Say Cheese: My 15 Seconds of Fame

/ May 29, 2015

When the email arrived in my inbox last year asking me if I wanted to take part in a cookery show, my first response was a snigger. For a start, this had to be a joke; I don’t really watch much TV, never mind cookery shows, so I was ready to dismiss the whole thing as, well, a joke.

But there was a catch: the idea behind the programme, the email stated, was a celebration of multicultural Britain, through food. As some of you have noticed and commented on, this is a topic rather close to my heart. Like so many who have come to Britain as immigrants, food is the tie that keeps you – and your family – attached to your roots. When life is tough, a sweet dumpling will save the day. School-weary teenagers? Nothing that a few pretzels for lunch can’t deal with.

When I came to Britain for the first time in the 1980s, many of the families I encountered didn’t even use their dining table for meals, but had their food on a little tray in front of the telly. Outside Roald Dahl’s Matilda, I had never come across this concept before, nor the idea of buying your own airplane-style plastic box to heat up in a microwave, instead of a cooked dinner. ‘Stab and nuke’, my colleague calls those ready meals, which sums it up neatly for me.

Coming from a place were food is what holds families together, with the main meal the highlight of the day, often eagerly anticipated (Schnitzel! More dumplings!), I, like many other immigrants, I have managed to create a home from home, in form of a mini-Germany in the middle of Britain. No yodelling or dirndls, Sound of Music-style, nor marching to angry little men’s voices, but a place where the dining table is at the heart of the house, the place where we meet and eat. My children might not know much about German realpolitik or be able to appreciate the subtleties of the German grammar, but they do consider sourdough to be a necessity, and baking a life skill.

Anyway, to get back to my email. I ended up responding to it, and after many emails back and forth I was invited to take part in Nigel Slater’s new series ‘Eating Together‘, which is starting next week on the BBC.Nigel Slater and Steffi-1 Now, although I am not watching much telly, I am quite aware of the British love affair with their TV chefs, and I fully agree. If anyone has challenged and changed British attitudes towards food over the last few decades, it is people like Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver, and their relentless insistence on the fact that you can, indeed you should, try this at home. Nigella Lawson made cooking sexy, the Hairy Bikers made it manly, and Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood made it competitive.

Nigel Slater’s contribution, I would argue, is a mix of all of the above. I’ve always looked forward to his recipes in the Observer: his mix of beautiful prose and imaginative food has made been making this a highlight of my week for years. I love his no-nonsense approach to cooking, the way he explains the main idea behind his creations, challenging you to come up with your own version rather than following the recipe. Oh, and I do love his garden, too.

‘Eating Together’ reflects Nigel Slater’s thoughtful approach to food, as well as his open mindedness: each week, a different type of food is explored – dumplings, soups, stews, custard, noodles – by inviting immigrants and their families to share their stories as well as their food. Over the six episodes, you are invited to join in with families from Japan and Poland, Mexico and Thailand, who have made Britain their home, as they prepare their favourite dishes.

My own contribution to the programme are Spätzle, the small noodles you might encounter on menus all over Southern Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland. They are quite unique in their preparation, a skill that has been passed on from mothers to daughters over hundreds of years: the runny batter is being cut into boiling water by hand. Fortunately new technology in form of a ‘Spätzlehobel’ makes it a child’s play.Spätzle We serve Spätzle as a side dish for anything that comes with a sauce or gravy that needs mopping up, as well as in soups or as a dish in itself.Kässpätzle For the programme, Nigel decided to use my Spätzle for a German-inspired version of macaroni cheese, using very Apline ingredients such as speck and smoked cheese. As always, I admired his style and the panache with which he managed to pull this off, turning a deeply traditional dish into something stylish and, well, British. You simply have to believe me, it did taste absolutely delicious (I did tuck in rather unashamedly in front of the camera, and I helped myself to another portion after filming had finished …)

Inspired by Nigel’s carefree attitude I thought I’d finish this post with my own version of fusion cuisine – not that imaginative, I agree, but certainly pushing a few boundaries for me: a no-bake cheesecake. To any Swabian worth their salt, no-bake means no-cake. Using soft cheese was a step too far, tough, so I replaced it with a mix of creamy mascarpone and quark, the magic ingredient for our own cheese cake and cheese strudel. To keep the cake in shape you’ll need to add gelatine, of vege-gel, a vegetarian option. This adds a little fuss to an otherwise straightforward recipe, but the 5 extra minutes are well worth it!

Mini cheesecakes 1

No-Bake Quark and Mascarpone Cheesecake with Strawberries (for a 20cm / 8 in form or 10 muffin tins)

  • 150g digestive biscuits, crushed
  • 100g unsalted butter, melted
  • 500g quark (fat free)
  • 250g mascarpone
  • the zest of 1/2 lemon
  • 2 tbs elderflower cordial
  • 2 sheets of gelatine or 1/2 packet of vege-gel
  • 100g icing sugar, sifted
  • a punnet of strawberries
  • 3 tbs strawberry jam

Soak the gelatine sheets in a pint of cold water. Depending on your make, this should leave you just the right amount of time to get on with the base.

Line the bottom of the cake tin with baking parchment. Place the biscuits in a freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Mix them with the melted butter and press the mix into the cake or muffin tin. Sprinkle the lemon zest over the base and place the tin into the fridge to chill.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the quark, mascarpone and the icing sugar with an electric mixer. Remove the soaked gelatine sheets and place them with 1 tbs of the water, as well as the elderflower cordial, in a small pan. Heat it up and keep stirring until the gelatine is melted completely.

Add the melted gelatine to the cheese mix, whisk it and spread it on top of the biscuit layer. Place the tin into the fridge to chill. This will take a few hours, making it an ideal cake to prepare beforehand.

Just before you want to serve the cake, wash, dry and mull the strawberries. Put aside the prettiest ones for decoration, and puree two of the less decorative ones. Heat the jam in a small pan until it is bubbling, then add it to the puree. Decorate the cake with the remaining strawberries, pour the puree over it, and serve.

Mini cheesecakes 3

Did I enjoy the filming? I absolutely loved it: watching all these professionals at work, their concentration and dedication to the finished programme was a joy to behold. But standing in front of a camera, I’m afraid, is not really my thing … Even more reason to admire those chefs and bakers who do have the courage and the confidence to step out and get on with it!

Mini cheesecakes 2

As for the programme, ‘Eating Together’ will be airing this Monday at 7.30 pm on BBC1. I won’t be making my Spätzle until the last episode, though – plenty of time to get inspired by all the different types of food, traditions and skills, and by Nigel Slater’s enthusiasm for all things food!

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78 thoughts on “Say Cheese: My 15 Seconds of Fame”

  4. Oh wow – that is so very exciting! I won’t be back in the UK for a couple of weeks so I hope I can catch up if I miss your programme. What a thrill….am so distracted that I almost forgot to say what a great recipe you gave us too today 🙂

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    • I hope you’re having a great time in Spain. I was thinking of you when I was writing the post – I bet you have ended up with a little Spain in Bexhill and a little England in Andalucia 😉

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  7. Very exciting both for you and all the viewers that get to see the show. I think your food is beautiful , extraordinary really. You are very gifted, meticulous and so very generous with sharing your creations. This is great!

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  9. That’s so cool!! I can’t wait to watch it 😀😀 it’s so freaky because only this morning my husband told me about this new programme he’d seen advertised that he thought I’d like…and it was this series!!!! Brilliant xxx

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  10. It was wonderful meeting everybody – poor Selma didn’t feel very well! We’ll have to have another gettogether sometime soon, to make up for the two of you!

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  11. Wow! How freakin’ awesome is that!! I had heard that Nigel Slater was coming back……a star in our very own FF midst? May I have your autograph now, before they sweep you away to Hollywood? Good job Ginger 🙂 When will it air?

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  12. I have to admit when I first opened up your blog page I did a real doubletake. This is really so wonderful Ginger! All the more so (in my belief) because you are not aggressively self-promoting and trying like crazy to get on TV, much less watch TV at all! I happen to have 3 of Mr. Slater’s tombs and they are all not only beautifully shot and written, but the cooking is sublime and yet friendly at the same time. I do love what he did with your spaetzle. I am very excited because we are getting a new “modern Austrian street food” restaurant downtown very soon. It is from one of our favorite young Austrian chefs who had a wonderful teeny restaurant in Beverly Hills called Bierbeisl . . . . very critically acclaimed but alas he pulled up his boots because the rent was outrageous . . . good for him! I will post as soon as I go there and think of you of course!

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    • Ha, and there’s me thinking I am completely in the trap of social-media-exposure … He is such a wonderful person and it was a real pleasure – and honour! – working alongside him. I am absolutely thrilled to hear about the ‘new Austrian street food’ joint, only last weekend I read a long article (in the free Germanwings in-flight magazine, no less ;-)) about the ‘new’ Viennese approach to hospitality and it looked amazing!

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  14. At FF, we can all say “We knew Ginger when”! How exciting!!! Be sure to send us the link whenit airs as we don’t get that show here in USA. Congrats Ginger and the cheesecake looks divine!

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    • It’s on the BBC – if you can get the BBC anywhere you should be able to watch it. What a pity you don’t get Slater in the States, he is such a lovely and understated presenter who really puts the food in the centre of his programme, as well as in his writing.

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  16. That is spectacular Ginger! I will catch it online and be sure to watch. In fact, I just saw a small intro to the series on the BBC website. There was a short clip of Spatzle being cut into water. It looks like such an interesting and fun series. I don’t think anyone is surprised that you would be asked to present great food and technique on television. Not I! Congratulations!

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    • It was such a wonderful opportunity – so often immigrants are only seen as parasites who are taking stuff away, rather than enriching the county they live in. And I did feel very much as an ambassador, especially as most people here don’t know anything about German food! The most common reaction I get to my food, nevertheless, is why would I spend so much time preparing it! It took me a long time to learn not to try and explain how much fun cooking is, as it was just met with utter disbelief 😉

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    • I saw it last night and the Spätzle clip is indeed my (or rather my hands)! I’ll have to change the title to ‘My split-socond of fame’ no 😉 …

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  17. Oh ginger!!!
    I’m so happy for you, I will love this for you! Besides I finally get a actual picture of you 🙂 🙂 :-).
    This is fabulous ginger, cheers to you beautiful and many many more emails like this 🙂

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    • Haha, talking about the picture – I was so close to asking you for fashion advice at the time! But then I pictured myself in hotpants and high heels, and on national television, that I decided not to 😉

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  20. Oh how exciting!! I can’t wait to watch it! That must have been such a fabulous experience. My first ever recipe book was a Nigel Slater one (Appetite) and it was him that really got me hooked on cooking. I totally agree with everything you say about him; what a wonderful opportunity to get to spend some time cooking with him. And even better to finally get to put your name to a face! Fab photo 🙂 Can’t wait to see the programme.

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  21. Congratulations!! This is incredibly exciting news! I’m so exited for this series to start and hope I can see it somewhere! The show also sounds fabulous and you’re absolutely right–food is where I find the last tenuous connections to my great grandparents who initially immigrated…and where I can see a culmination of experiences and different influences on my grandparents and parents. Can’t wait and thanks so much for sharing the news!

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    • Thank you for your lovely response! We are so used on the web to share our experiences and to have an open mind about other people’s experiences, but to bring that onto national TV is altogether amazing!

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  23. Fantastic! Well done you! I have never taken for granted that I come from one of those families that have always eaten together around the table – something that I have carried on with my own family (even if we are eating separately from the children, I will sit with them while they eat), but that cheesecake makes me want to sneakily make it and eat it by myself (possibly even in front of the telly!) 😀

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    • I know what you mean, having eaten large parts of that cake myself I can only advise you against it – you mightn’t fit at that table afterwards 😉

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  24. I am really looking forward to watching this tv show. I regularly shop at my polish supermarket for bread and portuguese deli for salt cod and asian stores for all my spices. I have travelled a lot and im facinated by other cultures and there recipes. Spaetzl is one of my favourites and i get my kids involved in the messy making process. Love your blog.

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    • It’s one of the great things about living in a large city that you can get your hands on all those exotic ingredients, without having to try very hard. Thank you so much for your kind comments – my kids run away when it looks like ‘work’, so no chance about getting them involved! 😉 Where did you come across Spätzle?

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  25. I first tried spätzle in Stuttgart many years ago and also in Munich. My kids had their first taste of proper spätzle in Wiesbaden, their plates were cleared in no time. It was the quietest they have ever been.

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  26. How wonderful! I watched the show last night and was really struck by the image of what I know now, is spatzle, being cut into the water. How fabulous to get to work with such an inspiring chef! Well done you!! Can’t wait to see your bit now!! You kept that close to your chest on Friday!

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    • Thanks Selma – good to see you again! The show last night was wonderful and I’d love to get stuck in right now trying out all the different recipes! I’ve made both pierogi and tortellini before, but not on the blog (only my Maultaschen, the German version of those). Dumplings are my passion anyway, so watch this space 😉

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  28. That is so cool! I will keep an eye out for the program! Niger Slater does some really scrumptious look food, how lucky to spend a day with him 🙂 wow!

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  29. This is must very exciting and you should be very proud of yourself! I do love spatzli, they are quite common even in Italy, my mum makes this recipe very often! And talking about your mascarpone cheesecake…. there is no much to add…. they look scrumptious!

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    • Thank you, Margherita! I saw the Italian version the other day in a cookbook – I had not come across them before! The cheesecake, too, is delicious. Or was, rather ….

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