Who’s Who?

So the boy David has cast aside his role as Dr Who.

I’m not normally someone who complains about change, but I liked Eccleston so much as the first of the revamped Dr’s Who that it took me till the end of the first Tennant series to accept him in the role. Then I really enjoyed Tate as the companion only to have her forget all her wondrous adventures at the end of the last series. There is not much hope of her coming back from that in the way there could be a convenient resurrection had she only died, rather than have her memories and experiences obliterated. This means I am not looking forward to getting used to yet another Dr, especially as there will be a new producer and new companion as well.

Parts of the blogosphere are in full speculative mode about the next doctor. Lots of names being bandied about, but what is all too clear is that we won’t be getting a woman doctor any time soon. At least not if the producers listen to the multitude of sexist comments in response to anyone suggesting women for the role.

Best suggestion I’ve seen so far is Joanna Lumley. I’d be in favour of her, with a suitable pretty boy as sidekick. In fact any woman of mature years to bring wisdom, grace and elegance instead of frantic running around hoping to avoid nasty aliens.

There is a depressing and predictable parallel to the rejection by loud (mostly non-female) bloggers/commenter's in all of this and I fear we are as likely to get a woman Dr Who as we are to get a woman as president of the US of A voted in on her own ticket. Not until the prevailing levels of sexism dwindle, but I can't see that happening any time soon, not given the permanent backlash against women's liberation.

SFX for the Cardinal

I often admit that my mind is affected by the quantity and quality of the science fiction I read. But it does mean that medical experiments and ‘life sciences’ do not phase me – much!

Prolonged reading about cloning, aliens and future fantasy societies means that I’m likely to be more open to modifying humans than those who freak out at the thought of cloning.

Conversely, maybe even perversely, I am not in favour of GM crops. This is because while we can elect (maybe eventually) to clone ourselves, this is going to be limited and unlike crops, individual humans cannot be released into the atmosphere to pollute existing strains of crops. Or at least not without some even more far-fetched scenarios a la Boys from Brazil. However, I wonder if that is what our own home-grown auld boy in a frock is thinking when he considers life sciences?

I feel it would do everyone a huge favour if the Cardinal was given a lifetime subscription to SFX, the science fiction magazine.

http://www.sfx.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(film)

Screechin’ n’ cookin’, an’ screechin’ wheels

This is what happens when there is an extra hour on a Sunday!

I’m daft enough at times to even try to fool myself about cause and effect. So when my eyes were watering while I was gently and so slowly heating mint, lime and red onion chutney I blamed the fumes of onion, chilli, lime and cider vinegar for my streaming eyes and sore throat.

It couldn’t have been the strain of singing ‘Angie’ along with Mick, but an octave higher, could it? I’ve never been a soprano, and now, with only sporadic singing attempts and 15 years after smoking for fifteen years, there is no way I’m going to hit these notes without tears.

Anyway, the reason for the so very slow cooking was to give the hemp oil protection from over heating so that the precious omegas of assorted numerals would be safe from destruction at higher temps. And the chutney is because of the success of my kiwi, mint and lime marmalade in a recent recipe experiment and another surfeit of mint and limes. Sensible souls would have plumped for the alternative use for limes and mint and made cocktails.

While all this was going on I was also making chocolate sponge pudding with free trade organic cocoa powder and raspberry jam through it. Absolutely scrumlicious. There was more of it than expected, so I’ll freeze it and keep it until I buy really good vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Further screechin’ (of gears) occurred as I went to forage for a new car. I took some little green coloured kind of car plus its intrepid salesperson for a spin round the Edinburgh by-pass while trying it out. Said salesperson was calm about my driving and entirely respectful of me and my requirements for a new car.

This was in stark contrast to the not-all-that-bothered salesperson I saw last week or the completely smarmy and patronising one of the week before. Guess which one got my business?

Upshot is I am, or will be when they get it delivered for me, the possessor of a new car. I am still waiting for the excitement to kick in, but as I find car buying one of the worst tasks in life, I am relieved just to have made a decision.

My existing vehicle is the bane of my life as I cannot drive it to my satisfaction because the seat is too low for me to see well enough to reverse. It also has me screechin’ and shrieking at it regularly as it never seems to work for long without expensive car-doctoring, which just gets me down. I want a mechanical object to work to the specifications it describes in the owners manual. I have to think optimistic thoughts that this latest vehicle will serve me long and faithfully.

Coddled eggs - mostly harmless

Prepare to enter an alternate universe.

This is a recipe I used to make in the early 90’s, but have no recollection of where I found it. In the interests of accuracy, I began an innocent search online where I found an entirely hidden (in plain sight, where all the best secrets are kept) world of people who are into all things egg-coddleable.

If you thought the Jane Austin fan-club were a tad other-worldly, believe me, they are considerably more C21 than those whose lives have room for the matching of egg coddler patterns and swapping of recipes arcane. For me, in an entirely non-non-judgemental mind-set, I was nearly tipped over the edge by the requirements for those selling on their unwanted egg coddlers, to be clean and – oh dear, I’m losing the will to live!
http://www.egg-coddlers.com/

An example of an egg coddler (not to be confused with egg caddies, egg cookers or egg warmers)
Oops! Having basked in the warmth of the belief that I am apart from such concerns, I scrolled further down the egg coddler site to find that I am in possession of an (almost) proscribed kitchen implement.
Apparently to call these objects egg coddlers is “pushing the envelope too much”. However, I feel quite unabashed at being judged by someone willing to use such a trite cliché. My perfectly adequate excuse is that my mother bought a set of these plastic implements and deciding that her life was too short to microwave eggs, foisted them off onto me. I suspect they still languish all but forgotten in a cupboard in my kitchen.

Actual Coddling
Coddling eggs could not be simpler. Grease a ramekin dish, unless you actually possess an actual egg coddler (in which case do you want to swap for a completely unused, almost unique modern, plastic, hygienic egg cooker that is dishwasher proof and microwaveable?); break an egg into the container of choice, surround with single cream, carefully place as much Gruyere cheese as will fit on top and season to taste. Place in a Bain Marie in the oven for less time than you think while making toast from your favourite posh bread.

I should say, that even though the tenor of this leans towards scathing, the egg coddlers site does have a heart-warming story about its raison d’être. And in a free world, why shouldn’t those so inclined divert their attentions from the present day and all our political struggles into something that, to borrow a phrase from an equally unlikely universe, is ‘mostly harmless’.

Nae-pressure cooking

I made the first lentil soup of the season today. It marks the passage of the seasons when I dig out the pressure cooker, look it over to see if wear and tear means a trip to the hardware shop for a new gasket or other little fiddly bits. But it seems to have survived the last few months in its cupboard.

Pressure cookers are a great long term investment. This is only my second in thirty years and I can't begin to calculate how much gas and electricity I've saved by using this form of cooking in preference to boiling soups conventionally.

Its not just soups I make this way, but steamed puddings, suet puddings (using vegetable suet of course) and baked custards. My favourite is Stovies a traditional dish which is made quite differently depending where you live. There is yet another Scottish east /west divide here as some folks make it with only potatoes and onion, maybe with a little gravy; some add corned beef so that it becomes some odd Pictish version of corn beef hash, while those who grew up in the centre of the central belt do it the correct way with potatoes, onion and sausages.

This presents a challenge for a vegetarian. Most veggie sausages don't have the texture for this, so I use a combination of Linda McCartney sausages and vegetarian burgers in a ratio of 2:1. So my veggie stovies in the pressure cooker is a process of frying the sausages and burgers then cutting into pieces, chopping potatoes into cubes and chopping some onion. I only use half an onion but that is easily adjusted to taste. Put everything into the trivet with some water and cook according to the pressure cooker instructions. If doing this on the hob, it takes ages and needs a lot of stirring so nothing sticks, but creates a softer texture to the dish.

As for lentil soup, everyone has their own recipe, but mine is made with vegetarian stock, red lentils and anything I feel like putting in that day. Of the few foodstuffs that would temp me away from the veggie straight and narrow, it would be my Granny's lentil soup even though she made it with some dead beast or other - probably ham bones. I still miss her soup even after three decades.

Teeny tiny surf and shrunken heads

Such is the outcome of a saunter along the beach this morning. In a wholly unusual burst of enthusiasm I went to Portobello for an amble beside the waves.

I wanted to try out some things with my camera. I have a basic digital camera and have never read the instruction book, so everything is a learning experience with it. It doesn’t help that most of the time I can’t see exactly what I’m photographing in the screen at the back of the camera.

My aim was to capture the little wavelets rippling up the beach rather than my usual expanses of sky and sea with a thin strip of land on the horizon. I produced the picture here, using Picasa which gives a collage option I’d not tried before. I like to think it gives a whole lot of otherwise boring pics more emphasis together rather than individually.

I walked up towards the far west end of the beach past the back of the car salesrooms and the cat and dog home. The returning tide scrunched the wet dogs, the weans and the winching couples into an ever decreasing patch of dry sand. I moved off the beach and decided to walk a bit further along the prom until I got hungry enough to turn back and go home to hot kale and coriander seed soup.

This was the first time I’ve ever walked along as far west as this, even though I’ve been going to Portobello all my life. My great grandfather had a large house near the beach and I was taken there for short holidays from birth. There are tatty old photographs of me shivering in the paddling pool and chasing great grandfather’s old Boxer dog in the large walled garden at the back of his house.

The house was still in the family into the late 1980's. When I took my daughter to see my, by then, elderly great aunt, this was the fifth generation of the family to spend days out at Portobello beach followed by dinner in the wonderful old kitchen, still with its black and white floor and probably original fittings.

Various members of the extended family lived in the rambling rooms in that house, and I have a curious memory which I need to check out with my mother, about a second cousin. I recall being taken into his bedroom when I was young, probably around 7 or 8, (when the cousin was a young trendy hippie in his 20’s) and being shown the weird objects he had gathered. I have a distinct vision of a pair of shrunken heads he had on display.

This was a considerable number of years before it became accepted practice to return human remains to their rightful lands, but I have to hope these were not real artefacts. On the other hand, who makes fake shrunken heads and what conceivable market could there be for them? Also, that cousin did work for a museum, so perhaps ….??

Saturday in the kitchen

My plans for the weekend were changed more than once so I ended up chilling out in front of the cooker today. Sig other had considered joining me, but needed a rest after a hard week at work. I’d assumed I’d get to see the new sports car my daughter bought last week, but yesterday’s text from her informing me she’d gone to Amsterdam put paid to that idea.

What else is left on a sunny Saturday in Edinburgh? A trip to the Anarchists Deli. That is not actually its name, but as I can never remember what it is called, then that is what I think of it as. It is a tiny multi-purpose establishment which amongst other social justice activities sells organic food as cheaply as they can.

As the name suggests, it is run by community activists who find ways to help locals as well as supporting free trade coffee producers in Mexico and a whole host of other international worthy causes. But the main focus is on (in their own words), the skint helping the skint. Their window sports posters advising people not to open the door to bailiffs and other useful tips for combating faceless authorities.

I only manage to get there about once or twice a year, but there is always a welcome, a bit of chat and an offer of a cuppa while I choose what few bits and pieces I can cart back home. I especially enjoy reading their ethos about their film shows which is about ignoring permissions and just showing whatever they want to.

After popping in there I went off to buy some other provisions before going home and deciding that I could again get busy cooking.

Pumpkin quark pie

I bought my first pumpkin of the season and after pureeing it I mixed it with quark and various flavourings like nutmeg, ground cinnamon and ginger as well as garlic puree. I beat the quark together with two egg yolks and folded the whipped egg whites into the pumpkin and quark mix before filling the pastry with it.

The pie case I made from a mix of gram, buckwheat and plain flour with a generous helping of grated nutmeg through it. As two of the flours are gluten-free I added a couple of teaspoons of xanthan* gum to give it enough stretch to roll out and cover the bottom of a large flan tin.

It only took half an hour in a very moderate oven then I was eating it with a tomato salad and a kiwi, mint and lime marmalade that I’d made while waiting for the pie to cook.

*Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide used in lots of foodstuffs to add viscosity and generally help things emulsify. It is also used in the oil industry to thicken fluids and in concrete that is poured under water. Almost predictably, it is also in cosmetics as it helps hydrate skin. It seems a bit strange to be cooking with something with such varied uses. It was discovered by in the late 1950’s by Allene Rosalind Jeanes, an America scientist who discovered and identified other equally useful chemicals including a way to make a blood plasma extender.

http://www.chemheritage.org/women_chemistry/food/jeanes.html

http://autonomous.org.uk/foodcoop.html

A bit of baking

Aided and abetted by Elton’s Yellow Brick Road and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, I got into my stride in a serious baking session this evening.

Banana Bread
2 over-ripe mashed bananas
2 eggs
8 oz Mix of very strong plain flour, strong plain flour and rice flour
1 tsp each of baking powder and bicarb
Pinch salt
Juice of half a lemon
Two tbs carotino oil
Two tbs sweetened apple juice
Two tbs brown sugar
Two tsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract

Easy method!
Sieve flours, baking powder and bicarb and salt three times to mix properly
Add sugar to dry ingredients
Mix all wet ingredients then combine
Pour into a loaf tin and bake at a moderate temp till done

This turned out to be the yummiest Banana Bread I’ve ever made.


Apple tart for someone who doesn’t like it

I really dislike apple tart but I like making it. This is intended for the freezer and will be shared between mother and my daughter.

I wanted to experiment with pastry, which I also am not very fond of but like making, although it is always hit or miss how it turns out. I consulted Delia Online, but she was really pernickety about measurements and having cold conditions and not manhandling it too much. I often woman-handle the pastry too much with the resulting chunky jaw aching outcome. This could be the source of my dislike of pastry.

Further consultation with a cookery book inherited from my grandmother gave a little more inspiration.

In the end, my experimental impulses were in the ascendancy.

Apples
Peel and chop five apples (in this case, two Gala, two Granny Smith and one Golden Delicious, as that is what I had available).
Microwave briefly with some added castor sugar to combat the sharpness of the Granny Smiths. Pour off the liquid into the above recipe for Banana Bread.

Pastry
6 oz flour and 2 oz rice flour
Pinch salt
Large tbs icing sugar
4oz marg or butter
Mix flours and other dry ingredients, then rub in marg before adding a little water to mix – less than I put in for preference
Rest in plastic covering in the fridge till you get round to using it
Roll out half the pastry and bake blind (Mine always shrinks, so keep enough to make repairs)
Place in the softened apples, a handful of sultanas and three cloves (these refine the unfortunate taste of cooked apples)
Roll out the remaining pastry and cover the tart
Sprinkle more sugar on top and do an egg or milk wash if desired
Replace in oven and keep an eye on it

If you like apple tart, then go ahead and eat it otherwise give it to some to whom you owe a favour and who will appreciate your efforts.

I have a similar relationship with quiche.

I served myself a slice of this with vegan fake cream made from oat milk, which is a bit healthier than actual cream.

And since I abided by my three things in the oven rule, I roasted some veg in sesame oil which I devoured before tucking into the sweet treats.

The Store

Sometimes, I’m propelled backwards in time as if aboard some demented time machine - at least in my memories. This happened on reading that in Livingston, West Lothian an extension to a mall is going to make it the largest in Scotland.

Leaving aside all the negative scenarios surrounding the impending recession, and all the discussions about low value retail sector jobs, as well as the notions that consumerism is the way out of a recession; that’s the spend, spend, spend version of economics (which as mother of an Olympic-class shopper, I have close knowledge of) I feel moved to comment.

Returning to my mention of malls, large and larger, I am reminded of my first encounter with a proper, civilised (?) grown up shopping mall. This occurred in London, Ontario about 30 odd years ago.

I grew up in a wee town dominated by the ‘Store’ otherwise known as the Co-op which provided for everything provincial Scots were expected to need or want. Most food we take for granted nowadays was unknown there. To buy celery was to step into the unknown, mushrooms were merely a slight aberration. So imagine how it felt to shop in a mall, even those of 30 plus years ago.

On that occasion, I vividly recall buying a dress. A handkerchief dress in white and blue. I also got an ‘Afro’ hairdo in this mall. But best of all, it had air-conditioning modifying the outside temperature of over 30 degrees so that it was cool and calming inside.

The contrast with my home town was marked. It was with great reluctance and not a little encouragement from my long-suffering hosts, that I returned home. But the impression never left me of comfort and ease of shopping, to say nothing of choice. Some of Scotland has caught up over the years, but we have lost that all encompassing birth-to-death service provided by the ‘Store’ (Co-op) that I grew up with. I’m not sure the trade-off has been completely positive, but the freedom to choose from more than common root vegetables and packets of chicken noodle soup can’t be underestimated.

This new development in Livingston will apparently house 1000 plants, so maybe there will be oxygen to spare when breathlessly contemplating a new dress.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7660837.stm

Art & cake

Patriot Halls Gallery in Stockbridge held an open weekend where resident artists display their arts and crafts where they actually produce them. This space containing several floors of artist’s studios, was previously the Co-op bakery. The building is probably unique in the city and has been saved as a resource for artists rather than becoming yet another mundane residential development.

My friend K, who is gifted, talented and just all round producer of wonderful objects invited me there to see her latest work. She sweetened this invite with offers of tea and cake – not that she needed to, I’m always happy to see her work.

There are so many delightful artists in this gallery and some of the crafts, especially the jewellery were tempting, but I resisted! K, creates handmade books and voluptuous pots which are smoke fired and completely tactile. She also had on display, her latest paintings of boats on a Scottish island which I have to admit to never having heard of. My descriptions of her art are inadequate, but until she gets her act together to create a website that’s all I can give.

When all around there is talk of credit crunches and the mishandling of global finances, sadly it is the artists who feel the effects possibly soonest of all. Where money is tight it is logical to cut down on the things that otherwise are desirable, and new art becomes an unjustifiable luxury. But all that I have learned in attending Artists Way and other creative groups maintains humans need more than the minimum; we also need beauty and colour and the inspiration that wonderful, handmade objects bring when we surround ourselves with them.

At least I had the pleasure of seeing many such inspiring arts and crafts today, but I can’t help reflect how difficult it is for those who seek to live by their art.

http://www.patriothallgallery.co.uk/index.htm

Money Talk

I ventured forth to listen to a talk on poverty. The gendered nature of poverty to be more precise.

It turns out that women’s experience of poverty is very different from that of the male. Well, there’s no surprise there as practically everything is experienced through the lens of one’s own gender and therefore, through gendered differences. While I would be amongst the first to agree with Germaine Greer on the whole sex /destiny business, it remains worthwhile to explore how and why gender makes a difference, especially when faced with the extra burdens poor women deal with.

Ruth Lister gave a short, but concise talk on the relationship between poverty and gender this afternoon. Professor Lister discussed the findings of a few recent studies on poverty and gender. These inevitably found that women and their male partners view personal spending quite differently. For example, fathers interpret spending on the kids as mum’s personal spending, while his beer money is his personal spending. This means that when she buys the kids some clothes he sees it as her money, not his or their joint money. Okay, I probably need to qualify that, as some fathers.

It is well known that women can be thrown into poverty when a male partner leaves her with his debts and she has to cope with reduced income and fewer options for employment. Professor Lister said this had been described as STDs, or ‘sexually transmitted debts’. Anyone who has seen a friend in this situation, or indeed been put into this situation herself will instantly recognise that description.

Another useful phrase I learned is that of the 'sticky floor'. While we usually hear about the glass ceiling, many more women face the situation of not being able to get off the sticky floor of low paid, low status work in the 4 C’s. (Catering, Caring, Cleaning and Cash Register).

Women’s poverty is often hidden as stats on income tend to assume that the income in a household is fairly shared. Well, it’s not and it does not take much common sense to work that one out! Unless that is, you come from a political standpoint of belief in traditional family values and other such naive and wilful thinking.

Poverty in old age is the likely outcome for so many women who have spent their lives in activities not valued by our present capitalist system. Pensions policy has to be continually monitored in case it further damages women, and groups like the women’s budget groups in Scotland and in England keep close track of these issues and lobby Scottish and Westminster Governments on their policies.

On the whole, I feel equally positive and enraged after this talk. We are making progress, but as usual it is a long and sometimes bitter struggle to get financial equality.

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/staff/staff_biog/lister.html

http://www.wbg.org.uk/

Store cupboard creations

Thanks to my habit of over-buying ingredients, I sometimes find myself having to throw out food which has passed its sell-by date. This offends my sense of thriftiness, so now and again I get creative with whatever needs to be used up, usually just in time.

Here are some of my latest ideas.

Kasha paprika lentils

I love the rich taste of smoked paprika and how warming it feels, especially now the weather is so cold in the evenings.

Toasted buckwheat grits – boiled separately
Brown continental lentils – boiled separately
5 sticks of Celery
1 clove of Garlic
One red chilli
Vegetable oil
Two teaspoons fennel seeds
Hearty pinch cumin seeds
Stock cube
Teaspoon smoked paprika

Soften the celery, garlic and chilli in the oil; add the fennel and cumin seeds and finally the paprika.

When the lentils and buckwheat grits are cooked mix them together in a ratio of 60:40, buckwheat: lentils

Stir in everything else and bake in the oven for a while to make sure it has all mingled in flavour.


Brown lentil rissoles

I never know the difference between a rissole and a croquette, and have plumped for calling these rissoles.

I’d cooked far too many lentils for the above dish, so with the leftover lentils, I added enough fresh brown breadcrumbs to stiffen the mixture then stirred in a tablespoonful of tahinni. The flavouring came from a crumbled stock cube and a small clove of garlic.

I shaped the lentil mix into little sausage shapes and rolled these in sunflower seeds before roasting them in the oven in a mix of sesame and sunflower oils until they browned.


Datey malty loaf

Following my rule about only putting the oven on if cooking more than one item, I decided to try a variation of malt loaf.

As ever, the quantities are guestimates!

8oz plain flour
1 Tsp bicarb
1 Tsp baking powder
6oz chopped dates
2oz sultanas
Two generous tbs malt
One dessertspoon black treacle
1oz brown sugar
Milk for mixing

Warm the milk, malt and treacle to melt it all together. Mix the dry ingredients, then combine both mixtures. Bake in a moderate oven. This cake does best if left until the next day, however, my daughter was hovering and had a couple of slices before making of with most of it to take home with her. She agreed with me that this cake is gooey enough that wearers of dentures might find them stuck in it!