winosandfoodies

It's Christmas

Well I'm home now. Thank you to everyone for your prayers, positive thoughts and good wishes. If a stay in hospital can ever be considered good, mine was. Excellent medical and nursing  staff - even the food was good. My children are convinced my surgeon was Eugene Levy. Fortunately his sidekick was nothing like Steve Martin!

I'll be resting up for a while now before I'm back into the swing of things.   Please support the   Three  Wise  men Women  and the food blogging community who have put together a wonderful fund raising initiative for the victims of the Indian and Pakistani earthquake.

Holiday Reading

Holiday Hospital Reading

Bring some reading material Jonathon  said.  This little stack should get me through 7 days in hospital .  While everyone else is out Christmas shopping and partying I will be undergoing life saving surgery on 14th December.  Last night we gathered a group of friends together and picnicked with wonderful food and wine at our local Carols by Candlelight. You must try my latest sandwich filling - softened blue cheese with chopped candied walnuts.  Sensational.

The good news is I'll be home for Christmas, the liver regenerates and I can still drink wine, and combined with further chemo my future outlook is positive.

These are the books I've chosen and why.
1.    God Calling. A collection of daily meditations given to me by my good friend Elaine.
2.    Lonely Planet World Food - France. I can dip into this book and decide on my next foodie discovery when I visit France again.
3.    The Passionate Epicure (Marcel Rouff). I love old literature from France and Proust was too heavy to pack.
4.    Pilgrims Guide to the Roads through France to Santiago de Compostela (Alison Raju). This is the route I planned on walking in 2006 which will happen a bit later now, but will happen.
5.    You Can Conquer Cancer (Ian Gawler) An inspirational book about surviving cancer.
6.    The Olive Season (Carol Drinkwater)  A light read for when I need to chill out.
7.    The Troubadour's Testament (James Cowan) A more challenging read.
8.    Prospero's Cell (Laurence Durrell) This man knew how to write. Every sentence is stunningly beautiful.
9.    Long Ago in France (MFK Fisher) My favourite food writer.
10.    The Pedant in the Kitchen (Julian Barnes) To dip into and reread favourite essays.
11.    Buddhism for Busy People (David Michie) David is my cousin in law , meditation mentor and one of my all time favourite people.
12.   The Cheese Room (Patricia Michelson) I restricted myself to one cookery book and this was a book I bought on a special outing in Sydney with Madame Shawshank. It will remind me there will be more  good days to look forward to with foodie friends.

 

 

Christmas Gifts for Winelovers

If I didn't already have a  set of Riedel  tasting  glasses it is what I would want for Christmas.  Last year I  was lucky enough to attend a Riedel  wine tasting when a member of the Riedel family was on a visit to their  New Zealand distributor . 

Four wines were presented for tasting.  Each wine was poured into three glasses  - a regulation wine tasting glass, another wine glass and finally the glass designed for that particular wine.  The differences in taste were markedly different.  I'm not a big  fan of chardonnay, but in the correct glass I could drink it without pulling a face.

Check out the Distributor's page  of the website for your local supplier.  If you are really lucky you might even find a tasting session in your city.  This would be a great gift for a loved one with an interest in wine.  The four glass tasting session is ideal for anyone wanting to learn  more about wine.

Pitta Perfect

If you only ever eat commercially prepared breads you are missing out on  the real taste of bread.  I don't think I'll ever buy Pitta Bread again after tasting the home made variety.  The recipe  made such a pile I won't need to buy any for a few months. I can just go to the freezer and bring out a couple when I need them.

Using a recipe from another of my $1 finds at the local Charity shop.  This time it is the The Good Cook -  Breads, another Time Life series printed in 1980.  Inscribed With all our love for your Birthday June  - from Terry  Brenda, Adam, James and Jane - 1981.   With every page  spotlessly clean, June was either a very tidy cook or she never used the book.  I found making Pitta quite a messy business.

Although I used the recipe as printed I needed to add much more flour as the dough was to wet.  Oops I just noticed I misread the recipe and used 1.5 lb of flour when it clearly reads 1.5kg. I obviously added the correct amount as the end result was outstanding.  Even if I do say so myself.

Basic Bread Dough
1.5 kg strong plain flour (3lb)
1 tablespoon dried yeast (10z)
1 tablespoon salt
90 cl tepid water (1 1/2 pints)
2 tablespoons oil

Sift flour and salt into a bowl.
Mix yeast with water, leave to soften for about 15 minutes.
Add to flour with 2 tablespoons oil.
Mix to a stiff dough.
Knead until elastic and glossy (about 15 minutes)
Shape dough into a ball, place in oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm  and leave to rise until doubled in bulk.
Punch down , knead into a ball and leave to rest another 10 - 15 minutes.
Pull off lumps of dough, shape into a ball, flatten and place on a floured tea towel.
Rest for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 230C (450F)
Heat oven trays for 10 minutes in hot oven.
Place baking paper on tray and put Pitta rounds onto hot trays.
After about 10 minutes - when the breads have puffed up - remove them from the oven. If you want a crisper texture bake a further 5 - 10 minutes.
Serve warm.

Pavlova

Despite living in New Zealand, the home of the Pav, I never make them. I did make one once and it didn't look great so I never bothered again.  The argument  over who made the first Pavlova has raged for years between New Zealand and Australia.  I'm of the school it originates in New Zealand.  Growing up in Australia I don't remember my mother ever making one, or my grandmother or any number of aunts or friends of my Mother, Grandmother or Aunt.

What to do with 6 leftover egg whites from My Panettone  - make meringues. Which I did and I still had heaps of mixture over so I made a Pavlova .  Crunchy and sweet on the outside, soft at the heart,   smooth whipped cream on top and some slightly tart kiwifruit to add another dimension. Perfection? Well almost - it is supposed to be as white as snow and mine is a rather pretty shade of beige. Something to do with the oven being too hot I think.

New New Zealand Blogs

Meet my new friends. Celine at Giant Squid Attack   and Mary at La Tavola .  Celine is from France, living in New Zealand and blogging in French, with plans to blog in English soon. Mary lives in the South Island of New Zealand where she is studying cheese. When she writes about wine you want to rush out and buy a bottle.  Drop by and visit them and say Hi or Bonjour.

And from a New Zealander living in Australia there is Dave at Vinosense  who gives us news and his views  on the wine industry.

My Panettone

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.
Today I made Panettone.  I needed something to occupy my thoughts this weekend.  It appears I'm not quite as free of my cancer as I thought I was.  My latest scan showed a problem which will require surgery and another dose of chemo.   Doing a bit of baking seemed like a good thing to do today.  I've often thought about making Panettone for Christmas as we usually have a commercially prepared one on Christmas morning while we open our presents.  Tonight we plan to decorate our tree and this will go with some nice bubbles when we sit back and admire the lights.

If you like the commercial brands that appear in the shops at this time each year you will love home made Panettone.  This bread was originally called pan de tonio , Tony's bread. Tony was a 15th century baker in Milan with a beautiful daughter Adalgisa.  A wealthy young man, Ughetto della Tela, wanted to marry her, but suspected his family would not be pleased he was marrying the daughter of a commoner. Ughetto invested in Tony's bakery and provided him with the money to buy the finest flour, eggs and butter to make the traditional Yule cake.  He  went even  further by purchasing  sultanas and lemons to make candied lemon peel to improve the cake. Tony's business boomed, he became a wealthy man and Adalgisa became an acceptable daughter in law for Ughetto's money loving family.

The recipe I have used is from the Time Life series of books from the sixties, which I chanced upon in my local charity shop.  There are plenty of recipes on Google if you need one. 

Any positive thoughts or prayers you can throw out into the universe will be greatly appreciated.

Wawhhh - I Need Help With My Cannelés

This is the one perfect cannelé I managed to make.

I did everything right.  Firstly I had proper tin molds from Paris.  Melissa  kindly offered to send me a set of molds  when she heard I could not buy then in New Zealand.  Now just because my molds were purchased in Paris by Melissa and posted to me in New Zealand you would think my cannelés would be as perfect as hers. But no. I screwed up big time here.  Secondly I  followed Melissa's recipe with which she produced these  perfect specimens (June 12th post).

So what went wrong?   

They looked fine when they went into the oven and they looked fine when they came out of the oven............and then they looked like this

Luckily they tasted bloody brilliant.  So I've washed  the molds in hot water (no soap) and brushed them with butter and cured them in a hot oven for 20 minutes and they sit waiting for my next attempt. Why didn't the bottom's (or is that tops?) brown, why did they stick to the pan, why aren't they as dark as they should be?

HRH The Princess Wussik al Saud of the Sapphire Throne

Princess Wussick,  my gracious hostess for a few days on my recent travels ,  has threatened legal action because I failed to mention her in a previous post .   My humble apologies Princess.  For a moment there I was  overwhelmed with your place palace and the royal treatment I received from your staff.

Was it you Princess who ordered I be tested with the two glasses when I first arrived?  Had I failed the test of not being able to tell my flute of  Jacob's Creek from my flute  of  Dom Perignon would I have been banished to sleep under the bushes in Kings Park?

Actually Princess I'm the one who should be upset. Every night I left my door open so you could sneak in and sleep at the end  of  my bed.  Seems you prefer to sleep with the staff.  And excellent staff they are. My husband and I always look forward to spending time with them.  Thank you Princess Wussick for your kind hospitality.