Holly and Otters

Very happy 30th birthday to Gareth.

Much fun was had at Holly Frindle - a beautiful Lubetkin designed house situated next door to Whipsnade Zoo. Jen and I met for breakfast so we could do the last minute shopping and prep, collect the hire car and recover from St John the night before. We met at Breads etc on Clapham High Street, both a little the worse for wear and had some toast and tea. After about an hour of procrastinating and breakfast we had made our lists and set off to do some shopping - on the grounds that we probably shouldn't drive just yet...

We headed off to Moen's on the Pavement in Clapham. It really is a very good butcher. We bought some côte de boeuf, bacon for breakfasts, pork pie, cheese and asparagus. Then we headed a few doors down to Macaron, a really lovely patisserie, for some bread. We then took a little walk over the common to Clapham South to visit Moxons. I'd ordered a wild sea trout and he was beautiful; we also picked up some scallops for an amuse.

Then we headed back to Jen's to drop off the heavy shopping, get a few bits from the local market and then go and get our vehicle. Having accomplished those tasks, we headed to my house to collect all the bits from there and make a couple Pan Bagnat. Pan Bagnat is a Niçoise sandwich, our version was: take a sourdough loaf, chop off a lid and remove the inside. Moisten the crust with olive oil and some red wine vinegar. Layer in the following ingredients - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, boquerones, tuna (I can't remember if there was anything else) and then put the lid back on. wrap this in cling film and weight it down so that it squishes and all the flavours merge - we put it in a bag under a Le Creuset of sausage pasta sauce. Jen made these so expertky while I rushed around packing up stuff. We then went back and picked up everything else before heading to Paddington to pick up the other four members of the group (we were late).

We drove up the M1 to Holly Frindle and upon arrival, unpacked and set about making dinner. It was then we found one of the things we'd forgotten to pack - wine glasses, oops! Dinner consisted of pasta, the fennel sausage sauce, bread and salad accompanied by some delicious red wine - very needed! Games ensued.

Saturday was the day of fun. We breakfasted - I'd made some bread and it over rose during our shopping excursion :

Then we packed up lunch - Pan Bagnat x 2, pork pies, piccalilli and cherries, some wine and water, and headed over to Whipsnade. Lots of lovely animals were seen especially the sealions, the noisy, chatty otters and the 16 week old baby elephant and we lunched. Back home, we set up for dinner. The menu was as follows:
Amuses of Scallop on Chicory with Chilli Jam and Proscuitto
Sea Trout baked in Newspaper with mayonnaise
Cote de Boeuf with bearnaise, asparagus, courgettes and jersey royals
Cheese
Jelly (blood orange and cardamon and lime with grapes) and Ice cream (lemon and basil)









Games ensued:


Sunday was more relaxed and a drive back up. More games on the mini table though:

Fabulous weekend, thank you one and all.

St John - Smithfield

Well, went to Smithfield St John to celebrate a 30th birthday. We had the private room and there were 16 of us - much fun and 5 of us are called Jen so mirth ensued.

We started off with lots of bubbles (the birthday boy/lad/man works in the trade so much was there) and then had the Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad and Broad Beans with Berkswell. The beans were delicious, raw, fresh and green with so much flavour; offset beautifully by the Berkswell and some leaves. I have been anticipating trying the bone marrow for many years and it did not disappoint - oh my goodness me, so delicious and creamy and amazing. I implore you to go and try it - astounding. We then had roast lamb with white beans and rabbit fennel and bacon. Both were delicious but I got carried away chatting to people and didn't have much of them. Dessert was Eccles Cakes and Lancashire and Rhubarb, Meringue and Cream - delicious.

A wonderful evening at a marvellous place with great food, delightful company and a huge thank you to the people of St John who made it even better.

Birthday Dinner

It was Johnny Bollinger's (the brother) birthday on Tuesday and yesterday we went out to dinner to celebrate. We, that is the brother, the mother and myself, went to Tom Ilic, a newish restaurant on Queenstown Road in Battersea. It is on the site of The Stepping Stone and latterly The Food Room and Tom used to be the chef at The Stepping Stone a good few years ago.

The restaurant has a very friendly atmosphere but it doesn't look as though much has changed decorwise. A big bonus is that they haven't tried to cram too many tables in so it feels lovely and open. The bread, both white and olive, we got on arrival was very good and came with some nice fleur du sel butter. We perused the menu, very nice sounding it was too, and chose some interesting sounding dishes - obviously we all had something different to try as much as possible.

I had Braised Pig's Cheeks with Chorizo, Garlic & Parsley Mash. It was a very well put together dish, there were thin slices of chorizo laid on the pig's cheeks and they added a lovely depth to the porkiness. The mash was a great foil to that and the slick of dark, sticky sauce on the plate. The mother had Foie Gras & Game Terrine with Fig Compote and Brioche, very nicely put together. The foie was soft rather than being straight-from-fridge firm and this made a good contrast to the firm pieces of game, the soft sweet brioche and the crunch of the fig. Bollinger had sautéed calf sweetbreads, oxtail ravioli, apple and parsnip purée, it was a very nice dish, just not quite as punchy as I was expecting... To go with that we had a 2006 Vouvray which was fine.
This brings me to my complaint. I know that I probably expect more from a wine list than some but this was a truly boring effort. It was a struggle to find something you wanted to drink, it was all fine and not fine in a good way, just exceeding boring, nothing exciting to make the food sing - hence not remembering the producer, not something I want to remember as I won't be drinking their wine again.

Main courses. Roast saddle & braised neck of lamb potato and turnip gratin, spiced aubergine was Bollinger's choice, it was nice adn tasty, looked very good on the plate (sorry about lack of photo) and the neck was outstanding. Mother had Seared scallops honey roast pork belly, jerusalem artichokes and hazelnuts which again was tasty, the scallops were cooked to perfection but there was a depth of flavour lacking slightly from the small amount I tried. I chose Venison creamed savoy cabbage butternut ravioli and candied kumquats which was, I think, the outstanding dish. The venison was tender and delicious, the cabbage was a good foil for the rich sauce and the ravioli was simple wonderful. The kumquat however, was entirely superfluous to the dish as I actually found it a little unpleasant to my taste; so I didn't eat it and really enjoyed my dish. We had a 2003 half bottle of Madiran with it, which was lovely.

We finished with some espresso, a glass of Banyuls and a glass of LBV Graham's. Tom came out to see a table in the restaurant who were, I am guessing, friends. I would like to thank Tom adn the staff as they were lovely and made the evening for us. The food was great on the whole, if with a few things I would prefer differently, but then that's my taste, and I would go back. Especially if they change the wine list and make it a bit more fun.

Catching up

Having been incredibly bad at posting, I'm going to be catching up now on all the photos and experiences I have stored up.

First to get described is my big birthday that was in 2007. It was one of those "milestone" dates so I decided to celebrate it by getting as many of my friends as I could to come down to a place very dear to me in North Cornwall and have a bbq on the beach. Now, normally this would be fine, my birthday falls in July so the weather tends to be pretty decent but oh no, not this year. I got down a bit early so I could settle in to the cottage, make sure I had all I needed and revel in being back at home.

Some of my friends from London arrived the day before so we got them settled in a house up the road, being rented from friends , and then we went down to the beach to have a pre dinner glass watching the sunset. Then we went back and had dinner round my lovely table in the cottage. Dinner consisted of a wonderful leg of local lamb, roasted with garlic and rosemary, and served with a dauphinoise and some braised leeks. We rounded that off with a blackberry and apple crumble - delicious! - and we also consumed a goodly amount of wine, getting into the party spirit obviously...

The day dawned not so brightly, but I was not to be deterred so had already got plans in place to use the cowshed as was, parking as is, as a shelter for the food and people; luckily everyone was up for a good time! We went for a quick trip to the local fishmongers to get a couple of extras for the bbq as all the rest of it I had prepared already.

We then headed down with all the supplies to get set up. The barrel bbq was put in position and the table laden with all goodies. We had a few salads - potato, tomato and green - lots of bread and sauces and some smoky bourbon ribs. Then we had some marinated mackerel and Larry the Lobster, it was all delicious and cooked to perfection by bbq chef extraordinaire Andy. The, at times, torrential rain was not noticed so much as we had plenty of liquid refreshment ourselves.
I hope that everyone had as much of a wonderful time as I did and the day ended beautifully...

Friday Night: Grandma's birthday tapas, but what do we eat?

So, tomorrow, although actually it's Monday, is Grandma's birthday. She's 342 this year which is pretty cool in itself, but I'm off to take her round an orchid farm in the morning. This is what she loves, along with photographs. There have been many long afternoons in her house with her showing me her shots of the better restaurants along the Loire and down the Ligurian coast which seems to be where she spent the 50s and 60s.

It's tapas tomorrow, and so we (this is me and the mercenary (city lawyer) brother who we shall call johnny bollinger, who can also cook a little too) have put together some bits and pieces...



Croquetas of smoked cod (should really have been bacalao, but we ran out of time), cannellini bean dip, which may end up a little like waxy houmous with chilli and lemon, and which is slightly borrowed from running with tweezers, for which thank you so much (hyperlinks will follow when I learn how it works; I'm new, indulge me), prawns grilled with saffron, pimienton, garlic, chilli and lemon (this was going to be quite an exciting idea with lots of nutmeg, but then we remembered that johnny's uncle is allergic to nutmeg!), roasted tomatoes (quite what is the deal with heirloom tomatoes - have you been keeping them in the attic for a couple of generations? If so I may pass) with garlic and anchovies, some polpettini of aubergines, basil and mozzerella (proper stuff, in case you doubted), a ligurian broad bean salsa which may be italian but is gorgeous enough to get on this post, and some mushrooms which probably will get done with sherry vinegar and saffron, but who knows...

With all of this you would imagine (well I would, and mr bollinger is kind of stroppy about this) that there would be some rather special wines being drunk. Well there might, but there aren't. It's a dry show, mainly because we have to be back in town by about 7pm to watch mr sheridan stomp on a sea bass. next time, promise...

Which sort of brings me on to the prep process. People have to eat, (even johnny b, although he will do a decent job of pretending he doesn't and that man can live by wine alone). So tonight there was a very pleasant bit of aged sirloin, charred to within an inch of its life and still bleeding in the middle, that we cooked with a very smoky and savoury SA chenin (Jean Danieel Signature) and then ate with a nearly feral 1998 Musella Amarone. Something for next time is what you should eat with and what you should drink from...