We may be on the path to eating right, but a colorful trend on the
opposite side of the spectrum is gaining ground. For many, it’s a hard
one to fathom.
Unnaturally colored comfort foods are being transformed into
“technicolor” works of art, and yes, they are edible! After the viral
success of rainbow-colored-foods in 2015, these food items are selling
out once again.
Psychedelic donuts, bagels and cupcakes are raking in absurd numbers
of social media likes, but it isn’t stopping at baked goods.
Eye-catching classic foods are getting the techni-makeover. Grilled
cheese sandwiches, pizza, pasta, mashed potatoes and even lima beans
have fallen victim to this unconventional trend. It’s also the reason a
popular barista added food coloring to steamed milk, taking his latte
art to a whole new level.
[Photography: foodiggity.com]
Why the evolution of the rainbow popularity has transcended into an
even brighter technicolor trend, it is still a bit of a mystery. Colors
can be associated with different tastes, such as red and pink for
sweetness, or green for sour, so could it be consumers are viewing
technicolor foods as “more flavorful” than the previous non-colored
counterparts?
[Photography: today.com]
One blogger went as far as attributing it to “millennial plague” also
known as FOMO, (fear of missing out) stating when friends on social
media see others in giddy, eye-poppingly bright novelty food pictures,
they cant help but want to taste the rainbow too!
Regardless of the reasoning, it appears as though any concerns about
artificial coloring by those partaking in what once felt like a
childlike food trend, has now graduated into a full-fledged adult trend
without much concern of the additives required to intensify the colors.
[Photography: mumjunction.com]
Have you experienced or is your property offering any technicolor food
items? If so, chime in the comments below about your thoughts on the
trend.
(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)
Posted 415 weeks ago
Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Conrad Hotel Rangali Island, Maldives
Set
on a private island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, this resort
offers a choice of 12 restaurants and bars to guests, including water
villas on stilts and a fromage bar with 101 of the world’s best
cheeses. But the resort is most famous for the Ithaa Undersea
Restaurant, the world’s first and only undersea, all-glass restaurant.
Ithaa sits five metres below the surface, offering 180-degree
panoramic views of the vibrant coral gardens surrounding it. The restaurant, meaning ‘mother of pearl’ in the Maldivian language of
Dihevi, serves contemporary European cuisine. For lunch, enjoy light
dishes such as fresh green pea soup, green mango and papaya salad and dark chocolate mousse. A six-course set dinner menu featuring caviar, lobster and champagne risotto is on offer in the evening. With over
20,000 bottles of wine to choose from in their cellar, you’ll won’t go
thirsty either.
The
floor-to-ceiling aquarium at this restaurant gives the impression of
being underwater, even though you’re moments from the outside world.
The Al Mahara - meaning ‘The Oyster Shell’ in Arabic - is considered
the best seafood restaurant in Dubai, with specialities including
poached Tsarkaya oysters, Wagyu Beef seared on the “plancha” and short
rib in orange syrup and angostura. Finish with shortbread and lemon
curd, and take in the amazing view.
[Credits: jumeirah.com - Picture: The Al Mahara, Jumeirah Burj Al Arab Hotel]
Subsix, Niyama, Per Aquum, Maldives
Another
gem in the Maldives, Subsix at the Per Aquum Resort is an underwater playground for party goers. The club and restaurant is 500 metres out in
the ocean and six metres below the waterline. It offers everything
from private champagne breakfasts to intimate subaquatic lunches,
wedding blessings, wine tastings, themed evenings and club nights. The
subaquatic lunch focuses on light, fresh dishes likes like crab, cous
сous and pomelo garden, lobster medallion and Wagyu beef tenderloin,
and all the free-flowing fresh juices your heart desires (£105 per
person for three courses).
Jules’ Undersea Lodge, Key Largo Undersea Park, Florida
You’ll
have to work for your lunch at Jules’ in Florida: the only way to access the hotel is by scuba diving. Located in the Key Largo Lagoon,
this is world’s only underwater hotel. It’s somewhere between a hotel
and a research lab - they’ve got a special overnight package (£512 for
two people) which includes all scuba gear, snacks, breakfast and
their (supposedly) world-famous pizza delivery service. If you want
something finer, you can enjoy a meal cooked by a chef who dives down
just to you. For those who don’t find the idea of sleeping in a
research lab and watching the fishes enticing, you can choose to visit
the underwater hotel for pizza lunch only (£96).
[Credits: jul.com - Picture: Jules’ Undersea Lodge, Key Largo Undersea Park, Florida]
Cargo Hold, uShaka Marine World, Durban, South Africa
Okay, so the restaurant isn’t actually underwater, but you will be
nestled in the stern of the South Africa’s legendary ghost ship ‘The
Phantom’, with superb views of the ocean and a shark tank. Make sure
you request a table close to the glass to get up close and personal
with the sharks, as you dine on freshly shucked oysters (£1 each),
white wine mussels (£3) and seared salmon served with a sticky
teriyaki sauce and pesto mashed potato (£7). If you fancy, go all out
and get a sharing platter of crayfish, prawns, mussels, calamari, line
fish and langoustines (£33).
For
something more low key (and less sharks), try this quaint, quirky underwater hotel in Sweden. Located on Lake Mälaren in Västeras, the
Utter Inn was conceived as an art project by artist Mikael Genberg.
The adventure starts with a boat ride from the port of Västera, then
you enter through small, typical-looking Swedish house on the surface
of the water and travel to a completely glass-walled bedroom below.
This hotel is about simple pleasures - you can spend the days lazing
in the sunshine, swimming and going for canoe rides. In the evening,
for the ultimate privacy and seclusion, dinner is delivered by boat.
Sounds pretty heavenly to us.
Still
very much in construction, Poseidon plans to be the only fully underwater resort in the world. If (when) it opens, the island will
comprise of 225 acres and is surrounded by a 5,000-acre lagoon for
snorkelling, diving and exploring. The resort will include two fine
dining options; one on land and one below the sea, offering gourmet
fare. There are also plans to be an undersea chapel, so you can say
your vows amongst the fishes. Register to be notified when the resort
opens, and fingers crossed it’s in this lifetime.
Experience
the world’s first underwater wine cellar at this incredible resort in
the Maldives. The adults-only restaurant has a choice of wines spanning nine decades, designed to match the gourmet cuisine. Three metres
below the surface, with only glass walls for maximum spectacle, there
will be an array of sea life swimming, darting and dancing before your
eyes. Go for the Lobster Treasures lunch (£144), featuring four
courses of lobster, wagyu beef and champagne.
This selection was published by The Telegraph, under the title “The world’s most incredible underwater restaurants”
Posted 415 weeks ago
Just as your horoscope says a lot about you (if you’re into that, of
course), so does your go-to vino. Here, the type of wine to drink based on your star sign. Just be sure to use a coaster should Mercury go into retrograde.
This article was first published by Pure Wow on 25th April 2016 in Huffington Post, under the title “Which Wine You Should Drink, Based On Your Zodiac Sign”
Posted 416 weeks ago
[Photography: Stephanie Kirchgaessner
/ The Guardian]
An unlikely Roman duo, a construction engineer and a commercial
lawyer, have spent the past three years cultivating a special giant
variety of garlic that used to be prevalent in Tuscany but has not been
produced in large quantities for 40 years. The garlic, known in Italian
as aglione, has a milder flavour, is odourless and easy to digest, say the two entrepreneurs, Alessandro Guagni and Lorenzo Bianchi.
With just a few months to go before their harvest, the pair are
trying to get their “kissing garlic” in some of Italy’s Michelin-star
restaurants after chefs who sampled last year’s crop gave it an
enthusiastic response . They hope to sell the aglione in high quality food markets, where they hope it will come to be seen as a newfound Italian gem.
“We thought this was a typical example of Italian excellence that has
been forgotten. Why? Because no one knows it and no one asks for it,”
said Bianchi.
[Photography: Stephanie Kirchgaessner
/ The Guardian]
Garlic is often associated with Italian cuisine, and is considered an
important ingredient when cooking roasted potatoes, lamb, roast pork
and bruscetta, but it is not a flavour that dominates typical dishes.
Guagni and Bianchi say this reflects concern, especially among young
people, that it is indigestible and causes bad breath.
They also say that most garlic consumed in Italy is produced abroad, particularly China and Spain.
Their story started about three years ago. Guagni was on holiday in
the Chiana valley in Tuscany, in the heart of winemaking country, when
he came across a farmer’s stand that was selling a product he had never
seen before.
“It was very big. One bulb weighed from 300 to 800 grams, about 10
times as big as normal garlic. The taste was very good and very light so
we thought about the possibility of reintroducing it in the market,”
Guagni said.
Their first task was to find aglione seeds.
The product is not totally unknown. Some Tuscan restaurants serve a dish known as pici all’algione
on their menu, a fresh, eggless pasta with a tomato and garlic sauce.
When Guagni and Bianchi started asking restauranteurs about where they
found their supplies, however, they hit a wall.
“We asked: ‘Where can we find it’? And they said: ‘No, there isn’t
any. You will never find it because it is over. It’s extinct’,” Guagni
said.
They learned that though the dish technically calls for aglione, which translates as “big garlic”, most chefs use a conventional variety.
Eventually they tracked down a few local producers , got their hands
on some seeds and went to work on land Bianchi owns in the Marche
region, near the city of Ancona. They say they have a tractor they
“play” on over the weekend, and a friend with experience who is also
helping out.
Asked whether their garlic could be considered organic, the two chuckle.
[Photograhy: courtesy of Kissingarlic]
“It couldn’t get more organic,” Bianchi said. Garlic is not too
labour intensive, they add, and in this case much of the labour is done
by ducks, which eat the weeds on the land but don’t touch the bulbs
themselves. They also produce fertiliser.
Advertisement
The pair have grown their garlic on two hectares of land, which they say is enough to cultivate about 30,000 plants.
According to the Fondazione Slow Food, an organisation that promotes food biodiversity, fewer than 10 producers cultivate what it calls aglione della Chiana,
and most do so for personal use. The foundation said the variety does
not contain allicin, a chemical compound found in traditional garlic,
and that there are usually six large cloves in a bulb.
The garlic is said to date back to ancient times, when Etruscans
inhabited the Chiana valley, and it was also present on the island of
Giglio. It allegedly arrived on the island in 1544 after the pirate
Khayr al-Din killed nearly everyone on it, forcing the ruling Medici
family of Florence to repopulate it with aglione-loving inhabitants of the Chiana valley, who brought it with them.
Guagni and Bianchi, who have been friends since they were teenagers
growing up in Rome, are thinking big, possibly about creating a
supplement or soap, given that garlic is known for its anti-bacterial
qualities. They also have a few more ancient products they would like to
revive, but don’t want to divulge their trade secrets.
They are also having fun. “We wanted to do something to escape from our offices,” Guagni said.
This article was published by Stephanie Kirchgaessner
on Monday 25 April 2016 in The Guardian, under the title
“Italian entrepreneurs hope diners will get their teeth into ‘kissing garlic'”
Posted 416 weeks ago
Yorkshire puddings have been crowned the UK’s most popular regional dish, beating Devon cream tea and Cornish pasties to the number one spot.
The honour was bestowed upon the Sunday roast staple in the UK Diners’ club Gourmet Society poll.
[Photography: Yorkshire puddings are an essential part of the British roast dinner]
Matt Turner, CEO of Gourmet Society, said: “Brits are spoilt for
choice when it comes to trying regional dishes from around the UK, so
it’s nice to see that plenty of regions are still sticking to their
roots and backing their local dish.
[Photography: Devon cream tea was voted the UK’s third favourite local dish]
“I often eat all over the country when working, but there is
certainly nothing better than coming back to Yorkshire to enjoy a proper
Yorkshire pudding with a Sunday Roast.
“We can understand why it has been voted Britain’s favourite, but it
is nice to see a range of dishes from every part of the UK appearing in
the top five.”
Being well-known doesn’t guarantee a place in the nation’s heart; 15 per cent of the country named haggis as their least favourite dish, despite it being the one people were most likely to have heard of.
[Photography: jellied eels are the second most-hated dish]
East London’s jellied eels came a
close second, with 13 per cent saying they hated it, followed by
Stilton cheese and Kendal mint cakes. Controversially, pease pudding was the fifth most-hated regional delicacy, as well as being the eighth most-loved.
The survey also found that many people are loyal to their local dish,
with almost half of people from Yorkshire voting their local puddings
as their favourite, and over a quarter of people from Belfast voting
Irish soda bread as theirs.
People from Kendal are most likely to brag about their regional dish
(with 85 per cent boasting about Kendal mint cake), followed by people
from Derbyshire (75 per cent, Bakewell tarts), and people from Cornwall
(64 per cent, Cornish pasties).
However some people are not so vocal about their local delicacies -
because they don’t even know what they are. It seems people in
Southampton, Nottingham, Sussex, and London need to brush up on their
local gastronomy - jellied eels, anyone?
This article was published
in
The Telegraph
by Eleanor Muffitt, on Monday 18th April 2016, under the title “What is the nation’s favourite local dish?”
