a very special relationship

america gets overlooked by chefs, it's food demonised. but hey the people love it, i investigated how many beef burgers were made every year and my results were inconclusive because the number is just too huge for anyone to have a grip on it. i decided to bring the american dream to london, the deep south to south london. this was a much more cohesive night than previous. by having a theme i could organise a more all round dinner party, or rather diner party, opposed to just a meal.
first things first though, the food!




to start: soda and bacon rashers
a starter seemed an unnecessary frippery which would leave us all a little too american (64% of adults are obese or overweight). crikey its only one night we don't need to go the whole hog and physically change. so on the table i allowed people to serve themselves to coca-cola (served ice cold as the bottle prescribes) and delve into bowls of those bacon rasher crisps. i got tescos own brand being a cheapskate but basically they're frazzles. also as i was cooking for 7 just having nibbles allowed me to not be totally crushed in the kitchen, in fact stay more like this.



for main: tex-mex and more chilli con carne with paprika chips
i am aware that chilli doesn't actually hail from north america per se but its been adopted with much gusto and thats enough for me. chilli is disliked by those who have been used to the bland gloop served at school (which is so anemic so as not to be too spicy to anyone, it really should just be called carne), and those with an aversion to kidney beans. i dealt with both such issues by banishing kidney beans (possibly because i forgot) and making sure that if anything mine would be too spicy, after all it is chilli con carne. such a name gives prominence to the spice over the meat.
i started by frying four roughly chopped red onions (richer than their common cousins), a decent amount of garlic, with a chorizo sausage chopped into chunks. if you can get a paprika spiced chorizo sausage i feel this adds to the flavour but its by no means essential. once the oils started to seep out of the chorizo, i added two packs of lean minced beef. throw in three peppers and a fresh finely chopped chilli or two. now to the spices. i added a healthy dose of ground chilli, cumin and smoked paprika. i won't dictate on measurements, just adjust to personal choice, after all america is the country of free will. then add 3 tins of chopped tomatoes and allow to bubble along. i am normally on the impatient side but i really would leave the pot on a low heat for it to get that flavour. keep checking for taste and addressing spices throughout.
to serve alongside i believed chips would be more in keeping with the theme than rice. but i did veer away from fries and instead made chunky potato wedges. i cut countless potatoes into roughly equal sized wedges before rubbing olive oil, salt and paprika all over them. pop in the oven at 200 degrees for at least 30 mins but shake them up to get them crispy on both sides. from a visit to nathans when on holiday in new york i know that cheesy chips are de rigeur so sprinkled mature cheddar over ( i could not bring myself to be so authentic as to use cheese in a tube).



to finish: sal paradise's apple pie with cookies and milk ice cream
sal paradise in on the road effectively lives off of apple pie. if its good enough for him, its good enough for me. "I ate apple pie and ice cream- it was getting better as i got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer." well in that case Stockwell is definitely in Iowa. on the subject i found this rather amusing. http://www.ukqna.com/food/1569-2-food-ukqna.html. but thats going off on a tangent. i chopped 6 cooking apples into slices and placed on a medium heat with half a cup of water and a knob of butter. to this i threw in some muscavado sugar to take a little of the sharpness of the apples away and then a fair amount of ground cinnamon. to give another nuance i would recommend putting a splash of calvados or ameretto to the mix. let the mix bubble away before placing in a deep pan and then sealing with some shortcrust pastry. for a finishing touch use any spare pastry for a design flourish. i kept it simple with U S A but next time i intend to try and interpret Jackson Pollock.in basically every film set in america featuring a kid there will undoubtably follow cookies and milk. i don't have the machinery to whip ice cream up myself so bought a couple of pots of ben and jerry's cookie dough to serve alongside. yes i am a cheat.



this may all seem rather simple and i concede it was. but it meant i could enjoy being with my friends and not simply sweat over a hot stove. i also had the time to devote to the extras.

the table: for a cheap but cool table i bought a pack of royal blue tissue paper which i layed out like a tablecloth. i then liberally sprinkled red and white confetti stars. for placemats i bought a postcard of an american icon for each sitter. then we could say that marlon brando, marilyn monroe and audrey hepburn were at the table too.

the music: i made up an american playlist so the ears weren't left out:
1) Jolene - Dolly Parton
2) All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
3) Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
4) Vogue - Madonna (she's basically the Queen over there)
5) Born In The U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen
6) Heart of Gold - Neil Young
7) Let's Go Surfing - The Drums
8) Young Americans - David Bowie
9) L'America - The Doors
10) Graceland - Paul Simon
11) Land - Patti Smith
12) Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
13) Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan
14) Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds (not an American band but the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club)
15) Jackson - Johnny Cash, June Carter
16) Blue Moon of Kentucky - Elvis Presley
17) Surfin' U.S.A. - The Beach Boys
18) Parchment Farm Blues - Johnny Winter

the dress: i wore a white dress fit for sitting on the porch in a prarie with a red rag wrapped around my plait and blue stars pencilled on my face with eyeliner. the flag personified. my co-host Harriet dressed in levis, the ultimate american clothier.



so there you have it. the american dream is yours for a night.