more Taste, and the theatre!

I sim­ply have to kvell a lit­tle more about the Taste of Lon­don, which was such fun. Of course being crazy busy the last week or so, I did not do my blog­ger duty and post about it in time for you all to do it too, how­ev­er… There’s always next year, plus I came away with some incred­i­bly deli­cious things to eat that you can order online, and I think you should.

Far and away in first place was a chick­en liv­er pate with chilli and lemon­grass, from The Patch­work Tra­di­tion­al Food Com­pa­ny, although this flavour was high­ly un-tra­di­tion­al, I’d have to say. Quite spicy and with a beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed top of lit­tle pep­pers and what I sup­pose to be lemon grass leaves, fine­ly chopped? I have nev­er seen a stalk of lemon grass with leaves, only the long bam­boo-like sticks, and I’m com­plete­ly flum­moxed as to how they got the flavour into the pate. It was dis­tinct­ly lemon­grass, not lemon, and very fresh, with a smooth tex­ture that made it per­fect to spread on a nice pic­nic sand­wich. But even nicer would be to unmould it onto a plat­ter with lit­tle bis­cuits. There were oth­er flavours as well (a Stil­ton stood out), so sam­ple every­thing, I’d say. The pate comes frozen so it will stay good near­ly as long as you want it to, and you can keep it for sev­er­al days in your fridge after it thaws, as well. Sim­ply divine, and if you don’t do piquante, you could try one of the milder vari­eties, plus they’re devot­ed to a veg­e­tar­i­an range as well.

Then I bought some rhubarb yogurt from Rachel’s Organ­ic (they sup­ply all the milk for Pret a Manger, I know, and as much as I object to the whole big cor­po­ra­tion food thingy, Pret is always deli­cious when you’re in a hur­ry to get to writ­ing class and sim­ply have to have a cup of miso soup because it’s rain­ing and 60 degrees at the #@*&^ end of June). Tart, fresh, so tasty, plus I came away with creme fraiche, but­ter and a cher­ry yogurt that was com­plete­ly deli­cious and very high­ly flavoured. So much cher­ry-ish foods taste like can­dy, but this tast­ed like the real fruit. Then, because I looked at my watch and not­ed that it was hap­py hour in France, I sam­pled some lus­cious Pol­ish vod­ka with a real­ly clean, flow­ery edge, called Ulu­v­ka. The bot­tles (I’m a suck­er for pack­ag­ing as you know) has a love­ly curvy neck that makes it very nice look­ing in your freez­er when you’re search­ing for bread­crumbs. Do keep it frozen and serve it in a glass you’ve stored in your freez­er. Plus you’ve got to love a vod­ka mak­er that invites you to sign its guest book on its web­site. Why on earth?

Then because my friend Jill is always going on about spelt (I always want to pro­nounce it “shpelt,” I won­der why? the word is remind­ing me of some­thing else), I mean­dered over to a table called “rude health organ­ic foods,” feel­ing the name should be reward­ed by a vis­it. Also, I like to sup­port a grain that has its own web­site. Can I just say that it was com­plete­ly, but com­plete­ly taste­less. I’m sor­ry, spelt! You do not rock. I can see that my prob­lem is, as the very earnest lady behind the table assured me, I am accus­tomed to food loaded with (even if the very best) salt. Or sug­ar, if it comes to peo­ple with a sweet tooth. But I have to jump in and say that there are many foods that taste good (heck, that taste like at least some­thing) with noth­ing added, like cucum­bers, toma­toes, milk, mel­on, lots of things. Maybe I just don’t eat a lot of grains with noth­ing added, so I should car­ry on about the poor spelt. And if I could­n’t tol­er­ate wheat, per­haps I would be very grate­ful for spelt. Right now I’m inclined to say that I can’t tol­er­ate food that has to have things added to it to taste good. But I can see that drenched in Rachel’s Organ­ic rhubarb yogurt it would be all right. I did feel good meet­ing Ruth, my first agron­o­mist, and boy that’s a seri­ous pro­fes­sion. But then being put in a white apron and placed behind a table forced to extol the virtues of spelt could put a seri­ous cast on almost anyone.

Let’s see, I felt that I need­ed a lit­tle glut­tony and free liv­ing after that, so I head­ed over to the booth manned by the Scot­t’s restau­rant peo­ple to have some oys­ters on the half-shell. I have always longed to go to Scot­t’s, and it’s prac­ti­cal­ly in my back­yard, but then when I see pic­tures in Hel­lo! mag­a­zine of Jem­ma Gold­smith and Hugh Grant com­ing out, I real­ize I am bet­ter off sam­pling their wares stand­ing up at a plas­tic table in the rain. And Mark Hix was there, win­ner of this year’s “Great British Menu,” so I shook his hand and said how much fun we had watch­ing the pro­gramme, and he was very gra­cious. And the oys­ters were sub­lime, plus I had to applaud the atti­tude of the chap open­ing them and serv­ing them. “I have only 6 crowns left to spend, and your oys­ters cost 8. How many oys­ters could you give me for six?” And he said grand­ly, “Dar­ling, you help your­self!” So I got three dif­fer­ent types of oys­ters amply sprin­kled with Tabas­co, lemon and shal­lots in vine­gar, yum yum. You know me and oys­ters, and it only made me want to spend my life’s sav­ings at the restau­rant even more.

In my yo-yo act between glut­tony and ascetism, I stopped and had a sam­ple of per­fect­ly good sweet pota­to and mush­room casse­role at a stand with the rather unfe­lic­i­tous moniker “The Intol­er­a­ble Food Com­pa­ny,” where they make ready-to-eat foods for peo­ple who… can’t tol­er­ate food. Gluten-free, dairy-free, no addi­tives or preser­v­a­tives. Would you believe that Avery has a lit­tle friend who is severe­ly aller­gic to sul­phur diox­ide? I can­not imag­ine the mater­nal devo­tion it would take for me to deter­mine that what was giv­ing my child a rash was… dried apri­cots. But there you have it. So if you, or some­one you know, is in this unfor­tu­nate posi­tion of hav­ing ingre­di­ents dis­agree with you, now you have a resource.

By this time I was ready to be rolled home (actu­al­ly it was a bless­ing I was so stuffed because we had the world’s worst din­ner out on the way to the the­atre). I stopped to reg­is­ter for a free din­ner at the new Galvin at Win­dows restau­rant in Park Lane, with reput­ed 180-degree views over Lon­don. The menu does look unbe­liev­ably tempt­ing, with bal­lo­tine of foie gras, chick­en, cele­ri­ac and truf­fle may­on­naise just for one starter. Maybe my ship will come in.

I trudge to Beck­y’s house a mere few blocks away, bur­dened with my pur­chas­es, and John picked me up to run out to the Old Vic to see “Gaslight,” which was love­ly. We had bought a tick­et for Avery but she, child that she is, opt­ed for a sleep­over with a friend mov­ing back short­ly to New York (the cal­lous crea­ture). Rosamund Pike was sim­ply gor­geous, and it’s a nice take on a clas­sic with the won­der­ful Ken­neth Cran­ham was was so evil in “Lay­er Cake.”

Then Sat­ur­day it was onto a com­plete­ly thrilling after­noon at the Roy­al Court The­atre Open House for a pan­el dis­cus­sion called “Do You Remem­ber Your First Time?”, bring­ing togeth­er actors, writ­ers and direc­tors to talk about their first expe­ri­ences at “The Court,” as they call it. I was spell­bound, com­plete­ly fas­ci­nat­ed, at my first in-per­son glimpse of two actors I adore, Lennie James and Lind­say Dun­can, live, talk­ing about the job they love so much. And although they, and all peo­ple in the the­atre appar­ent­ly, are a bit deri­sive about tele­vi­sion, I had to thank them for their fab­u­lous work in great British dra­ma series that I have enjoyed so much. It’s a sort of six-degrees game I play with my dra­ma friends: Lennie James was in “The State With­in” with Eva Birthis­tle, who was in “Mid­dle­town” with Matthew Mac­fadyen, who was in “Per­fect Strangers” with Lind­say Dun­can. Oh, well, it amus­es me, any­way. My friend 6point7 and I had a mar­velous time, and even more so that evening at the cur­rent play at “The Court,” “The Pain and the Itch” star­ring my dear crush Matthew. It’s a great social satire about an Amer­i­can fam­i­ly (although the word has to apply pret­ty loose­ly) at Thanks­giv­ing din­ner, faffing on about lib­er­al val­ues and child-rear­ing, sib­ling hatred and phoney social val­ues. Def­i­nite­ly worth see­ing, and Matthew’s Amer­i­can accent, while verg­ing ever so slight­ly toward the mid­west rather than Brook­lyn Heights where the action is mean to be set, is still con­vinc­ing. Go see it, do.

And now I must be off to meet my gor­geous friend Dalia before tak­ing Avery skat­ing this after­noon. John and I have reck­oned that there is some­thing spe­cial going on every day between now and when we go back to the States for the sum­mer next week. Yikes. I know I will for­get… something.