PhD level cooking

The Bourdain recently did a show about learning how to make the simplest stuff-- roast chicken, omelet, spaghetti with tomato sauce-- and asked renowned chefs like Thomas Keller to give lessons.

The "simplest" things are actually the most difficult to do well. Like making hardboiled eggs. Usually people will say that someone is so bad at cooking that all he can do is boil an egg. But doing it properly-- i.e., the yolk and white are hardboiled, but there is no trace of grey on the outside of the yolk-- requires tremendous precision.

Truly PhD level stuff. In which case I'm stuck repeating 5th grade.

Rest in Peace, Floyd

Just learned that Keith Floyd, one of tv's most beloved chefs, has died. Of all the tv chefs I regularly watch, Floyd was the most infectiously passionate about food (Jamie Oliver and Kylie Kwong come close). He was always genuine and unrestrained, as if his shows knew neither script nor outtake-- in one episode he absent-mindedly cooked a plastic bottlecap for about five minutes before he took it out.

I started to watch him when I was in undergrad, and on days I have to cook my own lunch I'll try out (i.e., bastardise) his recipes. My first forays into cooking foreign food-- Indian and African food-- was inspired by Floyd. And most of what I know (or pretend to know) about French wines was courtesy of the Floyd on France series, where he didn't really care for the practice of spitting out wine during tasting.

If there was anything Floyd was more passionate about than food, it would be alcohol. Rare is his show where he does not take a big swig of wine or beer. Alcohol will always find its way in the recipe, although not being on the ingredient list is no reason for alcohol to disappear. The only episodes where alcohol was absent was when he visited the more conservative Muslim countries where alcohol is banned, and in those episodes he harped about wanting to take a swig.

With all his rich foods and pints of alcohol, I guess it was just about time before the inevitable happened. Rest in peace, Floyd. Hope they have Bourdeaux, Riesling, and Guinness over there.

Ferrero and Fraud

This is one tough case to crack: Ferrero accused in hazelnut fraud.  Ferrero SpA is the company that makes Ferrero Rocher, Nutella, and tic tacs.  In a nutshell, if the banks' lawyers are to be believed, it is a 22.8-million-euro shell game perpetrated by Turkish hazelnut companies with Ferrero's consent.  Ferrero denies the charge, saying it had nothing to gain from the Turkish companies' actions.  And this, of course, results in a big, er, Nutella-load of lawsuits and legal fees.

the Bourdain in the Philippines

Yes, that's right, the Bourdain is (or was) in the Philippines.  According to the Bourdain's blog, he arrived around two weeks ago (his latest post as of this writing).  Marketman, whose food blog is practically an institution, played host to the Bourdain in Cebu-- read what happened here.  Seeing that he has at least four posts about "the event", Marketman is understandably starstruck.  Heck, I'm vicariously starstruck.

Oh well, I'll just have to wait for when they show it on cable.

Manila, log off

Arrived in Manila three days ago. I started this habit of "logging off" my travelogue upon my return when I went to Central Asia last April, mainly because I was actually blogging while I was on travel. On this trip, however, I logged a measly five posts (two not about travel) in the three weeks I was in SFO. But I'll still log off, even if the bulk of my entries for my SFO trip will be written after I've logged off. Oh well.

Like my work, I have a backlog of stuff to blog about, mostly about food (which is why I'm logging off here and not in the other blog). Stuff include Red Robin, my brother-in-law's steak dinner, Noche Buena, Chinese-style fried flounder, and 25-year-old port wine. Maybe I'll get to writing about them next week, when my boss is gone (hehehe).

Anyway, for now here's a few stuff I found over at BBC:

Wine and snottiness

Playing with food

One man's cooking...

... is another man's biological weapon: Burning chilli sparks terror fear (from BBC)

My friend dr.sbdink, who is currently living in Singapore, says that tenants over there are not allowed to cook. I think this is a rational policy, and very vital for a smooth lesee-lessor relationship. Even if Singaporean cuisine has its share of stinky pastes and sauces, they're their stinky pastes and sauces.

Speaking of stinky food, dr.sbdink tells me of this food in Singapore called otak-otak. According to the interweb, the dish is from Indonesia but Malaysia and Singapore have their versions. It's basically fish paste placed in banana leaves and grilled over charcoal or baked in an oven. I found a recipe here. It can be eaten on its own or as a side dish or as a viand with rice. Dr.sbdink has tried it and, well, didn't really like it. I'm going to Kuala Lumpur next week-- hopefully I'll find this dish so I can give my own review.

As for the name, otak-otak perplexes me. I know that otak means brain in Bahasa, so what does otak-otak mean? Well, based on the pics I've seen, the greyish brown fish paste does look a little like brains. It wouldn't surprise me if that's the etymology of the dish's name-- in the Philippines we have even weirder names for food. E.g., kulangot (literally booger), which is a sweet concoction of coconut and sugar placed in small coconut shells-- the shells are the nostrils and, well, you get the picture. And then there's pan de regla (literally menstruation bread), which is bread with red jam and some butter. Go figure.

UK shops to lose famous soup can

(From BBC)



The Campbell's Condensed Soup tin, made famous by pop artist Andy Warhol, has been canned by new owner Premier Foods. Read more.