A bit Wobbly

When you have been used to cooking with standard ingredients,
it can be quite confusing to try new things and
can make one feel a bit wobbly.
Things are unfamiliar when one deviates off a well beaten
(love a cooking pun) path.

I like to view shopping for new ingredients like a bit of a quest,
where you share stories and ideas to get to the final place.
Its O.K not to know what it is you have in front of you,
cause like everything, you just have to ask....



Someone came in and asked for 'agave powder.'
Hmmm I thought, we stock Agave syrup or nectar.
I showed the customer the bottle and explained its use.
Agave is from a Mexican plant that looks like an aloe plant
but is a bit different and a sweet nectar is produced from it.
Its a very good sweetener that can be used as a replacement for sugar.
My customer looked perplexed.

" I want to make Jelly
and not use any animal product?!"

Oh, Agar Agar!

We stock both the crystals and the powder.
Agar Agar is made from seaweed
and is used as a vegetarian gelatin.
It dissolves in the same way as gelatin
when boiled in water.
The customer wanted to make pineapple jelly
using fresh pineapple juice and agar agar
YUM!
The organic pineapples at the moment are so yellow
and lovely and sweet, no need to use agave with them
They are also worth every food mile! (hence the price)
We only have them for a short time over summer, they are such a treat.



Here is a giant "Jelly' of another kind.
It was made by the 'Jellyfish queen' and her 4 disciples,
'the page',
'the knight'
and 'the prince'.
I met them down the beach today
as they were collecting all of the washed up jellyfish
to create a giant KING JELLY.
We got talking and decided the pile resembled many things
'snot and bile' were in the descriptions.
When I asked the reign of the beach if the jellyfish were poison,
they all stepped onto the squishy pile in giggly unison
and said 'NOOOOOOO!"

With the collecting stick they took turns in sharing,
'the page' poked a hole in one of the bluish blobs 'head'.
"Euugh, How do you know that's the head?" I asked
" Its on the top, so its the head," the 'prince' replied with a little lisp.
"Ohhh, I see, well I'm going to go on a quest to find a jellyfish
most like one of my favorite shapes" I said waving goodbye to the
sandy kingdom.

...and look I did

-THE BRAIN-