Buying (and cooking) Local Food

The Sheffield Cookbook I love cookbooks and have a fairly deep collection.  Some I have cooked with extensively, some I have yet to cook from.  I have read every one–cover to cover.  Reading cookbooks is a sensory experience for me.  I enjoy the feeling of the pages and the anticipation of what will appear next as one moves through the volume.  I love to imagine the tastes within the recipe, to anticipate combining new foods and to consider the mouthfeel–whether soft and creamy or crunchy–of the first bite or to imagine the smell that will fill the house as the food cooks.  It is a happy place for me.  I bought a new cookbook today that promises to provide these sensory experiences, but also a bit more, a bit extra.  Continue reading →

A time of Lychee

Just about this time of the year, in Hong Kong one begins to anticipate the new crop of Lychee. The sweet, almost rose scented flavour of fresh lychee, for me, is a harbinger of summer–a time for slowing down a bit, for refreshing oneself in the sea, for drinking cocktails on the veranda of some gentrified colonial building or in a modern rooftop garden. Lychees can be made into drinks, eaten just as they are, or, as I liked to eat them, tossed into this salmon salad. Continue reading →

Hong Kong: Markets walking tour from Central to Sheung Wan

Update:  We tried this walking tour on our latest visit to Hong Kong. Some of the way finding landmarks are now no longer there, please be aware of this if you try to do the tour.

This walking tour starts at Central and travels west toward Sheung Wan. The tour takes in Fa Yuen Streets, Central Market, the Mid Level Escalator, Graham Street Market, Gough Street, Cat Street Market, Sheung Wan Market, Western Market and ends at the Sheung Wan MTR station.

Continue reading →

A Positive Word About the Future of Food

Organic, grow your own mushrooms in Hong Kong

Organic, grow your own mushrooms in Hong Kong. The “Europe tomato” are a european variety but were grown in Hong Kong

It is easy to become anxious and depressed over the state of the world’s food system. Indeed, at a social event I recently attended someone asked me if there was anything positive going on that might give hope. This is a good question as sometimes it is useful to consider not just what the problems are, but to also reflect on some of the creative, interesting, and engaged activities that people are doing that have positive effects on the state of the food system today as there are thousands of examples to be found in cities and rural places in every part of the world.  In this post, I want to highlight just three of these small and sometimes larger scale engagements that seek to redress food insecurity and environmental sustainability that I witnessed while on a recent trip to Hong Kong. While none are going to individually solve the problems we are collectively facing with regard to food security and food justice, together they offer hope for the future of food.

Continue reading →