Ambrosiac musings of a food maniac

Searing the avocado gives it a nutty taste that is just delicious. The lightly seared squids are just melting in your mouth and taste amazing. Be careful not to over-cook them, as this will make them rubbery and yuckie.

I'll admit that I'm a bit influenced by the Israeli version of Master Chef with this dish, but hey - at least it gets me in the muze for something new, for a change!

The crêpes are light and delicious; replacing the milk from the traditional recipe with yogurt provides with a tinge of sourness and allows the crêpes to become slightly lighter in texture.

This is also my first attempt at shooting my own dishes - albeit using Keren's camera.

Butternut squash is not what I would usually consider a 'sexy' vegetable (well, fruit, actually. At least botanically-speaking). It usually makes its appearance roasted with some olive oil or herbs, but up until today I never found a way to use it as a prominent ingredient in a dish.

Then I imagined to myself how would the squash taste combined with cinnamon, goat's milk and Gewürzt and decided to give it a shot. The resulting purée is sweet - but not too sweet, with a rich scent of cinnamon and a strong hint of goat's milk.

When I was a young boy, my mother introduced me to the wonderful combination of ripe avocado and baby radish. She's always described the taste as having a nutty characteristic, which is one of the only culinarily-sophisticated expressions I heard from her as a child. My mom was, and still is, more of a practical kind of cook.

Years later, it suddenly occured to me that if the two worked together so beautifully on a loaf of bread, they should work even better in the warm embraces of a good salad.

As I've told you before, I really like kid goat meat. It is reminiscent of spring lamb, but much more tender and a lot less fatter. This dish is great served with rice (I used whole rice) that can absorbe the tastes from the rich gravy.

These gnocchi are awesome; the bright pink from the beet and the bright green from the chard-ricotta sauce is quite the eye candy and the taste is just amazing. The beets don't dominate the gnocchi, they just add a hint of beetiness.

Thanks to our friend Yael for providing the basic gnocchi recipe that she brought home from her stay in Italy.

Last January Keren and myself celebrated my birthday at the 'Salon' restuarant in Tel Aviv, one of the most applauded restuarants in Israel. Lots has been written about Mr. Shani and his restaurant and by greater writers than yours truly, so I will leave the superlatives to them.

I love springtime. It's when some of my favorite green vegetables become available: snow peas, brussel sprouts, fava beans and the king of spring vegetables, the green garlic. When very young, before the bulb has separated into cloves, I like to slice them whole and make into green aglio e olio. A few weeks later, the bulbs are all grown up and can be used just as the plain dry garlic, but with a twist.

Risotto is probably the king of Italian cooking for me. Its texture when done right is amazingly soft while not being too heavy and allowing you to enjoy a myriad of different tastes - the rice, the stalk, the cheese, the vegetables, the wine...

I love ganache domes. Quite like truffles (or like the Italian variant, Tartufo Nero) but softer due to the higher cream to chocolate ratio. I like to use 70% cocoa solids Guanaja chocolate from Valrhona but any good chocolate works.

Usually I add some whisky (15 year old Dalwhinnie works great), orange liquer or espresso, but this time I wanted something different, and balsamic vinegar seemed like an interesting choice. I was pleased to discover how well it works together with the ganache!