The Kitchen Blogs

Righto. New Year so I’d better get blogging properly. Thought I’d try to come up with a kind of theme to encourage regular blogging, rather than just occasional ranting.

My girlfriend’s Dad bought me a Nigel Slater’s latest recipe book for Christmas. If you don’t know who Nigel Slater is try visiting http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/microsites/nigelslater/ He does a column in the Observer and has written several fantastic books. He’s not the finest chef in the country but his fuss free food is a breath of fresh air from the Islington dinner party pretension on a plate served up by Jamie et al (although I think Nigel lives in Islington…).

I enjoy Nigel Slater’s writing as much as I enjoy trying his recipes. He’s the sort of cook who can’t keep his fingers out of the bowl, and he’s always talking about how food feels to eat.

Anyhow, his latest book – ‘The Kitchen Diaries’ is a diary of what he has cooked over a year. It’s a great idea, with lots of seasonal recipes. So I’ve decided to pinch the idea and do my own ‘Kitchen Blog’. Starting today.

Monday 9th January.

Overpriced M&S so-called ‘Club Sandwich’ today. Not nice, but I was in the big shop on Market Street in Manchester and I noticed that they’ve started packaging the butties in cardboard instead of those horrid little plastic triangular boxes that will sit in the landfill for the next 80 years. To encourage Britain’s favourite shop in to continue in this manner I bought a revolting sandwich. Still tastes bad in cardboard, but I guess it’s a start.

Dinner involved some fridge rummaging. Some panchetta from last nights spag bol go with four softening mushrooms, a lonely egg and a dollop of single cream, and I have a perfectly edible Spag Carbonara. The parmesan is nearly down to its rind and I resolve to chuck it whole into some soup for a bit of a cheesy kick sometime soon.

The spaghetti is this multicoloured organic stuff that I bought from the weird anarchist place around the corner. Organic stuff is still too expensive wherever you buy it so I’ve been slipping to odd thing into my shopping basket now and then to see if they really do taste better. I’m not sure but I think this stuff might taste better than non-organic spag. It might go on my list of organic ‘must haves’, which currently looks like:

Avocados (especially hass variety)
Bananas
British Apples
Carrots
Chicken
Beef
Eggs
Lamb
British Tomatoes
Peanut butter (But not the supermarket own branded filth)

Currently on my organic ‘Can’t tell the difference’ list:

Salt: OK, I tend to go posh with salt anyway and go for Halen Mon or Maldon because they don’t have weird additives that make you wee and give you the fear, and you don’t need to use as much to get a good seasoning. But for goodness sake, salt is an INORGANIC substance. There is no such thing as organic salt, it’s a marketing swizz.
Bread
Coffee
Chocolate: Yeah, yeah, green & blacks dahling. How did we ever live without it? Yak yak. Marketing con, we’re back in Islington dinner party territory. Blindfold I can’t tell the difference between G&B and the 20% cheaper, good quality Lindt. Go to Belgium and eat the chocolate there, it makes G&B taste like the stuff you use to make rice crispy cakes for children, and the Belgians aren’t arsed if its organic or not, they just know its good.
Oranges
Imported apples from New Zealand (who cares if its organic – they came from New Zealand in an aeroplane! Organic jet fuel?)
Supermarket own brand peanut butter (Evil Filth)

Right. I'm off for an avocado.