http://www.derekhenderson.net/
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
somethings coming....
watch this space
been writing personal stories
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From buttering bread for Pam’s sandwiches at the age of two, through teenage love/hate affairs of binge, past student budget evenings to my current working within the culinary world, food has always been a underlying distraction.The past two years found me wandering from previously imagined paths. After time spent pottering in a few shallow occupations, my deepest craving was finding a way to wile away the day constantly learning, achieving tangible results, and applying a little creativity.
A chance upon an advert and a hearty chat about food landed me in a wonderful nest of a subsidised kitchen tucked away from prying eyes on bermondsey street, as a help and an extra pair of hands, learning more about salad than i ever anticipated.
From there my mind wandered and a phone call, prompted through a bare acquaintance, saw me split from the leaves and land in a south london gallery with penchants for spanglish as a bushy eyed susan of a chef. The role is where i’ve now sat for a year and a half. When i began it was like a how to step by step guide in how working kitchens unravel the shady cookery of self education. Your reliance on old faithful books dissolves and you find yourself running before you didnt know you couldnt crawl. But it wouldn’t have been good fun if it wasn’t a bit tough right?
Anyway.
Here I am now, finally giving myself the space and time to accomplish a project that has been in intention for far too long.
A personal hoarder of all things ephemerial i constantly grapple for old cookery books, how to guides of radiation cookery, and many many more. Its a general habit on enterance of a new house that i nose for anything cookery book or concoction.
Interests do run a little wider though, and this enthusiasm expands to many shiny publications, and things visual.
Spent a few years sidelining things found in magazines and books through nosing and snooping online offline and round the corner to aid as my memory begins to fail me, all casually treasured under my elevenswans pesudonym (blog)
The decision to actualise this project finally comes through a pressing deisre to realise a project combining food, as its popularity in culture ascends, and all things visual, social and inviting.
As The very pressure of not doing so makes me twitch more and more as interests generally escalate, curiosities for cultural information surrounding edibles encroach, and the void of this object becomes increasingly apparent, but slowly neighboured.
My occupation has yet to install a confidence that this makes me worthy to tell you how to cook your dinner, and what you should do with your dinner for life, DFL, but it does fill me with lots of thoughts and social ideas, provoke many converstions on anything edible, and encourage me that there isnt a person who couldnt find curiosity in the consumable and execute it in a desirable way.
My personal intention is to collect, recollect, share, document, research, ponder, encourage, discuss and excite, feasting gently through the entire process.
If you’re obsessed with your pallette, and make decisions based on it, here are things i most enjoy shoving in mine
Classic foods that never fail to please me are, slightly predicatbly these days, a cured meat platter with duck hams smoked pigeons salami’s, chunky meats livers and junipers, the floral highs of rose and orange blossom, my slow cooked brisket, a perfect rare steak, the simple cicheti plates of venice, a courgette macerated, salty crisps artfully dipped, and any of this preceeded by a shared half dozen fresh cornish oysters one lemon, one shallot, one tabasco, black velvet on the side, and rounded of with tart lemon tart, so tart you named it twice, a rich blue cheese strong chutney oatcake tower snuck in, then all laid to bed with a night cap of steaming hot lapsang souchong.
A grazer a picker and a snail by nature, tapas encouraged dining where small dishes of exquisite joy bring delight and satisfy curiosity (not exclusively spanish in origin), or the trendy triad plate of seasonal ingredients, can only be overshadowed by the un-paralled joy of quietly cooking up storms for loved ones and whiling away an evening eating, drinking and putting the world to rights, perhaps not for the first time.
p.s i have to confess for better or worse to having spent a large amount of life keeping pepperami in business and i won’t apologise for that
Monday, 11 March 2013
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