I do love eggs

Well here it is. So delicious. The caviar, while it sounds indulgent and unnecessary, is such a great addition - much better than slimey smoked salmon and so much quicker too.

Guest Post: Erin’s Indulge Me Goddammit Weekend Breakfast

I still have one meal left to go today but I'm already onto thinking about Saturday's breakfast. Sometimes simplicity is all and, I am so frying my crumpets. The only other thing is to have enough wine tonight for a teensy hangover as Erin suggests: "So this is barely a recipe really but it’s so bloody good for Saturday late-morning breakfast, when you’ve got a teensy hangover and want something substantial, but you’ve got enough zip to get into the kitchen and faff about for ten minutes."

Thanks Erin, I just wish you were the right side of The Atlantic to share this with me.

Serves two (or one if the person is as greedy as a bear in a salmon filled river):

4 crumpets
4 large free range eggs (courtesy of Uncle Joe)
Big chunk of salted, good quality butter
Fresh flat leaf parsley
Black caviar
Crème fraiche

Either toast the crumpets or do what I do and fry them slowly in butter in a frying pan. This is disgracefully fatty but so delicious. In the meantime, fork your eggs about and oh I don’t need to tell you how to make scrambled eggs do I. So, in the meantime, make scrambled eggs to your liking (I like them just-cooked). When the eggs are done, put two crumpets on each plate, divide the eggs between them, then add a dollop of crème fraiche on top of each. Top with a teaspoonful of caviar, then sprinkle with torn-up parsley. Might want a squeeze of lemon. Yuuuuummmmm.

Happy weekend x

Supper Eight

An Italian supper for a Scottish Summer evening:

From midnight roasted vegetables to midnight baked cantuccini

Our wee kitchen was a busy place to be last night:

Rosemary flat bread

Zuccini bread {before}
Zuccini bread {after}
Home grown basil. If only this shot was scratch and sniff.

Basil cantuccini {baked once}
Basil cantuccini {baked twice}

Menu Eight ~ Weekday Supper

To start
House selection of antipasti

To follow
Schaicciata di manzo con aglio, rosmarino e funghi, zucca al forno
{Flash roast beef with garlic, rosemary and giroles, roasted squash}

To finish
Scottish strawberries, balsamic ice cream, basil cantuccini.

Flavours of Italy 2010

Well, it didn't take much to tempt us back. We've just returned from another food filled trip. This time, higher in the stunning mountains and chestnut forests, not far from Pieve Fosciana and pretty Sillico. The views were amazing, the sun shone and the food, rustic, simply served allowing the delicious, local flavours to speak for themselves:

Amazing figs and ham

Baked cheese with generous gratings of truffle

Sillico perched on the hill

Doorway in Sillico

View from Sillico

Tagliatelle con funghi

Antipasti

Sunset over the Apuan Alps and across the Garfagnana valley

Flavours of Italy 2009

In our experience, Italians certainly know how to make the most of the big, home grown flavours they find.

Last year, we had a fabulous time in Tuscany, learning to make pasta, glugging olive oil and wine (in near equal quantities), baking biscuits, butchering rabbits, driving fast and eating lots. Big thanks to these lovely people.

Villa Toscana and views

In the kitchen

Lucca.

We're packing up and escaping soon...

Secret feasting is 80 years old

It's always good to look back and we were intrigued and excited to listen to this podcast (thanks Jo) and to discover a little about the history and thinking behind secret feasting from the 1930s to the present day.

We learned that, while researching, Tim Hayward discovered a dining club which existed in the 1930s. While surrounded by 10,000 wine and food books, he was handed an alumninum card embossed with the ISO Bar, a clue to a story of food and radical thought, and of The Half Hundred Dining Club. It seems that the new way to eat out started long ago.

Judging from Tim's tour of London supper clubs including this one, this one, and this pretty secret one many of the ideas remain unchanged from the democracy of good food for all (creative but not expensive), to the connectedness of food for thinking and conversation and above all perhaps, to a change willing diners' experiences of eating out.

Listen again and remember, every supper club is different so come, with an empty belly and an open mind and see what you get!

Weekdays

Here at Charlie and Evelyn’s Table, we have something new to introduce, we will now be opening on weekdays, by request, for groups of four or more.

If you’re intrigued by what goes on at our supper club or fancy starting your evening with us before heading off to something else, these nights are for you.

The weekday menus will feature three tasty courses rather than four (and the recommended donation will be £15/head).

Please email us with your preferred date, number of guests (maximum eight), any dietary requirements and strong dislikes and we’ll come back to you.

Supper Seven

Last night's guests came from near and far, gathered by one very special lady for a summer menu with all the colours, tastes and sunshine which were sadly lacking outside.

Walnut and honey soda bread (thanks for the Bread book, Carrie).

Plain white soda bread.

Charlie and Evelyn's Table.

Cucumber, hummus and radish canapes.

To amuse Mint and cucumber summer soup with lemon thyme and mint ice.

To start Duck rillettes, plum, soda bread.

To follow Marinated tuna, rice noodles, tempura prawns, coriander dressing.

To finish Melon, macaroons, Kaffir lime syrup.

Menu Seven

Dear diners

We hope you're as excited about eating this as we are about creating it.

See you soon.

Love Charlie and Evelyn's Table.

To start
Duck rillettes, plum, soda bread

To follow
Marinated tuna, rice noodles, tempura prawns, coriander dressing

To finish
Melon, macaroons, Kaffir lime syrup.

Our First Wedding

This weekend, we were honoured to play a part in and celebrate the fabulous wedding of two dear friends in Cambridge. We discovered that, for the perfect wedding reception, you will need:

1 blissfully happy bride and groom
40 celebrating friends and family members
4 hampers packed with taste and care
4 chauffeured punts
An abundance of love
Blue skies, wispy clouds and warm sunshine (to combine).

We served the following picnic treats:

Crusty white baguettes
Homemade, super smooth, blue cheese mousse
Rachel and Chris's special wedding hummus
Homemade smoked salmon pate
Midnight roasted vegetables (peppers, tomatoes, aubergine and courgettes)
The bride and groom's choice of fine meats
Rustic breadsticks wrapped with Parma ham
Manchego cubes with quince jelly
Strawberries and grapes

And we're delighted to say, it turned out pretty well: