The Green

As a lunchtime treat to say goodbye to a work colleague we all went to The Green in Clerkenwell. Just around the corner from work is this bright dining room with a pub atmosphere, the food is a bit pricey for just a lunch so is therefore used for special occasions.

The menu changes daily but you can always guarantee fish and chips with the chips wrapped up in the previous days menu, a roast meat, salad and a fish dish plus some other mains. Today I went for the roast chicken with corn and homemade coleslaw (and though how much Em would like this bit especially as I was tucking in!), served on a wooden board is looked the right side of rustic. It was delicious especially washed down with a rhubarb flavoured gin and tonic.

I love it here and the food is brilliant, just wish I could go more often but spying the bar menu with 5 tasty tapas for just £10 I might have to make it a more regular thing.

Whoopieeeeee

A few weeks ago I thought I should try out one of my birthday pressies, The Whoopie Pie Book and whoopie pie tin, both are available to buy on Amazon.

The recipe book devoted to Whoopie pies is a feast for any cake-loving-designers eyes - pretty pastel colours, bold typography, mouthwatering imagery and easy to follow recipes, plus a glowing recommendation from Jamie Oliver on the front.

For those of you who have not tried a whoopie, even though they are difficult to avoid as they are the latest baking craze to rival even the cupcake's crown, they are like a cupcake sandwich - two discs of sponge with a filling of buttercream.

I thought I would start with a basic recipe for a kids style tea party for my friend Claire who was going on maternity leave and fill them with alternating blue and pink icing as we don't know if the baby was to be a boy or girl. I was always a little bit sceptical about the Whoopie as can it be a good as a cupcake? But judging by how quickly these cakes moved and the compliments I would have to say yes.

Vanilla Sponge Whoopies

Makes 12 Whoopies

Ingredients:

280g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

150g unsalted butter

125g sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

100ml whole milk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180°C/gas 4

• In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda. Stir in the salt and set aside.

• In a separate bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and egg yolk and mix well. Add the milk and vanilla to the butter mixture. Slowly add the dry ingredients mixing until just incorporated. Chill for 30 mins.

• Grease your whoopie tin and drop the batter into the dips in the tin (you can also make mini ones by lining a tray with baking paper and drop small scoops 5cm apart). Bake in the middle of the oven for 10-12 mins (8-10 for mini whoopies), until the cakes are left with a slight impression when touched with a finger.

• Remove from oven and place on a while rack to cool.

• When cool, make your buttercream to your desired recipe (adding a few drops of food colouring, separate the buttercream into different bowls first if you want more than one colour).

• To assemble spread or pipe generous amounts of the buttercream onto the flat surface of a cooled whoopie and top with another whoopie.

This is one of the simpler recipes from the book but it contains great ideas for more adventurous flavours and fillings I cant wait to try such as Salty Caramel Whoopie with Caramel Swiss Buttercream, Rose-Pistachio Whoopie with Kirsch Buttercream and Rose Water Icing or Rhubard and Custard Whoopie drizzled with vanilla custard and Roasted Rhubarb!

Packaging Pick of the Week

I am sucker for some lovely food packaging whether it is beautifully crafted, slick and minimal or just grabs my attention on the shelf by shouting "Buy me I look sooo nice". This weeks packaging find is actually my favourite type and the one I am most likely to buy even if I do not need it!

The Deli Garage range of packaging combines the beautifully crafted with the quirky whilst still being relatively subtle and then to top it off they have a unique product offering. The boutique German company considers themselves a food cooperative, they source ingredients around Germany and then give them a contempoary twist and package them in some very distinctive wrappings.

Take the vodka, from one of Germany's smallest distillery it comes in four unique flavours - espresso, melon-mint, ginger-coriander and blackberry, each with a different illustrated monster by Heiko Windisch.


The totally edible, flavourless food coloring spray named Food Finish will add a bit of bling to any recipe!


By far the cutest and the one that appeals to the inner child in me is the Chocolate Glue, a chocolate sauce with hazelnuts with googley eyes on the pack.


The Deli Garage has been around for a few years and won various awards for their packaging already.

Recycle... or we will make you cry

I know this may not be considered a foodyfaces thing but it does involve milk (a source of vital nutrients as most things on this blog are!) and something I feel passionate about - recycling! A very cute promotional video of two star crossed lovers in the form of milk cartons.

A Love Story… In Milk from Catsnake on Vimeo.

Look at their little faces!

Sweets from down under

We have a few great traditions where I work such putting up balloons and banners when it is someones birthdays, clapping for a ridiculously long time and the less embarrassing bringing in authentic sweets from where you have been on holiday.

Michael returned from a month long trip to his home down under and brought us a selection of local delicacies. I thought it would be fun to rate them out of five as well as describe what they contained!

Cadburys Cherry Ripe

• Starting at the top of the image is a dark chocolate bar which surrounds a cherry and coconut filling, similar to a bounty.

• I would eat it again but would not choose it over a slab of Dairy Milk.

• 3*

Cadburys Koala

• Exactly the same as a Fredo but shaped like a koala bear and filled with caramel.

• I would choose and eat it again.

• 5*

Pineapple Chunks

• By far the most unusual out of the three, chewy pineapple pieces coated in milk chocolate. When the chocolate melts in your mouth it leaves a spongy textured piece of pineapple that tastes of the classic chewing gum hubba bubba. It is odd.

• I would eat it again but only to try and work out if i like it or not!

• 1.5*

Growing the Unusual

Back in April I blogged my excitement of getting my hands on a free  Hendricks Gin Cucumber Cultivation Kit. Since then I've been lovingly nurturing the little seeds, well most of the time, a weekend in Barcelona and a short break to London meant they had to be revived after a near death experience and after a short stay in my Dad's greenhouse they were knocked over, but apart from that it's been TLC all the way.

Anyway, I must of inherited my Dad's green-fingers as these are my Hendricks cucumber plants today. 

My Dad also planted all the other seeds (there were about 30 in the packet) and they all have grown in strong plants and have been passed to various people. I'm impressed as so often with plant based freebies they don't grow, but this was well worth the four Hendricks I had to drink in order to get my seeds!

Can't wait until I actually have cucumbers, the perfect excuse for more Hendricks G&T's :-)

Bronze League Winners Vietnamese Dinner

To celebrate our hard fought for 3rd place position in last season's netball league we decided to go for dinner to congratulate ourselves! The requirements were somewhere we can have fun, get drunk and was relative cheap and therefore BYO.

We settled on a Time Out recommended Vietnamese restaurant in Shoreditch called Mien Tay. We arrived with our booze filled bags clinking and was ushered into a dingy looking room next to the main restaurant, this place is nothing to look at but we were there for the delicious and well priced food. The place was packed out within 20 minutes and the Cava meant the atmosphere was great too.

The menu is extensive and it was difficult to decide but I know what I love from Vietnam so for starters I went for a traditional crispy pancake filled with pork, prawns and and bean sprouts. It came with a delicious sour chilli dip and a huge amount of greenery on the side including whole branches of mint. I also shared some of the best crispy spinach I have ever eaten, loads of it perfectly seasoned with a slight hint of garlic.

This was followed with Pho (a Vietnamese broth with noodles) with sliced beef which was perfectly cooked. My favourite thing about Pho is the extra ingredients on the side so you can add as much extra chilli, bean sprouts and lime as you like.

From what I can remember we had a brilliant night filled with great company and tasty grub! As you can see our netball team shooting duo Hayley (Goal Attack) and chloe (Goal Shooter) had a great time too.

I Should Cocoa

Like 99.9% of the population I love chocolate so when someone tries to convince me that my beloved Dairy Milk isn't all it's cracked up to be it's going to take more than words to make me change my mind. It's going to take chocolate, lots of free chocolate and thankfully at the More Cocoa @ In-Toto Kitchens chocolate event, words alone were not the only ammunition in the quest to convert the chocolate scoffer into the chocolate aficionado. The aim of the event was to educate taste buds to the flavour and benefits 'proper' chocolate has to offer and reduce our consumption of the artificially sweetened varieties we are used to finding on the shelves of our shops.

I came across the event on Groupon, my new favourite obsession, and decided to treat my Sister (and myself) for her Birthday. It was co-run by chocolatier Dean Lucas, owner of More Cocoa and Belinda Dangerfield owner of the In-toto kitchen showroom in Birmingham (where you can swoon at beautiful kitchens) and Funky Kitchen online kitchen accessories store (where you can purchase lots of cool Joseph and Joseph products). Designed as a taster session for future events where instead of relaxing and enjoying the fruits of Dean's labour you can get hands on and make the chocolate goodies yourself.

Making us REAL hot chocolate

The In-toto showroom is located near The Mailbox so really easy to get to and find, arriving a little bit early for our 11am slot me and Sue nipped next door to Cafe Blend for a cuppa. In time to take our seats in pole position (aka closest too the actual chocolate) we were greeted by Belinda and a glass of Sodastream Clear Cranberry Raspberry. Although I remember having a Sodastream as a kid I think it got relegated to the back of the cupboard before I got to actually taste a drink made by it. I was really impressed, not what I expected at all, tasted really natural and I was surprised to learn that all flavours are free from any artificial flavours, colourings or sweeteners. This could be the answer to curbing my consumption of full fat coke? Plus it would look ace in my kitchen.

How could you resist a product with strapline like this?!

So then, to the chocolate, well it didn't take long for me to be totally convinced with the More Cocoa argument as it turns out that better chocolate is actually good for you. Chocolate with a high cocoa content and free from additives and artificial chemicals can lift your mood by raising the level of endorphins and serotonin in your brain. The flavonoids contained within it act as a natural antioxidant in your system, helping your body’s cells to fight damage, and the flavonoids even help with bad cholesterol. Also the natural caffeine can give you an energy boost, oh yeah and it tastes pretty good too!

Cocoa Pods

We got to top up our endorphins and serotonin levels via some extremely delicious dark and milk Belgium chocolate starting with the chocolate fountain.

Chocolate fountain

My fountain spoils

Then we moved on to a REAL hot chocolate (non of your powered disappointment here) just simply put chocolate callets (posh chocolate buttons to you and me) in the base of a glass and then fill with warm milk and stir until it dissolves, just as easy as making the instant stuff and way more satisfying.

Before reaching our chocolate limit we managed to devour the most amazing chocolate truffle ever followed with a chunk of chocolate brownie.

Truffles ready to eat

Preparing brownies for the oven

Yum!

After two hours of indulging our passion for chocolate we left with our little goody bag filled with chocolate, recipes and a voucher to use online at Funky Kitchens. I never thought I'd say it but I would think twice about picking the Dairy Milk next time I need a chocolate hit.

More Cocoa @ In-toto Kitchens are run by very friendly and enthusiastic people and makes a great gift for a chocoholic. If you'd like to find out more about the forthcoming workshops then contact the In-toto showroom on 0121 633 8357 or email birmingham@intoto.co.uk for availability.

As a special offer Foody Faces readers can get the taster event, same as the one I did, for the special price of £10, just make sure you quote the code 'FOODYFACES' when you book your spot.

Offer valid for a limited time. Please contact In-toto Kitchens Birmingham for full Ts&Cs. Only valid against chocolate taster sessions.

Ego Maniac

We all love a good offer and this is one not to be missed out on.

Ego Mediterranean Restaurant is a collection of eateries specialising in delicious seasonal food inspired by the Mediterranean and all the delights it has to offer. At present there are eight branches, with one in Lichfield and another in Coventry and the remainder are all located up in the north west.

Image via www.activlichfield.com

I've been a few times recently to Ego Lichfield and on each occasion taken advantage of very good offers. By visiting their website and signing up to email updates you become an Ego Club Member and are sent all the latest offers. Offers so far have ranged from 40% off your total food bill that can be used every night except after 5pm on a Saturday and special themed nights and a free three course meal when visiting with another person who purchases a full priced main course.

Even if you're not part of the club you can still benefit from 2 for 1 on Bellini's between 4pm-7pm.

My food pick would be the sharing boards, perfect for a lunch or a great starter to share for dinner. Me and Sean shared the Spanish board (there is also Italian and Greek). On the Spanish one you get "pan fried chorizo in red wine, Serrano ham, calamari, roasted garlic aioli, Andalucian olives and Manchego cheese wedges". We scoffed it whilst looking out over Minster Pool and Lichfield Cathedral, although I didn't get too carried away with the scenic views, needed to keep my eye on Sean and make sure the sharing aspect of the board was adhered to, especially where the calamari was concerned.

Ego Spanish Sharing Board.

A Meal of Two Halves

Feeling a little bit like Willy Wonka holding the golden tickets I had four complimentary tickets for Aston Villa matchday hospitality (perks of the day job) and needed to pick my three guests. So the first was a given as couldn't really get away without inviting my boyfriend (he had to give up his season ticket in the Holt End due to his jet setting life style) that would have been a sure fire way to domestic hell. So with two tickets left we decided it make it a boys day out (plus me) and invited Sean's Brother and Dad.

After parking my little car in the VIP car park a stone's throw away from the players brand new Range Rovers, Mercedes and the team coach we went to pick up our Trinity Platinum passes from the Trinity Road reception. After being handed our little leather clad passes we ascended to the first floor Trinity Restaurant feeling very important and at ease thanks to the lovely staff and my god there are plenty ready to attend to your needs. Knowing that Villa have won awards for their hospitality, in particular their food, I eagerly awaited our four course meal.

Trinity Restaurant, image via avfc.co.uk

Villa offer a range of matchday hospitality in a number of restaurants and lounges around the ground to suit every taste. They describe the Trinity Restaurant as a "stylish and vibrant restaurant which offers relaxed dining". It has the feel of a nice pub, lots of hustle and bustle on a macthday which makes for a good atmosphere.

First things first I apologies for the dodgy mobile phone photography. So then, the food, for starter we were offered a choice of king prawn with tomato and marie rose sauce or minestrone soup with Lightwoods Little Urn Cheese. I plumped for the prawns, when it arrived it looked beautiful and the flavours lived up to the expectation.

Prawn, tomato and marie rose sauce starter.

For main there was a choice of a 'Sunday Dinner', turkey with 'all the trimmings', which I went for, or if that didn't take your fancy there was lamb tagine, salmon fish cakes or a vegetarian option (sorry, as a full on meat eater I didn't take much notice of what it was) so plenty of choice to suit every palette. Dessert was tricky, faced with a choice of rhubarb and ginger crumble with custard or vanilla panna cotta with blueberry compote I could have easily have eaten both, but keeping true to my roots I went for the option theat comes with custard.

Turkey with all the trimmings.

Tom's panna cotta.

My crumble, my photography doesn't do it justice.

Both main and pudding were delicious and with almost perfect timing I finished off the last spoonful of my crumble just in time to take our VIP seats to watch the game. We exited through the grand stained glass doors into the stadium to take up our seats in prime position to watch the game. With Fabio Capello behind us and the team bench front it was definitely a good view for the action.

The view from our seats.

During half time we returned to our table in the restaurant and were bought the cheese course, which looked amazing but the cheese was very smelly and the only person willing to eat it was Sean, and to be honest there was way too much cheese for one man to consume in 15 minutes.

A selection of cheese and biscuits with dried apricots and chutney.

Although the result was a draw we had a fab day thanks to the whole day being a really special experience. The hospitality team at Villa are brilliant and make you feel very welcome and our great day was rounded off by seeing John Motson on the way out of the ground (we all felt a little star struck). I could get used to the VIP treatment.

All for a good cause

At work we often put our cooking and baking skills to good use through bake offs or lunches with the money raised going to a chosen charity, therefore I love a charity and food mash up!

I think it is brilliant when brands launch or take on a redesign to raise awareness of their chosen charity, it feels a worthwhile reason to have some limited edition packaging instead of just a celebrity edition.

I spotted the limited edition Bottle Green in Waitrose and it stopped me in my tracks as the design was so eye catching and pretty. For everyone who 'likes' their facebook page they donate 25p to Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, the bottles were illustrated by Monsieur Qui.

I spotted Eggs for Soldiers on the dieline, I love the witty name, the egg medal icon and bold packaging with a military feel. The brand was created and developed by Springetts. 15p from every pack will be donated to Help for Heros.

Easy Dinner - Veg Chilli Pasta

We all have those dinners that we turn to when we have hardly anything in the cupboards and fridge and can whip up really quickly on return from work, this recipe is the one I turn to the most and uses lots of cheeky cheats.

I am a big lover of the Very Lazy pre-chopped ingredients as I always have them in my fridge so even if I haven't made it to the shops and feeling very lazy myself I have some of my favourites flavours in.

This pasta recipe was adapted from a Waitrose recipe card and is really simple and only takes 15 minutes. It is a vegetarian recipe which is great as I always try and have a few meat free days each week as it is better for the environment and my health, to find out more check out meatfreemondays.com, an initiative originally set up by Paul McCartney.

Simple Veggie Pasta with chilli, garlic and lemon

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• Fresh or dried pasta, enough for two people

• Vegetables of choice, chopped into bite size chunks (I like green vegetables to add a hit of colour such as tenderstem broccoli, courgette and sugar snap peas)

• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped

• 1 red chilli, finely chopped

• Zest of half a lemon

• Parmesan, grated to serve

Method:

• Cook the pasta according to pack instructions

• 5 minutes before the pasta is done, fry the chilli and garlic in the olive oil for a a couple of minutes until soft

• Add the vegetables and stir fry for 3-4 minutes so they keep their crunch

• Drain the pasta but reserve about 50ml of the cooking water

• Add the pasta to the vegetables, chilli and garlic with the reserved cooking water and lemon zest, season well.

• Plate up and add parmesan on top.

Birthday Eating

My whole birthday revolved around eating, drinking and seeing everyone I pretty much know in London, it was brilliant! Here are some of the highlights...

Thursday 28th April - My 28th Birthday

Loads of us popped to the local pub near work for lunch to raise a glass or two. The Three Kings is a quirky London boozer that serves great line your stomach/hangover food (it deserves a whole post to itself at some point just for the eclectic interior). I went for my usual Chilli bowl with rice with sour cream and extra cheese.

Mat treated me to dinner in a very quaint restaurant in Hampstead, La Cage Imaginaire. Unfortunately it wasn't very busy but the food was lovely and the service great, they were so polite and helpful it made it feel really special.

Friday 29th April - The Royal Wedding

We stayed in bed eating scrambled egg on toast to watch the royal wedding on TV, no champagne for us as we had a three course dinner planned for the aftermath of the wedding near St James Park. Mat's mom treated us to a gin cocktail and three course dinner at Tiger Green Brasserie in the Hilton, they were not stingy with the gin in the seasonal berry martini, but the sugar around the rim took the edge off!

It was a typical nice hotel restaurant, lots of cream and grey for the decor and the menu listing various dishes from around the world, but the food was well above the average due to the quality of the ingredients - very tender asparagus in my starter and the steak cooked to perfection. The highlight was the dessert, creme brulee with fresh raspberries and celeb spotting Phillip Schofield in the bar knocking back JD and coke after a hard day presenting the Royal Wedding coverage for ITV.

Saturday 30th April - Dinner with housemates

The housemates have been dying to try the poshest restaurant in Greenwich for years and we finally did for another birthday dinner. They treated me to pink champagne and cake (which we scoffed once we got in later) before we ventured out for a early dinner to The Spread Eagle. We went for the set menu which is very reasonable at £20 for three courses and some lovely wine choices from by Zoe's boyfriend Mikee. The interior is very old school, lots of oil paintings of Greenwich but is given a modern twist with bright splashes of colour and pattern on the chairs, unfortunately the service is old school too with the waiters being very snooty when we arrived, they did warm up as the evening went on and as the food was so yummy we decided we would always give the place another try.

I went for butternut squash velote with a fine cheese crouton, it was very creamy and the cheese perfectly ripe. I then followed with pan fried sea-bream, potato puree and saffron sauce but was very jealous of Mat's ox cheek linguine.

Sunday 1st May - BBQ

After all the posh dinners, a BBQ was in order to enjoy the sunshine and the company of some more friends. It was the usual sausages, burgers, marinated chicken in Reggae Reggae Sauce and potato salad washed down with lots of Pimms. One (or should that be two) highlights were the cakes made by two baking loving friends. The first a classic victoria with sickly sweet icing (my favourite kind) and the second a massive lemon cake party ring.

We then all headed to the pub when the sun went in for another jug (or four) of Pimms, a great end to a foody filled weekend!

A right Royal brunch up

By Kerry Eustice.

My inner fashion slave couldn't wait to see The Dress, my inner romantic eagerly anticipated the first wedded kiss and my inner foodie failed to resist celebrating the entire shenanigan without a spread.

So I aimed to please all my inner selves, plus some friends, by hosting a breakfast where we could watch the wedding together.

My guests, Matthew (made in Adelaide, Australia) and Robert (made in Saigon, Vietnam) practically live on dim sum and noodles, so I wanted to do them something really British.

And, lured on the promise of homemade jam and freshly-baked scones, I managed to convince them to leave their comfy and closer to Central London confines of Kennington to join me for brunch in Croydon. A girl can't drink fizz alone at 11am, after all.

The night before

Well, I'd promised the boys jam so started the prep here. You can do it leaving just enough time for cooling; I've successfully done this with equal amounts of fruit and sugar with a splash of lemon juice for a Victoria sponge, but I was trying to make one of Fraser Doherty's Super Jams for the first time so wanted to allow for a recipe fail.

For the unfamiliar, Super Jams substitute sugar for fruit juice, usually grape. Fraser's recipe also adds additional pectin. I had neither pectin nor grape juice but I had apple juice and sugar so went for a half Super half sugar version. I just boiled it all together as usual, but I fell foul of deviating from the recipe. It tasted lovely but the consistency was a bit sloppy. Nothing a quick straining didn't sort though - and the juice is perfect for a coulis, so I'm keeping that in the fridge for later.

Just a note: Jam people often talk of the importance of sterilising your jars in a hot oven first. The rules are to transfer your jam to the jar as soon as it comes from the oven. I did this and cracked my jar :( My method is now to give it time to cool a little and eat your jam before it has time to grow fur...

Next, Bloody Mary tomatoes. The plan was to sink Bucks Fizz all morning, so to also drink Bloody Marys - a brunch staple - would have been more raucous hen do less royal wedding. Marinade soaked Piccolo cherry tomatoes seemed like a good compromise. I followed Delia's recipe for these, but soaked them for one night instead of two and swapped sherry for brandy. The flavours were still amazing - and they had a good kick. The whole bunch lasted all of five minutes, didn't they Matthew? Next time, I'd follow Delia's suggestion and serve some celery salt for dipping too - oh, and make double. You drain them before serving and I've popped another batch in the leftover marinade for Sunday lunch snacking. Don't judge me, it's a bank holiday!

To soak up the boozy tomatoes, I baked Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's savoury feta and apricot cakes. Again, I did a bit of ingredient substitution. Hugh uses goat's cheese, but I had the too-similar-to-split-hairs feta in the fridge. Next time I'd add at least 50g extra dried apricots to the mix - they work so nicely. I also used the whole 200g of cheese and added a generous extra splash of olive oil to the batter - but they were still a tad on the dry side (I'd bake on the day next time), so you might want to have some nice butter to hand too. A few weeks ago, I made the ham and olive loaf and this was also lovely for elevenses.

The big day

All that was left to do on the morning was put the Veuve on ice, iron my nan's strawberry-print tablecloth and bake some fruit scones for cream tea. Another celeb chef helped here and I went with a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food book. He uses morello cherries which I'd love to try but I like mixed fruit, especially the little chewy orange rind bits. With no self-raising flour in the cupboard I called my mum to check the plain flour to baking powder ratio (one teaspoon to every 100g) to get the same effect. I also had to add a good splash of extra milk to get the flour to bind.

I served these with extra thick double cream (which in hindsight could have done with some whipping to firm it up further) and my homemade raspberry jam. Matthew ate at least four! And I couldn't wait for another when I got home for our Soho street party later that evening. Good job, because they don't keep fresh for long really.

 
All this was plenty, of course, but no brunch is complete without scrambled eggs and smoked salmon (splished with lemon juice) so we had this too!

Thankfully the Beeb's coverage lasted an age, so we could enjoy the feast at a leisurely pace while trying to spot Elton John in the congregation and LOL about Princess Beatrice's conceptual headgear.

Oh well, only, say, 15 years to wait until Harry settles down.

Kerry gets grilled

After my little introduction yesterday I thought it only fair that Kerry had a right to reply. Being a seasoned hack I new she could stand up to the tough questioning...

Biggest food loves?
I'm a mood eater, so that's a toughie. I'm eating a lot of caprese salad at the moment; tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil. I pimp it though and add rocket, spinach and proscuitto.

Image via www.mastermousepatrol.com

 
Biggest food loathings?
I'm funny about textures; I'll never eat Aubergine. Never.

Best meal you cook?
I recently visited Kenya and loved the food. So, I've recently started cooking a Swahili chicken in coriander and tomato sauce with mango, red onion and coriander salad. It's my current best.

The kitchen gadget you couldn't live without?
A bottle opener. I also like long-stemmed teaspoons.

Best childhood food memory?

I was fussy. Bizarrely, I habitually ate soggy cucumber and tomato sandwiches so that stands out. However, Friday night tea at my nan's was the best; scalloped chips, Finder's crispy pancakes, followed by jelly. It was here I first tasted corn on the cob drenched in butter too. I ate one the other night and it transported me back.

My mum's wholewheat pasta spag bol deserves a mention too.

Describe the most amazing meal you've ever eaten?
A traditional Swahili fish supper in Kenya; freshly-caught crab, rolled red snapper, paprika spiced polenta, coconut rice, crispy seaweed all drowned in coriander sauce. I'd been snorkelling all morning and was starving too.

Favourite TV chef?
I like most of them, actually. The Great British Bake Off judges, the Masterchef twosome. There's been a Nigella backlash but I love her. I always want to make all of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's (or HFW as I like to call him) River Cottage stuff. And I want to be friends with Simon Rimmer.

Favourite regularly visited affordable restaurant?
Lorenzo's, Westow Hill, Crystal Palace, London. My first and last Italian. Nothing fancy but everything is so tasty. I often have baked goat's cheese and spinach bake followed by tortellini proscuitto. Their rum and raisin ice cream is the best.

The restaurant you'd love to visit?
I've never eaten at a Michelin-starred place, and would love to. I'd love to check out Heston's Fat Duck. I'm a sucker for hype.

Image via www.telegraph.co.uk

Last but not least, is there a Kerry/Emily Childhood foody memory you'd like to share?
You really have an impressive, if slightly Doctor Who-power-of-time-travel-like memory, so have most of it covered. I do, however, remember the first time I had dinner at your house with your family. Chicken, new pots and green beans. It was delicious, and I particularly remember the gravy. Tasty, light, no lumpy bits. It was like a culinary awakening. My mum always used/uses beef Bisto which I refused to eat for years after that lovely, sophisticated meal Norma rustled up.