Springing into summer

I've lived in London for seven years now and in that time it's felt like I've had one looooong season.  A season of more or less average weather complete with cool air, grey skies and spitting rain.  Of course there has been the occassional dappling of sunshine (around the Olympics in 2012 as I can last recall) and a spot of snow (about three inches that closed Heathrow for about two weeks over Christmas and New Years 2012-13).

People ask me what I miss most about living in the US. Besides the obvious "friends and family" the next things mentioned are dunkin donuts iced coffee, real lobster, and four beautifully unique seasons.  New England so smacks down England when it comes to managing the art of spring, summer, fall and winter.

By some stroke of good luck (or global warming?) we've had a relatively nice (which translates locally into a "really nice") spring into summer.

To celebrate I finally bit the bullet, and after 7 years of living in London, bought some al fresco dining furniture. And even with my black thumb, bought some outdoor plants to decorate my little patio.  I imagine the furniture will long outlive the plants due to my uncanny ability to kill anything green and/or floral.

Yes, I am the woman who even managed to kill a "non killable" cactus.

I'm good with puppies and babies though.  Really, truly.

Needing to celebrate my new purchases I invited the girls around for Sunday brunch.  As luck would have it, the actual day they came over proved to be the more typical, "as expected", weather.  But not raining on our parade, in gingham and stripes we set up my outdoor furniture in the middle of my living room, opened the french doors, donned cardigans and pretended to be outside.

On the menu, homemade cornbread french toast with avocado and bacon, apple and elderflower mimosas, and english strawberries and cream with basil and lime shortbread.

Giving the allusion of al fresco

Home made cornbread with crispy bacon and avocado

Strawberries and cream with basil and lime shortbread

So much to say - PART 2

As mentioned in my previous post, April was a buzz of activity.  Luckily for me it included two weeks in Asia. Part an overdue visit with JonaThanh in Singapore and part 10 days with K travelling through Laos and Northern Thailand.

The former was a long weekend that was based solely around stuffing our (my?) faces with an assortment of local delicacies (hot pot! chilli crab!) and enjoying the tropical heat with cocktails and wine.  I'm noticing a trend in my family, all good meals commence with a glass of wine or drink, and if ever you get a delay waiting for a table or just find yourself with some spare time...at any point during the day?  Well, I'll have two of those over there, kind sir! Please make sure it's frothy / chilled / adorned with an umbrella or other such accoutrement. A kind thank you very much.

My Singapore mornings started out at Tiong Bahru Food Market with 1-2 freshly squeezed juices followed not long after with an assortment of dumplings, fried noodles and the best chopstick licking char siu I've had since my last trip to Hong Kong.  All for a piddly price, it's easy to overlook the market's sticky tabletops and elvis singing busker for the quality and value for money.

One of my three nights there we went for Singaporean Chilli Crab.  Most recipes I've since researched indicate that contrary to the name, the dish isn't actually that hot.  All I have to say to that is "you have got to be BLEEPING kidding me."  Midway through digging in I recall saying to JonaThanh that I was pretty sure I could no longer feel my mouth.  Ten minutes after that and my cheeks were numb too.  Fun but messy to eat, it was definitely a sloppy evening.  Why they don't give out napkins is beyond me. And the lemon water to dip my fingers for cleanliness?  I needed a long shower to get it all off of me and my nails. That said, I'll happily go back for more next visit!  When in "Rome" as they say...

HOT - Chilli Crab - HOT

Mad looking but that may be due to spice induced face numbness.
That's my excuse at least.

One of many Singapore cocktails.  So wish this was an actual "Singapore Sling."

Mango margarita.
This is what happens (on repeat) when the restaurant tells you to wait about 2.5 hours before you can eat.  

The latter half of the trip was over Songkran (New Years) spent with K in Luang Prabang and Chiang Mai.  Anyone who's been to Luang Prabang or parts of Thailand over the New Year holiday will know it's a water dousing spectacle for the ages.  Not possible to leave our hotel from 10 am until 6 pm without getting absolutely drenched to the bone via water pistols, buckets of river water and hose pipes to name but a few, we didn't quite have the "relaxing" holiday we'd been hoping for.  And as I've learned, when this kind of water pummelling occurs, it is near impossible not to get a little of it in your mouth. If you combine this with the other "traditional" Laos New Year celebration of getting completely drunk on Beer Laos, one might "suffer" the consequences of local germs in a foreign belly.

Let me be clear, not partaking in these celebrations is not an option.  Unless you dive under your duvet in your (hopefully) air conditioned hotel, these activities can't be avoided.  Clearly we weren't on holiday to stay indoors.

The drinking tradition is to open up a can of Beer Laos, pour a small glass worth from it and hand it to an individual. That person drinks his/her lot.  The same little glass gets refilled, handed to the next person...and on and on...beer after beer.  For some added "excitement" sometimes there's mystery ice that appears.  Between the random family barbecue we were taken to, and the tuk tuk that we were stuck on, our initial polite "no thank yous"  were finally cajoled into "Ok - let's hope the alcohol in the beer will kill the germs our bellies aren't used to" and "let's not think about the ice, just drink the warm beer really quickly before any of it melts."

So we drank, on repeat - lots of Beer Laos and other holiday spirits and truth be told had great fun in the process.  Until a few days later when our bellies started to act up.  K, in her infinite Americanised wisdom went straight for the antibiotics.  Because it wasn't "that bad" or stopping me from doing things, I thought I'd let it work it's way through naturally.  Well, needless to say, THREE WEEKS later when I was finally back to "normal" I'd conceded to K, her way was the right way!

That said, I've lived through it and ahhhhh, what's a travel story without some belly problems I say?!

Trying to kill the germs with some Blue Curacao - sôk di pi mai!

So much to say... PART 1

Stream of consciousness is such an interesting thing.  Long overdue to write up many a golden nugget from the past couple months, I started humming “So Much to Say”.  Good old Dave Matthews Band, one of the constant beacons of my days at the University of Rochester.  That and plaid shirts.  

Anyway, Dave humming immediately led me down the path of thinking, “gosh, I wonder how long ago I actually sat and listened to that album?”  This of course immediately made me realise that this month is my 15 year anniversary of graduating from the U of R.

Jaw Drop. Denial. Recalculation. Realisation that this is simple math and no matter how I look at it it’s not going to change anything.

WHEN DID I GET TO BE SO OLD?!

Followed closely by the thought, “Hmmm I think I may have finished university when I was 14. Quite extraordinarily advanced for my years.  I am so looking forward to my 30^th birthday next year.”

Denial, followed by realisation, followed by a teensy tiny white lie.

But, as this was really about having so much to say, I propose quickly changing the subject and getting on with it. (More denial).

The past month saw me saying sayonara to one job and hola to another.  Timed alongside a fairly busy social calendar, I ended up having two weeks full of leaving / team / retirement / catch up dinners.  There were a couple scintillating highlights.  

Restaurant Story by Tom Sellers and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.  

While both restaurants left me doing a small happy dance at the table (why must I always make a spectacle of myself when my belly is happy?) and both are on the cutting edge of food artistry in London, it was the more informal atmosphere and location of London Bridge of Restaurant Story that probably eeked out as a favourite.

Restaurant Story has two menu options, the 6 or 10 course tasting menu.  Noting that we'd probably be served amuse bouches and palate cleansers up the wazoo, we opted for the 6 course. Which as imagined, ended up being about 12 courses once all the "extras" were added in.

Probably the most creative dish of the evening was "bread and dippings". Essentially our candlelit table was our formal first course.  Serving us home made bread and relish, we were instructed to dip the bread in the candle "wax" - edible beef fat!  Once you got past the concept of dipping your bread into what appeared to be proper candle wax (as well as the thought of the artery clogging damage being done) it was a clever way to start off our meal.  Kids, I would not recommend trying this at home.

Selection of amuse bouches, including crispy cod skin with smoked cod mousse, seaweed butter filled radishes and "Story-O" cookies

"Bread and Drippings"

Fast forward to my favourite highlight of the night, "Almond and Dill", the main dessert course (there were three). Very hard to describe, almond and dill were sliced and diced in a number of different ways.  The only sensible item I could recognise was an almond ice cream.  However, the various textures and flavours of the dish combined in the mouth for an early spring garden party of sorts.  The dish's legacy? Never will I be able to look at dill pickle in the same way!  

"Almond and Dill"

By comparison, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is set in the luxe Mandarin Oriental on lovely Hyde Park. Complete with swishy clientale and top-hatted doorman, we opted for a "sensible" three course dinner.

Famous for it's starter of "Meat Fruit", I had to oblige.  Chicken liver and foie gras mousse was covered in a mandarin jelly and shaped well, like a mandarin.  Served with grilled bread, this was as decadent and delicious as any paté lover might imagine.  I won't lie, I struggled to finish it all  due to the richness, but pulled through in the end.  Sadly this didn't leave much space for my main course, a slightly above average turbot, of which I left about half.

"Meat Fruit"

Going a "bit easy" on my main course I was able to encourage my dessert stomach (I have a special stomach reserved for such occasions) to go to town on the gorgeous "Baked Sussex Pond Pudding".  It consisted of a soft cake like base and a hard sweet biscuit built up and around it. Knocking it open resulted in a lemon caramel oozing out around the plate.  Imagine lemon curd mixed with salted caramel and you get an idea for just what was happening inside that little pud.  I was so distracted by the sheer amazingness of it all I didn't even capture a photo of it in it's relaxed, free flowing sensual state.  I'm not sure I even breathed before the whole thing was snarffed back in my greedy gob.

"Baked Sussex Pond Pudding"

I've tittered on long enough here for the moment...stay tuned for So much to say-PART 2 where I'll happily be introducing you to cocktails, hot pot, and the gift that keeps on giving (contaminated ice cubes)!

Liquid gold

San Pietro a Pettine Black Truffle Vinagrette  - £19.99

I have these moments, they aren’t too frequent (thankfully), that pop up when in the midst of giddiness and excitement.  It’s usually when I’m feeling overly happy which lends itself to a wanton approach to my finances – and hence the infamous IMPULSE BUY.  Luckily my impulse buys usually manifest themselves in a way that doesn’t shatter my bottom line and allows for the somewhat continued "normalcy" of things like paying rent and buying groceries.  

Although recently while waiting to meet a friend for dinner in Westbourne Park I ended up buying an exorbitantly expensive straw hat.  This is not socially acceptable impulse buying.  I mean seriously, A STRAW HAT should NEVER cost that much.  Oh well, it is um erm - an investment piece? Anyway, I digress.

I had a slightly less expensive impulse buy a few months back - although in all likelihood on a similar scale to the straw hat.  I was perusing the lovely items in the Selfridges Food Hall.  I mean, who DOESN'T treat themselves to a few lovely bits and bobs when at the Selfridges Food Hall? Anyway, I ended up picking up a bottle of (for all intents and purposes) salad dressing, consciously clocking the ridiculous price (£19.99 / $30ish), but justifying to myself quite quickly that it must be the most delicious dressing to ever grace our fair planet. 

And I have to admit, it is pretty dang good.  Certainly not an everyday use kind of dressing, it's thick enough to marinate which I did with chicken which was then tossed with black truffle pasta, broccoli and truffle butter or thinned out with a little EVOO and tossed on your favourite greens.  I was even super naughty and used it as a dipper for some parmesan truffle fries I made one night. That was possibly the best use for it so far...but the fried potato deliciousness might have helped.

Anyway, while I'm not sure I'll be impulse buying a £19.99 bottle of salad dressing again anytime soon I can say that it was a wise erm...um...investment piece?

Love is in the air...and my BELLY

Love was in the air last weekend. It was evident in the overpriced roses on display in Sainsbury's, the sickly sweet decorations of hearts and cupids adorning shop windows, and the overpriced set-menus with “complimentary glass of fizz”. Even my work canteen had a surplus of love hearts decorating the cakes, sweets, and salad bar on offer. While I'm not one to say no to some spontaneous romance, this all seemed just a Bit. Too. Much.  Call me a Grinch (or whatever the Valentine’s Day equivalent is?!) but I find the notion of “a day for love” a little over-the-top. I mean really, shouldn’t that be most days!?! 

That said, thank you M for the roses, the dinner out, and the "TO MY GIRLFRIEND" card. I think in my (ahem) 25 years that’s the first time I’ve landed a triple salchow.

Anyway, on the topic of luuuurv...I have news.  I have fallen. HARD.  He was the BEST first date I've ever had. We watched Dirty Dancing 2x in a row.  I drank red wine from a mug!  And all this whilst wearing a Minnie Mouse onesie! Bliss!!! 

Not that that exact scenario of movie, mug and onesie really happened (lower head in mock sarcastic shame).

I only watched Dirty Dancing once.

Anyway, without further ado, I'd like you to meet the new love of my life.  He’s spicy and sweet...he's Mr. Bacon Jam.



Hellooooo Sailor

Lucky for you he's not monogamous!

Bacon Jam

Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook, Cheryl and Griffin Day

- 1 pound bacon

- 1 medium Vidalia onion, sliced

- 3 garlic cloves, minced

- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary

- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (I used Cayenne)

- 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

- 1/4 cup freshly brewed strong coffee

- 2 tablespoons Coca-Cola

- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

- 1/4 cup maple syrup

- 2 tablespoons Kentucky bourbon (mine wasn’t from Kentucky, sorry)

To make the bacon jam: Roughly chop the bacon into 1-inch pieces. Render the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until the edges start to turn brown but the bacon is still soft. Drain the rendered bacon fat by setting a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl and spooning the bacon and rendered fat into the sieve. Let the bacon sit in the sieve while you caramelise the onions.

I was just shy of 1 pound bacon. Rookie mistake.  Next time, 50 pounds.

Add the sliced onions to the skillet, then add 1 tablespoon of the rendered bacon fat and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent and starting to brown, 10 to 12 minutes.

Add the garlic, rosemary, red pepper flakes, brown sugar, coffee, Coke, balsamic vinegar, and maple syrup, stir, and bring to a light boil. Add the drained bacon and bring back to a light boil, then turn the heat down to medium-low. You want to keep a low, steady simmer to reduce the liquid and thicken it without burning the jam. The process of reduction can take as long as 1 hour. If the jam becomes too dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons water.  It only took about 45 minutes for me.

Remove the bacon jam from the heat, add the bourbon, and let cool for 20 minutes. Depending on your preference, you can use it as is or process the jam in a food processor to a less chunky consistency. I processed. Once it has cooled, you can put the jam in an airtight container and store it for up to 1 week in the refrigerator.  I also froze some and used it over a two week period.

In the cookbook they use the bacon jam in empanadas with cheddar cheese, suggesting a cornmeal empanada dough (which I’ve made before for use with a fruit pie).  I'm partial to a flakier empanada dough and seeing as I had some leftover in my freezer from my last batch I used that instead with about half the jam.  The rest of it was spread on toast, served (to myself) with a sharp cheese, and even mixed it into a few baked potatoes. 

I cried when he left.

Luckily for me I know how to get him back.

Home is...where the belly is

It seems like every January when I get back from my 2+ weeks at home in the US I've eaten and drunk so much holiday cheer that I need to enter my flat in London sideways just to get through the door. It usually means a resolution is in store.

Most New Year's "health" resolutions revolve around exercise or diet.  Never one to jump on the bandwagon I like to switch things up just a little.

My January resolution?  Simply not bake.  At least for a month or so.  Add to that getting back into my fitness routine and trying to eat better than I did over the holidays (think candied bacon, doughnuts, creamy cocktails, and chocolate peppermint shortbread - to name but a few) and I should hopefully not need to widen my front door on a permanent basis.

So what did I get up to in the US?  Or rather, what did I get into I should say. My highlights were some repeats from year-on-year.

I do love tradition and ritual when it comes to my favourite holiday foods and excursions.  Something so satisfying about "tick boxing" your favourites meals you can only get when visiting home. As I say, home is...where the belly is.  Here are some highlights:

Asian food of note:

• CK Shanghai - 2x
• East Ocean City - 1x
• Lana Thai - 1x (although no fried crispy duck this year)

Lobster fest

• 4.5 pounds at $30 for New Year's Eve and we didn't even have to cook it (thank you Market Basket)
• Ritual lobster salad sandwich from the Lobster Connection

Christmas Dinner and Treats

• Foster's braised beef short ribs
• Garlic mash
• Roasted sprouts and bacon
• Chocolate peppermint shortbread
• Coconut and passionfruit cake with candied cranberries and strawberries (no real recipe follwed just copious amounts of heavy cream, passionfruit curd and butter)



Candied cranberries - my new favourite cake trick

Christmas Goodies and Merriment

Christmas Goodies

This Saturday was our third annual girlie Christmas 'do'. An affair that usually involves food, cocktails, bubbles, a wee gift exchange, and bucket loads of inappropriate jokes and laughs.

We headed to Hoi Polloi in Shoreditch.  A pretty fantastic place actually, exceeding expectations. Design is psuedo Scandi hunting lodge with a dash of East London hipster.  Now, sometimes these new up and comers are all hype and no substance, but Hoi Polloi have a winning formula.  Well at least for us that evening it was two big 'ol thumbs up. 

Once we all arrived, 3 of 4 of us being late (I was second!) and our cocktails were in hand we tackled the newspaper like menu and started with chickpea fritters and tarragon yogurt. With 6 "fritters" (looking oddly like mozzarella cheese sticks but thankfully tasting a whole lot better) for £3 it was good value. 

Also on sharing order were cauliflower cheese (with Stilton and almonds - delicious) and the veggie version of "dripping chips".  NOTE: Must return for the dripping variety.

There were also main courses and deserts.  And a bottle of Prosecco.  Oh, and one complimentary double chocolate cookie brought to GT by an admiring waiter.  She shared with the rest of us. The cookie, not the waiter.

For our little gift exchange I thought I'd bake up an assortment of goodies and package them up nicely for the girls.  There's something I really love about home-made gifts around the holidays.  I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but making things for others gives me the warm fuzzies.  Plus, due to slight limitations on the size of the bags I'd purchased to give the cookies in - I had a few leftovers that needed gobbling.  I was happy to help.

So what were in the treat bags?

Lemon butter cookies with white chocolate and edible sparkles
- You'll see the linked recipe tops the cookies with a lemon icing, I used melted white chocolate thinned out a teensy bit with lemon juice.

Peanut butter cookies with mini peanut butter cups
- I replaced the Hershey's chocolate kiss with mini peanut butter cups from Trader Joes, "smuggled" back from the US into the UK.

Toffee squares - written about previously in this blog.

So far JF and GT have reported back that their favourites are the peanut butter and lemon ones respectively.  I don't like to pick favourites so instead find when it's time to eat one I just eat one of EACH.  Three in a go. On repeat until they run out.