Salmon fillets steamed over water and cider vinegar, green leaves of watercress and spinach, tomatoes and cucumber and a dressing of toasted sesame oil and a few drops or so of lime juice. Nice peppery leaves, nutty oil and the tang of citrus, sweetness from the tomatoes, the earthiness of the cucumber and the luxury of the salmon given a few nice twists of sea salt from the grinder all went together perfectly with a cold glass of cider.
It's a bit daft really. I've got loads to do but done none of it today. I've spent the day mainly in the garden. Sure, I've justified it to myself by saying that I should make the most of the weather while its here and I have done some weeding and minor odds and sods around the garden but in reality most of the day has just been me goofing off, enjoying the sun and the fact that the grass - never a lawn - is looking good simply because its the shortest it's been for weeks, which hides a multitude of sins. In my delusional mode I call it 'organic' or 'natural' or even 'wildlife', but I'm fooling myself as its really none of those, even if it is teeming with well fed birds thanks to an intensive feeding program. I enjoy a garden but I'm not a gardener. So it's been me at the patio table, book and sunglasses to hand, the odd glass of dry white wine to help wash down some crusty bread, nicely juicy pears and a piece of lovely soft and slightly salty goats cheese barely drizzled with honey. My idea of a wee taste of the Languedoc in Scotland.
Bliss.
I've also caught up on a few blogs while the back of the house has been in shade this morning as I don't do squinting very well. I've read a bit as the sun has come round the house, forcing me to lay aside the laptop while I catch up on stuff I've been meaning to read but strangely for someone unemployed, who should have plenty of spare time on my hands, have not found time for.
While I've been doing that thoughts have been niggling away at me like unruly children, particularly about reading and books. A few bloggers I read have touched on the subject of bookish things over the internet lately, talking about the impact of the web on reading habits, the effect of on-line bookshops selling at knock down prices and the impact on 'real' bookshops and libraries. I've added the odd comment here or there, interested or curious, questioning or approving, all the time letting layers of content slowly build up a curmudgeonly niggling concern that, as with many other things, the world is changing and something that is important to me might be changing faster than I'm comfortable with and not in a direction I would choose.
It's particularly true of the technology around books, or more accurately reading, for what I see ahead is the potential disfigurement of reading as we know it. I wonder in twenty or thirty years if we will have books in any meaningful sense or will they be the domain of academia, dwindling numbers of bookshops, curiosity shops, reference libraries and museums or the musty collections of crusty old men like me? Will the availability of cheap books online actually reduce choice and the number of titles as these places promote the blockbuster and ignore the merely sublime. Will readers have lost contact with the reality of a book in the hand if books are simply story downloads to an i-pad reader or some other piece of technology which retail chains and publishing houses use as the opportunity to stop printing to reduce costs and maximise profits? How will we find those unexpected books if we cannot browse, can't pick them up and read the cover as we weigh the value of story and the weight of the authors effort if the book exists only online? With the increasing trend amongst kids towards talking books on i-pods for convenience, how will we create those characters to live in our minds and in our hearts if all we have is an actors interpretation being read to us? Will 'readers' question if the interpretation could be different or if the story is crippled by heavy handed abridging? Will books of the future simply be screenplays? Will we simply accept that Dracula or David Balfour or Jane Eyre have American voices attempting foreign accents?
Not that I can do anything about it of course. I can only be the curmudgeonly archetypal grumpy old man and note the change and comment.
When I was a child I loved libraries. Dad was a great reader and supporter of our local library and I too was bitten by the reading bug. As a teenager I was hit by asthma which meant I was often laid up. When that happened I read constantly, a stream of library books was supplied by Dad, not always to order but he would often pick up a wee gem for me. Like him, I became an avid and prodigious, if not altogether selective consumer of the written word. But I also became enthralled by books themselves; the hard-backed leather bound edition, the hard-backed paper sleeved novel, the cheapest paperback. I loved them all. I learned to love the feel of a book, the weight of it's mystery as it journeyed home with me in a bag strapped to my bike, or just hung from the handlebars, knees nudging the book as I pedalled; the smell of the pages as you cracked it open for the first time, old and musty perhaps if it had lain on the shelf for a long time or if it was elderly in itself; other scents, held by the pages, of the last reader, an old man who's fingers held the smell of pipe or cigarette tobacco or oil from machinery in their pores, a young woman who's delicate scent would perfume the pages for a short time. These things all spoke to me and evoked a feeling for the history of a book, almost as a living thing. I learned to love the heady smell that always seemed to be in a library. I loved the almost reverent hush of the place. The need to be quiet for once not an impossible task.
Over the years as I got older and more selective in subject matter, I began to covet books {shades of 'My Precious' ringing in my head now} that were special to me. I loved history books, books on art, religions, architecture. I loved the books of Stevenson and Scott, Ryder Haggard, Michener and so many others. I wanted to have space at home for more than an overstuffed bookcase. I wanted to have a library of my own. I succeeded when we bought this house.
I've long enjoyed trawls of antiquarian bookshops and revelled in the atmosphere of ancient books, something which has become increasingly rarer as these places have gradually disappeared to be replaced with coffee shops, tanning studios and tattoo parlours. I've watched engrossed as an old bookseller, offered an old book, put it to his face and listened carefully as he softly rrrrrp'd the pages past his nose, caressed the pages lovingly and spoke in hushed tones about the quality of the paper, the way it had been made, the fact that although the paper was French the printing was English, the pages hand cut and rough edged. He waxed lyrical about the binding and the cover, it's absolute authenticity,the skill of the maker and about the healthy smell of its history and the lack of knocks and scrapes, folds and tears that showed it had been cared for through generations. Like being guided through a cathedral by a stone mason, he was a master of a craft that sadly seemed to be out of it's time.
I'm not exclusively interested in old books though. I've cheered myself with walks round the humongous racks of large chain bookstores and enjoyed the personal touch of informed, enthusiastic and well read staff in independent bookstores. I've gone looking for particular books and come out with treasures unexpectedly unearthed in my search through the shelves. I've collected the works of Rankine, Brookmyre and Banks and enjoyed Hiasson, Coelho and Cornwall.
I've often enjoyed a book at bedtime. Does it feel the same being read on an I-Pad? I've often dropped a book from the bedside table or from the corner of a chair. I've dropped one getting up from my seat on a plane or a train. The books have survived them all. I wonder an I-Pad would.?
Oh, and I've never had a book run out of battery power although a few have run out of steam.....
I now have a room I use as a library in my house. I spend a lot of time there enjoying the atmosphere and relaxing with a well read book or attracted by the brightness of a cover to something that suits my mood. Could I have the same fun scrolling through the list of titles on my reader?
I really hope I never find out.
see you later. I'm browsing the Edinburgh Book festival brochure wondering if I can afford to attend any more events this year.
I think its interesting how often when you meet people it centers around food or drink. A party, a dinner, a visit to friends or relations, a working lunch or what ever. I often find that conversation too will turn at some time to food and favourite dishes, restaurants and the like. Food and memories of food also can trigger some powerful memories and emotions, especially when it comes to special times, Christmas, New Year or Easter when family will traditionally draw together for a celebration and a meal made and shared with love. Its a powerful draw and the glue that holds families together or re-establishes, reaffirms the strength of kinship and family. Its one of the most important things we can share together.
So it was natural to experience this when my lovely G and I recently visited with Uncle Bill, Dads younger twin, and his wife. They live several hundred miles away in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire and due to distance we have not kept in touch with the frequency that we should. Dads passing earlier this year brought this sharply into view and as is often the case in situations like that, promises of closer contact were made. So far this has been held with regular phone calls and a visit to us by their daughter Elspeth and her husband Dave to stay with us for a great weekend which let us show them the sights of auld Edinburgh. So it was nice to go and spend a few days with Bill and Margaret at their house in Melton, to meet the family down there once again and to spend time reminiscing, as elderly folk are wont to do about things past.
We talked about shared memories, of Grandpa Robertson and his incapacity from WW1, and the care given him by Gran Robertson, and Dad, over many, many years, the involvement of family and the way we all would gather at that house for key dates and share those special times and meals, sometimes in what were very austere times. Aunt Margaret revived memories of Clootie Dumpling {Cloth Dumpling} a steamed pudding made in vast quantities and cooked in a 'cloot' - a cloth or more often a cotton towel. Steamed for what seemed like ages, sending its spicy aroma through the house as it dried sat carefully unwrapped, watched and turned occasionally on the hearth in front of the coal fire. A dish for mass catering and exciting to wee boys for the thruppence and sixpennies that Grannie would hide inside it wrapped in small parcels of greaseproof paper. During this Aunt Margaret went to the kitchen and came back with a page of loose leaf paper.
'This is your Mums recipe. I don't know if you have it or not'
Have it? I had almost forgotten the whole thing.
'She actually made a much better dumpling than your Grannie'
Such things are jewels drawn from the memory of others, lost from or more likely never in the knowing of wee boys. Inconsequential and treasured in equal measure.
MIX ALL TOGETHER WITH MILK TO MAKE A SOFT CONSISTENCY. PUT INTO A DAMP FLOURED CLOTH TIE WITH STRING LEAVING ROOM FOR EXPANSION PLACE IN POT ON TRIVET IN BOILING WATER FOR 1 AND 3/4 HOURS KEEP PAN TOPPED UP WITH BOILING WATER REMOVE FROM WATER AND CAREFULLY PEEL CLOTH AWAY FROM PUDDING. ALLOW TO DRY TO FORM PUDDING SKIN IN OVEN OR FRONT OF FIRE
SERVE WITH CUSTARD, CREAM OR ICE CREAM.
slices of leftover pudding would often be reheated and served the next day, even fried as a breakfast accompaniment.
3am. Kitchen, coffee and computer. Banshee winds.....
It truly is the wee small hours and my sole companion is my faithful friend insomnia. Even our pair of cats, Jess and Bailey, blink scornfully at me and shoulder cosily closer together in an unspoken 'Aw jings! Not again!' when I have the audacity to put on the light in the utility room in my search for the fridge. Jess watches me with one disdainful open eye to make sure I put the light off as I skulk out with my prize of a pint of cold milk. Its pathetic when a cat can make a grown man feel guilty and uncivilised.
I smile ruefully as I put on the kettle and plan revenge via worming tablets or maybe even a bath. I can be so petty at this time of the morning.
I had driven in to Edinburgh to meet my lovely G from work and take her for a simple dinner out before chauffeuring her home as she has been struggling with a cold this week. One of those deceitful colds that robs you of your voice and some energy but somehow leaves you still feeling well enough to go to work, although she did spend the day with me yesterday in silent, voice repairing companionship as she was due to be at another of those pointless meetings that employers often hold just to prove that they actually do have communication sessions. You know the ones. They hold you prisoner all day in a place that's difficult to get to and talk to you the whole day without saying anything meaningful before pushing you out again at evening rush hour to take twice your normal travel time to get home. Sure, they pay travel expenses but don't pay for your time involved to get there and back. { I know, I'm bitter and twisted, especially at this time of the morning.}
It was good to spend the day with her. A nice break from my solitary days and mostly spent sat together at my usual work station in the kitchen with me scoping the job sites and her doing email and various other bits and pieces on her laptop. She is one of these strange beings who gets 50 or 60 emails a day from various sources. Mainly friends but somehow she also seems to get offered lots of cheap viagra via various Internet sites who also seem to be extremely concerned about the size of her [ahem} manhood.
So, you now know who wears the trousers in this relationship, don't you!
During part of the afternoon yesterday we were discussing French Toast for some very strange but now unremembered reason. Its was probably about our completely different upbringings. I was brought up by very conventional working class Scots parents and the lovely G was raised by a, to be frank, pair of quite eccentric, but beautiful and amazing, parents. Her Mum was Swiss German and her Dad was the product of some pretty expensive private education. You know - one of those ones where the kid is packed off at 5 to be returned, university loaded, at 16 or 17 as a tightly packed bundle of neurosis with a deep understanding of ancient Greek and Latin and a Victorian attitude to women and sex. Thankfully her Dad was both a bit of a rebel and a sickly child so managed to return only slightly malformed having cleverly avoided many of the most damaging hazards and having totally escaped the clutches of private school by the age of 14 to start work in engineering at Rosyth Naval Dockyard. { bet his headmaster cringed at that one.} He then had the luck some years later to meet and fall head over heels for a young Swiss girl working in Edinburgh as a nurse and the rest as they say is history.
But anyway. Meanwhile back at the ranch as we used to say.
One of the first times my lovely G and I noticed our different 'cultural' upbringing was when we had just started living together and I had offered to make her one of my childhood favourite dishes which was French toast. I described to her how I made it and it all went well - as you would expect with such a simple thing - until I started to lay out the table for serving it. I put out salt, pepper, tomato and brown sauce when she started to get quite agitated and ask about the sugar and cinammon mix and the fruit.
"Eh? What ARE you talking about?"
"French toast should be served with a sprinking of cinammon sugar and with pears or peaches or apricots to go with it. Certainly NOT with tomato sauce! Not ever, in any circumstances. Good grief!!!"
And so we had a long and frequently 'entertaining' discussion about how this delicacy should be treated and at the end, while I of course, being a gentleman, even if a complete and unreconstructed plebian gentleman - shouldn't those two be mutually exclusive? - made sure that she got hers then and to this day with cinammon sugar and the required fruit on the side, - well, at the end we agreed to disagree. But we have still to this day, twenty odd years later, long and heated dabate and completely opposing views about what goes best with French toast.
She likes it sweet and I like mine savoury. {salt and pepper and with a hint of tomato, brown, worcester or even soy sauce} I know from years of research that I'm in the minority. I could be unique even. I don't think I have ever met anyone outside of my family who enjoys it served the way I do.
BUT......
I'm not saying she's wrong. She's just not as right as I am..........
see you later.
Listening to........ the wind howling past the gable end. Time for a cuddle I think........
p.s. don't even THINK about trying to convince me on this. I know I may be in the minority, but you are just wrong. And I couldn't find a picture of French Toast with tomato sauce on it anywhere on the web. Bah!!!
The weather has dropped a few degrees now and the morning run to the station is now in 2 or 3 degrees rather than the 7 or 8 of a week or two ago. Not that cold really but you have to factor in a bit of chill coming in with the sea wind.
Porage has become a mainstay of breakfast now winter is here. I make mine with water not milk and a good turn of salt to the mix when its being made, not on top once its served. Then again, I am only making it for me. 45 - 50g of oats to 350- 400ml water and five minutes later its pretty much good to go. As good a fast food as you can get. Strangely I used to love it as a child, loaded with sugar on top of course, and then went through about 30 years of hating the thought of it so much I was never tempted to try until one day I had some in a hotel while away working somewhere and it was so good that it kind of reopened my mind to it.
Reality has come home to roost with a rejection letter after my parole board interview. I shouldn't be that surprised, it was always a big leap for me, but one that I felt I could justify. Guess I invested too much emotion in it which isn't a good thing when your unemployed I suppose but I'm gutted none the less. I put a huge amount of effort into that particular venture and to have it miss the point is hard to take. But I have asked for feedback to help me understand where I fell short. So its back to the grindstone of looking for jobs which often aren't there even if you actually want to do them. I'm quite hacked off today as its all rubbish that's on offer. I have talked it through with my lovely G and I am definitely going to give the Parole Board another crack when the next raft of recruitment comes along regardless of what work I may be doing by then. It won't be for a year as appointments run for fixed terms but hopefully now that I know what the interviews are like.....
Insurance money is beginning to kick in fully which keeps those worries mostly at bay but even that is a double edged sword as it doesn't really make me HAVE to go and get a job, and while its good not to be in that position, the lack of impetus is something that any potential employer could read any way they choose. Actually as far as insurance is concerned I have found yet another policy which will pay us even more so that is in place now too. How unreal to have more money coming in than when I was actually working!
The divisiveness of unemployment is also to be seen in frustrated wee moments and criticism given to and from each of us based around thoughts of 'its been a while now/what are you doing around the house all day' to 'do you have any idea how stressful it is doing nothing/do you know how lucky you are not to be in this situation/have something to get out of bed for in the morning'. Luckily these are few and far between but they are there, an unspoken resentment which is in reality about the situation but in vulnerable moments could be read as personal and aggressive in either direction. We know about it and have spoken it through and are on the watch out for it. Our relationship is the most important thing for both of us and its a strong one. But its a debilitating experience for drive, enthusiasm and confidence this malarky and hard not to wallow in self pity. I'll be glad when it can be over. Like millions of others I suppose. I see a table in the paper which says unemployment in the county is just nudging 8%, one of the lower ones in the national average. Not very comforting though, nor is the fact that the rate of unemployment is slowing. {Yeah, and your point IS Mr. Politician?}
So I am forcing myself to spend a couple of hours daily doing the rounds of the web sites and keeping in touch in the forlorn hope of a contact coming good, making lists of jobs around the house I want to get done and trying to get them ticked off, mostly unsuccessfully for the last couple of weeks for sure. But its a temporary thing I'm not going to lie down to. Things will get better, truly better for us in time. At least we have the finance to let us tough it out.
Hullo ma wee blog, My disconnected feeling has treacherously descended into an irritating, sniffly head cold despite the deceitful euphoric few hours of last night. Its left me feeling jaded and listless once more, heavy headed and small eyed, and permanently, miserably, accompanied by a box of tissues wrapped in their bright, cheerful, irrationally annoying packet. My journey around the house marked by a territorial deposit of used tissues in each waste bin. Yuk.
I can't think of food but desperately want something. Hot, soothing with a good but easily digestible body. I decide on soup. To be honest it couldn't be anything else really. Programmed by tradition and temperament and not least by the ease of making just a simple pot of soup. Its all I can raise my enthusiasm and energy to anyway, and the stuff is all here in the house.
So, a base of onions chopped and softened in some butter, a few roughly chopped potatoes and two small finely grated carrots. I want them to dissolve and give their sweetness but most of all I want the interest of their colour. A litre of chicken stock and a scant half litre of water. My Grannie R made the best tattie soup I have ever tasted and I have searched through years of cooking for the same flavour and textures and so far have only consistently managed to accurately recreate the lightest palest touch of colour that her precious soup contained. The golden sheen that promised flavour beyond expectation of the simplest of ingredients used, potatoes cooked until any edges blurred into complete softness. A pinch of finely chopped curly parsley dropped into each bowl before it was served, for colour, interest and above all flavour. The kind of soup that made you pause with the first spoonful in your mouth and glance around the table to see others look back with eyes half closed and small smiles on happy faces. Hands reaching for well buttered crusty bread. Perfection. Simple perfection.
So last night supper was a simple bowl of hot but gentle soup and good crusty bread. Comforting and satisfying but easy on the belly.
