Pistachio nougat

I have always had real trouble celebrating New Year's Eve.  A family bereavement when I was 24 at this time of year put me off the celebrations going on around me and I have never really recovered from it. In past years I have become a degree or two more enthusiastic, and set up family parties and games evenings, consisting largely of 6 hour Cluedo games, a brief break to watch Big Ben chime and fireworks explode over the Thames via BBC1, a quick look outside at crass neighbourhood fireworks, a glass of champagne, and back to the Cluedo before bedtime at around 2am. The death of my sister has made this time of year even more introspective for me.  But I do also feel as if I am beginning to emerge out of the chrysalis of shock and hurt in which I have been shrouded ever since we lost her. I may not want to come out of it, I may even resist it by indulging in the most painful recollections I can bring to mind of her last days, but it does not stop the inevitable reconnection with the future that I think must be like an automatic switch in our brains. At some point my brain has decided that enough is enough. It is time to stop hurting and begin healing. Last week I put out on a shelf a picture of my sister for the first time. This is not something I have been able to do at all. But I found one of her, and my younger sister, and me, and I loved it because it captured my memory of being the middle of three sisters and not what I am now, the eldest of two - and I put it on a shelf where I could see and be comforted by it. I have looked at it every day since and the comfort continues. The loss is still there, it's still strong; but the pain feels as if it is being balanced somehow. So today, on New Year's Eve, I asked my husband if he would come out with me. We slushed our way through a damp and partly flooded Hampstead Heath. We joined our fellow middle classers for a skinny latte at Carluccio's, which we then subsequently raided for gifts. We nibbled on their plates of cut up pannettone. I discovered a pistachio nougat, which I tried, and immediately developed a passion for - I bought one, but will almost certainly be back at the end of the week for more. Who can resist a green slab of sticky almond and vanilla sugar??? We wandered up the street, into the bookshop, and browsed.  We headed back to the car with our bags of sticky Italian goodies, and came home. I sat at the table with a cup of tea, and thought.  Next year, I wanted these things. I wanted to bake a decent triple layer meringue cake. I wanted to quit my scuzzy gym in the City and find a way to exercise that did not involve airless basements and sweaty, slippery equipment. But mostly, I wanted to look forward. Starting with an outing this weekend to stock up on pistachio nougat.  That is my road to healing in 2014.

Puddings

I made some great desserts for yesterday's Christmas Day lunch. Ottolenghi's chocolate krantzcakes. White chocolate pecan squares, courtesy of the Magnolia Bakery cookery book. Nutella cheesecake, thank you Nigella Lawson.  Diabetic friendly coffee and cinnamon mini cheesecakes. All fab stuff, and it all went down about as well as the roasted root vegetables, roasted potatoes, blanched green bean salad, Ottolenghi's sweet houmous (that isn't what it's called but that is sure as hell what it tastes like and it is fabulous), my Mum's whisky poached salmon and my sister's multicoloured mixed salad. Which is to say, it all added up to a pretty memorable meal.  It was fabulous and I'm sad it's over except that most of the leftovers stayed with us which means we get to eat more of it for the next 4 or 5 dinners. Yay. But on Sunday I have friends coming for lunch and need to create a lunch that captures the post Christmas vibe. It's weird, this. As we all know, the period between Xmas and New Year is like a bubble, which most people spend at the sales, or gorging on Roses chocolates and leftover turkey, or going on long walks wrapped up in their new Timberland fleeces which were Xmas presents from relatives (though I passed a man on the canal walk near my house who ran past me wearing a bottle green Ralph Lauren two piece sweatsuit with horses and polo players emblazoned on the chest and thighs, and though it made a refreshing difference from Timberland, it was not a good look. Not for any age, or any guy). So, back to the lunch. It can't be too heavy as Xmas lunches and Roses chocolates have a way of sitting inside you for days, especially if, like us, you are still eating the leftovers. On the other hand, by midway to New Year, which is when my friends are coming over, most people have spent themselves at the sales and are feeling the cold, not to mention the onset of New Year depression that is associated with the gloomy, looming prospect of a return to work in the company of several hundred thousand equally pissed off, freezing cold, hungover, spent out commuters. So it needs to be comforting. And comfort, to me, is pudding. If I'm not well it's soup. But if it's after Xmas it's pudding. I spend some hours looking through my cookery books and surfing the web for puddings and decide that comfort also goes with the classics. So. It's going to be an apple and almond crumble, redolent with cinnamon and cloves. And it will be a dark chocolate pudding, bubbling with muscovado sugar. And a homemade custard, using vanilla pods that drive me nuts because contrary to the ease that chefs like Gordon Ramsay seem to display when scraping the seeds out, it takes me ages and they stick to my fingers or fall on the floor. Nightmare. But I will do it anyway because it makes me feel really smug when I serve the custard. And all this will be made on the day, not the day before, because the smell of these puddings is as evocative of comfort as the eating of them. In fact eating them without the memorable experience of walking into a kitchen rich with the aroma of baking puddings is only half the experience. And after we have eaten these puddings (after my main course of fried homemade fishfingers made of halibut and coated in matza meal, with homemade sourdough bread) we will climb into our wellies, and pitch out into the freezing cold, with invisible glows all around us, like those Ready Brek advertisements. Because that is what puddings do to you in Winter. They make you feel really warm, and really loved, and ready for just about anything. Even a commute on the Northern line with a carriagefull of smelly strangers.

Christmas Day for non Christmassers

I have my family coming over on Christmas Day. This is not supposed to be the same thing as Coming Over For Christmas. Granted, my niece and nephew, who I love dearly, are coming, and we haven't seen them for yonks as they are both at university doing what older nieces and nephews do, and I am so honoured by their prospective presence - after all, I would have understood totally if they had planned to spend their Xmas break dressed in togas pogo-ing to Jason Derullo while swigging tequila out of fetid beer glasses (I may REALLY be showing my age here). And I have put together some pretty awesome party games, including my most epic pass the parcel EVER, and do not pretend for a moment that the best pass the parcel does not take hours of skill in choosing the right prizes, identifying the best forfeits, wrapping it so that things don't fall out of the sides or the paper doesn't tear too soon. And I have bought three different kinds of Christmas crackers, including ones which have Cluedo figures inside them so that you can play the game. But it still isn't coming over for Christmas. We don't do Christmas. We don't have turkey, we have bagels and smoked salmon, though on this occasion I am leafing through Yotam Ottolenghi's Jerusalem cookery book to see how to spice up my non Christmas Day dinner with some Middle Eastern spice just to underline how Not Christmas this is (arguably I am risking turning my lunch into a more authentic Christmas than most turkey guzzling Christians will be - Bethlehem and all that - I'll bet that barn STANK of za'atar).  There won't be gifts, though of course one of the epic features of my Pass The Parcel is that there will be something in there for everyone - nothing expensive mind, just deconstructed swiss army knives, real sized chocolate cameras, hilarious strawberry chocolate false teeth etc...) We will not be watching the Queen's Speech as instead we are going to play table tennis and bounce on my trampoline, waving sparklers, though of course we will end up watching the Queen's Speech later as the BBC will make damn sure it's on every news channel for hours after it is broadcast.  And it will be much less stressful than the usual Christmas day lunch because I won't have started prepping for it 3 months ago with my carefully stored brandy soaked Christmas pudding, studded with raisins and old coins and bits of twigs and whatever the hell else goes into a Christmas pudding. No, I will be throwing together my chocolate krantzcakes which require prepping a full 24 hours beforehand so the dough can rise overnight, and then I will make peanut butter squares, Nutella cheesecake, and a diabetic version for my Dad, and then maybe some Rocky Road....so much easier, right? Yeah. I know. I am TOTALLY kidding myself. Sigh. Apron on.

Gateau St Emilion

Really funny, this one. I have never heard of this dessert before, but I came across the recipe in the back of a magazine associated with a popular Sunday tabloid newspaper.  No mention in the recipe of the fact that this was a classic French dessert. Just a basic recipe. I give it a go. It's a sublimely light concoction of dark chocolate, cream, sugar, egg white...it sits in the fridge for hours and hours and when it is ready, you soak crushed amaretti biscuits in a teaspoonful of rum and then scatter the dampened shards over the top. The result is unbelievable. I can't understand how a creation of such finesse could find its way into the supplement of one of the scuzziest tabloid newspapers in the Northern hemisphere. When I hear Michel Roux refer to the St Emilion in the context of a discussion about fine dining I am even more suprised. But then, I have become an enormous cake snob since I upped my game on baking. I've steadily been climbing the wall of baking ambition. Just a few years ago a decent sponge cake would have been cause for celebration. Looking back at 2013 the most notable factor of my baking profile is that I haven't produced a single sponge cake all year. I've been too busy perfecting my frangipane, my tangy lemon and white chocolate tart, my sweet pastry technique. I've turned out extraordinary triple chocolate layers, raspberry poundcakes, Eastern European krantzcakes etc...well, if you've been following this blog you'll know the score. And it's not like I've been waiting for the ultimate dinner party occasion to launch these baking creations. Most have been snarfed down by my generally undiscriminating family. So, the appearance of a fabulous French classic at the back of an indifferent Sunday supplement emboldens me to serve it up at the Christmas lunch party at my house for all my work colleagues. Normally for a mass catering challenge, complicated by the amount of champagne and mulled wine that would have been imbibed by the time dessert was reached, I would aim for a mass crowd pleaser. Chocolate mousse, chocolate pudding, tiramisu. So I am taking a risk. But it's one worth going for - these are lovely people who have made me very welcome in my new job, so on the table it goes. And there are oohs and aahs and people linger over it, and it becomes the subject of office legend in a very short space of time. So there you have it. A St Emilion is for every lunch. Not just for Christmas.

Entertaining the Troops

In three days' time my entire department is coming over to my house for a Christmas lunch. There are about 35 of them, I live miles away from the office but they appear willing to trek across London for the event and so I need to make it worth their while. Actually just being able to have a glass of bubbly somewhere where you can kick your shoes off can be reason enough to trek across London for a corporate Xmas do. Let's face it. Most team Xmas lunches are dire. Overpriced, lukewarm, indifferent, canteen level meals at androgynous suit and tie bars that offer a deal which mysteriously ends up costing you fifty quid for all that crap booze you ended up quaffing just to try to anaesthetise yourself as much as possible from the experience. Going to someone's house goes a long way to pretending that it isn't a work do. It's a book club, an encounter group, a musical soiree, you just popped over for a cup of tea. It also means you can duck out without a conscience. Restaurants trap you, but if you can pretend you're popping in, you can just as easily pop out again too. Except that in my industry most people live South and I live North so if they are going to come this far to kick their shoes off, I need at least to feed them well. With cake. Lots of it. It's four days to go and I've clocked up a rack of brown sugar spelt cookies and a tray of double chocolate meringues. A damp, rich raspberry poundcake cools on the sideboard.I've popped out for lemons to create a glazed lemon tart. Two cheesecakes are on the list after that - a pumpkin cheesecake with butterscotch sauce, and a Nutella cheesecake wtih hazelnut shards.  If there's still fight left in me after that lot I'll pull off a tray of white chocolate flecked brownies. And what will the main course be? Well, I will probably poach some salmon, stuff some baked potato halvves with a mustard, cheddar and chive filling, maybe do some ricotta and tomato tartlets, a pasta dish and a salad. But let's face it, with desserts like that I could probably serve horseburgers and we'd all be happy. Number one rule for any dinner party - sort a beautiful dessert first. That way you know whatever happens, dinner will end on a high. Christmas lunch for 35 work colleagues? Same principle on a grander scale. Bring it on.

Macaroons at 2am

I was in New York this week. My first business visit there in three years - I have been sailing merrily to Brussels and back on the Eurostar ever since then, crowing to everyone I knew that I could make it to the European Commission for a day's committee meetings and still make it back to North London in time for tea.  New York, in spite of the number of flights to JFK each day, is really not the same bag. It requires planning, more than one outfit, a bigger wheelie, something comfortable to wear for the flight including Special Socks, extra food to counteract appalling aeroplane meals, and most of all, Jet Lag. It's been years and years of business travel, you think I would have conquered jet lag by now. But I haven't. I've been to South Korea on business. To Thailand. To Sri Lanka. To Washington. Every sodding journey includes weird nights consisting of 1 hour asleep, 3 hours watching a movie, 1 hour doze, 2 hours playing endless Scrabble. I meet people who tell me it's OK going East but murder coming back West. I find it all merges into a Chinese torture-like 24/7 sleep/wake/sleep/wake scenario. Kind of like a newborn baby who doesn't know day from night - sleeps all day and wails all through the dark hours. This New York visit was a really jampacked week of meetings, business dinners, speeches, conferences etc. I absolutely love New York City so it was also smattered with dashes into Bloomingdales and quirky boutiques, a late night visit to a hairdressing salon for curly haired people only, a foray into Dean and Deluca, drinks in bars with Wifi (American friends, you have NO idea how far behind your world London still is  on Wifi connection...). I stayed in an apartment in Yorkville, where three walls of the lounge had floor to ceiling windows facing the skyscraper views of 2nd Avenue and the eighties. Every night I woke up, despite all assisted means of sleeping through, at 2am. I rose, walked through to the lounge area, stared at the relentlessly urban, skyscraper view, and excavated my Dean and Deluca macaroons. I relapsed into the corporate sofa, prised open the macaroon jar, took out a scarily green coloured pistachio variety, bit into it, and stared at people still into their gym workout in the building opposite.  Bakery goods hit the spot after work, over tea, on Sundays, in a posh hotel brunch. None come close to a sweetener of night time jet lag. Hold the Nytol and the arnica. Macaroons and a view of uptown make my New York business visit complete.

Girl packs for a work trip

I have recently changed jobs, and consequently the type of business travel has also changed. In my last job it was overnight trips to Brussels. I got the packing for these trips down to a T. See, if you are a guy, your packing is a cinch, or so it would seem from the raft of suit clad men whose company I would routinely join on the Eurostar. These men would travel with only a backpack, which I am guessing, fairly accurately I imagine, contained all the papers and gadgets they needed for 24 hours, plus a pair of boxer shorts, a shirt, and a freebie mini bottle of shower gel. Maybe a deodorant. And that is it. See if you are a woman packing for a work trip isn't just a different affair, it is a different planet. It requires evening wear and boardroom wear, it needs travel wear that is smart but not frigid loooking, comfortable but not slouchy...I could go on. After a few of these trips I had it totally sorted. A cool looking wheelie bag just slightly larger than a briefcase, holding mini versions of all my make up and skincare, just enough to last one squirt of face cream or one squeeze of toothpaste, plus one jacket and two dresses, or one dress and two jackets. Easy. But the trips I have to do now are long haul and therefore more in the 3 to 4 day bracket, which change of circumstance has caused my brain to short circuit. Do I travel in comfortable clothes and then change? We are no longer in the eighties so no more business class, and we ALL know what economy class does to smart clothes. Or any clothes, frankly, Economy class is gross, exhausting and ageing, and requires a Battle Plan. What do I end up with? Smart but casual trousers with my trusty patent leather DMs which look amazingly cool with work dresses and would do for the boardroom or for the trendy dinners I reckon we will be tucking into in NYC. Stretchy dresses that scrunch up beautifully without wrinkling. One, ,just one jacket. Pair of boots. Will I only need these clothes??? No, of course not. But this is NY I am going to. When I run out, Macy's is a block away.