ReallyGoodWriter | Food • Writing • Poetry Iambic Cafe

food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

Have spent a pleasant – if still snivelly – couple of days wandering familiar streets and revisiting what old haunts remain, like my beloved Food For Thought, whose quiche and salad plate has changed little in the 20 years I’ve been eating it – still a good deal and a good meal with no room for the unfailingly tempting desserts. You still queue up on a narrow staircase, take your earthenware plate to the nearest corner of the nearest unfailingly occupied table, grab yourself a glass and drink from the unfailingly replenished jugs of tap water, and sprinkle on a bit of salt and pepper from the bowls in front of you.

No mistaking mushroom season is here. I had a really nice wild mushroom soup the other day at a most unlikely place. The croutons were particularly good (I suspect nice bread that was given a good dredging in tasty olive oil helped them along)

and the bruschetta wasn’t bad either.

Speaking of fungi, some of the more interesting mushrooms on sale at Mortimer’s just now..

The Bath House, although part of the evil empire, (since 1996, the Greene King chain has bought up 2,200 pubs in Britain, taking its total to 2,587 pubs and restaurants across the country; it’s notorious for buying up small breweries and closing them down, reducing the number of traditional beers on the market) has for the moment at least agreed to host Ambit’s poetry readings (as long, goes the dark clause, as we spend enough money to make it worth their while)(Ambit could use a hand too, having become one of the latest casualties of cultural funding cuts – they only need 200 subscribers to break even).

I passed on any “home made coleslaw” or “British beef” they might have on offer in favour of a lotus seed bun from an old familiar Chinese bakery en route.

One of Tony Blair’s London neighbours overstayed his welcome and is going nowhere fast.

A visit to the most lovely and useful of bookshops, Daunt’s on Marylebone High Street.

I saw a most astonishingly fabulous film in a favourite old cinema in Notting Hill.

In other news, there was an update in the Guardian the other day about the debate over GM crops which makes interesting reading. Although how anyone can say they will solve world hunger is beyond me, when they are developed with corporate interests in mind: corporate profits for multinationals inevitably have pretty questionable benefits for everyone else, in the old ‘someone has to win’ equation. That is, such profit-oriented products (in this case, remember, this time it’s food) are marketed in order to create an enduring economic bond with purchasers (farmers) by requiring the annual purchase of seed (an attempt to eliminate the rights of farmers to develop and save seed) and associated technologies (e.g. specialised pesticides and fertilisers) so that they can be grown in some cases (e.g. soya in Brazil) in eco-systems that cannot sustain them, with the profits going to multinationals while the local economy is driven ever lower.

Time has been slipping by and a bout of flu stopped me from catching up earlier.

Here are a couple of pictures from a French market which sprang up out of nowhere in the N1 Centre in Islington one chilly day. This one’s for the Prosciutto di Parma consortium sleuths to track down… These certainly didn’t resemble any Parma Hams I’d ever seen.

Nice looking garlic though.

I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to one of Islington’s more sought-after culinary hotspots, chez Nancy et Mike, where I dined on a Moro-inspired paella

and an Ottolenghi tart (reminds me I must go and worship in his temple of goodness before I leave town)

a Torta Especial Almendra, from Brindisi

and a nice bit of fruit and Manchego.

I was at a housewarming party last weekend, for a neighbour of this property. Big houses are hard to heat in the chilly sea winds they get on Sheppey and the small but beautiful fireplace I huddled near was apparently not enough to protect me from cultivating an ominous sore throat, which I took along on Sunday night to Tammy and Leah’s reading at Torriano, hosted as ever by John Rety.

I then succumbed to a brutal cold/flu thing which laid me low until Wednesday, when I dragged myself into the dusk to attend the Forward Prize do, which was – by spooky coincidence, Georgian properties occurring rather often in my life lately – held in the Georgian Group headquarters on lovely Fitzroy Square. Overcrowding (a superfluity of poets?) led to a dramatic incident – one person fainted – and was tended by paramedics, followed up by an ambulance.

Afterwards we wandered down Charlotte Street in search of a food type that our Lake District companions would be unlikely to find (passing along the way Passione, the restaurant of Jamie Oliver’s now slightly eclipsed mentor), and settled on Phillippine cuisine at Josephine’s. Although I wasn’t fully in control of my taste-buds at the time, I’m inclined to agree with the “not bad, not great” review of the place that I read later. We had the set menu which included a kind of chicken soup with green beans (and one green chili hiding on top)

and a pork dish which looked good

but was a bit sweet for my taste. I ordered it because it featured annatto seed; when I asked what this was, it appeared to be untranslatable: “from a tree” was the answer. I still don’t know what it tasted like; maybe next time.

And that, other than the previously reported efforts to exercise my civic duty, is it… for now.

I will just interrupt the cheery flow of poetry and food to have another virtual temper tantrum. In case you ever doubted that even young countries can have hopeless bureaucracies, I want to share with you the sorry tale of my attempts to vote in next week’s Canadian election, which have resulted in my being disenfranchised. Just when you think it can never happen to you..!

The story begins September 30 when I thought I should check on the exact date of the election which I knew had been called just around the time my plane took off for England. I discovered that it was scheduled for October 14 and I would need to register by October 7 to vote from abroad.

I checked the Elections Canada and Canadian High Commission websites but found them confusing and ended up phoning Ottawa to find out what I needed to do, as I thought I should be able to cast my ballot from here, through an advance poll.

The first person I spoke to at Elections Canada assured me that I could do so; all I had to do was take my proof of address down to the high commission and as long as I knew the name of the person I wanted to vote for, I could do that up until October 6.

Off I went on my fool’s errand on October 1, only to be met by a stoic receptionist who handed me an Application for Registration and Special Ballot and said I’d have to fill it in to have a ballot mailed to me: there was no earthly way I could vote there. Home I went with my form to phone Elections Canada, and spoke to someone else who double checked and agreed it was so, I could not cast an advance vote, I’d have to apply for a mailed ballot using the form, but if I faxed it in to the number she gave me she’d keep an eye out for it and process it as swiftly as possible.

October 2 I set off on my fool’s errand, form in hand, and presented myself at the High Commission again. For those who haven’t been here, there are two buildings housing Canada’s overseas mission here, and they are separated by a twenty minute walk (if you know the way). The receptionist on duty that day assured me there was no way she could touch such a dangerous object as my form and only the Consular Office was qualified to apply it to a fax machine on my behalf.

Off I walked to Canada House on my fool’s errand, form in hand, and got myself up to the Consular Office well before their unholy closing time of 1.30pm. Having already shown my passport to get in there, I handed over the forms, the special fax number and my driver’s licence. The friendly soul shortly returned saying the fax number I’d given her wasn’t in service and should she fax it to the main Elections Canada number? Indeed, and she did, and she handed my forms back and home I went, thinking all was taken care of and I need only wait for my ballot to arrive by mail.

Jump forward to October 9. I had someone check my phone messages in Canada on October 2 and again yesterday. This morning I received an email from home saying there were two messages from Elections Canada – one impossible to understand, and the second saying my driver’s licence was too dark on the fax and it needed to be re-sent. As I had no idea when this message arrived, I went down to the High Commission on my fool’s errand and found the Consular office closed, and everyone I spoke to said you’re too late you’re too late the deadline was October 7. I managed to find someone who was willing to help me. She tsked when she saw the forms; I shouldn’t have been given them back after faxing, apparently. She duly faxed them through and put a call through for me to Elections Canada.

Then the fun really began. I was told that two phone messages had been left for me on October 2 and 4 and that I’d missed the deadline for sending my application in so there was nothing I could do. My position – that I’d sent my application in ahead of the deadline and re-sent my supporting document as soon as I knew they needed it – was worth nothing. And clearly the fact that a consular official had seen my passport as well as my driver’s licence did not qualify her to attest to my identity either: only a photocopied driver’s licence sent over a fax machine can prove to Elections Canada who I really am.

When I asked why they’d left messages in Canada when I was clearly in England, and had provided an email address, the answer I got was that “we only email when we can’t reach people by phone”. Which rather seemed to me to be the case. Why, she countered, had I entered my home number on the form? May I point out that this is exactly what the form asks for, the home and work numbers, with Canadian formatting for area codes – there is no space to provide a contact number in the “present mailing address” fields.

Things got really entertaining when she put her supervisor on. I asked him to explain why nobody had attempted to email me, and why this wasn’t considered standard practice when handling forms from people who were obviously abroad. He replied that the policy was to leave four phone messages before emailing. When I asked why I had only received two of my four messages and no email, he hung up on me.

Thanks Canada. Good luck in the election. May the other guy get in this time.

It’s been a busy week in London, somewhat typically so as it included sun, wind, rain, security alerts on the tube, too much food and drink, too many nights out in a row, a couple of days grappling with bureaucracy (2 days and 3 visits to Canadian high commission offices trying to get registered for a mail-in ballot for the upcoming Canadian election, somehow eclipsed by some other election I think is happening on that side of the pond).

The rest of the time I’m delighted to be back at Sustain for a very brief spell, working on some articles for the relaunch of the in-house magazine the Jellied Eel, which will soon be magically appearing all over London in full and glorious colour.

Tuesday was the London Food Link networking do followed by a wildly over-subscribed talk by Cuban biologist and permaculture activist Roberto Perez. The talk, prefaced by a preview of the irresistably-titled film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, covered bio-fuels, agribusiness & the food crisis. Perez works for the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity in Havana; it’s described as a socio-cultural environmental organisation which fronts research, advocacy and educational activities in environmental, sustainability and biodiversity. During questions, Perez revealed his great interest in worms, which it turns out were the subjects of his thesis; and I think we’ll hear more and more about them as vermiculture is a growing trend for building soil, in conjunction with composting.

Wednesday morning I crawled out of bed as early as I could (but not as early as some) to get down to join the crowd

at the New Covent Garden wholesale market for a tour and day of talks and workshops, a Local to London trade event designed to bring together producers, wholesalers and end users in a bid to encourage food service sector to source more regional produce.

There were master classes by an amazing fishmonger from James Knight, who dazzled with the speed of his knifework. He prepared fish

One popular stand: Food Fore Thought supplied the organic bacon and sausage sandwiches for breakfast and the lamb ones for lunch.

A busy place, the Aldeburgh Food Festival. Only in its third year and utterly mobbed as the organisers sought to top the 15,000 visitors they had last year. I am blessed by friends who had sussed this little corner of foodie heaven out and took me along to see this year’s offerings.

There were some honey-sellers there and we stopped for a short chat. They asked me if the African Bee had been seen in my neighbourhood (nope, not so far, so far as I’ve heard) and told me they’d successfully experimented with the icing sugar method of varroa mite control. They also said that borage had been a great source of nectar up until this year, when the Suffolk growers lost the oil contract to China. So no borage planted, no flowers for the bees, and a great deal less honey. Another blow for monoculture…

We paid a happy visit to Emmett’s meaty stall, where the seller presided over acres of what I hear is gorgeous black (from the treacle cure) bacon, and was dishing out irresistible samples of imported chorizo. We weakened and he handed one over, apologising for having run out of bags, and suggested we walk around with it hanging from the string. I asked about storage – having had a stern lecture from a French sausage seller earlier in the month about the evils of refrigerating dry-cured sausage like this, and our man agrees there is nothing worse for the flavour and texture of the sausage. The best storage for chorizo is (pats stomach); otherwise, hang it from its string in a cool, dry place (my kingdom for a larder). If it gets mouldy, cut the mould off. Consume at a swift but leisurely pace as it will gradually dry out which impairs the flavour somewhat. And makes it hard to slice.

Another old friend: Suffolk Gold cheese (with Suffolk Blue in the background).

On to the celebrity chefs. We caught the end of Tom Aitken

and were sooner into the scrum for a taste of the lobster risotto than this group were. We also got in there while there were still spoons. Hah.

A little later we saw Mark Hix scoring a giant puffball from the man from the Red Poll Beef stand who we’d seen earlier harbouring several of them …

and he explained how you really have to know people to get hold of these monsters as they’re hard to find in the shops (though our local wundershop sometimes has them around this time of year).

Then he sliced a slab off and fried it up to sit under some game he was preparing, with creamed corn, under the watchful gaze and microphones of Tom Parker-Bowles and Matthew Fort.

We had a grisly presentation from Fergus Henderson, working on the pig tail end of his nose-to-tail weekend (he gave a workshop on cooking a pig’s head on the Sunday, which we missed, alas). We were not convinced after sampling the finished product – braised, cooled, coated and pan fried – which just tasted a bit like, well, pan fried fat. But now we can move on and eat something else.

We didn’t choose crepes, although we were able to queue for something else in sight of the beautiful van.

And we dined al fresco. With everyone else. A beautiful day for it…

…and for a walk out to see the Creek Men afterwards.

Finally, home to superbly cooked partridge. Mmmm.