We Have Ways Of Making You Eat
I think that my name is on a list somewhere. Some Italian food mafia list.
And make no mistake, they are out to feed me.
First, Milano’s invite me to come and taste their new Francesco Mazzei range. All of it. Two starters, a pasta dish and three pizzas. In one sitting.
Let me tell you that the word full doesn’t remotely cover it.
Milano's Francesco Mazzei Pizzas:
Calabrese (sweet, chili-hot and sausagey, the crowd favourite), Mia Sofia (a thin-based pizza blanca that is all about the mushrooms) and Rustichella (which, let's face it, people will love for the pancetta)
Then, when I had finished digesting that, they sent their guys around with dough balls and pizza from the new Milano At Home range (eh, don’t mind if I do, grazie mille). Perhaps they’re out to change my spudly ways (after all, with the noble exception of gnocchi, Italians don’t seem to go in much for the whole potatoes thing). Or maybe they wondered if I had opinions to share, which, when it comes to food, I generally do.
Spud Sunday: My First Rösti
The instructions for today’s Spud Sunday can be neatly summarised as follows:
- Open packet.
- Dump contents onto non-stick pan over medium heat.
- Cook until golden on each side.
- Eat.
The contents in question consist mostly of cooked, grated potatoes. The golden-hued result is Swiss rösti. But from a packet? I should explain…
Rösti, packet-style
Don’t Cry For Me
Argentina.
That’s where I was supposed to be today.
Wining, dining and (as it happens) celebrating my birthday.
However, next door in Chile, which was also on the list of places to visit, they have serious earthquake-type things to contend with, so it really was for the best that I steer clear of the region.
Rather than coming over all blue – tempting though that was – I thought that I would, instead, apply the colour green to the situation. St. Patrick’s Day will be upon us very soon and I fully expect the blogosphere to take on an increasingly pronounced Irish accent in the next couple of weeks. So, if you’re food blogging something with Paddy’s Day in mind, why not join me for a little Paddy’s Day Food Parade on the 17th.
Spud Sunday: Taking Up Smokies
When you get an invitation that has lunch at Eden Restaurant as part of the deal, you say yes and then ask questions later.
So it was that I found myself dining stuffing my gob at Eden during the launch by the Temple Bar Cultural Trust of their well-packed 2010 programme of events (which, I am delighted to report, includes the return of the Chocolate Festival, this time making a pre-Christmas appearance in December).
However, before the gob-stuffing got underway, I wondered did my fellow lunchers notice quite how much time I had spent staring at the menu? Or if they had caught the slight trepidation in my voice as I ordered the smokies?
Waking Up To Coffee
Time was when coffee in Dublin meant a mug of milky white coffee at Bewley’s, with nothing either grande or latte about it. Even so, it seemed like a big step up from drinking tea, if only because that’s what you did at home, morning, noon and night.
Then we got all fancy with our imported coffee culture: American styles, Italian names, and the spawning of a whole generation of grande skinny decaf drinkers. (And before I go any further, I should point out that I count myself in this – I have spent years with a takeaway latte cup welded to my hand).
Yes, we fancied, in our Celtic Tiger way, that we now knew about coffee. Who among us was willing to admit that, more often than not, we were drinking what amounted to the emperor’s new decaf?
But it's only coffee, right?
Spud Sunday: Just Add Eggs
Today, please allow me to present the egg-in-a-spud-shell.
I do not know:
(a) why I never thought of doing this before (and I’m clearly not the first person to have had this idea)
(b) why it should have occurred to me today
No matter, really. Better to come late to the egg-and-potato party than not at all.
Egg baked potato, simplicity itself
Just Call Me Jammy
The plan was to stay for no more than an hour.
Four hours and a lot of wine later, I was still there. Oops.
The event was Gilbey’s 2nd Annual Portfolio Tasting in the impressive Guinness Storehouse and I hadn’t expected it to be quite so… big. We’re talking 300-wines-and-a-table-full-of-whiskeys big.
I mean, good grief. What are these people trying to do to me? And at 11 o’clock in the morning, no less. They must know that my camera does not have an angle wide enough for that amount of wine, to say nothing of my palate.
Wine glasses at the ready, deep breath and off we go
Spud Sunday: The Great Aleppo Pepper
Swoon.
I have a brand new Valentine (Mr. Tayto take note).
His name is Aleppo (which, granted, makes him sound like one of the Marx Brothers), he hails from Syria, he’s red hot (well, he’s perhaps not as hot as some, but just hot enough for me) and smells, as best I can describe it, of tobacco.
Hmm. Not sounding so attractive now, is he?
