Truffles: The Mozart of Mushrooms: The truffle has been prized for millennia, lauded by those lucky enough to encounter the rare and capricious jewel. The Roman philosopher and historian Pliny wrote how they were ‘born spontaneously and live without roots, in an aura of mystery’. His fellow Italian, the composer Rossini, called them ‘The Mozart of mushrooms’ 1800 years later, while the English Romantic poet Lord Byron seemingly had one sit on his desk as the unique, musky perfume inspired his creativity.
Rosanna Marziale: the queen of mozzarella: Pasta and pizza are two Italian dishes that many chefs strive to master over decades of their careers. Discovering how to make that perfect crust or knowing just the right amount of pasta water to add to a sauce so it emulsifies to give it the perfect consistency are skills reserved for only the highest level of chefs. But for the Michelin-starred chef Rosanna Marziale, it’s not specific dishes she’s dedicated her life to, but a specific ingredient – Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP.
Click plate: how Instagram is changing the way we eat: I often post pictures of my food online before I have tasted it. I take the photo, adjust the brightness, contrast and saturation, upload it to my social media accounts and rejoice in how amazing it is. Sometimes, when I go on to eat the food in front of me, I don’t even like it. That pretty orange and pistachio thing I made is bitter because the oranges have gone rancid. The photogenic Italian sfogliatella pastry, which I bought more or less entirely to take a photo of, is actually pretty tough. I am left chewing the pastry long after the “likes” have stopped trickling in. The interaction was sweet while it lasted, though.
Spanish Michelin-starred chef draws inspiration from William Shakespeare: ONE of Spain’s top chefs has revealed the inspiration behind his cooking. Head chef at two-Michelin-starred Mugaritz restaurant Andoni Luis Aduriz claims his flair comes not from cookbooks but science and theatre.
The Best Cookbooks for Beginning Cooks: Can you learn to cook simply by asking Google for recipes? Of course you can. You can also teach yourself to fly a plane. (Good luck up there.) I asked some reporters and editors who work in the Food section of The Times to recommend cookbooks appropriate to starter cooks and epicures, volumes that deliver both information and confidence to those of us who want to cook more and cook better.
One of the best restaurants in NYC was just fined £1 million for feeding a guest a piece of wire: French chef-turned-New York City restaurateur Daniel Boulud is being forced to pay a $1.3 million (£1.06 million) fine after a piece of wire wound up in a customer’s order last year, theNew York York Post reported Friday. Back in 2015, a retired lawyer named Barry Brett was eating a £25 plate of coq au vin at Boulud’s Manhattan restaurant, db Bistro Moderne, when the piece of wire made its way into his esophagus.
The war on terroir: IT’S enough to make sommeliers splutter into their spittoons: a wine-blending machine that lets drinkers craft a glass specifically to their personal palate, rather than having to pick a tipple, possibly as a result of guesswork, from the range a restaurant or bar chooses to stock in its cellar. Vinfusion, as the machine in question is called, was launched this week by Cambridge Consultants, a British technology company. In designing it the firm’s researchers first undertook a study of the wines people buy in pubs, bars and restaurants. They found that most customers are stick-in-the-muds. Instead of sampling different regions, grape varieties and vintages, they tend to order the same plonk every time they go out.
Beyond Barolo: Why Piedmont’s Signature Wine Is Just A Fraction Of Its Charm: “We only stock the best labels of Barolo, some Barbaresco, because that’s what the customers want” uttered the diminutive but opinionated sales associate with a huff. I was in Alba, a town tucked into the northwest corner of Italy in the heart of wine country. Finding myself there on a Monday, a notoriously bad day to do any browsing in Europe (along with Sunday), I wandered into a stylish bottle shop, window dressed in telltale monochrome labeled magnums and methuselahs. During the height of Piedmont’s truffle-and-wine seeking tourist season in October, at least the local specialty product vendors remained open and eager to make sales.
How to Eat Your Way Through 24 Perfect Hours in Paris: The goal of a 24-hour eating safari in Paris is, bien sûr, to jump headfirst into the gastronomic delights of the French capital. But don’t treat this roster as an endurance test. Instead, consider it a carousel of pleasure to hop on and off according to your stamina and appetite. But do start the adventure here, because a funky late-night feast at a retro, almost-all-night bistro is the best thing ever to slay jet lag.
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