A Nice Little Surprise in My Mailbox

My mailbox is a community mailbox where I have to walk a block down the road to retrieve my mail. Unless it is time to pay the bills, I am very slow to retrieve my mail.

I got a call from CK this morning telling me to go get my mail. I said I would, but completely forgot about it because I got side tracked (googling food related topics). I got another call from him hours later to remind me to get my mail, so I finally got up, and ran like the wind to my mailbox. I was excited because I knew would be getting a gift package of some sort. CK would not have been so eager otherwise.

When I got home, I tore open the large box I brought home with me, and to my surprise, I found two giant cook books: Alineaby Grant Achatz and My China: A Feast for All the Sensesby Kylie Kwong.

Both these books are truly beasts in size. With Alinea being almost 400 pages and My China being almost 500 pages, it was an effort just carrying these books to my book shelf. Both of them contain an abundant amount of photos, allowing you to be carried away into another world.

Alinea is a book with over 100 recipes, and is divided into 4 sections: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Don't expect to just open up the book and start replicating these dishes. Most of the recipes require equipment and ingredients that you will not have handy in your kitchen such as a volcano vaporizer, immersion blender, methylcellulose, transglutaminase, and xanthan gum. The purchase of this book will also include free access to Alinea Mosaic, a website that hosts demo videos, bonus recipes, and interactive recipe annotations. Here are a few photos of the creations from Alinea restaurant (taken from their website):
 

And here are a some photos of dishes from My China (taken from the Kylie Kwong website):

In this book, the Australian born chef accounts her tour of modern-day China and Tibet. She provides many stories about her encounters with the people that made an impression on her, and she also provides snippets of chinese culture and traditions.

The most authentic regional foods are showcased, and this book containes over 80 carefully picked recipes. Most are very easy to make, and she has adapted many of the dishes so that they can be easily prepared in your kitchen.

Back in 2000, Kylie opened Billy Kwong restaurant in Sydney's trendy Surry Hills with Australia's beloved chef, Bill Granger. Kylie once headed the kitchen of Sydney's famous Bills and Bills2, which is where the two probably met. As you may have guessed, Bill Granger is the owner of Bills and Bills2.

This is completely off topic, but Bills serves the most delicious scrambled eggs you will ever taste. Upon ordering, you'll wonder to yourself why you would ever pay $12.80 for scrambled eggs alone, but you must taste it to understand. The recipe is on their website, but I'd rather be in denial as to what actually goes into those eggs. They are definitely not for the faint heart.

In 2005, Billy Kwong committed to serving only organic and biodynamic foods. I've walked by this place many times, and just couldn't bare to pay so much for chinese food. To me, chinese food equates to cheap food. However, I must credit them because Billy Kwong does pay very careful attention to quality in their food and cooking. I may just ditch all my pre-conceived notions of what chinese food should and shouldn't be, and try this place out the next time I am in the neighborhood.

Both these books will take a while to get through, but in the meantime, if I ever attempt to follow any of the recipes, I will be sure to share.

I'm off to San Diego this weekend...home of fish tacos! Hopefully, I'll be able to take some good pics to share.