food

Assumptions

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I was sitting minding everyone else’s business in a hotel bar/eatery at Gatwick airport the other evening.

People watching is one way of describing it. I like to try and think what the story is behind people sitting there.

The Best Beloved and I were staying the night, before venturing to an unknown-to-us destination but more of that another time.

Anyway, I glanced over to the check-in desk and saw two women and two men.

The two men were clean cut, short haired and good looking in a kind of neutral way and likewise the women, though they had long hair pulled into glossy, and unsurprisingly, very tidy buns.

Mormon missionaries, I thought (instantly).

Going home to Utah having perhaps spent time in Crawley, Billingshurst, Croydon and for time off for good behaviour some of the villages of the Surrey Hills.

I speculated on their reports to the Elders’ committee.

How many times did they turn up on someone’s doorstep, say their spiel, get invited in for a cup of tea and hear, ‘ This is such a revelation, I had no idea. Where do I sign and when can I join?’

Meanwhile, a large group had been gathering in the seating areas around where we were sitting.

People joined in twos and threes and fours and all seemed to know at least a few other people.

At first I thought it would be a family gathering, but as more and more people arrived, that didn’t make sense.

There was no obvious common factor – older, younger, men, women, rather smart, not so bothered about that sartorial nonsense, tall, short, all white and middle class. 

Indeed one of the women who seemed to know everyone and as I watched morphed into the woman in charge, was dressed in an ill-fitting tracksuit.

Not that there is anything wrong with that but if you had asked me to pick out the leader it wouldn’t have been her. 

However, the trim looking young man – well, in his 40s which was young by the group’s standards – I would have earmarked into the role and indeed he was joint organiser.

Assumptions/prejudices all my own.

They were bussed out to the terminal to check in with their passports and luggage and then came back for a group meal which a few of them declined in favour of a beer and an early night.

Several women had been sitting next to us and one – in her late 60s and very elegantly casual had declared it is past six o’clock ‘ where we are going’ so lets order some wine.

So, who were they and where were they going?

In the end curiosity got the better of me and I gently tugged at her sleeve as they stood to go to check in and asked her.

It was an amalgamation of three golf club’s members going to Portugal for 10 days of sun and teeing off.

I was a bit disappointed.

I had already mentally tried on a group of witches and wizards based on one person’s green and pink hair and the off-beat religious theme which I had already got going in my head.

And I really liked the idea there wizards in slacks and colourful.

In a widely optimistic thought on behalf of the Best Beloved, I had hoped they might be the inaugural convocation/convention of peripheral neurology specialists from across the country who were looking for people about whom they could do an in-depth study and treat at the same time.

Retired stand-up comedians, the world-renowned group who between them decided on all the bizarre paint shade names we have these days – remember elephant breath?

Graham Greene super fans.

Or a jolly and interesting group of people who might end up in the same resort and hotel we were going to.

Anyway, golf in Portugal it was, and I hope they are having a very good time.

Once they had left, I was left with a group of Chinese looking young men sitting on stools around a table and eating a mix of pizza and dumplings.

They looked as if food was a fuel rather than a culinary delight and they were dressed in T shirts with random slogan and decorations. 

They were, I decided some kind of manual workers, eating and then going to get some rest before they had to start again on whatever they were doing.

I wondered what workers they were, and why Chinese – on the basis that you don’t see many manual Chinese workers in Britain.

But they, and we, had eaten and gone before I got much time to speculate.

Well, dear reader imagine my surprise when my Mormons turned out to be an long haul aircraft crew and likewise my Chinese workers appeared in uniforms with lots of gold braid (and I noticed on the departures board there was a flight to Shanghai).

It was a Gatwick airport……

Greek Take-Aways

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Some food just tastes better in its original surroundings.

A good greek salad tastes better when you are sitting at a table overlooking the sea, that it ever does at home in Deepest Sussex – even if you have the ripest homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers, the posh feta you have splurged on, really good olive oil.

(Though it has to be said not every Greek salad in Greece is brilliant – just saying.)

But though I am on about Greek food in Greece, can I just add I had one of the best dosas I have had in a long time in a tiny south Indian street place in Athens – see below.

But back to where I was, and apparently, and not entirely surprisingly, the Greek salad as we know it had only been around since the 60s or early 70s.

‘Everything started at the end of the 19th century when the Greeks were still ‘counting the wounds’ from their bankruptcy of 1893 and the Greek-Turkish war of 1897.

The main meal then consisted of vegetables – cucumber, olives, onions and (later) tomatoes and just sometimes cheese, with bread.

If you lived in the countryside, you took your vegetables whole, wrapped in a cloth, to the fields.

If you lived in Athens, you cut them up, put them in a dish and added olive oil, salt and oregano – that’s posh city folk for you.

Apparently, there was some tax which limited what you could charge for a basic salad to locals, and the growing number of tourists arriving in the 60s and 70s.

Folklore has it that an enterprising restauranteur in the Plaka area of Athens dropped a slice of feta on top and that meant it was no longer a basic salad – and he could charge what he liked. 

My take aways ( as it were) from this year’s Greek holiday (want a photo – well here you go) were Fava, chickpea stew and lamb baked with thyme ( and no doubt, time.)

Fava, just in case you don’t know, is basically yellow split peas cooked to a creamy mush with added flavourings.

It is a popular appetiser but beware, in the wrong hands it can turnout bland and, occasionally and unforgivably, lumpy.

If you get the flavourings right you can eat it by the spoonful all on its own. If you don’t you need all kinds of additions to make it tasty.

We had a very good version on the day we met our new friends, and the Best Beloved and I had another lovely and delicious lunch with them ( see previous blog about picking up friends on holidays).

It was Sunday lunch.

Unlike in Deepest Sussex , chickpea stew is a local Sunday lunch tradition, cooked for a long time on the stove and in the oven.

It had a dark, almost gravy-ish sauce, was unctuous and generally very good. I am pretty sure it was started Friday and left to its own cooking devices for a good long time and then kept to let the flavours all steep in.

I had the tavern’s speciality of lamb with thyme and though I am sure this is a speciality of eating places across Greece, it was very good indeed.

We left our dog with long-suffering neighbours whilst we went on this jaunt to sun-kissed shores (want another photo? well if you insist.)

And as this island has very little in the way of shopping-for-a-thank-you-present to offer, I decided to bring Greece to them and cook a Greek meal.

So by the time you read this, I will have made a chickpea stew with lamb and thyme and maybe Fava to start.

I will let you know if it was a satisfactory thank you.

If not, the dog gets it…..

Pickles – well just a few

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I do like making a pickle, preserves, chutney – but it has to be said, we are not great eaters of any of these.

There are a few exceptions – homemade pickled red cabbage is a must with a cottage pie – meat or vegetarian.

Now, I am sure I have mentioned this before, and I know people (maybe you, dear reader) may sneer at that suggestion but bear with me again and give it a try – not the bought stuff though because it is too vinegary.

And I do like a Kilner jar of confit tomatoes in the fridge – lush and sweet and great with all sorts when you need a taste of summer in the winter.

If you make it to the end of this, there will be recipes.

Having said that, I still have a freezer drawer with cooked down crabapples waiting to go through the faff of turning them into crabapple jelly – its a two day operation and involves hanging muslin bags on broom handles, enough said.

But I have just found a book in the shop which makes me think of more pickle, preserves activity – making things we should but probably won’t eat, and will give to (hopefully) more appreciative friends, family and neighbours.

Today, I have made preserved lemons not least because we both have some covid-like lurgy and so are in a mini-lockdown – afternoon television beckons but a few things have to be done first, hence the lemons.

( And a roast chicken with tarragon sauce because I feel like making it but probably not so much eating it….. we shall see.)

So recipes;

Preserved lemons from this:

We have a great rosemary bush.

And you will notice tomato plants growing along side and they are earmarked for some confit assuming they are prolific – and given they are grafted plants they should be.(Gardening advice here, always buy a grafted tomato plant to ensure lots of fruit.)

So, you need a Japanese rice vinegar. ( I have to say that Waitrose in Petersfield only had Chinese rice vinegar so that is what I used, hey ho.)

I used less sugar – about 250g – just saying.

Cut up lemons, add your rosemary and you are done – about two weeks later admittedly.

Pickled red cabbage:

So, you shred ( don’t worry you don’t have to do it too finely and I rather prefer to cut with a knife not shredding in a food processor) a red cabbage. Not the hard stem – just the leaves.

Put it in a bowl and sprinkle salt over it and leave it in the fridge overnight.

Also, put a litre of distilled vinegar in a pan, add 200g ( or less if you prefer) of sugar, a teaspoon each of cloves, peppercorns, coriander seeds or juniper seeds ( I do like a lot of flavour but you can be more minimalist if you like) and a couple of cinnamon sticks. Warm up until sugar has dissolved – a bit of stirring here.

Cool and put in the fridge.

Next day, take the cabbage out of the fridge and rinse the salt off. Leave to dry, or pat dry with kitchen paper – though beware, you don’t want bits of kitchen paper in your pickle.

Put in sterilised jars – see here how to do it 

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/how-to-cook/how-to-sterilise-jars

And pour over the liquid.

And this will keep happily for a year or two if you don’t eat that much cottage pie.

Meanwhile, confit means basically slow cooking in a lot of olive oil.

So, take some tomatoes – small ones I would recommend. Don’t both with cutting up or pricking the skins, or taking them off their stalks.

Put them heaped if necessary as they will cook down, into a roasting tin with whatever herbs or spices you fancy – garlic, oregano, thyme, chilli flakes, rosemary – a good grinding of salt and pepper, and enough olive oil to come at least half way up small tomatoes.

Put in the oven at a low temperature – say 100 in a fan oven for a couple of hours, or if you are a lucky Sussex housewife, in the bottom Aga oven – but do check if you are using  fan oven which can dry things out more quickly.

You want them well-cooked.

Cool, then squash into jars and use leftover olive oil to top them up.

They will keep in the fridge for a year or two and ignore the rules which say you can only keep for a week after they are opened.

They will make a good ‘sauce’ for spaghetti, or a quick supper, serve well if warmed under fish, in fact anything you like with tomatoes will work with these.

Off now to feed my tomato plants and then a relapse on the sofa.

Grated Tomatoes

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Have you ever grated a tomato? I can almost hear the shouts (from my small but perfectly formed group of readers) saying what?? Open a can of nice Italians. Job done.

But dear reader(s) I am here to tell you that though it is a more lengthy process than opening a can, it can be really worth it.

If, at this point you are still not convinced, you need to go and find something else to do – knit your own jumper, dig up the ground elder (though that is a thankless task) etc etc.

Anyway, if you are still with me, let me tell you again good things are possible with a grated tomato.

But first you need to hear a story about sausages.

As long-standing friends will know, I work at some events across the year which are a mix of gardening exhibitors/stallholders and large marquees of food and other artisan makers of everything from jewellery to pottery.

Anyway (again) one of our food stands serving sausages is called Giggly Pig http://www.gigglypig.co.uk/sayhello.html

Yes, the lovely Tracy is an ex-con turned pig farmer – who knew? and employs other ex-cons to work on the farm, come to the shows – and sell sausages.

I bought some, and some of which which were pork and fennel. (They are excellent and please buy some if you can.Tracy’s vision and making it work – just saying.)

Rootling around in the freezer one day I found them, and rootling around in the fridge I found a fennel bulb.

And I had some properly nice tomatoes.

So, here is what I did.

No of course it is not a proper recipe, but a general idea of what you can do…

Grate your tomatoes. Get your usual cheese grater, cut tomatoes in half and grate against the large grater side. The skins stop you grating your fingers.

Put what all of what you get into a pan/casserole. I was using a Le Creuset inherited from my mother who sent me off to university with them, and I have them still. But other not-so-posh pans will do nicely.

Better tomatoes, better result, so please don’t do this out of season. And even in season, keep the tomatoes out of the fridge so they have chance to develop their flavour.

At this point I would like to say firmly, that no, a tin of tomatoes, however good, will not do instead. 

You need the thinner ‘sauce’.

Now, take your fennel bulb and cut around the tough centre and keep the fronds for decoration.

Cut the layers into slices and fry gently in butter, be generous – yes not that healthy but it does work, believe me.

It takes a while but you should either eat fennel raw ( in a salad with orange, say) or very well cooked and softened – and in this case you want it well cooked.

Cook your sausages however you like.

Add some Marigold bouillon to the tomatoes, a splash of white wine and at this point you can slice up some new or old potatoes and add them in and then cook gently.

You might need a pinch of sugar if your tomatoes are not just perfect – which mine weren’t.

Keep tasting the sauce and add pepper, more bouillon, whatever, if you need it.

Now, if you want a thick sauce, then take some of it out of the pan with some of the potatoes and whizz them up with a hand-blender and put back into the pan.

Either way, then add fennel and its butter, cut up sausages and snipped fennel fronds and serve to an appreciative Best Beloved and neighbours.

By the time I remembered too late that I should have taken a photo ( beautifully lit) of the finished product – but hey ho, it had gone and no one wants a picture of the washing up in waiting.

Eating Out

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Whist we could not make it to Northern Majorca this month ( again – and yes I know this is a rich person’s whinge), we have made it lovely West Wales.

Well, it is lovely but it is also cold with a very brisk northerly ‘breeze’ as the weatherman called it, and not much in the way of sun.

Still and all, it is somewhere other than home, and it came with a promise.

I had promised myself and the Best Beloved had also promised, that we would eat out – no cooking for me and the chance to have our first meals out since before Christmas.

So, not being a great researcher, I had pottered around on the internet looking for good places to eat on the locality, and thought I would leave the fine tuning of my potential choices until we got to our rented cottage and read the inevitable visitors’ book – that which always tells you where to go and where to avoid.

Ah well, the visitors book was scrapped as a Covid measure.

And the wifi connection in this part of very rural West Wales is pretty rubbish. After half an hour of one/off connection, I discovered that St Davids is not a place of culinary excellence. 

There are a couple of highlights but the BB balked at the innovative Grub Kitchen where you eat the insects bred by the chef’s wife in her ‘grub’ farm – he was not further enamoured by the news you can also visit it and see what you are about to eat before it is mashed, fried, griddled etc. 

I would have gone for it as I remember fondly the salty crunchiness of deep fried crickets in Thailand many moons ago.

He said he would go with me but be very, very careful about what he chose off the menu. And would probably stick to a beer.

The one posh place in St David’s doesn’t allow dogs and the cottage owners don’t allow you to leave them alone in the place, so that was out.

Anyway, I had found Mrs Will The Fish which is apparently an unassuming bungalow in Solva where you can pre-order and collect a platter of locally caught fish and shellfish, so that is hopefully happening tomorrow.

But today we decided to have a late lunch in one of the local pubs which I gathered after half an hour of waiting for reviews to come up on my weary, wifi-deprived laptop, did good food and was popular.

We booked for 2pm, went in and were seated and they were happy to have the dog along, so all looked good.

I went for the mussels – but the mussels were off.

Then what I really wanted was one of those orders that Americans do.

‘Please can I have a small size greek salad, not a main size, alongside a starter possibly the duck or maybe the potted pork what do you recommend? Both at the same time you understand, and a small side order of chips?’

The BB said he was having a burger. I watched the service and the harassed and no doubt short-staffed comings and goings and decided I too would have a burger but without the bread.

Not too complicated/American a request but it threw the waitress – her revenge would come later.

Meanwhile and I have to say, it had been a long meanwhile so far, a couple sat down next to us.

They had walked 6 miles of the Coastal Path and were looking forward to a justified late lunch.

‘Food service has been suspended,’ they were told by the waitress.

‘Until when?’ they asked.

‘What time is it?’

‘2.30’

‘Oh, then we have stopped serving.’

They had to settle for crisps and peanuts and by that time, I was beginning to envy them. 

They finished their snacks, and a couple of lagers and set out to find a bus back before our waitress appeared again.

‘Sorry she said, you burgers got dropped so there will be a delay so they can cook them again.’

Yes it was the same waitress who was less than impressed by the idea of a burger without bread, ‘You mean all the stuff but not in a burger. No bun??’

I was, at that point very glad, I had not asked for anything more complicated.

Any by ‘got dropped’ she later admitted she had dropped them……

They were good homemade burgers, and indeed grit free, and the chips were excellent – mine arrived in a bun as it is clearly beyond comprehension that a burger doesn’t belong in a bun. And I get that up to a point – a scotch egg without the egg… but anyway.

And though the more than generous helpings it meant there was no need for supper, I was somewhat at a loss about what to do come early evening and got rather nostalgic about the night before when I had rustled up crushed Pembrokeshire new potatoes with mint butter, asparagus and some thick cut local ham with background Radio 4.

This eating out business might be a bit over-rated.

So, I think I am planning to save my BB’s promise tokens for eating out – much like the old green shield stamps – until I can book a place which will serve food I really enjoy and could/would never cook at home.

And, tomorrow there is Mrs Will The Fish eaten at ‘home.’ Fish fingers crossed.

Nice Coincidences

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It has been a time of small coincidences in the Petersfield Oxfam bookshop.

(I’m no believer in fate, or things that were meant to be, but I like a nice coincidence as much as the next woman.)

One day recently, I was sorting through a small avalanche of donations and my mind began to wander to the catering for our annual winter lunch.

Feeding 30 plus people is not in itself hard as long as you chose your menu wisely.

Individual soufflés anyone?

Last year I made pies and I am, though I say it myself, a reasonable shortcrust pastry maker but pastry does require a bit of faff and multiply that by 30 people’s worth of faff and I shan’t do that again this year.

One year I made a chicken something or another which I got from inside my head rather than any recipe book and that was all very well until I learned a well-know chef had decided to come. 

My lodestar for deciding what to cook is a farmer friend who likes his food, is always very appreciative and – because he can’t do with eating standing up – he leads the way to our outdoor table and others follow, thus easing the elbow-to-elbow crush in the house.

So, there I am thinking about what he would like, his exacting palate – and praying it doesn’t rain.

And I am still book-sorting away when I came across this little foodie delight.

IMG_2273

Usually, we have out winter lunch two weeks before Christmas which means it would be on December 16th but because of pressure on that end of the month, we decided to have it on the 9th.

So imagine my pleasure at finding that inside the book was this:

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Of course that doesn’t quite fit into the perfect coincidence, but it was nice non the less.

So, I thought I would have a read and see if there was any recipe I could use……..

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I am still not entirely clear what gets passed through a sieve…. and who would have thought Bovril was an essential ingredient in 1930s Chile?

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There is no doubt, none at all, that that asparagus would be well and truly cooked through….

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Chicken meringue – I am not sure my farmer friend would go for that.

And finally,

IMG_2271

 

It was interesting to gather that not everyone who bought this book would have had access to ice – no fridges.

Call me a lax cook if you will, but I decided against trying to source Nelson’s gelatine and boiling tins of pineapple, straining them through rinsed napkins and then adding green food colour.

Leaving recipes behind, I turned my attention to natural history. It is hard to be sure any patterns when it comes to what is donated to the shop.

Just as you lament the lack of paperback fiction, the shelves are nearly bare and you think, this at last must be the Kindle effect, a tonne of novels arrive.

So, I am hesitant to share my theory on natural history books but here goes anyway.

We used to get lots and lots of books about natural history – from birdwatching to fossils to geology to, and given where we are this is not surprising, a lot of copies of Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selbourne.

( I always saved a particularly good version of this to see at Christmas – it makes a good present.)

Recently though, we have had very little and when I say recently, I mean perhaps the last year or so.

My theory is that people no longer look at the small and local and want to see Blue Planet or programmes about lions of the Kalahari.

But we do occasionally get copies of books from the New Naturalist Series – they have marvellous covers and sell very well.

images-1.jpegUnknown.jpegimages.jpegUnknown-1.jpeg

(I could bore you with the background information on why some are worth much more than others but I am guessing you don’t really, in your heart of hearts, want to know.)

Anyway, we have had some in recently so I put together a table display of them and some other stragglers of natural history. 

It sold so well that instead of lasting a week, I had to re-think the table three days later.

We also get some books in the Wayside and Woodland series published by Frederick Warne. 

And, just after I had re-done the table, I’m sorting some books, and this came in.

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How interesting I thought, it is by a woman. I wonder who she was.

And inside I found this:

IMG_2272

It says that her book, this book I am holding in my hand, was the first book on dragonflies to ‘achieve wide popular readership.’ ( Now apparently worth about £25.)

It also says that Cynthia Longfield used some of her ‘ample private means’ to part sponsor the chartering of a ship containing ‘a band of natural historians’ who went on a exploratory trip to the Pacific.

She travelled widely in Africa:’ I find machetes so useful in the jungle.’

And guess what else it says about the Cynthia – she was asked to contribute a volume to the New Naturalist Series which ‘ quickly sold out, changing hands at a high premium until it was re-printed.’

Indeed the 1960 first edition is now worth about £90.

We have a copy. It came in with the other New Naturalists and my colleague who collects them valued them for me, so I didn’t notice her name. It is in our cabinet of valuable books.

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Satisfying coincidences all round.

Sappho and Christmas 2017

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So, if you don’t get your Oxfam retail act together for Christmas sales, you are in trouble.

We, or less modestly I should say, I have been hoarding books for Christmas since late August – and not just any old books but those which are in such mint condition no one would know they are second hand.

Upstairs in the shop there have been teetering piles of plastic crates with imperious labels on them saying ‘please leave for table display’ or ‘please leave for Lucy to deal with’ or ‘gets your mitts off, I have these put aside for special use’ – no, not the last one.

Now here is a weird thing.

In the autumn sometime I had found an art book called Pastoral Landscapes which had lovely woodcut images which had links to pastoral poets. Never seen one before – and it was worth a bit.

A fellow volunteer, let’s call him Jim, was recently in the shop and, as ever, more than diligently sorting books, when I reached into one of those crates to show him this nice book.

We chatted about it and I went back to put it back for later use – and then he called to me.

I went into the other room, where he was, and the next book he had pulled out of the bag he was sorting was, yes dear reader, another copy of the very same book….

They have both sold.

Indeed by now almost all of the excellent Christmas gift books have sold so I am down to sorting out the ‘dregs’ and working out what table display to make of them.

When I work it out – actually that will be Thursday – it will be I think a green and red display and then next week we will go for the nativity look – though you have to race in immediately after Christmas to get rid of it as there is nothing worse than a nativity after the event.

We open Sundays in the run up to Christmas and so I had the key to the shop and, against the rules, went in early to create a Christmas table I had been planning – a blue table.

It was all blue china set out like a table setting with blue books on it and loathe though I am to take any credit, so many people said how lovely it looked.

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Now here is the thing, the table stuff sold slowly – but that is not just what it is there for (though that is nice too.)

It is there to get people into the shop and to appreciate what an effort we have made, how nice it looks, how we work to make the window and table look good every week of the year and especially at Christmas – and then go on to buy other books.

And they did.

That week, we made £2,499.87 – I think any volunteer in the shop would have put in that extra 13p to round it up if we had known.

By the way, you see that books called Snowflake and Schnapps? Well, it was a lovely cookery book – and dear reader, I was tempted.

But, lacking milk for essential tea-making one day, I went to Waitrose to get some and bumped into a regular customer who I knew to be a cook/proper chef type and I told him about it.

Once I had the milk, I went to the bank or something, and by the time I got back to the shop, there he was with it in his hand.

I had to take a photo of one recipe I had my eye on and he said we would share the books’s recipes, but no way was he letting it go.

So, one or two other little stories:

I have a habit of setting the people on the till a challenge to sell a particular book that shift.

So, we had a volunteer, let’s call her Margaret, who had a book to sell and when I came down from sorting things out upstairs (aka behind-the-scenes), it was still there on the desk.

I was berating her, in an oh-so-jocular fashion about the fact it was still there, and a couple heard us talking and said they hadn’t noticed it before but how lovely it was.

The man said his daughter was an artist – and it was an art book – so Margaret and I went into overdrive extolling its attributes.

But, he said, his daughter was a children’s book illustrator and this book wouldn’t be for her.

Oh, said I brightly, I can’t stop now, I have to get home, but I am sure I have a book on children’s illustrators somewhere upstairs. Give you number to Margaret and I will call you when I find where I have put it.

He did. I did. He bought it. Margaret sold the other book to the next customer.

The small books are often the interesting ones and I found one which was Sappho’s poetry with art nouveau illustrations of the period, about 4 inches tall, handcut pages and rare-ish.

I was showing it to a volunteer, let’s call her Judith, and we were admiring the illustrations.

She is a lovely woman who gardens, paints and decorates not only her own house but her son’s, she and I talk auctions, antiques, cooking, she also is an excellent needlewoman I understand, and she treks in by bus to volunteer with us.

She is a woman of a certain age and, given that we were talking about Sappho, the subject got onto sexuality, gender, homosexuality, gender fluidity, transgender issues, what a waste a good looking gay man is to us heterosexual women – however older we may be.

And, how all these issues should be on a live and let live and let’s get past it basis – all the normal chat of an Oxfam volunteering conversation – but apparently not one her granddaughter had expected to find so easy when she had broached the subject.

(Don’t, granddaughters, assume stuff about your lovely grandmas.)

The book was worth a bit, so we agreed what we needed was a relatively well off lesbian shopping in Oxfam Petersfield for that just so unusual Christmas present.

The book is still in our cabinet should you be that person.

 

 

Artichoke Hearts

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There are times when you just have to admit to yourself that you are a Sussex housewife.

I was in Waitrose the other day – other supermarkets are available, and I can be found shopping thriftily in Petersfield’s Lidl and Tescos, especially at the end of the month, but Waitrose has stuff that they don’t.

Tinned artichoke hearts, for example.

Now I am a big fan of the above. There is a great Cranks recipe for a pie which is artichoke, green olives and potatoes – which I roll out frequently to vegetarian and omnivore guests alike and it goes down a treat.

Tinned artichoke hearts can also be drained (well they need to be drained and rinsed gently) fried in a little olive oil with parsley and lemon and then be the basis for supper – with salmon, with finely sliced fennel, with pasta, with saute potatoes etc etc – you get my drift.

Anyway, I was shocked to see an empty shelf when I had gone to stock up. ( Lidl and Tescos, good though they are on other stuff, do not see fit to stock artichoke hearts.)

Seeing the Waitrose floor manager I approached him and said. ‘This is a very Waitrose customer question, but have you decided not to stock tinned artichoke hearts any more? If so, I will be heartbroken’

( I was laying it on a bit thick, but I do rely on those tins.)

There are a few other thing which are always in my cupboard but I am afeared that I might sound even more Sussex housewife than I can bear.

But, for example lentils, I am a big fan, and can give you any number of lentil recipes should you be in need – and really, really they don’t need to be Puy lentils….)

His colleague ( who I gathered was an area manager ) said, in a very Waitrose manager way, ‘It could just be a supply issue. We have a rather erratic supply.’

All three of us walked to the empty shelf spot and looked at it mournfully. The area manager produced his tablet, checked it and reported that indeed it was a supply issue and once there were supplies, Petersfield Waitrose would stock tinned artichoke hearts again.

‘ We do have them grilled in oil in a jar, in case of emergency,’ he told me.

I am not enough of a Sussex housewife to have an artichoke ‘emergency.’

And, I said to him, ‘ I am not enough of a Waitrose customer to not notice the difference in cost between the posh jars and the ‘frugal’ tins.’

In a hurry to get milk for the Oxfam shop’s tea the other day, I whizzed past the relevant shelf and saw, yippee, they had the tins in again – I am now the proud owner of seven tins of artichoke hearts.

So, should some Sussex siege suddenly arrive, I will be able to knock up a tasty supper.

 

Supper For Eight

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I am never quite sure just how it happens that you do for a supper for just eight people and it is not fancy, so no implements for removing lobster flesh for example, but by the end of the evening they have created enough dirty plates and glasses to generously coat every flat surface in the kitchen.

Admittedly, at that stage of the evening my loading of the dishwasher can be a little less than perfectly done, ( it never is perfectly done according to my best friend and dishwasher-loading perfectionist).

And to be fair too, we don’t put our glasses or cutlery in the dishwasher as they are old, from various French flea markets, and go cloudy or tarnished.

Even so, it is remarkable how eight nice, polite, interesting people can wilfully create such a lot of dirty stuff and laugh cheerfully throughout the evening as they do it.

But, whilst I can throw several shades of a dicky fit over my best beloved’s inability to put everyday breakfast bowls and mugs into the dishwasher, I don’t actually mind the clearing up after a ‘do.’

Dog and husband have a very clear attitude that this should be left to another day and that anyone who wants to be awake at 1am loading dishwashers, is on her own.

But I quite like that wind down with the BBC World Service telling me what is happening in Nigeria or about Indonesian political scandals, whilst I go about my business.

And I like restoring order after the chaos.

You need to know at this stage, I am not complaining about the mess because we had a great evening.

It was a kitchen supper not because we are posh people trying to show that we can do casual and informal, but because we are not posh people and have nowhere to sit everyone except in the kitchen.

The mix worked well – always a lucky break and not guaranteed, though in this case was a pretty sure bet – and though I know I am repeating myself, we had a lovely time.

I am sure you couldn’t care less what we ate but I am going to tell you anyway so if you are not interested, time to leave.

Mushrooms chopped up by a whizz in the food processor and saluted lengthily ( you can’t overcook a mushroom) with tarragon and then mixed with a very tasty cream cheese from Cornwall via Waitrose. Put on bruschetta from Lidl.

Winter minestrone with chard and beans and carrots and celery and garlic etc. The secret is to keep the rind ends of parmesan in your freezer and put one or two into the soup as it cooks.

Thin lamb chops marinaded in pomegranate molasses, olive oil, garlic and lemon zest and then shoved under a grill or in a hot oven until they are rightly done – not overdone, mind.

And my current favourite recipe – slices of new potatoes cooked in water, olive oil, garlic and saffron, mixed with artichokes ( please note from a tin, rinsed and sauted, not done from fresh, you must be joking,) green olives , parsley and it all coated with creme fraiche – then put in a puff pastry pie – and no, of course, I didn’t make the pastry.

( If you want the real version of this google ‘Cranks artichokes puff pastry’ but Nadine makes you do stuff with real artichokes and adds nuts and stuff which I am sure is pretty delicious, but my easy version wins for me I am afraid.)

Can I just remind you at this stage that there is something in the make-up of parsley with counteracts the next day less-than-delightful garlic breath so it is a must add if you are using as much garlic as in this ‘menu.’

I don’t eat desserts and am rubbish at making them, so very kind friend/guest made lovely lemon mousse thing – it disappeared without touching the sides.

Cheese, chocolates and all that malarky – but to be fair, cheese and chocolates hardly add a smidgen to the washing up.

A non-invited friend, who is not a cook, was practically salivating when I told her about the pie and I (gaily) thought I would have plenty of leftovers because of a lifetime habit of over-catering – blame my Lancashire grandmother who instilled the idea that hospitality means lots of food.

I invited her, her husband, my best friend and her husband for Sunday lunch.

Dear reader, there was little in the way of leftovers but that is another menu story…….

The Club Sandwich

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I think I might have said before that I do realise ‘tales from my holiday’ are something close to gloating and should be avoided.

However, unless you want to read my four page seminal work on how to sort and price a donation of books to Oxfam written this afternoon for new volunteers, this is all I have.

Arriving late into Lisbon, we had opted to stay the night there rather than get the hire car from somewhere in the airport and drive three hours across the country in the dark, to a place that barely registered on any map.

Last time, and for that matter the time before, we were in Lisbon we stayed in a lovely, posh hotel which was built into the castle walls. Suffice it to say, it had its own peacocks.

(On one stay there, we had a bodyguard.

Actually, he was guarding my husband, not me, as he pointed out when I said that he must be tired and we would be perfectly alright on our own.

I could, it seems, have wandered across the city on my own risking all sorts but as long as the best beloved was protected to the very door of the very nice hotel, all was right in the world.)

This time it was a chain hotel near-ish to the airport and that -ish later became important.

We arrived to a very polite and friendly welcome and settled into the bar area and ordered a club sandwich.

Now a good club sandwich is a nice thing and the benchmark for us was set by a hotel in Reading, yes really.

We had arrived, do stop me if I have told you this before, footsore, hungry and weary after train chaos on the way back from watching rugby in Cardiff and unable to use any form of public transport to get us further towards Petersfield.

It was about 10pm and we had no luggage, but the receptionist promptly produced a pair of toothbrushes – and that was a very nice gesture.

Room service, she told us, could rustle up a club sandwich, a beer and a glass of white wine.

So we went to our room. It had a huge bed, a good film on the telly and minutes later the best club sandwich (with good chips) arrived – it was all very good indeed.

( I may have overused the word good, but really it was!)

So, back in Lisbon, the club sandwich was fine, but not a patch on Reading.

Now, the receptionist had told us there was a taxi strike the next day but all we needed to do was to call down when we got up and by the time we had showered and got dressed a, presumably strike-breaking, taxi would appear and all would be well.

I did have a moment’s thought about black-legging but I compared that to lugging cases around the public transport system and swallowed it.

Next day, however it turned out there were a lot fewer strike-breakers than would have been ideal in the circumstances.

We were advised by the day shift receptionist that we should take the metro. Now that would have been OK if not for the fact that as we left the hotel there was a airport shuttle minibus about to set off.

The night receptionist had failed to mention this fact and therefore to advise us to book a seat. There were no seats available for hours.

I won’t bore you with a minute by minute account of the Lisbon metro ( it is fine, really) and will just mention that there are signs in all the carriages explaining, in a variety of languages, smoking was prohibited.

But the English translation was ‘No Smokers!’

A bit harsh I thought, and how could they be sure of every passenger’s personal habits. But maybe it explained why in the face of a taxi strike, the trains were surprisingly empty on the last leg to the airport.