Salad Heaven, Salad Hell.

Imagine my hunger.

Safe in the Staffroom fridge I had a plastic box of salad stuff left over from dinner the previous night. Clock-watching, my imagination savoured the contents of the box. Smoked salmon. Hot-Smoked mackerel. Potato salad made with mayonnaise and floury organic potatoes. Beetroot in balsamic vinegar. Coleslaw, cottage cheese and leaves of rocket and lamb’s lettuce dressed with lemon-flavoured Colonna Gran Verde olive oil…..

One O’clock came, I hastened to the fridge, grabbing my carrier bag from it and almost running to the park to claim a bench in the sun for the coming delights. I felt the soft give of the slice of bread I had cut, the hard metal of the fork rattling a drum beat as my feet struck the cherry-blossom path into our local greenspace.

I sat down, brought out the fork, laying it on a serviette on the bench. I placed the slice of bread down, rummaged for my bottle of water.

Let the feasting commence…

I opened the lid.

Potato Salad.

Wrong Box.

Shit.

My Lunch was still in the fridge at home.

Loafing About

With the weather forecast getting better by the day, we decided to visit to Kew Gardens yesterday.

Now, for us, one of the joys of the day is taking along a good picnic.

So, a couple of days ago I made some bread for our sandwiches.

If I can convince one person to try and make bread for the first time I will be happy.

Making bread is easy, and it doesn’t take hours of work.




I timed how long it took to make the dough from scratch. 15 Minutes!!
Then I left it to rise for an hour, whilst doing battle with my other half over the Scrabble Board.



After an hour of rising, I knocked the dough down (basically kneaded it again for two minutes). Then I popped the dough into a tin for the final rise (proving) whilst returning to the garden to finish off the game (I lost, badly.) (My wife would say I always do lose badly!)





Two hours after starting, the dough went into the oven.

And Voila!

There is something about blogging in the sunshine....

Somehow sitting at the laptop in the open air inspires fantasies of creativity; Hemingway sitting at his Remington, trusty shotgun at his shoulder….

(No don’t worry, I’m not feeling suicidal, far from it! Full of the joys of Spring, me!)

Happy Easter to everyone reading this. It’s midday and the sun is baking down, a fresh coolness pouncing on the unwary whenever one of the few passing clouds dares to cover the sun.

Yesterday the Legal Eagle and her Beau came round for an Easter Sunday celebration.

Main course was a handsome leg of Irish lamb. (Probably the left leg, it was very tender).

As always though, when the Legal Eagle is around, a good pudding is never far away.




This marvel was a “Tarte aux poires a la normande”, an excellent tart of pears in an almondy frangipane filling.

The recipe is in Jane Grigson’s excellent The Cooking of Normandy. (Now out of print and “Collectible”, available from Amazon second-hand)

When it arrived on the table, it looked as if we had been transported to the other side of the channel.

To conclude, a group photo to commemorate a great day:




(Left to Right, The Beau, Legal Eagle, The Phantom, The Phantom's Better Half).

Catching Up

(One of the many things I wanted to blog about but didn’t have the energy to in the last fortnight)....

A survey published recently which found that most people have a repertoire of only four or five recipes which they cook time and time again. The most commonly cooked family meals?

1. Spag Bol
2. Roast Dinner
3. Sausage and Mash
4. Stir Fry
5. Stew
6. Chicken Tikka Masala
7. Chilli Con Carne
8. Shepherd’s pie
9. Fish and Chips

With spag bol being cooked twice a week by over 6 million people.

One can’t help feeling that the number of people who actually cook Chicken Tikka rather than re-heat a ready meal is pretty slim. And fish and chips?

As with all surveys, you have to question the motives of those who commission it. In this case, learning that the survey was paid for by Loyd Grossman’s company (manufacturers of jars of ready-made sauces) gives a clue to the viewpoint in question.

Mr G. is saying that people are stuck in a rut, lacking in ideas and what they need is a jar of sauce!!

Surely what is needed is an improved range of knowledge about techniques and ingredients. A box of minced beef fried up to slush with onions is only ever that, regardless of whatever flavour sauce is poured on top. But that mince could be turned into fresh burgers, meatballs, meatloaf, lasagne, bastitsio or stuffed into any variety of cabbage, aubergine, pepper or tomato. Not to mention keema curry!

When Loyd Grossman presented Masterchef he helped stimulate ideas about techniques and ingredients. Now all he is doing is encouraging laziness in the kitchen and limiting people’s culinary horizons.

I am a sad enough foodie that I actually keep a food log of each day’s main meals. I went back over the last 10 Tuesdays. This is what we had:

1. Cottage pie (made with minced leftover roast lamb).
2. Baked Salmon Steaks
3. Pea and Jerusalem Artichoke Soup
4. Cold gammon Knuckle with parsnip mash
5. Baked Salmon Fillet on a bed of celeriac and carrot
6. Grilled Mackerel and trout with a warm ratatouille and couscous
7. Belly of pork braised with ginger, star anise and soy
8. Chinese Take Away (!) (I had the ‘flu)
9. Shop bought chicken curries (Ditto)
10. Casserole of Dublin (lamb shoulder) chops.

By and large, simple ingredients, simply prepared. And not a jar of sauce in sight….

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3...

The good Mrs P and myself went round to see my Mother today. I hadn't seen her for a few weeks (I really didn't want to pass on my bugs to an eighty-year-old with a bad chest already). She looked and sounded much better than when I saw her last.

The weather was perfect; cool, and clear, blue skies with unbroken sunshine. We had come prepared with loppers, secateurs and gardening gloves, and gave my Mum's garden a thorough spring cleaning.

Getting home this evening our Visiting Cats arrived and joined us in the sitting room. We thought we would have a well-deserved treat and ordered a chinese take-away.

The meal was better than ever. We tried a few new dishes and they did not dissapoint.

They had popped a couple of fortune cookies in with our bag. After our meal I opened mine.

What cheerful thought did my cookie bring to round off a perfect day? I quote

"We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed."

Thanks for that...

Once again I must thank everyone who has been in touch and sent their best wishes. I think Monday just gone must have been rock bottom. I went to the Doctor in the morning, and nearly fainted on the way home. After all the stress my heart rhythmn started misbehaving. Nothing too serious, it settled back by the evening, but scary nonetheless…

I have the rest of this week to get my strength back. In a minute I am going to sit out in the spring sunshine; Tigger, our visiting cat, is patiently waiting for me to finish making my coffee and bring out the paper for him to sit on. (Only the Guardian will do.)

Hopefully normal service will now be resumed.

I can’t send a bunch of flowers to all my readers, but I can send you this, taken just now in our garden.





“To feel keenly the poetry of a morning's roses, one has to have just escaped from the claws of this vulture which we call sickness.” ~Henri Frederic Amiel

(And before you all leap in, I know, they're Pansies. Too early for roses!)

A Wizard Wheeze...

Is exactly what I still have. A week since I last summoned enough focus to post and I still feel dire.

I am not looking for sympathy, but after being on double-strength antibiotics since Monday I would expect to feel a little better.

In the comments to my previous post Aidan wonders whether I am suffering from the bird flu. I think it is unlikely, but as a fellow Tottenham supporter I may well be susceptible. I must admit I seem to have been in a decline since the Cup Tie From Hell.

If Silence Is Golden...

Then this blog should be worth quite a bit more than it was...

Apologies and many thanks for coming back to check on things.

I will never take the mickey out of the 'Flu again. I can see why it killed more people in 1918 than died in the first world war. I still haven't shaken it off properly.

I have gone back to work twice; the last time the boss made me sign a note saying that I wouldn't return until I was fully fit!! (I do have a great boss though, and no, she doesn't read this).

Worse thing was, I was supposed to be having a hernia repair operation on Thursday last. The Anaesthetist took one listen to my chest and he sent me packing too.

Nobody wants a Phantom with the Flu.

The Difference Between Flu and a Cold…

Is about three days of total feeling-like-shit.

I have had the Flu….

I have managed to miss

World Book Day,

St. David's Day

and The First Birthday of This Blog.

Moan, Whinge, Wheeze...

(Coughs Again....

More Tomorrow, If Spared....

Tomorrow England and Ireland, Next Month The World!!

Oh, the decline of Empire!

Tomorrow is World Book Day. In England. And Ireland.....

Err...

That's It...

Pink Bits on the map, where are they now?

Apparently The Rest of The World celebrate WBD on April 23rd. This has been deliberately chosen as it is (probably) Shakespeare's Birthday.

It takes little imagination to see why Ireland would not wish to have a major celebration on the birthday of England's greatest writer. A day which also happens to be the feast of St. George, patron saint of England.

But why don't the English celebrate it then?

I feel a campaign coming on....

Spring is Springing

In our part of London last week was half-term, a chance for students and staff alike to gather their wits and strength for the exam season to come. I spent many (too many?) years as a student, and it is only recently that the thought of June has ceased to give my stomach a sick lurch. (Now working in the education world I can enjoy watching the discomfiture of others without the sleepless nights that always accompanied my exam build-up).

Last week passed too quickly, and today's back-to-work feeling is only just wearing off. It isn't that I dislike my work; just that being away from it for a week reminded me that I rather like not working. This is different from being unemployed. (Being unemployed is miserable. I should know. I had an enforced career change that left me jobless for a year and a half.) Not working means being able to play with the visiting cats rather than pushing them out through the door in the morning. It means being able to make bread for the next day's sandwiches, to be consumed with a flask of tea at Kew Gardens in the spring sunshine. It means having the time to print and frame some of the digital photographs you have taken.

Mind you, it also means tidying the bedroom and cleaning the oven out, but you cant win 'em all.

Tonight, after a week not a work, I really noticed that I was arriving home in daylight. Spring is definitely here now.

A Happy New Year To All Our Readers (Part Two)

Last night found the Phantom, Mrs P and nine carefully selected friends enjoying the lights of London's very own Chinatown...



Mind you, as it was Chinese New Year we were far from alone. Gerard Street was shoulder-to-shoulder, jam packed. People were queueing in the streets to get a table in the restaurants. Luckily we had booked ahead, about three weeks before. We hadn't actually realised when we booked that it would be New Year... Why had we gathered?

To celebrate a very important Birthday!

I won't say how old my wife is, but it rhymes with Shifty, Nifty and Thrifty. (Two out of those three adjectives could even be applied to her.)

Our gathering had all the makings of a joke - amongst others we had a nun, a lawyer, an accountant and an insurance salesman. Good job nobody had to change a lightbulb....

To everyone who made last night such a special and enjoyable occasion, Thank You.

And Cheers!!

Today's Sandwich Selection for Sixth Formers

The Phantom will let you know if he starts leaping into phone boxes and wearing his pants on the outside!!

Talking Turkey

Last Friday, as the Bernard Mathews turkey scare gobbled up even more headlines, our college caterers excelled themselves with the half-price dish of the day, turkey burgers.

To say that the first appearance of turkey on the menu this year was ill-timed is an understatement. Today however, our caterers excelled themselves. Our students were proudly offered pre-packed turkey salad sandwiches, each one bearing a sticker - "Turkey - A Superfood,".

AAARGGHHH!!!

Thank You New Blogger. I know my laptop needs upgrading, Windows '98 SE is not supported anymore etc etc. But old Blogger worked perfectly with it, no problems. With the new Google-powered blogger I have to log in to GoogleGroups and then sneak in sideways. Logging in through the front door seems impossible. Well, I spent about three hours trying to do it over the weekend - three hours I would have much preferred to have spent bloody blogging.

Forcibly Moved!

Against my will I have been forcibly "Migrated" to the Blairite New Blogger. I have read an awful lot of things about it, none good. I offer my apologies now for any unsightly changes to the appearance of this blog, and any gaps in posting. Blogger managed to lock me out totally yesterday. I am still not sure if I can post from my laptop! Time will tell...

Bon Voyage

Further to my preceding post. Yesterday I released my first book “into the wild”. I had given it all the advantages I could. It was lunchtime, and I chose a park which has a pretty high through-traffic. I protected the book in a waterproof see-through zip-lock bag, and a big yellow Post-It proclaimed “I’m Not Lost, I’m Free!” on the cover. I even included a bookmark which explains more about the bookcrossing idea.


I had sat down on a bench in the middle of the park. I took the book from my bag and placed it on the bench next to me. Mental images of John le Carre novels washed over me. Even though my heart was racing I tried to look nonchalant. I guess I rather ruined the cool approach by reaching into my bag for my camera and taking a last photo before I walked off!




I moved into cover about a hundred yards away and ate my lunch, deliberately not looking over to the bench and its package.

About ten minutes later, lunch eaten but not remembered or really even noticed, I couldn’t resist walking back for a look.

My book had gone. Flown into the wild.

Only about a fifth of books released ever get “journaled” on the website, but at least mine had rapidly found a new owner. News could arrive at any time, an email to say the book has a new entry on the website.

I wish the new owner happy reading.

The Guardian recently had an article concerning bookcrossing. As always, the Phantom is just ahead of the crest of the wave!!

Making the World...

One of the first posts on this blog was about World Book Day. It will be coming round again in only a few weeks.

I would like to mention two book related sites that I have been spending some time on recently.

The first is Librarything.com. Put simply, it is a site that will catalogue your books for you. All you need to do is just type in the ISBNs. Pretty soon you will have a searchable catalogue database, all held on the web and accessible from wherever you have a connection. Librarything allows you to label books with your own tags and search among other user's collections.


The second site is Bookcrossing.com.

Bookcrossing is all about "making the world a library". You find a book you like, register it (for free), and let it go, releasing it on a park bench or in a waiting-room. The next person who finds the book and likes it enough to take it away is invited to go online and look the book up. Just by going to the site and typing in a short number (written inside the book) they can see where the book has been, and what other people ("Journalers") thought of it. The idea is to make a new Journal entry, and then, after reading the book, leave it somewhere for someone else to find.

Such a simple idea, but it is already building a real community of booklovers.

I will be putting sidebar links up very soon.

Blogging Goes Mainstream

It had to happen eventually! Bloggers have finally become accepted into that epitome of Little Britain, The Archers. Ambridge has always been at the forefront of the techno-revolution. The village has its own website, and the local pub, The Bull, even has an internet cafe.

Now, Ian and Adam, recently "Civil Partnered", have set up a blog on which to document their honeymoon trip. Mind you, they are the only gays in the village, and therefore allowed to be a little avant garde.

A Month Since Christmas

It’s hard to believe but it really is one twelfth of a year since Christmas day. It’s been a long month, tiring. Going back to work always takes an effort, but especially so when the mornings are still dark, and the cold nights make a warm duvet even more difficult to throw off.

It doesn’t even seem like a week since gales were sweeping the country. Yesterday brought the first of the winter’s snow for those of us in the south. I had to rush into work for an early start, but I couldn’t resist snatching a photo of our garden.



The snow works a silent magic every time.

With time seeming to speed up, now is the moment to start planning for the coming summer in our garden. The pyramid on the right in the photo is a mini greenhouse, a Growmate. A few years ago we got organised, sowing seeds and growing petunias, bizzy-lizzies, salvias, chillis, basil and tumbling tomatoes. Recently we have let things slip, and the Growmate has been more of a storage space. (Though Bernard, one of our visiting cats, was using it as an highly architectural litter tray until we discovered what he was doing.)

This year will be different. (Do we say that every year?) I have learned my lessons. After our first successful year I got over-ambitious, planting seeds too early when the days were still too short. The resulting seedlings grew spindly and fell over, or succumbed to damping-off. This year I will plan ahead, but bide my time…