Strange Times

To balance recent posts that have been about the health side of food, this is about pleasure.

As the weather at the end of February - February - has been so warm and sunny, and given the Dear Leader (may her critics shrivel like salted slugs) and I are both freelances, and Sternest Critic is marking time to his departure to Gozo, we actually had a barbecue on the 26th. A barbecue in Preston in February. Donald Trump doesn't believe in climate change, but I do. 

Given we are avoiding processed meats there were no sausages or burgers, but that was no loss as we enjoyed turkey steaks and langoustines for all, plus lamb chops (for SC and me) and fillets of sea bass (for the Dear Leader). All of that balanced with a green salad, a tomato salad, griddled mushrooms, and both asparagus and (our own freshly picked) fine leeks baked over the coals in foil. 

We cooked and ate slowly, so the meal lasted a good two hours. We talked, we watched the birds feeding in the garden, and we relaxed. Not a single spoonful of raw cacao powder passed our lips, though a glass or two of Beaujolais did. It was life enhancing. 

Barbecuing well is not easily done. We went a year or so back to eat with some friends somehow new to the idea who, no exaggeration, lit the coals/firelighter, and put the food straight on. It was fireplace smoky and with a hint of plastic. On the way home we discussed forming a survivor group. SC got our fire going more than an hour before we thought of putting anything over the ashy-grey fuel. Timing is not easy either, though lamb is forgiving, so a skewer to test turkey doneness came in handy. I wouldn't bother with chicken joints. The fish you can just tell by looking and a bit of a poke with a knife-tip, the langoustines by the charring of the shells and the smell.

I feel we need a BBQ challenge. It's long been my ambition to do a whole (gutted and skinned of course) lamb over a fire pit, but DL forbids it. So this summer I aim to do beef short rib in the piece, with some strong flavours in the marinade to make it even more special. Prepare then for a wet summer wash out. 

Pioppi-cock

We're on a health and weight-loss kick at the moment, Sternest Critic wanting to get fit and ready for his summer sojourn diving in Gozo. Inevitably that has meant reading up on the subject, in my case focusing on two books in particular: The Pioppi Diet; and The Clever Gut Diet.


Michael Moseley, as ever, is readable and makes some very good sense in the second of those two volumes, though there was not much really sparkling new in there for anyone who has watched Trust Me I'm a Doctor, or read other recent books by him. He has the advantage of being amusing, and educational, and it at worst reinforced some ideas.


The Pioppi Diet, however, was a let down. Again the science stuff - rather dryly presented - was not exactly new - a very long-winded way to say stay off white carbs, intermittent fasting is a neat trick, and olive oil and intensive exercise are good for you. But along with a tendency in both writers to self-aggrandisement there was something that got my goat about the premise, which is that if we all follow the diet and lifestyle of a particular Italian village we'll all be better off. Fine, the stats show these peasants live longer, are fitter, etc etc. Then they put forward on the food side of the equation a lot of stuff like yoghourt, coconut oil and turmeric that would be alien to those particular Italians. And the thing that really annoyed was sweeping aside the totally demonised pasta - something I'm willing to bet Guiseppe and his mates live(d) on pretty much daily - as only eaten as a starter in small portions so we'll sort of ignore it.


Every such book I read does provide some useful insights, and The Pioppi Diet is no exception - I've cut back for all of us even more than before on white carbs, replaced largely with more fruit and veg and lots of high quality olive oil (so a tweak rather than a revolution), but I'm basically back to my own simple philosophy of diversity in fruit and veg and protein sources, and above all enjoy my food - the recipe stuff in The Pioppi Diet largely sounds like fuel and a penance. I'm pretty bloody sure one of the things that made or makes the people of that village live longer will be taking great pleasure in eating and drinking. And scarfing spoonfuls of raw cacao powder with cinnamon doesn't seem like the sort of thing they would even dream of doing. I'm not about to either.

Aubergine is not the Oily Fruit

I like aubergines. They have a very individual, earthy taste, and the skin of the purply ones is supposed to be jolly good for you. Over the years I've tried many different ways to cook them, settling generally now for either a) baking them whole in the oven until they collapse, then using the mushy flesh for dips etc and discarding the skin; or b) putting them on a hot griddle pan greased with a wipe of olive oil. Frying them, however they are treated beforehand, always leaves them too oily. Even the griddling tends to the oleaginous.


Yesterday, however, I more or less followed an Ursula Ferrigno recipe for aubergines baked in tomato sauce, with a cheese topping - a parmigiana in other words. Her instructions were to slice them fairly thinly, sprinkle the slices with rosemary leaves, then bake them on a lightly greased metal tray for 10 minutes or so in a 200C oven. It worked a treat (though they needed more like 15 minutes), and they were not at all greasy. You can teach an old dog new tricks.


Aubergines are yet another vegetable (fruit actually) that our supermarkets pretty much restrict to one style, i.e. the over-sized purple sort which can be somewhat woolly. My local Indian supermarket has at least four varieties in stock every time I go in, which is with increasing frequency. The ones used for the dish above were the size of a large hen's egg (large enough to make it walk funnily after laying), with a mottled pinky-white-purple skin. Next time I'll go for the short and slender all purple ones; or the white ones that evidence why the Americans call them egg plant.


I may have mentioned my annoyance recently at Sainsbury's labelling their non-standard fruit and veg as 'greengrocers'. If you can still find an old-fashioned greengrocer, they will almost certainly stock more varieties than the supermarket does. And they'll be locally grown quite often. The Asian supermarket is fast replacing such places. They'll continue to get my custom, as I don't want 10 years hence (fingers crossed) to find F&V restricted to bananas and potatoes, which would suit their bigger rivals.

A Rainbow on Your Breakfast Plate - and in Your Gut

We - the Dear Leader, the temporarily-home-before going-off to-Gozo Sternest Critic, and your humble servant - are on a weight loss quest for a time. Well, weight loss and health drive. That means the occasional 800 calorie day, and generally eating somewhere between 1000 and 1500 calories, with a day off every now and then. That may sound restricting, and in the mathematical sense it is of course, but to be doable without becoming boring it does mean getting creative.


Our breakfasts, except when staying in hotels or at Christmas when bacon and sausages rule, are usually pretty healthy. Currently they are - thanks Donald - bigly so. And not in a bad way - no kale smoothies, in fact given we learn from Michael Moseley that smoothies go straight through the gut and mean a sugar rush, no smoothies at all. But every morning for the past fortnight we have enjoyed a bowl of fruit (along with e.g. poached egg on wholegrain toast of some sort). Again I've tried hard  to avoid that being dull, leading to me hitting the local Asian supermarket, and looking out for what's good in Morrison's, Waitrose and Sainsbury's.


Today, for example, we had cherries, kiwi, blueberries, and golden plums (£1 for a punnet of eight or ten), with a squeeze of perfumed Egyptian lime, tiny little fruits that lift flavours even more than ordinary lemons do. Tuesday we had dragon fruit and guava with some more workaday stuff. I love guava, in spite of ripe ones smelling like men's locker room sweat. The local Chinese shop had durian in, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and fruit that smells like poo is one good place.


What is austerity in this? Eating fruit is not expensive. It takes a bit of effort to seek things out, but Morrison's wonky blueberries that contributed to two for the three of our breakfasts cost 84p. I defy anybody to explain how they were wonky too. Wonky kiwis (maybe 1.358mm shorter than non-wonky?) I think were 70p for a pack of eight. I use one sliced into six to add luminous green to the plate. Little oranges another bargain; likewise grapefruit reaching its sell-by-date and no different to full price ones in feel or as it turned out flavour for 25p. I buy full price stuff too, and dragon fruit are not cheap, but overall breakfasts for the week don't break the bank.


It's cheering to see something so lovely on the morning platter. Great for the body too, with loads of fibre (kiwis for me qualify as superfoods, though shops aren't allowed to use that word now) and vitamin C, and stuff that is good for the eyes but I can't spell. Blueberries are supposed to help the memory, per clinical tests, but they taste fab with lemon or lime on them. Cherries have some special phytonutrients that you don't find in many other foods. It won't harm your - what a very British word - regularity either.


Reading Michael Moseley's Clever Gut Diet book - he is to diet and health what HFW is to ethical food - as part of the current drive to lose a bit of weight one tip was to help your biome's diversity by eating 30 different fruits and vegetables in a week. We did that in two days, and after three are on 42 and heading ever onward. Tinned stuff in there for pennies; our own veg still (PSB, swiss chard, sprouting seeds, kale and leaks at present, we had too the last of our stored squash on Monday and some of our own stored garlic, along with loads of herbs that I haven't counted in the total); wonky or (per Sainsbury's) greengrocers' F&V are super cheap. And some fruits are reduced in price (like cheese) when they are approaching ripeness.


[Standing up] I am not Spartacus. Nor am I vegetarian. Friday's evening meal will be steak for SC and me, fish for the DL. But for our own good, and with more than a nod at helping the only planet we have to live on, and because they are so tasty, F&V make up the bulk of our nutrition. If that sounds poncey, my apologies. Lunch today will be baked beans on toast. Demotic and delicious.

It's Too Darn Hot, and Culinary Art

We actually had a frost yesterday, the first in ages here in semi-tropical Fulwood. The weird winter warmth does have its pluses, however, not least in the kitchen garden here. I wrote in a previous post about liking to pick something every day from garden, conservatory or greenhouse, and a few days back had a field day with parsley, bay, oregano and sage all to hand, Swiss chard, leeks and chilies all made good use of. I worry about climate change, and parsley surviving in the depths of our supposed winter should be enough to convince even the most sceptical - though apparently Trump, surviving on burgers and fries, would need an explanation of what parsley is. And that plants grow. And where Britain is.


On a totally separate topic, though if I wished I could do a cheesy segue by saying 'and talking of hot weather, we had a meal a week ago straight out of sunny Spain...' We did, and the main course was paella, served up to a bunch of friends at the table straight from my battle-blackened paella pan. It was so beautiful, even if I say so myself who forgot to photograph it, that it could have qualified as an ephemeral work of art. Chicken pieces red with paprika oil in which they roasted before being added to the saffron-tinted rice; fresh parsley (see above); green peas contrasting with the pink prawns. Of course as it was a thing of constructed beauty it would not be acceptable to the art establishment - though I could have let it rot for a month and then maybe it would have qualified for an Arts Council grant. A chap can dream. Then wake up screaming.


People talk glibly of 'the culinary arts', but for me that's a real thing, and something to aspire to. I cook from fresh all the time, and we live well - both in terms of nutrition and flavour. But only rarely do we get to enjoy something so visually stunning. For me that is where professional cooks - for whom nutrition is a side issue at best - stand apart from worthy amateurs. I'm not going to be making sugar baskets anytime soon, or cutesy waved drizzles of sauce, let alone pointless foams, but certainly the next time we have friends round I am definitely aiming to - on purpose this time - produce something that gives people eye orgasms. The two topics - climate and food beauty - actually do come together, strangely enough, in that we are now awaiting delivery of a load of saffron crocuses, as we've decided it's warm enough these days to give them ago in suburban Preston.

Wood - and More - from the Trees

Last week I read what was an eminently sensible suggestion from a green lobby group, namely that in Britain we should produce less meat and use the land freed from sheep and cattle to grow more trees.


The idea was rooted (hmm) in thinking on greenhouse gases, animal farts being a significant contributor of unwelcome emissions, as it were. Trees take in carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen, so it's win-win. And win again, if the trees planted on the land in question were to be food producing species.


I'm not suggesting a vegetarian future, indeed for culinary, nutritional and other reasons I want to see us continue to farm land that's most suited to meat to produce - meat. There are plenty of upland areas in the UK where trees struggle, but make great grazing for sheep. But we've moved on, or should have, from every meal being a big lump of meat and two veg. Growing very productive trees like chestnuts - good protein and carbs - apples and pears, all suited to our climate, makes sense - I don't have the figures to hand, but I've read several times that in broad terms such husbandry produces a multiple of what meat farming can.


Walking the Dear Leader's domain* recently I counted up what we, in a very small way, had done along those lines. We have 18 trees in the ground that provide us with nuts and fruit, and a further 10 smaller ones in pots likewise giving us some return now, with the promise of more to come. There's (continued) austerity sense in investing in these plants, though we are now reaching peak tree at Pilkington Palace. About 15 years ago we spent maybe £15 then on what was a small quince tree, and after a decade of generally small harvests it is these days well established, and 2018 has seen it yield a perfumed glut. The walnut tree planted soon after our arrival here has similarly started to produce greater numbers of nuts, more to the benefit of the squirrels than us, but we have some jet black nocino maturing that we'd not have enjoyed without our own crop of green nuts. We have more cooking apples than we and several friends can cope with. We've enjoyed lemons and apricots, pears and plums, our bay tree is a cook's joy, and we hope one day soon to see cherries, mulberries, figs - even olives, who knows? There's a cobnut offshoot taken from the soon-to-be-quit allotment already doing well at the bottom of the garden.


This is the sort of action that many of us can take independently in our gardens. There are community orchards springing up in more enlightened towns and villages. But it's also the sort of thing the government should be getting behind. The cynic in me says that the meat processors and feed makers have more financial clout than the plant nurseries, well able to top up political coffers mightily meatily, and to wine and dine ministers and officials royally, so such thinking won't get much further in that direction than having a parliamentary committee established to study the broad range of possibilities - with deputations sent on fact-finding missions to... I don't know, Portugal, California, Australia, and anywhere else nice and warm.


Meantime we continue to lurch towards ever more calamitous results of climate change - the extreme events now coming thick and fast, though across the pond the Donald is keeping his piggy eyes shut to them - and a time when it won't be only distant foreign lands but our own struggling to feed itself. Planting productive trees, and beyond that permaculture, at least where it works best, is a proven solution.


*and mine

The Ham Diet

The Dear Leader and I have just returned from Bologna, where we spent a long weekend being a bit cultural and very greedy. Given that ham, mortadella and salami nearly always featured at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and watching the Bolognese themselves consume vast platters of ham in the restaurants we used, I am struggling to understand how so few people we saw were fat.


It may be that such meat feasts are for dining outside the home, while vegetable-rich meals are enjoyed in the home. There were more grocers than butchers to be seen as regards shops, and the former had fantastic variety on display, not least the radicchio that seems to have gone out of favour with our  supermarkets (so we are growing plenty to make up for it).


Another theory is that they walk so damn much, as we did, though we had the excuse of being visitors intent on seeing the sights (again in some cases, given we made a similar trip last November). All Saturday and Sunday the streets in the centre were thronged with families and groups of friends just strolling about, working up an appetite (or indeed an appetito).


The culinary highlight of the weekend, for me at least, was tripe in the Parma style, which was tripe stewed with tomato and a rich stock. I am a massive fan of tripe, both for its flavour and its texture. Interestingly (well, for me) that tripe dish was, in comparison to my own standby of tripe and onions, on the underdone side; just so the various pastas we had over the four days of dining, all of them done very much al dente. I will learn from that and not always think 'I'll just give it another minute.'


I've made a resolution to make use of my pasta machine again, the particular aim being to make some ravioli (tortelli etc look far too complex for my folding skills to manage). What I have in mind are some very large ravioli, stuffed with things like ricotta and parmesan, but also I am keen to try pumpkin - though not flavoured with crushed amaretti biscuits. I had that combination in one restaurant, and it was intriguing - a traditional dish of the Veneto apparently - but however interesting and (to me) new, a little went a long way.