Another outing to the Horticultural Society Show and a World Cup dinner
This weekend was the summer show at the Muswell Hill and District Horticultural Society. At this time of year it’s mostly about the vegetables and flowers, so there are only a few cooking categories. Jenny and I rose to the challenge again, both submitting entries for all three categories.
We remain baffled by the judging criteria – I felt that the judge’s comment that my strawberry and white peach jam was a lovely flavour but that the consistency was not quite right was entirely fair. On the other hand, I wasn’t particularly happy with my madeira cake, which I think was slightly over done and not as good as the one I made for the school fair last week – but that got a first prize. Also confusing was the decision that my red velvet cupcakes didn’t merit any comment at all – I thought they were much better than the madeira cake and assorted children were very happy with them, but the only prize in that category was a third…
Jenny’s raspberry tart was a very worthy first prize winner in the fruit tart category. Although we both found it strange that the judge clearly only tasted one of the tarts in that category.
Anyway – it’s fun planning and baking for this particular roller-coaster and the element of mystery keeps us on our toes!
Due to differing weather forecasts we abandoned the planned pre-World Cup final barbecue and I decided to try to do an Argentinian/German themed meal. No disrespect to any German readers out there, but I struggled to find many German recipes that inspired me, so we ended up with a vaguely South American style meal, with some German wine and beer. I also found a recipe for an Argentinian cocktail – featuring Cynar (you know, the Italian liquer made from artichokes). I hadn’t tasted this for years – not since I worked for an Italian wine and food importing business an unfeasibly long time ago. Part of my job was to be taken out for long boozy lunches at the restaurants we supplied, which was nice. Anyway, I know it’s an Italian liqueur, but the recipe definitely said it was an Argentinian beverage. It was much like Pimms, in that you add fruit (strawberries and blueberries), mint, lemonade, ginger ale – it was an acquired taste first time round and remains slightly so in my opinion. The guests entered into the spirit, but it wasn’t long before the Argentinian wine took centre stage…
We had a big chilli con carne, with guacamole, tomato and red onion salsa and I also tried out Dan Lepard’s recipe for sesame and chilli cornbread – I’ve never made cornbread before, but it went down very well. The chilli flakes were significantly past their best before date, so it wasn’t too spicy. I think you’d have to be careful if you used brand new chilli flakes though.
I also found some smoked Bavarian cheese and threw in a Munster as well on the basis that, although it’s definitely French, it sounds a bit German and comes from Alsace, which is right next door to Germany. I would have made a German apple tart, but I still had most of the strawberry and cherry tarts left from the competition the day before. We watched the match and had cheese and dessert at half time (or during the interval, as one of my fellow non-football expert chums referred to it). We had a great mix of people, some who cared and/or understood the match and those of us who took the whole affair less seriously and chipped in with various uninformed comments throughout. Missy B has been caught up in the loom band craze and she and her friend made World Cup bracelets for us.
I was allocated a German one in the great loom band lottery, so for that reason alone, I was very happy when they finally won. I do like a penalty shoot out though, so I was slightly disappointed that the German team managed a late goal in extra time!
Wasn’t right without us there, we have really got into the World Cup. We have watched every game! But menu looks great x