http://www.thegooseberryfool.com Cooking and eating Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:35:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In week 8 of the Leiths Confident Cooking course we deboned wood pigeon and made strudel from scratch. Apple strudel I really enjoyed this class. It never occurred to me that we would be making the filo pastry for the apple strudel from scratch. Nor that making filo would be so ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/13/leiths-week-8-wood-pigeon-black-pudding-salad-and-apple-strudel/ Are small farms really more productive than large farms? Or is this shonky reasoning? Is productivity the only measure?   There’s never a good time to be poor but it’s especially tough right now with extortionate rises in the price of basic food stuffs. In the past year, the prices of grains and ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/10/could-peasants-feed-the-world/ My recipe for 'caponata' - the classic Sicilian vegetable dish starring aubergine and tomato and flavoured with olives and capers Here in London, summer has arrived with a sudden burst. The days are long and sunshiney, the lawns and trees dazzle with emerald green, and there are roses blooming everywhere. As ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/09/summer-cooking-a-recipe-for-caponata/ This week was my favourite Leiths lesson so far. We made chilli squid salad for our savoury dish and individual amaretti pavlovas for dessert. They were both amazing and very photogenic, as you can see. I took my camera along for the first time and I'm almost tempted to just ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/07/leiths-week-7-amaretto-pavlovas-and-chilli-squid-salad/ When I was a child, my family had a vegetable garden. I can vividly remember the dark green feathery tendrils of the carrot tops and the paler green ripple of the lettuce leaves, poking out from their bed of straw and compost. I took it for granted as a normal ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/07/save-the-planet-plant-a-garden/ I'm pleased to be hosting the Carnival of Cities on The Gooseberry Fool for the first time. Since this is a food blog, I was especially keen for posts with a culinary connection and I wasn't disappointed. I hope you enjoy this week's menu. * Gray at SoloFriendly on great Thai ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/05/carnival-of-cities-from-thai-in-vermont-to-chai-in-dubai/ This is a guest post from Jo, a wine enthusiast and a keen attender of wine tastings. She is particularly interested in Burgundy and has been on several trips to the area. She recently passed the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust intermediate exam on wine and spirits. Wine can be ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/05/guest-post-how-to-choose-win/ It's a double-whammy of Leiths posts as I try to get up to date before the class tomorrow night. It's hard to believe it's week six already - more than halfway through the course! Last week the menu was pork tenderloin with sage and madeira sauce, accompanied by crushed new potatoes ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/03/leiths-week-6-pork-tenderloin-new-potatoes-and-citrus-fruit-compote-with-spiced-caramel/ Chicken liver pâté and melba toasts I like liver pâté but I had never previously given much thought to its preparation. Now that I can speak from experience, I can say that ignorance is bliss and in future I will buy my rather than make pâté. Some things are best left ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/03/leiths-week-5-pate-with-melba-toast-salmon-and-broccoli-salad/ Make the most of the all-too-brief English asparagus season by devouring the succulent green stems by the plateful - plus some cool trivia about 'sparrow grass' It's a foodie cliché to declare your love for asparagus, particularly here in Britain where asparagus lovers are so passionate they even have a two-month ... http://www.thegooseberryfool.com/2008/06/02/asparagus-the-queen-of-vegetables/