Spicy lamb chops • Baby aubergines with picking spices (achari baigan) • Okra with carom seeds (ajwaini bhindi)

Hi curry peeps,

Hope you’re all well. It’s been a funny old weekend here. We had another family funeral to go to on Friday – a beautiful woodland burial near Norwich. (We had a lovely eggs Benedict at the cosy Talc cafe in town beforehand – http://www.talcinnorwich.co.uk – which I’d highly recommended). We were feeling rather drained when we got back so we got a heartwarming takeaway from our old friend the Bengal Lancer. I even spotted our upstairs neighbours having a romantic date there when I went to collect the food (incidentally, this entitles you to a 20% discount).

After a mammoth lie-in we came up fighting again on Saturday and had a lovely lunch at Phonecia in Kentish Town (amazing as ever) before exploring a couple of properties with Open House London (www.londonopenhouse.org) – a great opportunity to find the hidden gems in your local area. My favourite was Philip Hughes’ studio – an incredible space with a multitude of mirrors and a spa space hidden in a cosy white ceramic bubble. We also popped in to see the Thomas Hardy tree near St Pancras (pictured above) – a curious nub of history among all the new building around King’s Cross.

With the help of Mr CC and my lovely sister-in-law (cook extraordinaire) we rustled up a delicious spicy dinner using the Food of the Grand Trunk Road cookbook. I’ve also just invested in a copy of Rick Stein’s new India book on her recommendation so watch this space. I’m interested in trying out the Pondicherry-style prawn curry with preserved lemons and fresh herbs. Has anyone tried it out?

We’ve got a busy few weekends coming up – Mr M’s bday, our wedding anniversary and an impromptu trip to Paree, but I’ll do my best to keep in touch.

Marks: 8/10 (please excuse the lack of actual curry content in this post).

Cooked – Michael Pollan

The nature and food writer Michael Pollan stopped by Penguin Towers this lunchtime to tell us all about his new book “Cooked”, which was published last week. In a packed tenth-floor meeting room against a gloomy London skyline and slate-like 45-degree rain, he spoke to us  about his background in journalism and eventual metamorphism into a writer. Initially working as an editor for Harpers with writers such as Tom Wolfe and Margaret Atwood, the job gave him the insight to see that not all great works arrived fully formed and the confidence to pursue his own writing projects. About the same time that he bargained with his boss for a published feature of his own in the magazine in lieu of a pay rise, he also started dabbling in gardening at his second home outside New York, and it was here that his attraction to nature and biology germinated.

I’m looking forward to getting stuck into my proof copy of Cooked soon; Pollan told us that the book is a vital link in his series of works that explore our food chain, and spoke eloquently about cutting onions in a zen-like state, the false economy of time-saving ready meals and how young American’s have caught the pickling bug. I totally agreed with his’s astute observation that profound conversations take place when people are cooking and not making eye contact, and also his discussions about the fetishization of food.  He mentioned his surprise at spotting ready-cubed chicken breasts in Tesco that  morning – apparently this “time saving” phenomenon hasn’t reached the US yet.

You can read more about this most important of subjects here:  http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846148033,00.html