Rallye du Condroz (pardon my french)

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 ....

A.T.O.M. Italy: Gnocchi !!!!

Yes it has been a very long silence on this blog ... and the reason is the usual one. Long sickness causes a lot of things to pile up ready to be done once the sickness is gone. Not only work, but also family or friends related. This has resulted in me not cooking for a couple of weeks!!! So bad for me!!! But things are changing so expect some interesting new risottos coming up soon.

Enough for excuses. You might be wondering what's up with the post title and those little photos up there. Well, it seems I got well just in time not to miss to host the third round of a new blogging event created by Tony from the Olive Juice: "A taste of the Mediterranean" or simply ATOM. It is an event that let people travel (in a culinary sense) across Mediterranean sharing dishes and stories. 

You can find all details here and here .... from my side, I am honored to be your guest for the round concerning Italy!!! Yes Italy .... and I had to come up with a theme for people to play with. An Italian theme. Of course the post title says it all ... the theme is GNOCCHI !!!!

And I could not stop myself from putting up the first photo of gnocchi I ever did (almost 5 years ago). Now you might wonder, why gnocchi? Well, initially I was thinking of pasta .... but fresh pasta either requires to use a machine or it is rather difficult to do. But pasta did not want to leave my head as a theme. Thus, I picked the weirdest and simple pasta of all ... gnocchi.

Gnocchi are extremely easy to make. You only need potatoes, flour, a masher and a sieve. No machine. No secret ingredients.  And they are versatile. Traditionally they should be passed at the fork (see Tony's post here), but in practice this is needed only with more liquid or tomato sauces. I am lazy and skip this step most of the times. Easy to combine. Potatoes can be replaced (totally or partially) with ricotta, celeriac, spinach, pumpkin, carrots, etc. etc. I love making gnocchi .... but I hate taking photos of them since not an easy task.

And to conclude, what did I do with gnocchi? I kept is very very simple. Since I am always in favor of simple dishes. This time I made traditional gnocchi served with buttered spinach and salmon. A classical combination (potatoes, salmon and spinach) not often served in this way.

Well, enough talking ..... check the ATOM rules and let your fantasy come out. And above all .... enjoy making gnocchi!!! And of course check my recipe a well !!!!

PS: Remember .... EGGS should not be used in gnocchi !!! But if you really can't manage without ... well, go ahead.

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

DMBLGIT January .... Results Day!!!

And here they are the results from the first edition of the year of "Does My Blog Looks Good in This". I would like to thank everybody who has sent in one of the almost 100 contributions and the judges for their very fast feedback!
Lot of lovely dishes ... some of which have inspired me to try something new. And definitively a showcase of a variety of photography styles! Just ... a dominance of Canon Cameras, mmm ... well, I like to be in a minority so I won't change to improve my winning chances next time!

And now without further ado, I give you the results:

Overall Winner: 1st Place



Jen of Milk and Cookies with Grapefruit Souffle
(Canon EOS 300D)

Overall Winner: 2nd Place



Bea of La tartine gourmande with Vegetable Soup & Prosciutto St Maure and Pear Tartines
(Canon 30 D)

Overall Winner: 3rd Place



Archana of Spicyana with Let It Snow
(Canon Digital Rebel XTi)

Edibility category winners



Jen of Milk and Cookies with Grapefruit Souffle
(Canon EOS 300D)



Jennifer of Bake or Break with Toasted Pecan Roullade
(Nikon D200)



Tartelette of Tartelette with White Chocolate Pudding
(Canon PowerShot A610)

Aesthetics category winner



Archana of Spicyana with Let It Snow
(Canon Digital Rebel XTi)

Originality category winner



Sylvia of La vida en Buenos Aires with Glass Sauceboat
(Lumix DMC LZ5)

And ... the host picks, which really attracted me and, to be honest, they almost won one of the awards!

Bee of Jugalbandi with Marzipan with nuts
(Canon 300D)



Halo of Cook Almost Anything with Tuna steak
(n/a)

Congratulations to all winners!
The ball ... ops, the mike ... I mean the flag to (if I am not wrong) to Bake or Break for the February edition.

Ciaoooo!

Does My Blog Look Good In This? 01/08

New year, new resolutions, fresh ideas .... but above all there should a recent memory of nice photos and dishes coming from the Christmas festivities. And this shall make an excellent opportunity for ....

Does My Blog Look Good in This? January 2008 Edition

Well well. I am very proud to host this event except that for once I did have some decent photo to submit but I can't! Still, come and join .... or at least visit as the entries are always a source of photographic or culinary ideas.
For the January edition, I have been lucky to be able to put together a bit of a multinational all-women jury. Why only women? Well, I am one of the (not many) non-chef male food blogger and ... well, honestly it just happened. The jury is composed by:

• A very critical person .... my wife Elke.
• Our friend Minouche, food lover, importer and owner of La Tomaterie
• A long-time Italian blogger Francesca from FrancescaV, who maintains a wonderful magazine-style blog.
• Peabody from Culinary Concoctions. She does not really need a presentation on my blog, but sure I need to say I drool every time she posts a cake!!!
• Linda from L'Osso e La Lisca .... she posted some of the best recipes I saw last year!!!

Now, for the standard event description and rule.

What is DMBLGIT?
The idea behind the event is to give everyone a chance to enjoy some of the best pictures of the month posted on food blogs. There are so many great blogs now and new posts are constantly updated, it’s very easy to miss some great posts and pictures. This event takes us back through the best food photos of the previous month.

The rules & how to participate:

• One food photograph mat be entered per person
• The photograph must have been posted on your blog in December of 2008
• The photograph must have been taken by you
• The deadline to submit your entry is January 28 ,2008

The judges will assess the quality of all of your great entries, which will fall under the following categories:

• Aesthetics: meaning composition, food styling, lighting, focus, etc.
• Edibility: meaning “Does the photo make us want to dive in and eat the food?”
• Originality: the photograph that catches our attention and makes us want to say “Wow!”, displaying something we might not have seen before.
• Overall Winner: the photograph encompasses all of the three previous categories: the best in Aesthetics, Edibility and Originality.

So if you have a food blog with a picture you’re proud of from December, just send it to contact(at)thefoodtraveller.com

Include the following:

• Your name
• Your blog URL
• The URL of the post where the photo first appeared
• The camera you used
• and don’t forget to attach your picture, that should be 350 pixels wide (links are also accepted when I can download the photo)
  

Last day of submission is January 28, 2008.

I will post the pictures as they come. Please, make sure yours is there, but be warned there could be some delay due to work or other real-life stuff ...
All entries will be available in this gallery here.

Buona Fortuna! Good luck!

Once again a warm thank to Andrew of Spitton for overall event management and to Dyana for hosting the December edition (see the round-up here).

PS: Will I judge??? No, but I can try to help my wife ... not that she will listen anyhow.