Winter Warmer: Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Goats Cheese and Creme Fraich Dressing

I know, right, a soup recipe. Anyone can make a soup. Veg, stock, a stick blender and you're set, from raw ingredients to dinner for as many as your pot can handle in less than an hour. That's its charm and also what makes it feel a little ordinary. It's the meal you eat curled up on the sofa with a film you'd never admit to enjoying in public. That's all well and good but if you've a guest or two and no cash for flashy ingredients this will be an elegantly rustic dinner with sufficient polish you'd happily scarf it down in your local bistro for a mark up.

Serves 4

4/5 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped to to an even size
1/2 an onion or 1 banana shallot (which I used) finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 celery stick, finely diced
1 heaped tsp hot madras curry powder (or medium, or mild as your taste specifies)
1 level tsp smoked paprika
1 ltr good stock. I used chicken but I admit vegetable bouillon would be just as tasty and healthier.
Handful parsley, chopped, four pinches to one side for garnish
50g soft goats cheese (I went with Capricorn, having removed the rind. It's easier to beat into the creme fraiche)
2-3 tbsps half fat creme fraiche

Before any of this I made up a batch of dough for six Fougasses according to the recipe in Richard Bertinet's excellent book Dough. If you really want to learn how to make bread then this gentleman's writing answered all my stupid questions without once patronising me- not bad for a seasoned pro. I let the dough rest to double in size while I made the soup. Homemade bread in pretty shapes for dunking: show-off step 1.

Heat some oil in a large saucepan and toss in the soffritto of onion, carrot and celery. I should note here that the soffritto element of this doesn't have to be finely diced as the end product will be blitzed but the finer the base the quicker it will cook off and you can add your sweet potato. Stir in the spices and parsley and let the vegetables sweat with the lid half on for about 10 minutes.

Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Leave simmering on a low hob for 30 minutes, or when the sweet potato is cooked through. Put your oven on to its highest heat for the bread. Blitz the soup with a stick blender and mind out for spatter. Actually never mind, if you're making fougasses you're probably covered in flour anyway. I always am. Keep the soup hot and, shape the fougasses (good luck with that, mine looked like spaceships) and bake according to the good book.

While the bread is on, whisk the goats cheese into the creme fraiche with some vigour. Put the bread on a nice, decorative board with some decent butter (mine this time came from my first visit to Ruby and White. Gosh darn it they're good). Show-off step 2. Ladle the soup into bowls, top with dressing, top the dressing with the remaining parsley and if you really want to make it look pretty drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on top of that.

Dust off the worst of the flour and join your friends for dinner. And remember, ye who cooketh, washeth not up.

More Peasant Food, thanks to C & T Licata and Son

I don't know if you've twigged this yet, but if there's any one style of cooking I truly love, it's Italian. Italian cuisine is the perfect food for those on a restricted budget: it knows when to take cheap cuts and slow cook them with pulses till all is unctuous and savoury, it knows when to throw the freshest, brightest ingredients together for a crisp finish with no unnecessary cooking to muddle things. All in all it is the style of cooking I always lean towards, as my father toward classic english cooking (his ultimate dinner: steak and kidney pudding) and my mother toward French peasant (the very thought of her chicken casserole is enough to send me hurtling to the nearest train station). Their cooking makes me think of the home of my childhood, while Italian cooking brings sweet memories of the homes I have since made for myself.

The very first dish I cooked successfully from scratch was a risotto with baby leeks and mascarpone and it tasted like being a grown up. The next was baked polenta topped with mozzarella and parma ham. But for me the apex of Italian food, that which as had me hooked since I was a fussy child, is pasta. Perfectly cooked, with a little bite, silky from a splash of the starchy cooking water, this ingredient needs almost nothing to make it sing. I am putting up this dish as a shout out to everyone across the world who subsists on pasta, for every bloke who dusts off his mum's spag bol recipe for a girlfriend and student who buys a new pesto jar every week (been there) and the fussy child given plain as plain can be spaghetti and butter in restaurants. I ordered this dish in a tourist friendly restaurant in Venice and the memory of it has lain dormant in my mind ever since. On my last day off I was in C & T Licata and Son, saw a bag of orechiette and was halway there. On my way to the till I passed a fridge with some spicy Calabrian sausages and the dish just came together in my head. I must note here that if you're not a huge fan of spicy sausage then a very good butchers or a herby lincolnshire would make a happy replacement, better still an intensely garlicky Toulouse sausage.

Orechiette with Broccoli and Spicy Sausage.

serve four, generously

500g pack of dried orechiette
1 head of broccoli, florets cut off with a sharp knife, stalk chopped roughly the same size as the florets
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
roughly 200g parmesan, grated
1 generous tbsp garlic puree
4 Italian sausages (entirely optional, the pasta is superb with the sauce if vegetarian)

Cook the broccoli. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil, add the chopped stalk and cook for roughly 2 minutes. Then add the florets and cook until just cooked, when a sharp knife pierces it with ease. Drain and set to one side while you put the pasta on (I had to do this as I only have one large saucepan, feel free to put both on simultaneously). Then put the broccoli, stalk and floret, into a food processor and blitz to a coarse paste.

Put a frying pan on a medium to high heat. Add a splosh of olive or rapeseed oil and a generous knob of butter. When the butter is frothing add the chilli and garlic puree and fry a little. It will smell like everything you ever liked about Italian family restaurants, but don't get carried away. Add the blitzed broccoli and fry, stirring only very occasionally. The smell just gets better as you go.

When the pasta is almost cooked cooked, remove a big mug of the starchy cooking water, if not a bit more, then drain the pasta. Add a splash of the cooking water to the sauce base and stir it in, enjoying how silky and creamy it's becoming. If it even starts to get dry, add more water. This is not like pesto, it is a sauce. Add the pasta and let it finish cooking in the broccoli sauce, then stir in the parmesan.

Heat a second pan then fry off the sausage meat, removing it from the skins and stirring with a wooden spoon. If you fancy deglazing the pan with a little wine then feel free, why waste those lovely caramelised bits left behind?
Serve the pasta in bowls, spooning the sausage on top. There should be enough even to feed four hungry blokes, with plenty of that meaty kick they often require. If there are any vegetarians I'd serve it on its own as it stands alone very well, but a little wilted spinach would be another dimension.

Bread and Brunch.

It's the height of the Real Bread campaign this week, Mark of Mark's bread was giving a class at work this week and some sort of national baking week has been announced. Have I managed to celebrate this week with some baking? Not quite, no. But I did make it to a quiet Harts Bakery today at around noon as the bakery wound to a close. It's a beautiful place, where Laura Hart produces sourdough, baguettes, hand rolled croissants and danish pastries (which almost no one does), bicycle shaped biscuits and recently some truly fabulous jams. If you live in Bristol and can get to Cotham before 1ish, pop in and try to leave without buying something. I dare you. I'd also point you to the excellent article written by Slivana de Soissons for The Foodie Bugle, which says anything I'd like to say on the subject of Laura and her lovely business. Luckily for me it was a quiet tuesday and I had a choice of breads and pastries. Baguette and Gruyere and ham danish for me, plus an inviting jar of homemade apricot and vanilla jam.

As I hikked up Whiteladies road munching on my danish I was wondering what to do with my 'French stick', when I remembered the previous sunday's late breakfast with Card House Theatre. Went to bed (to the soundtrack of miscellaneous metal, a party was still in full swing) convinced there were both eggs and bacon in the kitchen. Woke to find eggs and a large baguette still safe and a pan smelling of bacon fat on the hob. I had a vague memory of a Tamasin Day-Lewis recipe for tumbled eggs in french bread as a brunch recipe, which we threw together over strong coffee. It was pretty good, with a little spread on the bread, eggs spooned in with grated cheese and a little hot sauce then bunged in a medium oven to heat through. It was just the thing to set the day off and so here is a slightly ponced up version for your delectation. Perfect for brunch with coffee or bucks fizz or as a very easy dinner after work.

Serves 2:

4-6 eggs (depends on your appetite) in my case from Source
small handful of chopped parsley
big handful any hard cheese, grated (I used Gorwydd Caerphilly from Trethowan's Dairy)
about 12" french stick
good quality butter

Preheat your oven to about 160/150 fan/ gas mark 4 and stick in a baking sheet. Cut your bread to roughly 6" each (no jokes, please) and break open down the middle, preferably with fingers and thumbs. Butter liberally and leave to one side while you cook the eggs.

Beat the eggs while you melt more butter in a frying pan (nobody said this was a healthy dish). When the butter is foaming add the eggs and scramble with a wooden spoon slowly to make big, creamy curds of scrambled egg. After about a minute add the parsley, sprinkling so as to avoid clumps of herb in the egg. Cook the eggs to your taste; I like them barely cooked, creamy, with great big curds. Season with salt and pepper (it really is better to season the eggs after cooking rather than before) and spoon into the bread. Add the cheese and stich in the oven for 5-7 minutes till the bread has warmed through and the cheese has melted.


Then the only thing to do is serve and eat:
Yes I made it look fancy with a bit of salad, but honestly the best way to have this is with a really hot cup of coffee, sitting on the kitchen top with someone who'll pretend not to notice all the egg spilling on the floor.

Season's Treasures: You Peasant

Autumn is approaching. Weirdly it means that the weather is picking up slightly for a week or two, though the nights stretch out longer and earlier, a blessing to those who work in restaurants with al fresco dining.

I'm quite relaxed in the current job, as a member of the Sustainable Restaurant Association I reckon we're hardly even started of the politics of the food industry but it's it's nice to know someone's about to write the memo. Especially when you get asked about all the fish on the menu. Anyway, enough about work, it springs to mind because at the start of august the kitchen produced a rather attractive version salade paysanne. Rather than roast quail and foie gras it was served with confit of duck leg and chicken liver pate. After all this is a brasserie. It sprung to mind last time I was in Source: I had two rich and flavour-laden duck breasts ready to take to the till. I was so sure I would poach the meat, crisp up the skin and make a chinese-ish dish. Then the lovely Joe Wheatcroft (that is his epithet in this blog) tapped me on the shoulder by the fresh veg and with a winning smile said the magic words: "We have fresh ceps." That man really knows his customers. He's well aware of my obsession with all things seasonal and these were so fresh they woke up the previous morning still in the Quantocks.
Gosh they're pretty. Having never tried them before I was loath to overpower them with spices and soy sauce, possibly missing this new flavour. I had pancetta at home and a faint memory of this rather rich salad from work so back to Bedminster I trotted ready for peasant food.

I know it's a bit gastropub but I still love peasant food. Just the basic concept calms me. You buy one or two central flavours and proceed to cook them without mucking about too much. You add one or two complementing flavours, something to bulk it out and serve it on a driftwood board. Okay, in my case a cheap, wooden chopping board but you get my point. This salad bears little relemblance to the traditional, as I had duck breasts, pancetta and the gorgeous ceps but it made a very pleasant start to autumnal cooking:

serves 2, or 4 as a starter with more leaf

2 duck breasts
clove garlic, rosemary sprig
large knob of cold, unsalted butter

200g bag of rocket, or a strong flavoured leaf. Watercress would work nicely
large handul of walnut halves, roughly chopped
2-3 rashers of thin cut, smoked pancetta, finely sliced
2 thick slices of stale bread, cut into centimetre cubes
3 or 4 ceps, washed and sliced

preheat the oven to about 200 degrees/180 fan/gas mark 6. While the oven heats up, pop the bread in for about 10 minutes to dry out with a pinch of salt. Of course, if you'd rather buy croutons I won't tell.

With a small, sharp knife score the fat of the duck breasts. Take care not to hit the meat or it won't cook evenly. season lightly with salt and pepper.

Heat up a frying pan or skillet till really rather hot. Add the butter and some oil to stop the former from burning, then a garlic clove, flattened with the heel of your hand or a knife and the rosemary. When all is frothing place the duck breasts in fat side down. Cook for 7-8 minutes until the fat is browned and crisp on top. Turn over and continue to cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

If, like me, you like your duck rare that's as far as you need to go, but The Blonde prefers medium so I left mine to rest on a covered plate and popped hers in the oven while I made the salad bit.

I fried the croutons in the remaining duck fat from the pan, but you can use oil if that makes your arteries clench up. When golden remove from the pan and pop them on some kitchen towel. Season lightly.

Drain off the remaining fat and wipe the pan, then return to the heat. Toast the walnuts, reomove then fry the little strips of pancetta till golden and crispy. Remove to the kitchen towel, deglaze the pan with a little white wine, add a little more butter and the sliced ceps. Add some finely chopped parsley if you like (I like).

Take the duck out of the oven and let it sit for a minute. Toss the rocket, nuts, bacon and croutons and split between deep plates (or in my case shallow bowls). Scatter over the ceps.

Slice the duck breasts fairly thinly and serve on top of the salad, drizzling over any juices.

Sit down with the person you're cooking for, have a glass of wine and proudly point out how little washing up you've left them.

The Montpelier Basement

Remarkably for a waitress in the approaching summer I secured a late notice Saturday off (was too late to attend the gig I'd cancelled but count your blessings etc...) and after a little begging I secured a seat for myself and the Blonde at the much talked of Montpelier Basement supper club. Now, I'm not one of those bloggers who review food generally (not because I don't like such blogs, I like the well written ones, it's just that I don't eat out enough to warrant it) but this was too good an experience not to mention it here to you good and decent people who glance over this hastily written series of entries.

The notion of the supper club has been mentioned before in this blog (see Terroir de Toulouse) but not really explained, so for those of you not glued to twitter supper clubs are part of the 'guerilla restaurant' movement whereby food types host dinners for strangers in a home setting (like the Basement) or in some previously unthought of location (think The Secret Supper club on C4 hosted by Olly Smith). The rules are: BYOB, pay the suggested donation in cash, be prepared to meet new people loosen up a bit. The last rule is for me, I'm sure the rest of you are perfectly comfortable in social situations where you can't hide behind a focaccia or mountain of cakes.

This particular supper club is run by Elly and Dan, respectively of The Pear Cafe and Trethowan's Dairy, Dan also of Essex Eating, actually worth a read re restaurant reviews as he's definitely not doing it for freebies and knows his onions, so to speak. They source their food locally so everything is bang on season and take bookings of no more than four so that their tables will always have people mingling and communicating, if only ooh-ing and ah-ing about the food.


Oh the food. Just look at that menu. A foodie dream. I'm not going to waste time explaining dishes I haven't photographed and you haven't eaten as I won't do them justice. Just read that chalkboard and take it in, picture it, taste it. It was better than that. Picture it again. No, better than that too. Never mind. A particular revelation was the Sipsmith Gin, tonic and cucumber ice with little flecks of finely chopped cucumber though the dish adding a third texture to the liquid and ice. And it had a whopping gin kick to it, an amazing palate cleanser but not for the faint hearted drinker.

The Blonde and I arrived bang on time and were joined at our table by Jamie, a keen home gardener working in student accommodation, Jo, who worked for Aardman (wow!) and for instant food celebrity, Richard and Jo Bertinet of Bertinet Kitchen in Bath. All were charming, interesting people, M. Bertinet in particular I must thank for teaching us how to drink our Muscat and not telling us off for not knowing better! It will be properly chilled next time, je vous promets. We also happened to be attending the same night as a very lovely pair of friends who had sensibly booked and not had to beg returns. They were seated elsewhere, but from the catch up in the taxi home we gathered they loved it.

Having served the final course of rarebit served on Bertinet sourdough Dan and Elly emerged to join us and went from table to table chatting, joking and laughing, perfect hosts through and through. The Blonde and I emerged tipsily elated and more than a little in awe of the people who take on such a huge task, set it in their own homes and pull it off with such style.

For more information on Supper clubs check out MsMarmite's excellent site here.

And some Twitter links to get you in the know:

@BertinetKitchen
@trethowansdairy
@pearcafe
@MontpelierBsmt
@EssexEating

Pictures from Ms Marmite's site, and @MontpelierBsmt's twitter feed

Courgette madness.

I'm sitting here drinking coffee, nibbling on leftover duck leg. Bread is proving, the saucepan is warming for tomato sauce and the sun is shining onto the edge of the laptop. It's mornings like these that help one get through the week.

I apologise for my absence these last couple of weeks, one of the downsides to working in a restaurant is that a rush of bank holidays, while many of you sat back in the garden to tipsily murder an innocent sausage or burger over a flame, I was running around after those of you who sensibly opted to let someone else do the cooking. I'm tempted to put up a long rant about the restaurant industry but that would be childish. All I will say is this: when you enter a restaurant and meet your waiter, you enter into a two way contract. Treat them with respect and patience, especially on a busy day, and you will probably be rewarded with cheerful, attentive service. Be pushy, awkward or bad tempered and don't expect to see that waiter again. That's all I have to impart from now.

Anyway I promised some vegetarian recipes as part of cheaper cooking, so here are a handful. I bought some excellent pecorino at Source a couple of weeks back and it perfectly matched my recent obsession with courgettes.

Pecorino, Watercress and Almond pesto:

1 clove garlic (or more depending on your taste).
Equal quantities of blanched almonds, watercress and grated pecorino
Oil to loosen.

Crush the garlic using a mortar and pestle with a small pinch of salt until you have a paste.
Toast the almonds, chop them roughly and add to the mortar and carry on crushing. I leave a few bits of nut in there as I rather like a crunchy, chunky pesto but it's up to you. Add the watercress leaves and pound away till you have a bright green paste in your mortar. Stir in the pecorino and taste, adding more of anything you think it needs.

Stir in extra virgin olive oil until you have a loose dressing, goldine with nut and oil but with the brilliant green of the watercress flashing through. You can of course do all this in a small food processor but I prefer the mortar and pestle, the smell of all the ingredients blending and releasing their oils into one another.

I add this to pasta with a few toasted breadcrumbs for even more crunch, but it would make a bright, summery dressing for strong tasting leaves. It's also a lovely dressing for asparagus if you're wondering.



Risotto with pecorino and grated courgette
(I'm guessing most of you can make risotto so I'm going to rush through that a bit)
Serves 4

300g carnaroli risotto rice (another Source treat)
1 small onion, very finely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic
125/small glass dry white wine
1 litre good quality stock, be it chicken or vegetable.
2 generous handfuls pecorino
1 large courgette

Nothing new about how to make risotto, sweat your onion and garlic in oil, add your rice (make sure every grain is coated in oil, slightly toasted), add your wine, when that's evaporated add stock, splash by splash until your rice is cooked to your specifications.

finely grate your courgette in short, brisk strokes (you don't want long strands), squeeze out any excess water and stir into the risotto, making sure it's evenly combined. Add the pecorino, a couple of knobs of butter and beat vigorously till you have a glossy, shiny finish on the risotto. Serve immediately, or cool in the fridge over night and make arancini (frying patties of the risotto in breadcrumbs) which is equally lovely. The courgette keeps its flavour at both cooking stages and is a lovely spring flavour, with the kick from the pecorino to back it up.

Garlic pizzas with mozzarella, basil and chilli courgette ribbons.

Pizza dough made according to Jamie Oliver's recipe (or buy some, no one has to know!)
1 large courgette
garlic clove and good extra virgin oilve oil (or garlic oil)
small pinch chilli flakes
lemon juice
Mozzarella
basil

Prepare your dough and get your pizzas ready. Preheat your oven to its highest heat.

Using a peeler peel long, fine ribbons of courgette, stopping at the seeds. Toss the ribbons with a little oil, the chilli flakes and a squeeze of lemon. If you don't already have garlic oil, crush a clove in a mortar and pestle and stir in oil.

Brush the pizzas with the garlic oil and scatter over the mozzarella and courgette ribbons. Place them on a hot baking sheet or pizza block and leave for 5 minutes.

Remove the pizzas and add the basil and a little black pepper. Serve as a light lunch with salad leaves.

So there you are. Hope some of these appeal, will be back with more recipes soon.

TTFN

They always lay early for Mummy.

This is a picture of a gulls egg. They are curious things, gulls eggs, rare, seasonal and expensive. They have been considered a delicacy in our funny little island for centuries, almost certainly because one cannot expect to eat them more than once a year. I was thrilled to find just three left in Source yesterday, carefully cocooned by the fresh mint. They were so very pretty, a stone blue heavily speckled, and surprisingly dense for such a small egg. I was entranced and spent quite a lot of money on them. The ever charming Mr. Wheatcroft recommended nothing but celery salt and extreme care, and I would be loathe to to ignore him. Had you seen me yesterday trying to hurry carefully home it might have caused some amusement.

They seemed rather wild items in my kitchen. I was informed that one serves these little eggs hard boiled (indeed they often are sold pre-boiled, props to Source for having more faith in the culinary ability of their customers) so into a little pan one went, brought to the boil and simmered for seven minutes. Peeled, the 'white' seems a little blue and less firm than a chicken egg. The yolk is the colour of Kraft Mac 'N Cheese. Really. The flavour is quite earthy, lifted by the celery salt, and really shows the contrast between domestic and wild eggs. The flavour is fuller than a chicken or duck egg, and lingering, which is why the second egg I cooked today was followed by a couple of Wye Valley asparagus spears, which I think makes this extraordinary little delicacy quite a charming light spring lunch.

If you can get hold of these eggs I recommend them, not least because they will make you sound knowledgeable, and we all like to indulge in that fantasy from time to time. Two traditional ways to serve them are as the beginning of a lunch served hard boiled in a large bowl with pots of celery salt and some mustard cress or on individual plates, one peeled and one unpeeled, with the aforementioned seasoning and leaf. At such a gathering I recommend full formal attire, Homer quotations and extreme champagne induced drunkenness.

Food On A Shoestring Four: Terroir du Toulouse

There is a word in the french language that has been in the wine canon ever since the french told everyone French was the wine canon: terroir. With its root in 'terre' it links flavour to its place of origin. The soil of the vineyard, its weather, the grapes all contribute to the complex savour of the resulting wine. It's a fine, exacting word for the inextricable relationship between ingredient and its land, figs in the south of france, sardines in Algiers, olives in Greece. The sunlight that warmed them, the land and waters that nourished, all leave an indelible mark that the senses can trace. It's a wonderful concept, and has a ring of truth to it. But it also can be the smug reasoning behind the bullying food snob. 'Terroir' has an air of exclusivity: there is the right soil and the wrong soil, just as there are those who love to tell us we drink the wrong wine, use the wrong balsamic or make bread the wrong way (I like the 'needless kneading' thank you very much). Terroir has those in the know in and the rest of us are out.

I don't really see the point of exclusivity in food. It's beyond banal to point out that everyone eats, it's more interesting to see that everyone has a favourite food, a favourite restaurant, a meal they always cook in company or at weekends. We link food to our childhoods (my first memory is of grated cheese in Canada. Never mind I was in Canada, the cheese is what stuck.) we treat ourselves with it for an emotional boost, we share it with our friends and loved ones, whether they like it or not. The food memories I cherish most are of their time and place: I look back with childish enthusiasm for sandwiches on white bread with flora, kraft cheese slices and iceberg lettuce. I remember Lincolnshire sausages, runner beans straight from the garden and carefully separating the strawberry from the vanilla and chocolate in neapolitan ice cream. I remember the yellow light on my grandparents' kitchen in the mornings where they ate brown toast, the way the aga in my childhood home filled my bedroom with heat in spring, my mother's quiet satisfaction in her shiny new kitchen. I also to my chagrin remember Good Friday fish in pink sauce, the miserable smell of my prep school dining room, the feel of the hard benches and the dread in my heart at least once every school mealtime. Every human has matrices of food memories, domestic, pleasant or otherwise.

Last week I found a book in a Books for Amnesty shop on Gloucester road that probably shouldn't have taken me by surprise. Toulouse-Lautrec was a well known gourmand, eccentric and experimental, as devoted to food as he was to art, indeed to all aspects of life, but I was still amazed by The Art of Cuisine, a collection of recipes, both original and classic, collated and published posterously by Maurice Joyant, a gallery director with whom the artist shared a passion, not just for eating but for cooking and entertaining. The book's introduction notes one particular evening:

'In 1930, Vuillard (fellow painter and friend) told the story of a memorable and succulent feast held in about 1897 at Lautrec's home in the Avenue Frochot- a feast somewhat mysteriously cut short at the cheese course: "Follow me," the master of the house ordered his guests, and led them a short way to the apartment of his friends, the musicians Dihau. Hanging on the wall was a then unknown masterpiece of Edgar Degas, inspired by the orchestra of the Opera where Dihau played the bassoon. It hangs now in the Louvre.

'"There is your dessert," cried Lautrec, showing them the painting.'

This has put me in mind of the current foodie craze for supper clubs. Bristol is teeming with them, with bloggers, editors and punters all tweeting, texting and generally clogging up media with their accounts and opinions. I haven't been to one myself, though I am sending The Blonde to The Montpelier Basement later this month, part birthday present, part reconaissance mission. The mystery, the excitement of strangers meeting over food, the different locations emphasize the all round experience of eating, and not in a concept restaurant way. There is nothing elitist in a celebration, and the setting may heighten the experience (watch Olly Smith in The Secret Supper Club, it's genius. I must admit to a bit of a foodie crush) without the intimidation of a chichi restaurant designed by a Zen motorcyclist or whatever works right now. We are taking 'Terroir' and making it a stage set, and M.Lautrec is invited to observe, if he's available. I think he'd hold the greatest supper club of all.

The recipes themselves range from how to make the simplest sauces to cooking an entire leg of wild boar to the best way to cook squirrels. The latter is too good to miss from this post, as you shall see in the last sentence:

'Having killed some squirrels in autumn, skin them the same day and empty them. Roll them up in a piece of lard and let them brown with some good quality butter in a copper saucepan. When they are a good golden colour, salt them, cover, and let them cook on a very gentle fire.

'One must use no spice of any kind which might entail the risk of taking away from the animal its exquisite nutty flavour.'

I know. Recipe books don't come better than this in terms of reading. tempted though I naturally was by the squirrel recipe in April they quite simply aren't in season, so I allowed myself to be drawn to the slightly more accessible Leeks in Red Wine, or Poireaux au Vin Rouge. Here is the original recipe in full for those of you with several hours to spare:

'Peel a dozen or two leeks, leaving scarcely any green. Wash them, wipe them and dry them with a cloth.

'Into the bottom of a saucepan put a pound and a half of bacon cut in pieces and arrange the leeks on top.

'Moisten thouroughly with three quarters of red wine and a quarter of water. Above all don't blanch the leeks beforehand or else they will be soft. Add only salt, pepper and cloves. Let them cook gently for at least two hours, having covered the saucepan with buttered paper. At the end of this time the leeks will be cooked, rosy, and firm and the liquid will be reduced.

'Now in a long heat-proof dish arrange the leeks. Take some of the liquid which you will bind with an egg yolk. Garnish the dish all round and in the middle with rounds of Toulouse sausage previously lightly cooked and sprinkle all over with bread crumbs lightly worked with parsley.

'Let it brown and go on reducing in the oven so that the dish has a creamy appearance and the leeks don't swim about.'

'Do not add any onion, garlic, scallion etc., but only ordinary and cayenne pepper; strengthen with cloves.

'Use large leeks, 3 cups wine and 1 cup water. Use 3/4 cup of skimmed cooking liquid for sauce. About 1/4 cup bread crumbs and 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley. 300(F) oven about 20 min.'

Probably one of his simplest dishes, simplified further by me to make wine braised leeks and chicory, baked with Toulouse sausage and breadcrumb topping. Here's my version:

I trimmed, washed and halved three large leeks and threw in a spare chicory. Having fried up streaky bacon in the bottom of a deep, non-stick frying pan i added the leeks and chicory and let them brown on each side.

Then I added a 1 part water, 3 parts red wine, salt and pepper, brought the liquid to the boil then let it simmer for half an hour with the lid askew. In this time I put the oven on and cooked the Toulouse sausages, £5 for six from The Bristol Sausage Shop in St. Nicholas Market, and marvelous specimens of Toulouse sausage they are too. Use them in the classic sausage cassoulet for authentic south of France peasant food.

After the half hour was up I took out the sausages and removed the leeks, chicory and bacon to a small heat-proof dish and checked on the cooking liquid. The wine had reduced but I wasn't happy with the overall flavour so I cheated and sweetened it with 1 tbsp sugar, then reduced the wine right down on a high heat. When I was happy with the reduction I poured it over the vegetables, then arranged the sliced sausage on top. I know M. Lautrec uses the sausage as a garnish but i wanted this to be a full dish for hungry people.

Then came the breadcrumbs, enough to cover (leftover from the last batch of bread, sometimes I feel very grown up) with a small handful of chopped parsley. Into a 160 degree oven (150 fan) it went for an hour and out it came bubbling gently beneath the sausage and breadcrumb layer.

Served with lightly buttered new season asparagus from Source it was full, rich and delicious. I admit it wasn't entirely seasonal but I reckon I've found another comfort food dish . M. Lautrec would have approved of the setting as The Blonde and I sat at the table with wine and chatted about the day and life. A pleasant reminder that that every moment is an occasion depending on how you treat it.

Next week I shall go veggie, as this week I have most certainly contravened step 5 of Shoestring's laws, so do stay tuned.

TTFN

Food on a Shoestring Three: Seasons Treasures

I love this season, some of my favourite English ingredients are sneaking into the butchers shops and grocers: peppery watercress, the first spears of asparagus, jersey royals and (drum roll...) lamb. Isn’t it lovely? It speaks volumes of Sunday lunches, celebrations and company, cooking juices and clinking glasses across a sunlit table. And despite my budget I’m not going to miss out on one of spring’s greatest ingredients. Luckily for me on monday I found the compromise too delicious to be called a compromise at the table.

Source is a newish company in the St Nicholas Market, originally known as Taste (and still called that on the St Nicholas website, tsk), the owners were hit hard by the recession and had to pull out. The management team (Joe Wheatcroft, Ross Wills and Liz Carrad), loath to see this great business disappear from the Bristol food scene, took over and have been running it ever since. Inside it’s well lit and spacious, the counters have a gorgeous selection of meat, charcuterie, fish, cheese and cakes, not to mention fresh local vegetables. The Stokes range of chutneys and sauces look very inviting and as for the jars of crab bisque, well. Clearly I could go on but lamb was my quest and I saw only ‘Salt Marsh...’ on the chalkboard before I dashed to the meat counter.

There were the classic cuts of course, and a very tempting brisket but then the breast cuts caught my eye and I realised I’d never cooked or eaten this cut. And at £5.50 for one whole breast now seemed the perfect time. I could have asked the butcher (or Joe, as I now know from the website pictures. It’s research, not stalking, okay?) to take the whole cut off the bone and roll it, then roast it quickly with some herbs and garlic, but Joe’s suggestion of marinating the riblets in spices and slow cooking them made us both hungry over the counter. I grabbed a bag of Wiltshire new season watercress, handed over my tip fund and headed home post haste.

Having shown off my treasure to Harriet I made up a marinade, toasting 1tsp coriander seeds and 1tsp cumin seeds, crushing them with the mortar and pestle. Then I added 1 heaped teaspoon harissa paste, 4 anchovy fillets, a small handful of toasted almonds, lots of olive oil and a little honey. I left it for as long as I could, in this case about 4 hours, covered, seasoned with salt flakes, ground pepper and whole garlic cloves. While the main marinated I made a loaf of bread for mopping up juices later, and for table decoration.

Dinner was set for 8.15 so at 6.00 I browned the riblets in the faithful Le Creuset, then drained the fat and scrubbed off any burnt excess.

Then the riblets went in layered with finely sliced red and white onions. At the last minute I remembered the apricots (one packet dried whole apricots). After an hour I added a sliced lemon and some young thyme.

After a further 30 minutes the riblets were tender and delicately flavoured. Company arrived, wine was opened and dinner commenced, with a little honey served at the table for a quick glaze and the watercress.

The lamb was juicy, the fat had rendered out well and the honey offset the gentle spices. The apricots had soaked up some of the meat juices and matched the savoury meatiness of the lamb. Add the peppery watercress, light bread to mop up the juices and conversation flowed in the way that simple food cooked well encourages. For me the payoff is in the happy, well fed people at the table, chatting happily over the quiet clink of cutlery and glass.

Dinner was finished off with small squares of chocolate brownie, from Tristan Welch’s recipe for Delicious Magazine, an intense little brownie best served fridge cold so it resembles fudge.

As for the leftovers the lamb held up well in the fridge and kept its flavour, though I had to trim the meat from the bone and fat and shred it. This is going to sound prissy but it’s lovely in chicory leaves with a little oil and balsamic. The leftover apricots I blitzed up with some white wine vinegar and put in jars, I look forward to using it as a sweet chutney with a mature cheddar.

a roaring success for spring food and a happy indicator of the coming months. Next week will almost certainly involve asparagus, I simply refuse to be left out.

TTFN

Food On A Shoestring 2: New Kitchen

I have a new home and am settled in to the new waitressing job. The former gives me more pleasure needless to say, but waking up to natural light pouring into the elegantly furnished sitting room more than prepares me for the trials of the latter. My first days off in the flat had to be spent baking, just so I could break in the kitchen and get my culinary bearings for a summer of food.

Having wound my way through a new supermarket (hate that lost sensation, and why doesn't ASDA put all its baking items together? It's nuts) and having found a cute little recipe in Olive Magazine which flavours the pastry with thyme and smoked paprika I set about my first quiche Lorraine.
Ah, pastry. Very satisfying to make, not always a dream to cook. A tip for first time bakers, don't use a spring based tin for your first quiche. Use a proper tart tin and avoid the leak that happened with mine! Still it was caught in time and hurriedly encased in foil which held everything together. Not my most attractive dish but the filling was wonderful. Turns out you really can't go wrong with cream, eggs, gruyère and pancetta gently baked. The pancetta came from Jamie Oliver's range, looks like his world domination plan advances with confidence. It works, light, sweet and piggy, perfect for this dish. And at £2.38 for 180g it's good value as my one meat purchase this week. It passed the roommate test (going back for seconds) and tasted many times better than that which can be purchased in a supermarket. Make the real thing and you realise that satisfying, filling sensation you're getting is from the cream. Replace it with milk or water or whatever these places are using to thicken the eggs and you've got an omelette set in pastry. Not bad, but lacking the rounded flavour needed for a satisfying dish. I made a six portion piece and I'm having the last slice two days later and it's just as lovely. Not a success for the eyes but a winner for the taste buds. In the end I had enough ingredients leftover for cheese biscuits.

I used roughly 70g leftover gruyère, finely grated, 100g butter chilled and cubed and 100g plain flour. For seasoning I added 1tsp thyme leaves and 1/2tsp smoked paprika. I rubbed the ingredients into a breadcrumb consistency and brought the dough together. Then I rolled the dough into a sausage shape, wrapped it in clingfilm and left it to firm up in the fridge overnight.
Next morning I took out the firm dough (half an hour will do, I just made it last thing) and set the oven to 190/fan170/gas5. I sliced the dough into thin rounds, about 3mm and baked them for 5mins. The result was crumbly, warming and very, very cheesy. Not quite breakfast material but a lovely late morning snack. speaking of snacks I'm a little peckish. Back in a moment...

That's better. Now, where was I? Ah yes, Tuesday.

Tuesday I woke pleased with my success and hungry so I went back to the supermarket (with tip money, I must add!) and bought more bread flour and tinned cherry tomatoes. There was leftover mozzarella in the fridge from last week's pesto/pasta (I was moving, had little cooking time) and had pizza on the brain.

Once again, if you make your base from scratch it will taste better and be more cost effective. It costs about £2.00 for a large margherita pizza from asda. £1.00 for bread flour and you've enough dough for six pizzas, which you can chill and even freeze in advance. 50p for a good tin of Italian tomatoes and you've got a sauce base. It's proper passata if you strain it afterwards but I prefer to stick blend it for a very quick, thick sauce.

Finely slice a medium white onion and four fat cloves of garlic. Fry them off in a deep saucepan slowly and gently until caramelised. At this point I chuck in 1/2 tsp chilli flakesfor a little kick and fry for another minute or so. Then add two tins tomatoes and two tinfuls of water (gets out all that juice from the tin and makes it a sauce). Season well and bring to the boil, then simmer with the lid askew for at least an hour, more if you have time. If you're making a dough base it'll take roughly as long as proving the dough and warm up the kitchen which encourages the yeast. Essentially the two actions dovetail into your day with ease. When the sauce is nearly done get your seasoning ingredients out, line them up and taste. I usually add a little red wine if I have it and a tbsp balsamic. If it's too acidic I balance it with a little caster sugar. You may not believe this, but ketchup also works, just don't tell your foodie friends. They'll never know. For a fine finish strain it or if you're not fussy just blitz it. Set aside enough for pizzas and store the rest. I like it with grilled polenta, and pasta will do. Or just toast homemade bread for dipping after a late shift.

Okay, the pizza dough I used was lovely but the ingredients ratio (1kg flour, 650g water plus oil, sugar and yeast) was far too much for my kitchen, which is best described as bijoux. Yeast water went everywhere. Jamie's a nice man but he's clearly never worked in an apartment kitchen. I salvaged enough dough to continue but Jamie's method works far better in a small space with 500g flour and 300ml water mix, as I did this morning to make a loaf of bread. You can add more water if the dough's a bit dry. Also make sure to make a very large well in the flour, much bigger than you think you need.

After that all it takes is toppings and ten minutes in a hot oven. Don't drown the base if you want it crisp. Just 1tbsp sauce, a little mozzarella and some flavourings scattered and dinner is served!

Food on a shoestring: it happens.

As I prepare to spend less time acting and more time waitressing I'm also holding my breath in anticipation of that horror that is minimum wage life. I love eating in restaurants and even more than that I love wine so times like this bring a sad sigh to my lungs as I drag myself past delis and favourite haunts of the city, promising them and myself that it's not forever. So I've decided to do that really irritating thing and put on, not just a brave face, but a cheerful, can-do one for all to see. I shall make a virtue of budget cooking, and by doing so prove that life on a shoestring is not about cup noodles. Well, it can be if that's what you like but if that's the case you probably aren't reading this entry, but if you are don't go away! Let's see if I can convert you instead. I don't want to be patronising and most of you probably know all this, but I shall get all the obvious point out of the way now and then we can enjoy ourselves:

1: Make use of your time.
Primarily I bake because I find the process relaxing, and the results are so friendly. But another virtue is that the money spent on a baked good from a shop or even a supermarket will buy enough for at least double that in store cupboard ingredients. Of my two days off I tend to spend one food shopping, cleaning etc then the next I lie in, make plenty of coffee and at noon start prepping for the week's meals. To feel less cheated I bring the laptop into the kitchen and catch up on my week's viewing and radio.

2: Get out your calculator.
We've all had that student moment when we've suddenly realised we've only a fiver to make it through the week. Avoid that moment by assessing your monthly expenditure in advance and don't cave in the supermarket, no matter how lovely the pastries or in my case the cheese and wine look.

3: Use your freezer.
It's not just for pizzas, peas and chips. Buy some sandwich bags and use it for meat, fish, pastry, biscuit dough, soup, veg, bread, butter, the list goes on. Keep things like mince in individual portions so nothing is wasted. If you're a recipe hound like me most recipes online will point out if and at what point a dish can be frozen.

4: Shop around.
Not so easy if you live in a more restricted area but most small towns now boast at least two supermarkets. Compare your prices and try shopping online. But please don't forget markets, proper greengrocers and butchers and specialist shops. A small quantity of good quality produce cooked cleverly will keep longer and it will go much further. If you live in a city try oriental and asian supermarkets, you can bulk buy dry goods, pastes and sauces, not to mention garam masala, curry powders and other spices.

5: Cut down on meat.
Don't leave! Stay with me here it's not the end of the world! I know us English have a mania for meat and two veg, but let's face it, the doctors say we don't need much protein, environmentalists say raising the livestock is a strain on the planet and it costs so don't argue with with a blogger, go shout at the news. If you need persuading then use Madhur Jaffrey recipes, proper indian cooking that shows you how much flavour and texture you can get without meat. What meat you do buy make use of, make stock from sunday roast chicken for sauces and soups, put leftovers into pies. Decent mince goes a long way if you've lots of people to feed, as do any cured or seasoned meats, so hams, bacon, sausages and in particular chorizo. Just one 225g sausage in a dish will easily feed four. With fish there are usually cheaper alternatives to the old favourites, pollock instead of cod, langoustines instead of prawns. Look for special offers and stock up your freezer.

There, was that so hard? I've not bothered mentioning ready meals only because it's been so long since I bought or ate one I'm not really in a position to comment. As for takeaway, forget it. You'll feel better for it, I promise, and I'll try to put up some homemade versions that will give you that fix.

Recipe one comes straight from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage, a simple white loaf recipe. Click on the link for the recipe and on the Channel 4 website you'll find the original episode so you can see how Hugh does it. 1.5kg Allinson Strong White Bread Flour costs £1 and 125g Allinson Dried Active Baking Yeast costs 64p to make two loaves and enough yeast to last you for months. One Tescos Finest Farmhouse loaf costs £1.30 and doesn't fill your home with the smell of freshly baked bread. Have a go and tell me your results, better still send pictures!

TTFN

Guinness? No, I'm grand, thanks.

I feel kind of duty bound to comment on this day. I'm naturally opinionated and, with Irish 'roots' on both sides of my family, one closer than the other, I'm very much the diasporic demographic today. So, hmm, Saint Paddy's day and all that...

Right, first things first. I'm not Irish. I am English. I was born here, so were my parents and my sisters for that matter. We all speak in a Mary Poppins accent (my Dad in a lower octave of course). So that's that out of the way. I have no illusions about my immediate state. However I cite my Irish grandfather as a powerful influence on me, I cheer for Ireland in the Six Nations (this wasn't an easy spring for me) and have worn a claddagh ring on and off ever since I knew what it was. I have told as many people as would listen about the time at school I was asked if I was in the IRA and being at a loss as to how to reply. I should have just said: 'Yes. Now feck off before I call my contacts. Can't play football without kneecaps, eh champ?' But to my significant regret I kept quiet and wondered why prods were so intense.

Obviously a little Celtic blood was a bit of a novelty in a very old, very C of E public school so as I grew older and became a little more confident I played up to this, wearing something green on St Patrick's day, referring to things or people as 'grand', just little things to remind myself that if I had to be a posh English person at least I had a twist of green in my personality. Looking back it was probably terminally naff, but given my options as a teenager I guess I should be grateful it placed me somewhere in between the hockey players, musos, nerds and the 'Who Crew' (think about it, remember that bunch of kids in school, if someone said their name everyone else looked puzzled and said: 'who?' Yeah, them).

After school I channelled this into a love of stand-up, that most marvellous method of communication, gazing in wonder as a series of Irishmen (nearly always men admittedly, if anyone knows of a good Irish comedienne please, please tell me) hold forth on what it is to be Irish. My heart went out to them. They were funny, articulate, clever, charismatic and if I was going to relate to anything or anyone I wanted to relate to them. They reminded me of my grandfather's ability to make the girls in Morrissons fall over themselves to help him, way he could charm his way into and out of any social situation. In the warmth and laughter I was taken back to a very simple time where the perfect Sunday meant listening to jokes and music, a warm nostalgia that stays with me, and frankly I'm unwilling to let that memory go. It's a very rose tinted view of an extraordinarily complex man whose family history is entwined in the foundation of the Ireland that exists today, but it's the view I choose to remember and I think he'd probably be quite relieved, though he'd struggle to understand how I can draw comparison between him and Dara O'Briain.

None of this, however, has anything to do with wearing Guinness hats, painting Shamrocks on your face and getting sick on a drink you only consume once a year. I've never liked Guinness and I'm fucked if I'm going to be forced to drink the stuff simply because some Roman slave got dragged over to a rainy island and was so shocked by its pagan ways that when he got the chance he came back to civilise it with Christianity. Not really an uplifting tale from my point of view. The shamrock is a pretty enough emblem that links back to the saint demonstrating the Holy Trinity to Irish clan leaders, evidence that good teachers really are timeless, but it doesn't explain why, even after twelve years in practising CofE schools, most of which I sang in the choir, I still trip up over the Anglican Lord's Prayer and forget the funny little extra bit.

The little tugs at the back of your mind bring you back to where and, more significantly, who you came from, and inform the people we have chosen to become since. I learn far more of a personal diaspora from the poetry of Louis MacNiece than from diddle-dee-dee muzak twiddling away in the background of a bar filled with scrap metal. At the right moment a Pogues song can raise the hairs on the back of my neck but it has that effect on many people because the music is so good. If you can understand every word Shane McGowan sings I take my hat off to you, but the passion is unmistakable. A long storytelling tradition is fascinating to a people culturally hamstrung, ironically by the same Cromwell that tore through Ireland in a storm of religious fundamentalism and bigotry. While we lost much of our folklore theirs became a badge of defiance, it is a fine thing to be Irish because it means you are be default not English, and the English may have taken this more to heart than they realise. We struggle without a cultural grounding, and we know there must be more to our history than mead and Morris dancing. Stout, cider and whiskey with songs sounds much more fun.

So I can see what brings people in their hordes to the streets tonight to annoy the bartenders of the nation, blocking the bar with their silly top hats and flags tied round their shoulders, enjoying the green tat begrudgingly strewn about the place and pretending to like the bitter, heavy stuff in the pint glass. But I shall give it a rest. Tomorrow night I shall celebrate my little diaspora in my own way by sitting down to dinner with my family, drinking wine and talking, laughing, and, if we've drunk enough, singing.

So I leave you with the Irishmen that give me joy: Dara O'Briain, Ed Byrne, Dylan Moran, Andrew Maxwell, Jason Byrne, Brendan Grace, and the reigning king of Irish stand-up, Tommy Tiernan Have a great evening and do whatever raises your spirits. But be mindful of the bar staff. It's not an easy night.

Burlesque and cake: a match made in heaven.

Oh how I enjoy mucking about in the kitchen. Even my kitchen, tiny, cramped and messy though it be. As an actor in between a contract and casual work I have a horror of that long stretch of time between daybreak and sunset and find a useful way to avoid alcoholism is to bake. It's cheap, time consuming and there are seemingly endless diversifications to be found online, on't telly and in't books. Not to mention the ability to turn up with homemade confection is a very useful way for a naturally antisocial member of our species to appear warm and fuzzy- particularly in the acting world where new colleagues tend to put the word 'unemotional' alongside 'sociopathic.' When the Daredevil Divas performed in November it was casually suggested I put this hobby to use and so produced a couple of items that I'd found in Nigella's book Kitchen: a chocolate orange loaf cake (one of the easiest recipes possible for the cake novice and tastes grown up enough to offer an important guest with tea), and a raspberry bakewell slice (little more time consuming but far easier than making shortcrust pastry and takes minutes to prepare if you've a food processor and mixer). As a wheat free option I slung in my famous rice crispie cakes in camp muffin cases and sprinkled with edible gold dust. As a finale my excellent friend and soon-to-be flatmate/landlady Harriet De Winton came up with pretty in pink cupcakes that updated my rather homely selection. All went well and were eaten with gusto so for the Gallery evening it was suggested I make a few more, the emphasis this time on the cupcakes.

I had a little more time to myself on this occasion so decided to really explore the cupcake as an artform. It's easy to turn one's nose up at the little cupcake, as anything in the thrall of fashion what's cute as a button one season is facile the next. The high street is still enjoying the consumer demand for these pretty, brightly coloured treats but fashion has moved on to the macaroon (fiddly at best, needs a large, accurate oven and an electric whisk), the whoopie pie (don't get me started on that bland thing) and now cupcakes in jars are all the rage. At least they were last month, god knows what the fashionistas are pretending to eat this week. But in terms of home baking I think the humble cupcake is the perfect starter item for a nervous baker, the sponge is so very simple that all the fun can go into decorating it afterwards, putting a personal stamp onto a universal formula which, let's face it, is why we make the effort in the first place. Personally I would far rather eat something with more depth to it, a wasabi cream macaroon or handmade baklava, something tiny with an intense burst of flavour to keep the tastebuds warm for hours afterwards. But we love to look at cupcakes, we love the way they look diminutive on a plate, the way the buttercream seems to pile itself on top, the endless opportunities for decoration and flavours, sugared petals, lime and coconut flavour, chocolate cream and edible glitter. They don't feel like a dietary transgression either, if the sponge is light enough you won't feel the impact of them until after at least two or three with tea.

All these thoughts encouraged me to make the most of my little commission. I had my budget and roughly 50 people to bake for and I wasn't about to be accused of being ordinary. So I dusted off my imagination and bought a great deal of icing.

I saw Black Swan on a weekend in Leeds and was, still am, struck by the beauty of the cinematography. Please don't drag me into a tedious debate on the subject of ballet and body image, whether or not directors are that horrid and the pressures of being a performer. Phooey. It looked marvellous. In any event it struck me as a good subject for cake decoration. The White swan was a favourite on the night, and probably aesthetically the most pleasing of the cakes. The sponge recipe came from the Good Food site, as did the others for that matter. The only tweak would be to whisk the eggs well, get a little air into them, to ensure a light, fluffy sponge. To add a little drama I spooned a layer of seedless raspberry jam into the centre of each cake. Just layer the batter in, one teaspoon of batter, half a teaspoon of jam, then top with a second teaspoon of batter.
. The swans themselves I moulded from wedding cake icing a couple of days in advance and left to set. I reckon in retrospect marzipan would have done equally well but I wanted a unity of flavour
.


Then of course came the black swans, and to make these you must be very brave on the subject of food colouring. Not for the faint hearted in terms of E numbers but I assure you the flavour of the icing is not affected at all. One thing it does do is make the icing rather runny but I loved the way it dripped evilly over the crisp, white cases.

The black swans had a different icing that dried very quickly so I used an origami-esque approach, cutting them out from flat rolled icing and folding them into shape. This required a couple of attempts, and flat the final model actually looked a bit like concorde but it had the desired effect.


Easy and popular were the chocolate cakes with pink buttercream icing- I added a heaped tablespoon of good quality cocoa powder (fair trade) to the dry ingredients to make a chocolate sponge, then piped the buttercream icing on the finished cakes. The nylon bag split on the last cupcake- sticking to proper catering equipment from now on. These were eaten first, gratifying but it certainly showed that the icing is what the people want!

After that rather serious effort I wanted the rest of my cakes to be more 'fun', and I also wanted them to adhere more to the burlesque setting. So I chose Bettie Bruiser and Poppy Von Tarte as my inspiration (frankly they've been my major inspiration in all things artistic for some time). Bettie Bruiser's Vanilla bites were my last bit of icing work, I love her skull and crossbones emblem. I made a cardboard stencil and cut out my little figures with my trusty icing knife (they exist, would you believe, though a craft knife would do).


Then to the cupcakes, a vanilla sponge with blue buttercream icing (spread rather than piped this time as the last lot rather tested my patience. The result was surprisingly sweet, next time I shall try to find a more metallic blue for a more hard-edged look.


Last came a proper bit of baking. I was a bit tired of cupcakes, pretty though they are, and with Poppy as my inspiration I needed a 'Tarte'. I used Nigella's raspberry recipe without the fresh raspberries, using two medium sized round foil cases rather than one large square. To finish I iced them and topped them with icing poppies (oh yeah I made them too. No biggie.). I loved the result, crumbly, buttery pastry, nutty, moist frangipani and smooth, light icing. There are many gaps in the English food canon, but we do on occasion come across some rather excellent cakes.


All credit to Liz and Michaela on yet another successful Diva night. Teensy drama at 6.30 when all the lights on North St went out and we weren't sure how the rest of the night would fare, especially as without power the bar was struggling to continue service. Luckily disaster was averted and power magically went back on. The rest of the evening was problem free: Lottie Psychottie had another supermarket meltdown (if you want to please a crowd of women, tear up a calorie chart to the soundtrack of Rage Against The Machine. It'll go down a treat). There was Lucy's pirate tale and Anita MacCallum's poem My husband's in the freezer. There was my rather tired performance of Brel's Jackie (not doing the backing track thing again, methinks) and Amsterdam acapella (better, in fact I'm rather tempted to stick with unaccompanied from now on, keep things low key. Unless someone frightfully talented wants to join in, that is, and I'm happy to hear from any penniless musicians on that subject, especially if you like Brel, Weil and Waits). There were Opin Yalegs and Kitty Cattrap and Poppy was the peerless compere.

A brilliant night in the company of performers, photographers, sugarwork professionals (couple of tips), a lady with a vintage china business who lent an elegant cake stand (Lucy if you're reading this can you give me her details so I can plug her), Liz and Michaela's costumier and many more. There was a communal feel to the night, and I hope our marvellous organisers could feel the warmth and gaiety of the gathering. I only hope our portraits make quick sales, the profits of which will go to a charity of the DDDs choice. Got home tired and happy and ready to face the rest of my week, which was good as I rather needed the energy.

I shall of course keep you posted on the Divas and hopefully will be able to put up a link to the portraits when they go on Liz's blog.

Share and enjoy.