SED QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES? Juvenal
"But who is to guard the guards themselves?" is the translation, but I think the modern interpretation is "Who is watching Big Brother?"

READING:

Every year in June or July, the Books sections of our newspapers publish lists of books that various literary pundits have recommended for summer reading. Well this year I have stolen a march on them and am going to suggest you add Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid to your personal holiday reading list.

Val McDermid is one of the best known British crime writers; indeed it was from her books that the very popular TV series Wire in The Blood was created. When you pick up anything by her you know you are in for a gripping tale, you can hardly bear to put the book down as you just HAVE to see what will happen next. Beneath the Bleeding delivers all that and more. The main characters are Dr Tony Hill, a psychological profiler who works closely with DCI Carol Jordan of the Bradfield Police. This duo have featured in many of McDermid’s books, and their complex relationship is always part of the story. Having said that, it is not necessary to have read any of the previous books in which they feature in order to enjoy this one, as it does stand on its own.

The book opens with an incident which results in Dr Hill being confined to hospital for the greater part of the tale, in the same hospital an internationally famous footballer, star of the local team is gravely ill. It turns out that the footballer has been poisoned. DCI Jordan has to find out who would poison him, how, and why. Hill takes his mind off his physical problems by trying to work with what little information they have in order to get a picture of the likely poisoner. When others start being poisoned too, it becomes a major investigation and time is of the essence.

Then, if that weren’t enough to be going on with, there is an explosion at the city’s football stadium, and dozens of people are killed and injured. Carol and her team are first on the scene and immediately begin the investigation, until the Counter Terrorism Command people arrive and take over. The twists and turns of what may be a terrorist attack, or may be something else, are intricately plotted, and McDermid uses the tensions between the local police force and the CTC to good effect, she has obviously drawn on the information divulged at various recent terrorist trials to describe bomb making techniques. The book also highlights just how fast racial tensions can be exposed when an incident like this occurs.

As always the police procedural aspect of the book is fascinating – McDermid emphasises just how much IT specialists are used within the police force to search hard drives and other nooks and crannies of the computer world in the solving of crime.

The ending left me slightly sceptical, but a friend who also enjoyed the book thought it was very plausible – I wonder what you would make of it.

A great beach read, a great anytime read.

Rated 4.5*

RANTING:

Since 1997 we have been at the mercy of the most controlling, power hungry bunch of politicians we have ever had the misfortune to be governed by. I thought the last Tory lot were bad, but they were merely sleazy, the Blair/Brown regime are far worse and far more dangerous.

Britain is being turned into a nightmarish totalitarian state, and we are so supine we are letting it happen. We are to be spied on in every aspect of our lives. We already have more CCTV cameras than ANY other country in the world – we are watched on just about every road, every street, in every railway station, every shopping centre, public swimming bath – the list seems endless. This, say the police, government and local councils is for our own good, to prevent crime and to solve crimes. Does it do that? Does it hell. Has crime been prevented – no, it has risen, but never mind, the cameras have enabled jobsworths to snoop on us from dawn to dusk.

Then, when the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) was placed on the statute book, the Government said it was for the prevention of terrorism. They use that as the reason for everything they do these days. And what has RIPA done to save us all from terrorism so far? Not a sausage, but the borough council in Poole used it to permit the surveillance of a family who they suspected (wrongly) of applying to send their four year old daughter to a school in another cachement area. Scary stuff eh? lucky they watched them don't you think? On the other hand Gosport District Council used RIPA to justify their surveillance of people who were under suspicion of committing serious crime (this is a necessary criteria under the regulation of the Act) – and this REALLY serious crime was…..dog fouling in a local park. Wow - you really need to have a specially draconian Act of Parliament to put a stop to that.

This misuse of legislation is what is known as Function Creep. A piece of legislation intended for one thing ends up being used for another thing entirely. And so, bit by bit, our liberty and our privacy is whittled away.

The latest lunacy proposed by the Government, is that the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) should supply them with ALL our emails, plus all our mobile phone calls and text messages. The Government would keep all this information on a huge database for 12 months so they can access any email, call or text sent or received by anyone in the UK. Whaaat! Are we to be allowed no privacy at all? Why not steam open my birthday card from Aunty Marise as well, just to check she isn’t planning the destruction of the western world as we know it?

Apart from the fact that the Home Office’s track record of keeping data secure is laughable (don’t get me started on that…), function creep would soon set in, and who knows who would end up reading our emails. It is a nauseating thought.

I'm off to join a protest group - want to come too?

RECIPE:

Its a pity that when most people think of Guacamole, what they think of is the bland, preservative packed, artificially green mush sold in a plastic tub in a supermarket, when the real thing is easy peasy lemon squeezy to make, and tastes so fresh and delicious. I will confess that I am not an avocado fan in the normal way of things, but I do enjoy a dollop of guacamole on a crispbread. This is a dish which originated in Mexico, and the name comes from a corruption of the Mayan words 'ahuactl' which means avocado, and 'malli' which means sauce. But I suppose all you clever clogs knew that already.

GUACAMOLE

3 ripe avocados
½ red onion, very finely chopped
2 large ripe plum tomatoes, skinned, cored and de-seeded
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
1 large red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 bunch fresh coriander leaves/stalks, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Halve the avocados, remove the stones, and scoop the flesh into a bowl (make sure you get all the very green flesh which is just under the skin).

Use a fork to roughly mash the avocado, don’t turn it into a pulp, some texture is good.

Add the finely chopped onion and chilli, the finely diced tomato, the chopped coriander and the lime/lemon juice. Gently mix everything together and then season to taste with salt and pepper.

Store in the fridge with a piece of clingfilm pressed down on the surface of the Guacamole to prevent air getting to it and making it go brown.

Serve with pita bread, savoury crackers, grissini or spread it on dry toasted slices of baguette as a crostini.

IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE, ITS BETTER NOT TO SAY ANYTHING AT ALL - as someone's granny once said....

READING:

Last month a Canadian cousin of mine mentioned that she’d just finished Lullabies for Little Criminals by Canadian author Heather O’Neill and that she’d found it heart-wrenching. Always on the lookout for something new I got hold of a copy and it jumped straight to the top of my reading pile.

Baby – which she takes pains to explain is her real name – is the narrator, and is twelve years old when the book begins. She lives with her heroin addict father Jules in the red light district of Montreal. Jules was only 15 when Baby was born, and has taken sole care of her since her mother died when Baby was an infant. They lead a ramshackle life, moving from one crummy apartment to another whenever lack of money or Jules’ drug induced paranoia determines it. Dressed in a motley assortment of clothing from thrift shops, and items found in dumpsters, often dirty and smelly and underfed, Baby still manages to get to school every day, despite the chaotic life she and Jules lead. Every so often Baby comes to the attention of the social services, and she is taken into either foster care or sent to juvenile detention for a few months. These placements should offer her some respite from life with Jules, but they have their dangers too, both physical and emotional.

Baby has always told herself stories about things, her sharp intelligence and self-awareness have given her some advantages when it comes to grasping fleeting moments of happiness in a horrid life. Above all, Baby – like all children – just wants to be loved and looked after. This makes her vulnerable to anyone who shows her affection and understanding, and when Alphonse, a local pimp, sets his sights on her she has no realisation that he is grooming her for his own uses. She moves into an “adult” world even though her thoughts and emotions are still those of a child. Eventually Baby finds that she needs to escape from the mess in which she is living, and her feckless father manages to help her to find a way to make her way towards a new life.

There is a phrase you often hear quoted about someone’s childhood, “because of so-and-so happening, they grew up quickly”, but I am not sure that is ever true, children may appear to be grown up and behave as adults but in their heads they still think very much as children, and approach life from a child’s perspective.

In Family Court here in Britain I have come across cases of parents like Jules, and children not dissimilar to Baby, they are always difficult cases to resolve, and I often felt frustration at having to implement the least bad option rather than any positive option

Baby is such a strong character, and so real that there were moments when all I wanted to do was hug her and take her home with me. At other moments, as an adult, I could see what was coming and desperately wanted to warn her not to do certain things, or fend off some of the appalling people who treat her so badly.

I realise that this may not sound the most appealing book to read. It is certainly not warm and fuzzy. However I do recommend it very strongly, O’Neill’s imagery is beautiful and her writing often lifts the subject matter to poetic levels.

Rated 4.5*

RANTING:

Who would spend hard earned money on a tell-all memoir by Jordan, Britain’s most famous topless model? Not me that’s for sure. But neither will I be rushing out to buy a copy of the memoirs of Cherie Blair, Lord Levy or John Prescott. As far as I am concerned they are just as ghastly in concept as anything ghosted for Jordan.

These three individuals stood, for different reasons, close to the heart of government in Britain for several years: Cherie Blair as a celebrated QC and wife of the Prime Minister, Lord ‘Cashpoint’ Levy as a so-called ‘eminence gris’ and major fund-raiser for the Labour party in general and the Blairs in particular, and John ‘Two-Jags’ Prescott, the belligerent and bumbling Deputy Prime Minister.

In the past month all three have produced memoirs, extracts from which have been published, with much trumpeting, in the broadsheet papers.

And nasty, spiteful, self-serving stuff it has been too.

To be honest I have not read it all, but some of the things they’ve said in their books have been impossible to avoid as the media has seized on them with glee and reported and re-reported each one. So I have heard about Prezzer’s referral to Gordon Brown as a “little shit” and his bulimia…did I want or need to know this? Levy’s fury at being used to raise money and then dropped in the mire by Blair and the rest of the Labour party when things got smelly smacks of one long whine, and that never makes for enjoyable reading.

But the gold medal for bitchy score settling must go to Cherie Blair whose memoir leaves no personal detail untold. For a woman who ostentatiously guarded her family’s privacy to now give us the gory details of her contraceptive arrangements, her miscarriage and how her husband used it to deflect speculation about the situation in Iraq, her rows with Alistair Campbell and others, is breathtaking in it’s hypocrisy.
This is the kind of stuff that should be aired in a ranting blog, and not in a supposedly serious book.

We need politicians whether we like them or not, and this kind of back-biting, mud-slinging stuff damages the public perception of them, and increases the view that they are all absolute rotters to the core. It makes me shudder, thank god that I am not now, and nor have I ever been a member of the Labour party.

RECIPE:

This past 10 days the weather in London has been absolutely divine - hot and sunny, and we have been able to eat outside almost every evening. We've also been entertaining quite a bit, and as ever I like to prep as much as possible well before hand so I can sit and enjoy a drink with our guests before the meal. I love granadillas - or as the Brits call them 'passion fruit'; when I was a child in Africa I often ate one like a boiled egg, with the top cut off and a teaspoon. Combined with mangoes they make the most delicious mousse, and this is a really good dessert which can be made in advance.

MANGO & GRANADILLA MOUSSE

Serves 6-8

2 large ripe mangoes
5 granadillas (passion fruit)
3 egg whites
240ml double or whipping cream
1 sachet (10g) powdered gelatine
10ml tropical fruit juice (lemon or orange juice will do as well)
2 tablespoons caster sugar
Sprigs of mint for garnish

Put the fruit juice into a small non-metal bowl and sprinkle the gelatine over it, leave for 5 minutes to become spongy.

Place the bowl in the microwave and heat for 1½ minutes until the gelatine has all dissolved (do not let it boil). Allow it to cool while you prepare the fruit.

Peel the mangoes and cut the flesh into chunks, retaining as much juice as you can.

Spoon the pulp (including pips) from 4 of the granadillas into a blender, add the mango chunks and caster sugar. Whiz everything into a purée.

Add the cool gelatine liquid to the puree, stir to mix together.

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

In a large bowl, whip the cream until very thick, and then add the mango puree and mix together gently.

Carefully fold the beaten egg whites into the mango/cream mixture.

Spoon into individual serving glasses or one large glass bowl and chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours.

Before serving, spoon a little of the pulp from the remaining granadilla on top of each mousse, and garnish with a sprig of mint.

...AND SO, LADIES & GENTLEMEN, AS THE FLORIST OF TIME TAKES A DAFFODIL OUT OF HER VASE, AND THE GREENGROCER OF FATE TAKES A LEEK OUT OF HIS WINDOW... we say farewell to Humphrey Lyttelton who died a few days ago, he will be greatly missed.



READING:

Today I thought I should write about a couple of blooks I’ve read recently. What is a blook I hear you ask – well, a blook is a book that has come from a blog, and there seem to be a lot of them about. As a blogger myself I was intrigued as to why/how some blogs were turned into books and did some snuffling about on the web to find out. There is a whole new industry it seems with publishers approaching popular bloggers to get them into print. One fascinating blog I have read for several years is Random Acts of Reality by Tom Reynolds who works in the London Ambulance Service; his blog has been turned into a book called Blood Sweat &Tea, and it has sold very well – as I read his blog I haven’t bought the book. There is also Wife in the North, and the blogs that seem to feature the sex industry which have become blooks, such as Belle de Jour,or the sex life/fantasies of the blogger, Girl with a One Track Mind.
All very steamy I’m sure, but not for me.

The first blook I read was Julie & Julia: my year of cooking dangerously, by Julie Powell. This book came to my notice ages ago, and loving both reading and cooking I made a mental note to get a copy. At that point I had no idea that it had developed from a blog. Julie Powell, a young Texan living with her husband in New York, felt trapped in a job she did not enjoy, and challenged herself to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s legendary cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. So The Project was born, 524 recipes to be cooked in 365 days with Julie documenting her progress in a blog. The book which has sprung from this blog is sometimes very funny, sometimes very irritating, sometimes endearing, but it will not teach anyone how to cook that’s for sure. I enjoyed the book far less than I had expected – I suspect I am the wrong age for it; I wanted to tell Julie to stop being so disorganised and to clear up properly in her kitchen! (doesn’t say much about my character does it?). Never the less it is a light, amusing read, and it gave me my favourite saying of the moment “Man up, dude”!

The second blook I read was Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman. This one was different in that it is a novel, but a novel that began (and continues) as a blog. Anonymous Lawyer is hiring partner at a large global law firm based in Los Angeles and he has just started a blog. On it he vents his spleen about his colleagues ‘The Jerk’. ‘The Tax Nut’, ‘The Fat Guy’ et al, and dreams up ways of torturing paralegals, junior associates, and the crop of legal students who join the firm each summer for work experience.
He moans about Anonymous Wife and her spending habits, and worries about Anonymous Son and Daughter. As far as he is concerned the whole blog is just a secret bit of fun, but one day he gets an email from someone in his firm who knows he is the writer of the blog, and his job is suddenly in jeopardy.
This book is written as a series of blog posts interspersed with email exchanges, and although it is interesting in the way it shows the ruthless work practices within big corporate law firms in the USA, it is quite hard work reading it as it never seems to go anywhere, there is no inherent structure to the story. In fact it would be better if read intermittently as a blog, rather than all strung together. The whole thing is a fiction as Jeremy Blachman is not a partner –nor anything else- at any big law firm, he went to Harvard Law School, and started the blog almost as soon as he graduated. Read the blog by all means, borrow the book from a library if you must, but don’t spend money buying it.

RANTING:

I am getting fed up to the back teeth with every single-issue group using Global Warming as an excuse to try to force us to live life the way they think best. The latest group to do this is the vegetarian/vegan posse who now say that eating meat, eggs and dairy produce is worse than driving a 4x4 on unleaded petrol 24 hrs a day, and all the industrial emissions in the world rolled into one.

Oh yeah, says who? Two scientists in Chicago apparently – both of whom are vegetarians, surprise, surprise. TWO scientists in the whole international science world.

Paul McCartney has become the celebrity spokesperson for this group (not too surprising as his late wife established a successful factory-produced line of chilled and frozen veggie foods). He gave an interview to PeTA, (which stands for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals), saying that we must all go vegetarian to save the world.

Well he and PeTA can fuck off, I am NOT going to start eating Quorn; hands off my Osso Bucco, my roast leg of lamb, my steak and chips, pork chops with caramelised apples, Brie, Stilton, scrambled eggs, liver and bacon, and Cheddar, not to mention the Christmas Turkey. I take great care over the food I buy, cook and eat, meat is only a small part of my family’s diet, but it is a vital part, and much enjoyed. I don’t think some of these people have ever thought about the taste of food, or why we have evolved over thousands of years with our dental structure specifically designed to eat meat, and I am very, very dubious about the links with global warming.

This could force me to the barricades to defend my right to remain an occasional carnivore.

RECIPE:

It is a Bank Holiday weekend here in Britain (and in South Africa), and I want do some gardening over the next three days, so meals must be minimum effort. This is an all-in-one dish, it can be prepped in advance, adapts easily for larger numbers and is ridiculously good given how simple it is. I cut the recipe from a magazine over twenty years ago and still make it regularly. Over the years many friends have asked for the recipe, so it has spread far and wide across the globe. Now you can make it too. Start it the day before, or in the morning ready for the evening meal.

LAZY MEDITERRANEAN CHICKEN PILAF

Serves 6

5 Tablespoons lemon juice ( juice from approx 2 lemons)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs or Herbes de Provençe (if you like you can use a mixture of Basil, Oreganum and Thyme)
Salt + Freshly ground black pepper
12 Chicken thighs, bone in, skin on; or 6 chicken breasts with bone and skin.
1 medium/large onion, roughly chopped – not too fine
150g sliced mushrooms
1 red or yellow pepper, de-seeded and chopped (or half red, half yellow for more colour!)
50g of sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped
18 small black pitted olives
250g Basmati rice
850 ml of boiling chicken stock

In a large bowl combine the lemon juice with the garlic, dried herbs, pepper and salt. Add the chicken pieces and toss well to coat.

Cover the bowl with cling-film and marinate for 2 hours at room temp or 24 hours in the fridge, tossing the meat occasionally. (You can put the chicken, garlic, lemon juice and herbs in a large plastic bag to marinate, gives more room in the fridge, but make sure it is tightly sealed.)

Grease a large, shallow, oven-proof dish and scatter the chopped onion over the bottom. Cover this with the sliced mushrooms, chopped pepper, tomatoes and olives, and then the rice. (You can do all this hours in advance)

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

Remove the chicken from the marinade.

Arrange the chicken pieces, skin side up, in a single layer over the rice. Pour over any remaining marinade and then the boiling chicken stock.

Place, uncovered, in the oven and leave undisturbed for about 1 hour or until the chicken is cooked and all the stock has been absorbed by the rice.

Serve with a mixed salad.

ALL HAPPY FAMILIES RESEMBLE ONE ANOTHER, BUT EACH UNHAPPY FAMILY IS UNHAPPY IN ITS OWN WAY. Anna Karenina; Leo Tolstoy

READING:

“Families, can’t live with them, can’t live without them” as the apocryphal saying goes, and that could well be the subtitle for Charlotte Mendelson’s latest book When We Were Bad.

The Rubins are an Anglo-Jewish family living in north London. Claudia, the mother is a celebrity female Rabbi, her husband Norman is a quiet man who lets his wife take centre stage in everything. Their four children are Frances, an intelligent, nervous young woman unhappily married to a widower with two little girls; she has a baby called Max and fears she does not love him as she ought to. Leo her brother, a young barrister just beginning to make his way in the legal profession, is well educated, charming and dutiful; and the two younger siblings, Simeon and Emily, both of whom still live at home in their twenties, are spoilt, demanding and lazy.

Collectively they are seen by the community as the perfect family, and indeed they regard themselves as such.

The book begins on Leo’s wedding day. He is to marry Naomi, a suitable Jewish girl, and the planned ceremony and celebrations are elaborate and expensive. Just as the bride arrives at his side in the synagogue, he announces he cannot go through with it, and bolts, taking with him Helene, wife of the officiating Rabbi, with whom he has been having an affair. The ensuing scandal and chaos are just the start of the whole Rubin family going into meltdown over the following weeks.

The secret desires and ambitions of all members of the family rise to the surface to the horror of Claudia who has spent her whole adult life constructing an edifice that she thought would keep them all safe, but her iron grip on her children has begun to crumble and they are thinking and acting independently at last. Claudia tries to pull everything back together with an over the top Passover seder but it is too late, the family has changed forever. In his poem 'This be the verse' Philip Larkin wrote:

They fuck you up your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you up with faults they had
And add some extra, just for you

and Charlotte Mendelson has managed to sum up exactly how this has happened to the Rubin children in When We Were Bad. By turns kind to or angry with the various characters, her observations are so acute that they seemed so real to me that I kept thinking they must be based on people I know.

This is a very funny, sharp look at the life of a family where the balance between being nurtured and being stifled was out of kilter. I read the book in one sitting, sometimes laughing, sometimes cringing; I am the parent of adult children myself and some of the expectations and anxieties of the Rubin family seemed rather close to home.

Charlotte Mendelson has written two other novels, and I am really looking forward to reading them.

Rated 5*

RANTING:

You would have had to be living on Mars to avoid the press coverage of the Pope’s recent visit to the USA – he certainly eclipsed our PM Gordon Brown who was on an official visit there at the same time.

Normally I don’t give much thought to speeches by the Pope, however he made a major speech in Washington DC which really annoyed me.

Addressing the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, he expressed shame and sorrow for the crisis of child abuse within the Catholic priesthood in America over the past few years, and he berated the bishops for their handling of the whole ghastly mess; but then he went on to say that secular society was also culpable for it having happened.

What the hell is he talking about? How is secular society to blame for Catholic priests abusing Catholic children in their pastoral care?

On virtually all sexual matters the attitude of the Catholic church strikes me as misogynistic, paternalistic, antedeluvian and downright hypocritical, and this statement is yet another example of that attitude.

Child abuse is a CRIME, Bishops who have shielded abusers should be removed from their positions. A firm message should go out from the Vatican that any member of the church who abuses children will be handed over to the authorities immediately.

Do that Pope Benedict, and stop trying to blame American society in general.

RECIPE:

Last Saturday evening was the first night of Pesach or Passover, and a very dear Jewish friend of ours invited the DH and I to join with her family and friends for the Passover seder. Not being Jewish I was not very sure what happens on such an occasion, but I did know that it was a special meal, so we felt very honoured to have been asked. I also knew that when Christ celebrated the Last Supper, that was actually a Passover seder, and that no food containing yeast or any other leavening could be in the house, served or eaten for eight days.

There are lots of websites where you can learn all about this Jewish festival, suffice to say that for thousands of years Jews have celebrated the exodus from slavery in Egypt, and the seder is a way of remembering it. I was slightly concerned, when, having asked our hostess if there was anything I could bring for the meal, she asked me to make Potato Kugel and supplied me with some Matzo meal. I had never eaten or made it before, but Potato Kugel is a dish that every Jewish family in the world seems to have their own recipe for, and they consider their family's version to be the "best" and absolutely definative. What would my friend's other guests (who included Germans, Israelis, French and English Jews) make of my amateur attempt at a classic Ashkenazi dish? In the event I need not have worried, it was simplicity itself and turned out fine - everyone was very complimentary. (By the way you can buy Matzo meal in the Kosher section of most supermarkets, I checked afterwards.)

SHIKSA’S POTATO KUGEL

1kg potatoes
1 large onion
2 large eggs
2 Tablespoons plain flour (or matzo meal)
2 Tablespoons oil (corn, sunflower or vegetable)
Salt & pepper

Extra oil for cooking.

Pre-heat oven to 190°C

Peel the potatoes and the onion and grate them coarsely in a food processor. Place the grated potatoes and onion in a sieve or colander for a few minutes to drain off the excess liquid that will be produced.

Take handfuls of the grated potato and onion and squeeze out as much liquid as possible then place them in a large bowl.

Take a large shallow ovenproof dish and pour about 4 tablespoons of oil into it before placing it in the oven for the oil to get hot.

Mix the eggs, oil, and matzo meal/flour together. The consistency should be pourable but not too runny. Season the potato and onion mix well (potatoes need a fair bit of salt) and then add the egg mixture. Mix everything together with a wooden spoon.

Take the dish from the oven and carefully spoon the kugel mixture into it, pressing it gently but evenly into the corners and making the surface as level as possible.

Bake in the oven for 40minutes until the surface is golden brown and crispy.

Can be made in advance as it reheats really, really well.

60 YEARS OF MARRIAGE DESERVES CELEBRATING - I've been doing just that with family and friends who came from all over the UK, and from Canada, New Orleans, Milan and France, to join my parents for a three day extravaganza celebrating their anniversary.
The Queen even sent them a congratulatory card!
It was exhausting but wonderful.


READING:

As you may have noticed, most of the books I read are fiction – but every so often I read other things; Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey is non-fiction, and is sub-titled ‘The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty’. The story it tells is so engrossing, contains so many fascinating characters and is written in such a compelling way that I could not put it down. I had to keep reminding myself that it was not fiction; it was history that I was reading.

This is the story of one of England’s great aristocratic families, the Fitzwilliams of Yorkshire and their grand country mansion Wentworth; how they rose to prominence and how they declined; it is also a history of the coal mining which enriched them, the growth of the miners’ unions, and the changes in society which saw their fame and fortune fade.

Calling Wentworth House a grand country mansion doesn’t really do it justice. Wentworth was - and is - the largest privately owned house in Britain; it is absolutely enormous, an estate agent would probably have an orgasm trying to describe its 400 rooms and its five miles of corridor. Guests who stayed there were given little silver caskets of different coloured confetti so they could lay a trail in order to find their way back to their bedrooms after dinner.

Opening with the funeral of the 6^th Earl Fitzwilliam in 1902, and the succession of his grandson ‘Billy Fitzbilly’ the reader is immediately plunged into a bitter family row over the inheritance, mental illness, and the rumours that the new 7^th Earl was a ‘spurious child’, a changeling.

No novel is more extraordinary than this, for the next 70 years the family packs in illicit love affairs, chorus girls on the make, forbidden love, war heroes and violent death – including the tragic relationship they had with the Kennedy family.

Entwined with all this, is the story of the miners and their families who worked the Fitzwilliam mines for centuries, the dangers, squalor and poverty that was their lot. Finally it is the story of class war and a way of life gone for ever.

Catherine Bailey has done an impressive job in researching and writing Black Diamonds; I learned a great deal of early 20th century political history from the book, and have gained real understanding of the growth of the union movement in Britain.

Wentworth House still stands, no longer owned by the Fitzwilliam family it is shuttered up and closed to the public, but there is a public footpath which passes close to the magnificent main façade – I am determined, one day, to go to Yorkshire and see it.

Rated 5*

RANTING:

I’ll bet that you have at least one garment made from wool, most people do. Where did the wool come from? Why, from sheep of course. A sheep shearer removed the fleece from the sheep so that it could be processed into wool, the sheep was not harmed, and grew a new fleecy coat which could be sheared off a year later.

Mankind has been shearing sheep for thousands of years, in Europe, north and south America, Asia, India, Australia….everywhere that there are sheep to be shorn.

For many years, Kent County Show here in England, has had a demonstration of sheep shearing, and it has always been a popular event at the Show. This year however it has been banned – animal rights activists have demanded the ban. One of them is quoted as saying “Sheep have rights too. I thought it was cruel, so complained.”

What a completely loony attitude.
The thing that makes me really annoyed however, is that Kent County Show has knuckled under to their demands and scrapped the demonstration.

Millions of us now live in big cities with very limited knowledge of farming or country life – we’ve all heard the jokes about kids who thought spaghetti grew on trees, or that peas were manufactured and came in plastic bags automatically. Jamie Oliver – all power to his elbow – has tried to teach school children about where food comes from, what different vegetables are and how chickens should be farmed. People ought to know where the wool they wear comes from too, and how it is obtained. A demonstration of sheep shearing at a county agricultural show seems a small but appropriate way of doing just that.

Perhaps if some of these animal rights activists had actually lived on a farm, or had seen sheep being sheared when they were children they wouldn’t adopt such stupid and extreme views and then try to force them on the rest of us.

RECIPE:

Last weekend there was a big lunch party to celebrate my Aged Parents' Diamond Wedding Anniversary and the chef made Croquembouche as the dessert. Croquembouche means 'crunch in the mouth', and is a big cone of choux pastry profiteroles, filled with cream or creme patisserie, which have been dipped in caramelised sugar and then piled up into a big cone studded with fresh fruit or flowers and with a topping of spun sugar . This dessert is often served at French weddings, christenings and other family celebrations.

Assembling a Croquembouche is quite a palaver, and making spun sugar is definitely not part of my culinary repertoire, but the profiteroles are a doddle to make. Although they have become a bit of a food cliche, they are always popular, particularly with men and children - so here is my recipe for them.

CHOUX PASTRY ~~~ PROFITEROLES

Pre-heat oven to 200°C – it is really essential you do this as the oven must be up to temperature before you put the pastries in to bake or they will just go soggy.

Line two baking sheets with non-stick paper.

350ml water
150g butter
200g flour
4 large eggs

Beat the eggs together in a jug and set aside.
Sieve the flour into a bowl and set aside.
Put the water and butter into a sauce pan and heat gently until the butter has dissolved, then bring to the boil.

Tip all the flour into the boiling butter/water whilst still on the heat and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until everything is well combined and forms a ball coming away from the sides of the pan.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool for five minutes.

Then beat the egg mixture into the dough bit by bit, using an electric hand mixer. Make sure each addition of egg is well incorporated before adding more. The pastry should be able to hold its shape, but not too runny.

Using two spoons which have been dipped in water, spoon balls of the pastry on to the prepared baking trays, they should be 5 cms apart to allow for expansion in the oven. Any pointy bits of dough can be pressed down with a dampened finger.

Bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR DURING THIS TIME. Then switch the oven off but leave the profiteroles in the oven for a further 10 minutes until golden brown and crisp.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

They can be filled with Crème Patisserie or whipped cream, and served with chocolate sauce; or they can be filled with a savoury mixture of seafood in a white sauce, or cream cheese and herbs.

They freeze well unfilled.

THE RULE IS, JAM YESTERDAY AND JAM TOMORROW - BUT NEVER JAM TODAY.
Lewis Carroll - Through The Looking Glass

READING:

Twilight by William Gay is the first Southern Gothic novel I’ve ever read, and to tell the truth I didn’t even know such a genre existed in American literature but now that I do I am keen to read more, so any and all recommendations for authors/titles would be gratefully received.

Set in Tennessee, Twilight tells the story of Corrie and Kenneth Tyler, whose dead father had been the local bootlegger.

Corrie thinks that the local undertaker Fenton Breece has cheated them over the lead lining they’d ordered for their father’s coffin, and she gets Kenneth to help her dig up the grave and open the coffin so she can check.

What they discover shocks them both, and they start digging up other recent graves and find that not only are many others being cheated by Fenton Breece, but also that many of the bodies have been desecrated with obscene mutilations.

Corrie is determined to get compensation for their father’s burial, and when Kenneth finds a cache of incriminating photographs in Breece’s car they decide to blackmail him into paying them a large sum of money.

Breece is not so easily squeezed however, and he enlists the services of a local villain to get the photos back and silence the siblings. Sutter is a vile creature, completely amoral and psychopathic, he has murdered, tortured and terrorised men women children and animals indiscriminately in the past.

He starts hunting them down and eventually the story evolves into a chase, with Sutter relentlessly pursuing Kenneth through a dangerous area of wilderness called the Harrikin

Although primarily the story of a man-hunt, this is also a bildungsroman, as Kenneth grows from teenager to man in the course of the chase, each incident changing him in emotional maturity.

There are moments of horribly black humour, and moments of terror in the book. William Gay captures the Tennessee landscape and makes it vivid with extraordinary, unforgettable characters – including a dog with pierced ears.

Necrophilia, death and revenge, what more could you want in a gothic novel?

Rated 4.5*

RANTING:

I am frigging fed up with fornicating foxes.*

In the past week our sleep has been broken in the early hours of the morning no less than three nights running, by the screaming and whimpering of a pair of foxes who have chosen the little green in front of our house for their own personal sex pad. Two minutes away is the vast space around Alexandra Palace where they could hump to their hearts content and not bother anyone.

I don't know whether you've ever heard a fox scream, but it is a horrible noise and sounds exactly like a woman being attacked by Jack the Ripper. Every time they start up I wake up with a start, my two terriers go absolutely ballistic and I lie in bed fuming, and wishing I had a shotgun. I am not good when I have not had enough sleep, I can turn very, very nasty.

*This could be a new tongue twister don't you think?

RECIPE:

Some like it hot, as the saying goes, and my DS is one of them. He has always been partial to chilli sauces and so when I found this recipe I decided to use him as my guinea pig. I've now made two batches, and the jars vanished from my store cupboard as various friends sampled it. It is dead easy to make and has many many uses besides the obvious one of serving as a condiment with grilled meats and fish. Mixed half and half with decent quality mayonnaise, it makes the most fabulous dressing for cold chicken - a more interesting and spicier variation on the famous Coronation Chicken. Fantastic spread on toast, covered with sliced cheese and browned under the grill. You can spread it on white fish fillets and then bake them in the oven for 10-15 minutes for a quick supper....the list is almost endless.

Oh yes, in case you're wondering, my guinea pig pronounced it fantastic!

CHILLI & CORIANDER JAM

Makes approx 1.5 litres (5 jars)

176 kJ (41 calories) per tablespoon

2kg large ripe tomatoes, cored
160ml olive oil
10 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
10 small fresh red Thai chillies (remove stems)
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons black mustard seeds
180ml red wine vinegar
60ml fish sauce (Nam Pla)
335g soft light brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
1 cup chopped coriander, leaves, stems and roots

Rub the tomatoes with olive oil and place in a roasting pan. Bake in the oven for approx 30 minutes until soft but NOT coloured.

Blend the garlic, ginger, chillies and seeds together in a food processor until well combined into a coarse paste.

Transfer the mixture into a large heavy-bottomed pan, add the vinegar, tomatoes, fish sauce, sugar and turmeric and simmer, uncovered for about 2 hours until thick.

Blend in batches until combined but still textured.

Return to the heat for five minutes and when really hot, stir in the coriander.

Spoon into hot, sterilised jars and seal whilst still hot.

Keep in a cool dry place for up to 6 months.
Refrigerate after opening.

SMILE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING. GET IT OVER WITH.
W.C. Fields
Sometimes I can empathise with that quote.



READING:

When I was out in South Africa last month at least six different people asked me if I’d read
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and when I said no I hadn’t, the usual response was something like “well you MUST, you really must read it.” They had all loved the book.

Being an obedient sort I have now done so.

Elizabeth Gilbert is a successful New York writer and journalist, who (aged 34) goes through a painful, soul destroying divorce, followed by an intense rebound romance which ends badly. Feeling emotionally battered she decides to take a year off and go travelling to find balance in her life. Eat Pray Love is a memoir of that year of travel.

Gibert starts her year of travel in Italy, Rome to be precise, where she learns to speak Italian and eats, eats everything and anything, from risotto ai fungi and Tiamisu to newborn lamb’s intestines.

After several months in Italy she moves on - to India. There she intends to spend six weeks at the Ashram of “her” guru, a famous Indian woman to whose teachings she had been introduced back in New York some months before; she hopes to find spiritual solace whilst meditating at the Ashram. It turns out that six weeks of trying to meditate is not enough for her, and she ends up staying at the Ashram for all the time she is in India.

Eventually it is time to move on again, and she sets off for the exotic island of Bali to try and locate an elderly Balinese medicine man she had met four years previously. Whilst in Bali she makes friends, observes Balinese life, and falls in love with a Brazilian man some years her senior and her own life takes a whole new turn.

Elizabeth Gilbert has a frank, informal writing style - almost chatty ; she is self deprecating and often very funny indeed. I particularly enjoyed the first part of the book when she is in Italy, but the middle section where she is in the Ashram dragged on and on, and I began to find her emotionally adolescent and self absorbed. To be honest, the whole Ashram thing annoyed me, as I saw it as being run as a commercial business for like-minded nu-age westerners who perceived the east as being the only place to find spiritual truths, and yet Gibert didn’t seem to see that at all.

The time she spent in Bali was fascinating about Balinese life, but again I found myself becoming impatient as she seemed incredibly naïve – when suffering from as serious urinary tract infection one of her local friends, a woman who runs a health restaurant, gives her a vile concoction to drink and hey presto, she is completely cured within two hours – oh yeah? If that were really possible, every mega pharmaceutical company would be beating a path to Bali to register and market the potion.

After finishing it I did wonder whether this was a very carefully calculated account of a year which was always intended to be the basis of a commercially successful book, rather than a true spiritual and emotional journey.

Having said all that,I did find it an entertaining read - it was not slushy at all, which is what I’d expected when I picked it up, and very different from my usual reading material. Which can only be a good thing!

Rated: 3.5*

RANTING:

Last night I had to take my DH to the A&E department of our local hospital - he had managed to slice his right ear in half (don't ask). Anyway, being Easter Sunday at 11pm the place was moderately busy as you would expect.

DH was seen very quickly, the injury was worse than

either of us had realised, and after being cleaned etc, we were shown to a cubicle to await the surgical registrar. We had taken work/books to read, and the time went by. People came and went in the adjoining cubicle.

At one in the morning a very articulate 11 year old and his dad were there. Being a child, he had jumped right up the queue (and thats fine with me), a doctor arrived to see him almost

immediately. As all were speaking very loudly I couldn't help overhearing everything.
The boy was suffering from Ringworm, which he said he had had for some two months. He had been taken to his GP who had prescribed various anti-fungal creams and tablets; these

had not had much success so he had seen the GP again who had changed the medication - some three weeks prior. He listed all the medications he had been given, some of which he was still using.

The A&E doctor asked why they were there in the early hours - and the father said that the boy was going abroad on Tuesday for a week's holiday and they wanted the ringworm to be sorted out there and then! This father was an articulate middle class man who proceeded to throw a wobbly when it was very politely pointed out to him that ringworm was neither an Accident nor an Emergency and that he should take his son back to the GP and get an appointment with a consultant Dermatologist.

They stormed out, the father raging about the inequities of the NHS and how it was failing them. But the reality was that they were abusing the system. Hospital A&E departments are not for general ailments, they should not be used as an open-all-hours doctors surgery. The whole episode took 20-30 minutes of a busy doctor's time, time that could have been spent on others who needed her care there and then (and I do not include my DH among them - he was seen and sutured by a terrific registrar, who hailed from Ghana, about an hour later).

Imagine the scene I overheard being repeated once or twice a night at every A&E department up and down the land, and then you realise why the waiting times in casualty departments are often very long.

RECIPE:

My DD and I have sometimes grabbed a quick lunch at Ottolenghi, the chic eatery where rich and fashionable Notting Hillbillies get their organic rocket salad and other delicious things. Some weeks ago I was idly surfing through the on-line UK newspapers and discovered in The Guardian that Yotam Ottolenghi (who is chef/patron of the aforementioned establishment) writes a recipe column for them. This was the recipe that caught my eye. I made it, and all I can say is that the man is a culinary genius - it is super-special, double-dipped divine. When you read the recipe it sounds quite fiddly, but is actually not difficult and the result is worth it. My guests were knocked out by it...be warned, if you come to dinner here anytime in the next few months this is what you will be getting as a starter!

OTTOLENGHI'S CARAMELISED GARLIC TART

Serves 4-6

30g unsalted butter, melted
375g puff pastry
½ butternut squash (250g), peeled, seeded and cut into 2cm wedges
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper
2 heads garlic, cloves peeled (this is a lot of garlic but trust me on this, it is not an over garlicky tasting dish)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1½ tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp chopped rosemary
1 tsp chopped thyme, plus a few whole sprigs to finish
130g rich, creamy goats' cheese, rind removed
2 eggs
100ml double cream
100ml crème fraîche

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Brush a 22cm round cake tin with melted butter. Roll out the pastry to a square 3-4mm thick, then cut out a circle to cover the base of the tin and come about 3cm up its sides. Brush with more butter, line with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Put into the fridge for 20 minutes, bake for 20 minutes, remove the beans and bake for 15 minutes more, or until the pastry is golden. Remove and set aside.

Spread the squash over an oven tray, sprinkle with a tablespoon of oil and a pinch of salt, and roast for 30 minutes, until cooked through. Meanwhile, put the garlic in a small pan and cover with water. Bring to a simmer, blanch for three minutes and drain. Return cloves to the dry pan and add two tablespoons of oil. Fry for two minutes, add the vinegar and 180ml water, simmer for 10 minutes, add the sugar, chopped herbs and half a teaspoon of salt, and simmer for another 10 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the cloves are coated in dark, caramelly syrup.

Arrange the squash in the tart case, dot with pieces of goats' cheese and scatter the garlic and its syrup all over. Whisk eggs, creams, half a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper, and pour over the tart, plugging the gaps but letting the filling peek over the surface. Lay a few thyme sprigs on top.

Reduce the oven to 170C/325F/ gas mark 3 and bake the tart for 35-45 minutes, until it sets and the top goes golden-brown.

Eat warm or at room temperature with a crisp salad - sit back and wait for the compliments!