Tag Archives: Green Door Supper Club

Green Door Supper club news!

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A little while ago, I promised to bring some exciting news to you. So, here’s what’s been going on:

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–         CatfordCanteen To start with, not quite breaking news, but it’s never too much to say it: the next Green Door supper club is happening this Saturday! That’s the 23rd November. At the brand new, über cool Catford Canteen! We’re working very hard to deliver an evening to make Catfordites proud. There’s still a chance to book at GrubClub. The menu will be very similar to the last supper club we did in Hither Green, with rich, comforting Northern Italian food – which should feel like a hug under the arctic weather we’re expecting this weekend. If you’re undecided about coming, I have 3 words for you: home made nutella. See you there!

–          Now the really, really exciting bit: the Hither Green Christmas market is coming back with a bang this year, and the Green Door will be there, apron and whisk at the ready! It is now official: we will be serving the finest porchetta sandwiches all day on the 7th December at the F.U.S.S Christmas market. I am very excited about this, and the variety of stalls – food and drink and crafts and more – and entertainment will make for the happiest welcome for the man himself – yes, DJ Father Christmas will be in the house!

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–          If you haven’t seen this yet, the lovely folk at the Never Eat Wobbly Jelly blog wrote a very generous review of our October supper club . You can learn more about our food, and since you’re there, stop to look at other great stories, and some seriously good food finds. Their photos of Sicily make me want to pack my Sophia Loren sunglasses and fly.

 So there you have it. A lot of cooking, the new exciting Catford Canteen, and your Christmas shopping sorted with a day of mulled wine, choirs and roast pork in Hither Green. To paraphrase Gregg Wallace, winter doesn’t get happier than that!

xx

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Mini Green Door supper club with sort of porchetta: St Swithun’s Harvest Market

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It’s all kicking off at Larder Towers. Work is insanely busy, and there hasn’t been a lot of time to blog lately, so please accept my apologies for the temporary disappearance. I could tell you I’m halfway through baking a tray of award-winning featherlight macaroons – but in reality I am watching the England qualifier match and waiting for the pizza delivery. Yes, it’s refined dining and rock’n roll all the way!

I do have a backlog of recipes, photos and restaurants to share with you as soon as I have a little break. For now, I may as well get out of the way that the Peckham Bazaar has been the most exciting place I’ve eaten at in ages. Amazing. Bear with me and I’ll soon go through photos, their succulent-delicious barbecued lamb neck, and the resident cat I so wish I could take home with me.

What else has been going on? A few recent highlights:

  • The Green Door Supper Club joined forces with the Hither Green wine club again last Saturday, and we rocked a fundraiser for the Jimmy Mizen Foundation at the Café’ of Good Hope. And I still have no photos to show for it! It’s all a bit of a shambles with the blog lately, I know. But I’m happy to report that the Italian menu I had inside my head worked just as I imagined. It wasn’t all my doing, though. The lovely and patient Iris from the beautiful Whatever Gets Your Through The Day blog (her photos make me so hungry!) provided valuable advice using her Friuli credentials to tweak some of the dishes and come up with great ideas.  Thank you, Iris! As per usual, I went a bit off-piste and didn’t strictly stick to the brief of a Piedmontese 3 course meal. There were mushrooms (tick), osso buco (tick), but I also sneaked in a classic Milanese risotto, which in my book is close enough to Piedmont. This was my personal favourite supper club menu so far, which I may repeat soon, as I don’t believe you can have too much osso buco.
  • St-Swithuns-Harvest-Market-768x1024If you’re somewhere around Southeast London tomorrow, the Green Door supper club will venture into StreetFoodLand and serve a variation of porchetta sandwiches at the Harvest Farmers’ market at St Swithun’s church in Hither Green. Since I am not planning to roast a whole suckling pig, this is not strictly porchetta as the Romans know it. But turn up and you’ll be rewarded with a pretty close approximation of it, in the form of very slowly roasted pork cuts in a herby sauce served with crusty bread. It’s how I’ve decided to welcome autumn into our hearts. The market will run from 12:00 to 18:00 and I am delighted to report they are licensed – which can only mean a reliable Hither Green Wine Club presence! Alex from GG Sparkes butchers – incidentally, the source of that scrumptious pork belly I will be roasting tomorrow – is bringing some pulled pork pies that can’t really be missed.
  • There’s some exciting news I am hoping to announce soon too, but for now I’ll just keep the aura of mystery and dreamy possibilities.
  • And above all, I am one week away of ridiculously much anticipated holidays! My first ever visit to Sardinia is planned to start with a pecorinocouple of very long sleeps, followed by a fortnight of exploring what should be a very empty and quiet island in autumn. Pecorino tasting, litres of cannonau wine and some adventurous Tyrrhenian swims – I am told its waters are at their warmest at this time of the year (no, I don’t know either) – are all in the list. First in the suitcase are the names of special food places recommended by Luigi from the Capocaccia stall of Sardinian delights at Catford Broadway Market. If the cheese I had from him last week is anything to go by, this is going to be a superb holiday!

Special Green and Yellow Door Supper Club Night

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Last Saturday was Brazilian Independence Day. To make the best of that and the nearly tropical weather, the Green Door supper club went all bossa nova and caipirinhas, and threw a special South Of The Border night. I must admit I was a bit nervous of serving food that was too unfamiliar, and feared people would politely try some dishes, and return them only half eaten. Well, if that was the case, then what a polite crowd that was! This was meant to be a one-off, but it seems Brazilian food is more popular than I imagined, and we  may need to throw a few  more of those soon. Is next month’s Brazilian Republic Day a good enough excuse?

To add to the usual army of free labour we’re blessed with at the Green Door Towers, this time we had the Resident Vegetarian’s world famous caipirinhas to kick off the evening and put a smile on everyone’s faces. The wonderful and talented Martin Coceres spent all day documenting the carving, chopping, baking, singing and mild swearing that goes with the days’ cooking. If you’re wondering how come the photographs look so much better than my usual iphone shots, well, that’s why. Thank you, Martin!

On the menu: pasteis, the crispy pasties filled with fresh cheese, tomatoes and oregano that are my ultimate weakness and the food that would probably feature in my last meal on this earth. I also managed to get my hands on some charque – salt cured beef – which I cooked with plenty of onions and coriander and served inside baked pumpkins.

As with other supper club nights, I was amazed by how social these dinners are. It was so lovely to see people unceremoniously moving along tables, sharing drinks, and then next day to see them all chatting away on Twitter like old friends.

Above all, I was stupidly happy to see one of my all-time favourite desserts being equally appreciated by guests. Romeo & Juliet, the guava paste and white cheese flavour combination, served in a mille feuille incarnation, and vanished almost immediately with the last of the wine.

And to answer a question that came up on the night: of course the guava is Juliet!

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Supper club night in the Magical Mystery Garden

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I’m still trying to work out if I imagined that summer house. As someone said next morning: I would not have been surprised had a fairy whizzed in, rustling her wings and granting wishes.

Our friend Lynne made it all happen. Lynne already hosts the regular Hither Green Wine Club at her You Don’t Bring Me Flowers shop in Hither Green. On Saturday, she opened her house and the secret garden for a night of caipirinhas, food, wine, music, and a lot of laughter. It was a very, very special night.

Changing the world, one caipirinha at a time.

Changing the world, one caipirinha at a time.

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Tammi Sioux

Again, a long list of Thank Yous: the Resident Vegetarian made the killer caiprinhas – equally appreciated by guests and cook. That wonderful port was courtesy of the Hither Green Wine Club. As was all the wine, of course. The free labour came from various sources, and we worked my beautiful niece and waitress particularly hard. Thanks to everybody who sensibly refused to give her wine. Our guests were beautiful, funny, charming and hungry!

And Lynne: your home is amazing and you’re the most generous host in history. I can only apologise if you find remaining guests hiding in the garden and refusing to leave. THANK YOU, and I can’t wait to do another one.

Talking of the next one: we’re planning the next supper club in September. With a Northern Italian menu, and inspiration and working title of: My Nonna’s Sunday Lunches. It would be great to see you there. To book a place, email me at hungrylarder@gmail.com

Port companions: lime cookies, brigadeiros, passion fruit meringues

Port companions: lime cookies, brigadeiros, passion fruit meringues

a healthy measure of Pimms

a healthy measure of Pimms

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Watermelon Pimms granita