A Food Lover's Diary
I’m afraid this isn’t a food shop, but a snowboarding one. However, whether interested in snowboarding or not, the format of this shop could possibly mean it is one of the best shops ever. Alongside a great selection of clothing, equipment and accessories, Boardriders (Chamonix) also had a mini cinema to watch snowboarding films, big squishy cushions to sit back and relax and an awesome bar serving beer and vin chaud! That’s not to mention the helpful staff, technical services area, camera rental, etc, etc.
We sat and had an apres-ski drink while watching amazing snowboarders jumping out of helicopters, and then realised we were going to be late for our aperitif and canapes back at our hotel, so stomped off in the snow with rosy cheeks.
In terms of awesome food shops, Eataly came the closest to perfect for me. I went to the Turin shop (the original) but they also have shops across Italy, in Japan and they have a new one in New York. The shop is divided into different areas, and where relevant there will be a fresh counter (more pasta than I have ever seen before!) and a restaurant serving up the corresponding type of food too. There was even a truffle counter, with restaurant serving things as simple as fried hens eggs with truffle shavings. I’m sure they also do demonstrations there too – their manifesto is eat, shop, learn, and it certainly shines through in their shop set up.
I took these pictures there in 2010…
Have you found a perfect shop? If not, whats your dream?
I had the intention of making marmalade this Seville season, but hadn’t got round to making time to do it – so when I came across a handy supermarket fixture selling both Seville oranges and preserving sugar I mindlessly added the ingredients to my basket. My holiday got nearer and nearer as the oranges sat there in the kitchen… I was running out of time before they would start to spoil. The day before my trip to Chamonix was supposed to be used for last-minute packing, exchanging pounds to euros and getting an early night ready for our 2am start… to my family’s despair, I thought it a good idea to add marmalade making to our schedule.
I had never made marmalade before so I ‘asked Delia’, to whom I turn to when I need to find a classic, traditional recipe – she didn’t disappoint and the marmalade recipe in her Complete Cookery Course was easy to follow and seemed to deliver great results too. Delia has kindly added this recipe to her website for all to follow if they would like. Below are a few pictures, tips and changes to the original recipe that I made…
I squeezed the oranges over a sieve to ensure no pips got through as I added the juice to the water. This made for an easy way to collect the pips and extra pith needed to add separately to the saucepan.
I had a few handy muslin bags designed for mulled wine spices in my cupboard so used one of these instead of a sheet of muslin and string.
I found the shredding of the oranges particularly tiresome and even ended up with a blister on my finger from all the chopping! I kept looking over at my Magimix wondering if there was a shredding attachment but in my haste just kept chopping by hand. According to Delia the shreds are supposed to be ‘thinnish’. My shreds were rather misshapen – some thin, some thick, some chunks, some shreds and it worried me. Once boiled down you couldn’t really notice the different sizes though, so no need to worry about uniform shreds.
By now it was nearly dinner time, and the holiday packing still wasn’t complete. The fruit must be simmered for two hours or so, so I distracted the family while I waited for the shreds to soften… once done we could go out for dinner.
After the two hours of simmering it should be time to add the sugar. At this point I took a two-hour pub break and returned to the simmered fruit later, full of scampi and warm with wine. I added the sugar at this stage (around 300g of granulated sugar was replaced with icing sugar as I found myself short) and stirred. After 15 minutes of fast boiling it wasn’t crinkling on my chilled saucer so I continued to boil for a further 10 minutes, and then a further 5 to get to what seemed to be a ‘set’.
I carefully decanted into jars with a jug (annoyingly, the special silicone funnel I bought didn’t fit the jar openings).
Ta daaaaa… my lovely jars of marmalade, ready with minutes to spare before bed time.
I am writing this post after the holiday and must say that homemade marmalade on buttered toast, with tea, was the perfect welcome home after a very tiring, but fun, week away in the snow. If you haven’t made your own marmalade before, it is very rewarding and tastes so much better than the shop bought kind… just make sure you give yourself a good 4-5 hours or so to make it properly!
In order to celebrate my sister’s graduation, in Chester, we booked a table at Michael Caine’s restaurant Abode. I’ve always liked the look of Michael’s cooking and was confident that it would be a great place to visit. We had set our hearts on the tasting menu and didn’t even get swayed by the special MasterChef menu. It was a special occasion, so we started with champagne cocktails in the bar and spent a bit more on wine to match the tasting menu.
We began by sitting in the bar with a celebratory cocktail, with a huge picture of the beautiful Debbie Harry looking over us. Cheers and congratulations to my sister Abbie who graduated with a degree in Government Studies!
The glasses were set at the table, ready for our wines to match every course.
The bread was amazing – brought to the table warm and crusty with salty, creamy butter.
Jerusalem Artichoke and Truffle Soup – this was brought to the table in a small cup, a few squares of artichoke and a little truffle arranged inside.
Along came our waiter with a steaming jug of liquid – poured carefully into our little cups. It was so deliciously creamy, rich and truffley good that we all looked around at each other grinning. If the soup was this good, how amazing would the other courses be?!
‘Wow’ would sum up our reaction to the Citrus Cured Salmon that came next. It was almost heavenly as the salmon melted in our mouths.
Then came the gorgeous braised halibut served with squash and cumin puree, pickled baby onions and a yoghurt and pumpkin seed cracker. This was probably my favourite dish, with so many different tastes and textures.
The main course was a duo of Lake District farmers pork – a seared loin and a braised shoulder. Both were cooked perfectly and the celeriac puree, red cabbage and apple complimented it perfectly.
The cheese course which was a sliver of Garstang Blue with pear and perry chutney and toasted hazelnut bread on the side. Just the right amount of an amazing cheese.
The next course lightened things up a little – a fromage frais mousse with blueberry jelly and lemon granite. A sprinkle of popping candy really made the dish special, we all loved it!
Hot chocolate fondant with pistachio ice cream was next, again an amazing dish… Problem was that at this point I had been keeping up with the boys and had drunk all the wine that had come with each course. Things had started to get a little fuzzy!
My sister’s boyfriend has a rather severe nut allergy and I cannot praise the way Abode’s staff dealt with this any more highly. At every point where there was either nut or chocolate in a dish, they prepared and brought out separately, his very own alternative. In his 37 years of living with the inconvenience, he has never felt more at ease, or more cared for in a restaurant. My memory from here rather hazy, I have no idea what this dessert was, but it looked very pretty!
We then had coffees and teas accompanied by petits fours – home-made fudge, marshmallows and raisin cakes. My sister tried the cake first and her reaction made me so excited to try it that in my haste I dropped it in my tea (absolutely nothing to do with my slight drunkenness). It was still delicious!
John had his very own special nut free cake brought out in its own little basket. He loved it!
We concluded it was one of the best meals we had all had… and then I fell asleep in the taxi and got carried to bed!
One of my 30th Birthday gifts (from my lovely sister) was a baking day at the River Cottage. We stayed in Axminster for the weekend, had a wonderful meal at the River Cottage Canteen, and made the most of being by the seaside by including a fossil hunting expedition. The baking day was full on, with a great mix of learning, watching, making, socialising and lots of eating!
We were dropped off by the boys in the Park Farm car park (they went off to see boy things at the tank museum) and were thankful for our accidental tardiness, as we only had a short wait in the cold for the the tractor taxi ride down to the farm.
We were welcomed by a wonderful cosy fire in the cottage kitchen, along with hot drinks and a slice of gorgeous walnut tart.
We met our tutor for the day, who was the brilliant Aidan Chapman from the Phoenix Bakery in Weymouth. He was supported by a team of river cottage chefs, some of them I recognised from the tv programme!
There was the perfect mix of interaction, watching and making. We started with the basics of bread making – covering ingredients, techniques, tips and confidence building. After watching Aidan mix and knead his dough, we all (about 20 in all) took to our work stations and had a go at our own walnut and raisin loaf.
Our mid morning snack consisted of freshly made flat-breads with a delicious roasted pumpkin dip, olive oil and dukkha. It was perfect for us all to have a go at cooking the flat-breads and then tearing, sharing and dunking the hot bread into the dips.
Lunch number one was DIY pizzas – we shaped our own dough, and then topped with our choice of tomato or garlic sauce, roast onions, kale, mushroom, cottage made chorizo and salami, amazing confit chicken and of course some mature cheddar to top it all off.
Aiden manned the wood fired oven, our pizzas cooking in about 40 seconds the oven was so hot!
My sister and I treated ourselves to a glass of wine and enjoyed our pizzas in the cold winter sunshine, admiring the beautiful views. We took the opportunity to have a good nosey around the cottage and its gardens. Some highlights in pictures below…
Later in the day we all made our own panetones to take home. We could choose to add sour cherries, cranberries, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, raisins, citrus zest (I think that was it!) so I put a big handful of everything in!!
Unfortunately I failed to get a picture of the final result – to be honest my carefully arranged pecans sunk to the bottom and it came out a little lop-sided so no great loss! We also made some very easy almond and marmalade cookies, which were lovely.
It was then time for lunch number two – the main event in the Cottage! This was slow roasted pork shoulder, with a 5 vegetable boulangere type dish and braised red cabbage… followed by sour dough pancakes with apple and clotted cream – delicious! We had another glass of cold white wine too.
We were then warm, full and a little weary from the days activities… we heading back over to the workshop to pick up our things. Our beautiful loaves were waiting for us, and we took our biscuits, panetone and a big chunk of sourdough too. We were also given a River Cottage Bread handbook to take home for reference.
The day left me yearning to make my own bread, every single day. I learnt that you could make a batch of dough and keep half of it in the fridge to bake another day, that it’s not necessary to weigh out all your ingredients and that you really need to put energy into your baking to breathe life into your bread. Education like this makes you appreciate the time and effort dedicated by artisan bakers into their produce and puts you off the cheap, pappy, soulless white bread you find in the supermarkets. I must admit, I haven’t baked yet since the course, but it WILL happen soon!
Yesterday, my Dad treated my boyfriend and I to lunch at The Pigs in Edgefield, Norfolk. We all loved it and concluded that it could possibly be the perfect pub. I love the cook book library out the back, being able to see into the kitchen (and when looking into the kitchen I could see them making their own bread) and mostly because you can bring in your home-grown/ caught/ shot produce and exchange it for beer and food credits! We had the full works – starting with ‘iffits’ (Norfolk tapas), hearty mains, warming desserts all washed down with local beer and ice-cold white wine.
We shared four ‘iffits’ between the four of us. From the front (of the picture below) we had corned beef hash with brown sauce onion jam, lemon, thyme and garlic chicken wings with roasted garlic dip, honey, Colman’s mustard and marmalade glazed pork ribs and dirty beef dripping, sea salt and toast. Really impressive, really fun and all of it was really good tasting.
I couldn’t resist the ‘Pig Pieces’ on the specials board which was served per person. We ordered for one, with the iffits, for us all to give it a try. I’m so glad we did – we got crispy bits of pig ears, pork belly chunks, haselet fritter, crackling and apple sauce, gorgeous sausages and potted ham topped with a gherkin. For £4.95 this would make a perfect porky lunch, especially with a side order of bread.
Our mains were all good – my boyfriend and I both had the signature dish which was pork belly with smoky bacon baked beans, black pudding, apple sauce and crackling. I was quite surprised to find such an american style BBQ flavour to their signature dish, but it was good all the same.
I was a little bit jealous of my Dad’s smoked haddock and egg puff pastry pie. I loved the way it was served in the tin with a big pile of bright green savoy cabbage on the top. I didn’t get an opportunity to taste it, so it must have been good!!
My Dad’s girlfriend went for the roast turkey, which she thought delicious (we have goose for Christmas day so didn’t spoil anything!).
Our desserts were also great – I tried to go for a lighter choice with a Norfolk Biffin (baked stuffed apple) but my planned failed with the addition of ice cream, and the fact that I ended up trying everyone else’s anyway!
The whisky and marmalade bread and butter pudding was really good – with a really crispy, buttery crust and served with proper, thick custard.
Tapioca was made with double cream and served with Adnam’s sloe gin stewed prunes.
Headed up by Tim Abbott, with influences from Richard Hughes (Lavender House, Brundall) and Iain Wilson (Byfords, Holt), we were certainly in good company. They have a local food and drink sourcing policy, so I was happy to be supporting Norfolk producers and retailers. I love the way they are so proud of this and identify their suppliers on their menus.
The service was excellent, toilets immaculate and we had a sneaky peek at one of their rooms (the one with the 8ft bed!) which was gorgeous. Definitely worth a visit or a stay while in North Norfolk, just don’t forget your [insert your produce of choice here] to barter for your beer with!
There was so much going on at the BBC Good Food Show Winter this year that I’m pretty certain I missed a lot of it! With 13 theatres at the show, featuring the Great British Bake Off, Saturday Kitchen and MasterChef and the very best line up of chefs possible, there was just too many places to be at the same time! So what was I doing if I wasn’t watching the chefs?! Well, I was in my element in the Producers’ Village – tasting, talking, learning and loving every minute of it! This blog gives a little some of my personal highlights from the show.
‘Pizza Time!’ I loved getting this text message from Tim Croft from Paddy’s Hooked on Fish – he had a deal with Amy and Chris from The Northern Dough Co (delicious frozen pizza dough) on the stand opposite… he provided the Queenie scallops, and they provided the dough, tomato sauce and cheese. Scallop pizza. I’m so glad he shared. Amazing with black pepper and a squeeze of lemon!
I always stop and consider my audience before pronouncing the word chorizo. Obviously its a spanish product, so perhaps you should pronounce as the Spanish do, which is chor-ith-o. I feel a bit of a twit saying it like that, so I usually go with chor-itz-o or chor-ise-o. I came across Ana, from Flavours of Spain, (who knows more about chorizo than anyone I know) teaching one of our visitors how to pronounce it the Spanish way. This photo catches it perfectly, don’t you think?!
I didn’t get round to eating any, but don’t these oysters from Rossmore look great!?
I almost bought this Moorlands Cheesemaker’s cheese making kit for my sister, but after asking a few strategic questions to find out if it would be a hit, we concluded that it would all be a little too smelly for her. If my flat wasn’t the size of an average person’s lounge then I would have bought one for myself.
Judy Goodman and her family rear wonderful geese – just look at the lovely way they are presented in the picture below. Goodman’s Geese are Jamie Oliver’s favourites and I can certainly vouch for them after having one at the centre of my Christmas table for the past few years. If you haven’t tried goose then its a must – so much more luxurious than turkey.
I was very excited to taste the World Cheese Awards World Champion (we hosted the World Cheese Awards and the results were announced on the Wednesday of the show) which was a 10 month Ossau Iraty made by farmhouse producer Fromagerie Agour. I was also delighted that the Cornish Cheese Company came second overall (they were supreme champions last year). I’ve got some in my fridge to take home for the Christmas cheese board.
The World Cheese Awards judging is a spectacular occasion – over 2,500 cheeses all laid out to be judged by the ‘who’s who’ of the cheese world. Favouring Blur over Oasis back in the day, meant that seeing Alex James (from Blur) and his floppy hair perusing over the cheeses did make me go a little weak at the knees!
Beautiful freshly ground spices from Spice Boys London – it was their first BBC Good Food Show and I’m sure you will agree a great addition to the show.
I was delighted with the all round success of Simon Diss at the show – host of the Magimix Theatre. It was his first time presenting at the BBC Good Food Show and we all agreed that he was brilliant! Look out for him at future shows and follow him on twitter (@simondiss). His estate up in Cumbria also rears delicious Geese and Turkeys for Christmas, has an award winning farm shop and sounds rather idyllic – The Cowran Estate.
Now, this is a little bit embarrassing, but I featured on some of our show graphics this year at the Winter Show. It was a welcome to the Producers’ Village message (my area of the show) with a few of my highlights on it. Rather embarrassing when I had to walk past, but I’m still pretty proud of it (and so is my Dad)!
Anyway, I could go on and on, but thats enough for now… I would love to find out what I missed though – what were your highlights?
Now that the shows are over (yes, I’ve been slack and still need to publish my highlights from MasterChef LIVE and BBC Good Food Show – sorry) I can’t help but be excited about Christmas! Its been such a busy couple of months at work that I have neglected my blog… but I will have so much to write about over the next few weeks that all I will need to find is the time to get it on here!
So, I have 45 minutes to write this, get dressed and get over to my friend (and colleague) Emily’s house to start our preparations for our Christmas Day in London! We are attempting to make Heston’s Meat Fruit as a starter, which I feel is rather ambitious but Emily thinks we can do it. I will take lots of pictures and report back! We then have one of Judy Goodman’s Geese for the main, with ALL the trimmings, followed by some kind of Pavlova. As you can probably tell, we still have some planning to do, and all the shopping – wish us luck!!
I bought the goose at the BBC Good Food Show and he has been patiently waiting in the freezer for us to devour today – while he roasts we will be drinking mulled wine and ice skating at Hampton Court Palace – I’m so excited!
So this year, my ‘grow my own’ dream hasn’t exactly delivered, and so to pick my own I had to turn. My boyfriend and I produced little more than a handful of clove sized garlic bulbs, a few scraggy herbs and a dozen or so of the tiniest potatoes I’ve ever seen. So a few weekends ago we headed off to a local farm shop where we knew we could get that little bit closer to the good life by picking our own.
It was the last weekend of the year for pick your own and families were out in full force to find the perfect pumpkin for Halloween. There were a few things still available in addition to the pumpkins – sweetcorn, beetroot, spinach and to my surprise strawberries!
Some wasted cobs left naked on the ground…
A poppy surprised us in the middle of the corn field, which now reminds me of the amazing sight which was looking down from the gallery of Olympia, at the thousands of silent and still chefs, workers and crowds at MasterChef Live at the weekend. It was a truly moving, goose bump inducing sight.
A few strawberries still left ripe for the picking…
We left the pick your own area of the farm (Garson’s Farm in Esher) with 5 corn on the cobs which were rather over priced considering we had to do the picking ourselves! It was fun though, and got us out into the fresh air for a little while. We then heading for the farm shop where I spent as long as I could get away with looking all the wonderful produce! Jamie gets bored very quickly in such places so I have to scan the shelves wide-eyed to try to absorb all the jars, packets, boxes and tubs of goodness.
I really liked these bottles of french fizzy pop from La Mortaucienne, which are one of my Grandparents’ favourites, come in beautiful bottles and are available online from Natoora.
The other thing that caught my eye were these jars… unfortunately I didn’t stop long enough to pick up on the brand and a half-hearted google search for ‘Just So…’ didn’t bring up any results. They look great though!
The trip to the farm shop ended up rather costly (we couldn’t resist buying a picnic of meats, cheeses and olives), so I think we needed to put a little more effort into growing our own in 2012 – watch this space!
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