More Veggies Please
On July 24, 2022 by Speranza
I own more than a few cookbooks. I even maintain a small ‘vintage’ collection whose tomes often include amusing “household management” tips in the back. What is the point of this, you ask? Well, if the internet goes down, at least I will still know how best to whiten The General’s spats, while I’m jugging a few hares in the larder …
Anyway, the point is, despite all the recipes online (and a set of binders that house personal recipes!) I still struggle with how to cook with less meat. Although I really love veggies – not a huge carnivore at all – the main motivation is to do The Right Thing for our burning planet and now, frankly, my budget. But over and over by Wednesday I grow bored with tomato based dinners, anything approaching Tex-Mex or soaking cashews overnight. (I have tried, I am sorry – as a texture person I simply cannot embrace the vegan staple of “cashew cream.”) There is something about this putty-hued sludge that just makes me gag.
Strawberries are Here!
On June 27, 2022 by Speranza
Every year I really look forward to the changing seasons and enjoying certain foods at their peak, in-season best. Asparagus and rhubarb herald the beginning of spring of course and provide some much-needed colour and hope, but for me, nothing compares to the luscious, once-a-year taste of fresh strawberries.
Like tomatoes, I used to forget each year how desperately terrible a January strawberry is going to be. Tumbling across the miles in order to garnish a dessert plate (which already makes me feel like a privileged brat), these ruby-faced imposters, often unyielding to the teeth, taste like tiny turnips (or worse, nothing at all) and are eerily white at their inner core.
So for many years now, this has culminated in a no (fresh) strawberries edict here, once the season is over.
Toast
On April 25, 2022 by Speranza
Can we talk about toast – just for a minute?
I never realized till quite recently (when The General was sighing about my “toast rules”) how particular I really am about this ubiquitous breakfast item. Or, how many times it has featured in my life from childhood to present.
Firstly, the way toast is prepared in the UK and the way it is done elsewhere is vastly different. Perhaps because the toast was traditionally fetched from a far off, frigid area of the house and often shuffled into a toast rack, (something I have always yearned for) somehow, the British toast often seems to end up on the coolish side. And, if the bread is thin and therefore tending to be crispy, I actually prefer this temperature: the toast is now a more solid vehicle for – let’s just say it – more butter (and Marmite!) and much less prone to collapsing into itself like other more pillowy, gummy breads tend to do. (Apologies to any ‘Texas Toast’ fanciers – but I.just.can’t.)
Of course, this is where my toast contrariness begins.
A Room of One’s Own
On April 9, 2022 by Speranza
I have been redecorating my office. Disturbingly, this is something that has not happened for 27 years. I found myself looking at the inside of a door etched with the frantic nail scratching of a sweet dog, long since passed, who was frightened by thunder; paintable ‘Anaglypta‘ wallpaper now stiffly rippling with age, rising up like Japanese Wave Art across one wall; loopy, repulsive carpet when peeled back, reveals an ancient spotty underpad that always reminds me of Pimiento Loaf. (You know the one: a beige deli ‘meat’ with festive coloured bits sprinkled throughout. Spoiler: Those bits will not be maraschinos …)
Beneath the underpad is random, dirty flooring comprised of a variety of planks that likely originated from the garage of some drunken uncles who installed many years before …
There was much for me to do.
Patti Smith – M Train
On March 11, 2022 by Speranza
I remember the first time that I finished reading Patti Smith’s M Train and how sad and empty I felt that it was over. This book is billed as a memoir but it’s so much more than that, brimming with poignancy, wise but careful observations and a simple, child-like take on the many things that she encounters in her everyday life.
And, let me just say, that the writing is exquisite.