sheer glut­tony

I must kvell! This is my first food arti­cle (well, the first two pages of it) pub­lished in the glo­ri­ous Vin­tage Mag­a­zine, out of New York. The edi­tor, Ivy Sher­man, is truly a vision­ary, and has made each writer’s work stand out with pro­duc­tion val­ues from a bygone era. My grandmother’s actual recipe cards are repro­duced in card form, spots and stains intact, and my work has been edited to per­fec­tion. I’d for­got­ten how it felt when a piece I’d writ­ten a long time ago appears in print; I find myself think­ing what a clever girl this writer is, and per­haps I could meet her! Write a fan let­ter. Then I remem­ber it’s me.

I’m truly thrilled. Ivy has com­mis­sioned a sec­ond piece, so I’m hard at work research­ing the his­tory of women and cam­panol­ogy in mid-20th cen­tury Eng­land. Don’t ask: it will be bril­liant when it appears, I’m sure, if Ivy has any­thing to say about it, and she does.

Well, food has cer­tainly been my life in the last week. I’ve been to “Mas­terchef Live: the BBC Good Food Show” at Olympia on Fri­day, pro­duced (though I do say it myself) a com­pletely fab­u­lous grilled lamb chop din­ner on Fri­day night and a lasagne-fest Sat­ur­day night for some of my absolute favorite guests, and last night was stir-fried sir­loin with thick slices of gin­ger, broc­coli flo­rets, red pep­pers and roasted peanuts in a soy-sesame sauce. I feel I should announce some sort of fast­ing pro­gram. Every day I’m aston­ished I can still fit into my clothes. Hon­estly. It’s been a food frenzy.

Blame it all, in the first instance, on the pure appetite-adrenalin caused by the arrival of my Edin­burgh friend Char­lie. How I adore him! Do you have friends who just lift the lid on your per­son­al­ity, who make you rejoice in the spice of life? I am more than lucky in this regard. My thoughts alight on my friend Jo, who no mat­ter my stalled ambi­tions, less than stel­lar con­fi­dence in myself, never fails to change my mood com­pletely. She is effer­ves­cent, squeez­ing my arm to under­score some impor­tant point in our non­stop con­ver­sa­tion, dou­bling up laugh­ing. She and I spent an after­noon together on Tues­day feast­ing on sushi at the South Kens­ing­ton Kulu-kulu, and there is noth­ing bet­ter. Salmon fifty thou­sand ways, plus cold steamed spinach in sesame sauce, soft-shell crab, the best tem­pura shrimp. And laugh­ter. The V&A after for some cultchuh, more hys­ter­i­cal laugh­ing over a painted minia­ture of one Sir Crap­per, who was in charge of… London’s san­i­tary engi­neer­ing. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

And then there’s Charlie.

Per­haps if we spent more than a few hours, or a few days together, we’d stop laugh­ing con­stantly and com­pet­ing for clever ban­ter, but our friend­ship began over a five-day iso­la­tion course together, and we never ran out of things to laugh about then, so my hopes for a sort of forever-friendship are high. The fun of the Good Food Show is well-known to my read­ers, as is my addic­tion to the Taste of Lon­don in June. But some­how I am never quite pre­pared for just how much I can EAT in one after­noon. And although I’m telling you about the show too late for you to go this year, you’ll be pre­pared for the next show on offer in Lon­don, once you’ve read my tales of gluttony.

Char­lie and I met up in the rain out­side Olympia, hugged and kissed, and imme­di­ately began the com­pletely ridicu­lous end­less silli­ness that we do enjoy so much. Added to the gen­eral eupho­ria is his new­found love for a cer­tain some­one the details of whose charms took up much of our con­ver­sa­tion. New love, it is a joy to hear about, espe­cially with the van­tage I and my beloved occupy from 27 years down the road! Let me tell you that all deli­cious foods taste bet­ter when they’re washed down with the drunken hap­pi­ness of some­one you hold dear. Good for him!

But about the food. My God, the vari­ety! We began with very posh fish fin­gers and home­made tartare sauce from Roast, home of the fab­u­lous chef Lawrence Keogh in Bor­ough Mar­ket. Light, crisp, nos­tal­gic: the per­fect intro­duc­tion to an increas­ingly chal­leng­ing food expe­ri­ence. Because next was Launce­s­ton Place, with my secret-crush chef Tris­tan Welch. If he’s bro­ken into the big 3–0 I’d be sur­prised, so young and so ener­getic! He was there meet­ing and greet­ing, but I was too shy to approach him. Instead I tucked into his lob­ster soup with brandy and saf­fron cream. Now, I con­sider myself quite a good soup maker. Red pep­per, mush­room, potato and leek, com­fort­ing chicken soups all appear reg­u­larly from my hob. Today will be jerusalem arti­choke with cham­pagne and fresh thyme. But lob­ster? I wouldn’t know where to start. With lob­ster stock from the shells and head of a pre­vi­ous lob­ster feast, prob­a­bly, which scares me. I’ve never boiled a fish head.

Char­lie enjoyed the veni­son burger with Keens ched­dar and the house­made LP sauce. We lin­gered for a moment over my copy of Vin­tage mag­a­zine which he kindly praised, and we stood there imag­in­ing our glit­ter­ing food-writer careers, just on the cusp, push­ing aside dreamed-of mem­bers of the intru­sive press who just wanted a word or a photo, invad­ing our lunch…

Then we were onto Min Jiang, a gor­geous Chi­nese restau­rant offer­ing “leg­endary wood-fire Bei­jing Duck,” and deli­cious it was, wrapped in a pan­cake and offer­ing the per­fect spicy sauce to drip onto Charlie’s jacket. From there, we joined the queues at the Mas­terchef kitchen set, pro­duced our tick­ets to the cookoff between Nadia Sawalha and Thomasina Miers. I admit it was very cool to see John Torode and Gregg Wal­lace in per­son, after fol­low­ing the Mas­terchef pro­grammes on the telly, but I did not feel tempted, as did the ladies in front of me in the audi­ence, to scream, “There they are, oh my God!” when they appeared before the crowd. Good­ness, food celebrities!

Nadia and Thomasina were given bags of mys­tery ingre­di­ents, three min­utes in which to decide what to cook and 20 min­utes to pro­duce a dish for judg­ing. Nadia cooked a toma­toey Moroc­can stew with eggs poached in it at the last minute (too last-minute, as it turned out, because they did not fin­ish poach­ing in time! the same prob­lem I had last week with my Moroc­can meat­balls for Gigi and Saad). Thomasina pro­duced puff pas­try bis­cuits with flam­beed rasp­ber­ries, cus­tard and melted white choco­late. Char­lie and I felt after­ward that we were aching for just such a chance to cook under pressure!

Far more won­der­ful than puff pas­try was Thomasina’s offer­ing in the Mas­terchef Restau­rant, our final treat. Ravi­oli with duck liver and hazel­nuts, in a sage but­ter sauce: sim­ply sub­lime! She is the owner of Wahaca restau­rant (one located in nearby West­field shop­ping cen­ter) and I’m tempted to go, even though the Mex­i­can bent offered there will not prob­a­bly include a duck liver pasta. But any­one who can cook that dish can COOK. Do you sup­pose it was foie gras plain and sim­ple, or pre­pared duck liver pate? Just sub­lime, so rich and simple.

Well, we sim­ply stag­gered away. Sipped a glass of cham­pagne, then mean­dered around to visit the many, many food stalls with sausages (I came away with “welfare-friendly Bocad­don Farm Veal” sausages from South-East Corn­wall which look amaz­ing) my favorite chilli oil from Apu­lia, the pep­peri­est and most fla­vor­ful with­out sim­ply blow­ing your head off. Char­lie ran into a friend run­ning the Cor­nish Cheese Com­pany stall, and we sam­pled and bought a creamy, sub­tle blue that isn’t merely stinky, it’s really com­plex and tasty.

Upstairs, we tracked down my inspir­ing cook­ery teacher of last win­ter, the gor­geous Han­nah Goodyear of The Kitchen Queen! Things have just gone from strength to strength for Han­nah, who’s quit her day job since I worked with her last year and is teach­ing and cater­ing like crazy. I have to admit, I showed her my mag­a­zine as well and we jumped up and down together in child­ish glee! I’ve said it before: I rec­om­mend a day cook­ing with Han­nah as just about the most fun you can have in a kitchen. There are some “teach­ers” in this world who go into the busi­ness, I fear, in order to stamp down their stu­dents’ con­fi­dence and ambi­tion, while shoring up their own egos. That is dread­ful. Han­nah is the polar oppo­site: she stands back to let you shine, picks up your mis­takes and sets them right, and it’s all backed up with a pure love of food, both cook­ing and eat­ing it. I love her. A few hours with her would be an awfully nice Christ­mas gift for your favorite cook, I can tell you, because there is always some­thing we can all still learn.

That was our day out at the Good Food Show. How we hated to part, in the driz­zly rain, shar­ing ambi­tions and mem­o­ries of all the dishes we had enjoyed. Oh, so deli­cious. Thanks, Charlie.

It’s amaz­ing how a day like that can inspire a per­son to go shop­ping and cook. That, plus the mem­o­ries of the Ottolenghi lasagna I was fed on Hal­loween, spurred me on to invite my friend Annie and her lovely fam­ily to din­ner on Sat­ur­day night. I must say, the exper­i­ment was pretty suc­cess­ful. What I was after was a rather pale, creamy lasagna, as con­trasted with the very meaty, cheesey, toma­toey ver­sion I usu­ally pro­duce. And amaz­ingly, because the creami­ness comes from a light bechamel sauce rather than pounds of cheese, it’s a very light dish. I’d like it still creamier next time, so guess what? You should come and join us.

Creamy Lasagna
(serves 8)

12 sheets lasagna noo­dles
6 large car­rots, sliced in rounds and the slices cut in half
2 tbsps olive oil
1 lb beef mince
6 cloves gar­lic, minced
2 shal­lots, minced
1 large can peeled plum toma­toes
1 tbsp Ital­ian sea­son­ing
4 tbsps but­ter
2 tbsps flour
1 pint whole milk
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
sprin­kle nut­meg
pinch sea salt
fresh-ground black pep­per to taste
1/2 cup grated pecorino or parme­san cheese
1 large ball buf­falo moz­zarella
hand­ful basil leaves, shredded

Begin by boil­ing the lasagna noo­dles till cooked, then drain­ing them and brush­ing them with olive oil to keep them from stick­ing together.

Steam the car­rots until eas­ily pierced with a fork and set aside.

For the meat sauce, heat the olive oil in a large skil­let and begin fry­ing the mince. When it is nearly cooked through, throw in the gar­lic and shal­lots and fry until they are soft­ened and meat com­pletely cooked. Add the toma­toes and Ital­ian sea­son­ing and sim­mer for about 15 minutes.

Mean­while, in a large saucepan, to make the white sauce, melt the but­ter and add the flour: cook together until bub­bling but before it begins to brown. Whisk in the milk slowly, mak­ing sure there are no lumps. Cook until the roux begins to thicken, then add the ricotta, nut­meg, salt and pep­per and stir until thor­oughly mixed.

To assem­ble, ladle enough meat sauce into a 9x13 inch glass dish to cover the bot­tom. Place 4 lasagna sheets on top of the sauce. Pour over half the white sauce. Sprin­kle on the steamed car­rots. Lay down another layer of noo­dles and another layer of meat sauce. Sprin­kle with the grated cheese. Fin­ish with the last 4 lasagna sheets, the last of the meat sauce and pour over the rest of the white sauce. Sprin­kle on the moz­zarella and top with the basil leaves.

Bake in a slow oven (150C, 300F) for about 45 minutes-1 hour until the lasagna is bub­bling and top begin­ning to brown.

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We ate it all! Nor­mally when I say “Serves 8″ I am really gen­er­ous, because no one eats as much as my fam­ily and nor­mal peo­ple will have left­overs. But not on Sat­ur­day night. I was thrilled to see the dish com­pletely empty, as well as the bowl of gar­licky, lemony steamed green beans and the pile of toasted baguette slices. My friend Annie brought a divine dark choco­late tart, per­fect for me since I don’t like sweet things. If you wanted it sweeter, you could use milk chocolate.

Annie’s Choco­late Tart
(serves 8)

12-inch short­crust or sweet pas­try tart shell
11 ounces dou­ble cream
2 tbsps caster sugar (plain gran­u­lated sugar in the US)
pinch salt
4 ounces soft­ened but­ter
1 lb best cook­ing chocolate

Spread grease­proof paper over the tart shell, cover it with beans or pas­try beads and bake at 180C/350F for about 20 min­utes or until thor­oughly baked. Remove the beans and paper and cool completely.

Bring to a boil the cream, sugar and salt, then add the but­ter and choco­late and stir until they are melted. Annie says if the mix­ture sep­a­rates at all, you can add a tiny bit of cold milk and whisk thoroughly.

Once the mix­ture has cooled slightly, pour into tart shell and cool at room tem­per­a­ture for at least 2 hours. Dust with icing sugar or cocoa or both, if you want it to look posh. Serve with dou­ble cream and strawberries.

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This was very, very good. Creamy, sim­ple and perfect.

Well, I think that is enough about food to keep any­one busy and chew­ing for some time. I’ll be back later in the week with reports of… “Drake: the Musi­cal,” which reveals itself to the world on Tues­day night! And there­after Wednes­day, Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. By that time Avery will have dis­ap­peared com­pletely under a layer of pan­cake makeup and we will all be singing the cho­rus about the defeat of the Span­ish Armada. Watch this space.