Skiing Penguins and Parisian Tap Water: Mj’s Dream Meal.
This is a complete steal from one of my favourite Podcasts: ‘Off Menu’.
Comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster invite special guests into their magical restaurant to each choose their favourite starter, main course, side dish, dessert and drink. Ever wanted to eat your dream meal? It’s time to order Off Menu.
As they’re unlikely to invite me any time soon… I just interviewed myself with my dream meal instead.
As always, we begin with the water. Still or sparkling?
This one is very simple! Still please. More specifically: Tap water. By the jug. And keep them coming.
Most importantly though, I don’t want any wanky little glasses. I want a pint glass please. I don’t even care if it’s chipped! I’d much rather that to an ornate little thimble that holds one pathetic tiny dribble of liquid.
I was once in the cheapest café I could find in Paris with a couple of friends at the end of a backpacking holiday. I had spent pretty much every penny I had and was merely trying my best to survive the remaining couple of days before the Megabus back home. My friends both still had enough cash to buy themselves food — though it never crossed their minds to offer to pay for mine too — so they were merrily enjoying their oily and filling breakfasts and chatting about which overpriced tourist spot they were going to go to next.
I, meanwhile, ordered ‘une carafe d’eau’.
And yet, despite my flawless GCSE French accent, I got a minuscule espresso mug of cloudy warm water which I swear was the backwash from their coffee machine. Instead of complaining, mainly because my french was in truth only strong enough to request the things I’d memorised with the hostel wifi that morning, I downed it, grimaced, and repeated the same request.
Four shots of warm and murky water later while my ‘friends’ were in hysterics as sausage fat coated their lips, the grumpy elderly man serving us finally caved and brought over a foggy and chipped pint glass full to the brim of luscious tap water and slammed it down on the table.
That glass of room temperature water in a grotty old pint glass was the greatest I have ever had. Why? Because I had bloody earned it.
(And yes, I was sick later that day.)
Poppadoms or bread? Poppadoms or bread Mj? Poppadoms or bread?
This is probably the question that annoys me the most on the podcast! Not because I think it’s dumb or wrong like some guests try to suggest. But because so often people will say they like poppadoms, and then choose bread!
Well sod that. I like poppadoms, and so I’m choosing bloody poppadoms!
As for all the dips and shit though? I can take them or leave them. I just want that oily, salty, beautiful goodness thank you very much.
I do have one slightly strange request, though. I don’t want them all to be fresh. Every now and again, I would like a stale one in the bag. As though it’s been left out on the table overnight with the oily takeaway bag lazily folded closed so that it’s not actually closed and the poppadom is beautifully bendy the following morning.
Drools
Your dream starter?
While the Paris water was a choice based on triumph over flavour, my starter comes from true travel nostalgia. I can’t properly remember the run of events because this was years ago and so my memories are tinged with rose-tinted nastalgia. But that doesn’t matter. After all, this is what makes the best memories and stories. Right?
So, my dream starter is the Wipeout Nachos from the Wipeout Bar & Grill in the shopping complex next to the supermarket near a lake somewhere nearish to Larkspur ferry terminal in California.
We got the nachos as a much needed pick-me-up the day we (a friend and I) flew from London to San Francisco and then got the train and ferry across the bay to where we were staying. We needed groceries and he desperately needed deodorant, so we went on a nice walk around a lake to a local supermarket. It was roasting hot, which did not improve his need for deodorant, and we were exhausted from the flight. However, we were excited to be there and it was all fabulous so we were staying alive from adrenaline.
After the shop and a generous spraying of cheap-as-hell-and-gross-but-less-gross-than-his-smell lynx in the carpark, we were starving and it was somehow lunchtime despite everything our body clocks were telling us. So we stumbled into the closest restaurant to the shop and grabbed a starter to share.
In that moment, and in my memories today, it was sublime. The nachos were that perfect and impossible mix of retaining their crunch and texture, while also having soaked in the juices of the salsa and the cheese. Meanwhile, the cheese was vegan and yet actually melted, and actually added the needed creaminess without being a plastic slice of coconut. And the salsa was warm, deep in flavour, and with actual identifiable vegetables and tomatoes fresh from the vine.
In reality, I never want to eat at that chain restaurant again and have my nostalgia crushed. Instead, I just want to salivate in the memory. (Especially as I just checked the menu and they don’t list vegan as an option… I think I was lied to!)
And now let’s move to the main. Where are you taking us?
There may be some people worried already with me having mentioned the ‘V’ word, and now they’re probably about to stop reading altogether. For my main, I would like… a salad!
Not just any salad however, and not even one from any holiday or fancy date night. No, I would like my salad.
It has leaves, of course, and grains, and garlic sliced broccoli, and lemon and garlic fried brussels sprouts, and tomatoes oven baked on the vine with a little garlic olive oil, and slices of fresh and juicy sweet peppers, and spring onions, and sweetcorn, and grated raw carrot and cauliflower, and plenty of perfectly ripe avocado.
That’s the base. All mixed in together as a beautifully fresh, vibrant, and tantalising spread.
Then, atop that plentiful mountain of plants, the little stars shining bright to make the mouth water — the beige carbs that elevate any meal. We need battered garlic mushrooms and onion rings. We need mushroom bitterballen (made by me for Eurovision when it was my turn to host and the Netherlands won), and we need billowing clouds of deep-fried tofu puffs glistening with sesame oil and chilli flakes.
And then alongside it, but very much part of the salad and not a side, are the dips and splodges of sauce. These include a couple of different hummuses, a garlic mayo, a sweetcorn relish, an olive oil and balsamic vinegar mix, some guacamole, and sauerkraut mixed with tomato ketchup, sliced apples, and grapes.
I am sure there are other things I have forgotten here. But, you know what? Adding extras is probably overkill. And it’s nice for it to be different each time!
Okay… that is a lot! So, what side goes with this salad?
To go with this celebration of lusciousness, I want a side cauliflower and broccoli macaroni cheese.
(And like everything else mentioned, this is vegan. Just, the good vegan cheese that actually melts and is tasty. Possibly a smoked cheese. Actually yes, definitely a smoked cheese.)
And now let’s talk about the drink. What are you ordering?
I am a little bit of a child when it comes to drinks and food. I just don’t get wine. And I don’t like a cocktail with food, and I save beers and ciders for old man pubs if I’m with a group of straights and feel unable to get a much superior G&T. So… I would like… an orange squash please. Own-brand is fine. (Is there even a difference?)
Now we come to the very end of the meal and the dessert. What shall it be?
This is the hardest one for me because my gut goes straight for nostalgia with all the delicious homemade desserts of my childhood. But then this makes its own problems, as I’m essentially picking which relative I love the most?
For example, could it be my Dad’s fancy chocolate mousses made painstakingly with soaked cashews? Or perhaps a classic crumble made by Mum with fruit from the garden — often rhubarb or a berry, but in one home succulent and painstakingly prepared tiny Victoria plums from the end of the garden.
And then we move onto the various grandparents. For example the classic english trifle made so well by one gran. It was full of so much booze that I got drunk by accident when I was 6 before my parents realised it was full of sherry and I’d had at least three large bowls. Or perhaps my other grandparent’s specialty: ice cream sundaes with new bright and colourful sweets on offer every time and more bottles of syrup on offer than available in the rest of the midlands combined.
But no, none of these. Instead, it’s my Nan’s Christmas cake.
Firstly, they were just lovely. Always iced to the gods as a snowy scene with all sorts of cute animals having fun. Skiing penguins, puppies poking their noses out of igloos, and giant robins always weirdly out of proportion with the rest.
And that’s just the look of the thing! When you cut into it — with a bread knife because you needed that heft to get through the icing — it was packed to the brim with every sort of dried fruit imaginable, and CHUNKS of marzipan ready to melt on the tongue. (Not in place of the layer of marzipan under the thick white icing, but in addition to.)
And, to make it even better, I was the only one in the family who actually ate it. Which means it lasted for an age because it was huge and the sugar and icing kept it preserved, and nobody else was stealing slices! I had it literally till spring. Bliss. Pure two-tiered bliss. Nothing more needs to be said.
