Food | 2DM Blogazine

13/03/2012

Kristina Gill: Brownies

Just mention the word and 99 per cent of people you talk to will get very excited. Chocolate is the magic word in the food world. That’s why there’s always some decadent chocolate dessert on the cover of the magazines, even on the special diet magazines. People simply just love chocolate. And brownies, that’s almost as close to pure chocolate as you can get. With brownies, afficionados are divided into two camps: cakey and fudgy. These ones I made are definitely fudgy. I, however, fall into the cakey camp even though I’m not really even a chocolate friend! So guess who gets to eat this whole pan for himself? My husband! The perks of living with a food photographer.

Kristina Gill

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06/03/2012

Kristina Gill: Sandwiches

I know this will seem like some sort of heresy, but one of the things I look most forward to when I go to Paris and London is finding a sandwich from some fancy bakery with great cheese and other great flavors that all fit perfectly together. Two sandwiches I can’t get out of my mind are the grilled cheese sandwiches with leeks at Borough Market and a sandwich using cherry preserves from a bakery in the Marais.

Here, I buttered and grilled the slices before adding the shaved Comte cheese to melt under the grill. I dressed it with the sauteed leeks and a bit of whole grain mustard. Upon the recommendation of the cheese shop, I tried a St Marcellin Fermier that I brought to room temperature with the cherry preserves, and a whole wheat bread with walnuts.

Kristina Gill

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28/02/2012

Kristina Gill: Celebration

Sometimes I get carried away at the butcher and buy one of everything that’s in the case. I package it all up, freeze it, and then surprise myself later. This week, I found a small leg of lamb in the freezer. Just perfect to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I picked up some apples, sweet potatoes, kale, and leeks at the market. I baked the lamb with apples, garlic, thyme, and some honey, loosely following a Gordon Ramsey recipe. I thinly sliced the sweet potatoes and arranged them in a casserole with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then I sauteed the kale with leeks and one chili pepper. And so we celebrated our wedding anniversary this year with vitamins, spice, lots of flavor and rich color.

Kristina Gill

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21/02/2012

Kristina Gill: Oatmeal

Today we welcome The Blogazine’s newest columnist, photographer and food stylist Kristina Gill. Based in Rome and a native of Nashville in Tennessee, Kristina is the editor of In The Kitchen on Grace Bonney’s must-read megablog DesignSponge, and will be bringing her cozy, welcoming style for taste to our pages. She’s a master of beauty in the everyday and explores the world through the true-to-sight 35mm lens of her camera. Hello, Kristina! Let’s eat!

“Oatmeal is one of the staples in my cupboard. I love it for breakfast, especially when it is cold out. Usually I add a couple of tablespoons of finely ground flaxseed meal and a bit of butter when I want to add richness. This winter, though, I did something I never do, and I ordered a bowl of oatmeal in a restaurant. It was served with hot buttered currants, bananas, and walnuts. Who knew it could taste so good? Now, when I want an extra special weekend treat and something that will carry me through to late afternoon, I make my oatmeal with golden raisins and bananas heated in a bit of butter, pecans, and a splash of cream.”

Introduction Tag Christof – Text and Images Kristina Gill

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20/12/2011

Protein by DunneFrankowski

We’re Milanese. And that means it’s not easy to impress us with coffee. When even our Chinese restaurants serve excellent espresso and any old shabby corner bar serves its caffeine perfectly oily, just-right . But lately London has really decided to get into the good-food game, and coffee is no exception. Like weeds in a freshly watered garden, fantastic little cafés – many of them dredging up long forgotten techniques – have been springing up all over the city.

Last week we queued (and that’s a lot to ask of us cynics when it comes to coffee) to get into the opening of Protein’s brand new, tiny little café in its 18 Hewett Street headquarters in Shoreditch. The duo DunneFrankowski is using the space as a sort of beta testbed for its modular coffee bar design that is pretty novel in a couple ways: it can easily be reconfigured (and replicated almost anywhere), and it’s designed to be staffed by a maximum of two people. It also has a Chromo-enabled feed so you can see in real-time what’s going on at the coffee counter: check it out.

But more importantly, the coffee itself is really, really damn good. (And it was free with a Foursquare check-in – follow us!) Simple, strong, well-prepared coffee that is absolutely lightyears ahead of the chains. With a fantastic environment, to boot – and making a special guest appearance were high-class versions of the quintessential lowbrow, feel-good food: hot dogs from Big Apple Hot Dogs.

Later in the evening, DunneFrankowski also released The Independent Coffee Book, which besides being a really lovely little volume, is an up-to-date guidebook for the best local cafés around London – and there are many. So, hats off to you Protein and DF, you’ve impressed some tough critics. And now that we’ve got the ammo to hunt for other nice cafés, bring on the good coffee!

Protein by DunneFrankowski Timelapse from Protein® on Vimeo.

Tag Christof – Images and video courtesy Protein

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18/11/2011

Yvette van Boven / Winter

2DM’s Yvette van Boven has really been taking the food world by storm as of late. The restauranteur/chef/artist/author (yes, there is truly nothing she can’t do) has been a busy busy bee: over the past year, she’s done Martha Stewart and Edible Radio and been featured an impressive number of publications, most recently in Dutch foodie digest, Delicious. And speaking of delicious, her Amsterdam restaurant Aan de Amstel is among the highlights of Amsterdam’s food scene. And if all that weren’t entirely enough (this is Yvette we’re talking about!), we’re thrilled to announce the release of her latest book, Winter, a delightful winter comfort food followup to her critically acclaimed Home Made.

We gave you a sneak peek of Winter this past July, but the book has at last hit bookshelves in Holland. Her trademark hand-drawn recipes here illustrate “comforting winter food, with inspiration from Ireland, France and Holland,” all places Yvette calls home. The unconventional mix of Yvette’s native and adopted food cultures lends her recipes all the balance of warmth and cozy unpretentiousness good winter food needs. It works exceptionally well as a compliment to the eclectic Home Made.

Photos throughout the volume come courtesy of her equally talented partner in crime, Oof Verschuren, and it’s published by Dutch house Fontaine. It goes without saying that the book is absolutely stunning. So bundle up – it’s cold out! Sturdy winter coats and a copy of Winter!

Tag Christof

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04/11/2011

Karin Kellner / Cucina Italiana

Practically since its founding in 1929, La Cucina Italiana has been a symbol of fantastic Italian cuisine the world over. And its black and white headliner and positively mouth watering photos have come to mean every bit as much on a Milan newsstand as in its international version in a California gourmand’s kitchen. It has meant slow food and quality before the former was a movement or the latter was much of a concern, and has long been a solid reference for excellent recipes. And for the past two jam-packed issues, the illustrations of 2DM’s Karin Kellner been adding a touch of her cozy flair to the venerable icon.

For this issue, Karin made portraits of distinguished chef Walter Pedrazzi, “pop cuisine” inventor and Michelin Star restaurant D’O Davide Oldani, renowned sommelier Giuseppe Vaccarini and Giorgio Donegani, president of Food Education Italy, along with other fun scenes.

Expect to see even more of Karin’s work in various cozy places in the coming months. (We’d like to spend our holidays wrapped up inside one her sketches, honestly.) And together with the recent publication of Yvette Van Boven’s new cookbook Winter (more on that soon), we’re over the culinary moon. And really, really hungry.

Tag Christof – Images Karin Kellner / 2DM

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03/11/2011

Rui Pereira / Lateira

Oh, canned food. That lowliest of fare, hermetically sealed for apocalyptic aftermath and just one half-step above dreaded instant noodle soup. But is it, really? In many countries–especially southern European ones–the connection to good food runs so deep that even the food permanently preserved in tins can be pretty fantastic: legumes, greens and especially fish. Good oil and prime catch are good oil and prime catch, even in a tin. It’s the mystery meat sausages and chemical concoctions like Spaghetti-O’s that are really causes for concern.

For his most recent project, Lateira, Portuguese designer Rui Pereira looked to the long history of fish canning in his country to build a new ritual around eating from the tin. And in his solid effort to de-stigmatize it, he simultaneously promotes tradition and ups the cachet of a wrongly disparaged mode of food preservation. Much like the Megaphone project we saw at this year’s Salone del Mobile, the concept mixes an old archetype and contemporary habits with handcraft to produce a beautiful, practical, culturally innovative object. Moreover, the red clay and hand drawn white motifs harken back to classic Portuguese handicraft.

The project has been shown at Show me Galleryin Lisbon during this year’s Experimenta Design. And suddenly, tuna for lunch sounds like a downright delicacy…

Tag Christof – Images Rui Pereira

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21/10/2011

Yvette Van Boven x Verde

2DM’s maven of all things food Yvette Van Boven has shown off her fantastic paper cutouts in the most recent issue of Verde. The journal of organic food and sustainably is an offshoot of the lauded, forward-thinking Swiss grocer Coop. Always a positive voice for better food in all senses of the word, Yvette’s work here illustrates “Coffee and Solidarity,” which considers Starbucks’ paradigm-shifting move towards more ethical and sustainable coffee.

The world’s most ubiquitous coffee chain (yet conspicuously absent from Italy) has made major changes to its supply chain over the past few years, and is now a major driver of Fairtrade in the coffee industry. In the last year in Switzerland alone, the company’s initiative has helped 168 families in Central and South America on a path towards improved lives and is sure to have a heightened impact as it gains traction. Talk about compelling consumption.

Tag Christof – Image courtesy Verde and Yvette Van Boven / 2DM

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02/09/2011

Karin Kellner / Eating & Drinking

For her feature in our series on the summer adventures of 2DM‘s artists, illustrator Karin Kellner temporarily traded in her lush watercolours for a fork and some velvety colour film. The result is a hearty cheers to a holiday well-spent – it’s been a great summer!