The Food Traveller

The blog is moving and renewing!

2010-03-20T20:30:00.000+01:00

The new site is now here

An Italian Abroad

Update your favorites!!

My father and I

2010-02-26T16:46:00.002+01:00

Mouse Path, 1st trial

2010-02-14T13:08:00.000+01:00

I discovered this java applet calles mousepath (google it) that tracks the movements of the pointer on the screen. I gave it a try this morning to see how my mouse moves around and where does it rest. Cool! I will try again but for a longer time!

Meatballs and polenta

2010-01-24T15:20:00.000+01:00

This is actually a repost with a new picture of the meatballs Elke does and we (including little Matteo like a lot). We just had them with polenta instead of boiled poattoes ... lovely!

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Risotto Nero with King Prawns

2010-01-13T21:03:00.000+01:00

This is a recipe we did sometime ago and we fell in love with. It is not very different from another risotto nero I made with squid .... but this time the combination is more spicy and powerful due to the prawns.
It is not an easy one and it might take more than indicated the very first time. But it is worth! If you try it, consider preparing more prawns an keeping them at hand ....

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Risotto with Apple and Black Pudding

2010-01-07T20:28:00.000+01:00

I have only two regret for this dish we just finished to eat. One, it is finished. Two, I did it after Christmas. Why the latter? This is a great dish perfectly suited for the Christmas celebrations!

Honestly, I made this out of instinct and despite my hate for cooked apples. The result is simply stunning. A delicate savory dish, where the few ingredients combine perfectly. Mmmmmm .....

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

An homemade steam cooker ....

2010-01-03T18:28:00.002+01:00

On the 31st, yes last year now, our dearest friend Marc and Christine brought us some Dim Sum to use as starter for the asian-european dinner. We loved it and felt lucky there was some left to freeze for later use. Well, let's say they intentionally brought too much. Thanks guys!

Today we decided to eat it before the start of the new year (and work :-( ). But we had a problem. We do not have a steam cooker .... so I invented one. See the photo!!!

PS: If you pay attention there has been a change here. The Photolog365 menu item has appeared .... since I am so crazy I want to try to start a project (popular these days) os taking one photo a day with only one lens. Check there if you are curious ...

It is the time for a break.

2009-12-23T08:53:00.000+01:00

Ops ... what happened to comments??

2009-12-22T17:31:00.002+01:00

My apologies if comments have not appeared ... I have no clue what happened. I have tried to change some setting and let's see if it works.

Snow came and still comes. Damn!

2009-12-20T22:31:00.001+01:00

Yes I like a white Christmas .... but so much? No thanks.
It creates quite a mess. First I almost badly damaged my cars a few times already by trying to drive around. I spent 4 hours queueing from work (see previous post). And tomorrow I have no clue how I am going to bring my son to the creche and go to work! It is all snow and ice around here.
Not to mention that my parents have a plane to Belgium on wednesday .... and airports are currently not very operational.
So, please ... white Christmas yes but not here. Enough!

PS: Yes this is a photo of mine taken early in the morning .... at -6C.

Let it snow ... Noooo. Let it melt!

2009-12-18T07:48:00.000+01:00

Thursday 17 of December, snow has arrived to Belgium and it plan to stay for a while. Sure white Christmas is great .... but this costed me 4 hours to drive 25km from work to home! And no clue on today.
So, let it melt and fast!!!!

Risotto with mushrooms and salmon

2009-12-13T13:38:00.000+01:00

Cold is coming. Here in Belgium we have a 3C maximum today ... and yesterday was less cold but more humid. Result, I am suffering like crazy. Today I even woke up with my hands kind of frozen! Luckily the little one suffer less.

So, what better dish in a cold winter than a stofvlees (see here) and a risotto. And given that mushrooms are still around and that salmon is somewhat a Christmas ingredient. here I present you a nice warm risotto that would be perfect as a starter for the coming eating events!!

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

La Chouffe

2009-12-05T23:05:00.000+01:00

If there is something I love from Belgium, it is its beers. I had forgotten about it for a while, till I did not dug out of my cellar a Black Albert (2007) few days ago .... and whow. Back into beer drinking alternating to wine (and water and cola light and tea ....).

Tonight, next to a nice simple pasta with wild mushrooms, I decided to leave the wine to Elke and get a beer.

A La Chouffe to be exact. Not too bad. Refreshing, fruity, no too heavy, uncomplicated. Quite a nice blond. Have a nice sunday .... and yes soon I will post the Moussaka I mentioned last time.

Turkey rolls with cheddar cheese

2009-11-29T14:41:00.000+01:00

Comfort food ... this is what this recipe is about. Easy, tasty and fast.

Actually the opposite of what I cooked today, since it took me 4 hours from start to eating. What was it? A (almost) traditional moussaka, whose recipe I will post later this week. Since it was very tasty and very tiring, thus no energy left to write it down!

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

More on photography competitions

2009-11-25T20:57:00.001+01:00

Two more of my photos have been accepted for exposition in another major photography competition, this time the Al Thani 2009.

The wine aristocrats in Italy

2009-11-22T10:25:00.002+01:00

In the last weeks I have enjoyed quite a few italian wines belonging to the Aristocracy of italian wines. Either at home or at a tasting like the one we were yesterday afternoon. No no, do not think we are drinkers, but a good glass of wine help.

Now, what disappoints me he most is how poor these "world-wide-praised" wines have been in comparison to much lesser known. Let me give some examples on what I am talking about.

Let's start from the good ones:

- Barbaresco Vigna Montersino 1997, Orlando Abrigo: Lesser known or appreciated producer with inconsistent results. This one after a good 12 years is simply stunning. Fruit, fresh, sligthly tannic (sweet ones) and good oak. Sure not among the elite in name, but very good in reality.

- Barolo Riserva Vigna Rionda 1998, Massolino: Rather well know, even if not by the most. A solid wine that I regret drinking since it need even more time to get to its prime. Wonderful and deserving the praises by international critics and also it rather high price tag.

- Aglianico del Vulture La Firma 2000, Cantine del Notaio: Rather unknown producer at the time of this vintage that propelled it to notoriety. Deserved? Well, in this vintage surely. Simply a fantastic wine that when drunk blind surprises most. And wallet friendly too (given its quality).

Now the bads:

- Sassicaia 2006: No need for introduction in what this is and its price. What do I think? Well, it is young ... but so watery and fruity that reminded me almost beaujolais. Ok, this is over-said, but you get the point. Nothing special and surely not for the price.

- Sassicaia 2005: Better then above. Similar style but with more potential for future development .... but again comparable to things of much less fame and price. No thanks.

- Guidalberto 2006: More fruit, more oak, less price .... similar comments.

And it continues, but I guess the point is clear. I right now kind of regret having a sassicaia in my cellar (but at least from an older and more respected year), but hey I did not pay the prices of today! I only wish I could ever drink an italian wine reaching the same level of (to mention the best wine I ever had) a Clos de Goisses 1991.

Rallye du Condroz (pardon my french)

2009-11-09T18:15:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I and some other fellows from my photography club were at the Rally of Condroz-Huy. My first ever Rally ... it was really fun. And I also discovered that accidents happen when irresponsible people decide to do the rally on foot ....

Lasagne with sausage

2009-11-02T17:10:00.000+01:00

Busy busy busy. And in the meantime I have done this dish twice. A lasagna that takes a classic and makes it simpler by replacing meatballs with sausage. Still super tasty. But yet it seems that this dish brings a bit of bad luck to our guests.

It might have been coincidence, but we did this twice for guests and in both cases .... our guests got sick at the last minute and we were left with a huge lasagna. This time we could eat from it 3 days in a row. Still, this dish is so tasty ... that we did not mind. Sorry for our friends :-)

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Tagliatelle with red chard and smoked eel

2009-10-15T21:01:00.000+02:00

It is cold. This morning was -1 degrees, which eventually got to 12 by the end of the day. Cars were frozen and grass smoking from the evaporating ice on it. Amazing change of weather, ten degrees less in one day.

Therefore, this dish comes just on time. The red chard is still around but not for long and the smoked eel is fatty and perfect for a nice cold day. Not the lighter of the recipes, but filling and satisfying ... and surely surprising some who only eat the beet but not its leaves.

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Pasta with roasted green paprikas and capers

2009-10-07T23:41:00.002+02:00

Whoever or better every Italian or actually Southern person living in cold lands (like Belgium for me) knows that there are some ingredients that simply aren't tasty there. One of them is surely paprikas or bell pepper.

For me they are normally nice and colorful (even orange) but pretty bland in taste. Now, I mentioned sometime ago that we take a surprise veggie box every week with biological and seasonal stuff from local farmers. Last time there were green paprikas ....

And when I heard, I was a bit annoyed of getting such a useless thing ... until I did not see them. Long, small, thin. They smelled right. They seemed the real thing ... I took a bite at one raw. It was the real thing. So, here they went into the oven for a traditional oven baked recipe (excluding olives since Elke does not like them). I used quite some sicilian capers (great ones from my friend Minouche, see here). And used in this pasta dish (probably italians might horrify at what I did).

Not great looking, but really tasty. Even our little Matteo loved it. We had to show him the empty plates and pots to make him stop asking for it!

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Change of look! Sort of ...

2009-10-05T22:29:00.000+02:00

Change of style ... or sort of. For as much as I liked to put big banners, I kind of decided to clean the blog up. Why?

Well, something simpler was overdue ... and simpler means just no banner. But why now?

Well, it was a while I wanted to have a fotolog or photolog or photo blog, where a post would simply be a picture. Thus, here it is. The TFT Photolog and a simplified web in general.

Pass by and visit the photolog ... surely it will get updated often!

Tagliatelle fava and pecorino

2009-09-27T17:45:00.002+02:00

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Well, I just said in my last post I love autumn and I am here posting a recipe based on an ingredient that in southern countries if from spring, but here in Belgium is form the summer. Its season ending as I write.

I cannot avoid doing so!

This dish is a work out of a traditional combination form the Rome area. Something typical of a picnic. Here I simply changed the way things are served and made it into a pasta dish with stunning result. Please note that while cooking takes very little ..... cleaning the fava will take an hour or two!!! But it is definitively worth it.

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

It has finally arrived

2009-09-22T22:52:00.003+02:00

You might think what? Well, I mean the next season. I love summer, but for cooking ... well, I am so much happier now in autumn. Just look at the photos above. Last saturday the first pied de mouton and ceps (porcini) were there! Finally I start seeing the ingredients I love .... plus the cold makes eating a better experience and red wine a possibility.

So, do you think I am crazy? But welcome back autumn and bye bye Summer. That for me means, bye bye diet, let's go back eating!

Focaccia

2009-09-20T19:46:00.002+02:00

All day busy making the wet base for my focaccia .... but the result was delicious! I am not sure I posted the recipe. but if not this will be a good reason to do ti again.

Now, let's restart the week ...

IBC2009

2009-09-17T20:30:00.003+02:00

In the last days, work has brought me to IBC2009 in Amsterdam, where IBC is the International Broadcast Conference or the second biggest (after NAB) venue for broadcasters .... and everything around it.

As all of these events, it was very tiring. Lot of boots to visit. Lot of technology to see. Lot of videos and sounds. I did not have my camera along, but I took some photos with my mobile phone ... as you might have guessed from their low quality.

It was rather interesting, since I could see where the broadcast industry is trying to push the consumers. Mostly towards 3D video ... and mostly the approach with glasses. There were all sort of TV for it, camera recorders, glasses, boxes transforming standard 2D into 3D. Most of the show was for it as we were even lucky to see a preview in 3D of Avatar (the new James Cameroon movie, surely not to be missed!!) ... in my opinion, too much. At least as technology is today, it has limitations that can be overcome only by a new revolution .... and I do know this technology since long time. Or it should be confined to the cinemas, where it is ok-eish.

Apart from that, this was also the occasion to see and touch for the first time my dream accessories for my camera ... the Zeiss lenses. Something very expensive, but in this context probably the cheapest toy on show. There was even a 40M$ camera on stage ... Still, see Zeiss but not buy ... sigh sigh. Luckily tomorrow is euromillions day ....