Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
I’ve talked a little about the history of rice pudding in a previous post and ventured to try something special and I think that all the effort was worth it!
There’s a special fondness in Scandinavia… read about it :
Enjoy it before all the Vikings get it!
Roger Freberg
Some folks love recipes that brag that they have only 5 ingredients and take only 30 minutes to bring their masterpiece to your table, maybe that’s why they prefer to dine at places with arches… no imagination. There is another way … by studying the history of the dish and how it plays all over the world.
Even in a historically simple food like ‘rice pudding’, one can find a world full of variation. Rice pudding is made all over the world – for hundreds of years – and in some very interesting ways. Milk and rice dishes can be traced back to the far east, but we in the west owe something to the ancient Romans who actually made it with goat’s milk! In more recent times, the Scandinavians have a fun Christmas dish where one whole almond is hidden and the finder is assured of good luck or marriage in the following year, or so they say.
Most commonly, rice pudding is flavored with Cinnamon and often with raisins, but there are also many other wonderful additions and possibilities. Rice Pudding has been prepared as either a main meal or sweetened as a dessert. Some like to prepare it on the stove top and others in the oven. The best recipes contain eggs and lots of them as would a custard!
My recipe uses saffron on the rice, a variety of spices, many eggs, wine and brandies, fruit and nuts, and baked in an oven.
I’ll post the recipe soon,
Roger Freberg
Interestingly enough, I usually normally never buy trees from those mega retailers… I tend to haunt nurseries… but this one from Home depot looked fun. On the internet they don’t say many kind things about these combination trees … but each tree is a bit of history if you take the time to study them.
My tree has five varieties grafted to it: Beverly Hills, Anna, Einshimer, Fuji and Dorsett Golden Delicious. The Greenish -yellow with an orange red flush Beverly Hills apple is slightly tart that — I suspect — is probably great for apple pies; the Anna apple was developed in Israel and is yellow with a slight red blush; the Einshimer is related to the Anna; the Fuji came from Japan and is wonderful; and finally the Dorsett Golden was developed from the Golden Delicious strain in the Bahamas in 1964 and is an all purpose apple that is crisp and sweet.. So doesn’t this combination sound worthy for any garden?
The main challenge for these varieties from my readings is that most of them need a good cold snap which is no problem here in San Luis Obispo as I also grow Concord Grapes which according to the ‘experts’ cannot grow here!
Laura has already offered to give me the new tree while she keeps our existing tree for her recipes! Ha!
Roger Freberg
Bringing you all up to speed, last fall before my daughter Kristin was deployed to Iraq, the two of us decided on something that would take about a year to develop and we could enjoy on her return. We decided to make wine.
The idea came to me after thinking about my grandfather who — with his buddies during WWI — bought a rather expensive bottle of wine that would be consumed and toasted by the ‘last man’ left standing. Well, as it happened my grandfather enjoyed the wine late in his life and reflecting on how much the world had changed since they all made this little wager. As a homage to Pops, I thought it might be fun to make some wine!
So, armed with nothing but raw materials and books, Kristin and I set forth on this fun journey. Obviously, there was much to do after she left… but it has been a fun seeing what the real ‘pirates’ of wine making are up to! 30 plus years ago, I was first involved in wines through a national organization called “Knights of the Vine”… a fun group whose sole purpose was to educate, promote and enjoy wines in America. However, in talking more to winemakers and after a lot of reading… my eyes were re-opened to the wonders of this experience.
After wrestling with a bunch of ideas, I labeled our ‘product’ today and I believe it may just earn my coveted 12 stars designation ( one for each month of aging!) when it’s finished ‘aging.’ I used the colors of Kristin’s Alma mater “West Point” capped with an engineering symbol.
Thinking of you Kristin.
Dad
To all my friends who are suffering in today’s cold weather, I wish they would bake a ‘nice bread pudding’ to perk themselves right up. To me, it is a little bit of sunshine in a casserole pan!
Having lived a time or two in cold and very cold weather, I saved a few recipes from those days that would always hit the spot… and whether or not is was a soup or a ‘buckle’ it always something bread-like about it or with it.
So, fire up the internal furnaces… things will look better again.
Roger Freberg
PS. the side byproduct of this recipe is a nice cordial