Strawberries and Cream: Jelly Edition

On the whole, I would say I find jelly more fascinating than I find it tasty. It appeals to the scientist in me, as it demonstrates a visible change in physical states. Proteins cool and bond, trapping water and turning a liquid into a semi-solid. Also, it's all wibbly-wobbly.

Eating it is a different matter. I want to like it, I really do, but generally I find the traditional cubes of fruit jelly dull and oversweet, and it's difficult to gauge how much leaf gelatin to use in any given recipe. But I still want to make jelly. The answer? To customise that shit, baby. Now I pimp my pudding by taking fruit jelly cubes and adding stuff.

I make up lime jelly with gin and tonic (highly recommended), I add citrus bitters to orange jelly to give it a grown-up, marmaladey twang. And now I've found something to do with strawberry, the boringest of all the jellies.

Take a packet of strawberry flavoured fruit jelly. Separate the cubes. Although the instructions say to dissolve it in a pint of hot water, I always add just a little water and stick it in the microwave for a few seconds to dissolve. This means you can add the rest of the liquid cold, and the whole thing will set quicker. Clever, non? Anyway. Add about 200ml single cream to the dissolved jelly, then make it up to a pint with cold water. Chop some ripe strawberries, lightly mashing a few as you go, and add them to your jelly moulds. Pour the jelly mix over the top. The strawberries will probably rise to the top, but there's not much you can do about that. Leave in the fridge for a few hours to set, and serve on its own, or with more cream and strawberries.

The jelly tastes creamy, but not fatty or cloying. It's a soft, milky, puddingish base that offsets the tartness of the fresh strawberries. And it's all wibbly-wobbly.

Cafe Maitreya

My father is a vegetarian. Now hang on, bear with me. It's not his fault, it's just the way he was raised.

Because he grew up before vegetarianism was really accepted as a thing that exists, he's gotten pretty used to not having much choice when he goes to restaurants. Let's just say it's a good thing he likes cheese omelettes. So when he came down to visit me on his birthday the other week, I suggested we try out Cafe Maitreya, a vegetarian restaurant in Easton I had heard about.

We could see why it has 'Cafe' in the title as soon as we walked in. The decor has that sort of laid back, daytime vibe, with light-coloured tables a touch too close to each other, big windows, and overpriced local artwork on the walls. It felt very informal and sociable, especially with the very decent music selection (until that abruptly stopped halfway through the evening).

We liked the sound of all the starters so the four of us ordered a different one each to make sure we would all get to try a bit. You've got to cover your bases. I had samphire fritters that were lovely, and as salty and greasy as scampi. Pete had an easy, classic asparagus and goats cheese. Mum had a 'weird but it works' radicchio, hazelnut and passionfruit salad, and Dad had a chilled garlic and almond soup with melon balls. I really liked the idea of this, but there was some sort of fortified wine in Dad's soup which made the whole thing strongly reminiscent of cream sherry. I marked that as nice enough, but more than a little odd.

For main I had spiced sweet potato pancakes with halloumi, while others had: 1) a coconut, cauliflower and tamarind laksa, 2) a warm salad of jersey royals, asparagus and lentils, and 3) a squash and applewood tarte tatin. Mum had read some reviews that said the portions were small, so we ordered extra wedges. The reviews were lies, told by lying liars. Do not order extra wedges. You will not need extra wedges.

The flavours of the sweet potato pancakes were powerful, but the texture was so dense and stodgy that eating it eventually became a chore. The consensus seemed to be that in the rush to pack in as much flavour as possible, a couple of things became a little overworked; the squash tatin was a little too sweet, some dressings were a little too acidic.

Despite the little hiccups here and there, we had a very enjoyable meal. Staff were attentive and friendly, and the food was, if not consistently amazing, always interesting.

It was also quite nice for Dad to have a bit of choice, and not be forced into a corner. If nothing else, Cafe Maitreya does an admirable job of proving you don't need meat to have a 'proper' substantial meal with strong flavours. I left with my belly all full of vegetables, and, as tradition dictates, farting like a trooper the next day.

Bristol Food Festivals

Against all the odds, it appears to be Summer. Y'know, an actual one. I caught the sun while wearing a t-shirt, thereby giving myself an absolutely epic farmer's tan, so there's no going back now - even if it starts raining tomorrow I'll have the embarassing evidence that sunshine actually happened this year.

Summer means food festivals, and in Bristol (the spiritual home of the grubby festival goer) there's a lot of 'em about.

Last weekend was the Foodies Festival at Bristol Harbourside. It looked like fun, but there wasn't a huge amount of detail on the website, so at £12 a ticket I had no intention of going. Until I won two free tickets in a Twitter competition, that is.

It was bigger than I was expecting, quite sprawling really. There were large tents for demonstration, but other than that everything was outside. Rain wasn't a problem, but there wasn't any shade. This became an issue, as on the day I went it was hotter than the devil's own arsehole.

The selection was nicely varied, and the options for lunch were excellent. I had a tasty if rather oversalted sauteed potato, saucisson and comte tartiflette, but my friend Anna really won the round with the finest Rib Eye Sandwich I have ever seen. It came from El Gaucho Barbecue, and it looked and tasted amazing (she was good enough to let me try a bit).

Shhhh. The meat is resting.

There were your usual stands of fudge, olives and sauces, and all of pretty good quality. We decided to pick up enough ingredients to have a Ploughman's for dinner. We got 'Wyfe of Bath' cheese from The Bath Soft Cheese company, some goat's cheddar, a garlic pickle from The Cherry Tree, and some venison salami. All were delicious, but the goat's cheddar rather suffered from the heat. The garlic pickle was particularly good.

In danger of sounding like a weak, wilting flower, I am simply not built for hot weather. I sweat like someone turned a tap on, and the efficiency of the irrigation of my underboobs make me consider using their design as a way to alleviate drought in sub-Saharan Africa. This was a heat that even gelato couldn't handle. I needed to sit down and have some fizz.

Classy

While Anna had a coconut.

Classier

Usually I would be happy to wander round indefinitely, but considering the heat (did I mention that? It was a bit warm) we didn't hang around too long. Despite that it was a well organised and varied festival, although I doubt I'd go again as I'm more a fan of the 'free' variety.

Speaking of free food festivals, guess where I went this morning? The Love Food festival in the Paintworks. No pictures this time, I left my camera at home.

Although much smaller, I think I enjoyed this one even more. The stalls with cooked food were outside and the rest of the stalls were inside, although in a nice airy, temperate space. As soon as we got there we were approached by a boy of about 12 offering us samples of baby back ribs. He had style, that kid, and the kind of grifting attitude that wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of Oliver! The ribs were pretty good too. Nice one.

We had pies for lunch. Mine was a pork pie, hand made with British Lop pork by a very nice middle aged lady. Her whole stall had the unpretentious air of the School Fete about it - a mish-mash of pies, cakes and preserves, all obviously made (to a very high standard, of course) in her own kitchen. Pete had a much more professional looking 'Bath' pie from the local company Lovett Pies. It had braised beef, ale and blue cheese in it. Very tasty.

Pete also got a hot chilli sauce called 'Fire Wata' from  Sister Gee. He was impressed with what he tried, and the man knows his chilli, so it's probably good. We went home with some Potato and Rosemary bread and some really ripe strawberries.

I think I'm about food festivalled out for now, so instead I might go round someone's house, take a look in their cupboards, then smile and say 'I might come back later' with no intention of doing so. Practically the same thing.