Various conversations (Luigi in the kitchen) over the past few days have led me to the conclusion that, if one were to be resurrected in another life, the worst thing to come back as would be the running person on Temple Run. This is for several reasons, most notably the fact that the running would never end, save for fleeting moments of respite in some kind of tree trunk related death, only to be once more reborn into the same unfulfilling fate. For as long as the procrastinators of the world continued to take the idol if they dared, you would be condemned to the same exhausting doom - it would be nothing short of HORRENDOUS. The only upside would be your status as a hipster, because we all know Aztec is so hot right now.
In order to get in there before it becomes uncool to be living in the 1300s, here comes a delicious and filling Aztec recipe:

Potatoes
An outside space

1) Put some potatoes outside on a cold night
2) Let them sit there for a while, until they turn to a pulp
3) Consume within one year

Sounds good. It's called chuño too, which is pleasantly lyrical and appropriately poetic for such an elegant and refined meal. If, however, in the unlikely event that the chuño does not satisfy you, there is always the rightly worshipped cocoa bean to fall back on.
The authentic, very Aztec and therefore very edgy cocoa creation is Xocolatl, the traditional chocolate drink:

710ml water
2 sliced green chillies inc seeds
2 more litres of water (water = good for you so cancels out the cocoa)
45g unsweetened cocoa powder
20ml vanilla extract

1) Bring the 710 ml water to the boil
2) Put the sliced chillies and seeds in
3) Cook for seven minutes
4) Strain out the chillies and seeds and return water to the heat
5) Add the two litres of water to the chilli infused water
6) Stir in the cocoa powder and the vanilla extract
7) Continue to cook for 10 minutes
8) Recline and sip whilst wearing some suitably Aztec patterned tee shirt, probably from topman, preferably with the short sleeves rolled up a minimum of two folds

This bev, howev, is definitely not best enjoyed with accompanying Aztec music. Unless you are in to off beat squawks and piercing pan pipes, in which case go for it. Instead, I am going to share with you the gift of KNOWLEDGE and INSIGHT given to me by my homeboy Borton, which is the entirety of Alt-J (∆) 's new album An Awesome Wave. Every song on it is good, especially Fitzpleasure, Breezeblocks and Taro, perfect for chilling to whenever, and not just 'in a revision break' because I hate that phrase so much.
While still in your Aztec tee, crack out One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - it comes from the same part of the world as the Aztecs and does the whole remote civilisation thing, dwelling significantly on foliage description. I'm only half way through it at the moment, but what I have read so far has been a brilliant tangle of magical realism and unhappy wives. I've also heard Marquez is a fan of colour symbolism - apparently yellow and gold represent imperialism, something you are pretty much endorsing when you are collecting those coins on Temple Run (coin magnet = best thing ever), so that's a nice circle we have come in there. If you want to be really indulgently nerdy, there is an entire article on MY FAVOURITE EVER WEBSITE JSTOR which goes into much more detail about this: 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30203613


And to finish, a fab fun fact about the Aztecs!!!: Montezuma II's headdress was made from the feathers of over 250 birds!!! WOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!

Lyon, the land of what Wikipedia defines as 'sophisticated salami', is going to be my home for a year. Although I am sure this charcuterie is uniquely splendid and a very desirable aspect of the city's heritage, it is not the main reason that I am drawn to the region. I am going there primarily for SNOW. And also the Jazz cafés (pronounced with a soft and slurring J...almost verging on a Y actually). And also obviously to improve my language/immerse myself in French culture/enrich others as a primary school English teacher...ahem.
It is with this city in mind, therefore, that I bring you my own interpretation of sophisticated salami in the medium of chorizo and scallop risotto. In the colours of the Irish flag, this dish instantly makes your presumably unpatterned plate more look more interesting:

some onion
some cloves of garlic
some celery
some chorizo
some scallops
some peas
some risotto rice
some stock cubes
some hot water
some parmesan

0000) Fry some onion with some garlic and some celery
1000) Add some chorizo and some scallops and fry them too
0100) Add some risotto rice to the same pan and fry that off too
1100) Add some peas and stir around
0101) Dissolve some stock cubes in some hot water add to the pan and boilyboilyboily
0110) Continue to boil until the rice is cooked then stir in some parmesan
0111) Eat some

All instructions are either vague or in binary in order to increase the challenge.

The Yazz song to be eaten with this cured meat feast is Fat Freddy's Drop's Big BW - it's not actual Yazz, but it does have some saxophone and possibly trumpet in it, so it is on the CUSP. I am huge fan of all Fat Freddy's Drop, my faves are probably Wandering Eye, Ray Ray and Cay Cray's Digital Mystikz remix, so I would definitely recommend sacrificing 22 minutes of your life to give them a listen.

HELLO AGAIN. I got interrupted by the beach, where an impromptu semi-bikini semi-underwear (I wasn't prepared for the irresistible azure, so only came in half and half) swim occurred as there was absolutely zero surf but I still needed to get salt in my eyebrows. Talking of the beach, have you read The Beach? It's by Alex Garland and the beach in The Beach is in Thailand and infinitely more tropical than the beach not in The Beach that I have just come from, and therefore makes for a sweltering cult novel that will make you feel just like you are on the beach in The Beach. There's a film of the beach in The Beach too, and apparently it's quite good, but I haven't seen it as the beach in The Beach book was satisfying enough for me, but maybe it will be one for when I am back in the Midlands and therefore not near the beach not in The Beach so need the beach in The Beach to fill this void. It's perhaps ever so slightly verging on airport novel, as it is easy to read and very escapist, but it is totally engrossing and full of fishing, smoking and mutinying - and what more is out there than that?

And now for a parting anecdote tying in neatly with the cotton pants of the swim: in the evening, when faces are to be washed, there comes a crisis in the Gregson household, as neither I nor my brother own a suitable garment for keeping hair off the face, so have to be resourceful, and often arrive at the option of clean pants on the head. This means that every so often a rare and beautiful spectacle happens where we both simultaneously emerge from the various bathrooms of the house wearing the head pants and see our ridiculous gear reflected in each others' eyes. Such a moment just passed. I shall leave you on that thought.

Currently on the most unappealing six-hour train journey of my life – it is so sunny outside and I have had at least three texts from different people exclaiming about how GLORIOUS and BOILING it is and how they are having a PRICELESS TIME in Jephson gardens. Every metre it advances, another wisp of cloud appears – there is about 78% sky coverage now. I think this is an appropriate time for a visual expression of my own emotions: :( . I do, however, have a seat on this hideous metal…tube? Is a train tubular?...which is some lucky, as I was preparing myself for the classic floor of vestibule by overflowing bin and popular toilet combo. ‘Vestibule’ is a big contender in the list of exotic but insignificant words that give off the impression of belonging to the vocabulary of only the intellectual elite, but in actual fact have very little place in the majority of chat. ‘Deciduous tree’ is another. So is ‘chasm’. The other, more significant, reason why I have not yet thrown myself out of the window (yes, this is one of those West Country glories that doesn’t feature the electronic door, instead leaving you to flounder with your arm bent awkwardly out the window in the never ending war of man versus handle. The handle opens up a whole new world of rant, as it is only located on the outside of the door - why? Why not just stick to the classic door design of two handles? WHY, CROSS COUNTRY TRAINS?) is that I am going hooooommeeee. This means many things, but the shortlist of positive aspects stands at 1) seeing my fam and mentally incomplete dogs, 2) surfing, and 3) delicious food/sinky cosy bed/more than one room that is not my bedroom/a shower that doesn’t trickle/a car/television licence/lots of tomato ketchup in brilliant time as I just yesterday ran out/all the other merits of living in a proper house, so it should be a top few days (especially as, during the time it has taken me to write this (which is quite a long time as I got massively distracted by iTunes and the awkward politics of whether you should move seat if a free set of two arises, in order to give both yourself and the person you are seated next to a more comfortable rest of journey whilst also running the risk of them thinking you don’t like sitting next to them for personal reasons and then having a secret vendetta against you for the remaining hours) the clouds have fled and the sun is back and technically it should be even hotter here because it’s closer to the equator.)

That was all spew and no substance, so down to the juicy bits now. The recipe of choice today is à la mother Gregson and is a healthy yet hearty alternative to the Classic Salad:

1 garlic clove
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 avocado
3 largish tomatoes
1 apple
a third of a bushel of sultanas or raisins
1 lime
some fresh rocket leaves
some pine nuts

1) Crush the garlic with some salt (in a pestle and mortar, if you are so well equipped. At uni I possess a chopping board and a saucepan and some hideous hedgerow plates unearthed from the loft of my aunt, so coming home and finding a pestle and mortar at my disposal is just lush) until it forms a gloop

2) Mix in the olive oil and more salt and pepper

3) Chop avocados, tomatoes and apple, bung together in a bowl

4) Add garlic/olive oil to the bowl and get involved with your hands, making sure the seasoning is EVENLY DISTRIBUTED over the ambiguous fruit or veg (what is avocado - surely a vegetable, no?)

5) Lightly roast the pine nuts and then add them to the bowl, along with the rocket and the sultanas

6) Squeeze the lime over it all. The best bit about this salad is that you have the three C key components to a texture experience: crunch in the apple, chew in the sultanas and...well I can't think of a third that begins with c, but it's basically the softness of the avo and tomato.

Family Gregson ate this with sausages and burgers on the BBQ in the still evening air, with only this tune (and bird song, and Tom nasal warbling like Nina Simone does at the end of Feeling Good, and the dogs barking at a cow, and the the farmer quadding over to check on his pheasants) interrupting the tranquility: Truro Agricultural Show by Ian Marshal. Only to be listened to if you come from Cornwall, or else the novelty will not compensate for the insufferable plod of the melody. People from all over the globe, however, should be able to appreciate this piece of regional gold: Cornish Acid by Aphex Twin. The novel of today is typically location appropriate Cornish classic, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Apparently, last night she dreamt she went to Manderley again. The nameless narrator recounts her relationship with Maxim de Winter, and also apparently her relationship with his dead ex-wife, who constantly haunts the present with her reputation. Permanently in her ghostly shadow, Mrs de Winter the second also has to battle it out with the bitchiest female character ever, the housekeeper Mrs Danvers. Much like the salad, this book ticks all the criteria of an English novel - a big house, a bit of a twist, some romance - big up C'Wall, pard.

As we all know, Wednesday is windsurf day (it seems I live my life by alliteration), but yesterday there wasn't any wind, so I would say it was just surfing day, but that would also be a lie as the VERY NATURE of the midlands means they are in the middle of the land, and therefore waves are not ample. Rather, therefore, it was a day of drifting slowly downwind, jumping off boards into scummy water and generally trying to look like we were having more fun than the sailors, so all in all a highly rewarding, productive and strenuous session. Somewhere there's a video of me doing a headstand on a board and then crumpling onto myself, so look out for that if you ever need to feel better about your own gymnastic skills.
What the world lacked in wind, however, it more than made up for in sun, so my face is now a shiny beacon of warning to all comrades on the ginger spectrum: don't think you won't burn because it is England in May - you SHALL sizzle and you SHALL look like a polished balloon.
To max out this rare gift of 23 degrees, we had a rather large scale BBQ (I'm using the abbreviation as I actually don't know how to spell the real word and I don't want to have to face the shame of being beaten by my mac with its accusatory red underlining that boasts 'yes I am an aesthetically pleasing white box that more intelligent than you. And yes, I can see you using google to spellcheck) in our loosely titled 'garden' (in reality, an angular paved area with weeds pretending to be real grass containing three road signs and two Tesco trolleys), and swore to gorge until we could gorge no more. I was still windsurfing for the provisions shop, so my homies were in charge and they did nothing less than a MARVELLOUS job. We had a combo of real burgers and bean burgers, corn on the cob, the standard yet crucial baps and ketchup, (get this) red peppers roasted with feta and basil, cous cous and cider mmmmm it was so good. So good, in fact, that I had to pause to have a little moment of reflection / mourning as the meal I am going to eat tonight is going to be comparatively grim (my fridge contains some coconut yog and a mushroom...might have to be pasta again) just then.
The summer tunes we had on repeat in the background consisted of many classics such as Mia ya heee (formally known as Dragostea Din Tei, google tells me) by O-Zone, The Summer by Josh Pyke, the entire Sigh No More Mumford and Sons album, Ben Howard's These Waters and also his Every Kingdom - all safe bets for public gatherings. My own personal music taste tends to be a bit more anti social as people generally turn off my iPod the moment it is plugged into the communal speakers, but I'm going to offer you Summer Breeze by Aphrodite and Kobo by Baka Beyond, try them out if you are in a tolerant mood, if not then best stick to the unfading faves as they definitely won't lose you any friends.
Summer = reading, so for the first flip flopped and possibly even barefooted steps into May, I recommend (just to butt in on myself with a bit of quality social advice...do make sure that you talk to people after the BBQ though, don't go straight from food to book - people might think you are reluctant to mingle and boring) THIS POEM by A.E.Housman


Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now of my three score years and ten,
twenty will not come again.
And take from seventy years a score, 
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom,
Fifty Springs is little room, 
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Nothing like mixing the ephemeral nature of the human existence with the image of a nice bit of foliage. Hattie just rang, and we're having a mini repeat of yesterday's BBQ with the left over bean burgers - the threat of coconut yogurt has gone! 

Monday begins with an M, Morocco begins with an M. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. After the falafel, it was only natural that the progression to authentic tagine took place. Whenever I type tagine into my iPhone, autocorrect puts it all in capitals, as if to emphasise the merits of the fragrant veg and shout to the world that THIS IS THE DISH YOU ALL WISH YOU WERE EATING, NOT THAT CO-OP PIZZA, NOT THAT PLAIN RISOTTO, THIS! THIS MARVELLOUS, STEAMY CONCOCTION! My buddy Groundsey did the Morocco Hitch over Easter and brought back a fine specimen of a tagine, along with 35 spices (one for every mm of film in a standard camera) so she prepped me up the meal. It was so good, so I forced her at gunpoint to copy out the recipe as it is practically illegal to keep such tasty secrets to yourself. Here it is:

(serves 3...tagine not 100% necessary; you can use a saucepan with a lid on)
1 baking potato
1 aubergine
1/2 courgette
1 carrot
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
35 SPICES (have fun sourcing those)
Serve with cous cous

1) Fry all the vegetables in a little olive oil for 10 mins
2) Add the spices (if you are panicking about not having 35 spices the just bung in all the classics - cinnamon, saffron, ginger, turmeric, cumin, paprika, pepper etc) and fry them off for 2 minutes
3) Transfer to tagine/almost equally good but less ethnic looking saucepan
4) (and this is a direct quote) "add copious water amounts"
5) Simmer for 2 hours or more, checking frequently that the water hasn't boiled off, adding more if it has
6) Serve immediately with cous cous, crusty bread and hummus

YUM is the standard reaction to this, unless you are one of those meat fanatics who is slightly repulsed by the idea of too many vegetables in one place. If you are one of these people, then please do add some chicken thigh to the recipe (fry it at the beginning before adding it to the tagine along with the vegetables) and enjoy the protein it gives you. I have just realised that the traditional way to spell tagine is tajine, I wish I had been using that spelling so I looked worldly and accurate, but it's too late to go back now.
In terms of la musique, I am going to ride along the vegetable road to arrive at the Beach Boys' surreal Vegetable song, which is a bit disconcerting, however I personally have a huge love for vegetables (almost as huge as my love for chutney, but not quite) so I can empathise with the sentiments expressed, especially in the following lines:

I'm gonna keep well my vegetables
Cart off and sell my vegetables
I love you most of all
My favorite vege-table
Oh oh taba vega vegel

Whilst not only allowing the audience to clearly understand the adoration the speaker feels for his/her vegetables (gender unknown), this extract can also be seen to promote the benefits of growing your own, which is highly relevant to today's supermarket obsessed, shrink wrapped society.  Furthermore, the closing statement of 'Oh oh taba vega vegel' makes lots of sense and is fundamental to the understanding of the song as a whole.
Now that your real teeth have had a blast, it's time to sink your metaphorical teeth into something equally tasty, and it comes in the form of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It's all about yams, yams are everywhere: here, there, hanging out in their lair (freestyle rap is not my forte), as the livelihood of the whole village depends on the harvest. Things Fall Apart(the centre cannot hold...Yeats innit) follows the Ibo tribe in Central Africa, using the life of protagonist Okonkwe to mirror the tragic effects of colonisation. It's written in English, but the African vernacular and the peppering of many italicised words from Ibo language alter the sentence structure and give the impression of a native narration. This also serves to point the finger at the Western world responsible for colonisation, so it's not a comfortable read by any means - the ending in particular makes a Westerner feel really guilty! Give it a go anyway...if you're feeling yammy. 

Bit of a retail extravaganza occurring over here - have just blown my life's fortune in Birmingham's Bullring, so all the meals from now on are going to consist of spaghetti hoops and rice...soz. I was, however, SIMPLY INSPIRED by a Mexican bean wrap thing I had for lunch from the height of culinary expertise, Boots' sandwich fridge, so I'm going to seriously follow up the Southern American tangent with a quest for the best chilli con carne in the entire world. Obviously, my mother's is a big contender - vary quantities depending on how much you want to make: cook the onions and garlic and chopped red chilli in some olive oil, then brown off the mince in the same pan. Stir in some plain flour to soak up the juices before adding the tinned tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato purée (nice accent) and maybe even a bit of water and vegetable stock to completely cover the mince in liquid. Then pop in the kidney beans, paprika and cumin too, whack it in the oven (aga = second hottest oven for an hour before transferring it to the third for another two or three, other less desirable oven = 180 degrees for an hour and then down to 120 for two or three) and wait. Taste to make sure it's nice and spicy if one likes it that way, if not then add some more chillz. Serve with a warmingly big pile of rice, or, if it's an adventurous week, tortilla it up and melt some cheese over it to create what is widely known as A BURRITO. Musically, I think Zambra by Ojos de Brujos is a shout - it's feisty and definite, which seems appropriate for such a substantial meal. With regards to a bewk, I'm going to go for something equally punchy in the form of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (I'm a postcolonial lit fan, obvs) which contains one of literature's 'strongest females', apparently(1). Even if you don't care for a touch of the feminist in your novels, it is still a fab read, quite dramatic and maybe even unlikely, but you feel immediately warm towards Janie so YES this is my novel of choice for today.

Wednesday is windsurfing day (as a fussy dweeb I'm a fan of nothing-less-than-almost-pleasant conditions, which is obviously practically unheard of in England) and seeing as today was the first time on the lake for a while, I'm going to make this entry water themed. Also, a quick plug: if you are any one of the following: a student at the University of Warwick, not afraid of neoprene or the owner of a charitable heart, then please join Warwick Windsurf and please become a highly active member, as we are dangerously close to the worst end imaginable of FIZZLING OUT.
So the watery recipe for today is actually not at all watery, cos that would be unappealing, however it does feature fish, which we all know need the water to survive, so therein lies the link. The focus fish of today comes in the form of the extortionately priced but ever so scrummy tuna steak, a piece of fish that has been famously described as "the fundamental taste of the sea" (Eccles, Hattie. Tuna Steak and All its Merits, Priory Publishing, Leamington 2012). Seeing as tuna steak is so spéciale, this is a recipe that does it justice with many twiddly cheffy things (such as making your own oregano oil??) but do not be put off as the end result is delicious and beany.  http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/chargrilled-tuna-with-oregano-oil-be . Obviously I didn't cook this today as I got back a hungry bungry so raided the fridge for quick food (omelette, chips and salad - quite comforting in a hearty and mountainous way, but nowhere near as thematically neat as Jamie Oliver's chargrilled fancyness) - one day maybe I'll be one of those high powered women who can have thousands of immaculate children, hold an important and stressful job, whilst also having enough time to host sophisticated dinner parties at which tuiles and fricassés are eaten, but for the time being, I'm scatty and incompetent, so a good windsurf and a good meal are mutually exclusive.
In terms of feeling well and truly underwater while you are preparing this, I would recommend listening to Teardrop by Massive Attack, which has pattering rain in the background and is pleasantly chilled for when you are stressing out with the oregano oil. The whole of Mezzanine (the album, not the intermediate floor) is lush if you want an eery wind down, especially the song Black Milk, so whack it out when culinary times get tough.
And now, repping the reading corner of the Berfooda Triangle, is The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, a novel that focuses on the Indian tide country. The dialogue is so cringey, especially at the classic man meets woman on train, where desperately awful small talk that is meant to be doused in sexual tension but instead remains a parched portion of cringe is exchanged. HOWEVER, and it is a big however, I think the majority of the book's significance lies in what is not said, as the two protagonists, American born Piya and native Fokir, cannot communicate through the spoken word, so have to use their knowledge of the water to express themselves instead. I ended up writing one of my essays on this book (if you are studying English at Warwick, looking for module recommendations for next year and a fan of the non English English novel, then definitely go for EN251 New Literatures) and actually really enjoyed studying it, which I think says quite a lot for its depth and imagination. It's a good place to start if you are wanting to read more Indian writing without wanting to hurl yourself in at the deep end (ah, inadvertent water pun, HUZZAH) as it is written in a very 'Englishy' way but the subject matter is all very unknown and exciting. So go forth, be fine and be FISHY.

p.s. the photo here is attached to demonstrate what water looks like. Photo is © Tom Nicholson, he has some GREAT other non watery photos too - here is a link to his website www.tnicholson.co.uk , I severely recommend checking it out if you even so much as dabble in photography. 

I've really got to stop eating stir fry. It gives the impression of being so beneficial as it is essentially just many veg chopped up small, a bit of soy sauce and some noodles, however it is irreparably unsatisfying. I say irreparably, but it is actually quite easy to repair through the consumption of many other foodstuffs, and this is the very reason why it is a rubbish meal. BUT THAT IS ENOUGH HATE, let us instead focus on the one truly beautiful thing in this world; chutney. Like I said the other day, chutters is underestimated in the picnic environment - it completes the bread and cheese triangle and is just so goddamn TANGY...maybe I care a bit too much about it, but it can only be a healthy obsession, surely? My fave student budget style chut is Tesco's own brand tomato creation for 89p http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=258763488 , it is more of a starter chutney to get you hooked before progressing onto more advanced and customised condiment, but nevertheless FAB. If you are ready for an upgrade, then Nigella Lawson does a nifty spicy apple thing:

(this quantity makes about a litre)
500g apples
1 medium onion
2 bird's-eye chillies
250g brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground allspice (or a mixture of nutmeg and cinnamon)
1 teaspoon ground cloves
half a teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 heaped tablespoon chopped or grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric
350ml cider vinegar


And then just boil it all up for 40 mins or so before popping it into jars to delight in later.

On the topic of the best things ever, I'm going to bore you all with a bit of chat about (now I am going to be careful here, as I don't want to have a favourite book, but this one does come really close, and I feel slightly better about it as it's not just one story, so I've sort of saved myself there) a 'strong candidate in my shortlist of brilliant books', Freedom by various writers. It's a collection of short stories compiled by Amnesty International to celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - each story is based upon one of the 30 clauses and some of them are really brilliant (the stories, not the clauses, all the clauses are brilliant, of course). Some of them are also not so hot, obvs, but you can glaze over them when you have 30 to choose from. Start at the beginning and work your way through, it goes well as a sequence and it's helpful to learn a bit more about the human race, which is after all what most reading is about anyway. That was quite serious, so listen to Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock to get over it.

Yesterday was an unusual combo of horrendous house conflict and delightful falafel consumption. I think, for the sake of everyone's enjoyment and the fact that one day this blog might be read by more people than just my mother, the falafel should be the focus point of this entry. I used a really simple recipe that I found somewhere online a few months ago, but it is v simple to remember : fry some onions and garlic, get lots of chickpeas, probably about 2x400g tins, some parsley, some cumin, some coriander, some chilli powder if you fancy them lightly spiced and an egg. Mash it all up together in a semi-gloopy mix, and then make little falafel shaped blobs and fry them in some olive oil. Sadly, the more oil the better as it prevents burning and sticking and crumbling and ALL MANNER OF FRYING PAN TERRORS. You can serve them with whatever takes your fancy - cous cous with peppers and roasted courgette is nice, or tortilla wraps and creme frâiche with cucumber and salad is also a winner. I fed five people with the quantities above and there was still some left over at the end, so it does go pretty far. As for the music that should be providing the background to this undoubtedly calm, clean and tidy food preparation time (my kitchen looked like a field had exploded in it), I suggest getting well and truly in the Moroccan zone with dubstroketraditional Berber band Argan and their eerily chilled song Tamaguite (iTunes it, babes). Now for the big part. The book to read whilst easing back on your bed, mulling over in your mind the best way to make the falafels less crumbly. It's a tough choice, but I think I'm going to be radical here, and stray from the obvious choice of North African writing as  it might be too much of a good thing. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino is also one of by BBFLs, it is SO GOOD! It's bit 'quirky' (although I hate that word...but it is true) and is also pretty confusing as it alternates between two narratives - one in the second person, describing the reader's preparations before they settle into the books, and the other in the third person, telling the actual story. It matches the falafel in a mashed up way. Please don't ask me to elaborate on that, as I don't think I can, so just eat the falafel, listen to the song and read the book, and get back to me if you still don't get it.

Something terrible is happening to this Earth that has made it warm today, however that is a very long and problematic story, so for the time being, we are just going to strip off, have a picnic and make the most of it. Hitting up the park (as is the done thing in this urban sprawl, apparently. As a bumpkin, I am more accustomed to the entire county being a stretch of green, and the areas of civilisation being the points of interest) along with all the very old and and very young of the world, we armed ourselves with a picnic and bagged a good square metre of space upon which to eat it. Our top picnic foods are: PINEAPPLE AND CHEESE (very cliché and very self-consciously retro but undeniably delicious and nutritious); OLIVES AND FETA (bring Greece to your tongue); HARD BOILED EGGS (one blob bite); SOME FRESH FRUIT (healthy); BAGUETTE (best served warm and fresh out of the stone oven with a light dusting of rustic flour atop); CHEESE SLICES (an alternative to the cubes of cheese found in the pineapple combo...preferably emmental as it is the only cheese that never gets repetitive); ACCOMPANYING CHUTNEY (I am the worlds biggest fan of chutney ever...in fact I might make an entirely chutney based post later, to truly do the fabulous creation it is justice); £1.99 for an ice cream (probs a 99 flake); COUS COUS (pre prepared by yourself, obviously); CIDER (be aware that this will make your day incredibly unproductive and may result in napping and/or enhanced sensations of fullness) and finally SOME SALT AND VINEGAR CRISPS (ties the meal together and introduces crunchy texture). Summery tunes to listen to whilst munching this veritable smorgasbord include Love and Happiness by Ernest Ranglin, 54 - 46 Was My Number by Toots and the Maytals and Rivers of Babylon by Sublime. Best digested alongside Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, which, although obviously heart wrenching and generally unfortunate for poor Tess, does have lots of nice milk maid scenes, rolling hills and general ethereal nature which seems right for the warmth of the day. In fact, there is an actual picnic of mainly strawberries in the novel, which reminds me I forgot about the most important element of all - the overpriced red...berry (?? How can it be a berry when it is so FLESHY).

Today was an average day of generic vegetable and actually quite exciting salmon stir-fry, so not really anything to write home about (talking of which, letters are so underestimated. I LOVE LETTERS. I am trying to write a thank you letter to my French friend's family I stayed with a few days ago but I've bitten off more than I can chew with the prospect of filling a whole side of A4 with French expressions of gratification). It's pretty much just baby sweetcorn, spinach, courgette and grated carrot with pre cooked salmon (courtesy of my darling madre, who is getting quite a few mentions in this blog, but if you are bored of your cupboard supplies then maybe suggest to your mum you might love a surprise Tescos online delivery), a squeeze of lemon juice and some sweet soya bean sauce (I bought mine in a Chinese shop in Lancaster when I was visiting a friend in true keeno/slightly mental style as it is a HUGE bottle and I had to carry it back cradled in my arms on the train to stop it from smashing and leaking ooze all over my bags). Although droopy and quite tricky to eat with a fork, this stir fry is made A WHOLE WORLD BETTER when eaten alongside a reading of Jack Kerouac's On The Road (certainly one of my bbfls), as what the meal lacks in fast paced exciting times, the book 100% makes up for. I massively guarantee a read of any of Kerouac's stuff will be a fab idea, especially over the summer. Be warned of reading it when you are a) in the middle of exams b) stuck in a dead end job or c) in possession of a fast and/or expensive car as it WILL make you want to travel and drive dangerously. The song that I think goes pretty well with this little ensemble is Ben Howard's new and way better version of Call Me Maybe located...here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPU8V-nvUEk , solely for the reason that Hattie* plays it on repeat over and over again, so it needs to creep its way on to here in some form or another.
* names have not been changed

MONDAY EVENING. Today was a day of much eating, which is unhelpful in every other way except for providing qual blog material. We cooked as a house today so needed a good one pot massive food fest which came in the form of Jamie Oliver's fajitas (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/chicken-fajitas-with-homemade-guacamole) and the counter parts (fave word ever - it has featured at least twice in my most recent essay) of salsa and guacamole MY WIFE* HATTIE HAS JUST REMINDED ME OF SOMETHING VERY WORTH MENTIONING: once we had some 'guacamole style'  sauce that had ONLY 3% AVOCADO IN IT oh the trav. It was the worst guacamole style anything we had every had, so please just buy an avocado and mush it up by hand - so much more naturally green. I'm going to upload some expertly taken iPhone photos that don't really look too dazzling, but it still gives you an idea. I am a strong advocate that a plate should be colourful in two ways 1) The actual plate should be colourful - white plates make it look empty and sad, and 2) The meal itself should be colourful - anything in the green/orange/yellow/red/purple spectrum is brill. The best song to eat this meal with is this tidy little remix we all just discovered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aa6eTfeLbA, and the book you should read tonight (oh come on, a book per night is so doable...surely you've finished the 600 pages of A Fine Balance by now?) Like Water for Chocolate which is appropriately Mexican and recipe based, if a little too OTT on the magical realism. It does also feature the most annoying mother figure ever in the form of Mama Cita - enjoy that one.

* not actual wife

 

Last night I made a YUMMY vegetable curry with a recipe my MUMMY gave me - here is the link: http://www.tescorealfood.com/recipes/vegetable-curry-and-aromatic-rice.html . If I'm honest, I didn't bother with the aromaticing of the rice as I don't have cinnamon sticks and cardamon pods chilling in my unsubstantial student spice collection, and I added a dollop of curry paste to make it a bit more gloopy, but it was still delish and much appreciated by my TUMMY. This meal is ideally eaten before a read of Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, which mentions many lovely curries and chipatis alongside fairly grim tales of poverty and social unrest. I studies A Fine Balance as part of my course this year, but it is exactly the kind of book I would have sought out anyway. It's very thick and very brutal, but incredibly well written made milder as a result. It does take a dedicated few weeks to get through it I think, especially if you want to be able to appreciate it properly (which is something an English degree can really spoil - reading because you have to read and not because you want to is a strange feeling), but it is so worth it and I can almost guarantee the ending will stay with you for a long while! In terms of tunes, The Dhol Foundation's Gra Gan Chrioch (itunes it...youtube does not provide) is great - verging on dub, so maybe not everyone's fave, but personally I love a bit of that every now and then, so it works nicely alongside the grime of the novel.
Prizes for those who spot the hidden rhymes.