I don’t usually post food or drink news items on here but I am letting this one slip through because I adore champagne, and especially Ruinart. For Valentine’s Day, architect India Mahdavi has created a special gift box containing a bottle of Ruinart Rosé champagne and 2 champagne flutes arranged on a bed of ribbons. Each ribbon has an excerpt of poetry written down the length of it on the theme of love and dreams. As you can see, it’s incredibly cute. My favourite Ruinart is the Blanc de Blancs, however, my dearest readers, if I was bought this set I’m sure I would fall in love forever!
Tomorrow I fly off to..the future! It’s the start of the fashion calendar on Saturday and I will be covering the autumn 2010 mens shows in Milan and Paris with my good friend and colleague Celia. In menswear, Milan and Paris still reign supreme. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the biggest supporter of London Fashion Week that you could find, but for financial scale and influence, nobody cuts it like the continentals. Of course, I’m telling you all this because over the next week I will be drinking a lot of Prosecco and a heap-load of canapes. It is of course a lovely bonus that the two main fashion capitals are also foodie heavens. In Milan, it’s all about the aperitivo – the pre-dinner snacks you get with a cocktail for…the price of a cocktail! In Paris, it’s, well, it’s Paris isn’t it? Last time I visited the superb Mama Shelter in the 20th. I’m still making my mind up about this trip’s gastro destinations so any suggestions gladly appreciated!
Now, I won’t actually be making this tonight but maybe next year will do it in a kind of retro way, perhaps even as a week of decade-themed menus. But this, to me, is the ultimate Noughties menu, preferably served in an organic Gastropub. Perhaps The Duke of Cambridge in Islington? Surely the most Noughties of all restaurants. And not a Turkey Twizzler in sight!
Sourdough Bread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Sea Salt – served with pre-dinner drinks
Sharing Platter of Prosciutto, Chorizo, Humous and Queen Olives – the Med merged in the Noughties!
Line-caught Mackerel Paté with (more) Sourdough Bread – note ‘line-caught’ only here!
Pork Belly or Lamb Shanks, served with Garlic Mash and Curly Kale – note there are only 2 options for main; Repeat after me, ’small menu = fresh food’. Thanks Gordon.
Melt-in-the-middle individual Double Chocolate Cakes – hmm, come to think of it, does the oozing M&S ad sum up the decade in fact? Oozing seems appropriate for most of the Noughties excess and decadence.
What other dishes would you put on a Noughties menu?
A little late in the planning but fun nonetheless, I’m finally doing a third party. It’s tonight and a kind of post-Christmas-pre-New-Years do for everyone who is back in London and local. It has to be a buffet as it’s that time of year and my table won’t cater for more than 6 sitting properly! So, I’m thinking, what are the dishes that sum up this decade we are about to wave goodbye to? Every decade seems to have a few key dishes that roll-up all the affectations and aspirations of the time; the 70s is Prawn Cocktails and Black Forest Gateaux; the 80s Nouvelle Cuisine; and the 90s, for me in England, pesto, pesto and more PESTO! Do you know in Delia Smith’s Winter Collection (circa ‘95) the old girl even creates pesto mashed potato, suggesting it goes wonderfully with grilled fish. I love pesto – well, pine nuts – but that’s a little overload for me. Fashions in food are a strange thing. They change ever so slowly and the trickle-down effect from those in the know to your average supermarket seems an eternity compared to clothes fashions. Where I live in east London, Vietnamese restaurants are everywhere and the number one cheap-eat out, much more so than say Chinese or Thai. So, I wonder when M&S and Tesco will do a full range of Pho and spicy salads to compliment their Chinese and Thai ranges? One to watch for the coming decade for sure. But back to tonight…any suggestions?
Well, it’s been far too long since my last post. Blogging regularly can be difficult, but I’m not going to start making excuses. Better to try to just keep on. And what better way than to highlight this inspirational recipe I’ve just received from the team at the Imperial War Museum. Wartime affected people’s diet to an extent we would find unimaginable today. It’s difficult to even consider the reality of rationing. So this recipe for Christmas Pud (using potato and carrot!) is really rather moving for me. Christmas Pudding is not a necessity item. In fact, nowadays, many people don’t eat it on Christmas Day even for tradition’s sake. But back in the 40s, it would have been more than a pudding. It was a home-made symbol of defiance. Even if the country had barely enough to survive, there would still be Christmas Pudding on December 25th. We’d find a way! Recipes such as the one above were developed by the Ministry of Food. The names of the people who actually created them are largely unknown now and yet recipes like this must have affected literally millions of families. In the bleakest of all British winters, when nobody knew what the final outcome would be, this Pud was a prod of defiance in the eye of the enemy; a small ray of hope strangely true to the real spirit of Christmas. If you try it out, do let me know what your results were like. I hope it’s tasty!
I’ve been a little slack with uploading and suddenly week 2 has already come round. So, the feijoada recipe will go up tomorrow while I’m editing the pics from tonight’s second dinner @ doyle’s – ‘A Mediterranean Autumn’. Basically this gives me more freedom with dishes compared to last week’s carioca-fest. Oh, and it’s all Veggie tonight!
This is the classic Brazilian summer cocktail, best served from a hut on Copacabana beach surrounded by sunshine and muscled boys in sungas – the Brazilian speedo. In Brazil the caiprinha is a fun drink, not an SATC style aspirational cocktail, and so it should be drunk with that attitude. It’s made up of cachaca – a kind of Brazilian rum - muddled with sugar and lime. This takes the edge off the liquor, but only slightly! The guys at Sagatiba very kindly sent us over a bottle of their Velha Cachaca, which is an aged version of the spirit, and it went down very smoothly indeed. This can be drunk neat, as you would with a whiskey or brandy, but is perfect for cocktails too. We all started with caiprinhas but then also added a splash of Guarana. This is Brazil’s most popular soft drink and comes from the guarana berry; very sweet and fizzy. If you put a soft drink into the cachaca/lime mix, it turns into more of a batida, but quite delicious too!
CAIPIRINHA X 1
25ml cachaca (Sagatiba Velha)
1 lime
2 dessert spoonfuls of sugar
Ice
Quarter the limes and put into a strong glass. Add the sugar. Crush the limes with a ‘muddler’ and see the sugar dissolve into the lime juice. Add the cachaca. Stir and then add the ice. The best way to serve is actually to pour over crushed ice but as I was limited to blocks, I used the method just mentioned.
It’s always good to have a spotify playlist at a dinner party so you don’t have to worry about background sounds on the night, and it’s even better when someone else does it for you. Elliott created this Rio themed playlist for our party and it really brings up all those images of bossa nova, ipanema and 70s disco glamour. Click here to add the Rio playlist to your spotify. Thanks Elliott!
Well, it’s fair to say it was a success! There were a few minor disasters along the way, but the first Dinner @ Doyle’s turned out to be a really fun night, helped along with some very strong caipirinhas. Some of the recipes I planned worked brilliantly, others less so. And one I had to ditch completely. It turns out that cooking for 6 requires quite a lot of space, very little of which I have. So there was a point in the evening when I simply ran out of pans. Next time will require a lot more organisational precision; it’s going to be a military operation! Also, it probably wasn’t the best idea to re-arrange my living room at 5 o’clock when the guests were due at 7.30. In true Come Dine With Me style, it was gone 6 before I’d started anything, and gone 7 before I realised the Passionfruit Mousse would require 6 hours in the fridge. Doh! No matter though, the important thing is…everyone liked the feijoada!
The diners at the first Dinner@Doyle’s. From left to right: Sally Tooth – make-up artist, Kelly Anna Serritiello – stylist, Celia-Jane Ukwenya – Fashion Editor of Buckstyle, Elliott James Sainsbury – Fashion Director of Buckstyle, and Trushar Bipin Patel – menswear designer. Sally is clearly the odd one out for not using two first names!
The before. As I mentioned, some dishes didn’t work, some were ditched. I didn’t even attempt the Farofa as I completely ran out of pans. The rice was quite tasty but something went wrong which meant it took over an hour to cook. The mousse didn’t work at all. The feijoada was a triumph though!
The after!
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