If it’s got anything at all to do with Burlesque or Cabaret, there is a strong possibility that The Lord KXB is going to want to check it out. His mates and family call him Karl, but to everybody else in Ireland, he is the Grand Puba, the Mac Daddy and Maharishi of Irish Burlesque. As producer of The Burlesque & Cabaret Social Club, Karl has consistently put together a huge amount of wicked shows that celebrate all that is best in the art forms that come under that umbrella.
I have had the distinct pleasure of working with the man himself down on Leeson Street for the last couple of years and this weekend we celebrate a new departure – The Burlesque & Cabaret Social Club is moving it’s monthly residency from Fridays to Saturdays! This will allow more time for performers to gather up their costumes and gizmos and more time for the punters to max out their glam. This may not sound like much, but any regular will tell you that this will be of tremendous help! One does not attend in one’s hipster flannel shirt and Topman jeans….
To help launch the new residency Karl has enlisted the help of a heavy hitter from London town to host the first show of 2012 this Saturday night. His name is Desmond O’Connor and he’s a dark and twisted ukulele playing funny man, par excellence. And while he may be no stranger to our shores, I thought it would be nice to for you all to get know him a little better by way of one of my special wee slightly fucked up interviews. We discussed all that was truly important in life – food & frolics. It turns out that auld Dessie is quite the gourmand and a vegetarian one at that. His recipe is a beautiful culmination of wild mushrooms and artichokes bound together with home made strudel. Nice!
- What have you been up to for the last 6 months and what have you got planned for the next 6?
The last six months have been crazy. Working with Scott Mills and the Radio One crew up in Edinburgh, as well as producing six other shows and appearing in the three of them. They say the Irish are an industrious nation, so I guess I have my ancestors to thank for the fact I’m a workaholic; I can probably thank them for a few other bad habits as well. The next six months are relaxing by comparison; I open a new musical, Toxic Bankers, at the start of March then I start work on Radio Four: The Musical, and amidst all of that is my biggest production of 2012…I’m going to be a dad!
- Who in your professional opinion, has done the best tassel based performance you have ever seen?
The competition is, ahem, stiff, but there are a few favourites who never fail to titillate with their twirling talents. Fancy Chance spins a mean tassel and Belfast’s Leyla Rose is a force to be reckoned with, but my all time favourite has to the buxom and beautiful Cherry Shakewell…the name says it all!
- Should Boylesque be an Olympic sport?
I thought it was already…a fine collection of shining rings, all shapes and sizes, that unite the world in love.
- What’s your favourite cocktail?
The temptation to lapse into innuendo is almost irresistible, but I shall be honest and say that an espresso Martini gets my vote every time; caffeine and booze in equal, over-zealous measures. What’s not to love?
- Your earliest food memory is….
Being rushed into hospital because my stomach stopped working when I was a little tot. I gave the girl from the exorcist a run for her money with my projectile vomiting. I also remember being taken to a slaughter-house as a child by my well-meaning father. I’d bullied him into doing it because I was quite a morbid little soul. It ended up prompting my life-long commitment to being a vegetarian. My mother was delighted.
- What’s your all time favourite hangover meal?
I find that the only thing that ever really cures a hangover is more booze, so I always aim to maintain a stable level of insobriety. I am, though, something of a gastronome as well (which I used to think referred to a midget Jamie Oliver lookalike) so I’ve provided a recipe that combines fine, vegetarian dining with the copious consumption of my famously favourite tipple.
- Are you doing any whacky food diets now that we’re into the guilty post Christmas purge? Have you done any before?
It’s a little known fact that I was nearly twice the size I am today whilst a drunken lazy student, but I found the Fatkins diet, combined with a strenuous ‘nightclubbing’ regime that often lasted from Friday night until Monday morning worked wonders for burning off the extra pounds (and euros).
- What’s the one food or dish that would make you instantly puke?
I’m a genuine and adventurous lover of food and I hate waste more than anything else so I think you’d be hard pushed to come up with anything that had an instantly emetic effect on my cast iron constitution.
- When you’re not on the road what do you like to cook at home?
This is where I share the deep, dark secret that I love to cook steak for my beautiful, pregnant girlfriend, Zoie. As an ethical vegetarian with a secret meat fetish, I was thrilled when the doctor said that her blood count was a little low and that she could do with getting some meat inside her; needless to say, I rushed her home and immediately set to work on following the doctor’s orders.
DESMOND O’CONNOR’S WILD MUSHROOM & ARTICHOKE STRUDEL WITH CHEAP WHITE WINE SAUCE
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- 425g/11oz unsalted butter
- 500g/1lb 2oz wild mushrooms, such as ceps or girolles, sliced thickly. psilocybe semilanceata may be used at the chef’s own risk
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, picked from their stems
- 250g/9oz artichoke hearts in olive oil, quartered
- 1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 6 large sheets filo pastry
Cheap Shite White Wine Sauce
- 25g (1oz) butter
- 2 shallots, diced
- 1tbsp fresh thyme
- 300ml (10fl oz) white wine*
- 250ml (9fl oz) fresh double cream
- 1tbsp Dijon mustard
- Squeeze of lemon juice
*For a wine to achieve the Cheap Shite White Wine seal of approval it must cost less than five euros and have alcohol by volume of 13% or more.
METHOD:
· Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Grease a baking tray with melted butter.
· Open the wine and don’t, whatever you do, let it breath.
· Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan and gently fry the onion for five minutes, or until softened. Remove the onion and place into a large bowl.
· Melt 150g/5oz of the butter in the frying pan until foaming. Then add the mushrooms, garlic and thyme leaves and cook for five minutes, or until the mushrooms have softened.
· Take a hefty glug from the wine to ensure that the quality is sufficiently low and the alcohol sufficiently high for it to achieve the desired effect.
· Remove from the heat and add the mushrooms to the onion. Add the artichoke hearts and pine nuts to the bowl, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix until well combined. Allow to cool and then drain the mixture through a sieve.
· To assemble the strudel, melt the remaining butter and place into a small bowl. Lay out two sheets of filo pastry, overlapping at the thin end, to cover the greased baking tray. Brush the pastry with some of the melted butter.
· Cover the pastry with a further two layers and brush with melted butter.
· Add a final layer of pastry, but only brush the edges of the pastry with melted butter. Place the mushroom mixture onto the unbuttered pastry and roll up to form a parcel, tucking the sides in.
· Brush well with more melted butter and bake for 25 minutes, or until crisp and golden-brown.
· Ensure that there is not too much wine in the wine by imbibing at least another glass and a half before getting to work on the sauce.
· Melt the butter in a pan and gently fry the shallots and thyme for a few mins or until the onion is soft but not coloured.
· Add the wine, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 10 mins or until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the cream and mustard and warm through thoroughly.
· Add a squeeze of lemon juice and some black pepper. Strain into a jug and serve.
· Pour over the strudel, down your throat and, since you’re probably pissed by now, all over the table and the laps of your friends and family.
Come check out Desmond O’Connor and a geansaí load of other lushes and rides down at The Sugar Club from 8pm – this Saturday.
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