food+drink

Recipe: Aubergine Canoes

This is a typically Zen Mischief take on the much loved Imam Bayildi – although no self-respecting, Muhammad-fearing imam would touch my version!

As so often with my recipes, it is very forgiving and you can swap things in and out to a large extent – except maybe the aubergines! So it’s very much a “use what you have” dish and can easily be made vegetarian.

Oh, and sorry, no photo as it got eaten too quickly!

Serves 2 as a main course, or 4 as a starter

Ingredients
2 aubergines
1 small red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 medium sized mushrooms, roughly chopped
2-3 soft tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 slices thick cut ham (or 4 slices of thin), roughly chopped
1-2 handfuls pine nuts
2-3 handfuls breadcrumbs (I used 2 chunks of day-old bread, blitzed in the food processor)
1 egg, beaten
generous handful chopped herbs (mint is best)
half small glass white wine or dry sherry
1-2 handfuls cheese, finely grated (I used ends of parmesan and cheddar)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
2. Trim and wash the aubergines and cut in half lengthways. Scoop out a trough in the flesh (keep the flesh!) to make aubergine “dugout canoes” and brush with oil. Place in a greased ovenproof dish, cover with foil and put in the oven for about 20 minutes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
3. Sweat the onion and garlic in a little oil in a frying pan until the onion is translucent. Add the chopped flesh from the aubergines and cook for 2-3 minutes. Then add the mushrooms and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Finally add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add the pine nuts and continue cooking until the tomatoes are breaking down.
4. Tip the tomato mix into a mixing bowl and add the ham, breadcrumbs, egg, herbs and wine. Mix thoroughly and season.
5. Take the aubergines from the oven and fill the “canoes” with the stuffing mix. You can pile up the stuffing; if there’s still too much then pack it in the dish around the aubergines. Replace the foil and return to the oven for about 30 minutes.
6. Remove the foil, and check that everything is cooking well. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top and return to the oven, without the foil, for about a further 15-20 minutes until the cheese is melted and browning and the aubergine is cooked.
7. Serve hot with crusty bread (if you feel the need for more carbohydrate) and maybe some home-made tomato sauce.

Notes
1. Optional additions to the stuffing mix: Worcester sauce, chopped olives, chilli flakes (or finely chopped fresh chilli).
2. This will also eat well cold.

amusements, memes

Ten Things: April

This year our Ten Things series, on the tenth of each month, is concentrating on things which are wackier than usual, if not by much. From odd road names to Christmas carols by way of saints and scientists. So here goes with April; and for Easter I thought we should have …

Ten 16th Century English Composers

  1. William Byrd (born c.1540) (right)
  2. Thomas Tallis (born c.1505)
  3. Christopher Tye (born 1505)
  4. Orlando Gibbons (born 1585)
  5. Thomas Weelkes (born 1576)
  6. John Wilbye (born 1574)
  7. Peter Philips (born 1560)
  8. Thomas Tomkins (born 1572)
  9. John Shepperd (born 1515)
  10. John Dowland (born 1563)

If you’re interested to know more, all have Wikipedia entries.

current affairs, personal, ramblings

Horrible Times 6

I’ve now been in lockdown since midday on 12 March, when I got home from my annual diabetic eye check (which I was surprised wasn’t cancelled). That’s 24 days and counting. I thought I’d just make a few brief notes about the good and the not so good recent happenings.

Not So Good

  1. Being in a higher risk category, which brings on fearfulness and self-isolation.
  2. Being unable to do a supermarket shop, because our decent supermarkets are either a bus ride or a taxi ride away (‘cos we don’t drive), and that feels too risky for either of us.
  3. The total inability to book a supermarket delivery, any supermarket delivery. And when you do, 50% of what you order isn’t available.
  4. The almost total absence of some commodities like bread flour and long-life milk.
  5. An inability to sign up for a “veg box” delivery.
  6. The nice sunny weather means I shall have to do some gardening, as much as my back will allow …
  7. … because the garden is untidy and is threatening to get away from us while we can’t get anyone to work on it.
  8. Two (Arab-looking) guys wandering down the road this morning shoulder to shoulder, the younger wearing a mask and talking to his mobile. Totally oblivious to what 6 feet is.
  9. The government’s pathetic response to the crisis: too little, too late; inadequate support for healthcare workers; delayed lockdown; stupidity of expecting herd immunity; inadequate self-isolation advice for the infected; almost complete absence of testing, so they’ve no clue what is actually happening … it goes on …
  10. All of that covered by wall-to-wall rolling TV news (which I’m mostly ignoring).
  11. I’m missing my fortnightly massage: it does keep my damaged back working but it is also enjoyable socially too.
  12. I know I’m not someone who is always out and about, but even so being forced to stay grounded is somewhat wearing.
  13. The inability to rise above (or kill off) all the stupid things I (feel I) have to do so I can sit and relax and read.
  14. A feeling of vulnerability and impending doom. Suddenly one realises one is all too mortal. And I’m unable to get my head round what it’ll be like not to be here, and not to be able to do the things I am doing.
  15. And then one feels like a helpless mesmerised rabbit in the headlights due to the stress and anxiety which feed the depression – rinse and repeat.

Good

  1. All the valiant and heroic NHS people, transport workers, and food supply-chain workers who are putting themselves at risk to help people and keep things moving.
  2. There’s certainly a sense of history: that we’re living through an historic period much like the Black Death (1349) or the Great Plague of London (1665) and beginning (but only beginning) to understand what it must have been like then. Yes that’s macabre, but also interesting and in a way rather fun.
  3. The quiet! It is just so quiet: no traffic noise, no planes in/out of Heathrow, not even many screaming kids. If you added back in a few mooing cows and whinnying horses this must be much like it was 600 years ago.
  4. Add to that the light and air quality. The lack of traffic, planes etc. has really reduced the pollution. The air is fresh, clear and not smelling of diesel and kerosene. And the light is bright, almost with that special clear quality one is used to seeing in East Anglia.
  5. The friend, who despite being an NHS worker with an elderly mum, is helping us by getting the odd few provisions and a bunch of flowers.
  6. One of the supermarkets (which I won’t name) seem to have decided (how?) that I’m on the vulnerable list for deliveries. This could be useful.
  7. Meanwhile Noreen has been able to get to the (pretty rubbish) local shops for the odd essentials.
  8. At the beginning of all this I had managed to book several Waitrose deliveries and have struck lucky with the odd slot ere and there – so we’re doing OK for food.
  9. It’s a lovely warm sunny Spring day today (Sunday) and the week promises to be largely the same. That means the garden is getting green and the apple blossom is coming out.
  10. As of writing this we’re both still healthy.

photography, pleasures

Horrible Times 5

And it goes on, and on, and on … and t will do for a long time. So I thought we’d have something to cheer us up.

It’s a lovely sunny, warm Spring day, and this tulip was flowering in the planter outside our back door:

Tulip
Click the image for a larger view
history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

In the middle of these interesting times we’re living in, we bring you a diversion by way of our round-up of links to items you may have missed this month. And I promise it is Coronavirus-free.

Science, Technology, Natural World

The Rainfall Rescue Project are looking for (online) volunteers to help transcribe old rainfall records from the handwritten sheets, so they are digitised and useable for in depth research.

We thought we understood it, but rock samples brought back by the Apollo moon missions are reopening debate about how the moon formed. [£££££]

It seems that people who get lost in the wild follow strange but predictable paths. [£££££]

Dust is often not what you think, especially in museums.

A brief look at five dinosaurs which, once upon a time, roamed the British Isles.

The smallest known dinosaur skull has been found in a piece of amber.

Crows understand death, at least death of a fellow crow, but can we work out what they’re actually thinking?

Now, while we’re all in solitary confinement, is a good time to take up birdwatching: there’s a surprising number of birds go past your window and they’re not all sparrows and pigeons.

If they share a vase, daffodils kill other cut flowers. Here’s why.

Health, Medicine

Copper is great at killing off microbes (it’s been used in horticulture and viniculture for centuries) and yet in a medical context the more inert stainless steel is preferred.

A small number of women are born with the rare MRKH Syndrome, where they lack a vagina and possibly other internal reproductive organs.

We all know about tree rings giving information about the growth of the tree, but it seems our teeth also document our life’s stresses.

Environment

A small Japanese village is leading the way into our carbon-neutral future, but it ain’t easy.

The Guardian gives us fifty simple ways to make life greener. [LONG READ]

Social Sciences, Business, Law

Many of us like to belief we have free thought uninfluenced by others; but can we ever be a truly independent thinker?

Art, Literature, Language

Aubrey Beardsley is one of many artists whose has work been suppressed for obscenity, and is the subject of a new exhibition at Tate Britain (assuming museums are ever allowed to reopen). [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

A new study reports that a supposedly important collection of Dead Sea Scroll fragments are all fakes.

Archaeologists suggest that a collection of bones found in Kent church likely to be of 7th-century saint

Drake’s Island in Plymouth Sound is to be opened up and get its first visitors in 30 years.

London

London blogger Diamond Geezer takes a look at the genesis of London numbered postal districts.

Lifestyle, Personal Development

And finally … Should ladies’ loos provide female urinals, and would they be an answer to the queues for the loos?

Take care, everyone, and stay safe!

amusements

Auction Amusements

I thought we should have a little diversion from these interesting times we’re living in. And it is a while since we had a selection of the idiosyncrasies which turn up at out local auction house. So here’s a collection from the last three sales. As always it is not just the odd which amuses but the strange things which get up together as a lot.

A quantity of mixed items including an espresso Magimix, an indoor fountain, a Siemens espresso maker designed by FA Porsche, a Veuve Clicquot wine cooler, a Vice Versa knife box, wooden tray, plastic champagne glasses in stand, a Moulinex Blender 2, an aquarium, BaByliss hair dryer.

A mixed lot including aluminium pots and pans, Oriol zoom binoculars 30 x 60, a gas mask, an Aqua Vac, Precision LED magnifying glass, watering can, aluminium bowls, camping gas bottle, a mixer, umbrellas, painters’ tools and a fishing rod; many appear to be unused in boxes.

A mixed lot including a picture of a Rolls Royce made up from watch parts, a wooden framed barometer, a painted ostrich egg, a set of steak knives and forks on a tray, a small quantity of CDs, a small quantity of foreign coins, a resin figurine of a bird etc.


Antique taxidermy: a kestrel with bird prey, under glass dome on wooden base


A mid-18th century English delft flower brick, delicately painted in blue with a figure on a bridge between buildings

A fruit box containing an extensive number of cigarette lighters including Ronson and Zippo, an old mahogany box containing Victorian brass and steel geometry equipment, a colourful pottery pot decorated with eels and squid and two glass pint pots.

A box of pipes including briar, some unused, one in a carry box, a carton of old briar pipes one unused by Falcon, foreign coins, an original box of cowry shell counters for games, a button-hook and shoe-horn with silver handles, a dagger paper-knife and a collection of old cut-throat razors in a velvet pouch, old scissors, wrist watches, a scout dagger, etc.

A wooden box containing a collection of call girl telephone cards and a child’s crocheted matinee jacket, socks and slippers and a silver-plated and mother-of-pearl baby rattle.

I feel sure there’s a rather sordid story within this juxtaposition.

A carton including a number of Beryl Cook calendars, a quantity of legal documents, a postcard book Vues d’Ypres, a quantity of unused gilt metal buttons some of them Naval others with enamelled Scales of Justice, an original Tiddlywinks box and contents, a silver-plated copper coffee pot, an old Williams Deacon’s Bank savings box, office stamps, a pipe, 19th century corkscrew, etc.

A mixed lot including a Polaroid camera, a Seasmoke Rigid drill, a Sony Handycam, a kitchen wall-light, an Xtreme torch, a folding desk lamp, carbon-monoxide alarm, a brass dog doorstop, a frog telephone.

A quantity of glassware including two glass ceiling shades, sherry and wine glasses, a box of vintage tools including spanners and saws, two aluminium cooking pots, a sundial, etc.

A life size model of Elvis Presley seated on a stool playing his guitar.

Apart from wondering why one would want a life-size model of Elvis, how does a stool play a guitar?


Two vintage My Pet Monster stuffed toys – one the pet monster and also the monster’s pet, by Amtoy, and a small quantity of records


A glazed cabinet of stuffed and mounted birds including kingfisher, snipe, golden oriels, and flycatchers

A small mixed lot, including a soda syphon, Chinese-style lamp base, a garniture of Art Deco vases, some silver plate, a model car and a tail coat etc.


An antique set of bagpipes with lignum vitae pipes, contained in a pine box


A scratch-built wooden model of ‘HMS Victory’, fully rigged and with furled canvas


A reproduction horse armour chanfron with armorial escutcheon, mounted on a board

No I didn’t know what a chanfron was either! I knew about horse armour, but not what the individual pieces were called.

And we end with two rather steampunk items …


A modern German skeleton clock by Franz Hermle, under conical glass cover on wood base


An elaborate Victorian writing slope in burr walnut and cut brass, fitted with a stationery cabinet and glass inkwells

Be good, and stay safe!

current affairs, food+drink

Horrible Times 4

Riddle me this …

If, as the government says, there is plenty of food in the supermarkets …
… how is it that today’s supermarket grocery delivery had half the items unavailable and most of the other half substituted?

We got no tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, greens, potatoes, aubergine, fennel, parsley, onions. And that’s just the salad/veg.

Then there’s no bread, bread flour, baked beans, tinned kidney beans, milk, eggs.

But we did get chicken, duck, steak, sausages, smoked salmon, ham, butter, cheese and ice cream.

We’ll not starve, but so much for 5-a-day and a balanced diet!

amusements, quotes

Monthly Quotes

So time for something slightly more light-hearted than most of what’s happening currently: our monthly round-up of recently encountered quotes, some thought-provoking, others amusing.

A cover up? Certainly not! It is responsible discretion exercised in the national interest to prevent unnecessary disclosure of eminently justifiable procedures in which untimely revelation could severely impair public confidence.
[@YesSirHumphrey on Twitter]

Thrice-called banns might be a public torment, for example, for those cursed with unfortunate names. Was it this which persuaded Miss Pleasant Love to marry by licence in Nottinghamshire in 1710, Avis Urine to seek a licence in Sudbury in 1712? It is noticeable that in the index of names to the volume of Suffolk licences from which the last example was taken two of the largest entries relate to the families of Prick and Balls. It is also noticeable that they were conspicuously successful in avoiding each other in the matrimonial market.
[RB Outhwaite, “Age at Marriage in England from the Late Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century”; Transactions of the Royal Historical Society; Vol. 23 (1973), pp 55-70]

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.
[Rebecca West, 1913]

Women are people, and people are more interesting than clichés.
[Helen Lewis; Guardian; 15 January 2020]

Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.
[Malcolm X]

Never let a serious crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
[Rahm Emanuel, President Barak Obama’s Chief of Staff]

At first glance, hand washing is an act of self care. Frequent hand washing protects us individually from contracting the virus. But it is also an act of community care; we help protect others when we help protect ourselves. So too with the recommendation to stay home when sick. Although there is definitely a level of privilege in being able to take time off work, it is clearly important to take care of our communities by preventing the spread of illness.
[Gesshin Claire Greenwood on Medium]

Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Even tiny insects survive by mutual cooperation based on innate recognition of their interconnectedness. It is because our own human existence is so dependent on the help of others that our need for love lies at the very foundation of our existence. Therefore we need a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.
[Dalai Lama quoted by Gesshin Claire Greenwood on Medium]

It’s only quarantine if it comes from the Quarré region of France. Otherwise it’s just sparkling house arrest.
[h/t Alden Tullis O’Brien on Facebook]

Splay the legs as wide as possible, and then make sure they’re fixed in position with the wing nut.
[Instructions for setting up an easel quoted by @19syllables on Twitter]