It’s been a while….

What happened was that I fled London in my choc-mobile. I wanted to get out there and see what the rest of Britain had to offer and how well we’re all eating and drinking. Of course I never travel without a touch of shez and the fridge in the back of the van has been utilised most efficiently along the way: a spot of PX for my Venezuelan truffles, some palo cortado to have with snacks under the sinking evening light, an oloroso with my Craster kippers….always once the van is parked up for the night, mind.

So the on the road reverie has rendered me a little blog-shy. But I must get over this minor hurdle because there’s work to do! I need to continue spreading the good word of shez and there’s plenty to holler about. I was up in Aviemore the other week, for example, and was blown away by the smooth way that my roast pheasant went with the pale cream that was perched proudly on the table. It’s a new one on me - I would ordinarily have favoured more of a nutty aroma to pair with this game old bird - but its sweetness rallied my senses in an altogether more refreshing way.

And then there was the art teacher I met in Durham who told me of his college days penchant for sherry and lemonade. He was keen on all sorts of styles for this strange sounding concoction, but did confess to leaning towards the drier sherries to combat the sweetness.

I will check in shortly with more news from the frontline of sherry experimentation - it’s a jungle out here and I’m loving the adventure!

Marquis of Westminster

I went to meet my new friend Maggie yesterday evening. As a wine writer I knew the very mention of the ‘S’ word would have her heart racing and she was behind me all the way when I suggested The Marquis of Westminster in Victoria.

Someone who knows about this sort of thing had told me that if I ever found myself roaming around Pimlico and felt a calling for my favourite tipple then this was the place to go. This part of London has always intrigued me. It’s so very back there in time, almost unreal with its white fondant facades, bowler hat sightings and wine bars that look as if their clientele have had no change in lifestyle since the ’70s. They make me want to head on in and have a really epic, boozy lunch, culminating in Withnail-esque measures of brandy and endless cigarillos…

The pub was a welcome sight after a good lag along Belgrave Road. I swung through the lighter-than-I’d-imagined doors and was confronted with a few faces shocked at my zealous entrance. Luckily it’s a modestly lit place and I was able to find my way to the bar more or less under cover of darkness.

“So I hear you do a fine line in sherry” I enthused, already salivating at the thought of the bounty of choices about to be laid before me. The barman looked a bit dead pan but decided to play along, “Ah yes, we have Manzanilla!” he declared with a finality that caused me immediate concern. “And…?” I asked. “And only that, but it is very good”.

Well of course I went for it despite feeling like I’d been a bit scuppered. Maggie turned up and we got two glasses - they both arrived in little thimbles and I had to request a decant. This, along with never being given enough ice, is an ongoing battle I have in pubs all over the country.  An enormous jar of glossy olives provided some distraction and soon Maggie and I were glugging back a fine, salty drop of sherry whilst throwing back feta-stuffed green olives.

We had decided to meet to discuss my tour. I’m planning a big trip round Britain in my chocolate van and Maggie had some ideas. The plan is to take to the open road and discover how hospitable we are as a nation. I am seeking people to host me for dinner and I’ll provide the (chocolate) dessert. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do ever since I first bought the van - to explore Britain and to make and sell chocolate along the way, writing about it in my blog.

It wasn’t long before I needed some kind of immediate fix - brownies with ice cream! A slab of warm brownie arrived in extra quick time with a ball of Walls-like vanilla ice cream on the side. The brownie wasn’t anything amazing - more a piece of cake than anything - but it was chocolatey enough and anything served at that temperature can cover a multitude of sins.

I’ll definitely head back to the Marquis for a drink  - they have some really great wines, all served by the glass - but for a piece of the sherry action I’d have to bring a large hip flask and swig it discreetly in one of the pub’s many plunging shadows.

Pinchito…at last!

I headed East to Whitecross Street the other day – to give my friend Simon a hand in his Mexican food van. The business is called ‘Luardos’ but the van’s name is Jesus – it’s what everyone says when they see it because it’s such a stunner. ‘Jesus!’ they cry as they surge towards the counter for a slow-cooked pork burrito.

These burritos are what I dream of when I’m far away – so after a few hours of chewing the chipotle with the punters I was ready and rearing to devour that great meaty package. A bit of washing up soon worked it off and then along came my friends Jemma and Sam from Crumbs & Doilies (cupcake Co. extraordinaire FYI) to rescue me from the refried beans pan and off we sped to Pinchito round the corner…

I’d been meaning to check this place out since it opened last summer. Everyone had been raving about it and I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t have to house that fear of ‘will there be any sherry there and if there is will it be served at the right temperature?’

We stepped up into the place, a bricked, low-lit…joint – it’s definitely a joint - that seems perfect for the night times. It was early but already many of the bar stools running along the three sides were occupied. We gravitated towards the alluring lit up counter, full of montaditos - piled high crostini with tortilla, jamon, pollo picante, manchego, piquillo peppers. We sat there, Sam and Jemma and I, faces lit up by the canteen yellow glow of the counter – pouring over the menu and gasping for something really good to wash it all down with.

Tobias - the resident cocktail expert and partner in both Pinchito and Brighton’s Pintxo People – strode over to us. I smiled at him and a faint recognition breezed over his face. ‘We met at The Perfect Marriage sherry tasting’ I said, ‘Aah yes! You seemed to be enjoying your amontillado verree much!’. It’s true, I can’t lie – I am enamorata totalmente with the nutty number. It’s like having a really sound friend around: Straight talking, full of substance and formidable as hell. On that note we ordered a half bottle of the ’93 Vina AB Amontillado Palomino and set about choosing food to go with it.

Of course we had to have some pimientos de padron – I had prepared some the other night in fact, in my new shiny white kitchen. As I tossed the little rascals into the pan there was a raging response. With no fire blanket in sight, common sense completely abandoned me whilst the flames surged dangerously high and I stood staring at them, immobilised and aghast… my friend Fe let out a long-winded scream but at least had the nouse to advance on the chillis and pull them to safety.

Anyway, I was delighted not to have to risk an olive oil skin peel and skipped straight to the munch. God they’re tasty. We had ploughed halfway through them before our sherry was even ready – and when it was the entrance was ceremonious. I love the drama of a bottle being opened by someone who cares. Along came Tobias all ice buckets and long stemmed glasses, speaking of the flor and the oxidisation process. My cupcake companions were tuning him – quite reverentially I thought – but I could tell all they really wanted was to get to the bit where they got their pork belly. This arrived in three fat, glistening tranches on a tiny plate which was empty in seconds. The cold amontillado knocking around my taste buds with that unctuous pork made me feel…complete.

Also delicious were the boquerones. These are something that are always good wherever you go but rarely that different – Pinchito’s though are meatier, glossier and more tart. We tried lots of other dishes – “pa amb tomaquet” (Catalan bruschetta), Escalibada (roast veg salad), paprika and lemon fried squid, jamon Iberico and then some unforgivably bad churros con chocolate (which was knocked off our bill at the end) and I just wasn’t that excited by them.

What did get me going though was the sherry menu. It was listed right at the beginning of the wines – under ‘Vinos’ – taking prime position and sure to tempt anyone with its depth and range. As Tobias told us (very poetically I thought) – we must think of sherry in terms of white, red and sweet, and to start with the ‘white’ (fino/manzanilla), then move on to the ‘red’ (amontillado/palo cortado/dry oloroso) and finish with the ‘sweet’ (PX, cream, sweet oloroso). A sherry bonanza! Brilliant, must try it sometime. I could have sat there all night, focussing solely on the sherry menu and the pork belly but had to rush to catch my friend Lettie singing at Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon. I’ll be back though because, despite some corner cutting in the kitchen Pinchito has the glow-factor – when I think of it something in me goes ‘MMmmm’ – and that’s priceless.

Heston in Jerez as part of his BBC ‘In Search of Perfection’ series.

Click on the video below to view Heston in Jerez as part of his BBC ‘In Search of Perfection’ series, where he talked up his fondess for Andalusia’s finest as part of his Christmas food and drink season.

PX pancakes

I’m obsessed with pancakes. They just seem to make it seem like everything’s going be ok. I remember being taken round Mexico in the early ’80s and feeling absolutely aghast at the different-ness of it all - the great, fusty indoor meat markets, soldiered by flies and children poking big sugary stacks of churros; the lumpy pillows impregnated with bed sweat in seedy posadas; the dead dogs on the roads becoming one with the tarmac…but sometimes, if we were lucky, my parents would check us into an American-style hotel and the highlight for me would be the short stacks of ‘hot cakes’ in the morning. Those little steaming discs of comfort soused in maple syrup would restore order to my culture-shocked system.

I had my uncle and aunt to dinner on Shrove Tuesday and, though my aunt has gone carb-free, they are demons for the pancakes. We started off really simply with some Italian sausages with puy lentils and herbs - a bit of amontillado worked well with the fennel seeds in the bangers (although there was a slightly dubious bottle of gooseberry wine lurking around the table too).

My mum and I made a group effort with the batter - she made up a mix by eye which I then waded in to bulk out because I was terrified we wouldn’t have enough (greedy). The main thing for me is that it’s quite an eggy batter which makes it nice and rich. I had picked up a bottle of PX earlier in Brindisa and thought it might be able to make sweet music with some golden syrup. I let them bubble away gently together, a delightful amber blend that when poured over the piping hot pancake had everyone shouting for more. In fact my uncle claimed it was the best he’d ever had!

Ade’s ultimate aid

I was happy to read in today’s Observer that Adrian Edmondson harbours a penchant for a bit of sherry. Now that would make an interesting post…

Dehesa opening

There is a new addition to the UK’s growing stable of great sherry hotspots – Dehesa is the handy work of couple and business duo Simon and Sanja Mullins who invited me to its opening night on Monday. Salt Yard’s new sister has only been open a couple of weeks but already has that rather alluring, no messing way about it that says it knows itself and how to go about its business. After I’d negotiated my way past the gang of smokers at the door I was soon delivered into a rowdy, big windowed room full of wine lovers. Well, they all seemed like wine lovers and I saw plenty of bottles of cava being decimated – but the attraction for me lay on the plates of canapés being carried around at shoulder height all evening.

I attuned myself with them immediately but soon sussed out that, by and large, those suckers weren’t destined for me – or at least not until they’d floated off purposefully towards certain key players and were returning, somewhat depleted. I repositioned myself accordingly, right near the dumb waiter and was then able to fully reap the rewards….

Out they marched and in I swooped – large, velvety croquetas de bacalao with red pepper salsa, stamp-size morsels of jamon Iberico and prosciutto di Parma, the unmistakable shudder of joy brought on by a piece of truffled parmesan and a skewered row of very white, pesto smothered, seductive little cubes of swordfish. The extremely patient waiters soon realised there was no avoiding me since I presented the only obstacle between the dumb waiter and the rest of the room, so by the time things got sweeter I was their first port of call.

I liked the even-handed and assured presence of pistachios in my biscotti – in a similar way that I was drawn to the boatshed grey/blue glossed over the ceiling: simple but strong The Crema Catalana was made memorable by the bitter apricot slice within. But the show stopper for me came in two parts: a very low-key, almost fossilised looking Spanish truffle with a side of quivering, hard to pick up slice of pomegranate jelly. What elegance! Once the jewel like jelly had been tamed and was finally laying tremble free between my fingers, and that prehistoric chocolate joined the party, dark + tart quickly assumed a place in my Fond Food Memories bank.

I’m looking forward to returning for more and to start exploring the healthy sherry list.

There is a saying in my family that goes back fifty years: “One Sherry before 11 or eleven before 1”

And I have watched at family lunches as an uncle or cousin has returned from the cellar armed with a bottle of cream, ready and more than willing to pay the penalty for having missed the curfew. As I got older, I stopped being offered soda-streams and was introduced to the world of alcohol instead. Before lunch would become the “Mackaskie Special” – a mix of gin, Dubonnet and Angosturas bitters, or maybe some scrumpy from the barrel if someone had been to Somerset and always plenty of wine at lunch – sometimes red, sometimes white, and often a Sherry of some kind. (Before we kick this off I must first declare that I’m not an alcoholic, just deeply fascinated by alcohol. I love the shape and colour of the bottles, the labels that point towards their stories - the myths and tales; the rousing whiff of a really superior liquor; the glasses that hold it and the significance of the perfect drink in the perfect place).

My early memories of sherry drinking are accompanied by oddity and delight. A B&B in New Orleans where the high-camp owner laid on a decanter of (what I guess now must have been) oloroso to enjoy during late night hot tub sessions - went down like a dream. Walking through Kensal Rise one afternoon (when summers were hotter), an eager old Spaniard offered me ‘vino y jamon’ from his breezy deli. Never one to refuse the chance of a bit of off-piste liquid refreshment I gladly helped relieve him of his manzanilla stash before continuing on my way.

And the living room in the house of my best friend’s neighbours in Andalucía one holiday: Pepe and his wife and her brother and his son. We all sat around in this room that felt as if it only ever got used for family corpse viewings - all squeaky plastic coated armchairs and obscure staged photos -drinking lukewarm fino and trying to fend off a million questions about how much money we earned and where were our boyfriends. I stumbled along in my rookie Spanish as best I could but was grateful of the vino to lubricate my sentences.

It was only when I went to a drinks expo at Excel, East London a couple of years ago and found myself sitting in on a discussion of different sherry styles that the finer points of this wine started to uncurl. I tried all ten styles that day and before long my enthusiasm earned me an invite to a special sherry and food matching lunch at Mesa in Soho. Sure, I knew that fino went with almonds and manzanilla went with boquerones, but I had no idea that the flavours of roast lamb would accelerate so powerfully with palo cortado. Or that pale cream would stand up so well to camembert and taleggio.

And now sherry is fully looped into my life. A lot of people advocate certain sherries with certain food, but I also love playing around with them. I just spent the summer ‘festivalling’ with my chocolate business and always made sure there was space in the fridges for a few bottles of sherry. (It felt so civilised to be drinking nice cold finos from large glasses whilst everyone else lagged around with tepid cups of grog). I’d sally forth to the other food stalls and make key discoveries - like how well oloroso goes with curry mutton, and, when the queues were too long and I was bound to the stall, what a fine match medium sherry is with Twiglets!

This country is awash with potential sherry safaris. And I love that there are so many misconceptions about it and ‘unenlightened’ souls. The sherry challenge is on and I’m heading in all directions to explore its possibilities…

Petra