Slender Blender

When TCMT worked in furniture retail I have to confess that occasional bargains came our way having been returned by dissatisfied customers when the product was really OK. I am sitting on a fine leather sofa as I type (heavily discounted) and am looking at a set of dining room chairs which came out at about £9 each. We have fourteen of them. A dear, late-lamented member of this parish once broke one and, trying to be kind, got a quote for £90 to fix it. We passed.

TCMT has moved to a kitchenware outlet. We'll preserve its modesty and call it Pond Country. She has to wear an outfit that can best be described as Dolly Parton's away strip.

Now I am the proud owner of all sorts of devices I had learned to do without by failing to be aware of their existence. Garlic skinner. Herb stripper. Perforated cling-film. An unsqueezable mop. I own these things. They are not all entirely without merit.

But. But. But. The deal with the returned items at the new employer is this. Refunded mail order products are sold by enveloped bid to staff and the money goes to charity (cool).

One such product was a Vitamix. This is the DeLorean of blenders. If there are moments in your day when your ornaments move along the shelf of their own volition and then something drowns out the local airport then maybe your neighbour has one.

Being a bit cheeky as the product costs £500 - a moment's silence while we note that there are people who pay this much for a thing that makes food smaller - we agreed to bid £80. We now own a Vitamix.

This baby turns fruit and ice cubes into sorbet. My stale bread has never been so quickly crumbed. On full power I swear it would make you a smoothie out of avocado stones, mango cores and paving slab without breaking sweat. And when you've finished? Fill it with warm water and a dash of washing up liquid and it cleans its own crevices. It comes with a plastic rod to push stuff down if the blades are not engaging but it is designed so that it is impossible to blend that. And I tried.

Jesus clearly hadn't anticipated the existence of the Vitamix when he said it was difficult to get a camel through the eye of a needle.

There is a 'pulse' button. I haven't needed it yet but if you are an amateur seismographer you'll probably know when I do.

I think I am in love with a piece of kitchenware. But I do miss my mop.

New to me

I've got scorzonera. That's the right spelling. It is new to me but although it sounds like an STI (and the spell-checker offers sexiness as an alternative) it is actually a root vegetable.

It came in our weekly box-scheme delivery from Riverford. It's a sort of stretched parsnip with a very black skin. Others tell me it should taste of asparagus but I didn't get that. I'd say a sort of artichokey parsnip but it doesn't make you as windy as a Jerusalem artichoke.

I followed a recipe on the box and boiled it followed by tossing it in butter with a bit of parsley. That was nice but Mrs T felt it was a bit bland.

Anyone got any ideas?

Chestnut and Lentil Cakes

By request of a comment on the Christmas favourites post here is the recipe for these. By the way, I am a member of the CRR (Campaign for Real Recipes) so will tell it like it is. If something is obvious I may not mention it. If something doesn't matter I may not mention it. If something is amusing I probably will.

150-200 grams prepared chestnuts. Tinned OK. Freshly boiled better but shelling them knacks your fingernails
100-150 grams puy lentils
Small onion, chopped
Sage leaves
1 beaten egg
Grated parmesan
Butter
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Wash the lentils in a sieve under running water. Cook in boiling water for about 25 minutes. As they come to the boil spoon off any surface fluff. Drain. Notice house smells of cooking lentils. Don't worry. The onion and sage will cure this.

Meanwhile gently fry the onion in butter with some of the sage leaves, chopped. You want the onions soft but not brown. Set aside.

Crush the chestnuts. Put them in a bag and hit them with a rolling pin until you feel better and they feel flat. Dispose of bag.

Mix everything together and make into small cakes with your fingers. Won't stick together? Use more egg. I sometimes use a burger-shaper to make them evenly sized but uneven = rustic = more believably home-made.

Shallow fry in olive oil until crisp and showing brown edges. Can be kept and reheated. Can be frozen and cooked from frozen.

This amount of stuff will make about 4 or 5 large ones or more if they are smaller and served as an appetiser or starter.

Decorate with a sage leaf. Nice with any fruit sauce (redcurrant, cranberry, cumberland). Good for vegetarians Christmas lunch.

Recipe adapted from original by Francesco Zanchetta at Riva and cut from an unidentifiable Sunday paper some years ago.

Hairy Bikers

Mourning the passing last Wednesday evening of the Hairy Bikers' Cookbook series which concluded in Mexico with some obscenely good chocolate dishes and a load of chilli-based stew. Si and Dave seem like two remarkable guys, very together about themselves, each other and their world. I have no idea what chaos goes on behind the cameras but these two deserve a BAFTA in my book.

Si did a wonderful reflection, to camera, on how their friendship had grown over the year travelling together. He seemed to manage that rare combination of genuine warmth and appreciation of his mate without straying into that mushy sentimentality that most guys hate.

It's because they're northerners, I'm sure. Reminds me. The late Brian Redhead once did a weather forecast summary that went:

'The weather. Bright in the north; dull in the south - a bit like the people really. And now a summary of the news.'

I was there. He did.

Thanks Si and Dave. Come back soon.

Part-time Jobs

Doing a dinner party tonight at someone else's (morning Mark and Esther) house because they have a little baby (morning Oliver, hope you enjoyed me sending you to sleep - get used to it).

The prophetess Esther, who annoyingly keeps saying things that I didn't know I felt until I heard her say them (will explain later) because I'm rubbish at feelings, reckons I could make catering another part-time job.

I agree. Every now and again I'd like to do a dinner party for six in someone else's house for money. Couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like to cook for a living every day of your life. And I expect I'd need to get insurance in case I did a Tottenham on somebody.

Oh the deep joy of explaining to Liz that last night's tea was Tescos 2 for 1 stoneground cheese feast pizza because I was spending my cooking time planning tomorrow. And she undestood. It was helped by being sunny enough to eat the pizza in the garden, in the company of a rather tame sparrow.

School Dinners

Hello Blog. Sorry to be missing so long. Had a nice holiday in which thinking took second place to rambling of the ambulatory variety, wandering not wondering, round Somerset market towns in the February cold and getting back to a nice warm cottage afterwards. Have sent off five report forms to the Good Pub Guide; it was that sort of holiday.

The fantastic woman I took with me has now gone back to work and I've made an appointment to see her in July.

Anyway the point. Ah yes. Jamie Oliver. There's a divisive character. I meet people who love him and I meet people who hate him; rarely do I talk to anyone who ignores or merely tolerates him.

I love him. As a TV chef he taught me the great truth that the main skill of the cook is shopping. Buy the best ingredients and you will be on a winner.

As a youth worker I loved the way he invested time and effort in the young people who became the stars of Jamie's Kitchen and the restaurant 15. He seemed to have a wonderful balance of encouragement and challenge, gave disadvantaged young people a million second chances and cried real tears at their failures. Great TV and a good cause to boot.

Now, with Jamie's School Dinners, he has taken on a much more difficult project - that of persuading the nation's authority figures that the market forces at work in school food has left the kids to be fed on a budget of 37p, for which all that can be provided is 'scrotum-burgers' and this is having a serious affect on young people’s ability to actually concentrate in lessons.

Furthermore the ingredients for leek and potato soup, if sourced from the school kitchen bulk suppliers, come out at over £1 a portion. Since you can make a reasonable portion with one leek and one potato that is alarming.

I think he might change the way we see food in this country. But if he does he will need someone alongside him to communicate with the young people en masse. His garbled attempt at an assembly seemed to include the expression 'yeah, no, nice one' about a hundred times. So calling the army of church-based youth workers out there. Can one of you write to the BBC and offer your services for whatever the next project is for any occasion when Jamie needs to communicate with a crowd of young people? He needs you.

Or we could just get him on one of our training courses.