Last of the season
A red sweet pepper. There may be more green ones to come, but this is bound to be the last to ripen this season.
How he does it at all is a mystery to me. I am informed that sweet peppers aren’t viable this far north.
Far north, you say? If you look at a world map, the South of England aligns with Hudson’s Freaking Bay.
Anyway, he manages to coax out a few peppers for me every year in his greenhouse. This variety is an F1 hybrid called Gogorez. It’s a squat pepper with a thick flesh, which makes it perfect for stuffing.
Stuffing as in stuffed peppers, not as in turkey-and-stuffing, I mean.
November 23, 2021 — 7:48 pm
Comments: 11
Ha HA! Nice try, overlords!
We have a roast chicken every Sunday, and every Monday I spend a few hours boiling the carcass and plucking the meat off of it.
I hate this process so much. All those slippery bones and muscles and sinews. I know how they all fit together to make a chicken. It haunts me. And I get it on my hands.
I’m funny about touching food with my hands.
But I get at least three splendid chicken-based meals out of it, so I feel totally compelled.
Anyway, I was doing this unpleasant job earlier and it made me wonder (not for the first time) if I would be able to raise meat chickens. I sincerely believe they’re going to push this anti-meat thing until we all eat less meat whether we like it or not because we can’t afford it.
We have neighbors with sheep and neighbors with cows, so we can avoid those meat taxes if they don’t impose them on the farmer hisself.
We don’t have a good place for a pig, but I’d consider it. I got one as an adorable pet when I was a teenager and by the time he was old enough for the butcher, I was ready to hustle him onto the van with my own two hands.
He was an escape artist and whenever I managed to trace him down, he bit me. Hard. Get in the van, piggie.
But chicken. I really like eating chicken. But I really like chickens.
I’m going to have to be pretty hungry before I go there. I’m soft like that.
November 22, 2021 — 7:32 pm
Comments: 16
Return of the angry, authoritarian fridge
Half of the message has been wiped away, seemingly by people opening and closing the fridge. It appears to be a stern injunction never to put the crab and lobsters above the salad.
I have many unpleasant mental images why that might be.
They mostly involve lobster poop. I have no idea what lobster poop is like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want it on my salad.
Yes, this is the same fish shop as before.
November 15, 2021 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 2
Hit me with your recipes
I bought Uncle B an air fryer for his b’day. This one, in fact.
I’ve been skeptical of these. Somehow, the combination of the words “air” and “fry” made me think it was a nefarious conspiracy to make me eat less bacon grease. Then I saw a chef on Twitter praising them for making re-heated fries crispy and thought…that’s for me!
Um, Uncle B. That’s for Uncle B.
Anyway, we’re getting along pretty well with it. We’ve made all sorts of combinations of fries. We’re trying chicken breasts tonight.
Anyone have one of these? What’s good?
October 5, 2021 — 6:51 pm
Comments: 19
Just terrible
You may recall that I have access to a neglected orchard (I tried to buy it, but oh well). I’ve just been apple picking and that is easily the worst harvest I’ve ever seen. Most of the apple trees had NO fruit on them at all.
It’s possible someone nipped in ahead of me and picked them clean, but I don’t think so. There wasn’t any fruit on the ground.
The plum trees had a little fruit. Not much. The quince trees were barren. Same for the cobnut. The only thing thriving are the blackberries.
I’ve heard the commercial harvest was similarly shit this year. The cherries earlier this Summer were scarce and sour (not enough sunshine).
I got these two buckets of sour green cooking apples.
So, any simple apple ideas? I tried an internet recipe: core it but leave the bottom in. Fill the hole with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter. Microwave three minutes.
It dissolved into a giant puddle of mush, but I have to admit – it was a tasty giant puddle of mush. Next time, I’ll a little less time, a little less butter and a little more brown sugar. And nuke it in a bowl.
Oooo…I bet that would be nice mixed with oatmeal.
September 15, 2021 — 6:10 pm
Comments: 15
I had to ask.
Spotted at the fish market. I had to ask.
The girl said, “the fridge is for winkles. They’re kept very cold before they’re sent off to Korea.” I think she said winkles; it might have been whelks. I spent a moment thinking what a silly name that was and wondering why they were all going to Korea.
So the lobsters don’t like the cold? “Oh, no” she said. “The lobsters like the cold just fine. But they all come crawling out and we lose all the cold trying to get them back in again.”
Hm. Here’s a 2019 article about whelks from Wales going to South Korea. The fisherman is quoted thusly: “Goodness knows why they like them – they taste like nan’s toenails – but it’s given me a living for the last two decades,” he said.
But it looks like the Koreans also have multiple words for winkles, see here for a handy pronunciation guide. 흔들 리다 also apparently means, wave, oscillate, whiffle, shimmer, waggle, wag, quake, quiver, waver, swing, rock, sway, shake and tittup. Yes, it’s a word. Despite the fact winkles don’t seem to do any of those things.
Seafood is confusing.
September 13, 2021 — 7:02 pm
Comments: 12
Ear worm
I’m having sausage and biscuits tonight. Well, a facsimile thereof. Actually, it’s scones and sausage, and to make it taste like country sausage I have to add half a pound of cracked black pepper.
For those unfamiliar, the pepper in country sausage will make the sweat bead across your hairline.
Sausage always makes the Tennessee Pride jingle go through my head. (On an endless loop. Until I want to crush my skull in a machine press like that scene in The Fly. The original movie, I mean).
When I were a lass, they mostly shortened it to the couplet: “For real country sausage, the best you ever tried/Look for me on the label of Tennessee Pride.” But the version at the link is longer and includes the words:
It’s Real Country Sausage, yessiree,
The secret of the goodness is the recipe.
Well we start with fresh meat it’s really grand,
Pure whole hog pork, the best in the land.
We add a pinch of X and a dash of Z,
For flavor and taste we add Y9D.
A touch of Odom’s magic blends all three,
That the secret of the secret recipe.
Man, innocent times, when manufacturers bragged how they put delicious mystery chemicals in your food.
Searching for the song, I made the sad discovery that they’re about to close the Tennessee Pride factory in Dickson. I mean, they’re moving it to Jackson, but sad for those Dickson people.
August 17, 2021 — 7:46 pm
Comments: 6
Ah, fish and chips
The perfect end to a busy week. A busy week, can you imagine? I’d gotten used to bone idleness. This is better, I suppose – at least in an “eat your broccoli” kind of way.
Traditional chip shops are on the decline, partly because young people don’t eat a lot of fish. Most places selling it are run by foreigners. Chinese restaurants are big on fish and chips, for some reason.
We’re at the seaside, so we’re lucky to have several in the area. Our favorite is really very good. Food looks awful in black and white, so you’ll have to trust me it was a lovely drop of fish.
They were open for takeout right throughout the lockdown. We tried to go once a week, to keep him afloat and to break up the dull monotony of those weary months. Yes, he’s a foreigner. But then, so am I!
Good weekend, everyone.
August 6, 2021 — 7:25 pm
Comments: 13
Top gadget
Ladies and gentlemen, my strawberry corer. Oh, you might laugh (well, one of my friends laughed, anyway), but it really is quite handy. I wish I had one back in the days when we’d buy a crate of strawbs for jam. You know, before we figured out we don’t eat that much jam.
We got carried away being country folk.
I mentioned the corer way back when I bought the spiralizer. Update: I still use the spiralizer, but I have yet to perfect the spicy curly fry. In fact, I’ve more or less given up.
I’m –
I don’t know how to put this.
Just blurt it out, I guess.
I’m putting spiralized apple in my cole slaw. I didn’t invent it, mind. A recipe for celeriac coleslaw called for a granny smith apple. I didn’t have a granny smith, but I had a pink lady. Apple, red cabbage and carrot. It’s nice!
Come on – it’s not as crazy as those people who put walnuts in their slaw.
July 27, 2021 — 8:04 pm
Comments: 7
Jam night
Sadly, that doesn’t mean rock’n’roll, it means it’s time to make summer fruit jam. Our first year, we went nuts making jam. After a few months, we realized…we really don’t eat all that much jam.
Still, all them red currants have to go somewhere! Good weekend, all.
July 23, 2021 — 7:17 pm
Comments: 19