Is there anything more versatile than tomato soup? From rustic Italian pappa al pomodoro to chilled Spanish gazpacho to supermarket-smooth Campbell’s, there are literally hundreds of different recipes out there. And I love them all (well, most of them). Read more…
On Sunday afternoons, I usually make a soup for lunch. Sometimes it’s with fresh produce that I’ve just bought at the farmer’s market, but more often it’s with leftover stuff from the week. A way to “clear out the old and make way for the new”, if you will. As such, these soups are rarely planned and shopped for, and it’s more a case of finding things that go together, or even finding things that don’t, and forcing them to. Read more…
People are funny about garlic. It seems to be one of those love-it-or-lump-it ingredients, doesn’t it? Standing firmly on the “love” side you have me, my sister, Yotam Ottolenghi, and roughly 60 million Italians (or most of them, anyway). In the haters camp reside many close to me: my best friend, my boyfriend, and my mum. No matter how many cloves of garlic a recipe calls for, Mum will always use one. Sometimes half. Read more…
As you probably know by now (because me and my sister won’t stop harping on about it), our family Christmas plans were cancelled this year. As upsetting as this was at the time, it worked out for the best. Going home to Canada in early January meant that I got to see friends and family that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and we ended up having a semblance of our traditional Christmas morning, anyway. Read more…
I was recently talking (er, emailing) with a friend back home about how November is second-worst month of the year. Top spot of course goes to January, the harbinger of seemingly-endless dreary weather and a depressing post-holiday funk. But November is right up there; the prettiness of early Autumn is gone, the rain is almost constant, and as my friend put it, “each day is colder and darker than the last”. Yup, that about sums it up. Read more…
It seems that I’m a bit of a foul-weather friend to the world of soups. Perusing my recipes page the other day, I realised that I haven’t made a soup, let alone posted one here, in months. The last one I made was this Celeriac and Apple number, way back when in February. It’s not too surprising, since soups are generally thought of as hearty, tummy-warming fare for the cooler months. Read more…
Some flavours just seem to go together, to the point where they’ve become almost married in our minds, and it seems odd to have one without the other. Beetroot and goat’s cheese, butternut squash and sage, basil and tomato, salt and pepper. Ok, that last example might be taking things a bit too far, but you get the picture- sometimes, ingredients just seem made for one another. Read more…
I’m back from a wonderful, if slightly different, Christmas break by the English seaside. Quality time with Andrew’s family, long walks and delicious meals made up my holiday. Actually I’ve been home since Monday, only the vast amount of food I’ve recently consumed, the abundance of restaurants in my neighbourhood and The Matrix trilogy on TV have all been keeping me from posting here. Read more…
It’s been quiet here at Kitchenist for the past week, and for that I apologize. It’s really December’s fault- instead of welcoming me with open arms, she decided to hit me where it hurts: right in my sinuses. Read more…
Some would argue, on reading the title of this post, that these two things are not, in fact, the Perfect Pair. Some might say that too much of a Good Thing is actually Bad, and would possibly even bring up the old adage that Opposites Attract. Read more…