not even i could spoil it

last evening represented our first foray into the live music business. the story is long but i'll shorten what i can. during my salad days i, along with several of my friends, was a big fan of martin stevenson and the daintees. i tried to see them whenever i could, once at keele, photo could be attached (great hair), several times in manchester, most notably the first time kinnock lost, and finally in bristol. circa 1992. i then fell out of love with music, save for opera, and lost track of anything else until we opened the restaurant. who would have thought that two and a bit years in i would have booked one of my favourite performers to play at our restaurant (and i mean ours to include the two people who read this as well as us) because i couldn't get to newport the night before.

the night went very well, thanks in most part to martin's humour and grace and the efforts of mark, who saved the night. myself (t f***whit esq) haf omitted to find out whether martin would be coming amp in hand, so when he turned up and 6.40 sans amplifier, we had a rather hectic 40 minutes. i headed off to see a mate and pick one up (thank you justin) but by the time i'd got back the crisis was over and a small pa system had been installed. i can't thank everyone enough for coming and i hope you all had a great time. here is a recipe.

it's for the pineapple torte tatin but any fruit will do.

one ripe pineapple, cored and cut into 8 rings (less would do if you wnat more cake)

100g vegan marg
130g golden syrup
70g black treacle
150ml soy milk
4" of banana

take first 4 ingredients, put them in a pan and melt together. once completely melted, break up the banana and add to the wet ingredients. blitz with a hand blender.

225g self raising flour
75g soft brown sugar
1 tsp bicarb

use a lined tray and sprinkle on a layer of demerara sugar. place the pineapple rings on top. stir the dry ingredients together and then add the wet ingredients whilst hot. (this gets the bicarb going). mix together to form a cake batter and cover the pineapple rings.

place in the oven, which i forgot to say you should have pre-heated to 160C, for 15-20 mins. test by feel, if it's springy, it's ready. you may need to adjust the cooking time to reflect the depth of the pan you use. we use something flat and 20 minutes is ample.

happy cooking

cheers

wayne