Ginger Tablet

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.