If you follow my blog then you may be aware there hasn't been much to follow recently.... starting a new job, getting a dog, lots of summer pop ups and catering gigs and deciding to climb the highest free standing mountain in the world are all excuses I can throw into the mix. But I'm back. With a big one! And lots more to follow so keep reading over the next few weeks for new restaurant reviews, trips to Italy with Riso Gallo, Cotes du Rhone fueled evenings and more. But today's post is all about the mountain...
In August last year Lucy and I volunteered to help some friends with a pop up they were doing to raise money for a small charity called Trekstock, who support people in their 20s and 30s who have or have had cancer. Off we headed to Palm 2 in Clapton to spend the day cooking and making cocktails for 60 guests. On the night of the event we met the CEO of Trekstock, and after a couple of glasses of wine (the beginnings of all good decisions) we'd signed up to the 2017 Kilimanjaro challenge. And that was that. A year later, after a mega fundraising effort which included 5am car boot sales, our own huge Hot X BBQ pop up we put on with Hardeep Singh Kohli and Neil Rankin for 60 people on Easter Friday (which we raised £3.5k from alone), and donations from many generous family and friends, the departure date rolled around and off to Tanzania we went. The trip was organized by Trekstock through 360 Expeditions who ran the actual trek itself and arranged everything from the minute we landed at Kilimanjaro airport. Before we left we'd had all the information we needed with regards equipment, training prep and medical requirements. Everything was covered and all our questions answered. So we were good to go.
In between all the eating out I do, sometimes I actually manage to cook for myself (and others) too. Helpful, seeing as I run a pop up restaurant........ Honestly though, it often feels like I'm either only recipe testing or cooking for 30+ people with little in between. I've done a lot of both of the above recently and wanted to share some of it here.
Starting small, I made this dish as recipe testing disguised as Friday night dinner for the girls on my last Friday night in my old flat. I'd been invited to try out some meat from Selfridges' new butcher, Campbell Brothers, so picked up a rack of lamb, ribeye steak and strip of pork belly. None was quite enough to feed all three of us, so I seared the steak and cooked the lamb off in the oven after browning it, and popped it on top of some truffled cauliflower puree (cooked in milk then drained and whizzed in the blender with butter and truffle paste), steamed cavolo nero and purple sprouting broccoli, roast purple carrots and squash, and finished it off with fresh blackberries.
Another hit with the girls were the tacos I made using Wahaca's new taco kits. Normally I'm a make-it-myself kinda girl, but the marinades and salsas that come in the Wahaca kits with the corn tortillas are really good. Below are the flank steak marinated in chipotle served with herbs and chillies, and a tuna marinated in lime juice with the tomato and garlic salsa, avocado and more herb salad.
From cooking for 2/3 to cooking for 50.... I offered my services helping out some mates who wanted to put on a supper club to raise money for a Sahara trek they'd done for the charity Trekstock, who support young people with cancer. They hired a proper chef so I just followed orders as he created an epic Moroccan inspired feast for 50 people. It was such a fun evening, and inspired me so much that I've signed up to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in August 2017 for the same charity..............! Please feel free to sponsor me if you want to donate to the cause!
Jumping all over the place calendar wise, I hosted a Thanksgiving pop up (on Thanksgiving...) for Tiki Chris, who's celebrated 10 years of blogging this year with 10 different hosted events. It was a fun, friendly night and I think I managed to pull off cooking turkey for 30 for the first time professionally. One up from last year when I spent the afternoon FaceTiming my mate's turkey!
2016 has also seen me doing a lot more food for press events, particularly for River Island, which I love doing. I make canapes and nibbles for their ANEVENINGWITH events which have been hosted by lots of lovely ladies including editor of Glamour magazine Jo Elvin, singer and all round cool girl Whinnie Williams, and Sunday Times fashion chic Pandora Sykes.
Last but not least, and definitely not all, but I'm not going to bore you with everything I've cooked this year, one of my cooking highlights was a takeover I did at Jeremy Pang's School of Wok. I used influences from Asia to design a menu that was still very much A Little Lusciousness, kicking things off with yuzu marinated salmon, pickled radish and lotus root crisps. I'm hoping to do more at SoW in 2017 so watch this space!
If you like pizza (who doesn't) then I know just the place you need to go before the end of November to try seven exclusive pizzas created by some of the UK's top chefs, while also helping raise money for Action Against Hunger.
Pizzicotto on Kensington High Street are hosting a month long event where chefs from some of my favourite restaurants are going up against each other in the Gourmet Pizza Challenge 2016, and you can decide who the winner will be. The chefs taking part are Jun Tanaka (The Ninth), Pascal Aussignac (Club Gascon), Robin Gill (The Manor, The Dairy, Paradise Garage and Counter Culture), Vivek Singh (The Cinnamon Club), Anna Hansen (The Modern Pantry), Steve Groves (Roux at Parliament Square) and Adam Handling (The Frog E1). They've each created a unique pizza, and you can sample each and all of them at Pizzicotto, who've also created a pizza for the competition.
It's been quite a year. Cooking and writing wise, a lot of exciting things have happened this year, and even more are planned for next year (which I cannot wait to tell you about!!). Personally, it's been a bit of a tough year, so I'm looking forward to a fresh new year in 2016! I just wanted to take a moment though to thank a few people. A Little Lusciousness may appear to be a one man band, but it's far from that. There are so many people who've helped me out this year, who I couldn't do any of this without, so I want to say thank you to as many of them as I can remember!
Firstly, I want to thank Hana. Hana came to volunteer with me at a pop up in 2014 and she was so good that she's helped out at every possible event since. Not only does she give up many Saturday nights to come all the way West from Walthamstow to work for me at hot and hectic pop ups, she also volunteered at the pop up I did for Action Aid in Syria. Hana runs her own pop ups called Pickled Plates, and you can find out more about them here.
Thank you to Grub Club for supporting me all the way with my pop ups. For encouraging me, recommending me, even lending me their house for a pop up when I suddenly found myself venue-less. Thank you to my ex-boyfriend for letting me do pop ups in his house for the first half of this year (and all of last year too). Thank you to Storeys for giving us their venue for the Action Aid pop up, and to Urban Villa for letting me hold a pop up there on the hottest day this year! Thank you to Lorraine at Hummingbird Deli, and Angie at Angie's Little Food Shop for letting me use their venues more recently.
Thank you to my pop up helpers this year - Ian, Bronwen, Dru, Libby, Amina, Donna, Tracey, Stephanie, Emily, Michelle, Leanne, Tobi, Chitra (SO sorry if I've forgotten anyone....). And thank you to Hardeep Singh Kohli, who decided that our crazy idea to feed 60+ people on a rooftop within weeks of making that plan wasn't in fact that crazy, and without whom I could never have put on the event that we did to raise money for Action Aid in Syria.
A massive thank you to the wonderful photographers who worked with me this year. It's so hard for me to take anything resembling a proper photo at my pop ups, but Chelone, Rad, Phil and Karin have captured pictures of my food that make me a proud chef!
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about what we can all do to help and support the people who've lost their homes and had to the flee their countries because of war where they lived. Sadly, every day more people become refugees, and though the media chooses to mostly ignore it, the problem is not going away. Some of these refugees have ended up in Calais, France, in a no man's land, where no government will help or take responsibility for them, and where they are about to experience a cold, long winter while living in makeshift camps. You can continue to donate clothing, shoes, food, tents and other supplies through various channels mentioned in the first post I wrote, but now you can also support in another way.
A collective of UK street food traders, StreetAid, will be heading to Calais in January 2016 to deliver direct aid to refugees in camps in Calais. They'll be providing hot nourishing food and essential building equipment to people in real need. Street food traders delivering aid in January include The Roadery, Rupert's Street, Streatza, The Bowler, Fleisch Mob, House of Dodo, and What The Dickens! This is the second trip to Calais for these superstars, having previously visited the camp in September, where their help was invaluable.
The guys at StreetAid who are arranging this trip are looking for our help in raising funds to buy food that they'll cook and distribute, and to purchase building provisions to help build more sturdy homes for the refugees, that will protect them from the harsh winter weather. So, please dig deep, and help StreetAid to help the people that need it the most. So often it can feel like there's nothing we can do to help, but by donating to this campaign you will be making a real difference. I've hyperlinked to the Just Giving page above, but just in case you can't see it, here's the full link to where you can donate - https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/StreetAid.
Thank you xx
Who doesn't love a bit of chocolate now and again? I'm personally only really a fan of dark chocolate, though will try others, especially if they're part of a luxurious dessert. But normally, the darker the better, and I've recently become a fan of raw chocolate, which is made by cold grinding beans, rather than roasting them, meaning they retain all of the goodness and antioxidants that are so prevalent in cacao beans. You can read all about how chocolate is actually made here in a previous post I wrote.
One brand I've become particularly fond of is Lovechock - a new-ish to market raw chocolate bar. It's 100% organic, sweetened with the dried nectar of coconut palm tree blossom (which is the most sustainable sugar available and is packed with nutrients and antioxidants), and is flavoured with superfoods, like nuts, goji berries and actual cacao nibs. It comes in various flavours including my favourites - almond and fig, pecan and maca, raw and nibs, and mulberry and vanilla.
I've already mentioned that I want to do everything I can to support charities working with refugees who are trying to save their lives and the lives of their families, having fled the countries they lived in, as they're no longer safe to stay there. I feel so useless and detached from it all here in London, but despite not being able to help directly, there are things we can all do to support and help. As well as marching through London tomorrow, and donating all the profits from my October pop up to grassroots charities working with refugees in Calais, Hardeep and I have decided to put on an event to raise money to donate to charities supporting refugees.
On Wednesday 30th September we are cooking for and hosting a sit down, seven-course dinner at Storeys in Shepherds Bush, for 60 people. We've called it Ginger Spice, and it's a feast of Indian inspired food. Tickets are £49 per person and 100% of profits will go to Action Aid's refugee appeal campaign. We are hoping to get sponsors on board so that we can donate even more money.
I would really, really appreciate it if you can share this far and wide - the more tickets we sell, the more we can donate, so please, save the photo below and share it on all your social media, along with this link to buy tickets.
If you want to come but don't eat something from the menu, there's a comments section when booking so just mention your intolerance/allergy/dislike there and we will email you alternative options to choose from.
Thank you,
Rosie xx
This week the press has been full of images that have pulled at the heart strings of many of us. Sadly, these images are just the tip of the iceberg and highlight something that's been going on for far too long, and has been largely ignored by the UK government. It is not acceptable that people are dying to try and save their lives and those of their loved ones. It is not ok that the UK has closed its doors to the people who most need our help, as it is no longer safe for them to live in the countries they call home (yesterday the government promised to take in 4,000 refugees - 4,000 people is only 0.1 percent of the total number of Syrian refugees). I've got a stack of blog posts about expensive restaurants and nice food I've eaten that are ready to be published, but it doesn't feel right to write about that now. I have a privileged life that means I can do what I want and go where I want without question but I know I'm one of the lucky ones - born in a country that allows me freedom, but that now makes me feel embarrassed to be British. But being embarrassed isn't going to change the minds of government. Yes, we voted for the people who now make the decisions here, but despite their wrong decisions, there's still a lot of things we can all do to help the refugees who've had to flee their own countries. As millions of people are making a life threatening journey to seek safety there are aid agencies doing all they can to help and support them.
Action Aid is one of these agencies, and they've been working with refugees from Syria and many other war torn countries, who've had to leave their homes after four years of conflict in their country, for many years. Action Aid provide urgently needed support and supplies, clothing, food, water and medicine to refugees from all countries, and with our help they can continue to do this, and work on a plan to further increase their response to the humanitarian emergency that is happening on our doorstep. Action Aid are raising money for their emergency response to the refugee crisis and you can donate to that here. As Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at Action Aid says, "our common humanity demands of us compassion, support and protection of those in fear now". So please, donate what you can.
If you want to help further there are still so many ways you can do so.
There are individuals, all over Europe doing all they can to help. This is a fundraising page set up by a girl who works for refugee organisations and now lives in Greece. She is raising money so she can provide food, water and shelter to refugees in Greece. A friend is raising money to provide basic aid to refugees who are in now stuck in Calais because our country's government won't allow them to travel any further. There are hundreds of people raising money to help refugees, and you can donate to any of them.
Newspapers have published ways that we can help too, listing aid agencies and grassroots groups to support, lists of petitions we can sign and details of marches to take part in. On 12th September, come and join us as we march through Westminster to show our solidarity with all refugees. You can find many more ways to help here.
I found this poem, written by Somali poet Warsan Shire, which so darkly explains the situation that refugees find themselves in. No one chooses the country they are born in to so no-one deserves to be persecuted because of it, especially if the country they are born in to has been torn apart and become unsafe to live in because of war that is funded by our own government.
"HOME," by Somali poet Warsan Shire:
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border...
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.
by Somali poet, Warsan Shire
ActionAid need our help, now.
This wonderful charity work tirelessly throughout the year to give a better and brighter future to children who need one most around the world. I've worked with them on previous campaigns, and the further we can spread the word the better. This Christmas I have the fortune of being with family and loved ones, in a warm house, with electricity and running water, opening presents we have given each other. A lot of us will think of this as normal but for so many children in the world this is a distant dream of something they've never had. I don't know how much you've spent on presents, but I'm sure it's more than what it costs to sponsor a child in desperate need. With ActionAid you can sponsor one of the world's poorest, most vulnerable children. ActionAid work in over 40 countries with kids who are hungry with no food, sick with no medicine and in danger with no protection. But with your help, for just £15 a month, ActionAid can provide support and help to these children, to give them hope and a better future. You can also give child sponsorship as a gift this year, so if you know someone who has everything, or someone you've yet to buy a present for, why not give them the gift that keeps on giving?
The ActionAid Christmas campaign is focusing on 6 of the 40 countries they work in - Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, The Gambia, Afghanistan and Myanmar - where the children are most in need. You can make sure that a child has enough to eat, a safe place to live and the chance to go to school. So please, please help if you can.
One of the previous ActionAid campaigns I worked on was also supported by actress Fay Ripley. She spoke passionately about her visit to the poorest parts of Africa, where she'd met children who had literally been saved by ActionAid's work. For this year's Action Aid Christmas #giveafuture campaign Fay has put together a recipe to share. So please share this post far and wide, and if you make the recipe, why not make a donation as well?
It's not every day you receive an email asking if you'd like to send some interview questions through for Michel Roux Jr, but that's exactly what happened last Friday, much to my surprise and excitement. I love the Rouxs as chefs and always have done. I watch little live TV - only Attenborough, football and cooking shows - but have always loved what I've seen of Michel Roux Jr on shows such as Masterchef and Food and Drink, which I have on catch up in the background on Saturday mornings when I'm cooking for my pop ups. I was asked to provide questions for this interview as Michel is fundraising for a really great charity that he is a patron of, VICTA - a charity that fundraises to provide support and activities for visually impaired and blind children - by trading from an initial budget of £2,500 with City Index and trying to make as much money as possible - as stressful as a day in the kitchen I'm sure, just not half as tasty! Michel is a long term supporter of VICTA and has run several marathons for the charity too. I've enjoyed reading Michel's answers to my questions so much, and I hope you do too - he really seems even lovelier than I already thought he was:
1. Who has inspired you the most in your career?
My first boss when I was an apprentice pastry chef, he was a man that led by example and rarely shouted. He was the first person in, in the morning and the last one out at night.
2. What is the first thing you remember cooking?
The first thing I remember cooking wasn’t actually cooking it was making ice cream as a child. My father had made the custard and I must have been about six and had to churn it by hand as we didn’t have an electric machine. It was churned on ice and was a very hard job. I was rewarded with a scoop of freshly made ice cream.
3. What is your favourite restaurant in London?
My favourite local restaurant is The Dairy in South London. I think it would be wonderful if every local restaurant was like the dairy. It’s affordable, run by a husband and wife team, and has a real homely feel. It ticks all the boxes of what I look for in a restaurant.
4. What is your can’t live without kitchen gadget?
At the moment this would be a pressure cooker, I think they’re back in fashion now, when you say pressure cooker you usually think of your granny or old cabbage but these days they really are state of the art.
5. What are your top three can’t live without ingredients?
These would have to be venison, truffles and chocolate.
6. What is your newest ingredient discovery?
A forgotten vegetable, cardoons.
7. What is your worst food intolerance to cook for?
Working in a restaurant you have to cook for lots of different intolerances, but the one I have the most sympathy for has to be gluten, as I really couldn’t give up bread, pasta or any wheat products.
8. Why did you choose to fundraise for VICTA today?
Visually Impaired Children Taking Action - I’ve run marathons for VICTA for 16-18 years now. It’s about taking blind or partially sighted children out-and-about and getting them involved in sporting activities. It’s a small charity and I believe the smaller the charity the more of the money actually goes to the cause. I’ve had over four operations on my eyes myself and they really do deserve a little bit of help.
(I'm completely with Michel here with regards donating to smaller charities as I also believe that more money gets to those who need it this way)
9. What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone wanting to start a career as a Chef?
The advice I would give is for someone in a job or apprenticeship to take notes - not necessarily recipes but just little notes as you go along, in the form of a little diary. I still look back at my notes I made when I was apprentice and it really is an inspiration to look back and to learn.
(This is such a nice answer from Michel. So many chefs answer this question with "don't become a chef" which is really unhelpful for those who've already decided that they do want to be a chef!)
Such interesting answers! The first thing I did when I read them was look up cardoons - it's a vegetable known as the artichoke thistle, and both the stalks and leaves can be eaten, and have an artichoke flavour to them - something to consider for my pop up menus!
There was one question on my list I'd sent through that Will didn't have time to ask for me, which was what Michel thought of supper clubs, and would he like to come to mine one day?! So if you're reading this Michel, why don't you come and try it out?!?
This post is so embarrassingly late, I don't know where to start with the excuses! My photos are also dark, but I promise it's worth a read!
In November (the 3rd to be precise), I was kindly invited to a wonderful feast, provided by top chefs at Vivek Singh's restaurant, The Cinnamon Kitchen, near Liverpool Street. It was the most wonderful evening, and was put on in aid of Action Against Hunger's Global Gastronomy campaign.
On Saturday 2nd November, I'm teaming up with Slow Food London to bring you my first public A Little Lusciousness pop up! I've been in talks with Grub Club for a while about launching pop up restaurants, and it is so exciting to finally be able to tell you about it, and give you some more details!!
Slow Food is a global, not for profit organisation whose aim is to promote "the pleasure of food with a commitment to the community and the environment". They stand against the increase in fast food, and aim to get people to stop and think about where their food has come from. It's all about local sourcing, preparing home food and taking some time and care with getting food ready to eat. It is an ethos and an attitude towards food that they promote - one I firmly believe in, and one that I'm sure many people could learn something from. The Slow Food London food projects are really in line with my beliefs around homegrown, lovingly prepared food, so when the opportunity to do something with them came up, it seemed like the ideal time to launch my pop up to the public!
The menu for my pop up is as follows, with all ingredients being free-range and/or organic, and sourced from British suppliers that I continue to work with (including Devon large white variety pork shoulder from Wyndham House butchers, and cheeses from the wonderful guys at O Toma O Morte). It will be a very casual evening, and a great opportunity to spend some time with like minded foodies!
WELCOME COCKTAIL...
STARTER – Borscht with homemade soda bread.
MAIN – 24 hour shoulder of Devon free-range pork with special carrots, celeriac coleslaw and vegetables, with smokey BBQ sauce.
PUDDING – Sticky apple and pecan cake with butterscotch sauce.
CHEESE – Cheeseboard with pears, chutney and homemade biscuits.
I'll be providing soft drinks as well, but if you'd like something stronger, please feel free to bring a bottle (or two!)
All proceeds from ticket sales for the night will be going to Slow Food London Schools Programme, where the money will go towards funding a raised bed garden being built in a school for special needs children in London. You can read more about what Slow Food London do here.
Going forward, I will be doing a monthly pop up in West London, which will be promoted through the Grub Club site. It would be great if you can make it along to one of them, as I'd love to put some faces to names!! For tickets or more information please go to my page on the Grub Club website. Tickets are available now for the November event, and details about the December event will be up soon!!
Thank you!
In June I blogged about Enough Food IF with Action Aid UK, a campaign that raised awareness about global hunger and food issues. A campaign that led to land grabs being put on the G8 agenda for the first time ever and the UK government finally delivering on their promise to spend 0.7% of national income on Aid, which was a brilliant result.
I've always tried to do what I can to support various charities, and have always had such admiration for the work that Action Aid do. When I got an email telling me about their latest campaign, REBUILD, I had to do all I could to help. Action Aid have over 2,200 children in the most war affected African countries waiting for sponsorship. Sponsoring a child costs less than £4 a week, and helps provide life saving medicines, water, education and a safer home for them - all things they deserve. Sponsoring a child can also give them something else they deserve - a happy, innocent childhood. Over 10 million children have experienced and been psychologically damaged by war in the last 10 years alone, and sponsorship supports both the child and their community through and after such trauma.
Action Aid suggested that I blog about childhood memories. I thought of princess dresses and leaving food out for hedgehogs, horse riding and enjoying time with generations of my family. And just being happy.
Last night I went along to an Action Aid bloggers' meet up to talk about the Enough Food IF campaign, which is being supported by over 170 global charities and organisations.
The campaign has come about due to the fact that the world produces enough food for everyone, but not everyone has enough food.
On June 8th Enough Food IF are inviting you, me and everyone who can get there to come to Hyde Park, to make a noisy and visual petition, so loud and large that world leaders can't ignore it, and are forced to act on world hunger NOW. It is absolutely unacceptable that 1 in 8 people in the world go to bed hungry. And by hungry I mean they haven't eaten all day.
Last night Action Aid brought along various guests to talk to us about world hunger problems. First up was actress and cookbook author, Fay Ripley. Fay talked to us about her involvment with Action Aid, which stemmed from her exasperation with the cost and waste involved with children's birthday parties, and her and her 6 year old's mutual decision to request donations rather than presents, which would fund her sponsorship of an African child. Fay has since visited schools in Africa with Action Aid, and has seen for herself how much difference food makes to a child's ability to learn, and go about day to day life.
