La Fromagerie - French Cheeses From London - and can you make a sandwich for your flight?

French flag.

You don't have to visit France to buy French cheese. Not any more. You can get it in London.

UK flag.

Everybody knows Madame Tussaud's in London but not everybody knows that a short walk around the corner is the perfect place for trying cheese. When my widespread family visits London they divert to La Fromagerie to try and buy cheeses and stop for coffee and cheese. La Fromagerie's caffe menu offers a cheese platter with crackers and grapes to have with your coffee.

On my last visit I tried two or three cheeses. I intend to try truffle cheese next time.

This cheese platter offered a mixture of cheeses from cows, goats and sheep. 

You can walk into the temperature controlled cheese shop behind a sliding glass door. The cheese with the grey line through the middle is French cheese M o r b i e r. A soft cheese with a good, pleasing but not overpowering flavour.  Like a mild brie.

In a coolbox you can carry your cheese home or even overseas. Do check what you are allowed to import. Australia and New Zealand are pretty fussy. Remember that phyloxera, a teeny beetle like creature, wiped and the French wine industry over a century ago when these nasty creatures attacked the vines. When planting in the UK you still have to buy most vines attached to a different stronger root stock.

Don't make yourself a sandwich from cheese and healthy salad and forget to eat it and end up accidentally importing it. Sniffer dogs in the USA and Australia will catch the scent.

Singapore flag.

Last time I was offered cut flowers at an airport (Heathrow in London) I said, "Sorry I'm flying to Singapore," but the seller told me, "You can take anything that's cut, just not anything with soil and roots."

Hm. Not worth the risk. Don't take the word of the seller. Don't rely on what you could do on your last trip. Check the latest regulations for any country where you are flying, or have a stopover.  Meanwhile enjoy your cheese.

If you are invited to a wine and cheese party find out if the hosts want wine or cheese, or both.

La Fromagerie has three branches, the one I know well, in Marylebone (near Madame Tussauds which is in Baker Street, also near Sherlock Holmes Museum), as well as Highbury (where? you may recall the grouping of neighbourhoods Highbury and Islington) and Bloomsbury (over in the British Museum direction), as you can see from their website.

Do take a look at their website. I was initially disappointed that their cheesecake section is not cheesecakes. (Try a Jewish deli.) But instead La Fromagerie offers unusual cheese towers, made of stacked cheeses in assorted colours in descending sizes as you go higher. This could look good for a dinner party, anniversary dinner for two or many, a birthday or wedding.

Prices for their gift packs for cheese and Champagne and a cute single bottle carrier go up to around a thousand pounds sterling. Wow. If you've got that sort of money to spend, please invite me to dinner or come to say and bring me some goodies. If you have under ten pounds to spend and want an unusual gift for somebody else, or a treat to take home, or send home, they also do damson paste and truffle honey. That's different.

If you are having a party, or want a celebration dinner on arriving home, buy cheese flags or print your own and attach them to cocktail sticks.

La Fromagerie,
Moxon Street
London
England
UK

Useful Websites
https://www.lafromagerie.co.uk
singaporeair.com
visitbritain.com
https://fakingitfabulous.com/2019/05/05/free-printable-cheese-flags/

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Truffles: where they come from, where they go, how they get there

First of all, forget the idea that you can just rush out with any dog and find a truffle. First you need the right kind of dog, ideally a retriever type dog and one you have the patience to train. You need permission from the landowner, or factory owner who has his own dogs. You have to know where to look, have a good truffle season, and train your dog to stop running about and chasing other dogs and stop by the roots of trees and sniff for truffles for truffles. Then to dig down and to bring them up intact without eating them or destroying them. Not to drop them down the hillside so they disappear, nor start digging somewhere else and burying them again. You then need a restaurant or truffle factory owner who has the clients who want to buy truffles.

I found that truffles don't necessarily grow on nice flat land, but up a steep forested mountain in a place such as Umbria. You have to know where to park your car and have the energy to climb up the hillside.

We took a long path, snaking up and up. Then trees stretch in all directions. I soon got left behind. I had to force myself to puff up, to catch up.

Next is the treasure hunt. For our demo, it looked easy. The leader of our expedition admitted, "We could have saved time and just taken a truffle and buried it for the dogs to find, so we could then have taken you back down again in time for lunch. We didn't."

Naturally, I suspected that was exactly what they did. Yes, you might search and search for hours and find nothing. If it's been a bad season.

If you succeed, you must wrap the crumbly, strong-smelling truffle, and carry your huge dirty-looking brown truffle down the steep hillside again. Without twisting your ankle. I sank deep into the autumn leaves. It's not a place for high heeled shoes nor expensive boots or socks or trousers (as Americans would say, pants). The professionals have all the equipment. Even if it's only a big basket, probably lined.

You need to be a dog lover. And have the patience of St Francis.

I soon got tired of chasing three tail-wagging dogs doing giant circles in different directions. Dogs ran in all directions, up the mountain, down the mountain.

A Good Business
One of my companions from the UK later in the day looked out at all the careful planted and tended vineyards, with the factory with the huge steel vats, and expensive wood barrels at £1000 each to make, only used for two years, more or less, and remarked, "Truffle hunting is a great business to be in. Better than vineyards. Go out with a dog and dig up something which grows itself. All you need to do is find it and sell it."

Not really. Truffles, gold and silver, maple syrup - I went to the World Travel Market in London where the Canada stand served maple syrup every year (until this year when they served bagels). Canada makes maple syrup and has something like 50 per cent or more of the world's supply. They don't have the only maple trees in the world. But they have the ability to organise the maple syrup business and sell the top quality pure product competitively to what has now become a brand name.

The same happened with gold, silver, and railways in the USA. Along comes a Mr Big, organises the business and makes a fortune. The same applies to writing best-selling novels. In theory anybody could do it. But you need the determination to persist through the first year, or five or ten, earning money from some other source.

Other people in your area, or other areas of the world, can come up with a new product, a new use, new packaging. You need to find a new recipe. (Like Crosse and Blackwell in England, two employees who got together and bought out the company they worked for and built it into a nationwide success still going a century later. Heinz - not just baked beans. 57 varieties.

Fight through setbacks. Refine your product. Market your perfect product.When you get demand you have to be able to supply and not disappoint the buyers. Here's where we learned more insights.

Delivering The Goods
Our truffle makers told us the secret of their success, not just finding the truffles, but getting them to the truffle eaters. The Chinese also produce truffles. Those truffles can be shipped cheaply and arrive fifteen days later.

But the Italians can get their truffles to a New York restaurant by courier in 24 hours, says Giorgio. The truffles travel overnight. The truffle company can dig up a truffle, phone a restaurant on another continent, and despatch it by courier.

What if the courier lets them down? I bet you have to be up all day and all night tracking your shipment. Or have an alert on a hotline if there's trouble. Your Michelin starred restaurant has promised a customer, a client or two or three that truffles will be on the menu for a special dinner. You are sending truffles, fresh truffles mind you, to a wedding. You have to jump in your own car and deliver your truffle to the next city. Or send a member of your family or trusted employee, somebody reliable and enterprising, to deliver it. You have that delivery, and all future business to that customer and worldwide reputation, achieve, and to maintain.

What could go wrong? The carrier or courier is too busy. So you send a member of staff with a car. You get a call. Accident on motorway. Two or three hour delay, no guarantee when it will end. So you send a motorbike rider, or go yourself, on a motorbike. All the time, the minutes are ticking by.

The thought of it is enough to put you off your lunch. But it didn't put me off my lunch. Truffles are something of a learned taste. Like anything else, (I remember yogurt - didn't like it first time). I shall have to go back and try truffles three times. (Hint.)

Is there any point in acquiring such an expensive taste if you can't afford to eat truffles every day? Yes. Firstly, you know if you would like them for a special occasion or treat, such as a birthday or wedding. Secondly, if you don't like them, you know that you can donate yours to somebody else who will be grateful. Thirdly, if you have tried three or four times, different qualities, recipes, varieties, and you still son't like them, you can quit feeling that you are missing out and smile indulgently at the excitement of others. You can stop revealing yourself sa somebody who has never tried them, and talk knowledgeably, or express a polite and enthusiastic interest.

So, what if you don't know the people at the truffle factory and can't afford the Michelin restaurant in New York. If you holiday in Umbria you will find lots of restaurants in the locality offering truffles on the menu.

Don't worry that you are party to some kind of fraud. The factory gives permission to local people to go and forage and buys the truffles from them.

So, now when you are looking at truffles on the shelves of your supermarket at Christmas, looking at a special offer from a restaurant on wet Monday lunchtimes in January, you can look at the truffles on the menu and the truffles on your own plate, or the plate of another diner, with appreciation of what it takes to get the truffle from the earth in Umbria and across the world to the package or plate.

In London, England you can buy white and black truffles from Umbria in La Fromagerie cheese shop off Marylebone High Street near Baker Street station.

More information from:
http://urbanitartufi.it
umbriatourism.it
Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright, November 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

500 wines and salmon - more news about the super salmon

The salmon I found so melt own the mouth was from Hansen and Lydersen. The family business started in Norway. The grand-daughter has revived it in London. Her son does the smoking. I met a lady - I'm a bit confused, I am not sure whether I met his mother or his wife. Anyway, what is clear is that it's a family business.

The brochure explains everything in exquisite detail. The salmon is smoked in a mixture of beech and juniper wood. It is not frozen. It is wrapped in paper, not plastic. The London smokehouse will send the salmon to you the day that it is ready. Outside London you will get it delivered a day later.

So far, so good. But the really interesting thing for me was that you get different flavours in different parts of the fish. The salty and smokey flavour is more pronounced in the thinner tail. The subtler flavour is in the lower middle. You can follow their guide and choose which parts you prefer. If you order a whole side you get both and can compare.

Names to Remember
How do you remember the names? Norwegian names sound strange to people in London. Sen means son. Like Williamson and Robertson in English-speaking countries. So Hansen sounds like son of Hans. Lydersen sounds like son of Lyder. The family member who started it all was a salmon fisherman called Lyder-Nilsen. (Think of son of Nil or Neil). He was born in 1886 in Norway.

Fish Fit For A King or Queen
If you order the Queen Maud Fillet, named after Noway's Queen Maud, who preferred this, you get the most succulent part of the salmon.

Tasting and Buying
You might be able to taste their smoked salmon at restaurants such as Le Meurice in Paris or The Dorchester and others in London. You can buy and taste it at delicatessens such as La Fromagerie in London (one of my favourites - they have a great cafe cum restaurant. You might also be able to buy from Harrods or Ocado. In addition Hansen-Lydersen also sell at a couple of markets.

I must say that having tried smoked salmon in thick cuts, I much prefer this style. The thin slices you normally get in the plastic wrap packets from supermarkets seem awfully mean and tasteless - except for the ones which are over-salted. If you want to order online, you must order 48 hours in advance.

Keen Tourists and Big Buyers
You can visit their smokehouses in London or the Cotswolds.
Email: contact@hansen-lydersen.com

They have an amusing concertina book about the company with the addresses on the back.

email: orders@hansen-lydersen.com
website: hansen-lydersen.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Strong and Salty Crunchy Cheese

Food for thought - cheese. A great snack mid-afternoon when you sink.

I like salty hard cheese, ideally with a teeny bit of crunch. My two favourites are
1 Montgomery Cheddar, from England - strong flavour
2 Comté, from Eastern France, (their version of the Swiss cheese Emmental) has a slight salty crunch.

You can buy both of them from La Fromagerie, Moxon Street, Marylebone High Street, near Baker Street and Baker Street tube station.

See my previous posts on: cheese; La Fromagerie; and Marylebone; and Baker Street.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,a author and speaker.

Bailey & Sage For Fun Food in the Kings Road, London

We went to Bayley and Sage to buy cheese. London has a good selection of cheese shops. When we are nearer Baker Street station we regularly visit La Fromagerie. Near Piccadilly you have Paxton and Whitfield. Another cheese shop is near The Shard. Now we've found another great place, Bayley and Sage. First, a huge selection of cheeses.

Cheeses galore at Bailey and Sage.

The occasional gift for yourself or another - such as the apron with chickens and eggs, at about £20. That's a lot for an apron. I want it. I'll have to go back and get it.

Then you can have a mini quiche heated up in the microwave to take away. £2.75. We had a choice of three kinds. We chose salmon and asparagus.

When you are tired of green beans, try yellow beans.

Plus vegetables. Yellow beans to make a change from green beans. A huge melon.

You can get a double espresso to take away for £1.95. Nowhere to sit down. You could carry it back to your car.

As we were leaving I saw the giant meringues in the window. Various colours. All sugar, of course. How about something with nuts?

Little coloured macaroons. How much? We asked an assistant. £12.50?

Nice for a present. A bit expensive for our tea. Do you have anything similar, but cheaper? Then we spotted some giant plain coloured almond macaroons at £4.50.

Yummy. Then we inspected the packaging and discovered that the maker was Sally Clarke, whose restaurant we have been to for birthdays, very expensive but a delicious treat. We never tried out the patisserie to take away nearby. Now we have.

Bailey and Sage have a second branch opened in Fulham this week, June 2016.

Bailey and Sage
Parsons Green
34 New Kings Road
Parsons Green
London SW6 4ST
tel: 020 7736 2826

Sally Clarke
www.sallyclarke.co.uk

Boursin, Babybel, Laughing Cow Museum and more

I was sampling cheeses at a wine and dinner party in Hayes, England, when I was particularly taken by the flavour and texture of a soft, crumbly, garlicky cheese which I later discovered was Boursin. Boursin is not a region nor a type of cheese but a brand name. I was intrigued to read about their origin on the website and in Wikipedia.

The cheese making business started with a Mr Bel and family back in the late 1800s in France. Over the next century or two they spread to Belgium and Switzerland, the UK and USA, even as far away as Syria.

The company employed artists and film makers. Their notable verbal and visual success was the Laughing cow brand. Individual portions are a feature. B a b y b e l is one I recognize.

Now I have added Boursin to my favourites. It reminds me of another favourite.

I like Gaperon d'Auvergne, which is another soft garlicky cheese, but an acquired taste and hard to find outside France. You can get it, intermittently, at the speciality cheese shops in London such as Paxton and Whitfield near Piccadilly.

Also try to make a stop for coffee and shopping at the La Fromagerie cheese shop and greengrocer . You perch on the seat in coffee shop, better seats in the small restaurant. It's located near Marylebone Road, a quick walk from Baker Street station (Madame Tussaud's and Sherlock Holmes museums, if you are in London).

So it's a great find to discover Boursin, readily available in UK supermarkets such as Waitrose. You'll  probably also find Boursin in your local supermarket, wherever you live and travel.

• Laughing Cow Museum, France

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lons-le-Saunier

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Buying English Cheeses: Supermarkets, Rippon, Paxton and Whitfield, La Fromagerie

Truffle cheese at La Fromagerie.

England is famous for Stilton and Cheddar; France is famous for Brie and Camembert. You can buy these in most supermarkets in England as well as overseas. But there's lots more to buy in London at speciality cheese shops and from online suppliers.

La Fromagerie

I have already found a great walk-in cheese shop which offers you a teeny taste of any new cheese if you are obviously keep to buy - La Fromagerie.

At La Fromagerie I have tried truffle cheese. (The truffles which are mushrooms, not the chocolate truffles.)
La Fromagerie also stock a solid, dry, full flavoured, crunchy salt French cheese called Comte.

Paxton and Whitfield
Paxton and Whitfield supply lovely wooden cheese boards and expensive cheese knives. Great if you are looking for a gift for a host in London or elsewhere.

The Paxton and Whitfield cheese board with their name on it.

Paxton and Whitfield introduced me to a garlicky soft French cheese, Gaperon d'Avergne. Soft, white, full of flavour. Make sure your friends eat it, too, so that they enjoy it and are breathing the same as you!

Rippon

Now I have discovered yet another shop, Rippon, named after the surname of the two founders. They stock another interesting English cheese, Lord of the Hundreds.

English cheese? What does everybody already know about English cheese? Traditional English cheese from the ubiquitous cows in the green fields of England, which you often see from the motorway driving through England. You also see green fields, and cows, on the train in England, as well as in Wales, and Scotland. Britain also has sheep, and lambs in springtime.

Cheddar

Classic cheddar is the English favourite as you can see from the huge selection of Cheddar crowding out everything else in English supermarkets such as Morrisons which started in the north of England supplying food from farmers in England. No wonder they concentrate on what they were originally famous for, British food. You may associate the name of Cheddar cheese with the place name Cheddar Gorge.

The English supermarkets such as Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco, and Waitrose, now supply mature cheddar, which has a stronger flavour, and mild cheddar.  Grated or shredded cheddar, sold in large, self-sealing plastic bags, is a great topping for baked potatoes in their jackets.

You might also know that Stilton originally came from Stilton, which was not where it was made but the nearest pickup point.

Cheesaholics complain that plastic wrapped cheese is 'sweaty', and take long detours to find a speciality cheese shop. But if you are in London it's not much of a detour to three great cheese shops, La Fromagerie near Baker Street station, Paxton and Whitfeld, or Rippon.

The Rippon cheese shop is in Victoria, London, near Victoria station. They stock Lord of the Hundreds, an unpasteurised cheese.

The name Lord of the Hundreds comes from a Saxon Lord, or tax collector who collected from one hundred parcels of land. So I learned from this website:
http://www.finecheese.co.uk/our-cheeses/lord-of-the-hundreds.html

You can also find this cheese on line at a cheaper price if you shop around to read more about it and compare prices. This site says it's a vegetarian cheese. Hm, vegetarian, not vegan.
http://www.traditionalcheesedairy.co.uk/shop/product.php?xProd=7&xSec=14

R i p p o n Cheese, London SW1V 1SW.
(Sorry - I had to separate the letters. I don't believe it - spellcheck has turned the name into the more poplar word Nipon! That means Japan.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. 

Chocolate and meat pairing: Rococo Chocolates and The Ginger Pig

This is chocolate week ending with a grand chocolate show at Olympia. Several films have featured chocolates and even chocolate and meat combinations. Whether or not you have tried one of these before, chocolate combined with meat is an interesting experience.

If you are looking for fun evenings out three shops near Baker Street and Madame Tussauds offer a huge choice of events. Cross the road opposite Madame Tussauds next to Baker Street station, walk left along the road to Marylebone High street. Beyond the mini park is a side street, Moxon Street, continuing The Ginger Pig where you can buy meat, next door is La Fromagerie where you can buy fruit and cheese and have coffee and cake or a meal, and opposite is the Rococo Chocolate shop. All three have leaflets about forthcoming events. You can also check out their websites.

I went to an event at which the Ginger Pig and the Rococo chocolate shop had combined to provide an evening of chocolate and meat pairing. The evening cost £25 and we tasted beef and chocolate, parma ham and chocolate, and truffle chocolate with duck confit.

We received a very informative talk from the PR lady from the Ginger Pig and a man from the Rococo chocolate shop.

I learned the history of the Ginger Pig farms in England and how customers ask if they make Parma ham, which is something they have to import because Parma ham means it comes from Parma in Italy and is a protected name. We started with delicious thinly sliced beef, combined with chocolate, a surprisingly good combination. Next was peppery chocolate with child, which some loved but I found the child overpowering.

For me the most visually appealing and unusual meat was the salami with slices of hazelnut. I'm not a fan of salami, which I usually find fatty and as I'm on a beat cancer diet I generally avoid processed foods. But if you do like salami, it's great. If you want to serve it to others, it would be a novelty starter or main course or buffet selection for a dinner party or special occasion.

The other good thing about the evening was we were able to linger in the downstairs room as a group, chatting to the organisers and each other, so it was a convivial social occasion. (Not like some wine tasting where you feel you are lectured at, ignored by other guests who are in twosomes ignoring you, and made to feel that you are expected to leave unless you are buying, or end so late you need to leave the party and rush for your train.)

At the end of the evening we were offered a chance to finish off the leftover meat. I have to say that combining met with chocolate enables you to eat half a dozen chocolates without feeling overwhelmed by the sugar. However, you have piled on the calories and feel fully the end, without any bread or vegetables.

If I were serving at home, I would include fruit and vegetables. Meat and chocolate is a pretty unbalanced combination if you are not eating anything else. We had bought ourselves coffee and  cheese and grape platter in advance over the road in La Fromagerie. The man from Rococo chocolates, in whose basement we met for the evening event, said that when he served a chocolate 'kebab' or canapé at the chocolate show at the end of the week he will add dried fig to the chocolates. I feel that the addition of fruit is a good idea.

Full marks to the organisers. The only thing missing was a card and free gift party bag to take home.  They also missed out on a chance to give us a discount, a two for one offer, or a free or cheap or expensive pack continuing a free apron or tea towel.

We did manage to put a business card in the card collecting container on the shop counter for a prize drawer.

Another guest was smart enough to think of having a selfie taken with one of the organisers, which I had forgotten, so before I left I did that. (Reminder to self, always have lipstick on and hair combed ready for a selfie with the organisers.)




All in all, educational, entertaining, social, great networking and good company.

For details of the chocolate show, tickets and pictures, see:
http://www.salonduchocolat.co.uk/visit.aspx

For the Rococo Chocolates shop:

http://www.rococochocolates.com
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.

Roquefort cheese - where from?

If you want to start a debate over a wine and cheese session you could ask people to tell you where they think the locally available cheese comes from. French hotels are famous for their extensive cheese boards. You may well be offered a choice from a two tier trolley with cow's cheese on one level and goat and sheep cheese on the other.

A recent debate ensued regarding the origin  of Roquefort. One person had driven through a place called Roquefort in France and assumed the cheese came from there. However, a Google search revealed that there are four or five places with Roquefort as all or part of their name, one south west, one south east.

The real Roquefort in a place with Roquefort as part of the name, because some king or other gave it the right to use the name.

Excuse me, just eating my Roquefort.

Fort - fort or strong.

Roque - sounds like rock, doesn't it!

Strong cheese. A blue sheep's cheese.

If you want French cheese in central London, you could go to a speciality shop such as Paxton and Whitfield or La Fromagerie. Alternatively try the deli department of a big store such as Fortnum's or Harrods.

More details from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roquefort
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187149-d266702-Reviews-Roquefort_Cheese_Caves-Languedoc_Roussillon.html

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker.

Pork, pies, bergamot, French cheese, and chocolates for choosy people in London

La Fromagerie
   You pass through the fruit and vegetable area. We bought purple carrots and bergamot.
Bergamot, the size of a large orange or small grapefruit. Tastes tart as lemon. Very aromatic. That perfume was used in Earl Grey tea, made famous by Twinings. Then, if I understood right, a smaller crop resulted in a shortage of bergamot and high prices so the amount of Bergamot was reduced in the brand leader and big seller of the tea. Maybe another year bergamot will be restored to favour and flavour. Just rubbing a slice of the peeled off skin around the taps and sink in an effort to reduce limescale produced a wonderful aroma.

    Back to the subject of the place where we bought Bergamot, La Fromagerie. The cheese room is chilled behind a sliding glass door.
   If you are feeling hungry or thirsty, try a slice of cake. Backless wooden stools and tables, not for lingering. But good for a quick coffee on your way home to the station.
  I highly recommend the frangipane.
Toilets downstairs in the basement.

Seasonal fruits included bergamot in November 2014.

 Next door is The Ginger pig. Dry cured hams, bacon, sausages, homemade charcuterie. Meat hug for longer than that served by most supermarkets. Deli counter has pies to take away.

The Ginger Pig

Rococo Chocolates
   Opposite is a Rococo Choclates shop. Expensive - suitable for somebody who does not want regular brands from supermarkets such as Waitrose and Tesco. (You can buy me Thorntons chocolates from Tesco and chocolates from Marks and Spencers!) But I have Asian friends who expect a novelty chocolate as a thank you if they invite you to dinner at an expensive restaurant.
Another branch of this shop is in Knightsbridge near Harrods and Petrus restaurant.

All in Moxon Street off Marylebone High Street near Madame Tussauds and Baker Street station, London.

(Post under construction. I stopped to eat. Come back later.)

Waitrose Hot Curry and hand wash Gel at The White Company Shop's cooling Perfumed Hand Wash in Marylebone High Street

The White Shop sells aromatic soaps (£6) and shower gels and room refreshers. 

My favourites include Seychelles. It's rather expensive for every day but if you are looking for a birthday, wedding anniversary, or Christmas present and want something small enough to go in a Christmas stocking, here's one answer.

The household items include a spray or an infuser with what looks like incense sticks. Very good if you've had somebody smoking or causing another unpleasant smell (a dog, a person, mould, an empty house, for house owners, parents, morning after the party before. Also useful for a landlord freshening up for house viewings when renting looking for a new tenant - or a letting agent. A cheaper version is from IKEA.) The White Shops's rose and lavender are good.

An assistant will locate the tester for the aroma you want and spray onto your hand or hers or a piece of paper.

Waitrose Hot Food
Across the road from the White Company is a Waitrose supermarket. This branch does not have a cafe. (If you want a cafe, there's on in the Waitrose almost opposite South Harrrow station - about 500 metres from that station.). However, the Marylebone branch has a counter serving takeaway hot Indian food, rice and curries, at reasonable prices.

If you want to sit down for coffee between Marylebone High Street and Baker Street station, see my next post about Moxon street, a few paces further, offering meat and pies at The Ginger Pig, fresh fruit, cheeses, and cake and coffee at La Fromagerie, and chocolates at Rococo.

Shopping For Food For Dinner & Dinner Parties In London

Dinner party with napkins depicting grapes. Paper napkins bought from one of the vineyards and museum shops in the Rioja region of Spain.

Dinner Party Checklist

I recently attended a family and friends dinner party. First find recipes you like using seasonal foods. Some people think red wine is warming in winter. It certainly is, in colour, although for years I served only white wine because I was allergic to tannins and wanted to save my white tablecloths from stains.  

Our starter was salmon en croute, home made. We used salmon bought from Waitrose supermarket and readymade roll out fill pastry but added the butter sauce between the salmon and cooked the salmon and sauce in the pastry fresh for the dinner party. Make sure you buy plain salmon, not lightly smoked.

Use dill butter. Add lemon zest (from a fresh lemon) in the dill mayonnaise sauce. Mayonnaise is only egg yolk and vegetable or olive oil. You can make garlic mayonnaise with fresh garlic. A short cut if you are short of time - use bottled dill mayonnaise.

We served the salmon with three dips, wholegrain mustard, mayonnaise.

On the subject of meat vendors, our chef/cook, call the host what you will, says the rack of lamb was from The Ginger Pig. This amazing shop is in Moxon Street, Marylebone, near Baker Street station, which is conveniently on the Metropolitan, Circle, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines. (The pig breeds are on the Ginger Pig shop website.) 

Herbs included rosemary from the garden. Rosemary is a shrub which grows all year. 

It's very easy to grow. You just pick off a bit from a plant and stick it in the ground and water it. We've had so much rain in England that unless you plant your cutting in a hot, dry summer spell, you hardly need to look at it again. But then, I probably would go out watching anxiously over my cutting for a week to check it still looked all right. And I'd plant half a dozen cuttings. Then if one failed, or only one succeeded, I'd be certain of gaining at least one new plant. 

If you live near me and know me, just ask, and I'll let you take a cutting. Better still, I'll cut off a piece, I will feel generous, you will feel favoured, and I will put it in a plastic bag for you to take home.

In addition to rosemary, the family bought fresh basil and thyme from Waitrose. I'm not sure it added anything to the flavour of the food. But it does give aroma to the kitchen and home to welcome guests.

The Suffolk Charlotte potatoes, carrots, Italian grapes and cheeses (Petit Taupiniere and not Brie de Meaux but Brie de Melun) were from La Fromagerie next door to the Ginger Pig, in Moxon St.

We ran into a problem with our dessert of hot pineapple in syrup contrasting with cold vanilla ice cream. One of the guests was allergic to pineapple. So the cook quickly put an apple in the oven to bake.

We forgot that you have to make a horizontal cut around the middle of the apple to stop it bursting. So we hid the fact that the apple had burst by hiding it in a large bulbous cup. Bulbous meaning a large round shape cut which looks as though the top is cut off, so just the top of the apple shows.

You put sultanas and a sweetener in the middle. Our traditional family recipe required you to cut chunks out of the middle of the cored apple. You can mix in chopped nuts, flaked nuts, almonds (not if your sensitive guests are allergic to nuts - best to ask first. For sweetness, honey, marmalade, best of all your own syrup made from brown sugar dissolved in hot water with added flavours such as cloves or star anise. You could add juice from tinned fruit. Purists add chunks or puree from any other fruit.

On this occasion we served a gritty chocolate. The smoothest, milkiest chocolate we've found is Lindt. Green & Black's do lots of bars of dark chocolate with fruit flavours and spices.

The chocolate brand we used on this occasion was Dolceria Bonajuto which our cook buys at Gelupo, Archer St.  They do a great affogato too!

For more about ice cream see next post.

Angela Lansbury is a travel, food and wine writer, author of 20 books (10 by traditional publishers, 10 self-published). You can watch Angela talking about table etiquette on YouTube. (Angela Lansbury the actress is likely to pop up first, so type in Angela Lansbury author or Angela Lansbury poet or Angela Lansbury speaker Toastmasters.) You can read posts by Angela on her other blogs, also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Buying Irish washed rind cheese from La Fromagerie in London

Trying cheeses.

Today I decided that you need a biscuit or cracker with a strongly-flavoured washed rind cheese - because/if the rind has been washed in brine (salt water).

As a consumer when shopping you can ask the cheese seller in a shop which cheeses are washed rind cheeses.

Or look for the tell-tale orange outside.

For example, Durrus, a cheese from County Cork, Ireland, is a washed rind cheese. We bought it from La Fromagerie in London. They have a shop near Baker Street. They were also exhibiting at the Restaurant Show in Earls Court Exhibition Centre, London.

This is La Fromagerie's display of cheeses which the chefs and restaurant owners could try at the Restaurant Show.

www.durruscheese.com

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrus_cheese

www.lafromagerie.co.uk

Angela Lansbury is a travel, food and wine writer, blogger, photo-journalist and author. She also does caricatures, gives speeches and trains speakers and teaches English. See more about her on Lulu.com, other blogs by her, on Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn

How read a bottle label and buy and try grapes, luscious sweet wine, Sauternes style

What does this mean? Grains nobles, in French, translates into Noble Rot in English.

In a late summer, in England called an Indian summer.
You can get the grey mould earlier in the year. But later - the
amount of sugar is same but the grape skin splits and water evaporates leaving a concentrated flavour.

The capital letter of Sauternes should give you a clue that it is a region. Wikipedia says:

Sauternes is a French sweet wine from the Sauternais region of the Graves section in Bordeaux. Sauternes is made fromSémillon, Sauvignon blanc, and Muscadelle grapes that have been affected by Botrytis cinerea, also known as noble rot. 

If you are not into wine, here are some grapes bought in London from La Fromagerie (near Baker Street station).