Menu for Hope III: Info coming soon

Just a quick note to let you know that we've got some wonderful prizes lined up for Menu for Hope III. Thanks so much to all our donors!

Oh, and fair warning: I'm teaming up with a friend for what we think of as a pretty spiffy package.

Details on everything coming soon...

cheers!
jasmine
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Recipe testing: Dish Cooking Studio

Party Dish host Trish Magwood is writing her first cookbook with one of her colleagues at Dish Cooking Studio. About a month ago I, along with about 20 others, joined them to do some recipe testing.

Everyone at Dish was wonderful and so down to Earth--important considering this group encompassed the spectrum in experience and ability. That afternoon we prepared a menu that included easy, casual items along with a few things for special occasions.

It'll be about a year until the book is published, but if what we tried was any indication about the ease and tastiness of the recipes, it will probably be a good collection of recipess suitable for all sorts of dining experiences. I think it's safe to say that we all had a quite a bit of fun, and none of us left hungry. Here are photos to give you an idea of what we were up to:







I can't remember the actual titles of each dish, and the recipe sheets aren't with me right now. I'll probably make these again and post about them later:
top row: prosecco and raspberry apératif;
2nd row: (l) amuse bouche: olive oil and rosemary crostini with oven-baked cirtrussy olives, (r) appetiser: smoked trout and avocado on rice crackers;
3rd row: (l) appetiser: pancetta-wrapped baked baby asparagus spears, (r) appetiser: mushroom caps stuffed with goat cheese and topped with leeks (I think);
4th row: (l) salad: roasted babybeetroot, citrus and goat's cheese on mixed greens, (r) veg: sauteed broccolini with garlic, and
5th row: (l) dinner: salad, broccolini and flank steak, (r) dessert: chocolate-rum ganache pots

cheers!
jasmine

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Introducing...

My new web site!

Okay...it's been live for a while, but I've been tinkering and fiddling and then I kinda got distracted with work, school, CBBP2, getting Menu For Hope 3 going...and given it's been up on my sidebar for a while, it's not one of my better-kept "secrets.

Sensualgourmet.ca is all about me and my ever-evolving relationship with food. It comforts and sustains; it nourishes; it defines; it separates; it attracts.

I'm sure some of you are asking why Sensual Gourmet.

You see, when I started gathering my thoughts and opinions under the title "Confessions of a Cardamom Addict" I was writing for a different audience. When I started this blog, I kept the name because it was familiar to me and it represented my first attempts at writing about food.

In time, my cooking, tasting, writing and photography evolved. Nigella Lawson (a favourite food writer) summed up things perfectly in How to Eat: The pleasures and principles of good food,

"Cooking is just not about joining the dots, following one recipe slavishly and then moving on to the next. It's about developing an understanding of food, a sense of assurance in the kitchen, about the simple desire to make yourself something to eat."

Sensual Gourmet marks my own, on-going education of food and growing assurance in the kitchen.

The title, I think, sums up what cooking and eating are all about: the senses---the appearance of a rambutan—its burr-like hair on a red and brown shell contrasted against the pearlescent white of its fruit, the warm, yeasty scent that fills the home when baking bread, the sound of the song of a roasting chicken as its fats clarify in a hot oven, the feel—both the nubbly tactile nature of bittermelon and the soft, melting mouthfeel of panna cotta, and of course the taste of hot astringency of fresh ginger.

Links to both my blogs (Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Sensual Gourmet: Kitchen Diaries) are there--yes, I will keep on with my blogging. I've also add "permanent homes" for reviews and recipes, along with a growing list of foodblogs and food references.

I hope you'll visit it from time to time.

cheers!
jasmine

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