ups and downs

'Lady's Choice bacon spread (with REAL bacon)' read the alluring foil sachet, gleaming in the tinned meat aisle of a Phillipine supermarket, like a diamond in a diamond mine full of diamonds.

I lay my culinary trust in a nation that has four aisles of tinned meat products. In a Manillan shop, the corned beef tins segued into corned tuna and corned chicken; and all this before we had even hit the Spam. Corned beef was a saving grace in my childhood. Summer meant occasional good weather, which meant rare salads. And as everyone knows, cucumber and lettuce do not a meal make. When my 8 year old self couldn't go near Pilchards or prawns, or the jelly around pork pie, corned beef came to the rescue. And as with all tinned goods, you are only a ring pull away from delicious: Pinoy cuisine makes ready for the apocalypse and is just waiting in your store cupboard.

So it was something of a personal tragedy to find Lady's Choice bacon spread is pretty grim! I am sure I'll have better luck with the corned beef I have lined up next.

That evening I had a hankering for cauliflower. 

My current challenge is cooking hob only, on 3 rings max., definitely no oven or grill. Or microwave or toaster. I have a kitchen handicap that only organising building works can cure...But cauli is easy.

I boiled sweet baby new potatoes, steamed florettes on top for the last 4 minutes, and made a hasty cheese sauce with stingy mature Cheddar and a dab of English mustard.  Why does it taste even better in my favourite dish?

first meal

My first meal after five days of dry toast and boiled water. Nothing has ever tasted so nourishing, nor left me with such a hearty glow! 

Not a body beautiful detox, I was instead possessed by some bug or virus. It was all a bit too visceral and left me grumpily waif-like and hungry. Five days of not eating properly! 

Miso soup was a real breakthrough & kept me going: salty soup is recommended to replace lost salts in the body and I happened to have some individual paste sachets from the supermarket. I will keep some in store as medical emergency provision! PJ was my other saviour: dry toast really is the only comfortable thing to eat, and PJ looked after me, toasting seedy bread.

My sister had twin symptoms, simultaneously (discussed in too-graphic detail). We recovered at the same time and, whilst wondering what to brave for a meal, I heard she was having 'your mend-all chicken and barley stew'.  Of course!  A now-distant cousin of Nigella's 'praised chicken', the barley version is very gentle and homey. Barley, cubed potato and leek are simmered about, with a few chicken thighs for 50 minutes. My taste buds feel brand new and must be very sensitive, as the dish didn't need seasoning!

when life throws lemons...

... get a table for one and order in a margherita and some guac. If the Mexican food doesn't sort you out, the delight in dining out - so indulgent on a Monday night - soon will!

Definitely not a dry January in this corner of London.

hibernation

Our Christmas choirmaster comes from sunny climes and said he didn't truly understand 'In the bleak midwinter' until he lived in the UK. 

It sure is bleak and dark and grey.  The cold is damp and pervasive, rather than dry as in Scandinavian countries. And January / February are the hardest, longest months. Crisp, blue days are limited, as are beautiful snowfalls to lift the spirits. But I don't mind: there is something necessary about enduring a winter in order to enjoy the spring. And if you don't fight it, but adapt and hibernate, then it can almost be enjoyable.

My native strategy for survival isn't original, but goes along these lines:

• Plan for social life to start in February: say 'no' to everything else.
• Only make plans with your very closest friends; cheering, low maintenance. An exhibition, coffee, Burns night. 
• Look forward to work: there is HEATING there.
• Bed early, every night. With blankets, films and mint tea.
• Eat well. Porridge, coffee, stews, carbs.
• I don't need to add exercise as my daily commute involves more than an hour of walking, but it does help
• Luxury item of the past 2 yrs: go away post-Christmas for a couple of nights. Ensure hotel has log fires and is insanely intimate and cosy.

This year is peculiarly isolated, with two of my favourite people overseas and other friends too busy to meet. I find a cafe quite the best antidote to being alone too much.

Yesterday I had a morning coffee in Watch House, Bermondsey street. Coffee in London has blossomed so much in recent years that I barely try to keep up, so I can tell you only that they were nice people, with great coffee and so cosmopolitan that they were unfazed by an off-menu request ('do you do a cortado or piccolo?' was met with 'sure, which would you like').  The blazing little fire didn't hurt either! It is tiny to sit in but very pretty; bare scandi-chic, hyacinth posies, plugs for phones.  Beautiful, young things were working earnestly at the other tables, two were setting up a new business. 

My other January cafés so far:

Arloe & Moe (of course)
Hej 
Canela: despite no longer making cheese bread. They do a lovely gallaou.
Frank & Taylor: though an outside cart, the friendliness of the boys keeps you warm!

After a solitary weekend I feel strangely purged and calm. Plus my boyfriend has a defrosted freezer, as a special anniversary gift. Lucky boy!

Knitting in Watch House

Metro Manilla

"Pork" we said. 

"Pork and rice... and juice?"

In a humid 30 degree, city heat, jet lagged and hungry, I liked the look of every single food stall at the market.  Cane sugar drink, barbecued or kebab meat, exotic fruit of every shape and size! The decision making was bewildering but Mel's cousin and his wife saved us, bringing: roast pork belly, fish stuffed with tomatoes and other vegetables, rice, semi- dried beef strips and fresh juice.

Pork for breakfast is easily the most triumphant start to the day.

Coffee adventures were less successful, but we did source a macchiato from Coffee Bean, and find that a Breve was "like a latte but more creamy". 

Jollibee was an immediate hit. Burgers were familiar, 'one piece and rice' (fried chicken) is a combination that should be served everywhere and the proper cutlery would almost convert my Mother to fast food! Sarsi, beloved by Mel as a fizzy drink of her youth, tasted like cola mixed with TCP. Strangely medicinal.

New (to me) fruit: custard apple, their armadillo armour pulled away to eat the snowy flesh inside; mangosteen, with their deep plum case and soft segments within; small, green citrus fruits, like baby limes with orange inside (calamansi) make delicious juice; sweet, clear lanzones with thin skins to peel away. And the sweetest, ripest baby mangos I have ever met!

Holidays with Mel are always delicious.

The flamingo has landed

This year has been the busiest ever, but sadly also my least productive in the kitchen.

Work is bursting at the seams and then I managed to finally completed on the little pink palace! Nicknamed The Flamingo by Herb, the joke is that I don't much like pink and used to avoid it: now I am turning into a librarian Barbara Cartland by some irresistible quirk of fate. 

So be it. It is my new home, even if it does look like Barbie visited.  After gaining possession, Jimmy and I sat at this table in my favourite cafe, Arloe & Moe.  What amazing salt and pepper pots!

Between the unglamourous state of the new kitchen, and the flat I was renting being turned into a building site for the last few weeks I was living there, I have not cooked properly, or regularly, for months.  Disproportionate joy, then, at this first stove-top supper in the Flamingo.

It will be some months before I have a fully functioning kitchen so for now I will be learning to cook camping-style. I hope my real cooking muscles don't atrophy!

chorizo cheer

Tonight's speedy, batchelor girl meal was brought to you by necessity, by way of fun: I needed to eat very soon after getting home, having been enjoying myself at choir.

Ever hungry, I get ever so anxious if I eat late; crotchety too, as my sisters will attest! I get home about 9.30 pm on choir nights and this is one of the zippiest get togethers of ingredients, thought up on the spot.

Chorizo sliced (using scissors to save washing up a chopping board), fried in a little pan for 4 mins; cold, leftover new boiled potatoes added and flash-sautéed in the same pan, and all dashed in a bowl with peas. The peas I put, frozen, in a cup and pour over boiling water from the kettle. 

All I needed was a Campari-soda to keep me sharp and some radio 4. 

Happy days!