new food in Maryle­bone, and in my kitchen

At least my hopes are high. I have had only one vis­it to the new Nat­ur­al Kitchen in the Maryle­bone High Street, and that one accom­pa­nied (not to say ham­pered) by my 10-year-old daugh­ter whose inter­est in food shop­ping is, say, one tenth of her inter­est in book shop­ping. But I had clev­er­ly fit­ted in a book trip right before we came upon the new food shop, so I think I got the most out of her that could be got. In any case… Nat­ur­al Kitchen is the new “it” shop in Maryle­bone. And only half of it is open so far. Let me tell you more.

It takes up a huge amount of square footage in the block begin­ning at Devon­shire Street, on three floors. Sur­pris­ing­ly, I can find almost noth­ing about it on the inter­net except vague sug­ges­tions that Hugh Fearn­ley-Whit­tingstall is involved in some way, he of the Riv­er Cot­tage restau­rant fame. I’ve also read rumours that the peo­ple behind Nat­ur­al Kitchen plan an assault on the Whole Foods dom­i­na­tion of cen­tral Lon­don organ­ic food sources. The Kens­ing­ton High Street store is slat­ed to open June 6, and they’ve already tak­en over “Fresh and Wild,” but if Nat­ur­al Kitchen has its way, the dom­i­nance will be two-headed.

In any case, the place is huge­ly impres­sive as a piece of real estate, to begin with. Gor­geous ren­o­va­tion with high ceil­ings, love­ly dis­plays, very ener­getic staff. I don’t know if they had opened just the day before (a so-called “soft open­ing”?), but there was a def­i­nite feel of a work in progress. The low­er floor was not yet open and the shelves were some­what sparse­ly filled, but the bak­ery sec­tion alone is enough to make you go in. A beau­ti­ful baguette came home with us, and the bak­er was giv­ing away sam­ples of patis­serie goods that Avery said “are as good as any­thing I’ve had in Lon­don, but not as good as Paris.” Fair enough. A very appeal­ing pro­duce sec­tion, and a dairy case boast­ing many fan­cy yogurts and creams. But the butch­er counter? I thought I was beyond stick­er shock, liv­ing here, but some num­bers get me even now. Suf­fice to say I will not be pur­chas­ing any of the fil­let of beef for, get ready for it, 54 pounds a kilo! Yes, $50 a pound. For some­thing to EAT. Not in our house. I do think the prices are absolute­ly out­ra­geous and can’t imag­ine that even with friend­ly staff and a love­ly atmos­phere of clean­li­ness and cheer, the neigh­bor­hood clien­tele will be ready to sup­port them. I can see pop­ping in for, say, mint, if Wait­rose is out. Or a baguette on the way to school. But gen­er­al shop­ping, no.

That being said, they do stock all the Wind­sor Farm Shop items, from lux­u­ri­ous rose­mary and parme­san bis­cuits to spe­cial­ty oils and pas­tas, and they looked won­der­ful. And fruit and veg from Sun­ny­fields, so I chose a huge hand­ful of broad beans in the pod and end­ed up with… about a table­spoon of beans. Clear­ly I did not reck­on on the pack­ag­ing tak­ing up most of the room, in a broad bean. Next time I’ll know. And I’ll have to try the pre­pared foods (sal­ads and rel­ish­es) from taste mat­ters (don’t you love com­pa­nies that shun all cap­i­tal let­ters, like lit­tle com­mer­cial food-pur­vey­ing e.e. cum­mingses). I just went on their web­site and it is quite stun­ning­ly pre­cious about itself, in an earnest and defen­si­ble organ­ic way, not so much twee as just… tak­ing itself real­ly, real­ly seri­ous­ly. “Taste, bal­ance and sea­son­al­i­ty are cen­tral to our beliefs about what con­sti­tutes healthy con­ve­nience food.” Wow. I did­n’t know peo­ple HELD beliefs about con­ve­nience food (except that one should shun it). And in all the lit­tle cat­e­gories of the web­site the print gets small­er and small­er as you go down, like an eye exam. Why am I mock­ing these peo­ple? No good reason. 

Last night I slaved away cook­ing two items from the Gladys Taber Stillmead­ow Kitchen cook­book, as befits the girl who’s slat­ed to re-issue the cook­book at some point. Gladys’s grand­daugh­ter Anne, our beloved neigh­bor across the road in Con­necti­cut, is going to announce the re-issue project next month, which makes it fright­en­ing­ly real. I’ve got to buck­le down. The first line of inquiry is to test these recipes. Of course, rootling around in the back (and some­times front) of my mind is the com­men­tary, the his­to­ry, the sto­ries around the re-issue, but I have to con­front the fact that the recipes must be cooked. So last night was “Broiled Young Chick­en” and “Scal­loped Corn.” I present them for your delight. No con­ve­nience foods, and no real­ly strong beliefs either, but darn good food. I’m going to give you the recipes ver­ba­tim, and you can see what you think of Glady’s expo­si­tion­al style. She assumes a fair exper­tise, I have to say. I warn you that with the chick­en, the but­ter will splat­ter you, so beware. And I’m not sure what a “mod­er­ate” broil­er means: mine has only one set­ting, and it cooked fast, but in the end I think these direc­tions are fair.

Broiled Young Chick­en
(serves four gen­er­ous­ly, with great bones for stock)

Split a plump young chick­en down the back with a sharp knife. Lay it skin side up on a flat sur­face and flat­ten it out by press­ing firm­ly on it. You may cut out the back­bone if you wish. This makes it eas­i­er to han­dle at the table. Wipe dry. Brush both sides with melt­ed but­ter and sprin­kle with salt and pep­per, put skin side down in a shal­low pan and place it 4 inch­es under a mod­er­ate broil­er. After 20 min­utes turn it over and con­tin­ue to cook until well browned and ten­der, about 25 min­utes. Baste sev­er­al times with the drip­pings or with melt­ed but­ter. Pour the drip­pings over the chick­en before serving.

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Now, I have to say that the drip­pings are SIN­FUL­LY rich, brown and suc­cu­lent, and I resist­ed the temp­ta­tion actu­al­ly to pour them on the chick­en. But the skin was beyond crisp, like noth­ing I’ve ever tast­ed before. It was messy to do, and a bit smokey, but a mind-bend­ing improve­ment on a roast­ed chick­en. So there you are. With it I served:

Scal­loped Corn
(serves four gen­er­ous­ly)

Cut 2 cups of raw corn [about six ears] from the ear and add two beat­en eggs, 1/2 tea­spoon salt, and a table­spoon of diced or chopped green pep­per, or both. Place 1/2 this mix­ture in a bak­ing dish or casse­role, cov­er with bread crumbs, dot with but­ter and pour in the rest of the mix­ture. Pour on 1/2 cup top milk or thin cream, then top with bread crumbs and but­ter. Bake in a mod­er­ate oven for 30 minutes.

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There are two things that tick­le me about this recipe: one being the green pep­per sug­ges­tion (so old-fash­ioned in these days obsessed with red pep­per, espe­cial­ly roast­ed), and the ref­er­ence to “top milk.” This must be the top of the milk bot­tle (what my unre­pen­tant moth­er reports drink­ing straight from the bot­tle as a lit­tle girl), or in fact cream. I still love to buy raw milk, whole milk, from the farmer’s mar­ket and see the thick stuff at the top, unless you shake it.

So there you have it. I cer­tain­ly wel­come com­ments on these recipes, since they are the maid­en voy­age of Gladys Taber’s work on this blog. I did­n’t change a thing, and I would­n’t. There are oth­er recipes with which I could regale you in which this could hard­ly be pos­si­ble: any­thing that calls for com­bin­ing two cans of pre­pared soup, for exam­ple, or my all-time favorite, “Boiled Tongue With Raisin Sauce.” Enough said.

I’m off to din­ner with my friend Amy while Avery and her father have their favorite din­ner, “noo­dles and but­ter.” This is sec­ond only to “but­ter and noo­dles” in their lex­i­con of gourmet cook­ing. She deserves it: she just jumped her high­est jump ever (bless that barn, what greaet peo­ple), on pre­cious Amber: over two feet high. Show Jump­ing at Olympia can­not be far behind.