What's at Greenmarket - July, August, September

Eating in Season has become more and more important to me. Here's a handy printable PDF guide to food in season at Greenmarket from Time Out

What the Portuguese call Pastry

To fully explore the quicktime above use the pause function.

This looks like an exciting new take on the food book - Fabrico Próprio The Design of Semi-Industrial Confectionery a 292-page, bi-lingual hardcover book dedicated to Portuguese confectionery and its relation to design with essays by an Architecture critic, a contemporary art curator and a food critic. There is only one recipe in the whole book and it's one from a new gastronomy perspective - “Snail with fruits and superior green tea sorbet” from Hugo Nascimento (chef at the Terreiro do Paço restaurant in Lisbon). The book also talks about the diaspora of the Portuguese Pastel de Nata (Custard Tart) - a personal favorite of mine and something I quite often wish I could have for breakfast. However it seems like the only Portuguese pastry shops in the NYC area are over in Newark (Coutinhos Bakery, 121 Ferry St and Seabra Marisqueira, 87 Madison St - both close to the train station). Sadly at the moment the book seems to be only available from the website so no adding it to the amazon wish list.

From Paris

"Delicious!"
When I hear this from people with their mouths full of my pastries and a smile on their face,
I would always say: "Good, but I can do even better!"
This is a motto of my everyday life.
Sadaharu Aoki



J is a darling and brought me back two boxes of delight from Sadaharu Aoki's store in Paris. An amazing gift box full of three flavoured cakes, two flavoured florentines, sablé breton, chocolate sablé, hazelnut sablé, chocolate orange slice, tuiles coco, marrons glacés and a smaller box of chocolates each presented in a different color (see photo above). I have wanted to try Aoki's pastries for a couple of years now so this was a special treat.

The first and most striking thing about the products was the presentation. The white box with silver and grey writing and silver string had the allure of a Tiffany's blue box - fetishistic magic in other words. You just know something fantastic is inside from the get-go. Unsurprisingly the insides were magical. Subtle and delicate flavors, the over-riding aspect being a lightness of touch.

Aoki has made an international reputation for himself by combining Japanese flavors with French techniques.

I like to create simple things, but it is the most difficult thing to do, since simple things cannot be manipulated. Sadaharu Aoki

For those who can't make it Paris or don't have lovely friends like J to bring you something back - here is a recipe from Aoki-san - roughly translated from the French



Financier with green tea
Makes 20 Financiers
Prepartion time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

* 45g egg white
* 50g powdered sugar
* 5 g of glucose or honey
* 45g clarified butter
* 25g powdered almond
* 25g hazel nut powder
* 15g flour
* 2g matcha green tea powder
* black sesame seeds
* white sesame seeds
* guerande sea salt

A mold with 20 slots - 3 x 5cm each

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
2. Mix the egg white and sugar without making a foam. Add glucose or honey.
3. In a strainer, filter the powdered almond, hazel nut powder and matcha green tea powder - incorporate into the mixture without adding air
4. Heat butter to 80 degrees C, add to mix and emulsify as you would a mayonnaise. Heat the mixture in a microwave. You want to get the temperature of the mix to 40 degress C.
5. Fill the moulds with the paste (the temperature of the mix should now be 30 degrees C). Sprinkle with white sesame, black sesame and sea salt. Put in oven for 12 to 15 minutes. Best served cold.

Aoki has three stores in Paris and one two in Tokyo - here's a picture of him in his store in Paris. I look forward to visiting the store in person this fall.

Places I want to visit

I'm a Yorkshire boy, born and bred and you'll never get the Northern grit out of me. I was surprised to find out recently that one of my favorite sweet Liquorice is actually very much a Yorkshire thing makes me want to visit home and go check the Oldest Sweetshop in Britain.

My next food outing

I have a love / hate affair with eating out. Sometimes it's the best thing and then a lot of times I just wish I was at home. But living in NYC it's hard not to get in the swing of things and start building a list of places to eat at.

Here's the next place I'm going as reviewed by Anthony Bourdain


Kabab Café, 25-12 Steinway St, Queens, NY 11103.
N, W train to Astoria-Ditmars Blvd


and here's the New York Magazine and New York Times reviews.

Yorkshire Pudding

It's National Yorkshire Pudding day in the UK.



here's a great selection of different Yorkshire Pudding Recipes including the classic one and some more unusual takes. And NO it's not a PUDDING the way Americans use the word. It's a savory accompaniment to to traditional English Sunday dinner of Roast Beef, Lamb or Chicken with gravy. Essential food for a Yorkshireman like myself.

Bourdain Berlin

Rebel Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show on TV last night saw him in Berlin. Wish I could say he changed my mind about the food there. He didn't - Currywurst, Head Cheese, Pork and Beer gardens are things that just don't cut it at all for me. The only place that looked edible to me was the Turkish restaurant (big surprise there then).

Read a recent in-depth interview with Bourdain from The Onion and see Bourdain answer Time magazine's Ten questions including why he hates Rachel Ray and what impact having a child has had on him.