The Queen Of Tarts

Not to be outdone easily, by the food venues of London, I decided to try my hand at one of my favourite desserts. This recipe has been optimized over the years by my Mum, originally coming from a big not-even-vegetarian hardback cookbook, which is so old that the front page has been bleached colourless by the sun.



Bakewell Tart
(makes 12)

For the pasty

• 6 oz (170 g) Plain Flour
• ¼ tsp Salt
• 1 ½ oz (40 g) Solid vegetable fat (Trex)
• 1 ½ oz (40 g) Margarine
• 1-2 tbsp Water

For the filling

• 4 oz (110 g) Margarine
• 4 oz (110 g) Sugar
• 1 oz (30 g) Ground almonds
• 3 oz (90 g) Rice flour
• ½ tsp Almond essence
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 1-2 tbsp Soya milk
• 4 tbsp Blackberry jam

To make the pasty, rub together the flour, salt and fat, until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add gradually water to form a dough.

Roll out dough, and cut into 12 circles. Place in shallow muffin tray, and bake at 160ºC for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Melt margarine, and add the sugar. Cook for 1 minute, then leave to cool slightly. Add all the other ingredients, except the milk and jam, and combine. Add enough milk to get a dropping consistency.

Into each pastry case, add a teaspoon of jam, and cover with a tablespoon of the filling.

Bake for 25 minutes, at 160ºC, until golden brown.

Whats For Dessert?

Like a rollercoaster, the past few months have flown past, with plenty of ups and downs, and barely no time to stop and take stock. Wheeling and diving around the office has taken up most of the time, on this bumpy ride. Spiraling up towards the final milestone, there are still a few revolutions to make before it'll be finished, and I can jump off onto something a bit more relaxing.

All the extra time spent in the office has meant I've had to be a little more creative with my food, as dinner at home is becoming a luxury that I'm starting to miss.

On the flip side, being so busy during the week makes you really appreciate your spare time. Saturdays and Sundays are no longer spent idle, which would be a waste of such a precious commodity. Even staying in bed past 9 in the morning seems like a waste of time. Travelling to London is my favourite way of spending my weekend. There are so many nice places to look round, interesting people to meet, and plenty of restaurants that serve way more than the ubiquitous salad ala chips.

I've discovered that a slice of cheesecake is an activity in itself. I've never liked the sound of this particular dessert. Two seemingly incompatible things rolled into one word, sounds about as appetizing as curry flavoured fruit smoothie. However, not wanting to judge a book by anything less than the words within, I took the plunge, starting with a slice of Inspiral's rasberry cheesecake.



And oh my! It's cool velvety berry filling melted instantly in my mouth, like icecream. Not too sweet, which made it quite easy to knock back, and it sure hit the spot.

Next up on the hitlist, from the same venue, was the tiramisu:



This had a distinct coffee type flavour, and is apparently one of their most popular numbers. Personally, it was my least favourite of the bunch - the white layers tasted a bit like raw sugar mixed with margarine, sandwiching together damp coffee infused hobnob crumbs. I'm guessing that's probably what it was, which was slightly dissapointing at £3.20 a slice.

Finally I made it to Mildreds for the somewhat pricier Chocolate and Raspberry Truffle Torte, weighing in at just under £5.



This one was totally worth every penny, and blew the others out of the water. Similar in texture to the rasberry cheesecake, but with a much more intense chocolate flavour, it was the clear winner. My only complaint with this one, besides the inevitably slow table service, in this ever-busy restaurant, was the icing sugar. Made it look pretty, sure, but made every bite quite treachourous, if you accidentally breathed in too much whilst eating it. Icing sugar in the lungs isn't the most pleasurable of experiences.

Work Christmas Party

The Christmas Party is something to be enjoyed or endured by the whole of the working class. It could be a quick beer down the local with a couple of colleagues, or it could be a fancy 5 course meal in the most expensive restaurant in town. Whether you look forward to this annual occasion, or dread it, it will inevitably come crashing down on you like a ton of elves around this time of year.

For me, the menu is usually the biggest worry, as there is rarely anything even remotely vegan on it. And I've heard some truly horrific stories about how badly a Christmas meals can turn out if you aren't careful.

So it came as quite a relief when I was asked to email the chef with exactly wanted. I had to think long and hard about this, as I wanted to get the most exciting meal possible, without pushing the boundaries so far that the chef decided that a salad would be easier. Its like trying to pick your lowest price when trying to barter.

I don't think I was adventurous as I could've been. I chose a rocket salad for starter, stuffed aubergine for main, and I left the dessert option to the chef's imagination, forwarding on my favourite blog as reference to some awesome desserts that would've been great. Turns out his imagination wasn't as far reaching as mine, and I ended up with the ubiquitous fruit salad.





All in all though, the chef did very well, and I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to create my own personal menu. And after a sufficient amount of drinking and gambling, and a fair few chocolate truffles that I'd brought along, the fruit salad had been forgotten.

Budapest

Continuing on with the Eastern European exploration, my latest adventure was to the capital of Hungary. There is something charming with these countries that is hard to quantify, but always leaves me with a thirst for more. Maybe I've gotten used to going to all the touristy areas with my parents, but it feels refreshing to being in a place where you feel like you are walking amongst "their" world, rather than a world that has been retrofitted for tourists.

Okay so Budapest has its fair share of tourist shops selling a plethora of scarfs, Russian dolls, magical boxes and bottles of the local beverages, but on the whole, most of the restaurants, pubs and parks seem to be tailored for and used by the locals. Which is what I want when I'm on holiday - I want to have my beer in an authentic Hungarian cellar bar, not an English bar!



And conveniently, such a bar was right on our doorstep, which is where we ended up on quite a few occasions! Ever since returning from Prague I've been longing to having more of the Bavarian style dark lager, and Hungary certainly didn't disappoint. And to my delight, this delicious malty drink was served in whopping one litre Maßkrüge glasses.



Traditionally, Hungary is perhaps the least vegan friendly city imaginable, and it really was a struggle to find something to eat in a regular restaurant. I had come prepared with a piece of paper describing exactly what I could and couldn't eat, in Hungarian, and it helped to drive the point home. However, I wouldn't stake my life on everything I ate being entirely suitable for vegans. Good thing I'm not allergic to anything.



Luckily the abundance of tearooms made up for the lack of restaurants, I think I must've drank my body weight in tea! And there were a few vegan restaurants that I got to try during our stay, Darshan Biopont being the most memorable, where I had a sampled some extremely delicious cake!




So, I will now reveal what my new toy was: A camera! My purple friend was actually "Pain" from Hercules, but I've had him for years - he was simply modelling for me. So I've finally managed to get my hands on an awesome photo-taking machine in time for this holiday, allowing me to take much better photos than my mobile phone would allow. I just have to learn how to use it now!

A New Toy?

And so halloween is again descending upon us. Trick-or-treating and bonfires aside, there are a few things looming ahead, which need a bit of preparation. Firstly, a scarey costume, so I don't stand out from the crowd next Friday. Next is a pumpkin, with eyes and a mouth, because lets face it, a halloween without pumpkins with faces is like christmas without presents. Lastly, I need to get my lazy butt into gear, and make me some halloween themed treats, possibly involving said pumpkin, killing two metaphorical birds with one big stone, or in this case, big orange gourd.

10 cookies if you can name my new toy :) The clue is in the photo.

Dealing with the Masses

"You just have to this party, it'll be fun!", my sister told me a few weeks ago. Only after I'd agreed to trek down to London, did she mention that she actually wanted me to cater for it! Apparently, the host had actually requested my sushi. I'm sure he must've read about the legendary last batch which turned out so well...! Or maybe he just likes sushi. Anyways, I like a good challenge, so I went for it.

I planned to go to the Japan Centre for essential sushi-making supplies the day before, but after a slight detour to a pub, followed by a salsa club, and then a quick kip for a few hours, it seemed like my day of preparation had dissappeared, and had been replaced by a few hours before the next party in which to improvise up some much-anticipated sushi. A quick trip to the local supermarket didn't yield a lot - no special sushi rice, not even any tamari! I had to make do with plain old shortgrain rice. I even ended up buying some placemats, which looked a bit like something you could use to roll sushi. Luckily I had bought the nori with me, which was a good thing, else it would've had to have been nachos...



With all the ad-hoc cookery going on, I was expecting a bit of a disaster, but by the end of the afternoon, I was the proud owner of a several plates of delicious looking sushi! My single previous sushi session must've been a good enough training experience to let me loose on a sheet of nori and some rice.

They didn't last long I can tell you. A success!

An Excerpt

"We will eat," I told him. "Good," he said, holding the photograph very near to his face. Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior was persisting to cry. "One thing, though," the hero said.
"What?"
"You should know..."
"Yes?"
"I am a...how to say this..."
"What?"
"I'm a..."
"You are very hungry, yes?"
"I'm a vegetarian."
"I do not understand."
"I don't eat meat"
"Why not?"
"I just don't"
"How can you not eat meat?"
"I just don't"
"He does not eat meat," I told Grandfather.
"Yes he does," he informed me.
"Yes you do" I likewise informed the hero.
"No. I don't"
"Why not?" I inquired him again.
"I just don't. No meat"
"Pork?"
"No."
"Meat?"
"No meat."
"Steak?"
"Nope."
"Chickens?"
"No."
"Do you eat veal?"
"Oh, God. Absolutely no veal."
"What about sausage?"
"No."
"No sausage either?" I told Grandfather this, and he presented me a very bothered look.
"What is wrong with him?" he asked.
"What is wrong with you" I asked him.
"Its just the way I am" he said
"Hamburger?"
"No."
"Tongue?"
"What did he say is wrong with him?" Grandfather asked.
"It is just the way he is"
"Does he eat sausage?"
"No."
"No sausage!"
"No. He says he does not eat sausage."
"In truth?"
"That is what he says."
"But sausage..."
"I know."
"In truth you do not eat any sausage?"
"No sausage."
"No sausage," I told Grandfather. He closed his eyes and tried to put his arms around his stomach, but there was not room because of the wheel. It appeared like he was becoming sick because the Hero would not eat sausage. "Well, let him deduce what he is going to eat. We will go to the most proximal restaurant."
"You are a schmuch" I informed the Hero.
"You are not using the word correctly,", he said.
"Yes I am," I said.

"What do you mean he does not eat meat?" the waitress asked, and Grandfather put his head in his hands. "What is wrong with him?" she asked.
"Which? The one who does not eat mean, the one with his head in his hands, or the bitch who is masticating her tail?"
"The one who does not eat meat."
"It is only the way that he is." The hero asked what we were talking about.
"They do not have anything without meat," I informed him.
"He does not eat any meat at all?" she inquired me again.
"It is merely the way he is," I told her.
"Sausage?"
"No sausage," Grandfather answered to the waitress, rotating his head from here to there.
"Maybe you could eat some meat" I suggested to the hero, "because they do not have anything that is not meat."
"Don't they have potatoes or something?" he asked.
"Do you have potatoes?" I asked the waitress. "Or something"
"You only receive a potato with the meat," she said. I told the hero.
"Couldn't I just get a plate of potatoes?"
"What?"
"Couldn't I get two or three potatoes, without meat?"
I asked the waitress, and she said she would go to the chef and inquire him.
"Ask him if he eats liver," Grandfather said.

The waitress returned and said, "Here is what I have to say. We can make concessions to give him two potatoes, but they are served with a piece of meat on the plate. The chef says that this cannot be negotiated. He will have to eat it."
"Two potatoes fine?" I asked the hero.
"Oh, that would be great"
Grandfather and I both ordered the pork steak, and ordered one for Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior as well, who was becoming sociable with the hero's leg.

Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer

I started reading this book a week ago, and am really getting into it now! I found this passage really rather funny, and familiar at the same time, after some of my previous debacles in Prague. Which is particularly appropriate to mention, now that I have just booked a flight to Budapest for late November, and expect to go through a similar trial when my friends inevitably drag me to one of the more traditional restaurants that Hungary has to offer.

Incidentally, my boss is from Hungary, and had a great(!) story to tell of one of his experiences of eating our there with a vegetarian. Him and some colleagues, including the poor unsuspecting veggie guy, had a table booked in one such traditional restaurant. On arrival, to the guy's horror, goose was the only thing on the menu. Goose pie, goose steak, goose soup. You name it, it was made out of goose. So when the vegetarian asked the waiter if there was anything at all that he could have, the waiter went away and asked the chef, and came back excitedly, saying that it could be done. Eventually, the food was bought out, and it turned out that the chef's idea of a good dish suitable for such a diet was some bread soaked in goose fat.

Anyway, read the book! Its great - a really compelling mixture of humour, mystery, tragedy and love.