Sunday, 1 June 2014

Rhubarb, Pea & Marsala vs Lemon, Chilli & Mint

Regularly used kitchen implements:
Magiwhisk
Kitchenaid Mixer
Mezzaluna

Interesting Items in Nigella's Pantry:
Camp Coffee
Crystallised Violets

In Nigella's Library:
Classic Home Desserts

Vatch's South East Asian Cookbook
Hot Sour Salty Sweet

License to Grill
The BBQ Bible 

Entertaining all'Italiana

The book of Jewish Food
The Whole World Loves Chicken Soup

Are You Hungry Tonight?
Can You Take The Heat?
Liberace Cooks

Favourite words and phrases:
Laborious
Emulsion
Sludge
Fug
Aromatic
Astringent
Acerbic
Teeny


"My skill lies in eating" - Nigella's excuse for not knowing where salmon are from. 

"I don't go for picture book presentation" - Nigella's excuse for plating up food in a slapdash way.

"I'm going to disrobe, de-rubber" - when taking off her rubber gloves.

"I love a bit of tong action".

"I've got asbestos hands" - explaining how she can touch very hot food with her hands.

Finds "mindless repetitive activity immensely comforting".

"The holy trinity of aromatics: dried coriander; dried cumin and dried turmeric".

"There is a holy trinity of garlic, wine and parsley in the life of a moule".

Nigella makes fresh pasta and meatballs when she wants to "shimmer in Italian mama mode".

"Cooking that's a real collaboration between you and the food" - kneading pasta dough.

When making fresh pasta she is in "a more tea towel mood" (as opposed to cling film).

"There is always something very satisfying about a recipe that uses a whole carton of eggs" - when making a chocolate cloud cake.

"When I was about 12, it was my idea of gastronomic heaven" - commenting on cream style sweet corn.

"It's somehow better to not be scared of egg whites" - when making custard.

"These are feast days not fast days" - referring to Christmas.

Nigellas tips:
Use ordinary olive oil for cooking, not extra virgin.
Use raw prawns
Full fat or nothing



* Information taken from the TV series Nigella Bites and Forever Summer *

We Built A Pyramid!

Season 1

Episode 8
Rajesh drinks grasshopper.
Sheldon orders a virgin Cuba Libre.

Episode 10
First episode where Sheldon does his obsessive three knocks.

Episode 11
Soft Kitty makes its debut performance.

Episode 13
They refer to Mayim Biayik, who played Blossom, as a potential team member because she has a PhD.

Episode 14
Sheldon's theory regarding turkey and roast beef with lettuce and swiss on wholgrain sandwiches: in a proper sandwich, the cheese is adjacent to the bread to create a moisture barrier against the lettuce.



Season 2

Episode 4
Sheldon prefers to use paper towels to dry his hands in public toilets as opposed to hot air blowers because hot air blowers are incubators and spewers of bacteria and pestilence.

Episode 6
Non-standard cutlery: Sheldon lives in fear of the three tined fork. Three tines is not a fork. Three tines is a trident. Forks are for eating. Tridents are for ruling the seven seas.

Episode 8
The rules of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock are:


Scissors cut paper
Paper covers rock
Rock crushes lizard
Lizard poisons Spock
Spock smashes scissors
Scissors decapitate lizard
Lizard eats paper
Paper disproves Spock
Spock vaporizes rock
Rock crushes scissors



Episode 11

Sheldon claims to Penny that he and Leonard don't celebrate the ancient pagan festival of Saturnalia. Sheldon explains to Penny that in the pre-Christian era, as the winter solstice approached and the plants died, pagans brought evergreen boughs into their homes as an act of sympathetic magic, intended to guard the life essences of the plants until spring. This custom was later appropriated by Northern Europeans and eventually it becomes the so-called Christmas tree.

Sheldon receives the best Christmas present ever from Penny: a signed napkin used by Leonard Nimoy.

Episode 13


Episode 15 
Dr Beverly Hofstadter: Your unwillingness to accept empirical evidence suggests an attempt at flattery.

Episode 21
Sheldon's solitary indulgence is Kadhai Paneer. He can only eat this on his own because "not only is it Indian food, which Koothrappali loathes. It contains a generous helping of peanuts, which would reduce Wolowitz to a wheezing, 97-pound blister. And finally, its main ingredient is paneer, a farmer's cheese that would cause Leonard to render any room uninhabitable within minutes."

The Tall Man from Cornwall by E. M. Snickering:

"There was a tall man from Cornwall
Whose length exceeded his bed.

My body fits on it
But barely upon it
There's no room for my big Cornish head!"

 
Episode 22
"Leaving a message is one half of a social contract, which is completed by the checking of the message."



Season 3

Episode 22
Apartment flag: Gold Lion Rampant on a Field of Azure.

Episode 23
"I don't object to the concept of a deity but baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance."


Season 4

Episode 3
The counterfactuals game: posturing alternate worlds with one key aspect. It's fun for ages 8 to 80.

Question: In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the second world war?
Answer: Uganda.
Defense: Kenya rises to power on the export of rhinoceroses; a central power block is formed colonizing North Africa and Europe; when war breaks out no-one can afford the luxury of a rhino; Kenya withers - Uganda triumphs.

Question: In a world where a piano is a weapon, not a musical instrument, on what does Scott Joplin play the Maple Leaf rag?
Answer: Tuned bayonets.
Defense: Isn't it obvious?

Question: In a world where mankind is ruled by a giant intelligent beaver, what food is no longer consumed?
Answer: Cheese Danish.
Defense: In a world ruled by a giant beaver, Mankind builds many dams to please the beaver overlord; the low lying city of Copenhagen is flooded; thousands die; devastated, the Danes never invent their namesake pastry.

Episode 10
What is the best number? The best number is 73. 73 is the 21st prime number, it's mirror 37 is the 12th and it's mirror 21 is the product of multiplying 7 and 3. 

Episode 11
Milk Duds: with their self-deprecating name and remarkably mild flavour, are the most apologetic of the boxed candies.

Episode 20
"Evolutionary Biologist Robin Dunbar has identified gossip as an aid to social bonding in large groups. By not participating in gossip, society breaks down into small feral bands of tattooed motorcycle riders fighting to the death over the last few cans of tuna fish."



Season 5

Episode 14
The premiere episode of 'Sheldon Cooper presents Fun with Flags'.
Vexillology is the study of flags.

ch is completed by the checking of the message.
Rajesh interacts with his new phone called Siri.

Episode 22
Question: A lichen is an organism made up of two separate species: fungi and algae. If you could merge with another species what species would you pick and why?
The correct answer: The best organism for human beings to merge with is the lichen itself. That way you would be human, fungus and algae. Triple threat.


Episode 23
Amy devises an experiment that will increase Sheldon's feelings for her in an accelerated time frame based on the theory that human beings form emotional attachments as they grow up (in Sheldon's case; his mother, superheroes etc). Amy attempts an experiment that will get Sheldon to transfer those feelings to her.

Romantic dinner music: Super Mario Bros Theme (in an attempt to build on the work of Ebbinghaus by triggering an involuntary memory of Sheldon playing that game - the happiest 600 hours of his childhood).

Drink: Strawberry Quik (Sheldon's favourite pink fluid narrowly beating out Pepto-Bismol.

Dinner: Spaghetti with little pieces of hotdog cut up in it (just like Sheldon's mother used to make).

Result of experiment: Sheldon wants to do this more often.



Season 6

Episode 24
Rajesh talks to Penny without having to resort to drinking alcohol.



Season 7

Episode 6
Oreos: "The only cookie with something in the middle that solves life's problems"

Episode 15
Sheldon and Amy have their first kiss.

Wine: "grape juice that burns".

Episode 16
Why Sheldon doesn't like the idea of getting a dining table: "Chaos theory suggests that even in a deterministic system, if the equations describing its behavior are nonlinear, a tiny change in the initial conditions can lead to a cataclysmic and unpredictable result". 


which is completed by the checking of the message
which is completed by the checking of the message
which is completed by the checking of the message
which is completed by the checking of the message

Dr Sheldon Cooper's Calendar

Eating Habits:

Mondays - Thai food: Mee Krob and Chicken Satay with extra peanut sauce from Siam Palace.

Tuesdays - Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory: Barbeque bacon cheeseburger.

Wednesdays - Creamy tomato soup

Thursdays - Pizza: sausage, mushrooms, light olives from Giacomos

Fridays -  Chinese food: Cashew Chicken from Szechuan Palace

Saturdays -  a bowl of cereal with 1/4 of a cup of 2% milk for breakfast


Hot Chocolate:

January 
February 
March 
April 
September 
October 
November 
December
 

Recreational Activities:

Wednesdays - Halo Night and Comic Book Night

Thursdays - Second Thursday of each month or the third Thursday in a month that has five weeks: Date Night with Amy

Fridays - Vintage Games Night

Saturdays - Doctor Who on BBC America and Laundry Night

Sundays - Paint Ball