Ginger Tablet

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. 

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.

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.
  
  
  
  

 

Tea Cakes Save the Day!

Honestly.

How cute is that? I found this little silk screened shopping bag at the market outside of Sloans when I met Jules for a coffee. Well, she was drinking coffee and I was sipping a hangover-abating Coke. Because she was smoking we were sitting outside in the cold and the wind. I was grumpy partly because I was freezing and hungover and partly because a recent hunt for dresses had been resoundingly whatever. There just wasn't a frock out there that was quite cute enough for me. So I was cold and stroppy and then I saw the stall with these bags. Lovely drawings of Scottish food items. Reasonable prices. Screw a new dress, all I needed was a tea cake.

These bags are made by Gillian Kyle who has a website (that seems to be taking a bit of a vacation), but can also be reliably found at the market (I think it's held every weekend). Other designs featured Scottish Plain, Spam and a sporran (it didn't look like these ones, but look at these one! little critters.). Two of these bags will cost you ten quid. She told us she was running a bit low on stock, but she'd have new stuff soon. Good present, great souvenir. 

It's just a question of timing

Look at all of these festive baked goods. Don't they make you want to puke a little bit? What a difference a month makes. I'm not even going to bother telling you what these were, although they were delicious. And the trifle I made for Christmas day? Perhaps we can revisit it the next time an occasion calls for a dessert made in my image: sloppy, alcoholic and perfect.

If the most boring formula for a food blog post is "I used to hate (random ingredient), but then I discovered this new recipe/technique/variety and now I can't stop shoving it into my mouth..." then the most tedious blogging entries in general are the "I was so going to post a million posts over the last week but somehow stuff came up". Well, I'm sorry, but I really was so going to post a million posts over Christmas, over my vacation when I figured I would be able to snatch a few minutes here and there to tell you about a few great little treats. I had all of these separate posts saved before I left so I could just update now and then, add an anecdote and then go back to enjoying Canada*. It just didn't happen. There were access-to-computer issues in Winnipeg and too many (and somehow not nearly enough) social engagements in Toronto and by the time we got to the wilderness of northern Quebec, all I could do was sleep and read and eat and bake things that involved yeast. I was caught short every day. My precious visit back home became an unstoppable countdown to my flight back to Glasgow.

After a while that's the thing that starts to really sting about going home. It's not that things are different or gone, or that there's now a Starbucks on a corner where yuppies formerly feared to tread. It's not that people move away or social groups shift. It's that your sense of timing gets lost and forgotten. The lovely rhythms you develop when you live in a place are impossible to reproduce in a few compressed days. You stop wandering and exploring and experimenting because it's so important to have that exact taste, that precise meal, that you miss so dearly throughout the year. You try to press all the people you love together, in one tight stream, never allowing a chance to pause and unruffle.

On Saturdays in Toronto, I would wake (possibly hungover) and plan the whole day according to what I wanted to eat (perhaps due to possible hangover). These decisions would dictate the neighbourhoods I traveled to, the shops I visited and anything else I would try to accomplish. It was a pleasing way to structure a day. I would see friends or family throughout this time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. And while those moments are an impossible thing to replicate over a rushed few days at Christmas, the absence of that time makes me profoundly homesick. It's what I wish I could do, what I would love to do with J.  When I want to tell him:

life here can be wonderful. taste this. it's lovely. there's more to this city than slush and crawling streetcars. people here make beauty. when they're not being sarcastic.

When you fall out of rhythm with a city it becomes your stranger and things become hidden from your view.

This pervading nostalgia might be overwhelming if Canada wasn't so full of charming people and delicious food.  Even jostled together in the stress of the holiday, out of context and in a jumble, it was perfect. We ate and ate and ate and I hugged a lot of people that I love, nearly everyone possible**, and laughed and wept. I seemed to have wept more this year. These feelings don't appear to follow steady trajectories.

And now we are back in our home. And despite being different, there's great comfort in our space and our routine. We're unpacked and almost sleeping normally, and moving back into our Glasgow patterns.The ones tailored for the brief, dark days of January. A Saturday that comprised solely of two long meals, crepes in the morning, chicken and dumpling stew in the evening, a film, a walk and back to bed. Not enough time for anything else. A Sunday that seemed to only come into focus as it was being finished with a bowl of soup in the evening. There's not a lot you can do in this time but stay warm, dry off and feed yourself. Start the new year in tiny motions. It's probably all we can expect of ourselves right now. The light stretches by three minutes every day right now; that seems like just about the right model of acceleration.

I'll try for that. Armed with new kitchen toys and books and an appetite for long meals during these short days, I'm going to forget what it feels like to be rushed. If you have a minute you should come by. There will definitely be food.

*Actually one of the reasons I didn't post a "Bye! I'm off on vacation for a couple of weeks post" is that I got irrationally worried that someone (a bad guy) would see the post and break into my flat. Not that this site generates the kind of traffic to warrant that concern, but do serious bloggers worry about that? If I were famous, I would. I would run all sorts of subterfuge so no one would ever now when I was actually vacationing. It would take over my life. Thank goodness for obscurity.

**Not Jess. Not Amanda.

A Weekend Away with Stracciatella Yogurt

 

Tomorrow I fly off to Den Haag to try and make some new BFFs within the young, international artists-who-use-textiles club. (A very different club from Textile Artists. We are waaaay edgier.You're just going to have to trust me on that one.) While I'm purportedly going on this trip because I have work in an exhibition that's opening on Saturday, the real reason for the voyage is so I can eat stracciatella yogurt for breakfast three days in a row.

This will be the scene: the window of my tiny studio flat will just reveal the choppy November waves and desolate stretch of sand of Scheveningen (hopefully the nudist section). It will be raining. I will know no one and so will have spent the day, the night, in silence, thinking, thinking, dreaming, thinking. Having walked all day through unknown streets amongst unfamiliar faces, hearing strange voices, my clothes soaked and chilled, I return home to the pot that I love. No not that pot. The yogurt pot. It will sit in the microfridge cold, and promising. Soft white folds cresting the top marked with dark, dark bitter freckles. Time will appear to stand still while I spoon it into my mouth, letting the chocolate just melt before I swallow it down.

Seriously, though, I do like this yogurt. I think one of the small pleasures of travelling in Europe is discovering different yogurt flavours. Don't laugh. I said "small pleasures". There are many greater ones too.

Three things to note: 1) I am not normally a sweets-in-yogurt kind of girl. But the chocolate in this is so bitter that it barely counts.

2) You can sometimes find this at Lidl in Glasgow. It comes in a 1 liter bucket with a handle! J was disgusted with me when I brought some home, but then he ate it all himself and now he must search the dairy section, unrequited. Weeping. Sucker.

3) This isn't a Dutch thing in particular. I think it's a continental Europe thing. And the picture up there is actually for a stracciatella quark which would also be pretty exciting. For me alone.

Ooh. And they have those almond cookies and stroopen in the Netherlands, too. I'll try to take pictures if I can ever stop eating the biscuits. If the images are grimy and flecked with crumbs, please forgive me.

A Knickerbocker Glory at University Cafe

I'm not sure there is another city on earth that has traditional ice cream parlours that are too intimidating for tourists and new arrivals. Glasgow's ice cream parlours are beautiful and ornate little gems with layers of lush Victorian ornamentation matched only by the baroque sundaes on offer. They were started by the Italian immigrants in the 1900s who combined their knowledge of ice cream making with a little American influence. The specialty that emerged was a thin magenta coloured raspberry sauce that was served over vanilla ice cream. And that sauce is still around. You see it on the few hot, sunny days we're granted here, in melted pools of pink and white at regular intervals on the pavement outside the shops. The evidence of the universal tendency for kids to drop their ice cream cones.

But I'm just working up the nerve to go into these places. Because as soon as I walk through the door, the locals clock me for the cycling-Guardian-reading-vegetable-eating-artist that I am. They know I'm not from around these parts and they can sense that I don't want to share a table*. I don't even have to open my mouth for my accent to announce itself. Still, they let me sit down and they ignore me for only a bit longer than the regular customers. And the regulars are as nice as the stereotype of Glaswegians would have you believe, but still, it's all a bit unsettling. 

First there are the women. Sure they seem to be talking about shopping, or their upcoming vacation, but really they're monitoring everything that happens in the shop. That's because the parlours are at the centre of small neighbourhoods so a lot of information can be gleaned from their activities. They're watching you and they heard you order a cappucino instead of a white coffee and they also picked up on your boyfriend's English accent. They're dismayed that the nice family that came in after you has to now wait for a table while you linger for an impossible length of time.

And the men. They don't care about you. They're ignoring you and eating many kinds of deep-fried protein and fat for a late breakfast. They exhibit all the signs of Scotland's notorious culture: unhealthy complexions and brutal facial scars. They're hard men. And after their breakfast they'll have a bowl of ice cream in a scalloped coral bowl and that will not make them any less hard.

But look at that knickerbocker glory up there. Wouldn't you put up with feeling like a bit of a social misfit for a bite of that?

*This is a common sentiment amongst North Americans. We're from big countries with a lot of space. We don't like sharing except occasionally at Chinese restaurants when the tables are very big and round and your knees will definitely not touch those of a stranger.

Late-night Dundee Cuisine

I took this picture at 3:30 am after a long night in Dundee. These are the offering at Clarks 24 hour bakery. And although I am a fan of any late night food establishment, unfortunately these boys didn't feel any happier in our stomachs. 

The Thing That is the Same

Summer in Glasgow is not like my old summers in Canada. The weather barely changes and so neither do our bodies. We can eat the same food all year round and wear the same clothes. The days last forever and when I wake up in the middle of the night it will be light outside. The parks and leafy streets are so quiet without crickets and cicadas and mosquitoes. Nothing gets brown and dry, everything just grows and grows and grows in spindles, clumps and masses.

But still, the best activity of summer is a late night walk with a favourite and dashing fellow to get a treat or two. Looking into our neighbours' lit windows, watching out for foxes and chewing on sweets.

My favourite bowl of noodle soup

In Glasgow, anyway.

It's a noodle soup with duck and pickled vegetables. I have it almost every time I go to Asia Style, a Chinese-Malaysian restaurant located at 185 St George's Rd., and I go there more than any other restaurant in Glasgow. It was the unofficial restaurant of our MFA programme and it's seen many of our celebratory meals, farewell feasts and even a near-death experience. We're all a bit too fond of it and its staff to be horribly objective about the food. They have a gigantic menu and so unsurprisingly there are some items that are a bit lackluster. But there are some genuine gems there too.

Here's what makes the soup amazing:

• The broth tastes as though a whole herd of animals have been sacrificed in its rich depths. It's a deep brown, almost opaque liquid that is the hot and steaming deifnition of umami.
• The pieces of duck are succulent and generous.
• The pickled vegetales, mostly some kind of green, are a perfect moment of sharp clarity amid all the luxurious meat flavour.
• I can get whatever kind of noodle I want in it. I love thick flat rice noodles, but in Toronto they were mostly to be found in beef dishes that I wasn't too fond of. Here I can be a bit unorthodox and put them in my soup. They are really far too filling for this dish, but I can't help it. I love them and I love them in this broth and snuggled up to this duck.

You can find this bowl of noodles and many other lovely dishes late into the evening seven days a week served with loads of tea for less than six pounds.