Our Christmas edition, warmly hosted by Giulia and Brian, was mostly about the sweet stuff. The spread featured American gingerbread, Estonian Kringle braid, bûche de Noël, champagne syllabub, Christmas pud (trad, and in truffle form) and ginger shortbread. All delicious! The savoury side had a European slant: gravadlax with beetroot rosti, salt cod bolinhas, and Italian meats.

We took inspiration from closer to home at the January meet, namely Scottish food. This produced an amazingly well-balanced banquet: Scotch broth and Cullen skink to start, with either Scottish cheese scones or tattie pancakes. Smoked salmon pâté on homemade oatcakes as an entremet, then Dermot’s fine poached trout or Mike’s ‘wee beasties of the glen’ with Giulia’s rumbledethumps (cue discussion of what a Scot calls a parsnip) on the side.

Puddings were high in calibre and calorie, including a splendid St Andrew’s Cross-emblazoned gingerbread, superior cranachan and bara brith, plus brown bread ice cream. At least two of these contained whisky, so no risk of missing out on the Burns’ Night dram. Hearty thanks to Mike and Yvonne for providing theme and venue.

Next meet is at 11:30am on Friday 20 March hosted by Sarah Carter at Fieldfare, off Church Street. The theme is Polish food.

Kieron

This month’s remit was to resurrect recipes from the region where we grew up. The challenge produced gems with glorious sounding names like Singing Hinnies – sweet drop scones from Northumberland, and God’s Kitchels – a mincemeat pastry from Suffolk and Essex. 

We were also treated to iconic Staffordshire oatcakes, Scouse potato scallops, Cornish pasties, Northumbrian Pan Haggerty, Welsh cakes and Irish liver and bacon. A testament to Upton’s diversity!

There were a couple of foreign entries in the form of pommes de terre Lyonnaise and Aussie lamingtons, and fodder from more familiar parts included Oxford sausages, New Forest venison stew and treacle tart. Thanks very much to Joan for managing to fit us – and the feast – around her table.

Next meet-up has an Italian flavour: it’s a fresh pasta masterclass with Giulia Rippon on December 6th, 11.30am at Autumn Leaves, High Street. Giulia will be demo-ing how to make ravioli from scratch – and naturally we’ll be taste testing! If there’s time she’ll also be training us in the fine art of Christmas truffle decoration. 

Everyone welcome – give me a shout at kieronhumph@gmail.com if you plan to come so we can get the quantities right. 

Angel Delight, rice pudding, Granny’s buns – what was your all-time favourites as a child? That’s the theme (courtesy of Chris and Rob who are hosting) for the next Bake Up. Hopefully we’ll hear the stories that go with the tastes too.   Bring your treats to Pentrose (on Fieldside opposite Chapel Furlong) at 11.30 on 13th September.

Looking back to July, we had a fine ol’ time at Frances’ Fourth of July celebration. The sun streamed down, and the Stars and Stripes fluttered over a groaning table of sweet treats and BBQ-style goodies.

Looking forward to December, we’ve got another masterclass in the pipeline. Following Ros’s canape  extravaganza last time out, this year it’s Giulia Rippon’s turn. She’ll be demonstrating how to make ravioli from scratch, and her famous chocolate truffle-making technique. More details to follow, but put 6th December in your diary to avoid disappointment.

Kieron

We’ll be celebrating summer, American-style, at the next event on Friday 5thJuly at 11.30am.

Come along with your Independence Day party treats: corn dogs, hotdogs, ribs, wings, sliders, muffins, mud-pie, cheesecake and maybe even a tiny salad. Guaranteed sunshine and no Russian collusion of any sort.

Host: Frances at the The Old Forge, bottom of High Street

Kieron

 

We had a molto splendido spread of Italian tastes and treats at April’s meet, all impeccably hosted by Lesley – grazie!

Italian cuisine is no longer classed as exotic, but there were loads of innovative dishes to try including moreish fresh ravioli by Dermot, a salad disguised as a pizza by Colin and some seriously good pork ‘n’ nduja peppers from Ros. Yvonne baked a belter of a focaccia and I made pistachio-filled arancini.

Of course there was pasta! including scrummy lasagne by Lesley and a wonderful baked rotolo courtesy of Mike. Giulia (who has an advantage in things Italian) dished up the quintessential dolce: tiramisu, and Frances and Sarah provided tip-top torte. Frances used polenta with orange in hers, which was the perfect bookend for Joan’s excellent savoury polenta bakes that kicked it all off.

Next meeting will be at The Old Forge on High Street, 5 July at 11:30. Frances has invited us to bring our best American bites this time. If you can join us we’d be delighted.

Kieron

There was a whole new format for December’s meet – a live cooking demo with Upton’s answer to Nigella, Nadiya et al – Ros C. Her mission was to expand our repertoire for the party season, replacing the standard pigs in blankets and mushroom vol-au-vents with some really lively canapes.

With enviable ability to cook, field questions and direct her willing assistant Frances all at the same time, Ros guided us through 3 recipes, starting with gruyere profiteroles. There are 2 golden rules to successful choux, we learned. Sift the flour 3 times and when you shoot it into the pan, beat like a madman until it’s incorporated, but no longer!

Tips like these came thick and fast through the session – my personal favourite of these was how to fill an icing bag with batter using a jug as a holder. Never again will I end up with gloop on my hands, clothes, ceiling and dog.

While the profiteroles were baking we moved on to gyoza dumplings, delightful crescent-shaped pork-and-cabbage steamed savouries. Here we discovered another essential chef skill: really powerful biceps. Because it’s important to get as much of the moisture out of the cabbage as you can, you first salt it, then wring it out in a teatowel. When her audience volunteers had barely managed to dampen the cloth, Ros took over and squeezed out a whole torrent of liquid!

Volunteers also had a go at filling and pleating the dumplings, a deceptively difficult task. But the hardest part of all was waiting for them to cook as wafts of sesame- and sake-scented steam filled the hall. Verdict: outstanding flavour, though the ponzu dipping sauce may not suit your cream carpet.

The third canape was an Asian take on that wonder of food alchemy, ceviche. Instead of using heat, you ‘cook’ the fish by marinating it in citrus juice. Ros’ tip for the seafood – she used huge fresh Scottish scallops – is to freeze for a day, then thaw, thus eliminating any unwanted nasties. Combining yuzu (a fruit that tastes a bit like lemon crossed with mandarin, says the Great British Chefs website), mango, chilli, coconut cream and coriander with the marinated scallops made this a fantastically exotic, zingy mouthful.

Learning from a passionate professional and tasting her superb cooking was a rare privilege and great fun. Huge thanks to Ros for inspiring us; and apologies to the rest of South Oxfordshire for the shortage of yuzu, gyoza wrappers and gruyere over Christmas!

Next meet-up is Friday 25 January. Dermot is the host, Minster House on Church Street is the place, 11.30am is the time and Greece is the word. Well, theme. Hope you can make it.

Kieron

Continuing our bid to cook the world, we were pleased to go Siamese for October’s lunch. The show kicked off with a beetroot soup followed by two very different Thai green curries, one without lime and the other one with. A tasty relish went with the lime version. There was also red fish curry, a Thai watermelon and a duck salad. Other textures and tastes came in the form of crab- and fish- cakes and some warm crunchy bread. It goes without saying that we had to have some jasmine rice to mop up all the scrummy juices. Very unusually, we only had one dessert – a sticky rice pudding.

Thanks to Yvonne for hosting and taking the time to write up the menu.

Next up is (drumroll please) our very first live cookery demonstration. Leiths-trained Ros Caffyn has kindly agreed to show us how to make a selection of canapés fit for the finest Christmas gathering Ros says her masterclass will be full of tips to help us get to grips with trickier techniques.

The demo will be followed by a ‘crowd-sourced’ Christmas smorgasbord.

Date and time: 30th November, 11.15am. Venue: Village Hall

Please let me know if you’d like to attend (kieronhumph@hotmail.com). I’ll need a small contribution from everyone to cover hall hire and costs.

If you like your rice sticky and your curry jungly, don’t miss October’s food fest.

Of course not all Thai cuisine has to top the Scoville scale. It also boasts fragrant chicken dishes, tangy fish cakes and, um, fried fruit bat. There’s even a truly unapologetic snack called Phat si-io. Eat a couple of these and you’ll find out why.

Yvonne is kindly hosting at Manor Lawns on Friday 5th October at 11.30 am. As always enthusiasm is the only entry requirement!

Kieron

Bake Up – Moroccan edition

Our culinary odyssey continues on Friday August 3rd with a visit to North African shores. We’ll be trying to master the spices and marinades of Morocco – join us if you can at Old Stream Cottage on the Frog Alley section of Stream Road from 11.30am.

In June we tackled Portuguese cooking with impressive results: a sublime squid and chourico stew with cornbread, rich tomato-ey rice and tapas galore followed by a dreamy honey cake and rival almond tarts. It wouldn’t have been complete without a bottle of student’s favourite vinho verde. A big thankyou to Rob and Chris for providing a delightfully shady spot under the vine in their garden for the occasion.

Kieron

We’ll be baking Portuguese treats for our next baking social. So if you fancy a natter over a nata, please come along. Our hosts will be Chris and Rob Traynor, the venue – Pentrose (on Fieldside opp. Chapel Furlong) and the date and time – Thursday 14th June at 11.30am.

Last month we proved ourselves fluent in Spanish dishes, from Murcian meat pie to burnt Basque cheesecake. We also devoured plenty of delicious, but non-alliterative food.

Demographic observation: so far the balance of the sexes at the meetings has tipped towards female. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but gentlemen bakers are also very welcome In fact the regulars will be doing some press-ganging this month to get more men involved.

Kieron