Ripple

I think of our lives as ripples spreading out as we pass briefly through this world - interacting with other ripples, for better or worse. As the ripples spread long after we have dropped beneath the surface, we should strive to send out positive energy, love, humanity.

Sandwiches

Away dull lethargy of summer let's talk summer food, let's talk Sandwiches!
In the still stylish French thriller "Diva", the Vietnam veteran (veteran of the French war in Vietnam) gives a lecture to the Telegraph Boy hero on the Zen of making a baguette and thinking back, I wonder how much that lecture had an effect on your very own intrepid blogger's development...
Be that as it may, this post has been gestating far too long so here it is my Diva/ sandwich/ Zen moment!
Sandwiches are Tea-time, Nursery Tea as our vicar called it on one visit. Sandwiches are Pick-nicks and Packed Lunches and City Sandwich Shops, Church Fetes and Irish Pub Nights. Sandwiches are Self-catered Weddings, Funerals and Children's Parties before Mc.Donalds...
Every morning from 6.15 to 6.30 I make sandwiches for B. and I to take to work and because I am a foodie, I never tire of the task of making every sandwich the best it can be with the materials to hand and to avoid the onset of boredom, the temptation to buy out which so often leads to disappointment that outweighs the novelty.
So what does make a good sandwich?

1. Moisture. More important than anything else is the right degree of moisture. Nothing is worse than a dry sandwich that, ultimate horror, has to be washed down! Too moist, as in long ago sliced tomatoes soggy from marinading in their own juice is almost as bad. No the moisture must be just right, the degree of freshness of the bread, an adequate amount of butter and the right filling. My mother was an adventurous cook eager to explore the delights of post rationing abundance. Looking back I don't know how many ideas were hers or which came from Woman's Weekly but in the sandwich line, no-one but her has ever offered me chopped date and grated apple sandwiches, a combination which "cooks" together when packed for later consumption - say on a car journey to a holiday destination...

2. Recipe. Make no mistake, a sandwich is not just any old filling slapped between two slices of bread, at best sandwich is worthy of a recipe, a considered combination of ingredients honed to perfection with practice and repetition. even when Jamie Oliver - "The Naked Chef" appears to slap together Sainsbury's white crusty bread, lashings of butter, a smidgin of English mustard and a slice of a  ham, he is following one of the all time classic sandwich recipe combinations. But for a really complex combination of tastes I remember a certain Italian delicatessen in Islington. Ciabatta bread whose internal frozen bubbles held the squidgy parts of their offering with moderate success - a slice of thin sausage meat, an equally thin slice of cheese, salad, fresh and crisp, probably Rocket before it became trendy and then a dollop of home-made tapenade or babaganousch. The ingredients varied but that is the principle of the recipe and the eating and the flavour of it was greater than the sum of its parts!

3. The Bread. Jamie Oliver's crusty white is the perfect accompaniment to ham in away that say, pumpenickel is not, but slip a little German Cervelat sausage between the rich, slightly bitter bread and you have another classic combination.
We have such a craving for novelty these days that delis and sandwich shops offer all sorts of exotic sounding bread and fillings - not all will stand the test of time...
Mediterranean bread is often a large circular loaf which is wonderful on the day of baking but hard as rock the next day and in any case they have their own way with a sandwich, no butter but a drizzle of olive oil over bread that has first been rubbed with a garlic clove and a slice of beefsteak tomato. In Malta I was much amused that the commercial sliced pap that is still shamelessly called bread, is known to the Maltese as "French bread" because of its softness. This is a grossly unfair insult to the French (in revenge for having at one time invaded Malta) because of course French bread does include truly wonderful soft breads such as brioche, bread too rich and fine for sandwich making, best eaten with butter only!There is a vital point here about the softness of bread for if one must use sliced pan bread, then it is almost too soft the first day and if the butter is in any way too hard, the bread will tear...
I used to love the Greek segmented bread that has little Chios Mastic baked into its glazed and sesame seeded surface. (Try saying that quickly!) then there is the French stick - the real thing rather than frech-stick shaped white bread. The real thing is all crustiness and must also be consumed fresh and warm and fragrant...

4. Butter. It must be butter! there is no justification for anything else - so called "health spreads" will probably all turn out to be carcinogenic in the end - forget them!
Seriously, the point of buttering the sandwich, other than contributing to its general moisture, or in the case of the ham sandwich, adding the mouth-feel of big lumps of straight from the fridge, melt in the mouth heaven, is to prevent the sandwich filling from making the bread soggy for there is nothing worse than a soggy sandwich!

5. The Myth of the Open Sandwich. Back in the 70's our British insularity was being broken down by among other things, the "Scandinavian" Open Sandwich. This was served in trendy restaurants as a novel cuisine but was of course a reincarnation of the medieval tradition of using a doorstep of bread as a plate or "trencher" (hence trencher-man or foodie) and can't really be called a sandwich. After all, the sandwich allegedly gets its name from The Earl of Sandwich who wanted a convenient way of packaging food to take to the races and there is nothing practical or convenient about an "open" sandwich!

6. Comfort. Whatever the particular circumstance of consumption be it a lunchtime break from ones toils or a midnight attack of the munchies, a sandwich, more than most food, should offer comfort. Some may consider the recipe below to go beyond comfort but as the French say "chaque on a son gout!" (Each to their taste!)

Frewin's Comfort Food Sandwich:
Toast 2 slices of sliced pan granary bread
Butter it and spread one piece with unsweetened crunchy peanut butter and the other with ginger marmalade.
Cut a thin slice of vanilla ice cream and sandwiching it between the toast and fillings, consume whilst the toast is warm, the ice cream cold, the peanut butter nutty and the ginger marmalade mellow sweet.

I could go on but if you have a favourite sandwich, this is the place and time to share it...please!

posted by: Frewin at 21:04 | link | comments (9) |
staff of life, zen of sandwiches

Brokeback Mountain

Watching Brokeback Mountain, I was reminded of another ground breaking fiction in the canon of gay literature. I read Radcliffe Hall's "The Well of Loneliness" just before going to university and it primed me for the gradual emancipation of homosexuality that was occurring back then. the book is also set firmly in that historical juncture that created so many Lesbians and changed society in many other ways, the First World War.
If I have a criticism of Brokeback, it is that without the dates being given, we wouldn't have much idea of the historical context or change if indeed there was any for the two protagonists. Perhaps that was the point, that in this redneck world of the northern frontier lands, nothing really changed in the attitudes, at least towards homosexuals. I do enjoy reading Annie Proulx and her studies of people out on the edge of civilisation where the vastness and rawness of nature does its own form of stripping away the covering layers of culture. The fil captures all that beautifully, poignantly.

posted by: Frewin at 18:56 | link | comments (1) |
humanist cinema, well of loneliness

Three unnecessary wars...

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the Argentine surrender in the Falklands war and we were subjected to the obscenity of Margaret Thatcher spouting platitudes about the conflict - "Twenty-five year ago British forces secured a great victory in a noble cause. The whole nation rejoiced at the success; and we should still rejoice. Aggression was defeated and reversed. The wishes of local people were upheld as paramount. Britain's honour and interests prevailed." She was also, reading between the lines, relieved that her excursion had not foundered as the current debacle in Iraq clearly has. "It was also mercifully short. But many of our boys - and girls as well, of course - are today stationed in war zones where the issues are more complex, where the outcome is more problematic, and where life is no less dangerous."
The truth about this war was that both the Argentines and the British were seeking a distraction from economic troubles and there is plenty of evidence that the British had sufficiently early intelligence to have prevented the invasion and averted a war. As to preserving the right to self-determination of the islanders - for years Britain had been marginalising the Falklanders and only a few months before the conflict, their automatic right to UK residence was withdrawn. They went to school and to hospital and bought supplies and did most of their trade with Argentina and whatever resources the islands offered such as oil and fish, were considered to dificult and distant to be economically feasible. That they are today being developed is a result of depleting oil and fish stocks...
You cannot tell me that in Argentina itself, the Latin American country we had best relations with historically,we did not have sufficient intelligence operatives to have avoided the whole cynical exercise in Jingoism.
As for our current unnecessary war, our American allies have instigated the latest unbelievably stupid and naive policy - the arming of Sunni's to combat Al Qaeda insurgency. The Sunnis let us remember, were the tribal grouping from which Saddam Hussein came and who lived the favoured life under his regime. In the early days following "victory", it seemed a quick route to building an Iraqui "security" force, to recruit militias drawn from the opposing Shi-ite tribes which is why the death squads roaming Baghdad don't merely have the co-operation of the police - they are the police! Now one of the stated objectives of the "peacemakers" is to get out of Iraq without a civil war being laid at their door so it just maybe that arming Sunnis is like pouring petrol on a bonfire...
In another corner of the Middle East, the Israelis are not quite centre stage for once in the tragedy that is the Palestinian story. That doesn't mean they aren't implicated in the pressure cooker that is Gaza along with those countries who, having demanded democratic elections, then rejected the people's choice because they haven't renounced the bullet in favour of political solutions and continue to threaten Israel. Well every country in the middle East has threatened Israel at some time or another, the only difference is that the Palestinians have cause. Britain's experience in Northern Ireland shows that it takes a long time to get to the tipping point from violence to politics and no-one can realistically expect the Palestinians, any faction of the Palestinians, to be anywhere near that tipping point. Like the UK's tacit backing of the Unionists repeated undermining of the peace process by claiming that the Republicans were still war mongers, the west is doing no favours to either side by failing to recognise the Hamas element of the Palestinian government and the current violent seizure of power is the direct consequence of this strategy. The ordinary people who are caught in the middle are apoplectic with frustration at the situation as well they might be - we have let them down.

posted by: Frewin at 18:39 | link | comments (1) |
iraq, civil war, terrorism, stopping war, white poppy of peace, futility, them and us

Finihed a chapter!

Finally finished Chapter 3 over on the Humanism blog!
All comments welcome.

posted by: Frewin at 21:49 | link | comments |

The Hunter's Eye

Last night I caught a fish, at least I caught a glimpse of it! What made it a successful fishing trip despite the absence of a rod or any other tackle, was that I went to look in a place I thought should have fish and was rewarded with the said glimpse and going to the right place at the right time is 90% of the secret of fishing. I do have fly rods and I do love to actually catch fish though I lack the dedication to be a serious fisherman and since fly fishing is about game fish, they are edible so unless the rules of the water demand you put the fish back, I also love to eat what I (infrequently) catch! My partner hates the idea of me catching fish but happily lets me go in the knowledge of my low success rate! I don't mind, fly fishing is about studying the water, the insects that are hatching, moving through the landscape, its not just about catching fish. I couldn't be doing with coarse fishing - sitting in one spot the rod in a rest and a beeping bite detector to tell you when to pick it up! Mind you i suspect that sitting with a couple of mates with a few beers means that much coarse fishing is not just about catching fish either. We are known as a nation for inventing football and cricket but fishing is the biggest participation sport.

My rods however, are still packed up in the house we are converting and so I was only scoping the water last night and I was as happy with my sighting of what I like to think might have been a grayling as if I had landed it and tasted it. Its the equivalent of stalking and shooting a lion with a camera - if a little less dangerous and expensive!

I will be working on the house over the weekend but my heart has been taken out of the project somewhat by the discovery that we may not be eligible to reclaim all the purchase tax on the project - some £6-7,000! Because we camped in the property for several months, the planners gave us permission for retention rather than change of use which is what qualifies you to claim back the tax. We needed that money to complete the project and we wont know if we can swing it until we've done the work ....
Aaaarrrggghhh!

So I took myself off for a walk and a "fish"....

posted by: Frewin at 06:06 | link | comments (4) |