Goût de France at Epure

If there is one thing the French did better than the rest of the gastronomy world, it's the way they treasure and celebrate their traditional cuisine. This year, Chef Alain Ducasse, along with the French government, started the Goût de France project (dubbed Good France in English - don't ask me why it wasn't a straight translation) to celebrate such culinary heritage with a grand event worldwide, inspired by the "Epicurus Dinners" initiated by the legendary Auguste Escoffier over a hundred years ago.

Cooking with Extra Virgin Olive Oil

For many years, I kept at least 2 different bottles of olive oil at home - the "regular" one for cooking and the "extra virgin" one for garnishing, as salad dressing or basically for any other uses not involving heat. I am sure many of you did exactly the same, because we have been told time and time again that Extra Virgin Olive Oil is not suitable for cooking, and in fact, harmful to you.

I decided to dig deeper on this topic mainly for one practical reason - I used up my regular olive oil a couple weeks ago while having a few virgin and extra virgin ones sitting in the kitchen. It sounded stupid to left my pricier (and presumably better) extra virgin oil slowly turning stale on the shelf while replenishing the cheaper oil for cooking. And what I found out actually surprised me.

Beer and Kushiyaki

We walked down the stairs feeling a bit tipsy from "Battle of the Brews", a beer tasting event organized by Beertopia, which featured some 30 craft beers from around the world with live music performance at The Space in Sheung Wan. With the effect of the malt and the hops and the alcohol kicked in, we felt like needing something to eat so my friend suggested this new Japanese Izakaya place near Lan Kwai Fong.

Since 1757 - Ristorante del Cambio

What happened when you put in a chef specialized in progressive cooking in the kitchen of a restaurant with a long history and known for traditional cuisine? We were there to find out when we made a booking for Sunday lunch at Ristorante del Cambio in Turin during our trip to Piedmont last fall.

Let's make some brownies!

Many have said the most difficult part in baking is the precision in measurement. Well no doubt there are solid grounds for that reasoning since baking is more of a science and there are certain rules that need to be strictly followed, especially for stuff like bread or certain types of cakes. But there are baked goods that are more forgiving than the others - and brownies is one of them. Of course every small things you changed will still make a noticeable difference in the end products, but in brownies, those differences are often acceptable. Maybe that's why I love making them at home since there's less pressure on getting everything right all the time.