Alpha Course - week 3

Alpha Week 3 brought the best food we've had at Alpha so far. Yes, I was lured there by the promise of shepherd's pie served in the Jon Ronson documentary, and finally the promise was fulfilled! I seem to have an endless stomach capacity for shepherd's pie, and I have been known to eat an entire pan of it in one evening before. The lovely people at church even served it with red cabbage, another one of my favourites:

It is potentially misleading to start writing about the food first off, because the discussion this week was excellent. The topic this week to be honest was a bit nebulous: How Can We Have Faith? Summarised down, it was the first week where we were challenged/encouraged to take the 'leap' into believing, and the talk by Andrew the Australian focused somewhat on letting the Holy Spirit become alive within you.

But as always, it is in the discussion that I found most thought provoking. Our small group is also now getting to know one another; Marc is the really staunt atheist who has been dragged kicking and screaming to come, and is a little aggressive in his defense of atheism (which I like!). Georgina's thinking is very much in line with mine: we both feel there is some purpose to our lives, but it is not necessarily Christianity, and we don't necessarily need Christianity to lead a good life. Sonya really wants to believe, in hope to passing on something to her son, but feels restricted by the overly-religious upbringing she endured back home in Austria. Dean normally sits quietly in the corner, in shorts and a beanie. Us atheists/agnostics/not yet converteds are also talking the most now, which I also like!

We raised some big big issues this week, and obviously ran out of time in the 30 minute discussion session. What about other world religions? What does it mean to believe? What is the Holy Spirit? The one topic that I'm most interested in exploring right now is how Christians interpret Christianity for themselves. I am finding it hard to reconcile the fact that each week we have a speaker, who presumably is giving us the 'official line' on each topic, but when we try to refer back to the speech in our discussion sessions, our Christian hosts not only encourage us to interpret it for ourselves, but very often, it seems that they do not believe in this 'party line'. If I learn anything from the course, I would like to change my mind about how I view this.

Just one slightly uncomfortable thing this week. In our little Alpha booklets which outlines the course, there is a section on the Holy Spirit this week, again, directly asking us to take that leap. It has one very odd question:

Which of the following changes have you already experienced in your life?
- new love for God
- desire to read the Bible
- sense of forgiveness
- new concern for others
- enjoyment of worshipping God
- desire to meet with other Christians

The fourth of these really did not sit well with me.

Martin je t'aime

It has taken me a long time to blog about the wondrous, wondrous meal we had at Martin Berasategui in San Sebastian because I was waiting to get Eunice's wonderful photos of the place. It was probably the best meal I've ever eaten. Sorry mum.

We ended up here by accident I guess. Everyone who goes to San Sebastian tries to get a reservation at Arzak, probably the best known restaurant in the region, but even Peter's concierge service couldn't get us in. Never mind, there were plenty of other Michelin starred places, it's not as if they would be bad, right? I've never heard of Martin Berasatgui before, but he seems to be some kind of mini Basque celebrity; he also runs two of the restaurants in the Guggenheim, and his face endorses several food products we saw in Basque country a la Jamie Oliver.

The restaurant is tucked away in a suburb somewhere outside of the centre of San Sebastian - don't ask me where, Mr TomTom took us. But upon entering the place, you start to sense the magic. There are little stairs surrounded by lovely landscaped gardens leading to the front door. Inside the restaurant itself, I still can't decide whether I liked the decor or not. We decided it did feel as if we were part of a murder mystery evening: the furniture was just a little bit too ornate and too big. But the tables were wonderfully spaced, and it was really nice to see that the majority of the clientele were in big groups of 8+, just illustrates how differently the Basque people like to dine.

It was here that my little foodie crowd decided on a new criteria for marking restaurants: you start with a score of 100, and you take points away for things that niggle, annoy, or are just downright offensive. You can't add points, no matter how good the service is. I will say now that Martin ended up with 96. Of the four points deducted, I think three was for the super super scary maitre d'. It was obvious that he was the culprit of the murder mystery. It was almost like he was daring us to misbehave and not like something.

Like my review of the Fat Duck, I feel like there's no point in me trying to explain the dishes, and instead I will just present them here. What I will say is that Martin manages to deliver such delicious food without all the hocus-pokery that is so trendy with restaurants these days, food that is all about flavour, with amazing combinations. His signature dish of mille feuille of foie gras and smoked eel leapt straight into my top 5 dishes I've ever eaten, and the cooking was consistently good throughout. There was only one 'duff' dish, the warm vegetable hearts salad with seafood, with a jelly concoction which disturbed me somewhat.

As always, thanks Eunice for being able to steal your photos, as well as your format for the menu!

Lightly Smoked Cod with powder of hazelnuts, coffee and vanilla
Mille-Feuille of Smoked Eel, Foie Gras, Spring Onions and Green Apple
Peach Gazpacho with Cockles and txakoli
Squid Soup, creamy squid ink ravioli with squid crouton

Little Pearls of Fennel in raw, risotto and emulsion
Cheese and Carabana Oil Bubble with endives, red onion juice and Iberian bacon
Fam's Egg with beetroot and liquid herb's salad, carpaccio of basque stew and cheese
Warm Vegetable Hearts Salad with seafood, cream of lettuce hearts and idionised juice

Roast Red Mullet with crystals of soft scales and juice of white chocolate with seaweeds
Roasted Araiz Pigeon, fresh pasta with mushrooms and spring onions, touches of truffle cream

Warm and Cold of Apple and Roots
Coal Crumbs with frozen yoghurt and little acid touches of strawberries, lemon grass and passionfruit
As a Cold Soup, banana and vanilla stew, with citrics and ice cream

And if you're thinking that our scoring system is harsh, you'd be pleased to know that Martin had so many little touches that if he was allowed positive points, he would have easily knocked any competition out of the park. Tiny little things like little stools for your handbags, feminine products and toothbrushes (!) available in the toilet, the maitre d' noticing that we were pretty young and therefore not recommending any ridiculous wine... And the biggest plus point is that they take any food allergies/dislikes here very seriously, important given that Eugene claims (hee hee) he is lactose intolerant, and Eunice hates oysters whilst I hate bananas. The substitutes were often as innovative and creative as the 'normal' tasting menu.

The poor man came out to greet all the diners after the dinner, and I fear that our bad and slightly drunk French may mean that I now have a restraining order at the place. Martin je t'aime, oh yes.

Blackspring's Nan's Pork Hock

This is the stuff of legends, and I'm not kidding. Blackspring's Nan's Pork Hock recipe is probably the most famous recipe amongst the GU foodie crowd, one of those that gets posted again and again because it is sooooooooooooooo good. Even reading the recipe you know it would be good.

I've always wanted to make it, but the difficulty is trying to locate pork hock in central London (Sorcha has mentioned it is sometimes available cheap at the Ginger Pig, but I rarely go to Borough Market). It's one of those cuts that the Chinese love; I remember my mum buying them when I was little and making like 5 different meals out of one hock, which apparently only used to be 50p each. After dim sum in the Docklands, we went for our usual grocery shop at one of the big Chinese supermarkets, and I spotted they had a glorious display of hocks. I dutifully bought a huge one for less than £3.

The recipe, as c&p'ed, is:

"1 giant pork hock (size doesn't matter) -1 lump of ginger roughly sliced -2 tbsp (or more if you fancy) dou ban jiang (chili bean sauce - I use AMOY brand) -2 tbsp brown sugar -3 tbsp dark soy sauce -3 tbsp light soy sauce (I use Kikkoman for giant umami kick) -2 star anise 2-3 spring onions or half a little red onion AND: 2 tbsp rice wine (not essential) 1 tsp 5-spice powder (not essential)

Put all ingredients into a deep pot with enough water to cover the hock completely and bring to the boil, then simmer for 4-5 hours. You will know when it is done when the house starts smelling amazing and the meat falls off the bone. don't worry if the pork hock looks fatty when you buy it, it all rises and you can skim it off at the end. what you are left with is a silky gelatinous amalgamation of very lean shredded pork (almost like Texan slow-cooked brisket) that is melt in the mouth. You won't need a knife. You can cut through it with a spoon. Serve with some simple steamed pak choi on steamed rice, or over thin white rice noodles in a deep bowl with lots of meaty liquor."

It was also a little celebration of the fact that I now have a little Chinese grocery shop at the end of my road (hurrah for Chinese immigrants in East London!). I was able to get tons of star anise (八角), five spice powder (五香粉) and the chilli bean paste (豆瓣醬) at bargainous prices:

OK, to start with, with everything in the pan, it doesn't look too promising:

But after stewing it for 5 hours, the liquid is mostly evaporated, the meat is falling off the bone. My house still smells amazing:

I managed to get so much meat out of the hock. Last night I had it with some panfried tofu and stir-fried spinach, which according to my mum is a lethal combination which will give me cancer. I think I shall die from my arteries being completely clogged up first. As you can see, the meat is just so soft, I am already thinking of experimenting with beef brisket whenever I manage to find some:

I am actually eating my second meal of it right now, and I think there are at least another 4 meals left I can get out of it. It's one of those times when I do need Eugene around to eat up my food, but the horrible person has gone to Tokyo this week. This is obviously revenge for him going to have so much Japanese yumminess :)

Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis in Soho is one of those places that I walk past all the time, hear about all the time, but never quite manage to go. Even from the outside you can see the beautiful Art Deco windows, I don't know why I never made the effort before. But lovely toptable are doing 50% off their a la carte menu right now on Sundays, so it seemed mighty silly not to take advantage.

I loved the dining room; lots of nice Art Deco touches, and I particularly wanted to steal the door handles from their bathroom. The crowd was somewhat diverse. Several tables of pretty young Soho-ites, several tables of Chinese people (always to be found when there are offers like this I find), and a couple of elderly couples.

We had potentially the sweetest waitress alive. Very chatty in a very un-British way, she caught us talking about the Masterchef finals and told us that Greg Wallace goes there often. For those who don't know who he is, this is the Masterchef judge who used to be a grocer, who no-one likes as he doesn't seem to know anything about food except that he thinks fat puddings are yummy.

It is one of those menus where you like everything and want to try everything. There were about 20 different starters, ranging from traditional ham hock terrine to oysters to several pasta dishes. I went for what apparently is their signature dish, the lobster spaghetti:

This is very reminiscent of lobster noodles, even with a little gingery spiciness. In truth, the pasta was a little overcooked, but the sauce was so rich and unctuous, it almost needed slightly overcooked pasta to soak it all up.

We were a bit more adventurous with the starter and tried the calves brains with tomato compote. Last time I had brains was lamb brains in some market in Kunming where it felt like they'd directly removed it, but it on a plate, and grilled it, such that it certainly still looked like a brain, and definitely tasted like you shouldn't be eating it. I was a little apprehensive to say the least:

But this was an entirely different experience. Deep fried in breadcrumbs, it was creamy and melt in the mouth, like someone had deep fried some meaty creme fraiche.

The mains read very much like Le Cafe Anglais, the other wonderful Art Deco British restaurant in Bayswater: lots of roasts, grills, simple yet delicious stuff. However, the thing Quo Vadis is famous for is their 56-day aged Hereford beef, available as a fillet, sirloin, or rib of beef for 2. Obviously it had to be the rib of beef, which we had with some triple cooked chips and purple sprouting broccoli:

It was only here that I had a little gripe. They are so proud of their beef that they bring the magnificent monster to your table to show you before they carve it at a nearby table. However, this whole process, along with cold plates, meant that by the time we were tucking in, everything was a little cold. And I do suspect sometimes that maybe ribs of beef should be cooked just a little bit more in order to get the fat to run a bit better. Overall, no rib of beef has yet beaten the one at Great Queen Street. The triple cooked chips are fab though, although at normal price of £4.50 a portion for about 12 chips, they really ought to be good.

Somehow we managed to talk ourselves into having some pudding, although it was already beginning to hurt to sit upright anymore. I was more interested in the poached pear that came with the tonka creme brulee, and mentioned it to the waitress, and she actually went and asked the chef to do two pears with our portion (at no extra charge!).

It was mainly because I'd spied next door having this that made me want to try it. I'd never seem a creme brulee served like that before, they are often so boringly in little ramekins, with tons of uninteresting custard underneath. This was probably one of the best I've ever eaten, and I loved the fact that they burnt some of the pear too.

I would definitely go back, just to try some of the other stuff (the steak tartare is apparently amazing), but not sure I would be in a hurry to go at full prices. The food bill came to about £60 for 2 after the discount had been taken off, so at full price it would be quite hefty. Somehow Le Cafe Anglais and Great Queen Street manage to deliver better value I think.

Alpha Course - week 2

I was disappointed with the first week of the Alpha Course for not really getting into any real issues, so I was very glad that this second week proved to be a lot more thought provoking.

The topic this week was 'Why Did Jesus Die?'. The talk focused on how the cross and Jesus' death are probably the most fundamental parts of the Christian faith, something I hadn't fully appreciated until now. It's strange, as the phrase 'Jesus died for our sins' is so commonplace in Western culture, but the implications I hadn't seriously considered before.

I really enjoyed the group discussion on the topic. Out of the 6 atheists from last week, 2 had disappeared, to be replaced by two who both made it clear they had been dragged along by their regular church going friends. But their contributions were really interesting. One questioned the convenience of having Jesus dying for our sins, whereas the other saw it completely the other way, that full commitment to God and good is anything but convenient. We also raised the question of motivation, potentially the issue I have most difficulty with with Christianity. Shouldn't we do good because it is inherently good, rather than becaus we want eternal life?

During the discussions, the committed Christians are normally quite bland with their replies, often just asking what other people think, but they spoke out quite forcefully on this. It seemed that for most of them, they rarely thought about good/sin in terms of the consequences, in terms of heaven/hell, rather it seemed like a good guide to how they should live their lives. In fact, it almost seemed like they were quite uninterested in the notion of heaven/hell. I'm not quite sure how this ties with the traditional church teachings, but I was interested to see this quite modern interpretation of faith. I also found their lack of absolutism very comforting; just like I didn't want to be a fundamentalist atheist, these were anything like the fundamentalist Christians I was so keen to defeat.

It is a shame then, that the discussions are very short, we had to stop just as I felt we were delving into big issues. It is certainly spurring me to return in future weeks though.

As for the food, I made the suggestion that they need to run some Alpha exercise classes alongside. Again, abundance of chocolate everywhere, and this time, main course was a side-sticking cheesy pasta bake. No one told me you can get fat at Alpha.

Making a mess

Once again I find myself with a fridge full of stuff, which I'm blaming on Caris and also Saturday night's San Sebastian party. Not that I'm complaining; it has only inspired me to make all sorts of food I've never made before this week, at one stage I seemed to have used every pan in the kitchen.

It all started with the slightly crazy idea of making two different ice creams in one go, neither of which I have tried before. I had 6 egg yolks leftover from making the pavlova, and I'm still wondering whether it is false economy to go out and spend another ton of money on more ingredients in order to use them up. I was going to stick to what I know, ice creams which were essentially egg custard with yummy stuff stirred into it, but I had a special request for something chocolatey, so made my first ever chocolate ice cream. This Nigella recipe is another one of those where you consume a day's worth of calories in one porton.

Baci Ice Cream (makes about 1 litre)

4 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
500ml double cream
100g 70%+ cocoa dark chocolate
25g good quality cocoa powder
1 x 200g pot Nutella
2 teaspoons hazelnut syrup (begged from coffee shop next to tube station)

1. Make an egg custard by whisking the egg yolks with the sugar until pale, thick and creamy; bring the cream to the boil, and add slowly to the egg yolks and sugar, whisking all the time.
2. Melt the chocolate, and whisk this also into the custard. Pour everything into a pan, and cook slowly, stirring constantly, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Leave to cool, stirring occasionally to prevent a skin from forming.

3. When the mixture is cool, whisk in the Nutella and the hazelnut syrup. Freeze in ice cream maker or use the churn by hand method.

This was more like making a cold ganache than an ice cream, the mixture gets so thick it's almost impossible to churn by hand. But the end result is very very rich and very very good. There is plenty in my freeze for those who want to try! More mess was made as I also made apple ice cream, very simiar to the rhubarb ice cream recipe I make often, but this time with apple puree.

The other big mess I've made this week goes back to my food nemesis. I consider myself an ok cook, I can generally make a good attempt at most recipes, but one thing that has always alluded me is the humble poached egg. I've cried many a time over these horrid things, I have no idea how people manage to get the whites to cling so perfectly without cheating with cling film or moulds. (It did please me greatly to see eggs being poached in cling film at Rousillon on Masterchef recently though, ha!).

I tried again, mainly because I was cooking for myself, with no one around to stress me out. Maybe it's like that philosophical question of whether the tree makes a sound when it falls if no one is there to hear it; if no one is there to see me cry over the sodding eggs, maybe they will work! I used pretty fresh eggs from Waitrose, a little vinegar in the water and the 'whirlpool' method. It was still a mess, egg white all over the place, but at least the yolk was still nice and runny. I also used another trick I learnt off Masterchef by putting some tomatoes on the vine with everything to distract from the ugliness:

In slightly less messy situations this week, I also wanted to record some other new things I tried. Abel & Cole bought me another unwelcomed cucumber in my veg box this week, so I pickled it to serve with some chargrilled mackerel:

I also made a ridiculously luxurious salad with figs, mozzarella from that amazing stall in Borough Market, and parma ham:

This was meant to be a detox week, obviously it has not gone well.

Officially the end of summer

It's no use pretending anymore; the cold has descended upon London, everyone has been ill recently, and the clocks go back next weekend. The San Sebastian crew tried for one last stab at summer though last Saturday, and I tried to make as summery a menu as I could.

End of summer menu (served 2 slightly overworked consultants and 4 other friends)

• Mozzarella with olive gremolata
• Quail eggs wrapped in parma ham
• Tomato and red onion salad
• Razor clams, chorizo and broad bean 'pintxos'
• Stuffed squid with chorizo and rice
• Chocolate and raspberry pavlova

And most importantly, we were able to use the lovely cider glasses I had bought in San Sebastian. At all the little pintxos places, be it sangria or wine or cider, it would be served in a large, very fragile looking glass. We looked all over to try and buy them, and I was jumping up and down a little when I finally found some in a little artisan food shop. They were definitely the guest of honour, everything tastes just that bit more summery when served in them:

Caris also taught us to make the most dangerous drink, with the Konyagi spirit that she imported back from Tanzania (the bottle you can spy in the photo above). It tastes like there is absolutely no alcohol in it, despite the Konyagi being 35%.

Konyagi cocktail (serves 1)

1 shot konyagi
1 shot water
Juice of half a lemon
Honey to taste

1. Mix ingredients in an attractive San Sebastian cider glass
2. Try not to drink all at once

We'd also initially planned to go and have Sunday breakfast at E Pellici, the only listed cafe in the whole of the UK, only for me to forget that it's not open on Sundays. D'oh! Such a shame, as I love their breakfasts there and haven't been for ages, particularly their make-up-your-own option, where I normally combine carved ham, black pudding, bubble and a fried egg. As a result, we ended up heading to Brick Lane.

I was actually most excited about sharing the wonders of Brick Lane beigels (not bagels) from Brick Lane Beigel Bake with Caris and Fil, but I fear they may have been far too Americianised! They both protested that you can't get your beigels toasted, and that there is only one beigel - no blueberry, no cinnamon and raisin, no chocolate chip, no no no! - and I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Brick Lane has become super-trendified recently. I hadn't been down there for a good few months now, and the slightly run-down market has now been replaced by upmarket food stalls; there was even one that only sold arancini. I'm still somewhat undecided on whether I like this development. It will do wonders for my house price, and I like the fact that I now have so many more eateries to try on Sunday mornings, but I like living in a grubby part of town! Sooner or later, it will no longer be frightening for my friends to come and visit, and that simply will not do.

We did try one of these super trendy places, Story Deli, an achingly cool and self-conscious place in the Old Truman Brewery. Half of the restaurant appears to be some kind of art gallery, and the chairs are actually little storage cupboards (the waitress came and got some coffee lids from one of our chairs). Nevertheless, I did come to love the place. I loved their big communal tables, and their very stripped down, deconstructed decor. Best of all, their pizzas are very very good. We tried the one with parma ham and artichoke:

Disturbingly, it was served to us by a 10 year old girl, but it was super tasty. Summer on a pizza, the base was really really thin and crispy, the whole thing was so light. Caris and I are also going to Naples in a couple of weekends' time, where we will eat even more pizza! Mwahahahaha....