Cook sister!

"Waiter, there's something in my..."

Don't you love a new year? 

It's like a clean slate - everything gets to start afresh, from your diary to your gym programme to your diet. So what better time to make a fresh start with a new food blogging event! As the foodblogging community has expanded and developed, events seem to have become increasingly specialised. There is an event for sweet-tooths (SHF), an event for herb-lovers (WHB), an event for eggy literati (EoMEoTE), an event for Filipino cuisine (Lasang Pinoy), an event for adventurous chefs (Paper Chef), an event for wine-lovers (WBW) - even an event for food photographers (DMBLGiT). But nothing broad enough to include everyone, and nothing basic enough to appeal to everyone from the bachelor cooking on a two-plate stove to the professional chef. Well, until January 2007, that is.

Because January 2007 will see the launch of a new event, hosted in rotation by Johanna (The Passionate Cook), Andrew (SpittoonExtra) and me (Cooksister!). The idea is to run the event for a finite period (12 months) as most events certainly do seem to have a limited lifespan, and to make the themes as broad and inclusive as possible. It will give you an opportunity to show the world what sort of personal stamp you can put on the basic theme:  what does your country regard as a classic potato dish? What do your family traditionally make at Christmas? What favourite seasonal ingredient is playing a starring role in your pies this season? With this in mind, we have come up with a list of 12 themes and each month we will be challenging you to charm us with your personal take on the theme. All entries will be included in a round-up on the host's blog.

This new event will be called "Waiter, there's something in my..." and Andrew will shortly be announcing the first theme, so do check his blog early in January for further details.

I can't wait!

Merry Christmas, South African style

Merry Christmas, everyone, from sunny South Africa!

OK, I admit, I'm cheating a teensy bit here...  Because I will have only intermittent internet access and I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to post today, I have used pictures and stories from Christmas 2004, which was the last Christmas I spent in South Africa.

I have written plenty elsewhere about how how we always celebrated Christmas when I was a kid and how the traditions seemed to be cast in stone - to be celebrated immutably for ever.  But my mom's untimely death in 2003 put an end to most of the traditions that I had loved so well - I don't think any of us realised to what extent she was the lynchpin that kept it all together, until she was no longer there.  But one of the many things I have learnt is that in order to live a happy life, you absolutely, unequivocally have to learn to expect, accept, and even like change.  This is a tall order for me as I have never been big on change.  But sometimes you have no choice and in the end the change turns out to be positive anyway.

Since 2003, we have been celebrating Christmas at my brother and sister-in-law's house.  Paola, my sister-in-law, is Italian and in the tradition of long tables of family getting together under olive trees for celebratory meals, we have started having an African version of this fine tradition.  Everyone is invited - relatives, their spouses, their children, close family friends and "widows and orphans".  Because there are often 20 people at the table, to save the hostess's sanity, everybody brings something.  The prettiest of the contributions was definitely these little cassata pots from Paola herself.

They're really easy - melt good quality vanilla ice cream till it's churnable, then mix in your favourite chopped nuts and candied fruit, bits of chocolate, nougat - whatever you like.  Then spoon into colourful glass tumblers, freeze, and garnish before serving.  Voila!  Bellissima! 

As I'm on holiday, things will be a little quiet around here - but normal transmission will resume in 2007.  Happy holidays, everyone!

Tom's Kitchen

I have a confession to make:  I'm an East-ender.  Not born within the sound of the Bow bells, as such - more like an adoptive East-ender.  I have lived east of Tower Bridge since arriving in the UK 6 years ago, my last two jobs were in postcodes beginning with E and, in fact, the only stint I had living or working in the west was 6 months back in 2000 working in Hammersmith.  So it is safe to say that I am not one of the Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls!  Despite droves of my countrymen following the Village People and going West, I have remained resolutely and happily in the east.  However, every now and then I have a compelling reason to venture over to The Other Side, and last Saturday was one of those days.

The one attraction the Christmas market and ice skating rink outside the wonderful Natural History Museum.  Verdict:  if you've never been to Germany, this will fill you with warm Christmas cheer and empty your wallet as you buy trinkets for family and friends.  However, if you have been to a proper German Christmas market, this will leave you cold.  Maybe it's the icky hard plastic flooring that they've put down; maybe it's the lack of food stalls and their attendant food smells - I just don't know.  The setting is beautiful though - maybe best to go and grab a cup of mulled wine and watch the skaters against the backdrop of the building. 

But the other reason for heading out west was far more compelling:  a visit to the newly-opened Tom's Kitchen.  This is the latest venture from mercurial wunderkind Tom Aikens and is as far removed from the elaborate Michelin-starriness of his original eponymous restaurant as can be.  The room is high-ceilinged and light, with white tiled walls and some large black and white foodie prints - it reminded me rather a lot of St John. The furnishings are simple but solid wooden tables and chairs and there is a long marble bar running down the one side of the room.  Intriguingly, there is a glass panel in the floor by the door which affords a view on a subterranean room (which I later learned is the cheese- and wine-tasting room).  The atmosphere as you enter the room is immediately warm and friendly, and not at all as snooty as the Chelsea address might suggest.  I was liking this place already.

When I arrived for brunch, Johanna was already seated and had amused herself with some espresso while waiting (which she pronounced excellent).  The menu was one of those rare examples of a menu where you could quite happily munch your way through four or five items, capacity permitting!  But seeing as my capacity certainly did not permit, I narrowed it down and eventually settled on the celeriac remoulade with sourdough toast triangles and excellent cured ham, while Johanna had a bagel with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.  My remoulade was delicious - not too sloppy, not too dry and with the flavour of the celeriac (which I love) coming through clearly.  The ham made a perfect and decadent partner, its silky texture and smoky taste contrasting beautifully with the clean, crispy flavour celeriac.  I also had a taste of Johanna's bagel and I must say that it was heavenly - piled generously high with perfect wobbly scrambled eggs studded with nuggets of smoked salmon.  Comfort food at its best! 

But of course, man cannot live by savouries alone, and by the end of the meal we felt we deserved something sweet to finish with.  I quickly chose hot chocolate with a chocolate and sour cream muffin (see the theme here?!) while Johanna opted for French toast with maple syrup and rhubarb compote.  My muffin saw small but perfectly formed - quite dense and not too sweet.  But if I have a bigger appetite nexttime I go I will definitely order Johanna's French toast & rhubarb compote.  The toast was correctly made from a thick slab of brioche and liberally doused with maple syrup.  This decadent, squishy sweetness paired perfectly with the tart and gorgeously girly pink rhubarb compote - a match made in heaven.

But for us, the the nicest part was the atmosphere - realyl friendly and relaxed and unpretentious.  We got into a conversation with two tables next to us after they giggled ot our elaborate photography of a single muffin.  It also gave us a chance to check out some of the other dishes people were having.  I particularly fancied the toasted brioche with nutella, and the chap next to us was having wonderful-lookign churros.  There is also a selection of more proper lunchy dishes on the menu which I'd like to go back and try.

All in all, this is the kind of local place that would coax me out of bed to come and read the papers over a mug of hot chocolate, rather than mooching around the house till all hours.  In fact, I'd say it's almost a reason to move to the west.  Almost.

Food:   7/10
Service:  8/10
Ambience:  9/10
Value:   [don't know - it was Johanna's treat!]

Tom's Kitchen
27 Cale Street
Chelsea
London
SW3 3QP

Tel 020 7349 0202

Bron's chocolate oat & sesame cookies - Christmas baking III

Yes folks, astonishingly, I still haven't finished telling you about my baking exploits!!  Just to recap - I had already made lemon shortbread and double peanut butter cookies, both of which had turned out to be delicious.  But there was one more cookie I was dying to make, and that was something I'd seen on Bron Marshall's site. 

You know how sometimes you are reading a blog and think "wow, that looks delicious" and 10 minutes later you have no recollection of where you saw it - and clearly you never get round to making it?  But then sometimes you see something on a blog and you simply cannot get the idea out of your head.  It haunts you dreams and eventually you have to make it just to get a moment's peace from your subconscious!  Well, these cookies were definitely in the latter category.  Sometime in early November Bron had posted her chocolate, oat and sesame cookies and I don't know if it was the food-porny pictures or the yummy description, but for me it was love at first sight.  I think part of it was also that I have always been a fan of  oaty chocolatey cookies and these reminded me of a prettier version of the chocolate crunchies I made for the 2005 blogger cookie swap.  So for my final Big Bake of 2006, these were an obvious choice.

But, as is always the case in my life, things didn't go 100% to plan.  I stopped off at the supermarket after work and grabbed a couple of the ingredients.  I got home, made some dinner and got the oven heated up for some post prandial baking.  But once I had measured out the ingredients I realised I hadn't written down the method.  So I logged onto Bron's site, scrolled down and found... nothing!  Zip!  Nada!  Paniiiiic!  It's not su much that I didn't write down the instructions as the fact that they weren't there!  Yes, I guess I could just have chucked it all together in a big bowl and hoped for the best, but as an occasional baker at the best of times, I didn't exactly want to trust my instincts!!  So I e-mailed Bron, said a little prayer that she was a) awake, and b) checking her e-mail.  Then I did what any sane woman in my position woud have done:  I poured a glass of wine and flopped down in front of the TV for an hour.  When I went back upstairs to check e-mail... there was a reply from Bron, and a method for baking the cookies.   Hurrah!!  Day saved!  Thanks Bron! 

Below is the recipe reproduced from Bron's site.  The only adjustment I made is to add extra butter.  I found with the original ratio of butter to dry ingredients my dough was way too dry to stick together and the cookies were falling apart before I could get them onto the baking sheet, so for the second batch I upped the butter content and things worked a lot better.  Bron includes a recipe for icins, but I liked these plain, just like nature intended.  Also - if you are impatient like me and think that all this "allow to cool before removing to a wire rack" is just superstitious mumbo jumbo, these cookies will convince you otherwise.  DO NOT ATTEMPT to remove them from the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes!!  They really will fall apart in your hands.  Really.  Trust me on this ;-)

BRON'S CHOCOLATE OAT AND SESAME COOKIES (makes about two dozen)

Ingredients

• ¾ cup of plain white flour
• 1/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 1 cup rolled oats
• ¾ cup of sesame seeds
• ¾ cup of caster sugar
• 100 grams of butter (I increased this to about 140 grams)
• 3 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 1 tablespoon of hot water
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 160C.
2. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl, add in the remaining dry ingredients (rolled oats, sesame seeds, caster sugar) and mix to combine.
3. In a small saucepan melt the butter and golden syrup by stirring over a low heat until it is all melted and smooth.
4. Set the mixture aside to cool slightly.
5. Mix the baking soda and water in a small cup and add this to the golden syrup mixture, it should come to a foam.
6. Fold the foam into the dry ingredients and combine well.
7. Roll good tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place lined baking trays, flattening slightly with your fingers.
8. Bake for 12 minutes and continue to cool the cookies on the baking tray for at least 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
9. Once cold, ice (or not) as desired! Suggested icing recipe on Bron's site.

And if you like cookies, why not make a donation to the Menu for Hope campaign and put yourself in line to win one of a number of cookie-related prizes for only $10?  Or of that doesn't grab your fancy, why not bid on the beautiful South African recipe book and goodie bag that I have donated?  So far we have raised an astonishing $35,000 for the UN World Food Programme - way in excess of last year's $17,000!  Well done.  Now let's see if we can get to $40,000 by 22 December and do ourselves even prouder.  Please?  Just one little bid??

Related posts:

Double peanut butter cookies - Christmas baking II

Lemon shortbread - Christmas baking I

Still Christmas shopping?

So are you one of those annoying people who buy stuff in small increments all through the year and keep them in a cupboard for Christmas; who don't set foot in Oxford Street after October; and won't be seen running around Bluewater frantically on Saturday 23 December with veins throbbing on your forehead?  Or are you still only thinking about making your Christmas shopping list and hope to do it all in the hours between lunchtime on 24 December and whenever the shops close??

Well, if you are of the latter persuasion, I have two suggestions for you that might save your sanity this Christmas.  The first suggestion is a charming little stocking-filler for foodie friends, namely a gift book called Carve-ups:  the rudest food reviews by Michelle Lovric.  Let me say up front that Michelle very sent me a review copy which I haev been reading in little bits every evening before bed and giggling quietly to myself, or sometimes snorting out loud with laughter.  Michelle has written a number of novels, often focusing on life in Venice, and combines her fiction work with editing, designing and producing literary anthologies including her own translations of Latin and Italian poetry and a number of anthologies.  In Carve-ups she has assembled a collection of disparaging, insulting, snide and often hilarious food-related quotes from all over the world - perfect if (like me) you are a fan of the AA Gill style of reviewing ;-)

Some of my absolute favourites include:

"I see from my receipt that I had a dish called "pork dump", which pretty well sums it up." - Giles Coren

"Quite often the worst place to eat fish is beside the sea.  People who catch it are not necessarily the best at cooking it, just as gynaecologists are not necessarily the best lovers." - AA Gill

"I looked for the waitng staff, but the room is so big they were probably obscured by the curvature of the earth" - Jay Rayner

"The gents' toilets combine blood-spattered, stainless steel walls with Kiehl's moisturiser dispensers.  Who on earth is Nobu Berkeley supposed to be for?  Metrosexual axe-murderers?" - Toby Young

The book is available directly from Mamelok Press so you don't even have to leave home to sort out a gift for the favourite foodie in your life!  It is also due to be released in the USA in 2007 under the title Skewered. Guaranteed to bring a smile to the lips of anyone who has ever eaten out - and an invaluable inspiration for those wishing to review bad restaurants ;-)

Another solution to your Christmas gift-buying problems is to hurry on over to Menu for Hope III before the weekend.  This is the food blogger fundraising project where we raise funds for the UN World Food Programme.  There are dozens of prizes to be won all over the world, ranging from meals out at spectacular restaurants, a Paris gastronomy and chocolate tour, a catered canape party, a box of totally adorable chocolate mice, a beautifully illustrated South African cookbook and goodie bag, a digital camera to handmade chocolates.  Tickets can be bought online via a secure site and each $10 buys you one shot at the prize of your choice - just mention the prize code in the "personal message" section.  Think about it - it's a win-win situation:  buy tickets as Christmas presents and either your loved ones get a wonderful prize, or they know that money has been donated to a very worthy cause on their behalf.

Either way, it's enough to get a warm fuzzy feeling :-)

Double peanut butter cookies - 'Tis the season for baking #2

As I mentioned, for eleven months of the year, I'm not much of a baker.  Then suddenly December arrives and stirs all these wonderful memories of afternoons spent in a fragrant kitchen with my mom, and I develop an atavistic yearning to bake cookies.  Of course, recently I've also had a perfect excuse - the London food bloggers' annual cookie swap which seems to have become a bit of an institution, and a wonderful one at that.  Last year I only made one kind of cookie, but this year I had two in mind - one old and one new.  The old one was something I used to help my mom make as a kid (by pressing the nut on top of each!) and I had recently developed a huge craving for them:  peanut butter cookies! 

This plan was aided and abetted by Moira in the form of authentic American supplies.  When Moira came to London for the bloggers' salt and butter tasting, she stepped off the train with a goodie bag for me, full of post-modern, ironically witty (I hope!!) culinary gifts like Hostess Twinkies,  Cupcakes, Ho ho's and Suzy Q's.  More of those in another post.  But at the bottom of the bag were a few things that fascinated me far more. Firstly, there was a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Hershey's peanut butter kisses (a little obsession I developed on our recent trip to the USA...), and packets of Hershey's chocolate chips and Reese's peanut butter chips.  I didn't even know the latter existed up until that point! They are curiously compelling - shaped like little miniature Hershey's kisses with  decidedly firm texture, but defintely the taste of peanut butter.  Fascinating and, I'm sure, nothing like nature intended.  But then there's nothing like the lure of the exotic and forbidden ;-)

I know my mom's recipe for grondboontjiebotterkoekies is written by hand in a dog-eared index book back home in Port Elizabeth - sadly completely out of my reach.  So I was a little stuck for a recipe.  As I was pondering this problem and idly fiddling with the peanut butter chips packet, my eye alighted on... a recipe on the back.  Hurrah!  Because although my mom may not have taught me to remember her peanut butter cookie recipe by heart, she did teach me that companies only put their most fabulous and foolproof recipes on their packaging ;-)  Thanks Mamma!

All I will add is that because we don't have an electric mixer in the house (a side-effect of living abroad and owning a houseful of stuff locked away in storage on another continent - and having a husband who treats this as an excuse never to buy another kitchen gadget again...), these cookies took a serious amount of effort to mix.  I mean - picture creaming together butter, vegetable shortening, peanut butter and flour - armed with nothing but a wooden spoon!  More like Hershey's double-arms-of-steel-cookies.  But otherwise ridiculously easy and ridiculously popular with my family and friends.  Enjoy!

HERSHEY'S DOUBLE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES (makes about 48 cookies)

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick or 62.5g) butter, softened
1/4 cup (62.5g) shortening (I used vegetable shortening)
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 2/3 cups (one 10 0z. package) Reese's peanut butter chips (optional - if you leave them out the cookies just won't be "double" peanut butter.  Instead, press a single roasted peanut onto the top of each cookie before baking)

Method
Heat oven to 375F.  Combine flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt.  Beat butter, shortening, peanut butter, sugars and egg in a large bowl on blender's medium speed until well blended.  Gradually add the flour mixture, beating well.  Stir in peanut butter chips.  Shape dough into 1-inch balls.  Place 2 inches apart (they spread!) on an ungreased cookie sheet (I lined mine with baking paper). Using a fork dipped in addititional granulated sugar, flatten balls to about a 1/4 inch thickness by pressing tines of fork in 2 different directions to make a criss-cross pattern.  Bake for 8-10 minutes or until set.  Cool slightly, remove from baking sheet to wire rack to cool completely.  Pour a glass of milk or a mug of coffee, sit back and snack!

And if you like cookies, why not make a donation to the Menu for Hope campaign and put yourself in line to win one of a number of cookie-related prizes for only $10?  So far we have raised an astonishing $29,630 for the UN World Food Programme - way in excess of last year's $17,000!  Well done.  Now let's see if we can get to $34,000 and double last year's total.  Please?  Just one little bid?

Related posts:

'Tis the season to be baking #1 - lemon shortbread

Blog Party XVII - Britney spears

It seems that I'm just caught up in a net of canapés these days!  At the beginning of the month I helped Johanna to cater a canapé party for 30.  Then, of course, there is our fabulous Menu for Hope prize - a canapé party expertly catered for you by me and Johanna for the price of a $10 ticket plus ingredients.  (Fyi - no takers for this one yet - so if you bid, your chances of winning are fantastic!  And have you noticed that we are only a few hundred $$ short of last year's total - with 7 days still to go?  Fantastic!)

And then there's the lovely Stephanie's Blog Party - a monthly event that I have a knack for missing :o) where participants bring along cocktail party food according to the month's theme.  This month Stephanie has been VERY persuasive (either that or she guilted me into it!) and here I am, showing up for the party and ringing her doorbell with drinks and snacks in hand.  The theme this month was Hollywood - think glamour, think glitz, think immaculately dressed men holding open limo doors for beautifully groomed ladies to step onto the red carpet in their ballgowns... [sound of music ending abrputly and needle being scratched off record]

People, it's the Noughties - none of that stuff happens any more!  You have size 00 wannabe starlets trading insults with other size 00 wannabe starlets; tattoed maneaters adopting third world babies; wardrobe malfunctions on a weekly basis; and strange composite hermaphrodite stars like Bennifer and Tomkat.  What next?!  So I took it upon myself to inject a teensy bit of realism into the Hollywood theme this month.  So without further ado, may I present to you... Britney skewers spears!

These delectable morsels have a lot in common with their namesake - some tender breast meat, peeking out from under gossamer-thin, barely-there pancetta, with only a sage leaf in there somewhere to cover their modesty.  (See what I mean?!)  And by the end of the evening, these little spears also tend to stand a little unsteadily on their feet, refusing to line up nice and straight for a photo!  Oh, yes, and to top it all off, they have a bit of dough.  K-Fed is weeping into his Colt 45 beer as we speak, I'm sure.

So... what we see here is one of the canapés that Johanna and I served at a party earlier this month:  bites of chicken wrapped, together with a sage leaf, in pancetta and grilled, before being skewered speared together with a crouton of ciabatta.  Served together with a red pepper dip, it's filling, it's delicious - and very New Hollywood ;-)

I racked my brains for a suitable cocktail - it had to be trashy, yet girly.  What could I picture in a secret stash in the back of the Spears/Hilton/Richie limo?  And then it came to me.  The drink that they'd all be too embarrased to order, but secretly adore.  It's something I was blissfully unfamiliar with until about a month ago, when I went to visit a certain American friend of mine (who shall remain nameless to protect her foodie credentials...!).  As a post-modern, ironic joke (well I sincerely hope so!!), she poured me a glass of Alizé.  This is a blend of (wait for it) cognac ans various fruit juices (passion fruit, in my case).  Points in its favour as a New Hollywood drink:

• it's pink, like any self-respecting girly cocktail
• it tastes like fruit juice
• it has a kick like a rabid mule wearing spiky horseshoes

Points against:

• one glass contains Nicole Richie's entire calorie allocation until about September 2009

And if you want to bling it up and add MORE alcohol (because, you know, like, 16% sometimes just ain't enough), why not add a splash of Louis Roederer Cristal :P

Soon you won't even notice that my little chicken canapé's aren't standing up quite straight!!

Thanks Stephanie for hosting and I can't wait to see the roundup :-)

Lemon shortbread - 'Tis the season for baking #1

Yes folks, it's that time of year again, when even the most reluctant bakers (like me!) dust off their aprons and head for the kitchen clutching blocks of shortening, cartons of eggs and bags of sugar. There's just something about Christmas that brings out the latent baker in all of us.  I remember that when I was still living at home, my mom and I would set aside a Saturday shortly before Christmas for a big bake-in.  We would plan to go nowhere that day and do nothing except bake.

When she wasn't working full-time and had some spare time, my mom was always keen on making edible Christmas presents for friends.  The old favourites that always made an appearance at Christmas time were coconut ice (hey - this tradition goes back to the 1970's and coconut ice was considered cool at that stage ;-)) and chocolate fudge.  For some reason, despite making fudge pretty regularly all through my childhood, my mom never had a sugar thermometer.  This meant that, to test whether the boiling sugar mixture was hot enough, she had to drop a blob of it into a waiting jug of water and test the consistency once it had cooled in the water a little:  if you could not form a ball, it was not ready yet; if you could form a soft ball, it was ready; and it it became brittle and crackly you had gone too far and would have rock-hard caramel!!  I was totally fascinated by this process and would always eagerly scoop all the remains of these experiments out of the water and pop them in my mouth. 

As I got older, I took a more hands-on approach.  My mom had a proper cookie press set (another object of total fascination to a kid!) with various discs for making intricately-shaped cookies.  I was eventually allowed access to this piece of machinery and I used to love making the shapes and possibly decorating them with cherries or sprinkles before they went into the oven.  And even later, my mom would mostly sit and chat to me while I baked endless fruit mince pies.  She always marvelled at how I wasn't interested in fiddly or time-consuming cooking at all - until it came to mince pies for Christmas.   And I guess little has changed:  I never bake... until Christmas time!

I am actually fibbing a teensy little bit - I did make this recipe earlier this year for my EBBP#5 parcel.  But in the recent flurry of Christmas baking I have made it again - these little bars are just so moreish you can't resist them.  As my astute readers will notice in the picture above, I was attempting to multi-task (as usual!) and somewhere between rearranging the bookshelf, hanging the laundry, watering the plants and rememebreing exactly when the shortbread went into the oven, something was momentarily forgotten.  Yes, you guessed - that slightly over-browned appearance is not my oven's fault, it's entirely MINE!  This made the shortbread a little too brown at the edges and sometimes a little too brittle to get out of the baking dish cleanly - not recommended.  But it was still tasty... Next time I may add some chopped macadamia nuts too, for extra crunch (and just because I thought a little more fat wouldn't hurt ;-)

Be warned - these are very moreish and you'll never be able to stop after just one...

LEMON SHORTBREAD FINGERS (yields about 25-30) - adapted from www.cooksrecipes.com

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2Tbsp lemon juice
2tsp finely grated lemon peel
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
(Optional - 1 cup roughly chopped roasted macadamia huts)

Method

1.  Heat the oven to 350F (180C).  Lightly grease a 20cm square baking tin.

2.  Cream together the butter, sugar, lemon juice and lemon peel in a large bowl.  Beat at medium speed, scraping often, until smooth and creamy.  Add the flour and continue to beat until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Add macadamia nuts (if using) and knead the dough by hand until smooth.

3.  Press the dough evenly into the greased baking tin and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden.  (Watch carefully as the 35 minute mark approaches - after then it becomes overbrowned very quickly! - Ed.)

4.  Sprinkle with granulated sugar, allow to cool slightly and cut into fingers in the baking tin.  Allow to cool completely before removing. 

(Optional - instead of sprinkling with sugar, you can glaze the strips when they are completely cool.  Combine 1/2 a cup of icing sugar, 1 Tbsp softened butter and 1Tbsp lemon juice in a bowl, whisking till creamy.  Spread on the shortbread, allow to stand for 30 minutes before removing from baking tin and serving.)

And if you like cookies, why not make a donation to the Menu for Hope campaign and put yourself in line to win one of a number of cookie-related prizes for only $10?  So far we have raised an astonishing $14,000 for the UN World Food Programme - let's see if we can beat last year's record $17,000!

Well Fed Network 2006 food blog awards

I've been so busy with Menu for Hope (keep on bidding people - we are hot on the heels of last year's total and there's still 8 days to go!) that I hadn't noticed the Well Fed Network's announcement of the 2006 Food Blog Awards (thanks Andrew for the heads-up!).

Once again it's time to nominate your favourite blogs in categories ranging from Best Writing, Best Restaurant Reviews, Best Photography, Best City Blog, Best Post, Best New Blog and Best Overall Blog.  I have my favourites and have put in a couple of nominations - and will probably come up with a couple more before the deadline at midnight EST on Friday 15th December (about 8 a.m. on Saturday morning GMT).  This is a great opportunity to pay tribute to the sites and posts that have most inspired, amused or infuriated you over the year, as well as a chance to discover new siter - just scroll down the nominations to see a host of new names!

And just to refresh your memory, here is my personal list of "Greatest Hits of 2006" from CookSister:

• Luzzo's and the search for the perfect pizza
• London food bloggers' salt tasting
• Cocina Mexicana
• Munich Oktoberfest
• Sosaties with a view
• Proper "boerekos" with the three tannies
• Midnight in the Loeufre Museum
• Lunch at the Fat Duck
• Poetry in motion
• Pig ignorant

Once the nominations close, a panel of judges will receive the list of nominated sites on Monday, December 18 and will have until the 22nd to come up with their top 5 sites for each category.  The top 5 nominees will be posted on the Well Fed Network on December 23, and then it's over to you, the public, to vote until the end of the month.  Winners will be announced on 5 January 2007.

So off you go - exercise your democratic right to nominate!

Menu for Hope III

For those of you who have been hanging about in the wonderful world of food blogs for a while, Menu for Hope will not be unfamiliar.  It is the food bloggers' on-line fundraising event started two years ago by Pim and which was repeated with great success last year.  In 2004, the first Menu for Hope took place in aid of victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in southeast Asia.  By 2005, Menu for Hope II had morphed into an on-line raffle with bloggers donating some fantastic food-related prizes ranging from gourmet tours to exotic goodie baskets to food photography lessons.  Menu for Hope II raised an astonishing $17,000 for victims of the Kashmir/Pakistan earthquake, but this year we aim to raise even more - and that's where you come in.

This year, all money raised goes to the UN World Food Programme who, in 2005, distributed 4.2 million tonnes of food to 97 million of the world's poorest people.  As foodies, few of us can say that we haven't been struck by the absurdity of sitting around discussing whether this foie gras is better than that foie gras, or whether we really like the taste of Douglas fir puree, when millions of people struggle to feed their children and have to fight tooth and nail for even the most basic foodstuffs.  Although we realise it is only a very small drop in a very big bucket, Menu for Hope is the food bloggers' way of giving something back to the greater commnity - and that's a cause we can all throw our support behind. 

So... how does it work? 

1.  Have a look at this year's fabulous selection of prizes.  Write down the unique code for each prize that you would like a chance of winning.  The codes consist of two letters and two numbers e.g. EU02, UC11 or CA09. 

2.  Decide how many tickets you want to purchase at $10 each and then click through to the Menu for Hope III donation page (a secure site run by www.firstgiving.com - no food blogger ever gets a penny, the funds go straight to the charity).

3.  Make a donation in multiples of $10.  Each $10 ticket buys you one entry into the prize draw for a particular prize.  You can spend, say, $50 and get five entries into the prize draw for a canapé party at your house; or you can split it into three entries into the canapé party prize draw and two entries into the prize draw for a South African cookbook and other goodies.  What you do have to remember is to specify in the "Personal Message" section of your donation form which prizes you would like to be entered for.  Please nominate to which prize draw each of your $10 tickets must be allocated, and make sure to use the two-letter, two-number format explained above (e.g. EU07, not just EU7).

4.  If your company matches your charity donation, please check the appropriate box on the donation form and fill in the information so that the charity can claim the corporate match.

5.  Please make your email address available so that you can be contacted you in case you win a prize.  Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

6.  And on 15 January, do remember to check back at Chez Pim to see who has won what!

Just a few words on the prizes themselves...  I will shortly be giving you more details on the two prizes with which I am involved, but I have looked at the list and there are some knock-out prizes.  However, some of the prizes are linked to a specific location such as a meal in a particular restaurant (Manresa near San Francisco or L'Atelier Joel Robuchon in London), a gastronomy tour of Paris with David, a food writing course in Sydney or a catered canapé party in London.  Please make sure that you will be in a position to claim such prizes, should you win them.  Accommodation in and transport to/from/around the cities in question will be for your own cost, and some of the prizes can only be claimed during a specific period.  So to avoid disappointment, make sure you carefully read the details of your chosen prize before you bid on it.

And to assist you in making sure you only bid on area-specific prizes you can get to, there are regional lists of the prizes in addition to Pim's super-duper global list above.  In addition to being the co-ordinators for their respective regions, these are also the people to contact should you still want to donate a prize.

US West Coast - Sam from Becks & Posh
US East Coast - Adam from The Amateur Gourmet
US (the big bit in the middle!) - Kalyn from  Kalyn's Kitchen
Canada - Jasmine from Confessions of a Cardamom Addict
Europe and UK - David From David Lebovitz
Latin America - Melissa from Cooking Diva
Asia Pacific/Australia/New Zealand - Helen from Grab Your Fork

And what am I offering as a prize??  See these two posts for details!  So what are you waiting for:  good luck and get bidding - you have until 22 December...