Clifford the Big Red Cake

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I’ve been swearing at this all evening, the kitchen looks like someone’s been murdered, my hands are stained pink – apparently indelibly – and I’ve spent far too much money on icing equipment and a ridiculously expensive discontinued cake tin.

Tomorrow is the Minx’s ‘official’ birthday and I’m hoping that she’ll remember that a week or so ago she requested a ‘Clifford cake’ (goodness only knows where she got that from).

At least it ought to taste lovely.  I’ve used the chocolate cake recipe from the Macrina Bakery Cookbook (Macrina is the most incredible bakery just up the road from us here in Seattle) and the bits I trimmed off the bottom were very, very delicious indeed.

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Galette des rois

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Look!  I made one. 

Thought I have to say that I was slightly regretting offering to make/blog about one yesterday when I would much rather have been in bed than interacting with puff pastry.

Tastes wonderful though, so am currently very glad I made the effort, though I’m not sure my straining jeans would agree.

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Christmas cookies

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We weren’t going to put up a tree this year. 

All the Christmas decorations that we have carefully collected over ten years of marriage are still on a ship somewhere and it seemed somewhat extravagant to start buying them all over again. 

But after seeing the Minx’s joy every time we saw the ‘pitty tree’ down in the lobby of our building, we decided that it had to be done. 

After traipsing round loads of shops being rather appalled by the kitchness and cost of most of the decorations we saw, we managed to find some basic gold and ivory baubles in the local drugstore and some surprisingly cheap rolls of  wired cranberry and gold ribbons, so that became our colour scheme.  (It was surprisingly liberating to have one’s colour scheme dictated by circumstance and surprisingly appropriate since that is mirrormirror’s Christmas wrapping scheme this year.) 

A huge box of red and white candy canes and some big wired ribbon bows later, and the tree was looking rather gorgeous-if-I-say-so-myself, though a little ‘corporate’ and lacking in the personality that only comes from lots of different individually collected baubles, each with a story to tell.

So I decided to become an all-American girl and add life to the tree with homemade cookies.

I never really realised what a big deal cookies were in American life.  The supermarkets are full of trays of special occasion cookies and the wonderful bake shops here carry hundreds of different cookie cutters in every imaginable shape.

I looked up recipes for ‘sugar cookies’ and found there were hundreds online.  I sourced cookie cutters and sugar sprinkles and writing icing in tubes.  And then I remembered I didn’t have a rolling pin, so went out to buy one of those. Until finally I was ready for the great cookie bake up.

I chose this recipe, and they tasted delicious to me, though obviously I’m not a cookie aficionado.  I then opened up my tubes of writing icing and found that I was supposed to have bought special nozzles to attach to them. 

Which is why I ended up icing them using a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off and which is why they look like they’ve been iced by a drunk monkey wearing ski gloves.

The ones in the picture are the only ones that were just about pretty enough to use on the tree.  I have omitted to photograph the rejects, which look like they were iced by the Minx.

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Gingerbread

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Frankly I think gingerbread tastes like soap, but that didn’t stop me admiring the incredible gingerbread creations on display at the City Centre mall – apparently another Seattle holiday tradition.

The theme was ‘Scenes of the Northwest’ which meant we got a gingerbread Smith Tower

 

 

and Seattle townscape complete with holiday carousel, space needle, Starbucks, monorail and Mount Rainier.

The attention to detail was astonishing.  Here are the vendors throwing fish in Pike Place Market

and yes that clock does work.

Santa’s sleigh above was moving round the Christmas tree.

 

Speaking of advent calendars, I am indebted to the Instant Hausfrau, who is putting together an ‘advent calendar’ of Seattle-based holiday activities.  I am also indebted to her for posting a link today to a Flickr group of ‘crying santa photos’.

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Arabesque

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Claudia Roden is no more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a biscuit baker. She is, rather, a memorialist, historian, ethnographer, anthropologist, essayist, poet.”– Simon Schama

I am indebted to the wonderful Seattle foodie blog Seattle Bon Vivant  for sending me off to a lecture last night by one of my all-time culinary heroines, Claudia Roden.

Though I’m the owner of literally hundreds of cookbooks (as I discovered when we were packing to come here), her The Food of Italy – Region by Region is one that I reach for again and again.  It is the book my aunt and nonna in Italy would have written if they had had the time and the inclination, and if you’d ever tasted their cooking, you would know that that is praise indeed.

Claudia is an Egyptian Jew who moved to England when she was fifteen when the Jews were forced to leave Egypt after the Suez crisis.  Her cultured and cosmopolitan Sephardi Jewish family had roots all over the Middle East and she started to collect recipes from her family and friend in order to counter the horrendous food she found in 1950s London.

The result has been a career as a cookery writer, broadcaster and culinary ambassador which has spanned nearly forty years and focused on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine.

Last night, however, she was a guest of the Jewish cultural organisation Nextbook and her talk focused principally on her seminal work The Book of Jewish Food and on promoting her most recent book Arabesque -A Taste of Morocco, Turkey & Lebanon. 

I don’t know very much about Jewish food and her anecdotes were absolutely fascinating – tracing the development of dishes back through time and across Continents.  As an unofficial historian of Jewish food she is invited to eat and cook all over the world, and I could have listened to her stories all night.

She pointed out that when people migrate they might change everything about their lifestyles but will still cling as much as possible to their culinary traditions.  A glance at our kitchen cupboards – full of Italian pasta, Parmesan cheese, olive oil (itself a product of the culinary traditions my mother brought from Italy) Green & Black’s chocolate, Marmite and Nutella – shows that yes, we are clinging desperately to our European ways, despite the fact that European imports are twice the price of canola oil and Velveeta cheese.

I bought a copy of Arabesque and was starstruck enough to get her to sign it.  I really wanted a copy of Jewish Food as well, but all the copies they had were nabbed almost instantly.

Next week I’ll try out something delicious and report back.

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Cake wars

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After Helen regaled me such delicious cupcakes, I had to retaliate with a madeira cake when she came round yesterday afternoon for her first mirrormirror wrapping session.

There’s something very satisfying about baking a madeira cake ( I use Nigella’s recipe).  It’s literally easy peasy lemon squeezy (since it contains lemon juice and zest) but for some reason the fact that it’s so old-fashioned and traditional pleases me greatly.

I discovered some time ago that it is so named not because it comes from the island of Madeira, but because it is the perfect accompaniment to a glass of madeira wine (one of my favourite drinks in all the world).  Unfortunately we didn’t have any madeira in the house yesterday, so had to make do with a glass of sherry.  How matronly and respectable I have become.

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Shopping Notting Hill – Part 2

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So you’ve just been dragged kicking and screaming out of Diptyque and need some sort of addictive substance to calm your nerves. Your best bet is to turn the corner into Ledbury Road and pop into melt  – London’s coolest chocolatier according to Time Out. 

The shop itself is white and cool, with shelves and tables groaning with handmade chocolates.  At the back is a shiny stainless steel kitchen where the chocolates are actually made.

The flavours can be exotic – truffles filled with passionfruit, raspberry or mango coulis or flavoured with green tea or coconut – or traditional with caramel, mint, nuts or marzipan.  By way of research I found myself buying an assortment for the Husband’s birthday and can confirm that they are some of the most delicious chocolates I’ve ever tasted (and believe me that’s saying something).

 

 

After you’ve staggered out of melt, the next thing to do is cross the road to Ottolenghi, yet another newish deli – which specialises in the most delicious pre-prepared food, breads and cakes to take away.  There are also a couple of tables at the back where you can eat in, but they are almost impossible to get hold of. 

 

 

A bit of retail therapy will soothe your disappointment at not getting a table, so pop round the corner to Brissi on the north side of Westbourne Grove – for very  chic and very French interiors accessories.  It’s the sort of shop I’d love mirrormirror to be when it grows up and I’m a bit dismayed to see that it’s going online too.  Don’t make a note of the URL!

After pausing briefly to gaze at the gorgeous window display

in jewellers Dinny Hall,  the perfect choice for lunch is 202, designer Nicole Fahri’s concept store which houses a chic cafe, and still has plenty of room to show off her elegant clothing and homewares collections.  It’s also a great place for brunch, or just tea and cake, and has a very pretty little garden at the back which is a gorgeous place for a glass of rose on drowsy summer days.  Yet another inspirational shop for when mirrormirror grows up.

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Shopping Notting Hill – Part 1

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I thought we’d start our little trip round Notting Hill on the south side of Westbourne Grove, the beautiful street which winds through the heart of the area. It used to be full of antique shops and galleries, but now, while some of these remain, it has been overtaken by some very chi-chi shops indeed, including big designer brands such as Joseph, Mulberry, and Ted Baker.

However there are still some absolute gems to be found.

The first place to show you is Tavola – the Italian deli which is top chef Alastair Little’s (scroll down for biog) latest venture. Alastair runs a cookery school in Italy and clearly spends a lot of time out there sourcing wonderful products, though he can also often be seen in the deli preparing fabulous pre-cooked food to take away. It’s the deli I visit least as it’s furthest from my apartment, but, being half-Italian, the one I think I love most. The staff scrub up quite nicely too….

Just along from Tavola is the Tea Palace, another newish venture – a large and beautiful room dedicated to the great British tradition of afternoon tea (though you can get a light lunch there as well).

It feels like such a treat to go there – your cakes arrive on silver stands, the table linen is thick and luxurious and I love the wallpaper covered with cake doilies. The homemade crumpets with butter and honey are stratospherically good. The range of teas on the menu is quite breathtaking and are all for sale in elegant purple tea caddies, as well as a lot of other teamaking paraphernalia. The only downside is that they don’t take reservations, so sometimes it’s really difficult to get a table.

 

The final stop on our trip today is the Diptyque shop, which requires no introduction except to say that it’s scented candle heaven and they always have lovely window displays.

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