Naturally interesting

Here in the UK there seems to be a big fuss at the moment about natural wines – strange, really, given that natural wine bars are already quite commonplace in France. Perhaps it's because wine is much more inherent to French culture and proximity to wine regions allows these potentially fragile wines to be served in more favourable conditions. ('Natural wine' is an unregulated term, but suggests that the wine has been made with minimal intervention and low levels of sulphur dioxide; here is a good explanation.) The growing presence of these wines in the UK and the Natural Wine Fair that took place in May at Borough Market have generated some surprisingly heated reactions. I wasn't able to attend the event, but I'd like to taste more of these wines, being a lover of quirkier wines (and bored with the anonymous, bland tasting alcoholic fruit juice that now passes as wine).

I did, however, enjoy some delicious natural wine over lunch recently. We selected sharing platters of cheese and charcuterie which were complemented superbly by the lively rusticity and fresh acidity of Terragno Dolcetto from the Colli Tortonesi in Piedmont. When the wine was first opened, perhaps because I was looking for it, I detected some cideriness on the finish. However, this soon cleared and I was struck by the wine's vibrant, authentic character. It had quite a funky aromatic bitter cherry nose, earthy, stoney and smoky. On the palate, yes, it was rustic, but it also had great purity of fruit. It evolved in the glass and, at one point, I got a delicious hint of marzipan on the finish, albeit bone dry. What's more, we were at Black's Club in Soho which was the ideal setting for this – atmospheric, bohemian and not remotely corporate.

We didn't finish the bottle, so I was able to bring it home where I polished it off with my husband. He particularly enjoyed it. By then, after several hours' exposure to air, it was tasting more gamey and savoury. It made no difference to my husband that this was a natural wine – we just prefer satisfying, well balanced, refreshing wines that don't taste mucked about with. The Terragno ticked all the boxes.

I don't understand why people are being so polarised by these wines. Recalling my Oddbins days in the early 1990s, specialist beers have had a large following for a long time (even the challengingly tangy lambic beers which we had no trouble selling) and Belgo restaurants probably played a significant role in raising their profile in the same way that bars and restaurants in London such as Terroirs and Artisan and Vine are introducing people to natural wines. There is now a definite backlash against the might of the supermarkets and the industrialisation of food (and drink), with people increasing concerned about the provenance of what they consume. Watch this space...

Terragno Colli Tortonesi Dolcetto 2009, Valli Unite
available from Aubert and Mascoli

Blueprint Café

The London restaurant scene is full of big names and big egos. Jeremy Lee of the Blueprint Café does not fit these descriptions, despite being much more telegenic than the usual suspects with his wit and wealth of knowledge and the fact that he is a great chef. We were treated to him, firstly as a contestant on the Great British Menu, and then as a mentor on the same programme. He also appeared with his friend Fergus Henderson on Could You Eat an Elephant? This was great television and I wish the producers would consider another series. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the launch of a book I'd worked on. The man is a national treasure.

I've always loved the Blueprint Café where Jeremy Lee has been head chef for the past 15 years. It has a spectacular location above the Design Museum on the south bank of the Thames overlooking Tower Bridge and serves well judged, seasonal British cooking that doesn't try too hard. It is a refreshing change from many London restaurants (and those names and egos). However, I'm not averse to big names: we've recently been to Heston Blumenthal's Dinner (more to come in another post). But there are big names and there are big names. Enough said. However, Jeremy Lee does a sterling job at the Blueprint Café which remains somewhat below the radar. Press and punters alike have become too enthralled by new openings.

Our visit to the Blueprint Café was on a glorious, warm evening, just before Easter (Maundy Thursday, in fact, so everywhere felt demob happy). We had arranged to meet up with some friends who live in Greenwich (and who had incidentally had their first date at the restaurant and were only too happy join us there). We kicked off with Negronis and settled on the fixed-price menu, with a bottle of the aromatic, yet full-bodied southern Italian white, Falanghina to start us off wine-wise. Most of us had the beetroot salad, mustard, horseradish and soft boiled egg and my husband had chicken liver pâté, pickles and toast. Two types of beetroot were in the salad – peachy tasting golden beets, as well as the usual purple. It was an extremely tasty, seasonal dish – perhaps a bit dominated by the fiery horseradish, but an appetising start to the meal. The pâté was richly flavoured, with a satiny texture: very fine.

Our main courses were the chicken, fennel, celeriac, puntarella (a type of chicory) and wild garlic and the smoked haddock, wild garlic mash, beetroot and horseradish. Some reviews have been critical of ingredients reappearing on the Blueprint Café menu, but it didn't bother me as the restaurant is so honestly seasonal (and I love the chance to relish treats such as wild garlic). These were delicious, confident, well-flavoured dishes and a second bottle of the Falanghina went down just was well as the first.

Moving on to desserts, the walnut meringue and rhubarb mess from the fixed menu was a decadent spring pudding, if a bit messy-looking. We also had rum baba with orange and lemon curds and ice cream from the main menu, along with lemon posset and rhubarb and we shared a 250ml carafe of Monbazillac.

We concluded with coffee and fresh mint tea, with the bill coming in at about £50 a head. I hadn't been to the Blueprint Café for a few years and was delighted that it's still as solidly reliable and that the riverside view has only got more magical (although the opera glasses are a recent development).

Blueprint Café
1st Floor
Design Museum
28 Shad Thames
London SE1 2YD
Tel 020 7378 7031
http://www.blueprintcafe.co.uk

Oddbins: the best of times, the worst of times

Yesterday I heard some particularly sad news – the Notting Hill Gate branch of Oddbins was due to close last night. Oddbins has been in a fragile state for some time and a few weeks ago went into administration. However, the closure of its probably most iconic branch is particularly moving.

Later this year I will be celebrating 20 years in the wine trade. I started my career as a graduate trainee at Oddbins in High Street Kensington, a short distance from the flagship Notting Hill branch. As now, we had been in recession and I was thrilled to have been appointed by what was, at the time, probably the world's most exciting and distinctive wine merchant. It certainly wasn't the salary (or the hours) that had attracted me to Oddbins, it just seemed, without question, the best place to begin a career in wine. The staff-training was exemplary and, of course, there was that enormous, eclectic range. As a recent graduate, it was the perfect place to start full-time employment. The atmosphere was casual (even subversive); you worked hard, but you played hard, too, and almost always with like-minded people, crazy about wine. It was thrilling working for Oddbins during its pomp and it has informed a great deal of what I have done since.

The Notting Hill Gate branch played host to our staff tastings – memorable because of the wines and the huge characters often present. The branch represented the peak of achievement within the company – the manager was better paid than most head office staff because of the continually successful sales figures – so it attracted some charismatic individuals. It was an exciting time. In the early 1990s London felt like the centre of the wine world and Oddbins was at its beating heart. In those days Oddbins was owned by Seagram and, as long as we sold a certain proportion of their products, the business remained viable.

There was a trade-off. Working at Oddbins became your life and you need to be tough (physically and mentally). Being a retailer, the hours were exhausting, but exacerbated by being an off-licence. Most branches didn't close until 9pm and were obviously open at weekends, and Christmas was the busiest period. That would be tiring enough but, being a key-holder, I would occasionally be called by the police in the middle of the night because the shop alarm had gone off. Sitting in the Camden branch on my own in the early hours with a gaping hole in the window wasn't much fun (with colourful nocturnal street-life ensuring you didn't nod off). Someone had to be there until the glaziers arrived the following morning! One busy Saturday afternoon when I was in charge of the shop the IRA set off a bomb across the road hidden a litter bin outside McDonalds. That was truly terrifying. A few months later once I had moved to the attractive Charlotte Street branch (gorgeous location and closed on Sundays) I was held at gun-point while alone in the shop with a customer on a sunny Thursday morning. Our attackers didn't get away with much as I couldn't remember where the safe key was kept (I'd just started working there), so they only took some notes from the till, cartons of cigarettes and some bottles of spirits and Champagne. Terrifying again, but pointless and pathetic. They committed 19 similar offences and went to prison for several years. These experiences demonstrate the extent to which working in retail makes you vulnerable.

Despite all the delicious perks and entertaining, knowledgeable colleagues, it was good to move on. I left Oddbins to join André Simon, the retail arm of Layton's (now Jeroboam's). I was only there a few months before quitting retail entirely to join Mitchell Beazley book publishers. For so long Oddbins led the way, attracting the most enthusiastic staff and offering a genuinely innovative range. Things have changed dramatically over the past 20 years, with wine retailing increasingly polarised between supermarkets and specialist merchants, leaving the high street "offie" struggling in the middle ground. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the future of Oddbins in some form and hope it stands a realistic chance of competing in this challenging marketplace.

The photograph is of the London Bridge branch, overshadowed by the Shard. I took the picture as I left the Big Fortified Tasting as it was such a powerful image of the old and the new.

Easter: treat yourself to fine chocolate

You've got to love Easter. It's an especially long bank holiday weekend – good food, drink and company and the chance to relax. And, of course, there's chocolate. On Good Friday, after enjoying hot cross buns for breakfast, I headed out to Borough Market to catch up with a friend and her baby. Returning home, I had to make a little detour to the Angel for some important shopping.

I had to visit my favourite chocolate shop, Paul A Young to pick a few little Easter treats. So far, we haven't enjoyed them all – we have yet to turn our attention to my husband's wine inspired treat (he's always sickeningly self-controlled), but we've already had mine – utterly gorgeous to look at and perhaps my most delicious Easter egg ever.

It was a couple of inches tall, exquisitely decorated and made of fruity tasting dark Madagascan chocolate, filled with salted caramel and a pistachio foam. A work of art.

I can't remember precisely what it cost as I've lost the receipt, but it was probably about £5 – I spent the same amount in Sainbury's for three standard Cadbury Easter eggs. Indulgent, yes, but this was like having a Fabergé egg that you can eat. But it's gone now. At least there's hubbie's Château Civrac 2006 Ganache Grapes still lurking in the cupboard and a packet of Lindor mini eggs left over from our Easter egg hunt. Great stuff.

Hot cross buns

It's been like high summer this week in London – very un-Easter like – and I had the surreal experience of making hot cross buns in such unseasonal conditions. Their spicy comfort seems much more suitable to cool weather, yet I forged ahead and gave them a whirl.

I used Daniel Steven's recipe from the River Cottage Handbook as for the soda bread I made earlier and was surprised how easy it is to bake hot cross buns yourself using a food mixer and dough hook.

Makes 8

250g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
250g plain white flour
125ml warm water
125 warm milk
5g powdered yeast
10g salt
50g caster sugar
1 medium free-range egg
50g butter
100g raisins, currants or sultanas (or a mixture)
finely grated zest of half an orange (I doubled this)
1 tsp ground mixed spice (I used mainly cinnamon with some ginger and cloves)

For the crosses:
50g plain white flour – I kept adding more flour as the paste was too runny and it was still too runny!
100ml water

To finish:
1 tbsp apricot or other jam, sieved (I used quince jelly)
1 tbsp water

Combine the flours, water, milk, yeast, salt and sugar in the bowl and fit the dough hook. Add the egg and butter and mix to a sticky dough. Now add the dried fruit, orange zest and spice and knead on a low speed until silky and smooth.

Cover the dough and leave to rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. Shape into rounds and dust with flour. Place on a floured board and leave to prove, covered with a linen tea towel (or in a large plastic bag) for about 30 minutes until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200°C and make the paste for the crosses by beating the water into the flour until smooth (add enough flour to make a fairly thick piping consistency – mine was too liquid). Transfer the paste into a piping bag or plastic food bag and snip off a corner to make a small hole.

Pipe crosses on to the risen buns and bake for 15–20 minutes.

In a small saucepan, melt the jam with the water. Brush over the buns to glaze them while they are still warm. Allow them to cool on a wire rack and serve warm, cold or toasted (and, ideally, spread with decent butter).

Soda bread: last-minute baking

Today we were due to meet friends on Hampstead Heath for a picnic and I didn't have any suitable bread to take with us. What I had was fine for toast, but not ideal for hungry youngsters. I should add that I'm currently well into my baking obsession and reluctant to buy any bread (particularly given the feeble offering at our local Sainsbury's). I've discovered that baking bread tends to be anything but a last-minute affair (unless you don't use yeast).

Well, this was a good opportunity to test out soda bread – something I haven't enjoyed home-baked since my childhood best-friend's Irish mother knocked up one Saturday afternoon when we were about 8. I turned to my copy of Bread by Daniel Stevens from the River Cottage Handbook series and quickly got on with it, mixing some malty flour into the white.

Soda bread

Makes 2 loaves

350g plain white flour, plus extra for dusting
150g malthouse flour
10g salt
4 tsp baking powder
300ml milk (or buttermilk, thin yoghurt or water)

For coating:
A little flour (they suggest that rye would be good)

Preheat the oven to 200°C. In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients and mix in the liquid to make a dough. I needed to add a bit more milk as my dough came up quite dry. I also added a splash of maple syrup. (The book suggests adding a good tablespoon of black treacle if you use wholemeal flour.)

Knead briefly and divide the dough into two. Shape into two rounds, flatten them a little until they are about 5cm thick. Shake flour over the loaves and place on a lightly oiled baking tray. (I'm suggesting this as my loaves got a bit stuck and I needed to use a fish slice to lift them off.) Cut a cross in the top of each loaf, almost through to the bottom and then gently stab all over with the knife.

Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the base. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

We pulled the soda bread apart by hand and ate it filled with ham or sticky cheese, nibbling cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumber, while sitting in the sunshine. A bit scone-like (maybe because it had cooled right down), but good nonetheless, and the malthouse flour adds decent texture and flavour. With a hearty soup or casserole – for dunking or mopping – it would be fabulous.