A frittata

Well, there appears to be little food in the house. But wait: what's this? I have found the following items:

Did you get the boiled egg and soldiers thing?  Always have some eggs on hand for cheerful pictures and culinary emergencies, I say. Picture by Giles Turnbull.

six spring onions

three small cold jacket potatoes (that sounds kind of tragic, doesn't it? A bit like Mrs Beeton breaking the heart of a young lettuce)

a handful of cherry tomatoes

we have plentiful garlic and whole red chillies. If I have no other food, I always seem to have these -- plus my cupboard full of spices

half a yellow pepper

six eggs

two sticks of celery

Right: I have it. 

Chop up everything into small pieces, mince four cloves of garlic and, say, half a red chilli. Fry them off gently in a little olive oil in a large frying or saute pan. Meanwhile beat the eggs well with a little sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Then having made sure that your vegetables are fairly well distributed across the pan, pour on the eggs and raise the heat. Allow all to set and then either turn your substantial-variation-on-a substantial-Spanish-omelette with finesse and elan, or finish it off under a hot grill.. 

Harumph! It is done and, I reckon, it is pretty good fare. I would want plenty of chilli in my omelette and I might also like a little cheese in there somewhere. Perhaps three tablespoons of a sharp cheddar? Pitted olives would, be good, too. Serve with crusty bread or not if, like me, you are not entirely up to speed with the domestics this week.

ALE AND PORTER and then some.

If you are looking for anything about the lovely new Ale and Porter --cafe, patisserie and traiteur, no less, check yesterday's post for text and related recipe! Here, above is Sebastien Rouxel, the chef. Plus for an extra treat, how wonderful is Giles Turnbull's picture of Gary Say, Head Chef at Fat Fowl, below? You can see Gary loves what he does, I think. Check out home made bread and note sprigs of herbs.

Now we are eight.

Isn't this the sweetest thing. Well bittersweet, because today I am the grumpy, shouty mother who, well, should not. Back to the sweetest thing. My eight year old cannot hold a pencil 'properly' for toffee; I've been told more  than a few times that he underachieves in school. But you know what? I respect opnions and all, but that child is highly emotionally literate. My goodness, how highly that counts. And he knows about food. Today, to give his mother a boost, here is what he did. Foods chosen because he thought they were "cosy." Ah: you're wondering about the provenance of the eggs? Spirit of the same. Photo by Giles Turnbull.

1. Plump up cushions in squashy chair; tell mother to put up feet and wait for lunch. Did I want a romantic DVD or a murder book? (Funny, how young boys see their mothers.)

2. Arrive with a menu and a large reserved sign saying "Mrs V. Table three reserved" Table three is the squashy chair. Mrs V is me. He had also written (sic) "You rok!!!" on the bottom of the reserved sign.

3. Sounds of scrabbling and stumbling on stairs up to room. A tray, with a big basin of rice crispies, lots of cold milk and, well, extra milk in the tray -- for which he had brought an extra spoon.

4. A little later, I was given a cheese sandwich and a satsuma for pudding. Today, I let them eat their meals backwards, so that was why I had a cheese sandwich for dessert.

5. Sounds of running. The boy has prepared a flagon of blackcurrant squash. He is now wearing an apron, the previous lack of which he now apologises for. And he brings me a napkin and a raspberry chewy vitamin tablet.

Further details: all white bowl and plate, blue and white napkin. His choice.

The chips below: another comforting sort of food picture. Again by Giles: they are my oven chips and I particularly favour this old enamel cooking tin for their preparation. It's all in the blue rim and the pale yellow interior.

A lovely new venture to taste: traiteur, cafe, patisserie

In our home town of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, there is a new little place for you to visit. It belongs to Sebastien and Shanaz Rouxel and it's called Ale and Porter --taking its name after the building in which they are housed. It's writ large on the front! It's a patisserie, cafe and traiteur. Which means that, while you get coffee and a cake, as in any other cafe, or take a little lunch, you can also get food to take away. Here they are: photo by Giles Turnbull, who, let it be known, is what is called A JOLLY GOOD THING. (Neat photos, too.)

There's a wonderfully evocative description of a traiteur's shop in Provence in the writing of the late Keith Floyd. In winter, he saw that it was filled with game and its shelves were stacked with trufflles and pates, with signs in the window offering food to take away. Cooked on the premises were jugged hare, a venison stew and crayfish armoricaine (the name coming --probably-- from the old name for Brittany, not America. Probably.)

So, in France, the traiteur's shop is where you would get --amongst other things-- a selection of foods to enjoy for your lunch or dinner. These would include something substantial so, for example, you might have a wonderful portion of cassoulet to have when friends come round.. In Ale and Porter, you do the same. As I write, you could be eating a  beef daube -- a long simmered beed stew, or a kind of risotto made with pearl barley. Very good for you, you know. While Sebastien is French by birth, the food from this particular traiteur will be more roundly European -- just to give you a taste of more than one country. Not that France isn't a place of genius, you understand. Speaking of which, here is a recipe. It's just a daube, a la moi, but mostly Provencal in nature, I would think. It exploits the French genius for long and patient simmering. Sort of alchemy, then. You could do it two stages, thusly.

Daube. A beef stew (daubes are not only beef!)


Put this meat into a marinade overnight. I'd use 2kg of stewing beef. Decent quality.

The marinade might be:
About 2 glasses of decent red wine
1 medium (say, thumb length?) piece of rosemary on the stem
1 sprig of thyme --maybe even lemon thyme?
1 bayleaf
five cloves of finely chopped garlic
A fat pinch of Maldon sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper
You could add a chopped onion too, because, later it will add aromatic base notes. And I LOVE onions
Take 2kg stewing beef. Decent quality. Cut it into pieces.

Right, the following day, do this.
Get About 250g streaky bacon, cut into little dice. Smoked, ideally. Fry it off gently with a little olive oil. Then drain the meat, putting the marinade to one side. Brown it gently in the pan with the bacon. Oh -- you need a large pan, because you want to brown and seal the meat, not steam it! Take a couple of heaped tablespoons of flour and sprinkle these on, keeping a watchful eye on the heat so that the flour dosen't catch. You do want, though, to cook it out properly. Just a minute or so will do. Stir carefully and then pour in the marinade and 4 glasses of red wine.All you do then is bring to a high heat and simmer for around three hours or you could, at this point, decant it to a moderate oven and let it bubble away.  You could also add a couple of pieces of (scrubbed) orange peel. You may find you need to add a little water, but a daube should be thick -- so have confidence. remember to check and correct the seasoning.

When all is done, the meat will be exceptionally tender. Elizabeth David once had tears in her eyes when presented, weary and long travelled, with a daube -- seeing the little branches of thyme and smelling the rich and homely scent as the lid of the daubiere was lifted. I know what she meant.

I would enjoy serving this with plain boiled potatoes and -- because I will never be French and will always inhabit a place sometimes in England and sometimes in Wales-- with a big heap of boiled and roughly chopped cabbage. It might be the done thing, down South, to serve with noodles and a little cheese,

Chicken soup for the soul. For Susan.

Yes, yes: we've all heard this one But chicken soup really does seem to work if you have a cold or flu and, reader, I am feeling dreadful. However, someone came to my door late this afternoon, having removed the children from my care, swung them around the house so as to wear them out for me and then prepared some soup. I will ask her what she put in it at some point, but let me just say that the right food offered by the kind (a good splash of Southern may I say?) soul made me feel very happy. 

And man: that soup was better than mine. It contained good rich chicken stock, chopped chicken --both the brown and white-- and, I noticed, it was cut into neat pieces (unlike mine) which was particularly soothing in the circumstances. Just a nod to what I'll call nursery food. There were peas, neatly cut carrots, just a little celery and linguine which had been snapped into pieces. Well seasoned. Just right. More to the point, she had made enough for two good helpings with seconds so that Nedved (that'll be the husband, if you're not a regular reader) could share it.

As My auntie Bettie in Pembrokeshire says: "I notices things."

Feet up by the fire, dear.

And an update to favourite meals, chicken soup and a tuna tortilla!

Following on from my last post on favourite meals....

My eldest son, Elijah, just 8, says that it would either be a home-made pizza (with a big crusty base, a tomato sauce, some chilli flakes, some spicy sausage, red or green peppers and light on the cheese) or a big bowl of his mother's home-made chicken soup (warms the heart, this). Made thusly.

Elijah's chicken soup. Son, momma loves you.

You have the remains of a roast chicken. Perhaps you have some chicken stock, too. If you don't, it's not the end of the world. Right, strip the carcass with your fingers, missing nothing. Then put the chicken into a deep pan. Cover with cold water and then twice as much water again. Add a finely chopped onion, five roughly chopped carrots, a head of broccoli, torn into pieces, five potatoes, chopped (whether you peel or not is up to you, but I would -- unless they were newies), two chopped parsnips and, perhaps, half a large swede, chunked. Bring this lot to the boil and then add about a tablespoon of marigold bouillion powder for depth and savour. Just simmer slowly for about forty minutes and it is ready. Check and correct the seasoning. Elijah likes this with a big hunk of bread for dipping, but sometimes not.

Two points: the only way that this soup will be superlative is if you use a free range chicken. So much more flavour for your money and we like chickens. I don't need to go on about the alternative right here in a recipe. Just check out --amongst others-- Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall on the subject. Secondly, don't waste the remaining bones. make them into a stock for the next soup by simmer them long and gently with a few peppercorns, a piece of onion and perhaps a little celery. Or nothing at all. Or make the stock first, having stripped away the meat, and use it as a bases for this soup. It's just that I had a vat of it which I wanted to use up. Oh and finally, do keep some of the Marigold stock powder in your cupboard. It's available in low salt and organic varieties and provides a flavoursome stock. Although I wouldn't use it for every soup I make.

Tuna in a tortilla a la Ned. (You rock)

And a thought from Elijah's father. This is, perhaps, an odd sort of thing to have as a favourite, but it makes him happy, so that's dandy. I like it, too. Just take some tuna in spring water (if you can get it. I say sunflower oil, but we allow him his preferences), drain it and then add it to a frying pan on a moderate heat. Your aim is to cook the tuna until you have dried it slightly and given it a little bit of crisp here and there. Then, add plenty of hot sauce. May we recommend another favourite ingredient in our household? Encona Hot Chilli sauce. It's the best. Just mix in as much as you dare -- it's hot and piquant-- and then toss your tuna into a warmed tortilla. That's it! I might like to add a dollop of Greek yoghurt or some mayonnaise and, maybe, some chopped coriander? Possibly some spring onion, too. But I see that this may be taking away from the somewhat basic but very satisfying original (I mean the sandwich, not the husband).

Isaac's (he is 5) favourite ingredients are: tomato ketchup, rice, sausages, mangoes, kiwi fruit and lollipops! Oh -- and watermelon. His father's son. More on this later!

A favourite meal? A fantasy meal? A last meal? A meal to savour all alone?

By this I mean, if you and only you had to choose. If you thought no-one was there to disapprove -- which just might, I think, mitigate some folks' choices. And don't think it has to be posh. It might be Nutella on toast, for all I care. I am just curious -- plus I want to put this into my next book. Anonymously, if you choose. You don't need to think in terms of courses and, if you can write lustily about it, so much the better.

These are my favourites. At the moment, I mean. And amongst all my other favourites. All of a jumble and in no particular order.

An obscenely ripe wodge of  Brie. Or Camenbert.

Porridge. Big bowl. With golden syrup or --get this-- condensed milk.

A Masala Dosa with a coconut chutney.

A really good floury boiled potato. Must be the peasant in me. Or a roast potato. The one that got stuck to the tin and seemed to have collapsed. That was always the one I pinched on Sunday. My eight year old does it now.This makes me feel warm and fuzzy around the edges. Do you know what I mean?

A giant bowl of pasta. It should be spaghetti or linguine and the sauce needs, probably, to be Arrabiata or Puttanesca.

A lobster. A crab. A cone of winkles. A pot of prawns. Pulling mussels from the shell. Skate wings. Oysters. I'd be positively ferral. And I don't want the oysters cooked. Neither do I swallow them whole.

My mother's Sunday roast. Beef, with billowing Yorkshire pudding, Roast parsnips. God rest her soul.

Roast pork. Good crackling. Apple Sauce.Good rest her soul again.

My mother's steak and kidney pudding. With carrots to one side. And a pile of cabbage. Blimey, I really am from Britian, aren't?

A poached egg or two on thick white toast. Or possibly a boiled egg with the same. And a jaunty egg cup.

A bacon sandwich. Nothing else. And with the bread a bit doorstoppy.

Cawl. That's Welsh for soup, that it. With big hinks of cheddar cheese melting in it.

A giant pizza with a crisp crust. And it has to have anchovies on it.

A really hot Thai soup. With prawns. Or a really good Japanese Tempura. Or a proper Goulash or ...I don't know. Cannot decide. But I'll tell you that I love chillies.And I went wild over a cactus salad not long ago....

Just a few that came to mind. Oh --sweet stuff.

Bread and butter pudding, with the edges caught here and there.A proper trifle. Lemon meringue pie. Home made ice cream -- maybe with blackberries in it? Or gooseberry or rhubarb fool? Or apple or rhubarb crumble?

But what would you say?