118. Second Wave Art.

 

  It’s hard to think that any major Birmingham chef has come up with more imaginative ways to save his business than The Wilderness’ Alex Claridge. And now, as we enter the third week of the Second Wave ‘Lockdown’, with its fresh assault on the viability of countless businesses which have been the pride and joy of so many hard-working, inventive and self-sacrificing people, we find Claridge coming up with a new angle - the sale of new original art, ironic, humorous and related to his business. Great stuff. 

  I have been enthusiastic about our great local restaurants using art to promote their businesses - see Blogs 97, 100 and 101 - great cuisine is art even though since the 1980s there have been numerous attempts - more unsatisfactory than the modern experts would admit - to subvert cuisine into science. I think, at least I have a feeling that art is winning, and chefs are once more rejoicing in the art of gastronomy rather than the science of gastronomy. And a good thing too if you ask me.

  So why not use art to promote and celebrate gastronomy as well as using it as a means of keeping  businesses afloat during these COVID days?

  So this week, an e mail from The Wilderness arrived promoting a takeaway dish for those who are lost in the wilderness based on a Claridge classic to while away these COVID days and long dark nights - the Unhappy Meal - the source of the inspiration for the dish is undoubted. Described thus, “A limited edition of our much-loved ‘Big Mac’ dish. Taking inspiration from the most notorious of fast food, we’ve created a beef tartare dressed in a coal oil and finished with gherkin ketchup, aged cheddar custard, soy caramel and pickles. Paired with potato fries, and a maple, malt and cinnamon milkshake, this is the most extravagant meal deal you’ll find. For the adventurous and hungry, we’ve partnered with Exmoor caviar to offer a supplementary supersize with Exmoor Royal Beluski caviar. Priced from £30 foot 2 people. I’m loving it”.

  The accompanying photographic portrait of the dish is full-on food porn and enough to drive lusty men insane with desire. Lusty women too for that matter.

  But I like the accompanying offers. The Wilderness is also offering for sale 2 pieces of art connected to the Unhappy Meal 2020 culinary gem. The first, which most appeals to me, is a splendid unhappy Clown (vaguely recognisable I think) photograph with the colourful subject, glum, forehead pressed to knuckles, sitting in darkness surrounded by discarded cardboard milkshake cups and used fast food packaging looking for all the world as though he has had a pretty depressing lockdown and the weight of the future of his business weighing on his mind, no doubt allegorical of the state of mind of many restaurant owners, chefs and all their staff. The photograph is by Emma Tronson and is sold in an edition of just 10, signed by the photographer, Alex Claridge and Marius Gedminas. I managed to secure the last unsold photograph.

  There is also a limited edition (of 10) giclee print of an illustration by Liam Kerr titled, not surprisingly, ‘Unhappy Meal” which depicts a fairly familiar clown figure with a ‘W’ badge on his chest, dropping, apparently in disgust, a paper bag which presumably is one used for takeaway fast food. An interesting item and pleasingly priced at just £15 unmounted.

  Claridge not for the first time has brought art not just into his food but his whole way of doing things.

  While I’m on the subject of signed photographs (which I was at some point above) I so far have failed to mention that Glynn Purnell’s book A Purnell’s Journey There And Back Again, described in Blog 116, was sold with a signed photograph inside depicting Purnell looking, er, well I’m not sure but maybe his feelings at the time were somewhat coloured by standing in the St Andrews football ground where the Birmingham City Football team does its best on a regular basis to cause pain and anguish to its supporters of whom Glynn Purnell is currently one of the most notable.

  There’s art everywhere at the moment. Fine dining restaurants have been selling high class takeaways throughout the ‘lockdowns’ and in between them, and Carter’s of Moseley has been right in the lead here in Birmingham in using this alternative means of keeping the business going. In one of the online communications about available reservation times the restaurant used a modern version of a Bertie Bassett lookalike picture mounted on one of the restaurant walls with the inscription, obviously heartfelt, “CONTROL + ANXIETY 2020”..

  Brad Carter has previously written a book, Staff, with recipes not from those of his restaurant but something a little more doable in the home setting. The book has now been reissued in an expanded format and retitled Staff - Expanded B-Sides. As I haven’t seen the original version and not yet received my copy of the revised edition I shall have to report back when the parcel deliverer knocks on my door with what may just be something quite interesting.

117. Wave Two; BBC Plans A Christmas Great British Menu.

   Another COVID-19 wave, another lockdown. Restaurants close and open and close again and - hopefully - reopen, but not just yet. In the happy interval between closed shutters I went to Andrew Sheridan’s public opening night for About Eight, which had to start at 7 given the government restrictions that demanded the restaurant saw its eight customers off the premises by 10PM and which was an evening of socially distanced gastronomic brilliance. Of which more, I hope, in the near future. 

  Then a pre-lockdown evening in Stratford upon Avon, shockingly quiet, vaguely eerie and missing only Hamlet’s father’s ghost rearing his face over the closed and deserted Royal Shakespeare Theatre, but made delightful and cosy by an early evening saunter to the impeccable family-run restaurant Sorrento where I purred and whimpered with pleasure at a wonderful plate of lemon sole in an exquisite lemon butter sauce served with new potatoes plain and simple (chef had fought off the temptation to sauté them and cover them in rosemary and thyme and the rest as so many chefs would have felt obliged to do) and sensibly cooked broccoli. The sole was a far more enjoyable dish than I remember having in a once two star restaurant further southwest in the West Midlands which had served up 3 little pieces of the lovely fish in the most bitter and unpleasant beurre noisette and sprawled in a bowl of what seemed like thousands of  exhausting broad beans which gave no pleasure whatsoever.

  On Wave 2 Lockdown-eve, 4 November, I was once more at Opheem which was the last restaurant I visited before the previous lockdown and the first I visited after the first lockdown was ended. I like the symmetry of it. This is a wondrous Palace of Pleasures where it would not have been disrespectful of me to faint with delight at just about every first taste of the little appetisers and the magnificent and several courses including the turbot from paradise and the most perfectly flavoured bhuna. Are two stars possible in January?

  And so here we are all vaguely isolated and unsociable. It’s quite relaxing really, well up to a point anyway. Meanwhile that evil entity, the BBC, has announced a Christmas Great British Menu Special, which will feature no fewer than twelve notable British chefs, one of them not so much notable as notorious, who will cook a “a six course boxed festive feast dedicated to the nation’s key workers”. Andi Oliver moves from acting as judge to becoming presenter (they seem to have dumped the dreadful Scottish comedienne seen in this summer’s series) though there must be some foreboding at the news that another comedienne will fill Ms Oliver’s judge’s seat. I have no idea what perceived expertise this newcomer has but these things must be borne. At least Waldorf and Statler are back (otherwise known as Peyton and Fort) to deliver once more their what seems like centuries worth of judging experience (Fort, I’m sure remembers when a young Frenchman called L’Escoffier was laughed out of the kitchen because of his outrageous sauces). 

  The competing chefs, no doubt having their period of lockdown loss of income compensated for by huge paycheques courtesy of the television licence payer via the ever generous BBC (including the over-75 year olds it is now bleeding money from) are Jason Atherton, Pip Lacey, Tom Barnes, Niall Keating, Tommy Banks, Alex Greene, Richard Bainbridge, Simon Rogan, Matt Gillan, James Cochran, Lisa Goodwin-Allen and Tom Aikens. I don’t see, as we might have expected, the names of any chefs representing West Midlands restaurants but plenty from London and the Home Counties and the BBC’s new happy hunting ground of the north-west within reach of the Manchester-based BBC luvvies. I’ll leave the reader to decide which of the above chefs may be described as “notorious”.

116. Some Journey, Some Book.

  

  Not so much a coffee table book as more a banqueting table book (I suppose quite fittingly) the tome which houses Glynn Purnell’s latest voyage into writing is bigger in physical size and heavier than any 18th century family Bible would ever have aspired to be and in and out of its slipcase it’s also rather beautiful. I do like gorgeous books as much as I like gorgeous food and when I have one I often carry it around with me for days after I have obtained it but alas I can not do so with Glynn Purnell’s book unless I am prepared to run the constant risk of seriously rupturing myself.

  This book is a great pleasure to possess. I have it on my heaving bookshelf next to my much loved 1966 copy of the English translation of Michel Joyant’s book of Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Art Of Cuisine and the signed copy of the more modestly sized but memorable Salt Is Essential (and other things I have learned from 50 years at the stove) by West Midland’s gastronomy pioneer Shaun Hill.

  There’s every reason to say when you first catch sight of A Purnell’s Journey There And Back Again the words “Self” and “Indulgent” but when just grazing on the first few pages of this autobiography-recipe book-photography book hybrid any such curmudgeonliness melts away as he recounts his childhood days in Chelmsley Wood which summon up thoughts of the old Hovis advert and decent, devoted family life of the hard-working, striving working class Brummie family, devoted to each other, of times gone by. It’s all about Birmingham, the struggle to achieve, food (of course) and family. 

  With forwards by Sat Bains, Andreas Antona and Claude Bosi, chefs with instantly recognisable names make appearances in the pages of the book as Purnell charts his career with anecdotes that illuminate the kitchen to the reader as much as any ‘Chef’s Table’ will for the diners at it. 

There are some wonderful touches. I like the lining of the case that contains the book itself - it is the pattern of the wallpaper in Purnell’s. A nice little touch.

Great stuff indeed!

115. Digital Michelin Guide For 2021.

  Michelin will hold its Guide reveal event on 25 January 2021 at The Dorchester Hotel in London. The Guide is usually revealed in October but the delay will allow for a “full and comprehensive” edition to be published. Naturally the ‘reveal’ ceremony will be held in a London location and not anywhere else in the country where a worthwhile restaurant may be found occasionally.

  And this will be an entirely digital edition which makes it rather historic given that for the first time I shall have no new book to place on my bookshelf since 1974. In decades to come, foodies interested in the history of dining out will ask “What happened in 2021? Why was no Guide issued? Why’s there a gap in your collection?”. And I shall sigh and think of missed lunches, a birthday dinner that never took place and the constant sloshing of alcohol not down my throat but over my hands. We won’t forget the run-up to Michelin 2021.

  Chain restaurants have gone to the wall even the venerable Pizza Express (see Blog 49 is closing a large number of branches in the West Midlands which in Birmingham are in Corporation Street and The Mailbox as well as Bromsgrove, Dudley Merry Hill, Hereford, Ludlow, Moseley, Shirley, Stourbridge and Walsall.

  Of course the greatest loss of this year has been the Ludlow Food Festival - the world’s original food festival - and it did not seem right to not be in Ludlow last weekend when it should have taken place. So the dog and I went any way and walked around the town, she swam in the river, and in the absence of the famed Sausage Trail she had her very own excellent sausage sandwich from the marvellous Vaughan’s sandwich shop in King Street. This little shop is a gem, wholly unpretentious but keeping up the tradition of the great English sandwich for an excellent price.

  As usual we stayed at the dog-friendly Fishmore Hall where I indulged for the first time in its take on afternoon tea. This is the first time I’ve had tea which starts with an amuse bouche, a delightful piece of chorizo sausage roll with a pickled tomato jam. More sausage, and this time served on a slate! And then the savouries - 4 variants on a traditional sandwich theme - a tuna and Red Leicester melt which was very tasty and looked nice with its zigzag streaks of balsamic decorating it, a smoked Cheddar and spring onion wrap which was actually my favourite though I’d normally choose a straightforward white bread English sandwich over a piece of flatbread any day, a pleasing coronation chicken finger sandwich with extra texture and, saved till last because of its promise, but the least enjoyable, a brioche of tasty ham hock not benefitting at all from the accompanying mustard and honey.

  There was a fine collection of attractive cakes and when it arrived on my table the sight of the funky looking Battenburg squeezed a “Wow!” out of me. The fruit and non-fruit scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam were very edible but I thought the outer surfaces might have been a little too crispy. The petite chocolate espresso cup with a lovely smooth chocolate mousse and white chocolate was a happy indulgence as was the lovely violet and blueberry macaron and the gold and red coloured  lemon and raspberry Battenburg which had elicited the Wow! on first sight lived up to expectations.

  An unusual and enjoyable twist on a traditional English tea while sitting in a sunlit conservatory with a view of Clee Hill in the distance dominating the scenery - what could be finer?

  But afternoon tea is not all that’s on offer at Fishmore. Apart from the fine dining restaurant, Forelles, another part of the Hall, a splendid Georgian sitting room, is used to serve bistro food. Much of it is very good and a very pleasing sirloin steak, which I choose to eat only rarely, eaten in the ‘bistro’ made me extremely happy on my first evening at the hotel. Cooked exactly as I wanted, tender as butter and the flavour enhanced by perfect seasoning. No sauce was ordered and none was needed. A dreamily delicious portobello mushroom luxuriously cooked in butter with very fine chips and a spanking tomato accompanied the steak. There was also a bunch of leaves rich with rocket, which is one of my arch enemies, but the ferric bite from it went well with the meal though the challenge of eating all of the rocket was a challenge too great for my frail taste buds.

  One of the nicest things about Fishmore is that the hotel is very dog friendly and when eating in the bistro diners can be accompanied by their dogs. It’s just the right sort of room to have a black Labrador stretched out on the floor paying close attention to the precise direction the forkfulls of sirloin are travelling in and willing that direction to be the one which leads to her mouth.

  And there was Sunday lunch. Here fine dining with its neat little islands of food turns into a trencherman’s holiday. Well, perhaps that’s not true of the starter. I had a creamy cauliflower soup with curry oil and a crouton in the form of an onion bhaji which seemed like a very clever idea except that my bhaji was a little burnt and and the resulting bitterness spoiled the overall dish. 

  But back to trenchermen. A vastly generously sized roast pork traditional Sunday lunch was served up according to my choice. The meat was enjoyable, not completely delicious - perhaps it needed a little more seasoning - but the accompanying garden full of vegetables ensured there were several things on the plate to please. The pork’s crackling was stupendously perfect, crispy but not tooth-shatteringly crunchy,  the duck fat roast potatoes were more leathery on the outside than crispy - I picked at one of them and left the other two; getting roast potatoes to the point of perfection really is an art known to just a few, and there was also spot-on red cabbage, some rather indifferent broccoli, good old swede purée, crushed carrot, pleasing cauliflower, green beans which gave little pleasure and the very necessary apple sauce and red wine gravy. I was full long before I could I had eaten everything (well the beans and roast potatoes were never going to get eaten no much how much was on the plate) and no-one should be able to claim they still felt hungry after all that.

  I didn’t attend the virtual Ludlow Festival as it was broadcast - I was busy having an enjoyable weekend in reality in Ludlow itself, happily eating real food and doing my best to meet Lucy The Labrador’s sausage craving. I hope to watch some of the videos now we’re back home and plan to be in Ludlow for the next Festival among the happy, vaccinated, COVID-19 free crowds in September 2021.

 

114. Purnell’s Does Sunday Lunch.

  It’s the New Normal. And Sunday lunch at Purnell’s is part of that new normal. An exciting prospect. Would there be a novel Purnell twist on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? I wondered. Well that would have been exciting. Alas no. But that didn’t mean it was not a fabulous lunch. A languid, relaxed cruise through some old Purnell classics with some startlingly summery new dishes punctuating the menu alongside them.

  The celestial lemony black potato with accompanying edible charcoal got Sunday lunch off to the start that Sunday lunch should have. And all very elegantly plated up. 

  Along came the joyously familiar, equally celestial pain de campagne, so light and cloud-like you could float up to heaven on it and then the first starter of this aestorial parade of dishes - a lovely multicoloured dish of flavour-riven heritage tomatoes assisted in their efforts to please by sour cream and pink peppercorn. Then a ceviche of mackerel, more soothingly delicately flavoured than many dishes based on that fish, and embellished with flamed cucumber and apple gel.

  Old friends, as dear as always, turned up to the party. Better than ever it seemed, Glynn Purnell’s very own monkfish massala on its bed of spiced lentils with slivers of coconut, a dish much copied but never improved upon except perhaps in this restaurant itself. The second photograph shows what an effect I can have on a plate of this dish.

  And then the joy of perfectly barbecued, delightfully flavoured lamb rump with surprising and wholly effective peach, pea purée, a happy confit potato and the added greenness of avocado, with a lovely lamb sauce.

  A word on the wine menu. Much innovation going on with some delightful introductions to the list by Jarek Samborski. He suggested the wondrous little number depicted below and much pleasure was derived from it.

  And then the oldest friend of all, no introduction needed - Burnt egg surprise and all the little bits that come with it. 10 - 10 -10 (Oliver, Prue and Matthew).

  So no roast beef and Yorkshire pudding but gorgeous lamb and Sunday lunch at Purnell’s was well worth the trip through COVID infested streets dodging around those who confuse a millimetre with a metre. Well, if the government won’t use imperial measurements what you can one expect?

  The chef in charge that day appeared to be Luke Butcher.

113. A Treat At No 9 Church Street With The Help Of The Taxpayer.

  Though I planned to have dinner there, finding the evening fully booked I opted instead to have lunch at No 9 Church Street. Stratford was awash with day visitors and short break stay-cation takers many of whom had let the sun get to their brains and had lost the ability to measure 1 metre. Notably there were the middle-aged couples whose hands were glued together and had not the ability to walk single file for a few seconds while passing someone walking in the opposite direction on a narrow pavement. And as usual there were the problematic Lycra garbed cyclists who do not understand the difference between a pathway and a roadway and with their middle-class sense of entitlement drove furiously at any man or beast in their way. There were also the daytrippers who were obviously from the inner city of one of the West Midlands metropolises not all from the same household who can’t count to 6 or choose not to and then complain that their communities have experienced an unfair degree of visitation by that which shall not be named here. No wonder that the Stratford locals view the tourists as a curse and a blessing in not exactly equal measures.

  And everyone was partying in the broadest sense of the word on the Chancellor of The Exchequer’s bountiful generosity on the taxpayer’s behalf - whoever the taxpayer may be - oh look I’m one of them - the Eat Out To Help Out campaign. So I partied too. And you can’t help but party on 3 courses plus coffee for just £15 at No 9 Church Street.

Well of course the Chancellor hasn’t gone completely doolally so alcohol has to be paid for without the taxpayer’s help but that did not stop me being soothed by a pleasing Hendricks and tonic joyously garnished with minute cubes of cucumber. After a couple of slices of good bread accompanied by both butter or olive oil, I’m a butter man myself, the starter of smoked gammon on a bed of Romesco sauce with a heavy leaf fall of rocket rising high above everything else was delivered to my table and flavours, apart from the rocket, were not strong. Though rocket is an arch-enemy of mine here it worked generally well with the other parts of the dish and not too many leaves were left on the plate when I hung up my knife and fork.

  And on to the main course which arrived in its own good time - a finely grilled pork loin chop with 2 vegs (a satisfactory mashed potato and nicely cooked shreds of hispi cabbage) with a thyme jus. The pork was a lordly-sized piece of meat and very tender and highly commendable but did it need a little more seasoning? - I thought so. And am I being a little ungracious in saying that the dish would have been made more merry with some accompanying apple; pork and apple, why else would pigs live in orchards? But how can one feel unhappy with generously-portioned fine starters and main courses for just £10. Gift horses and mouths come to mind.

  I’m sorry to say that I really did not get the dessert. Vanilla-poached peaches with lots and lots of whipped cream and toasted almonds plating the the top of it. I really could not eat all the cream. And finally, also included in the £15 price, a good cup of coffee and an appealing little nutty petit four.

  Thank you Taxpayer, Chancellor, Chef and the wonderful Front of House restaurant manager, Magdalena, for a meal of great good value at No. 9. The changes there retain the cosiness of the restaurant whilst ensuring a feeling of safety in the face of that which will not be named. A nice comfortable lunch.