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How to get around in Morocco

We travelled to Casablanca in February for our winter sun. Escaping the cold, grey UK winter has become a favourite habit of ours, even though we can only practically manage it for a week at the moment; my school half-term holiday. Morocco has long been somewhere that we have wanted to visit; we chose Casablanca because I love the coast. Actually in the end we did pay a short trip to Marrakech, but more about that in another blog piece….

On this occasion we chose not to hire a car. I leave these decisions entirely up to Paul, given that he is the one who will have to the driving if we do go for the car option. Our apartment was in the middle of a middle class shopping centre, so we were close to everything that we needed in terms of food (always one of my main concerns on holiday).

We like to walk and I have to walk to keep healthy, so getting from A to B on foot was a good plan. Temperatures promised to be in the mid 60s (I like to work in old money) so just perfect for some brisk walks in the sunshine. We do find that even walking round a city and seeing the sights, you can get in a huge number of steps, more than you would during the working week. Hence a combination of walking and taxis seemed a really good plan. Many days we would walk to our destination and then get a taxi back at the end of the day. The photo at the top of the page is of Rick’s Cafe. This was created in 2004, as a dream to celebrate the acclaimed film, Casablanca. We had a wonderful lunch there and then afterwards headed off to a local wine shop to get some supplies. We also found a Carrefour selling alcohol free beer; not available at our local branch near the apartment. I admit that I hunted down the wine shop, as I did not want to spend the week drinking water and fruit juice; I do enjoy a glass of wine. It is perfectly legal in Morocco, just not readily available.

We then had a double reason for needing to take a taxi back; we had already walked miles that day, and we had bottles to carry back to the apartment. I had already established that taxis in Morocco are licensed cabs, not taxis that you have to ring for and book. You can just stand at the side of the road and hail one down. There are so many taxis in Morocco! There are ‘Petit Taxis’ and ‘Grand Taxis.’ Petit are meant to be for your sole use and Grand you have to be prepared to share with other passengers. The fares are very cheap, but the cars are not that great – a bit tatty and grubby! In reality we found that we were just as likely to have to share when taking a Petit Taxi, although there are only 3 seats available. In addition, the drivers only take cash and often don’t have change. So quite often as passengers you might be pooling your available change with complete strangers, stopping off at cash machines or waiting for the driver to find another friendly taxi driver with more change in his pocket.

On this occasion, I went round to the road side to get into the car. The road was really busy (no surprise there then!) and the car was much lower than I am used to. Hence I bashed my right eye on the car door and knocked my contact lens off centre. I just sat still for the whole journey, praying that the lens was still there. Fortunately I managed to retrieve the lens when we arrived back at the apartment. What a relief! I have gas permeable ones and have to order a new one if I lose them.

I don’t actually have many photos of busy streets, as we were too busy negotiating traffic. Hence the photo above is of our walk to Rick’s Cafe. I did not have time to take photos whilst crossing roads- even though I take hundreds of photos on holiday. I am also quite nervous about crossing busy roads and try to hang onto Paul for my sanity; but he forgets and crosses the road without me – then wonders where I am! (still waiting to cross usually!) Moroccan drivers do not believe in stopping for pedestrians and have an aversion to zebra crossings; although one is marginally more likely to succeed in crossing the road using a zebra. The drivers also use their horns constantly; I really do not see the point of everyone honking at everyone!

On what was meant to be our last day (see the next exciting sequel!) we actually spent more money on taxis than usual. We started off in a Petit Taxi, but the driver only wanted to take us so far. You need a Grand Taxi to get to the airport. So he drove us a certain distance and delivered us to his mate who would take us the rest of the way. At first he did not seem to want payment; then he wanted a tip and I ended up giving him far too much money. My French is good but my mastery of the local currency is not. We then had to pay the Grand Taxi driver; he did not have any change, so we ended up over-paying again!

In conclusion, we decided it had been a good decision not to hire a car. Quite honestly it was more pleasant to leave someone else to do the navigating and deal with the scary traffic. There is not much lane discipline and you might end up being at a disadvantage if you were not prepared to use your horn liberally – and I could not quite see Paul doing that!

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Maidenhead’s Big Read – Cave Experiences

Husband Paul and I were asked to take part in this local event as representatives of MAHS (Maidenhead Archaeological and Historical Society). The theme of the Big Read this year was ‘Step back in time’ so we were keen to be involved. Paul’s expertise in and love of history and my profession as librarian seemed the perfect combination to help to make it memorable. I am also a little obsessed with recycled arts and crafts, making much use of brown paper and old books. I was pretty set on the idea of doing something artistic.

We knew that there would be many fabulous author talks and workshops. The authors included: Rob Lloyd Jones, Martin Brown, Josh Lacey, Ruth Burgess, Rhian Lynette, Simon Mole, Patrice Lawrence, Iszi Lawrence and Kate Poels. There would also be some other storytelling and crafts,

Paul’s first idea was to create a mini dig to show children the kind of work which is going on at the Cookham Abbey Dig in the summer. We had a plan to do some digging in a tent outside the library where we could make a bit more of a mess with sand and dirt! Then we were reminded of how bitterly cold it can be in March…..

He was keen to use some VR headsets to explore this technology and take children on a tour of the dig. At this point I came across a wonderful book by Bridget Marzo based on a real life stone age story. See the details of the book here: Mo’s Best Friend Essentially the story is of the discovery of some dog and child footprints walking together at the Chauvet caves in France in the 1990s. From this an idea was born to read the story to children and then to invite them to create small ‘cave paintings’ of their own or contribute to a large collaborative picture on the wall. I decided that scrunched up brown paper would be very ‘green’ and would mimic best a cave wall. For drawing materials I chose chalk, crayons and black and grey pastels.

Then by a happy coincidence Paul was looking on the Chauvet caves website and found a VR experience which has been created; you can have a tour of the caves in the safety of your local library or living room! In fact a new cave experience has been created in Chauvet so save causing damage and deterioration to the real caves. We now have it on our list to pay a visit soon! Take a look at the website for more information: Chauvet Caves For the moment though the VR experience would have to do. Our fellow committee member of MAHS and technological expert, Rob Evans, made sure that all would run smoothly for using the Chauvet Cave experience as part of our offering at the Big Read.

For this event we did not have to do any publicity as there would be a captive audience of keen children and their parents coming to events at Maidenhead Library on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd March. We offered a whole ‘Cave Experience’ with children invited first to hear the story of the Chauvet Caves, then to do some cave art and finally to walk through the caves themselves.

All in all it was a very successful weekend. I also enlisted the help of Phyllida Shelley-Smith, local artist, who has been artist in residence for the summer Cookham Dig. she came along on Sunday to give some more expert guidance on creating cave drawings and re-created the dog in the story on our mini cave.

One of the highlights of the week was talking to a boy in Year 9 from a local special school who was on a ‘Tech break.’ His carer insisted that he should not take part in the VR experience for this reason but he really engaged with the story and art. It is my firm belief that no-one is too old for a great story told with pictures, so I was not concerned about having a wide range of ages of children taking part in my activity.

Another highlight for me was having a chat with Martin Brown, Horrible Histories illustrator. We had a fascinating conversation about stories and pictures and agreed that pictures are so powerful and that the concept of ‘growing out of’ the need for pictures in stories is a sad concept. Just look at the growth in popularity of graphic novels for teenagers and adults. I invited him to add a picture to our cave art and said that he would have to sign it with his name and age. I had already done this for my very bad fish contribution! See photos below.

The VR experience was extremely popular too and all were full of admiration and wonder for the opportunity to take part. Paul and Rob were really busy issuing head sets and explaining how to navigate the walking through of the caves. They actually did it as a sit down experience, as to truly be free and walk around as in a cave, you have to be very careful not to have any furniture around which could be a potential trip hazard!

We had volunteers from MAHS to help both with the story, art and VR experience, so that we could go and have some proper food and rest breaks.

Here are some more photos of the art we created over the weekend. Permission was given by parents of course to photograph their children.

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Corned Beef Hash Revisited, or Why does this key not work?

A can opener or a cannot opener?

The first can of corned beef I have bought for many years!

This is a short piece about my new book ‘Two’s Company – Simple: Fast and Fresh Recipes for Couples, Friends & Roommates, by Orlando Murrin. I am focussing on one of the first recipes I tried in the book because the corned beef brought back memories. First of all, just to explain that Orlando is a chef ‘friend’ of mine. I have never met him, but he is a member of my Facebook group, Archers Chit-Chat, and is a great source of advice and inspiration. It is because of Orlando that I now buy mixed sized free-range eggs, rather than the large ones. These are much kinder to the hens, who suffer from being pressurised into laying large eggs. This advice is endorsed by the British Hen Welfare Trust. Orlando knows that I do not take his other well-known piece of advice in the kitchen, which is to not bother to heat up your oven. Well, sadly my oven is not very advanced, despite probably being only about 5 years old, and it really does make a difference to my meals if I pre-heat the oven, especially for bread, pizza, cakes, scones and so on. I don’t do this to extremes though and find 10 minutes will generally suffice.

We as Chit-Chat were even mentioned in one of Orlando’s articles for the Waitrose news weekly paper. There are lots of keen cooks amongst us and the discussions can get quite heated (even if the ovens are not pre-heated!)

It is always great to have a new cookery book. Indeed as a keen amateur cook and a school librarian, I live by the mantras ‘You cannot have too many books’ as well as ‘You certainly cannot have too many cookery books.’

Today I decided to make the Corned Beef Hash Revisited from Orlando’s new book. You can see the results in the picture:

This was the kind of dish which I think would be great for breakfast or brunch, although Orlando suggests it for supper with some home-made baked beans. I decided to make it for lunch. We don’t eat that much meat and so when we do I quite like something more exciting than corned beef! But lunch seemed the right occasion for this dish. I served it with some sliced mushrooms, as there were some lurking in the fridge which really needed using up.

So what is the significance of the sub-title of this article? Well I was quite surprised to find that the can of corned beef was meant to be opened with a key! I had not seen one of those for years and it seemed so nostalgic. However, after having a go, the key snapped off and I had to resort to the can opener. Even though the can was rectangular with rounded corners, it was a relief that I did manage to open it. It got me thinking about cans of food and how we open them. The immediate literary reference which comes to mind is the can of pineapple in ‘Three Men in a boat’ which is one of those classic comedy scenes.

Here are some interesting facts about cans and can openers:

  • Canned food was invented or came into being in 1810
  • The can opener was invented in 1858
  • In 1866 J. Osterhoudt patented the tin can with a key opener
  • The modern can opener, with the wheel device, was invented in 1870, but it was tricky to use
  • An improved version of the can opener, with a second, serrated wheel, was invented in 1925

We have had family holidays in self-catering accommodation and not been provided with a can opener. I have to say that we have fared better than George, Harris and Jerome in managing to get to the contents of our can. My daughter Jessica did very well with a knife on holiday in Sardinia. We had asked our host for some extra equipment in the kitchen, but failed to notice the absence of the can opener. Not that we eat much canned food, but canned tomatoes and chick peas are part of our staple diet! Strangely we also could not find a can opener in our apartment in Florida, so I made do with the end of a bottle opener. You will see my efforts from the picture, but of course this method would not have worked for the corned beef!

The trouble with this method of opening a can is that the whole structure gradually caves in the more holes that you make.

I have completely digressed from the main theme of this article which is the corned beef hash recipe in Orlando Murrin’s new book. He uses some lovely flavours in his recipe. Chilli, garlic and tabasco feature as well as worcestershire sauce, the latter of which I think is probably traditional. He also suggests flipping the hash over in sections to make it easier to manage.

We really enjoyed the hash, but I had one problem with it, which might be just me. I found it very hard to cook the eggs in the middle of the hash without burning the hash slightly. I did put the lid on my saute pan, but it is still much more tricky to cook eggs in this way than poaching them or frying them in the pan on their own. This is no criticism of Orlando’s recipe, but my own incompetence. Next time I think I shall just fry the eggs on their own and put them on top of the hash at the end. I do think that the home-made baked beans would have made it lovely and moist too, so I’ll do those next time.

I love to support independent bookshops, so here is a link to some of my favourite cookery books available: the-jolly-jaunts-of-sarah-kooky-cook Bookshop UK

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Food in Norway – should I divide by 10 or 12?

https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8665/9781788794671

Prawn Starter – about 2 pints in a bucket

We recently went on a week’s holiday to Norway. It all started when Paul had the opportunity to attend a really useful business conference in Drammen, near Oslo. He suggested that I may as well go with him, as it was in the middle of the school holidays; it also seemed more sensible to extend our stay, given that the conference was only for 2 days.

We went away with the full knowledge that this is an expensive country in terms of accommodation and eating out. Even if we had not known beforehand, it is generally the first point of interest that people will tell you about as soon as you say you are paying a trip to Norway! We watch quite a few Scandi dramas and enjoy the scenery as well as the tense drama; hopefully we would not come across any dead bodies, as murder is clearly as prolific in Norway as it is in Midsomer and Shetland.

Paul planned a whistle stop driving tour for after his conference, taking in some of the most significant cities with views of the fjords and mountains. Thus self-catering was not an option, as we typically had a day of driving and an over-night stop in a different location every evening. The idea is that we return for a longer holiday in the future with more self-catering possible. Our apartments were all of a really high standard and I was quite disappointed not to have the time to shop and cook. We just managed to make a couple of breakfasts, and one simple picnic lunch. I’ll describe the apartments in more detail in the next blog article, just telling you about the food we ate in this piece.

Mussels at a harbour-side restaurant in Oslo

This was a lunch I ate on my own, whilst Paul was busy at the conference in the Drammen hotel. I just adore mussels and usually find they are beautifully cooked in the average restaurant. I like to spend the time eating them slowly, using one mussel shell as my ‘fork’ for extracting the meat from the shells. It is also a treat to have them with chips; I sometimes splash out and do this at home, but chips deep fried are one treat which it is good to let restaurant staff do for you. You get the bonus at the end of a lovely bowl of fishy sauce or soup.

Chips on display with the mussels

I do like to have some idea of how much we are spending on a meal, even if we have accepted that this is going to be an expensive holiday. The average main course in Norway could set you back between 200 and 400 Kroner. You roughly divide by 12, not 10 as Paul first advised me. As we are talking about mid-range restaurants here, not really high class, that is much more than in the UK and all mounts up. Happily, all of the food was really good and not once did we feel that we had eaten a really disappointing meal.

I shall now show you a few more photos of the meals that we had, with brief descriptions. Just to add that I loved the style of the food, with a good choice of fish, meat and vegetable dishes. One feature which really impressed me was the integration of vegetables into your main course, rather than being half-hearted side dishes. In addition, the presentation was superb and very professional, as you should be able to see from the photos. If you think of the artistic presentation of the old style ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ and just increase the size of the portion, that will give you a good idea of a typical Norwegian meal.

Our one frustration was the continuing and increasing tendency to put copious amounts of raw onion into salads. This happens everywhere, not just Norway. I have written a whole blog piece about it! We both dislike it intensely and have found that many people agree with us that it is unpleasant and unnecessary. We started to request food without raw onion; why did I never think of this before? Neither of us has allergies, so it is not being too fussy I think.

Parma Ham and Mozarella Salad with cheesy garlic bread -sadly the salad had too much raw onion in! My lunch in Drammen
Chicken and Mushroom Pasta in Notodden – excellent but some raw onion crept in despite our requesting for it to be left out!
Pizza with mozarella and rocket in Bergen
Breakfast in Stavanger – I was feeling a need for fruit and it was quicker to do our own breakfast
Raw onion extracted from a salad on our way to Stavenger
Fish soup in Stavenger – this was superb and we both had the same dishes in this restaurant
White fish (possibly cod) with gnocchi, peas and asparagus in a creamy sauce – just superb!

We also spoke to our waiter in this restaurant, who was so friendly, and from Maida Vale! I just had to tell him that this was my mother’s place of birth. The restaurant was truly international, with conversations taking place in English despite the diners not being from the UK.

A fairly standard pizza in Hemsedal, a ski resort. There really was not much open out of season, but it was a fun place to stay; we were in a typical ski chalet
Typical Norwegian Restaurant in Tjuvholmen, Oslo; the food we ate in this restaurant is in the pictures below
Prawn shells left after I had devoured the prawns in the first photograph. There really were about 2 pints of them, but surprisingly I still had room for my main course afterwards
Paul’s Reindeer first course

Game Casserole with mash and jam similar to the type served with Swedish meatballs

Of course it goes without saying that we also drank quite a lot; wine for me and non alcoholic beer for Paul. Again the prices were much higher, at about 150 kroner for an average glass of wine. I show you below the menu for our last night dinner in Oslo, not including the drinks menu, but it gives you a little flavour of a typical restaurant in Oslo.

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America: My brief observations on the language and culture

Helpful sign in cafe where we partook of breakfast one day

This sign actually filled me with much cheer. One of my moans (and do understand that I am not a moaner; I like to be very positive and see the best in people!) is that you cannot have a choice of a medium or large coffee. If there are only two sizes, then they have to be small and large! To have the option of medium, you would need 3 sizes. However, I am not exactly clear on what the customers might try to order in a typical cafe for someone to have been moved to put up the above sign.

My pre-conceptions about American culture and language:

  1. I was expecting to be told frequently ‘I just love your accent.’
  2. I was anticipating that there would be many differences in vocabulary.
  3. Related to the above, I anticipated that it would be easy to confuse Americans by using an English word that they might not have come across.
  4. I had ideas that Americans are very warm, welcoming and friendly to tourists.
  5. I was expecting to confuse many waiters by asking for ‘water.’ This was one that I had been warned about in advance; apparently the way we pronounce this word is different enough to confuse the Americans quite easily!

Usually when travelling I speak the native language if I can; in fact French is the only foreign language I can speak competently, but I have a smattering of Spanish and am willing to have a go, particularly with foodie words; I come across these in my reading of cookery books and food magazines. In America though I was deliberately sticking to English vocabulary as a kind of test. We are very at home with American culture in the UK, but I know that UK culture is not as widely known in the USA. So would it not be interesting to stick to asking for ‘chips’ and seeing what would turn up? I could talk about visiting Boston in the ‘autumn’ rather than the ‘fall.’ Where does the queue start? Is there a lift in the apartment? Where are the loos? (this one can sound rather rude I have since discovered!) However, I am not interested in going for a lie down, so I don’t want a restroom; and I am not planning to have a bath. Does the house have a lovely garden? (after all, ‘yard’ does sound to be like something at a building site!) Paul thought that I was a real stickler to my English and happily asked for the check rather than the bill and suggested we should cross to the sidewalk.

However, interestingly enough I found that Americans are probably becoming much more international and have started to embrace UK culture, as I only managed to confuse a few people! There are really an awful lot of words which vary between the two countries. This is my list of the most common ones that you might come across, with the English words on the left:

Pavement – Sidewalk

Bill – Check

Rubbish – Trash

Boot – Trunk

Chips – Fries

Crisps – Chips

Expiry date – Expiration date

Garden – Yard

Hire – Rent

Accelerator – Gas

Manual car – Stick Shift

Lift – Elevator

Mobile phone – Cell phone

Toilet/Loo – Restroom/bathroom

Autumn – Fall

Tap – Faucet

Petrol – Gas

Jelly – Jello

Jam – Jelly

Queue – Line

Trousers – Pants

Handbag – Purse

Ground Floor – First Floor

First Floor – Second Floor

Take-away – Take-out

Roundabout – Traffic Circle

Wash hands – Wash up

Postcode – Zip Code

Helpful sign in the Everglades. I don’t think we get many vultures damaging vehicles in the UK! What is a windshield wiper?!

I genuinely had not come across the notion that there is no ground floor in American apartments (note here that I think we actually use apartment as much as flat in the English language). I did not have the opportunity to try to confuse anyone with this difference in vocabulary, but maybe on our next visit… The idea that the first floor is called the second floor in America is strangely worrying. I feel a bad poetry moment coming on….. The specific example I can remember of locals having to clarify what I meant was when I asked if the apartment had a lift. We were back in New York for our second visit and the apartment was poky, the hallways were smelly and it was difficult to get away from the smell because the instructions to find the key were extremely confusing! Actually there was no lift or elevator and what a good idea I did not clarify which floor we were heading for!

Some aspects of language and culture which are much more like back home

I love the fact that miles and fractions are alive and well in the USA. We had a lot of fun with our hire car sat nav. Not only were the instructions nice and familiar being in miles, but our female guide (it seems that sat navs are always female) was rather obsessed with fractions, as in: ‘In 9 tenths of a mile you will reach the Bee Ridge Road.’ Or ‘In about half a mile, turn left.’ (why, ‘about half a mile?!’ Can you not be a bit more specific?!) Thinking about it, I am sure that she concentrated on halves, quarters and tenths, not bothering with eighths very much.

I also like to use fahrenheit rather than celsisus, so it was good to hear of temperatures in the 80s and 90s and not having to do my usual conversions that I do in the UK. Also it was nice to be working in gallons of petrol. I cannot understand the logic in the UK of describing cars as doing for instance ’60 miles to the gallon’ and then selling petrol in litres!

Returning to my list of preconceptions above, we were told on many occasions ‘I love your accent.’ People would often ask us where we were from. Paul had suggested that maybe we would get mistaken for Australians, but that was not to be the case. In fact, our ‘Swimming with the Manatees’ guide guessed that we were from Oxford when I asked her to make a guess. Actually this was one place she had visited in the UK and is not far from where we live! The silly thing is that as soon as an American says to me ‘I love your accent’, I start to speak subconsciously in an even more RP way. Maybe that is just me?

We found on the whole that Americans were extremely friendly and welcoming. On the metro, travelling from JFK airport to our apartment for the first time, one member of staff was really kind and helpful at assisting us with buying tickets and heading off in the right direction. On our second trip to New York, we took a taxi to the apartment. This was the incident with not being able to find the keys and trying to get upstairs with no lift in a very smelly building! In the midst of all that, Paul discovered that he must have dropped his mobile (no, not his cell phone!) in the taxi. He tried ringing the phone, and 15 minutes later the taxi pulled up outside the apartment block as the driver wanted to return the phone to him!

I did ask for ‘water’ a few times but was disappointed, as on each occasion I was understood even with the English pronunciation! Times have moved on….

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Eating our way through New York and Florida

Beautiful vegetables in Eataly in New York
Why is this pudding so huge with too much cream?!

This is a belated piece about our food whilst on holiday in New York and Florida in April. We love to eat good food all the time and I was looking forward to America because, like the UK, it is very multi-cultural and has such a diverse range of restaurants. My daughter Jess is also quite conservative in her food tastes but embraces American culture, so it seemed that it would be an easy place to find food to her tastes too. This was my first trip to America and Jessica’s too. Paul has been many times before, although not for a long time. I have known him for 22 years and he has not been to the USA since I have known him!

Some of my pre-conceived ideas about eating out in America and were they confirmed as being true or not?

I try not to be closed minded and have lots of pre-conceptions about places and people. However, with American culture being so widely known and shown on our TV and film screens, it was difficult not to have a few expectations. Actually, I did not have that many ideas about what to expect, but I had heard that eating out can be relatively cheap and that it is quite common to dine out a lot. My other expectation was that in restaurants the portions would be large. I have a very healthy appetite and can pile up my plate, but some of the meals defeated me! Hence the caption on the photo above of a pudding I had one day. For this reason we very rarely indulged in a pudding. In New York we ate out all the time; we had two nights there on our outward journey and three nights on our way back. Our apartments were not big enough for catering comfortably and we really wanted to see the big city in all its glory, so sitting in a cramped apartment was not an option we went for! We also like to have 3 meals a day, so sometimes I was frustrated with the breakfast being so huge and being mindful that I would need space for lunch! On our first morning in New York we had bagels – sadly I did not take any photos. They were excellent; mine was the traditional smoked salmon and cream cheese and I had fresh orange juice and fresh coffee to drink. Eating out in America is fun, noisy and vibrant and it is true that a lot of people partake of the pleasure. In terms of the cost, I’d say that New York was really quite pricey and comparable to London, whereas Florida was much more reasonable and as I was expecting American prices to be.

Below you can see some pictures of a breakfast we had en route one day in Florida:

Because of the huge portions, I was particularly looking forward to reaching our holiday home in Florida and being able to cook our own meals. Some might say, why would you go on holiday and cook your own food?! I even invited my dear old friend Gillian round for lunch on Easter Sunday; she has lived in Florida for over 30 years and was the reason for our visit. Well I just love to cook and really it does not matter where in the world I am; I want to go to the shops and go back and cook in a different kitchen. In this case the kitchen was large and well equipped; this made a lovely change from some of the villas we have rented in European countries, which often have rather small and uninspiring kitchens.

However, there are sometimes unexpected items missing or not working even in a big kitchen. The filter coffee maker did not work, so our host sent a replacement very promptly for us. The ice function in the fridge stopped working on Easter Sunday, which was not good news! Also, I could not find a proper can opener. Hence my attempt to open a can with a bottle opener. Result below, with no injuries at all!

Pre-dinner nibbles at Gillian’s fabulous Florida home

Here are some of the meals I cooked in our lovely Florida kitchen:

Roast Pork for Easter Sunday
A melange of left-over pork, beans and tomatoes with some spice and topped with asparagus
Free-form pizza made with a flour tortilla and some chilli mince cooked up by Jess
Free-form chocolate cheesecake topped with fresh fruit, for Easter Sunday

We did have some wonderfully memorable meals in Florida in particular, where the fruit and vegetables were fresh and tasty and there was plenty of fish. We also tried alligator a couple of times. I had hoped to have it unadorned and looking like an alligator, but it was served in batter or in a macaroni cheese. The latter was for a late lunch after a long afternoon swimming with the manatees – more about that in another blog piece.

Alligator Macaroni Cheese

We spent two nights away in the middle of our Florida break, travelling through the Everglades and finally arriving at Key West. Paul and Jessica did so much driving and I did my usual job of assisting or interpreting what the sat nav was trying to tell us!

We particularly enjoyed Key West, because it is a little bit different in terms of American suburbia. You get used to driving along main roads and passing shopping centres and restaurants without that town or city centre experience. It is true that it would be very difficult to walk anywhere in most locations, and those people you do see walking seem to be an oddity and it does not look very safe! Key West is more of a proper town with streets and shops. You can park your car and then stroll the streets to find somewhere to eat. Curiously though, most of the buildings are of a clapboard design so many of them look the same. We had a bit of difficulty finding the post office. Our main reason for visiting, apart from the wonderful coast (I have to swim everywhere we go!) was to see Ernest Hemingway’s House with the many 6-toed cats. More about this another time, but we had the most wonderful lunch at the Moon Dog Restaurant; it used to be called the 6 Toed Cat, but for some reason was renamed. I had the most divine steak salad, just cooked rare and to perfection.

Steak Salad
Stunning Artwork on the walls at the Moon Dog
Another view of the Moon Dog

On some occasions we got round the huge portion dilemma by sharing a meal. This is really ideal with a pizza, and to be honest we sometimes do this in the UK anyway. At home I make one big pizza and cut it into portions; we would never have a whole pizza each, although my toppings tend to be more substantial than those you get in a restaurant.

Sharing Pizza

The fish in Florida was superb. Common varieties were grouper and mahi mahi. The latter is also known as dolphin fish, but don’t panic! It is not anything to do with dolphins as we know them. One restaurant we ate in offered a couple of different fish with a selection of sauces and side dishes. A lovely, simple way of offering choice to customers.

On our way back home, having had a rather hot and tiring journey, we ate in one of the airport restaurants at JFK airport; much nicer than sitting around in crowds waiting for the flight. On this occasion, even Jessica was a little defeated by the large ice-cream sundae.

In conclusion I would say that the food in America was enjoyable and rarely disappointed us. If you are not like me and can cope with fewer than 3 meals a day when you need to have every meal in a restaurant, then that is definitely a wise option to take on occasions.

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Platinum Pudding or Glen Brittle Cheesecake

Completed Glen Brittle Cheesecake

I, along with thousands of others, decided to enter the Platinum Pudding competition run by Fortnum and Mason, to celebrate this great landmark in our Monarch’s reign. I am not usually one for competitive cooking, but as all I needed to do was to have fun creating a pudding recipe in the comfort of my own home, it seemed a fairly stress-free challenge.

My pudding was inspired by the Queen’s love of her Scottish home Balmoral. A few years ago we were on a tour of the Outer Hebrides, over the month of August. One day we drove through a place called Glen Brittle on the Isle of Skye. I remarked to Paul that it sounded like a breakfast cereal! I immediately started creating a breakfast bar recipe, the main ingredients of which were oats and pine nuts. I did make these and had ideas of grandeur and trying to sell them online, but this would be very complex.




Hence when I came to devise my Platinum Pudding recipe, I thought that it would be fun to use the Glen Brittle as a a base for a cheesecake. I decided that I would have to include raspberries, as they are so symptomatic of Scotland and that great pudding Cranachan. Plain chocolate would have to be in there somewhere, as some quick research indicated that Her Majesty loves very dark chocolate. The pudding is designed to be one for summer, when the main Platinum celebrations will be taking place. I would not normally buy out of season raspberries, but had to on this occasion for the purposes of testing the recipe in February!

I had a very warm and friendly e-mail from Fortnum and Mason telling me that I had not reached the shortlist. I really appreciated hearing back from them.

So here is my recipe which I am sharing with you today. It will not be widely available (in fact not at all!) in the shops, so you may like to try it for yourselves. I congratulate, in advance, the winner of the competition and look forward to trying the winning recipe!

70g Oats

65g pine nuts

25g pumpkin seeds

87g butter

62g soft brown sugar

1 tab golden syrup

325g full fat cream cheese

175ml double cream

75g caster sugar

zest of a lemon, juice of half

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

160g fresh raspberries

1 tab cassis liqueur or similar

60g plain chocolate

gold edible spray

Make a flapjack base by melting 62g butter, brown sugar and syrup. Then bubble slightly, stir in the oats, 40g pine nuts and pumpkin seeds. Bake for 12 minutes at 180 degrees C in a parchment lined loaf tin (size not important as it gets bashed up later on!)

Cool the Glen Brittle flapjack then bash it up in a bag with a rolling pin. Melt the other 25g butter and mix in the crumbs. Press this into a 20cm parchment lined springform cake tin and bake for 5 minutes to firm up.

Whisk the cream, lemon, vanilla and caster sugar to soft peaks, then whisk in the cream cheese. Spread this over the cooled Glen Brittle base. Chill for an hour or so.

Make some chocolate bark by melting the chocolate in a basin over a pan of simmering water (don’t let the basin touch the water). Spread into a small rectangle on baking parchment (about 7 x 3cms). Cool for few minutes then spray with a little gold. Chill until firm.



Toast the remaining 25g pine nuts in a frying pan over a low heat. Bash up half of the raspberries in a pan over a low heat with the cassis. Strain through a metal sieve.

Assemble your Glen Brittle Cheesecake!

Turn the cheesecake out onto a plate, removing the paper carefully. Put the rest of the raspberries on the top, drizzle with the raspberry coulis, sprinkle over the pine nuts. Break the chocolate bark into shards and arrange decoratively over the top.

Eat!

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The Green Barbecue by Rukmini Iyer: Can I cook the whole book? Part 2

Ricotta with griddled squash, chard, honey and hazelnuts

This was a really beautiful colourful dish and contains everything that I love, including a cheese element. If I have said it once I’ll say it over and over again – I don’t feel the need to buy any special ingredients for my vegetarian meals and this is what I love most about this cookery book. It just focusses on good fresh vegetables. Cooking a dish like this one with the squash and chard I do feel works particularly well later in the season when we are past the season of wanting to cook outdoors.

I served this with the Yuzu Mushrooms with coriander and cashews. I somehow failed to get a decent photo of this dish, so apologies for this. I was intrigued to try the yuzu juice, which was a lovely different citrus taste. I now have a handy bottle of this to use in other dressings.

Leek and Cheddar Glamorgan Sausages

This dish I failed to include in my first part of this ‘Cook the whole book’ challenge. I made a point of preparing this dish on holiday as we were in Wales so it seemed rather apt. We even went to a small deli/cheese shop in Camarthen to buy some interesting Welsh cheese, rather than using the cheddar suggested in the recipe. I cannot remember if I have ever made Glamorgan sausages before; I have certainly intended to and recommended them to others. I was very pleased with the way that these turned out, particularly as this was a recipe which required a little precision and I’d normally have weighed the cheese and the breadcrumbs. However there were no scales in our holiday cottage. I liked the way that these ‘sausages’ held well together, which is not always the case with vegetable sausages and burgers. I can imagine that they would indeed work well on the barbecue. I cannot now remember what I served them with, but a spicy tomato sauce and some potato salad would work well. I did make too many, so we had the remaining two as part of a cooked breakfast a couple of days later.

Griddled Courgettes with parmesan, almonds and lemon

Sadly we did not have enough courgettes in the garden to make this dish, but for any good gardener it would be a lovely use of a glut. I like courgettes cooked almost any way, as long as they are kept away from water. These were very thinly sliced and the colours and textures worked well. I cooked mine on a cast iron griddle pan. In fact I cooked the potato dish on the griddle pan too, which made me think that cooking these dishes outdoors would have been a much better idea. My kitchen is small and gets smoky and smelly even with two fans on and the door open.

I served this with the dish you can see below:

Simply barbecued new potatoes with tarragon, peanuts and chipotle

Here I have to apologise for not having any tarragon at the right time of the week. It is not a herb that I grow in my garden (clearly I should!) so I bought a pack for this dish but it had wilted and gone brown by the time I came to cook this meal. I thus used some fresh leaves from the garden instead. Maybe this is one to do again next year when I shall hopefully have some tarragon growing! Anyway, it was all worth it even without the correct herbs.

I have spent far too long updating this blog, so I am going to leave this here and include my next recipes in part 3.

A reminder that Rukmini Iyer’s wonderful book can be bought at all good bookshops, including https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/cookery-books-i-love which supports independent bookshops

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The Green Barbecue by Rukmini Iyer: Can I cook the whole book? Part 1

https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-green-barbecue-modern-vegan-vegetarian-recipes-to-cook-outdoors-in/9781529110272?aid=8665

Charred Tenderstem with oranges, blue cheese and walnuts

I just loved watching the film Julie and Julia and my ambition in blogging would be to do what Julie Powell did and cook my way through a complete, loved cookery book and of course become rich and famous as a result!

Okay dream on Sarah, but the principle of the idea is a sound one. A few years ago I did attempt to cook the cover of all three of my cookery magazines every month. This was quite hard work, particularly if the recipe featured really needed a crowd of people to justify cooking it up. I did once make a rainbow cake and take it to an operatic society rehearsal. Anyway, in the end maybe I should have just stuck to one magazine. After the recent purchase of The Green Barbecue by Rukmini Iyer, I decided that it might be a good new project to cook the book. I am neither vegetarian nor vegan, and not that great at lighting barbecues, but I was just so inspired by the book that I really think I could happily cook every single recipe.

Okay, so a few things to get out of the way to start with:

I am not going to cook every recipe on a barbecue; in fact heading into autumn and winter now, I hope to complete the project before the end of next summer, so the majority of the recipes will be cooked indoors.

I may change a few ingredients depending on how the mood takes me. For instance, I am not a fan of tofu and indeed Rukmini says that in her ‘Dairy-Ish’ chapter it is fine to interchange tofu, paneer and feta. I might on occasions use halloumi too. Also, in our household we are not a fan of burger buns; I prefer to cook chips or potato salad or even just a light salad to go with burgers. We are also not fond of peanuts and I tend to use cashew nuts instead. Peanut butter as an ingredient I do love.

Each blog piece I write will be an update and include a few of the Green Barbecue recipes I have tried recently, hopefully with photos. I do like to photograph food just before eating it, and don’t usually set up a specific photo shoot, so there will be no clever tricks and I don’t normally let hot food cool down. Hence some of my pictures may be a bit steamy!

As I have said, we are not vegetarian, and although we have many vegetarian meals, on occasions I like to serve lovely vegetarian dishes with some meat or fish. Vegetables are the star in my meals usually.

So here goes! The recipe at the top of the page is Charred Tenderstem with oranges, blue cheese and walnuts.

My changes: I used purple sprouting broccoli, as that is my preference and what I buy most weeks. I also lightly boiled it before charring it on my griddle pan. I don’t have much success with charring or roasting broccoli from raw. It behaves quite differently from cauliflower.

Served with: for me a fillet of mackerel and for Paul a fillet of sea bass. We also had some left-over root vegetable gratin – celeriac, sweet potato, spices, feta and coconut.

Verdict: A really delicious salad with fresh flavours. I would be happy with this as a lunch dish on its own, but it does work so well as a salad served with other dishes to make it more substantial. On another occasion I might have served it with one of the potato dishes in the book (see below for the potato dish I tried earlier on) or just a jacket potato. I like warm salads, which are of course achieved by having some hot and some cold ingredients mixed together.

In the other picture above you can see my successful barbecue burning away. We have a lovely charcoal barbecue, but last year I had a few failures with it, fire not hot enough and a big disappointment, so I was a bit apprehensive trying another barbecue. I did not cook the broccoli dish on it but I did do the following three dishes as a simple lunch for my mother in early August. The idea was that if the barbecue failed, I could easily revert to cooking inside and it was less stressful with only two of us.

Red Pepper, Feta, Basil and Pine Nut Parcels and Gunpowder Potatoes with Fennel Seeds, Chilli, Coriander and Cashews
Aubergine and Goat’s Cheese Burger Stacks with Honey and Thyme, plus the pepper halves ready to cook

My changes: I used brie instead of goat’s cheese. I am actually a goat’s cheese addict, but I happened to have a large piece of brie in the fridge that needed eating! I also only did halves of peppers and did not top them with the other half of the pepper. We did not have burger buns either! With the potato recipe, I cheated by par-boiling the potatoes rather than cooking them from raw in the foil parcels. I was still not convinced that my barbecue was going to be hot enough, so thought that this would be safer.

This meal was just the three vegetarian dishes and worked really well. It would make a great meal for friends or family if entertaining. I would probably have just added some home-made houmus (as I am addicted to it!)

Verdict: A superb light meal. I admit that I did pick two cheese dishes and I know that this is not to everyone’s taste, but we are rather fond of cheese in our family. For the nervous barbecue lighter, these would be good dishes to pick as none of them take that long to cook (even speedier with my cheat with the potato dish!) The aubergine stuffed with cheese was a little difficult to handle on the barbecue and I was in danger of losing all my lovely cheese stuffing. I think that in the future I would consider just griddling the aubergine slices and then layering with the cheese afterwards; the heat would be enough to melt it I think.

Chipotle Mushroom and Black Bean Burgers with Peanuts and Lime
The Bean Burgers with Runner Bean and Potato Salad

I made these burgers recently and we really enjoyed them.

My changes: No burger buns as usual! I also incorporated the nuts (cashew nuts instead of peanuts) into the accompanying salad.

Verdict: Excellent flavours, but they did not hold together very well. I am pleased that I just cooked them in the oven and did not crisp them up on the barbecue or in a frying pan, as I fear they would have fallen apart. I need to work on this recipe and consider whether some egg for binding would be helpful. They were easy to prepare with a food processor and did not create loads of mess, as burgers and fishcakes sometimes do. I am actually not fond of beef burgers, even if good quality and home-made; something to do with always being greasy I think. I am therefore always trying out new veggie burger recipes.

Spiced Paneer with mango, avocado, chilli and coriander
Moroccan Griddled Potatoes with olives, chickpeas and preserved lemon

I served these two dishes together whilst we were on holiday in West Wales recently. I wanted something fresh, vibrant and fruity and this selection fitted the bill.

Changes: I did not buy any preserved lemon, so left that out of the recipe. There is a limit to how many jars and store-cupboard ingredients you want to buy on holiday.

Verdict: A really fresh, beautiful meal. The mango dish is the kind of dish I crave when I want a complete break from meat and fish. I love the contrast of fruit and vegetables in a savoury course. Paneer is another of my addictions. You could really adapt this dish and have it as a pudding. I am thinking that in that case I would leave out the avocado and use goat’s cheese instead, maybe add a drizzle of honey. I do love my carbohydrate, so am always on the look out for variations on the humble potato salad.

Okay, so 7 dishes cooked from the book so far! Only 68 to go and I anticipate a very pleasurable journey along the way!

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A return to the Ironing Board Blog

A Follow up to my August 2017 post: An Ironing Board could be useful: The Trials and Tribulations of blogging on holiday

Joe Browns Official | Women’s & Men’s Clothing, Homeware & Sale

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This year we are holidaying in West Wales. In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic this seemed like the safest and most sensible option. We’d love to travel abroad again, in particular to visit our dear friend Liz in France, and also to catch up on that Florida/New York holiday that never happened in 2020! However, staying in the UK seemed to be a wise decision this year, and it also gives us the opportunity to catch up with Charlie and Aimee (Paul’s son and daughter-in-law) whose marriage we were lucky enough to attend last August. They live in South Wales, so visits on the way to Carmarthen and on the way back have been worked into the holiday plans.

I booked our cottage through https://www.walescottageholidays.co.uk/ and picked a small, remote cottage in Llangain. There is one other letting property which is also being let at present, and our hosts live here too. This is great, as makes arrival, departure and asking questions so much easier. Readers of my blog will know that I always seem to need to ask how things work or to ask for extra supplies of household items. In Sardinia this turned out to be a bitter experience, not to be repeated! Writing my blog in Sardinia, I discovered the usefulness of an ironing board being supplied. No, I don’t do much ironing, but when you need an extra table for your laptop it is ideal! Actually this cottage has a lovely dining table, and Paul is using this as his base for business and e-mails (yes he does work on holiday but we spend much time travelling and having fun too!) Because we like to eat at an uncluttered table, I decided to bring the ironing board into play, simply because it would save constantly having to shift my laptop at mealtimes. Also I was hoping to sit in the glorious entrance area of the cottage with a big picture window for admiring the views of the hills and estuary. See the picture below:

Below you can see the outside of the cottage just by the picture window:

In fact I had to abandon the idea of blogging in the entrance area, as the wifi signal there is just not quite strong enough and keeps dropping. No matter, it all works fine in the main reception room and I can still admire the views from my seat!

To me it is perfectly normal to set up my writing station on an ironing board, but to others it may seem a little eccentric. Sharon (our host) came round to see if all was well and thought it was very amusing how I was making use of the facilities. She offered to find an alternative table for me, but in fact thought that, on reflection, my set-up was ideal! Maybe it could be added to the cottage property details as a useful extra!

So here I am once again writing my ironing board blog. I wonder if I might start a new trend. Some of my friends in my facebook group Archers Chit-Chat, say that they never do any ironing, so here is a use for redundant ironing boards! The additional perk is that you can always revert to using it for its intended purpose. Also the fact that it has adjustable height settings must surely be a huge advantage. I would normally stand to iron my clothes (there are some which just have to be ironed before wearing! But you won’t catch me ironing the bedding!) but for writing a blog, I sit down.

As I generally include some food and cooking news in my posts, I just have to say that Jamie Oliver’s recipe for Tomato soup with grilled mussels is absolutely divine! I cannot find a useful link to the recipe; it is in the Save with Jamie book, which has some great recipes in using ingredients that not everyone would think of as economical. Mussels must be one of the few types of seafood/shellfish that are genuinely cheap to buy. Squid is the only other seafood I can think of in this category. Anyway, I am sure that the recipe is easily findable. After a long afternoon out, visiting Laugharne and Tenby, I cooked this fabulous dish for our dinner. We had bought the mussels in Tesco in the morning and put them straight into the fridge. It was not an early dinner, ready at about 8:45pm, but luckily on holiday we feel a bit more relaxed about late eating. Here are some pictures for you to drool over, if you like mussels!

https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/cookery-books-i-love

I like to support local bookshops, so the link above is to my section of https://uk.bookshop.org/ and you will see there the details of the Save with Jamie book!