I want to tell you about my experience of the state of gastropub art, not the pictures on the wall, though that is now in my head and will have to wait to another day, but the creative splashes that get beamed out of their busy kitchens. I have seen the cheese plate transform via wooden platter to a slate based selected, some come adorned with fruit, celery and the chef’s own local berry chutney and others leave the cheese to speak for itself. Slate was initially a novelty of which I had some suspicion, mostly hygiene, knowing its soft and porous nature made me wonder was the slate one step beyond the boundaries that should define a serving dish. Seems though that slate must have undergone extreme H&S scrutiny as now this grey/blue medium is taking the gastropub table by storm. There’s not a meal that can’t be housed on it fossil rich surface. Some come in traditional white bowls but perch precariously on the riven tile making anxious young waitresses. Surely the slate is not meant to be a comic interlude in your evening meal but when Sofaman’s traditional Fisn’n'Chips washed up on the table at The Crown in East Rudham we were reduced to giggles and momentarily a hearty belly laugh, mildly alarmed the waiter fled. This was art meets food gone mad, why would you do it? F&C looks cannot be improved upon if presented on a large gleaming white plate, and what’s the square of local newsprint about? Sofaman soldiered on; taste not impaired by presentation but wondering further why crushed peas, I fear the chef too worn by creative hemisphere activity had not the strength to mush them. I am looking forward to further slate and art encounters throughout the week, and possibly finding next week that this phenomenon has spread to the continent.

Inspired by Cakeadoodledo, cupcake heaven in devon, I decided to make some customised cupcakes for the Easter weekend. Some are just party style or pink girly affairs, others are sporting the racing numbers for friends at the VMCCs first meeting of the year on Easter Sunday, my favorites are the chocolate mounds with a clutch of eggs. The recipe can be found at Nigella.com: 125g each of s.r.flour, caster suger and soft butter, 2 eggs and a splash of vanilla extract. Whizz it all up in a food processor, then slacken it off with a splash of milk, added as the processor is on pulse until you have a cake batter of dropping consistency. Cook in muffin or mini-cupcakes cases at 180 for 10-20 mins depending on the size. It is a bomb proof recipe but read the details at Nigella. My only tragedy was the old processor wasn’t up to the beating of the slightly too hard butter and a violent shudder too many finally caused it to spit out a stud and splinter off a significant shard of plastic… still I only dream of a KitchenAid.

So Marks and Spencers are leading the way forward in saving the planet from being engulfed in a tide of plastic bags, after years of dishing them out they have seen the evil of the customers ways, the happy shoppers appauling habits of requiring a holder for their purchases. Bless them. The price from May will be to the costly tune of 5p for every flimsy bag. I’d like to ask them – if we need to pay for our footprint how will they pay for theirs? for excessive over packaging of their salads? the lidded round bottomed vessels of greenery, expensive, non-biodegradable bowls sparingly populated with tiger prawns and sweet chilli dressing. Who will charge them for the foot print they make on this planet? should I extend my morage and purchase some tastey morsels and then send them the bill for disposing of the plastic, or maybe return it to them posing the problem of who is responsible – me or them? you or them? Would Gordon Brown care to comment on this?

For those of you who like to nibble on a little chicken don’t forget to go free range and sign up to CHICKEN OUT!

I read this recipe in a magazine, it was designed as a side dish but I thought it was plenty rich enough to stand up on its own as a main dish. For 2 people take 3 heads of chicory, trim the stems and cut in half lengthways. Heat up butter and a little olive oil in a large frying pan, place the chicory cut side down and cook to caremalise, turn to brown all round. I also cooked some banana shallots in the same way. Season well. Meanwhile grate finely about 90gms of Gruyere, mix half the cheese with a small pot of Creme Fraise and a teaspoon of grain mustard. Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Line the bottom of a baking dish with the shallots and then place in line the chicory over the top, cover with the creme/cheese mix and top with the remaining cheese and lots of black pepper. Bake until bubbling and brown. The chicory will still have a bitter background taste but if well caremalised it will not be too strong. I served with small carrots and some wholemeal bread to mop up the sauce.

Orecchiette is not a pasta I use often and would not have been my choice for this if I hadn’t been lacking Penne or Fusilli, it tends to cook soft on the surface and dry on the inside but within the veggie sauce and the basil pesto it will get a second exposure to heat in the oven and hopefully mellow in the flavours.
Cut up in a baking dish one onion into 8 top-to-toe sections, 2 peppers [red/yellow] into sections, 4 new potatoes into quarters and coat them in olive oil with salt, pepper and a sprinkling of oregano. Add 8 clovers of garlic, skins on and mix it all together. This goes into a 200 degree oven with a foil covering.
Meanwhile make some basil pesto, a generous hand of leaves, some pine nuts, a clove of garlic and olive oil into a coffee grinder, wizz until a bright green puree, transfer to a dish and stir through some parmesan. Once the potatoes are softening uncover and bake without the foil. Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the pasta until al dente, stir in the pesto and a bit more parmesan. Once the veg are brown and soft find the garlic and squeeze out onto the veg [it should be soft and sweet] then stir through half a jar of Waitrose Puttanesca sauce [or any slightly spicey tomato sauce] and the pasta. Top with parmesan and dollops [great word!] of creamy but slightly sour goats cheese and bake until hot. You could serve this on toasted Ciabatta or with a green salad.

[an up-date on my latest protest]
I loitered in Tescos by the meat zone, I had already asked how chicken sales were in light of the Channel4 documentary about intensive farming, front-of-house coolness hit me like a freezer door flung open in my face. I questioned politely had they sold any 2 for a fiver intensively reared birds?, I was stared at blankly, did she know what I ment? or are they too afraid to talk about the subject?, instructed to be silent? or did she think me just plain mad?, possibly the later. So I was driven to spy, as I said I loitered by the carnations not 20 foot from the frozen poultry area, and watched, sadly it didn’t take long for an old dear to come to a halt next to the plastic wrap, fleshy chickens. She bent down and rummaged, pulling out three, four, five birds and examining them, poking at the hocks, pushing her glasses up off her nose and raising the little body close to her face, so close she glowed chicken white. She threw back several, disgruntled and increasingly grumpy. Then she snatched out two that she had put to the side, presumably acceptable specimens. Had she seen Hughs program, was she checking for hock burns or was she as I suspect some grizzly punter with a desire for examining dead chickens? I fear she felt that somehow in the mess of chilled carcasses she could find value, but the truth is no matter how hard she may have stared theres no value to be found in that freezer.

I have heard the mention of Union Square Cafe by both Nigella ‘nibbles’ Lawson and the Barefoot Contessa, they have both prep’d the Union Square Cashew nuts without deviation or hesitation and so what is good enough for them might be worthy of mention in this blog.
Using a generous hand and a loose wallet purchase 500g of raw shelled cashews, heat up your oven and gently roast the little beasts until a faint hint of toasting drifts aroma-orously [hmmm] around your kitchen. Meanwhile chop vigerously and if in Nigella mood, flirtatiously, a hand full of fresh [it has to be fresh] Rosemary. Add to the Rosemary 1.5tsp of dark sugar, a tsp of seasalt and a tsp of Paprika. Melt an ounce of butter and pour over the seasoning, take the warm nuts and anoint them with the seasoning, turn until all are coated. Best warm but can be eaten cold, if they survive long enough to cool down.

Some might argue that a cookery book is merely a manual guiding the amateur cook through a series of steps to result in a creation that is hopefully edible. How could I disagree?. This is what, in general, cookery books were historically; Delia never wandered into a state of confession in her crisp instructions, she never even sampled her food on TV, she was a cookery teacher as you would find in any 1970s seconday modern. Fanny Craddock instructed an earlier audience in the art of unattainable perfection in the style of charmless sargent major. But I would say things have changed, the TV cook culture is marketed as warm and inviting, wholesome, organic, inclusive, eco-friendly and on occasion overtly sexual. Nigella not only samples her food but enthuses passionately, heaves her ample assets and sighs like a Hollywood siren over the bloody remnants of her rags of raw beef, licks her fingers, raises her brows and insists ‘you would wouldn’t you’… Jamie on the other hand couldn’t be more wholesome, faithful, organic and Brit-pop, he has invaded our homes with his chatty boy-next-door chirpiness. So these days, to reflect this, cookery books have become diaries, confessionals, out-of-focus guides to the anti-dinner party bores of the 1980s. The design reflects this, unjustied reams of prose, pretty images of wellie clad kids picking carrots, notebooks full of ideas, scribbles, sketches, long days in the allotment. Even the paper on which some are printed is wholesome, soft to the touch, beige, surprisingly though, as yet, it doesn’t smell of manure. I am drawn to this new generation of books, the feeling of comfort, security and deep happiness, they tell me not to worry, to sit back, to read leisurely, you mustn’t worry about cooking, it will happen, a casual pasta something will spill out of the kichen, a yummy potato thing will emerge… its not work, its just pottering or playing or just being. So tonight I am waiting, watching the kitchen, wondering, book in hand, what might appear.

Apples and the culture of appleness are woven deep into the fabric of Englishness like village fayres, tombolas, egg and spoon racing and gymkhanas. Annually villages, towns and cities promote apple culture at a local level. Gardeners bring sample apples for identification, children compete in the apple’n'spoon races, some sip the juicey liqour that the apple expresses when pressed and others sun themselves in what often proves to be a beautiful October day. This is how it was this year in the annual Ely Apple Fest. You could eat Ostrich burgers and hotdogs, Swedish Apple Cake, a fine selection of experimental cheeses and drink hot spiced apple and blackberry juice. Some say this heady mixture of easy going milling around and cheerful banter has been lost in favour of a fast paced less informal way of life but not so on this bright October morning when tumberling out of bed and drifting into town was all one had to do.