of ducks, waf­fles, a cathe­dral and pastrami

I for­get, every autumn, that the entire month of Sep­tem­ber and usu­al­ly the begin­ning of Octo­ber are mad, mad, mad.  Part­ly this insan­i­ty is to do with get­ting back in the swing of all the stuff I’ve com­mit­ted to do — host­ing 30+ Ladies Who Vol­un­teer for Lost Prop­er­ty (this year in a kitchen a bit too small to hold us all so it was crowd­ed and loud), being reunit­ed with “my” social work fam­i­ly with Home-Start (and going to an extra train­ing ses­sion on how the new wel­fare cuts will affect our clientele).

The begin­ning of the school year always also brings the fun of sort­ing through, fold­ing and mak­ing ready for deliv­ery the thou­sands of gar­ments that make their way through the Queen Moth­er’s Cloth­ing Guild, in the state­ly rooms of St James’s Palace.  Two days of a very fun­ny com­bi­na­tion of hard graft and soar­ing, gold-tipped ceil­ings.  I wish I could show you, but pho­tographs are strict­ly for­bid­den.  Only the beau­ti­ful gar­dens out­side are fair game.

Of course life would­n’t be com­plete with­out vis­its from the local cat pop­u­la­tion, this year in the shape of the beau­ti­ful girl you see above!  Is she, as neigh­bor­hood gos­sip would have it, Oscar?  Or is Avery cor­rect and she’s in fact a girl, and there­fore chris­tened Cres­si­da by us?  Nev­er mind.  It’s just great fun hav­ing her around.

Our love­ly house-sit­ter Elsie, who mor­phed into the loveli­est house-guest ever when we returned to Lon­don, has base­ly aban­doned us for the joys of life and edu­ca­tion in Oxford.  We miss her!  A two-girl house­hold was tru­ly won­der­ful.  Avery has had to make up the dif­fer­ence by telling us ever more enter­tain­ing sto­ries about musi­cal rehearsals, the adven­tures of the Debate Team, by proud­ly join­ing the Labour Par­ty, and by singing glo­ri­ous­ly at a cer­tain beau­ti­ful cathe­dral, in hon­or of the 504th (or 505th?) birth­day of her school.  It is hard to believe that next year will the last that we attend.  Time has gone so swiftly.

There are deli­cious rea­sons for the mad whirl, as well.  I think the quiet­ness of our sum­mer, and the fact that the only restau­rant I like in our Con­necti­cut town is the fab­u­lous Lau­rel Din­er, meant that we come back to Lon­don quite lit­er­al­ly hun­gry, and for some­thing unusu­al, some­thing fes­tive.  Noth­ing says “fes­tive” like foie gras, so it was but the work of a moment for John to reserve a table at the incred­i­bly trendy, unbe­liev­ably deli­cious Duck and Waf­fle, not far from the cathe­dral, in the City.  A restau­rant on the 40th floor of a sky­scraper, in fact, and entire­ly made of glass.

Did I men­tion that I am mas­sive­ly afraid of heights?

“Don’t even sit down, if you don’t think you’ll have fun,” John said with obvi­ous mys­ti­fi­ca­tion.  “But it’s real­ly a gor­geous view.”

“Yes, but it’s REAL­LY FAR DOWN!  My heart is pounding!”

“Just look at the menu.”

Of course I was sucked in, because the first thing I saw was raw beef with foie gras and Parme­san.  The sec­ond thing I saw was yel­low­tail sashi­mi.  I was hooked.  And the food was just about the best I have ever had.  The tuna was served on a slab of pink salt!

In the fore­ground of this pho­to is a bag full of crispy… pig’s ears.  Real­ly.  Like the ulti­mate bacon mixed with a pota­to stick.

Then came a foie gras creme brulee topped by a chunk of lob­ster.  The com­bi­na­tion of sweet, creamy, liv­ery, crunchy fla­vors with that ulti­mate lux­u­ri­ous seafood was heaven.

And then very inven­tive pol­lock meat­balls in a lob­ster sauce.  I love the idea of fish meat­balls, and these were incom­pa­ra­bly light and airy, topped with lemon-grass and Parme­san bread­crumbs.  How clever.

And tiny slid­ers made of mut­ton — my first! — glazed with a haris­sa BBQ sauce.

Final­ly, no vis­it there could be com­plete with­out duck (con­fit of leg) and waf­fle.  A strange sound­ing com­bi­na­tion per­haps, espe­cial­ly topped by a fried duck­’s egg and driz­zled with mus­tard-seed maple syrup, but quite, quite per­fect.  My Amer­i­can friends from the Deep South assure me it’s just a posh take on a tra­di­tion­al dish of chick­en and waf­fles.  Will have to seek some out, one day.  In the meantime…

Through­out this parade of inven­tive and thrilling dish­es, I grad­u­al­ly got over my fear of the view, although I did notice that I was sit­ting on the VERY far edge of my chair, away from the window!

This culi­nary adven­ture would have been enough for a nor­mal per­son, but the next day I trooped to Not­ting Hill for yet anoth­er amaz­ing lunch with a new girl­friend — although a very dif­fer­ent, very sim­ple lunch — at the bril­liant Books for Cooks.  How is it I have nev­er eat­en there before, all the times I’ve browsed their shelves?

My friend explained.  “Every day, Eric cooks three dish­es from a dif­fer­ent cook­book.  That’s it, no choice.”  The day we vis­it­ed, the starter was a chunky toma­to soup with plen­ty of fresh basil; the main course was a creamy, hot con­coc­tion some­thing between bolog­nese sauce and a mous­sa­ka: full of lamb, tiny ten­der chick­peas and a bechamel-like sauce.  So com­fort­ing and homey.  Dessert was yogurt cheese­cake with rasp­ber­ry glaze.

Oof.

My friend intro­duced me to the own­er and chef, and blithe­ly announced that we would expect to have a launch par­ty there when my cook­book is fin­ished.  From her lips…

Some­how after this feast, against all odds I was starv­ing for din­ner, and so glad to make a real fam­i­ly trea­sure.  My moth­er’s spe­cial, when I was grow­ing up.

Mama Nel’s But­ter­milk Herb Chicken

(serves 4)

1 large chick­en, or 2 breast fil­lets and 2 whole legs

2 cups/484g buttermilk

1/4 cup/32g cornstarch/cornflour

3/4 cup/96g plain flour

1 tbsp each: dried sage, basil, oregano, gar­lic pow­der, onion pow­der, papri­ka, cel­ery salt

3 tbsps olive oil

Quar­ter the chick­en if using a whole chick­en (reserve the spine for stock).

In the morn­ing of the day you want to eat the dish, place the chick­en pieces in a large zip­pered plas­tic bag and pour in the but­ter­milk. Squeeze the chick­en pieces around in the but­ter­milk to coat thor­ough­ly and refrigerate.

Shake the corn­starch, flour and all the dried sea­son­ings in anoth­er large zip­pered plas­tic bag.  One at a time, place the chick­en pieces in the bag and shake until thor­ough­ly coated.

Line a large bak­ing dish with foil and pour in the olive oil.  Place the chick­en pieces skin-side-down in the oil.  Bake at 425F/220C for 30 min­utes, then turn skin-side-up and bake for anoth­er 30 min­utes.  Per­fect with mashed or dauphi­noise potatoes.

********

My moth­er was famous­ly not hap­py in the kitchen, and also end­less­ly on a strict bud­get, so sim­ple and inex­pen­sive was the watch­word dur­ing my child­hood.  I am pret­ty cer­tain this dish was a way to copy Shake ‘n Bake with­out spend­ing the mon­ey.  I’ve loved cook­ing this dish my entire life, and my own devi­a­tion from Mom’s recipe is to mar­i­nate the chick­en pieces in but­ter­milk for as long as pos­si­ble before shak­ing the pieces up in her­by flour.  It’s a warm, appeal­ing dish to offer espe­cial­ly chil­dren, and the kitchen smells delight­ful­ly spicy and rich as it bakes.

Per­fect on the side is a dol­lop of avo­ca­do pesto, which is noth­ing more or less than an avo­ca­do added to your nor­mal pesto recipe and whizzed up in the food mix­er.  So creamy and smooth.

No soon­er had we done the dish­es from this sup­per than it was time for my lat­est research job for Hand­Picked Nation, the most bril­liant food­ie web­site out there.  Up for treat­ment this time was the divine Mon­ty’s Deli in the Malt­by Street Mar­ket of Bermond­sey.  Like a lit­tle slice of New York set right in Lon­don.  Go, but go ear­ly so they don’t run out of pas­tra­mi and dis­ap­point you!

I’m very tempt­ed to learn to make pas­tra­mi myself.  Of course I’ll have to get my bona fide New York­er daugh­ter to taste-test.

Watch this deli­cious space, if I can still fit in it after all I’ve eat­en this month.  (And it’s only the 9th!)