The big breakfast: what to eat after a snow run

Snowy run in Wandsworth Common

During his polar expedition Sir Ranulph Fiennes ate 5,200 calories a day. With this in mind, seeing how snowy it was on Sunday morning, we went on our own expedition (round Wandsworth Common) with the promise of a big breakfast fit for explorers. Running in the snow can be a hazardous business. Just think - snow in your eyes; cold ears; ponds that masquerade as paths. But these dangers, I believed, were all worth conquering for the spoils that were waiting for us at home...

The breakfast box

...namely a box of breakfast goods. Spoiltpig sausages and bacon from Denhay Farm in Dorset's Bridport, mushrooms, eggs, ketchup and smoked chipotle salsa from Tracklements and HP sauce.

A long stretch ahead in Wandsworth

The run was refreshing rather than spikily cold. The snow underfoot - crunchy on grass and squeaky on pavements - gave extra satisfaction to a standard park jog. We ran for breakfast, there was no doubt about it, but it was a joy to run through, especially as we emerged unscathed, without injury and most importantly, without falling over.

The breakfast...

There was no point trying to go fancy. It was all about the classic. Grilled sausages and bacon and fried eggs. Mushrooms fried whole and rolled in the pan with thyme, a slick of butter and a squeeze of lemon. The sausages were fulsome - they had a deep herby flavour - almost black puddingy in depth, but the texture was strangely crumbly. The unsmoked back bacon was very thinly sliced - to the point where there was not much choice but to crisp them up, but that was no detriment to the taste.

Burford Brown eggs

Fried Burford Brown eggs

The real winners were the Burford Brown eggs from Clarence Court, their sunset orange yolks added creamy rich luxury to the breakfast. Though I found their ketchup too sweet, the smoked chipotle salsa from Tracklements was also a welcome discovery. Though it may not be my breakfast staple, I can see it working with cooked meats.

The snow is set to stay awhile. I think that means more breakfast.


Other things we made with the breakfasty ingredients:

Carbonara with spoiltpig bacon

Spaghetti carbonara: Burford Brown eggs, parmesan, parsley, spoiltpig bacon, garlic

Sausage and butterbean stew with chipotle salsa

Sausage and butterbean stew: spoiltpig sausages, garlic, thyme, butterbeans, onion, cloves, tomatoes, dollop of chipotle salsa


With thanks to Phipps for the breakfast box

Click here for more recipe ideas. 

New Culinary Tales with New Culinary Presents

Having professed that I don’t make resolutions (read my attempt to give up red meat last January), I am a glutton for punishment and shall make some more. Friends and family have been generous  with their culinary Christmas presents, so it would be rude not to use them. 

I, therefore, vow to cook more with these enabling gifts in 2013. 

Here are the new additions to the kitchen, and what I will do with them: 

Clockwise, starting from far left: spice grinder, fine mini grater, ice cream machine, David Hockney tray, meat thermometer, tea ball.

The spice grinder 

It’s easy to be a martyr for the spice-pounding cause. A few years ago my mother bought me ‘The Little Nyonya’ - a Singaporean epic drama set in Malacca, Malaysia. The protagonist, a Cinderella-type figure, would seek refuge in her cooking crouched on the floor as she pestled all the spices in her mortar for babi pongteh (braised pork-belly stew), winning love and a husband along the way. 

I have since discovered that crouching for two hours on the kitchen floor pounding spices for curries and satays won’t win you love. It is a highly antisocial activity. If you live in a first floor flat like me, pity the residents on the floor below - victims of constant dull thudding for hours on end. And pity anyone who comes near as you stink of shallots and turmeric. And the blisters - let’s not even talk about the blisters. 

I think of the spice grinder as the gateway to the food of the straits of Malacca, and to social acceptance. 

The fine grater

A grater not just for zesting but for making mush of ginger. When I cook Hainanese chicken, one of the sauces requires smoking hot oil to be poured over grated ginger with the most satisfying sizzle. My box grater produces woody shards of ginger, which doesn’t meld well with the oil. 

The ice cream machine

I am desperate to make Christmas pudding ice cream (in my head, just vanilla flavoured with clumps of leftover pud folded in. Or should the base be laced with brandy in the place of brandy butter?). Also Campari sorbet for summer. I wished and was good, and Santa delivered. 

The David Hockney tray 

This present from my betrothed is his way of asking me to make more tea. 

The meat thermometer 

I’m not a roast-meat purist. By that I mean that I often judge my pork belly or beef joint by looking and poking and slicing it open. Obviously, this is not ideal. If anyone asks me for different levels of done-ness this will send me into a spiral of panic - hence the meat thermometer. According to Heston Blumenthal (and who can argue with HB?), to achieve a rare rib of beef the central insides need to reach 55C. Gone are the days of putting a licked finger to the wind, now I can brandish my digital meat wand. Panic no more, Miss Lee, panic no more. 

The tea ball

I have stacks of loose leaf tea, abandoned and crying in the dark at the back of my cupboards. Now with my new tea ball I can unearth the Japanese roasted rice tea, the darjeeling, the strange LOV teas I’m not sure I’ll like. Or I could use it for infusing bouquet garni in soups...  

Here's to endless feasting in 2013. 

Voracious is Square Meal's Food Blogger to Follow in 2013

New Year’s Eve dinner tonight. Our host is cooking venison, and I have been charged with preparing something to amuse the bouches. My first thought was to make my friend Sonia’s bloody Mary cherry tomatoes (tomatoes filled with infused vodka and worcester sauce) but I lack some basic equipment (syringe and needle). Perhaps Hix quail’s egg shooters instead - the insides still wibbly and topped with crunchy bacon and chives - each to be downed in one. We have plenty of time to decide, plenty of time until countdown.

Whatever it is, it needs to be fabulous to round off a fabulous year. Last week, the restaurant authority Square Meal tweeted me to say that I was one of their fifteen ‘food bloggers to follow in 2013’. What a marvellous accolade, especially when amidst the company of the likes of Hugh Wright, the perfect Felicity Cloake, gloriously acerbic Chris Pople and Niamh Shields among others. It’s also heartening to discover quality blogs - more reading to look forward to next year. 

I also write about food (and the arts and culture) for Harper's Bazaar, so if this blog does go a bit quiet, I may be at my Bazaar blog here or writing for their restaurant guide here instead. 

Anyway, thank you kindly for reading my culinary tales and I hope you continue to enjoy them fully in 2013. 

Happy New Year!

Hx

Click here for the full Square Meal feature.

Bank Holiday Asam Udang (Tamarind Prawns)

Crete is unforgiving.

As Professor Trefusis says in Stephen Fry’s The Liar, travel broadens the behind and my eight days on this craggy beaut of an island has certainly done that. Sixteen meals of carnivorous feasting was just mixed-grill pleasure.

And so I arrive back on bank holiday Monday - the depression of the Royal Wedding weekend - resolutely craving a week of Asian food. Craving Nonya food in fact.

Nonya flavours are magnificent. The wince of tart tamarind, against the salt-tang of shrimp paste. I grew up with those flavours - so glorious in Penang laksas and satay. The cuisine is the 600 year old offspring of Chinese merchants and local Malay women along the Malaysian Straits. Nonya originates from Malacca, but Singapore has some of the greatest Nonya food I know. Personally I think this is the best food in the world - and I don’t say this lightly - the best of both Chinese and South-East Asian worlds.

The things to have in your larder will be a block of tamarind, a bottle of shrimp paste, lemongrass, galangal and chillies - all readily available from your Chinese supermarket.

Unfortunately, bank holiday supermarkets are also unforgiving, so all I managed to pick up was a pack of raw prawns and I had to shave a lemon as I didn’t have any lemongrass.

Still, my hit has begun the process of unbroadening that behind.

Asam Udang (Tamarind Prawns)

Serves 2 and takes 15 minutes max

150g prawns - either legs trimmed off, or for convenience a packet of raw prawns (as pictured)

Sauce ingredients
1 onion sliced
1 stalk lemongrass - bruised (peel from 1 lemon, bruised, if you don’t have any)
4 birdseye chillies - red and green, deseeded and slit lengthways
1 generous tablespoon tamarind pulp mixed with 450ml boiling water
1/3 tablespoon shrimp paste
1 level tablespoon sugar
pinch salt

Push the pulp through a sieve and collect the water in a saucepan. Put the rest of the sauce ingredients into the saucepan.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes uncovered. Let the flavours get to know each other.

Add the prawns and simmer until just cooked.

Serve with rice and a generous helping of garlic broccoli with oyster sauce.

New York Tales: 2. The Burger Brunch

Forget eggs benedict and fancy fries. When your insides are wincing from margarita pain - the burger’s where it’s at.

I’m a maximalist when it comes to the burger. I once had a month’s stint in Australia, where avocado and beetroot is packed in just about everything, after which I was purist no longer. Pickle, onion, fried things, bacon bits. You know the score.

Think thick slabs of meat, wedged in bun and made sloppy with enough condiment to drip from your hands. Cheese? Oh go on then. Melt it.

That was the tonic after a night out at Industry in Hell’s Kitchen - a pulsing gay club, newly opened, box-fresh and quite frankly, too much.

I’d spent the morning-after dazedly wandering the art galleries of Chelsea, all Andy Warhol polaroids and sad artists. But by midday I had a purpose. Brunch with my friend Barry had been booked at the Mercer Kitchen in Soho and burgers awaited. Just the anticipation of eating was making me shake.

The Mercer Kitchen is a fine place - airy and busy up top, but the floor underneath in its Christian Liaigre glory is clandestine - dark with wenge-wood. You may think it's a dear place as it's a Jean-George Vongerichten number (who's just opened Spice Market in Soho, London. Read Jay Rayner's review here) but with burgers at $15 a pop, I don't think that's bad at all.

Barry chose the Niman ranch burger, adorned with only aged cheddar. Mine was called the Mercer (which surely allows the kitchen to dress it up with as fancy ingredients as possible) fussy with tart pepperjack cheese, avocado, creamy Russian dressing and crispy onions. All this glorified cheeseburger was missing was the crunch of salty bacon. Simple golden fries were served charmingly in a flowerpot.

I’d learnt to love Brooklyn Brewery lager over the weeks (the Draft House in Battersea stocks the lager and the ale) which was a handsome thing to swig with mouthfuls of chargrilled meat.

Now, the Mercer is not the best place to chow down burger in New York City. But as far as fussy burgers and good chat go, this place has the winning combination.

It’s the place to talk the morning after the night before. The place where you can avoid smug bright eyed shoppers. The place to hide from the stream of sunbeams when your eyes aren’t quite used to daylight.

I’m all for the burger brunch. Are you?


The Mercer Kitchen
99 Prince St.
New York, NY
10012

New York Tales: 1. The art of eating alone

I grew up on London suspicion.

“Don’t talk to strangers”
“Men that come up to you will kidnap you” (primary school aged six)
“Don’t answer the doorbell especially on Hallowe’en”

I’ve been slowly unpicking these axioms from my life (perhaps the last one not so much).

And then I go to New York City. Everyone’s yapping. No one's moody at you. No huff of an impatient brute in your ear on Oxford Street if you walk too slow. Nor constipated silence in the reluctant intimacy of a train racketing its way to work.

It is a joy to be in New York on your own. Almost every bar of every decent restaurant will have ownsomes drinking, eating, and if they could only smoke, they would.

It’s not an opportunity to leer, it’s not a no-mates statement.

In London it’s unheard of to see people alone for those brunch or dinner occasions. Lunch and coffee perhaps. And rarer still to see strangers talk to each other unless they want to pounce on each other. Perching up at the bar without a companion exposes them as being ON THEIR OWN and WITHOUT FRIENDS.

My friend Kate, a Brit who lives in New York, once rocked up to The Fat Radish to meet a friend only to realise she’d misread her diary and was frustratingly sans mobile. Undeterred, she ordered supper, armed herself with a glass of wine and a paperback. A full member of the ownsome club, she went back for supper with her friend the next day unembarrassed and knowing what to order.

And so I have twenty minutes at the Mercer Kitchen in NY’s Soho on my own. Yearning for a burger brunch that will make friends with some beers and margaritas from the night before.

My friend is late. And that is fine. Trouncing up to the bar, greeted by lovely white-teethed smiles, I snatch a high chair next to someone going at his egg-white omelette with his fork.

I order a cucumber martini.

He looks at me like I’m his kinda girl.

And that’s it. I learn about his trade - broking for marigold yellow cabs. He tells me most people like to rant about them. I don’t, and from there it’s freeflow.

It’s acceptable to be on your own, to wait. My friend Barry comes along, picks me up and there’s no obligation to keep talking. We politely exchange goodbyes. My interlude with a stranger has not ended in kidnap, but a richer appreciation of the yellow cab. Though to be fair – he didn’t come up to me, I bothered him. Perhaps he should’ve been suspicious of me, the Londoner instead.

Olive Magazine's Media Must Have

Olive's Food Porn April Edition Cover

If I've been walking round with inane grin this week, it's because I'm ridiculously pleased to find out that Voracious is fabulous food magazine Olive's 'Media Must-Have' blog this month.

I'm terribly chuffed at being a 'Must Have', right next to cocktail genius Tony Conigliaro and Masterchef champ Mat Follas.


The view at page 114


So hello to any Olive readers who've dropped by this way - enjoy your browse and hope you'll come again.

Thanks Olive and to @charlythechef for choosing the blog.

Happy Birthday blog!

In November 2009, a certain editor suggested I should give up my career, throw it in to write and start a blog.

So I did.

To hell with pensions and a salary.

And it was this time last year I took a deep breath, downed hot sweet tea and published my first post.

Though the idea of self-publication was akin to self-flagellation, it turns out I like self-flagellation and thanks to my readers, Voracious has reached birthday number one! Though it’s been less about my heritage and more my urban tales, it’s been an absolute blast to write.

Fantastic writers have been hugely encouraging - special thanks must go to the lovely Pinch of Salt and Love and a Licked Spoon who were the first to push me along to be a journalist.

And since then I’ve been lucky enough to interview the gorgeous Rosie Lovell, Franco Manca’s Giuseppe Mascoli, slather on Creme de la Mer and spy on John Prescott for the Daily Express, eat homemade scotch eggs at Waitrose Food Illustrated and write for Esquire and Condé Nast Traveler magazine in New York.

Who’dve thunk it..

So I just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to the readers of Voracious - I hope you continue to enjoy and keep me on track by letting me know your not-so and favourite bits.

Lots of love,
Hx

Here we go 2011

Apologies for the absence Voracious readers, it's been a hectic one already, and we're only three weeks in. Keep an eye out for Tales of East London, New York and the usual recipes, reviews and mishaps which will be coming very soon.

Happy 2011!

Helena x

Happy Christmas

That's it from Voracious before Christmas, eat lots, drink more and have a thoroughly ace few days.

Hx

Voracious advent Calendar: Dec 20

Dec 20: Marks & Spencer Egg Cups

The boiled egg is a resolute route to childhood breakfasts. It’s such a complete breakfast – to start with, the whole ritual of sawing off the top with a knife, having hot-buttered soldiers primed for a dipping, digging away to discover whether the yolk is wibbly, salting, or as my friend Sonia does it, soy saucing. No wonder wee ones love it, and I become a kid again when I have a boiled-egg breakfast.

So hurrah M&S for coming out with a handpainted Chick stoneware collection to brighten up breakfast with their quirky hen egg cups and egg baskets. And the egg-cups are £4 each, so they're pretty cheep* too.

They may be handpainted, but can withstand the toils of dishwashing and microwaves.

Chick Hen Egg Cup: £4

Chicken Egg Cup: £4


Chicken Egg Basket: £29.50

And if you’re not into your farmyard animals, M&S also have this regal heritage egg cup to wrap round your soft-boileds.

Heritage Egg Cup: £5

*Punny apologies. I don't know what came over me.

Voracious advent Calendar: The Bumper Edition

Yes, it's the last weekend before Christmas. But don't panic, here are five ideas for the week ahead if you've not managed to get all your shopping done...

The Flavour Thesaurus

A brilliantly conceived book - you don’t realise you have needed this all your cooking life until you read it. Niki Segnit’s guide to flavour combinations is far from an exhaustive list of ingredients but a deliciously witty exploration of why certain flavours, such as goats cheese and coffee, work, and why some just don’t.

Worth getting if only for the pithy put down of chocolate and beetroot.

“It’s champions can hardly believe the lusciousness and chocolatiness of the combination. I couldn’t either and.. I still don’t.

“In chocolate beetroot cake...the raw cake mixture was so unpleasant that no one wanted to scrape the bowl clean. Case closed, at least in my kitchen.”

The Flavour Thesaurus: Usually £18.99, but now £10.44 from Amazon


Doughnut Box Canvas Bag

Anything from New House Textiles would be a stockingy treat, but their doughnut canvas bag is a particular favourite.

And thanks to the lovely Katy from Pinch of Salt, who brought them to my attention in her Friday Finds.

Doughnut Box Canvas Bag, £12.95


Le Creuset Bean Pot and Soup Bowls in Cerise

Forgive me for being twee, but this bean pot is adorable. I don’t even like beans. (That much).

I would like a kitchen big enough for these, and I’d probably make soups and stews all day and serve them in these lovely soup bowls which have lids, just because.
Heavy duty, French farmhouse and devilishly practical. I love them.

Bean pot: £45.60, John Lewis
Soup bowls: Set of 2: £17.60, John Lewis


St. John Hotel

St. John Hotel The opening of St. John Hotel is one of the most anticipated launches. If the restaurants in Spitalfields and Clerkenwell are anything to go by, after playing in Soho, this will be a a homely respite from the cackling bustle of Chinatown.
Writing about the St. John ‘Breakfast Bun’ at breakfast time is unforgiving, so I just beg that it opens soon. Breakfast or a cheeky stay here would be a wonderful present. Prices start at £200 for the post-supper room. For reservations, details below.

1 Leicester St
London
WC2H 7BL

0203 301 8069


Red Cabbage and Beetroot confit

And finally, a recipe. I’m sure you’ve had your fill of the brilliant ways to cook your bird already (Margot Ferguson’s collection in the OFM last week is a great place to start) so I’ve got a red cabbage one instead to go with it.

This is meant to be a ducky accompaniment, but actually if your meat is fatty, salty and roasty, I’m sure this sweet, rich confit would still work wonderfully well.
Finely slice a red onion, grate three beetroot and finely shred half a cabbage.
Heat up a knob of butter with some oil in a heavy saucepan, and soften the onions for a good ten minutes. Add 100g sugar, two heaped tablespoons of jam (raspberry or strawberry is good), 100ml red wine vinegar. Bring to a bubble, then throw in the beetroot and the cabbage, stir well, cover and keep it on the lowest heat for 30-40 minutes. Add another knob of butter before serving large spoonfuls.

Adapted from Riverford Farm Cookbook

Esquire Magazine: Hot Cocktails

If the snow carries on like this, I definitely suggest scurrying to the shops to stock up on loads of booze for hot winter cocktails. For Esquire this week I chatted to some top barman from round the country - we have a rich and naughty port cocktail from Tony Conigliaro from 69 Colebrooke Row, and the intriguingly historical Lamb's Wool from Hix's Nick Strangeway. Get your cockles ready for some warming up...

Read the full feature here.

Do pop round tomorrow when there'll be a bumper advent calendar post for the last week before Christmas. x

The Culinary Tales: Featured Blog of the Week

I'm happy to announce that Voracious' Culinary Tales was last week's blog of the week in James Ramsden's rather excellent food news roundup.

As this title has previously been bequeathed to the likes of Hugh Wright and food hero Fuchsia Dunlop, I am a smiling wreck.

Hello to any new followers, and hope you enjoy the blog. Do drop me a line anytime, I'd love to hear from you. Hx

Two Exciting Things: Part II - Guest Wine Botherer

Photo: Kirsten Bresciani

Very often the authoritative voice on food cannot have the same level of authority on drink. And this is a pity. I often wish that Nigel Slater’s sumptuous recipes will be accompanied by the perfect drink suggestion - alcoholic or not. The absence of direction is odd when the flavours of the drink will be taken at the same time as the flavours of the meal.

I have a few cookbooks - Le Gavroche Cookbook for one, which have wine suggestions, but they are too expensive for low-key occasions. The book which I think matches food and drink well is How to drink, by The Guardian's Victoria Moore, which has a great emphasis on food and gives context to most of her drinks ideas.

So I’ve asked close friend Ruth Ford - a self-confessed 'Mancunian wine-botherer' - whose palate I am in awe of, to tie in wine and drink recommendations. Every now and then she will be giving a guide on how to match the wine to the food under the section she quite rightly titles with an urgent imperative:

Must Drink

She is the Olly Smith to my Saturday Kitchen - blonde and talented, but curiously prettier.

One area we’re both interested in is exploring how Asian food can work with wine. Whilst the Asian restaurant scene in UK has readily improved over the last 20 years, my own experience of wine in Chinese restaurants has been confined to either late-night tart whites sloshed illicitly from teapots, or obscure breeds served quaintly in Michelin starred hangouts.

The middle ground is - yes, there is a wine list, and no the waiter has no idea if the Sauvignon Blanc will go with the braised goose web. And of course, there is the question of whether wine is even the best thing to drink with such dishes of savoury and spice.

Please give Ruth a warm welcome and soak up the advice. And I can’t wait to learn gems from her so I can say things like - ‘you just can’t go wrong with a gavi di gavi’.

How to Drink by Victoria Moore, £15.99 is published by Granta
Le Gavroche Cookbook by Michel Roux Jr, £14.99 is published by W&N

Two Exciting Things. Part I: New London Review (again)

I’ve been inexcusably absent from voracious. A brief sojourn in South-East Asia regressed into a sabbatical from web-logging. During this absence there have been unwarranted trips to France, the start of a new job, an unsteady obsession with the Straits Chinese cooking of Malaysia, and many barbecued spatchcocked chickens - all of which I’m sure will manifest itself coherently on here.

However, this post is one of two exciting things - the second of which will pop up in the next few days.

The compelling culture of South London's Brixton has reared cult-like culinary fervour. And rightly so. The market is the essential artery - its community the throbbing pulse. An indisputable respect for food means there is no room for indifference here.

The advocates are not hard to find. For the launch edition of New London Review magazine, I spoke to Rosie Lovell (author of Spooning with Rosie, and young matriarch of Rosie's Deli Cafe in the market) whose affection for Brixton was almost tangible.

The second edition is out now - and spotlights another Brixton Market success story. Franco Manca's enigmatic and exuberant Giuseppe Mascoli divulges the secrets of his success whilst I indulge in his wine, pizza and mellifluous musings.

So, I thought I'd post a preview of my interview with Giuseppe here.
The brilliant snaps are taken by Kirsten Bresciani.







I also round up the best of outdoor South London in a festival special which has the treat of a little Q&A with Fat Boy Slim. This summer - hedonism, urban art and farmyard animals await. If anyone is going to South West Four festival on Clapham Common over the August Bank holiday, I shall see you there.

South London Festival Special

If you've not managed to pick up a copy, you can subscribe by clicking here.

Front cover portrait:www.kirstenbresciani.com

Equation for a less-than-elegant but tasty Chinese dinner

11 people for dinner. Mine and T’s little flat. The day before, I'd bought out the contents of Loon Fung in Chinatown, scaled fish, massaged pork, armed myself with cleaver, and wondered what wines oenophile Ruth would bring to match the food.

Here’s what we eat, drink and listen to that night.

The Friends
All from university. We don’t see enough of each other, but when we do, things happen... like deciding to stalk electronic genii Daft Punk and booking a long weekend in Vegas to see them. This time - out of the 11 people in my flat, 7 are running the Belfast marathon in a few days time. In neon/spandex-tutu/superman outfits. It is my moral duty to feed everyone up.

The Menu

Bak choi and limes for the G&Ts

Tonight it’s mainly Chinese food with a bit of impro, depending on what ingredients I’m left with. During the shredding, the gutting, the fine-chopping, Anthony Bourdain’s words often whirr through my head – your first principle should be ‘meez’...’mise-en-place’. As in, getting everything you need ready so that at the last minute (and so much is last minute putting together), all your chopped garlic and onions are set out like it is when you watch Delia serenely rustle up a coq au vin.

I’ll be linking the recipes for certain dishes below in following posts.

Chinese Turnip cake with soy and chilli dipping sauce

Cantonese steamed sea-bass with shredded spring onion, ginger and coriander

Crispy five-spice belly pork with mustard and soy sauce

Shittake mushrooms cooked in their own liquor

Dried-shrimp egg fried rice

Bak choi with ginger, garlic and soy sauce

Sliced rump steak with rice noodles and spring onions

Comté, Stichelton, port and apples

Sticky ginger cake and chocolate clafoutis with crème fraîche

(My friend Rob brings cheese – one of my favourites - nutty Comté, and Stichelton – a young blue made from unpasteurised milk.
Sticky ginger cake and chocolate clafoutis with oranges and crème fraiche is brought by dessert-goddess Hannah)

The Tunes
High Contrast, Confidential: drum and bass is a spicy backdrop to the savouries.

Floorfillers 90s Club Classics: For cheese and dessert, the retro I need your loving, Dub be good to me, and Ebenezer Goode just make sense.

The Sauce
We are lucky enough to have some handpicked wines brought by my friend Ruth, and some barrel samples from a Bordeaux tasting.

Here are the wine notes for anyone who wants to know what can go with Chinese fish, pork and beef.

Stormy Cape Chenin Blanc 2009 - South Africa; easy, fruity, cheapie!
Henschke Tilly’s Vineyard 2007 - V famous Australian producer making premium wines; the Tilly’s is their ‘entry level’ white, blend of Semillon 55%, Sauvignon Blanc 20%, Chardonnay 25%; very aromatic, juicy tropical fruits, lots of body.
Quartz Reef Pinot Noir 2006 - 100% Pinot from v reputable New Zealand producer, winemaker Rudi Bauer has won lots of awards; savoury, juicy red fruit, spice

Bordeaux 2009:
Ch Petit Bocq 2009 St. Estephe
Ch Pierre de Montignac 2009 Medoc
Ch Pontac-Lynch 2009 Margaux

Do watch this space for the recipes.

New London Review launch: Brand Spanking New Magazine

A small plug for the launch of a lovely new magazine for South London (currently covering Streatham, Clapham and Brixton). Slightly New Yorker-esque in style, the magazine has great coverage of what's going on in the areas (like the Streatham food festival 15th-20th May), and also features yours truly. The editor Stephen Murphy sums it up..

"We set out initially to report on local democracy and community issues in South London - and then quickly decided it would be more exciting if we also covered the great arts scene we have from arthouse cinema to fringe theatre to street art exhibitions.

As well as the website, we publish a monthly magazine… see May’s issue for our line-up of star columnists including Toby Young, Martin Bright & James Purnell writing about all things education, the arts and community organising. We also cover the best of May’s movies and theatre south of the river. And check out our interviews with Adam Byatt and Rosie Lovell – two of our very own gastro stars, both with book launches and growing fan bases throughout London."

The magazine is distributed at stations, but is also available for you to subscribe online.

For those who can't pick up a copy, you can subscribe or get a sneak preview by going here and pressing look inside.

Clicky here for my interview with Brixton deli owner and author Rosie Lovell. Unfortunately the edgy yet winsome photos which are in the magazine didn't make it onto the website, but have a look here for photographer Kirsten Bresciani's take on Rosie and her deli.

www.newlondonreview.com

First bite of the Apple

Apple. My first ever word. Not Mum, not Dad, but Apple.

My parents, first generation Chinese from Malaysia and Hong Kong, must have been so proud that their daughter had food on her mind from the beginning.

A Londoner through and through, there was a clash of cultures as I railed against bad opera and Chinese school (wrong day for school, Saturday). Except when it came to food. Enjoying Asian feasting was unavoidable; much easier to embrace. Whilst I pored over Delia Smith recipes, the rentals were also cooking me pigs’ trotters, and tea-stained eggs.

Now I’m increasingly doing more of the embracing.

So, ‘Tales’ has two purposes. The first is an attempt to reclaim my heritage; to explore the dishes that have helped shape me and evolve them from the traditional. The second is to update a collection of food and restaurant experiences and their stories; keeping them in notebooks is highly anti-social, and it’s only polite to share.

So onto exciting things..
Am going to ‘Game for everything’ chef Mark Gilchrist’s pop up restaurant on Thursday. It’s all very cloak and dagger, press the buzzer type thing, so watch this space to find out what happens…