changes are coming

How do you like a com­plete­ly new veg­etable? Seri­ous­ly. As the Dai­ly Mail puts it, the new­ly-mint­ed “flow­er­ing sprouts” give chil­dren all over the UK anoth­er veg­etable to hate. They’re a genet­ic mix of Brus­sels sprouts and kale. Well, I like sprouts, and I like kale. But when you mix the two togeth­er, give them to Marks and Spencer to sell exclu­sive­ly, they take on a new cachet. The grow­er in Chip­ping Cam­den crowed, “Our oth­er sprouts are green with envy.”

Here’s my best advice: Snip off their lit­tle bot­tom stems for fresh­ness, then let the loose leaves detach them­selves and cook them right along with the sprouts. Pour a lit­tle olive oil in a heavy skil­let, then sprin­kle with minced gar­lic and a bit of bal­sam­ic vine­gar. Saute for a moment, turn over and saute again. Then add a bit of water, put a lid on the skil­let and turn off the heat. There you go.

They’re intense­ly fla­vored, with a chewy, love­ly bite, and of course any­thing mixed with olive oil and gar­lic has its charms. We ate them for lunch whilst our own lit­tle sprout was in school, because Avery, sad­ly, will not go near a sprout. Don’t even men­tion kale. I’m lucky that she reg­u­lar­ly begs for broc­coli, aspara­gus, and pep­pers. But sprouts? Not so much.

Sec­ond to this excite­ment is our depar­ture tomor­row for VENICE! John and I went once, in 1986, and we were so com­plete­ly besot­ted with each oth­er that we had very litle time for oh, say, the sights of Venice. We could have been any­where. So this time, with Avery in tow, many restau­rant rec­om­men­da­tions and a firm plan to vis­it a ceme­tery island and glass-bow­ing fac­to­ry, not to men­tion a stay in a real palaz­zo, should be a slight­ly more appre­cia­tive expe­ri­ence. I have a pock­et mini dic­tio­nary (for menus! I fig­ure the rest will fig­ure itself out, but I don’t want inad­ver­tent­ly to order calf’s nos­trils), two nov­els by Don­na Leon, set in the water par­adise, and a page of notes with all my friends’ exhor­ta­tions not to miss this, that, the oth­er. Very excit­ing! We’ll be back Fri­day after­noon, full of sto­ries, no doubt.

Can the food be any bet­ter than our lunch last week at Biben­dum? Such a gor­geous spot, in the Ful­ham Road, above the famed Oys­ter Bar where, in our first turn in Lon­don twen­ty years ago, we bought a lob­ster every Sat­ur­day evening, to accom­pa­ny our bot­tle of cham­pagne. Young love! This time around, we went to the big kids’ restau­rant, and sat con­tent­ed­ly in the warm sun­shine, trav­el­ing through the stained-glass win­dows depict­ing the Miche­lin Man, cast­ing col­ored shards of light on all the diners.

I start­ed with rab­bit ril­lettes, con­fit and rich with a mar­malade quenelle and a sal­ad of flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped hazel­nuts and le Puy lentils, light­ly dressed in olive oil and lemon zest. John rev­elled in chick­en liv­ers with sauteed spinach in puff pas­try with a toma­to mar­jo­ram sauce. Then we chat­ted, wait­ing for our main course, look­ing long­ing­ly at our neigh­bors’ fish and chips, the most gourmet imag­in­able! Then there was a loud crash far over John’s shoul­der and I said with absolute cer­tain­ty, “That was our main course.”

Sure enough, min­utes lat­er the maitre d’ came by, smil­ing wry­ly, car­ry­ing two plates. “That brouha­ha, you may have guessed, was your meal. So here is a lit­tle gift from us, as we pre­pare fresh plates for you.” And there was the starter I reluc­tant­ly passed up in favor of the rab­bit: escabeche of red mul­let with an AMAZ­ING and so sim­ple accom­pa­ni­ment of steamed car­rots, caramelized gold­en onions, blood orange seg­ments, basil and creme fraiche. Sim­ply delight­ful, so sur­pris­ing and fresh, and we nor­mal­ly do not like “fruit and meat.” But the oranges with the fish were love­ly. Intense­ly aro­mat­ic, bit­ing­ly tart, oily and LOVELY.

I could scarce­ly, after all that, eat my main course which was guinea hen, roast­ed with a basil pesto under the skin, swim­ming on a light broth with fen­nel, pars­ley, car­rots and cel­ery. John had kid­neys with a panko-bread­crumb fried pota­to dauphi­noise: total decadence!

So that was the end of our FT spe­cial lunch out­ings: full price for one, the sec­ond per­son for a fiv­er! If you can stop your­self order­ing cham­pagne, it’s an amaz­ing deal. Lunch for two at a Miche­lin-starred restau­rant for under 40 quid.

As if all this weren’t enough… drum­roll please… I have made a big deci­sion about my dar­ling blog. I have come to terms with my admit­ted total intim­i­da­tion and tri­al by admi­ra­tion of a cer­tain oth­er blog­ger run­ning a ranch with hors­es and cat­tle and four home-schooled chil­dren while cook­ing gourmet meals and pho­tograph­ing them all with a state of the art cam­era. John actu­al­ly sug­gest­ed that she’s the blog­ger ver­sion of “Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut” and actu­al­ly writes from a fourth-floor stu­dio walkup in Harlem with a pars­ley plant dying on her win­dowsill: this made me howl with laugh­ter dur­ing our very posh lunch.

As a result, how­ev­er, I have made the acquain­tance of a love­ly, soft-spo­ken Aus­tri­an web­site design­er, and over a pot of pep­per­mint tea (and my gaz­ing upon his 20-some­thing youth­ful, self-dep­re­cat­ing charm) came to a num­ber of con­clu­sions about Kris­ten in Lon­don. Some­day soon I will migrate to some­thing called Word­Press, and with a whole new look. Have no fear, how­ev­er, of my turn­ing the blog into an all-singing, all-danc­ing, advert-obsessed, slideshow-filled, dizzy­ing show of splen­dor. No, my new friend likes Kris­ten in Lon­don just as it is, but thinks it could be improved in terms of what the read­er (you!) sees on the screen at the very begin­ning, and could have more depth in terms of choic­es of things to look at. Most excit­ing­ly, there will be a RECIPE INDEX! I am cau­tious­ly thrilled. Watch this space!

Right, off we go. But not before I tell you about why it will be a long time before I go out again for fish and chips. It’s because — aside from the chips — I can make it myself now! Bet­ter fish than I’ve ever had out. The chips are next. And don’t for­get the tartare sauce, adapt­ed from a recipe in my new cook­book, giv­en me by a friend at my birth­day! Need a present for a new­ly­wed? This cook­book is it. In the mean­time, fry up some had­dock and watch out for the new Kris­ten in Lon­don. You deserve them both.

Fried Had­dock with Tartare Sauce
(serves 4)

4 good fat fil­lets of skin­less haddock

1/2 cup fla­vor­less oil, like sun­flower, saf­flower, soybean

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup corn­flour (corn­starch)
1/2 cup fresh home­made coarse breadcrumbs
2 tbsps Fox Point Sea­son­ing or oth­er dried shal­lot-gar­lic seasoning

2 eggs
1 cup milk

Make sure the fish fil­lets are com­plete­ly dried. Heat the oil in a wide, shal­low saucepan till near­ly smok­ing (I know that sounds sil­ly, but you will be able to tell).

Mix dry ingre­di­ents in a wide, shal­low bowl. Mix eggs and milk in a bowl. Place all fish fil­lets in the egg mix­ture. Have a large plate near­by, ready to receive the fil­lets once battered.

When ready to fry, dip the fish fil­lets, one by one, into the flour-bread­crumb mix­ture, then dip quick­ly again into egg mix­ture and again into flour-bread­crumb. Place gen­tly into hot oil in ONE lay­er. Have a large plate near­by again, topped with sev­er­al lay­ers of paper towel.

Fry the fish on one side for about 2 min­utes, then turn care­ful­ly and fry on sec­ond side for about 2 min­utes or until fil­lets are stiff. Lift care­ful­ly onto the paper towel.

Serve hot with:

Tartare Sauce
(serves 4)

4 tbsps mayonnaise
4 cor­ni­chons, drained and minced
1 tbsp capers, drained and minced
pinch chopped fresh tarragon
juice of 1/4 lemon or lime
fresh-ground black pepper
salt to taste

***************

Be sure to plump for the high­est-qual­i­ty had­dock for these. They should be bright white, firm, thick and odor­less. The result­ing fried fish is crisp, light, not oily in the slight­est, and per­fect with the tart (!) tartare sauce.

Now for the chips… next time.