There's the film with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner in it and then there's this ridiculously happy lady. She is called "The Barefoot Contessa", and I have been watching her on the Canadian Food Network every morning as I sit in our small but lovely "apartment" in my white fluffy "robe", drinking coffee and wiggling my toes. (The only channels I can find are the Food Network, which is really good, local news programmes - some of them in Dutch - and religious programming. I hasten to add that this has little to do with Canadian television, but rather my inability to a) operate the digital box thing; b) find the patience to scroll through 9.2m channels until I can find the Simpsons.)But I digress. The Barefoot Contessa is actually called Ina Garten (is she Swedish?). She comes on the telly with a mixing bowl and smiles a lot. She is very pretty and quite fat, but in a nice way, like she's been licking spoons all day. She does recipes without making a fuss and smiles whilst she's doing it. Granted, she talks about "cups" and "confectioners' sugar" and grades of Maple Syrup to mix in her "frosting", but I like her very much. And her splendid straightforwardness and way with goats' cheese and Bundt Cake* merely serve to remind me what a cavalcade of culinary cunts we have parading across our television sets in Blighty.
There is Oliver with his enormous flobbery tongue and anxious wife; there is Ramsay with his characterless wife, strange looking children and hour-long television transmission on every channel every night (even CBBC and The History Channel). There is that barking cretin Gary Rhodes who has the most irritating voice on television today (apart from Jade Goody and her ex-boyfriend Jeff). There is Ainsley Harriot, who is not a cook but a purveyor of innuendo and washing up liquid. There is that freakish ginger dwarf and the man with the test tubes and the name that sounds like something out of Brueghel. There is Nigella who I like quite a lot because she's quite fat and insanely beautiful, but I don't like it when she talks about food. (She's alright writing about it or talking about other stuff mind you.) And of course there's Nigel Slater who, like Nigella, is OK - as long as he doesn't talk about it. Food, that is. (Delia Smith could not, in any way, be described as a cook, so she has no place in this post. She would however have a starring role in a post about pointless cockmonkeys.)
But look at Ina with her flowers! Look at her lovely smiling face. No doubt she says "cilantro" and "baysul", but I'll let her get away with it. In fact I'll let her get away with it to the extent that this very morning - despite temperatures of -12 (which "feel like -20" what with wind chill factors an' all), I am going to go to a "book store", buy one of her books and then go to a kitchen shop and buy a set of measuring cups. In this way I will be able to make North American recipes openly and without hesitation, moving "sticks" of butter around the place and making "cookies" whilst whipping "heavy cream". My cultural conversion will be complete!* These things are everywhere. They are enormous. I have not actually seen one in a shop yet, but on the Food Network they make them all day, in different ways, with different things in and people talk about "pound cake batter", which sounds a bit painful. They look like they would feed 24, or last a family of 4 for 3 months. I am on the lookout for one today as I will need something to nibble on in the car this evening.
19 comments:
You silly Bundt..
(Sorry.)
In case you don't see the web zen mailing, it was monkeys :
http://www.monkeyday.com/
http://www.devilducky.com/media/40837/
http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=1104
http://www.sockit2me.com/sockit2me/vulcanmonkey.html
http://www.fred-london.com/index.php?mode=artists&id=16
http://www.devilducky.com/media/40838/
http://www.freeonlinegames.com/play/1476.html
http://mrbiggs.com/dailymonkey/
http://monkeydaynews.blogspot.com/
It is bundt cake season here in N.America. They look pretty, easy to fix and serve a lot of people. Did you know that Mrs. Garten used to have a White House job having to work with nuclear regulations or some such? Sbe got tired of the job and bought a gourmet deli and food store called The Barefoot Contessa. Nigella is creepy--too much of a passionate foodie.
Jade Goody might be irritating, but at least she's...er...
A dedicated food channel, eh? I'm looking forward to visiting the Canada for myself.
Heavy cream is a new one to me. But, you must admit, quite accurate and much less misleading than whipping cream (whip, cream, stilettos, basque, boy was I embarrassed in that cookery class!).
Did you not like my monkey picture or did it get lost in the electromail?
Keep your little monkey paws well wrapped up!
Bundt cakes are not to be purchased, only to be made. It refers to the pan, which is the very strange shape, and is sometimes used as a Jell-o mold.
Four sticks of butter to a pound. I've recently learned to weigh myself in kilos, because of the dialysis, and also because I sound thinner to my North American ears when I use metric.
I also like Paula Deen.
Never Trust a Thin Cook
... as my dear mother likes to say. And (worryingly?) I am rather fond of saying these days, too.
Think about it, though: it makes sense.
Also rules out most of the abovementioned. Thankfully.
Hey NWM
I saw Heston Blumenthal's prog for the first time recently - he is truly frightening and spent a whole hour trying to measure the wetness of potatoes.
Nigella is lovely to watch, but her beautiful pale blue cooking range is daylight robbery.
And what think you of Hugh double- barrelled Fearnstall who thinks we should all rear our own pigs?
I love Nigel Slater, he is the only normal one.
Mrs. Garten's husband is some sort of very-high-up at Yale or Princeton or Harvard or some such (our Oxbridge, darling). He's a Dean or Vice-Chancellor or something.
And she got that White House job in the Nixon or Ford administration, when she was straight out of university, which means her family are somebodies, too. That sort of "luck" requires a casual mention over drinks at the club.
Get liquid as well as dry measuring cups and a set of measuring spoons -- an American "cup" has a volume of 8 oz., not 10. (You should have seen me trying to cook in Britain w/ only an American cookbook! At least I had the right measuring set.)
And unfortunately, Americans use "ounce" as both a measure of weight and volume, and unless you're dealing w/ liquids they are NOT equivalent. 2 cups (16 oz. volume) of pre-shredded cheese weighs only 8 ozs. which is the size marked on the package.
Oh, and you'll need a Fahrenheit to Celcius conversion chart for ovens should you take Ina's book back across the Pond.
i was thinking of you just yesterday when c*** oliver and his tongue were on my telly, since you had mentioned it the other day, confirming a long held belief of mine that it couldn't possibly only be me who wanted to punch the little essex tosser everytime he comes on my television (eugh), and I felt quite sick looking at the damp spitty fat flacid piece of gristle he keeps behind those grotesque fat lips and I feel that I must draw them one day (the face, the lips and the tongue, that is) ...if i can prevent myself being sick.
that's all i have to say as I am too confused by canadi-merkan cooking measures... volume indeed. I mean. It's weight that matters!
sigh.
Heavy cream has been nuked and is probably sourced from Utah.
I like Nigel too, and I agree that Nigella is beautiful, but a little scary. She's with a Saatchi now, so why cook? Have it all sent round woman!
The whole watching food programmes while eating a ready meals thing baffles me.
The one prog I really hate is that "You are what eat" fascist woman, who pretends homemade pizza tastes as good as take out.
And the cup thing confuses me, I suppose as long as you use one cup all the way through it all stays in proportion, but you lot have been a long time out of the wagons now you know. Or is it just an aversion to scales? It's kind of creepy too, like someone might use granny's dentures mug from beside bed.
Off to feed my Christmas cake with Calvados -someone has to do it.
I remember when I was in Merka, they had that handy expression, "A Pint Weighs a Pound, The World Around." Except in England, of course. And Scotchland. Ireland. Wales. Australia. Africa. India. China. You get the picture. So tell me, does this ditty apply to the Canada?
More Monkeys
http://paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/index00.htm
Monkey dear, this is a post on a subject dear to my heart. You probably know all the rules by now, but I can tell you that nothing in american cookery is ever measured by weight. Shredded cheese would be very much measured in cups.
The measuring vcups you purchase now will be invaluable to you.
There has been a bit of Nigella-bashing here, but her excellent first book How to Eat contains has admirable US/UK conversion charts. The other book to look out for, which I suspect may be more available in Canada than here, is The Joy of Cooking - the American cookery Bible. This is a book so compendious that as well as the conversion charts it also has tables on stain removal, calory values, and almost every other category of household knowledge. I have three editions (one from 1936); one of them even has a diagram of how to skin a squirrel!
By the way, as well as the measuring cups and the Bundt tin, you should consider bringing back some Jell-O (someone mentioned it) - kids love it because it's tasty powder, not stiff jelly, and it comes in great flavours - peach, watermelon, etc. Also you can get coloured sugar over there, for cake decorating, and it also always goes down a treat.
Well, there's a long list, based on my kids: we always end up bringing back tons of foodstuffs.
Note that none of it is actually the kind of food that, er, nourishes us!
I'm ashamed to say that for months I thought " Ina Garten" was cutesy sub-title for her program.
Tracy Lynn is right-- no bundts for sale, but pastries are everywhere. And you can't leave Montreal without trying either the Fairmount or St Viateur bagel. I prefer Fairmount, but either one is better than any other in the world.
Joy of Cooking is good reference for basics and measurements. However the recipes I have tried from there aren't as good as ones from other cookbooks by Julia Child, etc.
p.s. this site might be of help:
http://southernfood.about.com/library/info/blconv.htm
Clare,
An American "stick" of butter is 1/2 an American cup, also 1/4 of an American pound. Each stick is marked in American tablespoons, 8 to the 1/2 cup. The only bad part is trying to slice off 1/3 c. because one must guestimate 1/3 of a tablespoon inbetween the little hash marks. The very odd thing is that American butter does not have the same dimensions all over the country, which is why our butter dishes always seem to be either too long or too wide for the stick depending on where you live.
American cookbooks vary back and forth on measuring butter by the (partial) stick, the (partial) cup, or the (multiple) tablespoon(s). I think that recipes tend to use the cup or tablespoon measure mostly because some American cooks (Not I! Not I!) use other forms of solid shortening rather than butter or stick margarine, and such shortening is scooped out of tubs or tins. (ugh)
NWM,
Remember that when an American recipe calls for "jelly" they mean fruit spread, and when it calls for "pudding" they mean the kind that comes in a little box and you add milk.
Thank you all for your kind and helpful comments. I think it is about lunchtime in my body, but the evening according to the clock. This means that my brain cannot function clearly enough to reply properly. I am to stay awake until bedtime. Then and only then can I sleep.
I believe this is the 'jetlag' of which they speak.
Post a Comment