Fake Plastic Lemons

The first rule of Fight Club is: don't talk about Fight Club.

The first rule of Chinese Whispers Club is: don't talk about Tiny Whiskers Grub.

The first rule of Pancake club is: throw your first one away and don't talk about it.

I don't know why I am harping on randomly about rules and the like. I was going to write a post about pancakes but it seems like half the world and their dog is giving their advice on pancakes today. In fact, it suddenly feels quite incongruous and facile to give tips and advice on how to mix eggs, milk and flour. It's not rocket science.

And plus someone else lifted the curtain on the heart of the matter two years ago, with this simple post and now I really am at a loss at what to say about pancakes.

Seriously, the wind has truly been taken out of my sails.

Bastard.

However, I would like to throw a yellow, plastic, oval-shaped grenade into the mix.

Given that the food retail industry is currently disintegrating before our very eyes with wandering accusations of fraud, criminal activity and skulduggery, perhaps it would be fitting for us to all go out and buy some Jif for our pancakes tonight. We all seem to be going to hell in a handcart so a short, sharp squeeze of concentrated citrus topped up with E223 is hardly going to hurt now is it.

I am talking Jif lemon juice by the way, not the cleaning stuff.

Moustache Lunchbox

For the last month or so I have been sporting some fantastically curious facial topiary on my boat race. Namely a 'handlebar' moustache. Ginger, wiry and oh so funky. Why? Well I recently got involved with a little project with the guys at Movember, purveyors of the 'Mo' and fundraisers extraordinaire, more of which I hope to divulge at a later date but naturally, any association with this charity requires a submission of the razor blade and a commitment to grow to a hairy caterpillar under your nose. So I went for it with great aplomb. I have to say though that opinion on the Mo has been divided, with some detractors commenting that I resemble a German porn star, a member of some cult or worse still, a Victorian paedophile. But other folk have been quite kind. Sophisticated, suave and sexy are just some of the adjectives that have swung my way, the latter coming from my good wife so I've persevered and I have to say, I reckon a lot of people are starting to look at me in a different light. Just the other day for instance, a gentleman in the public lavatory at Upminster station whispered across the urinals at me and asked if I was a friend of Dorothy. "I might be", I replied back, smiling conspiratorially before continuing with "didn't she used to serve behind the bar at The Golden Lion in Romford?" It turned out I that got the wrong Dorothy but still, he was a lovely guy to talk to. I've got his number at home, somewhere.

Accidental cottaging episodes aside, the really great thing about wearing a moustache becomes apparent at feeding time and let me just say, it really does make a difference to the whole process. Because to take a bite of cake, a slurp of soup, a nibble of cheese or a chomp of banana and to flick your tongue up and across, well it's blissful. And that's because (whisper it) with each mouthful, morsels and remnants of each bite often become trapped. Trapped by this unique, beautiful, baleen filter-feed type system. It's brilliant! It's like getting seconds before the seconds come out. Of course, I have been trying to spread the word, encouraging everyone I know to grow one, including my children and I've even boasting on Twitter about this new found application for a Mo, stating that the great thing about having a moustache is that you can store crumbs to snack on at a later date. Unfortunately the response so far has been fairly muted, apart from the faint sound of an electronic 'boak' across the ether of the Internet but then Eat Natural, the muesli bar people dropped me a line and asked would I like to try out their range of bars on my 'tache. I kid you not! They sent me loads. Thus began a bonkers experiment to test the viscosity, flavour and sticky attributes of Eat Natural bars, the hypothesis being - which of these breakfast bars, with the help of my beloved moustache, would help see me through a working day?

These are the results.

Toasted muesli bar with orange marmalade - A disappointing start as the muesli flake to moustache yield was quite low with only a solitary puffed speck of rice attaching after first bite. But still, the tangy aftertaste of the marmalade was quite pleasant.

Cranberries, macadamias and dark chocolate - After making a first crunch down upon this bar, I was quite pleased that a singular cranberry and piece of macadamia flew off and attached themselves in uniformity under each nostril. Fashionable but still not making the grade for sustainability.

Almonds, apricot and yoghurt coating - Now we're talking. One bite and this bar exploded and peppered my Mo with a luxurious even crispy, fruity base, ready to be picked off at intervals throughout the day. I would like to work on reserving yoghurt deposits in the corner of mouth with this one.

Dark 70% chocolate, brazils and apricots - Highly decadent with the chocolate making a heavy, deep penetration of the Mo, excellent storage for frequent licks, especially for that coffee break at 11AM. Scores bonus points with the wife as passionate kiss at the end of the day ensures a cocoa hit too.

Brazils, sultanas, almonds, peanuts and hazelnuts - The best of the bunch by far. Dense, squidgy and packed with nuts. A total meal in a bar and could feed the rest of the office at a push . I just wish my tongue could reach the tip of my nose.

This was as far as I got with this experiment. I should have tested eight in total but after the fifth bar I felt slightly queasy and as we all know, well those who have ever grown one that is, the last thing you want to find in your moustache is a half digested carrot.

But thank you Eat Natural for sending the bars my way.

My 7 Links

OK. So really I should have written up a whole load of stuff by now. Stuff to do with bees, whisky, food crawls, beer crawls, crawling in general, a random chicken recipe, an argument in a certain wine bar in Borough Market that I swear was not my fault and a misadventure at Tas involving a face first dive straight into a bowl of taramasalata (the last two are linked). But I haven't. Not yet anyway. I have been very busy you see. Busy digging holes generally. Burning things. And putting stuff in the ground to cook. All in the name of supper clubbing. Plus Dickie the diabetic cat has killed my laptop by vomiting on it, therefore halting any progress on FU at home. Although that doesn't really matter because my blogging mojo seems to have disappeared altogether. I suspect that it's hiding down the back of the cooker somewhere, perhaps next to a mouldy carrot. So these are my excuses and they are pretty poor ones at that but luckily I have been nominated to take part in an intriguing little project called 'My 7 Links'. Like all good ideas, My 7 Links is a simple one which strives 'to unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again'. Any excuse to regurgitate posts from the past sounds great to me and I may carry on in this vein for the next few weeks until I run out of material. That won't take long so I better come up with something new.



But anyway, on with the project! Here are My 7 Links to stuff wot I wrote in the past and the categories are:



Your most beautiful post - er this one was the hardest to chose because I don't really consider my posts or photography to be heartwarming or aesthetically pleasing to the eye but am I fond of the colour green so it will have to be Wild Garlic Pesto, Soup, Bread, etc, etc, etc





Your most popular post - As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.... - Going by comments for this one, I think I tapped into the inherent catagelophobia you sometimes endure when walking into your local butchers.





Your most controversial post - Ten Hour Roast Lamb - Sponsored by Armitage Shanks - Some people were rather put off by my admission that I read cookbooks whilst on the throne. I don't know why.





Your most helpful post - In Search of OOMMAAAAMMMEEE Part 1 - For showing to the world that umami is a crock of sh......ugar. I did mean to do some more videos but dropped the ball on this one (story of my life).



A post whose success surprised you - Bag of Meat - This recent post surprised me because it got tons and tons of hits. But then again it did feature a bag of meat, so maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all really.







A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved - Meat is Murder - a rare restaurant review on FU and one of my first and no-one read it. No-one. Who cares if it didn't have photos of the food. Or if it prattled on about Bobby Gillespie. Or.........oh I don't know.



The post that you are most proud of - A Night In The Life Of The Food Urchin - because it was silly and great fun to write (and a brilliant night out).

Now all that remains for me is to pass the baton on to these rather fabulous bloggers of which there should be 5 (according to the rules):



Essex Eating

Gin and Grumpets

Roast Chicken and Red Wine

Lost In The Larder

Kavey Eats



And thanks to the BFB for the kick up the backside, sorry nomination.

Courgette Soup and Marrow Rum

It's all gone a bit mad down the allotment, especially with our courgette plants, they seem to be growing and fruiting at an exponential rate. Pick one healthy size specimen, return a couple of days later and bang, a pair of bruising green truncheons appear in it's place. Leave it a week or so and woof, the zucchini transform into massive weighty clubs, fit for cavemen and trolls. It must be the wet but warm weather we've been having. Although I think the fact that I've left the plant's man and lady parts alone this year has helped too. You know, their flowers. Last year, I kept snipping off these delicate golden blossoms for stuffing and tempura, ignorant of the fact that I was making the plant less fertile and the yield was a lot lower as result. I feel a bit ashamed actually. The arguments I must have caused due to tension, frustration and feelings of inadequacy. The turning of backs, hitting of pillows, whispered name calling, 'flopsie wopsie', oh dear. But like I said, I have let the bees and Mother Nature do their thang this season and we really are reaping the benefits. So much so that we appear to be heading towards a 'glut' - a word which in itself seems have connotations of wanton abandonment - and so I have had to resort to extreme measures to cull the tide. In other words, I've been making soup, that great subjugator of excess food stuffs.

Courgette soup comes in many guises and with this fruit as a base, it seems like you can run off in various directions. During research on t'internet, I discovered that carrot, mint, watercress, curry powder (a Pear Cafe suggestion), tomatoes, chickpeas all make happy bedfellows but yesterday I plumped for a traditional Italian combination of courgette and parmesan. This is a slightly bastardised version of a recipe I found here to accommodate the quantity of courgettes I had. I also omitted some ingredients such as the cream simply because I didn't have any lying around in the fridge but I am not sure the soup needs it as courgettes do have an inherent, lush creaminess when cooked nice and soft which goes well the salty bite of the cheese. Great served warm but I bet it would be equally delicious cold.

Courgette and Parmesan Soup
serves 4 (with some to go in the freezer afterwards)

ingredients

50 gms butter and a healthy splash of olive oil

5 garlic gloves, chopped

handful of basil leaves, chopped

1 bay leaf

1 and half kgs of courgettes, quartered and sliced into 1cm rounds

1 litre of vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Vegetable Boullion)

100 gms of finely grated parmesan cheese, plus some to serve

salt and pepper, for seasoning

method

Take a large pan and heat oil and butter until its foams and then add the courgettes, garlic, basil and bay leaf and cook gently for 10 minutes or so until courgettes are soft.

Take about a quarter of courgettes out and then add the stock and simmer for 10 minutes, remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly, take out the bay leaf and then blitz in a food processor or blender.

Pour the soup back into the pan and place onto a low heat, add the cheese and stir through until it has melted and warmed through. Season for taste, although you probably won't need much salt. Ladle into a bowl and spoon some of the reserved courgette into the middle. Sprinkle with some extra parmesan and drizzle some extra virgin olive oil around the outside of your courgette pile for poncy presentation effect.

Courgette and Parmesan Soup

Now I was always of the opinion that marrows were just overgrown courgettes and as they both member of the squash family, it's not too far flung a belief to behold. After all, when a courgette becomes huge and bloated with water it tastes exactly like marrow and therefore is pretty bland to boot. This didn't discourage us in sowing some marrow seeds earlier this year but after facing this recent onslaught of courgettes, I've been scratching around for alternatives this Daddy which rose into view across the allotment path like "wot no" Chad.

Again, I did a bit of research online and some unusual ideas did come up such as marrow and ginger jam which is pretty intriguing but then my eyes zeroed in on a recipe for marrow which featured the magic word 'Rum'. And then a ping of deja vu zipped through my brain. 'Didn't Helen of Food Stories say she was going to make rum with a big, fat marrow that I gave her as part of WMPC?' I asked her on Twitter and the answer was verily, "No! Bugger! Didn't get around to it".

I think I got to the shops and back within ten minutes, juggling bags of demerara sugar.

So yes, I am now on a journey to procure some of my very own hooch. There are many questions surrounding this project. Such as will this actually bloody well work? And what is the legality of making your own rum at home? Is it in fact rum or something entirely else? Grog? Minging marrowy mead? To be honest, I haven't got the faintest clue to any of these questions but still, it is all rather exciting and I hope to report back in a few weeks time with the outcome. My only real reservation is an innate worry that the stuff will turn out to be as potent as some poteen that I tried way back in my uni days, having been smuggled in from Ireland. After only a couple of glugs, I had a conversation with Elvis, went blind in one eye and woke up in a pool of my own vomit and urine. I doubt or at least very much hope that the same will happen here. In the meantime, here is a little pictorial of the first stages of my making marrow rum. Kids, don't try this at home.

Take your marrow, cut the stem end off and hollow out all the pith and seeds.

Fill the cavity with demerara sugar (roughly 3kgs)

Pour in some orange juice and activated bread yeast (not pictured)

Stir and marvel at the concoction and wonder, will it work? Will it?

Place stem end back on top, seal with sellotape and leave for 3 weeks in a muslin bag (not pictured). The second stage involves some filtering into a demi john or something but I haven't got that far yet. Whoop!

Basket Case

I am a big fan of The Fox and Anchor gastropub in Smithfield as they always have great beers on tap, the food is good, the staff are friendly and the decor exudes a wonderful olde worlde charm with it's snugs, nooks and crannies. All in all a great formula really. And as it's close to where I work, I frequent the place a fair bit. Be it for lunch, some post-work lubrication and.....oh what the hell, sometimes for a sneaky one at breakfast time. But before you cast any aspersions, let me just say that early morning imbibing is part and parcel of life in this part of London. The butchers and porters of Smithfield meat market put in a hard, hard days work well before the rest of the city wakes up and sets their wavering, meandering toes on cold carpets. So we deserve a pint in the morning and I say 'we' because I start work at 6:30AM so that qualifies me, OK? Flagrant denials aside, a pilgrimage to EC1 to undertake The Fox and Anchor's massive City Boy Breakfast is a must. Simply because it is really very good indeed. Just make sure you free up a couple of hours afterwards to digest the plethora of meat before trying to exit the building. So yes I like this place. A lot.

The Fox and Anchor City Boy Breakfast (photo courtesy of Essex Eating)

If I had any gripes it would be that the pub is far too narrow in places which to my mind makes it a haven for frottaging and just lately I've started to notice a slightly gimmicky element with the presentation of their food. Which may well have been there all along but on my last visit I was piqued just a tad. I went last Friday to meet the very mysterious Uncle Ji for a long overdue WMPC swap (post to come shortly, well maybe in a month or two) and ordered chish and fips, what with it being a Friday and all. And when it arrived, it all looked delightful. Firm, crisp beer batter surrounding a moist, generous portion of cod, chunky triple cooked chips and a lovely dollop of mushy peas with a healthy boat of tartare sauce. Fantastic. Except the chish and fips came served up in a frying basket. Now I am not a delicate diner at the best of times, yet mindful that I was eating with a stranger I did try my best to put on some airs and graces. However the basket did not allow this. In fact trying to deconstruct my lunch with arms shortened and wrists pointed in a curious downward fashion felt very odd indeed. It was as if I had been reduced to some kind of Tyrannosaurus Rex picking up cutlery for the very first time. After a few minutes of preening and prodding and pinging of said knife and fork onto the floor, I gave up and emptied the whole lot onto the plate, casually throwing the basket over my shoulder. I say that the Fox and Anchor could do without this kind of nonsense and frippery and in future would do well to serve their delicious fare straight up on plates. It would certainly save on the washing up. So please, no more baskets and if you could widen the room just a touch, it would be much appreciated.

That is all.

Fish and Chips in a basket (when it could be on a plate)

Variety is the spice of life

I had pie and mash twice this week for lunch. Greedy yes but I haven't had this beloved dish of mine for a while and besides it's bloody freezing out there. When it gets this parky, there's nothing like walking into a pie and mash shop and being enveloped by a hot, steaming fug that whiffs faintly of vinegar and eel juice. It's like being cuddled by your Nan. Not that my Nan smells of vinegar and eels of course. No, she smells of Special Brew*.

For the first excursion I went to Clark's in Exmouth Market and yesterday I popped into our local cafe Roy's Pie and Mash in Hornchurch and as you can see from their splendid Facebook page, Roy cuts a fine dash. This pie and mash shop comes with all the usual, comfortable trappings. The black and white tiles, the formica tabletops upon which salt, white pepper and huge bottles of 'Vinneys' vinegar sit, the aforementioned steam and the slow and steady stream of pensioners who seem to eat nothing but pie and mash all day. For extra authenticity, the walls of Roy's are adorned with tributes to the mighty, mighty Hammers, pictures of Billy Bonds and Trevor Brooking in their heyday, clutching the FA Cup way back in 1980, the last time the mighty, mighty Hammers ever won anything. And in the corner is your obligatory Krays tribute, a massive placard of those boys who looked after their own and kicked in the teeth of others. Even though I wasn't actually born, I was in The Blind Beggar the night Jack the Hat got it you know. Along with everyone else from the East End**.

Anyway it's all very cosy, nostalgic and cockney and I love it. What I love even more is the menu in Roy's. You'd be hard pressed to make your mind up, I can tell you that. It goes something like this.

Pie & Liquor - 2.20p

Pie & Mash - 3.00p

Pie & 2 Mash - 3.80p

2 Pie & Mash - 4.70p

2 Pie & 2 Mash - 5.50p

2 Pie & Liquor - 3.90p

2 Mash & Liquor - 2.10p

Eels & Mash -3.70p

Eels, Pie & Mash -5.40p

Mash & Liquor - 1.30p

Eels & Liquor - 2.90p

Jellied Eels - 2.50p

2 Pie, Mash, Liquor & Eels - 7.00p

See, the possibilities are endless and it never fails to make me smile as I stand there at the counter, desperately struggling to make my mind up.

*PS My Nan doesn't really smell of Special Brew..............oooooh fack, she's gonna ring my gregory when she sees this.

** And it wasn't Jack the Hat, it was George Cornell, just checked on google.