http://www.ghirlando.co.uk en-gb ghirlando.co.uk 2010-3-2T00:00:00Z ghirlando.co.uk http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#54851 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false Style Definitions table.MsoNormalTable msostylenameTable Normal msotstylerowbandsize0 msotstylecolbandsize0 msostylenoshowyes msostyleparent msopaddingalt0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt msoparamargin0cm msoparamarginbottom.0001pt msopaginationwidoworphan fontsize12.0pt fontfamilyTimes New Roman msoasciifontfamilyCambria msoasciithemefontminorlatin msofareastfontfamilyTimes New Roman msofareastthemefontminorfareast msohansifontfamilyCambria msohansithemefontminorlatin msoansilanguageENUS It may be that the festive season is well and truly upon us. There is no dispute in my mind that this is the case because in our house the lights are twinkling the cat is stuck in the Christmas tree pine needles adorn the floor and the scent of satsumas fills the air. It would be a bleak midwin... 2009-12-21T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48776 So you taught me. I was always eating I watched television too. At college I followed your recipes and they opened my eyes. I shared them with friends who were amazed. We all raised glasses of wine to toast you. My mother taught me wonderful cooking you taught me wonder. When you were rocking side to side your cravat never moved. Tonight we all raise a glass to you and we cook and we mourn what seems to be another sadness from someone lonely and tragic who gave so much happiness. Im sure theres a bar in heaven and youll have the time of your life. Goodbye Sir Keith. 2009-9-15T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48369 I walked gently through the front doors off the summer street past the people sitting outside laughing. Nearly stamped on by a man stepping backwards a reacted sorry mate squeezing from his vacant mouth. A simple small room with leaded windows either side of the central front doors. A fruit machine flickers below the television which is playing a radio station. Convincingly converted oil lamps hang in the windows bleached and stained prints of ships sailing scenes and battles cover the walls like a room in the Academy. On the left a large mirror looks out above the fireplace and a cigarette machine hangs grimly onto the wall. Model wooden boats ceramic plates jugs and whatever else have been left for years on a long high shelf. The clock is stopped at seven thirtysix. Morning or evening. Four people sit alone two at far ends of the same table serious in their private worlds. They are perched as far away from each other as possible. Two others sit at chairs on small ... 2009-7-29T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48311 Crab Bisque Spring is into action now very bouncily and what better than crustacea to make you smile apart from stuffing your face with samphire until there is none left and the long wait begins.This morning with the roof down on the car I pootled along with Paul Mauriat and his orchestra to my favourite fishmonger a short jaunt away in Nunhead. Two handfuls of samphire and one medium sized crab later I was homeward bound. Tonights supper is going to be a light salad based on these ingredients but what I want to let you in on is my recipe for crab bisque. As I am writing this my mouth is watering from the incredible aromas coming from the kitchen. Ive cleaned the crab pulling away its dead mans fingers teasing out all the lovely white meat in the legs and claws and reserving the brown meat for a parfait. If you can get a live crab so much the better but if not well we can live with that. I just prefer my seasonings and broths to cook the crab in Then with the ... 2009-6-23T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48370 Sometimes it is the first time you try something and its flavours explode in your mouth that you remember as one of your favourite meals. Or perhaps it should really be one of your most memorable meals. Where lies the difference I have had many amazing curries and yes the first one wasnt the best but I think that is more down to the huge variety and styles available. I remember the first time I had seared tuna with salsa verde and lentils. I was knocked out amazed that there could be this dish that had been hidden from me all my life. I remember it well but it wasnt the best or most memorable dish Ive had. And some of the best meals some of the most memorable have not been ones that have had the best food. Pizza in a London restaurant on my first date with Bee. Tea and cake in the garden on a sunny day with friends and family. A plate of Ham and Eggs in an old pub in the woods and even a bought quiche with a bottle of wine on a wooden bench watching a dull play. A h... 2009-6-16T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48373 Ah yes Bees birthday dinner. Part two. Of about four it seems. And what I mean by that is that my wife has a block booking of at least a week of festivities when it comes to her birthday. Why not I applaud any excuse for as many celebratory meals as possible and in this case it was a landmark birthday so the meals were even more sumptuous and apples in a pigs mouth than normal. We are certainly reducing our intake in the coming week as I now cant see my feet when I stand up. Its going to be grilled fish and salad for us as we strive to get our bodies back to being temples and not the temples of doom they have been. Looking back at what we have been eating and drinking for the past seven days makes eyewatering reading. No wonder the steep and incredibly beautiful walk from Lulworth Cove to Durdle door in unseasonably bluesky sunshine was not as easy as it was when I last did it eight years ago. However nowadays we always use exercise as a justification to stuff it later i... 2009-2-23T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48374 The greatest compliment I can pay our host for last night was that I dont really remember eating. I know we enjoyed the food and there was certainly a cheese course which Bee and I have decided is inhuman not to have but it summed up the whole point of dinner with a good friend. We had quite an enormous amount of booze for a Tuesday night but the whole evening around the dinner table occasionally propped against the fridge and sometimes in a corner of the room stroking a plant and singing was what food can and should be about when its not in a fashionable restaurant or delicatessen that flies its mozarella in twice weekly on its own business class seat. You pay for that and goodness me this morning we paid for last night. Our host didnt present us with a bill on a silver tray with orange juice we were at home and it would have been very strange had she appeared in our bedroom but I do understand why most carousing takes place with the safety net of a liein underneath it.... 2009-2-14T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48368 Tuesday 3rd February 2009 The joys of toast and honey are a joy to mouthhold. A few weeks ago I found a jar in my cupboard from Ancient Egypt. Or possibly it was Spain before it was socalled hold on So back in the Empire of Hispania which incidentally is not where my honey came from unless they had a branch of Waitrose and indeed Egypt in ancient times and probably to this day they were all most likely breakfasting as I did today on glorious brown toast and deliciously runny hunny. It is almost as close as food gets to being under a warm duvet on a Saturday morning. Hot toast salty butter and a long slow drizzle of golden syrupy liquid smoothed and scraped right to the corners. On this occasion there were some very strange looking specks in the honey but rather like a bee in amber I felt they were honorouble losses to the breakfast pot. And as honey never goes off not something that would harm me. What a tremendous start to a day. To be taken back to the comfort of an ima... 2009-2-9T00:00:00Z http://www.ghirlando.co.uk/page4.htm#48367 Bee rubbed the snow into my face. Quite an underhand tactic and one that was going to cause her a great deal of misfortune. She admitted to me that essentially she was too lazy to bend down and pick up the snow to make snowballs so it had to be at hand height. I however have no compunction against kneeling if frozen pain can be the gain. Especially if the opportunity arises to launch a projectile into laden branches just as she walks beneath. These are the risks one takes if sneaky techniques are employed in the gentlemanly game of cricket. I mean snowball fighting. Which should go along the same lines. In any case the lines I followed were along the English bowling ones and generally missed every time. Also I ended up falling over quite a lot. Never mind. We just had to do it. Im not sure why perhaps it was a desire to play at living inside a wooden chalet but we had to do it. At least if we didnt nothing much else would have done. After a cold walk in a very snowy park... 2009-2-6T00:00:00Z