SIGN WITH AN E

The other day the philosophe asked if I had ever cooked spaghetti for him. A preposterous question, of course, but we must all be forgiven temporary memory lapses, and with a little prodding he did soon remember a bolognese in the not-so-distant past. Of course I haven’t stopped thinking about it since, particularly as these winter-to-summer (“spring”, they say!) days are taking longer than I like to get to the hot side of things: in other words, it’s still weather for bolognese.

But my tried and tested Elizabeth David favourite (chicken livers are the secret) has now been overtaken by an older urge which was first sparked several years ago by watching Jamie Oliver do his version of what people did before the days of meat mincers: taking a chunk of stewing beef and cooking it slowly until it can be forked apart and more or less melt into the sauce (ragu).

I’m still a novice at cuts of beef (I couldn’t for the life of me get them right at cooking school, and it doesn’t help that they have different names for different cuts, not to mention different cuts altogether, in different parts of the world), but what I have played with quite recently is beef short ribs, which produced the most astoundingly delicious and meltingly tender meat.

So, in anticipation of a nice cold day tomorrow or even the next, the ribs are now in the oven for their first stage of cooking. I’m loosely following the two-day cooking process described on Simply Recipes (a winner last time), but with some more obvious bolognese tones (add tomato to the wine). And while a web search does tell me that beef short rib ragu is not so unusual, I will choose to call mine bolognese, and let it be like no bolognese the philosophe has tasted.

Some bastardisation is, after all, legitimate in kitchen creativity: while beef rib or bolognese ragu purists may turn up their noses, I don’t think I’m violating any essential principles. Not like whoever dreamed up a chocolate covered potato chip. (what the ???)

Get yourself a mini-cow. It’s all the rage. (I wonder if a balcony will do?)

If so, and if you are lucky enough to live in Japan, they have just the thing for you: Konogoro Kininaru Jibun-no Seikatsu (”my recent concern for a better lifestyle”), which is ‘the first ready-to-drink coffee product for after-meal consumption to moderate increases in blood glucose levels’.

The transparency of market-speak is wonderful, isn’t it? Because let’s face it, clearly no one in Japan has an old concern for a better lifestyle, because presumably that wasn’t an option.

This reminds me of a great bit from Michael Bywater’s Big Babies, or: Why Can’t We Just Grow Up (book titles can also finally speak for themselves): ‘My grandfather … didn’t have a lifestyle. He had a hat and a car and a wife and two sons and a housekeeper and a maid and a nanny for the children…. His house was furnished with furniture…. By now, it was the Fifties, and nobody had a lifestyle then because there was nobody to tell them to, and anyway they were too busy having lives. They were grown-ups. They went about their business.’

And he concludes: ‘If one of the markers of adulthood is autonomy, then one of the preconditions of autonomy is being left the fuck alone. My grandfather wasn’t nagged…. Nobody told him about being good in bed, grooming tips, what his car said about him, what he should have to eat, how much he should drink, what his house said about him.’

Gone the fuck away, I suppose, are the days of just having a life, and not improving your lifestyle by sipping a sugar-free caffeinated drink loaded with ‘indigestible dextrin which contributes to moderating the absorption of glucose in the body’. (Non-Japanese, don’t despair: the rest of us have Red Bull).

Since we got back from Wonderful Copenhagen (17 days ago), I have cooked a meal only once. ONCE! It was a coq au vin, the kind of thing this African winter weather requires, and as far as I can remember, it was alright – not quite fantastic, but good enough on the night. Not good enough, though, to represent half the meals cooked in this kitchen in the course of almost three weeks (the philosophe grilled lamb chops one night, and they were very very good).

So what’s up? In part, we had some socialising to catch up on when we got back, and in the early post-travel days, doing that outside the hearth was simply easier. In bigger part, it’s because we’ve been on the job, helping to review restaurants for an upcoming guide. I used to think the life of a restaurant reviewer must be the coolest thing. But that’s in la-la-land, where all restaurant meals are actually good. There have been some good experiences, which I would surely not have had if it weren’t for the pressure of ‘the job’, such as finally getting to the Top of the Ritz, that time-warped restaurant on the 21st floor in Sea Point that revolves 360 degrees as you eat. The food is what you’d expect (think classic “haute”, chateaubriand and crepe suzettes, with the downside of modern classic “haute”: thick sauces and overcooked cauliflower, though my gemsbok with apple-cider sauce was pretty lovely), but it’s really the view that clinches this place, and even excuses the (— live!!) Richard Clayderman.

The next night I found myself at Nyoni’s Kraal, the kind of restaurant I would never normally set foot in (I have a deep suspicion of any “African” restaurants in Cape Town, which happens to be in Africa, but obviously not the Africa tourists are looking for). But first impressions were good: there were plenty of locals there, for one, and no signs of the faux-African spectacles you find at other places with tour busses parked outside. “Vuka Afrika”, their Friday night special, turned out to be a marimba band that was fortunately not right next to our table, so we had access to both decent music, and to head space for conversation. They bake good bread there (served with a great chilli-butter), and offer plenty of wierd things, like mopane worms (someone at our table had them; I did not) and the famous smiley (which fortunately no one at the table had since we didn’t feel like beholding the sight of half a sheep’s head). Beyond that, nothing special, except that now I can say I’ve been there.

The real problem with day after day of restaurants is not only the mediocre food – something you’d think would inspire you to go home and produce something ten times better – it’s the fact that what you end up wanting most on a day “off” is non-cooked and simple. So this weekend, which I looked forward to because it involved no restaurants, I’ve subsisted pretty much on apples and rice cakes (also some of the only food you can conjure without giving up the hot water bottle). Or have all the restaurants just made me lazy?

Let’s hope not. I still have lots of ribs to cook. And next time, a superb coq au vin. Etcetera.

So, I’ll surely get over it. But take heed, nevertheless: just look at the man who recently disappeared after his dinner at El Bulli. They call him the (disappearing) ‘Michelin man‘: he was on a tour of Michelin-starred restaurants when he suddenly vanished. Apparently he’s done this kind of Houdini thing before, though evidence suggests this time is a little different (he had a number of other restaurant bookings, but failed to show up for any of them). That’s pretty scary. Did he get swallowed up by Adria’s foam? Or did he go on a desperate search for a humble rice cake? You can’t blame the man; he had eaten in something like 40 Michelin restaurants in a month.

That’ll remind to stop complaining. (And to start cooking).

To celebrate the beginning of eel-season, they’ve distilled the slippery buggers into a drink. Eel is apparently cooler than we think.

‘Kazunori Hayashi, spokesman for Japan Tobacco Inc, the makers of the drink, said it is “mainly for men who are exhausted by the summer’s heat”.’

(From The Independent, which also reports on Japanese Pepsi Ice Cucumber, and Coca Cola’s Water Salad drinks. Concusion: who needs salad? Drink Coke!).

This reminds me of the philosophe in the sweet shop at Caledon Casino the other day, where he commented on some freaky liquid candy. Philosophising, he suggested it was probably for people too lazy to chew their sugar. Well, I asked, isn’t that why they invented Coke in the first place?