Anyway, I’ve made pasta like 6-7 times so far and I’m steadily improving. I decided that the ranking of a true pasta-fu master should be measured by the thickness of the pasta. At first I could only reach level 3 before the pasta sheets got all sticky and crumply and much screaming was heard in Bloch street, Tel Aviv.

But now finally I am proud to say I am a level 5 master! The pasty, much like silk, flows through my hands, behaving like a well-behaved kitten, and producing the most angelic of pastas. Yesterday we made pasta (there would have been pictures but Shachar was a bit sick so I was rushed) and I dried it on our weird Israeli-style laundry drying device.

Huzzah!

However, and that leads me to today’s post subject, we have no control over the vegetables we get!? Yes indeed, a few days before each shipment we get a list, and then it just arrives. Most of the vegetables I know how to deal with (Tomatoes, Lettuce, Cucumbers, Carrots etc.) but sometimes you get the really weird ones and you have no idea what to do with them.

Moreover, when you get five pound of carrots (around 2kg) what are you going to do? Tzimes? You need to get creative! This has positive and negative aspects. On the bright side I get a chance to try stuff I would never buy otherwise (I’m looking at you turnips and kohlrabi). On the flipside sometimes you just don’t have the mental energy to find a recipe for some weird (or not) vegetable.

One of my more trust-worthy resource has turned out to be a cook book I bought almost on a whim - ‘How to cook everything vegetarian’. It’s not really my type of cookbook for several reasons (a) it has no photos (b) it’s vegetarian! (c) its so heavy I think my building is sinking 1 inch a year because of it. Nontheless when I need to cook a specific ingredient, that book is there for me, green and huge and solid, offering a few not-too-fancy options.

Examples? Got stuck with too much cabbage, did ‘Silky Qinoa with Cabbage’. Last time I got stuck with Cabbage, did a ‘Spicy Mexican Coleslaw’. Fennel? Did Fennel Chutney, you get the point… So that’s it, an ode to a cook book, not a killer cook book but a sturdy work horse.

Food blogs

• Simply Recipes – Very active cooking and baking blog, very varied. Most of the recipes I tried from this blog were really good including buttermilk pancakes, barbecue sauce etc.
• 101 cookbooks – all about cooking, usually simple recipes using what’s lying around, well written and usually interesting.
• Bake or Break – My favorite baking blog, accompanied with really good photos (more on flickr)

Photography

• Stuck in customs – The blog of travel photographer Trey Ratcliff. This man knows how to shoot, and he does it in HDR to boot. Before reading his blog I didn’t really dig HDR, it looked to surreal in my opinion, but after seeing the work on this blog I even started trying it myself.
• The Big Picture – Each post is a collection of (large) photos collected from around the web, themed around some subject. His topics range from the abstract (spring) to the festive (easter) to the journalistic (wars, famines, floods, death, life and in between).

Other

• xkcd – ok, not really a blog, but the funniest web comic in my opinion. Fuck grapefruit!
• John Nack @ Adobe – This blog is usually somehow Adobe related (Well, he works there) and covers photography, illustration, flash and other bits and pieces. But he always finds the coolest stuff, highly recommended!

Here’s a mosaic I made of the best breads this year:

I am going to branch out soon now, try other types of Sourdough bread (Pumpernickel is high on the list). I also got Peter Reinhart’s newest book (whole grain breads), and although scary I think I’ll try to make some.

(See full set here)

First item on the plate was a home made pizza. I made the dough with yeast, rolled it very thin and covered it with good stuff like sun-dried tomatoes, olives and the best Mozarella this side of Ibn-Gvirol.

Then came the real doozie, a three day sourdough bread. Nothing complex, only white flour, nothing added to it… but it came out so good

tag:peterreinhart@lior shapira