Talking about the surprising popular success in 1988 of a near-700 page book called The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000, Francis Wheen cites the New Republic‘s comment that ‘When a serious work of history with more than a 1000 footnotes starts selling in Stephen King-like quantities, you can be sure it has touched something in the public mood’ (you’ll find this in Wheen’s very amusing – and sometimes scary – How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World, p.66).
Let’s edit that a bit and apply it to Jamie Oliver’s American “Food Revolution” for a near-perfect description of what’s going on – ‘When a smutty work of Reality TV about a very serious issue gets the world talking ad nauseum, you can be sure it has touched something in the public mood’.
In the same week that (just in time for Easter!) we are (again) told that chocolate is “good for you”, come these depressing headlines:
Depressing not because of the news itself, but because of how that news inevitably is – has been, will be – abused by lazy reporting and lazy reading. True to the “addicts” that some of us apparently are, we look to the instant gratification of headlines and will happily regurgitate them at dinner tables, if not (even more depressingly) use them to explain away the need to take responsibility for what we put in our mouths. Francis Lam at Salon put it poignantly when he wrote that ‘seeing food in the dark light of addiction … filled me with a confused sadness‘, but I’d venture that many more people will be delighted at the news. Finally, we can point the finger at evil food (Good news, Mr. Creosote. It’s been the food’s fault all along!). Continue reading “Is “junk” food addictive?”
I was so annoyed when I blogged about Killer At Large last night that I forgot to mention one of my main irritations during the film. That was probably as it should be, because I needed to do a little research to confirm my suspicions, and now I have. Continue reading “Gotcha!”
So I’m watching this documentary, Killer At Large. It’s about obesity, in case you missed the pun. And after one talking head in the form of a rabbi, I start noticing how more and more talking heads are actually talking churches. There’s the imam, there’s the reverend, there’s the monseigneur. This must be truly “objective”, in other words, since all the world’s religions are safely represented. And no sooner had I made this observation than the next talking head was Michael Pollan.
Need I say more?
Of course there are lots of medical doctors saying things too. ‘We live in an “obesogenic environment” ‘.’ True hunter-gatherers that we are, we’re all genetically programmed to not stop eating until all the food is gone’. Which begs the question: why, then, aren’t we ALL obese, and in the tragic situation of “having to” undergo liposuction at the age of twelve? Continue reading “The killers at large”
I guess it had to happen. Kind of like getting one’s wisdom teeth taken out, just so much better.
You see, I’ve never had a new car before. Growing up with a father with big hands that seemed to work best smothered in car grease from fixing his latest jalopy somehow consigned us all to a life of jalopies. His intentions were perfect, of course, and he did amazing things with metal and very little money. Great to have a mechanic in the family. Very shitty when the jalopy breaks down somewhere far away from that mechanic. Ah, like the time our Golf (fondly known as “Joke”) broke down SEVEN times during what should have been a three and a half hour drive from Swaziland to Jo’burg.
There were some memorable ones:
On the left, “Muesli”, apparently Swiss-German for little mouse (watch out for rodents in your granola). Trucks used to overtake her on the highway. And there’s me, wearing a coat fashioned out of a blanket (I thought I was very cool). Then came “Mr. Benz” in all his diesel glory on the right, with me and his surrogate daddy, Charlie the trusty mechanic in Mowbray. We (Charlie, Mr. Benz and I) saw quite a lot of each other (I had a running tab).
After that – and growing up a little every time – came the white Nissan “Pornmobile”. I thought I was pretty cool in that, except no sound system meant I couldn’t be thumping Snoop Doggy Woof at the traffic light. Neither did I have a furry die hanging from the mirror. So I guess it was just a cool-looking hunk of metal. “Hannibal” the red Sting was my latest, and by far the most well behaved and trustworthy of the lot.
Until…
Now I know I’m cool – and that cars turn out to be remarkable vehicles for telling a life’s story.
I like recipes that work. But there are so many – too many – out there, and it can be hard work picking the right one. In a world of mucho information and, as they say, too little time (and a strong predilection for endless comparison, and for distraction along other avenues, like discovering a new brownie recipe when you’re really after the right vitello tonnato), the internet as a recipe resource can be truly nasty.
But this afternoon I managed to (mostly) block out all the noise and just let Nigel Slater do the talking. He coached me through a batch of lemon curd, and then a batch of meringues. I’ve tried my hand at both before, but never with great results.
I like Nigel Slater. He’s very calm. And his recipes make me feel like I can cook:
When I told the Philosophe he laughed and said I couldn’t, because there’s no such thing as an apple cake.
I don’t know what planet he grew up on, but where I come from, that’s Numberwang!
If you don’t know numberwang what it is, you can catch up here:
And if you still don’t know, maybe the German version will help:
Now excuse me while I go pull my wangernumb out the oven. It’s looking (and smelling) fine, and in an hour or so, with a nice glass of crisp cold white wine, I may even be persuaded to forgive the blazing heat as I tuck into a slice of emotionally satisfying apple (and cardamom) goodness.
A little over two years ago I hid a special bottle of wine in a special cake. You can’t see much here, but this is me revealing my surprise to my new husband.
I chose it because he told me it was his favourite. I had never tasted it myself, and since that day I’ve been looking forward to finally pulling it out of our small collection of wines earmarked for some future special occasion. We’ve spoken about drinking it on our fifth anniversary, or some such weighty (and horribly far off) date.
Well last night we had some friends for dinner who had recently celebrated their tenth anniversary, and the evening happily turned out to be perfect for sharing a special bottle of wine.
So it’s gone now. But what a beautiful wine, and what a lovely and unexpected way to enjoy it. It’s nice to collect nice things (especially nice wine!), but so easy to forget that half the point of keeping something is to be able to enjoy it too.
Of course this wine is so good it could probably have kept very well for another five years. But we did it no disrespect by ending its life when we did. We will have to restrain ourselves with its 2006 sibling, still snug in its cellar spot. But how sweet to know that in three years or so I have another taste of the good stuff lined up (not to mention all the other pretty good stuff I’ll be enjoying along the way). It’s a lovely life I’m in, and it all started with a bottle of wine in a cake…
Peanuts. I’ve always loved them. I like most kinds of nuts, and most kinds of peanuts, but really none more than these pictured here. Grown in Swaziland, and roasted by Hansen women in kitchens around the world (including in Swaziland). The recipe is secret, so there’ll be no instructions here. Suffice it to say that they delight most people who try them, making jars of them excellent gifts too. I have given many people peanuts. In fact, I am the peanut queen.
The first time I discovered a writhing worm in a handful I was busy chomping my way through, I stopped eating them for about a year, but then I forgave them. Yesterday I discovered one of the bags of the raw nuts was the source of what I will call a maggot infestation in the top part of our kitchen cupboard. The brave man who came and helped me to remove them will say that “infestation” is an exaggeration. But when you hate writhing worms as much as I do, anything more than one is an infestation, because the very sight of them infects my brain and makes my stomach churn. Anyway, maybe not legion, but they were definitely more than one.
I cannot forgive my beloved peanuts twice. It is the end of an era and I am dethroned. I will observe a moment of silence before I apply my mind to what I can eat instead.
(While I do that, and to end on a more pleasant note, you can admire this beautiful birthday cake I am proud to say I helped to manufacture, and which was a feature of what was, indeed, a fabulous garden party:
So we cruise into February, and somehow our house is still full of builders’ dust. But at least there are things to show for it, like a newly tiled balcony from which to watch the sunset and sausages crisping on the braai.
And, inspired by surprisingly great eggs benedict at the famed Roundhouse Restaurant, I set about making my very own English muffins. Easy peasy, really – just bread dough dusted in semolina and cooked on the stove top rather than the oven:
Except that I managed to very nearly destroy this brand new Scanpan frying pan in the process (I should have known better, of course, than to treat a non-non-stick pan as if it was something else). And while the muffins looked good and pretty authentic, they were lacking the nice holey holes inside. I think they were basically too big, and I blame Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for that, because I followed his recipe so precisely that I even went to the anal extent of weighing each clump of dough (90g!). Next time will be better.
I also nearly destroyed my ice cream machine with a disastrous custard thickened with cornstarch. I blame the New York Times for that.
I will, however, take sole credit for a creme fraiche ice cream I whipped up the day after some dinner guests claimed they were too full to eat the dessert I had prepared (berries and creme fraiche). With a sprinkle of toasted almonds and said berries macerated in balsamic vinegar, it was magnifique!
I’m also looking forward to sampling the batch of sesame seed and ginger ice cream I churned just a little while ago. (OK, so I lie, I have obviously tasted it already. It rocks. So I look forward to other people sampling it and telling me how brilliant I am).
In between the dust and ice cream, I even managed to get in a bit of work, and tomorrow I get to go to a fabulous garden party. So much to do, and so little time for modesty.
