I am faithful to Marguerite Patten

"Where's the angelica? I can't see the angelica." I am in an aisle in a supermarket in rural Quebec.

"What's angelica?", asks the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist. "It's...angelique". "Yes, minky, but what is it?".

I do not know what angelica is. "It is a sort of preserved leaf. I think. Maybe." "What sort of leaf?". "Don't know. A leafy leaf."

I subsequently discover that angelica is almost impossible to find, as well as being a sort of root thing preserved in sugar, but that is of no use to me; I need it if I am to accurately recreate Marguerite Patten's Délice Aux Mandarines. I give up and buy some of those awful green maraschino cherries instead - the closest thing I can find, both in colour (neon green), and spirit.

Time passes. Other ingredients are acquired with little trouble: turnips, carrots, leeks, onions, red wine, bacon, beef; eggs, sugar, tinned mandarin oranges and short grain rice (we buy arborio and hope for the best). But the recipe for Boeuf Braisé asks for something called 'shortening'.

I do not ever want to have buy shortening again. It is a big block of fat (that you do not need to refrigerate and which lasts for at least a year), and if you look at the ingredients label, the ingredients are not things that you would normally want to put in your mouth.

I stand in the aisle of the supermarket and look at it, and look at the pathologist. "I am not using this. I can't." The pathologist sighs the sigh of a man who has realised he is destined to spend the rest of his life with someone who just leaves things lying around and doesn't pick them up. "You have to, minky. This is the whole point. You have to ... reach your limits and ... go beyond them. Face your fears. That sort of thing." "What, like sort of extreme cooking, but 1967 style?". "Yes, something like that." I put the shortening the basket.

Time passes. I am in the kitchen and the shortening is melting. It is big, and there is a quarter of a cupful of it (non-North American readers, if you need a conversion go here; no, I can't do it in my head). It melts and it is clear and it seems to be able to take a very high heat without burning or smelling weird. (Further proof, if we needed it, that is is made of recycled shopping bags and donkey's ears). I do what I am told to by Marguerite and feel the lack of certain things (more wine; garlic), but it passes uneventfully and when the thing is cool, I soak up the shortening from the surface with cunning use of doubled-over paper towels. What I end up with is a nice-enough beef stew the colour of baby poo.

The Délice Aux Mandarines is quite the thing. You make rice pudding (I had forgotten how very nice a plain rice pudding is) that you like until you have to add sugar and egg yolks (egg yolks?). You then pour the rice pudding over tinned mandarins (this is not a joke), and then - as if this isn't quite enough - you make one of those boring meringues that never does anything (just egg white and sugar), whack it on top, and bake it. Rice pudding and meringue makes no sense to me now, and I very much doubt it made sense then.

But enough from me, for now it is time for the first of two reviews, brought to you live by none other than the French-Canadian veterinary research pathologist who - as you will see - is perfectly bilingual.

The Boeuf Braisé

Browness. Browness incarnate, the Idea of Brown, Brown Immemorial – in the immortal words of Mallarmé, “le Brun Infini”. This is what this dish is about, Brownitude.

Oh yes, sure, it’s braised beef – note, not braised beef shoulder or beef shank or whatever - just beef. That is precisely what the recipe ingredients called for: ‘un morceau de boeuf’, i.e. a piece of beef. None of today’s usual bollocks, which undoubtedly would have read ‘ask your favorite butcher to select the nicest portion of the upper-middle interior loin of a first-generation Angus-Simmental steer that has been raised entirely on locally-grown organic swedish ryegrass while listening to Beethoven’ s Pastoral symphony’.

Screw that shit, Marguerite Patten says – you just get you some beef, I’ll tell you how to treat it right. And right she does, by turning it brown, and surrounding it with brown. Which is exactly what it tastes like: brown. Homey, comforting, down-home brown, like that sofa in the basement whose covers you really should wash but will never bother to. Sure, you can gussy it up if you want – add some fresh garlic, or some chili, or wine – but then you’ll lose its true nature: the beefiness of Beef, the browniness of Brown.

Grade: B+
Recommended for: Long winter nights



















Coming soon: The pathologist reviews the freakish rice pudding/meringue/mandarin combo.

I am off like a rocket

I am true to my word!! Only yesterday, I swore that I would start a dangerous game of Marguerite PotLuck riding, as I am, on the whole Julie/Julia film 'n' book frenzy.

The rules are simple:

1. The histopathologist I live with selects two cards at random from the box of Marguerite Patten recipe cards (1967, rev. 1973; $5);

2. Whatever the recipe, I cook it, and we eat it;

3. As far as possible, the exact ingredients listed on the card must be followed;

4. The resulting "dish" is photographed so that my loyal and frenzied readers may do a comparison with the original;

5. There are 10 jokers for things we really can't eat, e.g. brains in aspic or tongue terrine.

As an added bonus (and do please hang on to your hats, I fear the top of your heads may blow off with the excitement), the French-Canadian veterinary research pathologist will do a PotLuck Review.

The pathologist is also entrusted with keeping me on the straight and narrow. For e.g., this is the first card he picked out of the box tonight (and that I must therefore cook tomorrow):






















The words: "That's a bit pissing boring. I know, I'll pick another one", were met with: "What, you're breaking the rules already?", which reminded me how little backbone I have. As a result, I will be persevering with braised beef, even though it'll be 28 degrees tomorrow.

HOWEVER (sorry about the capitals but really, the next one is what this is all about), I have been rewarded with a magnificent pudding that involves angelica, rice pudding (made from scratch), tinned manderines and meringue. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, l give you:





















This marvel (and pray that I have the requisite Pyrex dish to do it justice), can be served either hot or cold - but Marguerite seems to prefer it "chaud".

Coming soon: I go to the supermarket and pray for angelica.

I have another conversation with the pathologist

It is the evening, and I am being picked up from the station. I get in the car.

Pathologist: Is there blood on my face?
Me: Holy fuck. Yes. There, on your forehead, and a bit in your sideburn. I'll get it off.
Pathologist: No no, not with your fingers and spit. I will go to the bathroom and do it.
Me: How ....?
Pathologist: ...There was a splooshy pig today and I was by myself.
Me: Ah.

Regular readers will be aware of previous incidents of this nature, and I can guarantee that this will not be the last.

I am in support of Pineapple Alaska

There I was at the Bazaar - or "Bazar", as they call it in Montreal - last summer (Catholic, lots of old lady skirts in autumnal shades for sale, teeny-tiny sweet nuns who could probably tell I was a never-active non-believing Protestant who quite likes C of E churches and cries at carol services), stocking up on 1930s French books, and what did I find but an entire set of Marguerite Patten recipe cards (1967, rev. 1973), translated into French and on sale for only $5?

An idea sprang into my gigantic brain! I would create a new game called Marguerite PotLuck, in which we would dip our cautious hands into said set of recipe cards and cook (and eat) whatever came out, even if it was (and excuse me while I go and experiment "live") Veau Tyrolien or Salade de Hareng. This idea seemed quite brilliant on 8th May 2008 and still is, I believe, quite marvellous.

Over a year later, I am lying on the sofa sucking absinthe through a straw and watching the 'tele' when the people start talking about a new film with Mrl Strp in it called "Julie/Julia" or somesuch. It is about a cook and another cook and it looks quite good. But what is this?!! My keen monkey eyes are distracted by a flash of light that bounces off my glistening glass, throwing into sharp relief the spine of a handsome book on the top shelf. It is called Julie and Julia!!! This is incredible.

A preposterously handsome French friend of mine (who has taken a violent interest in English food and spends much of his time making walnut pickle), gave it to me when I started writing this web-blog. "Darleeng. You must read this. She had a blogue. Now she 'as a book. And darleeng, when are you going to do your cookeeng show on YouTube? You would be MARvelloos." But I did not read it; instead it, like the rest of my books, was left in London for three years whilst I skipped about in other places, including (but not limited to) Amsterdam and Montreal.

Anyway, I picked up the book the other day and started reading it. If you do not know about it (which you probably do), it is the story of a lady who decided to cook the whole of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and write a blog about it. I am really enjoying it; it is charming, in the way Nancy Mitford is charming (no, don't ask me why, I know what I mean), and it has made me think all sorts of things, namely:

1. This blog is now over three years old;
2. In it, I have rarely talked about the things that I really enjoy doing every day; the things that I spend a large part of every evening and every weekend doing.

Those things are:

1. Cooking
2. Shopping for food in shops that sell nice food
3. Cooking
4. Shouting at recipe books
5. Cooking
6. Eating toast and spitting crumbs at The Food Network
7. Cooking
8. Shouting "fuck off!" at Iceberg lettuces
9. Making jam
10. Getting really, really good at making bread
11. Doing complicated things with gelatine
12. Thinking about putting Jamie Oliver's tongue in a tongue sandwich and feeding it back to him.

But I digress. I am very angry because the Julie lady has already done this thing that I thought was so amusing and original, i.e. take an old cookbook and cook out of it and write about it.

This happens to me a lot. I am always having really excellent ground-breaking ideas (for e.g. I invented pepper mill fillers, those loo roll holders that work and jam and peanut butter mixed together in a jar, to name but a few), and then I realise that someone else has done it already. It is the same with Marguerite PotLuck, which is sort of the same idea as Julie and Julia, but with photographs that will enable to reader to view and judge the comparative merits of my version vs. the 1967 technicolour photograph.

What do you think? Shall I worry less about originality (hard as it is to believe that anything I should do would be unoriginal!), and do it anyway? I could be posting about organising my wedding, but frankly the 120 votive candles and candle holders that I ordered when I was drunk turning up at the office today is about as interesting as it gets, and I think it is time to do something I will enjoy very much indeed. And anyway, don't you want to know how the Ananas Alaska turns out?


NB: There would be nothing amusing about doing this with Constance Spry or Elizabeth David, both of whom are from the olden days, but quite brilliant. There is definitely an argument for the comedy value of The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, but I will not laugh at it more than I already have done, for it is a wise and helpful book that I love.

I was sad to hear a poet had died (warning: contains poetry-chat, which many find embarrassing)

I found out by accident today that the poet U A Fanthorpe died in April, which made me very sad. I read a lot of poetry and have books and books of it all over the place in piles; sometimes they fall on my head when I am supposed to be doing something else. I can still recite long chunks of things, from "The King's Breakfast" (which my grandmother used to recite with all the voices when we were in the bath), to "As The Team's Head-Brass" (which I learnt by heart one afternoon when I'd been locked out of the flat in the middle of revising for my English Lit O-Level), and little things like "Celia, Celia" (which makes me think of my friend Louis).

I used to be one of those people who finds poetry embarrassing*, but then something happened and I realised that it is probably the answer to most things. I think it must be very difficult to write good poetry. I have tried, and even with a lot of teaching and help at Birkbeck I was still rubbish at it (but I enjoyed trying more than I have enjoyed most things). On the other hand, it is very easy to write things that people describe as poetry but which are not. (A poem does not have to rhyme, for example, and a good one is unlikely to include the lines: "And that, Mum, is why I love You/And will always kindly think of You.")

Anyway, all that's off the point (if there was one). I am very sad that U A Fanthorpe died because she wrote my favourite love poem. I am afraid I can neither read it nor have it read at our weeeeeding (as MonkeyMother will insist on calling it), as I will fall on the floor in a fit of the vapours and have to be revived with smelling salts and/or a bucket of absinthe. Still, here it is and I hope at least one of you likes it:

ATLAS

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Please do go and read some of her other poems. I am really sorry she has died. She seemed like a proper kind of poet. You can buy this lovely book, and there are one or two in this book, which I think is brilliant. I do not think it contains the poem my dear pal Pats** may be reading at our wedding ("Being Boring" by Wendy Cope, yes indeed- Ms Baroque, is it ghastly?), but it has lots of other brilliant things in it. I have given it to at least 10 people and even people who had always gagged in that particularly British way when someone said the word "poem" have reluctantly admitted that it makes poems not embarrassing and OK to like.

(Actually, don't buy books from Amazon. Buy them from Jonathan instead. He is a proper bookseller.)


* I can however confirm that there nothing worse, nothing worse in the world, than a bad poet reading his or her really shit poems to you really earnestly even if you've already said "Oh heavens NO! Do give them to me to READ! SO MUCH EASIER to appreciate them!!!!"

** Not her real name.