Fernandez & Leluu

We're Going On The Beach

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:43:00 +0000

By Leluu
(photography by Fernandez & Leluu)

UPDATE: Please vote for us to win the final here: VOTE HERE

We love mail! Sometimes we get very exciting ones like:

“Remember writing this review http://www.qype.co.uk/place/1489131-Portoghetto-Beach-Cervo of a peach of a beach?

Congratulations, because you are one of three finalists for the On the Beach & Qype Word on the Beach competition!”

“Whooooooooooooo” echoes around the neighbourhood as we are both jumping on the bed with feathers flying everywhere like in a John Vigo movie. Dogs barking and mattress creaking, the neighbours are tapping at the wall with a broom stick but we don’t care – we’re still shouting and laughing and doing star jumps!

There are competitions left, right and centre but like the lottery, you sometimes enter never expecting in a million years that you would win. We found out about the Qype Word On The Beach competition about 2 hours before the deadline. We had just got back from having dinner with Gennaro Contaldo and I was feeling pretty lazy so when I had read about it – I said to Simon that I could do it, write something, but we probably wouldn’t win anything… He said, “Do it! Do it!” and encouraged me to sit down at my table and write whilst he was going to give me tea, wine, hot chocolate, toast or whatever I wanted. So I did. Wrote. Read. Re-write, spell check. Send. And we won! We won a holiday!

Whooooooot!! We’re still bouncing! And Simon is still churning the invisible bowl of angel delight!

We are off to the beach – thanks to http://www.onthebeach.com/ who have paid for our flights to Croatia and accommodation in Hvar and Korcula. We’ve been working so hard and we are in serious need of some sun and eat food that is not cooked by ourselves!

This time last year, Simon and I went on holiday together for the first time. We went to Italy: Sicily and then to Northen Italy to a wonderful place called Cervo – as written in the winning review. We had food at the most amazing mountain restaurant – there are plenty of them dotted around in the middle of nowhere. The families who run them live there too. For 20 – 30 Euros (you can decided how much food you want to eat) you get about 8 - 10 courses – of which you do not order from the menu - the kitchen just brings out plates after plates of antipasti, pastas, secondi, carne, fish, dessert and wine by the gallon. It was wonderful and this is what inspired us to do supper clubs.

We spent 5 hours eating with our friends next to a beautiful view of mountains and valleys of olive groves. The skies were filled with those puffy pot bellied clouds waiting to burst and indeed they did. We ate and drank and couldn’t differentiate between Simon’s laughter and the thunderous heavens. The evening will be one of those wonderful nights that will live in our memories forever! I love Italy – please let me live there for at least a year sometime soon.

But Simon and I wanted to go somewhere neither of us have been before. We love to discover new things – such as the beaches, the people and the cuisine! We have no idea about Croatia - we hope to learn something and hopefully bring it back to share at the supper club to share.

In preparation for the trip – Simon has been looking at everything including the kitchen sink – he was even sent out on a bikini mission but instead, found the ultimate ‘AbbMax Swinger Plus’ – heh!

...and found much more interest in people and his journey rather than things in the shops! Looks like we will be playing it by ear...

We haven't got time to go shopping - we will be doing it all in Split and Hvar instead of feeding the fat cats of Oxford Circus. Can't wait!

Upside Down Apple Pie or Apple Tart Tatin Recipe

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:19:00 +0000

By Simon Fernandez (@theferdie)
I've had upside down tart loads of time, but last summer I had one of the best ever. Apples with a bite but not sour and a lovely pastry. I'm pretty sure that I happened to be looking over the Mediterranean with a cooling sea breeze on my face, and that this had made me a little more receptive to the cool sumptuous apple tart as I put the first bite into my mouth along with some plain vanilla ice cream!! I've been trying to recreate it ever since!

As I've been looking around, I stumbled upon some factoids. Upside down tart made with apples or pears is a very old recipe from the Sologne (a region of north central France) and is found throughout Orleans. The name comes from the Tatin Sisters who ran a hotel-restaurant in Lamotte Beuvron whose version established their reputation.

There are 35 species of apples, the species that gives us most of our eating apples is Malus x domestica, which can be subdivided into 4 categories of apple: Cider, Dessert or eating apples, Cooking apples, and Dual Purpose apples such as Granny Smith or Golden Delicious. Eating apples are used in this recipe.

The things you find out!! Anyway here's the version I made this weekend, I may post refinements...

Ingredients:
6 apples (~800g) cut into 4mm thick slices
200g sugar
200g butter
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
300g pastry

300ml double cream
rose water to taste
or sugar and cinnamon

Method:
Put the sugar and butter in large sauce pan together and leave on high heat until the butter and sugar have combined into a golden brown caramel at this point there's still a bit of grain in the sugar (when making a caramel try and avoid stirring and sugar on the pan wall which will cause his crystallisation), add the apples.

Juice from the apples will flavour the sauce. Coat the apples with it and leave the heat on until the mix starts to bubble, then simmer for 10 mins and take off the heat. Leave to rest for 30m or until needed.

Use a slotted spoon to place the apple into baking dishes and keep the remaining sauce for topping.

Cover the rolling pin, pastry (method here) and surface in flour, and roll out a rectangle that's an inch bigger than the baking tray. My baking dish was 25 x 18 x 4cm.

Cover with flaky pastry tucking the pastry down the sides to create a lip when it's turned over and paint with a beaten egg.

Put it in the oven at 200C / 20-25m : )

Whip the double cream, and depending on whether you decide to have rosewater cream or cinnamon cream, add the sugar and cinnamon, or the rose water to your taste.

On taking the pie out of the oven, drain off any excess liquid there might be into the sauce that you set aside earlier.

Place a large heat proof tray over the pie and turn it upside down to turn out the tatin.

Sprinkle caster sugar over the apple and caramelise sugar and slightly char apple with a blowtorch.

Bring the reserved sauce to the boil, simmer until the sauce is a lovely golden brown. Drip on the apple tatin slices and serve with a tablespoon of whipped cream!

Tip: don't cook the apples too long or you'll have apple sauce rather than apple slices that still have a little bite to them.

Tip: for the caramel sauce stir it as little as possible and try not to get sugar on the sides of the pan, both will cause the caramel to crystallise. Don't go a darker colour than mahogany or the sauce will be overdone.

Tip: get a proper blow torch, you can get one with a handle and built in lighter for around £20. Don't bother with a pencil flame blow torch, you'll be there all day and your sauce will burn!! You'll be farting around so much you'll be liable to blow yourself through the kitchen window!

Left: Good torch, built in piezzo electric light, works in all directions!!

Right: Not so good, goes out when you point it down!! And quite tricky to light!!! Don't bother.

Our Guest Blog Post on "Ooh.com"

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:52:00 +0000

An insider’s guide to the supper club phenomenon

This week we’re proud to have a guest blog post from Uyen Luu, supper club owner extraordinaire. Here, Uyen writes about the movement of supper clubs and how her and her partner Simon Fernandez’s supper club, Fernandez & Leluu, has influenced them in the past year.

Supper clubs, the new trend for private dinners held in someone’s home, where you get to sit with other guests, just like at a friend’s dinner party, is blooming on all our street corners. You get to enjoy whatever the host is cooking up, you bring your own wine and you make a donation towards the cost of the meal. You hear about it through friends, through blogs and through secret things to do.

This time last year, we had no idea that this time this year, we would be having hundreds of people on a waiting list, wanting to have dinner in our flat! On top of that, we had no idea that we would make so many foodie friends and get invited to restaurant openings, launches, press events and parties – where we get to meet even more friends and spread the word about our supper club, Fernandez & Leluu.

I met Simon at the end of 2008 when Simon gate-crashed my dinner party... Read more here on www.ooh.com

Ooh.com is a great website where you can find out about lots of exciting and even secret things to do all over London and the world. They have sections dedicated to adventures, food, sports, travel crafts and all sorts! Check it!

The Complete History Of Food - Bompas & Parr - Review

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:32:00 +0000

By Leluu
“Ladies please take off your shoes if you have high heels on,” yells the attendant, “as you’ll have to walk over a tight bridge with live eels – yes – you heard me – there are live eels – I hear they are quite frisky at this time of day too.”

Before that, we enter a dark room (The Medieval Room By Saf). A handsome and charming man tells individually, (just by looking at us in the dark) if our humours are in harmony. “This means that a person’s health and personality is dependent on four all-important bodily fluids: the humours: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood.”

I was immediately diagnosed as ‘yellow bile’ – short fused and angry (that didn’t please me) and need some 'Phlem' to calm me down. Simon having too much 'blood' - too happy needed some 'black bile' to make him ‘melancholic’

It was dark, atmospheric chamber music was blasting off the speakers – Instead of plugging us into the Thames like they used to do in those times and we would have had bloodthirsty leeches purge the excess fluids from us – restoring us back to good health; but today, we were lead to another room where there were eels swimming around outside, a bar where, of course, a mixologist, served us according to our demeanour.

As the sounds of dungeons and dragons tickled away in a candle lit cave, Simon had a popsicle-lemon, sorrel paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Pear and Cardamom Sidecar and I had the ‘angry’ Popcorn truffle, porcini paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Apricot Martini, It was a very warm and sweet hit to our appetite. (NB – yes he’s right – I am an angry person).

The poetry of fast forwarding us to present day (or rather - the 80s) was quite quirky as we were shuffled into a tight lift all the way to the roof where we were greeted with duck foie gras balls, covered in nuts with a port jelly filling by Michelin Starred Chef, Alexis Gauthier. It was interesting…it was certainly a take on Ferrero Rocher!

The view from there is wonderful. London looks so different when you can see it from a height and this is a great way of making us feel like we are in the present, in the now with Paul Tvaroh’s (a molecular mixologist) glass of flat champagne cocktail without the fizz. The fizz is in the grapes! Very clever and very nice indeed!

Then like Michael J Fox, we were back in the 50s as we trailed down the beaten stairs into a living room for our Bompas & Parr scratch 'n' sniff TV dinner. It did smell pretty good and dirty. I really fancied it in that room on that comfy couch with the telly on!

But the fun was really to be had in the next bit: bouncy castle in form of the insides of a rotten stomach by Visual Artists Andy Best & Merja Puustinen

Talking of stomachs, we were getting pretty hungry and were wondering where the food was; we walked along some corridors and then found a room with a dinosaur in it. That was our dinner table, representing the Victorian fine dinning scene, as that was when restaurants were on the rise and “extravagant and sumptuous dinner parties" became popular.

Who better to know about extravagant dinning than the Bistrotheque boys. The duck confit puy lentils, beetroot and black champagne sauce was completely welcoming. Although it was perfectly balanced and quite good it was rather ordinary and very contemporary for an Iguanodon Dinner, with ‘Josephine’s Tea Garden’ punch with Courvoisier (of course), green tea, apple juice and elderflower cordial by Ben Leggett.

For the journey’s finale, Bompas & Parr created the Renaissance Banqueting House. We entered a room shelved with amazing sugar sculptures, a massive revolving cake with plates of our desserts: jelly! Candied Orange, Iris Jellies and Ambergris Posset (whale’s vomit).

The jelly, a good rubbery texture with a taste, typical of something artificial and extremely sweet was the highlight of what we all came to see. I liked the little bit of whale vomit – it was just like good custard. You can find ambergris or whale vomit on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean or washed up on the beach.

This was obviously served with Courvoisier as a little plate of jelly on the table kept trying to take off.

The Complete History Of Food – was like a little journey for the senses. A great journey with Cognac for sure. But not really sure where the food comes into it. The title seems a little misguided to us but it was certainly a very enjoyable experience all in some abandoned house in Belgrave Square, near Hyde Park.

In my opinion, it is a half way house between an excellent, quality art installation (such as the very sensory show by Cildo Meireles at The Tate Modern in 2009) and something you must get at Alton Towers with a lot of Cognac. The product placement was certainly un-missable – not that we don’t love Courvoisier – we really do!

Perhaps if we had not been so dedicated to all of Heston Blumenthal’s Feast, we may have expected less. But upon saying that, we did hope to see a little more jelly. The sugar sculptures were certainly very beautiful but the room did not present itself grandly enough in my opinion as ‘renaissance’ and the entire billing of the show being “the ‘complete’ history of 'food'” did not really fit the experience. We had a great evening nevertheless and enjoyed our tokens for the bar very wisely.

Thank you to Focus PR for inviting us.
Read more on Ambergris and how it is used in perfume on here: http://www.arosebeyondthethames.blogspot.com/

The Complete History Of Food 14-18 July 2010 is Sold Out

Bacon Swirls Recipe

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:47:00 +0000

By SimonFernandez (@theferdie)

These - amongst other excellent pastry thingies - are something me mum used to make for us at Christmas, I made them for Uyen one time and ever since I quite often hear her chanting "bacon swirls! bacon swirls!!" This weekend we had a lovely group of people who also commented not only on the swirls but also about loving to cook so here's for you guys Keith and Kate : ) this will make around 16 swirls.

Ingredients:
400g flakey pastry
150g soft cheese,
12 rashers bacon, (smoked or plain)
1 onion shredded,
1/2 bunch (20g) parsley coarsely chopped,
150g cheddar grated,
1 clove garlic – crushed and mixed in to onion
1 egg - for shine

Method:
Flour your surface and rolling pin so pastry doesn't stick to either.
Roll out the pastry (click here for recipe) into a rectangle 30cm x 45 about 2mm thick.
Spread a thin layer soft cheese onto all the pastry using a palette knife, leaving an inch clear at the top.
Cover the cheese with the bacon and then sprinkle the cheddar, garlic and onion mix and parsley on top.

Use a brush to wet the top inch of pastry so it seals, and roll the pastry from the bottom until sits onto of the clear inch.
You should now have a 45cm roll of bacon cheese loveliness (and naughtiness!!)
Oil the base of a baking tray then cut your roll into approximately 2.5 cm slices and place them side ways into the tray.
Coat the tops and sides of the rolls with beaten egg to give a shiny finish.

Tip: remove the rind from the bacon this makes the rolls easier to cut, and use a very sharp large knife using long strokes to get a nice clean cut.

Tip: don't place the rolls too close together, they need room to spread as they cook, at least 3 cm between rolls.

Tip: for a veggie version, you need to adjust the pastry recipe to use butter, and take out the bacon, these are quite nice with some cajun spice added too!

Meeting & Eating With Gennaro Contaldo

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:34:00 +0000

By Leluu

There wasn’t a moment of consideration when we were invited to meet, learn from and eat with Gennaro Contaldo at L’Atelier des Chefs – (a cooking school in Central London). Yes Please! Genarro is Jamie Oliver’s mentor! The guy is a genius, a respected TV chef, a personality, an entertainer and above all he is an Italian!

We all know that the Italians are loud about loving their food and they love to cook well, eat well and live well. Its summer time and summer means Italy! Whether you’re going there on holiday to take some sun, living la vida loca, or take some time out for “Eat Pray Love” like Elizabeth Gilbert - whose trip was all about la dolce vita (we will soon see highlights of our Liz portrayed by Julia Roberts at the movies) or you’re just at home and the taste of Italy is just in simple ingredients like garlic, tomatoes and basil.

Gennaro from Amalfi has always struck as a typical Italian with his ancient Neapolitan gestures and mannerisms. You know, the one with all the tips of the fingers of one hand bought together pointing upwards and then shaken violently up and down depending on the degree of impatience. Is he a caricature of his own stereotype or is this how he always is – at home and elsewhere – a marveling Italian with spirit and ‘passione’, having a lifetime love affair with food.

This is a very nice book, "Supplement To The Italian Dictionary" by Bruno Munari you can learn how to speak volumes with gestures or at least understand what the heck the Italians are on about. (I always thought the one with the finger turning in circles pointing towards the ear means: you’re thick – but it means – Call me.. he he)

Gennaro is the new face of Bertolli for the new soffritto range of pasta sauces such as Basilico, Arrabbiata and Napoletana (the ‘soffritto’ technique is chopped onions sweating in the finest olive oil as slowly as possible to make a flavoursome base).

Whom better than this strong, vocal, humorous and fatherly figure we see on TV – a household brand and a household celebrity chef hand in hand.

His hand shake is as steady as a rock, his presence and charisma locks you captive as he sets to inspire, teach and share the wealth of his knowledge and skill for making good food. He shouts, his voice is loud and his gestures make you listen and hear every word and every detail is an inspiration. Here is a man defined by his love, his passion, his talents in honour of good food and he is willing to represent jar sauces. Might you be cynical?

As a lazy so-and-so, I don’t always cook sauces from scratch for myself– because I don’t always have the time or the energy to after a hard day’s work. Before coming to this event, I am already a Bertolli consumer – its one of the tastier ones from the supermarket – I am already sold.

The Italians believe that great food makes life worth living but also don’t always want or need to cook from scratch every day. Therefore, many Italian households consume sauces from a jar such as Bertolli – because if a good sauce already exists – sometimes you just don’t want to go through the bother of cooking when you can be doing something else.

I wouldn’t believe for one second that manufacturers of these sauces would get away with selling such bad tasting sauces like the famous ones sold in the UK, that fill supermarket lanes because no one would buy them. Thank goodness for Bertolli, (Barilla & Agnesi).

It is amazing to think that some Italian guy, Francesco Bertolli, probably the same as Gennaro back in 1865 set up a small family stall selling olive oils, wine, cheese and olives. Did he imagine that generations after he had lived that so many homes of millions of families around the world would enjoy a range of what he started underneath his family home?

Our “cooking lesson” with Gennaro was just like watching him perform as he does so well on shows. He must have taste a pomodoro sauce a thousand times and over but it seems that every time he tastes his creation – its like it’s the first time. He bangs his spoon in delight and exclaims to God, “Oh! Its beautiful! Fantastic! Uhmmmmmmmm! God! I am good at cooking!"

Gennaro is possessed as he stands at his kitchen, creating magic – it is like he is in his element, his whole body language and expressions is deployed like poetry. We were all in awe. Don’t we just love these characters who are not afraid of expression. Who are so free about their passion and so high in spirits. He is a very funny man and to learn from him must be the greatest gift you can receive.

He is still working with Jamie Oliver and trains new chefs at ‘Jamie’s Italian.’ Gennaro also gives private cooking lessons at his home in North London – you can check it all out on his website: www.gennarocontaldo.com

At dinner we were lucky enough to sit next to him and his best mate, Paolo, a chef at Etrusca and they were both teaching us Italian signs like, your brains doesn’t work, you’re breaking my balls and so on. Heh! Gennaro was rolling out the jokes, “in Italian, its funny”. Cultures always love talking about their culture and of course we had some pasta, one with mackerel and one with beef and Bertolli sauce. It was really nice. And a delight to meet Paolo and Gennaro.

Picnic At Henley Royal Regatta With Ryvita

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:54:00 +0000

We are still pinching ourselves to see if we would wake up! Not really sure why we are on such a lucky star. We were asked to host a picnic at Henley Royal Regatta (at the Semi Finals) for Ryvita who also had a stand there that day.

Ryvita and picnics and Henley – all fits together like a glove- all we were hoping for was the sun to shine and it did not fail us, shining brightly without doubt. Wonderful. We were allowed to invite six bloggers and they were the lovelies all dressed to Henley codes: (girls had to wear dresses below the knee and boys had to wear blazers). The London Foodie, Meemalee’s Kitchen, Greedy Diva, Tamarind & Thyme, Feast On Scraps & Violets Curd

Considering that we could not do any cooking at the picnic, this event was also quite a challenge (but a lovely one) – with prepping and getting everything packed to be traveled all the way to Oxfordshire. This event was about making great toppings for Ryvita and for a picnic fit for royalty. It meant that we cold source really fine ingredients, have a mega feast and enjoy a lovely British day out.

We had hampers and rugs and Laurent Perrier champagne and six other picnic-ers all on trains and automobiles reaching us and it was such an excitement all around.

In the many cool bags, we had great French cheeses such as Manchego, Brebis Blue, Fribourg D'alpage, Picos Blue etc from La Bouche – Broadway Market – a selection of fantastic hams from Uneathed, pate and rillette. We had Donald Russell Smoked Salmon, a selection of Tracklements and a whole hamper of strawberries, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, peaches, apricots and plums.What better than to eat them all off Cornishware crockery - (as a girl - these are the things you plot for a great day out!)

We tried a lot of things with Ryvita. They have a new range of cracker-breads and I really love the shallot one – goes really well with cream cheese and salmon! As for Rillette – goes well with anything – like an original Ryvita.

Simon roasted figs with mustard for our selection of cooked, parma, salami hams and poached the most beautiful pears in champagne and vanilla pods. I was quite nerved by the thought of him boiling champagne but I have to say, he does get it right! (most of the times).

My special request was Simon’s amazing Russian salad with potatoes, peas, carrots, egg, olives, mayo and sweet roasted peppers. The combination of sweet, salt and sour in a creamy texture of maris pipers cooked to the point of fluffyness is outrageously delicious.

And when people thought that was it, we bought out the samphire from Cornwall, the Sri Lankan Yellow Fin short line caught tuna sashimi, Pacific oysters, the biggest Wild Madagascan Tiger Prawns we have all ever seen – all from The Fin & Flounder – an independent fish mongers on Broadway Market that specializes in line caught and ethical fishing. This was utterly delightful! We were really happy with the quality and freshness of the fish.

We dressed the tuna in our special marinade of soy, ginger, mirin and orange with spring onions. We had the beautiful creamy, sweet and huge oysters with Tabasco and lemon. Mimi and I were offering them around, hoping people would refuse so that we could have them all. Heh! We can not recommend these oysters enough.

As for the massive prawns, we bought a portable gas stove but due to health & safety reasons, we couldn’t use them so we pinched a barbeque off a stall along to boil some water and then they were just blanched for 45 seconds. We served these with beautiful, fresh, crisp samphire in Extra Virgin Olive Oil and lemon.

For dessert, we had lemon curd cupcakes from VioletsCurd from the soon to be The Hatcham Supper Club and I made a trifle with strawberries and blueberries soaked in Cointreau. I made the sponge from Mich Turner’s fairy cake recipe – I sliced them in half and made two layers with some custard to top it off.

Then of course, we were trying to convince everyone to polish off the fruits and cheeses with flowing Laurent Perrier Champagne as we tried to see races and soak in the lovely British summer sun.

We’ve been extremely lucky to work with WildCard, who have introduced us to new levels of happiness and making our project really enjoyable. Having a picnic like this is something we all love to do and be part of. Everyone who walked by our picnic was amazed. One guard about 200 yards down said– ‘you’re the ones with the mental picnic.’

It certainly was mental – we could never normally have such an extravaganza. Thank you to Ryvita and Wild Card.

Like A House On Fire

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:00:00 +0000

They say that what goes up, must come down. There is a black and there is white, Ying and Yang and all that. There is no one that believes this more than me. After a turbulent ride from the age of 29 – 32, I believe my bad luck years are over. (My Japanese friend, Nobuko, says that her natives believe this is the age women endure most bad luck in a lifetime – I hope that this is right!)

At 33, with Simon we are having the greatest time of our lives, with windows and doors appearing in every direction – all we have to do is open them, with our own hands and look forward to many great things.

Yet again, we had the most amazing supper clubs last weekend and we are astounded that we can still feel so happy about doing them after 9 months of solid work! And a lot of fun too!

Menu
-Pea Soup With Ham
-Figs w/ Goats Cheese & Prosciutto
-Tortilla & Tomate Picante w/ Courgette, Cucumber & Feta Salsa
-Deep Fried Lotus With Carrot & Chicken Salad & Prawn Crackers
-Banh Cuon With Cured Ham & Pork Belly
-Tuna Sashimi & Chips
-Beef Pho
-Coconut Sorbet W/ Cointreau

(Figs w/ Goats Cheese & Prosciutto)

Via Adrian Bevan at Visit Britain (who looks after journalists from all over the world when it comes to food in the UK), Luiz Hara -The London Foodie bought over Annabelle White, New Zealand’s answer to Delia Smith. Annabelle is Author of 10 cookbooks, has a popular TV and radio cook show. It was slightly terrifying.

I spoke to her at some length at the beginning and at the end of the night, she was so lovely. She came in pretty happy but when she left, she was really really happy. She enjoyed herself so much and she kept asking me how I made the Pho – of which I have directed her to here and here. Must repost this with updates.

(Banh Cuon With Cured Ham & Pork Belly)

Annabelle told me what gives her so much satisfaction is writing recipes so that other people can try to make your recipe at home themselves. She says how thrilled she gets when people stop her on the street to tell her how they made one of her recipes and how it made them so happy to feed their families and loved ones, a great dish.

I told Annabelle that I need more experience with writing recipes (I hardly follow them myself) because its very precise and I have not really had time to test a recipe with measurements before. Simon is better at recipes. I cook instinctively.

She said a great thing, that food needs to be shared. It doesn’t matter if someone can not make it taste as well as you can, but it’s the act of other people cooking what you have shared with them is the most important thing. Food is for sharing.

We totally agree. I will be doing my next pot of Pho with scientific precision so that Annabelle can share it with Kiwis!! Yay!

Not only was Thursday night’s guests were spectacular and Luiz stayed chatting with us, he said, we keep ‘outdoing ourselves’ as we were polishing off all the left over wine on tables. (Someone opened a bottle and didn’t even touch it – thanks guys!!!)

On Friday, we were expecting Tim Hayward! OMG – he is the Editor of our favourite publication: Fire & Knives and he wanted to record a show for BBC Radio 4 for The Food Programme about Supper Clubs. He should have already been to the fantastic Civet Cat Supper Club in Newington Green and the famous - The Underground Restaurant in Kilburn for the show and we were the last stop. Now that is terrifying!!

Tim & Dan Saladino (the producer) mingled with 24 other guests. The garden swapped with strangers meeting strangers and becoming friends. It was extraordinary to see how people simply chat willingly to other people in a small place because it is allowed and accepted in this space, this supper club.

How often are we packed full to the brim like cattle and sheep on the tube and we only look at the smallest available space to avoid even the blink of eye contact.

To us, this idea of bringing people together is just as important as making the best tasting food we can to our ability. It is such a high to see people get on like a house on fire!

Tim, one of my favourite writers, is as lovely, charming, charismatic as I imagined him to be and he was interviewing us. What the-...

Tim and Dan asked us very sophisticated questions. I like those as we always get asked the same questions. One interesting one, was about supper clubs and what they mean to us – is it a performance art?

To us, creating and continuing to have strangers come into our home to be fed is a lot like a two way affair. We feed our guests, but they also feed us in more ways than food, in which a lot of our guests form many colours on a blank canvas we once started with 9 months ago.

The Food Programme on Supper Clubs will be on Radio 4 on Sunday 4th July 2010 from 12:30 pm.

Listen to Podcast here

In picture above: Most people have gone home, but sometimes, a few brilliant people stay behind and talk to us. Its fantastic- the best part of the day! We are tipsy and we are having very funny conversations. We are all either ourselves or we are someone else, it doesn't matter because we can be as we are, as we want, and we all become friends.

The Hairy Bikers - Wants You!

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:10:00 +0000

We love watching cookery programmes on TV. What better – midweek, eating your dinner with the telly on. Whether it’s a bit of Sophie Dahl’s dreamy indulgence, to Jamie Oliver’s travels and missions to Gordon Ramsey’s four letter words – they are so much fun and inspirational – eat food, watch food, talk food, think food, see food!

We get some great dinner guests from all walks of life and some from the BBC approached us to write a blog post on The Hairy Bikers as they are looking for contestants to take part in their new show about being ‘Britain’s Best Cooking Family.’ It reminded us of their shows – ‘Mum Knows Best’.

Mums do definitely know best. Mums are awesome – they introduced us to the foods we love and they continue to make our best, our favourite and our most loved dish. My mother helps me so much with Vietnamese cuisine as does Simon’s mum advise him on many Spanish and British favourites. She is the actual secret to Simon’s amazing chips! Simon's mum loves The Hairy Bikers!

What we love about the Hairy Bikers is that they are no nonsense cooking – they make stuff and its about the taste and how enjoyable it is to cook and to eat. They are not about restaurants and presentation – they are down to earth and appeal to the vast majority of people who aren’t passionate foodies like some of us are and encourage people to enjoy food.

There isn’t anything pretty about them – but there is something massively appealing and warm about Simon King and David Myers that is so instinctive and humane.

You can apply to be in their next show here
or email hairybikersfamilyfood@bbc.co.uk

We will be cooking up some of their recipes very soon (we haven’t got much time of late)– and hope that they get to reveal some great secrets passed on from mums and mums of mums and their mums. (or dads).

Seeking School Dinners

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:41:00 +0000

I found these sausages by Clonakilty Sausages at Taste Of London yesterday and it provoked a head full of happy memories. I love them, I have been looking for these sausages for about 20 years and alas, we met Eat Like A Girl and she showed them to us – just like that – as if they were obviously there all that time! (The black and white puddings are also amazing!)

It was not always a joy to stand in a formal alphabetical queue with the same persons in front and behind you. You are stuck with them all your child hood years at primary school and secondary school. So you’d better get on with them. When the bell dings and Mrs Badger marches you with her whistle to the dinning hall my belly always rang with excitement and just as loudly. It was/is cool to hate school dinners but I loved it and so did everyone else – o yes – they loved it where I went.

The hoorah schcreams when we were the first class to the dinning hall being able to chose whatever we wanted and getting jelly & some Viennesse biscuit was the highlight of our little minds.

In Secondary school, we all ran as fast as possible to the dinning hall. OK it was to avoid the lengthy queues but it was also to catch their amazing pizzas on baguette, tinned raviolis, shepherds pie, macaroni and cheese, spam fritters, fish fingers and mash, chilli con carne and rice but most of all, it was the desserts.

Nowadays, I am not a dessert fan, unless you give me school dinner desserts (of which I now happily go to Stock Pot for - I am telling you - I am NOT ashamed). I have never since had the toffee tarts with hundreds and thousands, the apple crumble and custard, the golden syrup sponge, the jelly & biscuits, the rice pudding… I have never had it so well as I had it there – at school – my first introduction to British (?!) food.

It was the 80’s, we were Thatcher’s children, drinking our last bits of bottled milk. I loved St Joan Of Arc Primary School, I was the popular kid, the only oriental girl from a far far away land – every boy and girl thought was so exotic and wanted to teach me English. Being a refugee from Vietnam, my mother only fed us what she knew and she not only turned her nose up at the English diet, she actually couldn’t afford it. I still remember when she first found corriander in Dalston market - O the joy!!

My mum would seek the markets for cheap beef bones and cheap cuts of meat to make us the best Pho, the best braised pork belly, the best fried fish… well, at the time, my brother and I wanted to be like the other kids – we didn’t think that it was so cool to be eating any form of fish or Pho! We loved school dinners – for us, it was so different and it tasted so good!

The trauma still tingles of the memory of her getting a pig's head from the local butcher - they were giving it away. She was just delighted - but us? We weren't so delighted when we saw our school friends and their mum looking horrified through the butcher window at some woman happy about receiving a pigs head. There were squeals that day!

One week, for some reason, we all had to go on school dinners strike! I was devastated, being ten years old and having to deal with my mother’s packed lunch was a huge ordeal. She made us a bento box of things like braised pork belly with steamed rice, pickles, some choi sum in oyster sauce and then banana and coconut dessert.

Both my brother and I hid it, but having sense, we carried it home to mum, saying that we were too full to eat it (so would have it for dinner or on top of dinner - it was very delish), we were so ashamed as children to be seen with stinky Vietnamese food. She put a couple of apples in too, and so, for one week, my brother and I both ate apples only for lunch and ran to the fish and chips shop in Arsenal, Highbury Hill with our friends on the way home, hoping to share their chips as soon as possible.

The chips – the best ever-, covered in onion vinegar and salt, shaken in a newspaper paper was also another highlight – with our friends who lived nearby – still a memory I will forever cherish.

LOVE LELUU blog post on Canteen's Fish & Chips & Meeting Cass Titcombe here

Ingredients, Methods, Secrets Pho-Pho Phoever & BBQ

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:30:00 +0000

Last week we decided to do a three day run - its kind of like a test - for if we ever have a venue/ restaurant, we'd have to work every day! So we're trying it out with three days - just for practice's sake.

Menu:

-Ho Fun With Crispy Pork Belly & Cured Ham
-Beef Pho
-Chargrilled Lemongrass Pork Patties
-Seared Beef Salad In Shrimp Paste Dressing,

Lime, Coriander, Peanuts, Sugar Snap Peas & Chips
-Tomatoes & Tofu/ Or Fried Pak Choi In Oyster Sauce
-Slow Cooked Caramelised Catfish in Coconut Juice
-Coconut Sorbert

Ho Fun With Crispy Pork

Simon loves his meat - we roasted a belly of pork for the Ho Fun dish. It was an experiment and was not really Vietnamese tasting as it had non Vietnamese spices but it was really good nevertheless. We love playing around with flavours and pairing them with whats conventional.

Crispy Pork Belly Method:

Score

Blow torch on both sides to brown. Bake 150 C for 120 mins

Rub salt and pepper or in this instance - cajun.

220 C for 30 mins

You can buy the Ho Fun fresh every morning on Mare Street at a Vietnamese factory. They are made with Spring Onions and dried prawns. You can eat it cold or you can heat it up by steaming them in a bowl over hot water or simply put them in a microwave. Then you cut them up into desired lengths.

I usually eat these with Vietnamese hams - 'Cha', cured/ fermented hams like 'Nem' - sometimes with just good soy sauce. Sprinkle with dried shallots and coriander. But of course if you put a little effort in to make a great sauce - it's like you've died and gone to heaven.

Ho Fun Sauce Ingredients:
I am terribly bad at knowing the right quantities of ingredients - Simon is still shaking his head at me because I have never written it down and he wants me to share my sauces with him but as much as I want to share it with myself, I haven't gotten around to measuring because I like to do everything with instinct and taste.

I can not stress enough how important it is to buy premium fish sauce. The 3 Crabs one is the one we use - its the best one in our opinion. It costs about £5 - far from the £1.50 bottle and you can certainly taste the difference.

To make about 250ml - (these are purely estimates) Please do not add all of it at once - add as you go

about 75ml 3 Crabs Fish Sauce
about 125ml Coconut Juice
2 or 3 Limes to taste
Blend some chillis (about 4/5), garlic (3 cloves)
Teaspoonful of Honey to taste or you can use sugar.

Put together in a jar, stir to taste and keep getting that balance of salty-sour- sweet. I have also discovered that once you think you have found your balance - shaking the jar vigorously makes a huge difference to the taste of the sauce. All the flavours gets released and bursts in your mouth!

Beef PHO

You can find my method and list of ingredients in an older post here.
However, there have been some developments. I am no longer using the stock cubes because I am cooking it for a good 8 hours or more on low heat.

For a clear broth, I boil my ribs, shank, oxtails in salted water until the pot is full of froth and scum. Then I throw all the water away and wash all my bits completely clean. The I let it sit for about 15 minutes - all the blood will release - then I wash it again until the water in my bowl is not bloody anymore.

This is when I put everything into a big stock pot with clear, clean water. The secret ingredient I discovered is to cook all the beef with half a chicken (or even a whole one). Chicken stock is amazing - it gives everything a depth and I found that my Pho tastes better than ever now that I've cooked the beef ribs and oxtails with it.

Also, remember to keep the lid on and keep it on a gentle boil for a clear broth. After about half an hour, take the chicken out - you can have it in Pho later or mid way... or use it in a salad - its endless - what you can do with chicken!

(This photo: Courtesy of The Gourmet Lovers)

Lemongrass Pork Patties

These are meant to be eaten with vermicelli and a herb salad - but because we had so much rice products on the menu - we just served them alone. They are great in a barbeque too.

Ingredients:
Enough for 25 people: this is a rough estimate of what goes in - doe fry a bit and taste and adjust.

2kg Shoulder Of Pork - Minced by our fab butcher
4 bulbs Garlic blended10 x Small Shallots blended
8 x Lemongrass finely chopped or blended
4 tbs Olive Oil
2 tbs Pork Flavouring
1 thumb of Galangal
2 tbs Fish Sauce
4 tbs Honey
2 tbs Brown Sugar
4 tbs Red Wine
4 tbs Cornflour
1 tsp Ground Black Pepper

Method
Mix together with your hands - get in there!
Leave overnight
You can shape them into little balls and grill with skrewers or you can fry them, barbeque them...

We served them with mint.

Seared Beef Salad In Shrimp Paste Dressing

(This photo: Courtesy of The Gourmet Lovers)

We had never made this dressing before, the sauce is Cambodian inspired. We love playing around with sauces and making things taste different than expected. When you make this - it stinks a bit - but fear not - its really delicious!

Ingredients for Sauce- For about 6 people

1 Palm Sugar
1 and half tsp Shrimp Paste - into a mug of hot water - dissolve
Juice of 3 Limes
1 Red Chilli half de-seeded - chopped

Brown the following in a pan:
2 Lemongrass Stalks - blended -
2 Shallots
2 Garlic Cloves

Melt the palm sugar and add everything else in.
Shake in a jar and leave to rest for about an hour or so to let the lemongrass and all the flavours release.
Drain and then pour over fillet steak pieces.

We sliced up sugar snap peas and garnished with peanuts and coriander. The shrimp flavour really compliments the beef -that has just been seared on both sides.

Caramelised Catfish In Coconut Juice

(This photo: Courtesy of The Gourmet Lovers)

Coconut Sorbet

(This photo: Courtesy of The Gourmet Lovers)

Ingredients: for about 6 people

3/4 cup of caster sugar
120ml coconut milk
50g desiccated coconut
a good squeeze of lime

Method:
Sugar and a cup of water in the pan, bring to boil until sugar has dissolved.
Reduce and simmer for about 5 minutes
Stir in coconut milk, coconut and lime juice.
When cool, put into freezer for about an hour, then take out and reblend until smooth and creamy.
Freeze until frozen

The 3 day run was a success. After the first day - we learn how to put things in place and make life easier for ourselves the next. We cooked everything from scratch every day, ensuring we serve all our guests fresh and wholesome food. We had a fantastic time! Our guests were all so happy and that is so great to see. Great atmosphere as always!

You can read a review from Gourmet Lovers who attended here.

After the 3 days, it was my birthday so we invited some friends and had a BBQ!
Ribs, sausages, bellies, burgers, aubergines, sweetcorn firing away! Everyone bought something - it was amazing and very generous. In the far east, it means I will have lots of prosperity and success in the coming year. whooot! We watched the first England game against USA in the World Cup and drank to our hearts content.

It was such a good birthday. So good - we forgot to serve the coconut sorbet we had made for everyone. More matches = more BBQ!!! yay!

Summer Rolls - 104.1-3-0-30-30

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:01:00 +0000

Uyen and I went to Vietnam - on a food odyessy. We were food hunting, sampling everything we could lay our mits on! We had a day of markets: buying fruits - some crazy ones I had never come across, steamed coconut rice buns, varieties of different meats barbecued on sticks - causing the air to linger of lemongrass and sweet honey. The smoke raged our appetites and make our eyes open wide.

We munched away, dissected, nibbled, sucked and generally investigated the offerings of the street stalls, drinking - sugar cane juice. And then there, it was - the discovery of the summer rolls! Different from any that I had tasted in any Vietnamese restaurants in London.

Vietnamese summer rolls vary greatly, most of the time the street bought ones are generally loosely wrapped with a small amount of pork and herbs and sometimes an extra rice paper to fill the roll. The ones we picked up this particular day, sold by a lovely woman, were nice in a couple of ways - they had crunchy bits inside them and lashings of fresh mint leaf, soooo refreshing!

This experience has definitely become a huge influence in the creation of our own summer rolls that we regularly serve at supper clubs. They are relatively easy to make and roll (with a little practice). It helps if you have a rolling mat, especially if you're making them as packed as we do!!

So here goes…

the ingredients:

rice paper - the larger ones of 22cm
coriander omelette - cut into thin slices
lettuce leaves
roast pork belly - thinly sliced
shredded pork skin - bought dry, then soaked in cold water for 2 hours
bbq pork (char siu)
mint leaves
king prawns - place them first at the bottom so that they are visible when wrapped

and for the added crunch factor, we also add in some of our chopped up woven spring rolls!!

Here is the recipe for Spring Rolls.

Time to roll these babies! And quite frankly getting all the ingredients together in one place is more work than rolling them!!!!

Method
Dip rice paper in warm water, wet on both sides and drain of excess on side of tray.

Lay it out flat on a rolling mat - if you're going for a more relaxed Vietnamese street style summer roll you really don't need a rolling mat - and do not delay in loading it with goodies!

Fold the outside edges in so they are parallel, or point in very slightly to the centre at the top. Then fold the closest edge to you in to the centre.

Pop the rolling mat over the top and roll away until sealed.

It should look like this:
Note the first 3 always look a little rough around the edges; until you get your eye in!! ; )

Tip: If your rice paper is sticking to your mat and ruining everything! Soak your mat and rub it with vegetable oil to seal it. This happens when a mat is new.

Practice make perfect!!!!

One of the great things about summer rolls is that you can vary the ingredients as you like, (Uyen tells me they would kill you in Vietnam if they saw you changing their perfectly balanced combination - but no see, no know) - you can make them super low fat, I made my self some for lunch. As you can see, I didn't have a rolling mat handy but who cares! These had lettuce, tomato, coriander, crisped parma ham (no oil used) spring onions, poached salmon, pickled ginger and mint hmmm! (Especially good out of the fridge) If you're taking them to work for packed lunch make sure they're in an air tight container otherwise you'll be able to knock people out with them they'll have gone so hard!! Airtight!! Sx

Tea, Monkeys & Palaces

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:44:00 +0000

When we speak of ‘tea’ in the UK - where we are known to drink so much of it, most of us immediately think of ‘builders tea,’ or the one with a knitted sock monkey and a fat bloke off the telly. To tell you the truth, I drink the same tea this monkey drinks- I love mine with milk-and-one-sugar-please. However, I do know that other teas exist – hundreds of them and I have been on a mission to spread the news for a very long while. Will anyone listen?

My tea shop in 2007

I opened a little tea boutique a while ago; we had a range of premium loose teas from whites to oolongs, to greens and blacks – all of the finest grade only to be constantly asked by passers-by – do you have any coffee?

My little venture couldn’t over ride the greedy sharks of real estate and of course it went under towards the hands of Crossrail who couldn’t find any value in our business and gave us a few sixpence for the trouble to pay off dorsal fins.

My tea master class concluded with many lessons of the ruthlessness of the economy, business and failure as well as being naive enough to think that people will change their Yorkshire Brew for top notch Assam – just because it tastes good, better and wonderful.

Oolong - Oriental Beauty

Green Tea - Flowering Osmanthus

There are some few of us who are tea connoisseurs, knowing the difference between a Darjeeling and a Lapsang, slurping Oolongs and breathing in the fragrant air of Sencha like a fine wine. Paying top dollar for a cake of Pu-Erh while most of us go for the pyramid teabag – I am not out to turn everyone into a connoisseur – I am by far one of those, I just wish we all knew more about tea, how great a cup of tea can be and start consuming real tea because it tastes really good and its actually good for you.

Even if we are buying the most expensive teabags in our supermarket, the tea is actually a powder, it is dust, it is actually a by-product of tea – you know, the bits no one from the rest of the world wants. Even worse, if we are buying green teas (because we hear its so good for us) from our supermarket, it’s the lowest grade of green tea making most of us disagree with the bitter taste of green tea altogether and run a mile! Monkeys!! -(the supermarkets I refer to)

Milk and one sugar is what we are used to (because the teas we know, taste so bad we have to disguise it)– Don't get me wrong, I love a real (or fake) cup of Assam or Breakfast Blend in the mornings or afternoons – there simply isn’t anything like enjoying a cup of tea whether its with a good book or as you rush out the door.

Its become an institution just like a cup of latte from our local giant coffee corporation – we’ve become accustomed and locked in our way and there is nothing wrong with enjoying what we enjoy (although there is something massively wrong with enjoying coffee giants – but that’s another post). We snub our noses at instant coffee but not at cheap dust tea bags. Why is that?

Thanks to Qype, Simon and I were invited to The Intercontinental Hotel in Mayfair to try out their Afternoon Tea selection of cream cakes and sandwiches at The Cookbook Cafe. They have just started to collaborate with Tea Palace and have a very nice tea list going there.

We met Tara Calcraft, founder of Tea Palace who gave us Qypers an introduction to tea; the differences between blacks, greens, oolongs and whites – it was great to get to taste 12 different teas from the range. And comforting to know that there are people who are also trying to get tea – out there – to you…

Tea Palace has hundreds of teas in their shop in Covent Garden – go and smell some, taste some, and I am sure you will fall in love. From the tastings, my favourites:

The First Flush Darjeeling, Thurbo 2010, one of the nicest teas I have ever tasted because its fresh – its just been picked and its from the real leaf. If you can have your milk and one sugar with one of these Assam or Ceylon, I guarantee you; your day will become more wonderful. These are fantastic teas, clear, bright, flavoursome. Perfect.

I love the simple things and I don’t like my teas being messed with too much, so if you are like me, you wouldn’t like the Number One Park Lane Blend they did for the Intercontinental – the “hint” of vanilla and marigold is just too much for my plain fancy. White Peony With Rose Buds nor Sencha Aloe Vera appealed to my palette for the same reasons.

The Intercontinental Hotel Afternoon Tea Selection

With the greens, I love their Japanese Bancha, Organic Chinese Sencha - amazing! & White Money are all so refreshing and clean tasting. (Lara was telling us how, a Chinese farmer had a white monkey he always brought with him to the market and told everyone that the monkey had picked the tea in order to sell more tea – and everyone believed him – he made a fortune!… he he… that’s why they keep using monkeys to sell tea!)

My favourite of all had to be the Iron Goddess Of Mercy – the finest of Chinese Oolongs – which are usually drank with lunch/ early dinner to aid digestion and break down fat molecules to make you feel light and well even if you are full after a wonderful meal.

Green Tea Icecream taste really good on the first hit but very potent half way through

Our Afternoon Tea experience was certainly special – we were lucky enough to have a little masterclass/ introduction. I had been giving them to Simon for ages so it was really good that he heard another voice and got to try all different sorts of teas in one sitting. This experience is not one you would get at the hotel itself, and we didn’t have the usual sit down of it, we stood around munching cucumber sandwiches, scones and cakes – of which I thought were quite ordinary for such an establishment.

The Grubworm & Simon enjoying a cocktail after tea tasting

Still – We enjoyed it all immensely. Thank you Qype. If only we weren’t all so stubborn, we would reap the health benefits of Green, White and Oolong teas and enjoy a flavoursome cup of Darjeeling. Ahh – more of all the tea in China for me please.

You can find our breakdown of tea knowledge here on our blog. Do I have to get a monkey now?!

Some other independent teashops that you should definitely visit:

Camellia- World Of Teas: Top Floor 2.12 Kingly Court, London W1B 5PW
http://www.camelliaworldteas.com/
Homely with wonderful service, nice food, sandwiches and cakes and an array of caddies you can dip your nose in and order from a range of fantastic teas.

Tea Smith: 6 Lamb Street, London E1 6EA
http://www.teasmith.co.uk/
Very trendy and slick tea bar – has a very good and wide range of all the varieties and great knowledge from the staff about tea, how it should be served and drank. A great experience to have and enjoy.

Tea Palace: 12 Covent Garden Market, Covent Garden, WC2E 8RF
http://www.teapalace.co.uk/

I wouldn’t go to Whittard- not unless you want instant tea!!!

Tracklements & Tree Roots

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:24:00 +0000

The other day, my friend, Ben is telling me how hugging trees makes you grow roots. At first, I laughed at him, or rather – at it –rolling my eyes! I am not so much of a new age hipster, I don’t want to hug trees!

Ben says that if we would just hug a tree, something that is deeply rooted, we could perhaps find our own roots and start to see how we could grow and become stronger. If we could just do something out of the ordinary like hugging a tree, we could perhaps be more daring and loose in our own lives as being rooted means we know who we are and where we belong. I’ve yet to go to the forest. I am not too sure about this…

Interestingly enough, Wild Card PR invited me once again to another event which I was quite happy about. I get picked up and I get to go to “Food At 52” which is a cookery school in a charming townhouse on a scenic Clerkenwell street run in a home of John Benbow. He does it about 3 or 4 times a week – 12 people come, he teaches them how to cook stuff and they all sit down and eat it together.

It was very intriguing to go into someone’s home – sneaking a preview at their photos and their books and characteristic furnishings. You can immediately feel that this John guy is an interesting and cultured personality anyone would wish to be sat with at a dinner table.

I get introduced to Guy Tullberg who produces ‘Tracklements.’ He is the whole reason we are there, and all this roots business will become much clearer.

I had never heard of ‘Tracklements’ before, “Tracklements Condiments” it kept spinning in my head, tracklements-condiments-tracklements-condiments - really fast over and over in some sort of mental self amusement. (I had a lot to drink the night before).

Condiments just made me crave for a hot dog! But after I had a glass of prosecco and Guy introduced us to his father’s creation of ‘Tracklements’ (it’s an old English word for ‘meat accompaniments’), I soon became aware of all the roots that Guy has grown. I have not grown up with a father so I was extremely fascinated.

40 years ago, Guy’s father, William Tulberg read a passage, which inspired a lifetime’s work, “Mustard, especially in young seedling plants, is of incomparable effect to quicken and revive the spirits…” At that time, there was no wholegrain mustard commercially made so William decided to make his own. From one moment in time, William changed his life, and created a business that would define their family for years to come.

How truly inspiring, that from a pot of mustard, William and now his son has 54 different relishes, chutneys, mustards, jellies and sauces. I imagined Guy as a little boy working with his father in the English countryside, wearing a tweed hat and puffy trousers with braces helping his father fill up jars and helping him sell stuff at a market on a Saturday morning. Hand spooning passer bys with testers to try. In a way, he is still doing much of the same today…

We got to try some with crackers and toast breads – it was really good. Now I don’t know what I have been doing buying supermarket and branded condiments when ‘Tracklements’ had been there before I was even born. My favourite is the Chilli Jelly, the Sweet Mustard and Caramelised Red Onion Relish.

We soon went into Food At 52’s kitchen – all ingredients weighed out and prepped for us to use – it was a bit like being on telly (not that we have been) – everything out on little pots and all you have to do is pour them in and mix. It was quite amusing to be in class and me getting it all wrong and copying what someone next to me is doing.

We got to make prawn curry and they supplied us with lovely prawns and used the Tracklements curry sauce – it was really good – I wouldn’t blog about it if I thought it was not – I mean, cooking has changed so much for us – for me more than Simon who loves cooking no matter what – I tend to stay away from cooking if I can and getting one of these curry pots is what I usually get. I don’t always like to cook after working all day long unless it’s a quick, sharp and no fuss ordeal.

For a quick meal, I love using pre made curry sauces and I am always on the look out for good ones – just because I am a foodie – it doesn’t mean I have time or have the want to cook everything from scratch on a Tuesday! I found one here. They are like plain, timeless dresses that you can jazz up with some high heels and a lovely handbag. Throw what you want in, whats left in the fridge or what you fancy and voila –

We also got to make scones and cheesy filo pastries whilst Guy chatted to us. I really liked him a lot – he didn’t appear to be like a corporate with dollar signs in his eyes. He truly has so much passion for what his father created as well as being very fond and loving towards him. His words about his father – who still works for the company are mainly jokes that he is at the pub- sort of thing.

This is something I know so little of that when I see it, it makes me all warm inside – that fathers exist for some people, or actually most people.

Fathers like these are like your ‘tree’, they are rooted strongly to the ground, growing armfuls of branches and greens and blossoms; sheltering you from shine and rain, being strong and setting a good example for you to follow if you wanted to.

Guy talked about how he employs long standing people who had been there from the beginning and how their work ethos is more about family than corporation. Turning small batches into bigger productions to cope with the market demands and how we shop and cook these days. What a wonderful success story – and what wonderful condiments too. From a small family business to a national brand. Great food.

Long live Tracklements – hope you will all get to enjoy it too. My hot dogs are now exceedingly good. I bought a pack straight away and got stuck in with Simon!

The Tracklement Company Ltd
www.tracklements.co.uk

Food At 52
www.foodat52.co.uk www.foodat52.co.uk

Sneaky Chorizo

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:20:00 +0000

This week we put on a few hits including our signature "Fish and Chips" which we were told we totally undersell by calling it that. The tuna sashimi together with my homemade crunchy chips always pleases our guests and their reaction to it is always lovely to hear! Uyen's carrot and coriander salad with it's super refreshing dressing, always makes my taste buds tingle with delight : )

I had a bit of fun doing the test runs for one of the the seared trout with ginger and lemongrass broth, will post recipe later this week. Who would have thought this:

Turns into this!!!!

This weeks menu:
Turkish Garlic Bread w/ Beetroot Dip
Sashimi Tuna & Chips
Spicy Chicken, Carrot, Mooli & Corriander Salad W Prawn Crackers
Miso Aubergine
Rainbow Trout w/ Lemongrass, Lime & Ginger Broth
& GlassNoodles, Pak Choi & Beansprouts
Sweet Potato w/ Chorizo Red Wine Jous & Rocket
Lime & Chillie Chocolate Topped Mousse

I love our guest's reaction to the Egyptian Beetroot dip, it's sooo bright purple, looks like it should be used to colour in crazy cartoons! "I don't really like beetroot but the dip is fantastic!" Yup, especially when combined with some fresh garlic turkish bread, golden with butter from the oven, soft on the inside and crunchy on the out, fantastic combo! (So I'm told that is...)

Dip me, dip me!

Love to load a bit of refreshing salad onto one of these babies, taste explosion loveiness!

Sometimes we have a little battle about my menu designs, and Uyen insists on dropping something, and sometimes rightly so (pretty rare tho!), this weeks menu was all over the place in terms of geography, South East Asia, Africa, Mediterranean, and America- key limes - India would have been there too but the spicy coconut mushrooms got culled. I'm glad I insisted on keeping the chorizo, soft and juicy spicy sausage cooked in red wine and served with roast sweet potatoes and rocket, drizzled with the red wine jous, cracking! Our guests liked it too, which is always nice specially if we've not put it on the menu before, there's always a bit of trepidation, only one leaf of rocket came back : ) taking that as a good sign!

Must add a little note, I picked up the chorizo from a great little place just off the Holloway Road, I cannot emphasize enough how good it is. It's a cafe deli combo and they take a great deal of care in sourcing their ingredients as you can tell when you bite into anything they serve you. It's called Le Peche Mignon and I totally recommend it: great coffee, great food and very friendly folk!

Lime and Chilli Chocolate Topped Mousse

Where's mine? Do I get some? Do I? Do I?

This weeks guests were lovely - we've been very lucky in this respect - including Cass Titcombe, Chef/Owner of Canteen and also has a funky book out called 'Canteen, Great British Food'.

Doing more test runs this week recipe posts to come! Sx

The Secret Garden Party At The RHS Chelsea Flower Show

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:38:00 +0000

Following my post, Champagne Happy about my Dorchester Afternoon Tea experience with Laurent Perrier – we were kindly invited to attend The RHS Chelsea Flower Show – Secret Garden Party –hosted by Laurent Perrier who also has a garden there, designed by Tom Stuart-Smith.

The spot in the diary glowed for weeks. The words ‘secret garden party’ brings all sorts of fantasies a light– from Narnia to Alice In Wonderland. We get a chance to play in the world’s most famous Flower Show and go on a secret tour of the gardens without the public.

Happiness and excitement eagerly carried us in its arms as we entered the press hall, me almost falling off my high heels along the way as we were greeted with chilled flutes of Laurent Perrier Rose – my most favourite magical drink. It drinks beautifully, smooth and perfectly balanced with fruity and velvety notes. This glass of liquid can surely cause many sins in its divine form.

Surrounded by press, cold canapés and Rose, we giggled our way like little children, rubbing shoulders with Alan Titchmarsh and other people off the telly.

The Director of Laurent Perrier telling us how much he liked our Champagne blog post completely made our evening and we smiled more and more as representatives kept coming to ask us, who are you? who do you work for?
No one. We work for ourselves.
I see... Congratulations.

Failing miserably at chit chat, I was telling a particular bee, a represent of The Body Shop that Anita Roddick, their late founder was also a very loyal customer of Leluu as well as me being a very loyal customer of theirs and how I used to work at their Kings Road branch as a keen seventeen year old but she didn’t batter. She wanted names to write about how their 'long-standing-commitment-to-protecting-the-planet-by-joining-forces-with-The World Land Trust -to-protect-a-nature-reserve-in-the-Brazilian-Atlantic-rainforest'. Thanks for the goodie bag – bee. I love the Hemp Hand Protector (they’ve aged excessively since supper clubs started).

It is sometimes rather amusing when in the presence of so many press from all the nationals- the old schools, and then announcing that you are (just) bloggers - sort of feels like we’ve cheated our way through because we are seen like - outsiders, the naughty kids smoking in the bike yard.

It was wonderful to go on a little tour of the show without the public – the place empty, serene and still with a champagne stop at the Laurent Perrier Garden. A perfect evening of joyous memories. We are very lucky to get invited to lovely things like these. Who would have thought, doing a supper club and writing a blog would lead to so many great things indeed.

Thank you to Wildcard PR and Laurent Perrier for inviting us.

Please check out: (We should hear what bee is saying)
The World Land Trust Patron, Sir David Attenborough, says, “I am of the opinion that tropical rainforests must be saved at all cost… I fully support the Trust’s drive to save as much of the “real thing” as is humanly possible. Despite man’s sophistication we are unable to recreate anything quite so wonderful’.

COM-SA-ME-DA

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:20:00 +0000

Seoul is a city that has its soul buried a little below the surface. Blocks of blacked out 4 x 4s and Bentleys cover the 6 lane roads, swept clean, kept to its utter bare concrete. Everybody keeps to themselves, contained in their sphere with a grim, fierce and stoney face. Its people - the men and women some of the most beautiful in the world- appear far colder than that of any Asian country I have ever been. Polar opposites of the Vietnamese whom I feel are like the Italians of Asia.

I have come to Seoul more often than I can count with both hands for my Love Leluu boutique – my passport, full of Incheon’s customs stamps and I have a pocket full of bad memories as well as good ones.

As my relationships with my suppliers grow with each journey building a stronger and stronger bond. I have discovered that you have to unravel the Koreans, you have to earn their trust, merit their warmth and win their smiles. A contest that can come across as quite difficult but one must and should persist.

I have the same relationship with Korean food. Introduced to it in London, by a lovely Korean friend, Jisook – who always called me her sister: ‘Ran’ – in Great Marlborough Street, Soho became a regular treat as I have had the most amazing food. Korean – being right up there on my top 3 cusines.

This all changed when I went to Seoul and was faced with everything in a red pepper gravy – that does not really appear to have a pleasant taste. It is slightly salty, mainly peppery and a bit spicy but not really hot. It is in everything – red stew bubbling away in the street stalls, smelling like stale pepper. Utterly unappetizing! (That I haven't managed to ever take a photo of it, because I am running away)

It is Korea’s most typical dish -kimchi – fermented cabbage in this pepper sauce – a strong and dominant pickle that gets to me, makes my stomach raw and acidic – repeating on me through my pores and in my breath for days and days afterwards. No wonder Seoul smells a bit like damp cloth. This kimchi and this red pepper sauce lingers above many culprits like a invisible vapor – hard if you were pregnant or stuck in a lift!

Kimchi comes with everything and I see people order JUST kimchi with noodles or with rice! How could you…?

Putting stinky kimchi aside, I do love the Korean Barbeque – I mean, how could you not? It is one of those things in life that is a real pleasure, a real treat and in Korea, this is what I look forward to most.

My favourite is 'bulgogi'- tender beef, marinade in soy sauce with sesame oil, sugar, onions, garlic, black pepper, rice wine vinegar. I heard that what makes it ever so tender is blended kiwi and onion.

I usually order a rib of this, and it comes with so many accompaniments to make your entire meal, including kimchi. You use the salad leaves as a wrap, fill it up with pickles, onions, rice or whatever you are offered with some meat from the barbeque, roll it up, dip it in one of many sauces on the table and you can end up eating half an animal by the end. Surprisingly, even with a little kimchi makes it all very tasty.

Wash it all down with my favourite beer – Hite and we’re on our way! ‘Hite’ is a light and refreshing beer which is perfect for all the meat you could eat at a barbeque. It is made with Spring water but has quite a high alcohol content.

I have taken my mum to Seoul once, and she absolutely loved it – the salad wraps – Korean fajitas! I also took Simon who really loved the barbeque and especially the beers! ‘Cass’ beer is also really nice.

My other most favourite meal is ‘bibimbab’ – it is most delicious when made well of course as you can get many variations. It is normally cooked in a stone bowl, with rice, pickles, minced meat and a fried egg on top. You mash it all up with red pepper sauce and it is really delicious.

I have had really nice red pepper sauce and really bad ones – like anywhere and any foods, some people can make it really well, some others should give up!

As a foreigner, I feel the people, like the food is masked yet once you reveal it, it is so complex and beautiful – you just have to get to know it – it doesn’t just wear its heart on its sleeve. It has no interest in seducing you, you have to seduce it and that’s where you find the most pleasure – Just like this post reveals, I do not like kimchi or this red pepper sauce, but I do find that I do like it - actually!

I never used to like going to Seoul very much – although I always enjoy my work there, but that was because I didn’t really understand it. I still don’t, but slowly slowly, I am coming around.

*Com-sa-me-da* [Thank You]

Immy At 33

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:56:00 +0000

Last December, Immy booked in to eat at our supper club – and she loved it so much, she asked us to cook for her birthday in May. Since then, she had been back to eat and we have met a few other times over dinner and bottles of cabernet to discuss plans, menus, schedules, timings etc as well as many heart to hearts as it turned out. We always had a great time with Immy – she is one great lady.

Immy is always full of smiles and giggly banter – perhaps if we had a lot of clients, we would say that she is the ideal client, but we don’t – and she is a great client to start with! A strong and determined character, Immy planned everything from scratch – from where the location was to every detail on the table setting. This event, themed 40s Vintage, was going to be full of love, full of Immy and we were really lucky to have been asked to collaborate on such an event at such an amazing place in Central London, so famous for its parties.

What tied our small worlds together is that Immy works for an advertising agency who did the After Eight Campaign with Jim Haynes – our supper club hero has been hosting Sunday dinners for over 30 years. (Check our event with him here). It was a great coincidence that our worlds collided. Some would say that there is a reason for that… Immy played a very influential role in this as she has tried out a lot of supper clubs and loves new, emerging and underground things.

This is the first time that Simon and I entered a professional kitchen and hell – we loved it! We have cooked everything in seven or eight months in my tiny bachelor’s kitchen – here, we had double huge sinks, large steel surfaces, 2 ovens, 12 hobs, a real fryer and space! We could get on with our prep without being in each other’s way and bidding over one work surface. It was fantastic! We loved it!

We prepped for one full day before, shopping, and pre prepping. We got all our equipment together in a taxi and headed over, prepping non-stop til we executed everything one hour prior to service. We were so on time because we had so much space to work in and not having to wait for one person to finish. We forgot our chopping boards but apart from that – everything went to plan.

(Humming Bird Cupcakes)

(Beef Wellington Preparation)

The main room was immaculately set out by Immy and her friends Olivia & John who arrived amidst the set up chaos and were thrown in to help last minute. As dusk set through the glass ceilings, the atmosphere in the room changed from a sunny summers day to a warmly candle lit banquet, fantastic for Immy and her friends and family.

We got a round of applause at the end and felt really chuffed that everyone enjoyed all the food and had a wonderful night – creating great memories of being with Immy for her birthday.

Like so many professional women of today, who work so hard and are independent, I relate and aspire to be like Immy: Strong, funny, with a positive outlook and in control of her own destiny and getting on with things surrounded with love and without ties to convention.

Another perfect example of how ‘Hector’ in his ‘Search For Happiness’ would find that - happiness is about having inner peace and being around people we love, in celebration, accepting who we are, as we are.

If you would like us to cook for your party, please get in touch to discuss: bookings@fernandezandleluu.co.uk

Arno's Saltoun Supper Club

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:16:00 +0000

Facebook told us ‘Due to cancellations, - 4 places for dinner tonight’ Saltoun Supper Club. We jumped on it. We love going to supper clubs as well as do them! The hosts are probably as crazy as us for opening up our homes to complete strangers! So its nice to bond.

We wondered out of place along the streets of dark, cold and wet Brixton to find ourselves creaking up to the top flat of a Victorian terrace following, John. He is our waiter for the evening. Upon entry, it immediately felt like we had all stepped into another world, another time, another era.

Hello. My name is Arno. Says Arno. Welcome to my place.  Arno has a thick moustache. Perfectly combed resting above his lips like a Mario but he is tall and thin. Dressed in a pink shirt with braces holding up his brown tweed trousers with sleeves rolled up his arms and an apron around his waist – Arno goes back to his station and we are shown to our table. Its like stepping into the 1940s and pleasantly so.

Arno is a food stylist – this is not missed when our courses are placed in front of us by the gracious and tickled John. There is detail in every stem of salad, every corner of the plate to every dash of dressing. I wiped the plates dry – the salad, small but perfect, consist of lambs lettuce – just a few leaves, a different shapes of beetroot. It was heavenly.

The second course of gnoochi with cauliflower and truffle oil could have converted me to become a nun – even if it was just for an hour! The balls of gnoochi, perfectly balanced was like biting into divine joy – everything just wonderfully seasoned.

Arno’s collection of vintage plates and cutlery matched his sense of flair. Stuffed birds and kitsch toys play hand in hand scattered around his creaking floor flat – at each place, sits a poised sort of decoration. It was hard to believe we were enclosed in such urbanity of Brixton, it was like stepping into a time warp or perhaps more accurately, it was like stepping into Arno’s mind.

The main course of duck was no exception. Deliciously seasoned, pink and tender. There is no room for anything else other than perfection in this house. And we can not rate this place enough. This is one of the places I have eaten exceptionally well in. The service and the atmosphere were not anything gimmicky or of pretence. This is not stepping into someone’s house and risk what you might get. This place has precision, this is what I expect from top restaurants and hardly ever receive.

Its stepping into another world, be it in Arno’s home or Arno’s restaurant. Here is a man who knows how to cook, how to style, how to host, how to entertain. He is charming and calm.

The desserts and cheese board, plus tea or coffee added to my kick. I love being so impressed by someone and by food. Good food holds centre in Arno’s masterplan and there is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the best places we have ever eaten in.

For £25 donation per person (you should tip too), this experience and meal was worth triple if not more in my view – and I would happily donate this every week should I live closer. The food is outstanding and of very high quality. We recommend this place highly. Go GO GO if you can!

Arno has been doing these great suppers for over a year now! May he thrive forever and a day!

Saltoun Supper Club Facebook Page

You may also like to read our big shout for Green Onions Supper Club.

The Dolphin

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:12:00 +0000

Sometimes, they manage it – they stay til 2am and we are all happily drinking the remains of any wine anyone has left behind and then someone says – “lets go to The Dolphin!” and Simon will immediately respond, “brilliant!!!”

On Friday/ Saturday night, dinner was:

-Rice Pasta With Pork Scratchings, Vietnamese Salami (Lac Xung),

Corriander, Grated Egg & Sweet Soy Sauce

-Miso Aubergine 

-Summer Rolls With Omlette, Prawns, Shredded Pork Skin, BBQ Pork,

Mint, Sweet Basil & Cured Vietnamese Ham 

-Carrot, Corriander & Chicken Salad W/ Prawn Crackers 

-Salmon Sashimi & Chips 

-Won Ton Noodle Soup  

-Caramelized & Braised Coconut Pork Belly & Quails Egg With Rice

-Coconut & Lime Pannacotta With Mango Jelly

It was one of the smoothest operation – we even finished dessert by 11pm. Record!
It was strange as I didn’t greet our guests and stayed heavily in the kitchen making everything with Simon. Our lovely waitress, Mia welcomed and served everybody and so at the end, I felt so shy about being downstairs with a bunch of people I had never met before. I understood how Simon has been feeling all these months when he is the one always upstairs in the kitchen.

It was so great to come and join our guests for dessert and saw how people sitting on the same table had made friends with each other and were having such a good time. The best thing about having a supper club is meeting people and making friends. We had a great time with a group of girlie friends. We all went to The Dolphin...

The Dolphin is a shabby, dirty, old man’s bar that has been made trendy by Hackney coolies open til 4am. It’s a place where if you are in good company, you will always have a good time. But please don’t encourage us to take you there – please!

Champagne Happy

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:37:00 +0000

I am also on the search, following my last post on happiness, inspired by Francois Lelord’s book, “Hector & The Search For Happiness.”

I heard from some other lovely book that if you are looking for something, the universe will conspire, make space and gather things around so that you will find what you seek.

What is great about blogging is: at the last minute, Wildcard PR, invited me to The Dorchester Hotel for the Laurent Perrier Floral Champagne Afternoon Tea – that indeed is one step closer to true happiness.

It wasn’t hard to reply with a huge Cheshire cat smile on my face, shuffling things around and making myself free for the afternoon. It is not every day I get a free lunch, not at The Dorchester and not with Laurent Perrier.

Rolled into one: some of my favourite things: tea, scones, flowers and champagne –– thanks The Universe! Yay! I was even picked up and everything.
“Is there such a thing as a free lunch?” Queries the chauffeur.
“They just want me to blog about it,” I say with delight, “I love blogging, so I guess its better than free.”

With a load of responsibilities with my day job, the mortgage, and general staying afloat, (plus supper clubbing), I rarely treat myself to things like champagne and afternoon teas – I have the ‘worry’ tendancies – if I should not be more productive instead of sitting around with cucumber sandwiches and chatting posh. I am still working hard to earn my future lady-of-leisure life.

‘Free lunches’ therefore are gems, and I consider myself lucky and feel great happiness to be offered them.

I didn’t know anyone there apart from Jen from Wild Card PR – whom I had met when I wrote about another event in January. She is lovely. I sat with a couple of journalists and a couple of bloggers – back straight and upright, without elbows on the table.

As our gentle waiter poured our champagne flutes with Laurent Perrier Cuvee Rosé– the beautiful sound of sizzle, of the fizz, of the bubbles dispersing was like a rolling drum to my eager excitement of having it – Now! Now! Now! like a spoilt child. I’m sure you could’ve seen it in my eyes.

Once in my mouth, the champagne danced around like tap tap tap - the monsoon rain on my tongue like it has all along been made of concrete. Soothing what can only ever have been dry and unquenched, it was hydrated by such a delightful fruity, light, crisp and deliciously smooth champagne. Every bit of my taste buds were oozed and seduced by the foretaste, after taste – happiness.

The salmon pink champagne is made from hand-sorted Pinot Noir grapes and using the unique method- ‘saignee’ (bleeding off a portion of red wine after only a short period of contact of the juice with the grape skins), this is unlike most other rosés which are made simply by blending red and white wines.

We were offered some lovely sandwiches, cut into finger sized lengths and polite sized width – without the crust. Cucumber & Cream Cheese, Chicken Coronation, Salmon, Cheese… my earlier almost decade courtship with a Hungarian Count meant that I knew how to keep my Eliza Doolittle habits off limits – only three finger sandwiches at a time – Miss Luu – she says eyeing up the waiter for more rosé AND tea!

The Dorchester has a good tea list, from their Afternoon “Dorchester Blend” of Ceylon & Assam to Darjeeling, Greens, Oolongs and the sorts. I chose the house blend to accompany the fine English pastries and freshly baked scones, which, in my opinion, should be enjoyed with typical English teas and it was divine. Brewed to utter perfection – the blend works beautifully in unison, light and clear in colour with the perfect amount of milk in a lovely Art Deco teacup – heaven.

Pastries were all sorts of strawberries, raspberries, moussey, handmade petals and loveliness. The delicious mango panna cotta is supreme. The warm scones were lovely – but that’s because I have a weakness for clotted cream.
     “Which do you put on first? The cream or the jam?” Asks my Algernon Moncrieff companion, a Columist from a newspaper I don’t read.
     “Its got to be the clotted cream,” I say with conviction.
     “Yes – well done,” he applauds, “some people think that one should put the jam first because those people are using cheap cream – which would never sit like clotted cream that should be used like butter. Cream first, jam on top – that’s the rule. Whomever says differently, we wouldn’t want to mix with, do we!”
     “Here, here,” I slander, or heckle – not sure which – (trying to be as ironic as possible).

Posh is what my afternoon turned out to be but doesn’t places like these turn one into a bit of a Lady Bracknell? Where one shows off about one’s grand house and one’s book deal in ones’ best English?

I also sat opposite Tom Stuart-Smith who has designed this year’s garden for Laurent Perrier at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. As I also love gardening, my happiness trail was blooming – even if I only have a concrete backyard. The Mac Book slide show looked wonderful. You can see it here on Tom’s site which would also direct you to the show’s blog.

He didn’t talk to me at all (not because he was rude but probably because I was shy) but I managed to eavesdrop. Apart from telling the crowd how he always loved gardening and planting things as a boy, he also spoke of how so many plants, installations, gardens get destroyed, thrown away and dumped after one week at the Chelsea Flower Show. A work of art for one week – only to be destroyed the week after. In my Google research, it seems that the show donates a lot to spaces and charities but how much of it I wonder...?

That doesn’t sound good does it? (As my favourite pastime is worry), it hit me like a bat around my ignorant head. We take so much for granted that we are totally blinded by what goes on behind the scenes because everything is packaged so well. Just like the cheap fashion we buy that are made by little children in the third world – we have no idea or chose not to consider it. There is after all, no such thing as a “free lunch”.

My Champagne Afternoon Tea was a delight – and you can enjoy it too at The Dorchester on 24th- 30th May 2010 coinciding with the flower show. These little collection of joys add to your wellbeing and happiness – I read and I am being told how we all have a hand in directing and steering our lives – Hector would say that we should occasionally stop and simply enjoy some champagne – it does very well in promoting happiness.

I got a bottle of Laurent Perrier as a gift too – yes – “In A Handbag!”
OK it was a goodie bag! : )

Thank you Wild Card PR! Thank you Universe.

Happiness Is Knowing How To Celebrate

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:04:00 +0000

The question most people ask us is: "why do you do these supper clubs?"
We do it because it makes us happy.

Making lovely food, using good ingredients and enjoying what we are eating is the most primative thing we can do. What better than to do this and sharing it with others, loved ones, close ones, new friends, old friends, strangers… this has got to be one element of happiness – that we all want in abundance.

A few weeks ago, our faithful friends tomeatsjencooks celebrated Tom’s 30th birthday at our supper club. It had got to be one of the most memorable nights at Fernandez & Leluu.

The door bell rang and in came all the girls stepping out of cabs dressed as members of The YMCA. Then the boys arrived all dressed in drag. The effort each person went through was astounding and so it should have been, in honour of their friend’s 30th birthday. Although it was amazingly surreal to face people dressed in costume (when you are not)– sometimes a bit frightening - What a night of great celebration, conquering happiness.

Here is what they had: (was too excited by all the costume and forgot to take any pictures of the food)

Best Of Junk  

Pea & Ham Soup
When we first started the supper club – Simon & I both made each a different pea soup – for our best pea soup competition and blind tested it to a couple of people. I didn’t like it because I didn’t win – he did – and rightly so – this has got to be one of them most talked about dishes. It’s a Pea, Basil, Cream & White Wine based soup with Pork Scratchings and Parmesan Shavings.

Mini Ham Burgers
Simon’s Pork Burgers made from his terrine recipe – turned into burgers and shallow fried. Served inside Turkish bread with Cherry Tomatoes and Gems Lettuce

Fish & Chips
Fresh Sashimi Grade Tuna, with Uyen’s Ginger, Soy, Mirin & Wasabi Dressing, Simon’s Chips, Pickled Shallots and Wasabi Mayo

Sweet Potato Tortilla & Ferdie's Ketchup
Typically Spanish Fast Food – and one of Tom’s favourite things. Simon’s Spanish Omlette has got to be one of the delights in life with his spicy home made ketchup adding a small jump of joy – in the mouth.

Bacon & Egg
The egg is cooked to perfection and set in a Tarragon & Chicken Jelly and served with a Bacon Pastry – that has Cream Cheese and Cheddar Cheese sizzling around in a swirl with Spring Onions. 

Slow Roast Spring Lamb With Cous Cous
Our healthy version of a lamb kebab after a night of drinking and drinking and drinking…

 Lime Mousse w/ Chilli Chocolate Topping
Something sharp to wake up the senses.

Our other very memorable event was held back in January, in the cold stark Winter. Tom’s dad had booked the whole place out – for no reason at all than just to enjoy good food and company- with 24 of his friends.

The memory of opening the door to your home to a queue of 25 stranger seniors in a formal line is one that will always bring a smile to my face.

And so does this picture - its got nothing to do with anything - just Simon looks very happy here:

Happiness is being with the people you love, people who love you and people you will love and love you back.

What is ever so rewarding for us is when someone really really enjoys what they have bitten into – perhaps a surprise, a delight, a recognition… good food brings out the best in us and makes us joyous and cheerful despite what we have on our shoulders.

Last week, Simon and I both decided that we needed a break, from each other and from some troubles – in general. So we both decided to go away, separately and gather some thoughts together. Without knowing where the other one was going or if anyone was going anywhere at all, we both went to Barcelona.

In Barcelona, of course, we bumped into each other and there, we figured how important good food and the environment you are in affects your moods and behaviour.

When we were in a dark room, we were not very happy, but as soon as we walked into the sunlight and our faces began to warm up, smiles broke all around. We found some great tapas places recommended by local people in bars where we ate wonderful bits of fillet steak, potatas bravas, gambas, and so on…

We found that through the succulence of each bite and as the flavours are bursting with exquisite relish in our mouths, we can see things much more differently and positively than if we hadn’t eaten these wonderful things. Should we have eaten greasy, rough bits of food, everything would be of the reverse and we would have been in a very bad mood.

A simple cup of tea and your feet up provides us with so many moments of joy and happiness. From being at home, tidying your garden and taking care of your plants to making a big celebration – even if its for the heck of it – (I got this from a Rom Com (that’s quite boring) but) sometimes, we just have to remind ourselves that “if life gives you a lemon, you can make it bitter or you can make lemonade”.

This post is inspired by a recent read called, 'Hector & The Search For Happiness' By Francois Lelord

"Thanks For Coming" Jim Haynes

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:48:00 +0000

Its been a week since we hosted an evening for After Eight’s new campaign featuring Supper Club maestro Jim Haynes in association with Qype. Every day since last week we have been reading so many great write ups about this event. Electric shock waves run through our bodies as I read out loud to Simon all the reviews and blog posts. Our faces light up instantly and we are chuffed by every kind word that is written, that is spoken or said.

Thank you so much.

We feel truly honoured to have been asked to host such an event with the wonderful Mr Jim Haynes. As previously mentioned, he has been holding his supper club for over thirty years. Over thirty years!! (To those who ask how long do we think supper clubs will last – it seems like the good ones do – everybody loves a good party)

From talking to Jim at some length on the night as I was on front of house duty (yeay!), I found out that he is more than I expected. Not only does Jim ooze in charm and great charisma, Jim is inspirational as a human being, promoting peace, love and kindness to those standing nearby him with a smile or a giggle at the end of all his sentences. It is no wonder that people love to go to his supper clubs – it must be a place where one just feels really good!

What better, to go to a place and meet a bunch of people whom can end up being your life long friend, your wife or husband, your fling, your friend for now. Add in the atmosphere and good food and drink, makes a perfect present, a perfect memory.

For us, this is something that we will treasure forever. A perfect and beautiful milestone to the Uyen & Simon who sat back in the garden last summer, eating each other’s cooking, having who-makes-the-best-roast competitions to the ones who can not think of a better name for a supper club than that of our own, to the ones who couldn’t get anyone to come to the supper club to the ones who were asked to hold an evening with Jim Haynes for After Eight. – its like a dream we dare not dream coming true.

Simon & Chris During Prep

Johan from DinksFushion made utterly fantastic cocktails

We worked on this project for 2 weeks solid. It took about 4 days to get the flat in order, employing removal men to lift things, get rid of things to prepare for our supper club to be turned into the way Jim has his. No tables. You stand and mingle. We had to change a lot. Didn’t mind - What a great idea!

The menu was dependent on fork only or finger food. And we were asked to do a slightly different format, three courses! This is what we decided to do:

Starters
Fresh Summer Rolls With Mint, Shredded Pork Skin, Barbequed Pork,
Roast Pork Belly, Cured Vietnamese Ham, Sweet Basil & Lettuce.

Spring Rolls With King Prawns, Minced Pork, Black Fungus,
Carrots & Glass Noodles.

Pork & Chicken Liver Terrine On Ciabatta

Whole Prawns With Green Herbs Mayo & Salmon Caviar

Carrot & Corriander Salad With Shredded Chicken

These photographs by Kany Leong -

The London Eater (nice aren't they) go check more out here

Second Course
Carpaccio of Argentinian Beef Fillet Rolled in Black Pepper With Raspberry Jus
Mashed Garlic & Spring Onion Inside Baked Potato Skins
Lambs Lettuce In Olive Oil & Lemon
Garlic Foccacia

Dessert
A Trifle Of Croissant Bread & Butter Pudding With Whisky Raisins, White Chocolate Custard & Strawberry, Raspberry & Blackberry Soaked in Cointreau

Chris & Lacey - cool love birds

We wanted to serve really successful dishes we have previously made. It was for Jim Haynes for goodness sakes! We wanted to do our famous Fish & Chips but due it being the Easter weekend, we could not get fresh fish that had just been out of the sea. We could have got fish but it would have been sitting in the Steve Hatts fridge for 3 days.

We planned the menu and times like a major operation. Simon composed a 7 page hit list of things to do, who does them, at what time and for how long. It was great! And we obliged to it with precision except the night before, Simon and I went out to the pub and indeed messed up on the timings somewhat the next day : /

But we did it, with help from our friends, Chris & Lacey (they’ve been to the supper club since the beginning – something like 4 or 5 times and now are our dear friends) and Claire from Green Onions Supper Club and her/ our waitress Lucy.

Before Jim arrived at 6pm, the atmosphere was calm yet electric in the kitchen. We were all so excited and proud to take part of such an event. We all felt so honoured to do this for Jim and for all the Qypers and bloggers who made it through to the list. We only wish that we had as much room as Jim and could have invited so many more you, and our friends too.

It was a very unique experience and such a great party. You can read all the blogs on your right about the evening. Great pictures from The London Eater, and lovely write ups from One Million Gold Stars & The Grubworm. You can visit Qype for more too. It was fantastic to meet bloggers and qypers that we have only met on Twitter and bonding face to face. There are great friendships to be made from this event.

Jim has been in contact with us, saying that his Sunday dinners are getting ever so popular. He had 100 guests last weekend after turning away 40! “I hate to say the word, ‘No’”. We hate it too –

Amongst some great advice about parties and how to deal with these supper clubs, one important lesson Jim taught me is ‘acceptance’ of people. People are who they are and you got to just accept them as they are. Also, to ‘look forward’ and never look back. Enjoy.

We gave him a doggie bag to take with him back to Paris of which he said he enjoyed the evening after. Jim has invited us to stay with him in Paris where we can cook for his supper club one Sunday. How exciting is that? Will keep you all posted.

We have traveled so far and we are so proud of ourselves too. We only hope that we can continue to meet the expectations generated by guests reviews of our food, thanks so much by the way, and yikes! We are loving what we are doing at the moment. Thank you to all who have come, had a great time and are spreading the word. Thank you so much.

Thanks to Chris, Lacey, Claire Roberson & Lucy for their wonderful help. Sian Meades from Domestic Sluttery & Qype London for coming to us in the first place and being brilliant. Jo Seymour Taylor at Grayling PR for After Eight Mints and of course to Jim Haynes (book into his Sunday suppers in Paris)– without whom this would not have been the most exciting event for us and many others.

Jim Haynes has an autobiography called "Thanks For Coming" published by Faber & Faber

(whose do these photos belong to? Qype Blog? We love them! Hope you don't mind us using them)

Meet Jim Haynes

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:49:00 +0000

When Simon and I were asked by Sian Meades at Qype London and Editor of DomesticSluttery.com to host an event with Jim Haynes, we did a double take. We re-read the email. Then we started yelling! We were dancing, like the dancing baby from Alley McBeal, like MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Salt & Pepper – not mastering the moonwalk just yet!

Today, the invites are sent out and you can put yourself down to attend here on Qype. There will be 40 of us - plus Jim!

When we started to do supper clubs in October 2009, we had no idea at the time or even hoped or dreamed that in six months time, the godfather of Supper Clubs – Jim Haynes would host an event with us. How coool is that? !!!

Jim Haynes has opened his Paris apartment every Sunday to around 70 strangers for over 30 years, apart from some summer weeks, ‘when I am at the Edinburgh Festival’, says Jim on his website.

The king of networking describes how he likes having people standing around so that they are not stuck with each other the whole night and how people have formed relationships and families by meeting at his supper club events.

Jim did a TV commercial for After Eight late last year for their new campaign but apparently, no one believes that Mr Haynes is a real person. You can watch a small clip where Jim talks about his supper clubs here or you can also view more about Jim and his life and works on his website.

For this event, we are going to do it Jim’s style and get rid of all the tables and chairs. Guests can mingle around and meet others. There will be a mixologist who will be shaking lots of cocktails and we will be serving food that you can enjoy standing up. We’re going to play Bossanova, Sergio Mendes & Dusty Springfield and create the atmosphere of Jim!

Hopefully the spring weather will be kind to us and we can flow into the garden where the herbs will bust lovely smells all around and the flowers are blossoming in their pots and the lemons are saying – squeeze me squeeze me! And we can all chat to Jim whose coming from Paris that morning just to attend this event.

This is more than an honour. What a great man. We’re going to shake his hand and I hope he will kiss mine.

Squid Squash

fernandezandleluu@gmail.com (Fernandez & Leluu) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:34:00 +0000

Menu

-Sage & Butter Frogs Legs w/ Sweet Basil Seed Sake

-Beetroot, Red Cabbage & Goats Cheese Salad W/ Leluu's Secret Dressing

-Cold Octopus, Sweet Potatoes Tortilla & Garlic Turkish Bread

-Tuna Sashimi & Ferdie Chips With Salad, Pickled Shallots & Wasabi Mayo

-Squid Squash Risotto

-Vanilla, Orange & Vodka Panacotta

We love cooking seafood - somehow, its fast and we can get the food out on time. This menu is one of our favourite menus to create, cook and serve. We had so many happy people electrifying the room with their good spirits and character.

Luiz from The London Foodie and Chris & Lacey visited for the fourth time, bringing new friends and creating wonderful memories for themselves at Fernandez & Leluu. It was lovely! When we first started out, this is exactly what the objective was - that people can find a place they can come enjoy good food and company.

We even had a waitress on Friday, called Anna, and she made me wonder - how did I ever do it before without one but on Saturday, I had to do it all again because she couldn't make it - ahh thats how...

The dates we did last weekend were dates we added in recently as all the later ones were all booked up. It is interesting to experience this "fad" of underground supper clubs being the recent trend. We discovered how unreliable and unthoughtful some people could be by cancelling their booking (or ignored it til prompted) at the last minute when we have bought all the food and reserved places for them when in actual fact, other people would have loved to attend if they had any notice at all.

We had 40% of our bookings cancelled on both days, due to all sorts of reasoning. We were able to fill most places when given at least one or two days notice but not the one at 3pm! It was really stressful as we had to prep, we had to clean, we had to turn our flat into a supper club etc etc as well as having to find people to take places.

A lot of our friends on Twitter - retweeted the places - we had so much support - it gave us both smiles on our faces despite it all. Thank you guys!

In the end, it all turned out good and thats what counts.

We have been assessing how we will take bookings from now on. Our place is about eating good food and being with good friends. We have to make more effort to let people know what efforts we put into our events and the impact everyone who attends or does not attend has.

99% of everyone who has walked through our door has been brilliant - there is just the 1% or so who "forget" its someone's home and has no respect for it whatsoever.

We don't have clowns, musicians or entertainers. Nor do we create any gimmicks or compete with other supper clubs/ pop ups/ underground restaurants or whatever you want to call it. We just cook - from the best ingredients we can find (this time we tried using Marky Market who got us the freshest fish from Billingsgate)- you can come and eat it. Good food, wine, great company - Fad or no fad - we don't care what the fad is - we like the way we are and we don't want it changed because of the 1%.

Check here for another great post about last week's dinner: EPHEMERETTE