A Slice of Cherry Pie

Sunday, 29 March 2009

Tuesday, 24 March 2009

March Newsletter

March's newsletter will be coming out any minute now. Sign up using the newsletter box on the left hand navigator to receive your copy.

Sunday, 22 March 2009

Sites that Link to 'A Slice of Cherry Pie'

If your site links here and it isn't listed please do comment to let me know so I can add it. Many thanks to the listed sites for their support.

Saturday, 21 March 2009

I wanted to post a quick thank you to a couple of fellow bloggers for kindly presenting me with some awards recently.

Springtime gave me the 'Kreativ Bloger' award:

And Occasional Martha gave me the 'Sisterhood' award:

Thank you both so much!

Both awards seem to ask that you nominate 10 other bloggers but I hope you'll forgive me if I simply share them openly with all the bloggers reading.

Sunday, 15 March 2009

In the Bag: Cooking the Month of March

One of my favourite vegetables, the leek, is in season right now. It's sweet, flavoursome and very versatile, so I wanted to celebrate it this month. Scott and I have also put some eggs and cheese in the bag so I'm sure you'll have plenty of ideas for dishes.

In the bag:

Leeks
Eggs
Cheese

And don't forget to check out February's round-up over at Real Epicurean.

Entry Details
Make a dish using the ingredients and blog about it then send an email with ‘In the Bag in the subject line to asliceofcherrypie AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk by Sunday 5th April with the following information:

your name
a link to your post
a picture of your dish

Rules

Here are the loose rules - but ultimately remember the objective is to have fun whilst highlighting seasonal food:

1. Participants should attempt to use all the ingredients 'in the bag' for that particular month, but may leave one out if they prefer.

2. Participants can include any extra ingredients that they see fit.

3. Entries should include a link back to the host for that month, and the post should be tagged "In the Bag".

4. Entries can be written any time during the month, as long as the URL is emailed to that month's host before the closing date.

5. Particpants from outside of the UK are most welcome to join in and substitute an item from their own local seasonal produce if necessary.

'In The Bag' is a food event run monthly by 'A Slice of Cherry Pie' and 'Real Epicurean'.

Monday, 9 March 2009

Chitter Chatter

This is a quick post to let you know that the 'A Slice of Cherry Pie' food and drink forums have been given a revamp and have moved to their own dedicated site with new forum software. Unfortunately, as the forums have moved to a completely different database, users of the old forum will need to re-register and I'm unable to move the posts from the existing forum, so we really are starting afresh. But the good news is that the new software is much slicker (for those in the know it's the popular PHPBB software) and the new site will be much more scaleable as the forums grow. I'm looking forward to chatting to you over there!

In other news I was recently interviewed by The Food Channel.com. Click here if you'd like to have a read.

Sunday, 8 March 2009

Pomegranate and Passion Fruit Jellies

I was excited by the ingredients for February’s 'In the Bag' event - pomegranate, passion fruit and white chocolate – and decided to celebrate the exotic flavours of the pomegranate and passion fruit with these jellies.

Extracting the juice from the fruits was messy and not especially easy, and I was rather disheartened by the end of the exercise to find that, even though I’d bought 6 passion fruits and 2 pomegranates, I only had just under 300 ml of juice. It seemed rather little reward for what had been a fair amount of effort. But, when I tasted the finished jellies I was so blown away by the intense, explosive fruitiness, captured in soft gelatine, I knew this recipe was a keeper.

Ingredients
6 Passion Fruits
2 Pomegranates
Approximately 200ml water
80g caster sugar
4 leaves of gelatine

Cut the pomegranates in half and squeeze out as much of the juice as you can into a jug and then extract the pips that are still surrounded by juice and push them through a sieve, bursting them with a spoon, to retrieve as much juice as possible. Next cut the passion fruits in half and scoop out the flesh and seeds, again pushing them through a sieve to extract the juice. You should get somewhere around 200-300 ml juice. Make it up to 500ml with water.

Soak the gelatine leaves in water as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Gently heat the juice and sugar in a saucepan, stirring as the sugar dissolves and once it does add the soaked gelatine and stir as that dissolves also.

Allow the mixture to cool a little then pour it into individual serving dishes or moulds and refrigerate until set (I left them overnight).

Serves 4.

Friday, 6 March 2009

Live Online Champagne and Oyster Tasting Event Today

Inspired by the rise of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Gik, Galvin at Windows restaurant is today running the first of a new series of special events. Today I, along with other food and drink bloggers, wil be attending a Champagne and oyster tasting which will be streamed live online on Ustream by WorldTV.com, allowing anyone in the world to watch, learn and interact.

We will be tasting several varieties of oysters such as Fine de Claires, Helford Native, Duchy of Cornwall and a range of Champagnes from houses such as Laurent Perrier, Bruno Paillard and Galvin own brand - and reporting back live, using social media tools such as blogging, tweeting, video and spin voxing as the event unfolds to report and interact with people tuning in.

The event will be hosted by BBC Radio 2 presenter Nigel Barden with participation from Chris Galvin (Galvin at Windows), Bruno Murciano (Bibendum), Robin Hancock (Wright Brothers), Sokratis Papafloratos (TrustedPlaces), Andre Garrett and Fred Sirieix (Galvin at Windows). The event is being produced by WorldTV in partnership with Ustream.

If you'd like to watch go to WorldTv at 4pm today.

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

On Meeting My Publisher

Firstly thank you all so much for all the good wishes for the book. I really do have the loveliest readers and food blogging friends in the world. I promised to share with you some of my experiences of writing this book and I’d like to give you some inside info. on the world of publishing too. Where better to start than with the fabulous lunch meeting I had with my publisher yesterday?

This was the second time we'd met; the first was way back last summer when my agent introduced us and we talked about the possibility of them becoming the publisher of my book. It was one of the most nerve-wracking yet exhilarating meetings of my life. I met my agent at a rather glamorous London hotel and there in the lounge we met the Managing Director and the Commissioning Editor of the publishing company. Did I mention nerve-wracking? But they were both so very lovely and, whilst I can’t say I was completely at ease in that first meeting, I soon found myself feeling a little less like a rabbit in headlights. The more we talked the more I found that they really understood the kind of book I wanted to write and that we were thinking alike; and the more I felt like this was the publisher for me. I just hoped they felt the same. Just over one nail-biting week later I found out; they did!

So, just who is this mystery publisher? Well, they’re one of the UK’s leading independent publishers, they specialise in food & drink, and they have published books such as Essence: Recipes from Le Champignon Sauvage by David Everitt-Matthias, Aga Year: 365 Seasonal Recipesby Louise Walker and none other than The Frugal Cookby renowned author and fellow food blogger Fiona Beckett. I’m very proud to reveal that they are Absolute Press.

With the contract signed and the book writing and recipe development well underway, yesterday’s meeting was much less daunting than the first – especially as it was over lunch rather than a formal meeting in a stuffy office - although I still had butterflies in the morning. Absolute Press are based in Bath and so I travelled into London bright and early and took the train down from Paddington. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and I had a very pleasant journey watching the landscape rush by, reading a food magazine (what else?) and even typing up a recipe on my laptop. I arrived at Bath Spa station in good time and took out the map I’d printed out. I looked at it one way, I looked at it another, I turned it upside down and then, realising I had no idea how to get to Absolute’s offices, jumped into a waiting taxi.

When I arrived I took a few moments to compose myself, took a deep breath and rang the bell. I was greeted by Matt, the Art Director, who gave me a warm welcome and showed me in. The offices are small and quaint and I found it fascinating to be in one of the hubs of the publishing world and a place where books are born. The most exciting room was the one which contained shelves and shelves full of neatly piled copies of the books Absolute have published. I allowed myself a moment to imagine that one day copies of my very own book would be on those shelves too.

Jon, the Managing Director, and Matt took me out for a lovely lunch during which we laughed and joked and straight away my butterflies flew away and I felt completely at ease. Fiona had told me lunch with Jon and Matt would be fun but I had no idea just how much fun. I felt like I was with old friends as we talked about food, blogging, recipe development, dispatching a lobster and the best way of roasting a chicken. Of course much of our time was spent discussing the book and how we saw it developing. There and then, over a few bottles of wine and a good meal, it started to take real shape. Absolute create beautiful books and I’m so very pleased that it is they who will be working on mine; I know it’s in the very best hands.

In other news I’ve just found out that I’m the second blogger to be featured in The Times Online’s series of weekly interviews with the bloggers featured in their '50 of the World's Best Food Blogs list'. Last week’s interview was with US blogger Matt from Matt Bites. I’m so thrilled to be featured alongside such prominent and fantastic bloggers, I can hardly contain myself! The Food & Drink editor sent me the link to the next interview (sneakily without telling me it was I who was featured!) which I picked up on my BlackBerry on my way home and when I clicked on the link and saw my picture I think I blushed so profusely that my fellow train passengers must have wondered what on earth it was that I was reading! Here’s a link to the interview. Thank you so much to The Times for the feature. I’m really looking forward to reading the next interview in the series.