Another Food Blog

I was in the company of five teenagers, helping them celebrate the end of exams – two of them had finished a physics exam that same afternoon.  It was also the end of their schooldays, so we started with Galimard champagne.

I ordered the Ticklemore goat’s cheese tart as a starter, but first there was a small complimentary jug of asparagus soup.  The tart was good, with a thin crispy pastry, a beautiful melted cheese filling, and a pinwheel of peeled tomato segments around it.  Others ordered Oxtail soup, foie gras ballotine, and pork belly.

Of all the starters, we voted the pork belly and poached egg the most interesting.  For my main course I had the sea bream, and this time I ate the skin.  It was very good and very salty, and added hugely to my enjoyment of the fish.  Memo to do this in future.

Everyone ordered desserts, of which the chocolate fondant looked particularly good, but the lemon tart and the bread and butter pudding won praise, too.

I ordered cheeses, and picked a selection of six, consisting of two hard, two soft, and to blue.  Of course I couldn’t eat anything like that, but as I said, there were five teenagers there.

With the food we drank Old Vines, a South African chenin blanc.

While I was having my camembert and omelet, my friend chose from the a la carte menu.  In this case it was a bowl of mussels, done marinieres, in a white wine sauce.

It came with lots of baguette to soak up the liquid, and a big helping of fries.

From the Café Rouge fixed price lunch menu I chose the camembert and tomato on baguette to start with.  It was a very nice light combination, though the leaves lacked excitement.

Then I ordered a mushroom omelet with yet more greens and chips on the side.  The omelet was good, nice and gooey inside with succulent mushrooms.

The wine was a French chenin blanc, Grand Tuffe Anjou 09, at only 11 percent, but fresh and fruity on a hot day.

I was guest speaker at the Coleridge Conservative barbecue in Cambridge.  It was a really warm day, but it was in a large, pleasant garden with the scent of roses and birdsong filling the late afternoon.  They had rather a clever double BBQ, so that one had food just cooking, while the other one had cooked food warm and ready to eat.

They served burgers, sausages and chicken, and the chef explained the neat trick of burning the skin, which people would leave anyway, to leave nicely cooked food inside.  They served jugs of Pimms, which I thought were missing the gin I usually add to fortify it.  No matter, though, because I drank white wine before speaking about the promises and the pitfalls of coalition government.

Apples are a welcome addition to Sainsbury’s ‘basics’ range.  Their other apples were selling at £1.89, £1.78 and £1.56 per pound, but the basics were priced at 84p a pound.  I picked out this one which was quite large, standing just short of 4 inches tall, and costing me 27p.  Half of it was enough for a snack, so I had it in two goes.  It was nicely juicy and tart, just as I like apples to be.  When I cut it in half and remove the core before slicing it up, I rub lemon juice on the exposed surfaces of each slice so they don’t go brown while waiting to be eaten.  I rub lemon juice over the unused half before I wrap it away for later.  Mmm, quite delicious.

I had another go at the salmon goujons with a lime and coriander dressing, tweaking the ingredients just a little.  The salmon strips, cut from fillets, were dipped in flour and then brushed with beaten egg.  The coating was made from breadcrumbs, grated cheddar cheese (which I added more of this time), sea salt and black pepper, and this time I add some of Mrs Dash’s ‘table’ mix of herbs and spices.  The dip I made from a spoonful of mayonnaise, the zest and juice of a lime, chopped fresh coriander and salt and pepper, and a good helping of lemon juice as well.  I fried the coated strips in olive oil for about 2 minutes each side, turning once.  To go with it I baked peppers and mushroom, cut up and brushed with olive oil, for 12 minutes in the oven.  The goujons were better, nicely crisp outside and meltingly soft within.  And the sweetness of the peppers went better with them than the tangy salad I’d served the first time.  The dip was perfect.

On a warm day I decided to invite a guest to lunch out of doors.  Brasserie Gerard on Cambridge’s Bridge Street has a small garden at the back, just right for the occasion.  I ordered two courses from their prix fixée lunch menu.  First off were the whitebait, which came with much more crispy breadcrumby batter than I’d expected – more like goujons of whitebait.

For a main course I chose an omelet, picking the mushroom one as I so often do.  It was competent enough, though none that I eat out are quite as soft and fluffy as I do them myself at home.  I ate one or two of the chips, which were very good.

Just as we were leaving came the entertainment.  It was graduation day, when the graduating students are paraded in their finery through the streets to Senate House, led by their praelector.  The contingent from Magdalen College was just coming down the street as we stepped onto it.  Ah yes, memories.

I mentioned to a friend that I sometimes have two starters for lunch instead of a starter and main course.  He took my advice and started with 6 escargots.  These are basically an excuse to eat garlic butter and to dip one’s baguette into it.

This was followed by gravad lax, and the wine was a Cordonieu cava.  Really a first class combination…

So easy but so excellent.  I washed black cherries, halved them and removed the stones.  Then I sprinkled cane sugar over them, and I mean just a pinch, so a few grains clung to each half-cherry.  I added a dollop of crème fraiche.  What is good about this is that the full taste of the cherries comes through, with the odd sparkle on the tongue as you hit upon a grain or two of cane sugar.  This is an excellent dessert with a taste that lingers satisfyingly in the mouth.