It’s a lovely place. There are small plates by a succession of guest chefs, beautiful cocktails and a well-chosen wine list. The vibe is sophisticated yet cosy - I’ve been several times and always left feeling very happy.
I mention it now because the reel was celebrating the restaurant’s supper club origin story - a chapter I’m delighted to have played a part in. It was Pasero founder Genevieve Sparrow who invited me to cook my first supper clubs, back in the strange post-lockdown days of Summer 2021. She was taking over the cafe in Downhills Park for regular weekend events and wanted a chef - her husband Tim had cooked for the first few but childcare had become an issue so they needed someone else in the kitchen. I’m forever grateful that Genevieve took a chance on a person she happened across on Instagram!
We did a bunch of events together over 2021 and 2022 and they were so much fun: twinkly, fairy-lit occasions (even on the days it rained…). I learned a lot: about cooking and creativity and collaboration. (Hmm. I didn’t realise that sentence was going to have so many C words in it when I started writing it.)
Her bricks-and-mortar success meant that I had to find other other front-of-house collaborators, leading me to Lizzy’s and another venue for this autumn to be revealed very soon. I can’t believe it’s been two years but am so pleased Pasero is doing well
TLDR: if you live near Tottenham you should go to Pasero. It’s nice. And I have more supper clubs coming soon. If you want to know about them, you should make sure you’re subscribed…
Workshops and classes
I had fun on Tuesday teaching a workshop at the Forest Flora Plot to Plate Edible Community Garden in Walthamstow. It was a beautiful, sunny September evening and we made a kraut flavoured with chard and herbs from the garden and brine-pickled their late season tomatoes.
If you fancy doing something similar, you can see upcoming ticketed classes on my events page but don’t forget I’m also available for private lessons and corporate events. I can offer reduced rates for community projects, WI, U3A or similar. Get in touch for more details.
Another little reminder that the full In Good Taste archive is currently free to explore. The Thursday newsletter is always free to your inbox and each issue remains so for four weeks, accessible via the Substack website or app. After that though the archive becomes for paid subscribers only. But to celebrate the lovely, easily-navigable Index page that I made, it’s currently free for everyone so have a browse…
Or if you enjoy the newsletter please share it with a foodie friend. That would mean a lot to me too (and get your on your way to unlocking a complimentary month’s subscription via the referral programme).
A rare non-fermented recipe this week, the happy result of a cellar clear out over the summer.
The clear-out itself wasn’t happy. It was simultaneously dusty and damp and I spent far too long getting distracted by old reporters notebooks from my newspaper days. I should probably get rid of them but they are too tantalisingly full of barely-legible wisps of information. Some random highlights included insights from a relationship expert into the psychology of women drawn to men in prison, notes for a travel piece on mazes made of maize and an interview with Jilly Cooper. My journalistic career was nothing if not varied.
The cellar is also where the booze lives. We don’t have anything as fancy as a “wine cellar” but we’ve got a couple of racks where bottles accumulate. I do the odd Wine Society order or occasionally someone gives us a nice bottle as a gift. Mostly though it’s just plonk leftover from parties
I remember when the idea of leftover booze was an alien concept. One thing about getting older is that house parties no longer end at 4am after “cocktails” made from whatever bottle remnants could be rustled up. (The Halloween night where creme de menthe came into play was a low.) Instead they tail off before 10pm as friends go home to relieve babysitters and leave you with more wine and beer than you started with.
Anyway. That stuff can stay. I can take it to a party at someone else’s house for them to store in their cellar and the circle of life can continue.
But a few more random things needed a home. Including a bottle of tsikoudia we bought on holiday in Crete in (I think) 2017.
Tsikoudia is basically Greek raki - a fiery spirit made from grape pomace, the solids remaining after grapes are pressed for winemaking. You often get given some at the end of meal. We bought the bottle after a tour and tasting at the Manousakis Winery near Chania. James had a theory that we were going to have a Greek-themed dinner party and give people shots at the end. Obviously this never happened.
I didn’t want to drink the tsikoudia but I didn’t want to waste it either. I poured it over some dried apricots and figs and gave them a day or so to plump up. I thought I’d bake something with the boozy fruit. I wasn’t sure what but I wanted it to be Greek so, after much browsing of books and online recipe sites, hit upon portokalopita, a cake made with crumbled filo instead of flour and traditionally soaked in an orangey syrup.
My recipe is an amalgam but particular credit should go to the Bitzas sisters and their Mia Kouppa website.
With its addition of fruit to the cake, spirit to the syrup and sesame to the top my version may not be wholly traditional but it was delicious. And large. It was baked in a 12x8 inch tin and cut it into 18 pieces. The amount was dictated by the size of a pack of filo pastry but obviously scale down if you can find a use for the remainder…
Ingredients for the boozy fruit
100g dried figs, hard stem top removed
100g dried apricots
tsikoudia to cover
Ingredients for the syrup
2 oranges (approimately 150ml juice)
250ml water
200g caster sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 vanilla pod, split
80ml tsikoudia from soaking the fruits
1 teaspoon orange blossom water
Ingredients for the cake
450g filo pastry
100g caster sugar
200g Greek yoghurt
200ml olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
the tsikoudia soaked fruit, chopped
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Method
Zest then juice the oranges. Put the zest in a mixing bowl (or bowl of a stand mixer) and the juice in a small saucepan.
Make the syrup. Add the water, sugar and spices to the orange juice in the pan, mix and heat gently to dissolve the sugar. Then bring to a boil and allow to bubble away until syrupy. Let it cool then strain out the spices and add the orange blossom water and tsikoudia.
Dry the filo. Sheet by sheet, runkle the filo up and place it on a baking sheet. You’ll probably need two sheets to accommodate it all. They should look like ruched fabric. Put the sheets in a 150°C oven for 15-20 minutes, switching the position of the trays and flipping over the ruched pastry halfway through. Once it is all completely dry leave the pastry to cool. Meanwhile line or grease a baking tin and increase the oven temperature to 180°C.
Beat the eggs and sugar. Put the eggs and sugar into the mixing bowl with the orange zest and beat with an electric whisk (or stand mixer) until pale and fluffy. This will probably take about five minutes.
Add the other ingredients. Add the yoghurt, oil, vanilla extract, salt, baking soda and baking powder to the egg mixture and beat briefly, just to combine evenly.
Crumble in the filo and add the fruit. Scrunch the crisp filo pastry between your hands to break it into small pieces: crumbs and shards. Add it to the egg mixture along with the fruit and mix to combine. Sprinkle the top with sesame seeds.
Bake. Bake at 180°C for 45 minutes or until risen and golden brown. A skewer or knife should come out clean.
Add the syrup. Poke holes all over the top of the cake and pour on the syrup. Allow each addition to absorb before adding the next. Allow to cool then slice and enjoy.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
If you don’t have tsikoudia then any other strong, brandy-like spirit will do. Or if you don’t want to use alchohol brew some strong tea instead and pour that over the fruit.
This is good on its own but better with a spoonful of Greek yoghurt, a scoop of ice cream or a trickle of cream.
The cake keeps really well. Just wrap the baking tin in foil.
Cultural Fun
We went to see Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at the Old Vic at the weekend and really enjoyed it. Originally staged in 1982 it feels very fresh. Very Stoppard structurally with various plays-within-the-play. Very witty but sincere and sentimental too.
Everyone was good but James McArdle was particularly impressive as the playwright Henry expressing himself (sometimes pompously, sometimes tenderly) about love and betrayal and art.
We got decent stalls seats for cheap-ish on TodayTix and it was one of my favourite plays I’ve seen in a while.
I’m delighted to have a new season of Only Murders In The Building to watch. I really love this show and everyone I’ve recommended it to has thanked me later. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez (plus an incredible supporting cast) manage to combine ridiculous comedy hijinks and genuinely pacy whodunnit plots with a subtle sadness.
And not just because people keep getting murdered. There are through-lines about aging and identity and the difficulty of finding love. When you like a show you want to watch it all at once. When you really like it you want to eke it out.
I just finished reading Miranda July’s (much talked-about) novel All Fours and am still reeling. An exploration of what it means to be a woman in mid-life it doesn’t shy away from anything. Desire, hormones, marriage, motherhood, art, identity, gender, sexuality, patriarchy.
If you are a perimenopausal woman, or know a perimenopausal woman or one day will be a perimenopausal woman you should read this book. Not necessarily as a blueprint, just as a way of starting conversations about how life might be lived.
I noticed that July thanked Sheila Heti in the acknowledgements. I read her (sort-of) novel Motherhood a few years ago and found it equally impactful in thinking about what it means to be a woman and try to find fulfilment.
Bye! See you next week!
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In Good Taste is a Sycamore Smyth newsletter by me, Clare Heal. You can also find me on Instagram or visit my website to find information about my catering work, cookery lessons and upcoming events.
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