It's quite a nice, cold, crisp day here, but they're forecasting rain, snow, freezing rain and, for all I know, plagues of frogs, boils and locusts for later in the weekend.
Sunny and cold here, with showers expected. I’ve just bought a gilet on eBay and am browsing for new wellies!
I need to get dressed and go for a cold morning walk. No-one else in the house is awake yet.
Towards the end of yesterday we had the sun going down with rainbows and clouds going over as we were dampened by a shower - making for spectacular skies. It was as I was cooking supper and looking out of the window while stirring things; a chick pea and spinach curry with a Jamie Oliver recipe to use an aubergine [egg plant] because it was quicker than my usual recipes, and I had all the ingredients. The result wasn't great and I regretted being lazy. However, it confirmed my not entirely positive views of Mr Oliver's books in a survey on cookery books I'd taken earlier in the day and made me a bit less guilty feeling.
Does anyone else complete these book surveys? The bonus is (occasional) free books in response to choosing between different presentations of adverts, covers and/or splashes for new books. Occasionally I discover a new author. Yesterday's survey was on cookery books, but what it was really asking was about pictures for use in the new Italian cookery book from Jamie Oliver.
.
I've never come across book surveys, CK. I like the sound of free books!
We're just back from a few days in lovely Sherborne (how can you not like a town with Abbey, alms houses and 2 castles all within a few minutes walk?) (OK, I know the New Castle isn't really a castle).
We stayed in a very nice hotel, very nice room. The bathroom, though, was a bit weird. Clearly fairly recently done and looked very nice but the taps were 18" to the left of the basin, not over it (the bits you turn, I mean, not where the water comes out): it really messed with my head. But otherwise lovely!
And we had a great tasting menu with appropriate wines there one night. Some people on board would have hated it, as it involved lots of cutlery and different glasses*. We loved it!
I do political surveys and get paid cash, about 50p a time. YouGov currently owe me £100 which I must remember to cash in. Pinecone research is the best payer though, few surveys but they are consumer goods and you get paid about £3 each one which you can claim in PayPal credits.
Another chef I am slightly losing faith in is Ottolenghi. On paper his recipes look exactly the kind of thing I like - but they seem never to quite work for me.
We passed one of his restaurants the other night: the menu looked both minimalist and expensive.
Firenze, I have been cooking Ottolenghi dishes for several years now and often I find them less than successful. They look wonderful on the plate: layered, fresh and bright spicy colours. The taste is a little confusing and sometimes too lemony, cumin-earthy or sumac-y. I'm wondering if his new book Simple will be any different.
A cold, bright start to the day here, but now Clouding Over, with threats of Ra*n and Ha*l....
A brisk northerly breeze is currently heralding the end of summer, with the clocks being put back tonight, too. Ah well - at least we have an hour extra in Bed tomorrow!
I have today enlarged my stock of warming SOUP with some tins of chicken broth. More supplies will be laid in tomorrow, God willing (I can only manage to carry a single bag of shopping at one go!).
WHISKY also is called for, I think, along with some nice pine or birch logs for the Palace stove...
Driving through the town today, I noticed that a certain row of roadside trees, which always sports spectacularly colourful autumn tints, is looking rather threadbare. This, to me, is another sign that Summer is over.
A brisk northerly breeze is currently heralding the end of summer, with the clocks being put back tonight, too.
WHISKY also is called for, I think, along with some nice pine or birch logs for the Palace stove...
We paid a trip to town and went to the Good Delicatessen. Certain supplies were bought for Christmas, also the excellent G*N beloved of my wife - only a half-bottle, mind, we wouldn't want to be extravagant ... An Advent calendar was also purchased at the Truly Excellent Stationers further down the Arcade. Christmas cards will have to wait until I look in the loft and see if I can find the cheap we bought just after Christmas last year.
Very cold today, though still sunny and dry. I went for a walk in the woods, and then came home and made myself a chicken broth from the juices/jelly I poured into a mug when I roasted a chicken the other day. I put bits of chicken and cabbage into the broth, and it was very nice and warmed me up.
To go back to cooks, I chose a Jamie Oliver recipe for Christmas, a nut loaf and it was really good. That was mainly because son who cooked it had views on what Oliver really means opposed to what is written down. Maybe it's one dyslexic understanding another. As for Ottolenghi I've had success with things from Plenty and Plenty More, specially cauliflower cake which is much nicer that sounds.
I've never used any of Ottolenghi's recipes, but I've become quite enamoured of Jamie Oliver's - most of his recipes that I've tried work so well I'd say he was a worthy successor to the blessèd Delia.
In weather-related news, we had a heck of a lot of freezing rain late last night, and I was expecting the deck and path to be one huge Patch of Treachery™ this morning, but it had all but gone, and the temperature's now charging heavenward (currently 5° but expected to go up to 12° later).
A friend of mine, wot is something of a chef, has tried out a few recipes by Cyrus Todiwala and Tony Singh - the BBC's Incredible Spice Men: https://bbc.com/food/programmes/b0394f74
I'm not a great fan of spicy food per se, but these chaps have a way of 'lifting' ordinary dishes, and turning them into something quite special!
For recipes by a celebrity chef my favourite is Gary Rhodes. His recipes can be a bit fussy but if you follow them to the letter they really work.
In other news I am coming down with a cold two days before my birthday. Booooo. I am going to try to fight it off with vitamins and [very effective French over the counter medication that no one here will have heard of] and go to bed early. There's a bottle of Bollinger sitting on our wine rack and I'll be damned if I'm going to be too ill to drink it .
On recipes; I did one by Sophie Grigson (daughter of Jane) which I hadn’t rolled out for a while. Duck breasts with grapes in a wine and honey sauce. She and her Ma have never failed me yet.
I do wish BBC Canada would give us the odd British cookery programme instead of endless repeats of Graham Norton. We get Jamie Oliver on a Canadian mostly-foodie channel called Gusto, but again, it's repeats of repeats - we never seem to get anything new.
I reckon the only thing that isn't a repeat over here is the weather forecast (and I'm not even sure about that).
Interesting that the Spice Men recipes are worth cooking. I like both Sophie and Jane Grigson's recipes and have found the occasional Nigella Lawson recipe I've used are good. I use Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's recipes, less here than when I lived in Dorset and foraged more. I do own one Jamie Oliver recipe book but can't remember when I last used it, unlike the Delia's original Cookery Course, an original Jocasta Innes' Pauper's Cookbook, Margaret da Costa's Four Seasons Cookery Book, Madhur Jaffrey's An Invitation to Indian Cookery, Gail Duff's Wholefood Cookery, Sarah Brown's vegetarian cookery books or Jack Monroe's recipes online. But I'm using recipe books less and find I'm searching online for interesting recipes when I want something different.
Not wanting to waste the coconut milk curry sauce, which was similar to a sweet potato curry base I cook, I used the left overs of the aubergine curry to cook some sweet potato and butternut squash mix¹ last night and the result was much nicer than the original recipe. It didn't do much for the aubergine, which cooked down into the sauce when I left it simmering together for 40 minutes or so, and meant everything was coloured aubergine, but the other vegetables were tasty. Served with spinach bhaji, some left over chick peas and a seekh kebab² for my carnivorous daughter, that was supper.
¹ local supermarket reduced vegetables counter sometimes has these packs of sweet potato and butternut squash chunks;
² I make a batch of seekh kebabs from my ancient Madhur Jaffrey book, with variations, and freeze all but the one I need at that moment, using them as a meat supplement for the carnivore. It's worth getting the food processor out to make a batch. These are spiced meat patties.
Someone has visited the House of Ferijen and brought me a Green and Blacks selection pack and I thought how much Erin would have liked it. So coming here to virtually offer it to you guys in memory of the ‘Gator. Hope the heavenly shipmeet is going well.
I've yet to experience the delights of Green & Black's, although I've seen it in the shops here. Will treat myself one of these days.
D. is doing another silent film organ improvisation tonight; he did Phantom of the Opera last Hallowe'en, and it was such a success they asked him to do Buster Keaton's The General this year. He reckons it'll not be quite so melodramatic, but it should be good fun all the same.
I'm currently waiting for the laundry to finish with his dress shirt in it* - he's going to wear his penguin suit.
* I suppose this means I'll have to do some Iron Ing ...
I went to The Musical Museum one Hallow'een to see the original silent version of Nosferatu accompanied by music from their Wurlitzer organ. Great fun and an interesting film.
As for cooks I use Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall's Veg Everyday a lot. Not s 'posh' cookbook but lots useful recipes. I'm also rather fond of Madhur Jaffrey.
I’ve just finished teaching an online tutorial and my eyes hurt from staring at the screen and my throat is all dry. And I have to do it all again tomorrow night on another module. Waaah!
So I’m having a pint of Adnam’s Ghost Ship and a piece of cheese.
I love cookbooks but Rick Stein is a current favourite. Another fan of Madhur Jaffrey and I’ve got a couple of good approachable Indian cookbooks by Meera Sodha.
You can tell the good cookbook by the degree to which the pages are stuck together. My Madhur Jaffrey’s indian Cookery (which must be in its fourth decade) is largely held together by the splatters.
Another old stager is the Readers’ Digest Cookery Year. I got given this as a birthday present probably about 50 years ago and I’ve come to value it as a repository of classic Anglo-French recipes of a certain era, plus loads of basic methods. There is a certain period charm - ‘Have the butcher prepare the joint’ (and then send a boy out on a bicycle to deliver it).
You can tell the good cookbook by the degree to which the pages are stuck together. My Madhur Jaffrey’s indian Cookery (which must be in its fourth decade) is largely held together by the splatters.
Another old stager is the Readers’ Digest Cookery Year. I got given this as a birthday present probably about 50 years ago and I’ve come to value it as a repository of classic Anglo-French recipes of a certain era, plus loads of basic methods. There is a certain period charm - ‘Have the butcher prepare the joint’ (and then send a boy out on a bicycle to deliver it).
Yes and yes. Mrs Sioni got Marguerite Patten’s Cookery in Colour (about a third of which is in colour) in her early teens and we also have the Sarah Brown veggie book and somehow a brilliant one by Claire MacDonald of that Ilk although we have no idea whatsoever how it came into our possession.
I love cookbooks too - Delia Smith's Cookery Course for reference and because her recipes usually work; Jamie Oliver ditto. A favourite for just browsing through is the Sunday Times Cook Book by Arabella Boxer, which we were given as a wedding present; it has lovely pictures and interesting entertaining ideas. Although I haven't tried that many of the recipes, I've probably read it from cover to cover several times.
The General was great fun, and very well received by a very appreciative audience.
Glad you enjoyed the it Piglet. I'm a huge Buster Keaton fan, never could get along with Chaplin. I once went to a screening of The General in the 1970s that had a Q and A session with Marion Mack his co-star afterwards. She didn't seem that enthusiastic about the film, apparently Keaton kept on forgot ting she didn't have his amazing abilities and threw her about a lot.
You can tell the good cookbook by the degree to which the pages are stuck together. My Madhur Jaffrey’s indian Cookery (which must be in its fourth decade) is largely held together by the splatters.
Another old stager is the Readers’ Digest Cookery Year. I got given this as a birthday present probably about 50 years ago and I’ve come to value it as a repository of classic Anglo-French recipes of a certain era, plus loads of basic methods. There is a certain period charm - ‘Have the butcher prepare the joint’ (and then send a boy out on a bicycle to deliver it).
Yes and yes. Mrs Sioni got Marguerite Patten’s Cookery in Colour (about a third of which is in colour) in her early teens and we also have the Sarah Brown veggie book and somehow a brilliant one by Claire MacDonald of that Ilk although we have no idea whatsoever how it came into our possession.
I have the Margeritte Patten book, inherited from my Mum. It is a real period piece! (the period being the 50s). What is nice is that my Mum wrote the date she first tried a recipe beside each one. I mainly use it as a guide to jams these days.
Happy to spot so many cookbook favourites here. I have a growing and spilling over collection of cookbooks I read more than use, but I may get around to trying out recipes in some of them yet. More favourites:
Simon Hopkinson Roast chicken and other stories
Richard Olney The French Menu Cookbook
Patience Grey Honey from a Weed (more to read than cook from)
Patricia Wells Trattoria
Marcella Hazan Classic Italian Cooking
David Thompson Thai Food (culinary history, a fascinating read, not user-friendly)
Arabell Boxer Mediterranean Cookbook
Naomi Duguid Burma
Tamsin Day-Lewis Simply the Best (with Lindsey Bareham's Iced Roast Tomato Soup)
Sam & Sam Clark Moro
Laurie Colwin Home Cooking
Rosso & Lukins The Silver Palate Cookbook
Diana Henry A Bird in the Hand
Diana Henry Crazy Water Pickled Lemons
Fergus Henderson Nose to Tail Eating
The original Laurel's Kitchen, still a lovely read but heavy-duty lentil cutlets and wholewheat everything
Plus Elizabeth Davids, Jane Grigsons, Ottolenghis, Jamie Olivers, more vegan and vegetarian books than I can even think about.
My husband is a big fan of Marguritte Patten. His favourite book is his grandmother’s 1970s good housekeeping, which has enclosed a handwritten copy of his Grandmother’s Christmas cake which he makes every year.
I woke up with a bug: temperature, nausea and headache with a subconjunctival haemorrhage (my usual sign of a flare up of my immune system. Ibuprofen has given some relief but my head is cloudy. So a day of resting until my tutorial this evening (I have someone teaching with me and I’m sure they’ll be supportive).
I have a theory that many cookbooks are a sort of "food pornography" - people look at the pictures and vicariously lap up the food depicted. Then they go to McDonalds or buy a ready meal from Waitrose.
I have a theory that many cookbooks are a sort of "food pornography" - people look at the pictures and vicariously lap up the food depicted. Then they go to McDonalds or buy a ready meal from Waitrose.
Chez Nen there is "hortiporn" - I love books and programmes about gardening, I just don't much enjoy getting out there and doing my own.
Today's lunch chez Piglet was macaroni and cheese à la the blessèd Delia - basically a fairly ordinary home-made cheese sauce (with mustard and nutmeg), with fried bacon and onions added with the macaroni, which was then topped with sliced tomatoes and extra grated cheese and baked (it could have been bubbled under the grill, but I was baking bread as well, so I put them in the oven together).
It was really nice, and I'm now basking in a glow of post-domestic-goddessishness.
It's not, however, a sensible dish to do when the dishwasher's buggered*, as there's really no way to avoid using practically every saucepan and implement you own.
* I don't think it's completely buggered, but there's something very wrong with the kitchen plumbing - random, inexplicable leaks from taps and pipes - and the dishwasher isn't taking in any water. As soon as my early pension money arrives, we'll have to Get A Chap In.
I never bake macaroni cheese - am I alone in this? I have one pot for the sauce (I add ham and onion and sweetcorn - not fried, but just put them straight in the sauce as they are) and one for the macaroni, and then I drain the macaroni when it's cooked and put it in the sauce. It's always very nice. I add mustard seeds to the sauce, but it has never occurred to me to add nutmeg. I might try that.
Ah, I don't think I want the cheese brown and bubbling for macaroni cheese. That's for pizza and cheese on toast. I like it melted inside the cheese sauce.
Heh, I think it's just what I grew up with. The first time I tried macaroni cheese with breadcrumbs on, I was horrified that it was ruined in such a way!
Comments
Bloody Trump sending us his weather ...
It will be the first outing for my fur lined boots when I walk the dogs shortly 🐕
I need to get dressed and go for a cold morning walk. No-one else in the house is awake yet.
Does anyone else complete these book surveys? The bonus is (occasional) free books in response to choosing between different presentations of adverts, covers and/or splashes for new books. Occasionally I discover a new author. Yesterday's survey was on cookery books, but what it was really asking was about pictures for use in the new Italian cookery book from Jamie Oliver.
.
We're just back from a few days in lovely Sherborne (how can you not like a town with Abbey, alms houses and 2 castles all within a few minutes walk?) (OK, I know the New Castle isn't really a castle).
We stayed in a very nice hotel, very nice room. The bathroom, though, was a bit weird. Clearly fairly recently done and looked very nice but the taps were 18" to the left of the basin, not over it (the bits you turn, I mean, not where the water comes out): it really messed with my head. But otherwise lovely!
And we had a great tasting menu with appropriate wines there one night. Some people on board would have hated it, as it involved lots of cutlery and different glasses*. We loved it!
MMM
*from some of the posts in Hell...
We passed one of his restaurants the other night: the menu looked both minimalist and expensive.
A brisk northerly breeze is currently heralding the end of summer, with the clocks being put back tonight, too. Ah well - at least we have an hour extra in Bed tomorrow!
I have today enlarged my stock of warming SOUP with some tins of chicken broth. More supplies will be laid in tomorrow, God willing (I can only manage to carry a single bag of shopping at one go!).
WHISKY also is called for, I think, along with some nice pine or birch logs for the Palace stove...
Driving through the town today, I noticed that a certain row of roadside trees, which always sports spectacularly colourful autumn tints, is looking rather threadbare. This, to me, is another sign that Summer is over.
We paid a trip to town and went to the Good Delicatessen. Certain supplies were bought for Christmas, also the excellent G*N beloved of my wife - only a half-bottle, mind, we wouldn't want to be extravagant ... An Advent calendar was also purchased at the Truly Excellent Stationers further down the Arcade. Christmas cards will have to wait until I look in the loft and see if I can find the cheap we bought just after Christmas last year.
We're still being threatened with freezing rain overnight, but as it's due to go up to 13° tomorrow, I don't think it's likely to last.
In weather-related news, we had a heck of a lot of freezing rain late last night, and I was expecting the deck and path to be one huge Patch of Treachery™ this morning, but it had all but gone, and the temperature's now charging heavenward (currently 5° but expected to go up to 12° later).
https://bbc.com/food/programmes/b0394f74
I'm not a great fan of spicy food per se, but these chaps have a way of 'lifting' ordinary dishes, and turning them into something quite special!
In other news I am coming down with a cold two days before my birthday. Booooo. I am going to try to fight it off with vitamins and [very effective French over the counter medication that no one here will have heard of] and go to bed early. There's a bottle of Bollinger sitting on our wine rack and I'll be damned if I'm going to be too ill to drink it
I reckon the only thing that isn't a repeat over here is the weather forecast (and I'm not even sure about that).
Piglet, missing Proper Television™
Not wanting to waste the coconut milk curry sauce, which was similar to a sweet potato curry base I cook, I used the left overs of the aubergine curry to cook some sweet potato and butternut squash mix¹ last night and the result was much nicer than the original recipe. It didn't do much for the aubergine, which cooked down into the sauce when I left it simmering together for 40 minutes or so, and meant everything was coloured aubergine, but the other vegetables were tasty. Served with spinach bhaji, some left over chick peas and a seekh kebab² for my carnivorous daughter, that was supper.
¹ local supermarket reduced vegetables counter sometimes has these packs of sweet potato and butternut squash chunks;
² I make a batch of seekh kebabs from my ancient Madhur Jaffrey book, with variations, and freeze all but the one I need at that moment, using them as a meat supplement for the carnivore. It's worth getting the food processor out to make a batch. These are spiced meat patties.
If you do drink it, you won't be ill (or at least you'll forget you're ill).
D. is doing another silent film organ improvisation tonight; he did Phantom of the Opera last Hallowe'en, and it was such a success they asked him to do Buster Keaton's The General this year. He reckons it'll not be quite so melodramatic, but it should be good fun all the same.
I'm currently waiting for the laundry to finish with his dress shirt in it* - he's going to wear his penguin suit.
* I suppose this means I'll have to do some Iron Ing ...
As for cooks I use Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall's Veg Everyday a lot. Not s 'posh' cookbook but lots useful recipes. I'm also rather fond of Madhur Jaffrey.
I simply follow the directions on the Package Ing, and shove the whole lot into the oven of the Palace Stove....
Now, where's the Andrew's Liver Salts got to? That blasted Away Putt Ing again...
So I’m having a pint of Adnam’s Ghost Ship and a piece of cheese.
I love cookbooks but Rick Stein is a current favourite. Another fan of Madhur Jaffrey and I’ve got a couple of good approachable Indian cookbooks by Meera Sodha.
Another old stager is the Readers’ Digest Cookery Year. I got given this as a birthday present probably about 50 years ago and I’ve come to value it as a repository of classic Anglo-French recipes of a certain era, plus loads of basic methods. There is a certain period charm - ‘Have the butcher prepare the joint’ (and then send a boy out on a bicycle to deliver it).
Yes and yes. Mrs Sioni got Marguerite Patten’s Cookery in Colour (about a third of which is in colour) in her early teens and we also have the Sarah Brown veggie book and somehow a brilliant one by Claire MacDonald of that Ilk although we have no idea whatsoever how it came into our possession.
I love cookbooks too - Delia Smith's Cookery Course for reference and because her recipes usually work; Jamie Oliver ditto. A favourite for just browsing through is the Sunday Times Cook Book by Arabella Boxer, which we were given as a wedding present; it has lovely pictures and interesting entertaining ideas. Although I haven't tried that many of the recipes, I've probably read it from cover to cover several times.
The General was great fun, and very well received by a very appreciative audience.
I should have known someone would say something like that, and that it would probably be you.
I have the Margeritte Patten book, inherited from my Mum. It is a real period piece! (the period being the 50s). What is nice is that my Mum wrote the date she first tried a recipe beside each one. I mainly use it as a guide to jams these days.
Simon Hopkinson Roast chicken and other stories
Richard Olney The French Menu Cookbook
Patience Grey Honey from a Weed (more to read than cook from)
Patricia Wells Trattoria
Marcella Hazan Classic Italian Cooking
David Thompson Thai Food (culinary history, a fascinating read, not user-friendly)
Arabell Boxer Mediterranean Cookbook
Naomi Duguid Burma
Tamsin Day-Lewis Simply the Best (with Lindsey Bareham's Iced Roast Tomato Soup)
Sam & Sam Clark Moro
Laurie Colwin Home Cooking
Rosso & Lukins The Silver Palate Cookbook
Diana Henry A Bird in the Hand
Diana Henry Crazy Water Pickled Lemons
Fergus Henderson Nose to Tail Eating
The original Laurel's Kitchen, still a lovely read but heavy-duty lentil cutlets and wholewheat everything
Plus Elizabeth Davids, Jane Grigsons, Ottolenghis, Jamie Olivers, more vegan and vegetarian books than I can even think about.
I woke up with a bug: temperature, nausea and headache with a subconjunctival haemorrhage (my usual sign of a flare up of my immune system. Ibuprofen has given some relief but my head is cloudy. So a day of resting until my tutorial this evening (I have someone teaching with me and I’m sure they’ll be supportive).
I think it's a 1930s edition, going by the photographs of roast swan etc.
Chez Nen there is "hortiporn" - I love books and programmes about gardening, I just don't much enjoy getting out there and doing my own.
It was really nice, and I'm now basking in a glow of post-domestic-goddessishness.
It's not, however, a sensible dish to do when the dishwasher's buggered*, as there's really no way to avoid using practically every saucepan and implement you own.
* I don't think it's completely buggered, but there's something very wrong with the kitchen plumbing - random, inexplicable leaks from taps and pipes - and the dishwasher isn't taking in any water. As soon as my early pension money arrives, we'll have to Get A Chap In.
But then you miss out on the brown, bubbling, cheesy topping which is The Best Bit.