From talk of its inception, I expected Town Hall Hotel to stand apart from most boutique hotels. For a start Artsadmin (an edgy East London-based company that produces and supports contemporary artists) had been hired by Peng Loh (a young Singaporean hotelier) to curate the artwork for the space. My rabble-rousing brother, Manick Govinda, happens to work for Artsadmin and clued me in on the project about a year ago. He recently told me he loved the entire process from conception to fruition. And I’ve got to say I’m struck by the end results.

Town Hall Hotel opened in March 2010. It is housed in the old Bethnal Green Town Hall. It’s off a busy, gritty street that remains diverse despite East London’s now explosive hipster scene. Depending on what direction you’re coming from, as you walk along Cambridge Heath Road, you’ll likely pass a handful of small Asian cafes serving basic grub and a rather large car mechanics where men are still men.

I walked into the building through the restaurant entrance (you have to turn the corner onto Patriot Square for hotel access). To the right is the hotel bar and to the left is Viajante, which by the way is fully booked through to September and has a waiting list in the three digits. The bar is tastefully stylish. Manick was running late so I took a seat and perused the menu. Whoa. Wine geek alert. This was no yawn-inducing Clicquot, Moet, Henschke, Penfolds, line up. For starters, the champers is mostly grower-producer. I spied Selosse Initiale, Vilamart Grand Cellier and Lassaigne Les Vignes de Montgueuex. This place would be the bomb if it were in NYC.

I ordered Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Rosado (by the glass for seven quid). Charles Jouget Cuvee Terroir was on offer among the reds btg. The wine director (who at that moment was unbeknownst to me) had my full attention and respect. Word. Even more so when I found out she’s an unconventional professional wino, an Asian woman sporting a mohawk. Word Up. Bar snacks are delectable, simple and sometimes Iberian inflected. The head bartender is a no-nonsense dour sort of English man who makes a damn good cocktail. I tried the bracingly bitter Hanky Panky (a mix of gin, Antica Vermouth and Fernet Branca).

While I waited for Manick to arrive, my attention was drawn to a large piece of text engraved into a narrow cut of sand blasted glass, which fit perfectly into a narrow alcove just above the stairway to the loo. The words were full of images. When Manick arrived he explained to me that it was the work of WalkWalkWalk – a collaboration between three artists. Smaller pieces of texts by the same artists can be discovered in unexpected spots at the hotel.

This isn’t your usual flashy Schnabel-like paintings (on view at Gramercy Park Hotel) or the traditional visuals adorning the walls at more classic hotels or, worse yet, wallpaper art. No, the artwork work at Town hall Hotel is playful, thought provoking, modern, quirky and quite brilliant. I took in my favorite piece when Manick whisked me through a little tour of the artwork and we got to the floor where artist Debbie Lawson had created wood-paneled images of saucy, intimate, sexual Victoriana, cut from the likes of London plane, sycamore, bird’s eye maple and walnut. In one instance a woman’s nipple is the natural swirl of grain in a piece of wood. I do it no justice here. You’ll have to book a room, have a glass of wine, head upstairs in a giddy mood and see for yourself.

A few days here and there is all I’ve experienced of Paris over the last few years. I’m thinking it is about time I plunge in and get a real dose of the city everyone loves to love (& hate). Not sure how I will achieve this but I hope to play the ex-pat writer in the city of lights one day. Yesterday was my final day at Tinto Fino. A sweet shop it was but vinos de España and I weren’t meant to be. Now I find myself dreaming of the possibilities. I’m free (and yes poor) again. I can keep dreaming, can’t I?

My most recent morsel of Paris was just for 3 days. My friend, May Matta, joined me for walks, talks, eating & drinking. We stayed in the pricey-posh neighborhood of St-Germain-des-Prés and tested the grounds with two local spots: Boissonnerie and Le Comptoir. Francois Chidaine, whose Montlouis and Vouvray wines I adore, recommended the former. The latter restaurant has plenty of buzz online and was suggested to me by Sharon Bowman.

We almost didn’t make it to Le Comptoir but after stumbling upon La Crèmerie (they weren’t serving lunch that day) we were encouraged to try and get a table there. It was a moment that couldn’t be planned. We spied Doug & Tina Polaner seated at the packed out spot. They kindly gave us the remains of a bottle of Lapierre Morgon, which I preceded with a glass of Renardat-Fâche Cerdon. I needed something pretty, fresh and light for the 85-degree scorcher of a day. The food made me swoon. May and I noshed on dishes of white asparagus, baked eggs with cepes with Peruvian potato chips and snails drenched in butter and parsley.

The chow at La Boissonerie was equally good as was exemplified in a first course of eel with crème fraiche and second courses of succulent rare lamb chops with lentilles du Puy and an exquisite fish dish that May ordered, topped with an orange grated root vegetable (no not carrots) I haven’t heard of – all of it sitting in a mushy cloud of potato and pistachio nut oil. Perfection. I immersed myself in Chenin. First the razor sharp and salivating Belliviere Jasniere Les Rosiers ’08, followed by a rather rich Pierre-Bise Anjou Le Haut de la Garde (2008), a sans souffre wine that seemed to have botrytized grapes in there.

A repeat performance was made at Verre Vole (I’d been in Oct last year) where I had my first taste of Domaine Prieuré-Roch Nuits “1” 2007, a Nuits St. Georges1er Cru. OMG. Winemaker Henry-Frédéric Roch, is the co-director of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and the wine is not available in the States. It is Burgundy that’ll make you cry. Really reminded me of Pacalet – earthy, floral, hints of iodine. Just stunning.

Finally, dinner was had at quedubon in the Belleville neighborhood. The restaurant was adorable, staff was lovely and the food was honest and tasty. Had some of the best cheese here and discovered a very lovely pet-nat VdT from Montlouis called “Rose à Lies” produced by Jousset, along with an Alsatian blanc – Sylvie Spielman Riesing Reserve Bergheim 2007.  The Jousset was so good I ordered two glasses.

I nicked the title for this post from a friend who works in the industry. This is what she said when I broke news of my plans to travel to Jura and Paris. Middle Earth was a dream on the west side of the mountains that separate the French Jura from Switzerland. Sloped vines of Chardonnay, Savagnin, Pinot Noir, Ploussard and Trousseau were within arms distance of roaming cows, horses and sheep. It all seemed tangible. I could snip a bunch of Savagnin and pet a cow in the space of minutes.

Château Chalon was stunning, a mass of hill in the shadow of a terraced cliff bearing the tiny village of Chalone.

“I could almost live here,” I thought. And thought the same thing when I stood in the vineyards of Domaine de Montbourgeau, perched on a gentle hillside, a 360-degree turn revealed the five mountains that give this appellation its name.

Vigneron, Nicole Deriaux, was a treat. I’ve always thought this producer’s razor sharp Chardonnay was a steal and I was equally captivated by her oxidative Savagnin and the, hands down, best Crémant du Jura I had all week. It was dry, yeasty, lemony and bracing. I wanted to be alone at that point. I longed to sit down with her crémant and cry.

The day I left for the Jura my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I lived through the Jura as if I were going through the motions and yet the beauty of the region touched me. We don’t know if the tumor is cancerous. We know it is big – 9cm. The size of a small egg is pressing down on my dad’s brain and affecting his speech, his mobility and his mental grasp.

I will leave for Mauritius soon to be with my parents when the doctors operate. I will be sad, I will be strong; I’ll be the daughter they need. Life still continues, I will still drink honest wines that soothe and elate me and I will blog, but from here on, maybe with a tinge of sadness. More on producers in the Jura soon.

It is no secret that I have a taste for innards. Long before guts became trendy, I grew up munching on bone marrow (my favorite), fish eyes, tripe and I once ate some delectable sheep’s balls at the age of seven but my aunty didn’t tell me because I was scoffing them with such glee. My brother had to later reveal to me the true essence of what I was eating simply to gross me out.

There has been an offal renaissance in the UK and chef Fergus Henderson, has led the way for pure, simple, whole animal eating ever since opening his restaurant, St. John Smithfield, in the nineties. After traipsing around Shoreditch for the day, Jim and I sat in the glorious garden at the Geffrye Museum (a gem of an old Almshouse converted into a museum showcasing English interiors of the “middling” class from the 1600s onwards) and called St. John on a whim. A table happed to be open at seven. We walked through the maze to Clerkenwell, taking a trip through Smithfield Meat Market, a spot that perpetually smells like iodine and raw meat.

In the stark white dining room that is St. John we eyed the wine list, spotting wines from Eric Texier and Pierre Breton. We honed in on the Robinot Cuvee Bistrologie 2005 (a VdT Chenin Blanc), an amazing, weird, textured, cloudy and truly delicious wine and it faired well with our repast of cured beef and celeriac, butter beans and cauliflower (big meaty beans tossed in aromatic olive oil with leeks and capers) and heart (like a cross between liver and flank steak) with green beans.

We had to order Ferguson’s signature dish, bone marrow and parsley salad, which I’ve had a couple of times before and attempted to cook myself from his Nose to Tail Eating cookbook.

This particular dish brings back memories of the buttery, gelatinous goodness my parents would extract from their own plates of lamb or mutton bones and proffer to me with love when I was a wee thing.

More innards came my way at Hereford Road.

Jim and I arranged to stay in Notting Hill at Miller’s Residence for one night, courtesy of Martin Miller (owner of Martin Miller gin). Dinner reservations were a no-brainer once I’d read up on London-based food blogs and media reviews, which all raved about Hereford Road restaurant, a mere block away from our accommodations.

Upon entering Hereford Road, I noted that the décor was hideous but the menu sounded fantastic. Chef Tom Pemberton is a St. John alumni and the menu reads so faithfully from the St. John school of cooking. We ordered a plate of salty, crispy sand eels and a headcheese terrine for starters,

followed with pigeon and kidneys for mains. Now, I am not the faint-at-heart type when it comes to food but the kidneys…man those kidneys…they were FUNKY.

I had to take a deep breath before I dared stick a forkful in my mouth because the dish reeked of pee you see. I have fairly decent knowledge of biology and I’m fully aware of the kidneys functions but to have it so brazenly displayed on the plate turned my stomach a tad. Jim reckons it was my mood. He says that typically, a dish such as this would be right up my alley and he, of course, LOVED it. Admittedly, my belly wasn’t happy that day and Hereford Road may well have been bad timing on my part. I did, however, respect its unadulterated meat parts. Who else serves kidneys medium rare, unhindered by sauces and not stuffed into a pie?

I would go to Hereford Road again. And as Martin Miller remarked (he admitted he isn’t a fan of the restaurant) at least I can say I’ve been there – all I need is a t-shirt: “Been to Hereford Road: Ate kidneys.”

My mother used to shop at Brixton market a couple of times a week for Indian and Caribbean food supplies that she wasn’t able to find in Balham. Years later the same neighborhood became my nightlife outlet (The Dogstar and The Fridge for after-hours), now I visit Brixton whenever I’m in London and the memories come flooding.

I recall this cute little restaurant (if you can call it that – it had about 3 tables on premises) housed in Market Row, one of the many shopping arcades in the neighborhood that made decent pizza. The owner vacated the premises and an Italian from Naples moved in and set up shop. His name is not Franco – Franco Manca means Franco is gone…a reference to the previous owner.

Now, nestled among African fabric shops and stalls selling plantains and yucca, there is a line of Guardian-reading Brixtonites and gastronomes from all over London (and further) salivating for a bite of sourdough pizza with the most minimal of toppings. Some say it’s the best pizza in Britain.

Jim and I shared a basic mozzarella, tomato and house-cured ham pie.

I’m no pizza expert but I can say that I really enjoyed the weight and texture (not too thin and nowhere near thick) and tang of the dough. The menu consists of about six different bare-bones pizzas and you can either drink water, lemonade, a choice of one organic beer or house red or house white.

I opted for the house white, served at room temperature in a small glass tumbler. All I could muster is that it was a Cortese (probably from around Piedmont) and is sourced and bottled by Wild Caper, a cute little deli across the way in Market Row, also owned by Franco Manca proprietor and pizza man, Giuseppe Mascoli. The label indicated the lemony-tasting vino was low in sulphites and at something like £1.75 a glass it was one of the most palatable bargains I’ve had. The bottle sells at Wild Caper for about five quid and it blows the supermarket shit (at the same price) that most Britons drink out of the water.

Mr. Mascoli must have a good sense humour too. Check out the wall art. Another memory I have of growing up the the UK are the Thatcher years…but let’s not go there, shall we?

The spirited dinners at Tales take place on the same night at various restaurants in New Orleans. For the most part a guest mixologist creates a menu of drinks to work with the chef’s 3-course dinner. It costs 100 bucks per person and it’s a major deal. Jim joined me this year and we attended the Calcasieu dinner, which is the private space above Cochon. The menu was delicious and the drinks were stellar because Eben [Klemm] and Eben [Freeman] were our bartenders for the night. The first concoction [created by Freeman] was a sumptuous drink called the Cornbread Old Fashion’, which offered a distinct sweet corn taste within a body of warming bourbon. It was weird and brilliant. Freeman’s next potion was the, faintly celery-tasting Lovage Sour, a mix of Beefeater Gin, dry vermouth and the lovage herb. The drink was paired with baked stuffed gulf oyster with bacon.

Klemm gave us a lighter, aromatic cocktail in the form of Bay Brees, a blend of St. Germain and bay leaf syrup. It was as delicate as it was pretty and was served with seared jumbo shrimp with port risotto and lemon salsa verde. Klemm’s next drink, Earth, was a twist on a dark n’ stormy, made from dark rum, averna and beet juice, garnished with ginger [dehydrated] jerky. It was intensely hued and had a lovely earthy savoriness about it. Earth’s edible partner was a plate of roasted duck breast with duck boudin and figs.

To top it all off, both mixologists created nutty, postprandial cognac drinks. Klemm’s was a creamy poppy seed tipple named The Karzai (an interesting reference to Afghanistan’s poppy seed cultivation) and Freeman’s was an amaretto-like drink of cognac infused with walnuts.

TOC’s parties are mostly fabulous though some are getting cheesy now big (and not necessarily good) brands are getting involved. The best shindigs had to be Hendrick’s Burlesque party, alas I got there too late and missed the action but the drinks were good and the crowd was fun. Later that night the party moved onto Donald Link’s Herbsaint, where we sat outside with a bunch of industry folk and sipped whatever was going around.

On the last night we partook in a funeral procession from Hurrah’s into the French Quarter. The Red Headed Slut [cocktail] had kicked the bucket, or rather Simon Ford, brand ambassador for Plymouth Gin, shoved her into a coffin, declared her dead and a bunch of other bartenders rejoiced. She was a drink that shall not be missed.

The jazzed-up funeral was led by an excellent second line band, Plymouth Gin drinks were handed out along the way and our shuffle through the streets of New Orleans ended at Latrobe’s for the Bartender’s Breakfast. An event I took to literally mean a sit down affair involving a plate of eggs benedict. It turned out to be the best party I’ve been to in years. Milk and Honey,
Employees Only, Contemporary Cocktails were among the stands making cocktails. We boogied the night away and then rounded up TOC 2009 at the Old Absinthe House…

Tales of the Cocktail makes you wish you could be at two, nay make that three, places at once. With too many cool and relevant seminars, fabulous dinners, lunches, offers to meet with master distillers, brand owners, mixologists and, throw in meetings with an editor or two – it’s a dizzying affair of too much going on at the same time.

The How’s and Why’s of Cocktails was a good basic seminar led by Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club and Tony Conigliaro. Conigliaro is a bartender based in London who just opened a new cocktail bar in Islington, that I’ll be checking out when I go to London in a few weeks, called 69 Colebrook Row. Audrey and Tony made a good team, encouraging bartenders to think outside the box. Turns out Audrey is friends with Harold McGee and sometime consults with him on food science and lore when trying to create a new drink. Apparently it can take her two years of trial and error before she feels a cocktail is ready for the menu. Such was the case (though not sure if it took at long as 2 years) for her infamous Earl Grey MarTEAni, a drink she originally created for the Ritz Carlton in London.

It was particularly interesting when they talked about Europe VS US trends. Tony described the Brits as liking tall, refreshing, lighter-style drinks, while Audrey emphasized New York’s love for boozy classics and bitters. You can make that same comparison when it comes to the West Coast and the East Coast. SF drinks tend to utilize moor fruit. A visit to Death & Co, Mayahuel or PDT proves that we love our gin, whisk(e)y and tequila with bitters, herbal liqueurs, sherry and amaro, lemon or lime juice tends to be the only fruit present.

I had to make the Cognac from Vine to Shaker seminar because I have a soft spot for grape distillates and several of my favorite industry people were there, Jack Robertiello (my once editor turned friend), Jean Louis Carbonnier (he represents a number of great wine and spirits regions) and Jim Meehan from PDT. Guillame Lamy from Pierre Ferrand cognac was also on the panel. There was a lot of talk about trying to get cognac out of its bling image and into a more accessible role. Meehan talked about classic cocktails using cognac. He acknowledged that selling a cognac cocktail isn’t easy but there are a few tricks up his sleeve: list the cocktail high up on the menu, cucumbers in a mixed drink always seem to sell well, case in point is the French Maid served at PDT (muddled cucumber, mint, lime and cognac).

Angus Winchester and Simon Ford ran The World’s Best Bar Crawl seminar. It was a case of two industry Brits sharing their list of the best bars in the world. Clearly, I have a lot of traveling and drinking to do. I’ve been to the bars marked with an asterisk. Here’s the rundown.

NORTH AMERICA

PX, Vancouver
Westin, Calgary
Flatiron Lounge, NYC *
Milk & Honey, NYC *
PJ Clarkes, NYC
Old Town Bar, NYC
PDT, NYC *
Pegu Club, NYC *
King Cole Bar and Lounge, NYC
The Rainbow Room, NYC
Death & Company, NYC*
The Florida Room, Miami
Bourbon, Washington D.C.
The Gibson, Washington D.C.
Drink, Boston
Vessel, Seattle
Zig-Zag Café, Seattle
Bix, San Francisco
Bourbon and Branch, San Francisco
Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, San Francisco
The Doheny, L.A.
The Edison, L.A. *
The Carousel Bar, New Orleans *
The Old Absinthe House, New Orleans*
Alibi, New Orleans
Bel Ami Restaurant and Lounge, Oregon
Churchill Downs, Kentucky

SOUTH AMERICA
Café Tortoni, Buenos Aires

UK
Merchant’s Hotel, Belfast
Quatch Bar, Speyside
Bramble, Edinburgh
Salvatore at Fifty, London
The Dukes Hotel, London
Quo Vadis, London
Milk & Honey, London
The Lab, London *
The Savoy Hotel, London *

EUROPE
Apoteke, Norway
Ruby, Copenhagen
Door 74, Amsterdam
Barfly’s Club, Vienna
Widder Bar, Zurich
Paparazzi Bar, Bratislava
UFO, Bratislava
Widder Bar, Zurich
Le Lion de Paris, Hamburg
Schumanns, Munich
Becketskoff, Berlin
Hemmingway Bar, Paris *
Hotel Costes, Paris
Harry’s New York Bar, Paris
Dry martini, Barcelona
Boadas, Barcelona
Nottingham Forrest, Milan

MIDDLE EAST
Burj Al Aran, Dubai

MIDDLE EAST
Burj Al Aran, Dubai

EASTERN EUROPE
Sky Bar, Moscow

ASIA
High Five, Tokyo
Tender Bar, Tokyo
Captain’s Bar, Hong Kong
China Club, Hong Kong
Raffles, Singapore
Tippling Club, Singapore
Constellation, Shanghai
Olives, Mumbai
Rick’s, Delhi

DOWN UNDER (According to Simon Ford, the Aussies have the most fantastic cocktail culture than anyone else on the planet)
Der Raum, Melbourne
Tiki Lounge & Bar, Melbourne
Bayswater Brasserie, Sydney
Matterhorn, Wellington, NZ

EURASIA
Sky Bar, Moscow

ASIA
High Five, Tokyo
Tender Bar, Tokyo
Captain’s Bar, Hong Kong
China Club, Hong Kong
Raffles, Singapore
Tippling Club, Singapore
Constellation, Shanghai
Olives, Mumbai
Rick’s, Delhi

DOWN UNDER (According to Simon Ford, the Aussies have the most fantastic cocktail culture than anyone else on the planet)
Der Raum, Melbourne
Tiki Lounge & Bar, Melbourne
Bayswater Brasserie, Sydney
Matterhorn, Wellington, NZ

Aunty Laila’s Fish and Aubergine Curry

My mother’s brother (my Uncle Hassan) owns a food cart, which he sets up at the Rose-Hill bus station on weekdays and sells freshly fried poori (a tortilla-like flatbread) with vegetable curry. His wife (my Aunty Laila) gets up at the crack of dawn and cooks up the curries that are ladled into the poori. They make a good team, in a yin-and-yang kind of way. If they were in New York I’d enter them into the Vendy Awards.

Aunty Laila is a dab hand in the kitchen. Getting her and my mother together is a bit like an episode of Iron Chef. While I was in Mauritius Laila came over to my mum’s and cooked a feast of fish curry with aubergines and roti. Here’s a picture of her rolling out roti.

Before whipping up dinner, Aunty Laila prepared a Mauritian specialty for tea time: boiled bread fruit with a tomato and cilantro salsa-like chutney. The breadfruit tasted quite like cassava and it was pure starchy deliciousness.

For the curry she used a local fish called capitan, a rather meaty white fish, which she had fried before getting to our place. The meal was fantastic. Here is her recipe.

2Ibs of firm fish fillets such as tuna or swordfish
Canola Oil
6 Japanese aubergines (cut into lengthways into two)
1 tablespoon of curry powder
3-4 chopped cloves garlic
1 tsp of chopped ginger
Fenugreek powder
4-5 small plum tomatoes, chopped or ¼ can of chopped tomatoes
Fresh coriander (cilantro)

Fry fish in canola oil. Remove with a slotted spoon and put aside. Make a paste with curry powder, garlic, ginger and fenugreek powder by adding a bit of water. In a saucepan add curry paste to aubergines. Let it simmer away on a low heat for about five minutes. Add tomatoes and continue cooking for 2-3 mins until you have a thick gravy. Add about ½ to ¾ cup of water. Salt. Add fish and let simmer together for about ten minutes. Throw in a handful of chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) towards the end.

Serve with white rice or roti and watercress salad.

During my last visit to Mauritius I tapped into the foodie elite but, at the end of the day, it’s home cooking that reaches into my gullet and takes a hold of my heart. From the simple everyday household staple of la daube (a tomato-based stew of chicken or meat with hot peppers and thyme) to a festive biriyani (a rich, spiced rice dish), the food here is a melting pot of African, French and Indian influences. It is a no frills way of eating and it is addictively tasty.

Sophia Govinda, my jolly, generous mother is a fierce home cook. Ma (as I call her) is a barely five-foot fire-plug that can pull a feast off in a snap. Her specialty is biriyani, vegetable samosas and she makes some incredible Mauritian-Tamil dishes. Here is her recipe for meat curry with split chick peas and rasau (a fiery hot spicy soup) — two dishes devoured at Tamil festivities.

Ma’s Dal Gram with Meat Curry

½ Ib Channa Dal (Found in Indian food supply shops)
2Ibs of lamb or mutton shoulder, cut on the bone in stew sized pieces.
3 cloves of chopped garlic
Small piece of chopped ginger
One medium onion, chopped
5 plum tomatoes chopped or ½ small can of chopped tomatoes
1 Tablespoon curry powder (good quality Madras curry powder is essential)
Garam masala
Cilantro
Fresh curry leaves
3 medium sized potatoes, cubed

Soak ½ Ib of dal for two hours, drain and keep the water (you’ll see why in the next recipe). Bring the dal to boil with plenty of water. Skim the froth and let simmer on a low-medium heat until it is almost cooked. Strain and put aside.

Saute lamb or mutton for 2-3 mins, then add chopped garlic, ginger, onions and curry leaves. When the meat is halfway cooked add potatoes and curry powder and chopped tomatoes. Stir. Let the juices dry up. Stir in dal and add half a cup of water. Cover and let simmer for 20 mins or so then add a large pinch of garam masala. Throw in a handful of chopped cilantro during the last five minutes of cooking. You should have a think, rich, almost dried up gravy. Make sure the potatoes are cooked by tasting or testing with a fork.

Serve with freshly cooked white basmati rice and a cucumber salad.

Raseau

1 ½ tsp of mustard seeds
Fresh curry leaves
2 small shallots, chopped
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 teaspoon of chopped ginger
2 fresh thai peppers or 2 dried, chopped
1 tsp of whole black peppercorns
2 chopped plum tomatoes
¼ tsp of turmeric powder
2 heaped tsp of cumin powder,
1 tsp tamarind paste

Crafty lady that my mother is, she keeps the water that the dal had soaked in and used it as the soup base.

Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and curry leaves until that crackle. Then add shallots, garlic, ginger, chili, black peppercorns, plum tomatoes, turmeric, cumin powder and hot peppers. Pour in dal water, bring to a boil, add tamarind paste and salt. Continue to let the mix boil for about 5 mins. Add a handful of chopped cilantro just before serving.

This soup is typically served hot, in cups, and sipped throughout the meal.

Next up will be my Aunty Laila’s fish and aubergine curry. I’m homesick already…

Is it poo or is it mud? The question lay heavy on my mind during our tour of the farm at La Maison du Carnard. Jim and I had driven to Sebastopol, near the East Coast, in torrential rains. We were there to meet Béatrix Rambert and taste her farm-to-table food. Béatrix, the daughter of two generations of butchers in Belgium, moved to Ile Maurice sixteen years ago. With her husband she purchased farmland a few years ago and set about stocking their pastures with ducks (she makes excellent foie gras), pigs (tasty charcuterie), capons, goats and snails. She grows fruits and vegetables – we able to taste her tender green curly leaf lettuce and guavas – and takes a sustainable approach to farming.

We were constricted to the indoors upon arrival and took glasses of freshly squeezed local citrus juice by the roaring fireside (yes a fireside in Mauritius!).

Two-thirds of the way into our repast of foie gras and duck gizzards on a bed of lettuce, followed by a pot-au-feu type dish of capon and pig’s knuckles, washed down with several glasses of South African Pinotage, the clouds parted and the sun came beaming through. This meant, of course, that we were able to tour the premises on foot after lunch.

“Don’t wear nice shoes,” she insisted when I called to make the appointment to spend the day with her. Alas, my stinky old trainers were in NYC and so I grabbed a pair of flip flops and considered it sufficient. I was wrong. I squelched through the muddy grass and lagged behind our host but managed quite well considering. That is until we reached the pigpen. Muslims and Jewish everywhere I now understand your scorn pour le cochon and I know where the term ‘fat pig’ comes from. There were the lazy buggers luxuriating in the mud, pressed together in some sort of savage orgy. There were pigs out in the open and others enclosed and it was in the enclosed quarters when I must have stepped in it. I didn’t notice until afterwards and I thought, “please let it be mud”. It had traveled from the soles to my toes. I loitered behind and tried to wipe the goo off with a leaf. I stared longingly at her crocs and JR’s white sports trainers, two items of shoe wear I would normally not be caught dead in. The horror, the horror.

Despite the inappropriate footwear and the unsightly, grunting livestock, I take my hat of to our farmers. I loved the honesty and integrity with which she raises her animals and grows her produce. The taste of her food said it all and we stand with some of the best chefs on the island that come to Madame Rambert for tasty farm fare.