Nothing personal

Dear Faithful Blog Reader,

I would like to inform you of my recent change of address. I shall no longer use this Blogger site, and have chosen to, as the youth of today might say, “go back to my rootz”.

The reason behind the aforementioned change is simply one of personal preference.

I do hope that no bad feelings shall be caused by this move, and I would be awfully glad if you would do me the honour of visiting my new (but actually old) site. I duly enclose the address below:

http://buttermelts.wordpress.com/

Nothing save the address shall change – the Eyebrow, The Boy and I are all continuing as before. We do very much hope to see you soon.

With much buttery love,

Schpoon.

Ants in your pants or smoke in your eye.

Which one would you prefer?

No, not the latest method of playground guerrilla warfare. But simply a question: a picnic or a BBQ, which one would you prefer?

I’m going to hazard a guess that, for the male readers out there, the answer has been quick and easy: a BBQ.

For the females out there, I can’t say. If they’re anything like me, they will umm and aaahhh, and ponder and wonder, and probably end up writing a blog about it in order to understand their feelings on the matter. Such is the heavy burden carried by the cogitative sex.

The Boy, being a boy, without any hesitation or deviation, but with ardent repetition, maintains that nothing beats a BBQ. The taste of blackened, charcoal-licked flesh, crispy and tender, juices flowing into the soft, billowing dough around it, or onto the zesty, crunchy salad beneath, is enough to send him into a euphoric trance, and one from which I can only rouse with the offer of more meat from the BBQ dear?

When asked what exactly it was about BBQs that gave him such pleasure, considering that the same blackened taste can be achieved in the home, or that such meat can be prepared in advance and taken on a picnic, he didn’t know.

I think I do. (Surprise, surprise). I think it’s the fire aspect of a BBQ. Men stand in front of a fire pit, flames licking sturdy iron bars, hot coals glowing menacingly but lovingly, sizzling and crackling joints of meat, popping and hissing. All very hunter-gatherer. Not that women can’t, don’t or don’t want to BBQ. Just that, more so than slicing and dicing and sautéing and simmering in the kitchen, a BBQ taps into some primordial urge within men.

I’m not going to try and stop that urge. Just last night whilst He feasted on sausages, I feasted on smoky, fat fingers of aubergine and charcoaled portabello mushrooms. Ka. Ching.

As for picnics, The Boy claims he wouldn’t know where to begin. It would all be bought from a supermarket, eaten on scratchy grass, with plastic cutlery that snaps simply trying to pierce an olive, and warm fluids drunk from paper cups that quickly disintegrate and leak their insides out.

Put like that, I too would ask for a BBQ over a picnic every time.

But, oh what innocent delights and enjoyment can be gleaned from the punctilious preparation and ebullient eating of a proper picnic. Crafty schemes to ‘carry’ or encase food using another foodstuff, ingenious ways to transport a salad and dressing without mixing them until required, creatively combined toothpicks of amuse bouche, all eaten on a soft rug, off vibrantly coloured melamine plates, sipping chilled liquids from glass or plastic vessels, the bottles carefully stowed away from the sun’s heat in a cool box.

A loaf of bread turned into a portable panzanella salad: its insides removed, cubed and toasted, then mixed with tomatoes, cucumber, perhaps olives, maybe capers or anchovies, but definitely with grassy, fruity olive oil.

All manner of ‘wraps’, but, the real question is wrapped in what? Lettuce leaves, chapatis, pittas, slices of courgette, spring roll wrappers. Let your imagination run wild.

Jam jars turned into individual layered salads, the dressing poured in first so as not to render the ingredients flabby and limp, ready to be shaken and eaten, no stirring required.

Salads in general present a myriad of possibilities, and get me flapping my arms just thinking about what can be done with a salad. Broad bean, mint and ricotta salata. Courgette carpaccio with lemon, pecorino and parsley. Butternut squash, chilli and rocket. Cumin and coriander roasted cauliflower and chickpeas. Watercress, grapefruit and cucumber. Apple, hazelnut, sorrel and blue or goats’ cheese. Oh lord I could go on.

But wait. Did somebody say cocktail sticks?!!?

Fig, basil and prosciutto. Manchego, grape and cucumber. Smoked duck, cherry and cornichon. Smoked salmon, caper-berry and celery. All woven and threaded onto short wooden picks, no cutlery or napkin required. Down in one.

Focaccia – the ultimate plate for juicy olives, soft and glistening onions, or to ‘dress’ with cured meats or shaved cheeses, or, even for plunging into dips.

Dips, ah dips. Another passion of mine. Soft-boiled eggs, mash with olive oil, parmesan and herbs. Smoky aubergine dip, perhaps fortified with white bean purée, perhaps not. Homemade mackerel paté, enlivened with horseradish and lemon – outrageously much better than shop-bought.

And dippers for said pots of pleasure? The stalwart favourites of grissini, celery, cucumber, peppers and carrot for sure, but forget not the lurid pink radishes (also delicious dipped in butter and celery salt), raw asparagus (trust me on this one, when eaten raw, the taste is so very much more intense. Best with the thinner, younger stems), and little gem lettuce leaves.

And for the nibbles on the side, nuts, olives, cherry tomatoes, grapes, summer fruits, melon, apple, pear, fresh bread, crackers – anything goes. But whatever has gone must have a decent blanket underneath it all. And a decent set of plates and cutlery. Paper cups are forbidden. Plastic is fine (the brighter the better).

Just as the fire aspect of a BBQ taps into something within men (according to my opinion that is), so too the craft, invention and creation behind a picnic’s preparation taps into me. It is like a logical problem to solve – how best to put this in that, and get that to there without that being flabby.  A culinary sudoko.

What both of them share is the al fresco eating, something we sorely lack the opportunity for living in the gloriously grey UK. However these past few weeks, and hopefully one or two more to come, have blessed us all with such opportunities. Whether it’s fiery meat and punchy Pimms, or a repast eaten on some green; be it one or two sausages, or a few boxes of shop-bought salad; BBQs and picnics are something to be enjoyed. A few adventurous ants and whips of smoke are a small price to pay for such abundant delight.

Kou gan is King

It’s like someone took a probe, ventured into the chaos within my cranium, and transmogrified it into succinct and meaningful prose.

Oh for such a talent.

I can now confidently identify myself as a rheophile and The Boy as a neophobe. I have already sampled the delights of natto and sea cucumber, and also calves’ brain, aged 8, at a wedding in Belgium. Apparently I asked my mother what it was, to which she replied “yes dear”. Bemused but unbothered I continued to eat. Not much has changed since – my mother still makes as little sense, and I still adopt the attitude that, as long as it doesn’t make me retch, spontaneously combust or fall over, I’ll continue eating.

Feijoada in Rio de Janeiro presented me with a whole plate full of UFOs – unidentifiable floating objects. Pigs’ feet, tongue, and even an ear complete with hairs were amongst the delights I could identify, the rest I can’t say. What I can say is that it was a serious food moment, hairs aside. Completely delicious.

Regarding the items mentioned in the article that I have yet to encounter, my Japanese boss has shown me a photo of a plate of ducks’ tongues. She went home last year and this was one of the ‘show-stoppers’ at their big family meal. I have yet to be presented with such a show-stopping plate, and I’m not entirely sure that I’d hasten the process, but I would be mighty interested to see if they taste like what they look like – sprawling, pointy, hard, rubbery, mutant squid. After all, I like a good chew off.

I wonder what the Chinese think of our food…mashed potato with (sloppy) veg, gravy and slow cooked roasts…(soggy) pastry enclosed around more slow cooked meat or veg. Steamed puddings, custards and cakes. Soft, beige and unchallenging. The closest we get to a crunch is a crumble, or a biscuit, but even then we insist on dunking it in tea and rendering it wholly pappy and wet.

*sigh*

Not that I’m about to start eating goose intestines on toast or deep fried duck feet with mayonnaise. I don’t think The Boy would appreciate that much. Being the neo- and rheophobe that he is, it’s still touch and go with things like tofu (“oooh. Um. It wobbles”) and bread crusts (“but it hurts my teeth to chew). But it’s why food is constantly in my head – there are the recipes, production methods and ethics to consider, as well as what it says about cultures, history and individual characters.

The Boy – Will instinctively pick the easily understandable. Alone, will not think outside of what he has experienced before. Prefers the known to the unknown, the latter resulting in clammy hands. Muted, soft and creamy (occasionally insensate).

Me – Will instinctively pick that which is not understood, regardless of the potential side-effects. Thinks so constantly about what has been and what could be experienced, results in headaches. Prefers the unknown to the known, the latter resulting in a nihilistic “my life is slipping away from me” mentality. Tart, crunchy and kaleidoscopic (occasionally rampageous).

Sounds about right.

Sweet like chocolate..?

Marinade:

4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon mirin

½ tablespoon fish sauce

½ tablespoon soy sauce

2 small dried chillies

Pinch soft brown sugar

Vegetables for marinade, left overnight:

½ cucumber, seeds removed, diced

Handful of radishes, sliced

1 Asian pear, peeled and piced

To serve:

Watercress

That was my dinner last night. And no, it wasn’t an attempt to pickle my insides. I just love a good tang.

Whilst enjoying said tang, toes fully curled, eyes resting on nothing in particular except the distance, crunching and munching in peaceful harmony, my mind rested upon something (yes, it does happen every so often).

What is it, or why do women, by and large, go nutty for sweet things more than men do? Please note the “by and large”. There are exceptions to every rule, case or scenario. I am one of them. But, the majority of females I know get positively fizzy (oo eer missus) about the idea of some melting moment death by whatever temptation sensation chocolate bomb explosion. And if it’s not chocolate it will be a ludicrous, sorry, ‘cute’ cupcake (excuse me whilst gouge my own eye out with a hot schpoon. An act more enjoyable than a cupcake) piled high with tooth-decayingly offensive buttercream.

Is it the language or imagery used to market and describe these items? Think of Magnum, the ice-creams – sultry colours, the impression of silk or velvet fabric as the background for each advert, lips, swirls, indulgence – it’s all there. 

And then there’s chocolate “melting moments” sold in most supermarkets and on most “gastro” pub menus. I need no genius to identify what moment makes a woman ‘melt’. And one would hope she is not so starved that it comes only in the form of said dessert.

As for our nefarious little cakes, raunchy may not be at the fore, but an overt femininity pervades every crumb. They are ‘cute’ and ‘fun’ and ‘pretty’ and, perhaps most importantly, ‘indulgent’. I have had the misfortune to be trapped on a bus listening to two females extoling the virtues of cupcakes, finishing with the fact that “it is literally like having one whole cake all to yourself, but, like, so much less guilt!” To which the other replied, “Oh my god, how. Fun.” Only in the realms of Blumenthal and Adrià can I imagine food to be “fun”. Otherwise it is enjoyable, delicious, tasty and all the rest of it. But “fun” the food is not. And if it is, the food itself, you need to reassess your interpretation of “fun”.

I have yet to see a man, (without a woman at his side having bought it for him), gleefully tuck into a cupcake as he walks down the street. Krispy Kreme far more likely. But why? They too come in feminine forms – pink glazes, chocolate, sprinkles and flakes. Whilst women most certainly do get fizzy about Krispy Kremes, there is a robustness about just what an assault they are on the palate that make men more amenable the idea. Even the word “doughnut”. You can really cough it out. “Cupcake” on the other hand. It’s infinitely more delicate. Or, tongue in cheek, it sounds like the greeting you’d get from the local grocer as you walked past in the morning.

The other notion is that women spend more time agonising over food and the effects food has on their figures.

A man is hungry. He goes to a shop. He sees a chocolate bar. He buys it. He eats it. He continues with his day.

 A woman is or is not hungry. She craves chocolate. She tries to ignore the craving. She reminds herself of that dress or that party or the bikini. She craves chocolate. She tries to ignore the craving by buying a new piece of clothing online. She craves chocolate. She reminds herself that chocolate is b-a-d. She craves chocolate. She relents and proceeds to eat two chocolate bars. She spends the rest of the day, if not week, regretting having eaten the chocolate.

For the same sort of reasons, women often only eat desserts when eating out, or on a ‘special occasion’. And the same Bacchic frenzy can overtake them at the point of sinking their schpoon into the luscious and impenetrable molten lava glistening before their eyes. There is a sense of having allowed themselves to indulge.

I get that. Everybody ‘indulges’ in something that we know is not wise or healthy to eat every day. Mine would be bread dipped in amazing, virulently green olive oil, Italian cheeses or gelato. But what I don’t get is why this sense of “no, I mustn’t” and then “yes I can indulge” appears to beset women more than men. Is it really all social conditioning to make women care about their figures more than men?

I find that a difficult pill to swallow.

I go mad for fruit, which is sweet, and sorbets or Italian ice-cream (English is too creamy. Bleh), which are also sweet, but that is where it stops. The occasional meringue if it’s still chewy on the inside, maybe one macaron if it is from Mr Incredible Hermes. But otherwise my palate revels in sour, bitter, tangy and sharp. I find chocolate, cream and butter weighty and visually uninteresting. I cannot explain why, and I do not believe myself to be superior because of it. But seeing my fellow females flip a screw over the dessert menu, whilst the males in the group idly glance over it, perhaps pick something, perhaps don’t, and find myself scouring the coffee making apparatus, cheese on offer, or digestifs, well, it doesn’t make sense to believe there is nothing behind it.

Is there something in a woman’s sensory receptors that is more responsive to desserts and sweet tastes? You don’t hear many men ordering an Archers and lemonade at the bar…

Or is it the internal dialogue that besets even the most relaxed and confident women, gently reminding them of the potential negative effects of having that dessert?

Or, is it the marketing used for these products? Are women more susceptible to the hidden messages? In daily life we are most certainly more sensitive to nuances than men. And most definitely more thinking than men (no, not a feminist rant. Just that on the whole [again, exceptions to every rule] women think about ‘things’ more than men. Men tend to accept what is there in front of them, end of).

As I ate, occasionally screwing my nose up slightly in delight at the sharp, salty, tangy KAPOW my dinner was enrobing my palate in, I resolved that I had no idea. Probably a mix of it all. And if the genetic or mental wiring element holds true, I definitely don’t have it.

And with that I reached for my dessert. The jar of pickled onions, and my schpoon.

The potato and rose

No, it’s not the name of the newest gastro-rubbish. As if we needed any more.

I’m referring Shakespeare and his rose, and Gershwin and his potato (and tomato). Will and George both approached these morphemes in a largely egalitarian manner – pronunciation and the morpheme itself are held as irrelevant compared with the object.

I am all for engaging with the substance and truth of something. It’s what art is about, isn’t it? In whatever manner the artist has understood something, don’t they seek to portray that elemental truth? If I was feeling really generous, I would consider even Hirst or the Chapman Brothers as trying to get to the truth of what they are producing. But, I’m not, so I won’t.

Anyway, as usual, I digress. The substance of something versus the term used to describe it.

It is my brother’s 30^th birthday this Sunday and I am arranging a wee soiree at his favourite steak restaurant. I have yet to eat at this particular establishment given that, being the monogamous type, I have eaten at The Hawksmoor. No further explanation required. My brother, however, has always maintained that his steak restaurant was far better than The Hawksmoor, having eaten at both. This holds little sway with me coming from the boy who flaps his hands over the idea of a stuffed-crust meat feast pizza from the faceless pizza takeaway near his house.

Oh my, how the eyebrow arches.

Anyway, his 30^th, so his favourite restaurant. We will be a merry group of 7, so I dutifully phoned said “incredible steak joint” to book a table. Now, being the diplomatic and not at all biased individual that I am, I shan’t name this establishment. All I will say is that the name begins with ‘G’, and doesn’t end in ‘o’. You do the maths.

The phone is answered in a hurried and already irritated fashion (I have specifically called after the lunch rush, at 3pm, knowing how hectic it can be answering phones and attending guests).

“Hello G…., can I help you?”

“Hi there, I’d like to book a table for next week, for 7 please.”

“What day?”

“We’re completely flexible as to the day, it’s more the time – around 7pm. I know we’re a larger table, so really any day you can fit 7 of us in at 7pm.”

“Madam, I need a day.”

“Um, ok, what about Thursday?”

“What? Thursday? No, no way. You can’t have a table for 7 on Thursday.”

“Oh, really? Why?”

“Madam, it’s Thursday evening.”

“Yes.”

“No, we’re fully booked every night from Thursday to Saturday.”

“What, every week?”

“Yes Madam.”

“Even throughout next month?”

*sigh* “What. Date. Do. You. want. To. Come. Madam?”

“Is it not simpler if you tell me when you can accommodate 7 people at 7pm?”

“No.”

“Okaaay. How about 3 July?”

“No. I can’t do 7pm.”

“Can you do another time?”

“What time do you want?”

“Around 7.30 then?”

“No.”

At this point I was really rather uninterested at the idea of eating at this establishment at all.

“Ok, what about your City restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“ Yes you have a table at 7pm on Thursday?”

“NO. Yes you can call them. Goodbye.”

And so the call was ended.

Aside from her outrageous unhelpfulness, it was the way she called me “madam” that irked me. She used it as if I had started the conversation by telling her she should curtsey when I enter the room, not look me in the eye, and always call me “madam”. The word was thrown at me, spat out with contemptuous venom at each turn.

Feathers firmly ruffled by her rudeness, I reluctantly tried the City branch. No luck there either with a table, however a decidedly less rude conversation, albeit just as unhelpful in terms of searching for availability for 7. We had to go through the whole ‘name a date’ scenario before realising that in the near future there is nothing for 7 at 7.

Thinking about it after, there are obvious issues I have with their modus operandi and the tone in which I was spoken to from simply having asked to book a table please. (I work with someone who approaches every restaurant booking with the “don’t you know who I am” strategy. She then proceeds to snap and demand, threatening all manner of bad PR, until she gets what she wants and puts the phone down, voraciously pleased with herself.) But more than anything, it was how she called me “madam” that stuck.

As a child, my parents would tell me not to “be such a madam”. A ‘madam’ was someone stroppy and unpleasant. (She in the office is a madam working from that definition). However now, at work, I have to address male clients as “sir” and female clients as “madam”. It is a polite way of referring to someone unknown to you. George’s egalitarianism gets washed away here – the pronunciation of this word makes an immense difference to its meaning.

The other day The Boy asked me if being called a ‘lady’ offended me. I smirked. I am most certainly not a lady (he agreed). Alternatives are ‘woman’, ‘female’ or ‘girl’. When speaking about myself, I can’t bring myself to use ‘lady’ or ‘woman’. Far too…grown up? Inflated? Anyway. It’s either ‘girl’ or ‘female’, admittedly the latter sounding more like something being discussed in a post-mortem examination.

For men there is ‘gentleman’ (Ha. Ha. Pray tell where I can find one of those..?), ‘man’, ‘bloke’ (one of the ugliest words in the common language), ‘guy’, ‘boy’, and ‘male’. People my age are ‘boys’. People my father’s age are ‘men’. End of. Much simpler than the lady-woman situation. ‘Gentleman’ is too cumbersome, and nowadays is sparsely heard in familiar conversation.

Signing off emails or letters is another good one. Recently I was in conversation, via email, with a recruitment consultant, and in her final email she wrote her name and then “x”. I have never met this womanladyfemalegirl. Our relationship has been solely this handful of emails, in which I am seeking her professional help. Is a kiss really apposite?

I will concede that I listen and think a lot. Words, their meanings and connotations, seep into my brain like rum into a baba, saturating it with ideas and ruminations. Perhaps more so than others. But like our rose, potato and tomato, it is the thing which the word describes that gets my cogs turning, and how volatile a word can be, creating all manner of connotations in its wake. Should I stop being a madam and start being a madam? Or should I aim higher? Should I be a lady? And should I cease and desist calling him The Boy? Is A Boy better? Or The Man? And saying good bye to you now. Would you be offended if I went in for a kiss?

Or, after all that we’ve been through together, would you be offended with nothing at all?

I know. DIY. Fill in the blank as you see fit.

___

Those happy endings

I’m fine with the fact that I am not logical. I know I have oddities. The Boy probably calls them absurdities. But that’s fine. Making sense and being predictable and logical is completely over-rated. I have to be methodical in the workplace. In fact, I seem to have to be methodical for everyone around me in the work place. So in anything else, I reserve the right to be precisely what I want to be, regardless of whether or not there is a sensible reason behind it. To hell with rationale. Living by the seat of my bloomers, I know.

When something is good, by and large, you don’t want it to end or stop. On Monday night, for example, I took The Boy to St John’s Restaurant for his birthday, and that was a meal which I didn’t want to stop. The more I ate, the hungrier I became. (Remember, my appetite is great.) And when it was gone, I was sad. I wanted to order it all and start again.

However, there are certain food-stuffs that, when eating the end, I am over-joyed and make pleased chuntering sounds. Some examples that spring to mind are:

Cereal.

Bread (not the pre-sliced monstrosities. Proper bread).

Crackers.

An ice-cream cone (previously having contained ice-cream).

A crêpe, folded, as is traditional, into a triangle. The point of that triangle.

Food from the pan or serving dish.

For each of the above, I revel, like a pig would in mud, when munching away on their ends. The Boy and I eat different cereals, and I get to have his ends. That’s love, isn’t it? He calls them ‘dust’, retracts his head slightly and wrinkles his nose. I call them WONDER-dust, stick my head forward enthusiastically and open my gob.

With bread, again, The Boy doesn’t do the ends, the crust.  And yes, his love stretches to giving me his crusts. But, I’m no sponge. I give. He gets the squidgy, doughy pillow from my bread. I can’t deny that when alone, I scoff that part too, but, tit for tat, crust for dough. His reasoning here is that he doesn’t like chewing (this holds true for all food. A preference which I will never be able to comprehend, me with my penchant for anything raw and crunchy). My reasoning is that I love chewing, and that the crust, when off a decent loaf, has a wonderful brown taste to it. I can almost smell the flour-dusty oven and taste the hot baking trays as I gnaw away.

Cracker packets are a veritable treasure trove. Much like the cereal wonder-dust, particularly if they are seeded crackers, the corners of their packet hold all manner of blissful fragments. Sprinkle them over a salad, on top of a soup, or just straight onto a spoon.

Now the ice-cream cone and crêpe are one and the same idea. Actually wraps too. I would like to add wraps to this list. (I dislike burritos because they are flabby and stick to the roof of my mouth, so that I look like a cat summoning forth a hair ball as I use my tongue to unstick said pappy covering. So when I say “wrap”, I mean the type made from Lebanese flatbreads.)

Essentially I am referring to anything that is an edible container, with a bottom. As you eat your way down, the juices or remnants and smaller parts of the filling work their way to the bottom. By the time you come to the end, behold - there is a delightful pot of edible gold waiting for you. You eye each other up, lovingly, for a brief moment, and then, with a beatific smile, you both know what comes next. Eyes closed, head back, down in one. Oh. Yes.

As for food, from the pan in which it was cooked or dish in which it was served, that confuses me more. I enjoy cooking, so the idea that the leftovers from a pan taste better because they haven’t been immediately preceded by slaving away over the stove doesn’t fit. Even when I have had a plate of the food in question, and enjoyed that plate, a schpoonful from the pan ultimately tastes better. I know if you left the food over-night, the flavours may have developed and so taste better for that reason. But, otherwise I can’t quite put my finger on why I enjoy food from the pan or dish so much.

I suppose it’s similar to baked beans in the tin, straight from the fridge. Or is that just me?

This pan/ dish scenario is a conundrum to me. I’m sure some psycho-expert could tell me why. To be completely honest, I don’t really care. I like schpoonfuls from pans, tins and serving dishes. No need for a reason why. When I worked in a small B&B in Umbria, where dinner usually comprised of 4 courses, and at least 8 side dishes with the mains, all taken from their vegetable garden that day, we used to wait for the guests to have finished their meals before picking odds and ends off the serving dishes. The type of satisfaction that gave rise to is different to that gleaned from eating a whole plate of eye-crossingly delicious food (because it was), but I would say it is just as powerful.

In short, an eternally happy ending for this here schpoon and her ends.

It's been a pleasure to meat you

There is something profoundly comforting knowing that someone knows you well. Perhaps it is linked to the subconscious realisation that they know you well and still choose to associate with you…or perhaps that’s just me..?

Anyway, for me, when someone close to me does something right up my street, bang on my button and hits my jackpot (no, that wasn’t a euphemism for anything you foul beast), it gives me a strange sense of security. Being known is one step closer to being understood, and being understood is inextricably linked with being connected with another. And the search for connections with others is a universal, eternal instinct in all humans.  

Opening my birthday card from The Boy back in April was a faceful of said security. My present was a butchery course. I do gormless very well on a normal day, but in that moment, I did gormless to a whole new level. I think for a moment he thought I was staring at the card because I wasn’t happy with its contents.

Oh dear Boy, how very wrong.

When I worked in a restaurant, it was a fish restaurant, and I was a pastry chef. I did learn about fish, but the meat all came prepared. A butchery course, aside from the macabre attraction of slicing and dicing animal anatomy, had always been something I thought would be immensely useful. As food prices rise, being able to buy a whole joint of something and zorro it up into its smaller cuts definitely helps, and then there’s also being able to present a cut of meat well.

The course I attended was at The Butchery Ltd, in their headquarters under the railway arches in Bermondsey. They run numerous courses focussing on one particular animal, but this was a megamix of meat: Butchery to Pimp your Home Cooking. Over three hours we jointed a chicken, a leg of lamb and a whole shoulder of pork. Wait. It gets better. We got to take it all home. Anything we wanted from our class, we could have. Bones for stock, just the meat, both, neither, all. Everything.

A frenzy of meat.

There were just three of us in the class, run by the co-owner of the company, Nathan Mills. He and his partner came over from Australia around 8 years ago, having grown up in a family of butchers. To hear his journey from when he arrived here to owning his own company would make even the most hardened name-dropper blush. But he reels off the names as if they were average Joes, not because he’s arrogant, but because to him they are precisely that, average Joes. Just people. Jamie Oliver, Barbecoa, Whole Foods, Smithfields, Borough, Raymond Blanc, Angela Hartnett – they’ve all had or are in line to get a piece of his meat. (AGAIN, stop being so dirty. No double entendres.)

Not to my surprise, my fellow rookies were male. Nathan confirmed my suspicion that there aren’t a vast amount of women in the butchery business (in the UK at least). I can appreciate why – my “little piggy” required both hands to lift it, and then there are the cows in the walk-in fridge. Close to 90kg each.

Hmmmm. I can’t imagine being over successful trying to move one of those alone.

Nathan took us through the cuts with ease and explanation, but not over-complication. He helped when we struggled, but never took over too soon – we wrestled and we stabbed and we probed and we cut. And only if we really started to hash it up did he come to our rescue.

With the chicken, we removed the breasts and marinated them in cloudy apple juice, garlic, sage, chilli, rosemary and thyme. I hadn’t ever thought about apple juice as a marinade for chicken, but I can honestly say, having cooked them last night, they tasted wonderful. We had also removed the legs, which I poached last night, and with the carcass I obviously made some stock. Roll on risotto, please and thank you.

With the lamb, we removed the bone and then butterflied the meat out for barbequing. Well, he is Australian. That had a simpler marinade of a splash of oil, lashings of garlic, thyme and rosemary.

And for the finale, we had the pork. We removed the ribs and numerous other bones that I dare not name for fear of getting them wrong, but lots of bones we did remove. And then we butterflied the joint, layered up outrageous quantities of garlic, sage, rosemary and thyme, and then rolled the beast.

It was at this point, having finished the work with knives, that Nathan advised a glass of wine may help. Not as a marinade for the meat, but for us before we tried our hands at tying the joint up. So, glasses of red in hands, we watched as Nathan demonstrated slowly, twice, how to tie the joint up.

Hmmmm.

The Eyebrow was most certainly raised.

Deep breath. Big gulp. Off we go.

After much laughing and invention of new and interesting knots never seen before, we all finally got there, and before we knew it we were scouring for anything which we could roll up and tie.

With our spoils we then vacuumed packed whatever we wanted, Nathan tidied up, and we sat down together to a light dinner of fantastic bread, cheese, smoked venison, and sterling British hot-water crust pies. We were even treated to a visit from Nathan’s partner, who is the office machine behind the company, and their 16 month old daughter. The conversation ranged from how they got to where they are now, to amusing accounts of other class attendees (doctors) reconstructing the carcasses they had only just carved up in perfectly accurate anatomical way, and onto the whys and wherefores of Ebay and antique meat slicers. Food, of course, was at the core of it all.

As I struggled out with two very heavy bags of flesh, I had that grin again. The same type of elemental, profound grin caused by knowing I am known, but this was caused by knowing that there are people out there who know about what they do, and who want to share that, whether through classes or by offering the best product available. And I suppose again there is that sense of having connected with the course, Nathan, the other attendees. With gifts like that, with butchers like them, and with evening courses like this, the world can’t be all bad, can it.

Do, or do not. There is no try.

Why did you do that?

Um. I don’t know.

Ok. Well, do you remember the last time you did that?

Yes.

And how it went wrong that time too?

Um. Yes.

Ok, so you did it again.

Um…Yes.

Hmm. Well, next time, shall we try for you not to do it again?

Um… … Yes.

So run most conversations The Boy and I have on the rare occasions that he cooks. Inevitably something will go wrong, and, most probably will be something caused by him having repeated a mistake he’s made before.

It leaves me blinking. Sometimes, even speechless (much to his delight).

We talk about it sometimes, other times we engage in animated debate about it. But, what we both agree on is that cooking and food, for me, is second nature, and for him doesn’t even register on the nature-scale.

The majority of women think about make up, making themselves up and how to save up for that killer dress. I think about seasons, seasonings and how to save up for that killer saddle of venison. I’ve been cooking pasta from the age of 7 for my brother and father and me (my mother worked away a lot), so it’s no surprise that now, 20 years down the line, I’m comfortable with cooking (and really comfortable with eating. Grin).

The Boy, on the very far removed other hand, did not cook. He has the blessing of a very caring mother who did it all for him. At university, like so many other student beings, he lived off frozen pizzas, beer and bread. So, aside from all the other wench-like qualities I have thrust into his life since we have been us, he’s had a rude awakening into what good food is, and, cooking. How he has to learn at least something about it.

It may not surprise those of you who know me to hear that first on the agenda was pasta. I will now admit to having purposely put the fear of Zeus in him about over-cooking it. I made it perfectly clear when we set out on this voyage of culinary discovery that my neck turns red, my eye twitches and my throat closes when someone over cooks pasta. And it worked beautifully. Never has such attention been paid to a pan than when The Boy is cooking us pasta. Aside from the very first time he cooked it when it was actually over-cooked, he has never produced anything other than assuredly al dente pasta. (And in my defence, even with that first sloppy attempt, I didn’t turn into The Incredible Hulk on him. I’m actually a big pussy cat at heart.)

However now I find myself facing a bigger problem. He has grown comfortable with pasta, which is great, but it is largely reliant on my being there and talking him through every step. If I don’t tell him to do something, he won’t do it, even if this is something that needs doing, like turning a pan down if it’s burning. Why not? Because I didn’t tell him to.

How can I teach him to use his intuition when intuition relies on previous experience? And how can he build up genuine previous experience if he’s only comfortable cooking when I am telling him what to do? When I do it’s as if I am to be the puppeteer and him my floppy, inanimate play-piece. (No analogies to be made there please).

The times that I’m not able to retain my usual patience of a saint (ha.ha.), our kitchen episodes turn into Episodes. I see red at the lack of pragmatism that pervades his actions. Why did you continue to cook the vegetables if you could see them burning? Don’t you think you should add more water to the rice if it’s not cooked but the water has evaporated? And how do you think you peel an egg?!!?!?!

After such an episode, he will no doubt tell me that he’s not “good enough” to cook without a cookbook, and next time he’s going to pick a recipe and cook from a book.

Fine. Please do.

Fast-forward to the cooking from a book day, and, guess what? He’s concentrating so hard on reading the steps and wondering whether slicing means long bits or small square bits, and where it might tell you what to do if the potato isn’t soft even though you’ve had it in the pan for the time it says in the recipe, that he doesn’t have time to cut at all and serves up raw potato. And probably burns something too, just for good measure.

And so we’re back here again.

Do you remember me telling you that cutting things the same size means it cooks at the same time?

Yes.

Ok, so why didn’t you do that this time.

Um. I don’t know.

Ok. Did the recipe tell you to?

Um… no. Well, it just said ‘slice’. But I didn’t know what that meant and then I had to put it in the pan and it wasn’t ready.

Why didn’t you turn the pan off to give yourself some time?

Um… … I don’t know. The recipe didn’t say that.

Blink.

Breathe.

Blink.

You hear it all the time nowadays – food writers or chefs sharing a recipe on TV or in a magazine, and saying that it shouldn’t be something to constrain the cook. It should be something to inspire. Instead of being something for a novice cook, I think recipes are something for a more experienced cook. How else do you know what to do if your recipe attempt starts to go off-piste? Or what might be a good substitute for chervil?

A novice cook should be in the kitchen messing around, fully concentrating on the messing so that if it messes up, they’ll remember what caused the mess and hopefully not do it again. How can a recipe writer possible intuit what its reader might understand from ‘a medium heat’, or ‘rolling boil’ if they’ve never experienced that before? It’s not the writer’s fault. They can’t possibly predict all the potentially misunderstandings of their recipe. But, then, as a novice obediently following a recipe, what are they supposed to do when the pan they believe to be on a medium heat has scorched their garlic into demonic brown gravel and filled the kitchen with smoke? It’s not in the recipe, so maybe it’s right…?

Yes there are beginners’ cookbooks, but, much like life, the best way to learn is to do. And to do wholeheartedly. Yoga teaches its pupils the importance of being present. Simply being in the moment in which you are now. Being here fully and completely. And in the kitchen that’s all you need. An engagement with your product and processes, even if that’s simply not letting the teabag stew or the Vienetta melt (a heinous crime worthy of being hung, drawn and made into carpaccio). I don’t expect The Boy to suddenly start meditating in the lotus position before he enters the kitchen, but, what I do hope is that one day soon he’ll stop believing he can’t do it alone and start believing it’s worth a go. Have a stab at it. Suck it and see. Risk it for a biscuit.

No questions about it: a Wagon Wheel, with jam. Easy.

Je sais quoi

There are times that I eat out as a practical measure – perhaps to catch up with a friend after work for longer than a just quick drink, or a plate of something nearby your evening’s destination be it theatre, gathering or film.

Then there are the times I eat out for the eating element – The Boy and I will book a table in ‘good’ restaurant to mark an occasion, and for probably the whole week preceding it I will be perusing the menu and flapping my hands in excitement at the impending feed.

On Friday we were lucky enough to see ‘The Audience’, with lovely lovely Helen Mirren. I go weak at the knees with love for her and her talent as an actress, so The Boy got outrageously large amounts of brownie points for finding those tickets. As a thank you, I said I would get the dinner beforehand. But, that left me in a no-man’s land between the two scenarios above – we needed to eat something as a practical measure (remember, I have an appetite on me nearly all the time, so the idea of not eating one evening is just silly), but as a thank you for the theatre tickets, I wanted to eat something for the eating of it.

Hmmm.

Practicality reigned initially, in that I knew it would have to be somewhere close to the theatre. Soho. Doesn’t exactly narrow the options down, does it?

But, in one of those perfect-alignments-of-the-heavenly-bodies moment, I happened to start looking at the Arbutus restaurant group, comprising Arbutus, Wild Honey and Les Deux Salons. Set up by Anthony Demetre and Will Smith (not the Wild West Will. A different Will), Arbutus was the first restaurant they opened back in 2006, in Soho. The year after saw Wild Honey open in Mayfair, and a Michelin star awarded to Arbutus, and in 2010, Les Deux Salons opened in Covent Garden.

I was surprised at my own reaction to the menus. There is very clearly a French theme running through them all. And me and French food don’t get on, for two main reasons: butter and cream. Bleh. I can’t do either of them, especially not in the quantity that the French use them. Give me olive oil and sauce-less dishes any day. Thus my affinity with Italian food. However, their menus got my attention and Arbutus and Wild Honey were both promptly added to The List Of Restaurants I Want To Eat At. Les Deux Salons is just that bit too typically French.

A table was booked at Arbutus for 6pm, the a la carte menu (I don’t believe a kitchen is seen at its best through the eyes of a pre-theatre menu). A word, however, must be said about the pre-theatre menu. It is £18.95 for two courses or £20.95 for three, running until 6.30pm Monday to Saturday.  They also offer a plat du jour for £10 including a (250ml) carafe of wine. The dishes offered do not look like the impoverished relatives of the finer forays into gastronomy found on the full menu. They feature on the a la carte too. I’m not sure that many Michelin starred restaurants in London offer those kinds of deals. Even the a la carte menu is reasonably priced. Already I felt myself warming to this group.

The interior of the restaurant is elegant without being intimidating, airy without being impersonal and alive without being hectic. We were showed to our table, and, after a Week (note the capital) I needed some wine. I’m not sure if he was a dedicated sommelier, but a gentleman came to take our drinks order soon after we’d sat down, and when asked a few questions about the wines, was able to direct us to something we might like. If we didn’t like it he would take it away and we could choose something else. Wines are listed as 750ml, or as 250ml carafes, and, guess what? The 250ml price is nearly exactly a third of the 750ml price.

The Eyebrow smiled.

Next came choosing the food. Mediterranean fish soup immediately grabbed me, followed by roasted cod fillet, baby squid and squid ink, with sea purslane. The Boy was toying between a steak tartare and Dorset crab for starters, with a main of lamb, carrot and cumin puree, Madeira-braised celery and pine nuts.

Our waiter came and I asked if the soup was cream based. Woe upon woe, it was. Immediately he asked if I was lactose intolerant. I explained that I luckily wasn’t, but it was more that I didn’t enjoy creamy dishes. He smiled, said he was lactose intolerant, and then proceeded to take me through which dish didn’t have a creamy sauce and which dish he could ask Chef to omit the creamy element. He also said, when taking my mains order, that he would ask Chef not to cook the fish in butter. I hadn’t even thought to ask that. I had never thought to ask that.

Were it more polite, I would have sat with my mouth agape.

I took his advice and went for the Dorset crab with avocado, peas, peanuts and loquats, followed by the cod. Given I was having the crab, the boy went for the steak tartare and then the lamb. That I don’t like avocado (one of the many reasons I drive me mad. I try so hard and every time it just makes me body-squirm and pull a face that would make the International Gurners’ Association proud) or peanuts didn’t matter. I hate making fusses, and having worked in a kitchen know how irritating it can be having an order come through holding this and that and the next thing. I resolved to strategically place said offending items to one side of the plate.

The starters arrived and we tucked in. The Boy’s tartare was a tart yet mellow mix of Tabasco, soft, delicate flesh and Worcestershire sauce. My crab was sweet and fruity, the loquats firm and tangy, the peas were freshly podded and raw, the avocado was, drum roll please, enjoyable. Yes. Thin slices of firm avocado. None of the usual slippery, paste-like slime that has me wriggling in dismay. The Eyebrow smiled again.

The mains were as triumphant as the starters. The Boy’s lamb was a long fillet, encased in a thin layer of skin so crispy it looked like pancetta. The meat was soft and rich, obviously having benefitted from the layer of fat seeping in as it cooked. The accompaniments were delicious too, the Madeira-braised celery being a particular favourite, and a small ramekin of Dauphinoise potatoes had him grinning from ear to ear.

My fish was impeccably cooked – the cod was light golden on the outside, yet the flesh inside was as tender as sashimi. The baby squid were delicious, lightly floured and pan-fried, still soft and wonderfully salty. My one suggestion would have been a bit more green. The purslane was literally a few tiny leaves on top of the cod. I can’t help but think, even if only visually, a serving of samphire, peas or braised little gem would have helped.

It was only after I had completely cleaned the plate that I realised there had been no squid ink. There was a smear of pale yellow that, I have to admit, didn’t have an enormous taste, but definitely no black. When our lovely lovely waiter came back, I asked politely where the ink had been. He blinked. It was the black on the plate. He hadn’t brought the mains plates to our table, so hadn’t spotted there was no black. I said there was yellow but no black. He smiled. Oh that must be because Chef uses butter or cream in the squid ink sauce.

I don’t know what I appreciated more. The relaxed yet enjoyable atmosphere of the restaurant; the fact that the waiter knew so much about each dish and had no qualms telling us what he personally would recommend; that the wine is the same price whether you get a bottle or carafe; that the Chef listened to what the waiter asked and followed it through in all aspects of the meal; or how beautifully they cooked everything.

I’d like all of the above please. Arbutus deserves all the praise it gets. There is no pomp and no ceremony. They provide ‘fine-dining’ in an unassuming environment, at reasonable prices, with personable, thinking waiters and chefs, and the emphasis lying firmly on the food. That meal has lifted my spirits and has given me hope that restaurants aren’t only out to make a profit. It was a rare occasion where the practical need to eat met with the emotional need to eat good food. Arbutus is the genus name of a group of evergreen shrubs and trees. I knew I liked trees for a reason.

It is only after writing this that I happened upon a Jay Raynor review of another, nearby restaurant in which he reveals that when asked for a “reasonably priced quality place” he recommends Arbutus. Amen to that.

Now be good, and do as I say

It’s Sunday morning. I have stayed with my parents the previous night, and as I knew would be the case, a request has been made for cake. Two types. A traditional ginger cake and Maids of Honour. My father loves good, honest cake. None of this cupcake or whoopie whatever rubbish. Cake. The types of cakes that are quintessentially British, that no other nation really comes close to making.

These requests sent from on high are always welcome. I wouldn’t ever think to make them for me, so having an excuse to try my schpoooon at some wartime or old-fashioned recipes is refreshing.

Only problem was that there was no curd cheese (for the Maids), and the bicarb tub looked old enough to take centre stage on The Antiques Roadshow. So off I trotted to the local Waitrose.

Now then, a moment please. Waitrose. Oh what heavenly, hallowed ground you occupy both on this earth and in my heart. Your lights are not neon; they are a softer, empyreal glow. Your colours are a showcase of Farrow & Ball neutrals, not acrid primary colours that offend the retina. You are never so big that I feel my life slipping through my fingers as I complete an odyssey of the aisles. You are smaller and more perfectly formed, a size that means I leave the same person as I entered, not a hysterical, fraying shadow of my former self. Your products are enticing, your sourcing and range considered. You give (aisle) space to goods that other purveyors shun in favour of the mass-produced, characterless items. You allow smaller producers to shine.

Back to Sunday morning. Waitrose. Curd, bicarb and perhaps a basket full of other treats, in the queue at the check-out. Behind me was a gentleman. And after a few minutes, behind him appeared another gentleman with his two daughters. I am officially abysmal at accurately identifying ages, but, I suppose the girls were around 7 or 9 years old, and the two men between 45 and 55.

As with most check-out queues, there is always that quick, stolen glance backwards or forwards over  your fellow queuer’s wares. A quick dip into their life. A snatched eyeful of what makes them tick. (Or is that just me?) Anyway, the two men did exactly that, but not only the food, over each other too. After a pause, the man next to me turned to the father and asked him if he had really competed in the triathlon on the t-shirt he was wearing. Yes he had actually. Pause. Did he do that kind of thing often? Oh yes, since 2009 now, yup, regular triathlete. And this year it’s an Iron Man too. Yes, in training for that. (Now. I must say that to look at him you would be forgiven for not immediately associating his physique with someone who completes triathlons, let alone an Iron Man.)  Pause. The man next to me also did triathlons, and had done the triathlon on the father’s t-shirt. Pause. As I knew would be the case sooner or later, there it came. The Question. What time did he get? I squirmed quietly to myself. There was only 7 minutes between the two of them.

The conversation then continued on to the father giving forth about his strengths and weaknesses in the triathlon. ‘Transitions’ weren’t his forte; however his entry into the water was spot-on. As the restrainedly competitive conversation continued between these two mid-life-crisis men, my eyes wandered to the girls. They were happily unloading the trolley onto the conveyor, and as they went, they were identifying which items they loved, or were going to eat all of, or were not for the other one. Typical sibling chatter.

What was untypical (in my opinion), was that with some items, such as breadsticks (grissini), one girl told the other how excited she was about eating these and how she loved them with soup because they were like ginormous cretins (I think she meant enormous croutons. I failed in stifling my snigger), only to have her sibling round on her. No, breadsticks are bad. Didn’t she remember that Daddy had told them they were made of bread and that bread was bad? She personally was looking forward to the noodles and stir fry, and she hoped Mummy would make it with prawns again because prawns are nicer than meat. Perhaps in an attempt to strike back after the grissini put-down, her sibling took the opportunity to now remind her that Daddy had said prawns were bad for you because they don’t have any protein in them and that meat is better.

I could hear the conversations right there and then. Their father giving forth about the pros and cons of prawns and bread, all of it as misguided and misinformed as the rest. Breadsticks being made of bread? Has he eaten one? Did they not remind him of a cracker as opposed to a French baguette? And bread being bad for you? Pray tell, why, if bread is so bad, were there two huge farmhouse loaves in their trolley? And prawns not containing enough protein – let me guess, this is because when one is an Iron Man in training, the diet has to be protein, protein, protein.

Perhaps some of this prattle had been misinterpreted by the girls – perhaps their father had warned them against eating too much bread, or had tried to encourage them to eat more meat highlighting its benefits in contrast with something they did enjoy eating…But I can’t help to think that because he was essentially an Iron Man (in his head), he felt it was his duty to confer upon all around him how best to nourish themselves, based purely on the skewed vision he had for himself and his training.

A growing little person needs something from every food group. I would argue that a growed big person still needs something from every group, but perhaps it is less important than for the growing. The father had made a decision to train for triathlons and Iron Men, but that should remain a decision for his life. Is it right he should bestow his own opinions about his own decision on his two children? Where is the line for parents to stop at between beneficially guiding and informing offspring based on their own previous ‘life-experience’, and dictating and moulding their children based on their current life decisions that can be less firmly informed? Parents are human, and, being human can get it wrong. But there was something that didn’t sit well with me about these two young girls counselling each other incorrectly on what they were and were not allowed to eat.

With a heavier heart than usual, I left Waitrose and went home to bake. When distracted, I can often make mistakes, such as forgetting to fold in the lemon juice in a lemon cake, but luckily Mr Triathlon Extraordinaire made no impact on my work. Lo and behold Maids of Honour, complete with home-made (rough) puff pastry.

  

My father, my toughest critic and my baking Yoda, gave the nod of approval. And I gave a sigh of relief. He guides, he cajoles, he criticises and he (sometimes) commends, but he’s never withheld or demonised food. It is something to be enjoyed, to be looked-forward to and to be appreciated. He’s had a long-standing health issue, and through it all, the occasional honest home-baked cake provides him with a stronger kind of respite than all of his medicines do.

It is from him and my mother that I have adopted the instinct to turn to food to comfort others. Not in a I’ve-just-gorged-on-17-Galaxy-bars-and-now-hate-myself-for-it type way. That’s an immeasurably unhealthy relationship to have with food (anyway, Galaxy, why would you?). Comfort in the sense of providing enjoyment and pleasure, whether in one mouthful or in a whole meal-ful. I hope those girls grow up seeing past their father’s opinions. I hope she continues to enjoy prawns and her sibling continues to eat ginormous cretins.