Today’s creative prompt is “cold” – my creative response is cooking a garlic mushroom macaroni cheese, recipe courtesy of the fantastically named food blog “Amuse Your Bouche”.

Here’s the story….. today being a crisp, autumnal day, I visited my favourite cafe at an art gallery (what’s not to like).  However, today I had no lunchtime companion – and I’ve discovered that the number one rule of an enjoyable eating experience, as laid down by food critic Jay Rayner in an earlier post is true….. i.e. have a good eating companion to hand.

So, I dashed home with the aim to recreate the cafe’s glorious smell and sight of plates piled high with “garlic mushroom ‘n’ mac”.  A google search later, right off the bat, a new to me blog popped up “Amuse Your Bouche”.  I know that mine won’t taste so well as the creator’s – I accidentally tipped too much unweighed pasta twirls into the saucepan of hot water – so the sauce to pasta ratio is very low.  (I comfort myself that the fat content is lower).  All in all, best to use the blog cook’s own photo.

Why I love the blog’s name is that it’s a play on words – in very expensive restaurants, there is an extra course called an “amuse bouche” – literally something to amuse your mouth/tastebuds.  (it’s in French).  But this down to earth blog is cheery and declares that is is all about “simple vegetarian recipes”.

And my dining companion?

Jan-Michel Basquiat.  I’m watching the end of a recent BBC documentary on him, called “Rage to Riches”.  If you live in the UK you can catch it on BBC i-player.  I recommend this documentary – I have seen others and this is the best – it draws widely on primary sources – Basquiat’s sisters, his early galleryist, the girlfriend he was with when he changed from very poor to very rich and several other key friends – and there’s the video he was in with Blondie (Debbie Harry importantly bought his first painting – wonder where that is now).