[Phoemail]

[Kirjava]

The BBC has announced Sophie's new cookery series, but no dates yet as far as I can see....

Article and video clip here :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/mediamonkeyblog/2009/nov/11/sophie-dahl-second-helping-nigella


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Talking about music is like dancing about architecture - Elvis Costello

[Starbuck]

"If a date won't stick around for your chocolate mousse, they aren't worth it!"!

Will be tuning into this one, we need a new Nigella.
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Liam ~ ♥ The Last Song ♥ ~ Miley

[Kirjava]

I don't think Mr K will mind watching this cookery programme with me

.... just love Sophie's giggle
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Talking about music is like dancing about architecture - Elvis Costello

[Phoemail]

Interested to see what it's going to be like! I'm a tad disappointed they are marketing her to be very Nigella 2#. I hope the actual program is less so and they give her more of her own style.
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Phoebe ~ Tramp 1#

[Dave]

I think its blatant use of sexuality to sell a tv programme !!!!!

When does it start ?




** disclaimer **

Dave does recognise that Miss Dahl can cook rather well too !
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Embrace and explore all music - Live for It ! .
When you have nothing...It gives you everything !!

[me28]

Think we can say for sure that Dave will tune in

Hope it will be on either BBC 1 or 2 so I can watch it.
Got the cookbook for my birthday as I saw it in the store and the recipes are really nice. None of that over the top cooking that you won't ever try out yourself.
I also love the personal stories she has written in it. And the sweet dedication to Jamie.
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Tramp #3

[Phoemail]

[Emma]

I had a quick flick through the book a while ago and it appeared the recipes were vegetarian. Is this the case all through the book or did I merely see only veggie recipes? Surprised it's not marketed as veggie if this is the case.
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[me28]

It does say somewhere in it she's is a vegetarian, if I'm not mistaken.
It does indeed not include heaps of recipes with meat, at least in the big carnivore lovers type (like Phoe ), but they are there most definitely. Mainly veggie, fish or chicken recipes as far as I've seen (it's pretty thick and I have yet to look at all in detail)
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Tramp #3

[Phoemail]

[Emma]

Thanks for clearing that up.

Might have another look. May be a way of getting more veg into diet if I can find yummy recipes. I get lazy cooking sometimes and I like my hunk of meat.
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[sam812]

I have her cookbook, it was recommended to me by a friend. I am the kind of person who could not survive as a vegetarian, I like my roast dinners too much, but I've found pretty much every recipe of hers we've now tried and loved in the house. The only change I sometimes make is from tofu to chicken.
Looking forward to the series.

[Kirjava]

Sophie's explains her very interesting Childhood Christmases in today's Observer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/06/sophie-dahls-christmas


Sophie Dahl's ChristmasTurkey? Blinis? A nice slap-up Indian? As one of four children rotating between mum, three dads, Scandinavian grandparents and Maureen the Scottish nanny, Christmas could be a moveable – and changeable – feast for former model and food writer Sophie Dahl

Sophie Dahl The Observer, Sunday 6 December 2009 Article history
Sophie dahl. Photograph: Dean Chalkley

I have a great attachment to Christmas and tend to view the Christmases of my childhood as one big tinsel-tinted, ginger-scented mass rather than as separate occasions complete with their own identities. However, for me Christmases were vastly different each year due to geography, finance, religion and the ever-challenging Christmas custodial question – in an equation of four children and three dads – of who goes where?

To give you a clearer picture, and to aid me in sorting out the muddle, here was the conundrum, which starts like a joke: there was an American, a Hungarian Australian and an Englishman who were (in that order) an atheist, a staunch Catholic and a lapsed Protestant. There was also a Norwegian American mum with a yen for esoteric eastern religions. There were four children, one at Catholic school, two at a C of E school, and one at a hippy school where they did reflexology and basket weaving. To add to the melee, there was a Scottish nanny – another atheist – who was vegetarian, except for when she ate bacon. Two of the siblings had five other sisters on their dad's side. The eldest (me) and the littlest one were the sole children of their fathers. The irrefutable (and positive) fact of all this confusion was that it made for a lot of presents and some deeply compelling eating.

At my mum's we ate traditional Christmas fare. There was normally a motley crew present, from the 10 pensioners she invited from an old people's home one year to a host of Indian swamis the next, who averted their eyes politely when the turkey appeared, burnished and fleshy, from the oven. Forget the lone measly sixpence; my mum's Christmas puddings were stuffed with pound coins, shiny from their pre-pudding antiseptic bath. These were the Thatcher years, accompanied by a soundtrack of Stevie Wonder crooning "I just called to say I loved you" on the record player while over the bridge from us in southwest London, Wandsworth (or later Battersea, Clapham and Balham) punks menaced pigeons and kicked tin cans down the King's Road.

Even if it wasn't "their" year, some of the dads still came over on Christmas Day, and were given a stocking to boot. A few of their girlfriends didn't like the idea much and were dropped off at the corner to "buy cat food" as the dad in question raced in to deliver a kiss and a present before going to visit a new set of prospective in-laws. My mother rather enjoyed this bit.

"Where's name applicable?" she'd ask sweetly, peering out of the window.

"Oh, she's just popped to the shops to get some cat food. She said to wish you a very happy Christmas," the loyal dad would respond, hopping from one foot to another.

"The shops? On Christmas Day! I didn't know there were any shops open on Christmas Day. Well, now I do. How marvellous!"

We children didn't know exactly what was going on, but we appreciated it was grown-up, loaded, and therefore funny.

On a Dad's Turn year, we were dispatched with our little brown suitcases and an immaculately wrapped present for the dad and his girlfriend. There the Christmas-food divide widened. The atheist had married a strict Hay diet enthusiast, so if one wanted turkey one was not allowed roast potatoes. The mixing-starch-with-protein debate didn't pose a problem for me, an 11-year-old vegetarian. The little ones were horrified. Their big eyes widened as they weighed the pros and cons – turkey smothered with gravy, or a plate bursting with crispy roast potatoes, and red cabbage slowly simmered with apples and caraway. I think the vegetables ultimately won, because the choice also had an influence on pudding – none, or lots with brandy butter, which fell into an approved neutral camp.

Down in Buckinghamshire at my maternal grandparents' house, we didn't have Christmas Day food at all, unless it was Christmas Eve, which is a Scandinavian thing. We weren't fussy, as homemade blinis with buttery scrambled eggs and a great frozen chocolate cream confection for pudding were hardly a hardship. As it is, Christmas-themed food seems to be served solidly for a six-week period in England, so we were probably glad to see the back of it.

My paternal grandmother, known as Gee-Gee, made her own Christmas pudding and Christmas cakes months in advance. She despaired over my vegetarianism and was forever worried that I wasn't getting enough protein, even though I was resolutely round and healthy as a horse.

"Do you feel faint, darling?" she'd ask, putting a tiny elfin hand round my bulk.

"No, Gee-Gee – I feel full."

"That's all right then. Toffee?"

The Indian ashram Christmas was divine. We had heaving plates of dhal, saffron basmati rice and sag paneer, mopped up by an oily paratha bread, and for pudding silky bowls of phirni scented with cardamom, and sweets that had sat at the foot of one of the gods as a blessing. The excess was burnt off by a five-hour dancing "sapta" marathon round a fire pit, as the chanting grew to an ecstatic snaking frenzy.

Historically, straight after Christmas, until we were teenagers and too grumpy to go, we went to our nanny Maureen's in Edinburgh. We stayed with her mum and dad, Effie and Pop. Pop played the bones, and if you were naughty said: "I'll caw your heed off." Effie was birdlike, with a will of iron, and she made incredible pancakes. Maureen has four siblings and we children would climb on a sleeping Pop like a climbing frame while regaling them with what we'd done that Christmas, what dietary lunacy had been imposed upon us, and which step-parent had been the nicest.

At the end of the breathless all of it, Pop would shake himself out of his slumber, stretch, and allow us the treat of a cherry brandy chocolate, leaving us with his version of Burns: "Oh would some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us." With a sage nod of his head, he'd go upstairs to bed. OFM


SOPHIE DAHL'S WINTER RECIPES

Winter vegetable salad

SERVES 2

1 red onion, 1 sweet potato, 2 carrots, 2 parsnips, 1 celeriac, 2 beetroots

salt and pepper

olive oil

a handful of chopped walnuts

a handful of crumbled feta cheese

For the dressing:

2 tbs olive oil

1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped

1 tbs of balsamic vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

a squeeze of lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas 7. Peel and chop the vegetables into wedges. Put them into a roasting tin, season, then give them a shower of olive oil. Cook for 30 minutes, turning them a couple of times. Five minutes before they are ready, put the walnuts on a baking tray, pop in the oven and toast them. Pour the vegetables into a dish and sprinkle the feta on top. Make the dressing. Dress the vegetables and sprinkle the walnuts on top.

Fish pie with celeriac mash

SERVES 2

olive oil

80g chopped onion

2 leeks, white part only, chopped

100g sliced mushrooms

1 cod fillet (about 400g) cut into chunks, or a mix of half salmon, half cod

175g raw peeled prawns

375ml milk

1 bay leaf

1 tbs butter

2 tbs arrowroot

2 tbs fresh chopped parsley

1 tbs fresh chopped dill

1 slug white wine (optional)

For the celeriac mash:

2 small celeriac

a little milk

butter

salt and pepper

Peel the celeriac and cut into chunks, then boil until tender. Transfer to a blender, add a little milk, a knob of butter, then season and whizz to a purée. Put in a bowl and put to one side.

In a sauté pan, heat 1 tbs olive oil and sweat the onion and leeks for a few minutes. Remove to a plate. In the same frying pan, cook the mushrooms until lightly golden. Put them to the side with the onion and leeks.

Place the fish and prawns in a larger pan, cover with the milk and add the bay leaf. Poach for no longer than 4 minutes. Remove the fish and put to one side but keep the milk, removing bones or skin. Decant the milk into a jug.

In your big pan, melt the butter on a low heat and gently stir in the arrowroot until you have a roux. Slowly pour in the milk. Add the herbs, vegetables and fish. You could also add a slug of white wine. Make sure everything is covered.

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and cover with the mashed celeriac. Cook for 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 180ºC/Gas 4.

Baked apples

SERVES 4

4 big cooking apples

1 tbs butter

50g soft brown sugar

50g raisins

30g chopped walnuts

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Wash and core the apples, leaving a few cm at the bottom intact so they are not hollow. Mix together the butter, sugar, raisins, walnuts and cinnamon. Stuff the apples with the mixture. Place them in a roasting tray with a few cm of hot water covering the bottom and bake for 40 minutes. Serve with yoghurt, mascarpone or thick vanilla ice cream.

Taken from Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delightsby Sophie Dahl (HarperCollins), out now
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Talking about music is like dancing about architecture - Elvis Costello

[jazzo]

Sophie Dahl on the Today Show cooking flourless chocolate cake with Al Roker - she also plugs The Pursuit

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35645708/ns/today-today_food_and_wine/#35687850

The recipe is here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35645708/ns/today-today_food_and_wine/#hybrid_video

Plus here's a link to an article about her book and a recipe for Eton mess

http://blogs.wsj.com/magazine/2010/03/03/online-exclusive-sophie-dahls-cookbook/

[Katie]

Going to be aired on 23rd march on bbc 2 at 8:30pm
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"I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers."

Stephen Fry

[olive31]

[Kirjava]

It's lovely yo see Sophie on the cover of the Radio Times this week! Great article inside too.....including the quote "Jamie is a proper carnivore" ..... and .... "He's an amazing cook - we share the cooking, depending on who is home when"

Don't forget to tune in on Tuesday 23 March, BBC2 at 8:30 pm
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Talking about music is like dancing about architecture - Elvis Costello

[hairymaclary]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this on Tuesday My cooking skills are pretty appalling but I've just recently started trying a bit harder, so some recipes will come in handy. Sophie comes over as being really lovely in the trailers too, IMO - she seems like the sort of person I'd want to be friends with
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"sporadic bursts of music and tonnes of food" - sounds familiar!
<3

[quickstepqueen]

There have already been some comments about it and alot of them weren't very favourable, Oops: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1259337/Move-Nigella--Sophie-Dahls-extra-helping-sauce.html
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Mmmmm