Rice dishes have always been a special treat in my maternal grandparents’ home. Most Punjabis eat a lot of flatbread, versus rice. My mother, being the daughter of Punjabi parents, has always preferred flatbread over rice. Despite the fact that she married into a family which devours rice on a daily basis – my father’s family is originally from Afghanistan – Ami loves her chapati, a Pakistani flatbread which beautifully puffs up like a balloon as it cooks over a naked flame.Read More
THE WINNER IS KATIE AND HAS BEEN E-MAILED. THE GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED.
Hello, lovelies! As you know, I recently went through a redesign for my website and to celebrate this, I have collaborated with Lindsay from Suite One Studio and am giving away two handmade dainty salt and pepper bowls. Lindsay is a potter who runs her own company, Suite One Studio, and creates elegant pieces of gently hued porcelain, each hand-thrown or shaped, painted with custom-blended glazes. I am a huge ceramics nut, so this giveaway seemed to be just the perfect thing to do.
We had just returned home to Toronto from our trip to Paris this summer (I know, I know, I still have to share those photos with you in a blog post!). We had inhaled scoop after scoop of salted caramel and pink peach Berthillon flavours and these mounds of cloud-like meringues from Carton near my in-laws’ old residence in Paris. We had savoured a beautifully crisped skin of duck confit at Chez Dumonet, where the potatoes are fried in duck fat, but of course. And on our way home, we had a box of dark chocolate ganache squares to eat on the plane. Poor Turkish Delight was reaching for the chocolates again and again, but all he had was mother’s milk; no sugar for him at that age.Read More
Time Magazine recently came out with a rather controversial ‘Gods of Food’ issue. I say controversial, because the food world is up in arms about why there is not even one female chef in this curated list. Where is Anne Sophie-Pic’s name, they say? Or Elena Arzak, the culinary genius who runs the Michelin starred restaurant with her father in San Sebastian, Spain? There have been many a discussion online about it, so I won’t rehash all of it here. However, I would like to take it a step back and raise the question – what should being considered “the best” entail?
While I agree that there is a place for food as art in the culinary world and admire the oeuvre of these chefs, why is it deemed as “the best”? Chefs who are on “the best” lists often create food which is so beautifully presented, that you almost don’t want to eat it. I can appreciate that one has to go through great pains to produce a masterful canvas, like what Elena Arzak creates. Have a look at this post here which has some photos from a dining experience at her restaurant in San Sebastian. Yet, there are head chefs of Michelin-starred restaurants like Nadia Santini (of Dal Pescatore fame) who makes a tortelli di zucca, which may remind you of the simple, wholesome food your grandmother made for you.
That said, I do wish that we celebrated women who adeptly make saffron bread pudding for 500 people at weddings in Pakistan. Such artisans produce delicious dishes night after night, often so good that one wants to eat one’s fingers. And what about the lady who, in one day, makes 250 prawn and chive dumplings for her son’s graduation party?
Though we are celebrating these women more and more now, they are still not on the mainstream “best of” lists. Is that a good thing? I often wonder about this question and don’t claim to know the answer. I would love to know what everyone’s thoughts are on this. Who are the cooks and chefs whom you think are the best? And why?
Photo above is from my meal at Le Galopin in Paris this summer. Though I had a lovely meal, the foam and small portions were not something which will pull me back to this restaurant.