My boiler has broken and I’m finding solace in a slice (or several) of toast | Rachel Cooke
My subject today is toast, which is much on my mind right now, a buttery ticker tape that calls me constantly to the kitchen.Our boiler has packed up, the new one won’t be installed for a week, and though it’s only the central heating that’s down (the cooker’s fine), the freezing cold has turned me into a toast monster.It’s all I want, a feeling I haven’t had since I was a student and living in a house that was so badly insulated, we sometimes had to break the ice on the water in the loo.How many loaves can a person get through in a week? Come back to me in a few days for an answer.I’ll give you a tour of my chilblains at the same time.
What is amazing about toast is the way it has lately become so pimped,This started a few years ago: I first noticed it in Moro Easy by Sam and Sam Clark, a cookbook that came out in 2022 and whose opening chapter is devoted to the matter (toast with pepper, anchovy and chopped egg; toast with chorizo, tomato and chilli; toast with crab, oloroso sherry and alioli),The Clarks’ book came out of the lockdown, so this fixation made a lot of sense; these were recipes born of enclosure and experimentation,But since then, it has become a thing,Go to a certain kind of restaurant, and something-on-toast is a dead cert as a starter.
Toast is always hard to resist, especially if it’s smeared with garlic and piled with cockles and bacon, but I also feel a bit wary when I see it on a menu.(What’s the mark-up on a slice of bread? Can’t I do this at home?) But most restaurants are playing it pretty straight, I would say.It’s on the domestic front that the situation is getting out of hand, the range of outré spreads that are available to smear on your slice having grown exponentially since 2020.Last year, to take just one example, the Pollen Bakery croissant butter, which costs £10 a jar, went viral, and now you must join a waiting list if you want to get your hands on it.(In case you’re wondering, it’s made from flakes of caramelised pastry that are whipped into butter with toasted white chocolate.
)I have flirted with these spreads,After visiting the London Library the other day, I slid into Fortnum & Mason to pick up, and then to put down, a jar of Mada Mada’s famed pistachio and rose praliné (£8,99 for 170g); I do like the sound of Milk’s whipped halva and pumpkin seed tahini (£5,80 for 200ml), which is also supposed to be good on toast (I associate halva strongly with my Middle East childhood, so it has a Proustian quality for me),So far, though, I’m not sold enough to buy.
I understand that in hard times like these, people adjust their concept of what constitutes a treat; that we may over-splash madly on the occasional foodstuff because we’re spending as little as is humanly possible on everything else.But I also fear buyer’s remorse.Is there a more guilt-inducing sight than a jar, opened but used only once, at the back of the fridge or cupboard? A tin of good anchovies will probably do just as well.Or jam, of course.As I write, I’m working my way through the jars of homemade jam that have been given to me by friends over several years, and it’s proving to be the sweetest magical mystery tour, these talented preservers sometimes being identifiable only by their handwriting.
Who made the sublime fig jam I’m about to finish, a conserve whose deep, plum colour Farrow & Ball should replicate immediately? (Stone Fruit – perfect in a bathroom,) And what about the peach jam that was last week’s project? What golden nectar!I loved the way it slid companionably into the holes in toasted baguette, dripping on to the plate below to await a judicious finger,I fear I’ll never taste its like again; when I took the empty jar from the dishwasher, I had to take a moment to say goodbye,I may indeed be a horribly greedy toast monster, but I’m also a very grateful one, every last bite a contemplative way-station on the long, cold road to boiling hot radiators,
Notes on chocolate: make way for a new favourite
Last year a reader called Olivia got in touch to ask if I could recommend some chocolates to replace those her mum loved – Terry’s Spartan.These were a box of chocolates with a black and orange mountain scene on the front, that majored on the fact that all the centres were hard (and, as is the way with a lot of now discontinued chocolates, empty boxes of them go for ££ on eBay). Memorial Device on X once said of them: ‘not uncommon to find a box of Spartans with teeth marks in every single one – the unaware searching for the nonexistent soft centre,’ which made me guffaw. I gave Olivia some suggestions but she came back to say she’d ‘found the winner in Audrey’s Chocolates. I gave her a selection for Christmas and she loved them
Graceful wines with a twist in the tale
Subtle but beautiful wines from Savoie and JapanDomaine Belema Imago, IGP Vin des Allobroges, Savoie, France 2023 (from £34.75, terrawines.co.uk (lescaves.co
Gilgamesh, London: ‘It’s a weird trip’: restaurant review
We’re here for a ‘culinary journey’ apparently, but where on earth to?Gilgamesh, 4a Upper St Martin’s Lane, London WC2H 9NY. Small plates £7-£19, large plates £9-£42, desserts £9, wines from £38A Monday lunchtime, and my phone pings. There’s a text. “Gilgamesh London. It’s our Birthday! ONE milestone gift to you,” it says, with a dizzyingly random use of capital letters
My boiler has broken and I’m finding solace in a slice (or several) of toast | Rachel Cooke
My subject today is toast, which is much on my mind right now, a buttery ticker tape that calls me constantly to the kitchen. Our boiler has packed up, the new one won’t be installed for a week, and though it’s only the central heating that’s down (the cooker’s fine), the freezing cold has turned me into a toast monster. It’s all I want, a feeling I haven’t had since I was a student and living in a house that was so badly insulated, we sometimes had to break the ice on the water in the loo. How many loaves can a person get through in a week? Come back to me in a few days for an answer. I’ll give you a tour of my chilblains at the same time
Ludovico Einaudi: ‘The way you blend the elements you eat is similar to composing a piece of music’
I live in Torino [Turin], a town where I grew up, where I was born. There’s a famous dish from there called bagna cauda. It’s a meeting of the garlic from the area of Piedmont, the mountains, with the anchovies coming from the sea in Liguria. It’s a very simple dish, a bit like a broth, perfect in winter, and you eat it with raw vegetables of the season. But there’s so much garlic in it that, when you eat it, you need a couple of days away from other people
How to turn leftover cooked pork into a classic Spanish bean stew – recipe | Waste not
Fabada Asturiana is classic Spanish cooking at its simplest and best. This stew of creamy white beans cooked slowly with pork and cured meat is traditionally made with fabes de la Granja (or judion beans), morcilla (Spanish black pudding), chorizo and lacón (cured pork shoulder, and similar to pancetta); it’s also the perfect dish for using up leftover roast pork.Meat bones are packed with incredible flavour and nutrition, so I always save them, along with cooking juices and fat, in the freezer to create dishes such as this glorious Spanish stew – leftover ribs, chop bones, ham hocks or roast pork shoulder, together with any fat, will all work beautifully here.In 2016, I went to a fiesta de matanza in northern Spain with my friend, the cook Oliver Rowe – the term translates literally to “the slaughter festival”, and it’s an annual village event where a pig is slaughtered and butchered from nose to tail. While it’s admittedly a bit gory and hard to watch, it is nevertheless a respectful, community-focused ritual that helps people connect to the origin of their food, and just witnessing proceedings made me reflect deeply on how I want to live and eat
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