New Year, still here!

Oh dear, what a lazy pair of 'bots we've been. Except that we haven't – except for when it came to updating this blog. December is always a very busy month for both of us at work, and we simply didn't have time. We did, however, go to see Tom Kerridge give a talk in Bath (proof here in the form of Mr Robot with the man himself), and we cooked a post-Christmas meal for friends.

Tom Kerridge's recipes from Proper Pub Food are among our favourites, being seriously tasty, and substantial too. The treacle-cured beef, date and toffee pudding with caramelised bananas and beef ribs are all big favourites. When he brought out Best Ever Dishes we had to go to his talk. Annoyingly, the talk then got moved from October to December, so we ended up buying the cookbook months after everyone else had it. Still, it was worth waiting for as Tom is a really nice bloke, every bit as affable as he is on the telly. In fact, even after all this time as one of the country's top chefs he seemed a little embarrassed to be standing in front of a group of people, which was quite sweet, and was happy to pose for a photo. I'm not sure when we'll get round to making anything out of the book as Mr Robot does most of the cooking from the Kerridge books, though there are some nice-looking pies and I'm the house pastrymaker so I might try that.

The other reason why we might take a while to cook from the Kerridge book is that we got a few extremely nice ones for Christmas. I've already tried a couple from Meera Sodha's book Made in India. Mr Robot thought that would appeal to me as in addition to sharing a lot of really delicious recipes Meera also talks about her family's journey from India to Britain via Uganda, and how moving between continents and changing circumstances affected their food. I have really enjoyed reading it, especially her rules (feed the dog chapattis!). His mum gave him the Duck and Waffle book; he's yet to make anything from it but he does keep saying he wants to.

“Why do you have all these books you never use?” I hear you ask. Well, we would use them, but we had a traditional Christmas meal with family, and then friends came over on the 28th. We served canapes (Mr Robot's own invention, so I'll leave him to post about those), then spiced potted beef (courtesy of Elizabeth David – and 'Damien Trench' did almost exactly the same recipe in his Christmas radio programme, which made us chuckle), followed by roast goose with many trimmings, then port wine jellies and/or our friend Ian's fab chocolate orange pannetone pudding, and finally a cheeseboard supplied by Matt and Lucy. Frankly after all that neither of us wanted to see anything fancy for a bit! Though when I was poorly last weekend Mr Robot did make me a comforting bowl of ohn-no khao swe, Burmese coconut chicken noodles, from Mi Mi Aye's book Noodle. Every bit as restorative as chicken soup, but even tastier (and the shallots and chili oil garnish will help to stop a virus in its tracks).

Anyway, Happy New Year to you. This year my plan is to keep the kitchen tidier during the week, and to make more things involving dough. It could be pizzas or soda bread, it could be bau or naan. Who knows? If it starts out as a splidgy floury mess, it counts. Watch this space.

The Pig Guide relaunches

We love party food!

By: Mrs Robot

On Monday we went to a party for The Pig Guide, the independent guide to all things foodie in Bath, which has got new funding and expanded what it does. There are all sorts of guides to Bath, but this is the best if you're visiting the city and want to find somewhere to eat, or you're a local and want to keep up with what supper clubs and events are happening. To be honest, we got invited as the result of a conversation the day before and felt very lucky and a little fraudulent as we only have a little blog! But it was a chance for two greedy people to get more of a feel for the city's food scene, and perhaps discover new and interesting places to eat, so we jumped at the chance.

The party was held at Gascoyne Place - if you don't know Bath, head for the theatre and you can't miss it. I had an excellent Christmas meal there with work one year, and the wine and canapés at the party on Monday were very good too. Among the people we met were Noya from Noya's Kitchen (a couple of Mr Robot's workmates have been to Noya's cookery classes and loved them, and we're hoping to visit her supper club at some point though she's already booked up well into 2015), Kev and Maya from Java Coffee House (VERY good cake there!) and a lady from StreetSmart, a charity that uses donations from restaurant diners to raise money for homeless people.

We'd both been a bit poorly so couldn't stay very long, hence the lack of photos of people, but we had a lovely time. Thanks to Melissa and Mike for inviting us!

Noodlewhack! MiMi Aye's book launch

By: Mr Robot

A few months before our trip to Burma we were looking around the interweb for foodie things to get in the mood, and found MiMi Aye's excellent blog which is both stuffed with Burmese recipes and culture, and a highly entertaining read. So, as you do, we started stalking her on twitter and eventually became e-chums.

Noodlebook

So of course we were excited when her book Noodle! came out but even more excited - and not a little amazed - to be invited to the official book launch in Big London. Extra cat food was slapped in dishes and off we trumped.

It was held in the Draper's Arms in darkest Islington and naturally the combination of First Great Western, TfL, and my own poor judgement meant we got there about an hour late. MiMi was already on her feet when we arrived and, since the place was unsurprisingly heaving, we were crammed in the doorway trying not to interrupt anyone (already on the back foot, country-mouse-wise).

What you get for turning up late

Which is kind of a long way of apologising for the bobbins picture.

Anyway it was a splendid evening. Not only did we finally get to meet MiMi in person, she'd laid on a wonderful selection of food from the book, including Burmese Rainbow Salad and homemade Bombay Mix. There was also this salted-chocolate-brownie thing that was so good I practically inhaled it.

Rainbow Salad

Chocolatey Salty Deliciousness

The Vietnamese pork patties are magnificent and worth the cover price alone.

See the big empty space at the back? I did that

We already had the book (bought on the first day out, keeners that we are) and had tried a few recipes, so it's with absolutely no favouritism that we recommend it highly.

"Ants Climbing Trees" made by my own fair hand

Nontheless we had to get a signed copy too (the existing one already being shamefully spattered) and pick up extras for friends. We got to meet a couple of other twitter-pals for the first time as well, which was great, though were sad to find we'd missed some too (easily done: as a conversational opening gambit, "so who are you on the internet?" seems somewhat lacking).

MINE!

In some ways it felt a bit odd - almost fraudulent - being there, in the company of Masterchef and Bake-Off types and proper actual foodies.

Actual foodies. probably

It's a world we're a long way away from, and felt privileged to be part of it.

Thanks MiMi.


PS. We stayed on Old Street, which is full of exciting eateries. If you're in the area we can highly recommend The Reliance for lots of fine beer with a good atmosphere, and the Banh Mi place next door for an outstanding breakfast to recover

Banh Mi for breakfast: what hangovers were designed for

All images (c) PP Gettins

Morito book talk with Sam and Sam Clark

By: Mrs Robot

Last night we went to a talk by Sam and Sam Clark to promote their latest cookbook, Morito, organised by Bath bookshop Toppings. It took place in one of the churches. Both of us adore Spain and Spanish food, and we already own the first two Moro cookbooks. Of course, the Clarks don’t stop at Spain, their food encompasses a lot of other Mediterranean cuisines, but it always has strong ties to Spain and most of their other dishes work well alongside their Spanish ones - hardly surprising when you consider the Moorish influence on Spain’s food.

Morito is named after the Clarks' newest restaurant, where the method of dining isn’t based around the usual three-course structure. Instead people get a range of dishes all at once and pick and choose between them. (If you’re thinking ‘like tapas’, let me smack you. You don’t share tapas. Sharing is more akin to Greek mezze or Muslim Mediterranean ways of enjoying a meal.) Anyway, lectures on the consumption of tapas aside, it’s a jolly friendly and sociable way of eating, less formal and great fun. The recipes in Morito are therefore designed for this style of eating.

When we arrived we were given a Rebujito cocktail (a really refreshing blend of lemonade, manzanilla sherry and mint) and a Gilda. A Gilda is made with olive, anchovy, silverskin onion and pickled chili (hence its name; the slender shape of the chill was thought to resemble Rita Hayworth’s legs in the noir film Gilda!).

Put the blame on Spain, boys...

We both hate anchovies.

No, we both hated anchovies.

Last night we loved them. I don't know if it was because of all the salt in the olive, or the vinegar in the onion, but somehow the combination on the cocktail stick worked. We may have to rethink our position on the fishy horrors. I never thought I’d say this about anything containing anchovies, but I could have eaten more of those tapas. !Ay, Dios de ma vida!

The talk was fairly brief. He-Sam started off, and seemed unused to giving talks, which I found quite nice; they both came across as genuine, approachable people. To begin with they talked about almonds, and little dishes of almonds got passed round, then about making the red pepper tortilla from the book, and tortilla got passed round.

Do want!

I really liked the tortilla, but Mr Robot prefers his to be traditional, with potato and onion only. (He didn’t give me his piece, though, oh no.) There’s a courgette tortilla recipe in the book, and I’ll definitely have a go at that as we end up with heaps of the things as they arrive in our Riverford vegbox each week during summer. The veggie-packed tortillas are basically pastry-free flans, and will save me faffing around making flan cases when I get into work.

As the talk went on, both Sams seemed to relax and settle down more, and it was really good to hear about their approach to food and to running a restaurant. Not for them the building of brands (though they seem to have managed that anyway!) or the trappings of celebrity chefdom, they just like cooking and exploring food. They’re very down to earth, and that’s reflected in their style of cooking, which is fuss-free, without fancy foams or spheres, just good and earthy. It was a really enjoyable talk.

This was delicious

The Mr or I will do a full writeup of the cookbook once we’ve made a fair few things out of it, but on a read-through it looks like we’ll be using it a lot.