August 26, 2008
· Filed under fish, gardening
A modest first crop from the window box “garden” I have been cultivating. Chinese cabbage, spinach beet, and a very small amount of young parsley (I don’t do well with parsley). After some early bad experiences with digging squirrels, I am amazed each day to see the green leaves still waving happily at my window, but I wanted to get some of them in and on our plates before my luck turns again.
After some internet research and consultations with other home gardeners, I found out that squirrels hate cayenne pepper, and cats hate citrus peel. Between this and discovering the handiness of cloches made from economy soda water bottles, my planters look like Woolworths WorthIt! Zen sculpture gardens. But nothing digs in them.
Today I said a sad goodbye to the Growing Communities volunteer team, as work starts on Monday. There’ll be Sundays once a month, and holidays, and I won’t miss shovelling gravel and compost much, but it’s been nice being in a ‘proper’ garden and bouncing thoughts off more knowledgeable folk once or twice a week. And I have learned how to not kill plants, as evidenced above. It’s tempting to bore on about how we should all live a healthy, outdoor lifestyle, growing our own, etc etc – but then I wonder: whilst growing, cooking and eating are some of my greatest pleasures, are they my greatest skills? The parsley says no. We developed division of labour for a reason, and part of it was that pasty bookworms would not starve to death. In fact, that was probably a major factor in the stoppage of natural selection in the human race, along with glasses, antibiotics and the various other wonders that have stopped us squinty indoor types from deservedly carking it so far.
Later on I am going to attempt some polenta and whiskey salmon. I’m only brave enough to do this to mine beloved on a work night because (a) my karma is in the black thanks to a large batch of chocolate cupcakes, and (b) if a person doesn’t object when you cook fish in amaretto, then frankly they can handle anything. Oh, and (c) this week’s the last time I will view food as fun, rather than fuel, until the half term holidays. Whether this blog will be updated with tales of canteen pizza, who knows.
August 8, 2008
· Filed under gardening, salads, vegetarian
Had a lazy week off from cooking whilst we travelled around Europe. 5 days later we’ve finished compensatorily (?) gorging ourselves on veggie sausages and beans on toast, fried eggs, good old British soup, porridge &c and are starting to hanker after the Med diet again.
First DIY attempt is a typical Tuscan cannellini bean salad. We had this for lunch in the Mercato Centrale in Florence, as a side dish in a restaurant, and saw it again in Borough Market yesterday. Not for ‘customer facing’ days as it gives you appropriately Dante-esque hellish breath. For authenticity it should really be drowned in gallons of olive oil, though I learned to say “senza olio” pretty quickly.
Tonne cipolla e fagioli
4 portions: 300g canned tuna
1 1/2 sliced raw red onions
2 cans cannellini beans
Handful of fresh coriander, 1tsp dried mixed herbs
<– the original
<– the imitation
Note that to make this salad look appetising, you need 33C heat and the sun to be shining directly onto your plate. London rain and low energy lightbulbs don’t quite cut it.
I’ve been learning (the hard way) where my food comes from this week – first of all helping to grow and harvest lettuces on the veg box scheme plot, finding out what a cloche is and murdering a lot of root aphids in the process – then working a shift packing up fruit bags for collection. I got a very wet arse the first day, very dirty hands the second, and spent a lot of time weighing greengages. I don’t remember seeing greengages since the late 80s. We didn’t take to them, so I made them into a makeshift jam (250g greengages, 1/5 cup water, 75g sugar, boil to as near 220C as you can get and then shove it in a jar and hope you eat it before it goes off because you have no sterilising equipment).
Second cabbage incident in the veg box. This time we followed the recipe that came with it – very very simple; you cook the chopped-up cabbage in a tablespoon of oil with some fresh chilli, add half a can of coconut milk, simmer down to a manageable volume, and top with caramelised onion slices and mustard seeds. It’s tasty although, as OH remarked, “probably first discovered by someone who was pregnant”. Goes well with new potatoes and raita.
