Looking Out To Sea

I don’t know if I ever saw it the first time round, but I saw Tron this evening. Now I’m fully prepared for the sequel when it appears.

A few friends came over and we got fajitas from Los Cardos across the road — and despite the utilitarian appearance the food was pretty good. The staff were friendly too. I got a “fajita burrito”, which is kinda what I’d call a fajita if I was making it at home, except they loaded it with rice as well as the usual fried onions, peppers, cheese, salsa and spicy chicken. (There are a number of other fillings available besides chicken, including haggis…) The food was more or less what you’d make yourself, simple but plentiful, and they had big, good quality tortillas which seems to be the hardest part when it comes to make-your-own fajita meals.

The film was weird as all hell. I borrowed the special edition with audio commentary and a separate making-of disc — I wonder what explanation they’ll have for some of the stranger scenes. Some didn’t even seem to connect at all to the rest of the story. It certainly wasn’t what I expected. I knew there was action in light-striped arenas that probably represented some gaming system, but I didn’t realise that most of the protagonists would be computer programs. Needless to say, if you know anything about computers you have to plug your ears at some points or risk bursting into entirely inappropriate laughter. The plot is a bit like The Lord of the Rings (take the magical item into the evil overlord’s domain to free everyone from tyranny).

The sequel — coming out in December I think, so aiming for the family Christmas market I suppose — follows the action twenty five years later in the same inner-computer environment. Hopefully they won’t be relying on the crutch of dazzling graphics and spectacle instead of coherent plot. But that’s probably a foolish hope…

Helen’s out tonight because one of her colleagues is leaving the lab, so she didn’t get to see it. Maybe we’ll watch it tomorrow with extras before I give the DVD back.

I’m not long back from Greener Leith’s latest evening community talk. This is the second event I’ve been to, held in the Kirkgate Community Centre at the foot of Leith Walk. Last month was about hedgerow foraging which was quite interesting — I bought the book! — but I haven’t really followed up on any of the notions it inspired. It is much easier to just buy the book…

Today they were continuing the food theme with a talk from Donald from the local convivium of the Slow Food movement. Last month’s talk was very well attended so it was quite embarrassing to realise that I was the only person in the room that wasn’t (a) a presenter or (b) on the Greener Leith organising committee. I was “the public”.

I don’t really have much to say about Slow Food as an organisation — they are bound up by some vague notion of anti–fast food but don’t define themselves particularly. Most of their members internationally are local food producers and independent farmers of one type or another. There are a lot of them, and they have a big meeting once every two years to celebrate their strange unity, but they are not really important for Leith.

Leith has not much in the way of wheat fields or cattle so the focus locally is obviously on the more urban concerns — local producers and retailers, and hooking them up with each other and the general public. Getting people to investigate the bakers rather than Tesco, and getting the local farmed produce into the hands of people who live in Edinburgh.

Since there were so few of us in the room it was just a chat rather than a presentation, and the presenter brought some small examples of local produce — a loaf of sourdough from the Manna House and some bottles of Stewart Brewery beers. We talked (well, they talked; I mostly listened) about local food issues and small ideas to change the way food is seen.

The most concrete, and actually quite interesting, idea that was mentioned was a Slow Food Table at the Leith Gala. Try to get as many people to contribute something to a table of food which people are encouraged to sit at and take time to eat. Provide a contrast to fast food served elsewhere at the gala. Maybe there will be more of this?

Of course the real problem with food, locally and in many urban areas, is that so many people have been disconnected from food for so long that, even if given a plentiful and cheap supply of good food, they don’t know what to do with it. Trying to bring together local professional chefs and schoolchildren has not met with much success. I have no real solutions to offer, other than to note that the people who sell fruit, vegetables, meat and fish must have some passion for it, and should be consulted. (Obviously I’m ignoring the supermarkets in this, but there are a fair number of “high street” food shops in Leith which fit the butcher, greengrocer, fishmonger archetype.)

Well, I have volunteered what I can and hopefully come June we’ll have a plan to put into execution for the Leith Gala.

We’ve had so much success with recipes in the last few years that it’s sometimes easy to forget that some recipes are useless through and through. If you’re not very familiar with the general idea then it’s easy to get dragged far from the path by a instructions that are confusing or just downright wrong.

That’s what happened to me last week when I tried Scrummy Chocolate Swirl Shortbread from the Green & Blacks Chocolate Recipes book. I couldn’t really remember what the process for shortbread was so I just followed the instructions and ended up with something useless quite demoralising. I later checked Delia and James Martin’s respective recipes for shortbread and confirmed that the recipe in the Chocolate book is utter bobbins. Compare:

• Cream sugar into butter, then add flour.
• Mix dry ingredients then rub in butter.

The first one gets you a stiff dough, the second ones gets you breadcrumbs. And at that point there’s not much you can really do to pull it back — it’s not easy to decrumb crumbs.

I’ve just tried again, ignoring the mixing process they suggested in favour of Delia Smith’s instructions, and they seem much better. They’re cooling at the moment. Now I get to revisit the original recipe and mark it up for future occasions. I’m not sure if I should write proper instructions, or just score the whole thing out with “Wrong! Consult Delia!”. That would be more satisfying.

Just back from a cracking night at Calistoga, Californian restaurant hidden in a side alley of Rose Street. You know, just down past the ‘sauna’.

We’re away tomorrow and for the long weekend, in Glasgow for a wedding. It’s going to be a bit new. Ostensibly a Muslim wedding but with certain obvious heresies — the groom’s family are Chinese, so there will be pork or chicken’s feet at the meal, possibly both. Because that’s tradition too.

Well, whatever happens the bride and groom are lovely people and I wish them all the best. I hope the events go without a hitch (apart from the obvious one). Here’s some Bell X1 to see you out, extolling the virtues of tea to a Boston audience and singing Flame.

Last weekend we holidayed in Galloway. (Actually, it’s now two weekends ago because it’s taken ages to get the photos online.)

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A few days ago I followed a recipe for ricotta and blueberry buns from one of those supermarket cookery leaflets. I was beset on all sides by problems (like the ricotta in the fridge turning out to be mascarpone) but eventually got there.

They are… okay. I don’t really know what I would do in future, but they need several things done to them. First, they are too well done on top. They are all beyond golden, into that phase we shall call “browned”. I made some of them pinched together around the filling like a sack, and some as smooth round domes. The domed ones would be better if glazed. The messy-looking ones are better unglazed, but are still too dark.

The muffin cases aren’t a great idea. The dough doesn’t separate well from the paper, so I should maybe use the parchment that the recipe asks for. I just thought it seemed like too much of a hassle.

I’d really like to do them again so that I can undo all my mistakes. But I’m less motivated to make doughs at the moment because the flat is so cold that the yeast takes forever to activate. All proving times seem to need doubled. Maybe we just need a warmer flat!

The year of the cookery challenge has ended now. That’s a whole recipe book, experienced and tasted and documented. I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing you do more than once. There is someone out there who did a year of Rachel Ray’s 365 Day No Repeat Meals book, but quickly gave up after trying another (less strenuous) cooking challenge. With the knowledge it can be done, the actual doing becomes less interesting…

But we are by no means “done” with cooking itself. How could we be? The plan this year, he says tentatively, is more freeform. We have seen what it is to cook a cookery book. But we are still surrounded by recipes that we have never tried — many other cookery books, recipe cards from supermarkets, not to mention the innumerable recipes written on the bags of flour, sugar, spices and flavoured syrups. (I’m not going to include the “serving suggestion” printed on the Honey Loops packet, which amounts to cereal in a bowl with milk. Though sometimes Rice Krispies has a recipe for chocolate krispie cake.)

We intend to reduce our meat intake a bit, because the quantity that Nigella demanded wasn’t really sustainable. It’s expensive stuff if you want to buy meat that’s worth eating. We intend to set up a box scheme to ensure that we have a steady and ample supply of vegetables. Less meat, more vegetables.

The King of River Cottage
© Gary

To add a bit of tension to this plan, we also plan to use the River Cottage Meat Book and Fish Book more fully. You can see how that might not fit elegantly with the plan to consume less meat. But I hope we can spend the money we do on less fashionable meats and less popular fishes. That seems to mean irregular and bony cuts of meat and fish with unknown names that get landed anyway. I’m sure we can find something interesting.

I wander past many fishmongers and a butcher on the way to work, so I feel sure I can pick up some cheap bits of this and that. My only concern is that if I buy something I won’t have a recipe I can consult in order to pick up the appropriate ingredients on the way home that evening. I can’t really justify buying another two copies to keep on my desk at work!

Which leads us inexorably to PDF books. Why oh why don’t all reference books come with a CD? It would be brilliant to have a list of recipes and their ingredients in a searchable format. All those people with PDAs and swanky phones can load them on for use in the shops and the rest of us can keep them on USB pens, hard disks or wherever else we’ll need them. For a very long while Helen had a note pad dedicated to scribblings of recipe ingredients when she was in full challenge mode. How much easier it would be if the list was already on computer. Even my original transcription of the recipe and chapter titles onto the Challenge page would have been quicker and (as it turns out) contain fewer mistakes.

It’s possible to buy some books in electronic format, but that’s not really what we’re interested in. We already own the real thing, and very nice it is too. We just want the hard work of transfer to computer to be done by someone else. And let’s be fair, it’s not like we’re asking for something very outlandish — the data starts on computer in the first place. (Unless you want to convince me that all these books are typeset by hand.) However, it’s probably as likely to happen as CDs coming with usable MP3s alongside the audio.

Now you must excuse me, I have a muffin from a supermarket recipe card to make!

Last night we had a grand Christmas party. We had about 20-odd people in the end, though a few notable exceptions. I’m glaring at you, green jumper boy.

As with all things that happen at the moment, the focus of the preparations was the food. We had a significant list of recipes that we wanted to tick off, and we did fairly well. The only major loss was the mincemeat parcels, but we compensated for that in another way.

Matthew was really kind and agreed to help us out for the preparation work. He came round in the middle of the afternoon and worked hard to bring everything together. It certainly wouldn’t have been possible without his input. If you were there and had any of the mince pies, apple pies or the mulled wine you can thank Mat for them. I don’t know what I will do to repay him, but he certainly deserves our heartfelt thanks.

A few months ago Kirsten emailed me to ask for a cranberry bread recipe to pass to her mother. Until last night I didn’t know how it had worked out, so I thought I would try my hand at a loaf with cranberies in it, because they’re quite the Christmas fruit. I used two of the recipes from Richard Bertinet’s Dough, making something suitably Christmas-party flavoured. I removed the nuts from the Pecan and Cranberry Loaves, and moulded them like Poppy Seed Stars. I didn’t have any proper dried cranberries, but I used the same weight of “craisins”, which is a cranberry-heavy dried fruit mix. The result was very tasty… almost like eating bread that had jam already spread on it.

The mince pies that Matthew made (from a recipe in Nigella Lawson’s Feast, so it doesn’t count towards the challenge) were made with cranberry mincemeat supplied by Nick. I’ve a suspicion that the recipe he used for that mincemeat also came via Nigella Lawson too. There’s something terribly incestuous about it all.

I’m very happy that so many people brought a decoration for the tree. We’ve got wire-basket stars and baubles now, and gingerbread trees with coloured-sugar windows, and jangly-legged snowmen and even a festive red double helix. On top of that we’ve inherited several bottles of wine and many packets of crisps, not to mention all the leftovers of pies, popcorn, olives and chocolate. We even have a 1.5 litre bottle of white wine which is probably too big to be chilled in the fridge.

Thanks to everyone who came, and especially to everyone who helped out in some way or another. You’re all great.

In an effort to make myself more adventurous (or at least, less reticent) in the kitchen I’ve lately been throwing myself at cooking with abandon. Often I have no idea what I want to eat when I pour the oil in the bottom of the pan. It just comes together as I work out what I’ve got.

This evening I started off with a large frying pan liberally coated in garlic oil, half a green bell pepper cut into strips and a couple of coarsely chunked spring onions. I fried them at some heat until they didn’t need it any more, by which point I had realised I need some protein and found smoky bacon in the fridge. I dropped the onion/pepper mix on a plate, keeping as much of the juice in the pan as possible and fried a couple of rashers of bacon, coarsely cut with a pair of scissors.

I think at this point I realised that I’d need some carbohydrate and bulk, so started boiling the kettle to make pasta. There wasn’t much water in the kettle but I was only cooking enough fusilli for myself, and I’m a light eater. The water went in fairly quickly and was hot enough to throw the pasta in within thirty seconds I think. At the same time I turned off the bacon, while I approached my next problem.

I started to think about sauce. I should really have something to coat my pasta — what I had at the moment wasn’t really crisp enough for a stir-fry, but it wasn’t wet either. I found a jar of stiff Thai paste for making soups, on the top shelf of the fridge door. I threw in a teaspoon of that and tried to get it to dissolve in the bacony garlic oil. After a few minutes I realised it would help if I added heat, which I did.

The peppers and onions went back in while I hunted around for a slosh of red wine to add to the liquid. Couldn’t find any. Oh well, gave up, started clearing up some of the mess. Checked on the baguettes that are proving on the table. Go to put more music on. Find a nearly-finished bottle of red wine hiding amongst the shopping bags on the table. Victory! A bit of that goes in, gently cooking away.

By the time the past is completed, the red wine has formed a slightly sticky, caramel-looking juice around the peppers and bacon. I throw the whole lot into the drained pasta and slosh it around in the pan to coat everything.

This is the disastrous cooking that I do. Honestly, it tastes quite good: spicy but also sweet. There’s probably a million things I could have done better. But it was quite tasty, so I’m satisfied.

I accidentally came across this video yesterday about bread, and the “Real Bread Campaign”. (The video is from the Do Lectures which seems to be something to do with Howies, the clothing company. I haven’t watched any others yet.)

If you can’t be bothered watching it yourself (and honestly, I don’t particularly recommend it) he:

• talks about industrial milling and bread-making
• makes threatening and evidence-free comments about “enzymes” in your food
• suggests you start baking your own bread

I originally thought to mention the enzyme thing more, but it’s just tediously overdone on this blog I think. Just stop using vague science words in the hope you can make things sound dangerous. All it does is diminish any potential credibility you might have had.

I much preferred the last few minutes of his talk, when the subject settled on bread-making, community, and all that rousing stuff. I do like the idea of a Real Bread Campaign as a parallel to CAMRA, the real ale campaign. They are dealing with something fundamentally different though, so I don’t know what lessons can be learned from the real ale movement.

I recently came across this rather nice post about bread making from someone who obviously likes their bread and the process of making it, and explains it all in a cheerful fashion. And finally a short video on how they made bread back in the 1980s: