Friday, January 30, 2009

Messe Matsuyama 2009

31 januari 2009, sabtu,

Hari ini ikutan acara messe matsuyama yang diaadakan di aiteem ehime. Acaranya tentang persahabatan antara sacramento city-amerika, furaiburk city-jerman, pyonteku city-korea and matsuyama city-japan.

Acaranya perkenalan kota kota tersebut n barang barang tradisional mereka, ada jualan wine, kimchi, ramen,beer,teh, baju, makanan, aseksori dll..
Selain itu ada pameran eco, seperti mobil yang pake tenaga matahari, recycle kertas jadi tisue ato kartu pos, ada ruangan yang isinya tentang lingkungan, gimana cara melindungi bumi dari sampah n polusi...banyak lagi.



Acara yg disukai anak2 yaitu game corner. Mei paling suka bikin sesuatu, so disitu, ada diajarin bkin baling2 kazaguruma dari kertas, mewarnai, main main dengan bola kayu, ada guru yg ajak main main n bercerita...banyak lagi...

Dont Forget to Vote

Korean Blogger of 2008



Vote now for the Gloden klog Award
Click on the Survey part to vote( Part 2 is the Food blog voting. )

Alpha males take a break

January 30

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my friend Kenyon Phillips over dinner at Dhaba. Kenyon is my only vegetarian friend with whom I will eat dinner, an indication of just what good company he is.
While munching on lasoni gobi, a stir-fried cauliflower dish that’s part of India’s distinctive Chinese cuisine (every country has its own Chinese cuisine, as immigrants from China have adapted to local tastes), as well as a variation of palak paneer, plus a lamb stew for me, we were talking about human beings’ natural desire to be liked.
“It’s a survival instinct,” he said, which of course it is.
A common theory among biologists is that young mammals are cute — with disproportionately large heads and big eyes — so that their parents will take care of them rather than eating them or selling them into slavery.
Even as cute as babies and puppies and bear cubs are, it doesn’t always work. Just imagine what would happen if we looked like caterpillars.
I think being likeable is also a tactic of non-dominant beta males. If we can’t beat people up to get our way, we can try to cajole them into it, and that works a lot better if people like you.
These days, as the economic winds blow ever-colder, I’ve found that I’m getting nicer. I’ve always been kind of a yes-man in the office, but these days, I feel like I’m being even cheerier, more accommodating, kinder to publicists, more fun at parties.
I think my colleagues are getting nicer, too.
I think we’re responding to these dark times by turning up the volume on our survival tactics.
Not too long ago I read about a troop of baboons whose alpha males, being the aggressive creatures that alpha males are, forced their way onto a garbage heap, ate tainted food and died. All of them.
With only betas left, that baboon troop behaved the way betas usually do. They worked collaboratively and helped each other out, in stark contrast to most baboon troops, which work pretty much like dictatorships.
When new would-be alphas came along and behaved like they were in charge, they were rebuffed and shunned until they learned to play nicely.
I wonder if that’s going to be going on here in the United States, where our alpha males didn’t die from food poisoning, but a lot of their companies died from toxic debt, and a lot of them lost their jobs, because firing a high-ranking alpha saves you a lot more money than letting go of a measly beta.
I wonder what kinds of effects that will have on corporate culture.

Of course, if you’re not careful when making your staff cuts, you run the risk of losing valuable corporate memory, and I was reminded of that at a book party I went to just before I met Kenyon for dinner.
The book is Dirty Dishes: A restaurateur’s story of passion, pain, and pasta by Pino Luongo and Andrew Friedman.
Florence Fabricant, who writes a column both for The New York Times and Nation’s Restaurant News, was at the party, too, and during all the speeches she pointed out Pino Luongo’s unique qualities as a cookbook writer, including the fact that he doesn’t include measurements in his recipes.
I like that, because I’ve always thought that recipes gave cooks a false sense of security. A list of ingredients and instructions on what to do with them is no substitute for knowing how to cook. It’s like any art form. Imagine getting a recipe for how to paint a picture of a tree, or how to write a song.
Don’t get me wrong, recipes are useful, but they’re not all you need, and I think encouraging people to cook creatively, and to taste the food, by not telling them exactly how much of something to use, helps them to become better cooks.
And you need someone who has been around for as long as Florence has to explain that that’s what Pino Luongo has always done.
I was also reminded of the need for a corporate memory by my cousin Leonard Kamsler, a freelance photographer specializing in instructional golf pictures who for several decades now has done work for Golf Digest. I had dinner with him, his partner Stephen Lyles and Stephen’s mother, Pete (yes, Pete, just let it go). While I ate Stephen’s delicious garlicky tilapia and Pete’s equally yummy rice dish, a sort of pilaf, but with a lot of spinach mixed in (trust me, it was a lot better than I just made it sound), Leonard reflected on John Updike, who had just died. He remembered that Golf Digest had sent Updike to the Masters tournament one year and had him write a thought piece about it. Leonard was pretty sure that no one currently on staff at Golf Digest would have any idea that Updike had ever written for them, and so they wouldn’t know to track down the article and maybe run it again in tribute to him.
He said he’d give them a call.

It’s the food, stupid

January 30

Time for a new poll.
For the last one, I asked you to give the main reason you pick the restaurants you choose to eat in.
One guy responded via my Twitter account with a whole list, presumably ranked in order of importance: Location, taste, price, value, staff, cleanliness. But of the 21 of you who responded on the blog, 57 percent said you went to restaurants because you like the food. Nineteen percent of you helped justify the adage that the three most important things a restaurant needs to succeed are location, location and location.
Here, for the record, is the full list of responses to the question: "When choosing a restaurant, what is usually the most important factor?"

Location: 4 (19%)
Whether I like the food: 12 (57%)
The amount of time I’ll have to spend there: 0 (0%)
Quality of service: 1 (4%)
Whether I know the owners or people who work there: 3 (14%)
Price: 0 (0%)
Ambience: 0 (0%)
Coupons or other promotions: 0 (0%)
I go where my dining companions want to go: 0 (0%)
Other: 1 (4%)

You’ll notice that 14 percent of respondents said they choose a restaurant based on whether they know the owners or people who work there, an indication that many Food Writer's Diary readers are industry insiders.
And that leads to our next question, about this blog’s parent, Nation’s Restaurant News, the paper of record of the foodservice industry.
It’s really a three-part question: Do you read NRN? Do you read it in print or online? Do you read it at work or at home?
Answer as much of it as you like. Click away. Go crazy. Feel free to comment below if you feel like elaborating.
And thank you for your time.

Friday Nibbles - Onions

Cheap, tasty, staggeringly versatile – what’s not to like about the humble onion? Housed within the tough, papery skin is a vegetable that is integral to cuisines from all over the world – from the curries of India to the pickled onions of the UK, served alongside steaming fish and chips. Italian, French, Greek, Spanish cooking, and countless others, would be very different indeed were it not for this glorious vegetable.



Onions are one of the oldest vegetables known to mankind. They have always been easy to grow, able to flourish in a myriad of climatic conditions, keep well and are easily transported, a property that made them important to ancient cultures.

They are, along with garlic, leeks, ramsoms (wild garlic), part of the allium family and were probably first cultivated by the Egyptians who worshipped the onion as a symbol of eternal life.

Now the majority are grown in China and India, although the capacity of the onion to grow in so many varied climates means that many nations don’t have to import them, instead growing their own and storing them once the season is over.

Although there are countless recipes that include onions, very few exist that put them on a pedestal all of their own. One notable exception, of course, is the nectar that is French onion soup (method to follow). Instead, onions tend to form an integral aspect of recipes and as such much be prepared, a task many cooks find frustrating.

Chopping onions the right way is one of those tricks that, once you learn, you’ll never use any other method. It is very simple and uses the root end to hold the vegetable together whilst you chop it from the top end (if you already know all this then feel free to skip forward).

The first step is to slice off the top half centimetre so that you end up with a flat end which you can put face down on the chopping board. Once you have done that slice the onion in half and remove the skin.



Next lay the onion down on its largest exposed flat surface so you have a hemisphere facing up towards you. Using a (sharp) knife make a series of cuts down its back all the way through, being careful not to cut through the root end which will continue to hold it all together. Finally, start cutting perpendicular to these and tiny little pieces of onion should start to fall away.



Depending on what you are cooking, these can be large chunks or miniscule pieces that will almost dissolve if they are cooked slowly in oil. If you wish to make slices, as opposed to dice, then dispense with the first step and just cut across the onion after you have skinned it.

Cooking onions, too, can present some problems, with many people trying to hurry the process and ending up with burnt, acrid tasting slices as opposed to sweet and fragrant. Many recipes call for onions to be ‘sweated’. This should be done over a gentle heat in a little oil and normally takes 10-15 minutes with occasional stirring. Once they have reached this stage – soft and vaguely translucent – they can then be’ browned’ by a further 5-10 minutes cooking. This will give you a sweetness thanks to the caramelisation of the naturally occurring sugars (a process known as ‘Maillard reactions’).

So, onto something more fun – French onion soup is a bona fide classic and one that is near impossible to screw up. It is warming, hearty and makes a delicious lunch or a first rate starter if you are having more than one course. It is the sort of food that you serve to people you really like – casual, no tablecloths necessary and many bottles of vin de table from Burgundy.

Naturally, there are variations to this dish which can elevate it to heights you never thought possible – bacon, red wine, rich beef stock, herbs – but sometimes a quick fix is all you need which is exactly what this method is. Should serve two, avec du pain, naturellement.
Thinly slice four or five onions and sweat them in fat (butter, oil, goose fat – whatever you have to hand. I used chicken fat today from a bird we roasted at the weekend) for 15-20 minutes. Crank up the heat and start to brown them. You should end up with some delicious crusty brown stuff clinging to the bottom of the pan. This is the fond and is most excellent.

Once they have been nicely browned (and this is the bit that will probably make a Frenchman raise his hands, scream ‘sacre bleu’ and weep into his beret) add about two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Not the good stuff, obviously. It will darken the soup and add a wonderful sweet acidity. Using a wooden spoon scrape the fond from the bottom of the pan and stir it into the onions.

Next pour in the stock (about 500ml), turn down the heat, stir and leave for another ten minutes. If you don’t make your own, stock cubes are ideal (chicken or beef will yield the best results. I don’t know about vegetable) for this and give results as good as anything I’ve done with homemade stock.

Whilst it is bubbling away and filling your kitchen with smells to make your stomach gurgle in anticipation, dry out a piece of bread in the oven. Good crusty bread is the best, day old baguette if you have it.

Pour the soup into a bowl, top with the bread and layer on a healthy slice of cheese (traditionally Gruyere but I think tradition went out of the window with the balsamic vinegar so anything melty will do), pop it under the grill until the cheese starts to brown and bubble.

Eat. Sigh a happy sigh and realise just how good the world is when you can make food like this for mere pence.



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Asian Chicken on Homemade bread.


So I made My Asian Chicken
(Something very similar in Korea is Tak Kangjong)
So my version is very simple.
Chicken, Soy sauce ,garlic , ginger and honey.
I cooked in a little oil in the oven for 30 mins at 200c and then at 230c for 15.
For the onions I sauteed in a little butter with a teaspoon of whole grain mustard then mixed in a little chopped Jalapenos.


My first time to make my own bread
(apart from Irish soda bread) To make it I used 2 cups of plain flour . One table spoon of yeast activated in a little warm water. One teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of honey and water. I mixed all together cover with cling film and put somewhere warm till it rises twice the size . Kneed it for 10 mins. Then flour a baking tin and place it inside and cover and allow to rise again. Cook in a perheated oven at 240c and cook for 40 mins.
I then mixed an egg and placed it painted it on top.
To make it crunchy.

Toast the bread and put it all together.

LASAGNA

Baru sempet input ini masakan, namanya Lasagna..
Ga asing kan sama makanan ini, pasta again pasta again hehehehee
Tapi gak apa-apa lah, berhubung sudah lama beli pasta lasagna-nya, dari pada ga kepake.
Rada ribet sih bikinnya, disusun satu persatu lasagna-nya trus di isi daging dan saus kejunya.

Tapi hasilnya ga mengecewakan, enak ... , cuman sayang karena gue gak pake saus tomat dan tomat yang gue pake buah tomat yang dipotong2 alhasil rada berair deh lasagna.
Jadi makannya lebih enak esok harinya, karena air tomatnya sudah kering.