Month: January 2021

Squid and Friends

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Apparently, hearing is the last sense to leave the body. Well, for me the last activity to leave the Covid lethargy, is cooking.

No surprise there then for anyone who knows me.

Meanwhile, it takes days to actually get round to cleaning the kitchen floor, I have been dithering and dathering about which Coursera course to sign up for – even though they are free and only require a minimum of concentration…..

All those things I did in April, have not been done since. 

I have no pictures of my culinary disaster so here are a few winter pictures.

So this, dear reader, if you are still with me and not off to do something more interesting, is a story of squid and friends.

Squid is cheap, and is best if you cook for a few seconds or a really long time, or both. ( I am sure there are other such ingredients but none spring to mind – mind you, not much ‘springs’ to mind these days.)

The Best Beloved was not a squid fan when he met me – mind you he was not a Labour voter, good at buying jewellery, hoovering, putting the washing on, enjoying long lunches with friends.

I converted him to squid stew with various adaptations of a Hugh Fearnley-Wittingtstall recipe.

You make a tomato sauce – a good one – fry the squid for seconds and put in the sauce and then both of them on a long slow cook. (Bottom of the Aga for those of us who live in Deepest Sussex).

You can add potatoes and fennel an hour or so in. 

I have made this, with variations, loads of times and so it counts as easy, familiar, comfort, not meat, cheap, flexible, appreciated – and most importantly to this story, whilst you are doing something else.

So, all was in hand when I realised I was approaching the time for a family call and went into the oven to check the stew.

Well the squid was nicely meltingly ready, but the fennel (always a tricky ingredient) was a bit hard.

(Dear reader, I know this is going on rather long, but there will be a nicely uplifting bit about friends soon-ish.)

So, I decided to take out the squid and put the rest back in the oven, though this time in the top (hot) oven of the Aga and get on with the call.

Call took longer than I thought and so it was the charred remains of a tomato sauce I pulled  out of the oven. Inedible, no I mean it, not possible to rescue.

I had squid, and a memory.

My lovely sis had returned from living in Milan.

She had spent time with staying with my ex-boyfriend, and various other people and then pitched up in Leeds to stay with me for a week. 

(She is still in Yorkshire – some many years later.)

If you are lucky, there are times in your life when you have a special group of friends. You spend time together, you do things together, you get along brilliantly –  you are caught up in a delightful web of friendship.

It has happened to me three times in my life, and I celebrate each of them.

This time was in Leeds and my sis was a pivotal part of it.

And, among many other things she brought us group of friends, a recipe.

Squid and peas and pasta.

In my memory it was summer and there were back doors open, our friends drinking wine and gossiping around the kitchen table whilst my sis cooked her meal.

So, here in winter, and lockdown, I looked at my cooked squid. Got some peas. Melted some butter and cooked the peas in it. Swirled them with the squid and the clinging bits of non-ruined tomato sauce and added them to some cooked spaghetti – using, of course, a splash of the spaghetti cooking liquid to meld the sauce.

I have to say at this point, this was not my sis’s way of making the dish but hey ho, I did what I could under the circumstances.

My BB duly appreciated supper – but I was back in a house in Leeds with my amazing friends, laughing, letting dogs run round the garden, swapping journalistic stuff, discussing politics, hearing stories of life in Millan, music on in the background.

There were BBQs, there were loves lost and gained, there was a sunny summer, and that was that very special time.

And no we are not all still in contact, but at the time I was pretty convinced I was living a very good life – and indeed, dear reader, I was.

The Art Of Conversation

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When we were allowed, and it was my Best Beloved’s birthday, six of us had lunch together.

So, good friends invited us and erected (without, so they say, any martial discord) a sturdy  gazebo so we could all sit outside, be safe.

And just talk.

Chat, cut across one another with an anecdote, digress, suggest a good book read, rail at politicians, tease, compliment on the lovely food, tell stories, just relax with people we know very well, and laugh, all of it for hours – no ‘lunch party’ just good friends.

It was such a highlight – and was rather giddily exhausting.

It has been a long time since we did that. 

In our house in this nearly a year of more or less lockdown, there are no-need-to-finish sentences, chats about the dog’s welfare (always a topic of conversation), who is doing the washing, discussion about what to watch on tv with the inevitable ‘wasn’t he in that thing we watched, you know the one set in Northumbria with that woman who was in ……..,’ endless half conversations about how awful the government are, and more about Trump.

And, which small projects have to be done today – or tomorrow, or the next day.

(Today, for me it was pickling red cabbage and doing the ironing. For the BB it is a gentle start to podcasting his book, a very gentle start I have to say, and reading the beginning of a friend’s book.)

And it is not just us. I was talking to a neighbour on my dog walk this morning and she said she was getting to the point of not wanting to ring friends because she had nothing much to say – minding children, cleaning the kitchen floor, dog walking….

And another acquaintance who said it was so nice to chat to someone she didn’t know that well because it meant she made a ‘chatty effort.’

We have a Zoom call tonight – and yes they have fallen by the wayside from the early days when we would have several a week – and it means I will spend some time in the next couple of hours thinking of something, anything, interesting I can say.

(Leave alone the fact my hair is a mess after walking in rain and wind and whether I will try and make it look presentable, or just not bother.)

( And likewise with the ironing – do I really need to bother? I ironed a white linen shirt bought on our September trip to Italy – I think I might have mentioned that before – worn last I can’t remember when or why, or when or why I might wear it again….)

I wear either dog walking boots, or slippers. And it is jeans, a t-shirt and a jumper. I would say 80 per cent of my wardrobe is hanging there doing nothing. ( I have this fantasy that they get up in the wee small hours and make all kinds of interesting outfit combinations and sneak out for Covid-free meet ups with other people’s unused wardrobes.)

My dog walking friend called me today ( we haven’t met up since lockdown) and I suggested we talked and walked. We will each go on our own dog walk and we will talk on the phone as we do it.

(We will also arrange to swap her marmalade for my pickled red cabbage when I make one of my occasional trips to the ‘delights’ of Petersfield.)

So, please, dear reader, don’t tell me that you are discussing Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations with your re-ingnited group of university friends one of whom is now an interesting tech millionaire.

Or, you have set up a local poetry discussion group and you are exploring Blake’s oeuvre.

Or, you have surprised yourself by getting involved in an Instagram group advising on the best make-up for an older woman to make herself ‘feel good by looking good’.

Or, you find yourself soothed by chatting daily to your sourdough starter,

Please don’t.

Mind you Wittgenstein’s black swans stuff was always a good conversation starter at a party – my political philosophy degree must come in useful for something.

A Dilly Lockdown

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I am finding this lockdown a bit driech (splendid Scottish word for dull and gloomy ) and not least because there seemed to be a surprising number of people who apparently had essential journeys to undertake this week, and many of them seemed to be urgent given the speed at which they were driving.

So, life here in this house in Deepest Sussex has ground to a slow movement. A bedaggled (soiled by being dragged along wet ground) dog walk is essential, and so, it now appears, is an afternoon film.

We are not great cinema goers but now with the help of (thank god) technology we can bring the films into our sitting room on a daily basis.

And we have watched some very good films – so no game show trash for us – which means I can pretend that I have some virtue. (decency, merit, as well as piousness and snobbery.)

And, self-justification (I don’t think I need bother you with other words for that.)

I cook, the Best Beloved puts some jigsaw pieces in now and then, and writes history or commentaries current politics, whilst I sometime clean ( well, actually nip round with the vac, as my grandmother would say.)

Our days are anfractuous (winding or circuitous, in case you needed to know.)

Now and then a ‘spur’ hits and I am slowly (sluggishly, driftingly, dawdlingly, lazily, ineptly) re-decorating the downstairs loo. 

And as we speak the BB is out in the garage trying to sort out the winding mechanism to insert the leaf into an old oak table so we can sell it – don’t ask. (astrabilious, tetchy, irritated, acriasial….)

But, I am told that this is a time to be kind to yourself and so I am doing that on a daily basis. (tender, dilly – who’d have thought? but that is a word I can feel myself using again, good-hearted – nicely Buddhist, benign, self-generous – really?I would be out hugging trees with crystals, and that ain’t going to happen.) 

But really and truly that just means letting myself off from painting/cleaning the wood floors/sorting out the dog insurance/clearing out the pantry/re-upholstering four chairs/leave alone the learning of a new language, or an instrument, or skill, or indeed anything very much.

So, I am negligent (guilty, culpable, blameworthy, hangdog, reprehensible,) and also lazy (slothful, work-shy, languorous, distracted, listless.)

But I am going to be dilly (newly attractive word) to myself and know that there is a tagine in the oven, a well-walked dog, a fire to be lit, a good book waiting for bedtime, a film to be watched, no one I know has died of Covid, and tomorrow I will be more (assiduous, over diligent, hardworking, conscientious, dynamic, active, energised.)

I suspect this plan might be bambosh (deceptive nonsense), or blague ( pretentious nonsense).

But as we say in this house, tomorrow is another day, and maybe the BB will grace me with a basemain ( kiss on the hand) and we will wander, stroll, saunter, amble, dawdle, potter, ramble, meander, drift, digress through it.

And we will appreciate our luck and life, and that might well be enough.

And, as a PS and the principle that there is no new emotion under the sun, here is A E Houseman who my BB was reading as I wrote this post:

Yonder see the morning blink:

The sun is up, and up must I,

To wash and dress and eat and drink

And look at things and talk and think

And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed

And what’s to show for all my pain?

Let me lie abed and rest:

Ten thousand times I’ve done my best

And all’s to do again.

Hommage to Heinz Tomato Soup

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Along with my battle between ‘why bother’ and ‘keeping up standards’, I am veering between comfort food and being clean and healthy.

Right this minute though, I am thinking of childhood comfort food.

Frey Bentos pies. I am not sure I would give one house room now, but then the idea you could use a can opener to take the lid off a raw pie and then cook and eat it within say half an hour seemed pretty impressive.

I think I might have mentioned before that butterscotch Angel Delight was a favourite and indeed was a favourite, I found out later in life, with Ethiopian refugees. ( By then it needed searching out and I am pretty sure you couldn’t find it in Waitrose Petersfield but an Ethiopian diaspora in London made it possible to locate – maybe still is for all I know.)

I don’t eat either of those any more but there is one comfort food which has stayed.

Heinz tomato soup.

That, with Dairylea sandwiches was what I ate when recovering from anything from measles to a bad cold.

And there is a tin always in my cupboard.

I was delighted to find that also some proper cook had it as her comfort food in an article at the back of some foodie magazine which I seem to have thrown out or I would credit her.

So, imagine my gasp of horror when the Best Beloved found, unusually I have to say, he was out of homemade soup took it and drank/ate it….

I had it to recover from pneumonia a couple of years ago, and I am very much hoping I won’t have to have it recovering from Covid.

( I have found a recipe to re-create the essence of Heinz and given that this lockdown won’t be over by a week on Tuesday, I might give it a try.)

Meanwhile, and I am rather hoping it isn’t a meanwhile, I am thinking of the chip sandwiches my mother brought my sister and I when she came home late from work and we were in bed.

Yes, white bread but from a ‘proper’ loaf, home cooked chips, salt and vinegar – all made by indefatigable grandmother.

These days I have dal as comfort food, cottage/shepherd’s pie ( and I have to say I make a decent lentil version which can be attested to by local neighbours) with homemade pickled red cabbage, posh mushrooms on toast, risotto, aubergine pie, a fish finger sandwich, cheese and jalapeño quesadillas, squid stew – but I am just showing off.

And there is always a tin of Smash in the larder. Remember that? Advertised by aliens? These days only for secret midnight feasts or on the better days of a recovery. No cornflakes from the packet for me.

Can I just point out, these are not to be used in place of proper mashed potatoes – Smash will not work well on the top of a cottage pie.

You need to rootle around the in the fridge and find something to sauté and add in – onions, chillis, sesame oil, tomatoes with oregano, always with a sprinkling of Marigold Bullion … or just butter.

That’s what living in Deepest Sussex does for you, sorry.