personal

Five Questions, Series 3, #2

So let’s try to catch up a little. Here is an answer to the second of the Five Question.


Question 2. What are three things about you that most people either don’t know or wouldn’t expect?

This is actually quite hard. Over the years I have answered this sort of question so many times that I think I’ve run out of things which you don’t know about me. You know most of my medical history, about my childhood; my piercing; what I like and don’t like; what I want to do and will not do. So what’s left?

Well here are three things. I may have told you (some of) them before but I don’t recall doing so.

  1. Never ask me to make, build or mend anything: I have the dexterity of a bull in a china shop and the patience of an angry wasp. And if you think I’m bad I have only 10 left thumbs. My father was far worse: he had 20 left thumbs. He even said it against himself: “If I mend the vacuum cleaner, I have a bicycle saddle left over”.
  2. Very few people of any fame share my birthday; it seems to be a non-day in that respect. The best know three I can find are the former UK miners’ leader and socialist agitator, Arthur Scargill; Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of the eponymous department store in London; and the golfer Ben Crenshaw.
  3. I’m not scared of going to either the dentist or the doctor. Yes, OK, I get anxious about unpleasant treatments when I don’t know what the medics are going to do to me — which I guess is normal. Most people seem to detest even the idea of going to the dentist. Conversely I enjoy it! I have a good relationship with my dentist, who’s an interesting guy. I like his attitude as a dentist: the best will do for my patients, so he’s right up with the best current technology. He doesn’t do anything by way of treatment unless he needs to; he doesn’t believe in taking gold out of one’s pocket without good reason. He’s highly skilled, inventive and amazingly dexterous; as he says “What is dentistry if it isn’t DIY?”. And we always seem to end up having an interesting or amusing conversation about something scientific or medical.

Will that do?

Now it’s your turn to show me yours. 😉

food+drink

Mmmm … Leftovers

There’s a definite art to eating well but economically. Although we’re on fixed, if comfortable at present, incomes we’re not ones for scrimping on food — well we do most of our shopping at Waitrose and although many of their staples are price matched with Tesco and Sainsbury, many items are also of superior quality (in our option) and thus a little more expensive. I’d rather have good food, that tastes of what it is, than cheap rubbish.

So we make a policy, as we always have especially with meat, fruit and veg, of buying what’s in season, looks good and is affordably priced (even better if it’s on offer). If possible we also avoid buying anything which has been shipped half-way round the globe. Why buy New Zealand lamb when we have plenty in this country? Why do we import asparagus from Peru and mange tout from Namibia just so we can eat them in January? European produce is fair game, but we’ll always buy British if we can, and hardly ever from outside Europe. Isn’t it better to enjoy these things from local farms when they’re fresh and in season? And support our own farmers?

But there is another aspect to this art of eating well but economically: using what you have in the pantry to best effect and not unnecessarily throwing away leftovers. And that’s what I did this evening.

Leftover Duck Kitchen-Sink Nosh Loaf

This is what my mother would have called “a nosh up”, what school dinners would call “hash” and what a chef would call a “meat loaf”. The way I made it is nearer to the latter.

What follows will fill a large loaf tin and feed 4-5 generously.

I used …

  • remains of Sunday’s roast duck (a leg, the wings and the scraps off the carcass)
  • large packet of stuffing mix
  • medium red onion
  • 4 or 5 cloves of garlic
  • 12 or so green olives
  • a rather tired fennel
  • a good serving spoon of leftover cabbage
  • a very soft large slicing tomato
  • small dried chilli (optional)
  • dried mixed herbs, salt and pepper
  • olive oil
  • 1 generous tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tbsp garlic paste
  • good splash Worc. sauce
  • 1 egg

This is what I did ...

  1. Pre-heat the oven to about 200C (180C if fan assisted)
  2. Put the stuffing mix in a large mixing bowl and add a good pinch of dried herbs, a big grind of fresh black pepper, a very little salt, the tomato paste, garlic paste and Worc. sauce
  3. Make up the stuffing mix with just enough boiling water, as per the packet, and leave it to cool a bit
  4. Take the meat off the duck and chop it up finely
  5. Also chop the tomato and leftover cabbage and add it to the duck
  6. Finely chop the garlic, olives, onion, fennel and chilli, and put in a pan with a good slug of olive oil; sweat this mixture until the onion is translucent
  7. At this point if you think the stuffing mix is too dry add a very tiny amount more water — not too much because the tomato will create quite a bit of moisture
  8. Now merge the duck mix, the stuffing mix and the onion mix, add the beaten egg to bind it, and mix it together well
  9. While all this has been happening your tame slave has greased the loaf tin (or equivalent) and, if you wish, lined it with baking parchment
  10. Turn the mixture into the loaf tin and press it down well
  11. Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes; it’s done when a knife poked into the middle of the tin comes out hot after 5 seconds
  12. Turn the “loaf” out onto a large plate and remove the baking parchment
  13. Serve in slices (well it may be a bit soft for that when it’s hot) with potatoes, veg and sauce of your choice (we had it with garlic potatoes and steamed January King cabbage)

Notes …

  1. This will eat deliciously cold too, and in sandwiches
  2. If you can keep it overnight to cool, and press it too, it’ll be even better
  3. Basically you can use anything that’s to hand as long as there is stuffing mix (or breadcrumbs) and some protein (meat or beans); it’s your choice whether your ingredients work together
  4. You can vary this almost however you like and it is worth experimenting; more flavourful meats (like duck or smoked bacon) work especially well
  5. If you’re of a mind you can even make pretty layers or patterns with the ingredients
  6. If you’re using bacon in this, do go easy on the salt!
  7. The same mix can be used to stuff peppers or marrow, or could be cooked in a pastry case to make pie
  8. And if you really want to be economical you can use the duck bones etc. to make stock
photography

Weekly Photograph

This is Hockney-esque joiner I did of the middle of Rochester, Kent back in 2007. The gateway leads towards the cathedral (behind the gate to the left) and the castle. The road running across the view is the High Street. The finished photo is made up of at least six solarised images montaged together.

Rochester Joiner 1

words

Word: Yaffle.

1 Comment

Yaffle

  1. (n) The green woodpecker or it’s call. (Onomatopoeic from its call.)

    2. hence …

  2. (n & v) The call of the green woodpecker

    3. and also ..

  3. (n & v) A bark, a yelp.
  4. (n) (Newfoundland dialect) A handful; an armful, esp. of dried fish or kindling.

    5. hence …

  5. (v) To gather up (a load of fish, etc.) in one’s arms.
  6. (v) To eat or drink, esp. noisily or greedily.

Who remembers Bagpuss and Prof. Yaffle?

personal

Five Questions, Series 3, #1

The last week or so has be rather busy again, so I’ve not had a chance to think about writing decent posts here. Hopefully the coming week will be a bit saner, although there is a bundle of things happening again after that.

Anyway I promised my answers to the Five Questions I posed almost two weeks ago.


Question 1. Please describe yourself in 25 words or less.

There are two ways to do this: in 25 words of descriptive text or as a series of keywords. I can’t do the former as there is just too much I want to get in, so it will have to be a series of keywords. Try these for size:

Londoner; working thinker; retired; catalyst; facilitator; controversialist; former research chemist; scientist; photographer; organiser; project manager; ailurophile; ichthyophile; grey; meganedanshi; foodie; beer-drinker; obese; intelligent; idiot.

So what about you?

links

More Missed Delights

Our irregular round-up of articles you may have missed, and wish you hadn’t.

First off here’s London’s Mayor, Bumbling Boris, from about 10 days ago on snow and winter weather. Actually he makes a lot of sense, which despite his reputation as court jester is not unusual.

Help! My brain is trapped …

An interesting article about the much overlooked third kingdom of life, the Archaea, and their discovery.

It seems, at least from this article, that, as many of us suggested, mental attrition is going to be the biggest fallout from the Fukushima disaster.

So just how do you photograph one of the world’s largest and oldest trees, a Giant Sequoia? And get a stunning result as well. (Click the image for a larger view.)

So you thought I was loopy? Well at least I haven’t collected bread bag tags and organised them into a taxonomy and phylogeny. Methinks someone needs to get out more … or maybe not, ‘cos they’d only by more bread.

So, according to the Chief Inspector of Schools Britain’s brightest pupils are being failed by state schools. That’s so perceptive of him. As with many of the ills in modern British society, I blame Harold Wilson — and that’s something I want to write more about when I have some time.

In another surprise finding scientists have discovered that babies walk better naked than they do in nappies. Who would have thought that a load of towelling (or equivalent) between their legs would have made a difference? Duh!

Next here’s a long but interesting article on our rituals and how they divide into essentially two categories: “doctrinal” (large group & public) and “imagistic” (smaller group & more personal), although both are about gluing society together. But what about those rituals one performs alone? They don’t seem to obviously fit this theory.

Finally a rather sad tale of someone who can no longer live in our multi-ethnic society. I can understand this, especially as it is written about another area of the borough in which I live. But it is sad that it has come to this. Why can we not get our immigrant communities (many of whom are now second or third generation) to integrate better?

personal

Are we sure?

Yesterday we were in Norwich for the funeral of a close friend of my parents. Well we didn’t actually go to the cremation, which was earlier than we could get there, but to the following memorial service. The service was low-key and humanist, which is what Brian would have wanted, and held at Colney Wood Burial Park — a woodland burial site on the outskirts of Norwich near the university. This is where my father is buried, and it was apparently his funeral which made Brian think this was what he too wanted.

Even on a cold winter’s day, with some snow still on the ground, the wood is a delightful place full of pine and beech trees. Imagine how delightful it is on a lovely Spring day when the bluebells are at their best! The park is sympathetically managed as a native woodland; the only rules being that one is not allowed to put up memorial markers of anything other than native wood and a small size, only unwrapped cut-flowers, and no planting of anything which isn’t native. All the woodland paths are natural and there is an absolute minimum of brick and concrete (essentially just the footings of the buildings). I always think the three, rather apical, wooden buildings, set discretely amongst the trees, are very American Indian — they’re almost like a small huddle of wigwams, which is quite in keeping with the quiet, gentle ethos of the place. (I must try to photograph them when next we’re there.)

This is so much nicer a place to be buried than in the average cemetery. It’s a shame there aren’t more such. Every town really should have one.

One humorous (well to me anyway) thing I noticed as we drove in the gate yesterday was this notice.

Dusk
My father, whose grave is not 100m away, must be gentry revolving.

A sad day, but such a delightful place.