#Fay Maschler

[justforbooks]

Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake

A fun but often unpalatable collection of recipes by authors including Robert Graves, Norman Mailer and Beryl Bainbridge should come with a trigger warning. Anyone for Instant Mince or Dutch Onion Crisps?

In most instances, the words “I can’t cook” are a lie: the person saying them is perfectly able in the kitchen, and just being needy, excessively modest or anxious (maybe their sauce split before you arrived). But sometimes, alas, the phrase is just a simple statement of fact. At the tail end of the 1970s, for instance, the editor of a book called Writers’ Favourite Recipes asked the novelist Beryl Bainbridge what she liked to make for supper after a long day at the typewriter. Bainbridge carefully prefaced what she had to tell him with the phrase (used by her children) “I am a very bad cooker”, but the editor was not – woe! – to be put off. Her recipe for Instant Mince was indeed included in the collection, for all that it was quite obviously a crime not only against mince, but also against potatoes, tinned tomatoes, vinegar, and any human beings who might end up having to eat it (in case you’re wondering, the four ingredients are combined and boiled vigorously until the pan is “almost dry”).

For a while, of course, Beryl’s Instant Mince was pretty much lost to posterity; cook books go out of print, and with them the culinary outrages of the past (“spoon the instant mince on to [buttered, white] bread and cover with HP sauce, also raw onion rings”). But now, like some horrible alien in a movie, it’s back, for another editor has seen fit to gather it into a new collection of author’s recipes titled Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake, where it lurks next to several other equally unappetising confections: Robert Graves’s Mock Anchovy Pate, Norman Mailer’s Stuffed Mushrooms, Rebecca West’s Dutch Onion Crisps. As you may tell, this is not a book for the easily-made-queasy, and though I am usually implacably opposed to trigger warnings, I think it should have come with one: This Book Includes Scenes Featuring Large Quantities of Margarine and Fillet of Beef Served With Bananas. Some Readers May Find It Distressing.

The beef and bananas – how the stomach resists even the typing of this combination! – is the creation of Noel Streatfeild, the author of Ballet Shoes and another of those who baldly admits to being “a very bad cook”. Streatfeild insists that she has practised her “Filets de Boeuf aux Bananas” (NB the French here is a clever but ultimately ineffective smokescreen) and that she got the recipe from an acquaintance in whose house she was staying. But if I tell you that it comprises steak served with bananas that have been fried in breadcrumbs and an egg sauce that is seasoned with horseradish, you’ll understand immediately that Malcolm Gladwell’s principles of success do not apply here. You could spend 10,000 hours perfecting this dish, and it would still be fit only for the dustbin – though I would still be marginally more inclined to eat it than Graves’s Pate, which is made from minced fish, egg and steamed jellyfish. I believe him when he notes that “nobody at the table will know what they are eating”.

It’s not all bad. The book does include the odd recipe from the famously sybaritic and greedy, and even from a couple of writers noted for their abilities as cooks. You probably can’t go wrong with Ian Fleming’s scrambled eggs (whips to the ready), or Rosamond Lehmann’s extravagant variation on shepherd’s pie (the secret ingredient is orange peel). Kingsley Amis offers us his fromage à la crème, a perfect combination of egg whites, cream cheese, cream and sugar, though one knows perfectly well that he probably never actually made it for himself – and sure enough, a mere few pages later, up pops his longsuffering ex-wife, Elizabeth Jane Howard, whose devils on horseback come from the cookbook she wrote with the restaurant critic Fay Maschler (a brilliant volume that I own and use often).

Nora Ephron is here, and Laurie Colwin: two fabulous American novelist-cooks, neither one of whom, so far as I know, was inclined to make a cake using canned soup as Sylvia Plath did (she got the recipe from her mother, Aurelia). But in the end, we’re forced to conclude two things on closing this (OK, I’ll admit it) very fun little book. First, that famous writers are no better than the rest of us when it comes to cooking, and often a good deal worse; at present, I’m finding Rebecca West’s onion-crisp-things to be more indelible even than her journalism. Second, that distracted as they are by plot and character, they may be a danger both to themselves and to other people in the kitchen. Margery Allingham wrote some very fine detective stories, but her insistence that her salad cream will last for a year is suspicious-making to put it lightly.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[krishnaprasad-blog]

The 'Sunday' magazine sub-editor who secretly cooked her way to become the best known Indian chef in the world, after Gaggan Anand (if you believe food critics, that is)

The ‘Sunday’ magazine sub-editor who secretly cooked her way to become the best known Indian chef in the world, after Gaggan Anand (if you believe food critics, that is)

In the Hindustan Times magazine supplement, Brunch, the food writer Vir Sanghvi writes about Asma Khan, the former Sunday magazine journalist whose hashtag could well be #SubKaChaatSubKaVikas.

Writes Sanghvi:

“It is a funny feeling when a colleague from decades ago becomes a success in a totally different field. And it feels even stranger when you find yourself writing a profile of somebody you…

[doodlenomics]

Remember British author Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’? Of course you do. And surely the most memorable character, Willy Wonka; the innovative chocolate visionary and his scrumdiddlyumptious creations come to mind. For a moment, would you now imagine what Willy Wonka would whip up in an Indian rasoi? Welcome to the kitchen of Chef Vineet Bhatia. 

Blueberry and black cardamom kulfi

Blue cheese naan

Cumin-infused chocolate

Goat’s cheese and coriander khichdi

These curious compositions of ingredients with volatile textures and consistencies are distinctive of Vineet’s kitchen (and these recipes are included in his book ‘Rasoi: New Indian Kitchen’ for you to try at home). Earlier this year, during a short trip to Mumbai, I had visited Ziya at The Oberoi (food sketch below) where even the walls taste of pecan nuts and chocolate. Just kidding. Actually, it was almonds.

Bursts of color pop on brilliant white plates and after a while, your brain tells you to stop trying to guess flavors. Yes, you will be wrong most of the time. How am I to identify a pecan nut kheer, a black sesame panna cotta or even a coconut-caramel drizzle on top? Take a look at Chef Bhatia’s Instagram page to really appreciate the originality of his creations- turmeric caviar, khandvi with a twist (literally) and mini explosions of color and texture on plates!

Here’s a book excerpt from ‘Rasoi: New Indian Kitchen’ where you learn of Vineet Bhatia’s journey from a little boy who wanted to be a pilot to the young man who revolutionized Indian cuisine:

I did not set out to be a chef. My first love was planes, and as a child I wanted to be a pilot and fly high above the clouds. My alarm clock was the sound of the Gulf Air DC10 flying over our flat in Bombay at 6 o’ clock every morning. My brother and I would cycle through the Juhu Aerodrome on our way to school and I would look with awe at the Cessnas and Bell helicopters stationed in their hangars, so close to me yet so distant. How I longed to fly in one of them! On the journey home from school, the guards would allow us inside to get some ice-cold water from the drinking fountains. I would stand in those huge hangars as a little boy of eight, dreaming of flying. When I was 17, however, my application to join the Indian Air Force was rejected. Now I advise British Airways on their menus and fly almost every month, and moreover was fortunate enough to marry a pilot’s daughter, so fate has its funny little ways.

After the air force turned me down, I was so disillusioned and frustrated that I had no idea what to do next. I was sure of one thing, though- much to the dismay of my lawyer mother and accountant father, I wasn’t cut out to follow in their footsteps. After I had eliminated all the’respectable’ career choices, the only avenue left to me was catering and hospitality. For the first time since I failed to enroll as a pilot, I found myself intrigued. It fascinated me that something like eating out, which we take almost entirely for granted, had so much thought and labour behind it. Eventually I was accepted at an undistinguished catering college in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The last to join the course, I was the shortest and smallest, but I had what most of them didn’t: ambition and a determination to prove myself. When my father dropped me off at the hostel, he told me, ‘You go through this rough patch and you will shine.’ I promised him I would, and after doing well in my exams I was transferred to the prestigious catering college in Dadar, Bombay. This is where my career really began, and after two years’ hard work I was selected for the prestigious Oberoi School, where trainees were expected to learn both French and Indian cuisine.

It was like living a dream. At the end of each grueling day’s training, I would spend hours in the Indian kitchen watching the khan sahibs, or master chefs, preparing delicacies. Occasionally I was allowed to help, chopping vegetables here and there, handing out utensils or spices. Gradually, as I gained their trust, I was even allowed to prepare these dishes myself. I had finally found my calling. The cream of the class was usually absorbed into the French kitchen but, much to the horror of my teachers, I elected to stay in the Indian one.

In 1990 I was appointed to the Indian kitchen at the Oberoi Mumbai. I learned a huge amount there but, while my French counterparts were being applauded for developing an innovative and exciting cuisine, there was no opportunity in the traditionally rigid Indian kitchen for me to do the same. Frustrated, I realised it was time to move on. Faced with a choice of Dubai, Bangkok, Tokyo and London, I opted for the latter, assuming that with all its connections with the Raj, a good standard of Indian food would be guaranteed. How wrong I was!

My first job was as head chef at the Star of India on the Old Brompton Road. To my horror, I quickly discovered that Indian food in the UK was aggressively macho, illogically hot and spicy, and usually washed down with a pint. Fortunately, the restaurant’s owners were supportive of my desire to offer authentic Indian cuisine. When some members of staff rebelled and a fair few of the regulars took their custom elsewhere, however, I was forced to question whether I was doing the right thing. My answer came from Fay Maschler, who reviewed the restaurant in 1993, writing, ‘Bhatia has lifted the cooking into a new league, providing convincing proof that Indian food is capable of evolving.’ It was exactly what I needed to hear, and over the next five years the Star of India won a clutch of awards.

In 1999, I opened my own restaurant, ‘Vineet Bhatia’, in Hammersmith, in partnership with a traditional curry house owner. Money was tight, so my wife, Rashima, a trained pharmacist with no experience of catering, pitched in to help me. We painted the restaurant ourselves, turning up at 7 o’ clock every morning with our baby son, Varaul, and after a very quiet opening were desperately concerned for our survival. Salvation came once again in the form of a positive review from Fay Maschler, followed by one from AA Gill, who wrote, ‘It is shaming to point out, but if Bhatia cooked in the French or Italian vernacular, or came from New York, he would be hailed as a superchef.’ This statement affected me immensely. It felt like a powerful vindication of my decision to focus on refining Indian cuisine. The impact of these reviews on the restaurant was instantaneous. The phone started to ring constantly, and there was now a waiting list for tables.

Despite the restaurant’s success, we never found the financial stability we hoped for. I quickly formed another business partnership and opened a new restaurant, Zaika, in April 1999. My goal was simple: to cook to the very best of my ability and to settle my family (our second son, Ronit, was on the way). It was good to get behind the stove and not worry about anything except creating dishes that exceeded expectations. It was here that I devised the ‘Indian gourmand experience’, an entirely new approach to Indian cooking that offered five courses spanning the length and breadth of the subcontinent. In January 2001 I was awarded a Michelin star, the first Indian chef-patron to receive this honour in the Guide’s hundred-year history. Obviously we were thrilled. We had neither planned for nor expected a star, but it could not have been more welcome. At the same time, it is almost frightening how powerful the Guide is. All of a sudden the spotlight is switched on and directed at you. The pressure is intense. Journalists suddenly became interested in us, and there was a proliferation of articles about the restaurant.

Almost five years after we opened, Zaika was forced to relocate to larger premises on Kensington High Street, which meant we had to start all over again in terms of Michelin stars- the star is awarded to a restaurant at a particular site and does not move to other premises even if the restaurant does. Moreover, I was not receiving the money I was due from the partnership, despite all my commitment and hard work. Rashima and I decided that the only solution was to do it alone. In 2004 we took out a large bank loan with our house as collateral and opened our most cherished jewel, Rasoi.

  It was the culmination of an immense amount of hard work. Rasoi is set in a small Chelsea townhouse, with just 13 tables in the two reception rooms on the ground floor, two private rooms upstairs and a small kitchen to match. Rashima did the whole place up herself, and we hoped to create a feeling of coming to dine at our home. Guests have to ring a doorbell to get in, which serves to heighten that impression.

We had a lot at stake, with many people confident that we would soon be back on the job market. Housed in a residential street with no passing trade, a closed-door policy, a no-smoking rule (in the days before the outright ban on smoking) and no music for ambience, the restaurant appeared to check all the boxes for downright failure. While setting up, we experienced every emotion from elation to satisfaction, despair, anger and also quiet anticipation. We knew we were doing the right things and we had to make a success of it.

We have cherished every moment at Rasoi and feel very fortunate that we are able to live our dream, with the support of the most amazing people working for us. While I run the kitchen, Rashima runs the service- something I can never do and will never understand! The food I cook here is straight from my heart. The purists might not always approve but at least we are comfortable in our surroundings, following our instincts and generally being driven by our passion.

Rasoi received much critical acclaim and in January 2006 it was awarded its own Michelin star. How could we forget that day? We had finally arrived!

I think it is appropriate for me to end this narrative by saying that a genuine compliment from a satisfied guest is more than enough to make one forget all the difficulties involved in running a restaurant. Such compliments warm our hearts, giving both Rashima and myself renewed energy to pursue our passion. There are evenings when the restaurant is full of friends, loyal guests and happy diners, and on those nights there is a buzz, an excitement, that no other experience can match. It is visible amongst diners and staff alike, and it makes me a very, very happy man.

Vineet Bhatia

London, August 2009

Chef Vineet Bhatia and his uber- talented wife Rashima (Image: http://www.greavesindia.com)

  Rasoi: New Indian Kitchen is available in stores and is a 272 page treasure of unique recipes (and a lot of very useful information too) divided in ten categories (spices, invisible work, chutneys, dips, relishes and raitas, pre-starters, soups and salads, starters, main courses, accompaniments, pre-desserts,  desserts and petits fours). The recipes are written with much clarity and are easy-to-follow. Definitely get your hands on this one!

If you loved what you read, please like and share this. Also, you can get yourself a copy of Rasoi: New Indian Kitchen by clicking on the image below:

How a man who wanted to become a pilot, revolutionized Indian Cooking. Meet this Chef Inventor Remember British author Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'? Of course you do.

[helloyoucreatives]

It's Christmas time, so that can only mean one thing...Adlands charity soup off, and this year organiser Mickey Brooks has bought in The Evening Standard's highly esteemed restaurant critic Fay Maschler and owner of the Michelin starred Pied A Terre restaurant, David Moore to join LBB Global Editor Laura Swinton, JWT's Danny Bayliss and self-confessed soup-obsessive Charly Massey.

[harryandmeghan0-blog]

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Royal Wedding chef's success recognised with MAJOR AWARD

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/meghan-markle-and-prince-harrys-royal-wedding-chefs-success-recognised-with-major-award/

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Royal Wedding chef's success recognised with MAJOR AWARD

Clare Smyth, who cooked at Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex’s wedding reception, achieved two Michelin Stars – the highest recognition in the world of fine dining.

Ms Smyth previously became the first woman to run a three-starred restaurant when she ran Restaurant Gordon Ramsey.

On Monday, the Royal chef said she was “delighted” by the announcement and was “so proud of my amazing team”.

Ms Smyth told the Guardian: “It’s nice to be out there and doing it for female chefs.

“We just need to encourage more women to come into the industry and if I can help inspire other people to do that, I think it makes our whole industry better.”

Commenting on the news, her former boss Gordon Ramsey said: “She’s tremendous – she’s the Margaret Thatcher of cooking.

“She knows what she wants and she comes from a good stable.

“To get two stars straight away – there are chefs who have been cooking for 30 years and haven’t got two stars – is a testament to her capabilities.”

Ms Smyth said she wanted to welcome more women into a traditionally male-dominated world.

Commenting on the fact only one female head chef was honoured at the Michelin Star award ceremony, she said: “It’s probably a reflection of the number of women in the industry.

“We need more women to come into the industry.”

The award-winning chef catered for 200 people at the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on May 19.

For the reception, she cooked “posh burgers” for star-studded guests including George Clooney, the Beckhams, Elton John, and Serena Williams.

The private wedding reception took place at Frogmore House, Windsor.

Ms Smyth was also awarded an MBE in 2013 for services to the hospitality industry.

She has cooked at some of the most prestigious restaurants in the country – including Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn in Bray, Berkshire.

The double Michelin Star award was in recognition for her Ms Symth’s new venture, Core, which is based in Notting Hill, west London.

The area is also home to some of the most well-unowned eateries in the UK – including the tortuously secretive The Ledbury.

Ms Smyth’s Core styles itself “an elegant and informal fine dining restaurant with an emphasis on natural, sustainable food, sourced from the UK’s most dedicated farmers”.

It is in the same premises as the eponymous restaurant of Prue Leith from The Great British Bake Off.

Food critic Fay Maschler described Core as “exquisite” and Tony Turnbull hailed the “skill and ambition” of Ms Smyth’s first solo venture.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1025517/Meghan-Markle-news-Prince-Harry-Royal-wedding-chef-michelin-star

[andforstarters]

As if I didn’t have enough reasons to be grateful to Hilary Mantel, it was her recommendation that led me to the author whose novels and writing I consistently turn to more than any other’s – Elizabeth Jane Howard, who published her first novel in 1950, her last in 2013, and who is best known for the Cazalet Chronicles, a five-part work of social history, astonishingly deft characterisation and technique like the finest embroidery where the stitches are entirely invisible. As one reader on GoodReaders observed, these books have suffered from their treatment as “historical chick lit”, published in pink floral covers and adorned with quotes from women’s magazines, when they are serious and important works of art, but this is because they describe domestic and interior life from a woman’s point of view, and even now, as Simone de Beauvoir pointed out a year before Howard’s first novel came out, it is only the masculine that is considered universal.

And it must be said that Howard’s books fall far from the current zeitgeist, capturing, as they do, a world of affluent white members of the British ruling classes in the last decades when the British were still attempting to rule the world.  They describe a past that is more astonishingly distant for being so recent (Howard was of my grandparents’ generation - the generation who were teenagers and who came of age during the Second World War.) This world of nannies, cooks and housemaids, of steam trains, of women who were virgins when they married and were lucky if they even knew what sex was when they said “I do”, of limited contraception and backstreet abortions, of nursery teas, of plain cooking – it feels not just a foreign country, but another planet. And yet the people she depicts so brilliantly – these upper and upper-middle class people – are the people who shaped the people whose children are now in charge of this country. And so, out-of-touch and unimaginably distant as it can sometimes all seem, it is a world that is worth understanding, as best we can, if we are to have a hope of understanding why this country is the way it is today (and, sad to say, the way it will probably be tomorrow, unless something revolutionary happens).

There are many astonishingly strange things about this world that so closely preceded our own and yet which ran according to rules, spoken, or, mostly, unspoken, that are so strange as to be often downright confusing to the modern reader. But the thing that I am drawn to think of most often (probably due to my habit of reading while eating) is the relationship that people in this world had with food, and particularly, with cooking it.

Food and drink are important in Howard’s work, particularly when she writes (as she does brilliantly) from children’s point of view, with their endless appetites, picky dislikes, and unashamed greed. (That she co-authored a cookbook with the restaurant critic Fay Maschler is proof that it was a subject in which she was interested beyond sheer social accuracy.)

The sheer abundance of mealtimes in her books is enough to make one feel sluggish with indigestion upon reading ��� breakfast, something called “mid mornings”, lunch, tea and then dinner for the adults (or nursery tea, then supper, for the children). The work of preparing and clearing these (for the servants) or even consuming them (for the served) must have been exhausting. Why would anyone want or need so many meals, given they were all copious - every day beginning with a full cooked breakfast, lashings of stodge of every kind, and serious puddings at every lunch and dinner?

 No doubt a great deal of this was due to the fact that for a leisured class, there was not much else to do beyond eating. But it was while reading one of the many accounts of one of these many meals, sitting picking at a snack I’d made to tide myself through to the dinner I would go onto make, that it struck me – something so obvious to the people in these books as to not need mentioning, but something so strange to me that it had not occurred to me before: in this era, if you were not served food, you could not eat. If you got hungry mid-morning, or mid-afternoon, unless food was being prepared for you and brought to you, there was no food for you to eat. You didn’t go into the kitchen and make yourself a snack. The kitchen was the cook’s domain, and cooking was her work. You were no more likely to make yourself a meal if you were hungry (there are many women in the book who it is made overtly clear have never made a meal in their lives) than we are to make ourselves a bottle of wine if we fancy a drink . This went as much for the servants as it did for the staff – they ate when their meals, prepared for them, were served to them.

 To be this disassociated from the production of meals is almost unimaginable for us, unless we have been institutionalised in one of the few places that preserve such a system to this day – a boarding school, an Oxbridge college, or an army with its mess. We are so used to having ready access to a place and the means to cook, and things that we have decided to buy and will decide when and how to eat, that to have none of these things at our direct disposal is almost impossible to imagine.

In the books and world of Elizabeth Jane Howard – a world which, I repeat, was the world of our parents and grandparents – this was not the case. The mistress of the house planned the week’s menus with the cook, according to the budget and the social diary, and at the allotted times, the inhabitants of the house sat down and ate what they were given. If you were hungry at 11am and there had been no such thing as “mid-mornings”, you would not have been able to eat. So the overabundance of meals began to make sense to me as offering a chance to eat that would otherwise simply not exist -  and God knows I have eaten enough much-needed snacks between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner, to know that provision for these occasions is needed. For me, that means putting a cereal bar in my office drawer, or wandering into the kitchen for some cheese and biscuits. For a big household back then, it meant serving a meal to everyone.

Of course, not everyone was part of a big household – either as the family or as the servants. Those who worked in jobs other than service – in manufacturing, retail, or anywhere else – would fend for themselves. But even then, men did not plan their own meals, or cook them. The only people really planning, cooking and eating their own food - seeing the process through from start to finish, as it were - were working-class women, and while many of them worked outside the home, being a housewife was such a vast and full-time job that many did not, even though money was tight.

What is remarkable to reflect upon is that almost nobody in the past – during this period, or any other in modern history – did what is now expected of almost all of us, and that is to simultaneously earn money to put food on the table, and do the work of putting that food on the table.

Countless working parents – or even working single people – struggle with this; struggle not simply with the reality of doing it, but with the guilt they are made to feel if they fail to succeed in doing it. Yes, it is true that thanks to innovations in shopping (supermarkets) and technology (modern ovens and microwaves, food processors and mixers, dishwashers and so on) have made shopping and cooking far less onerous and time-consuming than they were in the 1930s, but they are still time-consuming and onerous, and yet somehow we are bad parents or bad people if we do not whip up nourishing home-cooked meals at the end of our 10-hour working days. There is perhaps a reason why the work of planning and preparing meals, and the work required to provide the means with which to buy and prepare those meals, was separated in the past, even if it is unfortunate (to put it mildly) that those roles were almost always rigidly distributed along strictly gendered lines. 

Never in human history have we been both expected to bring home the bacon and then cook it too, and yet everyone from the government to lifestyle food programmes and glossy cookbooks suggest that we should be managing to do just, and what’s more, to enjoy doing it too.

It’s not surprising that those who can afford it now delegate so much of this work again, just as they always used to – although this time, their staff don’t sleep in their attic and deliver food from the kitchen in their basement, but rather prepare food in nearby restaurant kitchens, for diners who will never see them, let alone know their name, and deliver it by moped to their front doors. 

As astonishingly strange as the as mid 20th-century world of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novels may seem to us on so many levels, there are far more similarities than we may first observe.

[labiblioteka]

It's 5 o'clock somewhere! (Japan? With some #rwc2019 on in the background?) . Settle down this weekend with the new @noblerotmag ... featuring stories about #Burgundy, wine bottle art, Roman food and restaurants, #fondue, #Moscow restaurant Twins Garden’s vegetable wines, as well as reviews, recipes and musings from, Fay Maschler, Simon Hopkinson,Marina O’Loughlin, Alastair Little, Lee Tiernan of @blackaxemangal among much more… . Available in the shop from 11 today (or, realistically, after the rugby) or online at any time.

[suzylwade]

Jikoni ‘Jikoni’s’ theme is homeliness with a menu offering “soothing” food. Food that serves as a tribute to the mother figures who have passed down their kitchen skills and wisdom. But what does that mean in reality? Well judging by the rave reviews from Fay Maschler, Marina O’Loughlin and not forgetting the late great A A Gill “soothing” seems to be working for ‘Jikoni’. The decor is cosy and eclectic with flatteringly low lighting and Asian flourishes. The tables are covered in pretty printed cotton cloths made by a women’s co-op in India and laid with mismatched coloured china. A bright woven Indian fabric adorns one wall. At ‘Jikoni’ Bhogal’s idea is to create a welcoming home from home. ‘Jikoni’ 19-21 Blandford Street Marylebone, London W1U 3DH. Starters: £7.50 - £12.50, Mains: £15.50 - £24. #neonurchin #neonurchinblog #dedicatedtothethingswelove #suzyurchin #ollyurchin #art #music #photography #fashion #film #words #pictures #neon #urchin #jikoni #kitchen #marylebone #london #ravinderbhogal #cookinboots #ravinderskitchen #tlc #food #soothing (at Jikoni London) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3MF9K-ASNn/?igshid=1o59am8ck3q41

[msgates]

Fay Maschler reviews Lucky Cat: Much hoo-ha, but Gordon Ramsay's pan-Asian fails to seduce Click here for articles July 17, 2019 at 06:11PM

[itunesbooks]

Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men - Len Deighton

Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men 50 Classic Cookstrips for Today’s Action Men Len Deighton Genre: Regional & Ethnic Price: $4.99 Publish Date: September 17, 2015 Publisher: HarperCollins Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS Revised and updated edition of the celebrated cookery classic, featuring 50 cookstrips that will solve the mysteries of French cuisine and unlock the key to 500 memorable dishes. Includes a new introduction by the author. No one has more logically or appealingly cracked the code to French cookery than Len Deighton. Now, in this redesigned and updated edition, his culinary classic is looking better than ever. Through the minefield of menus and cartes des vins he steers a reassuring course, outlining: • 50 celebrated cookstrips that ingeniously reveal techniques and vital food facts at a glance • a lexique of French/English culinary terms plus a guide to the French menu and wine list • a comprehensive and easy-to-follow chart of sauces • French cheese, charcuterie, butchery and ways with the vegetable! Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men solves the mysteries of French cuisine, while retaining its mystique. Here is everything you want to know about French home cooking presented in a form so usable and appealing you will wonder how you ever got along without it. Reviews ‘The most fascinating books about gastronomy are not those written by chefs, however legendary, nor by professional food writers, however famous. The stuff that Len Deighton conjures up so enticingly is what food enthusiasts’ dreams are made of. Its bedrock is knowledge: his beginnings in professional kitchens in France are only too clear; so is his reverence for solid traditions.’ Egon Ronay ‘In my opinion one of the best primers to French cookery’ Fay Maschler ‘The Best cookstrip guide to French cooking that I have ever seen.’ Daily Express '[Len Deighton's cookbooks] have attracted cult following for their brilliant design as much as for their comprehensive approach to cooking… his democratising, demystifying approach couldn't be more appropriate' Guardian About the author Len Deighton was born in London in 1929. At the age of seventeen he became a photographer attached to the R.A.F. Special Investigations Branch. Following his discharge in 1949 he did a variety of jobs and in 1952 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. His writing career began with The Ipcress File which was a spectacular success and was made into a classic film starring Michael Caine. http://dlvr.it/R1BFhH

[adrianlourie]

Plaquemine Lock for Fay Maschler’s Evening Standard Restaurant Review 

[metinews]

Uk news Fay Maschler reviews Wildflower: A slow start to a lifelong dream London news

MetiNews.Com - Butter on a pebble. Where have I seen that before? It might have been at Simon Rogan’s Marylebone restaurant Roganic or it could have been at Ben Spalding’s John Salt in Islington but, in retrospect, there it was probably plopped onto a brick or a trowel. The greasy footprint is disturbing and you wonder — or I wonder — if the dishwasher can deal with it. from MetiNews.Com - last minute news, breaking news, coronavirus last news https://ift.tt/2X6JO4s

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Kerridge's Bar & Grill, 10 Northumberland Ave, WC2. kerridges barandgrill.co.uk. Heston Blumenthal. Bray's Fat Duck waddles into town with a menu ...

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Famed Italian Eatery, Babbo, Reopens in the Heart of Mayfair with Hip New Interiors and a Modern Update on Traditional Italian

(RestaurantNews.com)  Babbo – meaning “Daddy” in Italian – is inspired by the traditional Italian family characterized by food, family and deep-rooted heritage.  This shared passion for football, family and food is what inspired Premier League Chelsea players, David Luiz and Willian Borges, to come together to reopen one of Mayfair’s much loved and famous Italian eateries.

Babbo recently reopened in Spring 2018, at its original Mayfair location on the fashionable Albemarle Street.  Previously, it was loved by both locals and London restaurant critics – including the likes of The Evening Standard’s Fay Maschler. Diners can expect to be served the highest quality in Italian cuisine with bread and pasta freshly made in-house to compliment a modernised menu of traditional Italian dishes. The professional and passionate team aim to stay true to the family inspired restaurant’s reputation for outstanding Italian cuisine, while offering impeccable friendly service that keeps diners coming back for more.

The restaurant has been revived with hip new interiors featuring murals by famed independent Spanish graffiti and street artist Victoriano – who has also worked with the likes of Louis Vuitton, DKNY, W Hotel, Google and Converse. The graffiti murals around the restaurant create a vibrant atmosphere and draw inspiration from Italian cinema focusing on the concept of family.

Walking by you cannot miss the restaurant’s exterior with a giant impressive mural of a father fist bumping his son – a universal gesture similar in meaning to a handshake or high five.  Another highlight is the vintage Fiat 500 from 1972 parked outside the restaurant, which has been beautifully customized by Victoriano and ideal for capturing picture-perfect sharable moments. Once you enter inside there is a colourful and cheeky mural of a little girl spray painting on the wall – an innuendo that suggests the little girl or ‘daughter’ of the family has somehow done all the graffiti around the restaurant as a child would draw on the walls with crayons.

The intimate, light-hearted and familial atmosphere is replicated in the restaurant’s menu of signature Italian dishes with a modern twist.  Spearheading the new menu is Italian executive chef Nicola Cariglia.  Drawing inspiration from his roots growing up in Southern Italy and experience working at top restaurants- including Corrigan’s Mayfair, Edera Restaurant in Notting Hill, 11 Park Walk Chelsea, and Restaurant Vivendo in Geneva – Cariglia has expertly executed a menu of traditional Italian dishes inspired by family recipes that have been updated using only the best of British and Italian produce.

Babbo’s signature dish, Lasagne al Ragout di Chianina, is born from a 100-year old secret family recipe passed down through generations with love and respect. Other standout pasta dishes include Capelli d’Angelo (angel hair pasta) with your choice of indulgent toppings of either Al Tartufo (truffles) or Al Caviale (caviar), Linguine all’Astice (linguine pasta cooked in lobster sauce), and Veal Ragu Pappardelle (minced veal with pappardelle).

For the health conscious and diners with dietary restrictions, the restaurant offers a separate vegetarian and vegan menu with gluten-free pasta options.  Vegetarian options include the freshly handmade Gnocchi con pomodorini freschi (Gnocchi with fresh tomato and scamorza cheese).

Non-pasta dining options include modernized versions of Italian favourites including Branzino al Sale (salt-crusted baked sea bass served and deboned tableside), Vitello alla Milanese (veal coated in breadcrumbs and served with a Melinda tomato salad), and Gamberoni alla Griglia (spicy king prawns served with stracciatella cheese and cured duck).

Standout desserts include homemade Tiramisu and Cheesecake with compressed mango, fresh passionfruit and basil ice cream. Starters range in price from £6 to £20 with Tartare di Ricciola (Australian Hiramasa Kingfish with fennel and caviar) being the most expensive of starters.  Mains range in price from £16 to £60 for the beef T-bone steak for two persons. Brunch is served every weekend Saturday to Saturday from 12pm to 5pm.

Babbo offers an extensive wine list of over 100 wines from around the world, and signature cocktails with names inspired from Italian cinema including the ‘Godfather,’ a scotch whiskey and almond liqueur blend.  A complimentary lighter version of the same cocktail is also available called the ‘Godmother.’

The restaurant’s prime location makes it ideal for spotting celebrities and people watching. British DJ and actress, Laura Pradelska, and fitness coach and TV presenter, Joe Wicks, have both recently visited for dinner. If you are a football fan you might even spot dining one evening one of the many famous footballers who frequent the restaurant including the likes of Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud, Eden Hazard, N’Golo Kante, AC Milan’s Tiemoue Bakayoko, and Newcastle’s Kenedy.  Other football stars who have visited include Watford’s Richarlison, West Ham’s Joao Mario, Southampton’s Cedric Soares, former Manchester United defender Mikael Silvestre, and Napoli Manager Carlo Ancelotti.  Support has even come all the way from Brazil with Neymar and the entire Brazilian National Team visiting the restaurant before competing in the 2018 World Cup.

The intimate restaurant is spread across two floors with the main restaurant and bar located on the ground floor, which seats 64 and 6 persons at the bar.  Upstairs there is a private dining room available for private hire, which seats 10-14 persons. Babbo is a home away from home, a place to tell stories and create new memories by bringing people together for a great homemade meal.

Location:39 Albemarle St, Mayfair, London W1S 4JQ Reservations:020 3889 0780 Proprietors:David Luiz and Willian Borges Cuisine:Traditional Italian with a modern twist Seating:64 table seats, 6 bar seats, private room 10-14 seats

Opening Hours:Sunday – Wednesday Thursday Friday – Saturday Brunch Saturday & Sunday12pm-11pm 12pm-12am 12pm-1am 12pm-5pm

Instagram: @babbo_restaurant Twitter: @BabboLondon Facebook: @BabboRestaurantLondon Website: www.babborestaurant.co.uk

For PR & Press Inquiries Please Contact:

JPR Media Group Sophie Thomas babbo@jprmediagroup.com T: 020 7584 1978 www.jprmediagroup.com

source http://www.restaurantnews.com/famed-italian-eatery-babbo-reopens-in-the-heart-of-mayfair-with-hip-new-interiors-and-a-modern-update-on-traditional-italian-112618/

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Fay Maschler's 50 favourite restaurants in London via https://ift.tt/2RCQAdE

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Reviews: Sabor serves some of the bes...

New Post has been published on https://bestcook.makecookingfun.org/reviews-sabor-serves-some-of-the-bes/

Reviews: Sabor serves some of the bes...

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The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon has an outstanding meal at Steve Drake’s Sorrel in Dorking

I ordered the ‘Discovery’ tasting menu. It began with two exquisite snacks: filo pastry with mackerel, and the creamiest broccoli mousse with kiwi.

The first course proper was another mousse, this time pumpkin, with smoked paprika, Parmesan and parsley: melty, sweet and crunchy. Next: scallop, smoked cauliflower, cucumber and curry cannelloni. Again, a tiny swirling blizzard of competing textures and flavours: soft, crunchy, savoury, sweet.

Chicory, samphire, pork cheek, blood orange and chervil: the least remarkable thing on the menu, by virtue of being merely good. The salt-baked beetroot, by contrast, was excellent. Tangy, tingly, salty and sweet. (I know I keep saying sweet, but virtually all the dishes had some element of sweetness. From here on, assume a dish is at least partly sweet unless stated otherwise.)

A lissom poached monkfish (not sweet!) was followed by duck, date and a peculiar concoction on the side called liver meringue. Then a cheese dish that looked like a miniature bakewell tart: the inevitable sweetness offset by the stinky, glowering brutishness of the Barkham Blue cheese.

Two puddings. First, something called Carrot Tobacco. Imagine a sugary Shredded Wheat, the size of a thumbnail, but made from dehydrated carrot and served on a blob of ice cream. I guarantee it tastes much better than it sounds. Pudding number two: the burstingly fruity Blackberry Waldorf.

There’s lots to love at Sabor in London’s W1, says The Guardian’s Grace Dent, and lots that could be a little better, but it’s still some of the best Spanish food in Great Britain

Two plump, shiny gambas come in an oily garlic slick for £8. A plate of freshly blanched purple sprouting broccoli comes with a beurre blanc so sumptuous that I eat it like a belted galloway let loose among the petunias. But I’m less struck by the frit mariner, a puzzling plate of soft onion, aubergine and pepper with white fish and two prawns hiding sporadically in its midst and located only via autopsy. And white pepper is scattered liberally on many of the dishes. But I fell in love with the bombas de chocolas, a trio of saucy praline- and hazelnut-flecked doughnuts: teeth-encrustingly naughty. I love the rhubarb and mascarpone tartaleta much less, despite the deftness of its pastry bed and the freshness of all its innards. It was a too-tart tartlette.

There’s lots to love here, and lots that could be a little better. But it’s still – and this is testament to Barragán and Etura – some of the best Spanish food in Great Britain.

About £40 a head, plus drinks and service. Food: 8/10; atmosphere: 7/10; service: 8/10

The Sunday Times’s Marina O’Loughlin wants to love Bryn Williams at Somerset House on London’s Strand

The recipient of a cauliflower steak dish (yes, of course there’s a cauliflower steak dish) — an intimidatingly large slab of the vegetable, charred from the grill, dotted with fat, sweet, golden raisins and salted fresh grapes, served with a side dish of the richest, creamiest, cheesiest polenta I’ve eaten outside Piedmont — is still rhapsodising about it days later. I’m moved to swoop a chunky, golden-crusted chip through the polenta and am suitably ashamed: double-carbing, the most pleasurable transgression. Williams can certainly cook.

And he has a firecracker, if occasionally magpie, creativity too: I’ve seen compressed watermelon with seafood before, initially a Thomas Keller signature, I think, now adopted by everyone from Simon Hulstone in Torquay to Quay in Sydney. But the version here is an absolute blast of freshness, the fruit transformed by its dehydration, the crab sweet, perky, enchanting, a frond or two of salty sea asparagus and a slick of herbed oil the savoury base notes that hold it all together.

I want to love Bryn Williams at Somerset House, but what I feel is more a kind of awed respect. The staff all behave as though a smile or a bit of a chat might crack their cool. This is with the very notable exception of Federica, a Neapolitan charmer who radiates warmth and welcome like a walking ray of sunshine. She’s evangelical about Williams, recounting every stage of his “celebrity” while talking us into ordering a “lav-and-er” dessert I’d never have contemplated otherwise. It turns out to be astonishing: shards of crisp, lavender-scented meringue, lemon syllabub of clean, airy sharpness, suave, mauve blueberry ice cream: none of it too sweet, all of it a showstopper.

Total: For two, including 12.5% service charge £121

The Times’s Giles Coren is impressed by the Woodspeen in Berkshire

I had a crab risotto off the special menu, not cheap at £18 and pretty small, but beautifully made, the grains firm and lively but gritless, the crabmeat fresh and sweet, juicy little brown shrimps in there, beads of cauliflower, olive oil, spot of balsamic. Esther had their own-smoked salmon, perfectly cured, sliced vertically, muscular and fat with slivers of yellow and red pickled beetroot, blobs of goat curd, strips of Granny Smith, a wonderful riot of colour in bleakest, snow-bound winter. As was the roasted scallop with its chorizo and broccoli.

The bass was a picture: fat white flesh wobbling beneath a crisped silvery brown top, sitting on plump beans in a bright white chowder, basil leaves, some orange of pumpkin … And a tranche of cod was equally impressive, sitting on rounds of braised onion and scattered with tiny brown shrimp.

Cooking: 7; service: 8; score: 7.5. Price: £75/head

Studio 88 near London’s Leicester Square is brilliant except for the food, according to The Observer’s Jay Rayner

The service is terrific. Managing table service cheerfully when 80% of the room is on their feet dancing, as they were from about 8.10pm, is not easy. This lot managed it with grace and professionalism. What’s more, they had to do so in the face of adversity, which is to say, the notion that putting food in paper cones, placed in spindly holders, is a good one. It isn’t. Each time they served us with a cone they made a point of putting it directly into our hands.

It took me a while to work out why. If they put them on the table they would invariably fall over, as the only one they placed down did, spilling its contents. Sadly, they replaced it, which meant we got to try their take on salmon tartare. It involved avocado, olives, currants, coconut and despair. Mine. If someone had made this for me at 3am from what was lurking at the back of the fridge, I’d have understood. But to pay someone to do it seemed to me like a terrible error of judgment.

Crab croquettes were mostly potato and had a “Mum’s gone to Iceland because she hates me” quality. They were served completely tepid, which is unsurprising given they were in a paper cone. The worst of these tepid dishes was an extra sharing platter of dim sum at a shocking £20, which reminded me of those sold in a well-known Asian supermarket chain. They’d been allowed to cool and coagulate until they were stuck to the slate they had been served on. Maybe they were trying to save us from eating them. We pushed the slate aside and leapt up to dance to Don’t Stop Me Now.

Meal for two, including glass of prosecco: £50

Fay Maschler reviews Bowling Bird in London’s Farringdon in the Evening Standard, a restaurant “agreeably timeless and happy in its own skin”

Meat cooking is at the restaurant’s heart. I’ll be going back to eat one of the cuts of beef, probably the côte de boeuf with roasted shallots and sea salt, but I can tell you now about exceptionally well-flavoured rack of Borders lamb, its fat rubbed with cumin and caraway and little dots of black olive caramel providing sweet-savoury punctuation. Wild haunch of venison hung, says its recipient, almost to the point of being able to canter back to the forest, is also notable — and munificently served.

Fish dishes tried include chargrilled — few items escape that fate — octopus served with beetroot, paper-thin slices of raw mooli and alfalfa sprouts; king prawns, also grilled, accompanied by lemongrass aioli; and dish of the day of Sardinian fregola cooked with tomatoes, garnished with a pair of langoustines and zhooshed up with ’nduja. A dessert shared is tarte Tatin, where the pastry could be puffier but the caramelised apples are excellent.

Rating: 3/5

HOTELS

Tom Chesshyre of The Times enjoys the creative design of the newly launched boutique inn, the Cow in Dalbury Lees, Derbyshire

The Cow is full of surprises. The bar comes with strange stools made from tractor seats and milk churns. A table to one side is fashioned out of an old butcher’s block. Furniture and fittings have been artfully constructed from reclaimed wood and shiny sheets of copper and zinc. The reclaimed wood look continues in the rooms, which have a pared-down style and (slightly comical) paintings of cows on the walls. Old machine parts have been cleverly transformed into lamps and some rooms have cowhide chairs to go with desks made from reclaimed wood.

Most food is sourced within 30 miles and it’s served either in the bar or in a small dining section with a fireplace. The menu mainly comprises small plates such as stilton and plum rarebit, marmalade-glazed chipolatas with chutney, and baked aubergine. The idea is to order two or three each and share, or have a couple to share as a starter and then one of the larger plates. I do the latter, enjoying the hot smoked salmon flatbread (like a little pizza) and potato croquettes to start, followed by a fine pheasant casserole and, for pudding, a sweet Bakewell trifle with cherries and almond sponge.

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