Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef: We Live In A Beautiful World

Wednesday, 2 May 2007

We Live In A Beautiful World

No, I haven't suddenly developed a big thing for Coldplay or a crush on Gwyneth Paltrow. It's daughter Apple who inspires this blog post, or rather Chris and Gwyneth's message when naming their first child. We live in a beautiful world where some of us at least have ready access to fresh, local, seasonal, organic produce. It really is time we all stopped eating junk and made that stepwise change that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been talking about in his 12 Steps On The Road To River Cottage.

Browsing YouTube the other day looking for food movie clips, I came across this. Some of you will already have seen it, for those who haven't I hope you are as inspired as I was on first viewing.

The producers of this video are Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), a nonprofit organisation based in Maine and operating in 70 countries world-wide. KGI's mission is to empower individuals, families and communities to achieve greater levels of food self-reliance through the promotion of kitchen gardening, home-cooking, and sustainable local food systems. They seek to connect, serve and expand the global community of people who grow some of their own food and have links with over 2,900 kitchen gardeners.

KGI looks to me like an organisation really worthy of the full support of the food blogging community. Have a look, see what you think and let me know.

5 comments:

Richard said...: Thanks for posting that, Trig.

It actually depresses me - can this organisation make a real difference? While I hope so, I wonder. The key to it is that many of today's parents were brought up on crap food and instil this into their children. Even though you can walk around Borough Market or go to farm shops and see them all busy, they're busy with a particular type of person - how do you get to all the others?

If I could make a living doing that, I would!

On a personal note, my broad beans have shown their first flowers in the garden now - and the courgettes are coming on well - I can't wait for my first taste of my own home grown veg!; 5/02/2007 10:34:00 am
Trig said...: We can only do our little bit, Richard. We may not achieve much, but lots of little bits add up and if we do nothing then we only have ourselves to blame. I must admit that although I'm growing herbs I'm not growing any veg right now. But I harvested some food from my garden over the weekend that I served to the public as amuse bouches in my college resturant (now there's a contradiction between self-sufficiency and bourgeois life for you!). More on this in a later post. Today I'm off to eat lunch somewhere really special to make up for last night's defeat by Liverpool.; 5/02/2007 10:39:00 am
Richard said...: Agreed.

I chose to celebrate last night's result - but only with a sandwich at my desk as per usual...
So where was lunch?; 5/02/2007 02:30:00 pm
Stockton said...: Afternoon Trig - firstly, great site, really enjoyed reading it - only stumbled across it today. Secondly,i think its a great idea to post this '12 steps' item on your site. Despite the major view, i think that people, especially the younger (our) generation are getting more and more aware of food and how to sort the wheat from the chaff - chin up richard! I have just visited The Dales festival of food and drink and that was huge - and packed! People do care but its up to people like us to make sure the word keeps on spreading, i guess! Keep up the good work!; 5/06/2007 04:05:00 pm
Trig said...: Cheers Stockton, thanks for the encouragement. Let's keep spreading the word!; 5/07/2007 04:00:00 pm

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Welcome

I'm Aidan "Trig" Brooks, a 22-yr-old from Hackney in London's East End. I left Westminster Kingsway College with a Professional Chef Diploma in summer

2007 and moved to Spain, where I trained in Barcelona at Carles Abellan's Comerç 24 (which won its first Michelin star) and Martín Beresategui's Lasarte (which won its second Michelin star) and was chef de partie and later Pastry Chef to Paco Morales at the amazing hotel restaurant Ferrero in the Valèncian mountains. This Spring I returned to London as part of the team of celebrated Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes, opening East End restaurant Viajante. I'm still working with food, but taking a break from fine dining. Passionately pursuing my life-long ambition to become a top-class chef and, one day, a world-famous restaurateur.

Independence and code of ethics

What's in season in the UK?

Here is this week's UK seasonal food item, courtesy of eat the seasons. This week's seasonal food item is monkfish. This resident of the deep is often described as the ugliest fish in the oceans, though from looking at the beautiful picture below it's hard to see why. Actually, monkfish isn't a fish, but a generic name given to fish from several different genus. The most common is the anglerfish, but the generic term can also refer to angel sharks and sea monks. Whichever variety we are talking about, they should be considered a special treat as all are listed as being unsustainably fished at present. Monkfish has a firm but succulent texture and a slightly sweet flavour and is often compared with seafoods such as lobster and scallops, with which it pairs well to make some luxurious dishes. Monkfish has long featured in Iberian regional dishes, but was almost unknown in the UK until recent years. It now appears on many restaurant menus and is highly sought after by fishing vessels in the waters around SW. England, W. Ireland and W. Scotland. Monkfish is low in calories and a good source of protein. It contains useful amounts of vitamin B3 (aids proper functioning of the metabolic system), potassium (controls the balance of fluids) and selenium (an antioxidant that also helps the immune system). The flesh is sufficiently strong to stand its own against otherwise dominant flavours such as the chorizo, saffron and pimentón typically used with it in Spanish dishes.