Daily Archives: April 22, 2012

On writing a negative review

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Writing a negative review yesterday provided me no pleasure whatsoever.

There was a strong impulse to just forget about it.

Like, I presume, the majority of food bloggers, I overwhelmingly want to talk about the food we really love and the places we adore that make it for us.

As well, because we pay for our meals-out, getting a bad or even indifferent meal is a downer of the kind we’ll certainly go out of our way to avoid.

So why go ahead and write the review anyway?

Well, for starters, this was a planned outing with a review as the planned outcome.

It hardly seemed fitting with the Consider The Sauce ethos to just slink away because there were some notable rough spots in my experience.

As well, there is what I think of as the Pollyanna Factor.

I much prefer writing about food that turns me on.

And I am enormously proud of the our western suburbs food culture, am totally grateful to be part of it, want to see it bloom and for the rest of the world to learn how great we have it here.

But I remain convinced that making out everything is good, grand or fine – or only writing about those places that genuinely are – is foolish.

Earlier this year, I started following a newish Melbourne food blog.

The big-hearted person involved covers a lot of ground and is very prolific, not to mention sincere.

But they oh-so-obviously subscribe to the “if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything” school of thought.

I stopped reading that blog weeks ago.

There is no incentive to read the reviews and posts when you know beforehand almost exactly what is going to be said.

And how much credibility can one grant a media outlet for which there is only the big thumb’s up?

I’m almost sure it’s not the case, but you could be excused for thinking the blog consists of little more than what are referred to in the blogging business as “paid posts”.

To be reliably meaningful, high praise on a frequent basis seems to require the sort of context that can only be provided by the occasional bad rap.

Country style beans

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This is a straight rendition – with a few tweaks, noted below – of the foundation bean recipe found in Michelle Sicolone’s fabulous book, 1,000 Italian Recipes.

It’s also something of a departure for me.

I am so used to finely dicing aromatic vegetables and making them an integral part of my pot dishes that leaving them unchopped, using them for, um, aromatic purposes and then discarding them feels a little weird.

But I’m prepared to give it a shot.

Truth is, despite cooking a variety of pulse dishes drawing on South Louisiana, Indian and Italian traditions, I often find the textures, look and flavours do end up with a certain degree of same-iness because of the way I habitually use the vegetables.

This will be something different.

And if the beans end up as creamy and smooth as advertised, they may be a hit with Bennie.

INGREDIENTS

500g cannellini beans

1 carrot, trimmed

1 celery rib with leaves

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt

METHOD

1. Soaks beans overnight

2 Drain beans, place in pot and cover by at least an inch with water.

3. Bring to boil.

4. Reduce heat to low and skim off foam.

5. Add vegetables and olive.

6. Cover pot and simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours, adding more water of needed, until beans are very tender and creamy.

7. Add salt.

8. Discard vegetables.

This is a batch of beans that is started before noon yet not destined for eating until our evening meal, so there is no rush and I can let things unfold naturally and observe with interest.

It seems to take a while for any great degree of assimilation to start taking place, but when it kicks in, it is comprehensive. What seems for a long time to be too watery by far ends up being just right.

When it comes time to discard the vegetables, I simply can’t go whole hog.

I finely dice the carrot and back in it goes, joining the obliterated celery leaves in providing some colour.

These are, indeed, by far the smoothest, creamiest beans I have EVER cooked – I only wish I could do so well with black eyed peas and, especially, red beans ‘n’ rice.

They are very plain, though, to the point of austerity – and that’s with the salt and a couple of non-recipe-mandated shakes of freshly ground black pepper.

As such, they’d be sensational as a side dish to, say, sausages or pork chops.

The second bean recipe in 1,000 Italian Recipes is Tuscan beans, in which the garlic is used but the other vegetables are replaced with rosemary or sage.

I like the idea of combining both recipes.

We have these beans with toasted Zeally Bay sourdough casalinga rubbed with garlic and brushed with virgin olive oil.