Memroies In Scent And Taste

 What makes us feel truly at home? Is it familiar sights from our childhood? The smell of hebs grwoing int eh family garden? Or the tastes of our vountry and heritage. For some it's all three. Mostly though it's the cooking  that welcomes us back.

Regular contributor and chef Yewande Komolafe pondered this as she wrote about going home in today New Yorks Times Wednesday Food section.  The article is take from her cookbook "My Everyday Lagos; NIgerian Cooking At Home and in the Diaspora" (Ten Speed Press 2023). She is from Lagos , Nigeria, the country's capital,  her parents home is in the countryside. Nigerians are rediscovering and questioning their pre colonial past. Some do it in activism, Some in the arts. Chef Komolafe explores her Nigerian heritage through her cooking which is art itself. She gives three recipes which are a blend of her life in America and family ones. Anyone - Nigerian or not can make these and taste centuries of cooking and spicing. Keep in mind that if you buy the cookbook, she cautions against being burdens by the notion of authenticity.The bukas or relaxed  Nigerian based restaurants thoughout the world have their own verion of these dishes. The home chef should too.

Chef Komolafe includes a shakshura type of breakfast dish  -  jammy tomato breakfast eggs. it may not have the exact flavor  of shashuka but it is fragrant with oregano, chives mint and basil. Tomatos , onions and Scotch bonnet peppers are sauted with oil and smashed red peppers.It's garnished with sunnyside up eggs. Another recipe included is her mother's iwuk idesi or one por rice with chicken .Again Scotch bonnet peppers are used here in a pepper paste along with whole crayfish or dried shrimp. This is added to a braised chicken along withginger garlic and chicken stock. Long grained rice is cooked with it for a flavorful bite. She also has akara, tasty bean fritters. These are made with ewa olyin or black eyed peas soaked and peeled. {although you cna use bean powder. There's also garlic cloves , onions and Scotch bonnets again for fire and bite.These can be fried in red palm oil  and if that can;t be found use peanut oil. The mix should resemble whipped hummus before it's fried into crispy fritters.

OUr heritage and our cooking shaping. None is more evident in Chef KOmolafe's recipes. Like herself they are traditional but also reinvented for a table outside Nigeria.

Quick And Easy And Vegan

 The variety of vegan products seem to ve expanding on a daily basis. There are new  and tasty items that are so quick to heat up and eat. They're becoming ubiquituous in kitchens all over/

One of my new favorites is Nasoya's plant based steak. I bought the Korean barbecue flavor. This was a quick five minute cook in my air fryer. The strips were like the real thing and with the barbecie flavor downright delicious. 

These go well with anything. I added air fryer roasted potatoes which were also an easy fix.It was just tossing them in olive oil with a heavy sprinkle of oregano,  garlic powder, salt and pepper and air frying for fifteen minutes at 380 degrees Farenheit.

Chao cheese which has a great selection now has a yummy queso dish that perfect for tortilla chips.

Then there is Louisville vegan topping which you can put on anything. I plan on making pizza bagels with this topping for a different variation. They also have bacon and taco toppings along with an aamzing selection of soy jerky. 

For dessert? Siete Vegan Mexican cookies which are healthier takes on classic Mexican baking.

Siete has a wide range of Mexican products from  chips to seasnings to snacks. They've added such tasty desserts as these cookies along with churro strips.

Vegan cooking is becoming easier and easier. There's a whole host of new products out there that are quick to make and easy to eat. Try them for a simple and fast dinner.

Punchy Punches For Halloween

 This weelend is going ot be the weekend for Halloween parties. Instead of playing bartender and missing the party why not roll with the punches? Put out fancy bowls of alcoholic and non alcoholic ones. Your guests will get a big kick out of them as they're served ina spooky cup.

Start with a fun punch bowl/ Target has large witch's cauldrons which would be perfect for any kind of punch. They also sell a large clear pumpkin too.If you can;t find onen use your soup pot and soup ladle to pour out cups. You can also use one of your soup tureens (or buy one at an antique store) along with using the ladle that comes with it. Large ice buckets also work well too. What about the punch itself? A perfect spooky holiday sip is a blood red sangria. Start with a sweet red or rose and add the fruit fi the season  such as apples and pears. Orange and leon slices give ti a fresh tartness.  You could  increase the punch's potency by stirring in half a cup of a fruit brandy. Even though this sounds vile, sewer water punch is actually quite tasty - and kicky.It;s Dr Pepper mixed with vanilla flavored vodka and orange juice. Serve this potion in a clear bowl so they can see the "brown water." You can add gummy works if you want to (or Tootsie rolls to really amp up the "ewwwwww" factor.)

What about those little ones? Try a non alcoholic punch  with fun flavors for those tiny trick or treaters. Again serve it in a witch's cauldron or giant pumpkin. Since the main color fo the holiday is orange then think of a bright citrus punch. Combine orange soda (use an intensely flavored one like Fanta for the best taste) Add orange sherbert for more tang and a cup of pineapple juice for a refreshing zing. If you find this too sweet, then  sub in the soda with an orange flavored seltzer. This cuts down on the sugariness and even makes it more palatable for any adults attending. Another squeal inducing sip is the witch's brew punch. It's first mixing ginger ale with  pineapple and lemon juices. The last is added to keep from making th e drink too sweet,.Lime sherbet is added to give it that green color. Now for the special effects. You can put dry ice in a handmade trough wrought from tin foil around the cauldron. This will give it the effect of a smoking pot. You DO NOT want to put this ice in the punch. It's extremely dangerous to do so. Another special  and safer effect is just put a ring of battery operated votice lights around the base of the cauldon.

A good Halloween punch will add - what else - punch  to any party. It's a tasty cup, perfect with those party bites and mucnies. Brew up a cauldron for your holiday drinking.

Celebrating Coleridge.

 Today  is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's birthday.Unfortunatelt there's no cream tea and freshly baked scones to celebrate.As much as he probably loved them- he would have loved this brownie 

 cake, two lucious layers of browning with a fudge butter cream icing. A slice of this and a good cup of Earl Grey is the perfect birthday dessert.

Happy birthday to all those writers and poets out there! May your special day be as weet as this came

The Bread Question

 What was the best bread you ever ate? Wednesday's New York Times Food section featured Genevieve Ko's foccacio recipe. 

Here's the question of the week  have you ever baked a loaf that made you swoon? What was it? Why was it so good?

Good Eating In NOLA

 New orleans is known fo ra variety of things, jazz, hiostory voodoo and tradition.It's also notorious for good food. If you are goung there here are some restuarants that show off the city's best chefs and ingredients.

Regular contributor and New Orleans native Brett Anderson gave this compiliation in yesterday's New York Times Food section. There are twenty five good ones that are perfect during a weekend or a week away in the Crescent City.One of the most famous is Brennans that put the city on the map during the 1950's. Chef Ryan Hacker brings a new sharpness to such classic recipes as turtle soup a nd curried crab roulade. For more classic NoLA food visit Brigtsens, Chef Frank Brigsten's mento was the famed New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme so the food is goung to be traditional and very good. His menu includes everything from shrimp remoulade to pecan pie. For Creole food, there is Cafe reconcile. There are Gulf seafood po'biys and gumbo with red rice.Another classic eatery is the steakhouse is Charlie's Steakhouse , first opened in 1932. There;s a variety of different tender cuts along wit such tasty sides a sonion rings and creamed spinach. You must vist the famed Dooky Chase which is famed for its' seafood and Southern fried chicken.

Yes the city eateries offer other cuisines too.DAKAR NOLA offers Sengalese food. Chef  Siringe Mbaye designed the menu with the crucial role enslaved laborers played in building this city. His shows the strong imfluence West African cuisine has on the city 's history and recipes. Of course there is a French restaurant Mamou in the French Quarter. There are nod sto local tradition like the red bean cassoulet thanks to chef Tom Branighan. he also features escargot and to finish macarons.Italians have made always a big impact in the city so it's no surprise  that there are good Italian restaurants listed. Locals love Paladar 511 that features pasta in tomato sauce and crisp pizzas. There's also port saltimbocca and Wagyu flat iron steak.Indian food is also a big part of the city's dining experience.Saffron NOLA offers Creole and Cajun influenced Indian dishes.There is gumbo with saffrom and ginger along with crab  pudha. There are also Isrealie , Thai and Chinese restuarants too in the city landscape.

New Orleans offers many thing. One is food. Visit the city and discover the  amazing array of food there.

Salmon Farming Its'Future On Land

 Much has been said about salmon fisheries. There's a lot fo negativity regarding them which is bad for te industry and fish lovers. Yet there's an alternative that may be helpful. Salmon farms on land. Can thos work? The answer is yes.

Regular contributor Melissa CLark wrote about this new revolution in today's New York Times Food Wednesday section. Salmon farming may be next to any other farm.In the past most ave been located on the coast whic comes with its' own host of problems.One, these have bigger carbon footprints than a farm with sheep or cows. They create overcrowding of the nearby ecosystems as the fish are allowed to grow in open net areas.It means waters polluted with fish waste along wit other pollution and also promotes the growth of diesases and sea llice. These in turn bring on the need for more pollutants such as antibiotics and pesticides. Then there is the problem of the salmon escaping and breeding with other kinds of salmon which can wreak havoc on the local population. The end result is a new hybrid spawn that can't sustain itse;f and can't make it past the spawn stage.Of course the biggest problem to salmon fisheries is the ocean itself. Warming waters are making it impossible to find a decent site to breed.

This is where land farms come in. Ms. Clark visited one in Auburn, new York in the Finger Lakes area. A former factory is home to thousands of coho slamon. Theyglide throuh a safe ecosystem of fresh water that recirculates  through biofilters every thirty minutes. It mimics a deep seas environment with  the lights dimmed to a deep aqau glow, almost giving the fish a glowing look. More farms like this are being built. Atlantic Sappbire is out of Florida and despite setbacks and will break even in the next year 2024. More farms will be built . According to Brian Vinci, the director of the Conservation Fund's Freshwater Institute,a nionprofit conservation program, land based fisheries are the way to go especially for an American public that wants high quality protein without increasing dependence on imported seafood. Farms like Atlantic Sapphure will be able to increase its volume to 220,000 metric tons of salmon. America is only twenty five to thirty years away of replacing all foreign fish coming from Poland ,Scandinavia and Japan with US bred fish.THis means more affordable fis on the table.

Salmon is America's favorite fish. Thanks to theis new type of fishery , more and more Americans will be able to enjoy it.Land farming not only benefits the environment but the people too.