Fluffbuff

Feather and Fan tagged me with a book meme a few days ago — I don't do memes much, but this is about books.

1. What book are you currently reading?
Right now it's all about food and cooking. You know me… I'm a serial monotasker.

Pure Dessert, by Alice Medrich
Ooh, baby… I just got this book yesterday and I'm already in love. Pure Dessert is about simple recipes, unadulterated flavors, quality ingredients of all kinds — finally someone is using chestnut flour, buckwheat, kamut and more — and desserts that are not overlayered, frosted, and filled ad nauseam with sugariness; my kind of dessert. No Italian connection here that I can see, but it is the kind of dessert that resonates with the Italian palate.

And it gets better. If you are new or relatively new to baking, you will love the introductory part with all the tips on mise en place, how to measure ingredients, what equipment is good for what and why, and how and where to shop for ingredients. I am going to have to write a full fledged review of this book on tanta robina.

Saha: a chef's journey through Lebanon and Syria, by Greg and Lucy Malouf
This I've only been leafing through and enjoying the beautiful photography and the exoticness of it all.

Digital food photography
One thing I'm going to have to do on a regular basis in culinary school is photographing my dishes, so I thought I'd get some good advice. Not that I have any intention of getting in the food styling business, but most of the information is good for amateur photographers as well. There's something disturbing about some of the "secrets" of food photography such as applying brown shoe polish to grilled steaks or soapy water to a cup of coffee. Yuk. The book is good, though.

2. When you think of a good story what are the first 3 books that come to mind?
I don't read much fiction, almost none in fact, but these are books I love.
The spy who came in from the cold, by John Le Carrè
Possibly the best spy story ever.

Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges
This is not a story, but a collection of short stories. Ficciones (Fictions) is one of my all-time favorite books. I linked the title to a particular edition because it's the best English translation I've found so far. Other translations leave much to be desired and don't do justice to the original.

3. Which 3 books would you recommend for summer 2008 beach reading?
Drawing a blank here; I'm not even sure what "beach reading" means. Maybe because I don't go to the beach?

4. Any knitting book(s) you care to share?
There are so many; these are just a few that are gorgeous to leaf through, inspiring, and more.

Poems of Color

北欧のニットこものたち
(Knitted Accessories from Scandinavia)

Knitting Nature

Norsk Strikkedesign

Poetry in Stitches

I know I am supposed to tag a few people in return, but I'm always shy about that, so consider yourself tagged if you like books and memes.

Posted by Francesca at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Crazy kids.
I wonder…

what will happen

when I'm in school all day.

Posted by Francesca at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

What is Tanta robina?

Well, depending on which party of Italy you are in, it can mean "lots of stuff" or "good stuff", especially "yummy food".

Last time I was in Italy, I went to Maremma with Ben and a couple of friends and loved how the locals used the expression tanta robina to mean "yummy things". So, it seemed like the perfect name for my food blog as I plan to talk about lots of things and all related to food.

I hope some of you will keep me company in this food adventure. Tanta robina will document my year in culinary school and serve as a notebook for my thoughts on food and anything related to cooking and eating.

Please bear with me while I solve the initial glitches of using new blogging software and refining my initial layout.

And Happy St. Patrik's Day to you all! (Believe it or not, I am partially Irish)

Posted by Francesca at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

The food blog should have been up and running a few days ago, but I failed to account for technical problems. We are set up on a new web host that supports Ruby on Rail, but our first pick of blogging software — Typo — turned into a big waste of time and energy. Poor interface, no documentation, basic functionality not working… so today we decided to ditch Typo and try Mephisto. Ben is setting up Mephisto on the server right now and I hope to be able to start using it tonight. With a bit of luck, I'll have my first post on the new blog live sometime tomorrow.

Posted by Francesca at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy International Women's Day!

Today, for the first time in 16 years, I was presented with the traditional mimosa twig and it felt so special. While we were on a walk in the neighborhood the other day, I discovered a mimosa tree and told Ben how on March 8, in Italy, wherever women go they are given a little twig of mimosa. So, when I went out for a coffee tasting seminar this morning, Ben went and snapped a little twig from the tree and surprised me with it. Wasn't that sweet?

I had planned on posting sooner, but it's been a little crazy around here. Yes, you have guessed it: I am going to culinary school and I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. The coffee tasting seminar this morning is part of the Success Seminar series at the California School of Culinary Arts. It was interesting, enjoyable and I loved the friendly atmosphere, not to mention the wonderful little bites that went with the coffee. For every kind of coffee we had both savory and sweet morsels, paired specifically with the coffee. It's going to be difficult to wait until April 7 for the start of my classes.

In the meantime, knitting is taking a back seat and fluffbuff will shift from mostly knitting to mostly everything, other than food. For that, I am starting a new blog to document my experience of going through a year of culinary school and everything else to do with food that comes to mind. More about the food blog in the next few days. Since we are starting to develop in Ruby on Rail and that's not supported by our current host, we have to solve a few technical issues before I start the new blog. If everything goes well, it'll only take 2-3 days.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Posted by Francesca at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)