Chilli Con Carne

I put up my first website in 1995. Between 1996 and 2001, I uploaded a series of recipes - one a month during regular monthly updates. This was, in effect, my first food blog (although the word 'blog' was first coined in 1998 and not widely used until several years later).

I will be revisiting some of these recipes during the course of this current blog. Here's the gif graphic I used in the 1990s:

The July 1996 entry was for 'Steve’s chilli'. I still cook it, especially when family are around. I basically cook it the same way today.

• Ingredients: Mince (about 1lb), large onion finely chopped, clove of garlic crushed, 2 green chillis, tin tomatoes, tin of kidney beans, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon chilli powder, vegetable oil, salt and pepper.

• Heat oil. Fry onion, add mince, add garlic.

• After about 5 mins add chopped chillis and tomatoes. Stir and simmer.

• Add kidney beans, sugar and seasoning.

• Cover and high heat for at least 30 mins.

• Uncover and boil off access liquid if any. Serve with nachos and/or rice. Have sour cream handy.

I noted in 1996 that Texan traditionalists tend to omit the kidney beans. Don't see the point of that. Anyone know if it's true? I have been know to add mushrooms and peppers to my chillis, which certainly isn't traditional to anywhere.

Bleezer's Ice Cream

After a recent post (Feb 19) that included the lyrics of John Grant’s I Wanna Go To Marz, I must mention Bleezer’s Ice Cream by New York poet Jack Prelutsky in which he invents 28 (count them) ice cream flavours. Natalie Merchant set it to music on her record Leave Your Sleep (2010). It’s the mother of all ice cream-related song lyrics.

A video of Natalie singing it comes after the poem (not the best sound quality but love the dancing).

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT
COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD
CAULIFLOWER COLA MUSTARD
ONION DUMPLING DOUBLE DIP
TURNIP TRUFFLE TRIPLE FLIP
GARLIC GUMBO GRAVY GUAVA
LENTIL LEMON LIVER LAVA
ORANGE OLIVE BAGEL BEET
WATERMELON WAFFLE WHEAT

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
taste a flavor from my freezer,
you will surely ask for more.

Jack Prelutsky

Whitefriars, Coventry

Whitefriars Olde Ale House occupies two ancient buildings on the site of what was once the Whitefriars Carmelite Friary in Coventry.

Small intimate rooms. Stone floors. Stained glass. Log fire. Real ales. Doom Bar. Stout Coffin. Basket meals. Scampi and chips.




 
 
Further information:
http://www.whitefriarscov.com/index.php

I Wanna Go to Marz

Here are the lyrics to one of my favourite songs at the moment, John Grant’s I Wanna Go to Marz, off his album Queen of Denmark (2010). The lyrics are apparently based on childhood memories of the names of milkshakes, sundaes, ice creams and other items sold in a Michigan sweet shop. He returned to the shop recently, but it was empty and for sale. The result was this song about the innocence of childhood (video below from UK show Later with Jools Holland).


Bittersweet strawberry marshmallow butterscotch
Polarbear cashew dixieland phosphate chocolate
My tutti frutti special raspberry, leave it to me
Three grace scotch lassie cherry smash lemon free

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Mraz
We'll meet the gold dust twins tonight
You'll get your heart's desire, I will meet you under the lights

Golden champagne juicy grapefruit lucky monday
High school football hot fudge buffalo tulip sundae
Almond caramel frappe pineapple rootbeer
Black and white pennyapple Henry Ford sweetheart maple tea

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Mraz
We'll meet the gold dust twins tonight
You'll get your heart's desire, I will meet you under the lights

Moroccan carrot soup

I make chicken stock when we have roast chicken at weekends, and use it to make either a midweek risotto or soup. This week’s soup was a big hit and I pass on the recipe here. It was originally in a collection that Allegra McEvedy did for The Guardian (serves 6).

Toast half a teaspoon of cumin seeds and crush. Chop about 750g carrots and sweat in 30g butter for 15 mins. Cook 80g rice and drain. Cover cooked carrots with 1.2 litres chicken stock and 250 ml milk, and simmer.

Blend soup, but keep a rough consistency. Put back into the pan, add the rice and cumin, and simmer some more.

Pull off the heat and whisk in two egg yolks, stir in a handful of chopped mint leaves, and sprinkle with paprika before serving. The finishing touches with the egg and the mint are essential in this case and give the soup a delightful texture and taste.

I served this on two nights, by dividing the blended soup into two portions and adding one egg yolk, freshly-chopped mint and paprika just before serving each night.

Farewell to The Castle Oak

The Castle Oak (formerly The Malthouse) in Dinas Powys – our local pub - has served its last pint. It has closed for good. Tesco have bought the site for one of their Metro stores, although we are well served by local shops thank you very much.

A peak of pub closures occurred in 2009, with around 52 a week shutting down in the UK. They are still closing at an alarming rate. Recent figures show that in the past year a total of 2,377 pubs have closed.

The British pub is an important meeting place within the community. A community that has lost all its pubs is a much poorer place for it.

High beer tax, which has raised the cost of an average pint of beer to £3 in a UK pub, is one of the factors responsible. Something needs to be done to reverse the trend of closing pubs. Reducing or scraping beer tax would be a start.

Further reading:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/5878378/Beer-tax-blamed-as-pub-closures-in-Britain-jump-to-52-a-week.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/09/pub-trade-threats-comment

On the set of Alys - Don't eat the food!

I was served a lovely breakfast in the café in Alys, but was under strict instructions not to eat the food.

Alys is a gritty drama written by Siwan Jones, about a single mother and her son who flee from Cardiff after a violent incident and settle in a small Welsh town. The series has plenty of black humour and is directed in an interesting style (think David Lynch meets Mike Leigh to film a Welsh western in Llandudoch).

Although set in West Wales, the series is mainly filmed in Barry and Penarth. Last summer I was one of the extras in the café, which was established in an empty unit on Barry Island. A drab backcloth on a van in front of the door obscures the promenade and the Bristol Channel. Clever use of roadwork and traffic noise makes it seem part of a different town in the series.

I was “man in café” being served a massive breakfast of sausages, bacon, eggs, mushroom, beans, fried tomato and fried bread. I said “diolch.” You look at the food, but you can’t eat it. This would create continuity problems between different takes, and the food has probably been made inedible so that it looks good on film.

Here are some of the tricks of the trade, culled from a media awareness course. Roast chicken or turkey has probably been cooked only briefly, painted with ten coats of food colouring, and blowtorched. The syrup being poured over pancakes is probably motor oil. Puddings are rock hard, and ice is artificial, so that nothing melts. Anything BBQ has probably been painted with wood stain. Vegetables may have been sprayed with glycerine, while the milk on cereal is probably glue.

And my close-up being served breakfast? Well, it’s probably on the cutting-room floor. I would not have smiled if I’d known that this wasn’t Gavin & Stacey, but a dark drama set in rat-infested buildings! But I am there in the background when the arguments are going on in the kitchen, looking hungry.

Alys can be seen on S4/Clic (if you’re over 16 and live in the UK) for a limited period: http://www.s4c.co.uk/clic/c_level2.shtml?programme_id=377088089

Here’s the shows website:
http://www.s4c.co.uk/alys/e_ygyfres.shtml

Food on Film. 10. Chocolat

Chocolat (2000) is a gooey confection directed by Lasse Hallström, based on a novel by Joanne Harris. It tells the story of a woman and her daughter who arrive in a repressed French village in 1959. They make chocolate and open a shop called La Chocolaterie Maya. The decadent chocolate starts to change the lives of the townsfolk, especially in the romance department. However, when they carry on trading during Lent the devout Major plots against the chocolate shop by accusing the woman of immorality. Things come to a head when a group of river gypsies arrive in town.

Hallström is the ideal director to helm a project like this (see also My Life as a Dog and The Cider House Rules). There are enjoyable turns from Johnny (he's Irish, don't you know) Depp in gypsy mode and Judie (talk with a French accent, don’t be ridiculous) Dench as the wife of Alfred Molina’s scheming Major, while the ever-reliable Juliette Binoche effortlessly carries proceedings.

One for Valentine’s Day.

Eating Crisps (and nothing but crisps)

Today I am just pointing out an article that fascinated me in yesterday's newspaper. Debbie Taylor writes about her experience of only eating (and only wanting to eat) potato crisps for the past ten years. It seems to touch on some interesting questions about diet, how little variety we need to keep the body going, and the health issues surrounding crisps (usually consider as junk food).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/12/eaten-only-crisps-for-ten-years

Food on Film. 9. Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Soup (2001) is a US remake of Eat Drink Man Woman (No.3 Top Ten Food Film). I was originally going to discount this because: a) it is a remake and b) it is not as good as Ang Lee’s film. However, I changed my mind because: a) food is still central to the film and has been changed from Taiwanese to Latin American cuisine, and b) it is not a bad film.

Directed by Maria Ripoll and starring Hector Elizondo, Elizabeth Peña, Jacqueline Obradors, Tamara Mello and Raquel Welch (yes, that Raquel Welch), the film has a notable Latino soundtrack and shifts the action between the family home and a family-run restaurant. The meals featured were designed by chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, who are noted for their contemporary take on traditional Mexican cuisine.