food+drink

Recipe : Pork Escalopes with Apple, Onion and Sage

More experimental cooking tonight. We had some pork escalopes, so I tried a variation on Normandy style.

Pork Escalopes with Apple, Onion and Sage

I used …
Enough Pork Escalopes (about 5-10mm thick)
2 slightly under-ripe Cox’s Apples
Bunch of Scallions
Handful of fresh Sage Leaves
Half glass of Armagnac (Calvados would be better)
Salt, Pepper and Olive Oil
Large knob of Butter

And this is what I did …

  1. Clean the scallions and cut into roughly 7 cm lengths, using as much of the green top as possible.
  2. Peel and chop the apples into quarters, then each quarter into four lengthways slices. Toss these in the liquor (to stop them browning) and set aside with the scallions.
  3. Wash the sage leaves, bruise them slightly and add to the scallion/apple mix.
  4. Heat some olive oil in a good frying pan and sear the pork on both sides.
  5. Add the apple/scallion/sage mix and any remaining liquor. Don’t worry if it flambés, it’ll just improve the flavour (and test your smoke alarms).
  6. Cook, with a lid on if you wish, turning the pork occasionally until it is done — probably 5 minutes for thin escalopes.
  7. Season to taste and transfer the pork and most of the apple/scallion mix into a warmed serving dish to keep warm.
  8. Add the butter to the remaining pan juices (plus a bit of apple/scallion) and quickly reduce to a thicker sauce. Pour over the pork.
  9. Serve with steamed new potatoes and a mixed salad.

Comments …
It tasted good, but it didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped.

The apple was good and stayed in whole slices which, with the scallions, were slightly sweet and tangy on the plate, setting off the pork nicely. That was what I wanted, hence why I had used Cox’s; something like a Bramley apple would be more tart (nice for me) but would also disintegrate.

One apple might have been enough for two of us. The apple/scallion mix made quite a lot of juice; too much to reduce quickly and thicken with butter to a thick sauce. This also meant that neither the pork not the apple slices browned at all, as I had hoped. Next time I’m inclined to cook the apple/scallion separately so it might caramelise slightly. And having ended up with too much liquid it needed a little cream, rather than butter, to make it into the right Normandy-style sauce.

An alternative approach might be to breadcrumb the pork — using sage & onion stuffing mix would work well! But then you definitely don’t want much juice so you’ll need to cook the apple separately.

And it would work just as well with any other style of potato and with hot vegetables rather than salad — depending solely on your preference at the time.

Verdict …
Not quite what I had hoped for, but by no means a failure. As Noreen so politely said: I’ve eaten far worse in restaurants!

words

Word : Pavonine

Pavonine

  1. [adj.] Of, pertaining to, resembling or characteristic of a peacock.
  2. [adj.] Resembling the neck or the tail of the peacock in colouring.
  3. [Zoological] [adj.] Of or pertaining to the genus Pavo or sub-family Pavoninæ, which includes the peafowl.
  4. [Zoological] [noun] A bird of the sub-family Pavoninæ.
  5. [Chemistry, Geology] [noun] An iridescent lustre or tarnish found on some ores and metals.

From the Latin pāvōn-em peacock.

medical

Good Doctor, Bad Doctor

As some of you may know I’ve managed to get myself embroiled (at a local level and from a patient perspective) in some of the health service reforms which are now happening.

Partly as a result of this I’m reading Ben Goldacre’s latest book Bad Pharma: How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients.

Even if only 25% of what Goldacre alleges in the first quarter of the book is true (and that seems conservatively low) there is a scary, systematic and unethical ethos pervading the whole of the pharmaceutical industry which emanates from both the drug companies and the regulators.

At the end of the first chapter [p.99], where Goldacre has discussed the problem of missing drug trial data, he issues this challenge:

If you have any ideas about how we can fix this [the missing drug trial data], and how we can force access to trial data — politically or technically — please write them up, post them online, and tell me where to find them.

What follows is my small response to Goldacre’s challenge.

— o O o —
As patients there is not a lot we can do to address these issues; they’re just too big for the man on the Chapham omnibus to be able to make, individually, a difference. Given that the drug industry, the academics, the medical professional bodies and the regulators have singularly failed to adequately address the issues, the major thrust of the resolution probably now has to come in the form of primary legislation across all territories — something for which sadly few politicians are likely to have the stomach and no government the priority. However that doesn’t mean we patients can (or should) do nothing. This is what I think we can do, at least in the UK.

  1. Through our doctor’s Patient Participation Groups (PPG), and through our local LINk/Healthwatch/Health & Wellbeing Boards, we should be putting pressure on the medical world and specifically the local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs, replacements for the PCTs) to force GPs to act ethically and without bias.

    One way to do this would be for GPs to be given guidance on what patients expect of them. This is likely to be way beyond the minimum acceptable standards required by legislation and regulation. And indeed I’m involved at my local level in drafting just that. I can’t say more about it at present as the work is still in draft form, uncompleted by the authors, unapproved by the sponsoring group and of course not yet delivered to its expected recipients. (That it is being done is in the public domain as it is referenced in publicly accessible meeting minutes.) However we are committed to it being published, and publicly accessible, when completed. With luck this will be before the end of the year, so I hope to return to it in a later column.

    But such guidance could contain clauses like (all my wording will need tightening):

    • Clinicians are expected to behave in unbiased and ethical ways. They must declare annually and publicly on their practice’s website all benefits received (services, goods, money) worth over [[name some modest value like £50]] received from any pharmaceutical company or healthcare provider (public or private). They should demand the same transparency from those who they themselves consult or to whom they refer patients.
    • All clinical trials/research in which a clinician is involved must be publicly registered and defined prior to starting and be referenced by the practice’s website. All clinical trial data (including anonymised patient-level data) and results must be published within 12 months of study completion. Again clinicians should demand the same transparency from those who they themselves consult or to whom they refer patients.

  2. All members (medical and lay) of CCGs, Health & Wellbeing Boards, etc. must also make declarations as in 1 above.
  3. Is it possible to find an MP who is willing to put down an Early Day Motion (or Motions) in Parliament demanding legislation to:
    • require all clinical trial data and documents (including anonymised patient-level data) be made publicly accessible, without hindrance, within 12 months of the completion of the study, and within 3 months to the appropriate regulatory bodies.
    • make all clinical trial data, whoever performs the studies, funds or sponsors them, subject to Freedom of Information requests at no charge, and with no exceptions, worldwide and retrospectively.
    • make gagging and other “interference” contracts illegal?

    We should then be encouraging our MPs to support the motion.

  4. There doesn’t appear to be an e-petition to the government. What about it? The partition should require that the actions outlined in 3. above be passed into primary legislation during the lifetime of the present parliament. I guess this would need someone more skilled than I am at drafting to write the petition effectively and without allowing wriggle room.

    According to the government’s own rules 100,000 signatures on an e-petition should trigger a parliamentary debate. That ought to be achievable if everyone buying Goldacre’s book signs and gets another couple of signatures. Create a Facebook page and it could attract even more signatures.

No that isn’t actually a lot in terms of fixing a worldwide, pervasive problem with Big Pharma. But we have to start somewhere and it is probably as much as we patients can realistically do initially, at least initially. Items 1 and 2 should start a trickle up of activity. Hopefully 3 and 4 will start a hammer down.

Thoughts from anyone?

personal

Five Questions, Series 2 #5

OK, so slightly later than planned let’s look at the last of the five questions (series 2) I posed a few weeks back.

Question 5. What places would you have pierced on your body and which parts would you never have pierced?

Well there’s a very easy answer to that: Anywhere and nowhere!

But like all generalisations it isn’t entirely true as I already have a piercing.

[The squeamish, or anyone who doesn’t want too much information, should skip the following paragraph and rejoin at the next set of square brackets.]

The piercing I have is a Prince Albert with a 5mm surgical steel ball-closure ring. It had been trickling round my kind for several years but suddenly became the right thing to do about 2½ years ago, just after I retired. No I don’t know why either, but it was a sort of rite of passage. And no it wasn’t especially painful — yes, it hurt for about 10 seconds — and it healed up well. Having it stretched (necessary with this piercing; but how and why would be just way too much information) to take a larger gauge ring was more painful than the initial piercing, but even that was only for a minute or so. The key to all this is a good piercer and excellent after-care and hygiene. (If anyone wants to know more, like if you’re thinking about having this done, contact me directly — this is a family show and I don’t want to unduly frighten the unprepared.)

[The squeamish can rejoin here.]

Once you’re had cold steel stuck through bits of your body, it loses it’s fear, although not the adrenaline buzz. In consequence I would have no problems with having almost anywhere pierced, although I don’t see the point of a lot of it.

So yes there are places I would never choose to have pierced — and maybe surprisingly that isn’t at all gender-based. I would have no problem with the more girlie things like ears, navel or nipples. But I’m no great fan of metal in eyebrows and I detest both nose rings and nose studs, on anyone — somehow they always look so naff.

However I think probably the only place I would never have pierced is my tongue. I can’t think of anything worse, or actually more painful, especially as it is one piercing that is known to heal badly and slowly. Yeuch!

Just a quick word for anyone thinking about getting a piercing. Pay attention to these 6 tips:

  1. Find a good piercer, with a good reputation, who you trust.
  2. Ensure you check out your piercer’s hygiene certification and (if appropriate for your area) their licensing.
  3. Ensure the piercer always uses all new equipment and jewellery from sealed packets (just as you would with medics or acupuncture).

    4. If you’re in doubt about any of the above three, go somewhere else.

  4. Follow the after-care & healing instructions diligently or better — extra after-care attention is unlikely to go amiss.
  5. Do not pull, twist, tweak or otherwise play with your piercing, at least until you know it is fully healed. (However the after-care instructions probably will ask you to turn it carefully every so often.)
  6. At the first sign of any problem, talk to your piercer before you do anything else; they’ve seen it before and are trained to know what to do (doctors generally don’t know).

The Association of Professional Piercers website has lots more good advice.

— o O o —
So there you are. Five more questions asked and answered. I’ll maybe do another set of questions in a few months time, probably after Christmas. Let me know if there is anything you would especially like me to answer.

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 46

Welcome to week 46 in my experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful. Why is it that some weeks I really struggle to find anything much which has stood out from the crowd, and other weeks it seems everything has been special. I do try to keep a quick memory jogger of special things as the week goes along; some weeks I get to Friday and already have a list of 12 items; but in weeks like this one by Friday I have just one thing on the list. I guess it’s called “life”, which is probably why I don’t understand it! Anyway here’s some sort of list for this week.

  1. Apples. As befits this time of year this has been an apple week. I love apples when they are crisp and crunchy and juicy — but they have to be fresh and in season.
    First of all at the beginning of the week one of our friends brought us a big bag of Bramley cooking apples (below left) from a tree in one of his friends’ gardens. It seems that near us Bramleys are about the only apples that have produced any sort of crop this year; our tree has produced about half a dozen small scabby specimens due to the appalling weather in the Spring.
    Secondly our weekly Waitrose trip turned up some English apples varieties. We indulged in some Blenheim Orange (below right) — sharp, tart, almost cooking apples — and some large under-ripe Cox’s — juicy, sharp but slightly sweet, just as they should be; I can’t abide all this over-ripe pappy stuff!.

  2. Haircut. Remember how when you were a kid you hated having to go for a haircut? Well certainly all the young lads I’ve ever known have hated the barber. Earlier in the week I went for a (several weeks overdue) haircut. I quite enjoy seeing Mr Clive, my barber; he’s a cheerful sort, it is good to set the world to rights and you occasionally get interesting snippets of local gossip.
  3. £10 off at Waitrose. For some reason best known to themselves Waitrose have sent me a couple of vouchers for £10 off my shopping (as long as I spend £100; easy on a weekly shop). One for use now and another for later in October. I don’t mind if I do! Thank you!
  4. Mince Pies. ‘Tis the season of impending Christmas and there are now mince pies in the supermarkets. They seem to be cropping early this year. I will likely have eaten a regiment’s worth of them by the time we get to New Year!
  5. Chillies. My chillies continue. We’ve already had a good crop of the yellow “Hot Lemon” and the tiny red “Explosive Ember” (which I leave to dry and use as crushed chilli through the winter). And this week we have the first two ripe Scotch Bonnet type, a variety called “Yellow Mushroom” — stingingly hot in curry! And there are more of all yet to ripen, although the supply of flowers is drying up now it’s got a bit cooler. Next year I think I might grow just the “Hot Lemon”; they’re definitely the favourites; the Scotch Bonnets never do hugely well (they prefer more heat and light than even my study windowsill can provide) and I don’t need more small chillies as we have a goodly supply of dried chilli in the cupboard.
words

Word : Gugglet

Gugglet, or as the OED would have it more correctly Goglet.

A long-necked vessel for holding water, usually made of porous earthenware, so that the contents are kept cool by evaporation.

From the Portuguese gorgoleta, ‘an earthen and narrow-mouthed vessel, out of which the water runs and guggles’. Also possibly the French gargoulette which has a similar meaning.

The OED records the first English use in 1698.

Kudos to my local auction house’s catalogue for teaching me a word I really didn’t know.

amusements

Auction Lotto

Our local auction houses seem to have been quiet recently, perhaps because of not wanting to compete with all the summer festivities. But they have now sprung back into life with their usual eccentric mix of objets trouvés. Here are some choice spots from the latest sale.

A large collection of Dutch ‘peasant’ silver octagonal buttons, comprising five of probably 18th century date, including four with horse and rider design and one with a coat of arms and with various maker’s marks … a set of seven horse and rider examples of later date with dolphin tax marks; a set of three with OS maker’s marks; a pair of large size; another pair with AR marks, and two others – one with a stag, together with a lion badge and a figural terminal.

A Spanish … silver articulated swordfish with green eyes, a pair of small fish pepperettes of similar type, a pair of shell salts on associated loaded silver bases, and a metal porringer.

Two shelves including decorative carthorses, cottage teapot, a quantity of Midwinter Roselle tea and dinner ware, cut glass, book on knitting, etc.
I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of selling things by the shelf. But they really do display the objects on labelled shelves.

A considerable quantity of as new and boxed items including a snooker table, electronic dart board, two folding beds, garden gate, rolls of hose, garden ornaments, solar lamps, kitchen tools, water features, and two spiral topiary trees, etc.
My mind is boggling slightly at the idea of boxing a snooker table.

A large heavy metal figure of a macaw on a stand replicating a tree stump, approximately 4’5″ tall.

A collage of stuffed birds: bullfinches, coal tit, greenfinch, chaffinch, etc.

A shelf and a half of wooden carvings, mainly tribal to include masks, flat faces, sculptures, busts, boxes and smaller implements

A wall mounted set of buffalo horns.

A stuffed blue Jay under glass dome

Four brown stoneware jugs and pots by Doulton, Lambeth etc., Framed, a blue glass dish, Staffordshire ogs, various other chinaware and figures, ‘The Ultra Lens’ boxed, black lacquered pots, a teddy bear riding a bicycle, didgeridoo-do, golf clubs, etc. Framed postcards: Colmans mustard, Wills ‘Gold Flake’ cigarettes, Championship lawn tennis Post, Huntley and Palmers, Bovril and Dunlop and a picture, Village cricket Nine gentleman in Waiting.
… but no kitchen sink!

A large bow with arrows and a large print of children with a horse.
The latter presumably as a target for the former.

A decorative sword in medieval style and a similar battle axe together with an Eastern dagger and scabbard and an Indian dagger.

A Rosenthal group of a putto and penguin disputing a crab, signed Ferd Liebermann

Two alligator skins, one including the head.

A 19th century Indian window surround of ornate carved design with painted decoration, and a panel of six candle holders.

quotes

More Quotes

Another selection of interesting and/or amusing quotes.

Why is it that in every single place I’ve ever worked, the photocopier has special needs?
[Hails at Coffee Helps]

I just love the idea of copies being “special needs”, but it’s absolutely right, they are!

His grace doesn’t half sound in a wax this morning, ducks.
[Julian Maclaren-Ross, quoted in DJ Taylor, What You Didn’t Miss]

Most of what gets marked down as ‘poetry’ these days is simply prose chopped up into irregular lines.
[DJ Taylor, What You Didn’t Miss]

Imagine the surprise of David Purdy on receiving a special offer of the Family Tree Maker program at less than half price. How could he resist the chance to “find out whether any of your descendants were on the Titanic”?
[Feedback, New Scientist, 22/09/2012]

In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape have full swing … Publicity is the very soul of justice … it keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial.
[Jeremy Bentham, political and legal philosopher, 1748-1832]

Our political masters need to sometimes keep this in mind, and the following …

[T]he judge should have the last word … under the procedure devised in the Bill the judge does have the last word. The only difficulty is that that word is dictated to the judge by the Secretary of State. First, the judge can make a decision only if the Secretary of State makes an application … Secondly, when the judge does come to consider it, it is not for him to weigh up the relative merits of … or to decide what the fairest way would be to decide the case. The judge’s hands are effectively tied. If there is disclosable material that impacts on national security … the judge is required to agree … The judge “must” order a closed material procedure … the government have given formal effect to the requirement that the judge should have the last word, but in substance the Secretary of State continues to pull the strings.
[David Anderson QC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, on the Justice and Security Bill; quoted on the Law and Lawyers Blog]

Which reminds me of this insult I once heard hurled at some fiasco or other:

A ball-withering succession of cock-ups

Somehow it also reminds me of Borges …

These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
{Jorge Luis Borges, Essay: The Analytical Language of John Wilkins]