers have already started upping their game (feat. @RamblingEpicure)

The first thing you need to know is that I am no expert on this subject. This article is not intended to be an infallible guide, but rather a summary of the steps I have taken to succeed in getting my recipes included in the search results of Google Recipe Search.

For more, try Julia Moskin’s NY Times piece on whether Recipe Search Engines Make You a Better Cook

 

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Space Cucumbers

Found by on Monday, 6th June 2011
The Guardian
» The Guardian

Expect a Jamie Oliver series dealing with space-station nutrition very soon.

Satoshi Furukawa is set to blast off early on Wednesday for a half-year stint in orbit along with Sergei Volkov, a Russian, and Michael Fossum, an American. He said he would be growing cucumbers to research how future space explorers could harvest their own food.

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Jerk Pilgrimage

Posted by on Sunday, 5th June 2011
Image credit: Helen Graves, Food Stories

Saturday morning is the foodie’s Sabbath. Who hasn’t lost hours, even the whole day, tracking down a particular purveyor of pickled lemons? In the case of food writer Andrew Webb, his days of devotion number ten score and counting.

Webb’s new encyclopedia of British food, Food Britannia, is guaranteed to elevate the naturally febrile state of the true foodie to one of frenzy. And already I have fallen victim. Continue reading »

Filed under Features |

Putting the Straw in Berries

Found by on Friday, 3rd June 2011
My Tiny Plot
» My Tiny Plot

I'm sure I won't be the only one going…'Ohhh'.

Good question! I’ve been growing Strawberries for six years now. Initially, at my allotment and then in my garden. I’ve only ever used straw twice, the first year I grew them, and this year. It took me a long time to make the connection between straw and Strawberries – no really! I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes. But when I did I was all gung-ho about using it. What happened? The straw blew away on my windy, hilltop of an allotment. Hmm?

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Eat It, Posh

Found by on Thursday, 2nd June 2011
LA Times
» LA Times

Posh finds out she's not the most important fish fish in LA town.

Gjelina is serious about its "no substitutions" policy. Even if you are chef Gordon Ramsay and you're dining with Victoria Beckham. Listen to this story and you can decide whether the restaurant went too far, or whether Beckham was asking for too much. Ramsay said he was practically speechless — imagine that — when he found himself at Gjelina in Venice on Tuesday dining with the heavily pregnant Posh and the waiter wouldn't accommodate her special order. "I couldn't believe it," he said.

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Just Something They Cooked Up

Found by on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Gigabiting
» Gigabiting

In crazy food styling land, nuts are fixed in place with super glue and berries get touched up with lipstick.

A scandal rocked the vegetarian world last month. It was revealed that vegetarian lifestyle magazine VegNews routinely ran photographs of meat-based dishes to illustrate its meatless recipes. Examples included ice cream made from actual cream, beef frankfurters posing as their vegan counterparts, and pork ribs with the bones airbrushed away to look like a soy substitute. Bear in mind that these were stock photos used for budgetary reasons, and that no animal products touched the VegNews test kitchen. Still, readers were outraged, immediately offering up their online condemnation. They called it hypocrisy of the highest order, a betrayal of their trust, a show of contempt springing from deliberate and systematic deceit.

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