War on Waste

Hopefully you saw "Hugh's War On Waste" on the BBC recently.

It ended with a call to arms to get supermarkets to address food waste.

The supermarkets will only change if their customers, us, tell them we want them to. To make that happen you can sign the pledge at https://wastenotuk.com/.

Nearly 250k people already have, please add your name too.

Stuff

It would seem I've not been up to much lately. However, there are a few irons in the fire:

• I've become slightly obsessed with submitting recipes to the Guardian's Cook supplement every week. No recipe yesterday, but a name-check in the lead paragraph is still pretty good...isn't it?
  

  I was even more disappointed, however, not to be able to try out Mark Edwards' 10-day salt beef recipe...

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/16/readers-recipe-swap-pink. I think my chances are best when there's a slightly unusual spin to the subject e.g. savoury crumbles. This week is sweet and savoury macaroni, guess what I'm working on...
• Recently most of my trips out and about have been for some kind of event with food tucked in somewhere so I've not been to any destination restaurants for awhile. Having said that I did go to The Place, whilst in Tunbridge Wells to go curling a couple of weekends ago. It's a lovely local restaurant, serving good honest family food done well; the sort of place you could happily go time and time again.
• I'm working on a chocolate chilli cake for a Mexican Six Nations gathering next week.
• A (very) belated haggis for supper today has meant that I will now be trying to find recipes for left over haggis and swede for the rest of the week.
• Pancake day was pretty good as I tried to convince a "lemon and sugar" stalwart that savoury and different sweet pancakes are viable options. Forgot to take my camera though, so not a great deal to report other than that I think I succeeded!
• Ages ago I "qualified" as a Love Food Hate Waste trained volunteer, but I haven't had a chance to get involved yet.

 

Unfortunately that is all. I will try to be more interesting.

News

Here are a few things that I have come across recently and had completely forgotten to share:

• Leith's are running a food styling course. It's seven weeks long and could very much help improve the readability of m'blog, well, the photos anyway. Only problem is it's nearly £500.
• Burgerac is a razor-sharp blog about all burgers and burger-related matters. Great to browse, especially if you're in need of a burger in London-village.
• Apparently bread can be made without kneading: http://theitaliandishblog.com/imported-20090913150324/2010/2/26/amazing-artisan-bread-for-40-cents-a-loaf-no-kneading-no-fus.html. Clearly I am going to have to conduct my own experiment.
• I went to the Cake & Bake Show at Earl's Court a few weekends ago and was thoroughly under-whelmed. I'm not sure if that's because I only had an evening ticket, or not. Mind you, I did pick up a shiny new cake turntable!
• It's my work anniversary soon, so I think a cake will be in order. Thing is I've got to live up to the last one. [Although the batch of brownies I took in recently did go down well. People were surprised that they merely have to ask for a cake and I'll probably make it...] I'm thinking of a cake that has been on my mind for quite some time (well ever since it featured on week 9 of the ICCHFC): a malteser cake. 

That is all.

PS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoIGcXcRiGQ

That was then, this is now

Having sung "Happy Birthday" in my head (some murmurings may have escaped into the outside world...) to celebrate doing this blog thing for three years, I settled down for some reflection.

This has definitely been a story of two halves. For the first 18 months, I was in deep, very deep. I posted prodigiously about everything that caught my eye, or that I did, that was in some way food related. And it was great. Most of my spare time was either taken up with eating at "some place nice" or cooking something good. Or thinking about eating some place nice or thinking about cooking something good.

Then things changed. Real work became less satisfying and I needed a new challenge. I wanted to do something meaningful as opposed to cruising (not in a gay way). So a new job, away from London, was the result. Consequently, as I seemed to spend a greater proportion of my life travelling rather than doing anything else, the blog suffered. Thus for the last 18 months my output has shrivelled to merely one or two posts a month.

Things have improved a little recently as the new job is great, but it is all consuming.

So now, three years on what the plan? Am I any closer to being a foodie? Is this bloggin' malarkey ever going to lead to anything more? Do I need to re-focus perhaps with a more refined subject matter; can I find a niche? Does it need to?

Guess I'll just keep on writing and we'll all have to wait and see if any of those questions get answered...

Feeding the 5k - TOMORROW!

Tomorrow the second Feeding the 5k event will take place in Trafalgar Square in London.

Feeding the 5000 will show how easy it is to reduce the unimaginable levels of food waste in the UK and internationally. And how governments, businesses and individuals can help.

An absurd amount of perfectly good food is wasted every year in the UK and it drives me nuts because it's almost entirely avoidable! In my opinion, there's absolutely no reason to waste food.

I'm gutted I can't go, especially as I turned up too late for the one in 2009 :-(

I urge you to go along if you can and to pledge your support.

Learn more about why this is so important: http://www.feeding5k.org/

Watermelons go pop!

Initially quite funny, but the Guardian article on exploding watermelons does make you think about farming practices and just what goes into the food we eat.

Jamie Oliver helps Sainsbury's offer free fish

Sainsbury's have just launched a new campaign to highlight sustainable fishing and will be offering free fish to customers who switch to a more sustainable variety. This is clearly a fantastic scheme, but I'll be intrugues to see just how far it spreads in terms of the number of stores involved and its longevity. I found out about this on edie.net:

"Customers buying one of the 'Big 5': cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns, will be offered alternatives such as pouting, megrim and coley for free.

The retailer is hoping to encourage customers to try other varieties of fish and make more sustainable choices.

Jamie Oliver is heading up the Switch the Fish campaign, which is being launched in stores on 17 June in England and Scotland.

He said: "Earlier this year I joined the debate to encourage people to try new, less loved fish which had a great response.

"Sainsbury's is really taking the next step with its campaign 'Switch the Fish' demonstrating its commitment to getting customers to widen their choice when it comes to eating something other than the 'Big 5'.

"Offering free alternative fish is a great way to do this and will in turn help people be a bit more adventurous when they come to do their next shop."

Sainsbury's recently ran a poll with YouGov on consumers fish buying and eating habits. It showed that 41% of the UK eats cod at least once a month and a fifth of people eat tuna at least once a week.

Fish-eaters are put off trying a different type of fish as they are unsure of how it tastes and how to cook it. According to the poll, 84% of Brits have never tried megrim and 82% have never eaten pouting.

Minister for the Natural Environment and Fisheries, Richard Benyon MP, applauded the campaign.

He said: "If more people start to choose a wider variety of fish, this will help in our battle to end the terrible waste of millions of edible fish being thrown back into the sea dead because of an out-dated system."

Reads what Sainsbury's have to say on the subject of sustainable fish."

Flavour Magazine

Flavour Magazine has recently launched in London.

I've no idea how I learnt about it nor where one can pick up an actual copy (the whole thing is available electronically so maybe that doesn't matter).

The mag seems more than just commercial food porn with plenty of interesting articles ranging from recipes to chef interviews and thought-provoking comment that's perfect for a London foodie keen to explore the delights of out nation's capital.

I'd recommend picking up a copy if you get the chance.

An update, finally!

Hello all,

Just a quick note to say that I haven't given up the blogging ghost. Since my last post (which seems like an eternity ago) I've had some pretty major changes including a new job and a complete change to my day to day life. Not least of all has been a humongous upheaval to my Internet access and an inability to be able to update me blog. Which I am missing far more than I would ever have realised.

Recent things that I need to blog about include:

• Starting another cake club
• Pancake day
• My massive red nose day cake

And soon I'll need to write about an upcoming trip to Le Gavroche.

Hopefully I'll get it sorted soon, not quite sure how yet. But there must be an answer!

Random shizzle

Things have been a bit quiet on the foodie front recently, but I have been up to a few things, just not enough to warrant their own posts:

• I went to the Taste of Christmas at Excel and was completely underwhelmed. I think I'm getting a bit fed up of these food festivals which all seem to have exactly the same chilli flavoured things, cheese, fudge and sausage stalls.
  
• I did a rather interesting taste test of a new version of a chocolate bar, which was fun. I'm not allowed it say what it was but it might be an anagram of barstar...
  
• Rather sadly, I ordered my first ever take away just for myself after a particularly arduous day at work.
  
• I'd love to go on the Leith's food writing course, but the places are all gone already and it's a tad on the dear side.
  

Bits 'n' pieces

So it would seem I've not been up to much foodie stuff recently, not quite sure why. Maybe it's because I haven't been eating out nor having people round recently. Must do something about that but there are a few irons in the old fire.

• I'm waiting to hear back from the SRA having offered to volunteer with them this week.
• I didn't get a chance to work at the LRF this year but I am going Brasserie Joël to try out their Festival menu.
• I haven't done a cooking "project" for a while but I have a few up my sleeve including a rabbit based weekend of food, making salt beef (or corned beef as the Americans call it), making the apple doughnuts that James Martin made on Saturday Kitchen recently, which he said "no-one would make", and a home-made recreation of Ikea's Swedish meatballs.
• Just found the Everything Burger blog which puts my burger post to shame.
• Also just found out about an Ikea cookbook which has uniquely stylish ingredient photos by photographer Carl Kleiner like this one:
• On a similar arty subject I've just got hold of a copy of Food for thought, thought for food - The creative universe of elBulli's Ferran Adrià. A reflection on the worlds of avante-garde cooking and art. Some amazing photos in it, I'll let you know how it reads.
  

RIP Konstam

I made a very interesting discovery on the interweb tonight when I came across the Sustain website.

Sustain is:

The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity. We represent around 100 national public interest organisations working at international, national, regional and local level.

The site is packed with interesting articles and information on campaigns about all different aspects of the sustainable food agenda. There's far too much for me to go into here so click-off and have a look now.

One of the things that I learnt was that the London branch of Sustain, the London Food Link, has a quarterly magazine, The Jellied Eel. However, I was dismayed to see that one of the cover stories is the closure of Konstam (finally bringing me to the title of this post) which means I'll never get to go there. The restaurant was famous for sourcing 80% of its ingredients from within the M25 and was a leading light of sustainability.

One year ago today...

...I wrote my first blog post on a whim and it's become a normal way of life. To celebrate I made myself a little cake.

However, the real way to celebrate is via the medium of stats. In the past year,

• I have written 195 posts (196 with this one) meaning I post every 1.87 days. At what rate does that become an addiction?
• People have visited my site from 64 different countries. Unbelievable!

• My most popular recipe has been about what to do with duck leftovers.
• I've been to, and reviewed, 26 different eateries from all over the shop (not enough time to work out the number of miles visited, although it's something to bear in mind):

• 33 people have been fed Chez Buttaz and had their meals photographed and written about.

I wonder what the next year holds.

Food waste

I just watched Great British Waste Menu and feel compelled to actually write a post I've been thinking about writing for ages about the problem of waste food. The programme was trying to ram home the message that

Just because food is misshapen, blemished or the wrong size, it doesn't mean it's inedible. Yet every year retailers bin a shocking 400,000 tons of food.

To do this Angela Hartnett, Richard Corrigan, Matt Tebutt and Simon Rimmer created a banquet for 60 using waste food sourced from supermarket bins, restaurant waste and suppliers whose food didn't live up to the supermarkets standards.

It's this last thing that really irritates me. The way in which supermarkets dominate the food industry in this country is just madness. They are the ones that introduced these ridiculous standards like tomatoes being perfect crimson red spheres. Consumers have got so used to this that now that's what they expect. Now we've got a vicious circle where supply meets a demand it created and perpetuates. If you go into any supermarket on the continent they have real vegetables that are all different shapes and colours but all taste great (far better than the bland uniform single species we are subjected to).

We need to get back to eating seasonal local food. Isn't it ridiculous that the UK can't now produce enough food to sustain its own population? English asparagus is a wonderful treat available for only a few weeks a year. We should cherish and celebrate this, not fly in supplies from Peru. It's an irresponsible way to behave. [Note I realise I'm over simplifying and that there is now a huge moral dilemma created by importing from a third world whose economies rely on the export trade.]

Another aspect of the problem is that people just don't apply common sense. Slavish conformance to a confusing food labelling system means perfectly good food is thrown away. This is compounded because people just don't cook any more, so they don't know what to do with the random leftovers in the fridge.

This is such a massive subject that something radical needs to be done so that society starts behaving responsibly and acting in a sustainable manner, it leaves me wondering what I can do.

I know something can be done because I barely throw any food out because its gone off. I don't live a puritan lifestyle either. I just buy what I need and make sure I use it all. It's not rocket surgery.

I whole heartedly support WRAP's Love Food hate waste campaign and the work of FareShare. There must be more I can do; maybe teach people to cook or finally find a charity I can volunteer for. It's so very frustrating not being able to make a difference...

</rant>

Infrequent news update

It's been a quiet couple of weeks on the foodie front. Needless to say I still have some irons in the fire, including:

• I've got a commission for a wedding cake! We've nailed the conceptual design (well, subject to bridal confirmation). "Just" a trial run to confirm the actually cake and icing layers to be used. Am massively nervous about this and very conscious that there's barely more than a month till the big day. GULP! More posts to follow as things progress from paper to cake.
• Am currently considering the options for my first "proper" set of knives. I know it doesn't make sense to do as much cooking as I do with only one knife. I guess I've just never got round to buying any more. It's the last big thing missing from my culinary toolbox.
• I might be doing some work on Unearthed environmental performance which would be a good mix of business and pleasure.
• Finally apparently I'm going to be hosting a supper club, starting up a restaurant and giving lessons quite soon. At least if you actually believe the drunken musings of my friends...

P.S. My sister's just started a holiday around Italy. How jealous am I of all the amazing food she's going to eat (especially the gelato)?

Update (finally!)

Things have been pretty quiet on the food frontier recently, mainly because I've been gallivanting around with work and (incredibly) some non-food related antics (like going to Wimbledon). Consequently I've not been doing much cooking nor eating out.

However, there have a been a few things which I've been up to which are quite interesting and next week should be a blast:

• I did a course in food hygiene run by the local council. It's really aimed at small businesses and was taught by an EHO from Greenwich council. Gives me a good basic understanding of the legal requirements should I ever need it...
  
• My review of the Taste of London was featured on the toptable blog, which was nice, but expected: it was a condition of getting free tickets!
• I've made it into olive magazine. My cheese and onion sandwich recipe made it in to the current reader's issue as a "show-off" starter! You can find the recipe (and my ugly mug) on page 42 of the August 2010 issue. I'll put a scan up when I get a chance so you can enjoy their most excellent food photography.
• Finally, I'm off to Devon for the week tomorrow. I am doing the Intermediate Cookery course at the Ashburton Cookery School. I have agonised incessantly over this course and whether I've chosen the right one or not. I want to learn techniques and an understanding of flavour combinations and I'm worried that this course is too easy for me (but the next one was probably a little too advanced). Anyway, time will tell and I will tell you once I get back.
  

News

Not much been going on recently but have a few things n the pipeline.

• Went to Gastronomica in Pimlico last night for a buffet as invited by Slow Food London. It's the type of great deli that if I had near me, I would practically live in. Some great cheeses, meats, and amazing pesto. Definitely tempted to go back if I'm ever in the area.
• Off to Taste of London on Friday (tickets I won) and again on Saturday. Apparently one of my friends has already worked out what she's going to eat. There was an interesting article on the toptable blog about must-try dishes. Wonder if I can fit them all in, in my two visits...
• I won tickets to see Gary Rhodes talk about Great British classics at the Love Cooking Festival in November, which should be good. Just hope I remember to go.
• And finally cannot wait for 7th July. Am bound to secrecy but I cannot wait.
  

Newsy stuff

A few little things have happened recently.

• I saw restaurateur David Moore (owner of two-starred Pied à Terre and more widely know as one of the judges on the BBC's The Restaurant) eating in Haozhan in China town. I knew it was good!
• I've won tickets to Taste of London care of toptable, so look out for an extensive post about that in late June.
• Chefs Unite has been launched, offering the chance to win some unbelievable experiences with some great chefs for the price of a £10 raffle ticket, all in aid of Children with Leukaemia. I'm just wondering how many tickets I can afford...
  

Otarian restaurant puts carbon footprint on the menu!

A new restaurant, Otarian, has just opened in New York that has put the carbon footprint of everything it serves on its menu and two branches are planned for London later this year.

The restaurant has put sustainability at the core of its business. and taken a comprehensive look at all the business processes involved. It's a vegetarian place, the carbon footprint is a comprehensive cradle-to-crave analysis, energy and water efficiency, waste reduction and sustainable procurement have all been considered.

This sounds like a fantastic venture and something that I hope works well. Sustainability is one of the key challenges facing today's society and anything that can be done to break down the absurd excesses and wastage of our grotesque disposable consumerist society is a fantastic thing. What businesses need to remember is that sustainable performance actually improves the bottom line so there's simple no reason not to embrace it.

However, Otarian is a restaurant and it will live or die depending on the quality of its food. I hope that they've put as much effort into the menu as they have everything else. This is one restaurant opening I cannot wait for.

Read the full article on Edie

Recent events

1. I was invited to the launch party of Platform, a new restaurant under platform 1 at London Bridge. The venture is championing their "gate to plate" approach using produce from one Devon farm and using the whole carcasses of animals reared there. The restaurant is full of reclaimed furniture and has a modern light feel to it. I have high expectations.
   


2. I went to Moro for the first Unearthed tasting panel, where I met Helen from Food Stories and Chris from Cheese and Biscuits (both bloggers who occupy the Premiership whilst I dwell down in League Two, dreaming of promotion). I also found out that I've made it into an Unearthed promo video (you'll want to fast-forward at about 1:35 , to avoid my ugly mug)
   





3. I've also been to the The Middle House in Mayfield for a surprise family birthday. It was a very odd meal with highs like my starter blue cheese and walnut soufflé, lows such as the mess of incompatible flavours which was my main of sea bass on a smoky bacon mash with balsamic glaze (I think the only reason I went with the fish was to avoid one of the one-size fits all Sunday roasts. I knew balsamic and fish was a mistake.) and middling ground like my strawberry cheesecake with poppy seed tuille and a strawberry & tarragon coulis. Overall I just got the impression that this place was trying far too hard and just not meeting expectations. I think it's got potential the chef just needs to reign it in and avoid odd combinations and build a reputation by delivering quality throughout the entire menu.


4. Finally I have decided that I'll not be buying bread again but will be making my own. This has come about whilst reading In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan. I'll explain more once I've finished the book.
   

P.S. Unearthed are running a competition at the moment to win a holiday in Italy. Find out more.