Can he fix it?

Demolition has begun....

Putting some truly horrendous decorative features out of their misery. R.I.P.

Enter Bob the builder (well Rob really).

All smiles as the building contract's signed at the architect's office (Rob's the more robust chap on the left).

Estimated opening date - 6 weeks from today.

First orders

I recently put a sign in the window of the cafe: to convince myself, as much as trying to attract the interest of passers by.


I’m at the site nearly every day for one reason or another - getting quotes, delivering equipment and packing up old equipment. Since putting up the sign, I’ve attracted a couple of curious pedestrians who want to know what will be on the menu. Yesterday I met Veronica, a forty year resident of Charlotte Place, who gave me her tip for success. Fried eggs. She tells me there isn’t anywhere in the local area where you can get a simple serving of fried eggs on toast.

People have very strong opinions on what makes a good breakfast and are often giving me suggestions. My friend Suzi emailed me the other day to tell me about the fantastic french toast she'd had at a new cafe in Northcote, Melbourne: “slices of white sourdough lightly fried in the egg and served with little bowls of yoghurt, maple syrup and fresh strawberries on the side, all with cinnamon shaken over the top (key ingredient)!” Another friend, Anna, who is living in Ecuador, sent me the recipes for a couple of local breakfast staples including “chocolate Bogotano” - a hot chocolate drink made with cinnamon and mozzarella cheese, and "chicha" a traditional inca drink made with oats and naranjillas.

I have more of a savoury tooth but can’t do eggs first thing so my dining out breakfast standard is mushrooms sauteed in lots of butter, garlic and herbs, served on toast.

While I’m not promising it will appear on the menu, I’d be interested to know, what gets you out of bed in the morning?

A taste of freedom

I’ve always loved an excursion – a chance to escape the monotonous work routine with a sanctioned day away from the classroom or office.

Earlier this week I went on a farm visit organised by London Food Link and Greener Food. The aim of the trip was to introduce restaurateurs, chefs, caterers and students to some local producers. It seems incredible, but there are currently no wholesale suppliers that specialise in selling and delivering local produce to London. Instead, you have to deal directly with the producers – which can seem a daunting task if you have no idea how or where to find them. London Food Link provides a database on their website which helps. But if you want to be assured of the quality of the product you are buying, nothing beats actually meeting the farmers, and the product, face to face.


First stop was a cattle farm in Kent

where they also grow acres of beautiful lavender

then a sheep farm in Sussex


ending with a visit to the Lighthouse bakery which has relocated from Northcote Rd in London to Sussex.



Perhaps it was the perfect weather conditions that made everyone so positive and good natured but all of the producers we met were incredibly passionate about their work, and the farmers seemed to genuinely care about the welfare of their animals. As one farmer explained: “I want a stress free life and I want them to have a stress free life”.



As is often the case when you start looking for answers, you find more questions. Is crossbreeding unethical if the sole purpose is to create animals that are better for human consumption? Is the use of pesticides in farming more damaging to the environment than using fuel to transport produce from organic farms that are further away? Do animals go to heaven when they die?

Ultimately for me, the most important question is ‘does it taste good’?

Farmer James sacrificed one of his lambs so we could answer this question.


It was without a doubt the best lamb I have ever tasted -melt in your mouth, juicy succulent lamb sandwiched between some Lighthouse bakery bread with home made mint sauce and salad.


If that lamb is now looking down from heaven: thank you.

We all have our intolerances

Is it just me or does everyone have friends who don’t eat certain things because of allergies, intolerances, principles or just squeamishness (my sister in law will eat meat but can’t face a bone on her plate).

It means that every time I have people over for dinner I seem to be faced with a long list of ingredients I can’t use which, on the one hand, can be a good test of my culinary skills (the inverse of MasterChef’s mystery box challenge), but on the other hand can be highly annoying because it often means I can’t cook dishes I want to try and food I like to eat.

I’ve learned that its easiest to avoid certain guest combinations eg- I don’t invite the lactose intolerant friend with the friend who is allergic to nuts as it makes desert a bit tricky and I don’t ask vegetarian friends at the same time as my celiac friend as a few non-meat staples have wheat in them.

On Friday night I invited some friends for dinner and only had to contend with no wheat and no fish: a walk in the park. I wanted to try a recipe for a slow cooked Spanish lamb stew and I could do a flourless cake for desert and grilled haloumi for starters.

At the last minute I invited a couple I didn’t know very well who were friends of one of the other guests. I was speaking to the mutual friend on Friday afternoon and when I told her what I was cooking she said, ‘Oh I think Nat’s vegetarian’. Ok, no lamb for Nat, but she could eat everything else. My friend then called back to tell me that she’d just checked with Nat and she’s actually a vegan.

Nat’s plate was now looking pretty bare but it was too late to change the menu. Instead, I did some last minute shopping and was a bit vague when she asked about one or two ingredients. That fantastic flavour in the pilaf that you were trying to put your finger on Nat? Well, it was butter. Lots of lovely nutty browned butter. Does that make me a bad person?

Below are pictures are of the leftovers I ate the next night. Although I don’t have a photograph, I promise I made Nat a very tasty baked Portobello mushroom using no meat or dairy products whatsoever.

I did feel slightly less guilty about my butter deception after reading Jay Rayner’s article “Eats leaves and shoots ... himself" in the Observer’s Food Monthly yesterday. He says he doesn’t believe you can be genuinely happy and vegan - “…the two are mutually exclusive”. So really I was just trying to spread some happiness.

Pyrenees Lamb with white wine and paprika sauce (serves 8-10)
from the MoVida Cookbook - one of my favourite restaurants in Melbourne


Ingredients

2.5 kg lamb shoulder - ask the butcher to cut into chunky pieces. (You could also use shank, or forequarter chops)
2 tablespoons thyme leaves
150ml olive oil
6 cloves garlic chopped
3 brown onions finely diced
6 bay leaves
7 red capsicums, seed, membrane removed and finely chopped
8 large tomatoes. peeled, seeded and roughly chopped

To make the sauce, heat ¼ cup olive oil in large heavy based saucepan over medium heat and sauté garlic, bay leaves and onion until soft. Reduce heat to low. Add capsicums, cover and cook stirring occasionally for 30 minute or until well softened. Add tomatoes, cover and cook 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add white wine, and cook 10 minutes. Add 5 and a half cups of hot water and increase heat to high. Once the water is boiling add the paprika, reduce water to low and continue cooking the sauce gently for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Trim lamb of any excess fat and put in a roasting tin. Pour in the sauce to just cover the top of the meat (you will have left over sauce). Cook in the oven for about 2½ hours until meat comes easily off bone. As the lamb cooks, some of the sauce will evaporate, allowing the top of the meat to brown.

Eggplant (Aubergine), tomato and herb salad (serves 10)

Ingredients

4 large eggplants sliced into 1 cm rounds
6 tomatoes chopped into 2cm cubes
1 red onion, halved then finely sliced
small bunch flat leaf parsley roughly chopped
small bunch mint roughly chopped
juice of a I/2 lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sumac

To make the dressing put oil, lemon juice, pinch of sea salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper in a jar and shake.

Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Brush both sides of eggplant with olive oil and season with sat and pepper. Roast for 20-30 minutes until golden brown (even better if you can grill them on a barbeque). Allow to cool to room temperature. Gently mix with other ingredients and arrange on a platter. Pour over the dressing and then sprinkle with the sumac.

Pilaf with asparagus (serves 10)

Ingredients

500g basmati rice soaked in water for an hour or 2 (the longer you soak the less cooking time required)
75g unsalted butter
2 brown onions finely sliced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 bunches asparagus, cut off tips and cut stems cut into 1cm rounds
700ml hot vegetable stock

Heat butter in a medium saucepan with the cinnamon and allspice until it foams. Add onion and a pinch of salt and cook over medium heat for 20-25 minutes until the onion is soft and caramelised. Drain rice and add to pan. Stir to coat in butter. Add the asparagus and stock. Cover with a circle of grease proof paper and place lid on saucepan. Bring to boil and then reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Orange and pine nut cake (serves 8-10)
from Tamasin Day Lewis’s cookbook All you can eat: 1000 Recipes

Ingredients

190 g castor sugar
6 eggs separated
175 g flaked almonds toasted and roughly ground
275g pine nuts
zest and juice of 2 oranges (keep separate)
2 tablespoons runny honey

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line a round springform cake tin.

In a bowl, beat 85g of the sugar with the egg yolks until pale and golden. Fold in the ground almonds, whole pine nuts and orange zest.

In another bowl whisk the remaining sugar with the egg white to a thick, glossy meringue. Fold, a third at a time, into the orange zest and nut mixture, then pour into cake in.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour until skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool 15 minutes. Warm the honey until it thins and mix with strained orange juice. Pour this mixture over the cake in the tin.

When cool, remove from tin and serve with cream and berries. The vegan just gets the berries.

Claiming my blog on technorati

Technorati Profile

Everywhere I look….

I see reminders of you.




Never never never leave your bike unlocked. Not even for I minute.

Bye Bye bike,

Missing you already.

360 reviews: customers do the darndest things

In my old life, working for the government, we used to have 360-degree performance reviews where everybody in the organization, from management to the mailroom, got feedback on how well they were doing their job. In hospitality, however, it’s a one-way street.

Customers can tell the waiters what they think of their performance through the tipping system and restaurant critics are allowed to say whatever they want about the talents of the chef and the standard of the service when they review a restaurant. But what about the views of the shop assistants, chefs and waiters: the ones earning £5.50 an hour, on their feet for 10 hours, and expected to accept that the customer is always right despite everyone knowing that claim is statistically impossible?

I’d like to see customers receive a score, given by the staff, for how well they performed: were they polite and appreciative, were they adventurous in their meal choices, did they overstay their welcome...


If you want to score highly you should avoid the following:

Talking loudly on your mobile phone while being served and then whispering to the person serving you as though they are the person you shouldn’t really be having a conversation with.

Asking for some jam, watching the waiter run up and down the stairs to get it, then asking for a glass of tap water, watching the waiter run up and down the stairs to get it, then asking for a new knife because you’ve just dropped yours…And don’t preface the request with “I hate to make you run up the stairs again but…” Clearly you are enjoying being waited on hand and foot. I know I do.

Ignoring the meals listed on the menu, which have been carefully thought out by someone who is trained and skilled in this area, and asking if you can order something that you have created. That’s what your own kitchen is for.

Losing perspective: On an insanely busy Saturday I was told by one irate customer that I had ruined his day because he and his friend’s breakfast had not arrived at the same time. Annoying, sure, but hardly worthy of ruining your day. It’s only breakfast and you have the whole day ahead of you sunshine.

After nearly twelve months working at Tom’s Deli I’m finally leaving so I can focus on getting the café started. For the next few weeks I’m going to enjoy being the customer, safe in the knowledge that I will not be shamed by a low score even if I behave like a complete twat.

Bye bye Tom’s. Missing you already.