(Not up for the chitchat? Completely get it. Click the email title to go to a web-based version then jump straight to the recipe or Cultural Fun.
I am well thank you! I’m having a busy but good week after a very pleasant weekend and went for a run this morning so may have just tipped over from “productive” to “smug”.
I think I belong to three book groups, although it might be five if you include a dormant local one and a splinter group of the most active. There’s the Guilty Pleasures Book Group I mentioned last week with reference to Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, one originally set up by my sister-in-law which has been going fifteen years or more and the sporadic-but-always-fun Cookbook Club put together by my friend Rachel.
It was the latter of these that met on Saturday for a meal based around the food in Nora Ephron’s roman à clef Heartburn. The book is a fictionalised account of her divorce from journalist Carl Bernstein (of Watergate reporting fame - what a power couple!) and stands up incredibly well. It was written in the early 80s so some of the sexual politics is a bit dated but it’s still simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. The central character, Rachel Samstat, is a food writer and it’s sprinkled through with chatty, very do-able recipes (there’s even an index at the back so you can find them easily).
Rachel made a gorgeous peach pie for dessert, Hayley brought “Lillian Hellman’s pot roast” (made with not one but two instant soups: a packet of dried onion and a tin of cream of mushroom), Sally did a lovely salad (bitter leaves with the vinaigrette that is a motif throughout the novel*) and some fabulous mashed potatoes (a ricer is important and they must be boiled whole and unpeeled).
I contributed linguine all cecca (hot pasta tossed with raw tomato and basil sauce) and, possibly the book’s most contentious recipe, lima beans with pears.
It wasn’t totally easy. For a start lima beans aren’t really a thing in the UK. My research revealed that they are the same thing as butter beans but picked younger. So I tried using a mix of butter beans and skinned broad beans. I needn’t have bothered with the broad beans - after 12 hours in the oven they were indiscernible.
It also wasn’t totally worth it. In the novel Rachel credits the recipe to her mother but in real life Ephron said it came from Lee Bailey, a writer and interior designer famous for his gently opinionated views on elegant living and entertaining. In a lovely New Yorker piece about her favourite cookery writers Ephron said of the recipe: “unfortunately, I left out the brown sugar, and for years people told me they’d tried cooking the recipe and it didn’t work”.
I managed to track down Bailey’s original recipe to find out how much sugar to add but wish I hadn’t. With treacle subbing for molasses, sugar and pears the beans were very sweet. Tasty enough but we all agreed they were the one dish we wouldn’t make again.
It was a really fun occasion though. A chance to discuss food, the book, the wonder of Nora Ephron generally (if you don’t agree that When Harry Met Sally is the greatest romcom of all time, sorry but you are straight-up wrong) and much else besides whilst eating some things we might not have necessarily cooked otherwise but will definitely enter the repertoire.
In the past our Cookbook Club has done mainly traditional cookbooks but I enjoyed this foray into fiction too. Either way, a recommended activity!
* “Mix 2 tablespoons Grey Poupon mustard with 2 tablespoons good red wine vinegar. Then, whisking constantly with a fork, slowly add 6 tablespoons olive oil, until the vinaigrette is thick and creamy; this makes a very strong vinaigrette that’s perfect for salad greens like arugula and watercress and endive.”
Walthamstow Supper Club
I’m delighted to announce that tickets for my supper club at the Lacy Nook in Walthamstow are now on sale.
They’re £65 per person and include a welcome cocktail. I’m very excited about the menu which is a proper autumnal feast including my two favourite thing to feed people: fresh pasta and fermented flavours.
It is as follows: Snacks Kimchi devilled eggs Jerusalem artichoke and goats curd Pickle plate Focaccia
Fresh Pasta Dauphinoise ravioli Pappardelle with beef cheek ragu/four mushroom ragu
Seasonal Salads Pumpkin, radicchio and ruby kraut Charred greens
Dessert Preserved lemon parfait baked Alaska
There will be two events, both with the same menu, on Wednesdays November 20th and 27th. I’d love to see you at one of them!
An easy umami boost. You will need a scrupulously clean jar. I used a 750ml one.
Ingredients
2 sticks celery
1 onion
1 carrot
1 leek
1 fennel
4 garlic cloves
1/2 fennel bulb
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig rosemary
2 bay leaves
small bunch parsely (stalks only)
1 tbsp black peppercorns
4% brine
Method
Prepare the veg. Wash all the veg. Trim the celery. Peel and trim the carrot. Trim the root off the leek and remove any tough outer layers. Cut all three into lengths just a little shorter than your jar is high. Peel and quarter the onion. Trim and quarter the fennel. Peel the garlic cloves.
Put everything in the jar. Add the garlic, herbs and peppercorns to the jar (I prefer to put them at the bottom to stop them floating around) and put in the veg on top. Pack it as tight as possible.
Add the brine. Pour over your 4% brine (eg. a brine made with 4g of salt for every 100ml water. You will probably need about 300ml). Make sure all your vegetables are submerged.
Weigh down and leave to ferment. Add something to keep the veg from floating up - a pickle weight, some discarded veg offcuts or similar. I quite like using half an onion. Leave the jar at room temperature, burping and tasting reularly, until the veg and brine are pleasantly tart with umami notes but the veg still retains a little natural sweetness. About a week, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.
Blitz into a paste. Drain the veg, reserving the brine, and remove the herb sprigs. If your food processor has a powerful motor you can leave the peppercorns in. If not, fish them out too. Blitz until everything is reduced to a fine paste. Then put back in to the jar and keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks or else freeze in an ice cube tray for your own homemade stockcubes.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
You could add parsley (leaves too this time) and a couple of fresh garlic cloves before blitzing. You could even add a bit of fresh carrot and celery for a milder version.
Don’t waste the brine itself. Use it as a stock in soups and stews or to cook grains in. It also makes a nice salad dressing. One tablespoon brine, one tablespoon cider vinegar, and two tablespoons of cold-pressed rapeseed oil, whisked or shaken together and seasoned with salt and pepper.
I made a very simple brothy soup for lunch. 100g paste for 500g water. A handful of pearl barley cooked until tender and some sautéed greens added at the end.
Cultural Fun
I enjoyed Apple Day at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens although not everyone was quite so enthusiastic. There was a massive queue to get into the apple tasting tent and the couple behind us seemed underwhelmed. I asked what they had been expecting. Apple-themed rollercoasters? High-kicking dancers dressed as Cox’s Orange Pippins? They admitted they weren’t quite sure but more than the tasting, activities and crafts on show.
They had a fair point. It’s billed as quite a big deal and tickets were a tenner. But I was there to taste apples and I got to taste a bunch of apples so I was happy. My favourite was the Rubinette. Seemingly a lot of other people’s favourite too since it was sold out but I shall look for it elsewhere.
Also the Botanics is just one of my absolute favourite places ever and I’m always happy to visit. It was looking lovely and autumnal and I had a particularly nice time sniffing things with my niece in the scented garden.
The free outdoor Frieze Sculpture exhibition finishes this weekend. It is usually a must-see for me but I totally forgot about it this year until today. James and I popped along in the late afternoon sunlight and found it a bit boring. Too much obvious symbolism and various sculptures that weren’t really sculptures but venues for performance art pieces that we’d missed. Which seems like a cheat.
But I liked this fake archeological floor and this strange bollock creature.
I also liked this sign from the Metropolitan Police which, before I realised it was a warning about crime, seemed like an exhortation to enjoy the world around you. It’s always nice to see art outside a gallery context, even if it doesn’t particularly speak to you, so I did.
Bye! See you next week!
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