Italian cities, a Somerset weekend and butter beans

29 January 2023

Piet Oudolf field

Introduction

At the last minute, I went away for a night this weekend to the Talbot Inn at Mells so I haven’t cooked a recipe this week, done any food shopping or even looked at the papers much. If I had been here, I would have made roast aubergine, chickpeas and pomegranate with lemon tahini sauce by Rukmini Iyer or Rachel Roddy’s bean dip with radicchio and fried bread both from the Guardian which I might do later in the week.

Meanwhile I went to Wells, up Glastonbury Tor, along the river at Mells and ate too much good food on Saturday night and Sunday morning. We explored the church at Mells, which has 3 stars, the best rating, in ‘England’s thousand best churches’ by Simon Jenkins, visited the Present Tense exhibition at Hauser and Wirth near Bruton which I loved, and went into my favourite ever garden, there, the Oudolf Field. We bought cheese and chimichurri focaccia from Sol Bakery and café at Chicklade for a very late lunch and walked to see the Fovant Badges. It felt like we’d been away a lot longer.

I brought back slices of Wiltshire ham from Manor Farm butchers which I found in the Post Office at Fovant and nduja made by Somerset charcuterie from Wells market. Note, no jars of honey or bottles of fruity ketchups as we have too many of those already. I am away next week so no edition next Monday.

Recipes

I detect a butter bean theme this week. There are quick midweek recipes for two by Hannah Evans in the Times with eminently practical recipes including cod with olives and tomato and fennel sauce and squash and butter bean stew.

Butter beans and greens with tomato and cashew pesto by Meera Sodha in the Guardian and Nigel Slater’s recipe for creamed butter beans and spinach as one of the 20 best recipes to put on toast in the Observer. I liked the sound of fennel, tomato and sardine toasts by Flora Shedden and tomatoes cooked in creme fraiche with mint on toast by Joe Woodhouse

Mark Hix’s tortilla recipes to make at home in the Telegraph where he demonstrates it’s not all about guacamole and grated cheese, as he makes black badger bean tortillas with squash salsa, pork neck tortillas with green chilli sauce and crispy fish tortillas with clementine salsa recipe.

Joe  Trivelli’s recipes for farro and peas in sausage broth, red chilli bomba, cauliflower and mint rigatoni and a gluten free citrus cake made with rice flour in the Observer 

Michel Roux has a new TV series filmed on a canal boat coming up and gives recipes for truffade, a French version of cheesy chips, a cheese and ham pie and pear and plum crumble.  

Nigella Lawson’s ‘so wrong it’s right bread and butter pudding’ in the Times made with Hovis sliced white bread and Laughing Cow cheese 

I love Ottolenghi’s recipes dearly but his midweek ones for tofu with purple sprouting broccoli and spicy peanut oil, spaghetti with sea bass and nori butter and Thai-style deep-fried omelette with cucumber pickle would take me a lot longer than thirty minutes if I were cooking them for the first time one evening. I tend to save a new recipe of his for the weekend.

I like the sound of winter tabbouleh with celery leaves, preserved peppers and sumac by Tom Hunt in the Guardian.

Spiced coconut sweet potatoes by Honey and Co in the FT 

Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for Earl Grey cardamom buns in the Guardian.

Books

Wok for Less by Ching-He Huang in the Sunday Times

with recipes for fried rice including with prawn and edamame, Cantonese-style ham and egg; and roast chicken. And how to get your rice ready for frying 

Small Pleasures: Joyful Recipes For Difficult Times by Ryan Riley in the Independent

with ‘restorative’ recipes for cauliflower and potato coconut curry, Thai basil and coconut chicken stew and sweet -and-sour apple crumble with sweet basil cream

Chocolate All Day by Kirsten Tibballs in the Telegraph

with recipes for crunchy chocolate and peanut butter bark, glazed marble loaf cake, a chocolate and banana sourdough toastie and steamed chocolate pudding with hot fudge sauce 

Restaurants

The Top 50 Gastropubs as announced by Estrella.

In the FT, Tim Hayward went to Cafe Kitty, in  Soho, London W1  which he found ‘theatrical in all senses.’ 

In the Guardian, Grace Dent was at Sune, a wine bar in Hackney E2 and thought there was ‘some amazing destination cooking going on… but since the menu changes constantly, it feels very much like a restaurant to which you’d return if only out of curiosity. Sune is warmly staffed, determined and still finding its feet, menu-wise in the most public of ways. 

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa was also at Sune and thought it worked ‘because it is built upon diligence, enlivening novelty and the sort of vivid flavours that make you want to howl in delight. What you experience here, really, is the team’s good taste, judgment and fun-seeking spirit.’

In the Observer, Jay Rayner went to Bali Satay House  in New Barnet, liked it but wrote ‘this trip, to the very northern tip of the Northern line and then a 10-minute walk down a dark suburban trunk road, feels more intrepid than most.’

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell was at Tipo in Edinburgh and thought it was ‘great-value lunchtime heaven’. He made me smile by writing, ‘how many times do we diners have to suffer those words, ‘Can I explain the concept?’ as we take our seats, when we’re all just thinking: well, we look at the menu, we order food, you bring the food, we eat, we pay, we leave.’

In the Times, Giles Coren raved about Rayuela, a Spanish restaurant on Ealing Broadway, London W5 which was also a long way for him to go but he liked it a lot when he got there.

Travel

UK

10 of the best UK country pubs for a winter weekend in the Guardian including the Bath Arms in Wiltshire, a sister pub of the Talbot Inn mentioned above, and Tarr Farm Inn in Exmoor. I like the sound of the Creggans Inn in Argyll although maybe for more than a weekend from where I live in London.

Manchester in the Telegraph 

Selkirk in the Telegraph and St Andrews, both for Scottish winter breaks in the Independent.

Six stately homes to visit in Northamptonshire in the Telegraph after the success of the film Saltburn including Rockingham Castle and Deene Park which are open for snowdrops in February. I do love a snowdrop visit somewhere and in the past I have been to Welford Park in Berkshire where they film Bake Off, Colesbourne Park in Gloucestershire and Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire. This year I am going to Thenford Arboretum and Garden, owned by Michael and Anne Hesletine but I think tickets have almost sold out. I’ve been there in the Autumn and it was stunning.

Snowdrops and aconites at Stowe

Europe

The Guardian advises how you can save money by staying in Chantilly when visiting Paris and readers also pick their dream meals across Europe.

An eight city guide to this year’s Six Nations tournament taking place in France this year’s Times including : Marseilles, Lille and Lyons in the Sunday Times. The timetable could act as an alert as to when to avoid going to any of these places for a weekend break if you are not a rugby fan.

In the Times, Dominic Lawson visited Emilia-Romagna, fitting in Modena, Bologna and Maranello where he was a guest of the tourist board in a five star hotel in Bologna. He marvelled at the value of ‘some toast with a medley of pickled vegetables, chickpea puree with parmesan, a mortadella mousse and a glass of wine for about £5 at Trattoria Pomposa in Bologna’ which is more my level. They also had Venice in winter, especially exploring artisan workshops.

Why Riga and Vilnius are the perfect city-break pair as a new rail route links the two Baltic hubs in the Telegraph 

Reading the papers

People ask me how I read all the papers. I believe in paying for quality journalism and my husband and I have digital subscriptions to the Times and to the Telegraph. Sometimes my husband buys a Times on Saturdays or I buy a Guardian and I buy the Observer when it’s Observer Food Monthly. Otherwise I rely on what’s online, and on Twitter and Instagram. And occasionally, I ask a friend to save an article for me.

The Times gives you two free articles a week as a registered user and the Telegraph gives you access to one free article each week if you register an account. The FT gives a certain number of free articles

Local public libraries often have Pressreader which gives access to over 7,000 newspapers world wide for free or you can subscribe to it.

Sometimes, I use the recipes for inspiration. If they are from a cookbook, they may be in other publications as well for publicity, and you may find them or a similar version through a quick Google.