"I think the key is just finding joy in it." StolenCamaro/reddit
Well first of all define cooking. I just read an interview with the author Julia Busuttil Nishimura of one of my Christmas present cookbooks in which she was serving a meal to the interviewer (Michael Harry/Broadsheet) - as follows:
"There’s a platter of sliced melon with torn mint, prosciutto and grassy olive oil; buffalo mozzarella marinated in crème fraîche and brightened with boiled lemon ... Also, fresh tomatoes grated on Baker Bleu sourdough with washed rind goat’s cheese; bruschetta with blitzed peas draped with anchovies; and to finish, a jammy fruit galette with thickened cream."
Hardly any cooking required there - just some expensive shopping, although you could replace the expensive elements - Baker Bleu sourdough ... with cheaper versions of the same thing. Really the dessert needs the most effort because you have to make some pastry - but of course you could also buy that ready made. So it's actually possible to be a great cook by being a great - and well off - shopper. Perhaps I'm being a bit critical, because buying good food is often just a case of buying seasonally. If it's in season then it's cheap - well cheaper. Is anything really cheap these days?
Unless you grow your own of course, but that takes a talent and a dedication that I really don't have. And as I write that I realise that my sister who loves gardening, does not love cooking although she is actually a really good cook, but I who love cooking, do not really love gardening and am definitely not a good gardener. Do not give me a plant as a present. It will die. I did enjoy creating gardens from scratch - our first three houses were built as new and so were surrounded by builder's devastating mess when finished. And I did enjoy transforming that - shaping and planting. However, I don't follow through. The plants I plant have to basically survive on their own. As to vegetable and fruit gardening - well total failure there because of pests, lack of attention in the way of feeding and watering, and the dratted birds. Although eating something you have grown yourself is indeed immensely satisfying. No longer for me however.
But back to Julia Busuttil Nishimura and her emphasis on shopping:
"Seasonality underpins everything. I rarely go to the shops with a list. I like to see what is on offer, then use that as a guide for my cooking."
Which is perhaps fine and mostly how I shop as well, and as she points out:
"You needn't look much further than what is in season to help put a meal together."
And that is apparently her aim with this book - to help you build a menu - with 12 examples at the end to get you going:
“I get asked all the time ‘What do I serve with what’, so the original premise of the book is around menus. I love writing menus and having people over. But ‘menu’ is such a formal word, it’s just about how to eat things together.”
I confess I was a little surprised by this particular present - from my older son and partner. But then neither of them are particular enraptured by cooking, although both can and do cook, and they do indeed love eating out. I was dimly aware of her name and mistakenly thought she was one of the MasterChef kind of celebrity chef. But I got that wrong - her fame comes from her popular Instagram blog Ostro Instagram. There is a website too but that seems to be more of a promotional site for her books - there are now four.
Her origins are Maltese and a single parent family after her parents split when she was six. And this part of her life explains how often what she decides to cook springs from some nostalgic memory:
“We didn’t have a lot of resources. Some dinners we would just have canned tuna, but Maltese-style with olives and antipasto … but she would tell a story of being on the beach in Malta eating this dish. So everything felt romantic, even if it was a shit time.” Julia Busuttil Nishimura
She had always loved cooking and did work experience at the Royal Mail in Dunkeld, but then came a gap year in Italy where she fell in love - as we all do - with Italian food, made her return to study Italian at university followed by further trips to Italy, and discovering:
"Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion, Jamie Oliver’s Italy, River Cafe’s Two Easy, and a Nigel Slater compilation. And that really set me on a path – it was serendipity, I think. It became the foundation for how I cooked and thought about food.”
She started to write about the food she ate and prepared, and then began her blog in 2013. It was a huge success and discovered by all those people who write about and boost people's careers in food. Now four books in she is on a roll, married to a Japanese ex-chef. And as I say, often talked about here and there, which is how I became dimly aware of her.
So what is her food like? Well mostly pretty tempting I have to say and also mostly pretty simple. So herewith some examples - the pages I marked with my little post-it stickers.
Tomato tart with capers and herbs
There is no recipe online for this, but there are heaps of others that are very much the same. I guess if I was feeling critical I would say there is nothing special about it - except there is really when you think about it. This kind of galette is commonplace these days. They crop up in supermarket magazines and doubtless on TikTok et al. all the time. Make your pastry - this one is a flaky pastry with some rye flour in the mix. Top with the best tomatoes you can find, tuck in some oregano leaves, and drizzle with oil, salt and pepper. Fold over the edges, brush with egg wash and cook until golden and the tomatoes are cooked. Cool and then top with goat's curd, capers, parsley and mint and more olive oil. Is it a copycat thing? Sort of I guess, but then Ottolenghi has also done similar things, Nigel too and we don't accuse them of being copy cats. Probably everyone has a recipe - this one looks lovely though. And this kind of thing just didn't exist when I was young. Not here or in the UK anyway.
This one is actually a classic, and she hasn't really messed with it at all. Is that a cheat? Lots of other websites, have a recipe as do many famous celebrity chefs. It's onions, sausage, wine and cream - what more is there to say? Simple, delicious and maybe you didn't know about it, so have a go.
Za'atar chicken with yoghurt and buttery pine nuts
Alas, again no recipe online although once again there are similar recipes, but not precisely like this one. It's a marinaded chicken - za'atar spice mix, cumin, allspice, sumac, zest and juice of a lemon, garlic, olive oil, roasted in the oven on top of some grated tomato tossed with potato wedges. Cook pine nuts in butter and scatter over the cooked chicken topped with cold yoghurt, and then sprinkled iwth dill, coriander, mint and more sumac. Lots of ingredients I suppose but pretty simple.
Vinegar maple chicken
Again not online, but I get the impression that this is a lady who is not that generous with sharing her recipes online. Maybe the Instagram site posts recipes but her Ostro website, has just a handful. Maybe she doesn't have the fame of an Ottolenghi or a Delia or a Jamie and so can't really afford to post the recipes, or people won't buy the books.
Anyway - I love maple syrup so this one caught my eye and it demonstrates the tray bake method admirably well. Just mix fennel, with the chicken with flavourings of onion, malt vinegar, fennel and coriander seeds, cardamom pods, zest and juice of a lime, and the inevitable olive oil.
Portokalopita
For dessert, one of those delectable Greek pastries - again a classic recipe:
"Filo sheets, torn into pieces and dried out, are mixed with an orange, yoghurt and olive oil mixture before being baked, then drenched in syrup. The result is a cross between a cake and a pudding." Julia Busuttil Niroshima
Yum.
Maybe she's a collector rather than creator. But then really all cooks are to a greater or lesser degree. They are all building on what has gone before, been inspired by something eaten at home, on holiday, in a restaurant, at a friend's house ... In a way these recipes are nothing new, and nothing truly creative, but if you don't have a massive collection of cookbooks, then you will find something - several somethings - that are really worth cooking and that can be tweaked to your own tastes. There are examples of pretty much every kind of everyday cooking in here so yes, pretty good for the everyday cook who wants to do better than takeaway without a lot of effort.
Going on to my shelf now. I wonder if I shall make anything from it? That pastry might be a good place to start. I haven't come across it before. It's sort of a distant variation on bread and butter pudding.
THE LETTER K
The most difficult yet - there were no kangaroos, kookaburras or king parrots around and I couldn't think of anything else, so had to make do with a key in a keyhole when I got home. It was really too hot for a walk too.
YEARS GONE BY
January 19
2024 - Versatile potato peels
2023 - Nothing
2022 - Another sad goodbye
2021 - Nothing
2020 - A memory on my desktop
2018 - Lucky dip 2 - Tarte Tatin
2017 - Irish oatmeal soda bread
Such a beautiful key hole! Loved this piece.