Ok

I only started my new job this week, after big company politics yada yada postposted the kick-off date. Knowing the power of google (even more so, now) please understand the slight ambiguity, but my new job is Senior Producer for the food site of a Big TV Network. So my job is about the web and food, which makes it my Ideal Job. My particular position is commercially slanted so I will be focusing on the commercial direction of the site, as well as some editorial, and will have my own project on one of the big cooking shows coming out later this year, which is very exciting. For the moment, I am job sharing so my position is part-time for two months, but there is a lot of work so I hope this will increase and become full time permanent.

The people are really nice and pro-active, I will be learning what I've wanted to in this area, and will be a great challenge.

Taking The Edge Off

I came home to an empty house, with intentions of watching The Big Game (Man U v Chelsea) at a pub, although secretly knowing I wouldn't. I took the edge off the day with a longneck of Peroni, and made my favourite homecooked dish in the world, mushroom pasta. It isn't a fast supper, but you'll be rewarded with slowly sauteeing the onion and garlic, and then again with the chopped field mushrooms, maybe half an hour all up. A good dollop of thick, yellow Guernsey cream, thyme, generous seasoning. Zest a little lemon - this is essential - it transforms the awkward, grey sauce into something special, and grate Parmiggiano before the first forkful.

I make enough for lunch tomorrow, again, secretly knowing it won't last that long, and eat it up with Ronaldo's goal, then Lampard's.

Update: Brilliant game!

Eat

1. Whole Foods will be the end of me. Stopping in for, I'm not sure what really, I find a Simon Weaver Cotswold brie that I had wanted to try. It's mild and clean-tasting, but no hints of lush spring grass I had hoped.
2. At the Marylebone farmer's market on Sunday, there is not too much of everything, except friendly sellers, delicious chargrilled lamb rolls with homemade tomato sauce, good-looking yuppies and cheap vegies. Along with crunchy Red Pippin apples - the name is enough to buy them - a garlicky goat's cheese and new season asparagus, I nab two bags of field mushrooms the size of saucers for the price of one, and that evening make stuffed mushrooms. Onions sauteed gently, then mixed with chopped mushroom stems, breadcrumbs, thyme and parmesan, and topped with a disc of chevre, in which I press in a sprig of thyme to make it look pretty. Roasted. Unbelievably delicious.
3. After the markets, I stop into Waitrose, because there isn't one too near us, and I do love Waitrose. They have Charentais melons, for quite a bit cheaper than Whole Foods, and I really want to see how fragrant and sweet they are. Tonight, with slices of organic prosciutto di Parma from WF, some of the best I've ever had, just when I was 'getting over' prosciutto. Light and delicate, with bright orange sweet fruit, washed down with sparkling Grolsch. I'm happy.

Roast Chicken, And My Story

I've always wanted to roast a chicken, but few things were as daunting. I was sure it would turn out dry, flavourless, a waste of a poor chicken. And some things - most things? - I just don't want to get wrong. Either the most delicious roast chicken, or nothing.

But it was time to try. Finding Roast Chicken, And Other Stories in the library confirmed it, and after devouring a million recipes and techniques, a 1.3kg free-range corn-fed chicken was brought home. I knew how I wanted to do it: rubbed all over with my favourite butter, Lescure flecked with Atlantic sea salt (eat it like you would cheese, a sliver over oat cakes, divine), seasoned and sprinkled with thyme leaves, and stuffed with half a lemon, many unpeeled garlic cloves and more sprigs of thyme. Into the oven breast side down, and halfway through, flipped over and baby Jersey Royal potatoes tucked beside it. The warm roasting smell in the house was very distracting. The chicken came out the colour of nut brittle, and I squeezed out the soft garlic and smoothed it into the juices. I then realised I had no idea how to carve a chicken, but managed to evenly slice away a few succelent pieces. Because yes, the chicken was juicy and delicious! The famed potatoes were as nutty and creamy as I'd hoped, even better smothered with the garlicky gravy (which was too good the next day, hardened and spread over brown bread like butter with some cold chicken). Woo hoo, I can roast a chicken!

Afternoon

This is one photo taken from the last few weeks that I actually like, more than like. I love the shapes, the colours, the simplicity of a sunny afternoon in our garden.

Basta

I should've been Italian; all I seem to eat, or want to eat, is pasta, pasta, pasta. Here, cute elbows of macaroni with reduced tomato and onion sauce and sauteed zucchinis.

A Trip To The Library

The Last Few Days

Thursday
I've been taking the bus as much as I can, even if it takes 10 times longer than the Tube. I love sitting on the top for the best view around town. Popped down to Oxford Street to buy a bag from Mexx and crossed through Selfridges in a what-the-hell moment. Was struck dumb.struck by the fluro Marc Jacobs bags at the Oxford St entrance. I walked past them, backtracked, fell in love, touched their velvety grey insides. Fluro and grey. It's silly and necessary all in one, and I've never felt this way about a bag before.

Friday
Not wanting to take this glorious 25 degree weather for granted, we took the bus down to Brighton for the day. It had been blue skies all week but greyed over on Friday; no matter, we had a lovely day. Walked down the pier, through the little streets, had a nice lunch at one of the many Italian cafes. We really wanted fish and chips but equally didn't want to be ripped off as tourists coming to Brighton for beach and fish and chips, and Fat Leo's 2 courses for £5.95 was hard to beat. An icecream afterwards. The sun did come out an hour before the bus back, and we dipped our toes in the icey sea. I want to come back and jump in.

We are addicted to Peep Show. It's literally the best comedy ever. Must find previous seasons. We don't feel bad about staying in on Friday nights if this is the reward. Tell her I love her is the funniest thing we've ever heard.

Saturday

Drinks at Knightsbridge with lovely M and J, then drinks at trendy The Waterway at Little Venice. Very cool on the canal. Canals in London? Yes! Beautiful hot weather in London? Yes! Spotted my first Bill actor? Yes.

Sunday

Sunbaking by the Thames down the road from us. It's still a little weird stripping down to your bikini when you're in a park, but when in London...Everyone is picnicking and drinking jugs of Pimms and listening to the red-faced Irishman sing sea shanties. Delightful.

We come back and sit in the garden, with white zinfandel spritzers and the DJ's music coming from the laptop. Next door, a gentleman in white trousers and a checked blazer plays with his cute giggly grand-daughter. His English is extremely posh and the exchanges are hilarious:

"I won't pick that up for you again! No, I shan't. I shan't pick that up for you again!"

"Tell me which sentence is more grammatically correct?" (she is about two years old, mind).

"Your dolly has no hair. Why, she's Baldy-locks!"

Springtime

It's hot. Yesterday my reaction was, I should get to the beach today. Except there is no beach to get to. So, the park instead, with rolled up trousers like everybody. But the feeling of hot sun on skin, and a perfect blue sky, after months of cold - priceless.

We had a wonderful weekend. Saturday to Notting Hill market, although we'll be keeping to our Ladbroke Grove end from now on, except for the German hotdog stand halfway down for the most delicious, juicy chicken burgers. Sunday was the Brick Lane area, for more market browsing and sooo-good Polish smoked sausage hotdogs, with Indian snacks on the way home. London is a picnicers paradise.

The weather is warm, the days are long and we love sitting in our little garden with a bottle of sauv blanc and nibbles. I'm dreaming of Ibiza sometime over the summer - it has to happen. And I'm hungry for Italy, although different places pull me on different moods. I miss Palermo, I want Rome, and I remember last year in Tuscany, on the back of S's motorbike, lunch of silky pasta near Montepulciano, the cold water and hot skin at the seaside.

Pinch *ouch Pinch *ouch

I got my ideal job. As in, my ideal job. Being superstitious I won't say anything until I start, and that's next week, but I'm still pinching myself.


We celebrated on Monday at the local gastropub. There seems to be a gastropub in every neighbourhood and I'm not sure if the gastronomic means anything but the ubiquitous hamburgers, fish and chips and jacket potatoes that all pubs serve, delicious as they can be. The Havelock Tavern is a quiet pub (ie, they could do with a little background music) and was full on the Monday night. The food is simple but well done. My plump salmon, smoked haddock and leek fishcake was served with a perfect spring salad of rocket, fresh peas and shallots. Dani's chicken, chorizo and mushroom casserole was tender and scrummy. Sadly our shared cheese plate was supermarket-basic.

***

Yesterday I went to Whole Foods in Kensington. It was some kind of hell, as in I couldn't decide if I loved this temple to expensive, opulent good food or hated how much of it there was. It's the size of a department store, where you can hand-pick your eggs (hen, quail, duck, ostrich) and by the shimmering fish counter you can pour yourself a chioce of four different seafood soups to eat with cute wooden eco sustainable carbon-neutral spoons. That is if the dozen soups upstairs aren't enough. After about an hour I had to leave and buy a pair of shoes to recouperate (beige, patent, Zara, mid-heel).

Sunday's Roast Is Wednesday's Stew

Messy and utterly delicious.

The lamb rump we bought at the Real Food Festival never made it to the oven. There was ideal-j0b-getting-celebrating and it-didn't-defrost-in-time-so-we-had-a-takeaway-curry. So last night we sliced it, like butter, in big dices, quickly seared it in the wok, then threw in two chopped beefheart tomatoes, smashed garlic, lots of rosemary leaves, and 1.5 cups of merlot, to almost cover the meat. The laziest of simmers, lid on, for 1.5 hours. Then chopped carrots and potatoes for another half an hour. Soft lamb, a delicious, golden sauce. Easy.