Food Glorious Food Archives - Page 7 of 26

Fancy Hotel of the Week: Babington House

September 11, 2012 By Paola 1 Comment

Babington House’s cute little chapel

When it comes to fancy hotels, it’s not after all the décor or the food or the mattresses or the service which is the most important thing. It’s the ambience. That indefinable, indescribable ‘je ne sais quoi’. That combination of all the aforementioned and more, which infuses the whole experience, and determines whether you’ll want to return.

Some hotels go for glamour, others for grandeur, some go for hipness and others prize efficiency. At Babington House they do relaxation and and laid-back comfort on an epic scale. The sort of deep relaxation you’d love to experience at home - if only the house were tidy, the chores were done and the kids were somewhere else. And if home really were a beautiful old stone country house with hundreds of years of history and its own stone chapel set deep in the English countryside.

The grounds and pool are scattered with gloriously huge and comfortable loungers

This summer was our first time back at Babington since the Minx was born and we were not disappointed, if anything it was even more beautiful and cheerfully laid back than ever.

Two storey ‘suite’ with its own terrace and gigantic bath

How do they achieve this? Well stunning décor, which gives the whole place a modern ‘country house’ vibe helps a lot. As does the beautiful planting throughout the grounds. Seriously it’s impossible to take a bad photo in this place.

The rooms are incredible. We were in a two-storey family suite with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a small outside roof terrace, all equipped with every possible creature comfort.

The food is fabulous. Classic and beautifully cooked comfort food at its very finest, served in either a beautiful formal dining room, the ‘deli’ where you could wander in whenever you want for coffee, breakfast or kids’ supper, or outside on the lawn.

Breakfast. I wanted to steal all their ‘props’.

Add to that a ton of squashy loungers, deep leather sofas and soft velvet armchairs; unbelievably friendly staff; enormous and beautiful indoor and outdoor pools; funky chandeliers; quirky artwork; an exceptionally accommodating attitude towards the Minx and a bar which serves the most delicious caipirinhas known to man, and you’re onto a winner in my book.

This time we paid for all hotel accommodation ourselves. It was worth every penny believe me. Do treat yourselves next time you’re out in the Somerset countryside. Babington House, we will be back.

Fancy Hotel of the Week: Babington House

September 11, 2012 By Paola 11 Comments

Babington House’s cute little chapel

The grounds and pool are scattered with gloriously huge and comfortable loungers

This summer was our first time back at Babington since the Minx was born and we were not disappointed, if anything it was even more beautiful and cheerfully laid back than ever.

Two storey ‘suite’ with its own terrace and gigantic bath

The rooms are incredible. We were in a two-storey family suite with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a small outside roof terrace, all equipped with every possible creature comfort.

Breakfast. I wanted to steal all their ‘props’.

This time we paid for all hotel accommodation ourselves. It was worth every penny believe me. Do treat yourselves next time you’re out in the Somerset countryside. Babington House, we will be back.

Les Jardins Macarons by Pierre Herme

September 6, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

Since we’ve been chatting about both macarons and interesting food styling I thought I’d share the latest creations of master macaronier Pierre Herme’.

Through his online club ‘Les Jardins’ he is making a new limited edition flavour macaron available every month. Tragically they will only ship to the UK and Europe (which is officially NOT FAIR).

Us poor unfortunates in the US and elsewhere in the world will have to make do with gazing longingly at the breathtaking food photography of French photographer Bernhard Winkelmann or attempt to make our own using Pierre Herme’s book ‘Macarons’ which I have, but which has officially scared the sh*t out of me, starting as it does with a chapter entitled ‘Thirty Two Steps to Successful Macaron Shells’.

I’m also wondering if some of these flavour combinations aren’t in reality ‘a step too far.’ Does someone want to buy some and report back? I think I like the sound of Lime, Raspberry and Piment d’Espelette best. What do you chaps think? The full list of monthly flavours released so far is here.

Green Tea, Chanterelle and Lemon

Lemon and Caramelised Fennel

Lime, Raspberry, Piment d’Espelette

Chocolate & Lime

Violet & Aniseed

All pictures by the amazing Bernhard Winkelmann.

Food Stylings: Charlotte Omnes

August 30, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

What are you having for lunch today?

I was thinking of ham, cheese and mustard on white.

Or possibly cheese with mustard, mayo and ketchup or ham and mustard.

Followed by a selection of juicy citrus fruits.

I love it when food stylists do things a little bit differently.

All photos by ace food stylist Charlotte Omnes.

A Morning of Raspberry Macarons

August 28, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

It is Tuesday and there are no freaking macarons in my house. I know this because for some reason I’ve been craving them all morning and a thorough excavation of my kitchen cupboards has not yielded a single delicate French confection. When the Minx goes back to school next week (may the heavens and all the saints and angels be praised), I will MAKE some.

But in the meantime all I have are some photos I took at Patisserie Camp, way back at the beginning of the summer. Sadly these will have to do.

Take it away Chef Jean-Marc.

Make a nice almondy macaron mix and colour it baby pink (I’ll put up a recipe when I’ve had a chance to make and test some, in the meantime just treat this as afternoon food porn).

Pipe hundreds of the little darlings out on a bunch of baking sheets and whip up a little raspberry jam.

Bake until crisp

Fill with jam

Sandwich them together and Robert est ton oncle. (Do Americans say ‘and Bob’s your uncle’ too? I’ve never had a clue where that comes from).

IFBC 2012 : Food Photography with Andrew Scrivani and Chef John

August 27, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

On Friday I drove down to beautiful Portland with my dear friend Nazila, writer of the gorgeous blog Banamak and champion drunken snorer, to attend the International Food Blogger Conference. It’s the first one of these I’ve attended and I came away incredibly inspired and full of plans and ideas for the blog.

I met up with old friends and made new ones, attended incredibly useful classes, ate unbelievably good food and had some great conversations with advertisers, PR companies, ad networks and publishers. My head is still reeling from all the information I have to process.

One of the aforementioned old friends was food photographer Andrew Scrivani, who closed out proceedings on Sunday morning with a hilarious and informative cooking and photography demonstration with his good friend Chef John from Food Wishes.

A note to all the many TV executives who read this blog – these guys need their own cooking show pronto quick.

Mr S gave talked us through some of his amazing photos; an exciting dry ice shooting station was set up and the food paparazzi came out in force, with the maestro on hand to answer questions.

Chef John tortured the assembled masses by frying up a batch of the world’s crispiest onion rings (featuring a special not-so-secret ingredient), and some garlic prawns, as well as putting together a yummy-looking affogato.

Unfortunately the props didn’t last long in a room full of hungry food bloggers.

An fabulously funny time was had by all, and many pictures were taken, despite the less than ideal lighting conditions for photography.

Please get The Baldie Boys on my TV set ASAP.

How to Make: Strawberry Lemonade

August 23, 2012 By Paola 1 Comment

Our return to Seattle from the UK was marked by stunningly hot weather, over-enthusiasm at the farmers’ market leading to a glut of softening fruit in the fridge and the discovery of a batch of rapidly-shrivelling lemons and limes in our fruit bowl.

So the Minx and I set to to make a batch of strawberry lemonade. Funnily enough, though strawberry lemonade seems to be very common here in the US, it’s extremely rare in the UK, so I provide this recipe mostly as a public service to my non-American readers. It’s an absolutely gorgeous drink, both in looks and taste, which lends itself to all manner of variations, depending on the age and alcohol-tolerance of its audience (see ‘Variations’ below).

Basic Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup water

1 pint/punnet of very ripe strawberries, hulled, washed and chopped

1/2 cup water

1 cup fresh lemon juice

4-6 cups still or sparkling water to taste

Method

Make a simple syrup by whisking together the sugar and 1 cup of water in a small sturdy pan. Bring it to the boil and then heat gently until the sugar has completely dissolved and disappeared. Set aside to cool.

Make a puree by attacking the strawberries and another half cup of water with your trusty ~~whizzer thingy~~ immersion blender or just put them in a blender until you have a smooth puree.

Get a large jug and combine the simple syrup, strawberry puree and lemon juice. Then add 4-6 cups of water to taste. Chill to within an inch of its life. This should make approximately two bottles of lemonade.

Variations

Once you’ve got the basic method down you can start playing.

Infused syrups: Add herbs, spices or peels to your syrup ingredients before bringing to the boil and straining the syrup afterwards. I’m thinking peppercorns, lavender, rosemary, bay, cardamom or orange peel might be interesting to experiment with.

Different fruits: Once strawberry season is over, try using any other soft summer fruits which can made into a smooth puree. I’m betting rhubarb, peaches, plums, cherries or raspberries would all be delicious, just pass the blended fruit through a mouli or other sieve first to get rid of skins and seeds.

Use limes as well as lemons: The first batch of this the Minx and I made was made with lime juice, not lemons and it was delectable. Use either lemons, limes or a combination of both.

Dilute with different waters and alcohols. I like mine diluted with a splash of lemon Perrier or San Pellegrino ( in fact if left to my own devices I would make it entirely with sparkling water but the Minx would disapprove). I have also been known to add the teensiest splash of vodka or white rum. I should think a dark rum would turn this into something smooth and dangerous. Fruit-based spirits such as kirsch, maraschino or slivovitz might also be fun.

I hope you’ve been inspired to have a play around. I am now in dangerous cocktail-creating mood. There may be more blog posts on this topic.

An Afternoon of Chocolate

July 11, 2012 By Paola 4 Comments

Just in case your life was lacking a little chocolate right now (yes, I thought so) here are some pics from the afternoon we spent making chocolate desserts and truffles under the watchful eye of master chocolatier Jean-Pierre Meignaud at Patisserie Camp on Canoe Island.

It’s going to be the same drill as before, no real recipes, just descriptions and food porn a-plenty.

First get yourself a bowl of properly tempered chocolate, some Pralissimo hazelnut paste (this stuff is GOOD) and a box of chocolate breakfast cereal. Yes, truly, something like Cocoa Pops or Cocoa Krispies. I feel so much better now I know that fancy pants patissiers use this stuff too.

Carefully mix the ingredients together and then use a ring mould to form them into a crispy chocolate base. You’ve just made the world’s most sophisticated, and delicious, Rice Krispie cakes.

Then mix together some more melted, tempered chocolate with the hazelnut paste and fold it into some whipped cream. Pipe this chocolate mousse onto the crispy bases.

So far so easy, n’est-ce pas? Unfortunately it gets trickier from here on in.

Next use a knife to ‘wipe’ petals of chocolate onto a sheet of acetate. The shape of your knife will dictate the shape of your petals. Place the sheet of acetate into a plastic ‘gutter’ (half a plastic tube) to bend the petals slightly. That just blew your mind didn’t it?

Or you could just swirl blobs of chocolate with your fingers.

Or comb out streaks of chocolate and again swirl them into grids.

It was amazing watching Jean-Pierre do this stuff. He made it look incredibly quick and easy.

Finally use your chocolate shapes to decorate your mousse cakes. Adding a little gold dusting powder as necessary.

I’m just off to rustle some up for family supper tonight. Hahahahahaha.

We also made chocolate truffles that afternoon, but I have enough swoonworthy pics for a separate blog post.

Afternoon Tea at the Fairmont Empress

June 29, 2012 By Paola 6 Comments

It’s the school vacation and although summer shows no signs of arriving in Seattle, the Minx and I have been having some fun adventures (hence lack of blogging).

A couple of weeks back we decided to visit my friend Lisa in Victoria, on beautiful Vancouver Island. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and a proud outpost of the old British Empire. Statues of Victoria, Jubilee bunting, manicured lawns and gaudy ornamental bedding plants abound, so of course I felt right at home.

Imagine an English seaside town, say Bournemouth, plonked into the middle of the magnificent mountains, islands and water scenery of the Pacific North West; graced with some beautiful old hotels and government buildings; and colonised by a strange combination of Canadian retirees and high-tech hipsters.

We were invited to take afternoon tea at the Fairmont Empress, the huge and beautiful hotel modelled on a French chateau that has graced Victoria’s waterfront for more than 100 years. Tea at the Empress is a Victoria institution and as an afternoon tea aficionado (a?) I was naturally hugely excited to attend.

Tea is served in the hotel’s beautiful lobby in front of the Palm Court with its spectacular stained glass dome. Surrounded by gorgeous antiques, sterling silver teapots, screens and chintzes, and gazed upon by portraits of King George V and Queen Mary, it’s like stepping back in time a hundred years. Lady Violet of Downton Abbey would feel right at home here.

First up we were brought strawberries and cream while we perused the tea menu. Here is the Minx trying, and spectacularly failing, to eat with decorum.

Tea itself is served from seemingly bottomless silver teapots in the extremely pretty ‘Crown’ tea service. We particularly liked the story of the tables, which are beautifully handcrafted from the original tea lobby floorboards.

After strawberries came the delectable three-tiered tea, which we were instructed to eat from the bottom up.

Firstly a selection of truly delicious finger sandwiches and savoury delicacies, including smoked salmon pinwheels, egg salad croissants, coronation chicken sandwiches and sundried tomato crostini.

The Minx was served the ‘Princess’ tea for kids under twelve and got her own personal little tiered tea tray, with kid-friendly sandwiches and slightly less elegant cakes.

We then moved on to scones, jam and cream. The cream was an excellent approximation of the true English clotted cream which is impossible to find in North America. I got the recipe from the chef and I’ll be testing and blogging it in an another post.

Finally we tucked into some exquisite little cakes – mini lemon meringue tarts, perfect macarons, Battenberg cake (squee! can’t remember the last time I saw one of those) and chocolate shortbread.

The Minx loved her kid-friendly meal, though she was still struggling with decorum at this point.

In fact the welcome the Minx got was one of the very nicest things about the whole experience. It’s not at all dumbed down for kids – there’s no shrieking or running about or cartoons – but kids are very much welcomed and accommodated, with a choice of juice or their own un-caffeinated tea, their own tea plate and extremely solicitous service. The Minx absolutely loved it and felt extremely special and grown up throughout.

Here we are among the teaplates.

And here she is clutching her ‘Princess of Afternoon Tea’ certificate with a friend from Seattle who was also coincidentally taking tea with her mother.

And here is the Princess of Afternoon Tea, having abandoned all pretence at decorum, sticking her finger in the jam pot.

If you’re going Victoria, you absolutely have to do this. The food is scrumptious, the setting incredible and the service is beyond reproach. It’s a treat for everyone from eight to eighty and one of those eating occasions which transcends being a mere meal and turns into a fabulous life experience. I’m sure the Minx will remember this for a long time.

And so in fact will I.

Full Disclosure: The Minx and I were the guests of the Fairmont Empress for one night and for afternoon tea. I promise that they have had no influence on the content of this blog post and all opinions are my own.

How to Make a Saint Honore’

June 25, 2012 By Paola 6 Comments

Once upon a time Dr Warren Austin, personal physician to the Duke of Windsor, married a Chicago heiress. Together they bought an island, and in 1969 set up a French camp for kids. As you do.

Canoe Island is a little scrap of paradise nestled in among the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state.

We went to family camp there last year and words can’t express how good for the soul this place is. The little wooded islet is small enough to walk around, with whimsical follies viewed between the trees. Everyone sleeps in canvas teepees, which are surprisingly civilised if you bring enough bedding and thermal underwear, and there’s a lovely clubhouse with a dining room, reading room, games room and swimming pool. Oh and did I mention the kayaking and sailing and archery and tennis courts? And there’s also a superb chef and a young patissiere who work miracles with the wonderful produce of the islands. Yep, the Garden of Eden has NOTHING on this.

Having fallen in love with this place last year, I couldn’t wait to return this year for a more grown up event – Patisserie by the Sea. In order to raise funds for the camp, two pastry chefs were flown in from France to teach a small group of us how to make exquisite patisserie, with plenty of scope for hands-on participation and eating the fruits of our labours afterwards.

In the first workshop we made ‘Le Saint Honore’ a la rose et aux framboises’ with master patissier Jean-Marc Vareil, who is currently a professor of patisserie at a school in Toulon and who has previously worked at Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons in England and the Bristol and the Ritz in Paris.

The Saint Honore’ is a traditional French pastry, named apparently for the patron saint of pastry chefs. You can either make individual versions or one big one. I’m not going to give you all the individual recipes and instructions, otherwise we’ll be here until Christmas. Instead let’s just treat this as an excuse for a bit of serious food porn.

If you really want to try these at home search for ‘Gateau Saint Honore’ and you’ll find plenty of help, though I’m betting that when you see what’s involved you’ll understand why everyone in France just buys them in from the patisserie instead.

But don’t let me stop you. One day I’ll make these again too.

First make, roll out and cut your pate brisee (a shortcrust pastry made with eggs, but no sugar)

Then make choux pastry and pipe it round the edges of your uncooked pastry circles and into little blobs (see how blithely I dismiss hours of work in two sentences).

When your blobs and bases are perfectly cooked whip up a little raspberry pastry cream.

And some virulently red caramel. And then poke little individual holes in all the little individual blobs.

Dip all the little blobs into the incredibly hot caramel, taking care not to burn your fingers (I still have the scars). Pipe the raspberry pastry cream into each individual blob. Yes, you heard correctly.

Dip the bases into the hot caramel (I had retired hurt by this point), stick three little filled blobs on each one and when cool fill the bases with the raspberry cream.

Whip up a quick crème chantilly, coloured pale pink and flavoured with rose water and use it to decorate the Saint Honores.

Decorate with raspberries and blueberries, rinse and repeat.

Pose proudly with handiwork on a small island (please ignore deeply unflattering picture of me).

Place in gob.

These were DIVINE – crunchy yet creamy, soft,with a little bite to the choux pastry, fruity but not too sweet; with the rosewater adding an indefinable je ne sais quoi. It took Jean-Marc about three hours to whip up twenty five in a standard domestic kitchen with no special equipment. We really have no excuse, do we?

There will be more pics from chocolate afternoon at Patisserie Camp next week. It’s not clear whether they’ll be running another Patisserie Camp at Canoe Island, but if they do I suggest you sell one of your children to get there.