The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit - and Cauliflower and Walnut Salad

How do you decide what flavours go well together? What are some tasty combinations that are not obvious? The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit aims to answer questions like these. What a wonderful book! She breaks foods down into 99 flavours and arranges them on a wheel in categories such as earthy, green and grassy, and floral fruity. Each of the 99 flavours has a chapter in which Segnit discusses pairings with the other flavours. Not all of the possible 9702 pairings are discussed - but the book is extensive, useful, and highly entertaining.

Sarah's Wine Project Starts Today

Do you know much about wines or keep a wine journal? I know nothing about wine! I have decided it is time to finally start keeping track and learning about wines. At the moment all I know is that I like most wines! I usually prefer white because I like chilled wines.

On the advice of my sister-in-law, who worked in a wine shop, I've decided to pick a varietal to start with and concentrate on it until I get to know what I like. So I've decided to mostly try pinot gris wines (pinot grigio in Italian) for a while. I had the first one with dinner tonight and here are my notes.

Weekend Links #33

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--Looking back on Elizabeth David's legacy (from the Observer Food Monthly). She has been described as the UK's "first lady of food" thanks to her 1950s cookbooks lauding fresh, mediterranean ingredients.
--Eating healthfully is easier when you have a bigger reason to do it than for yourself. Enter a Christian reason to serve God with your diet (from The Atlantic). The article also compares the church to Weight Watchers.
--The comments in this short article from The Kitchn elaborate on what "clean as you go" really means for a messy cook.

image source: My New Roots

Simply Cooked's Best of 2013

Most Popular Posts

My most visited posts this year were all posts written before this year. I'm a little surprised that the top five are not more recent ones. But there are some classically helpful posts in this list, and that is what visitors to Simply Cooked are looking for (and finding!).

How to Cook Perfect Quail's Eggs

The largest amount of searchers come to Simply Cooked looking for instructions on how to hard boil perfect quail's eggs. This post was visited more than 90,000 times in 2013, which is more than double the visits for any other post.

Light Box for Food Photography: Step-by-Step



The post giving instructions for how to build a light box was written in 2010, and was my first widely popular post. It was also a turning point for my photography since with better lighting I was able to take much, much better pictures. If you don't yet have a light box, make one soon.