The Zest For A Long Walk

Ah, the joy of choosing the seats on an aeroplane in front of 2 energetic, restless-legged little girls. I’ll try to imagine I’m sitting in one of those massage chairs you get at selected hairdressers these days; it might be malfunctioning slightly but there’s something in it for me at least. Besides it’s only a 2 hour flight back to Nice from Standstead. I will live in hope that little ‘Polly’s’ technique improves or that she falls asleep very soon. George is fast asleep already. Even before the plane left the runway he was deep in the land of nod. Good for him though, he’s bouncing back and forth in tune to Polly’s little sister’s equally consistent leg-robatics and he’s blissfully unaware. Bless ‘im (said through slightly gritted teeth).

I love going home to the U.K. And I am little bit sad to be heading back to France. The reprieve from the heat was pretty good and all the usual things that come with staying in a real house like a whole big bathroom, a double bed, not having to share anything and everything with 7 other people. Pimms! And best of all, a real English country garden; chickens, geese and all.  On a walk this Saturday, I took pictures of sheep, cows, pigs, samphire, fields of corn, barley, cabbages and potatoes, butterflies, a bulging swarm of bees, oyster fishermen in old fishing boats and obviously the huge incentive; the pub we finally managed to drag our weary limbs into after we had trekked for 8 miles to get there. Good English pub following long muddy walk = low blood sugar, sore feet and guilt-free fish and chips all round please! Any sauces? All of them!

So back to France we go. My soul is soothed. (Though still taking a small beating from Miss little-pink-shoes behind me).

The boat is moving to Cogolin, near St Tropez and we’ll drive my little bashed up Reno Clio (the Rocket-Ship) to meet the boat and crew there. We’ll be at anchor for the next few weeks before heading to Barcelona for regatta number 3. I’m very excited about Barcelona. I’ve never been there but have heard so much about it. My Easy Jet ‘Traveller’ magazine is telling me to book tables at ‘Els Flogons de la Barceloneta’ for tapas, ‘Centonze’ for modern Catalan nosh and ‘Shunka’, for apparently the best of Barcelona’s Japanese food. No problems there, sounds good to me. I’m more than happy to try that lot out and if you have been and conquered Barcelona yourself, then any recommendations, food or otherwise will be gratefully received. Cheers!

Don’t worry folks, it’s not over yet.

I don’t have a recipe for you today I’m afraid. I almost made a stinging nettle risotto having trudged through a few miles of them, in a sort of ‘revenge’ meal with parmesan. But I was too tired and full from fish and chips. Terrific. What I will do though is tell you all about my favourite piece of kitchen equipment; my zester. Now do bear with me. You are about to be astonished at the way in which I will skilfully blend the topics ‘a trip to Suffolk’ and Barcelona in with ‘why you should buy a lemon zester’. Not everyone can find those sorts of hidden, literary connections you know. So moving smoothly on;

If you don’t have one, get one. The small grate on a box grater is rubbish, annoying, knuckle un-friendly and gives you silly little flecks of zest and the risk of too much pith which is bitter. A proper zester will fill you with joy at its perfect little curls of pure lemon zest. So pretty, so full of zing and…lemon. And why waste all the goodness in lemon zest? It’s full of incredibly healthy oils and vitamins. So if you are ever using the juice of a lemon, always zest it first. If you don’t want to use the zest for that exact dish then put it aside and use it for something else like in a salad or a salad dressing. Please never waste the perfectly good zest of any lemon or lime. Pop the zest in some olive oil, leave to infuse for a day or so and serve with pasta with lots of black pepper and bingo! An exceedingly light but tangy pasta to serve with a veal schnitzel or a lamb chop. I really won’t go on too much but need a garnish? Use your lemon zester! You can craft the most beautiful curls of pure lemon zest with a zester. You can’t with a box grater even if its one of those amazingly sharp, Japanese ones. A single curl of lemon zest perched on a small pillow of crème fraiche on a dainty smoked salmon canapé says so much don’t you think?

Lemon tart. The perfect example of why you should own a lemon zester. A lemon tart is only the best lemon tart when made with the finest and pithless-est zest. (Yes, that is a word). And you will achieve such culinary heights with your one and only - you’ve got it, Zester.

How would this dish have worked without perfect lemon zest?

I feel my work is done here. I’m sure you saw how that seamless bit of topic blending…blended.

I think we’re about to land so I will say goodbye for now and press the ‘save’ button. George has unfortunately been drawn reluctantly into an excitable game of peek-a-boo with Little Polly behind us which has brilliantly distracted her from kicking my chair. Thanks George. You’re forgiven from falling asleep earlier. And even though he is trying very hard to end the game with stern, manly face, he simply can’t ignore Polly and her little sisters’ enthusiasm for such a simple game.

 

Ah, to have such innocent zest for life.

(SEE! See what I did there?! Zest for life…Geddit?)

Save.

Samphire growing wild

Sweet, Sweet Cherry Clafoutis

It’s getting hot. It’s getting damn hot. The sort of hot that has you scratching the little tickle of sweat, trickling down between your shoulder blades and begging for the smallest of breezes. We don’t have air conditioning on our boat. My galley has a little fan in it placed above the cooker. It wasn’t the best place to put it. When I’m cooking the heat rises (science that) and the fan conveniently proceeds to blow hot air at me. I tend to melt unattractively in a slow but increasing fashion as lunch or dinner approach. When I give the Mariquita ‘Whoop-Whoop’, for meal times, the crew rush down below for food as quickly as I rush up on deck for some cool air. How glamorous I must look as I gasp for air, red faced and flapping my tee-shirt in the vain attempt to cool down; usually between two huge plastic motor yachts draped with beautifully reclining, bikinied, women glowing ever-so-delicately.

I suppose it would be sensible enough to insist upon a cold salad lunch regime but that would be dull and limiting and I can definitely cope with melting before I can cope with serving raw food, bread and cheese for every meal.

And besides, I promised them more baking. Well, actually I didn’t exactly promise. I simply hinted; and to you too. For it is cherry season in France; and I had the desire to make cherry clafoutis for desert (pronounced clafootee). I really can’t remember the last time I made a clafoutis and suspect it was probably when I was at cookery school. Cherry clafoutis is said to hail from the Limousine region in France and, as there is with most dishes of distinction, there’s a bit of foot stamping from other regions who also claim it as their own.

Whatever, it definitely hailed from my galley oven last night. My Force-Ten oven is surprisingly capable of turning out one mean cherry clafoutis. Who knew?

Consisting of cherries laid in a dish and covered in a simple, vanilla-spiked batter, it really is a must-go-for-it desert. There are some variations which involve kirsch, the cherry liquor but I decided to go for the simple recipe and experiment later on. You can pit the cherries if you can be bothered but conveniently enough, if you leave the pips in, the flavour of the cherries is much improved and exudes the hint of almond important to the dish. Just got to warn your guests about them. I read many times that clafoutis should be served straight from the oven with a small dollop of crème fraiche or yoghurt. So I unashamedly served my clafoutis with a delicious tub of vanilla ice cream. Well, why not, the evening was so hot by the time I pulled it out the oven and I think it was the perfect combo. A soft and fluffy batter surrounding the hot little, sweet, tangy bursts of cherry merging with a melting of cold vanilla ice cream… yeah, me too.

If you’re making this for guests then you could do them as individual puddings which would look lovely. Its signature garnish is a good dousing of icing sugar and I reckon the odd little refined curl of lemon zest and a wee sprig of fresh mint would help draw the attention. I made one big one for the crew and this is how I did it;

You will need;

About 300-350g cherries, stalks removed but left with the stones in

300 ml milk

60g castor sugar

3 eggs

60g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

1 vanilla pod, split lengthways down the middle, the little black seeds removed

Or ½ tsp vanilla extract

A pinch of salt

Icing sugar to serve

and a really good vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche to play by the rules

Method;

• First heat your oven to about gas mark 4 or 180C (if your oven is like mine then turn it to full blast and hope for the best)

• Butter a nice serving dish or dishes if you’re doing the individual ones and lay the cherries in a single layer so that there is plenty in there but not too crammed.

• Beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl with an electric hand whisk until light in colour and smooth, about 3-4 minutes. Then pour in the milk and the vanilla seeds or extract and whizz again just to mix.

• Sieve into the mixing bowl the flour, baking powder and salt and beat until you have a nice smooth batter. Now pour this over your cherries but so you can still see the cheeky little things just about poking out and pop into the pre-heated oven. See, simple as.

 

• Bake for about 30-40 minutes till lightly golden, risen and set. You can leave it to rest a little as the cherries will be pretty hot! Then sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with your chosen dollop of naughty-ness.

I really hope you make this if you haven’t before. It was so quick and easy but very pretty and tastes so good. And I guess you could happily use other seasonal fruits all year round. Actually I’m wondering if a light almond ice cream would have been better…   Mmmm.

Vanilla, Almond, no matter! I’ll just keep thinking about ice cream if that’s Okay by you? I can’t possibly eat too much of it but I can definitely keep dreaming about it in this heat. But like I’ve said before, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the galley. Does sticking you’re head in the freezer count as getting out of the galley?  Nah!

Salad for lunch tomorrow then…

Just kidding.

Thanks for reading and if I haven’t completely melted by then, see you soon.

Cheers!

'Glowing' in a hot galley

A Short Note On Antibes Regatta, Lots Of Photos and Some Starch.

A dramatic lightening storm in Antibes

Jim, George and Tim watching the show, ready for rain.

It’s me. I’m back. And just so you know, I’m back in Cannes and have constant internet and a good while before our next regatta. So the recipes will be flooding your way very soon!

Right now though, a darkened room, air conditioning and pizza are just about all I can cope with. Since my last blog, Mariquita has race trained for 2 days, raced 4 days and I am exhausted.

But it was good. Great racing and great friends and Antibes is lovely (although the walk to the shops was a bit lengthy with a wobbly old trolley in all that heat).

Wooling sails on deck

Lots of sail changes equals lots of clearing up.

We came second overall! Well done us. We even won the first race which was amazing because we sat in a little wind-less hole for what felt like ten years and watched with flogging sails and growing anxiety as boats merrily sailed past in a fantastic little breeze. Let me tell you, when sailing is as frustrating as that, you may as well be playing golf (sorry golf lovers, I’ve tried but by the 6^th hole, really I’m in such a bad mood, I may as well be sitting on a stationary boat in a race with no wind…).

The beautiful yacht, Cambria

Mariska won over-all and Cambria should probably have taken second place but she gives us so much time in the handicap system, she came third. Don’t worry, I won’t go into any detail to explain how this works (mostly because it doesn’t and it’s very, very dull) but put simply, we are all very different boats of different sizes, designs and weights, so to make the scoring a bit fairer, all the boats have a ‘rating’, which means that a bigger, faster boat gives a smaller, slower boat time. I don’t fully understand how they work it out and it certainly doesn’t always reflect a fair score but hey-ho, we know if we’ve had a good race and ‘won’ or not. We rate ourselves and don’t get too caught up in what the scoreboard says.

It was a week of not a lot of wind and big swelly seas. Mariska is lighter than Mariquita so she coped much better with the swell and light winds.  Cambria is a big, strong, Bermudan rigged 23 meter, so she careered through the course, miles ahead of everybody.

It is a beautiful sight to see so many classic yachts about to start their race, vying for the best position on the start line. And it’s an adrenaline fuelled moment when you’re a part of it. I really do have the best job in the world.

There was a bit of wind! But it was a squall that came through when we were out training.

I made the sandwiches myself for this regatta. No grated carrot and anchovy this time! My Chinese chicken wraps and smoked mackerel and prawn baguettes went down very well and in the absence of decent and sanely priced Cheddar in the South of France, French Cantal is a good substitute for the old favourite, cheese and pickle. And on the subject of food, and I guess due to this being a cooking blog, let me tell you about the celeriac, bacon and pine nut lasagne I made! 

Who’d have thought it? Well actually I did. But putting a starchy vegetable in amongst pasta can sometimes feel a bit wrong, like a chip butty or a potato pizza; both of which can be exceedingly good of course. I lived in Viareggio in Italy for a short while and occasionally I would visit a little pizza takeaway by the seafront and purchase a slice of their incredible potato and rosemary pizza to take home and eat with a nice cold glass of Pino Grig’. My mouth is watering at the memory.

Jim the captain leading the wooling of sails through the galley as I cook supper. I'm cool. I can cope with that.

But back to France, celeriac and pasta.  It works very well. Celeriac is quite a light starch with a great flavour not unlike celery, and goes very well with bacon. And that’s what was in the fridge. Whilst sitting on the side deck that day, trimming the reaching staysail I came up with the vague idea of putting it all in a lasagne with a balancing, creamy sauce and some fresh buffalo mozzarella. Again, mostly because that’s what I had in the fridge and there would be no time to shop that night after such a long race. (Quite frankly, couldn't be bothered).

The lasagne followed the same basic recipe as my kitchen-sink lasagne (from blog, A Glamerous Lunch In Cannes) with the grated courgette in there too, to bulk it out for 7 very hungry, tired chaps. I sautéed the sliced celeriac with the onions, in place of the potato from the kitchen sink lasagne, added some fennel seeds and instead of goats cheese, fresh buffalo mozzarella. I simply sprinkled sautéed bacon and pinenuts in amongst the layers with the white sauce, plenty of freshly grated nutmeg and a good topping of parmesan. I will definitely be making it again sometime. One to keep in the recipe memory banks.

One little note there for all you budding cooks. Never bother with buying pre-grated nutmeg. It smells alright but tastes of dust or absolutely nothing. It’s simple enough to buy the whole nutmegs and grate them in fresh. Really, it makes a huge difference.

So here we are, back in Cannes. It feels a bit like coming home, it’s got that sort of familiarity. I know where most things are now; the best shops, the best routes for a loaded trolley with rapidly deteriorating wheel bearings and most importantly, where to get great ice cream.

I hope I haven’t bored you with too much regatta-reminiscing again. Although they are very all-consuming and I do feel I should explain my absence. It does feel good for the soul to summarise it, so I thank you for reading if you made it to the end, skimming fully understood.

Getting the sails down quickly before the squall really hit.

I’ve got a great idea for my next recipe for you. Being surrounded here in France by cherry season is getting my desert juices flowing. I feel I need to do more baking, as I’m sure my crew do too. A little sweetness needed to sooth our aching muscles and tired bodies and plus I have a little time in which to bake the odd desert. The crew need a bit of spoiling I feel. I can be Mum. Bless ‘em.

So I’ll see you shortly. Stay tuned for the next, sweet addition of life at 33 Degrees.

Cheers!

Courgette Flower Frittas

There’s been nothing little about the rays of sunshine that have occasionally burst forth from behind the big ol’ black clouds of June rain sitting heavily in Antibes these last few days. When the sun comes out it is hot and humid and I’m not sure I’m ready yet for such heat. Will I ever be? I think I am an English rose at heart and despite my younger days spent searching for the sunshine, I can honestly say that now, I love a British summer more than anything. There’s nothing like the seasons and the British ones at that. Maybe I’m just a bit home-sick but that’s my 33 year old opinion…

Oh okay, I admit it, I’m no longer 33. Yep, I had a birthday and now I’m 34. However, I won’t be changing the name of my blog. I still feel 33 (no I don’t, I still feel 29). Anyhow, we’ll just ignore my little passing of age for convenience sake shall we? Cheers.

Cutting the cake. Thanks crew!

Moving on swiftly (I don’t think they noticed) I did say I’d cook those proper little rays of sunshine in my last blog, the courgette flowers. And here they are. I did nothing clever or different with them; I stuffed them with buffalo mozzarella and deep fried them in a tempura style batter. They were absolutely delicious as a starter with some cold rose wine. Tim cooked dinner that night giving me a little night off which was needed. I won’t tell you what we did with the left-over batter, still hot deep-frying oil and some mini Mars Bars later on after dinner for desert, you’d be disgusted with us. It was Tim's idea...

The courgette flower season isn’t long so if you can find courgette flowers, they’re really not hard to make and in no time at all you have a plate of pretty cool and tasty…um, well, ray’s of sunshine!

You will need;

10 baby courgettes with flowers attached

1 ball of buffalo mozzerella

5 tbsp plain flour

5 tbsp cornflour

200 ml fizzy water, cold

Salt

Sunflower oil for deep frying

Zest and juice of one lemon

Method;

• To make the batter, sieve the flours and some salt, a good pinch or 3 into a big bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the water slowly into the well whilst whisking all the time to make the batter. Set aside whilst you stuff the flowers.

• Very gently open the flowers just enough so that you can tease as much of the mozzarella in as you can. Then re-seal the flowers by twisting them gently back up again. There, that was easy wasn’t it?

• So now all you have to do is heat up the oil in a big deep-ish pan. The rules for deep frying are to turn your extract fan off and have a big flat baking tray handy for if the worst happens and you have a fire. Simply place the tray over the pan to cut off any oxygen. Easy. Now, just because I’ve talked about fires, doesn’t mean you can whimp away from this one. No whimps in my galley thankyou.

• When your oil is hot and you are ready to fry them, simply immerse the entire courgette and flower into the batter so it is perfectly covered in batter and then plop very gently into the oil taking care not to splash yourself with any hot oil.

•  To know when the oil is ready what you do is take a small chunk of bread and plop it into the oil. If it goes a nice golden colour pretty quickly then it’s ready. Place the battered courgette flowers in the oil, 2 at a time. When they are lightly coloured after a few minutes, remove with a slotted spoon and place on a plate or tray covered with a good few layers of kitchen roll to absorb any excess oil. Continue to dunk and batter and then fry the courgette flowers as you go.

• To know when the oil is ready what you do is take a small chunk of bread and plop it into the oil. If it goes a nice golden colour pretty quickly then it’s ready. Place the courgette flowers in the oil, 2 at a time. When they are lightly coloured after a few minutes, remove with a slotted spoon and place on a plate or tray covered with a good few layers of kitchen roll to absorb any excess oil.

• When they are all ready serve as soon as you can with lemon wedges or I reckon a good lemony, garlicky mayonnaise would be perfect to have a little dip into, hope nobody shoots me down for that one! You could garnish with lots of fresh, roughly chopped flat leaf parsley and lemon zest too. I was serving mine to 2 boys, Tim and George so to be honest I didn’t bother. Sorry guys but you wouldn’t have noticed anyway.

Racing starts on Thursday and today we had our first training session. There was so little wind, the sea did that glassy thing where you can't comprehend where exactly the sea and sky collide on the horizon. We put some sails up and bobbed around for a bit, then took the sails back down and came back in to port. Hey, it’s all good practice.

I’m really enjoying Antibes so far. There are plenty of nice little shops and some nice little restaurants too. I’ll be trying a few out for you soon hopefully. Don’t say I never do anything for you! It’ll be tough but…

So thanks for reading. Stay here for exciting, cutting edge, classic yacht racing news coming your way! And hopefully some wind…

Cheers!

A Lemony, Courgette, Feta and Pinenut Pasta

Rain? Who ordered this? And why oh why does a rainy day insist on following a sleepless night? I promise I’m not the sort to grumble or inflict others with my 5-hour-sleep blues. And I think I was quite perky today considering. But just so you understand; It was an inexplicable case last night of sleepy eyes closing, turn off light, lie there thinking about why I didn’t say what I should have done that time 2 years ago. Turn the light on, read until eyes are closing, turn off the light, lie there thinking about how if I had said what I should have said, what would she have said back?  STOP IT! Turn light on, read till nodding-dog begins, turn light off. Continue in this manner until 2 30 am. I'm sure you know the score.

So I’ll admit that for the first time in a long time I was severely lacking in crew-lunch inspiration. Not to mention the rain and nothing in the fridge. Is this an Antibes thing? I’ve not spent much time here before.

I love how French markets make it look like I read the entire instruction manual for my digital SLR Camera.

Anyway, whenever I’m having a cooking blank, my trick is to boil it all down to one ingredient and build very simply from there.  One vegetable, one herb, one protein, one carbohydrate; that sort of thing, it usually works. So off I tottered in the pouring rain to the, thankfully covered, Antibes Market to look for that one ingredient. It wasn’t difficult. We’re in Courgette season and they were all over it. Flowered, baby, light green, dark green; my main ingredient in abundance.  Get all French about the crowds and you can get yourself some very nice little purchases in no time at all.

Having said that, by the time I had enjoyed all that a good French market can offer I had just less than an hour to cook lunch for 12. Lack of time, it can really help make a vital decision.

Courgettes led to feta cheese, led to lightly toasted pinenuts led to penne pasta with lemon zest and juice, wet garlic flavoured olive oil, lots of parsley and some chilli flakes. Salad, charcuterie and a selection of cheeses. Lots of lovely French bread and who’s complaining? 

I dare them. Just kidding guys, feedback always warmly accepted with gratitude (when I've had 7 hours of sleep not 5).

 

This is no biggy and very simple but sometimes it’s the simplicity that you need to be reminded of to create something tasty, and despite the heavy rain, full of the joys of spring. It’s so easy to get caught in a huge panic of complicated ingredients when the best meals (think Italian) are the most honest and fresh ones. Easy peasy and be sensitive with the tired one in the corner please.

  To feed 6-8 you will need;

Penne pasta

6 smallish courgettes, sliced

4-5 cloves of garlic, lightly smashed with the blade of a knife to open but kept whole

8 peppercorns

100ml olive oil

1 pack feta cheese

100 g pinenuts

Zest of 2 lemons, juice of one

Sprinkle of chilli flakes

1 cup grated pecorino cheese and more to serve

There must have been more…nope that really was it.

Method;

• Put your pan of water on to boil for the pasta. A nice big pan, the biggest you have got filled to within 2 inches of the rim. Each piece of pasta needs ‘room to dance’ as the Italians say. Fair enough, nobody can do their best on a crowded dance floor. Once the water is boiling, add salt. For a large pan of water, 6-7 litres, I add probably 2 tbsp salt.

 

• Next thing is to put a good inch depth of olive oil into a small saucepan. Don’t be shy now, glug it in there. Then plop in your 5-6 cloves of garlic and the peppercorns. Turn on the heat and when the oil begins to have a little sizzle, turn off the heat and leave the oil aside to marinade.

• Heat up a griddle pan. I was putting the courgettes down, once the pan was really hot, as they were with no oil on at all. Then brushing the side facing up with some of the garlic oil straight from the pan and sprinkling on some salt and pepper. Turn the courgettes over once they have good grill lines as shown and then grill the oil and seasoned side to the same effect. When you have done one load, put on a warmed plate and set aside. Continue grilling the courgettes till they are all done.

• Put a smallish frying pan on to heat with no oil in it at all, a dry frying pan. Lightly toast the pinenuts. Keep an eye on them and keep turning them over either with a little cool flip of your pan or by stirring with a wooden spoon. Set aside when they are lightly toasted.

Squeezing the pans on. 

• When the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain making sure you keep a good ladleful of the pasta water or ‘stock’. This helps to become your sauce and if you’ve ever had stodgy pasta before, this is how you remedy it. Never throw away all of the pasta cooking stock ever.

• Pour the pasta and a little of its water back into the pan and then add the sieved garlic oil and pecorino cheese and stir to combine. You can either squeeze the cooked garlic into the pasta or save for later. 

• Basically pour the pasta into a pretty serving dish. Scatter over the griddled courgettes; crumble over the feta cheese and pinenuts. Then a dish like this deserves a good grating of lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice, lots of black pepper and a big handful of roughly chopped fresh parsley and mint. 

  

• Serve with French bread, platters of cheese and charcuterie and some lovely crunchy salad with a simple French vinaigrette.

I managed to make this in an hour and my head wasn’t all there. You might be quicker. The crew enjoyed it and didn't seem to notice my glazed expression. This would be a good cold pasta salad too if you run the cooked pasta under lots of cold water to stop it from cooking immediately and make sure that the olive oil has fully cooled down before you add it to the pasta.

Antibes market is great. I love these moments in my life and career. I could spend a fortune but the budget saves the day. Just to wander around enjoying the general hustle and bustle is a serious joy. Even in the pouring June rain.

It’s stopped raining now. It’s the evening and I’m drinking red wine down below feeling pretty cosy. One more glass of red and I reckon I’ll be sleeping fine tonight. No more saving the world or sorting out the mysteries of the universe for me.

 

Just a little advanced warning, I’ll be cooking the courgette flowers I bought at the market tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes. They are very special so I wanted to be fully ‘with it’ to enjoy the experience.

I best get to bed then.

Goodnight! Sleep tight.

See you soon. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!