Marmite

Love it loathe it.  Personally, I love it. Thinly spread over warm toast with butter.  What's not to like? Umami to the nth degree. And I was given some marmite chocolate to try a few months ago.  Sounds horrible.  T'was delish. But I was breakfasting with six Germans, one Dutchman, a Norwegian and a lady from Kenya last weekend and I saw their reactions. Good grief.  International relations had never looked so rocky. Moues of distaste rocketed around the table.  They had to be distracted by a 7 mile muddy walk and a country pub, where thank goodness, Harvey's ale redeemed the taste buds. 
Books can be the same, I know.
Lord of the Rings? Well, I'm with CS Lewes.  'Not another f****** elf?" he was reported to have uttered as Tolkien read aloud another chapter to the prestigious Inkies.  I struggled through it when I was about fourteen I think, only because it was the book at school and it was too dreary to have to pretend that I had read it when I hadn't. Oh dear. Hobbits Schmobbits. Who cares? Yes, I know it was all about Nazi's and evil spreading over the land, but really... I also felt the same about Melvyn Peake. Smike.  Gormenghast (which I do think about every time I go past Lancing College, which isn't that often) what a sprawling turgid page turner that is. Awful.  Just awful. The TV adaptation was just abut bearable, but even that... Other massive bestsellers have left me cold too. But then of course, others that have never been out of print can still grip me.  Forever Amber? Oh, yes please... the attention to detail, the account of the plague, the theatres, the royals, the inns and the streets of London have me gripped every single time.
Some bestsellers, just like Marmite, provoke a strong response.  Which is about the best an author can hope for.

Mucho Macho Chefs

Well, yes.  And what red blooded female doesn't? Fancy 'em.  That's what. When Gordon stripped his chef's whites off down the corridor on The F Word to that music, I always gave a little grin, and a frisson of pleasure rippled over me.  Swearing? check.  Rude comments? Check.  Battered charm? Check.  Then there was the Christmas special.  Oh dear.  We saw him in his kitchen being all dadsy with the kids.  No. Really.  Leave that to Jamie.
But of course the Grand Fromage of the lot was surely Anthony Bourdain. When I first read Kitchen Confidential I was cooking on gas. High octane.  No protective oven gloves, so to speak.  Phew.  It was that good. Reckless and fast and furious.  What a bad boy made good, and through food.  I mean, what's not to like? Nothing.  Not in my case anyway as I've (along with countless others) have a soft spot for the rogue, and a rogue, let's remind ourselves, who COOKS.  Wow.
So it was with huge delight that I turned to Medium Raw his follow up. Hmm.  Well. I persuaded myself to read it again, carefully this time, instead of chomping through it like a starving woman on a diet let loose on a groaning buffet table. Yep, it's OK.  But.... there's a bit too much of whining going on for me.  Poor man.  Travelling round the world to his chosen location so that he can be filmed for his US TV shows.  No one understands the pressure.The TV people don't get it.  The food isn't as good.  The ego becomes super sized. But - there are still some wonderful sickening moments.  The description of the forbidden (and therefore hugely enjoyable) illegal meal of ortolans, the visit to a mafia ridden Russian restaurant are first class, but it certainly doesn't have the fire that I needed. He's mellowed, married, has children, has stopped smoking.  He's changed. But we haven't.  We still long for the bad boy. Come on Anthony - live a little.  Just for us. Pretty please?

To Kindle or not to Kindle?

I freely admit I am an obsessive reader.  You know, the sort that reads the label on a marmalade jar over breakfast, the sort that has to scan the back of other peoples newspapers on a bus.  Oh yes, and I simply cannot sleep till I have read for at least half an hour and I never leave the house without a book in my bag - and can I say - jolly useful that has been, too - delayed trains, gruesome waits in the dental surgery or just a boring journey.  So you can but imagine the weight of my bags when I go on holiday.
Last year I went to Argentina (lovely place - hideous plane journey) and I was going for three weeks.  I had a separate suitcase just for the books.  Then I had a bit of a panic attack and spread them over the two bags in case one got lost en route.  Then I had another panic attack in case three books weren't enough for the flight (how right I was.) So.... I can quite see the use of a Kindle. Have I got one? No.  And I don't really know why....A friend of mine (Damian Barr) wrote an article not so long ago claiming 'No-one will ever fall in love with you in a coffee shop whilst you're reading a kindle'  Or words to that effect.  He's very good with words.  And I think he's right.  I love BOOKS. I love the jacket design, the fonts, the turning of the pages, the fact that if you have a favourite book that you re-read, it falls, quite by its own accord to the favourite chapter.  I like second hand books that people scribble on (I once bought a Molly Keane book from a market and it had scribbled in the front - Do not forget eggs, gin and watercress and for God's sake call Maggie) Or that when you buy an ex-library book page 42 has been circled by someone to let themselves know that they've read it.  I enjoy the rustle of paper and the smell of new ink.  I quite like the gluey smell, too. I can live with the odd crumb or two that find their way into it, but I draw the line at a hair.  Eeow.
But.... I heard someone rather high up on Amazon on Radio 4 the other day saying that for every 100 paperbacks that are sold in America, 150 e-books are sold.  Crikey.  But that's America, right?  Enormous place America.  Fewer bookshops per capita and all that.  But still...... Maybe we should look at it this way.  A Kindle for journeys would be useful, no doubt about it, but no-one's gonna fall in love with you whilst reading from it.  Am I going to get one?  Probably.

One Chicken. Three meals.

There's something very appealing about making something from nothing.  Well, not nothing of course, but very little.  I expect one chicken to make at least three meals for two.  Roast chicken, chicken and leek pie enlivened with some chestnuts perhaps and maybe a risotto.  Then soup. Or at the very least some gorgeously golden home made stock. Or you might want to go the Asian route - chicken with ginger and garlic, or a five spice and pomegranate chicken salad with some fresh mint, the possibilities are pretty endless.  Though a keen cook I have remarkably few cookery books in my kitchen.  I don't know why really - well I do, I suppose.  Sheer laziness on  my part.  I never have all the ingredients for a recipe , I never measure anything, and frankly, I can't be bothered.  But what I do like doing is taking the suggestion of something and making it my own.  A book that has been described as 'The Bible' and  'The best friend you can have in the kitchen' (Nigel Slater) is Leiths Meat Bible by Max Clark & Susan Spaull. It's published by Bloomsbury and is a hefty £40, but goodness me, it's worth it. Unless you're a vegetarian, of course.   Not only does it have everything in it, but the best bit is that after every recipe it tells you what might have gone a bit Pete Tong and how to remedy it. Oh, and also what wine to drink with it. Boned leg of pork with sour cherry and lime stuffing? Roast suckling pig with coriander? Smoked woodcock with broad bean salad? Navarin of lamb? Osso Bucco? Glazed lamb tongues with creamed puy lentils? Pas de problem....  It also tells you how to buy, store, bone, carve and nosh away till your buttons burst.... Beautifully laid out, great photos (but not too many) and top tips.  An all round winner.  Now, where's my carving knife?

Sometimes...

Sometimes it's better to just give up on a book.  Though it pains me to do so.  I can usually finish anything right to the end (skipping if I have to) But not this one.  Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.  It's not him, it's me, I'm sure. He's been described as 'one of the world's greatest living novelists' By the Guardian, no less. He's written oodles and noodles of books, and has legions of fans, so it really doesn't matter, but, oh crikey... Doomed love, suicide, an expensive clinic set in the mountains of Japan and endless music. What can I say? Just not my cup of tea. And...and I missed the details.  It's painted with a broad stroke and if you are not Japanese, surely half the pleasure in a foreign book is in the detail.  I want to know what the trains are like, what the noodles are, what the mountains are like, but that's all glossed over.... though the concentration of a certain butterfly hair slide that re-occurs with monotonous regularity made me want to scream. 'Foreign' means foreign to ME.  So I want to be swept up in the very foreignness of it, if you see what I mean.  I've never been to Japan, or got lost in Tokyo, or been to a bath house, but I want a book that takes me there (without being a guide book) I want a sense of the place and the people, the smells, the customs, the style and the sheer differences of being there rather than here.
So, I gave up and made a cake instead.  Banana bread with rum soaked fruit and walnuts.  And very delicious it was too. No pictures as my camera is on the blink, but take my word for it.  Every crumb was savoured.

Yet more snow reading

Well, it was a panic buy.  It was a few days before Christmas and I was determined to buy some NEW books.  Not re-issues of the favourites (which is what I normally end up doing) and it was freezing cold. Bone achingly cold.  The sort of cold that you only go out in if you have to (lack of chocolate or the dog looking so pleadingly at you that you give in. Of course, then there is the joy in knowing that you have deserved the spiced rum tea that you are going to have when you return.) Anyway, so there I was, muffled up to my neck in many layers of very unflattering winter wear in front of the Waterstones 3 for 2 table.  Cold hands and cold feet were troubling me, as well as the fact that I didn't see any books that I really REALLY wanted, but then, 3 for 2 is pretty irresistible, isn't it?  Though I do draw the line at practically anything set in Australia or that has soldiers in it.  Yes, I know... but I can't help it.  I was enviously thinking of last year when I was in Argentina for the whole of Christmas, or my friend who was off on the Nile this year and wishing that it wasn't so damn cold, when this jumped out to me.  The cover alone in the sorry state I was in made me glow.  So, overcoming my book blindness I grabbed two others and joined the queue.
Now, I am aware that Ian McEwan has legions of fans, but I'm not really one of them, his books have always been a bit so-so for me.  But I buckled down with the spiced tea and concentrated.  For t'is about a prize winning physicist, Michael Beard.  Physics.  PHYSICS. 
Now I should tell you at this point that I was allowed to go to the library during maths at grammar school (highly illegal I suspect, and would never be allowed now) but back in the days it was probably just a whole lot easier than having a 'disruptive influence' in the bottom stream of a maths class.  I never even got to physics. Or algebra.  Or Chemistry - though there was an incident of a small explosion that even now I shall gloss over.
So, my heart wasn't really in it, but I persevered - mainly thanks to the hideous weather outside and the Foursquare spiced rum in black earl grey - I urge you try it... And I'm so glad I did. There are two incidents in the book that had me spluttering with laughter into my tea cup.  Our hero Michael Beard (small, podgy, six times married, greedy and with a good line in self deception) is on the back of a skidoo in the arctic attending a global warming conference and he is in desperate need of a wee.  I shan't say any more, but it had me roaring with laughter.  Oh, that and an incident on a train with a stranger and a bag of crisps.

His worlds collide and involve an accidental death, journeys to the Arctic Circle and New Mexico, an unwanted (by him) pregnancy of his girlfriend and yes, there IS quite a bit of physics thrown in.  But even I could grasp it.  Funny and thoughtful and wry and provoking.  Do give it a go.
Now, I'm going to put the kettle on again.  Spiced tea anyone?

All This and Heaven Too.

Well, of course I had to buy a new edition.  Amazon one click is about to bankrupt me.  It's a fact.  I will end up begging for gin and gruel, in Newgate.  Wearing a thin shawl and playing cards amongst the likes of Forever Amber and Angelique.  You see?  I have succumbed to the age old fantasy that we all are prone to around this time of year,  when we all get a bit Christmassy of going all 17th Century.  Or Victorian.  I have no idea why.  I blame it on Dickens I suppose. Snow and roast goose, Tiny Tim and cobbled streets, horse drawn carriages and bonnets.  It seems impossible to enjoy the present without looking wistfully back to different times.

My Christmas book is All This and Heaven Too by Rachel Field.  It's a cracker. (sorry)  But it is.  A dense book certainly, but what else are you going to do in front of a roaring fire, dark early evenings and roasted chestnuts?  Well, OK, huddled under a throw with the central heating on full whack?

It's a true story, as well.  Which always gets a nod of approval from me.

In 1841 Henriette Desportes is returning home to Paris after a spell as a governess in England.  Her next job is as governess to the Duc and Duchess de Praslin.  Oh dear.  If I say that the aristocratic couple have nine children, the wife is a highly strung, fleshy Corsican with a lot of money, the adored only child of her indulgent father - the sort that lounges around in tight violet silk, staring moodily out of the window whilst writing beseeching love letters to her tall, fair handsome husband, who frankly, has had enough of her - you can see just where this is going.

The Christmas chapters, where Paris is blanketed in snow, and Henriette takes a carriage to her impoverished academic friends in the Marais, clutching a basket laden with oranges, the colour of which glow in the dark enclosed dusk of the carriage, a pineapple and bon-bons along with a fine bottle of brandy is enough to have you rushing to make yourself a hot toddy. The Duc hands Henriette a small token of his appreciation of her devotion to his children.  The bauble is a crystal snow ball from the Faubourg St Honore and from then on, forever more, when Henriette sees snow, that is her memory.  Being inside a snug carriage, her cold hands tucked inside her new fur muff, a new dress of plum silk, and the handsome Duc beside her.

But... It's not a bodice ripper.  A murder, the toppling of the French throne, infamous actresses, a spell inside the infamous conciergerie and a hop across the Atlantic to a very churchified America is all in store for you.

Unwrap it slowly, for it's a present to treasure.

Happy Christmas.