Black Forest, Black Foods

This week I am travelling through the Black Forest. Among its many delights, here are two: a black salami sausage that looks tough and chewy, but melts in your mouth; and the famous gateaux, which I thankfully discovered is nothing like the frozen supermarket horror I had in my mind from childhood. Add a 'tea with rum' and your golden.

Schwarzwurst = Yumwurst

Not usually a cake fan, I am a THIS fan, especially after a bike through the woods. 

Snapshot: Life

There is a moment when you realise the permanent change in your life that has befallen you. It doesn't fly in on the wings of a grand bird; it is smaller and more unassuming. But that moment is there: in the greetings of recognition from the grocer; in the new, colourful card in your wallet; in the walk of your neighbourhood; in (dare I say it) the local bike app. 

When things change you need cornerstones. Simple, regular, beautiful things. They lead you to the moment when it isn't change any more. It isn't different.

It's your life. 

With wine while watching Dirty Dancing at the Open Cinema
in front of the palace.

Weekend brunch: Scottish salmon, local veggies and eggs
and German white pudding. Heart of Europe.

Cooking lasagne for friends.

Moments on the wall. Got to be surrounded by
happy people. 

The view from our new house as we wait for the
estate agent to arrive and show us around, Wasserbillig.

Flash fiction - The Escape

The Escape

I’ve noticed some things that happen in England when it gets hot. Everyone gets outside and goes a bit red. People fire up their BBQs and eat overcooked meat. Men start to order drinks with fruit in which they would otherwise balk at. And some people book holidays to Scotland where it’s suitably cool.

I just wanted to get out and get in on the summer action. We’ve all been cooped up during the never ending winter. And then she wanted to make a boiled egg salad! Are you joking? Being boiled? In this heat?

Give me sun and let me fry! 

Click below to be taken to Julia's Place for more 100-word stories using the above picture as a prompt.

Restaurant review

I love reading restaurant reviews. I always wonder how you get that job. You have to able to write, but what gives anyone the right to say what tastes good or not? One man's caviar is another man's gruel.

Anyway, I've decided to give it a go, so read on for my review of The Turfcutters Arms, East Boldre, Hampshire.

A Meaty Cut Above

On entering a drinking and eating den, it's never pleasing to see empty tables. However, on closer inspection, it is perfectly fine when you realise they are all pre-booked and those patrons are just a couple of minutes behind you from piling in. The Turfcutters Arms sits on the main road in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it village in the heart of the New Forest, Hampshire. It is a traditional English pub covered in black and white photos of the area, old tankards and lamps, fishing rods, antlers and, while on September 2nd there was no need for a roaring fire, the warmth of the locals' laughter was the perfect welcome.

Being Sunday lunchtime, the specials board was packed with roasts. Just what was needed on a wet afternoon. Boring I know, but M and I were both after some meat and two veg. I also fancied some soup and today's homemade bubbling pot was tomato so I ordered that to start.

A generous helping was delivered and I had to remind myself we were in the country. No London thimble portions here. Great. The soup wasn't smooth which made me happy - I am always suspicious of soups smooth as you get from a tin. It came already topped with black pepper and basil. The tomato was flavoured with garlic, which I love and it wasn't too oily. I like my soup to stick around the chunks of bread I dip in it and hold on. The bread wasn't homemade, but it was warm, which brought another "Ahh" from my lips.

Then came the roast dinners. M ordered roast pork and I chose roast beef. M being Argentine and me having lived there for some years, we are both used to great slabs of meat on our plate. This was heaven. Though why they served it in a swimming pool of gravy on the plate I have no idea. The gravy needs to go last, and just like soup, not be so liquidy. Maybe I should have asked for it on the side, but seriously, who plates up a roast starting with the gravy?

The pork was pale; it looked too pale until I tried its tenderness which melted in my mouth. It was a pig explosion, so subtle only I could hear it. My beef was also excellent, cut into a huge round chunk and pink in the middle. It tasted of meat, which isn't a strange description when you consider some of the meat you can pick up in the supermarket these days.

The wonder of the meat meant the vegetables were a measly side show unfortunately and nothing to write home about. The crackling was perfect, though as always, there wasn't enough. The potatoes were not cripsy enough for my liking, but this could have been due to the swimming pool gravy effect they'd been put through by the time I got to them. All this aside, however, we polished off the lot and sat back, contented and bellies full.

The Turfcutters Arms is not trying to be anything other than it is; a traditional country English pub. It's a warm, relaxing space with friendly staff; it is not over stylised nor does it try too hard and it keeps its menu in the realm of good pub grub. The food is well cooked, fancy free and the meat provider is obviously excellent.

Just put the gravy on the side.

You can find out more about the Turfcutters Arms here: http://www.the-turfcutters-new-forest.co.uk/

Soul Food

Every Sunday I read the Soul Food column in Stella magazine. I love the snippets of foodie childhood memories the chefs share; and how, more often than not, they have taken those important dishes from their childhood and worked them into their own menus. I am not a chef and nor do I own a restaurant, but I have always thought about what I would write for the column if I had to. It was hard. There are so many wonderful kitchen memories and dishes up for grabs that still loiter about today in my kitchen, popping up when the need hits. But I decided to keep to their word limit (220) and so here it is; my soul food. What's yours?



Soul Food
Laura Milsom, teacher and writer

Grannie grew up on a farm in the Ukraine and was used to cooking fresh and filling fare. Her generation had learnt how to make a lot from very little. Grannie’s soup was one of these dishes. She would use seasonable vegetables added to Sunday’s leftover carcass.
      Her huge pot would bubble away for ages. You would hear the salt and pepper grinding and knives skimming chopping boards adding more ingredients. You waited, knowing it was best to be hungry. Finally we would sit round the table to eat. Her soup could be lunch or dinner because you didn’t have to follow it with anything. We ate it with bread and butter and took our time. It was thick, full of goodness and delicious beyond reasoning for its simplicity. There was its hint of meat; then suddenly carrots, greens, potatoes, parsnips. It was like an allotment had exploded in your bowl. And the bowls kept coming; there was third, fourth portions, and plenty more for later.
      Grannie never said exact amounts of what she added. I believe there was a secret ingredient, which she has taken with her. We try to make it and get close: close enough to be taken back to our childhoods and those hearty bowls of soup; that warming taste of goodness, always made with love.

Kentucky Fried Crap

Martín came back from his classes last week with a story about how one of his classmates is in love with Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). They had had a discussion about fried chicken and how, for Martín, it was a completely weird concept. You put chicken in the oven, or on the parrilla, but you don’t wrap it in some golden stuff and fry it. Do you? He was totally intrigued.

I could tell his curious nature was getting the better of him because he wouldn’t stop talking about fried chicken.

“Have you ever tried it?”

“What, fried chicken?”

“KFC.”

“Ah, no.”

“But it’s not like McDonald's or Burger King, is it?”

“If you’re asking if it’s some massive fast food chain which dishes out fairly dreary meals that all taste the same and are full of salt and sugar, my guess is yes.”

“Can we try it?”

So, a couple of days later, we went on a fried chicken expedition. Martín even knew where our local KFC was in Ealing. How? Father Google, of course.

The menu, surprisingly enough, was full of chicken. Chicken in strips, chicken in balls, chicken in bread, chicken with a dip. Twisters, Zingers, Ranchers. The menu read far more like a fairground map than anything I’d want to put in my mouth. We opted for dipping strips and a couple of pieces of the original stuff. It came to nearly £9, and those were the cheap options.

There’s a reason besides the food I don’t like fast food restaurants. The tables are so square and the chairs are so awful. The walls are bright with ridiculous colours and smiley-faced graphics. The ‘free’ drink on offer is a fizzy one. People leave their leftovers and litter lying about. The posters magnify the artificiality of the food. The serviettes don’t do anything. These are soulless places.

And yet all manner of people go there. On this Monday lunchtime there was a suited and booted businessman; two grandmas; a biker all in leather; mums with young kids; two teenage boys and, unfortunately, us. We sat in the sun by the window.

It wasn’t so disgusting I had to hurl. I finished my three dippy chicken bits. But it wasn’t great. It wasn’t even near good. The chicken was the colour of death; pallid and pasty. And it was chewy in a wet kind of way. I know chicken should be moist, but not like it’s got little streams running through it. That’s not what Delia means, surely?

Martín’s foray into fried chicken went well, but then, with Argentine taste buds the extra salt and sugar would go down extremely well. “I think this is much better for me that a burger, don’t you?” he said. “It feels a lot better, and there’s no bread.” This is very much progress from the man who asked for a basket of bread in a Chinese restaurant.

An hour later, we were both reaching for the water and feeling that post-fast food stomach lurch.  This always happens to me: the thirst and feeling of a brick being in my stomach, solid and stubborn. How can people eat and live like this? I dread to think what that chicken’s coated in to entice uncultured taste buds back time and time again. I asked Martín to add his KFC meal to his calorie counter. He refused to find out. He obviously secretly thinks it’s all very bad stuff and doesn’t want to know.

And now, neither do I. I am no foodie snob. I have no interest in closing down unworthy restaurants with what I write. Each to their own, right? I am happy eating goat road-kill curried up in Africa; or trying an eye, feet, insects, insides from animals around the world. You have to try anything once. For this reason, I went to KFC in the first place.

But, as I won’t be eating eyes again, nor will I be munching on chicken shapes in KFC. There’s something OK about eating something in its truest form, even if you find it disgusting. But the plastic-tasting meals at KFC, or indeed any of its fast food cousins, aren’t things I can get to grips with, let alone stomach.