Palitos la reine? Oh, you mean ladyfingers!

This is what happens when one tries to recreate an old family recipe and is away from home: the secret ingredient is nowhere to be found.

To cut a long story short, I want to cook an ice cream cake. It is an old family thing. My Mother cannot remember who gave her the recipe, and has been doing this cake for as long as I can remember. Only three ingredients are needed: condensed milk, double cream and palitos la reine.

To get double cream is easy enough. There is plenty of it where I live, available in different brands, from all parts of the Swiss geography, with slightly different compositions. If anything, I would be lost in diversity.

The condensed milk proves to be a bit more of a challenge. Where I come from, condensed milk is sold by the can. A small can of 370g like this, to be precise:

But, where I live, the most usual presentation is a squeezable tube. A big tube of 250g like this, to be precise:

There are probably very good reasons to sell condensed milk by the tube. But, for what I need it, this exotic presentation is not too practical. However, the supplier offers the condensed milk density and the mass, for an accurate conversion. Meaning, one spends a few minutes with careful calculations to find the exact quantities. When cooking, one pours a bit more, just in case. Then, check for sweetness, and add a bit more at random guess (and a bit more, just in case).

Lastly, the most complicated ingredient of all, the palitos la reine. The name roughly translates to “the queen sticks”. They are light and sweet sponge cakes roughly shaped like stick or an elongated eight. In Portugal, they are ubiquitous and you can find them in all patisseries, freshly backed or powdered. Like this:

After looking for a while in the local stores for any sort of cookie that could be used as a replacement, I was about to bake my own palitos. But, during a desperate last search on the internets, I found out that they seemed to be used to do Charlotte Russe (nothing but palitos la reine with an aromatic cream of chocolate and coffee, explains the author of the entry on Wikipedia). Also, they seemed to be used for Tiramisu, as a replacement for savoiardi. A couple of mouse clicks after, I had in front of me the picture of a ladyfinger (or savoiardi) (or palito la reine).

My local bakery still didn’t have them (classical Swiss answer: “we don’t use this here”). An Italian shop assistant a few stores down the road was more than happy to sell them (“for Tiramisu, non e vero?”. Actually, no, but I was not the one to disappoint a nice young man).

Twenty-four hours latter, Mr Burnt Sugar finally tasted the much celebrated ice cream cake:

My Mother would be proud of me...

Of olive oil drips, a naive kid and an almost perfect object

The world of olive oil bottles is divided in two - the ones that drip and have their outside walls covered with a sticky and oily film, and the beautiful and almost perfect Marquina bottles.

Spanish architect Rafael Marquina knows only too well how badly designed the olive oil bottles can be. When he was a kid, his mother used to ask him to pass her the olive oil (¡pásame el aceite, niño!). Rafael would invariably pick the bottle by its handle, oblivious that it was resting on a dish that protected the table from oily stains. The dish would invariably stick to the bottle, and it would invariably fly until it ended up crashed on the floor much much to the despair of his infuriated mother. Just imagine: she would give me one slap for every dish, and every day she would ask me to pass the olive oil - said recently Rafael Marquina in an interview.

Probably still suffering from an aching cheek, in 1961 Rafael Marquina created a bottle that would forever end with the drip and tray problems. These glass bottles feature a flared neck that prevent prevent dr

ips from running down the outside. The neck acts as funnel that forces the drips inside the bottle, and the ground glass of the opening and stopper keeps them firmly together. The large bottom provides enough stability, avoiding the bottle to tip over. The stopper is easily extractible and has a small ope

ning that allows you to control the quantity of liquid you want to use.

The Marquina bottles suspiciously look like an Erlenmeyer, a glass flask that is widely used in every lab. They share the same large flat base, the conical body, and the cylindrical neck, and they both were designed to solve the similar challenges. But, the inspiration seems to have come from the work the of the Finish designer Tapio Wirkkala for Arabia.

Rafael Marquina claims that these bottles are far from perfect. The grind glass of the opening and stopper have to be hand made, making it unsuitable for industrial production. And this according to the arch

itect, is not in agreement with two of the most important premisses of design: low pr

ice and economy of procedures. Regardless, this

iconic object have become a symbol of Spanish design and possibly its most copied object

Image taken from the book 'Cocos, copias y coincidencias' (Editorial Electa)

Takashi Murakami - Superflat First Love

First, Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton united efforts to revamp the old Monogram Canvas pattern. Six years after, they resume their collaboration to create Superflat First Love. This animation was released earlier this year as a download available for Japanese mobile phones only (you could take a look at the trailer, though). The full blown video is now on YouTube:

Caipirinha

Last year, business trip oblige, I celebrated a big zero birthday in São Paulo (Brazil). The party, that finished a very late hour by all standards, included Swedish chants in a posh Sushi restaurant down town and an undisclosed number of capirinhas. Most night – for the best and the worst – remains in blurred foggy bits and pieces. All I can say is that the headache the day after was excruciating. Between aspirin and aspirin, I promised myself that my next big zero birthday would be celebrated in a bio-sophisticated healthy spa resort, with no short supply of chamomile, peppermint and green tea, spirogyra and açaí concoctions, and (maybe) some oat cookies with chocolate chips and carrot sticks.

I managed to keep away from caipirinha until two days ago.... a dear friend is leaving Zurich, and throw away a memorable See You Soon Party. Swedish chants were omitted from the celebrations, but several bottles of the finest cachaça didn't see the end of the party. As a result of sugar shortage, Malibulinha was created (replace all spirit by Malibu, which is sweet rum). Again, the same piercing headache the morning after, and the same vision health drinks and new age environments.

Caipirinha (pronounced kye-peer-EEN-ya) is a combination of muddled lime, sugar, and cachaça (pronounced ka-SHAH-sa), stirred or mixed and served over ice in a rocks glass. It is considered to be the national drink of Brazil.

For many years, it was a poor people drink, and it is believed that it was first consumed by slaves on the sugar cane plantations in the country's northeast in the mid-1500's. Its name is derived from the word caipira, which means hayseed or hick or rube, followed by the disminutive -inha, which means small or little. Literally, it means little hayseed or little hick or little rube. When referred to the drink, caipirinha is a feminine word.

Caipirinha's base, cachaça, is a clear spirit distilled directly from the juice of sugar cane. Cachaça is also known as aguardente (fire water), pinga (drop), caninha (little cane) or arrebenta-peito (chest smasher). Unlike popular belief, cachaça and rum are not the same thing: while most rum is made from molasses, a by-product of sugar production (from either sugar cane or sugar beets), cachaça is produced directly from cane juice. The fermentation agent is by tradition fubá (maize flour); the distillation unit is a copper pot still. The resulting beverage is either bottled or stored in wood barrels for aging.

Caipirinha is quite easy to do, though a certain attention to detail is required. You start with limes. Before cutting them, roll them on a board with the palm of your hand. That helps to release the juices. Then trim the ends, cut the limes into quarters lengthwise. Put four to six wedges into a heavy-bottomed glass and sprinkle them with a tablespoon of granulated sugar. Superfine sugar is better,because it will dissolves more rapidly. You can also use sirup. Next, comes the crucial step: thoroughly grind the sugar and the lime with a pestle or a muddler to release the oils in the skin of the lime, as well as its juice. How long you should muddle is somehow controversial. You can find all sort of recommendations in the literature. To some, the recommended time is no longer than 15 seconds, to others the ideal time sits between 3 to 5 minutes.

Finally, fill the glass with ice cubes and cachaça. And another controversial topic - shake or stir? In Brazil, the caipirinha is stirred not shaken. The bartender gives the caipirinha a few stirs with a spoon. You receive the caipirinha, stir it a little more, take a sip to taste it, and wait a little before start drinking to allow the sugar to dissolve totally and the flavors to release. But, if you cannot wait a few minutes, then shaking is the optimal way to ensure the mixing and melding of all the ingredients. Finally, put a straw on it and serve. Cuca Brazuca shows how:

Saúde!

IKEA - Bringing design to the masses

The aesthetic form is there for all. And not just for the museum

IKEA Catalog, 1979  

In a couple of weeks I might be off to IKEA in Munich. Not to IKEA, the store, but to IKEA, the exibihion at the Pinakothek des Moderne 

Democratic design - IKEA  is the first ever show about the Swedish company that has shaped the concept of bringing design to the masses like no other. As understood by IKEA officers and designers, democratic design means that having a limited budget should not prevent people from creating a beautiful home, with practical and sensible elements. This groundbreaking concept make them one of the most impressive success stories of the 20th century, and the world's biggest producer of furniture and decorative objects. It is was estimated that one in 10 Europeans are conceived in an IKEA bed.

 

A perfectly good example of bringing the design to the masses and democracy of design is the PS Jonsberg series of vases, created by Hella Jongerius.    

Hella Jongerius is a Dutch designer whose innovative creations are sold by high end design companies, shuch as Droog, Vitra or Donna Karan  She heads her own company, JongeriusLab, which designs and produces unique ceramics, textiles, tableware and furniture.

 

Jongerius is known for her attention to detail, and also the individuality she puts on each piece. Almost all of her objects involve handwork during the production process. “Normally my work is made in small editions, which gets expensive”, she admits  (the limited edition of the repeat big pot can cost something like EUR7000; a unlimited production, like the NON temporary vase can be EUR400).

For the Jonsberg vases, Jongerius wanted to integrate her love of handwork with the high volume production requirement IKEA imposes. “I was searching for a way to create something mass-produced while preserving attention to the richness of details,” she says. “I wanted to make a product that is uniform in shape, but that reveals that it must have been made in a traditional workshop because there is no industrial production technique for this particular ceramic process. This was possible because Ikea has manufacturing companies in China, which produce very high-quality handwork, but can also deal with large volumes”.

 “The 4 vases all have an identical shape, a familiar archetypal vase form, which for me is a blank sheet of paper on which I can design. Every vase has a pattern that represents a particular part of the world, and each pattern is also assigned its own ceramic technique. It reveals the great diversity of the ceramics world. Moreover, it shows four different characters and traditions that produce completely different vases, despite the fact that the basic form is one and the same”.

 

I am the proud owner of several of those vases, that were something like CHF50 each (about EUR40):

I love them!

Never Without a Friend - Fisherman's friends

An evil and persistent cough made me run to the Kiosk and buy some Fisherman's Friends to clear my throat and get some momentary relief. For some obscure reason, I was under the impression this was a typical Swiss thing (Swiss fishermen? Seriously?). But, an English friend soon would make clear that this strong minted lozenges had been invented in Fleetwood in the Lancashire on the North West Coast of England.

This coastal village was once know for its flourishing fishing industry and their fishermen were used to depart for long fishing expeditions in the North Sea and the Article Circle. They would often suffer from cough, cold and bronchial problems from the prolonged exposition to freezing cold and weather conditions.

 

One of the first residents of Fleetwood, was an young talented pharmacist by the name of James Lofthouse. Amongst others, he created in 1865 a medicine containing menthol and eucalyptus oil that proved to effective to relieve the fisherman from the cold symptoms.  Lofthouse latter transformed this strong liquid into small lozenges, easier to transport and to administer. As the legend says, the fishermen soon began to refer to the lozenges as their friends.

 

The lozenges exist in their current form relatively unchanged since their creation, though new flavors and varieties were added to the product line. They also still come in paper packets with a retro look and feel.

Fisherman's Friends, anyone?