essays

Julia Child passed away yesterday, at the age of 91. Probably most people who are passionate about food and cooking, and spent any time in the U.S. in the last 30 years or so, have felt her influence. I'm no exception - one of my standby cookbooks is her Way to Cook (a perennial recommended book in my sidebar here).

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The appeal of a buffet is rather obvious. It’s that notion of having no limits. No limits, unlimited, all you want—all you can eat. Human beings respond to the notion of no limits very positively.

And yet…about 99% of the buffets I’ve encountered are pretty bad. Food is either dried out horribly (such as chicken, or the surface of sushi rolls), is overcooked (such as…chicken again, or fish), or smothered in an insulating blanket of sauce that effectively chokes out any kind of real flavor.

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maier

People in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states of the U.S. are now experiencing an assault of cicadas, that only occurs once every 17 years or so. No such insect attack here in Switzerland fortunately, but one sort of "bug" we see a lot of around this time are chocolate Maierhäfer, or May (June) bugs. They come in all sizes, from tiny foil-wrapped ones to monster bugs up to around 30cm long with bristling legs, which frankly look way too scary to eat to me.

Filed under:  chocolate essays

There are two types of cooking for me. One is the type you do for sustenance, since we do have to eat every day. The other type of cooking I do for the creativity and the relaxation. Putting together a delicious, pretty, or ideally both delicious and pretty dish is a challenge, and a lot of fun. And that's the type of cooking that I write about mainly here.

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a basket of grapes from our garden last summer

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I had been eyeing an interesting looking recipe in the weekly paper / advertising rag from Coop, one of the two big supermarket chains in Switzerland, for several days. The recipe was for a lentil loaf, with potatoes, leek, dried mushrooms, cheese and cream, held together with eggs. Since I have been on a sort of sort of lentil kick recently, it was something I really wanted to try.

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bananlips.jpg

It hasn't been a good cooking week for me, since I've been very busy. Saturday is my birthday though, and we have been wondering whether or not to go out for dinner, or to cook something (well, for Max to cook something) at home.

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window of a boulanger (bakery) in Beaune, France
The window of a boulanger (bakery) in Beaune, France

Filed under:  essays food travel memories

In case this looks familiar, this is an entry that was originally posted to my main site. Since it's food related it's been moved here.

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Keep reading Fusion, be gone. →

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