A Christmas swim!

Yesterday's schoolboy error of setting forth on a photographic excursion with mere moments of battery life available, is not going to be repeated, I'm more prepared today. I have three fully charged batteries, tripod and the neutral density filters I need. My plan is to return to the beach, stake out a couple of good spots and try and ’smash’ (in LA’s vernacular!) the creamy waves and smudgy clouds. I'm all set up, the weather is not as fine as yesterday, I spot S and A from the hotel setting forth for their constitutional to the botanic gardens but I'm on a mission so wish them well in their walk.  I'm glued to the viewfinder, fully manual (yes, living on the edge!) and tweaking the aperture and shutter speeds oblivious to everything else. Apparently too oblivious as I didn't spot the much feistier waves today building up a head of steam and trying to wipe out the pesky photographer in their wake. Hmmm, I was wearing hiking boots (occasionally I don sensible footwear) but I needed waders it seemed. The waves soaked me up to my knees and filled my boots with sludgy sand and bits of seaweed, I suspect hiking socks would have been useful here. I figured that when I'd been doused once, then twice, then a third time that I'd just stick it out until I had something I quite liked. Apparently photography is not supposed to be easy - Magnum’s Robert Capa said “If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough”, best not to mention what happened to him, but I'm fairly confident I'm not going to drown so I can suffer a little more for my art. Not sure my boots will ever be the same again by I captured something at least and this time I didn't run out of power!

Don't forget your batteries!

I'd been determined to build up an appetite for the first and most elaborate of the tasting menus by not eating from breakfast until dinner and taking in plenty of lungfuls of sea air. As I'd lugged my tripod, filters and all the camera accoutrements with me over to the island I was very much hoping to capture some picturesque winter seascapes. Suitably clad in sparkly hiking boots (well, it is Christmas) I locate a spot on the beach that has a nice view of one of the distinctive red coastal hazard markers and set up.  

I'm crossing my fingers I might get some attractive shots at sunset but the sky doesn't look promising.  I am well prepared, I've even braved a long queue of locals in Boots buying last minute perfumes and indigestion preparations to procure a shiny new SD card for my camera.  I fire off a couple of test shots then screw on the filters to slow the crashing waves down.  

A couple of clicks and the inevitable slow shutter drains the camera battery almost immediately. But no fear, of course I've bought a spare with me.  However when I spot that it's upside down in the battery holder I know this one is flat also. And my third? Well that's fully charged and back up the hill again in my hotel room.  And typically, as I throw in the towel, wipe my tripod of sand and pack everything away the clouds clear slightly. And as the clouds become wispier the gold, yellow ochre and tangerine streaks start to emerge and I am camera-less. Most definitely a schoolboy error! Perhaps if I rush back up the hill, shake the beach off my boots and grab the last remaining battery from my other bag in my hotel room, there might a chance I preserve the Christmas Eve sunset. Around me everyone is holding their camera phones aloft and each time I turn around the sky has bruised further, and the indigo was merging with  the orange streaks. 

There wasn't time to return to the beach but I did manage to get a few hand held shots squeezing in between the parked cars and peering over the balustrades. Tomorrow, I will try again but with plenty of batteries!

A Bridge too dark!

The Old Bridge hold an annual wine festival weekend themed around a chosen wine region. They have various tastings, a formal meal on the Friday evening and on Saturday night they hold (in their words) “a casual, noisy and good-humoured party” which is what we’re heading for. Last year I had said I was hoping for a French year and they must have read my thoughts and tonight we’re immersing ourselves in all things Burgundy!

Our menu for this evening is:

Duck and orange terrine; Chicken liver and foie gras parfait; onion jam; baguette

Goats’ cheese and endive salad

Boeuf Bourguignonne with Dauphinoise potatoes and broccoli

“Tarte au Citron”

Coffee and nougat

The starter is really good, a meaty duck terrine and the generous bowl of the chicken liver and foie gras parfait is passed around and MC and myself being the biggest pâté fans of our table avail ourselves of a healthy portion. The baguette disappears oh so quickly as it is on the table when we sit down, we hungrily share it out and then realise there is none left when the starter arrives. Whoops! They were persuaded to supplement out bread baskets though.

The raison d’etre of this event is to enjoy our set menu alongside the remaining bottles from the wine tastings. This means that we have an eclectic cellar of half bottles of various reds and whites and a lively debate ensues as to the merit of one over the other. We seem to have more white wine lovers than red wine lovers at our table so they are looking enviously at our larger reservoir of the fine grape.

B has kindly let the restaurant know that D and I just cannot bear anything touched by goat, so they have not just left it out they have substituted the offending ingredient by very welcome pear slices instead – a crisp choice and a great foil between the infusions of meat!

Boeuf Bourguignonne is one of my favourite French bistro delights. I always think the tastiest versions are the chunks of beef, lardons of smoked bacon and mushrooms slow-cooked in a rich Pinot Noir and then cooled and reheated the next day; the flavours being given the opportunity to develop and become richer overnight. Today’s Beef Bourguignonne is one entire hunk of beef, and I cannot vouch for whether it has been cooked yesterday but the non-conventional presentation throws me slightly. The taste is good, perhaps not quite as melt in the mouth and ‘could eat with a spoon’ as I would have liked but B was certainly defeated by the excessive meatiness, I don't know if a more traditional version would have been more acceptable for her. Their take on Gratin Dauphinoise was quite unusual as well; instead of the creamy, unctuous dish much lusted after by me - it was served as a firm dense potato stack, more likely cooked in stock than cream.

The Tarte au Citron is another beloved French dish – and this is a decent example, the crispy pastry and the pleasing tang of the lemon is a vibrant and dare I say 'tart' finale to our rich meal.

This was a tasty bistro meal, devoid of chequered tablecloths and candles stuck in bottles; we are instead in a smart dining room, with deep red walls and curtains and an imposing fire place and attractive brown feathers decorating the pelmets. Unfortunately in my mind there isn’t enough light and my murky photographs are testament to that.

But we're really here for the food, not so I can practice my low-light food photography, and we've had some flavoursome goodies. My star of the night being the chicken liver and foie gras pâté, I wonder if they have any over that MC and I can take home in a doggy-bag? This would be better than rounding up all the remaining wine bottles like last time, eh MC? This sudden decision to 'take-out' isn't undertaken this year maybe because there barely a drop left!

Of course we are all speculating the regional theme of next years, the recent events have been Antipodean, South African and Italian, maybe next year we’ll be tucking into a typically Chilean meal – we’ll have to wait until December to find out!

An original honourable mention!

I had been really impressed with some of the entrants in March's "Does my Blog Look Good in this?" food-blog friendly photographic competition. There were over seventy photos to peruse this time. I had already looked at the winners at the beginning of the month but was delighted on revisiting Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity that I'd got an honourable mention for originality for my picture of the inaugural unveiling of my new black Epicurean chopping board. What a fabulous surprise!
And I do so love to be original!

Foodie events update...

Ooh I'm such a little blog eventer!
Tami from running with tweezers has added the rounded for the Weekend Cookbook challenge - salads, see all the various interpretations of salads here...
Stephanie has posted the lastest Blog Party with the baby or bridal shower theme here... check out all that pastel!
And after much umming and ahhing about what photograph to submit for February's "Does my Blog Look Good in this" competition on Chronicles in Culinary Curiousity. I pondered the egg box, the heart-shaped pie, the ever so yummy sausage and mash canapés but eventually plumped for the new black chopping board resplendent with chopped leeks. Check all the other entrants here...
What image would you vote for?

Two London's in one day

Today I jetted off from London to enjoy a fabulous meal in London. That is I flew from London Heathrow to New York JFK and went straight to Gordon Ramsay at the London, and despite the somewhat diva-ish some say crazy prospect of flying all the way to New York for one night for a meal, the resultant jet lag was worth it.

I arrived before A, N and bump – well they had a more troublesome journey from New Jersey than I had! I furnished myself with their finest Kir Imperial and made myself comfortable in the bar. On arrival, the receptionist kindly informed them that J was “waiting and sparkling in the bar” – as every diva should!

Here are some pictures of how fabulous the food would have looked if I'd been able to photograph my dishes with any light at all. You can see the elegantly ridged fine bone china, the design of which Gordon collaborated with Royal Doulton on. I think you MIGHT spot the difference between these and my own humble photographs!

After a brief aperitif we were escorted to the hallowed inner sanctum of the fine dining room to commence our much anticipated feast. Our maitre d’ was the lovely Jean-Baptiste Requien that we all recognised from Hell’s Kitchen and the F word. We had already decided that barring any bump-intolerant food we’d all have the menu prestige and so began our epic epicurean journey.

The restaurant is not extravagantly decorated but understated and ever so sophisticated, the metallic wall panels shimmer in an art deco way but the style is very now and much to my chagrin the lights are very dim – just fatal for food photography! The most vibrant part of the scheme were the obligatory red neon fire exit signs which were reflected the dining room. It did give it an interesting red accent which can be seen in the photo of the glass plate of bonbons. It did make me wonder if that’s why the lights were so ‘atmospheric’, would more dramatic lighting have bounced all over the room reflected in the panels and given the impression you were eating in a très chic fairground hall of mirrors. My London hairdresser assures me that this was all designed by a friend of a friend who also designed Madonna’s “crib”! The elegant dining room serves 15 covers so is pleasingly intimate without feeling at all crowded. We were most intrigued by the chairs, your standard elegant upholstered chair with the hidden surprise being that they could swivel in any direction affording a fine view of our refined surroundings. N was terribly impressed with hers and would have happily requested a doggy bag for it.

My usual anti-tomato stance was duly noted so after our first silken chicken foie gras and toast and tasty miniature onion and bacon tart we were given a blt and a beetroot crisp “sandwich” for the tomato hater. The blt was the star, a bacon and onion cream, chilled lettuce velouté, tomato gelée which I am assured was just the essence of a blt and the sensation of eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich which actually consuming one.

I had the less dramatic but very lovely marinated beetroot, ricotta, pine nut and Cabernet Sauvignon dressing which had the thinnest of beetroot crisps that shattered pleasingly when forked and then deliciously mingled with the ricotta and dressing.

The excessive anticipation had not been to no avail and despite the poorly lit photos; you can see we feasted on course after course of perfection. And that’s what Gordon excels in, beautifully presented, perfectly executed, and magnificently tasting sublime food - just heaven!

Next we tucked into a pressed foie gras and game with port sauce and pickled mushrooms. It is such a shame that the fabulous jewel like qualities of the little vegetable and purée accompaniments have been lost in translation. But they tasted wonderful and we had great fun identifying each one, a point to a jet-lagged J for picking out the little tiny dollops of puréed cauliflower. Just delicious!

Next we had one of Gordon’s signature dishes lobster ravioli with fennel cream and shellfish vinaigrette, though I’m fairly sure our menu actually said lobster tortellini. Whichever it is we enjoy a fat and silky soft pasta filled with succulent lobster with a very tasty sauce.

Here my menu goes even more wayward; I asked our waitress if we could have a menu to take away as it saves a lot of furious scribbling of courses. I was duly supplied with a folder of press-pack information on the opening and all the menus but ever so curiously not the actual menu we had. Almost but not quite!

Because we definitely had fish – possible cod sat astride some sort of Basque pepper mixture but the menu refers to striped bass with pak choi and caviar velouté but I know there was pepper. And the reason I’m sure about this is pepper is not an ingredient I am partial to as I always think they’re going to be squeaky, slimy and pervade my whole meal. And they invariably do- until now! Maybe I’ve hit the nail on the head. Years ago when I first read Jeffrey Steingarten’s “The Man who Ate Everything” I was impressed to read that his first task in 1989 on being appointed as food critic to American Vogue was to make his own black list of food phobia and develop a six-step program to eliminate them one-by-one. His technique for this was to find the most exemplary example of each “bête noir” and with continued exposure and each of the food stuffs being consumed in the best possible light he would finally find the good in each. And sure enough after six months of tracking down the finest exponent of each despised substance he was able to declare himself the perfect omnivore. Obviously when I first read this it gave me considerable food for thought, would I be able to take on such a gigantean task? My list is rather extensive, (see right) and I’ve spent many years studiously avoiding them. Could I ever learn to love a tomato? Maybe the answer is to get Gordon to cast his Michelin starred wand over each evil food and maybe, just maybe I could join the tomato adoring, goat cheese enjoying, curry worshipping masses – hmmm, I rather shudder at the thought! Maybe one day… but I’m not sure I have room in my life for such substances. But at least for tonight I enjoyed some peppers.

After that diatribe there’s little doubt which I plumped for our of a choice of mains of roast cannon of lamb with candied onions, confit tomatoes and marjoram jus or loin of venison with beetroot fondant, parsnip purée, creamed ceps and bitter chocolate sauce. Yes you’re right, I tucked into a stunning juicy venison loin with an accompanying little silver sauce spoon so I could savour every last drop of the delicious chocolate sauce.

It’s rare that I eschew cheese in a tasting menu but time and jet lag weren’t really on my side but the alternative – the palate cleansing roasted pineapple with crystallized cilantro (ugh, coriander in disguise) was actually zingy, refreshing and just perfect after the meat.

And then we had a soufflé – an apricot soufflé with Amaretto ice cream. What surprised us was it was quite an impressive size for a tasting menu – and just so light, cloud-like and melt in the mouth and was very good indeed.

And now there was nothing left to have some coffee, tea and to avail ourselves of the extraordinarily imposing and captivating bonbon trolley. This was a multilayered trolley stacked high with every gorgeous sweetmeat you can think of. There was dark chocolate with mouth-watering liquid mint centres, crunchy golden honeycomb, airy macaroons of every flavour and hue, a curious stained glass raspberry confection called a confoundment (possibly not called that actually!), intriguing Clanger shaped chocolate cones, boiled sweets, little crystallised ginger titbits… and so many, many more. We were the last in the restaurant so we thought we should select a few of the most delectable and then take up their ever so kind offer of a tour of the kitchens. I think we were possible the only to have this honour and enjoyed seeing the gleaming metal surfaces the night staff buzzing around (either setting up the mis en place for tomorrow’s service or preparing room service for the London hotel) There’s also a prestigious eight seat chef’s table to enjoy the culinary masterpieces in the heart of the kitchen.

I was trying to find an "if only..." to ensure my review didn't turn into gush-fest but other than personally craving more light so the photographs may have lived up to the food I can't find anything amiss. All the staff were so lovely, they made no attempt to chivvy us along though as we finally stood up from our table to explore the kitchen after every other diner had left we were informed that British diners took longer to eat than their American counterparts. They are extremely knowledgeable and can answer any queries about ingredients, provenance etcetera. As well as being extraordinarily well fed you feel cosseted nay thoroughly spoilt throughout the entire evening and don't really want to go back into the real world again.

I’m not sure that there are enough superlatives for Gordon Ramsay’s New York venture, I hope Michelin do the right thing by them later this year. I will be watching you Michelin!
I am awarding three utterly sublime forks with the addition of removing the esteemed and highly coveted diamond encrusted fork from Tom Aiken and awarding it instead to much worthier Gordon Ramsay at the London, it truly deserves to be my most supreme restaurant experience. Get a reservation if you can and go to London! You won't regret it I can assure you.

A dark Italian

On leaving the theatre after A and I had enjoyed a performance of The History Boys, we were keen to find something quick to eat and the first likely place we spotted was a Bella Pasta. Actually the golden-arched place was the first establishment we saw, but the word "unlikely" springs to mind!
I haven’t eaten in one before but as long as I can avoid the dreaded tomato, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something tasty. It’s pretty late so we opt just for some shared cheesy garlic bread followed by Torta Caprino - Baked goat's cheese and spinach tart fresh from the oven with dressed mixed leaves and tender oven roasted vegetables for A and a Rigatoni Alpina - Chicken and pancetta bacon in a creamy cheese sauce for me. A had chosen her tart based on her beloved spinach but seemed to find it rather unpalatable, I think she expected the tart to be hot or at least warm but it was cold. I guess I had a similar shock when I ordered a gorgeous plate of beef Carpaccio in an Italian restaurant outside of San Diego and was very surprised to find that it was frozen. It seemed such a waste because I couldn’t really taste the meat. Obviously I’d personally be pretty disappointed if there was goat’s cheese in my meal but one assumes that A doesn’t feel as bad about it as I do.

I fared much better with my fat pasta tubes with smoky pancetta and lashings of Parmesan. Lovely creamy comfort food that really hits the spot! We had arrived Bella Pasta rather late so no dessert and we even had to run to catch the last train after our meal. It seemed okay for a quick bite, it was another dark and ambient restaurant. I’m clearly going learn to whip out a Magilite torch at the key photo-snapping moment as trying to inject colour into my almost black photos in Photoshop is proving rather a challenge. I enjoyed what I had today but probably really didn’t taste enough to give them a fork rating – I'll do better next time.

Update: I'm slightly alarmed by the pasta photograph above. I tried to clean up the plate as the image was so dark but now the pasta tubes look like they're hovering rather bizarrely over the curiously luminous plate. Hmm, not my best work!

Photographing in the dark

I love the food at Le Pont de la Tour, the service is terribly efficient, the restaurant is elegant and the views are wonderful. And therein lies the problem. Because of the star attraction of the view, the lighting is ambient, some say dim, and plays havoc with my food blogging photographs. Of course, that’s not remotely important, and I’m sure they wouldn’t be the tiniest bit concerned but it makes it very hard to display their delicious food to the best effect. However, despite my gloomy photos, I can assure you that the meal tasted much better than it looks.

After the melba toast and the tasty raisin bread nearly all of us went for Brandan Orach smoked salmon, blini and keta caviar and why not, the blini was soft and flavoursome and the salmon was deliciously moist and thickly cut which seems the fashion at the moment. And I am not complaining as you really get to appreciate the meaty salmon flavour.

This was followed by guinea fowl, truffled potatoes and stuffed cabbage. The guinea fowl was perfect, so aromatic and juicy and probably the best guinea fowl I’ve ever had. The potato was pleasant but nothing really special but the stuffed cabbage was very good.

I had remembered after my last visit that the petit pot au chocolat is topped off with vanilla cream. And as I had recalled this I was able to ask the waiter if I could have my chocolate pot cream-free. But for some reason that seemed a good idea at the time when the waiter didn’t immediately understand me I explained my proclivities in French. But the problem here is that even though I have learnt the most vital of phrases namely, “please don’t let tomato come anywhere near my food” and “definitely no whipped cream on top of my delicious chocolate dessert”, my French is still very sporadic. So, as well as he understood me he felt that a discourse of my cream dodging in French would convince me that I was making a wrong decision. I understood practically none of his reasons for me having the cream but just insisted at regular intervals that I didn’t want it. He probably thought I was quite rude but unfortunately it was just my inadequate French that let me down. The cream-less chocolate pot was delicious and the citrussy madelines a perfect foil.

One of the things I’ve always admired at Le Pont de la Tour is the cigar smoking Michelin man stained glass window over the reception desk and after explaining that I really wanted a photo of it for my blog, they were happy to oblige. We chose this restaurant because we wanted a good, local restaurant to introduce another J into our team. And they are doing a special offer at the moment, 3 courses plus a glass of Champagne for £30 which probably makes the meal about half it’s usual price so excellent food for a great price. Welcome to the team J, I’m afraid the photographing of all our restaurant meals is more or less mandatory but maybe next time they’ll be a little more light.

Does my blog look good in January?

I’ve been trying to find one of my food blog photographs to submit for January’s DMBLGiT photo competition which is being held over at Fancy Toast. Unfortunately I think January was a bit of a dearth of photographs for me but after some consideration and after asking advice I think I’ll have to choose something from the black and white party. So I’ve opted for the tasty dish of scallops and black pudding on my black and white damask plate.
There is some seriously tough competition for January that you can check out here.

I'm counting tea towels...

I was browsing through the March edition of Good Food magazine and noticed something quite peculiar; they seem to have a very impressive collection of folded tea towels. And this inspired me to go through all this month’s food magazines and count all the tea towels that are featured in their food photographs. But before you think I need to get out more, remember I have been ill this week and counting tea towels is almost the most strenuous action I can perform at the moment.
And it really does seem they’re all at it, it was Good Food that set me off and they were top of the pops with 27 pictures of a random tea towel or thick napkin folded casually under the plate or dish that they were featuring. Olive were close behind them with 25, Delicious with 22 and Fresh and Waitrose Food Illustrated use less food shots and had 4 and 2 respectively. What is it with the tea towels? Let’s be honest if you’re lifting a dish from the oven maybe you’d grab a tea towel and then if you put this dish down it may still be sitting on the said tea towel. But personally I’d grab my skin burning hot dish from the oven with an oven glove. The clue is in the name, oven gloves are for removing hot meals from the oven and are pretty good at their job and tea towels; are generally for towelling ummm tea things? But apparently when photographing food, it’s just not going to look tasty unless a gently folded tea towel or napkin is somewhere in the frame. Even the advice on the UKTV Food site has “ten tips to making your food look good enough to eat” recommends both folded napkins and tea towels. Napkins I understand as you’d normally have some fine linen cloth to hand to drape over your lap or tuck into your collar if you insist to protect you from splashes. But as the photographs generally show the plate on top of the folded cloth, how is one expected to retrieve it and use it?

But apart from the proliferation of tea towel photographs what else has this month’s Good Food got to offer to tantalise my taste buds? Okay to be fair probably the reason I got distracted and started counting superfluous cloths was that there’s some good old stalwarts of recipes that I’d happily eat but very little to set the foodie world alight. There’s cheesy ham with leeks, Swiss cheese schnitzel, baked cabbage & cabbage risotto and salmon, broccoli & potato bake. For St. David’s day there’s a lovely looking Welsh goat’s cheese & leek tart obviously rather spoilt by the inclusion of goat’s cheese, a cheese substitution would make this very palatable. There’s a stack of things to do with tortillas illustrated with a shredded chicken and Brie dish. There’s a step-by-step on how to roast a chicken and as much as I love, absolutely adore a good roast chicken, I’m not sure I need another recipe. In the get kids cooking there’s some interesting looking Welsh rarebit muffins which getting back to my original rant, are sat rather incongruously plonked on top of a striped folded towel or possible paper serviette. The caramleised passion fruit & lime tart looks rather splendid and John Torode’s pepper steak and big oven chips is never going to be a bad thing and his gooey chocolate pots with boozy cherries sat, naturally on top of a folded black & white spotted cloth.

I’m always partial to pan-fried pork with crème fraîche & prunes and the rare beef with mustard Yorkshires looks succulent.

I’m also intrigued by the warm duck salad with walnut & orange dressing and the sticky marmalade loaf featured on the front cover looks tasty but I’m not sure I’d be crazy about eating it.

I thought it was a little naughty interviewing the chef that won the role of pub landlord of The Cock on Jamie Oliver’s new show Jamie’s Chef as I read it before the episode which showed the eventual winner had been aired. So the surprise was spoilt somewhat. I was pleased to read however, that Nigel Slater’s excellent ‘A taste of my life’ is returning and a new five-part series called rather magnificently ‘Kill it, Cook it, Eat it’ come to BBC3. They print the legendary Simon Rimmer’s mum’s lasagne recipe that uses cottage cheese instead of béchamel and somehow got Something for the Weekend’s (nutritionist) devout vegetarian Amanda Hamilton to tuck into it before realising it contained meat! Obviously all that tomato would have put me off but Amanda just forgot what lasagne normally contains! Hmmm!

So reliable old Good Food had some recipes that I might try but mainly it was all about the tea towels!

Not slow to spot a trend, I realise that the way to pep up my food photography and be in vogue is to deploy more indiscriminate use of folded tea towels and other cloths from now on. Here’s a picture of some figs that I took whilst in France back in October, perhaps I was just ahead of the game with my folded white linen tea towel? But going forward, I intend to raid my tea towel collection and join the fashionable crowd.

A box in a box

I’d read quite a bit about the ‘studio in a box’ on the web over Christmas. It seemed a very good idea! You get a lightweight portable wire framed tent structure covered in a translucent fabric that can diffuse the lights shone onto it. And you get a series of coloured infinity backdrops so you can change the look. The idea is that you place whatever you wish to photograph in the box and then you can control both the ‘noisy’ background and the shadows falling onto what your subject is. I’d only seen this for sale in the US and they came with photographic lights which I suspected would not work well with our extra powerful electricity. However last week, I discovered a very reasonable priced one in the UK and I thought I’d definitely give it a go.

And today it turned up in a little disc shaped case that now my light box tent thingy has sprung out of I am fairly confident that I can never get it back into again. Well, not without damaging myself!

This picture of a box of partially used quail eggs is my first attempt at using it. I need to play around with the backdrops and lighting but I think it could be very interesting tool to enhance my food photography. It is currently sat on my spare room bed as I cannot work out how to fold it again to get it back into the itty bitty case from whence it came (that's the black round case in front if the tent).

I guess if someone come to stay I either persuade them to sleep in the tent, perhaps not a good idea, or find a way to get it to de-construct itself and no, it didn’t come with instructions unfortunately!

Update: I found a great site that explains how to shrink my tent to fit back into its case again but it makes a reference to 'making a giant taco' and as I've never made a taco of any size, I still need to work on this. But I got it to go flat already a useful skill; I just need to master the rolling stage!

A late soufflé

I had intended to have another go at Hay, Hay it’s Donna Hay again as I really enjoyed the risotto challenge last month but I hadn’t been checking Tami’s lovely Running with Tweezers blog as often as I should and only realised this evening that the deadline was today for posting a soufflé entry. Aghhh, too late to get the relevant ingredients as it’s nearly midnight and I’m afraid a late night soufflé ingredient run is really out of the question. Actually I have got everything I would need to make a soufflé apart from the very crucial milk for the roux base. I don’t drink milk so I don’t keep it in as a matter of course. I buy it when I intend to make a cauliflower gratin, a cheese soufflé, of course some mash potatoes or when MC is coming to visit and he ‘needs’ it for his tea. And woe betide me not having milk when he’s here! So I’m afraid instead of rustling up a last minute new soufflé I will have to cheat slightly and refer back to the soufflé potatoes D and I made for our hastily arranged New Year’s Eve meal.

This particular recipe from the last issue of Fresh magazine (and by that I don’t mean the most recent one but it seems the last ever) uses a ready-made four cheese sauce as its base. I would normally make a cheese sauce myself and next time I make this I will make my own and perhaps add a little English mustard also to give a little extra kick.

Soufflé Potatoes
Fresh - December 2006 Serves 6

700g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
400g carton fresh four cheese sauce
1-2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Butter to grease
6 tbsp finely grated fresh Parmesan
3 medium eggs, separated

- Cook potatoes in lightly salted boiling water for 20 minutes until tender, then drain and return to pan stirring over the heat for 1-2 minutes to dry.
- Take off the heat, add cheese sauce, mustard and season with black pepper. Mash well until lump free.
- Pre heat oven to 200c. Grease a soufflé dish (or use 6 ramekin dishes) with butter and sprinkle the base and sides with a little of the Parmesan.
- Add the egg yolks to the potatoes and beat in well.
- Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form then gently fold into the potatoes.
- Spoon into the dish, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and bake for 30 minutes until well risen and then tuck in.

I really filled up the dishes as I only made 2/3^rd of the recipe as there were only three of us but that meant I supposedly had enough mixture for four ramekins. I actually used three small ovenproof dishes but there were still lashings of the cheesy mixture but I figure this would enable the rising. And these soufflés really rose! I am sorry to speak ill of a ‘dead’ magazine as it really does seem that Fresh is no more, but it didn’t recommend cooking individual soufflés for less time that a large one and I think I would probably whip them out of the oven quicker next time.

And photographing soufflés, how much fun is that? These were enormous, luckily, when removed from the oven so I had a little chance to compose a moody shot before they sunk too much. And D acting as my glamorous photographic assistant held a black apron behind the rapidly deflating soufflés to give a cleaner background. Though I may not need so much assistance in that matter again as I purchased a 'photo cube soft box' today which no doubt I will explain more fully when it arrives. All very exciting!

Our fabulous potato soufflés carried on cooking well after serving and seemed to get hotter and hotter with spurts of steam shooting out of them every now and then. I think they can be considered the Mount Vesuvius of the potato (or even soufflé) world but they tasted really good so almost burning my mouth was worth it.

Happy souffléing everyone!

A toast to toast!

This was my attempt at a quick “I must have a snack but I don’t have much food in the house as I’ve been running everything down in time for going away”. I fortunately had a couple of slices of bread in the freezer that I could pop in the ever reliable Dualit and then stick under the grill with a generous spreading of cream cheese with garlic and chives topped with a few ends of Cheddar and a couple of gratings of nutmeg. Okay a slightly unusual combination but it definitely filled the gap.
I’ve been warned against trying to photograph melted cheese as it has a tendency to just look greasy and therefore not particularly appealing. There was little I could do to prevent that so at least I arranged the portions nicely. I hoped it may detract from the inherent unappetizing look of my actually rather tasty snack.
Toast is such a wonderful invention; it’s amazing how bread (which is rather nice in itself) metamorphoses into something completely different and more savoury. And then the addition of cheese or maybe a poached egg (no such luck today!) or perhaps some ham can add a whole new level to the snack. I recall my first forays into sandwich toasting; I favoured the ham, cheese and pineapple and thought it was such an exotic meal to rustle up on returning home from school. And many a grumbling tummy in Paris has been sated by a Croque Monsieur or even a Croque Madame if I fancy an egg on top. Welsh rarebit is another toast-based snack standby that always goes down well. Another favourite from my childhood was toast spread with Rose’s lime marmalade. I never really got into ordinary orange marmalade but lime marmalade seemed a very sophisticated breakfast choice. I’ve enjoyed many a fine smooth chicken liver parfait on some slices of Melba toast and poached egg on toast can be a very enjoyable dish also.
The colour of my toast is important to me, I like mine pale and interesting not black and rather carbonised - M! It all goes wrong so quickly if the toast is overdone and scraping the slices over the sink makes a huge mess and never entirely destroys the evidence of excessive toasting. I also insist upon white bread being toasted. Brown bread is good in crab sandwiches and granary is nice with just a bit of butter but they both go too hard if you toast them - and clearly wouldn't be the requisite pale and interesting!
There’s plenty that I wouldn’t put on toast – peanut butter never seemed right to me, Marmite is excruciatingly awful and just the smell of it makes me feel quite ill (you may guess that I am of the “I hate Marmite” camp!), Nutella too (chocolate is just so lovely in other guises but not on toast) and sardines on toast has never appealed to me. Also rather curiously as much as I like scrambled egg, I don't like it with toast. I believe the egg makes the toast soggy and the toast spoils the smooth creaminess of the scrambled egg with sharp little crumbs.
I know D resisted owning a toaster for a long time because of toast crumbs, and she is right, they do get everywhere. But it seems a small price to pay for such loveliness and as long as I don't get them in bed, I can forgive the odd crumb.
Toast is a very good thing and I am very pleased that my lovely Dualit is more than happy to deal with frozen bread slices and as long as I’ve remembered to replenish the bread supply that toast is never very far away.
So a toast to toast it is!

Lemon joy

I’ve made this particular risotto in the best of times and the worse of times.

Many years ago when T got me into risottos I’d seen Nigella make this on her Nigella Bites series and she said what a massive influence Anna Del Conte had been to her. I made this for the first time in T’s previous fabulous new kitchen and we marveled at the quantities the recipe produced. There were three of us so I may have doubled it in fear of falling short but I seem to recall a river of unctuous risotto but definitely as good as it was, there was way too much.

Years later when I made it for D when MC, N and LLcT wouldn’t dream of going near a risotto, again we really enjoyed it but were rather over faced. In June 2004 when I made it for M when we were in dire need of some stodgy solace and there was way, way too much but it did the trick. I can really vouch for the calming effect of making a risotto, the gently soothing motion of stirring the grains and adding the stock a ladleful at a time is ultimately comforting even before you’ve had a mouthful. And this one seems extra pleasurable, as firstly I love microplaning the lemon into a pile of lemon gossamer. I then microplane the Parmesan into very satisfying curls. And the final gratifying part is add the eggy, lemony, Parmesany mixture to the cooked risotto. The egg yolk causes the risotto to take on a sunnier glow as it mingles with the cooked grains. And then of course there’s the eating, there is something very reassuring about a good risotto, all is well with the world for a few mouthfuls.

When I discovered the original Anna Del Conte recipe (though she attributes it to Romana Bosco, a talented cook who runs a cookery school in Turin and then she in turn credits Giovanni Goria), I realized that the only difference was the additional of 5 or 6 sage leaves and one or two more diners! The mystery is solved; Nigella is feeding hungrier people!

I do admit than shallots and celery aren’t always just at hand for me so this time I substituted them for a very finely chopped leek (but I adore leek so this isn’t a problem!)

Risotto with Lemon (risotto al limone)

If you’re Nigella Lawson Serves only 2!
If you’re Anna Del Conte Serves 3-4!

2 shallots
1 stick of celery
60g unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
300g risotto rice
1 litre vegetable stock (Marigold with do)
zest & juice of 1/2 unwaxed organic lemon
needles from 2 small sprigs fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 egg yolk
4 tbsp grated Parmesan & to serve
4 tbsp double cream
Maldon salt & white pepper

- Chop the shallots and celery very fine

- Soften the shallot and celery mixture in half the butter & oil for about 5min (a little salt helps to prevent burning) until the soffritto is done

- Mix in the rice and stir to coat all the grains until slightly translucent

- Keep the stock simmering in another pan

- When rice becomes shiny and partially translucent, start ladling the simmering stock and stir thoroughly until the rice has absorbed the stock.

- Add another ladleful of stock and continue. You may not need all the stock; good quality risotto rice takes around 20 minutes to cook.

- Meanwhile, mix the lemon zest and the finely chopped rosemary needles and stir them through the rice halfway through the cooking

- In a small bowl, beat together the egg yolk, lemon juice, the Parmesan, double cream and a generous grinding of black pepper

- Remove risotto off heat and stir in the eggy, lemony mixture and the remaining butter

- Cover the pan and leave to rest for 2 minutes, finish by giving the risotto an energetic stir and transfer to a heated bowl

- Serve with more Parmesan... Dive in!

I finally, got to christen my new Divertimenti lemon squeezer, it is very yellow, efficient and also pleasing to use.

I was determined to try and get an action shot of the risotto, yes I know you’re going to say exactly ‘what action does a risotto do?’ But I mean that as a risotto is maybe not the most photogenic of subjects, a judicious redeployment of my gorilla pod can at least allow a fork magically levitate over the bowl! The effect is more of a J's eye view if you will.

Go on then…dive in.

Buon Appetito!

OMG, I won a DMBLGIT!

I checked the winners of October's "Does My Blog Look Good in This?" (food blog photo aka foodporn competition) on spittoon extra the other day and was sorry to see that I had not made the finalists. But I went back today to get the link to track back to this post about the other finalists and to my utter delight, amazement and astonishment found that I had won after all and they'd just forgotten to include me in the list. And I got the accolade for "aesthetics" as well. Whoo!

I am so honoured and humbled! And on my first attempt too!

I had tough competition also, check out the other winners! They've given me a few ideas and a few more interesting blogs to look at.

Thank you to Andrew, Sam and Rob for your judging. This will definitely encourage me to strive for pictorial perfection every time I post.

Now I've just got to see if any of November's pictures pass muster...mmm, I'm not so sure about that!

And the DMBLGIT final draws nigh...

The final entries for the October edition of 'Does my blog look good in this?' have been posted here, here and here. The winners will be announced shortly - fingers crossed...!
I am going to have to start thinking of November's entry now!