Thursday 24 February 2011

TOUGH MONTH IN THE LITTLE HOOD


Cant and won’t say much about the regional problems, I’m a foodie,not a politician or journalist.  
I believe in, and love the kitchen for the safety, job security and tolerances it has shown me over 30 years. In the kitchen it does not matter race, creed, age, gender, religion or anything else, merely whether or not you can do the job that you have accepted to do.
I, as with many thousands of others have of course been saddened by seeing a great small country which allows us to reside here, divided over the past weeks . Lets hope everyone can come to the table and sought out differences and return it to the safe haven that we who live here , know it to be.

Okay, and onto the blog. 
Warning to all new bloggers; NEVER EVER LET THE STRESS OF THE REAL WORLD MAKE YOU FORGET YOUR USER ID OR PASSWORD. 
Write it down everywhere. Wow, its taken me 3 days to sift through my memory banks to get back online!!!
And,...... onto the food though. And this month I want to highlight a young and rising star in the global food scene. Sean Nathan Kingsbury. This 26 year old, Hong Kong born, Australian heart throb will undoubtedly be the next Jamie Oliver once “found” by the right agencies, talent managers and television producers. He has charisma, looks and most importantly the style and creativity in the kitchen to re-think even the simplest dishes into gastronomical dishes of wonder.
As proof of such I post this week (could it be this month – lets see how busy we get shall we!!) some photos of his amazing salads.
Potato Salad

An under-considered and forgotten dish among most menus of virtually every restaurant globally, salads have been relegated to the too tough basket along with many things. many chefs jumped on the Chemical gastronomy band wagon and staked their reputations on new and over creative ways with main courses; hydrating, rehydrating, freezing, poaching and slow cooking (for days) the smallest amounts of meat or cryogenically reconsidered particles, to acheive very little at all. 
Sean Nathan Kingsbury has allowed fads to come and go. Methodically and instinctively Sean remains on a singular track of taking great food and making it better.
Salads are what made me aware of his genius. I am one who refuses to pay for either salads or pasta at any restaurant. Having worked in the industry for 30 years I know how cheap they are to produce and how disappointing they can be once purchased. Sean Kingsbury’s salads  are different. They have body and soul, they have taste, texture and are exciting to view and eat, leaving you longing for more.  If anyone could ever open a restaurant simply based upon salads and make it work, Sean Nathan Kingsbury is the man and the chef to do it.
TUNA PASTA SALAD

I'm no small person, partly as a result of an unhealthy lifestyle courtesy of a life spent around great food. The food of Sean Kingsbury is light, delicious and memorable. He makes me "Want" to eat healthier - and that as far as I'm concerned is a millionaire waiting to be found.
Mark my words in 2011, twenty years from now Sean nathan Kingsbury will be the headliner at most symposiums of food, he will be the genius of books and television and the one people ask for the next "big thing" in food.

In final words for this blog may I simply round two topics up, with one quote,  borrowed from the Hard Rock Café mantra ,”Love All – Serve All”.
May peace reign among the earth, especially in the Middle East where I adore living and working and may salad be served to everyone.
Till next time my friends, Bon Appetite.
BEETROOT MOUSSE, GREENS AND PAIN D'EPICE SALAD
COBB SALAD

Friday 11 February 2011

A Horse is a Horse, Of Course! of Course!

I have come to two conclusions today. The first, that anyone who Blogs on a daily basis, either does it as there primary job, has no job or is independently wealthy. I just don't get the time to BLOG everyday!!
I have stuff to write, dreams to fulfill, a paying job to do! So after just three Blogs, I'm going weekly. lucky I started a Blog and not a newspaper Eh!!
Oh, the second conclusion was that , as expected, I am not a natural artist. My horses head looking still more like a pony than a horse.
Judge for yourself.....
Arabian Horse cake
Anyway, it still looked pretty good and hopefully the recipient thinks so too.
So the other things we made today were some glass desserts using glasses I purchased in September in Thailand and carefully carried home with me in hand luggage. They are gorgeous, like the dessert is floating in mid air, but they are far too fragile to use for hotels or restaurants so we have scrapped the idea of using them commercially.
We used a passionfruit gellee base, a Lemon creme centre and chocolate mousse top. The sweetness of the top layer allows the other two to be more and more tart as you get down to the base. A delicious enlivening taste sensation.

I have also been wanting to use Basil as a major flavor in a dessert for sometime and so the LEMON BASIL DELICE with Passionfruit Glaze was born. The flavor is so pungent that every mouthful combines basil, Tart lemon mousse and passionfruit glaze in every single bite. I knew it would be nice, but actually it was sensational.
When the taste is so spectacular, there is no need for much garnish and so the basil leaf and the dried slice of lemon states exactly what the dish contains and needs nothing else.
Basil Citrus Delice with Passionfruit Glaze
I have lots of writing commitments for the now, so lucky there are not many people watching this blog yet, coz, for the next week its going to go silent. I need to work , cook and write and then I'll tantalise your taste buds yet again.
Next birthday cake scheduled for Feb 24th for a charming little three year old girl. Hello Kitty is the theme so lets hope it looks better than my horse. Of Course! Of Course!




Thursday 10 February 2011

Blogs, Twits, Tweets and G Men. Oh! and delicious pastries.

Amazing what a day can entail.
In 24 hours I have gone from never having blogged, to having learnt to blog to having posted my first blog. I created a gmail account (who knew that admitting only having a hotmail account labelled you as a dinosaur anyway) and I also created a twitter account. Amazing really because when I grew up, G MAIL was stuff received in the post by G MEN ( a term for the FBI) and I remember being told that a Twit was a pregnant gold fish (which it isn't, but I believed it for a decade).
So now Im a Twit, that Tweets.
Old dog, new tricks, proof yet again that the sayings of my mother where wrong.
So today, in the kitchen consisted of a us working on a simple lunch, a dinner and a birthday cake, all just in a days work. None of these desserts will feature in upcoming books we are working on, but some are for future endeavours.
The funny thing about working on cruise ships is that while you are on them, you just want to get off. But after a short time off, you just want back on. I am guessing the same can be said about owning your own business. DIP ME IN CHOCOLATE was a great success in , Vancouver, Canada when I had the business in the late 1990’s. I was eventually glad to get out after working for days weeks and months without a break.
Time heals old wounds and the healing process must be complete, because now I just want to have my own business again. It will this time be based on the cuisine of the Middle East. I am passionate about this region of the world and its cuisine.

Something that may not seem quite so obvious when you see the birthday cake I made today as it took on a French feel. Thankfully if nothing else, the years on cruise ships gave me a template for the Eiffel Tower. Some things you always thank yourself for never throwing away.

Tomorrow we will see if I have the art of the "HORSE" within me.( I wish there was a horse template) Yep I have been asked to do a cake featuring one of the animals and I am scared to the core. The last time I made a horse was during  a lecture in the 90's , it was a margarine carving and it looked more artistic pony than horse. Tomorrow's cake will be under more intense scrutiny so my horse skills better have aged as well as I have. How hard can a horse's head truly be to create? Failing that, I simply won't publish the photo I guess. Time will tell.

The desserts we created today were a Buche Safran, Saffron mousse with Saffron glaze and a core of honey mousse wrapped in Agali Sponge( a traditional Savoy sponge recipe enhanced with rosewater, saffron and “lauwz” or small Arabic almonds). Accompanying in the morning was a Lychee Panna Cotta with Pomegranate Glaze.

Buche Safran

Lychee Panna Cotta with Pomegranate Glaze and Fresh Pomegranate


After lunch we made Pierre Hermes recipe for Plaisir Sucre, a Cube Chocolat , Pistache with its towering display of green (white chocolate) spheres and Abricotine Almondine a delicious combination of chocolate brownie, chocolate creameux, apricots and almond mousse. I wish there had been more to enjoy the deliciousness of the finished products, but what can I say other than , trust me, they were all delicious.
Plaisir Sucre

Pistache 

Cube Chocolat

Abricotine Almondine
Until next time, a Bientot, Au Revoir, and see you soon!!! I wonder what tomorrow will bring us all!!

Wednesday 9 February 2011

The Dinosaur Enters the Techno Age

I’ve entered the world of blogging rather late. I was called a dinosaur even today by a gorgeous young lady who could not believe I knew so little about the internet. My fault for spending 30 years in the kitchen and thinking the world evolved around the very next meal. Well at least dessert. (Do we really have to suffer entrée and main course just to get to the best bit of any meal? One of life’s conundrums!)
I’m so late to the internet though that I feel I should be entering it as Ships Log Stardate 922011.
 ARABIAN DREAMS- the first book in a decade
Tarte d'Isis
Adagio
Chocolate Chiboust Tartlets
Gateau Mamool
Anyway, better late than never.
Over the coming entries, I will post some of the amazing delicacies the team and I create as we travel the Middle East and produce some of the most stunning pastries, hopefully you will ever see.
The team works hard, and we are always developing something new, something to test ourselves and the taste buds we feed. Hopefully in our creating we achieve a fine balance of Arabic flavors, New Age creationism and traditional desserts. I spend time in Paris each year seeking the latest trends and take these ideas home to our test kitchen to develop our Arabian Dreams.
That is exactly how the book, ARABIAN DREAMS got started. An idea, a dream and some delicious desserts. Today the book, after just 3 months in release has achieved an award as One of the Top 57 Cookbooks of the World for 2010 and is shortlisted as one of the top fours books for BEST ARABIC TITLE COOKBOOK IN THE WORLD. (More on Arabian Dreams- Middle Eastern Desserts for the Next Generation, in later posts)
I’ll continue posting thoughts, theories and a few recipes as we go along from here. Some posts will be days apart, some may be weeks, but we will be back eventually, our passion never dies, simply the hours in the day are sometimes not long enough.
Happy cooking!!