the walls are dense with weird bric-a-brac, posthorns, ladders, a silhouette of a scarecrow; they don’t take credit cards, they forgot to even offer us dessert, and weren’t around to be asked for stuff half the time — there was a mysterious noisy party going on somewhere deep in the bowels of the place; the pictures on the stairs down to the kitchen and washrooms were just frames with no pictures in; the menu is italian on one side, french on the other — tho fondue is surely swiss… and it was totally haunting and recommendable

40 redchurch street, just off the brick end lane of bethnal green road

THEY DON’T SERVE BUTTER <— wtf?? this is bafflingly awesome

YOU WILL NEED:
Young spinach leaves
Avocados
Pine nuts
Haloumi*
Vinaigrette**
Tomatos (optional)
Peppers (optional)
Crispy prefried bacon slices (optional)***

NOW DO THIS:
i: slice avocados (and plus chop toms and peppers if using)
ii: brown pine nuts in a frying pan
iii: do NOT look away while pine nuts are browning or they will instantly blacken — science fact, they are the schrodinger’s cat of utter charring
iv: griddlefry haloumi if poss for stripy effect, otherwise fry normal way
v: put everything in big salad bowl and consume in a frenzy

VARIANTS:
*any cheese will work, esp. if strong
**viz olive oil and balsamic and sugar if not on a diet
***Or ham or salami or anything cold-meatish really — becky is veggie so i added this entire dimension

prep time = how quick can you peel an avocado?

er ANYWAY yes, what i bought was FRIED DACE WITH SALTED BLACK BEANS, and i just et em cold and they were nice, in a salty-ish way — the fish was crunchy brown in its friedness, and about sardine sized, and the black beans were er er as you’d expect if you’ve had em… ie i’m not going to attempt a description, so boo to you if you wanted one

bonus translation komedy: on the tin, which is labelled in chinese (cantonese i imagine), dutch and english, it says “DO NOT CONTAIN THE ANTISEPTIC” and “BEWARE OF CAN OPENING”

I pretty much believe the internet is full of great recipes to try, but the world of American volume-based recipes using cups and “sticks” of butter just doesn’t work in the UK. I end up poking anxiously with floury hands on my laptop trying to check whether a teaspoon is a teaspoon is a teaspoon. Well, NO MORE. I am coming up with a definitive cheat sheet for the fridge, but it is NOT HELPED by finding ridiculous sites like the above which claims the UK equivalent to 1 US “cup” is “3/4 of a cup and 2 dsp”. Leaving aside the fact that I am British and am not quite sure of the difference between a desertspoon and a teaspoon (the REALLY weeny spoons, I guess?) - NO! UK measurements do not involve cups! They involve weights, in grams, or at a PUSH I can accept pounds and ounces in old money. What NONSENSE is this site claiming?!

Or if anyone would like to say that the UK started it with Pints and Imperial Pints and I am just thick, they are welcome to Try It, but frankly - weight based measurements are the way to go. I mean, even if you DO measure by volume, a cup of flour is different to a cup of WALNUTS or whatever. The standard in the UK is metric, I just find it downright bizarre have NO clue what that site is referencing. I now judge it: UNHELPFUL! And my cheatsheet is back at square one as how can I trust anything else on that site?

And speaking of which, where can I buy a set of balance scales from these days? Are they the sort of things found in Past Tymes stores and bought by Live Roleplaying Enthusiasts? (Sorry Tom).

ii. They are still completely horrible :(

===========================

Chestnut Cupcakes with Chocolate (Kate) Ganache ♥♥♥ - makes at the least 12, probably some more depending on how much you fill the cases innit.

APPARATUS

one big bowl, one medium bowl, one little bowl
2 x cake baking trays
cake cases
wooden spoon
tongue to lick spoon with
electric whisk or well-developed biceps (mmmm Yamapi’s arms mmmmm)
blender multiprick thing

OPTIONAL
1 x laptop computer to watch Proposal Daisakusen on for the aforementioned Yamapi’s arms omg like seriously he was wearing a white vest and oh god NRGRGHHHH ihwsi fuohsauioghighuiahuiohuig I nearly died.

INGREDIENTS

110g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
200g sugar (i used half caster/half golden caster here)
80-100g chesnuts! (i used frozen ones - will explain what I did with these shortly)
110g room temperature butter plus a splodge more (a teaspoon cut off the side did me)
250ml semi-skimmed milk (plus an extra splash)
1 tsp rice vinegar
2 big eggys
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract* (tho, see note below about this)

CHOCOLATE KATE ‘GANACHE’ (here we get way more inexact as I just hoofed this entirely)
A “big bar” (100g or so?) of any fair-trade dark chocolate, I used something that was 72% cocoa solids but I can’t remember the brand, sry
Splodge of that semi-skimmed milk from before
Splodge of the butter as well

METHOD

1. Preheat yr oven to 180C

2. Add 1tsp of rice vinegar (but I guess any vinegar will do!) to 250ml milk and leaving it to sit and curdle itself for at least 10 mins, or however long it takes you to do steps 3-5 :)

2. sift your flour and bicarb into a medium size bowl. You can do this whilst step 3 is boiling if you want…

3. OK, some explanation here - you want to somehow obtain a chestnut puree. I suppose you could just use store bought chestnut puree and save yrself f-d but I had some chestnuts in the freezer so here is what I did; Boil up your chestnuts and get them nice and soft and plonk them in a bowl. Get out multiprick and whizz the chestnuts. You will note with some dismay it is not quite a smooth puree so add your splodge of butter and splash of milk and don’t worry! it will ALL BE OKAY. Leave the chestnuts to the side for now cos they’ll have to cool off a bit whilst you…

4. Cream together your butter and sugar in the big bowl - I used an electric whisk but you don’t have to, just get it nice and fluffy, lots of beating. Then, add your eggs one at a time, beat some more. Then add your chesnut puree! And yep, beat more some! Plonk in the vanilla essence at this stage too.

5. Add the dry stuff (flour and bicarb) and fold it in in bits, alternating with your fake buttermilk mixture that you made in step 2. Taste some of it! Nom nom.

6. When all nicely mixed together, stick your cake cases in your tin and put a tablespoon of mix in each one - mine didn’t rise that much so don’t worry about overfilling as much.

7. BAAAAAAKE! 25 mins turning once, shifting the stuff round from lower shelf to top shelf if your oven is as bloody tempramental as mine.

8. Cool on wire rack. Or whatever.

KATE GANACHE:

Break up your chocolate and melt it in MARIE’S BATH (bain marie = glass bowl suspended over boiling water so the steam nicely melts your choc). Stir stir, lovely melty chocolate nom nom. You want it to get to a nice smooth consistency so it can go on the top of your cupcakes, so add in milk veery gradually and stir around - it will look like it’s going a bit gritty but it will smooth out - add a wee bit of butter towards the end as well. As a ‘guide’, my mixture went a little lighter brown rather than the original very dark as a result of adding the milk… then I added it to the cupcakes by dipping the back of a spoon in the kate ganache and then laying the spoon on top of the cupcakes. It was a little messy but sadly the decor of cupcakes isn’t my strong point.

*Feedback: sadly no taste of chestnuts remained at the end. JUST as they came out the oven there was something nice and subtle there, but as they cooled it just went away. And for some reason we got a strange tang of… orange?? I just don’t even KNOW, you guys. I’m not sure whether I should be using more chestnuts, or whether a different type of sugar would bring out the chestnut flavour rather than overwhelm it. Also, you’ll see I used vanilla extract there - I’m not sure if that was actually necessary here, if I were trying it again I don’t think I’d use it, or if you MUST, just the tiniest splash you can fit in… any ideas, o readers, as to why chestnut may not be chestnut?

AS IF! Not that I feel the re-re-brand is anything other than a deeply cynical move but it’s a well-timed one and likely to succeed in the short-term without damaging the brand in the long term. The cohort of consumers who identified with Marathon are now getting beyond the age where they buy countline confectionery - how better to get them to at least re-try the product? Nostalgia - especially for a cheaper age - works well in times of economic difficulty - and so does the parochialism which Mars is tapping into by jettisoning its ‘global’ Snickers brand. It’s a bit of free publicity in a sector where headline-making innovation is thin on the ground. And it’s sufficiently long after the Marathon brand was dropped originally for the move not to look like any kind of admission of error by Mars.

I chose Addicted To Curry on title alone. Here is what it’s about: a schoolgirl has been left in charge of her father’s curry house, which is failing because she can’t cook. She saves a dying man in the street who turns out to be an amazing young chef and an old friend of her father’s. Together they work to make the curry house a success! Every episode features:

• a business dilemma they must solve using the power of curry!
• a scene in which someone tastes the curry and goes “OMG THIS IS AMAZING!” for a whole page
• a curry recipe

The storytelling is fast paced though the art is very sketchy - sometimes faces have just been left off. Some nice touches though - I like the way the characters turn into dinky little cartoon creatures when they’re talking you through the recipe. I haven’t tried any of the recipes - they all seem happily inauthentic but probably quite tasty. And obviously this is a plot and style and subject matter you would never in a grillion years get in a Western comic, which is one of the things Western readers associate with manga and like about it.

Another thing Western readers associate with manga is gratuitous schoolgirl pervertalism, and Addicted To Curry also delivers on this. The talented young chef is also a lech and a groper, and every episode has a comical sequence in which he peers in on his employer in the shower, fondles her cousin, stares up her skirt etc, receiving a slap for his pains. This gets old very quickly - combined with the formulaic story structure it led me to give up on ATC after a few episodes. Interesting as an illustration of manga’s range, but not recommended.

KFC, listen to your core chicken constituency. KFC AM only makes sense if you mean ONE AM and what you mean is some kind of gravy bucket dirty chicken deal. I can only think that the indie sector has you rattled in this new chicken 2.0 era of the long tail (”Long tail? Stick it in the chicken popcorn maker.”) At this rate SF and HF will be making you a laughing (chicken) stock.

full size here

Anyway… COME DINE WITH ME. Last night’s was more than awesome. This show has grown — a day-time staple, it’s gathered celebrity editions, and now it comes in a new format. No longer a short show every day of the week covering 5 people — they now compress 4 people in to a one hour show. It’s a sensation. Well for something that’s come from day-time. (It even has a rip off version on the beeb hosted by Simon Rimmer who seems to be trying to be on telly every day of the week for an entire year.)

But then having established a regular format, with often witty and interesting people who occasionally come to verbal blows, it goes HAYWIRE. Remember that first edition of Wife Swap with the foul mouthed racist woman — it was well train wreck. This was much the same but written by Mike Leigh.

The point of the show, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is to impress strangeres with your culinary skill and hosting ability. Remember that.

We’re in Newcastle. (oh the shame of it all). And we have (mis)matched up a pompous Tory with aspirations to become an MP, a harpy, an oversize child and a quiet studious looking woman. Just guess who won? Go on. Run with that prejudice.

The Tory boy is Brian Moore. No not that one. This one reminded me of a less suave David Van Day. Throw away lines that were painful. Dinner-party question: “If you had a thousand pounds to spend, what would you get?” “Well I do have a thousand pounds…”.

For some reason Brian is making a point about cheap super markets and bought everything from Netto - intending to wow everyone with the sumptious 3 course meal and then reveal his secret. But he can’t keep his powder dry and blurts it out before the dessert. Which is a shame as the dessert is a killer - half bananas and tinned mandarin segments on a plate. Oh with squirty cream on it. “Check the website for the recipe” says the narrator (one of the ‘writers’ in Moving Wallpaper).

Brian does not get on with Brenda. Brenda has already explained, over the first meal of the week, that red-meat ‘isn’t digested it just rots inside you’. She later reveals that Brian’s meal has made her sick. A meal that she was augmenting with enormous quantities of Tabasco. Oh and extra fried chillies made for her on request. And she continues to mention this while they are eating another meal.

Brenda didn’t really like anything, managed to make faces at all the food presented to her, yet actually produced… well a very ordinary meal. The most uncomfortable meal I have ever seen on reality television. No on television full stop. Scripted drama has nothing on it. I might have to rewatch it to transcribe some of the exchanges. The studious lady and the overgrown child shrink into the background — ‘let it be over soon’ all over their faces. “Phenomenal” as Brian says. Repeatedly.

The drunk scoring and bitching in the cab on the way back from the dinner was just unbalanced. I actually had to stop watching at one point, from the pain.

Perhaps you have to have seen other editions to see how unusual and agonizing it all was. Nobody here seemed out to make any effort — like an extra filler episode with people pulled off the street at the last minute. These people had not thought “I have a killer signature dish and my parties are legendary, i should go on that telly show! Now where’s the application form”

The winner was the studious lady (Rebecca).

There’s been another subtle change in the sandwich range though: everything possible is now branded “British”. Ham and cheddar is now British Ham and Cheddar; British Chicken and British Beef feature prominently. This vaguely irked me but from a marketing POV emphasising British provenance is a win-win at the moment: it appeals to one segment because it feels less carbon-intensive, and to another (possibly quite different) segment because, well, it’s British. “Buy British” has in the past been associated with an appeal to protectionist, socially conservative ’little Englander’ values, which won’t have been wholly absent from M&S’ calculations, seeing as the M&S brand itself is a bastion of home counties Englishness. I think the confidence with which they’re using it here though is a reflection of the rise in respectability of British food and British cookery over the last decade. Presented right, “British” has become a premium label as well as a simple patriotic one - which handily lets M&S shunt up sandwich prices as food costs spiral.

All of which doesn’t help me at lunchtime as my options continue to narrow - something has gone very wrong with Pret in the last six months or so, too. At this rate I may have to actually keep my regular resolution of making my own sammiches.

(crossposted with Blackbeard Blog)

Unaware of these tendencies lurking so nearby, I found myself surprised that upon sitting down to a dinner party in Holloway, the pleasant Chinese couple to my right who were cracking flavoured sunflower hulls and sucking out the contents with nimble aplomb announced to me, apropos of absolutely nothing (which is how these things always come out), that they were “very religious”. And left it there, picking at their seeds intently.

There really is little I enjoy less than discussing my dinner companions’ religious predilictions, but you have to say something, so I did.

“We’re Pentecostals,” he said, the mound of hulls having now grown to the size of a small anthill. She looked at me and said “Christian!”

“For 15 years,” the man said, grimly, I thought. After dinner was over he went out to the back patio and smoked the rest of a half-finished cigar, by himself.

Before that, though — but after the sunflower seeds — the entire table tasted what our host called “1000-year-old egg”. A delicacy in China and Hong Kong, 1000-year-old eggs are created by essentially burying eggs in mud for several weeks or months, turning the shell black, the white a translucent amber, and the yolk a mysterious dark green. A bit like some crash-landed alien, thawed out only in order to be eaten. (But will it change us if we do?)

The Chinese Pentecostals dug in, and smiled at our giggles and hesitant sniffing. They had nothing to fear from a 1000-year-old egg.

what’s next? steak plates? lamb chop pans? or just HOVER BACON?

Nice to see them still pushing the Dark Chocolate flavours, although I think I’m still yet to see a dark chocolate teacake in this ‘ere London. Then again! I am no teacake fan. Get your marshmallows off me bleeergh cough hack splutter. Even IF they are arguably the most fun to eat in their methodology as long as you do it correctly, ie smash the teacake against your forehead first in order to crack the chocolate coatin. If you like, you can shout “Haaaaaaai-YAAAA!” whilst doing so, but hey, it’s not essential. I’d shout “YAAAMAPIII DAAAAAAI-SKKKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII” - or I would - if I liked teacakes. But as I don’t - my confession remains…. unmade. DAMN YOU FOUL MARSHMALLOW.

But really I was just annoyed because of what I hoped the site was: a food science exploration into whether or not a given use-by date actually means it. As I understand use-by dates, they’re enormous bet-hedges: what they mean is “if you eat this before this date it won’t be horrible” not “if you eat this after this date it WILL be horrible” - but the gap between horrible and non-horrible after the date passes varies hugely by foodstuff. I am always deeply wary of post-UBD milk, bread is also a danger zone, but other dairy products (cheese, butter, etc.) are fine for a good while after, and convenience food, weirdly enough, seems very conservative on its use-bys. (This post was prompted by a tub of chilled four cheese pasta sauce, forgotten about until 10 days after use-by and then ate largely to punish myself for buying the wretched thing in the first place - but it was fine! (i.e. tasted as bland as it always would have - the four cheeses are in there to NEGATE one another not enhance!)).

Where the UBDs really go into “help!” territory is meat - there is clearly some wiggle room but how much? Since moving house we’re now within striking distance of a good and trustworthy butcher, so hurrah nom nom tasty meat but also no use by dates. What, oh readers, are your policies on use-by dates?

(I am open to persuasion that UBDs in general are a huge conspiracy by supermarkets to get us to buy more stuff, but of course for the individual punter they’re also a good way to get extra discounts, especially at Waitrose in my experience.)

the project: to road-test some of the fillings people have (incomprehensibly) not yet adopted

the fillings of the future:
i: mushrooms fried in pumpkin seed butter, with garlic oil and red wine
ii: fried bacon and date syrop
iii: chopped avocado and marmite
iv: spinach and ginger syrop
v: ham and gentleman’s relish
vi: brie and japanese plum sauce
vii: grated carrot and cinnamon

comments in reverse order of success:
6: ok this was actually just a straightforward wrong-ingredient error — when i couldn’t find any maple syrop i grabbed the plum sauce off the shelf at the last minute in sainsburys without looking properly, assuming it was hoisin, , and didn’t read the label till after i bit into the pancake: early giveaway = “ume plum seasoning: zesty alternative to vinegar”; more warning signals: “this tangy red juice, which comes from the pickling of umeboshi salt-picked plums… ” and “when using this classic japanese seasoning in place of vinegar, reduce or eliminate the slate in your recipe” — ume plum seasoning is quite salty! anyway, rationale for the brie idea was a variant on brie and cranberry; while pancake and brie both have pale an subtle flavours, which mask each other a bit, i think a tart buffer like hoisin would work pretty well…
7: i got this off the net from some menk — it’s HORRIBLE: the carrot makes everything soggy, and cinnamon doesn’t go with either — not quite worse than carrot flavoured turkish delight, which i also heartily disrecommend (haha i see i am #5 in all googleworld for the latter: “NEVER PUT A RED-CABBAGE FLAVOUR BANGER IN YOUR MOUTH — it is the CARROT-FLAVOURED TURKISH DELIGHT of the blood pudding world”) (i turned down a last-minute supper invite from tracerhand for this project, please be aware! never let it be said that freaky trigger does not sacrifice itself for its reader!)
5: ok i wanted to try PATUM PEPERIUM with something else, for symmetry’s sake, and ham seemed least problematic in my pre-taste mind: which was true, but in a rather passive way — the ham is just totally masked and might as well not be there… I JUDGE THAT gentleman’s relish goes nicely with pancake, tho you need to find a way to spread it thin
1: i got a bit overinvolved in the prep of this when i realised that pumpkin seed butter — which i got as a birthday present last year in a mini-hamper of exotic foodie stuff from my ex-ex-boss — is VERY granular and not at all buttery, ie it’s quite hard frying mushrooms in it… i used too much (non)butter, the result was a bit sandy in texture and the pumpkin kind of absorbed the other flavours — but actually the contrast with the pancake is rather subtle and not unsuccessful, tastewise and flavourwise; it’ is rather a lot of prepwork for several strong flavours to be blanketing one another…
3: again a problem with the spreading — niether pancake nor avocado being a particularly resilient surface… perhaps to drop the avocado and the marmite into a blender? but actually the contrast between avocado’s taste-texture and marmite’s is at its best when they arrive in distinct blobs; maybe gently bain-marie the marmite to get it a bit runnier first? (see WORD OF WARNING)
4: this is really nice — i used a bit too much spinach (uncooked young leaves) is all; spinach cooked with ginger is already a classic, so i was just extrapolating
2: horses on devilback (in plankates)! the error here wz the date syrop being recalcitrant coming out the bottle and i gave it a slap and (obv) it ALL came out and drenched the bacon a bit — also i’m not sure this was the best type of bacon (long-lost p^nk s Ft project: to get my head and yours round the qualities of all the bacons, they are sill a total mystery to me): but TOTALLY GO WITH THIS IN FUTURE

WORD OF WARNING 1:
Actually pancake delivery requires close attention to the state of the pan — you know the way the first pancake is always rubbish? Well, ANY break in total attention while making pancakes will produce another “first” pancake when you return to the production line, hence any other prep going on the same time is asking for trouble, esp. prep where you’re working with other pans… I actually only had to throw one pancake away but a couple of the late ones — after a break to taste the early experiments — were a bit rubbish

WORD OF WARNING 2:
Pancakes are filling! I was mostly doing half-and-half here — ie two trial fillings per pancake — as there was only one of me tasting, but even so I had no room for a PROPER lemon-and–sugar old-skool for “pudding”; also sadly the last one i ate was the most “puddingy” ie the HORRIBLE carrot and cinnamon botch :(

CONCLUSIONS:
Further work needed on the spreadability issue (3, 5). 2-4 should be added to the standard pancake filling canon FORTHWITH obv, as shd gentleman’s relish ON ITS OWN. I think brie and hoisin would work. The mushroom deal is too fiddly, but the “sandy” texture of pumpkin seed butter has genuine possibility.

Unattempted (TMFD): while googling I found a recipe for “caramelised satsumas”!!

THEN DO THIS
a: grate the parmesan
b: meanwhile heat oven to gas mark 6-ish, 350°F, 175°C
c: slice the fennel (top and tail, then quarter vertically)
d: place fennel in large oven-proof dish, dot with butter, float in cream, smother in parmesan (but keep abt 1/3 back for later), grind fresh pepper on top — ideally it should all be packed in there
e: put foil over top, shiney side inwards (or lid if dish has lid)
f: bake four 1xhour until cheese is melted, creamy sauce is blending, fennel is tender
g: remove foil, add remaining parmesan, ram cooker up to high for 10-15 mins
h: fry pork loin chops, using foil to protect world from spitting fat
i: turn regularly, prob require abt 1-12 mins
j: cut pork up into chunks with scissors, pour cheesy fennel bake over the lot
k: consume OM NOM NOM
l: then straight to casualty w.suspected fatty deposit round heart

AH! The embedding isn’t working so youtube link to Junior Spesh instead!

(EmbedED)

WTF who pays 20p extra for mayonnaise? Look, mayonnaise is foul anyway, you freaks, and second of all - 20p extra for sauces?! ZOMG, I dunno where these Red Hot guys are from but in SE14 you get free mayonnaise and ketchup even if you don’t want it - they are sort of swirled together in a tub in a yin yang like pattern?? And once I was drunk and thought it was a strawberry yoghurt thing and we were getting free pudding? And then I put it in my mouth and it was FOUL MAYONNAISE. Hitten da heart that’s a sick. I HATE MAYONNAISE >:(

We are assuming a junior spesh is £1.50 for 1pc, chips and a drink. We wouldn’t know, because we always go for the 2pcs and chips for £1.99 option. In Dallas Fried Chicken on Brixton Road, sometimes you used to get a sneaky extra bonus hot wing underneath. We were good customers there… whatever is £1.99 in the chicken shop will usually do you, either 2pcs and chips or 1pc, 3x hot wings and chips. NOM NOM DIRTY CHICKEN.

Firstly - the hygiene issues surrounding ‘communal dipping’. I’m sure everyone is pretty familiar with this practice, unless you live in a cave or something. This New York Times article deals with a study about bacteria levels in dip, with what to me seem quite obvious results - that dipping the same chip twice into a pot of shared dip = more bacteria, although the article seems surprised by this result. The scientist’s general conclusion - do not eat dip at parties unless you’d also be willing to kiss everyone else there, as it (bacterially speaking) adds up to the same thing, a conclusion that makes me feel vaguely paranoid - what if everyone finds out about this study? I foresee situations at parties where eating dip is seen as a come-on, ie if you’re happy to eat the dip, you’re also happy getting off with whoever else is ‘dipping’.

Secondly - a food science challenge! The problem posed is

Can you find three foods such that all three do not go together (by any reasonable definition of foods “going together”) but every pair of them does go together?

(There’s more instructions and explanation under the link)

Anyone got any solutions?

There’s also some interesting possibilities for food science experiments, personally I’d love to see what Lemon Mole tastes like.

 UPDATE: This resource could also be handy here.

(all via kottke.org)

a) left-over slivers of garlic, from being rubbed on the bread do add the requisite milky white counterpoint to the “boils”
b) The cherry tomatoes do “burst” in ones mouth
c) The olive oil can slightly resemble the clear plasma that follows the removal of zit juice

I had it for breakfast this morning, and it reminded me of the mistake I often make with this and more trad bruschetta. Namely that once you have rubbed the garlic on the slightly charred bread, you are left with almost a whole clove of garlic covered in black crumbs. It seems a waste just to throw this away, any therefore I often chop it up and put it on the bread. ERROR!!! Whilst the rubbing of the garlic is an essential part of this breakfast, the ingestion of an entire clove of raw garlic for breakfast is not one which you will thank yourself for two hours later. Or indeed while you are eating it. Though perhaps in the bleak midwinter the garlic will fend of cold, flu and vampires - it will also fend off humans, small animals and marriage proposals (I EAT IT EVERY DAY).

Anyway, bearing in mind all that is said here, here’s how to make zits on toast.

2 Slices Of Sliced Bread Crusts (Staler the better)
6 Cherry Tomatoes
One clove of garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Fresh basil if you have any
SALT AND PEPPER

Toast the crusts until slightly charred. Ie you want it rimmed with black, even if you hate burnt toast. Cut the clove in half, rub vigorously on the toast, starting with black edges as it acts as a garlic grater and loosens the garlic juices. When well rubbed DISCARD THE GARLIC. It may look like a waste, IT ISN’T. Arrange your halved cherry tomatoes on the bread in a way that will least remind you of zits or a rash. Dribble the olive oil on, and then rip your basil (PONCE!) and generous grinds of salt and pepper. ENJOY!

But nevertheless, before these silly stunts started, we came up with a proper Marmite brand extension, namely Marmite Grand Cru. Or to those of you who love an urban myth, White Whipped Marmite. Subtler than standard marmite, endowed with a gloss off-white colour and easily made if you have muscles like steel. Here’s how it is made…

Halva is an acquired taste - I’ve never successfully convinced anyone who’s not had it before that it is nice, despite my efforts. I think it’s the uneasy marriage of bitter and slightly sickly. Last night I was wandering about a local shop looking for ricotta (nothing doing) when I stumbled across this - Helva’m produced by Sebahat. I had to buy some, I liked the shape of the container. It excited me to think I could possess it and have it in my house FOR ALL TIME.I got home and had a bit, as an appetiser before my wonderfully healthy dinner of tiger prawns, broccoli and asparagus (which I later spoiled, condiment wise, by mistaking the balsamic vinegar for the soy sauce. Aciiid!). But back to the helva. Halva. Whatever. It looked like Nutella. I dug down into it a bit expecting some beige strata at some point, but it was Nutella-y all the way down (usually when I eat  halva I like to pretend I am on Time Team, excavating a site. With a teaspoon). It tasted like Nutella without the hazelnuts - ie dull. Just plain Ella. I could just about get a hint of the sesame tones of halva, but very faintly. I am quite capable of eating stupid amounts of almost anything, often regardless of taste, but I couldn’t really see a point in continuing to eat the Helva’m.

It wasn’t the taste that finally stopped me, mind you - it was the consistency. You know how Nutella is spreadable, in a way that means however much you want to to eat it straight from the glass, you feel compelled to employ a bready mediator for the sake of decency? That’s a good thing. It’s useful to be able to spread spread. The picture on the Helva’m tub suggests a similar spreading fate for its contents, but the consistency is like a thick clay. You’d have to melt this stuff before it would spread evenly, and even then I’m not convinced it would work. So I figured it was meant to be eaten from the tub, because who’d be crazy enough to melt this stuff down each time they wanted a snack?! (Well, I say ‘I figured’; I was actually too lazy to bother doing anything else). I found myself having to bite the stuff off the spoon, which is not the intended consumption technique for spoons - I tried licking it, but the damn stuff was practically waterproof, like slightly softer plasticine. Once in my mouth it took a lot of mastication to get it to unstick from my palate. My neck muscles actually ached trying to swallow a spoonful. Then I got a headache. So, er, thanks Sebahat, for ruining halva for me. The name even connotes hesitation if you squint a bit - Helva?  Um ……no thanks.

Helva’m tastes of very little, is waterproof and incredibly sticky. I think I’m going to grout the bathroom with it.

And so to the Famous Bowl. This is the first I have heard of this product - a typically sniffy but one assumes probably correct AV Club review**. For the Famous Bowl is - well let the copywiters at KFC have their moment in the sun:

“We start with a generous serving of our creamy mashed potatoes, layered with sweet corn and loaded with bite-sized pieces of crispy chicken. Then we drizzle it all with our signature home-style gravy and top it off with a shredded three-cheese blend. It’s all your favorite flavors coming together.”

. This picture is how it is supposed to look. Click through to how it actually looks.

(Image nicked from Les Jones, who has also discussed the Famous Bowl along with 95% of the web ).

Its basically KFC scrapings on mashed potato (the lack of mash as an option in the UK KFC is still a travesty). You can also get it with rice, and for the ultimate in indulgence the chicken and biscuit bowl. All of course to be eaten with a spork. Now granted, I don’t reckon they necessarily get baked beans in the States but…hey why not watch an advert for a Famous Bowl, which mocks both your taste buds AND THE DEAF at the same time!

Anyway, more reviews of this item. First a view of the nutritional aspects, which is handy considering the KFC nutrition calculator is not calculating at the moment. And someone else who suggests its like throwing up in reverse…
And perhaps a more balanced review…

By the way, for people doing I-Spy US States in Indie Chicken shop names, I-Spyed New Jersey Chicken in Willesden last night.

*And actually I am not completely sure this is the point of global fast food brands. I am pretty sure the point is to make lots of money.

**The review is by Patton Oswalt, the voice of the culinary genius rat Remy in Ratatouille by the way - and perhaps he got the gig by virtue of turning out some obvious but none-the-less amusing stand-up about said Famous Bowl. Which you can see here.

Wikibooks has the best definition I have ever seen:
Sweetmeat is the culinary name for testicles. Despite the name, sweetmeat is not sweet and is usually not considered to be meat.

Sweetmeats are also another name for sweets though, and often applied to Turkish or Indian sweets, which are also not considered to be meat though are often cloyingly sweet. And not bollocks.

However the Rocky Mountain Oyster is bull.boar or bufallo bollocks, and if it ever appears on the menu always remember how far away from the sea you are before ordering the oysters. If you want to buy, try McReynolds Farms (only in the US unfortunately). Source of the lovely vaumn packed meaty looking bugger above. They don’t come cheap though. (Wellm these days they don’t come at all…)

But just in case you find yourself with a glut of testicles, here’s a recipe:

Animelles de Moutons Frites
‘Choose 3 fresh sheep’s (mutton) animelles, remove the skin and cut each into 8 pieces of uniform size. Put into an earthenware bowl with salt, pepper, 2 teaspoons tarragon vinegar, 2 teaspoons olive oil, a little thyme, 1/2 bay leaf, 1 sliced onion and a few sprigs of parsley. Cover the bowl. After one hour they should give out their liquid. Drain, put back into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients, and sprinkle with the juice of half a lemon. Before serving, drain on a cloth, pressing lightly; dredge with flour and fry until golden. Arrange in a heap on a napkin and garnish with fried parsley.’