Flaked Salmon with green beans and faux hollandaise sauce

It is an odd phenomenon that in exciting, but slightly stressful situations, that people in our family will turn to cooking or at least eating, gourmet.

Before I was to get on a plane back to SA after a wonderful holiday in the States and then in London for two weeks, that a certain resident of a house in Putney will remember a rich lunch meal of smashed baby potatoes, grilled salmon with an apricot glaze with asparagus and hollandaise sauce. Did we manage a glass of Bordeaux white with it? I can't quite remember, but I do remember the meal precisely because I made it as I was keeping one eye on the clock to make sure that this culinary delight was served and eaten before I had to take that tiresome trek out to Heathrow.

I'm not entirely sure what this is about, a kind of combination between being set on using the best ingredients in the fridge if we are not going to be present to eat them (which shows an unexplained possessiveness over our food) and a last meal, if you will. Whatever stressful situation may arise out of travelling at least we will be secure in the knowledge that we dined like kings before we left the house for the airport.

My sister left to go to Australia for, ostensibly forever, but for the meantime just six weeks to be with her boyfriend on Friday.  And sure enough, at 8 am she was (if you'll excuse the pun) fishing the salmon steaks that she had bought earlier in the week out of the freezer. "Shall I make us some salmon for breakfast?" she yelled from the kitchen. Followed, a few short seconds and some scrambling sounds of freezer drawers opening and closing, with "Don't you want to make us something delicious with this chorizo sausage? " and " I definitely should make these pies, they'll just go off!"

Bearing in mind that I am not a morning person at all and that at 8 am I was in all likelyhood not awake until I could not ignore the repartee emerging from the kitchen, with some instinctual knowledge that on the occasion that one's sister is leaving the country, one should invariably cook up a feast, I managed to yell back: "If you're going to make the salmon then you should probably use the rest of the fresh green beans in the fridge."

"Here's your tea!" trilled my sister. Knowing that this was the only lever that had enough leverage to extricate me from my bed.

As I came into the kitchen, I pointed out that she should have rather used milk instead of a whole egg to put on the pies so that they'd turn brown.

"How should I do the salmon?" she asked.
"Steam it," I said while swallowing the first sips of warm tea, "over the green beans."

"Here," and I was passed two thirds of a beaten egg in a cup. "Can't you do something with this?"

"Well do we have lemon?" I asked peering into the fridge.

We did and so the remaining egg mixture went into a stainless steel bowl and was whisked briskly with a quarter lemon's juice.

Hmmm, I could not quite remember how to make a hollandaise sauce but it seemed like a good idea to cook the egg and the salmon and beans having been removed from the pot, I whipped the stainless steal bowl over and carried on whisking.

Ah, that was better, the sauce was thickening. And not a lump in sight! A crack of black pepper and coarse salt, and a lug of olive oil (just because that seemed like the right thing to do) and I was done.

A not exactly, but a rather lovely lemon-tasting and lower-fat version of hollandaise sauce completed the salmon that had been flaked over the beans.

Tea was done: now it was time for breakfast and an hour till we had to leave to go to the airport.

A Visit with Shannon Draper at the Gravel Garden

 
On Tuesday, I spent all of a lovely morning with Shannon Draper of The Gravel Garden in Somerset West. After a warm welcome and a great cup of coffee, Shannon showed me around her garden where she grows organic and heirloom varietal vegetables.

Heirloom Varietals are any variety of vegetable that has not been hybradised. They are open-pollinated plants that produce true seed. In other words, seeds that will grow into a plant that is the same as the parent plant that they come from.

From a hybradised plant the seed will give you a variety of results, throwbacks to one of the kinds of plants that were chosen to make up that vegetable to increase its shelf life, produce uniform fruit for packing and shipping and often compromising on taste.

Shannon's beds were being repositioned and she was in the process of turning their old swimming pool into an underground storage facility for rain and greywater. An eco-friendly solution in what becomes a very hot Somerset West in the summer months.

In the meantime though, I was able to see her seedlings in their greenhouse, a structure that again was saved and made useful in it's current form. Seed containers are cleverly made out of newspaper (see below) so that they can simply be put straight into the ground.

Other containers sported the names of tomatoes  that were reminiscent of far-off times and places and whose words left a TASTE  of the exotic and the historic on your tongue as you said them.

The picture of what they would be was complimented by colour descriptions such as pink, red, black and brown, green, orange or, more exotic and tantalising: striped tomatoes!

After a brief peep into the chicken run, Shannon took me out back to a shed and deck that she is building where  other gardeners can come and swap their own produce for  what she  has or what other  people may bring to the stall.  The idea being to   reuse and recycle and not let the excess produce of people's gardens go to waste.

Eventually, she adds, she would like to invite local chefs and foodies cook in something like a closed door restaurant.  Having had ideas of a pop-up restaurant  for some time myself (watch this space), I found this idea wildly exciting.

 

But what I really appreciate about Shannon's approach to growing her produce, is that more than anything, it is a starting point to foster a sense of community.

Shannon's beautifully presented THE GRAVEL GARDEN seed packs

Shannon sells her seeds online. She is very particular about making sure that no cross-pollination happens and that her seed is true seed. See her website THE GRAVEL GARDEN. Also take a look at some of her beautiful picture of the fascinating heirloom varietals that she has grown.

I bought seeds from her and will certainly document with anticipation and great excitement the arrival of their fruit - an excitement only surpassed by what I can then cook with these wonderous "new" varieties at my disposal! 

A Little Dinner Before The Play

I recently came across Agnes Jekyll's "A little Dinner Before the Play" a collection of her "Kitchen Essays"that was published in The Times in the 1920's  put together by Penguin earlier this year.

It is, in a few short words, delightful. I think particularly for me because of their historical information about food. Being interested in food, I am interested in people (not necessarily those that are still living, mind, who can be somewhat annoying!) But those that have gone before exist at a safe distance and in that way I find are a great deal more endearing to me.

For instance, I know that Lady Jekyll and myself would have been very good friends, both taking an interest in food and both acknowledging that one is not at one's best first thing in the morning - though she published these thoughts in The Times almost 90 years ago and for those of you who have never met me, for the first time, now on this blog.  But I do feel so strongly on the idea that getting up before the sun rising is wrong, that I'll be surprised that I haven't written it somewhere else. All the more reason form the cheerful breakfast tray which she prescribes!

But I digress: this is not about me, but about Lady Jekyll.  Agnes, from her writing seems like a perfectly no nonsense kind of woman who found that all things being equal, and even if they weren't, that they were to be rectified immediately by putting effort into how and what you provided your guests with, but moreover, by putting careful thought into what guests ate.

Here is one such example. She says:

God made the first Christmas and man has ever-since been busy spoiling it. Year by year, the propaganda of the shops grows increasingly active (what would she have said today?) ; and their suggestion for the keeping of that high feast, including such secular items as dozens of brandy, whisky, and champagne, appear annually more elaborate and incongruous than never before.

So she doesn't hide her indignation at the fact that then friends will come from the countryside to Town in order to procure said brandy and champagne. But does she hold it against them? Of course not! Being delighted that she should see her friends, she suggests that the gracious Town hostess would make for them such delights for tea (read here an almost three course lunch to allow them relief from the effort of being on their feet and flitting from one shop to the next) as they would not be able to make in their country abode due to their being unable to procure the ingredients: A dear friend indeed!

The effort (or her cook's effort - since she was lucky enough to oversee one - though I have no doubt that if she saw her cook doing something incorrectly that she would take over and instruct with the good intention of bettering her cook's skills) that she went to in proving them with such fare leaves us in no doubt as to her being much treasured as such.

Some of her recipes do seem a little on the difficult side, but she seems not to have been one to spare the horses on account of her guests' happiness!

She would insist that guests enjoy themselves and in doing so, benevolently allow others to do so - another point with which I sit in solidarity with her on.

She was after all, a famed philanthropist, which starts in the kitchen.

I'm so delighted to have met her through her writings!

Fresh Produce: It's hard to beat the pleasure of eating just-picked tomatoes off the vine

Dear Readers,

I thought that I'd just share with my readers, my own little mid-summer triumph. After lovingly tendering my potted vegetable garden on the landing to my flat, there is suddenly a ripening crop of tomatoes and one whole and decent-sized green pepper to show for my efforts! All spurred to grow well with the help of my worm tea from my mini worm-farm. Feel oddly proud of myself for orchestrating their growth. Now I can't wait to munch them up!

Which is what I then did: This was the best cheese and tomato sandwich ever! The tomatoes were so sweet.

Whip up something quick for dinner

Busy, busy, busy? About to stop off for some fast food on your way back from work. Don't! Make this really quick all veg and absolutely satisfying dinner instead.  Makes enough for two.

• 1 tblsp sesame seed oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 2cm peeled ginger- grated
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 green pepper
• 2 celery stalks, thinly cut
• 1/4 large red cabbage or one small red cabbage
• 2 carrots, peeled and grated
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tblsps soya sauce
• flat tblspn chili sauce
• salt and pepper 
• 1/2 cup couscous (or enough for two people- follow the instructions on the pack)

Prepare the couscous

Heat the sesame oil in the pan, then pop in the chopped garlic, the ginger and the onion. Soften. Shred the cabbage and thinly slice the green pepper and the celery. Toss in the oil. Add the grated carrot.

Stir fry for about 2 minutes adding the soya sauce. Stir through the chili sauce.

Add the coriander, cumin. Stir. Add the salt and pepper.

Done once you've dished it out over the couscous!

The Art of the Sandwich

Cooking is full of waxing lyrical about tastes, pontification on what and what shouldn't be done and snobbery as foreign (French and Italian) words are bandied about: Uttered  through the nose or with excessive gesturing. But food, as so many other things in life (and don't we so often forget it) does not have to be exotic or complicated to be enjoyed.

And what can be more simple than the humble sandwich? I have something of a love affair with sandwiches: their morish tastiness never fails to satisfy and astonish me with the enjoyment I take in having a good one with a cup of tea.

It started at school. Like so many South African school children, a sandwich was my lunch-time staple and  I had my fair share of end-of the week, peanut butter on dry-ish brown bread. This never bothered me that much at the time ( though now I might pull up my nose at one) because at school I always had an appetite to rival any of the boys' and so slightly dry or not, my lunch was generally finished before the bell had even begun to ring for break time, when I would oggle the contents of my friends' lunchboxes. But in all fairness, coming from a family that has always valued tasty food, my sandwiches were, more often than not, tasty and since I was so quick to gobble them up, the tomato never even had a chance to soak into the bread!

Fast-forward to life after the playground and my time has been dedicated to that well made sandwich. The idea that the Earl of Sandwich popped his delicate between two pieces of bread so that he could carry on eating without sullying his cards, sounds like the most sensible thing in the world to me, and I probably would have done exactly the same if only to be able to enjoy a tasty morsel while living through the characters of my favourite novels. Talk of warm bread and cheese in Lord of the Rings probably imparted more of the community and personality of the hobbits than all of Tolkien's description and the fact that they took time out of their epic journey to always sit down and eat the aforementioned bread and cheese (what better than a cheese sandwich?) impressed on my mind that these must, indeed be wonderful little creatures with an assured innate goodness.

Eating is more than essential, it is an art, even if it is just taking a moment to construct and enjoy the simple things. Taking a few moments to compose a delicious sandwich, in my opinion, is exactly a manifestation of that art. When, in the fifth book, Mostly Harmless, of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent eventually becomes the official sandwich maker of the small planet that his spacecraft has crashed into, I felt such a resonance that there can indeed be no better calling that Douglas Adams had indeed seen deep into my heart and published that short part of the story just for me. But then I think that, like so many other readers, Arthur Dent, for all his irritability, must be tolerated because he is in constant search for a good sandwich and cup of tea. That search and his unfulfilled desire for a lovely sandwich and cup of tea is, I would argue, the engine that propels the story! (It certainly drives my day. Who said that fantasy fiction is far removed from our world clearly knows nothing of the matter!

Well, having cleared up the importance of the sandwich in history, literature, morality (what else is Tolkien's epic about but the problems that the rustic English person faces?) so indeed, daily life!- you can see that it really is an art form.

I promised that I wouldn't be dogmatic about sandwich making, and indeed I recommend experimenting with all kinds of fillings. I even put a sprinkling of flax and sesame seeds onto mine (I'm nuts about these seeds at the moment). Only, keep these three rules in mind: Use a good bread that is still relatively fresh; If you use tomato on the sandwich make sure that the tomato is at room temperature( all the better if it has been ripening in the sun) and crack your fresh salt and pepper directly onto the tomato slices which should not to be too thin or too thick, but can be as many as you like. And lastly, since a sandwich is an entire meal in itself, balance the filling so that each bite gives you the best combination of the ingredients you have used to fill your sandwich.

Remeber every day is an opportunity to have a sandwich and cup of tea- As I have been writing this blog I realise that waiting for lunch time to aproach has created a longing almost as strong as Athur Dent's throughout his travels through the universe!

Bon Apetite!

My Favourite Cook Books

The other day, while sifting through a pile of cookbooks I came across The Return of the Naked Chef. And with it the Jamie Oliver mania that made Jamie Oliver to cookery what the Beatles were to music. I have fond memories of watching the programmes "The Naked Chef" and "The Return of the Naked Chef". If I remember correctly, the show used to come on on a Sunday afternoon and I couldn't wait to get my fix of the hot Essex boy who lived in a funky London flat and who drove a little Vesper to Borough Market  (where I would wonder through on my Friday lunch breaks when I worked on the South Bank in London - I would always take longer than my allotted hour perusing the stalls with all their wares- oops!) to get his fresh ingredients which he would then, with a lot of charm and very little effort - that was the idea of the Naked Chef: stripping it down to simple good tastes and easy methods- into something super tasty which they'd all enjoy at the end of the programme.

He'd give me the salad dressing to make and while I shook the jam jar

and batted my eyelids at him,

he'd smile and saying to the camera that he'd have to taste it,

"Wow! That tastes fantastic love!"

How I dreamed of being part of that scene: Jamie, would invite me over to his flat as they were filming one of the episodes and we'd whip up something wonderful. He'd give me the salad dressing to make and while I shook the jam jar (do you remember he had this brilliant idea of making salad dressings in a jam jar; no bowls to wash up) and batted my eyelids at him, he'd smile and saying to the camera that he'd have to taste it ( all good chefs do, you know!)  "Wow! That tastes fantastic love!" In the way that he does and then the programme would come to an end and all our friends would arrive and we'd all have an extraordinary amount of fun as the credits ran. All the viewers would strain to see us laughing as we went out of focus in the background, sorry that they couldn't see more as the production company's name and logo took over the screen signalling the absolute end of the episode. And twenty minutes later they'd still be wondering what the happy little dinner party was doing now.           

Ok, so I had a tendency to daydream- and besides, Jamie was already married at that stage to his missus, "the lovely Jools", to whom he dedicates Return of the Naked Chef. But my, who thought that advertising organic ingredients (a buzz word that was relatively new at the time in SA) could be so sexy. But then, as an 18 year old food-lover, the blond 24 year old chef on TV didn't have to try very hard to make it onto my list of most desirable men. Who says that food is only the way to a man's heart? Give me a man who can russel up a peach, rocket and goats' cheese salad or sticky ribs any day!

On a meagre allowance, I remember saving up to buy the book with Jamie's smiling face on it. I had previously wangled The Naked Chef as a Christmas present and I would lovingly turn the glossy pages with their large, bright pictures of food between the recipes. I was startled, paging through the book now, to see how young he looked! Now that I'm older, bad-boy Gordon Ramsay's sharp looks catch my imagination.

But this post is about Jamie. You can't stop the passage of time, but the recipes and Jamie's philosophies in the cookbook are still valid, but looking back it is interesting to remember that in so many ways he pioneered the idea of cooking being hip. No fuss, just fresh, pukka food, though there is no doubt about it, that he was also part of the Italian food obsession revolution. But who can blame him - the Italians know            how to eat.

I still follow Jamie's "Food Revolution" on Facebook, but it seems a little bit more like cooking and politics- a tad too serious. But then I guess, we all have to grow up sometime....