2018 - the year in review

As with most years, 2018 was like the curate’s egg – good in places.  For the most part, it involved a lot of keeping on keeping on.  Work ramped up and became considerably more stressful in the latter few months for various reasons beyond my control – bad.  I struggled a bit with my continuing digestive issues which began to have an impact on my mental health – tedious beyond belief for all concerned.  But there were no big upsets, or dramas or traumas – good.  We had a couple of lovely trips away, including a few days in a little shepherd’s hut in York which I never got around to detailing on here – excellent.  Yet again, I have managed to end the year lighter than when I started it, mainly thanks to a successful re-acquaintance with WW back in the summer.  That may have trailed off a bit of late but I am keen to get stuck back into it now we are emerging from the month of December, when somehow it becomes normal to eat mince pies for breakfast.

Dishes of the year is a tough one to call.  We went back to Raby Hunt and loved it every bit as much the second time around but given that many of the dishes were almost exactly the same as the ones that we had eaten previously, I don’t feel quite right to hand over another coveted trophy to them. 

An early contender was most definitely the stunning duck dish that we had at Joro in Sheffield.  We liked it so much that we recreated it at home for our Easter Sunday lunch, and I am not convinced that our version wasn’t even better!


The duck at Joro

The duck chez nous

But, to be honest, the thing that still stands out for me is this little fellow.

Pizza, Jim, but not as we know it

This was the scallop sashimi, spring truffle and togarashi spice “pizza” that we ate in Skosh back in June.  As mentioned above, I never really got around to talking about our York trip in much detail but we were lucky enough to eat some wonderful food and this dish was just head, shoulders and upper chest above pretty much everything else we’ve eaten this year.  Put it this way: we liked it so much that we immediately ordered a second one.  It sounds weird, it sounds like everyone’s idea of badly done “fusion” but the combination of flavours, the delicately balanced marriage of the sea and the forest floor, was absolutely sublime.  Skosh changes the menu pretty regularly, so I doubt I’ll ever get to have it again.

Dessert of the year came in the closing moments, and it may sound ridiculous when we’ve eaten at some truly wonderful venues, including Il Ridotto in Venice where we were served the most glorious, challenging pudding combination of truffle, ginger and pumpkin which was as strange and wonderful as it sounds.  Yet nothing can compare to the dessert that D made me for my birthday this year – the sticky toffee parkin.  A mash-up of the traditional sticky toffee pudding and the Yorkshire parkin.  I have the recipe and I will be blogging it shortly.  If you like sweetness and spice then you will adore this, I promise.

Sticky toffee parkin

And an honourable mention to the Guinness cake that I ate during my first visit to the Rusty Shears.  The thought of this still makes me smile.

More icing than cake

At home, we’ve been dousing everything with sriracha and coriander and green chilli chutney – sometimes both at the same time.  My palate is becoming better and better at tolerating heat and I’m really beginning to learn how, like a pinch of salt or a drop of acidity, it can really bring cooking to life.  If I was going to commend one recipe to your attention this year it would be the chutney / sauce / salsa / whatever because it is such a good fridge staple.  I can think of few savoury dishes that would not be enhanced with a hefty splodge of this stuff.

As ever, I’d like to thank everyone who pops by and reads my little blog.  I still enjoy writing it after all these years, as a chronicle of adventures both at home in the kitchen and further afield.  And while it may not be a diet blog per se, it still stands as testament to the fact that I will never quite give up on trying to nudge the scales down to unremarkable levels. 

To all of you I wish a very happy New Year and here is to great things for all of us in 2019.

Foodie abroad: Il Ridotto, Venice

For D's 50th birthday we hoped that we would find somewhere pretty special to eat, but given that we were in an unknown city we had to choose somewhere on spec and hope for the best.  Fortunately, Il Ridotto turned out to be one of the most memorable meals that we've ever had, numbering right up there with our experiences at Eleven Madison Park in New York and Five Senses in Barcelona.

It is not, however, a restaurant that I would recommend unreservedly to everyone and in trying to explain why I will probably come across as unbearably patronising.  But the thing is, different people want different things when they eat out, especially when they are paying several hundred pounds to do so.  Some of the dishes at Il Ridotto were extremely challenging - if straightforward, classically executed deliciousness is your bag then I might tentatively suggest you go elsewhere.

Perhaps if I describe a couple of the more out there dishes, you'll see what I mean.  The first thing that was brought out to us, for example.  A smoked mussel served in its shell with...creme brulee.  Not some sort of savoury take on a creme brulee but an actually, vanilla flecked custard with a crispy layer of sugar.  When it arrived, I laughed rather nervously.  When I had eaten it the laugh was one of genuine delight.  It was smoky and sweet and salty and strange.  I have never had anything like it.

Or there was the first dessert which was topped off with black truffle cream.  Not a subtle waft of truffle either but a full on, thwack you around the face, black truffle ice cream.  It sounds odd.  It tasted odd.  The first mouthful was confusing.  But gradually, as all the flavours came together the earthy funk of the truffle just worked with the sweetness of candied pumpkin and fire of ginger ice cream.

Some combinations were less controversial and just beautiful food done well.  A tangle of raw slivers of sea bass, lightly dressed with a touch of black garlic and studded with tiny caper berries (pictured). A risotto, again flavored with garlic but this time more vibrant, rendered a vivid green by the inclusion of sea vegetables then topped with a great flurry of black truffle. A perfectly cooked piece of hare.

As with many of the other great restaurants we have been lucky enough to visit, Il Ridotto is very strongly rooted in local traditions and dishes and much of what was served was a nod to the Venetian food heritage.  It was emphatically not classical though.  It was provocative and interesting and, sometimes, I was unsure whether I actually liked what I was eating (before deciding that I probably did).  We loved it and would not hesitate to return but, as I said, not for everyone and that's perfectly OK.  I must admit, if I could only ever visit one restaurant for the rest of my life, it's probably not the one that I would choose because, for me, challenging is great but traditional is what I crave in my quieter moments.  D might well think otherwise.

It was, though, a really wonderful place to celebrate such a special birthday and certainly a meal that we will not soon forget.

Foodie abroad: Venice (part 2)

I think the best thing to do in Venice is just to wander the streets and soak up the atmosphere. It’s a bit like being on a film set; at times it doesn’t feel real.

On the Wednesday, we struck out with the intention of tracking down Venice’s best cicchetti. Cicchetti is the Venetian answer to tapas: small dishes designed to be eaten with a drink. In the majority of cases we found this tended to be something-on-toast.

Our favourite was a simple whipped salt cod on toasted brown bread which we enjoyed with glasses of Soave seated next to one of Venice’s many canals (pictured top right). It’s not elaborate food, I don’t think that it is supposed to be.

D’s birthday meal aside (which I will get to shortly) Venetian food, in general, was characterised by its simplicity for me. We went to a lovely little wine bar cum bistro for dinner on the last evening and I had the most beautiful piece of grilled bream served with nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil and some simply cooked vegetables. It was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned and a wonderful celebration of a lovely piece of fish without any bells and whistles.

I liked Venice very much and the dinner at Il Ridotto will number as one of our best ever. But I did not find it to be a foodie destination in the same way as Paris or even Barcelona. It’s all about simple dishes served with bags of convivial charm in a location that feels slightly out of time.

Foodie abroad: Venice (part 1)

I actually wrote this post on Tuesday morning sitting outside the Doge’s palace but never got around to publishing it! Back home now and more travelling tales to follow.

It cannot be said that our introduction to Venice was an auspicious one. The night we arrived, the city was experiencing the worst flooding that it had seen in twenty years. Having made it successfully from the airport to the closest vaporetto stop to our hotel we then had to wade through several feet of water with our cases held up at waist height. For about ten minutes. In trainers. And then, once checked in, we had to wade down the road to get to a local restaurant. And sit there with water up to our ankles.

Luckily today, Tuesday, the flood waters have receded and things are back to normal but the scars, and the damp trainers, remain. So my first piece of travel advice is: if you happen to travel to Venice in a flood, be sure and pack galoshes in your hand luggage.

And my second is: if you fly from Leeds Bradford airport do NOT consider having lunch in the cafe bar there. Go and get a sandwich from somewhere else and repair to the bar for wine. Otherwise you end up paying nearly £15 for this:

The world’s most indifferent fish finger sandwich.

Luckily, dinner made up for it (wet feet aside). D went for a seafood spaghetti to start:

Delicious but not quite as delicious as my ravioli al giorno. I wish I knew what went into this - some sort of blue cheese, I think, but so light and creamy with a hint of acidity from the (presumably) beetroot dressing.

I followed this with fegato all Veneziana - Venetian liver and onions - with polenta. It seemed appropriate and it was lovely. The liver was perfectly cooked, the onions sweet and soft. I am not the biggest fan of soft polenta but it seems that it is the most traditional accompaniment so went with the flow and actually quite enjoyed it (although the Brit in me thinks mash would have been better!)

We hit a Michelin starred joint for D’s birthday meal tonight so hopefully will be back with more foodie tales soon.