I spend a lot of eating time away from the kitchen and always wonder, “could I do better?”. Have to say the answer’s often a grumpy “Yes” and today was no exception.
Marooned in Taunton’s Holiday Inn – on the same car/park industrial/shopping/estate on the edge of the town as the Express by Holiday Inn – I had a least enjoyed the excellent pool. There didn’t seem much prospect of eating anywhere that wasn’t a
taxi ride away, and I have had not bad experiences at other HI’s including Bradford and Calais (well, I know it’s in France ….).
At least the blackboard of ‘specials’ suggested that some of it wouldn’t be boil in a bag, head office designed cooking. Wrong.
Ok, I chose ‘rough pate’ thinking no one can muck that up, and rough at least means it won’t be ‘Brussels Smooth and Pink’. Wrong. The three kinds of bread were interesting, but fridge cold. Butter, when provided, practically frozen. And the pate, well cold, tasteless and yes, Pink.
My chalky, handwritten special was described as “Whitby Scampi in a sweet and sour sauce on a bed of fragrant rice”. Now that sounds like a delicate enough thing, fresh pieces of scampi in a spicyish sauce with rice and a side salad.
Now imagine: a microwaved pile of rice that lost its aromatic qualities – if it ever had any – some time earlier; a pile of breadcrumbed fishy pieces of doubtful provenance – Whitby, not likely – deep fried to an inch of their existence; an even larger pile, a monstrous pile, of previously frozen peas; a tiny dish of sweet and sour sauce that had been zapped. And a typically thrown together side salad of wet lettuce, cold peppers and onions.
What’s to complain about? It was what it said – just. Each item was edible – just. It filled a hole – just.
So it didn’t meet my expectation, who’s fault’s that? Mine I suppose for imagining that £20 bought you a decent meal, not one that was just ……..
Could Wales be a world leader in computing for childrens’ learning?
Ok, so it’s not a new idea – one laptop per child, but in Wales it started to have political legs in February this year when Plaid Cymru announced it as policy. It hasn’t quite made it to the One Wales compact now they are in government, but perhaps it should, but with a twist.
I suggest that the Wales Assembly Government really think through this idea and connect together several important strategic goals:
- Wales wants to be a knowledge economy, creating wealth through ideas
- as a small country Wales can afford to be innovative in its policies, reaching out to parts where larger (eg the UK) governments fear to tread
- it could provide world leadership in the development of learning by children using ICT, developing skills amongst its teachers, software industries etc
- by supporting a world-wide programme to aid some of the most disadvantaged children it could be seen as a leading force for economic development in the third world
- it could actively support the EU policies designed to thwart the intellectual and technological stranglehold that Microsoft uses – often illegally – to cripple innovation and the development of ‘open software (see debate in UKParliament last week, and groan…).
All these things in one go? How?
Well, the famous One Laptop Per Child programme is designed to create a really low cost computer that can be used in the developing world. But this isn’t some crippled, hand-me down, second grade, or worse second hand, “not good enough for us, but ok for them” bit of opportunist commercialism.
No, it’s one of the most exciting pieces of technology around. It’s the iPod of computers for children, no less. Go see here.
One important aspect of the programme is that all the software being developed is open source, so anyone can help improve it. Much of those improvements could lead in other applications to commercial exploitation.
It’s designed, bottom up to be multi-lingual: well, that ticks the Welsh cultural box. And all the learning materials are being designed from scratch with the expectation that the work in one school will rub off on all the rest.
The founder’s original concept was that this idea should only be for the developing world. But it’s been a struggle – surprise, surprise – to get the volume of orders – it needs millions – to get it going. So next month Americans are being offered the chance to buy one of these extra-ordinary devices at a cost that will enable OLPC to make a free one for use elsewhere: at a price that’s still less than anything you can buy with Mr Microsoft’s stuff on it. It is called G1G1.
So: decide on OLPC for every child and young learner in Wales; create a learning infrastructure where our teachers, technicians, IT staff and developers are all part of a giant development hub; integrate learning with children overseas, share the experience of innovation with others, and benefit from theirs too. And, at one stroke, put Wales on the world map as a prime supporter of OLPC, not just in Wales, but worldwide.
The economic and learning paybacks could be immense.
The value in our children being part of a worldwide transformation of other childrens’ learning would be without price.
In the past Wales sent its teachers around the world (I had two Mr Davies’ in my London secondary school). They gave the country an enviable reputation for the quality of its teaching. Let’s do the same with OLPC.
The shame of food miles
From last week’s bargain shop a frozen half kilo box of prepared mussels for £1.25, all ready to reheat in their shells. The only problem – they were from New Zealand, half way round the world. And of course we have perfectly good mussels from just down the road in west Wales. So what price guilt?
In this case the only answer seems to be that we’ll go on eating them until they are priced in a way that makes us conscious of the real cost. There’s no way anyone can grow and prepare, package and ship these mussels 12,000 miles, and sell them at a profit for that price. £2.50, not likely; £4.50 maybe, but that would then make them competitive with local products so we might not buy them. In the meantime we just eat them.
I adapted an idea on the box: melted a large chunk of butter, added a couple of tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce, the juice of half a lemon, a finely chopped chilli, and a teaspoon of ready chopped garlic.
The mussels were placed in a single layer and the sauce spooned into each one. Under the hot grill for about eight minutes and ready to eat with a large salad and lots of bread to mop up the really delicious juices.
And the guilt?
Comfort pie and no work
It’s been a theme of the week, raiding the freezer, but then that’s what advance cooking and planning is all about.
So after a truly hectic day – all morning fighting a licensing application as the standard bearer for hundreds of residents opposing a 120 hour a week ‘social club’ extension, followed by a long telephone conference, a recording for a 30 sound bite for tv news, and then live radio for the drive home … phew I needed easy.
And I didn’t have to do anything, for which I was really pleased. The fish pie (previous appearance here) had defrosted overnight and was accompanied with steamed carrots and beans. And brown sauce of course.
Even the fruit salad was there, ready to eat. Perfect Friday. Plenty of time to think about cooking again at the weekend.
Observer status as beef stew hits home
A day rushing about ended by walking into a house filled with the smells of home cooking, for which I had not had to lift a finger. The day picked up no end!
In my absence a hearty beef casserole had been made from some really good looking chunks of English beef. I was too late to observe the work, so no recipe here, but what’s there to say about making a fine casserole? Leave yourself plenty of time so that cooking can be slow and easy, otherwise you just have to decide whether it is basically going to be based on a red wine and root vegetables mix, or perhaps more tomatoes and summer veg like peppers. Or, of course, a pragmatic combi of both if that takes your fancy, or you’re using up stock.
I was roped in to assist for a few minutes whilst a minestrone soup was being finished – cutting off the corn cobs and measuring the tiny pasta shells: these jobs I could be trusted with apparently.
Chilling down and boxing spares and leftovers was my job after we’d happily devoured the casserole – rich, tomatoey, and full of vegetables – with steamed potatoes.
Wrapping it easy
Turns out today was a double leftovers, so not much cooking involved, but non the less memorable for that.
We don’t normally do lunches together when I’m working – the office is just five minutes walk – as our body clocks don’t seem to say ‘food’ at the same times during the day. So my eye was caught by the two left over chapatis and the knowledge that there was leftover vegetable curry from last night. Wrap the two up and zap – scrummy indeed.
Supper, pasta and salad. Lazy is good.
Tuesday is Two Curry Night
Part of Monday’s mega shop had included bargain vegetables like okra and aubergine so a vegetable curry was well in mind. We stopped off at the Indian supermarket where they had run out of fresh coriander of all things, so it had to be a bunch of methi instead. We also got tinned chick peas, what turned out to be a great new pickle, and the odd spices we’d run out of.
The heart of the meal was to be lamb curry – yep, straight from it’s short rest in the freezer.
To go with it a vegetable curry of ochra, baby aubergines, a bit of onion and that can of chick peas. All the veg were put to sweat whilst I added some coconut milk to the base curry sauce that someone had already thoughtfully prepared from scratch. As soon as the vegetables were ready the sauce was sploshed on, the chopped methi and peas added and the whole left to simmer.
Even the rice had been precooked – seven portions of organic brown, white and wild rice mix, all ready for the freezer too. So all there was to do was to heat and eat: we just put a portion in a dariole dish and cling film for reheating in the microwave. The size of the dish btw helps avoid over large portions.
The ready made chapatis were unusually good, being reheated by placing directly on the iron heat diffuser we use on the cooker – a kind of mini griddle. The new chutney great. Plain yohourt to blob on and all is good.
Virtuous Sunday
Chaos still abounds so the soup came in handy for lunch: lots of cheese grated on top and chunky bread beside. Easy and a great comfort after yesterday’s efforts. Masses left over too.
Supper, another one in the bag as it were: a particularly special dried pasta from our friends Napolina (passim) called torchietti, mixed plain and spinach, and a freezer box of home made meat sauce. Positively the last of the salad ingredients laying about: red cabbage, cucumber, grated carrot and celeriac all with a nice olive oil and a splash of balsamic.
Two very nice and very easy meals reaping the benefit of earlier hard graft: virtue rewarded indeed.
The great Saturday clear out
The kitchen was a disaster zone, what with re-painting and stuff going on all around. Food planning as you have seen, had fallen off the radar, with meals out, and too often taken on the run. So a look in the ‘fridge revealed any amount of ‘left-overs’ that needed attention and a couple of hours of serious food bashing.
First the chicken left overs: very substantial and a valuable carcass. So, meat stripped and back in the ‘fridge the carcass goes in the stew pot with the ends of leeks, some garlic, a diced chunk of the lurking celeriac, carrots, a nub end of fennel that has been making chunky salads, and a handful of fresh and dried herbs. Now, I’m thinking, if I can just get enough stock for a big vegetable soup and a risott
o … Oh, and the French beans, I stick half in a sieve to steam over the stock, ready for a salad: forward planning or what.
There are two approaches I think to veg soup – the refined ‘cream of’ variety, and I had plenty of carrots say to do carrot and coriander, or the chunky, stand up your spoon version, like a minestrone, with or without pasta. I had so many bits and bobs of veg that I decided on the latter.
So I started chopping for sweating leeks, carrots, onion, mushrooms, bits of sundry peppers; then dicing potato, celeriac; shredding some red baggage, and top/tailing the rest of the French beans. Everything in little boxes ready for the stock. Then veg to sweat, added stock and cook a bit more, then add the ‘boiling’ veg such as the potatoes which we don’t want to overcook, and finally the cabbage and beans. I beefed up the stock just a bit with a sprinkle of Marigold meaning I could leave out salt altogether, added lots of pepper and took off the heat the instant the vegetables were nearly cooked. Furthermore, I also plunged the pan into a sinkful of cold water, stirring every now and then to get the heat down as quickly as possible: this is soup for reheating, and we don’t want overcooked mush.
Now, whilst doing all that chopping I also prepped the risotto – the leeks, peppers and a bit of carrot just remained to be sweated off, some chorizo sliced and the rice added and the stirring commenced. I honestly believe that a good risotto simply means hard labour with almost constant stirring (though I use a wooden spatula to lift the rice from the pan, rather than a spoon which bashes it about too much). The home made hot stock works a treat and near the end I add the frozen peas, although baby frozen broad beans are great too, and a quite excessive amount of the left over chicken which has been diced into mouth bite bits. Finally butter, cheese and a five minute rest.
Of course I had sorted out all the other lurking things in the ‘fridge, so a chunky salad went on the table with the chicken dish, the forth in a row this week!
The Basque take on the chicken challenge
What’s with the menu planning this week, if it ain’t an ocean of fish, we get a farmyard of birds, and chickens anywhere we look to eat. This time though we’d left the meal to our host, naturally, of a delightful dinner that, as usual in her hands, managed to be serious scoff and wine without any of the social drawbacks of pompous, patronising guests or attempts at country house posh service. So, just great company and perfect food.
Starter – which vanished in a trice I noticed – was a decorous plate of salami, Parmesan and slow roasted tomatoes of unctuous sweetness and moorishness. It really was a little platter of such simplicity – although the tomatoes no doubt took hours of slow cooking – that got the taste buds slavering in anticipation and the food notes – all Mediterranean – should have given us a clue to the next course.
The one dish meal, in the ubiquitous Le Crueset (passim) – turned out to be Basque chicken. I don’t know the recipe, but it seemed like a chicken paella ie the rice was slow cooked in the pan in the oven, with brown long grain rice still with a bite and yet wonderfully moist from the sauce. The chicken had been carefully portioned – no bones I think judging from the other plates – and the whole cooked with chorizo, peppers, olives, tomatoes and whole segments of orange, complete with peel. I suspect the blessed Delia at work here.
Seconds for the greedy, then attempts to eat the Gorgonzola that went wonderfully with the wine, brought back from its chateau just a few weeks ago by other guests.
Real pudding – well a cake of such denseness and taste that a slice needed the fresh orange and grapefruit slices to meliorate its richness, and the blob of creme fraiche went down well too.
Perfect then on every count? You bet.
Only Connect 