SHEPHERD MARKET SWEET TART

Easy Sushezi

I love sushi, absolutely love the stuff. I often spend a few bob on it.  Even if my finances are in dire straights, I always find a penny or two for a salmon supreme from Itsu. I really need to branch out and try some other flavours, but I can be a bit of a creature of habit sometimes. Hattie, my housemate, and I have been saying for months that we were going to have a sushi night and attempt to make it but never got round to it. Until it came to a rainy day in March and we had nothing planned, the obvious thing to do, of course: make sushi! We trotted down to the Japan centre and picked up our ingredients. 

I’ve always been a bit dubious about making my own sushi, worrying about how fresh the salmon is in the supermarket. Until a friend of mine confirmed it doesn’t kill you, after she got back from a night out and raided the fridge. The only thing she could find was a raw fillet of salmon. Yep, you guessed it, she ate it as nature intended. Of course she was fine! The society we live in today has made us terrified to eat anything unless we are told its acceptable or safe.  I think we need to let our hair down and eat a raw salmon fillet at four in the morning if that is what one desires! Buuuuut after saying that and being a right hypocrite, I went to the Japan Centre for my kit, just to be on the safe side. Plus it’s an amazing place to wonder around.

  We went for salmon, tuna and crab sticks. Sliced into perfect pieces of sashimi in front of us by the experts. We picked up sticky rice, sheets of seaweed, sesame seeds and pickled ginger. After swinging by the supermarket on our way home for avocado (a must for sushi), peppers, cucumber and chives we were set. 

I have to admit, we had a little help when making this. Help from a brilliant gadget called the Sushezi. A Christmas gift Hattie once received and thought she’d never use. It’s come straight out of the 1990’s and would look right at home on one of those videos you see in Debenhams with demonstrations of how to use a Bobbleoff (best way to get rid of those darn bobbles on your knitwear if you didn’t already know), or how to cut your carrots into roses with a handy gadget. You may scoff at it, but I love it. 

To make your sticky rice, pour into boiling water and let it boil away for two to three minutes stirring occasionally to stop it from sticking. Then turn the heat down and let it simmer for around 15 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool. The Sushezi is a cylinder shape which splits in half. Fill each side with sticky rice, the finely chopped vegetables and the fish of your choice. Close it and it compresses the sushi into the perfect roll. Push it out onto the seaweed sheet, roll it carefully and cut it into pieces with a sharp knife. With every perfect roll we literally squeeled with excitement, we couldn’t believe how perfectly they came out. 

To do the real thing, of course, you spread the rice over the sheet which is laid onto a rolling mat. Make a neat line of ingredients and expertly roll it. I will attempt it one day, but with the Sushezi just sitting in the cupboard… Anyway, these were the results, not bad. We ate the lot, and it tasted like the real thing, dipped in soy sauce with a thin slice of pickled ginger. Who needs Itsu when you’ve got a Sushezi.

I fully recommend it, so much fun and extremely satisfying to make.  

Salmon, yellow pepper, avocado and chive

Tuna, avocado, cucumber and chive

Crabsticks, avocado and chive

Enchante

“Enchanté, je t’adore Paris.” Said in a low voice that resembles Serge Gainsbourg just about sums up my French vocabulary. Terrible. Oh and “cafe au lait s’il vous plait”, a must if you drink as much coffee as I do.

 I have just came back from a weekend in Paris with my boyfriend and I’m ashamed to say we were one of those typically English couples who intentionally speak really loudly in English when the waitress comes to take your order as we were both terrified to even attempt to speak the language. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, after getting a B in GCSE French I can’t remember a word of it.

Paris is one of my favourite cities, beautiful architecture, a thriving cafe culture, fantastic art galleries and more escargot than you can shake a stick at. Perfect place for a weekend break. Before we left I was in a real panic searching on my Timeout Paris app for good places to eat, looking at the editor’s picks and realising this Monsieur has ridiculously expensive taste. I was just resigned to the fact we’d probably be dining on Croque Monsieur and frites every night, but I was wrong.

Our first night, after an afternoon of walking around the epic Pompidou Centre, we were starving. We wandered around Notre Dame and finally settled on a little Bistro. Every restaurant seemed to have identical menus and nothing stood out apart from the fact the French seem to have a fascination with Oeuf Mayonaisse as  a starter. Most of the places looked tired and the waiters stood in the doorways in their dicky bows and waistcoats felt a little dated. We sat down to a steak with peppercorn sauce with the scent of oeuf mayo wafting over from the next table, it came out of the kitchen almost as soon as we’d ordered it giving an impression that they’d made it a million times before. It was a limp, thin steak with a sauce that left a bitter taste in your mouth. Non! I was determined that we were going to eat well on our holiday.

On our second night things were looking up. We discovered the delights of Bastille, it was like the East London of Paris. Boulangeries selling amazing bread, delis, boucheries, young, fashionable people  littered the bars, drinking wine, with a cigarette in hand. I was excited, not because I think smoking is cool, but they did look pretty chouett. I wanted to be among them, and not feel like a tourist. We found the perfect place to do this. Cafe de L’industrie ,16 rue Saint-Sabin

 

A huge place with an eclectic range of art hanging from the walls. It was a classic Parisian restaurant, but dragged into the 20th century, unlike a lot of the other Bistros around clinging onto their Toulouse Lautrec prints, whose posters I admit I bought in armfuls on my previous trips to Paris as a youth. The food was at a reasonable price and was delicious.We started with Escargo, which were buttery and garlicky and surprisingly tender. For the main, Onglet de Boeuf which consisted of a beautifully cooked rare piece of beef, topped with sauteed onions with a very generous serving of dauphinoise potatoes.

 I would recommend this place to anyone I think it represents french cuisine at its modern yet, authentic best.  For an after dinner treat we hotfooted it down to the Eiffel Tower a little woozy on the fantastic dry white wine we’d been enjoying all night, and stood right underneath it to watch the light show, an essential part of a Parisian holiday.

I’m breezing over our lunches as we mostly ate on the go, picking up baguettes. One tip, do not buy a baguette from the Eiffel tower. The 500 steps can make you delirious and very hungry, but don’t make the mistake of purchasing one as the ham tastes like corned beef and the baguette was so hard you could use it as a door stop. Just saying, but there are a lot of treats you can pick up on your way around Paris

On our last night we saved up our pennies for a place that we’d spotted on our first night whilst strolling down the ile de la cite. Le Reminet is a tiny place, but it’s hard to miss the many recommendations stuck all over the door way. We pressed our faces up against the window and realised this was a fancy establishment, and after looking at the menu we moved on tutting at the prices, yet longing to sit beneath the antique chandeliers eating by candlelight with the rest of them. So on our last night we  put our glad rags on and went down there and were delighted to be told that we’d get a table. The waiters were charming, placing a complimentary shot glass of soup in front of us to start the meal. I had slow cooked lamb, with haricot beans, green beans and carrots with a snail butter. The dish was wonderfully rich and full of flavour. Chris had chicken stuffed with mushrooms and parsnip puree. The chicken looked a little on the pink side, which as typical British diners we flagged up immediately with the waiter who assured us that this was the way it was meant to look as it had been poached.

For desert we shared a chocolate fondant, with mango puree and a pistachio cream. Perfect, sweet way to end our meal.

If you’re going to Paris, I highly recommend both of these restaurants. Classic French cooking with a modern twist and both hold on to the romance that makes Paris the city that people visit again and again.

Meat, Liquor

Meat Liquor is the genious creation of Meatwagon owners, chef Yiannis Papoutsis and Scott Collins, whose burgers have risen from a burger van to a pop up in New Cross (MeatEasy), to a restaurant in Marylebone. Set in the backstreets of Oxford St, dodgy place to be during the sales with bargain-crazed women stomping the pavements, but Meat Liquor is a world away and well worth a butcher’s. 

I got a message from a friend one evening saying ‘We have to go to Meat Licker for dinner” which disgusted me slightly, an image of people sitting, literally licking pieces of meat at the forefront of my mind, until she corrected herself. I surprisingly hadn’t heard of it but by the time we arrived it was pretty obvious that everyone else had. We stood in the queue with great anticipation, smelling the wafts of cooking meat and deep-fried delights. I’m not queuer, if that’s even a word, I hate it, so the 25 minute wait was not to my liking but by the time we got to the door I enjoyed being the smug one who was next in line to get a table. 

The site previously belonged to a quiet Italian Restaurant, I can imagine their faithful customers would have been disgruntled to find that their quiet Friday night table in the corner with their usual vongole and glass of Chianti had been replaced by paint-splattered walls, rock music and a plethora of meat-based dishes.

We were seated by a lovely waitress who catered to our every need, persuading us to buy the cocktails by pointing out that we were “on a gals’ night out, go oooooooon”, I felt brainwashed into buying one but I’m happy I did. They arrived in jam jars, topped with fruit and tasted amazing, on a par with Bourne and Hollingsworth. They were accompanied by deep-fried pickles with a blue cheese sauce which she’d also somehow bamboozled us into to buying, they were actually really good. The vinegary  pickles dipped in a rich blue cheese sauce was a brilliant combination, they put Byron’s soggy deep fried courgettes to shame.

The menu was a delight in itself. The red wine described as “A cracking wine for just necking and giving you red teeth” no frills here…The food: crispy onion rings, deep fried pickles, mountains of fries (the thin kind, which in my opinion is the best kind). Then there’s the burgers. 100% juicy chuck steak, chargrilled on the outside and pink on the inside piled high with tomatoes, onions, pickles and melting cheese all encased in a sweet bap. Just talking about them is making me hungry which has driven me to impatiently shell pistachios which happen to be the only thing to hand as I write.

All I can say is don’t go if you’re afraid to get your hands dirty, there aren’t even plates here, the food is served on a tray wrapped in paper. The only thing to protect you from the meat juices trickling down your face and arms is the rolls of kitchen paper placed on the tables. I looked up from my burger to sip on my Meantime larger to see a group of suited men with their sleeves rolled up gleefully laughing at our attempts to eat like ladies. In the end I gave up, I was past the point of manners and just enjoyed every mouthful, smiling at them through mouthfuls of meat. That showed them, or probably just put them off their own food. I wasn’t going to opt for the aptly named ‘Rabbit Food’ salad just through sheer vanity. 

The bill came to just under £20 a head which was fine by me. I’m already planning my next trip and if you’re looking for more burger revelations have a look at http://www.burgerac.com/ the self named burger detective on the hunt for the best burger in town.

http://www.meatliquor.com/

74 Welbeck Street, W1G 0BA

I’ ll eat it, just please don’t make me touch it

Octopus that is. Baby octopus to be precise.

 

A friend offered us a free bag of baby octopus and I took it willingly, never one to pass up free food, plus I’ve never cooked the stuff so thought I’d try something new. I popped out to the supermarket and bought my ingredients. I pulled the bag out of the freezer and as soon as I saw them looking up at me, (they had no eyes but they were definitely looking at me) and saw their tangled tendrils I had a small panic attack. I couldn’t touch them. Anything with eight legs puts the fear of God into me. I even hid behind my boyfriend’s shoulder yesterday at the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition because I spotted a picture of a spider. A picture! Pathetic. 

So I mentally slapped myself round the face and told myself to man up, took a knife and cut the octopus up, gladly passing the job onto my housemate as soon as she walked through the door claiming that if I touched them they were going to come alive and wrap themselves around my hand in revenge. 

Baby Octopus marinated in olive oil, smoked paprika and lemon with chorizo, tomato and herb couscous. With baked aubergines with feta and a garlic and parsley dressing.   

This recipe is ace if you’re trying to impress, it looks great, smells great and it’s the kind of thing you’d eat on holiday so automatically puts a smile on anyone’s face.

Ingredients

Baby octopus, 2 tsp smoked paprika, clove of garlic, 2 tbsp olive oil, half a lemon, salt and pepper to taste

Cous cous: Cherry tomatos, handful of mint and basil, a few slices of chorizo

Aubergines: Half an augbergine per person, 3tbsp olive oil, half a packet of feta, handful of parsley and a clove of garlic

Firstly the cous cous. Pour boiling water into a bowl covering the cous cous until light and fluffy. Make the marinade by roughly chopping a glarlic clove, mix with the smoked paprika, lemon juice and olive oil and pour over the octopus.

Chop the chorizo roughly and throw into a pan to crisp up, halve the tomatos and put them in the pan to soften with the chorizo. Pour this mixture into the cous cous along with the chopped up basil and mint and mix it up adding salt and pepper. That’s now ready. Cover it to keep warm.

Place the aubergines under the grill and turn them every five minutes. Once they are soft, peel off the skin and cut in two. Mix up the olive oil, chopped garlic clove and plenty of parsley in a jam jar and shake it up. This is to pour over the aubergine once the octopus is cooked. But be warned the garlic is raw so the parsley is a must to lighten the punch. Wrap the aubergines in foil to keep warm.

Get your pan nice and hot and throw in the marinated octopus. It’ll curl up and crisp in the pan. You only need to cook it for a couple of minutes otherwise it’ll turn rubbery. Once cooked plate up! Pour the dressing and crumble the feta over the aubergine, pile up to cous cous and put the octupus on top and serve with a salad. It looks ever so fancy but is so so easy.

Pizza Pilgrims

Two brothers, a three wheeler Piaggio Ape van and a passion for pizza. This is a recipe for a pizza pilgrimage.  A brilliant new street food venture, to sell thin crust pizzas (Franco Manca style), cooked in a custom made oven out of the back of a three wheeler “peasant” van. Brilliant, only I wish I’d come up with it first. 

 

 Dorset born brothers James and Thom Elliot are no strangers to the food industry, from a young age their parents having always managed pubs. One of which I used to work in as a timid teen after leaving school, these pubs served fantastic food made with the best produce. So they are taking their knowledge and using it to their advantage, by packing in their hectic London lifestyles and travelling to the southern most part of the Italian mainland, Salerno, to collect their van and drive it 2000 miles across Italy, with a maximum speed of 40mph! That’s dedication.

During this epic drive they are hoping to immerse themselves in the Italian lifestyle, meeting local people and eating local food, developing their menu and researching the best Italian produce they can get their hands on. Best form of research I can think of doing. In my opinion Italian food is up there in my top five, actually I’ll even raise it to top three. To say I’m jealous would be a massive understatement.

James is the real ‘foodie’ of the two and has worked as a chef from the age of sixteen, he then came to London and left it behind but I’m glad to say he’s rediscovered his passion for food and is making the most of it. Thom the elder brother has been working in marketing but has also decided to give up the rat race and team up with James for this big adventure. I take my hat off to them. It’s a big risk but I definitely think its one worth taking. Their story has picked up media interest and through out their trip they’ll have a camera crew by their side, recording their every experience. The programme will be out in the new year and its going to be a gooden. Both boys have a brilliant sense of humour along with loads of enthusiasm, but it will be interesting to see after 2000 miles cramped in a small van, bellies full of pasta how they get on. I love my siblings I really do, I know for a fact we wouldn’t be speaking after the first mile.

Street food is a huge business within other countries around the world and street food markets are popping up left right and centre. Freshly sourced produce, made there right in front of you is the best kind. The street food culture is slowly emerging in the UK with markets around London so they’ve picked the right time to get involved.

James contacted me and asked me to blog on their trip, which is exactly what I’m going to do and I’m very excited to see their trip evolve. Find out about their experiences, their menu ideas, what amazing cheeses they’ve come across along the way not to mention meats, tomatoes and all the other essentials for a good pizza. Once back in the UK they’ll be selling their thin pizzas at festivals, weddings, parties, generally anywhere that will have them. I’ll have them please, permanently installed in my kitchen for my pizza needs, thank you kindly. 

  

 

I have officially have the worlds slowest and most temperamental  laptop which freezes every time I try to write a blog which is really helpful and is why I’ve been so slow with this, so apologies to the boys as they’ve already been there a week. But I promise to catch up!! I promise!  They will be updating me along the way, and in turn I will be updating my blog so watch out for the next instalment.

http://www.facebook.com/pizzapilgrims

 

http://twitter.com/pizzapilgrims

Have your cake and eat it

Everyone loves a slice of cake, or ‘just a slitherette’ as my mother would say. It’s always the right time for cake. With your flat white in the morning, after lunch, at tea time or, if you’re Nigella Lawson, at midnight fully made up in nothing but a black silk kimono, eating it with a cheeky wink to camera.

Cake has stood the test of time and it’s not going anywhere. With the rise of the Hummingbird Bakery, cakes and cupcakes are the avant garde thing to offer up at a baby shower, barmitzva, hen do and they’ll be gone before you can say jimminy cricket. Feeling frisky? You can even go to Cox and Cookies and pick up a boobie cake, yes boobie. Or for the ladies a white chocolate mould of a buff male torso atop your banoffee pie cupcake. Lush. A girl at my work once recieved a box of Hummingbird cupcakes from a secret admirer. She didn’t even know who he was but wanted to marry him instantly. I think I did too.

I’m currently working at Tom’s Deli in Notting Hill. As you enter the shop you are greeted by a glittering array of cakes. From brownies with white chocolate and raspberries to lemon, olive oil and rosemary cake (a personal favourite), earl grey cupcakes to a Curly Wurly inspired cake.

I can’t take the credit for this cake, as the recipe was invented by an entrepreneurial cake genius! He claimed he was the first to come up with the idea so indulged him in his cake dream and made it. He said it was the best cake he’d ever tasted. To be honest I think he was just trying to be nice, but I was still happy.

Chocolate, peanut butter and banana cake, topped with caramalised peanuts

I found this American recipe on line and it was pretty easy to follow

Ingredients
12oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (or use chips)
1/2 cup plain peanut butter (preferably natural, unsweetened)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 bananas—the riper and syrupy-er, the better)
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9” or 8” square baking pan and line with a long strip of parchment paper that covers the bottom and overhangs on both sides (this will help you pull the cake out once it’s ready.) Set aside.

Combine the chopped chocolate (or chips, if using), peanut butter, and olive oil in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until the chocolate and peanut butter is melted and evenly combined.  Pour into a large bowl and let cool for 2 minutes.

Whisk in the mashed bananas, followed by the eggs, one at a time until all three are fully incorporated into the mixture. Stir in the sugar and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda, then stir into the wet batter until fully incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan, smoothing out the top. Bake for about 18-20 minutes or until just set. A tester inserted into the center should come out a little bit fudgy, but not wet. Remove from oven and let cool at room temperature for 15 minutes. Transfer to the refrigerator to set. Once firm (about 20 minutes), cut into bars and serve. Dust with confectioner’s sugar if desired. (Can also be served warm.)

Easy caramalised peanuts

To make the caramalised peanuts put 140g of peanuts, 100g of sugar and 45ml of water in a pan on a medium heat. Keep stirring until you get a sandy consistensy. Turn in down and continue stirring until it turns a caramel brown, remove from the heat before it starts to smoke, place on a baking sheet to set and sprinkle on the cakes.

Hail Caesar

One of my pet hates has to be when you’ve ordered a side salad at a restaurant to lighten up your meal and you receive a desert bowl full of incognito lettuce, a few unripe tomatoes, red onion rings and NO dressing. I just don’t get it, a dash of olive oil and some seasoning would surfice. I mean don’t get me wrong its not in my top ten pet hates, my life is more fulfilling than that, but it just grinds my gears you know? I think the worse I’ve had was recently in a fish restaurant they bought me a salad containing the above ingredients, but it’s crowning glory was a lump of coleslaw, and not even the good kind.

 

Salad is one of those things I actually crave sometimes, may sound strange I know, but there’s something so satisfying about fresh, crunchy lettuce that I can’t get enough of. There is always a bag of it in my fridge whether it be rocket, watercress, lambs lettuce, baby gem or just plain spinach. It’s an essential. During these summer months is when salad gets its chance to really shine, it steps up as a main course and the possibilities are endless. Hot, cold, pulses, cheeses, meats but the thing that ties it all together is the dressing or vinaigrette depending on how european you’re feeling. One of the best known dressings has to be Caesar dressing. I’ve only ever eaten it out of sachets or bottles (i’m ashamed to admit). White and gloopy with a flavour you can’t really put your finger on. I think it has a bit of a reputation for being a dated choice, but served with chicken, bacon, croutons, avocado, and gem lettuce leaves it’s a beauty. Cos or Romaine lettuce is essential for a caesar salad to get the right sweet, crispy combination with the glossy salty dressing. Once you’ve made it yourself you’ll never go back. Trust me.

 I took my recipe from a great book I got for my birthday this year called Supper Club by Kerstin Rodgers. I contains all the secrets, tips and recipes you need to know to create your own supper club.

 

Ingredients

 

Chicken breast

 

Smoked bacon, pancetta or lardons are just as good

 

Gem lettuce

 

Avocado

 

Chiabatta (for the croutons)

 

Olive Oil

 

Dressing

 

1x Egg

 

1x garlic clove

 

1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard

 

1x Anchovy fillet

 

100-125ml Ground Nut Oil

 

Juice of half a lemon

 

60g grated Parmesan cheese

 

Freshly ground  black pepper

Firstly put a little oil into a pan and put your bacon in until crispy remove and place on a piece of kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil . Cut up your ciabatta into 1cm squares and throw them into the bacon fat to crisp up season with pepper and toss them about to make sure they are covered in oil, add a little more if you think it’s nesseccary. Once they are golden take them out of the pan add them the bacon on the kitchen towel.  

 

Cut the chicken into pieces, its your choice how big they are. Season the chicken and add it too the pan on a medium heat, Cook for around 3 minutes on each side to ensure its cooked. While the chicken is cooking, make the dressing.

To make the dressing, boil the egg in a saucepan on water for 1 minute, before cracking it into a bowl - you will use both the uncooked white and the yolk. Add the Dijon mustard and chopped garlic and whisk until smooth. Chop up the anchovy fillet into small pieces and add to the dressing. Then slowly whisk in the ground nut oil. Add the lemon juice and half of the parmesan. Season with black pepper, and no salt as the cheese and anchovy provide enough saltiness. Thats it. 

 Peel off the leaves from your gem lettuce (or cos or romaine) and toss and coat in the dressing. Pile the lettuce into bowl and add the chicken, bacon, croutons and avocado. Finally sprinkle the remaining parmesan on the top. I recommend a cold glass of dry white wine. Goes down a treat. 

I had a little chicken and dressing left over the next day and made a caesar sandwich. So good. Sorry Paul Newman, your dressings will be no longer required. Not that I ever used them. Paul Newman and sauces? Why? The adoration I had for him after watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid soon evaporated when I saw his face on the BBQ sauce bottle.

 

Make the most of the last of this non existent summer and make yourself a caesar salad to eat in the sunshine. When you taste it you’ll be glad you made the effort.

Honey bees and cider, Magners ‘Bee Aid’ Event

So on Tuesday night I learnt four things. Bees are fascinating, in the UK they are in rapid decline, oil seed rape honey is delicious and I look pretty darn amazing in a bee keeping onesie. Who knew!?

On Tuesday evening on the deck of the National Theatre, I attended the The Magners ‘Bee Aid’ Campaign. This is a campaign driven by Magners Cider, who have teamed up with the British Beekeepers Association and the Federation of Irish Beekeepers Associations to help save 1.5 million bees in the UK and Ireland this summer.

Why have Magners chosen this campaign? Well Magners know the importance of the honey bee, after all it’s the bees that pollinate the apples in the Magners orchards which are blended to give Magners its unique taste. I must say I do like a refreshing Magners on a sunny afternoon poured over lots of ice as much as the next person, so without the honey bees we wouldn’t be able to partake in this delightful pastime, and we can’t be having that!

This is the second event that I’ve attended this year to draw attention to the decline of the honey bee so something needs to be done and this Magners campaign is a great way to highlight this issue. They are offering a fantastic opportunity for twenty five lucky Magners Facebook fans to become fully fledged urban beekeepers, by providing them with equipment and training. They will be awarded with an Urban Beekeeping Scholarship from the BBKA and FIBKA and at the end of it will have all the skills and equipment to create an urban hive and look after a bee colony of their own!

The evening started off with an enlightening talk by Tim Lovett from the BBKA, who stepped in for John Corbett (who unfortunately couldn’t come). John is the head beekeeper in Clonmel, the home of Magners Cider, and has been beekeeping for over 50 years and looks after 27 hives at the Magners orchard. He has first hand experience in the decline of honey bees as he used to have over 54 hives, so he has lost 22! He is now trying to build them up again and highlight the issue. Its a shame he couldn’t be there.

To be honest, my knowledge of bees was limited before this and apart from honey the only thing I thought of when it came to bees was the memory of ’My Girl’ when little Macaulay Culkin gets chased by that swarm of them……..I’m welling up at the thought of it. So yes, very naive. They are in fact fascinating, clever, and play an important part in the production of food. Here are some interesting facts about honey bees. Each colony has a queen bee who lays up to 2,000 eggs a day in spring and summer. All of the worker bees are female and they have many different duties such as guarding the entrance, making wax comb, keeping the hive clean, evaporating excess moisture to make honey, protecting the nest cells and just making sure queen bee is happy by feeding and cleaning her. I think in my next life I’d quite like to be a queen bee. Flying bees visit flowers to gather food in spring and summer and the nectar collected by a single bee during its life makes less than a teaspoon of honey!

The male drone bees don’t do any work in the hive, nor do they make honey. Their sole purpose is to mate with the queen - it’s a hard life.

I was offered a bee keeping outfit as soon as I walked in the door; I wasn’t too excited about putting it on at first, but once I’d awkwardly climbed into it I wondered why I’d never worn one before. It was very bee-coming. Eurgh, sorry.

If you’re wondering whats wrong with my right hand, I got the last pair of gloves, two left gloves, not that I was worried by that point what I looked like.

While I wandered around the room sipping my cider, I spotted a table with honey pots on it and a pile of spoons, this meant only one thing - free tasting - and I’m one who will never pass up free food. Standing at this table was Paul Longan, another Bee Keeper from Clonmel, who was eager to tell me all about the different types of honey, where they came form and the variety of flavours that were on offer, depending where the bees collected their pollen. They were delicious. I could have spoken to him all night, as he spoke about the honey with such passion, you could really tell that he loved his job.

Cluain Meala means honey pasture in Irish and is also the name of the famous orchards in Clonmel where the Magners is made. The apple blossoms are staggered so the bees can help make amazing tasting honey all summer long. The bees pollinate from different areas, such as Slievenamon Mountain translated as the “Mountain of the Women”. The different honeys had distinctive flavours. One was made from bees who had collected pollen from oil seed rape which gave it a really interesting flavour. The Slievenamon, Anneerville and Tipperary honeys had a slight smokey flavour. They would be perfect drizzled on baked figs, drunk with hot water and lemon or just simply (personally my favourite way of eating honey) on warm toast with lots of butter.

Now it was time to actually see bee keeping in action. I zipped up my suit, tucked my trousers into my socks, donned my left handed rubber gloves and made my way out onto the balcony where the hives were and watched while the Barnaby the professional beekeeper smoked the hive first of all and then removed the bees pointing out the beautiful honeycomb and talked about life within the hive.

 

Apparently London has over 2,500 bee hives. I had no idea. If you want to get involved and be one of them and be in with a chance of winning the BeeKeeping scholarship visit http://facebook.com/magnerscider where there is an entry form to tell them why you think you have what it takes to become an urban beekeeper. If like me you want to help but don’t think you’re responsible enough to keep your own bees there are other ways you can get involved. Firstly ‘like’ the Magners facebook page on the address above, easy! Also there is a new iPhone app created by Magners that will soon be coming out. It’s called the Android Bee Beard app and its free! You can have your own bee beard like Eamon the fictional Clonmel beekeeper from the Magners TV advert. It’s an easy way to support this campaign and I really think its a campaign worth supporting. So get on it!

And here are the results, I think I suit a beard, I went for the Old Clonmel. No messing about with fancy facial ’dos’ like the goatie.

Brixton Market, what a gem

I have recently fallen in love with Brixton and more so Brixton Market. As much as I love Borough Market, Brixton is a more authentic experience. People go there as a necessity, its a way of life there. It’s a market where you can get pretty much anything you need from food to music, to tailoring to most importantly Disney towels, oh and not forgetting the mobile phone cover stall, I get all my fly covers from there.

It boasts one of Europes biggest collections of Afro-Caribbean foods and produce, with a selection of fruit and vegetables that I have never even seen before. This gets me excited as I love to discover new ingredients to cook with. The meat and fish is also in abundance at very cheap prices. I bought a giant bag of king prawns the other day for around £1.50, amazing! It’s a great place to stock up on groceries and you leave feeling smug that you’ve only spent £20 and you’ve come away with enough to feed yourself for a good week or two.

My favourite part has to be the indoor market, full of delis and cafes, its almost impossible to choose somewhere to eat. There are delis with a wide range of salads and cakes and pastries, serving up delicious coffee and you can leave with a loaf of sour dough bread under your arm. Wild Caper is my favourite. Of course there is the well known Rosie’s cafe (author of Spooning with Rosie) where you can snack on mackerel on toast or scrambled eggs. Just outside the market on Coldharbour Lane is The Duck Egg Cafe where you can get an amazing breakfast to cure any hangover. 

The ultimate place to eat in Brixton market has to be Franco Manca in my opinion. I’ve walked past it many times not even attempting to get a table for the queue trailing down the street, but last Sunday I stumbled out of the rain, frozen through and it was one of the only places open with no queue to be seen. We couldn’t believe our luck so we sat straight down and greedily eyed the menu.

The staff are very friendly and are on hand to suggest the best selection of pizzas to suit you. We ordered a selection so we could try a bit of everything. We had to wait no time at all before they were put in front of us and we literally didn’t make a sound until we’d stuffed every morsel into our mouths. Best pizza I’ve eaten by far.

The beauty of a Franco Manco pizza is the slow rising sour dough base, baked in a wood burning brick oven. It gives the pizza a lovely soft thin crust with a slightly smoky flavour. With ham supplied from Gloucester Old Spot, sweet tomatoes from a group of producers in Salerno, award winning somerset cheeses along with other delicious toppings their pizzas are the real deal. Uncomplicated, unstuffed, not a garlic dipper in sight. It’s ’proper’ pizza, the way it should be.

Caramelized onions, spinach and Gorgonzola

Gloucester Old Spot ham, mozzarella, buffalo ricotta, and wild mushrooms

Tomato, garlic, oregano, olives, capers, anchovies and mozzarella

Along with a side salad (to tell myself I was being healthy) and a delicious glass of cloudy apple juice, we were three very content girls. A real treat and astonishingly cheap! What a delight.

Date Night

Here’s a little bit of inspiration for date night cooking. Who out there thinks chicken wrapped in streaky bacon and stuffed with Boursin cheese is a ‘posh’ thing to cook for a date? Yes, I admit it was one of the first things I learnt to cook but, for a date? Really? If you’re hoping for a kiss then Boursin, as delicious as it is, on your breath is like the antithesis of sexy. So I’ve come up with a more exciting, fail-safe recipe and, because I’m a nice person, I’ve also added a cocktail recipe AND dessert to make sure get your girl. Of course this isn’t only aimed at boys, so girls listen up too. I’m not trying to be patronising with this post as I know most people can be inventive cooks, but this is for those who would like a little bit of a helping hand when under pressure to impress.

Note to all the boys out there: the good way to start a date is with a cocktail. Every girl loves a cocktail, and I promise you she will be impressed. This is my take on a Disaronno Sour. It’s a cocktail with a bit of sweet and sour: heady amaretto with a good squeeze of lemon juice to cut through the sweetness, topped up with ginger ale and ice, not forgetting the fancy lemon rind and stem ginger garnish - a great way to start off the evening.

Disaronno Sour

Generous shot of Disaronno

Juice of half a lemon

Top with Ginger Ale.

Ice

Ginger & Syrup Cheesecake

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gingerandsyrupcheese_86366

You actually need to start with the dessert: you should do it the night before, as it will need to set. Above is the link to the James Martin recipe and method for ginger cheesecake, but my suggestion would be to mix cream cheese with some marscapone. This cheesecake is so easy to make and tastes delicious. I used old champagne glasses, but you can also put them in ramekins. (Its worth holding on to Gu pudding pots as they make useful ramekins).

Chicken breast stuffed with chorizo, thyme, parsley, lemon, garlic (tiny bit) and cream cheese, wrapped in parma ham, with trimmed asparagus and herby new potatoes.

This is something you can prepare earlier on in the day so you can appear cool as a cucumber and super organised. This is a more exciting version of the classic date meal.

Ingredients

Chicken breast x2

Half a chorizo sausage

4 Slices of parma ham

Thyme

Parsley

Lemon

Garlic

New Potatoes

Asparagus

Method

Oven 200C

Start by crushing two garlic cloves and place them in a little oil (to flavour). Chop the chorizo into small pieces and lightly fry them to heighten the flavour and release all of the spicy oils until they crisp up. Remove from the heat.

Chop up a handful of thyme and parsley, zest the lemon and mix the ingredients with the cream cheese, adding good bit of seasoning (not too much salt as the parma ham will make up for this). Make a pocket in one side of the chicken breast by cutting a line through the meat (but not all the way through!). First stuff in the chorizo pieces, followed by the cream cheese filling. Place two pieces of the parma ham under the chicken fillet and wrap them around the chicken. Don’t worry about any holes, these will release a bit of the filling whilst the chicken cooks and will help create a sauce.

Place the stuffed fillets on to individual sheets of foil with a little of the chorizo oil (drained from the pan) underneath to stop it sticking. Top with a little extra thyme and wrap the foil around it in a loose parcel, leaving space in the top. Put these parcels into the oven on a baking tray for 30 minutes.

While the chicken is in the oven prepare the asparagus by breaking off the tough ends and trimming the bottoms with a peeler.

Cook for thirty minutes. Ten minutes before the chicken comes out, put the new potatoes on to boil and place the asparagus in a colander ready to steam. After thirty minutes, pull the chicken out of the oven and open the foil parcel and then return to the oven to allow the parma ham to crisp. Put the asparagus on to steam for around three minutes; you want them to be tender but still have a slight crunch. Drain the new potatoes once they are cooked, and chop up the remaining herbs and throw them in with the potatoes with a dash of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Give it a good toss.

Remove the chicken from the oven and plate up!

And now for the dessert. Saunter over to the fridge casually, popping on a bit of Barry White on your way, and pull out these heavenly cheesecakes (rose in your mouth is optional). By this point, she will be eating out of your hand…….