uk: February 2008 Archives

Today Barnaby has been eating rock oysters (farmed ones, but he's only a bear) by the harbour in Whitstable.

It was February, it was cold and I was in England.  Perhaps this explains the craving I experienced for sticky toffee pudding.  Having reviewed a number of formulas claiming to be 'the ultimate' or 'best ever', I came up with this version, adapted from recipes from the BBC Good Food Guide and Sharrow Bay.  It's certainly the best one I've had.  Make double the puddings and freeze the others for the next cold day.

No, not the scrawled 1970s cartoon or the tooth-wrenching sweet of my childhood, or even the early '90s hardcore rave anthem of my (very brief) clubbing days, but instead some delicious vanilla petits pots de crème (very French) with some bright pink rhubarb scented with orange zest (very English). 

I was inspired to make this by a vanilla panna cotta with rhubarb which I enjoyed at Cotto, by far the best restaurant in Cambridge at the moment.  Rhubarb has just hit Cambridge market, so I wasn't surprised to find it on the menu at Cotto, which makes a point of using local, organic and seasonal produce.  Not wanting to get involved with gelatin this particular afternoon, I changed it to pots de crème.  They were easy, beautiful and delicious.

We're about to start a culinary journey around Europe and West Africa: finding out about (and testing!) the food, and talking to the people who grow, prepare and eat it.

We'll be posting pictures, recipes, food facts and (occasionally) general diary stuff. The "about" pages here have more information about the journey (where we'll be going and roughly when), and some information about who we are and why we're doing this.

But at the moment we're still in Cambridge trying to get everything ready: vehicle, documentation, camping gear, clothes for snowy Poland and sunny Turkey, and so on. And we still need to find some good cheap espresso cups.

When I was 4, my dad gave my mother 'The Times Cookery Book' by Katie Stewart for Christmas, doubtlessly not for entirely altruistic reasons.  She's been making Katie's marmalade every January since.  The house being filled with the sweet-sour aromas of Seville oranges cooking in their own syrup is a favourite childhood memory.  Mum's excellent 2008 vintage prompted me to write it up, complete with her own and Katie's tips.

So, we are STILL in the UK, waiting for our new car (it's a red one, and actually quite old) to be fixed up.  We still have a few essentials to buy (plug adaptors, espresso cups, etc), but hopefully next week's email will come from Paris...

Many thanks to those who have sent us tips for where to go and other useful contacts for our travels.  Please keep them coming.