Slow Down...

Allan Gardens Conservatory: Toronto

It was Valentine’s Day and my yoga class ended with a guided meditation about chocolate. Unorthodox you say! Actually, you can easily find chocolate meditation “scripts” online (example) – so maybe it really is a thing.

Bringing attention to the chocolate, to the look, the shape, the feel, and then moving on to taking a bite, the taste, the mouth feel… then taking another bite… 

Let me pause to say that every chocolate I eat gets at least two bites – it is important for me to “see” the filling inside. I happen to know someone who eats a chocolate in one bite. I have never approved.

I may as well add at this point that during the chocolate thing, I meditated on my water bottle. I was doing an Elimination Diet and chocolate was a “no no”. The Diet? Will tell you more about that one day.

Back to the chocolate. Some serious time elapsed before that "yoga chocolate" was consumed. And that’s how it should be for many reasons.

As empty-nesters, I am astonished at how quickly Mr. KB and I consume supper. Whether the meal has been slow cooking all day, or a 30-minute miracle – it tends to disappear in less than 10 minutes. We sort of laugh at that, and reflect on how we eat restaurant meals much more slowly.

There are a lot of good reasons to eat more slowly. Two that are most important are that slow eating preps our digestive system for optimal functioning, and makes us well-positioned to receive the message our brain will send us about being full. (Before I continue, I must declare that I have no expertise in nutrition or biology, so I'm counting on you to correct me if I’ve misunderstood any of this…)

Many will say that digestion begins in the mouth, but let’s not overlook the phrase “mouth-watering”. We all want to cook / eat mouth-watering meals. Food that looks so delicious – with or without fancy plating – that our mouths literally “water”, filling with saliva. And guess what! Saliva is important – containing enzymes important to the digestion process. Fortunately, we produce an average of 1.5 litres of saliva per day! [Source]

Restaurant meals often encourage salivation by presenting us with an amuse bouche, and we may also order an appetizer – habits not often replicated in home dining. As such we are trampling the science of the first stage of digestion – the “cephalic stage” (which is followed by the gastric phase, and intestinal phase – taking from 24-72 hours in total.)

In the cephalic stage – before food hits our stomachs - we can ramp up our production of saliva – and slow down a meal – by chewing each mouthful longer. Many of us have heard this since we were kids and it turns out there is some science to support this. How many chews per mouthful? Some say 20, 30 – or chewing until the food is totally minced. [Read more here or here.]

Slowing down mealtime not only sets the stage for optimal sensory experiences and pleasant conversation, it buys the time we need to realize when we’re full. It can take 15-20 minutes for our brains to get the signal that we are full – a signal we miss if we eat a mountain of food in 10 minutes! Mind you, even at the best of times, we don’t always listen to our brain. Sadly, much of our eating is routine, maybe even mindless, and triggered by context and time of day. In fact, the goal of some diets is to put us back in touch with the sensations of hunger and satiation.

I’ll take a pass on attempting to summarize all the (sometimes conflicting) tips on how to optimize digestive processes – other than to say “ginger tea”. [Source]

No piece on slow eating would be complete without mentioning the Slow Food Movement – which began in 1986 partly as a counter-balance to fast food, which (despite some criticisms) aims to “defend regional traditions, good food, gastronomic pleasure and a slow pace of life… (and has evolved) to embrace a comprehensive approach to food that recognizes the strong connections between plate, planet, people, politics and culture.” [Source]

There is an even broader Slow Movement with many facets of culture and human activity focusing on slowing down the pace of life and change - there's even slow schooling! Busy, working parents of young children may yearn for “slow” while suffering in the fast lane of life. One of my favourite books is “In Praise of Slow” – by Canadian journalist Carl Honoré. His “slow” epiphany was linked to a story about one of his children and he followed up his first book by a second on “slow parenting”.

Since first reading that 2004 book, I am now retired and can more easily embrace “slow” – though in this life chapter there can be negative connotations to being “slow”. No matter – I have lots of time to slowly chuckle at that.

Readers who are fellow bloggers, may be surprised to know that there is a “slow blogging” movement. Averaging only one “story blog” entry per month I suppose I am an honorary member. This NYT article refers to BC’s Todd Sieling’s “Slow Blogging Manifesto” which can still be found at this site - and he's not the only blogger who has taken a stand. [Example]. I’ll share snippets from Kristen Doyle (visit her to site to see more):

"The Slow Blogging Movement is to Me...
Less about ambition, more about balance.
Less about page views, more about connection...
Less about quantity, more about quality.
Less about the hustle, more about happiness.
Less about social media, more about a social life.
Less about climbing to the top, more about rocking the middle.
Less about following the path of other bloggers, more about creating your own path."

Odd that I am writing about “slow” at a time when the “Instant Pot” is all the rage. One by one, I see fellow bloggers cave in to the temptation to acquire one – mind you, since it’s a Canadian invention, perhaps it is one’s civic duty to do so. I keep resisting – mainly because I have absolutely no place to store it – and… I am in no hurry.

I link every blog story to a recipe. What should it be this time?

The “slowest” recipe I have posted so far is for Almost No-Knead Bread which has an 8-18 hour first rise. That gives you lots of time to get that saliva working!

Or try Afternoon Tea Scones – they don’t take long to make – but if you sit down with a friend, and pour a cup of tea and savour the scone and the cream and the jam… and the friendship... well, that’s a great way to slow down. 

Would love to hear your thoughts about “slow”. Click on the word "Comments" below. No rush, take your time – I will wait to hear from you!

Happy 3rd Birthday Kitchen Bliss!

[If you have signed up for Kitchen Bliss updates, you have already seen this. Am sharing here for other visitors who are not yet "on the inside track".]

On February 7, 2015, the KB start-up turned out to be a great way to fight the February blahs, and since then it is the place I go for “Flow”. Kitchen Bliss has given me many hours of pleasure - writing, sharing stories and recipes – not to mention the cooking – and the eating! I have made new friends in the blogosphere and have had a few adventures. 

Interested in some KB Trivia?

• 142 recipes posted (and more to come) 
• 44 blog stories – always linked to a great recipe
• the first recipe I posted was Gulyas Soup
• the recipe that has had the most number of visits (136!) was added only recently – in January – Hungarian Cabbage Rolls. Not far behind is Rebar Granola and Festive Kale Slaw
• your favourite blog post was Culture Clash – I guess it was hard to resist me in hot pants – haha. 

I am tickled to the bone when you tell me you have enjoyed a read – even better when you make something from the blog. Unless you tell me, I have no idea who is visiting the site – although a new blog analytics tool shows me the location of visitors. The thought of someone so far away on the planet visiting the site puts a smile on my face. (Unless they are copying the content onto their own site – sadly things like that do happen…) Check out some of my visitors! 

New on the site is an entire section on Hungarian recipes. In response to a special request, I am planning to add more print-friendly versions of recipes. Do let me know if there’s anything that can improve your enjoyment of KB!

Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Wishing you Bliss in the Kitchen!

PS – we need a recipe to celebrate – makes some Hungarian Cheese Snacks (Sajtos Rúd) with a beverage of your choice (wink!)

PPS - right now that Birthday Cake pictured above - Gingerbread  Layer Cake - is top of the KB list for best cakes!!

A Book and a Bite: The Caliph's House

This is the first (but not the last) time I’ll blog about a book and it’s links to food and recipes. Hope you like this idea!

The Caliph’s House (non-fiction) by Tahir Shah recounts the author’s move, with his young family, from London to an abandoned (fixer upper) mansion (Dar Khalifa) in Casablanca. Novels with the story arc - “move, buy house, restore/renovate, adjust, adapt, belong” are not uncommon, but this will surprise you with unique twists linked to a culture that may be foreign to some readers.

Indeed, even Shah, with his Afghan-Indian heritage is frequently surprised - sometimes dumb-founded - by the challenges he encounters - most notably “jinns” - aka "genies". In time, Shah learns that resistance is futile and he plays his part in placating the spirits with whom he shares his home. Google - Tahir Shah jinn - and you’ll see that in recent years Shah has uploaded playful(?) videos outlining tips on soothing jinns – for example Jinn in the Kitchen.

Let me hasten to add that this is not a "silly nonsense" novel - and indeed is more philosophical with these bits of (factual) whimsy that no honest observer of life and the living could omit. Now, just before you get all weird about this, keep in mind that some Brits absolutely believe in “fairies”. One survey reports that 44% claim to have seen one. Then there’s the Icelanders who believe in elves. Not long ago, some who were protesting a new road made interesting claims. "...it will displace certain supernatural forces that dwell within the hallowed volcanic rubble, and fear the potentially dark consequences that come with such a disturbance... (they) believe the field is highly populated by elves, huldufolk (hidden people), and dwarves, many of whom... have recently fled the area while the matter is settled." [Source]

Wikipedia describes Tahir Shah as a writer and documentary maker, with a focus on travel, exploration, the Arab World, and cross-cultural studies, but undoubtedly he'd describe himself as a story-teller, with an impressive pedigree, a family of story-tellers.

For a synopsis of the book, I cannot improve on the engaging article from The Guardian or from The Washington Post. If you read this book first, become enchanted with his writing, and continue with the sequel - "In Arabian Nights" - you will undoubtedly be startled, even shocked, to read the first sentence - “The torture room was ready for use.” What!!!??? Yes, he begins with the true story of his 2005 imprisonment in Pakistan along with his documentary crew. He soon returns to his beautiful story-telling, with a focus on his quest – the search for “the story in his heart”.

Casablanca. Marrakech. Tangier. Fez. All cities in Morocco. Centuries - that’s how long Morocco has existed, but when, how, and why does a country (actually, a kingdom) make an impression on someone from the other side of an ocean? How does one develop an awareness of another country and its cuisine? Sure we all knew about Casablanca from the movie made in the 1940s. Then there was the song "Marrakesh Express" - written by Graham Nash when he was a member of The Hollies, but performed by Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1969. He wrote it after his own Moroccan journey - a favoured destination on the so-called Hippy Trail.

I’ve not found a source that precisely traces a global embrace of Moroccan cuisine, although a Moroccan-American cookbook (by Paula Wolfert) was published as early as 1973. On my blog I have a Moroccan Red Bean Dip adapted from a recipe first published in 1994. I suspect that labelling a recipe as “Moroccan” has less to do with authentic cuisine and more to do with the use of so-called Moroccan spices. These include cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, ginger, pepper, paprika, coriander, saffron, mace, cloves, fennel, anise, nutmeg, oregano, cayenne pepper, bay laurel, and fenugreek, and “27 spices are combined to form the ‘celebrated’ Moroccan spice mixture ras el hanout. “[Source]

While many other cuisines use some of these spices, there was a time when a few seemed exotic to me, yet now are often used in combination in my kitchen, with delicious results. I jump at any opportunity to use turmeric, ginger, cumin, coriander, nutmeg in my cooking. Case in point - the recipe for Caramelized Cauliflower. Here are some links from Saveur on Moroccan Cuisine and some more authentic Moroccan recipes. You may also want to follow Nargisse Benkabbou from London, UK who blogs at My Moroccan Food.  She has 35,000 followers on social media which may in part explain why she has a book coming out in May 2018 called "Casablanca".

My last blog post was about Dinner Parties, and one of my often repeated menus is loaded with recipes that are supposedly “Moroccan” - Moroccan Chicken on Quinoa, (chicken enhanced with cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, coriander served on honey / cinnamon quinoa) and Moroccan Carrots (that great veggie made tasty using cumin, paprika, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, currants and pistachio nuts). I do stray and accompany it with the more Greek / Indian Cucumbers in Yogurt. (Tomato & Cucumber might have been more authentic.)

Moroccan Chicken on Quinoa

Moroccan Carrots

Cucumbers in Yogurt

You might be wondering if Tahir Shah has anything to say about food. Of course he does. Listen to him rhapsodize about Moroccan oranges. He offers tips if you are ever invited to dine in a Moroccan home. Can't top his memory of his father's prized Arabian Nights collection - "The volumes were bound in waxy black cloth, with bright gold lettering on the spines... They were so exquisite that I would caress my fingers over them, and stoop down to smell their scent. They smelled like cloves." (p. 14 in Shah's "In Arabian Nights" novel). What happens to those volumes is astounding - but you'll have to read the book to find out! (You can read the sequel first if you prefer.)

Would love to hear your tips about Moroccan food, a recommended cookbook or novel, or a restaurant. Do you have any stories about jinns, fairies, elves? Click on the word "Comments" below. Can't wait to hear from you!

Enjoy the book(s). Hope you enjoyed my first “A Book and A Bite”!
 

The Dinner Party

What images are conjured up by that phrase? Something grand and glorious? More casual? Something that today might be referred to as a get-together? If it involves four or more people, spending most of a visit sitting at a dining table in a private home, eating and conversing with relish – let’s call that a Dinner Party.

The NYT Magazine’s October 2017 Food Issue focused on “The Art of the Dinner Party” with contributions from the likes of Gabrielle Hamilton and Dorie Greenspan. All told, thirty pages of stories about memorable or failed dinner parties, and those that changed history.

It triggered reflections and memories. Do I even have "dinner parties"? Do family gatherings for seasonal celebrations count? Is there an “art” to having parties? That almost sounds intimidating.

I’m tempted to say that the “art” is in the food. Plan that well and the dinner party is artful and successful. Gabrielle Hamilton disagrees. She believes that a dinner party “is about what is said, not what is eaten” - that the food is just the props. Even as a child, she loved dinner parties. “For me, it was always a bit of an adult thrill to come downstairs on a Sunday morning, the household still sleeping, and find the table - the long formal one in the dining room - strewn with the last debris of the late-finishing dinner party given by my parents the night before.” Anxious to have her own, she began in the ninth grade and, with respect to those that she planned in the early years, her guests always disappointed her. In time she accumulated some perfect friends who knew how to behave at a dinner party - the “art” having just as much to do with the guests - as if it was an improvisational tableau unfolding on a stage set by the host, with the play’s "acts" replaced by dinner courses. 

I appreciate her perspective, and yet when it comes to dinner parties I have planned or attended it is mainly the food I remember – more so than the people or conversations.

I have known some people who belong to a circle of friends that have monthly dinner parties. Though never involved in anything that routine, I do recall having more frequent dinner parties when first married - and oddly that was at a time when my cooking credentials were negligible. In fact, I tended to routinize the meal and some memories of the menu make me laugh out loud. 

Once prosciutto entered my life, a classic starter was a wee glass plate (I love wee glass dishes) with an artful display (was it?) of a slice of cantaloupe, with prosciutto, cheese and grapes. This was an exotic departure from typical “banquet” menus at the time which began with some combo of fruit cocktail, a half grapefruit dotted with a half maraschino cherry, and/or a glass of tomato juice.

Trips to Germany and Austria inspired the addition of a soup course to our dinner party menu - bouillon mit ei - which translates to broth with an egg yolk floating in it - and dotted with chopped parsley. The laughable part was that the bouillon did not come from hours of cooking, but from a cube - or maybe it was the (discontinued) Horne’s Chicken Soup Base that my grandmother and mother swore was the secret to fabulous “home-made” chicken soup. Guests were invited to give their soup a stir and the egg yolk turned the dish into creamy yumminess. Was I more adventurous then, or naive? I’m not sure how guests today would react to a course served with a raw egg. Mind you – a recent trend that some call Vietnamese Coffee adds a raw egg yolk and condensed milk to coffee.

1960's Banquet Menu

The last week (and meal) at The Coffee Mill

The main course would likely have been Chicken Vienne – a recipe torn from a long forgotten magazine in the last century. With powdered thyme and pepper in the breadcrumbs, and sautéed in butter, it was sublime. I have no photo of that, but it was reminiscent of schnitzel. (And speaking of schnitzel – I really miss the schnitzel from The Coffee Mill in TO, which closed in 2014 after a half century.) What did I serve with the Chicken Vienne? Maybe rice pilaf and honeyed carrots.

Dessert was often trifle. A hilarious made-up recipe: cut up a purchased pound cake and place it in the trifle bowl; make a small packet of raspberry Jell-O and pour that over, letting it soak in; cover that with a drained can of fruit cocktail, a layer of cooked Bird’s custard and then a layer of freshly whipped cream. Everyone seemed to like it.

I cannot recall varying that menu much, though I must have to spare guests from repetition. These days, my menus reflect a greater variety and I never repeat the same one twice..

Today, I love to plan dinner parties, and most are for groups of women. I begin thinking about the menu weeks in advance, and have created a template that I use for menu planning. I do not like to be rushed or overworked and so my planning outlines things that can be done up to three days ahead, and then on the day - if all goes well - I am not hidden in the kitchen with last minute cooking.

A good friend mentioned that she has a book where she has recorded the menu for every dinner party she ever had. That would be precious! Jacques Pépin does that – and the pages in his keepsake are embellished with his artwork.

The NYT article offers up dinner party trivia – records of dinner parties that made people famous, began movements or destroyed reputations and careers.

Interspersed among the stories are “fantasy dinner party” questionnaires. Here are my answers.

Whom would you invite to your dream dinner party? 
Turns out that answering this is considered to be a fun activity and the internet is filled with people’s answers. Of all the NYT questions I found this to be the toughest and my answer is long - don’t worry, answers to the other questions are short. How to decide? I did not necessarily choose people I admire most - some of them might be intimidating at a dinner party. Luminaries and creatives are not guaranteed to be charming. Some I would prefer to invite to afternoon tea for a more quiet chat.

For my dream dinner party, I want guests who’d be warm, good conversationalists, with a sense of humour, willing to invest in the good cheer of all. No one depressing. No conceit or self-centredness. Diplomacy vs. provocation. I'm a political junkie, but would prefer no politics. No one who comes with a Secret Service entourage. They should be interesting, be curious, have a good story and tell a good story, with maybe a mensch quality.

I’m not sure I’ve got this list right, and realize that many of my choices seem to come from radio or TV, from CBC, BBC – such as guests on BBC’s Graham Norton Show. They are people I have seen or heard talking. I can hear their voice and how they might add to the dinner party chorus. This all assumes that their public persona has some authenticity.

2024 Update. Of late I have been listening to the Podcast Rosebud - hosted by Gyles Brandreth. At some point in the last 6 years, I encountered him on BBC’s QI. Gyles is infamous for having a story for everything – though I never tire of listening to him. It came to mind that he’d be a great addition to my fantasy Dinner Party, hence a re-read of this which led to a re-write. No one who ever read the original blog post will recall who was on that llst. It pains me to drop names and for every new name added, I can think of many more.

In no particular order, here are the guests for my fantasy dinner party (some living, some not) - and I may need a bigger table.

Gyles Brandreth, Sandi Toksvig, Michael Palin, Ruth Reichl, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Jamie Oliver, Jacques Pépin, Peter Ustinov, Nora Ephron, Christopher Hitchens, Ian McKellen - AND I’d have a Newfoundland contingent, having noted before my inexplicable penchant for all things NL - Rick Mercer, Gordon Pinsent; a few more Canadians - Gavin Crawford, Terry O’Reilly and Ryan Reynolds (mainly because of his part in the Wrexham TV series).

(Gosh, this is “oh so white”. Would be less so if I invited only amazing chefs. Lots of folks from the UK - too much BBC, Acorn and BritBox? Few artists/musicians, few chefs, no locals, not enough women…)

I’m starting to think a series of dinner parties would work better.

What food would you serve?
Elements of the menu might be a bit fancy, but not too edgy and it would have European roots, mainly Hungarian. I’d end with one of my Hungarian showstopper desserts – Somloi Galuska, or Gundel Palacsinta (neither of which are on the blog yet – oh dear…)

Where would you host it?
My house, which is old with outdated décor - ideally after dark, with low lighting. 

What would you drink?
Choices would include: Prosecco, Niagara and Prince Edward County Wines, and this great cocktail. Here’s your recipe to go with this blog post: ½ oz Sortilege (Canadian Whiskey and maple syrup liqueur), ½ oz Berentzen Apfelkorn, 1/3 oz Dekuper Buttershots and 3 oz fresh cider, mix with ice.) 2024 update - I’d add some alcohol-free cocktails since I no longer imbibe.

What sort of music would you play?
Figuring that out could drive a person crazy. The easiest would be a Pink Martini playlist. They are my favourite group and I am counting down to their next Toronto appearance in May.

How would you get people to leave?
Not sure if that would be a problem. I'd play, the Beatles song “Goodnight”.

So, there you have it! Read more about dinner parties – some planned and some spontaneous, some formal, some simple fondues - in the NYT article. How would you answer some of the dinner party questions? Use Comments to share your dinner party stories! Wishing you happy and delicious parties in 2018!