Food for Plenty

When i get a day off from  a long, tiring and busy period of work I constantly enter some form of book shop, no matter were i am in the city. When I hit the cookery or food section, I enter an almost mental trance. I escape into my own little world and when i pick up the first cookbook which catches my intuitive eye, it is hard to distract me or pull me out of the shop. I like many other obsessive cooks, have a dangerous and often expensive love for cookbooks or food writer novels. There will be certain times in the year, were I will almost buy at least one book every time i get a day or two off. Although, it is the really intriguing, memorable and well written books, which i will browse over, each time i go into any book shop and often decide after a couple of times flicking through it to finally buy it. I have a couple of her books at home in Ireland that i had bought while i was training in university. The Gastro pub cook book and  Crazy water, pickled lemons. She writes in a way that you never bore of her and you always at some point pick her books off the shelf and continually browse over them. When i was training i used a few of her recipes for a Moroccan and Spanish themed gourmet night. Her influences are wide and culturally varied, which makes her an always instant hit.

I was so proud to find out that she is actually from Londonderry in Northern Ireland. A county just beside my home wilderness of Donegal. Luckily, she was influenced by a family of cooks/bakers from a very early age. Watching her mother and grandmother bake wheaten bread in the family kitchen.  She was making her own little sweets and cakes by six and organising little candlelight dinners by 16. Much to the bewilderment of her unadventurous 16 year old guests. Being influenced at a young age by pictures of jugs of flower waters and trunks, as she so describes, bursting with figs and pomegranates in Arabian Nights books. While, studying English at Oxford, she would spend rainy afternoons, scouring the city for rare and unusual middle eastern or Indian ingredients. These culturally diverse expeditions must of had a huge influence on the style and variety of cooking and recipes, she documented and wrote about in her books. A latest product of which i just bought recently is Food for Plenty.

Before i knew much about her, i kind of figured and just assumed she must be of Moroccan or middle Eastern decent but not so.

Her latest book, is quite possibly one of her most varied and extensive yet. It is literally a true reflection of the many influence's she has had or experienced over the years.

She documents not just one but eight other recipes for roast chicken, each one of a different cuisine. Think Corfu, Greece or American style buttermilk roast. Other recipes include, simple platters of seasonal and fresh vegetable crudities, sushi, Moroccan seven vegetable cous cous and Vietnamese sweet potato curry. Like many proud Irish or Northern Irish expatriates she doesn't forget her family roots either, placing a few of granny millers cherished recipes into the culinary kaleidoscope too.

Its modern day relevance is shown through, sections on which unsustainable fish to avoid. Other chapters inform the reader and keen cook on the sections of cow/beef and pig/pork you can use. Pulses, grains vegetables. The list is almost endless.

This cookbook and its author are sure to be a winner, will stick around for quite some time and i sure will be at my side for quite some time.

Melbourne. My most favourite city in the world

It is often on quite rare occassions that i get to spend two weeks off work, during christmas and new year. While working in Sydney i was thrilled to spend time with family for one week and the other in melbourne. Many antipodian city sleekers  will quarrel over the ultimate question. Which is the greater and more desirable city. Melbourne or sydney. For me, melbourne seduced me from the moment i stepped off the train. For chefs, melbourne has got to be one of the most culturely diverse cities. Two produce markets open early all week. One of which is located next to an extremely tempting Essential Ingredient store. An entire street dedicated to restaurants of all levels. A casino which holds host to many internationally recognised chefs restaurant. Neil Perry's Rockpool Bar and Grill, Gordon Ramseys Maze, Guillaume Brahimi's Bistro and one of my favourites, Robert Marchetti's Guiseppe Arnaldo and Son's iconically designed Italian trattoria. His own hand crafted and glass cabinet dry aged salamis provide an awinspiring focal point in the middle of the restaurant. Foccocia stands tilted to the spotlights in the servers area like a gallery dedicated to edible art............................

The greatest providores

The Secret Garden and the Flavour Shed..........

...........or Petersham Nurseries Restaurant and Tea room.

I meandered through the bustling and busy streets of Richmond upon Thames. The chill and wet of the last of the winter stimulated the need for a hot coffee to awaken my sleepy eyes.

I approach Petersham road. It feels like it will never end until I turn left into a little park area with benches on one side and mysterious entrance to a tunnel on the other.. The Thames river slowly flowing beside me. I walk along slightly confused and feeling just a little lost. I push through a turn style like little gate and a big flat and long plain grassy field captures my horizon. A small dirt track divides it and leads to another gate.

Good things come to those who wait and work hard for it. Yet, I wonder how long it takes to get to my destination on foot. As I get through the second gate, I curiously ask a passer by, "Is this the way to the nurseries? She smiles, and directs me to the end of the lane and into the right. I anxiously dip my head and crawl through the small gate, cut out of the large wooden gates to the inside of the nurseries.

I am greeted by too large and long greenhouses and at the end are two sheds. The restaurant kitchen or flavour shed and the quint tea room. I finally arrive at Petersham and with butterflies of excitement in my stomach eagerly await the start of my week with Skye and her family of cooks in the kitchen.

I'm greeted by Lughan, on my first day, and swiftly shown around and given something to do via the kitchen prep list. The atmosphere in the kitchen each day, is like a good stock pot. Well arranged with a slight simmer, as the flavours are produced and gently flow through. Everyone is hard at work and casually chat as the morning goes by, throwing in the odd, joke about the Master chef presenters. You can tell straight away that there is no room for egos in this kitchen and each chef is passionate to Skye's food philosophy. I always remember Tito. The gentle Italian. Possibly the kindest, well natured, and gently spoken chef i have met. He shows a keen eye for adjustment of each finished dish, under the watchful eye of Skye. As I cook pappardelle with cavolo nero sauce, I'm instructed to add just a little more olive oil and lemon juice. To balance out the flavours.

There was also clams with bruschetta, roast quail with sweet potato and lentils, sardines with tomato, baked ricotta, custard tart with champagne rhubarb on the menu, throughout the week. They hold a more extended menu on a Saturday and Sunday with a choice of three or four starters, three or four mains and three desserts with a simplistic cheese plate.

Each dish contains a protein, fish or seasonal vegetable with just a few garnishes. Cooked with local, seasonal produce with doesn't need much working with. The flavours speak for themselves.

It is this philosophy with i have grown to love. A passion for simplistic flavour and seasonally motivated cooking with small Italian or Australian influences.

Skye Quotes in her book, "My Favourite Ingredients"

Food fascinates, seduces and entrances me. Produce in its purest form, in peak condition - tasting as it should - can lift and dazzle me with the excitement of its possibilities.

I love this quote. It represents all that i love about petersham Nurseries restaurant and what she has made it. Produce and flavour driven with no un necessary fancy strings attached.

She has a passion for food which i feel is hard to find in many young chefs today.

Michelin and plate art or food texture is too common now and often flavour is compromised.

Restaurant food, cooked by many of these chefs almost feels, fake or airbrushed. They cook for chefs and not the customers.

Throughout my week at Petersham, i have enjoyed every minute of it and am constantly keen to get more permanent work there. I have enjoyed the place so much, i want to go back soon and to stay there and work. Cook the food i was meant to cook and absorb the philisophy that every chef needs to learn.

"PEACH"

My first memories of this humble fruit were not particularly good. As a child i has forced to eat slices of ice cold peaches, taken from a tin, and drowned in thick glue like hot birds eye custard. You know, the powdered kind, whisked into milk and left on the stove to thicken, lumps optional.

I always thought this was what a peach tasted like. Little did i know that years later, as i gradually teased and trained my curious and initiative palate, that i would truly discover the real hedonistic mesmerising and highly perfumed fruit.

NO other flavour can really best describe the unique and individualistic flavour of a peach. Even the word itself, conjures up fond memories of the sensation of biting into their first ripe peach ( minus the tin, off course).

There are many recipes that exist for peaches. chilled soups, purees, ice creams, sorbets, Bellini's, the list is endless.

Yet, there is nothing more enjoyable that just leaving its flavour and texture be. Letting it speak for itself, grilled, simply poached or just sliced into a salad with some prosciutto and almonds.

I once sat up almost all night, unable to sleep because I kept thinking up different things to serve or eat with them.

OTTOLENGHI

I found this book a while back when i was up in Belfast. I kind of by passed it for a while until i realised the true joy passion and creative simplicity of this style of cooking.

Yotam Ottolenghi shares the same passion and determination to highlight the importance of raw untouched fresh produce. He can be compared to chefs such as Skye Gyngell of Petersham Nurseries, Jane Baxter of Riverford Farm, Andy Bunn of Fratelli Fresh, Alice Waters of Chez Panisse dynasty, Dennis Cotter of Cafe Paradiso and many others.

You browse over each page of Yotam books and you are instantly awe inspired by the bold spectrum of colours emanating from the freshest of salads, roasted vegetables, cakes, breads and seductive pastries.

He started of studying philosophy and literature at Tel Aviv University but began to step back from this and re evaluate his possible future pursuing a Phd. Much to his parents shock and confusion decided to a take a gap year, which turned into an enrolment at the Cordon Bleu cookery school in London.

A young career in cooking at the age of thirty lead to what he describes as teary doubt.

Although, more years down the line he would set up a chain of take away or sit in Italian, Mediterranean, middle eastern inspired restaurants.

Joined by his partner Sammi Tamimi who spent most of his life surrounded by food and childhood memories of grandmas cooking, OTTOLENGHI was born.

I guess i kind of regret not finding influences like this earlier on in my career but you are always brainwashed into admiring the french greats and only giving other true innovators a second thought.

Although, they didn't really pop up and be truly noticed until maybe until the last ten years. Only now, organic, natural, bold and beautifully basic cooking as been really brought to the mainstream and marketed to the world.

Yes, Alice Waters pioneered this style of cooking way back in the seventies but Europe was dictated to by Chefs from France, and they presume to say that the French taught the world to cook. I continually question this and truly believe that without the passion of the Italians and Spanish, a love of fresh local produce and an ability to cook with it as simply as possible taught many countries to cook the way they cook today. Wasn't it the Italians that first taught the French to cook.

The same way that Alice Waters, Skye Gyngell, Andy Bunn, Yotam Ottolenghi, Sammi Tamimi and so so many others cook today.

It is sad that many chefs today are seduced by molecular gastronomy and maybe able to make a perfect foam but don't know or appreciate the skills and rewards of cooking a perfect poached egg, without using a stupid temperature controlled water bath.

I am starting to rant on a bit, but what i really want to preach to you is this. If your going to be a chef, learn what you can from each country. Its style of food, influences, produce and cooking methods. Learn the basic science of flavours and textures. Appreciate and learn to love the genuine passion people of each country or continent have for their native cuisine. Capture the opportunity, were possible to cook with sustainable, organic and gm free food. Cook with the seasons and learn the difference between a strawberry in June and one in December flown in from the southern hemisphere and not our native U.K.

Yotam says this in his first book, which i think is pure simplistic genius;

"Most dishes come into their own only at room temperate or warm. This is a chemical fact"

What can you learn from this. Its all about the flavour. Have a genuine passion for quality produce, be able to recognise it just by taste, texture and eye and it will speak for itself. If it is good. Cook in a way that does very little to destroy the natural flavour, texture and colour of food.

Spring has arrived." wild garlic, asparagus and eldflowers o my"

The start of spring for any truly passionate chef is like an overdose of culinary prozac from a long winter of heavy root vegetables, meaty braises and hot desserts laden with fruit from autumns store.

It is also a frenzy of activity, for the precious first of the seasons British asparagus. Beware of people who try to slip you the common Peruvian asparagus, usually thick, woody and hiding a big carbon footprint. A trial of aeroplane exhaust from way down in the south American continent, all the way up to the U.K. Food miles, food miles, food miles.

I met a dedicated forager when he came into the restaurant at the beginning of May. He talked passionately about his secret sources of autumn wild mushrooms, wild garlic and wild herbs. He reminded me of another forager in New England, United States. When I worked in a restaurant there, he too would come in and discuss what he could supply us with. Both foragers had one thing in common. They would never give away their sources or the exact location they picked their little treasures.

For me wild garlic, is one of the most rewarding ingredients to enjoy and cook with. Its like a wolf dressed as a lamb. The first taste of a spoonful of raw garlic blended with light olive oil hits you gently. Its soft fresh almost spring onion flavour tickling the senses. Then it hits you hard, a sharp note of its raw garlic character explodes into your palate with a bitter end. You burp garlic for the rest of the day. Although you sacrifice this for its addictive nature with pieces of crusty bread dipped into a bowl of its pesto.

Towards the end of April and into the middle of may, the elder trees leave you high with the new growth. Its pungent odour from the newly formed branches and leaves warn of its mildly toxic and arsenic characteristics.

Its the flowers which leave an angelic, white coat. Produce a strong pollinated, flora scent and flavour. Pick only the fully formed bunches of flowers and keep the tiny stems which keep the bunches intact. Cordials of this tree blossom, produce the best liquid flower flavour and fritters made with the lightest batter conjure up remembers of childhood fried treats. It always reminds you of a past indulgence but you can never figure out what.

Spring has finally arrived, after a long, cold, snowy, arctic winter. A foragers paradise awaits.