thesprezzaturist

~ "studied carelessness"

thesprezzaturist

Category Archives: Food

“Babe, beginning of a great adventure”

18 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by juleslewis in Food, Wine

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bybo, Mother London, Wine

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I recently spent an informative day with Mother. Not my mother, although her day will come, but the uber cool creative agency in London. They have offices in New York and Buenos Aires, but my meagre expenses wouldn’t stretch to Argentina. I came away feeling energised, and a tad more hip – I have a beard which helps – although unlike my young creative advisers am a trifle nearer my sell by date.

I was informed that I was a challenger brand in a bull (not a reference to the Pampas) market, and that I needed a back story – most clients just make theirs up, they said. Mine happens to be true, although I’ll add some blarney later.

“A glorious day, an empty beach, freshly caught shrimp, crab and mackerel and no wine!
While I gutted fish, lit a fire and kept the kids from capsizing – I am manly like that – the VOR magnanimously volunteered to go shopping.
An experience akin to The Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket” followed. “Unable to shop happily”, she returned exhausted and together we toasted the setting sun with something described as “Good with Fish”
“You should have gone yourself”, said the VOR.

She had encountered a common conundrum. Paralysed in the face of so much choice, many a wine consumer is forced to settle for fail safe, special offers, a pretty label or just getting “something French to be on the safe side”. Subsequent market research confirmed this to be fact. “You should help” said the VOR, “what’s the use of all that knowledge and experience if all you do is bang on about it at the dinner table”. She had a point, I should have gone to the shops myself.

Like the “King of Pop”, I wanted to be starting something and online was my preferred route. Being a shopkeeper meant less time playing with surfboards – but I was about to encounter some serious brainache. Online wine sites boasted exhaustive drop down menus, sorted by country, region, style, colour and price. A myriad, miniscule, bottles floating in white space flashed before my eyes, together with enough multi coloured offers and jumbled visuals to make a maniacally bill postered wall look minimalist. I struggled to get beyond the home pages and I’d failed my MW theory.

“There’s no emotion” said the VOR (a rabid and evangelical foodie), “You can’t weigh it, touch it or squeeze it like food. It’s impossible to physically interact with a bottle of wine until you open it and drink it”. She had a point, some feeling was desperately required.

“How are you to know if it’s an interesting, stylish and delicious drink – designed to go with food rather than dominate it – or an over produced, neutral, alcoholic and sugar – driven monster, deliberately created for mass market appeal” – She didn’t say that, I did.

Essentially it all comes down to pleasure. I believe that by approaching wine in a careful and thoughtful way, informed by food and occasion, increases the pleasure derived from it. Over processed, over produced wine is like its equivalent in food – it just doesn’t make you feel good!

So I did something, I started a wine and food matching company called bybo. It’s not like “A Man Called Horse”, but it’s just as emotive. It’s not really a hobby, although it does keep me off the streets, nor is it a desire to do a good deed – I have always considered myself selfish rather than philanthropic – but I do have a mission. I want to sell quality wine to people who care about value rather than price, supporting growers and producers to ensure they stay connected to the land and environment in which they work. I oppose a mono – branded world by favouring slow rather than fast food, field over factory, local above global. Phew, that’s philanthropic. Truth is, I just want to make enough money to spend more time at the beach. Got to go the tides on the turn”.

 

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“The Unbearable Brightness of Seeing”

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by juleslewis in Food, Wine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bulk Wine, Slow Food

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When it comes to buying food and wine, I am, as Sam and Dave, “A Soul Man”.  I choose carefully and slowly – sometimes annoyingly so for the VOR – enjoying the whole shopping experience, for which I set aside a considerable portion of time and family income. I care about what we put in our mouths and stomachs, and try to avoid, where possible, mass market bulk produce. Part of this stems from my concerns about regional variation and difference, chemicals, pesticides and additives and partly due to the basic sensations of taste – I almost never confine my decisions solely to price.  This may seem a trifle elitist, and is, I admit, often beyond my budget – but that’s how I roll.

I like shopping locally, rather than globally, in order to ensure that innovative and energetic small businesses remain open – not the lazy one’s mind you – but I champion the shopkeeper as civic leader, pioneer, entrepreneur and innovator – Oh and they need to sell good stuff.

It’s also about sustainability and sustenance, slow rather than fast food, local economies, farming, agriculture and community – as I write this, the VOR is evangelically joining a small online fruit and veg supplier that sends a monthly seasonal selection direct to your door – in a box.

Soul and Body, Lightness and Weight, to quote Kundera’s great novel, are important when choosing wine. The history of traditional winegrowing areas, the winegrower and makers singular vision with an eye on the future but roots in the past, thus ensuring that vineyards are not being grubbed up (the more observant amongst you may have noticed rapeseed replacing vineyards during your summer drives through France) and that families can remain connected to the land. It’s that community thing again –  but it costs more to care.

I bet you didn’t know that many of the wines you routinely buy off your local supermarket shelves also arrive in a box.

Not the kind of 2.5 litre “goon bag” that looks uncool on the dining table, but a 24,000 litre polypropylene bladder on a container ship. On arrival – at rather depressing dockside locations – it is then decanted into a bottle (often bearing an exotic brand name or critter label) and hey presto the bourgeoning thirst of the unromantic is satisfied at the rate of 1.3 billion litres a year.

No doubt about it, big BIB equals big business, but in the words of John Berger “To remain innocent may also be, to remain ignorant.”

At 56p a litre pre shipping, and with 57% of the average £5 UK wine being pure tax (a cost presumably dressed up as protecting the interests of the national liver rather than the exchequer) this keeps costs down and profits up, – but “what gaineth a man if he loses his soul”.

You can play the green card for UK bottling under the auspices of environmental issues in reducing carbon footprint via shipping, but what about the glass?  You may prefer to buy your wine for the cost of a London pint but you still like it to come in bottle – right! If you have 20/20 vision you can discern “bottled and filled in the UK” in very small print on the back label of these wines, although qualitatively it’s much the same as “brewed under licence” – which brings me neatly back to Kundera and “Words Misunderstood”.

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“Work in progress”

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by juleslewis in Food, Wine

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

bybo, Food, Gregory Porter, Liquid Spirit, Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Wine

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“There is something quietly civilizing about sharing a meal with other people. The simple act of making someone something to eat, even a bowl of soup ….. suggests an act of generosity and intimacy. It is in itself a sign of respect.” Nigel Slater

I love food, and as Nigella so succinctly put it in How To Eat, “I don’t believe you can ever really cook unless you love eating”. I also love wine, but am constantly surprised and disheartened by the kind of undrinkable plonk that friends routinely serve up at the dinner table.
Wine goes with food, not as a faddy matching hint, but as an equal partner in a simple pleasure – life-giving and life enhancing.
Good food can be expensive, simple food isn’t, but cheap processed junk food comes at a high physical price. We are justifiably anxious about what we put in our bodies so why do we attempt to save money on the wine we serve – shouldn’t it be of the same quality as the food?
Ever been to a dinner party where the food was delicious but the wines came via an unscrupulous “3 for £10” or “was £9.99 now £4.99 “ offer designed to seduce us into accepting thin, sweet, raspberry juiced reds or neutral insipid whites as the norm. There are many producers who do not manufacture wine by the tanker full, making lovely stuff to go with simple food at prices that will surprise you. Such wines demand the spending of an extra pound or two but you are richly rewarded – and the food tastes better.

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I have just started a venture to promote the drinking of good wine – with the aim of giving folks some much-needed Liquid Spirit, a la Gregory Porter.
It’s called bybo and is the reason that my blogging activity has been less than prolific of late.

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We recently did a bit of food styling for the website, which was a fun way to spend a working day with friends – and a lot more difficult than I expected.
Although not narcissistic, possessing the kind of looks more suited to radio rather than photography – excepting Katie (the VOR) of course – we did fancy ourselves as competent hand models. Behind the scenes, things were not as perfect as Mark’s photos suggest. Tim and I smashed numerous glasses, ruined at least two tablecloths but had some great laughs and still managed to warm Katie’s lovely food up in time for dinner.

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“I say Pigato”

02 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by juleslewis in Food, Wine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Food, Grape, Italian Riviera, Laura Aschero, Liguria, Liguria wine, Pigato, Vermentino, Wine

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Unless you have been to Liguria, on the Italian Riviera, you are unlikely to have sampled it’s wines. Mostly white (the climate is not always reliable enough for ripening reds) they are exceptionally wonderful, and Pigato is my favourite white grape of the moment – hence my Rivieran stripes.

Shiny yellow in colour with flashes of green, incredibly fresh with the scent and taste of peaches and roast almonds, this is just scrummy stuff. A superior relative of Vermentino – although less lean and austere – Pigato is sometimes referred to as “spotted Vermentino” due to the Mad Madam Mim-esque pink blemishes on its skin.

It has a long history in the region – although it’s origins are Greek – but relatively few examples are made. This is from Laura Aschero, a family owned and run estate that limits itself to a mere three varietal wines – two white and one red.

Bybo wine collection, Berwick Lodge, November 2013

Don’t chill it too much, perhaps 20 minutes at most, and serve it with a humble fish, wine and garlic soup, like the local Ligurian speciality Ciuppin.

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Warm Tunisian Orange Cake

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by juleslewis in Food

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Baking and Confections, Cake, Cooking

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I met the BBL (Big Boss Lady) at a Christmas party over a large York ham, my opening gambit of “I hope you’re not going to eat all that” went down surprisingly well and we got on like the proverbial burning house.

It transpired that the VOR was a pastry chef, and no slouch either. The combination of wuv, twoo wuv, and a lot of cake immediately put 8 lbs on me. This is one of her recipes.

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Outside Ovens

27 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by juleslewis in Food

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Tags

Cook, Dough, Mozzarella, Olive oil, Oven, Pizza



 

Eating outdoors, around a fire, brings out the primitive in us all. Admittedly, this oven isn’t primitive, but it is made almost entirely from recycled and salvaged materials. These can be made at the fraction of the expense of a commercial oven – small examples of which can cost upwards of a grand! The key is to light the oven about 2 – 3 hours prior to cooking. The cooking being the fun part:

Prep all your ingredients beforehand – make more than you need, as the oven retains its heat for a further 2 hours after cooking.

Have everything to hand – near the oven – so that your pizza dough remains fresh and the pizza can be transferred from paddle to plate with the utmost efficiency – essential if you have impatient guests or starving children!

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Wild Food

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by juleslewis in Food

≈ Leave a comment

I have recently become increasingly interested in eating for free! Not spongeing off others, but actively seeking out free, sustainable food sources – a la “Road Kill Chef” – or, if anyone remembers him, and his hat – “Bush Tucker Man“. I have yet to veer off road to run down unsuspecting pheasants (not peasants – that would be cannibalism) but find that the sea’s bounty is a fast and peaceful source of sustenance. I am no Robson Green or Ernest Hemingway, so go about my business with less equipment and obvious machismo. I am currently investigating fishing off an SUP – not the inflatable kind for obvious reasons!

Recipe: Boil shrimps in pan of seawater on a driftwood fire – no need to season!

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