Sunday 30th June - Essays. Blogs. Jottings. Musings. Writing

I've always enjoyed reading collections of random writings;


"A Bee in the Kitchen" by H F Ellis (find out about him here) was one of my first introductions to the joys of the short well-constructed, piece of prose.

Bernard Levin' collected articles "Speaking Out" and so on - always brought a deeper level of understanding of the implications under the surface of the incident (Oh, how I miss that television programme, "Face the Music" with Joseph Cooper, Robin Ray, Joyce Grenfell Richard Baker and Bernard Levin. I miss it, miss it, miss it. Memo to self; can one buy recordings?)

Alison Utterly (an almost exact contemporary of my grandmother, I discovered from this) "Recipes from a Country Kitchen" and "A Country Child"

Garrison Keillor "Lake Woebegon Days"

Clive James "Cultural Amnesia", which I am reading now, and is in a different class to other collections of bits and pieces as it is so intense, so FULL of meanings, that a couple of pages blows my brain.

It's not quite the same as reading a diary (Kilvert, Edwardian Lady, Adrian Mole) although these too, at their best, are short, snapshot, vivid writings.

I find I can only read these collections in short bursts.

It is like reading poetry; you should really only read one or two poems at a time in order to find the inner lines, the cunning construction, the real purpose of the words.

It is like eating something strongly flavoured, or intensely sweet, or darkly chocolated, or delicately spiced.

It is like listening to "real" music, composed with intelligence and passion, played with articulation and communication and care.

It is like properly looking at a picture, following the lines, absorbing the colours and shapes, delving into the meaning.

Skim-reading, background music, food-for-refuelling all have their place in this world, I suppose, but their are wasteful ways to consume true art.

PS by "real" music, I don't mean exclusively "classical"!

What has this to do with blogs?

I was just wondering, at the start of all this rattling through the keys, if the best blogs were not a natural successor to the essays, diaries, collected articles, that were published in books and papers and periodicals, before this blogging revolution got underway.

You have to kiss an awful lot of frogs to find your prince, they say (I think I found mine after just one or two, so I struck lucky. Prince, that is). What would be the same kind of phrase with regard to blogs, I wonder.

PPSS And what is the equivalent phrase for princesses? I'll ask twitter.

Sunday 30th June - Never Judge a Book by its Cover

But how else do you judge a book?





Admittedly it is hard to judge a Kindle Book by its cover, especially if yours is an early steam-driven model like mine.




Anyway, back on track, I'm adding this book to my wish-list page:

It's by Leaping Hare Press; I'm just writing that down, sorry, typing that in, so that  don't forget and the writer is Adam Ford because I've just noticed that I've clipped the edge of the front cover in the photograph.

This is the second time I've spotted this this book, and it leaped out at me (visually, I mean, not literally, obviously) from the stack because of the cover. I have a passion for wood-cut, black-and-white line style illustrations. Like the edition of The Hobbit that I read as a child.

The content matches the cover - plain, insightful, leaving room for thought and reflection. It's a bit of a biography, and then a whole series of short essays (like a blog???) on ways of finding - well, it does what it says on the cover, Seeking Silence in a Noisy World.

I didn't buy it.
Yet.
I would rather receive it as a present. (Why? I think because it is something of worth, with value.)

 I bought instead a totally unnecessary addition to the pile of "how-to-knit-crochet-sew-yet-another-useless-and-unlikely-craft-item" books. This one promises that they will only take 30 mins each to make. Then I can give the knitted/sewn/glued/stuck/crocheted thingy away, lovingly, to clutter up someone's life and home, as mine has become cluttered.

If I ever get round to making it.

Saturday 29th June - The day when time slid by, unmeasured

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock

Today is the first day, since Sunday 3rd June, where I have been able to let the time pass without watching a clock.










   I've been alternating between sitting on the settee, watching daytime television or fiddling around with twitter, other people's blogs and facebook, and upstairs, dozing or reading.


Yesterday I had my third dose of cyclophosphamide and the other associated drugs that go with it.


It's not a "hard" day - catch an early train to London to be at the Royal Brompton Hospital for before 9am. Blood tests, and wait for two or three hours for the results to come through and be checked by a doctor, then on a series of drips which take an hour in total, then wait for another hour to make sure that you are alright. Then you are free to go. So it is just a day of sitting around, really. It's uncomfortable, having the thingy stuck in your arm all morning, but it doesn't exactly "hurt". A weird dislocated lethargy starts happening around 3pm onwards, so I arrange for a friend meet to me at the hospital when everything is done, and we travel back together.


But the next day I  find that I am completely wiped out; I feel as though I am emerging from a nasty dose of flu or something.  I had agreed to go round and sit with my mother; after all - how fit do you need to be to just sit in a chair? But I felt queasy and out of sorts this morning so rang and said better not.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longcase_clock

So, for the first time in four weeks, I spent a day where I had no need to keep an eye on the time. 




That has been a real, real, blessing.



No place to go.



Nothing that needs to be done.




Tomorrow, I'll have to keep an eye on the time. Church at 9 am, if I get going in time, round to my parents at 3 pm, make sure I get www.themusicjungle.co.uk up, sort out the planning for a samba concert first thing on Monday morning, arrange various appointments...

But today - it's still today.   










Friday June 28th - or it will be when tomorrow arrives

This will be a busy day - I will be in London having another load of modern miraculous medications loaded into my system to see off the bad guys in my body.

I have a great wodge of paperwork to take with me full of questions to ask, and fitness certificates to complete, and letter-headed authorisations to request; flying to foreign parts when one is having oxygen - even only at night - is proving quite a complex affair to arrange.

Meanwhile -

Here's the GOOD NEWS - my mother is slowly regaining control over her left leg - the knee and foot are beginning to bend and straighten under her control. She has had one trial run around the flat in an electric wheelchair - if the second visit proves successful, the powers-that-be will provide an electric wheelchair for her to gain some freedom of movement. It all depends on whether she can control the machine, and to manoeuvre it about safely. At the moment the problem seems to be that she doesn't always manage to judge the left hand side of doorways and other obstacles, as her brain is still not reliably aware of the left side of her body, including visually

My father and mother, and a friend, have successfully made a bus journey into town, coping with getting on and off, and positioning the wheelchair in the bus. They went shopping, visited a café, and returned home all without mishap.

My mother is also sleeping much better at night time, although still prey to the most weird and painful sensations in her arms and legs. We are hoping that this might mean that the connections from her brain to her body are slowly reinstating themselves.

Talking about sleep, time I was. Asleep, that is. I only came down to plug in my mp3 player and Kindle ready for the train journey and the hanging around that the London trip entails.

Goodnight (or Good morning, or Good afternoon, or evening, depending on when you are reading this!)

Last Sunday 17th June - The Lively Lady

It's not been all busy, busy, busy, in the sense of all work, work, work - although playtime does consume the hours just as much as worktime.

 Anyway, this was Father's Day weekend, and the Son and his Father went off on Saturday for a day out in London. I wasn't there, so you will have to go to boggyb's blog to see if he has posted any pictures. I do know that it RAINED copiously and wetly for much of the day, but they had a good time together in spite of it.

We all went together to return the Son to his lair, via a Happy Families Meal All Together at Port Solent.

And who should we see but The Lively Lady!

Hands up if you remember Sir Alec Rose (a greengrocer from Portsmouth) sailing around the world back in 1966-7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Rose

They are fund raising for a restoration and return to use project called aroundandaround; you can read about it, and The Lively Lady, here. http://www.livelylady.net/

Monday 24th June - I'm back! (Not that I've been away!)

So, my calendar has been looking like this, every week, for the past few weeks:

and those are just the items that got themselves written down.

I've managed to get the really important stuff done - stuff like turning up to work, remembering dentist appointments, writing school reports, getting enough items of underwear through the laundry, taking a repeat prescription to the surgery.

Less vital stuff - house work, food shopping, clearing up - has just gone by the wayside.

The cupboards and fridge were BARE when it came to Sunday lunch. Husband and I were OK - he found some bits and pieces and a scrap of cheese. I had a bowl of porridge. Daughter was properly out of luck and had to slip out to the corner shop and buy a sandwich (I suppose she could have had another bowl of cereal?)

I been managing to get the music jungle up at some stage over the weekends (www.themusicjungle.co.uk) , and write the important snail-mail letters in the week, but the letter from home just hasn't happened.

The other blogs have just been left lying fallow. And I have been well behind with keeping up with other people's blogs - at one point there were over 200 unread items in my reader. Ooof.

And as for tidying up...  well all I can say is there's work to be done here!


The Dining Room table



The Sitting Room

Saturday 8th June - Recipes for Son and Father - Pork and Lamb

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/slow-roasted-spiced-pork-loin-with-black-eyed-beans-and-tomatoes

Waitrose do a really nice "pulled  pork" joint in their pre-packed meat section. It feeds three at a pinch, and is ready after about an hour in the oven. However, because it has been cooked already, and you are only reheating and finishing it off, you shouldn't heat any left-overs again. Though it is pretty good in a sandwich...

It is also quite expensive, so I wondered about doing it myself. I had a packet of belly pork slices that needed cooking, so I looked through my Jamie Oliver cook books (ok. I admit I have several.)

Now his recipe starts with "take a 7lb piece of French-trimmed loin of pork". haha Who are you kidding!

This is what I did; you will notice that in the picture I am using LAMB! That's because it was So Good that I repeated the same idea with some New Zealand lamb steaks that happened to be on offer the next time I went shopping. That was good too.

I used a metal frying pan with a good lid that can go in the oven. He uses a roasting tin that can go on the heat, and then covers it with foil before it goes in the oven. You could use an oven proof casserole, or start in a frying pan and transfer it to a roasting tin later. Up to you.

Set the oven to 180

PORK VERSION

This is what I did. As usual, I didn't have half the ingredients that Jamie included (it was late in the week - we'd run out of lemons).

Heat a frying pan. Rub the pork slices with paprika and olive oil, and fry them for a few minutes on each side. all over. Remove to a plate. If the pan looks very fatty, drain some off.

Now fry an onion, some celery, some garlic, some chopped carrots (these veggies seem to get into everything). Lob in a can of chopped tomatoes and half a can of water - couldn't find any wine. Drain  a can of butter beans and stir them in as well (whatever happened to that can of black-eyed beans? I'm sure we had some somewhere?) Some salt, some pepper, we have rosemary and bay in the garden so that's ok. Put the pork slices back on top of everything, cover, and put in the oven for around one and a half to two hours.

LAMB VERSION - with pictures!

and a red pepper

the sliced onion and celery going in the pan



I had some olives that needed eating, so chopped them
up and added them along with garlic. The usual
can of chopped tomatoes and half a can of water (wine would be better!)
came next, and a drained can of chick-peas also got stirred in.

Seasoning - stock powder herbs, salt, pepper, all about to
be stirred up together.

The lamb steaks just fit on top, with a bay leaf
and some rosemary tucked in

I brought everything up to a simmer and put it in the oven (180 degrees) for about 2-3 hours, checking from time to time to make sure that the liquid hadn't disappeared (it hadn't)

My word, that was good. We rationed ourselves to one leg steak each, with plenty of sauce. The rest is in the freezer for another day.

Saturday 8th June - Recipes for Father and Son - The Chicken

Hi there! These are for you-hoo!

This is the Jamie Oliver recipe. He roasts his chicken on a pile
of chopped vegetables, which he then uses to make the gravy.
You can perfectly well roast a chicken by just bunging it in the
oven but I strongly recommend using this method
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/perfect-roast-chicken 

While the son was here the other weekend we ventured into the realms of Roasting A Chicken - a skill that my father has already mastered.
We used one of those chickens that comes in a bag and tray so just needs unwrapping and putting in the oven. It was a free-range high welfare one. I would rather go without than  a factory farmed chicken.

Son was also shown how to Divide the Chicken (carving is too specialist a term for what happens to a cooked chicken in this household) and how to Pick the Chicken (note to father - it's the same as the Christmas turkey, but takes less time, and it is more noticeable if you do too much nibbling as you go along...)

So, what happens to the left-over chicken?

Cold, with salad and new potatoes is very good.
Chopped into small pieces, in a sandwich (you can spread a thin layer of mayo on the buttered bread before arranging the chicken bits on top; add some lettuce if you are really striving for a gourmet experience).

We did try adding it to a honey and mustard flavour "Chicken Tonight" sauce but we won't make that mistake again. I might use the sauce as a post-modern custard for apple pies another day - no, don't be silly, I'm only being rude about the sauce.

And here is a Mediterranean effect sauce you can make.  This makes enough sauce for about three or four servings, so use what you need, and put the rest in a LABELLED container in the freezer until the next chicken.

It's basically the same idea as cooking mince for pasta, but without the mince;

Heat a dollop of oil in a largish saucepan. Keep an eye on it, while you chop an onion (small onion for small amount of sauce, medium for medium amount of sauce, large oh you get the picture now) and dump the onion into the hot oil.

Cook it gently, while you prepare the rest of the veggie bits. Choose any or all of some of:

celery sticks - chopped
garlic  - 1 or 2 cloves squidged through a press (Jamie Oliver doesn't bother to peel the papery skin off first, and now neither do I)
red, green, yellow peppers
mushrooms, sliced
carrots, chopped into little bits
courgette, chopped into little bits

Bung, sorry, add, your veggie bits into the pan as you go along, and stir it all about. When the onion is looking transparent and things are getting hot and bothered in the pan, add a can of chopped tomatoes and half a can of water.

Seasoning; all or any of:

some stock (half a stock cube, or equivalent), dried herbs totalling about a small-medium teaspoonful, pinch of salt, grind in some pepper, a shake of tabasco if you are feeling fierce, a squirt of tomato puree, whatever. Stir it in! 

Put the lid on and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, until the veggie bits are cooked. Now is the time to cook whatever else you are having (pasta, potatoes etc)

NOW. THE RULE FOR CHICKEN IS YOU CAN ONLY REHEAT IT ONCE. And you don't want to leave it festering in the fridge for more than 2 days before you eat or freeze it. Maybe 3 days. Depends how long you left it hanging around in the kitchen after cooking it.

So, decide how much of the chicken you are going to eat now, and put it into another pan. Add as much sauce as you think it needs to make it into the sort of thing you want to eat, and put the rest of the chicken back in the fridge.

Heat the chicken-[and-sauce you are going to eat until it is hot all the way through. Test by burning your tongue on a bit of chicken to be sure. That only takes a few minutes. If you have added lots of veg, all you need are potatoes or rice or pasta or Chinese noodles or garlic bread to make a complete meal.

Once the rest of the sauce is properly cool, you can decide what to do. Freeze it in portions, with or without the rest of the chicken added to it. LABEL and DATE and FREEZE it promptly. Use within a month or so.

Thursday 6th June - The first Frittata of the year

Glorious sunny day in June 2013 

We had frittata for supper in honour of the sunny, sunny day, using the recipe that I posted here:

(frittata is like a quiche without the pastry, so no risk of undercooked soggy pastry then,  and surely it must be healthier too?)

It was delicious, as usual; this time it involved a courgette, a small onion, a couple of slices of cured pork loin, and goodly amount of grated mature cheddar.

I was out of cream, but it seems to work OK if you use all milk instead of half milk and cream - just a little less rich and luscious. I don't know what happened to the bacon that I intended to use. It was probably just a figment of my imagination, or maybe a residual memory from another previous life.

Just a word in your shell-like; it's much better to line the dish with non-stick baking paper. I used foil this time, and it did stick horribly. I managed to peel the foil off the frittata reasonably successfully, but wasted quite a lot in the process.

Oh, and I saw that I had forgotten to include the oven temperature in the original post. That's not a problem - you can follow the link to the recipe that I started with. Set the oven to 200 before you start. I'll remedy that omission now!