A better breadth of butter

Two failed butter dishes, rejected because they were so annoying, and I finally get it. I realize why so many butter dishes here are long and skinny. Long and skinny in a way which makes no sense when you're trying to accommodate a normal sized pat of butter.

But of course, it's because I'm buying European butter. The American stuff comes in 'sticks'. No, I'm not kidding. A pat of butter is made up of two sticks. I realized this the other day when my glance fell on some Land o' Lakes 'butter' (horrible crumbly stuff) - and put two and two together when I read a recipe that called for 'a stick' of butter.

It's madness! Butter shouldn't come in a stick! It's firm, but not hard enough to be a stick. It's not soft either though, by the way, which makes it very difficult to smush into a measuring cup when a recipe calls for a cup. Which is another thing: why measure it in a cup? Well it turns out that a cup is 2 sticks, or a pat. So it's actually not that difficult. I suppose it's easier than using measuring scales which are apparently beyond the nous of the American home baker. Took me a couple of recipes to figure the stick thing out but I'm pretty sure life would be easier over here if we all just used a proper, precise system of weights when baking.

Anyway now I know, so I no longer have to work out what a stick or a cup of butter looks like. And thanks to TLOML, we have a lovely new butter dish of just the right proportions.

The one on the top is the old one, perfectly shaped for a stick of butter but look how a real pat of butter splays out over the edges. The one on the bottom is the new one, showcasing what is probably half a stick but could just as easily be a perfect pat. Peace is restored in the toaster/ bread bin/ butter dish corner of the kitchen.

On new things under the sun

They say there's nothing new under the sun and one would think that was absolutely true of nature's bounty. But then the Americans started inventing new fruits, like pluots (a cross between a plum and and an apricot) and apriums (same, apparently, and no I am not kidding). Actually the Etruscans did it first, with broccoli, and the Japanese have a sort of mania for breeding different citrus fruits with nuanced but highly prized / priced differences. So it's not just the Americans.

But with the odd silly exception it's rare that one comes across a truly new fruit or vegetable. Short of traveling to an exotic land, and not counting subtle variations on familiar fruits and veg, I thought I'd seen it all. At least, as far as fruit and vegetables go.

And then I encountered the sunchoke. It's probably been around since the dawn of time but to me it is a whole new vegetable. I've seen it on menus and assumed it was just an American name for something I'd eaten before. Like zucchini (courgette), eggplant (much more appetizing when it's called aubergine), or cilantro (coriander).

But lo! The sunchoke is its own distinct and wonderful vegetable. And it doesn't taste like anything else I've ever eaten. It looks, at least in the meal I was eating, like a knobbly potato. It tasted like a cross between a parsnip and a leek, and also at the same time completely different to those vegetables. Here's a picture of some sunchokes on a salad, which is how I first met them.

Apparently this startlingly exciting new vegetable is also known as a Jerusalem Artichoke - which rings a bell as something I may have read about in a Guardian recipe or ignored in Earth Natural Foods.

I'm still counting it as a new discovery. I see it on menus all the time here in sunny, healthy SoCal. And what a nice thing it is, to discover I'm not too old to have discovered all the good stuff  just yet. I wonder what other exciting foods there are out there. (Still not ready to embrace bone broth and kombucha though).

Adventures in foreign food

Not usually the most adventurous eater, I wasn't sure how P would cope with all the strange foreign foods she'd be faced with on our trip to the UK.  How would she fare when we spend time with children who eat such exotic foods as salmon, shepherd's pie, and pizza with actual pizza sauce on. I expected to be slightly embarrassed as she stuck to the plain pasta, toast and eggs that make up much of her staple diet.

But to my delight she tried a lot of new foods. She even liked some of them.

Sadly it wasn't asparagus, Dorset crab, rhubarb, cucumber sandwiches or even scones (too many raisins). In fact I'd have been happy if she got a taste for Heinz baked beans.

Here she is one bite into her first scotch egg, trying to decide if she likes it.

 She loved it.

Other big wins included my mum's egg salad sandwiches, broccoli (amazing what peer pressure will do), proper pizza, and proper French bread. Any variation on sausage meat and eggs, and anything breaded or battered, and fried also went down well. So sausage rolls, fish and chips and scampi were hits.

Now I'm not really sure what good this does me. As I said, I was hoping for rather more new vegetables - in which category I include baked beans. I suppose egg salad and proper pizza (i.e. not a homemade cheese-only version) are welcome additions to the list of dinners I can prepare in 15 minutes. But scotch eggs and sausage rolls are not available at our local grocer (and I'm not sure I'd trust them if they were). Nor is decent French bread.

And so it is that I find myself breading and frying scampi for her dinner.

What a faff...

...and an oily smelly mess

Just don't expect to see me making a scotch egg or a goddamn baguette from scratch anytime soon.

Food confusion

Two nations divided by a common language. So goes the adage and nowhere is it more true than in food matters.

Check out this menu madness, from a Californian restaurant:

'Toad in a Hole', they say, and it has nothing to do with Yorkshire pudding and sausages. And this on a children's menu, of all things. How are they ever to learn?

They don't go in a lot for cheese toasties here, which I put down to a paucity of Brevilles. But they do go in for a 'grilled cheese' which by the way is really not grilled. It's made on a griddle, or in a frying pan. Which in my family makes it a 'cheese dream'. I know. P is quite confused. If offered a 'grilled cheese' she refuses, but if I say 'it's a cheese dream' she's suddenly interested. I just have to explain that the difference between grilled cheese and a cheese dream is the same as the difference between a cookie and a biscuit. That is to say, it just depends whether you are in Hermosa Beach or in Granny's house.

Now here's a sandwich I can never explain: the Monte Cristo. In it's simplest form it's a cheese dream, or a Croque Monsieur. A fried cheese sandwich. But then often here they dip it in egg before frying it. I'm good with that. And yet sometimes, are in the land where anything is possible, it includes ham and turkey, and is made with a sweet bread (like cinnamon raisin), and served with powdered sugar, and suddenly I don't know if I'm eating a sandwich or a cake, breakfast or dessert.

As we say in England, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Speaking like a native

On the one hand, America, hats off for attempting pronunciation felicity for so many non-English words. It's a brave endeavour. Well done for saying 'ris-oh-dow' (for risotto). Never mind that few Italians pronounce risotto with a 'd' in the middle. It's nice that you try. Your 'he-ro' (for gyro), and 'rio-ha' (for rioja) put our 'giro' and 'rio-kah' to shame.

I think the Brits just decided, generations ago, that we would Anglicize all the foreign words we appropriated. Probably we decided that around the time we were teaching those pesky colonies how to play cricket and make a proper cup of tea. The cultural imperialism is a shameful stain on our history. But at least we are consistent.

Meanwhile, well meaning Americans have got it all confused. Two cheeses will make my point amply.

First, may I present 'Bleu cheese'. Not a typo, it is apparently a proper noun. And French. Even though it's being presented as cheese not fromage. This makes no sense.

Secondly, can we talk about parmesan? There is parmesan, as we call it in England. Then there's parmigiana, as they call it in Italy. And then there's 'parm-ah-jahn', as Americans would have it. Which also makes no sense.

On balance though I think America gets full marks for effort. They could have taken the easy, British way out and just said it as they see it. Instead they do their best to pronounce foods in a manner true to their origins. There are a lot of foods from a lot of places: no wonder they are a little confused.

Lessons learned

Every day is a school day, so they say.

I learned about a whole new species of shellfish last week. We were bombing around H-Mart, TLOML's new favourite Korean grocery store, stocking up for a Korean feast we were planning for Lady P's godfather, The Gambler, and another old friend. After the unfeasibly inexpensive vegetables and before the yards of chiller cabinets full of frozen dumplings, is the seafood section. Including the flukes.

Here they are, great big long elephant trunks. Yikes.

I'd never seen a fluke before. No thanks, said I, and on we went to stock up on frozen gyoza.

A few days later we were out for dinner with WeHo friends at Providence, and what should pop up on the tasting menu but fluke sashimi. Not wanting to appear picky, I didn't object. Besides I was curious to see what kind of sashimi one of those grey schlongs would make.

Imagine my surprise when this arrived.

It turns out fluke is a fish. A mild, slightly sweet kind of flounder. Delicious. I suppose that label in H-Mart was for a different tank.

I was also surprised when the duck turned up with a delightful little sliver of rhubarb.

I had no idea you could get rhubarb over here. certainly not in California. I guess I just hadn't looked hard enough.

I was so excited I went to Vonn's the next day, where sure enough it nestles in between the courgettes and the beetroot (seriously! not with the fruit! no wonder I could never find it). I made rhubarb crumble this weekend when we hosted our dear South Bay friends, the reason we moved here. (I may abbreviate them to The Reasons, going forward).

Which is all another, long-winded way of saying that in one week we enjoyed discounted Korean groceries, fine dining in Hollywood, and some good home cooking. A sweet spot indeed.

A low key home spun English Easter

Last Easter we had my sister and her family staying with us. Along with their time at Disneyland, in Hollywood and Santa Monica pier, it seemed fitting to give them a 'go big or go home' Easter. So we went to that massive bunfight of an Easter Egg hunt in Valley Park. I found it all a bit much.

So this year we dialled it way down.  Our Easter was so low key and home spun as to be positively English. First we made hot cross buns (for lack of being able to find them on sale here), which takes hours and for somewhat limited reward since they still weren't as nice as Sainsburys. Ah well, it was still an enriching and educational experience for Lady P.

Then on Easter Day we went to the local Episcopalian church, and came home for an egg hunt on our deck.

First of all as you can see, our deck is a pretty easy terrain for hunting.

And the prey was no great shakes either: about two dozen eggs, each filled with one or two sweets - marshmallow bunnies and little chocolate eggs. Almost mean, I know. But it was enough.

By the way, I bought the smallest pack of Robin's Eggs and marshmallow bunnies I could find, and used less than a quarter of the bag. I guess some people have more families to feed. But please tell me no-one is giving an entire pack of eggs out to a single child? The fools! We kept Lady P happy for an entire week munching her way through those eggs.

Long may these easily-pleased years last.

In America, there is no coffee in coffee cake

There is no coffee in American coffee cake. That's right. You read it correctly. There is no coffee in American coffee cake.

Our stylish friend and neighbour, who happens to be a great cook, sent a holiday card this year with a coffee cake recipe on it. Although I knew it was a much loved family recipe, and was assured it was delicious, I didn't rush to make it. The thing is, I'm not a huge fan of coffee cake. By which I mean coffee flavoured cake, of course.

Then I read the recipe. No mention of coffee. 'Oh, how embarrassing,' I thought. 'She missed out the main ingredient.'

But she's quite switched on, this friend. Not the sort of person to miss out a recipe ingredient. So I read the recipe again, more carefully this time. It almost seemed like it didn't need coffee. It sounded like a delicious, buttery, sugary cake, with honey and nuts.

'That's right,' said TLOML. 'There's no coffee in coffee cake.'

My turn to be embarrassed. Schooled, and salivating, I made the cake.

Readers, it was delicious.

But why is it called a coffee cake? TLOML tells me it is so-named because it's a cake designed to be eaten with coffee. I scoffed, until he pointed out my love of a nice Yorkshire tea cake. Which doesn't have tea in it at all. Touche.

For what it's worth, I ate it with coffee, with tea, and just standing up at the kitchen counter without a drink at all.

We are all Californians now

With startling originality, TLOML and I have decided to embark on a bit of a health kick. Nothing too crazy, but just a few tweaks to our regular diet. We decided that during the week we're going to eat more lean protein, whole grains and veggies. Our repertoire for that kind of food is somewhat limited, and there are only so many times in the week he wants to eat my Asian salad or I want to eat his stirfry.

So I dashed out in search of a healthy eating cookbook. Don't you just love it when you urgently need to rush to a bookshop?

Now, I didn't want one of those strange Cooking Light type cookbook where all the recipes sound really lardy but strange substitutions are made. Like lasagne with kale instead of pasta sheets, or chicken al fredo where the sauce is made out of almond milk. We want to eat food that happens to be inherently healthy.

And I didn't want a vegetarian cookbook, because we do like to eat meat and fish, and preferably not as a side dish. I lingered a while over Ottolenghi's 'Plenty' but ultimately decided against it for that reason.

So it is that I ended up buying the much derided Gwyneth Paltrow's 'It's All Good'. It's derided for some good reasons, like the dodgy science and ridiculous recipes ('olive oil fried egg'...), and all the pictures of Gwynnie (actually I quite liked those but they are a bit superfluous, I suppose). Still, she has some really good recipes in there. And it's all very Californian too, with plenty of Asian-inspired stuff and a bunch of veggie juices. We have already enjoyed a couple of interesting, tasty, zingy salads, some great Thai chicken burgers, and an excellent fish recipe.

And then there was the kale juice. Fail #1. It was actually chewy. TLOML will not be having that for breakfast again.

And then there was Day 3 of our new lifestyle, when we went to Love & Salt, and ordered a pig's head. Oooops. Fail #2.

We'll start again with renewed enthusiasm and focus on Monday.

Meanwhile, Lady P has been juicing for months. Her nanny blitzes her fresh juice up every day, often including kale or carrots or both. And she has also taken to squeezing orange segments into a cup and drinking it. It's a messy process, but so quintessentially Californian of her that I am all in favour.

Healthy eating

They bleach their chickens here, did you know that? Okay, okay, on closer reading you'll find that it's very very heavily diluted bleach. Still. They wash their eggs too, which is why they need refrigeration. Most supermarket milk and cheese here is pasteurised beyond recognition (though mugs like me just pay through the nose for special 'raw' cheese).

The health and safety gurus are everywhere, in Europe and in the US. They just have different methods, I suppose.

But on top of that, there's a sort of fanaticism about germs and dirt here in the US just doesn't exist in Europe. I am famously sloppy about germ sharing, which is exactly why Lady P picked up a tummy bug on our last trip to the UK. (I literally took the straw from her sick cousin's drink and gave it to her. I might as well just spooned his infected saliva onto her cake). So I could raise my game and get on board with the American way of life, I suppose.

And yet, in Hermosa Beach, I think I fit in quite well. I see a lot of people properly smooching with their dogs here. And letting their kids eat sand, not to mention walk barefoot to the beach or the playground. And the range of raw milk cheeses in our local organic hippy grocer is not half bad. It's as if a little slice of dirty old Europe lurks beneath this SoCal beach city.

So if that's true... why the hell can't I buy muesli anywhere?! I mean proper muesli, full of seeds and nuts. I used to find it hidden in the 'hot cereal' section, next to the rolled oats. But now, in Vonn's and Ralph's and Whole Foods and even the organic grocer - which does sell quinoa porridge, of all the horrors you can imagine - I can't find anything like it.

This is not muesli

Gah! I can live with refrigerated eggs, excessively clean chickens, and even tasteless cheese - but please don't take away my muesli.

On failing to develop a taste for the finer things in life

Three things I never say:

1. 'Oh, I just make a big jambalaya and we all tuck in'
2. 'We make sure we eat dinner as a family every day'
3. 'Don't worry about Lady P, she'll eat whatever we eat'

How do others do it? Those families I see order the 'kiddie veggie dip' at Source cafe. The ones splitting a pizza at Pedones. Or worst of all, the ones who claim to cook up a roast dinner, a hearty stew, or casserole for the whole family to eat together without even a concession to toddler preferences.

The thing is, Lady P eats dinner at 6pm. And its usually firmly toddler fare. I'm happy to nibble on the odd peanut butter smeared cracker to keep her company. But cold pasta and fruit at 6pm is just not my, or TLOML's, idea of an evening meal. We'd rather put her to bed, fix ourselves a G&T, and make something spicy, hearty and complex (aka the kind of food she hates).

I am trying to raise her taste game. I often offer her leftovers of our dinners, in the hope she might discover a love of bouillabaisse, bulgogi, or bolognese. We have recently tempted her to try chicken sausage and salami, which we considered a major step forward. Still, her dream meal is an avocado and a handful of goldfish crackers. Oh, who am I kidding, a pound of goldfish crackers. With half a papaya for pudding. It's not that she doesn't eat. She's pretty well nourished, I'd say. It's just so damn baby-ish.

Here's a textbook Lady P meal: witness the naked macaroni she prefers and a couple of tangerine segments in play. And waiting in the wings, the mac'n'cheese I slaved over because she used to like it, and some of our leftover gumbo just to see if she'll go for it. Guess what? She didn't.

It's not all bad. We always eat breakfast together, because we too like eggs, Cheerios and toast. And if we have friends over for drinks, she'll scarf as many tortilla chips as she can get away with.

But the closest we get to eating out as a family is happy hour at Hook and Plow: oysters on the half shell for us, and a side of mashed potato for Lady P... while I try not to look askance at the smug little SoCal sophisticates tucking into shortrib tacos at the next table.

Grocery grumblings

When we last lived together in LA, we did a llot of our grocery shopping at super expensive, gourmet, organic, local, hand knitted, artisanal grocers like Bristol Farms or Pacific Coast Greens.

Sadly, the days of spluffing $75 on a home cooked dinner for two are over. We've got a college fund to save for now, after all.

However we are a bit too fancy for our own good. Ralph's, or Von's, or any of those common-or-garden supermarkets don't quite cut it. For one thing, they don't always stock European butter. They are also often short on good fresh seafood. And their ground meats all contain mysterious 'natural flavourings' i.e. '100% ground turkey with natural flavourings'. I assume the fact they need to call them out on the packaging means these are not the natural flavourings which, um, naturally occur within turkey. Needless to say, I miss Saltburn and Sainos and the butcher very much, as I stand tutting to myself in the aisle.

On the advice of some people who are unintimidated by enormous warehouses, we tried CostCo. The one near us hosts a fresh fish guy every Friday and Saturday. You could almost call it a fishmonger pop-up store. Except that it's in a CostCo. The fish is genuinely fresh and you can buy Kerrygold butter in bulk there too.

And yet... and yet there's something just too depressing about shopping in CostCo. It's that moment when you find yourself clutching a 6lb packet of spaghetti, saying 'this is so cheap!' and realising you don't have the cupboard space for it – because you're not running an Italian restaurant. And you put it down and shuffle on and think 'that's another 30 seconds minutes of my life I'll never get back'. That and feeling a bit wired from the horrible lighting and all the sugary samples I couldn't resist.

So it is that we came to track down our nearest Korean grocery. TLOML loves a good Korean grocery, and tells me they are famously inexpensive, for Koreans are famously smart shoppers. Plus they have an incredible range of seafood including plenty of live shellfish, and some obscure species to boot.

We did a big shop, stocked up on the good kim chee and some very inexpensive oils and fruit and veg. But I didn't like it. It was packed, and overstocked, and full of people who'd been there a million times before and know where everything was and what the heck everything was too.

As I stood, baffled by the tea selection and stumped by the shellfish, I was jostled constantly. I don't speak Korean but I'd hazard a guess that the murmur as they passed me was “Look at this pale faced giant – she looks like she's never seen a geoduck in her life!”.

Or what to do with a geoduck?

Am I the only one here who doesn't know what balloon tea is?

TLOML can handle the Korean market, and he has the mental strength for CostCo too. But when it's my turn to pick up the groceries, I'm afraid it's back to Ralph's or Von's. Or if I'm feeling a bit extravagant, Bristol Farms.

Eating out: a new chapter

As you may have noticed, TLOML and I like to eat. A big part of settling into a new place is figuring out all our local eating options. Hermosa is clearly not Manhattan but it's also no Saltburn. By which I mean there are more than a handful of places to eat within walking distance, and lots of choice within that handful. It's going to take us a while to eat our way around Hermosa but we've made a good start.

We've had takeout from the local Thai and a nearby sushi place, both of which were decent and will I'm sure be on our speed dial. A creperie and a bar with upscale bar food will also definitely get a repeat visit. There's a place called The Source which is a bit like that place in Annie Hall where Woody Allen orders 'alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast'. (Read about the original Source, a 60s 'spiritual vegetarian' restaurant here if you want to get the full context). The Source specialises in juices, and has a menu which makes TLOML scratch his head and say 'no-one really actually likes this stuff, do they?'. I love it for the fabulous salads and pumpkin bread. So we've got some good lunch, brunch or takeout options.

As for dinner, we had our first date night since we arrived in Hermosa's current hot spot. Fittingly for a scruffy surfer town this is a bar masquerading as a restaurant (or is it the other way around?). Hot's Kitchen serves many posh beers and a huge range of delicious tacos. Okay, so it is basically a bar.

Then there's a new kid on the block in Dia de Campo, which claims to be a mixture of 'old school and new school Mexican meets West Coast fish shop and raw bar'. Or, as I think of it, the place with the killer tequila based cocktails. We've only had drinks there so far, having popped in after dinner when I objected that our evening at Hot's Kitchen was over too fast (beer and tacos can only be lingered over so long, after all). But I think we'll be back for a proper meal soon.

And then there's the local destination restaurant. I checked out the menu the other day and in my attempt to describe to TLOML I said 'It's the kind of place with a menu split into 'Swimmers' and 'Carnage', and roasted brussel sprouts as a side'. He knew exactly what I meant. It also uses the word 'Ruffage' to describe the salad section of the menu, and has four vegan specials. Textbook SoCal nonsense and makes LA Story seem like a documentary, but oh, the food sounds good.

That's Abigaile for ya. I must admit that the superflous 'e' is a turn off even more so than the word 'ruffage'. But I suspect my love of pretentious contemporary Californian food (and TLOML's of 'carnage') will mean we aren't put off by that silly 'e' for long.

Von's

Ah, American supermarkets. Here I am again. Thank god, not in a Gristedes. Sadly, not in a Whole Foods either. I'm in a Von's, which is a pretty bogstandard US supermarket. So I know what to expect.

The apples are enormous.

My pen, added for scale

The eggs are stored in a fridge. And most of them are a horrid pearly white.

The steaks are pre-cut to a thickness our old Saltburn butcher would find ridiculous.

And finding sweetcorn without added salt or sugar is the stuff of a madman's dreams. I might need to start shopping at Whole Foods to keep Lady P in the low-crap diet she is used to.

But at least I'll never need to grate my own cheese again.

Phew

English Understatement

One of the many things I know I'll miss when we move to the US is English understatement. American enthusiasm is often welcome, and I do like that Californian sunny sensibility that leads people to be overwhelmingly positive about even fairly mediocre things.

But there are times when a spade needs to be called a spade. The people who write the labels at Sainsbury's Basics know it's true. I meant to write a blog post about this a couple of months ago, when I noticed that their cat litter packaging bore the legend 'Does the job'. Brilliant. No high faluting claims about odour control, clumping, environmental impact, and so on. It's just cat litter.

They've updated the cat litter bag now but here are some other prime examples.

'A little less tidy' is a genius way to make lettuce snobs question their prejudices.

'No lookers', so don't come complaining that they're all outlandishly big and have gnarly black eyes all over them

Someone had a bit of fun with this one, didn't they? It's a nice little pun which makes it okay that their 'peeled' tomatoes actually might not be peeled.

Just tuna, innit?

'Takes your breath away' - I'm guessing this won't be one of the more subtle garlic bread experiences

'Some broken'. Oh well. Tastes the same, eh?

'Not quite as soft' / scratchy as heck tissues. 'Still handles a sneeze', after all, you're only wiping snot, what do you need it to be soft for?

My favourite. 'For the table, not the cellar'. If you're buying wine to lay down, maybe steer clear of the £3.50 bottle.

I thumb my teeth at your fancy packaging! Piffle to it! My big bar of chocolate only cost 30p!

We only started shopping at Sainsbury's since we moved to Saltburn, so I read a sort of Yorkshire drollery into these labels. They're the exact opposite of all those overstatements, the pretensions, puffery and hype I used to post about under a Emperor's New Clothes tag in New York. And the chances of seeing anything as dour in the land of year-round sunshine and megawatt smiles are slim to none.

So I'm enjoying them while we're here, taking special misty-eyed detours round the aisles to soak up any labels I haven't seen yet. Yes, I know that's weird. I'm getting sentimental, indulge me.

On peeling apples. No, really.

Rambling - actually I prefer 'discursive' - as this blog may be, it does have a theme of sorts. The clue is in the name: Transatlantic Tales. It started as barefaced mockery of my Los Angeles friends and neighbours, written as a Brit abroad. Then it became our move East, via NY to the UK, with an American in tow. Even on pregnancy and parenthood, or when I write about food and cooking, I do try for the most part to make sure my posts have a loose connection to things transatlantic. Or at least to where we live, and how we live (which is in itself transatlantic thanks to TLOML being an actual American).

When I think thoughts that have no transatlantic connection at all I try to keep them off my blog. You really don't want to know what I think about Russell Brand on Paxman, do you? Exactly.

Well, I'm breaking the rules for this post. Here goes.

As the apple season draws to a close we received the last of many bags of apples from our dear friend and landlady. I attacked them with our old rusty peeler. TLOML wanted to get rid of this peeler when we started weaning Lady P, because it is so rusty. I actually fished it out of the bin because I found the replacement peeler so slippery and hard to hold. TLOML agrees, it's a blighter to use. It has cut me, drawing blood, every time I have used it. So this time, as so many times before, I tipped the enormous bag of apples out on the countertop and - shunning the new peeler - started prepping them with the rusty old peeler.

Cue the arrival of TLOML. 'What can I do?' he said.
'You can help peel these apples,' I replied. 'You'll have to use that dangerous new peeler though.'
'I hate that peeler,' he said. 'In fact, I'm going to get to the bottom of it. There must be a trick to using it.'

At which point he started googling how to use the new peeler. There are a surprising number of videos about how to use a so-called 'banjo' peeler on line. Here's one of my favourites:

I did muse, as I peeled the apples and TLOML watched the videos, about why so many people make these boring potato peeler videos. Who on earth watches them? I wondered. Oh, right. Us.

The sad thing is that all those videos didn't help at all. It's still a slippery peeler. And it took TLOML the entire time it took me to peel the apples, to find this out.

Here's a picture of TLOML watching videos about how to use the peeler. The apple in shot is the last one of the dozen or so that I peeled. Notice the trusty rusty peeler, resting, blood free on the board while the evil sharp one lurks, ready to slice fingers.

As I said, there's nothing transatlantic about this. It's just a post about TLOML watching videos of how to peel, while I actually peel.

Sorry. I'll get back on theme next time I promise.

Meat Week 2013

One happy side effect of our extended stay in limbo is that TLOML can compete in the National Masters and Old Codgers Swim Championship.

Which means another week of eating meat. Last year it took me a little bit by surprise. He requested spag bol one day. We had roast beef a couple of days later. And before I knew it we'd spent the week eating beef. And it was all rather hearty. As I was growing another human being inside me at the time I was well up for all that stodge.

But this year I'm after a little more variety. Some heartiness, yes, and lots of red meat of course. But also meat from other animals other than the cow, and perhaps a little lightness and heat to balance the heft.

In my continued efforts to win 'Wife of the Year', I posted this menu for TLOML to choose from:

I think our butcher will be rather pleased to see us this weekend. Let Meat Week commence!

Parmo night

California has its egg white omelette and, of course, the California roll. New York has the papaya/hot dog combo and the New York strip steak. London has… hmmm…. What does London have, as signature foods go? Well, perhaps the fact there’s no obvious answer to that says it all. Either about the wonderful diversity of London’s food, or the paucity thereof, depending on your point of view.

Anyway, enough about those other places, for now we are in Saltburn. You might think the signature dish around here is fish and chips. And it’s certainly unquestionably true that the North Yorkshire coastline is the source of the best fish and chips in the whole world. But there’s another dish which is the local speciality: the parmo. The parmo is more Teesside than Yorkshire, and Saltburn straddles both places: look right from the pier and you see the rolling cliff top fields and wooded hills of picture perfect North Yorkshire. Look left and the industrial glories of Teesside – the steel works at Redcar, big ships queuing up to go into Teesport– fill the horizon.

While tourists, seeking North Yorkshire’s old fashioned seaside delights, opt for fish and chips, the locals eat parmos.

‘What’s a parmo?’ I hear you ask. Well, clearly you’re not from round here. Neither is TLOML and he has asked the same question many times. Mainly because there’s so much talk of parmos. TLOML’s swim club buddies keep asking him when he’s going to try one. Every pub and most restaurants have a ‘parmo night’, when all the specials are parmos. Chicken parmos, pork parmos, mushroom parmos, and so on.

 

Thursday is parmo night at The Ship

Allow me to put you out of your misery. A parmo is a piece of meat (or mushroom mush), bashed about and flattened a bit, breaded and fried. Sounds a bit like those chicken escalopes you see in greasy spoons in London, doesn’t it? (Is that London’s signature dish? No, it can’t be. Teesside claims it). But what makes it more than just an escalope, what elevates it into a parmo, is that it is then topped with béchamel sauce and grated parmesan. And chips. Boom! Heart attack! They are served in Styrofoam boxes to drunks up and down Linthorpe Road every Saturday night. And to civilised people in Saltburn pubs on parmo nights.

TLOML tried his first parmo at the weekend – under the expert guidance of my brother-in-law, who knows a first rate pub chef who makes a good one (no reformed chicken, or cheddar instead of parmesan, for him). 

TLOML with his parmo

His verdict? He liked it. But he didn’t see it catching on outside Teesside. I'm not so sure. Despite its healthy image and all those fro-yo shops, LA is also home to Roscoes, which served quite possibly the least healthy meal I’ve ever eaten (half a fried chicken, waffles, and so much salt I was thirsty for  two days afterwards). I wonder if we might open up a parmo shop on our return, and show those Californians what they're missing.

I could see this having an exotic appeal on Santa Monica Boulevard

Rich pickings

Regular readers may remember last year's bumper harvest at Fox Corner. We, of course, couldn't hope for the same from our humble little yard this year.

Happily, my parents live five minutes away and have an abundance, nay, an excess of fruit.

This represents about 5% of the current apple crop

So many plums my dad has had to prop the tree up.

To think I always cite 'the wonderful stone fruit' as one of the many great things about California. And here I am with perfect plums literally dropping off the trees. I must add this too the list of great things about Yorksire, and Britain (not that that list needs any further lengthening. It will be hard enough to leave as it is).

What on earth are two people going to do with all this fruit? They're busy too - they barely have time to pick it, never mind eat it. Or so I suspect. So I'm helping them out.

'Only take as much as you'll eat in the next two days', my mum said. They don't keep well, these apples. Well, Lady P enjoys an apple as much as me. Which is a lot. Plus half the apple ends up on the floor. Hers, that is, not mine. So I took this many.

These should keep me going for a day or two.

Think I'll go back later this week and get enough for apple pie. Just to help my parents out, you understand.

Fine foods

Every now and again we get a little frustrated with the food shopping in Saltburn. We do have a brilliant butcher, a nice little grocer which sells the odd 'exotic' item, a great bakery, and a decent Sainsbury's.

But I've moaned before about the limited choice of fresh seafood. And, to give just one example, the only kind of hot peppers we can buy in Sainsbury's are these:

They make no distinction between, say, Scotch Bonnet, Habanero, Jalapeno, or any other kind of peppers. And TLOML, for what it's worth, is the kind of man who's fussy about his chillies. There's one kind for his homemade salsa, and another for the stir fry, and so on.

That kind of packaging is the sort of thing that makes TLOML shake his fist at the sky and cry 'this country!'.

So every now and again I like to remind him that we, too, have large supermarkets in this country. Even in North Yorkshire. We head to the big Morrisons a few miles away.

Check out their pepper section:

What's more, they have a fish counter three times the size of the little ice tray at Sainsbury's, with a good range of fish. All excited about the culinary opportunities opening up in front of us, we bought some oysters to have before dinner tonight. They also were unsatisfactorily labelled, being tagged as just 'oysters' - no variety or provenance. No matter, they'll be good. TLOML will shuck them and we'll eat them on the half shell.

We felt such a thrill going around the supermarket. TLOML said it was like being in America again - high praise indeed.

When we got home I noticed this advice on the oyster packaging:

'Do not eat raw'? Really? It reminded me that we are, actually, still in Yorkshire, in a town where eating raw shellfish is considered a form of madness, or the height of pretension. Or is this Americanisation creeping in? Health and safety gone mad, and so on?

Whatever the advice is informed by, we're going to ignore it I'm afraid. We're renegade grocery shoppers and fly-by-night eaters, TLOML and I. Which brings me to another question. When will Lady P be able to eat raw shellfish, sushi, carpaccio and steak tartare? She's on vegetables and rice cakes so far, but with TLOML as her father that kind of pedestrian diet surely won't satisfy her for long.