Happy Birthday – ITs Food is 1 year old

Just a few days ago ITs Food celebrated it’s 1st birthday (with a dodgy wine unfortunately). What a year it’s been. From humble beginnings of just a few views a day we’ve grown to over 50 unique visitors a day. Not much by some standards but we’re thrilled. As we close in on 6000 total visits, October 2007 has been our best month with over 1200 visits so far.

In the last week people have been finding us after searching for Heston Blumenthal, this post alone has had almost 200 visits.

We’ve become a bit of a wine-centric blog but there’s still the odd food and tech article every now and again (with more to come).  All our wine reviews are archived at our sister blog ITs Wine and our new cook book reviews over at ITs Books.

Much more to come…

Over the coming weeks in the run up to Christmas we’ll be posting some Christmas gift guides and some wine suggestions.  Hopefully they’ll help you find something for the foodie/wino (!) in your life.

And finally…

You’ll probably know that if you click on any of our links to Amazon and then subsequently buy something we get a small payment.  I can reveal that over the last 12 months our total Amazon earnings have been £4.73!  Unfortunately Amazon won’t pay out until the amount reaches £25 so it looks like we’ll be waiting until about the time of the London Olympics in 2012 before we can treat ourselves.  So, if you’re buying from Amazon this Christmas and we’ve helped you pick up a nice bottle of wine or helped in any way bear us in mind and maybe click on one of our links.  No pressure!   Now, if only Amazon sold wine…!

Bad Wine: La Petite Fessardière Muscadet 2006

Regular readers will be shocked to hear I drank an “old world” wine the other day, La Petite Fessardière Muscadet 2006. In a moment of madness I bought this Muscadet and a Sancerre (review to come).

I was initially attracted to the wine by it’s Ecocert certification (pages in English). This means the wine is made from organically grown grapes, not a bad thing in my book.

A muscadet should be crisp with fruity hints of apple, lime and melon. Interestingly the wine is made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape, known just as Melon in some places. Apparently this wine uses the traditional “sur lie” method of production to add extra freshness.

So, what was it like. Wine tasting notes time!

…fresh, quite fruity, no real flavour though, no depth, feels like it’s been bottled too early…

That just about sums it up. Maybe it’s just that I have become accustomed to wines with more flavour and depth but this wine was too fresh for me. It tasted like it needed a few more months to mature BUT that’s how it was supposed to taste I reckon, that was from the “sur lie” process is all about.

I didn’t like the wine so I’m going to give this wine 2 stars. It’s not that this is a really bad wine, but all I can base these reviews on is my opinion. That’s the great thing about wine, someone’s Highfield is someone else’s Blossom Hill!

La Petite Fessardière Muscadet 2006

Grape: Melon de Bourgogne
Alcohol: 12%
Guide Price: ~£4-£5
I bought this wine at: Sainsbury’s (instore)
ITs Food Rating: Two stars

Heston Blumenthal: The Cook Books

With Heston Blumenthal’s new series, Further Adventures in Search of Perfection, now under way I thought I’d let you all know about his three cookbooks.

His first was Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking which I picked up after seeing him on a cookery TV programme. This has to be one of my top 3 cookbooks. Like you’d expect from a Heston recipe, most require a bit of cooking know how to get right but, practice makes perfect. Just take some time to make his Tomato Compote and mix it with his basic Risotto recipe and you’ll soon realise that the man is deservedly recognised as one of the greatest chefs in the world today. Why? Because he’s worked hard to create recipes which, as long as you put in the time and effort, look and taste fantastic.

His second books accompanied the BBC series, In Search of Perfection. In this series Heston took classic dishes like Black Forest Gateau, Fish & Chips, etc. and created his “perfect” version. You only has to watch the classic Black Forest Gateau episode to see what lengths the man goes to in search of perfection. A really interesting book with a bit of back story to each dish. I’m not sure which recipes you’d try but they’re really challenging and fun for the confident cook! If you know someone interested in food then this is a great book.

With his latest series comes another book, this time called Further Adventures in Search of Perfection. Only just showing in the UK on BBC2 Heston takes on more classic dishes. In the first episode he tackled what strangely is the most popular dish in the UK. For all you non-UK ITs Food readers, it isn’t “Fish & Chips” or “Roast Beef”, no it’s “Chicken Tikka Masala”! This book has yet to turn up from Amazon but if it’s anything like the first one it’ll be a fascinating read for both the enthusiastic cook and the “foodie”.

A while ago Heston mentioned on The Fat Duck website that he was working on a Fat Duck Cook Book. No sign of it yet but I can’t wait to see it so I can try making Snail Porridge or Smoked Egg and Bacon Ice Cream. A review of these dishes to come…

I just hope he keeps it simple and doesn’t do the same as the current best restaurant in the world (the Fat Duck is now second best apparently!) and put out a beautiful, but expensive coffee table book.

Heston Blumenthal: In Search Of Perfection Series 2

This is a popular post so read the following updates first:

1. Read our reviews of The Fat Duck here.
2. Do you want the recipes? See the bottom of this post for details!
3. There is a paperback book called “Total Perfection: In Search of Total Perfection” which covers both series and has ALL recipes. Available from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (US).

Well I almost missed this but Heston Blumenthal has returned for a second series of his excellent series In Search Of Perfection on BBC2, Tuesdays at 20:30. The BBC website tells us…

The search begins
Culinary alchemist and three Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal once again demonstrates his incomparable approach, revolutionising some of the nation’s favourite dishes.

He’s back
In his quest for the perfect hamburger, Peking duck, chilli con carne and more, Heston will analyse every component and ingredient of each dish, to create the ultimate taste sensation. In a bid to source the ultimate ingredients, he’ll visit food growers and providers from across the world. Back home, he and a few passionate researchers form an elite team who’ll stop at nothing to help him attain his goal.

In the first episode, Heston turns his attention to Chicken tikka masala. The search starts at his local curry house in Cookham, Berkshire, but soon takes him to Delhi where he tries to unravel the complicated roots of this dish. On returning to his restaurant in Bray, Heston tries to build his own tandoor but soon realises that most people aren’t able to dig a five-foot-deep hole in the ground and line it with fire bricks. So, he comes up with a more accessible solution – a barbecue, but with a few bespoke alterations.

In Cambridge, Heston puts a chicken breast through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to see how a marinade affects the meat as he tries to create the perfect sauce.

Try Heston’s Chicken tikka masala recipe – it will be available online for ten days after the programme. The recipes accompanying the video clips will be available on the site until the end of December 2007.

Heston Blumenthal Recipes and additional information are available in a book to accompany the series, Further Adventures in Search of Perfection by Heston Blumenthal.

Last night’s episode was excellent, I can’t wait for the rest of the series!

Recipes

Recipes are online for only 10 days after each show. If they are not there I have them all saved as PDF files so if you want them let me know

Episode 1: Heston’s Chicken Tikka Masala can be found here

Episode 2: Heston’s Hamburger can be found here

Episode 3: Heston’s Peking Duck can be found here

Episode 4: Heston’s Fish Pie can be found here

Episode 5: Heston’s Baked Alaska can be found here

Episode 6: Heston’s Chilli con carne can be found here

Episode 7: Heston’s Risotto can be found here

Episode 8: Heston’s Trifle can be found here

Christmas Special: Unfortunately there are no recipes online for this show

One more thing, if I do send you the PDF’s or you’ve found this website helpful we’d appreciate it if you’d either buy the book through us if you decide to or even send us a donation via PayPal (use the email address itsfood @ googlemail . com without the spaces) .

Chicken Out!

A subject close to my heart, have a read of this email from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage:

Dear Friend of River Cottage,

I need your help…

You may have heard about the conditions involved in intensive factory farming of broiler (meat) chickens. I feel that these conditions are unacceptable – so much so, that I’m launching a national campaign to put pressure on the industry to raise its standards: the Chicken Out! campaign.

Chicken Out! has so far been led by River Cottage locals, especially in and around Axminster, and we’ve had a fantastic response. But now I need your support. I’m asking all of you, as friends of River Cottage, to support this campaign and get it off to a flying start across the nation. Please just click the link below, or if you’re not convinced, see www.chickenout.tv for more info.

And pass it on to your friends, if we get enough support, we really can make a difference.

Thank you.

Hugh

Click here to support Chicken Out!

Click here to go to Chickenout.tv

My campaign message

Click here to watch