I am sure it
was the last government who said, “No more boom and bust”. If you take an
average of December and January in terms of trading figures, you get a good but
not spectacular month. December was a hugely busy month but January is never
really poor, but is never really busy either.
Restaurants
work best when they are busy, staff tend to be motivated more, customers like
the buzz and atmosphere, and owners worry less. If every month was December, the business would
be very profitable but I wonder if the product would be as good. Lots of big
tables mean a fast and slow service. It is much easier to send six tables of
two than a table of twelve, and much easier to serve and clear from the front
of house point of view. The best case scenario would be full, but not crazy
full, with tables of two and four, in time slots ranging from 6.30 to 9.30. We
can but dream.
Every one, I
know at the moment seems to be on a diet or detox. They have over done it in
December and want to make amends in January. I must admit that I have tried to
cut down as well, I see my old friend, “glass of wine” much less often but I
think the trick is not to cut down entirely. Like all good friendships, you can
pick up where you left off. It is increasingly
obvious to me that, as I get older, things have to be done much more in
moderation.
It is important not to cut out the things in
life that make us happy. Cream cakes, glasses of wine, M&S trifle from the
bowl in front of the telly (you know who you are) bacon sandwiches, chips,
burgers etc. To my mind, and it might be this only works with me, is to cut
down on the luxury to maybe once a week, and be a monk the rest of the week. I
have heard that with meat we should eat better quality, less often. Perhaps
binge on a Saturday to keep us sane and take it easy the rest of the week.
With that in
mind and to those of you who don’t care, I have included a couple of recipe’s
that do not pretend to be healthy but ones that might actually get you through the
week.
100ml milk
with splash of rum
90g banana
10g sugar
100g butter
100g flour
3 eggs
Puree Banana
with sugar, boil milk and butter, add puree and re boil. Add flour and cook out
for 1 minute, put mixture in food processor and once cool, add 1 egg at a time
until fully mixed. Fry small tea spoons of the mixture until golden and drain
on kitchen paper.
Chocolate
sauce
300ml
whipping cream
25g sugar
185g dark
chocolate
Boil cream
and sugar, add chocolate and take off the heat.
To serve,
place Beignets on the plate with a little chocolate sauce and a scoop of ice
cream.
Sicilian
Cannoli
200g plain
flour
40g butter
30g caster
sugar
70ml Marsala
1 egg beaten
Make a dough
with the flour, butter, sugar and Marsala, rest for one hour. Roll out to 1mm
thickness and cut out 8cm discs with a cutter. Roll the discs round a small
rolling pin or saucepan handle until the edges touch, stick edges with the
beaten egg. Deep fry on 150 degrees until golden, drain, set aside and dust
with icing sugar. To serve fill with sweetened Ricotta or Vanilla whipped
cream.
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