Accidental Hedonist

Every once in while, while perusing the many, high quality food blogs out there in the world, you may come along an entry that states how disappointed the writer was in the recipe. This is one of those posts. What I was trying to make was Aloo Chole. What I got was a distant relative [...]

Pay attention, because many things you take for granted may not work when ordering Coffee in Italy. – Caffè: When not at home, this means what we Yanks conisder to be an espresso. – Lungo (long): Roughly twice as much water is let through the ground coffee, giving the shot a weaker taste. – Ristretto [...]

Seattle owes a large debt of gratitude to both Luigi Bezzera and Desiderio Pavoni (both of Milan). It was Bezzera , and owner of a manufacturing company, who had the first patent for the steam espresso machine (sometime between 1901 and 1903). It is said that Bezzera created the machine in order to speed up [...]

If this turns out be the case, this would be episode three of the latest episode of “Watch the USDA stumble around in the Dark”. Two points to think about that come from the article: Of the 96 million U.S. cattle, the government has tested more than 419,000 for mad cow disease. That’s a little [...]

Risotto. Grana Cheese. Saffron. Let’s call this a very special holy trinity. Edouard de Pomain, a French docotor of the Pasteur Institute said of Risotto alla Milanese “The national dish of Lombardy” and claimed each grain of the rice “gilded” with gold. This is a beef risotto, typically made with Grana cheese, rather than Parmesan, [...]

Ahh, back to the Orvietos. I picked this simple Italian wine up at QFC of all places. It’s a rule I break every now and then, and they were having a sale on imported Italian wines. Truth is there are many places in Seattle from which one should buy wine. I’ll have to remind myself [...]

Richard points out that in my piece on Organics, Ethics and Snobbery I had forgotten a key component when I listed the factors the motivate purchasing decisions. I wrote: It is my belief that most individual food purchasing choices are based off of the following factors: accessibility cost knowledge of product Richard, in the comments [...]

Kudos to local restaurant Tango, who consistently amazes me with their approach to desserts. They are one of a few places in town who are not afriad to move beyond the apple crumble/Creme Brulee/Cheesecake hackery which most places never stray far beyond (Note that the menu on the link is greatly out of date). Kudos [...]

I’ve been thinking about Julie Powell‘s op-ed in the New York Times all weekend. (If you want to read it, but don’t want to sign up for the New York Time, use my sign-in…login: accidental / password: hedonist). In her article, Julie posits many ideas, some of which I agree with, many of which I [...]

Well, well, well…a bean for the ages. Typically, beans are not my favorite of foods. But I’ll make an exception for chickpeas. I know, I know…I’ve hit the pinnacle of writing when I cheerlead for a legume, but there you have it. Historians claim that chickpeas originated aroun the Hacilar site near Burdur in Turkey [...]

I love veal. There, I said it. No guilt, no shame. Anyone else with me? Anyone? Anyone? For some reason, I have a feeling that there are closet veal eaters out there. Oh how I love its tenderness and its sweet, sweet taste. Really, it’s a shame they have to grow up into cows. This [...]

We’ve got a new feature here at the Hedonist, brought on in large part to the fact that people keep wanting to send me free stuff and write about it on this blog (partly, I’m sure, under the assumption that I can mold people’s opinions I suppose…an idea which I find a little laughable. But [...]