foodie
Food. Mm mm! You can tell from my side view that I love food. Only the good stuff.
I must have spent hundreds of thousands on my belly. Shame you can't release that equity!
As a one or two year-old I remember the apple my mother would grate. The raw egg mixed with vanilla sugar like some heavenly raw custard.
Later, sitting around the table in my German grandmother's kitchen in Hamburg with all the women, preparing Eingelegte Heringe. Salty cured herrings with gherkins, sliced waxy potatoes, raw onions, peppercorns and a cream sauce. Lively talk, strong black coffee, schnapps, beer. I was 8 or 9 maybe. My mother's red cabbage which she adapted from her mother's recipe and I have adapted for myself.
I remember my uncle Volker spending all day preparing Rabbit in Dill sauce in a rented summer house near the Baltic. Everyone else remembers how long it took and how hungry they were. I remember the beautiful ritual.
I remember restaurants in the 80s. Henry's in Chiswick, which we visited weekly. Fancy foodie paradises like Menage a Trois, the home of Nouvelle Cuisine in London, as seen on the cover of A La Carte Magazine (my mate Trig still has a full set of every issue published). Warm Pigeon Salad at Inigo Jones, Foie Gras at L'Arlequin, the Raspberry Souffle at Le Gavroche.
A mind-blowing trip to Italy in 1985. Great food in Milan. We had no idea what we were ordering until it came. A sensational Tasting Menu at the Hotel Byron in Rome. And in Venice, forget Harry's Bar, go to La Corte Sconta.
Surrounded by hanging laundry it's a seafood restaurant in a backstreet courtyard. The ugliest seafood, scary looking fiends from the bay part crayfish, part langoustine. The sweetest flesh.
Then there's Japan. From my first mouthful I have loved sushi and sashimi. My trips to Tokyo have brought me to some amazing restaurants. Classical Japanese is exquisite. A meal based around tofu. Sounds dull. Tasted amazing. A symphony of flavours and moods and colours. A meal entirely based around Sea Bass in Ginza with Ai Inouchi. A detailed exploration of Sea Bass, more like. The Sake bars in Sangen-jaya like Aka-oni. The Soba noodle bar near Oba's studio where I went to eat lunch 10 days in a row. Thought I was ordering the same dish and each time got something different. Wonderful. Fresh. Deep. Delicious.
Above all "Waka-sushi" in Sakurashinmachi in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. My Japanese mate Mori calls the area Barons Court (like West London). My favourite sushi restaurant anywhere. Fish and seafood in tanks. Hirame with ponzu sauce. Amai-Ebi - sweet shrimp tugged from the tanks, still fizzing with life 30 seconds later when they sit headless on your sushi. They have the texture of butter. (And the living fizz of a tomato picked at perfect ripeness and eaten seconds later like I did with Henrik in Copenhagen). The Tiger shrimp whose tails twitch when you bite into them. Sounds horrific. Tastes SO good. At this point I am disappointed if I'm not confronted with live stuff when I'm there.
Winding forward, the 3 star restaurants of France and beyond. L'Ambroisie, Guy Savoy, Georges Blanc, Bocuse (with the $90 truffle soup en croute!), Cote St Jacques, Pic, Arpege, Jardin des Sens, Troisgros, Ducasse, Gagnaire, Don Alfonso south of Naples, Michel Guerard. The one that really stood out was Robuchon before he retired for the first time. A lunch of 8 courses. We arrived at 12.05 and staggered out at 16.50h. Vera says I had tears in my eyes and was unable to speak for one course.
Then there was El Bulli. Best meal I have had so far in my life - above Robuchon by a micro-thin slice. We were lucky with the booking. Just opened for the season. Got the slot, then booked flights and hotel. 13 courses, witty, creative. Magnificent. Froth infused with smoke or seawater. Jellies of green apple or campari. I went to the toilet after about 8 courses. There was an American guy at the next urinal. I casually asked him, "what do you reckon?" he stood back from the urinal and said "best meal of my life." Zip. Back to the dining room.
To this day I am surprised by food. The Filetto de Buey (the fillet of a young bull) in El Vino Tinto, Valladolid Spain. Standing up in the rammed tapas bar, crushed against the front counter, like fans at a rock concert. The grill chef, chunky, sweat dripping off him as he worked the braziers to our left. The Filetto seemed to have three bands. Seared on the outside, then apricot coloured, then blood red. Scattered with sea salt and washed-down with a sweaty red Ribera del Duero.
The Murcian salad or the sausages or the Paella at Ventrillo Murciano in Madrid. Freshly picked mustard leaves from my old school friend David Barton's polytunnel in his garden outside Gillingham, Dorset. My first Penne Putanesca made by Eric Palmer in his home kitchen in Clermont, Florida.
The Agnolotti del Plin at Trattoria della Posta outside Monforte d'Alba in Piedmont. A sensational pasta dish at Ai Castellieri outside Monfalcone in Friuli - linguine with sausage, broccoli and anchovy. Why would you ever order it? It came anyway and it was staggeringly good.
Truffles, caviar, foie gras, lobster, new season's smoked wild salmon. Unpasteurised cheese from Neals Yard Dairy or from the market at Beaune. Must I?
Food made with love by Vera, my mother, my sisters, brother-in-law, all my friends. Great cooks. Nick, both Pauls (Bunnage and Medhurst), Jim, Trig, Julian, Russell.
And today's another day. Another opportunity to eat something amazing!