Chili pastes are all the rage these days with the Asian varieties like sriracha taking the biscuit for most people. And I can’t disagree, sriracha has depth of flavor rather than just pure heat and makes the best. chicken. wings. ever. But stepping a bit further west to the Middle East, the condiments stashed at the back of Jerusalem are full of interest and intrigue and there’s more plenty of spice for chili lovers too.
Ah, January. Everyone is writing about getting healthy, eating kale, putting the bottle down and keeping the butter knife at bay. This post is not denying the value of any of that − I mean, who doesn’t love kale? But when the dark winter days start getting to you and you find your fingertips trembling over a stack of dusty takeaway menus, reach for a jar of this stuff. It’ll put a spring in your step and a smile on your face − it might be a pretty good cure for a stuffy nose too.
I had a cold last week. And I don’t get sick. Like ever. So although you might expect the infrequency of illness to rouse some sympathy from the hungry belly party of this get-up (aka Rhys), it doesn’t. I still had to cook dinner. All week. Even though he had the week off and I had to work. And I was sick. Did I mention that I was sick?
This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for months now. I feel like I’m not doing it justice because I wasn’t able to get a decent enough picture and so I haven’t posted it. But, to be honest, it’s so good you need to know about it, bad pictures or not.
Our supermarket has started stocking jasmine rice. God save the Queen.
This post has been a long time coming. For months I have been reading about the food world’s love affair with Jerusalem, dropping hints to my husband – selective hearing? – and ogling pictures and tweets of peoples’ home recipe triumphs. Finally, I just went and bought it.
Those of us in the realm of food cannot help to have noticed the craze over Jerusalem (published September 6, 2012), written by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Everywhere you look in the food-osphere there are posts about za’tar, barberries and zhoug. If you’re like me, you sensed the trend and subtly dropped hints to the powers that be (i.e. the husband) that this cookbook might be ‘worth a shot’, ‘an interesting read’ or even ‘useful’. All the while secretly dreaming of flipping through its colourful pages and hunting out its foreign ingredients from dodgy web shops. My particular powers that be have so far ignored my plight, although it is oh so obvious, but seeing others’ posts about recipes from this book has only strengthened my will.