The Second Naughty Habits Strolling Supper Club
After much plotting and planning, the second Naughty Habits Strolling Supper Club was a rip roaring success last weekend. Battenburg Towers is actually part of an old Nunnery, so Naughty Habits seemed like a good name.
Cocktails and canapés in the Secret Garden
This was a fund raising event for a very worthwhile cause – Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund. (Donations are still welcome!).
Jenny hosted the first part of the evening – with cocktails and canapés in her gorgeous communal garden. Not sure if she confessed this on the evening, but she is practising some Vincent Price related recipes (a story for another day), so she made his cheese straw knots and some mini toad in the holes (toads in the hole??). Both delicious. I think it’s safe to say that the trial run was a success!
The strolling bit
Then we all strolled round to the Nunnery. Fortunately Ros came over the day before and helped me with much peeling and chopping and we produced a fine array of salads, tarts and other stuff. I particularly loved the dressed side of salmon – an Ottolenghi recipe from the newspaper a few weeks ago – the salsa with shrimp, cucumber and pine nuts was so tasty.
Dressed side of salmon
My chef friend Chris, of Chris Kitch, gave me his recipe for sticky chicken thighs – lots of brown sugar and balsamic vinegar and a few other ingredients – these were very delicious indeed. I’m very excited about settling down one quiet evening soon (?) and studying his new cookbook in earnest. We also had: asparagus tart, onion tart, Mediterranean tart (another Ottolenghi special, with aubergines, courgettes, sweet potato, ricotta and feta), a quinoa, lentil and halloumi salad, a red cabbage and fennel coleslaw and a green salad.
Lentils, halloumi and other stuff
Chris Kitch’s sticky chicken
Ros and I ate so many of the balsamic shallots on Friday, that I had to make another batch on Saturday morning. These are AWESOME! We had a great brie de Meaux from our local cheese shop, a birthday cake for one of our guests and some strawberries with sweetened ricotta to finish off. The ricotta was an afterthought – I accidentally ordered way too much for the Mediterranean tart, but Martha Stewart advised me to add a bit of creme fraiche, vanilla extract and sugar – it was a revelation and I will definitely be doing it again.
Davie McGirr and his Seven Songs
The whole event was made even more special by the addition of live music from my good old friend Davie, who performed a lot more than his usual Seven Songs. We’d kept it under wraps, but I’d practised a few songs with him, so he had some rather hapless backing singing for some of his show… I’m not usually one for the limelight, so it was a bit nerve wracking – but hey, it was in a very good cause!
Davie and his backing singer…
We had a fabulous array of delightful guests and between us raised well over £800 for Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund – all in all a great evening!
