The start of a new year is always exciting. Whether you buy into resolutions or not, there’s something special about starting anew with a clean slate. The holiday season certainly take its toll on foodies and I hope everyone survived alright – I got away with only a couple minor scratches and a miserable 16-hour stay at the airport (but that was so last year). I’m finally back and ready to talk food.
Thank you for all the Christmas wishes – I wish everyone happy eating and the very best for 2009! My Christmas food coma lasted slightly longer than I anticipated with all the leftovers we have had at my house. In all seriousness, my mom went into full-on Arabic mode and cooked enough food to feed a medium-sized Army; needless to say it was more than enough for the 20 guests we had at our house.
Merry Christmas from Olive Juice! Once I wake up from my food coma tomorrow I will get around to posting about the baklava my mom and I made for our Christmas party. For now, though, I’ll leave you with this photo I took earlier today.
I know it’s been a while and I’m sorry, really. Luckily, though, I don’t have a laundry list of excuses for you – just one: I got a new job. On weekends I get paid to sell cheese at Whole Foods; yes, you read correctly, PAID to be at Whole Foods.
With winter quickly approaching, everything gets pushed off to the back burner. Getting out of bed, hopping out of the shower – the basic tasks that were once a drag begin to feel even more impossible. I had originally intended on writing this post last night, but I failed. I was laying in bed, snuggled under my warm blankets with my powerbook perched over a pillow, typing away. The arrangement seemed perfect… except, I woke up the next morning to the annoying sound of my alarm, my laptop around my arm and a blog post that was complete rubbish. Needless to say, I’m writing at my desk today.
A few days ago I promised you a Turkish post, but I’ve got something better. Ever since I wrote about Peter’s Greek Christmas Cookies I’ve been thinking, rather remembering, more about what this blog means to me. Blog existentialism, if you will; Olive Juice was born out of necessity. I needed a place to jot down and compile my recipes, experiences and, most importantly, the memories that would inextricably become a part of those experiences.
Continue reading For the Love of Pudding
It’s time I made a dark confession.
You see, when I started this blog, I promised you the whole Mediterranean – and I played favorites. I withheld from you the Aegean nations, the lands of Greece and Turkey. Two ancient countries with rich cuisine that fell through the proverbial cracks of my internet blog. As you know, I grew up in a kitchen that straddles Lebanon and Syria. I’ve discussed the details of turning humble chickpeas into delightful hummus. I’ve strolled the streets of Florence in search of traditional Tuscan biscotti. I’ve even blogged about the time-honored Moroccan tradition of preserving lemons. Yet I have not seen the Parthenon, nor have I savored the moussaka of an Athenian gourmet chef.
The past couple of days have been rough. I’ve been in curled up in bed with all the goodie pre-symptoms the common cold has to offer: sinus pressure, sneezing and I’ll spare you the phlegmy details. Today will be a short post since I’ve only got a couple of hours to prepare myself for the army of trick-or-treaters screaming for obscene amounts of sugary sweets. It’s my first Halloween in this neighborhood so we’ll see how it goes.
In the meantime, I couldn’t pass up celebrating Halloween on my blog either. It seems like everywhere I click there are amazingly ghoulish culinary masterpieces on display. Keeping with the whole Mediterranean theme of my blog, I decided to go with an Italian inspired dish. The pretty pumpkin you see below was one of the many gifts I got while I was at the Beekman and it was perfect for what I had in mind. So without further ado, I present to you my Black Witch Hat Pumpkin Ravioli.
Last weekend I checked out from reality and drove to upstate New York to visit my friends at the Beekman. Only a couple hours north of Cornell, I also decided to visit some friends I left behind in Ithaca post-graduation. Everything about this trip was magical, from the gorgeous multicolored foliage that surrounded the highways to the great time I spent with my friends – this was a weekend worth blogging about.
“Tony, you just ate 1200 calories worth of bread.”
-Jess Park
I rediscovered Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe a couple weeks ago. It was Wednesday evening and there it was, idly sitting in my RSS feed, waiting to be double-clicked: Faster No-Knead Bread. Mark Bittman had just blogged about a quicker variation of the original recipe he featured in the NYT in 2006. I never got around to making this bread when it first came out. Originally, I sided with the skeptical foodies who wanted no part in this trendy no-knead fad. For me, the foundation of bread was all in the traditional kneading techniques and no post in the NYT was going to change that. But, many successful minimalist recipes later, Mark had made a believer out of me. I took Mark’s recent post as a sign of divine culinary intervention and decided to give this no-knead method a try.
