:: FTLOL BLOG ::

Full length interview with the food writer and judge of Great British Menu, Matthew Fort – coming soon to the FTLOL magazine.

Check them out on our main site by clicking here…

Dear chefs,

Please refrain from over-seasoning your dishes.

You have, over years of training and working cooked and constantly tasted the richest most delicious, sauces, soups, and meats. The regular exposure to deep, luxurious flavours has numbed your palettes a little me thinks. This means when you taste your mousses, stocks, or soufflés you taste with a tongue that can withstand salient saturation akin to the Dead Sea.

Please do not take it as a sign of weakness placing cruet upon the starched linen of your tables, and do not recoil when someone uses it. All palettes differ. Seasoning is subjective. I love almost everything that you do, and I only hope that you will check your salt habit for the sake of the rest of us.

Sincerely

FTLOL

We have come accross these beautiful plates. They are all handmade and are produced by a lovely husband and wife team. No doubt they will appear soon in one of our shoots.

http://brickettdavda.com/

We here at FTLOL have become obsessed with any and all information pertaining to Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG). As anybody who has read our article “What’s so bad about MSG” knows; MSG in its natural form is present in numerous foodstuffs considered to be healthy. Ingredients such as Konbu, Shitake mushrooms, Edamame beans and Miso are rife with the wonder stuff. We had very much aimed our searchlight towards Asia but, we have since discovered ingredients full of MSG are not only limited to the Orient.

From a recent conversation with presenter and gastronomic commentator Stefan Gates, I was happy to learn that the classic Italian ingredients Parmesan and Porcini are both full of Glutamates explaining the “moreish” qualities of any dish they are added to. Anchovies, so commonly used to season meat dishes and sauces in Italy are also teaming with the natural flavour enhancer – Just think of the delicious rounded, salty flavour these little fish add to a classic Ragu or roasted meat.

It has to be pointed out that there is a huge difference between liberally pouring half a packet of industrially manufactured MSG crystals into a bland gloop hoping that its salty allure will mask the laziness of its manufacture, and the generous addition of Parmesan to a well made risotto to augment its flavour. With this in mind, we have developed 3 recipes that we feel demonstrate the power of natural born MSG. They will be up on www.ftlol.com very soon, you can expect the classic mushroom risotto as well as the more unexpected Dashi Congee.