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Good bye Dad

Published October 21, 2009 Channel 4 , Food , chefs , me 6 Comments
Tags: dad, family, me, river cottage

Yesterday was my father’s funeral. My Dad was a cook and chef nearly all his working life. He entered the Navy, after a troubled upbringing, at the age of 16 starting as an assistant cook. Travelling the world on HMS Tiger, Victorious, Lincoln, Excellent and others he rose through cook to become leading cook, until marriage and thoughts of me came along.

His record reads ‘Webb is a capable and excellent leading cook, though he does have some problem with authority.” In civvy street he managed and cooked in the Model Inn in Cardiff (now a dog rough pub), the Kings Arms in Swindon, the George and Dragon in Andover as the Barley Mow near Channel 4 and the Anchor by Tate Modern, then just an old power station.

After half a pint of rum a day in the navy and a life behind the bar and dealing with the heat and stresses of the kitchen it’d be an understatement to say he had a fondness for a drink. Alcoholism is a seldom-addressed occupational hazard in the hospitality industry. Indeed Keith Floyd’s recent documentary and passing struck a major chord with me, I felt so sorry for his daughter. But unlike Floyd my dad was never a drunk, never nasty or spiteful, never unkempt or dishevelled. Booze fuelled the patter, and the patter meant the customer paid handsomely and went home happy.

After my parents divorced in 1985 my Dad drifted down to the West Country. Here as an agency chef he did any number of jobs, from hotels to staff kitchens in large factories. There was even a spell at a fish and chip shop where in the summer of1991 me and my mate Christian, between O levels and A levels spent eight weeks frying fish, drinking heavily and trying to loose our virginity. I remember dropping 5kg blocks of dripping into boiling fat with a hangover and trying not to get scalded. One Dad deciding that the curry sauce supplied was shit and that he was going to make his own ‘special’ sauce. I went up to the deli and bought a fist full of dried bird’s eye chillies, and other curry powders. We made a sauce so powerful we jokingly sold it with a health warning. Blokes loved it.

And now I find myself back in the West Country for his funeral. I’d arranged to have lunch with my sister and brother-in-law before hand, so they’d be no rumbling stomachs during the eulogy. They’d set of at 5am from Buxton and I at 9 from London with only a slice of toast inside me, so by noon we were all a little peckish. My sister wanted to visit River Cottage canteen, being a big fan of Hugh. I’ll admit I was a bit hesitant, last time I was there the canteen was more a café vibe, and the weather being so foul, wet and cold we fancied a proper lunch.

Thankfully they’ve moved the café element to the front of the shop and beefed up the restaurant feel in the back (though still incredibly casual). Maybe they always did this and my mind’s playing tricks… anyway. Tim Maddams was at the pass so I had a chat about when I visited River Cottage as part of the Food Map and other small talk before asking ‘What’s good today then?’ ‘Well I’ve got two rabbits in, I was going to put them on as a special, they’re not even on the menu board yet”. He fetched them from the oven for us to have a look at. They beauties were slowly braising in a wine stock with heaps of thyme, onion and garlic and just two or three dried chillies for a tiny nip of heat. The bunnies themselves were practically snared by some lovely streaky bacon and some salty, meaty chunks of salami in there too. One sniff and I said “sold, we’ll have ’em.”.

My sister doesn’t eat much meat. She went veggie in the early 90s as a protest to intensive animal farming and cruelty. Lately she’s been coming round to wild food, believing if it’s had a good free life and is shot quickly (as well as having the opportunity to escape) then she’ll give it a go. Being a family not afraid to get stuck and all of us hungry from early starts we also ordered a main of mussels between the three of us as a starter. Though they were plump and incredibly juicy, and the sauce good, they were but the warm up act to the headlining brace of bunnies.

These came in with great fanfare and looks of astonishment from the fellow diners, especially the two timid souls at the table next to us who’d order burgers. Now I’m sure River Cottage Canteen burgers are good an all, but talk about a culinary equivalent of lights-off-missionary-position. Our rabbits came whole on a RC branded chopping board, with the pan juices in a little jug. With that came a big bowl of decent fluffy mash, and a side of buttered greens, some lovely chard if I’m not mistaken.

“Here you go, and one of you gets to be mum’ said the waitress as she put it down. Our Mum not being here I duly dived in. The rabbit was tender enough to pop apart with our regular knives and forks, and we set about it.

What followed was a fitting and wonderful meal and a worthy of a send off for my Dad. We washed it all down with a couple of bottle of stinger ale and by the time we’d finished the table looked like someone had napalmed the set of Watership down. We left cheered by the joy of living and family and sharing and headed for Yeovil Crem.

Bye Dad.

EPILOGUE

Those of you who read this blog regularly (thank you) will know my penchant for taking home the bones of meals and making stock. I did it at Hawksmoor, and again at St John, so obviously the skeletons of these I took back to the pass and Tim very kindly wrapped them in tin foil. The stock went on when I got back to London.

Michael Anthony Webb 1946 - 2009

Saffron Walden haul

Published September 11, 2009 me 2 Comments

Autumn, the best time of year visually, still warm, but with a nip in the air, and the best time for food in my book too.

A daytrip to Saffron Walden yealded some interesting foodie items, Walnut and apricot bread, beetroot, onions, squashes, fresh carrots, a bloomin’ great marrow, cavalo nero, a lettuce, local beer, local honey, some sorrel and two books. The Graham Kerr Cookbook by the Galloping Gormet (Where’s his bio-pic BBC? He’s not dead yet granted, but you could get Martin Sheen to play him, look at the back story, it’s got everything!) And Eating and Drinking, a food anthology of prose poems and other bits and bobs all arranged under various headings.

The beer was slightly too yeasty for me, with not quite enough fizz, tasted a little, well dead to be honest. Flavour was right, but it just fell short of the mark. The honey was from Gerald Smith Honey of Stanleys Farm in the town and is so good I’ve put it in with roasting veg as well as had it on toast and in porridge.

The cavalo nero went into some chicken broth as a soup, love those bitter irony leaves. The other squashes, beetroots, carrots and the mahoosive marrow were roasted with a whole head of garlic and the onions to create literarly gallons of soup. Soup’s a favourite in our house at lunchtime, it’s hot, quick and in a mug you can eat it with one hand while holding the nipper.

Finally the sorrel has appeared in salads and various other things, and there’s still loads left in the fridge.

The cabbage and the beer came from Sceptred Isle, the root veggies from a little ‘local &/or organic’ gazebo round the back of the town hall and the bread from a stall in the Market square. So in all, £20 the lot, not a bad autumnal haul.

Yay for the arrival of Autumn.

leftovers to go please

Published September 8, 2009 me 3 Comments
Tags: Food, grouse, leftovers, making things last, st john, value

Ahoy! Like a lazy Frenchman I took the whole of August off blogging to concentrate on learning the ropes of dadhoodness. Surfice to say I think I’ve about got the basics sorted now. So some sort of service will resume on these very pages.

Dinner at St John

Now, August is a bit ‘too hot can’t be bothered’ month for food, but it does have the glorious 12th, and that means grouse. I had one at Saint John on the 29th. The little fella had been hung for 4 days or so to firm up a little, and was then roasted. They served it pink, very pink, so pink in fact a good vet could have brought it round. The liver and other good bits came pated on a crunchy square of toast, there was the traditional bread sauce. and the obligatory water cress protruded from it’s derriere.

Yum, bloody tang

Very nice it was too. But here’s the rub. Very hard to really pick all the meat off with a knife and fork, and though I got stuck in there with my fingers for the legs, I still felt it had more to give. Rest assured this grouse did not die in vain. With as much meat extracted as possible in a smart busy restaurant wearing a light colours shirt and on a date with my wife, I asked for the carcass to take home.

Roasting the poor thing a second time

Here, late at night it was put the oven, to roast once more, before being slowly simmered in root veg and onions till dawn, when the cockerel call of my baby daughter had us up with the lark.The next day I used it along with a half a bottle of white wine as a base for braising a shoulder of lamb. This was stunning, you could pull it apart with the slightest nudge. After straining off the fat in my trusty gravy separater, I made a gravy by reducing the cooking liquor down.

lamb, veg, stock, time = delicious

Now a small amount of that gravy was left over, and because of the high fat content set solid, I duly popped that in the fridge. Today’s the 8th September and I made a squid and chorizo stew, for a tiny flavour push I added the last of that gravy, and so the final essence of the grouse slipped under the surface of the stew like Arnie at the end of Terminator 2.

And so I say this. Yes to doggy bags, yes to restaurants giving you the bones, yes to walking out full with a warm foil package under your arm. I did the same at Hawksmoor in May. The fore rib was 40 odd quid and my wife ordered the fish. No probs though, we just had the remaining beef in sandwiches the next day, then a curry, and the huge bone went on to again make stock, which went into French onion soup, with brings us round quite nicely to end on a French note, where we began – bon ap.

Food and beer tasting session

Published July 27, 2009 me 4 Comments
Tags: beer, CAMRA, tasting

Bill Green is the sort of chap who can pull off a cravat with a CAMRA monogrammed polo shirt. He’s also the press officer for the East London & City Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, so it would be fair to say, knows a hell of a lot about the stuff. He’d very kindly invited myself and 30-odd other people for a beer and food matching evening in the upstairs room of the Dispensary, EC1, (itself chosen and the East London Camra pub of the year)

The themed for the evening was ‘beers brewed without hops’, which only became popular in the 13^th Century. Before their introduction other botanicals such as dandelion, wormwood and heather were added to beer for flavour and to add some bitterness. Bill lined up a selection of beers that contain additional flavouring elements, and worked carefully with the Dispensary’s head chef and owner Dave Cambridge to produce an accompanying menu.

My olfactory sense was somewhat diminished due to the onset of a bout of man flu, consequently my tasting notes reads along the lines of ‘yup, that tastes like beer’ so I’ve included below Bill’s thoughts.

Seconds away, eyes down, and we’re off..…

Umbell Magna Porter 5.0%
Food: Parma ham Crostini
Nethergate, Pentlow, Suffolk
Bill says ‘Infused with coriander and following a 1752 recipe. Warm, rich and fruity. Taste a favourite tipple of Dr Johnson, David Garrick and Sarah Siddons!’

I say ‘unusual one to start with, I’d have perhaps looked a little further east that the Italian peninsular for the food match. It works fine, what with the saltiness of the ham, but I’m wondering if more could be made of the coriander flavoring, perhaps middle eastern style lamb?

Next we’re off to bonnie Scotland…

Beer: Heather Ale 4.1% Williams of Alloa, Scotland
Food: Quail Egg with Haggis and Hollandaise
Bill says ‘Unique taste of heather flowers recalling Scottish Mediaeval ales. Robert the Bruce was inspired by this Beer to conquer at Bannockburn! Earthy with hints of honey and a herbal aroma.’

I say ‘Great combination, Scotch eggs being one of my favourite things on Earth, the beer’s bouncy, and despite the conk full of snot I can still detect the peaty heathery notes and the distant drone of a Runrig gig. William’s website declares heather ale has been brewed in Scotland since 2000BC. The peppery earthy taste and texture of the Scotch egg holds up well with the beer.

Then we’re off to the Far East via Salisbury…

Beer: Taiphoon 4.2%
Food: Thai Chicken and Coconut Satay
Hopback, Salisbury
Bill says ‘Coriander and lemongrass give an Oriental zing to this Pale Ale. Unusual and interesting in being brewed from a mixture of barley, maize and wheat malts.

I say ‘there was a fair chili kick to the skewers, and the coriander was there in the beer, but I had trouble tasting any lemongrass. Tasty drop mind, and was light and refreshing after the heat of the chicken. Hopback brewery produce one of my all time favourite drops, Summer Lightning, the taste of summer as far as I’m concerned, that and rain water obviously.

Beer: Dandelion 4.5%
Food: Tempura Roast Pimento
Hall and Woodhouse, Blandford Forum, Dorset

Bill says’ Light and golden organic bitter with herb aroma and bittersweet aftertaste. Dandelions have been valued for centuries for their herbal qualities and this beer style was an 18^th century favourite.

I say ‘Dandelions get a bad rep in the UK, pick them and you’ll wet the bed we were told as kids, which is based on their powerful diuretic nature (wonder if the same is true after a session on this beer?) and the heads come in handy for playing ‘what’s the time Mister Wolf?’ The people at my table detected a slight sweet grassy smell, but I’m drawing a blank due to the cold. The peppers were nice and sweet, not greasy. Hall and Woodhouse also make a pumpkin ale, which sounds fantastic, one for Autumn for sure.

Beer: Grozet 5.0%
Food: Wild Boar and Apple Chipolata
Williams of Alloa, Scotland

Bill says ‘An unpasteurized Lager that proves the Czechs can be matched. Gooseberry-infused it is clean and crisp with delicious floral aromas.

I say ‘sausage and beer are natural bedfellows. Indeed the Grenadier Pub in Belgravia does sausages on the bar for a quid. Bill here confessed to not being a lager fan, and indeed it did sit oddly on the mouth after the other beers, there were comments on my table of a slight medicinal quality to it. Good bangers mind, all made from scratch by David.

Beer: Chocolate Strong Ale 6.5%
Food: Teriyaki Beef
Meantime, Greenwich.

Bill says: Montezuma’s reward! The Aztecs added chocolate to beer and now innovative brewers are now copying. Dark chocolate contrasts with the crystal malts to give puckering bouquet and complex taste

I say: Simply stunning, the best match by far, a match like Bjorn v McEnroe is a match, a match like Swan Vesta is a match. A match that in two mouthfuls triple jumps its way across three Continents looting tastes from the far east, south America and the home of time itself, Greenwich. The best one of the evening as far as I’m concerned. Even the back of the bottle sums up my attitude before trying it saying ‘Chocolate and beer! Are we mad?’ No sir. Eccentric perhaps, even genius, but not mad. It’s really something else; indeed I slow cooked ox cheek in it at the weekend.

How do you follow that? Well, with something sweet, and from the same brewery too.

Beer: Raspberry Wheat 6.5%
Food: Mini Summer Pudding
Meantime, Greenwich

Bill says: Vibrant red colour and mouth-arousing zesty finish. Challenges the classic Berliner weisses. Secondary fermentation of the fruit sugars gives potent flavour and lingering aftertaste.

I say: Another good combination, sharp and tart to finish off with and leaving our mouths puckered shut like a dogs bum… um, in a good way.

Conclusion.

For me the pairing of food and drink has always been more subjective that the pairing of flavours or ingredients on a plate. I don’t know about you but I’ve never taken as gospel the food suggestions on the back of a bottle of wine for example. Food’s relationship with drink is an open relationship in which pretty much anything goes, yes even red wine with fish for which James Bond once shot a man.

However, some things ‘go’ better than others. For me, the best beer and food combinations of the evening either shared a cultural link, a terrior if you will, (think haggis and heather) or had a connection through similar ingredients. I try to look past the standard formula of ‘the w of y cuts through the x of the z’ (where w is an characteristic of the drink y, and x an attribute of ingredient z)

When looking at food with drink, I’m looking for something more, some soul at the bottom of the glass maybe, some other reason for these tastes being together and why they work. I am however watchful of the biblical saying ‘eat, drink, and be merry’ and that at the end of the day drink is present on a table for toasting as well as tasting, so let’s not get to hung up about it.

Far more interesting to my mind is the progress that’s been made. To think that 40 years ago we’d have been pairing a Whatney’s Party Seven with Marguerite Patten’s cheddar fondue or chicken in a basket. Today UK breweries are producing a broad enough range of beers to compliment and enhance almost every cuisine from across the globe. I’d even go so far as to say that the depth, range and colour of that palette is greater than that of wine, yet you’ll see few beers on sommeliers’ hefty tomes.

If you’d like to find out more, the CAMRA website has a nice ‘rule of thumb’ page listing major ingredients and what ‘goes best’ with each of them. Cheers.

Crude Britannia – the first drop

Published July 1, 2009 me Leave a Comment

Really enjoying Crude Britannia: The search for North Sea Oil on BBC Four at the moment. It’s an amazing story and the choice of North Easter James Bolam for the narration is excellent. Which leads me to this little factoid…

Once thought the answer to all our needs

When travelling round Britain last year I stayed in a small rented cottage in the West Midlands. In a cupboard was a BP paper weight from 1975 containing a drop of the first extracted North Sea Oil. According to Crude Britannia BP was the first of the companies to find natural gas, but came late to the oil game behind Shell. Still, they some how managed to strike oil first and get it back to shore through a 100 miles of pipe sometime in 1975.

The paperweight I held in my hand, according to the people I rented the cottage from, came to them via a friend of a friend who was high up in BP, and was produced as a commemorative edition. Remarkable to think that this tiny drop of fermented prehistoric plankton came out of the ground the year I was born.

But back to the programme. Also impressive was the designing of the drilling rigs, which were built in newly constructed ship yards in the wild north of Scotland. Built on its side the rig was still 200 foot in the air, and must have stood out a mile against the landscape. (which reminded me of this a bit).

Anyway, like a single subject episode of the Rock and Roll Years we barrelled through Ted Heath’s Government and Tony Benn’s attempt to claw some of the money back for the UK taxpayer, through the winter of discontent and the three day week, to arrive at the 1980s. The accompanying music to all this stock footage changed from prog rock to New Wave and suddenly there was Thatcher in a hard hat.

What came next was the standard 80s montage, culminating in this bloke drinking Rolling Rock and with a wodge of 20s in his shirt pocket. The clip has become a symbol of the 80s, and has been used across loads of programmes as a definition of the excesses of the period. I just wonder who he is? Does anyone know?

Who is Yuppie Generic?

Local Food Hero’s 2009

Published June 30, 2009 me Leave a Comment

Just a reminder that voting for the Market Kitchen’s Local Food Heroes is now open, what’s more I’ve been invited to be part of the selection panel to whittle down the 10 best businesses from each region, which should be enjoyable.

A quick trawl through reveals past winner Leatheringsett Mill, who I visited last year. Also present are Neil and Penny Chambers from the Handmade Scotch Egg Company, and many others.

If there’s a good producer near you please show your support and vote for them, it means a lot to these producers.

Webb 2.0

Published June 17, 2009 me 5 Comments

Matilda Webb surprised us all by coming into the world 48 hours ago. She really is the best thing I’ve ever made. Mother and baby doing fine, dad over the moon.

Consequently I might not update for a wee while.

Free-range fire power

Published June 10, 2009 me Leave a Comment
Tags: eggs, politics

Someone foodie once said ‘you can’t improve on the perfection of an egg’, and as yesterdays pelting of nick Griffin shows, it’s still the food-based protest-weapon of choice in the UK. The humble egg is nature’s fragmentation grenade.

Throwing paint, custard or manure is tricky as you need a container to get a good lob, also paint or anything chemical is just unsporting. An egg says ‘I wish to register my displeasure with this projectile, but do not wish to cause any lasting damage’. Eggs stick, meaning victims have to spend minutes scraping off the yolk and allowing photographers to get shots like the one above, it just wouldn’t be the same with vegetables or a brick.

I’m sure when Fathers for Justice threw purple powder in a condom at tony Blair it’s because they couldn’t smuggle any eggs through the House of Commons security. Indeed everyone from the Queen to Iron Maiden has had eggs thrown at them, but the worst example I’ve found is this from John Guy’s biography of Mary Queen of Scots.

On Palm Sunday, 1565, an Edinburgh priest was abducted by Calvinists, taken to the Market Cross and tied up. He was then pelted with eggs for three days. What seems a random act of religious bigotry is revealed as something much more sinister.. Eggs, the Catholic symbol of Easter, were deliberately chosen for what was meant to be a ritual humiliation. The fact that 10,000 eggs were thrown suggests that ‘the attack must have been powerfully backed’, and that the missiles were aimed not just at the poor priest but symbolically at the Catholic queen.

Blimey, 10,000 divided by 72 hours is 128 eggs an hour, or two every single minute for three days. Either way it’s a hell of a lot of egg on the face. I wonder if he suffered any ill effects as this study found that 13 people out of 18,651 admitted to Saint Paul’s eye unit in Liverpool suffered eye problems after being hit with eggs; their conclusion being ‘there is sufficientinjury caused by this prank to warrant a public health message’. So the message is go for the body shot, you’ll risk less chance of an injury claim and add to your target’s dry cleaning bill too.

Tube strike yet again.

Published June 9, 2009 me 1 Comment
Tags: London, tube

Hell’s teeth the Piccadilly line train I’ve just come home on felt like the last chopper out of Saigon.If this strike is about health & safety, there’s nothing to compromise that like a rush of commuters trying to make the last train. And while I’ve a belly full of ire and bile for Nick Griffin, I’ll gladly siphon off a dram for Bob Crow at the moment.

The Tube is such a critical piece of infrastructure that its total shut down for over 48 hours totally holds London to ransom. Imagine if Thames water said ‘they’ll be no water for 48 hours’ or EDF said no electricity? And woe betide any terrorist threatening the disruption of infrastructure in the capital, they get the full force of the law.

Perhaps it’s time to consider the tube as a critical service, in a similar way to Police and the Fire Service? While the withdrawal of labour is every worker’s right, I’m really beginning to think that when it comes to the Underground there should be some caveats, like no peak hour striking or work to rule or something.

These ‘all out’ strikes just wind up any potential support form the public, who being workers themselves generally support genuine claims for better pay and working conditions as well as being down on fat cats and fighting injustice, as Lady Lumley of Nepal recently proved. However I think you’d be hard pressed to find an ordinary Londoner who has much support for Tube staff at the moment.

Anyway, this blog will be back to food matters in due course.

In praise of washing up

Published June 7, 2009 Food , London , me 1 Comment
Tags: sunday lunch, washing up

When I was younger and extended family came for a visit mum would do a lunch. On the day itself was an air of palpable excitement in the house, extra cleaning had to be done, a special lunch was planned, and no one was allowed to use the loo or make a mess anywhere until the guests had arrived. As the allotted hour of arrival approached me and my sister kept station at the front window listening for the sound of a car in the street outside. Meanwhile in the kitchen the kettle was practically kept at a rolling boil, ready for the cups of tea and a full debrief of the traffic conditions and journey highlights.

Later we’d all sit down for lunch; probably salad and cold cuts in the summer, or something meaty in the winter. Then with the meal over, the blokes would help clear the table and then move into the lounge or out to check oil in cars and have a crafty fag, while the aunts, mums and grandma did the dishes. Us kids were press ganged into putting away, and I always found that the washing up was where the real gossip, chat and exchange of views seemed to happen. Back then no one owned a dishwasher, and washing up – like shelling peas or licking the cake bowl – was part of the food production process. I remember the chatter mixing with the chink and clatter of dishes and the tea towels that put in three minute bouts before being too wet to use and had to be replaced by new ones. When domestic order was once again restored, more tea was put on, as was the telly and we all settled down, the world now put to rights.

I mention this vignette from yesteryear because a few weeks ago some old BBC friends came round for Sunday lunch. We had some special sixty-day aged beef that my friend Theo at the Ginger Pig’s Hackney branch had set aside for another customer who’d changed his mind at the last minute apparently; his loss was our gain is all I’ll say. The lunch was lovely, lashings of wine, tasty gravy, cauliflower cheese and roasties. The spuds for the roasties were Cyprus, a potato I’d never roasted before, and my friends did look at me a little oddly when I told them I had a practice run with one potato last night just to make sure nothing went wrong.

Anyway, with the lunch over I began to scrap the plates and run the hot tap for washing up. This is when my friend Neil chipped in with ‘let me help you with the dishes’. Washing up on your own is dull, washing up with a friend is a chance to confide and talk to each other in a different way. You’re both engaged in a task, so there’s all the dealing with ‘you’ve missed a bit’ and ‘where does this sieve live?’ stuff. This of course runs concurrent with the big life issues of love and loss. It’s a sort of duet, a dance; a totally different space and activity on which to host a conversation, different things are said than at the table. Let’s face it, no one ever says ‘ooh let me help you fill the dishwasher’, that’s just boring. You try it next time you have people round, make washing up part of the whole process. It gives both host and guest a chance to talk in a more personal way. You also end up with a nice clean kitchen, and all your pots and plates put back in new and unusual places.

Maybe introducing solids and star trek tng in the same day was too much. It was the one where ryker goes to the planet of the women ie shit 23 hours ago
@MsMarmitelover http://www.lease-advice.org/ have you been onto these guys? 1 day ago
@timhayward nice, good for sharing too. Fishetarians are an odd bunch aren't they? Just subscribed to F&K btw, looking fwd to issue 1 1 day ago
operation baby food a resounding success! Webb 2.0 a fan of baby rice, no wasabi at the moment but it's only a matter of time! 1 day ago
@timhayward fast forward that bit ;-) you going to do the pease pudding too? 1 day ago