The Vegetable of Doom

Mine was 'the frozen pea'. I could stare at them, corralled on one side of my dinner plate, for an hour without eating a single one. I didn't like their colour or their texture. And they had a strange smell: like green rainwater in an old garden bucket. Fifty years later I can deal with them. But let's be honest, they're a little too independent. There can't be a person alive who hasn't shot an 'escape-pea' off the side of their plate. 

I imagine a lot of us have seen our 'vegetables of doom' metamorphose into our friends. Unless you're a hardened enemy of the Brussel sprout that is.

But more on the maligned sprout later.

My brother-in-law's sworn enemy was the parsnip. He swears his mother disguised them amongst his roast potatoes, where they lurked, cloaked in gravy and deception.

You can't really get a more common and garden variety vegetable than the parsnip. At least not here in the UK, and possibly in the US. But when I was living in the South of France most French people I asked didn't even know what a parsnip was. Even when I asked them in French: le panais. Though to be fair there probably aren't that many people here who'd be able to point you in the direction of salsify. And you'll trip over that in nearly every supermarket in France.

But the parsnip is even more on my mind today as this morning I received an invitation to run a writing workshop at the BlogHer Food '14 conference in Miami. I can't think of a better way to start a day! And the title the organisers have given to my session is: Poetry & Parsnips: Unleash Your Creativity in Food Writing. 

I'm not sure where the 'parsnip' idea came from. It wasn't in my proposal. There's the appeal of the alliteration, of course. But why not Peas? Or Pomegranates or Potatoes? Or Pineapple? Or peanuts or peppers or prawns or pumpkins?

According to Wiki the etymology of parsnip is unclear but it may have evolved from the Latin word pastus, meaning 'food'. Suddenly, 'Parsnips' is the perfect choice to describe 90 minutes of creative expression. Because writing feeds us. We feel richer for committing our memories, our desires, our hopes and fears to paper: we make connections between our past and our present. We begin to make a map of our future. 

hungry writing prompt: 

write a list of your hopes and a list of your fears

But to return to the humble sprout and a way of convincing even serial sprout-haters of their charm. Chop some streaky bacon and shallots and saute until they begin to caramelise. Remove from the heat, add some cream then warm through gently, seasoning to taste. Pour over the hot, steamed sprouts and sprinkle with crumbled walnuts or a handful of toasted pine-nuts. 

Welcome to The Hotel Decrepitude

You know those ads with 50-somethings bouncing around tennis courts with perfectly groomed hair and suntans that advertise, 'Fifty is the new Thirty'? Well, not around here it ain't. 

I don't want to be 30. I'd settle for, 'Fifty-five is the same-old Fifty-five' but my list of growing complaints is trying to convince me otherwise. I won't bore you here with the accumulation of details because I am trying to avoid membership of the 'Tasmalou Club' as the French call it.

T'as (tu as) mal ou? Or, Where does it hurt? A phrase I learned from Mme Riff, our beautiful and elegant French landlady in Juan les Pins as her husband launched into a description of his bad ankle. 

Pie d'Angloys & Brillat-Savarin with fresh black figs

Frozen joints, random lumps, the failing eyesight of a mole I can deal with. But telling me I can't eat butter? Or saucisson sec? Or my pungent and creamy French cheeses? Yes, it's the dreaded unreasonably high cholesterol reading. Which is either punishment for extended hedonistic indulgences while living in France or inconvenient and obstreperous genes. I am supposed to be good, and bored, and wait for six months to find out.

But maybe I don't have to wait that long. Red blood cells only live for about four months so I could have nearly a whole new set to juggle with by February. In the meantime I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact that the following snack bar represents excitement in my life right now...

In an idle moment I decided to Google the number 55 to discover any numerological, social or historical insights. It seems I have nothing to worry about. In numerology I am composed of Independence, Exploration, Self-determinism, Freedom and Adventure.  In the I Ching I am the sum of earthly and heavenly numbers. I am also the 10th Fibonacci number and the international telephone code for Brazil. I am also quite happy that the 55th word of the King James bible is 'light'. But probably won't ponder on the fact that Adolf Hitler was the 55th member of National Socialist German Workers Party.

February 24th IS the 55th day of the year however. So my February goal is looking promising.

Hungry Writing Prompt
Write about numbers: your shoe size, your age.

Having a laugh. And lunch.

He gave me the post code, saw me putting it into the sat nav, so the third time he asks, Are you sure this is the right way?, I feel like poking him. Instead I say, firmly, You do it then! To be fair to him, the posh woman in the machine does seem to be sending us the very long way round. But at least it's a scenic route: the back lanes of mid Kent on an autumn day bright with blue skies are worth any detour. And as we appear to be heading more or less in the right direction I'm happy to take things slowly. But as we follow instructions to turn left into yet another narrow high-hedged lane Tony's resolve crumbles and he decides to ask for directions. 

There are rules governing the asking of directions. Don't do it in city centres after 7pm: you'll inevitably get the drunk. Don't ask people at bus-stops: they're there because they don't know the way to anywhere independently. If you ask someone and they say, Pardon?, just drive off: they're playing for time, politely, and the next time you repeat the address they'll tell you they're not from around here. What? You didn't know that when I first stopped?!

I've now added another rule, one that was rapidly formulating in my mind as Tony slowed down alongside a half hidden driveway where an old man was leaning on a rake. Tony, no... But it was too late. 

As soon as we came to a stop he shifted his weight from the rake onto our wing mirror so now we were stuck there or we were going to have to take the old bugger with as as we drove off. Ah, Kingswood, he said and nodded and then left a pause long enough that we were both tempted to poke him to see if he was still alive. But what if we poked him and he fell off the wing mirror? 

I left Tony to deal with the matter, and stared out of the passenger window, my shoulders, by this time, rocking with silent laughter as the old boy tried to remember what was at the end of the lane. 

He probably hasn't spoken to anyone since the end of WWII, Tony said after we eventually escaped and I was wiping the tears from my eyes. And then the sat nav instructed us to turn into Gravelly Bottom Road. You're having a laugh, aren't you? Tony said to no-one in particular. By the time we'd passed Bushy Grove we were a pair of basket cases. Sometimes living in England is entirely worth while! 

And we got a great lunch out of the day too. The Pepperbox Inn near Harrietsham lives up to all and any expectations of what an English pub should be like: 15th century, whitewashed, a roaring fire, cosy leather sofas and dark wooden furniture with the worn gleam of centuries and the obligatory lollopy dog asleep on the floor next to the bar. 

And the food was a winner too. I had an Asian scotch egg with salad and chips, the sausage meat singing with flavours of chilli, garlic and cumin. But I could have chosen a good half a dozen other things and been equally as happy, I'm sure.

And there was a windowsill I wanted to take home with me.

Or at least spend a weekend in with a pile of soft cushions and a couple of books. 

Is there anything better than a good laugh and a good lunch within minutes of each other? Not that I can think of right now.

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write about stopping at the side of a road.

The reality of disappointment

Three disappointing food things:

1. cold chips
2. discovering your husband has eaten the custard tart you'd been saving for a snack during Masterchef
3. dragon fruit

1. is redeemable: a few minutes in a hot oven. 2. could provoke an argument if you didn't find the bar of chilli flavoured chocolate in the kitchen cupboard while muttering to yourself about 'greedy gits'. But there's nothing you can do about 3. 

Dragon fruit disappoint more deeply because of their vibrant exterior. Then when you slice one open the black seed-speckled bright pinky purple flesh almost makes you gasp. It's like nothing you've ever experienced in your life. 

Dragon fruit: Pitaya or Pitahaya

Google searches throw up descriptions of its wonderful flavour: like a cross between kiwi and pear. But that wasn't my experience in the kitchen this morning: solid pink water is the most complimentary I can be.

The BBC food site offers a reason: Pitaya is widely grown in the tropics and, when eaten near to where it is harvested, is incredibly fragrant. It loses some of its delicacy with shipping. 

I imagine eating the carrots dug from my dad's garden only a few hours earlier and comparing them to the carrots, even the organic ones, I buy in a supermarket. The taste of two different worlds.

It's difficult to imagine only eating indigenous, and seasonal, fruit and vegetables: the 20th and 21st centuries have gathered food to our tables from all over the world and my culinary and gastronomic experience is richer for that. But that's what we did do, mostly, when I was a kid. Bananas and oranges were the only 'exotic' fruit Mammy bought. Pineapple came in tins. And there are plenty of popular and academic posts and articles on the web that promote the health benefits of doing just that. 

I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved to discover that last week was the annual week of eating indigenous food, according to the Facebook group, Indigenous Eating. But there's an itch in my mind that will probably grow to an inclination over the next couple of months. I'll let you know how I get on with food that looks more like this: 

And this:

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write about a time when you were disappointed. 

Forgiveness soup

I'm not going to divulge why I need to make this soup. In fact I tend to be suspicious of other people's confessions, the motives behind them, so I also suspect the motive for my own. 

Even confessions that make it to the printed page sometimes wobble along a a narrow line between confession and exhibitionism. Confessions don't always make for reparation. Sometimes they're just attention seekers. Sometimes they just make the confessor feel better. 

There's a strong argument, on a lot of occasions, for staying quiet, zipping it, putting a lid on it, keeping it to ourselves. This is one of them.

Why does this make a good forgiveness soup? Both as an offering and a receiving? Because it's simple. It's straightforward. It's warming. It has a texture that comforts you whatever side of the forgiveness model you happen to be sitting on. Or waving from, if the event was truly divisive.

You'll feel better after a bowl of this though.

3 leeks, sliced, and 3 carrotts, sliced, sauteed in a little olive oil.

Add: 1 litre of vegetable stock

grind together quarter tsp chilli flakes, half tsp cumin seeds, quarter tsp coriander seeds and add to pot

salt and pepper to taste (I used garlic pepper)

Add 250 gr split red lentils (having boiled them rapidly for 10 minutes and rinsed)

Cook until the lentils have softened. Keep an eye on it and add more stock for the required consistency.

Add some fresh pulled ham-hock (courtesy of Waitrose). Warm through.

Add some chopped parsley to serve.

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write about a time when you were in need of forgiveness. 

The evolution of the fish finger sandwich

Regular readers will remember this post where I upgraded the fish finger sandwich with hand-sliced black olive bread. Well, it has evolved further. Out of necessity. 

I wouldn't go as far as to cite the 'necessity is the mother of invention' proverb. And I think I can be pretty sure that Plato did not have fish fingers on his mind, or his plate, when he, allegedly, used those words. 'Necessity is the impulse to scour the cupboards' would be more accurate.

But talking about 'invention', who invented the fish finger? And yes, it was Captain Birdseye! Well, almost. It was a Mr Scott, of Birds Eye, who developed the fish finger at their factory in Great Yarmouth. It was gifted to the world in 1955 at a Brighton sales conference.

The Americans, as is often the case, apparently beat us to it with their 'fish stick' in the 1920s. Fish stick? Not very inventive at all. 

I found these and other insightful details about the FF in a 2010 article in The Telegraph. Google also nets you page after page of sites talking about the FF sandwich: posh, perfect, homemade, ultimate, world's best, deluxe. 

In this case it seems that necessity is the mother of repetition.

And my latest contribution to this over-crowded culinary debate? 

1. A wrap. 
2. A generous couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise mixed with finely chopped sweet and sour gherkin. 
3. Shredded romaine lettuce.

And yes, necessity was at play. I spent the whole day scraping window sealer from the edge of the two dozen wooden frames in our new greenhouse. I wanted feeding quickly. I wanted comfort, taste, with a kick of originality. And I wanted to use up the fish fingers (the usual leavings from a visit of family munchkins) before they developed a deeper crust of freezer dust. 

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write about what is necessary in your life. And what is unnecessary. 

Flat and flatter: cars and ducks

(Please don't worry - there's no direct relationship between the car and the duck!)

There's a flatness to grey, wet weather, don't you think? Everything might be exactly how it was yesterday, every building, every tree, even the colour of the grass, but when I look out of the window it feels pressed upon, weighted down. It's like the sound an old bruise might make. The smell of a damp towel.

And just when you think things can't get any flatter:

But I called a very nice man. A very, very nice man. In fact, in the handful of times I've had to use a breakdown service I've never met an un-nice man. It's not just that they solved the problems: changed a tyre, refilled an empty fuel tank, or took me home. It's the manner in which they handled all that. They're like magicians: they make anxiety disappear. But that is coming from a woman who generally doesn't look under the bonnet of her car; a woman who has been meaning to get out the owner's manual for the past five and a half months, to find out how to change the clock forward an hour, and who realises it's not really worth it now. In two weeks time she'll only have to change it back. 

Flatness needs a non-flat antidote. And this was mine:

I used to buy this duck confit when I lived in Antibes: I nabbed this one in Carrefour during a shopping trip at the Cite Europe on the other side of the Channel Tunnel. 

Taste and simplicity: you empty the tin into a large saucepan, allow the duck fat to melt and the duck legs to warm through. Et voila! Pour off the fat, use the meat in a salad, as I did, or as the base for a 'duck' cottage pie. Or just scoff it off the plate on its own. It has been known.

I made a salad dressing with a couple of tablespoons of the melted duck fat, some home-made orange jelly and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

And all my flatness disappeared. And a little more roundness took its place.

Hungry Writing Prompts

Write about changing shape.  

Dancing with the pig

Lunch menu at The Potted Pig

A pig that lives in a vault. A pig that keeps eclectic company. A salty, savoury, gently pulled pig. A pig from Cardiff. A Potted Pig. And dance I did: metaphorically and literally.

An old school friend had recommended this Cardiff eatery although Google shows that it ranks pretty highly for a lot of people, including Jay Rayner, food critic at The Guardian, who chewed and drooled throughout his review after it opened in 2011.

I booked a table on-line and chose the offered option for the set two course lunch at three o'clock. Nice to have a late lunch: the R&R after a necessary shopping spree in the city with my sister. But the restaurant called the day before to say that their on-line booking system was playing up. They only served until two so could we come then instead? And I'm pleased I did. 

If you're a fan of cockles, you're going to love the next photo. If you're not... you really need to rethink your eating habits. I know that they're not the most photogenic of creatures. I know that bi-valve isn't the most inspiring gastronomic term. But once they're cooked they tighten to a sweet chew and combined with laver bread and bacon on lightly toasted sour-dough bread they are the food equivalent of a hot tango with Antonio Banderas. I told you I was dancing. 

Cockles, bacon and
laver bread on toast

The choice of main courses wasn't as enticing or as varied as I'd have liked: pork chop (pass), pasta with courgettes and peas (boring), grilled plaice (something I could do at home), burger (just no), BBQ pulled pork sandwich (do I really want bread again?) and a philly cheese steak sandwich (ditto). In the end I chose the pulled pork and discarded the bread and, Wow. The combination of soft pork, spicy sauce and a crisp red cabbage coleslaw sent me whirling around the floor with Snr. Banderas again. 

My literal dancing was something of a surprise. The rain was washing the city clean as we came in and we were warned that the floor might be a bit slippy. A BIT slippy? Imagine Dancing on Ice meets Julie Walters' Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques and you'd have a pretty good idea of what it felt like, and what I looked like, walking across the wooden floor from reception to our table. 

And there was a little bit more dancing before my day was over. A large (and I use that word without any hint of exaggeration) spider scampered across my sister's foot while she was watching TV that evening. Riverdance had nothing on her. 

Hungry Writing Prompt
Write about dancing, about music and movement, about delight.

The Potted Pig's BBQ pulled pork with red cabbage coleslaw and watercress with home-made chunky chips.

Oh. Venice.

In Venice there's a People Mover, a half mile long funicular-type overhead railway, that connects the cruise terminal to Piazzale Roma, at the western edge of the intricate web of islands, canals and bridges that make up the city of our imaginations. 

My flights of fancy about Venice were first fuelled, in the early 80s, by Pizza Express's Pizza Veneziana (a snippet of the cost of each pizza was given to the Venice in Peril fund) and, in the early 90s, by reading Thomas Mann's Death in Venice as part of my Diploma in Comparative Literature, a novella which is a fetid hothouse of decay and destructive eroticism. Hey, what's not to like?

But Venice has the reputation of being the most romantic city on earth and my first reaction, after stepping off the People Mover and wandering along the minor canals, is satisfyingly predictable. Every bend, every building, every wooden boat dock elicits a sigh. I don't even mind paying 12 Euros for a bottle of coke and an orange juice outside a little bar in one of the out of the way piazzas, although the irony that the orange juice is made of blood oranges isn't lost on me.

But the closer I get to St Mark's Square the less enamoured I become as subtlety gives way to brashness and overcrowding. And, at the risk of being called a Philistine, I just don't get the fuss about the square. It's an ugly stone tundra. 

I suppose September is still considered a high tourist season so perhaps I only have myself to blame. I'm also to blame for not checking my change after buying a couple of water taxi tickets on the banks of the Grand Canal. As I walk away I realise I'm 4 euros short though the hand-written English notice on the booth window telling me, and every other English-speaking tourist, that I should have checked it before leaving means there's no way I'm going to get it back.

It's funny how little things like that can colour your view of a place. Perhaps unfairly. Perhaps not. The man who served us in the bar just clipped the edge of politeness. The ticket-booth guy was fully trained in unarmed hostility.

Perhaps the people of Venice are fed up with all the visitors and tourists. And particularly the cruise ships as recent newspaper reports illustrate. 

Luckily there was something to save Venice for me as I puttered along the

Giudecca Canal back to the ship: a 35 ft inflatable replica of Mark Quinn's sculpture, 'Breath', of a naked and eight month pregnant Alison Lapper, the disabled artist who was born with no arms, on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. 

It's not something everyone in Venice was happy to see though. The Catholic church said, diplomatically, that it was 'out of place'. Other people think that the inflatable version doesn't have the presence of the original 11.5 ft marble sculpture, made from Carrara marble, the same stone Michelangelo's David was carved from. Some feel that it's too obvious a way of encouraging us to re-examine our attitudes about beauty and the human form. You can read more here and make up your own mind.

For me, it's beautifully brave and honest. 

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write about a time when you were brave. 

Livorno, ti amo

Livorno, I love you. I love your piazzas and statues, your brickwork and pavements, your streets and canals. I love the sound of water lapping against old stone and the musical rise and fall of your language. I love your one legged pigeons. I love your graffiti and your church’s trompe l’oeil murals that convince me I could walk through paint and plaster into light and shadow. And I love your mercato centrale, your fishmongers and butchers, stalls that sell candies and knitting wool, herbed mozzarella and ripe black figs. Livorno, I love your ordinariness, your honesty. The faces of your people. Your grazies and your pregos. And Livorno, perhaps you love me too.

I'm unsure if I have the spelling right but 'la bella signora' at Caffetteria da Lori in the central market
told me this coffee was called 'la morroccaina'.

And here's the rest of my Livorno photos, the city that captured my heart.

The old quarter - La Venezia

Mercate Centrale

Trompe l'oeil  painting at the church of Santa Caterina

One legged pigeon

Lots of love here: the Madonna, Palestine and someone who loves Claudia.

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write, and keep writing, about what and who you love.