https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX7kwfE3cJQ Home cooking is extremely important for health and it can change your life. This is the message Michael Pollan gives in the above lecture as he is presents the book Cooked: A natural history of transformation launched earlier this year. We have linked to this video in our weekly reads but felt that the message was so important that it would be good to summarise it for people who might not have 20 minutes to watch it. He speaks about fast food companies and notes that when you let fast food companies cook your food, you end up with vast monocultures of soya, corn and animals. The reason for this is that fast food companies and food processors push to drive the costs down relentlessly by forcing economies of scale and efficiency. Pollan gives the experience of Mcdonalds and their french fries. He says that they use a potato which is unusually long and difficult to grow. If it has blemishes they will not buy it. This forces farmers … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2014
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #12
This week's theme is about healthy eating and the importance of teaching people how to cook. We have come across many different interesting articles about this theme and in particular the problems related to fast food and processed food. Most of the readers of Food and Wine Gazette may be familiar with many of these issues but we always find some interesting points which we might have missed elsewhere or which help to raise awareness. Our first read of the week is a Tedx Talk on Why the farm is not getting to the table. It is an interesting article by Leah on what is considered to be the food movement's last mile problem - cooking. It is a skill that we are losing and it is the skill that actually connects the farm to our tables. If you look at the numbers it is pretty scary. In 1900, 2 per cent of meals were eaten outside the home. In 2010, 50 per cent were eaten away from home and one in five breakfasts is from McDonald's. 20 per cent of all American meals are eaten in the car. … [Read more...]
Sharing a cow: the new way to buy meat in Belgium and the Netherlands
There is a new way of buying meat in Belgium and this is called crowd butchering. Introduced in May, the inventor of 'crowd butchering' is a pilot David De Keyser who launched the website Deeleenkoe.be or Share a Cow. The concept is pretty simple. You commit to buy 10 kilograms of meat from a cow (or pig as there is also a site for selling pork) at 132.95 euros. For this you will get approximately 10 kilogrammes of beef including roast, rump steak, entrecôte, beef for a stew, hamburgers, mince, and shoulder steaks among others, all in packs of one kilo each. The cow will only be slaughtered once the whole cow is sold. The size of a cow varies but it generally weighs around 700 kilos which means that there is about 450 kilos of meat. The parts which are sold separately are the offal and the fillet because there is not enough for around 35 customers who purchase the cow. Although this might sound like a new concept, this in itiative has ancient roots because it was a practice … [Read more...]
Michelin star storm hits Brussels – but is it much ado about nothing?
The Michelin guide revealed its results for Belgium and Luxembourg last Monday and in the process created a storm of controversy in the Belgian media and social media. The controversy centres around the move of chef Alexandre Dionisio from his own restaurant Alexandre (now closed) to La Villa in the Sky which opened earlier this month. When Michelin announced the results for Brussels they mentioned that new restaurants had earned a one Michelin star, Le Monde est Petit, Le Pigeon Noir and Da Mimmo. They, however, failed to mention that the restaurant by Alexandre Dionisio called Alexandre (we were there a few months before this website was launched and ate incredibly well, though it has since closed) was no longer in the list and instead the award had moved with Alexandre to La Villa in the Sky. For those who have missed the new Michelin releases, there were new one Michelin star announcements (See all the list here) with no new two and three Michelin star … [Read more...]
Interview with Sang Hoon Degeimbre: Creativity comes from constant questioning and keeping an open mind
It was a crispy autumn morning last week when I visited L’Air du Temps for the second time in just a few weeks. This time I had come to interview Sang-Hoon Degeimbre, the chef of this two Michelin star restaurant in Liernu, around 50 kilometres outside Brussels. I was intrigued by his story, particularly because of the inventiveness of his cuisine and also after having listened to his presentation at Chefs Revolution in Zwolle. How could such an inventive and talented chef be self-taught? What was the driving force behind his creativity? I was also wondering what led Sang-Hoon to open the restaurant in Liernu, when he could have moved his restaurant closer to a main city. But driving to the restaurant, I realised that this question would be redundant because of the beauty of the Wallonian countryside and the purity of the air. “Sometimes when I come here early in the morning I just head to the garden and just look at the sunrise and the countryside and that is really something … [Read more...]
A reader sends us two wine horror stories in restaurants
A few weeks ago we wrote about wine mistakes that are often made in restaurants. This has been one of the most popular posts on the website. A reader, who we know to be an avid wine lover, has sent us two of his wine horror stories which are all the more scary because they happened in two highly reputable restaurants. We know the names of the places in question but we are opting not to mention them because our aim is to raise awareness about these mistakes and to ensure that more attention is given to wine service in restaurants. Do not hesitate to share your stories with us. Story #1 : It was a special occasion and our reader and his wife went to a highly reputed restaurant for lunch. "We had a look at the menu and I had seen that I could have as a starter a "tranche de foie gras cru accompagné d'un verre de Sauternes". The name of the wine figured on the list, but I cannot unfortunately remember exactly which one it was. So, when the sommelier came over to ask … [Read more...]
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #11
Yesterday there was a very interesting conversation between Elizabeth Auerbach of the blog Elizabeth on Food and the World's 50 best list which I intended to write about given it touched many interesting points about lists, bloggers, guides and the importance. Elizabeth asked whether those who vote on the list are allowed to accept invitations from chefs and restaurants for free meals. The answer was yes and the World's Best 50 tried to defend its method. But when the conversation started to get heated up, Elizabeth on Food said "she had just got an email from the World's 50 saying that they don't want to continue the conversation on Twitter #sore subject." There is a good report of the discussion on Eater. While we are on the subject of lists, here is an article about the world's most expensive restaurants. I am sure they may have missed a few. Also from the Daily Meal is a report about a four year old who reviewed a meal at The French Laundry, one of the best restaurants in … [Read more...]
De Vitrine (Gent): Much more than just a bistro
There is something special about going to a restaurant and not having to worry about choosing what to eat. When we went to De Vitrine in Gent last Saturday we sort of knew there was no a la carte menu. Until a few years ago, this would have been a veritable nightmare with my phobia of cheese, but now that this has been overcome, it is to a certain extent a breath of fresh air. It removes the hassle of choosing and when you visit a restaurant which is good and where the choice is extensive, having a menu is to a certain extent limiting because you know that you will be missing something special. So going to De Vitrine, the brain child of Kobe Desramaults of Michelin starred In de Wulf in Dranouter and De Superette (the bakery in Gent) was on our to do list for our weekend in Gent. De Vitrine complements In De Wulf perfectly as Kobe himself told me at Chef Sache in Cologne (read our interview with him next week) because it allows him to apply his nose to tail philosophy by ensuring … [Read more...]
Interview with Eneko Atxa (Azurmendi): Putting the guest at the centre of the experience
Eneko Atxa's restaurant Azurmendi retained its 3 Michelin Stars for 2015 when the new classification for Spain was announced on 19 November. The restaurant, perched on a hillside just outside Bilbao does not need any introduction among food connoisseurs. Ranked 26th in the World’s 50 Best restaurants, it is also the winner of the sustainability award. Eneko, the 37-year-old chef of the restaurant told Food and Wine Gazette, when we interviewed him in Cologne during Chef Sache 2014 last month that the most important honour for him is to finish a service and ensure that his guests are happy. "I always say that we have to fight every day to ensure that our guests are happy. If we achieve this every day for 365 days a year, then we win. This to me is the most important honour. Obviously awards are important because they help us to get more people to the restaurant. We are not obsessed with the awards, but with the guest. For us, satisfaction of each guest is the most important," Eneko … [Read more...]
De Superette (Gent): The bakery with a difference
I still remember the days when I was a child and I used to go with my father to buy bread at a bakery close to our house in Malta. The baker would be visible in the background, all white and covered with flour. At times, it was he who would serve his clients. The oven used to be at the back of the bakery, visible to clients and one could get a whiff of the bread baking in the oven as soon as you turned the corner of the street where the bakery was. Alas these days it is difficult to find a bakery making its own bread. Memories have a great impact on our interaction with food. So a visit to De Superette in Gent last weekend triggered a lot of nostalgia. De Superette is the brainchild of Kobe Desramaults of restaurant In De Wulf, who dreamt up the concept together with Rose Green and Sarah Lemke. It centres around the bakery. The stone oven and the baker's work space are at the heart of De Superette. It is a place where you go to buy bread but it is also one where you … [Read more...]