SHE'S BACK, AND SHE'S SIX STONE HEAVIER

It’s snowing outside, Cranford’s on TV, the fire’s roaring and I’m eating Bendicks Bittermints. I’m in heaven. Yes, I've been absent for aaaages but we'll come to that in another post. What can I say? I've got no broadband at home. Annoying? Just a BIT.

Not actually six stone, but I suspect I’ve gained about half a stone in the past week. I’ve been inhaling mince pies by the dozen and every evening is punctuated by several glasses of red wine. I pulled out my running shoes this morning but one look at the ice on the pavements had me throwing them back in the cupboard. Fire on and mug of tea in hand I sunk into the sofa in front of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation instead. I can deal with my winter layer of fat another day.

Meanwhile anything remotely crisp, fresh and brightly coloured has been abandoned from my diet and evening meals consist of what I refer to as ‘brown food’: deep, rich burgundy stews, thick hearty soups, lots of meat, lots of starches and lots of red wine. Oh and puddings – and I use the term pudding deliberately rather than dessert – think molten chocolate, oozing treacle and dark sticky toffee.

And then of course once Christmas is out of the way thoughts turn to New Year. I can take or leave New Year’s Eve – all that palaver for a tick of the clock? Hello anti-climax. Maybe I’ve just never had a really great Hogmanay. There was the year I spent it in the St John’s Ambulance tent in town while my then flatmate passed the stroke of midnight by throwing up into a papier mache dish, or the millennium, when my I was driving up from Derbyshire to spend the turn of the century with friends but I ran out of petrol, so instead spent it cold, pissed off and sober at the side of a B road, waiting for the AA to turn up. There was also the year when Carrie and I lived together and I got plastered on home-measure Manhattans, so that when she was raring to go, I was collapsed, drunk and melancholy on the floor. The weather was so awful they cancelled the street party, so we resigned ourselves to watching Jools Holland instead. Then the TV broke. So we switched on the radio. And it broke too. We spent midnight Carrie and I, me drunk and incomprehensible and her staring longingly out of the window wondering what she’d done to deserve such a crap lot. It’s the crazy frenzied level of expectation which invariably results in a let down. I’m happy to admit that one of the best new years I’ve had was the one I spent alone in bed, with a huge box of chocolates, a bottle of Champagne and the Sex And The City box set.

New year’s day on the other hand, I’m fully on board with. I’d much rather welcome the first day of the year with open arms than say a tearful drink-fuelled goodbye to the old one while trying to desperately remember what comes after ‘we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet’. And then there’s the food. Black bun? Cake! And steak pie? Oh aye. Even the booze has an air of food about it - Bloody Mary’s are, after all, kinda like alcoholic cold soup. Without the pressure of the impending midnight, January 1st is a perfect day to relax with friends in a cosy pub before trudging home to feed alcohol-soaked bodies with brown food. A poke about in Nigella's Feast and this is one of my all-time favourite comfort food/hangover cure dishes: it’s rich, it’s warming and it’s filling. Puy lentils braised in red wine and eaten with sausages which have been cooked in the oven until brown and sticky. The beauty of this dish is that, save for a little initial chopping, it doesn’t require a huge amount of attention but rather can be left on the stove to putter away while you nurse your hangover with a hair of the dog. Oh, and please please don’t prick your sausages – you’ll lose all the lovely flavour. Incidentally, this dish is traditionally eaten at New Year in Italy, the lentils signifying coins and supposedly promising good fortune in the year ahead. Bonus!

LENTILS BRAISED IN RED WINE WITH SAUSAGES

good quality sausages, 2 per person or 3 for greedy folk
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
smoked pancetta cubes or streaky bacon finely chopped
olive oil
500g Puy lentils, rinsed
2 bay leaves
Dijon mustard
300ml red wine
750ml water or stock
fresh parsley

Put the sausages in the oven and let them do their thing.

Heat about three tablespoons of oil in a large heavy based pan and add the pancetta. Cook gently until it colours lightly.

Add the carrot, garlic, celery and onion, and cook until they’ve softened a little but don’t let them colour.

Tip in the lentils, stir until slicked with the oil and add a couple of teaspoons of Dijon mustard.

Pour in the wine and water or stock until the lentils are just covered in liquid, tuck in the bay leaves, bring to the boil then turn down the heat, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes or until just tender.

Check the seasoning, stir in chopped parsley and serve with sticky sausages.

THE BIG DAY

A few small things to remember should you ever find yourself offering to bake somewhere in the region of 150 cupcakes for your lovely friends' wedding:

- When only in the possession of one 12-cake muffin tray, don't keep meaning to buy another two or three, never quite get round to it and then think 'sod it, it'll be fine'. Anyone with a very basic grasp of maths will be able to work out that this means baking 150 cupcakes will take somewhere in the region of 9 hours.

- Do invest in an electric gadget for juicing the lemons if your cupcakes happen to be of the lemon variety. Enlist the help of anyone willing to zest said lemons or you'll grow to despise said lemons.

- Get someone else to calculate how much icing sugar you'll need or you may find yourself with a small surplus.

- When desperately prepping the decoration at midnight the night before the wedding due to the 9-hour baking stint during the day, don't use a dangerously sharp knife and talk on the phone at the same time. This is how people cut themselves.

- Don't settle for a piping bag with a smaller nozzle than you'd like in a bid to avoid spending £15 on a set of various really good over-sized nozzles. Your icing will resemble Primula.

- Try and avoid drinking Cava while baking, as this only leads to confusion and can result in not enough flour being added to the first batch of cake mix.

- Don't use the very nicest cake cases for the first batch of cake mix.

Enjoy!

GIRLIE CAKES FOR A VERY GIRLIE DAY

A few weeks ago I wrote about Alex and Rowan's impending wedding and the inordinate number of lemon cupcakes I'll be baking for the occasion. I settled on an incredibly moist and light lemon yoghurt cake recipe by the Barefoot Contessa but struggled to find an adequately concentrated rose extract to create the rose-scented icing.

However, fear not, because I was pointed in the direction of Lakeland Plastics and a rose syrup by a brand called Atkins and Potts. Even while I was handing over my hard earned cash I remained unconvinced that it would be strong enough to cope with being diluted in tonnes of butter and sugar but you'll be thrilled and relieved to hear that it did the job admirably.

And so on Sunday I baked a proper trial batch, using the actual cases, and the actual decoration I'll be using on the actual day. This was mainly so that I could calculate the quantities of ingredients I'll require for the actual event, and partly because it was Sunday, there was a bottle of pink champagne chilled in the fridge and frankly why not? We ordered the cases from here, and the crystalised rose petals are from here. They're all the way from the Grasse countryside in France, where the flowers are gathered in the morning, gently dried and then coated in sugar syrup. They taste the way roses used to smell when you were little. Heavenly.

It's fair to say I'm not normally a pink girlie girl, but for a properly girlie occasion such as the civilisation of two lovely girls, I think we can make an exception.

CHICKPEA, FETA AND MINT SALAD AND HEROIC ACTS

So, I've just started my new job at The List and I'm really enjoying it. My brain feels as though it might explode with all the new information it's storing, and I have the strange feeling you get when you're learning something new and you feel like you're never going to get your head around it even though you know full well you will.

I've been coming home from work desperately hungry, and in search of food I can throw together in no time at all. I've been slowly building up a wee craving for this over the past few days and it perfectly fit the category of food that takes minutes to prepare but still tastes fresh and delicious.

In other news, I've been running lots recently and am currently reading Haruki Murakami's book: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. He didn't really start running properly until he was in his early thirties so his writing resonates with me in a way that other pieces don't - all to often I find writing on this subject patronising and elitist, as though you can't possibly consider yourself a runner unless you've run a marathon every year since you were six and 10k every morning before breakfast.

He talks at the beginning of the book about the mantras we use to keep ourselves going when things get tough:

"'Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.' Say you're running and you start think, Man this hurts, I can't take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon running."

This really struck a chord with me; in the main in relation to running of course, but I think this is something that can be applied to other parts of our life. I've resolved to make a conscious effort to rise above the annoying stuff and let it go over my head. It's easy to get bogged down with the inevitable crappy things life throws at us, but by opting not to, the crappy things feel less crappy and we feel happier and less bogged down as a result. It's really much easier to be happy and positive. It works.

I have confirmation that it works as a mantra for hideously painful races too - my friend (and now hero, incidentally) Kev completed The North Face 100 race through the Blue Mountains in Australia last weekend in 19 and a half hours. That's 100 KILOMETRES by the way, or the equivalent of over two marathons, running, over mountains, starting at 7am and finishing... well, you do the maths. This is an amazing achievement by anyone's standards and I'm completely in awe of what he's done. And I'm sure Murakami would be thrilled to know that this little mantra helped him through some tough points in the course.

EAT: LEITH

I live in an area in the East of Edinburgh called Leith which encompasses a working port, a (sometimes even sunny) shore lined with bars and restaurants (including no less than three Michelin star-winning establishments) and a very proud community. There circulates a small but nonetheless popular magazine called The Leither for which I have done various odd pieces of writing in the past, but with a new editorship has come an opportunity for me to settle into a more permanent slot as food writer of-sorts. I have been given a page on which to write freely, which is a brilliant opportunity in terms of being published on paper, but also a nice aside to this blog. I hope to give focus to produce which can be found in and around the Leith area which will be an easy enough feat as there are a plethora of food establishments and speciality shops opening left, right and centre.

My first piece will appear in the May issue, and so it was timed conveniently to coincide with the wild garlic season. You'll recall my fondness for wild garlic last year when a dinner of dolmades and pesto had me waxing lyrical about this amazing herb to anyone who'd listen. This year, inflicted with a common cold and a yearning for something non-medicinal to help shift it, I found myself hot-footing it to Valvona & Crolla once again in search of these leaves. Soup seemed like the best thing for the soul but frankly there was no way I was buying wild garlic without making another pesto, it was just too good. A dig around online gave me an idea for parsley and wild garlic soup - both ingredients abundant with nutrients and more to the point, flavour. Whilst we're approaching the end of the all-to-short wild garlic season, if you do come across some I'd urge you to give this a try. It may sound somewhat pungent, but the cooking softens the flavours and an aromatic bowl of delicate green soup is the result, and the pesto stirred into it gives it a fragrant kick. Trust me, if you like garlic, you’ll love this.

PARSLEY AND WILD GARLIC SOUP SERVED WITH WILD GARLIC PESTO inpspired by a recipe by Mark Hix
Serves 4

For the soup:
knob of butter
2 medium sized onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1 medium potato, peeled and chopped
1 litre vegetable stock (I like Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon)
50g - 60g parsley, roughly chopped
50g - 60g wild garlic, roughly chopped

For the pesto:
50g – 60g wild garlic leaves, washed, dried, stems cut off
pine nuts
parmesan
olive oil

In a pot, melt the butter over a medium heat and gently sweat the onions and garlic with the lid on, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes or until softened. Do not allow to colour.

Add the potato and stock, bring to the boil and simmer for around 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, using a pestle and mortar (or food processor if you’re feeling lazy), pound the wild garlic leaves for the pesto until your olfactory senses are given a right old treat. Add pine nuts, Parmesan and olive oil, tasting as you go along until you are happy with the consistency and flavour.

Add the parsley and wild garlic to the soup pot, cook for a further minute or two until wilted.

Remove from heat and blend.

Season to taste and serve with the pesto drizzled over the top.

CELEBRATION CAKES

Is it wrong to celebrate your blog's one year birthday when you've been MIA for the last four (and some) months? Perhaps this small private acknowledgement is enough of a nod to it's actual birthday, and then in four months time it can have an official birthday, when the weather will be nicer and we can be giddy and self congratulatory. Look, if it's good enough for Nana Betty it's good enough for this blog.

In keeping with the celebratory theme, I have been doing a spot of baking. Two of my dearest friends are to be married in July and we are all beside ourselves with excitement. It is to be a small affair but nonetheless very special, with close friends, family and the sunshine in attendance. At least we hope so. Edinburgh can be a touch unpredictable when it comes to matters of climate but if the last week or two is anything to go by we might just be lucky.

Ever since Gemma created such a fabulous cake for Sylvie's wedding I've had a hankering to have a go myself, and so it is that I find myself in charge of the patisserie for this affair. To her credit, Gemma went down the traditional route and put together a very impressive three tier wonder of fruit sponges complete with marzipan and royal icing, while I will be going down the less challenging route of lots of oversized cupcakes. But there is some challenge in creating in the region of 150 cupcakes, all of which must look just right, then icing them on the morning of the big day, transporting them to the venue and positioning them just-so on their towering stand.

I want these wee cakes to be delicate and summery, and so when I saw Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa - an absolute marvel and what's more, living my fantasy life) make this lemon yoghurt cake the cupcakes suddenly became a bit of a no-brainer. Topped with rose scented icing, these are going to be perfect (she says, modestly).

So, I had to make some at the weekend - just to make sure they'd work as cupcakes you understand - and work they did. They're delicious. Using yoghurt and oil instead of butter ensures that the cakes have a light spongey texture, and the lemon rind gives them an extraordinary citrus flavour. Of course the original recipe is for a whole cake, which will be just as lovely.

As for the rose scented icing, I absentmindedly picked up rose essence instead of extract and as a result it didn't taste remotely like rose. This, along with a distinct lack of piping bag, meant that it was pretty much doomed from the outset. The search is now on for a good concentrated extract - any recommendations are most welcome, although I've been told Star Kay White are a good place to start. As soon as this is procured it will of course necessitate another trial batch of cupcakes... Well you have to sure don't you?

EEEEK

The main problem with having been away from my blog for soooooo long is knowing how to come back.

A lot has happened since I was last here, so perhaps I'll fill you in on some of that. Thanks to the fragile state of the world's economy, I've been made redundant and find myself languishing the land of the unemployment. Perhaps languishing isn't quite the right word but you get the picture. On the plus side, this has afforded me (another poor choice of words, given my subsequent bank balance) the time and opportunity to do quite a lot of writing - whilst clearly not here - but for other publications, namely The List Eating and Drinking Guide 2009 and another List-affiliated publication called The Larder, a guide to Scottish produce. I've also done a fair amount of writing for i-on, and have managed to secure a quarterly column for them called Everyone's Eating... which examines the food trends that are currently taking Edinburgh by storm (kinda). There's one or two other things in the pipeline too which I'll talk more about once they're confirmed but on the whole it's been a pretty productive time in terms of being published, which is great.

As far as cooking goes, I've got to be honest and say I haven't been doing much outside of the norm and I should even confess to having probably settled for more than my fair share of pizza instead of making something myself, such has been the state of affairs over the last couple few months. However things are settling down a bit now and I've been getting back to grips with the kitchen.

More to follow...

IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?

...I'm back...

BREDELE

When I checked my inbox yesterday I had an email from my Mum. She lives in Paris but is originally from Alsace where the food of the region is very Germanic in style and is marked by the use of pork in various forms. Traditional dishes include baeckeoffe, a kind of stew of pork, beef, lamb, potatoes and onion cooked in Alsation white wine (much much much nicer than it sounds); tarte flambée or flammekueche, similar to a pizza base but covered with creme fraiche, onions and bacon (delicious!) and choucroute, sauerkraut prepared with various (surprise) pork sausages and other salted meats and charcuterie, and often potatoes.

The festivities of the year's end involve the production of a variety of biscuits and small cakes called bredele. There are many varieties of bredele, including anisbredela (aniseed), butterbredle (butter), schwowebredle (orange and cinnamon), spritzbredle (almond), small pain d'épices (gingerbread) and spice cakes which are traditionally given to children starting on St Nicholas' Day.

As she does every year, my Mum has made a batch of these bredele, pictured above. My favorite are the owls, hands down. Perhaps it's about time I picked up the mantle and started making these too. It might not hurt to have something homebaked with the M&S feast...

FEAST

So I was staring blankly at my blog this morning, the irony not escaping me. For one, in my last post I declared that I would next write about something that is not chicken, only to roast a chicken on Sunday evening which resulted in a chicken stock and subsequent chicken soup being made yesterday. Ah.

Also, December is the month in the year when we all go into food overdrive - shopping for it, cooking it, baking it, roasting it, eating it eating it eating it eating it. But while I scour other people's blogs to find them soaking fruit and feeding cakes with brandy and making Christmas preserves and cooking and freezing, I'm, well I'm not. I'm not having any mammoth cook outs, I'm not desperately trying to locate all spice berries, I'm not nervously checking sell by dates and wondering how soon I can start shopping for sprouts.

Last year everyone came to me for Christmas and I made, from scratch:

seared scallops on pea puree with lemon oil and caviar
roasted turkey with chestnut stuffing
a glazed ham
potatoes roasted in goose fat
artichoke gratin
brussel sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta
roasted beetroot
carrots
cranberry sauce
bread sauce
gravy made with the turkey giblets

pears poached in mulled wine
calvados-soaked raisin ice cream

We also had flamed plum pudding with brandy butter, the biggest wedge of gorgonzola you've ever seen complete with pate de quince, figs and frozen grapes, and the obligitory twiglets, pretzels and after eights.

In short, the shopping, prepartion and cooking required something akin to military precision and indeed a great deal of the prepartion was done on Christmas eve (that is to say I cooked solidly for twelve hours). The turkey was soaked in a bucket of brine overnight a la Nigella and I can absolutely say that it works - it was the most delicious, juicy, succulent turkey.

However this is not a complaint - on the contrary - I absolutely loved every minute of it. It was an opportunity to cook mountains of extravagant, delicious, festive food and to spend hours on end doing it. I didn't dread it, I looked forward to it, I relished it.

The fact that everyone scuttled off home abruptly early at 11 o'clock clutching their bellies and groaning is by the by.

So by complete contrast, this year we're doing Christmas that good old fashioned, very british, very traditional way. We're getting it all from Marks.

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL

I have decided that my blog seems to be all chicken chicken cake cake chicken cake chicken chicken cake. I love chicken, and I do love cake, but frankly I feel I need to give some more attention to the other food. I do eat other food. So I hereby announce that I shall be cooking, eating and writing about non-chicken and non-cake foods. However, I just need to get this out of my system first...

I made a chicken soup the other day which would be simply rude to ignore. I was flicking through my new cookbooks, or more specifically Leon, when I landed on 'Good Soup for a Bad Day'. If the title caught my eye initially, the subtitle had me pulling my soup pot out of the cupboard - 'Chicken, Pearl Barley, Mushroom and Tarragon' - or yes, yes, yes and yes if you're me. The plan was to make a couple of huge batches of soup to freeze in portions, the idea being that they would keep me going for a good couple of weeks. Needless to say this soup only lasted a couple of days before we had eaten it all.

(Incidentally, I also made another huge pot of black bean soup, but this time substituted a great big couple of dollops of harrisa for the chorizo - on Rowan's suggestion I must add - along with a few crushed cloves of garlic. I also bulked up the onion a little and doubled the amount of chilli to make up for the missing chorizo. Anyway, it was delicious, a good vegetarian dish and lower in fat than the original, so thank you Rowan for the idea).

Anyway, chicken soup. Yes, this is definitely a good soup for a bad day. It's aromatic and comforting and the pearl barley makes it quite substantial so it's perfect with a wee bit of nice bread for dinner on those evenings when you don't want anything too heavy. Obviously the best free range organic chicken you can find will give the best flavour. Actually, while we're on the topic of free range organic chicken, I'm going to pause to have a wee rant at this point if you don't mind.

I cannot help but notice when I'm at the supermarket that there are still a depressingly massive number of people buying the rank foul battery farmed uber cheap chicken. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? The conditions these birds are kept in are deplorable. And to add insult to their pitiful lives and cruel deaths, these chickens taste like crap. Why don't people take an interest in where their food comes from? And some responsibility while they're at it. I cannot bear to listen to the ludicrous argument that free range organic chicken is too expensive to eat every week. Here's an idea: don't bloody buy it every week then. Eat something else instead, eat free range organic chicken less frequently but pay a premium for it when you do. And when you've paid your 15 quid for your free range organic chicken, get every little shred of meat off the carcass and you'll have enough for at least two meals. Then use the carcass to make stock. If you can't be bothered, chuck the carcass in a bag and freeze it until you can. Better still, freeze a few carcasses and make a more intense stock using all of them. Use the stock (and leftover chicken) to make soup or (and) risotto. This is not rocket science.

Ok, where were we? Yes, soup. I've typed up the recipe in full as it appears in the book because it's so nicely written. I used thighs and legs (and actually more than just 2 as is stated in the reciped), and I choped the onion rather than sliced it for the soup and used chestnut mushrooms instead of closed cup, but you're all big and bright enough to adapt it for your own ends.

GOOD SOUP FOR A BAD DAY (CHICKEN, PEARL BARLEY, MUSHROOM & TARRAGON) from Leon by Allegra McEvedy

This soup may not be the quickest of makes, but as long as you follow the method you're guaranteed to feel better at the end of the day.

RESTORATIVE MEASURES FOR 4*

2 free range chicken legs
2 large carrots - 1 left whole, 1 chopped into 1cm dice
2 sticks of celery
2 medium onions, sliced
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
4 bay leaves
a handful of parsley, with stalks
300g large closed-cup mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
160g pearl barley
1 heaped teaspoon butter
1 tablespoon tarragon leaves, chopped
salt and pepper, plus a few whole peppercorns


Put the chicken legs into your favourite winter stock-making pot, with the whole carrot, celery, half the sliced onion, half the garlic, two of the bay leaves, the parsley and the peppercorns. Prise the stalks from the mushrooms and throw them in too.

Cover with 1.5 litres of water and bring to a simmer, then skim and turn the heat down until the stock is just steaming. Leave to cook like this until the chicken meat is coming away from the bone - about an hour.

Go and sit down for half an hour with a nice glass of wine and the papers, and put your feet up.

In a different saucepan when you're ready, fry the remaining onions in the oil with the rest of the garlic, chopped, and a bit of salt and pepper for a very gentle half hour or so until softened (meanwhile, do a bit more damage to your bottle while stirring your gently goldening onions, smelling the calming aromatherapy of simmering chicken stock and gazing into the middle distance).

Add the pearl barley, diced carrot and bay leaves to the onions, then pour in the stock through a strainer and bring to a simmer. Throw the veg away (or puree for another day's soup base) and put the chicken aside to cool down.

After an hour (i.e. your luxurious bath), get the butter to the edge of brown in a frying pan and fry the mushroom through golden until just coming up to crispy, chuck the tarragon in, give it a quick toss and then swirl it all into the soup. Anywhere around about now your barley should be tender.

Amuse yourself by picking the meat off the chicken bones, chopping it into little pieces and adding to the soup.

When you are comfortable with your barley, have a long, hard moment with the salt and pepper and if it seems a bit thick for a soup let it down with a bit of hot water.

Eat with crusty bread and a sense of well-being, then sleep the sleep you deserve.

*Plus leftovers for tomorrow, wihch will be a better day.

BOB IS FORTY

Yes, that is a half eaten cheese and onion hedgehog so beloved of 1970's housewives you see in the background. One of my oldest and dearest friends is Robert. He is a marvel and pain in the arse all rolled into one. This man has absolutely no regard for his own health, he smokes, drinks alcohol, consumes coffee and eats dairy like there's no tomorrow and yet he looks fabulous and is one of the happiest buggers I know. If ever there was someone who epitomised the phrase 'Joie de Vivre' it's him. He'll be laughing on the other side of his face when he's strapped up to an iron lung with a serious case of gout but not to worry. He certainly doesn't.

Simple pleasures for Robert: the text we get every Friday evening telling us it's 'beer o'clock', his insistance on going to the same bloody pub week in week out because it's like a goldfish bowl which allows him to point and laugh at unknowing passers by, a bit of a sing song to 'Celion Delion' (sic) after a few too many drinks at the aforementioned pub. Ok, I'm not doing a great job of selling him to you but all you need to know is that this man is as good as family to me and I love him like a brother. An annoying brother.

So anyway, it was his 38th birthday a couple of weeks ago. My friends and I never tire of reminding him that he's a whole six years or so older than the rest of us and we wait with glee for the huge occassion that will be his fortieth. We therefore use any excuse to remind him of said fact and every year his birthday carries pretty much the same theme: Bob Is Forty! Haha!

As self-appointed baker of birthday cakes I crafted for him a coffee and walnut cake. (As an aside - I always think of coffee and walnut as being quite a 'manly' cake. I'm not sure why. Is it just me or does anyone else think this?). As always when planning a cake, my first port of call is Nigel Slater. I have used his coffee and walnut cake recipe before and it's faultless. Follow it to the letter and you'll get a cake which is crumbling and moist and moreish and just perfect. And it seemed fitting for Robert, what with it being FULL of butter and coffee.

COFFEE AND WALNUT CAKE from The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater (one of my all-time favourite cookbooks).
Serves 8-10


175g butter (room temperature)
175g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs
175g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons instant coffee granules
65g walnut pieces

For the butter cream:
200g butter (room temperature)
400g icing sugar
2 teaspoins instant coffee granules
60g walnut pieces


You will need two 20cm loose-bottomed sponge tins. Set the oven at 180 degrees. Line the base of the sponge tins with baking parchment.

Beat the butter and caster sugar 'til light, pale and fluffy. You cuold do this by hand but it is far easier and, frankly, better with an electric mixer. Crack the eggs into a bowl, break them up with a fork, then add them a little at a time to the butter and sugar, beating well after each addition.

Mix the flour and baking powder together and gently mix into the butter and sugar, either with the mixer on a slow speed or by hand, with a large metal spoon. Dissolve the ocffee granules in a table spoon of boiling water, then stir into the mixture. Chop the walnuts and fold them in gently.

Divide the cake mixture between the two tins, smooth the top lightly and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes. I have noticed mine are pretty much consistently done after twenty-three minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

To make the butter cream, beat the butter with an electric beater 'til soft and pale, then add the icing sugar and beat 'til smooth and creamy. Stir a tablespoon of boiling water into the coffee granules, then mix it into the butter cream. Fold in the walnut pieces.

As soon as the cake is cool, turn one half of it upside down on plate or board, spread it with a good third of the butter cream, then place the second cake half on top. Spread the remaining butter cream on top and round the sides.

THE BOOK PEOPLE

I love cookbooks. I can't help myself. I love glossy pictures, I love matt pictures, I love pages and pages of words all dedicated to food. I love food styling. I love hard backs, I love paper backs, I love big heavy tomes. I love page-marker ribbons. I love to read them from cover to cover like a novel and I love to salivate over the photography. This is a habit I seem to have inherited from my mother who has the equivalent of a small library of literature dedicated to epicurian delights and I am managing to build up a fair collection of my own (though alas, mine is not yet as impressive as Gemma's whose shelves of cookbooks I lust after and envy in equal measure...).

The problem with cookbooks is that a) there are literally hundreds I want, b) there isn't a week goes by when there isn't a new one to add to the list I already want, and c) at an average price of around £25 each, if I were to buy them all I'd very quickly be declared bankrupt (and some). And so it is I have to be satisfied with buying them slowly and one by one, resigned to the fact that unless I suddenly come into a fortune of millions the probability is that I'll never own all the cookbooks I'd like to.

However, Sylvie recently referred me to a website called The Book People which offers 50%-75% discount - they don't carry thousands of titles but they do have a good selection (particularly children's books incidentally) and so it was that I found myself perusing their choice of cookbooks. The discounts are unbelievable - to give you an example, the RRP on the new Clarissa Dickson Wright book 'Clarissa's Comfort Food' is £19.99 but you can buy it at The Book People for £6.99. If that's not enough to convince you to have a look then you're a lost cause.

Anyway, a few days after my ponder through their titles I took delivery of a great big red box containing four fabulous new cookbooks and a box set of a further eight classics - The Best of Mrs Beeton. Updated for a modern audience but still charming, these books come presented in a wee kitchen cupboard and include titles such as Jams, Pickles and Preserves and Household Tips - so cute.

Gordon Ramsay's Cooking for Friends is beautifully styled and worth it for the black forest cake recipe on page 246 alone, My Favourite Ingredients by Skye Gyngell has gorgeous photography and more importantly THREE ribbons and Cook Yourself Thin sounds a bit wrong really but it takes some traditionally calhorrific dishes and suggests ways of making them less so, which is a useful resource.

However, I am particularly excited about Leon by Allegra McEvedy, inspired by the London-based restaurants of the same name. This book is bursting with energy, information and recipes for the most amazing and mouth watering food. The design is fabulous and the book features cute surprise bonuses like a pull out cheese map of Europe. It's great fun and has two ribbons - what more reason do you need to buy?

Like I said, I can't help myself. My only problem now is where to start...

ARDARDAN

My friend Sara is one of those people who you meet and like instantly. She's lovely. She's so nice in fact that Carrie and I wait with baited breath for her to say something bad about someone, a moan, a groan, a sweary word - but they somehow never come. She's just an all round good egg.

She and her family run an estate in Cardross called Ardardan, which boasts a farm shop, a tea room and a garden centre as well as lovely grounds and animals such as highland cows, chickens and a bizarre breed of New Zealand pig which has fur - I know, it's weird but true. They have two which are named 'Ki' and 'Wi'. Marvellous.

Recently refurbished, the farm shop is thrise the shop it used to be. They have installed a huge cheese counter which bulges with Scottish and French cheeses, there's an olive bar where you can help yourself, organic fruit and vegetables and a vast array of biscuits, jams, pickles and teas as well as locally sourced fresh meat. The tearoom has fresh baking to die for and frankly the scone I had the last time I was there was the size of my head.

Everytime I visit I wonder why I don't go more often. Admittedly, when I lived in Glasgow it was slightly easier to get to - now it means a good hour in the car from Edinburgh but it's so worth it. Perhaps one of the nicest things about Ardardan is that it's an entirely family-run enterprise. Sara's Mum May, runs the shop, her Dad Grant and her fiance Jerry run the garden centre, Sara runs the tearoom and her sister Sue has recently joined the ranks as Marketeer. I don't think many of us could imagine working so closely with our families and yet the Montgomerys do it day in day out, and to brilliant effect. I continue to admire their efforts as their business grows and feel proud to tell people they're my friends.

A BITTER TASTE IN THE MOUTH

As a child, visits to the dentist culminated in the nice lady at reception giving me a marvellous sticker as a reward for my immense bravery. I distinctly remember displaying a bright pink Penelope Pitstop number with pride one afternoon at school after a particularly courageous visit. Alas, as an adult I am no longer given anything nearly as exciting by the dentist but I am still stuck (tentatively) in the cycle of nervous-brave-reward, particularly as with the innocence of youth no longer on my side I have also developed an intense fear of my six monthly visits.

All that said, this week's visit ended with the dentist congratulating me on my nashers and proclaiming that there was no need for further treatment. All those nerves for nothing then. Time for a reward.

My dentist is just a hop skip and a jump away from Valvona and Crolla and so it was that I found myself there perusing the shelves for something suitable, and as they don't sell Penelope Pitstop stickers it was going to have to be something to eat. Now I suppose most people would make a beeline for the chocolate, maybe the cakes or even the cheese counter. Not me. I found myself in front of the fruit and vegetables. Ok, if I'm honest I was making a beeline for the chocolate when something else caught my eye. Raddichio Rosso di Treviso. I have a fondness for bitter salad leaves and so I promptly decided that was to be my treat. How boring is that?

Boring perhaps to a nine year old Carine looking for a treat but for my thirty one year old self, dressed with a Dijon mustard vinaigrette laced with the merest hint of garlic this was tastier than any brightly coloured sticker. Yum.

PS: For those of you who live in Edinburgh, December's i-on magazine features two pieces of my writing. If you don't live in Edinburgh you can see it online here. I am really excited about having had the opportunity to do this writing, i-on is a fantastic publication and I look forward to doing more for them in the future. Watch this space...

J'AI FROID

Edinburgh is extraordinarily beautiful in Autumn. And bloody freezing. Wrapped in a scarf and gloves, I could happily walk for miles on a clear dry day but once at home I like to be snug and warm. Home is a big old flat complete with the obligitory high ceilings, Edinburgh press, laundry pulley and old sash windows with original glass. The windows may look the part but are unfortunately less effective at retaining heat. I have therefore taken to padding around in several layers of clothing, clutching a hot water bottle and all the while bemoaning the recent drop in temperature. Am I too young for an electric blanket?

One of the best things about the cold weather season is the food. Warming food, comfort food, hairs-on-your-chest food. This is the season for brown food. I do not mean a neurotic eating system for crazy people who will only eat food of a single colour, but a food genre, if you will. Brown food is the term I use to define certain rich, hearty dishes. Dishes which usually contain meat, more-often-than-not red wine and are generally some sort of stew affair. Beef bourguignon (the King of brown foods), coq au vin, a good intense bolognaise (not too tomato-ey), cottage pie, roasted leg of lamb served with the pan juices, a warming Chilli. These are the dishes I invariably crave when it's icy outside.

I came across a Thomasina Miers recipe in the November issue of the Sainsbury's Magazine with brown food written all over it - a thick black bean soup with chorizo and chipotle chilli. While I didn't try using it as a sealant on the windows its flavour did provide a perfect antidote to the cold outside: the smokey heat of the chipotle enhances the chorizo which along with velvety smooth black beans produces a deeply savoury and comforting soup.

OAXACAN BLACK BEAN SOUP adapted from Thomasina Miers' recipe in Sainsbury's Magazine November 2008
Serves 8

350g dried black beans
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
150g chorizo, chopped into small cubes
1/2 small fennel bulb, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh taragon
2 bay leaves
1 large dried chipotle chilli, rehydrated and finely chopped
pinch smoked paprika
1 tablespoon Nam Pla
juice of 1 lime

Soak the beans in cold water for at least four hours or overnight. Drain, and rinse in cold water.

Heat the oil in a large casserole and add the shallots and chorizo. Cook over a medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes until the onion is translucent and the chorizo has released some of it's oil. This will add flavour to the soup and give a silky texture to the beans.

Add the beans, fennel, herbs, chipotle chilli and paprika and cover with at least 5cm of cold water. The beans will be much more tender if they have planty of water. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer for about 2 hours until the beans are tender.

Blend until smooth and season with the fish sauce and lime juice to taste. Thin with water if necesary.

Serve topped with fried crisp chorizo and dried chilli flakes.

FALL FOR PUMPKINS

It's that time of year when the air is crisp, foliage turns gently to autumnal shades of rich and earthy burnt sienna, before falling to be crunched beneath our feet. Suddenly we can see our breath in the cold and markets build seasonal displays of sweet golden honey, luscious red apples and cheery orange pumpkins.

Much like brussel sprouts, pumpkins seem only to appear in kitchens once a year - and more often than not for the sole purpose of creating ghoulish lanterns for Halloween mischievousness. But what to do with the discarded flesh? Soup or the proverbial pie spring to mind but this majestic fruit can be more versatile than that.

When selecting a pumpkin look for a rich, orange colour and firm flesh. A whole pumpkin will keep for a couple of months in a cool dry place, but because of its big size it is often sold in more manageable wedges. In this case store in the fridge and use within a couple of days.

Don't discard the seeds - they make a great snack when roasted and salted and also add a crunchy texture to salads, granola and baking. When cooked, pumpkin flesh has a soft creamy texture and sweet flavour which works well with warming spices like ginger and cinnamon - perfect for those cold autumn and winter evenings. It can be pureed into soups, breads and sweet pies flavoured with spices which are to American Thanksgiving what plum pudding is to British Christmas.

For something a bit different try adding chunks to meaty stews and curries. Add it to risotto or puree and use as a ravioli filling, or as an alternative to mashed potatoes crushed with butter, garlic and rosemary.

Perhaps the best way to highlight pumpkin's natural character is to roast it. Cut into large chunks, put into a baking tray, toss with olive oil and place in a 200 degree oven for about 45 minutes. Serve on it's own or with cous cous and a drizzle of harrisa. Or for a quirky dessert, serve roasted pumpkin with citris fruits and coconut or mayple syrup and toasted nuts.


ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS

seeds from your pumpkin
a good slug of olive oil
Maldon sea salt
pepper
spices of your choice - I used dried chilli flakes, cumin, cayenne and garlic pepper

Remove the pith and gunk from the seeds, wash and dry them. At this point you may feel you are losing the will to live but persevere - the rest is dead easy.

Put the seeds into a bowl, add the olive oil, salt, pepper and spices and mix together well so that all the seeds are evenly coated.

Spread the seeds out on a foil lined baking tray in a single layer.

Place in a preheated oven at 180 degrees and bake for around 20 minutes until plump and golden brown.

Allow to cool and serve.

THE DUST SETTLES

Since my last post on Wednesday 27 August a grand total of 57 days have passed. I should point out that:

7 were spent moving house;
7 were spent launching the new season collection at work (a fashion company);
7 were spent working away in various locations around Scotland;
2 were spent in London;
3 were spent in the Scottish Highlands;
4 were spent being severely hungover;
5 were spent writing features for local magazines;
2 were spent in Glasgow;
1 was spent attending a funeral;
4 were spent being unwell and bedridden...

...respectively.

This leaves 15 days. Realistically I think three posts a week is pretty good going so technically that leaves 9 days. I therefore hereby acknowledge the fact that I have not posted in over a week (it does make sense...). Shame on me. Adapting to a new kitchen with the bulk of my culinary utensils still stuck in transit has been the main source of difficulty but I am taking steps to rectify this matter. My intention was never to be absent for so long, please consider my blogging mojo to be no longer lost.

The three days spent in the highlands was probably the highlight of my absent period. Four friends and I spent a couple of nights in a gorgeous cottage in Taynuilt near Oban. Long walks, cosy wood-burning fires and longer dinners with copius amounts of wine were the order of the day(s) and we had a brilliant time. So much so that we've already got our next mini break in the diary and booked for the end of November.

On the way back we drove through Callander where we stopped for fish and chips at Mhor Fish. This brilliant place won Best Newcomer in this year's prestigious Observer Food Monthly awards:

The accidental chippie. How a very ordinary greasy spoon in a sleepy Perthshire town became the country's finest fish-and-chip shop, the peerless Mhor Fish - complete with sparkling water in the batter and beef dripping in the deep-fat fryer. (OFM March 2008).

This is without a doubt the best 'accidental chippie' I have ever encountered and by far the most stylish. The floor is tiled in classic black and white and the walls washed with muted grey paint and adorned with antlers. A huge fish counter is piled high with seafood freshly caught off the north coast of Scotland and you can choose your preffered method of cooking - grilled, seared, baked or fried.

Fish teas complete with freshly baked buttered bread and the proverbial mug of piping hot liquid were ordered, my haddock steamed beautifully and moist inside it's batter shell and the chips deep fried in beef dripping. It is without exaggeration that I say these chips were simply perfect: golden, crispy and soft and fluffy inside.We ate greedily and in silence punctuated only by vows to return. I heart Mhor Fish.