Roast Beef and Frogs' Legs

France has forever been viewed as the world's centre of gastronomy. Boasting more Michelin-starred restaurants than anywhere else in the world, this is the country that wrote the rulebook for the food we admire today, and it is the country to which any ambitious chef comes to cut his culinary teeth. It is a nation full of gourmands, self-appointed experts on everything from fine wine and artisan cheeses to the perfect baguette. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion; indeed, go to any market, epicerie, boulangerie or boucherie and you willl soon find yourself caught up in an often-heated food-related debate. In short, the French take their food seriously.

What they do not take seriously, however, is our food. In fact, it is openly derided as being utterly inferior to its counterpart across the channel. Among the reasons for this is - as is often the case - a great lack of understanding, as to what British food actually is. Equally to blame, though, is a rather narrow-minded attachment to old stereotypes; disparaging quips about how all Britain has to offer is dry roast beef and Mother's Pride.

However, lift the cloche and you'll soon discover the full extent of the misconception. Investigate a bit, and it soon becomes apparent that British cooking is fast producing some of the most diverse, innovative and rapidly developing food in the world. And the British public has just as quickly become completely obsessed by it all. Not only do we view TV cooks and food writers as glittering celebrities and national treasures, who get prime-time slots every night of the week, but also we suddenly really care about what we are eating. Everywhere we care to turn our trolley we are confronted by issues of provenance, sustainability, food-miles, the ecosystem. We demand organic, free-range, Fairtrade.

France may have old Proust with his dry madeleine, but we have the voluptuous, smokin' hot Nigella who gazes all come-hither into our eyes whilst licking a spoon; the adorably pukka Jamie who we all watched grow up, Hugh who campaigns for the humble chicken, and Gordon F***ing Ramsey.

France may well be a nation sated on sauces, satisfied on soup and stuffed on shellfish. But Britain is the birthplace of the foodie, and we are all still very, very hungry.

24 Carat

And so it was that I found myself, late on a Saturday night, leaning over a baking tray with a paintbrush in my hand, lovingly gilding a new batch of macarons with edible paint. These ones would have Cleopatra weeping in her catacomb, gleaming and sparkling and outrageously opulent as they are. One forgets sometimes that this is just a biscuit.

The macaron shells were made as the usual recipe (previous post), but with some freshly, finely grated cinnamon added in.

The ganache filling is, it has to be said, deeply, deeply good. Sensuous and unctuous and mellifluously, dulcifluously delicious, it is worth making even if you don't have the inclination to fiddle about with piping bags making macarons. It is suitably autumnal, and would work well in most other puddings - especially ones scented with vanilla and cinnamon.

Spiced pear and chocolate ganache:

ripe pear, finely cubed

cinnamon stick

vanilla sugar/demerara sugar and a little bit of good vanilla EXTRACT (by no means "essence")

good dark chocolate - I used Willie's 100% Cacao because it's incredibly good, but feel free to go for something less hardcore

cold unsalted butter

Over a low heat, melt down the pear with the spices and sugar to make a compote. Grate in the chocolate, stir until melted in, and taste - the first flavour should be chocolate, followed by the pear and spices. Off the heat, beat in a knob of cold butter, which will make the mixture shiny. Allow to cool and then refrigerate if you want it thicker - though know that this is best warm, wrapped up in freshly made crepes with vanilla ice cream. Autumn bliss.

Building a Nest

Winter has announced its arrival. There is a frostiness in the air and a crackle underfoot. This is when things gets cosy. We bring out our winter clothes, unfolding wool and cashmere, cleaning boots, buying a new hat that probably doesn't suit us and that will, come March, be relegated to the back of the wardrobe and forgotten about. The heating gets turned on. The shop windows gleam brazenly with Christmas decorations, and the trees are ablaze with gold and bronze. At night, everything twinkles.

The cold, or the change in light, makes us giddy, pushing us into party mood. At what other time of the year would it be acceptable to dress up as ghosts and ghouls and slutty vampire nurses, handing out sweets and bits of plastic tat to children who knock at our door all evening? Or to stuff two pairs of tights with newspaper to make a grotesque Guy to fling gleefully on a big fire and watch burn whilst stickily pecking at floury apples covered in toffee? It's mid-November and all most of us want to do is deck the halls and fill the cupboards. This is the time for nest-building.

Our food shopping also changes. We start to write long shopping lists. I buy dry goods in abundance and take great pleasure in filling the kitchen shelves with heavy packets of rice, couscous, pasta, pulses and industrial quantities of flour and sugar. The house is constantly filled with the smell of baking; plates of cakes and pastries adorn every surface and everything in the kitchen is covered in a blizzard of icing sugar. There is a cauldron of wine and spices mulling on the back-hob at all times. On the table is a bowl of huge rubied pomegranates and a crate of clementines, their leaves still attached. They look beautiful. At the weekend, there will be shellfish, oysters probably, at their sea-salty best right now. These luxuries are what make this time of year so intoxicating, along with the romance that comes with snuggling up in blankets, lighting candles and drinking warm things when it's cold and dark outside.

So get the shopping in, fill the pantry, make a nest. And revel in this time because, before you know it, Christmas will be gone and drizzly, grey February will be looming. Joy to the world!

Sublime coffee macarons

Forget tiramisu; these are perfect in every way. Serve them after dinner or with afternoon coffee for total perfection.

For about 15 macarons (when sandwiched):

Preheat the oven to 170C

120g icing sugar

60g ground almonds

5g good instant coffee granules

5g good cocoa powder

- all whizzed together in a food processor and passed though a sieve into a big bowl

60g egg whites (about 2 eggs whites)

40g caster sugar

- beaten together with electric beaters until firm and shiny - stiff peaks - but not dry

Fold the egg white into the dry mixture in three goes, to obtain a thoroughly mixed (BUT NOT OVERMIXED) "molten-lava" texture (see Macarons:an addiction post below for full description). Spoon into a piping bag and pipe small discs a few centimetres apart on baking sheets lined with Bake-O-Glide or baking parchment.

Rap the sheets firmly against the work surface to pop any air bubbles in the macarons, and leave for 15 minutes for a "skin" to form - you can barely see it but it stops the macaron shell from cracking in the oven. They should look like this:

Bake for about 8 minutes so that little frilly "feet" have formed at the base of the macarons and, when gently lifted (after being out of the oven a couple of minutes), the macarons come off the parchment leaving no sticky residue behind, with a flat base.

Whilst they are cooling, make the buttercream filling. Prepare a strong espresso (fresh, "real" coffee this time not instant) and allow it to cool. Cream together 2 parts icing sugar - about 100g - to 1 part butter (softened, unsalted), and when firm, add two tablespoons of espresso. Chill for a bit if it's too soft.

Pipe a blob onto one flat side of a macaron and sandwich it together with another (the same shape if your circles, like mine, aren't all uniform).

Serve on the side of a good espresso.

The man who waits for trains

Early evening on a freezing train station platform in Derbyshire. It's 5pm and dark already, and the asphalt surface is glittering in the cold.
The only thing that stops rural train stations - the kind without shopping malls, conveyor-belts of sushi and champagne bars - from being the most interminably dull places on earth is the shared anticipation hanging in the air. We are all waiting for something and, if we're lucky, for someone.
We crane our necks every few seconds waiting eagerly for the first sign of the train which, upon stopping, delivers our loved ones; friends from faraway shires, lovers laden with flowers or just a twinkle in their eye, a daughter returning home from Paris for half-term, all to be met with yelps of delight and bear-hugs and sloppy kisses and even tears. And if not, then there's someone who is waiting for us at the other end of the journey.

Tonight, I am early, and as I sit shivering and people-watching, I begin to notice a man standing on the edge of the platform. He is fabulously unkempt, with wild wiry hair and beard whirling around him like a storm cloud, scruffy hiking clothes and a deeply unfashionable pair of sensible Karrimor walking boots and matching rucksack. He definitely has the air of waiting for something, but in a distinctively passive way. Not like the flubbery, oafish blokes you see at chippies on a Friday night, glaring hypnotised at Mr. Wong or whichever poor soul has undertaken to provide grease and carbs to the gormless yobs, snatching it away to flood with cheap vinegar and eat carelessly on the pavement outside.

Several trains come and go, and yet grandpa is still there, leant against a pillar and staring vaguely towards the oncoming trains. Another huge juggernaut pulls in and unloads and, which a pneumatic sigh, lurches out of the station again. I turn again to the man and I get it. In his hand is a notepad, and he's near enough for me to see the perfectly neat rows of data, painstakingly copied in best handwriting onto the lined paper. The care he has taken in noting down the trains, their names and the time of their arrival into this random, dingy station in the middle of nowhere suddenly fills me with sadness which surges in my chest in great waves. Quite aside from the ridiculously depressing nature of his pastime, it is his loneliness that physically aches; he has been here for at least an hour and there is nobody to wait for, no excitable grandchildren to spoil with Werther's Originals (for that is, of course, what grandads do), no ladyfriend in a studiedly chosen twinset.
It is Friday evening and he should be ensconced in an armchair before a fire and maybe a roast chicken, a bustling wife, generations of family, even a Jack Russell or a little white Westie. Instead, he is shivering on icy tarmac in synthetic fabrics, arthritic fingers clutching a biro, staring into the darkness.

Next time, when you jump off the train into the arms of your lover, flushed at the prospect of a steamy night after time apart, of intimacy and whispers under the duvet, of being held and being loved, of cuddles in the kitchen and milky tea in bed, spare a thought for the trainspotter. Flash him your warmest smile: he'll need it.