Supper # 30 - Kensington, London

The men in my family really know how to cook. When we were growing up my dad did all the cooking and my mum made the puds. It wasn't always the most palatable thing for a young, slightly fussy child like myself - brawn to a five year old looks like hell on a plate, whilst a bubbling cauldron of calf's head would send me fleeing in squealing horror. But the food was always proper, interesting and usually fresh out of the ground.

I'm glad to say that my brother, Ferdie, has carried on this legacy and has become one of the best cooks I know. Dinner is often pretty Spanish in its timing but it is always a treat and heart and flavoursome as hell.

THE SET UP: Our friends, Ruth and Ellis come round for supper. I've dived into Wholefoods for some wine and pudding ingredients. They all disapprove of it, think it's the most wrong, unimaginative pile of crap to ever have the audacity to exist. It's true that much of it is style over substance; quantity over quality, but Jesus, when it's literally the nearest food store to the house, I ain't complaining. I can't go to M&S anymore, knowing full well that I can just go and skip their stuff for free these days and Tesco is definitely out - Wholefoods works just fine for me, especially since I've become an itinerant.

WHO CAME: Ferds, Ruth, Ellis and I

WHAT WE ATE: Very good smoked salmon from Wholefoods, squeezed with lemon and atop oatcakes. It is pale and really smokey and about as different from that orange stuff as you can get. We drink it with some prosseco that Ruth brings to toast my quickie return to London. Then comes some smoked mackarel pancakes with guacamole on top: warm and cool and spicy and tangy... I crack open a bottle of Chateau Miravai Cotes de Provence rose and we continue. Then comes a lamb stew made with lamb's breast. This is a super cheap cut of meat that is perfect for hot-pots and what not - all fatty and unctuous, filtering out its tender taste into a hearty broth. A big, round, serious Argentinian red gets drunk with it and we all have seconds.


DINNER TABLE TOPICS: Catching up and having a good old gas...the truth is I can't remember what we talked about, but I know there was a lot of laughing so I put down the failure of memory to the booze rather than the crap conversation.

THE PUD: I made a warm chocolate meringue tart. It should really have been served cold but what are you gonna do, hey? They all liked it and we got come good mileage out of it the next day en route to the West country.


MY BED FOR THE NIGHT:....forgot to take a pic but may as well not have been to bed for how I felt the next day.