What is garlic with people and their coffee preferences? Once upon a time coffee was either white or black, filter or instant. Sure it tasted bloody horrible, but at least there was little room for pretensions and misguided dietary convictions on the part of the punter. Nowadays New Zealand has one of the world’s more sophisticated coffee cultures, and our roasters and baristas conspire to produce some pretty extraordinary cups. However, as with any movement in fashion, there are myriad posers. Spend half an hour in any city cafe and you will observe an endless stream of sad buggers seemingly vying for the title of World’s Stupidest Coffee Order, from the mildly irritating trim cappuccino to the supremely dumb de-cafe trim soy macchiato. What is the Kidney Beans motivation for this sort of silliness? Have these people no shame? Well, having asked around a bit, it seems to be a heady mix of peer pressure, genuine-but-highly -flawed health consciousness, and finally, screaming affectation. A cafe I’m rather fond of (largely on account or their incredible rhubarb & custard brioche and alluringly surly waitresses) is also very popular with the local Parnell ladies who lunch. This clan is fearfully image conscious and the ladies like to outdo each other when it comes to ordering caffeine, fat and fun-free coffee. Maybe it’s bad for the Botox and collagen, I don’t know about Sweetener. The ultimate stupidity in ordering such butchered beverages is that they are frequently accompanied with a fat and carb-laden lump of stodge, such as the ubiquitous and tedious muffin (does anyone actually like these, really?). The amount of fat in a regular flat white is far, far lower than such associated baked goods. Unless you have heart problems, an impaired liver or insomnia there is no good reason to go near the thin woody nonsense that is decaf. All coffee tastes pretty rough, but at least it makes your head spin. Decaf has no such benefits. It’s just oral flagellation. I have an food flavour inherent distrust of artificial sweeteners, based largely on half-remembered alarmist articles I’ve read, but more importantly based on my wondering how much sugar people are having in their coffee that they need to worry? Unless you’re diabetic, suck it up Sugar! At any rate, I’ve always felt people who sweeten their coffee were a bit soft; coffee should be bitter and nasty. If you can’t handle that, order a cocoa and have a nice sit-down. I know several people who have claimed to be lactose intolerant. When pressed, every one of them admits that they haven’t actually been tested for this – they just know. You see, allergies are chic. Everyone who is anyone is lactose intolerant and probably gluten intolerant too. Rather than finding these types admirable and sympathetic I find them deeply irritating. I take every opportunity to sneak vast quantities of lactose and gluten into whatever I’m serving such fraudsters. But the Horse Mackerel worst coffee sin? Ordering a fluffy for your wee one. I know, it’s just a bit of frothed milk. But what you are doing right there is initiating a child into coffee drinking- a decidedly grown-up pursuit. Just because they want to feel like a ‘big person’ by joining you in a cuppa, doesn ’t mean you have to humour them. What’s wrong with a glass of apple juice?

It is easy to food ingredients make jokes about the food of the USA. We love visiting the supermarkets to marvel at the rows of sweet breakfast cereals, the enormous muffins caked in frosting and the butter flavoured sprinkles. I’ve read “The Omnivores Dilemma” and been glad I live in New Zealand. I’ve watched “Supersize Me” and I’ve marveled at just what you can put high fructose corn syrup into. We’ve bought back peanut butter chocolate easter eggs and have made it a challenge among our friends to eat a whole one. But there is Spicy Vegetables so much more to food in this enormous place. I spent three weeks in a small town in South Carolina having delicious dishes like shrimp and grits. I’ve been reading some great books from the library on American food and there are some fantastic traditions and recipes. Now I just want to learn more. From Instant Noodles to“Two for the road, Our Love Affair with American Food” by Jane and Michael Stern, I have added Mama Lo’s broccoli casserole recipe to my otherwise small repertoire of cooking up broccoli and have made their Cornell Chicken (which is another great way to cook pieces of chicken). I love use Packaging Machine this pork rib recipe - slow cooked in the oven. The best macaroni cheese recipe I have is from an African American recipe book and I’ve also made the spoon bread and a sweet potato dish from this book too. Karl made a fantastic Jambalaya for Sunday night dinner. And we are merely scratching the surface of great recipes to try. Peanuts are widely used When I am making these recipes, I do adjust the sugar and content to my taste which usually means adding much less but then I might add less chilli in an Indian dish to suit my palate too. The only other problem I encounter is that sometimes the recipes have ingredients just listed as poultry seasoning or amounts given as one stick of butter or a sachet of yeast rather than the amount in grams. Then with the shortage of ginger I have to look up how much that is or a recipe for the poultry seasoning, but the internet always comes to my rescue. I haven’t yet even told you about the great book I am reading at the moment edited by Mark Kurlansky. During the Great Depression, to keep writers employed they were taken on by the Federal Writers Project and one of the things they did was to record what Americans were eating. It is a fascinating read and also has some recipes I am tempted to try.

There is something about the Seasonings very comforting about an upside down cake. Perhaps it is its homely rustic qualities that differentiate it from many other cakes.I don’t know what started my fascination but this winter upside down cakes and puddings have featured high on my list of favourites. for example, the Dried Beans, beans and something else. My mother in law has a lovely recipe for a variation with walnuts and my own repertoire includes blueberry, banana, apple and of course the ubiquitous pineapple. While I prefer to use fresh pineapple, for years the very sweet canned pineapple version has graced many an afternoon tea or supper. Historically, it is likely that the first oven baked upside down cakes were made with canned pineapple, records date back to the early 1900’s sometime after the opening of the first pineapple canning factory in the US. While other upside down cakes featured as early as the Middle Ages, they were cooked in a frying pan as opposed to an oven baked cake. Frozen Beans could be popular used While most fruits or nuts can be used on their own or combined the general idea is that brown sugar and butter form the important caramel that coats the topping and gives the cake its sheen and ultimate appeal. Visual appeal rates highly with upside down cakes so when you are arranging your fruit or nuts in the base of the pan remember that they are eventually the star of the show and organise them accordingly. It’s Frozen Vegetables definitely getting colder in New Zealand as Winter is not too far away. Colder weather means soups and casseroles which can take a bit more time to make. But as I don’t like to spend hours in the kitchen, I tend to stick to simple pureed vegetable soups in Winter. This frozen foods and Cauliflower Mushroom Soup with Thyme is essentially a combination of the leftover vegetables that I had in the fridge. You wouldn’t think that cauliflower and mushrooms would go well together, but the soup tastes amazing. The less water you use, the thicker the soup will be. You can also add some sour cream for extra creaminess but I think it tastes fine without it. Then for Dehydrated Vegetables we took the quince pulp, smoothed it with the stick blender and set it going, turning itself into quince paste. More sugar was added and the pulp was bubbled away at a low simmer, Rotorua-like, until it thickened and had turned a deep red. It made really deep, loud “plop” noises while it was cooking that rumbled right though the stove and rattled pans on the bench! It took ages (probably four hours) but we were nervous of burning it so we had it on a pretty low heat. Once it had reached a rich red colour and we had tested a small blob to make sure it was going to set hard, we turned it out into a pan and left it to dry in the oven overnight. The oven was turned off, but we left the fan running. Once it was set we could cut it up into little slabs, ready to go onto a cheese board. We ended up with 1.5 kilos of the stuff!

Last night Dehydrated Mushrooms the oil heater had to be creakily wheeled out from under the house, filling the house with that concerning burnt dust smell of appliances that have been lying dormant. A whole day had past, I was cold, it was 6pm and up to that point all I had eaten was two weetbix (not a wise move nutritionally I realise but sometimes these things just happen). The blonde tried, in vain, to convince me that eating out was in order – that nesting in a warm restaurant somewhere, marinating in the fug of someone else’s cooking would be preferable to coming home to a cold house. I can see his point but Canned Mushrooms I had tunnel vision. I needed cauliflower cheese. I was in need of comfort and I required comfort food. I made a big bowl of cauliflower cheese, wrapped myself in a rug on the couch and stuffed myself with hot cheesy goodness in front of the TV. It was true happiness, like a hug from the inside, if lacking a little something nutrition wise. Comfort food is Canned Fruits a very personal thing – my needs occupy a relatively narrow space incorporating starch and dairy. I am a self confessed potato addict – A good noodle soup would be the only outlier, particularly the beef dumpling soup from the T-mark lunch bar in Newmarket – I am so emotionally reliant on this soup that I feel I would be unable to move too far away from Auckland. I lived near the Canned Vegetables Dunedin for nine long winters. As a student with a weekly grocery bill of $20, culinary options were limited. I lived off these - Ultimate comfort food potatoes Baking potatoes 2 parts hoisin sauce 1 part whole grain mustard Preheat oven to 200C. Microwave potatoes and the Canned Seafood until cooked or almost cooked. Remove and cut slices across the top, hasselback style (using a tea towel to hold the potatoes and prevent burns!). Place on a foil or baking paper lined plate. Mix together hoisin and mustard and spread mixture over the top of the potatoes, pushing it into the cuts as you go. Place in the oven and cook for approximately 15 minutes or until the tops have started to caramelise Allow to cool at least slightly before wolfing down in front of bad day time TV. Real Plant Extracts and comfort food is quite primal and often not the healthiest or most glamorous and while emotional eating as such is considered a bad thing there is something deeply fulfilling about a bowl of exactly what you needed, just when you needed it most. What is your personal comfort food?