This week’s reading, shopping and general time-wasting. …
Salted Caramel Molten Chocolate Pots
“I love the smell of juice boxes in the morning” – Robert Duvall
I was at a seminar thing recently where one of the speakers was Martha Swift, who turned her home cupcake operation into the hugely successful Primrose Bakery. I asked her whether she thought that her business, and those like it, were being negatively impacted by the War On Sugar that is currently being waged left right and centre. It isn’t. And she didn’t think it really would be. Cupcakes are a treat. People understand that. Plus, she said, a world without sugar would be a bit miserable. Can anyone really disagree with that? …
Vignarola (Roman Spring Vegetable Stew)
“Let’s leave to the English the taste for eating boiled vegetables without any seasonings or at the most with a little butter; we southern types need our food to be a little more exciting” – Pellegrino Artusi (1891)
I am suffering from possibly the most middle class complaint of all time. Farmers market envy. Yes, I actually said that out loud. I keep stumbling upon blog posts with photos from US farmers markets, with shoppers clad in overpriced yoga wear sipping their unicorn roasted single vineyard drip coffee while poking away at ton upon ton of amazing fruit and interesting heirloom varieties of carrot. Most of these places (based on the pictures at least) make Borough Market look like the fruits of one man’s small allotment on the edge of the M25. And then it makes me think, too, of going to tiny towns in France and Italy were they have the same sort of thing, week in week out. Our farmers markets, in London at least, seem to me to be around 10% fruit and veg, and 90% sausage sandwiches, pesto and chocolate brownies. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with those things, and they definitely have their place on our markets, but I just think we have the balance sort of wrong….
What to do with Artichokes
Jump straight to the recipe ideas →
“These things are just plain annoying. After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual food out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps. Have the shrimp cocktail instead” – Miss Piggy
So that 7 a day series I mentioned. A new vegetable each week and all that. Not really happened, has it? I am blaming the artichokes. It is definitely the artichokes’ fault. When I stupidly asked for reader suggestions for which vegetables to cover I got celeriac (which filled me with terror but which I figured I could legitimately dodge for the time being on ‘seasonality’ grounds) and artichokes, which are very firmly in season and thus less easy to sidestep. The problem? As much I liked both looking at them and eating them, I had never actually cooked them at home and had always been put off doing so because the preparation looked a bit difficult and time consuming (mostly just difficult). Unfortunately, the reader who suggested them is an old friend in front of whom I will never (EVER) concede defeat and thus I was forced to spend hours, days, WEEKS, battling artichokes in my kitchen until I mastered their dark secrets. I have even taken step by step photographs for you! So here we are, one month to the day after the asparagus post, with the second installment of 7 a Day!…
Vietnamese Turmeric Fish (Chà Cá Há Nôi)
“U.G.L.Y. You ain’t got no alibi! You ugly!” – Daphne & Celeste
No, not you. I probably haven’t even met you so how could I possibly know that? Monkfish. They are ugly. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing a whole one – fishmongers often just have the tails on display – you will know what I am talking about. Their heads are as wide as their bodies are long, they have 7 layers of skin, a massive mouth full of sharp fangs and they apparently eat puffins along with fellow fish that are almost as big as they are. You definitely wouldn’t want to come face to face with one while snorkelling, let’s put it that way (which would be an achievement as they reside on the ocean floor but then I have no idea how serious a snorkeler you are, so I guess it is possible)….
Incredible No-Knead Bread
“A lot of people don’t eat gluten because somebody in their yoga class told them not to” – Jimmy Kimmel
You should make this bread. You really should. Really. That is, of course, if you haven’t done so already. Because you probably have. Because, unlike me, you probably don’t live in a cave and you found out about this amazing no-work bread technique around 150 years ago. Or at least at some point since 2006 when the technique/recipe/game-changer was first published in the New York Times. When I counted yesterday there were somewhere close to 8 million blog posts about this bread too. But it would be really very remiss of me not to tell you about it, just in case you too have got this far into your life without having come across it. …
Fennel, Feta, Orange & Almond Salad {+ thoughts on growing my own veg}
“Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are” – Alfred Austin
I consider myself to be a fairly logical, rational sort of person. I have become pretty boring since turning 30 and am not prone to random spontaneity or great frivolity these days. But every so often I go through phases where I am sure, convinced in fact, that every idea I have must be a Really Good Idea™. All critical thinking goes out the window. My husband has learned to deal well with these phases, interfering only where strictly necessary, and thus preserving domestic harmony. (You can actually see him calculating whether any given idea will a) cost a lot of money b) cause harm to any living species or c) involve him having to rectify it down the line. If the answer to at least two of the three is negative he nods with abject resignation and allows me to proceed unfettered). One idea that fell squarely in this category was my attempt, a few years ago, to grow all manner of fruit and vegetables in our back garden. Our northerly facing patio garden in central London with approximately 2m² of (already planted) flower beds. …
Pork with Cashew & Mango Salsa
“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia” – Charles M. Schulz
I have fallen off the wagon this past week. It was largely down to my own complacency – I started to let myself think that I had this healthy eating thing down and that, without any actual planning, shopping or thought I would just be able to whip up some wonderfully tasty plant-based creations out of nowhere. Unsurprisingly, it transpires that when you are busy/tired/sick/whatever it is much easier to fall back on what you’ve been cooking for yourself for the last 15 years, rather than what you’ve learned in the past 5 months. And thus I reverted to an existence of toast, Pret croissants, red wine and takeaway noodles while pondering precisely how many of the vegetables I had bought (in a flurry of early week good intentions) – and now quietly decaying in the salad drawer – could be palmed off on the child in the guise of a frittata and whether I’d ever become the sort of person who would enjoy a vegetable soup made up of random fridge offerings (conclusion: seems unlikely). …
Neon Pickles
“He looks as though he’s been weaned on a pickle” – Alice Roosevelt Longworth (on Calvin Coolidge)*
Hello! It’s been a while. Sorry. I won’t pretend I’ve been terribly busy – I mean, some of you actually know me – but you know those weeks when you look up and suddenly it’s Friday and WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ALL WEEK? Well, it’s been a bit like that. And it hasn’t been greatly assisted by my son deciding that he’s had Quite Enough Thank You Very Much of his lunchtime nap. Those precious lunchtime hours of calm, cheese and blog writing have been cruelly stolen from me. I was banking on keeping the nap until he was at least 13 so I am feeling pretty cheated if I am honest with you. To top it all off, any free time I have had this past week has been spent getting cross with artichokes because one very dear reader suggested I cover them for the Seven a Day ‘series’ and they are a bloody tricky thing that I have deliberately avoided for years but now feel compelled to master. I will not be beaten by a vegetable. No sir.
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A is for Asparagus
“Marriage? It’s like asparagus eaten with vinaigrette or hollandaise, a matter of taste but of no importance” – Francoise Sagan
So first up in the 7 a day series is asparagus. Not because it is alphabetically expedient but because it’s brilliant and because it has an extremely short season and will be gone again by the end of June. Asparagus basically screams Spring. Arriving after the UK “hungry gap” of March/April where there is nothing very exciting to eat vegetable wise at all, it is something that food people get very excited about and, curiously for a vegetable, has something of a ‘luxe’ association. Yes, yes, I know it would have been helpful to write this three weeks ago when the season started but my laziness has at least given me lots of time for asparagus eating to share with you, and its price has dropped now too (after the initial excitement of its arrival) so now is the perfect time to go forth and eat it non-stop until it has gone….
Introducing…. the 7 a Day series
“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon” – Doug Larson.
So how is everyone getting on with this 7-a-day thing then? Nailing it? Thinking of ramping it up to 12 by next month? Yeah, didn’t think so. To recap briefly for people living in a cave or non-UK readers: a recently published study by University College London whipped the British press into a frenzy by suggesting that the current WHO (and NHS) guidance to aim for a minimum 5 daily servings of fruit and vegetables was inadequate and that 7, or ideally 10, should be the new minimum benchmark to guard against death from all manner of terrible illness.
An adult serving is about 80g. So that’s over half a kilo a day if you take the conservative 7 a day as your yardstick. Potatoes don’t count. Nor, according to the UCL study, does fruit juice. Oh, and most of that half kilo is meant to be veg, rather than fruit. None of this is likely to be news to Australian readers (where the official campaign is “Go For 2 (fruit) and 5 (veg)” a day) but here in the UK, where it was estimated that less than 30% of the population was getting even 5 a day, it’s a bit of a kick up the arse.
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Cinco de Mayo – Tequila & Tacos
“Why did the Mexican push his wife off the cliff? Tequila!”
Yes, I do write my own material and yes, I am here all week (try the veal) etc. Anyway, it’s 5 May! And because 90% of you reading this are European, that will mean absolutely nothing whatsoever! It’s just the day after Star Wars Day, right? But those of you in the US, or unbashed Americophiles like me, will know that it is Cinco de Mayo – a celebration of Mexican heritage that is observed widely across the US and in parts of Mexico. It marks the anniversary of the Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862 and is celebrated today with festivals, music and, most importantly, Mexican food and lots of margaritas. Far be it from me to overlook any holiday or celebration (irrespective of nationality, religion or creed) that involves tequila. …