I’m quite a simple person really. I like comfort food at home, and I think when you’re popping your clogs you want something nurturing.
I’d want to cook a really amazing pork loin. One with numerous muscles – you know, the chumpy part – with lots of salt and crackling.
It’s always good to remember where you come from, so I’d honour my British roots with a ton of, well, roots: roast potatoes cooked in fat, and fluffy mash with lots of butter, roasted carrots, fennel, celeriac and beets alongside big pieces of garlic with their skins on, maybe some thyme.
Not forgetting something clean: boiled peas and simple blanched Swiss chard with salt and olive oil.
With all of this, I’d serve a tomato sauce cooked with cinnamon and chilli. This would cut through the sweetness of the pork. Cinnamon in tomato sauce was something that I picked up at the River Cafe. Just a touch of it to pique the interest of the diner, but which doesn’t take centre stage.
I’d bypass the appetizers, but go to town on the pudding. I’d have a dessert trolley with banoffee pie, hazelnut ice‑cream and strawberry tarts, glazed on top with creme patissiere underneath the fruit.
I don’t really eat chocolate desserts, but I love commercial chocolate bars. I might throw a Dairy Milk at perfect temperature into the mix – not too cold, not too soft. Just melting and creamy.
I’m a control freak, so I’d probably want to cook it myself. It would start in the late afternoon so we could sleep in. I’d want to prep it the day before, although I’d try to do as much before as possible – I pick when I cook!
I’d be with my family, including my grandmother, who is no longer with us, and we would be in the English countryside, perhaps by the canal near home in Birmingham. There’d be long trestle tables with wild flowers and burlap linen tablecloths, lots of cold water and candles everywhere.
The candles would flicker as a bluegrass band played, and as the afternoon progressed, we’d have a house DJ and a whole top-shelf bar with good bourbon, English gin and some Carling Black Label to see us into the night.
April Bloomfield is head chef at four US-based restaurants including The Spotted Pig in New York. Her second book, A Girl and Her Greens, is out now (Canongate)
