Lemon filo lunacy.

I only wanted to blog about our holiday in Corfu once I had recreated the unforgettable lemon cake which we ate in Barbas restaurant.  My lovely agent, Laura, had recommended this fine fishy eaterie although she forgot to tell us that its official name (?) is Porta Remounda Taverna.  God knows why it should be known by two different names.

Anyhow, we were greeted at 'Barbas' by Leanna, the daughter of the owner. She told us that Laura-the-agent was her favourite customer and Leanna made us feel like royalty (English, that is; not exiled Greek) just for knowing her.

Recovering from my near death experience

I hasten to add that we were eating shortly after I had fallen off a cliff while insisting to my family that I knew a shortcut to the beach from Mon Repos, the palace where our Prince Philip was born.  For some reason I stepped back into thin air while telling the children to be careful.  I grabbed at thorny bracken as I fell and even though I stopped a couple of feet down I was in a pretty sorry state.  Ged-the-husband had reached for his 'phone ready to call the emergency services and his screen had said, "Welcome to Albania".  The children thought it very funny that mum had fallen off a cliff and landed in another country. We soon realised that it was just rogue roaming.  Faced with the choice between a Greek hospital and some decent restaurant hospitality, I plumped for the latter.  It took three bottles of icy retsina, a plate of melt-in-the-mouth calamari and half a big fish before I felt restored.

It was only when leaving the restaurant that Ged realised he must have lost his glasses when reaching over the cliff to drag me back up.  The next day, we all had to make the treacherous journey once more and sure enough, there were Ged's specs lying amongst the tinder which I had clutched at on my way down.  We could have started a forest fire!  We could have gone to jail!

But back to the lemon cake.  Don't bother grabbing your pens to write this recipe down as I am about to record a disaster.

Recipe written when a bit drunk

John's punishment

I was so excited by this because it was so unusual.  No flour or ground nuts just filo pasty torn into small bits.

Nearly half a pint of juice

The lemon cake was to form part of a dinner for my brother, his girlfriend and her son.  They arrived an hour early so I punished my brother, John by making him squeeze and zest 6 lemons.

Yoghurt and filo

Adding missing sugar to eggs and lemon

John remarked how odd it was that there was no sugar in the recipe.  Would the sugar syrup poured over the cooked cake be enough?  Not likely. So we threw in 3 heaped tablespoons.

Adding flour in desperation 

Next, we tore up the filo and threw it into the very watery egg/sugar/lemon mix.  We hoped beyond hope that a miracle would now occur and that the filo would swell up the mix ready for baking. Nope.  So we added 4 heaped tablespoons of flour.  And then the yoghurt.

It should be ready by 7.25pm

In it goes, not looking good

Still sloppy

Solid but unbrowned

Finally baked

It was 9.55pm before the bloody thing set.  It looked like a rubbery omelette so we rubbed butter over it and whacked it back in at top heat for another ten minutes.

William doing the honey

I tasted a bit and it was sour as hell so William gave it a good squeeze of honey.  There was no time to start making sugar syrup - no-one even wanted a pudding by this time anyway.

















Eventually it was plated and looked quite lovely, if nothing like the one we ate at Barbas.  And the reaction of my guests?  The adults were too sozzled to care and as for Joe, well he voted with his feet which pattered very quickly to the kitchen bin where he spat the cake out.

Quite a pretty sight

Not such a pretty sight.

You know how cookery book writers always say, "Never try a recipe for the first time at a dinner party, practise first"?  There's a very good reason for that.  Take heed.

Ruined bananas and the filthy Shanghai restaurant.

I hardly ever makes cakes.  The main reason is that I'm not good at following recipes and I always add a bit, take a bit away, change the oven temperature - basically, mess about with the recipe, thinking I know better.  I don't and my cakes usually end up in the bin.

Today, in my local Co-op, I tried pulling one banana from a bunch of four, snapped the ends off all of them and was forced to buy the lot.  Then I had to find a recipe for banana bread because they were all going to go black within minutes.  I turned to the Be-Ro book.  Can't go wrong with that methinks.

Ruined bananas

Trusty ol' Be-Ro

Recipe which needs no fiddling with

But then I realised I only had granulated sugar, and the butter was a bit rancid as it had been left in the sun all day yesterday.  "It'll be fine" I prayed and lobbed it in the mixer.

Not fine at all and certainly not pale and fluffy

Praying the flour will fix it

It refused to mix.  I don't know if that was because of the oily butter or the great big sugar crystals but the two ingredients definitely didn't get on.  Undeterred I threw in the eggs.  Yes, the mixture curdled so I threw in the flour.  All I had to do next was mash the bananas.  Why would I need to do that if they were going to get mixed up anyway?  So I put them in whole.

I had found a few old dates at the bottom of a bag and thought I may as well dispose of them in the banana bread.  You may note from the picture that I DID bother to chop them up.  The only reason for this act of non-laziness was that I thought I had better check each one for hidden burrowing creatures.

Weevil-free dates and lazy bananas

Finally, for no good reason, I decided to cook the loaf in a Bain Marie.  Oh, and change the oven temperature a notch to 160C.  But it worked!  It took just under 2 hours but was absolutely delicious, especially with lashings of non-rancid butter.

Completely unnecessary Bain Marie

Shockingly good banana loaf

A Quick Note on our Local Chinese

We had our wedding reception at Shanghai Restaurant in Brierfield.  That was over 4 years ago when Shanghai had a brilliant chef and the place was shiny as a new pin.  We used to go all the time and then two years ago,  it all went horribly wrong.  The food was dreadful, the staff were awful, the place was a dump.  It presently has three 'For Sale' signs over the door which does not bode well.  But yesterday, with only a haggis in the fridge at home (which no-one wanted) we decided to go back and give it a try. I gave the staff a good grilling to see if they had bucked up their ideas.  They assured me that they had a new chef and we would not be disappointed.

Nevertheless, the filthy carpets, greasy tables and lack of working lightbulbs filled us all with fear and we were pretty worried that if we ate the food we could be spending the next day hanging over the loo being very ill.  Did that stop us?  Strangely, no and we lived to tell the tale.  Actually, I can't fault the food we had.  It was all standard Chinese fare (Glamorous of Manchester it is not, no chicken feet here) but everything was quite delicious.   NOW CHANGE THE CARPETS AND CLEAN THE PLACE UP, SHANGHAI!

chicken lettuce wrap

BBQ Ribs, wontons, salt and pepper wings etc

Crispy beef

Sweet and sour pork

Fried noodles & beansprouts

Egg fried rice

On the door was a 'Food Standards' sticker which did not display the actual rating.  I presumed it had been scratched off but I've just checked online and it seems they received a 4 out of 5 which is not bad, considering the carpets.

Pelvic floor rollercoaster test and throwing up our £98.60 dinner

Wysick, Yorkshire

Of all the places to throw up our dinner!  The astonishingly appropriately named Wysick, pictured, was the lay-by where we ground to a halt as my friend Ruth cried, "I think I'm going to be  . . "

Too late. And then Zoe-the-daughter decided to join in and liberally splattered the car seats and carpets. I watched in wonder as £98.60 worth of restaurant food was hurled over the car interior and the grass verge of Wysick.

Posh sausage, with free pot plant.

Seabass on pea purée with gnocchi and crisped pancetta

Only ten minutes earlier I had been taking photos of the fabulous food at Lockwood's Restaurant in Ripon.  Joe-the-son had said, "Mum, I've got a free pot plant with mine."  He then refused to eat his salad served in a terracotta pot because he wanted to take it home.  I had to promise to buy an identical pot and serve his salad in it nightly.

Everything we ate was delicious and I was even tempted to try a pud.  Actually, I tried a bit of everyone's - orange and almond cake, chocolate pot with shortbread, creme brulee.  And no, I was not the one who threw up.

We had spent the entire day at Lightwater Valley theme park.  Click on the link and it will take you straight to a video of  'The Ultimate' - the longest rollercoaster in England (or was it the world?) and scary as hell.  If any woman is wondering if she needs to do  pelvic floor exercises, forget the thing where you are supposed to skip with a full bladder as the test.  Just do this ride with an empty bladder for the The Ultimate Bladder Control Test.  I recommend that you go on the Wild River Rapids next so you have an excuse for the wet patch.  Actually, before would be better.

But it was not the food or the rides that brought on the biliousness.  It was that notorious bit of bendy road over Blubberhouses that did it.  Combined with Ged's driving.  I was actually googling 'Blubberhouses', hoping to discover how it got its silly name, when Ruth started throwing up  (click on the link for Wikipedia's explanation).  And I had just been telling everyone how I had once been for a trial as a private chef only a mile or so away from where we were.  The estate was called Sicklinghall.  My mother had been appalled that I would have 'Gill Watson, Sicklinghall' embroidered on my chef's jacket.  The man (now a Lord) had a mistrust of clingfilm and liked everything to be covered in foil.  This meant everything looked the same in the fridge which was way too confusing for me.  He also said that he was allergic to onions and garlic which was the clincher as far as I was concerned.  I can't think of any dish I have ever made which does not contain either onion or garlic.

So, there you have it.  First day back from the holiday (can't blog about that until I've got the photos from Ged's 'phone) and disaster struck us once again.  Ged and I struggled to get to sleep that night because every time we started to drift off we would get the giggles again thinking about the awfulness of it all and the sorry sight of my lovely friend Ruth standing in her knickers in a lay-by because her jeans were sodden.

I worry at times that people must think I make it all up.  This is why I tried to take a picture of the car and Ruth-in-pants but strangely, everyone objected.

Cicchetti's in Piccadilly, you lucky Londoners

Time to talk a bit about food before I bugger off to bed.  We fly to Corfu in the morning in spite of LowCostHolidays.com's attempts to sabotage the trip - including removing my name from the airline passenger list 'by mistake'.  Yeah right.

We've been doing a bit of eating out over the last few weeks but I've had little chance to blog about it.

Firstly, I noticed when we were in London for the Jubilee that San Carlo Cicchetti's was due to open on 21st July at Piccadilly.  Ooh that was yesterday!  It's not often that London follows what we do up here but SC's Cicchetti's have been smouldering beneath House of Fraser in Manchester for some time now and the food is truly fabulous.  As is the bar and the sexy waitresses.  Little Venetian titbits (is titbits a word?).  All delicious.

And then, even though I would rather not admit to it, we did Red Hot World.  We first noticed this place when we were driving through Manchester early one Saturday evening.  We thought we were witnessing a riot on the streets (as Morrissey would say) but the crowds were actually queuing for this peculiar world buffet which  the kids will love and the parents will tolerate because the kids are happy.  Actually the food is fine; staple buffet Chinese, not so great sushi, great looking Indian (which I had to avoid because of the turmeric allergy) and a dessert section which looks the dogs bollocks and on the whole tastes like it.

I'll tell you what is the most interesting thing about Red Hot World and that's the anthropological exercise of observing how differently the nations of the world choose to eat when faced with a massive selection of round-the-world-foods.  In general the white British stuck to pastas, carvery and puds but every Japanese person there (and there was a surprisingly large number of them) had the most enormous plate of fresh fruit.  All of them.  And they piled it up before they ate their main course as if paranoid that the rest of the punters would nab it.  As if!

Lastly, for this blog post, we did the Foodies Festival (I find I now cringe at the term 'foodie') at Tatton Park which was actually quite enjoyable.  The lovely, entertaining Charles Metcalfe took us around the Med talking wines.  I would quite like a mini-me Metcalfe in my pocket at all times.

We had Bhel Puri (which I always thought was some kind of facial paralysis) from Chaat Cart who get my vote because there was no turmeric in the spicy rice crispy concoction.  Here's a pic of their recipe for it.

If you can't read it, it's basically rice crispies with potato, tomato and chutney.

Then there were the curious chimney cakes which were a yeast dough, layered with butter, rolled and wrapped around a hollow metal cylinder and then cooked infront of one of those donner kebab type things.

Yummy cinnamon sugar things

And that's it really for now.  Sweetie the cockateil has gone to a newly opened pet hotel for the week.  We can watch him 24 hours a day by 'petcam' ap.  The owner has strict instructions to stuff him and keep moving him around all week if he pegs it.  The last thing I need is Zoe insisting we fly home after 2 days because the bloody bird's died.

Goodbye Masterchef. Hello Alton Towers.

At a family party this weekend I was told off for not blogging enough.  My niece, (grown-up niece, that is) said she has a friend who has a job and two kids and still manages to blog every day.

70 Gilly steak pasties for the party.  With fennel dust pastry

Well I bloody well can't.  It's not that I don't have anything to say but I absolutely do not have the time.  It's now 10.45pm and Ged and I are still an hour away from eating as I've buggered up the BT connection at his shop while trying to e-mail my column to Northern Life (a day over deadline).  Then, when we've finally eaten I need to pack for Alton Towers.  That's pack for rain, sun, hail and wasp attack.  I never go anywhere without Piriton.

I'd had this fabulous idea that we would book our only day off school this year to take the kids to Alton Towers as a super special treat.  I had Tesco vouchers to pay for all of us and there would be no-one there because everyone else was at school.  Then I noticed  a remark on Facebook about Alton Towers being a bit busy as the high schools were taking pupils there as an end of term treat.  Oh joy.   Guess how many people are expected tomorrow?  16,000.  Yes that's SIXTEEN THOUSAND people.  If I had time I would cry.

I also need to tell all of you out there who kindly crossed their fingers and toes for Zoe, that unfortunately she didn't get through to the TV stage of Junior Masterchef.  I suspected all along that she may have trouble on two counts;

1)  The JM team asked Zoe how long it took her to make her trio of desserts and she said three and a half hours.  What she forgot to say was that the reason it took so long was because the oranges and lemons for the Sephardic cake had to boil for 3 hours!

2)  I had suggested, at the last minute, that Zoe serve her accompanying crème fraiche in a brandy snap basket instead of a bowl.  I gave her the recipe and she made a perfect basket.  The trouble was that she had only made it the once and when she was asked to describe how she made it to the JM team she sort of, well . . . forgot.  She knew she had baked it in the oven but forgot the preliminaries of mixing the flour, butter etc in a pan.

I suspect the JM people thought that I had made it all which is a great compliment but not true.  I have to admit to feeling ever so enormously relieved that we don't have to spend the next few weeks cooking every ridiculous item in Larousse Gastronomique.  I have given Zoe the option of proper training ready for next year but I suspect she may decide to give it a rest.  We'll see.

How many bottles of wine does it take to feed a family for a week? Five . . .

Two weeks ago our local paper reported that families were starving in my home town.  Some children were going to school with nothing more than a slice of bread or a couple of biscuits in their packed lunch boxes.  A local church was asking for food donations to help out the desperate.  I decided to tackle Ged-the-husband about it.

"Darling, we have to give up drinking wine on school nights."  I could see the fear in Ged's eyes.  I could see my fear in Ged's eyes.  The idea of not sharing a bottle of wine over dinner every night was very scary.  We were having this discussion at 9.20am but the thought of not drinking wine that evening was making me desperate for an immediate shot of alcohol.  Did that mean I was an alcoholic?  Probably.

"Think of the benefits Ged.  We'll be slimmer, healthier, our skin will glow, we won't get wrinkles, we'll have boundless energy . . ."  I believed some of it but not all.  I've spent years convincing myself that the wine I drink cuts through all the fat I eat and sort of breaks it down so I can wee it out, no harm done.

For the first two days of our abstinence I  could think of little else other than my neeeed for a glass of wine.  I don't know if it was physical or psychological but the craving was impossible to ignore.  But we did it and this is what five days of no wine bought - yes, a whole bootful of food.  That's only £25.

I've been telling just about everyone I meet about the starving families because I've got a big mouth and I can't help it.  My big mouth is a blessing and a curse.  It means well but is often misunderstood.

The average response is, "The government provide enough money. These parents must be spending it all on booze and fags instead of feeding their children."

I'm sure in some cases the parents may drink and smoke but if children are starving then they have to be fed by someone.  Most families are struggling because there is no work, housing benefit has been cut and they have to spend their meagre government handout on topping up their rent and paying fuel bills.  Even if they don't put the heating on they still need to pay for lighting and hot water.

700,000 parents who work and claim Family Tax Credit are still living beneath the poverty line. Their children are not entitled to free school meals and it's not bloody fair.

If anyone feels they can help in any way please contact the lovely Suzanne Waddicor at the Grassroots Centre.

Two weeks down the line we are still waiting for the boundless energy and glowing skin etc but I'm sure it will come, all in good time.

A TEENAGE TAKE-AWAY. It's not about food . . .

I've thought long and hard about writing this.  I may press the 'PUBLISH' key at the end of this page but I could just as easily store this article in a file to be added to my private diaries.

I'm worried that what I am about to write could be used by a racist individual or organisation to support their views. I am also worried that I could upset my Asian friends and neighbours.  But these friends and neighbours are already suffering because the whole of the Asian community is being tainted by the actions of a small percentage of Asian men.  Yes, I'm talking about grooming.

A TEENAGE TAKE-AWAY is the brilliant but terrifying play about the grooming of girls as young as 12 by Asian men.  I took daughter Zoe (11yrs) to see it in Macclesfield last Sunday.  Not that she wanted to go.  But a number of men who live on our street have been in court last week on grooming charges.  Last year Zoe had described one of them as looking like a prince.  Never be complacent.

If I didn't have an Asian brother-in-law then I may have found it difficult to take Zoe to see this play.  The last thing I want to do is scare her into thinking that all Asian men are evil.  Fortunately 'Uncle Tariq' (who was the first Asian police officer in the East Lancashire force)  counteracts any such fears.

Zoe also knows that I have a number of Asian women friends. Some are happily married  but some of these women have horror stories of their own.  One, who had two children through her arranged marriage, has only recently managed to get away from her husband and his brother who were abusing her children.  She told tales of drink, drugs and an absolute lack of  any respect for both women and children.  So it's not just our little white daughters who are in danger, it's also the wives and children of these men. When I first met this woman she would joke about putting rat poison in her husband's tea as she could see no other way out of her situation.  "You've got to tell the Police,"  I told her and even as I said the words I knew I was sounding stupidly naive.  Her sister was married to her husband's brother.  She would bring 'shame' on both sides of the family by reporting her husband.  Her children could be kidnapped, all their lives would be put in danger.

But their lives were already in danger and in the end this brave woman did go to the Police and she did get away.  She took out an injunction against her husband to protect her children.  She sought out excellent therapy for her little boy.  They survived but not all do.

There was a post-show discussion after A TEENAGE TAKE-AWAY and Sergeant Mark Whelan of the Lancashire Police had bravely agreed to come along and answer questions. I told Sgt Whelan how my sister, who taught in a local high school six years ago, had witnessed girls being picked up from school by Asian gangs and although the Police were informed, the problem never went away.

Sgt Whelan admitted that it had taken too long for the problem of grooming to be recognised.  He said that in the past when young girls were questioned, the police would look for inconsistencies in their stories and if the girls were found to be lying at any point then the case would be thrown out.  He tried to re-assure me that this no longer happens.  I hope he's right because these young girls have been through such trauma that they often do lie; sometimes even to protect the man who groomed them.

Liz Boor who wrote A TEENAGE TAKE-AWAY after researching grooming for her BBC1 Panorama film in 2007 would love the play to be shown free in schools throughout England.  Some parents and teachers may be scared of its content but grooming is a problem that's not going to go away unless we all know about it and everyone, including the Asian community, stand up and say it's got to stop.

That's why I'm now going to press 'PUBLISH'.  Please do your bit by passing on this post.