I learnt recently that the reason we are so obsessive and ritualistic about coffee is because it is an addiction. So like any class A drug we become fraught with the detail, whether it's a double shot, extra hot, a little extra hot water it really matters.
As for me it has to be small, don't ever super size my coffee. My preference is for a Hobbs house bakery cafe au lait, half water, half milk on top of a illy double espresso in a small cup of course. The question is how to reiterate this at home. Our well loved francis francis machine has given up on us, so in the meanwhile it's back to the old school stove top Italian espresso pot and milk frothed on the machine for babochinos all round. That's unless Tom's at home and we can enjoy the mastery of chemex coffee as taught to him by the masters themselves colonna and small.
 

As expected we have once again been eating pork this week:  just pork, all week.  This has meant that, apart from one lonely tunny fish omelette, Elizabeth has been neglected.  This omelette also used up the last evidence of supermarket shopping, a dusty tin of Waitrose tuna fish.  Our youngest daughter also reminded us of how long it had been since we started just shopping locally as she attempted to climb into a trolley seat back to front.

On Sunday, we had friends for lunch, the sun shone and we filled our house, tummies and the paddling pool.  For lunch I cooked a suckling pig, a whole pig from Frampton, stuffed with citrus and herb breadcrumbs.  Cooked to perfection in the bakery wood fired oven, the pig was very different from a normal pork joint, with little fat, a thin crisp skin and a gamey flavour, to the groans of the children and the delight of the dog.  He fed us all, all week.

I always lack inspiration for using up meat joints and find it somewhat tiresome.   The first meal for the pig was a tagine, obviously I couldn’t find an authentic moroccan recipe for a pork tagine, but adjusted a chicken one to make a lightly spiced dish with apricots and olives.  To appease the children, next up was a tomato pasta bake with pork.  There was also a lot of delicious stuffing to use up so this got added successfully to the pasta.  And the final pork dish:  a potato dauphinoise featuring pork and stuffing!

As we enter a new week and a new month, I am going to need to cook my way through the meat I have been stockpiling in my butcher’s freezer.  This is going to take me out of the season as I revisit the game section, there’s a hare and a turkey waiting for me, and yes I do still need to stuff a cabbage with a partridge.  Hopefully these recipes can be one night wonders so I don’t have any more leftovers to deal with.   

Tom, Tom the piper's son, stole a pig and away did run...

Finding myself in new pastures, last Saturday I did all my food shopping in Chipping Sodbury, home of Hobbs House Bakery.  I can happily confirm that it is totally possible to shop locally at independents in Sodbury too.  I managed to buy all I needed for an epic weekend of family feasting in one pretty circuit.  Obviously, I started in the bakery with bread, there we also sell cream and milk and an obligatory coffee to drink whilst shopping.  Next stop was the Hobbs House Butchery, where my eagerly anticipated, well hung rib of beef was waiting for me.  I also bought all the ingredients to make a pate (a more normal person could just buy their pate from butchers Henry and Jolly Alan), some cheese, butter, eggs and a slider burger from outside.  On Saturdays a grill is set up outside where we bought our sliders, a perfectly pink burger in one of Hobbs House’s new Ultimate Burger Baps.  

We then purchased some birthday presents from the gift shop on the corner where there is a lovely selection of reasonably priced delights.  Then we headed down to Ian’s for his fine selection of fruit and veg.  It took my intrepid four year old daughter to find his ‘out the back room’, amazing, stacked high with all the dry goods you could possibly need - in our case hundreds and thousands and dishwasher salt.  The service in Ian’s is great, cheery and helpful, they wouldn’t even let me carry my box of goodies to the car outside.  

The only thing left on the shopping list was anchovies.  Just as I was thinking Sodbury was going to fail me I whizzed to Hamptons where they were thrilled to offer me two types of anchovy. Wherever my lively gaggle stopped to buy, the service was really enjoyable and the quality inspires me to write, cook and share, all at very good value. AND there were plenty of shops that I didn’t get to try.

My plea to you is, don’t just use your local High Streets, before you lose them, encourage your friends and families to use and enjoy them too.



Last week, as I pack for an Easter break I let smug thoughts drift into my head, perhaps I am getting this parenting lark sussed. A small suitcase each, containing no more than four outfits, one pair of shoes and wellies, waterproofs, sketch books and a few toys.  Our normal way of embarking on a long journey is to travel late, but this time in order to make better use of time we decide to leave early, waking the kids to go.  As Tom and I finish stuffing the all too small car at 1am, we bed down for a few hours’ sleep.  The late night was perhaps not helped by the various distractions of that day.  Firstly the visit to Stroud library to pick up some audio cds for the journey -did you know you can hire them for free?  This mission was quickly outdone by my unwise decision later to clean out the car, leaving the smallest playing in the front: one small pound coin later and we no longer have a working cd player.  The next great achievement was to cook a Pot au feu and some macaroons to take with us, and dinner for the brother-in-law’s birthday:  the final spanner in the works to the cooking and the last minute washing was the planned all day power cut that hadn’t quite registered in the ‘what impact?’ part of my brain.

Anyway, we made it, minus the macaroons, and have had a fantastic week relaxing in a fishing village in Fife.  Not only have the culinary implications of a week away stretched to transporting pot au feu, a large mixed meat soup with a leaky lid, but we are staying opposite a working harbour.  Two lobsters and six crabs down, and watching out for today’s catch coming in for the next six lobsters.  I have contemplated bringing home some live lobsters, but I am suspecting that if I want to make a return to the smugness of last week, we may have enough to contend with already.  

I can’t think of a more perfect way to end a weekend and prepare for the week ahead than cooking a good old fashioned roast dinner.  Last Sunday I had no-one to cook for, just the kids and me- there was a chicken in waiting for this eventuality.  There are still a good few Elizabeth David whole chicken recipes for me to complete;  for this bird I chose a simple one, stuffed with a tarragon butter, the skin rubbed with olive oil.  The main difference was cooking it on a grill pan on its side and turning during cooking.  Of course it was delicious, crisp and moist, but the kids and I only managed a leg and a breast, so we were left with a whole lot of chicken.

 This was a special bird, free range and originating from Madgetts Farm, not a £30 one as seen in this week’s papers. But what was really good about this bird was that it fed my family for a whole week.  In comparison to my love for roasted chicken, I loathe leftover fridge cold chicken so I have to find appealing ways to use it up. As usual the carcass became a stock, first boiled up, then left overnight in the simmering oven with whatever is in the cupboard (bay leaf, peppercorns, carrot, celery, onion, leek).  On Monday I needed an antidote to ED so we relished a chicken curry.  On Tuesday some of the less identifiable parts of the chicken went into potato sausages- or to quote the children ”fish cakes without the fish”!  These were made from mashed potato with added stock, beaten egg, diced chicken and parsley, rolled to sausages in flour and lightly fried.  On Wednesday we digressed to cottage pie for the two year old’s birthday.  Then on Thursday and Friday there was chicken soup.  An Italian recipe I once learnt, you make a bechamel sauce to which you add chicken stock with chopped chicken.  This makes a fantastic imitator of tinned cream of chicken soup, but this stuff feeds you like nothing else, it nourishes the soul.  

Devoured by the whole family on Sunday, and still forthcoming with delectables for the rest of the week:  I heartily encourage you to raise a toast to our most traditional Sunday roast.

Roast chicken and other recipes

I nearly set fire to the kitchen tonight as I made roast chicken with tarragon flambe with brandy.  The alarmed children then declared “how much longer have we got of Elizabeth David?” as they attempted to tear out the remaining offending pages.  They will be disappointed to know approximately two thirds.  This leaves me wondering- what have I learnt?  Anything? It’s difficult to measure;  I continue to be a capable cook who cooks from recipes, but that doesn’t really mean I can cook instinctively with our grandmothers confidence.  Which I guess means we have got two thirds more before we find out whether I am a better cook or if I just return to type.

There are definitely things I have learnt and changed about the way I cook, namely butter, cream, seasoning, tarragon and in cases of doubt more seasoning and a “lump of sugar”.  Beyond the ingredients there are techniques:  sieving and mouling, (using the otherwise redundant baby weaning food mill).  Also, boiling vegetables in a lot less water so they don’t become waterlogged, and sometimes just pan frying and braising them in butter.  Did you know you can cook new potatoes on the hob just in butter shaking occasionally until golden served deliciously with a sprinkling of salt?

Elizabeth has taught me the art of sauces.  I have always loved a good sauce and I enjoy balancing meals with a juicy element.  I have covered a lot of the sauce chapter and all have been a hit.  Whether a butter rich hollandaise or bearnaise, or a sieved onion sauce accompanying roast lamb.  Her tomato sauce is simple and I have used it successfully on a non Elizabeth pizza. I have made remoulades using cooked and raw egg yolks and aioli using raw eggs.  There was a delicious horseradish and walnut sauce to accompany salmon where I lovingly skinned the walnuts, a hassle but truly scrumptious.  

Then of course there is her bechamel sauce that requires finishing in a bain marie! It’s this method I am not sure I will take with me when I am on the other side.  I’ve definitely  become a siever, and a more rounded and happier cook, but I have developed an almost pathological loathing of washing up and continue to try to use as few pans as possible.  

As the government announces we should be eating less red meat, I have been hitting the pork section of Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking.  I have had my second attempt at a terrine, this time a terrine de pork et de gibier (pork and game pate).  This was made from minced pork and veal, pheasant, pork fat, white wine and a seasoning including juniper berries and garlic.  I crushed the seasonings to a paste in a pestle and mortar and added this to the rest of the ingredients.  This was then cooked in loaf tins in a bain marie.  The result was impressive but not a resounding success.  It was a little under seasoned but a hard thing to master unless you like eating raw meat and the chef of the family advised me it was overcooked.  This just gives me room for improvement on the next recipe, one more terrine and two gallantines to go.

I followed this up with some great pork chops cooked with shallots and cider, accompanied by Horsley grown jerusalem artichokes with tomatoes.

We have also used up the last of the Christmas ham in some of Elizabeth’s recipes, she often adds cooked ham as the pork addition in casseroles, so Wild Duck with peppers and ham.  I also cooked her ham in cream and cheese sauce, for which mysteriously you finish off the sauce in a bain marie -I’m not convinced what benefit this brings.

For Little Chef Friday the children got homemade Frankfurters from their Uncle’s Butchery in Chipping Sodbury.  Not the potent pink colour of the artificial ones, but deep in flavour.  We had a proud parenting moment as they made their own rolls for them.  

As you can see we are not abiding to the 70 gram daily recommendation of meat.  What I do think though is if you buy good quality meat, with providence, it’s got to be better.  If you can’t afford good meat then just buy less:  enjoy one really good 70g steak rather than a 250g(8oz) one.  

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Not only did I get a bow tie and some bose speakers for Christmas, but a book arrived through the post called ‘Cured’ by Lindy Wildsmith. It’s a beautiful hardback with gorgeous photography taking the reader on a tour of the joys of curing. From meat to fish, smoking to pickles and there as I opened the book on the first few pages was a feature on a chef called Henry Herbert and how to make bath chaps, a brine and Wiltshire ham. Such a pleasant surprise for me that snowy Christmas day. I had completely forgotten that Lindy had come to the pub where I worked previously for a chat on curing  and butchering up a pig; never had I thought that it would make it into a published book of such calibre, and also for an added bonus be in the front few pages.

I recommend anyone wishing to explore the world of curing to purchase this book, or failing that come visit my butchery shop in Chipping Sodbury and have a flick through it here.

A quick note on the sad affair of my pig’s head. All started well, I had my fare and great expectations.  Proudly I took the head to my in laws’ house, scooped out the brain and fulfilled one of my favourite jobs of carefully washing out the membrane. It is a job that requires a delicate touch. This I poached in a seasoned aromatic water for a few minutes, then floured and fried with capers and sage in butter until crispy, and served on toast. Eating brain is a love it or hate it delicacy, like eating piggy marshmallows on a fire. Crispy on the outside, runny in the middle.

I made up a herby salt rub and massaged it into my head, then to the horror of my mother in law I removed her vegetables from the tray and nestled my head in the bottom of her fridge. This I left for a week to do its magic. Then it started to go wrong. I was living between two houses and renovating another, I had also just started working in the butchery. My free time was limited. It takes hours to cook a pig’s head. So the poor thing was moved between locations several times only to be stumped by the fact no one had a pan big enough to house him. In the end I succumbed and pot-roasted him overnight in my mother’s Aga. This proved fatal. Rather than pink succulent flesh I had grey overly salted tough meat. With a grave heart I threw it away. A bad workman blames his tools, but I was foolish to try with such limited provisions. Cooking at home is new to me and I’m not used to not having a professional kitchen backing me up.

There will be a next time, there will be better success. 

In an effort to be organized and feel less like a ditsy headless chicken I have done all my shopping for the weekend on Friday.  For any cynics or questioners here is how I shop locally.  I started in the Horsley Community shop for all my basics, this is where I buy loo roll, toothpaste, cereal, and dairy(including a brie the two smallest and I demolished at lunch).  I also bought sugar and vanilla pods in bulk this week which is a more economical way.  The family butcher in Chipping Sodbury has met with all my meat needs, chicken breasts and a pork fest of ham, bacon, a leg of pork and frankfurters.  Then to Nailsworth and Bramleys for a box load of delicious looking fruit, vegetables, primroses and daffodils and even a few bargains from the overs box.  In true Friday spirit it’s fish tonight, some lovely looking black bream and some soup for lunch and other delicacies from Williams.  This week in Nailsworth I also managed some perfect birthday presents, a toy for the Godson and a nightie for the expectant Sister-in-Law.  The garage willingly replaced the brake light for the car.  The Yellow Lighted bookshop also provided me with great advice on what book to buy my 9 year old son to keep up the momentum with his reading, he has just completed all the Mr Gum books thanks to their original recommendation and now actually wants to read- A heartfelt Thank you.

We also headed to the local library to make the most of their bargain one night film hire.

So what else is on the menu this weekend?  For the first time I am cooking for Tom and others when he’s working on Sunday.  Of course I have turned to Elizabeth David for inspiration, a soupe au pistou, a green minestrone with a garnish of garlic and basil and hot pork rolls will be on the menu.  I will follow this with some home baked cakes, probably my new choice marmalade and maybe a ginger cake too.  I am going to squeeze in an imam bayeldi, my favourite  aubergine dish too, you never know when you might need it.

As you can see we are far from starving on this local lark, you could do it too.  

I write to you all having just had a superb and fulfilling Christmas.  The presents all went down well (Tom is growing to love his “dead man’s tie”), and the food even better.  It was truly satisfying too share with friends and family such fantastic grub whilst knowing it was all bought locally.  Now two weeks into the New Year and I still haven’t ventured into any large shops and here lies the question of what next.  

As part of my local mission I was also cooking weekly from a different era  This was not only a great experience to source the food but to cook in new ways and try out different ingredients and techniques.  Therefore my next challenge, Julie and Julia inspired, is to cook the whole of Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking.  This is an inspirational book of the 1960’s which is much revered by todays chefs.  It is the book said to of changed the way we cook now.  I will cook seasonally and am currently trying to cook all the recipes containing chestnuts and have got a lot of game to get through before the season ends.  Of course I will only be buying my ingredients from local independents and will endeavor to finish as the last Quinces ripen on our tree (for the quince paste and quince marmalade recipes).  I will also try to achieve zero food waste so will continue to hold my title as Queen of Leftovers.

I received the book for Christmas and so far I am still getting through a whole lot of butter.  One packet in last weeks roast dinner.  I have stuffed a cabbage and also confirmed that I can’t poach an egg.  It has made me examine the way I cook,  I realise how much I cut corners, how I avoid washing up unnecessary pans, sieving, and separating eggs.  What I have loved so far is the challenge it sets and how different things can taste.  I cooked two dover sole, one in wine and shallots one in stock and the texture and taste were completely different.  I have delighted in finding the right seasonal vegetable and rediscovered the organic fruit and vegetables at the Shambles market.  I will be back reporting to you weekly on my highs and lows and if you can’t wait until then I will be blogging daily at http://sheshopslocal.blogspot.com/  and twitter at @SheShopsLocal