savoury snark

mange tout - 81 trafalgar street, brighton

2009-04-09T19:52:00.012+00:00

So as some of you may know, my time here in Brighton is soon coming to an end. The Hub has landed a job in sunny San Francisco and the bizarrely-long 6 month wait for his greencard is finally coming to an end. I feel sad about leaving but I just keep reminding myself that we are moving to a city that is pretty much known as the culinary Mecca of America. It helps. A bit.

So of course when I see this swanky little French eatery open up practically on my doorstep I have to sigh softly at yet one more place to which I will have to say good-bye. I stopped in a couple of weeks ago, during their opening weekend, after being lured in by all of their homemade cakes and pastries, clearly visible from the window.

The 2 French lads who run Mange Tout were very nice and quite enthusiastic. You can tell that they are really putting their heart and soul into this venture and it shows. It feels almost (dare I say?) American, in the way that when a restaurant in the U.S. gets it right it's damn near perfect.

The menu has all your French fare; from Croque Monsieurs and Madames, Chevre Salad and buttery croissants stuffed with ham and Gruyere. I will confess here and now that I have never been one to seek out French cuisine. And I'm admitting this fully aware that this might get me banned from the Culinary Cool Kids table. For a long time I believed that all French food had either eggs or mayonnaise or both. It's only recently that I have managed to get over my mayonnaise aversion (though it's still early days) and have dared to try eggs any way other than scrambled. Poached eggs with hollandaise used to be my worst culinary nightmare. I don't know what exactly I was so frightened of - it's fantastic.

Back to Mange Tout - it's situated right on Trafalgar Street where it can lure in rail commuters with the smell of fresh coffee and bread. Their coffee is locally roasted in Hove and I found it incredibly smooth with no bitterness - that's a good cuppa joe right there!

My goat's cheese salad was perfectly dressed and the croutons were not too hard or too soft as is often the case with croutons. I have the darnedest time getting them right myself.

I took a visiting friend there for brunch (and we all know how hard it is to find a good place for proper brunch here in the UK) and indulged in their lovely home-made French Onion soup. Or as it's known in France, Onion soup. It's a lovely spot for lunch, breakfast or coffee and, this being England, afternoon tea. It will no doubt fast become a favourite place for the locals to relax and unwind whilst reading the Sunday papers. Bliss.

shame spiral into lemon-y goodness

2007-06-06T09:33:00.000+00:00

I am obsessed with all things lemon, mainly lemon sweets and desserts. I see no point in buying any lemon curd other than Duchy Originals by Prince Charles himself. On the labels of your average lemon curd you can't even find "lemons" listed as an ingredient. I wish I was kidding.

Imagine my surprise when I read this on the back of my Duchy Originals jar (whilst standing with my teaspoon ready to scoop):

"Delicious served in pies and puddings, on ice-cream or yogurt or even by the spoonful straight from the jar."

...how did they know??

hack. cough. wheeze. coughcough.

2007-02-03T20:31:00.000+00:00

Sorry for the hiatus everyone. Another cold has descended upon me with the wrath of Jade Goody meets Shilpa Shetty. I think I hacked up part of my lung last night. Whenever I get ill all I want to do is curl up with some chicken soup. So I made some chicken soup. I even went so far as to make the stock from scratch, ya know, since I had the leftovers from a roast chicken. I've recently discovered that making a roast chicken is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it was and it delights me to no end to know that all I have to do is shove a lemon, some garlic and an onion up its arse and it will taste lovely. I know that roast chicken will be one of those dishes that I will endlessly try to perfect but for right now I think I'm doing ok:

Roast Chicken a la Amanda (and thousands of others, I'm sure):

-1.5 kg organic (really, don't waste your time with that battery reared shite) chicken, giblets removed (I got mine from Waitrose for about £8)
-handful of organic shallots
-half a bulb of organic garlic, slashed in half again
-1 organic onion, trimmed and peeled, cut in half
-1 organic, unwaxed lemon, cut in half
-sprigs of fresh thyme, divided
-sprigs of fresh rosemary, divided
-good quality EVOO or butter
-ground white pepper and Maldon flaky sea salt

Preheat your oven per instructions on bird.
Meanwhile, first season the inside of your bird.
Then stuff shallots, garlic, half the lemon, onion and most of the herbs up its arse.
Squeeze the other half of the lemon over the body, smear with olive oil or butter and rub in the salt, pepper and remaining herbs (chopped).
Baste every 1/2 hour til your bird is done, per instructions on bird.
After removing, cover with foil and let rest for 10 minutes or so. Voila!

Make sure you let the carcass cool and then scavenge off all the bits of meat and bones so you can make your very own stock. You may as well since the bird cost £8 and all.

Right. Back to the Strepsils and the Lemsip.

it's a bird! it's a plane! it's....a pomegranate?

2007-01-15T17:15:00.000+00:00

I'm sure everyone by now has heard all the buzz about so-called superfoods. What was once a lowly piece of fruit or veg can now be declared as the very uber of healthy, the creme de la creme of your produce aisle. Any food given superfood status automatically skyrockets in sales and pretty much needs its own agent and dressing room. 5 years ago did anyone in the Western world even know what a pomegranate looked like? It was as foreign to us as bananas were to Brits before the 1950's. But now they're all over the place; on our juice shelves, sprinkled over salads and whizzed into our smoothies. I am a great lover of the beautiful, jewel-like pomegranate, as I've previously declared. There's something about discovering a new fruit or a new veggie that just really excites me, probably more than it should to be honest. I tried my very first persimmon over the holidays and subsequently also discovered my first food allergy, although I've been told that they feel like metallic cotton in others' mouths as well. Shame really, because they're such a lovely shocking shade of orange, quite unlike anything else that regularly goes into my fruit bowl (except maybe...erm...an orange).

My point is that the superfood trend has really taken the marketing world by storm. Consumers love food trends and I am one of them. I tried acai (pronounced ah-sah-ee) for the very first time last month.

Hailed as even super-er than the lowly blueberry or even the posh pomegranate acai hails from Brazil and I'm sure their farmers are more than happy to push their exotic detoxing, antioxidant-rich fruit onto the yummy mummies and food nerds of the West. Pomegreat has even gotten in on the acai action and have released a version of their pomegranate juice blended with acai. (It's very yummy). Innocent smoothies have released a line of superfood smoothies which are on average about £1 more a carton than their normal 1 litre smoothies. Probably worth it considering how jampacked with nutrients it is. Currently residing on my fridge door is their Superfood Detox Smoothie which contains - of course - blueberries, pomegranates and acai. It's very rich and very scrumptious.

While I'm praising Innocent, I'll go on to say that I've sampled their Smoothie o'the Month, which of course is also a detox smoothie, and it contains beetroot, ginger, apples and pear. Incredibly yummy. I love veggie juice but I'm afraid drinking it straight is a bit too hardcore for me so blended with fruit and the almighty ginger is just perfect.

I suppose I could get all properly curmudgeonly here and rant about how the marketing world is preying on our "Are we getting 5-a-day??" insecurities but I won't, mainly because I fully support 5-a-day and know that on the days where I forget to include fruit and veg I feel like a big slug. I felt so proud of my best friend's son, who at the age of 4 really wanted to try my orange and carrot juice because he "loves carrots!" and was all over my pomegranate-blueberry smoothie like it was a Snickers bar.

Why do I know I'm going to get sacked with a kid that only wants to eat noodles with butter. Sigh.

you thought you could evade me forever...

2006-11-16T21:41:00.000+00:00

...but I have prevailed! Every so often there is a commonly-used U.S. ingredient that I have to struggle to find here in the UK. I now have to buy my tinned pumpkin for pumpkin pie online. Same goes if I want to bake a really good pecan pie and need corn syrup. However, what once was another culinary co-hort in the conspiracy to frustrate this ex-pat has been FOUND.

I give you...buttermilk:

Although I've been reassured by many that buttermilk is not unheard of here in cool Britannia I'll be damned if I've ever stumbled across it in any of my local markets and that includes my beloved Waitrose. So when I was in Infinity Foods one day (local vegetarian co-op shop) I was so excited to find not only buttermilk but organic buttermilk! Google has revealed that this particular buttermilk hails from a dairy farm up in Yorkshire. Not really local but I'll take what I can get.

Of course, being a pseudo-Southern girl at heart the first thing I did was gather up some ribs for bbq'n and make Buttermilk Biscuits:

As you can see what we Yanks know as biscuits aint no cookie. Instead they're light, fluffy and very buttery. These here biscuits are topped with Southern Sausage Gravy which is incredibly delicious and not at all good for you. Rock on. You can make them for breakfast but there sure aint no harm in having them for dinner, as we did last night. Yes I'm fully aware that I'm developing somewhat of a twang as I blog these.

Buttermilk Biscuits (adapted from Everyday Food)

2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup buttermilk, plus more if needed

1. Preheat oven to 200C. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Using a fork, pastry blender, or your fingers, incorporate butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. Mix in buttermilk until a sticky dough forms; you may need to add up to 1 tablespoon more buttermilk.

3. Drop 8 mounds (each a scant 1/3 cup) onto a nonstick baking sheet; lightly pat tops to flatten slightly.
4. Bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly. Serve warm.

And now for the Sausage Gravy: (adapted from It's All American Food by David Rosengarten)

450g crumbled breakfast sausage (I use any from Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Range and just remove it from the casings)
2T butter
1/4 white flour
3c cool milk
Buttermilk Biscuits

-Saute the sausage in preheated pan til nice and brown. Remove from pan with juices and reserve.
-Melt butter in a pot and slowly whisk in the flour. Keep whisking til roux is a nice brownish colour.
-Whisk in the milk, slowly, getting rid of any lumps.
-Continue whisking over medium heat til gravy starts to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or til it's thickened. Make sure you keep whisking so it doesn't get stuck to the pan!
-Add in crumbled sausage and serve over warmed, halved biscuits.

shifting uncomfortably.

2006-10-24T23:52:00.000+00:00

So last night Stephen got home from work a bit late and I had already dined. More precisely I had fish sticks (fish fingers for the Brits) n' tater-tots. (Ok, not really. Especially since they don't have tater-tots in the UK.) I actually had homemade haddock, horseradish and cheddar fishcakes we picked up at Middle Farm this weekend with potato latkes and spinach. I kept the oven on for the hub-bub so he could just swish his in when he got home. He took one look at his latkes and said, "I really fancy some beans." Beans? Sure, no problem, I know I keep a tin or two of them in the back of the cupboard somewhere. Lo and behold he found his beans. Then he went to heat them up. With my Le Creuset.

Insert dead silence with chirping crickets.

I'm all, "Erm..you want to use my most expensive pot..to heat up..baked beans..?" I gritted my teeth, made sure he knew NOT to use a metal utensil for stirring and let him do his thing. In my Le Creuset. With Baked Beans.

To re-cap, this:

+ this:

=bewilderment and a sense of sacrilege for Amanda. It's kind of like using a styrofoam cup to drink Cristal or using Wonder bread to make a sandwich with the finest Jamon Iberico.

in praise of piccalilli.

2006-10-24T13:20:00.000+00:00

It takes me a while to warm up to certain foods over on this side of the pond. Some I find myself falling in love with immediately and thus overindulging to the point of not wanting to eat it for another year, as is the case with chicken tikka sandwiches from O'Briens sandwich shop, pickled onion crisps and anything tasting of blackcurrant. Other times I look at items in the grocery store and think to myself that I don't really need to try them, that my life is not in any way, shape or form lacking because I have never sampled pork pies, sausage rolls or in this case, piccalilli. I could take or leave porkie pies and sausage rolls but piccalilli is now finding its way into a permanent nook on my refrigerator door.

In short piccalilli is basically mustard with diced cauliflower, gherkins and sometimes green beans, mixed with turmeric (for the bright yellow goodness) and ginger. My first sampling of piccalilli was last month, at our local food festival. Stephen and I were happily sampling our wee hearts out with the likes of all the local wines, ciders, cheeses and chutneys when I stumbled across a chilli-enhanced piccalilli from the Chili Jam Company, Picca-chilli-lilli.

It was absolutely wonderful, just the right blend of tangy and spicy with a bit of sweet as well. I slathered it on baguettes with nothing else but some german salami and mature cheddar. I'm wondering if Stephen even saw any of that jar. I somehow doubt it.

My local Sainsbury's had very few piccalillis to choose from and they all seemed rather average. I bought some of their own and found it to be completely satisfactory for my everyday needs, ie as a substitute for mere mustard on sandwiches or on a nice slice of ham with a Ploughman's lunch. I think we all know that it's not going to end here. No, it won't end until I find my ultimate everyday piccalilli, one that costs more than 41p per jar. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

what have i done?

2006-10-16T14:09:00.000+00:00

While trying to fall asleep last night at Stephen's parents' house in Kent, I slowly came to the realization that, after inviting his brother and his sister and their partners to Thanksgiving next month, I will be cooking for about 19 people.

I may need to invest in a few more casserole dishes.

betrayed.

2006-10-05T17:21:00.000+00:00

I made good use today of my overpriced saver ticket and took the bus up to visit my beloved Waitrose. I had a list of some things that I needed, things I knew that I could only get there (like Bloomy's kosher semi-sweet chocolate chips that are currently making a good substitute for Nestle Tollhouse) and Libby's tinned pumpkin. Even though Thanksgiving isn't being celebrated in the Reid household til 18 November, I thought I would buy a tin and perhaps make some pumpkin bread or lovely pumpkin chocolate-chip squares for the boys (and girls) in Stephen's office.

You can imagine the look of sheer horror and bewilderment on my face as I turned down the baking aisle, scan the shelves and realize that they no longer stock Libby's tinned pumpkin. I felt so let down. Betrayed. How could my Waitrose do this to me? How can they force me to buy it off of some overpriced online import shop?? I felt personally slighted. I know that the Brits have not caught on to the luscious autumnal goodness that IS pumpkin pie because I have to make new converts every year at Thanksgiving. I was hoping though that like Philadelphia cream cheese, nachos and pancakes with maple syrup it would indeed start to make a small dent into the collective British culinary subsonscious.

Sigh. If anyone knows where I can get this in Brighton, please please please let me know. They charge like £4 a tin online.

i hate everyone.

2006-10-02T15:39:00.000+00:00

In the space of only a week I have managed to see two films; one that made me want to throw in the towel and go live in a Mongolian yurt and the other open up a wide tree-hugging style embrace and resign to accepting humanity with all of its flaws. After only just seeing An Inconvenient Truth and having the bejeezus scared out of me I decided to catch another oil-centric documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?

It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

Why indeed. Never mind that it has zero emissions and are cheaper to run than gasoline cars because the Bush Administration is working hard to bring you hydrogen-fueled cars. That won't be ready for 20 years. And cost a $1 million EACH to create. And are 7 times more expensive to run than a gasoline-fuelled car. GO HYDROGEN. Sometimes people are so stupid it makes my head hurt. I won't rant too much here but I firmly recommend going to see this documentary and then seriously considering swapping in your vehicle for a hybrid if you can.

After you've seen it, go back to the counter at your cinema and purchase a ticket to see this movie. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you wonder why there isn't any legislation on the table to outlaw the perversity of child beauty pageants.

I give you the Hoover family. The father is a victim of his own self-help regime, the mother is just trying to keep everyone afloat, the grandfather has decided to really live up his golden years by snorting heroin and subsequently being booted out of his retirement home, the teenage son has taken a vow of silence and only communicates via notepad in order to more actively disengage with said family and the daughter, well, she wants to enter into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Cue the family road movie.

I've heard so much hype about this film that I didn't want to get myself worked into a frenzy over it. I made that mistake with Lost in Translation and it didn't live up to my expectations whatsoever. I ended up loving it so much that two days later I told Stephen to go by himself to see it because I knew that I would just be annoyed if he ended up not liking it. I know it's ridiculous but it's just who I am, take me or leave me.

The basic synopsis is that everyone is flawed, some more than others but you have to love people through their flaws and stand by them when they need you, no matter what anyone else might think. Also, life is full of disappointments, some more avoidable than others. There's also a yellow VW bus, gay porn, Proust and a spectacular finale. Olive Hoover may be the most likeable child character onscreen since Finding Neverland.

pink fingertips 2.0

2006-09-28T10:50:00.000+00:00

What's a girl to do when she receives more fresh beetroot with her fortnightly veg box? Make tabbouleh of course! Not just any tabbouleh. Oh no. Beet & feta tabbouleh.

I really do need to upgrade our camera so I can have really good food photos like all the cool kids. So the secret to a good tabbouleh is lemon juice and lots of it. To make the same recipe gluten-free just substitute superfood quinoa for the bulghur. Even Stephen thought this was delicious and you never know with him.

Beet & Feta Tabbouleh (serves 4 as main course or 6-8 as a side)

1c bulghur wheat
2c boiling water
200g / 1 pack feta cheese
4-5 bulbs fresh beetroot (you can use pre-cooked but fresh does make a difference in taste)
5T chopped fresh curly parsley
3T chopped fresh mint
juice from 4 small lemons
2-3T extra virgin olive oil

Roast your beets in some foil in a 220C/425F oven with some oil and s&p for 45 minutes. Once cooled, peel off skin and trim. Dice into 1/2" pieces.
Meanwhile, put bulghur in a bowl and pour over boiling water. Cover and leave for about 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork. If all the water isn't absorbed then drain. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Add to diced beets the lemon juice, olive oil and herbs. Adjust to taste and season.
Add beet mixture to bulghur and crumble in 1/2 the feta.
Plate up the tabbouleh and sprinkle the rest of the feta on top.

It will keep overnight in the fridge for leftovers but any longer and the lemon juice just makes it too acidic. I served mine with some falafel, toasted pita bread and tahini dressing.

sugar high

2006-09-24T19:39:00.000+00:00

£3. That's how much it costs for a day-saver (ie return) ticket on the bus these days. The Brighton & Hove bus company have faithfully increased their ticket prices every year around the same time as long as I've lived here. It used to be £2.40. Why am I telling you this? Because this means that my trips to Waitrose will be cut short (unless I get off my lazy ass and walk) and I am now forced to go to the dreaded straight-out-of-70's-Harlem Sainsbury's or super-chavvy Somerfields. Alas, I have found that my local butcher, who I visited for the first time on Friday due to a porkrib shortage at the other 2, actually stocks quite the variety of meats, some even being of the free-range persuasion. I can't whinge too much I guess seeing that the Open Market is just up around the corner as well. SIGH. mumbles something about loving Waitrose...

What was my point? I can't even remember. I just remember being really excited today when I was at Waitrose and found that they now stock Amy's Organic Soups, which I practically lived off of when I was a vegetarian and was feeling a bit posh. They were on sale so I bought the Black Bean and Lentil Veggie for Stephen's lunches this week. See? This is why Waitrose is so great and the other supermarkets AREN'T. My god, they even stock Bone Suckin' BBQ Sauce, imported from the US of A! Something else that Waitrose sells and no one else does (so therefore the Brits are clueless to the sheer wonderousness of it):

I give you...Fluff. Marshmallow Fluff to be exact. 1 of 3 vital ingredients for a Fluffernutter sandwich, the other two being white bread and peanut butter. My mother was somehow smart enough to not feed these to us as children HOWEVER I do remember the odd jars of Fluff showing up in our cupboards near Christmas. This is because my mother was making her infamous Never-Fail Fudge for practically everyone she knew. If I started selling this stuff I'd put the fudge shop around the corner out of business. For real. I found a bag of Nestle Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chips lurking in my baking cupboard so guess what I made?

It's cooling in the pan as we speak. If you're my neighbour or husband's work colleague, be prepared for adult-onset diabetes when you try this stuff tomorrow. Weird that Waitrose thought to stock the Fluff in the Kosher section. Maybe it's Kosher, who knows? I found some Kosher semi-sweet chocolate chips (which you can never find here, it's always those small bags of chips that aren't semi-sweet and it's just so incredibly frustrating. Like buttermilk. Why is it so hard to find buttermilk??) so now that I've downloaded the recipe for the BEST chocolate chip cookies EVER guess what I'll be making tomorrow.

plum tuckered out.

2006-09-19T11:58:00.000+00:00

Well anyone would be after a weekend of rubbing shoulders with the zillion people at your local Food Festival. OK, maybe a zillion is stretching it a bit, still, those streets were packed! I took a mosey on down by myself on Saturday, to gauge all the goodies. Momma Cherri was there, complete with microphoned headset, teaching the masses how to make her downhome cuisine. I strolled past booths offering not just your British banger-in-a-bun, but Mexican, Moroccan, Nigerian and Thai. Too bad I had lunch before going! I made it back with some Cheeky Monkey banana chutney courtesy of The Garlic Farm and 3 bars of chocolate from the Chocolate Alchemist. The white chocolate & cinnamon is currently rocking my world. I returned on Sunday, this time with Stephen in tow and we scarfed down some of the best chicken burritos I've ever had, courtesy of Coriander. We came back with some locally produced cider, chilli piccalilli and wild boar & leek sausage rolls. YUM.

With such an array of chutneys, jams and such on display I got inspired. Well, that plus thumbing through my new copy of Everyday Food got me inspired:

How I do love this magazine. And I hate Martha Stewart! Such irony. Anyways, this month has plums on display and so I decided to use up the Riverford plums (as they weren't the red plums I prefer) by making chutney. I even got to use my new Le Creuset pot! Joy!

Plum Chutney

1 lb (450g) plums, pitted and cut into 1/2" pieces
2T olive oil
4 shallots (or 1/2 red onion), chopped fine
1 chile, seeds removed and diced finely
1/3c light brown sugar
2T cider vinegar
3/4t curry powder
1/3t ground ginger

Heat oil in small pot and saute shallots and chile over med-high heat for a few minutes, until soft
Add plums, sugar, vinegar and spices plus 1/4c water.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook til slightly syrupy, about 7 minutes
Allow to cool

I think if I had to pick a favourite condiment, chutney would be it. Be it any flavour or level of spiciness there's just something about it that I love so dearly. Give me some chutney, a fresh baguette and some good strong cheddar or brie and I am a happy monkey. I also love to smear it over jerk or cajun chicken but you can of course use it over simply cooked chicken or pork.

pomegranates are the new black.

2006-09-13T19:23:00.000+00:00

At least where I'm concerned. Not only have I geekily subscribed to the Pomegreat newsletter but I'm averaging about a litre of this stuff per day. I know it's the trendy new juice of the moment (I believe I saw an episode of "Queer Eye" that included pom-martinis) but I wouldn't drink it if I didn't like it. Not to mention all the health benefits like helping lower bad cholesterol, having 3 times as many antioxidants as green tea AND being chock full o' folic acid (for all you pregnant ladies out there). All hail the mighty pomegranate! At least until the next "superfood" comes along anyway!

why i love my husband.

2006-09-09T08:21:00.000+00:00

The man is thousands of miles away in Texas but still thinks of me. Not only is he going clothes shopping for me today but he also sent me an email informing me that Amazon is selling Le Creuset pots for HALF PRICE.

You have no idea how long I've been wanting one of these. I think it's been on my Amazon wishlist for about 3 years now. Ok, so they didn't have the lime, pink or lavender-coloured ones on sale but I think that this almond-coloured one will look lovely alongside my beloved Dualit kettle, don't you?

One step closer to the kitchen of my dreams! Now, if only these would go on sale for half price:

i heart Waitrose

2006-09-08T18:04:00.000+00:00

(Or as Delphine calls it, in her French accent, "The Waitrose". So cute. I get mocked by the Brits for pronouncing it Wait-rose, instead of Wai-trose. At least I don't say Sains-berries instead of Sains-brees. Give me some credit, people.) - original pic found at Flickr, entitled "you know you're back in England when supermarkets have aisles like this" - so true!!

Being unemployed will leave you with lots of time to sit on your ass all day. I did a lot of that at work and got paid for it and as much as I love to veg out and watch an entire season of Deadwood in 3 days, I know I have to get out and move my body or else I crip up like an old woman. I love going food shopping (especially when I can be leisurely about it and especially when I don't have Stephen with me going, "Why don't you buy this bacon, it's on sale! Why don't you buy this kind of juice, it's cheaper!"). Lately I've been killing 2 birds by walking to my local Waitrose, which is about 30 minutes away on foot. Waitrose is the posh grocery store chain. Think Whole Foods but not 100% organic. I'd never been to a Waitrose before moving to Brighton and my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw that we had one. It wasn't until I moved here that I became interested in the differences in all the grocery store chains. Sure, we all want to shop at our local green grocer/baker/butcher, but it's not a reality for most people. It has to be somewhat convenient or else it's not going to happen. I like to do my bit by supporting local veg box schemes and buying the occasional deli items too but since we're not millionaires I have to rely on grocery stores and markets too.

Waitrose is a co-operative so I like that by spending money there you know that they're sharing the wealth with all of their employees. They also support initiatives in the third world, sell loads of fair trade products, ONLY sell eggs that are at least free-range, if not organic and make sure that locally produced products are put on their shelves. There's something about the atmosphere in a Waitrose that's a bit different as well. You get a sense that people that shop there really love food and are enthusiastic about trying new things and being willing to pay a bit more for good quality. I think that was a nice way of saying that their patrons aren't as common as the ones around the corner at my local Somerfields with their packs of feral, tracksuit-clad children and carts full of crisps and soda, don't you? I can be a total snob, I'll be the first to admit it.

In addition to being a haven for MY kind of people (hehe.) they've also started a bit of a fruit and veg revolution with their Ugli campaign. By now most people know how much food is wasted (an astonishing 30-40% here in the UK!!) because fruit or veg isn't "pretty" enough, even though some of the prettiest pieces of fruit I've ever had were the ones most lacking in taste. I've heard stories of entire lorries of food being turned down by Tesco for not being pleasing to the eye. Guess who suffers that loss? Not you or I in our self-contained, synthetically pleasing lives but the farmers who work their fingers to the bone so that you can have an attractive fruit centrepiece. Deep breath. Stepping off soapbox. So now you can buy Ugli fruit for cooking, baking or even to put in your rebellious fruit bowl. Fantastic idea!

Yes, Waitrose is expensive so I'm usually scanning the shelves for what's on sale. I know that one day when we start having children we probably won't be able to afford to shop here and then I'll have to be more budget-conscious than I am now. So for now I'll just indulge in their Goat's Cheese, Rocket and Fig Chutney Pizzas while I still can. (25% off this month!)

pink fingertips

2006-09-02T10:46:00.000+00:00

Courtesy of my new organic veg box delivery company, Riverford. I decided to give them a try after Helena recommended them to me. I will still use Abel & Cole for other items, such as meat and fish (they do have a key to my building, afterall) but I have to admit that Riverford is much better value for money. I also like knowing that by shopping with them that I'm helping to support a local, small business for Riverford's box scheme is a franchise. I know, you hear the word "franchise" and automatically your hands go up in the sign of the Cross, but that's not the case here. It's a way of equally distributing profits and encouraging small start-ups and I know now from firsthand experience that not everything about franchises is evil. Ok, MOST things are evil (like how they all have to buy from the same vendors even if it means shipping in frozen chicken from Brazil) but that actually works in Riverford's favour since you want most of your goodies to come from their 750 acre organic farm in Devon.

I had my first delivery on Thursday which consisted of a small veg box for £9 and a fruit bag for £4.30, with some additionals thrown in. The veg box brought me beetroot (beets), carrots, new potatoes, courgettes (zucchini), onions, leeks, rocket (arugula) and mushrooms, all picked and bagged that morning and righteously covered in dirt. The fruit bag contained apples, pears and grapes. Quite good value, I'd say.

One thing I like about having a veg box is that it pushes me to use every single veggie. I'm turning into my gran in that respect, I simply can't bear to chuck things into the bin. Another perk is that it forces me to use veggies that I would either never think to or just really couldn't be arsed messing with, like fresh beetroot. I'm all for avoiding pre-cut/prepared veggies; it only adds expense and excess packaging. With beetroot tho, I never saw the point in making it from scratch as it's SO incredibly messy, not to mention that it involves an additional 45 minutes to your prep time. I just love the luscious deep purple of it and the beautiful shocking pink that it leaves in its wake. Underneath my fingernails the crescents are still this shade of pink even tho I scrubbed them into oblivion.

Last night I invited a friend round to dinner, and since I have no end of time to invest into prep time these days, I decided to give it a go. I scoured my back issues of Everyday Food and checked both Riverford and Abel & Cole for their beetroot recipes. I contemplated doing soup but since I knew I was already doing a salad I looked for a way to add these fresh, roasted beets to the salad. I'm so glad that I did - Roasted beets and pear with parmesan and pine nuts over arugula and beet greens. Beets are commonly paired with goat's cheese or feta but since I was using my fabulous Welsh goat's cheese for the main dish, I decided to go with Grana Padano instead.

beets, 4-5
pear, 1
pine nuts, 3T
arugula/rocket, 400g - i also used some of the leaves from the beets as i didn't have enough rocket
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
red wine vinegar
lemon, 1 with half zested
cayenne
parmesan, to shave

roast your trimmed beets in foil in a roasting tin with a bit of olive oil, s&p and water in an oven preheated to 220C/425F. when finished, allow to cool and then slip off the skins.
wash greens thoroughly and dry (using your snazzy new salad spinner you got for an £8 bargain off of Ebay).
toast pine nuts and remove from heat to cool.
mix vinaigrette; 2 parts EVOO, 1 part lemon juice, 1 part red wine vinegar; s&p to taste with lemon zest and a dash of cayenne. dress greens and sprinkle with coarse sea salt, Maldon if you have it.
dress sliced beets and add to salad.
add slices of pear, toasted pine nuts and shave over parmesan.

For the main course - Fusilli with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Goat's Cheese (modified from Everyday Food):

pasta, 400g - use tubular, short if you can. (I opted for fusilli since I had some on hand and I'm trying to be more flexible in my cooking ie not having 6 different kinds of pasta on hand at once.)
sun-dried tomatoes, sliced, 1c - not the ones in oil
slivered almonds/pinenuts, 1/4c
goat's cheese, 6 oz
chili, 1 or 1t dried chili flakes
garlic, 3 cloves minced
leek, 1, halved and sliced
fresh parsley, 1/2 c chopped
olive oil

saute the garlic, chili and leek in the olive oil for 5 min. put aside.
toast pinenuts/almonds. put aside.
salt and cook pasta to 3 minutes short of instructions. add sun dried tomatoes to the water and cook for the further 3 minutes.
drain; keep 1c of tomato-ey cooking water and add back to pasta.
add garlic/chili/leek mixture.
flake 1/2 of your goat's cheese with a fork into pasta and add parsley. stir.
plate up the pasta and flake the rest of the goat's cheese over the dishes.

This recipe really is so versatile. You could use feta instead of goat's cheese and any number of veggies instead of the tomatoes. You could use shallots or red onion instead of the leek. You could always add a bit more EVOO to taste as well. Recipes are truly just a guideline most of the time. Make sure you serve with lots of crusty, buttery, garlic bread.

And now I'm off to the Fiery Foods festival, courtesy of the Brighton Food Festival. Lots of pics to come!

The best meme EVER - 5 foods to eat before you die

2006-08-30T16:11:00.000+00:00

Melissa over at the Traveler's Lunchbox has started this madness of a list and why, you didn't really think I'd keep my opinions to myself, did you?

I found the other top 5's very curious. Some were straight to the punch and others felt the need to describe each item in excruciating detail. I found this slightly annoying and not very fun to read so instead I thought of it more as a "What would I want to eat for my Last Meal?" question.

Without further ado, I give you...my list: (insert overly-dramatic music here)

1. A warm, jam donut from the Mock Turtle Teashop in Brighton, stuffed with cream, preferably eaten on a cold, grey day, of which we have many here in England.
2. Curry chip from the Moyola chippy on the Shore Road in Belfast, preferably after a night out on the piss.
3. Potatoes Dauphinoise from the Seven Dials Restaurant here in Brighton. Think of where boxed Potatoes Au Gratin came from and take out all the horrid pre-packaged Betty Crocker ingredients and you're left with potatoes, cheese (cheddar or gruyere), milk, eggs and cream. Baked til crusty and bubbling. If I could bathe in it without getting 1st degree burns, I just might.
4. Broiled crab cakes from Legends Restaurant in Delaware Park in Wilmington, Delaware. Even people from Maryland drive here to eat these beauties. $26 and worth every cent.
5. A Reuben from a Jewish deli. I can't even specify because if we have any Jewish delis in the UK, they sure aren't here. But my god, that combination of pastrami/corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and Russian dressing on rye bread, all toasted and oozing-does it get any better? I once read that Umberto Eco said, "You Americans have done 2 things right-pecan pie and Reubens." Amen.

And now, what about you? What's YOUR top 5?

A day out at Middle Farm

2006-08-30T12:14:00.000+00:00

You can read more about this fantastic place here. I just needed an excuse to upload this picture of Stephen a la Homer Simpson:

Mmmm....organic ice cream on a stick.....

Ach lassie, I didnae catch ya, yer American are ye?

2006-08-30T09:44:00.000+00:00

Stephen and I made our way up to Scotland recently, Glasgow to be exact. He had a meet-n-greet with some COH players at a pub up there and I went along for the ride. What an experience that was. Most of you know, I'm not a gamer in the slightest. Everyone there was really lovely and extremely excited at all the free COH goodies that Stephen had brought along. I tried my best at conversing with all the Scottish gamers, even if I did need them to repeat themselves over and over. One guy even let me and Stephen try on his hat. That's Stephen on the right there, for those of you who haven't met him yet. EEEEERAD ICAT OR!!

What I discovered in this pub is that it's so much nicer to be able to drink and eat in a smoke-free environment and that they're not afraid to put inflatable sheep in a bathroom vending machine. I love that they felt the need to label it as a FUN inflatable sheep, totally ignoring the fact that anyone who would pay £5.50 for it is most likely a total perv.

Stephen's parents are from Glasgow but I don't think he'd been back to visit since he was a teenager. The impression that I got from this city is that it's quite similar to Belfast in a lot of ways; a small city, once quite poor but now very up and coming. Still, you could see why Gordon Ramsey's posh restaurant Amaryllis totally sank. Poor guy was totally gutted, it being his hometown and all (which I don't get as he has no trace of a Scottish accent whatsoever.) Glasgow doesn't seem ready for that sort of thing quite yet.

We tried our hand at eating at what looked like a snazzy restaurant but left a lot to be desired; the Seafood and Grill. I ordered the filet mignon and nearly choked when taking my first bite it was SO heavily spiced with peppercorn! I love my spicy food but this was a case of some serious over-seasoning. And it was brought to me medium when I ordered it med-rare. I should've sent it back but I'm a sucker. I kick myself when I think I paid £25 for it. I knew we should've gone to the recommended chippie instead.

Also on the agenda for that weekend was a trip to the newly re-opened Kelvingrove Museum, which has just had a £28 million renovation. They'd had 400,000 visitors just in the past 2 months that it's been open! This was truly u nlike any other museum I've ever been to.

It was designed to keep you interested; modern art was next to Van Gogh, natural history mixed in with automative, fashion, Elvis and best of all, loads of interactive exhibits for the kids (and those of us that have to touch everything). The most famous piece they have is Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross. I kept looking at it and trying to figure out just why it was so controversial. Because you don't see Jesus' face? Because there's no obvious piercing or blood coming out of his hands or feet? I was truly moved by this picture. I'm no art expert by any stretch but I found the perspective amazing and the contrast of the darkness surrounding Christ and the cloudy blue skies over the fishermen below really potent. It would seem that the lack of blood and pain offends some people but there is more to the crucifixion than this and I think that Dali may have been trying to convey this. Or he could've just been piss-drunk and wanting to cause a stir, who knows? Art is how it moves us and what we take away from it just as much as it is its original intention. In my humble opinion anyways.

After a day out here we decided to stroll over to the West End, right next to the University of Glasgow, where Stephen's brother Alistair went to college. Definitely the more upscale area with lots of open green areas and of course, a Starbucks. Or three. Sigh. We wandered into a lovely food shop called Peckham's. Apparently they're a chain but they had Reese's cups so that's all that really matters. We bought some of the best shortbread I've ever tasted in flavours of lemon curd, pecan praline and coconut.

All in all it was nice to get away for a few days but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that Edinburgh is much more my style.

Amanda's sabbatical - Day 1

2006-08-26T10:27:00.000+00:00

So far today I have:

1. Yelled at the cat to shut the eff up from 6.15 am til 7.20 when I finally got out of bed to feed his sorry ass. Of course now he's sleeping it off. I should go and rub my face against him for an hour and see how he likes it. Somehow I don't think it will have the same effect.

2. Had a light breakfast of saltines and fruit with a glass of apricot juice while watching a repeat of Judging Amy on the Hallmark Channel and Kim Possible on the Disney Channel (I love this show and not just because there is a naked molerat named Rufus who knows kung fu).

3. Got all up in tidying up the flat; swept, sorted recycling, dusted and hoovered the bedroom (much to Senor Kitty's dismay).

4. Made a pitcher of my beloved ice tea (no sugar, lots of lemon). I still have the box that Jill brought me over a year ago since I only JUST got a drinks pitcher.

5. Made plans with Yunhee to go to lunch at 1. I hope she picks Bill's. I was thinking of suggesting going somewhere totally different, like the snazzy new Indian deli that's just opened up the road. It's called - wait for it - Deli India. See what they did there? It's a new place tho which means I'd feel compelled to take pics and blog about it and I just don't know if I can be arsed today. My mission is never done I tell ya!

6. Thumbed through my newest cookbook and have decided to have a go at their version of a light, veggie lasagne. Pics to come.

I'm off now to email my landlady to see if she knows anything about the nutter next door who apparently has been building something for the past TWO YEARS. He drills and hammers at like, 11 in the evening and 5 in the morning! He also used to put his trash on our front step which of course would then be destroyed by the gulls. Oh. I've got my eye on this guy. You better believe it. I'm this close to putting a bag of flaming poo on his front step.

My local.

2006-08-24T20:21:00.000+00:00

Betcha' thought I was gonna post pics of my nearest and dearest pub, didn't ya? Well, until the smoking ban goes into effect here in the UK (probably sometime next year) I won't be seen in too many pubs too often. Granted, the George across the street has a non-smoking section but I can't help feel like that entire place (especially the bunkettes) could use with a serious scrubdown. I worry sometimes that I'm going to go to stand up and find myself stuck like chewing gum on a cinema floor. Still, their nachos rock. I'd thought we'd start with one of my favourite places in Brighton, not least because I want to enter it as a Food Destination for this month's Local Greenmarket competish'.

What I'm referring to actually is the place I drag Stephen (or anyone else) to every weekend for breakfast/lunch/brunch. This place is known as Bill's Produce Store and you can read all about my previous encounters here. In the meantime, here are some pics to tickle your tastebuds:
You see, not only is Bill's a lovely dining experience, it is also a produce shop of a unique caliber (think purple bell peppers and white eggplants, dragonfruits and fresh figs). The walls are lined with their own brand of jams, marmalades, chutneys, curds, and pickles in addition to all the very finest imports, such as Italian provolone cheese and Spanish cooking chorizo. They have takeaway paninis, complete with a piece of fruit for your lunch and they have the most complex and gargantuan desserts I've ever seen.

That sir, is a banoffee pie (think banana + toffee and you get the idea). It looks rather like one of the hats a lady would wear at Ascot but it is actually an explosion of Cadbury Flakes, bananas, walnuts and chocolate all nestled down into a lovely pie of toffee. Their desserts are to be shared only. Grandmom and I learned that the hard way, ie not being able to move for the rest of the day.

My lunch this day consisted of a Buck Rarebit (not to be confused with the Welsh Rarebit, which is essentially an openfaced grilled cheese sandwich with a dash of mustard and Worcestershire sauce). No, this Buck Rarebit also came topped with eggs and ham, as well as cheese. It was delicious. So was my smoothie. No room for pudding but I still was a very happy Amanda this day. I then went and met Delphine and her lovely friends that were over visiting from France. We went to see "High Society" at the Duke of Yor k Picturehouse. We all agreed that although enjoyable, it was no Philadelphia Story. Lovely day with lovely new friends all encompassed by that wonderful English summer weather that scarcely goes above 75.