how much can one girl eat?

I have a con­fes­sion to make: I am not real­ly all that enthu­si­as­tic about vegetables.

I blame my child­hood in which — with the excep­tion of home­grown toma­toes and corn on the cob in August — every veg­etable that graced our table did so via a can or jar.  Canned corn, canned green beans, canned spinach, pick­led, crin­kle-cut beets.  Night after night.

So my expe­ri­ences with actu­al fresh, raw, col­or­ful things came late and maybe a bit too late for me to be a total con­vert.  It’s always a bit of a chal­lenge for me to gussy up veg­eta­bles so I actu­al­ly love them: zuc­chi­ni gets stuffed, car­rots get caramelized, broc­coli gets sauteed with gar­lic and olive oil.  My absolute hands-down favorite way to con­sume veg­eta­bles is sim­mered and hand-blend­ed into a soup: mush­rooms, red pep­pers, cele­ri­ac, spinach all receive this treat­ment and then go down happily.

The excep­tion to this rather tor­tur­ous method of dis­pens­ing veg­eta­bles is roast­ing.  John espe­cial­ly and Avery and I too love almost any­thing driz­zled with olive oil and sub­ject­ed to a hot oven.  Beets are a rev­e­la­tion pre­pared this way, hav­ing been wrapped in heavy foil first, where they can sit qui­et­ly and steam out of their skins, once roast­ed.  A sprin­kle of bal­sam­ic vine­gar and a snip­ping of pars­ley or chives, and you’re all set.

So I was espe­cial­ly pleased last night to dis­cov­er some­thing tru­ly sub­lime that can come out of roast­ing a veg­etable.  I give you:

But­ter­nut Squash Puree

(serves 4)

1 large but­ter­nut squash

driz­zle olive oil

1 tbsp butter

fresh black pepper

sea salt

3 tbsps half-fat creme fraiche or sour cream

1 tbsp light cream

1/4 cup milk

grat­ed nut­meg to taste

chili pow­der to taste

Line a bak­ing dish with foil.  Cut the but­ter­nut squash in half length­wise (do this very care­ful­ly as the squash will rock and roll as you split it with the knife).  Scoop out the seeds from each half and dis­card.  Sprin­kle with olive oil, divide the but­ter between the halves and place in the seed hol­low, and sea­son.  Roast at 425F/220C for about an hour or until com­plete­ly soft and browned.

Scoop the soft­ened flesh from the skin and place in a large bowl.  Add all the rest of the ingre­di­ents and blend with a hand blender.  The mix­ture will not move because of its thick­ness, so sim­ply move the blender around until all the squash is pureed.  Mix well with a spat­u­la.  This puree is love­ly eat­en hot, warm or cold.

This dish ris­es above its hum­ble ingre­di­ents with its creamy per­fec­tion, its rich­ness bely­ing the small amount of dairy.  Autumn has arrived, when you eat it.

I’m amazed that I was even able to sum­mon the appetite to cre­ate and eat this dish because I’ve been awful­ly busy con­sum­ing oth­er cooks’ efforts lately.

First up this week was our Mon­day lunch at Gor­don Ram­say’s Maze restau­rant in Grosvenor Square.  It was the 30th anniver­sary of our first date, an occa­sion we felt war­rant­ed a lit­tle splurge.  Four tiny cours­es apiece: from duck foie gras ter­rine with almonds and cher­ry jam, to pork bel­ly with razor clams, beet­root-soused mack­er­el with horse­rad­ish pota­to sal­ad — tiny bites! — and my per­son­al favorite, water­cress soup with lemon yoghurt and a dol­lop of smoked salmon tidbits.

I think this is the most attrac­tive way I have seen of pre­sent­ing soup (always a chal­lenge for Avery to pho­to­graph).  The pil­low of smoked salmon was placed along­side the quenelle of yogurt, then the soup itself was poured around them from a lit­tle tureen.  How clever, and it stops that mud­dy­ing that occurs when every­thing is mixed together.

We had bare­ly recov­ered from this gor­geous expe­ri­ence but it was time for my long-antic­i­pat­ed lunch with my beau­ti­ful friend Dalia.  “Let’s go to The Depot,” she had sug­gest­ed.  “It’s just around the cor­ner from your new house.”  And indeed it is!  I arrived ear­ly and sat in the late-sum­mer sun, feel­ing lux­u­ri­ous, a “lady who lunches.”

I was too blown away by the deli­cious­ness of the food even to take a pho­to!  But I will go back.  Our chat­ter was absolute­ly silenced by the stun­ning yel­low­tail sashi­mi with an unbe­liev­ably savory gin­ger and soy dress­ing.  The best tuna I have had EVER, includ­ing Nobu.  Here’s the restau­ran­t’s offi­cial image of this divine plate of food.

I can’t wait to go back.  This was fol­lowed by very high-qual­i­ty plaice gou­jons (fish fin­gers, to my friends on the oth­er side of the pond) and home­made tartare sauce, and per­fect skin­ny fries.  Ooh, I want to go back right now, and get a place at the win­dow.  This has to be booked two weeks in advance, as the riv­er views are sim­ply to die for.

I thought I would nev­er eat again, but of course Sat­ur­day, I was starv­ing again.  It was hard to feel I deserved any­thing, after pos­si­bly the most dis­as­trous bell-ring­ing prac­tice in the his­to­ry of the endeav­our.  I sim­ply could not do any­thing right.  The lat­est chal­lenge is “call­ing back into rounds,” which means the teacher (fiendish­ly tal­ent­ed Mark, in this case) mix­es our order up into a total mys­tery, “Two to three, four to five, six to sev­en, two to five,” and so on (hard enough for me to OBEY, much less keep track of), and then he turns to me and with a twin­kle in his eye says, “Right, Kris­ten, bring us back into rounds.”  I know this sounds non­sen­si­cal to 99% of my read­ers, but trust me, it’s impos­si­ble to do.

For me, at least.

The most mad­den­ing thing I have ever tried to do.  I could lit­er­al­ly feel a dis­con­nect in my brain, which sounds odd, I know, but if you’ve ever had the expe­ri­ence of being told to do some­thing and find that you sim­ply do not have the men­tal equip­ment, you know where I was yes­ter­day.  I want­ed to cry.  The tow­er, scene of so many hap­py times, became a bit of a nightmare.

At last it was noon, and I fled.  To food!

My friend Elspeth met me for the Barnes Food Fair, a tru­ly deca­dent event on the Green for which you should mark your diaries for next Sep­tem­ber.  After a won­der­ful, author­i­ta­tive talk and demon­stra­tion of pas­ta by Angela Har­nett (which left me feel­ing I knew pre­cise­ly NOTH­ING about cook­ing), we wan­dered out­side to find some­thing to eat.  A wide cir­cle of pre­pared food stalls offered every­thing from jerk chick­en to tagines, gourmet pop­corn to pulled pork, spe­cial­i­ty sausages to pael­la and cur­ries.  We went for the jerk chick­en, heady with a corian­der sauce that sent me back more than once for an extra dribble.

We wan­dered, munch­ing hap­pi­ly and dis­cussing every­thing under the sun from our chil­dren to Lost Prop­er­ty.  We suc­cumbed to a deli­cious and refresh­ing iced cof­fee at Frap­pat­tak, served by pos­si­bly the most charm­ing cof­fee pur­vey­or ever known.

Then it was onto the fresh shell­fish stall, where I want­ed to buy all the lob­sters (an exor­bi­tant £20 each!), but com­pro­mised on a pile of lus­cious steamed lan­goustines.  Every­thing looked extrav­a­gant­ly fresh and luxurious.

Then it was into the tent (which I remem­ber being unbear­ably swel­ter­ing two years ago, but was love­ly and cool yes­ter­day), where I was quite unable to resist Dorset-smoked chori­zo, a soft, smelly cheese from Bath, some cheek-puck­er­ing lemon­ade, Fever Tree gin­ger beer, a jar of pork ril­lettes and a bag of tiny far­falle from the soon-to-open Duck Pond Deli in the vil­lage.  I can’t wait for them to open their doors!

I bought brown­ies and cup­cakes for Avery, and a brace of sausage rolls from Gail’s, also soon to open in the Barnes High Street.

What a food­ie vil­lage we are, to be sure.  Gail’s embod­ies every­thing I feel about bread: I won’t waste the calo­ries and gluten on any­thing but the absolute best, and their pota­to rose­mary  loaf is to die for.

Final­ly we stag­gered out, full of sam­ples, lug­ging heavy jute bags full of loot.

I thought, again, that I would nev­er ever want anoth­er bite to eat, but some­thing tells me that the Gress­ing­ham duck, slow-roast­ing in my oven right now, and a casse­role of pota­toes Dauphi­noise, will be very wel­come in a few hours.  I just need to think of a vegetable.