tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-227944232024-03-07T21:18:52.463+00:00Compulsive CookThe woes and triumphs of a compulsive cook.Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-83549706668049618582010-04-29T20:36:00.000+00:002010-04-29T20:36:26.358+00:00Bread in the drawerFor a year as a difficult teenager, I lived in the house of my godmother, her husband and their three children. It's a lovely house - a huge Victorian end of terrace monstrosity, painted pink, in the Dublin seaside suburb of Dun Laoghaire.
One of the nicest things about it was the biggest kitchen I've ever been in, with lovely dark green cupboards and units lining one wall. Next to the sink were Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-29857665502369284782010-04-23T21:09:00.000+00:002010-04-23T21:09:13.512+00:00If it comes out of the ground...My motto, used to justify my dislike of parsnips, turnips, carrots etc, is "if it comes out of the ground, it should be a potato".
Tonight, in a blatant attempt to curry favour with the Kitchen Accomplice, against all my principles, I offered to make carrot and coriander soup. My nerve nearly failed me when I found a recipe that referred to the "orange-peel flavour of the coriander", since it is Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-84172753984486422532010-04-17T21:20:00.000+00:002010-04-17T21:20:24.222+00:00See how they rise up!Yeast bread has always eluded me - the dough fails to rise and it comes out inedibly tough. My lovely friends have on occasion choked down leaden loaves, pretending they're impressed, but you can't pretend an indigestible lump of undercooked dough is really bread.
This time, however, was different. I used fresh yeast, strong flour and a Darina Allen recipe, spent twelve minutes by the clock Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-957307966810964052010-04-15T21:52:00.000+00:002010-04-15T21:52:49.551+00:00How to catch the ManMany moons ago, I was at an exceptionally boring conference in Monaco. The one bright spot was a flourishing flirtation with an old acquaintance, who bought me a bottle of Becks in Jimmy's Bar, the most over-priced and unattractive venue I ever hope to drink in. €56 for two bottles of beer!
We speedily left for more amusing pursuits, but I promised to repay him back in London. The retirement of Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-78165623027980751262010-04-09T20:36:00.000+00:002010-04-09T20:36:21.022+00:00My personal cheese aestheticMy cheesemonger career never rose to the giddy heights of being allowed to design the display. Partly this was because I didn't often volunteer to be on the opening shift (rising in time for a 7 am start was never going to be my forte), but more because I never really developed a 'cheese aesthetic' as senior cheesemongers demanded.
The new restaurant in Chelsea might have been designed to help meCompulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-54350715047079449182010-04-09T07:49:00.002+00:002010-04-12T18:12:23.385+00:00Little parcels of goodnessMy latest plan is to make more packed lunches, but the Man says he rebels against the Tyranny of the Sandwich.
So instead of buying lovely bread and expensive cheese or salami, I concentrate on thinking of other ways to get food to work without it getting all over my notebook or going undesirably cold.
This is not the first time someone has faced this problem, as you will realise if you consider Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-60625947310443710982010-04-07T20:20:00.000+00:002010-04-07T20:20:14.836+00:00Have a heart!Growing up, artichokes were always seen as a great treat in my family. It only occurs to me now that there may be some link with the fact that they are a perfect excuse for eating lakes of melted butter.
The ritual of pulling off the individual leaves, dipping their fat bottoms in butter and scraping off the flesh with your teeth (among my gap-toothed family, there was much comparison of the Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-52304752024028761522010-03-24T20:35:00.001+00:002010-03-24T20:36:03.515+00:00Pretty is as pretty doesNear my office there is an Italian cafe run for the benefit of Italian and Southwark autistic people. I'm not sure what that means, but they do good sandwiches and delicious soups, and sell Italian products for Enormous Amounts of Money. Sadly for my bank balance, those products are generally so good that I cannot resist spending the money.
Most recently I bought some beautiful coloured striped Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-30659192399366744622010-03-06T23:34:00.000+00:002010-03-06T23:34:54.976+00:00Revisiting the scenes of my youthI've lived in London for an astonishing ten years now, so the miserable days when i lived out on the far-off reaches of the Central Line have more or less faded from my mind.
The one aspect of living in Leytonstone that was an unalloyed pleasure was the wonderful, wonderful Singburi Royal Thai Cafe.
Eleven years ago, Tony and Thelma bought a fish fry bar on Leytonstone High Road and started Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-41574495871321642692010-02-15T19:38:00.003+00:002010-02-15T19:55:41.918+00:00It's just not prettyWhat's the ugliest vegetable? Celeriac certainly has to be a contender, and it fails to meet my basic quality test: if it comes out of the ground, it should be a potato.So what do with a hideous tuber that I don't like? Turn it into soup, of course, because I don't like soup anyway, so making it out of celeriac couldn't make it any worse.A bit of vague googling gave me the courage to plunge in Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-51467272216907039172010-02-06T09:45:00.003+00:002010-02-06T09:54:08.050+00:00Slow progressThings have been quiet on the blog front for me recently. This is not due to lack of commitment but because we have been MOVING HOUSE. For me, of course, the main excitement of this is that we have a new kitchen. No longer a little windowless box with a crappy electric stove with only three burners working, but a proper room with a table and chairs, a breakfast bar (where I am now perched), two Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-91058161933102301092010-01-05T21:26:00.006+00:002010-01-05T21:38:03.149+00:00I can sing a rainbowColours seem to be strongly associative, so it often comes as a surprise that those associations can be relatively recent. Not long ago (like in the 1930s) it was thought appropriate to dress baby girls in pale blue and boys in pink or red, the stronger, more masculine colour. Likewise, if asked what colour a carrot is, virtually everyone would instantly visualise the colour orange, but Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-21638888389321631162009-12-30T21:45:00.004+00:002009-12-30T21:58:46.531+00:00Belated Solstice GreetingsMy parents-in-law send and receive around 150 Christmas cards every year. Because they are artists, many of their friends are artists, so they get some lovely cards.We have received a grand total of eight Christmas cards this year. But that's ok, because we don't send cards at all. Slightly quixotically, we send little Christmas cakes. This year, I even made the marzipan myself. 150 would be Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-2781497322665537152009-11-25T23:11:00.002+00:002009-11-25T23:19:30.164+00:00Vegetarians, look away now!We spent last week in the beautiful sitio real of La Granja de San Ildefonso near Segovia, a small but amazingly beautiful city around 100km from Madrid. Not only was the weather perfect but the speciality of the region is roast suckling pig. One restaurant even had a whole one sitting, a la Japanese restaurants except not made of plastic, in its window. Splatted piglet just doesn't entice. Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-4723560284871352842009-11-09T21:40:00.005+00:002009-11-09T22:07:06.054+00:00Is he a Real Man?It is a truth universally acknowledged that Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. This is going to lead to disappointment tonight one way or another, because this is what we're having for supper:It's my very first attempt at quiche and either the Man is going to be disappointed because he's Real and will have to go supperless, or (far worse) I will be disappointed because he's not a Real Man!Anyway, I'm Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-72776467202265258952009-10-29T22:56:00.003+00:002009-11-01T22:12:27.889+00:00Tarte Tintin - Bashibazouks!The parents of one of the Man's colleagues have an orchard. Or possibly just an apple tree, but at any rate, they had surplus apples this autumn, which somehow made their way to my kitchen, just in time for me to try out the newly-discovered tarte tatin possibilities of my silicone-handled skillets.Tonight I bumped into the reality that one should pay very careful attention to the instructions inCompulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-88701406233184034022009-10-19T20:46:00.004+00:002009-10-19T20:58:02.859+00:00Nutty tartTwo simple mistakes and I ruined what could have been a masterpiece. The first was that I forgot to keep my pantry stocked, so when I came to make this hazelnut tart, I had no plain flour.Not a problem, I thought. I'll use wholewheat flour. That'll be grand.I'd forgotten the salutary experience of an evening at a local restaurant in Ireland where the chef had decided on a whim to make wholewheat Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-56889175607314512112009-10-03T21:30:00.004+00:002009-10-03T21:40:29.918+00:00Spaghetti? Squash?One of the things I love most about food is how magic it is. Most of this is the kind of chemistry that happens when you boil an egg - clear liquid goo goes solid and white. When you add flour to melted butter and it forms a runny sauce, then you add liquid and it solidifies. You put cake batter into the oven and it disappears, leaving a cake in its place.This is all magic where it feels like youCompulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-13147155393129432572009-09-24T19:27:00.003+00:002009-09-24T19:41:03.053+00:00The Scent of MelonsI have often wondered why there aren't more positive words for smells. There are lots of unpleasant words - stench, stink, mephitic, acrid, putrid - a few neutral or context-specific - pungent, earthy, sharp - and a handful of not very specific pleasant ones, such as aromatic and fragrant.This is in spite of the power of smell to make us happy, to trigger memories, to influence us. People trying Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-27183874376341544782009-09-17T19:43:00.006+00:002009-09-17T20:09:03.143+00:00The perks of the jobI have mentioned before that my job has certain perks and that I take shameless advantage of the culinary ones.The latest was outstanding. I was invited to a dinner at the chef's table in Gordon Ramsay in Claridges, with the head sommelier (a champagne specialist), a delightful Italian waiter called Lello, the head chef, the senior sous chef and various other functionaries dancing smiling Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-4782955955867487302009-09-01T20:09:00.003+00:002009-09-01T20:18:13.209+00:00Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cakePat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake, Baker's man,Bake me a cake as fast as you can.Perhaps my parents sang this to me too often in my cradle. There has to be some reason for my compulsion to bake cakes.Last night I decided my colleagues had gone too long with no cake or cookies, so I bought some blueberries and made Blueberry Streusel Cake from one of my favourite websites.Streusel is a staple of American Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-84372291343754453062009-08-26T19:46:00.003+00:002009-08-26T19:54:01.948+00:00Sweet, sweet as can beYou may remember my soup resolution - I haven't managed three times a week yet, but we did have soup twice last week. The second was a very elaborate sweetcorn and red chilli chowder, which I made with six ears of fresh corn.Sweetcorn always astounds me in how it lives up to its name, although I'm not convinced it's always a good thing how sweet it is. Sometimes it feels a little as though it's Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-62881936844041183262009-08-20T21:24:00.007+00:002009-08-21T18:28:24.499+00:00Twinkle, twinkle, little tomatoHave I told you about my arbitrary garden? For Christmas I was given a lovely wooden windowbox, containing nursery-bought thyme and sage, transplanted chives, mint and rosemary and a completely rogue tomato seedling. The thyme and sage fell early victims to my habit of forgetting to water them. The chives, mint and rosemary have survived but bear the ravages of the ordeal. The rogue seedling is Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-30938841680295674402009-08-20T21:12:00.006+00:002009-08-20T21:23:41.588+00:00How does your garden grow?The Kitchen Accomplice is very firmly a London girl, but even she enjoyed the freedom of my uncle's vegetable garden in Ireland. We were staying with my cousins, who live in the comfortable half of the house, but with full access to the garden. There we dug potatoes and horseradish, pulled carrots and beets, collected cauliflower and cabbage, even courgettes.In the greenhouse, we found perfectly Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22794423.post-79021397763044053752009-08-18T21:03:00.002+00:002009-08-18T21:06:00.546+00:00Wedding breakfastMy sister got married recently. Here is what she ate for lunch beforehand. Don't you think that's the most inappropriate lunch for a blushing bride?Compulsive Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05935009989272161236noreply@blogger.com0