Food, Glorious Food!

"Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with total abandon, or not at all." - Van Horne

Food, or rather entertaining with good food, has always played a big part in my life. From childhood memories to great joy in my adult life. Cooking for me is not a job, it is a passion I love to share with everyone close to me. I love entertaining guests, not just for experimenting with new ideas and recipes, but the feeling of togetherness, comfort, celebration of life and sharing stories with loved ones around a very loud table, with a good glass of wine in hand. Life is so endlessly delicious!

If you like to read my Food related blogs, follow this link to see the selection!

Health Snacks Deluxe!

One of the most thrilling experiences for me is to create something, whether it is trouble or a painting, I like to think it is unique to me. Today I discovered a new thrill: creating my own unique tested recipe!

I never use recipes as they appear in a recipe book - EVER! I never consider the new concoction "my" recipe, as it is a combination of one or two recipes as well as my own spin on it. Today however - after two weeks of scouring the Internet for oats cookie recipes with no avail - I formulated my very own recipe! And it worked! And it had real measurements that I can actually replicate! Usually I just throw a few ingredients together, never to be repeated or remembered. That is easy when you cook, but when you bake, it is a little more scientific and precise than that. Hence the big victory!

A Mad-Hatter Affair

"Tea is quiet, and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty." ~James Norwood Pratt

It is not often that I am more excited than my guests about a party, but this time was different! 

I have not been entertaining for quite a while (since the building disruptions), and was really afraid I lost my mojo. So slightly nervous, I started to plan a High Tea for a few woman at my newly renovated home. 

At first I just had a bunch of cluttered ideas in my head, and then I remembered, as we all read in Alice in Wonderland, that you should just start at the beginning, go on until the end, then stop. 

Christmas Comforts: Music to my ears!

Since I can remember, I have associated Christmas with big family get-togethers, laughter and happiness. And of course there was the food. Lots and lots of food, for days on end (the leftovers are the best!). It was also the one time in the year where everybody pulled out all the stops to prepare delectable dishes, never to be repeated until the next year! 

My mom was quite the virtuoso, so she would always have some new and elaborate concoction. Through the years, the dishes changed with the fashion (like all the innovative tasteless microwave dishes of the seventies, the moulded foods of the eighties and the trio’s of anything during the nineties). 

Food, glorious food!

Our family has a long and delightful history in food making and fine dining. My fondest memories of my grandmothers on both sides, revolves around the dining room table!

My granddad use to make brawn and would always give us slivers of it on toast. Sometimes we would heat it up to become runny, and then eat it as a gravy on toast. When my mother and her twin sister decided to get married, my Grandmother B catered the food for the whole wedding!

A Friendship forged by Food...

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” CS Lewis

My wasband and I were very different people. He loved being the life of the party, pleasing people, meeting new people, in short: he is a people's person. Me on the other hand, not quite so much. In fact, I have on many occasions considered buying an island off the coast of Italy, with only me and an Internet connection of course.