Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Sirflank cooked at 58 C for 1 hour (you could go for a lower temp but this worked well for my diners, flank part on the bottom half). Finished with high heat in a wok.

Fear not my vegeterian friends. I just finished working on a ricotta dish using Activa TG-K (this binds dairy products) and have started on a tofu dish using Activa-TI for I do not want to leave out my vegan pals either.

Why did I not use Activa YG for my ricotta dish? (I new you would ask that)

Well I'll let AJINOMOTO CO.,INC explain. (somehow I became a German Chef but anyway)

Dear XXXX san,
First, I’d like to confirm that already received samples from you. Thank you very much.
Next, I just got request from customer.
This customer is German Chef; he got information of ACTIVA YG from their friend in EU.
He interested in ACTIVA YG for cheese product, and asks for the information of this product.
I am not sure whether ACTIVA YG is produced in Japan or France, could you check please?
In case that customer would like to test ACTIVA YG, how can I get ACTIVA YG sample?
Thank you very much
Best regards,
Khun xxxx

...........

Khun xxxx
ACTIVA YG is produced in France only.
Regarding sampling of YG to your customer, I don't recomend now. As you know, we don't have approval of YG in Thai-FDA.
I explain background of YG development for reference shortly. We have sold another product (ACTIVA MP) for dairy produts in EU about ten years ago.
But we had a problem. ACTIVA MP does not work well when our customer use non, low or high-temperature pasteurization milk. According to our reseach, non or low-temperature pasteurization milk has inhibitory substance. After that, we developed new application that can control inhibitor. This new application is ACTIVA YG. ACTIVA YG uses reducing agent against inhibitor. If your customer use ultla high-temperature pasteurization milk, you can use ACTIVA TG-K as alternatives of YG. ACTIVA TG-K and MP are same function basically.
I will send ACTIVA YG brochure. Would you please confirm attached file. You can check the basic function of YG.
YG and TG-K are same about usage, dosage.

Bset regards,
xxxx-san

...........

Dear xxxx san,
Good morning.
Thank you very much for your explanation, I understand.
I agree with you that we do not want to pass YG sample to customer because of no Thai FDA approval.
So I will discuss with customer about their application and condition to find out the possibility to apply TG-K.
Thank you very much
Best regards,
Khun xxxx

So I may have quibbled in the past with the general precepts of veganism.

In my view its moral philosophy, claims to ecological superiority and overall social value remain contentious.

But I sure do love their shoes....introducing the "Vegan" wrap around boot from Tom's Ethical Shoe Store




Not loving the dried pig ear bracelet so much

We're nearly at the end of recounting meals eaten in New York. So hold tight. WD50 is the last on the list I think, but I'm leaving the interpretation of that astonishing meal to Hock.

So...a night out close to our last days in New York.

My restaurant of choice was Kyotofu.

I had read about it somewhere and thought rhetorically, what's not to like? I like tofu, I like sake.

It was my choice given that I had willingly sacrificed all my hard work at the gym to follow Hock on his burger/ pizza tour of NYC. And despite the fact that we were leaving to Tokyo within a matter of hours, I felt my digestion system couldn't wait for healthy pan-Asian treats.

We arrived and ordered a sample plate of the mains on offer and a sake sampler.





And a large quivering mass of tofu.


We then ordered a huge bottle of sake and silliness and hunger ensued.

The sampler and tofu weren't enough for four people so we decided to order extra of the samples which everyone liked. Unexpectedly, it wasn't tofu.

At this point tofu ceased to suffice as a drinking snack. We gave up and ordered full portions of the sausages and eel.



My stomach groaned. I'd promised it tofu and spring water and instead showered it with sausages and sake.

Things only got worse after an outrageous kareoke evening, and a taco truck on the upper west side at 2 am.

My digestive system and I are slowly regaining trust in one another, but its a relationship that may take some time to mend

Flank steak is a super flavoursome cut (but not the prettiest) so why not combine the tasty flank with a show pony cut like the Sirloin.

The two cuts make for a superduper tasty cut of beef. Especially when you cook Sirflank in the mid 50°C range for 40 odd minutes, wok sear to finish and serve.



Australian grain fed sirloin on the left, Australian wagyu flank on the right.



A touch of Activa TG-B



Don't waste that wagyu fat.



Rongs patented folding technique.



Compress and leave overnight.



Most likely a pretty picure to follow.

I am off to bed now. Big Friday and Saturday services ahead and no wife to enjoy an after work whisky with.

Oh well. Night to all.

What a day, I'm shagged.

Chef Rong (our butcher slash sous vide slash Activa expert) is loving our new chamber vacuum machine, so vacuum he will.

For our upcoming new menu next week we are both trying to work out what the perfect cooking temperature to time ratio might be, so there is no fucking around at the last moment this Wednesday trying to guess what might work.





48°C was just a little wee funky more warm sushi than cooked, probably perfect for Chuck from "Chuck eats". I liked 52°C but I think 55°C is where it is at for the Bangkok crowd.



Chef Roca gives no temperature guide for massive Thai King prawns.




The tail doesn't curl up which makes for a cool presentation style.

For this months menu we have flavoured these bad boys with orange skin, olive oil and few other spices, we will be serving this with barley and saffron.

Low Methoxy Pectin and Calcium Lactate will hopefully allow us to stick this fruit together.

Why you ask? Well why not.

But you try to explain to someone who doesn't speak the same language as you about how a bond forms between LM Pectin and a Calcium source .



Thanks to Alex & Aki of course.

So when you go to Shake Shack and stand in line for 30 mins to an hour and finally order your order hamburger, shroom burger, and frozen custard.... and before the staff hand you over the vibrating electronic device that "shakes" when your order is ready....ummmm.......you might want to try doing a little shake yourself a la Homer Simpson. If for instance, you wiggle yourself and your fat continues to wobble say five to ten seconds after you've stopped exerting yourself......well you might want to rethink your lunch choice, just saying...you know...for your health and vitality.



I'm not being mean, just honest, really.

If your wobbles are minor to non-existent, if say you are a Japanese tourist, go for it. Get the lot, guzzle down a shake burger, fries and custard. Why not try a shake shack shake too while your at it. I'm sure the shakes are great.

If however, your not quite hideously obese but could stand to loose a few squishy bits, as in my case, and if you promise to atone big time, then my advice is skip the fries, (they're just fried potatoes you know, you can live without them) order a 'shroom burger and share a small tub of frozen custard. Hock's shake burger is just a burger in my view, but the 'shroom burger was crispy mushroomy, cheesy and good. The frozen custard was dense and delicious. Follow with brisk walks all over NYC.

Through a post on Gothamist today, I found my new favorite food blogger: Franklin of Franklin on Food.

Franklin, a student at tech-friendly CIS 339 middle school in The Bronx, is the official cafeteria food critic for his school's aptly named student blog, The 339 Hardline. I appreciate his synthetic method-- part personal testimony, part man-on-the-street interview, plus his latest efforts heave with the gravitas which only quantitative data can give them.

I only wished he posted more frequently.

I should probably also add that the 7th and 8th graders who write for The 339 Hardline are more engaging than what I usually find myself reading when I am supposed to be working.

We haven't quite kept up with the food song of the week, but here's another for your entertainment by the Fatback Band.



So funky it hurts

Have you noticed since the global economic crisis how magazines and op-eds in lifestyle sections of web pages and other glossies have begun re-spinning the activities of poor people into the new "it" thing, so staying in is the new going out, hillbilly is the new hipster (note to plaid wearers) and locally brewed beer is the new champagne.

So picnics are the new brunch. Who said? Me.....why spend $50 bucks in NYC or more on a flashy brunch when you can sit in the park in Brooklyn, possibly get arrested for drinking a beer in public and eat hotdogs, broccoli rabe and mozzarella sandwiches, jamaican meat pies and drink organic cola and beer.









The best spot in the park, next to the public loos naturally (or "comfort station" as it was so prudishly named). You can even fall asleep in the sun on the grass, something you can't do at a fancy schmancy restaurant. Other people's children are far less annoying in a park.



Here's our hillbilly/hipster picnic



What comes next I wonder? Will Polish be the new French or Spanish? Polyester the new cotton? Fingers the new cutlery? Poor the new rich? Once again I find myself at the forefront of cutting edge trends. Lucky me.

So now that I am settled into Canberra to finally knock my thesis over (two chapters to go and then it will be Dr. Maytel to you), I've started a summer vege garden in my back yard.

To date I have planted, lettuce, rocket, mizuna, basil, Thai basil, lemon grass, Vietnamese mint, common-all garden mint (from seed even), artichokes, Italian parsley, strawberries, bok choy, silver beet, tomatoes, cucumber, chillies, garlic chives, eggplant, squash. This adds to what my landlord/co-supervisor/next door neighbour/ department professor planted, which consists of sage, chives, English parsley, marjoram, oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary, habeneros, capsicum, bay, lemon.


Note: Photo was taken last year in the beginning stages of vegetable garden establishment. Current garden is far more impressive but I am without a camera.

I had a search online to see if there were any good online Canberra gardening blogs, but all I found was a vaguely racist discussion board that had this advice on corriander.

Coriander is a pain to grow. Doesn’t like the cold, but the minute it warms up, it bolts ot seed! I hear that crafty asian gardeners just keep planting seeds every week or so, to have new plants coming on to replace the one that just went to seed. They are like ferns, they like light, food and water

Link. Emphasis added.

I'm yet to get crafty with my coriander, but I've been trying to let only a few heads bolt to seed on the chives and sage. I've always loved vege gardening (as Hock can attest, even when I was a party girl in my twenties I grew my own tomatoes) but I've yet to cultivate my innate asian craftiness (no my Chinese father nor any of my ancestors were ever market gardeners). So if anyone has any recommendations for good gardening sites or blogs for Canberra, lettuce know!!!

Image Source

Sometimes when I mentioned to people that I'm married to the chef, I often go through a similar discussion. People tell me how lucky I am and then I tell them yes, but I am but also a tad overweight. They chuckle and often say something to smooth over the awkwardness of having to agree with me by reiterating how lucky I am.

But I do believe they are right. A few extra kilos above my ideal (ok ten more but still within the healthy BMI range, thank god) is really a scant trade off for all the benefits.

Pros of being married to a chef
- access to great produce at wholesale prices
- being courted with delicious meals
- instant acceptance of your beloved by family and friends and increased social invitations
- knowing you'll never go hungry (even as a poor student in Auckland, Melbourne and whilst doing my PhD research in Cambodia, I've always had the privilege of five star dining, Hock would bring home wonderful cheese, great wines etc. In addition, suppliers, who were often friends would give us a lot of great food for free)
- Being with a like-minded and food adventurous person (a big pro for me, I don't care much for fussy eaters)

The other advantage of being married to a chef in my view is getting to live with a person who possesses, as many chef's do, those uniquely appreciable personality traits that chefing so often breeds: masculine stoicism mixed with artistic gentility and a deep appreciation of hygiene. This may sound like a tissue paper promotion but really the same qualities that you are looking for in a box of kleenex are, when you think about it what most people are looking for in their partner, strong yet gentle and very clean. This holds generally true so long as you haven't managed to acquire a love affair with a menial kitchen grunt, or outrageous egotist who yells all the time. There are however some other potential cons.

Cons
- Pudginess (you get fat together, weight loss efforts prove useless)
- Most holidays will revolve around food (again a possible pro, but sometimes annoying to always have to cross town to eat lunch)
- Unsociable working hours (your chef, should you chose to marry one will be working most evenings, weekends, public holidays and special days such as Xmas)
- Maybe better at articulating feelings through food and not words (offers of chocolate cake should be regarded as expressions of love, not further effort to make you fat, I have learned. Say thank you, understand what it means but don't eat it)
- May take particular delight in crass kitchen humour and body art (chefs seem to like hurting themselves, what's a tatoo when you have spent the last ten years burning your arms, have no feeling left in the finger you've repeatedly chopped the top off and have actually come to slightly enjoy the cool burning whip of a cold tea towel across your thigh, ass or other fleshy bodily part)

Those are the main pros and cons as I see them. And for me the pros far outweigh the cons, literally and figuratively. It may have been a different story if he had insisted on making me a wedding dress of cream puffs.

Things - Cooking with High Voltage Electricity from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.

Thanks Mandevu!!!! Cheese and grapes....hmmm, high voltage fondue?

I was so inspired by the pocket-sized manchego sandwich at Farga in Barcelona that I wanted to contest Mark Bittman's anointed ham roll, with my own video blog post. But sadly I did not feel like carrying around two cameras on that wet & windy day. Thus I make do with a regular blog post (at least until the next time I visit Barcelona. Then, Mark Bittman, it's on).

So imagine me saying this to camera:

The manchego sandwich which you can grab from the counter at Fargo with a pair of tongs, might not be the best sandwich in the world, but it is definitely the best sandwich in Barcelona, each and every time you eat it. Especially if you are female.

It is not soaked in grease and packed with slivers of shiny salt-cured ham like the boiled German-brezel-like baguettes at the chain known as Café Viena, which are much more suitable for the appetites of hearty men. (And which were certainly enjoyed by my German husband after long days of studio-building).

The bread is not exactly as crunchy as glass, but it does have a nice egg-shell crispness on the outside, that makes it very precious and satisfying to chomp through with the slightly oily and piquant cheese, soft smear of tomato, and the added texture of nuts in the bread.

If you order a few of them takeaway, this venerable patisserie will package them up in a nifty, wide-bottomed paper carry bag with black handles that would not look amiss next to an Hermès handbag.

And because it is so small and flavour-packed, you can also enjoy one of their five centimeter-long sandwiches with iberico ham and a wedge of egg, soft like the Japanese-style tamago-yaki. The bread for this sandwich is multigrain and comes topped with a few oats, so there will be no guilt afterwards.

Lady-like fingers will rest easy grabbing one of these.
Also, they are quite cheap, somewhere between one and two euros.







Farga (since 1957)

- Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 630 (also open on Sundays)

-Avinguda Diagonal 391

-Gran de Gracia 262

(I am seriously drooling right now. Not so ladylike after all.)