SORRY, SORRY, SORRY - the last few weeks have been hectic to say the least, what with moving house and a full-on calendar of other commitments, I'm afraid the blog has been sadly
neglected, apologies all round.

In a couple of days time I'm off to China for a fortnight, but hope to blog from there as I am taking my latest toy, a small but perfectly formed notebook made by Dell.



READING:

Ruth Rendell is one of Britain’s most prolific and popular authors, in the four decades since I read her first book she has published a further 57 titles, 45 under her own name (21 of which feature her detective creation Wexford and the fictious town of Kingsmarkham), and 13 under her pseudonym Barbara Vine. (to learn more about Ruth Rendell, click here.)

I hadn’t read anything by her for a year or two and decided it was more than time to pick up one of her recent books. In 2006 she published The Water’s Lovely as Ruth Rendell, When she writes as Vine the novels are often multilayered, darker and explore the impact that chance or coincidence has on her characters.

Ismay and Heather are sisters who share a flat in what was once the family house; their elderly mother Beatrice, who has dementia, lives in the flat above them cared for by her sister Patricia. Thirteen years previously, when Ismay and Heather were in their early teens, their stepfather Guy was found drowned in his bath.

Ismay has always thought that Heather drowned him in order to protect her from Guy’s sexual attentions, and has worried whether she should have been complict with her mother in covering her sister’s crime.

Now both young women are working and in serious relationships, but the past continues to cast a long shadow, and threatens their lives.

As always Ruth Rendell has created some memorable characters, and in this book are three of the most compellingly selfish people you could imagine. Andrew, Ismay’s boyfriend, is a truly nasty piece of work. He treats Ismay with contempt and reduces her to abject misery. Heather’s fiancée Edmund has a mother, Irene, who is the most hysterical hypochondriac, using her imagined illnesses to try and control Edmund. Marion Melville, one of Irene’s friends, is a character worthy of Dickens. A manipulator par excellence, she visits several elderly people for entirely selfish reasons and it is through her unwittingly amoral behaviour that Guy’s death comes back to haunt the sisters.

Rendell excels at the psychological crime novel and this is no exception, though I did think it was much more in the style of Barbara Vine, and I am surprised she published it under that name.

Rated 4*

RANTING:

There are times when I begin to wonder what country I am living in, and now is one of those times….am I living in Britain, or East Germany before the collapse of the Berlin Wall ? We are being turned slowly but surely in to a nation that spies on one another, reports one another (sometimes anonymously) to the “authorities” for perceived minor infractions of civil or criminal law.

You may wonder why I am getting all hot under the collar about this today, read on and you may become hot under the collar too.

Lincoln City Council has decided that all council employed plumbers and electricians are to be given training in spotting child abuse, so that when they are in someone’s home to fix a wonky pipe or re-wire an electrical circuit they can spy on the family and report back to Social Services if they think that children may have been abused.

Child abuse is a horrible thing, it harms children and their families. The term is wide ranging, and includes neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. It is by its very nature hidden, and difficult to spot even for experts. Just having an accusation of child abuse made, rightly or wrongly, can tear a family apart and do lasting damage which may echo down the generations.
I say this as one who, after 20+ years in the Family Courts, dealt with more cases of child abuse than I care to remember.

To expect handymen (or women) to be able to diagnose children as abused or in danger of abuse after a week or two’s training, when they are busy working on the job of plumbing or wiring is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.

No it’s worse than that, it is very dangerous and just plain wrong. What on earth do Lincoln Council think they are doing?

The chance of false allegations will be very high; and if a plumber unblocks a sink in Family A’s kitchen and doesn’t report anything, does that mean that all is ticketty-boo and the kids are fine? Does it hell, it means absolutely nothing.

There used to be a good old English phrase “Mind your own business” and the business of plumbers is plumbing, not spying for social services.

I hope that the people of Lincoln rise up and stop this outrageous plan.

RECIPE:

Adjusting to a new kitchen takes time - in the first place you have to remember where you have put everything as you unpacked box after box, and then the regular way you move between sink, stove/oven, fridge etc seems awkward and unfamiliar.
Waiting for the plumber to come and sort out the boiler a few days ago, meant a working lunch had to be re-scheduled from a restaurant to being here in the new house, and the menu was dependent on what I had available. -Some frozen Canadian scallops (which are a really useful thing to have in the freezer, they should not be defrosted before cooking and taste delicious), a packet of Puy lentils, and a small Savoy cabbage provided the basis for a really tasty main course which I will be making again.
Puy lentils are the only lentils which have an A.O.C. (Appellation d'Origine Controlée ), they are small, grey-brown in colour and do not require pre-soaking.

SCALLOPS WITH LENTILS & CABBAGE

Serves 4

400g frozen Canadian scallops
250g Puy lentils
1 onion, finely chopped
200g bacon lardons
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1 small Savoy cabbage, finely shredded
1 heaped tablespoon finely chopped flat leaf parsley
Olive oil
2 teaspoons soy sauce

Place the lentils in a saucepan and cover with about ½ litre of boiling water, cook for about 20 minutes until the lentils are soft. Drain and set aside.

In a frying pan sauté the lardons until beginning to brown slightly then add the chopped onion and continue cooking, stirring regularly, until the onion is translucent, add the drained lentils and mix together; add the lemon juice and season to taste. Set aside.

The lentils can be prepared to this stage well in advance, even the day before, and then re-heated in a pan or microwave prior to serving.

Heat a splash of olive oil in a shallow pan, and when very hot add the shredded cabbage, stir-fry for a few moments before adding enough water to moisten it, keep cooking for a minute or two until the cabbage is softened but still has a little bite to it. Stir in the soy sauce and the chopped parsley. Set aside but keep warm.

Heat a frying pan until very hot, add a splash of olive oil and then the frozen scallops. Cook for 6-7 minutes each side until soft, cooked through and golden brown.
Place a ring of the cooked cabbage on each plate, and heap some of the lentils in the centre. Carefully place about 5-6 scallops on top of the lentils and serve immediately with crusty bread.

2 Ys U R
2 Ys U B
I C U R
2 Ys 4 Me
Written in my Autograph Book in 1959 -years before TXT/SMS messages; whatever happened to autograph books?


READING:

James Lee Burke is a much acclaimed American crime writer. His most famous creation is the maverick detective Dave Robicheaux who left the New Orleans Police Department to work for the police in New Iberia a smaller town some miles away from the Big Sleazy as New Orleans is called.

The Tin Roof Blowdown is the 16^th book featuring Robicheaux, and I suspect it is the one which will be most remembered. The action all takes place in New Orleans and its surrounding areas before, during and after Hurricane Katrina hit the city on 29^th August 2005. In the ensuing chaos, with over 80% of the city flooded, Robicheaux is tasked with investigating the shooting of two looters, and tracking down a third. It would seem that they are also being hunted by the local mafia boss whose house they had inadvertently ransacked.

This tale of ruthless greed and cruelty would be quite enough for most crime novels, but to my mind the real story is that of the violent wasteland that New Orleans became in the aftermath of the hurricane. James Lee Burke is a native Louisianan and he lives in New Iberia, so his knowledge of what happened during Hurricane Katrina and the weeks that followed is close-up and personal. The scenes of devastating destruction and the terrifying breakdown of law and order are more powerful than anything a mere novelist could dream up.

Burke does not pull any punches in describing the political chicanery and the failure of local and national government in either preparing the city for such a calamity, or dealing with it after the event. His descriptions of what happened to the people of New Orleans who were unable or unwilling to evacuate are absolutely horrifying – and this in the USA, the richest, most powerful nation in the world - 1836 people dead, and $115 billion in damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure.

The Tin Roof Blowdown is much more than the crime novel it purports to be, it is the story of an apocalypse, and a piece of reportage which conveys what happened to New Orleans better than any journalist could have done.

Rated 4.5*

RANTING:

I have decided to instigate a new award. This will be given, from time to time, to the individual or group who gets my goat* – therefore it will be known as The Gets Herschelian’s Goat Award.

The very first recipient of this dubious new honour is none other than our Prime Minister Gordon “Clunking Fist” Brown.

He deserves this award for his condescending and patronising attitude in telling us how we could help the economy by not wasting food. Moreover, (and this makes him exceptionally deserving) by lecturing us all on this and then partaking of the following delights on a single day whilst on a G8 jolly to Japan, d’you think he scurried round to the kitchens after it all to make sure that no left-overs were wasted – I suspect not.

Who does he think he is? Mrs Beeton? Can we now expect Gordon Brown’s Book of Household Management with a special recipe section on using potato peelings and onion skins?

*get(s) my/our/your goat is an idiomatic expression used in English meaning to be cheesed off** or to be very annoyed.

** to be cheesed off is an idiomatic expression used in English meaning
to be fed up*** or to be very annoyed.

*** to be fed up is an idiomatic expression used in English ….
oh for goodness sake, this is getting ridiculous, just look it up…

RECIPE:

In Morocco we enjoyed some fabulous meals; sometimes the dishes were very sophisticated, but at other times they were very simple and homely. This was a dish I ate in three different places, Fès, Chefchaouen and Meknès. Each time it was more or less the same, and yet subtly different as each cook varied their spicing slightly.
I came back to London laden with little bags of spices bought in Souk Atriya, the food and spice market in Meknès, and at last have used one of the spice mixtures in my version of Kefte Mkaouara. Although I have mixed beef and lamb mince together (because that was what I had available in the freezer) you could use just lamb or just beef, I don't think it would make much difference.

KEFTA MKAOUARA (Moroccan Meatball Tagine with egg)

Serves 6

Meatballs

500g lamb mince
500g beef mince
3 tablespoons finely chopped coriander
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
3 teaspoons ground cumin
Salt & pepper
Olive oil for frying

Sauce

2 onions finely chopped
2 fat cloves garlic finely chopped
3 teaspoons mixed Tagine spice or
1.5 teaspoon hot paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tins chopped tomatoes or 500ml tomato passata
Salt & pepper

3-4 fresh medium sized eggs

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C

Put all the ingredients for the meatballs into a bowl, using your hands work them together so that everything is well combined.
Shape the mixture into small balls about 2.5cm wide. You may find it easier to do this if you wet your hands first.
Heat a small amount of olive oil in a large sauté pan and brown the meatballs. Set aside.

In the same pan, gently sauté the chopped onion and garlic, adding a little more oil if needed. When soft and starting to colour slightly, add the spice mixture and cook for a few moments stirring well before adding the chopped tomatoes. Stir to mix all together.

Place the meatballs into a tagine or other lidded ovenproof dish, pour the sauce mixture over them. Cover the dish and bake in the oven for about 30 mins.
Remove from the oven, and carefully break the eggs into the top of the sauce, keeping them separate.
Return to the oven for 15 minutes or until the whites of the eggs are set.

Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with buttered couscous, rice or crusty bread.

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.

HAVE JUST SPENT HALF AN HOUR PAIRING SOCKS, AND WONDERING WHERE THE MISSING ONES ARE. IT'S ONE OF LIFE'S MYSTERIES.

The Sorrow of Socks by Wendy Cope

Some socks are loners -
They can't live in pairs.
On washdays they've shown us
They want to be loners. They puzzle their owners,
They hide in dark lairs.
Some socks are loners -
They won't live in pairs.

READING:

I love Ed McBain. To be precise I LOVE Ed McBain’s books, particularly his 87^th Precinct novels. For those of you who have the misfortune not to have heard of Ed McBain, (who died in 2005 to the great sadness of his legions of readers/fans) he was an American crime novelist. His official name was Evan Hunter, he wrote The Blackboard Jungle, and the screenplay for Hitchcock’s film The Birds, and the TV series 'Hill Street Blues' and 'NYPD' are very much based on his books. Ed McBain was a pen name which he used for two series of crime novels and it is the 87^th Precinct novels – and there are more than fifty of them - which are my favourites. The whole series is set in the fictitious city of Isola, which is loosely based on New York.

I read my first 87^th Precinct book way back in the 1960s, I can remember it now, it was a book one of my parents had bought, a Penguin paperback with the green cover that all Penguin crime novels were given, and it’s title was Cop Hater. Within 10 pages I was completely hooked. I read it during a long, dusty, tedious car journey from Lusaka to Cape Town (a journey of 2000 miles) and finished it before we had even reached the South African border. I was desperate to arrive somewhere where there would be a bookshop so that I could find some other books by the same author.

This week I stumbled on his very last book, Fiddlers, which I had not read. Oh joy, oh rapture. I was once again in the company of people I had grown up with, in a city that I know in my mind like the back of my hand.

Fiddlers is a story of a serial killer, and the media dub the deaths ‘The Glock Killings’ as all the victims are shot at point blank range and the gun used is a Glock pistol. The first victim is a blind violin player who works nights at an up-market jazz club. The killing occurs in the 87^th Precinct and so all further killings, wherever in the city they may occur, are also investigated by the detectives of the 87^th; and a varied bunch of victims they are too – a Catholic priest in the grounds of his church, the sixty year old female Professor of Romantic Literature at one of the city universities, a middle-aged sales rep. for manicure products, who is gunned down whilst making a mushroom omelette…! As ever the plot twists and turns and moves on at a cracking pace, the boys in blue try to catch the killer whilst sorting out their own personal lives, the dialogue is lively, funny, tough and accurate, in fact this is a thoroughly good read.

Each book stands alone, but if you read through several you will get to know the detectives personally, and that makes it much more interesting. I feel quite bereft at the thought there will be no more – I think I will have to start at the beginning and read them all again!

Rated: 5*

RANTING:

I am not a member of the huggy-bunny brigade, I am not a vegetarian, I am not against limited and controlled vivisection for the purposes of medical research and to cap it all I would personally repeal the prohibition on fox-hunting. Indeed, I would love to have a couple of hunts tally-ho-ing their way through the urban wastes of north London to help reduce the ever increasing numbers of feral urban foxes with which we are plagued.

So it may come as some surprise that I feel so strongly about Japan’s bloody minded insistence on whaling. Today the Japanese whaling fleet has set out intent on “culling” 1000 whales, including for the first time in many years, 50 of the endangered hump-backed whale. Why are they doing this?

Yes, we know that many years ago the Japanese ate whale meat on a regular basis (as did several other nations), but since the IWC began trying to regulate the hunting of these magnificent mammals , the demand for whale meat has dropped dramatically, so Geishoku Labo, a private firm allied to the Japanese Whaling Association, is deliberately trying to revive it in Japan by supplying cheap whale meat to schools and hospitals. In fact the demand is still so low that there are tonnes of unwanted whale meat stored in warehouses and it is now being supplied to pet food factories. These magnificent, mysterious creatures are being used for pet food – it’s obscene.

The media coverage of the Japanese whaling fleet setting sail kept using the word “cull” but this is no cull, it is slaughter pure and simple. A cull is when there is an unsustainable population of a particular animal, and the numbers must be selectively reduced in order to benefit the whole species. I think that the media should remove the word cull from their coverage immediately – I suspect that the word is the one used by the Japanese whaling industry PR people as a euphemism for what is actually being done.

They say these whales are being killed for “scientific” reasons; they always say that, year after year, what are these so-called “scientific” reasons? Show us the “scientific” results from previous years. Scientific? – bullsh*t; this is a commercial exercise, and yet there doesn’t seem to be an overwhelming demand for the resulting product.

If you are Japanese and are reading this, please think about the subject, and approach your parliamentary representative to get it stopped.

RECIPE:

Every so often I make a curry for supper, vegetable or chicken usually, and quite often this is the rice I serve with it . Incredibly simple to make, it tastes authentically Indian, and so it should as the recipe came from Madhur Jaffrey's first ever recipe book published way back in 1982. It makes a bog-standard curry seem very much more special!

INDIAN RICE AND PEAS

Serves 6-8

350g basmati rice
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
1½ teaspoons cumin seeds
100g onion, peeled and finely chopped
200g frozen peas
1 teaspoon salt
700ml water

Heat the oil in a heavy pan over medium heat, and when hot put in the cumin seed, stirring them around for about 5 seconds. Now add the chopped onion and stir fry them until they are flecked with brown spots. Add the rice, peas and salt and continue stirring for 3-4 minutes until they are coated with oil. Pour in the water and bring to the boil. Cover very tightly and turn the heat to very very low. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat but leave the pan to sit, covered and undisturbed for another 8-10 minutes. Do not be tempted to take the lid off to ‘check’ the rice at this stage.

Stir gently before serving

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.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: " noi non potemo aver perfetta vita senza amici" Dante Algihieri
which loosely translated means : "A perfect life needs friends"

READING:

Always on the lookout for a new crime author – new to me I should say, I spotted this in the HLSI library and pounced on it with glee. The Messengers of Death is by Pierre Magnan and is translated from the French by Patricia Clancy. I’ve read little French detective/crime fiction, so this was an ideal opportunity to try a novel by one of France’s most popular authors. M. Magnan is from Provence and this book is set there, in the department of Haut Provence to be exact. It is a convoluted tale of murder, greed and suspense within the closely knit communities of this stark mountain region. The book begins with a retired postman Emile Pencenat, busy in the local cemetery where he is designing and building his own tomb. He notices an envelope addressed to Mlle Véronique Champourcieux has been placed in the disused postbox on the cemetery gate, and decides it is his duty to buy a stamp and post it properly. To local consternation, the body of Mlle Véronique is discovered not long afterwards pinned to her piano by a bayonet attached to an antique rifle. After several further bizarre deaths in the locality, retired detective Commissaire Laviolette is persuaded to investigate. He uncovers a dark tale of avarice and vengeance stretching back over 100 years.

The style of writing reminded me of the novels of Marcel Pagnol – ‘Jean de Florette’ and ‘Manon des Sources’ - though maybe that was just because they too are set in the peasant communities of Provence. I did enjoy Magnan’s evocative descriptions of the countryside, the dark brooding forests, the mountains and the extremes of weather in the region, with violent storms, baking heat and freezing fogs, which gave a strong sense of place. However I didn’t really engage with the characters, and found the plot tortuously convoluted. Apparently this is the latest of his crime novels, so maybe I will try one of his earlier ones before deciding he is not going on my must read list.

RANTING:

Remind me not to travel with British Airways again if I have any reasonable choice – that is assuming the Save Our Environment fanatics will let us continue flying anywhere anyway.

British Airways are changing their baggage limit policies, and changing them in such a way it will make the whole business of travel more difficult and complicated for me and thousands of other potential customers. If I travel by BA World Traveller class (Economy/Steerage to you and me) I will now be allowed to check in ONE piece of luggage weighing 23kg (51lbs). I will also be allowed ONE item of sporting equipment (skis, snowboard, bag of golf clubs etc). If I take TWO items of luggage to check in, I will be charged excess baggage on the second item even if the total weight of the two pieces comes to less than 23kg. For example, If I go to Edinburgh for a long weekend – which I am doing later this month – and I take two smaller bags each weighing 8kg, I will be charged £30 excess on one bag on the journey to Edinburgh, and £30 on the return journey – a total of £60 to add to the airfare, and on a long haul flight the cost is exhorbitant.

Why, I hear you ask, don’t you just take one big bag? Well, I am not as able as I once was, and it is easier for me to pull two lighter bags on and off tubes and buses, wheel them around in the airport, and remove them from the luggage carrousel than one large heavy bag. I know I am not alone, there must be hundreds of disabled or elderly passengers who are just like me, why is British Airways going to penalise us in this way? What advantage does it give them? My daughter and friends, all fit, young twenty-somethings flew off to Geneva last week to go ski-ing, each had a bag or rucksack and either skis/snowboard. Under the new BA policy they won’t be penalised for having two items. This strikes me as blatant discrimination against the aged and infirm, and I think it stinks.

You have been warned.

RECIPE:
At the weekend my DH defrosted the freezer in our cellar (a job I loathe but it does have to be done every 6 months or so) and I found a frozen Gressingham duck
which I had bought on special offer a month or so ago. So for dinner on Sunday it was roast duck, but roast duck with a difference. Ever so easy to do, it fed four generously and there was enough meat left for some rather exotic sandwiches the next day. BTW,If you have a good Chinese supermarket nearby you can buy a jar of Kung Pao sauce and use that instead of making the basting sauce.

ORIENTAL DUCK

1 medium/large duck
4 fat cloves garlic
Large piece of ginger, peeled
2 star anise
½ large stick cinnamon
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Shaoshing wine (or you can use dry sherry)
Salt and Pepper

Basting sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons chilli sauce
1½ tablespoons rice vinegar
1½ tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons cornflour
5 tablespoons water.

Remove any giblets from inside the duck, and cut away excess fat from inside the body cavity. Put the duck in a large colander or sieve, pour a kettleful of boiling water over it, turning the duck so that the boiling water reaches every bit of skin, and then pat it dry. Prick the skin all over with a skewer and rub with salt and pepper (you could use Chinese Five Spice seasoning if you have some instead of S&P).

Put the garlic, ginger, soy sauce and wine together into a blender and whiz into a coarse paste. Rub the paste over the inside of the duck, place the star anise and the cinnamon stick into the body cavity, secure the opening with a skewer.
Rub the remaining garlic paste all over the duck and leave to marinate for at least one hour.

Make the basting sauce by whisking all the ingredients together in a small saucepan, and heat gently until it thickens, stirring all the time.

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Place the duck on a wire rack in a roasting pan, and pour 1-2 cups of water into the pan.
Bake in the oven for 30minutes, then use a pastry brush to baste the bird bake for another 30 minutes; using two wooden spoons turn the duck over and baste again, continue baking for another 20-30 minutes.
Put the duck on a platter and leave to cool for a few minutes before serving.

This is great with fried rice, or plain steamed rice, and stir-fried pak choi which can be tossed in some oyster sauce or finely sliced garlic.