Ripe London

Essential Borough Market: Brownies

There’s something about a brownie that brings you right back to childhood; but a great brownie goes a step further, inducing a celebration of simplicity and joy that is all the merrier when experienced with a maturity of both palette and mind.

If it sounds like I take my brownies a little too seriously, you’re right.  They were the last thing I expected to find in quantity in Britain, but the quality I have found here have been the true surprise.  For me no place does it better than Flour Power City Bakery, with not one, but two, can’t-walk-by-
without-gawking stalls at Borough Market.

Dense, chewy, deep and single-handedly capable of freezing you in your market-strolling tracks, they're like a very good molten chocolate bar with cake beaten in and then allowed to arrive at the perfect softness.  None of this fluffy nothingness that is the hallmark of many a brownie you’ve probably come across.  No, the overriding note here is strong Belgian chocolate, and the texture is more like that of a flourless chocolate cake but with more bite.  At £1.50 per shareable brick, it's not only worth it but compulsory.  The trick is pacing yourself when you're alone.

A truly great brownie doesn’t just re-capture childhood bliss, it almost creates it even if it never existed.

Exclusive Cheese

Two weeks ago I broke the news that Bill Oglethorpe would be back with his famous grilled-cheese sandwich after having been ousted for trading illegally outside Neal’s Yard Dairy.  Unbelievably, none of the newspaper editors I contacted thought this incredibly important piece of information merited a place in their pages.  Okay, so maybe poisonous chocolate warrants slightly more attention, but shouldn't the real story be a major investigation into who’s feeding Dairy Milk “chocolate” to those poor children?  That sounds like an unpardonable offence to me.   

Anyway, as promised I was at Borough Market for the much-anticipated return of my sandwich. I made a beeline for Neal’s Yard Dairy and asked where Bill's new stall was, then dogged chorizo scoffers and £4 smoothies as I closed in on my target. 

Imagine my surprise when I finally found Bill at the back of the Green Market (near the cathedral), sweating over his bubbling Raclette with barely a bustling queue in front of him. 

He later told me that, apart from my mention, nobody knew where he’d be!  His numerous disciples had not known where to follow.  See, ye elusive editors—legions of Bill’s fans were in silent mourning over the disappearance of their grilled cheese, and nobody told them their ardent cheddar-and-onions-on-buttered-and-toasted-sourdough cravings would be satiated again.

So, I suppose the cross of spreading the good news falls squarely upon me; and I bear the worthy duty with honour.  If not yet with a byline.

Who Moved My Grilled Cheese?

This is the spot outside Borough Market where Bill Oglethorpe of Neal’s Yard Dairy usually toasts his signature sandwiches—mounds of Montgomery cheddar and onions barely contained within thick, buttered slices of Poilâne sourdough, pressed until molten, then tucked in a simple paper napkin and delivered into your hands.  This is not the kind of sandwich you wander around the Market with.  No, it demands your full attention, so you claim a nearby stoop and concentrate on each bite, finishing it before someone forces you off that stoop.  During her visit to London last year, Ruth Reichl of Gourmet Magazine had one sandwich—and another—then proclaimed it “the Platonic ideal of grilled cheese.”  A stream of devotees followed soon after, with queues snaking past nearby Monmouth Coffee Company.

But these days you’ll find no sign of Bill or his famous creation.  I know, because a few Saturdays ago I woke up with visions of grilled cheese dancing in my head but was rudely frozen in my hurried tracks when I saw that Bill’s faithful presence was no longer.  I immediately went inside the shop and, as if I had lost a small child, pleaded with a cheesemonger for the whereabouts of my sandwich.  Was Bill on a well-deserved break?  Had he decided to take his stall on the road?  Worse.  He had been kicked out by the council for illegal street trading.  I had been eating illicit cheese!  The thought of it made me want it so much more.

The cheesemonger clearly did not comprehend my panic.  Instead of engaging with me in joint grilled-cheese mourning and detective work, he decided to return to his task of handing out samples of Brie de Meaux. Pah.  I pushed my way past the tourists ogling oat cakes and tapped the guy with the Stinking Bishop.  Now I was getting somewhere.  Bill would return, I was told, with a sanctioned stall inside the market!  When?  Sometime in June. 

I’ve been on to them by phone every week since (going to the Market, sans grilled cheese, would simply be too painful).  And—NEWS FLASH!— having spoken with them again just now, can report that the elusive sometime in June is this very Saturday the 17th!  Bill will be in the Green Market from 9am to 4pm, with prices staying the same at £3 a sandwich.  I couldn’t get an exact location for the new stall, because apparently even Bill doesn’t know it yet!   I told you this was breaking news.

The secrecy makes me a little worried; but it does give it all the hallmarks of a fabulous debut, one you can’t risk missing. So, get thee to the market this Saturday.  Look for Bill's new stall.  And, if you happen to see a rather excited and impatient someone with a camera in one hand and £3 ready in the other, say hello.  Then please excuse me while I go find my stoop.

Borough Market is at 8 Southwark Street, just opposite the south side of London Bridge Station, SE1.  But you already knew that.

Essential Borough Market: Coffee

It happened every weekday morning, just after six.  I would sit at the dining table—my back to the kitchen light so as to temper the shock of pre-mature awakening—with a big mug of café con leche.  Eyelids at half-mast, I’d stare blankly into the thick, camel-coloured infusion of full-fat milk and strong coffee as it receded gradually the more I drank.  Eventually, it coated the inside of the cup with a foamy veneer.  Then I’d lick as much of its sweetness as I could before my mother would remind me, for at least the third time, that the school bus would be along at any moment.

Coffee is a big deal for Cubans, and we start young.  My mother knows that it’s not exactly an ideal breakfast even for adults; but she was just doing what her mother did, and what her grandmother did before that.  And well, I’m still here (albeit a little on the short side), so it couldn’t have been all that bad. 

Besides the daily wake-up call, there was coffee—straight up—after every meal, known simply as “un café;” or a “cortadito,” (literally: “cut” with a spot of milk.)  We make it in an espresso maker (cafetera), on the stove.  And we add sugar.  Lots of it.  But not just dumped in, and definitely not in cubes.  No, we have a ritual: you put several spoonfuls of the white stuff into a big cup; then you prepare the cafetera, turn up the heat under it, and watch.  As soon as the coffee begins to flow out of the top, you quickly pour a bit of it into the cup.  Then you stir it ardently  with the sugar until it forms a creamy paste that goes paler the more you beat.  It’s a little like creaming butter. Once all the coffee has brewed, you mix it into the sugar paste.  What you get is a heavenly head of “espumita,” or bubbles; and when you divide the coffee into the requisite shot glasses, the result resembles mini pints of Guinness.

Having lived away from home for some time, my stomach is no longer primed for java in such concentrated doses.  I’ll usually have it only at weekends, and always from Monmouth Coffee.  There is a stall inside Borough Market, but I go to the store right next to it at 2 Park Street where the knowledgeable staff will grind up samples for you to try on the spot.  I am particularly fond of the Guatemalan beans, especially the ones from Finca Culpan with their aura of darkest chocolate.  In a completely unintentional, yet blatant violation of my Cuban heritage, I make mine in a French press and skip the espumitas in favour of a scant teaspoon of sugar.  And I have a confession.  I like mine with soy milk.  To the elders in my family, all this is outright sacrilegio.  Then again, many of them think coming to live in England is quite bizarre.  They just haven’t tried Monmouth.  Yet.

Essential Borough Market: Bread

Borough Market is, hands down, my favorite place to eat in London. I believe it was fate that brought us together when, only a month after I moved here, I got a job working a mere five minutes away from it. That year I became very well acquainted with the incredible array of fine food there.  I also gained about six pounds.

The Market, on Borough High Street just opposite London Bridge station, is open to the public only on Fridays and Saturdays and gets very busy.  Rightly so.  It’s too big and wonderful a place to tackle in one post, so allow me to savour it over a few. 

First up, De Gustibus.  You can't miss the mountains of award-winning loaves there; the trick is cutting through the hungry crowd to get to them. But once you do you’re greeted by a warm smile from the dapper Jim O’Brien, wearing a blue apron and dashing from one end of the stall to the other.  When he sees me taking more than a few pictures of the bread from various angles, he doesn’t say a thing, and his politeness makes me offer up that I’m doing this for my website.  “Oh-ho!” he says excitedly, “Go and take a picture of that sign there.  It’s going to go down in history.”   It's hard to say no.

I'm procrastinating.  The time has come to decide which of the loaves gets to go home with me this time.  After taking yet a few more photos, I go for the San Francisco Sourdough, its handsomely smooth dome and chewy yet airy denseness already filling itself in my head with fresh mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. Jim tells me his daughter runs a music website promoting artists.  Feeling a bit like I just crashed the wrong party, I apologetically tell him that my site is very small scale.  With complete gusto and wisdom he replies, “From tiny acorns giant oaks may grow.” 

If you can't wait until the weekend for your daily bread, De Gustibus has several bakeries around town, including one just outside the Market at 4 Southwark Street.  You can even learn to make your own. Dan De Gustibus runs one-day courses at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons cookery school in Oxford. 

But I think I'll stick to Jim's loaf.