Indulging in a Little Champagne Socialism

“Free Champagne for a good cause? I’ll see you there”

To my embarrassment I’ve never been a very successful ligger, but that it would transpire was about to end. Thanks to Wife I found myself on the corporate equivalent of the penthouse flat with a glass of champagne thrust into my hand…

Chit chat was exchange (I like to think that I gave as good as I got). Speeches given, a general all round feeling of doing good subsumed us all.

Supper consisted of a large number of nibbles.

• Giant prawns in batter.
• Shredded chili chicken in a miniature flan base.
• Lamb kebabs
• Chicken, pepper and onion kebabs in a sweet chili sauce.
• Beef on pesto on tiny toast.
• Mini Bruscetta.

It is difficult to say for certain if these morsels were genuinely tasty or if it was the booze talking. Either way…

Skating and Supper

“Skating you say? Sounds like a splendid plan”

So off to Tower of London Christmas ice rink we go.  T, The Minky, Wife and Myself.  Actually it’s a surprise treat for The Minky so it’s all rather jolly.  The cold and the rain doesn’t put us of a bit.  Oh no.

Bright orange skates strapped onto our feet like some sort of medieval device and we are off. As I hope is usual we all waddle onto the rink and grip the sides in fear before gingerly attempting tomove around. You may call my attempts at skating cowardly. You would be right. Our allocated hour passes swiftly enough and I add skating to that list of activities that are both fun to do and yet also nice to stop doing.  

The rain adds a pretty sheen to the ice.

Walking along the river in normal shoes feels like we are floating and in no time at all we are over London bridge and outside La Cave…

La Cave (french cuisine)

Seats found for us. Time to order some food:

* Pan-fried vanilla scallops with fennel and creamy pink pepper berries served in a shell £6

* farm house Saint Marcelin in cous cous crumbled on a top of beetroot carpaccio gbp6

* pan-fried fois gras with confit apples, roquette salad and vanilla ice cream 8gbp

* doukali ravioli of chicken served with a creamy mushroom sauce gbp

And something to wash it down…

Drink; 2004 nero d’avola sicilia – Arteo

Perhaps a bit more food to snack on…

Plate of Cheeses (can’t remember what exactly but there was a blue one, a hard one and a selection of soft runny ones in various guises
Some charcuterie for Moisure? Why yes please thanks for asking.

Gosh this is thirsty work…

2005 montinho sao miguel – portugal

You know what I’m still a little peckish…

More cheese and fois grass

And a little dry…

2004 cotes du rhone – les aphillanthes

A yummy yummy meal, friendly staff and vaguely reasonably priced. We spent about £130 between us all.

5 Bean Soup

Those boffins in the soup spin-off division at “Pret a Manger” have been busy recently for there cannot be a tastier soup on the high street.  Today’s 5 Bean Cassolet has the usual powerful kick of garlic of all their soups, but is backed up with such chunkyness that i can hardly believe that there’s no dead animal in here.

£4.95 gets you…

1 x 5 Bean Soup

1 x 8inch length of regular baguette

1 x Can of Grape and Elderflower fizzy pop

1 x Flapjack

I’m not saying that it’s interesting, it’s just my lunch.

Salad for supper.

Time to taste last night’s pie. It is an impressively solid piece of cooking sitting on the wire cooling rack under a cloth in our chilly kitchen.

For the more mathematically minded the Pie is about 14cm in diameter with a rim hight averaging 6cm. Centre of the dome is nearer 8cm. Casting my mind back to prep school geometry I calculate the volume of Pie as follows (brace yourselves for some pie/pi punnage here)…

1 cylinder (Diameter 14cm, Height 6cm)

π x 7² x 6 = 924cm³

1 cone (Diameter 14cm, Height 8cm)

π x 7² x 2/3 = 103cm³

Thus we have a total Pie of 1027cm³, or about two pints of Pie in old money.

Cutting into the Pie reveals the crust to be satisfyingly solid and crispy, the glaze on the top is also most pleasing and random in both colour and thickness.  Unfortunately slicing also reveals that the pastry is only partially cooked.

Breakfast and Lunch, the sad truth

Day two of my diary and already i’m realising that my cullanry life is not as exotic as I would wish.

Breakfast: Cup of tea, bowl of porrige.

snack: Banana

Lunch: Mulligatawany Soup and a chunk of bread

snack: banana

Supper: tbc…

First Post! Porky the Pie

Inspired by Nigel Slater’s “The Kitchen Diaries” I thought on my way home from work that I would start to record my foodie experiences throughout the next 12 months so that I have something to review this time next year. There will be a few differences…

Nigel can write well.

He can cook.

He knows about food.

He has the discipline to record what he eats throughout the year.

…