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Thursday’s Quiz

1) This tree has aromatic, evergreen leaves, and produces a year round crop of a peachlike, but tough dry fruit. When ripe, the fruit splits open revealing a large seed, surrounded by a red lacy network. Both the red fleshy part and the large seed are used to make two different food products. What are these two distinct food products?

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AAF’s Recipe of the Day

The perfect Hollandaise, with tricks! When I posted the asparagus story, all I could think of was a nice dollop of Hollandaise sauce over a nice slab of roasted salmon…

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Green Gifts from the Mediterranean

There’s not much better than steamed asparagus served with a piping hot Hollandaise. As a young lad, I used to know where wild asparagus grew in the nearby woods. Needless to say that my great grandmother and I gathered quite a few for our dinner, simply steamed and served with melted butter with a dash of lemon. I feel that a recipe involving asparagus and the perfect Hollandaise sauce is on the cards!

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Food Irradiation and Vitamin Loss

In 2007, Indian mangoes made their first trip in 18 years to the United States. While the U.S. government hailed the fact that irradiation had been used to kill any pests that might have been living in or on the fruit before its overseas ride, consumers should question how exposing mangoes to high levels of ionizing radiation affects the nutritional quality of the fruit. During storage, for example, irradiated mangoes can lose more than half of their vitamin C. Watch for that misleading green logo, if you see it on fruit or vegetable, don’t buy it.

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Wednesday’s Culinary Quiz

1. This is a type of custard consisting of egg yolks, sugar and cream and flavored with amber or musk. It was popular during the time of Louis XIV. In Le Patissier francais, La Varenne instructs to combine the egg yolks, fresh cream and sugar, a little salt, beat together and cook in a flat dish or deep plate, brown the top with a salamander and then sprinkle with perfumed water and serve with musk-flavored sugar to sweeten.

2. Who said this: “To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.”

3. This Italian dish literally means ‘jump into the mouth’. A Roman specialty, it consists of fine slices of veal fried in butter and then topped with small slices of ham. It is then flavored with sage and gently braised in white wine.

4. What were John Lennon’s favorite foods?
5. How much did a Hong Kong property tycoon spend on an Italian white truffle, the most ever paid for this delicacy?

6. What is the substance found in hops that lends beer its bitter taste and pungent aroma? BONUS: What is the most expensive beer in the world?
7. What did Bill Clinton say he would want his last meal to be if he knew the world was about to end?

AAF’s Recipe of the Day

This is definitively one of my very favorite dish from my neck of the woods, can be eaten either hot or cold. It’s mostly eaten as an appetizer, or it accompanies meat dishes.

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AAF’s Recipe of the Day

The fabled Spanish Potato omelet! Mango is waiting for this one, knife and fork at the ready. You can make it plain, with just the eggs and the potatoes or with roasted red bell peppers. Either way, yum!

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China’s Black Gold

Originated in China and known as Yiang Yong, soy sauce has been a staple in China for thousands of years. When it comes to cooking Chinese food, it is by far the most widely used ingredient. As a result of travel, and broadened trading routes, soy sauce is now widely used in Japan, Korea, and all throughout the Southeast Asian Countries, as well as in the western world.

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The Thyme of my Life

As a kid I used to take long walks with my great grandmother into the surrounding woods which were covered with wild thyme and sariette (a close cousin). I can still remember the scented hills, particularly in the spring, when gazillions of tiny thyme flowers would envelop our neck of the woods with their sweet perfume. We would gather a few bunches, and my great grandmother would make infusions, and lace it with some verbena and lemon balm. You could drink this hot before bedtime or iced cold on a sunny day.

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AAF’s Recipe of the Day

This is for goat cheese lovers, and Floja Roja, who is waiting patiently for this treat. What’s more there’s no cooking involved except the blanching of the bell peppers, the eggplants and the asparagus. With this recipe use what we call the goat loaf, a creamy concoction from France, available in most good delis and supermarkets, as seen below.

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