Citrussy crepes soufflées

March has been a pretty busy month; my cooking classes and a couple of food related competitions made my daily schedule as hectic as I have rarely experienced before. But it has been a great and exceptional month, the best I had in the last couple years.
Healing from my Candida overgrowth has caused my diet to be extremely restrictive nowadays but the positive effects are mighty. I am my old self, full of energy and positivity; even my photography style has changed. With this extra energy I can now face this stark schedules and more!

The first third of the year has been dedicated to a food competition since the last 3 years: Les Réncontres Science et Cuisine (check my 2011 and 2010 posts) but this year a new one popped up in the same time window and it was a food-photography competition too.

Mint: my nemesis

Mint.
Few weeks ago this word appeared in an email I received as the chosen ingredient for the next Velveteers challenge.
Mint; one of the readily available ingredients that never made it into my pantry. Why? I suppose I got scarred by all those medicinal tablets with mint flavor I had to employ to heal my sore throat; I think I liked more the raspberry flavored cough syrup.
That freshness coupled with the chemical taste of medicines was quite a nightmare. Not even bitterness or extreme sourness made me shrivel into a gothic grimace like menthol.
I like mint’ scent, I have always liked it but keep the shrub out of my mouth please!

TGRWT #18: Plum and blue cheese: Reconstructed Plum Tatin with Blue Cheese Butterscotch sauce and Lavender

The food blogging event “They Go Really Well Together” (TGRWT) was initiated by Martin of the Khymos.org blog in April 2007 to explore unusual flavour pairings suggested by the theory of the key odorants.
As we know, each food has a specific aroma and taste; this means that they release chemical compounds that either fly off to our nose (generating then their aroma) or they are detected directly by our taste buds (creating then their taste). These compounds are called odorant compounds and create all the fine nuances often found for instance, in wines or teas.
Successful food combinations have fascinated chefs since ever since no real scientific or objective reason has ever been found supporting this or that pairing. Lately a new theory has been proposed that hopes to shed some light onto this topic: if two foods share one or more key (major) odorants it might be that they go well together and perhaps even complement each other.
Every month, in order to test this theory a couple of ingredients are chosen, presented in a blog and given to the public to test via the use of new or already established recipes.
This month has been the turn of Aidan of “Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef” blog to make the choice and this was: Plums and Blue Cheese.

This is my trial in exploiting this pairing in a dessert dish:
Reconstructed Plum Tatin with Blue Cheese Butterscotch sauce and Lavender.

There is always a first time…

It was few days ago when I had the pleasure to try what I would like to be my future job; but let’s start from the beginning.
Some time ago a friend of mine told me about the birthday of a friend of his, nothing peculiar so far; the nice part came when he told me that he was thinking of gifting him a dinner. Nice idea, no? You get to sit with your friends, drink good wine, chitchat, listen to good music and eat a meal especially prepared for you. The bottom line is that he wanted me to prepare that meal.
Pointless to say that I was very happy of this opportunity; my first dinner as a cook! I, in the kitchen cooking, plating and so on; them enjoying the results in the living room.
It was a very nice experience indeed. The kitchen was quite well equipped in tools and space but a cook’s knives are irreplaceable, don’t you think so too? Thankfully I already learned to travel with some of my equipments whenever I have to cook at a friend’s place.
It took me a couple of days to figure out the menu to prepare. I opted for a combination of traditional, regional and seasonal elements.
It’s asparagus time and Germany is quite a good producer of them (especially the white ones but I prefer the green). Strawberries are another hit of the season. The specimens coming from Bornheim are a nice orange read, roundish and of a wonderful smell; so aromatic, they are amazingly good!