Slovenian Recipes

Lately I've been craving Paris. The symptoms are the usual: I miss walking the Seine and Boulevard Saint Michel , entering the bookshops and buying cookbooks eventually. I badly miss my favourite bistrots and the street vendors. I even miss the parisians! I daydream of crispy croissants , pain au raisins et café au lait , hot chocolate and... macarons . The perfect way to get me to Paris without leaving home is to bring Paris to me, all packed and arranged in a colourful and full flavoured macaron! Macarons were on my list for quite a while. For some reason, I felt a bit scared every time I'd come across Helen's recipes - bookmarked since always from Tartelette - so I never got to try them. The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S . She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. What a wonderful choice! Because I feared disaster (and after reading other fellow Daring Bakers ex...

When all else fails, I cook. Some people go out after a god-awful day and slam a tennis ball around or jog their joints to pieces on a fitness course. I had a friend in Coral Gables who would escape to the beach with her folding chair and burn off her stress with sun and a slightly pornographic romance she wouldn't have been caught dead reading in her professional world—she was a district court judge. Many of the cops I know wash away their miseries with beer at the FOP lounge. I've never been particularly athletic, and there wasn't a decent beach within reasonable driving distance. Getting drunk never solved anything. Cooking was an indulgence I didn't have time for most days, and though Italian cuisine isn't my only love, it has always been what I do best. Even if I identify completely with the idea, these aren't my words. In fact they belong to a literature character, not a real person - although I suspect Patricia Cornwell lends a bit of her soul when she gi...

The sea. Always the sea. If you look at Portugal's history it's always about the beauty of our surrounding coasts, and all the dreams of faraway lands that come with it. The exhibition “ Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries ” is about that too. Or as Holland Cotter put it in the NY Times : A version of the Internet was invented in Portugal 500 years ago by a bunch of sailors with names like Pedro, Vasco and Bartolomeu. The technology was crude. Links were unstable. Response time was glacial. (A message sent on their network might take a year to land.) kinda of faster today. Portuguese people have historically been influenced by so many cultures that is not surprising our food shows a large variety of flavours, with exotic spices from India or Brazil playing their role, and of course fish being a staple. Although bacalhau (cod fish) and sardines are the most popular choices from the sea, stuffed squid accompanied by boiled potatoes are...

Perhaps it was my recent trip to New York that made me grab Jed Rubenfeld's book The interpretation of murder again. The story is based on real facts and takes place across Manhattan in the beginning of the 20th century during Sigmund Freud’s only visit to America with his protégé Carl Yung. The famous analyst is asked to help with a patient to solve a mysterious crime. The Interpretation of Murder leads readers through New York high society, as well a few dark places and some homey ones. At some point, Rose - Brill's wife (Freud's translator in America) - serves an Waldorf salad to her guests without great success... This salad first appearance was at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1893 and became an american classic, with more versions than chefs. According to some, this apple celery salad with grapes and nuts was created by the well-known French chef Auguste Escoffier as a gift to Oscar Tschirky , the hotel's chef and his good friend. Waldorf Salad Lightly adapted f...

Vol au Vent means literally 'windblown'. These little treats are so light and crisp you could almost make them fly with a whisper. And if you're using homemade puff pastry you're sure to have whispered a lot whilst making it, not to mention a little cursing! At least I did. September has been HOT in Lisbon. I'm not complaining about this - well, I actually am... It's not the weather itself but the weather when dealing with a block of butter that's suppose to be soft enough to flow freely and cold enough to layer properly. Meaning I had like 2 minutes to work my way with the turns. In the end, although my kitchen was a bit of a mess, the pastry was nice and the all process went smoother than expected. The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon . She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Vols au Vent You will...

One of the reasons why photography is so compelling is the human need to capture the moment. To lock and keep in order to call it "ours" hoping for the days and years to come not to take away the colours and the brightness. But photos won't keep smells, tastes or sounds - those we have to save in a special part of the memory, like some sort of essential reserve. Simone De Beauvoir used to say there's something in New York's air that makes sleep useless. It's, nevertheless, not the buzz or the lights of the city that never sleeps that I'll keep in the special airtight room of the memory but my last lunch in NY. Sitting outside on the terrace facing the Time Warner building with wonderful tree shades, just next to Central Park and Columbus Circle. Most memorable. Can't wait to come again. We left early in the morning. The day was sunny and the luggage was waiting for us at the hotel to be back home - it was our last day in NY. A visit to Cooper-Hewitt ...

Lately, I’ve been up to my elbows in tomatoes. I received a big bunch of tomatoes when my parents visited and have been enjoying them everyday. But that's not what brings me here today (I'll tell what I've done with tomatoes later this week). Bananas. Many. Too many. Turning black and with freckles. Smelling of summer. What to do with a couple of very ripe bananas? Oh, you could bake some muffins, couldn't you? - the husband said. Your wish is my command! And so I did. Spicy Banana Muffins Makes 12 1 cup (150 grs) plain flour, sifted ⅓ cup muscovado sugar, packed ⅓ cup golden caster sugar Dash of salt ¼ tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 2 medium bananas, mashed 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg ⅓ cup (80 ml) walnut oil ½ tsp vanilla extract 2 large eggs Dried banana chips (optional) Preheat the oven to 180°C (350ºF). In a medium bowl, beat the mashed bananas with eggs, vanilla extract and walnut oil. Sift the flour, baking powder, b...