Best Eats This Week - Buttermilk Pudding with Plum Compote & Ginger Biscuit (London)

There's such an art to perfecting simplicity.  We can get so caught up with out-of-the-box ideas of flavor combinations and presentation that we get these overwhelming plates of a dozen different components and colors and textures.  At the end it's more about showcasing the technical skills of the chef rather than the actual consumption and enjoyment of the dish. 

Don't get me wrong, I love an art-gallery-fit plate of food that's more complex than I could ever comprehend, but sometimes something like this, a simple buttermilk pudding with plum compote and a ginger biscuit, cooked perfectly, is better.  It's difficult though, because like I said, it needs to be perfect when you don't have much going on.  That's what 40 Maltby Street is good for - faultless, unfussy, simple food, and this dessert was the best thing I ate this week.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Brussels Sprouts Salsa

 So I was given a peeler on a date once.  I was invited over for dinner, and he was peeling some beetroots, I commented on the aesthetics and the quality of his peeler, and next thing I know he said he had two and he gave me one.  I got a lovely home cooked meal AND a peeler at the end of the date.  I think I did well.

Anyway, thought about that date as I was peeling the butternut squash for this dish.  This is a recipe from Ottolenghi, and oh, that brussels sprouts salsa is simply amazing.

Best Eats This Week - The Emilia Burger (London)

When are brioche burger buns going to leave the food scene? When it first showed up couple of years ago, it was cool.  A classic French pastry encasing your meat patty, giving your standard comfort food a posh spin was new and different and cool. There came a wave of gourmet burgers with truffle oil, foie gras, caviar and diamond speckled baby veal meat patties all sandwiched in a brioche bun, and yea, it was fascinating but these food trends come and leave and it's time for the f*cking brioche bun to leave.  After the gourmet aspect was stripped away you just started getting everything in a brioche bun.  Everything's in a f*cking brioche bun.  From your classic cheese burgers to your exotic curried chicken patties and sausages.  What happened to the humble burger buns? Your down to earth American buns that are perfect in their simplicity?  What happened to your simple burgers?  Fortunately Shake Shack's sticking to traditional ways.  Serving your roadside American classics with fries, milkshakes and your 50's burgers -- no posh spin on them, rather they just focused on using quality produce. And whilst their usual items are good, on Sunday they had the holy grail of burgers.

Sun-Dried Tomato and Cheese Profiteroles

 I can't cook in culinary school.  Something about the time limit, the teacher watching my every move, the need to strive for perfection.  I'm having to weigh the salt and butter, quadruple-check the recipe, and be constantly conscious of washing my hands and not double-dipping.  I know they're good habits to keep but f*cking hell.  My food's often overcooked or undercooked or bland or unevenly cut or served on a plate with finger prints on.  The other day I f*cked up a risotto and a pasta in front of an English chef.  An Italian, having her pasta and risotto criticized by an English man.  That was a new low.

So I haven't been cooking much at home.  Not because I cook all day in school and I'm in school 40 hours a week but because I come home everyday utterly deflated as I doubt my ability to turn on a stove. 

Peanut Butter Granola

I officially joined the gym today.  I signed away a large sum of money to be taken out of my account every month for 12 months.  12 months.  I've never been committed to anything for 12 months before -- even my current flat lease, I can choose to end the lease early in just 6 months.  This gym membership, no.  I'm having regrets already.  Well, the sense of regret flooded in as soon as I signed in blood this morning.

Culinary school hasn't been good for my love-handles so I thought it'd be good to join the gym and eat healthy stuff like this.  I used to be addicted to granola.  Granola and coffee made up a large part of my diet when I studied for exams in university.