Melrose and Morgan, Awakening Number 3

Food and I didn’t start out as fast friends. Far from it. I was a pernickity eater as a child. I only ate eggs, fried; chicken, breadcrumbed and panned; fries, hand cut – obviously and no thicker than 5 mm. If those things were not available then no amount of bartering or pleading would induce me to eat. I simply abstained. It goes without saying that I was a very skinny, very annoying child.

By my teenage years I discovered junk food. Things like frozen French fries doused in so much thousand island dressing that they sagged on the plastic fork like limp spaghetti. At home a meal that featured quite a lot was pasta with butter and feta cheese. Every now and then the posh supermarket at the end of our road would import some American cake mixes. My sister and I would make them together and marvel at how good they tasted.  That was one of the highlights in our sleepy Athens suburb. I can’t boast about eating in Michelin starred restaurant as a wee tot like Jay Rayner or mastering a perfect victoria sponge by age 7 like Nigel SlaterAll this to say that the foodie I am today is the result of a slow evolution, a meandering path through some questionable tastes with 3 pivotal food awakenings.The first was moving to Paris when I was 17 and discovering a complex and fascinating world of food, of do’s and don’t’s. Do eat cheese after a meal, never for breakfast.

The second was that after squandering my twenties trying to fit into a variety of moulds I thought would be suitable for me and acceptable for my family and friends I decided to literally screw it and try something radically different. A hobby I had been nurturing furtively which seemed to make me happy but also seemed to be rather frivolous.Enter Leiths. I originally enrolled for just one term, then the second and finally the third. I was convinced that this was it, I had discovered what truly animated me. My enthusiasm got me through many restaurant doors but my lack of skills constantly sabotaged me. It all went pear shaped after a 4 daylong stint at Ottolenghi, where I was moved from salads, to pastry and back to salads again. Like a hot potato that no one wanted to hold for too long. Even before the talk with Yotam, I knew it was not going well.

This is a 5 year old picture

Maybe it speaks of a good life for which I should be grateful but that rejection confounded me. How could it be that after 10 directionless years, I had found something I truly loved and adored and it just… Well it just didn’t love me back? I had no idea how to process that reality. Read more of this post

London: Day 3, Borough Market, Barbecoa, Yashin


On Saturday, I visited Borough Market even though I knew all I would be able to do was stare wistfully at the gorgeous produce (rhubarb, purple sprouting broccoli, heritage breed meats to name a few) but it had been such a fixture of my London life that I had to go.  It was how I remembered it, except for the giant skyscraper that had mushroomed up since my last visit called ‘the shard‘ (sounds like a Stephen King novel, doesn’t it?).  

I bought the obligatory Monmouth latte and then went over to Neal’s Yard where I had a free sliver of Coolea (based on the Gouda recipe but so much better!) and picked up a pot of thick yogurt with poached apple at the bottom for breakfast.  

I lost myself watching a whole side of pork being expertly butchered and resisted the urge to buy a bag of Mini Magoo’s addictive granola from the adjacent stand.
When in London, you must take every opportunity to cross a bridge. I am not really fussy about which one (although the Millenium bridge from the Tate Mordern to St Paul is a favourite). It’s easy to forget that London has the Thames running through it but cross a bridge and you see old and new architecture vying for prominent position in the London sky line. Read more of this post

Lentil and Beetroot Salad

Credit for this salad (and for many more to come) goes to the wonderful British Deli, Melrose and Morgan.  After I did my diploma at Leiths School of Food and Wine, I bounced around the London independent scene, never really finding my place.  I got a little discouraged because I felt as if I had finally found what I loved but it didn’t love me back!

There was a very modern deli in Primrose Hill that I would pass on my way home, so one day I went in there and asked for a job.  I was too insecure to ask for a kitchen job so I ended up working on the shop floor.

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