Kitty's Corner

The word Bacon is derived from the Old High German bacho, meaning "buttock", "ham" or "side of bacon". Bacon is usually made from side and back cuts of pork.

Denmark produces a lot of bacon and exports most of it, mainly to UK and Ireland. In reality that means that we sell all the best stuff and eat what isn't good enough to export.

The taste of bacon is very popular - you see it in lots of different things.

Bacon lollipops for instance:



Bacon lube, "to keep it sizzlin'"...



Bacon gum balls.



Bacon mints. I can't imagine how horrible a mix of bacon and mint must taste...



And last but not least: baconnaise.



I guess the lesson for today must be never to underestimate the power of bacon!

Copenhagen Catfiania.

I like having my dinner in a restaurant. It doesn't have to be anything fancy or French. In fact, Italian is my favourite, and as a close runner up, comes Hard Rock Café. Hard Rock Cafe is a chain of theme restaurants, their walls are covered with rock and roll memorabilia - guitars, records, posters and so on. And there is always music there. Loud music - which means you can both burp and fart without anybody noticing! Currently, there are 150 Hard Rock locations in 53 countries.



I do, obviously, own an "All Access Card", which means you don't have to wait in line for a table, you can just stroll right by the angry\impatient people in the queue and get seated almost instantly. I like that. Even though I paid for the card, I still enjoy that fact a lot. People wait in line for 45 minutes or more, on a Friday night - and when we just waltz up and get taken to a table pretty much straight away, it just works, you know?

I've had both great and not so great experiences there. Allow me to share a couple of stories with you.

I'll start with one of the not so successful stories. We went there and got seated right away as always. The waitress came and introduced herself, and left us some menus. We browsed through them, and decided what to order, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. After half an hour she breezed past our table with the words "I'll be right with you", after which she attended to several tables other than ours.

(Open sirloin sandwich. I can't recommend it - it tasted just as messy as it looks...)

She finally took our order and we got our drinks. After more than half an hour of waiting, she decided to show up with some food. Unfortunately she didn't bring it all, and said that the rest was going to be brought in shortly. After ten minutes of waiting I called one of her colleagues (she was out of sight) and demanded the rest of the food. He apologized and went to get the remaining order. By the time it arrived of course, the other food was already cold. This does not make for a happy Kitty.

(One of the Hard Rock Café burgers. Highly recommendable.)

We finished our meal, and waited for a long time to get to pay (and she fucking had the nerve to suggest a tip, which she obviously didn't get!). We took the receipt and left. It turned out that there was a series of numbers on the receipt that you could use to fill in a survey online. We decided to not let this very bad experience go unnoticed so we filled in the survey and told them exactly what we thought about what happened that evening.

(Desserts, also known as "bites". Peanut butter pie and Strawberry cheese cake. None of them recommendable!)

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from Operations Manager saying that she read our survey and she sincerely apologized to us and invited us back to "restore faith".

After a little mailing back and forth, to try and figure out whether she was really inviting us on a free meal, we decided to go there and check it out for ourselves. We asked at the counter, and yes, the Operations Manager had made sure that the evening was complimentary.

(Brownie. Definitely recommendable!)

We had a great evening with really good food and excellent service. So - faith restored, and Hard Rock Café is still one of my favourite places to go and have dinner.

Hi everybody.

It's been forever since I last posted a recipe. It's been so long that I may have readers that don't even know that I offer such a service. Well, I do. If you want to see what recipes I've invented and posted so far, this link will take you to them.

I got myself a new cookery book recently, with cakes and desserts in it. Problem is that most of the recipes are so high on fat that I will gain a couple of kilos just considering making some of them. But the book is good for inspiration. up

I've taken one of the recipes and made it my own, reduced fat & sugar, changed a bit here and there, and please allow me to show you the result.

Zaphira's Recipe Service (ZRS) proudly presents:

Zaph's Winter Cake
(serves at least 8)

Ingredients:
3 eggs
200 grams sugar
100 grams marzipan
Zest of 1 lemon
1 large teaspoon vanilla
100 ml yoghurt
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon cardamom
Half a teaspoon tablesalt
200 grams flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

3 large ripe apples
100 grams sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Topping:
100 grams almonds
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Method :

Whip the eggs and sugar up thoroughly, until it's very light yellow.

Grate the marzipan. It's easy if you store it in the fridge so it's cold when you grate it. Zest the lemon.

Mix marzipan, lemon zest and vanilla into the batter.

Add oil and yoghurt, and stir.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom together and flip it all into the batter. Stir carefully.

Peel & core the apples and cut them into little bits. Turn them into the cinnamon/sugar mix.

Pour half of the batter into a greased baking form (or use baking paper). Pour half of the apple bits over the batter. Cover the apples with the rest of the batter and spread the remaining apples over the batter.



Peel the almonds and chop them up. Sprinkle them over the cake along with the two teaspoons of cinnamon.



Bake it for an hour at 175 degrees Celsius.

Cool before serving.

And here's the result:



Mmmm... it's yummy! chef

Sometimes it's nice to pamper yourself - or even better - to be pampered. Especially on Sunday mornings. I like pancakes, I just don't eat them very often. So for me, having pancakes on a Sunday morning is a very special treat. I'll share my recipe with you, so you can make pancakes too, if you like!

Zaphira's Recipe Service (ZRS) proudly presents:

Zaphira's Blueberry Pancakes for Sweet Sunday mornings
(makes 14)



You'll need:
400 ml buttermilk (13.5 fl. Oz.)
1 egg
250 grams flour (8.82 Oz.)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons sugar
Half a teaspoon salt
200 grams blueberries (7 Oz.)

How to do it:

Mix the buttermilk and the egg. Use an electrical mixer, that's easiest.

Add the sugar and the salt and mix again. Mix the baking soda with the flour and add it. Whisk thoroughly.

Now add the blueberries and stir with a spoon. Don't mash the berries too much, if you can avoid it.

Heat up a frying pan (or a blinis pan if you've got one). Melt a bit of butter on it.

Put tablespoons of dough on the frying pan once it's hot. I use two tablespoons for each pancake. Make sure that there are blueberries on all the pancakes.

After about 2-3 minutes bubbles will appear on the upper surface of the pancake. When that happens, flip the pancakes with a spatula. Cook for another 2 minutes.

Serve hot with syrup, honey, jam, sugar or Nutella.

If you don't eat them all, you can store the rest of them in the freezer.



Happy Sunday!