As usual I am getting a bit carried away. For some weeks I have been threatening, from my little box thing on the right of each post, to give you a simple rocket (arugula) frittata. Here it is. But I also have a massive amount of sweet young courgettes (zucchini) to work my way through. I will try your patience over the next few weeks with a few courgette-based recipes, but I promise they will be easy, a bit different, and packed with flavour. All Scottish crops have grown like billy-o with their near-daily soaking, and courgettes are no exception. Rocket too. But I will give the courgettes a rest soon. In the meantime, bear with me as I work my way through many kilos of this easy to grow vegetable. You have been warned. Continue reading
I love being away. Especially when it’s to familiar, yet massively exciting London with my family. But, boy do I love coming home. I bet you are the same. There is something about your own bed and bath that is quite primal. Safety and familiar-comforts ultimately trump the unknown – however much fun. But we really had a terrific time, despite some pre-travel nerves at arriving while the situation in London was still volatile. Well I was jittery, Mr A and Miss R were their usual breezy, up-for-it selves. And they of course were right. We had a ball.
Although the riots and the lead up to them were deeply worrying and unsettling, the London we experienced was universally uplifting and positive. Everyone we encountered was friendly, helpful and polite – from the harassed Tube station staff (I was the zillionth person to ask the same dumb question), the stall holders in every market we visited, to the alarmingly young and fresh-faced policemen and women we asked directions. Even when I just about took out an elderly lady with my oversized ‘new’ vintage bag, having spied yet another pop-up vintage market to blow my money in, she just smiled and said, ‘It’s awright, my love’.
We also have the same experience in Paris. It always surprises us that London, and Paris in particular, is perceived as being populated with surly, eye contact-avoiding citizens who would sooner spit on you than help you. A little effort with the language, a show of politeness, and a smile are all we have ever found necessary to get on in these famously bustling cities. Maybe we have just been lucky but I do think that a bit of the old ‘do unto others as you would be done by’ can’t hurt.
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People who aren’t on Twitter often deride it as merely a vehicle for transmitting useless everyday minutiae. I won’t deny that use of Twitter; I myself have been known to snap and tweet ‘interesting’ pictures of ‘novel’ breakfast ideas and of my hens eating pasta (thank you if you have retweeted any of them). But the reason I use Twitter is to connect with like-minded health and food folk, sharing ideas and recipes, links to research papers and yes, images. It is near-miraculous to me that I can have a real time simultaneous conversation with a surgeon in Canada and a chef from South Africa. This has happened, and it blows my mind.
When something really strikes my fancy or eye I will email it to myself for reading properly later. Mr A is frequently chiding me on a messy inbox, full of ‘read this now’ emails from myself that I will neither read nor file. It is shameful how many research links remain unclicked and undigested. But one find I did act on is a tweet from baker, author and Guardian food writer, @dan_lepard. He recently tweeted a picture and link that just had to be tried. It drew me in with its close-up of glistening plums and peeking-through pastry. Trust me to favour an alluringly-photographed recipe over a print-heavy review of US adolescent obesity studies. Oh the irony.
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I’m hunched over my laptop while the rest of Edinburgh – and many thousands of visitors – are queueing for some of the 2542 different shows on offer during the three weeks of the Edinburgh Fringe. Like the original, more high-brow Edinburgh International Festival, ‘the Fringe’ is part of 11 official festivals that pop up annually in Edinburgh – six during the peak tourism months of August and September. One of my favourites is the Mela, a smaller southeast Asian festival with an international flair. You can watch flamenco, bhangra, African drumming and capoeira while munching on mainly Pakistani and Indian delicacies and waiting for a sari fashion show to start. Multi-culturalism at its most accessible.
But the Fringe – officially the largest arts festival in the world – is arguably the best known and best-loved of all the festivals. Comedy is definitely king in this city but serious and not so-serious theatre, music of all descriptions, poetry readings, children’s shows, cabaret, dance and physical theatre are all here as well. And you can see something almost 24/7 – great if you are jet-lagged and have no idea what time, or even day, it is.
Performers from all over the world come to Edinburgh to make their name
during these three intense, and at times overwhelming, weeks. Perhaps they have been inspired by the likes of Hugh Laurie (House), Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean), Steven Fry (polymath) and Emma Thompson (Oscar-winning actress etc), among many others who were talent spotted in this very city. Even if you never make it to a show (and locals complain bitterly in the local paper about the ‘London prices’) it is a must to at least wander around the Old and New Towns celeb spotting (John Malkovich two days ago) and watching the brilliant (free!) street performers and their eclectic audiences. It’s a real spectator’s paradise too, watching all the Lady Gaga-wannabes, perambulation-challenged fashionistas (which is amusing, as it almost always rains) and the period-costumed performers catching buses and hailing taxis. Maybe when I finish writing this up I will grab my umbrella and go do some celeb-spotting myself. But first, the salmon. Continue reading
Pittenweem, the picture-postcard fishing village where we are staying the weekend, is gearing up for its week in the British cultural spotlight hosting the Pittenweem Arts Festival (6-14 August). This dinky village, so tiny that it doesn’t have a cash machine, or even the ubiquitous Tesco Metro, hosts one of the best, most accessible art shows to be found anywhere. By accessible I mean that the art displayed is wide-ranging enough to please the culture-vultures (my in-laws) and Philistines (that will be me) alike. Gorgeous, colour-soaked abstract canvases jostle with simple pen and ink studies, blowsy floral whimsies and beautiful sea-inspired tapestries in this most egalitarian of art festivals.
The Westshore, Pittenweem
Although Pittenweem boosts an unusually high number of galleries for such a bijou place, the ever-increasing number of artists who exhibit over the week means that the ground floors and gardens of many houses are co-opted and hung with paintings, dotted with sculptures and draped with textiles and decorative baubles. The village is always eye-achingly gorgeous, especially the Shore area, with its pastel tied fishermen’s cottages, tumbling gardens and step-gabled roofs, but it really comes alive in August. If you are anywhere near the east coast of Scotland come and have a browse around this uniquely homey art festival.
Even if nothing catches your eye art-wise there are always the home-baking stalls spilling out onto the pavement to tempt you. And the Cocoa Tree, where I use coffee-purchased wi-fi for the occasional blog post, has dangerously addictive chilli cocoa to sup while enjoying homemade crepes and other goodies. Great chocolate shop too. The fish and chip shop a few doors down is also a good find. Anstruther, the next village up, has a famous fish and chip shop (it boasts photos of celebs noshing with the plebes from cardboard trays). But Pittenweem Fish Bar is just as good at two-thirds of the price, with efficient staff to keep everyone in their place as they queue down the street for their portions of crisp-golden fish. And no cardboard tray-plates, just good old paper to unwrap while sitting on the harbour wall watching the fishing boats go out for the night.
Sitting outside, third experimental glass of watermelon and green tea soothie to hand, I am enjoying the scents of my summer: crushed lovage, trampled thyme, eviscerated verbena, scrambled sage. Yes, you guessed it, my four ‘girls’ have been on a rampage. Pecking and scratching their collective way through our little suburban patch, they seem to be celebrating their release from temporary incarceration.
Normally the girls have utter dominion over the garden, ratcheting around wherever they please. But we were away at the weekend and they had to settle for their ridiculously large covered and open-topped pens, with worm-filled compost bins, carefully placed limbs to leer from and even a corkscrew hazel tree to perch on, should they so wish. Hardly doing hard time. Don’t feel sorry for them.
So today, hollowing out dusty dirt baths is top of the hens’ to-do list. Peering out just now our poor borders look to have been under asteroid attack, such is the scarring. But we (or rather, I) don’t mind. Other than a recent delphinium-related error on my part we’ve quickly learned what are the best anti-nibble plants: roses, foxgloves, rosemary, thistles, perennial geraniums, lavender and crocismia. At this time of year perennial, herbaceous plants are mature and of little interest to the hens. But early spring is a bit of a nightmare for anything tentatively pushing though the earth after winter’s worst. And as for the tender annuals of early summer, they really don’t stand a chance and are relegated to hanging basket and lining the drive duty. Live and learn. I used to be quite garden proud but am having to settle for chicken proud.
Wrecking the garden is thirsty work
Today’s recipe (s) is one that I am really excited about sharing with you. I have had so much fun playing with/inhaling various versions over the past week. I really hope you want to try it. It hasn’t all been plain sailing though: poor Mr A has been pining for hot food (I think I heard him say ‘steak’ in his sleep), but he still cheerfully chomped his way through platters of rolls and sauces. What a trooper. Miss R is away in Geneva so has missed out on most of the concoctions. But because I’m a nice mum, I will make as many summer rolls as she can tackle –
if she brings back the black truffle brie that I asked for. Continue reading
It’s el scorchio here at casa foodtoglow. Hens are lolling and cats are snoozing -and it’s only 10 am. But someone has to work around here so quick wee post and off to Maggies Centre for green tea and a good chat. My night-time eyeshades (sad, I know) were no match for today’s retina-searing dawn, so the green tea will have to steep a good five minutes to reach the requisite caffeine quotient. I hate having thin eyelids… Continue reading
What a great weekend! Despite the vagaries of a Scottish ‘summer’ – which is basically autumn with added midges and tennis – my family and I had an idyllic Saturday and Sunday. A perfect mix of socialising and doing bother all. Humour me for a few minutes while I elucidate.
Every year we host a big barbecue, with work colleagues, family of colleagues and Mr A’s fellow Maggies Monster Bike and Hikers in attendance. I buy decent sausages and fish, and make homemade burgers, salads and maybe a fruity pavlova or two. But it’s really about the mildly alcohol-enhanced chat (Scottish stereotype intact), daft games involving malted milk balls and water guns, and treating our tolerant neighbours to my daughter’s frankly awesome taste in tunes.
The past few times Mr A and his partner in all things childish, Issy, have taken to scouring the charity shops for the most dire, embarrassing and ill-fitting hats and garments to inflict on our game partygoers: every balding man has to have an Abba wig and at least someone has to sport superhero underpants over their trousers (hello Gordon!). But every year there is the fret about what the weather might unleash. So, every year a marquee gets erected in the garden to act as a weather charm, warding off looming thunderheads that tend to gather like snarling dogs. Do you do that too? Not set up marquees but, say, drag an umbrella around so that you won’t need it: it always rains if I don’t have one rather than when I do. I practise a lot of rain god appeasing here in Edinburgh.
But, despite an almighty downpour of rainforest proportion at T minus 2 hours, we ended up dancing, singing, gossiping, marshmallow toasting and chowing without the downer of raincoats and wellies. All under under our nearly-midnight sun. Bliss. And to top it all off from two very thoughtful friends came the gift of little coats for our rescue hens. So even our girls could join in the dress up ‘fun’. We tried one on our most amiable (ie, daft) girl and it fitted perfectly. She wasn’t too sure about it, but I bet she will be clucking for it before too long. Continue reading
I toyed with what to call these savoury pastries. I was going to call them by their Turkish name, bōrek, but was worried about confusion with the cringe-making, self-christened Kazakhstani, Borat. Can’t have that image popping up in your head when you are making these, now can I? Sorry, shouldn’t have mentioned it. And, then there’s the little matter of these being not in the slightest bit Middle Eastern. So I toyed harder.
Cigars? That would cause search engine confusion for some folks, I suppose. Although they do look like big fat stogies. Oozing, delicious ones. I can imagine Homer Simpson wanting to smoke one.
Parcels? I picture a bubble wrapped, leaden looking something or other delivered by chaps in a brown uniform. Maybe that’s just me. Lots of lovely foods have the word parcel in the title though, most of which involve filo pastry. That’s it, pastry. Job done. You may think of sugar-dusted puffy bits when you see the word pastry, but seeing as this is my blog I hope you’ll let me call them pastries. Naughty, but seasonal pastries. Continue reading