TALKING ABOUT FOOD

I love Primeur. I love the wooden floor, where my muddy puppy is at home on, padding his wet paws all around my feet.  I love the golden mustard, velvety chairs. I love the slick look, but cosy feeling that the furniture and colours seem to conjure up. I love the chalk writing on the tables. Primeur is glorious in summer, with doors open; and is light and warm in autumn.   I fail so often at being a grown up, but have in my life the wonderful Josie who walks my puppy when I work, and the lovely Elaine who cleans my house once a week – so I have successfully managed to be middle class, if not entirely grown up. Today I heard my ex-husband is having his second baby. This isn't a life I wanted, or quite possibly he wouldn't be an ex, but I still feel incredibly anxious about this fact, it is another point to prove that I haven't “successfully” grown-up. Therefore my concepts of 'grown-up' are, rather boringly, rooted in societal norms. But, even if I don't ...

So me and my mates do a little dance whenever we say Duck & Waffle – we literally 'duck' and then it's a wiggle. We also sometimes call it Fuck and Waffle cos, rhyming. Anyway, we think we're fucking hilarious.  One Friday, very recently, I went and had lunch with my sister, 40 floors above London. It was glorious. Glorious for so many reasons. One, because of my sister. She has an 18 month old son, and is a workaholic, so finding time to have pure uninterrupted Rachel time is like holding riesling in the palm of your hands – thick, heady, goldenness, that would still slip through your fingers, as in, neigh on impossible.  My sister and I are very close. She is one of those incredible people that I want to be one day, (even if she's my little sister). She is currently about to have her second baby (any moment now!), she worked full time till over 8months pregnant, yet I have not heard her complain, once. Plus she is so encouraging, supportive, to the pe...

I started writing about my recent food eating experiences because I needed a writing exercise to get over my writer's block. But I've really enjoyed writing in detail about food and all that accompanies food. When I first started writing these little posts I thought about liking each experience to an ex-lover, as each restaurant had its own little quirks, likes and dislikes, and eating is such a personal, visceral experience that conjures up strange connections that can only be likened to love and lust. Then I realised that I eat out quite a bit. If I continued writing these posts I'd get to the point of running out of ex-lovers and I'd be referring to an eatery as 'like that guy, with the funny hat I made out with near the bathrooms in Fabric all those years ago', plus it was possibly a slightly clichéd analogy and a little crude. Pollen Street Social is anything but crude. It is a restaurant that is in delicate, soft focus - romance through calm, clea...

Mission is that lover you want roll around with all day on a grey Sunday, till your hair is in knots and you just don’t care. The lover whose scar on his left hip you want to run your tongue over and hear the story of how it got there, time and time again. Unlike Pollen Street Social, who has no scars. Side note: these are restaurants; restaurants do not have hips or scars. This is a metaphor, in English class at high school we were told that these were good to use in creative writing. How and why we ending up at Mission was because of Drapers Arms, our favourite pub. Favourite because we can bring the dog, eat great food, drink great wine and have great service. Pretty standard needs, but often hard to get. On Broadway you would say Drapers Arms was a triple threat. One day we went and the food was great, but different. With a little sleuthing we discovered it was a new chef – so where was James de Jong? Another sleuthing affair (Google) lead us to Mission. Who were Mission? ...

For me the night began in the line outside, behind the white girl wearing a bindi. Someone didn't get last year's memo about cultural appropriation! (If you missed it too, my little brother writes an  articulate blog post  about it, in particular check out 'part 2' – “sacred things are a no, no”).  The line moved along fast enough, there were heaters outside, it was fairly pleasant. I was there by invitation, as everyone was, because I am holding an event next year at Sushi Samba for 350 people. I went because I wanted to see how the space worked as a drinks reception. You won't be surprised to hear that it does work. I will change a few things, like what doors to the balcony I have open, but that's mainly due to the fact I'm having May event, as oppose to a November one. 

Food is best enjoyed when eaten with your hands. Sauce sucked off finger tips, feeling your way around the textures of the food, mopping up jus, being at one with it all. Therefore I introduce to you – Som Saa's prawns. Packed with salt and chilli they are a revelation in flavour. Well, maybe that's over the top, the combination of salt and chilli is hardly new, but, they are covered and coated in both, and yet not over powering the prawn-y-ness. Prawns are only ever meant to be eaten with your hands, and Som Saa's prawn's soft flesh pops out of the shell, squishy and firm, in equal measures, between your fingers. Dip in sauce, pop in mouth, tongue tries to cover every surface so as not to miss a morsal of taste, lick fingers for salt and chilli. In the words of Heather “fuck me gently with a chainsaw”, it's so good. 

"...talking about food, did you hear about..?"  To me, that sentence could lead to anything! TALKING ABOUT FOOD is a project that begun in November 2014. This is a food project of sorts. It is part of a journey that began in earnest a few years ago, but has consolidated its self in the last few months. Gathering around a table for a meal with friends and family, we talk about life, politics, personal confessions... and so I think food and wine is a great way to talk about wider things. And that's what I'm trying to do here; as well as talk about amazing food and delicious wine of course! This journey will span a year, it will look at life and food, in and around London. I will look at London through the eyes of a foodie, through the four seasons, through the eyes of the an average Londoner, and reflect a little on the society we live in. And I am  looking at the culinary and hospitality industry as both an insider and outsider. Food has always ...