JC's Traveblog

At last, after a long wait and an even longer winter, ‘t was time to wake up our hibernating Billy Bailey from his storage field and make preparations for two weeks in Dorset. I actually collected him on Friday so I’d have all day Saturday for spring cleaning. To refresh my memory as much as anything else, I parked him in front of our house using the fancy remote control mover. The mover has power actuators which drive the actually mover motors onto and off of the caravan’s wheels. It took a while but I remembered how to activate them and drive him into his preparation spot. I pressed buttons to remove the driving motors. Only one came off, the other remained firmly in place. Repeated attempts produced the same result.

I felt like a pilot coming into land when the co-pilot calmly informs you that only one undercarriage leg is down and locked. There is a manual removal mechanism requiring many turns of a spanner; the flying analogy continues with visions of Memphis Belle, frantically winding down the starboard undercarriage leg manually. I summoned an engineer who’s coming the day after we get back. I waggled a few wires around attached to the remote controller’s main control box and lo, all was now well. Relief! Something needs looking at, though.

Saturday preparations went well but I really must stop trying to multi-thread. That’s a skill requiring the female of the species. Whilst loading Billy and our car, I fired up some charcoal to barbecue a fine-looking Gressingham duck. I continued loading. After 45 minutes or so the briquettes were ready so I hastily decanted them into my trusty Weber and, even more hastily, slashed the skin of our duck and popped it in to cook. I finished loading.

90 minutes does a small duck nicely with most of the fat running out. I removed our fine-looking Gressingham duck. My heart sank as I noticed the duck’s tail (it’s parsons nose) was still bent back and tucked into it’s body cavity. Firstly I removed the parson’s nose. Secondly I removed the plastic bag of giblets from inside our fine-looking Gressingham duck’s body cavity. ARGHH! In my multi-tasking haste, I’d completely forgotten that, unlike prepared chickens, prepared ducks come with their giblets (or accessories, as one Farmer’s Market lady likes to call them) tucked inside them. The giblets were bubbling away inside their plastic bag and seemed quite well cooked.

All was well, the plastic had not melted and the duck was delicious. No more multi-tasking, though!

I run Google Analytics on my web site, more out of evil curiosity than anything else. It’s not as if I’m trying to sell anything so I don’t need to know anything about “conversion rates”, whatever they are. It’s just nice to know that a few people are finding me and reading my musings. Typically, my site bounces along with 10-15 hits a day some of which, I’m sure, are due to myself checking or referencing my own material.

Having just returned from our lambing trip in France complete with wi-fi and blogability, I thought I’d spin into Goggle Analytics to see what the form had been. The summary page instantly had be wondering: it had a green arrow and number indicating visits were up 78.5% (over the previous month, I think). I clicked on the “view report” link to see the graph. Sure enough, for the lambing week I had the usual 14, 17, 13 kind of numbers. The weekend we were travelling home from lambing, though, showed a dramatic and quite extraordinary peek looking like the Matterhorn towering over the surrounding plain:

1. Saturday 5th – 165
2. Sunday 6th – 85
3. Monday 7th – 28

What?!

The most popular page was shown as a recipe in Gastroblog – www.curdhome.co.uk/recipes/?p=67 [note to self: I really must try to get the WordPress pretty hyperlinks working one day] which turned out to be the eminent Mr. Rick Stein’s Ragout of Lamb from his French Odyssey. Whilst in Gastroblog’s administration pages I spotted a new comment awaiting moderation though, for some reason, WordPress had not notified me of it [note to self: must try to find out why notification emails are not getting through]. I read the comment and light began to dawn:

Saw Rick Stein make this on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen this morning and decided to look it up.  Off to the butcher’s now to get the lamb.  Drooling already!

- Nancy, SW France

Ah ha, so maybe that’s it! Folks could have been watching Saturday Kitchen, leapt onto the Internet in search of the recipe and found me.

I did a quick test: into the Google search page and enter “Ragout of lamb Stein” and, lo and behold, #1 on the list of hits – JC’S Gastroblog.

Bingo! Isn’t television wonderful?

Well, we’re back for our first full day back at home after a wonderful trip around France and feeling a little cool. The larder was bare so we popped out shopping to get supplies. Carol fancied something warming and suggested a Spaghetti Bolognese so I popped the ingredients into our shopping trolley … or I thought I had. It was down to the frozen brain again probably but, when I came to begin preparation I discovered that “Mr University Challenged” had forgotten the bacon. Drat!

Carol ran me quickly round to the local Co-op and I bought a pack of “The co-operative British unsmoked rindless back bacon”.

The package appeared to contain nothing but rashers of bacon. Therefore it came as something of a surprise when I noticed that the very next line on the package label, in relatively large print, read:

86% Pork
 

What?!

The following two items on the labelling were “Quality Bacon Standard” and “Assured Food Standards” marks.

The back of the packet, in rather smaller print, made it clear that the vast majority of the missing 14% was water. I realized water was frequently injected but I don’t think I realized to what extent. 1/7th of what I’d bought and paid nearly £5 per pound for was water.

In my humble opinion, “Quality Bacon” is 100% pork, allowing a few decimal points to cover necessary preservative for shelf life, of course – I still don’t want to eat mould.

If you possess only one barbecue, it should be a Weber 22½ inch kettle. There’s just something quite impressive, for those who’ve not seen it, in extracting a golden brown, hickory-smoked whole 15lb turkey from beneath the lid of your barbecue. It gets even more impressive when the assembled diners realize that, for some reason, Webers tend to keep the food moist rather than drying it out. A rare and much-appreciated feature when it comes to turkey cooking.

Fortunately, this doesn’t apply to me. I’ve got four barbecues, five if you count the brand new, still boxed replacement Weber kettle lurking in our loft ready for when my 20-year-old trusty original finally gives up the ghost, though two of them are portable travelling barbecues.

Barbecues should, of course, be charcoal powered. Anything gas-powered may superficially resemble a barbecue but it is really just an oven in the garden. All my barbecues are charcoal powered. Real lumpwood charcoal is the finest fuel for direct grilling of things like fish and steaks but, to power the indirect, long-cooking required for the smoked 15lb turkey trick, charcoal briquettes are most appropriate; lumpwood just doesn’t burn for long enough. The aptly named American Kingsford charcoal briquettes are best – they are, indeed, king – but regrettably we cannot buy them in the UK. (It has been known for friends to hand-import them but we really need a bona fide supplier.) No, we must put up with inferior briquettes that emit noxious fumes when first lit. Fortunately, these noxious fumes get driven off reasonably rapidly, within about 15 minutes or so, before the real heat builds up and you start cooking. Only the neighbours get tainted and not the food.

A week or so ago, my winter charcoal stocks having finally been depleted in our thus far inglorious so-called summer,  I was out buying some new supplies. I was quite excited to see something new on the market this year: Weber charcoal briquettes. Since Weber knows everything there is to know about charcoal barbecues, presumably they also know a lot about briquettes. They claimed to burn hotter and longer than regular briquettes. Maybe these would prove to be a reasonable substitute for Kingsford briquettes. Maybe these would not emit such plumes of noxious fumes. I bought two 7Kg bags and prepared to hickory smoke a turkey (only a 10 pounder) for some friends.

When the day came to bronze the bird, I threw two fire lighters (a lazy but trusted technique) into my charcoal chimney along with my new Weber briquettes and lit up. For some reason, I also shut the air vents, as recommended by my hand-importer of Kingsford, even though I usually leave them open.  A little smoke began to drift upwards so I went to make other preparations as it burned up. 15 minutes or so later Carol spotted that there were, indeed, very few fumes being emitted from the Weber briquettes. Regrettably, there also seemed to be very little in the way of heat being emitted from the Weber briquettes. Yes, they had failed to light. In 20 years of barbecuing, I had never before suffered an ignition failure. Panic! Reload with the old, trusted noxious fumes generating briquettes and start again. Better and, after a couple of hours, a beautifully-bronzed hickory-smoked 10lb turkey.

I tried the Weber briquettes again yesterday. No guests this time, just a modestly sized chicken for myself and Carol. I also took the precaution of using three lighting cubes and reverted to my normal technique of opening the air vents to get a good draw. Smoke began to drift up. After about 10 minutes the smoke died down. The heat also died down. My second ignition failure in 20 years. This stuff certainly doesn’t emit nasty fumes. It doesn’t emit anything.

I decanted the Weber briquettes, half-filled the chimney with noxious-fume generators and topped off with the recalcitrant Weber stuff. Finally, success! The regular smelly briquettes fired up readily and seemed to generate sufficient heat for long enough to force the Weber briquettes to burn.

I’ve no idea how one is expected to light these blasted Weber briquettes without other charcoal. I think a blow-torch or tactical thermonuclear device would be needed. Very disappointing!

Our recent trip to California was, considering that we think of ourselves as being familiar with the country, a little different. Whereas most of our trips have been on business and, therefore, hotel and restaurant based, this trip was almost entirely self-catering. Being there for a month, I got used to looking at prices in food stores just because I really had no yardstick and knew little of what to expect.

Now back in England, I have just returned from Waitrose in our local town. For some reason (I didn’t actually want any on this occasion) I studied the broccoli on offer and got a few surprises. All the following are English products and not shipped half-way around the world. I didn’t make precise notes but the following prices are close enough.

• regular broccoli heads (loose): £1.79 kg
• regular broccoli heads (wrapped): £3.70 kg
• organic broccoli heads (wrapped): £3.49 kg

My Lord, why would anyone buy a product simply encased in plastic wrap for over twice the price of the same loose product that one can put in a plastic bag for oneself? I was expecting a price difference but that’s huge.

To cap it all, the organic stuff (which I normally avoid because of the rip-off price) is actually cheaper than its direct equivalent though it isn’t available loose, for some reason; it is available only in that very expensive plastic wrap. (I did wonder if I’d switched the organic and non-organic price but I double checked and don’t think I did.)

Incidentally, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and ASDA all seem to be selling the loose regular stuff at £1.38 kg.

We have just returned from a more-extensive-than-usual shopping trip at our local Morrisons supermarket where there appeared to have been convened an international tomato convention. I was somewhat stunned to see, amongst the various shaped and sized delegates (cherry, plum, salad, vine-ripened, etc), representatives from no fewer than six countries:

• Holland;
• Poland;
• Italy;
• Belgium;
• Morocco;
• Britain.

What an intriguing collection of food miles.

I’ll leave it to the reader to guess which were the most expensive, given the clue that all their competitors must have been trucked or flown around various portions of the planet using exorbitantly priced diesel or aviation fuel, in addition to having paid associated shipping and/or landing fees, of course. It’s summer for Lord’s sake; tomatoes are in season. Can’t we get our own in-season produce at a reasonable rate?

All this tomato confusion comes in addition to one of my favourite bugbears:

• New Zealand lamb – £4.99 per kg (having been shipped 12,000 miles half way around the planet);
• British lamb – £7.99 per kg (having been raised “just down the road”).

Buy British – get ripped off!

Technorati Tags: food prices,food miles

Yesterday evening I spotted a new cookery programme on BBC2 called Chinese Food Made Easy, so I thought I should give it a try. This was the third in a series and was concentrating on seafood in Scotland so, being a seafood fanatic, I was particularly interested.

From what I can make out, as long as you:

1. add Shaoxing rice wine,
2. add chopped chilli, ginger and garlic,
3. cook it in a wok

then you are cooking Chinese food. The Shaoxing rice wine seemed to be particularly crucial since it seemed to feature in every recipe as far as I could tell.

I won’t bother again. Come back Ken Hom.

Technorati Tags: cookery,cookery programs,food,BBC

We used to have a very good butcher in Leighton Buzzard called Downhams. Regrettably for us, some time ago the very pleasant chap who ran it, Owen, stopped doing so and retired (I think). What made it stand out from the several similar establishments was that it sold a terrific array of game, both furred and feathered, and at very reasonable prices. Oh, how I miss the regular seasonal supply of wood pigeons and hares.

Recently, I have tried to call in to a butchers (called Best Butchers) in a farm unit just outside Great Brickhill close by. There, working in the background on one occasion was a face I recognized: Owen, formerly of Downhams. Today I called in again and he was there on his own. He apparently works there part time, presumably to supplement the old income and pay help our exorbitantly high fuel prices.

While he was preparing my two pork chops (destined for some Cajun blackening), I told him how much I missed his supply of game since the disappearance of Downhams. He told me that they do have a little at Best Butchers but nothing like the variety that he used to have. Indeed, I had bought some pigeon breasts recently but was disturbed to see them pre-frozen in packs of 10 which, of course, couldn’t be separated. He went on the tell me that they are now not permitted to have furred or feathered game in the butchers shop; that it must be prepared elsewhere and, of course, it comes back more expensive with yet another cost added to it. Good grief (he said, as his jaw hit the ground)!

It comes to something when a butcher isn’t allowed to prepare rabbits and pheasants for an adoring public. I’m not clear whether this a directive from good ol’ Brussels or some local crazy restriction based upon our own apparent inability to stop Foot ‘n’ Mouth breaking out. I suspect the latter but must try to find out next time. Whatever the reason, the French and Spanish would never stand for it, just this pathetically small-minded country.

Little wonder I’ve been having trouble finding anything less than run-of-the-mill to eat. It’s enough to make a foodaholic scream.

Morrisons supermarket seems to sell parsley by the ton. On Saturday, I needed some to sprinkle onto my Merluza a la Plancha and to mix into the accompanying Spring Vegetables. That left me about 19cwt (19 hundredweight, for those unfamiliar with imperial weights, there being 20cwt in a ton) lurking in the fridge. Disliking waste, I thought I’d try a blast from the past and make an old-fashioned parsley sauce – something I had hitherto never made which may or may not be surprising. Racking the old grey cells, I seemed to recall that this usually accompanied steamed cod or haddock. So, off to the local Tescos to have a look. (We like to spread our favours around.)

As usual, most of the piscine offerings on the Tesco slab were drab and dull, sad-looking specimens which were entirely unappealing and which nobody should have considered purchasing. The haddock fillets were, however, a merciful exception so I bought one. (Of course, without eyes and gills it’s a bit difficult to gauge the freshness, in truth, but it smelt OK.) Together with some spinach, tenderstem broccoli and some new potatoes, though, I was set for a 60s revival.

For simple fare, this managed to dirty nearly every pan I possess – and I possess quite a few. Steam the broccoli above the potatoes (2 pans), sweat the spinach (another pan) which, of course, needed the excess moisture straining off (two colanders owing to the volume) before buttering (at least that’s in the same pan as before), Béchamel sauce as a base for the parsley sauce (measuring jug and small saucepan) and, the piece de resistance, steamed haddock (big, posh fish steamer on the special fish burner). Thank the Lord I have a five-burner stove.

I have to say that, having eaten it (I was hungry), I wondered why I’d bothered. Everything was cooked just as I wanted – at least I had not performed a 60s revival to the extent of cooking the vegetables to death, as was the tradition in those days. But the fish! Why anybody felt this way of dealing with cod/haddock worth documenting is entirely beyond me. It is essential flavourless, adding new depth to the term “bland”. Deep down, of course, I already knew that. I’ve often wondered why so many nations insist on expending so much effort vacuuming the seas dry of various members of the cod family but I had allowed myself to forget in a wave of nostalgia designed to use up 19cwt of parsley. Even when perfectly cooked, this is the kind of recipe that got English food a bad name in the 60s from which it took 20 years or so to recover.

Let’s give the poor old critically endangered cod family a chance to recover and leave them in the sea.

I’ve spent a somewhat frustrating morning trying to make various blogging clients upload blog entries with Wordpress “Tags” associated with them. All to no avail, regrettably. The only way I seem to be able to get a tag on a post is to put it there manually in the Wordpress editor.

So, I’ve manually trawled through my 101 recipes in Gastroblog tagging each with a notional country of origin. The Gastroblog sidebar now sports version 1 of a “Tag Cloud” as an international index categorizing each recipe by country.

I dedicate this tag cloud to editor-in-chief, R. Blasdale.