As tasty as Ireland...

Ireland is green.  I know, because I have been there. The land is perfectly green and the food is filled with robust flavors.  The weather is sometimes rainy but most of the time nice and sunny.  I miss certain aspects of the country like the feeling of a hearty soup or stew with it being cool and rainy outside, or the alcohol content of a freshly poured Guinness.  As fall starts, I think about things like this and wonder what I can do.

I made a very good vegetable and barley soup. It was really simple.  You chop up some beef off of the bone and then place the bones and some chopped onions in a pot with water and make your own lamb broth.  Then you remove the bones and fat and other stock stuff and get just the broth.  Then fill it with the rest of the good chopped lamb, some chopped onions, leeks, celery, turnips and carrots as well as 1/4th cup of barley.  You let it come to a boil and then simmer for an hour or so.  What do you get?

The original recipe called for using beef bones and making your own beef stock and while that would have moved the flavor to a strong and robust one instead of the soft and delicate lamb flavor, I think it fits in better. I do have to say that the only change I made was adding a bay leaf in as it was finishing.  Very tasty and if you are looking for something like this, a bit more authentic barley soup recipe, let me know and I'll post or email the recipe.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Okay, let me say right here at the start that I have been to Ireland.  I was there for about 11 days and while teachers may wish young kids at school to wear green for St. Patrick's Day and Ireland, not everyone in Ireland wears green.  It is a VERY green place though.

Now, let's start right off the bat:  just about every paper, magazine or general periodical will have an article today about the history of St. Patrick's day.  Trust me, you don't need to find that here.  What is interesting and most things do not cover is that our beloved "Irish" meal of corned beef and cabbage, isn't at all Irish.

Corned beef doesn't have any corn it in.  Originally, the term 'corned' was mean as a derivative of the word 'course',  when describing the large pieces of salt that were used to salt and marinade the beef.  Salted meats have been long used as a means for preservation and seasoning and in this case, this 'corned' beef started out as nothing more than simple salted meat; either pork or beef.  There is a recipe as early as the 12 century depicting how to make salted beef.  This cured beef was ideal for long voyages and trips and around the 17th century, whole plants were located in Ireland for curing and supplying this salted beef to the English, French and others who needed it for long term voyages as a main food source.

When the Irish came to America, the beef was cheaper and thus many of the people who helped to process and create the cured meat were unable to afford it in their homeland.  Here in America, it could be purchased and made easily.  In Ireland, the beef was still more expensive for the average Irishman and so they would have eaten bacon or salted pork.  Because of the potato famine, many Irish workers needed vegetable nutrients and the cheapest they could find was cabbage.  Irish do not consider this corned beef and cabbage to be a traditional meal, but in this case bacon and cabbage could be considered one.  When I was in Ireland, I found many recipes containing goat and lamb and I would humbly suggest that a traditional Irish stew, that I did taste in Ireland, was one containing barley and lamb as well as a thick gravy stock and vegetables.

As for the Irish-Americans, they ate this new traditional meal every day.  It became so ingrained with the Irish workers that when the other Americans started to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, they thought it was an Irish dish and is started to be served on this day to celebrate.

Will I celebrate?  Well, the local homemade-style restaurant always serves corned beef and cabbage, all day long on St. Patrick's Day.  I will try to partake in that meal at that time.  As for everything else...  I may try to wear green, although St. Patrick's color of choice was blue.  The green came from the shamrock which he used to explain the Holy Trinity.  I will think of Ireland and its beauty and wonder and enchantment.  I will maybe listen to some songs, read something literary and enjoy a tall glass of Guinness.

Anthony Bourdain

Of all the shows that I watch on tv, there are mainly two that I cannot miss: Good Eats and No Reservations. Last night's show had Anthony Bourdain interview and ask bloggers, chefs and foodies, why they are obsessed with food and writing.

I think my excuse doesn't follow an idea of obsession, other than to help people make good decisions. I learned recently that speaking bad of a restaurant wasn't a good idea and people don't want to hear about which places to avoid but which places to attend.

I have been obsessed with food as soon as I could drive as I wanted to explore the city and move out and away from the small circle where I was only previously allowed to be. College helped me with this as then, I had my own car and could drive with friends anywhere. I moved from going to MacDonalds each day and started to go to Applebees, which had a very good variety and quality of food versus the previous fast food location. While going to college, I worked as a manager at an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant and saw the workings of how a restaurant should be run, from ordering the right amounts of meat to cooking the meat properly and serving it to the customers on the line. I learned how to order meat based on previous days' guest count, I learned how to prepare the meats once from the cooler for cooking and learned how to serve them.

While in College, I went for almost 2 weeks to Ireland, for a quick tour and enjoyed myself as well as the food. It was European style and a bit like the American food I was familiar with. It was in college that I fell in love with and married a Lebanese woman and jumped right into the Mediterranean food cuisine. A few months later came my first trip to Japan and I experienced what Japanese had to offer in the way of food and also saw how girls in Harajuka really dress, not like Gwen Stefani envisions that they do.
About a year after that, with my mother-in-law opening a spa, I worked on a degree in holistic nutrition so I could help out. On my own also, I worked on a certificate in Catering, which gave me the culinary knowledge to do what I could with strange and unusual ingredients that were healthy and not used in normal cooking. About this time is when my father-in-law was diagnosed with diabetes and when he couldn't enjoy desserts and my frequent snacks which I prepared at home and brought into work, it upset me. As a chef, I don't like to just make food, but I like to make food and watch people enjoy it. I don't care if I don't even get one serving, as long as they enjoy it. But what do you do for someone who can't have sugar or high GL foods? You do math.

Math: the bane of my existence and the enemy of so many other people, was the only way I could change the recipe formula around so that it still worked when I substituted and changed things. Well, along with science...

With my holistic degree knowledge behind me, I started to look at sugar substitutes and finally found one that is perfect. I also looked at things and ways to substitute one kind of flour for another so there is less GL's. The baking and the jam making, with no sugar and low GL's is still just another obsession in making people enjoy my food in every way they can. A trip to Lebanon also showed me what items could be made with sugar, as the dessert capital of the world, they had more sweets available than anyone else and with these sweets, I came to see many sugar-free possibilities.

So, is that the only obsession? When paired with writing, it is. I love to write and while I may not be very good at it, like all skills, practice makes perfect. My stories may not be technically correct but at least I can write a small article about something, like the dangers of high fructose corn syrup. This collection of writings has become my new obsession as I try to make favorite desserts into sugar-free designs and then blog about it for everyone to read about, hoping that someone who is diabetic will see and then buy my products in the future.

On the show, Bourdain spoke with many food bloggers who had low self-esteem and write about food as when girls were not there for them, food was. I can't say that and actually say quite the opposite and in the case of food, like them, I want people to go to the best places, so I rate them and their dishes in hope that people go there. Over the two, I admit that for about a month, I was obsessed with making a sugar-free and low fat gooey butter cake, which sounds impossible. How do you take almost a pound of butter and sugar and make something that tastes as good without either one? I admit, I failed in every attempt to deconstruct all of the ingredients and then replace them back without the butter and sugar, took a couple of attempts and decided to quit for a month or so until I have better ideas. But overall, my boring time at work, in between normal working and the random photo shoots, I do try to recreate dishes I see on tv, in the movies or hear about. That is my obsession.