If you crossed Willy Wonka, you could end up in a garbage chute or transformed into a giant blueberry. Right now, Nestlé could be wishing it had the same power.

In the Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the worst Wonka had to deal with was a handful of rude children and their parents. There were no mass demonstrations outside his factory protesting his treatment of Oompa Loompas and no defacing his ads with complaints about the ingredients of his chocolate. But then, his products were superior. With magic on his side, surely he never stooped to padding the recipe with palm oil?

By contrast, Nestlé does use palm oil in its chocolate – problem one. It has also been trying to censor its critics on the web – problem two. It is all rather reminiscent of the Nestlé baby milk scandal of my youth, except this time there are more ways for consumers to make their voices heard and the babies in question are orange and furry.

Palm oil is a vegetable oil used to replace expensive cacao butter and derided by foodies as cheap filler. More importantly from a green perspective is the fact that palm plantations are blamed for the destruction of rainforest in South-East Asia. I have written about this issue for EcoSalon before, when Cadbury tried to introduce palm oil into its chocolate in Australia and New Zealand but then backed down in the face of fierce public opposition.

Nestlé has committed to using “certified sustainable palm oil” by 2015 – a measure dismissed by environmentalists as too little, too late. Aside from the long timescale – bear in mind that Nestlé was under fire over the palm oil issue at least as far back as 2007 – questions remain about the integrity of the certification schemes. Personally I believe they should drop palm oil from their products altogether.

The issue is not new but it came up again two days ago when Greenpeace highlighted the link between Nestlé’s Kit Kat bars and dead orangutans in a graphic video. Nestlé allegedly had the video pulled from YouTube, but the Vimeo version is still live at the time of going to press.

The censorship didn’t stop there. Nestlé seems to have blocked protest emails from consumers sent via the Greenpeace video page. (I myself received a “Delivery Status Notification (Delay)” message and Greenpeace has its own suspicions about it). The company has also upset consumers with its approach to moderating its Facebook page, which has over 90,000 fans. The moderator’s defiant tone and aggressive approach to deleting comments has further eroded support. I have to say, it doesn’t appear that Nestlé truly understands that social media is about two-way communication.

Now the Swiss food giant might be rethinking its social media strategy as it is caught in the throes of a full-blown PR disaster. Partly this is because of Greenpeace’s ad, but Nestlé’s attempts at censorship and heavy-handed moderation have only made it worse.

There’s no censorship on Twitter, where for the last day or two critics of Nestle have been organising around the hashtags #kitkat and #nestle with comments such as: “Give the orang-utan a break! Stop Nestle using palm oil from destroyed rainforests http://bit.ly/KitKat”

But on Facebook the company has been trying its darnedest to hold back a tsunami of criticism with a teaspoon. Last night the status was: “We welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic — they will be deleted.” Several hours later it posted the same message prefaced with the words “to repeat”. Nestlé also said: “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus.” Advertising Age has a useful summary.

Of course, social media being social media, such attempts at control have been counter-productive to say the least. The Facebook page is now inundated with criticism about the palm oil issue, with many people becoming fans simply so they can leave comments. Here are a few examples:

“nestle, i became a fan for two reasons. 1. so i can write on your wall. 2. so i can write on your wall to let you know i put the killer nestle logo as my facebook pic because you are idiots. that is all. unfanning now.” – Brian Ries.

“How dare you use doves of peace in your logo? Apart from not wanting baboons to die, I don’t want to EAT palm oil.” – Jean Barker

“I didn’t even know anything about the plight of the orang-utan’s until Nestle banned the ad, good work legal depatment. Got loads of FB ‘friends’ now though!!” – Mark Woodhouse

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Case study in how not to engage with your customers. We’ll await the inevitable apology and climb down.” – Mark Watts-Jones.

“Nestle, you guys should be more tactful at publicly lashing your fans. Shame on you! Your response to this situation is worst than the act committed – A disgrace on your part!” – Etta Thorpe.

“Simple rules of a PR crisis: When your cow falls in a ditch, firstly get the cow out of the ditch, then find out how it fell in, then make sure it never falls in again. I’m afraid your cow is still in the ditch.” – Alan Stevens

“I had a comment that said social media is about community voice – removed from this page – it did not have a logo in it – screen prints being kept … please allow us to have our say.” – Rebecca Varidel

The Nestlé fan page says “Social media: as you can see we’re learning as we go. Thanks for the comments.”

Quite. The problem is that learning while doing tends to be painful. This is a social media case study in the making.

Perhaps I can help? Here’s a short-cut to managing social media. 1. Be ethical in your business practices to begin with. 2. Accept that social media is a two-way conversation – listen and learn.

Nestlé is not the only company using palm oil in its products – for more on the issue, check out this World Wildlife Fund score-card of European companies.

***

This is part of my series on sustainable food, in collaboration with Chris Perrin of Blog Well Done.

Previous posts:

Blog Well Done: Why I support #MeatlessMonday

Roaming Tales: Local versus organic

Blog Well Done: Locavore versus Organic-avore

EcoSalon: Think cheese is more eco + humane than meat? Think again

Roaming Tales: Where do you shop and the 3/50 Project

Blog Well Done: Why a series on sustainable eating?

Roaming Tales: New Year Resolutions: A new series on sustainable food

Blog Well Done: New Years Resolutions: A New Series on Sustainable Eating

***

Photo credit: “Orangutan 3″ by Axinar on Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Sustainable food: Web dust-up over Nestlé and palm oil is a post from: Roaming Tales

An improvised tart to celebrate spring – perfect for a Sunday lunch with friends.

The White Witch still has the East Coast in her wintry clutches, but here in Californarnia, Aslan is on the move. It’s spring! The song birds are pairing up, the squirrels are getting frisky, and the trees are in blossom. Best of all, there is asparagus at the farmers’ market. Asparagus, sparrow grass, the very queen of all vegetables!

So when my friends invited me to brunch yesterday, I knew that I wanted to riff on the theme of spring. I set the tone with a floral sundress, ribbons and braids in my hair, and white ballet slippers on my feet but my pièce de résistance was an improvised asparagus tart.

I didn’t follow a recipe but I was vaguely inspired by a beautiful cover from Donna Hay magazine about six years ago – it was one of the first few issues of the magazine and I recall they alternated green, purple and white asparagus to make a lovely pattern. I don’t know what else went in the Donna Hay version, but I made mine with goat cheese from Cowgirl Creamery in the Ferry Building and ricotta and pine nuts that I happened to have on hand.

Originally I was thinking of making a crust but I ran out of time and I happened to have filo pastry in the fridge – and actually I think the flaky filo was just the ticket. If I were making it again I would stick with filo and my only improvement is that I might scatter some lemon zest over the top as well.

Recipe – Asparagus tart

Makes 8-10 servings
Ingredients
Filo pastry, 6 sheets
Olive oil
Ricotta, 1 cup
Pine nuts, 1/4 cup
Garlic, 2 cloves
Round of goat cheese (we used “bucheron style”)
Asparagus, 2 bunches
Salt and pepper
Zest from half a lemon (optional)

Method
Preheat oven to 350F (180C) if you will bake the tart straight away (it can also be prepared ahead of time).

Layer filo pastry in a baking dish, brushing each sheet lightly with olive oil. (The refrigerated kind of filo is easier to work with than the frozen kind).

Crush garlic and mix pine nuts and garlic into the ricotta. Spread evenly over the top layer of filo. Chop goat cheese into small cubes and slivers and spread evenly over ricotta layer.

Wash and trim ends from asparagus. If it is thick then slice or peel the outer layer at the woody ends (this is not necessary with thin spears). Layer the asparagus over the cheese, alternating which direction the spears are pointing.

Brush lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle good quality sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and lemon zest over the top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the filo is brown and crisp and the asparagus looks cooked. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before serving.

The brunch was filled with delightful things to eat – such as scrambled eggs and crisp bacon, spinach quiche and wonderful homemade caramel buns – but I think the asparagus tart held its own. We drank champagne or Bloody Marys and whiled away the afternoon in idle bliss.

Spring cooking: Recipe for asparagus tart is a post from: Roaming Tales

Madrid, Spain; October 2008

I stumbled across his pair of oil paintings upstairs at the famous Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.

It was quite a contrast immediately after perusing the rooms full of Spanish royal portraits, mainly by Velazquez. There was quite a striking family resemblance between fathers, sons, grandsons and brothers and also sisters – all pale, blond, with pointy faces. They were in fact a branch of the Habsburgs and apparently quite inbred.

And then came this.

I can’t find any information online about the painting, either via Google or on the Prado site. And frustratingly I don’t have notes on this painting in my travel journal. I believe it’s from the Spanish Habsburg era of 1516 to 1700.

If memory serves me correctly, these paintings are of a princess and it is rather cruelly titled “La Monstrosa” (the monster). She was one of the few royals who was painted naked as well as clothed – clearly the painter was fascinated by her flesh.

If anyone has more information about La Monstrosa, then please let me know in the comments field.

This post is part of Photo Friday, a weekly blogging event hosted by Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby. Please check out the other submissions this week.

Related posts: Photo Friday: Catholic taste

All posts on Spain

All posts on museums

All posts on art

All Photo Friday posts

***

Would you buy me a drink if we met in real life? If so, please consider donating to send me to TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) in New York this June. Thanks!

Photo Friday: La Monstrosa – the Prado’s fat Spanish princess is a post from: Roaming Tales

Dear Airlines,

You are in the business of transporting humans through the air. Humans come in all shapes and sizes. Deal with it.

There are tall humans and short humans, fat humans and skinny humans, humans in wheelchairs, humans on crutches, humans who max out their carry-on luggage, humans with small children and solo humans with no baggage. Do you think this is a hassle? Go and become a cargo airline – no one is stopping you.

If you still want to be in the passenger airline business, then you need to quit treating humans as if they were standard-size freight. All paying customers have an equal right to fly, not just thin ones. Now it might theoretically be possible that somewhere in the world there are humans who are so enormous that they literally cannot ever fly because of safety reasons, no matter how many seats they have.

But let’s call BS when we see it: That’s not what we’re talking about! If someone were “too fat to fly”, then having two seats would not make it any safer in the event of an emergency evacuation. If it were about safety, you would not routinely put them on the next flight or give them flight vouchers in compensation!

The reality is that you have set a seat configuration for your plane that allocates space based on a formula. That formula allows just enough space for a person of average size to fit, but not necessarily be comfortable. But you know what? By definition not everyone will conform to an average. When you are dealing with humans of different shapes and sizes, roughly half the people will be bigger than average and roughly half will be smaller. That’s mathematics.

When you combine the fact that your seat configuration is not based on reality with the fact that you routinely overbook flights, then you end up with a problem. A problem of your making. It’s not the fault of your passengers for coming in different shapes and sizes, it’s your fault for not understanding that accommodating this fact is a cost of doing business if you want to be a passenger airline.

I understand that it can be difficult if your flight is full and you are trying to get the passengers seated and the plane off the ground. It’s a problem caused by airline management, but I can understand the stress for flight attendants who have to deal with it. But here’s a tip: Looking around for the nearest fat person and ejecting them off the plane, even if they are already seated, is not the right way to deal with it. As far as I can tell, this seems to be what happened to film director Kevin Smith (aka “Silent Bob”) when flying Southwest Air on the weekend.

If you are going to discriminate against fat people, please don’t do it in my name. As a woman who is 5′5” (165cm) with a medium build (size 8 US), I fit nicely into your economy seats. I’m privileged to have a body shape that conforms to your standards and I find it highly unlikely that I would ever be kicked off a plane for this particular reason.

So when you say that your policy of making fat people buy two seats is for the comfort of other passengers, I’m those other passengers. And let’s get real: I don’t believe for a second that it’s about making me comfortable. I believe it’s about revenue raising by shaming fat people into buying two seats. I also believe it’s about expedience – it’s a convenient but arbitrary reason to shove someone off an overbooked flight. After all, it seems that even when someone does book two seats, they don’t always get to keep them when the flight is full.

If you were truly concerned about my comfort, then you would also ban tall people (who can take up just as much space without being fat), men who spread their legs, children who kick the back of the seat, screaming babies, people who recline the seat when I’m eating my meal, people who complain about me reclining the seat when the meal service is over, people who blind me by opening the window shades at the wrong time, and people with excessive flatulence.

But the reality is that dealing with other passengers in close proximity is part of the deal if I choose to fly economy. Sure I’d prefer to have the arm rest down and not to have someone’s thigh pressing against me, but I can’t always get what I want. Like the average consumer I typically choose low airfares over comfort and luxury. The other person is not doing anything wrong just by being there. If I’m so concerned about my own comfort, then surely I should be the one to buy two seats or pay for an upgrade?

If I choose not to do that, then I’ll deal with whoever I happen to be sitting next to. And I’ll try to be gracious about it and smile at the human sitting next to me rather than throwing them dirty looks because they’re not giving me exactly half the arm rest and they’ve stolen an inch of my theoretical leg space.

Some people suggest that most fat people are fat because they eat too much and don’t exercise and that this is unhealthy and therefore airlines should impose an obesity tax. In reality, there is debate about the health aspects – the BMI is notoriously unreliable as a public health measure and there is some evidence that it is possible to achieve health at every size. It is also impossible to tell by looking at someone whether they are fat because they eat too much or because of genetics, or because they have a glandular problem, they are recovering from an eating disorder, or because their pro-football coach asked them to get that way, or because they’ve lost the weight and regained it, or a hundred other reasons. And even if you happen to see a large person eating a large meal, you still don’t know.

But you know what? It’s irrelevant. It’s a private matter for that person. It’s not anyone else’s job to judge them or make them feel any more ashamed than they already do. It’s not our job to divide the world into good fatties and bad fatties. Maybe fat is unhealthy but that doesn’t make it a moral issue. And last time I checked, airlines were not in the business of healthcare or public health policy.

Airlines, I realise that no matter how big you make your seats, there will probably always be outliers who require a bigger seat. But the current policies are affecting too many people to be reasonable. The so-called obesity epidemic isn’t going to go away overnight and it’s going to take time and money before you can reconfigure your seating, which you should definitely think about doing at some point. But you could alleviate most of the problem right now by ending routine overbooking.

Think about it.

Yours sincerely,

Caitlin

Further reading:

• Kate Harding has written a moving piece about the human suffering caused by airlines’ policies on fat, in her Broadsheet column on Salon: Kevin Smith: The face of flying while fat.
• On Wanderlust and Lipstick: An inspiring story A monk walks on to a plane.
• Fat acceptance blog Shapely Prose summarises the incident with Kevin Smith and Southwest Air: Kevin Smith kicked off Southwest Air flight for being fat.
• Kevin Smith’s Twitter stream. His podcast: SModcast (I especially recommend episode #107, a great interview with the large girl he sat next to on his final flight). Also his blog: Running out of gas on this subject.
• SouthwestAir’s Twitter stream. Their blog: My conversation with Kevin Smith.
• Travel Rants podcast: The debate on obese passengers.
• Travels with my Hat: Is an obesity tax unfair? (The blogger argues no – I tried to leave a comment but as with many Blogger/Blogspot sites, my comment was lost).

Comment policy: You are welcome to disagree with me but I will not tolerate abuse of any kind.

Dear Airlines: Humans come in all shapes and sizes is a post from: Roaming Tales

London, UK; May 2009 / 19th century

Discovered – a rare colour photograph of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens in London. Since colour photography didn’t exist in the Victorian era, this clearly proves the existence of time travel. Maybe the Doctor and his TARDIS had something to do with it.

Or maybe it’s just two people in costume, at the opening party of the FIPP World Magazine Congress in London last year.

It was a great location for a party with a marquee set up outside the Orangery tea rooms. We also had a marching band and Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn made an appearance. Kensington Palace itself was open so we could tour the state rooms and see the fascinating Last Debutantes exhibition about the Debutante tradition and the last batch presented to the Queen in 1958.

Oh look, I even managed to get in one of the photos with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert!

More photos from the event. The closing party at the Saatchi Gallery was pretty cool too – see my husband and I eating canapes from a designer bubble chair in this picture.

This post is part of Photo Friday, a weekly blogging event hosted by Debbie Dubrow of DeliciousBaby Journal. Please check out all the other posts this week. The photo with me in it was taken by Sheelagh Doyle.

Photo Friday: Travel back in time to Victorian England is a post from: Roaming Tales

This is part 5 in my series on our California Highway 1 road trip.

Big Sur country in California is famous for its hiking and camping and my husband and I were determined not to leave the park without doing at least some walking.

For the most part this holiday was very much a road trip, mostly along Highway 1 south of San Francisco. We had a rental car, we moved from place to place each night, and our travel companions were a few decades older than us and keen to take it easy. Any hardcore hiking in Big Sur would clearly have to wait until another time. (It might be possible this summer, now that I have my driving licence).

But my husband and I still managed to fit some hiking in. The opportunity came with our overnight stay at the Big Sur Lodge. The national parks officer at Big Sur recommended we try Buzzard’s Roost – an hour and a half loop from the valley to the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and back. Big Sur Lodge was ideally located for this so we set our alarm and started our hike around 8 o’clock in the morning – arriving back just in time to catch our family having breakfast.

The hike started by passing a grove of giant redwood trees and then a shady stroll by a creek. Then we started to climb the hill and as we did we could see the ridges behind us to the east lit with a brilliant golden light. The path went up and then down a little and then up again, with a steady but not steep incline. At the top of the hill the vegetation became sparse and scrubby, presumably because of the salt from the nearby ocean. There was some sort of radio tower on the bluffs and a good view of the sea.

Driving Highway 1 series:

Part 1: Pescadero and the Duartes Tavern

Part 2: Santa Cruz and the Lost Boys Railroad Bridge

Part 3: McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Part 4: Big Sur Lodge and Pfeiffer Falls

All Highway 1 posts

Other related posts:

Steinbeck country: The Carmel Valley Road

Photo Friday: Monster rocks at Point Lobos

California coast by Twitter

Driving Highway 1 in California – Big Sur hike to Buzzard’s Roost is a post from: Roaming Tales

Super Bowl Sunday party

Along with Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is a venerable American tradition with a focus on food. We had to feel our own way for Thanksgiving, but our neighbours invited us over for a Super Bowl party.

This was my first time watching American football and I must admit it was pretty baffling. It seemed a bit like rugby but with more complex rules about possession and tighter definitions between offence and defence. I’d adopted the New Orleans Saints as my team for the match, since the San Francisco 49ers weren’t playing, and Scott Fujita as my favourite player. So it came down to cheering when people told me something good happened for the Saints and jeering when the opposite happened.

I’d heard a lot of fuss about Super Bowl commercials. I understand advertisers spend millions on a 30-second spot and that viewers get excited by the ads because they’re usually new and highly creative. I don’t know if it was a dud year or if I have different standards, but I thought the ads were fairly unimpressive. I may not have seen them all but my favourite was the Google “Parisian love” ad.

I decided to whip up a batch of brownies to take to the party. Who doesn’t like baked goods? And brownies are easy to make and usually a crowd pleaser.

I need not have bothered in terms of catering quantity – the tables were groaning with corn chips and dips and salads and quiches and cakes, not to mention the burgers and corn dogs being cooked outside. Despite this, the brownies were a hit – we ate half of a huge batch, and I’m sending my husband to the office tomorrow with the rest.

I based my brownies on the recipe in Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess. My main adaptation was to use macadamias (and a few cashews to make up the 300g) rather than walnuts. I also supplemented the white sugar with a bit of raw sugar, mainly because it’s what I had in the cupboard.

I think the quality of ingredients is key to awesome brownies so I used Ghirardelli chocolate and Straus butter. The other important thing is not to overcook the brownies as they can easily become dry.

Did you watch the game? What did you eat?

Chocolate macadamia brownie recipe

Ingredients

375g unsalted butter

375g good quality dark chocolate

6 large eggs

1 tbs vanilla extract

500g white sugar

225g plain flour

1 tsp salt

300g macadamias

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C or 350F. Line a baking tray with foil or parchment.

Chop the macadamias in half or smaller.

Melt the butter and chocolate together.

Beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla in a bowl or wide-brimmed measuring jug.

Measure the flour and salt into another bowl.

When the chocolate mixture has melted, allow to cool a little. Then stir in the eggs and sugar, then the nuts and flour. Combine smoothly.

Scrape out of the saucepan into the pan and bake for 25 minutes.

It’s done when the top has dried but the middle is still gooey. Bear in mind that it will keep cooking as it cools and brownies are generally better underdone than overcooked.

Slice into pieces. Makes a maximum of 48.

Related posts: Recipe for chocolate pistachio brownies
All baking posts

Baking recipe: Chocolate macadamia nut brownies is a post from: Roaming Tales

Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland; June 2009

After my trip to Orkney last summer, I travelled back south via the Scottish Highlands, the Isle of Skye and Glasgow. I was blessed with gorgeous weather while I was in Skye and went hiking, hill climbing, cycling and dolphin watching.

Since I was getting around on the limited public bus service, I based myself in Portree. It’s the largest town on Skye but it’s not large at all – you can walk from one side to the other in about twenty minutes. It’s a pretty, bustling community with colourful terraced buildings and a lively port filled with both pleasure and fishing boats. I caught a bagpipe band performance in the town square, quite by accident.

I loved my time in Skye and will write more about my adventures soon. For now, here are a few more pictures of Portree.

Related posts: Photo Friday: East meets West – Tai Chi at Urquhart Castle (Scottish Highlands)

Photo Friday: Hill walking in Scotland (near Inveraray)

This post is part of Photo Friday, a weekly blogging event hosted by Debbie at DeliciousBaby Journal. Please check out this week’s photo posts by participating bloggers and my previous Photo Friday posts.

Photo Friday: Pretty Portree on the Isle of Skye is a post from: Roaming Tales

I enjoyed this piece by Matt on Abstract Gourmet about rediscovering fettuccine carbonara years after boarding school nearly put him off for life. He writes:

“The list of things that boarding school food turned me off was actually fairly extensive. Among them, steak diane, ham steaks with pineapple, lasagne, meat pies, hot dogs, and pretty much all forms of vegetable. There was very little that the lovely ladies in the kitchen could not make taste disgusting and industrial. I’m quite surprised I developed any kind of food obsession at all after doing my time there.

“The carbonara of course was on its own existential plane of badness. A thin, watery, creamy sauce, with stodgy pasta and either thick chunks of mostly raw mushroom or a slurry of mushroom goo (depending on whether you were the first or last table to get your food). The older and wiser would pick out the bacon and chicken (or whichever meat they’d decided to add), and leave the rest, and then intimidate the young and new into handing over theirs.”

Matt’s post includes a recipe for fettuccine carbonara done well – with guanciale if possible (pancetta if not) and “no cream, mushroom, or watery goop whatsoever”.

I never had the dubious pleasure of going to boarding school, though I did eat the catered food in my first year of university when I lived on campus. It wasn’t great – I remember it generally came with a choice of cold chips or dry, clumpy rice. But at least I had a choice and I don’t remember any particular dish standing out as particularly awful.

Poutine (Canadian dish with fries, curd cheese gravy and meat) - is this what they eat in Canadian boarding schools?

Of course, you don’t have to go to boarding school to have bad experiences with school food. In Australia people either take a packed lunch or buy sandwiches from the school canteen / tuck shop. But in the UK, and I believe in the US too, it’s common to get a hot “school dinner” at lunch time even when you are a day student at a state school.

When I lived in London, the newspapers were full of stories about how little money was spent on school meals and how they were made up of awful things like reconstituted turkey fat and skin. Chef Jamie Oliver led a campaign to help make school dinners tastier and healthier via the Channel 4 series Jamie’s School Dinners and this did help matters.

Everyone I have ever spoken with experience on the matter has said that boarding school food and school food in general is awful. So what I don’t understand is why there is such a fad in London restaurants for “nursery food” – all the things an English person might have eaten at school – such as bangers n mash, bubble-and-squeak, toad-in-the-hole, or spotted dick – but done well. I understand that the dishes might be perfectly nice when done by a fancy restaurant with quality ingredients, but I am baffled why anyone is nostalgic for them in the first place, given the bad experiences they claim to have had.

Matt’s post got me thinking about dishes or foods that I hated when I was younger because I had only ever had inferior versions. I am lucky to have grown up around good food so there aren’t too many examples, but here are a few:

• I’ve never been fond of canned beetroot, but in the UK I discovered the joy of fresh beetroot and I love it! Now I often have a few roasted beetroots in the fridge to have in salads or on sandwiches. (I also eat the cooked leaves like spinach).

• I always thought corned beef was something that came in a can that tasted little better than dog food. We never ate this at home but I have a vague recollection of trying it once and being utterly disgusted. It was only in the past couple of years, that I ate homemade corned beef that someone had cured in brine from scratch. It was really quite good.

• I always hated coleslaw but it turns out I only hate it when it’s made with commercial mayonnaise and too much of it at that. I actually quite like coleslaw when it’s made with just a little bit of good mayonnaise.

How did institutional or bad cooking shape your culinary appetites? Did any bad food experiences in childhood or early adulthood turn you off any dishes completely? Did you discover good versions of the dish later on or was it a permanent repulsion? Let me know in the comments.

Photo credits: “Poutine” by London Brad on Flickr.

“Red beetroot leave” by Net_Efekt on Flickr.

Both photos used with permission under a Creative Commons licence.

I owe you a post in the sustainable food series – I’ll have something soon, I promise! Let’s just say that most institutional food of the kind I’m familiar with is rather UNsustainable.

Fettuccine carbonara and other culinary misadventures is a post from: Roaming Tales

This is part 4 a series about a road trip along California’s famous Highway 1. Please check out my other posts on Highway 1 and don’t forget to subscribe.

After visiting the beautiful lookout at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, we wanted to find somewhere in Big Sur country to stay the night. We had some lodging recommendations from my followers on Twitter but many of them were out of our price range. For example, the Ventana Inn looks amazing but we didn’t want to spend several hundred dollars. We checked out a few places that were listed in guide books or that we passed on the road but value for money seemed to be a problem. One place we looked at seemed to have a serious damp problem in the cabins and was still charging $120 a night.

Big Sur Lodge

Happily we found the Big Sur Lodge. We booked standard queen rooms for $169 each. Since we had saved money by staying in basic motels in Monterey and San Simeon the previous two nights, we were happy to splurge a little. The rooms were in cabins with views of the woods and a little deck, which my parents-in-law made good use of during the cocktail hour. Inside they were bright and airy with an aura of quality.

Our cabins at Big Sur Lodge

My in-laws enjoy a drink on the deck

Pfeiffer Falls hike

My husband and I found time to fit in a short hike up to Pfeiffer Falls on the day we arrived, though it was a rush to get back before dark. The hike is only about a mile from the lodge and it’s a gentle incline – it should be easy for most able-bodied people. We passed ancient redwoods and then as we climbed the hill, the vegetation became lighter. The falls were pretty but not spectacular – it’s just a creek cascading down over rock, though I’m sure it would be more impressive after rain.  Unfortunately I had a slow film in my camera so I could only capture it with a flash.

Pfeiffer Falls, Big Sur

Big Sur Lodge restaurant

Since we were a captive market, we ate dinner in the Big Sur Lodge restaurant that night. We could have driven somewhere but there was nowhere really on the wishlist and my father-in-law, who was doing the driving in the rental car, wanted a drink. I was happy with the restaurant. I wouldn’t make a special trip for it, but the food was good and it was reasonably priced. It serves up Californian cuisine (a similar concept to modern Australian and modern European) and it has some emphasis on local produce, such as artichokes and Monterey Bay calamari. We also had breakfast there the next day.

Before checking out the next day, my husband and I went on another hike, this time a longer one up to Buzzard’s Roost. I will write about this in the next installment in the series.

Driving Highway 1 series:

Part 1: Pescadero and the Duartes Tavern

Part 2: Santa Cruz and the Lost Boys Railroad Bridge

Part 3: McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

All Highway 1 posts

Other related posts:

Steinbeck country: The Carmel Valley Road

Photo Friday: Monster rocks at Point Lobos

California coast by Twitter

Driving Highway 1 in California – Big Sur Lodge and Pfeiffer Falls is a post from: Roaming Tales