I no longer remember why my friend Michelle and I settled on late November for our trip to New York. It seems a bit nuts looking back. Sure, the week of Thanksgiving is a great time to go to New York if you want cheap flights and low hotel rates. But you will soon discover why there are less than average number of tourists per square meter: it is bloody cold! Walking around all day in sub-zero temperatures while worrying about the forecast snow meant frequent coffee breaks were needed just so we could escape the cold for a bit, warming up with our hands wrapped around multiple mugs of coffee and our winter coats draped over our knees like woollen blankets. It also meant that a bowl of ramen for dinner one night at Ivan Ramen in Clinton Street totally hit the spot. The only reason I decided to wash down my steaming bowl of ramen with iced (!) tea
Recipes
Tamarind Pate de Fruit – Goes Well With Coffee – 7th Edition
As much as I like cooking food at home, I actually adore going out for dinner. Growing up as one of four kids, meals at restaurants were few and far between and mostly happened during the summers we spent in the South of France. Visits to restaurants are more frequent for me these days, yet having dinner at a restaurant still feels special. And I would actually like to keep it that way. I much prefer to eat at home as a general rule and save those restaurant visits for special occasions (and very special meals). And when I do go for dinner at a restaurant, I love the entire experience. A glass of bubbly while I peruse the menu, ideally already accompanied by a few small bites ‘courtesy of the chef’. If I am lucky, the menu is one that leaves me struggling to decide what to eat thanks to the myriad of enticing options: dishes composed of ingredients I (i) either don’t know,
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Butternut Squash Cakes with Ras El Hanout and Pistachios
When I used to tell people I lived in London (and then in Rome), people would tend to squeal in excitement and tell me how lucky I was. Now that I live in Brussels, I don’t get quite the same reaction when I tell others where I live. Brussels is a good place to live, but it is certainly not the most exciting capital city Europe has to offer (heck it isn’t even the most exciting city Belgium as a country has to offer). Yet after growing up in Germany and having lived in a tiny village in Austria, London and Rome, there are plenty of things I really appreciate about Brussels. Rents are low, the city is very walkable, there are plenty of green spaces and the airport is within easy reach from the city centre. But you know the best part about living in Brussels? The markets. Sure, I used to go to the farmer’s market in London
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Financiers with Almonds and Argan Oil
Thanks to a nasty throat infection I spent most of last week in bed with a temperature close to 40 degrees Celsius. Prior to last week, I had not taken any real time off work for being sick since a hernia surgery back in 2012. While surgery is never pleasurable, I remember I quite enjoyed being off sick at the time. I had my surgery in Germany and stayed with my parents for the 2 weeks afterwards. Despite my initially somewhat limited mobility my recovery proved to be a wonderful opportunity to catch up with my parents over long conversations, something my quick weekend trips back home don’t leave enough room for. In some twisted way, lately I had begun thinking that it might actually be quite nice to be off sick again some time, naively thinking it could be a nice opportunity to catch up on some sleep and trashy TV. Little did I know that I would spend most of
Blueberry and Thyme Buckle – Goes Well With Coffee – 6th Edition
We are already half-way through February and so far I am not sure 2015 is all that. A good friend had a pretty scary car accident in January and while he is lucky to be alive, various broken bones mean he faces a long road to recovery. And maybe it is an age thing, but suddenly numerous friends are having had to deal with sick parents. Yet while the normal reaction to these kinds of news would be to be grateful for your own good health (which I generally am) and to try and live in the moment a bit more (well, I try), I must admit that I have been in a bit of a funk and generally feeling a bit ‘meh’ about everything. But this weekend I decided I had had enough. After three weekends away and with the sun starting to show its face just long enough during the day to remind me that winter is nearing
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‘Everything Bagel’ Rye Scones with Scallion Cream Cheese – Goes Well With Coffee – 5th Edition
When my eyes first fell upon the SCAA’s flavour wheel I remember scanning the different flavours and at first nodding in agreement – citrus (yep), berry (yep), chocolate (yep) – and then my eyes fell on ‘alliaceous’ (garlic and onion) and I was a bit flummoxed. I had certainly never tried a coffee and thought – ‘hmm, not bad, I just wish it did not taste so strongly of onion or garlic’ (nor in fact have I ever reminisced fondly about a coffee that reminded me of our favourite alliums!). So I had to do some research to understand where that onion or garlic flavour in coffee can come from. It turns out, there are two reasons why the flavour of coffee can remind you of onion and garlic. Both can be a side effect of ‘wet processing’ (also referred to as washed processing) of coffee beans, a process which involves coffee beans (after being removed from the coffee cherries but
Lemon Curd and Pinenut Bakewell Tarts – Goes Well With Coffee – 4th Edition
My company’s London office is snuck right between St Paul’s and City Thameslink Station. While the options for lunch (Leon, Pret a Manger, Pod, Crush etc) are pretty much the same as for most of Central London, the office has the benefit of being close to a number of decent coffee places. One cafe I had been meaning to try for a while is Alchemy Coffee. So when I found myself working in our London office a few months ago on a rather hot September day, I decided to make a little detour on my way back from lunch and stop by Alchemy Coffee to get an iced cold brew coffee with milk. Cold brew coffee, which is typically made by steeping coffee grounds overnight in cold water (straining the coffee grounds before serving), has been around for a while now but over the last 12 months or so, cold brew coffee suddenly became trendy and sales really took off
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Rye, Walnut and Cardamom Crescents
Earlier today I heaved a rather large suitcase (heavy from Saturday’s frantic run around Brussels to buy various Christmas presents), a large bag, a laptop bag and a handbag onto the Thalys to take me home to my parents’ place in Essen, Germany. After 14 years of having to fly from various places in Europe to see my family, it is amazing to be able to take a direct train to go home, with no risk of delayed trains or bad traffic to get to the airport or long queues to get through security. Like every year, I am dividing my time between Germany and Italy and after spending Christmas with my family, I will be flying to Rome on Friday to join Alessandro and his friends and family for further Christmas celebrations and to ring in the New Year. After what can only be described as a very ‘full’ year, I am looking forward to a bit of downtime
Chocolate Garam Masala Snickerdoodles – Goes Well With Coffee – 3rd Edition
This weekend is the first weekend I am spending in Brussels since the beginning of November. While the weather is no different from what it was four weeks ago (Brussels has a tendency to be equally grey and rainy all throughout November to March), there is no denying that Christmas is close – the strings of lights that now connect the buildings on my side of the street with those across the street were the first telltale sign when I came back from my trip to New York over Thanksgiving. The trip itself was everything I could have asked for and more. I slept more than I had in weeks, I tried out some new exercise classes (it turns out I don’t actually hate spinning and Pure Barre is as hard as everyone says it is) and even found a new pair of glasses. But most importantly, I got to hang with my good friend Michelle who didn’t say anything when I
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Spiced Sweet Potato Mont Blanc
Earlier this year, I started sharing some of my recipes on Food&, a great website bringing together others as obsessed with food as myself to share their stories, photos, recipes or illustrations with the rest of the world. Going forward, I will be working even closer with Food&, as I have just joined their team of contributing editors. To kick things off, the new contributing editors and myself are sharing some Thanksgiving recipes on Food& throughout this week. When the other new editors and myself were discussing what dishes to feature for Thanksgiving week, we quickly agreed we wanted to stay true to the traditional ingredients featured in a Thanksgiving feast but to come up with new recipes based around them. At first, I kept on staring at an empty page when trying to come up with ideas – I did not grow up celebrating Thanksgiving and the one Thanksgiving I spent at my friend Laura’s in Minneapolis was
REAL SIMPLE FOOD 