meish dot org: life, unfolding

Thinking about doing a project to munch through cuisines (ethnic or food-type) from A-Z.

The only rule is that there must be a restaurant in London which is dedicated to that cuisine.

Help me fill in the blanks – with links if possible. I’ll add links to places soon.

A
Barbecue
Chinese
D
Eritrean
French
Ghanaian OR Greek
Halal
Indian OR Italian
Japanese
Kosher OR Korean
L
Mongolian OR Mexican
N
Okonomiyaki
Persian OR Polish
Q
R
Swedish OR Sudanese OR Scottish
Thai
U
Vegetarian
Wholefood
X
Y
Z

When I lived in Seville, as late spring turned into early summer, it got hot.

Really hot.

Hot like a fair-skinned person from northern Europe dreams of for a few weeks a year, but fears beyond that.

Hot like holidays.

Hot like lying around barely moving for several hours in the middle of the day.

Hot like siestas suddenly make sense.

Hot like scurrying in a beetlish manner from shadow to shadow along the street whenever you had to go out.

Hot like the only relief was lying barely clothed on the cool marble floor of the living room after a cold shower, metal blinds shut tight and tickled by a light breeze from a lazily swirling ceiling fan.

Hot.

For most of the day, it was simply too damned hot to eat, but there were two things which became staples during that stifling summer and since.

Tinto de Verano – “summer wine” – is th classic long cool drink, but because it’s made with wine rather than spirits, it’s not so potent, and instead is remarkably refreshing.

You will need:
A tall glass, like a classic coke tumbler
Lots of ice
Red wine – table variety is perfect. In fact, look in your local supermarket for French or Spanish table wine or vin de pays which come in a plastic bottle or carton, like juice. You want something cheap, fruity, not trying too hard.
Schweppes bitter lemon mixer. In Spain they use a kind of lemonade called la casera gaseosa, but bitter lemon is ideal. Fizzy clear lemonade (r whites, etc) is too sweet. At a push you can use fizzy water and lemon juice.

Fill glass with ice.
Add red wine to the 2/3 mark.
Top off with bitter lemon.

Take a long cool sip. You’ve earnt it.

(incidentally, I’ve seen something like this advertised this summer as a branded thing for blossom hill rose. Don’t believe the hype!)

Gazpacho del campo, as made by my friend Javier’s mother in a tiny village in Jaén, is nothing like the chilled, pallid soup you may have met before. In fact, it’s more of a salad.

You will need:

Bread (like from a baguette), torn into rough lumps bigger than croutons but small enough to be speared by a fork and fit in your mouth.
Lots of cucumber & tomato, a little onion, garlic, straight from the fridge and all finely chopped – keep all the juices as you chop.
BIG slug of olive oil.
Decent slug of vinegar (balsamic)
Slug of tomato juice (if your veg isn’t very juicy or if you like it)
Salt and pepper (plenty)

Put the bread in the bottom of a bowl.
Throw on the salad bits and all the juices.
Glug on the oil, vinegar and tomato juice and seasoning and toss well, so everything smooshes together a bit. You’re aiming for a soggy salad.

Nom with a glass of tinto. Deeeeeelish.

The thing is, chilled soup is sometimes a bit meh, because the consistency and the flavour are unexpected and can be quite bland. Having the same ingredients as a wet salad allows all the flavours to emerge and collide in your mouth.

Enjoy!

I don’t know an enormous amount about wine. Like so many others, I know what I like, but not much else, and what I do know, I know about whites rather than reds (though I like and drink both).

So I need your help.

Over the years, I’ve been given various bottles of wine and champagne, usually through work (to say thanks for speaking at an event, or to celebrate a project end or something) or seasonal presents from friends. They’re usually quite nice bottles (I imagine, otherwise it’d be a pretty odd thank you present) but since I don’t drink wine much at home, I tend to bring them home, stick them in the wine-rack and then they sit there gathering dust until I find an excuse to open one.

The trouble is, I’ve also got bottles in the wine-rack which are of dubious provenance (my own fault – impulse buying but not drinking, or remnants from my lapsed wineclub membership from several years ago).

This means that in among the good stuff is some rubbish.

This was brought home to me last night when we opened a spectacularly corked and rough as dogs 1998 rioja and nearly choked on the smell alone, which still clings to the inside of my nose.

Now, you may be reading the paragraph above and thinking “well, obviously – any idiot knows that rioja doesn’t age well” (or similar) and if that’s the case, perhaps you can help.

I’ve taken photos of the bottles of red wine and champagne on my wine-rack, and I need your help to determine whether they’re any cop or not.

Basically, I need to find out:
– if they’re any good
– whether they should be drunk (drank?) soon or whether they’ll be ok to leave for a while
– whether they shouldn’t be drank (drunk?) at all until I have a very very special occasion because they’re actually great

Especially the latter.

Here’s the photo:

I may be incredibly complicated when it comes to everything else (life, random allergies, how I drink my tea, curious neuroses, superpowers, musical preferences etc), but when it comes to sandwiches, I just want things to be simple.

I want my sandwich to consist of:

• some bread (not too stodgy and not too stale)
• a little lubricating spread
• a single filling (not too soggy and not too fatty, and probably fairly boring)

And optionally:

• a portion of accompanying vegetable (or fruit, if you’re one of those weirdos that insists a tomato is a fruit but wouldn’t DREAM of putting it in a fruit salad)
• and/or a dollop of some form of condiment (to add flavour)

and preferably, I’d like the whole thing wrapped up in not too much packaging (recycled or recyclable if poss), costing a reasonable sum (£2ish?) and freshly made.

Containing or conveying matter could be bread, a baguette, a roll or bap (Which do you say? Is there a difference?) a wrap, a fork or chopsticks. Principal filling could be cheese, ham, chicken, tuna, salmon…something else involving simple, strong flavours. The rest is entirely optional: lubricant (Spread? Butter? Olive oil?), additional filling (something else from the first list, or lettuce, cucumber, tomato, etc) and condiment (Mustard? Mayo?) I can take or leave depending on taste, season or availability. Just keep it simple, dammit.

Is that too much to ask?

Well, apparently, yes.

For the last few years, I’ve noticed a creeping obsession among the sandwich-vendors of our nation’s capital and high street to add all sorts of random stuff to their lunchtime staples, turning what might otherwise be a simple, beautiful, tasty thing into something utterly fussy and overcomplicated.

Some sandwiches I spotted today and jotted down in my trusty go-everywhere notepad:

• Oak-roasted Wiltshire ham and mature English Cheddar cheese on multigrain white bread with tenderleaf lettuce and English mustard mayo dressing
• Chicken, mango, fruit chutney, roasted almonds, mayo and rocket leaves on wholemeal bread
• Sustainably-sourced Scottish salmon and fresh watercress with lime dressing on soft wheat tortilla
• Brie, grape and cranberry sauce with mixed salad leaves on white bloomer
• Marinated chicken breast mixed with Caesar dressing, Italian matured cheese, tomatoes and salad leaves on wholegrain bread

Forget about preservatives and flavourings – I just want a sandwich with no added verbs and nouns.
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The other night, out for dinner with friends, we found ourselves discussing the perfect food. Not favourite food – that’s a different question – but perfect food, which works in a number of contexts and is flexible and suits all palletes. Cheese, we thought, maybe. Or pasta. Or even bacon.

But you know what we came up with?

Toast.

Toast and Marmite, originally uploaded by jovike.

Think about it:

• It can be a morning food or an evening snack.
• It can form part of an entire meal (beans on toast) or an accompaniment (soldiers).
• You can have it open-faced or in sandwich form.
• You can fill it with sweet things or savoury stuff
• You can fill it with hot things, cold things or a combination of the two.
• You can make it from a range of products (brown bread, white bread, ciabatta, etc)
• It can be prepared in about three minutes.
• It can be prepared by just about anyone.
• Oh, and it’s yummy, to boot.

I defy you to find another foodstuff as adaptable, quick and satisfying.

Honestly, the person who came up with the idea of baking bread once and then baking it a bit more? Fricking genius.

So here’s my perfect toast:

– Malted wholegrain bread, full size, medium sliced
– Toasted for 2 minutes or until slightly stiff and golden, just rigid on the periphery yet still soft and flexible in the central plains
– Removed from toaster immediately, then let to sit on the plate or counter for 30 seconds or so, to get rid of immediate heat (NB may leave a little toast sweat)
– Spread right up to the edges with spreadable butter, medium amount. The butter should not soak in to the bread immediately – if it does, the toast is too hot and the topping will stick.
– A light layer of Vegemite, smeared across the butter, to ensure the two tastes are mingled but not blended. You’re aiming for a mottled or marbled effect, not a light brown paste, here.
– Consumed immediately (eating crusts first) with a cup of tea.

Your turn.

While you’re thinking, here’s Paul Young singing about Toast in 1978.

This may well be the theme song of this blog.

Living in Spain, I became familiar with the concept of tapas – small snackettes which can be served with beer – and greeted their gradual introduction to the UK with a combination of amusement (because people ordered loads of plates at a time, as a meal, rather than in sequence) and gratitude (because, y’know, yum).

Over the years, I’ve seen the style of ordering and food presentation migrate, so that you can now get Indian tapas, Chinese tapas….even Thai tapas.

All of which got me to thinking: if there was such a thing as British tapas, what would it be? It would have to consist of foods which were naturally small or bite-size and snackable, and not miniaturised versions of things – so no mini quiche and burgers. Extra attention will be given to any dish which is designed as a snack or to be eaten – in traditional tapas fashion – on the go, as well as being slightly stodgy and designed to soak up the effects of alcohol.

Dishes would also need to be authentically British – so, for example this review of a British tapas joint in Chiswick featuring figs stuffed with blue cheese and baked tomatoes with feta is cheating. Although you can, of course get such things here these days, they’re not particularly native, are they?

I’ve come up with:

• Cocktail sausage rolls
• Actually, any sausage rolls
• Yorkshire puddings? Would they be too wet?
• Cheese ploughman’s rolls
• Scotch eggs
• Pasties
• Rock buns
• Pies (the kind you can get at older football stands)

Based on the above, I must conclude that, actually, we already have a chain of British tapas eateries in our nation’s high streets: Greggs.

1. Clipping your nails (biting is just about bearable, but any activity which results in bits which were previously attached to your body suddenly arcing through the air towards me is a no-no)
2. Picking your nose (especially if you subsequently eat/flick/wipe your boogers – see (1), above)
3. Scratching your noggin (most especially when it causes a scurfy blizzard to erupt, which then settles in drifts on my clothing and alights on my nose and eyelashes)
4. Picking your feet (including and especially if they’re on the seat next to you and/or you’re wearing flip-flops. There is never a right time to debride yourself in public.)
5. Scratching your bollocks (sorry, “jiggling your keys.” Yeah, right. I’m not fooled)
6. Chewing gum.

In fact, stop: Hammertime.

Let’s examine that one in more detail: since we must endure you chewing like a cow on the cud, it seems reasonable that I should be crystal-clear about what exactly I neither need or want to experience:

I don’t want to see your slack-jawed, open mouthed chewing, as the gum washing-machines around your mouth. If I wanted to see the inside of people’s mouths, I’d have become a dentist.

I don’t want to hear the sound of your eternal, infernal (etfernal?) mastication – the rhythmic, smacking chlump, chlump, chlump of pre-swallowed wetness. Like apples, but neverending.

I don’t want to see you sneakily trying to secrete your spent and shapeless grey lump of taste-empty chud somewhere around you when you’re done you’ve finished your odious chomping. Don’t stick it under a seat, on a wall or between the seat cushions. Hiding something is not the same as throwing it away – and here’s another newsflash: throwing it away from you is not the same as throwing it away. It’s rubbish. It goes in a bin.

If you must chew, wrap it in something when removed from your gob and throw it the fuck away when you find a fucking bin, you asshat.

And most of all, I don’t want to suddenly find my sole tackily dragging something from its footfall, or my bum strangely adhered to the bus seat, like I did earlier on my way home. If you chew gum and then leave it where other people can sit in it, you’re an inconsiderate, hurf-swizzling minch-smuggler and I will hunt you down and hurt you.

And then make you pay for a new pair of jeans.

I’m trying really hard to start the day with a proper breakfast, rather then just grabbing tea and maybe a muffin on my way in to the office.

It’s not a New Year’s resolution – the timing is coincidental – but I must admit to being inspired by hearty breakfasts at my mum’s place in Scotland over the turn of the year.

The trouble is, nice podge (oh alright, porridge) made for you by someone with years of experience, is pretty hard to reproduce in the comfort of your own home. And believe me, I’ve tried.

The thing is, I can make porridge – I’m not a total numpty. Only, whenever I’ve been called upon to make some, it’s been for a dozen people or more, in the course of work in various student jobs, years ago. So my sense of quantity and scale is all out of kilter (no pun intended), which is a big problem, when it comes to podge.

See, too much milk (or too few oats, or not enough cooking), and you end up with gruel. Too little milk (or too many oats, or too much cooking) and you end up with a thick paste, the consistency of dough.

So when I saw packets of Fuck Me, It’s Oaty in the breakfast aisle of the supermarket, I though I was on to a surefire winner. Individual portions. Simple instructions. Splosh of milk, bung it in the microwave, bosh.

And yet, I still managed to screw it up, somewhere along the line. What was supposed to be a medium bowlful of hearty, healthy porridge “hot oat cereal” with a drizzle of honey, was instead a lump of unappetising sticky grey stodge, which took a lot of chewing, stuck in my throat and has been laying heavy in my stomach all day. I’ve been wary of drinking too much liquid, in case it soaks it up and I end up like one of those sheep, fit to pop.

Back to the breakfast drawing board, I think.

Step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to make a spiced banana cake

Ingredients:
250g (8oz) self-raising flour
125g (4 oz) butter/margarine
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
125g (4 oz) caster sugar
grated rind of one lemon OR hearty squeeze of lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten
3 bananas, mashed to within an inch of their lives with a fork – the squishier the better (helps if they’re softish to begin with)
hearty handful of walnuts
hearty handful of sultanas
6 heaped tbsp honey (set is better)

How to do it:
You will need a cake tin, or a loaf tin. Alternatively, double the quantities of everything and use a roasting pan.
Pre-heat oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4.
Mix sieved flour, nutmeg and cinnamon into a big mixing bowl, and rub in the margarine with your fingers. Yes, your fingers, those things on the ends of your hands. Make sure they’re clean and then rub the dry stuff with the marg until you end up with a sort of breadcrumb mixture.

Use a big wooden spoon (you do have one, don’t you? If no, a normal spoon will do, but be careful not to stir the mixture too much), fold in the sugar, eggs, lemon, sultanas, walnuts, mashed bananas and honey. The mixture will seem too dry at first, and very sticky. Once you add the bananas, it will get all gloopy, not to worry!

Pour the whole gloppy lot into the cooking receptacle of your choice and then bake for, oooh, about 70-80 minutes, depending on how efficient your oven is. My fan oven is like a furnace at any temperature, so it only takes an hour. Your mileage may vary. You’ll know it’s done when
a) the top is golden brown, the colour of, um, white toast and
b) when you jab it with a sharp knife (I’m going to assume you don’t own a skewer, because really, who does?) the blade comes out clean, or just a little bit moist.

Leave it to cool for a bit (the nuts and sultanas are like molten lava when they come out of the oven) and then chop into slivers and eat lightly buttered with a nice cup of tea.

You can justify the fact that you’re eating cake by reminding yourself that it’s actually got bananas in it and therefore it can count towards your daily fruit and veg quota. Honest.