Petchie's adventures

It has been a long while since I published a recipe, and for that matter an etiquette poll, but since my blog inspiration in general has come back, I am also more motivated to take up this Wednesday theme! If anybody wants to join in the Wednesday recipe / Etiquette poll, just let me know and I will link you up.

Since the Belgian summer has been so warm and sunny so far (this week a little less even though I can see a blue sky at the moment), I have been making a lot of light and simple salads. Here are two of my favourite ones:

Cherry tomato and rucola pasta salad

– cherry tomatoes
– pasta; such as farfalle or torti / fusilli
– a handful of rucola / rocket / arugula
– Optional: some slices of cured ham such as Parma ham or Spanish jamón AND / OR canned artichoke hearts AND / OR feta cheese
– fresh basil
– olive oil, salt & pepper

Haricots verts and potato salad

– new potatoes – boiled and halved if small, otherwise in quarters (I usually boil the potatoes already in small pieces, saves time!)
– fresh haricots verts (string beans) – boiled to desired texture; I like mine crispy, O prefers them more soft…
– cherry tomatoes – halved
– feta cheese – cut in pieces
– Optional: some slices of cured ham such as Parma ham or Spanish jamón
– olive oil, (balsamic vinegar, optional), salt & pepper

As you can see I am going through a feta and jamón period at the moment! I have these phases when I completely focus on one or two ingredients – previous obsessions have included soft-boiled eggs, lemon and gorgonzola. Rucola is another current favourite, probably because I never bought it (only exceptionally found it but in small, expensive packages) in Puerto Rico! And of course – I am eternally obsessed by potatoes, O calls me “Mrs Potatis” (potato in Swedish) 😀

Etiquette Poll on Nakedness:

I read in a Swedish magazine (Damernas Värld, nr 8/2010) a few weeks ago about “the new prudeness” – in the article it was discussed that Swedes (women) have become more prude / liberal and less prone to sunbathing topless, taking a sauna naked or breastfeeding in public than previous generations. It made me think about my own attitude towards nakedness. I have never seen myself as prude, I am after all Swedish but no, I never sunbathe topless, however I wouldn’t wear a swim suit when in an unmixed sauna and I have so far never had to consider whether breastfeeding in public or not.

Nudist beach, in the winter…

I will never forget the embarrassment of an Italian male friend when on the beach with four Scandinavian girls – the two Danes were sunbathing topless, while my Swedish friend and I had kept our bikini tops on. The poor guy was trying to completely focus on us Swedes and not glance over to the Danish girls… It was probably especially uncomfortable for him as one of the Danish girls was the girlfriend of one of his friends! When I go to the beach in Sweden nowadays it seems, interestingly enough, to be more common among the older generation to be topless than among women my own age.

A few years ago I went to a Belgian spa for the first time for a French friend’s hen party. We were a group of mixed nationalities – mostly French, but also Greek, German, and Swedish. Initially we were a little disappointed by the smallness of the spa until we saw a door saying “No swimsuits”. A bit perplexed we opened the door slightly and discovered a huge area with big swimming pools and jacuzzi … and lots of naked people! It was quite interesting to see how the group split into two; the French girls who took off their swim suits and giggling entered the main part of the spa which was the mixed, nude area and the Greek, German and Swedish contingent that decided to stay in the small, dressed women’s swimming area.

Those of us who decided to stay clothed questioned why you would have to be nude in the mixed area and not in the unmixed one? None of us knew that this is apparently the Belgian tradition! I have since then been with a Swedish friend to another Belgian spa with the same division between nude and clothed areas, and we both had the same reaction – why would we want to be naked with male strangers? When I discussed it with some Belgian female friends they just didn’t understand what was the issue. Well, personally I don’t mind being naked among other women, but I just don’t see the point in taking my swim suit off among men. What do you think? How would you react if you had to be nude in a swimming pool / spa?

When O comes home and I have cooked a new dish, he always asks me if I have actually followed a recipe or just used it as inspiration. I don’t think that it is “just” to use a recipe as inspiration – it actually asks more of you as a cook than “just” following the recipe to a dot! It is funny, O doesn’t usually use recipes when he cooks, so I never know how to take his comment… I think he is just fascinated by the fact that I LOVE cook books but very rarely actually cook according to a recipe!

Second book from the right is the “Fast Food”-one, I also love the “Bowl Food. The New Comfort Food for People on the Move*”-book! Who can resist that kind of title?

The other day I used a wonderful little cook book called “Fast Food. Quick and Easy Everyday Ideas for Cooks in a Hurry” to make my lunch, the book is very inspirational and has photos of every dish (important!). Needless to say I only used the recipe as inspiration, and this is my take on the “Stuffed chicken breast with tomato, goat’s cheese and asparagus” as I thought that stuffing the chicken breast would take too long:

Chicken with chèvre & tomato sauce

1 chicken breast per person
~150 grams of French chèvre (goat) cheese (sold in a roll)
½ cube of chicken stock
1 cup of water
2 tomatoes – skinned (boil them quickly to easier remove the skin) and diced
a handful of asparagus (either canned or fresh – if fresh, boil in lightly salted water until crispy, tender or however you prefer your asparagus)
tarragon, cayenne pepper, 1 bay leaf, salt and black pepper
rice

Boil the rice as you usually do. Brown the chicken breast all around in a frying pan with olive oil. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne. Add the chicken stock cube, water, diced tomatoes, bay leaf, and some tarragon. Let it slowly boil under a lid and on low heat.  When almost done, add the goat’s cheese and make sure that it melts into the sauce.

Serve with the rice and decorate with the asparagus on top.

Since it is Wednesday it is also time for a new etiquette poll: When do you arrive to a party? 

Of course this might depend on what kind of party it is – a dinner party or a so-called cocktail party where people mingle randomly…  But think in general, when do you aim to arrive?

Maybe a very simple question if you live in Sweden for example and you know the social rules, but we have troubles in Puerto Rico. For example, we were invited to one of my French friend’s for a birthday party and I thought, she’s European so we shouldn’t arrive too late but O warned me that we would be the first ones to arrive – which we were, 30 minutes after the invited time. What I had forgotten to take into account was that all the other guests were Puerto Rican, as well as the hostess’ boyfriend, who was still in the shower when we arrived! Opps!

Birthday party in Brussels before the guests had arrived

So last week when we were invited to my Spanish teacher’s parents’ home for Thanksgiving, I asked him when we were expected to arrive – like if he said 2 o’clock, did that mean 3.30? He laughed and checked with sister and then told me that we could come around 2-2.30. Great! Except that I was going with two Spaniards, and even though O is quite disciplined nowadays, the B-I-L No 3 does live in Spain… so we were not at the party until 3.15. Oh well, it is Puerto Rico after all and not the end of the world if you arrive late   😉

By the way, my first encounter with Spanish tardiness was when I studied in Italy with a Spaniard (from Zaragoza, just like O!) who would always arrive late to our lectures with the words “Spanish people hate to be late” – completely confusing, so why are you late if you hate it so much?? I later on lived in Geneva at the same time as my friend from Zaragoza, and among the more punctual friends we decided to always give him an earlier meeting time than the rest. So, let’s say that we were meeting at 20.00, but then we would tell Spanish R that it was at 19.30… He still always managed to arrive after everybody else!!

*) I have already published a recipe inspired by that cookbook – “The best pasta sauce ever“…

Last Monday my French friend E called me to ask if she could come to drop off a surprise… I was very curious when she gave me a little container with some liquid, and a small bag with three slices of cake. She explained that it was a “Amish Friendship Cake” and that she would email me the instructions on how to take care of it.

She also told me that her mother had received a similar “chain-recipe” back in France a few years ago, but it was for bread and it was called “Herman” for some reason. The funny thing is that when I spoke to my grandmother a few days later, and told her about my cake project, she also knew of “Herman” (actually “Här kommer Herman” in Swedish, which means “Here comes Herman”) and the so-called “starter” liquid that you have to nourish before baking! It reminds me of the sourdough that my mother subscribed to back in the 80’s – she would get it by mail. And coincidentally my friend Erika has today written about the sourdough starter (in Swedish) that she keeps in the fridge.

Amish cake starter in a container

Back to the Amish Cake, there are lots of recipes on this kind of cake on the internet, but below are the instructions that I received. It is very easy, for the first five days you don’t do anything, except “mushing” the bag (or in my case, stirring a little in the container). The liquid starts to become a little inflated and bubbly but that’s just the natural “fermentation” and nothing bad. You add some simple ingredients and then continue “mushing” for another couple of days, before adding some more ingredients, divide the mix in five parts and make your cake with one fifth of the fermented mixture.

If you are interested in starting a “Amish Friendship Cake” for yourself and your friends, check out this link for a “starter recipe”. I think that it is quite a nice idea to share a recipe with your friends and “pass it on”, especially nowadays when everything is supposed to be so “instant” (all those semi-made cakes and cookies in the TV commercials).

Recipe to Pass On
Accompanying these instructions when you make this bread and wish to give it to a friend should be a Ziploc bag of starter. Keep the starter on your countertop.
DO NOT REFRIGERATE!

Day 1: Do nothing
Day 2: Mush bag two times during the day.
Day 3: Mush bag two times during the day.
Day 4: Mush bag two times during the day.
Day 5: Mush bag two times during the day.
Day 6: Add to the bag:
2 Cups flour; 1 Cup of milk; 1 Cup of sugar
Close the bag, letting out as much air as possible. Mush thoroughly.
Day 7: Mush bag two times during the day.
Day 8: Mush bag two times during the day.
Day 9: Clip off corner of the bag and squeeze into a large bowl.

Add to the bowl:
1 Cup flour; 1 Cup of milk; 1 Cup of sugar
Stir thoroughly. Measure out four 1 Cup starters into Ziploc bags.
Give these bags and a copy of these instructions to other to enjoy.

To the small amount of starter left in the bowl, add:
1 Cup oil; ½ Cup milk; 3 eggs; 1 tsp. vanilla
Mix well then add:
2 Cups flour; 1 Cup sugar; 1 ½ tsp. baking powder; 2 tsp. cinnamon; ½ tsp. salt; ½ tsp. baking soda; 1 or 2 small Vanilla instant pudding mixes; 1 Cup chopped nuts (optional)
Mix well. Spray 2 loaf pans with non-stick spray. Sprinkle pans generously with cinnamon and sugar mixture. (1 Tbs. cinnamon & 4 Tbs. sugar) Shake or stir together. Pour batter into pans and sprinkle tops with more cinnamon/sugar mixture generously.
Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until toothpick comes our clean.
Tomorrow starts Day 1 again.

Amish cake starters for my friends

Comment: Since I prefer cardamom to cinnamon and didn’t have any “Vanilla Instant Pudding Mix”, I decided to use cardamom and some Belgian dark chocolate (Côte d’Or, 200 grams) instead. Maybe a strange combo but it turned out really tasty!

Speaking of chocolate, I read on a couple of Swedish blogs that it was the “Day of the Swedish Brownie cake” (Kladdkakans dag + recipe on Erika’s blog) last Sunday. However, since I started making Elle’s Chocolate Cake many years ago, I just can’t make a chocolate cake with cacao powder (cocoa), it has to be real chocolate! So call me a brownie snob, but try my recipe in the link above and taste the difference! It contains very little butter (25 grams) but 250 grams of dark chocolate…

Amish chocolate cake

And now for the etiquette discussion: One of my friends here in Puerto Rico and I have lately been talking about weddings. Her daugher recently got engaged and now they are starting to plan the wedding. Apparently the future mother-in-law has mentioned that it is custom that the bride’s family pays for the wedding, which we can all agree used to be the custom in most cultures… However, nowadays I would say that, at least in Europe, both families as well as the couple, would share the financial burden of a wedding.

I just asked O if he and his parents would expect my parents to pay for a possible future wedding of ours and he said no (my parents are probably thinking “phew!”). He explained that he thinks that it depends on how many guests the different families are inviting and that there are some expenses that traditionally have been covered by the groom’s family and other ones by the bride’s family. This will be an interesting topic once we decide to organise our “real” wedding…

What do you think? Who paid for your wedding? What is your impression of how it works in other cultures?

Margareta Ribbing, the etiquette expert of the Swedish newspaper DN has written about the same topic here.