Today is the last day before the tempture begins rising again, I'm taking full advantage of a wonderfully cool morning, and a comfortable day: I'm wearing Lolita Lempicka's wonderfully honeyed smokey ambered citrus sprinkled vanilla scent, L de Lolita Lempicka. This took close to over two years before it made its way to the US market and I immediately snatched it up when it showed up on parfum1; there first fragrance, Lolita Lempicka, being one of my first loves. This one of those beautiful buy without sniffing scents that actually worked. It also turns out that it one of those fragrances I prefer in eau de parfum form rather than more ambered pure parfum form. In the edp variation you smell variation of notes far more easily and get to enjoy the smoky honeyed immortelle middle notes, where as I find that the pure parfum immediately moves to a more ambered bottom with just a hint of citrus.Another way I am enjoying the cooler is by baking bread, I'm not quite sure why but when I bake bread I feel like I have baked an incredible feat, especially when you use this recipe:
http://kitchenmusings.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/11/no_need_to_knea.html
Also, onto another cooking feat, I finally made good polenta, that did not require more than four stirs, how you ask? With my most amazing of appliances: the rice cooker. I am now becoming a big rice quicker proponent, you can do so much with them. Steam dumplings, vegetables, rice of course, soup, and polenta. These are a god send in hot weather country. If you get yourself one or already have one, I highly recommend you get this cookbook:
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Rice-Cooker-Cookbook-Porridges/dp/1558322035
I ate my polenta last night with my homemade marinara sauce and well it was divine.
More food talk, sometimes you forget that simple ingredients, that when used with proper technique can make the most wonderfully lip-smacking food. Last week I made Mark Bittman's Green Onion Noodles from The World's Best Recipes by Mark Bittman: the recipe required about 6 ingredients fresh chinese egg noodles, green onions, chives, peanut oil, sesame oil, and soy sauce; most of use have these ingredients sitting in our cupboards. What I got was crispy fried noodles with wonderfully sweet bright green onions that tasted caramelized but were not. This was due to technique and not based on having perfect ingredients (these are favorite types of recipe simple with the ingredients but use a technique that really make the food a treat).
image provided by artmagick.com
image: Golden Light by John Atkinson Grimshaw 1893
9 comments:
Jena- we have so much in common! My rice cooker is my best friend! I got it as a wedding present and it turned out to be my favorite one! The noodle recipe sounds yummy- I must try it. One of my favorite cookbooks is Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller- there are a lot of recipes with a few ingredients that "pack a flavorful punch" so to speak
Hi Jenavira,
Good luck with the rising temperature, I hope it's not too ridiculously hot.
You sound like a great cook! I think a love of food and perfume go hand in hand, I suppose smell and taste being so linked. My ability to recognise ingredients etc in cooking has definitely improved as my perfume knowledge has.
L is a great scent and I like that it has a similarity to the original Lempicka but is also different. Like she has a bit of a signature base she developes from. (Am assuming there is a Lolita Lempicka and she makes the fragrances but I don't know!)
Daily, good to hear from another rice cooker lover (sign of a food lover when your favorite wedding present is the rice cooker). I'll have to check out Robin Miller.
Rose- I like to consider myself a pretty decent cook :-P. The great thing about cooking is there are so many ingredients that are used in perfumery, the best fragrance food item I ever made was pain d'epice (can't wait to make it soon). Interesting that you get a similarity between L and LL, I never have, out curiousity what is the note that is similar between them?
Hi Jenavira- yes my enthusiasm for rice cookers stems from the fact that they are highly underrated. I never even knew one could cook polenta in them. I usually use mine for steaming vegetables and of course cooking rice but the best kind are where you can do both at the same time. It just makes cooking so much easier. I have added the rice cooker book you've recommended on Amazon to my wish list. I most recently ordered a book on British cooking... Which I'll probably blog about at some point down the line.
I had no idea you could do polenta in a rice cooker until this cookbook. And it was so yummy. Had the rest of it for lunch with my boyfriend with a bean ragout and watermelon salad. I really can't wait to make more polenta. It was ridiculously easy.
Ah, you are going to love slow cookers and slow roasting in the oven.... :)
I remember when I first used a rice cooker, early in the/our/my marriage. It was actually Spouse who thought to ask for it in our registry; he had a friend whose family ate rice every day, even for breakfast; when asked how they managed to cook all that rice just right, the friend raised an eyebrow and said: "Rice cooker." And pointed out that you would find them in any oriental market. So we did!
The steamer plate does work pretty well.
Am now thinking of woody steamed rice with a hint of vanilla... :)
I get vanilla and musky notes from both L and Lolita De Lempicka.
scentscelf, I have a slow cooker (was quite enamored with it this spring). As for slow roasting in the oven, love doing it, especially Nigella Lawson's Quince recipe.
Rose, I'll have to do a side by side comparison sometime.
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