Twelve

Nico Tortellini

Main, Pasta

Sorry for the delay with this week’s recipe, I am only just coming down from my wonderful week at a private villa with Nico. While it was only meant to be a friendly catch-up between friends, Nico is truly intoxicating … and like Joni Mitchell, I couldn’t help but drink a case of him.

As you know, I first met Neeks through Mich and Corbs on the set of the egregiously shortlived TBL, and while I’d love to say it were his brains and many talents that drew me to him, our sexual chemistry is what brought us together.

Thankfully it didn’t take long for me to see him as the kind, wise and talented individual that he is, and we became friends after being lovers. Which kinda flips Bolton’s rule, no?

Anyway … let’s get to the good stuff. I picked Nico up from the airport, it was hot and humid and we drove to a private villa not far from the scene of the cage-fighting accident with Miley that rendered Annelie out of action on here.

We swam, we laughed and we literally ticked all the boxes. It was, as you would expect, glorious.

When it came to nightfall, we were absolutely ravenous for something carby and glorious, that could easily be eaten off a body Samantha-in-SATC-style. Which meant I obviously went for a Nico Tortellini.

 

 

“It is so thoughtful,” he said as I brought it to the table.

“Creamy, hot and spicy, and packed full of sausage – it is everything this week has been.”

Enjoy!

 

 

Nico Tortellini
Serves: 4-6 … or 2 starved lovers on Valentine’s Day.

Ingredients
1 cup ricotta
½ cup emmental
½ cup grana padano
pinch of nutmeg
1 egg, lightly whisked
salt and pepper, to taste
60 gow gee wrappers
olive oil
6 spicy Italian sausages, excluding your lover’s
3 garlic cloves, minced
small handful mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp chilli flakes
½ cup sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped
1-2 cups baby spinach
300ml double cream
½ cup grated parmesan, plus extra to serve

Method
Combine the ricotta, emmental and grana padano cheeses in a bowl with the nutmeg, egg and a good whack of salt and pepper. Stir well to combine.

Grab your gow gee wrappers, a pastry brush and a half-filled mug of water. Spoon out a large teaspoon of mixture into the centre of each gow gee wrapper, lightly brush the edges with water and fold the pastry in half leaving you with a filled semicircle. Take the two edges and turn them into to each other and press together to form a large tortellini … because I love his large tortellini.

Once they’re all ready, get a big pot of salted water boiling over high heat. When bubbling as aggressively as your chemistry, add the pasta and cook for five minutes, or until they are all floating. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop cooking.

While the pasta are cooking, heat a lug of olive oil in a large skillet and push meatball-sized pieces of meat out of the sausage and cook for a couple of minutes, or until they’re all cooked. Add the garlic and mushroom and cook for a further couple of minutes, or until the mushies are softening and the kitchen fragrant. Add the chilli, sundried tomatoes, spinach and double cream and cook, stirring, for a further couple of minutes. Remove from the heat, stir through the parmesan and season well.

Return the tortellini to the pasta pan, pour over the sauce and toss until well covered. Serve immediately, in a bowl, on your sexy lover or both, the latter two after they’ve adequately cooled, ovbi.

Sprinkle with even more cheese – sausage’s best accompaniment – and devour.

 

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My love bomb, about to explode

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Ah, Nico. Nico. Nico, Nico, Nico. How I love thee, my dear Nico.

I’ve known Nico for close to ten years, after meeting on the set of The Beautiful Life through my friends Corbs and Mish. To say the deep sexual attraction was instant, is an understatement.

After the tragic felling of our mutual friend Milk on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3, I was feeling sooo emotional – am I right, Sash? – so called Nico to see if he wanted to reconnect.

“Oh Ben, I’d love to spend Valentine’s with you,” he giddily screamed into the phone.

“I’m on the next plane, I won’t need to pack much … I can’t wait.”

He then sent me this picture.

Well this should be a fun week, I guess …

Image source: Unknown.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Chicken Ellen Barkin and Cheese Burger

Burgers, Main, Party Food, Snack

Where do I start with my girl Ellen Barkin? I know I shouldn’t have favourite characters within my favourite movie, but Annette Atkins is an icon and she even inspired my life’s mantra, once a carnie, always a carnie. Sure it doesn’t make sense if you don’t know I have a carnie fetish … but I guess I just told you? Blame The Simpsons.

Anyway, I’m now well off track.

I first met El in the early ‘80s while visiting my boy Steve Guttenberg on the set of Diner. While I was too busy obsessing over the divine Kevin Bacon, to form a lasting relationship with El, we reconnected on the set of Sea of Love – I was visiting Al Pacino – and our friendship was finally able to blossom.

When it came time to cast the role of Annette in Drop Dead Gorgeous, I knew that El was the only person I could trust. While she was a little hesitant to have a beer-can fused to her hand for half a movie, I was quickly able to win her over … and the results truly are beautiful.

She has been super busy with season 2 of Animal Kingdom lately, but jumped at the opportunity to celebrate her crowning cinematic achievement and witness my told-you-so- dance in all its glory.

Given how much I love her and how much I love burgers, my dinner choice was clear – my delightful Chicken Ellen Barkin and Cheese Burger!

 

 

Shamelessly inspired by the greatest thing on the KFC menu – well, outside of the Zinger Bacon and Cheese – this burger fills me with unending joy. Fresh, zingy, crisp fried chicken, bacon, cheese and a shit tonne of mayo and lettuce? You had me at zingy.

Enjoy!

 

 

Chicken Ellen Barkin and Cheese Burger
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, halved into bun sized fillets
½ mix of Farrahed Moan Chicken spice mix
8 rashers streaky bacon
4 slices high melt cheese
1-2 cups iceberg lettuce, roughly chopped
¼ mayonnaise

Method
Prepare the chicken breast fillets as per the Farrahed Moan Chicken Recipe until crispy and glorious.

Fry the bacon in a skillet over medium heat, until crisp.

To make the burgers, half the buns, slather the base with mayo, top with lettuce, bacon, cheese and chicken fillets. Then, obvi, devour.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Peppermint Patti Smith

Dessert, Snack, Sweets

Despite the fact that Pats and I created the punk scene in 70s NYC, a wild and rebellious genre in the time before Giuliani cleaned up the streets – I would say when the world was more dangerous … but let’s be honest, the world is fucked – we’ve always had a calm and almost ethereal nature to our friendship.

Think Cate Blanchett and Julie Anne Smith.

Thank fuck for that because we had some shit we needed to work through and if it was any other friend, we likely would have had a public spat and taken Lohan out of the news cycle.

Pats was hurt that – despite admitting singing with Bono was horrifically wrong – she was always willing to forgive me for making mistakes, I couldn’t give her the same respect.

Obviously my first impulse would normally be to burn my building to the ground and vow to never speak to her again … probably calling for a plague on her house in the process, but that calming force she has over me made me see sense and accept that what she was saying, was the truth.

Plus, I was still walking in the clouds, albeit gingerly, from my catch-up with Bob.

Anyway, we did some poetry slam, worked through the pain I caused by stealing Mapplethorpe, wrote some music and resolved all of our issues – even the disgusting Bono slight – over a tonne of Peppermint Patti Smith.

 

peppermint-patti-smith-1

 

Like their namesake, these treats are effortless, sweet and oh so cool, while balancing the dark and light to fill you with contentedness.

And let’s be honest, what more can I say? Enjoy!

 

peppermint-patti-smith-2

 

Peppermint Patti Smith
Makes: 24.

Ingredients
200g condensed milk
1 tbsp mint extract
4 cups icing sugar, sieved plus extra
100g dark chocolate

Method
Combine the condensed milk and mint extract in a bowl and place in a stand mixer on low to combine.

With the mixer still on, slowly and gently, add the icing sugar – I cannot stress slowly and gently enough, lest you want the kitchen to look like a combined party of an 80s model, Hitler and the KKK – and stir until combine.

Dust a bench with icing sugar and knead the mixture until smooth and pliable … like Gumby, or me when trying to woo back Skarsy.

Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper, remove golf ball sized chunks from the sugary ball and flatten into a disc. Repeat until the ball is gone and refrigerate until set, aka a couple of hours.

When they are almost done, bring a small pot of water to the boil and break the chocolate into a just larger than the saucepan sized glass bowl. Without the bowl touching the water, place/hold it over the heat and gently melt the chocolate until thick and glossy. Leave to cool for about five minutes.

Once cooled, remove the minty discs from the fridge and brush/rub with the chocolate. Once complete, return to the fridge and leave to set for a couple of hours.

Then devour and let the coolness wash over you. U2 are still the worst, but let the cool, calm mint wash the rage away.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

U2, Brute?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

There are so many amazing Patti’s in the world – LuPone, Duke, LaBelle, Hearst … pretty much any Patti you can think of outside of Newton (that harpy knows what she did) – but I would have to say that Patti Smith, hands down, is my favourite.

I met Pats in the 70s while I was playing a highly influential role in starting the NYC punk scene. Despite awakening her then lover Robert Mapplethorpe’s sexuality, Patti and I remained close – I assume as no one else was ever as gifted in the punk scene as we were.

Who knows?

I haven’t seen Pats in almost a year, after she slighted me and sang at a U2 concert with my nemesis Bono (don’t have a name so close to boner if you don’t want me to hit on you, jerk).

Last week I got to thinking and in a rare moment of rational, adult behaviour, I realised that if she was able to forgive me for stealing her lover, I should be able to forgive her for singing with a twat. So I reached out – seriously, I was mature for like a good hour guys – and Patti agreed to drop by and clear the air.

What says sorry I cut off contact after the U2 incident … as it was kind of hypocritical?

Picture source: Unknown.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.