Yesterday we ran a stall at Ms MarmiteLover’s Underground Christmas Market. It was a day of tasting, slurping and meeting lots of people passionate about their food and drink.
Opposite us Nicola and Martin from Cherry Pippin were selling gorgeous treacle tarts, mince pies and hot quince cider, while just next door to us were local delivery company Hubbub, with their overwhelmingly popular lucky dip. You could win anything from a handful of brussel sprouts to a whole beautifully smoked fish.
Outside on the terrace Mrs Monks proffered her tangy salad dressing, while down the stairs there were people selling chutney, creamy hot chocolate, addictive Irish cream liqueur by Hand to Mouth Kitchen, oysters from John the Forager, Adam Pinder’s fantastically tasty duck rillettes and treacle-smoked bacon. There was even a cheese pantry, with gigantic smelly cheeses from The Deli Station.
Meanwhile the kitchen was full of various cooking demos all day, as well as a Dragons’ Den style pitching session to a panel of experts, including Tim Hayward of my favourite food magazine Fire & Knives. In the photo above Urtema Dolphin of Creation Chocolates is about to pitch her raw chocolates.
At the Rambling Restaurant stall we went a bit overboard on the sugar front, offering up four flavours of homemade fudge: vanilla & marshmallow; date & lemon; walnut & barberry and macadamia nut & ginger.
We also made pink and white coconut ice, edible DIY Christmas cards, chilli caramel popcorn tinsel and a Rambling Restaurant sign made of brandy-snap gingerbread and pink Italian meringue that tasted of marshmallow and honeycomb. I’m still on a sugar high.
Tags: brussel sprouts, Cherry Pippin, edible Christmas cards, Fire & Knives, homemade fudge, Hubbub, Italian meringue, Ms Marmitelover, Rambling Restaurant, supperclubs, The Deli Station, The Underground Restaurant, Underground Christmas Market, underground restaurants
This is my first blog post in seven months and I feel very ashamed. My New Year’s Resolution is not to give up any sort of food or drink whatsoever, but to blog at least once a week. If I don’t, please berate me. As my first go in ages, this one will be short, but very full of sugar.
This Sunday, Ms Marmite Lover of The Underground Restaurant fame (note, this is nothing to do with London Underground… just in case you immediately thought ‘ooh food on the tube’?!) will be put on her magnificent Underground Christmas Market (please mind the gap, this event will not take place on the tube either…)
This is going to be a an epic day of delicious, unusual, creative treats; cooking demonstrations; arts and crafts; music and much merriment. It’s only a fiver(!) and will be full of out of the ordinary presents for those that like to eat their gifts. Not least, fully edible Christmas cards made by yours truly…
…home-made retro sweets, including coconut ice and various flavours of fudge (date & lemon, macadamia nut & ginger, walnut & barberry).
Plus retro pic ‘n’ mix and home-made wrapping paper. That’s all for today – back to covering myself in icing sugar now.
Tickets can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2vk9h5f
Tags: edible Christmas cards, Ms Marmite Lover, pic 'n' mix, retro sweets, The Underground Restaurant, Underground Christmas Market
On 8th May 2010 poet, journalist and food artist Michelle Rambler opened Rambling Restaurant’s doors for the first time in South America. Back in March this year, on a quest to discover more about her Latino roots, Michelle upped sticks and set up camp in Buenos Aires. She has been artist in residence at Argentine artist Lucrecia Urbano’s studio in San Ferdando, a leafy suburb north of the city which is home to chocolate factories, farms and one of Buenos Aires’ largest villas miserias, La Cava. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Gabriela Bejerman, giant salad toss, gingerbread houses, JC Sullivan, Juan Salzano, La Cava, Lucrecia Urbano, Michelle Madsen, Michelle Rambler, mini English breakfast, poetry, Rambling Restaurant, Rambling Tongue, secret supperclub
A few weeks ago I went to my first Hub Feast in Kings Cross. For anyone unfamiliar with the Hub, it’s a virtual and physical network designed to “inspire and support imaginative and enterprising initiatives for a better world.” We’re talking social, cultural and environmental challenges here. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: banana cupcakes with peanut butter cream cheese frosting, guerrilla food, Islington, Kings Cross, lemon curd meringue roulade, pop-up restaurants, sustainability, The Hub
Last week I made my first pizza, courtesy of Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi at La Cucina Caldesi cookery school. I’d been there a year before, to witness Giancarlo demonstrate all the different dishes you can make with a certain pasta sauce from a jar. Unfortunately, by the time I’d eaten five dishes made with the stuff, I never wanted to taste its synthetic flavour again. In fact, it put me off jars of sauce for life. So it was with trepidation that I made my way back there. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Birra Moretti, Giancarlo Caldesi, La Cucina Caldesi, pizza
The consistently surprising Bompas & Parr have set up a Parliamentary Waffle House just off Carnaby Street, where you can vote with your mouth, right up to and including election night. It’s a place for wearing sailor hats… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bompas & parr, Carnaby Street, Conservative, election, jelly, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Parliamentary Waffle House
Photography by Mark.
On Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th April we took on our biggest Ramble yet, transforming a Soho office into a secret cabaret den. Artist Ali O’Malley was responsible for designing this rambling interpretation of Pigalle’s infamous Moulin Rouge, making great use of satin, peacock feathers, chicken wire, fairy lights, paint and tea.
The office belongs to the word of mouth people at 1000 heads, who are some of the most up-for-a-challenge corset-lovers I’ve ever met! Not only did they de-wire all their phones and computers, shift desks and manage to carry on as a functioning office throughout all the disruption, but also proved their abilities in handling all sorts of obscure requests, including being able to reach the ceiling, procure frilly pants, become waiters for the weekend and rescue our rambling sanity.
Post Saturday-night exhaustion meets pre-Sunday evening calm… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 1000 Heads, Abi Palmer, absinthe, beef bourguignon, cabaret, can-can dancing, cornichons, erotic poetry, Great Windmill Street, Liqueurs de France, pop-up restaurant, Rambling Restaurant, red velvet layer cake, rillettes, secret supperclub, Soho, The Moulin Rouge Ramble
So, following on from Thursday’s haggis hunting post, the three lambs’ plucks continued to boil and change in colour and consistency. The lungs kept bobbing to the top of the pan like jostling whales. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Burns' Night, haggis, heart, lamb's pluck, liver, lungs, offal, Rambling Restaurant, Robert Burns, secret supperclubs
I’ve spent a good few hours this week hunting for the elusive wee rampant Scottish beastie that is the haggis. It’s Burns’ night on Monday and we need a few of them to stab and recite poetry over.
Lamb’s pluck is not that easy to get hold of. After trying a range of butchers, all of whom seemed to think that making my own haggis was a bit insane and needed a good few days to get hold of any, I tried the excellent Marky Market. He rang me, as requested, from Smithfield meat market at 4am on Wednesday to tell me what was on offer. I’ve been having Delicatessen-style dreams about sheep organs ever since.
A few hours later he arrived with a bag of three lambs’ plucks, delivered straight to my door and up four flights of stairs. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Burns' Night, haggis, heart, lamb's pluck, liver, lungs, Marky Market, offal, Rambling Restaurant, Robert Burns, secret supperclubs
Last night I went to the opening night of the Lex Eat! supper club in part of a converted school ’somewhere in the back streets of Islington’. The place was so stylish it could have been a boutique hotel. The top floor bathroom was immaculate, in a way that made me want to jump into the bath and stay there. There were colourful, neatly rolled towels, jars of liquorice allsorts and buttons by the sink and designer shoes on display on the shelves outside. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ashburton, home restaurant, LexEat, Marcus Wareing, pomegranate floss, supper club, Turkish delight cheesecake
