It's vegetarian, so it's healthy!

You, when you have a dinner of creamy cheese on foccaccia with cream.. and some veggies of course, but don't forget the creamy cheese, and the cream, and despite feeling full enough already have a desert, for once, which consists of a creamy mousse with cream.. well.. you tend to feel a bit stuffed, and possibly over lactosed. Is that a word? Well if it isn't it is now.

Had a nice dinner I have to say, all veggie, so as I said it's healthy, and I"m totally not a couple o units heavier now than I was a few hours ago and am not going to have stomach problems from too much heavy dairy consumption. As I said I enjoyed it.. well.. sometimes you gotta do it, and it's a birthday day so, if not now, when.

There was a hat involved. Tat might not mean anything to anyone, but there was.

*raises glass*

I'm having a real life anniversary today. That is, a celebration of some number of whole years since a particular important incident occurred, as opposed to say.. a 2 week anniversary which is a logical impossibility and does not exist!

Just under 3 years ago exactly was the first time I met with my gentleman friend Erik, for the first time in real life, after knowing each other exclusively online for a while, at the horse statue.

We then wandered on to the inaugural dinner, at U Medvidku, a charming spot which I've been to many a time over the years, but which has since been given a special place in my heart since this aforementioned event.. and subsequently one which we are revisiting this evening. And revisited a year ago.. and the year before that...

and we'll have beer, perhaps some cheese though perhaps not this evening as one half of the partnership has recently become sorta vegan, but that's ok, we'll have beer, and we'll be dorks.. and then we'll have some dinner somewhere else...

I'm not expecting to go on a wild goose chase afterwards.. like the original meeting.. we didn't catch any geese that night, probably because they're don't seem to be too many in Žižkov, where we were, but we didn't find that bar either.. we did find another one though.. I mean, there's always some bar.. who knows. Maybe we'll chase some nonexistent geese, or maybe not, but I wouldn't be adverse to some kind of shenanigans occuring, it seems like the night for it.

Except for the fact that the water heater dude is coming early tomorrow to finally replace our old and barely functioning one after a few aborted attempts.. but that's relatively unimportant.

Weekend Food Appreciation

A bit of gastro blogging for once.. is that a term? Whatever, I just made if up if it isn't. My brother recently emailed me this list after observing that I am partial to, or at least not entirely against partaking in the consumption of stinky cheese.

The Top Foods People Love or Hate

Certain foods are as polarizing as hometown sports teams and politics. Here at Serious Eats, we've put together a list of eleven love-or-hate foods. If you love them, be proud. We've included a recipe highlighting each controversial flavor.

1. White Chocolate: The "chocolate" part trips people up. It's really just a sweet confection (no cocoa involved). Moving on from terminology, when good, it's creamy and vanilla-y, but like "normal" chocolate, when bad, it's just waxy calories.
Recipe for white chocolate bark with fresh mint, almonds, and dried berries

2. Cilantro: Soapy, rotten, or just plain vile are popular complaints from cilantro haters. Did you know Julia Child hated the leafy herb? But behavioral neuroscientists would argue that America's food darling had no control. It's all about genetics. Studies have linked liking cilantro to being able to detect the "pleasing" chemicals in the leaf.
Recipe for white beans and cilantro

3. Eggplant: For some, it's an old purple sponge and others, the soft-firm texture is what makes a veggie sandwich or an Italian pasta dish. Raw is never good, but fried, grilled, or roasted (always doused with gobs of olive oil), eggplant deserves another chance. Or, the vegetarian sponge will always make you nauseous -- and the roof of your mouth mysteriously itch.
Recipe for eggplant lamb lavash wrap

4. Coconut: The smell in shampoo and sunblock is one thing. But the sawdust-like shreds of real coconut can mean chewing and chewing forever until you eventually swallow the darn lump. Sprinkled on pies, cakes, and chicken, coconut either adds a mild tropical zing or a vile, never-ending chewing party. That's when it comes out that a lot of coconut haters don't even know about young fresh coconut which is as soft as a Hawaiian baby's bottom.
Recipe for coconut domes

5. Tomato: This one really comes down to texture. Slimy and gritty is never good for the tomato world. The cooked, soft version brings in a few fans. Others are only in it for the vine-picked version during their peak season in August (cut to romantic images of Italian countrysides). Others can only bear them on pizza or completely masked inside ketchup.
Recipe for marinated tomatoes with linguine

6. Anchovies: Cat food or human food? A small whiff can make you seasick or have you loading them on pizza and Caesar salads. Whether fresh or in flat metal cans, the salty little fish has some so obsessed, they'll eat the bones.
Recipe for roasted sardines with bread crumbs, garlic, and mint

7. Black licorice: Even the red licorice-tolerant may draw the line here. Black licorice gum, jelly beans, tea, Good n' Plentys, and Jägermeister—get it out. Along with any herb, like anise or fennel, that resembles the flavor. Out. Lovers say it's an acquired taste, but I think the little kids have it straight here. Not a real candy.
Recipe for baked fennel with prosciutto

8. Stinky cheeses: If this smell came from something else (a shoe or dog), I might take issue, but knowing it's from a dairy gob, growing moldy in a controlled environment, I'm fine with the pungent aroma. When others sniff Gorgonzola or Roquefort, they're convinced that feet or laundry were actually involved.
Recipe for tortellini with Gorgonzola cream sauce

9. Mayo: Whether Hellmann's or even Miracle Whip, does the creamy off-white slime strip the taste off food or magically make anything better? Haters have been told to try it homemade, but for many, this won't make a tuna or egg salad look any less scary.
Recipe for avocado mayonnaise

10. Bell Pepper: To some, all those colorful strips are a mouthful of crisp freshness. To others, they're the backseat driver of vegetables. On a pizza or in pasta, they're supposed to be one of many veggie passengers, but no. The bell pepper's always got to be the loud guy telling your taste buds where to go -- and green, he's the loudest. Green is actually unripened, picked from the vine before its more sweet (and edible) brethren.
Recipe for angel hair pasta with red pepper pesto and basil

11. Beets: Despite all my white T-shirts you have stained purple, I still love you, beets. People fear you from an early age, but roasted or pickled, you take on a whole new form. The other camp thinks that the beet smell is such a toss-up between ick and gross and that the beet taste is so much like a metallic vitamin that it's just not meant to be.
Recipe for roasted beet salad

Obviously it's personalized to the tastes of whoever wrote it. I agree about the strong cheese strangely enough, and am quite partial to eggplant, peppers and mayo, but the others I don't really feel one way or the other about.. except for anchovies, but I'm not a fish person in general so it's moot. It's funny that even one's idea of things people either love it or hate isn't exactly universal, but differs according to the person. The last time my mother was here in Prague we were in a pub/restaurant, and my then boyfriend had something with the herb dill in it, and she had this huge reaction of disgust from smelling it, and then claimed it's one of those things everyone feels strongly about, when neither of us had noticed a thing.

If I was to do the list, it would definitely have broccoli on it. I personally love broccoli, and know a lot of people who really like it, but those who don't really don't. Everyone who I've heard have an opinion on broccoli had had a strong one, including the 41st President of the United States, one on the "no" list, who could have just used his considerable power to silently opt out of eating it, but instead chose to make a big bratty song and dance about it.

I don't really get it, it seems like a pretty innocuous vegetable, and if people don't like it, I'd expect more of a meh.. not my thing. Then again perhaps it's just one of the vegetable group for those people who don't like veggies at all, something I understand even less.

Another interesting example is cauliflower. You'd think it's neither here nor there, but our cat hates it. You put it anywhere near her and as soon as she smells it she literally flinches, but if you put really strong stuff like chillies, garlic or onions near her, she sniffs it and then moves on disinterestedly. I know we're mainly talking about humans her, but still.. it's weird.

The night I almost turned Christian.

I went to the Prague Playhouse's "Holiday" party last night. It was a chance to see all the acting pals I've hardly seen all year due to being a lazy fat ass and doing next to nothing all year, except for the little I've done which isn't much. It was fun, drank beer, chatted, introduced Erik to some weird people. We had to leave to get our night tram on time, so unfortunately missed out on that promised "smoke" which took too long to get organized.. a slightly surprising fact considering later incidents.

We got home hungry and made some grilled cheese sandwiches with hermelín.. chatting all the while. It was well liked, and our conversation turned, as it often does, to cheese. The greatness of cheese, the gloriousness of cheese, the sheer yumminess of cheese.. all round cheese worship.. "blessed are the cheesemakers" I recited, which I arrived upon I know not how, apart from the fact that we were discussing cheese at the time. I,knew it from somewhere. it sounded like a bible verse to me, all that "blessed" shit.. and I started to think. "Did Jesus say that?" Fuck! Well if He did, He had the right idea... could.. could.. there be something in it?

It hit me like a.. something that's not physically hard but makes you think.. I might be able to.. believe. I could become.. a Christian!

Now luckily, the word christian can interpreted loosely, and there are so many different kinds of Christians, so many different sects so that I considered it even possible.. like others I could d to pick and choose what bits I'd follow, I would follow.. more the pro-cheese parts and less the wifely submission parts, and if I had to make up my own church I was more than ready to do it.

First I needed to be sure, so I rushed to google to verify what I thought might maybe be sorta true. I typed in "blessed are the cheesemakers" and got.. some Life of Brian links and other random stuff that didn't make any sense to me. I knew now, where I had heard it.

I was gutted. Ok, I was perhaps mildly disappointed, but mostly relieved. I mean, I know myself pretty well and I'm more suited to Python worship than baby Jesus worship, and I got over it pretty quick.

It's all very silly, the very mild beer buzz I was experiencing is hardly an excuse, and it really seems like more the domain of stoned people, which is what I was referring to up there when I said it was mildly surprising.... and it doesn't even end there.. don't even get me started on the Secondary Fraggles incident.

Oh and Happy Chanukah. It's due to start today at dusk, which around here is about 4pm.
We're gonna light the candle, spin the dreidel, eat latkes.. you know, the usual stuff.

The history of cheese.

I though I'd do an educational post for you all today, on a subject that's dear to my heart. Cheese.

Mmmm. Cheese. Can you imagine a world without cheese? Without it's strong/mild/mildlystrong flavour? Without it's creamy/hard/soft texture? Without all those wonderful names, from wonderful places, cheddar, gouda, gorgonzola, Wensleydale, brie?

Mmmm. Um, where was I again? Oh yes, well there was a day when there was no cheese. Long hard dreary days they were, until...

The History of Cheese
Most authorities consider that cheese was first made in the Middle East. The earliest type was a form of sour milk which came into being when it was discovered that domesticated animals could be milked. A legendary story has it that cheese was 'discovered' by an unknown Arab nomad. He is said to have filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a journey across the desert by horse. After several hours riding he stopped to quench his thirst, only to find that the milk had separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps. Because the saddlebag, which was made from the stomach of a young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme known as rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds and whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and the galloping motions of the horse. The nomad, unconcerned with technical details, found the whey drinkable and the curds edible.

A happy accident!

In the Roman era cheese really came into its own. Cheesemaking was done with skill and knowledge and reached a high standard.

And before you knew it, the whole of the Roman Empire, then the world was eating cheese. End of story.

I'd like to go into more detail but I can't be bothered, instead I'll leave you with a recipe.

BEER AND CHEESE SOUP

Ingredients:
------------
1 cup diced onions
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced mushrooms
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp dry mustard
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 bunch broccoli
11 fl oz beer (use a can or bottle and save a swallow for the cook!)
6 oz cheddar cheese, grated
2 tblsp grated parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:
-------------
Saute' the diced vegetables in butter.

Mix flour and mustard into sautaed vegetables. Add the chicken or
vegetable stock to mixture and cook for five minutes.

Break broccoli into small flowerets; cut stems into bite-sizes pieces.
Steam until tender-crisp. Add beer and cheeses to the soup. Simmer
10-15 minutes. Check seasonings.

To serve, place some broccoli into a soup bowl and ladle the soup over it.

Mmmm. Beer and cheese.