C for miles

I was more selective with my Cs. Not like all those Bs (a veritable hive as D said!), though if I keep this up there are 7 Ms and 10 – count them – Ps! And no I haven’t been sad enough to count them I did a little thing in Excel, hang on – that’s pretty sad also!

Cauliflower
- Anyone who knows me knows that come the winter months I mainline cauliflower and cheese soup. I make up a batch with just cauliflower and onion (I like to keep it pure), Bamix it, decant into little square black Tupperware boxes (that took real talent to find black ones!) and try and remember to take it to work for lunch.
- It can always be cauliflower cheese, I think of lamb and whereas others think of mint (a whole post may be dedicated to why that’s just wrong!), I think of cauliflower cheese and I made it for my first ever whole meal on the very first time I planned and executed a special 3 course dinner.
- D & I paraphrased a lovely Jamie Oliver recipe with risotto and cauliflower at Christmas, this was very comforting.

Chambord
- Chambord Energizer – preferably with Sugar Free Red Bull or you have to be scraped off the ceiling – this has got more than wings, more like a jet propelled rocket pack attached to a roadrunner!
- A French Martini – a classic and everso elegant.
- A fabulous dessert made with fresh raspberries, raspberry and liberally doused with Chambord – very acceptable!

Chicken
- Like Simon I have many favourites here. There’s nothing really like the pure unadulterated pleasure of ripping bits of a fine still warm roasted chicken and peppering and salting and putting it between two pieces of squashy well buttered white bread. And of course, savouring the oysters. Hmmm, mmmm, mmmm!
- In honour of H and her future wing-ed baby, I would have to add hot-wings! And I also recall H and I demolishing a pile of them late one night in a sports bar in New York, way, way before bump - don’t ask!
- For a dinner party (For S & C I think, as C is rather addicted to black pudding) I once stuffed slices of Irish black pudding under the skin of a plump chicken breast. It was really succulent!

Chocolate
- Oh God, where do I start? I think it would have to be a melting middle chocolate pudding as it’s important to get it right as there’s nothing worse than a melting middle pudding with no melting middle. You feel so cheated, deflated and rather middleless!
- Nigel Slater’s chocolate truffles. I made a ton of these for Comic Relief many years ago and the smell of the warm Valrhona permeated my walls for days afterwards. And I took some to my first Christmas with D & MC (& T, of course!)
- ‘My Very Best Chocolate Cake’ a recipe by Mary Berry that I’ve produced on many occasions and in many sizes. I’ve made them huge – the spectacular Millennium Dome cake with chocolate orange matchmakers as the struts and somehow transported to work on the tube and also a tiny individual heart shaped one for someone once.

Crab
- The fabulous crab ring introduced to by Nicky in Normandy and recreated as a terrine as I don’t have a ring shaped mould. If I did it again I could do a heart shaped one now!
- Tamasin Day-Lewis does a fine Potted Crab with a ‘a breath of spiced warmth from the cayenne’.
- I’ve got a really Welsh recipe I’ve been meaning to try - Bacon, Leek and Crab Cawl with Caerphilly Rarebit. Cawl is a kind of creamy stew and sounds very yummy and anything with Welsh Rarebit on the side has got to be a good thing!