Posts filed under 'Food writing'
I’ve come to realise that the way to get people’s attention online (or at least on Facebook) is to write about food. Mention your latest eating experience - or even, your anticipation of that - and you get lots of virtual joining in.
Is it the dark days of recession affecting us? We know that in times of economic difficulty, food sales still do well, if not better, as a cheering up device. Is it the onset of winter, hopeful that if we anticipate food, we will feel warmer, or at least better about the nights drawing in?
Maybe it’s more of the thirties malaise. We start to realise that we may not climb the corporate ladder the way we might have thought (most corporate ladders looking pretty rickety, at this point in time); we will not now wow the world with our looks or various other talents if we haven’t done so already. (I’m still holding out for a late-onset writing career - that area does seem to reward late bloomers.)
What’s left? Family, friends, TV…and of course food, which we can always anticipate, because of our need to refuel fairly often. (I’m not limiting life to these alone, honest. But they do all allow quite a lot of ‘me too!’, which is perhaps part of why online stuff is popular.)
So what foods are most likely to make you ‘write in’ in agreement? So far, risotto, peanut butter, classy macaroons and hot dogs, judging by recent comments on my Facebook wall and others.
It could be the start of a whole new ‘what’s your favourite food?’ discussion. I would also like to suggest a ‘guess how much I paid at the Co-op for…?’ game, which allows a spot of ethical consumerism to combine with (nearly) freegan activity, and some public endorsement of thrift…
I’m actually finding it hard to come down to a favourite food, but my inner five year old is still convinced that sausages, baked beans and chips are a good place to start. How about you?
October 9th, 2008
Off to Peebles last weekend to see my parents - and go to part of Peebles’ second ever autumn food fair. Not quite the highlight of the social calendar that the spring book fair is, but a good enough excuse to go and support a local event.
What I hadn’t quite bargained on was that there would be quite so much emphasis on meat. Fair enough in some ways, given that there’s farms around, proper butchers and the like. But if you were a veggie and/or had problems seeing meat, you would probably have had to avert your eyes for about a third of the stands…
Other friends have done the farm shop thing, and shared out half animals, that kind of thing. I must admit I thought it would hard to fit e.g. half a lamb in a freezer - and which end would you get? But then we saw what that looked like, which was certainly a lot of meat. We’re even thinking about splitting a half lamb order with my parents to make it a bit more affordable (at least, spending money on meat rather than a second freezer). Except I have to eat some more brambles first. Or maybe make rather a lot of risotto to clear out some stock. Etc.
It’s all nice and green and Guardian reading of me to want to get local produce - which I do. And help farms in Scotland keep going - which I do. But then I see the prices of the food and baulk a bit. Even the veg boxes are more than I’m prepared to spend, it seems, which is a shame for one who really likes fruit and veg.
So, as ever, we bought little things - though this does allow me to plug the Chocolate Tree, based (I think) in Gifford, East Lothian. Not only do they do the dark chocolate with interesting flavours thang, they also do a proper Nutella alternative. They even boast that you’ll never go back to Nutella after you’ve tried it. Now the difficulty is whether to open the jar - and fulfil their promise - or inflict that on someone else by passing it on as a present…Food for thought, one way or another, if not as much food for the plate.
October 2nd, 2008
Sometimes it seems I’m at my happiest when heading from A to B, with space to think up titles for blog posts, or the like. After much deliberation for this one, I settled on black gold.
Would it be a hard-hitting commentary on oil over-dependence? Not really. An oblique Asterix book reference? Closer territory, though as I recall, that was about oil too. What is far more important to the world economy at the moment, is free stuff. And the black gold of the article is all about the joy of brambling.
Had a half day off, after my time on the exhibition stand, and by five o’clock or so on Friday, decided that a good use of time would be to head off to the cycle path, not far from our flat, and pick some brambles. Usually we’re off doing this earlier in September, but one way or another (ie rain), bramble plans had been delayed.
Life along the cycle path is quite pleasant. Cyclists were heading home from work, or on early weekend excursions. One chap stopped me to ask where my rucksack came from - this turned out to be a lament on the fact that he couldn’t replace his current one with a similar kind, and hoped that mine (which looked like his) might be a new one. There were a few dogs to say hello to, but mainly there was the fun of filling tubs with brambles.
When I was little, brambles tended to get used up in crumbles. Any juice left over from stewing the fruit would be kept as a sauce to pour over ice cream - this was known as ‘blood’. Very satisfying when you’re 8, and the attraction of it still remains. Equally, I had a birthday book, and on the page opposite the start of September (and my granny’s birthday) was a picture of the Flopsy Bunnies out picking brambles. (I think Beatrix Potter called them blackberries, but obviously you can’t be good at everything.) Being a bit of an afficionado of autumn, the conjuncture of all these things on adjoining pages seemed to suggest the essential importance of brambles.
I’m sure that if I kept brambling enough, I would be able to come up with some kind of complicated metaphor for what it teaches you about life, given the twin perils of nettles and bramble thorns that you have to overcome. It is true that the fattest brambles seem to grow behind nettles. Equally, turning slightly around from where you’ve been picking shows further drifts of fruit that you didn’t spot first time.
Like many things in life, the ultimate bramble patch is the one just further along the path from where you are…where all fruit will be large, juicy and easy to pick without getting skewered by the nettles again. But perhaps another, deeper appeal of all this is filling one’s storehouse with good things - and only for the cost of looking, and a few stings. Some entertainment comes without batteries, and some food is not vacuum packed within an inch of its life.
For both these things, and for switching off most of your brain for an hour or so, three cheers. Next stop, elderberries - perhaps in a couple of weeks or so.
September 28th, 2008
Overwhelmed as I am with five comments on one post, I know that what you really wanted to read about was Cremola Foam.
I have a Useful Notebook that gets carried around, partly so I can work out which children’s book to buy for which new arrival and that kind of thing, but it’s useful for ideas about blog posts too. Sometimes it’s as good to think about writing as it is to do it - like food in that respect.
Topping the list of items to write about is Cremola Foam. Going to wikipedia, fount of all immediately accessible information, I discover that I have the name wrong - it is in fact Creamola Foam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creamola_Foam
Growing up as a Mackenzie, a big part of family tradition was going on holiday to the Isle of Jura. It’s a few generations since we had direct relatives living there, but there’s a family cottage, and a lot of shared history. It’s where my dad spent his summer holidays too, and part of those holidays, for both of us, was creamola foam.
Part of the mystique of creamola foam was the buying it en route to Jura. We’d drive up from the north of England or central England, according to where we were living at that point, and stay over with my great aunts in Greenock. (Greenock is indeed the place to live if you are an aunt.) We would then drive to Gourock, just up the coast, and get the ferry to Dunoon, to continue the journey.
And once we arrived in Gourock, anticipating the first ferry of the journey, it was time to buy the small pot of creamola foam to induce the holiday mood. In Dad’s day, it was mostly lemon flavour, in mine, orange. But mainly really it allows you to have an absurdly fizzy drink and a huge amount of happiness (and no doubt sugar), combined.
Creamola foam was also available in the shop on Islay, after the second ferry, and before the third, over to Jura itself. Should you run out on the holiday, there would usually be a day trip to Islay, and an opportunity to stock up again.
One year, I attempted the impossible. I brought a full pot of it home with me. Now I could continue the holiday feeling. But then, it being precious, it was hard to make a move to start it. A month or two down the line, and it was already hardening into a lump. And somehow, it didn’t taste the same at home.
Reading wikipedia, I discover the advertising boast that creamola foam was ‘fully sweetened’. You bet. This is a Scottish foodstuff, after all. Needless to say, they don’t write advertising copy like that these days - or perhaps, they just hide the fact that something is fully sweetened.
Tastes of childhood. Perhaps sometimes it’s best for some things to remain at a distance. Worse, perhaps, to discover now that I didn’t like it - although again, wikipedia indicates that there’s a bit of an attempt going on to bring it back.
With rain on the menu most days at the moment, it’s good to think about summer at times, even distant summers. Next stop, soda streams, I feel.
September 18th, 2008
The wintry onslaught continues across Britain. Alison considers a writing career for the weather section of the Beeb…but wait! There are signs of an alternative weather front looming…
Never mind fog (although many do, of course, particularly those driving). What we want at the weekend is fug.
Fug is one of those words that suggests it’s a bit hot and stuffy, but we like it that way. It’s just what we need indoors when outdoors, we and our possessions are likely to be blown away in all directions.
Now that smoking is banned in public places all across the UK, fug is less of an option for pubs, which used to be a potential locator when there was lots of smoke. You can tell that those who described it as fug in pubs rather liked it after all.
Next option is cafes that fill up when it’s raining. A great example of a cafe that had the right level of fug is one a little below Snowdon. I once attempted to climb Snowdon with someone I knew from my gap year, plus a couple of friends of hers. We didn’t get very far up when really driving rain set in, and by the time we were back down, we were all completely soaked.
Thankfully, the cafe was just the place for having a huge pot of tea and full fry ups all round. No doubt we added to the fug by steaming gently as we dried out. By the time we had drained the tea pot, we were even mostly dry. A very happy outcome - I might even suggest happier than having reached the summit, although I’m sure that’s not really the spirit.
Meanwhile, the home fug is settling in nicely - probably my favourite sort. A little light soup making (though the soup itself will probably be reasonably ribsticking), a batch of sauce, some veg to add to the oven in a sec. In a while, I can add to the fug by bringing out a roast chicken, making gravy, that kind of thing.
You could describe it as steam. Even condensation. But that defeats the point. It’s happy steam. It suggests that the world is, for a little while at least, set at rights.
February 2nd, 2008
Hurrah for a half day on my birthday! I left early today so that I could fulfil a small ambition of mine, and browse the shops on Broughton Street on the way home.
Now Broughton Street may be known for various things, but I’d suggest, increasingly, food. It has the long-established RealFoods at the top, which does health food and much more, but also some brand new places that have opened up in the last few months.
So, started with RealFoods. They are doing all the Gillian McKeith type stuff - lots of alternative grains and so on - but the shop must be a godsend to anyone with food allergies. You name it as an alternative flour, they have it, plus masses of oriental ingredients, along with all the dried fruit, muesli to scoop out of a sack, and so on. I came away with linseeds, and ful medames beans - the latter are very popular in Egypt, so I’ve read, and there’s a recipe I’ve been meaning to try with them.
Broughton Street also has Crombie’s, the high class butcher, well known for its sausages. I decided to play fairly safe, and came away with some very smart beefburgers, which should be good to try.
I missed out the fishmonger at the top of the street, also long established - Something Fishy. I thought it might take too long to finish my shopping and head home, by which point the fish might be complaining a bit. But it is an aim of mine to try proper butchers and fishmongers this year, so I can see what the difference is between supermarket stuff and the specialists.
So, now, to the two new arrivals. Artisanal coffee, chocolate and honey can be had in a fairly new shop that also sells takeaway coffee. Their owner only sells the coffee beans that he likes, but will happily recommend and let you sniff them to see which you like. I made off with some Sumatran coffee which I think is meant to be his favourite. My bag certainly smelt wonderful all the way home.
The other newcomer is a shop selling all the things you might need for cocktails. Again, its owner is chatty, and knowledgeable. He didn’t seem put off by me saying I wasn’t too good with drinking spirits, but told me more about fruit syrups, and so on. He also has glasses and all the other kit for making cocktails. I am hoping he will stock some fruit purees so I can finally try a Bellini (prosecco and white peach pulp).
I didn’t go around explaining it was my birthday - thought that might be a bit obvious - but it was nice to have time to browse, and equally to chat with the shopowners. Certainly RealFoods has so many different lines of stock that you need a good forty minutes just to look round and see what they have.
I should add that it’s been a happily foody morning too - my colleague who does her own bean sprouts, and has been coaching me with my first attempts, gave me some mung beans to try sprouting. My manager found a couple of mini bars of dark chocolate to slip inside my birthday card. And the piece de resistance was battenburg cake, brought in or for another newer colleague who shares the same birthday. (Can’t resist marzipan and cake combined.)
Meanwhile, it’s now about time for a cup of tea. Nice thing about birthdays - the everyday pleasures as well as the special treats.
January 23rd, 2008
Starting preparations for a joint party with a friend. We have birthdays around the same time, and we have seized on the idea of soup and bagels to feed the multitudes. Jesus had loaves and fishes. We will hopefully have some loaves too, although the fishes have regretfully been left out (smells) in favour of large quantities of carrots.
I like a spot of bulk catering, but I’ve not made soup for 25 before. I’m quite looking forward to the challenge, which is really only making double a normal quantity, times three pots of soup. I can make use of my enormous ladle (a wedding present which doesn’t get much use for quantities under 6 people), large cooking pots, etc.
We are probably feeding 30 at the cake stage, but as both of us are making cake, that’s only 15 each. 3 cakes a-piece should do the trick. Mine all seem to be fruit related, but it’s also a case of seeing what I want to use up. Time to defrost the overripe bananas in the freezer which are kept for such purposes (a helpful tip from a former flatmate).
The last time we did one of these joint parties, Dan and I were still living in Inverleith Terrace. A very large sitting room made parties fun. Now we have more, but smaller, rooms, so a bit of ingenuity is required. Hopefully the kids coming will agree to play in one room, and we’ll keep the soup etc in the other. It may be just as well we don’t like our sitting room carpet that much…
In these days of ever more scrutiny of diets, ever more opportunities to point the finger at us as consumers - and over-consumers - bread and soup strikes a fairly quiet note, I feel.
Cake doesn’t really get excused…but then I am a firm believer that cake should be encouraged. Not daily, true, but it is a sure-fire way of filling up lots of people. And I learned that lesson as a student. Should you want to feed the multitudes, trying to feed 3 guys, one of whom was running triathlons at the time, and a girl with a ‘healthy appetite’, is no bad place to start.
I’ll give you the line-up of cakes on another occasion.
January 21st, 2008
When it comes to leftover fests, Christmas is the biggie. I find it very pleasing to have similar meals for days in a row when the leftovers change a little, there is plenty of cheese, and the prospect of finishing up with lots of cups of tea.
In this vein, a few new discoveries for leftovers:
1) The cold roast veg salad. Now I know that roast veg salads have been done for some time. But having a few leftover roast potatoes, assorted roast (or boiled) veg, consider adding mayonnaise and then some cucumber pickles, possibly a little of the pickling liquid too. On both occasions, I attempted to share my stash, but really had most of it myself.
2) Cold chicken, a little avocado, and some cooked beetroot. Dan’s mum has demonstrated that avocado and beetroot go well together in a salad (even better with the addition of watercress or rocket), but this is a nice respectable option for leftover chicken, though probably turkey would do too.
I’m sure there was a third one, but memory escapes me for now.
However, there’s also space for new year’s (food) resolutions. I had asked for spending money for Christmas to get some unusual ingredients - the kind of thing I contemplate, or read up about, but am not sure about buying.
Yesterday saw most of the shops shut in Stockbridge - limiting our usual charity shop trawls, but leaving the way open for deli browsing. Between the twin delights of Peckham’s and Waitrose, I happily parted with most of the cash, and we noted how it was a good idea not to come to Waitrose often. At all. Unless you want to part with all your month’s food shop money all in one go…
Anyway, this morning included looking up recipes to use the following: camargue (red) rice, buckwheat flour, quinoa, rosewater…(There are also more familiar favourites such as maple syrup and hot chocolate, to reassure you that it’s not one big health kick.)
Anyone thinking it’s about time we fed you, let me know which ingredients you are interested in, and we’ll see what we can do.
January 3rd, 2008
It’s confession time. I enjoy having people over, cooking for them…but sometimes I secretly think that the best bit about parties is eating up the leftovers afterwards.
The fact that this comes shortly before going away for Christmas means that there are all sorts of plans for how to use things up in a pleasing manner. It must rank reasonably high in my subconscious, as that was what I woke up thinking about, while trying hard to wake up enough to get up and see if I had remembered the contents of the fridge accurately…
Part of the thing with parties that makes this satisfying is where you have a party with different people bringing different things. Leftovers - with unplanned ingredients! It’s fairly close to Ready Steady Cook, but without the inconvenience of a studio audience.
To be honest, what was also exciting was seeing how well all the different things went together last night. Nibbles, mini things on french bread, a big vat of soup…I mention this as I am reminded of a similar party a few years ago where we decided we would all bring Christmas things from different countries - or at any rate, a dish relating to a particular country.
The only difficulty was that we had all thought about dishes containing potato, or so it seemed by what was produced. For one guest, fairly heavily pregnant at the time, this meant effectively eating a five course meal where every course included potato. Not great if you are working on a smaller stomach, and having difficulty digesting things…
But the second joy of leftovers is the potential to do things you might not normally do, such have coffee and cake for breakfast. (To be honest, cake for breakfast is such an exciting prospect that it’s just as well I don’t do this too often.) You can equally have things that you might normally eat - such as soup at lunchtime - but with someone else’s take on what that should be. (Three cheers for spiced parsnip soup, by the way.)
So hurrah for parties. And leftovers. In this day and age, in the West, we have lost the significance of feasting, because we are unused to the alternative - or unwilling to go there. We have to get our joy of providence through other means. Leftovers might just be it.
December 20th, 2007
Chilly? Just a trifle. Our central heating boiler is playing up. We have a Man coming to fix it (our former landlady had a stream of little Men who came to fix different things…and no, not those kind of little men, and definitely not wearing green either).
I have counted blessings as a way to calm down about it - we have separate gas so we can cook, we still have electricity for other stuff, we still have a shower that runs separately so can ablute, and so on. Feeling rather foolish not to know to do boiler servicing - but there again, the people we bought from didn’t tell us anything about it, parents didn’t mention it, etc. The back of the little on box seems to suggest the boiler was last serviced in November 1999…hmm…
Meanwhile, however, there is always food as a distraction. Today have had a shot at making a different kind of trifle for our small church group meeting on Wednesday. My manager has been on holiday to Switzerland, and came back with Lebkuchen. It was rather sturdy just for eating this afternoon, but with a little liquid soaked in, it should make rather good trifle.
I have started to experiment with different kinds of trifle, mainly relating to variants on the cake part. Today lebkuchen. On one memorable occasion, panettone, with a little rum on top - that one went down VERY well. Occasionally failed chocolate cake, sometimes cheap sponge on offer from the Co-op.
It’s not that I don’t want to spend money feeding guests. But I do like good leftover ideas, and trifle is as much a left-over dish as a create from scratch with wonderful sponge fingers kind of dish. In any case, I think the whole trifle sponge thing is really something you buy - a savoiardi biscuit, or something like that. I suspect macaroons would be good; I think brioche might almost work too.
My other innovation in the trifling department is different ways of soaking the sponge/cake bit - see rum reference above. Sherry - always good option. But was also rather pleased at using the juice from stewed fruit to soak through the sponge - success a few weeks back with brambles as the fruit content, and bramble juice turning the sponge a particularly exciting colour.
You could claim all this is just distraction. You’d be right, certainly tonight. It makes me grateful that we both go out to work, and can rely on someone else paying for heat, somewhere else, during the day. But it’s probably better than too much kicking ourselves, which is always a bit limited after the event. Plus, this way, it entertains people - and perhaps it even entertains you, dear reader, finding out about it, or considering your own cake and fruit creations for the future.
Feeling better? More than a trifle.
December 3rd, 2007
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