How to Carve a Leg of Lamb in Three Cuts

Mark Bittman of the New York Times, presents a technique for carving lamb shank in three easy cuts.

Cool Japanese Coffee Maker

The Japanese think up these incredible gadgets. This time it is not electronic but a real cool small paper coffee filter. Check out this video that I found on YouTube from Kevin Busan.

"Faire Milch"

Faire Milch = Fair Milk is an initiative in Germany that helps both farmers and consumers. Dairy farmers all over Europe have been under terrible price pressure since years. Large dairy corporation and supermarkets have driven the milk price down to a large part at the expense of the income of dairy farmers.
Faire Milch is an initiative by dairy farmers in North-Rhine Westphalia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hessen to market their milk at a fair price. The milk is of excellent quality and high in Omega-3 due to the natural food the cows get, no genetically modified food.
The milk is of course local and you'll find the names and backgrounds of the dairy farmers on the website
A wonderful initiative well worth supporting.

Scion Port from 1855 at $3,200 a bottle

This is a wonderful story.
An elderly lady from the Duoro area in Portugal recently died with no heirs. She owned casks with port dating back to 1855. Taylors bought the cask, bottled it and sells it for $3200 per bottle.



Read the story in Dr. Vino'S blog.

Say hello to Scion, not a cheap car but a $3,200 port

BBQ flat bread with wild garlic dressing

Wild garlic is the first produce of my garden in spring, before the asparagus and salad. Wild garlic is a woodland plant that comes out of the ground before the trees get leaves to take full advantage of the sunlight. It also looks very much like lilies-of-the-valley, a poisonous plant, so be careful if you pick wild garlic in the woods.
Wild garlic can be used in many ways but Jamie shows a very simple recipe of barbecued bread with a wild garlic dressing. Of course you do not need to bbq bread, you can also bake a flat bread in the oven.

Here are some more recipes:
deliciousmagazine
woodlands
eatweeds
Nigel Slater's nettle and wild garlic recipes

Enjoy Jamie's video...

Food and Culture in Davos with Chef Marcus Samuelsson

Loic Le Meur interviews the famous Chef Marcus Samuelsson in Davos and talks about how food trends get created. Marcus has Ethiopian roots, was raised in Sweden and now lives in New York where he started his newest restaurant Red Rooster.

The Trinidad Scorpion Chilli

Time has come to order seeds for my vegetable garden. I have been succesfully growing Jalapeno chillies in the past 2 years, this time around I want to try something a bit more powerful. Scotch bonnet is a very hot chilli used mainly in the Caribbean cuisine. It is not easy to get chillies where I live, let alone Scotch Bonnet,so I decided to try to grow them myself. Looking around the web for a seed company selling chilli seeds, I stumbled over TheHippySeedCompany in Australia.
Their collection of chilli seeds is impressive but their Youtube Chilli Tests are even more amazing.
The guy eats a whole Trinidad Scorpion Chilli, the hottest thing on earth...WATCH IF YOU DARE

Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals

Got a copy of Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals for Christmas. I really admire Jamie, great guy and a good cook, so I tried two menus from his new book. The result, two wonderful meals, very tasteful, fun to cook although it took me 45 minutes, not 30.
Also interesting that this book is breaking records. According to BBC News UK, Jamie’s book has sold 735,000 copies in 10 weeks.

Highly recommended.....

Food Trends for 2011

Happy New Year to all of you.
I checked out a number of food trend sites on the web to see if I could find any reoccurring themes and yes, I did find them.
In 2011 we will buy more local (locavores), men will cook more (voluntarily), we'll continue to appreciate the pure taste of good Asian food and cooking becomes a social activity (besides eating).

Enjoy this video from the Deutsche Welle in English

Locavores

A few weeks ago I visited Saint Paul, Minnesota, one of the coldest places in the USA. Saint Paul is a bit of a sleepy town, but there are some streets that feel like something is going on. My favorite is Grand Avenue. Rich in local history and charm, this long avenue spans 30 blocks filled with old homes, small shops and restaurants.
Walking down Grand, I stumbled over the  Golden Fig Fine Foods, a shop "making locavores happy since 2006". Did I miss something ? What is a locavore?
Laurie McCann Crowell the owner of the Golden Fig explained it to me.  Locavores are people who are interested in eating food that is locally produced and has not been transported over long distances to market.
The word "locavore" was voted word of the year for 2007 in the Oxford American Dictionary. 

Conclusion, I did miss this one. Watch this video from 2008 !!!

- Locavores in Deutschland
- Les Locavores en France

Happy Holidays and my Best Wishes for 2011.