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
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 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
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
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
“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
Originally posted on culinarygypsy:
Who Criticizes the Critics? It is strange that I never became a restaurant critic since the job does combine two of my favourite pass times: eating and criticizing. Over years of meals cherished or loathed, I too, like most of us, became a self-appointed expert. Likes and dislikes are formed; opinions…
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci In cooking, simplicity is the ultimate sign of perfection but it is also the hardest thing to achieve perfectly. There is a Zen philosophy that states “it is more important to emphasize what there isn’t rather than what there is” When you think of it, the … Continue reading
Usually I cut my fellow culinarians some slack in the way they depict the dishes on their menus. If they feel it is absolutely indispensable to give information about certain ingredients (where the baby octopus on your plate took its first swim) and other key details like the exact time, place and date the potato … Continue reading
I’m proud to say that I have survived the last loony century and integrated nicely into the present one, reaching the 60 year plus yard line, a baby boomer who came of age in the swinging 60’s and early hippie-fied 70’s meaning I’ve seen a lot of idiotic food fads come and go. Remember “Macrobiotic”? … Continue reading
