Award winning cookbook as well as travel writers and experts Cheryl and Bill Jamieson recently left the comforts of their New Mexico home, with its elaborate kitchen and wine cellars, to circle the globe, globe-trotting on a 3 month gourmet food endeavor and tasting extravagant.
What was encountered met and tasted, was street food, home cooking as well as “haute cuisine” from around the world. The resulting book and manual is entitled “Around the World in 80 Diners”.
From a face-off with hungry lions in South Africa to a Chiu Chow banquet put together by forty chefs, it’s a more than excellent read and culinary source manual for an unbelievable as well as not forgettable mix of traveling tales, stories and recipes galore.
Wine and cheese may be a most standard combination . A careful and thoughtful tasting will reveal that cheese can be a particularily hard to choose item when it comes to matching it with red wines. It seems that cheese’s inherent saltiness can be red wine’s worst enemy , since it can predispose the tasting effects to wine’s tannins , leaving a most bitter aftertaste.
Cheese itself , is well known to be high in acidity and acid levels, cheese choices should be in line with with wines chosen for acidity counts and levels as well. In addition “White wines” have the added advantage of being tannin free.
It can be said that it terms of choices of wines and wineries that the most successful cheese matches are whites from the French regions of Alsace : Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Rieslings. It can be said to be remember that in a pinch that classic wine choices , never seem to disappoint and always hold true.
Bold sweet wines also are good choices in such situations. Their inherent flavors and boldness can always be counted on to hold the day. If not then regional champions can be the next step in choice.
The tangy goat cheeses of France’s Loire Valleys can match the best Sauvignon Blanc wines of the areas. Or instead you might setup with pungent washed rind cheeses of the Alsace - Lorraine regions.
Lastly if red wines still tickle your pallet you can setup with lower based tannin count red wines such as Beajoulais, Pinot Noir and Valpolicella with hard cheeses .
Mix all ingredients together well. Roll into small balls. The roll in powdered sugar. Store in tightly-covered container in refrigerator ( will keep for one month)
Drain cherries thoroughly , put juice in saucepan. Pour Brandy over cherries and allow fruit to absorb brandy liquid for several hours. Before serving, moisten cornstarch and sugar with a little cold cherry juice.
Add moistened cornstarch and sugar to cherry juice, cooking and stirring till thickened. Add brandied cherries and bring to a boil. Pre-war, brandy. Pour heated cherries and syrup into flame - proof bowl and add pre-warmed brandy. Pour heated cherries and syrup into flame-proof bowl and add pre-warmed brandy. Ignite mixture and spoon ( use a heated spoon) flaming sauce over cherries. Serve over vanilla ice cream.
1. Cactus Apples. This is a red or purple fruit that grows on certain cacti. Considering how hard it is to gather, peel and eat, and how eating more than three will constipate you, this is one I might avoid.
2. Durian. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes great. It’s the smell that troubles me. It’s quite nauseating, and I always eat this in an open area where the smell can dissipate. And the durian breath is nasty! It’s also quite fattening, so I rarely indulge.
3. Natto. The thought of these fermented soybeans entering my gullet makes me violently ill. Especially the threads that hang from it…
4. Fiddlehead Fern. It’s eaten in the US, yes, but it’s poisonous. Only a thorough cooking can remove the toxins. Personally, I’d rather not risk it.
5. Dulse. This is a purple seaweed, dried, sold in Canada. Algae, small stones, and flotsam stick to it, and is eaten as it is. Yuck.
Boil together sugar, water , lemon peel ,cloves and cinammon for five minutes. Cool and strain. Add remainder of ingredients. Pour over ice block in punch bowl and garnish with fruit.
Place oranges ( round side down) on cutting board and cut cross-wise in thin slices. Cover bottom of a glass bowl with a layer of oranges slices. Sprinkle with sugar, add a layer of bananas and once of grated coconut. Repeat layers. Before adding final topping of grated coconut, sprinkle brandy over fruit. Top with coconut and chill ( makes six servings)
Mix ingredients together well. Roll into small balls. Then roll in powdered sugar. Store in tightly-covered container in refrigerator. ( Will store for one month)
Drain cherries thoroughly: put juice into saucepan. Pour Brandy over cherries. and allow to absorb Brandy liquid for several hours. Before serving , moisten cornstarch and sugar with a little cold cherry juice/ Add moistened cornstarch and sugar to cherry juice and stirring till thickened . Add brandied sugar and bring to boil/ Pre-warm brandy . Pour heated cherries and syrup into flame-proof bowl and add prewarmed brandy. Ignite mixture and spoon ( use a heated spoon_ flaming sauce over cherries. Serve over vanilla ice cream.
