Veggies, Puff Pastry and Yarn

We made this recipe once more, since we can get such beautiful puff pastry in the French supermarket. We also found a beautiful and tasty heirloom tomato:



Finally a picture especially for Emmanuel:



To be continued.

Our Quiche Was Vegetarian Today

Honest! We cannot be held responsible for all the fresh meatz in our mailbox!


Emmanuel has obviously been on a killing spree, and is not shy about it! Enjoy this report.

Special Guest Post: The Butchering of Emmanuel!

Thanks to Emmanuel we have an non-boring 900th post! Without further ado, here is his email:

Just returned from a vacation during which I worked at a butcher shop and learned to cut pork. Photos attached, feel free to use for a guest post on WTAW.
Take care of yourselves and keep on eating!

Here is the meat locker at the shop. Tasty meats waiting to be cut or dry-aging.


I took a half-pig over to my work table:


A few minutes later, it's cut up into more manageable pieces.


You can't really see it in the picture, but the ribs and tenderloin are separated and cleaned. I later made chops from the loin, a roast from the shoulder, cutlets and another roast from the ham, sausage-grind from the picnic, and saved the shanks for smoking and the belly for curing.

Here is the head.


The reason it looks a little strange around the eyes is because I had actually already removed the face, and just put it back on to take the picture. Here is what it looks like with its face ripped off:


Saved the jowls for guanciale, the cheeks for a fancy restaurant, the ears for dog treats, and the rest for sausage.

I also worked a bit with sucklings. Here is a 60-lb suckling, completely deboned with the bones placed back into the carcass:


And just the bones by themselves:


After removing the bones, I lined the inside with bacon:


And a layer of moroccan sausage:


Then sewed the little guy up and got him ready to roast.


Unfortunately I couldn't stick around for eating this one.

Calling Emma!

This is so up your alley! Look at these pictures and think how much better yours will be, not to mention the potential for a movie!

Congratulations to Emmanuel!

And Lena of course.

(photo by aktivioslo on Flickr)

We spend our full morning (and part of the afternoon) watching the Eurovision Song Contest. Sadly the official site was blocked, so we had to content ourselves with the Dutch version where two commentators made juvenile fun of anyone who had a size larger than what was normally shown on tv, or people's religion, or anything else that was inappropriate.

Also, we extend our warm congratulations to Tuncay, with a rather unexpected second place, a song that was neither here nor there, neither fish nor meat, snarf nor barf, in my humble opinion. I had high hopes for Belgium (almost the Netherlands), Azerbaijan and Armenia (especially Belgium actually), but the masses have spoken and who am I to disagree.

I hope we are sane enough in a year's time to fork over about 100 euros for a ticket to the live show.

Update: I completely forgot to mention the awesome entries of Russia and the cradle of modern Europop Moldova. Check them out if you feel bored!

A Garden Is Nice

A garden on your balcony is nice...



especially if you have some Afrikaantjes...



that you can even call Stinkertjes...



but everyone will admit that having a shed on your roof is awesome!



Anyways, visit Emmanuel's blog!

Also, Ellen has posted many new posts about her visit to China.

Huaiyangchun

Another fabulous dinner with Amanda, this time in a famous restaurant: Huaiyangchun. There were eight "Chun" restaurants that were very famous, before Mao's liberation. This is one of the only two that still exist.

We had this wonderful pork liver...



some eel...



the famous lion's head meatballs (meatballs with crab roe)...



healthy fava beans...



squirrel fish, which is usually translated as mandarin fish...



and an extra large soup dumpling.



On a completely unrelated note: this week is our "connect to our European roots"-week: the Eurovision Song Contest is held this week! We would like to congratulate Emmanuel in advance with his home country's winning entry ---I can't see her not winning--- Lena. In the following link she is aptly described as "A Swedish Speech Therapist Imitating Ali G.".

How Today Looks Ground Zero? -- The Movie Part 1

Emmanuel put up the first movie consisting of daily pictures of Ground Zero. Highly recommended!

Blaue Gans

Emmanuel proposed Blaue Gans for some real Austrian food. As it turns out, we have been to one of Kurt Gutenbrunner's other restaurants in NYC, Wallse, a few years ago. The food at Blaue Gans was less highbrow (more towards gutbürgerliche Küche, but that is definitely not a good description of the wonderful food here), which I strongly prefer.

We shared these great appetizers. Blood sausage (with wasabi):

Spätzle:

Trout pancake torte (or something):

Artichokes:

The various main courses. First of all, pheasant with foie gras and Brussels sprouts:

Boiled shank of some sort:

Some sort of schnitzel (Jäger-?):

We ended this decadent evening in style at the Brandy Library.

Definitely more reasons to go (back) to New York.