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Category: food and drink

  • Wine tasting classes

    The French governing party, the UMP, has suggested that children should be taught to appreciate wines when in school – which doesn’t strike me as half as daft as it might first appear. I’m not sure about wine alone, but there could be something in encouraging kids to learn more about art, literature, architecture, food and drink – to be able to critically appraise it and understand its origins. Of course, some of this sort of stuff is taught already as part of a wider education, but I know from my own industry that plenty of kids seem to come out of school with no idea where food comes from, what art is “about” and why architecture is important. Even my own wife can’t tell the difference between sage, marjoram and tarragon growing in our herb trough outside the door.

    I have no doubt that having a greater understanding of these things helps you to look beyond yourself, understand the world around you and further appreciate the inter-relationships between so many things in life. That has to be no bad thing, in my view.

    Anyway, in other news we have today found out that we will not be liable for Capital Gains Tax when Hels finally sells her flat in the spring, which means that we are tonight celebrating with gin and tonics, noting the subtlety of the fine gin, the delicate tang of the quinine and the sharp twist of lime (or getting drunk, you decide).

  • Les Six Régals

    Oh dear, it seems that I’m getting a reputation in my industry for always knowing where the very best restaurants are in the towns and cities around Europe that are centres for horticulture. Well, I suppose that there are worse things to have a reputation for.

    So, note to self and to others – I’d like to publicly recommend Aux Six Régals (no website) as the finest eating establishment that I know in Angers. I’ve just eaten there and to say that the experience was both sublime and good value would be an understatement. The salade périgourdine is possibly one of the best dishes I know anywhere (this isn’t a bad recipe, but not as good as the restaurant’s version).

    If you’re lucky, I may come up with a few more tips for other parts of Europe (it’s not a long list really).

  • Bacon mayonnaise

    Bacon mayo, for the perfect BLT. via Cal.

  • Not quite full of beans

    We’ve just had our first harvest from our runner beans in the garden. However, one bean does not a meal make.

    Still, it was very fresh and tasty. And there are more coming.

  • Poulet basquiase

    Last night, we had good company in the form of my sister-in-law and her husband. Stepping off our diet for one evening (you knew that we are both dieting, didn’t you? Perhaps I haven’t mentioned that. In five-and-a-half weeks, I’ve lost 12lb and H has lost 10lb, about which we are very pleased.), I prepared poulet basquaise with a rice pilaf whilst H made a chocolate meringue and summer fruit dessert. If ever H gets a blog (incredibly unlikely), she can describe the making of the dessert for you, but I thought I’d share the poulet with you here.

    The recipe was from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook, which is one of my favourite cookbooks for meat recipes – lots of rustic French and Mediterranean style cooking with rich reduced sauces. I found I needed slightly more fluid than the recipe suggested, so here is my interpretation:

    Ingredients (serves 4 generously):

    • chicken (The recipe calls for a whole chicken cut into eight pieces. I found it simpler to use two breasts, halved; four drumsticks, skin-on; four thighs, skin-on – you need meat on the bone as the dark meat works best, and you want about 1.5kg in total);
    • two red peppers, cut into long thin strips;
    • two green peppers, similarly cut;
    • one onion, thinly sliced;
    • 450g tin of Italian tomatoes;
    • salt and pepper;
    • a pinch of cayenne;
    • a little olive oil (about two tablespoons);
    • a knob of butter (about 15g);
    • 150ml white wine;
    • 200ml chicken stock;
    • fresh parsley, chopped (note: this is real parsley usage – for flavour, not for useless garnish).
    1. Heat the oil on a medium-high heat in a large heavy pan with a lid. When it is hot, add the butter. Wait for the butter to melt and foam.
    2. Meanwhile, thoroughly season the chicken with salt, pepper and cayenne.
    3. Add the chicken, skin side down and brown it on this side only. Remove it to a plate and set aside.
    4. Add the peppers and onion and cook on a medium heat for about ten minutes.
    5. Add the tomatoes and cook until the juices are reduced by about a third.
    6. Add the wine and cook for a further few minutes to reduce the wine by about half, being sure to scrape the bottom of your pan to get up that slightly burnt stuff from the peppers and onion.
    7. Add the stock and cook for a minute or two.
    8. Add the chicken, including any juices left on the plate. Cover the pan and leave on a low heat for at least 30 minutes, if not longer (mine was simmering for nearly an hour).
    9. Whilst this is going on, drink the rest of the bottle of wine and prepare the rice pilaf (I made mine with chicken stock, finely chopped shallots and peas – the peas give a good contrast to the poulet). Warm the oven to 75 Celsius.
    10. Remove the chicken from the pan and keep warm in the oven. (You might want to warm some plates too – I always forget that).
    11. Add salt and pepper to the sauce, as well as the chopped parsley. Crank up the heat to the max, remove the lid and reduce the sauce by half – this takes around ten minutes.
    12. Serve the chicken on a bed of rice pilaf, pouring over a generous amount of the pepper and onion sauce. Sit back, take the credit. Open another bottle of wine.

    I would have taken photos, but we were too concerned with eating it! If you want photos of food, check out Fraser’s site.

  • Just not cricket

    Last night, we took Tom to his first ever cricket match, the Twenty20 fixture between Sussex and Hampshire at the gorgeously beautiful ground at Arundel. It looked like we (Sussex) were going to lose for most of our innings, but a late flurry of boundaries soon put paid to the opposition. Tom clearly is a lucky person to take along – maybe I should take him to a few Seagulls fixtures next season. He took the whole thing in his stride, as he tends to do, although he was a little alarmed by the shouts from the crowd and the loud music as Luke Wright and Yasir Arafat (insert joke about dishdash here) swiped umpteen boundaries in the last three overs to wrap it up.

    One thing the BBC report doesn’t mention is the way in which Matt Prior was dismissed. Chris Adams was batting at the other end and was caught from a no-ball. He started to walk but then people in the crowd shouted that it was a no-ball. By this point, the Hampshire players were together celebrating and Matt Prior was still half way down the strip. Everyone looked to the umpire, who confirmed that the batsman was not out, at which point the Hampshire fielders realised that Prior was out of his crease and threw down the stumps. Prior briefly protested to the umpire (he clearly hadn’t realised that it was a no-ball) before walking. Is there a Law on how a no-ball should be called by the umpire? In any case, it was certainly pretty unsporting on the part of the Hampshire players.

    We topped the night out with a cup of tea with the bikers at the Hikers café at Whiteways on the way home. Frankly, if ever you think that a bunch of bikers makes you feel threatened, you should go and see the bikers there – mostly middle-aged men (some women too), standing around drinking tea and discussing health issues and the correct daily fluid intake (presumably in the form of tea), as far as I could make out.

  • Weekend

    Quick post:

    • thanks to Charlie and The Peet for my excellent Neotropic CD.
    • thanks also to the Uborka Two for Winter Chill 2.
    • thanks to family for gifts of cash, clothing and olive oil – all appreciated.
    • thanks to Hels for Gnarls Barkley, clothing and cake.
    • spent Friday at Wakehurst Place – thoroughly enjoyable another opportunity to put the buggy through its paces (it passed with flying colours).
    • Friday evening involved a fantastic meal out – if anyone needs a recommendation for a fabulous meal in East Sussex, drop me a line.
    • Saturday was spent gardening, painting and erecting trellis for the most part.
    • Sunday was spent at Pashley Manor Gardens for the Plant Fair – not one of the best that I’ve had there, but I think some lessons were learned that will lead to changes before August.

  • Ways to spend Good Friday (number 35 in a series)

    • get up early
    • study BBC online weather forecast – observe white fluffy cloud symbol and yellow sun symbol and assume the day is set fair
    • saw logs so as to make them more woodpile-friendly
    • create new border in the garden
    • go to nearby farm to purchase a sack of well rotted cow poo for said border for one of your fine English pounds
    • apply poo to new border
    • get changed from poo-ey clothes
    • welcome brother-in-law to house
    • drive to extremely nice nearby public house
    • park car
    • strap small child to chest in slightly bizarre harness device
    • walk in opposite direction to public house wiuth a view to making a large circuit, returning to said public house with hearty appetite for fine ales
    • observe rapidly deteriorating weather conditions
    • wade through mud, fight brambles, attempt to pacify child – all in steady rain and a cool breeze – whilst cheerfully reassuring one another that the weather "will blow over in a minute and surely improve"
    • reach a farm with a large barn
    • take shelter in said barn
    • change child’s nappy and then eat sandwiches whilst heavy rain continues, whilst regretting not bringing any sort of waterproof clothing for anyone other than small child – the same small child who, whilst being only 12 weeks old, has already developed the ability to laugh and point at his soaking wet father from within the warmth and dryness of his red waterproof
    • decide that the rain is not going to stop
    • run back through the mud and rain to the car, leaving brother-in-law, wife and child in barn
    • drive back to collect rest of party and then home, to glorious sunshine
    • head to the pub next door for a pint or two
    • return home, eat pie
    • search for hotel for stay in Budapest – realise that no hotel there has been renovated since 1967. Decide to seek advice from the only person I know with much experience of the Hungarian capital.
    • read the best post in ages on Parallax View – end the day contented

  • More food

    Whilst I don’t agree with Gordon’s erudite comment about the £85 sandwich (look at the ingredients – it would never be cheap, and you’re not likely to buy two – well, I might), I think even I would draw the line at a £50,000 easter egg. Mind you, Montezuma’s aren’t cheap, but they’re worth it.

  • Food news

    Two items of food-related news (I don’t post anything like enough food news items here):

    • world’s most expensive sandwich goes on sale. I like the sound of this. Of course, it’s a splendid publicity stunt and well done to Selfridges for coming up with it, but I would like one. Or two.
    • we’ve just booked to go to Preuvenemint, (one of?) the largest food fairs in the Netherlands. This strikes me as an excellent plan – food and Maastricht in one go – hurrah! Sadly, we can’t find a decent hotel in the city – it seems that they are either all booked up or have trebled their prices in anticipation of the crowds (or both) – so we’re staying at a lovely auberge across the border in Belgium.