Pity and Awe, Cooking with Massimo & Friends Part 5

Bread is Gold: Extraordinary Meals with Ordinary Ingredients

When a Cookbook calls you to contemplate more than just the food..........

Lets see what happens, 400 pages and approximately 170 recipes to discover

Somewhere between fourteen ripe pumpkins and a twenty five kilo bag of unbleached bread flour I am still cooking.  Slow and steady wins the race they say.  Not that it is a race, far from it.  After a few dishes went south, like my apple ice-cream that separated in the ice-cream churn and my paella that took a whole evening to get right (I mean the rice cooked) I am happy if I make it to a eighty recipes.  

After much meditating upon it makes sense to aim for one hundred.  Although it’s not really the count that matters at the end of the day.  I don't want to waste food, that’s the whole point.  Gnawing away has been a feeling that it doesn't make sense to just cook for the sake of adding up recipes.

www.foodforsoul.it

What really moves me is spending time sharing and creating food that teaches me a new way to be in the kitchen.  I really like thinking about a recipe for a day or two.  Today I was offered some grapefruit from a homegrown garden, yes I will make the Fennel and Grapefruit Salad with the Anchovy dressing.  Great I can’t wait.  That’s what its all about.  I am with Gwyneth (Paltrow) anchovies on anything.  It’s a shame my kids don’t eat them, but maybe in time they might.  (I love G.P’s cookbooks too)  So this is the heart of the kitchen, the coming and the going, and the turning up again to do it all over again.

Read:  Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World by Jeff Gordinier

Right now I am listening to a book on Rene Redzepi.  I like listening and reading to stories about people who are right out there making things happen.  Obviously you have to be a little dedicated to become a restaurant and a Chef that has the ability to become the worlds best.  There are a lot of restaurants out there, the title has some prestige.  Beyond that, I just like seeing how visionaries work, how they keep going.  They don't settle they don't plateau.  They keep moving forward no matter what gets thrown there way.

And I like what the author says about watching his friend and leader in the game Rene he suggests, he looks at him with “pity and awe”.  I laughed knowing the feeling well.  We all have those moments, somewhere between lost and found.  Somewhere between yes and no.  Somewhere between wrong and right.  Somewhere in the vast void where ideas become known, between the wanting and the yearning there is a place, and that is where I will be. 

Continued Recipes from Bread Is Gold:  

30.  Carrot Puree, Poached Egg, and Puffed Millet. 202

Food and the cooking of food has a way to calm any anxieties about life. Pureeing a carrot or two does not take much effort nor does poaching an egg. Although the funny thing is I have not exactly poached an egg before. I have eaten plenty but never swirled the water with a splash of vinegar to hold it together. I made this recipe for lunch and garnished it with a fresh geranium leaf which was delicate and beautiful to look at and the millet was replaced by quinoa which worked a treat.

31.  Pasta with Popcorn Pesto  P. 38

Popcorn has a way of turning up and these recipes (a.k.a ordinary ingredients) as a quick and cheap option for crunch and possibility.  I like that.  I tried this and enjoyed a fine pasta lunch full of verdant flavours.  It was definitely green to say the least and made me feel like I had eaten something really wholesome.  This recipe was quick and tasty and I didn't even add parmigiana for extra kick.  The oily pine nuts which I chose to toast instead of pulse was the perfect addition to a fine meal. 

32.  Olive Oil Cake, Citrus Jam, White Chocolate, and Olive Oil Jelly  P.  401

For some reason I completely forgot about making the olive oil jelly although maybe that was a little intuition working its magic there.  The olive oil cake was simple and delicious, the jam a sour and worthy sidekick to white chocolate  covered in cornflakes and white chocolate mouse taking out the honour of best dressed.  I liked the idea of cornflakes covered in white chocolate until I thought about it a bit later and worried about the salt and possible nasty things that happen in these kind of cereals, however the kids nor husband certainly did not mind.  All white mousse leftovers were devoured immediately the next day, that indeed is always a good sign......

33. Paella with crispy noodles  P. 400

When shopping at the fruit market I had a fine time shopping for exotic ingredients like dried porcini mushrooms (above) and Italian wines that I can find in the delicatessen at the Fyshwick markets.  Beautiful coloured capsicum, red yellow and green landed in the basket next door at the fruit market.  I was very happy to add this recipe to my weekly shop.  It was a full flavoured dish that didn't set as well as my other paellas in the past.  I think perhaps there was already too much in the pan so the rice didn't quite sink to the bottom of the pan to make that yummy, crunchy element that is part of a well cooked paella.  Although full of dense warming flavours this rice dish was a welcome winter cook this past week.

34.  Chocolate and Pear Cake with Yogurt Ice-cream and Popcorn  P. 212

This turned out okay, I didn't quite make the grade with my caramelised popcorn, not sure why, but I gave it a shot.  The cake was super yum and the yoghurt ice-cream a tart and ready possibility although something with a hint of vanilla would have been better.

35.  Fennel & Grapefruit Salad with Anchovy Sauce  P.  352

Oh my I am still licking the plate after just making this beautiful plate of seasonal delights.  The grapefruit from a neighbour, new fennel in season and anything with an anchovy sauce is a win if you ask me.  The fennel bulb poached in the juice of the pink grapefruit marries the citrus notes of sour oranges, this lunch was par excellence.

36.   Sourdough Starter......second attempt......P 88

I don't go down without a good fight, but it’s over for now.  Two times, could have been the weather, too hot, too cold.  Could have been the water where I live, filtered, yet still ‘hard’ water from a bore....  Could have been the flour, although I did attempt it with a good quality bread flour twice.  All I know is making sourdough starter is for the gifted and the very particular art of making sourdough takes a very special and significant ingredient - time.  Certainly I tried, ten days in the end but my sort of abilities do not seem to synchronous with whatever special circumstances this type of bread making needs.  But I can make a killer focaccia that I do know......

See Podcast #16 Bringing Italy Home @ A Writer in Italy Podcast for favourite Italian inspired books.  I wax a little lyrical about it there..... Note:  Skye Mc Alpine’s Cookbook has the best focaccia I have ever made.  

It is pretty much a no knead sort of thing but I do suggest using the best bread flour.  I have used both types, no name and the real thing.  The real thing definitely wins and doesn't even cost that much at the end of the day when you do the math...

37.   Rice Pudding with Apple-Honey Ice-cream  P.  240

Sadly after the ice-cream ingredients found there way into the ice cream churn it some time later decided to separate.  It looked creamy before hand and tasted quite lovely and light of apples, the honey added a subtle sweetness to the mix.  But sadly I have not remade it as looks terrible in the freezer even though I froze it anyway, like curd.  The apples may have really gone beyond there use by date for this one........and that was before I oven roasted them.

Until next time happy cooking to you and to me,
mj xo