Lindsey Bareham - The Trifle Bowl and Other Tales

One cook, her kitchen and a lifetime of recipes

A cookery book like no other, The Trifle Bowl and Other Tales is a dip into Lindsey Barehams kitchen, introducing us to more of her tempting, easy-to-follow seasonal recipes, this time organized by the well-loved and well-used pots, pans, gadgets and utensils she uses to cook them.

Roast Tomato Risotto with Saffron and Honey in a saut pan, Cod, Anchovy and Spinach Boulangre made using a mandoline, Vietnamese Chicken Patties with Mint Salad and Roast Peanuts in a quaint burger press, and Raspberry Jelly Trifle in her grandmothers trifle bowl. This unique approach to ordering recipes also looks at the objects themselves their history, design evolution and why theyre good at what they do and their power to evoke memories of meals past. More than just a book to cook from, Lindseys fine writing makes it a pleasure to read from too.

Contents

Also by Lindsey Bareham

In Praise of the Potato

A Celebration of Soup

Onions without Tears

The Little Book of Big Soups

The Big Red Book of Tomatoes

Supper Wont Take Long

A Wolf in the Kitchen

Just One Pot

Dinner in a Dash

Hungry?

The Fish Store

Pasties

With Simon Hopkinson

Roast Chicken and Other Stories

The Prawn Cocktail Years

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
6163 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.transworldbooks.co.uk

THE TRIFLE BOWL AND OTHER TALES
A BANTAM PRESS BOOK: 9780593069417
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446497104

First published in Great Britain
in 2013 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Lindsey Bareham 2013

Lindsey Bareham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk
The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009

Photography: Chris Terry
Design: MortonStudio
Illustrations: Martin Haake
Food styling: Katie Giovanni
Props styling: Cynthia Inions

To Jonathan, my big brother

The perfect kitchen, for me, would really be more like a painters studio furnished with cooking equipment than anything conventionally accepted as a kitchen.

ELIZABETH DAVID, PETITS PROPOS CULINAIRES, 1992

Its Sunday morning and Ive just come back from a walk in the rain with my puppy. Shes had a bath and is asleep, wrapped in a towel snuggled next to me on the sofa opposite the faux dresser in my kitchen. Im splattered with dog shampoo, sprawled out next to her with a restorative cup of coffee. Desert Island Discs is on the radio and the haunting voice of Sandy Denny wafts round the room. My eyes turn away from the rain spattering down the French windows towards the radio, lingering on a cut glass trifle bowl that used to belong to my mother and her mother before her. Who knows where the time goes sings Sandy, and before I know it Im jerked back to days gone by, remembering trifles my mum used to make and occasions when we ate them.

There used to be two identical trifle bowls and Im ashamed to say it was me that broke the other one. They were stashed away in a cupboard under the stairs and came out for special occasions, birthdays and Christmas. Mums trifles were made with jelly and tinned fruit, thick Birds custard that set very hard, topped with swirls of whipped cream decorated with glac cherries and silver balls. One trifle came with us to Westcliff-on-Sea on Boxing Day, for the annual Christmas leftovers lunch at Mums sisters house. Eight children and five adults would be squashed round a long table in the cousins playroom and afterwards there would be the inevitable squabble over who could read what from the cousins collection of Broons and Oor Wullie annuals. One particular year, when I was given Rosebud, the doll Id longed to own, the day ended with Dad getting into a scary burn-up with another car on the way home. As I linger over these memories, it suddenly hits me. Practical cooking mementos like this trifle bowl are far more of a repository of memories, and of course recipes, than you might expect.

Other peoples kitchens are a bit like other peoples wardrobes, full of surprises and endlessly fascinating. Mine is at the rear of a typical Victorian two-up-two-down terrace house with a back extension and postage stamp London garden. I bought the house as a wreck after my marriage broke down and have subsequently lived through all sorts of ups and downs, some good, some bad, but my one constant has been my kitchen. Twenty years later I have brought up two sons, fed and watered their army of friends and entertained according to the vicissitudes of a freelance lifestyle, keeping afloat by writing about food, first as a restaurant critic and then as a cook.

Even though the original kitchen was gloomy and unloved, it wasnt difficult to see its potential. Over the years the room has evolved from its original and necessarily parsimonious makeover. Essentially, though, its the same. Walls have come down and more space has been created but this kitchen has always been more than a place to cook. One wall is a huge bookcase holding the ingredient-led part of my extensive cookery book collection. Art, some of food, by Henry, my artist son, hangs on other walls. There are three tables, all with different functions. We eat at a long, pine refectory table (made by Clive who rebuilt the kitchen, twice) and sit on well-polished ladder-back chairs that were once round the dining table in my childhood home. Books pile up on a little pine table where a young Henry used to do his homework. Sometimes its used to extend the main table or carried next door for a dinner deux in front of the fire in the sitting room. A long, low table sits opposite the faux dresser in front of a not very squashy sofa (there used to be a TV in one of the cupboards), laid with a huge platter of constantly replenished fresh fruit. I often put my feet up here, gazing through the French windows that open on to our back yard. In summer the pergola is covered by a surprisingly prolific vine, the leaves used for