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/2011/04/11/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/2011/03/08/its-a-meat/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2011/03/08/its-a-meat/#comments Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:26:51 +0000 mei http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3492

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.

I always wish I had access to a table large enough to seat 20 of my best friends around it for an epic dinner party. I still haven’t managed to acquire such a table or a room large enough to put it in, but I got a taste of what it might be like at a great event last night called the Hub Feast.  It’s a potluck and a dinner party,  a chance to meet great people and talk about all sorts of cool food things, and an opportunity to make an unnecessary amount of insanely indulgent peanut butter cream cheese-frosted cupcakes.  What more could you ask for?

The event took place at one of the Hubs:  a network of beautifully designed office/event/social spaces for members and their guests to work, meet, connect,  innovate, and more, located as close as Islington (the first one) and as far as Bombay and Sao Paulo. I’ve visited the gorgeous wood-beamed and exposed brick-walled Hub King’s Cross a few times to meet with our friends at Hide & Seek and so was excited to return for one of their monthly community feasts, described as follows:

The programme of Feasts for 2010 is well under way now and this month, we’ll be looking at Guerilla Food. Across London, there are people running underground restaurants, growing things in weird and wonderful places, cooking in unpredictable locations and using food in ways previously not explored. If you want to meet these people and find out a bit more about what they’re up to, we invite you to come along.

As always, you can expect to sit next to people who love food, cooking it, talking about it and most of all, eating it. So bring both an open mind and a dish to share to eat with people that love all things food. An informal evening with a very loose agenda, we hope to create a feast where conversation about food, life, love and everything in between, can flow freely.

We’ve been chatting with the lovely Hub folks including Holly, Alex, Lucy, and Eleanor about doing some events, so they invited us down to chat about Rambling Restaurant and underground supper clubs and all things delicious and exciting.  It all sounded like  pretty much like my ideal evening, so Sarah, foodrambler and I baked up a storm of lemon curd meringue roulades and several batches of the most insanely deliciously orgasmic Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting.

A quick aside on these cupcakes: I’d recommend you don’t click that recipe. In all seriousness…it will haunt your dreams. The banana cupcakes are very good; the peanut butter cream cheese frosting will bring you to your knees in pure tastebud joy.  The sublime happiness is only slightly marred by the guilty knowledge that the peanut butter (fat) plus cream cheese (fat) plus salted butter (fat) plus icing sugar in this frosting  is probably at work hardening your arteries as soon as the  cupcake crosses your lips and the smile crosses your face.  However,  keep in mind that all this tasty fat and sugar are calories that humans are genetically hardwired to love. This means it is not my fault when I eat gargantuan mounds of the frosting piped onto cupcakes (dangerous), slathered onto apples (healthy!), spread onto bananas (still good!), licked off of several kitchen tools (not so much) and then, finally, by the unabashedly deliberate spoonful.  I guarantee you will do the same. Blame biology.

But back to the feasting – it was a lovely evening of meeting, chatting, and of course, lots of eating. We went around the table and introduced ourselves so everyone got to see who was there and their cool projects and organizations and affiliations. I had great conversations about cooking and food spaces with Holly from Food Stuff and talked sustainable food development with some great people from Forum for the Future and saw but didn’t get enough time to chat with Chris from the Real Bread Campaign.  Meanwhile I ate fresh bread, hummous, spicy ginger carrot beetroot salad, Spanish omelette, flapjacks, apple crumble, spinach and strawberry salad, couscous, roasted vegetables, and so much more.  One of my favorite dishes was an amazing wait-a-minute-this-is-vegan?-you-must-be-joking leek pie made by a really nice guy named Alessio, whom I tackled after dinner to express my delight in his dish and ask his secret. Apparently, it’s soy cream. Don’t worry, it’s not actually a secret.

It was a wonderful occasion to meet a lot of creative, friendly, interesting people, all equally in love with food and cooking and community and eating.  I’m excited for the next one.  You can come along too, but only if you promise to take home some cupcakes so I don’t have to.  I still have some leftover frosting in the fridge and it is calling to me to come eat it with a big spoon…

]]> http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/29/community-feasting-and-the-best-cupcake-frosting-you-may-ever-put-in-your-mouth/feed/ 3 http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/29/a-night-of-moulin-rouge-at-the-rambling-restaurant/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/29/a-night-of-moulin-rouge-at-the-rambling-restaurant/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:43:16 +0000 mei http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3229

Welcome to the Moulin Rouge Ramble, a dimly lit den of cabaret, cake  & corsets that popped up on Great Windmill Street a few weeks ago.  Hosted by the amazing word-of-mouth agency 1000heads, decorated by the creative visionary Ali O’Malley, and captured on film by the fantastically talented Mark, it was quite the evening to remember…as long as you didn’t down too many absinthe cocktails.

Come check out Mark’s amazing photos of our ephemeral Parisian creation filled with candlelit erotic poetry, beef bourguignon,  fishnet stockings and freeflowing champagne…

I tell you no lies when I mention the freeflowing champagne, generously supplied by the astonishingly accommodating, friendly, and up-for-anything folks at 1000heads.  Lined up in the soaring foyer of their Soho office building were dozens of champagne flutes, ready to welcome our diners who had solved mysterious clues of translation and location to turn up cabaret-clad in front of the Windmill Club for a night of adventure.

More meals should involve top hats and feathers.

All that week, we’d cooked and cleaned and baked and transported and decorated, up to the very last minute. Below, we add last-minute touches while the dancers practice their burlesque routines.

Thankfully, our dedicated team had everything looking spectacular by the time everyone arrived.

The Rambling Restaurant was lucky to have the most dedicated and gorgeous team of corseted and feathered servers from 1000heads, including the wonderful Lauren, Lisa, Donna, Gemma, Nicola, Sam, and even more who pitched in to hang curtains, wash dishes, move tables and boxes and abandon their desk and office space to our bizarre activities.  Below, Lauren and Lisa begin to take the cornichons and carrot salad out to be served with crusty baguettes & butter and foodrambler‘s delicious pork rillettes.

The large flatscreen television gives away our boardroom-as-kitchen, from which we served and stewed our three course meal.

Here foodrambler and I spoon up slow-cooked beef stew with parsley cream sauce. While I loved the earthy combination of wine and spices in the bourguignon, it doesn’t make for the prettiest presentation.  That was one of the many lessons we learned while serving 140 eaters over 2 nights, as well as very important ones on keeping food hot and timely for people.  Just as foodrambler flambéed about 25  saucepans of beef that made her kitchen erupt in flames, we jumped straight into the fire for this dining challenge and learned a lot about what worked and what didn’t as we went along that will be valuable for future events.  Most useful information learned: how to rock a corset-apron combination.  So much wisdom gained over this experience.

Back in the satin-draped dining room, people showed off their masks and moustaches…

and displayed their amazing handmade Moulin Rouge themed hats (well done Ailbhe)…

and talked and ate and admired the decorations…

…and participated in a fancy dress competition led by the deliciously scandalous poet Abi Palmer…

…and even found love at the Moulin Rouge.

But mostly, I think, they drank….

and drank…

…and drank.

We certainly contributed by handing out a very strong absinthe cocktail that we called the Drunken Fairy, but is generally known as Death In The Afternoon. Judging by the feedback from some aching heads the next day, it’s pretty apparent why.

I acknowledge I had quite a strong hand with the absinthe from Liqueurs de France …

but it’s much more fun to blame it all on Nicola the Green Fairy.

Some of my favorite photos of the evenings are of the favorite people I met, including the shot of this laughing lady…

and this adorable photo of our sexy dancers, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs. I only wish I had been hardcore enough to go out dancing with them till 6am like some impressive people I know.

Even if you don’t go clubbing with dancers in fishnets, you at least need to fit in a photo shoot in front of the Windmill Club.

Before our late night marathon dancing and cleaning sessions, we ended with a very sticky Moulin Rouge Velvet cake. I loved foodrambler’s chocolate fishnet stockings, threatening to slide off the tilting cake into a pool of buttery frosting madness.  I cut the red velvet cake into shocking scarlet slices that looked insane but tasted damn good.

And of course, everything tastes better with birthday candles.

Thanks a million to everyone involved. For more on the event, check out blog posts by foodrambler and 1000heads.

All photos copyright by Mark, except the last one from 1000heads.

I love salmon nigiri, I love cucumber maki, I really love shrimp tempura and avocado hand rolls and, as the mini button says, I love Yelp.  Thanks to the brilliant folks on the Yelp team here in London, I got to attend a sushi-making class at the brand new location of the paper crane-bedecked, double-fried soy garlic ginger chicken-producing Tsuru Sushi.  In case you’re wondering, I also love paper cranes and all things double-fried.

Two things I discovered about sushi last night:

1) It’s really fun to get your hands (and face and sweater and hair and that of nearby friends) sticky with rice, play with your own sushi roller, ogle trays of shrimp tempura, squirt massive amounts of mayonnaise, and generally get all up in a sushi-making mess.  And even though I’ve always been in awe of the many years  of training to make sushi and even just to correctly prepare the rice, it gave me a newfound respect for sushi chefs and their immaculate, aesthetically perfect (not to mention delicious) creations when compared to our overstuffed rice bombs.

2) Writing about sushi leads to a lot of really entertainingly terrible puns. I’ll treat you to the best of the worst, stolen straight from my Yelp review of this fantastic Elite Event.

Having recently been to a Jameson and Guinness-drenched St. Patrick’s Day Party and a sparkly off-the-shoulder and neon pink leggings-rocking bowling party, I can tell you that Yelp is totally on a roll with the Elite events. I, however, am about to rock your brain with puns so terrible you’re going to roe-ll in your grave. And you’ll be ig-nori-ing these delicious pictures to run for cover from the ridiculousness. But seriously, this Elite event raw-ked.

Sushi maki-ng was so much fun – my favorite was the shrimp tempura hand roll, which starts with a rectangle of nori in the left hand and a small golf- or large ping pong- or indeterminately testicle-sized ball with the right.  Smoosh your ball into a square of rice on the left side of the seaweed rectangle and make a tiny button of rice on the bottom right corner for later sealing. 

You then squizzle on a fatty stripe of mayonnaise (and a rogue perpendicular cross of wasabi and sesame seeds, just because you feel like it).

And then comes the bristling deep fried magic wand of crunchy battered prawn accompanied by its trusty green avocado sidekick. Hello my lovelies.

Fold, roll, press, seal, stuff into mouth awkwardly because the massive cone of awesome is too large for one bite.  Mmm.  Emma, one of the friendly, knowledgable, welcoming, Prosecco-pouring owners, told us about the restaurant history, chatted about their as-much-local-and-sustainable-as-possible mission, and handed out magically addictive bites of  crunchy soy ginger garlic double-fried chicken. Which is great because anything double-fried makes miso very happy. She also sliced our cucumber maki into smoothly sheared little cylinders with a worryingly sharp knife. I’ve always had trouble with cutting aesthetically pleasing slices when rolling sushi at home, and that is apparently because my knives are not sharp enough to slice open the jugular vein of an armoured rhinocerous with a casual swipe. Point taken.

We got to make salmon nigiri from beautiful slices of Scottish salmon.

That enormous fatty striped piece of buttery melting perfection became this only moderately malformed little mound of nigiri.

We also got to wear aprons! Fun! Here are Chris and Abi in sexy plastic gear feasting on our handmade masterpieces.

The food just kept coming. Besides our own rather unattractive yet tasty creations, we ate eggplant skewers and prawn crackers and wasabi peas and pork gyoza and more sushi with crab and salmon and prawn tempura and stuffed ourselves to the point of nori-turn. All in all, it was a uni-quely awesome event in a great restaurant filled with lovely people. Get yourself to Tsuru prawn-to. Make sure you eat the Chicken Kara Age.

Enough puns, you say? Shoyu can’t take it anymore? Are you bento-ver in pain?

I am soy soy sorry.

Imagine a world where your bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich comes in one surprising multitextured bite of  Essence of BLT. Where Death of Elvis is a completely bizarre and completely delectable mouthful of  solid yet somehow softly melting banana, peanut butter, nutella and jam.  Where the cheese never seems to end and where the wine flows like the water dripping from the ceiling…

It sounds like Wonderland, but don’t be fooled by the 7 foot tall cross-dressing Alice in spectacularly tall heels opening the door. It’s 99, a pop-up restaurant run by friends Whetham and Dave, who have combined their impressive and inventive artistic, hosting, and culinary talents to create a spectacular and stomach-busting evening of performance, gastronomy and often a topsy-turvy combination of the two.

I was honored to be invited along to help out in the kitchen on the final night of 99′s first run. Donning pristine chef’s whites in the kitchen of their Victorian mansion in Hackney, I joined chefs Dave and Hugo to whip, dip, bread,  layer, chop, and see the magic happen behind the scenes.

I sailed into the kitchen late in the afternoon with much of the prep and difficult work already done so I jumped straight in  helping to prepare some venison scotch eggs. Dave had already made a venison sausage mixture and soft-boiled eggs and my job was to dip and encase in bread crumbs, dip and encase. All the better to deep fry with. Mmm. I’m quite excited to make these on my own sometime soon.

Here’s a glimpse of Hugo’s pop art plated version, with a shockingly green wild garlic sauce, sliced radishes, and some sort of tasty mayonnaise.

And now sliced open to reveal the precisely timed, perfectly joyfully oozy soft-boiled egg within…

I also did a bit of whipping. Specifically, I beat some cream into shape and talked some sense into some egg whites as well for a gorgeous layered syllabub of rhubarb essence, ginger biscuit, chocolate shavings, and other colorful delights.  A saucy dessert combined with a saucy faced waiter, post-Alice costume change.

Some amazing dishes I had absolutely nothing to do with – the aforementioned Essence of BLT, made up of a stack of secret ingredients in all sorts of flavors and textures.  I’ll give you a hint: there was lots of bacon fat involved. The pictures just don’t do this surprising mouthful justice, so we’ll move onto the third dish (after the BLT amuse bouche and the meal-in-itself Scotch egg)  the sweetcorn veloute with chorizo foam: a steaming hot shot of creaminess with a rich meaty plop of chorizo infusion on top.

Lest you think the diners were anywhere close to done, up next came the squid ink risotto made from a deep reddish and minerally seafood stock, stirred lovingly by Hugo…

…and served up with a smile by a mysterious man clad in pink and green.

He wasn’t the only one waiter in a fabulous outfit – I enjoyed chatting with the stunningly talented costumier Nicholas Immaculate in pink puffs and pads and pleats below.

Things got a little unexpected with the next dish: a cold celery sorbet topped with a spritz of walnut foam. Being a bit of a celery detester, I figured I wouldn’t particularly like a cold mouthful of celery flavor, but tried it anyway out of curiousity. Verdict: icy cold celery is only marginally better than regular terrible celery. But even my least favorite vegetable is improved with a blanket of walnut foam and a pretty tile to rest upon.

As if everyone wasn’t already stuffed full of food, then came…the main course. I’m not even kidding. Smoked breast of pigeon, a square of sinfully rich celeriac dauphinoise, and black salt-sprinkled, butter-bathed baby turnips with a stripe of red wine reduction and an accompanying squeeze of garlic sauce.

The twenty-odd diners all seemed ecstatically happy, although I’m surprised they could even move out of their chairs. I didn’t take this picture, but I think it captures the general celebratory atmosphere of the 99 dining room, deluged with a gastronomic tidal wave. 

Of course, this epicurean adventure (with matched wines!) wouldn’t be complete without sweets. And not just one, or two, but THREE desserts were to be had, including the lovely layered syllabubs from the beginning and the homemade Jaffa cakes below.

And then came the insanely addictive little morsels of mini heart attacks on a plate – Dave’s Death of Elvis creation featuring an unidentified powder that isn’t an illegal addictive substance but might as well be.  Here he is holding a tray of his dangerous weapons of culinary delight, a single bite of structurally composed banana, nutella, peanut butter, and jam. I do honestly think he might have been trying to kill everyone with the gluttonous orgy of food.

Because then…then came the cheese. Not just any cheese. A theatrically displayed, rope-and-pulley-raised, antique cupboard-housed, ceremonially lowered array of Neal’s Yard masterpieces including some of the most enormous hunks of Colston Bassett Stilton, Montgomery Cheddar, Stichelton, and Waterloo I’ve ever seen outside a cheese shop.  One might call these cheeses the pride of Britain and rightly so.

Somehow the diners remained upright and chatting rather than bursting at the seams. I’m not quite sure how, given the mammoth proportions of food served at 99 that evening. And in fact, something did in fact burst at the seams – the kitchen ceiling at about 3am in the morning, due to a bit of a watery incident from earlier in the day. Thank god it didn’t happen during service. But I do think it’s only appropriate, and yes it has to be said – it’s one of the few home-cooked meals I’ve ever eaten that actually deserved to bring the house down. Congrats Dave, Whetham, and Hugo on a job well done.

For more information, visit the 99delights website.

]]> http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/15/almost-99-bottles-of-wine-on-the-wall-and-nearly-99-courses-to-follow/feed/ 3 http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/03/15/rambling-restaurant-at-the-market-estate-project/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/03/15/rambling-restaurant-at-the-market-estate-project/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:35:14 +0000 admin http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3001

We’ve cooked in old train depots and darkened car parks and city centre squats and sprawling warehouses. Last week, Rambling Restaurant added a soon-to-be demolished 1960′s North London housing estate to the list of odd and unusual venues, swooping in just ahead of the wrecking balls.  In the amazing Market Estate Project, artists from around the world took over empty flats to create imaginative, engaging, thought-provoking and awe-inducing installations ranging from short films to death-defying performance art to covering entire apartments in building plans or blue plastic.  We were honored to be a part of the day by cooking up all sorts of meals and snacks for people involved with the project.

Sarah and foodrambler conjured up massive pots of beef rendang and aubergine and sweet potato coconut curry with rice and creamy cool banana chutney to fill up the many volunteers before their very very cold outdoor shifts.

Once people began trickling in, we Rambling Restaurateurs turned our attention to making canapes for visitors and staff and lucky wanderers. Homemade chickpea and beetroot hummus on crackers, carrot and cumin dip on crispbreads, mini onion quiches, and Michelle’s famous fried-on-the-spot fish and chips.

In between dishing up cute little newspaper cones and assembling sandwiches for staff sustenance, we found some time to explore the incredible and inspiring works of art. Like an entire flat – bedroom, living room, bathroom, balcony and all – transformed into an enormous blue plastic balloon:

And another apartment entirely papered over, top to bottom, in building plans:

More art photos and some thoroughly inauthentic banh mi sandwiches after the jump…

There were beautiful murals and graffiti art and random creations to be found around every corner and down each hallway.

One of the most shocking and unexpectedly beautiful sights of the day was this performance piece by the lovely Tom Geoghegan, who hung suspended and completely immobilized off one of the estate towers for several hours in the freezing cold.

Looking up at him earlier in the day, we had wondered if he was  real or some sort of hanging dummy.  Turns out Tom is very much human and very much susceptible to high winds when hanging many many feet off the ground. I really enjoyed learning a bit about his various projects over stacks of bastardized chorizo banh mi sandwiches.

The most whimsically joyful flat award goes to this pink balloon-filled kitchen, where Sarah, Antonio, Marc and I stopped in for a cuppa tea and a chocolate biscuit or two.

I’d like to fill an entire apartment up to the ceiling with balloons or maybe rubber exercise balls so you have to squeeeeeeze through, like a grossly enlarged Chuck-E-Cheese ball pit.

It was exhilarating and exciting and inspiring to run around an empty housing estate late at night and imagine all the lives lived within the walls now covered in blue plastic and spray paint. RIP Market Estate: from birth in 1967…

…to burial in 2010.

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