Cream Corn of Love

Cream corn was one of my favourite foods growing up. I even remember my grandmother made her own and canned it. It is still an integral part of one of my all time favourite home comfy meals, which only really works when cooked by my mom. I love it. But I haven't eaten it in a really long time (at my house – I had it in June at my parents). Does it even exist in London? Have I grown out of it on some visceral level? When was the last time I ate it?

So tonight to accompany my new favourite roasted chicken, I made a recipe from Ottolenghi's Plenty – sweetcorn polenta with aubergine sauce. And, dear Reader, the memory, all the goodness, of cream corn, came flooding back to me. A taste. A memory. So incredibly evocative. It made a really big impact on me. I can't remember the last time I had such a strong food memory come and give me a hug and a kick at the same time.

It's not the same as canned or my Grandmother's, obviously. This one uses 6 cobs of fresh corn and 200g of feta cheese. But the sensation of being little, loved and loving cream corn? That was the same.

Sustainable Fish

How sustainable was your last meal of fish? If you don't know or didn't catch it yourself, chances are it wasn't. If you had salmon, tuna or shrimp recently (and who hasn't?) then you're probably guilty of plundering the seas for your own selfish appetite. I hope it was worthwhile and delicious. Please say you didn't overcook the salmon. That'd be disgraceful.

Here's a list of at-risk fish. This list tells you what to eat instead. Check it out and think about it next time you choose fish.

You know which fish isn't on the list? Grey mullet. We had that for dinner on Saturday night. Caught in the most sustainable way possible. A friend of our fishmonger's caught it. He went free diving and speared it. She showed us the spot on the fish's cheek. Yes, my Saturday night dinner was speared.

I love it. How caveman.

Anyways! It was delicious. I'm loving trying new fish that are guilt free.

I did the fish really simply, just pan fried with a bit of flour and paprika to dust it. I stole the accompanying salad from The Compass.

Fried Fish on Chorizo, Green Bean and Olive Salad

A big handful of green beans, tailed, blanched and refreshed
Two chorizos, sliced and fried to develop a lovely crust
Handful of left over roasted potatoes, warmed up with the chorizo
Small handful of pitted black olives

Toss together in the pan so all the ingredients are warmed through with chorizo oil and serve with your friend fish.

The Best Tofu

Have I mentioned my deep, deep love of all things Ottolenghi? Oh. I have. Here's more gushing...

Last night I made the most delicious, spiciest and awesomest tofu we have ever eaten at home. Possibly eaten anywhere.

I'm not a huge tofu fan. Without adequate love and care it mostly tastes of slime, gray and nothing. Not appetising. And I know plenty of people who think it's gross, end point. If that's your starting point I dare you to make Ottolenghi's Black Pepper Tofu. It's so damn delicious. The tofu, dusted with corn flour and fried so it developes a lovely crust and great texture, then the sauce it gets coated in is a silly savory dream of flavour, with killer spice, chili and, you guessed it, black pepper. So so so delicious.

Yotam's recipe is on the Guardian website. You can start there, or you can work from my changes. Mine was killer hot. If you follow Yotam's it might be assasination in the dead of night hot. Just saying...

Black Pepper Tofu

Prep and Sauce

80g butter (this is half what Yotam uses but was fine, I rarely shy away from excessive amounts of butter but come on- you always realise how MUCH butter you actually use when you weigh, plus I needed some for cookies)
12 small shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
12 garlic cloves, crushed
3 red chillies, thinly sliced (Yotam called for 8 mild ones. How do you check how hot they are? Take a bite? I opted for less, just to be safe. Turns out that was wise. Eight of these babies and it would have been inedible.)
About two inches of ginger, chopped into tiny pieces


Melt the butter in your saute pan and add the flavours. Let them melt into each other until nice and soft, about 15 minutes.


Meanwhile...

Tofu Prep


600g firm, fresh tofu - because that's the size it came in
Cornflour for dusting, and playing with water in afterwards
Vegetable oil, for frying


Cut your tofu into small blocks and dust with cornflour, shaking off any excess. Heat up the oil, not too much, and fry your tofu into cubes of golden, crusty deliciousness. You'll probably need to do this in batches. This is dangerous and involves much spitting hot oil. Set aside to drain and continue on with your sauce.

Finishing the sauce

3 tbsp sweet soy sauce (called kecap manis, it's sometimes referred to as Indonesian ketchup. It was a bit tough to find, if you can't get it you could substitute soy sauce with some molasses or palm sugar in it...)
3 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tsp light soy sauce (yes there are two entries for light soy sauce. This one was supposed to be dark soy sauce but I got confused and bought another giant bottle of light soy sauce instead of dark. Oops. Anybody need to borrow some soy sauce?)

Let the soy sauce dissolve into the garlic and butter- it should get silky and shiny looking.

Now. Add your coarsely crushed peppercorns. Yotam called for FIVE tablespoons. I used three. Again, killer hot.

Once the sauce is combined add your crusty tofu and let it warm up and get enveloped in the shiny sauce. Add a bunch of green/spring onions, thinly sliced and serve with copious amounts of rice, to balance the heat.

T is for Tart Failure

For a Fail Tart, it's quite pretty.

Was it me? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what's worse – me screwing up the recipe or the recipe being crap. Either way. Failure.

There are a few recipe book authors who I trust implicitly. I have made enough of their recipes to trust that unless something goes drastically wrong (like the time I mixed up the baking powder and baking soda in the pancakes when I was seven – sorry dad, thanks for eating them anyways) the end result will likely be scrumptious and dependable.

So I am pretty disappointed with the tart I made last weekend. Not only did I actually follow the recipe to the letter, I also bought a bunch of ingredients especially for it, and it was sort of a kind of pricey endeavour. And it wasn't very good. It was slightly bitter. It didn't set properly. Yuck.

So I won't give you the recipe. Nor will I tell you where I got it from or who wrote it. It's their only spill up so far – I'll let the author get by scott free just this once.

However! The pasty bit of it was lovely-  a bit of texture with the addition of polenta and some parmesan- and I had a bit left over so tonight I pulled it out of the freezer and made a fridge tart. And it was delicious and lovely and well set and much better than the fancy one I tried last week. So there.

Fridge Tart

Two leeks, chopped and softened in butter
Two cloves of roasted garlic
A half a pot of creme fraiche (about a quarter cup?)
Four sundried tomatoes, chopped
A quarter of a round of sheep's cheese, chopped
A pinch of chili

Left  over pastry gets rolled out into a vaguely round shape. The fridge bits get mixed together, taste and season, then plopped in the middle, bring the sides up and bake until nicely browned.

Tada! MUCH better than the flouncy fussy one from last week. So there.

Gorgeous food and Beautiful Models

I'm thrilled to say that some of my photographs were published in the latest issue of Fire & Knives. The brief for the shoot was highly unique: take a photograph of a restaurant's signature dish … with models. This gave L and I the opportunity to try St. John, famous for their Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad.

As for the models? They behaved themselves nicely for the most part, though there was a bit of lying down on the job.

The Harvest

Small but ours. Quite proud of our little beanstalk.

ZUCCHINI

Zucchini. Courgette. Did you know it's technically an immature fruit?

I don't love zucchini. It is decidedly not one of my favorite vegetables. Is it anyone's? Maybe in late winter? When the thought of an abundance of zucchini means summer and warmth and bbqs and cherries but then it' not really about the zucchini itself, now is it? I mean, I don't hate it. It's not something I refuse to eat (like raisins) or only eat reluctantly and with enough recognition from those around me that I am in fact eating something I find terribly gross (like raisins). No, I just don't LOVE zucchini. And as anyone who has ever hate a fight with a loved one knows, hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is.

I am indifferent to zucchini.

Also, even though I live in England and it is called courgette, and I call it courgette in conversation, I still call it zucchini in my head and when I go to write it down. Someone should look up the etymology between the two words, so everyone can understand the  cultural differences between them. Maybe I will. (I did. See below the recipe.)

Even though I don't actually like it that much I seem to buy it quite often. It's in season. It's there, I'll purchase a few (especially cute little ones from the farmer's market) and surely I'll find inspiration in one of my many cookbooks for something delicious that will uplift it beyond it's humble vegetable (fruit) state. And I have. I've made some nice dishes. But none where I was so excited about the zucchini itself. None that were so amazing and delicious that I felt proud of my creation.

I've made zucchini lemon pizza. Zucchini wrapped lamb kebabs. Zucchini saute with almonds. Zucchini side dishes. Zucchini soup. Pasta with zucchini. But really? It's all meh.

Anyways, the reason for the zucchini rant, and the reason I figured out that I'm not actually all that big a fan, is because I made a zucchini dish the other day that I really liked. That made me feel proud of my creation and pleased that I had purchased zucchini. It's from the New York Times, a recipe by a New York interior designer of Egyptian descent. It's lovely. It's delicious. We had lunch leftovers. You should make it too.

Maybe then you'll learn to love zucchini a little.



Here is the recipe, pilfered directly and without change from the New York Times.

In Egypt, “every lunch and dinner includes rice,” she said, as she prepared zucchini pilaf and almonds, a subtly spiced dish that includes tiny amounts of allspice, coriander, cumin, cayenne and cilantro. To finish the dish, she serves the rice with a thick yogurt-garlic sauce on the side. The garlic is not a mere token addition — though finely minced, it is clearly present and makes yogurt a newly fascinating food.

Zucchini Pilaf With Almonds

Ingredients
        For the rice:
        1/2 cup slivered almonds
        1/2 tablespoon butter
        1/2 cup long grain rice
        1 cup vegetable broth
        1/2 teaspoon allspice (the only other recipe with zucchini that i like also has allspice. maybe the    key to an excellent zucchini dish is allspice?)
        1/2 teaspoon salt

        For the zucchini:
        2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
        1 medium onion, finely chopped
        2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
        1 pound zucchini , ends trimmed, halved lengthwise (or quartered if large) and cut into 1/3-inch slices
        1 teaspoon ground coriander
        1 teaspoon ground cumin
        Pinch of cayenne pepper
        1/2 teaspoon salt
        2 tablespoon currants or dark raisins
        3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
        Freshly ground black pepper
      
For the yogurt-garlic sauce:
        1 cup Greek yogurt, or strained non-Greek yogurt
        2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pressed through a garlic press
        1 tablespoon dried crushed mint
        Pinch of cayenne
        Salt and freshly ground pepper 
 
1. For the rice: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place almonds on a baking sheet, and bake until lightly toasted, about 10 minutes. Remove, and set aside to cool.

 2. In a small pan over medium heat, add butter and rice. Stir until the rice is lightly toasted, 5 to 8 minutes. Add vegetable broth, allspice, and salt. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to very low so the broth barely simmers; use a heat diffuser if necessary. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the zucchini.
      
3. For the zucchini: Place a large sauté pan over medium heat, and add olive oil. Add onion, and cook, stirring, until translucent and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the zucchini, coriander, cumin, cayenne and salt. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add rice and currants, and mix well. If the rice looks dry, add two tablespoons water. Cover, and cook until the zucchini and rice are tender, about 15 minutes. The rice mixture may be uncovered and quickly stirred once or twice, covering it immediately after.
      
4. For the yogurt garlic sauce: In a small bowl, combine the yogurt, garlic, mint and a pinch of cayenne. Mix well, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
      
5. When the rice and zucchini are ready, top with cilantro, toasted almonds and fresh black pepper. Serve immediately, with yogurt-garlic sauce passed separately.



Zucchini vs Courgette
From Wikipedia (citations required):

Zucchini, like all summer squash, has its ancestry in the Americas[citation needed]. However, the varieties of squash typically called "zucchini" were indeed developed in Italy, many generations after their introduction from the "New World". Courge, French for squash. "Zucca" is the Italian word for squash and "zucchina" is its diminutive, becoming "zucchine" in the plural. However, "zucchino", the masculine form, becoming "zucchini" in the plural, is just as commonly used and is prevalent in Tuscany. Italian dictionaries such as "lo Zingarelli 1995, Zanichelli editor", give both forms. "Zucchini" is used in Italy , and in Australia, Canada and the United States. 'Zucchini' is plural in Italian whereas in English it is singular. The first records of zucchini in the United States date to the early 1920s. It was almost certainly brought over by Italian immigrants and probably was first cultivated in the United States in California.

June Happiness

is the very last of the farmer's asparagus with homemade mayonnaise/aioli for Sunday lunch with a bottle of rosé. With a hint of sun shining in. No nice photos. Just love.

Tuna = Elephants

I was very upset yesterday. Emotionally gutted. It was a tough day at work and the news I read in the morning meant every poke was a bit sharper.

Remember when I said I'd tell you why eating tuna was like eating elephants?

We're fishing and eating the tuna to extinction. Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably already heard that. But then we do hear that, don't we? Cod, shrimp, salmon. Seafood in general, right? We eat/fish/farm too much and it's bad and we should stop but this one piece of salmon fillet won't matter and isn't it delicious?

But the animals we are eating to extinction have never, to my knowledge, been so endangered that CITES has been mentioned and international bodies have stepped in to make fishing a species illegal. That's how bad it is.

So on Thursday 18 March when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Doha, Qatar voted overwhelmingly to reject the ban on trade in tuna (and polar bears, incidentally), I was upset.

As Barry Estabrook writes, soon tuna may no longer be endangered, they may be extinct.

So go enjoy your tuna fish sandwich, while you can. Please make sure it's served with a generous helping of shame and a sprinkling of doom, because we all know that one species affects another and that this is bad news for more than just tuna.

Oh, and you may want to include a side of elephant. Because the convention will also likely lift a ban on the sale of elephant ivory and then you can tell your children that you ate the last of two extinct animals.

Full disclosure: There are two tins of tuna in my cupboard. They are the last tins I will ever buy.

Why I don't write about wine

Early morning wine on holiday in Venice

During my undergrad in Calgary I spotted a fancy new wine shop opening up just as the Winter semester was coming to a close. I liked the idea and didn't want to work full time at the hotel while doing one class over the summer and decided to apply.

This was the beginning, maybe the heyday, of speciality wine shops in Calgary and there were tons of young hip people with tons of wine knowledge and expertise buzzing round the city. I was not one of them. I believe I started my cover letter with "I know nothing about wine but I really want to learn." For whatever reason Sandra brought me in for an interview and gave me a job.

The store was gorgeous. In the cellar of the 100 year old sandstone Alberta Hotel Building (ancient by Western Canada standards), brick, old wood, we even had a ghost in the backroom. Because the store was new and in the downtown core after the business types went home the flow of people trickled down to almost nothing and so in the evenings whoever was in charge would pull us round the tasting bar and open a bottle and we would learn. We had access to a vast library of material and great brains full of knowledge - we learnt about the places and the history and why this glass and that grape. We held tastings which were carefully researched and themed. We ate a lot of cheese.  

We studied Le Nez du Vin daily, making up scent experiences like apple pie and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when we tired of gooseberry and barnyard. (At the time I didn't even know what a gooseberry was.) I got to meet local celebrity chefs who did events with us. Bernard Callebaut fed me truffles.

September came and I went back to school and down to one part time job (the better paying one) at the hotel.

For all the training that summer (and I kept up my education, let me tell you! There's a reason I have student loans!) I have never been able to describe a wine without feeling like a pretentious dick. I have an excellent palate for ingredients - I can usually dissect a dish and figure out what is in it - but not for wine. I am more likely to describe a wine with an emotion or memory than a flavour.

So I generally won't write about wine unless it's the story or context, or the emotion and memory of the bottle. Because at the end of the day unless you a wine professional or really into that type of analytical experience, you don't drink wine to dissect it. You drink it to savour it and melt into the moment. And it's those moments and that meaning that I want to remember.

Late Afternoon wine on holiday in Venice

Lahooh!

We went to the Imperial War Museum's exhibit called Ministry of Food yesterday. It was great! You should go - it's open til January 2011 so you have plenty of time to plan your trip and come to visit us. (We even bought a new bit for the art line!) While we were there I was thinking about what we had in our fridge and how we shouldn't be wasteful and that we had an awful lot of random food in the fridge (market day was particular heavy on the cheese AND I visited the Ginger Pig) and that I didn't have any clear plan for dinner.

And then I remembered the silly number of carrots in the fridge and this recipe for Hot Carrot Salad and settled back to enjoy the rest of the day, comforted to know that dinner was taken care of.

The recipe suggests serving the carrot salad on crumpets. We didn't have any crumpets and while I made some for brunch last weekend I thought if I was going to go to the trouble of making them I could go to the trouble of making lahooh, which is what Yotam says the salad would tradtionally be served with. Yotam has never led me astray so I looked around on the magical internet for some details about lahooh. And I found a new site with a whole new world of cooking - Somalia. I am so excited to poke around and taste some new tastes!

Anyways. Lahooh. SO easy! It's basically a spongey crepe, similar to injera and a perfect foil for the (SPICY) aromatic carrot goodness.

Didn't get it perfect the first time but I will definitely try it again!

Kingsley Amis’s admonition about dieting: “The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.”

Parsnips FTW!

Last night I discovered the World's Best Way to Eat Parsnips. Well, I didn't discover them. Simon Hopkinson did and he wrote the recipe up in the March Olive magazine, though it actually comes from his book The Vegetarian Option which is on my (long) list of books to add to my collection.  

You must make these. These are so awesome. And we didn't manage to eat them all and then we heated them up in the oven this afternoon and they WERE STILL GOOD. And how come no one has ever mentioned romesco sauce? It's my new favourite.

Cheese-crusted fried parsnip strips with romesco sauce 

Romesco Sauce of Awesomeness

40g skinned almonds, gently fried until golden in 2T olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced

1 small dried chilli

60g sundried tomatoes, drained 

60g roasted red peppers from a jar, drained

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

1 tbsp hot water

Toss everything into the blender. Blend until numbly but not entirely smooth.

3 parsnips, peeled and cut into 6 inch strips

Blanched until just tender, drained and left to cool.

Mix

60g white breadcrumbs 

50g parmesan, freshly grated (Original recipe calls for much more but this was sufficient)

1/2t cayenne pepper

pinch of salt

Then coat the parsnips strips in flour, run through a beaten egg and tossed with breadcrumb mix to coat.

Fry the parsnip strips in batches in a deep pan with about two centimeters of oil at 170C for a few minutes each, until they're crisp and golden. 

Drain and eat!

No pics. Too delicious.

How To Make An Octopus

Walking home from the Ginger Pig yesterday we poked our heads into the fishmonger's and I spotted octopus. I had never cooked an octopus before so we had a discussion with the lovely fishmonger and a 1.5lb octopus was purchased.

How To Cook an Octopus

How long is a piece of string? (C's note: This is a common British expression to express the inability to measure something abstract.)

Practical Suggestions from the internet and reference books:

1. Steam it in its own liquid
2. Braise it for hours
3. Pre-freeze it
4. Add a cork to the cooking liquid
5. Beat the octopus against a rock.

Hm. Ok.

I knew I wanted to do an octopus and potato salad, the way I'd eaten it in Italy but I also wasn't getting any super clear direction on how to do it so I took all the advice that made sense to me and made it my way. It worked. It was lovely. And so I will add my method to the internet's glut of how to cook an octopus. Without beating it.

How to Cook an Octopus like Leah did
(inspired by Mark Bittman, Jamie Oliver, Harold McGee, and the Silver Spoon – thanks guys!)



I decided to go with the slow braising method. I made a broth of lemon zest, chili, garlic and parsley stalks (and water, obviously). And lots of salt. Brought that to a boil and plunged the octopus in, then turned it down to a barely there simmer for 1.5 hours.

Just as the octopus hit the water it curled up on itself, so I pulled it out so C could see and take a photo - so cool.



I tested the octopus, to see if it was tender, after an hour and a bit - it was, so I added thick slices of potato for the last fifteen minutes or so to cook until tender.



Turned off the heat and gingerly removed the potatoes, adding them to a bowl with a bit of lemon juice. I let the octopus cool down in the water, as suggested (apparently it helps it relax after the cooking process). Finally I took it out, chopped it up, tossed it with the potatoes. Voila dinner.

Pizza in East London

Pizza seems to be in vogue here in London. It makes sense really: pizza is affordable, delicious and a sensible night out during times of economic hardship. I know that even Toronto's undergoing a pizza renaissance – some friends took me to Pizza Libretto on Ossington last summer and the place was packed to the gills, as if Torontonians had only just tasted proper pizza for the first time (sure Terroni's does a nice pizza, but it's not their focus).

So here's a look at the pizza scene here in East London.


The Stringray Globe Cafe
Sitting at the top of Columbia Road is the Stringray Globe, which is well known amongst East Londoners for its delicious, inexpensive pizzas. It's tough to get served though! Tables are usually in short supply and we've been refused take-out a couple of times just because the kitchen is so busy. Usual selection of wine and beer. Their Bosciola and Capricciosa (hold the egg) pizzas are favourites of ours.



The Lauriston
A bit of a hike for us, the Lauriston is actually a local pub just off Victoria Park that happens to have fantastic pizzas cooked in a proper Italian pizza oven. As its a pub, their selection of beer, ciders and wine is really quite decent as well. Throughout the week you'll find all kinds of Hackney hipsters lounging about, taking part in the Wednesday pub quiz, or even belting out tunes with Hot Breath Karaoke (don't worry, it's only held once a month). On the weekends, it's very family friendly with babies, toddlers and accompanying strollers everywhere. Apparently, they do a great breakfast and brunch as well.



Pizza East
The latest to the scene, Pizza East is definitely the current hip joint (the girl who checked our coats was wearing a sweater that may have formerly been an ostrich). Located over the main floor of the Tea Building in Shoreditch, it also has a nightclub, Concrete, in the basement, hence the dressed-to-impress crowd. Excellent pizza, a unique, fluffy soft crust and a wide range of delicious toppings. Do order the spicy sausage, mozarella, sprouting broccoli and garlic pizza – fantastic! Good selection of beer and wine as well; our Peroni and Moretti beers came ice-cold with chilled glasses. My only critique was the sparkling water (bottled in-house) was quite flat.


All three are quite different but equally delicious. The Globe probably gets most of our business, only because it's right around the corner from us. In addition to these ones, two more pizzerias have recently opened up – an Italian one in Broadway Market and a Sardinian place on Kingsland Road. More to sample soon enough...

Grill Lines

You know what's sexy? Grill lines.

 

And now that we have a grill pan everything is getting grill lines - courgettes, tortillas, steaks, green onions...

Sexy tastes awesome.

Grandma Lumsden's Pancakes

Every once in a blue moon I go through the RECIPE folder on my computer and do a thorough tidy-up/rediscover. I delete duplicates, make annotations, retitle for easy reference and pick through things I had forgotten I wanted to make. And I found a plain text edit file with my Grandma Lumsden's Pancakes recipe.

We make breakfast most Sundays. We used to go out for brunch just about every Sunday (ah Fire on the East Side and Amnesia!) but now it's a more occasional thing (ah Albion and Pavilion!) and we tend to make something at home. Often I get up early, putz about in the kitchen and bring C breakfast in bed and make him go on and on about how wonderful a girlfriend I am.

Anyways we make pancakes often - quick! easy! limited number of ingredients! - and have auditioned a few different recipes - Jamie Oliver's 1 Cup recipe, Joy of Cooking, German Oven Pancakes - all resulting in different, but mostly equally good, pancakes. (Though last week's topped with greek yogurt, cherry compote and maple syrup were especially delightful!)

I think though that I have discovered, in Grandma's recipe, the ultimate thick Americana-style pancake. They were fluffy. They were thick. They held their blueberries. They were filling. They were dead easy. They were a win.

So I think Grandma Lumsden's recipe will now be my go to recipe for pancakes. And after a few times making it, I can call it my own.

Pancakes a la Grandma Lumsden

Mix
1-1/2 cup flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt

Beat egg well
1 egg
Add to milk and oil (I actually used the equivalent of apple butter because that was there)

1-1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoon cooking oil
Add to flour mixture- don't mix much. Cook and eat.

Cheddar

With Broadway Market being a five minute walk from our house, L and I have buying our week's groceries there for over two years now. As such, we've become friends with a number of the vendors, in particular the staff at Norbiton Cheese, whom we visit nearly religiously.

This week, in addition to the usual delights, Bryan also had these beautiful looking cheddars to which L was immediately drawn based solely on their aesthetics (you don't often see purple cheese and L happens to like purple quite a bit).

On Meat

I'm a flexatarian with four kilos of pig in my fridge. (See the photo of one I prepared earlier - that one was even bigger!)

(As much as I hate cutesy terms and non descriptors I can identify with flexatarian. I'm not a vegetarian. I enjoy meat and I want to continue eating it. I'm not a pescatarian, a term which annoys me. So someone who doesn't eat very much meat and who regularly chooses veggie over meaty- yeah, I can work with that. )

Focus - FOUR kilos of pig. A pig shoulder which is currently nestled in the fridge with a rub (rosemary, fennel, garlic, chili, preserved lemon) waiting for the morning when I will pop it into the oven for six or so hours.

How does a flexitarian justify four kilos of pig? Isn't a flexi just a lazy, or uncommitted, vegetarian? Isn't FOUR kilos rather excessive?

Let me climb on my soap box and tell you want I think about meat...

I like bacon. I think there are few homier meals than a roast chicken. Steak makes me salivate. Food is a celebration and for us Anglo Saxons a big chunk of meat is traditionally the centerpiece. Food equals love. So I can't imagine becoming a full vegetarian and giving up these bits of comfort and love and tradition. But learning about meat, all about it, from health issues to ethical to environmental to consumer issues, makes it very difficult for me to eat it the way I used to and the way I cook and the way I eat has shifted substantially in the last few years.

We eat much less meat than we used to. It features as the centerpiece of our meals maybe once a week and gets used as flavour and side bits two or three (two rashers of bacon in pasta, a sausage in soup). The meat that we do eat comes from either the butcher in Broadway Market or the Ginger Pig and is brought up and butchered in a way that I feel good about. I feel good knowing that the meat that I buy satisfies every tickbox I have against the long list of "Meat is Bad".

I recognise that it is expensive. I recognise that I'm really lucky that I have these options. But it is a choice and a commitment that I am happy to make. (And since this is my blog it is my soap box and I can sing the praises of happy meat to my hearts content.)

As for the FOUR kilos of pig in the fridge. It's a lesser known cut, so less expensive, will be succulent and last us for many many meals- or at least one great meal with friends.

Join me on my soap box next time for "Why the tuna in your sandwich is like eating elephant".

Tartiflette

Is it cold where you are? Are you hungry? Do you have a small mountain of French cheese in your fridge?

You DO!?

Excellent. You should make a tartiflette for dinner then. You should probably eat it with little gerkins and balsamic caramelised onions and a crisp apple cider.

A tartiflette appears to be a dish of fried potatoes, pig bits and Reblochon cheese, but since the cheese choice is apparently the result of a trade union attempting to increase market share I think you can (and I did) use whatever delicious melty type cheese you have available. Except that mozzarella that you use for pizzas. Ew. Please don't put rubber cheese on this. Do that much for me.

Tonight's tartiflette was brought to you by Diana Henry's Roast Fig, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul. It also provided the recipe for our Christmas Goose (six kilos of bird with a brandied fig, chestnut and cranberry stuffing). It's a cold weather book that ought to be read under a blanket, preferably beside a fire.

This fed two of us with a bit leftover which we will nibble on for lunch...

1lb or baby potatoes, boiled til just tender then cooled and sliced

4oz of smoked bacon, cut in bigger than normal chunks (about four rashers- I know it was four ounces because I weighed it) (nerd)
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
4 sage leaves, roughly torn

2 big dollops of Crème fraiche (you could probably omit this if you live in a sad place without it - or you could make your own!)
Half a camembert (or 4 ounces of melty cheese of your choice)

Turn the oven to about 190.

Fry the sliced potatoes until golden, season, then set aside in an oven proof pan.

In your potato pan melt a dollop of butter and fry your bacon until nicely coloured. Turn down the heat, add your onion and cook til just colouring. Add the garlic and sage and stir for a moment or two. Fold the bacon mixture gently into the golden potatoes.

Dollop the creme fraiche strategically on top, then lovingly place slices of your cheese over the potatoes. Pop in the oven til the cheese is melty and delicious- this may happen quickly so keep an eye on it!

Take it out and eat!