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Restaurant City is a popular game on Facebook released by Playfish, built on the concept of being able to create your own, highly customizable restaurant, including creating an exterior, adding to the menu, creating recipes and even managing employees. There is even an a social aspect of competition when friends join in and compete with their own restaurants on the same virtual street.
Obviously, if you own and manage an eatery then the menu is critical and it is in the virtual world, too, so Restaurant City food requires your primary attention.
Upgrading Your Menu Is A MUST (If You Want To Succeed, That Is)
Restaurant City food is an important aspect of the game in that you need to upgrade your restaurant's dishes and menu in order to compete and improve your restaurant. Just as in real life, creating dishes require ingredients, and that means getting new and different ingredients in order to create new dishes.
You can get new ingredients in several ways:
* By visiting your friends' restaurants (only on the first visit)...
* Answering a daily quiz question...
* By purchasing new ingredients (sometimes there are even sales on ingredients)...
* By trading ingredients with your friends...
The real purpose is to gain "GP" - otherwise known as Gourmet Points - and level up. Money is added to your virtual restaurant even when you aren't playing, but Gourmet Points are only gained while your browser window is open. Gaining GP means you can level up your recipes, which means more advanced meals on the menu.
Success in Restaurant City food really comes down to the ability to level up to more advanced recipes, like Level 10 ones that require an amazing 2100 ingredients. The higher level a recipe is, the more Gourmet Points are gained while that dish is being served.
A Valuable Tip About Advanced Recipes
Since you get more Gourmet Points from a recipe that's more advanced, you shouldn't change it out unless you get a higher recipe for that meal.
It's Not All About The Food
Outside of improving on the dishes you serve in your restaurant, and working to get better ingredients so you can level up your dishes, the rest of the game involves keeping employees happy and not wearing them down.
You should also make sure you have good staffing ratios. If you don't have enough waiters, for example, the restaurant won't run as effectively as it should because basics like getting tables cleared promptly won't be done.
While running a virtual restaurant is a lot of fun, the best aspect is the Restaurant City food, and the creation of new and different meals in an attempt to gain more Gourmet Points. It's addictive, but in a good way!
Right now download our FREE Restaurant City secrets guide and learn how to get hundreds of ingredients so that you can earn boatloads of Gourmet Points or why you definitely need arcade games or learn about 7 very helpful game tools. Then learn from a Master who reached Level 65, has a 50 Popularity level, a 5 Star rating and still has $1,245,101 left. http://www.dealant.com/webdeals/restaurantcity/
In order to keep up with the latest trends and changing customs of life, it is a must to acquaint yourself with the new developments of the block. One such development in the field of restaurants, cookery and food industry is the Gourmet cooking.
This new rage is catching up fast among the young as well as older generation. Learning the art of gourmet cooking, you can enter this magnificent field with rather more confidence and knowledge. Entering the splendid market place with that li'l more information, skills and definitely more techniques of using natural food items, would add to your X-factor.
To learn this drill, you should look for a institution or a school that is specialized for the same. Natural gourmet cooking, just like any other art, need to be learnt in the right way in a congenial atmosphere with the right attitude.
While some cookery schools these days teach this art just abiding to the market demand, some have already made it a part of their regular curriculum.
Let's see how to look for the right course satisfying your individual needs in this regard.
1. Without clicking on to the right school and the right course, the learning can all go for a fly.
2. First of all, check on your aim of learning the natural gourmet cooking - that is it for the commercial or household need. How much time are you willing to spent on it daily and in the long run.
3. Next, for the commercial learning purposes watch out the offerings of the varied schools in terms of the degree programs.
4. Also watch as to what type of education are they offering.
5. Next, check on their current brand value in the market.
6. Further, you can judge a school with the quality of students it has produced in the past. See whether the alumni of the school is still very active? If yes, try and meet some of the students to gauge through the school's standards.
7. Research what came out to be of the pass outs of this school.
8. Once you are sure of the school, next in the line is selecting the course you wish to take up.
9. Usually for natural gourmet cooking, the schools offer two options:
i. The Professional Chef Training
ii. The Public Courses
10. The aim of both the types of courses is to pass on the knowledge on health supportive courses, that is how to prepare tasty as well as healthy food for your beloved and the customers of the future.
11. These courses also aim to impart knowledge on how to choose best quality ingredients among the natural elements available. This is done keeping in view the dietary recommendations of the individuals.
12. They teach you the usage of foods like vegetables and whole grains.
13. The course also enlists ways and means that help you add a twist of health to your regular meals, maintaining the similar flavor and texture.
14. All in enables you to change the way people eat, along side changing your food habits as well.
The key idea behind a chef doing gourmet cooking is to serve healthy food with a sheer twist of taste and that too with a completely balanced & well presented meal.
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As the summer sun is most definitely fading it's probably time to start thinking about those winter recipes, and although I hardly dare mention it, Christmas food. There's a great deal that can be done with traditional winter recipes, and by replacing one of two of your traditional ingredients with gourmet ingredients you'll discover that you can take the same recipes you've been using for years and transform them into something truly exceptional.
The problem with most winter meals and Christmas meals is that because we're all under pressure to spend, spend, spend, we don't tend to have an awful lot of spare cash left over for being extravagant with cooking and ingredients. For this reason we don't tend to purchase gourmet ingredients, instead opting for the supermarket food which is usually heavily discounted.
But whilst this might all makes sense as far as your bank manager is concerned, your taste buds, and those of your family and friends, are being seriously short changed. By thinking about buying in a few gourmet ingredients now, you can try out a few of your favourite winter recipes and discover the real difference which gourmet ingredients can make.
In this article I'm going to give you one of my personal favourites when it comes to gourmet ingredients, and which you can easily add to a whole variety of traditional British winter meals and Christmas dinners, and which actually doesn't cost a very great deal more than run-of-the-mill, supermarket ingredients which leave an awful lot wanting. My suggestion is to get some goose fat.
When it comes to French food, UK consumers don't tend to be able to pick up gourmet ingredients very easily, and although goose fat is not strictly speaking a French ingredient, it tends to be thought of as French simply because they tend to use it more than we do. Typical of the French, they get all the best ingredients!
But by picking up some goose fat you can totally transform your traditional roast potatoes. So many winter Sunday roasts, and Christmas dinners celebrate roast potatoes, but if you want your roast potatoes to really shine, and be about the best roast potatoes your family and friends will ever come across, then simply replace your existing fat with goose fat. Smother your potatoes with goose fat, pop them in the oven and you'll discover that the goose fat does two things. First of all it helps crisp the outside whilst leaving the inside soft and fluffy, and it also adds a very great deal of flavour.
As far as gourmet ingredients go, goose fat is not only affordable, it's also extremely easy to use in your existing recipes. You can also use this fat in the same way to create the most outstanding home chips. If you a tub of goose fat to hand, then next time you need to fry an onion, use the goose fat instead of butter for a beautiful creamy flavour. You can also add it to your roast vegetables, and if you need to make dumplings for a Sunday roast, goose fat dumplings are about the best you can find anywhere.
People often tend to think that gourmet ingredients requires a gourmet level of cooking, but the truth is that it really doesn't. Buying one or two gourmet ingredients needn't be terrifying, and it needn't be expensive either. If you just buy one or two gourmet ingredients for this winter and Christmas, make sure that your shopping list includes a fair sized tub of goose fat. Once you've used it, you'll wonder why that you never used it before. Unfortunately, so will your family!
For more information about gourmet ingredients or to find out more about French food UK, visit The Good Food Network for a wide selection of ingredients, recipes and suggestions.
It is often confusing when you go to buy dog food to try to identify what is important on the label and why some foods are priced so much higher or so much lower than the rest. It is important to buy a good quality food that meets your dog's needs, but the quality of the food is not always guaranteed by the price. Many of the very high priced dog foods or "gourmet" foods are no more nutritionally balanced than the premium foods offered by large or small dog food companies. Typically the very low priced dog foods should be avoided as they are largely made up of filler type ingredients and little protein and very little nutritional value.
What's On The Label?
The ingredient portion of the label must list all the food items and additives that are contained in the food. In most developed countries the items in dog food are controlled by a federal agency to ensure they are appropriate for consumption and are not a danger to the animals. The substances in dog food must by generally recognized as safe, or GRAS. No diseased meat, improperly processed meat or vegetable material or other items may be used in the food.
The items listed on the ingredient portion are listed by natural weight at time of processing, starting with the heaviest item and working down. That means that the meat is weighed in its moist, natural state just like the soy meal or ground wheat will be listed in their natural dry state on the ingredient list. Since processing removes most of the water, especially in dry food, the first ingredient on the list may not be the predominant ingredient in the final dry kibble. In reality most dry foods will list beef, chicken or meat as the first ingredient but on full analysis of the final dry ingredient there will be far more of the wheat fillers in each kibble. Avoid dog foods that list animal or meat by-products as the main ingredients as these have almost no nutritional value for the dog.
Since there is almost no way to know how much of the original ingredient is in the final result the information on the ingredient label is not as useful as it may seem. The better information that is provided on the label is the actual analysis of the feed, which is based on the final product and its actual breakdown.
The analysis will list the crude protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals. Generally a dog should have between 21 and 26% protein in the diet depending on their age and level of activity. The more active a dog is the more protein they will need to sustain energy levels. Puppies and senior dogs should not be fed high protein diets as it can cause problems in puppies with bone growth and may cause excessive weight gain in older, more sedate dogs.
How much to feed?
If you are feeding a good quality premium dry dog food it is important to follow the feeding recommendations. Poor quality foods will have you feed more and will lead to increased mess to clean up. Premium dry foods usually are fed by current body weight of the dog as well as the growth stage of the dog. Be sure to feed the correct food for the correct growth stage to optimize the benefits to the dog.
If you are in doubt about the correct feeding amounts or are concerned that your dog may be gaining or losing weight due to the food immediately seek the advice of your vet. Often rapid weight loss or gain has nothing to do with the food but may be a serious health concern or even a genetic condition.
Vets also recommend feeding your dog from an elevated dog feeder to reduce the amount of air ingested when eating.
Wild foods such as Marsh Samphire are making their way on to the plates of trendy international restaurants. They join such wild-sourced foods as truffles as culinary oddities and gourmet foods. Are these trail-blazers in a new trend, and is there something more going on here?
In Europe, at least, the Second World War marked a watershed in culinary tastes. Foraging for wild foods became an essential part of survival. Wild-sourced foods often became essential dietary staples for those who could access those foods. It was inevitable, after the shortages of the war cam to an end that people would shie away from such subsistence foods and that commercial agricultural produce and processed foods became the be-all and end-all of daily sustenance. Two generations lost the knowledge of which wild foods were edible and which wern't (with the notable exception of fruit such as blackberries and certain mushrooms). Consumers became more distant from the land than ever before.
But the wheel is turning. Concern for the planet has led to increased awareness and interest in the possibilities of foraging and the finding of wild food sources. This is partly a matter of curiosity and partly an increased interest in the recipes of the past and their ingredients. There is also an increased interest in growing a larger range of herbs and flowers in the garden to attract insects (and many of these insect-attracting plants happen to be edible).
This has resulted in increased knowledge and curiosity about ancient food sources and how wild and different foodstuffs can be used. This the ancient Elizabethan trade in marsh samphire has been renewed and samphire is now on the menu. But it doesn't stop there. Those people who would look for blackberries in summer are now collecting elder flowers in May, elderberries in August, wild plums and hazelnuts in September, and sloes in October -- and these are just the common fruit.
Once you start down this road of discovery you find that common garden weeds such a bedstraw, fat hen and chickweed are not only edible but make good vegetables. Rather than grubbing these up and adding them to your compost heap, you can wash them and add them to your dinner plate! Then there are the wild herbs, the wild greens such as ramsons (wild garlic) in spring and Field Mustard which can be found year round. There are even greens such as coltsfoot, and common wintercress that can be found and consumed even in the depths of Winter.
Part of the attraction of these wild foods is that they bring out the 'hunter-gatherer' in all of us. It's part of our ancestry, our heritage and once you get bitten by the foraging bug you will never quite be the same again. You will find that in spring you serve your dinner guests a hedgerow salad made of wild greens and wild flowers, in summer you will have summer puddings of wild fruit and in autumn you have the harvest of wild nuts and wild mushrooms to draw on. Even in the depths of winter there are stored fruit and wild greens that you can use.
Next time you pass a tangled hedgerow or an overgrown verge why not stop for a moment to look at the range of plant life that exists there. With a simple guide and some patience you will even be able to get yourself a tasty meal from those plants.
Trendy restaurants may be scraping the verges of wild foods to make a statement and make a name for themselves, but you as real cooks can truly appreciate the breadth and depth of the range of wild foodstuffs available to you. They will truly allow you to connect to your ancestors for these are the foods they collected and consumed. Keep the ancient traditions alive and try some wild foods for yourself.
To learn more about wild foods, how to recognize them and cook them take a look at the Wild Food Guide.
Dyfed Lloyd Evans is a cook and Internet author who is passionate about ancient foods and ancient cookery. He shares his knowlege on this subject in his Celtnet Recipes site. His reconstruction of ancient recipes can be found on his Ancient Recipes pages.
As the Christmas season is very much upon us it's time to think about the sort of meals, buffets, dinners and nibbles you'll have available for yourself, your family, friends, and anyone else who might happen to drop in for a little festive food. Gourmet ingredients are one way to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, and that, after all, is very much in keeping with the Christmas season.
We take an ordinary tree, and we transform it into something extraordinary, by lighting it up, dressing it in tinsel, adorning it with baubles and crowning it with a star. We take an ordinary day, and we make it extraordinary through traditions, gifts, making time to be together and discovering yet again that no one's planned ahead to think of some great titles for charades. Why not take ordinary meals, snacks and buffets and make them extraordinary by adding one or two gourmet ingredients?
It's funny, but when most people head off to the shops or online to buy ingredients it tends to be for the ordinary, popular, vanilla ingredients which everybody tends to use every day of the year, because they're convenient, cheap and familiar. But in fact it doesn't have to take a great deal to take ordinary meals and make them extraordinary. With just a little bit of thought, and a few tips here and there, anyone, regardless of their cooking prowess, can transform a meal by purchasing gourmet ingredients in place of their usual ones.
Many people tend to think that gourmet food and ingredients is for celebrity chefs, those people who cook in five star Michelin restaurants or who have a chain of fine restaurants throughout Europe. However, this is certainly not the case, and when it comes to going out, or going online, to buy ingredients, it needn't be difficult to benefit from a little extra quality here and there.
One of the other reasons people tend to give when explaining why they don't tend to buy gourmet ingredients is that they don't know what to choose, they don't know what they're like or they don't understand the names (because they're in French). This is fair enough, but in fact not only are many online suppliers today offering a vast selection of high quality ingredients, they're also offering advice and information about how to choose the right ingredient, and how to use it in your own familiar recipes.
You don't have to throw away your cookbook and start cooking fancy food you need a degree in French just to pronounce; the trick with using gourmet ingredients is to use them exactly as you would your normal ingredients. It isn't you who has to change - the change will happen of its own accord thanks to the power, scent, flavour and quality of the gourmet ingredients you've bought.
As a simple example, you could try the following two simple switches, which won't be hard to do at all. However, not only will your taste buds thank you, but so will all your family and friends who benefit from the extraordinary changes:
- Dried Porcini Mushrooms - These are fantastic, and can easily be used in place of the rather tasteless, bland mushrooms sold by supermarkets. These are fabulous in dishes such as risottos, but be careful about the quantity you use. Porcini mushrooms are packed full of flavour, so you may need fewer than you would normally use. The dried mushrooms will absorb liquid quickly, becoming absolutely delicious. Discover the true flavour of mushrooms again!
- Goose Fat - This is another easy switch. If you love roast potatoes (and who doesn't?) then you simply must try swapping your usual fat for goose fat. Your potatoes will taste heavenly, be exceptionally crispy on the outside whilst fluffy on the inside.
These are two very simple ideas, but you can find many more online and from reputable retailers who will be happy to help you buy gourmet ingredients to transform your festive dishes from the ordinary to the extraordinarily tasty!
For more help, advice, recipes and recommendations about using gourmet ingredients, visit The Good Food Network, where you can also buy ingredients.
One of the problems with gourmet ingredients is that so many people tend to assume that they're really more for adults than for children. By seeing gourmet food and cooking in this way not only are people denying children the right to experience real, genuine tastes, but they may well be setting children up as fussy eaters.
Now don't assume that by this I mean that families should head out and start buying crates of highly expensive gourmet ingredients, because that's going to the complete opposite extreme. There is however a perfectly manageable happy medium in which families can help engage children with food and cooking in a positive way that may well have a lasting effect on their attitude towards food for years to come.
Indeed, often it is the habits and opinions we have based on our taste experiences as children which sets us on a fairly rigid track for the rest of our lives. So it's important to get this right, whilst at the same time being very aware that this is not the time for overspending on lavish and unnecessary ingredients.
But to understand why gourmet ingredients can be made both affordable and accessible it's best to consider a couple of examples. Clearly you're not going to win your children over by serving up your best foi gras, nicely complimented by a side plate of wilted spinach. But this isn't what gourmet ingredients are necessarily about.
For example, a worrying number of children actually seem to think that vanilla ice cream means ice cream without any extra flavouring. The same goes for yoghurt. It seems that so many children see vanilla not as a flavour, or even as an ingredient, but as an alternative word to 'plain'. Why not for a change introduce children to a vanilla seed pod? Just showing them where the vanilla flavour comes from, and then using this in cooking, perhaps to make a cake, would get children to start thinking about ingredients and words a little differently.
Another idea is pizza, because almost every child enjoys this! By getting the children involved with making their own pizza at home you can introduce them to inexpensive gourmet ingredients and herbs very easily. You can of course make your own pizza dough (and there are several variations of this, including whole wheat crust) or you can buy pizza dough from the shop.
Ingredients to try include things such as sun dried tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and perhaps some basil and olive oil. By using quality, fresh ingredients you can create a nutritious, healthy meal that tastes great, is relatively inexpensive, and helps introduce children to gourmet food in a way that could help set them up for life.
If you're looking for affordable gourmet ingredients then I strongly recommend taking a look at The Good Food Network. Not only is it a great place to buy French food and ingredients, but there's also plenty of advice and recipes too.
When was the last time you bought some gourmet ingredients? If you're like the overwhelming majority of people, it's likely to be either so long ago you can't really remember, or you may admit to having never actually bought any gourmet ingredients at all yourself. Yet why is this so often the case?
Is it because we don't feel we deserve gourmet food, or that we don't really know what to do with ingredients like that once we've got them? Is it because the local supermarkets don't stock gourmet products, offering instead the general, bland everyday food which sells well? Perhaps it's that we don't entirely know what we mean by gourmet, and imagine that if we buy French food from a restaurant, that's as close as it gets.
Sadly many people have a combination of these misunderstandings and assumptions, meaning that very few of us really tend to go out and choose gourmet items to cook with, or to enjoy as they are. Yet in truth it is neither hard to find such items, nor is it difficult to incorporate them into our everyday cooking. In fact many of your favourite recipes which you can happily put together yourself any day of the week could easily be transformed into something quite extraordinary thanks to just one or two gourmet ingredients being used in place of your normal ones. So first of all, let's challenge any possible assumption that we don't deserve gourmet food.
We have all been born with tongues, taste buds and the ability to enjoy good food. Indeed, eating is a pretty fundamental part of life, and so we might as well enjoy it. It is our right to enjoy the food we eat, but all too often we become so accustomed to the everyday convenience food offered by the supermarkets, that we can become extraordinarily pleased with ourselves if we happen to upgrade our standard beige steak pie for an "Extra Special, Customers' Choice" steak pie, which comes in a different coloured cardboard box. This isn't gourmet food, and it isn't what we deserve to have all of the time.
Now I'm not suggesting for one minute that we all dump our normal food and upgrade to first class gourmet dining for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But there's also no reason why every single meal of every single day has to be of the same standard. It would be great to treat yourself and your family and friends to something a bit special. And to be honest once you find out how easy it is, you'll wonder why you didn't switch sooner. So in terms of deserving gourmet food, if you have a mouth and a stomach, then of course you do.
The next question then is where to buy French food and gourmet items that can be used in your favourite recipes. Unfortunately many of the supermarkets offer a very limited selection, if anything at all, and so it can be hard to find the sort of thing you need locally. However, with the internet just a click away it's actually very easy to buy gourmet French products, by visiting a specialist retailer online, ordering your food and then waiting to have it delivered to your door. It really couldn't be much easier.
Finally, how do you integrate gourmet ingredients into your everyday cooking? You'll actually find that most of the better online retailers will provide a selection of ideas, suggestions and recipes, such as using goose fat for roast potatoes and vegetables, or using dried porcini mushrooms in your risotto. Take a look online today for gourmet ingredients and places where you can buy French food - your taste buds deserve no less!
For a wide selection of gourmet ingredients, recipes, tips and ideas visit The Good Food Network where you can buy French food and specialist ingredients online.
Are you looking to make your ordinary family meals a little more exciting? The answer could be easier than you think - simply buy gourmet ingredients. After all, the top hotels and restaurants all use gourmet ingredients, and so it stands to reason that they're doing that for a reason. When you stop to think about it, it makes a good deal of sense, because your meals can only ever be as good as the ingredients used to create them.
Given four red Lego bricks you can't be expected to make a blue cube. Your meals are what they're made of, and so the first step to giving your cooking a real boost is to examine the kind of ingredients you're using, where you're getting them from, and start looking for ways to replace one or two of your normal ingredients with gourmet ingredients.
If you've never looked into the idea of going out to buy French food then you may wonder just exactly where to start. Don't worry, transforming your meals by purchasing a few gourmet ingredients isn't hard, and neither is it difficult finding out how to buy French food that's affordable, convenient, and authentic. But to begin with it's important to make one point perfectly clear.
When it comes to looking for gourmet food and traditional French gourmet ingredients, the supermarket is not the best place to go. Yes, it may be convenient, but sadly all that convenience comes at a price. Even the heavily discounted prices offered by the supermarkets come at a price. That price is choice, because supermarkets can only really achieve what they do by appealing to the most popular purchases.
Sadly gourmet ingredients don't rank heavily on the list of products the average shopper buys (yet!) and so you won't find many of these in your average supermarket. Perhaps you might find one or two, but for a really useful range of ingredients you can really use, it's usually better to pop online.
Certainly heading online is quicker and cheaper than taking a ferry across to France, doing your shopping and heading back home. Granted, it might not be as much fun, but it's certainly quicker and cheaper.
But one of the benefits of using an online supplier for when it comes to choosing and buying gourmet ingredients is that, in at least some cases, you'll find that they're able to offer hints, tips and even recipes showing you how to use those ingredients in ways you're probably already familiar with.
For example, one of the things France is known for is its wild mushrooms, and in some parts of the country there are some outstanding mushrooms that can be dried and used in a wide variety of dishes. If you've ever headed off to the supermarket to buy mushrooms for a recipe, you may have noticed that in almost every case the mushrooms taste a little like, well, like nothing really.
Actually tasting the mushroom can be quite difficult, and you have to ask what they're really adding to the meal, except perhaps for the texture. But by adding some gourmet French mushrooms you'll find the taste becomes beautifully nutty, and makes a real difference to the overall dish as the flavours blend and combine to lift the whole meal. Simple, but so effective.
The same is true for so many other French gourmet ingredients, where you can make a huge difference by replacing your supermarket standard ingredients with gourmet ones that make more of a difference than you ever thought possible. It's so easy to get into a routine with food, buying the same ingredients, and using them in the same way in the same recipes. Break out of the cycle and discover how a simple change of ingredients could wake up your taste buds to the fact that you've been missing out on a real opportunity for too long.
If you're looking to buy French food and gourmet ingredients, The Good Food Network has an extensive range to choose from, and at affordable prices.
I have recently started to get into cooking, mainly as a hobby and for family as I'm not that brave yet.
Stir fry's and the good old fashioned sirloin steak seemed to be pretty easy to master so I wanted to take my interest further and start to include some more exotic, exciting and tastier ingredients.
I started watching cookery programmes on the television, more for techniques than recipes but one thing that struck me whilst flicking through the recipe books ... I can never seem to find all of the ingredients I require in just one shop? This in turn means going from one shop or supermarket to another and was starting to feel like hard work and I was supposed to be enjoying my new hobby.
I then turned my attention to the Internet and low and behold, there were dozens if not hundreds of online retailers selling everything I needed online.
This means that when I sit down and work out my next master piece of a meal I can look at the recipe books, check if I can get the ingredients online (and they can be delivered before I want to cook my meal) and do all of my preparation at the same time ... job done !!
This then gave me an idea to build a website ([http://www.foodgourmetonline.co.uk]) to bring together all of the different online merchants that I used in one place and thought it might be of use to others in a similar situation and who knows, even experienced chefs may find it useful.
Happy cooking!!
When was the last time you bought some gourmet ingredients? If you're like the overwhelming majority of people, it's likely to be either so long ago you can't really remember, or you may admit to having never actually bought any gourmet ingredients at all yourself. Yet why is this so often the case?
Is it because we don't feel we deserve gourmet food, or that we don't really know what to do with ingredients like that once we've got them? Is it because the local supermarkets don't stock gourmet products, offering instead the general, bland everyday food which sells well? Perhaps it's that we don't entirely know what we mean by gourmet, and imagine that if we buy French food from a restaurant, that's as close as it gets.
Sadly many people have a combination of these misunderstandings and assumptions, meaning that very few of us really tend to go out and choose gourmet items to cook with, or to enjoy as they are. Yet in truth it is neither hard to find such items, nor is it difficult to incorporate them into our everyday cooking. In fact many of your favourite recipes which you can happily put together yourself any day of the week could easily be transformed into something quite extraordinary thanks to just one or two gourmet ingredients being used in place of your normal ones. So first of all, let's challenge any possible assumption that we don't deserve gourmet food.
We have all been born with tongues, taste buds and the ability to enjoy good food. Indeed, eating is a pretty fundamental part of life, and so we might as well enjoy it. It is our right to enjoy the food we eat, but all too often we become so accustomed to the everyday convenience food offered by the supermarkets, that we can become extraordinarily pleased with ourselves if we happen to upgrade our standard beige steak pie for an "Extra Special, Customers' Choice" steak pie, which comes in a different coloured cardboard box. This isn't gourmet food, and it isn't what we deserve to have all of the time.
Now I'm not suggesting for one minute that we all dump our normal food and upgrade to first class gourmet dining for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But there's also no reason why every single meal of every single day has to be of the same standard. It would be great to treat yourself and your family and friends to something a bit special. And to be honest once you find out how easy it is, you'll wonder why you didn't switch sooner. So in terms of deserving gourmet food, if you have a mouth and a stomach, then of course you do.
The next question then is where to buy French food and gourmet items that can be used in your favourite recipes. Unfortunately many of the supermarkets offer a very limited selection, if anything at all, and so it can be hard to find the sort of thing you need locally. However, with the internet just a click away it's actually very easy to buy gourmet French products, by visiting a specialist retailer online, ordering your food and then waiting to have it delivered to your door. It really couldn't be much easier.
Finally, how do you integrate gourmet ingredients into your everyday cooking? You'll actually find that most of the better online retailers will provide a selection of ideas, suggestions and recipes, such as using goose fat for roast potatoes and vegetables, or using dried porcini mushrooms in your risotto. Take a look online today for gourmet ingredients and places where you can buy French food - your taste buds deserve no less!
For a wide selection of gourmet ingredients, recipes, tips and ideas visit The Good Food Network where you can buy French food and specialist ingredients online.
