I Can Has Kitchen Concert Cook-Off?

I had an idea a few months back of a way that I could combine my love for music and food….have kitchen based concerts!

How’s about every once in a while, we invite a band to our gaffe and give them a budget of €20? Not only will they have to cook a delicious budget meal for four, they will play us a few songs in the kitchen and answer a few qs about themselves, their music and their food.

What a better opportunity than to try it out with my good friends Herons! who stayed with us on a recent visit back to Dublin from London. We got our buddy Tristan to come over with his camera, the guys played a few tunes in the kitchen and cooked us a beaaauuutiful meal for under €20.

Herons! are an American boy Ben and an English girl Anna. Here is the story of Herons!:

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Benjamin who really liked cassette-tape dictophones, Japanese wood-block prints, and cheapie Spanish guitars. He combined the first and last to make what are now known as “Songs.”

But he was lonely — because it’s lonely when you’re only. Then, along came a girl called Anna! Benjamin saw Anna and heard Debussy in his head, thinking, “La fille aux cheveaux de lin!”

Together, they grew herbs in windowboxes, cooked Greek food for friends, walked on roads with no pavement in Co. Wicklow, and formed Herons!

The name Herons! (the exclamation mark is important) came from a moment when Benjamin saw these graceful, crane-like birds for the first time, on the River Dodder, felt how fragile and beautiful and worthwhile living could be, and decided to try to focus on that.

Here is a video of Herons! in conversation with Aoife Mc.

And here is a video of Herons! playing their beautiful music in the I Can Has kitchen/dining room. It is a song from their up-coming debut album So Long. The song itself is called Chamber Music and is a poem by James Joyce than Ben put to music. Isn’t he clever?

And so, what is Ben’s earliest food memory?

“My earliest food memory is when my mother and I were in Rome when I was 3. It was a hot day, and I remember the cobbles under my feet, the smell of different foods emanating from doorways, and the little leather sandals I was wearing. I don’t remember what we were doing exactly, distracted as I was by these new and strange surroundings.

We bought a small leather purse from a middle-aged man in a booth who only had one hand. I remember him putting together the pieces of leather, stringing the strap onto the purse with a smooth stump at the end of one arm and a calloused hand on the other.

Afterwards, we found a gelato stand where a friendly man sold chocolate and vanilla flavoured gelati. He advised my mother that the vanilla was a bit too soft for the heat, but I insisted on having vanilla. I was given the cone and the gelato promptly fell onto the ground in a wet heap. The nice man took pity on me and gave me another gelato, this time a chocolate one, free of charge.”

And what about Anna’s earliest food memory?

“I have one really bad early memory of school dinners from my first school: St Michaels C of E Primary in Southfields, London. I must have been about 4 years old and as a child my sweet tooth was only for actual sweets, (especially fruity or fizzy ones – fruit pastilles, opal fruits, frosties, yummy yum yum). I hated chocolate, cake, custard, cream, and pretty much any dessert type thing.

I remember, one lunchtime, being doled out a sponge pudding with chocolate flavoured custard at school. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than dry sponge and cheap chocolate custard, and of course it had a skin on it too! Eeew!

So I ate my main course and tried to leave the brown spongy mound of mingingness on my plate and sneak off to the playground but was spotted by a dinner lady! The evil woman insisted I eat my pudding and stood over me until I took a bite.

I couldn’t understand it. I had been told numerous times by adults that sweet things were ‘bad’ for you and would rot your teeth and make you fat etc, so why on earth was this batty woman wearing an apron and a badge of authority trying to force bad health down my young throat?

I think it was then, with a forced mouthful of sweet brown nastiness that I realised that not all adults knew what they were doing, that they were not a group of taller older wiser better people who could only act in a sensible, informed and just manner.

My subconscious may have added this in later, but I also remember her having bad teeth and being enormously fat.”

And now for their food…………..

Herons! Linguine with Feta, Spinach and Pinenuts with a Tomato and Thyme Salad

What you need for Ben’s Feta Spinach Linguine for 4 lucky people

Linguine for 4

250g of Feta Cheese (or thereabouts)

A packet of big old fashioned spinach (not baby spinach, mind)

A handful of pine nuts

A good handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped

3 cloves of garlic (or two if you have a hot date planned for later in the evening)

Knob of butter

First thing first. Wash your big spinach, twice. It’s important to wash it twice to make you get rid of all the dirt and grit lurking in the leaves.

Ben’s top tip for cooking big spinach is to break the stalks. Most people just chop these stalks off but that’s a bit wasteful and breaking the stalks a bit makes them lovely and tender.

Big spinach, washed and drained, with broken stalks for added tenderness

Let the spinach drain off and start cooking your linguine.

About halfway through cooking your pasta, start toasting the pine nuts on a low heat. Keep an eye on them as they will burn all of a sudden. You want them nicely toasted, a lovely golden colour. You’ll know when they’re cooked because they’ll start smelling something gorgeous.

Once your pasta is done, drain it off and set it aside for a moment.

Get a big pot and begin to fry your garlic in a bit of oil. Add your spinach to the garlic over a medium to high heat and let the spinach wilt while infusing with the garlic. Once your spinach has wilted, add the linguine to the pot and mix in the feta cheese and the butter.

The pinenuts can be added just before serving, just by sprinkling them over the top.

Serve this along with Anna’s Tomato & Thyme Salad.

What you need for Anna’s Tomato & Thyme Salad

3 or four nice tomatoes (Anna used a normal type one and a few nice plum tomatoes)

A few sprigs of lovely fresh thyme, leaves picked

1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped, grated or bish bash boshed in the Flavour Shaker

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Slice your tomatoes and arrange them beautifully on a plate.

Make your dressing by adding three parts olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar. As myself and Anna share a love of all things Jamie Oliver, she had a go at bish bash boshing the ingredients for the dressing in my (much more useful than you might think) Flavour Shaker. Here is her demonstration video, as there is great skill in the technique of Bish Bash Boshing.