Crumbs on the Table -- stories about food

Olive oil and sweet wine cake (and an adopted olive tree)

February 20, 2020 Leave a Comment

This is an exquisite cake: feather light and springy as a pillow, fragrant with good citrus, extra virgin olive oil, and dessert wine. Developed at Chez Panisse in the 1980s where it was made with Sauternes, this cake is subtle, complex and unexpected: as sweet as you could wish in a cake, but not with a cake’s usual sugar sweetness. It has the magic of alchemy, no single note dominating. It’s a recipe for your best eggs and olive oil, for an orange and lemon that smell and taste of the sun, and a dessert wine you would buy for an occasion — not one to break the bank, but one you enjoy drinking (as there’s the rest of the bottle to finish with the cake).

Using such special ingredients makes this cake an offering of note, and those who taste it pay attention. Double-takes are common. Conversation stops. A Norwegian friend of ours could eat two-thirds of it in an evening, going back again and again for another little slice (I really like this cake he would say every time with a shake of the head that meant I can’t help myself ) — and it slices so cleanly it’s all too easy to keep at it.

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Sicilian fast food: lemon spaghetti

February 12, 2020 Leave a Comment

This simple and utterly delicious pasta dish was a revelation when we tasted it at Annarella and Fabio’s table outside Noto in Sicily. We were there to visit the organic farm where they grow lemons, oranges, almonds and olives, one blissfully sunny but not-too-hot October afternoon (read more about their farm here). Annarella cooked a memorable feast for us using the produce from the farm, and it was the purest, simplest and best food we had all week in Noto, and that is saying something. [Read More…]

Claudia Roden’s orange flan (dairy free)

January 30, 2020 Leave a Comment

Oh my.

I have a weakness for custards … and there are few things more exquisite than a really good orange in its season…. So I was intrigued by Claudia Roden’s recipe for a baked custard — a flan — made with no milk or cream: just eggs, a little sugar, and freshly squeezed orange juice. I couldn’t believe how refreshingly light, yet deliciously creamy it was; how silky, and also clean-tasting and brightly citrus-y. With no dairy to dilute the orange intensity, it’s like letting the essence of an orange melt on your tongue. Truly, it’s a wonder in the custard and citrus classes, both.

Winter is the time to make it, when oranges are at their finest and we need their cheering disposition most. For us living under English skies, it’s our kindly neighbours to the south who share their sunshine with us in the form of those glorious orange globes. Thank you, Spain, thank you Italy.

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New decade, new national food strategy

January 21, 2020 Leave a Comment

Listen to Laura’s podcast of this food essay by clicking the arrow below:

I love January. Despite its grey tendencies, I relish the fresh start, the hopeful certainty that last year’s inadequacies can be redressed by what comes next: that this year’s surprises will be of the pleasant variety.

After the indulgences of the holidays, I’m craving energy-giving, mood-lifting food; and in keeping with the usual January spirit, I’m also resolved to get fitter and healthier. No more joking, “I’ll have two, one for each thigh”. So what in the world to eat in this new year, this new decade?

With what we learned in 2019 about climate change, biodiversity loss, plastics in our oceans, food waste and the obesity crisis … the question, “what should I eat?” is more pressing and less purely personal than it’s ever been. It’s hard enough to know what’s best to do for oneself, much less to carry through with acting on it, but how do we know what to do for our world as a whole, and our patch of it? How do we trust to what’s ethical, and sustainable, and recognise what’s just pretending to be? There are so many heartbreaking emergencies, so many mixed messages, so much fervour, that we could be in danger of making mistakes even with best intentions, or simply sticking our heads in the sand or diving into a bucket of donuts. [Read More…]

A Christmas essay

December 24, 2019 Leave a Comment

Dear Kind Readers of Crumbs on the Table,

Wherever you are in the world, and however you celebrate, I hope this season brings you peace and joys. I’m sharing a food essay I wrote to celebrate the food and atmosphere of Christmas. I’ve included links in the story to the holiday recipes here on the blog. You can hear the podcast by clicking the arrow below:

Blessings to all,

Laura

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