Sofa, so good

The sofa has become the central focus of my indoor life. It's a good place to flop down and pass out after work, it's the best place to sit and eat breakfast in front of the BBC (actually the only place, since I don't have a proper dining table yet) and it also doubles as a handy filing cabinet and coat stand.

As you can see, there's still a little way to go on furnishing the flat. Currently life is full of boring adult responsibilities, such as trying to work out how to do last year's UK tax return. Since I'm not very responsible and have trouble remembering that I'm supposed to be an adult, this has been a bit difficult to take on board.

Instead, I've been exploring the various procrastination options. Such as cooking.


Here's my recipe for vegetable soup. Don't thank me now.


- scrape together all the leftover vegetables from the bottom of your fridge.
- cut and/or peel off the slimy bits.
- heat some oil in a pan and add garlic and lots of chilli (to hide the taste of the vegetables)
- add veg and pour stock over the top - preferably Oxo veggie stock, for that authentic Pot Noodle flavour
- turn up the heat, and go and watch ER on Vijf TV until you hear the saucepan lid rattling as the stock boils over.
- turn down the heat and leave to simmer until vegetables have lost all shape and consistency or until the Flemish news comes on
- turn the heat off, get out hand-held blender, and blitz until mushy.
- add a bit more stock to make it look more like soup and less like baby food
- add generous helpings of strong cheese.


Smacznego!

Tea

Before I left the UK, tea came in two kinds: Earl Grey (if you were trying to be posh) and Tetley (if you were trying not to be)*.
It normally came in bags, except when I was very very little (before my parents gave up on that sort of thing altogether) when there would always be a lot of soggy tea leaves in the plughole of the kitchen sink at breakfast time. Ideally it would be made in a pot, but then again any port in a storm.

If you asked for it without milk, you were considered a bit weird (even those who took it without sugar were living dangerously close to the edge).

Society was divided between those who put the milk in the cup first, and those who put it in afterwards. There are some highly valid and very scientific arguments for and against both stances, into which we will not go today.

Herbal tea was what Peter Rabbit was given as a punishment for breaking into Mr McGregor's garden.

Outside England tea is a different matter entirely.

It's actually ironic that we are considered to be the most tea-fussy nation in Europe, when British tea rituals are quite literally sloppy compared to those of - um let's think - the Poles.

For example, before leaving England, I never gave a second thought to tea brewing. You swirled the teabag around, gave it a bit of squeeze on the side of the cup and then flicked it into the bin (best done Dennis the Menace-style on the end of a teaspoon from the other side of someone else's kitchen).
What a fool I was. Now I know that you must drop the teabag (or tea leaf dongle thingy, or tea sock - don't ask, they look terrible) into a glass of boiling water, place the saucer delicately over the top and leave for five minutes. Five minutes, incidentally, is just enough time for the saucer to become very, very hot, and for you to burn your fingers.
Afterwards, you may add sugar, and/or a slice of lemon. You may drink it with milk, but only if you are pregnant or - apparently - an old-school Communist. In winter, the addition of raspberry syrup is compulsory. In the first language school I attended in Kraków, they never served it any other way. Requests for water were greeted with blank looks and confusion.

When you visit a friend, you will always be offered tea. And here the competitive streak kicks in.
- Thanks, what do you have?
you might innocently reply.
- Well... not much: English breakfast, Earl Grey, fruit tea, green tea, peppermint tea, Yogi Tea, Pu-Erh, Sencha, czarna porzeczka and something strange in a brown bag that came from that tea shop on Jozefa that closed recently - the one with the funny smell next to what used to be the Shisha place.

If you are sensible, you will pick English breakfast. Almost all of the others will be in leaf form, and then the ritual begins.
The safest way to brew leaf tea is in a pot, clearly. But, it can be done in a cup: various devices exist to assist this process.
Firstly, the springy thingy.
This looks like two tea strainers clasped together in a sort of scissors arrangement.
In theory the mechanics is good, but beware: having sprinkled that last gram of dry tea into one half of the strainer, take care not to snap the pincers shut Too Fast: tea leaves will be sprayed everywhere and will probably end up floating on the surface of your tanninate beverage.

Secondly, the Tea Sock.
Like the springy thingy, this looks fairly innocent when it's new and clean: it's a sort of long sack, in natural cotton, like the end of a pair of tights. Warning! After two or three uses, the Tea Sock will be stained an appetizing shade of tannin brown, looking for all the world like a very mangy pair of saggy cotton Y-fronts.

The worst part of it all is that eventually you start to feel ashamed of your own pathetic tea shelf offering. You find yourself unable to resist the siren waft of the tea merchant: that fragrance draws you in, you begin to collect teas too. My parents despair because their larder is filled with Ginger Spice digestive tea, Twinings Peppermint and Camomile (tea shelf staples), Taylor and Harrogate Green tea and something weird we found at the back of Grandma's kitchen cupboard.

However, unless you're buying it in loose leaves by the ounce and taking it home in a brown paper bag, you're not doing it properly. I'm safe for the moment. But how long will it last?

to be continued...





*come to think of it, this actually sums up British class attitudes pretty well.

Cordon Bleugh

I have a guilty, traitorous secret.

I suspect I may be the only person on the British Isles who does not like Roast Dinner.

Perhaps you are currently spending your Sunday flipping through the colour supplements in bed (it's minus four outside so I don't blame you). Go to the first (ish) page, and look for the column where they interview a celebrity of some genre about their Ideal Weekend (both the papers my parents get feature this type of article). Almost certainly, at some point during the interview, the words 'Sunday Roast' will be uttered: probably in conjunction with either of the phrases 'at our local pub' or 'with the parents'.

Please. Where is your imagination? After a good fortnight of rich, stodgy food, even the hardiest carnivores must by now be unable to stomach another slice of ropey grey beef or a sweaty sliver of damp chicken breast. Even the Christmas turkey had strings of something twisty running through the flesh.

Then, there are the roast potatoes: traditionally the only bit of a Sunday dinner that anyone actually likes (unless you live in the north, in which case, include Yorkshire puddings - a surprising hit with my French flatmate in Bath). Should you take your life and the health of your arteries in your hands and use lard? Traditionally it's the best fat for the job, but in the wrong hands can result in waxy insides and burnt skins (on the potatoes, of course). Do you go for the trendy option and add olive oil, rosemary and garlic?* Used with the wrong potatoes, this can result in clammy skins and half-baked flesh (on the potatoes, of course). Oh and it makes your kitchen smell like the back room of Mario's Trattoria, for the next 24 hours.
Goose fat is a new (or re-?) entry on the market, popular with the Nigella generation (likes posh ingredients, has less middle class guilt than the Extra Vergine crowd). It comes in a tiny jar with a silver label and the leftovers will sit in the fridge for the next six months like your Sunday Best, growing fur and waiting for another special occasion.
The safest option is to pop down to Iceland for the pre-roasted frozen version, and, if you have guests, burn the packaging.

Vegetables are really best forgotten. The cooking time of the joint itself requires such feats of mental arithmatic that whoever is acting as unfortunate chef for the day can spare few brain cells for greenery. The result is anaemic, overboiled greens, beans and carrots.
Parsnips are the only salvagable part of this sorry collection, largely because when roasted they pretty much count as potatoes, but with a higher Glycaemic Index**.

Sprouts are a Christmas treat unique to our Island. How I long - all year - for the day I can eat my fill of sprouts. That peculiar bitter aftertaste - sourish, with a note of earwax - the damply enticing dark green leaves, the elusive, slightly composted smell, hinting at digestive sensations yet to come.
Only in Britain could a population so relentlessly indulge in the ritual self-flagellation of eating sprouts.

No, the only decent thing to come out of the Sunday Roast is the preliminary thimbleful of Harvey's Bristol Cream (preceded by the words: 'I'll just get a sherry for Granny'), and Pudding.

Cut out the rest, and Sunday Lunch is a haze of boozy, cheescakey*** bliss.


Back to the vegetable soup and couscous then...


* I admit I have been known - on rare occasions - to serve diced potatoes prepared in this manner to deserving boyfriends. Deserving... make that very rare occasions.
** This is bad if you are on a diet, but I can't remember why. It may or may not have something to do with the Stock Market (for vegetable stock... geddit?).
***see 'Nigella generation' comment above. Marbled with 70% dark chocolate. It took us four days to eat it.