02 November 2010 // blog
Dear All
Sorry it’s been so long since I last took interest in my blog. The last few months have been crammed and not helped by an incident in September when some despicable little shits broke into my house while I was at the Abergavenny food festival. They had the audacity to then come back on Sunday, having realised that the police hadn’t been called.
The police were only called on Sunday by which time they had really tucked in. As a result my laptop went containing a large amount of my new book which I had not backed up, fool on that I am and will not be again. Little do these perpetrators no that my SONY wave carries a hex I had placed on it by a Dorset witch in case of this kind of eventuality. It does not bring the computer back but makes the life of the person unfortunate to finger it even more unfortunate. Pestilence, facial, warts, first born will turn into a log within 3 days of birth etc etc
So, I have had to spend a lot of time re-writing and trying to remember the sage and calming words that maybe things will be written better second time round. I have to say I am not sure if this is the case so far.
Other than the burglary, we have made a five-part fishing series for UKTV Good Food which will be coming out next March. Travelling across Britain from Cornwall to Norfolk we visited lots of truly beautiful bits of river and some of this country’s wonderful coast. Sadly though, I have noticed the deterioration of some of our, once splendid, coastal towns that had thrived on tourism or fishing. The grand buildings still look proud from a boat but run down from the beach.
We looked at low impact methods of fishing such as the lave nets of the River Severn, who although catching salmon, are only permitted to take 15 fish a year. We did some rod and line fishing in the inky blackness for the elusive sea trout and caught fish no longer favoured by the public such as herring and whiting. We used a few odd methods for catching but you’ll have to watch!
During filming we had a particularly bizarre experience; having arrived late one night at our hotel, we were checking in at reception when suddenly a distraught looking man came in, wringing his hands and calling for the receptionist to ring the RSPCA immediately. We asked him what had happened and he said he had hit an animal. My director immediately consoled him, saying, hitting a dog is very distressing but at least you are alright. This fellow replied, ‘it’s a deer, it’s stuck in my car’. Out to the car park we went. His car had literally swallowed a muntjac like an alligator, four legs neatly sticking out of the lower fender vent. The inconsolable townie in question refused to go anywhere near the thing, at which point, I decided to take it upon myself to release the tiny deer from the jaws of his Toyota. It had been hit full frontal, had a broken neck but leaving the body remarkably undamaged, as it had obviously been hit at some speed. Joe, the director, immediately pointed out that as the deer was dead, there was nothing the RSPCA could do to revive it and that it might come in handy as food for the crew later in the week. As our whole filming experience so far had been very feral I very much agreed with the idea. I think the man was relieved to have done with it. While he called the AA, we graloched it in the car park behind a skip. I have to say, by the time we’d finished, it did look like a fight had spilled out of the pub. The police drove past very slowly twice while we were at our business, but the shadows concealed us nicely. From afar, I am sure it would have looked a grim business. Two days leterThe muntjac was skinned by our Caribbean sound man who said that he was a dab hand at goats. He had it off in seconds, The contributors, although accommodating, were mildly surprised at having only agreed to film a couple of fish dishes in their kitchen, were now subject to skinning shenanigans at the bottom of their garden. We ate the wee beast three days later. It was utterly delicious. I roasted it and laid it on a large dish luxuriating in deep richy bay bloete cream sauce. Incidentally, the directo’s chard dish cooked for 1 ½ hours with wet walnuts was excellent. Michelin tyres, Michelin food.
We have also made two more programmes for Yesterday channel as a follow on from Ration Book Britain I made with Marguerite Patton earlier in the year. Ration Book Front Line is about the huge challenge it was to feed our troops abroad. The other is about Christmas during rationing. What stuck out most is the unity found among people in times of hardship that these days seem so rare in times of plenty. Having mentioned the word plenty, I am not so sure in the current climate that my Grandchildren or Great Grandchildren might see some form of rationing themselves. I suddenly mind about things knowing my first child will be arriving in January. Yes that too.
Still, we are experiencing problems with the website. I would love to give you more recipes but at the moment I am wrangling with the designers about how best to reorganise it all. There will be a lot more recipes and photos coming soon. Please bear with us as I know coming back to the website to find the same thing can be monotonous.
Merry Christmas.
Ding Dong
Stay well
19 August 2010 // blog
For any of those who do read my burblings, sorry it has been a while.
My new book is a little behind and we have just finished 2 more 1 hour programmes for the Yesterday channel on Rationing during the war.
The other day I was speeding along on a swervy bus through the narrow lanes of Northumbria. We were late for the funeral. On the way I spied on the road side the biggest crop of ceps I think I have ever laid eyes on. So large that even at 55mph it took 2 seconds to pass. But we were late. ‘I’ll harvest on the way back’ I thought and left the wake with some bags I took from the kitchen. But Hells Teeth !!!!! we were late for the return train, or so everyone insisted, and sure enough we shot past them again with my nose pressed against the window. We arrived on the sleepy platform with 8 minutes to spare. Rats!!!!!!!
I went to Spain again a month ago having never realized that the beef of southwest (around Cadiz) was so utterly delicious. I exulted on it all week.
How can beef taste so good in this land of burnt grass and little water I have not got to the bottom of, but it does. If you can imagine the smell of a horse after it has been ridden hard (slightly like sweaty Lapsang Souchong tea) well this beef had it’s own similar bovine flavour. I ate it rare and the tenderness was eye rolling. Unusually for me within the week I ate steak 4 times in different places and every experience was as good as the last. It was the best beef I have ever eaten, the second best being in Kenya. Is the secret in hot grass?
By the way I cannot ride as suggested above. Despite always being handed horses with names like Buttercup or Drizzle I was tricked into feeling safe but when not trying to drag their heads up from the grass I have found myself dangling from one stirrup with my head bumping along the ground. I remain very nervous while still entertaining fantasies of galloping on mighty Agrippa across an Irish beach.
To counter my joyous beef experience I also ate something unpleasant which is always disappointing as I like to think that there I few things I will turn my nose up at. Anyway deep fried sea anenomes have a strange watery jellyish like texture that when coupled with the smell of a dirty harbour when the tide is out is more than creepy. No amount of lemon juice could prevent a shiver of dislike as I dutifully finished the plate. Apparently I was in the best place to eat them although I don’t think the surrounding did anything for the taste.
I am just about to start filming a fishing and fish cooking series for UKTV food called coast to coast. So my friends I will be away for the next 6 weeks. However you know what fishing is like and I’ll probably resort to goat on a boat.
I am also writing for Delicious Magazine and Countryfile Magazine.
02 August 2010 // blog
We are having a few technical issues with the website at the moment, particularly with the recipe and blog sections. Please bear with us while we get these sorted. Val
08 July 2010 // blog
I thought it important to start putting lots of recipes up for you - I apologise that there are no accompanying photos yet but they are coming and I hope you enjoy my drawings in the meantime.
Val
29 June 2010 // blog
Here is a potted month...
3 weeks ago I visited the Spanish Aragon Pyrenees in the Ainsa valley, an unknown part of a Spain for me. It is breathtaking.
Looking forward to the food was maybe a mistake. Overcooked oily chicken and potatoes, frozen boar and some very stodgy microwave salt cod cannelloni were low points of the week even for one who prefers the rough and the simple. There were no entries in my food notes.
We set off with friends one morning up into the high Pyrenees mountains around the Monte Perdido. As we trudged higher I was quickly overwhelmed by a feeling of nature left untouched, of timelessness and my own insignificance against in the backdrop of such dramatic scenery. I so rarely find myself today in these truly silent places. In England certainly it is hard to stand in any of the vales, peaks, fens or glens without hearing the distant swoosh of cars or seeing the sick orange city lights at dusk. Still capped in snow, these mountain s towered over me like fearsome judges and I felt a shivering sensation of awe. Were Mother Nature to just flick some dust from her shoulder, I would disappear in this raw landscape my bones stripped clean and broken and eaten by the Quebrantaheusos.
These birds otherwise known as bearded vultures live in the shear faces of the sky scraping ravines. Spotting fallen Chamonix, dead sheep or other carrion from an unbelievable distance, they swoop in pick up a bone, circle back up to the heavens and drop their prize onto the rocks below. Again they drop down to gnaw the marrow and eat the bone chips. While picnicking, one flew very low over our heads, close enough to clearly see its beady red eyes . Lucky is not the word as these birds are now critically endangered.
The rest of our walk was spectacular. I had no idea of the vast and beautiful array of alpine flowers to been seen here. I added at least an hour to the hike bending down to photograph endless little flowers quivering in the high breeze. Orchids, crocuses, cyclamen, pale blue alpine blue bells and all manner of other things tucked in the short grass or sprouting straight from the bare rock face and gently watered by the spray from cascading falls of snow melt. The colours of these flowers were electric royal blue, crimson, techno yellow, sharp purple It was truly moving to see such variation in such abundance. Needless to say I am no Howard Sooley and my pictures were blurred and rubbish.
Last weekend I visited the strange pebble flats around Dungeness power station. Although I have never been there before I thought it was maybe like central Russia or the Mongol flats. It is a very atmospheric place , totally flat except for telegraph poles and old fishing shacks with the huge nuclear power station buzzing away in the backdrop. It is odd indeed but a really special place. Went to see Derek Jarman’s house, Prospect Cottage. Asked the fellow inside if I could look around. “No,” he replied, “it’s not a bloody museum. How would you feel if you had people pressing their nose up to the windows all day and taking pictures. I’m not allowed to build a wall. There is a solution though…” he said, shaking a box of household matches. I apologised and backed away.
Fair enough!
It’s not a museum, by the way.
Very nearby Prospect Cottage is the excellent Dungeness Fish Shop. Inside were mountains of whelks, cockles, brown shrimps and smoked sprats. The whelks were fabulous, covered in malt vinegar and dusted heavily with black pepper. The smoked sprats I ate on Sunday after the pathetic football performance, smeared with hot horseradish and eaten on buttered toast, guts and all.
Day after went to a pub in Bodiam called the Curlew. Not a pub really, more a restaurant. Great in every way. The puddings were quite spectacular and very nice to see someone still making Junket. Highly recommendable and even nicer, it is named after a favourite bird.
Adios!
Oh! Kitchen music this week has been an old favourite, Tribe called Quest- People’s instinctive travels and paths of Rhythm.
08 June 2010 // blog
A Cornishman went to sea without me on Monday. I even drove to the harbour in hope of calling him back but, ended up leaving a curt note in his car. It was now 7.00am I’d had 2 coffees and subsequently no intention of going back to bed.
Luckily my friend’s kids were up when I got back and wanted to go and fish in the stream. We dug out the £1.99 rod attached to a comedy sea weight, threatening the snap the tip off, and a size 14 hook. We couldn’t find the rest of the tackle, ‘Mum’s cleared it up’ and this house has many secret places and many dark drawers.
We found a wine cork. I burnt a hole through it with a hot skewer then did some shaving and honing with a bread knife. We threaded it on the line, secured it with a toothpick and stabilised it with some elastic bands taken from the spring onions. The ledger was skimmed of a little lead which we bent around the line. I was very pleased with my handy work but was concerned that fishing would only last as long as keeping our 1 hook out of the brambles.
Worms seem particularly hard to find among the slate chips of the North Cornwall. We ditched the fork and found our rations of 8 under a flowerpot. – 4 docile fat worms and 4 thrashing thin ones.
The woods were still slippery with bluebells and so full of birdsong and reminded me more of Central American jungle than England. When we arrived at the brook, the clear sparkling water was dashing and chattering over pebbles and through smooth slate luges to slow in deep pools and I felt we would be lucky although but worried how long I could keep the little ones attention if not.
I was enchanted to find a determined hatch of small mayfly fluttering up from these pool s to jig their courting dance way up in the dwarf oaks. Small birds were snatching them on the wing illuminated in shafts of warm light and tiny brown trout bramlings were slapping them off the water top.
The first worm was writhing on the hook. Frankie was busy trying to uproot a huge stone to bonk any fish on the head while Pearl was collecting the last of the wild garlic to eat with our hopeful fish.
Nothing happened. Another pool - nothing. Then as the wretched worm was dunked once more in a tiny whirl pool Wham!
The bail arm on the rubbish little reel did not click over, but even after the fish had shot down stream, the line spilling off the reel like old telephone cord, it was still on.
Dragged flipping and spinning onto the pebbles low and behold it was a 1 lb rainbow and not the indigenous little brownie that you would expect to find in a wee woodland river.
Over the next hour we got stuck in the brambles, got wet trousers on a retrieval mission, used all our worms and saw the cork shoot under the water again and again.
The big rock was put to one side for a more respectful stick that rose and fell 4 times. 4 rainbows and a total weight of 4lbs was our haul, all threaded through their gills on an old nettle stem. I’m sure the indignant little brownies were happy to have their magic pool for themselves once again.
I have to say it was one of my favourite fishing trips ever. I was overjoyed too that the children’s first proper angling adventure was a success as this is often essential in making them want to fish again. I felt aged nine again and with it all the excitement that came with my own first expeditions to a Dorset stream.
It would be wrong to end the story without thanking the fish we caught that had cunningly escaped the trout farm a few fields away and offered themselves to our splendid outdoor trout lunch.
Music I am enjoying cooking to right now is Fever Ray.