Expense Account Benefactor

March 2, 2009

Everyone should have one of these. The corporate world doesn’t seem so evil when one of its members takes you out for a sly expensive dinner on the company account. Our corporate fairy tonight took us to Becasse, which was pretty transporting.

My entree, which will sound weird, was an amazingly delicious smoky affair – Jamon de somethingorother (beautiful, soft, smoky stretchy prosciutto-style ham) with smoked eel, a few droplets of a little mayonnaisy number and something called a matelote jelly, which I believe is a fishy reduction of some kind, but to be honest I forgot about it in the feast of smoky ham and eel. Who’d a thunk that could be SO good. Everything else was incredible as well – wine divine – and our dear EAB’s company the best of all, of COURSE, but – ah, that smoky eely hammy thing.

Posted in restaurants |

2 comments

Jamon Iberico, probably. That’s the good stuff. And now I hate you. Have always wanted to go to Becasse.
by doctordi March 6, 2009 at 11:47 am

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Hi Di – it wasn’t Iberico, but some other Jamony goodness starting with J, that I hadn’t heard of. But by darn it was goooood. And I think you should definitely get yesself there some time.
by charlottewood March 6, 2009 at 8:36 pm

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aw, shucks

"Wood writes beautifully about food. Partly it's because she has something to say about life, not just about food ... Wood's nimble food writing shifts seamlessly from the hotly contested topic of table-setting on one page to grappling with hunger on another. No philosophy, snobbery, one-upmanship, no competing with restaurant cooks. Just a lot of honesty and admission of failings, mistakes, triumphs and pleasures.
- Helen Greenwood, Sydney Morning Herald

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- Kylie Mason, The Newtown Review of Books

"This book has the power to reignite a passion for life, friendship, food and the everyday. Part memoir and part recipe book, Love & Hunger can be read cover to cover, as I did, just like a novel, or can be dipped into when the moment requires. Charlotte's unusual cook book is the wise friend many of us do not have ready at hand 24/7. Love & Hunger is a guide, an encouragement and an inspiration.
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"Love & Hunger manages to be a cookbook for the kitchen, a gentle read for the bedside table and a positive affirmation of the pleasure of cooking for family & friends ... This collection of 27 essays gently and sensitively explores the rich complexity and spiritual sustenance that good food with family & friends imparts to our lives. Each chapter explores, a different aspect of ‘the gift of food’ with a number of recipes ‘attached’; all of them good, none of them complex and many wonderfully comforting. There were many moments when reading, we nodded in heated agreement with the almost commonsense views espoused. As one other reviewer noted, it’s rare for a cookbook to move you to tears; be warned you may succumb. ... If there is a criticism to be made, we would only want more…"
- Tim White, Books for Cooks

"Author Charlotte Wood writes like a dream, wrestling with some of those common cooking conundrums, such as dealing with 'polenta paranoia', getting back your kitchen mojo and pondering just what the difference is between a chutney, a relish and a pickle. Her blog is also packed with scrumptious recipes - beetroot palak paneer, anyone?"
- MasterChef Magazine, June 2011

How to shuck an oyster