It was N, my dearest former blogging partner, who turned me onto this salad a few months ago when visiting her in NYC.  I never would have thought it would be possible to eat Kale raw, or that so many delicious salad varieties could emerge from what is essentially a base of kale, tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil and salt.

The trick is to mix the kale, olive oil, lemon juice and salt with your hands, and basically bruise the crap out of the kale.  Like, really crush that stuff.  Imagine it was that boss you hated or your ex and brutalise it.  Then add any veggies you like (I often add the tomatoes towards the end of bruising process and bash them a bit) before consuming ravenously.

The salad above had white cannelini beans, avocado and tomato, althought i’ve made it with grated carrot, soya beans and tomato with resounding success.  I’ve also added couscous or quinoa when the notion has struck me.

Evil Evil Evil

Recently I went anti-chicken breast.  I believe strongly that when it comes to food, the more disconnected we get from the idea that we are actually eating animals, the more picky we get about which part of the animals we eat and the more cruel we treat them before they die, and the result is that chicken breasts now represent all that is evil in the modern food industry.  Same goes for the stupid people who eat them only. 

Besides that, chicken breasts, especially from battery hens are tasteless and boring!  Where is the texture, the flavour?  They often taste of nothing.

But I recently went home to Canada and was faced with numerable obstacles in my personal vendetta against chicken breasts:

• My cousin would eat nothing but chicken breasts or steak;
• I couldn’t even find a whole chicken to then butcher;
• Even when I would cave and buy them, there were no free-range or organic options;

What’s a socially conscious meat eater to do except close her eyes and pretend she sees nothing for few days?  So I caved, and I cooked chicken breasts, and the following recipe was one of my attempts to insert flavour into the worst of North American food culture: the over-watered, over-hormoned, under-exercised chicken breast.

Chicken (breasts) Wrapped in Pancetta, Stuffed with Goat cheese and Fresh Herbs

4                        Chicken Breasts
8 slices            Pancetta
2 packages     Chevre or other creamy goat cheese
1 handful         Fresh parsley, chopped
1 handful         Fresh thyme, chopped
1 handful         Fresh rosemary, chopped (although tarragon might be nice instead)
2 cloves           Garlic, minced
5-6                     Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 180/350 degrees.

 In a mixer or mixing bowl, combine goat’s cheese, herbs, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and mix thoroughly.  Once the mixture is smooth and creamy, set aside in the fridge.

Trim the fat and connective tissue from the chicken breasts and cut a pocket into each one.  Season to taste.  Stuff with the cheese mixture and wrap in 2 slices of pancetta.  Place on a baking tray with the pancetta ends folded down.

Bake for 25 minutes or until pancetta is crispy and chicken juices run clear.  Serve with fresh salads and a drizzling of lemon juice.

B dismounts bicycle to avoid being hit by lorry right outside her home, and begins walking the last 50m.

Bemused lorry driver: Oi!  You weren’t scared of the lorry!  You just wanted a rest!

“According to recent releases both from the Seattle Death Star and UK corporate HQ, Starbucks is going to change its image with a raft of carefully selected authenticity cues. The centrally dictated colour palette and drear interiors will be smartened up with local artefacts, community noticeboards and possibly, whisper it low, second-hand furniture.

They’ve already kicked off the party with a new site in Seattle branded ‘15th Ave. Coffee and Tea Inspired by Starbucks.”

 - The Guardian on Starbucks’ ‘debranding’.

I love it when corporations are in denial about how corporate they are.  Why fight the market niche you’ve inserted yourself into so well?  Although I prefer Caffe Mobile any day of the week, Starbucks has a place in my life – I won’t deny that when I’m in a country where a decent cup of coffee is very difficult to find (like China!), seeing that shiny green logo is like a homing beacon.

No, I don’t coo over the menu like a few tourists might (wow, capuccino in spanish is capuccino!) but I go in.  There, I said it.

This is like when McDonalds went all Euro all over again.

go-go dancers, sports cars and quote worthy dialogue, what more could a girl want on a Saturday night?

So my flatmate Claire and I have recently taken to scouring flea markets and charity shops for beautiful pieces of vintage kitchen ware.  While a hovis bread tin and ceramic salt cellar still evade me, today in Oakville Ontario’s goodwill I found this vintage egg beater: mine has beautiful red handles, and it was only 0.99 cents!!

Beauty and Sturdiness Personified

I can only surmise that this article was published without a byline as no person, male or female was willing to put their name next to such a misguided piece of journalism

Excerpt from my letter to The Times of London, in response to this.

On my recent trip to Denmark I learned that when it comes to Potatoes, the Danes have very strict rules.  There will be no deviation from these rules, oh no.

Danish New Potatoes shall not be peeled, but scrubbed.

Danish New Potatoes shall be boiled in salted water.  Salt shall not be added after boiling.

Danish New Potatoes shall be served with parsley.  This parsley should only be added moments before serving.

And so it was, and so it shall be.

]]> http://handtomouthkitchen.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/new-potatoes-danish-style/feed/ 0 B Danish New Potatoes http://handtomouthkitchen.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/new-restaurant-mission-les-trois-garcons/ http://handtomouthkitchen.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/new-restaurant-mission-les-trois-garcons/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:31:05 +0000 B http://handtomouthkitchen.wordpress.com/?p=336 ]]>

“a happy collision between a taxidermist’s and an art installation” 

Time Out London

Passed this while going to this yesterday.  Must go here as soon as possible. Tasting menu: £68.  2 course prix fixe menu: £27.50.  Not bad.

I’ve never been a baker.  It has never spoken to me like other cooking has – don’t get me wrong, I love bread, but I think at the tender age of five I decided the ‘in-between’ stage of bread – when its not dough, and not a runny mixture, was gross and messy and that was that.

Although I have worked in an industrial bakery – it was much easier than baking at home.  There was a giant mixer with a bread hook, and everything was easy after that.  I did love our fermenting sourdoughs, rosemary and sundried tomato foccacia and baking big sheets of cookies.  But at home, I never was a baker.

So when I was at friend L’s summer house in Copenhagen celebrating his 30^th birthday, we were told we would bake bread for 100 – amongst all the other preparations for the party.  Gulp!  That never happened, but we did bake 4 loaves of bread, simply following the recipe on the back of the flour packet, and adding fresh herbs and sunflower seeds.

My friend T handled the icky part of mixing the dough, but I formed the loaves.  I remember instantly that summer of weighing chunks of dough, kneading them on the wood, curling them in on each other until they were a lovely round ball and then spinning them within my hands to tighten the outer shell.

As always, it was meditative, rhythmic and there was something deeply instinctual about it.  As a genetically European woman, there is something deep inside of you that remembers making bread before you learnt.  My female ancestors probably made bread by hand for hundres of years, even my mother baked all our bread until I was 10 – and I am the first who doesn’t.