Don’t fret if your passport has expired or if you mislaid it…dust off your computer screen and get your favorite easy chair ready to travel along with us to Panama, Alaska, Turkey, Japan, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria.
This is third and final tour of our Culinary Tour Around the World. The first tour was in 2009. We ‘traveled’ to 13 countries and presented 130 recipes. In 2010 we added 10 more countries and another 95 recipes.
All food bloggers are welcome to participate. It’s a fun way to stretch your cooking skills, enrich your knowledge of other cultures and eat something new. Just slap on your apron. Details follow. Continue Reading
This is one of the vegetable dishes I made for Christmas Day dinner and likening vegetables to gemstones as I’ve done in the past 2 posts, this one presents a jeweler’s showcase of mixed stones…emerald, carnelian, ruby and topaz.
Everyone was surprised (but I think pleased) that on a buffet table of hot dishes, this one was served cold (really room temp). Well, I did call it a salad.
Doesn’t it make a beautiful addition to a holiday table?
In keeping with my ‘vegetables are like gemstones’ theme, brussel sprouts are like emeralds and chestnuts like topaz. Sadly, they are actually much better looking before cooking.
I recall brussel sprouts being a much maligned vegetable when I was growing up; today they seem to be loved by foodies (people actually order them in all the trendy restaurants) and cooks around the world are sure to have them on their holiday tables. I don’t know how that happened, but we’re no different. We like brussel sprouts with holiday dinners, especially those starring Mr. Tom Turkey. Continue Reading
As I’ve said many times and in many ways on this blog, I love color on the plate. It’s the FOODalogue mantra (well, that and finishing touches).
As I set out the dishes I made for our Christmas Day dinner, I realized that vegetables are like gemstones. And we had a treasure chest full: rubies, pearls, carnelian, garnet, emerald and topaz. In fact, they’re more valuable than conventional gemstones because they’re not only beautiful, they’re edible. No wonder I like them so much. 
As mentioned in Part 1 (Christmas Eve), we celebrated Christmas Day in Jim + Julie’s new home.
My son, who many of my readers know, is an excellent cook and a food blogger (albeit sporadic these days). He’s also a very good photographer and, as he keeps reminding me, a great son.
I recently said here that I’m still in awe of being in Florida for the holidays so, along with our family celebration and food (of course), I thought I’d share a few images to illustrate just what that means — starting with this open door and sunlight streaming through the house.
In our family we’ve always celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And, of course, by ‘celebrating’, I mean we get together and we eat!
All 17 and four generations worth of us!
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Do you remember Josefa Souto de Presedo? She was my maternal grandmother who was born in Sada, La Coruña (Galicia), Spain in 1889. I introduced this remarkable lady to you in my escabeche post, September 22, 2009.
One of the culinary traditions she passed on to her daughters, and they to us, was Empanada Gallega, a large pie (usually the size of a cookie sheet or large pizza pan) filled with bacalao (cod fish), fried peppers + onions and flavored with azafrán (saffron) and oregano.
I think she would have liked this sandwich, which is a contemporary take-off on the classic, because she was a ‘thoroughly modern Millie’ who constantly kept herself updated and in tempo with the times.
(An out-of-the-kitchen aside to illustrate her modernity: One day, when she was well into her 80s, I called to say hello and asked the usual “what are you doing?” She told me she was busy sewing (pegging) all her slacks because she saw that “the people on TV were wearing them more narrow”. I nearly fell off my office chair laughing. ) Continue Reading
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