Stockings and service not included

I got an email from the BSG last week, asking if he could borrow a pair of my tights. Mildly alarmed, and more than a little intrigued, I agreed to the whole sordid-sounding affair. I’ve already said I’ll marry him, so I suppose at this stage anything goes…

As it turns out, the BSG is a gentleman, and a quince-essential one at that…

Alright, I am sorry about the terrible attempt at a quince-based pun, but honestly, it is a rare breed who sees a Tuesday night stretching ahead of them and thinks it’s a night for jelly-making (he’d already spent the previous week making industrial amounts of membrillo – delicious, we had the first slivers with some manchego on Sunday) I got back after supper with some girlfriends to find him craning over a furiously bubbling mass, checking his watch and occasionally stirring. The tights (not my favourites), now consigned to the bin, had taken one for the team and been essential of the drip-sieving process. What’s that thing they say about a watched pot? Not applicable to this one, which as it turned out had boiled way past quince jelly into the realms of Wonka’s factory. We now have two jars of jaw-sticking boiled sweet and no idea what to make of them. Consequently, a jam thermometer is high on the BSG’s Christmas list, along with a mandolin and a food processor. I am not sure he can wait until then before trying again, and for the sake of the surviving nylon population in my drawer, I sincerely hope that he’s off to a hardware shop first.

We had been in a state of high excitement for the duration of the week as, having read fantastic reviews from esteemed bloggers such as gastrogeek and various newspaper critics, we had bagged ourselves a table at the spanking new restaurant of the moment, HIX, on Brewer Street. Being rather smitten with all things Mark Hix following a memorable feast at his operation in Smithfield earlier this year, and loving his book, we’d jumped at the chance to sample another fun-filled gorging session…

Perhaps our expectations were just too high, maybe it was just bad luck, who knows, but it was not the night we’d imagined.

Flanked by tables of complete bankers and other inebriated money-movers, initially we struggled to make ourselves heard. Not a problem, we raised the volume too, we were in high spirits, we were at HIX, and all was right with the world. Still menu-less and in need of a drink after ten minutes, the BSG, understandably, was starting to lose his temper. A very nice man saw the problem (and the ear-emitted steam) and gave us both a drink on the house – the BSG was delighted with his pewter mug of Indian pale ale (add one pewter mug to aforementioned list). The bread that turned up was warm and delicious, straight from the oven, the expert crackling and crab-apple sauce huge fun, and it lifted our souls back off the shiny, sound-repellent floor.

After much deliberation (decisive is not my middle name), I opted for Heaven and Earth, a extraordinary combination of velvety black pudding, permeated with winter spices, sitting on a bed of mashed potato and apple so perfectly matched that lightning must have struck when they were introduced. This simple dish set my mind a-wandering through lines of a Dylan Thomas poem called ‘Fern Hill’, and linocuts by Sybil Andrews of harvests and horse-drawn ploughs. In fact each mouthful was so good that it made me think minutely about every flavour that crossed my tongue: the tastebud-to-cranium mainline was in overdrive. The BSG waxed lyrical over his clean-tasting bunny offal and celeriac, and in turn we accepted proffered forkfuls of each. We had started off with a leap and a bound hand-in-hand through the British countryside. The food sings celestial hymns to the British Isles, employing simple down-to-earth ingredients, each one lovingly and carefully sourced.

The bar was busy, the place thoughtfully decorated, there was a party atmosphere throughout – it just felt like we weren’t on the list. The rest of the meal was good, but could not compensate for another interminable wait, this time over plates of empty marrowbone and a red gurnard skeleton. Unwittingly, we had entered a service void - like stars around a black hole the waiters orbited our table, unaware of our existence. From our vacuum we watched helplessly as these stars were sucked into the vortex of paunches and suits, tending to their every want as they became increasingly boisterous.

Having already spent most of the meal waiting, we had neither the time nor the inclination to opt for a pudding, regrettably. That it smarted to pay service on the bill is an understatement, and we left disappointed and a bit frustrated. A one-off hopefully, and not a sign that this shiny place will forever be condemned to sponge up the after-effects of corporate brainstorming sessions in the nearby pubs. Nevertheless, we’ll be sticking to the Smithfield branch.

However, with a friend’s dinner at Roussillon on the horizon, we weren’t to be down in the mouth for long.

Next time.

Ps: the BSG’s just walked in with a brand new jam thermometer…

Egg in a cup.

(for Dave who is running around like a headless chicken setting up his show)

I am sure that every family has a hybridised recipe using these exact same ingredients, but this is ours, and it comes from my Granny Scraggs*. She and my mum have made it a signature dish in our family, ensuring that it will run through generations to come.

When we were small, this was what we ate for tea most often, when the four of us had been out playing too late or were overtired and not up for much else. Nevertheless, it always elicited squeals of excitement, usually preceded by a race down to Gran’s henhouse to collect the star ingredients.

Did everyone have those enormous china tea cups at the back of the kitchen cupboard, that no-one ever seemed to drink tea out of? Well, as far as we were concerned, they had this one extremely important purpose. Even now, using a substitute, a bowl, feels like cheating…

I have altered the volumes, for grown-ups (and I suppose the more responsible adults might want to use brown bread, which works too). It all depends on your appetite.

For a very quick and easy supper, you need

2 eggs
2 slices of soft white bread
Lightly salted butter, out of the fridge for a bit
Salt and pepper

Put the eggs in a pan of boiling water and cook for four and a half minutes or so. Meanwhile, butter your bread - if it tears, then all the better - fold in half and rip apart into chunks, about bite-sized. Place the bread in a wide cup (a bowl is more practical I suppose, but far less fun), then once the eggs are ready, take their lids off and scoop out the soft-boiled egg with a teaspoon, into the cup. Mash up all together with a fork, adding salt and pepper to taste.

You get lots of different bites in this cup, some yolky, some buttery. I would have thought that you could add Marmite, Tabasco, bits of cooked bacon, to your liking, but it is wonderful as it is – an enormous hug – in a cup.



* so-named after the place she lives rather than her lovely Christian name (I am responsible), and who makes the best fish pie in the world.

Picture this if you will

Typos: the bane of many office emails but sometimes rather useful. On Friday, the BSG emailed to say that he was off to Bodean’s (I hasten to add that this was not of his choosing), but that he wasn’t even remotely hungary.

At the very same moment in an office across London I was in fact ravenous, so this random error led me to a favourite Hungarian food-daydream, goulash, and the extraordinary version that Jamie Oliver does using a pork shoulder, cooked slowly in a lidded pot with a mountain of sliced peppers and paprika until it falls apart at a mere glance. Clouds of fluffy rice and sour cream are all this needs to complete it, and if you are feeding many, it is relatively cheap. I am sure that the recipe wouldn’t be hard to find on the internet and it is well worth looking.

Having met our very pregnant but completely relaxed friend for a convincing – yet thankfully not labour-inducing - curry at the brilliant Mirch Masala in Tooting last week, thoughts are turning to core-warming foods. Indeed, central heating is essential at this time of year, when the temperature can plummet or rise sharply in a matter of hours. And I don’t mean the skin-desiccating, global warming stuff – though that can be rather helpful too – I mean these kinds of soul-filling, oven-and-pot-cooked dishes that lead you away from the watery crunch of summer salads and into the deep stew-ladle of winter.

Arriving in Norfolk on Friday and faced with a cold, dark house, the only thing for it was a warm fix, pure and simple – spaghetti and meatballs. A blend of minced beef and pork (the insides of good sausages, we were in a hurry), they were squished in our hands and rolled together with some thyme, browned off in a pan and added to some chopped tomatoes, port and garlic, before we even took our coats off. Left to stew for about an hour their brownness seeped into the tomato sauce, reducing it to a wonderfully jammy consistency, into which we mixed our cooked linguine and feasted, each mouthful inching up the internal thermostat.

Trout, usually a fish I associate with summer, was the cameo in our yellow-curry-laksa-type-thing last week, and we were surprised that this sweet delicate flesh stood up amongst all the spices and ginger – we’ll definitely repeating that recipe, over thread-thin rice noodles.

They are a stalwart of the store-cupboard, unlimited by the seasons, but in our house puy lentils don’t really come out in the summer months – I can’t imagine why, these nutty green pulses are completely wonderful. With them, the BSG made us a great supper; they were boiled, tossed immediately with chopped roasted peppers, paper-thin sliced red onions, and cherry tomatoes. These were dressed with red wine vinegar, olive oil and parsley, and topped with pan fried mackerel fillets, though you could easily use cold tinned/jarred fillets and stir them through the warmth. It is a perfect one-dish supper full of vibrant colours and fresh salt-sweet flavours; there was plenty so we discussed taking some for lunch the next day. Unfortunately we chomped the lot in one sitting. I defy you not to.

This week I find myself without my camera, my trusty sidekick, so words without pictures will have to do. Tell me this: would Postman Pat ever leave Jess behind on Mrs Goggins’ Post Office counter? No. (I’m not sure he’d go on strike either, but that’s for another blog…) For this careless act, I am rather ashamed.

However, I blame a triumph of taste over all other senses, as usual.

You know that it’s autumn when weekend lunches with friends get later, flirting with the dusk, and the red wine is already open when you arrive and unwrap yourselves. Our host on Sunday had warned us that, as there was an imminent inspection at her school this week, we weren’t to expect too much. Knowing Anna as we do, we didn’t believe her – as a cook and general host (and teacher I don’t doubt) she is of the most generous and caring variety, every bit of the feast she laid on for us smacked of this kindness, from the beautifully constructed canapés of toasted bruschetta topped with variations of avocado, bacon, goats cheese, tomatoes and peppers, the delicious roasted chickens surrounded by salads of every kind, through to the cakes warm from the oven; banana and walnut, drizzled with chocolate, and a crisp-edged apple cake, unbelievable. Unable to choose between accompaniments, I have to confess that my end of the table might have had custard (Bird’s, naturally,) cream AND Ben & Jerry’s with ours. In a nutshell, Anna lovingly fed and wined us into blissful submission, the day disappeared, and my camera was forgotten (yes, forgotten) in the postprandial haze.

No matter I suppose, meatballs, albeit delicious ones, aren’t very photogenic…