The Boy Who Bakes by Edd Kimber
I’ll let you in on a secret. I have a soft spot for Edd Kimber, aka The Boy Who Bakes. Not only is he extremely talkative and honest, he has an incredibly sweet tooth (snap), prefers making cookies to macarons, and on top of all that, he can not only bake but cook too. I was head over heels.
One of the chocolate creations from the book
The ceremony that is the trademark of the great London hotels; the doorman offering you a hand out of your car, the attentive front-of-house staff, usually feels a little antiquated.
Today however, as I step into Claridges to interview not one, but two greats of the culinary world, who have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of perfection in their craft, this ceremony, this carefully prescribed way of living seems entirely appropriate. For today I am meeting Pierre Hermé and Frédéric Bau to talk about their new book, Cooking with Chocolate.
Posted in Books We Love, Sweet, Where We’ve Been
Tagged chocolate, Frédéric Bau, Pierre Hermé
Seasonal Pickled Figs
On a recent trip to the US, my mother bought me the new cookbook from Andrea Reusing, the James Beard Award winning chef and founder of Lantern in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It’s one of those cookbooks that makes you want to move to a small town, be best friends with the author and taste every recipe. The only realistic option for me of course was to try the recipes.
I tend to be drawn to recipes for side dishes or condiments, never the big, bold main course. Who knows why, but in the case of ‘Cooking in the Moment’, I gravitated to Andrea’s sections on salt marinating and pickling. These are surprisingly simple, brilliant summer cooking techniques. The results will add sharpness of flavour and texture – the perfect finishing touch – to any picnic or barbecue.
Posted in Books We Love, Recipes
Tagged bethany childs, books, pickles, recipes, summer
Professional wrestlers tend to fall into two categories: the superiorly sculpted and the fearsomely fat. Either way, theirs is a demanding physical pursuit requiring a high calorie diet. If successful, these muscled celebs stand to make a lot of money to beef up on especially yummy food. And – if they play their cards right – they can also build a stolid base of extremely dedicated fans.
One American professional wrestler looking to cash in on her (yes, we’re talking about a female wrestler here) fame and branch out from the ring and into the kitchen is Tammy Sytch (aka the “Original Diva” … aka “Sunny” when she’s fighting in the ring) of the World Wrestling Entertainment. Having conquered the bright lights of the arena, it’s now Tammy’s dream to publish a cookbook featuring recipes and “stories from the road”. To pay for her project, tentatively titled Out of the Ring, Into the Kitchen: Cooking with Wrestling’s Original Diva, Tammy’s taking her fans to the ropes with a bit of crowdsourced fund raising.
There’s plenty of incentive for folks to donate to the worthy cause of Tammy’s passion for cooking. First off (and undoubtedly of utmost importance), should the book make it to press it will be the first cookbook to be published with the help of actual wresting fans. Such fans could receive snazzy swag along the lines of a personalized 8×10 glossy of the Original Diva, a signed copy of the book or even have their names listed in the book’s Thank You section.
Interested? Intrigued? Merely want to gawk? Visit this link for details.
By Chris Osburn
As we head towards another festive season, many things are certain. We know we will go shopping, and the hours will turn into days as our charming red and white plastic bags are slowly filled with satsumas, chefs’ aprons, DVDs, bath salts, warm scarves, 2011 diaries and very readable crime novels.
We know we will hear the music of Nat King Cole, Slade and Cliff Richard around 600 times per day, pootling from every device into which is built even the most basic audio speaker. And we know we will eat chocolate, endless amounts of the stuff, and we will come to see it as a kind of substitute for tap water.
But what makes all these things more tiring than they ought is the endless backdrop of work drinks, Christmas parties, mulled wine get-togethers, book club wine tastings – seemingly every single night for a month spent drinking more than we should. It makes us weary and cynical and the high streets hard work.
Milton Crawford has recently written a book that is surely the first of its kind. The name says it all – The Hungover Cookbook – and it would be an ideal stocking filler, were it not for the fact that we need it NOW. Based around the six categories of hangover identified by Jeeves and Wooster author P.G. Wodehouse, it is a “self help manual that helps the morning after drinker identify the nature of his/her hangover and tailor the treatment accordingly”.
This includes classics such as the perfect bacon sarnie (“you should not adulterate a bacon sandwich with lettuce, tomato or mayonnaise”) and far more adventurous options like a truly marvellous knickerbocker glory with refresher sweets. Not only that, it includes a selection of questionnaires and tests to help identify exactly what kind of hangover you are suffering from and thus the best route to recovery. The only danger is getting so carried away with the perfect hangover cure that you forget about Aunt Millicent’s new duvet cover.
By M. Cosworth
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Diva Month