Now, where was I?

For many reasons I have not written anything on this blog for some considerable time. Blame in no logical order a) writing a contract magazine; b) too many holidays (I can feel the wave of sympathy already); c) finding there are many great English comic novels on Kindle for free (Surtees, HH Munro, the less well-known Jerome K Jerome stuff...); d) seeing Sternest Critic off to university (where he continues to prosper).

As this blog is ostensibly about food and its joys the first post (like the last post but not anywhere near as sad) of this new era (with new title suggested by a friend wise to the ways of the modern world) will be about the thing that has brought most culinary joy to the household of late, and we are convinced it is good for us. As so often, I need to take pictures - will do so the next time I make the simple but delicious dish/course - salade de crudites, which even without the accent sounds better than raw veg salad.

We grow a lot of beetroot, this year three varieties and in good quantity. Some is used in soups and stocks to give body and colour (especially if a little grated beet is added to a stock near the end of cooking, so the colour stays fresh and purple. Most is eaten raw in salads. Needing a first course to serve to some friends round for pot-luck, and with beet, carrot, red onion, a few leaves of rocket, one tomato and a kohl rabi to hand I thought about a plate of crudites (I wish yet again I could do the accent on this thing), then with a bit of a nudge from HF-W tried my hand at using different textures and a nice arrangement to prepare a pretty plateful. It worked well on that level, and was delicious when mixed up: kohl rabi peeled and sliced into discs piled at the bottom centre of the shallow bowl; strips of carrot peeled lengthwise and piled on top of the former; a rim of rocket leaves on which small chunks of tomato were placed, then coarsely grated beet of two varieties, one purple one pink and white rings, dropped on the carrot and similarly treated red onion atop the tomato. It was a little flower-arrangement of a thing that brightened the table beautifully, then when mixed and dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette tasted fresh and bright and healthy.

Variations on the theme have been eaten several times since then, with ingredients like avocado, little gem lettuce, boiled egg, and cucumber appearing and others like rocket if not to hand disappearing. It's just a salad, but the presentation (that takes mere seconds longer than lobbing everything together) makes it more special, and when mixed up in serving the textures remain as a reminder of the tiny bit of extra care and imagination.

This is now - until the debt mountains around the world bury us beneath an avalanche of demands for payment - a post-austerity blog. But that dish suits either tough times or good, costing pennies but looking like pounds.

Mother Knows Best

My son will learn his cooking from his dad, as I am the one who lives in and for the kitchen. I learned some of what I do from my mother, though far more was gleaned from books and (hard to admit) TV chefs, and from business and holiday travel. That imbalance means that I can sometimes be guilty of thinking we've moved beyond what my parents' generation did - and there are some horrors that reinforce that idea (Christmas turkeys weighing as much as Venus, for example). But often what she did is just how things should be done.

Take for example runner beans. I've tried various sexy ways to handle our glut, and with no great success. So at the weekend I did what she did, put them through a slicer lengthwise, steam, and serve with a dab of butter. They were superb, a vast quantity of them shifted with the beef.

As we don't manage to get to the allotment every day we end up with a rogue giant marrow now and then - the buggers can double in size if you turn your back for a minute. I've been feeling guilty about chucking them on the compost heap, as they don't fit in with any of the ways in which I do courgettes. So maybe it's about time I did the dedicated marrow dishes she used to bring to table. One method was to stuff and bake the marrow, the stuffing making up for the marrow's watery flavour; the other was steamed in cubes and served with a light and simple white or cheese sauce.

What a pity that for some kids now their memories of how mum 'cooked' will be limited to re-heating ready-meals and ringing for take-out, doing oven chips and micro-waving burgers.

So Many Vegetables

The end of July and the allotment is in top gear, so keeping my log of costs/benefits is getting tricky. One of the big successes this year has been our artichoke bed. There is a lot of plant for not much nutrition, but they are so easy once established (just water in drought, and lob a bit of manure round the bases early in the year) and the flavour of artichokes so sublime that I'd not be without them.

After nine years with a plot (for the benefit of MI5 and the CIA, that refers to my allotment not some scheme to bring Western Civilisation to its knees - Bush and Blair managed that quite well between them) it still amazes me how much can be grown on such a relatively small space. You live and learn - having suffered (?) gluts with various crops we now grow a range where possible within each, or plant in dribs and drabs so that harvests are spread out, but even with three different types of artichoke we seem to be getting all of them at once.

Is there a more beautiful vegetable than the artichoke? It is the flower of a thistle in essence, so no wonder it is a looker. It cannot hurt its glamour quotient that so many others are plug ugly: we also grow Chinese artichokes, that look like larvae, and Jerusalem artichokes, bigger larvae. Top weirdo may well be the Kohl Rabi with its alien protuberances.

Our Sunday harvest was courgettes, artichokes, broad beans, French beans, new spuds (nearing the end), fennel, a load of blackcurrants, last of the strawbs, beetroot, a massively long (grown in drainpipes) parsnip (about 75cm), a few sticks of par-cel and some lettuces. At this time of year we could survive on the produce from that small patch of land - no claret yet of course, but an experimental grape vine is showing the first signs ever of fruiting, which says something about this year's weather.

All those veg are helping our already unexpectedly successful Alternative Eating Programme. I have lost 22lb and have a quite different sideways silhouette. SC has benefitted even more, now a shadow of his still-eating-like-a-prop-but-too-shoulder-damaged-to-play self. The Capo di Tutti Capi had less to lose, but she too shifted that (with some grumbling and the occasional death threat).

The Maldives jaunt thus saw us unafraid to be seen in sexy beach gear. Healthy eating would seem to be a habit, as even with the potentially pig-out buffet breakfast and dinner we only gained a pound or two each. Not so I think the Russians and Chinese in the same facility. I swear one Russian chap attempted to eat his own weight in Danish pastries one day, and our Chinese neighbours in the restaurant seemed unaware that they need not grab everything in reach before it ran out - it never would run out. Twice I saw a full plate of bread rolls arrive at their table, for not one bite to be taken - guess they didn't like bread but wanted their idiotic money's worth. I became more convinced than ever that we need to improve food security in the UK after that trip: the Russians and Chinese are very peasant at heart still, and with hundreds of millions more coming into mindlessly greedy reach of available excess our overseas sources are going to be under pressure.

I Wish to Register a Complaint

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is one of my heroes, as I have said previously in this blog. That comes with a few caveats - for what I am sure are good-hearted reasons he has a habit in his TV programmes of being rather condescending to, as it were, the lower orders: wouldn't it be good if the world's workers discovered vegetables, for example?

That said, I admire his food and food ethics, love his writing style, he seems like the sort of bloke you'd enjoy a pint with (the highest of praise) and I have found his methodical approach with things like meat timings to be spot on. But. I recently tried his sourdough loaf recipe, making a starter with enormous care, feeding it, scooping the right amount off to make a loaf, kneading as per instructions etc etc. The results were uniformly disappointing, no great flavour, a sad waste of high-grade flour, and rubbish texture however carefully kneeded and risen the loaves were.

So I gave that up, and reverted to my standard method. Unfortunately I took his word as gospel that you can't make bread unless you bake it at a very high temperature, so I ruined another two loaves that were not burned but developed a leathery crust and unpleasant dryness.

When I went back to baking at 180C or 200C depending on style, it worked again. Good bread.

This had me thinking about how much we trust such experts, thinking that when things go wrong with their recipes it must be us/our ingredients/our equipment. The blessed Delia is not without the occasional fault (apparent lack of humour aside), as I twice tried an oxtail and bean dish in one of her books, convinced I must have erred the first time when it failed, only to find it was equally unpleasant the next however great the care with which her fiats were followed.

Other than on certain holidays and business trips (time was) I have cooked daily for more than 30 years. Really I should have the confidence to stick to my own ideas and recipes. There is one major reason why I continue to follow their strictures on occasion, and that is the desire to try new stuff. Left to myself I'd cook many different things, but they would be familiar favourites. So I'll continue to trust HFH and TBD, and if I can get past his annoying writer's tics Nigel Slater too who churns out excellent ideas, along with new demigods to be discovered. But not Jamie Oliver thanks. Nor Nigella Lawson.

That may well be the legacy of the age of the TV cook. Those of us who actually do cook frequently have added to our repertoires, while those who live on ready-meals and takeout limit themselves to enjoying cooking vicariously on TV (and via pristine coffee table tomes).

BBQ Beyond the Meat - or Around It

BBQs are about meat, there is no getting away from it - at least not in this household. But they don't have to be - shouldn't be - solely carnivorous affairs.

With the glorious summer thus far (surely high time that the word drought was heard?) we have wheeled out the charcoal grill half a dozen times or so and taken advantage of the sunshine. One thing that has worked superbly has been using roasting joints - stuff we had in the freezer - butterflied out and roasted in a retaining rack. Given that they were Henry Rowntree's 'best roasting' Aberdeen Angus joints we expected them to be good, and found them superb. Not surprising given they were probably sirloin in one case and rump in the other, effectively making 4cm-thick steaks, cut into slices charred on the outside and bleu in the centre.

What makes it much more of a meal for me are the accompaniments. Salad of course gets nowhere near the heat, but other vegetables do. A skewer with baby courgettes impaled lengthwise cooked in 10 minutes. Another of mushrooms rolled in a little oil did likewise. Sweetcorn cobs achieve caramelised perfection on a grill, but need watching closely as the window between underdone and burned is narrow.

Best effort on that front was new spuds, however. Salted, oiled, rolled in several layers of foil then dropped directly onto the charcoal they did in about 25 minutes, turned occasionially to keep the cooking even. I do whole heads of garlic in similar fashion, only needing a few minutes before they are as squeezy as toothpaste.

The recent weather has provided us with an early glut of fennel bulbs, another veggie that works well in foil on the rack, and is very forgiving in that even if left for 10 minutes more than done-ness requires they still taste great, and their water content keeps them moist.

Not so the aubergine. A cheapo one foil-wrapped and cooked like the spuds, but far far too long, was a disaster. What emerged from the aluminium looked like something from a CSI episode about fire deaths. Back to grilling slices on the steel rack.

It Takes Gluts

Growing a reasonable amount of our own food with less than perfect planning of same means we enjoy, the right word, the occasional glut. I've written here before about trying to make good use of courgettes, the allotmenteer's most frequent flood crop. Currently it is artichokes.

On a general level life can't be bad when one of your few worries is dealing with a load of artichokes. They have been both early and numerous this year thanks to the mild winter and spring and the already decent summer. The first as is usual were boiled to be eaten leaf base by leaf base dipped in mustardy vinaigrette as a starter, the meaty heart gradually revealed by the strip tease. There are few things as simple and delicious.

Last night having picked and cooked a bagful of smaller ones (to keep the flush of thistly flowers going) the too fiddly leaves were discarded and just the hearts used, cut into little chunks and mixed with boiled egg, very thinly sliced onion and prawns. How much would that have cost had a 'celebrity' chef's name been attached to it in a recently re-designed eaterie?

It takes gluts like that to give me the freedom to do a bit of experimenting. Had I shopped for the artichokes a) I would have just bought three; b) the cost would have pushed me to play it safe.

Sadly we don't grow our own asparagus - we tried and lacking sandy ground failed - so I will not be doing much other than steaming it, but then something so good doesn't need mucking about. Same goes for the bucketfuls of new spuds currently hitting the kitchen, though some cold leftovers made it into a pickled herring salad yesterday. You can tell how many we have currently by the fact that there actually are leftovers.

Freshness is one of the benefits of GYO - our eggs are rarely more than a day or two old for example, a world of difference to shop bought; lettuces are crisper and tastier eaten within minutes of cutting; stawberries can't be beaten snaffled straight from plant to mouth (checking for slug-basts on the way). But the king of the fresh-is-best world is the new spud. Jersey Royals in the supermarket - they beat us by weeks - are bought in expectation and eaten in resignation. Our own dug, wiped, boiled and scoffed in short order are softer, the texture almost gelatinous for some varieties. And they have so much flavour that the merest wipe of butter and a few grains of salt are called for. Still, having had our fill several times over by now I'm looking to do some other dishes for variation. I have in mind to do something spicy to enhance the flavour without masking it. All ideas gratefully received.

Worth and Cost Aren't the Same

Our new potatoes have started, and they are by my reckoning a good fortnight earlier than last year thanks to the mild winter and spring. The flavour is like nothing you will ever find in a supermarket.

In the journal I'm keeping of the costs and benefits of our allotment and kitchen garden I assign monetary values to the produce. But good food goes way beyond pounds and pennies. New spuds eaten within a couple of hours of digging are pretty much priceless, such is the ephemeral nature of their perfection - leave them a day and the difference is considerable, leave them two and there is a feeling of guilt for wasting such a boon.

Spuds are not the only such item for the kitchen gardener: the best of sweetcorn is perhaps even more fleeting, something to be picked and rushed back to the pot within minutes if possible. Peas likewise - which is why I'll never buy 'fresh' peas in the supermarket, not a patch on the best frozen ones (thanks Clarence).

We had artichoke bottoms in our salad yesterday (they are likewise well ahead of last year's schedule), something else where picked small and cooked fresh from the plot the flavour and textures are a million miles from the mealy monsters available from Mr Sainsbury (if and when he actually offers them - not seen any recently). Even the humble radish, ridiculously easy and quick to grow, is crunchier and fierier by far than the plastic bagged red jobbies (which is another thing - we grow red, yellow, white, purple, red and white etc etc).

In that profit and loss calculation I'm attempting in the journal should I assign a value to the health benefits of digging, watering and weeding (about my only serious physical labour/exercise)? And the health benefits too of the variety of our diet and its superiority in terms of vitamins and maybe even minerals to what we can get from the shops? How to calculate the financial value of great flavour?

The value goes further. When Nepalese politicians  (I think it was in Nepal anyway) tried to monitor Gross National Happiness as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product etc the newspapers and other media outlets here generally took a condescending standpoint. I'm far more interested in GNH than GDP. If more of us grew our own spuds Britain's GNH would rise significantly.