Gross food

I have never been one to shy away from anything gross or disgusting. I find gross things fascinating and funny. When my cat vomits on the floor my first reaction is ‘oh no!’ and then I bring out the paper towels and clean it up without problems. I do not even wretch. The same when it comes to my patients- shit,piss,phlegm,pus,blood,vomit- its all fine by me.

It was always this way, even as a kid. These things do not have an effect on me. When my friends would be dead drunk and throwing up on a night out, there I would be with a tissue wiping their mouths while they gasp and say thank-you.

Food can be gross too. When my siblings and I were quite young, we had a list of gross foods that my father would insist on eating. As far as I can remember, these were:

Picalily- lets face it, the stuff looks like baby diarrhoea.

Branston pickles- resembles geometrically shaped poo.

Sauerkraut- extra long maggots

Runny fried eggs- jaundice

Tinned sausages- ok, I just won’t go there

Kippers

Marmite

There are definitely more, if my siblings read this I am sure they can add to the list. However, the biggest problem with my father’s gross-food affinity was when he was done and left us the empty plate. The fact of the matter is, that plate would never be quite so empty. The runny egg would be smeared everywhere, aswell as the reminants of picalily and a few flecks of branston pickle. Ofcourse, there would be HP sauce or ketchup thrown into the mix, just to round things off. Basically, it would look like someone with a particularly badly blocked comon bile duct died on the plate.

And the argument ensues. Who was going to wash daddy’s disgusting plate? I did it last time! No you didn’t, you liar! We’ll pick it up together! I’m not falling for that one again! Do it, or else I will make you lick it! Ewww gross argh!

And this could easily last a good thirty minutes, while the plate sits there, congealing. I would finally give in and pick up the plate and wash it. It would be over in a few minutes.

However, there is now a gross food in my father’s repetoire that I actually like and that is caponata, or otherwise known as ratatouille. Those greyish chunks in the red oily tomato sauce- it reminds me of after-birth. My hubby had the idea of putting it on dough to make a sort of pizza and it was really delicious!

I guess it is almost a gift that nothing disgusts me. Ofcourse, this does not always go down well with some of my friends. I really make an effort to hold back and not give detailed and graphic descriptions of clinical scenarios involving bodily juices. Ofcourse, I have those very few friends who actually ask me for disgusting clinical details and once that door has been opened, I come alive. Strange? Perhaps, but as I grow older I realise I need to stay true to myself. I have accepted it. And if anyone out there would like to discuss something gross, lets meet over coffee, scones and branston pickle and cheddar cheese sandwiches

Easter Lunch at my beloved Family’s house

I have mentioned my dad as a great cook in a previous post, I think almost a year ago if not more. Well, he most definitely still is the best cook I know. I mean, I am pretty good as far as untrained chefs go, but dear dad is something special. I love food, but he ADORES it. That is passion with a capital ‘P’. He visits the grocery store 6 times a day, all the cashiers know him and they don’t even need to ask for his loyalty card number anymore- they have learned it by heart. He has a personal relationship with the butcher which has conveniently opened right next door and he knows exactly which produce is worth buying at the green grocer. Yes, the man is a food oracle.

So when I managed to get the day off today, Easter Sunday, I was absolutely delighted. I am constantly working on holidays and when I am not working, my parents usually go abroad on holiday, but this time they stayed especially for me, so I can join for Easter lunch. There was a tonne of food: Feta and spinach parcels, roast lamb, greek salad, roast potatoes (which I made), tzatsiki, mint and lemon couscous and warm pitta bread.

 

 I love having lunch at my parents’ house because they are such a colourful and fun loving bunch of people. Even though there are fights and there is chaos, there is a lot of love and mutual understanding. And when we get together we laugh at each other, interrupt, shout, correct each others table manners when our own sometimes leave a lot to be desired. But in this mess, there is actually a certain amount of inimitable harmony and a closeness which I have not experienced in other people’s families. I remember as a school girl, I would sometimes invite friends over and they would immediately feel comfortable in our presence. I like to think that is because we have never pretended to be something we are not and just because there is an ‘outsider’ in the house does not mean that we are going to act any differently. And I honestly think people appreciate that- the discomfort and pressure of being ‘the guest’ is lost: you are in our house, we have invited you here and therefore for a few hours you are one of us. So sit down and eat. We can assure you, the amount of food present on the table is directly proportionate to the size of our hearts

The obligatory Fr.Peter post

My uncle Pete, who was a dear part of my family died after a rather unwell stay at hospital. For my over-seas readers, he was a public figure over here and many, many bloggers have been writing about him. Except for me, his actual blood relative.

It is worth blogging about him here, at Marie’s cuisine, because he was an ardent food lover. Yes: Uncle Pete loved to eat. Fish especially. He would rumble with delight at the very smell of a great piece of fish. There is an anecdote that he once went to some restaurant and asked for dentex and the establishment tried to pull the wool over his eyes and gave him some other fish. But uncle Pete wouldn’t have it. It was not the fact that he did not like the fish presented to him, but when he knew he was right, he simply knew he was right. Trust me, the man knew his fish. I once asked him over to lunch and I made grilled salmon fillets with lemon and olive oil, and as soon as he walked into the house, he sniffed the air and said ‘Hmmm…I smell salmon!’

This photo was taken 2 years ago, when we went to Holland together for my cousin’s wedding…we were in a restaurant in Haarlem…

And here is a dentex fish so nobody gets confused:  http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2gf2RwVTcw/R7XQBc1IwPI/AAAAAAAAAxo/fRug4JZr17k/s1600/dentex_mouth.jpg

My uncle was a serious man. However, something I have realised about most outwardly serious men is that they have a fantastic sense of humour. And since I was very little, I used to like to try and make uncle Peter laugh. And one memory in which I succeeded is food related:

Me: Uncle Peter, do you know I am on a seafood diet?

Uncle Peter: Are you sure that is wise? You are 7 years old…

Me: Well, it suits me fine, because I see food and I eat it!

 

Ok, well maybe it is not the most original or funniest joke in the book, but it made him laugh. And the memory stuck with me.

In the past two years, he was very ill with heart problems and he was constantly in and out of hospital. In my break, I would always visit him and we would always end up talking about restaurants, my blog and cooking. Due to diabetes, his eyesight started to fade and visitors would read to him, very serious stuff from foreign newspapers or biographies of public officials bought from the newstand in the hospital. I never buy anything like that, but I do buy food magazines and I would show him the next thing I would like to try and his interest was very real, as if making a lamb tagine was just as important as some latest news from the government. The thing is, I never actually found out if he knew how to cook. I know for a fact that my uncle Franco, who also passed away knew how to cook and my mother mentions my Aunt Josephine, who died before I was born, who was not half bad at cooking either.

I have to be completely honest- it has not yet sunk in that he is actually dead. I have spent so much time with him in hospital these past two years, it just seems unreal that I will not walk into his room and see his eyes widen and his arms outstretched with the usual greeting of ‘Helllloooooooooo Marie-Clairrrrrrre!’ He would be surrounded by visitors, but the moment I would walk into his room, he only saw me, poor vision and all.

I am very rational about death. At the end of the day, I am a woman of science. Death is an ironic part of life. You’re born, you live, you die. End of story. Some people scream and cry and beat their breast. I am not one of these people. I am only 28 and I have sat with families while their loved ones died, I have dressed corpses, I have sat with patients who had the misfortune of dying without a relative by their side. However, I take comfort in the mere scientific fact: If one does not die, one can never say they have lived.

And Uncle Peter lived. He really lived.

An epic meal time (without the disgusting Canadian fast-food)

For those of you not in the know, epic meal time is a series of videos set up by a bunch of Canadians on YouTube involving making very large dishes of fast food constructed in such a way to look like a traditional meal, for example they once made a hamburger lasagna by basically ordering a lot of hamburgers from different fast-food joints and layering them with cheese. Then they proceed to eat these cholesterol-laden dishes with incredible gusto. If you need a visual definition of the word gluttony, just look these guys up.

Well, today I too had an epic cooking adventure. I do not think I ever worked so hard to prepare a meal in my whole entire life. I had my family over today for lunch and I really wanted to wow them with my skills as a chef. I made lamb shanks with spices, roast potatoes, a greek salad, hummus and tzatsiki. Oh, and a curried marrow soup as a starter. It wasn’t all plain sailing.

First of all, I could not find lamb shanks at my usual favourite butcher. This already disheartened me somewhat. But I was told that at a particular supermarket, I would surely find. So my hubby and I trouped down there one day directly after work. This supermarket was HUGE. And NOISY. I had also never been there before and had to look for everything. While searching for the butcher, I take a look at my husband and he is all of a sudden pale and sweaty, really dizzy and about to keel over. I told him we should leave right away, but he insisted on waiting in the car until I complete my mission. At least, I managed to find the shanks and I hot-tailed it out of there. Thank God, my husband was feeling better and we were able to drive home.

The next day, I was reviewing the recipe I was going to make and realised that it contained a tablespoon of honey. Oh no. My parents are diabetics, but my mum is particularly vigilant and I decided to call her up to see if it would be ok. She then dropped a bomb on me: she was on a new health kick.

Now, my mum often goes on health kicks and they do not last very long: sometimes she says she won’t eat wheat, sometimes corn, sometimes she says she does not want any condiments with her salad and so on and so forth. It is not usually such a problem, but her latest one was a little extreme: she does not want to eat meat. She said the strands stick in her teeth. I knew telling her that only happens if you do not know how to cook meat would be useless, once she gets a health kick in her head, there is no way of being able to give it the boot (ho ho ho!). All this after I searched high and low for lamb shanks. Well, I was not going to give up on the lamb shanks so I made loads of side dishes:

Greek salad:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hummus:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roast baby potatoes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I have to say that I never made lamb shanks before and I do not usually like to experiment on guests, even if they are my family, but they were a major hit! I marinated them in spices over night, pan seared them until they were just brown on the outside and then I cooked them for almost 4hrs this morning in the oven. The texture was perfect, the meat fell away from the bone deliciously!

 I also warmed up some pitta bread, both white and wholemeal variations and served along with. I am rarely off on a Sunday and I was really determined to make a great Sunday lunch. I think it is safe to say, that everyone was happy and my family walked away with a good feeling in their tummies and dare I say, their hearts too?

on a health kick

I have said it time and time again. I love food. I am not ashamed of it. I don’t think anybody should be.

And I wear a size 14 uk. And I personally do not think that is such a problem, but you would be surprised to know that there are many people out there who do find this a problem. LOADS of people. There are a considerable amount of people who make comments about my size. Which, to be honest, is not all that big.

Oh well, at the end of the day what really matters is what I think of myself. And I can’t say I am unhappy. Contrary to many people, I look in the mirror and I like what I see. I look at photographs of myself and smile. I wear clothes to suit my shape. Do I wish I were a size 8 super model? In all honesty, sometimes, but only because it would make buying jeans easier…

But the fact of the matter remains, that no, I am not a super model and I do not have the aspirations to be one. I am a nurse and on the path to acadaemia with as much brains as a super model has looks and maintaining an itty-bitty size is not that important to me.

However, being healthy is important to me. I have many bad habits, the worst being chocolate. Chocolate is not that bad, but I love the most fattening and high in calorific value kinds such as those with peanuts and caramel. Lots of people talk about loving bread and pasta, but that is not really my problem. My problem is my sweet tooth…or perhaps my chocolate tooth.

In any case, to get myself on the right track I took in a smoked salmon salad to work. Usually I am too tired to make my own lunch and I simply eat whatever is on offer at the canteen, which is usually disgusting. Which just goes to show, that if you are hungry enough you will eat anything. Just to put you in the loop, an item on the menu is a steak and onion pie. It is vile. It looks as if an elephant took a dump between two pieces of parchment. Therefore, here is my salmon salad:

I was surprised at how filling it turned out to be, with a little feta cheese, a slight drizzle of olive oil and a freshly squeezed lemon for a bit of a tang. It was really lovely.

For dinner, I pan roasted some chicken, baked some potatoes, marrows and carrots and made a peppercorn sauce using skimmed milk.

As such, I am not such an unhealthy eater, but sometimes I lapse into what is easy rather than what is good for me. My job makes me tired all the time and when I arrive home, the temptation is to slump into a chair with a take-away and a dvd. Ofcourse, we hardly ever do that because we would end up looking like the pachyderms the canteen people get their pie filling from.

I like to eat. Is that a crime? Not in my books. But in this day and age, with all the healthy eating campaigns out there, the consumption of unhealthy food on a daily basis is just unacceptable. Yet, that being said, working hours for any profession have become ridiculously long and cutting back means that one can’t make ends meet and buying good produce becomes financially difficult. And because of the long working hours, one tends to turn to easy pre-cooked frozen meals full of nitrates and saturated fats. In a way, it is a bit of a slippery slope.

All in all, no matter what the situation, I believe if one really wants something, one will strive to get it. And healthy eating is most certainly an obtainable goal. So if you too are out to live a healthier cullinary life, go right ahead, give it a shot. It is not easy if you are an average working joe like myself (or would that be a jane?) but hang in there. For what it’s worth, I empathise

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put her back together again…

My day job, that is, being a nurse is very physically taxing. I often have to turn patients twice my size, push stretchers that are not set at the correct height and apply ‘pressure’ on patients with abdomens from here to Mexico. Apply ‘pressure’? you may ask…what does that mean? Well, for those not in the know, during a colonoscopy, your bowel is not perfectly straight and getting through is not as if you are on the London underground getting from destination A to destination B. There are loops and turns and curves. It is often the case that the nurse assisting has to try and straighten these curves out from the outside of the sedated patient’s body by lifting the patient’s tummy. All well and good if your patient is a size 6 supermodel, but that is nearly never the case. We also do procedures that require x-rays and all involved are required to wear a heavy lead apron throughout the procedures, which may last 4 hours.

Therefore, it is no wonder that I ended up with a back injury. I am walking like an elderly person and the doctor gave me a cocktail of pain killers. Unlike Humpty-Dumpty, it will be the pills and taking it easy that will end up putting me back to gether again. The bad part is that I have been told to rest in bed, and I am sincerely no good at that.

However, the WORST part is that I can’t cook.

Well, it isn’t exactly that I can’t cook, but I can’t lift any pots or pans, because believe it or not, they are actually quite heavy. So I am depending on the kindness of family members to cook for me so I can heal up as quickly as possible.

In the mean time, I will leave you with a link to Davina Hamilton’s blog, since, apart from the fact that it is a good read, she also featured my qassatat making skills.

Lots of love everybody.

An abandoned blog? I think not!

Yes, guilty as charged, I have not sat down and written anything in ages. Its very shameful. I can turn to the usual excuse, that I was very busy, which is always true, but sometimes that excuse just doesn’t cut it.

2012 so far has been quite full, both in my personal life and in my cullinary life. So, where do I begin?

Maybe I should start with the very end of 2011, when for the first time I made red velvet cake squares for a very large amount of people. And one would think that I would learn after the first time making this confection, to be more careful with the dye, but I wasn’t and my kitchen looked like a axe murder crime scene. The cakes turned out alright though…

 

On New Year’s day I invited family over for lunch. On these occasions I am always too fixated on presenting perfection so I never take photos of the actual food, but I did take a pic of the dinner table, which was a work of art in itself

Later on in January, I also took a stab at making naan bread. My dad said it would be really difficult and messy, but it was nothing of the sort and he was totally wrong…but then again, as great a cook my dad is, he tends to shy away from anything involving dough or pastry…

All it takes is a little flour, salt and milk or yoghurt and a hot grill…I made some garlic and some fruit and coconut. The first two I made looked like an indian elephant stepped on a decorated hot-cross bun, but the others were great. It takes a little practice, but totally manageable.

One of my new year’s resolutions should be to blog more…at least once a month…I really will try to do so…and along with it, I will definitely try to come up with something cool and interesting to make for dinner

 

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Splendid

November is coming to a close and it has been quite an eventful month. My dad’s 61^st birthday, my brother’s 33^rd, my 4 year anniversary, an old friend’s wedding and graduation looming in the not-so-distant future. And, of course, a celebration is not a celebration without food of some sort.

For my anniversary, I made a really delicious chocolate gateaux with chocolate butter cream. I am extremely proud of this confection, it was moist and had a slight bitterness that good quality cocoa powder produces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for my friend’s wedding, she held a sit down dinner and the food was plentiful and delicious. I had never been to a dinner wedding before and it was a lovely affair. I think the best part was dessert, it was really pretty and decadent at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I decided to make bavette al amatriciana and it was so satisfying. I added some dried chili and the zing with the bacon flavour was so fitting. I felt like eating the entire pot. I did not do so, but the desire was strong.

 

 

Even though it has been an eventful month, there is a part of me that feels empty inside. I am not a comfort eater, so I am not going to try fill the void with food. But I have a weird sense of longing and I am not precisely sure what it is I am longing for. I know I am lucky. I have it all: love, a roof over my head, food and clothes, I am relatively good looking and I have a pretty decent brain. But there is still something missing and I hope I find it soon. And it is giving me a tremendous sense of unrest.

 

Or maybe I am just hormonal. Which is very possible.

 

However, when I cook, I will be in the zone. I think about nothing but what I am doing. The more complicated the dish, the better. It is as if my brain is a house with many rooms, and all the lights are turned off and empty except for the kitchen, which is brightly lit and a flurry of activity. Within the midst of a dish, sometimes I get inspired and between chopping an onion and blending a white sauce one of life’s questions gets magically answered. Strange, but true.

 

So I guess I should cook more.

A blast from the past

Today is my day off, but unfortunately I am rather unwell, so instead of going out and about and enjoying my free time, I have decided to stay in and carry out some indoor activities, like adding new and nonsensical apps to my iphone, stalking people on facebook, catching up on Breaking Bad and checking out my email.

While doing the latter, I found an email I had written back in 2004 about a God awful restaurant I had been to with some friends. I remember we had won a voucher. This place closed down shortly after this was written. All names have been ommitted.

The (name of restaurant) Experience

So just picture it…Friday night, 5 friends all happy and feeling quite bubbly at the prospect of getting together and having a nice meal which they had won a voucher for by pure luck. I particularly was looking forward, after a morning at the ward and a long driving lesson. When I made the booking, all seemed great and the person who answered the phone seemed thrilled to have us winners…I couldn’t have been more incorrect.
When we arrived at the restauraunt, the place was relatively empty and I already begun to smell a rat. we sat down and the floor manager or whatever he was informed us that we could not choose what we liked from the menu. He showed us a secluded part of the menu for voucher winners, and I can not say we were exactly spoiled for choice. I thank God none of us were vegetarians, because we would have had to walk out…actually, on second thoughts I DO wish one of us was a vegetarian!
The staff started by warning us how the kitchen closed at 11pm…it was 9.35pm. The warning was unecessary and I considered it quite rude. Then, we were offered red or white wine. When it arrived, the white was passable, but the red tasted like toilet water (or what i suppose toilet water could taste like). We asked if it could be changed. The manager asked if we’d like another and I said no, just give me a coke instead. He replied that they already opened the bottle and used half of it, but if I wanted a coke that would be fine. I remained adamant and asked for the coke. when they gave me the coke, the manager came up to us all friendly, rested on my brother’s shoulders and said “I’m sorry, but u were 100% correct about the wine…I’m very sorry” my brother’s retort was “wow an apology and a shoulder massage!”
When the food actually arrived, that was another atrocity. The waiter promised us bread and butter, which never came and probably would have been the best part of the meal, yet it never materialised. My brother and I ordered a sirloin steak. We could have patched up tires with it. I never had such tough meat in my life. I was afraid I was going to end up with arthritis if I kept trying to cut it. When I finally yanked a piece free, I swear Hubba Bubba would be jealous- meat flavoured bubble gum…what an invention! I couldnt eat it. I left it there on the plate…its a pity it went to waste, I should have taken it home to fix my shoes with. The worst part was that the waiter noticed I hadn’t eaten anything and didn’t ask if everything was satisfactory. Oh, and the vegetables were really great…fresh from the packet.
It started to get late…the waiters wanted to leave but were too polite to tell us so. So they simply switched off the spot lights in half the room and turned off the music. We chewed our desserts in silence. As soon as we finished, the waiter asked us if we wanted anything else (what a rhetorical question indeed) and handed us the bill. The difference was Lm7. We paid them and left them a very insulting tip of 1c and bustled out.
After careful scrutiny of the bill, we realised they over-charged us by 0.85c for a bottle of mineral water we never bought.
Since we are all good sports we laughed it off. However this is not a restauraunt I would ever recommend to anybody. Yet, i would like to thank the staff of the restauraunt profusely for giving me a highly entertaining story to tell. Thank-you!!

 

When ever I read anything I wrote from long ago, I must say I cringe a bit, however at least it leaves me safe in the knowledge that my writing has most definitely matured, and so has my point of view. I was about 22 when I wrote this piece, my goodness how things have changed. Thank goodness, nowadays it is hard to find a restaurant of such a poor calibre and I have never had as bad an experience as that one in these past five years.

Any way, the antihistamines seem to be kicking in and I am off to nap.