Smoke yer marijuanakkah, it’s time to celebrate Chanukkah
December 22, 2006
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Latkes prepared in 1969 and preserved for lifetime use
The continental posse is curious about my visit back to the Heimatt and has requested some reflection on my own personal hotbed of culinary inspiration.
When it comes to holiday cooking, Mom (not her real name) says, ‘You only need to make latkes once in your life.’ Latkes are potato pancakes, ashkenazic rösti invented in the 19th century – but you’d think some First Nation Abraham had designed them himself, considering all the sentimental fuss about a greasy wad of carbohydrate.
My family’s recipe involves frying up one big-ass batch of latkes before the birth of the first child and freezing it ration-style in aluminium foil pouches. For each successive year for the rest of your life, defrost as needed and reheat the latkes in the microwave, not unlike our ancestors did back in the day in Lodz, Barcelona and merry Kiev. Served with non-fat yoghurt and wholly un-sweetened, raw cranberry relish, you’ve got yersself a traditional Chanukkah snack that will roll the eyeballs into the upper reaches of your head. Charmless, musty and sour, it’s all about the effort, the actual result is of far lesser importance.
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Meanwhile, inefficient, first-generation, à la minute courgette latkes fuel the fambly banding practice
In a music room bunker deep under the earth’s crust, the Solomon family practices its three-song holiday repetoire featuring one work each by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Violent Femmes and Lynyrd Skynyrd. No need to remove our reading glasses, it’s all about the volume and the atmosphere is wholesome. Continental Auntie does tend to make liberal use of the ‘f’ word in front of the chilluns but I argue that the word ‘friggin’ just makes you think ‘fuqn’ anyway and is equally an ‘f’ word. The older generation insists that cussing in Yiddish is in no way déclassée. Whatevs.
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Il n’y a pas de trop, Santa is a big, fat, gay Jew.
The above image shows one of Santa’s ritual unleavened bread factories in Noë Valley. Festive landscaping lures stay-at-home moms to line up outside and donate the blood of their young children. The blood is stored in vats until springtime and used in an 18 minute start-to-finish baking process for the production of Passover matzah.
California, show yer teeth. Tonight is the last night of Chanukkah. (Please read more… )
debra at 20:53 | Comments (52) | post to del.icio.us
Terroir of the ‘burbs
December 19, 2006
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Encountering a stand of claytonia perfoliata during the morning constitutional
So it’s not like my folks ever said, ‘Find yer own dang food!’ it’s just that I’ve always really enjoyed foraging. In fact it’s their own dang fault since identifying plants, particularly the native and poisonous was a prominent feature of every single walk outside. The first father-daughter walk of my visit was filled with amazing fragrances; oak leaves and oak leaf mould, datura, tangerine, pepper tree, smoke and luculia. Parfum of Northern California. When we came upon a stand of miner’s lettuce (purslane) and I instinctively commenced harvesting, my dad rolled up some big ‘oy vey is mir’ eyes and watched on nervously lest any posh neighbours drive by and spy me stealing the weeds, the preferred hors d’oeuvre of horses.
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Dad checking out the leaves, looking like Larry David.
Dear Dad,
Thank you for teaching me about miner’s lettuce and many other edible herbs and weeds that thrive in spite of suburban sprawl.
Also, thank you for teaching me how to make turkey and chicken soup. Although we will probably never agree on how many poultry skeletons should ideally occupy one single bowl of soup served to the table, whether that bowl of soup should be cloudy or clear and how many generations we would need to go back in time to find an era in which bone-sucking was actually acceptable, it always gives me great satifsaction on many levels to make this delicious broth and to not stir the thing which must never be stirred.
debra at 7:22 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Sprout Salon Tonight promises to be parfumistic
December 15, 2006
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Culiblog covergirl Iva Supic loves her up some sprouts
While in another part of the world a loved one mourns the loss of a loved one, pouring over every verse of the Quran en famille, here in the Polar Circle it rains, blows and pours and we narrowly avert a Sprout War.
Now that the dust has settled, and the sponsorship agreements for the final month of the Grow Yer Own Dang Food Sprout Restaurant have been sealed with hearty handshakes and teary phone calls, we can get back to the important matters at hand. Take a look-see at who’s sponsoring us (!):
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Harvesting the pea shoots at Van der Plas Sprouts
Van der Plas Sprouts is the main sponsor of the Grow yer Own Dang Food sprout restaurant and is a true sprouting pioneer, constantly expanding their assortment with new varieties. The entire crew at Grow Yer Own Dang Food is literally addicted to the highly aromatic sprouted herbs, like coreander and fennel. This company is passionate about elevating the use of sprouts and this is what I most love about them. Some of their famous clients include El Bulli, so I guess we’re in good company.
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An assortment from Koppert Cress
Aside from being one of the Netherlands biggest suppliers of ‘micro-greens’, Koppert Cress is the originator of the ‘cressperience’. Seriously, Koppert Cress thought up that word. The cressperience is a sprout tasting room avant la lettre and gawd knows how I love avant la lettre and a parfumistic approach to their sprout assortment. (I thought up THAT word.)
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Mung bean sprout production at de Peuleschil
de Peuleschil (which means, the pea shell in the cute Dutch language) is Netherlands biggest producer of 100% organic sprouts. Although sprouting doesn’t involve chemicals (it’s just water, warmth and darkness)- de Peulenschil is proud to use seeds that are 100% certified organically produced.
Each one of these sprout growers brings something important to the experience that I want to create at the Grow Yer Own Dang Food restaurant. Culiblog is not into monoculture; not in agriculture, and also not in sponsoring agreements. We believe in healthy, diverse markets for thriving local growers. Diversity is culture afterall.
Tonight, December 15th, Mediamatic will host a Dinner Party Salon, serving, surprisingly, micro-green cuisine.
There will be origami.
There will be nerd yoga.
And other things.
If you want to dine, you’ll need to respondez s’il vous plait +31 (0)20 638 9901. But if you just want to sit passively like a bump on a log and listen to folks go on and on about their projects (including me), fold a little paper, fold your body and be done with it, you can just show up.
Time: 20:00h
Location: Mediamatic’s Night Garden, Post CS Gebouw, ground floor, Amsterdam
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Culiblog covergirl Iva Supic en double with sprouts
debra at 10:38 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
