Bounty of the Burnhams, a Food Art History collaboration

Victoria, Kirks Blue, Greengage and Glass plum

We are excited to be collaborating with Salt Glass Studio's on November 30th for a Food Art History event celebrating the rich and historic produce in the North Norfolk area known as The Burnhams. 
Salt Glass Studio have created a vastly beautiful collection of glass inspired by both female farmers Nina Plumbe the fruit farmer of Burnham Overy Town and Dr Sally Francis of Norfolk Saffron of Burnham Norton. 
Nina is the second generation farmer after inheriting her Fathers farm who began farming in Norfolk after the war. The vast collection of rare and wonderful plums, pears and apples on Nina's farm are astounding with a few varieties only Nina has in existence in this country. Nina likes to ride motorbikes around Africa for fun, she is an incredible woman. 

Dr Sally Francis is an Oxford educated botanist who has brought Saffron production back not only to the UK, but to Norfolk where is was centuries ago produced. Her saffron is of very high quality and from it she also produces a much sought after liqueur. 

Salt Glass have also been inspired by mussels harvested from Burnham Deepdale and Norton Creek and have been working with John Brown Mussels exploring form and history. 

The rather wonderful The Gin Garden will be joining forces with us to create a heady blend of cocktails using the abundant ingredients we have here in this immediate area. Plums and apples of many varieties, quince, blackberries, rose hips and of course saffron. Plums have been steeping in alcohol and syrups have been made since August for this very special event. 

There will be a feast of art, glass demonstrations, food and cocktails. Tickets are £35 to buy click HERE

Menu 

Game on a stick 

Mussels with saffron aioli and sourdough

Saffron barley risotto

Hot deep fried apples with spiced saffron batter, plum ice cream and blackberry syrup

Quince marshmallow 

Norfolk Bounty

Pop Up Dining at The Brecks

Ben & Sarah 

Since we moved to the North Norfolk coast so many wonderful doors have opened to us. Yusuf is sous chef at the new and lovely Duck Inn at Stanhoe. The Duck has been open for 6 months now and has already forged an enormous following of locals and tourists alike. In this brief time husband and wife team Ben and Sarah Handley were also nominated and became finalists for the EDP Food & Drink awards 2013, an impressive accolade within five months of opening.

Two good men, Ben & Yusuf

It is no wonder though. Ben Handley has a wealth of experience, not just on the North Norfolk coast, from time spent working in Australia too. Ben uses a global approach to flavours, utilising the very best of Norfolk produce. Ben has cooked at some of North Norfolk's best restaurants and has spent time as a consultant chef to the lovely Dot Lloyd's business Briarfield's Hotel, raising it's profile and introducing modern cooking techniques which are still in place today, something Ben is very proud of.

Hand dived scallops, daikon & oyster leaf at The Duck

While Yusuf is cooking up some of Norfolk's finest food with Ben and the team, I have been doing a little digital marketing for The Duck, including one of my favourite pastimes food photography. You can take a look at my Instagram page here and the Ducks Instagram here.

Pop Up Dining

Liz Truss MP & John Vincent

We were invited by the very lovely Vanessa Scott from Strattons boutique hotel in Swaffam to run a pop up restaurant in her beautiful home as part of the Brecks food festival. We were joined by honoured guests John Vincent from LEON restaurants, who came to chat a bit about school dinners and the school dinner project with  Liz Truss MP for South West Norfolk. Our guests were a wonderfully diverse bunch of nuns, foodies and yoga teachers it was a fantastic night topped off by having much needed help from Maggie & Cat from CoCoes Cafe and the lovely owners of Ladywood Lodge who were amazing at washing up, even though their day jobs were SO much more impressive than that. Hugely grateful for everyones participation in what was a wonderful event.

As Norfolk has such amazing local artisan produce it is not difficult to find such wonders as the lovely Scotts Field Pork, wonderful free range pork from a small local producer who really cares about his large black pigs.  It was a joy to pick pears from Vanessa's trees for our tart tatin and use her hens eggs. Local in every sense of the word, in an industry where there are  unnecessary food miles and waste it was wonderful to use what is closest to us, and waste very little indeed. Something which is very close to my heart.

The Menu

Cheese & Tomato

Cheese & Tomato

Mackerel, roasted and ceviche with horseradish creme fraiche and lemon sorrel

Adobo chop & hock hash with fennel and basil aiolli

Pear tart tatin with cinnamon marscapone and fennel seeds

Fresh mint tea

The film crew from Leon TV filming pork chops..

Samphire & potato

It's quite a leap from asparagus to samphire in the scheme of things but we have been very busy moving up to the North Norfolk coast. The deep joy of picking ones own samphire is audible. I love eating it for breakfast with poached eggs, just missing out the salt and using unsalted butter to enjoy the simple sea saltiness of the samphire. I don't steam or fry it but just add it at the end to the hot potatoes to warm through, I like the crunch and rawness of it along with the soft garlicky buttery potatoes.

Serves 2 as a simple supper

500g new potatoes halved lengthways
150g unsalted butter (or salty if you like)
big handful flat parsley loosely chopped
3 big handfuls of samphire, washed thoroughly and woody stems removed
4 cloves of garlic
Freshly ground black pepper

Boil your potatoes until just done. In another pan melt your butter and add garlic until it begins to soften and release it's aromas. Then add your drained and hot potatoes into the butter with the flat parsley and samphire with a lid on the pan give it a firm shake. I like to add a few flakes of chipotle chili to mine, a nice pan fried piece of hake would also be a fine idea. 

I bought the new potatoes from the road side for 50p and the samphire was hand picked by me, the parsley from my garden so all I bought was the garlic and butter, I am guessing this simple and delicious supper must have cost about 70 pence. 

Spring is in the air..

Finally Spring is upon us. The violets in my garden are a sure sign that it is happening, as are the ducklings swimming upstream with the Mama duck. 
Menu planning and ingredients begin to take on a very exciting turn at this time of year, so many exciting things to play with and the planting of my edible flower garden begins. 
I am lucky enough to live near four asparagus farms...I have a choice in all four directions. Bring it on! 
We are serving asparagus at our next supper club April 26th.
Bookings by email to unthanksupperclub@gmail.com 
The Menu is HERE

Pop Up at The Sir Garnet

We are excited to announce that for two weeks in February we will be keeping the very talented 'The Baron of Beef's' kitchen warm at The Sir Garnet of Norwich while he is taking a much needed holiday. 
Nick, AKA The Baron of Beef cooks what Yusuf and I consider to be the best gourmet burgers in Norwich. Every single element to them is perfect. The perfect brioche style bun, soft and light. The perfect hand minced and made burger, and delicious home made kimchi. We always choose the 'Umami Burger' it's a heap of meaty, umami lusciousness, it dribbles down your wrist and makes you feel happily a bit on the dirty side. 

The Unthank Pop UP! Pops UP! From 12th - 26th February 
Lunch & Dinner & Bar snacks
Private dining room for 12 guests available
Valentines menu over the Valentines weekend 14th,15th,16th 4 courses £35pp 
For bookings email unthanksupperclub@gmail.com with your contact number or call Clarissa on 01603 615892 or 07748 987 147 .
The Valentines menu is Here.

Have you got beef ?

DJ's Beef 2 ways, feather blade and soy/miso short rib with shallot puree and potato terrine

Yusuf and I have some exciting plans this year, which means we are recipe testing a lot at the moment. As we become submerged in snow the wintery slow roasts are very much in the forefront of our minds.

Our butcher (and meat based hero) is John at DJ Barnard. They are a family run business and graze their own animals. John is highly experienced and has great culinary knowledge. And he cuts my Osso Bucco (beef shin) by hand, which is not easy.

 DJ's shop is in the middle of nowhere, down a miniscule lane. If I ever dream of moving away, this shop is the first thing I know I will miss. 

Before the big changes to slaughter, they would raise, slaughter and butcher their animals all in one place. No lorries taking them away. It must have been very hard after all of those years raising animals properly, being every part of the process, to see them driven away to slaughter.

Being so close to the reality of farming, seeing Johns cows grazing, buying the meat he has hung and butchered himself keeps us very focussed on not just the quality, but the choices one makes as a consumer. I can't buy meat anywhere else now. If I go to a supermarket I walk past the meat aisle completely...it is not 'real' in my mind. For us, DJ's is the best in Norfolk.

          Ham from DJ's, a family recipe. Mulled baked ham glazed with honey and mustard

We will be serving beef 2 ways on January 25th at our Norwich supper club. Email to book.

Why I love Nigel Slater

I awoke this morning at 6am thinking about Nigel Slater. I watched his new program Life is Sweets in bed last night on my laptop, my husband was snoring and I was quietly watching a man I really love, with the odd bit of weeping thrown in.
 As a costume designer one has a different view on 'famous people'. I have seen a lot of very famous actors and celebs in their pants, you don't just work together you become friends, see they are (mostly) human beings and the feeling of being a 'fan' does not exist. In fact is is an unspoken no no. You must never be a fan if you work in film and TV. It is the height of unprofessionalism.

So I have this odd (obviously one sided) relationship with Nigel Slater. I try not to be a 'fan' of him, but I do really love him from afar. We have never met, though he has worked closely with a dear old friend of mine. Nigel's approach to cooking has always appealed since I bought 'Real Food' in 1998. Nigel taught me to bake cheese in a box, and make potato pizza for friends when we were pissed and needed cheesy carbs to soak up the booze. Nigel taught me what Tallegio was back then, and awakened a life long obsession with Italian delicatessens.

I read Toast, it made me weep. I have a six year old son, the Mother in me aches with compassion for the loss of his Mum, the drastic change to his life as a nine year old boy and his loneliness. Last night watching 'Life is Sweets', it was very touching to see his poignant memories played out by olfactory and taste triggers. I found it deeply reassuring to watch a program that focused on the emotional and psychological connections we make with food. Nigel's ability to show his vulnerability, is most refreshing. I think we need more of this on TV.

I gave up watching TV about 6 years ago, maybe I am cynical, but it is hard to watch when you have helped make TV programs for 15 years. Occasionally I watch the odd thing back on IPlayer or 4OD. I absolutely cannot watch any food programs without thinking of the script, design, make up & hair and of course the clothes. Masterchef is utterly un-watchable, as is I am afraid is Nigellissima, I love her writing, and her recipes, yes she is very beautiful, but the whole sexy/gluttonous rare steak fellating  thing is akin to walking in on your own Mother masturbating. I just cannot watch.

Nigella Lawson is an impressive franchise. Beautiful books, TV shows, kitchen stuff etc. But it's hard not to feel cynical about the tenuous link of building an entire TV show and (just ready for Chrimbo!) book on a teenage trip to Florence working as a chambermaid is rather stretching it. I gave one episode a go. I bailed out at 'Meatzer'...a dish that is a pizza, but rather that bread dough as a base, she has used minced meat. The sort of colon clogging dish that would not be out of place in a middle American school canteen. It is hard not to envisage the initial planning meeting for this show, I can hear researchers 'throwing around ideas'..I wonder who came up with 'Meatzer'....? Get back to Espresso Martini's! That really was a work of excellence. That said I admire and respect Nigella Lawson as a business woman, I am sure she is a lovely woman, a really fun Mother and friend. I just can't watch.

Because I don't have a telly, but do Tweet I observe lots of realtime reactions to TV programs. One tweet that drew my attention this week was by Trish Deseine. I follow Trish Deseine's blog and tweets. Trish has a rather glamerous balance of wisdom, honesty and cynicism that really appeals to me. She has an authenticity about her frankness towards food and the industry that I really admire. And, I hate to be so superficial, but she has a very beautiful face, no relevance at all, but always lovely to see when here tweets appear in my timeline. It was this tweet that made me watch 'Life is Sweets' on BBC.
Twitter is such an unforgiving platform for criticism, and this eventual gracious interaction really struck a chord. This week those who follow foodie stuff on Twitter will have noticed a very ugly and public bullying of a blogger by some of the UK's top chefs. Everyone is talking, tweeting, blogging about it, so I will not. It was not very nice.

I suppose it is exactly what Trish Deseine found uncomfortable about Nigel Slater's 'Life is Sweets' that drew me to it. It is very refreshing to watch a program that is not sexed up, it is about something real, something emotional, maybe not so easy on the eye or heart, but one can empathise and have an emotional response. It is the humanity that is so appealing. I momentarily loved Nigella when she spoke of her Mother, revealing an emotional and sad story of her late Mothers favourite naughty treat being disposed of after her death. It was real, I felt compassion and respect at the sheer humanity and the chink of vulnerability she allowed us to see. I am sure it is not easy to reveal personal moments when you are a TV personality, but it is helpful for all of us normal people to not be cosseted by endless sexed up, hermetically sealed aspirational gluttony.

It comes down to taste as usual. Of all of the meals I have set down in front of family, friends and strangers I have learnt that one cannot please everyone. I recently made a quince tart at my supper club, it was like membrillio/treacle tart in its texture and flavour, but sweeter with what I thought was just the right acidity. Of the 28 people that ate it, 3 people could not eat it. One person a chef, and a regular to our supper club said it was too sharp for him. Another, who ate the lot and was very drunk, told me it was ''utterly bland and tasteless'' (which was nice) and the third person didn't enjoy the texture. The other 25 people polished off the lot and had many very kind things to say, asking for the recipe and for seconds, which I happily gave. I wasn't offended, my ego was not bruised, I just accept that I can't make every diner happy.

I may be in a minority wanting to see 'real 'people make and discuss 'real' food. My love (yes I know he's gay, a married woman can still love a gay man!) of Nigel Slater is based and has always been based on that. He is honest. He is real. He is not showing off with cheffy and complicated techniques, making the nation all head out to buy ring moulds and water baths. He is showing us how to make food out of simple and honest ingredients, that feed our body, family, friends and dare I say it, minds. Recipes that comfort and will provide my own child with memories later on in life. My little boy gets very excited when we bake a French cheese in a box, something Nigel taught me to do way back in 1998. Thank you for that Nigel.x