Foodsters’ Favourite 50 (2009 edition)

2009 was a fine year for all things food. We pimped out our office with a great working kitchen, we organised our first awards and obviously we ate a whole lot of good food, met a lot of great people and fell in love with some great stuff. Here goes...

By Honey Ahmad

Photography by : FriedChillies

Posted on : Sun, January 10, 2010 - 6:18:20 AM

As usual, the discussions and debates have been heated. How can we just have 50 things when there's 365 days in a year? When on any given day we would be doing 5 different things and everything is food related? It has been an incredibly busy year @ Foodster Central. Lots of plotting and brewing and cooking up delicious ways to take the eating world by storm. This year we have more people contributing to the list and again it's not ranked by number. For easier reading, we arranged it by loose families i.e. media will be together, food items another area and so forth.

And we've put in some weird entries as well like Most Fiendish Ingredient made the list because it made us bow in awe to cooks who wrestle with it all the time. And The Pedas Challenge made a random appearance since well we encourage Malaysians from all walks of life to go forth and conquer. It's all here folks, the good, the great and the downright fabulous...

1/ The year of great Food Movies

There’s always been food movies here and there. More often though there is a food scene like the meatball chow-down in Godfather before they go out for a hit or the Russian Christmas feast in Eastern Promises. And somehow these scenes are the ones that stick. It's no surprise that in recent years, Food Movies have become a respected genre of its own. Here are our Favourite Food Movies of 2009.

Retro Crazy: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP9wtdwgeok
Who would have thought food can be so good in animation? Ratatouille gave it a wonderfully tender treatment and this year, Meatballs gave it an acid trip. Underneath it all is a cautionary tale of excessiveness but whipped-into-a-frenzy-on top is a zany, trippy joyride into the mind of a depraved foodie.

Kitchen Muse: Julie + Julia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjvJHsJD8ic
This film featuring Meryl Streep as the great whimsical Julia Child will warm any food lover’s soul. Julie Powell a struggling writer, who cooks her way through every recipe in Julia Child’s book and then blogs about them, comes out of the experience a new person. This movie is sure to have you craving a bowl of boeuf bourguignon with a side of crusty baguette!

Doom and gloom with a ray of hope?: Food. INC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0
There's no real surprises watching this documentary with all the recent hysterics about food. It's a real horror story about how far off the reservation we have gone. And for us here who still to a certain extent go to Pasar Tani's and wet markets, this can be our future if we are not careful. Thoughtfully put together and what's more important a fair look into modern-day food production in America.

Lost in Translation: Ramen Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GYSwiaNz2o
"I've seen this movie a million times because I like how she wanted to learn ramen as an antidote to her broken heart and finds a lasting friendship instead," says Nadia, our Admin Whizz. We love Ramen Chef Maezumi’s mum’s advice to Abby:

"Each Bowl of ramen that you prepare is a gift to your customer
The food that you serve your customer becomes a part of them
It contains your spirit
That's why your ramen must be an expression of pure love
A gift from your heart
Do you understand?"
Time Code 1:13:53 - 1:14:30

It's a movie that talks about the universal language of food and we were all the little sad to hear of Brityany Murphy's untimely death recently. R-I-P, Ramen Girl.

Best use of Food in opening credits

2/ Dexter’s opening credits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej8-Rqo-VT4&feature=fvst
Through getting ready in the morning and making breakfast, we get a sense of what Dexter does for a living. The grapefruit juice spatter- oh he's a blood spatter analyst. The coffee plunger going in- like how he plunges a knife into his victims. And that same slightly queasy feeling you watch him grill and eat his bacon mirrors some of the best darkly tinged story-lines on cable TV. And oh, that shock season finale this year... WHOA.

Favourite Song

3/ Mayonaise by Smashing Pumpkin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-swlx9z2O0
If you expect this song to be as yummy as a stable emulsion of oil, salt, egg yolks and vinegar then you might get disappointed. Instead, it's composed with contemplative lyrics that makes you feel a little melancholy. But that doesn't mean this song tastes bitter either. That’s why Mayonnaise was one of highest rotation tracks on our iTunes last year.

Books we loved this year

Our library is cultivating nicely. Here are some of our favourite cookbooks this year.

Most Quirky

4/ I like food, food tastes good- Kara Zuaro

We picked up this book when researching for I Eat Music. And this book of recipes for American Indie Bands is just fab! Alarmingly we found out a lot of them are socially conscious vegans (what happened to sex, drugs and rock and roll?) However best thing is we discovered a sense of shared passions, generosity and hey the recipes are delicious too!

Most Ingenious

5/ Ratio- Michael Ruhlman

This book is pure genius! It breaks down cooking ratio’s making it easy to conjure up simple pastas, pastries, breads, and more without even using a recipe. For example, a simple biscuit dough is three parts flour, one part fat, two parts liquid. Just knowing these simple ratios will make cooking so much easier.

Chef-in-Residence Choice

6/ The Village Baker, Joseph Ortiz

"I keep dipping into this book all the time, it's part recipe-book, part textbook. For a person who loves to bake, this book really fills in the blanks from techniques, to the history of bread-making and tips”, enthuses Aida, our Chef-in-Residence. Alas! It is out of print, we picked up a second-hand one in New York @ Bonnie Slotnik Cookbooks - http://www.bonnieslotnickcookbooks.com, she's got great vintage and out of print cookbooks.

The Coolest

7/ The Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin

The front of this book is a tab that says DO NOT PULL. Of course everyone pulls and the title shifts up to show a plate of eggs and bacon. A simply delightful book, it not only gives you cool diner recipes but also tips, ideas, menu pages and generally a look into the lifestyle and eclectic mind of a foodie. Excellent stuff.

"Here it is again! All the cool stuff that inspired, amused, wowed, gobsmacked and made us salivate over."

Internet is our Oyster

We spend most of our lives on-line. An afternoon when internet is down sees us quivering at our desks and usually ends with a trip at the grocers and something cooking in our kitchen. Here are some of the sites we dig.

Favourite Food Blogger

8/ notquitenigella.com

This is one blogger who covers everything food related! She cooks, bakes, reviews and interviews. And she’s uber creative too…Pocky stick Christmas forests, gory Halloween treats, chocolate and avocado cake, and cheeseburger cupcakes are just some of the super cool things you’ll find on her blog.

Favourite Food + Art Site:

9/ eatmedaily.com

This is not just your garden variety site about food, so there’s no tasty dish served on-screen. It has interesting articles on food culture at large which covers arts, design and cookery. "I instantly bookmarked this site after seeing David Sykes “Spaghetti Hoops” in its Food Art directory. They have lots of interesting things, I tell you," grins our Graphic Designer Ebee.

Favourite Food Idea Blog

10/ slashfood.com

This site is not just your average food portal. "I first started following the website because they had great ideas for using leftovers," enthuses our Creative Director, Riz. It's a more thoughtful site on food with great articles and pictures.

Favourite Application

11/ Twitter

This year, we've been busy twittering. It allows us to reach out to our community and also instill a sense of jealousy in them (evil laugh) at all the cool stuff we get up to in the kitchen. But seriously it gets us closer to our fans and share more good food news at a touch of a button. To us, that's precious.

Favourite time-wasting game

12/ Cooking Mama

This game is so cool! Hours of stupefying fun using your iAppliance to chop, throw and generally make dishes. It's a great idea to use your device as a knife, frying pan and extension of your hands. Alarmingly folks- there’s a Wii version too.

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