Breaking My Fast

As these days the Dear Leader and I undertake a 600 calorie fast every Monday we actually do break a more meaningful fast than normal on a Tuesday morning. Strangely we neither of us wake up ravenous, nor horribly early, on the morning after the slight deprivation before. In fact what we have on the Tuesday is only a variation on the Monday fast breakfast (and yes, it is fast to do as well) of a boiled egg and a bowl of fruit.


Lest this all begin to be too too virtuous, I am looking forward to a short holiday in Scotland in not many weeks' time, where I hazard a guess there may not be bowls of fruit available on the hotel breakfast menu. With luck there will be black pudding, and I am certain sure bacon and sausages will feature, things reserved now for high days and holidays. For the sake of my - love that euphemism - digestive transit - I hope they will have given in to brown bread as an option.


That bowl of fruit is a major pleasure, but given my constant wish to have diversity in our diet it is something of a challenge too. It's April, so imported strawberries make the grade occasionally now, along with blueberries. Citrus is a must for some sharpness (but as per my previous post, not as sharp in the case of grapefruit as was once the case), kiwi for the beautiful green and the eye-beneficial compounds signaled by that colour, and plums for some crunch and their purple or yellow skins. Pomegranate seeds (the trick is to bash the back of the halved fruit over a bowl with a heavy wooden spoon) strewn over the lot once or twice a week bring a touch of Aladdin - it takes little imagination to see them as drifts of rubies in a bandit's treasure chest. But back to my less camp self now.


The rather limited fruit range offered by my local supermarkets is bolstered by visits to the excellent Asian shop we use more or less weekly. Today I bought dragon fruit, golden plums, guavas and a bright yellow-skinned mango (along with a load of non-fruit items). The white with black dots of the dragon fruit, cut in elegant dice, and even the light-green-beige of the guavas, will add to the richness of the breakfast palette. It is not too long too until we will have our own rhubarb, gooseberries, greengages, mirabelles, pears, apples, quince, blackcurrants and even with luck apricots to add to the mix.


I will enjoy the contrast of hotel bacon and eggs for a few days (they can keep any hash browns on offer, I'm yet to encounter one anywhere that's not oily and badly cooked), but at the same time will miss the burst of colour (and flavour) that breakfast at home brings.

Long-term Planning - Where Can I Hire a Truffle Hound?

In contrast to the appalling shower currently in government (and by the same token, Corbyn's cretins in opposition) the Dear Leader and I have been doing a bit of thinking beyond the next news bulletin, or even the next election. As noted previously here, we have planted what amounts to an orchard; have set out a good-sized kitchen garden; and invested in some relatively exotic trees (lemon, lime, mulberry, cherry, apricot...) to be kept in pots for winter storage under glass. Partly done for fun, partly for flavour - truly fresh lemons, for example, are streets ahead of shop bought ones - partly to give us an insurance policy in hard times - either our own, the country's, or the climate's.


Some of that forward thinking began a long time ago, and has paid off: we planted a quince maybe fifteen years back, and last year enjoyed our best crop ever; even earlier in our time in sunny Fulwood we put in a walnut tree, finally producing enough last year to make nocino. Thanks to a very generous gift by Dr Paul Thomas, whose company leads the UK in its field, we have just planted three tiny hazels - not for the nuts, though they will be welcome, but for the possibility that six years hence we will have out own truffles. Not the chocolate version, but the enormously expensive fungi. I met Dr Thomas on Saturday, to interview him for Lancashire Life Magazine. His company inoculates a range of trees with the seeds/spores, and works with estate owners, restaurants etc to see them through to production, something that takes at least six years.


Fingers crossed we make it to summer/autumn of 2025 unscathed, by no means a given of course. Similar digit crossing that the delicate and apparently temperamental truffles take in our soil (specially limed and lightened in their particular patch). I'm really looking forward to being able to cook with our own home-grown truffles; but I am really, really, really looking forward to casually dropping into some future dinner party conversation 'Oh, the truffles? Yes, we picked them earlier today. Did you like them? This year's crop has been exceptionally good.'