Beige food and I

Beige shades

As a child I had an aversion to brown wallpaper – the result, I think, of moving aged 4 1/2 into a new house previously owned by an elderly couple. It was the mid-eighties and everything was brown – some lighter, some darker, but still brown and to my mind oppressive and stuffy. As an adult, I have a similar aversion, but this time it’s beige not brown and food not furnishings. Loyal readers may recall my casual reference to this in last week’s post about Christmas parties. When my other half, loyally reading it, enquired, ‘What’s so wrong with beige food?”, I realised that to save this point – potentially central to my “food philosophy” – from the bottomless pit of obscure blog references, it required elaboration.

Let’s be clear. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with beige food. Indeed, some beige foods are entirely necessary: brown rice, quinoa, potatoes, oats, buckwheat, millet, and for the carnivorously inclined, chicken and turkey … all nutritious and useful.  So with what am I taking issue? Two things.  Continue reading

Advent and the Art of Indulgence

christmas tree drawings

Forget John Lewis’ penguin, a new seasonal madness has gripped the nation – well, the nation’s health food bloggers at least. Wherever you turn, you are earnestly called to sprinkle your porridge with wheatgrass, add turmeric to your tea and slather your face with coconut oil. Advent is a feast of supplements, a sort of religious devotion to external and internal perfection, presented as your only hope of hanging up your Christmas stocking muffin-top free.

At this juncture, it is interesting to look at the ingredients in Asda’s Rich Fruit Mince Pies (12.5p per pie) – a mouth-watering mixture to be washed down with cheap sparkling wine at many a Christmas party …

Sugar, Apple, Glucose Syrup, Currants, Sultanas, Raisins, Glucose-fructose Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Orange Peel, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Preservatives (Acetic Acid, Sodium Metabisulphite, Potassium Sorbate, Sulphur Dioxide), Malt Extract (From Barley), Lemon Peel, Invert Sugar Syrup, Apricot, Mixed Spice, Sugar Syrup, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Gelling Agent (Pectin), Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrates), Natural Flavouring, Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Glucose Syrup, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Sugar, Dextrose, Salt, Raising Agents (Diphosphates, Sodium Bicarbonate), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate). Continue reading

Lunch at Silo

(1) Doug door

Founder and Head Chef Douglas McMaster opening Silo’s door

 

Light the fireworks and pop the champagne: Of Slender Means returns. The inspiration that broke my six-month social media hiatus? Lunch at Silo – Brighton’s newest and hottest lunch spot.

Apart from a visit to a raw food cafe in San Francisco (the place of dreams) in 2009, I am not sure I have ever left a restaurant feeling so wonderfully light and so resoundingly happy to have spent my money there. In both concept and execution, Silo – which describes its food as “pre-industrial” and itself as the first zero-waste restaurant – is a dining miracle. The simplicity, sustainability, and creativity permeating its ethos are so close to the ambitions of this blog (though Silo founder and head chef Douglas McMaster – former BBC Young Chef of the Year, with St John and Noma on his CV – admittedly has the upper hand in culinary talents and compost systems … ) I felt the restaurant had almost been created for me. Just reading the menu on Silo’s website had my mouth watering – freshly caught fish, fermented brown rice risotto, beetroot juice, seaweed salsa … Continue reading