It has only been in the last year or so that we realised how much we enjoy entertaining.
As anti-social creatures by nature, who prefer to stay at home drinking hot chocolate with an episode of Lewis, the revelation took us by surprise. But I suppose that it the beauty of food. It is always its best when shared. As first morsels brush lips, whether at home or in a restaurant, I wait with eyes down for those noises and exclamations of relish (some of which come from myself); when the whole group concurs that it's a bloody good sauce, and we all love scallops. It feels good to instigate that kind of pleasure through your own cooking.



Entertaining is fun in the summer, but there's something romantic and distinctly "hygge" (yes, I went there) about inviting friends in from the cold on moody winter evenings, to a candle-lit dinner table, handing them a G&T, and feeding them up. What better way to beat the so-called 'winter blues' than to eat, drink, and howl with laughter? I whole-heartedly believe that if everyone made time to do this semi-regularly through winter, and not just in December, we'd all be much happier during those gloomy, grey days.

We got together with friends a lot over the last few months of 2016. In December, of course the occasions were coined as 'Christmas gatherings', but there were others, too. Here's a sample of one such occasion where we cooked for six of us.

Artichoke velouté with a smoked bacon mousse and artichoke chips Joseph Drouhin Rully Premier Cru 2014 Lamb chops, pumpkin pureé and glazed pickled beetroot, served with gratin savoyard Knipser Kalkmergel Spätburgunder 2012 Sticky toffee pudding with homemade whisky ice-cream St Stephan's Crown Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos 2007

As is M's habit for "fancy" home entertaining, he invented most of the dishes himself, to include ingredients we'd obtained recently and wanted to experiment with. The artichokes were from his mum's garden; the cheese in the savoyard our recent favourite, Westcombe cheddar; and the pumpkin from my hoard of supermarket freebees. It was my first time making a sticky toffee pudding, but this James Martin recipe worked like a dream.

What have you been cooking up this winter? How do you feel about entertaining at home? We'd love to know in the comments below.

Andy and Emma get hitched! Or plan to. Sometime. In the future.

So Andy proposed to Emma (friends of The Whole Milk Club). This is a BIG thing (I'm told), so we thought we would cook and open a bottle of Champagne in their honour.

Usually, we use a mixture of recipes from books and made up by ourselves when we entertain, but on this occasion we felt creative and designed the entire menu. We started by deciding on a few main ingredients, then putting together three dishes. For once, we did some experimenting earlier in the week, and on the morning of the meal we dashed out to a well known DIY store to purchase a blow torch.

Here is what we came up with and the wines we paired with them:

King Scallops, bhaji, fresh mango, yoghurt, passion fruit chutney Machherndl Kolmütz Grüner Veltliner 2014 Honey truffled torchon of smoked chicken, woodland stuffing, potato & celeriac foam, sautéed potato, sherry jus Bestheim Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Mambourg 2012 Toasted rose water mallow, lychee jelly, raspberry ice cream and coulis, rose syrup Hugel & Fils Gewurztraminer Vendage Tardive 2003