Archive for May, 2007

Antique Silver Bon-Bon Server

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There will be several posts in this on-going series “Marketman does New York 2007” that will feature what my sister refers to as “single use implements”… utensils or china bonbon2that are designed for a single purpose only. All of these would fall into a “non-essentials” category for most folks — but they are beautiful, useful for their intended purpose and often highly prized as collectors items. Along the lines of the silver grape scissors or the silver candle snuffer that I featured on this blog before, these luxuries are not for the utilitarian and practical minded only. If these posts seem frivolous to you, I suggest you just shake your head slightly and skip the posts altogether rather than getting all hot and bothered about them and firing off a nasty email to me. So what do we have here? A stunning 1870’s Tiffany & Company antique sterling silver bon-bon spoon or server. It is a medium sized spoon with a wide oval shape designed to pick up bon-bons, sweets, candies…

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Veal Roast, Ratatouille & Mashed Potatoes

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Dinner on our second evening in New York featured a starter of incredibly fresh artichokes, boiled and served at room temperature accompanied by a thick vinaigrette (with lots of red onions and parsley blitzed into it). The main course was a wonderful veal roast (I LOVE VEAL – and let’s not get into the “ohh, they’re such baby cows” discussions as I also love baby “Spring lamb” as well) served with a simple sauce/gravy, some dinner2mashed potatoes and a ratatouille (or zucchini and tomato vegetable dish). A large dollop of mashed potatoes also bathed in gravy and this was just heaven for me. The veal was incredibly tender and the taste…fantastic! U.S. veal is much better than say Australian veal, in my opinion, and I am not sure if it is because they are actually milk fed (the color of the meat is also incredibly pale), the type or content of the feed, or what? The Australian veal you find in Manila on rare occasions is almost as blood red as beef… At any rate, in a later post, I shall discuss the shortage of beef currently plaguing the U.S. market, leading to incredibly high prices for veal and beef… Gosh, I really wish someone would import some decent veal roasts into the local market… And oops, I forgot to ask my sister what the China was used that evening, a flowery pattern on a Spode? perhaps plate…

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Confiture épépinée de Goyaves / Guava Jam

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Part of the 150 pounds of luggage we brought over to New York included dozens of packages of dried mangoes, some polvoron, sampaloc and a single bottle of my homemade guava jelly as a present for my sister and her family. So you can imagine my surprise when at our first breakfast after the long flight, she whipped out a brand new bottle of guava jam she acquired on a recent trip to Paris… The French, like the English, have a wonderful respect for jams, jellies and preserves and they seem to consider it a national birthright to have perfected the process of extracting the of essence and flavor of fruits from near and far. Perhaps because of previous French colonies in Africa, they must have figured out the guava essence a long time ago, but this certainly came as a surprise to me… This small bottle of jam, labeled Confiture épépinée de Goyaves (gosh, doesn’t that just sound so much chicer than GUAVA JAM), contained 58% guava pulp, 42% sugar and a little bit of pectin. That’s pretty authentic, don’t you think?

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Entenmann’s Old Fashioned Doughnuts

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It might seem a bit bizarre that someone (me) who utterly adores the croissant and brioche at Francois Payard, would also make a special trip to the grocery to pick up a box of Entenmann’s Cake Style doughnuts. Heeheehee. I LOVE these cakey doughnuts and they bring back good memories from summers spent in New York decades ago and late nights studying for exams at graduate school many years later. These doughnuts probably very high calorie, though they claim contain zero trans-fats, so they are definitely in the junk food category. But I can easily down 3 of them in one sitting and they aren’t only a breakfast food for me… as they make the perfect merienda or dessert or midnight snack material. I love them with hot tea and they are great with an ice cold Diet Coke as well. Isn’t it weird how we register certain tastes in our culinary memory banks and we develop our own list of “comfort foods” that include both the common and the sublime?

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“Bloody” Orange Juice

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From Sicilian Blood Oranges (previous post) comes gorgeously bloody orange juice. Nothing simpler to do. Just stick the oranges into the chiller section of your fridge and make juice2sure they are really cold before squeezing. If necessary, throw them into a bath of icy water for half an hour or so before making the juice. Then squeeze on an electric or manual juicer, taking care not to overdo it as including some of the pith can make your juice somewhat bitter. Serve straight up (no addition of ice cubes that will dilute the flavor) and enjoy… In this case, the glass is as much of a marvel as the juice… the high lead content brilliant cut American crystal from the late 1800’s is a beautiful way to show off the juice. I didn’t realize there was a brief and stunning tradition of high quality crystal manufactured in the U.S., but my sister who is an avid collector of tableware let me use this glass for the photo… in the days ahead, I will also feature several other unusual plates, silver pieces, etc. that are also from her fantastic collection…

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Sicilian Blood Oranges

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Blood red oranges. Stunning and delicious. Native to Sicily and parts of Spain, a quirk of nature resulted in a strain of oranges containing anthocyanin, that provides the red pigment to the pulp and skin of these oranges. There are three varieties of blood oranges - Moro, Sanguinello and Tarocco. The first two varieties are native to Italy and Spain, however the oranges are now being grown in California, Australia and other places. But the best ones, in my opinion, must still hail from their natural “home”…specifically Moros grown on the island of Sicily in Italy. It’s kind of amusing that the same island infamous for the Mafia would also have bloody oranges…

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Pastries from Payard

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The morning after a 24-26 hour cross-Pacific journey is always a bit dicey. You either wake up unreasonably early or are too groggy to make much sense. To regain equilibrium, a nice box of goodies from Payard Patisserie et Bistro ALWAYS seems to help immensely. We stayed at my sister’s apartment which was a stone’s throw from Payard, and knowing we have our “favorite foods” that we must indulge in every time we visit Manhattan, she had a great big box/bag of Payard pastry on the table waiting for us to wake up… Several mini craquelin (brioche with orange rind and almonds) shared space with a cream filled doughnut like confection, several croissants, pain au chocolat (for The Kid), cookies and brioche. The pastries were so tasty on their that own you didn’t really need to add butter and/or jam. Great flavor from good sweet butter combined with just baked freshness meant serious enjoyment at the breakfast table…

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Great Food Packaging…

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Food packaging in the Philippines is oftentimes pretty abysmal. There are a few bright exceptions, but generally speaking, we have some of the most uninspired, unprofessional, unappealing and sometimes, even appalling food packaging for a country so pre-occupied with food… The basic bottles, plastic containers, boxes, bags, etc. that are available are pretty limited. Custom made packages can be hard to find, and if at all possible, extremely expensive. Also, I find that as a consuming public, we don’t seem to give a damn, so the vendors don’t bother to improve their offerings. And the difference is apparent within hours of leaving our shores. During a brief stopover in Hong Kong, The Kid bounded off to get a baked goody to sustain her through the 15-16 hour flight to New York. She purchased this massive chocolate muffin with whole chunks of chocolate from Millie’s Cookies for about USD2.50 (nearly the same price of a midget cupcake at the most expensive bakery in Manila) and it came wrapped in this terrific bag, with printed napkins.

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