Nibbles #22
The pitfalls of food blogging, the evolution of Jewish restaurants in London, and a potted history of the not so humble pistachio.
Welcome to Nibbles where once a month I share everything brilliant I’ve been reading on the web as well as some general updates from my kitchen, my vegetable garden during the growing season (my herbs are coming back to life, we’re still eating last autumn’s leeks and I’ve cleared the beds at the front of the house ready for bedding plants from the garden centre… but I’ve still not got around to putting in any vegetable seeds!), and other miscellaneous ‘you really need to know about’ updates.
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Octavia, on the origins and the joys of making homemade gianduja (and, how to pronounce it!):
Also from Kitchen projects, Nicola pays an informative visit to the Todolí Citrus Foundation in Valencia:
I love reading about abandoned places. Here are 12 fascinating abandoned islands and their stories.
Leah, on the challenges of being publicly and professionally Jewish in current times:
A healthy part of my business is helping other food content creators push their recipes up the Google search rankings, because I love running a business that helps other businesses succeed. But David’s chat with
perfectly encapsulates why when it comes to food blog SEO on my website why I don’t practice what I preach:
Sally cooks a beautiful dinner for her dearly departed grandmother:
A potted history of pistachio nuts:
This brilliant piece from Vittles charts the rise of Middle Eastern? Levantine? Jewish? Israeli restaurants in central London and asks some interesting questions about how their food is tied to Jewish and Israeli identity:
Just one recipe from me on the blog this month (I’ve got lots developed and ready, but no time to photograph them!) but it’s technically two recipes in one? My White Bean Miso Soup with Harissa Roasted Tomatoes is just the thing as we still get a few chilly, windy spring days, but those tomatoes? They’re too delicious to be reserved only for this soup, piled onto toast, stirred through pasta and tossed into salads. Make them once and you’ll be obsessed with them from now until the end of autumn.
I’ve already shared the link as Wild Garlic is this month’s ingredient, but over for my Macknade residency this month I’ve shared a Wild Garlic Quiche recipe that could not be simpler to make, and also serves as a template for any soft herb quiche as we head into the warmer months. The creme fraiche filling and the flaky, butter and lard pastry are two quiche making building blocks not to be missed!
In contrast, over at meal prep website Project Meal Plan I’ve got three brand new recipes for both meal prep and weeknight dinner: my Air Fryer Stuffed Chicken Breasts with a creamy sundried tomato and spinach filling are great for changing up your dinner routine, and my Easy Deviled Egg Salad will do the same for lunchtimes. And speaking of absolute keepers as we head into barbecue weather, make my Chipotle Lime Chicken Meal Prep bowls first for the mango salsa, punchy dressing and the lime rice that come on the side, then keep the chipotle chicken marinade recipe to hand for other outdoor chicken adventures!
And finally, not a recipe I’ve written but a recipe I’ve cooked: this Maroulosalata recipe from The Mediterranean Dish made a simply fantastic Greek-style salad of shredded lettuce, feta and herbs that I’m looking forward to making many more times, again to go on the side of barbecued meats and stuff into flatbreads. It’s a keeper!
As I’ve mentioned countless times in this section, we don’t have a Netflix subscription because there is rarely anything on there we want to watch, but when something does come on we pay for a month then try to get our monies worth! And there is one limited series we watched after we’d binged F1 Drive To Survive I actually think is worth signing up for: The Gentleman.
I skimmed past a headline in The Times a few weeks ago reviewing it as if ‘AI had written a Guy Ritchie film’ which is a fair assessment. But do you know what? Guy Ritchie’s highly aesthetic gangster underworld has been the setting for some very enjoyable films, and The Gentleman is an extension of that: a funny, dramatic, clever drama that had us hooked, cringing and laughing at various stages. Once you’ve finished it and you look back at the first episode, you’ll realise you’ve been on quite the journey: how on earth did we arrive at the final destination from where we set out from??
The premise is simple: on the death of his father, solider Eddie inherits his father’s estate, along with the crumbling stately home and the Dukedom that comes with it. Except that it’s not all he inherits: he also ends up with profits from the weed empire one of Britain’s most prominent crime families has been running from beneath the stables. And that crime family? They don’t seem very enamored by Eddie’s idea that they move out.
Add it to your watchlist and you’ll get a great few evenings of television. And you’ll never look at a grown man dressed in a chicken suit the same way again.