You and food, now this is one relationship you are stuck with and it just might be the most complex relationship in your life. So what is “normal” in a healthy food related relationship? Yours is likely more complicated than you realize, which explains why a poll of more than 6,000 male and female readers … Continue reading
Category Archives: Culinary rants
Cooking with camera…the new reality
I seem to spend much of my after work down time these days flicking through the channels searching for the latest episode of the ever increasing cooking shows and I truly believe that I am now absolutely addicted to them. Truth be known even though I was a professional chef and an unapologetic foodie, I … Continue reading
Inside out – an ode to offal!
Heart, Liver, sweet breads, brains, pig’s ears and tongue, oh and we can’t forget the testicals. Yummy!!! So what is it about the innards of animals that send us foodies flying off into deliriums of culinary ecstasy? I like to write about and cook with offal because I love to eat it but let’s face it … Continue reading
Iconic Dishes
What constitutes an iconic dish? Is it that special, only-to-be-found-in-my-neighborhood delicacy, on the tip of a local’s tongue when suggesting what to eat or the best place that prepares it or a dish that is so intertwined with a particular countries national make up that just the mention of it conjures up post card visualizations. … Continue reading
Hummus…a recipe for peace?… maybe!
Hummus the ultimate comfort food is basically a working man’s dish of blended chickpeas, sesame paste, garlic lemon and salt. Heretics and Americans add cumin; and if you want to be fancy maybe a little paprika, chopped parsley and olive oil to finish then scoop up with fresh and fluffy pita bread, add a few … Continue reading
A matter of taste: delicious or distasteful
In 2011 CNN made a survey of what are the 50 most delicious foods in the world. Surprisingly for some and delightfully for us here the first place went to Beef Rendang and second place was our all-time favorite comfort food, Nasi Goreng. http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/eat/readers-choice-worlds-50-most-delicious-foods-012321 But let’s face it this is a very subjective issue. In … Continue reading
The wanderings of food…fusion or confusion cuisine?… it’s always been here
The adapting and transplanting of ingredients and dishes from other cultures is nothing new. In fact the fusing of various cuisines has been around forever. Fusion Cuisine may have been the culinary buzzword for last 2 decades but cultures have been “fusing” cuisines and ingredients ever since man started exploring and travelling with every nationality … Continue reading
Bringing up the Boomers
Baby Boomers have been the driving force behind just about every fad for the last 60 years, influencing everything from toys to fashion to music and especially food fads. From the time they (we!) could walk we were at the fore front of the “brave new world” or so we would like to believe. The … Continue reading
Home Alone – The naked home cook
In my sometimes solitary life style as globetrotting hotelier I more often than not find myself in the position of dining alone. As I have previously discussed in an earlier blog: https://culinarygypsy.com/2011/02/11/raising-the-bar-or-the-hitchhikers-guide-to-eating-alone-at-the-bar/ Not always does one feel like dining alone in a restaurant and indeed I find my end of day habit of cooking for … Continue reading
The politics of gastronomy – How food shapes our culture and us
“Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are,”wrote renowned gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825. Obviously we have to eat or we would die of starvation but there is more to it than that. We love to eat; eating makes us feel good; certain foods actually secrete enzymes that stimulate our … Continue reading
culinarygypsy 