ode to HG

My dear friend HG is leaving town.

She is moving from the day-job side of the fence to the more artistic side, and leaving London to achieve this. HG and I met at library school where we were also allocated the same flat -perhaps the college administrators were amused by our matching first names and so put us together. HG is also the reason I am called Roy (one for the Australians).

We moved to London at the same time and lived in Wimbledon, eating home made cheesecake at 3am in the queue to see the tennis, becoming late-night regulars at the chip shop, having an intense brownie bake-off to find the best recipe. Next we lived in Willesden where we discovered 'Deliverance' for great take-outs, and always had gin and tonic at the ready. More recently we have lived in different places, but still meet up for hot chocolate (HG) and coffee (me) and cake or breakfast.

HG doesn't love food, not in a fetishistic way. She doesn't photograph it or write about it or have bookshelves full of recipes: mostly for her, I think, food is divided into fuel and cake. But I have plenty of food memories which involve her and I am going to indulge in a few now - a good luck-card of a blog post, if you will.


A starter of HG-isms:

• Peanut butter on unsalted rice cakes, with segments of satsuma balanced on top
• Cold porridge from the fridge
• Sunflower seeds stashed in one's bag
• Sea breeze cocktails

Primo: conversions

• 2 or 3 years into our acquaintance, HG ate aubergine - a former, passionate, hate - in the form of aubergine rolled around a mint, cheese filling and baked in passata ('Involtini' to Nigella sympathisers. Just make sure you do the GOOD one, there are variations in different books...)
• after 3 or 4 years she succumbed to butternut squash risotto

Secondo: HG-specials

• HG-made vegetarian lasagne: done in such a particular way (with plenty of cheese!) that I am sure I could identify it in a blind-taste test
• Pizza with just cheese and tomato

Dessert

... is, naturally, cake. And what cake! The cake-party in Loughborough! And my birthday when she baked a 'Grassmere' fruit cake for me, knowing I would love it, and a chocolate cake so she could celebrate too, as fruit cake is something like the devil's own face to her.

There was malteser cake, a chocolate yule log and fairy cakes... and the time we baked both plain and chocolate cheesecakes, solemnly declaring it was much better to have a slice of each as they complimented each other. The brownies were still our finest moment though: I almost never give that recipe away.

Amigo, I salute you! And look forward to meeting you in Boston's for a coffee ;)