The Sacred Art of Eating

Since acquiring Dough by Richard Bertinet (on the recommendation of Lawrence), Dougal has been making a lot of bread. Fougasse, bread shots, focaccia, sesame plaits, gruyere and cumin loaf, pain de mie, baguettes and more, it has been a delight to eat each and every one thus far. I don’t have the words to describe this lovely bread. Here are some pictures instead.

            

I’m on holiday now (a long weekend in Croatia starting tomorrow but with a day off first today) so to celebrate we had cocktails last night:

However it was only a Tuesday night, so they were in fact Virgin Cocktails- Gentle Sea Breezes to be precise. Going the whole hog with the crushed ice and the sprig of mint on top meant you got all the sensory aspects of a cocktail- woo, colours!- but without sliding gently under the table later on.

Dinner was inspired by a gift from my boss, JPW, who appeared at work with a bag of micro potatoes for me and a growing pot of Sarriette. This was a herb I had never come across (although the smell was familiar, in a herby way) and shock horror, there was no Wikipedia entry for it! A bit of further digging suggests that its English name is in fact Summer Savoury. In any case JPW suggested that it was best had with beans; as we had some green beans needing used up in the fridge that’s what I did.

So, tea consisted of: gruyère and cumin bread; fabulously melty camembert; teeny tiny anya and charlotte potatoes dressed in walnut oil, white wine vinegar, chives, salt and pepper; fine beans in sarriette and butter and some vine tomatoes. It felt like a right proper party! I even wore a dress while I cooked it all. We both agreed that the only thing wrong was that we were not enjoying it all on a verandah some where in the warm summer air. Such is life- the sunset was still gorgeous.

Not one to tell your cardiologist about, but we had the most fabulous rice pudding the other night. We had some full cream milk needing used up, and also a carton of cream that was over a week out of date but which had not been opened so was still in perfect nick. So this rice pudding had about 150ml of cream in it. Eek. If anything it was a little too much like cooked rice in cream but it was warm and comforting and I was knackered when we had it, so I can’t fault it for aptness at the time.

Looked great too :-)

Valentines would generally seem to be a celebration of a love of food, rather than anything else, in my flat. What with my recent return from an excellent skiing hol in La Savoie with a whole Reblochon it seemed fitting that we had a Tartiflette. Properly warming for a nasty February night.

It took me a while to find a recipe I liked- most seemed to include crème fraîche or cream which seemed all wrong- and in the end my dad came up trumps. We had a nice little bottle of (not French) rosé Cava- in lieu of pétillante de Savoie, which, let’s face, I wasn’t going to be able to find in Edinburgh- and a walnutty french salad.

It was, though I say it my self, smashing. Fitted beautifully in my bigger Phil Revell dish. I should have cut up the top half cheese, as it wasn’t a particularly young cheese and so the top rind was a bit tough. Otherwise though, no faults.

Dougal was in charge of pudding and he did not let the side down. He turned to Nigella, but to an earlier book, Feast (which I bought him for our anniversary three years ago). He made the Sticky Chocolate Gingerbread, and although we discovered as the shops were closing that we did not have enough icing sugar to do the full thick and unctuous layer called for, I’d say it was pretty perfect. We’re still eating it (he made a roasting tray-full!) and it is getting stickier by the day.

Lovely!

On Monday night, a propos of nothing in particular, apart from having a genuine Savoyarde saucisson in the cupboard, we had a little supper in the French gourmande fashion. Or so I like to think. It wasn’t really an Assiette Savoyard as there were no gerkins and the cheese was from Normandy, and my olives were distinctly Mediterranean. The bread was home made… only, in Scotland. But I strayed from my usual balsamic ways and did a walnut oil and dijon mustard dressing for the salad, and we drank red wine on a Monday so I feel we were reasonably French, if not wholly.

Well. We’re not quite back into the swing of things post my-holiday, but I was concerned that we were letting the side down on the gastronomic adventures front, and thought I’d share with you our little Breakfast Party this morning.

We had genuine French chocolate brioche (bought in Dalry, Edinburgh); cafe au lait from bowls (okay so the milk was cold but we did have to get to work) and zingy citrus juice (orange, tangerine and mandarin, if I’m not mistaken). And we had good chat, and we practised finger spelling over breakfast. Now to work!

It’s the 25th of January, so that could only mean Burn’s Supper. We did our own twist on things and rather than ending with a dram (although the night is yet young and there’s both Aberlour and Highland Park in the kitchen) we started the night off with a whisky sours. One of my favourite drinks and a great way to start my holiday, thought I do say so.

The meal was a largely traditional fare although the Toast to the Lasses consisted of “Chicks have boobs, wayhey” and the Reply from the Lasses of “Cheers”. Clearly we had worked long and hard on our speeches.

Next year the plan is for a modern Burn’s Supper: deep fried haggis supper and a can of irn bru. Bonus!

This morning I had a rather unsettling dream, which centred around being in a museum shop and suddenly discovering that I didn’t have my bag; that I had put it down on the floor to look at something and some bastard had nicked it. This was distressing for various reasons- I wouldn’t have my wallet to go on holiday with (something of a theme for me) and also my camera had been in my bag so that would be gone too.

However, as I consoled myself in the dream: The camera only had one meal on it, the Quesadillas. It won’t be too much effort to repeat them…

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Blogging will be light this following week as I am off to the slopes of France to carve up some powder fall over comically. Dougal could cook some stuff, but he’d have no camera to record his endeavours with, so it wouldn’t be official. I shall maybe pick up some ingredients in France; expect cooking to resume with renewed enthusiasm come February!

Well, this evening as I walked home through the most dreich, miserable, cold, wet Edinburgh evening (the streets are flooding and we’re about to go back out into it) I realised that, had I not known that Dougal was preparing tea, the thing I would make when I got in the house would be the cheaty Macaroni Cheese. And I would make double so that I could gorge myself on it and then have the rest for breakfast. So I guess that means it was a success!

As it was Dougal made an old old old Delia Smith recipe for a gratin of sauteed leeks, with halves of boiled eggs and a very cheesy cheese sauce all popped under the grill. It did the trick.

A post about Quesadillas will follow at some stage. Now we’re off to the cinema!

We’re now into the second week of January, 3% of the way through the year if you will. I’m impressed to see that I have, with Dougal’s help, already cooked up 14 of Nigella’s recipes (and that’s not including the one or two we’ve done, but not ‘properly’.)

When we had friends over for dinner on Saturday I mused that it was going to be an expensive year. K proposed that I ought to make it my additional challenge to ‘Do Nigella on a Budget’. To be honest, that’s just not my way. I’ve always thought food was worth spending money on. Even as a student, I was more inclined to splurge on food than on going out and getting bladdered. Food is fundamentally a treat for me. I can recall unwrapping smoked salmon, chocolate spread, fontaluna salami, feta stuffed olives and who knows what else in birthday presents from a tender age. Particularly smoked salmon (which is why I rarely buy the ubiquitous smoked salmon and cream cheese commuter sandwiches….in my world, smoked salmon is still a delicacy, a rare treat!).

Don’t get me wrong, I will happily substitute wee leeks for baby leeks, if it’s the choice between having a meal or not. And I accept that there are some ingredients I am unlikely to get without going online, and I may not bother. I also don’t expect I’ll want to buy the multiple bottles of flavoured syrups for putting into cocktails that she mentions. I just can’t imagine actually using them. But if the block of cheese which will perfect the salad I’m making is going to be five quid…so be it. I’m looking to enjoy my food, to get that zing. If that means cutting back in other places, I am quite happy to do so.

In light of that I have already done a little bit of Nigella-inspired shopping. Before I was challenged, in fact, I popped round Waitrose and finally bought some Worcestershire Sauce, some wasabi powder, some prawns for the freezer. I may sit down later in the week and go through the whole book again, look at the more unusual ingredients and see how often they come up and whether I ought to be indulging.

Alternatively, Luncheon Vouchers can be sent to the usual address….