When I started this blog what seems like an eternity ago, my main motivation was to channel my love of food into something more productive than sitting around and talking crap with friends. That someone other than my mum and my friends (to be polite) would read it is still shocking to me. Today I have readers all over the world and many in my home city of Doha, Qatar. There has been some discussion in Doha social media circles recently about the relationship between bloggers and social media “influencers” and brands. In a smaller market like Doha, this is inevitable. I see it every day on Twitter and on…
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All Wrapped Up – Camembert En Croute for Christmas
It seems I am developing an aptitude for creating “stunt cheese” or “extreme cheese challenges”. First there was the infamous “Turkey Cheese” for Thanksgiving and now folks, I present to you my latest creation… This is a wheel of Camembert wrapped in puff pastry and baked. I had planned to do this with Brie, as is the traditional way, but believe it or not I struggled to find a suitable wheel. I also had a scramble to find readymade puff pastry sheets big enough (who has time to make puff pastry on Christmas Day) but managed to cobble together a casing from some small squares, well placed egg wash and a lot…
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Conscious Coupling – Wine and Cheese Pairings for Christmas Cheer
Wine and cheese go together like Brad and Gwyneth Jen Angelina. Like gin and tonic and like me and those lovely Valentino Rockstuds Ballet Flats I ordered in a fit of hysteria last week (they were practically free).
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12 Cheeses of Christmas – Festive Goats Cheese
OK I know I am a couple of days late starting this venture but the spirit is there. I was doing a Saturday smash and grab at Monoprix and saw this little festive beauty. It’s a lovely and fresh round of creamy goat cheese (called a crottin) rolled in red peppercorns and topped of course with a festive (fake) holly sprig. It’s amazing how something as simple as peppercorns and a splash of red can make a humble hunk of cheese so Christmasy. Goat cheese is my go-to (see what I did there) cheese but even among my cheese loving friends it is divisive. Some people find the aroma and distinctive taste…
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Sharp Relief – Snowdonia’s Little Black Bomber
I’ve blogged before about the lengths my friends will go to in search of new cheeses for me. My friend Rachel (yes, we have thought about forming a girl band called The Rachels) found this beauty at Waitrose on a recent trip to Dubai. Hailing from Wales, The Snowdonia Cheese Company has been making contemporary cheese and more traditional types for several years now. This cheese is perhaps their most popular. They market it as a “cheddar with attitude” and that is very accurate. So sharp it could cut itself, it has what I call a “drawback factor”. That is “ooooooof that’s sharp”. It’s made from pasteurized cow’s milk with non…
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Rocky Road with Rambol
Rambol is a well known cheesemaker from France. This cheese included layers of crushed and pureed walnuts. A creamy white cheese as its base, it was like a taste of Autumn (in December).
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Clucking Good – How to Make a Turkey Out of Cheese
So here’s the deal. I asked my friend Alicia what I could bring to her annual “Doha Family” thanksgiving event. She said Nothing. Then I offered to bring cheese. Then the ante started to ratchet up several notches. I googled “thanksgiving + turkey+ cheese” the results were alarming. I’m talking about cheese laid out int he shape of a turkey. then I stumbled upon a cheese ball fashioned into a turkey. “Do it,” said Alicia. So the challenge was on. I don’t think anyone actually believed I could do it. About three hours in on Friday with a raging hangover and runny cheese, hell I thought I couldn’t do it.…
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Red Handed at Red Lobster
This again can be filed under “never say never”. I hadn’t given much thought to Red Lobster when it opened more than a year ago in Doha. Maybe I thought it wasn’t something for me (not being a fan of chain restaurants), maybe I was put off by the traffic logged location. But I am an adventurous lady and when I was invited with a group of other food bloggers to try the menu I broke my rule of “No Lobsters During the Week”. A US-based chain brought out here by Americana restaurants, the company has been going for 45 years and have 700 locations worldwide. This Doha location opened in 2012…
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Rubing it In – Eating Cheese in China
Chinese food and cheese are not necessarily happy bedfellows. Asian flavors do not lend themselves to cheesiness and for good reason. My main experience of cheese in China consisted of hotel cheese platters on their buffets. But I had heard that some regions in China, namely Yunnan, used goat cheese in their cooking. There will be a longer exposition of my recent trip to Shanghai in future posts (you have been warned) but I was determined to find this elusive fusion. Actually I didn’t have to search too far. One of the best known restaurants in Shanghai, Lost Heaven specializes in Yunnan cuisine. I found one item on the menu – a…
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A New Leaf
So here’s the funny thing about this cheese, I actually DID take a photo of it before it was made into this: But, I must have been distracted and the photo is a complete blur (like last Friday…another story…). So i will have to use my powers of description. It was a small crottin (a pungent cheese made of goat’s milk and formed into small disks) which was wrapped in a vine leaf. It was very pretty (not pretty enough to keep me focused clearly). The cheese was clean and fresh, with that goat-milk tang I just love. The leaf was brined and while this wasn’t, I have read elsewhere that…