Sunday Lunch

Asparagus from this week's Riverford box brushed with olive oil and griddled on my cast iron pan, egg soft boiled to Heston Blumnthal's directions and fresh Bordeaux Quay Pain de Campagne from this week's sodden Tobacco Factory market.  Delicious!

Just Vote!

I spent a couple of hours this morning handing out Green Party leaflets on our local high street.  This  Thursday Bristol, along with 10 other English cities, is being asked to decide on whether or not to elect its own mayor.  The Green party is opposed to this proposal.

Following the council's failure to distribute its explanatory leaflet to every person in the city a turnout as low as 20% is predicted.  There were certainly a number of disinterested voters on North Street this morning.  As someone who has always been passionately interested in politics I find this very difficult to understand.  I'd like the good people of  Bristol to say no on Thursday but I'd prefer them to say yes than to say nothing at all.

My Top Ten Cookery Books

Today I bought a new cookery book.  Heaven knows I don't need one but that's never stopped me before and it didn't this time when our Book People rep came calling with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest offering.  Besides, it provided me with the perfect opportunity to publish a post I've been mulling over for some time now.

So here it is, my definitive(?) Top Ten Cookery Books

1. Good Housekeeping -  This was one of the first cookery books I bought and its the one I turn to most often to find out how long to roast a joint, the ratio of flour to butter to milk in a white sauce or the correct way to sterilise jam jars.  It cost me 50p in an introductory offer to a book club in my final year at university and has been with me ever since.  It has lost both back and front covers and its pages are scuffed and stained, but I wouldn't trade it in for any other book.
2. Real Food (Nigel Slater) - It's not just the recipes but Nigel Slater's attitude to food that appeals to me.  This is solid everyday cookery, the sort of food you would be happy to eat time and time again.  And we do!
3. How to Eat (Nigella Lawson) - Nigella Lawson is another of my food heroes.  This is a chunky book and it took me a while to justify the expense.  But it's one I've never regretted.  It's the kind of cookery book I can sit and read just for the pleasure of the prose.  And as I read it I can hear her voice in my head.  Gosh, I must have been watching too much TV!
4. The New Covent Garden soup Company's Book of Soups - We Scots are brought up on soup.  It practically runs in our veins.  I love it.  It's warm and nourishing and easy to prepare and is the perfect way to use up odd bits and pieces lying around the kitchen.  But sometimes it's good to start from scratch and boil up something special and this book has plenty to chose from.
5. The Good Cook (Simon Hopkinson) - I've come late to Simon Hopkinson, through his recent TV series.  He came across as a gentle man and his recipes are a reflection of his manner.
6. Indian Cookery (Savitra Chowdhary) - I inherited this book from my mother, although I have a feeling that it was my Dad who made more use of it.  I don't use many of its recipes but it's where I turn for a basic dhal and gajar halwa, my all time favourite Indian sweetmeat.
7. Mediterranean Cookery (Claudia Roden) - I love the aromatic flavours of Middle Eastern food and Claudia Roden's book is a veritable feast for the senses.
8. Delia Smith's Christmas (Delia Smith) - No list would be complete without a Delia Smith and this is my favourite.  In  years when I've opted for a traditional turkey dinner I've followed her countdown to Christmas dinner almost to the second.  And it's her mincemeat recipe every time!
9. How to be a Domestic Goddess (Nigella Lawson)  Nigella's second appearance but as this is the book I turn to first when I get the urge to bake she deserves it.
10. The Book of Children's Party Cakes (Ann Nicol) - From when they were old enough my daughters have been presented with this book a couple of weeks before their birthdays and asked to choose their cake.  Even the most complicated cakes are simple when you follow the instructions step by step.

So this is my list.  What about you?  Would any of these books feature on yours?  Have you any personal favourites to recommend?

Review: All Things Moroccan

Last night our humble parish church was transformed into a sumptuous casbah as Vincent Castellano and his team opened another pop up restaurant - All Things Moroccan.

The pillars were draped in shimmering silks, the tables lit by tea lights flickering in burnished lanterns, images of Moroccan life projected onto huge screens and the cupola above the altar, and the strains of North African music wafted over the heads of diners as they arrived.  Traders occupied one of the side aisles, spreading their carpets and displaying jewelled lanterns, polished leather, serried ranks of tagines and shelves of skin products to tempt diners as they milled around waiting for their friends.  

And what a feast it was.  Five courses - with ingredients sourced from as near as Bristol to as far away as Essaouira!

We started with a Salad Platter.  A tomato, cucumber and onion salad with argan oil dressing, carrot and orange salad with orange flower dressing, and a beetroot and cumin salad, served with sesame seed flecked flat breads.  As on previous occasions, platters were shared between diners to encourage conversation and add to the atmosphere.  It was the perfect opening to a Mediterranean meal - fragrant and refreshing.  Much was made of the argan oil but, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't detect its presence, except to say that whatever it was it tasted delicious.

We moved on to the Spicy Bits Platter.  Lamb meatballs, chicken wings, sardines with sultanas and capers wrapped in feuille de briouat, green and black olives and zalouk.  This is the sort of food I love, tasty morsels to pick and savour.  The sweet and sour sardines encased in filo pastry were a true revelation and the warm spicy aubergine stew packed an earthy punch.

To clear our palates in preparation for the main course, we were served shot glasses of fresh mint crushed ice tea with ewe's milk yoghurt.  The acidity of the yoghurt cut through the minty sweetness of the sorbet and left our taste buds tingling.

Just as well because the Couscous Royale was a feast in itself.  There was a hunk of tender slow cooked mutton, spicy chicken chermoula (stuffed chicken with a crispy spiced rub), a fiery merguez sausage, root vegetables stewed with ras el hanout and half a red pepper packed with couscous.  A side of aromatic honey and saffron chickpeas and carmelised onions was passed between diners.  The fact that I didn't quite clear my plate had nothing to do with the quality of the food but everything to do with my saving a tiny space for desert. 

  

While we waited for tables to be cleared and the next course to begin we were entertained by the Shiny Ladies, a delightful troupe of dancers who, given the number of costume changes during the course of the evening, evidently like dressing up as much, if not more than dancing.  They performed a variety of traditional, and original, Moroccan dances with great flourish.

The desert was worth waiting for.  A trio of ewe's milk cinnamon cheesecake with poached rhubarb in ginger syrup, spiced orange drizzle cake and sellou.  The latter is an unbaked Moroccan sweetmeat made from sesame seeds and almonds, akin to halva, but infinitely superior to any I've tasted before.

All it needed was a small espresso or a glass of mint tea to finish it off, but the lack of facilities making this impossible, I had to wait until I got home for the next best thing, that is a mint tea bag in a mug of boiling water!

Of course the food's important and, once again Vincent came up trumps, but it's about more than that.  It's the effort put into virtually transporting us to Casablanca, the attention to detail in the menu and service and, above all, the company.  The 160 guests were seated along four long tables, cheek by jowl with people they may have never met before and who they may never see again.  We found ourselves next to a French teacher who enjoys evensong at Bristol Cathedral, a young woman from St Petersburgh with her mother over on a visit and a Baha'i follower from Mexico who may very well have met my sister while living in Edinburgh..  We shared a magnificent meal together ... and went on our way.

Success at last!

Ever since one summer holiday in Crete about 10 years ago, I have longed for a wooden bread basket.  We ate in friendly family run taverna where they served a complimentary square of delicious chocolate cake with the bill, and where the ubiquitous thick slices of custy bread were presented in simple wooden bread baskets.  I fell in love with them and have been looking for something similar ever since.  It's become a standing family joke that I'll insist on checking out every kitchen shop we come across on the off chance of finding one.  There have been plenty of examples, of various shapes, sizes and designs but I've never found one which matched my requirements ... until today, when I discovered this one in the relocation sale of a kitchen shop in my local high street!

I am a very happy girl!

Pasty Presto!

The other day Sue, over at The Quince Tree, made pasties to use up leftovers.  This, and a quick flick through the lovely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's new book, River Cottage Veg Everyday, resulted in my abandoning my menu plan and baking four veggie pasties. 

There was a turnip (swede to the English) lurking in last week's organic vegetable box and a packet of puff pastry in the freezer.  All the other ingredients were store cupboard basics.

My mum used to make passable Cornish pasties and we gorge on them every year in St Ives, but this is the first time in many years that I have attempted them myself.  Having realised how surprisingly easy they are to knock out, I'm hoping it won't be my last.  Next time I may even include the carrot and onion that I inadvertently left out on this occasion!

We ate two for dinner.  The others will make a welcome break from sandwiches tomorrow.

PS  I nicked the title of my post from a pasty shop in St Ives which produces an aromatic chick pea variation on the original.

What's for Dinner?

Today's dinner, chorizo and cannellini bean stew, inspired by Sue over at The Quince Tree, cooked in my recently acquired cast iron pan from Aldi.  One of the delights of blogging is trying out fellow bloggers' recipes and Sue is a particularly rich source of delicious dishes.

I'm two days into the new four week menu plan I drew up over the Easter holidays.  I was fed up of having to decide what to eat every day, deciding on a recipe and then realising I didn't have all the ingredients, making mad dashes out to the shops before they closed, paying over the odds for convenience goods or giving up entirely and ordering a takeaway.  So I did what I've been intending to do for as long as I can remember and drew up a plan.

Now I'm not pretending that it's set in stone and will be followed slavishly from now until whenever.  I've made a deal with my younger daughter that meals will be ticked or crossed and unpopular choices will be replaced by more popular alternatives.  I'm fully expecting it to evolve constantly.  If I persist it will look quite different this time next year.

The plan is also an attempt to eat healthily and sustainably.  Two days a week are completely meat free and Friday is fish day.  I'm hoping to gradually increase the number of vegetarian days but this will have to be by negotiation with my daughter who is rather suspicious of the whole experiment.  Already meals are being swapped to ensure that she avoids the meat free days and doesn't miss out on her favourites.  But I'm up for the challenge of persuading her to expand her horizons.