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Friday, December 24, 2004
what I ate last: taglierini with truffle, baked cod, jerusalem artichokes and fennel Back home to my parentals, the Christmas food thing really gets going. Not only do I not have to lift a finger to be fed fantastic food and delicious wine, but I also don't have to pay for it! Last night I arrived at their house exhausted from shopping and travelling, to be fed roast spatchcocked chicken with paprika and lemon, roast potatoes and homegrown 'rainbow chard', followed by green salad, delicious cheese and homemade membrillo. Then by the log fire, it was lemon verbena tea with Japanese sweets made of chestnut paste stuffed into a candied yuzu. This morning I had buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup, followed barely two hours later (thanks to my excessively lazy getting-up time) by delicate vegetable soup rendered special by home-made chicken stock , and more salad and cheese. With a tea-time snack of more sublime Japanese sweets, it was on to a dinner which began with one of the most perfect dishes one could imagine. One of the restaurants that my father is indirectly responsible for thought that they could persuade the good burghers of East Suffolk to pay for white truffle. Fortunately not many of them were willing to cough up, so there were some left-over truffles from the order, plus their mushroom supplier has been packing some complimentary black truffles into every box of wild mushrooms that they ordered. Don't tell the taxman, but somehow a few of these excess truffles ended up being grated over some suitably expensive taglierini on our plates this evening. Heaven, accompanied by a fantastic Barolo Meriame from Paolo Manzone (available from Adnams, of course!). The heady, hormonal scent of truffles and Barolo combined made me feel somewhat like Catwoman when faced with the catnip - nostrils twitching uncontrollably, hairs standing on end. After such a starter, there's no point in trying to top it with the main course, so we had a simple but perfectly cooked baked cod with cherry tomatoes and black olive paste, baked jerusalem artichokes and roast fennel. I'm incredibly lucky to have parents so passionately committed and capable in the kitchen. It would not even cross their mind not to have a 'real' meal three times a day. Every time I read the latest newspaper poll showing that no-one has a family meal any more, I thank my lucky stars that since I was born, I have eaten beautiful, ritual meals with my parents, conversing and chewing, at least two courses every evening, a glass or two of good wine, tea or coffee afterwards, talking about what we put in our mouths and loving it. 0 comments permalink  
Thursday, December 23, 2004 what I ate last: smoked mackerel 'pate', grilled squid, red peppers and rocket, baked seabass with wild mushrooms, swiss chard and potatoes with parsley, etc... The first 'real' meal that I have cooked since returning to the UK (for which the shopping in the previous post was in aid of) came off well and was real fun to do. The joy of cooking for a dinner party when it's not squeezed in to the hour between getting home from work and everyone arriving. Take your time, be organised, set the table, don't forget anything, change your clothes... The menu was as follows: to nibble on as a 'starter' (knowing all my friends to be perpetually late, making them all wait for the latest person before sitting down to eat is not an option), a smoked mackerel 'pate' (cheat's version), sourdough toast, grilled marinated baby squid with grilled skinned peppers and rocket. The cheating 'pate' is an instant version that I happened upon while combing the fridge one day for something tasty and instant and it's actually rather good. You shred smoked mackerel with a fork (discard the skin) and mix with a decent amount of sheeps yogurt, some lemon juice, finely sliced spring onion and plenty of black pepper. I sprinkle chopped parsley on top to reassure those who don't like their breath to smell of onions as the pasley magically neutralises the smell. The joy of this dish is it's really light and (dare I say it) healthy, yet full of flavour and very fresh. After, it was a baked seabass with a wild mushroom 'sauce', boiled potatoes tossed with coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsely (somehow this makes all the difference to 'boring' potatoes both in taste and look) and braised swiss chard. The mushrooms (a mix of girolles, porcini, and 'cheap' chestnuts) were really a treat for me to buy myself. Stewed very simply with nothing but olive oil and seasoning, they were incredibly fragrant, justifying the extortionate Borough Market price I paid for them. Then a simple green salad, and finished off with one of my favorite ever cakes - the summer fruits frangipani from Konditor and Cook. I'm sorry, I don't make my own puddings. I'm just not that passionate about sweet things to go to the added hassle. Plus, when at home with friends in a relatively informal way, I'd rather have a really good shop-bought cake or tart to go with coffee as we sit around and gab. Anyway, this one is so far more sublime than anything I could possibly make myself, though I hate to agree with Nigella's quote that is now displayed on all of their literature, that I have absolutely no compunction at my laziness. Altogether, a damn good meal, sending us out into the night to continue to party at my friend's dj night with happy bellies. 1 comments permalink
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 what I ate last: There is a nightmare called trying to shop for food for a dinner party using public transport and my bare hands to carry everything. It's not possible to buy sufficient food for a three course meal for six people and carry it home at one go, unless you make soup or something that relies on a lot of the stuff that bulks it out being on tap (water) or in the store cupboard (pasta and rice). And for me, pasta and rice and soup are just too everyday to be dinner party food. So I struggle around Borough Market simultaneously over-excited at all that stuff available to buy and totally stressing out at the fact that everything will be crushed by the time I get home and why can't they give me my fish in a carrier bag with a handle not a massive clear binbag type thing tied with a big knot. I end up having to take a cab home and still I have to go back because I couldn't manage to buy wine, olive oil, pudding, and various odds and ends the first time round. How do you do it without a car/a boyfriend to help you carry it all? There's definitely a gap in the cookbook market for dinner party recipes that fit into two shopping bags. 0 comments permalink
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 what I ate last: herrings and pumpernickel, spit-roast belly pork with black pudding and baked quince Last night was my Christmas treat with my boyfriend (as if I hadn't been getting enough since I got back into town) at the Wolseley. Everyone knows that it's the best place opened in the last year or so, run by the guys who did the Ivy and the Caprice so well, perfect discreet service, perfect reliable food, the place to be seen, amazing huge old banking hall and Wolsely car showroom decorated with antique black and gold Chinoiserie, etc etc. All this and more: it is also extremely reasonably priced considering its cachet - one would pay similarly for a vastly inferior meal and experience in this town - and being bigger than the previous restaurants, it's also possible to get a table as one of hoi polloi. It's unshowy, sophisticated and glamourous in a perfectly discreet way, and does fabulous dry martinis. I generally have considered the food here to be immensely accomplished but not 'bowl-me-over' standard - a standard which is more than good enough given how fantastic the service and ambience is. Maybe (I would like to think) it is the effect of having one of my cousins now installed at some lowly position in the kitchen), but last night I was very surprised by the quality of what came out on our plates. Our starters were good, both dishes I'd had before and were exactly as I remembered, accomllished but nothing more, but the main courses were exceptional, both because of very small touches. Continuing on my theme of ordering every restaurant item with 'quince' on it in order to feel my superiority in the cooking of this sublime fruit, I ordered the belly pork dish named above. The pork was delicious, each thick-cut slice at the perfect point between meeting the bite and melting on the tongue, and topped with a slice of black pudding. So far, so it should be, but the quince for once astonished me. Not just one variety of quince was present on my plate, but two - a classic slice of 'baked quince', crispy round the edges, sweet-sour and grainy, but also a perfect spoonful of puree, cooked longer and made sweeter and richer in the process but still with a tart edge. The surprise of finding more on my plate than I had expected was perfection - the quince for once not overflavored by being cooked with other things, and balancing perfectly the pork. Finally, someone in a restaurant can cook a quince. The boy's Poulet de Landes a la forestiere contained a similar surprise. Filling his mouth with a forkful of the mushrooms that covered what he described as an 'amazing chicken', he also gave a look of surprise. Hiding in the wild mushrooms were some sweet chestnuts. To quote him, it was a 'masterstroke'. His only grumble was that the green salad wasn't as good as St John's. Well, maybe, but it was hardly anywhere near inadequate, and he's got a bit of weird taste in lettuces. All good stuff, and I got to feel grown-up and glamorous to boot. 0 comments permalink
what I ate last: sushi I've managed to eat sushi twice in the last two days. Yesterday was at Feng Sushi in Borough Market, which used to be a regular lunch spot of mine when I worked right above it. I was back visiting my old colleagues and partaking of our traditional spread of vegetable tempura, yellowtail sashimi, edamame, mackerel and salmon. It's all good, reliable stuff, and the staff are lovely, but what I really wanted was my quintessential London sushi experience at Kulu Kulu on Brewer Street, so today a trip down to Piccadilly gave me the perfect excuse to treat myself. One of the great things about conveyor-belt sushi is you feel absolutely happy and normal eating there on your own. Kulu Kulu is typically London in that none of the staff or chefs are actually Japanese. A mix of Vietnamese, Malay, Korean, black British and what looked today to be a Hispanic of some sort turn out fantastic, cheap, fresh sushi and the assorted other items made from the offcuts of the fish, such as tempura of the tails and salmon skin maki, along with deep-fried chicken wings and other classic conveyor-belt fare. You can see them making everything, and I turn into a bit of a fanatic watcher of the conveyor belt, tracking down the fresh plates as they get turned out and following them round with my eyes until they are within my reach. The best thing they do are their tempura prawn, salmon and avocado hand rolls. These are something where freshness and immediacy are absolutely of the essence - the whole thing reminding me rather of my father's description of Bacon du Bedat sandwiches in his book (sorry, another plug). The prawn should be freshly deep-fried, still warm but left to drain on kitchen towel just long enough so that not a hint of oil remains. The salmon should be slippery cold. The nori paper should be crispy, meaning the roll can't be left around long enough for the nori to get soggy. I watched and waited as a plate of tempura prawns were pushed through the hatch. The sushi chefs were still at work on a huge batch of salmon, slicing and packing it into boxes for the different grades. I waited, drinking my green tea, snacking on cucumber rolls. Finally, one of them wiped down his board and his knife, laid out half a dozen strips of nori and assembled the rolls. I watched him put two plates onto the conveyor and prayed that no-one else had been paying attention. Success! I got the very first plate as it came within my reach. That first bite was absolute heaven. I made myself eat the roll slowly, savoring every mouthful of crispy tempura, succulent warm prawn, cool salmon and creamy avocado wrapped in tender rice and crunchy nori, resistant to the bite. A gulp of green tea and I was ready to face yet more Christmas shopping. 0 comments permalink
Monday, December 20, 2004 what I ate last: more, and yet more, later flowers for the bees... Autumn's overabundance so wonderfully described by Keats has come late to my tummy. In brief, in chronological order (luckily due to my huge laziness and late rising, I've been on two meals a day): Full English breakfast at Story Deli - beautiful poached eggs, organic bacon, roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, sourdough toast... Hugely decadent 'I cooked this, really' dinner all bought from the Fromagerie at Highbury Barn - fantastic real pesto with de Cecco spaghetti and marinated baby artichokes stirred in, goat cheeses and dry-cured French ham, a perfect tomato salad (the nearest I got to actually cooking was slicing them up, sprinkling them with thyme, salt and pepper and olive oil), moist and caraway-flavoured brown bread. Pints of Pride, accompanied with good old English ranting (the art of passionate debate is one that America lacks). Bacon sandwiches in bed with real English tea, sandwiched with sex. Pints of Pride, accompanied with Arsenal-Portsmouth and shouts of 'Sol! my hero!' Georgian (as in Russia, not next-door-to-Alabama) baked cheese and bean breads, followed with poussin in plum sauce, fried potatoes and spicy cabbage and carrot salad at Little Georgia. More real bacon and egg sarnies. In-between bagels. Wyborowka vodka. Red wine. Mmmmm... 0 comments permalink
Saturday, December 18, 2004 what I ate last: The eating continues - yesterday with a boozy lunch, evening drinks and dinner. Lunch was on the waterfront at Canary Wharf at the Gaucho Grill - always reliable, slightly decadent due to the ponyskin chairs though unextraordinary this time - but the position, with clouds scudding over the water and shafts of wonderful golden December light, more than makes up for a lack of fireworks in the kitchen. Still, my ribeye was well-chosen, tender, and cooked rare - a treat compared to the invariably well-done and pale steaks in Alabama. I lurched off, slightly tipsy, to have tea with another friend, trying to avoid offers of cake and maintaining an effort at sobriety for a few hours, before heading off to the 20th anniversary drinks at Clarke's, West London institution and still holding the flame for women in the kitchen and up front. Headed up by wonderful women, the restaurant (and now, bakery and shop) continues its great set-menu policy and produces fantastic, classic food. The gathering, of lovely friends and many representatives from the food-related disciplines, had predictably beautiful canapes with the champagne - wonderful rare tuna, duck liver pate on toast, light and crisp cod croquettes and other goodies. I tried my hardest not to indulge too much, knowing what a good dinner I was in for later...when we crossed the road to another landmark of London's restaurant renaissance, Kensington Place. Many items on the menu haven't changed since it opened - its signature scallops with pea pureee and mint vinaigrette (much imitated but never beaten), the seared foie gras and and sweetcorn pancake, the baked tamarillos with icecream. But it's all still cooked precisely and incredibly well. I had the scallops, perfect as usual, and then grilled mackerel, lentils and salsa verde, another classic combination. My only gripe: I know that some people don't like to see the head on their fish, but a mackerel, even if served filleted, should surely not be cooked filleted, thus losing most of that delicious moistness that makes that fish so delicious. I always slightly feel like I'm shortchanged if I don't get the head and tail on my fish, but that's probably just me - but the habit of grilling fillets really seems absurd for a small fish. Also the salsa verde was a little dry for my liking, especially given the slightly dry fillets - these are small concerns, though my expectation of this place is that these things should always be right. For pudding I continued my testing of quince desserts, with the baked quinces and mascarpone. They were pretty good, more quincy the the crumble at St John, but still over-seasoned with vanilla and a little dry - maybe too long baked on too low a heat rather than the more cripsy-caramelised on the outside, moist on the inside that I might have attempted to achieve. But still, small gripes - we all left highly satisfied and smiling. Nightcaps were at Loungelover, which pretty much sums up what I can't get in Alabama - elegant, deeply decadent cocktails, the beautiful people, over-the-top decor and all within walking distance of home. I plumped for mint juleps, as a memory of the cocktail that I should be drinking in Alabama but of course, I could never find. 0 comments permalink
Friday, December 17, 2004 what I ate last: oh, so many good things... Back in the big smoke, the eating starts...with the first treat being lunch from Story Deli on Brick Lane - absolutely delicious Spanish tortilla, and pumpkin and roast garlic soup, which was actually only OK, too much cream for my liking. But good coffee (hooray!) and all the accoutrements of the new East End around me - skinny girls in legwarmers, Japanese boys in artful denim, rain dripping down outside. And then in the evening, back to old haunts - St John Bread and Wine, where we managed to squeeze in before the Christmas party crowds turned up for their bookings. Oh, the joy. This place is so well-known that I shouldn't have to add more, but still the fact that there weren't more of us taking in a table which we had to vacate by 8.15 must mean that someone doesn't know. We ate: grilled pilchards (perfect, just the right seasoning and sprinkle of parsley), roasted jerusalem artichoke, watercress and beautifully sweet slow-roast red onion salad, snails in bacon, flash-deep-fried quail with aioli (how to describe that tender, juicy little thing except we should have ordered two ) and their perfect green salad, topped with chopped mint and spring onion and the simplest dressing. A glass of champagne to celebrate by return, and a bottle of red wine, and their fantastic bread to soak up all the juices from all the dishes (we got them squeaky clean!), and what more could I want? Well, as it happens, quince crumble and custard, which for me had slightly too much orange zest that overpowered the quince, but if they'd called it given top billing to the orange rather than the quince, I would have given it top marks. I'm always fussy about how people cook quince, as I have a rather proprietorial feeling towards the fruit due to its ritual significance in my childhood. So it was, all in all, a perfect London meal, prelude to a couple of pints of London Pride (oh, to utter those words again!) and then bed... 0 comments permalink
Monday, December 13, 2004 what I ate last: roasted salmon, sauted carrots with ginger and garlic, and brown rice Yesterday being the Pig Roast it was a round of typical Alabama fare - catfish and BBQ pork. If you are confused, the roasting of a pig is usually done only at the summer Pig Roast, where it is the responsibility of the second year students. After my total immersion, I think I am finally ready for a change from Southern cuisine despite its many virtues, and have started fantasising about going back to London and blowing a lot of money on food. St John...the Wolseley (where my cousin is currently cooking)...salt beef bagels...real coffee and croissants from Monmouth Coffee...free range meat from Borough Market...beautiful fish in Suffolk... The problem is that unless catfish and BBQ are done really well, it's easy to get bored. The freezing conditions yesterday meant that the outdoor catfish lunch was barely even lukewarm and cold hush puppies just ain't my cup of tea. Though, would you believe, in honour of a) the Rural Studio's English director and b) the use of newspaper as a building material by one of the projects, they served it all in newsprint cones 'just like in England' (ie, no-one really knew how to fold a fish'n'chips cone and I got to show off. But isn't the point of the newspaper that it has to absord the grease of real chips? not the American kind? Anyway, I digress). Bobby Scott's barbeque isn't bad but I've eaten it twice this week, along with a Mustang Oil BBQ sandwich, and three meals of this stuff is too many for one week. It was with relief that I dug out a piece of wild salmon from the freezer today and cooked myself a real meal with no chalky white bread involved. 0 comments permalink
Friday, December 10, 2004 what I ate last: OK, so this is pure self-publicity but I know I've got readers out there, and so I was wondering if any of you may vaguely like reading about me and the joys of Piggly Wiggly enough to nominate me for Accidental Hedonist's Food Blogging Awards best new blog category (I'm not eligible for any of the others, being new and all that). I know it's horribly egotistical but hey, you know, why not. This whole food thing truly does keep me sane during my total immersion into the West Alabama mud. I rather like the monasticism of only being able to shop at the Pig. It keeps it all fresh and makes simple things very joyful. A well-made risotto, gnocchi, a chance encounter with something seasonal and fresh - combined with the discovery of just how weird American ideas of cooking can be - keeps me happy and alive, nose in the air, scenting out more. 0 comments permalink
what I ate last: gnocchi with tomato sauce Last night's Christmas party fare offered some perfect examples of American cooking which to me is utterly incomprehensible but to others is, well, a really good idea. Take the shrimp dip, for instance. Apparently this contained lemon Jell-O, as well as two tins of shrimp, tomato sauce, lemon juice, and mayonnaise. I mean, who actually thinks to put Jell-O in a dip? but everyone raved about how good it tasted and what a clever idea, I would have never guessed it had Jell-O in it, my goodness I'm doing that next time. I couldn't bring myself to even taste it after hearing the ingredient list. Shrimp should not be in tins. And sandwiches with jam and ham? I don't understand, I'm sorry. 1 comments permalink
Tuesday, December 07, 2004 what I ate last: venison stew with mash and spinach This week's exciting new food is a freezer-full of deermeat that I have been given by Susan, who works at GB's Mercatile Store in Newbern after I asked her why it was impossible to buy venison here although everyone hunts all the time. She gave me two bags of stew meat, a roast, ribs and ground meat for burgers, and wouldn't let me pay for any of it. Apparently she's already got a deer and a half in her freezer, and expects to have a couple more before the end of the season. So tonight I made a casserole with some of the stew meat, onions, carrots, mushrooms and plenty of red wine. It was good, although it could have done with a little more stewing, but we got impatient to eat. I couldn't find any juniper in the Pig or Fullers, which would have been my automatic choice of seasoning, so I put in a couple of bay leaves and a couple of cloves to try and achieve some of the same effect. The cloves were actually a pretty good choice, surprisingly. WIth some cayenne pepper it was warming and nourishing, setting us up for an evening of painting and decorating in preparation for the small art show/party we're having at the weekend. 0 comments permalink
Monday, December 06, 2004 what I ate last: OK, so I'm not even going to pretend that this is a late entry for Wine Blogging Wednesday, but on one of those random loops through Google I fonud the following link to my lovely father writing on Riesling which was last WBW's theme. And in another shameless plug, I'm going to recommend to you all his fantastic book A Pike in the Basement, recently republished in a beautiful new edition by Eland Books (seems to be only available in this edition in the UK Amazon but here's a link to the US site with used copies of the original available. It's a fantastic Christmas present for anyone interested in food, travel or wine - and because he never sold very many copies, it's unlikely that you'll be duplicating anyone else's present. He writes about travelling worldwide, from sheep farms in Australia to Las Vegas to the Turkey-Iran border, eating and drinking and getting into scrapes along the way. Each chapter ends with a recipe and a recommended wine, and it has great woodcut illustrations. The title story, well, you'll just have to buy it - but it involves naked women.... 0 comments permalink
what I ate last: beef and vegetable casserole with farfalle pasta and salad This to me is a typically American meal. Not that it was badly cooked or anything, but a casserole with pasta as an accompaniment? especially as the casserole had potatoes in it? It's all wrong, call me traditional. Plus, a beef casserole (or stew, as it was presented to me) should not contain red peppers and green beans along with carrots and potatoes - it's mixed messages. A red pepper and beef stew, with paprika and other Spanish-North African type spices, would be really good. Likewise a northern European root veg and beef hotpot. Green beans (french beans) should never be in a casserole but would be a really nice side vegetable. Plus the whole blue cheese as salad ingredient thing. Luckily my host had thoughtfully set the different salad ingredients in different bowls so I could choose to have it sans the blue cheese. The really good thing at this meal were the candied pecan nuts (also supposedly a salad ingredient). I asked for the recipe. Sauted in butter with brown sugar, paprika, cinnamon, cardamon and black pepper. Crunchy and spicy, very good. Even in a salad. 0 comments permalink
Sunday, December 05, 2004 what I ate last: mushroom risotto On a side note, why on earth is it so difficult to get leeks here? Last night when I was preparing the fish stew one of the friends I had over looked at my leeks (brought back from Atlanta) and sighed as deeply as if I had just started chopping up a truffle. 0 comments permalink
what I ate last: fish stew and brown rice Last night I was definitely glad to have food in the freezer. My mammoth fish-cooking day after going to Atlanta paid off, with a pot of fish stew in the freezer ready to heat up for myself and friends after a very long day's work. With the addition of some fresh leeks and good nutty brown rice, it warmed us up well against the cold that is both inside and outside my house. Simple fish stew seems to be something that no-one knows or thinks to make very much, despite the fact that its economy and ease would make it one of the most useful recipes. Basically the usual base of onions, garlic and some ginger, a little chilli, saffron if you have it, add the fish when the onions are softened, add lots of tomatoes, maybe a finely chopped red pepper (both skinned if you can be bothered), water or stock to cover, some leeks, season and simmer. Nothing very precise or difficult about all that. Any old fish will really do (I used cod cheeks and salmon offcuts) and it's a very satisfying supper that with a little jazzing up will do for the dinner party. 0 comments permalink
Saturday, December 04, 2004 what I ate last: barbeque, candied yams, turnip greens and bbq beans Candied yams are a new thing to me. Sitting in a barbeque house in Tuscaloosa among some prize specimens of Americans with bellies larger than the tables they were seated at, I finally had a chance to give them a go. They're pretty good - cinnamon-scented, sweet but pleasingly not too soft. They'd make a really good dessert with some sheep's yogurt to lighten the dish up and mix with the syrupy juices. 0 comments permalink
Friday, December 03, 2004 what I ate last: sausage and okra casserole with rice Every week the Rural Studio provides us with a communal meal generally followed by a lecture or other event, at which everyone ritually complains about the quality of the food. Although I would never claim that it had any great culinary merits, the food that is cooked up by a local woman is rarely truly inedible and I do find the complaints about it slightly unjustified. It's filling, home-cooked and free and to my omnivorous mouth this makes it perfectly acceptable, especially compared to the institutional food I used to get in England (hall food at college, school dinners) which was wholly disgusting in every way, and generally totally processed. Given my food-related scruples I do find it strange that on this one I'm one of the only people who quite happily fills my plate and scoffs it down. The only thing I can't manage is the horrible American 'salad' that generally also gets served - iceberg lettuce, those weird pre-peeled carrots that look like orange bullets, watery tomato and the worst horror of all, topped with grated 'Cheddar' cheese. The first couple of times I tried to pick out a few bits of lettuce and tomato from the bottom, uncontaminated by the cheese, but this was never wholly successful and now I just resign myself to a lack of vitamins at this particular meal each week. 2 comments permalink
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