My body is CRAVING vegetables

Having been working away all this week, and eating all manner of assorted crap ( my cry of ' I need a salad' meant a trip to Pizza Hut to raid the salad bar - dark times), my body desperately needs some vegetables. Lots of vegetables. But it's winter, and it's dark and cold, and the salads of summer just won't cut it.

What to do? Firstly, raid Waitrose* for vegetables. Butternut squash, garlic, red onions, mixed peppers, avocados, tomatoes, lettuce leaves and pre prepared globe artichokes all go in the basket. I confess now that I ate all the artichokes before making the salad, so they no longer feature.

Before the rugby starts, my rubbish peeler and I do battle with the butternut squash, in what involves a 20 minute workout to get the damn thing peeled that leaves me sweating and feeling like maybe I should have worn a sports bra. Chop, chop, chop and into the roasting tin go the squash, peppers, garlic and red onions, with a hefty dose of salt, pepper and olive oil. It all looks beautiful and very healthy, and the smell of it cooking is a) making me salivate and b) means I won't forget it and let it burn to a crisp, although it may have a negative impact on the washing hanging out to dry.



At half time, I bung in some tomatoes so they go delightfully squishy, without turning to pulp. Some Romaine lettuce goes in a bowl as the salad base, I did think about kale but there are limits to my virtue. I add half an avocado to the leaves, spoon on the veggies, and top with grilled halloumi and pumpkin seeds. I could write an ode to halloumi (maybe I will), that plasticky, tasteless cheese that when cooked, becomes salty and crispy and delicious.

THIS is just what I need. It needs no dressing as the oil the vegetables cooked in flavours the rest of the salad.

Clearly, my food photography needs some work, but I hope this gives you an idea:






And just in case you think it's all too virtuous and healthy for a Saturday night, I have an Estrella Damm to drink, and a bar and a half of Fruit and Nut in the fridge. And crappy telly to watch. Perfect.


*Other, considerably cheaper supermarkets are available, but their 'perfectly ripe avocados' seldom are, and this makes me cross.


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When the Yanks are in town......

OK, so she's not technically a Yank. She's my oldest friend, lives in Nashville and is married to a Tennessean. But when she's in town, which is sadly only once or twice a year, we do fun stuff. And today's fun stuff was ice skating at Somerset House and then a visit to what I understand to be two of London's hottest new openings in 2013. I know, I'm so last year.

We start off in Balthazar, which we stumble across purely by accident, having headed into Covent Garden looking for a post ice skating watering hole. We prop ourselves up at the bar and hit the wine list. Very good, they have Bourgogne Aligote by the glass - a rare treat and the perfect white wine for a kir. So of course, I have that. More friends arrive, I discover the oyster menu and I want oysters, but only if they have Carlingford - I'm demanding - and they do, hurrah! The friends order more drinks, the lovely head barman asks if the oldest friend wants one, I say "no, she's American, she can't handle her drink." Turns out he's from Boston. Ah well. We still get his card and the offer to help us out with a table when we want to dine. What a sweetie. And the oysters are, of course, perfect.



Always wanted oysters to come by the eight, so when I'm in France I can order 'huit huitres'. Not sure the French would find this as funny as I do.

We then head to Flesh and Buns. I've been dying to eat here for a while, ever since Grace Dent wrote about it back when it opened and the cool kids were hanging out there. I love Grace Dent. She writes a great bad review, when called for. I can't do this. I'm so greedy that I'd probably fall face down into a Happy Meal and declare it one of the best things I've ever eaten. Although I've never actually eaten a Happy Meal. I am, however, partial to a quarter pounder with cheese as THE BEST HANGOVER CURE EVER. Shouty capitals intended.

We are late, we can't find it (mainly because I can't read a map), we need a pee. Hurrah, it's over there. And the staff are lovely and the ambience is great and there are toilets. And cocktails. We are saved.








Lurid pink and green cocktails. After oysters. What could possibly go wrong?

We fall on the food menu like it hasn't just been Christmas and we've stuffed ourselves every day. We order soft shell crab, beef skewers and edamame beans to start, and then go in for duck and crispy piglet belly as the flesh to go in our buns.

No pictures of the crab, because it was so divinely wonderful that we skull it down, with it barely touching the jalapeno mayonnaise, in ten seconds flat. Remember to take a snap of the deliciously spicy, cooked pink (don't tell Westminster Council) beef skewers before they too go down the hatch. Not sure there was any yogurt with them, as per the menu. Pretty sure I don't care.





Then the star of the show, the flesh and buns arrive. We have definitely ordered the two fattiest meats on the menu, and we are in heaven. The duck has crispy skin, chewy fat, that gorgeous contrast of really dark, almost offaly meat, along with the lighter, still intensely flavoured meat that falls off the bone. Its served with sour plum sauce (fabulous) and beetroot pickle (proceed with caution). And the piglet belly? My god, it's out of this world, crispy skin, wobbly fat and juicy meat. Its served with miso mustard (great) and pickled apples (which don't get a look in) We pile the flesh into the buns, which are like a cross between char Sui buns and bao. This makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about. I don't. I just find that char Sui buns have way too much dough and bao are great, and while these buns have a little more to them than bao, they're equally as good. Thus we are winning.




Duck, halfway through being devoured.



Piglet belly, as yet untouched. We ate it all.


Check out those buns


It doesn't look all that pretty assembled, but it tastes damn fine.

Once we've begged the lovely waitresses to take away the mere scraps we've left, they bring us the desert menu. The couple at the end of the table have had their own fire pit brought to them and are happily toasting marshmallows in it. We toy with the idea, and then decide we're good, we've had enough. And thus endeth another day this week where we've eaten so much we need to lie down. The January detox starts tomorrow. Yeah, right.

www.balthazarlondon.com

www.fleshandbuns.com

Location:Balthazar and Flesh and Buns