I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of generosity and conviviality whilst writing a big essay on Nicolas Bourriaud's theoretical text 'Relational Aesthetics'. It's about art, but in relation to a society that has arguably obstructed human communications with a commerce and has prompted artists since the 90s to create works which find their meaning in the 'relations' they create within a wide audience. I'm particularly interested in the way some artists (Rirkrit Tiravanja to name one) have used food as a medium for this.

Perhaps I'm just noticing it more, but since I've been writing the essay, acts of generosity and food events have come my way which prove that what these artists were/are aiming at highlighting is being done to a small extent in real life. I wrote the other day about the apples that were left on our doorknob, and this became inspiration for a short piece for Eat Me magazine on this theme. The next day as I was walking through the University square with C we were intrigued to see a small crowd around some sort of wooden contraption.

It was a home-made cider press, and the group were trying to get through the mounds apples that surrounded them. We were handed some thick, cloudy brown juice - it was delicious - literally just an apple liquidized. I was told by the friendly girl who seemed to be in charge that this was 'Abundance', and the group had managed to source fruit from apple-growers around the city . As was obvious, there are a lot of people in Edinburgh who happen to host an apple tree in their garden but will never eat the whole harvest. Behind the ethos of the collective lies a generosity of spirit, essentially something which I think should be inherent in the production of food in general - this month further events include Bread Baking and Jam & Chutney. We put the dates in our diary and left with as many apples our bags could fill, then the next night C made the best crumble we've ever had.

London Allotments

Talking of the good life, my friend Edwina has been photographing allotments for years and now has her photos displayed at London's Garden Museum. Anyone in London should have a look for some growing inspiration, it is open every day until 28th November.

Belated Eggs

Although very late, I'm putting these photos up so I don't forget them. The other week we had a special delivery of eggs from G whose hens had laid them over in Dumfries. They were too special to use in everyday cooking so I had to try them out at breakfasts in a few different ways:

Scrambled

- plenty of butter

- two eggs barely beaten

- cooked for a few minutes so still creamy

- sourdough toast from Peter's Yard, which I think tastes a bit cardamom-y.

Poached

- shallow pan of water

- no vinegar

- one egg cracked in, simmered for a few minutes

- seeded rye bread from Scott's deli

Baked (made by M)

-cracked into rammekins

- baked in oven for about 8 minutes

- seasoned with s + p

- lots of butter on seeded rye toast

My favourite was the mini one (!). G informed us it would be completely white inside, with no yolk but we never got to try it as it was proudly exhibited in our kitchen for so long. Eggs really are among my favourite things.

Welcome

The absence of recent posts has been due to the fact that my pride and joy of a perfect food-photographing camera decided to self-destruct. Apparently I am more inspired to write about food when the picture is there to remind me of it. I am mourning its loss but there are still lots of things to write about. Since I wrote about Peru, it became autumn in Edinburgh - and what a way it was to be welcomed into the season to find a bag of rosy apples hanging on the doorknob. We have recently moved into the flat so don't yet know the other tenants in the building, so this mysterious gift caused a whole lot of speculation.

R suggested they might be poisoned, but I reminded her we weren't in a fairy tale and the most likely candidate for apple-donation were a mid-50s couple, wife often seen in her dressing gown and husband playing golf nearby. I promptly took a bite. I'd be lying if I said they were the most delicious apples ever (although it really would have made the story), but I'm wondering if we can propose a regular trade-off between any other glut they want to get rid of and compost which we have no garden to feed with. Or have I just stepped from fairy tale into an episode of the Good Life.

Day Two: Barranco (and proof that not only the posh restaurants are good)

On our second day in Lima, J took us to Barranco, a neighbourhood just a bit further south of the centre than Miraflores. Bright colours of the old-style houses were familiar from parts of Miraflores - this was an area of high-end second homes in the 1920s. As Lima sprawled, this cliffside suburban 'holiday resort' was soon engulfed by the city, and so the rich moved elsewhere. Squatters replaced them and the area became known for poverty and dodgy drug deals - not somewhere you would spend a day wandering around in the sun. Recently though, Barranco has shaped up and become home to a bohemian artistic community. Thank goodness - it is beautiful. There is a strong sense of local community - grand old houses are graffitied with 'NO SE VENDE' (not for sale) in the hope that the blossom-filled streets won't be ruined by high-rise blocks, like so much of the rest of Lima.

After walking a while, we stopped for a cerveza at Juanito Bar - a typical old-style venue, apparently a pillar of Barranco among locals. We felt pretty smug being the only tourists there. Unfortunately no pictures of this one but I can remember it well - a narrow room with high ceiling, a bar on the right loaded with hams, pickles etc, and small tables with wooden booths where we sat on the left. Here we just enjoyed a Cusquena, and decided to move on to eat so we had a chance to see more.

The next stop was Casa Rana ('The Singing Frog) - Barranco's equivalent to a local sports bar. It was the World Cup, after all, so we picked a table opposite the big projector screen and watched some football. I would love to go back to Casa Rana. A family run local institution, it had such a great atmosphere, not in the slightest ruined by food which would be the case in any sports bar in this country I'm sure.

We were brought some 'Canchita' - sun-dried and roasted corn kernels, perfectly salty to go with a cold beer. We found these in many more places after this, and became addicted enough to carry some home for others to try. J had told us that a big lunch might not be a good idea as the evening meal would be big again (warned this time!) so Casa Rana was the perfect place, with its list of small tapas bites. We chose 'Conches a la chalaca', clams in a spoon with chalaca style sauce and lots of lime juice as usual. Two mouthfuls of this delicious mixture was all we needed for the rest of the afternoon, and once again I was so excited to have had such amazing food, this time hardly costing anything.

Astrid Y Gaston, Lima

You would have thought that such a lunch as we had at El Mercado would have provided enough food excitement for one day. But our friends in Peru were not going to allow one mealtime space to go unfilled with something special. After all, we only had two full days in Lima, and forgetting about any sights, galleries, museums - that's six opportunities for a food-obsessed tourist. We had been hearing stories of Gaston Acurio - probably the biggest name in Peruvian cuisine and responsible for placing the country firmly on the food map - so were amazed to find ourselves staring at his name on a plaque outside tonight's surprise restaurant. This was Acurio's first restaurant, which he opened with his wife Astrid, who was a pastry chef at the Cordon Bleu.

We entered the restaurant through its grand door of old-style Miraflores into a cozy bar area where we waited for our table. First things first, Pisco sours all round. As the days went on, we became hopelessly addicted to this Peruvian national drink in its simplicity and deliciousness. Pisco (a grape-based spirit) is mixed with sugar syrup and plenty of lime juice, then whizzed up with egg white which forms the frothy top layer, speckled with a few droplets of Angostura bitters. The cocktail menu here was very exciting, with many variations on the classic sour, so we had to try a few such as Tumbo sour.

Unfortunately my camera battery died during cocktail hour so I had to resort to phone pictures for the rest of the meal (rookie error I know). But I did quite well despite the low lighting - anyway it is not so much a matter of whether the food looks good but the number of pictures indicating just how much food we ate.

And so we were seated at our table, nestled in the corner of a room lined with wine bottles, about to be presented with some of the most impressive creations I have ever eaten. First, the bread. I don't normally like to eat much bread when dining out in case it fills me up but this array was completely appealing - six different types, ranging from one made with chocolate to a brioche studded with more of that Peruvian mint. It was becoming evident that Astrid y Gaston was not the kind of place to simply have a starter, main and dessert and be done with it.

Alongside the bread came a plate of 'house starters': a shot glass of Oyuco syrup and Huacatay foam, a tiny seafood pastry, and Peruvian corn tempura. The corn I was particularly fascinated by - to me it really felt like eating an ancient grain. With a satisfying earthy flavour, it did not taste like ordinary sweet yellow corn, and neither looked like it with its huge, long white kernels.

Lines of this corn can be seen more clearly, placed on top of a fish ceviche, one of the starters we actually ordered. This looked beautiful, with rounds of spring onion and chilli floating in the familiar 'tiger's milk'. It tasted amazing and I had stop myself eating more than a spoonful to allow room for the other dishes - octopus, grilled and charcoaly and a scallop with sweet potato and brown butter, leeks and chilli. The varying ways of eating a single scallop were proving to be incredibly exciting.

By this point I was actually starting to feel quite ill from having eaten so much food that day, and this was tragic given the amount of food that was left to come. Mum and I had decided to go halves on suckling goat with pureed pumpkin, and Mero fish - a local speciality. Both were delicious, but I regret I could merely sample a few mouthfuls of each before entering into a state of anxiety that I might have to absent myself from the table to go and lie down somewhere.

Fortunately, my appetite miraculously returned in time for dessert, when the most adorable jewellery-box arrived with drawers of petit-fours: a pea green coca biscuit dulche de leche sandwich was my favourite, but everything was so beautifully crafted (this must be Astrid's influence): mini macaroons, triffles, and pineapple-flavoured sugared jelly cubes.

The desserts we'd actually ordered (!) were baked apple with caramel, cardamom and ginger ice cream (delicous as it sounds), and a ball of Lucuma ice cream inside a chocolate ball, which was made at the table by pouring over molten chocolate. The lucuma flavour (quite maple-y as in the desserts at Mercado) made for really interesting ice cream, and went very well with chocolate, in a way that pear and almond does.

Even with being far too full most of the way through, almost nauseous at one point, I can honestly say this could rank as one of the best meals I've ever had. Nothing was boring - a good proportion were unlike anything I've ever had. What a great showcase for a national cuisine. Obviously Astrid y Gaston is an expensive restaurant, and I'm not suggesting that it is representative of what people eat on a day to day basis, but it appears that Gaston Acurio has a healthy interest in truly local food, having made television programmes scouring the country for its best cevicheria, and having made a name for himself internationally promoting Peruvian food. We were so lucky to have been taken to this fantastic restaurant - it only increased my appetite (NOT literally - I couldn't eat breakfast the next morning) for knowledge about Peruvian food and its traditions.

El Mercado real

El Mercado, Lima, Peru

We had arrived in Lima the previous night, and were met by our friends who immediately whisked us away from our hotel for to begin the race to fill our short time in the city with as much food as possible. High standards had been set by our first Pisco sours, some barbequed seafood and beautiful quails egg toasts at la Gloria, a late-night bar in Miraflores. The first full day started with a walk around the neighbourhood, which ended at the newly opened El Mercado where we were to dine - amongst Lima's trendiest, it seemed.

El Mercado simply means 'the market', and was supposed to be a laid back, pared down offering from one of Lima's most prestigious chefs, Rafael Osterling. It was nicely informal

- the whole restaurant was separated from the street by only one wall, so dining was almost open air. We were presented with some very real-looking potato chips and different dips: one with aji amarillo (yellow pepper) and 'Huacatay', a kind of local mint, and 'Huancaina', made with white cheese and more aji. Washed down with a Cusquena beer, these were a fantastic example of local ingredients being used so cleverly in simply things.

Jonathan and Carmen had taken charge of the ordering, which we were grateful of as more delicious plates arrived. Octopus with tomatoes and potatoes was char-grilled and absolutely fresh from the sea. We forked up mouthfuls straight from the hot plate until it was gone. The ceviche was perfectly limey - probably one of my favourite flavours. It was nice to try it with lightly fried calimari as opposed to raw fish; the crispy tentacles made for interesting texture, especially combined with chunks of sweet potato nestled in the pile. The juice left at the end is deliciously sour and fishy - it is called 'tiger's milk', and apparently it is common procedure to ask for it to be brought back to your table, mixed with pisco in a shot glass.

The selection of scallops was probably the most exciting dish we had - Bloody Mary flavour was fantastic, tasting as you would imagine it to with a teeny chunk of avocado. It was the first time I'd eaten raw scallops, and having wallowed in juices in their shells, they melted in the mouth.

Last on our list was Jalea, a typical dish of deep fried seafood, here served with a sort of creole sauce and lime. I loved how colourful and fresh everything was. The concept of the restaurant, as a local 'cevicheria' was so brilliant it's a shame this kind of Peruvian food has not been introduced to London, when so much other world cuisine has taken off. Although, as we lamented, to have such good fish this fresh would be double the price, so the idea of a casual 'market' restaurant would be lost.

Finally, for dessert, variations on the classic Suspiro - the 'Limenian sigh'. It is a sticky cream made from condensed milk, eggs and cinnamon, topped with a port-flavoured egg white foam. It was interesting that the three looked almost exactly the same, although were quite different - aside the 'classico' we had custard apple and lucuma, a tropical fruit that tastes like maple and sweet squash.

Once we had finished, Jonathan pointed out that although we were stuffed full, most people would have had this as a selection of starters, before moving on to mains. It would have been nice to have had the capacity to eat more, but for now we were satisfied with our first real taste of Peru lingering for the rest of the day - until the next meal.

A weekend in New York: Part II (A wedding menu)

I did have more fun at my cousin's wedding than eating dinner, but it's worth noting the meal, if only to provide the next wedding I attend with something to live up to. Everyone, sweltering in their summer best on the evening of June 19th, made their way to be seated around white-clad tables. We were greeted by a pocket-sized box of tea, which we tried the next day and despite smelling too vanilla sweet, was very refreshing but comforting: 'A tea for marriage', as it was labelled.

Beatifully matching the array of bridal pastels, the first course was a cold courgette and buttermilk soup, scattered with radishes and chives like pink and green confetti. It was so delicious that one guest asked for a second helping, threatening to completely scupper the catering staff's deft preparation.

Unfortunately the main course of pink lamb cutlets did not survive in photographic memory, as the emotional distractions of a first dance and some tear-jerking speeches left me unable to tell see whether a photo was in focus or not. Finally out came slices of chocolate wedding cake - the best variety, I would have thought. By this time people had started dancing and switching seats - unwanted morsels of cake seemed to be enough to fuel the evening to its end, via a fair amount of Frank Sinatra kareoke and catching fireflies.

A weekend in New York: Part I

A fairly ridiculous bout of consecutive trips abroad has resulted in this blog's sudden interlude, which has been frustrating as in my travels there has been so much to report on the food front that it is almost unfair on any readers that I might have been denied constant internet access. Anyway, I am now beginning the long story that is the food history of my summer, which began in New York (17/06). En route to my cousin's wedding upstate, I managed to pay a visit to S and Z in the city and sneak in a particularly good meal, which only left me wanting to spend longer scouring the five boroughs for all that it has to offer.

We got the subway to Queens, and walked through leafy Astoria. The destination was Sripraphai, a Thai restaurant that Z's dad had been to before and was now leading us to. It had a pretty garden at the back, which was perfect for the warm evening. There were about two hundred things on the menu, but this was nothing to be wary of, as it seemed that everything would be different, and most importantly, good. We started with a crispy catfish mango salad, which was fresh and limey, and surprisingly hot with chilli, which the raw vegetables had perhaps been marinated in. A had declared Sripraphai as able to really give you the spice, and this little salad was an indication of flavour to come. Henceforth we decided to stick with 'regular' on the chilli front, which in an average Thai joint would have been labelled much more tongue-numbing.

My favourite dish was raw shrimp, again with lots of lime and chilli. Seasoned with both mint and coriander, I had never really known Thai food to be so fresh and zesty. Next came a pile of fried soft shell crab, with chilli, garlic and topped with basil. Crispy out and juicy within, the crab meat was delicious, and although the base flavours of most of our dishes consisted of a lot of chilli, garlic, and lime juice, there were obviously secret ingredient combinations at work that made everything taste different from the last.

Drunken noodles were ordered for the less spice-tolerant of the party, and were a welcome addition to the spread. With (a smaller amount) of chilli, ground beef and basil, they were silkily gloopy, and teamed well with the red curry we had to provide the final burst of heat. After all of the meals I've had in the last month or so, I can still remember this one and writing this has now made me crave something extremely spicy, and hope I will be back in New York soon. Thanks to A for the wonderful dinner, and to S and Z for being such great hosts to this transient visitor.

Learning To Roll

As promised, J and I were granted a sushi-making lesson by our great friends from Malaysia. We arrived and were greeted by a spread of necessary elements: sticky rice, tuna, teryaki chicken, cucumber sticks and egg pancake.

The excitement was too much for J as the rolling mats were laid out in front of us. Sushi-rolling is something she has always wanted to try - she will soon crack and buy a kit. The first step is to spread the rice, which is tricky as it is so sticky and the seaweed paper can easily tear. If you roll it about two thirds of the way up it makes for easier rolling later on.

After making a groove in the rice, we spread a little mayonnaise so everything stuck better. Then we were free to lay down whatever and however much we liked. I favoured the chicken over tinned tuna so this is what my rolls usually looked like:

The bottom half of the rice has to be pulled over the filling, and tightly squeezed to make a roll. If it is held firmly, the seaweed paper sticks to itself so the roll (hopefully) appears seamless. The result is a scroll of sushi, ready to cut into pieces. Because we were practising, of course, we needed to make more and more rolls, and stuff ourselves eating them as they were made.

Books for Cooks, Notting Hill

There's a travel bookshop in Notting Hill that has become somewhat famous due to its appearance in a certain film featuring Hugh Grant. On the other side of the road, there is another book shop that is much less famous - although I'd quite like it to stay that way, so I am loathed to even mention it on here. However, I fear my blog does not have a multitude of readers from around the world, so I am not sure it will make much difference. The secret I wouldn't want hordes of people in on is that there is a tiny kitchen at the back of the shop, which at lunchtime every day serves the most delicious food (all handily available to recreate in recipe books which line the walls). You can either have two courses for £5, or all three for £7, and eating there you really would not believe the low price.

On the day we went, we had a starter of bright red chickpea and harissa soup, with a slice of homemade bread speckled with onion seeds. I slurped the last spoonful happily, and set down my spoon. Then the next course arrived. I honestly had not realised there was more to come. I worried for my stomach, as a Books for Cooks novice, I had not expected any more than the already filling soup. The main was lamb with a bulghur wheat salad with red onion, parsley and raisins, the meat perfectly cooked and complemented by the toothsome grains.

They have an array of cakes displayed, made fresh like everything else. The great thing is you can mix and match, so one absolutely huge portion of one cake can turn into two normal portions of different ones, or sometimes even three. I chose a slice of lemon curd roulade - by far the best thing made with lemon curd I've eaten in a long time, and a slice of chocolate marmalade cake. This, I am happy to say I will try to recreate soon as I know the recipe is in one of the 'books for cooks' books that I have. A delicious combination which is often associated with Terry's, and might be considered too rich for an every day cake, but as a sumptuous dessert it was great. I'll be returning soon, but please don't anyone else, unless you just want to buy a book, there won't be any room.