Portugal, picnics and chilled soups

June 26 2023

Pesto and tomato tarts with cheese pastry

Introduction

I’ve been eating my friends’ food this week and due to the heat, only eating salad at home. Diana Henry’s tagliata from A Change of Appetite with Parmesan and rocket and watercress and a dressing over the beef made from lemon, rosemary and garlic infused olive oil. So good for a hot humid night. And caponata at another friend’s house which made me think I would make it myself this week. I roused myself to make pesto and tomato tarts with Parmesan pastry for a friend’s fundraising party for Bridge of Hope, a small charity sponsoring the education of children and adults in developing countries. All the money raised goes straight to the projects.

Travel

UK

The Telegraph says that Pett Level in Sussex is the new Jurassic coast and I sent this hyperbolic article to my friend J, who replied,

‘having been born and brought up there I am a bit bemused ….Poor journalism – Winchelsea is well-heeled – but isn’t seaside, Winchelsea Beach is seaside, but certainly isn’t well-heeled! Rye hasn’t been a harbour town since about the C14th and Beachy Head is in the other direction. For “soft clay” – read horrid grey mud (in patches) and Pett itself has two good pubs for food. As to the Cove in Fairlight, supposedly very good – if a bit chi-chi/aimed at Down From Londons.’

I went with her to the Two Sawyers where they serve local fish and I remember the delicious Sussex Smokie I ate. I checked on Googlemaps and Beachy Head is 1hour 6min and 29 miles from Pett Level, hardly the`same area at all

In the Times, the best hotels, new restaurants and things to do in Cornwall.

Europe

 The Times advises on where to see Gustav Klimt’s most significant works as well as the Kiss, Upper Belvedere, Vienna.

The Guardian has a two centre action packed holiday on France’s southern Atlantic coast, surfing in Hossegor and then and then in the Pyrenees near Lourdes at Luz-Saint-Sauveur where they walk the Cirque de Gavarnie. 

Also in the Guardian going from Venice to Mantua: by bike and boat along the Po valley. You can go along the Rhone in France like this from Avignon To Aigues-Mortes.

The Guardian also majors on Portugal with readers’ favourites where the comments are good, six great adventures without the crowds, including dark skies in Alentejo, the hills of the Peneda-Gerês national park and the Serra da Estrela national park. Finally a rewilding project in northern Portugal’s Côa valley. The Telegraph adds to this with an article on the Algarve as the real home of peri peri chicken and not Nandos or Caso do Frango in London.

All the papers reported the French Tourist Office’s attempts to encourage visitors to go to other areas rather than the touristed honeypots cited as Mont-Saint-Michel, ,the Gorges de l’Ardèche, the Loire valley and the Calanques National Park near Marseilles.

Instead the Times suggests swapping Mont Blanc for Grande Casse, Vanoise National Park, Mont Blanc for Grande Casse, Vanoise National Park, cycling the Loire for Via Allier, a Loire tributary, the Gorges de l’Ardèche for the Eyrieux valley and Saint-Malo for Roscoff. They mention a seafood restaurant, in Roscoff, Chez Janie, the favourite of another friend of mine, Judith Magee, who has a house nearby and should know these things. She writes a monthly Substack, Scrumptious Seasons.

The top Greek islands are in the Telegraph, Kefalonia is no 1, Crete no 2 and Samos, no 3. Corfu is no 9. Paxos, my brother’s favourite isn’t even in the top 20. Are these lists pointless? They all look nice to me but as a commenter says, ‘isn't it fortunate that all of these "top 20" are easily accessible from major tour operators with affiliate links?’ 

I don’t think I’ll include them in future.

Best things to do in Milan in the Independent.

Restaurants 

In the FT, Tim Hayward went to Kapara, an Israeli restaurant in Soho by chef Eran Tibi, which he said ‘was a fever dream.’

In the Guardian, Grace Dent was at Lasdun, part of the National Theatre on the South Bank for ‘careful, ornate, modern British cooking’ and now ‘would not eat anywhere else on the South Bank.’

In the Observer, Jay Rayner thought North Africa and Yorkshire come together in Los Moros, York. He said, ‘ it  was recommended to me by a whole bunch of readers. The readers have good taste.’

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa visited Hoko, a Cantonese cafe in Brick Lane, London, ‘an all-new, affordable institution, built upon principles of soulfulness, succour and the timeless appeal of something sweet.’

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell was in Hackney E8 at Edit, a plant based restaurant and made me laugh with his description of the ‘cheese,’ ‘three slices of grey and white paste. Insulate your house with this ‘cheese’, but for God’s sake don’t eat it.’ But he does say, ‘apply a judicious edit of Edit and you will find some thoroughly good food.’

In the Times, Giles Coren was on his holidays in the Isles of Scilly, and had big travel travails getting there. He concluded, ‘beautiful place, lovely people, excellent food. Never go there.’ He ate at the Beach, the Ruin Beach Café on Tresco and Adam’s Fish and Chips.

Recipes

I’ll start with summer puddings again with Anna Higham in the Guardian with gooseberry and elderflower clafoutis and cherry and apricot Brown Betty. I did make the clafoutis but my husband said he preferred a crumble so I won’t be doing that again. At least, he’s honest.

Creamy things with elderflower creams with poached nectarines by Honey & Co in the FT and Ravneet Gill’s recipe for almond panna cotta with strawberries in the Guardian.

It’s the time for chilled soup with five easy recipes in the Times including José Pizarro’s strawberry gazpacho, Michel Roux’s chilled vichyssoise, Ajo blanco and pea and mint. Nigel Slater also has a chilled cucumber and pea soup in the Guardian as well as a sherbet lemon mousse cake which is practically the same as his column from April 2016 with a lemon cream-cheese mousse cake here and his chilled cucumber soup. I only remember because my mother used to make a similar lemon cheesecake which was my favourite ever dessert of hers.

The Telegraph tells us how to plan the perfect picnic, whatever your budget with recipes from Xanthe Clay including Niçoise salad with tonnato dressing, whipped feta with red peppers and charred toasts and Mark Hix has recipes for an easy afternoon tea. focaccia open sandwiches with broccoli and pecorino, fennel scones with hot smoked trout and horseradish and cannoli. Just a note, if you invite me round, with my long lived dislike of brassicas, don’t give me broccoli on a sandwich. Wtf?

Charlie Hibbert is the chef director of the Ox Barn at Thyme and the Swan at Southrop in the Cotswolds and has also written about outdoor food, an alfresco feast as he calls it, in the Sunday Times with recipes for tomato tart, courgette, almond and mint salad, spiced chicken thighs with roasted garlic mayo, and Waldorf salad which he thinks has had a bad wrap.

Diana Henry has recipes from the Amalfi coast, paccheri pasta with tomato sauce and ricotta, gratin of squid with lemon crumbs  and lemon sorbet in iced lemons.

Tomos Parry of Michelin-starred Brat in London mixes Welsh and Spanish influences at his new restaurant, Mountain with recipes in the Times including chorizo with orange and cider and stuffed squid with chickpeas.

In the Guardian as well, Ottolenghi does summer tomato recipes, Rosie Style does oven-baked tomato rice with butter beans, olives and feta, rice pancakes with stir-fried vegetables and peanut sauce and Thomasina Miers does a four-cheese greens lasagne which doesn't include any brassicas. Thank goodness for that

Books 

Spice Kitchen by Sanjay Aggarwal

An interview here with the author who talks about his business, Spice Kitchen, working with his mum, the global flavours of his hometown Birmingham and the meaning of authenticity in the kitchen and recipes for a quick butter chicken , Eton mess with strawberries and black pepper and a quick tomato and onion tart .

Gooseberry clafoutis