Moving on...

Thank you for looking up my Lickedspoon blog.

We've moved to a new shiny home at www.deborarobertson.com.
All the posts and comments from here have also moved across.
Do come and visit!

You can still find me on Twitter and Instagram.

I hope to see you soon, I've baked a cake.

Dx

The new dinner party rules

The simple request, “You must come to dinner,” once a cheerful indication of intimacy, has become fraught with social dangers. How straightforward it was when all you needed to do was put on your best suit or frock, spend the first half of the evening speaking to the person on your right, the second half to the person on your left, jump into a cab by midnight, scribble a thank you note the next day, and we all got out of there alive.

Our newly casual way of living means we hardly know when we’ve strayed over some mysterious line in the sisal matting. In the latest edition of The Lady magazine, etiquette and modern manners expert, Thomas Blaikie, describes the new dinner party rules, which include leaving by 10.30pm on a weeknight and 11.15pm at weekends, never bringing wine that costs less than a tenner, and, if you’re the host, never making plated starters.

Personally, I’ve thrown so many dinner parties, my dishwasher should be receiving some sort of award for its contribution to community relations. Here are my notes from the dinner party front, to ensure both happy hosts and guests.

Ten dinner party commandments

1. Don’t be on time This is the act of a monster. The only people worse than those who arrive bang on time are those who arrive early, when you’re still in your pinny and haven’t had time to soften your more frazzled edges with your first cocktail. For the very best in civilised behaviour, arrive between 10 to 15 minutes after the appointed time.

2. Bring wine if you must but now it’s highly acceptable, not to say fashionable, to bring craft beer or cider instead. You look terribly cutting edge and no one has to drink it.  

3. Don’t take flowers Because rattling out dinner for eight isn’t soothing enough, let’s add having to find a suitable vase to this evil game of party peril? Send flowers afterwards, or take a potted plant – no cacti though, chances are there are enough pricks at the table as it is.

4. No one cares what you like If you are vegan, vegetarian or have a deadly food allergy, of course you should let your host know beforehand. If you’re just not eating dairy this week, flirting with gluten-free or drearily carb-phobic, do keep it to yourself, there’s a love. There’s honestly nothing more boring than the pick-and-mix culinary peccadillos of others.

5. Do talk politics and religion. It’s so prissy to skirt around the really interesting stuff in favour of what? House prices and minor illnesses? Do also pay close attention when speaking about your children to anyone who is not a blood relative in case of terminal eyeglazeoveritis.

6. Don’t help Of course, do offer, but you can be too casual. Unless invited, don’t start clearing tables or washing up. It’s your job as a guest to sit there and be absolutely fascinating, damn it.

7. Accept that last drink If I’m pouring the hard stuff, or that weird digestif I dragged back from my hols, it’s because I want you to stay. If I suggest tea or coffee, I am mentally calling you a cab. Please don’t expect me to actually make the tea or coffee.

8. What time to leave? Mr Blaikie speaks perfect sense when he says weeknight dinners should be over by 10.30pm. We aren’t 20 anymore and being in (you own) bed by midnight is one of the cornerstones of civilised life. But if anyone left my house at 11.15pm on a Saturday night, I would hang up my hostess apron forever. Do stay. Have another drink. Laugh. Gossip. Drag out the old vinyl and let’s dance around the kitchen. Don’t leave me this way. Not just yet.

9. Do say thank you Of course, a letter is delicious and people will remember your impeccable guestitude forever; a postcard is good and an email is fine. The most dreadful thing you can do is to resist sending an email or making a phone call as you absolutely, positively are going to write that letter. Just as soon as you track down the perfect stationery, buy an ink pen, find a stamp and master calligraphy. And suddenly you’re bumping into your hosts at another event and it’s 10 months later and they’re wondering why they never heard from you again and is it because you hated their cousin Bert or the syllabub, or, in fact, them. Send the bloody email.

10. If you’re the host, don’t show off. You need to make it look - or at least feel - effortless if you want your guests to be relaxed and have a good time. No one cares that you spent the whole weekend watching YouTube videos of how to make swans from choux pastry. Bowls of bought ice cream taste sweeter than any amount of culinary braggadocio.

It’s not thunder, it’s tutting.

What’s that low but persistent rumble in the distance? It’s not thunder, it’s tutting. Waitrose has announced that from April 3, they will no longer serve free coffee to their customers and the British middle classes haven’t been so affronted by anything since the Chelsea Flower Show lifted its ban on gnomes. (For one year only, 2013. Dark times. Let us never speak of this again.)

This development has been greeted with glee by some, delighted at the prospect of aisles no longer cluttered with purchase-free caffeine junkies. Their happiness will no doubt be short lived as plucky little chancers cram the tills, queuing to pay for a single grape or green bean (take THAT! capitalist oppressors) in order to collect their ‘free’ refreshment.

For others, Waitrose’s greatest crime against the smooth running of civilisation comes from their insistence you now complete your transaction before you can collect your free coffee. What fresh hell. For many of us, caffeine is the only legal substance that will get us through the Big Shop. You need it to spur you on as you steer through fresh produce, dairy and beyond, not when you’re trying to wrangle ten bags for life into the back of a Volvo.

But Waitrose, at the risk of sounding churlish, you’ve brought this grumpiness entirely on yourselves. I’ve watched enough legal dramas to know that you should never ask a question in open court to which you don’t already know the answer. Similarly, you should never give a treat which you later withdraw. Ungrateful humans will only remember the removal of privilege, not your generosity in having granted it in the first place.

The truth is Waitrose, and you should know this, you can forget about decent schools, many of us fork out a premium to live within the catchment area of your wholesome, artisanal, organic embrace. We’ve scrimped on the square footage and convinced ourselves we don’t mind about the lack of view/parking/en suite so we never have to be more than a mile from cooking chorizo and Fevertree tonic ever, ever again.  

That, dear Waitrose, your ‘essentials’ range includes amber bath foam, profiteroles, gooseberry fruit fool and champagne flutes makes us feel a little less alone in the world. We don’t even mind that the accident in the alliteration factory lead you to name perfectly innocent herbs ‘Simple Sage’, ‘Romantic Rosemary’ and ‘Tantalising Tarragon’. We thought we were friends. We had an understanding.

For those of us who feel bereft, betrayed, there is hope. Rumours spread quickly yesterday, at school gates and on dog walks, in offices and factories, in all places where slightly tired people gather, that Pret à Manger’s staff still have discretion to give you free coffee if they like you. Charm offensive over the beetroot and radish on rye in 3, 2, 1…

But there is another way. My father, a tolerant person in all other respects, is continually appalled at the dreadful modern affectation of being unable to walk more than 20 yards without clutching flat whites in our feebly under-caffeinated hands. Perhaps he has a point. How can we chastise toddlers who remain too long dependent on their dummies when we’re unable to complete the most simple of tasks without holding a cup in a death grip? We’re better than this.

Perhaps, after all – and as I have often suspected - Waitrose is here to save us from our baser selves.

Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Next weekend, 3-5 June, Stoke Newington comes alive with writers and all manner of creative types for the seventh Stoke Newington Literary festival. If you’re the hungry or thirsty sort, which of course you are, do come to any and all of the events I’m helping to run in St. Paul’s West Hackney. 

We kick off with A Taste of Honey on Saturday, with Hattie Ellis, Hannah Rhodes and Paul Webb, then Sabrina Ghayour joins us to talk about her delicious new book Sirocco, the follow up to her smash hit bestseller, Persiana.  We round off Saturday afternoon with chocolate brought to us by Cocoa Runners and philosopher Julian Baggini. 

On Sunday, Rachel McCormack hosts her popular Gastro Salon, with cocktail queen Kay Plunkett-Hogge, Hackney food writer Yasmin Khan and local resident and former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ed Balls, and then on Sunday afternoon Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer join us to talk about running their deliciously successful restaurant, Honey & Co.

Do come! It would be wonderful to see you.

A Taste of Honey.
Saturday 4th June, 11:00 - £6.00

Have you ever thought about becoming a bee keeper? Fancy having your own hives or simply mad about honey? Then join us as we talk all things honey with Hattie Ellis, author of Spoonfuls of Honey, Hannah Rhodes, founder of Hiver Beer, and urban beekeeper Paul Webb.

Fabulous Flavours from the East with Sabrina Ghayour.  Saturday 4th June, 15:00 - £6.00

Join Sabrina Ghayour, the award-winning author of the bestselling Persiana, as she talks food, cooking and her eagerly anticipated new book Sirocco. Discover what fuels Sabrina’s passion for food, the inspiration behind her new book and the key ingredients that are always in her shopping basket. There will be samples of one of the dishes from the book.

The Philosophy of Chocolate.

Saturday 4th June, 17:00 - £6.00

Philosopher Julian Baggini’s essay, an epilogue to the acclaimed The Virtues of the Table, extends his thoughts on our relationship with food to cover one of the greatest food groups of all, chocolate. The essay was exclusively written for Cocoa Runners, a chocolate club who are passionate about the chocolate they source and how it is produced. Both Julian and the Cocoa Runners team will be joining us for chocolate, discussions on chocolate, and more chocolate.

Chocolate will be provided...

Gastrosalon.

Sunday 5th June, 13:00 - £6.00

Host Rachel McCormack (BBC Radio 4’s Kitchen Cabinet) talks to former model booker, cocktail queen and food writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge (Heat: Cooking With Chillies), Hackney-based author Yasmin Khan (The Saffron Tales) and former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and self-confessed foodie Ed Balls (Sport Relief Bake Off) about road trips. They dish up stories of the best – and worst – food they’ve eaten whilst travelling.

A Love Affair With Food. 

Sunday 5th June, 15:00 - £6.00

Since it first opened its doors in 2012, Honey & Co has attracted an intensely loyal following who pack the tiny restaurant every day. At the heart of this success are owners Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer – partners in business and life. Join them as they talk about how they got started, what inspires them in the kitchen, and how they navigate a delicious path in work and life. 

There will be samples of cake from their baking book.

The full Literary Festival programme can be found here, or downloaded in pdf format here.

A little birdy told me

Hard at work, on that Twitter

Today, Twitter is 10 years old. To celebrate I’m baking the little birdy a cake. Not really. But I have such affection for the real-time microblogging site, I feel like I should mark the occasion in some way. Perhaps during Anniversary Monday I will attempt to speak only in sentences of 140 characters or fewer, like this one, as a special tribute?

I love Twitter. This seems this is an increasingly unfashionable point of view. If you listen to various media reports (and my dad), you’d think that to tap into Twitter is to ensure the wrath of the mighty - or at least the sweaty, typing away in dusty, unaired bedrooms, possibly in their pants – will fall upon your head. 

That’s certainly true for some. If you are famous, especially famous while female, have an opinion, or have made a mistake, said something strong or perhaps a bit silly, friendly interaction can be drowned out by an avalanche of grimness, bile, appalling spelling and unresolved mummy issues.

But for the rest of us, it’s still possible for Twitter to open up the world in a rather wonderful way. As a journalist working from home, the only thing I miss about office life is the cosy, helpful, sometimes scandalous chat each day. 

My cat is a very poor substitute. Dixie has few opinions on the Real Housewives of New York. She cares not if a certain chef does or doesn’t have a gastric band, or whether the roadworks at Old Street roundabout will be completed in our lifetimes. She doesn’t know if the Sugar Tax will make any difference, who might win the Man Booker Prize, the possibility of Spurs ending the season higher than Arsenal in the League, or which mascara is absolutely, positively waterproof. 

Twitter can be like the most useful and friendly drinks party, one where no one cares that you haven’t brushed your hair or changed out of yesterday’s ancient top. My Twitter pals provide me with a constantly evolving list of books, plays and exhibitions I must fit into my life, advise me on how to prune my roses or what malevolent creature is eating my gooseberries (sawfly), where to find a new dog groomer or a person brave enough to come and clean my oven. If I want to discover why that helicopter has been hovering over my house for two hours, Twitter’s the first place I turn. And wherever I am in the world, I use Twitter to find out where to stay or to eat from people who live there. It’s like TripAdvisor without the latent psychopathy.

At its best, Twitter has the power to bring out people’s fundamental need to be kind. On many occasions, it has figuratively and literally helped me with my shopping. I even got a book deal out of it, when a gardening writer I know only from Twitter put me in touch with her publisher who was looking for someone who could write about both cooking and gardening. So thank you for that, @alexmitchelleg. 

I’m fascinated by the way it demonstrates human complexity. I love how Irish novelist Marian Keyes, (@MarianKeyes) follows her traditional greeting of ‘Lads!’ with everything from nail varnish, to Strictly, Irish Tayto crisps, her Mammy and unflinching honesty about her depression. That actor Sam West (@exitthelemming) tweets beautifully about birds and nature, that Ian Martin (@IanMartin), Emmy-award winning writer on Veep and The Thick of It, is so knowledgeable about architecture. 

In a world which seems increasingly to want to pigeon hole people, to allow them only to be one thing - often not of their own choosing - it’s a useful reminder that you can be interested in Syria and lipstick, Beowulf and Happy Valley, restaurants and kayaking. 

It’s wrong to assume that all keen tweeters are eschewing the real world for a cosy or combative virtual one. For me, the opposite is true. I flip through my diary and see that half a dozen or so of the people I’m seeing this week are some of those I first met in communications limited to 140 characters. Now we sometimes talk for hours, share stories, laughs, drinks and problems, give each other career tips and romantic advice. Just like proper friends because we have become proper friends. 

For me, communicating with people I would never have got to know in a life before Twitter, has been unequivocally life enhancing. It’s egalitarian and fun, the easiest way to find your faraway tribe, wherever you are and whoever you are. Whether you’re interested in rare breed sheep or mediaeval manuscripts, or just want someone to listen along to #TheArchers with, you just have to find the right @s for you. And for that, we all owe a friendly debt to the little blue bird.

I tweet as @lickedspoon. Come and help me procrastinate.

PEOPLE WHO ARE SURPRISINGLY GOOD AT TWITTER

Kathy Burke @KathyBurke Upliftingly sweary and funny. Passionate supporter of the NHS. Kind and consistent retweeter of lost people and dogs. 

Carrie Fischer @carrieffisher I want whatever she and her French bulldog Gary are having. Gives great emoticon.

Cher @Cher Hard to know what she’s going on about sometimes, but you wouldn’t want to miss it. You know when she’s awake. Loves capital letters.

Reverend Richard Coles @RevRichardColes Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, former Communard, priest of the parish of Finedon. Follow him for his wry look at the world and excellent pictures of dachshunds. 

Joanne Harris @Joannechocolat Award-winning author of Chocolat and many other novels, short stories and cookbooks. Generous with advice to writers; admirably, patiently ruthless with sexists and any other form of bigot. 

Jeremy Lee @JLQuoVadis Lively tweets from the charismatic chef at London’s Quo Vadis; part food, part flowers, part flirt. Generous and heartwarming stuff with edge of wickedness.

Gary Linekar @garylinekar Come for the football, stay for the Piers Morgan put downs and self-deprecating funnies.

Alison Moyet @AlisonMoyet Engaging, chatty, funny and kind. Essentially you want her to be your best pal in a total FanGirl way.

Nigella @Nigella Warm, informative and responsive to her followers, unlike some. Good on recipe tips and pointers to the latest cookbooks. 

Richard Osman @richardosman The co-presenter of quiz show Pointless, or ‘You know, that guy from that thing,’ as his Twitter biography would have it. Prolific, funny and generous.

In praise of The Pauper’s Cookbook

I often tell people that I can cook because my mother couldn’t, or wouldn’t. She was far more interested in studying, writing, teaching and taking us to museums and bookshops, on walks along the riverbank in Durham and, importantly, instilling in my brother and me a love of whiling away afternoons in cafés. All of these are very important life skills.

But she did sometimes cook more than the usual, hasty beans on toast or egg and chips, and when she did, it was from Jocasta Innes’s The Pauper’s Cookbook.

I was just writing something about 70s food, which made me pick up my old, yellowing copy for the first time in years. Flipping through it, I can see it through my mother’s young eyes and understand why it must have been so appealing.

This book is about as far away from the 70s housewife world of perfect garnishes and dainty hors d’oeuvres as it’s possible to get. It’s crammed with recipes for the hurried, harried and skint. It has a let’s-get-on-with-it tone and a spirit of adventure, with recipes such as brandade of tuna fish, tortilla, and Suleiman’s Pilaff (bits of leftover cooked lamb, mixed with garlic, patna rice, tinned tomatoes and ‘a pinch of thyme or rosemary’ – the ‘pinch’ makes me think that the assumption is they’re inevitably dried, not fresh).

Welcome to the 70s, so many beans, so much brown earthenware.

I love the cover photograph, with its earthenware dish which would look quite at home in many of today’s faux-rustic East London restaurants. I love the trickle of burnt-on sauce from the pork and beans, and I love, love, love the blurb on the back cover:

‘So leave it to the affluent to court indigestion at the Waldorf-Ritz: here’s how to live it up in your own squalid tenement without recourse to poaching, rustling, guddling, scrumping or shop-lifting.’ How could you possibly resist? And now I need to go and find out what the hell ‘guddling’ is.


French onion soup

I wanted to make something from the book without having to run out to the shops (too cold, too lazy), so my eyes fell on Jocasta’s recipe for French onion soup. Her recipe was much simpler than the one I create here. Its ingredients are 1 quart basic stock, 4 large or 6 small onions, knob of butter, 1/4lb grated Cheddar, 4 slices toast, salt and pepper. But with my Twenty-First-Century fancy London ways, I have at my disposal wine and brandy, Gruyère cheese and an end of slightly stale baguette. But it is absolutely in the spirit of Jocasta, if not to the letter.

SERVES 4-6

80g butter
4 large yellow or white onions, about 1kg prepared weight, halved and thinly sliced
100ml white wine
1 litre beef stock
1 tbsp brandy
About ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4-6 slices of baguette, about 1cm thick
100g Gruyère cheese, grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Warm the butter over a medium heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan
 or casserole. When it stops foaming, add the onions and a good pinch of salt.  Fry gently, stirring often, until they are just beginning to turn golden - they shouldn’t caramelise at all. This could take at least 30 minutes, up to 45 minutes.

The raw sliced onions…

...transform into these soft, golden ones.

 

Pour in the wine and stir again for a couple of minutes until almost completely evaporated. Next add the stock and some salt and pepper and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Grate in the nutmeg, pour in the brandy and season with more salt and pepper if necessary. 

Heat up the grill.

Ladle the soup into heatproof bowls. Place a slice of bread on top and scatter the cheese over the top. Grill until golden and bubbling. Serve immediately. 

I love the way Gruyère melts into delicious stringiness.

Something for the weekend

Weekend breakfasts, specifically Saturday morning breakfasts, are among my favourite of all meals. I love the easy, freewheeling slide into the pleasure of the weekend, slummocking about in pyjamas, spreading out the newspapers, flipping through a stack of new magazines with a wad of Post-Its, catching up on favourite telly. 

Séan usually makes the breakfast at weekends (A Very Good Thing), so it was in a rare burst of Saturday morning activity that I whisked together these pancakes. I had some roasted squash left over from dinner the night before and the slightly charred edges added a caramelised note to the end result which I liked, but you could certainly use simply steamed or lightly roasted and mashed veg. You could also mash and freeze small amounts of leftover roast squash so you have the essential ingredient ready to go should the mood strike. I used buckwheat flour but just use plain flour if that’s what you have to hand.

I served the pancakes with Toulouse sausages, fried eggs, a bit of fried sage and a splodge of apple sauce, but they would be great with anything of the things you like to fuel you through the weekend. Apart from baked beans. Please don’t do that.


Squash and sage pancakes

Makes 8-10 pancakes

300g cooked pumpkin or squash, mashed
150g buckwheat flour
5-6 sage leaves, finely shredded
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp nutmeg
260ml buttermilk
4 tbsp melted butter, cooled 
1 egg and 1 egg yolk

Some oil for frying

Mix together the first seven ingredients in a bowl until well blended. Make a well in the middle. Whisk together the remaining three ingredients in a jug. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the pumpkin mixture, stirring as you go until just combined.

Warm a splash of oil into a non-stick frying pan and warm over a medium-high heat. Spoon small ladelfuls of the batter into the frying pan – you will probably need to do this in batches. Cook each pancake for about 3-4 minutes per side, until golden and cooked through. Keep the first batch warm while you cook the rest of the mixture.

Serve immediately, with eggs, sausages, bacon, whatever you like for breakfast.

A plain walnut cake

When we came back from our trip to France two weeks ago, along with the copper kugelhopf tins, bottles of olive oil and plaits of pink garlic, I stuffed into my luggage a plastic bag filled with walnuts – a gift from the man at the brocante from whom I’d bought the cake tins. 

They’ve been sitting in a bowl in the kitchen ever since, a nutcracker poised hopefully on top. I’ve made the odd crack-and-grab raid, snatching one or two as I walk past, or nibbled a few after dinner with some cheese. But I have been longing to make a cake. Not a classic coffee and walnut cake - though I love that - but a very simple thing. I wanted a low, plain cake, one that would allow the creamy lusciousness of the fresh walnuts to shine – at least enough to make the shelling of them worth it.

So on Saturday, I sat in my kitchen, rhythmically shelling 500g or so of walnuts, sending shards of shell onto high shelves and skittering across the floor, much to the excitement of the cat. As I cracked, and picked and extracted the meat from the nuts, I watched the news from Paris on the television. 

I have loved France, the fantasy of it and the complicated reality of it, ever since I first visited Paris with my school when I was 10. I sit here typing and deleting, typing and deleting, finding it impossible to convey my deep affection for a country which has helped form me almost as much as the one that birthed me. What Ian McEwen had to say here expresses it. And this much-shared segment from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO... well, I was just cheering my head off at this.

‘If you are in a war of culture and lifestyle with France, good fucking luck. Go ahead. Bring your bankrupt ideology. They’ll bring Jean Paul Sartre, Edith Piaf, fine wine, Gauloise cigarettes, Camus, Camembert, madeleines, macarons, Marcel Proust and the fucking croquembouche.’ 

For the cake:

I took my inspiration from this recipe from the very useful site of the French food magazine Marmiton. I love it. I hope you do too. I tried serving it in several ways. With poached quince and quince ice cream after Sunday lunch, with cream and then with thick Turkish yoghurt, but really it's best with nothing at all, just by itself, with perhaps a glass of sweet wine or rum to sip along with it.

100g unsalted butter, softened, plus a little more for greasing the tin
160g shelled walnuts, from about 500g whole nuts if you’re shelling them yourself
140g caster sugar or vanilla sugar
40g plain flour
½ tsp flaky sea salt
3 eggs
2 tbsps rum

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas 4.Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a loose-bottomed 21cm cake tin. Line the base with parchment and butter the parchment.

Reserve 8-10 perfect walnut halves to finish the cake – if you like, leave them off if you think this is just far too much adornment. Put the rest of the walnuts into a food processor and pulse until most of the mixture is quite fine (you still want a few small chunks in it). Tip a third of the sugar into the processor and pulse once to blend. It should have the texture of slightly gritty sand. Of course, you can chop the nuts finely on a chopping board with a large knife if you like.

Beat together the butter and remaining sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the walnut mixture, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the rum then gently fold in the flour and salt until just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and arrange the walnut halves on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. It should be lightly golden on the surface but don’t overbake it – you want it to remain soft in the middle. 

Place the tin on a rack and leave the cake to cool completely before removing it. It keeps quite well for a few days in an airtight container.

Welcome to the Elevenses Revival Society

I love the idea of elevenses. I feel a tremble of sadness that it’s now virtually extinct, but then I still write with a fountain pen and keep a dodo as a pet.

The first thing on my To Do list this week was to revive elevenses. The second thing was to have, tantalisingly on Monday at 11am, the first meeting about the food events for next year’s Stoke Newington Literary Festival. 

What better reason to bring on the cake than a morning spent talking about books and food, two of my favourite things, with two of my favourite women? Julia, Chattanooga’s finest daughter, is one of my dearest friends and absolutely the sort of person you’d want by your side at the barricades. If your speaker were to arrive late, drunk and naked, she wouldn’t bat an eye. And Liz founded the festival five years ago on a hunch and a credit card. She’s a force of nature whose modesty is matched only by boundless sense of what’s possible. If anyone deserves cake it’s these two. I’m making them founder members and trustees of my Elevenses Revival Society, an arduous responsibility but I think they’re up to it.

Cherry, chocolate and orange bundt

Inaugural meeting of the Elevenses Revival Society.

I used dried morello cherries in this cake because I love them and I throw them into as many things I possibly can, from breakfast porridge to salads and cakes. If you don’t have them or don’t like them, cranberries, raisins or sultanas would also be good. You could substitute brandy or sherry for the kirsch, too.

When I posted a picture of this on instagram, a lot of people asked me about the plate. It’s Chinoiserie Green, a design that Jasper Conran did for Wedgwood a few years ago. It was a birthday present from my best friend Victoria and remains a great favourite of mine.

For the cake:
100g dried cherries 
About 150ml kirsch, just enough to cover the cherries in a small pan
130g cocoa powder
250g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
220g unsalted butter, softened
350g caster sugar
3 large eggs
160ml whole milk, you may need a little more
125ml sour cream
Finely grated zest of an unwaxed orange

For the icing:
80g dark chocolate, about 70% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
125ml double cream
30g butter
2 tbsps kirsch, reserved from soaking the cherries

Put the cherries into a small saucepan and pour on just enough kirsch to cover. Bring to a very gentle simmer, then simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat and let the cherries fatten and cool completely.  You can leave them for several hours if you like. Drain the cherries, reserving the liquid. Gently pat them dry with kitchen paper.

Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C Fan/Gas 3. Grease a 2 litre Bundt tin with butter, sprinkle with flour, place in a plastic bag and shake shake shake until every part of the tin is lightly coated with the flour. Tap off any excess. Alternatively brush with Wilton Cake Release – this stuff is great for intricately shaped Bundt pans.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt until very well combined and light, with no lumps. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of the mixture on a plate and toss the cherries in it lightly to coat.

In a separate bowl or a jug, whisk together the milk, sour cream and 1 tbsp of the reserved kirsch.

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (of course you can do this in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon), beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the orange zest.

With the mixer on very low, beat in a third of the flour then half the milk mixture, then repeat, ending with flour – be careful not to overprocess the mixture or the cake will be tough. If the mixture seems a little stiff, add a splash or two of milk until it has a consistency which drops easily from a wooden spoon. Fold in the cherries with a spatula.

Spoon the mixture into the pan and smooth the top with a palette knife or the back of a spoon – it shouldn’t come more than two thirds of the way up the tin. Bake for 65-70 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin. Remove the cake from the tin then place on a cooling rack lined with a sheet of baking parchment. Cool completely.

When the cake is completely cold, make the icing. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to a simmer in a small saucepan. Pour the cream over the chocolate and leave to stand for a couple of minutes. Tip the butter and 2 tbsps of the remaining reserved kirsch (just swig any that’s leftover – it’s delicious) into the bowl and mix until smooth. Leave for a couple of minutes so that it thickens slightly. Pour over the cake and let the icing set before serving in thick slices, ideally at 11am.

Home again

Liptauer, an easy and delicious snack.

London is dark and damp. Walking Barney in Abney Park on Friday morning, the bitter smell of sulphur from the previous night’s fireworks hung in the air.

A damp dog walk in Abney Park.

But all is not dreary. Our local church hall is hosting an evening of Sing Along A Sound of Music to raise money for UNICEF’s Sing for Syria appeal and my friend Liz has signed me up to help decorate the entrance to the hall in a suitably Austria en fête fashion. So last night, in Episode 1127 of my Jill Archer life, Liz came round to discuss the suitability of floral fabrics pulled messily from my craft cupboard and how many fairy lights was too many fairy lights. And by discuss I mean drink, and by fabric I mean wine.

The Sound of Music is the first film I remember seeing, with my dad and my grandmother, aged about five or six, back in the day when small market towns still had cinemas, so it’s always had a special place in my heart.

I also spent part of the summer I was 15 staying with friends of my parents in Vienna. My strongest memory of that trip is seeing women wearing dirndls in an entirely unironic fashion, to go to the office or walk to the post box. But I also remember eating liptauer, the hummus of the Austro-Hungarian empire, as a mid-afternoon snack. This spicy, paprika-spiked spread is terribly easy to make and I thought it would see Liz and I through our important decoration discussions. And it goes well with wine.

Liptauer

The things that make liptauer taste so good.

You can leave the butter out of this if you like (that’s not something I often say), and just make up the weight with more cream cheese or quark. Or you can substitute some cottage cheese for either. Just make sure it’s mixed until very well blended.

Serves 4 as a snack, or more as part of a selection of starters

100g butter, softened
200g quark (or cottage cheese, if that’s your thing)
180g tub of cream cheese
3-4 cornichons, diced
3 spring onions, white and pale green part only, finely diced
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp capers, rinsed if salted, roughly chopped
2 tsps white wine vinegar, cider vinegar or juice from the cornichon jar
1 tsp caraway seeds
A good pinch of hot paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve
Rye bread, more cornichons and other pickles, chopped boiled egg

In a mixer or with a wooden spoon, beat the butter until smooth then beat in the quark and cream cheese a little at a time until very smooth. Beat the rest of the ingredients until well combined. Taste and season with more salt, pepper and/or vinegar or cornichon juice if required.

Beating everything together.

You can make the liptauer up to a couple of days ahead. I suggest you make it at least a couple of hours ahead for the flavours to develop. Seal in a tub or in a bowl with clingfilm and remove from the fridge about an hour before you want to serve it. Give it a good stir, spoon it into a serving bowl and sprinkle over some hot paprika.

Serve with rye bread (you can lightly toast this if you like) and more pickles, and/or some chopped boiled egg.

I give you this on one condition...

Mon petit potimarron.

I will only share this recipe with you on condition you do not use wretched leftover Hallowe’en pumpkin to make it. Yes, I know the world is noisy with magazines and papers and websites telling you, coaxing you, pleading with you - practically ordering you - to use this pitiful gourd in soups, cakes, curries and stir fries right now. But don’t. You’re better than that. Pumpkin ‘Jack of All Trades’, for it often he, is but tasteless, watery misery. His finest hour came when you shoved a candle into its sticky orifice and lit it. Let him go.

Instead, use practically any other small pumpkin or squash. I used a small, heavy potimarron (this would be an excellent name for a proud but accident prone dog), often sold as uchiki kuri or onion squash in England. Crown Prince or butternut squash would also be excellent.

A trip to Pézenas market

Across the vines to the oyster sheds and the sea.

So many beautiful mushrooms.

Gorgeous pink garlic.

If I were ever to be a princess, I would dearly love to be Princess Potato.

There has to be something wonderful about a region that has famous turnips. That’s my kind of celebrity obsession.

I love the colourful Chinese cushions and bedspreads you find on market stalls here. Their bright patterns remind me a little of traditional Provençal prints.

Pumpkin, mushroom and chard gratin

Serve hot, with a salad.

Remember, I’m on holiday so I’ve neither the inclination nor the equipment to weigh anything. These are approximate measurements but I’m pretty good at guessing. Just make sure you have enough crème fraiche mixture to lightly coat the vegetables and enough cheese to cover the top well and you’ll be fine

Serves 4-8, depending on whether it’s the main event or a side dish.

Butter, about 80g

About 600g prepared weight of pumpkin, a good-sized bowlful, peeled, deseeded and cut into cubes of about 1.5cm square

1 medium-large onion, diced

A couple of sprigs of thyme if you have them

The leaves from 2-3 pieces of chard (reserve the white part for another dish), shredded

A couple of handfuls of mushrooms, wiped clean, any tough ends trimmed, and larger ones halved

2 garlic cloves, minced

Some crème fraîche, about 250g

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tsps Dijon mustard

About ½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg

About 140g gruyère cheese, coarsely grated

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt a generous knob of butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the pumpkin, onion, thyme if using, and some salt and pepper and sauté, partially covered and stirring from time to time, until the pumpkin is softened but still holds its shape. This should take about 20 minutes. Stir in the chard and stir until just wilted. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C Fan/Gas 5. Butter a large gratin dish or Pyrex dish.

In a separate frying pan, warm another generous chunk of butter over a medium-high heat and when it stops foaming, toss in the mushrooms and a generous pinch of salt. Cook until a lot of their moisture has evaporated and they start to take on some colour. Add the garlic, fry for a further minute and remove from the heat.

In a bowl, beat together the crème fraîche, eggs, mustard and nutmeg. Season well with salt and pepper. Tip the pumpkin mixture into the gratin dish (remove the thyme sprigs if you’re using them) and scatter the mushrooms on top. Pour the crème fraiche mixture over evenly and give the dish a shake and a tap on the table to distribute the liquid evenly. Scatter the gruyère on top. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the mixture is bubbling and golden brown on top. Serve hot, with a green salad and some bread.

Pour on the crème fraiche mixture evenly.

Scatter on the cheese.

Remove from the oven when golden and bubbling.