Why can't foodies be fashionistas?

Today is the first day out of bed since Tuesday evening - yes, I have become a statistic and have succombed to swine flu. I don't think I have ever felt so ill in my life (thankfully, I am not sickly and don't tend to get ill much anyway).

So, Ade has been in charge of the cooking, which for me has mostly been toast and Heinz tinned veggie soup - I know that most people want chicken soup when they are ill, some fancy Heinz cream of tomato, however I suffer from 70s childhood cravings and want the the veggie stuff.

He is currently roasting a chicken stuffed with tarragon, salad and bread are on the table and suddenly I feel hungry. Now I know that I must be on the mend...ohh, and I really fancy a glass of wine.

Bought a big punnet of blackcurrants at a knock down price at the supermarket this morning. Was delighted until I got them home and remembered why these gorgeous berries, like teeny darkest purple pearls, are so woefully underused. They are hell to top and tail!

Hours later, they were done so I warmed them with some slightly past their best blueberries and the last of the raspberries, red gooseberries and wild strawberries from the garden, and piled them into a bread lined bowl. I never had the delights of summer pudding as a child, because as my mum said, who would want to eat a pile of stewed fruit and soggy bread, but I now absolutely love it. The pud is sitting in the fridge; the ruby juice already beginning to stain the bread in patches, like blood on snow.

Was lacking inspiration for dinner, so turned to Sophie Dahl’s book entitled “Voluptuous Delights” (I admit I bought this because I loved the title, enjoy Ms Dahl’s whimsical writing style and thought she might have some secret recipe for stuffing your face whilst staying enviable thin and beautiful…alas, no secret recipe but many very, very good recipes for simple, seasonal breakfasts, lunches and dinners) and decided on linguine with crab, lemon, chilli and tomatoes. Light and summery unlike the grey drizzle outside. Sadly, the summer pudding won’t be ready for this evening, but we all need something to look forward to at the beginning of the working week.

Yesterday Amazon delivered Jane Brockets “Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer”, which is part cook book, part review of many classic children’s books and details how to make many of the treats featured in those books that anyone of a certain age read as a child – do kids nowadays read “The Famous Five”?

Haven’t really moved since I opened the package, except to bake some blueberry muffins to take to the beach this afternoon.

I was a plump, ultra shy who existed to read and liked nothing better than curling up on the sofa after a trip to the library with a pile of books and a couple of still warm jam tarts. No change there then…

However, I thought I was the only person who wanted to go and live up an alp with Grandfather like Heidi (despite having no idea what an alp was…they are a rare site on housing estates in Hull). Unlike other girls I never wanted to go to boarding school for the camaraderie, the fun of a hockey match on a winters day or for helping other, less fortunate (probably scholarship) girls in times of distress – no, like Jane Brocket, I was only interested in midnight feasts and tuck boxes crammed with slabs of fruit cake, tinned sardines and fizzy pop. My stomach churned with horror at the thought of “Swallows and Amazons” style adventure in boats, but I dreamed of their hearty breakfasts, big enough to fuel a days roaming and climbing, featuring creamy, steamy porridge, bacon, plump sausages and glistening fried mushrooms accompanied by a pile of hot, buttered toast. In our house childhood breakfasts featured a bowl of cornflakes garnished with a heavy frosting of white sugar, eaten whilst putting on your socks and finishing your history homework and lasted approximately two and half minutes.

Needless to say I have devoured this book of memories with many cups of tea, tears dripping off the end of my nose. I now want to spend the rest of the summer lying on my tummy in a patch of sun, grass tickling my chin, re-reading “Little Women”, “The Wind in the Willows” and “Milly Molly Mandy”. This is a great idea for a book, sweet and nostalgic as cherry cake scoffed out of a paper napkin – if you have children it is a lovely idea to tempt them to read and to cook. Even if you don’t, it will take you back to your childhood…so grab yourself a Sherbet Fountain and a copy of The Railway Children and indulge yourself.

Having not cooked for the last couple of weeks I was very tempted by a recipe that I found a couple of weeks ago for chicken baked with oranges, cinnamon and Moroccan spices. Sounded lovely, smelled deeply fragrant and exotic. Ade was sniffing the air like an elongated Bisto kid when he got home.

Als, sweet chicken and roasted oranges are not that tasty – I wish I had stuffed plain, delicious roasted chicken breast into a soft, white roll with a smear of mayo and eaten it outside in the last of the sun, then polished off the oranges with the juice stickily running down to my elbows.

I hate it when a recipe disappoints, especially when the individual ingredients are so plainly perfect.

The garden is full of raspberries, gooseberries and strawberries, and although the Sunday style mags tell me that I should be rustling up puddings and preserves galore, I find that real life intervenes, leaving me with a freezer full of fruit ready to be turned into light, fresh, sunny day dishes probably just at the point when the nights draw in and my stomach craves its seasonal helping of stodge.

However, yesterday, looking at some rapidly turning strawberries I chucked them in a pan and boiled for five minutes with half their weight of preserving sugar. This is fast jam for smearing on weekday morning toast and dolloping onto scones or through some natural yoghurt for an al fresco pudding. Made fast, eaten quicker, it will not keep long but who cares. It is very beautiful too, lipstick red and full of slightly squished whole fruit. Strangely, it smells almost artificially of strawberries and reminded us of 1970s Hartleys jam.

Went to see Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince last night. Fellow Potties will not be disappointed but I expect anyone who hasn’t read the book (is there anybody who hasn’t…?) would be confused. The vast amount of cheap fat, sugar and e-numbers that were hurtling through me by the time the film came on only added to the excitement. I wouldn’t dream of eating a “white chocolate” mouse or foam teeth anywhere but the cinema and I do sometimes think that I should take my own supply of healthy snacks, but chomping on some unsalted brazil nuts or a banana would leave me feeling flatter than Ron Weasley after a double Potions lesson with Professor Snape.

Haven’t posted anything for the last couple of weeks due to having the builders in. No, this isn’t a euphemism, but has been a real life, traumatic event that has left me facing a couple of cheerful builders bums before 8am every day and having to retreat to my fantastic, friendly and clean local café bar, Dazal. The worst thing has been the dust, filth and general mess, but I have had serious concerns about Dick and Billy the Builders. They obviously have a major addiction. They appear to be main-lining the white stuff…yes, I think I have spent more on their white sugar, hobnob and teabag habit than I have on glass, bricks and plaster.

Alas, my decision to renounce alcohol has had to beat a hasty retreat in the face of all this builder misery and mayhem, so tomorrow I will raise a final glass of champagne as Dick and Billy shake the dust of my extension from their steel toe capped boots and then I will climb, giggling and sleepy, back on the wagon.

The good thing is that I can cook again…

If anyone needs a recommendation for a fantastic blog please try this one:

http://middleagedgapper.blogspot.com/

I confess it is written by someone that I know, but it is funny, warm and slightly eccentric – as all good blogs should be.

Three meals in the last week have consisted of just wine. No, tell a lie one also involved a handful of falafel and some salad cream. Anyway, this is not a good state of affairs, so I have decided to cut out the booze until Christmas. My waistline will thank me, but I admit I'm not looking forward to being teetotal. I'm not a huge drinker and can go months without a drink at all but a large glass of something cold and preferably fizzy does give me some much needed confidence. I'm naturally a happy drunk, going from midly silly to deeply silly in the time it takes to sink one unit, but would like to think it's something that I can get by without. So, five months of diet coke and Evian. Obviously I'll still cook with wine...can you imagine Coq Au Vin made with diet coke?

Last week I posted a blog about Paul Weller and in it I mentioned Ade’s friend Tim. When I got home last Monday evening Ade told me that for some bizarre reason Tim had read the post. I am still blushing with embarrassment as I hadn’t asked Tim’s permission too talk/write about him or had the courtesy to tell him. I don’t think that Tim is annoyed about it but I’m aware that I have breached blogging etiquette and I just generally feel awkward as I would HATE someone to write about me without my knowledge. I guess I should ring him and apologise but as I suffer from debilitating shyness and I am possibly one of the least articulate people I know, I know that I won’t. Tim is a wonderful man – warm, witty, charming and handsome and I really want to apologise, so I am doing it as publicly as my cowardly self dares (despite the fact that I know that he won’t read this as I think he has more exciting things to do than come back for a second helping of my foodie ramblings. Let's face it, if he does read it he'll think I'm insane.) Anyway, sorry Tim – I feel better just getting it off my chest!

After a mad, crazy, busy week at work when food has been quick and easy – stir fries, pasta and home made burgers; I have had a lovely weekend.

Ade’s old friend drove up from London for the weekend. Had a table booked at our marvellous local café bar (Dazal, Newland Avenue, Hull – wonderful food, friendly owners that make every diner feel special and like a mate and usually someone that you know hanging out there) for 7.30pm. Tim still hadn’t arrived by 7pm and I was ready to start gnawing the kitchen table. I decided to walk down to ensure that they didn’t give our table away (in reality to make a start on s drink and any titbits that may come my way). By the time Ade and Tim rolled up I had already polished off an Elderflower Collins (gin, elderflower liqueur, lemon juice, soda water and utterly delicious since you ask). Backs were slapped, news exchanged, wine and beers were consumed and by the time the food arrived I hardly noticed what I was eating (root veg, cranberry and goats cheese bake, which I guess was probably ambrosial). Oh well, lets have a glass of prosecco to celebrate. At about 11 o’clock we all tottered back down the street to sit in the garden, warm and happy, more wine all round.

Woke on Saturday morning feeling OK but absolutely starving. Back to Dazal for loads of coffee, a feta salad and a mountain of warm pitta bread before driving to Dalby Forest for the main event – Paul Weller. Amazing. I have seen Mr Weller many times before, but last might he played his heart out in a field with a back ground of black trunked ancient forest and fog. Thousands of middle aged people, soaked through and muddy, singing “Eton Rifles” in a field in North Yorkshire. That’s Entertainment!

The three of us rose late and trundled off to local gastro heaven, The Boars Nest. Pate with chutney and living salad, salmon and samphire pie topped with crushed Jersey Royals and bitter chocolate mousse cake with sour cream topped off my weekend of no cooking. Now sitting in the garden with a glass of wine, enjoying the last of the sun and the Sunday papers (RIP Jacko).

Hope your weekend was as good for the soul.

It's the final hours of our weeks leave; back to work tomorrow. Enjoying the last few rays of sunshine and leafing through the final sections of the paper. To say that I "cooked" tonight would be pushing it, I used up the remnants of tasty stuff before going back to strict healthy eating next week, so dinner was a salad of peaches that were more juice than flesh, a milky ball of mozarella each, sliced thickly, with paper thin rashers of smokey Italian ham draped across like vintage lace. Eaten with reheated home made bread rolls and followed by crumbly pieces of rejected white chocolate brownie, it was light, summery and lazy. Perfect.

Back to reality now, the ironing beckons...