Hi! Long time?

OK even though I haven't posted since October 08 I'm going to ask you to vote for me anyway! All 3 of you who still check to see if I'm alive. I am, but on sabbatical. I will return shortly with a video of my first catering gig. Should be a hoot.



So go ahead - Submit!

Happy Halloween 08!

Good evening ghosts and goblins of all shapes, sizes and matter! Welcome to the HeadLESS Pepper! Enjoy this pumpkin and fennel soup and sweet potato pie inspired by the Pink Teacup!

Finally!

I know it's been a while, but here's a new video! And little did I know that all the while Foodbuzz did not come out zzudboof or whatever. It was just in my little screen. See me show off my new Foodbuzz apron and rubber spatula!

These are eggs with onions, chili peppers, shredded potatoes, cheese and cilantro baked in the oven for approx 20 minutes at 200c. Enjoy!

Foodbuzz Publisher Community Launches

click on logo for link to site.

For Immediate release (it's always nice to be released). I'm spreading the word here about the Foodbuzz blogger community. As many (all 8 of my readers/viewers) know I'm a featured publisher. So I'm pressing you with the press release:

LAUNCH OF GLOBAL FOODBUZZ BLOGGER COMMUNITY

LEVERAGES REAL-PEOPLE, REAL-TIME POWER OF FOOD PUBLISHING

San Francisco – October 13, 2008: Foodbuzz, Inc., officially inaugurates its food blogger community with more than 1,000 blog partners, a global food blogging event and an online platform that captures the real-people, real-time power of food publishing in every corner of the world. At launch, the Foodbuzz community ranks as one of the top-10 Internet destinations for food and dining (Quantcast), with bloggers based in 45 countries and 863 cities serving up daily food content.

“Food bloggers are at the forefront of reality publishing and the dramatic growth of new media has redefined how food enthusiasts access tasty content,” said Doug Collister, Executive Vice President of Foodbuzz, Inc. “Food bloggers are the new breed of local food experts and at any minute of the day, Foodbuzz is there to help capture the immediacy of their hands-on experiences, be it a memorable restaurant meal, a trip to the farmers market, or a special home-cooked meal.”

Foodbuzz is the only online community with content created exclusively by food bloggers and rated by foodies. The site offers more than 20,000 pieces of new food and dining content weekly, including recipes, photos, blog posts, videos and restaurant reviews. Members decide the “tastiness” of each piece of content by voting and “buzz” the most popular posts to the top of the daily menu of submissions. Foodbuzz currently logs over 13 million monthly page views and over three million monthly unique visitors.

“Our goal is to be the number-one online source of quality food and dining content by promoting the talent, enthusiasm and knowledge of food bloggers around the globe,” said Ben Dehan, founder and CEO of Foodbuzz, Inc.

-2-

The Foodbuzz blogger community is growing at a rate of 40 percent per month driven by strong growth in existing partner blogs and the addition of over 100 new blogs per month. “The Foodbuzz.com Web site is like the stock of a great soup. The Web site provides the base or backbone for bloggers to interact as a community, contribute content, and have that content buzzed by their peers,” said Mr. Dehan.

Global Blogging Event

Demonstrating the talent and scope of the Foodbuzz community, 24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Blogs offered online food enthusiasts an international, virtual street festival of food and diversity. The new feature showcased blog posts from 24 Foodbuzz partner bloggers chronicling events occurring around the globe during a 24 hour period and included:

* Mid-Autumn Festival Banquest (New York, NY)
* The "Found on Foodbuzz" 24-Item Tasting Menu (San Francisco, CA)
* Aussie BBQ Bonanza – Celebrating Diversity (Sydney, Australia)
* The Four Corners of Carolina BBQ Road Trip (Charleston, SC)
* Criminal Tastes – An Illegal Supper (Crested Butte, CO)
* From Matambre to Empanadas: An Argentine Dinner (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
* A Sweet Trompe l’oeil (Seattle, WA)


“24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Blogs” captures the quality and unique local perspective of our food bloggers and shared it with the world,” said Ryan Stern, Director of the Foodbuzz Publisher Community. “It illustrates exactly what the future of food publishing is all about – real food, experienced by real people, shared real-time.”

About Foodbuzz, Inc.

Based in San Francisco, Foodbuzz, Inc., launched its beta Web site, foodbuzz.com, in 2007. In less than a year, Fooduzz.com and its community of over 1,000 exclusive partner food blogs have grown into an extended online property that reaches more than three million users.

Inspired by Hainan Chicken...

...or more specifically Mark Bittman's Hainan chicken.

One of the first jobs I ever had was in the kitchen at Hunan Gourmet on Long Island. The job lasted a few long hours and after my shift was through so was I. I was a dishwasher. I got yelled at repeatedly, but so did the guys who were not as slow as molasses like me. "Fuck you fuck clean dish fucking fuck...aaaAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHOOOLLLEEE...you fuuuUUUUUCCKKKK..." and so it went. For 13 hours from the time I arrived until the time I left. I knew from that day that the kitchen of a restaurant was not for me.

I did, however land a couple of more jobs in kitchens both busing and waiting tables. I've always been awful, but the real stress for me was always in the kitchen. The real insanity. The dark, desperate feeling of never being fast enough (describes most jobs I've had of any physical or menial nature as well) or alert enough. Even a recent bartending stint has proven to be overwhelming at times. There's a point somewhere between lax, fun and lost.

In the case of the bar there's the delay of thought that has to go into every movement combined with slurred speech of a sometimes difficult dialect of a language I should be much more proficient in. But now I've strayed so far from the focus of this post that I don't even know if I'll make it back to Hainan. Or perhaps I'm avoiding the topic because I know a secret. Shhh. I have no idea what I'm doing. I never even heard of Hainan before today, but the dish intrigued me so much that I had to allow myself to become curious and inspired. Plus the fact that I've done something like this before to an extent, which excites me.

I will not call this Hainanese chicken. I will merely call it chicken and rice inspired by the above mentioned dish. Mine used dark meat chicken parts, boiled and set aside. The rice (jasmine) proceeded to an oiled pan and came to a crackle. Then the fatty water from the chicken went over the rice to cook. Here's the fun part and the main variation i made do with - the sauce!

I had to substitute and add a bit to make it my own and to compensate for what I lacked. I was missing fresh ginger and peanut/sesame oil. I chopped garlic, red onion and Chinese chili peppers and placed them in a bowl. Squeezed fresh lime juice and orange juice, salt and sugar over that stuff. I crushed peanuts and pumpkin seeds in the old granite M&P (OK it's not that old) and put the pulverized, seedy seeds and legumes into the bowl as well. Then I poured sizzling hot sunflower oil over the stuff in the bowl. Holy spicy dipping sauces!!!! Amazing!

I think the fresh citrus, especially the juice from the orange really helped to cut into the oily nature of the dish. For that purpose I also threw in some slightly wilted kale for a clean balance. Yes Laura...I found curly kale here in Ribe. A new 'mom and pop' opened in town and they sell flowers and amazing produce. Check this out...

Anyway I appreciate the fact that it's just me in the kitchen and nobody is yelling at me, rushing me or threatening me with cleavers. And you know what? I've gotten really fast! I guess it's in my nature to be laid back. With cooking, creating, living, etc. I guess now I just need to figure out how to make a living going at my own pace. Maybe I'll ask Mr. Kale or Mr. Seed.

Hi again!

I know I know. I fell off the map here for a week or two. It happens. In this post I'm just going to recap the last few dishes.

Not in any order...

I recently found Spanish Recipes after searching around for some reference for preparing snails other than drowning them in garlic and butter. I don't think I followed a recipe, but I allowed my subconscious to pick up on some ingredients. I do this because I find it more enjoyable to create by instinct rather than follow a recipe. Unless I'm baking something I try and rely on my taste memory and break down ingredients in my head based on what I think I've tasted before and what I think would taste good together. Along with the snails I have gazpacho above and some rice.

To tell you the truth I really am not sure of what I did here as it was spontaneous, it was last week and I am too disorganized to have written anything down. I believe it involved garlic, olive oil, saffron, fennel seed, chili pepper and fresh tomatoes.

The gazpacho just contained roasted garlic, cucumber, red pepper, red onion, tomatoes, olive oil and some hard bread.

Here we have pan-seared red fish with brown rice and a little onion, tomato and basil in a vinaigrette. Chopped red Chinese peppers sprinkled onto the rice - delicious.

Mmm red fish!

This was interesting. I call it laksagna (laks is Danish for salmon). It was really quite spectacular, light and fresh tasting. I par-boiled the lasagna plates and made a simple mornay sauce. Fresh tomatoes and red onion. It got layered in a casserole and baked in the oven until the fish cooked through.


How about an apple break from mor mor's apple tree!

Next we have some flour tortillas above.

And here we have some goodies including my guacamole made in the mortar and pestle and 2 kinds of salsa, one mild and one spicy.

And finally pizza mortadella with fresh basil, mortadella ham (of course), mozzarela, garlic and onions and my fresh and beautiful pizza crust!

I apologize for not including detailed recipes on my posts, but that's really not what this is about. It's about sharing inspiration and my passion for home cooking and if your lucky (or unlucky depending on how you see it) you get a story or two. I mention ingredients that I use on some of the dishes so that, combined with the pictures will hopefully give you ideas.

Enjoy!

Aioli and potaotes

It's been a while since I've used the mortar and pestle. I've been thinking about Spain quite a lot lately. I'm craving contrast to my current environment. Maybe it's the rain. Maybe it's my personality. Perhaps it's because I'm a Gemini. Whatever.

Above I'm slow roasting potatoes in the pan with some onions and garlic. I like em this way because they come out nice and meaty. The pan it slightly oiled.

I take the garlic out of the pan after a bit, depending on how strong you want the mayonnaise. I'm feeding kids here so I need to roast them a bit. I throw em in the mortar and pestle with some lemon, sea salt, and olive oil and I crush around. I throw in an egg yolk, a dash of mustard and continue grinding and melding until it's a bit thick.

There we go. Dash of paprika on the potatoes. Nice aioli and potatoes. Salud!