What a stinker

Good old as new Grannymar turned last Friday consortium’s obsession into Eternity. Which quickly escalated into the stomach turning Opium. I will try not to be unkind.

Opium, so Eighties, Dallas and Margaret Thatcher’s yuppies, and as the name implies a perfume only to be worn at night. When it won’t so much turn stomachs, as on. But, I agree: It’s heavy on the top notes. Eternity I will sniff out tomorrow on my way through town to get a measure of the woman (that’s GM). May I give all women, aspiring or not, one piece of advice: You never EVER give away the name of the scent you are wearing. NEVER, EVER. Even if it means you have to fork out for it yourself. Marilyn Monroe telling the world that she only wore Chanel No 5 to bed was forgiveable in those times of neither cheap nor easily available titillation.

I make Jean an Arpege. Whatever she says she is. BHB, don’t know. Difficult since I imagine she will try anything given to her – and probably has flasks from decades ago wilting in her drawers. Which reminds me, BHB, unless I have got date wrong: HAPPY BIRTHDAY and may you entertain me for many a year to come (how much more selfish can I get?).

U

PS Nose plays tricks on us. You can never smell yourself as others do. So don’t overdose on anything artificial. Particularly not when going for a meal – with other women for company.:The fog, an assault on your olfactory, will leave anyone in vicinity - not least the waiter –  nauseated, appetite lost before you’ve even glanced at the menu.

None of what I have said here applies to men. Men need all the help they can get from a discerning adoring female with a fine nose.

Banana skins

Anyone of a squeamish disposition do look away now.

I used up potatoes last night to make soup – just for myself; would never offer experiments on the squeamish or anyone else. It was awful. In fact, it was so awful I am now considering starting a blog on cooking never to embark on. Don’t know what went wrong but splutter I did. In the privacy of my own company.

That’s neither here nor there. Mistakes happen. My motto: Live for a long time and repent at leisure.

However, NOW I am left with a rather large quantity of very liquidy inedible soup to be decanted into a plastic bin bag. I have lived long enough to know that that bag will leak on its way down to the waste disposal. Please don’t tell me to use a lot of (un)read newspaper print as a base: None around. Being of my disposition this causes me anxiety; not because I mind mopping up spillage on my way back up  the stairs –  having already just now cleaned bathroom to my usual high standards – but because I do not wish to be found mopping by either neighbours or son returning any moment soon. Other people get so very easily embarrassed. Inconvenient to ME to say the least. Normally I’d just let fester that which goes wrong till it solidifies; thus so much easier to dispose off, unnoticed: Unfortunately I need that particular pan to make a cheese sauce. NOW. Wish me luck. Should you never hear from me again it’s because I slipped on the remains of what was meant to be a divine potato soup. Please do bring cheese at my funeral.

U

Pulsating

Sweethearts, shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic does NOT pay.

Better keep rinsing pulses and chitting potatoes after today’s consortium’s inspiring offerings. Not that I didn’t enjoy Magpie’s history lesson – particularly the link between Columbus bringing potatoes to Europe in exchange for a spot of STD to America. You might call Christopher the father of today’s globalization. Also liked Conrad’s subtle, yet snide, remark about the Senate.

gaelikaa always likes to tell a story, ususally another chapter in the art of perfecting patience; from Grannymar, considering that she comes from a large family and spuds are an Irish staple, I expected something on the joys of peeling potatoes to stuff many mouths. Oddly, it was one of the jobs my mother used to think me most suitable for – neither did she believe in swivel peelers.

I am sure all your recipes are delicious (depending on what your mother’s cooking was like and your own culinary expectations since) though – if I may say so - there are more imaginative things one can do with both potatoes and beans other than cooking them. Still, I am not here to piss on anyone’s parade, or am I?

Sweet gaelikaa, in the dark of what my current predicament is, recently urged me to phone the Samaritans to save me from throwing myself off an imaginary cliff. I am afraid there is no Samaritan (other than Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Charles Saatchi, any of you or myself) who can rescue me in the short term. However,  for those of your friends who do weep, for clinical reasons, quietly into their daily bowl of lentil potage look no further than a book titled “Potatoes, NOT Prozac” (‘Prozac’ being the generic term for anti-depressants). Makes you think, Magpie, doesn’t it: First Americans export the mightily useful potato to the greater good of the rest of the world, only to then flood us with pharmaceuticals. One of my friends rattles with pills, keeping the whole of Bayer in profit. I have offered him many a baked potato – to no avail.

To add humility to my humiliation here is a potato about your very own Ursula (aged nine): At the time we lived in deepest country side (north of Hamburg); my best friend, a farmer’s daughter, invited me to help her and her family with a day’s potato harvest. Oh, the anticipation of  it! I was so excited. My mother doubted that donning my very best WHITE shirt for the occasion was a good choice of clothing.  And yes, my friend’s father did laugh out loud when he saw me turn up in my finest which did make me blush momentarily. Not for long: I so did enjoy pulling out the potatoes out of the dark sandy soil with my bare hands, filling buckets in the blazing sun, the fire  lit on the field in the evening. Never tasted a potato better. Neither was a white shirt dyed black more efficiently – ever. I didn’t care. It was a great day. Whether I’d made a fool of myself or not.

U

PS I still have magnificent gift to dress inappropriately

Ticking

Since, for reasons plausible, I am in a bad mood already I went over to Grannymar’s to reinforce that which is just about to explode. As expected I was not disappointed.

In my defence, and anyone close to me will confirm this: I do warn people, before they speak to me, whenever the chips are down. It’s then their choice whether to retreat or not. You can’t say fairer than that, can you?

Grannymar is punctual. Great. Can’t wait. One of her commentors is early: Not so great (for her host that is). What a sanctimonious self congratulatory lot GM and her commentors are. Has anyone of them ever broken down in the middle of nowhere, forgotten to put the clock forward, been held up in a traffic jam, batteries run down on mobile/cell phone, broken a foot? What is wrong with these people? If someone is late, someone is late. FULL STOP. No need to make a big meal of and then dine out on it.

Or maybe some of GM’s guests are ‘passive aggressive’ and don’t want to attend some boring function in the first place. Yes, I do apologize for this last remark. It’s entirely uncalled for.

Shall now go and put finishing touches on dinner with all my guests already drunk yet patient and waiting for their hostess.

U

Make mine an Indian

Sweethearts, for some of you this TIP OF THE DAY may come too late.

A few days ago, wiping my brow in the midst of chaos, I succumbed to that which I only do when I have no time for cooking yet 18year old(s) in urgent need to be fed:  Ordering a take away. Naturally it took me longer to explore the menu than if I had ground my Garam Masala from scratch but at least the place is an award winner and the chef I spoke to on the phone a paragon of patience. He talked me through the intricacies of Tikka Dansak and Tikka Pathia and everything else on the menu (what do I know about Indian food? Not a lot).

So bad, so good. On delivery I got into minor tangle with lid of the Prawn Madras which had taken Apple of my Eye only 2 seconds to decide on; sauce spilling all over my favourite denim skirt. The Empire has a lot to answer for. I know where disaster lies: One is beetroot juice, the other is turmeric. Immediately soaked skirt in cold water, consulted beloved and best of all reference books on stain removal in my usual misguided optimism only to find: ” Most stains can be removed unless it’s TURMERIC”.  It’s the sort of news on a par when people tell you that you are dead.  However, luckily my heart rarely sinks before all routes are explored. Since it was middle of the night Indian time I did not send SOS to gaelikaa and Ramana as was my first impulse but searched, as one does, the internet, and lo and behold all you need to do is very LITTLE. Rinse garment, leave it out in the sun to dry and the stain will vanish. It’s magic if ever there was one. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. IT WORKED.  If anyone can work their magic on beetroot stains please do reciprocate.

U

PS The food and its taste was to die for!

Sticky

I probably don’t come across as the type of person who makes time to bake her own bread. Yet, I do. English pap is rubbish if ever there was one, and expensive too. Not that the expense of a loaf of bread matters to me if only it [the bread] were worth it. It isn’t. If there is one complaint, apart from all the others, that visitors from mainland Europe – where breadmaking is an ART – will make: It’s about the dismal results of your average British bakery. So putting myself out to bake the bake is a form of self-defense.

Except sometimes, like just now, it backfires. I put my dead-foolproof-put-together-in-five-minutes dough onto a shelf in the conservatory (that’s a south-facing wintergarten to most of us) to RISE thus allowing it to double its size. Rise it did. Naturally I forgot all about it. Now the enthusiastically rising dough has spilled itself all over onto some of my paper files temporarily stored on the shelf underneath. Which means that I have just realised the beauty of reaching a certain age: You are past caring. And no one, other than myself and readers of this blog, will ever know how I bodge my life.

The loaf is in the oven.

U

Dead meat

Before any of you admonish me for what is to come: I never asked to write a blog – and now that I do, and just as predicted by me, it’s turning out to be like a puppy in need of potty training.

Still, what I start I finish. I sometimes wish I wouldn’t have to live up to the name I adopted in the wake of Conradgate but  such are the powers of suggestion and an adopted identity: Needs must, as do bitches.  Conrad turns out to be good value for my pains. And I quote him addressing Grannymar: “For some reason, you are suddenly SPAM and I see nothing different in your entries.”

Oh, Conrad. It’s brilliant – from whichever angle I look at it. It’s 0310 BST and I can’t stop laughing. Not that I have ever bought spam; but on my travails down the aisles of my supermarket I won’t pass the shelf with that pink stuff inside a can without a big grin on my face.

Bon appetit.

U

Cooking up a storm

As my fan club, on either side of the divide, knows: I am critical. Never more so than when I myself am in the dock.

A surfeit of Easter and its attending culinary delights has led me to sad conclusion that whilst generous to a fault – no wonder I am broke, which at my age is a disgrace if ever there was one – I am mean in one area of my life.

I do not know why this should be so. But it is. I’ll stand by it despite the fact that some of my recent acquaintances of consortium fame seem to be shining lights in the face of adversity and all shortcomings of humanity, holding up their heads above water whilst, by law of physics, they too should be close to drowning at times. So, yes, you are  putting me to shame by virtue of your VIRTUE. Long may you maintain strength to  keep polishing your brass to gleaming point.

I stand by my bag full of flaws. I don’t even try to disguise them. Which is a flaw in itself.

Today’s insight into my workings, and I am NOT proud of it: I do not like sharing recipes of dishes I cook with astounding success. Why would I? So people can recreate them in the privacy of their own aga and bask in a glory which is not theirs? No. Absolutely not. A few days ago I discovered the secret of … Don’t ask. I am in rapture. And the only person I will bequeath my culinary insights to is my son. Just shows you: It pays to be my son.

Well, all you fountains of perfect human beings that you are, if you want to come for lunch or dinner please do. Be my guest. Just don’t expect to walk away with my secrets.

U

No harvest

“You reap what you sow”.

Don’t believe it. Complete nonsense – why do you think gardeners and farmers are usually down in the mouth?

Go to Ireland and you will learn more about potato blight than you ever wished to know. Ask me about snails and I show you a mass murderer. In fact I have got it down to a fine art, and don’t say I am not kind: Beer traps work wonders - slugs and snails being attracted to yeast, then drowning themselves and MY sorrows. I console myself that they will have died a happy death.

Since research is in my blood (undiluted) I  just looked up snails in Larousse Gastronomique which is a doorstopper of a heavyweight of a book: The amount of preparation that needs to go into preparing a snail for human consumption makes you not so much wonder whether it’s worth it: It kills your appetite. It’s mainly to do with cleaning out their digestive tract by putting them on a ten day detox (also known as fasting/starvation diet). However “do not remove the liver and other inner organs which amount to a quarter of the weight of a snail and are the most delicious and nutritious part”.

Apart from setting beer traps the only other way to stay on top of the snail problem in your garden is to get up early (say 5 in the morning; dress code morning gown) when it’s still all damp and they are out there by their dozens. You pick them live and then hope that one of your visitors that day will take a bag off you. No joke.

Spring appears to be on its way considering that my thoughts are turning to terrestial gastropod molluscs.

U

PS For the historians amongst us: There was a bit of a loss of culinary interest in snails in the 17th century; revived by Talleyrand (!) who had them prepared, by Careme, for a dinner he gave for the Tsar of Russia.

NO

I am sometimes asked why I commit myself to doing things for others, helping out, when I really don’t have the time.  The answer is: I don’t know.

Since I am that most unrealistic creature, the optimist, I just say “Yes” whenever a request (for next week, next month) comes up. Sure, I’ll do it, no problem. First law of penance: DO NOT  believe that the future won’t arrive.

To me time stretches like chewing gum. There is always more. Not that I like chewing gum. It’s bad for you since the act of chewing sends signal to stomach that food is on its way down; stomach therefore prepares with acid juices to break it all down – only to then be disappointed. Instead of which the world is littered with hard gum left in often rather unfortunate places. Just as my father instilled hatred of chewing gum in me I did with my own son. My argument being (apart from aforementioned stomach) that it makes people look like cows, only stupid. Cows were designed to chew their grass over and over; and why not? We all need something to do. But a human chewing like a cow immediately makes me think of guess what: A cow. I  like cows. I have fond childhood memories of accidentally stepping into cow pats (they are very big and very green) and, when staying at a farm during the summer holidays, of helping to bring the herd down from the alm in the late afternoon – though hated freshly hand drawn milk. Awful. Not least because the milk was the cow’s body temperature complete with at least one black short hair in your cup. Still, in those days one was not allowed to be squeamish and no doubt accounts for why I am as healthy as I am.

Yes, chewing gum. This is what I love and loathe about my brain in equal measure. I start off with one subject, get myself sidetracked, can’t find the map and just get lost. A friend of mine sweetly calls it “ U’s stream of consciousness”. It’s certainly one way of putting it.

So anyway, the upshot is that I find it difficult to say: No.

U