Content
Sometime I find a recipe which I would like to cook right away, but for some reasons it must “wait”, like a good wine. More than one year ago, when I was in Paris, my husband was awaiting surgery. We were sitting one Sunday morning in the kitchen and we were listening to the program about cooking “On va deguster” which is broadcasted every Sunday on France Inter,
I am in Paris and yesterday I visited Paris Cookbook Fair which is the prestigious annual international cookbook and wine book trade meeting, to which I was invited. This year, it took place in the heart of Paris, right under the Pyramid of the Louvre Museum, in the spacious Carrousel du Louvre, famous for the Paris fashion shows. The weather was not appealing - a mixture of snow, rain and
Here is Magda’s dad, special guest star of today’s blog post. I would like to suggest something very Polish and very tasty – sweet specialty prepared mainly for Carnival season which starts with Christmas and ends on Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday. This year it falls quite early – February 13 (I am not superstitious but does that mean bad luck or what ?) Our today’s hero is C
I promised to my friends that I would publish, tonight, the recipe for the Jerusalem Artichoke soup inspired by the 17th century recipe from the first Polish cook book, within my series designated to Old Polish cuisine (more details in my previous post). Nutty, earthy, sweetie Jerusalem artichokes (I prefer to call them “topinambours”) are one of those ve
Hello, let’s start today with discovering Old Polish cuisine, as announced in my previous long post. You know what I was doing last Saturday and Sunday? I spent entire Saturday chopping, peeling, slicing, dicing, cooking and trying to understand how to deal with ancient recipes from the 17th century written in archaic Polish language. I cooked a few dishes. I discovered new food comp
Have you ever eaten capon or topinambour? For some time, I have been reading a lot about Old Polish cuisine and I am planning to start reviewing truly old Polish recipes, some of them having origins as early as in the 17th century. I want to show you how Polish cuisine was evolving and how multicultural it was. Such recipes, quite often, are difficult to recreate because the products
Tonight something quick and easy - dill pickle (gherkins) hearty soup. You can buy abroad sour cucumbers (gherkins) in food stores carrying Polish, Russian or Eastern European Jewish food. More information on how to make sour cucumbers at home will come in the season, meaning in the summer time, which hopefully will come here only in 6 months. Except for the sour cabb
Dear all, Happy New Year and all the best to you. I was busy with work after the New Year's, then our daughter got chickenpox and now I am imprisoned as my husband went to Paris, some of my friends have the flu, and others who did not have chickenpox in their childhood are afraid of the disease, so I am stuck here at home. Do you have any favorite Carnival food ? When I
This vegetable salad is a traditional Polish accompaniment. I suppose that it is made in nearly every Polish home at least twice per year. Also in my family, everybody cooks and chops root vegetables before Christmas Eve and Easter. My grandma Pola, who now is 86 years old, and always was an excellent cook, used to serve it for other occasions like, for example, her name day
Hello, just a quick note tonight: CNN writes about our Christmas Market in Kraków here :"....welcome to a city so cold that even a well-insulated, heavily whiskered Santa Claus might think about pushing back gift delivery till spring. Beneath the cold of the southern Polish city of Krakow, however, lies an ancient hotbed of holiday trade that generates enough Christmas warmth to overco
The tradition to make pâtés came to Poland from France a few hundred years ago. Nowadays they are still an important part of culinary heritage; pâtés are baked at home, in particular for Christmas and Easter. Local products like dried mushrooms and spices (typical of Polish cooking): marjoram, allspice, juniper and bay leaves are frequently added. Polish pâtés are served cold
Some time ago I was invited to a specific dinner in a restaurant in Kraków. The event was designated to discovering ancient Polish recipes from the 17th century. After the New Year, I will publish a post about the old “gingery” Polish cuisine. That cuisine was so different from what we eat today. For example, one today’s most popular food product – which is sauerkraut – was no
Christmas kutia, kutia, kutia …wheat grains, poppy seeds and honey. You either love it or hate it. Usually, on my blog, I only publish posts about food which I like. I have never liked kutia, because I hate poppy seeds and you have tons of ground poppy seeds in kutia. It is usually sweet like hell and that is why many people do not like traditional one.
I believe that really a lot of people like memories of the times when they were kids. In my case, I have been coming back to the old times, meaning when I was a child, since my daughter was born. I wrote quite a lot on this blog about my childhood which took place in the eighties, so I will not be repeating myself today. Today's recipe was given years ago to my paren
Do you like croquets? If yes, how do you prepare them? Polish people eat a lot of croquets. The most popular ones are made with meat and/or cabbage and/or mushrooms. Very often they are rolled into pancakes, which are later breaded in eggs and bread crumbs and then fried in oil or butter. Not so good for those on a diet. I have never liked croquets rolled in pancakes, I do not kno
2 years passed already since I wrote a long post about Polish culinary traditions for Christmas in my family. I shared with you my family recipe for Christmas borscht with cep raviolis – “uszka”. Christmas 2012 approaches. I had the idea that some of you might be interested in other traditional family recipes for Christmas Eve. In the post which was
November the 11th is not only Independence Day in Poland, but it is also Saint Martin's Day - which has been celebrated in Europe since ages, and came to Poland from France via Germany. In the past, St. Martin’s Day used to mark the beginning of the goose season. Since a few years, we also have here in Poland, in November, a public event organized, most notably, by Slow Foo
Burgers are popular in Poland, of course. Unfortunately, usually they are an imitation of those served at McDonalds’, with this horrible something that pretends to be meat, spongy bread rolls and mayonnaise full of sugar, salt and conservatives. This starts to change slowly, very slowly. In bigger cities like Kraków or Warszawa, as well as probably in some others, one can find
I am publishing a short post tonight and I am definitely inviting you to watch a short, 15 minute movie which is linked below. It was shot during the Cook It Raw (Poland). Cook It Raw is a renowned culinary event which took place this year in the eastern Poland at the end of August 2012. Since its creation in Copenhagen, Cook it Raw has grown to become a combination of the greatest con
SWEET DUMPLINGS WITH TVAROG (QUARK CHEESE) (pierogi z serem) One of my discoveries when I moved to France was that French never eat sweet meals, neither for lunch nor for dinner. On the contrary, some of us, the Polish people, eat such meals in the summer time, or on Fridays. I believe that this is not very appealing to foreigners. I admit that it probably is a stran
In his interview given to ABC NightLine in 2010 – ReneRedzepi from the Danish restaurant NOMA told: “I do not want to preach anything, but probably the next big cuisine will be in Poland or wherever, you know, and most people there laugh a little bit when you say Poland. But 10 years ago, people would laugh if somebody said Denmark”. And I am of the opinion, since at least few
I came to Paris for a couple of weeks, but not really on holiday. But still I have some time to visit my favorite places, bakery shops, book stores and neighborhoods. One of them is the Asian quarter in the 13th arrondissement - despite the fact that it is so little French. I call it the “guts” of Paris. For those who live in huge agglomerations like London or New York City maybe it will no
Dear readers, today I am publishing the review about the first restaurant in Poland which gained a Michelin rising-star – Atelier Amaro in Warsaw. You will find the English version in a few days. Pare dobrych tygodni uplynelo od mojej wizyty w Atelier Amaro w Warszawie, jedynej restauracji w Polsce, która do tej pory doczekala sie wschodzacej gwiazdki Michelina. Swoja renome w jaki
We are right after a long weekend which lasted, for some of us, for nine days. The weather was great, the heat was extreme – over 30 degrees – hard to imagine that it had been snowing a month ago. Polish asparagus appeared on local food markets. Sellers of fresh herbs came back from their winter holidays so I can enjoy those from Poland and not from Israel. Spanish strawberries are cheape
My engagement into professional life did not allow for posting for a long while. I know, I know I should have warned you! I am extremely sorry for that. I am timidly coming back to you with another Polish classical dish – cabbage rolls named “golabki”. The picture that you can see below was shot by my father in December 1989, in Florida. The young girl that you can see on that pict
Around one year ago I wrote about one of my father’s summer culinary memories from his childhood: young, giant white beans cooked with slices of bacon and then served with fried onions and a lot of butter ("fasola Jas"). For more details as regards the nomenclature and the history of this type of bean, check out my post.And only one year ago I found out how good these beans really are, when st
On 1 July 2011 Poland took over the Presidency of the European Union. Poland will hold this Presidency for another six months. I am not into politics lately (especially, that the Presidency started with a little scandal in the European Parliament), but I am vividly interested in one aspect – meaning - cooking. Adam Chrzastowski, chef of the restaurant Ancora in Kraków designed a special men
So. Italians have their World famous Caprese. This little salad is also popular in Poland and commonly served as a starter in thousands of Polish restaurants, not only those specializing in Italian food. The salad is usually served with industrial mozzarella produced by huge international companies. Its texture resembles chewing gum. And it is tasteless. People who know Italy say that fresh mozzar
Ouloulou, it’s been more than three months already since my last post. What a shame. Let me explain everything, if anybody still checks my blog after such a long and embarrassing period of silence. Here’s the reason: we moved to Krakow at the end of February. We had (and we still have) to organize our life and jobs here. I should have warned you. But I did not, because I was convinced that I wo
Are you a chocolate lover? If yes, there is a new, spacious (800 square meters – what a difference in comparison to the tiny boutiques of Pierre Hermé or La Pâtisserie des Rêves) place in the heart of Paris (métro Odéon), waiting for your gourmet visit. Open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to midnight, “Un Dimanche à Paris”, is the first “concept store” of the chocolate chef Pierre Cluizel. It s
I have been having an irresistible will to eat citruses for around three weeks and I do not know why. In general, I do not eat raw fruits since 3-4 years; in particular, I am not so crazy about fresh citruses; of course in summer time I try, occasionally, seasonal fruits like, for example, strawberries, raspberries and bilberries. But on the other hand, I admire fruits in salads, especially wh
Witam Was, dzisiaj zapraszam do lektury mojego artykulu w jezyku polskim, który zostal publikowany na vinisfera. pl - portalu o winie i kulinariach. Artykul inspirowany jest postem, opublikowanym w ubieglym tygodniu w j. angielskim, w którym zamiescilam recenzje ksiazki "Sushi and Beyond - what the Japanese Know about Cooking" oraz relacje z odwiedzin w paryskim "malym Tokio". Mo
Don’t you think that while it is normal for us to cook Indian, Thai, Chinese, French or Italian food at home, we, meaning the people somewhere in continental Europe, very rarely try to make Japanese food…? And if we do, it will most likely be some approximations of sushi or miso? Even when we eat Japanese food in restaurants in Europe, it will most probably be nigiri and maki with the repeated t
Firstly I would like to inform Polish speaking readers that, from now on, I will publish, in every new post, a Polish version of each recipe, however, I cannot start working on a full Polish version of the blog for the moment and I hope that you will forgive me for that. Do polskich czytelników: od dzisiaj w kazdym poscie, bede umieszczac równiez przepis w jezyku polskim. Niestety nadal nie jestem
Dzisiaj zapraszam do lektury mojego artykulu w jezyku polskim, który zostal publikowany na vinisfera. pl - portalu o winie i kulinariach. Artykul inspirowany jest postem, opublikowanym w czerwcu na moim blogu w j. angielskim. Mozecie go znalezc tutaj. A juz w najblizszych dniach o "wolowinie, która lubi plywac w bialym winie". Today, I invite Polish – speaking readers to discover my ar
Should you ask me what is my most memorable episode from Polish Christmas when I was a kid – I would not mention a Christmas tree (we always had one, of course), or gifts (which we were offered), or the extraordinary cleaning of the apartment one month in advance, or the preparation of the Christmas dinner for three days in a row (which was actually the case), or not going to school and even not
When I created my blog, I promised myself that irrespective of how busy I would be, I will always find time to publish at least one post per week. Today we are in the middle of November and several long weeks have passed since my last post. This is how dreams change into reality – one cannot do everything. I hope that those five difficult weeks of hard work will turn into my favor in January (this
If you only knew how I have been eating lately, probably a lot of you, readers, would think: is this woman really writing a culinary blog? Or maybe she should rather write an anti-culinary one? No, I do not go to McDonalds (there is none in my neighborhood), but, for example, I had a hot dog with vegetables for lunch (I did not make it on my own, I bought it!), that I swallowed in 2 minutes….and a
There exist a lot of quick-to-prepare dishes, which are so delicious despite their total simplicity. Two, or three ingredients of good quality and we are in a culinary heaven. What are your favorite, simple and quick dishes (or accompaniments?) made out of two or three ingredients, which you love, and you like to come back to? Share with us! Fried Lactarius Delicious mushrooms (or saffron m
I mentioned in my first posts (for example, in the post about pickled ceps) that the flavor of forest mushrooms, both dried or fresh, is an essential ingredient of Polish cooking and this is one of my favorite ingredients in the kitchen. I already wrote about pickled ceps, Zrazy and potato pancakes with chanterelle sauce. We are in the middle of the forest mushroom season here in P
In June, I presented the dish “Pierogi with Lamb”, for which I used my homemade veal stock reduced to demi - glace.Stocks are the foundation of classic French Haute Cuisine. The French name for stock is fond - meaning “foundation”. There exist two types of stocks: white stocks and brown stocks. The first ones are prepared from bones of birds, fish or veal, which are simmered in water with ve
Forgive me for taking a long break in posting. The weekend before last, my husband and I went to the most renowned Food Festival in Poland, in the north of the country. And last weekend, we visited in Kraków the final session of the Malopolski Food Festival (“Festiwal Smaku”) – a food event for producers from the south of Poland. In the meantime, I have been bothered by an invalidating back pain a
One of my father’s summer culinary memories from his childhood is a very simple and rustic dish: young giant white beans cooked with slices of bacon and then served with fried onions and a lot of butter. Those beans are commonly called in Polish “fasola Jas”. It was not easy to find the English name for those beans. I raised the question on one Polish culinary forum to help me find a proper tra
I would like to share with you some good news. The Polish internet magazine “Ugotuj.to” (“Cook.that”) handles a cycle called “Blog of the Week”, designated to the presentation of Polish food blogs. Yesterday, it published a brief interview with me, where I present my blog, I share my opinions and ideas about Polish and French culinary traditions, as well as food habits of Parisians. I also reve
Do you remember that in my last post I was complaining that I did not have enough courage for cooking because of tropical temperatures? And now you know what? I came back to cooking, and this is mainly what this post is about. August started which means that the season for all types of soil tomatoes finally started. We can actually enjoy these summer tomatoes only for two or three months a ye
The extremely hot weather has been paralyzing us since a couple of weeks. I am not in the mood to cook and bake; the temperature in our apartment is not much lower than in a sauna. We even went to some shops to buy a cheaper air conditioner, to no avail. Everything was sold out! The twentieth International Festival of Jewish Culture took place here in Kraków at the beginning of the month. This i
I spent a nice weekend in a fantastic place last week. If you think that I went to Rome or Barcelona and spent hundreds of Euros at fancy restaurants, you are completely wrong. Actually, I only went 75 km away from Kraków, to reload my batteries in a peaceful place. Some friends of my family's, Ela and Adam, decided a few years ago to escape from the city and to spend the rest of their lives condu
Do you remember that a couple of weeks ago, in my brief review of "Foody Places in the 6th Arrondissement in Paris", I mentioned in a few words the great artisan butcher shop of Mr Jean-Pierre Bajon, located at 29, rue de l’Abbé Grégoire, between rue de Vaugirard and rue du Cherche-Midi. Right before leaving Paris, I had a one hour chat with him, during which he revealed some more information abou
I am very busy here in Kraków as I am involved into some new projects. I do not have any spare time for cooking. I hope that it will change soon. Not only I want to invite you to read my interview with Mr Bajon (the translation is not finished), but I am going to work on new recipes using seasonal and regional products. I am also going to take a few trips around my region, Malopolska and ot
