Yes. This blog here, which includes 3 things like this:
Yes. Three only. This one, plus two more.
Too brief. All too brief.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
I find some things stuffed inside an old book
The first: a postcard sent from Monterey in about 1996*; the second, a card for a pub that still exists (and enjoy, if you will, their excellent website) in Vauxhall, picked up in a phone box in Brixton in 1992. What memories!
* Note: the man featured in this postcard looks nothing like the pathologist I am to marry in less than two months. Whether my hooters are represented in the second, I cannot and will not say.
* Note: the man featured in this postcard looks nothing like the pathologist I am to marry in less than two months. Whether my hooters are represented in the second, I cannot and will not say.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
I publish a review of the stuffed haddock and biscuits
Regular readers have been breathlessly waiting for over 3 years for the review from the veterinary research histopathologist of the latest recipes to be pulled out of the box for the Marguerite PotLuck Project. Yes, ladies and gents, it's time for stuffed haddock and biscuits (but not at the same time).
Review: Filets d'aiglefin farcis
(I should add at this juncture that it was not possible to find aiglefin (haddock), so instead we used colin (coley - usually fed to cats in the UK and I can see why). The recipe called for "noix" (nuts) that I interpreted as hazlenuts, and butter beans were there none, so I used plain white beans.)
“Why ?” thinks the haddock (or hake). “Why ? Here I am, swimming in the ocean, being all fishy n’shit, and then this big net thingy scoops me up, squeezing me in with thousands of my neighbors (whom I don’t necessarily all like), then I’m flopped in a big vat (not particularly clean, thankyouverymuch), shipped to Neptune knows where, have to lie there for an undertermined duration on some scummy ice, then get sliced (oh dear, look what they did to my beautiful scales) and chopped up in little pieces, get scattered to the four winds, including in the kitchen of some woman who mixes me up with so much other shit that I don’t even taste like anything no more ?!? Oh the indignity.”
Thus spoke the haddock (or hake), and he does have a point. I mean, this dish is not bad by any means, but you wonder what is so wrong with fish that ole Maggie feels she has to add bread crumbs, tomatoes, beans (beans ?) and nuts (nuts ?!?) to make it interesting.
Grade: B-
Recommended: If you feel like going back to the seventies for a night, but are too old for coke or too squeamish for key parties.
Biscuits au chocolat et aux noix
Marguerite says the quantities are enough for 50-60 biscuts, but you're looking in the bowl and thinking: that's enough for 12 bloody cookies, that is.
Then you remember that we are not in England in 1967 anymore, we are in North America in 2009, and that in England in 1967, a biscuit was not something that had to be the size of your face. You see she says that you should dole out "small mounds" (but in French) of mixture, so you do half teaspoons. And let me tell you, what comes out are smallish (but not that small - the size of the bottom of a small wine-glass, say), crispy-chewy biscuits that you can imagine having two of with a nice cup of tea or coffee. Biscuits, not cookies. Biscuits, English style. Not cookies, American style. Lovely. (And very easy to make.)
The Review
Hmmm, biscuits.
Grade: A+++
Recommended: make more, and bring to me. NOW
Review: Filets d'aiglefin farcis
(I should add at this juncture that it was not possible to find aiglefin (haddock), so instead we used colin (coley - usually fed to cats in the UK and I can see why). The recipe called for "noix" (nuts) that I interpreted as hazlenuts, and butter beans were there none, so I used plain white beans.)
“Why ?” thinks the haddock (or hake). “Why ? Here I am, swimming in the ocean, being all fishy n’shit, and then this big net thingy scoops me up, squeezing me in with thousands of my neighbors (whom I don’t necessarily all like), then I’m flopped in a big vat (not particularly clean, thankyouverymuch), shipped to Neptune knows where, have to lie there for an undertermined duration on some scummy ice, then get sliced (oh dear, look what they did to my beautiful scales) and chopped up in little pieces, get scattered to the four winds, including in the kitchen of some woman who mixes me up with so much other shit that I don’t even taste like anything no more ?!? Oh the indignity.”
Thus spoke the haddock (or hake), and he does have a point. I mean, this dish is not bad by any means, but you wonder what is so wrong with fish that ole Maggie feels she has to add bread crumbs, tomatoes, beans (beans ?) and nuts (nuts ?!?) to make it interesting.
Grade: B-
Recommended: If you feel like going back to the seventies for a night, but are too old for coke or too squeamish for key parties.
Biscuits au chocolat et aux noix
Marguerite says the quantities are enough for 50-60 biscuts, but you're looking in the bowl and thinking: that's enough for 12 bloody cookies, that is.
Then you remember that we are not in England in 1967 anymore, we are in North America in 2009, and that in England in 1967, a biscuit was not something that had to be the size of your face. You see she says that you should dole out "small mounds" (but in French) of mixture, so you do half teaspoons. And let me tell you, what comes out are smallish (but not that small - the size of the bottom of a small wine-glass, say), crispy-chewy biscuits that you can imagine having two of with a nice cup of tea or coffee. Biscuits, not cookies. Biscuits, English style. Not cookies, American style. Lovely. (And very easy to make.)
The Review
Hmmm, biscuits.
Grade: A+++
Recommended: make more, and bring to me. NOW
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I have much to relate!
1. Recent visit to London;
2. Marmite products;
3. Review of stuffed coley/haddock;
4. Wedding Porn, Pt 2;
5. The miraculous power of eardrops;
6. The joy of the upgrade.
But not now, for I am 'jetlagged' and have knickers to wash.
2. Marmite products;
3. Review of stuffed coley/haddock;
4. Wedding Porn, Pt 2;
5. The miraculous power of eardrops;
6. The joy of the upgrade.
But not now, for I am 'jetlagged' and have knickers to wash.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
I daren't look
Sweet Jesus and all his attending monkeys. The latest horror, brought to you via the Marguerite PotLuck Project (which, frankly, pisses on the whole "Julie/Julia" hoo-ha), is stuffed haddock on a 'bed of' butter beans. Except we had to use coley and navy beans.
It wasn't pretty. I can't give you the whole thing at once - you'll have to spend the rest of the day lying down with a 2 pint bottle of smelling salts and packet of biscuits if you'll have any hope of recovery - but let me prepare you by offering you the original recipe card from which said stuffed haddock was recreated:
Yes, it can get worse. You wait till you see the recipe I played a joker on. It asked for a pound of lamb's liver and a pound of pork liver, and that was without the other ingredients.
It wasn't pretty. I can't give you the whole thing at once - you'll have to spend the rest of the day lying down with a 2 pint bottle of smelling salts and packet of biscuits if you'll have any hope of recovery - but let me prepare you by offering you the original recipe card from which said stuffed haddock was recreated:
Yes, it can get worse. You wait till you see the recipe I played a joker on. It asked for a pound of lamb's liver and a pound of pork liver, and that was without the other ingredients.
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