Part 89 Finally

Edam cheese, pineapple and mushroom brûlée

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, a beautiful puffin will land on your window ledge and sing a song for you.

Welcome one and all.

OK, let’s go. A little catch up for thee. We have employed the services of PR company and they were nothing like Joanna Lumley’s character, Patsy, from Absolutely Fabulous. They’re actually quite normal.

And this PR company were going to help us become a lot busier. We needed this, a year and a half on the edge of bankruptcy did raise the stress level a little too much. They were also going to change the public’s image of our vegetarian restaurant. No more, “Oh you own a veggie café, we’ll pop in for a Chimichanga and a glass of cabbage wine one day.”

And they got to work pretty quickly.

The first thing they did was to ask for a recipe….for The Metro. And for those who are not familiar with The Metro, it’s a free newspaper which is available on London transport, the bus and the tube and all that.

We were chuffed, a recipe in a newspaper which would be seen by tens of thousands of people. This was brilliant.

“Thanks for this Michelle, it’s such good news. And what does the recipe have to be for?”

“Pineapple, they’re running a feature on pineapple and they’re looking for contributions. And they want something a bit different.”

“No problem, I can do that. When do you need it?”

“By three this afternoon. Oh yea, and it can’t be more than 150 words, they don’t have much space.”

“Hang on, by three, and 150 words. How can it be a different and unusual recipe with 150 words? Peel it and eat it?”

“Yes I know Andrew, but this is how they work.”

So I ran into the kitchen and told Ben and Skater Jane about the task and asked if they had any ideas.

Ben pondered, “Errrr, yea, cool, yea errr, pineapple, errrr, 150 words. Errr, yea, no.”

And Skater Jane’s response was a little more unforgiving, “The silly bastards, how can you write an interesting recipe in a few words?”

If you think we deserve absolutely nothing for writing this, that’s the button right there.

Well, with very little help, and in between making mushroom crème brûlée for starters, I dotted back and forth to the office and started tapping up a recipe, of sorts.

Then Donna passed by the office and I had a whinge at her also, but she had an idea.

“Why don’t you do something spicy with the pineapple? I don’t know, maybe star anise. And to save the word count, you could just tell them to serve it with ice cream.”

Genius, so there we go, we gave them pineapple poached in chilli and star anise syrup. Served with vanilla ice cream. Or something like that.

Back to the oven to turn the mushroom brûlée’s around so they cooked evenly.

Michelle seemed happy with our effort. We thought it was much too basic, like something you would see squeezed into a newspaper article. Hang on!

But it was publicity, and we desperately needed it.

Two days later, Michelle called again, “Hi, a magazine is looking for five simple recipes using Edam cheese. Do you think you could so something by tomorrow afternoon?”

“Edam? I can’t stand Edam. The red wax coating has more flavour than the actual cheese.”

“Yes Andrew, but that’s not our concern. Can you do it?”

“Yes, I suppose so. It all helps.”

This was hard. Trying to come up with new and easy recipes was time consuming. It’s no wonder the recipes you see in a lot of publications look like everything you’ve seen before, but with a few swapped ingredients. Edam soufflé, Edam and mustard soufflé, brie soufflé, truffled Brie soufflé. So I made a start.

But the next morning Michelle called again.

What now, ten recipes featuring warm water.

“Morning Andrew, are you busy this Friday evening?”

Strange question, maybe Michelle was wondering if that pineapple recipe was drawing in the crowds.

“Hiya Michelle, give me a second, I’ll ask Donna.”

I ran upstairs to the restaurant floor and asked Donna, “It’s fairly busy Andrew, there’s eighteen booked in. We may get a few more by Friday also.”

If we reached twenty on a Friday that was a big number for us at the time, in later years we would reach eighty.

“Hi Michelle, not bad, eighteen covers, why do you ask?”

“Can I reserve a table for two at 7:30pm?”

“Yes of course, is it for you?”

“No, it’s for Joanna Lumley.”

“What? Joanna Lumley, from Absolutely Fabulous?”

“Yes, we contacted her to offer a complimentary meal and she would like to visit on Friday evening with her husband.”

Joanna Lumley, the actor who’d been in a bond movie. Joanna Lumley from Coronation Street. Joanna Lumley from Absolutely Fabulous. Joanna Lumley from Sapphire and Steel.

Joanna Lumley from that 1970s spy series, The New Avengers, when she played Purdey.

I even remember lasses at school getting the Purdey haircut. Actually, I think my mam has one of those school photographs with the swirly blue background in which I’m pictured with a Purdey haircut.

She was coming to our restaurant. This was great news for us. Stuff the Edam cheese.

So we said yes, and Joanna and her husband were booked in.

Donna was surprised and impressed.

Tina Terminator didn’t know who she was.

Skater Jane wasn’t bothered.

Ben was mildly pleased, “Errr, yea yea, pretty cool, I’ll have to tell my folks.”

I was just about to send a few messages to friends and family, just to show off a bit, but I felt a presence behind me.

I turned and glanced down, Tina Terminator was stood there, arms folded and looking up at me. She was wearing a stern face, even more stern than usual. And she had something to say.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re famous, everyone is the same to me,” and off she trotted. Nothing like a bit of Tina to bring you back to where you belong.

(Although some years later, when Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones visited, Tina’s principles changed.)

Friday evening came along, and by now the novelty of Joanna Lumley paying us a visit had worn off. Plus, we had 22 people booked in, this was all systems go, we needed to focus.

It was one of those evenings where, as usual, diners are booked in at staggered times to make sure service is smooth and steady. But they had other ideas.

“Hi, yes, we have a table booked at 8pm but we’re an hour early, that’s OK isn’t it?”

What can you say to that, “Go for a walk around the block for an hour.”

Or, “No problem, I’ll show you to your table.”

And the next one, “Sorry, we had a table booked at 6:30pm but we’re half an hour late, we lingered in the pub around the corner and lost track of time, is that OK?”

“Of course, no problem, why do we even have a booking schedule anyway?”

Jane, you plate that soya curd

So by the time Joanna arrived, the place looked very busy, she must have wondered why we needed a PR company. And don’t forget, we still had half of the restaurant hidden behind an Ikea curtain so that the space didn’t look empty.

The evening got off to a crazy start, and Tina kept running into the kitchen,

“Sorry guys, another table has turned up early, we’ll try to slow them down.”

“Sorry guys, another table has turned up late, we’ll try to slow them down.”

Go! Go! Go! We were getting hammered immediately.

“Jane, give me a hand with these starters will ya. You plate that soya curd and I’ll burn up a couple of brûlées.”

“On it bud.”

“Ben, you OK?”

“Err yea yea cool, just picking through these sea asters.”

Celeriac baked in ash and salt crust.

Tina came belting back into the kitchen, “Guys, we have a table of 4 of walk ins,” then she ran off.

“Quick, Jane, bread for table 3, you got it?”

“On it mate.”

Ben was bouncing around the stove, “Err, yea, cool guys, could I get a hand plating these mains?”

Jane dropped the bread bowl into the dumb waiter, pressed the green button, then spun around and joined Ben.

Ben plated the ash baked celeriac and draped the sea asters over the top, finishing with the strained yoghurt and charred broccoli.

At the same time, Jane’s lightning speed helped her to catch up as she added the tarragon sponge to the warm mushroom mousse.

Ben glanced at her plating, “Err, yea cool, don’t forget the mooli.”

“Shit, yea mate, there we go.”

Into the dumb waiter with those plates, doors closed and green button hit. Then straight back to the next ticket.

Ben read the ticket, he was chuffed because it was a table of four and all the mains were the same, easy one, “Yea yea, sick.”

Then Donna came to the kitchen, “Andrew, Joanna Lumley would like to speak to you.”

Myself, Skater Jane and Ben looked up, we’d been so busy, we forgot about her.

“Oh yea, I forgot. What’s she like, is she happy with the food?”

“Yes, she enjoyed everything, and her husband did also. It’s funny because other diners are nudging each other and looking over to her table.”

I took off my apron, “Guys, I’ll be back in a minute.”

I followed Donna out of the kitchen, Donna introduced me to Joanna and her husband and told them that she would see them back upstairs.

But, you know when you see people on the telly and they’re really warm and genuine, and then you hear from someone that in real life they’re nothing like that? Joanna Lumley wasn’t one of those people.

She was very friendly and open, and she smiled a lot. Her husband was a decent bloke too. She loved the food, she was amazed at such unusual combinations. She also expressed how refreshing it was to dine in a vegetarian restaurant which didn’t feel like a café.

So overall, Joanna Lumley was………..absolutely fabulous.

And finally, people were going to hear about us. On Monday morning, there was a picture of Joanna on the front page of The Metro, in the top corner, with the caption, ‘Joanna Lumley spotted at fine dining vegetarian restaurant, Vanilla Black’.

Bloody fine dining restaurant, why did people keep saying that.

Right, thanks for reading this, see you next week for more stuff.

Andrew and Donna