Ginger Tablet

Warm Green Dinner and Gooseberry Crumble

Without wanting to jinx anything, it looks like Glasgow might be the recipient of a summer this year. (knock, knock, knock on wood) Sure it won't be a endless string of crystal clear skies and steamy afternoons, but so far we've definitely seen the sun, our muscles relaxing into the rising heat.

Still these tentative summer days don't demand the same kind of food that's compulsory in a hotter climate; grilled meats and fresh salads, cold noodles and spicy chilies, endless fruit, infinite ice cubes. It's just not that warm. And even when it is, the day could turn back to cool and grey in a second. Just like it did yesterday. The morning and afternoon were brilliantly warm and sunny, enough to require extra water on our bike ride and to punish me for not wearing sunscreen with an attractive red burn across my back. But although we arrived home sweaty and hot, within an hour the sky had clouded over, the wind picked up and cardigans were once again being drawn across our shoulders.  

This specific kind of summer demands its own kind of meal. One that makes use of all of the produce bursting forth, while still being comforting on a blustery evening. And the foods that seem to fit are the green ones. Beautiful green vegetables, gently cooked. And veiny green gooseberries, tart and hairy; how could you not want to bring them home?  

The menu last night was whole steamed artichokes (bottom and tops chopped off, placed in a steamer for about 45 minutes over lemon water), served with a dipping sauce of melted butter, mustard and white wine vinegar. Next was an almost panzanella: leeks, fresh peas, yellow courgette, cherry tomatoes sauteed in butter and loads of chopped parsley, raw fennel added in right at the end. This was ladled into bowls and topped with chunky croutons, dripping in melted gruyere.

Then a gooseberry and elderflower crumble. This combination of hedgerow treats is a new one for me, but its so perfect for the season that I'm making it a mandatory summer flavour from now on. Sour, sweet and redolent of blossoms, this taste takes you outside into fields and meadows. This crumble is as easy as any other. Gooseberries are topped and tailed (a bit tedious, admittedly), placed in a dish, sprinkled with sugar and a swig of elderflower cordial. Then the topping. The crumbles of the UK tend to be pale and dusty, using a good deal of flour. I just don't think this is right. While I improvise my topping every time, I think it should be dark and chunky, using less flour, more sugar and a bunch of oats. Chopped nuts and cinnamon are encouraged. My method is to melt roughly 50g of butter and then mix in brown sugar until most of the butter is absorbed, next adding flour until the mixture isn't shiny anymore and enough oats that everything gets lumpy and well, crumbly. Spices and anything else can be added at this stage. I know it sounds vague, but it's a hard dessert to mess up. That's why they're always making it on Masterchef. Once the topping is on the fruit, it just goes in the oven at 350/180 for about 40 minutes.  

And all of this was just right. Green and vibrant enough to make us feel July, warm and filling enough to keep out the wind.

Canada Day: Humidity and Maplemoon Ale

Happy Belated Canada Day!

Admittedly I didn't do a lot to mark it, but Canada was with me yesterday. All hot, muggy day. As I remembered what it was like to sweat and pray for a thunderstorm to clear the air, just like during the long Canadian summers of my misspent youth, I missed cottages and lakes and popsicles and fans and air conditioning. 

I did drink this beer though. Maplemoon is a dark ale brewed in Manchester by Joseph Holt with a "glimmer of" real Canadian maple syrup.  The verdict was: pretty much a winter drink. The sweetness from the syrup tasted more like treacle or molasses and made me want to eat spice cake and pork belly. That's perfect for Glasgow's climate almost every other day of the year, but it just wasn't right yesterday. I needed a 50, or a properly mixed cocktail. You know, things you can get in Canada. 

Garish Doily and a Virol Vase

Now that I'm back on my feet, I'm back in the charity shops looking for more plates. 

Yesterday I picked up this bright little doily for 50p. It's kind of hideous and crochet isn't really my thing, but it reminded my of my great aunt Lydia and I couldn't resist.  Lydia was, from all accounts, a lightning bolt of a woman who in addition to running businesses and speaking 1.7 million languages was a demon with any kind of fabric, thread and yarn. I only met her once and she was very old and suffering with dementia, but I still remember the encounter. And I really remember her living room. Every single surface was covered with a ridiculously insane crocheted doily all in bright acidic colours and undulating, frilly three-dimensional patterns. Loads of spider plants as well to complete the look. When I saw this doily sitting in a pile of its bright brethren, I thought that maybe our flat needed just a tiny touch of Lydia. Although it's nothing compared to her creations.   

The vase is an old Virol jar, a vitamin/yeast-extract supplement. A great shape and a perfect size for a few sprigs combined with a slightly creepy label. It's also the first thing I bought with J at a charity shop, long ago before we shacked up. Now, after living together for almost a year, we own many many many things together. Many many many. Thankfully we're about to extend the lease by another 12 months so I can pretend that we'll never need to move all of our junk for a few more months.

Arbroath Smokies

A couple of weeks ago my friend came to visit from Arbroath, a town famous for its twinned, brown smoked haddock. These fish are tied in pairs and then hot smoked over oak or beech chips in small batches. They've been granted Protected Geographical Indication or PGI, so you can't smoke some haddock in your garden in Pollockshields and try to pass them off as the real thing. Or, I guess you could try, but it wouldn't be right. 

I had never tried them before, and they were just incredible. I normally eat more commercially produced smoked fish so the flavour of the wood coming through the flesh was a miracle. You can't replicate that on a large scale. After splitting them open and removing all of the aggressive little bones, I fried them in a bit of butter. Served with boiled new potatoes and peas, this was one of the easiest and most delicious meals we had and nothing has been better than "easy and delicious" this past month. 

Hospital Food in Glasgow

So I was in the hospital for four days. Some of that time I was too drugged to eat, but I still had a few opportunities to sample the cuisine on offer. As I didn't bring a camera with me, I've made some illustrations to show you what I had:

Basically the food comprised of a heap of parboiled rice with a generous ladle of mystery meat poured over top. Lunch was a lamb curry, dinner a chili. Obviously. 

Some thoughts:

- Worse than airplane food. Way, way worse.

- Although the tray had many compartments promising side dishes and dessert, they were always empty. I filled the gaps myself with my cup of tea and my painkillers. Pretty pink ones! I probably would not have eaten the side dishes or puddings, but boy did I want the option.

- No fruit or vegetables. Ok, one day I got some green beans and I think there was an apple somewhere, but it would have taken me a full week to get my five-a-day. This can't be good.

- At some point it occurred to me that there must be a dietitian on staff at the hospital. That someone must oversee this on some level and approve it. At least approve the catering company (who also took care of the restaurant and the shop - equally grim places). How does that person sleep? Are the decisions based solely on finances? I read a policy document recently that addressed the food situation in Glasgow hospitals and the need to completely overhaul everything, so I know that people know this isn't ok, but how did it get this bad?  

- Breakfast was a white roll with butter and jam and a bowl of cornflakes. I felt fine about this. If you tell yourself it's "continental" it tastes more sophisticated.

Now, to be fair, we had choices in what we ate. There were always three or four different kinds of strange meat and one vegetarian option. I went with the meat because I didn't believe that their "egg and cheese souffle" would lift my spirits or make my taste buds dance a hot, hot dance of euphoria. And maybe had I required a diet low in sodium and saturated fat, something would have been arranged. I'm pretty sure they accommodated religious dietary requirements.

But really, while the unhealthy food bothered me in principle, in practice I was totally sorted. Not only was my appetite not that great (it's like the only time in my life where I took a bite of a chocolate and felt satisfied. Like "oooh, half a truffle, I'm soooo stuffed, I couldn't even have another lick"), but I also had J bringing me some pre-planned snacks and my lovely friends bringing me loads of treats. So I could genuinely approach the food with eager car-crash curiosity as I wasn't dependent on it for sustenance.

AND THE NURSES WERE ANGELS. AND EVERYTHING WAS REALLY CLEAN AND BRIGHT AND AIRY AND NOT OVERCROWDED AND I DIDN'T GET A SUPERBUG AND IT WASN'T REALLY THAT BAD AT ALL. Honestly, those nurses. So incredible and kind and patient. Like rescued me when I fainted in the shower and I had to pull the emergence cord because I couldn't move (I was sitting on one of those shower benches, just like a grandma, so didn't fall and drown. Phew). And the nurse totally came and revived me and didn't make me feel like a dick, and you think, of course she wouldn't make you feel like a dick in that situation, but think about how ridiculous I must have looked and how she must have to do this kind of thing all the time and how great it is that she didn't laugh and just mustered up caring. Yay NHS!

Anyway, this "food" is all behind me now. I've been back home for about a week and a half now and it's pretty much a land of milk and honey and ambrosia and nectar. I'm well on the road to recovery. I can totally eat a whole piece of chocolate now. It's important to get your strength back up. 

Grandma's Recipes: Smack Cake

Over the last four weeks I've been getting tested and diagnosed. It sounds more harrowing than it is, although there are many other ways I would rather spend my time. Basically there's a big thing in me that shouldn't be there, but it looks harmless. Maybe it's even friendly and charming.  And so soon they'll take it out. Unfortunately it's quite a heifer, so it's going to be some pretty invasive surgery and a number of weeks of lying around on my couch. That always sounds like a better way to spend your days than it really is. If you have any book recommendations, I'm profoundly interested.

My coping mechanism has been the old trick of keeping real busy. My boss loves it! When I'm not doing that, I'm having a wobble. Generally at night, mostly around J. The lucky guy. As I have two modes at the moment (efficient and weepy), blogging is difficult. It involves sitting still and thinking in complete sentences and not crying. So while I'm here today with a story and a picture and a recipe, I can't make any promises about the next month or so.  Eventually I'll have tales of hospital food in Glasgow. Focus on that. Grim guaranteed. 

As I've been getting prodded and assessed and scanned my interest in new foods and recipes and ingredients has waned. but there has been proportional waxing in my interest in the familiar and comforting and in cake, so a little while ago I called my mom and got her recipe for Smack Cake. While we were chatting, she pulled out the clear plastic bag that holds her mother's recipe book and cards and folded magazine pages. The recipe is faded and written in my grandmother's delicate handwriting. Since she died months before I was born, we've never met. The recipe cards were some of the most concrete and tangible connections to her. Her words becoming treats made by my mom and making their way to me and my brother, the greedy pair. We loved smack cake, a simple cake bar with a shortbread bottom topped with a gooey, sticky coconut mixture that gets crispy and toasted on top, and almost like caramel in the middle. I probably haven't had it for 10 years, but it was in heavy rotation growing up and just the taste I want now.

Plus, it's called SMACK CAKE. That's reason enough to eat it. It probably has other names in other parts of North America, but this is what grandma used to call it. J now wants to open a cafe just so he can start dealing it. We would probably attract a large clientele - people coming in looking for a little bit of easy comfort and sweetness, an addictive taste of toasted coconut tenderness. It's just the thing to get you through.

Smack Cake

Makes one 9x9 tray

Ingredients

Base

• 1.5 c flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 c butter (I say use salted, but it's your choice)
• 2 large egg yolks*
• vanilla

Topping

• 2 large egg whites*
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
• 1 cup coconut
• chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

1. Preheat that oven of your to 350/180.

2. Separate the 2 eggs into two bowls.

3. Cream the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder. It will be a pretty stiff and pretty delicious very yellow dough.

4. Press the dough into the tray and leave it for a sec. I never butter the tray and I can't remember my mom taking that extra step either, but if you really want to, do it.

5. Add a pinch of salt to your egg whites.

6. Beat them until they are stiff!

7. Carefully fold in the brown sugar and the coconut trying to preserve as much volume as possible. 

8. Sprinkle the walnuts on the cookie base if you care to use them.

9. Spoon the coconut topping over everything.

10. Bake for 25 minutes.

****EAT*THE*WHOLE*TRAY****

* I don't normally pay much attention to egg size, but I routinely buy medium eggs here, while back in North America, they always seem to be extra big. When I made this batch, the ratio of egg white to sugar/coconut seemed a bit off and I think this is why. If you normally buy medium eggs, use three instead of two. The extra yolk in the base is probably not that crucial, but you really need the extra volume in the top part.

Kola Kubes and Rosy Apples

I had one of my more depressing days on Monday. It's a contender for the list of my top 15 most soul-sucking days, actually.  A long stretch of time in a bleak part of town in a grim atmosphere. After long hours deprived of food and hope and joy, we took ourselves to the grocery store to forage soup and toast (what else would you eat after a day like that?), but first we took a stroll to the new sweetie shop near Partick station. 

I can't remember the name of the shop, but it's called something intuitive and it's just there, when you leave the subway, before Dumbarton Road right near the cobbler. You know the strip. 

Although it's new, it meets J's strict old school candy store requirements. Nothing funny, no errant Hershey's, no twee cupcakes, just jars and jars of sweets, piled high on shelves behind the counter, all for pennies. There is a ceremony: the jar is removed, the scoop dips in and the sweets clatter down into the wide metal bowl of the scales and then folded quickly into a white paper bag and handed over for the change at the bottom of your pocket. 

There are a million traditional British sweeties and I've tried a teeny tiny fraction of them, so it's quite exciting for me to pick a couple of new ones out. And often J hasn't had them in many, many (many) years, so it's a pleasant nostalgia trip for him. Basically, it's the most fun you can have for less than two pounds.

This time kola kubes were top of my list. J had always described them as the least ergonomic candy in creation, a long cube covered in abrasive sugar that are initially impossible to negotiate. I love a challenge in sugar form! In their centre there is also a minute sticky glob that will pull out your dental work. And they're cola flavoured, as you might have deduced. This may leave you cold, but I have a deep and passionate love affair with cola (and one evil brand in particular), so this just gave me another way to indulge. I loved them. They were a hit, even if they did leave my mouth bruised and torn up.

And Rosy Apples. How sweet do they sound?  At some point in my lifetime all apple-flavoured sweets became sour, and the more atomically sour, the better. I guess this was to give the apple a bit of edge and danger, because it's not normally oh-so intimidating. But I liked these sweeter ones. There was still a sour edge, but they didn't taste like their primary aim was to make me cry. I appreciate that in a candy and I definitely appreciated it on Monday.

Norovirus

This week I discovered the emetic properties of rice cakes. 

It was unpleasant.

Back soon.

Kenny Rogers and my Spring Food List

 

(You gotta know when to look at the camera, dumb face. And stand up straight. Man.)

Meeting Kenny Rogers was not on my list of things to do, let alone scoring very good tickets to a very sold out show. But sometimes you are presented with these opportunities, and only a fool would say no. How could you say no to the Gambler? I couldn't. In fact I couldn't say anything at all to him. I think I just giggled and went red. While there now exists a picture where his arm is clasped around my waist, and while this is awesome, I look like such a fool that there probably isn't any need to share it. I'll always have the memory. And the backstage pass is stuck to the inside of my medicine cabinet, creating a sparse shrine near my mascara.

What I learned: Kenny is a lot smaller now than he used to be back in the 80s when he looked like a Santa who liked to drink. I'd frankly be worried about that stream sweeping his wee island self right up and away these days. I guess he could always cling to Dolly and her flotation devices. The cascading mullet is gone, too. He also embraces some slightly dated views on the differences between the sexes, but this is hardly surprising. His act involves a slideshow of pictures of his wife when she was pregnant and throwing cash into the crowd both of which = a bit weird. But the guy can still deliver quite a performance. If you ever get the chance, I would take it without hesitation. An hour of cheese never sounded so good. 

 But it's not all backstage squeezes with country stars round here. Nope, I've been buckling down and addressing some of the things that I've actually planned to do. Because the greatest lesson that Kenny has taught is one of timing, of knowing the right time to hold things, fold things, count them, etc. And I take that message of time-awareness to heart.

I think I make a food list every season. It's not that formal and I never write it down, but as one season finally ends, and I get excited about the new one that's approaching, I start plotting. I feel I have to capitalize on that small window to eat and cook the food of that time of year. Predictably, the Spring List seems to be about growing things. Here are the ones I've checked off so far:

1. Restart my starter. My sourdough starter died an ignoble death last summer because I'm bad at baking bread and I took out my frustration on its poor, yeasty soul. This year I have a new book and a new hope and I'm coaxing another batch of wild yeast. With any luck we'll be experimenting with pizza doughs by the end of the week.

 

 

2. Sprout some seeds. There is nothing cuter and nothing that makes you feel more ok about the world than microscopic, germinating seeds. I want to have shoots and sprouts in the flat all the time. That's some thyme up there. I'm looking into pea shoots. I hate snow peas, but I sure do love their stalks and tendrils. Still not sure how they'll feel about growing inside... 

 

 

 

3. Get some herbs again and take really good care of them. (Because I can't grow everything from seed.) Last year we had an unfortunate aphid infestation. We were stupid and soft-hearted and rescued some struggling plants from B&Q. This is not wise. They came with herds of aphids who quickly sucked the life out of our plants. Those that survived the onslaught, perished during our Christmas holiday since one of J's theft-deterrent moves was to pull the window shade all the way down, thus blocking out any light the plants could get, thus killing everything but the aloe.  I've started a new crop, repotted some of them and fed them pretty consistently. They are growing in great, spindly clumps right now. Just visible behind the mint is some lavender, rosemary and lemon thyme.

 

Other Spring food/drink-related goals include:

 

• Have a Passover Seder in London. Done! And it was fantastic!
• Harvest some nettles and make some soup. This is a leftover from last year's list, but I'm determined now.
• Secretly plant rhubarb in the (overgrown, ignored communal) backyard and some poppies for the bees.
• Re-plant my aloe. I don't eat the aloe, but I did recently hack a bit off to soothe a burn and it was fantastic. Really cooling and comforting and the burn healed better than a similar one I left untreated. Seeing as I've managed to burn myself four times in the last couple of weeks, if I'm going to keep on cooking, I need to make sure this guy will be healthy enough to treat me. Maybe I should try to sing to it, "Aloe - I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you. You have made me what I am.....and....I am yooouuuurrrrs"
• Eat breakfast outside of our new micro tent after a successful night camping out. Preferably on Arran. Preferably not in the rain.
• Find some sloe bushes that I can harvest late in the fall.
• Roast a pork shoulder.
• Complete the Swimathon (in under an hour if there are no slowpokes) and then get profoundly drunk in the hours/days that follow and then go dancing.
• Have a picnic with sneaky glasses of Pimms as soon as possible.  

I'm also raising money for my future vegetable and rare-breed bee farm/art centre. If you want me to do things for you for money, just let me know. I can hem trousers and make spreadsheets.
  
  
  
  

 

Lemon Polenta Cake, For Passover, For the Gluten-Free

This is a cake recipe that you can keep on a spare piece of imaginary paper, folded and memorised and tucked safely in your brain until you need it. Because a flour-free recipe that can be quickly assembled and only has five ingredients is a very handy trick. Especially if you happen to have dear ones who don't eat wheat or you happen to celebrate Passover. But the thing that really endears is that it doesn't taste like a subsitute. Like something you're eating because you've been denied normal food. As someone with a few obligatory and restrictive diets in her past, that is a damn fine trait.

I got the recipe for the Lemon Polenta cake from Nigel Slater's lovely, lovely site (that makes me want to have a garden urgently and immediately. Read that section and tell me your not a) getting on the waiting list for an allotment, or b) plotting the death of your lawn for the sake of dense fruit, flower and vegetable plots). He makes it into a layered cake filled with lemon curd and cream, and who would argue with that approach? I decided to keep it as one layer, brush it with a simple lemon syrup and cover it with whipped creams and some blueberries. I served it for tea, thought there would be leftovers and was totally wrong. I think anything remaining on the plate was, um, tidied up, as we made dinner that night.

And although there is of course no reason why you wouldn't eat flour normally at Easter, this would still be a festive little cake with all of its eggs, bright yellow colour and its ability to mate happily with cream and berries.

This cake will also save you if you want to bake, but find yourself without nice butter. One of the cruellest tales of the kitchen is The Fate of Baked Goods When Made with Crappy Butter. There's no need to relive this nightmare. Don't delude yourself and think it won't happen to you. It will and you'll cry.

Lemon Polenta Cake, for when you can't eat things, but don't really wish to be reminded of that fact (from Nigel Slater)

The cake serves not so many people. If you were making it for a seder, try doubling the quantity, baking it in two tins and making it a real layer cake.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs, separated
• 110g sugar
• 50g fine corn meal/polenta
• 30g ground almonds
• Lemon

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl/stand mixer combine the eggs yolks and the sugar. Add in the zest of the lemon followed by the polenta and the ground almonds. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and add it in, too.
2. In another bowl, whisk up the egg whites until they're stiff (a pinch of salt helps here). If your bowl is large, you can place a tea towel underneath one side of it, gently tipping it away from yourself. This makes the pool of egg whites a bit easier to whisk and also stabilizes the bowl so you don't have to hold it. I used my eggbeater for this part and it was great.
3. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture in the following fashion: Add a dollop of egg white into the yellow mix and fold it to lighten it up. At this stage you can add the rest of the egg whites in two additions. To fold, use a broad spatula to scrape around the perimeter of the bowl and then cut through the middle of the batter. Use it like a blade so that is mixes it thoroughly, but you whites don't deflate.
4. Pour the batter into a butter/flour/parchment papered cake tin (8 inch) that you prepared earlier. Around the same time you also preheated the oven to 180/350.
5. Bake for around 30 minutes until it's golden and your trusty cake-tester comes out all clean.
6. Garnish at will, but think about boiling a tiny bit of sugar and water and lemon juice/zest while the cake is baking and giving it a gentle syrup shower once the cake is cooled. The lack of fat could lead to a dry cake, and this step will prevent that from happening.