Welcome to... Foodisima?

Though it’s a work in progress, we’ve just uploaded the Foodisima Web site which supports Foodisima’s catering and chef services for Galiano Island, British Columbia and the Southern Gulf Islands. Come and visit and let us know what you think and what the site still needs. (Aside from more menus, of course. We’re working on those!)

Happy weekend!

Looking at Cookbooks: Sips & Apps by Kathy Casey

Author, chef and expert mixologist Kathy Casey had me at Zen Turkey Dumplings. With peanut sauce. They are, in a way, typical of the type of food she’s opted to include in Sips & Apps: Classic and Contemporary Recipes for Cocktails and Appetizers (Chronicle Books). They are easy to make -- can, in fact, be made by a group, preparing to party together. And they represent interesting flavor and texture combinations and will please a wide swath of your potential party going public.

Sips and Apps is more about the Sips than the Apps -- sips win 69 to 35 in the number of recipes included. (Though variations bring the numbers up on both sides.) But the number included might also speak to the type of recipes chosen for both sides. The apps here are solid, basic, crowd-pleasing favorites. For the most part, you won’t have seen these recipes before -- Casey’s flavor choices and presentations are interesting and original -- but they are the sort of backbone recipes frequent hosts may very well come to treasure.

The Sips, though, are a different matter. Very good bar basics sections get things going in the right direction and by the time you’re ready to make a drink, you’ll know just what everything is. (And if you’ve skipped ahead, you can go back and look for whatever it was you missed.) So if you decide to make, for instance, a Strawberry Shag or a Rouge Pulp, you’ll know how to do it. There’s even a section called Clear-Headed Cocktails: gorgeous drinks with fruit and finish, but no alcohol.

Sips and Apps is excellent. Those who enjoy entertaining at home will find this to be a useful and interesting book.

Welcome to Mojitoville!

It’s getting to be that time of year again: long evenings on the patio with a tableful of tapas and a mittfull of mojitos. Here's our favorite recipe. Feel free to tweak it... just don’t be tempted to leave out the rum!

Foodisima’s Mojitoville Mojitos

2.5 ounces rum
8 - 12 sprigs fresh mint
3 tablespoons simple syrup or sugar
juice of one half lime
ice
sparkling water

Muddle four to six sprigs of fresh mint in a tall glass. (Note: If you don’t actually have a muddler toss a teaspoon of granulated sugar onto the mint in the glass. The sugar acts as an abrasive, allowing you to mash things up pretty easily with a spoon.

Add rum, simple syrup and lime juice. Stir. Add ice, fill with fizzy water, garnish with the balance of the mint, grab your book, a shady tree and enjoy.

Food for Grown-Ups? Yes, Please!

Adult food from The Accidental Hedonist:

There are foods that seemingly met with the approval of all age brackets. Chocolate is a gimme, as is pizza. Rare is the person who would turn down fried chicken, or a nice dish of ice cream.

Let’s go!

National Grape Popsicle Day?

While that one seems like a bit of a reach, even to me, The Nibble here rounds up all of the completely unnecessary but very fun food holidays that I can’t actually imagine anyone observing. (Mentioning them, however, is something entirely different.) And, again while National Grape Popsicle Day doesn’t really sound like much fun for anyone (unless everyone was doing it) what about National Coq au Vin Day (May 29th) or National Mint Julep Day which, of course, should be on Derby Day but is, instead, on May 30th.

Hmmm... might be time to dig out my Coq au Vin recipe in honor of. I haven’t used it in a while and, after all, Coq au Vin is a wonderful thing. One shouldn’t really require an excuse.

The Nibble’s Food Holidays are here. Tip of the hat to Dying for Chocolate.

Respect for the Headless Chicken (and other semi-related tidbits)

This has been a big month for chicken. First Oprah said she wanted everyone to try KFC’s new chicken (grilled not fried). Then the LA Times pointed out that Oprah’s chicken pointing outing made a lot of people mad. And then, still from The Times:

On a mildly related front, it's worth mentioning that it's International Respect for Chickens Month. And that we, uh, had two-front page Food section stories today about, um, buying themmarinating them.

Finally, it seems a little ironic that, smack dab in the middle of International Respect for Chickens month, the weekend some people are making a bee-line for the Headless Chicken Festival. It’s possible that vegetarians will want to give Fruita, Colorado a miss this weekend, maybe head for the New Orleans Veggie Fest instead.