Lunch in the temple: a mixed bag

You know how you have one of those days where everything falls into place? Today was one of those. After weeks, nay months, of trying to work out a way to get my Mum and I to the tiny island of St Martins in the Scilly Isles where her ancestors are from, but which has very limited access, this morning a nice confluence of circumstances saw us booked on the ferry to St Marys where we will be met by a boatman who will taxi us to St Martins and back. We'll only have 3 hours there but we're very excited about seeing the village. Unfortunately Mum suffers very badly from seasickness, fortunately she loves Ginger, which is supposed to be the best natural cure. The housekeeping morning continued with our tickets on the Eurostar booked and also our car for the Cornwall trip.

Feeling chuffed, David and I headed off to Notting Hill for the second time to visit Books for Cooks. It was a gorgeous Spring day, heading for 24 degrees.



Books for Cooks is tiny and was crammed with people browsing the shelves and also having lunch in the very tiny test kitchen up the back of the shop where every day they create a lunch menu from books in stock. Today was a Middle Eastern lentil soup and lamb kofta with a nice red wine to accompany it and lovely cakes on display. We elected for the soup and wine (£12 for two) which was a lovely light lunch.









I was very excited at the prospect of visiting and eating at this iconic destination, but I must admit to being in two
minds about it. On the one hand the test kitchen and the workshops held upstairs are a model for how something like this should be run; on the other hand I could not help but feel that the books have become secondary. It is very hard to browse many shelves because the dining tables are crammed up against them and getting a book from the shelves requires reaching over someone's head as they eat. I also felt that there was an over-emphasis on 'popular' titles like the Australian Women's Weeklys which were everywhere, and less on the serious cooking and food titles. Of course they also have virtually no second hand or antiquarian stock which makes it if less interest to me. While there were some interesting titles I hadn't seen before, some shelves were noticably bare. So a not altogether satisfying visit to the temple of cookbook shops, although still quite interesting.

The other must-do visit of the day was to the Aga shop where I picked up a famous Aga toaster as well as a new cold plain shelf for the fraction of their cost in Melbourne. Now they have to compete for room in the luggage with 4 Mrs Beeton's!

Tonight we're packing for the drive to Cornwall and here is a better photo of some of my older treasures from Monday's shopping



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Location:London,United Kingdom

Charing Cross Road, Bloomsbury Rd & Cecil Court-trawling London's bookshops

Well today was my idea of heaven. After a continental breakfast at our hotel ( a former Gentleman's Club, think Fawlty Towers with Eastern European staff. When I asked for teatowels for our kitchen I was told: "I don't think we have those") we parted ways with Mum and Dad who headed off to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We had carefully plotted our travels, but had a false start when we reached Books for Cooks to find it closed on a Monday.



The bonus was that as we took a wander up Portobello Road (with a stop along the way for cupcakes at Hummingbird Bakery)



we found an Oxfam Bookshop with a beautiful 1930s copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in a glass case. It wasn't cheap - but given one of my aims for this trip was to pick up a copy, I wasn't going to turn it down. By the end of the day I had 4!!

Next stop was the Bloomsbury bookshops, an eclectic mix of antiquarian booksellers like Jarndyce on Great Russell St where I picked up an 1891 "Manual of Domestic Economy; with Hints on Medicine and Surgery" ; and indepent publisher Souvenir Press for a couple of obscure titles on Arabian Cooking and herbal remedies. Nice finds but not yet the treasures I was hoping for.

We detoured to Covent Garden Market where we had been promised an antique market. There was lots of silverware and crockery, but no books or kitchenalia so we had lunch at the very tasteful chain Battersea Pie Shop.



David had a seafood pie with mashed potato and I had a pastie with mash and gravy. Gorgeous concept that I think would go well in Australia if someone had the presence of mind to copy it!

Now fortified against the cold wind and equipped with a copy of Book Lover's London purchased from Jarndyce, we headed for Cecil Court, a tiny back lane behind the theatres on Charing Cross Road jam-packed with specialist booksellers:



David Drummond sells only books and ephemera on theatre and magic and has some beautiful playbills and early programs in his tiny, crammed-full shop;



Marchpane with exquisite children's books, and I was awestruck by an entire bookshelf of Alice in Wonderland in every edition, language and format you could imagine.



Of interest in other Cecil Court traders were several Elizabeth David first editions and a first edition of the Savoy Cocktail Book which had pride of place in the window of an uncharacterictically sparse space with only a couple of hundred books and a focus on the exotic, trendy and risque.



Prices in Cecil Court were high (350 pounds for the Savoy), but it was lovely to browse.

Onwards we marched around the corner to the heart of what remains of the original Charing Cross bookshop district. Henry Prode's produced a circa 1890 Mrs Beeton's (that's 2) and Elizabeth David hardcovers.
There were many more beautiful antiquarian cookbooks and facsimiles of classics like the Williamsburg cookbook, but I had a couple more shops to visit.
One of these was Quinto's with a small but exciting shelf of cookbooks including 2 (count them two!) lovely Mrs Beeton's from the early 20th century (that's 4), Here I also found an Indian cookbook of the British Raj, and several books on domestic ecnonmy: 1892 Household Wrinkles by Mrs DeSallis and 1883 Cookery and Housekeeping by Mrs Henry Reeve Culinary Jottings.

We called it a day with approximately 20 kgs of books and negotiated 2 tube rides before stopping in at our 'local ' for a well-deserved pint.



Now I have what I came for!

Farmer's Markets, Pubs & Food Shops:

After arriving late yesterday and settling in to our hotel in the Marylebone district of London, we started our first day bright and early, setting out for the Cramer St Farmer's Market behind the Marylebone High St. The Farmer's Market website said the market operated from 10-2, but we went down at 9 expecting to be able to buy goods early. Apparently not: some archaic by-law prohibits selling before 10am. So all we could do was drool over the two stalls selling gourmet ready-made meals like confit duck, Boeuf Bourgignon and beautiful sides; the fishmonger displaying huge scallops 6 for £5, turbot and skatewings; the pies cooked in enamelled pie tins etc etc. Nearby is also The Ginger Pig butcher, who offer butchering classes 6 nights a week and are booked out months in advance.



The Fromagerie next door not only had an enormous cheese room, but beautiful baked goods and heirloom veges.






We then took a long tube ride across town to Camden Markets, which turned out to be more of a flea market than I had expected. We shared fish & chips (no fried Mars Bar although they were on offer) before then discovering a large section of the market dedicated to widely diverse ethnic foods. The best discoveries of the day were two bookshops: Walden Books tucked away in a back street produced a couple of Ambrose Heath 1sts. We were directed to it by the owner of Black Gull, home to more recent stick where I was able to pick up some Heston, Jane Grigson and Lindsay Bareham's Big book of Tomatoes.
Tomorrow David and I have planned a major assault on the bookshops of Charing Cross Rd, Bloomsbury and a visit to Books for Cooks in Notting Hill.

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Location:London,United Kingdom

London Calling or - Eating my way through Europe

I'm off tomorrow for a 4 week trip to the UK and Italy. The main purpose of the trip is to take my Mum to Cornwall where her ancestors originated. Specifically we're taking a boat trip to the Scilly Islands and hopefully the small island of St Martin's where the Ellis family has been living as far back as we've been able to trace. In Italy we're retracing the steps (or tracks) of my father's tank regiment in the Apennines. Along the way there's a week in London and a visit to Rome and Venice. This is my first trip to Europe and, as you would imagine, I'm most looking forward to discovering the food cultures and book shops of both countries. While I have some idea what to expect from the Italian leg, I have no idea what the food scene will be like in the UK-fish & chips & fried Mars Bars? I guess I'm about to find out. While this is not primarily a book-buying trip, what I am expecting to find in the UK is some excellent cookbooks, particularly antiquarian. I guess I'll find that out soon enough too!

The end of cookbooks or just one more excuse to buy an IPad?

In an article entitled "Gadgets you should get rid of (or not)" in the NYTimes today, Sam Grobart gives a list of gadgets you should dispose of (desktop computers, point-and-shoot cameras, ipods among them) or hang on to (alarm clocks) and has this to say about books:

"BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries." (So far so good, I thought, clever little para, must link to it on my facebook status. But then he goes on:)
"But there is one area where printed matter is going to give way to digital content: cookbooks. Martha Stewart Makes Cookies, a $5 (now $3.99) app for the iPad, is the wave of the future. Every recipe has a photo of the dish (something far too expensive for many printed cookbooks). Complicated procedures can be explained by an embedded video. When something needs to be timed, there’s a digital timer built right into the recipe. You can e-mail yourself the ingredients list to take to the grocery store. The app does what cookbooks cannot, providing a better version of everything that came before it. Now all Martha has to do is make a decorative splashguard for a tablet and you will be all set."


This of course is the biggest problem with the technology. As we all know from the cookbooks on our own shelves, a cookbook has to be on the bench, and even more so with these apps which have built-in timers and videos etc. A splashguard is also not going to protect the gadget from a major spillage which may wrinkle or even ruin a $40 cookbook, but will kill an $800 Ipad. Another problem with them is that for $3.99, this application provides 50 recipes for cookies, and by the time you've bought applications for all the things you might want to cook, you could end up spending significantly more than for a cookbook with hundreds of recipes. Of course there is also the fact that for every gorgeous app like this or Nigella Lawson's Quick Collection ($9.99 for 70 recipes) there will probably be as many dodgy collections you will never use. I have the epicurious app on my iphone which allows you to search the almost 30,000 recipes from food dite Epicurious.com. I find it incredibly useful if I'm out shopping and can't remember the ingredients for a particular recipe. It's also great if I'm at home and need a recipe for something unusual ( like Shrimp and Grits I made last week) and I don't want to have to go down to the shop to look one up. However while I am going to buy an Ipad, and will probably download lots of apps to do with food and cooking, and will use it in my kitchen, I am almost positive that it will never be able to replace a lot of my vintage favourites like Miss Drake. It certainly will not allow me to browse through a 19th century Mrs Beeton for inspiration for my 19th century dinner, and it won't look as good on my shelf!

Prawns in Aspic and Sardine Tablets? A Mrs Maclurcan dinner

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to participate in an all day symposium entitled Food Traditions and Culinary Cultures as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. The day was organised by Jill Adams of the William Angliss Institute's Coffee Academy. There were two highlights for me: The first was visiting the William Angliss Research facility and the copy of the Edward Abbott cookbook I acquired for them last year. I felt like a proud parent.



The second highlight was the symposium dinner with a menu based on recipes from Mrs Maclurcan's Cookery Book, an Australian classic. The dinner was cooked by the institute's students and we were fortunate to have some excellent matching Tahbilk wines (Tahbilk - which used to be known as Chateau Tahbilk - is Victoria's oldest winery). As regular readers will know, I relish trying out recipes from old cookbooks. With some of the dishes we could predict what might appear on the plate in front of us, but others were a real mystery. As soon as I got home I looked up the recipes in the book to send to my fellow diners, and I've shared a couple below.

The meal started with a mystery: Australian Soup which had an orange hue but was not pumpkin and little transparent spheres at the bottom of the bowl. The recipe revealed the spheres were tapioca and the soup was very simply made by boiling tapioca in 'brown stock' and then adding the juice of tomatoes. The flavour of the end product would very much depend upon the quality of the stock, and I don't think you could get away with packet stock if you made it at home.


Second Course was Prawns in Aspic. I don't think there's going to be a revival of dishes in aspic anytime soon, going by this dish. It was certainly pretty to look at, but a little watery and insipid for modern palates I suspect by the response of our table. Which is not to critique the cooking of the dish which was beautifully executed, but instead the recipe they were working from.


Main Course was "Braized Beef with Pickled Walnuts, Celery Fritters & Baked Cucumber". The walnuts lent a nice piquancy to the richness of the beef, and the cucmbers (which I had never tried cooked) were suprisingly good. Celery fritters just tasted like celery deep-fried and brought to mind the deep-fried artichokes David and I had tried in Salinas in 2009 - a waste of a good fresh vegetable.


The next part of the menu was a puzzler. A dessert (Macaroon Cream, absolutely delicious. I've included a recipe below) was followed by the interestingly named Sardine Tablet which was itself followed by a 'pudding': a Coffee Jelly. Apparently this was a common custom of the time (late 1890s), but I'm fuzzy on the details.


The Sardine Tablet turned out to be a small pastry case with a filling of sardine which had been creamed together with hard-boiled egg yolks, capers and seasoning. Quite tasty but not a great follow-up to the Macaroon cream.


The final course of Coffee Jelly was a small palate cleanser and was followed by coffee and port.



It was a fun night and has inspired me to try a similar venture as a cooking class in the not-too-distant future.

Macaroon Cream

1 pint milk                          Jordan almonds

3 egg yolks                        1 dozen macaroons (recipe follows)

1 oz. gelatine                     1 glass sherry

Soak the gelatine in a little milk for half an hour. Add the grated rind of 1 lemon to the 1 pint milk, sweeten to taste; place it over the fire to heat but do not let it boil; beat up the yolks of the eggs and pour the milk through a strainer onto them;add the gelatine gradually while stirring, and cook slowly until the gelatine is dissolved, then pour it into a basin to cool. Dip a mould into cold water then ornament with the almonds (split). Pour a little of the custard in then put a layer of the macaroons soaked in sherry, another layer of custard and so on until the dish is filled. Put on ice to set; turn out carefully and serve.

Macaroons

(not to be confused with the oh-so-trendy macaron)

3/4 lb of sweet almonds (I would substitute almond meal)

1/2 lb sifted sugar

whites of 3 eggs

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth; add the suagr almonds and a little lemon juice. Place small pieces onto a baking tray and bake in a slow oven for 20 - 45 minutes (they need to be golden brown and the tops will crack)

I'm going to attempt these next baking day (http://www.vintagebaking.blogspot.com/)

Making Whoopie.....(Pies)

I was fascinated while travelling in the US last month by the way that American chefs and entrepeneurs are constantly re-inventing 'old' or classic dishes and making them the latest trend. A few years ago it was cupcakes, more recently mac 'n' cheese,( there's a restaurant in New York called S'mac) donuts, pies etc.

This time I noticed Whoopie Pies everywhere. Originally of Pennsylvania Dutch origin (you can read a New York Times article about them here) I'd describe them as a cake/biscuit hybrid or maybe a teeny teeny layer cake. Two discs of (usually chocolate) cake sandwiched together with a fluffy frosting.




On my last trip to Sur le Table before leaving San Francisco I picked up a Whoopie Pie tin & this morning had a crack at making them. You don't have to have a special tin, you can also bake them on a baking tray, using an icecream scoop to get perfectly round, even cakes.I've cobbled together a recipe for them from the packagin on the pie tin and a book in my shop called Amish Country Cookbook.

First the cakes:

Cream together 120gms of softened butter and 1 cup firmly packed soft brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add 1 egg and 1tsp vanilla extract and beat until well-combined.

Sift together 2cups plain flour, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1tsp baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Add the dry ingredients alternately with 1 cup butter milk ( or milk soured with lemon juice) until just combined (As with all cakes it's important not to over beat).

Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter into each cavity spread batter to the edges. Bake for about 8 minutes.




When they're cool you sandwich them together with raspberry jam and 'Marshmallow Fluff' - not something you can buy on any Australian supermarket shelf ( or at USA Foods I discovered when I went down there to buy grits) . So I went online and found a recipe here for the calorific spread. You could instead use a traditional royal icing or buttercream icing.

Here's the result:





I love the way they look and as I saw on my trip, there are almost endless possible variations.


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