Monthly Archives: September 2011

The weekend before last, we went to a wedding in Suffolk. (The exceptionally fine wedding cake is shown above, in a state of somewhat debauched disarray.) Thanks to rather a lot of rioja, it was necessary, that fine September Sunday, to walk two and a half hours to collect the car. It was sort of worth it though, because of the bounty of autumnal fruit in the hedgerows. Blackberries, obviously (every year I forget that the big juicy ones are always rubbish – go for the tight, pinched looking ones…)

Sloes, rosehips, damsons, and, most excitingly of all, because I wasn’t quite sure of myself when pointing them out, wet walnuts (obviously – fresh from the tree):

There were also some cute wee apples, which turned out to be utterly, inedibly sour (although, I think, not small enough to qualify as any sort of crab):

(Actually, I’m still gorging myself on the much more palatable apples brought back from Richard’s parents’ very enviable orchard at the beginning of the month:…although sadly the plums and the pears are long gone.)

Anyway, that was another weekend, another wedding. When we finally got back to London, with half a dozen squashed damsons and a couple of slightly frayed tempers, it was to find a foraged feast waiting, courtesy of some rather more diligent hunter gatherers. Alex and Jon presented us with a Sophie Grigson-inspired cobnut pilaff (cobnuts are always one of those things I intend to buy, and then never get around to cooking. Time is running out, so I’m glad I scoffed two helpings of this):followed (and served up, just in time for Downton Abbey), by blackberry crumble pie. And custard. Bird’s custard. Utter autumnal bliss.

 Last weekend was also East Anglian – north Norfolk this time. We held a Come Dine With Me competition on the Saturday night (yeah, I know how to live), complicated by some rather tricksy restrictions. First of all, no gluten or dairy. Or, not much at least. Secondly (and more importantly as far as I’m concerned), no anchovies or cauliflower – once I realised Alex didn’t like them, they were all I could think about. And lastly, everything had to go with a great big bottle of Dead Arm Shiraz a kind soul had brought us for our birthday in June… easy enough for the main course, less attractive for a starter, especially with no cheese allowed.

With no time to make a terrine, and no smoked meat in evidence in the village (a place so very down-to-earth it was easier to find gluten-free amaretti than pears), I was tearing my hair out, until I happened upon two mysteriously premature partridge in the butchers. Defrosted or not, they made an excellent salad with some watercress, garnished with local apples and walnuts caramelised in even more local honey, and tossed with a cider vinaigrette.

Alex had an easier ride with the main course, opting for roast lamb with rosemary, served with roasted garlic and a beetroot and horseradish bake. I’m not mad keen on beetroot without vinegar (you can take a girl out of the 80s…) but, with the intensely savoury lamb, it was rather nice. Not as nice as potato would have been though, obviously.

And Richard made some chestnut-flour brownies, according to a David Leibowitz recipe. For some reason, possibly the gas oven, possibly the vegan marge, they didn’t quite solidify. But they were very tasty in any case. Even tastier when I won. (Actually, Alex and I drew, but I scraped ahead by virtue of my beetroot-related stoicism. So, basically, I won. After that, how could mere fish and chips hope to compete?

Last weekend I found myself in Lucerne, writing a travel piece about that most Helvetic of cities (well, it calls itself a city. Apart from the surprising number of people hanging around on the waterfront with plastic bags full of booze – which became less surprising when we saw the price of alcohol – it seemed more like a prosperous and picturesque little town to this particular Londoner). On Sunday, we sneaked smoked ham rolls from the hotel breakfast buffet, and caught the early train to the edge of the Bernese Oberland – where, a good six hours, and about 700 meters upward later, I met this cow, which I hold directly responsible for this spinach dumpling dish at the Rathaus Brauerei (microbrewery), which, I believe, was described coyly as coming “with Appenzeller”:

and this spinach käsekuchen that sent me skipping heavily along the path from Meiringen (birthplace of the meringue, no less – but no sign of them at 8am on a Sunday morning, the godless hussies) to Grindelwald:

It looks burnt, but actually, it was just chock-a-block with spinach, and thus represented, for Switzerland, remarkably good value (I think it cost about £14. Say no more.) There was also the cheesiest sandwich I have ever not finished (even cheesier than Kappacasein’s alpine overload), and a moitié-moitié fondue, made from half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois, with the result that, by the end of the weekend, I was starting to believe that it really was possible to eat too much cheese. It isn’t, of course – I was just hallucinating. Probably because of the cheese.

Other things we ate included some pleasingly delicate roasted veal sausages on sauerkraut, also at the brewery:

and an extraordinary dish I sadly forgot to record the name of; a vol au vent filled with veal and pork meatballs, grated apples and raisins, gilded with a slightly sweet cream and wine sauce.

I also spotted some wild strawberries growing in the shady, wooded path up into the mountains – they were good, but not as muskily aromatic as the Provencal ones the legumier used to sell for €5 a punnet.

And, of course, there was beer (and one slightly apricotty, fragrant Swiss white wine, a Grand Cru de Nyon) – banana-scented light ale, and a clovey weissbeer, and everything tasting better with a view…