By l.martin, on January 26th, 2012   Supper Club, WTF 
EDIT; the total raised for Action Against Hunger by One Night in London was £806.08!
So it’s all over; 6 months of planning culminated in a whirlwind of restaurants, black cabs, knives, langoustine mass-murder, bread dough’s, booze, blood and burns… But at the end of it all, there were 32 happy diners and many tired but happy cooks and servers. If you want to read about how One night in London came about, check part 1 of this post.
After lunch at Roganic on Saturday, we headed over to The Chancery to get a tour of the kitchen and restaurant, have a quick beer and grab what we needed to do prep that night at Keith & Lolli’s. We took a cab over and started on the unenviable task of dispatching the live langoustine from Rex goldsmith.
. . . →One night in London Part 2
By l.martin, on January 20th, 2012 Supper Club, WTF 
When I started planning a London Supperclub about five months ago it was to be a small dinner for about twelve people, maybe in a restaurant, or any place that would take me. When Zak from the Chancery got wind of my plans, he immediately offered his entire restaurant and kitchen and himself to help in whatever way he could… This obviously opened up a lot more possibilities and the number of seats at the dinner went first to 20, then 30 (now 32), and it was obvious I’d need help to pull this off.
Enter Dan (@FoodUrchin), we met during my last trip to London and shared a sweaty hangover over a bowl of chilled soup at Jose. A few emails were exchanged, some light Skyping, and the deal was done… Luc & Dan @ The Chancery; One night In London was born.
Once we announced our intentions on Twitter, we quickly recruited some more help; Both . . . →One night in London Part 1
When I was invited to attend the Ben Spalding dinner @CriticalCouple HQ in London, it seemed almost rude to not extend my stay and sample a little of what London had to offer. Although my memories of the weekend will always be overshadowed by the intense, passionate cooking and mad genius of Ben Spalding at both his restaurant and at chez CC, I have nonetheless eaten a lot of great, non-Ben food and met some really, really nice people in the process.
It’s shame that I left London to the backdrop of so much violence and pointless, self-defeating behavior. But I will try to record here the details of what was one of the finest culinary weekends I’ve ever experienced.
Day 1
It was almost a race to get to Roganic, Ben Spalding’s restaurant in Blandford Street, London. My plane was landing at 9.25 which gave me two and a half hours to check into my hotel (actually . . . →A Weekend in London
By l.martin, on May 29th, 2011 #Sidemeat, Everyday, WTF 
Cook a dish with as much pork as possible… that’s the brief for Pork Off 2011. A shiver of porcine excitement ran from the tip of my snout to the end of my curly tail when I read that. “This is it”, I thought. “This is the big one”.
I put on my pork thinking hat (a custom made flat cap constructed from pork belly), and set about planning a meal of such porkyiness that there was an actual risk of pork implosion, the opening of a pork black hole™, from which nothing, pork or otherwise, could escape.
My Pork Off dish is a rack of Iberian pork, Swineherd’s pie with curly tail crackling, Scotched Pork and Bacon Bread.
The rack of pork needs no explaining other than Iberian pork is among the fattiest, most tender and well flavoured pork that there is. Swineherd’s Pie is a porked up version of a shepherd’s pie (swineherd being the correct name . . . →Pork Off 2011 – Rack of Iberian pork, Swineherd’s Pie with curly tail crackling, Scotched Pork and Bacon Bread
By l.martin, on April 25th, 2011 #Sidemeat, Everyday, Foie Gras, WTF 
As you may remember from the handling of the hare in last autumns hare post, I do like to do lots of things with one animal. Making a plate of seven different things like this is very tricky indeed; the risk is always that two or three things are just averagely good compared to the other things, and leaves you feeling that you’d rather just have the other things in slightly larger quantities. In this case with one exception (foie gras lolly pop), I had made all of the separate components before so I knew they would all work and would probably work together, so long as I didn’t fuck anything up (another risk).
Original inspiration for the plate came from this post on the Critical Couple’s website; the dish was smoked duck breast, confit duck balls and foie gras parfait. These three things I kept, but then obviously added four more. The complete dish was built up . . . →Duck seven ways
By l.martin, on October 24th, 2010 Game, WTF Anyone following me on Twitter will know that since the beginning of September I’ve been trudging off to the Boxtel market every Friday morning in search of wild grouse/pigeon/duck/pheasant or in fact anything that could vaguely satisfy my autumnal urges for game.
Well, imagine my surprise on Friday when the kind lady at the meat stall announced that she had a 2.2 kilo hare with her. This was great, I thought. I’ve had hare a few times before and although a little strong, it’s extremely delicious, I thought.
It was a little awkward being at work on Friday morning with the hare sitting next to me on the desk, and I was happy when the time came to go home. What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the funky smell which greeted me when I arrived home and unpacked it. It was a very animal smell, not helped by the fact that its . . . →What to do with a 2.2kg hare, or how to make your house smell like gently simmering diarrhoea
By l.martin, on August 22nd, 2010 WTF 
So this is my shiny new blog, inspired by the good people of Twitter. I can now officially talk about food for more than 140 characters at a time!
After some thought I decided my first post should be about something big; and it doesn’t get much bigger than the Suckling Pig roast I did for my 29th birthday this year.
The reasons why I decided to do a hog roast in the first place are now shrouded in the drunken haze of wine and too much calvados, and even now the moment I was stood in the butcher asking if he could order me a whole baby pig seems strangely spontaneous.
The pig, shortly after arriving at the butcher. We named him Pete.
Regardless, I found myself with a whole pig that was too big for the fridge, twenty people coming for dinner and no real idea what to do.
Pete came home on the train (without . . . →First Post/Hog Roast
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About Me I love food; cooking it, eating it and having prentious and mildly competative conversations about it. I also play guitar and enjoy the occasional glass of wine or seven.
Based in Tilburg, NL, this blog follows my adventures in food and cooking, trying to eat well in a land where you can buy a horse paste sausage from a vending machine.
For quality suppliers in and around the Tilburg area, see my page on Suppliers.
CHICKEN AND RED WINE?
Click here for my post on roast chicken and red wine
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