Columns

Faking it

Imagine you at some sort of social function, your host is eagerly offering you a beautifully presented tray of handmade appetisers and announces with a smile that they are black pudding croquettes.  However you cannot stand black pudding. You have a split second to decide your response; you can go either for the bold 'thanks but no thanks' and risk offending your host, or quickly gobble one down through a false smile.

Sometimes there is no choice I'm afraid; you'll just have to eat up. Not many of us will be honoured with an invitation to tea with the queen, but if you are I strongly recommend not rejecting a cucumber sandwich. And you would have to be quite a horrid person indeed to send back food at a wedding.

Some foods are easier to reject than others. I don't imagine anyone would bat an eyelid if your hated food was say, bananas but it seems there are certain foods that we (especially us foodie types) are supposed to like. Top of my list is caviar. I'm not convinced that anyone really likes caviar. A quick poll among friends and family (both those who share my love of food and those who don't give two hoots) proved general confusion about why it is meant to be so great. Olives are a close second; I'm not a fan but they seem to be a ubiquitous appetiser in all mid-range restaurants.

I detest anchovies, I just can't get on with offal and I believe the only thing that should be served 'tartare' is tartare sauce. However, politely reject an offer of these foods and you may find yourself instantly lowered from connoisseur to cretin. And woe betide you if you aren't a fan of cheese; there is a whole course dedicated to the stuff.

I was at a restaurant, nowhere particularly smart, and one of our party refused a glass of wine and instead ordered a rum and coke. Now I do struggle to understand how someone could not enjoy wine, but this girl does not. However she certainly did not deserve the look she received from our waiter. I never knew a single raised eyebrow could spell out 'pleb' so eloquently.

So, a plea. To the dinner party hosts, no black pudding or caviar appetisers please. You know your guests may be less than thrilled, don’t make them pretend, quit showing off and offer something more palatable. To all restaurateurs, please don't fill your menus with the trendy foods of the moment and tell your waiters to stop sneering at clientèle who are brave enough to order what they really want. And stop judging me when I reject your bowl of olives. I'm not a pleb, I just don't like olives.
 

Roadkill

A surprisingly evil pheasant

I have just finished chatting with my father on the phone and his closing words were: ‘Right, I’d better make the pastry for my pheasant pie’.  Not too unusual a thing to do I’m sure you’ll agree, what made me laugh (and got me typing) was my automatic presumption that said pheasant most certainly did not come from the local butcher. 

You see my father lives in the middle of Wales, he has a rather splendid water mill with a dozen acres or so of land, right in the middle of those acres is quite a busy road and busy roads mean roadkill. 

So far my father’s roadkill meals have been limited to our feathered friends, pheasants and ducks to be specific, he has shied away from badger as he has been told it has a very strong flavour and is hopeful, though so far unsuccessful, of finding a rabbit.

I was talking to friend the other day about all things roadkill and they told me about someone they know who moved into a new house and on the day of the big move found a deer at the side of the road, still warm but very much dead.  So, seeing the potential of many a tasty meal, chucked dead Bambi in the back of the van. 

A surprisingly pleasant badger

Bambi needed to be bled of course, so new home-owner constructed a tripod-thing in the garden and hung up the deer before bleeding him out.  Now a dead deer (or indeed, any deer) contains a hell of a lot of blood.  So picture the scene of a new neighbour moving into your street, you pop round to say hello, do the ‘welcome to the road’ bit only to see a garden full of blood and a deer hanging upside down from a make-shift tripod, I’m sure he made quite an impression.

Another friend’s father is, like my own, prone to eating things he finds at the roadside (please do not judge my friends on the fact they all seem to have road kill related stories). Her father however does not limit himself or birds or meats one would find in the butcher. He has been known to serve badger, squirrel, fox; if it’s dead and free, he’ll eat it and in turn so has my friend. Unlike said friend I have never been served roadkill, well not knowingly anyway, but would I eat it? Yes I think I would.

Lunch.  Nom nom nom.

It is not a food for the squeamish certainly, but it’s free, the death was probably instantaneous and it’s about as free-range as you can get. It’s actually a rather ethical way to source your meat. I suppose it depends where you live, eating roadkill in the countryside does not seem as bizarre as it would in the middle of say, London – casseroled skanky urban fox anyone?

p.s. If memory serves me correctly, there is something about it being illegal to eat an animal you have hit with your own car however as long as your car didn’t do the hitting you are free to eat the meat.  (Yes a cynic could suggest that you could hunt in convoy, but that’s a little sinister). 

Tips on eating roadkill:

Not being an expert on all things roadkill, here is some advice from my father for anyone wishing to cook up a road-side pheasant or duck:

“Here in Wales, pheasants are abundant; the locals call them sheep with wings, for neither are very bright. Apparently there is more conscience regarding eating duck.

The process is quite simple, don’t hang them for that increases the flavour and you will soon get tired of it, don’t pluck but skin, and don’t let the contents of the crop go everywhere. If you do hang then upside down in the cellar, I’d recommend warning anybody before they go down for wine, or if you choose not to warn them then listen out -  it can be entertaining.

Slow cook or pressure-cook the bird; let the meat fall of the carcass. Or simply just take the breasts off and chuck the rest away”.

Surviving being snowed in!

Like much of the country my house is presently surrounded by a blanket of snow. Currently we have a rather tame two inches, but for the last few years by little Surrey town has had a truly epic snow each winter, which has resulted in us being snowed in for at least three days.  So I am getting fully prepared for another epic winter – we have grit for the path, lots of coal for the fire, the wine rack is full and most importantly the cupboards are full to bursting.



Please forgive a moment of immodesty, but I am rather good at throwing together meals without any planning – the key to getting through an unexpected few days stuck in the house. So yesterday I had a good rummage through the cupboards, fridge and freezer and then hit the supermarket to get the kitchen stocked up.

So here is my survival guide for getting through a few days of house-boundedness.

Snow...and a very sweet dog

Bread and milk – I always have both in the freezer so I never have to wake up and find that I have to scuttle to the shops before I can have breakfast

Pasta – the king of the emergency meal

Cream/ crème fraiche – for rich sauces and great with ham and mushrooms or smoked salmon and a splash of lemon juice with pasta

Eggs – omelette, frittata, scrambled eggs, cakes

Flour – white sauces, pancakes, cakes, thickening stews and casseroles

Potatoes – mashed potatoes, baked potatoes,

Sausages – Casserole, bangers and mash, or use the sausage-meat for a rich pasta sauce with tomatoes

Ham – ham and cheese toasties, in omelettes or fritattas, pasta sauces,

Cheese – every fridge should always contain cheese, use it in macaroni cheese, croque monsieur,

Chicken / other meats – warming casseroles and stews are perfect for the cold weather

Frozen veg/ canned sweetcorn – don't forget those vitamins just because its nippy

Porridge oats – because there is no better breakfast when it's snowing outside

Onions and garlic – enough said, the world is a better place for onions and garlic

Booze – snowing outside? Get yourself a glass of wine, a board game and a roaring fire and you are all set

With a good cookbook, or indeed the internet, and a selection of the above you'll be as happy as larry (whoever that is).

Booze

Last night I went out for dinner for a friends’ 30^th and I didn’t drink.  Didn’t drink any booze I mean, I drank a ridiculous amount of water and even splashed out on a cloudy apple juice.  Now I willingly admit that it is very rare for me to go out with chums or indeed my other half, family, colleagues, anyone really and not have at least one glass of wine.  But last night in support of my friend who is pregnant and because I am feeling skint, I decided to forego the booze.  I am old enough now, thank God, that not drinking at a social event is not the equivalent of social suicide as it would have been when I was at University or at a party at secondary school (yes I boozed underage, quit judging me).  However I do still feel there is taboo when in a social situation of an evening and someone chooses not in imbibe.

This of course does not apply to the pregnant or breast feeding.  But case in point would be preggers chum who announced her pregnancy, as you should, when she was 3 months in.  So naturally she had had three months of not drinking but wanting to keep this a secret in case people cottoned on.  And since announcing it indeed maybe people have told her they had an inkling something was up and they had noticed her not drinking.  I actually hadn’t worked it out, I knew she wasn’t drinking much but thought she was just on some sort of health kick.  Indeed she was a crafty little devil and had the barman trained that whenever she ordered a G&T there would be no G (I do hope he charged her accordingly).

Which makes me think: Why did she need to do that? To stop us guessing yes, but isn’t it strange how much of a novelty it is for someone to not drink that she knew ‘I don’t fancy one’ wouldn’t have worked and we instantly would have guessed she was harbouring a secret.  This of course does not apply to men, but still any time I have been out with a chap who has decided not to drink he is invariably asked if he is sick, suffering from a hangover or mocked for being ‘a big girl’.  (Not painting my friends in the nicest of lights here am I? I would like to point out they are all lovely and not the raging alcoholics I make them out to be.)

Boozing has been on my mind not just because of Mrs Preggers but also a friend who mentioned in another social group of hers drinking is seriously frowned upon, and not just drinking to excess but any drinking at all.  To me, this is weird.  I have awful hangovers so rarely drink to the point of losing control of the situation, even in my more debauched youth that never appealed to me. But I think most people would admit that a glass or two certainly lubricates a social situation and it seems a bit killjoyish to rule it out altogether, it’s not as if one glass would have them all ripping their clothes off and having an orgy… though that is an amusing thought. 

So I’m not really sure if there is a point to this column, unless it is to say we all need to lighten up on booze, it shouldn’t matter if someone occasionally chooses not to drink, but likewise booze is not going to turn us all into thugs roaming the streets looking for a fight/ a shag/ some class A drugs.  Jesus drank wine for God’s sake (sorry about the blasphemy there), so let’s stop making it such a contentious issue and drink or not drink as we please without the judgement.

Cheers!

Teaching lovely fiancé to cook


My reluctance to teach my lovely man how to cook is completely and utterly selfish, I am the cook in this household and cooking is the only thing I can do better than him and I rather like that. He isn't barred from the kitchen, per se, on special occasions I make him feel useful and call him my sous chef as I cook up a particularly special dinner (Christmas/ big party etc). Unfortunately I am not a patient woman and more often than not, him helping in the kitchen results in my having to apologise for shouting at him for confusing a 'dash' with a 'splash' or some other ridiculous cookery non-crime.


Today we took the bold step, we were both terrified as we attempted our first cookery lesson: omlette. Nice and simple meal and more importantly quick, so if the lesson proved traumatising at least it wouldn't be long. I made sure we had lots of eggs so that second or indeed third attempts would be possible should they prove necessary.


Never has the boy looked more uncomfortable, the kitchen is not somewhere he naturally feels at home. This is again my fault as I have clearly marked it as my territory and as much as I may whinge at him for putting the colander in the wrong cupboard I do rather like it being my domain. But I am pleased to say the back-up eggs were not required, neither of us dumped the other and the omlette was very tasty indeed. In fact I enjoyed it much more than I usually enjoy an omlette as we both felt such satisfaction that lovely fiance had created it.


So today I learnt a valuable lesson, I do not have to be quite so territorial of the kitchen, creating a meal with lovely fiance can be fun and rewarding. That said, the second he becomes a potential rival in the kitchen he will be banned for life, regardless of his mother's sensible advice. If I do I find myself unable to cook because I did a commando roll to avoid falling on the dog, well we'll have to live on take away.






Preserves


My house looks ridiculous. I've not just painted the outside bright pink or anything (I cook, I'm a lousy decorator) but inside, inside looks utterly ridiculous because I am in a frenzy of preserving at the moment.

My kitchen table is covered in all the preserving equipment you could possible imagine: jars, bottles, demijohns, funnels, dozens of bottles of all the things I have been cooking up over the last couple of weeks. It is not just the kitchen that is suffering this fate; the coffee table cannot be seen for piles and piles of cookery books. I seem to visit the greengrocer and the kitchen shop every day at the moment, on a quest for fresh fruit and in need of more jars; as I feed by need to preserve as much as I can while it is all still in season. I am like a junkie always looking for their next fix.


My love affair with preserving goes back many years. I have always loved cooking (stating the obvious there I know) but I have found myself often disappointed that a full day's preparation for a feast, indeed sometimes three or four days preparation, is gobbled up in a fraction of the time. Then you are left with nothing to show for it apart from a full dishwasher and a contented stomach (and hopefully very appreciative guests, woe betide anyone who comes to mine for dinner and isn't very complimentary indeed). Preserves on the other hand last months, years in some cases and to me they have some sort of magic about them that intoxicates me every year. Often I am to be found, like a witch at her spells, standing at the hob stirring a bubbling cauldron (well preserving pan). I love watching as the alchemy takes place and the fruit and sugar is transformed into a tasty accompaniment to croissants or to be served with meat or added to a dish at later date to give depth of flavour. Though I try to limit the cackling for fear that someone tries to burn me at the stake.

It is the equipment that I love so much, there is a corner of my attic that is dedicated to all things preserving - the same items which have now rendered my kitchen table unusable. So much so that I am breaking one of my own rules and am eating dinner on the sofa each evening; not that I can put the plate on the coffee table any more! There is something about all that glass and shiny metal equipment. I insist upon cooking things theold fashioned way, no modern utensils for me. I feel transported back to a time when preserving was a necessary way of ensuring fruit and veg lasted through the winter months. Nowadays we can pop down to Waitrose and buy tomatoes and strawberries all year round, it's just not the same. I never use 'jam making sugar' with its added pectin, if a fruit is lower in pectin then for crying out loud just add another fruit that is higher in pectin!

I think the problem with preserves is that many people see them as a way to use up their excessively large courgettes from the allotment (which are now marrows, and not even appetising ones) but they can't quite bring themselves to throw them away, so they make a chutney. Chutneys are a difficult one at the best of times, they are so often made just to be left festering in the back of the fridge until it grows an unpleasant fur. Often it isn't even cost effective to make all these preserves either, I certainly know I have spent a small fortune over the summer. When you can buy perfectly nice jam or chutney for a couple of pounds, if you are going to go through the process of making your own preserves make sure you really enjoy it and that you will love eating every spoonful.


So this is a call to arms, go make preserves, it's very good for the soul. But don't make them because you have food going off that you don't want to just discard to the compost heap. Make something you're really going to enjoy, even if it means parting with a few extra pounds, enjoy the tradition and the alchemy of your creation and smother it on your toast, sandwiches etc. and enjoy!


Supermarkets

A perfectly pleasant looking sixty-something year old woman was in front of me in the checkout queue in Waitrose yesterday. Indeed the same woman and I seem to be keeping to the same shopping clock and have been in the supermarket at the same time at least twice a week for the last fortnight. I am very ashamed to admit I have developed an impressively intense hatred for this stranger. And she is by no means the first person to fall victim to my prejudice, any poor soul who I encounter in a food shopping environment could be subjected to the same fate; because I am a food bitch and she is my latest IFB, or Inferior Food Buyer.


I love supermarket shopping, not in my local Sainsbury’s mind you where they are constantly running out of essentials like milk, the aisles too close together and there are never enough people working on the tills. And the one time I found myself in Lidl’s scarred me for life; less said about that the better. Of course I would rather a farm shop, but needs must and my supermarket of choice is Waitrose. I’m sure some of you are thinking ‘Marks and Spencer’s surely, if you are such a snob about these things’ but no, M and S is good for people who don’t actually cook; try buying a selection of ingredients for a proper dinner and you will be hard fetched to find anything that isn’t already prepared for you in some way, shape or form.


Long have I played the game with myself whereby I survey a fellow shopper’s selection as it sits upon the conveyer belt and try to work out what meals they are planning to cook. Never have I taken this to the extent of asking them in order to ascertain whether I am correct mind you, but it is a good way of thinking up different meals. Try it, good way to kill time at the checkout. Latest IFB’s basket was full of all the things that I resent most: pre-chopped onions, ready prepped veggies, steaks that come complete with a little sachet of sauce -heaven forbid you bother to make your own. I know I am being harsh, surely many such people are very busy and have very long working-weeks and such people I can forgive (if I really, really try) for cutting corners, but I know this woman is free to go to Waitrose at about three in the afternoon multiple times in the week, so she can’t be that hard working.


It makes me wonder what my fellow shoppers make of me and my selection. My trolley is never without a small mountain of greens and carrots so I must look like a very healthy soul, in fact said veggies are actually for my two pet bunnies, but I do like how virtuous it makes me look. An example recent basket of mine contained: pork tenderloin, apples and onion to stuff it, cider for the sauce and potatoes for a lovely creamy mash; proper ingredients, no pre peeled potatoes to be found in my basket. Invariably there is alcohol of some description is always a feature; which is a pain when all the people on the checkout are less than 18 and look they have just walked off the set of Skins and have to do that annoying waving the offending liquor in the air until their supervisor types in a code, having glared at me in a quizzical manner.


I try to give pleasant looking sixty-something year old woman and other IFBs the benefit of the doubt, but as much as I try and tell myself they may dedicate their lives to looking after sick and dying children or trying to cure cancer it is of no use.


So it is with regret that I warn you that if you are out shopping and you are suffering from IFBism, watch out for a woman trying to hide her sneer; or you may just find when your back is turned that that bag of pre chopped carrots batons you had selected has transformed into a bunch of whole carrots, with the greens still on the end and covered in soil.