Tomorrow, I'm off to the hospital for my check-up following the stomach problems I had during the summer and I'm happy to say that since having a tube poked around my stomach in September, I've felt perfectly fit and fine, without a trace of the terrible pains that dogged me in July and August. Which is a good job, because I've been so rushed off my feet over the past weeks by a combination of work and socialising, I haven't had time to be ill again...
Some of the socialising was, happily, combined with work, because I had to stage dinner parties for people coming over to help me test wines for two pieces for the Independent - one on red wines for autumn and the other on low alcohol wines. Well, you can't invite people over to taste wine without giving them something to eat, can you? (I am reminded of a comment I once read about a particularly garrulous and disputatious well known media couple, who it was said, would invite people around for an argument and then, almost as an afterthought, throw some food at them....)
Well I cant resist throwing some food at people, given the opportunity. So it was stuffed squid, spiced mackeral and roast poussin and quail for the red wine night, which was following by, for me, the highlight of the evening, the spectacular cheese board prepared by my friends Angela and Jeremy. Angela had been in Paris the night before and visited a fromagerie on her way back to the Eurostar and they arrived with Jeremy bearing a vast board, laid out with chevres, soft, blue and hard cheese and all manner of other things like grapes, nuts, dates, crackers and breads. Such style. I'm glad some of the wines stood out as well - here are the ten best for the Indy..
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-ten-best-autumn-reds-1810923.html
There were several other very good wines which just failed to make the cut, but I'll post on them later.
On October 31, there were more people around to taste low alcohol wines and, of course, a vaguely Halloween themed meal. I agonised over this for some time - not wanting to be silly (ghoulish masks for everyone and tomato 'blood' sauce were both immediately ruled out) but also relishing the challenge of sticking to certain rules. Everthing had to be orange and black or white, more or less the colours of Halloween. So it was pumpkin soup, morcilla sausages with apple and celariac puree and Portugese Feijoada, made with black beans, pork and chorizo as a main course, followed by black plums in white port. Well, it sort of stuck within the rules. And was fun. I was going to do a cuttlefish ink paella, but one guest, Nick, doesnt do fish at all, so that was out...
The Feijoada was, out of necessity, a cross between the original Portugese version, which uses Red kidney beans and the Brazilian one, with black beans and a more varied selection of meats. A dish I had always wanted to cook. It also led me to an interesting chat with the lady who runs a little Portugese cafe in north Finchley, where I had gone to seek peri peri, the Portugese tabasco like sauce, used to give the dish greater heat. She didn't have any to sell me, but took sympathy on my plight and eventually gave me a bottle of her own, firmly refusing payment. I promised to return to eat her own Feijoada one Saturday night - it looked an interesting place, with Portugese football on the tv and families scoffing hearty food, kids running around. My kind of cafe.
Anyway, Glenda (who I hadn't seen for some time and on whom motherhood has cast a kind of beauteous glow) asked for the recipe, so here it is:
Ingredients: for about 6-8 people:

Two/three large onions, thin sliced.
A whole bulb of garlic, chopped.
Two dried chillies, soaked in warm water until soft and chopped, water reserved.
Six or eight cooking chorizo, depending on size, cut into thirds. They have to be cooking ones, not the salami type.
Or use a chorizo/morcilla combination
About 2lbs pork shoulder, in bite size pieces
A packet of pancetta
Sliced red and green peppers (sort of optional)
Black beans, soaked overnight
Cup of tomato passata or sauce
Two pints at least chicken or vegetable stock.
You need a big casserole dish for this.

Season the meats and fry in olive oil in casserole until well browned. Remove with slotted spoon. Do not throw away the oil.
Gently soften onions, then garlic and chopped chillies in the oil, for about 20 minutes.
When they are soft, add the tomato passata, peppers if you want, and cook for another 15 minutes to get a rich, thick sauce. Season. Add more chilli if you want it hot.
Return the meats, add the drained beans and the chicken stock. Bring to the boil and simmer over a high heat for about ten minutes.
Then put it in the oven on a very low heat, gas mark four, covered, for about 2-3 hours, so it just bubbles away. You will almost certainly need to add more water/stock to keep it moist.
Serve liberally garnished with coriander and lime slices (This is Portugal, not Spain), copious amounts of rice (or fried potatoes) and that peri-peri on the side. It needs a really robust wine and any of the Ten Best I mentioned earlier would do fine, apart from the Pinot Noir, which might be a little overwhelmed. For authenticity, I'd suggest the Portugese Touriga Nacional 2007, made from the grapes used for port and just £6.99 from M&S.
The wines I certainly would not recommend with such a full flavoured dish were the low alcohol wines we tried earlier the same evening, which simply left us craving for the real thing...here's what we thought....http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/how-low-can-you-go-do-reducedalcohol-wines-pass-the-taste-test-1818842.html
Must go, have a son who needs the computer and a couple of pheasants to stuff....