Stock Demonstration

Last Saturday we held another successful tasting day, with Gary cooking up quick dishes using the More Than Gourmet stocks. His simple scallop dish was very popular but fortunately there were a few scallops left over which I had for my dinner! Doing exactly what I saw Gary do in the demo I fried some onions and mushrooms, then some baby scallops, added a few blobs of double cream and a tiny (1/4 tsp) amount of Glace de Fruits de Mer (a reduced classic seafood stock) and a bit of brandy. The Glace de Fruits de Mer adds a delicious fishy richness to the sauce. I had the scallops on toast!

Coconut Fish Curry

A new range of spice blends arrived this week. Fabulous little foil pouches from Seasoned Pioneers with minimal packaging and wonderful high quality spice blends. We have about 15 different blends in the shop at the moment and after much deliberation I chose the Caribbean Poudre de Colombo Spice Blend as the one I would try first. The recipe suggested on the back of the pack was for a very quick and easy Coconut Fish Curry. It was so good that I’ve made twice in one week: once with Tilapia fillets and once with Tuna steaks. Both curries were wonderful but the different fish made them quite different in taste and texture.

The simple (3 step, 9 ingredient) recipe is on the seasoned pioneers web site:
http://www.seasonedpioneers.co.uk/recipedetail.aspx?rid=23&cuisine=caribbean

Spring?

For the first time in months we have had the door to the shop open! It was brilliantly sunny this morning (though I still had to scrape ice off of the car windscreen) and was still sunny at noon. So I pinned back the door and left it open for five hours. I can't feel my fingers now, but it has been nice to have the breeze and remove that barrier with the street.

Pancakes!

This pancake day we experimented with toppings from the deli. After dinner we made a batch of pancakes and added a different sweet topping to each. Traditional lemon and sugar. An American version with Maple Syrup. Not so traditional (but quite yummy) chocolate spread. Quite unusual Vanilla Balsamic Glaze, which was surprisingly moreish and would have been even better with a blob of ice cream. And my surprise favourite honey rum and raisins!

Healthy New Year?

There are a lot of people avoiding cheese at the moment, which is what I expected for January. What I didn’t expect was an increase in white bread sales. For the first time since we opened, and for three consecutive weeks, white bread sales have exceeded wholemeal. What is that all about?

Back again!

Two weeks after closing for Christmas we're back. The shop was exactly as I’d left it (thankfully) and looking quite empty. Its taken two days to refill all the gaps left by the Christmas stock and is now all ready for the New Year.

Recession?

Maybe it is because we had a town market and my deliveries couldn’t get through and I ran out of large bags of liquorice, or maybe it is a sign of a recession, but the bagged liquorice is no longer the biggest seller. It has been suddenly and dramatically overtaken by...small liquorice logs. Maybe there isn't enough money around for the large bags any more? Is liquorice the new recession indicator?

Tales of nice people

I think I've said before that it is the people I meet every day that makes running the deli so enjoyable. But it isn't just the wonderful food producers, it is the customers as well. Dan, who sells his wife Anila's, curry sauces at the Windsor farmers market, has been telling his customers that if they run out mid month they can now buy the same products in the new delicatessen in Eton. (He's a very nice man!). His customers have been popping in to see what else I sell, which has been wonderful! I got chatting to one and he told me about a recipe involving Halloumi and Capers (both of which I sell). He was having it for his dinner and very excited about it. And it did sound good; simple and tasty. The next day he came back with a photocopy from his wife's recipe book so I could make the same meal. (How very nice and unexpected!) And last week I did. And it was good. And easy. And the only thing it needed that I didn't sell was a lime and some fresh coriander. I happened to have a lime at home and made do without the coriander. And it was good. Delicious, quick and easy. I've since found the recipe on Delia's website so thought I would paste it here and share with some more people. Thank you Dan and the customer whose name I don't yet know!

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/fried-halloumi-cheese-with-lime-and-caper-vinaigrette,1315,RC.html

In the news again!

Someone mentioned that they had seen the shop in Berkshire Life a few weeks ago. I thought they were mistaken, but told Jay to keep his eyes out for the magazine just in case. I thought there must be another shop that looked a bit like mine and wanted to know where. But last week Jay came home with the October copy of Berkshire Life, and sure enough, on the first page of an article about the changing face of Eton, there is a photo of Tastes Delicatessen! Not a very good one though, taken back in May (I can tell from the window display) and not from its best side - the shop front is mostly in shadow. But it is there, amongst Coutts and the college chapel. Very fine company. The article covers a few pages and basically says how Eton has changed and improved in the past few months. It has more photos and adverts for some other shops and on the last page a list of things to do in Eton. And there we are again under “Shopping”! I wish I'd known they were going to do it, I could have sent a much better photo, but it is a nice surprise. Now we just need lots of people to read it and come and see the wonderful high street for themselves.

Good Feedback

The last few days have gone really well at the deli and I've received some great feedback. Last week I sold far more Epoisse than I expected and chatting to a boy from the school I found out why... It was part of a cheese tasting by the school’s cheese society and scored an amazing 9.5 out of 10! Then yesterday I had three different customers ask if I had provided the nibbles for a photography exhibition last Saturday. And I had! Apparently it had all gone down very well and they thought it must be from the deli! Three quarters of the chorizo had been eaten within half an hour and not a scrap of food was left by the end of the evening. It's wonderful to hear that other people enjoy the things we sell as much as I do and makes it all worthwhile.