Bio-bakery

Hendaye has a new organic bakery, that is actually the closest shop to my house.  It's a fair distance from the town centre (down a steep hill) but seems to be doing a roaring trade one week after opening. There's always a queue running outside the door. Perhaps we are seeing the first signs of gentrification.  So go Marco go!

Form and colour

One of the residents in our small block left a strange piece of sculpture (a protype) in the courtyard garden that was obviously suitable for being transformed into a planter. I had several ferns that I had rescued from going to landfill in Cornwall and they had outgrown their pots. My neighbours donated a similarly pot-bound hoster.

The courtyard at Ribaucourt doesn't get many hours of sunlight so for the rest I went for shade tolerent plants - focusing on contrasting forms rather than colourful flowers. The elongated fern leaves and generous roundness of the hosters have been interplanted with grasses and cineria (the silvery-blue plant with crenalated leaves, that shines more in winter). The pink campion thriving in the background was a volunteer that was in the soil with one the ferns and adds a bit of colour. There are one or two other wild flowers struglling to break through from under the ferns. A couple of bulbs, left over from last summer, with spiky leaves (that may or may not flower) complete the landscape. I'm rather pleased with my 'installation'.

Meanwhile in the kitchen I have been playing with colour. I recently came across black pasta for the first time and just had to try it. It's organic (coloured with squid ink) and I have been playing with it since. This dish combines the black past with seafood and vegables cooked in red palm oil and tumeric. The mozarella and chives were more for more show than an integral part of the recipe but they did add intesrting new flavours

A couple of foodie days

I had a bit of a foodie week last week.

On Thursday I bought a pair of squid from the local fishmongers.  Squid is not the easiest thing to prepare and I hadn’t done it for a long time.  But it’s a bit like riding a bike - once you know how you don’t forget.  The trick is to use a sharp knife to get the quill and the innards out.  The legs can be chopped and used in a sauce or soup but be careful not use the eye or split the ink sac.

This recipe was rather complicated. It required a stuffing of onions breadcrumbs, spinach and cheese, using little cocktail sticks to close the squids and then cooking them in a sauce of onions, tomatoes, thyme, a bay leaf.  The final flourish was a sprinkling of roast pine nuts.  I choose to serve it with potatoes.  It all went very smoothly, and I even leaned a new trick from the recipe – pour boiling water over the tomatoes for about a minute, then cold, then you can just rub the skins away.   The dish went down well with a foodie friend. The Belgians are really into their foods and I do feel a certain unspoken pressure to ‘up’ my standards.  But it’s a positive influence. 

I’ve also recently found a really good quick and easy recipe for brown bean salad, which I am in danger of over-using.  You need a large tin of brown beans (you can soak them from dry if you plan this hours in advance – but normally I don’t).   Wash the beans thoroughly. You can heat them or serve this dish cold.  Warm is better in winter.  Make a vinaigrette with garlic, crushed cumin seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, a sprig of thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle over the beans then add three to four chopped hard boiled eggs and a handful of chopped gherkins.   A quick supper -ready in less than fifteen minutes. 

Thinking about food

As the day rolls to a close I am starting to think about food and what’s for supper. I fancy a trawl at the supermarket and loading up on indulgences. But I have already overspent this month and there are some eggs and mushrooms in the fridge, some home grown potatoes (red and white) that a friend gifted me last time I was in Wageningen and a couple of chicken breasts and some fish steaks in the deep freeze, together with some ice cream. I won’t go hungry.

Other people’s realities are different. Much of my work focuses upon farming, agriculture and food security and contrasts the ‘haves’ with the ‘have-nots.’  I‘d like to quote three articles that have crossed my desk in recent months.

1.     The “global food crisis” is often presented as a shortage of food in relation to a growing population, yet such a simplistic definition pays little attention to the origins, perpetuation and deepening of the crisis. A more detailed observation shows that this “crisis” is in fact a paradox: millions of people experience hunger and are malnourished, while the world’s agriculture systems have the capacity of producing enough food for more than 12 billion people (Tristan Partridge – article in the forthcoming edition [2011/3] of Farming Matters -ILEIA).

2.        Industrial livestock production demands more concentrated feed and this requires intensive fertilisation which damages the climate. This further exacerbates the global food situation, since arable land is being used to cultivate animal feed rather than food for people: 40 percent of the world's grain harvest is fed to livestock, while one sixth of the world’s population goes hungry. (Anita Idel – forthcoming in article in Ecology and Farming - 2011 no.4)

3.       The food system has created a society where we have 1.5 billion hungry and malnourished people and an equal number of obese and overweight people.  People have been recently complaining about increases in food prices – but the reality is that in the west only 8% of average family incomes go on food.  One report recently suggested that it might be as low as 3% in Switzerland (Interview with Hans Herring - Ecology and Farming - 2011 no.3). 

 Three clear messages – all of which can be backed up by exhaustive scientific evidence:

1. the world produces enough food to feed everybody
2. much of that food goes to feed livestock for protein rich diets
3. obesity (largely as result of b)  is as much of a problem as hunger.

I think I’ll gladly eat those eggs, mushrooms and potatoes tonight and tomorrow maybe hit the onions, miso and lentils.  Individual responsibility is one step but we also need collective action to realign our global food system - and that is much harder to mobilise. How do we get there????

This seems a particularly appropriate post as the photo at the top of the page was taken from the roof of the FAO (United Nations' Organisation for Food and Agriculture) HQ in Rome.

  

Keep the lantern bright - keep food upon the table

I have been composing a blog (more of an essay really) about food and values. It's on about the third draft. Then today I saw this short documentary about slave labour on the Costa del Sol - it's where our winter fresh vegetables and salads com from. Fair Trade anyone?

Keep the lantern bright

Clearing out the fridge in preparation for going away for two weeks. The weekend saw me make chicken patties - a small amount of chicken fillet, finely chopped and mixed with same amount (by weight) of soft doughy Italian bread, with a sprig of rosemary, salt and pepper to taste and a few slices of blue cheese and garlic (optional extras). Mixed together and fried. Served with potatoes and spinach. Another Nigel Slater recipe that bought out the succulence of the (organic) chicken. I had made enough for two meals, intending to store half in the freezer for my return, but they were so yummy I had the second portion for lunch the following day.
After a five o clock start this morning (and an hour's daimoku) my draft report (promised for Monday) was winging its way through the ether to England to be with my clients by 9 o clock their time. There's equal relief at seeing that the interim payment that I negotiated with them found its way into my Dutch bank within a week of sending the invoice. That's the sort of client I like to work with , one whose payments are timely.
I realise how fundamentally reliant I am on the internet for my livelihood - there's an old saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket" - I'm wondering what the options are.

Comfort food

I searched around in the back of the cupboard for some porridge oats as an antidote to these cold mornings. One handful of oats, a half cup of water, a half cup of milk and a little sugar and/or salt to taste. Put on a slow heat and its ready in five minutes. Top with a teaspoon of creme fraiche and a couple of crumbled walnuts. Real comfort food that brings back childhood memories. Having relocated the oats it may even be time to bake an apple crumble this week.