Hi everyone! We have an exciting announcement to make – our own real food business! After many years of excitedly eating our way around the world, we’ve finally settled in Boston (at least for the time being) to work on a new project:  Mei Mei Street Kitchen!

Named by our amazing brother Andy for us (Mei Mei means little sister in Chinese), this family business will start off as a Chinese and American-influenced, farm-sourced, community-oriented food truck serving up dumplings and other deliciousness.   We’ll serve only humanely raised meat and work with local growers to serve great tasting food produced in the best way possible.

Some day, we hope to have a larger business that encompasses multiple exciting food projects that celebrate delicious food, friends & family, sustainable farming and eating, social entrepreneurship, pop-up events, producer partnerships, exciting spaces, and other fun things we love.   It will probably involve buns…

and will most definitely involve crispy, fatty, spiced pork belly.

Since we’re spending tons of time on this project, we’ll no longer be blogging here at Family Styles. We want to thank all of you for putting up with our food porn raves and sustainable food rants over the past three years – we’ve loved sharing our food with you.  If you want to keep up with our antics, we’ll be doing some blogging on our Mei Mei Street Kitchen website and you can also follow our journey across the interwebs on Twitter and Facebook.

Even better, come visit us in Boston! There’s a slight chance you might be able to get in on some bun & pork belly action that might look something like this:

If you’re still looking for any of the recipes or links we’ve posted, we’ll try to archive all these old posts on our old WordPress site once we get a chance.  Thanks again to you all for reading and as always, happy eating.

Much love,

Mei & Irene

I’m in a bit of a yogurt obsession.

I’ve never been a huge breakfast person (eggs Benedict on the weekends doesn’t count, that’s BRUNCH), nor much of a routine person and yet, every morning like clockwork for the past month or so, I’ve been waking up early and eating yogurt. Who is this new me? Usually sprinkled with blueberries and muesli, maybe granola, almonds or walnuts,  sometimes bananas, apples or strawberries, sometimes even dates, and ideally a spoonful of flaxseed.  I’ve tried Greek and probiotic, everything from whole milk to low fat to fat free, and multiple brands from Rachel’s Organic to Yeo Valley to Total, almost always plain or natural because I don’t like it too sugary. It’s delicious, healthy, and oh so easy –  no porridge pots or eggy pans to wash in the morning rush and all is good.

So yes. Yogurt. I’m into it. That’s why I was particularly excited to be invited to a breakfast event at The Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell to mark the launch of The Collective Dairy and what they’re calling their gourmet probiotic yoghurts (with an ‘h’).  A chance to eat more yogurt? At a restaurant that I’ve always cycled past and thought, ‘I bet I’d like that place’?  Yes please, and thank you very much.

And so I went and so I was delighted, not only by the creaminess of the yogurt…

but also by the gorgeousness of The Modern Pantry…

and the sheer volume of food they stuffed us with, including yogurt smoothies…

as well as my personal Brunch Kryptonite of eggs Benedict with a superb tea smoked salmon…

but especially by the friendliness of all the people there and what seemed to be Mike and Amelia of the Collective Dairy’s genuine passion for things that taste really really good.

They both used to work for Gu and they’re clearly very good with their business sense and their branding and their PR, but none of that would matter at all if the yogurt was terrible. And in fact, despite my general propensity towards natural flavors, I loved the subtle tartness of the Luscious Lemon, the vague sweet pucker and the crunchy little seeds in the Passionfruit, and the just-a-touch-of-indulgence Russian Fudge – a bit like if someone melted pieces of Scottish tablet into your yogurt. At first try, I thought the Apple & Spice was too sweet  - a bit like cream with apple pie filling stirred in and too syrupy  for my taste.

But then I took some home and crumbled a Modern Pantry brownie into it….and it was a fabulous dessert that’s just maybe one tiny little iota better for you than a typical brownie sundae.  Okay, so any health claims are up for debate – a Harvard study did say recently that people who eat yogurt tend to lose more weight, but let’s be clear here, a brownie-topped anything is never going to melt off the pounds.  It’s still a bit sweet for breakfast, so I’ll probably stick with my natural taste or maybe the passionfruit in the early morning hours. But as a snack or a dessert or every so often when I’m craving something a bit more indulgent? The apple & spice yogurt and brownie sundae tasted damn good and I had to fight off both a boyfriend and a visiting friend for the last bites.

Obviously, I won. I am adept at defending my turf with a well-placed cutlery jab. So stay away from my yogurt…got it? I’ve got a dessert spoon, and I’m not afraid to use it.

The whole event was a fantastic collaboration between so many talented people – Sarah demonstrating her chef skills in the kitchen along with the versatile and knowledgable Bumpkin staff, Abi aka the Little Red Riding Hood and I doing the serving with the help of Ali and Billy behind the bar, the gorgeous decor creations of Miss Ali O’Malley (previously of Moulin Rouge fame), and a participatory cabaret full of wit, wonder, and wows led by Lucy from The Little Show Off as the very Wicked Stepmother, Matt the contact juggler, and Simon who dazzled the crowd as the surprise secret ingredient. Although not one of the listed performers, the man behind these lovely photos, our photographer Martin – had our diners shaking with laughter at his spectacular poetic rendition of Hansel and Gretel.

I’ll let the wise and wonderful words of the Wicked Stepmother take you through the evening….

Ladies and gents and woodland creatures alike,

Taste-buds be upstanding, for here comes a delight.

Let me tell you a tale of how this food came about

Food miles are important, I’m sure you won’t doubt.

We sent three little pigs to ramble for goods

To the marshes they went, deep down in the woods.

Watercress and sorrel they found in the bog

And snuffled for beetroot – such a clever little hog.

All totally fresh, organic is so en vogue

Bundles of fennel quite simply cost loads.

A delightful soup we made from their haul

But it wasn’t enough, we wanted some more.

Diners, listen up - What I’m about to reveal

Is not for the faint hearted, in fact you might… squeal!

The chef you see has a furry long nose

And grandma’s dress, with canines that glow

We looked at the pigs and back at the chef

Soup wasn’t enough, as I’ve already said

The salad looked fresh and bursting with life

But it needs something salty…Chef sharpened his knife

I don’t need to tell you what happened next

Certain celebrity chefs taught us butchery at best

Now don’t huff and puff, or feel at all blue

They lived a free-range life I can assure you

But lets be honest, swines are so great

And those three little pigs look fab on your plate!

I was the only little pig to make it out unscathed – but I might consider sacrificing myself to be a part of Sarah’s delicious fennel, beetroot and broad bean salad with parsley pork croutons.  Looking uber-professional in her fresh chef’s whites, this kitchen wizardress outdid herself with this springtime salad and a delicious sorrel and watercress soup with walnut bread for the veggies in the house.

Next up came a few fun table exercises involving group poetry writing and then the delicious themed main course, as explained below…

So here comes your main, a treat I have no doubt

But like before there’s a story worth shouting about

To the oceans blue is our main stop

Where a fight is breaking out between a Pollack and a cock-le

Some little Mermaid has caused a rift

Between a happy crustacean and a cheeky young fish

The cockle was courting our half lady broad

Drinks on the rocks and evening’s below board

One day in a bar, Mr Pollock swam by

And with his charming ways caught our mermaids eye

Cockle being snappy, was immediately peeved

To see his lady blush behind the seaweed

“Oi Pollock” shouted cockle, who’d had a few drinks

“This mermaid is mine whatever you think”

“I think not” said Pollock, who’d also had a few

“There’s love in her eyes, but not when she looks at you”

And that was it, the brawling had begun

Quite a spectator sport – songs, they were sung…

‘What do we do with a drunken cockle…’, we all sang….

Poseidon got annoyed with their raucous display

And shook up the sea, for which they did pay

Sea boulders did fall, landing atop of our friends

A sudden and drunken but welcome fishy end

Our mermaid got free, but rather than feel down

Was glad to be single so went out on the town

And that well known rift is what inspired this platter

So eat up and drink lots…it’s time to get fatter!!

And so the fairytale diners tucked into Pollock with Drunken Cockle Sauce with Jersey Royals and Samphire as well as Rosemary, Parmesan and Mozzarella Polenta Fritters with Summer Vegetables. Delicious.

But of course a fairytale feast cannot end without something luscious and indulgent…

So folks, it’s that time for a sweet delight

And your final course of the night

Before we get fruity and the cabaret winds up

Which, just so you know, includes all of you lot

Lets welcome the pud made by special guest chefs

Seven of them in fact, I bet you can guess

Mirror mirror on the wall…

Who’s the finest pudding chefs of them all?

Sleepy took care of the chocolate cos the caffeine is good for his brain

Grumpy took things out on the pastry cos Snow White got on his nerves once again

Dopey did his best with the cream despite the cow’s kick to his face

Bashful found he had a lovely pair and a fetish for tights made from lace

Doc provided the apples, a non-poisonous variety I’m assured

And of course the brandy came from Happy – his constant smile we applaud

The pepper I’m afraid was an accident which we had no choice to include

Cos Sneezy walked past the pepper pot and sprayed it all over the food

So thank you, thank you to all the seven dwarves

Despite not reaching the work top

The pudding is nearly perfect

Apart from some of Sneezy’s fresh snot

And thus we dined on Chocolate Pepper Pear Tart with Apple Brandy Cream…

And then came the cabaret! There was wild (and participatory!) burlesque dancing and a capella singing…

oohs and ahs for the contact juggling with a magically lit crystal ball…

and poetry reading from performers and diners alike and more, a glorious mishmash of surprises and delight all coordinated byThe Little Showoff.

There was much applause, laughter, and merriment thanks to the talented performers and maybe also thanks to the inventive and addictive fairytale themed cocktails poured by Ali and Billy behind the bar.  But maybe it was just the magic of the evening…after all, you never know what can happen in fairytales…

Thanks to all the amazing people who helped make this such a fabulous two nights….all the chefs, performers, decorators, barmen, diners, princesses, swashbucklers, fairies, and the rest of you….we can’t wait to do it again!

]]> http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/05/31/once-upon-a-rambling-time-in-the-enchanted-fairytale-forest-of-bumpkin/feed/ 3 http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/05/10/edible-adventures-in-berlin-slayer-espresso-kick-ass-ramen-and-das-chicken-temptation/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/05/10/edible-adventures-in-berlin-slayer-espresso-kick-ass-ramen-and-das-chicken-temptation/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 22:04:51 +0000 mei http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3591 I hopped over to Berlin last week to do some work and found some amazing food experiences.  One of my favorite things about traveling – besides getting to see all the awesome people I know scattered around the world – is discovering interesting aspects about the way people eat in various cultures – where they buy groceries, how they purchase food and where it comes from, what the restaurant culture is like, what things people snack on – and getting to eat some of it myself.

I enjoy seeing different food innovations, like this shop called Kochhaus which sprung up on my friend Thom’s old block in the year since I last visited. Although I couldn’t read any of the signage, it’s a shop that encourages and educates on cooking and ingredients and how to put together a meal.  Inspiring ingredient and recipe displays are dotted around the open and airy shop with step-by-step instructions and visuals with each recipe.  I’m curious how the shop is doing and whether it’s getting more people cooking. Genius, I say.

I don’t read German, but I can decipher enough to know that  Tomato Bread Salad with Arugula and Passionfruit Vinaigrette sounds absolutely delicious, and I certainly wouldn’t turn down a Rinderfilet with Provencal Ratatouille and Thyme Polenta.  I’m sure Rinderfilet is excellent, whatever it is.

Although pictures of good food transcend language, I still never fail to be childishly amused by certain things.

I perused the amazing photos in this German food magazine while perched on a chair outside Il Syndicato – a fantastic coffee shop in the Mitte area of Berlin. I love how just about every eating establishment in the city has some sort of outdoor dining area whether it’s an elaborate al fresco setup with blankets, coordinated cushions and umbrellas or a few battered chairs from someone’s grandmother’s attic placed by the side of the road.

I also enjoyed seeing the number of bicycles and the number of stylishly dressed small children in Berlin, both captured in the photo above. Peering around for unusual bits of the urban landscape while scouting for The Go Game, I noticed a sign for Slayer Espresso, indicating that Il Syndicato is home to a highly touted $18,000 Slayer Espresso machine. STOP. DO NOT PASS GO BEFORE CONSUMING SAID ESPRESSO.

I chatted with the nice guy behind the counter a bit about their exciting  handbuilt machine and he showed me the wooden paddles that allow the barista to adjust the pressure while pulling the shot to play with the different flavors.  They made this cool little video to celebrate their new toy.

SYNDICATO CELEBRATES SLAYER ESPRESSO from STEX on Vimeo.

The espresso – one of many I had over the next few days – was phenomenally smooth as it hit your mouth for a really pure experience of the underlying flavors. Gorgeous.

***

It’s been more than a few weeks now since that Berlin trip, but I’m still thinking about a few fascinating food things from the trip. First of all, the incredible, steaming, meaty, excitingly-textured ramen perfection from Cocolo.

It’s basically a hole-in-the-wall with about 15 seats, and man, is it good. Feast your eyes upon the tonkasu ramen with beautifully fatty pork belly and just the right level of soft boiled egg.

I polished off my own  enormous bowl of ramen and then ate about half of my friend Elynor’s, cause she’s awesome like that.  Elynor is an excellent eating partner and translator, and also joined me at Papa Pane, a recommendation from my friend Jessica, where  we ate this exciting platter. Berlin does platters well, no doubt about it.

Another highlight of Berlin for foodies is the Kollwitzplatz market, right near where a bunch of friends used to live. Breads, meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, freshly grilled borek, tables piled with spices, adorable marketing baskets, and my personal highlight, a truck that appears to be called Lust For Cheese. I certainly did.

Another mandatory stop on my Berlin food tour is the shop Goldhahn & Sampson, which I stumbled upon while wandering my first time in the city, and have returned to every time since.  Cookbooks and fine foods galore, obscure spices and quality chocolate and great wines stacked along every wall. Plus cooking classes and tasty snacks. It’s basically my ideal hangout. Too bad most of the cookbooks are in another language.

Next stop on my food and design tour: I’m a sucker for tea towels and adorable home goods, so obviously this design shop called Pomeranza forced me to empty my wallet in exchange for really cute egg cups and beautifully patterned dishcloths. You can never have enough tea towels. Right?

Also beautifully designed is Oberholz Cafe, which features good snacks, attractive people, and most importantly, free WiFi.

I hope to someday inhabit a house or own a restaurant with such high ceilings and a sweeping staircase from which I took this photo. Berlin has amazing restaurant design, from the more posh and trendy to the quite simple yet charming.

Berlin is really a wonderful city, with a wealth of delicious food options and examples of excellent design. Plus, you can be seduced by the late-night, Jagermeister-influenced neon glare of Das Chicken Temptation. Why did I ever leave?

]]> http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/05/10/edible-adventures-in-berlin-slayer-espresso-kick-ass-ramen-and-das-chicken-temptation/feed/ 2 http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/04/11/sunday-farmers-market-trips-and-an-easy-cheesy-recipe/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/04/11/sunday-farmers-market-trips-and-an-easy-cheesy-recipe/#comments Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:43:12 +0000 mei http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3574 Since I moved to West London about a month ago, I’ve been trying to make it to my local farmers market at Queen’s Park almost every weekend.  It’s a different style of market for me  - my favorite markets back east were all about discovering and eating the incredible prepared food, from eating extravaganzas and grilled cheese happiness at Borough Market to wild mushroom risotto and salted caramel cupcakes at Broadway Market just behind my old flat.  In contrast, my new local market has some good snacks, but here it’s more about the grocery shopping  - you can buy everything from excellent free-range meat to fresh eggs to heritage cheeses to lots of local produce all grown within 100 miles of the M25.  I’ve been trying to maximize farmers market shopping and minimize supermarket shopping as much as possible, so each Sunday has been a big shopping spree to buy as much as we can for the week.

We’ve been obsessively experimenting with happy chickens – here you can see Old Hall Farm and Fosse Meadows Farm stands, both of which offer a perfect bird for a Sunday night roast with market vegetables. And pretty bunting.

Perry’s Farm and Ted’s Veg are great for stocking up on produce – I’ve been trying all sorts of fun and colorful things like green and red kale, red cabbage, Isle of Wight tomatoes, sorrel, cress, local apple and pear varieties, rhubarb stalks, and purple sprouting broccoli.

It’s all excellent quality, grown by small farmers and producers, and a great way to get involved in supporting the local community. Plus, it’s delicious.  Showing up at the market and buying whatever looks exciting is a great way to try out new vegetables and play around with different recipes.

I love broccoli, especially when it’s pretty and purple. I think it’s delicious on its own, but let’s be honest…isn’t everything a little bit extra awesome when you add cheese into the mix?

This fantastic creamy feta dip is adapted from Sarah (fellow Rambling Restaurauteur) and her amazing Persian dishes that we’ve enjoyed at Nowruz new year celebrations for two years.  She’s made addictive rhubarb lamb khoresh and homemade baklava and all sorts of deliciousness.  I borrowed her lovingly worn Persian cookbook to play around with some recipes for a dinner party and ended up with a version of a Cheese and Walnut Spread that goes perfectly with lightly steamed broccoli.

You have to start with a really good feta cheese and our choice of cheese the past few years has been this delightful can of unintelligibility.

Having just got back from Berlin yesterday, I actually think it’s in German, although the writing also implies Bulgarian? Who knows – it’s creamy, salty, and fantastic and that’s all that matters.  Go comb the corner stores for it and you won’t regret it.

If you happen to be so lucky as to have received a Slap Chop (of incredible infomercial entertainment value, including the remix) for Christmas from your brother, you can use it to crush some nuts. You won’t regret that either.

Add some chopped parsley and mint to the dip, along with lime juice, some olive oil, minced garlic, and salt and pepper. I happened to have some creme fraiche in the house from Ottolenghi’s amazing caramelised garlic tart which added a nice smooth tartness to the dip.

It’s great with crackers, great with flatbread. Great on carrots or probably any other raw or lightly steamed vegetable. I bet it would be good stuffed in a chicken breast or rolled up into meat or spread on a sandwich. Cheese spreads like this are great multitaskers.  Make it and I’m sure you’ll find another ten great ways to eat it. Like by itself on a spoon…

Super Easy Cheese,  Herb, and Nut Dip

What You Need:

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really measure any of this, so don’t worry about the proportions too much. Try, taste, adjust as necessary, and I’m sure it will be delicious.

A good hunk of feta cheese (the Persian book says 1/4 pound)

1/2-1 cup of nuts – traditionally walnuts, but I didn’t have any, so I used almonds. Also delicious.

A handful of fresh parsley, chopped into little shreds

A handful of fresh mint, also chopped into little shreds

Other herbs that would be good but I didn’t have – scallions, basil, tarragon, etc.

1 clove minced garlic

1/4 cup creme fraiche

1/4 cup olive oil – I think I left this out

juice of 1 lime

salt & pepper

What You Do:

Ummm…put it all in a bowl and mix it up. It doesn’t get any more complicated than that and it will take only about 5 minutes of your life. Scoop onto a piece of broccoli or animal flesh or grain product and eat. Happy times.

]]> http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/04/11/sunday-farmers-market-trips-and-an-easy-cheesy-recipe/feed/ 0 http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/04/03/real-bacon-real-excitement-and-a-really-delicious-caramelized-garlic-tart-obviously-with-bacon/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/04/03/real-bacon-real-excitement-and-a-really-delicious-caramelized-garlic-tart-obviously-with-bacon/#comments Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:34:01 +0000 mei http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3528 If  you’ve ever met me, you know I have a thing for bacon.

I love bacon enough for my sister and I to make an all-bacon Thanksgiving feast with 8 dishes including bacon stuffing, bacon mashed potatoes, and bacon-wrapped turkey. I love bacon enough to go to a Bacon Camp and make bacon sushi and take random photos of beautiful bacon dishes. I love bacon enough to do a 4-course Iron Chef-style bacon smackdown that included bacon chocolate and bacon cookies and have been known to make bacon cupcakes and even bacon macaroni-and-cheese cat cakes. Don’t ask. I even love bacon enough to tattoo it on my face.

So you can probably comprehend my fat-kid-in-a-candy-shop-on-Christmas-morning level of excitement when this package arrived in the mail. I actually jumped up and down and squealed like a pig.  A delicious, dry-cured British pig.

Understandably, most people’s first question on hearing about my bacon package is ‘How did you get that?!?!’ Meaning, obviously, ‘How can I get that!?!?!’  The answer is that I was sent the bacon from a PR company promoting ‘Real Bacon’; that is, British bacon dry-cured in a traditional manner that involves hand rubbing with salt and spices and at least 21 days of air-drying.  In contrast to a lot of imported bacon that’s injected with water and chemicals, this bacon doesn’t shrink to half its original size in the frying pan or give off a funky white gloopiness when being cooked which comes from the injected water leaching out, two things I’ve actually noticed recently when cooking bacon. Plus, the bacon comes from pigs that are compassionately farmed, which I’m all about. Well, that’s what the press release says, which may require a little more investigation.

However, the interesting thing for me was that the press release didn’t come from an expensive artisan bacon company, or even from one company at all. In fact, the bacon came from multiple different supermarkets at a range of prices from M&S to Morrisons, all in support of the ‘I love Real Bacon’ campaign.  And while I’m trying to look for supermarket alternatives for a lot of my shopping, it’s a bit unrealistic to get all my groceries at farmer’s markets  so it’s great to know that there are some better options. And the bacon certainly looked better than a lot of the inspidly pink, monotonously hued, fleshy rashers you sometimes see down those flourescently highlighted megamart aisles.

P.S. For those of my friends back home wondering why the bacon is a funny shape and less fatty and stripey than normal, this is what is called ‘back bacon’ in the UK, which is essentially a bacon-cured pork loin. The typical long and skinny slice of pork belly that we just call bacon, they call ‘streaky bacon’. In case you were wondering.  They held their size pretty well when fried up with none of the gross white stuff, had a nice salty meatiness and got a good seared crisp on the fatty bits.  Pretty damn good stuff.

Now I love bacon, and you love bacon, and I want to share the glories of bacon. Getting a massive box of bacon is definitely a good opportunity to have a dinner party.  But as much as I would like to just hand over strips of bacon for our mutual enjoyment, I figured it should actually be incorporated into a dish before I get accused of endangering the cardiac health of my dinner guests. Enter Ottolenghi’s Caramelised Garlic Tart of amazingness.

I’ve talked about genius chef-man Ottolenghi before and the usefulness of his incredible vegetarian cookbook, Plenty, during my month of meatlessness.  Every recipe I’ve tried so far, from the Very Full Tart to this ridiculously good soba noodles with mango and eggplant recipe, has been absolutely stellar.  But of course, even stellar can be better with bacon. I bet Ottolenghi himself, as a meat eater with an appreciation of the glories of vegetables, would agree.

Caramelised Garlic Tart with Goat Cheeses and, Obviously, Bacon.

All credit to Ottolenghi, except adapted slightly in honor of bacon.

What You Need:

375g puff pastry – easy to buy pre-rolled in the store

a few tbsps olive oil

Salt and black pepper

2 heads garlic, cloves peeled – I did this once and my hands smelled of garlic for hours. My recommendation for lazy people who don’t mind spending an extra pound – buy them pre-peeled. Your fingers and your friends will thank me.

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1½ tbsp caster sugar – that’s just regular sugar for you Americans.

1 tsp chopped rosemary

1 tsp chopped thyme, plus a few whole sprigs to finish

120g rich, creamy goats’ cheese

120g harder goat’s cheese

2 eggs

100ml double cream  - heavy cream if you’re in the US

100ml crème fraîche

What You Do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and then roll out your puff pastry in a tart pan or pie tin. Create an outer crust lip, place some baking paper down, fill with beans and blind bake for 20 minutes. Take out the beans and bake for another 20 minutes or so, until the pastry is a light golden brown.

2. While the pastry is baking, cover the garlic in water and simmer for 3 minutes to blanch. Drain, then return to the pan with a splash of oil to lightly fry for a few minutes. Add the vinegar and 180 ml of water (about 3/4 cup) and simmer for another 10 minutes. Then add the sugar, the thyme and rosemary, and a pinch of salt.  Simmer for another 10 minutes until the liquid is reduced to a delicious-smelling dark syrup and you are tempted to eat whole cloves of garlic straight out of the pan.

3. Crumble the goat cheese and strew across the pre-baked tart case. I’m interested to experiment with some other cheese here, but I used one log of chevre and another white hard goat cheese and they were delicious.

4. Now this part is pretty exciting. Spoon the garlic and the sauce across the cheese. It looks pretty already, and you will want to try to eat it now, but don’t. It gets much better.

Hello Beautiful.

5. Whisk together the eggs with the double cream and creme fraiche and some salt and pepper. Pour into the tart case, letting some of the garlic peek out and show their face.

6. ADD YOUR BACON! I only did half because one of our guests doesn’t eat bacon. Sad, I know, but that’s more bacon for the rest of us.

7. Bake the tart for about 35-45 minutes, until the filling sets and the top is a lovely golden-brown color that you just want to lick.  Mmmmmm.  I’ve made this thing of beauty twice now for dinner parties and brunches and it’s always a huge hit.

For those of you who might want a healthier or non-meat version, remember that it started as a vegetarian tart and is still seriously delicious that way. Although….well, come to think of it, given the eggs and the cream, I should probably avoid references to health altogether.  But the important thing to know is that this tart, like just about everything, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, Thanksgiving, is just better with bacon.

Yup, that’s a highland cow.  And that’s our house (or rather, country mansion) in the background. Coming up just at the end of the off-season, we got a great deal on the Bramble Lodge in the west wing of the Applecross Trust estate which, most importantly came with a massive kitchen complete with enormous farmhouse table and TWO stoves.  Perfect for sitting and eating hot Oak Smoked salmon from nearby Torridon…

After flying from London to Inverness, we hopped a train towards Kyle of Lochalsh where I entertained myself greatly by watching sheep gallop galumphingly alongside us. Once picked up by friends Mark and Jacq in Strathcarron, we immediately made a beeline to the family butcher in Lochcarron to buy local smoked salmon, venison sausages, black pudding and square sausage.  What is square sausage, you ask?

Bet you couldn’t figure that out.  Proudly made by the Mrs. Butcher herself, sliced almost as thick as her bulging, cleaver-wielding, leg-of-lamb-sized arms, square sausage is designed for optimum eating when fried up with onions on top of a tattie scone and sandwiched into a morning roll.

Tattie scones (potato, for those of you uninitiated into the magic) are one of my favorite Scottish food discoveries.  Soft and smooth like the best mashed potatoes on the inside, a little crisp and browned on the outside when slipped onto the old school always-on Rayburn stove as soon as you wander into the kitchen in the morning, bleary-eyed from a bit too much whiskey.  Nothing like a double-carb and onion-fried meat bonanza to soothe your hangover.

As fun as it was cooking and hanging around the warm and whiskey-filled kitchen, we had to venture out to taste the as-fresh-as-it-gets seafood straight from the nearby bay. Our destination of choice most nights was the excellent Applecross Inn a short walk around the bay from the house, a gorgeously scenic walk during the day and at sunset, a mildly terrifying pitch-black Blair Witch-style horrorfest on the way back.

Applecross is justly famous for their Applecross bay prawns (like little hard-shelled langoustines) …

and their hot and cold smoked salmon…

…and most definitely the squat lobsters (just like regular lobsters, except about the size of the tip of your pinky finger and swimming in an I-want-to-paint-this-on-my-face-level-of-delicious garlic butter sauce). They also have a dangerously good whiskey selection and an even more lethal sticky toffee pudding drowning a happy death in a pitcher full of warm custard.

Our other amazing food stop was the Shieldaig Bar & Coastal Kitchen for ridiculously good fish & chips, smoked haddock omelettes, seafood chowder, and a cheesy toasty amazing  fisherman’s pie.

Of course we had to try the haggis, neeps, and tatties, which I still really like despite a near-emotionally-scarring but eventually rewarding experience making haggis with foodrambler last year.   Not as scary as you might think considering it contains the grossest of the innards  of those happily galumphing sheep.

The clootie dumpling dessert, a heavy lump of fruit and suet and doughiness, was a bit disappointing compared to the sticky toffee pudding, so it’s not actually a highlight. But I find the name greatly amusing, so I included it anyway.  A great meal nonethless. Happy times.

The real highlights of the jaunt to Shieldaig?  First, we stopped off at the roadside stand in the mountains selling lovely bluish-green eggs and chunky hand-knitted hats, gloves, scarves, and kilt socks – essentially a serve-yourself filing cabinet with an honesty box just up the path from a farmhouse where you could just see a few chickens bopping about.   Here’s our crew decked out in finery before we waltzed off with our dozen eggs and brand new hats.

As if things couldn’t get any more exciting, we then continue down the one-lane highway snaking around the peninsula,  only to get beckoned off by a nice old lady who ‘just stopped to warn us that there’s a big herd of Highland cattle in the road.’ AWESOME.

If this cow could talk, it would be saying DUUUUUUDE.

We enjoyed our homegrown eggs softboiled in exciting little egg cups with focaccia soldiers and noshed on Scottish goat cheese drizzled in Struan heather honey.

Lest you think we spent the entire holiday stuffing our faces with prawns and pudding and lolling in front of the fire with a glass of Macallan, I’ll have you know we did a fair amount of tramping through fields and soaking our shoes in the marshes.

Definitely the best way to encounter future venison sausages. I mean, the local wildlife.

Actually, one of the great things about the area is the attention paid to sustainability and good food sourcing.  The fishermen, farmers and gamekeepers know they’d be putting themselves out of business if they overfished the bay or decimated the local deer herd, so they use traditional methods of fishing like special traps called creels that keep only the appropriately large prawns and let the undersized and pregnant mum prawns go.  They slaughter the deer that wouldn’t have made it through the winter anyway to keep the majority of the herds free to wander over the hills and through the Bramble Lodge backyard.  Or so you hear from the gamekeeper when you run into him down at the pub.

Basically, it doesn’t get better than Applecross.  I’m already planning a trip back, during which my main goals are:

1. Visit the Potting Shed and Applecross Walled Garden where Mark and Jacq got married. Check out the fantastic website – they grow their own fruit and veg, do their own fishing, tend their own happy piggies, and slaughter the deer from the estate on the premises.  As they say, the food miles ‘could be better measured in yards.’ They open for the season today and I can’t wait to go back.

2. Eat the seafood pizza at the Coastal Kitchen.

And most importantly….

3. Hug a Highland Cow.

I certainly don’t think that’s too much to ask.  Applecross, I’m coming back for you…

Recently, I had meat and fruit for dinner.  To be precise, I had meat fruit at Dinner, the new London restaurant from insanely inventive culinary evil genius, Heston Blumenthal.  Look at my appetizer: it’s fruit!

Or so you think…

Just kidding…IT’S MEAT.

It’s chicken liver parfait in a thin jelly casing and it’s absolutely, mind-bogglingly phenomenal.

Here’s where the magic happens at Heston’s ‘historical British’ dining establishment…

I find Heston massively entertaining. I just watched an episode of Heston’s Mission Impossible, a piece on revamping airline food which featured a gem of a line that went something like, ‘Please begin the high altitude bento box experience with a nasal douche.’

Our Dinner experience was fantastic and involved no nasal douching.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

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I’m a big believer in the fact that meals don’t have to be fancy or expensive to be smack-you-in-the-face-amazing. Sometimes the best dishes come from handing 2 bucks to a taco truck parked on a side street of San Francisco, or wrapped in paper with no forks from a fiery pit in the Middle of Nowhere, Texas.   But every so often, a magical meal comes along that is schmancy-fancy and uber-expensive and draped with foams and reductions and molecules and essences. And instead of being horribly pretentious and self-important, it’s pure perfection and worth every penny. Or rather, every Euro cent. And that’s what I got at the phenomenal Helene Darroze in Paris, thanks to my foodie mom Elaine and her desire to try a fabulous French restaurant on our trip there last month.

You know your meal is going to be spectacular when it starts off with a plate of black acorn-fed jambon, sliced at the table with your own special jambon-slicing machine.  And when the salt & pepper offer themselves to you from webbed feet.

Gorgeously light and nutty, the jambon melted in my mouth and I could have gnawed at a leg of it for an entire meal. Except I had about 10 courses to come, so I’m quite glad I didn’t. Since it was over a month ago and I drank quite a lot of wine, I can’t remember the exact order of dishes. Plus, they were all written in French. But here’s a slightly blurry, ecstatically happy, poorly translated overview of one of the best meals of my life…

We started with richly grilled lamb sweetbreads in a frothy fava bean puree, more delicious than any thymus has a right to be…

moved on to wild salmon on potato waffles with caviar dotted cream for the most luxurious version of a bagel & lox brunch I could possibly imagine.

The ‘I-almost-can’t-eat-you-because-you’re-so-beautiful-but-who-am-I-kidding-you’re-insanely-tasty-and-thus-will-swiftly-be-destroyed’ award goes to the red mulletfish with baba ghanoush, strewn with edible flowers and sprinkled with fairy dust of deliciousness.

I absolutely adored the next dish, which consisted of a devastating combination of squid, chorizo, tomato confit, black risotto and parmesan cream. My mom found the squid a bit rubbery, but I loved the surprising textures and contrasting flavors  of spice and smoothness and jolts of color.

Five courses down and we’re just getting started.  Up next, ‘mother of pearl’ lobster with a thick stalk of white asparagus and a slender stalk of baby green asparagus, just like I had seen in the market earlier that day. Garnished with a sprig of what I think was cilantro flower, the lobster gleamed on the plate like an ostentatiously shiny gemstone and tasted just as decadent.

Take a deep breath, it’s time for ‘bloody’ forest wood cooked pigeon with one of the most breathtaking bites ever to hit my mouth – a half Snickers bar-sized slab of intensely, extravagantly perfect foie gras.

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It’s now a good 6 months later, and my memory of this magical meal consists mostly of dreamy wine-soaked memories. We spent the night sampling fantastic French wines thanks to Flo, my au pair from age 6, and her husband Paul seen through what seems to be a Burgundy-induced haze. Although we see them altogether too rarely, they’re family in the very best sense and it’s wonderful to spend time with them and their kids. Especially because it involves eating in Paris.  But the rest of the country is not to be ignored…

There was an incredible selection of local cheeses of Southwest France in gorgeous glass bell jars that I’d like to steal for my house…

…that you could choose for your very own cheese plate.  All I remember is a spoonful of creamy perfection.

For the first dessert because of course there were multiple desserts – Trinidadian chocolate with citron gel and lemon paper.

Up next was a shot glass full of wild forest strawberries with pannacotta and greek yogurt and almond biscuits, followed by what just might be my last-mouthful-on-earth-before-I-go: salted caramel macarons filled with blackcurrant puree, lightly dusted with the molten gold of the gods. Or something like that.

And here’s to my amazing mother, who made it all happen. Love you Mom, and thanks for the deliciousness.

Now enough with the food porn, I’m getting seriously hungry.  Because I’m starving myself for the day in anticipation of dinner….at Dinner! I know, I’m disgustingly blessed to be eating at all these phenomenal places.  Photos and drooling to come….

A moment to savor: I am less than one week away from the end of a Month of Meatlessness.  Cue the shock. The horror! Why?! Well, after eating a few great vegetarian meals recently, my steak-obsessed boyfriend was interested to continue the trend. Out of a sincere desire to experiment with minimized meat consumption (combined with high-reaching ambition and some serious self-delusions), he audaciously proposed an entire month of vegetarianism. Within about 9 painful days, he was found ravenously destroying a blue cheese- draped venison burger at Borough Market. I, however, despite my love for all things bacon, took it as a personal challenge to finish the month without letting a piece of animal flesh cross my lips. To be fair – it actually hasn’t been too much of a lifestyle change for me.  I cook almost exclusively vegetarian at home and can be completely satisfied with a veggie entree when eating out. I only found myself mourning my meat-freeness once or twice when an entire side of smoked salmon tried to seduce me from the fridge and when an entire table of Malaysian meat dishes taunted me from a communal table while I sobbed quietly from the corner.

Near-misses aside, I’ve relied heavily on Yotam Ottolenghi’s new vegetarian book, Plenty, which I bought as presents for 3 people before finally purchasing for myself.  It’s so good and so beautiful, I think the man might be a genius.  He, like me, is a dedicated meat eater who also revels in the beauty and flavor of meatless dishes that showcase everything from the humble onion to the unexpectedly sexy baby radish. Inspired by his ‘Very Full Tart’, I made a similar but oh-so-very-slightly-less-full-on tart with creme fraiche instead of double cream and leaving out the ricotta.  You can really use almost any vegetables you like here. At a cost of only about 10 pounds, a tart this size could last at least 3 meals for 2 people, although it’s good enough that I ended up eating it straight out of the pan after an entire slice and a half. Prepare at your own risk….

A Very (slightly less than) Full Tart

Adapted very slightly from Ottolenghi’s Plenty cookbook

What You Need:

1 large yam or sweet potato, cubed

Working on my knife skills

2 zucchini, sliced

1 red onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 large handfuls spinach

a few glugs of olive oil

1 package rolled shortcrust pastry (easy to find in a British supermarket, maybe use a pie crust without sugar in the States?)

350ml creme fraiche (or, you know,  a small container’s worth for those of you too busy to convert things)

3 eggs

1 small package feta (200g for you particular people )

salt and pepper

assorted herbs and spices – I put in a little cayenne and some mixed herbs that were lying around, but it’s totally up to you

1 small container of cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half

What You Do:

1. Toss the yam in some olive oil and whack it into a pre-heated oven at about 350F and after they get slightly soft (about 10-15 minutes ), chuck in the zucchini slices.

2. While those vegetables are roasting, saute the onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Once soft, add the handfuls of spinach and saute until cooked, then remove from heat.

3.  Unroll the pastry and place in a tart pan or rectangular tray, then prick all over with a fork to prevent from bubbling up. Once the vegetables are nice and soft and lightly browned to your preferred degree of doneness, put the empty pastry shell into the oven for about 10-15 minutes to brown.

P. S. I didn’t grease the pan and it was fine.

P.P. S. If you’ve got dry beans and are a big overachiever, you can weigh down the pastry and blind bake it. If you don’t and you’re lazy like me, just make sure to prick the pastry well and keep an eye out while baking and poke any big bubble.

The uncooked tart, tomatoes upright and smiling.

4. Beat the eggs into the creme fraiche and crumble in the feta cheese. Add some salt and pepper and any herbs and spices you feel like.

5. When the tart crust is a nice light golden color, take it out of the oven and dump all the cooked vegetables in.  Pour the eggy cheesy mixture around them, then take the tomatoes and arrange them sliced half up so the can be seen all red and pretty on top.

6. Chuck the whole happy deal back in the oven for 30-40 minutes or so.

7. When the filling is golden and only very slightly jiggles when shaken, take the tart out. Let cool for as long as you can stand it, then slice and eat. Try your best to save some for breakfast and maybe even lunch, you won’t regret it…