My Last Supper: One Meal, a Lifetime in the Making

Product Information

For the main, I choose his braised oxtail, another so-called “signature dish’ that at the time of publication was banned because of the BSE prohibition on beef sold on the bone. It requires braising the oxtails with vegetables that are then discarded as a mush, and replaced with more, freshly chopped. The recipe says it should take no more than two hours. It takes me closer to three, but it’s worth it. Rhodes’s oxtail is a masterclass in both braising meat and reducing sauces. I finish with his baked egg custard tart which, hilariously, demands 500ml of cream and eight – count them – eight egg yolks. Rhodes insists this should be eaten at room temperature and he’s not wrong. It puts the “call my cardiologist” into “lush”. Now with a new epilogue, the UK's most influential food and drink journalist shoots a few sacred cows of food culture. Tofu is a blank canvas for the flavours it carries’: deep-fried tofu and pepper. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer But success is never simple. Before long pressures draw them away from the comforts of their roots. They find themselves cutting corners, taking risks and breaking the law. Finally Mal has to confront his life, his friendship with Solly and where their very different ambitions have led them. It was at our kitchen table that I learned the power of food and meal times. With a full plate in front of them, people would talk. They would drop onto their elbows and unload, both the good things and the bad, for my mother made her living as an agony aunt and was therefore considered both a good listener and a source of professional wisdom. There was no such thing as oversharing. Here, fuelled by those fish balls and bagels, they would be the most unselfconscious version of themselves. Oh, the stories they told. Sometimes we would talk about the food itself. I learned the correct way to build a cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel. (The cheese is not a butter substitute, to be spread thinly. It is a pedestal for the salmon and so to be piled high, like a litter of cushions.) We would, between mouthfuls, discuss whether this week’s chopped liver was as good as last week’s. I understood that this life of the table mattered.

The India Club, which was established on London’s Strand more than 50 years ago, is once again facing the threat of closure from its landlords, and has established a crowdfunder to pay for its defence. A previous attempt to redevelop the building by the landlords was rejected by Westminster council in 2018 because losing the club and restaurant was deemed harmful to the ‘cultural provision’ of the area. Jay Rayner combines personal experience and hard-nosed reportage to explain why the doctrine of organic has been eclipsed by the need for sustainable intensification; and why the future lies in large-scale food production rather than the cottage industries that foodies often cheer for. From the cornfields of America to the killing lines of Yorkshire abattoirs via the sheep-covered hills of New Zealand, Rayner takes us on a journey that will change the way we shop, cook and eat forever. And give us a few belly laughs along the way. This article was amended on 24 January 2021 to replace the first recipe photo. An earlier version had a photo which was described as being oxtail, but in fact showed a different dish. Rayner was one of the panel of critics who made up the "enemy" on the daytime cookery show Eating with the Enemy, and performs a similar role on the UK version of MasterChef. He is the food reporter on the BBC magazine programme The One Show, and was on the panel of judges on the American programme Top Chef Masters. He appeared as a guest judge on the "UK" episode of The Final Table, season 1.Neustatter, Angela (3 November 1996). "Is it time confessional man shut up?". The Independent. London.

The thing that would surprise the 16-year-old Jay the most would be that he became a restaurant critic. It had never been my intention – having been editor of the Leeds Uni newspaper I wanted to be a news reporter. He might be disappointed by that. I think he would have thought being a restaurant critic was a rather light and fluffy and unserious job for a person with loftier ambition. But he’d be wrong, because one of the brilliant things about food is it feeds into every element of life. It’s not just about how things taste, it’s about emotion and memory and sex and politics – it’s about everything. VIDEO: Masterchef star Jay Rayner brings foodie fun to Northampton". 12 October 2018 . Retrieved 2 November 2018. In 1997 he won a Sony Radio Award for Papertalk, BBC Radio Five Live's magazine programme about the newspaper business, which he presented. He chairs a BBC Radio 4 programme called The Kitchen Cabinet. [9] But now they had their first child, a pregnancy which had encouraged in Cassie such a profoundly sweet tooth she started making fudge (stay with me; these things will all tie up eventually). Off to the West Midlands they went in search of affordable housing. Cassie set up Sweetmeat Inc, a fudge-making business on the high street in Stirchley just to the south of Birmingham city centre. James took cheffing jobs, but also cooked his Chinese food at pop-ups. The other lesson took a couple of days to arrive, like high clouds spilling into a once blue summer sky. I gently found myself falling into the embrace of the Asian repertoire; into a noodle and rice-based menu of dishes drawing on the traditions of Japan and Thailand, India and the various provinces of China. Entirely plant-based food can come from any culinary tradition, but it’s always going to be easiest when there is no compromise; no cumbersome attempt to mimic or replace non-vegan ingredients.The Apologist is a deliciously funny satire on the complexity and greed of international – and personal – politics, as well as a powerful paean to the diplomatic role of a well-made almond soufflé. While many of Madhur Jaffrey’s books remain in print, Indian Cooking is not one of them. But many copies are still available secondhand News bites There are essays on why the messiest of dishes can also be the ones that taste the best, or why the secret to flavour lies in giving ingredients lots of time together. There are a few columns about restaurants which, after all, is my specialist subject. I write about the dishes that professional kitchens do so well and those they do terribly badly. Lesson: you’ll probably make a better apple crumble at home than any chef could ever make in a restaurant. Any excuse for grating up potatoes and frying them must be taken’: Jay’s version of Roden’s Latkes. Photograph: Jay Rayner There is no dessert on the menu today, but at weekends they serve cherry pie. These have already been made in preparation for the rush. And yes, if I ask nicely, they will pop one in the oven. A note of warning: it is a dish with a sugared pastry crust. If you are livid about this being described as a pie because there isn’t pastry all the way round, please write to your MP. They’ve not got much on at the moment. Beneath that toffeed crust is what happens to fresh cherries cooked down in sugar syrup for a long time. On the side is a gravy boat of double cream. The dish is a tenner, and is designed to serve two, even if one of them is me.