Dear Family and Friends,

Together we’ve raised (USD) $1460!

Dear Friends and Family,

I am excited to let you know that I am participating in a Fast-a-Thon at Google on August 9, 2012. We are raising money for world hunger relief through Action Against Hunger (a top charity with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator). Last year, we were able to raise over $171,000 for similar organizations, through the fundraising and pledges to fast of 600 Google employees, and with the support of Google’s Social Responsibility team.

To provide some context, we are currently in the Islamic month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast (abstaining from both food and drink) everyday from sunrise to sunset for 30 days. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Christians, and people of other religious traditions fast as an act of submission, solidarity, and remembrance. One of the primary reasons for fasting is to call attention to those who go hungry every day, not as an exercise of religious expression, but as a fact of life.

I’d love for you to support my fast by making a donation of any amount to this charity. You can donate directly or send me the money first, as Google will match 100% of all donations above $50 USD that are donated by a Google employee:

• To take advantage of this gift match program and maximize your contribution, please donate using the Support button below. I will then make your donation to Action Against Hunger and process the Google matching.

For just $50, you can help provide nutrition to a child for 30-45 days. 92% of funds raised are used directly to feed the hungry, while the rest is used for overhead and distribution costs of the various therapeutic foods we use (3-4 packets of plumpy’nut daily (3-4 meals), and the milk formula F100 mostly). In addition to treating the malnourished, the charity is also involved in water & sanitation, food security and emergency work.

Thanks in advance for your support!

Sincerely,

Amanda

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Share in the excitement as the best chefs in the world celebrate their success at London’s historic Guildhall. Hear the countdown of the list LIVE! See all of the special award-winners collect their trophies on stage. Simply book your free place and watch all the action online on 30th April via Fine Dining Lovers.

Spoil-her Series: Simple recipes for men.

Under 5 ingredients, Under 20 bucks. Maximum brownie points.

Ingredients:

• 1 dozen fresh unshucked oysters (Normally around $1 each)
• Lemon
• Tomato juice / Clamato
• Various condiments to your liking

Directions:

Rinse oysters to remove debris from outside shells

Place oysters in freezer for an hour

Using an oyster knife or screw driver, insert the tip into a small crack or weak point, usually at the base of the oyster shell, and slowly pry open.

Cut off the connecting muscle from the shell and the oyster, on both the top and the bottom

Reserve the oyster brine as it contains good flavours.

Get creative with your condiments! I recommend Yuzu, Mirin, Soy, Worcestershire, Cocktail sauce, hot sauce, Horseradish, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

For the bloody mary oyster shots – combine Clamato (50% full), pinch of horseradish, a few drops Worcestershire sauce, a few drops of hot sauce, lemon juice, and then topped with cold vodka.

End

Changing the seasonal style of your food can be just as fun as updating your fall wardrobe. While I was browsing on OTTE I was inspired to create a dish that complemented the tones of the upcoming fall collection.

I channeled my recent visit to the organic farm to create a dish that really showcased the raw colors and flavors of local produce. I thought it would be fitting to make a warm antipasti bruschetta that is a contrast to its summery, raw tomato version.

I used a mixture of roasted, sun-dried and raw tomatoes to create a melange of textures, the grilled Italian vegetables slightly charred for that smokiness, the rich purple waxy potatoes for depth, the creamy mustard mayonnaise to bind everything together, scooped onto crusty bread.

As a fun presentation while entertaining guests, I laid out the ingredients “deconstructed” so my guests can mix and match their own bruschetta.

Ingredients:
Multigrain Baguette, toasted
Italian Grilled Aubergines, marinated in garlic olive oil
Italian Grilled Peppers, marinated in garlic olive oil
Italian Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Pitted Moroccan Oil-Cured Olives, sliced
Roasted Tomatoes in olive oil
Satur Farms Purple Basil
Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes, diced
Purple Baby Creamer Potato (baked)

Dressing:
3 tbsp Mayonnaise
2 tsp Seeded mustard
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Salt and Pepper

Garnish:
Aged Reggiano cheese, shaved

For the carnivores, these would go wonderfully with prosciutto. Serve warm on freshly grilled bread, spread with mustard dressing, combine all chopped ingredients and layer on top.

In the mood to shop for a fall wardrobe? Join me at www.otteny.com/fno !

Patrick and Quincy Horan

Chef Michel Nischan, Chef Joel Viehland

Outstanding in the Field is a “roving culinary adventure – a restaurant without walls”. Established since 1999, they have toured all around the USA in farms (and the occasional rooftop and greenhouses) to honor the farmers whose good work brings nourishment to the table.

Ingredients for the meal are almost all local (most sourced within inches of my seat at the table) and prepared by a celebrated chef of the region. After a tour of the site, we all settle in: farmers, producers, culinary artisans, and diners sharing the long table, served family style.

The 180 seat table extends down the beautiful surroundings of the Waldingfield farm in Washington CT as our restaurant decor, old friends and new found it to be something rather special. We give a sigh of relief to the one unwelcomed guest who didn’t turn up = the 40% precipitation warning from The Weather Channel.

Mushroom bruschetta with Beltane Farm’s ricotta salata

Gazpacho shooters from Walker Rd Vineyard, Gertrude’s Garden

Waldingfield farm fresh cucumber daiquiri

Heirloom tomato salad with cheese, balsamic reduction & olive oil

Chopped salad – fresh plum, sea island peas, baby carrots, chèvre, toasted almonds, frisée & mustard vinaigrette

Longmeadow Farm pasture raised chicken with heirloom onions, peppers, kale & chimichurri sauce

Kettle macaroni & cheese, farmstead cheddar, Pleasant cow cheese, house cured pork belly, artisan bread crumbs

Dressing room meatloaf, caramelized onion gravy

Walker Road Vineyard Red

Rosemary corncake with fresh blueberries and herb cream

Waldingfield farm was originally bought by Patrick and Quincy’s great grandfather originally as a dairy farm. Nowadays, it is the largest certified organic farm in Connecticut, stretching across 20 acres of land. Amongst a large selection of vegetables and herbs, there are over 30,000 heirloom tomato plants of different varieties that grow and flourish on Waldingfield Farm. Clever planting such as surrounding the fields with sunflowers draw bees into the area to kill off pests.

You can also purchase their amazing produce by visiting their farm stand.

Proceeds from the dinner we enjoyed also goes to forward thinking organization called Wholesome Wave – which helps low income communities get access to local nutritious foods, purchasable by foodstamps (with the built in incentive for shoppers of DOUBLING the value of those food stamps). The other program they have is the Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program, where community partners and Wholesome Wave are actually honoring prescriptions from doctors, in exchange for fruits and veggies at farmers markets.

For future events, visit:

http://outstandinginthefield.com/events/2011-tour/

Spoil-her Series: Simple recipes for men.

Under 5 ingredients, Under 20 bucks. Maximum brownie points.

Ingredients:

• 4-6 Scallops
• 2 small cloves of garlic, very thinly sliced
• 1 bunch chopped Italian parsley
• 1/2 cup white wine
• Angel hair pasta – enough for 2 people.

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a violent boil, and heavily salt the water.

Cook the pasta, minus 2 minutes from cooking instructions on the packet.

Drain the pasta and store in ice water for safe keeping

Heat a pan with some olive oil or butter (or both) and once it’s hot, grill the scallops for about 45seconds on each side for a golden brown finish.

Season with chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Add sliced garlic, then add the white wine and evaporate it.

Set scallops aside, and add some breadcrumbs to the remaining sauce in the pan.

Add the pasta (without the ice water) into the sauce and toss for a minute or two, drizzle with extra olive oil and extra parsley.

Serve on a plate, with the scallops on top!

Restaurant manager James Spreadbury explains the Noma signature dish

René Redzepi was quoted about his experience working at the previous number one restaurant in the world, elBulli:

“I didn’t come back to Denmark thinking: I’m going to put a gel of a gel of a gel on my monkfish liver while I whip my guests with burning rosemary,” he said. “I just came back with a sense of freedom.”

The restaurant is situated by the water near the town of Christianhavn, in a converted warehouse space by the water. The whitewashed, exposed wooden beams and contrasted by the smooth dark wood floors. The decor is organic yet modern with very distinct Scandinavian designs – smooth wooden chairs with no perfectly straight lines and fluffy sheepskin throws on every other one, smoked oaked tables with no linen and the changing natural light from the floor to ceiling windows, first bright, then dusk, and then swallowed by the warm glow of the votives lightly reflecting off natural surfaces.

We were seated at our table, beautifully located on a window corner, decorated with a vase adorned with green, leafy herbs and branches, and usually large stalks of what looked like a cross between lemongrass and heart of palm across our charger plates. After navigating through a long list of boutique organic and biodynamic Champagne houses did our server explain that the first two ’snacks’ of our evening were in fact the ‘decorations’ on the table. The serving of the ’snacks’ move quite quickly, a different shared plate is presented in front of each diner, making it quite an interactive experience of exchanging your plate with another until everyone on the table has had their share.

While there was a shorter, seven course menu available, we opted for the twelve course ‘Noma Nassaaq’ menu for the full affair.

Bulrush
dipped in goats curd and hazelnut praline

Malt flatbread and juniper
Dipped in fresh cream

Moss and Cep

Cookie with lardo and currant
Presented in an old fashioned cookie tin

Mussel
Where the bottom shell is edible (made with malt flour and moulded in between 2 mussel shells)

Rye bread, chicken skin, lumpfish roe and smoked cheese
Served on felt, crisp rye bread on top, dry crisp chicken skin on bottom.

Seabuckthorn leather and pickled hip rose petals
Seabuckthorn is a type of berry which tastes in between passionfruit and apricot. The ‘leather’ is made similar to a fruit roll-up: pureed and air dried into thin sheets. This was very delightful!

Pickled and smoked quail eggs
Smoked on apple wood, the smoke puffs out like a magic show as you open the egg shaped box. Instructed to be eaten within 10 seconds of opening.

Radish, soil and herbs
A classic Noma dish – A terracotta pot plant with green leaves popping out from soil. We are told that everything is edible, by hand. Once we pull a cluster of leaves out, a rosy pink radish is revealed, alongside a brilliant green cream beneath the “soil”. The soil is made from beer, hazelnut and malt flour, the green cream made from sheep’s yoghurt flavoured with tarragon, chives and chervil.

Toast, herbs, smoked cod roe and vinegar
The crispy toast was sprinkled with salt and vinegar powder, which was a nice contrast to the fresh herbs

Æbleskiver
A common Danish Christmas dish, but in a savoury variation – warm beignets with baby herring and cucumber filling

Söl and rye bread
Warm bread served with lard and pork shavings

Shrimp and sea urchin powder
frozen, finely grated sea urchin, raw sweet baby prawns atop frozen seawater and river pebbles, dressed with dill oil and fresh biodynamic cream. Garnished with wild flowers and regional herbs. One of my favorite dishes of the night.

Scallops and beech nut, Watercress and grains
The dried scallop slices reminded me of the Chinese dried scallops, but sliced very thinly as a cross section. A very peppery and fresh cut grass sensation of raw watercress puree with lentils

Tartar and sorrel, Juniper and Tarragon
Another famous Noma dish that used to be made with musk ox instead of Danish beef. It is eaten with the hands as you use the sorrel leaves to pinch some of the tartare, smearing it in the tarragon sauce and then swabbed onto the juniper powder.

Langosines and seawater
Oyster mayonnaise, parsley and seawater emulsion, and rye crumbs. The Noma signature dish, where the barely cooked, seared to perfection langoustine is served on a warm basalt stone and is eaten by hand. The flesh is like nothing I have tasted in a shellfish before, perfectly sweet and plump, bursting with juices upon biting into the white flesh.

(added photo from Rene’s twitter account)

Oyster and the ocean
Steamed oyster sprinkled with horseradish, capers of elderberries, wild onion seeds, beach cabbage served in a pot filled with sea shells and pebbles. When the lid is lifted we are filled with the aroma of the sea through the hot steam.

White and green asparagus, Cream and Pine
Green asparagus sauce, pine tips (made with pine vinegar, pine oil and smoked with pine wood)

Pike perch and cabbage, Stems and ramson

The hen and the egg
This was a very interactive and fun dish where each person fries their own sunny side up duck egg. A side plate of herb butter, spinach, ramsons, and herbs was placed at our table. A hot skillet placed on hay was served alonside s a duck egg, a half eggshell containing salt, and some potato crisps. Our server squeezed a drop of hay oil onto the hot skillet and we were told to break the egg on top. A timer was set to 2 minutes on the table, and once the time was up, we added the herb butter and the spinach to the skillet. A sorrel sauce was poured over afterwards, and we crushed the potato crisp and sprinkled over the top. I seasoned mine with the salt provided.

Veal sweetbread and peas, Forest shoots and grilled garlic

Milk slice, sorrel
A perfect palate cleanser, where the sorrel carried us over gently to begin the desserts with frozen milk slices.

Carrots and sea buckthorn
Sea buckthorn flavored frozen spongey ice cream, shaved dried carrots, soft herbs

Brown cheese with beetroot ice, freeze dried black currents

herbal infusion tea, flødebolle
soft meringue covered in chocolate

Chocolate covered potato chips with fennel seeds

Bone marrow caramel
A package was given to us wrapped in brown paper, and revealed 2 hollow bones inside. With your fingers, you have to pop out the caramel on the bottom of the bone, sized like a smaller scallop, is a chewy caramel made with bone marrow. Different, and delightful.

One of the most striking differences I found at Noma was the relationship between the kitchen and the waitstaff. It does not follow the strict French institutional rules of a restaurant, nor does it have the heated, time constrained kitchen under pressure to please. To my delight, the floor and the kitchen work together harmoniously as one. Each chef knows just as much about the diners on each table as the servers (also largely due to the fact that each table, bar two, can be seen directly from the glass kitchen, which is a luxury that most restaurants do not have), and the chefs who are preparing the food are actually serving it directly in front of their patrons, explaining in detail how things are prepared with first hand knowledge. You can hear the genuine passion in their descriptions and not once do you get a snooty French accent giving you long fancy words while making you feel stupid if you asked for a definition. Once would think that this disruption between the front of house and the back of house would create some sort of chaos, but the semblance of it all was so effortlessly harmonious at Noma.

We didn’t get to meet Rene this time around, he’d just become a father to his second child only two days ago and thus he’s taking some time off. He also spends another bulk of his time researching and creating new menu items on his boat, which is berthed outside the restaurant. During our kitchen tour, Sam Neil has explained that Rene has trained each and every one of his chefs to taste every ingredient prior to cooking, so that Noma’s patrons are sure to be presented with each single ingredient at its very best.. All staff members take turns partaking in foraging trips three times a week, to travel to different parts of the country and collect edible plants of all sorts. Sometimes they would pick herbs on their way to work, or alternatively, a company van is available for any staff member to use on foraging trips. Sam explained the importance of tasting something at the prime of its season, and used the example of the broth he makes with onions that are in season – the taste simply cannot be replicated all the time. When he uses onions that are picked later in the season, the flavor profile changes, and he has to adjust the amount of onions used in the same dish up to triple the amount used previously, just to extract the same depth of flavor. At this moment, they have begun pickling fresh ingredients for the winter months.

Sam Miller and the indoor herb storage

We are told the story of Roderick Slone, the Scotsman who lives in Norway. He was originally trained as a cook, but now, in the bitterly and harsh cold winters, Roderick hand dives for sea urchins exclusively for Noma in -10°C waters, moving to the rhythm of the waves and placing each urchin inside a linen sack. The below freezing temperatures of the water means he can only dive 30 minutes at a time, one session after another, up to ten hours a day. The sea urchin we get to enjoy arrive from Roderick’s bare hands in the bottom of Nordic sea and onto our plates in under 48 hours, exclusively for Noma.

After an extensive tour of the various kitchen equipments, tasting different ‘ice creams’ from the paco jets, ingredient storage and just generally trying to enquire about the recipes for each dish, we stumbled upon a group of young stages, preparing for the bi-weekly project presentation. Each young chef is encouraged to design a project that they can present to their peers to express their creativity, their use of ingredients and the flavor of the project they create. Tonight, a hopeful razor clam dish served on celery halves is being prepared for the project.

Many people have asked, “how does Noma compare to elBulli?”. I have no answer, just as I have no answer to whether a wild valley is more beautiful then a perfectly manicured garden. The meal at Noma was profoundly delivering the heart and soul of true Nordic cuisine; and unless you are there – it is quite impossible to replicate such an experience, with the local ingredients, the setting, and most of all, such a heart warming team of passionate individuals who collectively deliver the Nordic terroir onto our plates. We all return home with very fond memories of this gastronomic experience.

Chefs at Noma

Can a girl be any happier?

Noma
Strandgade 93
1401 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45 32 96 32 97

I do believe there is such a thing as over dining. Especially since moving to New York City, the bustling streets and hectic lifestyles also changed the way I dined. Outside from all the daily free meals from the Google office, dining out was anything but back to basics. The dining options in New York are endless, the choice and excitement of each restaurant, cafe, lounge bar or food truck are comparable to the line of ladies queuing up outside the latest meatpacking nightclub on a Tuesday night, discreetly staring at each other up and down as they walk past the velvet ropes after the desperate episodes of flirting with bouncers. The endless variety means you can easily never visit a place twice and still have plenty new discoveries lining up outside your door, hoping to impress you more than the last. Some arrogant, some beautifully presented, some authentic, some playing so hard to get, you just want to burn your wallet just to have a taste, only to discover that it was totally not worth the hype.

Slowly but surely, things all start to blur into the same experience. Sure, I have fun, I enjoy the food – did I really just blow $1200 on a mediocre seafood platter, pancakes and various bottles of champagne for a ridiculous disco brunch at Lavo? Did the tasting menu at Per Se, Le Bernadin, Jean George’s, Daniel and all other Michelin starred French establishments seemingly blur the lines of their different menus all into one expensive affair with a foie gras this, and caviar that, and let’s shave white truffle over a fat lobster tail mentality? Decadence can be delicious – but also as terribly boring as the poached eggs at Marea, with crab meat, sea urchin anglaise topped with sturgeon caviar on an over-soaked brioche bun, or the next designer Kobe beef burger with short ribs, shaved white truffles and foie gras butter. My newfound Manhattan lifestyle living in my tiny studio apartment, ordering my groceries online and having everything delivered to my doorstep has made me forget to truly slow down and appreciate what I’m eating, where it comes from, and how it was prepared.

Guilty as charged.

I’m perfectly aware that I haven’t contributed much content to my humble little website here. Food bored me. Restaurants bored me. And since I am no longer working in food service or hospitality, the regularity of dining at the restaurants and interacting with the chef afterwards to talk about ingredients has disappeared. I stopped caring and I stopped sharing my food experiences with you in writing and instead, focused more on the company of a meal rather than the food, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

My visit to Noma was as refreshing as being deprived of living near the Pacific Ocean during a five month snow filled winter – to diving head first into the icy blue ocean straight from Sydney airport during my last visit home. I had learnt to adapt, accept and enjoy what was around me, but as I was presented with each dish, I was excited again, I wanted to know more – more about everything I could possibly see, touch, smell, hear… taste. Curiosity of how each ingredient was picked and sourced returned to me, along with how it was prepared and cooked.

If I’ve compared all the restaurants I’ve visited in the states as of late to fashionable, model like figures lining up outside a hip nightclub in the meatpacking district, then Noma would be an exquisitely beautiful Nordic lady whose idea of nightlife involved nothing of dressing to impress, overpriced drinks and being seen. Her style is exquisite even if she’s wearing nothing but a wrinkled cotton dress; makeup would only dull her flawless natural beauty. She stops to smell and appreciate the flowers and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty in the garden.

After 1.5 hours of F5-ing my browser at 4am in the morning (that’s pressing reload over and over again for the non-nerds out there), the booking system on www.noma.dk finally presented me with an electronic booking form. My hands were shaking and my heart was beating fast – one mistake and I would have to wait another two months for a few hour’s chance to make another reservation. Noma opens their online reservation system on the 1st day of every TWO months, at exactly 10am Copenhagen time. Traffic to the website will inevitably be frustrating for you. It can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours, depending on your luck, your F5-ing skills and your patience. My tip is that if you want it bad enough and you’re persistent – it will most definitely happen for you (unless you’re on a dial-up modem, and in which case you probably won’t be reading this anyway). A table for 4 was secured, a Saturday night dinner, on a long weekend. I started asking around for people to join me on this epic meal – most thought I was crazy. “Copen-where?”, flying all the way to Copenhagen “just for a dinner?!”.

The only sensible thing for me to do really, is to assemble the good ol’ elBulli crew back for a bi-yearly reunion. All four of us, flying in from different cities of the world – New York, London, Barcelona, Stuttgart… without evening thinking twice, before booking plane tickets to Copenhagen to orgiastically share our love for a gastronomic experience.

I can clearly see your cringed face, judging the girl who’s visited elBulli twice and now bored with dining until the next number one. Spoilt? Indeed I am. Wealthy? Not even close – but I do know how to save for the things that I want to experience, and thankfully, now nearing the age of 30, I no longer need to pick up waitressing shifts outside of my 9 to 5 job just to scrape every tip I get – and blowing 9 months of hard work on ONE meal, but I digress.

The four of us all arrived the beautiful city of Copenhagen on the morning of May 28, “to stop by for dinner”.

It was a cloudy, drizzly day in Copenhagen and totally opposite to what weather.com had informed me the night prior to my flight, thus making my tiny shirtdress almost inappropriate. In shivering cold, the flaming torches outside the door and the candles behind the large glass windows almost made the restaurant so much more inviting with a “come hither – it’s warm and toasty inside”.

Greeted by a friendly Aussie by the door, I felt like I was home again. There are currently six Aussies working at Noma at the moment (represent!) and they are all immensely enjoying their time there. I later on learnt from Sam Miller they try their best to assign staff to their “tables from home” so that customers feel a familiarity during their dining experience.

Next: Noma – The Menu

Spoil-her Series: Simple recipes for men.

Under 5 ingredients, Under 20 bucks. Maximum brownie points.

Ingredients:

• Sashimi grade tuna, 1 fillet
• onion (white onion and green onion)
• ginger and garlic
• condiments – Soy sauce¹, sesame oil and chilli
• Optional: seasame seeds, avocado, jalapeños

Directions:

Finely dice white onion, green onion, ginger and garlic. If you do not want to use a knife, you can use a grater (I recommend a microplane.

Cut the tuna, against the grain, into 2cm cubes.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

Add 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of sesame oil.

If you would like to add a twist to your poke dish, toast a few teaspoons of sesame seeds for that extra crunch.

To pack some heat, add chilli sauce, chilli flakes or jalapeños.

Mix well and serve! It also compliments nicely with crackers or tortilla chips as a nice appetizer.

¹Use tamari instead of regular soy sauce for the gluten free version.