I came across this article on the NY Times website (you'll start to wonder if I read anything else these days) and it's really brilliant. I love this author - he's so critical (analytically speaking, although sometimes just critical too), and sharp and witty, and also soundly researched. His book - In Defense of Food (yes that is the correct spelling - Americans and their funny English!) - is wonderful and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
This article is fabulous - inspired, it seems, by the release of Julie/Julia and the reminiscing about Julia Child that seems to have prompted - and there are just so many quote-worthy passages I don't know where to start! Have a read yourself if you have time (it is lengthy...) but in the meantime:
"The BBC supposedly took “The French Chef” off the air because viewers wrote in complaining that Julia Child seemed either drunk or demented."
"But here’s what I don’t get: How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking"
"Food shows are the campfires in the deep cable forest, drawing us like hungry wanderers to their flames."
(click the title to this post and it'll take you to the article...)
Friday 31 July 2009
Wednesday 29 July 2009
Wednesday Wonderings
I found myself this evening, standing at the kitchen bench, pulling tiny shards of cooked chicken flesh off a rather sad looking chicken frame (which I had previously hacked into for its various portions - legs, thighs, wings etc etc - and then boiled with vege for stock), and I suddenly wondered whether I was the only person in England who still did this sort of thing. I'm probably the only person in the town I live in who does such things, but surely there are others around who haven't lost the art of frugal cookery? My friend Kat (who I believe is my only blog reader, so really this should all be addressed to her in the manner of an email!) is certainly a frugal cook, in that she hates to throw things out, even when they haven't turned out as planned, but when you wander the aisles of the supermarket - laid out, as it is, for convenience and for a total separation of food and the animal/vegetable/mineral it used to be - you can't help but think that you might be the only person who still thinks it worth the time to do such things. I wondered all of this tonight particularly because our neighbour came to the door as I was up to my wrists in chicken, and the horrified/confused look I got when she saw what I was doing was akin to how I assume someone would look if they'd come across me up to my wrists in human blood or somesuch. Is it really so odd that I prefer to buy a whole (free-range, welfare protected or organic) chicken for the same price as two flabby looking (industrially-produced) chicken breasts, and for that price get 3 full-on meals plus soup with the stock plus pizza or sandwiches with the remaining meat which comes from the cooked frame (which is what I was removing tonight)? Maybe it is. Probably it's as strange a habit as watching food cooking in the oven. Ah well. At least there are a couple of us left...
On a very different note, I had a moment of considerable excitement this afternoon when Kat (the aforementioned friend and sole blog reader!) told me that one of my favourite foodie books has been made into a movie and is about to be released! Julie and Julia is a wonderful book about a rather mad, but likable NYC woman (Julie Powell) who decides to cook her way through Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking in a single year. I love this book - it's funny and smart and heart-warming and delicious! Definitely worth a read and since both Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are starring in the film, it's definitely going to be worth a watch too!
Final food thought for the day...gingernuts. I've been drinking increasing numbers of cups of tea lately, and I do find that tea lends itself to certain types of biscuits. I'm not really one for the biscuits and cakes, as I think I've mentioned before, but when you're drinking tea, it does seem fitting somehow to have a biscuit too. Anyway, I like gingernuts but have never successfully made them before. My Grandma sent me this recipe recently and I've been meaning to try it. They turned out really well (although they're a bit soft. I suspect this is because I didn't cook them long enough. But they are sort of chewy at the moment, which is actually quite a pleasant - if inadvertant - texture). Very nice indeed. The recipe is below:
Gingernuts
113g butter
226g sugar
2 Tbsp golden syrup
226g flour
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
3 tsp ginger
2 mixed spice (I don't have mixed spice, so I used a sprinkling of cinnamon, all spice and nutmeg which seems to have worked just as well)
Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup together until just combined. Beat in egg. Add dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Plop teaspoonfuls onto baking-paper lined trays (the original recipe said to roll them into balls but my mixture was much too soft for that sort of business. Plopping worked just fine). Bake at 150degC until golden brown (or darker brown if you prefer them crispier). About 15-20 mins I'd guess. Enjoy with copious mugs of hot, sweet tea.
On a very different note, I had a moment of considerable excitement this afternoon when Kat (the aforementioned friend and sole blog reader!) told me that one of my favourite foodie books has been made into a movie and is about to be released! Julie and Julia is a wonderful book about a rather mad, but likable NYC woman (Julie Powell) who decides to cook her way through Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking in a single year. I love this book - it's funny and smart and heart-warming and delicious! Definitely worth a read and since both Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are starring in the film, it's definitely going to be worth a watch too!
Final food thought for the day...gingernuts. I've been drinking increasing numbers of cups of tea lately, and I do find that tea lends itself to certain types of biscuits. I'm not really one for the biscuits and cakes, as I think I've mentioned before, but when you're drinking tea, it does seem fitting somehow to have a biscuit too. Anyway, I like gingernuts but have never successfully made them before. My Grandma sent me this recipe recently and I've been meaning to try it. They turned out really well (although they're a bit soft. I suspect this is because I didn't cook them long enough. But they are sort of chewy at the moment, which is actually quite a pleasant - if inadvertant - texture). Very nice indeed. The recipe is below:
Gingernuts
113g butter
226g sugar
2 Tbsp golden syrup
226g flour
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
3 tsp ginger
2 mixed spice (I don't have mixed spice, so I used a sprinkling of cinnamon, all spice and nutmeg which seems to have worked just as well)
Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup together until just combined. Beat in egg. Add dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Plop teaspoonfuls onto baking-paper lined trays (the original recipe said to roll them into balls but my mixture was much too soft for that sort of business. Plopping worked just fine). Bake at 150degC until golden brown (or darker brown if you prefer them crispier). About 15-20 mins I'd guess. Enjoy with copious mugs of hot, sweet tea.
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Picnic Fun!
We're experiencing our first British summer, and although the rain does seem to be a bit more regular than we'd like, there have still be plenty of days when picnicking is just what i feel like doing. Nothing I love more than getting out and exploring the British country-side and then stopping for a delish picnic lunch. I'm not really one for the sandwiches, so we tend to just take sandwich fillings plus breads and assorted nibbles and put it together once we get there. But I'm always looking for new ideas to brighten up the ol' chiller backpack, which is why I was so excited to find this list on the NY Times foodie blog (see link below). But you can never have too many great lunch and picnic ideas, so tell me...what's your favourite lunch on the road??
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/dining/02mini.html?_r=1&ref=dining
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/dining/02mini.html?_r=1&ref=dining
Saturday 18 July 2009
A fishy situation...
We had a lovely Saturday today. It's been miserable all week, but today the sun shone briefly, and we seized the chance to get out and enjoy the day. We headed to Richmond which is this really charming Georgian market town in the North Yorkshire Dales. It has a monthly farmers' market that I fancied going to, and we just generally love spending time in the town - it has a wonderfully friendly, village feel, and has some lovely cafes and restaurants. In fact this time we discovered the converted rail station which now houses some sweet artisan foodie shops - a bakery, micro-brewery, cheese maker, fudge shop and the most wonderful icecream shop. I swear - hand on heart - I've never in my life eaten ice-cream as delicious as that! I had the black cherry and I never wanted the icecream to end! So good. I think visiting that wee icecream parlour will be a regular thing for us. Anyway, I digress. The market, too, is usually pretty good (a lot of towns have jumped on the whole 'farmers' market bandwagon' and many - if not most, in my opinion - should jump right back off. This one is good though). Today I fancied some fish and there's a (usually) great fishmonger there. We got some smoked salmon and they also had whole fresh rainbow trout that looked fresh and sweet. I got two - one for each of us at dinner. I figured they'd need about 10 mins in the oven, stuffed with lemon thyme and some salt and pepper - yum, right? Just as the potatoes I'd sauteed with garlic were cooked to golden perfection, I took the fishies out of their wrapping and got ready to stuff...only to find, quelle horreur, that they weren't GUTTED! Am I wrong to be horrified by this? I'm not sqeamish with food - I can rip up a chicken carcass with the best of them - but frankly if I had wanted to play with squishy fish guts, I would have bloody well gone fishing myself! I assumed - perhaps foolishly - that the fishmonger would have gutted the trout for me...or at the very least would have told me they were still en-entrail so that I could have gotten him to remove them! Every other time I've bought whole fish, it's been cleaned and ready for cooking. Anyway, I bravely overcame my terror and filleted the fishies with their guts still entact (4 of the ugliest fillets you've ever seen, let me tell you) and once grilled and served with herb butter, they were delicious, but I still feel a little shaky after the filleting experience (it's not easy to fillet a fish while trying to avoid the innards....you try it sometime, if you don't believe me...ugh....)
So, was it a foolish assumption on my part, or was the fishmonger just a mean son-of-a-bitch with a sick sense of humour?!
So, was it a foolish assumption on my part, or was the fishmonger just a mean son-of-a-bitch with a sick sense of humour?!
Tuesday 14 July 2009
What to do with those leftover egg yolks? Pasta!
It's an age-old dilemma...you make meringues (or Forgotten Cookies, see below) and then you're left trying to figure out what to do with the leftover egg yolks. I hate throwing things out, but I can never think what to do with the egg yolks so they generally get put in a cup in the fridge for a week after which point they are gross and then I throw them out. A highly refined, efficient system of wastage! Now, I know you can make mayonnaise with egg yolks, and things like hollandaise sauce (which I have never had any luck with) or custard if you felt the need (I never have), but I get bored of these options and I've already got some good mayo in the fridge. So I started flipping through cook-books, desperately seeking inspiration, when suddenly it hit - pasta! It's so obvious - normally you make it with whole eggs, but why not use just yolks? The recipe below makes enough for a meal for two of fettuccine or tagliatelle, but if you had more egg yolks then you could easily double it. If you have a pasta machine, then just roll it through that and use the built-in cutters, or if you're like me and left your beautiful shiny red pasta machine back in NZ when you moved abroad, then you can use the ol' rolling pin/knife combo. It makes a more rustic looking pasta strand, but I rather like that.
Ingredients
2 free-range or organic egg yolks
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp milk or cream
1/4 tsp baking powder (this gives a little 'lift' which you'd usually get from the egg whites)
3/4 c flour (I used Tipo '00, but just use what you have)
Combine flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl. Mix in egg yolks and milk and combine to make a soft, pliable dough (you might need to add a bit more flour or milk depending on the texture - I had to add more milk).
Knead briefly on a floured bench then chop dough into 3 or 4 pieces (more manageable for rolling this way) and roll out very very thinly before cutting into the desired shape.
Boil in salted water until al dente and serve with your favourite sauce (we'll be having ours tonight with a spicy arrabiata-type tomato sauce and free-range chicken and basil meatballs).
Egg Yolk Pasta
Ingredients
2 free-range or organic egg yolks
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp milk or cream
1/4 tsp baking powder (this gives a little 'lift' which you'd usually get from the egg whites)
3/4 c flour (I used Tipo '00, but just use what you have)
Combine flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl. Mix in egg yolks and milk and combine to make a soft, pliable dough (you might need to add a bit more flour or milk depending on the texture - I had to add more milk).
Knead briefly on a floured bench then chop dough into 3 or 4 pieces (more manageable for rolling this way) and roll out very very thinly before cutting into the desired shape.
Boil in salted water until al dente and serve with your favourite sauce (we'll be having ours tonight with a spicy arrabiata-type tomato sauce and free-range chicken and basil meatballs).
Monday 13 July 2009
Nuggety nougaty bites
We're a house that loves meringues...whether they be straight up crispy, chewy meringues or slightly fluffy pavlovas or wonderfully tart and sweet lemon meringue pies, we'll take 'em! So naturally when I came across a recipe for cookies based on a meringue recipe, it was only a matter of time before I tried them. The original recipe is called Forgotten Cookies, and they are apparently an American Christmas cookie tradition. They are called Forgotten because you essentially turn the oven off once you've put them in and let them sit overnight...forgetting about them until morning. What a wonderful notion - that you get up to an oven full of crispy crumbly morsels without having done any slaving over a hot stove! I actually have altered this slightly from the original because I found they needed just a bit more drying out, so I give them an hour at 50degC before turning the oven off completely and leaving them to slowly do their thing.
The original recipes (and variations around the internet) seem to use pecans, but I had roasted almonds in the cupboard and couldn't be bothered walking to the shop, so almond chocolate forgotten cookies was what I made! Quite honestly, I like the almondy flavour so much that I think I'd stick to those nuts next time...and there will definitely be a next time for making these little gems! They taste almost nougat-like, and are just these wonderfully delicious chewy nuggets of meringue filled with chocolate chunks and bits of crunchy almonds.
Once Andrew and I have our own house and a permanent base and can start creating our own Christmas traditions (instead of having to go with whatever the family member we're visiting wants to do which is how our Christmasses thus far have been) these cookies will absolutely be a Christmas eve tradition. So much better than horrid Christmas mince meat pies, don't you think?!
Oh, and tomorrow I'll post a recipe for what I'm doing to use up the egg yolks, so tune in then!!
Ingredients
2 egg whites
pinch of salt
120g castor sugar
100 g chocolate chips or chunks
100g roughly chopped toasted almonds
1 tsp vanilla
Turn oven on to 180degC and line 2 oven trays with baking paper. Beat egg whites with salt until foamy. Gradually add in sugar and beat until meringue forms stiff peaks. Add vanilla, nuts and chocolate and beat once to combine.
Drop teaspoonfuls onto the trays then put in oven. Immediately turn oven down to 50degC for an hour, then turn oven off and leave cookies in there overnight, or for at least 3 hours (the longer the better - they get chewy/crispier with time).
The original recipes (and variations around the internet) seem to use pecans, but I had roasted almonds in the cupboard and couldn't be bothered walking to the shop, so almond chocolate forgotten cookies was what I made! Quite honestly, I like the almondy flavour so much that I think I'd stick to those nuts next time...and there will definitely be a next time for making these little gems! They taste almost nougat-like, and are just these wonderfully delicious chewy nuggets of meringue filled with chocolate chunks and bits of crunchy almonds.
Once Andrew and I have our own house and a permanent base and can start creating our own Christmas traditions (instead of having to go with whatever the family member we're visiting wants to do which is how our Christmasses thus far have been) these cookies will absolutely be a Christmas eve tradition. So much better than horrid Christmas mince meat pies, don't you think?!
Oh, and tomorrow I'll post a recipe for what I'm doing to use up the egg yolks, so tune in then!!
Forgotten Cookies
Ingredients
2 egg whites
pinch of salt
120g castor sugar
100 g chocolate chips or chunks
100g roughly chopped toasted almonds
1 tsp vanilla
Turn oven on to 180degC and line 2 oven trays with baking paper. Beat egg whites with salt until foamy. Gradually add in sugar and beat until meringue forms stiff peaks. Add vanilla, nuts and chocolate and beat once to combine.
Drop teaspoonfuls onto the trays then put in oven. Immediately turn oven down to 50degC for an hour, then turn oven off and leave cookies in there overnight, or for at least 3 hours (the longer the better - they get chewy/crispier with time).
New favourite foodie site...
As with all great discoveries, finding this website was an accident. I was scrolling through the web for nougat recipes (specifically non-American ones which don't contain high fructose corn syrup...ick) and this site came up with a recipe for Torrone (which looks phenomenal and which I will absolutely be making sometime very soon). Anyway, this website is stunning with some of the most gorgeous food photos I've seen, and with wonderful recipes that make my stomach growl just reading them! I hope you enjoy it too - if you make anything from the site (like those beautiful apricot dumplings, for example!), please let me know how it turns out!
http://www.deliciousdays.com/
http://www.deliciousdays.com/
Friday 10 July 2009
Piles of pakora
I felt like an Indian feast last night, and you can't do that without having a starter of either bhajis or pakora! Since Andrew's not a huge bhaji fan, I decided to go with the pakora. The following is an adaptation of a recipe that was originally called peaflour patties, but that was clearly a slightly Anglocized pakora recipe. I've tweaked the seasonings a bit for my liking and added both a bit of baking powder and sparkling water to give them a bit of a lift and to make them a bit crispier. You can use any vege you like, although I'd definitely put some onion in them. Peas work well, finely chopped or grated potato (or sweet potato) is good (although if you chop it you'll have to cook them a bit longer/slower to make sure they are cooked through). Courgette is also great, but just use what ever you have or like.
Vege Pakora
1 cup chickpea flour (known as gram flour or besan flour)
1 tsp salt (or more depending on taste)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp chilli (more or less to taste)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2-3/4 cup soda water
1-2 cups chopped or grated vege
Mix all dry ingredients together and add about 1/2 cup of the soda water. Mix to a stiff paste. Leave to sit for 5-10 minutes to let the flavours develop.
Add vege to the mix and add enough water to make the paste thickly coat the veges.
Heat about 1cm oil in a fry pan and then shallow fry the fritters until golden brown and cooked through.
Sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately with yoghurt/mint sauce.
Vege Pakora
1 cup chickpea flour (known as gram flour or besan flour)
1 tsp salt (or more depending on taste)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp chilli (more or less to taste)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2-3/4 cup soda water
1-2 cups chopped or grated vege
Mix all dry ingredients together and add about 1/2 cup of the soda water. Mix to a stiff paste. Leave to sit for 5-10 minutes to let the flavours develop.
Add vege to the mix and add enough water to make the paste thickly coat the veges.
Heat about 1cm oil in a fry pan and then shallow fry the fritters until golden brown and cooked through.
Sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately with yoghurt/mint sauce.
Sunday 5 July 2009
Lentil and Aubergine Salad inspiration
I was just reading the Guardian's food page and this recipe caught my eye - it sounds delicious! And, as I currently have aubergines roasting in the oven, I think I will give it a bash for lunch tomorrow! Yum! (let's hope it's better than the sesame noodle debarcle of earlier in the week...)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/04/vegetarian-vegetablesrecipes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/04/vegetarian-vegetablesrecipes
An abundance of bananas
England is currently in the midst of a heatwave, or so the folks on the TV tell us. I'm a little sceptical about whether a week or so of great weather in the middle of summer actually constitutes a heatwave, but I will admit that it has been really quite warm lately. We are loving it, since we haven't had a summer in a year what with moving here in winter immediately after our own NZ winter. Our flat, though, is rather unpleasantly warm and seems impossible to cool down. One of the consequences of this sauna-like residence, is that the fruit doesn't last. The bananas which I bought green last weekend were already over-ripe by Tuesday. All week they have been sitting there getting browner and browner and urging me to bake them into a delicious cake. And all week I have resisted them, not only because I've been lazy, but also because baking when the house is already 27+degrees seems unnecessarily sadistic! Today, however, there is a lovely cool breeze and we're back to 23 degrees inside, which is much more conducive to baking and this has spurred me into action (well, that, and the discovery that one banana had gone well past the point of no return! Ick. Who knew bananas could liquefy like that??)
This is my normal banana cake recipe. I do have one for a banana bread/loaf too, but after experimentation I've found that they both yield similarly lovely cakes, and since this one has one less egg in it, I have tended to favour it. It is a cake recipe, but I'm currently without a proper cake pan, so I make it in my brownie tin and it's sort of a cross between a loaf and a cake. You can ice it with chocolate, lemon or cream cheese icing if you like...I usually don't - mostly because Andrew is incapable of waiting for the cake to cool down before eating it, and once it's been chopped into, icing seems pointless.
The recipe, like so many of my favourites, comes from Alison Holst (her Ultimate Collection). It's best made with bananas that have been sitting in the fruit bowl for much too long, as the flavour really is best then! (the perfect justification for my occasionally slovenly house-keeping!)
Banana Cake
1 1/2 c self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
3 ripe bananas
125g butter, at room temperature
3/4 c sugar
2 large eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
Turn oven on to 180deg C. Line a cake tin with baking paper or grease it.
Seive flour and bicarb of soda into a large bowl.
Mash the bananas roughly with a fork, then put in food processor with butter, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla and process until smooth.
Add to flour mixture and mix until just combined.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
Serve dusted with icing sugar, or ice with your favourite icing.
This is my normal banana cake recipe. I do have one for a banana bread/loaf too, but after experimentation I've found that they both yield similarly lovely cakes, and since this one has one less egg in it, I have tended to favour it. It is a cake recipe, but I'm currently without a proper cake pan, so I make it in my brownie tin and it's sort of a cross between a loaf and a cake. You can ice it with chocolate, lemon or cream cheese icing if you like...I usually don't - mostly because Andrew is incapable of waiting for the cake to cool down before eating it, and once it's been chopped into, icing seems pointless.
The recipe, like so many of my favourites, comes from Alison Holst (her Ultimate Collection). It's best made with bananas that have been sitting in the fruit bowl for much too long, as the flavour really is best then! (the perfect justification for my occasionally slovenly house-keeping!)
Banana Cake
1 1/2 c self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
3 ripe bananas
125g butter, at room temperature
3/4 c sugar
2 large eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
Turn oven on to 180deg C. Line a cake tin with baking paper or grease it.
Seive flour and bicarb of soda into a large bowl.
Mash the bananas roughly with a fork, then put in food processor with butter, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla and process until smooth.
Add to flour mixture and mix until just combined.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
Serve dusted with icing sugar, or ice with your favourite icing.
Thursday 2 July 2009
An article that struck the right note
KITCHEN CONFIDENCE
by Sarah Catherall
The Dominion Post
When 11 and 12-year-olds turn up to Mt Cook School for cooking classes, many don't know how to use a peeler or find their way around a kitchen. Their teacher, Jason Cadwallader, is stunned that his three-year-old daughter is better able to help prepare a dinner than some of the pupils that come to his kitchen. "Some are pretty useless. They come in and it's obvious that some of them have never done very much at home. Some kids will wipe down a dirty plate and put it back in the cupboard," he says.
"I had a group of year 7 pupils in here yesterday making pikelets and I asked them, 'how do we turn an oven on?' and they had no idea." Gone are the days when children stood by the kitchen sink and pitched in to help peel the potatoes or cut a lettuce.
Foodies and cooking teachers say parents are too busy to rope in their offspring and culinary skills are becoming a dying art. If research conducted for Wattie's is anything to go by, children are more confident loading software or sending a text message than cooking a basic meal from a recipe. According to the survey of 439 kids aged eight to 14, many were only able to make toast and a sandwich. Few could boil an egg or peel a potato.
In her Brooklyn villa on a Wednesday afternoon, Maria Pia de Razza-Klein is doing her best to buck a trend, teaching children to make sourdough bread. The feisty Italian chef famous for her Thorndon trattoria throws her arms in the air as children leave her cooking class to attend music lessons. "Children are too busy," she raves. "Do you know what I did after school when I was a girl? Nothing."
She's running one of the few private cooking classes for children in the Wellington region - which, according to nutritionists, are well overdue. Several of the children here today are year 7 and 8 pupils from Brooklyn School across the road. They attend Mt Cook School each Thursday for cooking, sewing and woodwork lessons. The only boy, 11-year-old Andre Gordon, is a keen cook and baker.
The young foodies have watched the 57-year-old make sourdough bread, and they've had a lecture about everything from seasonal food and organic rice to how to soak up almond oil with hunks of bread as an afternoon snack. "Remember something," she says, as they crowd around her kitchen table. "Try everything. You are young and you must say, 'I'm so excited'.
"Parents are too busy and if they bake with their kids, they might do some cookies," she says. "There is a new generation that doesn't know how to cook. "They make easy-peasy stuff or buy takeaways, and those cooking skills that we grew up with don't exist any more.
It's true, if the results of a British study are replicated here. It found that one-fifth of mothers rarely or never taught their children to cook, because they weren't confident about their own culinary skills. In New Zealand schools, year 7 and 8 pupils learn to make scones, smoothies and lasagne, and older pupils can opt to take food technology.
However, Wattie's nutrition manager Julie Dick is concerned that school cooking kitchens closed in the 80s and 90s to make way for computer suites. Running Wattie's Project Cook, which targets 1600 intermediate schools, she says children from the age of nine have the skills to start learning to cook and the company's research shows that's when they want to start. "There has been a focus on technology and computer skills and less on core skills. We're trying to bring that back and make cooking fun.
MARGARET Brooker, a Wellington food writer, wonders if families are sitting down and enjoying the ritual of dining together like they used to. "With a lot of mums working, the cooks of the household are taking shortcuts and so those skills aren't being passed on," the author of My Turn to Cook (New Holland $25) says.
Maybe the situation is changing again, as there's a new trend among schools and preschools to build vegetable gardens, assisted by a Health Ministry nutrition fund. South Wellington Intermediate has received a government grant to grow vegetables, and principal Mike Debner says cooking is compulsory for its pupils. It won't be long before the fund is targeted at low-decile areas and schools like South Wellington Intermediate will have to find the money themselves, Garry Szeto, co-ordinator of Hutt Valley Health's healthy action and eating project, believes. He points out the merit of growing, harvesting and preparing food. "Pupils are learning the whole process from start to finish. For younger children in early childhood settings, it means they can learn to be independent and help out, rather than the food just arriving on their plate.
* Dominion Post food writer Alison Holst is joining a campaign to encourage children to learn to cook. Potatoes New Zealand is launching its Calling All Grandparents campaign during the second week of these school holidays, providing recipes and ideas in English, Maori and Samoan. Urging grandparents to teach their mokopuna to bake a potato, Mrs Holst said: "Fewer and fewer children are learning to cook but I think it is so important. A baked potato, with all the goodness it contains, is an excellent place to start."
And now it's my turn...
I could talk about this subject for hours (and do sometimes, much to the dismay of who-ever is probably listening...usually my poor partner, Andrew!)...I swear, nothing makes me more frustrated than seeing the packets of pre-prepared crap going into families' supermarket trolleys. And to know that these parents are dictating such a sad course for their children's' futures. I mean, forget obesity and type 2 diabetes, what about the simple pleasures of cooking for yourself and enjoying both the process and the product? What about knowing how to feed yourself and knowing what the hell you're putting into your bodies? What about knowing where your food has come from and what has gone into it? It really angers me that kids aren't taught how to cook. I was cooking entire meals for my family from the age of 10. We were a single parent family and Mum worked, so I helped out. But it was fun! It made me feel like a grown-up, which I'm sure helped my social development in other ways too, but it was fun! And linking in to this, Mum would let me help out with the grocery shopping - explaining as we went around the shop with our list how to weigh up which was the cheapest option, or why we picked certain products and not others. Teaching me to read the labels of things. And so by 15, Mum was quite happy to let me do the grocery shopping occasionally, if I wanted to. She let me help in the kitchen from a really young age - and I was always cooking, because so was she. And yes, ok, I'm sure there are parents out there who don't have those skills themselves - too many of them, probably - but if you're a parent, shouldn't you learn how to do it so you can pass on the skills to your kids? It's also horribly sad that schools have gotten rid of the cooking classes they used to have. If the parents aren't teaching the kids at home, then surely schools could be helping to sustain the next generation by at least giving them one chance a week to get in the kitchen?? Arrgh. Ok, as I said, I could go on about this for hours, but I'd better stop here. Otherwise I'll be ranting all day!
Oh, but post-script...yes, I caught the cringe-factor in the above article where the "food writer" explains that the problem is because Mums are working. As I described above, my Mum worked and was very busy but still taught me everything I needed to know. But, and here's the important part, my Dad also cooked. He cooked a lot at home before my parents split up, and when my brother and I would go to his place for dinner afterwards, he'd still cook and would let us help out. My obsession with cooking and food is one that I share with my brother - who is a real boys boy, by the way. This is not a simple matter of supposedly shifting gender roles and to start pointing the finger at working mothers just evades the real crux of the matter! Grrr!
by Sarah Catherall
The Dominion Post
When 11 and 12-year-olds turn up to Mt Cook School for cooking classes, many don't know how to use a peeler or find their way around a kitchen. Their teacher, Jason Cadwallader, is stunned that his three-year-old daughter is better able to help prepare a dinner than some of the pupils that come to his kitchen. "Some are pretty useless. They come in and it's obvious that some of them have never done very much at home. Some kids will wipe down a dirty plate and put it back in the cupboard," he says.
"I had a group of year 7 pupils in here yesterday making pikelets and I asked them, 'how do we turn an oven on?' and they had no idea." Gone are the days when children stood by the kitchen sink and pitched in to help peel the potatoes or cut a lettuce.
Foodies and cooking teachers say parents are too busy to rope in their offspring and culinary skills are becoming a dying art. If research conducted for Wattie's is anything to go by, children are more confident loading software or sending a text message than cooking a basic meal from a recipe. According to the survey of 439 kids aged eight to 14, many were only able to make toast and a sandwich. Few could boil an egg or peel a potato.
In her Brooklyn villa on a Wednesday afternoon, Maria Pia de Razza-Klein is doing her best to buck a trend, teaching children to make sourdough bread. The feisty Italian chef famous for her Thorndon trattoria throws her arms in the air as children leave her cooking class to attend music lessons. "Children are too busy," she raves. "Do you know what I did after school when I was a girl? Nothing."
She's running one of the few private cooking classes for children in the Wellington region - which, according to nutritionists, are well overdue. Several of the children here today are year 7 and 8 pupils from Brooklyn School across the road. They attend Mt Cook School each Thursday for cooking, sewing and woodwork lessons. The only boy, 11-year-old Andre Gordon, is a keen cook and baker.
The young foodies have watched the 57-year-old make sourdough bread, and they've had a lecture about everything from seasonal food and organic rice to how to soak up almond oil with hunks of bread as an afternoon snack. "Remember something," she says, as they crowd around her kitchen table. "Try everything. You are young and you must say, 'I'm so excited'.
"Parents are too busy and if they bake with their kids, they might do some cookies," she says. "There is a new generation that doesn't know how to cook. "They make easy-peasy stuff or buy takeaways, and those cooking skills that we grew up with don't exist any more.
It's true, if the results of a British study are replicated here. It found that one-fifth of mothers rarely or never taught their children to cook, because they weren't confident about their own culinary skills. In New Zealand schools, year 7 and 8 pupils learn to make scones, smoothies and lasagne, and older pupils can opt to take food technology.
However, Wattie's nutrition manager Julie Dick is concerned that school cooking kitchens closed in the 80s and 90s to make way for computer suites. Running Wattie's Project Cook, which targets 1600 intermediate schools, she says children from the age of nine have the skills to start learning to cook and the company's research shows that's when they want to start. "There has been a focus on technology and computer skills and less on core skills. We're trying to bring that back and make cooking fun.
MARGARET Brooker, a Wellington food writer, wonders if families are sitting down and enjoying the ritual of dining together like they used to. "With a lot of mums working, the cooks of the household are taking shortcuts and so those skills aren't being passed on," the author of My Turn to Cook (New Holland $25) says.
Maybe the situation is changing again, as there's a new trend among schools and preschools to build vegetable gardens, assisted by a Health Ministry nutrition fund. South Wellington Intermediate has received a government grant to grow vegetables, and principal Mike Debner says cooking is compulsory for its pupils. It won't be long before the fund is targeted at low-decile areas and schools like South Wellington Intermediate will have to find the money themselves, Garry Szeto, co-ordinator of Hutt Valley Health's healthy action and eating project, believes. He points out the merit of growing, harvesting and preparing food. "Pupils are learning the whole process from start to finish. For younger children in early childhood settings, it means they can learn to be independent and help out, rather than the food just arriving on their plate.
* Dominion Post food writer Alison Holst is joining a campaign to encourage children to learn to cook. Potatoes New Zealand is launching its Calling All Grandparents campaign during the second week of these school holidays, providing recipes and ideas in English, Maori and Samoan. Urging grandparents to teach their mokopuna to bake a potato, Mrs Holst said: "Fewer and fewer children are learning to cook but I think it is so important. A baked potato, with all the goodness it contains, is an excellent place to start."
And now it's my turn...
I could talk about this subject for hours (and do sometimes, much to the dismay of who-ever is probably listening...usually my poor partner, Andrew!)...I swear, nothing makes me more frustrated than seeing the packets of pre-prepared crap going into families' supermarket trolleys. And to know that these parents are dictating such a sad course for their children's' futures. I mean, forget obesity and type 2 diabetes, what about the simple pleasures of cooking for yourself and enjoying both the process and the product? What about knowing how to feed yourself and knowing what the hell you're putting into your bodies? What about knowing where your food has come from and what has gone into it? It really angers me that kids aren't taught how to cook. I was cooking entire meals for my family from the age of 10. We were a single parent family and Mum worked, so I helped out. But it was fun! It made me feel like a grown-up, which I'm sure helped my social development in other ways too, but it was fun! And linking in to this, Mum would let me help out with the grocery shopping - explaining as we went around the shop with our list how to weigh up which was the cheapest option, or why we picked certain products and not others. Teaching me to read the labels of things. And so by 15, Mum was quite happy to let me do the grocery shopping occasionally, if I wanted to. She let me help in the kitchen from a really young age - and I was always cooking, because so was she. And yes, ok, I'm sure there are parents out there who don't have those skills themselves - too many of them, probably - but if you're a parent, shouldn't you learn how to do it so you can pass on the skills to your kids? It's also horribly sad that schools have gotten rid of the cooking classes they used to have. If the parents aren't teaching the kids at home, then surely schools could be helping to sustain the next generation by at least giving them one chance a week to get in the kitchen?? Arrgh. Ok, as I said, I could go on about this for hours, but I'd better stop here. Otherwise I'll be ranting all day!
Oh, but post-script...yes, I caught the cringe-factor in the above article where the "food writer" explains that the problem is because Mums are working. As I described above, my Mum worked and was very busy but still taught me everything I needed to know. But, and here's the important part, my Dad also cooked. He cooked a lot at home before my parents split up, and when my brother and I would go to his place for dinner afterwards, he'd still cook and would let us help out. My obsession with cooking and food is one that I share with my brother - who is a real boys boy, by the way. This is not a simple matter of supposedly shifting gender roles and to start pointing the finger at working mothers just evades the real crux of the matter! Grrr!
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Mark Bittman Strikes Again
Yum! I've just read this recipe for cold noodles on Mark Bittman's NY Times blog, and it looks so delicious that I think I'm going to have to make it for lunch. It's sticky and hot here, so what better to eat then cold, spicy, salty noodles?! He thinks you need chicken in them to make them into a meal, but there's already protein from the sesame paste/peanut butter, so I think you'd actually be ok without.
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/featured-recipe-cold-noodles-with-sesame-sauce-chicken-and-cucumbers/
UPDATE:
I've just made (and eaten) this for my lunch, and I'm feeling a little disappointed. I used tahini and the whole thing was really bitter and actually not terribly pleasant tasting. The concept was great - cold noodles with crunch cucumber (and beansprouts which I added) - but the flavour definitely didn't rock. Maybe if I'd used peanut butter instead of tahini...?
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/featured-recipe-cold-noodles-with-sesame-sauce-chicken-and-cucumbers/
UPDATE:
I've just made (and eaten) this for my lunch, and I'm feeling a little disappointed. I used tahini and the whole thing was really bitter and actually not terribly pleasant tasting. The concept was great - cold noodles with crunch cucumber (and beansprouts which I added) - but the flavour definitely didn't rock. Maybe if I'd used peanut butter instead of tahini...?
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