Gordon White

London life skills learnt the hard way. Also recipes for some reason.

Genoese Squid For People Who Never Cook Season

This recipe is Genoese-inspired, from Diana Henry’s life changing book, Food From Plenty. The dish is for people who -like me- actually really like seafood but never really cook it because they’re too chicken shit.

Radish And Olive Salad For A Confusing Detox

In between catching up with business partners, family and friends over the new year there are evenings at home spent crying into my XXXL muumuu about how much weight was gained over Christmas.

A Very European Union Of Sausages

Chorizo, for instance, goes with everything and appears fun and exciting and vivacious like a hot Spaniard you meet at sunset by the beach.

How To Do Burns Night At Home

Of course, if you are going to be racist and turn your nose up at the fine people of Scotland’s proud heritage then I am going to make you work for it. This Highland stew is much more hassle but will begrudgingly serve as a delicious replacement.

Seventies Party Food For People Who Weren’t Alive In The Seventies

Quite a number of this year’s food trends have a seventies feel to them… chopped liver, wines made of things other than grapes…

Review: Capote Y Toros

Posted by Gordon White

See my review on Qype.

Sherry is very much my drink at the moment so a visit to the latest addition to the Cambio De Tercio family -a ham and sherry bar- was greeted with considerable interest.

Bonus points for being close to home, too!

When I say that sherry is my drink what that means is that I am slowly, ignorantly working my way up from the driest fino to the more interesting and challenging varieties one sunny weekend at a time.

If this journey was available in book form it would look like the wine list at …

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Bank Holiday Fritatta

Posted by Gordon White

Yep. I made it.

As per the last post, one of the suggestions for a shut-in Bank Holiday in London was fritatta making.

There were a couple of minor differences to the base recipe:

I used 3 shallots rather than one large onion. Shallots are sweeter. I thought they’d be a better match for the ricotta and the tomatoes.

This turned out to be one of my more awesome weekend decisions.

We threw in a few torn sage leaves left over from last night’s risotto al limone.

But otherwise it’s basically the same. This makes enough for four people …

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10 Bank Holiday Suggestions For London Shut-Ins

Posted by Gordon White

Of course I’m doing this by choice. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact I am too disorganised (lonely?) to have booked in an awesome adventure.

And, in fact now that it comes to it, I want to be antisocial this weekend. I want to commute no further than my TV room and/or closest shop. So there.

Feeling the same way? Laid low by your final month of pregnancy? Scared of crowds?

Let Gordon provide the menu to -well not awesomeness per se- but how about slightly-less-shitness?

Annotate your cookbooks. I use those little post-it flags. Then

…

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Baked Onion Tagliatelle: Stolen Recipe Ideas

Posted by Gordon White

Last weekend was a fun day for the three remaining people in Britain who read newspapers in printed form. I am 33% of them. It was the ten year anniversary of Observer Food Monthly.

There is no city on earth that is better served by newsprint than London. It’s a dream.

As mentioned to Tan, the first thing I was going to cook was Nigel Slater’s baked onions. And I meant it.

Saturday night rolled around. Baked onions on their own seemed a kinda weird thing to eat as a main so I threw some tagliatelle …

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Find The Bright Side Of The Apocalypse

Posted by Gordon White

In the last post we saw how you can spot an apocalypse with food trends.

Which is all well and good, but not everything to do with the apocalypse is strictly bad. Example, as previously mentioned, Pimm’s is popular again.

Plus, no one is quite sure what Doomsday will look like in London but here are some popular guesses. (You never know, it might be fun.)

Also the love of the monstrous is widely popular once again. Something that warms the steampunk/Orcish/Lovecraftian/Sauropod cockles of this freakshow heart.

(Sidebar: I liked that interview so much that I …

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Review: Pinter’s Moonlight

Posted by Gordon White

Okay so… I’m not the theatre one in this relationship. James is. But I have seen quite a bit over the years. In multiple countries.

James, however, has seen much more.

Which is why, as I sat through eleven and a half awful hours (actual running time: 70 minutes) in uncomfortable, increasingly sober silence I started to think… maybe it’s me?

I mean I like Pinter as much as the next gay. Is it possible I wasn’t watching an overacted, pointless turd? Was this what the-ATE-er is supposed to be like?

Looking around at the packed house two things …

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How Food Trends Predict The Apocalypse

Posted by Gordon White

James and I went to Mooli’s again after work this week.

Firstly, Mooli’s is amazing. Go there often. The staff are friendly, the food is awesome, they serve Crabbie’s… it’s all good.

As we sat in silence (stuffing our fucking faces), my mind wandered to the significance of the food I was eating. James is lucky I’m such a greedy bastard. This is the bleeding edge of food cool right now. The bleeding edge in the restaurant capital of the world. Trains of thought such as these belong in blog posts, not dinner chat.

Besides, he was telling me… …

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Why I Won’t Rush Back To Edinburgh

Posted by Gordon White

At first I thought it was because I was tired and hungover.

We had taken the Caledonian Sleeper up to Edinburgh because I had never slept on a train before.

I have still never slept on a train.

Granted, some of the blame must rest on my shoulders as James and I stayed up till 3am drinking wine in the dining car. And the train arrives just before 7am so… you know… there were mitigating circumstances.

But I expected to be floored. Here are the things people tell you about Edinburgh: