Nova Clutch

Smythson Panama diary

OK, so my step mother isn't the only one who is really good at buying presents. Just before we left, Karen was over from London and handed me the iconic blue bag that has my heart going into palpitations. No, not that kind of blue. A better, more valuable kind. To me, anyway.

Smythson is quality in bound form. All their diaries are pigskin and handmade, originally designed to slip into a gentleman's pocket. Hey, I'm no gentleman, but I have a certain swagger with this in my pocket. And I'm not the only one – Smythson has held the esteemed Royal Warrant of Appointment since 1964. I wonder if the Queen has emerald green too?

Ideal Cheese Shop

I have to admit it; I think I am addicted to finding gifts for people. I get an inexplicable joy from getting something for a friend that I know they will love. I buy gifts a year in advance if I see the right thing. I don't particularly care about getting gifts in exchange – I just love giving people presents. I think I am a gift-giving junkie.

That was until my step-mother came along. She is, by far, the best gift-giver on the planet. Last year for Christmas she gave me a set of antique silver cutlery complete with original wooden box that she found in an antiques show in England. She manages to find my fashion editor friend clothing that she actually likes. She buys my brother foie gras and obscure vinyls that no one has ever heard of.

Having got back from South East Asia satiated by lots of amazing food, there was only one thing we hadn't had for a month that we really were craving. Cheese. Not something you get in Vietnam. Low and behold, a box gets delivered to our house that says "yes I'm smelly, that's because I'm cheese." A crate of lovely, stinky English cheese from the Ideal Cheese Shop, complete with two olive oils and some chutney. I'm taking them over to Stef's house tonight for an all-cheese dinner. Thanks for marrying her, Dad. Now what on earth do I get her?

Coconut candy from the Mekong Delta

The towns of the Mekong Delta were not quite what I expected. They weren't small towns with a slow, bucolic pace. This was developing industry, smoke-ridden, motorbike-riding commerce. Luckily for us – because we live in smoke-ridden industry and see a power plant from our window – we managed to get into a sleepier part of the Mekong.

When our guide told us we were going to a coconut candy factory I bristled a little and had visions of an industry for the foreigners, and tourism by rote. What we actually found was a small hut on the banks of the Mekong, replete with the hulling of coconuts and the manufacture of candy by hand by a whole family.

They use only older coconuts – young ones are the green coconuts you drink the water from – and the older ones are the fibrous, brown coconuts with harder flesh. This is then caramelized and spun over a fire. Then the gooey mess is spread over some rubber and pushed by hand into wooden slats to create a uniform shape and size. Once it has cooled it is then cut by hand into pieces, wrapped with homemade rice paper and then in paper.

The result is candy that I have been eating everyday, and I don't normally eat candy. But this is not overly sweet with a very satisfying chewiness, and the most wonderful caramel-like smoky flavor, that comes from cooking it over an open flame. I can't stop eating them, and unfortunately when they're gone, it's going to be quite impossible to get more. Unless of course, I go back to the Mekong.

Homemade toasted coconut marshmallows

Having been in South East Asia for a month, we returned bleary-eyed to our loft in DUMBO pretty disorientated, me with a stinking cold that I picked up in Tokyo, somewhere between the train station and airport. I guess I am lucky that it hit me on the plane and not on the trip. But it made for a pretty miserable long-haul flight.

So the moment I am well enough to get into my kitchen (which now seems to me the absolute height of luxury having stayed with families with only a firepit and wok to work with) I made...marshmallows.

Why? Oh, I don't know, because I've never made them before. Because it was Susanne's birthday and we were having fondue. And what better to dip in the chocolate and red wine fondue than toasted coconut marshmallow squares? Nothing!

Michael was completely baffled by my desire to make them, but good-humoredly watched the temperature of the sugar syrup creep up to 240°F and then beat the scorching liquid with an electric hand mixer for 15 minutes. This is something you really should do with a standing mixer, I realized as I saw Michael's wrist quiver and smelled the burning from the hand mixer. As I pushed the pillowy goodness into the pan, Michael tasted the mixture out of the bowl. "It tastes like marshmallow!" he exclaimed. Result.

And they really did. Everyone at the party guessed that egg whites were an ingredient, but these guys are just sugar, corn syrup and gelatin. Yup, heart healthy. Well, ok, no they're not, but who cares.