TGIF ---its been a fairly hectic week and I 'm going out for dinner with friends tonight, toodle-pip!

READING:

I have been having a bit of a Crime Fiction fest (In between reading other books, some of which I’ve written about on this blog) and recently came across a book by Laura Lippman entitled By a Spider’s Thread featuring a feisty female PI called Tess Monaghan. To my joy and delight, this is just one of a whole series of books with Tess as the lynch-pin. Isn’t it wonderful when you find there are six or seven books by an author you’ve just discovered, and can look forward to reading?

By a Spider’s Thread is set in Baltimore, and is a cracking crime/mystery about the disappearance of orthodox jew Mark Rubin’s wife and three children. The police will not do anything about the case as it appears that Natalie Rubin left the marital home of her own accord. Mark cannot believe that she would do that and so he hires Tess to try and trace her and the kids. I don’t want to say any more about the storyline as it would spoil the plot for future readers, suffice to say it is well plotted, comes to a satisfying conclusion, all loose ends are tied up very plausibly, and the characterisation is first class.

For years I have been reading the crime fiction by Sara Paretsky featuring her gritty female PI V.I. Warshawski and all are set in Chicago; this book reminded me of them in some ways. Apparently Laura Lippman has set all or nearly all her books in one city Baltimore, and they too feature a single woman PI. I need to read more of her books, but on first acquaintance I prefer Tess Monaghan to Paretsky’s V.I Warshawski – she is a warmer character.

Rated 3.5*

RANTING:

Political correctness raises my blood pressure – and I suspect it does the same for many of you. So read no further if high blood pressure worries you…because this is another example of Local Authority craziness.

Some councillors in Totnes (an ancient seaside town in Devon) have suggested that any furniture owned by the councilwhich is upholstered with leather – such as armchairs, sofas, or the inlaid leather tops of antique desks, should have the leather removed and replaced with plastic to avoid offending vegetarians.

No, it is NOT an April Fool’s Day joke (it’s almost May in case you hadn’t noticed) it is just one more example of the way some folk have become totally out of whack with common sense.

I’m not anti-vegetarian (although none of my best friends are veggies), but I do get hacked off at how much we are all supposed to pander to particular groups. If I am producing a meal for people and there is a non-carnivore among them I will always prepare a vegetarian option. But if I go to eat a meal prepared by a vegetarian, will they have provided a meat option for me? Will they hell. Not that I object to that, in fact I wouldn’t expect it – but recovering the leather furniture with plastic???? What madness.

And if I were a council taxpayer in Totnes, and my local taxes were going to be used on this lunatic idea I would be down at the Town Hall making a serious protest.

Ominvores of the World Unite !

RECIPE:

So Marco Pierre White, the über celebrity chef, has come out as a fan of Knorr chicken stock cubes, after all these years of masquerading as a purist who has made the average cook feel guilty for not making every thing by hand from scratch. Whatever next - is he suddenly going to come clean about using Paxo stuffing, or packet Bechamel sauce?

Seriously though, I am not fanatical about anything in cooking, though my instant stock of choice is Marigold Swiss bouillon which contains less salt and no MSG.
But I do make chicken stock regularly - approximately every fortnight. The reason is that whenever I do a big shop at Waitrose or Costco, I always buy a Rotisseried chicken. As soon as I get it home I strip the cooked meat off, and it gives about 8 servings, ideal in with pasta, with salad and baked potatoes, and in sandwiches for packed lunch or padkos. Then the carcass goes into my trusty pressure cooker together with a few other bits and bobs and low and behold 1.5 l of stock.

NO BRAINER CHICKEN STOCK

1 chicken carcass (and if you happen to have a chicken thigh or two lying around which you can add, so much the better)
2 carrots, scrubbed and cut into big chunks
2 celery sticks cut into biggish pieces ( use the tougher outer sticks from a head of celery)
1 medium onion cut into 8 pieces (if you leave the skin on, it gives the stock a lovely golden colour)
3-4 stalks of parsley
1 stem of fresh thyme (or teaspoon dried thyme)
1 bay leaf
5-6 grinds of black pepper

Put everything into a very large lidded pan. Cover with 3 litres of cold water and bring to the boil; Simmer covered for about 1 hour, cool and strain. Keeps in fridge for 3-4 days. Freezes well.

I haven't given pressure cooker instructions, because they all differ slightly, but about 20 mins at pressure is ideal.

THE RULE IS, JAM YESTERDAY AND JAM TOMORROW - BUT NEVER JAM TODAY.
Lewis Carroll

READING:

Starting to read a new book by Margaret Forster always feels such a treat. She is a very sure-footed writer, and I always feel, no matter what the storyline, that I am in capable hands. Her latest book Over is no exception, and I became absorbed by the characters almost immediately.

Over is the story of a marriage and of a family who are all grieving the death of one of the twin daughters of the marriage. It is narrated by the wife, Louise, a dedicated kindergarten teacher at a primary school, who has separated from her husband before the book begins.

She cannot cope with her husband Don’s obsessive quest to find who is responsible for Miranda’s death in a sailing accident. He is unable to accept that the death might have been what it really was, a very unfortunate accident with tragic consequences, and that there is nobody to blame.

Louise deciding that they must separate, and thus forcing the sale of the family home, and her purchase of a new flat, throws their son and daughter into turmoil. They too find the intensity of their father’s behaviour very difficult, as he seems determined that no-one in the family should be happy, or have any enjoyment ever again, and by implication that if they do they are failing to mourn their sister. When the surviving twin Molly insists on following her original plan to spend a gap year working in Africa, her younger brother Finn decides to leave school and slowly the family pulls apart as each member detaches themselves from what was the core, and deals with the aftermath of Miranda’s death in their own way.

For the first few chapters I completely identified with Louise, and felt that if only someone could persuade her husband that his behaviour was extreme then they could come together again. However, as the story progressed, and Don became almost deranged in his attempts to get at what he would find an acceptable “truth”, as he lost his job, and became one of those sad, lonely folk who scarcely bother to eat, wash or sleep, I began to think that he really needed his wife to help him out of the morass he had fallen into. Her stubborn refusal to connect with him in any way, struck me as very hard, even cruel, given that they had been together for many years and had raised three children. Louise’s way of grieving had been just as extreme as her husband’s; she had isolated herself from him and all the family.

What will the future be for them all, when will they get “over” Miranda’s death and move on in life, that is the final question.

Rated 3.5*

RANTING:

Earlier this week I thought I should look up the basic law on the rights of a bailiff to enter private property to recover goods, given that this government has plans for new legislation allowing them to effect forcible entry to a house or flat. What I discovered absolutely horrified me. Evidence of the widespread abuse of power by bailiffs has been gathered by the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, and I feel sure that these abuses would grow even worse under the proposednew powers of entry.

The concept of our homes being private places over which we have the right to control who may enter is no longer true. I learned that there are 266 ways in which people can enter your property without your permission, and in most cases, if you object you can be charged with obstruction and fined or imprisoned. The state grows ever more powerful, and seems to think that it can do as it pleases, entering our homes at will, stretching its tentacles into every corner of our lives.

Why are we so supine as to allow our civil liberties to be leached away like this ?

RECIPE:

I'm always on the look out for a new recipe to try out, and this week I found one that I know I'm going to be making regularly. What I was after was a salad to go with some chicken which had baked in a Malay influenced curry sauce. In one of my old Australian Women's Weekly cook books I came across this one and its a winner. Crunchy and cool, with a sweet sour spicy dressing.

NUTTY CUCUMBER SALAD WITH SWEET CHILLI DRESSING

Serves 4

1 medium large cucumber
100g pine nuts, toasted until golden brown (or raw peanuts)
4 spring onions, finely sliced
2 heaped tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander

Dressing:
250ml white wine vinegar
125ml sweet chilli sauce
1½ tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 crushed clove garlic

Halve the cucumber lengthwise, use a teaspoon to scrape out all the seeds.
Cut the cucumber halves diagonally into 1 cm thick slices and put into a serving bowl.
Put the ingredients for the dressing into a small saucepan, and boil, uncovered, for about 10mins until reduced to approximately ¾ cup. Cool.

When ready to serve, add the toasted pine nuts, sliced spring onions and chopped coriander to the cucumber slices, pour the cooled dressing over the salad and gently toss everything together.

SMILE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING. GET IT OVER WITH.
W.C.Fields

READING:

In his first bestselling memoir ‘Mukiwa: a white boy in Africa’ Peter Godwin described his childhood in Zimbabwe – or as it was then called, Southern Rhodesia – how he served as a conscript in the Rhodesian army and how he came to espouse the cause of a free, multi-racial, democratic state which came into being with ZANU winning the first open elections and Mugabe becoming Prime Minister. When a Crocodile eats the Sun is his second book of memoirs. The title, which may perplex people, is an African expression for a solar eclipse. Solar eclipses are thought to be very bad omens, and only occur when men have displeased the sun.

Godwin, who now lives with his wife and children in New York, returned to Zim when his father had a major heart attack (which he survived); and like many adult children of ageing parents, started to cope with the challenges of supporting and caring for them - always a tricky task - and made impossibly difficult by his parent’s refusal to leave the country they loved and considered their home.

Godwin’s parents, like my own, went to Central Africa in the immediate aftermath of World War II. They took with them skills, enthusiasm and determination to help their new countries grow and prosper. His mother was a doctor, and his father an engineer. Together they invested their lives in the country, raised a family there and were totally committed to making the new nation as successful as it could be. How hollow and tragic it all seems when they are left impoverished and in failing health. I found the book immensely moving, the writing often evoked my own memories so vividly that I had to stop reading. I was choked with feelings of rage and impotence that nobody in the West has tried to stop this awful madman Mugabe wreaking such havoc. To quote Godwin: "I feel like weeping. Weeping at the way Africa does this to you. Just as you're about to dismiss it and walk away, it delivers something so unexpected, so tender. One minute you're scared shitless, the next you're choked with affection."

The complete collapse of law and order, the land grabs, forcible evictions from farms so that they can be handed over to Mugabe’s cronies as political rewards, the shattered economy and the government fomented violence towards any who attempt to challenge Mugabe’s rule are vividly documented. Over two million Zimbabweans have fled, in the main the black middle classes, and who can blame them, indeed Peter Godwin’s mother is still managing a medical clinic well into her seventies because there are so few doctors left in the country.

What makes this book so much more than just a record of the willful destruction of a once prospering nation, is the personal story of Godwin’s father. To his amazement he and his sister discover that far from being the quintessential English colonial, his father is actually a Polish Jew whose mother and sister died in Treblinka, and who only escaped the same fate because he had been sent to England on a language course just before the Nazi invasion of Poland. The book begins and ends with Godwin preparing wood for the funeral pyre to cremate his father’s body. His father had particularly requested cremation, but in the chaotic and violent shambles that Zimbabwe has become, there was no fuel available to keep the single crematorium operating. To fulfill his father’s wishes, Godwin had to persuade the local Hindu temple to let him have a funeral pyre.

For anyone who is interested in Africa and its people this book is a must.
5*

RANTING:

Arghhh….if I hear the word “issues” coming out of one more person’s mouth on TV, radio or anywhere else, I will go stark raving bonkers. Gender issues, race issues, identity issues, religious issues, political issues, educational issues, witness protection issues, and on and on and on.

The word has lost all original meaning and everyone in public life, and I do mean EVERYONE, seems to toss it around as though it makes whatever they are banging on about relevant and serious. In ten minutes of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning I must have heard the word used a dozen times by different people. Then I started reading notes made by someone in the Metropolitan Police Service for a talk given to London Youth Magistrates and came across this bullet point which illustrates exactly what is getting me so aerated:

“Development of Diversity Issues relating to Gun, Gang and Weapon Issues.”

What PRECISELY does that mean? Answers on a postcard please.

I have issues with “issues” …or should that be “ishoos”.
From hence forth, this blog will be an “issues” free zone.

RECIPE:

As Monday night is always pasta night in our house, every few weeks we end up having Charcoal Burner's spaghetti, especially if my daughter happens to be at home. Ever since she was two-bricks-and-a-ticky high this has been her default pasta choice. In fact at our local family restaurant Capri it was the only thing she ever ordered for so many years that Luigi stopped offering her the menu and just brought a plate of it automatically; she has eaten it all over the world and considers herself an expert on the dish. It may be teaching grandmothers to suck eggs by posting a recipe, but we have had loads of arguements as to what should really be included in it and this is my version which I took from the excellent recipe book Pasta for Pleasure by Moyra Bremner and Liz Filippini, way back in the dark ages.

SPAGHETTI ALLA CARBONARA
Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a starter

400g spaghetti
150g bacon pieces/lardons
4 eggs
50g freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon oil or butter
Ground black pepper

Fill a large pan of water to boil for cooking the pasta.
Lightly beat the eggs and stir in the Parmesan and a good grind of black pepper.
While the pasta is cooking, brown the bacon pieces in a large pan.
When the pasta is al dente drain it – but leave a small amount of water with it, and tip it into the pan with the cooked bacon, stir well and take off the heat (if you don’t take it off the heat at this stage the eggs will scramble). Now add the beaten eggs and Parmesan and mix everything together. The fat in the pan, the water clinging to the hot pasta and the eggs and Parmesan will blend together to make a creamy sauce.

Serve immediately with extra Parmesan for sprinkling over the top of each serving.

Variation 1:
Chop a small onion medium fine, cook gently with the bacon pieces. When both are lightly coloured (don’t let the onion brown), pour in half a glass of white wine and let it cook gently until it has reduced by at least half. Finely chop some flat-leafed parsley and add it to the egg and Parmesan mixture.
Continue as for the above recipe

Variation 2:
Stick to the first recipe, but beat 2 tablespoons of cream or crème fraiche into the egg mixture.

THAT MONEY TALKS, I CAN'T DENY,
I HEARD IT ONCE, IT SAID 'GOODBYE'
And that was before it had even reached my bank account...


READING:
‘A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl's best friend’ sang Marilyn Monroe in the movie adaptation of Anita Loos’ immortal classic ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes’. I have to confess I have never been much of a one for diamonds but show me a fire opal – ah ha, now we’re talking, and if my arm were really twisted I might just be forced to accept a large square-cut tanzanite set in yellow gold.
There can’t be a woman in the world who isn’t interested in small, beautifully crafted, shiny, sparkly items that can be worn on a finger, on earlobes, round neck, wrist or ankle, and nowadays in navels and nostrils as well. So I can’t imagine that anyone wouldn’t find this book absolutely fascinating.
Buried Treasure: Travels Through the Jewel Box by Victoria Finlay is about the jewels that have been prized throughout history. She uncovers their histories, the stories and legends attached to them, and visits the places where they originate. Using the scale devised in the early 1800s by a young German mineralogist called Friedrich Mohs, the author starts with the softest mineral and ends with the hardest; in ascending order these are Amber, Jet, Pearl, Opal, Peridot, Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby, and Diamond. Her travels take her from Whitby on the Yorkshire coast, which has been producing jet jewellery since Roman times, to the famous Big Hole at Kimberly in South Africa and in between she visits underground mining towns in the Australian Outback noodling for opals, military controlled Ruby mines in Burma (or as we are now supposed to call it Myanmar) and a hick town called Peridot in the Apache reserve in western Arizona. Exotic tales of Helen of Troy and her sapphires, Cleopatra’s emerald mines, and the fabulous red opal which Napoleon gave to Josephine, are juxtaposed with lurid tales of diamond scams, fake amber, murder, war and corruption. The whole book is stuffed with illustrations and nuggets of information from how synthetic gems are now so good that they may undercut the traditional market prices for precious stones, to a miscellany of useful facts and figures, including this list of birthstones:
January – garnet; February – amethyst; March – aquamarine; April – diamond; May – emerald; June – pearl/moonstone; July – ruby; August – peridot; September – sapphire; October – opal/tourmaline; November – topaz/citrine; December – turquoise.
I leave you with a quote from a Burmese taxi driver “There is something mad about valuing little stones so highly, you can’t eat them, you can’t read them, you can’t shelter under them…”


RANTING:
Ranting at myself for sheer idiotic stupidity - last night we went to a show put on by a whole lot of folk in the publishing industry to raise money for two charities. A dear friend of ours was acting in it and so a whole group of us got together to go and support him and support a good cause at one and the same time. Nothing idiotic about all that.
BUT, on Friday evening I had a phone call from a newish friend who said she was phoning to remind me we were due to have dinner with her last night. YIKES, what had I done?
And this is where my idiocy kicks in. Some weeks ago at a mutual friend's 50th birthday party she had asked us for dinner and I had said yes. However I had obviously had one (or two) too many glasses of champagne and completely forgot about the invitation. So when she phoned (once I had picked myself off the floor where I had collapsed with embarrassment) I had to eat huge helpings of humble pie, apologise profusely, and admit I had made a complete cock-up. DH is very, very annoyed with me for making this bugger's muddle. I should learn from this, but what is it I should learn? never accept an invitation given at a party when I don't have my diary with me? or never to have too much champagne?

RECIPE:

At the moment the whole of England is basking in the most glorious weather, simply perfect for lazing about in the garden, reading the Sunday Papers, and slapping a piece of meat on the braai when a meal is required. Years ago we did a house-swap with a family from Santa Cruz in California, and whilst over there I was given this marinade for lamb which has become my all-time favourite. Next time you are going to braai (barbeque) some lamb do give it a try, I predict you will love it too.

CALIFORNIAN MARINADE FOR LAMB

¼ cup soy sauce
½ cup red wine
¼ cup brandy
Juice of one orange
Juice of one lemon
2 Tablespns honey
1 teaspn dry mustard
1 large tomato cut in pieces
3 medium cloves garlic, crushed
10 grinds black pepper

Put all the above ingredients into a blender and whiz together to make the marinade. Pour into a large plastic bag, Butterfly a boneless leg of lamb (approximately 2.5 Kg), and put it into the plastic bag with the marinade and seal the top tightly. Give the bag a good sloosh* about so all the meat gets covered with the marinade and put it in the fridge. Every time you open the fridge give the bag another sloosh about. Do this for between 3- 24 hours prior to cooking.

Remove meat from marinade (which you reserve), and cook it on the braai for about 15 minutes each side. Let it rest before carving. Also works well under a domestic oven grill.

If you want a gravy, pour the reserved marinade into a smallish saucepan, boil down to about half its original volume, and stir in a cup of chicken stock. Bring to the boil again, and reduce by half.

*sloosh is a very useful culinary term in my kind of cooking.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG, DA GRASS HAS RIZ,
I WONDER WHERE DA BOIDIES IS?
DA LITTLE BOIDS IS ON DA WING,
WELL HOW ABSOID,
I TOIT DA WINGS WAS ON DA BOID.

Did anyone else learn this little rhyme when they were young? I was told that it was to emulate the New York accent of those who were born and raised in the Bronx - I don't know if that is true, but today is a beautiful sunny Easter Sunday and the rhyme just popped into into my mind.

READING:

A tale of murder and intrigue set in the Canadian wilderness in the year 1867, The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney is partly narrated by Mrs Ross who finds the body of Laurent Jammet in a cabin on the edge of the small isolated settlement of Dove River. When her missing adopted son of 17 is suspected of being the murderer she sets off to try and find him despite the fact that the winter is beginning to take its grip on the land. She is fortunate to have the assistance of a half-breed Native American trapper to assist her through the harsh environment. Together they overcome the difficult situations that arise, and manage to find Francis Ross and eventually track down the real killer.

The novel has various other sub-plots, involving harsh religious communities who have settled in the wild, the ruthless monopoly on fur-trading held by the Hudson Bay Company, and the problems between immigrants and the native Americans, with racism and homophobia thrown in for good measure.

I must admit I found myself plodding through this book, and it left me cold – not surprising really when there are pages of descriptions of snowy wastes, frozen lakes and wild blizzards. The female characters all seemed to be rather too modern in their manner and behaviour for the time the story was set, and I can’t say I warmed to them or any of the other characters particularly. In the end it didn’t seem too important who had killed the victim, and the story just seemed to fizzle out.

I know many readers have absolutely loved the book, and it won the Costa Award for best First Novel this year, but on reading it I felt that it had been hyped up by the publicity; and I’m not sure why the book has the title it does – other than the fact it is quite a catchy phrase for a title per se – as wolves, tender or otherwise, hardly feature in the book at all.

Maybe you will enjoy it more than I did
Rated 3*

RANTING:
Our political masters must be using a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 as their guide to government because their latest mad concept is straight out of the totalitarian hell depicted by him. Talking CCTV cameras in public places. I kid you not.
The plan is to recruit children* to harangue citizens who are observed breaching any minor bye-law. If for example you are out walking in the local High Street with your doddery old auntie and she drops a tissue by mistake , a voice will shout out over the area from the CCTV camera calling her a litter lout and ordering her to pick it up.
Who will decide what situations are worthy of intervention by the voice of authority?
Do we really want to live in a surveillance society?

Apparently a pilot scheme using this latest whiz-bang piece of technology has been tried out in Middlesborough - and now they want it all over the country and are prepared to spend half a million on it. If people want public spaces to feel safer, then a talking camera is no substitute for the presence of a real life policeman or policewoman.

* I am totally opposed to this scheme however they implement it, but to suggest using children to tell people off is truly ghastly. It reminds me of the scenes during Mao's Cultural Revolution in China where school children and other young people harangued and tormented their elders for supposed infractions of thought, word and deed.

RECIPE:
Within walking distance of one of the courts I sit at as a magistrate there is a pub called The Widow's Son. The story behind the name of this pub is that many years ago there was a widow living in Bromley-by-Bow who had a sailor son. He was due home from sea for Easter and his mother made some Hot Cross Buns for him. When he did not arrive she hung the buns from the beams of the pub to await his return. The following year she did the same thing....sad to say he never did return, but every year another Hot Cross Bun was added to those hanging from the beams, this has continued for over 150 years and the tradition continues to this day. Every Good Friday there is a short service in the pub and a sailor adds a new bun to the collection.

I know that these days you can buy Hot Cross Buns in every supermarket and corner shop all year round, but they are really much nicer if you make them yourself and not difficult at all. This is the recipe I use, I like my buns to have quite a bit of spice, you might prefer less.

HOT CROSS BUNS

(makes 8)

250g strong white or wholemeal flour
½ teaspoon mixed spice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
A good pinch of salt

5 tablespoons caster sugar
2½ teaspoons easy bake dried yeast (I always use Allinsons)
60g currants
60g chopped mixed peel
260ml milk
60 ml melted butter

For the crosses:
2 tablespoons white flour, 2 tablespoons water, ½ teaspoon cooking oil

To glaze the buns:
2 tablespoons milk, 1 tablespoon caster sugar mixed together until the sugar has dissolved.

Put the flour, sugar, spices and salt into a large mixing bowl; stir in the currants, peel and dried yeast. Mix to a soft dough with the milk and butter, then turn onto a floured surface and knead well for 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces, shape each piece into a flattish round bun and place on a greased baking sheet. Cover with a clean tea towel.

Leave in a warm place to prove until the buns have doubled in size.

Pre-heat the oven to 200°

While the dough is proving mix together the white flour, water and a cooking oil (not olive oil) to form a smooth paste. Using a piping bag, pipe a cross onto each bun.

Brush the buns with the milk and water glaze.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.

THE FIRST OF APRIL IS THE DAY WE REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE THE OTHER 364 DAYS OF THE YEAR. Mark Twain

READING:

The latest edition of the local Yellow Pages arrived on my doorstep - and what a cracking read it is. Within its pages you will find everything from birth to death - not forgetting wheelbarrow hire and lap dancing. Every household should have a copy of this seminal work, it is useful for keeping the sash window wedged open, and particularly good for propping up the wonky leg on a bed in our guest room.

RANTING:

The media just don't have what it takes to do a proper April Fool's Day spoof any more. I remember the famous spagetti trees production of BBC Panorama, and the Guardian's brilliant newspaper supplement on the Islands of San Seriffe - both were so clever that they fooled millions of people. But all The Independent on Sunday could come up with today was 'Bill of Rights for abused robots', it was so damned obvious it was a spoof it wouldn't have fooled anyone.

RECIPE:
On New Year's Eve I had 20 people here for dinner and one of my guests was teasing me about this blog. He read out a recipe that he said was perfect for me to post, and he was quite right so without further ado I share it with you now!

CORMORANT RECIPE:

Having shot your cormorant, hold it well away from you as you carry it home; these birds are exceedingly verminous and the lice are said to be not entirely host-specific. Hang up by the feet with a piece of wire, soak in petrol and set on fire. This treatment both removes most of the feathers and kills the lice.

When the smoke has cleared away, take the cormorant down and cut off the beak. Send this to the local Conservancy Board who, if you are in the right area, will give you 3/6d or sometimes 5/- for it. Bury the carcase, preferably in a light sandy soil, and leave it there for a fortnight. This is said to improve the flavour by removing, in part at least, the taste of rotting fish.

Dig up and skin and draw the bird. Place in a strong salt and water solution and soak for 48 hours. Remove, dry, stuff with whole, unpeeled onions: the onion skins are supposed to bleach the meat to a small extent, so that it is very dark brown instead of being entirely black.

Simmer gently in seawater, to which two tablespoons of chloride of lime have been added, for six hours. This has a further tenderising effect. Take out of the water and allow to dry, meanwhile mixing up a stiff paste of methylated spirit and curry powder. Spread this mixture liberally over the breast of the bird.

Finally roast in a very hot oven for three hours. The result is unbelievable. Throw it away. Not even a starving vulture would eat it.