Food 4 Kids

This is a really excellent program. Families who are having trouble coming up with enough food for their kids usually do ok while school is on, most schools provide some sustinence, breakfast and lunch, but in the summertime the kiddies are left high and dry. This program helps with that by giving them backpacks filled with food.

The 2010 “Food 4 Kids” fundraiser has three (3) main components:
• Monetary Fundraiser: A fundraising site has been set up on firstgiving.com/food4kids to allow interested individuals to make monetary donations, add comments and keep track of the fundraiser’s progress. All donors are eligible for prizes donated by local restaurants and businesses which will be awarded by random drawing at the end of the event. Inquiries about the First Giving fundraising page or the prize drawing may be directed to Alice Robertson at aliceqrobertson@gmail.com.

I am very happy to be involved in this part of the program, I will be donating a cake or some cupcakes (or I will make something ship-able if someone is out of town!) to whoever wins my prize!

• Backpack and Food Drive on August 21 at Little Italy Mercato: On August 21, a food and backpack drive will be held at the Little Italy Mercato. Members of the community are asked to bring neutral backpacks (as in no logos and preferably black or red) and kid-friendly non-perishable foods (such as applesauce, cereal, fruit cups, mac ‘n cheese, pretzels, etc., and other healthful foods) to the Little Italy Mercato between 9 AM and 1 PM, where Food 4 Kids volunteers and Food Bank personnel will be on hand to collect them. Inquiries about this event can be directed to either Alice Robertson at aliceqrobertson@gmail.com or Caron Golden at caron@goldenwriting.com.

• Dollar-a-Dish Program: August 1 – August 31: A “Dollar-a-Dish” event is set to run throughout the month of August at participating restaurants. These restaurants will select one of their best selling menu items and will contribute $1 to the Food 4 Kids program for every order of that dish sold during the month of August. At present, 30 restaurants have signed on to participate including: Alchemy, Bencotto, Café Chloe, Cosmopolitan Restaurant, Cowboy Star, Croce’s, Cucina Urbana, Dining Details (Catering,) Gaglione Brothers, George’s at the Cove, Hilton Garden Inn - Del Mar, JRDN, JSix, Kensington Grill, Lotsa Pasta, Nine-Ten, O’Brothers, Pizza Fusion, Playa Grill, Ritual Tavern, Royal India, Sessions Public, Soleluna Café, SoNo Trading Company, Starlite, Stingaree, Terra, The Red Door, Urban Solace and Zenbu. Inquiries about the Dollar-a-Dish event may be directed to Caron Golden at caron@goldenwriting.com.

For more information on the San Diego Food Bank and their Food 4 Kids Program please visit http://www.sandiegofoodbank.org/programs/food4kids/, or to donate visit http://www.firstgiving.com/food4kids

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/food4kids?ref=ts

The butcher and the vegetarian

As soon as this book came out, I knew I had to read it. I hang on Tara's every word on her blog, Tea and Cookies, so I knew I was in for a treat, word wise, but also it is a topic that is very dear to my heart. The butcher and the vegetarian is a book I recommend everyone reads.

When I refer to my diet, I just say I dont eat meat. I became a vegetarian at the age of 14, after a particularly harrowing project where I wrote an english essay about animal cruelty. I guess the people with the posters got to me. My mum's delicious sunday roast finally sent me over the edge, I just couldnt eat another mouthful. Somehow the huge hunk of meat, which seems so much closer to the animal than a burger or some innocent nuggets made me realize that I just couldnt take any more.

I have slowly re-introduced fish over the last few years and I've always eaten eggs and dairy, but it leaves me with all sorts of moral confusion. I think on principle I would eat the odd piece of grass fed, free range meat, but when it actually comes down to it, I just cant stand the thought of chewing on a hunk of muscle.

Reading this book was incredible, as Tara explained many of the same feelings about meat as I have. Forced by medical worries, she found herself trying to reintroduce meat into her diet, but ended up with a freezer full of meat that was just so much more hassle than a bowl of beans and rice, or noodles and tofu. I know this would be exactly what would happen to me!

This is a really good read, and it explores nicely the dilemmas that I feel everyone should consider when they think about whether they want meat in their diet, and how much they should be eating. I feel strongly that the animals should have the utmost respect and should be treated the best way possible before they become our food.

These idyllic farm pictures from Wales are nothing like the reality of most farm animals lives, I dont think most people like to admit that, but it seems that, especially in the US, price comes before everything, and people are content to eat animals raised on feedlots, eating food that was never meant to be eaten by those animals, the byproducts of these productions becoming toxic waste.

I understand that there are problems, people below the poverty line dont get to stand around in wholefoods debating another dollar per pound of whatever fancy cut they are considering for dinner, but poisoning our land and possibly ourselves cant be the answer can it?

*Pictures from my october trip to the UK including the totally awesome Gene Simmonds sheep!

Island Style Wedding

This weekend I had the enormous pleasure of making a big showy display of cupcakes with a cutting cake for a guy that I've known for a while. He was our honored team-mate on our bike team, and I've ridden on teams with both his parents, so it was great to be involved in his wedding cake and to see him so healthy and happy.


The couple wanted a hawaiian theme to their wedding and it was more on the tasteful side, so I learned to make frangipane flowers and got some moulds to make little frangipane flowers and hibiscus for each of the cupcakes.


I was so happy with how well this theme came together, it all looked really professional and the flavors were just divine. It sounded like they were all gone with no leftovers so that is a success!! I can never find a general consensus on how many cupcakes should be provided for guests, my intuition tells me around one and a half per guests as some people often take a couple!


There were four flavors, mango macadamia with mango buttercream, chocolate mocha mudcakes with poured chocolate ganache, guava chiffon cakes filled with guava, and topped with guava buttercream and a delicious hummingbird cake packed with pineapple, coconut, pecan and banana, topped with cream cheese. The cutting cake was the mango macadamia flavor.

This cake is a wonderful cake, the original recipe is for strawberry, but I've made it with mixed berries, and it worked very well with mango and macadamia. Keep in mind that this is an extremely rich cake!

Mango Macadamia Butter Cakes adapted from Sky High Irresistable Triple Layer Cakes by Alicia Huntsman and Peter Wynne

Makes around 24 cupcakes

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) soft unsalted butter
1/2 cup mango puree
4 egg whites (100g)
1/3 cup milk
1 diced mango
1 cup chopped toasted macadamias

Preheat the oven to 350f and prepare cupcake pans

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl with the sugar, baking powder and salt and mix briefly. Add the butter and puree and beat for a couple of minutes until fluffy.

Meanwhile, whisk together the milk and the egg whites, adding to the batter in 3 additions. Mix for another 20 seconds until combined, then add the madadamias and diced mango, mix just to combine.

Scoop into cupcake wrappers until 2/3 full and bake for around 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Top with your choice of topping, I used a standard swiss meringue buttercream with mango puree added, and topped with a fondant flower!

Daring bakers flying spaghetti monster pavlova!

Wow, I guess my dessert makes a statement. By way of explanation, I plated this super early in the morning, maybe my brain wasnt totally into the game yet!

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

The pavlova consisted of a chocolate meringue, a marscapone pastry cream, and a marscapone ganache.

I absolutely adore pavlova so I was super excited. My first thought when I saw some pictures was that it looked like dog poo, I was a little un-nerved but I thought 'I can do this'! I think if I had added some seasonal fruit, it would have really improved this dish, I ate the leftovers with figs, and it was wonderful!

Time got the better of me, what with all the stuff going on in my life, so I decided that I would make the components, but it was very last minute.

I was pretty disappointed with this dessert. I was disappointed in the recipe, for instance the pastry cream, which was really supposed to be a drizzle, was supposed to be made with 6 egg yolks, which was just ridiculous, and the whole recipe seemed to be about 3 cups of marscapone, which is pretty out there. I reduced the pavlova recipe by 2/3, the pastry cream to 1/3 and the marscapone ganache to 1/2.

The flavor was also a little disappointing. I overcooked the pavlovas, since I made them as tiny little mini meringues, and the marscapone cream was pretty underwhelming.

After this review, I'm not sure that you would want to give it a try, but do go and check out all the other inventive ways this dish was created on www.thedaringkitchen.com

I really appreciate the opportunity to grow and learn with the daring bakers, this was just one challenge that was underwhelming. I look forward to a new challenge next month!!

Born Round

I recently read the memoir of Frank Bruni, reviewer for the New York Times (amongst other things!). I found it a really interesting read, learning about his wonderful family and dear mother.

Over the entire book his weight fluctuates wildly as he desperately attempts to control his urges around food.

The most poignant episodes to me were times when he ended up baling on dates because he was so disgusted with himself and his weight, it seemed so sad that he gave up on companionship and love because he hated himself and his weight so much.

There were tales of bulimia and all kinds of strategies to keep himself trim and scary binges of pizza, cheesesteaks and ice cream.

It was sad to read about his mothers struggle with her weight, and maybe how she taught him to be wary of food as he grew up.

Learning more about the work of restaurant reviewers is a nice reminder that it really isnt that fun a job, eating out at least 7 nights a week, trying to grab enough willing diners who dont mind sharing their meals with you, and dealing with over-anxious restauranteurs who are desperate for a good review.

The main revelation from the book for me came when he lived in Italy, and he realised that the reason these people were a normal size was because of their portion control. They ate small portions of real food. Just like Marian Nestle and Michael Pollan have been trying to tell us!

It really struck a chord with me since I've always had trouble around food, knowing where to stop. I'm lucky, I'm not horribly obese, but I'm always on the chubby side of normal. I think the problems started as a small child, I was a little overweight and I was encouraged to cut back a little. I've never experienced that intense pleasure that Frank Bruni describes when he binges, and for that I'm very grateful.

Maybe I'm lucky, I generally just have a little more to eat than I need, I exercise as much as possible, and I eat lots of fruit and veg, and wholegrains to keep myself full, so I may even be healthier than some of my skinnier counterparts. I have to be relatively strict, I only eat out once or twice a week, I never go to fast food restaurants, and I avoid most processed food.

It also got me wondering, am I more normal than I thought? I always thought I was a bit strange with my continued thinking of what I'll be eating next, maybe looking forward to something for a whole week. Maybe most people think like that, and constantly have to keep check of their eating to keep themselves at a healthy size?

Its just so sad to me that so many people suffer so much with something that is supposed to be one of lifes greatest pleasures. At no time in history more than now have people been so large, we've somehow lost all proportion of how much, and what we are supposed to eat. Are we beyond saving?

I'd love to hear any/all opinions in the comments section!

Sugar Gardenias

I recently had the enormous pleasure of taking a one-on-one class with the immensely talented Jaqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes.

Of course I had a giant list of things to learn, but she knew what we could fit in and even that was very ambitious. We settled on some sugar gardenias. I love these flowers, so I couldnt wait to recreate them in sugar. I also wanted to make sure that it was a fairly quick flower that I had a chance of being able to replicate in a short enough time to be worth my while, and to be something that isnt easy to get fresh.

Jackie is extremely thorough, patient and well organised. She sets everything out carefully before starting and it was a good lesson to me to make sure I have plenty of room and try to work cleanly and neatly.

Of course they were a lot trickier than they look, but we slowly worked and I finished the class with a full flower, two smaller flowers, 3 lovely glossy leaves, and some buds. I also had a huge shopping list of things to buy!

I learned some very important techniques that I can apply to lots of other stuff, using the colors and lustre dusts, the laquer to get glossy leaves, and making and rolling out gumpaste and shaping petals for a realistic flower.

I'm sure Jackie would be more than happy to hear from anyone who would like to take her lessons, she's based in San Diego, so give her a shout if you'd like to learn from her! She also has a facebook page, its always lovely to see her creations.

Smores

I found these little treats so delicious I just had to share! It really is worth making the effort to make your own graham crackers, they are totally addictive!

I took a graham cracker recipe from culinary in the desert, next time I'll probably roll them out a little thinner. It really helped to use a pizza cutter and cut them before they went in the oven, and then again before they cooled to make it easy to separate them.

I then topped with a little chocolate ganache, which is just 1 part boiling cream to 1 part good chocolate, combine then stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted and chill a little until the consistency is thick enough to stay on the crackers. 100g of each should be plenty.

I then topped with home made marshmallow from this recipe on the food network and got my torch out to brown the tops, my favourite thing to do in the kitchen!

These treats are going to round out a dessert platter for a wedding I'm involved with at the beginning of next month. There will be a plate for each table containing lemon tarts, choc chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, these and some mini cupcakes!

The next thing I'd like to try with this recipe is making larger cookies, covering with ganache and decorating with fondant, I think that would be a super delicious and cute party favor! Here are some similar sugar cookies I did, I think graham crackers would be delicious!