Macaron making

For our anniversary Laura got me a voucher for a macaron making course at the On Cooking school.

The On cookery school is run by Loretta Liu, who trained in Raffles, Singapore, under the guidance of Pierre Gagnaire (Gagnaire is an iconoclastic chef at the forefront of the fusion cuisine movement)  His thinking has inspired her approach to the unique flavours in "facing tomorrow but respectful of yesterday".

Liu has a her own distinct range of macarons with flavours including jasmine tea and charcoal, and mango with yuzu cream cheese. These are stocked in Harvey Nichols and retail at £1.75 each, alternatively you could get them from their own website here.

Anyway back on topic, on Wednesday I went on the course and had a great time, the course was good fun, light hearted and informative. The macarons turned out really good, and have left me chewing at the bit to get experimenting and making some of my own flavours.

Here are the fruits of my labor, not bad for a first attempt!

  

11 Madison Park

After the first meeting with the chefs at Christopher's it was suggested we all start reading more and come up with some fresh and exciting new ideas, Chef recommend reading 11 Madison Parks cookbook.

It arrived today and has blown me away, the food combinations are amazing and the dishes full of colour, the photography is fantastic, Francesco Tonelli is a true artist with the camera.

I definitely need to book flights to New York to eat here, since this book was written it has jumped from a 1* to a 3* so I can't even imagine what they are producing now, I'm salivating at the thought of it

Just a few pics of a truly amazing city

Kolkovna

Marinated cheese, smoked lamb sausages and beer cooked sausage

Prague

I'm currently in Prague, turns out its a beautiful city full of little lanes full of small boutique shops, cafes and restaurants.

The square has an Xmas market at the moment with stalls cooking chestnuts and delicious hams over an open flame, being served with potato and pickled cabbage...lovely.

I'll be posting pics soon