We ate too much (but it was good)

I'm surprised there were any clams left in Rhode Island after we left.

We had stuffies, fried clams, and raw clams. No clamcakes, since I find them too cakey and not clam-y enough.

We'd been meaning to try out Persimmon, in Bristol, for a while - the chef has won all sorts of awards and it was really highly recommended by some friends of my parents.

We splurged (and decided to make it my "birthday dinner") and had the tasting menu. It was really fun - the first of the five courses was a series of hors d'oeuvres, and we spent the whole evening guessing what was going to come next. The whole meal took about 3 hours, but everything was completely delicious.

It was somewhat romantically lit, so my camera had a hard time with the pictures. This was one of our favourite courses: a devilled quail's egg with caviar. SO delicious. We also ate (and thoroughly enjoyed) several things that we never would have ordered off the main menu, like cauliflower soup, and veal sweetbreads. 

And now for something completely different. Alexandria Bay's idea of haute cuisine? Cheeseburger soup, bitches.

Oh, and pancakes, blueberries, sausage and bacon.

Back in Rhode Island, my parents had recommended Federal Hill Pizza in Warren. We were coming back from a day out in Boston, and took the bus from Providence to Warren. It dropped us right in front of the restaurant (and then we had an exceedingly dark but otherwise pleasant walk back to my parents' house). 

They made our pizza half-and-half: sausage, onions and peppers with no cheese for John, and buffalo chicken for me. Yumsters.

We stopped in for a quick lunch after sailing in Newport, at Rosemary & Thyme. The sandwiches were delicious, but the person who took my order (I think she may have been one of the owners) gave me an extremely vitriolic lecture on the evils of credit cards and small businesses. Zoinks. Feel free to put up a "cash only" sign but don't accept cards and then get mad at me when I want to charge $20 worth of sandwiches. Anyway, bring your cash and enjoy the sammies!

While the boys were playing with trains, my mom and I had a girls (plus Harry) trip down I-95. We stopped in Westbrook and had lunch at Lenny & Joe's Fish Tale. Because, obviously, it had been at least 12 hours since our last clam. And onion rings and coleslaw both count as veggies, right?

So does beer.

Needless to say, I gained a few pounds. My fitbit and I are in the process of working them off again.

Breakfast of champions

 Sourdough bread (or english muffins), prosciutto, scrambled eggs, sauteed tomatoes and mushrooms.

YUM.

August food

We had the boy for 2 weeks. We ate a TON of fruit (the strawberries this year have been amazing and just keep coming)!

John made cinnamon-raisin bread, which was demolished in short order:

With butter.

And James and I went to Cambridge (John was sailing, and my iPhone needed a Genius), and had some dumplings at Zonghua Traditional Snacks. Yumsters.

Sunday Cooking

It's Mothering Sunday here, so we had the in-laws over for lunch. We slow-roast a chicken using this recipe, and served it with mashed potatoes and Julia's braised carrots. Oh, butter, I love you. I went slightly off-piste and added some herbes de Provence to the braising liquid. Yum.

I also made apple and raspberry crumble. Not my finest effort, but redeemed by custard. It looked pretty, though!

Review: Afternoon Tea at the Cambridge Hilton

One of my book group buddies shares her birthday with John and my dad (yay, December 27th), and she suggested a Girls' Day Out in Cambridge for afternoon tea.

We were recommended the Hilton by another friend who had been there for a party a few months before, so off we went, on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year.

I knew I'd be cranky if I went all the way to 3pm with no food, so Anna Karenina (on my Kindle) and I went for brisket udon just before noon.

The first thing we noticed when we rolled up at our appointed hour was how EMPTY it was. Granted, the weekend between Christmas and New Year isn't going to be their top weekend of the year, but Cambridge itself was packed with people. There were two other tables (and about 4 staff).

First, it took them about 10 minutes to figure out where to seat us. Why, I have no idea. But whatever.

Then, it took at least another 10 for them to ask us if we wanted tea or coffee. I said that we did, but that I had read online that there was a full "tea menu." The waitress looked surprised, then thought for a few moments, and then wandered off and returned with the tea menus, as per teh interwebs. I had a darjeeling, and the other two had Russian Caravan (apparently didn't taste of either Russians or Caravans, which was probably a good thing) and Earl Grey. The tea was lovely, and was in rather snazzy pots that held the leaves in a funny little basket. Only drawback with the tea was that you couldn't remove the leaves to adjust the strength - it got rather stewed by the end.

After about half an hour, the platter below arrived:

On the bottom, sandwiches: salmon, egg & cress, and cucumber & cream cheese. Slightly stale bread (they tasted like they'd been made that morning or the previous day), but otherwise fine.

For the middle tier, the scones were excellent - warm, with very tasty jam and clotted cream.

On the top, a selection of cakes: slices of fruitcake, a chocolate square thingy with raspberry mousse, mince pies, and a cake/cream concoction with a gilded blackberry on top. It was all rather pretty, but I thought that the cakes were too sweet (and the mince pies DEFINITELY came from a factory).

Um, we ate it all.

Overall, I would give the service 2 out of 10, the scones 8 out of 10, and the rest of the food 6 out of 10. We were right next to the window, on very comfy couches, which made the terminally disinterested waitstaff less of an issue. I think there are plenty of other places to eat in Cambridge, where our £14.95 would have produced less food (it was WAY too much), but of higher quality.

The Cambridge Hilton have a great location and good facilities, but it was let down by indifferent service and mediocre food. I would HATE to be there on a busy weekend in the summer (unless possibly we were the victims of "all the normal staff are on vacation." If anyone else has had a different experience, let me know!

Smitten Kitchen is famous

Well. I've been making Smitten Kitchen recipes since at least 2008. That German apple cake was my gateway recipe.

And now she's all famous and has made a bestselling cookbook and has been featured in the New York Times.

And this week, I had some extra yogurt in the fridge. And I hit the "surprise me" button on her website, and found this. Grapefruit yogurt cake. 

It was like lemon drizzle cake but zingier. YUM.

We ate Rhode Island (and a little New York)

We went to Rhode Island. And ate everything in sight. 

I had two hot apple ciders (both delicious). They DO NOT have this in England, and it's a damned shame. Brits: it's warm cloudy apple juice with cinnamon and nutmeg and other yummy spices. It's warm and fall-y and delicious. I have some cloudy apple juice from Waitrose and might try my hand at making it tomorrow afternoon...

And here, my friends, is a giant celebration cannoli, surrounded by lots and lots of smaller cannoli. Shut  up.

We went to an anniversary brunch while in NY, and John had a very entertaining cannoli experience.

A family friend's grandmother is Old School New York Italian, and we were talking about the fact that John didn't know what cannoli was and had never tasted it. Basically, fried dough with ricotta filling. YUM. But definitely not on John's list of good eats. Nonni was undeterred and proudly presented John with a plate containing two cannoli, announcing, "You gotta eat some cannoli! You'll love it!" Poor hubby looked very worried until I relieved him of his cannoli and ate them. :)

Once we got to Rhode Island (not cannoli-free, I might add), we took ourselves for dinner at DeWolf Tavern in Bristol. The food was stunning - John had lamb chops and I had steak, and both had been cooked in their tandoor and were caramelised on the outside and tender on the inside and generally amazing. My only quibble was that I had the daily special and it wasn't mentioned that the price was $10 more than the most expensive thing on the printed menu. Otherwise, outstanding.

And since we were in the US, I had to have some pizza, at Leo's (again, Bristol). This is the buffalo chicken pizza (with blue cheese, obv.). Spicy and salty and cheesy and very very tasty. The pizza base was some kind of twice-cooked foccacia. Really springy with big air bubbles and a crispy crust. We will be experimenting chez Herd.

We also managed to waddle to Federal Hill, Providence's Little Italy. We were hungry and unsure where to eat so my ever-resourceful mom spotted a man going into a bank (he looked like a local) who obviously enjoyed his food, if you catch my drift. "Excuse me, sir, we're wondering if you can recommend a place for lunch in Federal Hill?"

Didn't miss a beat. "Go to Venda Ravioli." We obeyed and were not disappointed. This was the view from our table. The pasta was incredible and super-fresh. It's a deli, a coffee shop, a restaurant, and a kitchen supply store. It does all of them well.

Our final meal in RI was a breakfast at the now relocating Sunnyside. I can't wait to see where chef Joe will end up, and try his dinner menu!

John was excited for the pancakes (leftovers pictured below) and real maple syrup. My mom, wanting to make sure he was not disappointed, stashed a bottle of real maple syrup from home in her purse, just in case Sunnyside had "breakfast syrup" or some other travesty. Thankfully, they served the real thing and mom's bottle of syrup was taken home again untouched. Phew. Cracked me up, though!

And the sun came out

After days and days and days of rain, the sun came out yesterday evening. After supper, we walked over to the Stowupland allotments, mostly to take a picture of a quilt. We did end up with some good quilt pics (to be blogged shortly), but were distracted by the incredible vegetables.

Those two courgettes were each about a foot long and about as thick as my arm. Zoinks. 

And these? We were shown around one of the allotments by a very proud long-time allotmenter. We were admiring his red onions. "Oh, no," he corrected. "Those are shallots!" HOLY MOLY. They were huge. Apparently he feeds himself and his wife, along with his two children and their families almost exclusively on vegetables grown himself. My own-grown food so far this year totals several handfuls of rosemary, a reasonable amount of mint (idiot-proof), and 12 raspberries.

Despite not enjoying runner beans as a food, they sure are pretty when they're growing.

Foodie Fursday

I spotted these long-life lactofree milk single-serving pods in our local Tesco a few weeks ago (I've been on the lookout for them in other stores but haven't seen them yet). It's not the cheapest way to get milk, but it means that if I want a break from black coffee at work, I can have it. Score one for the Dairy Fairy!

Our new favorite meal is from the June BBC Good Food (not posted on their website yet, unfortunately). Harissa roasted vegetables with couscous.

Ingredients:

2 tsp harissa

2 tsp olive oil

a tray-full of veggies: we used an aubergine and 2 courgettes (in chunks), about 8 mushrooms (quartered) and a handful of cherry tomatoes (halved), and some spring onions.

Dressing (just mix all the ingredients together in a bowl):

2 tbs greek yogurt

1 tbs tahini

juice of 1 lemon

large pinch of coriander or mint (fresh/dried are both fine)

Mix the veggies with the harissa and olive oil until they're all coated, then roast at 180C until the veggies are cooked.

Serve with couscous with the dressing on the side. I add the tomatoes about halfway through the 20-or-so minute cooking time, so they don't completely disintegrate. I start the couscous once I've put the tomatoes in and it all arrives together. Ta-da!

British Larder and Aldeburgh

After reading that Cambridge blogger Lazy Giraffe drives an hour and a half all the way to Woodbridge from Cambridge to eat at The British Larder, it was added to my must-try list.

When my Mom (whose birthday is today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!) suggested a trip to the coast, I suggested this as an optimal lunch spot on the way. I was a little worried that it would be super-crowded on a Saturday lunchtime, but it was merely reasonably busy.

I ordered the pork tasting platter, below. Pork terrine, a pork & pickle salad thingy (in the little pot), homemade coleslaw, homemade piccalilli, the Best Scotch Egg Ever, a sausage roll, a mini-meatloaf, some exceedingly delicious bread, and a spring-greens salad. The scotch egg and the butter both had cracked pepper and just the right amount of sea salt on them. The whole thing was rather unbelievably delicious. I washed it down with some Broadside, obviously.

My mom had the ploughmans' lunch, which had cheese twists, homemade pickle, a boiled egg, really excellent ham, and a wedge of cheese, along with a sausage roll, bread, piccalilli, and salad like mine.

We really enjoyed ourselves and will be going back. If you're in the neighborhood (or even if you're not), I highly recommend it.

On our way to Aldeburgh, we stopped at Snape Maltings. The sky was rather dramatic (it had stopped raining, briefly)

We found out later that John had been sailing in the mega-rainstorm in this picture. Boy, was he wet:

A yellow tractor on Aldeburgh beach:

And a good rock.

Conversation before reaching this particular rock, as follows.

Kate (walking on Aldeburgh beach, home to about 100 zillion rocks) : Mom, keep your eye out and let me know if you find a good rock.

Mom: Um, what?!

Five minutes later

Kate: Aha! This is a great rock! (Crouches down to photograph above rock)

Mom: (Shakes head)

C'mon, you can't say that isn't a great rock!

Calzone, or Who Needs New York

Melissa Clark's columns in the dining section of the New York Times are inevitably funny, informative, and hungry-making.

Last week, not only did she make her own ricotta (swoon), but she made calzones. Since we frequently make pizza on Sunday nights, I decided that this week my pizza would be a calzone, according to MC's instructions.

Well. John made tomato sauce from scratch, which was delicious. He also made dough from scratch, in the Kitchenaid. 

His proportions for the dough for two pizzas are 350g "00" flour to 218g (weigh it!) lukewarm water, and a small packet of instant yeast. You can scale these up or down as needed. Add a desert-spoon of olive oil and several large pinches of salt. Mix together in a stand mixer or knead by hand until silky and awesome. Leave it to rise in a warmish place for about an hour and a half, until it doubles in size. If you poke it and it doesn't collapse but the dimple stays, it's perfect. Do NOT knock it back.

For pizza:

Roll it out with a rolling pin, and put it on a floured tray, then add your toppings (not too many), and put it on a pizza stone in the oven heated as high as it will go, until it's bubbling and crispy.

For Melissa Clark's calzone of awesomeness:

Roll it out until it's about 12" in diameter. Smear a little bit of tomato sauce on the bottom (she didn't; I did, it rocked). Add mozzarella, ricotta, some sauteed spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes). 

Use your finger to dab water around the edge of the calzone, then fold over and pinch closed. Brush the top with olive oil (or drizzle it on and smear it with your mitts if you can't find the pastry brush, gosh darn it).

Bake in the oven at super-high (ours was at 350C, the highest it will go) until it's golden and crispy and sounds hollow when you take it out and knock on it. Mine was in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Shut up. Who needs New York? This was the best calzone I've ever tasted. And I was a pig and ate the whole thing. Along with two lactose pills.

Special thanks to the Husband for making such awesome pizza dough.

Recipe: oatmeal cranberry cookies

We made oatmeal cranberry cookies yesterday, using Smitten Kitchen's oatmeal raisin cookies as a starter.

We left out the cinnamon, raisins and walnuts, and put unsweetened dried cranberries in, instead. Most of the bag (ahem, chef's perks).

I'm also really enjoying watching Rachel Khoo in her Little Paris Kitchen on "le BBC." I'm up to the Boeuf Bourgignon episode...we'll see how it compares to Julia!