20 Questions with a Slashfoodie: Andrew Barrow

You've been reading our ramblings here at Slashfood for months now, so isn't it about time you get to know us? Over the next few weeks, we'll be playing 20 questions with our Slashfood bloggers, just so you can see what kind of insanity is cooking in our brains. And kitchens. We've already met Nick Vagnoni and Stefania Butler. This week, it's our resident wine expert and UK correspondent, Andrew Barrow.

Do you have a personal blog?
Two blogs - wine at spittoon.biz and food and bits at spittoonextra.biz

What is your day job, or rather, what do you do when you're not food blogging?
About all I do revolves around food, drink and photography. "Immersed" could be a word to describe it, "obsessed" has been banded about too. There is a little wine consultancy and a little website work on the side. If I am not in front of the computer I am tasting wine or down the pub or on a 12 mile walk getting some exercise; coz let's face it I ain't as thin as Nick! I also write the occasional post for the digital photo site here at Weblogs inc.

How long have you been blogging with Slashfood and what is your favorite post?
I don't recall the exact time I started with slashfood, but it was towards the end of last year. My favorite posts is actually a series I compiled interviewing various food bloggers; yep, that has to be my favourite. Chatting with Jeanne, Jenni and Johanna was great. Since then they have all become Internet and off-line friends in the growing UK food blogger scene.

Do you have any non-food-related, non-blogging hobbies?
If you include wine then not really - told you I was immersed - I recently started taking photographs again after several years break. But then again many of the photos I take are of food. All sounding a bit sad now. I have travelled quite a bit in the past so if I had some money travel would be up there as an interest. I also enjoy a good DVD.

Not every foodie does, but do you cook?
Indeed. Well I try.

What is your most prized utensil/gadget in the kitchen?
A wooden spoon. Several wooden spoons actually. I don't posses a Kitchen Aid, a blender or other electric type gadget so without a wooden spoon I would be stuffed.

List three things in your refrigerator right now.
Cheesecake (yep, I made it), semi-skimmed milk, and homemade tomato sauce for tonight's pasta dish.

You have to impress a date with a home-cooked meal. What are you going to make?
Aaah... well... ummm... its been so long. Dating that is, not cooking. How about some bread for olive oil dunking? I quite like making bread. The starter would be something simple; how about sliced cherry tomatoes and Taleggio baked on a square of puff pastry then topped off with a slice of prosciutto and a basil leaf. Served with a decent New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc of course. Main course would be chicken risotto perhaps, or if I had time to prepare lamb shanks slow cooked (I did the lamb for the main celebratory meal for last Christmas but on reheating the bottom of the dish stuck and burnt so it was well and truly ruined; so maybe not a good idea). A Southern French red (Pic St Loup perhaps) for the lamb or an Italian white for the risotto. Dessert would be something chocolatey - a tart perhaps or chocolate and hazelnut brownies. Not that romantic really which explains a great deal!

What is the last thing you ate?
A slice of that cheesecake.

Confession time – what do you eat that will get you banned from Slashfood? Come on, how about a corn dog?
I really, really can't think of anything. I try and buy fairtrade and/or organic. I support my local butchers, chocolate shop and deli when I can. I don't quite make 5 a day and if I buy a ready meal it comes from the hand made Cook chain. And even then I don't buy them that often. If I have cheese-on-toast it will be some obscure cheese on homemade bread. I don't eat out much, probably because I spend too much in Selfridges food hall. One confession though - I have never been to Borough Market the foodie destination in London. That I think is probably a bigger confession than eating something crap!

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That would have to be rice - you can do so much with rice and I relish risotto, paella, special fried that sort of thing.

Your Mom makes the best _____.
My mother makes the damnedest Blackberry and Apple Pie in the world. Actually I could eat that for the rest of my life if custard was included.

Which chef would you most like to have come into your kitchen and cook you dinner?
Tricky. I quite like Nigel Slater's stuff but as I seem quite able to cook his recipes myself plus the fact he is a little creepy rules him out. How about Clarissa Dickinson Wright. She doesn't drink but I think she would be blindingly entertaining.

Who would you most like to eat dinner with?
Although I don't eat out that often I really enjoy a long leisurely meal. Mate Rob would be my first choice although he hates pretentiousness or anywhere with more than two rows of cutlery and a napkin! Then dinner with the blogging gang here in the UK - Jeanne, Johanna, Monkey Gland and the others. Can you imagine it - notebooks, criticisms, cameras....

Your drink of choice?
Wine or Mount Gay Golden Rum and Coke.

Where was your best restaurant dining experience?
Most recently I have really enjoyed St John in London

The worst?
A long story cut short - chicken feet in some backstreet hovel in Shanghai where the owner - a security guard at a museum in the city somewhere as I recall - was trying to marry me off with his sister. I think the chicken feet were supposed to impress. They didn't. They were all very nice about it once I declined both the marriage and the chicken feet and gave a whole roast chicken to see me through the sea trip down to Hong Kong. Now that was nice!

Do you want fries with that?
You mean big thick chips don't you? Yes please.

You're so British.

What foods do you think should be banished from existence?
Mushy peas. God, they are truly awful. I wouldn't be sad if I never saw a parsnip or a banana ever again either.

What do you see as the biggest "thing" in food for the coming year?
I did a post a little while ago about Eastern European cookery becoming more well known; especially in the UK with the high numbers emigrating here now.