Towpath

Near Whitmore Bridge

Canal Towpath

Islington

So my friend A picked one of the most delightful weeks in London to come visit. It was sunny, it was September so most of the crazy tourists were all gone, and I managed to join him for some adventures around town. I've always meant to check out the Towpath Cafe, seeing as how it's less than 10 minutes walk from where I live and I regularly jog past it when I'm motivated enough to go for a run. Finally, A's visit gave me an excuse, and there was no way we could pass up basking in the sun alongside the canal. Since we mostly wanted a bit of a snack, we chose what we thought would be two relatively light plates of food, a grilled cheese sandwich and a cheese plate. What we got were total gut bombs (in a very very good way, of course). The grilled cheese was buttery, crisp, and packed full of sharp flavored cheese with a tangle of green onions mixed in. Like the grilled cheese you can get at Borough Market (but dare I say, perhaps even better?) The cheese plate was absolutely enormous for the £6.50 we paid. Three doorstopper sized wedges of cheese graced the plate, alongside grapes and a board full of fresh brown bread. As much as we tried, we couldn't quite get through all the cheese, and then we waddled off into the sunshine to walk it all off.

Beecher's Handmade Cheese

1600 Pike Place
Seattle, WA 98101-1529

Another sad photo that totally does not match how wonderful the food is. A big bunch of us met up at Beecher's Handmade Cheese where we tried cheese curds (squeaky) and then went with more traditional options of macaroni cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. O kindly shared some of her macaroni cheese with me and it was creamy, tangy, cheesey goodness. Could be improved by a crisp breadcrumb topping, I think, but that is a minor quibble. N loved her grilled cheese with fresh tomato and basil (so much so that she also returned a couple of days later for more). Outside, C and I watched the giant machine creating curds and the workers inside straining giant bucketfuls of curds and whey - well worth a stop.

Le Bouchon Breton and Androuet

Old Spitalfields Market
16 Horner Square
London
E1 6AA

Groupon was offering steak frites at Le Bouchon Breton for a bargain price, and J agreed to come along on a Saturday lunchtime to give it a try. We had a bit of difficulty finding it - it's actually upstairs in Old Spitalfields Market (don't even bother looking for any signs for Horner Square). With a couple of bloody marys and some spinach and peppercorn sauce on the side, it made for quite a relaxing lunch - I only wish the market was open on Saturdays so that we could walk around afterwards. My other tip - there is a fantastic cheesemonger called Androuet in Old Spitalfields Market and they do a cheese called Brillat Savarin, which is some of the creamiest, most deluxe cow's milk cheese I've had, and quite reasonably priced at 2.75 for a quarter of a round. Go forth and eat!

Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival

Sturminster Newton
DT10 1DQ

The Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival is a thing of wonder. K, A, A and I really didn't know what to expect when we decided to drive there and camp overnight - we were basically hoping that it wouldn't turn out to be one of those cheese "festivals" which consists of a few lumps of cheese on a table outside  pub. Thankfully, it was everything we could have wished for and more. Giant tents full of cheese, jazz bands, haystacks to sit on, real ale and cider on tap, crafts galore... we're already making plans for next year.

Our favorites of the bunch this time around:

Little Ryding - a soft sheep's milk cheese that resembles brie but with a sheepy funk.
Sturminster Coastal Cheddar - a wonderfully mature cheddar with crunchy crystals embedded within - we thought it was salt but the website says its actually calcium crystals from the maturing process
Stickland Goats Cheese - a goat cheddar aged for three months with a nutty flavor and dry texture
Gunstone - an unpasteurized semi hard washed rind curd cheese with a light, buttery taste
The blue cheese lovers in our bunch enjoyed the Exmoor Blue and the Cornish Blue.

We camped in the grounds of The Plough, which is a great pub as well. I highly recommend this for a weekend of amazing cheese and tons of fun.

Haddon Gold and Berkswell Cheeses

While roaming around Soho's new farmer's market, I picked up cheeses from two stalls. The top one is Haddon Gold from Crudges Cheese. The description reads: 'Beautifully smooth & creamy, with a bit of bite, Haddon Gold is made with raw Organic Jersey milk from Hutton Grange Farm, Great Rollright, deep in the rolling Oxfordshire countryside.' A remarked that this cheese was incredibly buttery, and I have to agree - best eaten in small quantities, but lovely.

The other cheese is Berkswell from Neal's Yard Dairy, which is a hard sheep's milk cheese. Here's the description: 'Rich, sweet, fruity and nutty. Sometimes with a fruity acidity that reminds us of pineapples, sometimes creamy and biscuity, but the flavours are always, long, deep and mouth-filling. The texture can be slightly grainy and depending on age varies from quite firm to moist and relatively soft.' This was tangy and nutty, and my favorite cheese of the day.

Town Mill Cheesemonger and The Town Mill Bakery

The Town Mill Cheesemonger
Mill Lane
Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3PU
The Town Mill Bakery
2 Coombe Street
Lyme Regis DT7 3PY

I am blogging both of these places at one time because together, they created a magnificent cheese-nic for a sunny day in Lyme Regis. The path from our cottage into town went right past the cheese shop so after three days of passing by, we were practically foaming at the mouth for cheese. These are the three that A and I contributed (counter-clockwise from bottom left of top picture):
Rachel - Unpasteurized semi-hard goat's cheese with a washed rind. From Somerset.
Smoked Ardrahan - Washed rind, cow's milk. From County Cork.
Cave Aged Cheddar - Made at Ashley Chase, then aged in Wookey Hole. From Dorset.

They were all scarfed down eagerly, but my favorite was the Smoked Ardrahan, with the Rachel a close second. The cheesemonger helpfully told us that it was ok to eat the rind of the Smoked Ardrahan, because with its mottled and moldy appearance, we would have tried to cut it all off and lost some of the smokier flavor.

At the bakery, we picked up three loaves - pan d'epi (looks like a wheatstalk), ciabatta and a poppyseed loaf. I loved the pan d'epi - you could rip off chunks of it in bread roll-sized pieces. The bakery is around the corner from the cheesemonger, which means that everything you need for a cheese-nic is at hand!

Brauhaus Sünner Im Walfisch

Salzgasse 13
50667 Köln, Germany

Embarrassingly, we only went inside Brauhaus Sünner Im Walfisch because of the enormous glass tubes of beer they had propped up in the window. You can order 3 or 5 liters of beer here, and it comes in a massive tube with a little tap at the bottom so you can keep filling your glass. Sadly, we were not brave enough to attempt such daunting quantities of beer and ended up just snacking on a Cologne specialty, the Halve Hahn. Contrary to its name, which translates as half a chicken, there is no chicken in this snack. Rather, it is just a roll with semi-mature Gouda cheese (and onions, though ours came without). The roll was warm and crusty and the cheese was good, but in the end, it's just a cheese roll. Probably best for late night snacking after too many Kölsch.

Cornish Cheeses

Part of our cheese plate for St. Piran's Day involved these two Cornish cheeses (another one being the Cornish Cruncher Cheddar, already discussed here). The top one is Cornish Yarg, which is a delightful name for a cheese, but is somewhat brought down once one learns that Yarg is actually just Gray (the surname of the maker) spelled backwards. Yarg is a light-tasting, cow's-milk cheese covered in nettles, which is what gives it the pretty outer coating - you can see it better in this picture. The other cheese is St. Endellion Cornish Brie, which is hand-made using Cornish double cream. It is certainly oozy enough that I believe a lot of double cream was used. My feeling about both of these cheeses is just the fondness that I have for cheese in general - neither of them particularly stood out for me in either a good or bad way, but they made for suitable candidates on a Cornish cheese platter.

Cheese and Wine Party

Being cheese-lovers and wine-lovers, we decided to have a party involving the two. Everyone was asked to bring one bottle of wine and one cheese. But because we have incredibly enthusiastic friends, between the five of us there were 11 cheeses. A list of the contenders:

• Camembert (Coeur de Lion) - very mild, though I think we could have aged it for a few more weeks
• French Chevre Blanc Goats Cheese (Sainsbury's) - lovely and tangy and creamy, I could eat loads of this
• Somerset Goats Cheese (Sainsbury's) - too mild, not enough goats cheese flavor
• Manchego Gran Reserva (Sainsbury's) - this stuff is extra matured and it is fantastic
• Smoked Cheddar (Sainsbury's) - great smoky flavor goes well with cheddar
• Brie de Meaux (Tesco Finest) - this was really ripe and ready for eating, it oozed all over the cheese board
• Cornish Cruncher Cheddar (M&S) - apparently the most mature cheddar that M&S sell, makes for amazing cheese toasties
• Halloumi (M&S) - we ate this fresh and it was squeaking like crazy when you chewed, I think halloumi is still nicer when it's been grilled or fried though
• Romont Reserve Gruyere (Tesco Finest) - similar to aged Comte, this was complex and nutty and delicious
• Blue Monday (made by Blur bassist Alex James) - creamy, relatively mild, but I still hate blue cheese
• Stilton with Cranberries (M&S) - I also dislike cheese with fruit in it so I didn't try this one

To go with the cheese, I experimented with making some baguettes. I used the bread machine to make dough for "French sticks" but when shaping the dough into baguettes, I apparently made them too big - they came out of the oven more like loafs than baguettes, though they were still crusty and warm and perfect for eating with cheese.

You can read about our wine tasting here - all in all, an excellent evening that I'm sure will be repeated again soon.

Paris Cheese Fest #1

Lucky us, T and his girlfriend A live in Paris now so Eurostar tickets were booked for a weekend visit. Upon arrival, we quickly agreed that cheese would make for a nice lunch, so we popped out to the local grocery store and grabbed some interesting looking ones. From top and clockwise, they are a Mont d'Or, a St. Marcellin, and a cheese that resembles Comte (bought on the recommendation of an old man who was also cheese shopping). Next stop was Stéphane Vandermeersch's boulangerie for some baguettes (278, AVENUE DAUMESNIL, 75012, 12ÈME ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS, FRANCE).

We dug in once we were back in T&A's adorable flat - I liked all of the cheeses, but I think the faux-Comte was my favorite. I have just now realized that perhaps the Mont d'Or could have been baked with white wine, which might make it a very different proposition - it was a bit dense and thick when we ate it straight out of the container, and I think baking it into an oozy creamy gushing cheese might be what it needs to reach its full potential.

French Onion Soup

French onion soup is one of A's favorites, so when I had a glut of onions in the house I decided to attempt making it. After looking at a few different recipes, I settled on this one since it looked simple and I liked the idea of "secret" ingredients. It turned out well, but was even more delicious the second day so I would suggest making this the day before you want to eat it. The resting time really gives all the ingredients time to meld into a sweet and savory whole.

French Onion Soup

Makes four servings

6 medium onions, thinly sliced

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1/8 cup port wine

1 quart chicken stock, boiling

4 pieces of toasted bread, preferably something crusty

1 cup of grated Gruyère cheese

salt

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Cook slowly over low-medium heat as the onions caramelize. This should take a while (20-30 minutes) as you don't want the onions to cook too quickly - you are aiming for a sweet, sticky golden mess of onions. Once the onions are caramelized, add the balsamic vinegar and port and cook for 2 minutes, stirring. Add the chicken stock at this point, salt to taste and then simmer for another 30 minutes. If you can, let this all cool down and refrigerate it for a day before serving. Heat up the soup again, and then get 4 oven-proof bowls and ladle soup into each bowl. Float a piece of toast on top of each bowl and then 1/4 cup of grated Gruyère on top of each piece of toast. Put the bowls on a baking tray and place them under a hot grill or broiler for a couple of minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly. 

The Goods Shed

Station Road West
Canterbury
CT2 8AN

The Goods Shed is Canterbury's farmers market, and inside is a lovely cheese stall manned by a very informative cheesemonger. After questioning him thoroughly and trying a few cheeses, A and I picked out two to bring home. The one on the left is one that is similar to a Manchego - it's called Aradoy, it's made from ewe's milk and it's from the Basque mountains. LOVED this one, I could eat masses of it. The one on the right is a crazy 18-month aged Gouda called De Wit from Woerden, The Netherlands. I think it is really intense and it is hard for me to eat without a cracker. The card described it has hard, creamy, strong, caramelly flavour - I don't get the caramel but I would agree with the rest of the adjectives.

La Fromagerie

2-6 Moxon Street
Marylebone
London
W1U 4EW

A and I had a brilliant idea for a lazy weekend afternoon - we'd go look at Damien Hirst's paintings at the Wallace Collection and then get delicious steaks afterwards. While we did see a lot of skulls, we were disappointed to find out that Le Relais de Venise was undergoing renovations so there was no steak to be had. No matter, we popped into La Fromagerie's cheese room for some consolation cheese instead. Starting from the top left, our cheeseboard consisted of Tamie de L'Abbaye, a deliciously creamy and rich cheese made in a monastery in France, some Comte that was aged for 30 months on a French mountainside, and some Smoked Montgomery's Cheddar from Somerset which was crumbly and intensely smokey. Cheered us up right away!

Balthazar

80 Spring Street
New York, NY
10012

Shopping is exhausting, especially when the ground is icy and snowy and you are wearing shoes with no grip - the constant slipping and sliding means utter concentration while walking. K, D and I needed a break and happened to be next to Balthazar, so we popped in. Since it was the middle of the afternoon, they were only serving raw bar, cheese and desserts, which was fine with us - we just wanted a snack. A bottle of white wine and a cheese platter were selected, and fresh bread arrived with it. The brie was fine - nothing special - and none of us enjoy blue cheese much so that one was D's responsibility to eat, but the other cow's milk cheese  was really good. I did ask what they were but my memory fails me so unfortunately I can't tell you what it is. Oops. I probably shouldn't judge Balthazar on this meal since none of it was actually prepared by the restaurant, but the atmosphere was nice and buzzy and it was a pretty good snack.

Spanish Feast

As we were leaving Laguardia, A and I couldn't help but pick up some jamon, chorizo and manchego so that we could recreate a Spanish feast when we got home. We managed to restrain ourselves for a few weeks, but finally we picked a date to crack open a precious bottle of Rioja and stuff ourselves silly with the bounty we had carried back with us. These all came from a carniceria (there were at least three different ones I saw in Laguardia, which is pretty remarkable for such a tiny town). Jamon was nice and fatty, with that lovely nutty acorn flavor you get from Spanish ham, and the chorizo was full flavored as well, though some slices were a little too fatty for our tastes. We think the manchego must have been a younger one as it had a more subtle taste than we expected. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am looking forward to feast part two with the remainder of the treats!

Cheeses

A trip to Broadway Market inevitably results in some cheese buying - the stalls are just too tempting! We were initially drawn in by the Comte (upper left), but ended up picking out some Cropwell Bishop Shropshire Blue (upper right) and Crottin de Chavignol (bottom) as well. The Comte was delicious as expected - the nice man that was giving us tastes explained that they age their Comte for 16 months (which is probably why it tastes so much nicer than the cheaper stuff at Waitrose). The blue cheese is apparently very mild (my aversion to blue cheese meant that I could just about handle this stuff, but the blue cheese lovers at the table complained that it wasn't blue enough). The little round of goat cheese was fabulous - the tangy sharp goat flavor really came through but it was tempered by the creamy quality of the cheese. Next time, we'll check out the stalls for Italian and French cheeses too.

Cheeses

To celebrate the end of a diet, A and I had a little cheese treat. Waitrose has a pretty decent cheese selection, and we picked out small chunks of Comte and Colton Bassett Stilton. Unfortunately, the Comte was not as good as the stuff you can get from Broadway Market or Borough Market - I think it wasn't aged as long and so it was quite a bit milder than we were expecting. It was a bit less expensive than the Comte at the markets though, so perhaps you get what you pay for. A liked the Colton Bassett though he prefers less creamy Stiltons. I had a teeny tiny piece with a bit of oatcake and managed not to gag, which is progress for me, but also probably means that it is pretty mild for a blue cheese.

Laguardia, Spain (Part 1)

We went on a weekend trip to Laguardia, Spain to try some Rioja wine and eat some tasty Spanish food. We stayed at Mayor de Migueloa (20 Calle Mayor, Laguardia), on our friend A's recommendation, and we loved it, even though there were a lot of quirks. First, we arrived late on a Friday night, and the woman who seems to run the place (let's call her Mama) explained in Spanish that since we had come so late she had given away our room for the next night. My Spanish is really poor, so I basically made helpless noises and looked distressed, and then somehow it was all resolved and we were back in her good graces. The hotel itself is really charming and it contains a restaurant, wine bar and wine cellars that you can visit underground. One more thing happened with Mama before we left, but I'll leave that for later.

We were tired and hungry on arrival so we popped down to the wine bar and tried glasses of the hotel's Crianza wine (aged for a minimum of 2 years, with a minimum of 6 months in a barrel) along with plates of jamon serrano, chorizo and Idiazabal cheese. The wine was lovely but we wanted to relax with a bottle so we tried their Reserva (aged for a minimum of 3 years, with a minimum of 1 year in a barrel) - you can really tell the difference as the Reserva was much more complex and oaky, but I think what you prefer at any given time might depend on the mood you're in.

The next morning we breakfasted on a mix of fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit, a wonderful cake and yummy rolls filled with chorizo. Coffee with milk, raisin bread, butter and jams and a big fruit plate completed the spread. We were ready to start some wine tasting!

We got a bit lost on our way to the first winery and ended up stopping at Heredad Ugarte (A-124 Road, Laguardia). Most wineries require a reservation for a visit, but they were extremely nice and let us do a free tasting when we wandered in. We tried their Joven 2007 (very young wine, no minimum aging), Crianza 2006 and Reserva 2005, but as they had a 3 bottle minimum for purchase, we couldn't buy any wine since we didn't have enough space in our suitcase.

Onwards to Ysios (Camino de la Hoya, Laguardia), which is identifiable by the gorgeous wavy architecture pictured. Again, we had no reservation as they were all full for the tours, but a very nice lady allowed us to try their wine - they only make two Reservas and she poured a taste of the 2004, which we liked enough to get one for home.

Back in Laguardia we went for a tour of one of the few wineries that still exist within the city walls. At Carlos San Pedro (44 Calle Paganos, Laguardia), we got a little history about Laguardia's military past and then were taken down to the caves underground, where they still store their wine in their cellars in tanks and barrels. We found out that only four types of grape are grown in Rioja, the primary one being Tempranillo. The special part of the tour was tasting their 2006 Crianza straight out of a tank before it had time to age in a bottle. It was good, and our tour guide said it would get even better and smoother once it rested in bottles for a few more months. We also tried their Reserva and one of their "special" wines labeled simply as Tempranillo. Really great wines and a very interesting tour - this felt like the most personal place we visited.

Click here for part 2.

Dinner in Brighton

Lucky me, A's uncle and aunt R&S are wonderful cooks and made us a fantastic dinner when we were in Brighton visiting them! Started with salt and pepper squid, then had a cauliflower curry and chocolate-almond cake to finish. I have recipes for the first two dishes that I'll share below, but for the cake you'll have to ask S since it's both dairy and gluten free, and therefore may be revealed one day in a special cookbook...

Adapted from Rick Stein's Seafood

Stir-fried Salt-and-Pepper Squid with Red Chilli and Spring Onion

750g squid

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

1/2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns

1 tsp Maldon sea salt flakes

1-2 tbsp sunflower oil

1 medium hot red chilli

2 spring onions sliced

salad leaves

2 tsp dark soy sauce

2 tsp roasted sesame oil

1/4 tsp caster sugar

pinch of salt

Dry roast spices and crush with sea salt flakes in mortar. Score squid and cut into slices. Fry in oil in two batches. Put all of the squid back into the pan together over high heat. Toss in 1 tsp of salt and pepper mixture, then add red chili and spring onions and toss briefly. Make a salad dressing with soy sauce, sesame oil, caster sugar and pinch of salt. Dress salad leaves with dressing and plate alongside squid. Serves 4.

Adapted from LEON: ingredients & recipes

Leon Gobi

1 medium onion, cut into medium chunks

1 carrot, cut into chunks

2 tbsp sunflower oil

1 red chili, sliced

2 thumb size pieces of ginger, peeled and sliced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp Madras curry powder

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp black onion seeds

1 medium sweet potato, diced into 1/2 inch cubes

4 heaped tbsp ground almonds

1/2 small cauliflower, cut into small florets

1 400ml tin of coconut milk

150g frozen peas

juice of 1/2 lemon

really big handful of coriander, minced

salt

2 heaped tbsp desiccated coconut

Cook onion and carrot in oil over medium heat for 15-20 minutes with lid on, season with salt. Blitz chili, ginger and garlic to a paste. Stir paste into onions along with spices. Cook for 5 minutes. Add sweet potato and almonds and mix well. Turn heat up and stir in 500 ml of water. Simmer for 10-15 minutes with lid off. Add cauliflower and coconut milk and simmer for 10-15 minutes covered. Check that sweet potato and cauliflower are cooked, then stir in peas and turn off heat. Add salt to taste, plus lemon juice and coriander to finish. Sprinkle coconut on top to serve. (Original recipe includes sultanas but R decided not to include them as he doesn't like sultanas, and I wholeheartedly agree with the omission!) R&S served this over wild rice which added a great nutty flavor and texture to the dish.

P.S. Also discovered that Harbourne Blue is a blue cheese made with goat's milk rather than cow's milk. We were pondering earlier in the day if there were any blue cheeses made with goat or sheep milk and lo and behold, the one we had sitting around was actually what we were looking for!

Dinner Party! Pesto, Quiche, Cobbler, Cheese.

As a reward for a productive rehearsal of a musical number for an upcoming Amnesty party, we had a bit of a feast last night. A made fresh pesto with a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Italian cookbook - all amounts are in "handfuls" which is funny when you think about the different sizes of hands in the world, but it was very tasty. Up next was a spinach and mushroom quiche - my first attempt at making pie dough seemed to turn out ok even though the food processor broke in the middle of the process. The filling was just chopped spinach (the frozen stuff is easy), sliced button mushrooms, spring onions, and four eggs with a bit of milk. It was a rather intense green color as the picture above shows, but tasted really nice. Plum and blueberry cobbler for dessert, made by modifying this recipe - one punnet of plums and one punnet of blueberries, mixed with sugar, cinnamon and flour (instead of cornstarch). Then doubled the cobbler dough recipe (which was very runny, I don't understand how you're supposed to make little rounds of cobbler dough - instead I had to pour the batter over the whole dish). Baked for 35 minutes - it was lovely and not too sweet.

But the real star of the evening is thanks to J&A, who sent us the most ridiculous cheese selection from Neal's Yard Dairy as a gift. The picture above is only about 1/3 of the cheese that arrived - from the top left, there's Doddington (a bit like Comte), Wensleydale (so much better than any of the Wensleydale I've had before from the supermarket, it's almost creamy rather than crumbly), Harbourne Blue (sadly I still hate blue cheese, but everyone else loved it), Milleens (soft, slightly stinky cheese that is GREAT) and Ragstone (soft goat's cheese, one of my favorites). This magnificent cheeseboard also came with England Preserves Red Onion Marmalade (consensus among the others was that this was really good as I am not a fan of condiments) and Stockan & Gardens Thin Oatcakes (perfect as a cheese vehicle). Thanks J&A!