issuE â„–
the ultimate food platform
JuNE 2018
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editorial To say that the recent passing of Chef, writer, television host, and father Anthony Bourdain has been unsettling, like a seismic activity in popular culture, would be a fair assessment. It has done enough to make me focus the issue, and all the lastminute changes that came with it, a little more on the matter, on the idea of food as simply a thing that gets us to the thing, to people. Working in the food industry – whether you’re a writer, a chef, an entrepreneur, or even the parent of a fussy child – is all a matter of finding out who people are, what they want, and how to get it. Food, among other things, is identity. So whether it’s James Camilleri blind-tasting a menu and pairing it with designers from the OFFF conference in Barcelona, or Alison Cilia Werdmölder sharing basic recipes for kitchen basics such as chocolate chip cookies or scrambled eggs to suit your needs, or Victor Calleja being a modern-day Prometheus and handing down recipes from Le Cordon Bleu Peru to this publication, or Danny Coleiro once again sharing an exquisite and straightforward recipe while regaling tales and memories from his life, or even myself – ever busybody – compulsively writing about exciting, up-and-coming food ventures in the local scene, there is a message there that is salient, true, and pervasive. There is a message there that I hope will be for as long as I work on this publication. The message that food culture is about the ‘who’ more than the ‘what’. It’s June, slowing down the pace as the sun picks up its own pace is a big part of our culture. Taking the time to eat well, with loved ones (even if that loved one is you), is important. After all, we’re a magazine, our whole thing is built on people taking time on their day of rest to read, eat, and maybe even cook it themselves.
Executive editor Jamie Iain Genovese (cibus@timesofmalta.com) Publisher Allied Newspapers Ltd. Printing Progress Press Co. Ltd. Production Allied Newspapers Ltd. Design Krista Bugeja Advertising Sales Marisa Schembri (tel: 2276 4337; marisa.schembri@timesofmalta.com)
THIS PUBLICATION IS BEING DISTRIBUTED AS PART OF:
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole, or in part, is strictly prohibited without written permission. Opinions expressed in Cibus are not necessarily those of the editor-in-chief or publisher. All reasonable care is taken to ensure truth and accuracy, but the editor-in-chief and publisher cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions in articles, advertising, photographs or illustrations. The editor-in-chief is not responsible for material submitted for consideration.
contents 5
5.
Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies Part one of a double featurette is Alison Cilia Werdmölder bringing us a kitchen basic: the how-to on the chocolate chip cookie: an eversatisfying treat that few could refuse.
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Dishfuls of Design In Barcelona for the OFFF design conference, James Camilleri decided to do what he does and do something a little off-beat: blindtaste food and then pair it with designers from said conference.
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Starting Small and Starting Up The Maltese culinary scene has to constantly be pushed to meet the demands of people that want to eat good food. More and more, people want good food, new food, fancy food, messy food, healthy food, food for all occasions. Street food, from small vendors, tends to be the bleeding edge when it comes to our food culture. It would be a terrible oversight to ignore them and miss out on what are two very exciting meal-opportunities.
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Scrambled Eggs Should be Good Part two of said double featurette from Alison Cilia Werdmölder, the importance of good scrambled eggs. There is a high likelihood that you’re not cooking them in the best way, so this should help. There might not be one right way to do it but she’s been kind enough to provide three. The choice is yours.
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Recipes from Victor Calleja Down from Mount Olympus itself, Victor shares recipes from his prior submission to the magazine (What do Greek gods Eat?) straight from Le Cordon Bleu Peru, they’re going to take skill to harness, but the end result will justify the means, and light and fire shall be had for all
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Going Down the Rabbit Hole on Memory Lane Danny Coleiro returns with another recipe, this one fuelled by a trip to the folders that recorded his youth, the ones that coloured his younger years in the UK and then the pages filled in Malta. The recipe is, we’ll give you a little hint, for rabbit.
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RECIPE
CLASSIC
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES WORDS BY
Alison CiliA Werdmรถlder
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RECIPE
he recipe is what i would call a small party serving size, it may not look like much but produces a surprising amount of cookies, if this is for less people you can half the recipe, though if you have leftovers the cookies taste just as good the next day. Also, if you like the taste but prefer your cookies a bit chunkier experiment with a little extra flour to keep them together.
INGREDIENTS 226g salted butter - soft but not melted 280g flour 150g light brown sugar 150g white sugar 1 tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 eggs 2 cups chocolate chips
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Optional: replace a tablespoon or two of the sugars with molasses for a richer caramel flavour, replace roughly half the chocolate chips for chopped up chocolate bars for more variation in the chocolate chip sizes
RECIPE
PREPARATION 1. If you are using chopped up chocolate with your chocolate chips get chopping in advance, and I like to leave the chocolate in the freezer for a while if I have the chance so as to slow their melting process a bit, and therefore leave more large wells of chocolate in the finished cookies. 2. Now for the baking, we start with what we all know but somehow frequently forget: preheat your oven to 180°C. 3. In a small bowl mix the flour with the baking soda and salt and set aside. In a large bowl (this is going to be where the mixture comes together) mix the butter with all the sugar until its creamy and slightly lighter in colour. If you have an electric mixer this takes about 2-3 minutes but if you’re going by bicep I’d recommend starting with a wooden spoon and only hitting it with the whisk once it’s well combined to cream it further. Add in the eggs and vanilla, continuing to beat well. Once well combined start adding in the flour a third at a time, once it’s fully incorporated fold in the chocolate chips, and the mixture is ready. 4. I usually bake two trays of cookies at a time, with six cookies per tray, each made up of roughly a heaped teaspoon of the sticky dough. Be warned, they spread quite a bit so don’t bunch them too close together. The moment of truth comes in the baking, and each oven is it’s own beast so my 8 minutes might be your 12, despite us setting the temperatures the same. Keep a careful watch, the cookies should have a golden colour and the centre should still look uncooked when you pull them out, they need to be laid out to cool for at least five minutes and in that time they’ll firm up and it’s this melted looking centre that gives the chewy texture. TIPS Do you love cookie dough ice cream but find it hard to come by? Make an eggless version of this recipe substituting with a little water or milk to combine it. Lay out a thin roll of the dough in foil or baking paper, and freeze it. Once it’s frozen you can chop it into bite sized chunks and stir it into slightly softened vanilla ice cream, or even just sprinkle it on top.
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EVENT
THURSDAY, 26TH JULY TO SATURDAY, 4TH AUGUST 2018
THE FARSONS BEER FESTIVAL
he Farsons Beer Festival is one of Malta’s hottest summer celebrations. Running over 10 days, this year from Thursday 26th July to Saturday 4th August, this summer outdoor festival brings together the best local music, beer and entertainment at Ta’ Qali National Park. As one of Malta’s most awaited summer annual events, drawing thousands of festival goers every night, the festival will once again feature over 70 local artists and performances, no less than 50 local and international award-winning beers and a food court offering a diverse choice of foods. The vast choice of local and international award-winning beers is the main highlight of the festival with the wide range including local brands Cisk Lager and the full Cisk portfolio, Cisk Excel, Cisk Pilsner, Cisk Chill, Cisk Export and Cisk Strong, and the Farsons Classic Brews range, which includes Blue Label Amber Ale, Double Red Strong Ale, 8
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India Pale Ale and the newly launched Gold Label Pale Ale, celebrating Farsons’ 90 Years of Brewing in Malta. International brands on offer include Carlsberg, Budweiser, Corona and Guinness as well as speciality international beers such as St Austell, Hobgoblin, Baladin, Grimbergen and Kronenbourg 1664. Gluten-free beer Bellfield, as well as zero alcohol versions of Carlsberg and Beck’s will also be available. Spread across three stages, the festival covers as many angles of the local music scene as possible, from pop, rock and indie to ska, punk, metal and reggae, with a dash of jazz and lots of acoustic acts. Entrance to the Farsons Beer Festival is free and no tickets are required. For news and updates please visit: www.farsonsbeerfestival.com or follow us on www.facebook.com/thefarsonsbeerfestival or www.instagram.com/farsonsbeerfestival/
DINE
A TAsTe of sKYBeACH Relax and let the world pass by with stunning island views, the Mediterranean sea and a rooftop infinity pool as company. The accompanying bar and restaurant provides definitive refined sophistication with colourful upscale poolside snacks, served during the day and delicious grill dishes, served as the sun sets. seasonal, weekly and daily memberships are available. for more information please visit www.skybeach.com.mt
GREAT FOOD AND MERRY MAKING AT TA’ MARIJA! Celebrating more than five decades of excellence, Ta’ Marija restaurant offers the ideal venue for colleagues, friends and family to celebrate any occasion with sumptuous food in welcoming surroundings, complemented by our exceptional service and merry-making. enjoy our all-inclusive carvery buffets on saturday evenings and sunday lunches for just €27.50 per person, or indulge in a Maltese extravaganza every Wednesday and friday evening with a spectacular traditional folk dancing show and our mandolin and guitar due! Plus we have great surprises in store this summer including an all new Degustation menu. Ta Marija Restaurant. t: 21 43 4444, e: info@tamarija.com.mt, www.tamarija.com.mt
IN MEMORY
A week has come and gone, and by now social media, blogs, and papers are saturated with goodbyes to the beloved and celebrated Anthony Bourdain. ‘Tony’, as his friends called him, and he had many.
A
bolt from the blue, published in The New Yorker back in 1999, Bourdain openly did what Orwell had done before him: blow a lid on the world of chefs and fine dining. A man that worked his way up the social hierarchy of the kitchen and let his words and compulsion to tell the truth in a very unabashed way, without any care for his own image, earned him the admiration and respect of many. ‘Rock star’, they called him. It might have meant a rebellious streak and not much else at the time, but eventually his yearning for authenticity, for using food on a dinner table as a way to reach other people much like words do, is what made him a real rock star and launched him into a whole other world – one with travel shows dedicated to the simple questions of who we are, and what we like to eat. To say he had an immeasurable impact on the culinary world would still, somehow, be an understatement. After all, he still managed to influence the team behind a small magazine in small Malta. Building something with the people around you, wherever you are, should always be more important than any stars, any ratings, any amount of likes or favour in society. We must make pains to kill the snark, and be kind, and very, very thankful.
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IN MEMORY
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RECIPE
DISHFULS OF DESIGN WORDS BY
james camilleri PHOTOS BY sacha cutajar
h
ot on the heels of this artistic extravaganza, i felt like a bit of adventure – in my own little way – so i asked my companions, sacha and Kristine,* to pick the food i’d have to eat and write about. to further add to the sense of mystery, i would taste them all blindfolded, giving what could have been a perfectly ordinary lunch a fifty-shades of tapas vibe and utterly confounding the waiters. For each of the foods we tried, i’ve described my initial impressions of the flavour, punctuated by the occasional gross incompetence of my taste buds. Who’d have guessed it’s easier to tell what you’re putting into your mouth when your eyes are open? in addition, i’ve paired each dish with one of the designers we encountered during the conference to jazz life up a little. if you’re not into design, feel free to skip those bits, and if you’re not into food... well i hate to be the one to tell you this but you’ve picked up the wrong magazine 14 CIBUS | jUne 2018
RECIPE
THE DISH
WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? This one has the texture of a potato. It’s kinda squashy. I’m quite convinced it’s potato. I’m also having great difficulty getting it onto my fork, seeing that I’m blindfolded and all. (There may be a pun hidden somewhere in that sentence, but I abhor puns, so I shan’t investigate.) Wait, this next bit isn’t potato, it’s sausage. Or ham. Definitely meaty, so unless they’ve figured out how to grow meaty vegetables it’s somewhere in the ham sector of foodstuffs. Cold and rather unimpressive sausage, in some slimy sauce. Mayonnaise?
WHAT DID HE SAY? Sagmeister took to the stage to discuss his recent foray into film – a documentary called “The Happy Film”. Throughout the course of this project, he attempted to discover the effects meditation, therapy, and (legal) drugs would have on his overall happiness. This twelve-month experiment quickly ballooned into a seven-year emotional roller-coaster during which both his mother and the film’s director died, and Sagmeister himself fell in love and had his heart broken numerous times. Any sort of scientific rigour became quite impossible, and the project turned into an introspective on the artist and how events can rapidly shift people’s emotional states, often to unbelievable degrees. The happiest periods of the whole affair? When he was in love. The blackest, when he was picking up the pieces. A very engaging piece of cinematography, but not a particularly happy one. To end on a slightly cheerier note, Sagmeister noted that singing in groups is known to make people happy, so the entire auditorium joined him and bellowed to a little ditty he wrote about awful clients. A perfect way to wrap up the conference. WHY IS STEFAN SAGMEISTER LIKE GERMAN SALAD? Well, he’s Austrian for a start, which I suppose is close enough. More specifically though, his talk was somewhat predictable (we’d watched the film) but rather pleasant nonetheless. With the odd philosophical caper bobbing about.
WHAT IS IT? German salad, although salad’s a bit of a stretch. Potato, sausage, and copious amounts of mayo. Obviously, German salad has sausage in it. Also capers, which don’t seem particularly German to me, and a side of what was essentially ħobz biż-żejt. It seems like the Spaniards couldn’t bear to serve something so unadulteratedly German. (I’m with them on this. There’s only so much sausage one can eat.) Then again, a German wouldn’t dare call the pinkish thing on the plate a sausage. All in all, it worked pretty well despite the little inconsistencies, and the flavours mingled together nicely. THE DESIGNER: STEFAN SAGMEISTER WHO IS HE? A legendary design superstar based in New York, responsible for decades of excellent graphic design and typography. Renowned for having a year-long sabbatical and shutting his studio down every seven years, being a little bit peculiar, and sending pictures of himself and his associates naked to clients for big announcements. (Seriously.)
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RECIPE THE DESIGNER(S): GAVIN STRANGE & JAMES WHITE WHO ARE THEY? A bouncy, explosive spinning-top of a man from Bristol and a tall suave gent from Nova Scotia, Canada. The former is a director at Aardman Studios – the creators of Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, and Chicken Run, as well as a keen dabbler in design passionprojects. The latter is an illustrator and designer who specialises in the funkiest eighties-aesthetic graphic art I’ve ever seen.
THE DISH WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? Ooh, it’s warm. And fishy. Fish and tomato, or perhaps octopus and tomato? It tastes sweet. Sweet and rather mellow. Fish is definitely involved, and some sort of tomato-based sauce. Or maybe cream? I’m not sure if this whole blindfolded business improves or detracts from the dining experience. I think I like seeing what I’m eating. That, and I almost flipped my entire plate onto my lap. WHAT IS IT? This was an interesting one. You see, my comrades ordered “escalivada”. Or at least they thought they did. While it was very quaint of the restaurant owners to translate escalivada by wrapping it in inverted commas, it meant that nobody on the table was quite sure what had been ordered. It was only later that we realised something was wrong. It turns out that escalivada is a mixture of grilled vegetables – eggplant, peppers, a bit of garlic... What we’d call *kapunata* here. The thing in front of me was definitely fish, and I’m positive that eggplant hasn’t been recategorised as seafood recently. I never expected to be more confused when the blindfold came off. We surmised that this dish was in fact cod with aioli and honey. That explained the creaminess, and why the tomato sauce was so sweet – the whole thing was chock-full of honey. Despite the initial confusion, this dish was easily the best of the selection. The cod, honey, and tomato sauce worked wonders together, and the aioli (a garlic and egg dip, for those of you, like myself, who hadn’t heard of it) made it truly special. Quite ingenious. 16
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WHAT DID THEY SAY? This pair were a real riot. The talk was inexplicably called Hustlemania and was themed around the decade of their youth – the exuberant eighties – and their shared love for cheesy wrestling. Strange would bounce around the stage talking at a thousand miles an hour whilst showcasing his quirky individual animation and illustration projects, accented by some of the work he gets to do at Aardman Studio. Once he completely ran out of breath, White would take over and share his epic eighties-themed illustrations and logos. I never imagined neon colours could look so incredible. The session was almost a performance, with a couple of cameos by some other design superstars at the conference and near-limitless enthusiasm. Something to take away? As Strange so eloquently put it “One day, our sun will die. It’s beautiful death throes will engulf Earth, incinerating everything.” So, get out there and make stuff because why the hell not.
WHY ARE GAVIN STRANGE & JAMES WHITE LIKE COD WITH HONEY AND AIOLI? The separate ingredients are acceptable enough, but if you combine them in just the right way you get an explosive package spins your head right off your shoulders. In a good way. So much wtf, but so brilliant.
RECIPE output. “Inspiration without action is bullshit”, and “Feck Perfuction”. (See what he did there?) Marching from end to end of the stage with vigour and yelling out aphorisms with a theatrical American lilt in his voice, Victore really knew how to entertain an audience. Bizarrely, he also made a case for group singing. (This was the fifth or sixth design-related conference I’d attended, and none of the others ever involved singing, for better or worse.) He proclaimed that if you want to get out there and seize the day and do great work but you’re too embarrassed or afraid to sing your heart out with a bunch of people you’ll probably never see again... there’s a stick up your arse that needs removal, asap. The “Just Do It” vibe was strong with this one.
THE DISH WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? Slimy. A bit rubbery. A lot like fish. Also, tomato. This seems to be a running theme. It’s briny and has little seedy bits in it. An elusive Spanish fish-etable? I can’t calculate where my nose is in relation to my fork to get a whiff of it. I’m really confused about this one. It’s like someone dropped an aubergine in salty water, or a salmon and a tomato had a baby.
WHY IS JAMES VICTORE LIKE COD SALAD? We weren’t really expecting either of them, and they were both rather different to the things that came before and after them. In the case of Victore, a welcome and invigorating touch. With the cod salad though, not so much.
WHAT IS IT? It was actually fish and tomato. At no point in this exercise did I entertain the idea that the dish might be composed of more than one principal ingredient, so naturally fish-mato was the only possible conclusion. In my defence, I actually did better than my mates with this one, and they could see the food. Under the impression that the previous dish was escalivada (so wrong), they came to the conclusion that *this* dish was the cod with honey and aioli. There wasn’t a lick of honey in it, as we discovered much later, which left us confounded as to why we could only taste an underwhelming and weak fishiness. It turned out that this was a dish we didn’t order. With good reason. It was cod salad, a puzzling concept at the very least. The execution was equally perplexing – cold cod covered in pulped tomato. Somewhat bland. The previous dish greatly improved cod. This, alas, ruined it. THE DESIGNER: JAMES VICTORE WHO IS HE? An outspoken and somewhat irreverent American designer who also teaches creativity and personal growth. A sort of guru who’s made it his life goal to help people reach their full creative potential. WHAT DID HE SAY? This man pulls no punches. Besides showing some of the interesting design commissions he’s worked on, such as a masterful redesign of the New York Probation Department, his talk was full of advice on how to be more effective at producing creative
WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? It’s cheese! Indubitably cheese, my faculties haven’t deserted me completely yet. A sort of cross between a cheddar and a sharp Parmesan. I have nothing else to say about this, besides that it’s very hard to get onto a fork when you can’t see for toffee. I almost lost half a slice of it trying. WHAT IS IT? It was cheese. (Internal sigh of relief.) Dry Manchego, to be precise – a cheese made in La Mancha from the milk of the manchega sheep. It’s an aged cheese, which explains the hint of Parmesan I got. Looks a bit like Parmesan too. I’m not sure if you can get any of this stuff in Malta, but if you stumble across any I highly encourage a nibble.
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RECIPE art and design in her signature style. We weren’t disappointed, and even occasionally surprised by a sharp-tasting twist on the norm.
THE DISH THE DESIGNER: MALIKA FAVRE WHO IS SHE? A French designer with an unmistakable style – described as Pop art meets OpArt – whose work has graced the covers of The New Yorker and Vogue, among countless others. It’s highly likely you’ve encountered her work somewhere before. WHAT DID SHE SAY? Favre was always into illustration and started off her talk with an origin story – countless doodles and pencil drawings, including a particularly intriguing one she drew of a stripper when she was thirteen years old. Not the most normal thing for a young teenager to be sketching, she agreed, but it was a clear first step towards the striking female forms she creates for her artwork. She showed us piles of her beautiful illustrations, including a New Yorker cover designed for Hillary Clinton’s election into office (nobody saw Trump coming) and a kama-sutra alphabet for a Penguin edition of the tome (tasteful but sexy). There was even a beautiful magazine cover that sparked a viral feminist movement – four female surgeons peering over an operating table. The cover was quickly recreated by thousands of professionals in the field, bringing to light the achievements of women in the cut-throat medical world. An insightful reminder of how art can resonate with its audience, even without it being the artist’s intention. Favre also talked about the dangers of creative burnout, and how at a point she realised she was repeating herself and being dull. Upon realising this she quickly sent all but one of her clients packing and invested more time and energy into the things she wanted to do – editorial design and seeing the world. I can get on board with that. WHY IS MALIKA FAVRE LIKE DRY MANCHEGO? Order cheese, you expect it to taste like cheese. Sign up for Malika Favre, and you get exactly what you expect – lots of breath-taking 18
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WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? Amazing. It’s fried. Kind of bready, but not quite bread. It’s a little bit eggy too. It reminds me of... You know that sponge you use to wash the plates with? What that would taste like in a completely utopian universe. Does that analogy make sense? Of course not, but I was blindfolded and chugging beer when I first came up with it so it doesn’t have to. WHAT IS IT? Deep-fried fish in batter. Well fish and squid and octopus, but I started off with the fish. Interestingly enough, the fish wasn’t an overpowering factor here. The anchovies (at least we think they were anchovies) lacked the kick I’m used to. The tentacled titbits packed a little more flavour, but overall the dish was quite perfect. THE DESIGNER: JESSICA HISCHE WHO IS SHE? World-famous letterer (she draws letters and words), illustrator, and bubbly American. Has a portfolio a mile wide and is just brilliant. She’s designed titles for Wes Anderson, a whole series of book covers for Penguin, and some lovely typographic logos, among other things. I adore her work and am definitely biased. Sue me. WHAT DID SHE SAY? Another designer who speaks at a million miles an hour, Jessica’s talk was absolutely non-stop. Despite the verbal diarrhoea, she got
RECIPE her points across perfectly and was entertaining to boot. I was really excited for this one (stop judging me guys, she really is very good) and wasn’t disappointed. She started by explaining how she likes to use horoscopes and personality tests and all this mumbojumbo to keep questioning herself as a person. Not because your horoscope prediction is totally going to come true and change your life, but because things like that make the sort of vague suggestive statements that get you thinking about you. For instance, if your horoscope predicts you’re going to get into trouble next Tuesday because of how lazy you are, you inadvertently start asking the prickly questions. “Am I a lazy? Am I wallowing away in sloth and idleness? Should I put down this third tub of ice-cream and do something productive with my life?” If the answer is no, you can pat yourself on the back for being on the right track. If you have to think hard about it, maybe it’s a bit of a wake-up call to put down the gelato. I’m generally of the opinion that horoscopes are pretty much hogwash-scopes, but this put quite an interesting spin on them. She also talked us through her latest career path – refining existing logos that need a bit of tweaking to make them perfect. Only someone completely in love with letters could have the eye to stare at them for hours a day, polishing and tweaking every curve until they were just right. (Also, sometimes your logo accidentally looks a bit like the word “penis”, and you need a professional to point that out to you. True story.) HOW IS JESSICA HISCHE LIKE FRIED SEAFOOD? Exactly what you ordered, but somehow better. You can’t beat some nicely fried fish and a cold pint – assuming you like fish that is – and if you like letters and type, you can’t really beat an hour with someone who turned lettering from a quirky hobby into a global phenomenon.
THE DISH
WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? Is it bread? Dipped in something? Some sort of soggy pastry? There’s hints of... is that cheese? It’s a bit rubbery. Maybe mozzarella? I’m clueless. I really have no idea what on earth this could possibly be. Crispy at the bottom. Slimy at the top. More fish? I think I’ve destroyed my taste buds, everything tastes of fish now. This is ludicrous. I’m not even sure I’m eating food any more. WHAT IS IT? Sirloin with foie gras, it turns out. This is very embarrassing. I love beef, I can’t believe I couldn’t figure out what I was chewing. I suppose the foie gras must have thrown me off somewhat. On the plus side, I could enjoy the taste far more without worrying about what I’m eating. The combination was delectable, but I’m a bit uneasy about foie gras as a general concept. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes amazing, but I’m not willing to put another animal through that much suffering to satisfy a little craving. There is a line, even for me, and honestly, I’d eat just about anything. Moral quandaries aside, the mix was extremely interesting, and would undoubtedly have tasted even better had it not turned stone cold by the time I navigated the other five plates eyeball-free. A fantastic invention with an unfortunate backstory. THE DESIGNERS: 1ST AVENUE MACHINE
THE DISH
WHO ARE THEY? An international production company, based in New York but with offices around the world, creating explosive video and digital content for the big boys.
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RECIPE
WHAT DID THEY SAY? This was just insane. These guys have a motto. “Make it hard.” It’s nothing lewd, don’t worry. All the guys (and gals) in this collective believe in making things difficult for themselves, to help stimulate more creative solutions – and probably for the hell of it too. Complicated music video? Shoot it all in one take. (The Writing’s on the Wall, by OK GO.) Rube Goldberg machines becoming a cliché? Make the slowest one ever. Six weeks, to be precise. Normal video not doing it for you? Make an animation out of individual atoms with a giant electron microscope for IBM. The insanity is off the charts. In order to prove their point, they even made their talk unnecessarily complicated through a series of increasingly bizarre challenges aimed at the audience and themselves. One of the speakers played his first solo trumpet concert in front of the entire auditorium. Audience members were popping balloons and passing around oranges and causing general mayhem as another speaker tried to power through three of their projects before the tasks were complete. At one point, they locked their laptop and swore that the talk would just end there unless someone got on stage and helped the audience members guess the password through a little game of “butt charades”. You had to be there. No words can truly describe the maddening brilliance these people exude, but a glimpse of their work might let you in on a bit of it. 20
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WHY ARE 1ST AVENUE MACHINE LIKE SIRLOIN WITH FOIE GRAS? At first glance, the whole thing doesn’t make a lick of sense, but once you dip your toes in you’re just smothered in awesome. So, there you go. A little nibble of Catalan cuisine with a side of prettily-packaged inspiration. There were far more than six talks at the conference of course, but I’m already making the Editor’s life difficult as it is. There was also dessert, which is too important to leave out. Crema Catalana was the obvious choice – a Spanish cousin to the slightly better-known French crème brûlée. Quite similar in make-up, although it’s based on milk instead of creme and baked instead of cooked in a bain-marie. I’m running out of adjectives to describe food at this point in the proceedings, but it was very tasty. And, in an exhilarating turn of events, didn’t even remotely taste of fish. A perfect ending to a highly entertaining meal, and a real banger of a weekend. Barcelona, a city that never sleeps (but wakes up at noon), where culture and good food literally spill out on to the streets. Pop over for a first-class course in loving life. You won’t regret it. *Their names are actually Sacha and Kristine, and this footnote is the epitome of pointlessness. I’m sorry. I’m easily amused.*
SHOP
Pascual Yogikids Yogurt Banana With straWBerrY Flavour
GENIUS FOODS. a tastY gluten Free Bread genius Foods was born out of lucinda’s urgent requirement to provide tasty gluten-free bread for her son, whom had been diagnosed as gluten intolerant. after failing to find an alternative to the brick like, vacuum packed offerings on supermarket shelves, lucinda realised that she had to create something herself. necessity really was the mother of creation. genius has a range of gluten Free sliced Bread, Bread rolls, Pitta Bread, Pastry & muffins. look out for them in the gluten Free Freezer section of leading supermarkets and health shops.
kids need a variety of nutritious foods and regular exercise to stay healthy. however, staying healthy is also essential for your child’s happiness. From a young age, talk about how nutritious foods will make them grow big and strong, and also provide the fuel and energy they need to learn and play. Yogikids is designed for children from one year of age, and that is why special care has been taken in developing a nutritious product. Pascual Yogikids Yoghurt Banana With strawberry Flavour is a delicious health snack for your growing child, a good source of calcium which promotes the growth and development of bones and teeth. it is also high in vitamin a & d which helps strengthens the immune system. Pascual Products are delicious and nutritious! they may be either chilled or stored at room temperature, and can be taken anywhere which makes them an ideal solution for snacks and lunch breaks! in addition, they are made with Pascual milk and real fruits. Pack Pascual Products in your kids’ lunch box to make sure they have a healthy, happy, meal!
EVERYDAY TEA
sammontana, Your italian summer. spend a wonderful day together with sammontana at splash & Fun malta! on saturday 23rd and sunday 24th June, splash and Fun malta is hosting a sammontana event of carefree hours, with beach games and with the magic of meeting together once again! imagine an atmosphere, a mood of carefree, typical of the summer days, involving all the swimmers and inviting them to enter the world of the real sammontana summer. a day of pure fun! While a visit to splash and Fun promises to be a great day out whether you’re feeling wild and adventurous or laid back and relaxed, sammontana brings a smile in the life of all the people around the world giving them good and fulfilling products because they are made with passion and attention, typically italian and with all the respect of their origin. Join us with friends and family for a series of games that mark the hours spent at splash & Fun, exciting and fun games to spend a wonderful day together with sammontana. Follow us on our Facebook page for more information; www.facebook.com/sammontanamalta/ The winner of last issue’s Mediterraneo Marine Park Malta with Sammontana is Ramona Portelli from Mosta. The correct answer was Amando.
clipper believe that their everyday tea is the best tasting tea you can buy and are proud to be the winners of many taste awards. sourced from the finest tea estates across east africa and india, their delicious Fairtrade and organic everyday teas are big, bright, and bold, and deliver a delicious cup you’ll want to come back to again and again. unbleached bags: What You need to know if you’ve never heard of unbleached bags then you’re not alone! many tea-drinkers are unaware that the standard tea bag is put through the process of bleaching to achieve its pearly-white exterior. But if you drink clipper teas, you’ll notice that their bags are a slightly different colour to the rest. that’s because their bags are unbleached. so, what’s the difference between bleached and unbleached bags? When tea bags went into mass production, paper became the main choice of material to make them. tea bags today are made from paper, which is a blend of wood and vegetable fibres. over the years, many companies have experimented with different tea bag designs to make their bags more appealing. during this time the process of ‘bleaching’ was introduced as many companies felt that consumers would find white tea bags more visually appealing than their natural colour. Because of its popularity this process was adopted by many companies and many of them continue to make their tea bags using bleached paper today. so, what difference does that make to you if you’re brewing a cup of your favourite blend? Well, tea bags that go through the bleaching process contain a mixture of chemicals whereas unbleached bags don’t undergo this unnecessary process. that means if you’re sipping a cup of tea made from an unbleached bag, you know that you’re not only drinking something that tastes good, but something that’s just a little bit less interfered with!
CIBUS | jUNE 2018
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DINE
RADISSON BLU RESORT ST. JULIAN’S
ON THE EDGE WORDS AND PHOTOS BY
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jamie iain genovese
DINE
n
o wonder, then, that Culinary Director of the Radisson Blu Resort st. julian’s, Ramon muscat, wanted to talk a little bit about The Edge. The restaurant and dining area sit at the edge of both the hotel and the sea, with a wide and blue view sheltered from the scorching sunlight that bleaches the island days for most of the year.
The Edge caters for lunches while focusing on dinners, which begs the question: what sets it apart? Ramon wanted to make something clear: that this is not a venue that is focused on fine dining – just fresh, local, and seasonal food inspired by the summer and cooked with fire. after all, their newly-refurbished stone and wood ovens are the heart of The Edge. These ovens, fuelled by argentinian lava rock and carefully selected wood, will be where the fresh meat, fish, and hand-made pizzas will be cooked to perfection. The menu is also set to be summerinspired, but what would a summer-inspired menu taste like? Think zesty fruits, blends of the bitter and savoury with the sweet and life-affirming freshness of fruity flesh and sugary jams. The blend of beef charred by the breath of argentinian lava and the gash of brightlycoloured lemon-orange glaze, pizzas baked in a wood-burning oven, the sea bringing frigates of cool summer breezes below the awnings that sit on the edge of the Radisson, at The Edge. as one could imagine, the restaurant is offering a menu built on local produce,
and thus relatively stable. it will be offering lido packages for those that want to lounge before they eat. it promises to be a fun thing to do for corporate and social events alike. it would even promise free parking for those dining in. and, of course, you are invited to attend all summer long. establishments like this tend to be hidden away from the maltese because you don’t walk by and walk in. it’s the price you pay
for being in a hotel that’s by the sea, but there’s no good reason to not know about it in this day and age. Knowing is half the battle, but actually going might be just as important. and so, i suspect, it would be best to book in advance, and i advise you keep that booking small so that you can focus on the food more so than the small-talk you would want to avoid in an otherwise lovely dining experience.
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LOCAL
STARTING SMALL AND STARTING UP WORDS BY
jamie iain genovese
he maltese food landscape is forever changing, and nowadays faster than ever. Cultural imports are at an all-time high, and with it so is the variety of food. There was a time when the english breakfast was wholly foreign to us. There was a time when the only way to have pancakes was to make pancakes. Chinese food, even the american variety, was once special or rare if it was anything at all. Thai food? Chicken or rabbit thighs, but no Pad Thai, no green or yellow curry. indian food was once only from a packet at a supermarket, if that. Cheeses like smoked applewood or soignon goat’s cheese was nowhere to be found, neither where whiskeys like speyside’s spey Tenné or rum like Don Papa, or gins like Bathtub gin. We’ve come a long way, is what i’m saying, and the public’s imagination is constantly demanding the new and the interesting and demanding that it will be good. so many niches are rocks that currently remain unturned, which makes newcomers – competing for the attention of the consumer and the praise of the critic - all the more promising, exciting even. 24
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Which is why street food from trucks or pop-up stalls can be so exciting. it’s such a good launchpad for new food cultures, such a good way to gauge your food and your service and subject them to the eyes and taste buds of the ever-wanting patrons and matrons on the island. Which is why i can, with great enthusiasm, write about two recent entrants to the scene: Banh Mi, a food truck that looks to serve authentic vietnamese food at street-food prices; and The Bagel Booth, a charming pop-up that’s made a splash at both the Encounter festival and the Earth Garden festival. Both Banh Mi and The Bagel Booth took advantage of a skillset they have and a gap in the market to deliver the new, the interesting and the (spoiler) good. need i say more? Probably not, but i will anyway.
LOCAL
BANH MI The name is a nod to the core concept that ngoc Tran (or emily), a web designer, and jeremy Borg, ex-cook at Jalie’s, had dreamt up. it’s very much a vietnamese fusion stall much like how banh mi itself is the product of French and Chinese cuisines being mixed together – banh mi are single-serving savoury baguettes often filled with items like chả lụa, coriander, mayonnaise, and pâté. They just launched in the beginning of june, are currently found in Ta Xbiex on the weekdays, and have already served dozens and dozens of dishes of banh bao (taco-like dumplings), spring rolls, summer rolls, pho (!) and, of
course, their eponymous banh mi; all out of their green solar van, green in both colour and in terms of environmental sustainability. according to emily’s mother, and with it their lunarcalendar based traditions, the girl born on a full moon and the boy born on the first of the month are known to be children of god. or, well, that’s the gist of it. Regardless of any lunar-based blessings, their banh bao are fluffy enough, their banh mi fresh enough, their dishes on the whole flavourful and soothing enough to make sure that they will please a great many customer on this island. There isn’t a lot of competition for vietnamese food, yet, but they have made a more-than-promising entry.
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LOCAL
THE BAGEL BOOTH Fresh bagels are pretty much synonymous in film and television culture with new York street food or La Café society, a to-go breakfast you get on your way to work that’s filled with what you like and how you like it. They haven’t had much of a presence on the island, a few tried but the bagels were always a bit bland or in no way a real alternative to other bread worth the cost. now, i think, we finally have a real contender here for a good bagel. Trying them out for the first time myself at the Earth Garden festival, i was pleased to find out that they were as good as they looked on social media. Trying a few of their options (The Barry, The Seaman, and the Hey Charlie!) i can assure you one thing, the most important thing, the bagels are the perfect balance of inner softness and outer crispness, fresh, and made by someone that knows what they’re doing and loves doing it. it’s a scary thing, launching anything in food – let alone an untested and niche product. it might almost be enough to commend an attempt, but their efforts are more than an attempt and an exercise in good work. an exercise taken by jeremy said, josef Cassar, and William moran, an exercise supported by those around them. The trio all share a love for cooking, and you must possess at least a crumb of love for food and making food if you’re to ever stick to the service industry: but why the bagel?
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as explained by William, “[t]he idea of the bagel as being something fun, quick and easily adjustable to people’s taste is something which appealed to us immediately.” This is true for most things involving bread: pizza, burgers, ftajjar, and of course the proverbial sliced bread. The Bagel Booth has taken to delivering quality and varied ingredients in their menu selection. But there is a less-obvious benefit to the bagel: it’s unlikely status as a power candidate to rival the pastizz as an easy to-go breakfast item. it’s quick to get and eat, manageable in size and calories, flexible in flavour, and definitely a healthier breakfast than a pastizz, which is an actual breakfast food to many in malta.
LOCAL
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RECIPE
SCRAMBLED EGGS SHOULD BE GOOD WORDS BY
Alison CiliA Werdmölder
used to find it odd that i love eggs any way they’re cooked but one, but it turns out i was wrong. The truth is this: almost everyone overcooks scrambled eggs. You know that slightly rubbery texture they always seem to have (most notably at breakfast buffets)? That shouldn’t be there. You know that little pool of water they somehow always seem to leave on your plate, turning your toast soggy? That definitely shouldn’t be there. These are all little neon signs being sent to you by your eggs telling you ‘we’re overcooked!’. so, we’re going back to basics and i’m going to go through 3 varieties of scrambled eggs for different tastes and situations. The ingredients are simply eggs, butter, optional cheese and seasoning to taste, quantities are for the most part variable and unstrict. What i do ask of you is to try use free range eggs or organic eggs, or at least barn eggs, and avoid cage eggs as much as possible. (look for the code printed on the egg starting 1mT or 0mT for the first two, 2mT for barn and avoid those starting 3mT for cage).
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RECIPE
THE AMERICAN Oddly enough considering the name, I find these my favourite when having scrambled eggs with English Breakfast. They’re chunkier so easier to eat with a fork and won’t spread out on the plate.
METHOD
Melt enough butter into a frying pan to be sure the eggs won’t stick. If you’d like your eggs perfectly mixed whisk in a bowl but I enjoy a slightly marbled colour to them so crack them straight into the warm pan and quickly give them a stir with a spatula to create the slightly marbled effect. Keep them on a medium- high heat and watch carefully. As the edges cook and stiffen push them into the centre, allowing uncooked egg to run to replace them. Repeat this until the eggs are still fairly wet but no lumps of raw egg white can be seen. Their own heat and the residual heat of the pan will keep cooking them, plus a good scrambled egg should always look wet. Take off the heat and add a generous dollop of cold butter and stir it round to cool the eggs slightly and slow the cooking process and serve straight away.
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RECIPE
THE FRENCH
METHOD
This is the other extreme of egg. While the American is perfect for a fork, and requires minimal intervention, the French is better designed for a spoon. Amazing as a simple meal on some crusty toasted bread, this really just feels like a celebration of eggs.
So as to be completely nonaggressive to the eggs we will be using a banju marija, meaning a pot of water with a heat ‘proof’ bowl sitting above it to be warmed by the steam. Crack the eggs into the bowl before the water has heated and attack them with a wire whisk until very well combined. As the bowl begins to warm up keep whisking softly, this method takes the longest since you’re slow cooking them, so give your arm a break every now and then, just make sure no egg solids are forming on the base and sides of the bowl. Eventually small curds will begin to form, and once you’ve reached a cottage cheese/porridge-like texture remove the bowl from the banju marija and use a spatula to stir in a generous knob of cold butter and serve directly onto your toast. Don’t worry about the fact that it isn’t solid, the use of the slow heat and the whisk have allowed the egg to cook without giving it a chance to form the bonds needed to develop the usual stiff texture. I like to top my toast with some freshly ground pepper, chopped chives and a sprinkle of any hard cheese. For instance, Grana Padano.
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RECIPE
METHOD
THE IN-BETWEENER Do you like the ease of the American but are drawn to the luxury of the French? Me too. So, we’re going to go halfway across the Atlantic and stop at island of In Between. These are perfect no matter what you serve them with, the perfect breakfast to impress you can whip up while your mother/sister/lover/friend is having their morning shower. My recipe involves a good amount of cheese because I’m just that kind of person, but you could also go without.
Pro-tip: You can add spices and herbs into the eggs before cooking, but always try to salt eggs towards the end of the cooking process if not on the plate, as the salt tends to draw out moisture and encourage the rubbery egg, watery puddle result.
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The best pan for these is somewhat smaller than one you’d use for the American style eggs, the more spread out the eggs are on the pan the quicker they’ll cook and the more difficult it will be to avoid overcooking. I usually use a smaller frying pan with high sides, or a non-stick saucepan with a medium sized base, depending on how many people I’m cooking for in a go. Grate about a handful of cheese per person, I am happiest using smoked applewood cheddar or Old Amsterdam cheese - but those are just my personal favourites. Add the eggs and a generous amount of butter to the pan on medium heat, give them a good mix with a spatula, combining them well whilst also incorporating the butter. As they cook keep stirring with the spatula, don’t let the eggs rest and form large cooked sections as we did earlier. I find it extremely helpful to completely remove the pan from the heat regularly, giving a good stir each time and allowing the eggs to cook in their own heat for a bit. The eggs should have medium sized curds but still be quite wet as with the French style eggs when you switch off and stir in the cheese, and another generous amount of cool butter to melt into them and stop the cooking process. Serve as quickly as possible.
RECIPE
Spaghetti with chicken and peSto alla genoveSe and BoRgeS eXtRa viRgin olive oil ingRedientS
pRepaRation
500 g spaghetti 2 chicken breasts 1 jar of pesto alla genovese sauce A handful of cherry tomatoes Borges extra virgin olive oil
1. Cut the chicken breasts into cubes and sauté over a low heat in a large frying pan with a little olive oil and salt for about 5 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Remove and put by. 2. Boil the spaghetti in plenty of salted water for 8 minutes. In the meantime, warm up the pesto sauce in the same frying pan you used for the chicken. When the pasta is ready, add the chicken back to the frying pan, followed by the strained pasta, adding a little of the water from the pasta as well. 3. Mix together and serve with halved cherry tomatoes.
Starter Easy Serves 4 30 minutes
tipS If you like contrasts, finish off this spaghetti recipe with some grated cooking apple for a really original touch.
RECIPE
Victor calleja, who wrote the wonderful “What Do the Greek gods Eat?” piece for our May issue, was diligent, kind, and resourceful enough to source recipes from Le Cordon Bleu Peru which we can share here. They’re absolutely wonderful, and definitely something to attempt with energy and a little courage, but the results would speak for themselves. We at Cibus here do hope you enjoy them - and let us know if you would like to read more of these recipes. The Editor
COLD QUINOA SALAD A quinoa salad dish with avocado, physalis (otherwise known as cape gooseberry, or ‘Cossack Pineapple) jam and served in the Chalaca style, coming from the ports of the city of Callao which is found a few kilometres west of Lima, Peru.
INGREDIENTS THE SALAD 160g white quinoa, cooked 80g black quinoa, cooked 80g red quinoa, cooked 40g red onion brunoise (diced) 20g rocoto chili, also brunoise 10g coriander, chopped 5g mint, chiffonade 20g tomato 1 Hass avocado, ripe (dark and bumpy skin) THE VINAIGRETTE 30ml lime juice 20ml olive oil 20g yellow chilli paste Salt, Pepper
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PREPARATION THE JAM 250g physalis 100ml orange juice 150g sugar SIDES – CRIOLLA 20g red onion, brunoise 20g tomato, brunoise 20ml lime juice Salt, pepper DECORATIONS Coriander sprouts Flowers
1. To make the physalis jam, which will absolutely breathe a wonderful sense of life and freshness into the dish, cook the physalis in orange juice while stirring, then stir in the sugar. Reduce this until the texture is nice and supple, not too thin nor thick. 2. Then, you want to make the criolla, you mix all the ingredients for the criolla listed above and essentially do the same for the vinaigrette. Easy. Mix the cooked quinoa in a bowl, then simply add that lovely vinaigrette and all the other ingredients except for the avocado. Season to taste. 3. Cut that avocado up and press it into a ring – just with your hands, nothing fancy. It’s going to be the bed which the salad will rest on when it will be served. Speaking of serving, serve with the jam and criolla on the sides, and do decorate the salad with the coriander sprouts.
RECIPE
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RECIPE
LE CORDON BLEU MEXICO GloSSarY Pipián Sauce: This is an exquisite dish from Puebla, southeast of Mexico City. This sauce is called pipián because the main ingredient are pumpkin seeds known as “pepitas”. Pumpkin seeds: They are called pepitas in Mexico, used in salads, in sauces and also served as a salty snack. Guajillo chili: Is a red dried chili pepper, is considered mild and it’s the most used in Mexican cuisine. ancho chili: Is a dried chili pepper, it has a red deep colour and wrinkled skin, its flavour is like raisins and is considered mild. Veal Nut: This is a boneless cut from the leg. 36
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RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION
1 kilo of Veal nut Salt and pepper Vegetable oil
1. Pipián sauce: Clean the ancho and guajillo chillies, removing the stem and the seeds, then cut into small pieces using scissors. Cut the onion in mirepoix (a medium dice), cut the garlic in half remove centre germ and the tomatoes in quarters. In a frying pan, toast the peanuts, then the pumpkin seeds, and finally the sesame seeds (separately). Heat a saucepan with vegetable oil, add onions and garlic and cook until brown, add the chillies to roast, then add the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes, then add the chicken stock, and bring to a boil, add the peanuts, sesame seeds, and pumpkin seeds. Add a pinch of salt, and let it cook for about 20 minutes over low heat. Remove from heat and blend. Then pass through a thin sieve and reserve. Reserve 40g of pasta for the tile. 2. Veal nut: Clean the veal nut, removing nerves, then cut into pieces of about 40g. Season with salt and pepper. Heat a saucepan with vegetable oil once hot, place meat, sear all sides and reserve. In the same saucepan add the sauce to fry, return meat to sauce, and bake at 170 degrees Celsius. After cooking remove the meat and reserve in a bowl covered with aluminium foil, then pass through a fine sieve and cook over low heat. 3. Sautéed potatoes: Cut the potatoes in half and put inside a saucepan with water and cook until they are soft. Heat a frying pan with vegetable oil, add potatoes to roast, and add chopped garlic, and then season. 4. Glazed onions: Portion pearl onions in similar sizes, removing the root and part of the stem, heat a pan with vegetable oil and once hot, add onions to sear until brown. Remove excess oil using a strainer, add water in the pan with onions to cover them, add a pinch of salt, pepper and sugar, cook over low heat. If necessary, gradually add more water for cooking. Before presenting, add butter to glaze the onions. 5. Tile of pipián: In a mixing bowl add reserved pipián sauce, egg white, breadcrumbs, and a pinch of salt. Mix well with a spatula and reserve in the refrigerator. - On a baking sheet with parchment paper add the mix and spread out in a thin layer using a metal spatula, bake at 180 degrees Celsius until it has a crisp texture, remove from oven and reserve. 6. Present the dish!
PIPIÁN SAUCE 40g ancho chili 40g guajillo chili 300g red tomatoes 80g white onions 2 garlic cloves 50g peeled pumpkin seeds 15g cleaned peanuts 20g white sesame seeds 50 ml vegetable oil 1.5 litres Chicken stock SALTSAUTÉED POTATOES 400g Cambray potatoes Water 2 garlic cloves Vegetable oil Salt and pepper GLAZED PEARL ONIONS 16 pearl onions Water 50g butter 10g white sugar Salt and pepper PIPIÁN TILE 40g sauce pipián 20g breadcrumbs 15g egg whites Salt
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RECIPE
RABBIT HOLE WORDS BY
danny coleiro
hat was the year that aerosmith launched their debut album, which was called… er… Aerosmith because, well, why not? Pink Floyd, who had already been playing it cool for almost a decade by then, released Dark Side of The Moon, which went on to become the top selling rock album of all time. and elvis Presley headlined a concert in Hawaii which was broadcast live around the world via satellite to a global audience bigger than that of the apollo moon landing. Uh-huh. 1973 was also the year that the Sydney opera House opened, The Exorcist premiered, the Twin Towers were inaugurated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony and Pablo Picasso died at his home in France. Jim croce also died that year, Motorola’s Martin cooper made the world’s first ever handheld mobile phone call in new york city, and the UK joined the european economic community, which would later become the european Union. There was a solar eclipse in 1973 that lasted seven minutes and four seconds, which was the longest one since 1098 and will remain that way until the twenty-fifth of June, 2150. and 1973 was the year i was born, and while all of this interesting and cool stuff was going on around me, i was too busy trying to fit my entire foot into my mouth to pay much attention to anything else. i was born on a Saturday. Then a lot of interesting and cool stuff happened. Well, it probably did. i was too busy growing up to notice. The first eight years of my life were spent in england, doing the average, ho-hum, everyday kind of things that average, everyday, ho-hum kind of kids do. My memories of this time are stored in 38
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a mental file labelled ‘england’ and it’s a disorganised mess of postit notes and paperclips and post-post-postscripts, scribbles and sketches and scraps of paper… a tattered and faded map of Memory lane and its environs. i remember bits and pieces, flashes and snatches which seem hazily familiar, but which seem to have happened to somebody else, like the events in a book read years ago and which are barely remembered yet not quite forgotten. The first tie i ever wore in my life is in this file, for some reason blue and white checks and attached to a loop of white elastic. There’s a gardening set that consisted of a spade and a rake and watering-can shaped like a red frog. There’s a snowball i made one christmas which i rolled all the way home from school, and it was bigger than me by the time i got home. There’s more. Blackberries and skateboards and a girl called Jeanine and a trampoline and big colourful building blocks and kiss chase and a low wall around the school playground which was made of yellow bricks except for the top layer, which was red. There’s the ‘Beware of the dog’ sign that i ignored, and the lake that i fell into trying to retrieve a football. and there’s the time that i took my friends from the playground ‘round the corner up to our flat in augustus road so that we could practise ringing the doorbell and running away without the danger of being caught and
RECIPE
yelled at by strangers… only to find the door open and a huddle of suitcases in the hallway because today was the day we were flying to Malta and i had completely forgotten because i was eight years old and had been too focused on keeping my foot out of my mouth…
bookmarks and bulleted lists in it. There are random handwritten scrawls in the margins – ‘all cartoons are called Mickey Mouse in Malta! Gasp!’ or ‘you know it’s a hire car because there’s a black and white checked stripe going around the sides’, and ‘complete strangers are all called ‘Chully’ – and carry Chihuahuas!’
Malta.
There’s more. Beaches, blisters and bus-rides to the library, prizes under bottle-caps and weird and wavy five-mil coins. There’s me diving for empty bottles off the sea-bed because you get two cents for every one returned, and twenty cents is enough for a crusty roll spread with tomato paste, drenched in olive oil and stuffed with ‘gardiniera’ and a chunk of tuna. There’s a girl called Sandy, which is cool because, well, Grease was still the word, and there’s the first time i tasted bigilla, which – let’s be honest here - looks less like something you should eat and more like something you already have. There’s the first time i heard Maltese folk songs, which sounded like nothing - absolutely nothing - i’d ever heard before, and the first time i tasted almond squash, which tasted like nothing i’d ever tasted before, or ever want to taste again. There’s me eating helwa tat-Tork, and me approximately two minutes later finding out, in a spectacularly messy fashion, that i had a nut allergy that i was previously unaware of, which speaks volumes about the almond squash. There i am dressed as Spiderman…
Malta started on a Sunday in 1980. and then everything happened… That was the year that iron Maiden released their debut album, entitled… um… Iron Maiden, because if aerosmith could do it then so could they. it was the year that WHo confirmed the global eradication of smallpox, and that china’s population reached a billion. Pac-Man was the world’s best-selling arcade game, the rubik’s cube was on sale and The Empire Strikes Back was in the cinemas. in 1980, Tim Berners-lee was working on a system which would lead to, a decade later, the creation of the World Wide Web. i didn’t really notice any of this either, because Malta was a world away from average, ho-hum and everyday, and i was too busy trying to figure it all out to pay much attention to anything else. it took some getting used to. My mental ‘Malta’ file is slightly better organised than its english counterpart. it’s a lot clearer, and it’s got
… and… oh look, there’s the first time i tasted rabbit. and there, in the margin, in the untidy scrawl of an eight-year-old who had just learned how to write in cursive - ‘They eat rabbits in Malta! Gasp!’ But i tasted it anyway, and it was okay, so i had a bit more, and it was still okay, and it’s still okay now, and always will be, because it’s pretty much the same wherever you go. and that’s because rabbit in Malta, fried in garlic and white wine, is something of a tradition, and the folks with the frying-pans don’t like to mess with the recipe. a tweak here or there, maybe, but no more than that, or it will be taken personally. The same can’t be said for the spaghetti in rabbit sauce that serves as a starter. There’s a lot more flexibility there, which means that it’s sometimes very good, and sometimes… er… not. i really, really like that spaghetti in rabbit sauce. and i always have. it says so right there in the margin. in cursive. and here we are, finally, at the bit you should have skipped ahead to if all you wanted was a recipe. yes, it took us roughly forty-five years, and a multitude of world-changing events, to get here, but it’ll be worth it, i promise. Here’s my version of spaghetti in rabbit sauce…
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RECIPE brown bits off the bottom of the pan instead… and just like that, you’ve deglazed the pan. let the wine reduce for a bit, then remove the rabbit from the pan, help yourself to a glass of wine, and carry on to the next paragraph…
you’ll need, first of all, some rabbit. How much and which parts you use is up to you, but i usually go for the belly, nicely sliced into bite-sized pieces, and i use something like 400 to 500 grams for four of the kind of people who always go back for seconds. Heat some oil in a pan, toss the rabbit in and let it sizzle away. Feel free to add a nice big chunk of smoked pancetta, if you like, or even a couple of rashers of streaky bacon for added flavour. don’t be too hasty to stir it all around… just let it do its thing, and if you get brown burnt bits stuck to the pan, so much the better. add three or four cloves of garlic, crushed, to the rabbit, and stir that in, then drain any excess oil out and add half a cup of red wine and deglaze the pan like a boss. if you don’t know what ‘deglaze’ means, try stirring the wine around while scraping those lovely
add a drop more oil to the pan, and, with a flourish, throw in a large, roughly chopped onion. Fry it off until it starts to brown, then add a can of marrowfat peas, two bay leaves, a splash of red wine vinegar, half a tablespoon of sugar, a chicken stock cube and just enough water to cover the lot. Put the rabbit back in, add another half a cup of red wine, and bring it to the boil. lower the heat, let the sauce reduce by about half, and then add half a cup to a cup of tomato puree. While it simmers away gently, cook the spaghetti. (This recipe is kept in my mental ‘Malta’ file. There is a crossreference, however, to the ‘england’ file, where, in very small letters and trapped within parenthesis, there’s a little note that says ‘if you really want to boost the flavour, whisk a couple of teaspoons of gravy granules in a bit of hot water, and add that to the sauce, but, whatever you do, don’t tell anyone! Gasp!’) remove the bay leaves, discard the bacon or pancetta, season to taste, mix the sauce into the spaghetti, and serve with a ton of grated cheese. Sit. eat. enjoy. i made this dish last Sunday. and then a lot of cool and interesting stuff happene, but that’s another story for another day.