A Christmas Competition

Although we are a resolutely atheist secular family the winter holidays do offer an excellent chance to express our British socialisation norms and get everyone together to share some time. Trouble is, the standard pastimes of such Xmas gatherings, eating, drinking and slumping in front of the television always leave one feeling vaguely cheated of shared topics of interest and close interaction.

This year a plan was hatched to keep the creative and competitive animals engaged while still feeding the inner beasts.

We decided on a contest. Originally inspired by Masterchef Professional that format was quickly ditched as too complicated to administer and judge, not to mention far too filling with 5 cooks at the pass. So the brief was to produce a small amuse bouche or appetiser, just a mouthful or two for each person to taste and judge.


Tapenade Toast - a really simple tasty morsel that was absolutely on target in my opinion, savoury, crispy and making you hungry for more.

The points were awarded via an anonymous online questionnaire for originality, presentation, deliciousness and christmassyness. That last category did cause some problems as it's a bit intangible and some complained they weren't given enough warning.


Hearts of Almond - a raw savoury marzipan served on tiny crispy crackers and beautifully presented. Recipe available on request.

Everybody tried hard and the standard was extremely high, with just six points between the lowest score and the highest.


Three Types of Tart - Red pepper, Pea and aparagus and a rich Onion Jam on the thinnest of crisp pastry shells. Delicious.

We had to take turns in the kitchen, looking over each other's shoulders and helping out (and making helpful remarks, which isn't quite the same thing) but the gaps between each presentation helped to keep our appetites sharp and our appreciation honed.


Polenta Fusion - Polenta Chips with Japanese seasonings and a seaweed salad garnish.

I was grateful that my Stripey Son and the former Mr. Stripey, neither of whom are vegan, kindly adapted their ideas so that all the offerings in the contest were animal free and could be enjoyed by everyone.


Cold and Hot Fruits - a chilly red fruit sorbet served with a mulled spiced warm tangerine cocktail. A taste sensation.

I'm not going to reveal the winner, see if you can guess.

Underground Pop Up Supper Clubbing

Last night was the final date for the three public dining dates I'd arranged for this autumm. I haven't felt able to blog about the venture during the last month as it's been something of a roller coaster of emotions, confusion and disappointments and I didn't want to project the wrong impression while I was still trying to encourage people to join the meals.



Keen eyed observers will have spotted that although we had a successful 'dry run' of the Newport Pagnell event with friends from London the actual public night was cancelled as there were only two confirmed bookings by the date and it seemed unfair to get those kind and trusting people to turn out for something that would not, could not be as billed.

This was very disappointing and I put it down to a combination of my poor marketing skills and a dearth of vegan interest in the area.



However to confound my despair the next planned evening, in Nottingham, sold out and we even had a short waiting list. This was more as I'd been hoping and planning for and it was good to give my fledgling catering skills a work out in Paul and Alex's kitchen with tables full of hungry diners to enjoy the food. It seemed to go well with few problems and I hope everyone was as happy and pleased with it as they seemed to be. Nottingham vegans and their friends really are very sociable and lovely.

Particular thanks to Adrian at the Vegan Nottingham guide for allowing me to advertise on his site, it made all the difference.



And so to last night in Ealing. We tried in every way we could to publicise this dinner, with notices in local health food shops, on Twitter, on Supper Club Fans, with a Facebook page, on the Vegan Forum and by plain old begging of our friends and relatives but although I had thought something in Greater London could hardly fail in the end we had just one erstwhile friend in attendance. A very pleasant dinner in great company was had but it could not be described as any sort of public event or successful as a supper club meal.



So, regretfully, the supper club experiment has now ended and it doesn't look like it's worthwhile to try to take it on any further. Time to think of some new adventure to try.