Wednesday 30th September 2009
As I was saying, before so rudely interrupted by Robert Nevil starring at the Puja, my menu for my birthday dinner tomorrow came through on Monday night. If you’re wondering why RN was so honoured, as I’m sure you are, it was because he spoke up in favour of a kitchen or flower room or some such thing being added to the Isle of Dogs Temple.
So no money involved, merely goodness. Smallmeal, of course, would just donate £100,000, if he inclined towards Hinduism, which he doesn’t, as far as I know.
Now my menu – I’m doing everything wrong. 13 are to dine. A sensible person would wheel out trusty old favourites – fish pie and apple crumble perhaps. These dishes are heard of in our world, but you have to use Angus Willis’s recipes, which elevate them onto another plane – I can’t quite remember how; I’ll tell you one day. But I’m using untried Ottolenghi and even unknown ingredients, although Mrs Solomon Bung of California did tell me that sumac is all right. I want my food to be new, you see, the latest thing.
Absolute madness.
The first course is figs with pecorino (already got from La Michelson at La Fromagerie, as instructed in the Ottolenghi book: the exact, named Pecorino: £22) and honey. Then I’m doing chicken with this sumac and something called za’atar. And my pudding – well, there’s a falling off because it’s Nigella. Nigella at her most mumsie and embarrassing as to phraseology: ‘If you want to keep apple-y…’ she goes. I did want to keep apple-y because there were no damsons to be had and apples are in season now. So I’m doing her Apple Charlotte. Angus Willis can’t bear Nigella. Won’t have her name mentioned. Total amateur, he claims, no restaurant experience.
So is it even a proper gay menu? Should I be bothering about the food at all? Some queens give everything to the table styling, the matching sets, the ranks of glassware, the napery, the candles: then, if you’re Ralph Kitto, the art collector of South Kensington, you bust open the M and S ready-dinners or phone for pizza – this really is true.
The Gay dinner is always bizarre, always outstanding, always fiercely meant.
Certainly queenaria has featured in the assembling of my dinner so far. I’ve been three times to Waitrose (that’s our top supermart in UK if you’re in foreign). The first time, no chestnut honey and behind the ‘sumac’ label in the spice rack – an empty space! Couldn’t believe it! Will not have vultures picking clean the shelves!
But at least evidence that sumac exists.
So far, I’ve given the best part of two days to my dinner, with one more to go. It might be different if there are two of you or if Mottram had turned up to help me, but don’t believe anyone who tells you it can all be whirled together in no time at all. You’ll end up in an asylum. Phone in sick, or, better still, give up work entirely if you’re going to take dinner-party giving seriously.
Gays suffer more, you know, and bear it better – for their art and in other ways.
Finally – money. Chicken – you have noticed – yes, cheap! Mummy Nigella calls for Calvados in her apple-y apple-y apple puree. I had some lovely Somerset Apple Brandy (the same thing) given me by my late uncle, but Mottram appears to have drunk it all on his visits here. I did look for some more. £17 a bottle! Didn’t contemplate. Slashed it straight out.
But I’ve slammed two bottles of Tattinger on my credit card. On offer at Majestic. Debts are racking up again.
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Many happy returns of the day are in in order to you today! Your menu sounds real cute – and yes very CA in parts.
Did you not want to stock up on the pecorino and honey when in Tuscany? We cannot get such good food in Fresh and Easy here (your Tescos I think) and I adore grabbing as much as I can to ship back.
Don’t talk to me about fucking debts (are you allowed to swear in this column?) I am a slumdog celebrity and live on thin air. It is possible ….so look as you look rich and don’t eat. Stay cool and enjoy, darling Adrian and many happy returns of the day!
Sorry, computer blindness…for ‘look’ read ‘long’
Sumac perfectly attainable in London. Edgware Road. It’s absolutely delicious – the red dust scattered on top of that salad with fried pitta squares you get in all Lebanese restaurants. We developed an enthusiasm for Ottolenghi in Geneva and managed to find sumac there, so you can certainly find it in London.
The problem is, just as Delia sparks off a buying frenzy in the sort of people who go to Sainsbury’s, whoever they may be, so Yiram Ottolenghi sets one off in the Waitrose classes.
Is he a Top Gay and his charming Palestinian cooking partner too? Need a ruling on this one.
Yotam. Hebrew. “G-d is perfect.”
Happy birthday, Adrian Edge! I wonder, is there is any chance of you or one of your guests “live-blogging” the dinner party?
What the hell is Ottolenghi? Octopus?
I shall sue. Edge has me rummaging in that yellow cupboard for the dregs of apple brandy. Nothing further from the truth. Many’s the time I’ve had to help him up the stairs. And the Gay Mother.
Dear Nicholas Taudevin, I’m sorry about the delay in replying. I can hardly speak as it is during dinners so I think only gibberish would have resulted. But I must try it one day.
Dear Tony Kane, I do apologise. So provincial. Ottolenghi is something in between a cafe, a deli and a restaurant. Only two branches in London but enormous impact and mania for and now they have a book out. It is very highly flavoured Middle Eastern/Israeli. But is it gay food?
I adore Ottolenghi so imagine my horror when the beetroot based salad I bought on Sunday came with ROCK HARD NECTARINES. Of course I emailed my complaint and have been refunded. I like to think I am learning from the poor little rich gays.