Do you know the way to San Jose?

Hi, everyone.  Just wanted to say that we haven't disappeared!  Cinnamon has a stock of food photos to share with you from Singapore, and  I (Truffle) am at this very moment in the fantastic city of San Francisco, taking plenty of notes to report back to you on the food scene here.  I didn't bring my laptop (long story), so please be patient while posts get uploaded.  In the meantime, you can follow my discoveries real-time on our Twitter page.  We're @CinnamonTruffle or http://twitter.com/CinnamonTruffle.  (Rice Krispie, I know you're on Twitter, so get following!)

Love

Truffle

Hunger Emergency Seafood Spaghetti

This was dinner tonight.  It almost didn't happen.  I had just finished bashing out Queens of the Stone Age on my guitar, and I was in a rebellious mood.  I stood hanging around the kitchen, not really feeling like cooking, with images of local take-outs' menus floating around in my head.  The reluctance was compounded by the general absence of cookable things in the fridge (I'd chosen gym over supermarket today).  However, the realisation that we'd taken out a little too often over the weekend made me relent, and rustling around in the freezer, I came across a pack of frozen seafood and frozen minced garlic.  And so it came to be.

200g spaghetti
400g pack of frozen seafood (prawn, mussels, scallops, squid rings)
a generous handful of frozen minced garlic (use less if using fresh garlic: that stuff's powerful)
1 dried red chilli, crushed (or half a fresh red chilli, sliced; or 1/4 tsp red chilli powder)
dash of Martini bianco or white wine
dried parsley flakes (or a handful of chopped fresh parsley, if you have cookable things to hand)
salt and pepper

1. Cook spaghetti according to packet instructions.
2. Put a generous splash of olive oil in a hot pan and add the minced garlic and chilli.  Cook until starting to colour.
3. Add frozen seafood and allow to cook.  Season with good amount of salt (it'll have to do for the entire dish, including pasta) and pepper.  A lot of water will be released, so don't add any liquid.
4. Once seafood is cooked, add the martini or white wine and allow to bubble away.
5. Add parsley, more olive oil if required, and stir.
6. Stir through spaghetti and serve!

Optional: pick up Queens of the Stone Age again, feeling less hypoglycaemic (and glad to have sorted out dinner without needing to budge out of the flat).

Love

Truffle

My Valentine's Top 5

Kate Takes 5, thank you for getting me to come up with 5 wishes for Valentine’s, because it’s helped me to clarify my thinking on what I’d like cooked for me!

Music, the food of love?

1. My first wish is to not eat out at a restaurant on Valentine’s Day. I love going to restaurants, but on this one day, they become unbearable. Fawning service that’s on OTT sales mode, red heart-shaped-thingies and rose petals getting in the way of my wine glass, compulsory set menus, and smoochy couples everywhere. I love being at home instead, and this Valentine’s, I would like to savour this over an apéritif of campari and orange.

2. For starters, a small elegantly-dressed plate of succulent scallops grilled with pancetta, and served dotted with creamed corn and just a touch of caramelised onions.

3. For mains, a risotto bianco with home-made pesto (made with a pestle and mortar and not a food processor, thank you). Frangelico is really good at the risotto and pesto from Jamie's Italy, and it’s become his signature dish vis-à-vis our Aussie cousins (Musical Chef Senior, Musical Chef Junior, and Gum Tree) after he made it for them a few Christmases ago. Next to this, I’d love a chicory salad dressed in lemon juice and olive oil.

4. For dessert, since he’s cooked all this other stuff, I’d be more than happy with a shop-bought/heat-in-the-oven sticky toffee pudding. But it has to be a particular shop-bought sticky toffee pudding, namely the one from Cartmel that’s hand-made from real food (no E numbers, inverted syrups, hydrogenated fats, etc).

5. It’s been raining again in London, and I’m feeling a bit under the weather. So to help me fight off the bugs, a small hot toddy at the end wouldn’t go amiss!

I’m starting to think that stating one’s wishes clearly is the first step to making them come true…

Love

Truffle

Introducing Frangelico

For a while now, I've been trying to think of an appropriate foodie code-name for my husband. I've spoken about him in posts before, but it's so oddly distant to use the words 'my husband' or 'hubby', because in my head I know him as [can't tell you his name here]. I asked him again this evening what foodie name we should give him. And he had the perfect answer: Frangelico.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce, also, the delicious hazelnut liqueur from Italy. You can read about the legend behind the liqueur if you click on the picture below.

We introduced this divine drink to some friends last week, who liked it so much that they had a bottle sourced for the bridal table at their wedding. It's a mellow liqueur, which when swirled in the glass gives you a heady fragrance of smooth hazelnuts. It's best with a few cubes of ice, but Gruppo Campari has a whole host of serving suggestions I'm sure. The bottle's cute too, complete with a monk's habit and cord.

Love

Truffle

Golden moments

A golden parmesan and chive omelette glowing in the sun. It reminded of me of another golden moment in Spain. Hope you're all having a great Friday! Our global recipe exchange is still running, so join in and make sure your part of the world is represented.

Love

Truffle

Global Recipe Exchange!

Ok, I've received 3 e-mails about recipe exchanges in the past couple of weeks. So, I figured: why not open a thread here for an exchange?

This way, you don't need to go through the whole process of finding 25 e-mail addresses to type out, edit the text of the e-mail to add your address, allow your address to be seen by strangers, etc. etc. And we might get more than 25 recipes. From all over the world!

If you'd like to join in, please enter your recipe using the 'Post a Comment' link below. As they say, the best recipe is one you can type out right now, from memory, and that isn't too complicated. So no pan-seared foie gras (unless it's ridiculously easy).

Please share this link with your friends if you'd like them to join in too.

Love

Truffle

5 Things I Wish I Could Do

Through ~Mañana Mama, I came across Kate Takes 5, a blogger with humorous posts that have me wondering if she's Irish. She recently listed 5 things she wished she could do and invited others to come up with their own lists. Since Cinnamon and Truffle is a food blog, here are some things I'd like to learn to cook:

1. Pan-seared foie gras. This is not easy, because the foie gras has to be of good quality (and the restaurants get the best ones), it has to be at a certain temperature when you cook it, and there's some process involving an airtight plastic bag.

2. A creamy, frothy velouté of Jerusalem artichoke. Where a soup goes beyond hand blenders into sieves and beaters, I'm going to need to see it done first.

3. An authentic Italian dish (preferably something pasta- and ragú-related). I love Italy and Italian food, and I'd love to learn how to turn out something effortlessly outstanding.

4. A Valrhona chocolate fondant (which I can then eat). The best version is made so that you can't detect any separations - it's a smooth transition from crunchy exterior, to moist sponge to liquid centre. Chocolate is, sadly, a no go for me (the most unfair late-onset allergy on the planet, surely).

And because Cinnamon and Truffle isn't only about food, here's my fifth wish:

5. Ambition is a good thing - it gets you places. But if I'm always thinking about where else I want to get, when am I ever going to enjoy the places I've reached? Didn't we all, at some point in the past, want something of where we are now? So, my final wish is to be able to accept whatever talents I do have for what they are and to enjoy them right now.

(By the time I got around to writing this post, the linky widget on Kate Takes 5 had expired. Which is a sign to me that I'd better get on with Number 5!)

Would love to hear from you guys on your top 5. And if anyone would like to show me how to make any of the above, your offer would be most welcome!

Love

Truffle

Maria's Sopa de Cenoura

One of the perks of travelling relatively often to the Algarve is that we get to sample some excellent Portuguese food. With more than 40% of the mainland's borders consisting of Atlantic coastline, the quality of seafood in Portugal is outstanding. When they say ‘fresh fish’ in the Algarve, they don’t mean that it was in a freezer truck for a week being brought to the city – they mean it was caught earlier that day, maybe even by someone the restaurant owner or chef knows by name, and brought straight to the kitchen. The fish is then grilled with the magical Mediterranean ingredients of olive oil and garlic. In what I’ve seen of Europe so far, Portugal has to be the place where I’ve had the best fish. The only other country in the world that can compete is Japan, but that’s almost 6,000 miles away…

Although I’m particularly fond of the seafood – probably because of my own coastal heritage – there are other much-loved dishes. One of my favourites is Arroz de Pato, a melting duck rice with almost-caramelized slices of chorizo. This is made by cooking the duck in a broth with vegetables, herbs and spices. The cooked duck is shredded, while the broth (with all the essence of the vegetables and the duck fat) is used to cook the rice. The rice and shredded duck are then layered in earthenware and finished in the oven, with slices of chorizo on top. I’m minded to try making this sometime. If I do, I’ll share a recipe.

Until then, though, I thought I’d have a go at something simpler (and far less calorific). Portuguese soups are another delight discovered on travels, and I picked up a recipe on my most recent visit. Most of the soups that I’ve come across feature some key ingredient with a base of potato, to give that cream textured finish: for example, green cabbage or kale for the famous Caldo Verde, and carrot for Sopa de Cenoura. This Sopa de Cenoura recipe is from Maria, a lady who joined my sister’s household last year to help look after the most-recently-arrived cherub. Maria told me the ingredients in Portuguese, so I hope I managed to catch everything!


5 carrots
1 courgette
1 potato
3 onions
3 cloves garlic
Some olive oil

1. Simply prepare and chop all the vegetables roughly, and boil them in water until tender. (Update: after a few tries, I've decided that best results are obtained by boiling in chicken stock, the salted variety or with salt added.)
2. Add a few good glugs of olive oil and boil for another 5 minutes.
3. Blend with a hand blender.
4. Season to taste.


That’s it. I realized, after making this at the weekend, that the quality of vegetables in the Algarve is pretty outstanding too – my supermarket vegetables couldn’t compete with the flavour that was coaxed out of the Portuguese ones. If your source of vegetables is like mine, I’d recommend adding a little bit of a stock cube or some bouillon powder at step 1. (I’d be interested to hear of the results if any of you tries this recipe with quality organic vegetables, sans bouillon.)

Serve with some toasted sourdough bread. For a true Algarvio experience, follow up with grilled fish, then a Bolo de Iogurte (yoghurt cake) with coffee.

To all our Portuguese friends and friends of Portugal out there, I'd love to have some recommendations of your favourite dishes to try on my next trip!

Love

Truffle

An Asian Food Excursion in Charlotte

I have a foodie friend across the street. A lovely Japanese lady, foodnamed Chirashi-zushi (CZ). Like me, she grew up in Asia, spent a considerable amount of her youth in Europe and somehow ended up in the States married to an American. Most of our meetings are spent over food and we always end up talking quite animatedly about tastes, recipes and ingredients. Having spent 10 more years in Charlotte than I have, she knows a lot more about good Asian restaurants and grocery stores. After many months of saying that we were going to go Asian grocery shopping together, we finally did it last weekend with our children. Our husbands politely declined to join us, not sharing our giddy enthusiasm for Asian groceries. Here are the highlights of that food excursion:

1. Met at Tin-Tin Asian Buffet in Ballantyne (50 mins South of Davidson) for lunch
I have never seen this array of food anywhere: sushi, dim sum, noodles soup, steamed shrimp, craw fish, steamed fish with soy and ginger, Malaysian curries, roasted pork, Thai desserts....I could go on and on. They even had my favorite sweet bean curd that I love from my Singapore days! The children enjoyed it very much as they were empowered to eat what they wanted, when they wanted. I only had one rule for them: waste not, want not.


2. Hatoya, a specialist Japanese grocery store in Pineville (10 mins West of Tin-Tin)
As soon as we stepped in, "Konnichiwa!" I felt as if I was transported back to Japan. It is owned and manned by a Japanese couple who speak very little English. CZ introduced me very cordially to the owners as someone who had lived in Japan and I smiled and nodded. I was given a little cup of tea and the shopping began. I had come prepared with a list and I made sure I got the basics: mirin, sake, vinegar, miso, nato and Japanese pickles. CZ helped me along with her quiet yet firm sense of a Japanese mother with my purchases suggesting good brands and encouraging me to get the instant broth to mix the miso in, even though I had been taught to make it from scratch with bonito flakes and seaweed (kombo) in Japan. Japanese women don't say "no!" nor do they say "don't". When I pointed to a Japanese rice cooker that I wanted to purchase, she very gently said, "we're going to Super G next. They have much more variety."

3. Super G (25 mins East of Hatoya on Independence)
This place completely floored me! It is a huge supermarket, bigger than Harris Teeter and holds only INTERNATIONAL PRODUCE!!! Korean Kim Chi? Neh! Mexican Habaneros? Si! Indian curry powder? Aaama, dee! The quantities of fresh produce was astounding. Not a piddly box of limp green chillies but an entire legion of them in a bright and shiny row! Gleaming fresh fish laid out in piles like handbags at Saks 5th Avenue. They even scaled and gutted them right in front of you! It literally was like being back in Tekka market.


Five hours and 100 miles later, CZ and I drove our tired children back. They too were happy as they had run up and down the grocery stores playing catch. Korean grandmas don't mind this as much. Mine were also looking forward to Japanese gummies, Poky sticks (OK POKY!) and a box of Turkish Delight in the trunk of the car. It was a happy day, searching for the things we loved and took for granted in our childhood. And I got my Japanese rice cooker. Chirashi-zushi was right, and I was very thankful for having her as a friend across the street.

Best,
Cinnamon

Endings and Beginnings

Assuming it’s not too late to ring in the new year (hey, it’s still January), happy 2011 everyone! So, I hope you guys had nice holidays. Mine sure were tumultuous. I know it can seem like the new year’s just an arbitrary point at which we humans decide that the Earth has completed another round of the Sun. But December, amazingly, was a month of endings for me – it was as if the Universe was determined to shake out all the old baggage it didn’t want me to carry into 2011 – and January has been a month of new beginnings.

I have so many things to share with you guys. Honestly, I have a list of at least 20 things to talk to you about, so I’m going to get cracking. The first is a discovery I made in my local bookshop: the latest book from Jamie Oliver (provider of perfect roast chickens and emancipation for undergrads boiling canned beans). Called Jamie's 30-Minute Meals, each recipe provides step-by-step instructions to preparing a full sit-down meal in half an hour. My first attempt consisted of tray-baked chicken with pancetta, mashed potatoes, an out-of-this-world creamed spinach, and a strawberry drink-dessert. The next time I tried a sausage ragú with penne, a zesty chicory salad, and a batch of mini frangipane tarts. Admittedly each meal took me an hour, but I was still impressed at what a short time that was to have made so many dishes in.

And everything tasted great. Having tried a fair few of his recipes now, I’m starting to realise what Jamie’s genius consists of – he has an instinctive feel for ingredients and where they can take a dish, and by combining just 3 or 4 flavours, he creates something really special. For example, the creamed spinach is flavoured with just spring onion, garlic, thyme and nutmeg, but those 4 things elevated the simple spinach and cream to a whole new level. The other major hit was the frangipane tart, with which we ended the wholesome penne and salad meal. Who knew that almond, orange zest and vanilla paste could become something of such heavenly, fragrant warmth.

‘Making a difference’ is one of the topics that’s often on my mind. So, I wanted to say: thanks, Jamie, for making such a difference to my new year, and for showing me that endings don’t always have to be sour and that some can be sweet and fantastically frangipane.

Love

Truffle

Butterflies in my stomach

Dear Mañana Mama, thank you so much for the cupcake. It was delicious! Love, Truffle.

My New Year's Resolution and the Concept of Incrementalism

As Truffle was busy traveling across Europe and India, I was busy taking a break in Davidson, NC. Not having my long 40 minute commute to and from work, I did not have time to think nor structure any posts for the blog. However, my family and I had a wonderful Christmas/New Year's break by staying at home and meeting up with friends. Not having the luxury of family close-by, we celebrated the holidays with our friends, who are our family here.

Look at some of our Davidson, NC highlights!

Gingerbread cookies shared with friends who came for dinner on Christmas day. Crispy on day one, evolving into the right texture with strong hints of cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice (Nigella Lawson, FoodNetwork):

Truffled roast beef sandwiches enjoyed between Christmas and New Year before heading out to shop with Artichoke Dip. Warm pink slices of roast beef dressed with truffle butter (couldn't find that, so mixed truffle oil with butter), arugula and shaved parmesan (Ina Gartner, Foodnetwork):

New Year's Eve Dinner shared with some friends and colleagues at home. Jamaican Jerk Chicken, plantain dumplings and corn porridge (Tyler Florence, er, yep, Foodnetwork. Hey, what can I say, I love their recipes!):

What I have realized is with this blog is that I am not a bad cook. But, I have not always this good. In fact, in my early 20s, I was a terrible cook. Even earlier, as a Singaporean spoilt-brat teenager at university in England, I did not even know how to heat up a can of baked beans. One day, sick of hall food, I braved making myself some baked beans on toast. I took the can of baked beans to the Staircase A kitchen, opened it and put it in the pan. Turned the stove on and looked at the pot. I had to turn to the Malaysian girl next to me, who was a regular in that kitchen with her red chilies and blacchan, and ask, "how do you know when it is hot?" "Er, give it a few minutes until the sauce starts bubbling." Not bad for that teenager to evolve into this chef, appreciated by family and friends, eh?

What this reminds me is an important concept I use in my life - that of incrementalism. I coined the word when I was overwhelmed by the Economics Tripos at university. The first year, I burned out with bursts of hard work. Second year, I partied with the best. The third, I came up with incrementalism and worked a little all the way through to get my 2-I.

I have incrementalism to thank for my cooking skills and I think about it a lot for my career. I took more than four years off when we had children and it ended up denting my career quite a fair bit. Not worries! I have another 30 years and I am going to slowly but surely crawl past those who got the head start when I took a break.

I am also going to use that concept to fulfill my New Year's Resolution for 2011. I want to complete a 5K with ease. I am not a runner and am going to train over the next three months slowly but surely. I am going to run a 5K on April 2nd in honor of someone I know who is suffering from liposarcoma and is raising money for Sarcoma research at Sloan Kettering. Please join me. Here is more information on the 5K.

I am glad that I remembered this concept at the start of the new year, as I embark on projects big and small, both personal and work related. I want to remind myself that we can achieve much, however daunting, by taking small steps consistently with a firm will. Anyone climbed Mount Thirumalai to reach the temple of Thirupathi in Andhra Pradesh, India? It takes 4-6 hours depending on oldest in your climbing group and the first half is pretty hard with steep stone steps. But you just have to keep taking that next step, have some faith in the powers that be, and enjoy the scenic views and the lime sodas as you climb your way to the top. Keep pushing your way forward, take a few short breaks, but you can do it. The destination is always worth it.

Happy New Year.

Love and best wishes,

Cinnamon

The Best Lunch Ever!

It has been very cold in North Carolina. It's been between 18F and 35F since Thanksgiving and us warm blooded folks are not used to it. It is meant to get this cold for a couple of weeks in February! Not so soon! As a consequence, we have all been inflicted with one form of respiratory illness or another, and this past Sunday required a heart-warming chicken stew of some sort. Moroccan Chicken Tajine was my answer.

I was very excited to use my lovely new green tajine I had recently purchased at Marshalls. It was made in Italy and a piece of art. Really worth the $20! I found a good recipe on the FoodNetwork, my favorite resource for recipes. These chefs who end up on TV kinda know what they're doing, and the reviews often supplement ingredients and methods well. I found a great recipe by Rachel Ray. To be honest, I find her slightly annoying (don't know why, maybe the scratchy voice?), but she really has some of the best recipes which are also pretty easy.

Here is her recipe which I have copied/pasted from the FoodNetwork directly. All credit goes to them:

"Chicken Tajine

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan

4 cloves garlic, smashed beneath the flat of your knife with the heel of your hand, discard skins

1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into large bite-size pieces

1 1/2 teaspoons grill seasoning blend (recommended: Montreal Seasoning by McCormick) or coarse salt and coarse pepper

2 medium or 1 large yellow skinned onion, quartered and sliced

10 pitted prunes, coarsely chopped

1-ounce box or 1/4 cup golden raisins

2 cups good quality, low sodium chicken stock, available in paper containers on soup aisle

Spice blend:

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika, eyeball it

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, eyeball it

1/2 teaspoon tumeric, eyeball it

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, a couple pinches

Couscous:

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 1/2 cups couscous

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it

2 scallions, finely chopped

Condiments:

Chopped cilantro leaves or flat-leaf parsley

Finely chopped scallions

Mango chutney, any variety and brand -- available on the condiment or International food aisles

Directions:

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan, in a slow stream, and add smashed garlic. Season the chicken with seasoning blend. Scatter chicken around the pan in an even layer. Cook chicken pieces 2 minutes on each side to brown, then add the onions, prunes, raisins and stock. Mix spices in a small dish and scatter over the pot. Cover and reduce to moderate heat. Cook 7 or 8 minutes, remove the lid and stir.

To prepare the couscous, bring chicken stock to a boil. Add couscous, extra-virgin olive oil and scallions and remove the couscous from the stove immediately. Cover and let stand 5 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork.

Uncover chicken and cook another 2 to 3 minutes to thicken slightly. Adjust the seasoning, to taste, and serve chicken on a bed of couscous. Garnish with chopped cilantro and scallions. Serve with chutney."

Now, I didn't have all the ingredients. Instead of prunes, I used a couple of tablespoons of Morello Cherry jam. I threw in half a jar of green olives that were hanging out in the refrigerator. What's Moroccan food without olives?I also used a basic poultry seasoning that I had which worked really well. It is important to dry the chicken with a paper towel before putting the seasoning on it. It browns better that way. I ignored the paragraph on condiments (didn't have any of those ingredients) and cooked it for 25 minutes on low heat and not the 8 minutes as suggested.

I thought 2 cups of chicken stock was too much as it was too liquidy. Thankfully, I had a big bottle of Wondra Quick-Mixing Flour that we had purchased for the Thanksgiving gravy. My brother-in-law, Dr. Thanksgiving, super-chef extraordinaire (oncologist by day) swears by it, and now I will too. I shook a tablespoon worth over the pot and all that liquid magically turned into a luxurious and creamy stew. Thank you, Dr. Thanksgiving!

Here are the comments from my family:

5-year old Chocolate: This looks gross but it tastes very good! This is the best lunch ever!

8-year old Vanilla: This is the best lunch YOU ever made! (I nodded and smiled knowingly, not wanting to press the issue. He read my recent post on Dorothy and is still reeling from the fact that I wrote that she was not a very good cook).

Prince Charming: Oh my god! This is amazing! Cinnamon, how did you do it? This really is fantastic!

I think I should get over that scratchy voice and watch more Rachel Ray shows on the FoodNetwork. Right?

Best,

Cinnamon

Hook, Line and Sinker

Ok guys, you're going to hear from me more often than usual this week. That's because next week I'm going to be at a wedding. (It's an Indian wedding too, so there's going to be a lot of food involved!) Before that, I'd like to share with you a few more discoveries from Madeira.

Bolo de Caco

First, introducing the fabulous bolo de caco. This is a flour and sweet potato bread that's served with a healthy lashing of garlic butter and herbs. It usually comes to your table before a meal (like bread rolls), but it can also feature in a prego, which is steak or veal sandwiched between slices of bolo de caco. Simple and delicious. The edges are crunchy (from having been cooked on a hot plate), but the sweet potato makes for a very soft, stretchy and yielding bread.

Next, take a look at this dish, from Villa Cipriani's pasta menu: a gorgonzola tortelloni in a pumpkin sauce, with shavings of crisped parma ham. (Excuse the picture quality, romantic candlelight doesn't make for excellent photography...)

Gorgonzola Tortelloni

This dish was incredible. It's inspired me to try (in the New Year) roasting chunks of pumpkin with a bit of pancetta and thyme, and serving it with some gorgonzola crumbled on top. Perhaps a nice accompaniment to a simple fillet steak?

Finally, this one's a warning. If you see the word 'pudding' (or 'pudín' or 'pudim') in a dessert menu in the Iberian peninsula, don't imagine (like I did) a nice, warm, comforting bread and butter pudding-type thing. What you'll get is a cold, heavy-set custard.

Not a Pudding

It wasn't bad, but I just felt so cheated! There was a happy ending for the pudding, though. My husband ate it.

Love

Truffle

Looking after Number One

We’re back from our holiday in Madeira, and I have to say it’s quite a shock to the system. We’ve dropped more than 15 degrees Celsius, we spent a rainy afternoon today negotiating jammed Oxford and Regent Streets buying gifts, and we returned home with damp feet to find that the heating had given up. So you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not feeling at all present, and that I’ve been transported to our afternoon tea on the terrace of the Reid’s Palace hotel in Madeira.

Afternoon tea is an English institution, and the English seem to have taken it with them wherever they went. In Madeira, I read that some people returning from sweltering in the colonies spent a few months on that island (to acclimatise) before heading back home. With all those long afternoons in a kind of limbo, it seems quite sensible and civilised to fill your time with tea, refreshing sandwiches, little sweet things and scones.

Almost as famous as afternoon tea itself are all the rules of etiquette and ritual that go with it. Some say that to pour the tea before the milk signals a quality porcelain cup (because a cheap cup will crack), while others say pouring the milk first prevents it from being scalded. The Devonshire school of cream tea applies cream onto the scone before the jam, whereas the Cornish school applies jam first (I can’t remember which school Foodie Doctor follows, but she did tell me when we went for afternoon tea in London). The pinkie question – out or in? The Reid’s book on tea insists that it should be kept firmly with the other fingers, because “it is not an antenna trying to receive the BBC World Service”. The sandwiches should all be eaten before any of the cakes are touched. A used napkin should not be placed on the table if you step away (because it’s the hostess’ prerogative to do so to signal the end of tea).

With all of this to keep in mind, it’s a wonder that afternoon tea is relaxing at all. But it genuinely is. With a view of the Atlantic, a mild temperature, and a charming Victorian terrace, I realised that I was finally learning how to holiday à l’Européenne.

Indian holidays are by and large, in contrast, nowhere near as relaxing. They usually involve having your schedule dictated to you by someone else, enduring plenty of obligation visits and errands, constant power struggles between competing (and often hidden) agendas that reach above and beyond just that one trip, and everyone piling in (invited or not) into debating every decision. I’ve had my fair share of these. I was pretty relieved to hear, though (when I mentioned this to my European husband), that he’d had his fair share of Indian holidays too. And then I watched that Thanksgiving episode of Dharma and Greg. If what I’m talking about doesn’t ring a bell, then watch that episode – they were definitely having an Indian holiday. I think I’m going to agree with the most powerful man on Earth here: “what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart”.

Love

Truffle