Battleangel | Personal

It is often with an uneasy ambivalence that I approach new foods and food culture. But when you have a few days off, like around Easter, and get into the spirit of things, I at least try to broaden my horizons and indulge myself a little. Even if it is uphill all the way to the more exotic food shelves at the supermarket (yeah, I know, very sophisticated). At heart, I’m still more of a meat and potato guy.

This weekend I acquainted myself with Kalamata olives. A fairly big step if you’re a meat and potato guy I know. Worked fairly well in a salad with olive oil and garlic. But perhaps even better, I found a recipe for coleslaw that you could actually eat. The trick seems to be red onion, and balancing the mayonnaise dressing with mustard, parsley and sour cream. In essence making the cabbage inconspicuous. I’ll see if I can do something with conserved, chili marinated garlic and conserved tomatoes in a chicken recipe as well. Now that could be something.

Another culinary conundrum is salmon. While many do prefer the costlier and fattier farmed salmon there have been scattered reports of health risks over the years. And besides, I don’t care much for a “factory farmed” fish because of its higher fat content. It’s a clear sign that the animal has been more or less force-fed in order to grow rapidly. Some studies seem to confirm this. Then of course, there is the ecological issues of wild-caught salmon and the geographical distance to consider.