Archive for the ‘Food + Recipes’ Category
Refilling Your Wine Bottle at a Different Kind of Wine Bar: En Vrac, Paris
The first time I went to En Vrac, I immediately fell in love. You come here not just to buy wine, but to enjoy a different kind of wine buying experience. Because here, you fill your wine bottle from a stainless steel tank. Yes, wine in bulk.
When it Comes to Food, Are We Superficial?
I’ve been thinking a lot about food and food marketing lately, and feeling a bit frustrated that we’re quick to hop on board and buy trendy foods instead of just eating what’s good for us. It’s the topic of this week’s Foodie Underground column.
“We like to accuse the industrial food world of using food marketing to keep people eating unhealthy, citing examples of sugar cereal that’s branded as part of a complete breakfast. But let’s not kid ourselves, the healthy food world does it too.
Take the example of superfoods. First of all, there is no exact definition of the word “superfood.” You can slap that name on any food that is power-packed with nutrients. Second of all, do you know where your superfoods are coming from? Sure, goji berries might be good for your health, but the majority of them are grown on industrial fields in China. We say we want to be locavores and then we go dousing our salads in berries and grains that are imported from across the world.”
Read the full article here.
Carrot Cake Cookies (Made with Almond Butter!)
I came up with a recipe for carrot cake cookies this week that involves no flour whatsoever. Nope, it’s all almond butter. The entire batch went in one day of course, but hey, you’re eating carrots, so who has time to feel guilty?
The recipe is over on Foodie Underground, but I can tell you it’s as simple as having some carrots and almond butter and a few spices on hand.
Food Waste: Creative Solutions to a Big Problem
Did you know that about 40% of the food produced in the US goes uneaten? Food waste is a serious issue.
I was happy to contribute a piece to one of my favorite food sites Civil Eats on the topic, profiling different businesses and organizations that are putting food waste to use in interesting ways. My favorite? A company using beer grains to make granola bars and another making brownies out of leftover grapes from the winemaking process:
4. If you’ve ever brewed your own beer, you know that it takes a lot of grain. And what happens to that grain once the beer is done? Some brewers compost with it, some (of the very committed) bake with it, but most often it gets thrown out. That’s why Dan Kurzrock and Jordan Schwartz launched Regrained, a business that makes granola bars out of spent malted barley. According to the pair, “only 10 percent of the ingredients used to brew end up in your glass.”
5. In winemaking, all the leftover stuff that comes after the grapes have been crushed is called pomace. More often than not, it’s destined for the compost or the dump. But Whole Vine Products takes a different route, using this byproduct in baked goods. In fact, they work with a local mill to turn the pomace into a gluten-free flour. They also make culinary oils from the grape seeds. Anyone care for a Cabernet brownie?
Read the full article and learn about the other projects, including making jam from food waste, here.
Image: Regrained
Vote for Foodie Underground in The Kitchn’s Favorite Health + Diet Cooking Blog!
Ok, so beyond running, drinking coffee and writing, I keep up the site Foodie Underground. And it’s currently on the nomination list for The Kitchn’s Favorite Health & Diet Cooking Blog.
I would of course make me ever so happy if you went and gave it a vote.
Happy Valentine’s Day. Give Love.
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
-Dalai Lama
Give love. Receive love. Share love. That is what we should do today and everyday.
(I also made heart-shaped scones in celebration – they’re gluten-free, vegan and super simple – just to bring a little more cheer into a gray and dreary February day. Enjoy!)
Recipe: Flourless Olive Oil and Sesame Seed Brownies
With all this running lately, I have been craving anything loaded with protein. I can’t get enough of raw nuts and seeds. So it only made sense to make some brownies with them, right?
The Changing Coffee Scene in Paris
Call a spade a spade: most coffee in Paris isn’t good. But thankfully that’s changing. I had the chance to have some in depth chats with roasters and baristas in town over the last couple of months to talk about that change, culminating in an article for Roads & Kingdoms. An excerpt:
The tide is turning in the French capital, though, with a flood of new craft roasters and cafes that all believe in good coffee. The French, however, are sensitive to change, especially in a city that’s known for its deep-rooted traditions, and while this expanding coffee scene is welcomed by many, it also comes with a side of criticism. For some, local craft roast might be the sign of a city looking forward, yet for others it’s the sign of a city undergoing an irrevocable transformation in food culture.
Recipe: Winter Squash and Kale Millet Burgers
A new recipe that I am in love with, this was originally posted on Foodie Underground.
I spent last Saturday morning at the local organic market. Unfortunately it was the Saturday after New Year’s and my favorite local producer wasn’t there.
“It’s France, aren’t all the market people local producers?” you ask. Well, you would like to think so. It’s romantic to envision all the Ile-de-France farmers descending upon Paris to sell their goods, a basket of local produce only a market away for the food lover, but the reality is that many of the markets are filled with distributors as opposed to producers, which makes it easy to get mangoes and pineapple in January in Paris and yet more of an effort to track down a locally grown potato. I exaggerate to make my point, but there’s an element of truth in it.
The Paris Coffeshop for Freelancers: Cafe Craft
I am a big coffee drinker, and while in the first few weeks of the New Year I have made an effort to tone things down, normally I am a at-least-one-French-press-everyday kind of girl. It’s therefore totally normal to be thrilled about one of my new gigs for 2014: a contributor the coffee site Sprudge.
Yes. An entire website devoted to coffee.
My first piece was about a cool place in Paris that is set up for freelancers that need some desk space every once in awhile (hello: me!).
Drag your Macbook along with you to a cafe in Paris and you’ll probably end up being hard pressed to get any work done. While there are a handful of cafes that tolerate their space being used as a workspace, the hole-up-for-five-hours-and-get-a-coffee-buzz-that-only-a-freelancer-knows concept doesn’t really fly here. And yet…
As the French capital, Paris draws all kinds of people, from around France and from abroad, and amongst those people are plenty of creatives, students and entrepreneurial spirits that don’t always fit in the 9 to 5 category. This city is an iconic epicenter of art and culture, after all. While a more traditional work culture has been the dominant one, slowly but surely startup and freelance culture is starting to grow, and with it, the need for temporary workspaces.
Enter Cafe Craft, a cafe that calls itself the “premier café dédié aux créatifs indépendants.” If your French is rusty: “the first cafe devoted to independent creatives.” And that’s exactly what you get. Desk space, fast and free wifi (often an anomaly in this city) and most important, a plethora of outlets to charge your computer. You can literally sit here all day, and as long as you’re willing to pay for it, no one is going to hassle you or give you a nasty Parisian glare.
Read the full article on Sprudge
blog.annabrones.com 