Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma

I think I'm behind the times with this - seems like everyone in blog world read this about a gazillion years ago, still, if you have read I'd love to hear your views, and if you haven't I can heartily recommend this book, so I thought I'd do a short review...

It starts out talking about corn, the peculiarities of the plant and how it germinates. I'm not sure exactly what I expected of the book, but I'm sure it wasn't an in depth discussion of corn... I was however, riveted, completely drawn into the story. By way of corn, Pollan touched on so much else and reading was like rapidly unearthing more and more gems of knowledge about food and how it works in our modern world. Things started fitting together, a big picture started building in my head.

From corn we journeyed to the world of intensively farmed meat, a part I found shocking and sad. Although I had an abstract idea that industrially farmed meat was 'bad' I had no real details on why this was so. This book has left me with a lasting picture in my mind's eye of cattle walking round in a vast concrete grid, carpeted with their own antibiotic and supplement ridden shit, eating a horrifying mixture of other animal waste parts, chemicals and corn. And with a lasting impression of the craziness of separating off parts of agriculture so that 'waste' products can not be used and put back in a cycle, and become pollution.

The section on organic food is also extremely illuminating - looking at the industrial organic and the smallscale 'balanced' and holistic farmer who may not be 'organic' in a strict legal definition sense, but is so much more so in other ways. I started dreaming at this point about living on a farm, finding out about permaculture principles and ways to make my farm a whole eco system where production is based on getting the most out of using nature's own systems. An un-intensive farm with all sorts of good foods and plants growing happily together...

It finishes on foraging and wild food, which was fascinating also, although probably less important to me than the other sections (I am unlikely to go hunting for wild boars, whilst I do face choices about organic from overseas versus non-organic small-scale local, and choices about meat and fish and processed foods every day, so the information about how things are produced was what was really useful).

I don't normally read non-fiction books through to the end - however interesting they are, I give up after a while, but I found myself reading this on the bus, in bed, everywhere, and then - probably quite annoyingly - peppering all my conversations with tidbits of information about cereal design, or cattle feed or wild mushrooms... It was really engagingly written, very vividly painting pictures of the places Pollan visited and rarely getting lost in realms of detail or complicated arguments. I enjoyed also getting a bit of an education in links between politics, business and agriculture. Definitely a lot of food for thought there.

All in all, highly recommended, for anyone at all interested in food, where some of it comes from, and why.

A local meal!

A little while ago (feels like a very long while ago!) I signed up to LivingSenses lovely challenge to prepare and eat one local meal a week throughout June and August.

Well, I managed one week, before "things" got in the way...

It isn't much special, but let me tell you anyway.

At the farmer's market I chose:

- broad beans, because they reminded me of my parent's garden in summer - we were often tasked with shelling them

- strawberries, after tasting one and realising the seller wasn't lying when he claimed they were a variety acclaimed for their sweetness and flavout

- asparagus, just because it looked good

- and gooseberries, on a nostalgia trip also - these grow in my parents garden as well, and I never really see them in the shops.

All were English, and from fairly nearby, though I can't remember now which was which - Kent, Essex and Sussex I think.

I took my haul home and steamed the beans and asparagus to accompany poached eggs (from Somerset) and toast (yummy bread from a South London bakery).

Strawberries became breakfast pudding. At which point I should confess to distinctly non-local coffee and tea accompanying this virtuous-sounding feast, and quite possibly a second breakfast pudding of cake from the Portuguese shop (I love breakfasts that stretch on all morning!)

Later, I finished the beans and asparagus in a green veggy quiche - some old spinach and spring onions from the fridge (also both English I think) joined them, along with the Somerset eggs again, and English milk, and flour I think, though I forget now. This lasted several days for packed lunches.

And then, I topped off a day of local (ish) cooking, by baking this gooseberry cake. It doesn't look pretty, but it tasted a-mazing! I used a recipe meant for plum cake, which produced a very soft and light yet still somehow moist cake. Very very good. I'll dig out the recipe and post it here soon!

Although I've been kind of rubbish at this challenge so far, it's already been good to me, in that I never really bought much from the farmers market before, and have shopped there several times now, which has been really nice. And hopefully, I'll put together a few more local meals before the challenge-time is up, so watch this space for that... And do go and visit Local Senses and join in the Go Local challenge if you're feeling inspired.

Another challenge!

Seems to be the week for it. This one is somewhat more pleasant than the waste one though. It's the Go Local challenge from Heather Jane at Living Senses and it entails making one meal from local food each week throughout June to August. If you join in you can then blog about it and post a link on Living Senses each week so all the local meals can be shared and admired. Lovely!

There's a farmer's market on at the school near where I usually run on weekend mornings, so I'm hoping to stop by there this Saturday and pick things up for my first meal.

The Not-Lara Bars!

Ok, so the photos aren't that pretty, but just to show that I did indeed try making the fruit and nut energy bars I mentioned the other week, and they turned out great. I based it on the Enlightened Cooking recipe but added some coconut and used brazils and cashews for the nuts. Pretty damn good, although very much on the sweet side - next time I make up a batch I'm thinking of including lemon/lime/orange zest to give it a bit more of an edge, and maybe trying combos with a slightly higher nut:fruit ratio, as the dates and cherries are both super-sweet.

Best part of these is I added up the costs of all my ingredients and worked out each little square cost me less than 20p. Compares favourably with chocolate bars (even from my subsidised work canteen) and very favourably with Lara bars.

Unfortunately, having one of these in my lunchbox everyday hasn't completely ridded me of my tendency to make impulse cupcake purchases mid-afternoon - still working on this...

Bank Holiday Weekend Projects

I keep seeing things I want to make, and as there's a three-day weekend right ahead it's perfect timing for a small project or two!

First, it was this funky little bracelet from Scavenging which brought a smile to my face. I like the idea of turning a credit card into jewellery, it just appeals. And it looks pretty smart too. I don't own a drill, but next time one of my cards expires I'll be looking into it.

Then, these cute patterns caught my eye over at Heart of Light. I particularly like the tunic-style one - can see it being the kind of dress you wear all summer.

However, as I've found out with my first slightly-too-ambitious sewing project I probably ought to start with something a little simpler. Which was why I was pleased to come across a step-by-step guide - with photos! (how can I possibly go wrong with this?!) to a simple circle skirt on Burda style.

And finally, I tried Lara bars for the first time recently. Pretty good, I thought - tasty, filling, but not too much so, not too sweet, nice simple list of ingredients. BUT, super expensive for a small snack. So, I started musing on how one would recreate one. The aforementioned simple list of ingredients seemed to predispose the snack to guestimated copying.

Luckily, others had trodden the same thought process before me. Delighted to find out the always-wonderful Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini, and the new-to-me Enlightened Cooking, had already done the experimenting part and come up with some recipes. Chocolate and Zucchini's here and Enlightened Cooking's here. I am definitely definitely going to be stocking up on bulk fruit and nuts and trying these out for next week's lunchboxes. Yum!

Happy (long) weekend to you all!

Photos: bracelet from Scavenging; pattern from Simplicity; skirt from Burda Style; bars from Enlightened Cooking

Spaghetti with Anchovy and Broccoli

I seem to be stumbling across broccoli and spaghetti all over the blogosphere recently... First of all turkeycookies' Jess was cooking them up mid-week, then Claudia's breadcrumb and toasted garlic version whet the appetite over at cook eat fret , and I'm sure I came across another one recently as well but I just can't put my finger on it.

Anyway all of this put me in the mood to make my own version of this again, which I thought I'd now post here to further this blogging rash of broccoli and pasta type dishes.

The first thing to do is to get the breadcrumbs toasting. I've fried them in the past, but tried spreading on an oven tray and popping in a low heat oven this time, which worked just fine, and meant I freed up the one and only saucepan for sauce cooking - and had less washing up to do. Result!

so, the crumbs are in the oven - now you want to soften half an onion in some olive oil until it's soft and translucent, then add some slices of red piquillo pepper, a tin of anchovies, a couple of sliced fresh chillies and some sliced garlic and let it all cook, stirring occasionally until the anchovies have 'melted' into the sauce and it's all nice and soft.

Meanwhile the pasta can be boiled, and if you like you can boil the broccoli spears separately but I just let them share the pan with the pasta for the last 3 minutes of pasta cooking time (saving on pots again!).

Pasta and broccoli join your lovely sauce, and the whole lot gets smooshed around (trying not to chuck it all over the place) until nicely mixed up.

Plate up and top with a handful of the toasted crumbs, a handful of chopped flatleaf parsley, and a splash of good olive oil (and parmesan if you like, but I prefer without).

It is honestly SO good and more-ish. The anchovies don't make it taste fishy they just give it this salty umami-ish delish-ness, and it's all fresh but filling at the same time. Superb.

The May List!

May has to be a strong contender for the best month of the year, doesn't it? A teasing peek of summer to come, flowers in bloom, and best of all - not one, but two bank holidays! woo woo! So this May, I am:


Planning to

- Finally get round to visiting the Madness and Modernity exhibition at the always-fabulous Wellcome Collection, which looks really interesting. (picture 1)
- Check out the Slow Food Market on the Southbank this weekend. It promises "40 stalls furnishing a delicious array of artisan food and drink, including rare cooked meats, fresh mezze, salads and sweets such as cakes, pancakes and baklava... and a programme of free access demos, tastings and workshops." (picture 2)
- Start on something from my lovely new Kim Hargreaves book (picture 8), very possibly with some organo-phosphate free and (fairly) local alpaca yarn from the Farm Yarn shop (picture 9)


Lusting after

- This gorgeous gathered print skirt (picture 3) from Sika, who use vintage fabrics sourced from Ghanaian markets to make their fabulous creations. All pieces are hand-made by local seamstresses in Ghana using traditional techniques such as tie-dye and batik and the income received from their sale goes back into the local community.
- Jess LC's handmade State Street necklace (picture 6) and earrings (picture 7) . Classic but funky, they would go with everything.


Looking forward to

- Visiting my lovely friend Shelley in picturesque Devon (picture 4)
- Starting a six-week beginners tennis course! (picture 5)


Hoping for

- Sunshine! (picture 10) - see items 2, 4 and 5 above!!

Picture credits (all from Flickr Creative Commons): Slow Food - Orin Optiglot ; Tennis Ball - StuSeeger ; Totnes - dachalan ; Sunshine - JunCTionS

chateau kings cross

I mentioned the other day I'd read about this vineyard planting day on a Central London commercial estate...

So I turned up last Sunday, a lovely sunny morning, to a commercial estate just 10 minutes walk away. A few others were milling around the car park of the Alara factory and we contemplated the grassy verge that was to be our 'vineyard' (above) - it didn't look quite like the vineyards I've walked through in France or Switzerland...


Tools were dished out, lines drawn up and we all grabbed a space to dig (left). I LOVED the digging! Something hugely satisfying about throwing your whole strength into something and seeing this physical result accummulate...


(And refreshing too to have no Health and Safety rigmarole - I know it's a good thing, it's just boring. Somehow it's much more fun when people are swinging pickaxes and hefting shovels without having to sign pieces of paper and get kitted up in protective this and that...)

And here is a photo of the hole I dug! You may not think it looks much, but I was immensely proud of that hole. It came up to my knees. And I had to dig balanced on a slope!

Holes dug, we ferried to and fro with compost and water and made nice little homes for our baby vines.

(This is a painting of the day some super painters made whilst we were working... )

Once all the vines were in, we mulched with wet cardboard (old boxes from Alara's warehouse) and weighed down with stones and soil. My hands were FREEZING by this point, but ...

... once we'd finished they fed us all lunch - by this time quite a crowd had come and mucked in in the spring sunshine.

Yum! (there are some nettles on that plate that they picked from the verge before we started digging and blanched over an open fire of old unusable pallets!)

As an added bonus to a really lovely day meeting people and working in the sunshine, Alex, the man behind the Alara company and its attempts to create permaculture gardens around the factory, including this vineyard day, gave us some free muesli before we left, as a token of thanks.

I really hope the vines do well and can't wait to go and see them in a couple of months' time to see how it is looking. Apparently the first harvest will be in about 2 years' time.

making marmelade

I'm never entirely convinced it's worth making homemade conserves. It's quite a lot of effort for a product which is pretty much exactly the same ingredients-wise as a bought version, and I have in the past ended up with rock-hard plum jam that you had to slice, and completely unset fig jam, that I just had to pour all over anything remotely jam-suited in an effort to use it up before it went off.


However, the idea does still appeal. I don't know, there's something just very homely and satisfying about stirring up cauldrons of bubbling fruit, and ending up with cute little gem-coloured jars of produce.


So when I saw Seville Oranges (left) in my local organic shop, I purchased a whole load of them and dug out a marmelade recipe I copied out of the paper a little while back (you can find it here).

First, you boil them up (I was doing half measures of that recipe, so 5-6 oranges in 750ml water). They bob around a bit (top) so you can weigh them down with a plate (left) and after about 20 minutes stab them a bit to encourage them to sink.

After half an hour or so they'll be all soft, so lift them out into a colander (leaving the water in the bowl!) and leave to cool.


Now, you want to scrape the flesh and seeds into a muslin bag (or an old pop sock, which seems perfectly suited to the purpose). I stretched mine over the lip of a jug, which made it all very easy (left).


Then slice the skins to your desired thickness (below left) and empty your sugar (1kg) into the water that's still in the pan (right). It looks like a hell of a lot of sugar, but just think about all the good vitamin C in the oranges!

Then you tie the muslin bag of flesh and seeds to the side of the pan (below right) so it can release all it's flavours and pectin, and heat over a medium heat until all the sugar is dissolved.

And then you can tip all your peel in. Now all you have to do is boil it, stirring occasionally, until it reaches that magical 'setting point'...


In my experience, this always takes longer than they say. I think I boiled this for 30-40 minuites before I decided it was ready. I kept eating all the little blobs of marmelade as I tested them, making myself feel quite sick...

This picture is supposed to show the wrinkles that indicate the setting point, although to be honest you can't really see. Anyway, it wrinkles when you push a teaspoonful that you've dropped onto a cold plate. At that point - hallelujah - you are almost at the end of your journey...

You'll have washed some old jam jars earlier, and set them to dry in a cool oven, so now you can carefully take them out and ladle the hot jam in.

And here is my finished product. I was so excited - 1. it actually set properly! and 2. it tasted delicious! result.

And a final picture just to show you how much I got out of 6 oranges - that's one big jar, three small jars and a little tub of the leftover bits.

something interesting in central london

I try not to read the free london papers too often, because they're so full of brain-rotting drivel, however glad to be perusing one on Friday last, as I came across an article about organic vineyards, to be planted in central London!

The wholefoods company Alara, has their hq near kings cross and is planning to plant some vines on some old railway ground there.

Even better, their inviting people along to help planting, and providing a free lunch to volunteers! see http://alara.co.uk/193,l2.html . I can't find anywhere to sign up so I assume you just turn up. I have put it in my diary and just hope it is as beautifully spring-like a day as today!