Cookbook Challenge #2: fromage from the Alps.

Roast Figs Sugar Snow by Diana Henry: Octopus Publishing, 2005. 

ISBN 1 84000 888 1

Mr Fork is a winter person. Not one for sunny pursuits in hot climates, he is infinitely happier in cold and snow. At Christmas, our compromise was that I would spend time with my family in the sun and he would spend time with his in the snow. For Mr F, the highlight of a trip to the French Alps is the snow boarding. For me, it is him returning home with cheese. With a fridge full of the Alps' finest taunting my January health-related resolutions, it made sense to put it to work in pursuit of my other resolution: recipes. 

Back to the old stomping ground

The Fox and Hounds, 66 Latchmere Road, SW11 2JU
Meal for two with beers: £38

When Mr Fork and I moved to London, we started off in Battersea, and spent several happy years familiarising ourselves with the area's culinary offerings: the enduring brilliance of Pizza Metro Pizza, along with a couple of great pubs and a few  fairly generic places serving crumpets and slightly overpriced salads, in family-friendly surroundings. All too predictably - such is our luck, since we moved north and east, several reportedly great places have opened, such as the Draft House and Mien Tay. Returning to Battersea for the first time in a while, I was, therefore, hoping to try one of these relatively new places. Instead we found ourselves back in a favourite old haunt: the Fox and Hounds on Latchmere Road.

Cookbook Challenge #1: eating my inheritance

The Art of Persian Cooking by Forough-es-Saltaneh Hekmat: Doubleday & Co, 1961. ISBN: 0781802415

When my South African grandmother passed away, she left behind a legion of grandchildren who inherited her love of food and her closely-guarded recipe for banana chutney. How we have chosen to apply this legacy varies, from cooking for a psychic vegan and braiing fish caught off the West Coast to the brothers who compete with each other in local potjiekos competitions. 

For me, it was choosing one of her books as the first I would turn to in my challenge to cook something from every cookbook I own.

The Cookbook Challenge: My New Year's Resolution

I own just shy of 100 cookbooks. I am not sure of the exact number: there are 88 books in my small flat, one new purchase en route from Amazon and several on loan to my mum. These have been accumulated through various means: internet impulse purchases, birthday presents and precious inheritance from my grandmothers. Although this is not an altogether ridiculous library; rather unforgivably, I rarely follow the recipes they contain. This was brought to my attention just before Christmas: when passing an idle half hour with one of my books and resolving to use it soon, I happened upon the dedication at the front. It was from Mr F, wishing me a Happy Christmas for 2009. Slightly horrified, I realised I had not cooked from a book that I had owned for a year. I had read it a few times and been inspired but never followed a recipe from start to finish.

Breakfast heaven: an update

Mess Cafe, 38 Amhurst Road, E8 1JN

Breakfast for two: £12 if you eat everything

Looking back, I have spent much of the second part of this year looking for a good place to have breakfast. I already knew about the brilliance of the Regency but had struggled to find anything to match up to it in East London, despite the area's long history of caff culture. It seems fitting, therefore, to end the year with a post about what may well be the best place for breakfast in Hackney: it is certainly the best place I have found so far.

Brasserie is Best

Les Deux Salons, 40 - 42 William IV Street, WC2N 4DD

As Christmas approached, the members of the Fork household were preparing to spend Christmas apart. Heathrow weather permitting, Mr F and I had planned to spend the holiday season in separate hemispheres. Naturally, the only proper way to prepare for this prolonged and unseasonal separation was to start eating well (in a truly festive manner) before others had even thought about their first mince pie. Enter Les Deux Salons.

Swift slice

Due Sardi, 32 Kingsland Road, E2 8DA

I moved to East London partly because I wanted to drink in a bar in shoe shop. Coming from Nottingham via Battersea, this seemed like the height of cutting edge cool. So for a while, I had many happy times drinking in a shoe shop and eating burgers from the place next door. Then the place next door shut and I realised that it was never really a shoe shop, just a shoe shopfront on a fairly ordinary bar.  So I moved on. Then Due Sardi moved in and everything changed.