Postcard from France – Room with a View
Recipe of the Week – Rhubarb and Amaretti Crumble
Oh, I know we’ve done crumble almost to death recently, but a couple of weeks ago I had some late rhubarb (one of the few redeeming features of the cold, wet Seattle spring we’ve been having) and made that most quintessentially English delight – a rhubarb crumble.
And, not a just any old crumble either, but a slightly adjusted Rhubarb & Amaretti Crumble, courtesy of dear old Delia Smith, the doyenne of English cooking. Which ended up being just about the most fabulous crumble I’ve ever eaten in my life.
Ingredients
Approx 10 sticks of rhubarb
4 tbsps water
6 tbsps caster/baker’s sugar (or to taste).
Crumble Topping
40g chilled butter
75g self raising flour (or plain/all purpose flour with 1/2 tsp baking powder)
50g demerara sugar
50g whole almonds
4 Virginia Amaretti biscuits.
Unfortunately I forgot to measure out everything in cup measures, but if you use the proportions of dried ingredients to butter to sugar that I give here then you should be OK.
Method
Unlike Delia I stewed the cleaned and chopped rhubarb beforehand in the sugar and water for about ten minutes until soft, just because that’s how I’ve also always done it. I also didn’t add ginger because I wanted the full flavour of the Amaretti to come through (also, truth be told, because I’m not very fond of it). But feel free to add a teaspoon of ginger or cardamom at this stage and follow Delia’s method for cooking the fruit in the recipe link above.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C /350 degrees F /Gas Mark 4
Then put all the crumble topping ingredients into the food processor and whizz until crumbled.
Pat the crumble ingredients down over the stewed fruit and bake in the oven for around 35 mins until slightly golden round the edges and dig in. Normally I like crumble served slightly warm, but this was fabulous spooned up straight out of the fridge.
That’s it for the moment folks. On Sunday evening we’re off on our three-week European grand tour – a week on the French Riviera, a few days in Provence, a couple of days in Paris and a week in London, meeting friends, godparents and family along the way. There won’t be any proper bloggery while I’m away, but I’ll try and post up some ‘Postcards from Europe’ so you can vicariously join us on our travels. Don’t miss me too much.
This Week’s Recipe – Madeleines au Chocolat
A week or two ago I was lucky enough to be invited with a host of other Seattle foodbloggers to meet Mireille Guiliano, the extremely petite and chic (that’s her on the right below) author of ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat’ who was promoting her new cookbook ‘The French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook’, who has been one of my foodie heroines for the longest time.
Her books are full of good sense about eating only delicious food, eating slowly and deliberately, eating exactly what you want to eat but only in small portions, eating a good breakfast and balancing each meal between carbs, proteins and fats. She exercises by walking and doing yoga, and she looks… incredible.
For Mireille cooking can’t be separated from the joy of eating and her cookbook is a delight, full of charming anecdotes about the role food plays in Mireille’s life, making it definitely a cookbook for the bedside table.
It’s also full of recipes which aren’t really diet food, but which are rich and flavoursome and for which a little goes a long way. Her recipe for Chocolate Madeleines is a case in point. Six tablespoons of butter sounds like a lot, but not so much when spread between twenty madeleines, and just one of these is light and fluffy and decadent enough to satisfy any chocolate craving.
Ingredients
3 1/2 oz (100g) of dark chocolate
6 tbsps unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup plus 3 tbsps all-purpose/plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
(I also added 1/2 tsp salt, because I like what salt does to sweet things, and 1 tsp of vanilla essence).
Method
Combine the chocolate and butter in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water and melt, stirring until smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat and leave to cool.
Sift together the flour and baking powder and reserve.
Whisk the eggs until frothy, gradually add the sugar and continue whisking until the mixture is pale yellow and has thickened.
Gently fold in the cooled chocolate-butter mixture until well combined. Then gently fold in the flour until just combine. Then cover the mixture and chill it in the fridge for 3 hours.
Thoroughly butter your madeleine tin, which is an excellent job for small fingers, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Spoon the chilled batter into the madeleine pans until they’re three-quarters full.
The mixture will be quite thick and cold at this point, so don’t make the mistake I did with my first batch of these and not spread them right into the crevasses of the madeleine shapes. I’d expected the mixture to spread while cooking, but it didn’t enough and my first batch were very misshapen.
Bake for 11-13 minutes until puffy. Do not overbake. Cool on a rack and serve either slightly warm or at room temperature. Eat and marvel at how much slimmer you’re feeling ALREADY.
Things have been all over the place this week because of my computer problems, but I’m intending to make Wednesday ‘ Recipe of the Week’ day – where I play at being a food stylist – going forward. Thanks to Keren at Frantic Foodie for organising the coffee morning and do check out Mireille’s excellent website which is full of ways to keep slim the French way. Oh and you can buy the Atelier LZC tea towel I used above from mirrormirror.
Low Light Food Photography with Lara Ferroni
A couple of weeks ago I did another photography workshop with Lara Ferroni, this time talking about food photography in low lighting conditions.
I take all my photographs in natural light, as I don’t even possess a flashgun for my camera, but after getting the opportunity to play with Lara’s flash rig and huge studio lights I was busily working out how I could afford to buy all sorts of gear to counteract the Seattle gloom. (The answer, in case you’re wondering, is that I can’t. Not for the moment anyway.)
But it was all super interesting and gave us another opportunity to style and photograph the dishes that Lara had prepared, including the most delicious radish risotto, the recipe for which will be coming up in the next week or two.
Here are some of my favourite shots from the session.
Not surprisingly we spend a lot of time discussing light and shadows in Lara’s workshops. These tomato and lemon photos used the same continuous studio lights, but for the ones on the right I used a ‘bounce’ of white polystyrene to soften the shadows. I actually like these pictures equally but it’s interesting to see how something so simple can totally change the ‘mood’.
Yep, I know it’s completely out of focus, but for some reason I really like this shot.
This radish risotto was SO good.
There are more photos here on my Flickr. As part of my increased commitment to photography I’m going to try and post more stuff up there. Do feel free to make me a ‘contact’ on there – I’d love to see your photos.
I also can’t recommend Lara’s workshops highly enough if you have any interest in still-life photography (not just food). I can’t wait to apply some of my new techniques to mirrormirror product shots.
I’m also going to take the time to practise food styling at home. Henceforth on the blog there will be a weekly recipe, which I’ll take the time to style and shoot as best I can. Coming up on Wednesday, chocolate madeleines!
Thoughts
I’m back, sort of.
I wanted to see if I missed blogging, and I did, a lot, so I’m glad to be back in the saddle. The bad news is that my computer sounds like a jet fighter just before take off and this is my last week of freedom before the Minx finishes school for the summer vacation (can you believe it?) AND we’re off to Europe in two weeks, so I probably still won’t be able to blog as frequently as I would like, but let’s see how it goes.
In addition I have been having THOUGHTS about refocusing the blog a bit. Which, I hear you say, won’t be difficult, since it currently has no real focus at all.
Firstly I’d like this to be more of a ‘salon’ type blog about the design-world with lots of vigorous discussion in the comments, and a bit of an antidote to the ‘bunnies and unicorns’ type of approach taken by some other blogs. So I’ll be casting around for more ‘Go Fug Your Room’ type stuff and other things for us to discuss.
Secondly, I’m getting more and more into my photography and feel that it’s taking me somewhere. I have no idea exactly where it’s going, but I’ll be using this blog to experiment more and see what happens.
Thirdly, I’m going to introduce some more regular features so that I have a bit of a framework for my blogging week and you can come here with a bit more of an idea whether to expect tulips or chairs or knitting. I’ll be introducing some of these over the coming week.
Thanks so much for all your lovely messages and comments, I missed you! Mwah!
In other news Seattle is ‘enjoying’ one its interminable rainy springs. I know I shouldn’t expect the fabulous Seattle summer to start until early July but all this rain in June is somewhat depressing, particularly as it seems you’re even having summer in ENGLAND this year. But the lavender is peeking out, so I’m hoping this portends of better things.
What Home Means to Me
stopping to smell the roses
Photo from Twins Garden Style Blog
Image from Yarnstorm
sticking to my knitting
Image from Brooklyn Tweed
Image from Attic 24
baking lots and LOTS of cake
eating tons of pasta and drinking lots of wine
Print from Jenn Ski on Etsy
Image from Lara Ferroni
ogling my bread bin, still my favourite thing in the house
being constantly amazed by the bounty of our incredible cherry tree
Image from Canelle-Vanille
entertaining friends
Pinned from rathernice.tumblr.com
admiring the crazy awesome view that still makes me catch my breath every time I glimpse it
It’s true, Seattle really is seeming more and more like home.
Yes, I’m back! But only briefly. I’d forgotten that I’d signed up to participate in the Pin It Forward blog mashup organised by the amazing sfgirlbybay and showcasing the incredible talents of Pinterest, the fabulous new online pinboard tool, which lets you save inspirational photos from around the web. I am going to be using it A LOT in the future.
Tomorrow don’t forget to go and visit Being Tazim, to find out what home means to her. I, in the meantime will be back on Monday. I have been having THOUGHTS.
Hiatus
I’m going to stop blogging for two weeks.
As you can probably tell from the lacklustre recent posts, I’ve been finding it difficult to motivate myself recently and there’s so much other stuff I’ve got to sort out.
So I’m taking a week or two to organise all my clothes, my desk, my photos and the shop, do some exercise, get the garden ready for summer and refresh, rethink and refocus this blog a little.
I will be back. Have fun and don’t miss me too much.
Related posts
Jonathan Adler at Le Parker Meridien – Palm Springs
The last day of our trip to Palm Springs was also the only day we had grotty weather. It was sunny enough for swimming in the hotel pool until lunchtime, but then we checked out and went for lunch at the Parker, with interior design by Jonathan Adler.
From the moment we walked through the enormous orange front doors it was obvious we were in the presence of decorating GENIUS.
Even the Minx thought so.
To be fair Adler is definitely a decorator, not a designer and he does make it easy for himself. The building is not especially exciting and he hasn’t done anything particularly original with the space. Pretty much everything is painted white with dark wood floors, and the whole would be incredibly boring if it were empty.
But he has created the perfect backdrop for his superb vignettes of furniture and quirky accessories all topped off with his incredible sense of colour.
Everywhere you turned there were little Adler-esque touches.
The restaurant – Norma’s – was quite blandly decorated but the food was good and it’s obviously worth it to come here and have a bit of nose around the hotel.
The outside spaces looked like they might be interesting, but by this time the weather was really closing in and it was time to get the hell out of Palm Springs.
Just a quick word here in praise of Virgin America. We flew down the West Coast with them and it was such a pleasure to travel with an airline that was on time, had superbly pleasant customer service, fabulous seatback entertainment for everyone, and, to the Minx’s utter delight PINK and PURPLE interior lighting. Truly the key to a little girl’s heart.
In other tales from our trip to Palm Springs, check out
The Ace Hotel and Swim Club here.
The Colony Palms Hotel here.
Out and About in Palm Springs here
The Aerial Tramway here.
Joshua Tree National Park here
Palm Springs Afternoon Out – Joshua Tree National Park
We were told by many people that we couldn’t go to Palm Springs and not go to Joshua Tree, so on the Saturday, after checking out of the Ace, and before checking into the Colony Palms, we drove out of Palm Spings, turned right at the wind farm (who would have guessed that so many wind farm fans read this blog?) and continued on the road through the desert and a slice of small-town America.
I only wish I’d been quick enough to photograph the teabaggers with the sign for ‘Less Gov, More God’. My first ever teabaggers! We don’t have teabaggers in Seattle.
It takes about an hour and a half to get to Joshua Tree and we were surprised to find that it was in fact cooler than Palm Springs, being higher up and much more windy. I’m not sure if this is always the case, but it might be worth bearing in mind if you’re sweltering down in the valley.
The park is named after the small stunted tree which dots the landscape as far as the eye can see. Vistas like this are so awesome and alien and strange to British eyes and so different from the cosy, cuddliness of Seattle. This is the America that I don’t even begin to understand, but which, I suspect, is an essential component of the American character.
According to the small book of walks we bought at the Visitor Center, we could quite easily have spent several days exploring the park. However, on the recommendation of a family at the hotel we decided to walk through Hidden Valley. This was a well-signposted, 1 mile loop through a rock-enclosed valley which was once apparently and excitingly the lair of cattle-rustlers.
This was the perfect length of hike for the Minx and I can’t recommend it highly enough for small kids. Lots of tiny lizards and cute chipmunks to observe and loads of ROCKS. TO. CLIMB.
I liked it too, as the incredible rock formation brought out my inner Ansel Adams
{To me, and to most other Brits I suspect, the Joshua Tree means U2. Here is my own small tribute to those irritating Irish rocksters. Why an album full of Irish angst is named after this park, goodness only knows, but that didn’t stop me having ‘With or Without You’ going round in my head for most of the day}.
And here’s another fix for all you wind farm junkies.
In other tales from our trip to Palm Springs, check out
The Ace Hotel and Swim Club here.
The Colony Palms Hotel here.
Out and About in Palm Springs here
The Aerial Tramway here.
Next week we will be concluding this series with lunch at the Parker, designed by Jonathan Adler.
