Browns: looks like an innocent coffeehouse. It’s actually the door to a whole new world!

Until today I always thought of Browns Coffeehouse (off Stour street, in Canterbury, by the river), as just a classic coffeehouse. A place with big squashy sofas, free wifi, a very well made flat-white coffee and delicious macaroons. Somehow I hadn’t realised quite how much more was there was to it.

Rewind to two weeks ago. My old Bialetti stove-top coffee maker finally died. After many years of use it had become almost impossible to screw open after use… and at my last attempt the handle broke. So I started using a French cafètiere press just because I had one around. I did not like it. It seemed time to get a “grown-up” coffee machine, which I expected to be very expensive and bulky, and I asked a friend who I knew to be fairly obsessed with coffee what should I get. He mentioned something called AeroPress and said he’d get me one.

And he did get me one. And got a demonstration of how to use it. And tasted it. And I am no longer a flat-white woman. There is another coffee world out there and this was a first glimpse.

Then I took the AeroPress home. And this happened.

And then this.

It was much, much better than any coffee I had ever made with the Bialetti and, of course, the cafetière. But not nearly as good as the one I tasted at my friends’ house. So today I remembered that I had seen tweets about Browns CoffeeHouse selling some very good coffees. So I thought I’d give them a try.

And obviously the coffee gods considered it was time to finally let me see what real coffee is about. Because when I walked into Browns their large table was set up for a coffee tasting. Or coffee cupping as I now know to call it. And they were very happy for me to join in. So I did.

There is no way I can explain exactly what happened, or even attempt to give names to all the new aromas I experienced for the first time ever. And I did not manage to taste the blueberries or pomegranates in the coffees as mentioned in the tasting notes.

One thing I learnt, though, was how important the water you use is. Thom Burrows, the barista, made two versions of each coffee, one with tap water and one with mineral water. This was one difference in taste I did manage to get. And you could see it very clearly too.

Tap water on the right, mineral water on the left

And how to do you taste coffee?

You pour the water on the ground coffee. A very precise ratio of coffee to water that I can’t remember. Then let it rest for a very precise time that I can’t remember either. And then you use a couple of spoons to “break the crust”, which is the top layer of ground coffee that has floated to the top.

And taste. No, you don’t drink it. You slurp it, as loudly as you can manage, from a spoon.

And you are in a new world of coffee. We had four different coffees. Until today, the only aromas and flavours I had really noticed in coffees where completely dominated by over-roasting. I could tell if a coffee was more or less bitter, or, in some cases, stale. I had no idea there were so many other flavours out there!

So, tasting (or cupping!) done. Time to get some coffee to take home. And not only did I get my coffee ground, but I also got an Aeropress tutorial by Thom Burrows. This is the “inverted” method. Because the Aeropress is upside-down. And, of course, it was amazing.

And now I really covet a brewing kettle with a thin spout, super precision scales with a timer, and a coffee grinder, of course.

Browns hold regular coffee cuppings and they love answering questions and, best of all, demonstrating how to make good coffee. They are very happy to let you into this new world of coffee.

I seem to remember there was a time when it was nearly impossible to get a good cup of coffee in England. It seems a very long time ago!

Browns CoffeeHouse is at Water Lane, off Stour Street. Canterbury CT1 2NQ.

An English tapa for a Catalan competition

Friends of mine who run Mes Cub, one of the most imaginative restaurants in Girona, are running a tapa competition… which must be submitted via a short video using Vine App. and the hashtag #vinealmescub The prize is very appealling: a weekend for 2 in Girona (flights not included). More precisely: “two nights accommodation at Peninsular Hotel, dinner at our restaurant and a travel bag with vouchers worth €100 for you to spend in restaurants and participating establishments, allowing you to discover all the secrets Girona has prepared for you and your companion”. And they cook your tapas too. Girona is one of the foodiest cities in Catalonia, if not in Europe, so it seems worth having a go. Deadline is the 1st of April 2013, if you are interested!

So, what can a Catalan in Canterbury do? It would make no sense to try to submit a Catalan tapa, as I can’t get the right ingredients (specially this time of the year!). It’s early March and at the Goods Shed the only signs of spring at the moment are the wild garlic and some very early tomatoes. So, sticking to English winter flavours, the veg stall has some very pretty looking beetroots, local walnuts… Cheesemakers of Canterbury have the clean-flavoured Rosary goats cheese on their counter… and as it happens today the Wild Bread people are here with a fantastic-looking sourdough.

And here is my tapa:

Golden beetroot with goats cheese and toasted walnuts on sourdough toast.
Clean up the beetroots and boil till they feel soft when you prick them with a fork. Crack the walnuts open and toast in a frying pan. Cut the cooked beetroot and the goats cheese into cubes, put into a salad bowl and add the toasted walnuts. I used a very simple dressing of three parts extra virgin olive oil, one of Forum Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar, a bit of lemon juice and Maldon sea salt. And finish by serving it on a toasted piece of sourdough.

And eat. And, I hope, enjoy. These are flavours I certainly love and I would have never come across in Catalonia.

I don’t think I will win as my actual video wasn’t very good, Vine only gives you 6 seconds and I can’t see that there is a way to edit it… And it is not so easy to film and cook at the same time, even if it is simple food like this! If you enter the competition I suggest you find a camera person to help you out for much better results. But it has been fun to look at English winter food with tapas in mind and find strong and simple flavours that I do not think have anything to envy what we normally think of as tapas.

Pudding love at Rafael’s Restaurant at the Goods Shed

I loved Marina O’Loughlin’s review of Rafael’s Restaurant at the Goods Shed. Everything she said about it sounded just right. As it happens, Emma Wilcox and I had eaten there around the same time (maybe even the same day?), and also had THE treacle tart (in Marina’s words: “The only disappointment I’ve ever had is a timid treacle tart, lacking the texture and jamminess of the best”).

I can see it wasn’t what we usually think of as treacle tart. It was rather soft and had more in common, somehow, with a custard tart. But it did come with a perfectly infused creamy bay leaf ice cream that made me very happy.

We had also ordered another pudding: Pears poached in mulled wine, served with cinnamon ice cream and meringue, caramelised crab apples… and a dainty cup of mulled wine. It was as beautiful as it looked.

The thing is, I have always really enjoyed the puddings at Rafael’s. And one unusual, or even disappointing, treacle tart does not take that away. Here comes a little trip down my own memory lane of their beautiful puddings.

The bay leaf ice cream. It was so good I had it on its own on the next visit. And I do have an almost identical photo of a surprisingly delicate parsnip ice cream. And their cinnamon icecream. And the pumpkin one…

A perfect winter apple mess

Happy summer memories of a lemon tart with poached strawberries

And the biggest treat of all: this early October sharing platter. Worth getting a group of people together just to be able to share. I have always found that the worst thing about the puddings at Rafael’s restaurant is having to choose just one.

This is a SANDWICH, do not accept bad imitations

Apparently, 11 billion sandwiches are consumed in the UK every year. These are a lot of sandwiches. And not many are enjoyable, sadly. But good sandwich experiences are possible.

Jonny Sandwich, at the Goods Shed, Canterbury (Kent), a very talented chef, makes consistently superb sandwiches to order. Be prepared to wait, every sandwich is made without shortcuts. We think of sandwiches as fast food, Jonny gives them a bit more time and care, and it shows.

The bread is cut and buttered.

Going for a beef sandwich. Juicy meat cut straight from a perfectly pink joint. No dry bits of meat that have been sitting around in fridges.

Adds caramelised onions and roasted tomatoes

Looking rather good, well seasoned.

Some leafs and lemon juice.

The finished article. This IS a sandwich. Say no to cheap and fast imitations.

 

© Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Popping over to Faversham: emwilco’s supper club

Faversham is not strickly Canterbury, but I think it still counts as local in food mile terms. It is home to Macknade Fine Foods, where you can find pretty much any food item you could wish for, local and from all over the world. And Macknade’s cafe is also home to the Emwilco’s Supper Club, which happens every couple of months.

There is something special about being in a food hall at night, when it’s shut. Unlit fridges, intringuing food boxes in the half-light. And it is even more special when you walk to the end of it to find a beautiful candle-lit table. It feels like you have stumbled into a secret.

Emma chose a very crisp English bubbly, the local Throwley sparkling white, to welcome everyone. Served with local snails. Yes, local snails. From Kent. Very tender.

It’s a mixture of people, from faithful locals who have been to Emma’s previous pop-ups, to people who have come all the way from London just for the dinner thanks to the power of word of mouth, to well-known local chefs who have been intrigued after following her preparations on Twitter.

The first course was a selection of cured fish: home cured beetroot and vodka gravadlax, rollmop and smoked mackerel pate. Served with dark rye and, for an added Scandi feel, dill Aquavit.

The second course of “warm pigeon breast, with bitter salad leaves, pickled walnuts and damson cheese” was, for me, a perfect example of English food at its best. Perfectly cooked pigeon, very well chosen leaves, dressed using the juices from the pigeon. Damson cheese to compensate for the bitter flavous. And my first ever pickled walnuts… one of those quaint-sounding English foods that I was aware of but had never thought of trying. And they worked beautifully with this dish. In fact, everything about this dish worked beautifully. A food memory I will be keeping.

And then some of the best crackling ever on the “slow roast pork belly, red cabbage, parsnip puree and quince sauce”. Emma went to great lenghts to source the right local pork (apparently harder to find that you’d expect), looking for the best crackling. It certainly paid off.

Pork belly with red cabbage lit by candle light

She had asked on Twitter whether to do treacle tart or sticky toffee pudding for dessert. The answer she got was that both were wanted. Two puddings would look odd. So she came up with a great third: a pretty miniature toffee apple. A great solution.

Emma’s pop-ups are anounced on her Twitter feed (look out for #emwilcosupperclub) and they tend to get booked up very quickly. Can’t recommend it enough.

© Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Harvest festivals and the Goods Shed at its best

One of the things that has always surprised me about England is how much they celebrate the Harvest. Even in busy and built up cities most schools and churches have some sort of Harvest celebration at the end of September or beginning of October to give thanks for the year’s harvest and where local produce are displayed. This busy, fast living country, has managed to hold on or revive pagan festivals in a way that as an outsider I have always found surprising.

I food terms, this time of the year in England deserves to be celebrated. And the Goods Shed becomes a truly spectacular Harvest showcase. The summer crops are still here, full of colour and intense flavours, while the apples, pumkins, beetroots start to get you in the mood for winter roasts and pies.

If there is one time of the year when there is no excuse not to eat local food, at least in Kent, this is it. You can catch the last raspberries, obscure local apple varieties full of flavour and personality (and great names!) and unusually shaped or coloured vegetables to catch the attention of the little ones.

Below is the result of a mid-October shopping spree, including Patrick’s Kitchen’s first pear and almond tarts of the season, golden and red beetroot, a very fine salt beef by the new charcuterie stall, Curiously Kentish (who make all sorts of salamis and cured meats using local meat), local cheese and butter from Cheesemakers of Canterbury, milk from Hinxden dairy (yes, they do get a fair price for their milk if you buy it here). And, of course, Enzo’s slow proven bread.

© Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

How it all started: discovering the Goods Shed

In summer 2002 I moved to Canterbury from London. A friend drove me with a car full of stuff and as we were approaching my new place we noticed that the big building next to Canterbury West station had opened up as a Farmer’s Market and Restaurant. So after unloading the car that was an obvious place to go to for lunch.

And this is when it all started. Love at first sight.

A big, lofty space, restored with a very light touch. Exposed red brick and wooden beams and, best of all, huge beautiful windows from where you can wave as the trains go past. The best butchery counter I had ever seen in England. And vegetables that had only been taken from the soil a few hours ago. No plastic trays in sight. Food that had travelled as little as possible. And farmers and food producers got to keep most of each pound you spent.

The Goods Shed 10 years on, October 2012

On a wooden platform overlooking the market, the restaurant. Solid scrubbed pine tables, reclaimed chairs and an open kitchen that used almost exclusively products from the market. And you could even see a steam train while you were eating. I had “lamb three ways”. I can’t remember what those three ways were, but what I can remember was that I had never eaten meat like that in the six years I had been England. And I had never had vegetables like those that came with the dish. No boiled-to-death carrots and peas.Vegetables (and I can’t remember what they were either!) that had each been treated as if they were the star of the meal. And ten years later, the Goods Shed restaurant continues treating them in the same way. And this was a revelation to me. Food that was about taking each ingredient and showing it at its best, with minimal intervention and no need to disguise anything in heavy sauces. The produce took centre stage.

Ten years later it is wonderful to see that this approach to food is not as rare as it was then. If you look for them, there are plenty of farmer’s markets and enlightened restaurants all over England. The food world has come a long, long way in this country.

That day I discovered a new side to English food. And, from then on, whenever any Catalan has asked me how I cope with food in England I have had a great answer.

This blog will return to the Goods Shed quite a few times, there’s plenty there that is worth blogging about.

© Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Adelina Comas-Herrera and A Canterbury Food Love Story with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.