I did tell you.

It is true, we do have a new baby. Freddie Alexander was born 25th August 2011.


I know this is supposed to be a blog primarily about food but to be honest, Fred is primarily about food himself. He eats incessantly, insatiably & indiscriminately of time of day. It's difficult to know if you're doing the right thing with a week old baby as they have no real way of communicating the reason for their crying & discomfort. They just cry & seem dis-comfortable.

I'm thinking I may create a new Freddie diary blog to document all this.
We shall see.

I also need to review some loose leaf tea kindly sent to me by Little Chef, though presently, I tend to drink the strongest coffee available, dictated to & by Freddie's insatiable appetite and unsociable time keeping.

Oh and also, today would be the 65th birthday of one Freddie Mercury, whom our Freddie is partially named after (along with Frederick Chopin, Freddie Fender & Freddie Flintoff)

Yawn..........

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Let her eat cake

We popped into the cake shop this afternoon. I had an almond frangipane tart & Caitlin had, well I think you can see what she had.


They do illy coffee too, which is always a winner for me.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Patisserie Valerie

Cafe

So, we are officially the new owners of a cafe in Cambridge.

We started on Wednesday of last week and the place is already buzzing with lots of people.
The early starts are tough but we'll soon get used to it.

I thought I might use the blog to document the takeover and plot our progress as we set up our breakfast and lunch time delivery services to the Science Park & neighbouring sites.




This was how the front counter looked on Wednesday but already added a few new things with lots more to come.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Great Eastern St,Cambridge,United Kingdom

No Fire Without Smoke

I set fire to the kitchen at work tonight folks. I was busy putting a lasagna together when on the hob behind me, a pan of oil caught light. Quick as a flash I did the whole wet-tea-towel-wrung-out & smothered the flames. I waited a moment - all the time black smoke filled the room, setting off the alarms for the whole building, sending upwards of 50 confused foreign students outside into the cold via the fire escape. I took the cloth away from the pan and sheepishly carried the pan toward the sink. It proceeded to reignite. I dropped it on the floor and it burnt straight through the carpet. I repeated the wet towel process once more and finally extinguished the persistent flames.
Panic over, I continued to get ready for service, which remained on-time and with no further incidents.

After service I tried to clean the black smoke residue from the ceiling above the hob where the initial flames rose and licked the paint not an hour earlier. I managed to smear the paint and even peel it in places as I somewhat frantically tried to get it white again.

All through this, I listened, as I always do, to Marc Riley's BBC6 show on the radio.

The live band in session tonight?......'The Burns Unit'.

true story.

Preserving Herbs

This is good, about preserving fresh herbs, by Christina McDermott on LoveFood.com: what-to-do-with-leftover-herbs

New Year 2011

For one reason or another, the new year has bought about changes for me thus (and in no particular order) Firstly I began the year in a state of flux with only 3 hours paid work per day whilst I wait for a new cafe to change hands and for us to get in and take over the running. The impact of this has been that I have all but abandoned the car this year in favour of cycling. The location of aforementioned 3 hours daily work has meant that I'm now cycling at least 4 miles per day. My fitness is improving already. The next change (a somewhat less important one) is that my iPhone is broke. I'm currently waiting for a verdict from my phone insurance company as to whether they will fix it or replace it - or indeed, reject the claim altogether. This has lead to my purchasing of a £13 PAYG phone with which to continue to use my contract mins and texts. So. No driving, more active, better fitness. Less time spent updating fb and surfing the void for new apps instead of being productive....All the things that people cite when carefully constructing new year's resolutions that they won't stick to yet again, for the umpteenth year running. The difference being that mine where forced upon me, rather than through choice. No matter though as this all still achieves the same result. Why did I admit to this rather than just pretending that this was all the result of careful consideration in an attempt to relieve guilt through abstinence following overindulgence at Xmas?...Well that's because my new year's resolution was to be more honest.




maybe.

Today

I am making a chilli for dinner tonight (I won't be eating it because I shall be out cooking food for students at Cambridge College halls). I think there are a number of items or dishes that most people can do, whether cooks, chefs, housewives/husbands or non-cooks. Furthermore, these select few fall into a common category (in my opinion) in which each is prone to many variations in preparation, dictated by varying recipes/techniques adopted from books, friends, parents & grandparents.
Others under the same umbrella would be Yorkshire Puddings - my ex Sous Chef swears by a recipe taught to him about 20 years ago, by a then 90 year old woman. Simple boiled rice - I've adopted a new technique of washing 3 times, covering an inch over the rice with fresh water, bringing to the boil briefly, covering and cutting the heat, allowing the rice to steam-finish.
Equally the humble boiled egg can be placed in cold water and taken to a boil for 3 minutes, as well as being placed into already rapidly boiling water, with or without salt, covered or uncovered. I've even seen and used a device from Germany that pricks a perfect hole in the base of a raw egg before boiling, though it didn't seem to have any great impact on the cooking.

I think this is the appeal of cooking - it's accessible. Most of us need to do it. Anybody can learn to do it. Making dinner is infinitely easier than making music and paradoxically, in the modern world the Media promotes it as a new kind of Rock & Roll.

Anyway, I'm rambling and I must get on...I've got a gig tonight, doing Fajitas for 30 students and I'm under-rehearsed.

My friend's band Chapel Club are to modern chart music, what this Menu is to Kentucky Fried Chicken.