New words, same guilt. Or The new carbs

Just read this phrase in the newspaper, "carbon indulgence".

referring to someone who was trying to design an environmentally
friendly home but allowed himself the indulgence
of importing the wind turbines from Finland
- saving electricity but using so much to transport them
to Chicago - are you following this?

What is next? Carbon guilt? Carbon envy?

I had just caught up with the idea of "carb indulgence" and "carb guilt", where carb refers to carbohydrates. When did the staples of my childhood, pasta and bread, become a guilty indulgence, to be savored like cake? I don't know, but it happened.

Of course I grew up on chapatis and vegetables ,
so for example the idea of eating chapatis
with chapatis does seem rather odd.
Italian readers' opinions?
Would you call pasta and bread a staple,
or was this part of the Internationalization/ vulgarization
of Italian food where the concept of pasta as the primo
was lost and it became the main?

Perhaps it is our age. We are well intentioned, well informed, but utterly incapable of doing anything other than feeling guilty about our incapacity.

OK, I'm talking about myself.

BB

Nobel prize nominees (several months too late)

Is there a Nobel prize in wellbeing? Or instead can a chocolate maker qualify to win the Peace Prize? If so (and why not?) then I believe these are the nominees.






I've previously written about the awards for "loo of the year", but this something at a different level altogether. Have you tried these before? As you would expect, they first came to me in a contraband shipment from Europe when I was living in New York and I was recently updated by another contraband shipment here in London. You look at the package and think, what an absurd idea, trying to capture a dessert in a chocolate bar. Why not let dessert be dessert, and chocolate be chocolate? Two families, both happy. But the genius is that they do.

You bite into the the thick square and you are suddenly awash with the unctuous taste of the crème and then after a moment the cruch of the brûlée bit. That's it! They have really captured it and wrapped it in a bar!

The geniuses who created this are clearly capable of magic. Why don't they create an inspiration bar, or just quit messing around and create a bliss bar? Oh, of course, that's what they've already done.

Cheers,

BB

P.S. Here in London I have regular access only to the crème brûlée and tiramisu flavors. I tried the lemon tart in the aforementioned contraband shipment. But if anyone wants to ship me the chocolate tart and macarons (gasp.... sigh...) then you'll earn my eternal gratitude.

All told pretty satisfied

All told pretty satisfied with how this turned out. Bittmanesque simplicity on the left, and my own humble effort on the right. No, let me say it, proud. You'll just have to take my word that the tomatoes fresh from the market were succulently caramelized, the paella rice rich with stock, onions, garlic, saffron, and pimentón (and not anemic as they look in the picture; resolution -- must improve my food photography). For me this humble dish approaches the alchemic wonders wonders of baking. Correction, this dish exactly achieves the alchemy of the oven. In goes goop (for a cake) or slosh in this case and out comes a tasty delight.

If only I could solve all my problems with the same ease.

Cheers,

BB

Prrrrrrr?

Is this a cat's life? Eating a succession of fine meals accompanied by a veritable bowl of wine and then time in the afternoon to rest and think of meals past and meals future? Is this what it means to purr contentedly? I am of course referring to my most recent trip to Italy, and if all of the above includes worrying about adding too much fat in the wrong places then I think it is.

I don't want to alarm our Italian friends (hello friends) into thinking that I am like a starving refugee washed up on their shores (though it often seems like this). I do sleep in a warm bed, and I had seen hot and cold running water before being in Italy. What I had not seen (since my last time in Italy - admittedly it was only June, but it seems like the dim past) was a succession of fine meals ranging from a low of 13 Euros (a deliciously thin pizza and a carafe of red wine) to the bank-breaking extravagance of 40 Euros for a no-holes-barred, 4-course meal at a fancy spot. At my neighborhood spot in London I would pay 20-25 pounds for one of those meals where you carefully tiptoe across the menu like a minefield in order to convince your friends that you aren't either very stingy, poor, or suffering from an eating disorder (I'll have a side of field greens please and an ice water).

Yes, there was more than food on this trip. There was art, typically the older masterish variety.


There were mediaeval towns. There was driving and road trip music (more on the latter some other time). There was a wedding.

But as my stomach grumbles at getting back to dry toast and Danon Activia, my mind seems to wander back to a plate of truffle scented pasta and a half litre of Montefalco Rosso.

(Note the wall that is used to keep out starving foreign tourists.)

Prrrrrrr ... grrrrrr...

BB