A Wassail Trifle

 

First layer: Polish gingerbread hearts

I do make things that aren't trifles, although based on my recent blogging output, I can understand if you don't believe me at all. But I saw these lovely Polish iced gingerbread hearts (the brand name is Kopernik) in the Christmas clearance sales and they spoke to me very clearly and said they wanted to be trifle. They are very nice with a cup of tea, too, if you don't want the rest of this hassle. The flavour reminds me a bit of Swiss Basler Läckerli, but not as chewy a texture and no candied fruit.

Once I had settled on trifle, I thought about other flavours. I really liked the layers of citrus in the Jubilee trifle last year, and the citrus is so lovely at this time of year, but I really wasn't feeling that with gingerbread. The answer was obvious. Pears. And then I changed my mind because I had 5 very nice Egremont Russet apples in the fridge. 

Second layer: Brown sugar roasted apples

I roasted the apples with brown sugar and cinnamon according to a Diana Henry recipe - although hers is for unpeeled, uncored, halved apples and I did mine in chunks for ease of eating.

Then a layer of jelly - also based on a Diana Henry recipe - flavoured with a traditionally-made hard cider and Somerset cider brandy.

Once the jelly was set, I added a maple & cinnamon creme diplomat, and when that was set (not, I confess, quite as firmly as I wanted) I topped it with whipped cream, sprinkles, toasted almond flakes and some mini apples preserved in Calvados syrup. Very pretty, very delicious, not too sweet.

As I was putting all the layers together, it occurred to me that it was more-or-less seasonal too. Not because apples are in season now, but because a couple of weeks ago we were supposed to go to a local Iron Age Hillfort for a Wassail. The Wassail hasn't run for a few years because of Covid, but this year it was back on. But the week it was supposed to happen the ground was too soggy and it wasn't safe, so they postponed, then this week it was too cold and the group we were going with were dropping like flies with various illnesses and work commitments. But the combination here of cider, apples and spices is very much in keeping with a Wassail. So hopefully this trifle will be taken as an offering by any deities listening, and help produce a good harvest of apples this year.

Complete!

A good start to the year: garlic thyme potatoes

Finger lime

Happy New Year! 2019 is currently feeling overwhelming and fairly terrifying, so my main hope for us all is that it won't be as bad as it looks.

Last night, as is our preference, we stayed home and ate a delicious dinner. I had planned our traditional fondue, but then when the groceries were delivered my cheese wasn't in it. I couldn't quite face the prospect of a trip to the shops, so I re-thought, and came up with a very good plan using the available ingredients.

Fortunately, our starter was not affected by the lack of cheese. When I did the seafood platter for last week's Christmas Eve meal, Paul was smitten with the finger limes. He decided that if it could be had, some caviar would be a perfect New Year's Eve nibble, garnished with the finger lime beads. Caviar was obtainable (at predictably terrible price, but hey, we didn't have to pay for taxis last night), and it was a perfect combination. The matching size and texture and contrasting flavour and colour was excellent. It would even have been worth brushing my hair and leaving the house for, but fortunately I didn't have to go to those lengths.

For our not-fondue main course, I pulled some flatiron steaks out of the freezer, which we grilled over charcoal, braised some chicory and made these fab, meltingly delicious potatoes. It's the same potato dish I made for Christmas, and I think making it 2 weeks running means it's worth writing up the recipe. It's still very buttery, so it's not a low-calorie option, but it's much lighter than a dauphinoise.

You can see how sticky and melting they are

Garlic thyme potatoes (serves 2)

3-4 medium Charlotte potatoes (or other waxy or all-purpose variety), peeled and thinly sliced
45-60g (3-4tbs) salted butter
1 big sprig fresh thyme
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine or white vermouth
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
Black pepper

Preheat oven to 180C

Grease the base of a small casserole dish thickly with 1tbs butter. Arrange half the potatoes evenly in it. Scatter the garlic, thyme leaves, a good grinding of pepper and half the remaining butter on the potatoes, then add the remaining potatoes.

Pour over the wine and stock - it should come up about 2/3 of the way up the potatoes. Press down on the spuds so they are briefly submerged. Scatter with knobs of the remaining butter and another grinding of pepper.

Bake for half an hour or so, until the potatoes are golden on top, melting in the middle and most of the juices have evaporated. If your dish is deep rather than long it'll take longer. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

2018 Christmas Feasting

Merry Christmas, all! Hope you had the best possible day yesterday.

Last year, of course, we ate mostly vegetarian over the festive period - and very nice it was too. This year we were back on the beasts. And it was just us so we pared things back to a few indulgent meals.

Solstice dinner

We started on Friday, to mark the Solstice. A roast rack of cured pork, with roast autumn vegetables (a Diana Henry recipe), steamed kalettes and parsley sauce. We had some gorgeous Somerset cider brandy later on, to toast the turning of the wheel and the return of the sun.

There was loads of pork leftover. The bones and some of the meat made a lovely thick bean stew, and the rest of the meat went into sandwiches.

Stollen buns

I made a big batch of Spiced and Fruity Stollen Buns for our breakfasts this week. I don't think we'll get through them before they go stale, but the last few are going to make a magnificent bread and butter pudding.

Miso-butter double salmon rillettes

For Christmas Eve we had seafood. Mostly a bought seafood platter - which was vast, we have loads of prawns left - but I also made these absolutely gorgeous miso-butter double salmon rillettes. The miso gives the rillettes an extra deep savour. We had some of the leftover for lunch on Christmas Day, on toasted olive bread, and we're very happy to still have some tucked in the fridge.

Salmon rillettes on chicory leaves, garnished with finger lime

Seafood platter

We had our Christmas Dinner in the evening. As people who don't have a carved-in-stone traditional Christmas meal, it's snuck up on me that my most enduring tradition is Diana Henry's persimmon and chicory salad, which has adorned our Christmas table on three of the last four years, only missing Christmas 2015 because I couldn't get persimmons. This year I left out the pomegranate, because they were really expensive for just a bit of garnish. We had a really lovely lightly-smoked venison rack, and sort-of confit potatoes, cooked slowly with loads of garlic and thyme, and white wine, butter and vegetable stock.

Going easy on the main course left us with space for a very boozy almond tiramisu, made with an abundance of amaretto. And I used Paul's decaf coffee, so we both got a good night's sleep afterwards. 

Tiramisu

Christmas Venison Sausage Rolls

The snowflake is optional

I originally thought I would make a batch of Rudolf Rolls for Paul's last shoot before Christmas. But the thought of making my own blue cheese puff pastry in the time I had available felt a bit like a stressful Bake Off challenge. This, then, has similar flavours but is very quick to pull together.

Christmas Venison Sausage Rolls (makes 16 chunky ones, 8 lunch-sized ones)

500g minced venison (I minced cubed venison through a medium screen)
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 tbs butter
6 juniper berries, crushed
50g fresh breadcrumbs
2 tbs cranberry sauce (I used a particularly nice Manfood cranberry, chilli and orange one)
100g strong blue cheese
1 egg
Salt & pepper
1 egg, extra
2 x 320g sheets ready rolled puff pastry

Preheat oven to 200C (fan).

Gently saute the onion in the butter until translucent. Don't rush it, it'll take a solid 10 minutes with an occasional stir. Set aside to cool.

Combine minced venison, cooled onion, juniper berries, breadcrumbs, cranberry sauce, crumbled blue cheese and the egg in a medium bowl. Season well with salt and pepper and mix well.

Unroll the sheets of puff pastry, leaving it on the paper it's rolled in, and brush with the extra egg, beaten (I find this helps the sausage to stick to the pastry).

Divide the venison mixture into 4. Take a portion, pat it into a sausage shape with your hands and place at one end of one of the sheets of pastry and squidge it until it's the same length as the pastry and an even thickness. Repeat with a second portion and place at the other end of the pastry, then repeat twice more with the other sheet of pastry.

You'll have 2 long sheets of pastry with a sausage at each short end. In case you are having trouble visualising.

With the help of the backing paper to keep it tight, roll the sausage over so it's covered by the pastry, then brush that strip of pastry with a bit more egg and roll again. So you have a sausage roll with a tidy top and a double layer of pastry on the bottom. Repeat from the other end, then repeat with the other sausages and sheets of pastry.

You now have 4 sausage rolls, still joined in the middle of the two sheets of pastry. Using a sharp knife, cut between the sausage rolls, then cut each sausage roll in 2 or 4, depending on your plans for them.

Transfer them to baking paper-lined baking sheets, leaving a good space to expand.

Brush them with more of the beaten egg. If I'd had any leftover pastry, I would have cut out Christmassy decorations to put on top, but I didn't. So I pressed a snowflake cookie cutter into the tops, cutting through a couple of layers of the lamination but not all the way through. I should have pressed just a little harder to make the patterns a little more distinct.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a rich gold. You'll probably need to rotate the sheets at half time so they cook evenly. Cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

Triple ginger crunch slice

These rather fabulous morsels are what I think Americans call "bar cookies", but in Australia they are just known as slice. When discussing an office morning tea, you might say "I'm making a cake, so could you bring a slice?" and everyone understands that it's going to be a sweet traybake, often with a shortbread sort of base, cut into pieces that take just a bite or two.

Ginger crunch isn't Australian though - it's one of New Zealand's wonderful baked goods. My version isn't very crunchy: it has a tender oaty shortbread base and smooth ginger icing and it just feels like the right thing to eat with a cup of tea as the days get shorter and the weather cools down.

Triple ginger crunch slice (makes 24 pieces, the way I slice it)

Base
125g salted butter, softened
100g caster sugar (I used golden caster sugar with a vanilla bean stored in it, I think it adds to the flavour)
180g self raising flour
30g quick cooking rolled oats
2 tsp ground ginger
40g crystallised ginger, roughly chopped

Icing
125g salted butter
45g golden syrup (I know the Tate & Lyle tins are iconic but it's so much easier to get the squeezy bottles and measure straight into the pan on the scales)
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
180g icing sugar
1 tbs ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 190ºC.
Line a 7" x 11" pan with baking patchment.
In a small food processer, pulse the oats to crumbs, then add the rest of the base ingredients and process until it just comes together as a sandy dough.

Press the dough firmly into the prepared pan, flattening the surface with your hands, then bake until it’s light golden brown - about 20 minutes.

At the 15 minute mark, combine the butter for the icing with the golden syrup and grated ginger in a medium pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and sift in the icing sugar and last tablespoon of ground ginger and beat until smooth.

Remove the pan from the oven and pour the warm icing over the base. Tilt it around a bit to cover evenly, but it's fairly self-levelling. Let cool in the tin for about half an hour, then remove from the pan and slice with a sharp knife while still slightly warm.

It'll keep for 4 days in a sealed tin, if it gets a chance.

Margarita cheesecake ice cream

You may have heard that the UK is in the grip of a heatwave. It's not quite as hot as the infamous summer of 1976 (mention the weather in front of any British person over the age of 45 and they start to tell you about the summer of '76) but weeks of high 20s temperatures and very little rain have meant that there's barbecuing and grilling and salads and not a lot of other cooking going on.

But I did make this rather good dessert over the weekend.

It relies on the booze to stop it from freezing hard, so if you don't like to consume alcohol this really isn't for you.

Margarita Cheesecake Ice Cream (it's rich, makes lots)

1 x 397g can of full-fat condensed milk
300g cream cheese
2 limes
3 tbs tequila
3 tbs Cointreau or triple sec
300ml double cream
Shortbread biscuits, to serve

In a large bowl, using an electric whisk, beat together the condensed milk, cream cheese, grated zest and juice of the limes and the alcohol until smooth. Add the cream and whisk until soft peaks form. Scrape into a freezer-proof container and freeze overnight. Serve with a shortbread biscuit on the side. I'd have crumbled them up and mixed them through, but Paul really hates those sorts of bits in his ice cream.

Easter 2018

Happy Easter, to those who celebrate!

Paul's had a break between contracts, so the Easter weekend this year is the conclusion to a pretty restful few weeks. We had a chance to go to see friends, to see a movie, to get away for a few days to the Lake District, to sleep in and do some DIY. Nice.

And on Saturday we had friends over to lunch. Paul's volunteered us to cook at an event in the summer, and we're tentatively planning to do barbecued shoulder of lamb, so we thought this would be a good excuse to do a test run. Unfortunately the weather didn't play along at all. So I slathered the shoulder of lamb with wild garlic salsa verde, poured in some vegetable stock and wrapped it tightly in foil before baking it at 100C overnight. After about 13 hours I opened the foil and put it back in the oven to get a little colour before shredding it with a couple of forks, mixing it through the copious juices.

With it we had one of my new favourite things - the spinach and preserved lemon freekeh from On the Side, although I used a bunch of wild garlic leaves instead of cloves of garlic to add a seasonal twist. And to really amp up the fresh, herbal quality of the meal I also served Diana Henry's wonderful tomato and pomegranate salad with feta and soft herbs.

It was one of the best meals I have cooked in ages. And all doable ahead which made it very low effort. Low effort is definitely what you want for a low-key weekend.

Happy New Year! And festive feasting

New Year's Eve fondue

Happy New Year, all! Hope you've been able to muster some cautious optimism for the year to come.

Bit of an unusual festive season for us. We entertained! And we mostly didn't eat meat!

My aunt came to stay with us for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year. She's been a vegetarian for almost 40 years, and I couldn't face the idea of making two different meals for three people, so we resolved to cook vegetarian at home while she was with us.

In the end there were loads of things I planned to make that I never got around to (the gado gado, cheesy polenta with roast shallots and figs, sage and walnut lasagne and the white bean puree with roast radicchio can all wait until her next visit) but what I did cook went pretty well, I thought.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's savoury carrot and feta cake

Felicity Cloake's perfect panforte

Nigella's take on pizzocheri - pasta with potato, brussels sprouts and cheese - for Christmas Eve dinner

I started planning what to cook for Christmas Day a couple of months ago. We aren't wedded to any particular traditional Christmas meal, so we weren't trying to fit vegetarian food into a pre-existing format, but we wanted something a bit sumptuous and celebratory. I originally thought that a stuffed pumpkin would be good, but decided that there isn't enough room inside a pumpkin to have a decent amount of stuffing, so I reimagined it as a baked, layered dish.

Sour cherry couronne

We started Christmas day, however, with couronne. It's mostly Paul Hollywood's recipe, but substituting sour cherries for apricots (I didn't bother soaking them) and lovely Italian crystallised citrus peel for the raisins. Instead of plain marzipan I used a new-to-me brandy marzipan, which packed quite a wallop.

Mezze plate

For lunch we just had mezze - bought hummus, felafel, artichoke hearts, olives, dolmades and stuffed peppadews, with some leftover carrot and feta cake, and a few bits of pickled carrot and mooli. Then the layered baked squash for dinner.

November's trial run on the Christmas squash

In my practice runs I had used delica pumpkin, which sliced into neat crescents which cooked evenly and looked like a pretty sunburst.

Unfortunately Ocado let me down on the day and delivered a butternut - good flavour but not as pretty!

The layers of squash were interspersed with sauteed onion, loads of rosemary and sage, crumbled sourdough bread, toasted hazelnuts, crumbled Stilton cheese and garlic. Then I poured cream and white wine over the lot and let it bake slowly.

We had a persimmon and chicory salad with it (Diana Henry's recipe, although for obvious reasons I left out the cheese and nuts). Delicious, if not in any way photogenic.

Final version of baked layered squash

There was no need at all for dessert after all that! Later in the week I made a quince and clementine trifle, but we really didn't go in much for pudding at home.

Quince and clementine trifle

On New Year's Eve we had a fondue for lunch, and then friends came over for tea and cake. I'd been looking for an excuse to make Ottolenghi's walnut and halva cake, and this seemed like just the time. It's a very good cake.

Ottolenghi's walnut & halva cake

The other main home-cooking highlights of the festive period were a rather triumphant take on megadarra (I used siyez bulgar instead of rice, topped it with pomegranate arils and goats curd and served it with runner beans stewed in tomatoes) and pairing Ottolenghi's bulgar with mushrooms, feta and dill with Gizzi Erskine's brussels sprout, pomegranate and pistachio salad. Which end up looking quite similar, so fortunately we didn't have them back to back.

Megadarra and runner beans

Ottolenghi's bulgar and Gizzi Erskine's sprouts

Apple cider doughnut muffins

Week before last Paul asked me to make muffins for our weekend breakfast. He specifically wanted American-style cakey muffins and he asked if they could be apple. I still don't know where my scales are, so at the moment I am quite happy with American recipes in cup measurements. I found this recipe, for Cider Doughnut Muffins and thought it'd work really well to add some dried apples to the batter.

Unfortunately, there was not a dried apple to be found in all of Bedford. Someone on Twitter pointed out that it was Rosh Hashanah and that may have had an impact. I'm slightly sceptical about that to be honest - but one way or another I couldn't get the dried apples and naturally went into a massive sulk and refused to bake, despite Paul having provided alternatives in the form of dried pears and dried mangoes.

This week, I got the dried apples.

Dried apples soaking in reduced cider

I mostly followed the recipe. I used hard, dry English cider rather than American sweet cider, and when I had reduced it to 1 cup, I added 1 cup of chopped dried apple slices, and let them steep overnight.

Very happy with that fluffy, tender crumb

And rather than rolling the cooked muffins in melted butter and cinnamon sugar for the doughnut effect, I sprinkled each one with a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg and demerara sugar before they went in the oven, so the coating cracked a bit as the muffins rose. And, presumably because of the apples, they took quite a lot longer to bake, 25 minutes, not 15-17. Very successful and tasting beautifully autumnal.

A belated blogoversary

So... we moved. And it was the utter ball-ache moving always is. With the added tedium that we only got broadband installed on Friday.

Due to the hassle of moving (and the fact we don't have a dishwasher yet) I haven't really been cooking anything fancy. Definitely nothing with multiple stages or processes or utensils required. And because of the lack of interesting cooking and the lack of broadband I completely missed my 10th blogoversary. 10 years! My god.

Anyway, my mate Sharon (who you may remember from posts such as this one. And this one. And this, and this, and this) is married to a man whose parents live near our new house. They have very kindly invited us over for Sunday dinner this evening because they think it would be nice to have some local knowledge. It definitely will!

I offered to bring a dessert - a pretty pointless gesture because Graeme's mum's desserts are legendary for their quality, quantity and diversity. But hey.

I thought I would knock up a quick frangipane mirabelle tart. Which was quite a good idea really, until I discovered that I couldn't find my scales or my silicon spatulas. A bit of guesswork took place and it ended up being a bit oozier and more rustic than planned. Fortunately they all have lovely manners and will be gracious. But I think we'll take a bottle of wine as well...

Blacklock City, Foxlow Soho and Bellanger

Blacklock City pre-chop bites

I'm not deliberately moving the blog towards more reviews, it's just been working out that way. This past week I have eaten out an unprecedented three times. Well, it may not actually be unprecedented but I can't remember the last time I did (while not actually being away from home). And now I am coming to think about the three meals, I think they are quite representative of the way I prefer to eat out in London. Independents or small chains. Not stuffy or fussy, not enormously expensive but good ingredients and generous hospitality.

All in. Why not?

On Monday I had lunch with Mimi and her lovely baby son at Blacklock City. We originally planned to meet because Mimi was embroiled in an imbroglio, as Wodehouse would have it, over the appropriation of Burmese culture and I'd offered to be moral support in her meeting with the unrepentant appropriator. But then Mimi decided that he wasn't worth the time, so we just had lunch. I'd been to Blacklock Soho for their (exceptionally good) Sunday lunch, but this was the first time I'd been to the new City venue. While the Soho branch on a Sunday is pretty mixed, a chophouse in the City on a weekday might as well have "NO GIRLS" on the door: some of the suited and booted diners looked slightly horrified to see women with a pram.

We went "all in" - pre-chop bites, chops piled on grilled flatbread and a couple of sides, for a very reasonable £20 a head. The pre-chop bites, int the same vein as the anchovies I had at Foxlow recently, were Peter's Yard (probably) rye crispbreads topped with salty, delicious toppings. The nicest of the three was topped with egg and anchovy - so good we ordered another round of those in lieu of pudding. The chops (beef sirloin, pork belly and lamb t-bones) were delicious, the chips perfect and the salad just what was needed. A couple of £5 cocktails and extremely friendly staff going above and beyond to accommodate the baby made it just about perfect.  

Lenny Henry as a Depression-era gangster

On Wednesday I had a quick, early dinner back at Foxlow before seeing the excellent Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar. We had a table towards the front of the restaurant, which was a reasonable height so my feet were able to touch the floor comfortably.

I almost never order chicken burgers, because the chicken is so often woolly and bland, but with the memory of their delicious fried chicken fresh in my mind I felt confident to have the chicken burger, with an optional kimchi topping. Messy. Very messy. But absolutely delicious. The service was a bit scatty - my friend had specifically asked if there was mayonnaise on the Foxlow burger, had been told no, and then it arrived with a massive load of mayo on it. She complained, and the staff member complained to went to get the staff member who'd taken the original order, who said it wasn't mayonnaise it was KEWPIE MAYONNAISE. And it then took much longer than it should have to bring a replacement, mayo-less bun.

Chicken burger with kim chi, fries and cherry tarragon sorbet

I decided that I couldn't forego ice cream on a very hot day, so I ordered a scoop of salted caramel ripple and a scoop of cherry and tarragon sorbet, both of which were gorgeous. Then we strolled off to the theatre.

Rose weather at Bellanger

And finally on Friday I had dinner at Bellanger before a dance show. Turned out to be a slightly less good idea because the show wasn't at the venue we thought it was at, so we ended up having to hustle to get there in time. But Bellanger is a Corbin and King restaurant, and I love what they do so, so much, so it's never going to be a terrible idea, even if it results in a more expensive Uber. The Delaunay, Brasserie Zedel, Fischers - all good food, professional service, some of the nicest loos in London and reasonable prices. You know you are in safe hands.

It was a really hot day, and I couldn't quite bear the idea of choucroute garnie, or even one of their huge, delicious schnitzels. The salad section of the menu appealed but it was a bit tricky to fathom what size the salads were. The waitress advised us that the crab and smoked salmon salad, at £13.95 was a starter size, and the beef, endive and roquefort salad at £14.50 was a main course size. Which was slightly confusing. We took her advice and ordered the salads, with a tarte flambee to share. The portion size was perfectly judged to leave space for dessert. The last time I had a knickerbocker glory it was a tragically disappointing waste of calories. This one restored my faith in them, with strawberry and vanilla ice creams, not-too-jammy berries and whipped cream.

Crab salad, tarte flambee and knickerbocker glory

Bank holiday barbecue

 

It's a bank holiday weekend, and unfortunately it has played into the British bank holiday stereotype of shit weather. We haven't had much in the way of rain for weeks, but it's been threatening all weekend and just been unpleasant to be outside in.

Pulled harissa lamb

We could've made plans to do something indoors, but we haven't, despite actually getting as far as looking at cinema screentimes. So I have been reading and Paul's been whacking aliens on the computer and the cat has been patrolling the lawn in between lengthy naps.

On Saturday, though, we did a nice, long, low & slow barbecue. A shoulder of British lamb, seasoned with salt, pepper and cumin, smoked gently for 5 hours, then wrapped in harissa paste and vegetable broth and cooked for another 2 hours before resting for an hour. We had it piled onto bread flavoured with dukkah, hummus laden with wild garlic leaves and grilled courgettes in a preserved lemon and coriander dressing. It tasted perfectly springlike even if the weather felt very much like late winter.

Picture restaurant and thoughts on blogging

Menu

For Christmas, Paul gave me a day-long silver jewellery making course. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. One thing that startled me, though, was that when we were introducing ourselves at the beginning of the course, a couple of the other participants announced that they were doing this (absolute beginners) course because they intended to make a career out of it. Without any real background in jewellery making or knowing whether they had any aptitude they were determined that this was going to be their thing. On the one hand I admired the confidence, but on the other that just seems bonkers to me.

Warm sourdough rolls and whipped butter

And I have to say that I am feeling much the same way about food blogging these days. Back lo, these many years ago, when I started blogging, it mostly seemed to be people who liked food or liked writing or both, using a free platform with a shitty layout and rubbish photos. And enjoying it. We made friends with people with similar interests, spent time commenting on other people's posts and took our time over things.

Delicious basil martini

Now it seems like a lot of people have decided that there is money to be made and they decide they are going to be Food Bloggers. They come in with professional-looking headshots in their profiles, a business plan, a brand identity and an SEO strategy. They have media kits. They have business cards. They hustle. It's a valid approach, but it's not my approach and it does make me a bit wistful for the days when we made friendships, not networking opportunities. I deeply admire, though, the people who started around when I did who have actually been able to cope with change and adapt to the new environment.

Beef bites

The whole landscape is different. I've stopped accepting PR invitations and removed myself from a couple of databases, because if you want a blog to promote your thing I'm really not your girl. I don't care about my reach. I don't know how many, if any, readers I have. I seldom bother cross promoting my blog posts on other channels (I will put them on the Foodycat facebook page but I won't pay to boost posts, so not a lot of people will see that). I'd rather leave that stuff to the people who are passionate about making their blogs pay.

Asparagus, pea and wild garlic veloute

It also occurred to me this week, that while there are products that I have continued to buy and use after initially being sent them to review, there's only one restaurant that I have been to for a blogger event that I have subsequently been back to on my own dime. Since I don't have a lot to offer a restaurant in terms of generating buzz, the point of me really is going to a place, being inoffensive to staff and paying for my dinner - so I have a pretty terrible track record.

Beetroot tartare, goats curd

I first went to Picture, on Great Portland St, with a bunch of bloggers in 2014. And then again less than a week later. Then somehow I hadn't managed to go back. I knew they'd opened a second restaurant in Marylebone, but I'd never made it to that one either.

Pork, pickled carrots, granny smith apple

This week, though, I was looking for a venue for a dinner with a friend (same friend I'd had lunch with at Picture before, as it happens) and Great Portland St ticked the boxes for her to get to Waterloo or Vauxhall and me to get to Baker St or Marylebone after. I'd assumed we'd go a la carte - didn't think I could stretch to the £45 6 course Spring menu (still very reasonable, but once you add drinks and service charge that's probably £65. Not on a Wednesday). But then when I booked I discovered they were doing a Taste on London deal of the Spring menu and a cocktail for £35.

Roast cod, charred gem, salsa verde, merguez

It was all wonderful really. In a perfect world the skin on the cod would have been crisp. And the merguez tasted more like chorizo. But plate after plate of delicious, well-seasoned food with interesting contrasts of taste and texture can't really be sneered at. The first time I was there I noted that the menu had moved from veg to pork to fish in a slightly confusing way, but that the fish had been a necessary palate cleanser between rich pork and rich beef. This menu went with a similar formula with the clean, pearly cod breaking up the lightly smoked, meltingly tender pork and the voluptuous lamb. But even so I couldn't possibly have faced a cheese course, either before or after the chocolate mousse.

Lamb, sprouting broccoli

Chocolate mousse was the pudding the first time I ate at Picture too. But they make such a good one it hardly matters. The presentation was better this time! I wasn't quite sure about the blob of cream being almost the same size as the mousse, but it actually concealed the delicious milk jam (basically condensed milk, for those of us who adore it). The mousse was very light, just the right sweetness and although I had my doubts at the beginning I actually managed to finish the whole dish. In addition to the £35 deal, we had a beef bite each and shared a carafe of wine. So with the service charge it came in at £50 a head. Definitely worth it.

Chocolate mousse

Showing the milk jam