First bite of the Big Apple

When the divas hit town everything has to be just perfect:

Fine Italian suit - check √

Elegant silk tie - check √

Little black dress - check √

Bling – check √

Tiara - check √

Totally stupendous food - check √

I’d done extensive research for the big meal in the Big Apple; I’d consulted the Michelin guide, New York magazine, other random guides and asked friends and colleagues. Naturally, the more places I consulted the more recommendations I had. But a few had seemed to stand above the rest. Banana eating M and C (whose banana eating consumption I am unaware of!) have raved about Per Se and so have many others. It is one of the three Michelin starred restaurants in New York, comes from the fabulous Thomas Keller stable and New York magazine had given it four out of five stars and declared it to be the third best restaurant in New York. I had tried and failed to get a table so carried on looking. The new Gordon Ramsay venture – London – in New York was a very attractive proposition to me being an ardent admirer of his work. However the restaurant wasn’t open in time for this visit, so one for next time maybe. So the restaurant I actually booked was Le Bernardin. This was another three Michelin starred restaurant (currently one of three in New York) and New York magazine felt it was worthy of five stars and THE best restaurant in New York.

DD – thank you for the excellent idea for the ‘fork in the Big Apple’ picture above, I couldn’t use the original as there was too much text but I whipped this up and added a bit of a sunset. I hope you approve?

Flying high with Virgin

Really the most exciting thing about finally getting on the flight (I know the English are supposed to like queuing, I think today we probably did enough to satisfy the most ardent queuer) was being able to finally reapply some lipstick and have a bottle of water. I know that may seem simple pleasures but the unfortunate but necessary extra current security when flying between the UK and the US means no liquids, creams, makeup, bottles of Evian etcetera and it was a relief to sit down and re-hydrate! As a child I could never eat on a flight, I found that I always felt nauseous at the first whiff of airline food. I discovered that it was mainly the cacophony of flavours that set me off, especially the unique flavour of milky coffee served from a vacuum flask. As soon as the first hint of coffee wafted towards me I would be unable to eat anything again until we’d landed. I eventually discovered that the best remedy was to eat a little of whatever was on offer and then I didn’t have to spend every flight with my head in a paper bag – a huge improvement!

I am fairly sure that airline food has improved over the years as well. The coffee certainly doesn’t seem to smell as foul. The only thing that generally gets me going now is when someone next to me has a Bloody Mary – it’s that tomato thing again! And on this flight, I could smell it’s distinctive odour from behind me (remember, tomatoes are evil!)

I wasn't too impressed by the cold pasta starter so ignored that but the hot pasta with chicken and a creamy sauce was okay. The beef being consumed by the man in the adjacent seat looked fine also but the highlight of the meal was the dessert. The dessert on flights can often be an ill judged affair and can often be smothered in an unnecessary mound of whipped cream that never looks great (at least to me) at the best of times but clearly has altitude problems. But this time, they have been redeemed; I had a little gü chocolate pot waiting for me, really the perfect size for the requisite chocolate injection! Well done Virgin, no whipped cream in sight.

Don't Ask, actually Do Ask!

We ended up all having a lunch at Ask at Butler’s Wharf. It was just one of the impromptu Friday feelings that inspired us. H, the bump and I had planned a pre-birthday meal but I’d got a full day of appointments and hadn’t been sure I could make it. As it was I had to hot foot it to Ask and find a quick thing on the menu as they were just tucking into their pizzas and salads as I arrived. I ordered the Penne al Pollo della Casa which was an oven baked dish of seasoned chicken and mushrooms in a creamy sauce with melted cheese. Naturally I checked it for rogue tomatoes and was assured that I was safe. And it was a very tasty little dish to round off the week with. Next time I’d like to try the large ravioli filled with crayfish, crab, smoked salmon and mascarpone cheese which sounds rather yummy. Everyone seemed to be impressed with his or her pizzas. L and bump needed their egg cooked a little more to ensure it was bump-proof. H and bump and S and bump successfully found other suitably bump friendly meals. It certainly seemed that a bump is the accessory du jour! Though as fashionable as it is, personally I’ll stick top a little sparkly number from Chanel!

View Giles' reviews!

If you haven't read Giles Coren's restaurant reviews in the Times, I urge you to seek him out. The best thing about his review apart from his excellent prose is the random scores he awards his selected restaurants. He gives points for not just food but notably for: Welcomeness in these parts, Cuteness (it wasn't very clear whether he was referring to the food portions or the attractiveness of the staff), Attitude, Bum comfort (this refers to a restaurant with fine throne like seats) , Buzz, Concept, Oomph and Wit and in his most recent missive points are awarded for the number of children the chef has! I do like his style; other reviewers are just interested in food, service and ambience whereas we really need to know points for ‘oomph’ and ‘cuteness’! And when commenting on the price of his meal for one dismal restaurant he remarks, “Your stomach, your afternoon, your will to live.” Just excellent! Clearly I need to beef up my fork rewards. I already give points for mash but next time I’ll have to think about ‘attitude’. Or I could award or deduct points for 'ease of catching waiter's eye', 'willingness of chef with regards to removing offending item from dish', 'how forceful is the sommelier when encouraging you to the most expensive end of the menu' or a personal bugbear of mine - 'random inclusion of unwelcome mystery ingredient when the menu bore no warning!'. The last generally being some extremely unnecessary tomato based substance that has been snuck into my meal. And the problem here is that I abhor waste so I am torn between fishing the offending article or requesting a version of the dish without the stealth tomato. A tomato concasse running through an otherwise fabulous smoked haddock risotto is a case where I can't really just pick it out.

D reads the Food and Drink section of the Times every Saturday but I get my Giles fix electronically; I can then read his wise words on my BlackBerry. I've also heard he's written a book 'winkler' which has won the dubious accolade of having the worse described sex scene this year. Though it has made me even more intrigued by it!

Giles was a regular on the first series of Gordon Ramsay's F word and would go forth intrepidly each week to investigate some foodie item. He was replaced in the second series by Janet Street-Porter who was interesting but a bit shouty and just not Giles! Giles made a guest appearance on the recently ended second series as a 'posh food critic' and investigated the world of snack pimping. For those unaware of this phenomena, snack pimping is the fine art of reproducing a much favourite snack (for example a custard cream) but on a gargantuan scale. The pictures of the 'pimped snack' are then displayed alongside the original so the web site can admire your reproductive skills and undoubtedly the sheer size of the thing. I was impressed firstly that Giles plumped for a Jaffa Cake for his pimping but secondly that he made the Jaffa's sponge layer in a paella pan and then when it refused to fit into his oven he asked his local kebab/pizza place to pop it in their oven. I think he produced this giant chocolate orangey centred creation in his girlfriend's flat. Now why would I know that? It's almost as bizarre as Giles knowing the chef at the place he went to in Henley has seven children! That's because as the girlfriend (Rachel) is a seemingly fairly recent addition he feels the need to talk about her a lot. We can only hope the gloss wears off! Anyway despite constant references to the fragrant Rachel the pimped Jaffa cake was a very fine specimen indeed! Though Giles did declare that it tasted pretty rotten! Maybe he should sticking to restaurant reviewing and leave the baking alone!

Sweet and savoury dreams - guaranteed

It will come as a huge shock to anyone who knows me but I acquired another cookbook today. But I hasten to add it was entirely an accident! I had entered the bookshop solely to flick through travel guides. I wanted an Eyewitness Top 10 guide of New York and to do a bit of research on a possible European city weekend destination later this year. M and I want to visit a new city for a little trip and not relive an old favourite. If we were reliving an old favourite then Paris is probably number one on the list now we've done Venice. I have been toying with Prague but am slightly alarmed by the fondness that stag parties have embraced Prague with and don't really want the place full of drunken English men in novelty t-shirts, beer dispensing baseball caps and football shorts. No thank you! But it seems very harsh to write off Prague with my anti stag thoughts, it does look very interesting and I have an Olive guide that always make selecting good places to visit, eat at and sleep at much easier. I've also been hankering after Moscow or St Petersburg! Again I've never been and they both look stunning cities. It may be a bit nippy but that's just the perfect excuse to swath myself in furriness and exotic scarves and wear a fabulous hat! Which sounds perfectly okay to me!
I wasn't able to find exactly the guides I was looking for and will have to resort to Play.com but as I was leaving another book called out to me. It was Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes written by Anna Del Conte. If I needed any persuasion, and frankly I didn't, Nigella has written on the cover 'Anyone who loves food - reading about it, cooking it, eating it - should have this book'. Well clearly Anna has written the book for me and it would be dreadfully rude not to have it. So I did! It is definitely going to become a classic. I would have liked pictures as we need a bit of gastro porn to get the taste buds tingling and mouth watering! But pictures or no pictures it's a fabulous book, let's hope I can find some room for it. If it wasn't so heavy (even though it's paperback, it's very dense) I could slip in my bag and read it in New York. So instead it will go by my bed, to guarantee me both sweet and savoury dreams!

Chocolate machine lottery

You know how it is? You're in dire need of a sugar fix and scramble around to see if you can find a couple of twenty pence pieces in the pen pot on your desk and head off with high expectations to the chocolate machine. But when you get there, your hopes are dashed and you realise that there's nothing you really want. Certainly none of the chocolate confectionary that you'd purchase from the news agent or other purveyor of fine sugar fixes is hanging there in that useless metal box. There are no Minstrels, no Galaxy bars, and no packets of Maltesers or even Smarties. There’s certainly nothing exotic like Mintolas (are they called Munchies now?) or a Terry’s Dark Chocolate Orange (I can only dream!) or a honeycomb Yorkie in a gold wrapper. When I was younger, I was rather partial to a Fry's Chocolate Cream or maybe a Flake or Curly Wurly. The Curly Wurly was particularly strange as it was a chocolate bar that fought back. You bit into the first bit of Curly (or Wurly I guess) and the thin layer of chocolate encasing the caramel middle would shatter leaving you covered in shards of chocolate and clutching a somewhat naked Curly Wurly. The Fry's Chocolate Cream did nothing so antisocial and had the pleasing characteristic (shared with a Kit Kat) of allowing you to 'emboss' the Fry's or Kit Kat logo onto to foil wrapper by gently running your fingers across its surface until the logo appeared. It was a painstaking process. You really didn't want the wrapper to tear until you were ready to unveil your chocolate and leave a little foil cast behind. I think I was found of a flake because of the adverts – there was a time when the only thing I wanted in the whole world was to wear a white dress and wander through a poppy field whilst eating a flake. Could I been so young?

There were plenty of chocolate bars that I'd avoid, however. I never really understood a Wagon Wheel and I have never even tried a Boost, a Taxi, a Picnic or anything adulterated with peanut butter. And the chocolate machine is often a place for odd looking bars that you’ve never seen anywhere else. They often seem to be German and have wafers in them. If you’re stood expectantly in front of a chocolate machine, you want to see a familiar friend not a foreign curio. And this is no reflection on German chocolate, I am sure it’s very nice (though I suspect Switzerland probably have the edge on chocolate comestibles!)

There will be some familiar faces, maybe a Mars. I am sure I used to consider a Mars a real treat as a child but now it seems too curiously textured in the middle and too sickly. There might be a Twix – this has the advantage of your sugar fix divided in two equal portions. There’s often a Snickers (I so want to say Marathon) but the nougat, caramel and nut combination can often be strangely altered by the chocolate machine refrigeration and end up too solid – best avoided if you want to retain your teeth. Occasionally there might be a three pack of Jaffa Cakes – and that can be a rare, happy day or a small bag of Cheddars. There’s nothing wrong with Cheddars but I think I overdosed on them a few years in the canteen of Stepping Hill Hospital. The hospital canteen didn’t keep their Cheddars in a vending machine but in a glass bowl which various packets of crisps and you had to go lucky dipping to find one.

I guess if there’s a sugar deficiency has to be sated - then there’s always a Kit Kat. Personally I’d opt for the Chunky instead of a classic! I don’t seem to have the urge to rub the Kit Kat logo into the foil anymore and a Chunky has a fine layer of chocolate but no pleasing snap as you break each finger. Of course it’s no packet of Minstrels with is always going to be the pinnacle of quick sugar fixes. A big advantage would be that you chocolate high is administered in individual doses and can be spread out over a longer time without the chocolate going all soggy. Those crispy shells clearly protect their valuable chocolate treasure and allow you to let each Minstrel melt in the mouth before reaching for the next. And as the advert rightly depicts – it is a sad moment when you realise that you’ve reached the final one and have to savour it to the very last wisp of chocolate. Maybe that’s why we never have any Minstrels in the vending machine – maybe the thinking behind it is that we’d be just too distracted by the chocolately wonderfulness to do any work.

So I guess it’s a Chunky Kit Kat then!

Bye bye bump!

Well the time has come to bid H's bump goodbye. The next time we see it; it'll be a fully-fledged little person not the 'half baked' bump we've grown so used to. So I guess we also have to say 'au revoir' to H also as she needs to attend to the little person for a while. Her request for the 'farewell' was afternoon tea and cakes at the Wolseley. Clearly an aspiring yummy mummy! It was a very fitting and elegant do and we can report that the Wolseley do exceedingly good cakes! And a damn fine finger sandwich also! But the scones had everyone in raptures. We had lashings of tea served not surprisingly in elegant silver teapots and complicated tea strainer contraptions that caught us out a few times. The crust less finger sandwiches, freshly baked fruit scones and little cakes were served on silver cake stands with a silver cloche lid. It transpires that you can't take photographs in the Wolseley but I slipped in a few before I was made aware of this! Though when we had problems getting some service I did consider firing off a few more flashes to see if I could provoke a waiter to come and attend. In the end a little word with the headwaiter seemed to do the trick (I didn't realise I was so scary!) and we had no end of attentive white-coated waiters winging our way!

We had an absolutely fabulous afternoon tea at Wolseley and they deserve two cake forks. And maybe H will now have to be a mummy who takes afternoon tea and not a lady who lunches - so much more elegant. Bye bye bump!

Most favourite kitchen gadget(s)

I stumbled across a site today called ‘Is my Blog Burning?’ - which appears to be a site for food blogging events. I blog, I am a food blogger so I was immediately interested. They are posing a question about favourite kitchen gadgets and this has really got me thinking. I love kitchen gadgets; I have a fine, extensive and mostly shiny collection of kitchen objects but as for a favourite, hmmm…

To make it easier I will make a short list.

I swear by my Bamix, it so good for whizzing up a soup, grating cheese, crushing ice, making mayonnaise (even though I don’t like eating mayonnaise, I enjoy making it. Is that weird?) and so much more. Bamix’s are a joy to wash up which is so much more that I can say about a food processor or blender. D’s Bamix is not very well at the moment due to a small accident of dropping it and it losing a foot. It seems that all three feet are most integral to a Bamix working properly. I have been hankering after a new Bamix as they are now a pleasing dull silver colour – so I intend to get one at the next food show I attend and sell my three footed one to D. A cunning plan indeed! I also love my mandoline and my authentic v-slicer. The mandoline is better looking, shiny and industrial looking but the v-slicer is just so easy to clean which makes it a more viable option.

I have a beautiful black, granite and curiously curvy John Julian mortar and pestle but I’m not Jamie Oliver I don’t need to bash stuff every day so even though it’s very tactile and lovely, I just don’t use it enough to be my favourite

I have a favourite wooden spoon which has a china Alice in Wonderland style cake on the end for absolutely no reason whatever, but a wooden spoon could never be my favourite.

My favourite spatula type/slotted spoon/turner is an old favourite from Lakeland Limited only slightly marred by it not being heatproof so it is gradually melting every time I use it. And Lakeland have discontinued it otherwise I’d upgrade it – how tragic! I like a nice butter knife and this one has a bee on it (well it is a Laguiole) so is my favourite butter knife. My latest pastry brush is very pleasing – brushed steel and black little tendrils. I was compelled to get it after a bad experience with a Beef Wellington and a balding pastry brush that shed so many nasty plastic bristles I had to warn everyone to check each mouthful.

I was rather taken by this spoon balance for weighing small quantities many years ago in Paris but it wasn’t until I discovered it again in David Mellor I was able to add it to my collection. My favourite peeler is nice and wide and produces satisfactory curls of chocolate and Parmesan and is also a great potato and other vegetable peeler. But still not my favourite gadget! I have several excellent cheese knives but this one is very good for Brie and Camembert and is pleasingly mouse shaped.

And then there’s the top five!

Microplane graters do such a brilliant job of grating and zesting. I love the gossamer of lemon zest it produces which then just melts into my risotto or sauce or salad.

An electric pepper grinder seems such an indulgence but I do so like a quick one handed grind of the aromatic black spice to whatever pan I’m stirring. And I do use a lot of black pepper.

When magic whisks started being recommended by many cooks, it was such a revelation and it has the word 'magic' in the title. No one likes a lumpy sauce and the magic whisk can fix a multitude of sins and whip up a very fine vinaigrette or dressing. I even keep a spare one in my drawer at work - just in case!

A potato ricer - as I’ve said before it does a fantastic job of turning cooked potatoes into pleasing worms to enable creamy mashing and it saves me from having to peel potatoes – excellent! And with my love of mash it’s a close thing.

And then there is my pointiest, spotty handled, heaviest and most favourite knife – my drop forged Global chef’s knife. It feels so comfortable in my hand, and it probably gets used nearly every time I enter the kitchen to prepare any food. Saying that a knife is my favourite kitchen gadget seems so obvious but probably true, I’ve tried cooking in a kitchen with no decent knives and you realise how important they are to nearly every dish you produce. And even though some of the kitchens I have the pleasure to cook in (D and M etcetera) have excellent knives - it's just not this particular knife and I do miss the feel of it in my hand.

But to be less dull I’ll select my knife and magic whisk as my joint favourites.

Though really all of these fabulous gadgets are my favourites and I love them all dearly. And if I think about it more, I'm sure I'll find even more favourites. So I better stop now!

What's your favourite kitchen gadget?

Look, no potato!

After some serious indulgence in the last week or so I thought I should exercise restraint this weekend. Yesterday I had just a lovely bowl of organic field mushrooms with a creamy pesto sauce and today I had an Aberdeen Angus beef burger with mâche, creamy leeks and a dollop of stunning pesto. And just to prove I still decorate my table for a solo supper, I get the pearls out!

The count is back!

I am able to count my visitors again – one visitor, ah ah ah... two visitors, ah ah ah… three hundred visitors, ah ah ah… If you want to know where my visitors are coming from (that would be M, then!) please click on the link showing the number at the bottom of the blog.

Happy counting!

This is Count Von Count - who was always my favourite Sesame Street character, he started my life long love of counting - and bats I suppose!

There were fifteen days where there was an absent count... but he's back!

Carbs overload!

H, the bump and I took the delightful m out to Brown’s for lunch today. E wanted to the see the bump for the last time as m is leaving us (temporarily) much too soon. Brown’s turned out to be a great choice: a fine variety of menu options, lofty ceilings and clearly a baby friendly place. There were several miniature diners here and amazingly we didn’t hear a peep out of any of them so Brown’s must have some secret baby calming powers.
It transpired that E had been taken to Rhodes24 yesterday and had been got to taste ‘the’ famous mash and the Jaffa Cake puddings that she'd read about on my fork site. I am so pleased I’ve been able to spread the word!

But back to Brown's, I had a tasty Smoked Salmon with Mascarpone and Horseradish Jelly for a light and refreshing starter.

The steaks and chips being tucked into on the next table look great but after the awesome SOS steaks last night I could only be a little disappointed so we all chose pasta. But somehow we also ended up with basket of bread and a bowl of chips. The chips weren't too bad but we really didn't need them with all the pasta. Clearly someone though that we needed a Friday lunch carb overload all washed down with a very fine bottle of Vino de la Tierra de Castilla y Leon Riscal Tempranillo. My pasta was Linguine with Asparagus, Wilted Rocket and Parmesan in a Cream Sauce - not bad but I would have liked a little more cream.

And then just to ensure that the only thing we could be good for this afternoon was a nap, we split a Brown’s Chocolate Brownie served with Vanilla Ice Cream – a shame we have to go back to work! A brown and very sleepy fork for Brown’s!

... _ _ _ ...

When I offered to take LL cool T out to dinner to celebrate the passing of all those exams and getting all those A’s, there really wasn't a lot of choice. I picked the only restaurant I am aware of that has a 'fine meat menu'. Well that's not entirely true as I did consider the mouth watering Carnivore in Nairobi but I thought flying to Kenya may be a little ambitious for dinner! So Smith's of Smithfield it was then! We went for the top floor restaurant to maximise the meaty options.

Smith's of Smithfield is quite industrial looking but as you ascend through the floors the look is softened though still rather masculine. The exposed brick is replaced by metal painted chocolate brown, the bar is a very pleasing shiny red with deep recesses for all the bottles and there are ‘girl on girl action’ line drawings outside the toilets. And we are rather outnumbered by men but that's no bad thing! The … _ _ _ … (SOS) theme is etched onto the glass windows leading out onto the terrace overlooking the amazing view over the city. The … _ _ _ … is also repeated on the china plates.

You've got to admire a restaurant that not only has a fine meat menu but also a 'daily potato' as well as chips and mash. Today's potato was gratin daupinois. It didn't take too long for D and I to ponder how many potato dishes they have to select from and who gets to choose? I thought that a 'potato of the day' was such a good idea that I should instigate the concept in my life though D thinks that my potato du jour would just be mash. I immediately countered with how much I like champ, aligot, baked potatoes and potato duchesse. But I have to admit that's just really mash with spring onions (scallions), mash with cheese, baked mash in a skin and garlic and crispy rosettes with a mash like centre. Hmmm, maybe D is right after all!

The menu is very meaty and very tasty looking. D and I can't decide on a starter so we split two - Foie Gras and Leek Terrine with Toasted Brioche and Smoked Eel, Potato Pancake, Beetroot, Horseradish Cream and Pancetta. Both were really, really good! And T plumps for Rare Breed Carpaccio with Blue Cheese Dressing. The beef was seriously good but I'm not a fan of blue cheese so I wouldn't have had the dressing personally.

D can only drink white wine, I prefer red and T will drink absolutely anything so we split the difference and go for a rose - a Charles Melton Barossa Valley Rose of Virginia in fact. However unfortunately this is still too red for D and we have to bring the rest home.

The point of the top floor of SOS is the fine meat menu – today’s choices were 10oz South Devon Rump, aged 24 days (supplied by Steve Turton of Newton Abbot), 10oz South Devon Sirloin, aged 24 days (supplied by Steve Turton of Newton Abbot), 10oz Welsh Black Sirloin, aged 24 days (supplied by Emrys Davies from the Welsh Hook Meat Centre) and 7oz Rare Breed Fillet served with a choice of sauces. We all went for the Welsh Black Sirloin cooked RARE! And not surprisingly it was amazingly succulent and delicious. D and I have the mash and gratin dauphinois – naturally, and T has the finest very square cut chips (and he let me have one – it was a fabulous chip!)

Definitely, a juicy meaty three forks for SOS top floor!

Birthday 1

As I am in the USA for my birthday this year we decided to hold my first birthday party (well of this year anyway!) tonight. Really it was just an excuse to wear my tiara again, decorate the table, christen my elegant new crystal Villeroy & Boch candelabra and to cook the fabulous beef fillet with a gratin of mushrooms and sautéed new potatoes from Gordon Ramsay’s F Word.
LLcT had a few friends around (Scruffy or Fluffy and the finely eyebrowed JP) so we had a full house to help me celebrate!

We started off with he samphire we picked up on Bank holiday Monday. Samphire was a new experience for me. It is cooked like asparagus and served with lashings of unsalted butter. You eat it by picking up each sprig, biting gently through each piece and pulling the succulent flesh off with your teeth and then discarding the inner core. We were perhaps a little generous with the portions of samphire; we started to wonder if we’d ever get through it all but I really enjoyed it.

The beef fillet with a gratin of mushrooms and sautéed new potatoes was really gorgeous – the execution was slightly complicated by the fact we had two slightly conflicting versions of the recipe but D and I worked it all out. It was a truly tasty first birthday celebration meal.

And then we had a heavily candled M&S decadent chocolate cake to finish it all off.

Happy almost birthday to me!

Update: I just had to have another do and it was even better this time around!

Sausages and mash twice!

After a vigorous morning of shopping we popped to EAT for sustenance and plumped for pie. Today's (meat) pie was sausages and mash in a tasty crumbly pastry. The pie has an open crust filled with a layer of spicy sausagement and then topped with roughly mashed potato and then baked. There was a oven baked cherry tomato perched on top of the creation briefly but this was swiftly dealt with and I let it pass. EAT rotate their pies weekly and I do like it when the sausage and mash one comes around again.

And when it was time to make dinner, what had we decided to cook? Yes, you've guessed it - sausages and mash! We had the tasty porky Newmarket sausages from the food fair and the inaugural unveiling of the shiny new potato ricer to mash the King Edwards. Gordon Ramsay mentioned on the F word how useful said gadget is and recommended a visit to Lakeland to purchase one. My first thought was 'is the Gordon effect as powerful as the Delia effect? Will Lakeland be swamped with potato ricer requests?'. I didn't think I'd actually find out but my ministerations on D's old ricer had caused it to buckle alarmingly so a quick trip to Lakeland was required, and sure enough there wasn't a potato ricer to be seen, the shelves were bare. Fortunately we were able to grab a nice shiny stainless steel one from M&S so the mash was saved. For me the best part of a ricer is that it removes the potato peel from the cooked potato as you rice. And a gadget that works so well AND saves me from peeling potatoes is a wonderful thing!

For a final flourish we opted to serve the sausages and mash 'Desperate Dan style' in the new M&S white china bowls.

A Grand Day Out

This is the last bank holiday of the year and it being August bank holiday we opt for an escapade that is quintessentially British and head for the seaside. The stretch of coastline we venture towards is the Norfolk coast, this is a trip full of childhood reminiscences for both D and MC and a whole new experience for me. We aim for the patch of blue in the sky - 'just big enough to make a sailor a pair of trousers', should there be one unfortunately bereft of said garments. This being a quintessential British Bank Holiday we started our car journey with some trepidation that the weather might not hold out as we pointed our nose seawards. It was quite a while before we saw the sea as first we saw light precipitation, then heavy squalling rain, thunder, lightning, hailstones and then a bit of respite - fortunately just in time for our first port of call - Sheringham. Sheringham was billed as Norfolk's Premier town and is just up the coast from Cromer. And talking of Cromer that is what has drawn us here on this fine (?) day - crabs! We have come for one of 'Joyful' West's fresh crab sandwiches. And seriously fresh they are, they taste like they've been plucked from the sea, picked and popped between two pieces of brown bread, a stupendous seaside treat!

I may have not have had these sandwiches like D as a child but the smells and sounds of a seaside town are very evocative. The smell of fish and chips amply vinegared, the crying sea gulls swooping down for any discarded chip wrappers, the chinking of two pence pieces being won in the amusement arcades and the sight of families braving the freezing, crashing waves on the beach 'because, we're on holiday!' really resonant with my memories of trips to Blackpool and Southport with my grandparents so many years ago.

We continue our road trip by heading west towards Blakeney. We spy the fabulously named butcher's shop - Icarus Hines just before the rain hit us again. At Blakeney the children are rolling around in the mud banks and catching little crabs on their lines and putting them into their sandcastle buckets. Buffeted by the bracing sea air we go to the Blakeney hotel and partake of a very English afternoon tea. We were served this in the obligatory peach and chintzy lounge resplendent in seasonal needlepoint wall hangings (though we agreed that 'Winter' was too autumnal and the colours were all wrong!) and unfortunately a boy with extraordinarily fine lungs. Eventually the boy and his lungs were whisked away and calm descended except the odd murmur of 'awfully good gingerbread' and 'are you going to have that last cucumber sandwich?' and the gentle pouring of the Earl Grey into the china teacups. It was all so very English afternoon tea, the thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches had their crusts removed, the fruit scone was served with clotted cream and strawberry jam and their was a jug of water so you could adjust the strength of the tea. And it was very good gingerbread!

We had a look round sleepy Blakeney found a little deli and stocked up on some tasty nibbles and drove up to Morston Hall to check it out for another visit. Morston Hall is a lovely country hotel with a fine restaurant headed by chef Galton Blackiston. D and I have always admired his work and hope to come and eat there one day.

We set off for our final stop though not before buying some samphire that was being sold freshly picked by the side of the road. We'll serve this up like asparagus later this week. Our final blast down memory lane for D was 'sunny hunny' - Hunstanton and the sun did make a brave attempt to shine weakly as we walked around. We got some sticks of the obligatory seaside rock. They even still have the plates of the 'rock' fish fingers, chips and peas on a blue and white plate. I always knew I was at the seaside when I saw these for sale! Hunstanton reminded me more of Southport and other sea sides I visited as a child with a big sea front, lots of manicured little gardens, ornamental flower beds and benches to sit on a stare out at the sea or the little collection of rides and slides and Ferris wheels. Probably the only thing missing was the striped deckchairs that always collapsed or trapped your fingers and the donkey rides. I wonder if you still get donkey rides?

We had a grand day out, a traditional British day out with our infamous changeable weather. Bye bye summer, see you next year.

The show must go on

Despite being totally whacked by the extensive preparation and to a lesser extent all that lovely food yesterday we had pre-booked tickets for the Really Good Food and Drink (and Easy Living) show at the Haggis Farm Polo Club. Our thoughts were that we could probably get some lovely food there and avoid the kitchen all day - a cunning plan indeed! We stocked up on packets of Musk's Newmarket sausages, tasty fresh pesto, garlic and chive cheese, very gingery ginger biscuits and paper bags of ever so juicy dried baby figs and strawberries. D got pots of tapenade and quince jam, MC a pot of some tomatoey thing and I bought a stunning crystal candelabra which will grace my dining table in a fine style. We watched a chukka or two of polo and ate hog roast sandwiches and game pasties washed down with a huge jug of PIMM'S. We entered a few prize draws that we probably won't win and checked out the alpacas where MC pondered the possibility of rearing a trio of his own.

This is the first year for this event so it was pleasantly not too crowded. Though I'm sure the organisers wouldn't concur on that score! Many of the food shows although enjoyable have turned into some annual scrum especially around the free wine and spirit tasting sections where you have to dodge wine glass on a string guzzlers who can barely stand after one or two sips too many! I still attend but try and pick the slightly less overrun weekdays to attend if I can. Though I know Gordon and his 'boys' are doing the Sunday at the London show this year so I guess it will be Sunday after all.

The most elaborate and sparkly meal ever!

I'm sure we did the Queen proud! The execution of the Queen's 80th birthday Great British menu was as complicated as I thought it might be. Even the shopping was more complicated. The fishmonger who promised us turbot couldn't get any so we substituted for monkfish. He couldn't get any cockles in the shell or clams so we abandoned the whole shellfish idea and went for shiitake mushrooms. My fantastic London butchers Porterford recommended venison cutlets and I collected these and the stock bones and oxtail heat-sealed for the train journey to Cambridge. D had ordered the stunning peat smoked salmon online and it had been flown over from the Outer Hebrides. We made copious notes and tackled the rest of the food shopping and then all we had to do is prepare it all.

We started early as there was copious amounts of mis en place, there was much roasting of bones, reducing of stock, monteing of sauces, dicing vegetables, grating potato, rubbing in pastry, zesting of lemons and mixing of batter. There were four sauces to make, at least five vegetables to peel, scrape, dice, mash and we seemed to require every single pan, bowl, plate and colander in D's kitchen and a few from Bee's also. The dishwasher was put on double duty and every surface was used for a bowl, plate of measuring jug of something. The large table was draped in crisp black linen and scattered with diamonds. The napkins had jeweled ornaments tied around each (which ended up being tied round T) and the silver candelabras were finished with silver candles (apparently there is a worldwide shortage of black ones) and the little 'black and diamond' menus were written for everyone and tucked in the napkins. The stage was set! Somehow we found time to dress up and I was able to wear my magnificent tiara - whooo!

And amazingly out of all the (verging on) chaos a spectacular meal emerged. Starter was peat-smoked salmon served with blinis (though I prefer 'potato pancakes'), watercress, mâche and Irish soda bread. The fish course - somewhat altered from the original was monkfish with oxtail and shiitake mushrooms with a rich oxtail sauce and a Gary Rhodes inspired cappuccino (which just means heavily Bamixed!) mushroom sauce spooned on top. I think the 'fish' course with the inclusion of the oxtail had raised the most eyebrows when the menu was discussed before the event. But I can report that it was really tasty and would have been even tastier with the turbot but the ‘meaty’ fish matched very well with the rich oxtail. The main course was venison cutlets on top of a potato rösti and sautéed cabbage served with little cubes of carrots, parsnips and celeriac. The rösti were not quite as we wanted, they were prepared quite early with the required goose fat and went a little grey. The taste ended up being really good but as the cooks D and I were convinced they’d have been better if they weren’t so grey! The venison cutlets were so quick to cook and so tender and succulent. We’ll definitely have them again! We had visited one of the best shops in the world yesterday, which was in fact the Cambridge Cheese shop and selected some fabulous British cheeses for the cheese shaped board. We selected Flower Marie which I’d always wanted to try it after a piece by Stefan Gates years ago on Full on Food and had declared it to be the best British cheese, Cambridge Gumburner – a tangy Cheddar matured in the building next door to the cheese shop, Devon Blue (for the blue aficionados) and Stinking Bishop (never as smelly as it sounds!)

And the crowning glory of the meal was definitely the custard tart. Despite D swearing her way through the prep of the typically crumbly sweet pasty (with the inspired addition of lemon zest) and the extreme amount of time it needed to cook. The original Marcus Wareing recipe said that it would require 30-40 minutes to bake, actually it was an extremely nail biting hour and a half. Though it was all worth it in the end – it was truly, truly sublime!

The Queen would have been very impressed – we certainly were! I’m not sure we’ll tackle quite such an ambitious menu again – if you think for the Queen’s meal each course was prepared by an accomplished (Michelin starred in most cases) chef with all their brigade. We had D and me and a lot of sparkle!

5 A's for T

We had a visit to Café Rouge to celebrate LL cool T's five A's etcetera. The Chicken Liver Parfait was as creamy and lovely as ever. The Boeuf Bourguignon was a good choice for a fine(?) August evening as there was a distinct nip in the air. After my previous visit I knew that the mashed potatoes lack most qualities a mash should have namely unctuous creaminess so I eskewed the mash in favour of gratin Dauphinoise. An improvement on the mash but still sadly lacking, I won't be awarding Cafe Rouge any A's for their performance!. Clearly Gary et al have spoilt me for all other potatoes dishes. The steak frites looked good so maybe that's my plan for another visit. I'll draw a veil over Cafe Rouge's mash and gratin Dauphinoise and head straight for the french chips. The parfait I can't fault however, parfait perfection if you will. We finished off with a nice tart palate-cleansing lemon sorbet.

Burger me!

We ventured forth to check out the new bar menu at The Ivory (Bang Bar of yore). Not Smarties this time as H, bump and I all wanted something a little more substantial. It was the Wagyu (or Kobe) cheeseburger with pancetta on toasted Ciabatta served with double cooked chips that had drawn us in and it turned out to be a very good decision. Mine was slightly marred by the unnecessary layer of thick cut tomatoes even after I'd had the obligatory 'no tomatoes, no tomato sauce no tomato anything near my burger' conversation but it fell on deaf ears. They offered a complimentary glass of wine to compensate but I had to decline. It would have been just too easy to curl up in one of the comfy squashy leather sofas and start on a bottle of Merlot and lose the rest of the day. I probably would have hit the bar snack Smarties again and ended up dancing on the nice mosaic tables. And if H was bump free, I may have been tempted but I also had a train to catch later so that was all out the question.

The burger was rather excellent; the salad was well dressed. There was the right number of the very good chips. Enough for me to add them to my burger, I know, my Northern roots are showing again and a couple spare besides. They brought a selection of home made mayonnaise and relishy things for people who partake in such foodstuffs. We managed to share the best part of a slice of lemon tart and felt very pleasantly stuffed. The place was really empty which surprised me as I always recalled the place being smoky and crowded. This was so much more pleasant without all the smoke and we enjoyed a very fine burger to boot. I think a meaty fork for The Ivory.

Anti-Tomato League

Rotten tomatoes indeed!
Since announcing my thoughts on tomatoes - all bad nothing good, I have been contacted by fellow sufferers of the vegetable, fruit whatever the nasty little red thing is (actually the only thing I like about tomatoes is the colour!) It seems that feelings run strong when having to express the hatred of said red thing and I heard a heartfelt quote the other day by one of the characters from the US FBI TV show 'Without a Trace' ...

"As a kid, I was afraid of tomatoes, I just hated them! I hated the little gross seeds and the pulpy pulpiness! I hated everything about them and was always terrified they'd end up in my food."

- a girl after my own heart, I think!

And this got me pondering, do we need to form an underground society of tomato abhorrers, those who recoil in horror when sat next to someone on a plane slurping on a Bloody Mary or have to gingerly fish out the errant slices from a sandwich and stuff them into their serviette and then have to check really carefully in case some of the malicious little seeds have lingered - urghh (see, we really suffer!) or have to hope that the request of no tomato sauce on a pizza is met? When I first heard of the 1978 film ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’; my first thought was – ‘it could happen!’ So before they do attack, I thought we could band together and arm ourselves but to my delight someone has got there before me and set up the website http://www.tomatoesareevil.com/

And they are organised, they have merchandise promoting a tomato free life and they have posters that educate the unfortunate believers! I’ve been saved!