Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
Barbara at Auckland-based Winos and Foodies has tagged me for the foodie leg of Basic Juice‘s meme with two tails – The Best in the Last 30. You can read more about the meme here. Basically, the idea behind it was to write about the most wine-friendly dish I had eaten over the past month.
Last night I went to see Tim Burton’s faithful, yet curiously unsatisfying, adapation of Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Reviews aside – you can find a good one here – what fascinated me was the audible crack! every time someone bit into a Wonka bar in the film. It shows that Mr Wonka was indeed making fine chocolate, unlike the sweet pappy muck that bears his name at a sweet counter near you these days.
Quinoa is something that I’ve been meaning to cook for quite a while. About ten years, in fact, ever since I read Nigel Slater‘s Real Fast Food. He has several recipes for this protein-packed ancient grain and, as with all his writings, I was seduced by the delicious descriptions. Not seduced enough, however, to seek it out in Ireland but, since arriving in New Zealand, I’ve come across it on several occasions. Eventually, an article in Cuisine led me to buy some from Piko which…just sat in the pantry until an inquiry about it from the Boyfriend’s mother made me decide that it was time to actually try cooking it instead of admiring it every time I opened the door of the pantry.
The opening film in the Date Palm Film Festival in Christchurch on Thursday night was an engrossing study of Moroccan life entitled In Casablanca, the Angels Don’t Fly. The three main characters are economic migrants, dreaming of their home villages, as they work at a minimum wage job in a bustling Casablanca café. It is a tragic tale, although occasionally shot through with moments of humour, of the struggles faced by village men who have to leave their families to work in a big city.
The opening film in the Date Palm Film Festival in Christchurch on Thursday night was an engrossing study of Moroccan life entitled In Casablanca, the Angels Don’t Fly. The three main characters are economic migrants, dreaming of their home villages, as they work at a minimum wage job in a bustling Casablanca café. It is a tragic tale, although occasionally shot through with moments of humour, of the struggles faced by village men who have to leave their families to work in a big city.
Just taking a look at the World Food Media awards website and some of my favourite food writers appear on their list of nominees.No Nigel Slater, alas, but Stephanie Alexander, Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs, Nigella Lawson, Anthony Bourdain and Cuisine magazine are among those nominated for the biennial awards which, apparently, are known as the food and drink industry’s equivalent to the Oscars.
Ooh! I’ve just been on the Observer Magazine website – a great treat to browse though when you’re sitting by the computer with a cup of coffee when you don’t have the real OM to hand on a Sunday – and I discovered that they’re running a series of extracts from Nigel Slater’s new cookery book, The Kitchen Diaries.
After enjoying a visit to the Nelson branch of Mediterranean Foods, I had intended to visit their shop in Christchurch, which also includes a café, for quite a while now but, somehow, it just never seemed to happen. But when I did finally make it I had a very pleasant afternoon, browsing through the shelves of this Aladdin’s Cave, piled high with ingredients from the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
