cookbook addict

I belong to a community of Nigella followers, we also worship Nigel (Slater), some of us like Jamie (Oliver), we drool at Bill(Granger) and so forth. Well, it so happens that a few days ago, Nigella, concomittently as Jamie, published a new book. You won't have escaped it, especially if you live in the UK, where it accompanies a BBC series where the voluptuous Nigella explains at length that she is über-busy, always rushing from one black cab to the next in her workaholic schedule of Hausfrau and TV chef/author. She still finds five minutes to drop by Waitrose, her supermarket of choice, the high-end of food stores, to buy everything she needs to cook up express delights for her children and millionaire husband. I know I sound mean and unsupportive, but I've heard echoes about the first shows that weren't entirely to her advantage. The food sounded rich in saturated fat and Nigella herself quite ill-at-ease (check out the Times video clips, you'll know what I mean). In

Dear readers, the following is my first brave post on Cookbook Addict, dating back Nov 2005. By brave I mean I had just told the world that I had a blog and was coming back to it after letting it hang uncared for for months. I was a new convert to Le Creuset and Nigel Slater, perhaps the most loveable of all food writer, hence a post combining both fresh loves (boh relationships are still going strong, thank you). I started this blog a few months back, but somehow got a bit shy and stopped posting as I couldn't face telling friends and family about it. But I have regained some of my original confidence, and for this I have to thank the exceptional talent of a certain Mr X. And I've even decided to tell the world about it, after all, what's the point of a blog that doesn't get read?! Let's just hope I find time to post regularly! You'll have to show tolerance for my lack of technical knowledge (posting pictures at the right place, doing links and so on) as well a

So. This is the sister blog to cookbook addict, my original blog. I have decided to split it in two, one in French and the other in English, which makes my blogging activities slightly less schizophrenic and easier to oversee, especially for readers. At least, I hope so. Most of you will get here because you already know me in my cyber life, so there is no need to explain that I am not a native speaker of the English language, nor have I grown up in Britain or wherever else the Queen rules or used to rule. Nope. I am a Parisian-born food lover with a strong attachment to all things in English, be they cookbooks, peanut butter cups or digestive biscuits. And I live in a small country they call Luxembourg, but really, it's the crossroads between Belgium, Germany and France, where all things converge. But don't tell them I said that. It's a lovely place;-) Let me show you my kitchen first... Now you may wonder why I have named this blog "The cookbook geek". Let me j

J'exagère un peu, mais pour le Papa, par exemple, le chou-rave, ou kohlrabi, c'est immangeable. Je n'ai jamais trop compris pourquoi, mais par peur de le faire blémir, je n'en ai jamais acheté en Allemagne, où on le trouve partout toute l'année, et où il est aussi commun que, euh, la choucroute en sachet. Un jour, j'en ai mangé chez sa mère pourtant, c'était très bon. Et sa soeur me l'a fait goûter cru, aussi super. Les goûts et les couleurs, franchement... Pour les ignares, voici une photo. On peut parfois l'acheter avec ses tiges, mais que faire des tiges? Cru, il a le croquant juteux de la pomme, en moins charnu (comme les poires nashi en fait), et un petit goût de radis très doux. Cuit, c'est plus délicat à cerner, car le goût s'estompe, à moins peut-être de le cuire longtemps à l'eau...je ne sais. En tous cas, la fois où je l'ai apprécié chez Oma (la grand-mère outre-Rhin), il était cuit dans de la crème avec des lardons, alors é

Quand deux filles se font un dîner, elles se racontent des trucs de filles, et quoi de mieux pour accompagner culinairement des papotages de filles que des recettes créées par d'autres filles? Un plat principal trouvé chez Julie Andrieu, qui m'apprivoise tout doucement, car si vous me connaissez un peu, vous vous rappelez que c'était pas le grand amour entre nous avant qu'elle publie son livre sur le chocolat. Figurez-vous que la bibliothèque municipale de Luxembourg a certains de ses ouvrages (c'est peut-être même l'auteure la mieux représentée), et comme je me suis inscrite la semaine dernière, j'en ai profité pour emprunter sa "P'tite cuisine", que j'avais failli acheter à sa sortie. Failli, car après l'avoir feuilleté, j'étais assez sceptique. Certaines recettes utilisent des produits surgelés et des combinaisons assez improbables (sucré-salé, bof bof). De plus, on ne peut pas dire que le stylisme et les photos donnent vraimen