champagne tasting

We put our palates to the test over Christmas blind tasting an expensive (to us) champagne (Ruinart £55) with a cheaper champagne (£30) and a prosecco. It was not a clear outcome. First of all we nearly confused each other with what we were actually testing - 'which one did we prefer?' or 'which did we think was the most expensive?'. Settling on the answer that what we prefered would be the most expensive obviously. Of the three of us, we each chose a different one as our preference. I chose the cheaper champagne but have no idea why. The strange french sommelier who sold us the Ruinart swooned and almost fell to the ground in an overwhelming rhapsody of praise for this gloriously fat bottle and I was so impatient to see if it really was special. Maybe our palates need to be trained (mine has let me down on every taste testing so far even choosing cheap orange juice and cheap UHT milk). Does the average person really examine the taste or does the cost influence the taste? If you were at a beautiful party would you feel let down to be served Prosecco, or if the bottle was covered would you really know the difference? My local wine shop man adviced to me keep on tasting! I will I will! So henceforth I go to glug champagne, and to develop my taste buds along with strong opinions one way or another.

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”― David Orr, Ecological Literacy

pomegranate seeds

Oh these beautiful things! I find a way to put them in everything. In rustic salads, adorning green beans, madeleines, flung over a savoury mousse or simply floating up and bubbling over in a glass of sparkling wine. And sometimes it feels I spend hours just slicing up the fruit and extracting the pomegranate seeds.  A friend once said every time he sees me in the kitchen I'm slicing up a pomegranate. Another said the secret of quickly getting all those beautiful jewels to tumble out is to cut it in half and tap the bottom of one half with a spoon and they should all fall out nice and easy. Which hasn't really worked. So today as I walked along the Portobello Road I thought I might ask the 'Pomegranate Man'. What is the quickest way to get all of those seeds out? I passed him by and turned back remembering my question. He was engrossed in his task, with gloves, carefully taking out each seed one by one. Then I wondered, well after all what is the rush?  Why can't we just take our time?

That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. Edgar Allan Poe

hollowed out baked potatoes with butter, mushroom and garlic, soft scrambled eggs and crispy pancetta

There is a surreal mist hovering over London tonight. A conversation with a gentleman who loves white wine in a teacup and has recently been on a souffle making course... and his wife who adores conversation. Don't you just love foodies? A feast incorporating the said baked potato skins, chestnut mushrooms cooked forever in butter to soften delicously packed down deep in the crispy potato skin with garlic and seasoning, covered with barely scrambled eggs in butter and crispy pancetta crumbled on top. Jeruslalem artichoke dauphinose with finely sliced leeks and chopped onion in garlic cream. Rack of lamb with Raspberry Jus cooked for 20 minutes at room temperature 170C fan oven. Podded baby broad beans with sliced broad beans and Raspberry, Pomegranate salad on the side.

bread sauce

Full cream milk
Onion
Cloves
Bay leaf
White breadcrumbs
Butter
Cream

Peel and cut the onion in half. Stud the cut side of the onion with the cloves. Put into a saucepan cut side down, pour on the milk to almost cover the onion, add the bay leaf, bring slowly up to simmer and remove from heat, set aside until required.  You can leave this for a few hours just for all the flavours from the onion and cloves to infuse the milk. When ready to serve remove the onion and bay leaf, add the breadcrumbs (a white loaf blitzed without crusts in the food processor until finely crumbed), stir well, reheat slowly stirring and add a knob of butter and a little cream.  If too stiff add more cream if too runny add some more breadcrumbs.  Season with salt and white pepper.  Perfect accompaniment for a beautiful roast chicken!

Chrismas salad

Baby spinich leaves
Pea shoots
Boursin balls
Walnuts roasted in sugar and cinnamon
Pomegranates
Raspberries
Dried cranberries
Walnut oil
White wine reduction

Trifles make the sum of life! Charles Dickens