You can't Beet our Beets or a Homage to Andrea

My sexy friend & inveterate style guru, Andrea

There are always one or two people in your life that have a profound influence, and my style guru, if I were to choose one, is probably my friend Andrea (An-DRAY-ya), who has one of those pleasantly messy big Spanish houses in Santa Monica filled with interesting pictures and knick-knackery and books you always want to read. Her tables are orange and pink and green and filled with flowers in odd-shaped vases and eccentric lights. Even her dog-beds are covered in wild, Life of Pi-inspired fabrics which she just happened to find while browsing one day. (She's also a very talented interior designer in Real Life.)

Every single time I go to her house for dinner I find myself emulating a recipe of hers. Saturday night was no exception. Her husband, a dead ringer for Kiefer Sutherland, is a most excellent cook and his paella with home-smoked chicken will go down as one of the Great Paellas of All Time, but it is this dish that caught my attention, glinting shiney fuchsia in its green and white and gold ikat bowl: Roasted Beet Dip (possibly adopted from Ottolenghi) served with spears of endive and little toasted bits of pita bread. This stuff is seriously addictive.

I've moderated the recipe as I didn't ask for it, but I made this one last night and it worked splendidly.

Roasted Beet Dip for Good Karma
2 bunches of little beets from the farmers' market (10 small beets)
olive oil
lemon juice
salt
pepper
1 clove of garlic, smushed
some yogurt or sour cream

• Wash the beets, cut off their rat tails and leaves and wrap each one in a square of aluminum foil. Pop into a 350 degree oven and bake for about half an hour.
• Unwrap, and peel beets with your fingers (the skin comes right off).
• Cool and then whizz up with the smushed clove of garlic, a good blob (1/2 cup) yogurt, a glug of olive oil and the juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper.
• Ta da!