Category: Food

A bit of sunshine – 13 March 2020

Posted on by Zogman

That’s what we all need sometimes, a bit of sunshine.

There was the odd sprinkle of rain too, but that’s ok. Spoke to Hazy in the morning to explain yesterday’s blog post in more detail. After the explanation and checking that all was well down her way, we got ready and drove out to Rouken Glen in the south of Glasgow. We’d been there a few months ago and said we’d come back. It was Scamp’s suggestion of a destination today and it was a good one. The last time we were there we were looking for the waterfall, but failed to find it. Today we seemed to be surrounded by waterfalls. High drops, low splashing waterfalls and one that seemed determined to soak us with spray. I’d taken the tripod in the car, but of course I didn’t take it with me because I didn’t think we’d see any of the waterfalls. Numpty!  One of the waterfall pics got PoD.

The other thing I saw was what I think was the nymphal shuck of a damselfly or maybe a sedge. Can’t be sure that’s what it was, but almost certain. It looks like something designed by H.R. Giger. It was paper thin and must have survived the gales and the torrential rain since last summer.

Lunch was in the Boathouse Cafe next to the boating pond. Roll ’n’ Pork Sausage for me and Scrambled Egg on Toast for Scamp. Coffee was better than the usual cafe coffee. Almost as good as my new Blue Box coffee, Hazy. Much lighter than my usual Perth blend, but nice for a change. Walked back through the park and drove home just before the start of the rush hour.

Paella for dinner tonight and it was a good one. Almost, but not quite, too dry. I probably won’t be able to make one like it for ages now.

I think we’ve both come to terms with the P&O situation now. Another email arrived this afternoon to the effect that we can cancel the cruise and have our deposit refunded. We are both in agreement that it would be the best course of action in the circumstances. My thoughts are that with so many places almost in lockdown, it would not be much of a holiday anyway, even if Boris hadn’t made his declaration. Also, if we had been allowed to go, we’d have been in a bus travelling south with 40 or so others wondering if that old lady’s irritating cough is actually Covid 19 or just a cold. Imagine getting all the way to Southampton and being told you can’t board because you are showing signs of a virus you didn’t have when you left the house. Maybe for once Boris has done us a favour.

We have no plans for tomorrow. It looks like rain in the morning, clear for an hour or so and then more rain at night. Never mind, we had a good day today. We can’t be greedy.

A bit of a downer – 12 March 2020

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Usually I write this blog chronologically. Today, because of an email we got from P&O, I’m cutting to the chase. Since the PM’s statement that those over 70 or with underlying health problems are advised against cruise ship travel at this time our travel insurance would be null and void. The email we received today from P&O more or less confirmed this and told us that they will contact us shortly. I imagine, since we have to pay the outstanding balance of the cruise by the end of the month, they may offer us a refund of the deposit. Princess Cruises, who are owned by Carnival Corporation have cancelled all sailings for 60 days. When we hear more, we’ll let you know the next steps.

The rest of the day:

It had snowed during the night and this morning there was some snow on the hills and a little in the garden, but it disappeared before we were heading out for the Tea Dance at Gorbals sports centre. Lovely big hall and easy parking. Dancers weren’t as friendly as some we’ve met, but we did meet and talk to a few folk. Danced a reasonable Waltz a pathetic Quickstep and lots of sequence dances. Overall, it was a pleasant afternoon.

Chicken Tikka for dinner and it was HOT! Worth trying again, but only if I tone down the chilli. However, I did use some of the ingredients to compose a still life and that became the PoD. Not very interesting, but I wasn’t in a very good place when I was taking it.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Cold, not Corona – 10 March 2020

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Woke with a stuffed up nose and clogged ears. Not the symptoms of Covid 19, just a common cold.  Still felt miserable.

I’d said I’d go with Scamp to see how Isobel was faring with her new knee, but decided it would be better to self-isolate to use the new term for ‘stay at home’. Scamp left early to have coffee with Shona before she went to see the invalid. I took some Haliborange tablets and searched for a ball and socket head I was sure I had somewhere for the new tripod, without success (it lets you turn the camera to almost any angle). When I got fed up with searching I sat and watched the rain showers thumping down then made a pot of soup for dinner tonight, so at least all my time wasn’t wasted.

Finally took some sketch paper upstairs to draw and while telling myself that it wouldn’t be there, I searched through some boxes in the chest of drawers and immediately proved myself wrong, because there was the ball and socket head! Things are never where you expect to find them. Forgot about the drawing and started trying out the new fitment on the tripod and it worked perfectly. It was about that time I started to feel better. I also started to watch the sky in the hopes that there would be some blue among the clouds. There was none, but the clouds were clearing above the Campsie and that’s usually a good sign. A couple of hours later I made the decision to go out. The sun was shining and the clouds had cleared. So had my head.

Got the tripod set up perfectly in an awkward wee gully at the outfall of water from the pond at St Mo’s. There was a fair volume of water coursing down and it looked a likely place for a moody slow shutter shot of moving water. I shot a few at different exposure times, but wasn’t really happy with any of them. I made a mental note to take a pair of secateurs with me next time because the barbs on the bramble stems were tearing into my ankles. Spoke to Susan G who was out walking her dogs and wondering what the hell I was doing prancing around a mucky burn.

Walked round the upper path and found a much better run of water. Just a little drainage ditch with water pouring round a boulder. Another tricky position for a ‘normal’ tripod, but easy peasy for the Benbo. It’s what that tripod is made for. By the time I’d shot my fill of oily looking water, I realised it had started raining. Walked back along the boardwalk and the heavens opened. That’s when I got today’s PoD. It’s a three shot hand-held HDR image, but you probably guessed that, so I won’t bore you with the details. Second place went to the oily water shot, taken with the camera on the new tripod. Brilliant piece of British engineering.

Soup, bread and a baked potato for dinner as we listened to the news that Italy was now basically cut off from the rest of the world for at least two weeks. So strange to see the Colosseum in Rome with about four people standing beside it. Similarly St Mark’s Square in Venice virtually deserted. Strange days.

No plans for tomorrow. Hoping I’ve not passed the cold on to anyone else. If I get the all clear from Scamp, we’ll maybe go dancing at the British Legion, our new venue for Wednesday night classes.

Frogs, Frogs, Frogs – 8 March 2020

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No, not plagues of them, that was in Egypt. Here it was an invasion of frogs.

In the morning it was bread making that was occupying me. I got that done fairly easily. Forget all the rigmarole of different kinds of kneading, the last three loaves I’ve made have used the same method.

  1. Weigh out the flour, butter, yeast and salt.
  2. Weigh in the water. Yes, I know water is a liquid quantity, but 160ml of water weighs 160gms.
  3. Add a pook of sugar. Technically it’s a pinch, but my mum always called it a ‘pook’. Always trust your mum.
  4. Mix it up quickly with a metal spoon.
  5. Adjust the flour or water quantity to make it wet enough to mix, but dry enough to be lifted from the measuring bowl without it dripping everywhere.
  6. Drag it about in the bowl. Squash it and pummel it, but keep it in the bowl. Keep moving it around until it feels smooth to the touch. If it’s too dry or too wet, repeat step 5.
  7. If you’re feeling daring you can scoop it out of the bowl and go for a walk around the house squeezing and squashing it as you go. Bread dough likes to see its surroundings.
  8. Dust the bowl with flour and dump the dough gently in the bottom and leave for about an hour in a warm place with a tea towel covering the bowl. The dough by this time is exhausted and needs to sleep.

The rest of the process is simply the baking. You’ve done the hard part, the kneading. Easy kneading.

So, with the dough sleeping, I started on my dinner.

Dinner for me was slow roasted short ribs. Scamp took the easy option, salmon fillet. The ribs had been living in the freezer for almost a year, so I had brought them out yesterday and allowed them to thaw out. Today I mixed up my marinade which is Oil, Salt, Acid, Sugar and herbs. All as confirmed by the book Hazy bought me a year ago. Thank you again, Hazy. Olive Oil, Sea Salt, plus some Soy Sauce, Balsamic Vinegar, Honey with some Rosemary and Thyme. I added a bit of French Mustard to help the oil emulsify with the other ingredients once I’d whisked them together. Poured equal quantities of the marinade into three flavour lock bags and put a short rib in each. Stuck them in the fridge to soak up all that goodness and went for a walk.

Walked over to St Mo’s in the rain and found the inundation of frogs I’d mentioned. A week or so ago I’d found a couple of frogs cavorting in one of the wee burns that someone had cut through the woods, but this wasn’t just a couple, this was a couple of hundred. Clambering over one another and creating great rafts of frog spawn. Last year’s frogs were a bit low on IQ and had sprayed all their eggs over the flooded flood plain. When that dried out they were let to desiccate under the early summer sun. It’s really a miracle that any survived to procreate this year. Today’s PoD is one of those frogs relaxing after a tough morning.

Back home it was lunch first, then time to shape the bread and help Scamp clear out some stuff to go to the skips tomorrow. Roasted the marinaded short ribs but left them too long. Should have kept them at 2 hours, but turned the heat in the oven down to gas 2-3, I think. May try again some time soon.

Spoke to JIC later and got his take on panic buying and Covid 19 which hasn’t changed since last week. Keep Calm and Carry On is his sensible advice. Mine is Whit’s Fur Ye Won’t Go By Ye. Pretty much the same thing. Why is everyone fixated on panic buying toilet rolls and why do people want to buy all the tinned veg and potatoes? Who wants to live on tinned potatoes?? Not JIC and not me either.

The recipes above are for my reference and as a memory jogger for me, but feel free to try them. No guarantees of success, but they do work and the Oil, Salt, Acid, Sugar marinade definitely works. It’s even scientific (ish).

Tomorrow my new Benbo, not Benro and certainly not Bento, tripod should be delivered to a shop in Glasgow. Wrestling an octopus is one of the more generous descriptions of using it. Hopefully I’ll let you know if I agree soon.

Lunch at The Cotton House – 7 March 2020

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That’s what I was looking forward to.

A lazy morning watching the rain and, for me, testing out the sketch book I got yesterday. The rain just kept coming and the sketch book didn’t hold a wash very well, but did respond nicely to pencil, so that was ok.

Drove through the rain and darkening skies to The Cotton House. The “The” appears to be important, no just Cotton House. The definite article seems to be important here, possibly because it is the only definite article in the English language. There, you probably didn’t know that and now you do. You’ve learned something today.

Scamp had Thai Spring Rolls followed by Chicken Chow Mein. For me it was Chicken Noodle Soup followed by Chicken Green Pepper in Black Bean Sauce with Noodles. Both were deemed excellent, but that’s what you expect at TCH. Inside it’s gone through some changes, but the food is just as good as it always was. That’s why we booked a table today, because you just have to on a Saturday. Scamp’s coffee and my Chinese tea afterwards were disappointing, but I suppose some corners have to be cut to keep the price of lunch to an acceptable level. I’ll forgive them.

After that we drove home via Tesco for essentials like milk and stuff for tomorrow’s dinner. Oh yes, and toilet rolls. Because we need them. Nothing to do with the dreaded Coronavirus or Covid 19, whichever you prefer. It seems that shelves in supermarkets across the world are becoming depleted and the most sought after articles are toilet rolls. That’s a load of shite if you ask me. Come on, you expected that, didn’t you?

Scamp was selling her old keyboard and asking a ridiculously small amount of money, but it was her keyboard to sell (don’t panic people, it’s not the Clavinova) and the woman arrived this afternoon to buy it. I think it was much bigger and more complicated than she realised. She seemed overwhelmed by it, but money crossed hands and there’s more space now in the front bedroom.

I’d thought of going out for a walk in St Mo’s today when we got back from lunch, but the light was failing even at about 4pm, so I gave up on that. We’ve had almost a week of dry shiny weather and we’ve forgotten just how dull it can get by 4 o’clock. Today reminded us. With that in mind I took a bit of broccoli, a bag of yellowing parsley, a few mushrooms and a bag of coffee beans upstairs and arranged them, tastefully on an A3 piece of cartridge paper and photographed them. Then, in ON1, I added a bit of grassy field to the foreground. Imported the resulting image into Luminar 4 and added one of my skies, but missed a bit of it and that bit rankled with me, so … I exported the image to an old version of Photoshop, cut out that bit and then pasted a new bit in behind the hole then exported the image back into Lightroom. Cropped it, adjusted the levels and that’s what you see up at the top. Photography took about 15 minutes. Post-processing took a couple of hours. That’s what digital photography is all about. A PoD was created.

On Netflix we watched three episodes of a documentary about the 2019 F1 GPs from the viewpoint of the smaller teams, not the big three. Really interesting. Also watched another video about an actor chef being tutored by a real chef. How to make an omelette, followed by how to cook a steak. A massive steak, but it was set in America where they don’t do things by half.

Tomorrow we aren’t going dancing, but we may be practising. More rain forecast.

A day in the Toon – 6 March 2020

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Scamp suggested it and I agreed. A day in Glasgow. No driving, no dancing, just a day in the Toon. Sounds good to me too.

Walked over to Condorrat and got the eXpress bus to Glasgow. Coffee in Nero first then a walk through JL. Visited the ‘toy shop’ on the top floor, just to see if there were any bargains on show, but of course, there weren’t. Didn’t really expect any, but I’m not in the market for bargains anyway, so I wasn’t really bothered.

The new Aaronovitch book (with luminous cover!) from Waterstones and the prospect of a pair of Wranglers in TJ Hughes took us along Argyle Street. The book was bought, but the jeans weren’t. Mainly due to the lack of ability in TJ’s staff to assess the size of the queue and stop changing tags on stock and man (should that be ‘person’) the tills instead. Nope, Job Demarcation demands that I stay at the job I was given and not deviate from said job until sanctioned by a more senior member of staff Or in other words “I was only obeying orders”. Left the jeans back on the shelf and walked out. How do these stores survive? Especially when others like JL are sinking?

In Paesano, a Number 3 pizza (anchovy, olive, capers, mozzarella, sugo and EVOO) for me and a Number 1 pizza (Sugo, rocket, No garlic, No cheese) for Scamp with two glasses of house red saved the day and brought a little bit of Italian sunshine to Glasgow.

Walked back to the bus station via Cass Art for black watercolour paint and a cheap sketch pad then caught another eXpress bus back to Condorrat. Walked home with smiles on our faces. It was a good day.

PoD was some folk heading up Bucky Street for the bus home after ‘Making Glasgow’!

Scamp made Chicken Goujons for supper, washed down with another glass of red wine.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to be fed at Cotton House, with the prospect of a walk afterwards.

Dancing in Paisley – 5 March 2020

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Not exactly the place that springs to mind when you think of dancing.

Scamp was out early this morning to check that Isobel was all right after her first night back home after she got here new knee. She said that the patient hadn’t realised just how painful the recuperation would be, but that she was not going to be beaten by something as simple as a replacement knee.

After lunch we changed into dancing clothes, because although these tea dances are informal, there seems to be a standard of dress that it’s as well not to drop below. Today we were in Paisley, far side of Paisley really. I put my trust in the sat nav, because I don’t know that area of the central belt at all. It seemed to know where it was going and I didn’t, so I was happy to let it direct me. I usually drive by the map, but Paisley is an old town where the road intersections are not as clear cut as they are in places like Glasgow. With only one missed turning, we arrived at the community centre where our tea dance was waiting for us.

We got invited to sit with another couple and soon the room was beginning to fill up. Many of the faces were becoming known to us, plus, of course we already knew Stewart and Jane who were running the dance. We started off with a waltz and managed to get round the floor without too many slip ups. We danced quite a few sequence dances, something I wouldn’t have admitted to a year ago. Sat and talked to a couple we were on nodding acquaintance with from salsa. Overall, it was a good day, plus Jane’s homemade dumpling made the tea much tastier. The only fly in the ointment was the traffic on the way home. Basically it was a crawl from the community centre all the way to the motorway. A few miles of clear road then the usual crawl through Glasgow city centre.

Scamp wanted a new plant, a Skimmia she’d seen at the garden centre we were at yesterday, so we stopped there on the way home. I’d spotted a nice beech tree there and thought it might make a decent PoD. It looked ok through the viewfinder, but the final result wasn’t all that it could have been. Must try harder.

Fish ’n’ chips from the chip shop for dinner tonight and it was greasy, hot and delicious.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow. With the warning from the Scottish government that the Coronavirus will escalate quickly now, we may have to look for hand sanitiser and some face masks first 😉

Last Dance in The Weavers – 4 March 2020

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Thankfully the last dance in that pokey little room, but we beat the corners.

First we got a phone call from Isobel to say that she was indeed getting out today. Although she’d get transport from the ward to the car, she would need a wheelchair to get from the car to the house, because the hospital wouldn’t load us a chair. Absolute nonsense, but totally in keeping with expected NLC policy. Scamp was not to be fazed by this problem and phoned one of the Gems singers and an hour later we had a wheelchair in the back of the Juke. You don’t realise just how much room a folded up wheelchair takes up in a car. I see the problem now Hazy.

By the time we’d worked out how to transport Scamp, Isobel, me and the wheelchair from the hospital to Cumbersheugh, Isobel had phoned to say she’d been told she was going to get hospital transport. Because she had more than one step up to her door and also she only had one handrail, she needed an ambulance person to get her safely into the house. One problem solved, but now we had to return the wheelchair and also return our life to what sometimes amounts to “Normal”. We went to lunch.

Lunch was in Craigend Nursery which used to be a decent sized plant nursery with a small tearoom bolted on. Now it’s very large tearoom with a nursery bolted on almost as an afterthought. Lunch was a beef burger and chips and salad and a dollop of ‘coleslaw’ that looked like a dog had been sick on my slate (no plates, just slates. Retro chic). Scamp had a very greasy looking Mac ’n’ Cheese. I don’t think we’ll be rushing back there.

Drove back and Scamp went to offload the wheelchair while I went to visit the ducks in St Mo’s. I also walked to the shops to try to get lemongrass for tonight’s dinner. Met an old friend of ours from salsa. Haven’t seen her for years, five years at least, according to her. How time flies. Didn’t get the lemongrass, but I did get today’s PoD which looks as if it’s been taken with flash, but it was just low afternoon light. A lucky shot.

Tonight we were dancing for the final time in The Weavers. I won’t be sad to leave that horrible room with its strange angles. What we did do was produce a decent foxtrot and another ‘work in progress’ quickstep. After a long explanation of how to dance in any shape of room, we even managed to remove the corners of the room and turn them into gentle curves, just by altering stride length and not dancing in entirely straight lines. It worked!

G&Ts tonight to remove the rough edges of an awkward day. Much like The Dukes of Hazzard song “Staightenin’ the curves Flattenin’ the hills …”. Exactly like tonight’s dancing.

Tomorrow more dancing in the afternoon hopefully. In a proper room this time.

Hey look. Not dancing today! – 3 March 2020

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A day to relax, perhaps.

I’d intended to do some painting today while Scamp was out having coffee with Annette. What I did instead was pot up some chilli plants that had been lingering on the kitchen window sill. While was in this horticultural mood, I also split up a succulent that’s been aching to be repotted for years. When I looked at what it had been growing in, it seemed to be almost all gravel. There was a tiny wee ring of compost on the surface, but the rest was just pure grit and old dead roots. Although it looked a bit tired, it had been producing quite a few ‘babies’. I managed to dislodge five little suckers which have now been repotted in a mixture of compost, grit and sharp sand. I’m sure it have a fair bit more nutrient than they have been used to. I’m hoping they have enough, but not too much.

Scamp returned at lunchtime and after that she went out to buy dinner which turned out to be a Chinese stir-fry using noodles rather than her usual favourite rice. I enjoyed it, but I think Tesco were being a bit mean with their mixture which would have benefitted with some ginger to gee it up a bit. Other than that, the noodles made a pleasant change from rice. I think it will be my turn to cook tomorrow, so I have to think up something interesting. It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut. I have something in mind, it just depends on whether it ends up on the plate!

While Scamp was out shopping I grabbed my camera bag and went for a walk in St Mo’s. That’s where I found the little seedling growing in a tree. It seemed quite settled in its elevated position just about head height. I think it may be an ash and it’s growing in a sycamore tree. An interesting cross fertilisation.

Scamp’s aunt, Isobel is currently in hospital after having a new knee fitted. She phoned today to say that she wasn’t getting out today as she expected, but might get be allowed home tomorrow. We’d already agreed that if she was kept later than today, we’d be ’hospital transport’. So, tomorrow is partly put on hold until we get a phone call. Hoping to dance at night for the last time in a that tiny awkward room in Condorrat. Next week we’re supposed to be moving to the British Legion in Cumbersheugh which will definitely be a big improvement, we’re told

Leaping Day – 29 February 2020

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It’s that day that only exists every four years.

To celebrate Leap Day, we went in to Stirling, in fact we went over the Tak-Ma-Doon road to Stirling. For the most part if was a jolly little run in the country, however halfway to Stirling, just as we were crossing the main road we came upon a bit of flooding. It wasn’t a problem for the Red Juke with its high clearance, but I was a bit worried incase there were any nasty little potholes lurking under that seemingly innocent water surface, but there weren’t, at least we didn’t sink into any, but it did make me think about all these poor folk down south who have been flooded out of their houses.

The next part of the journey was uphill again with no place for a lurking flood then it was down-dale and all the water would be rushing ahead of us with no time to block our path. After the downhill stretch we were on to the straight and level road where I could stop and get a few photos, one of which made PoD. It’s a wee farm under a glowering sky that promised snow. Luckily the snow had the good sense to wait for an hour or two before coming pelting down.

Stirling was busy, so busy that we couldn’t get in to Nero, so we went to a wee independent coffee shop where the coffee was poor, but the food was really good. Much better than either Costa or Nero’s usual tasteless stuff. Must go back again the next time we’re in Stirling. There being nothing else we wanted other than a wee run in the country and a bite to eat, we came back home via Waitrose where Scamp chose a basket rather than a trolley and that prompted us to buy what we needed, rather than the whole shop.  We had sleet all the way home and later in the evening the snow did make a brief appearance, but it didn’t last and it didn’t lie.  It’s getting a bit windy now as Storm Jorge slides across the country.  Allegedly we won’t get the worst of it.  There is heavy snow forecast for north of us and strong winds south of us, but as I’m writing this the bins are taking a battering from the wind.

Dinner tonight was a frugal but really tasty omelette. Peppers, onions, mushrooms and cooked ham sorted mine. Scamp’s was the same minus the cooked ham. We had considered getting a carry-out, but settled for a cooked meal because we couldn’t be bothered going out for Chinese or Indian and didn’t want to wait until 10pm to have a tepid meal delivered. A glass of wine washed the omelettes down nicely, and you can’t drink wine with a Chinese or an Indian take-away, at least we can’t.

The sketching topic was “Wedding”. Presumably it was to celebrate the fact that on Leap Day, the lady can ask the gentleman to marry them. SoD was Scamp’s suggestion. It was the bridesmaid’s basket that Hazy carried at Jackie’s wedding a few years ago … quite a few years ago! My mum crocheted the basket and formed it using sugar to stiffen it. She also dressed it with with artificial flowers. The flowers have faded a bit, but the memories are still there. That’s the last one done for this year. I may continue sketching, but if my past record is repeated, the work will peter out gradually, there being no real incentive to get things done and on time. I’ll miss it, but I can hold out until May when it returns again.

No plans for tomorrow except for dancing hopefully in the late afternoon. Real dancing. Salsa!