london VII (rochelle canteen)

i arrived early for lunch at the canteen, as i had to catch a flight back to berlin in the afternoon. a beautiful calmness to the place, then the bustle of friends coming to share a meal as i was leaving. 

today's a happy day: i cleared the planters of my sidewalk garden of old leaves and barren branches, dried tips. the lavender surrendered to the fierce berlin frosts, the roses holding out, showing red shoots. we are ready for spring. yes, we are.

london VI (caffeine and carbs)

the light that morning!

jo has a kitchen with a window over the sink, facing the garden. i could stand there for hours, just looking out.

london V (vitamins)

this post is good for you.

london IV (cholesterol)

what can i say.

london III (protein)

i'm silly tired, i just upload these comme ça, ok?

london II (dairy)

at borough market, we treated ourselves to some perfect jura (the swiss version of a comté) at mons cheesemongers, and were mighty impressed by the selection on offer. highly recommended!

more about them here.

to gather with friends

to gather with friends around a table, with homemade food, much to share and some jolly good laughter is one of the best things i can think of. oh, and the light will be low, more often than not, so you might well end up with exactly two pictures to remember that night.

st. john hotel

before i went to the airport, i treated myself. it was a little late in the morning, so all the regular guests of the st. john hotel had already taken breakfast, and it was very quiet. i ordered the chestnut pancakes with poached quince, pears, and plums. and how absolutely wonderful they were. i've tried to recreate the pancakes, to no avail (i shall keep trying), but the quince i poached yesterday are quite magical.

p.s.: i just realise this must sound as if i stayed at the st. john - that's wishful thinking for you! i would have to find some money under my floorboards to do that, though. in fact, i always visit london to visit a dear friend, so it was breakfast at st. john, and a little bit of dreaming.

the winter's crop

the first ten days of the new year have already proven to be a whirlwind. hope you got off to a good start?

i often think how lucky i am to love my work, yet lately there never seem to be enough hours in the day, or days in the week. and so there also never seems to be enough time to think about food much in advance.

could you help me out here - i'm looking for ideas for healthy winter eating: favourite dishes, ideas for winter vegetables and fruit, or links to websites are all more than welcome! i'm thinking vitamins and freshness, and perhaps a little less cream...

green hummus

coming home from the garden with greens i've never prepared or eaten before is something that happened quite often since early june.

nigel slater's green 'hummus' was one of the things i tried, it took its time but was the happiest green ever and tasted fantastic.

get those broad beans out of their pods
give them a quick rinse
boil them with a little salt (10 mins for big ones, smaller ones perhaps as little as 3-4 mins)
drain into a colander, briefly rinse with cold water
if they're very thick-skinned, slide the skin off
put into food processor with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs
(i used basil and fresh mint)
process, add more olive oil, lemon juice or seasoning until you have the consistency/taste you like

eat with flat bread or similar

yum!

p.s.: i was given some lovely delphiniums by my 3-year-old friend s yesterday. aren't i lucky?!

lunch

when jo was in berlin, we had lunch at bixels.

it might be a bit quiet around here for a little while projects are taking up all my time. but do keep leaving your comments, they are always appreciated and make me smile!

don't read this if you're hungry (make yourself a sandwich and a cup of tea first)

i do realise that if you don't LOVE food, this blog must be turning into a slightly boring read recently. but i promised you 'random thoughts and inspirations', you see.

might well be that the wind is turning again sometime soon and i'll be going on about philosophy, potato beetles or charlotte gainsbourg. you just never know. i so believe in the versatiliy of the human mind.

anyway. since some of you were asking, here are two recipes for a fig balsamic chutney that i found.

number one here
i shall be giving this one a whirl - sounds and looks spot on.

number two here
ok. this is from bon appetit magazine and has fabulous ratings. but honestly, the combination of ingredients sounds like a bit of a car crash to me. why oh why black and green olives with figs? or am i too much of a conservative mind (ha, joke for those of you who know me in person)? what do you think?

while browsing for recipes, i came across really nice recipes, and it seems not only really nice, but also really useful. lots of basic recipes, simple typography, no advertising, lots of step-by-step images. here are some recipes and chapters that caught my eye:

a wholemeal loaf
how to make brioche
desserts
sauces
potato recipes

p.s.: while you're at it and if you don't know it already, you should also take a look at xavier encinas' food blog. an absolute favourite.

bread stories

one of the reasons why i've gathered a veritable stack of nigel slater cookbooks over the years, is that his cooking is truly unfussy, unpretentious. i don't mind cooking being a bit of a challenge sometimes, but i believe it should be compatible with the demands of my day to day life, and i can't and won't get up at five in the morning to start some infusion or other with circa twenty-three herbs for a dinner two days ahead. and even though cooking is some kind of slow-down, grounding process i enjoy, the whole thing - ultimately - is about eating the food. at least for me.

so the country loaf i baked a little while ago just hit the spot. after it had cooled down enough, we had thick slices with home-made strawberry jam. so good. the next morning, i had it toasted with sliced tomatoes.

the recipe is from nigel slater's appetite. it's too long to just type it up, but it involves nothing more than 1kg bread flour, 2x 7g dry yeast, 20g salt, c. 700 ml water.

what are your favourite bread recipes? and have you tried baking with sourdough? (my attempt looked pretty, but tasted bland. the sourdough was store-bought.)

last weekend

i'm very happy to report the garden is alive and very well. we have so much spinach, lettuce and rocket! i spent a lot of time there on saturday, loosening up the soil, planting and watering, i was limping around with sore muscles on sunday. oh, and i found a good way to cycle there, which takes me an hour each way.

also made some strawberry jam, and tried my hand at baking a simple white loaf from nigel slater's 'appetite'. it turned out huge, and quite pretty. have any of you tried his recipe for olive foccaccia?

what was your weekend like?

what i did last friday

i'm very sorry if you're reading this while being very hungry. that's cruel. go and make yourself a sandwich, ok?

(if you really want to know what i did last friday, look here. all after the royal wedding, of course.)

the party's always in the kitchen

sooner or later everybody ends up in the kitchen. i wonder: is that some primal instinct of gathering around the fire? or is it just because of the food... (these photos were taken recently at k's and p's new year's toast, which i mentioned before.)

yesterday was a busy but very happy day: lots of work, but also a surprise parcel from the boyfriend with a new lens! you should have seen the smile on my face! so now i've got a 50 mm/2.8 f macro for the pentax and the first roll is almost full. i'm a very happy girl indeed!

oh, and before i forget, i really wanted to let you know about valerie's food blog nettle and quince: i'm rather taken by the orange thyme pancakes and the crêpes. to me, her blog is all about earthy, honest food. to think that she cooks all this for her family and manages to photograph it so nicely: chapeau!

happy weekend! (don't forget the blog birthday giveaway, you can still enter today and tomorrow (sun 6 feb).