My New Kitchen is Different
This picture shows the view I get when I cook.
My New Kitchen
It has evetrything a man should want totally to hand.
- The TV for watching something more interesting like football than a pot, which never boils. The screen incidentally turns through about 240 degrees, when the guests turn up, so everyone can see it.
- Plenty of space for drinking while you work.
- The bread bin handily placed for toast. As I’m effectively one handed the toaster is to the right out of sight.
- Also out of sight to the right is Delia’s little chopper, as I won’t give publicity to anyone associated with Norwich City.
- The pots with essentials like tea, coffee, biscuits in front of the cook.
- The one-handed pepper and salt.
Anyway it works efficiently, despite the rather delapidated fridge and the manual-less cooker.
London Takes Charge of One of its Lost Sons
There are cities, mega-cities and then there is London, a unique blend of people, races, buildings, transport systems and history.
Today the city of my birth and most of ancestors took control and welcomed me back and protected me.
The first thing I did was go and get my copy of The Times and have a coffee in the local Deli. I’ve never been able to do this before at any time of my life. But the Deli was selling smoked salmon from the Butley Oysterage in Suffolk,so my adopted county was making its presence felt. If only the rest of the country had only half as much get up and go as London and Suffolk have we wouldn’t be having a recession.
Also in the morning I registered at my new doctor’s. No problems at all and very different to when registration last happened twenty years ago. I should say that there was one small problem in that I forgot to take the urine sample I’d provided in the morning. But even that was quickly solved by a two-hundred metre walk home from the surgery to collect it and a quick walk back. My short term memory may be suffering, but I’ll get it back, by practice.
I then took a bus to St. Paul’s and took a few pictures on the so-called Wobbly Bridge, which is one of my favourite structures.
I then walked through to Carluccio’s in Smithfield to have some lunch.
And then London sent me an angel in the form of a female oriental banker, who’d just arrived in the UK, who was exploring before starting work in the New Year. We chatted for a minute or so and then she asked if there was anything to see in this part of London on a very cold day. So I showed her the wife market description in the meat market, St. Bartholomew the Great, Bart’s Hospital and then the Museum of London. I can still see my sons performing in the Nativity play at the church and my mother-in-law in the hospital after having her heart valve replaced.
We then walked through the city to Leadenhall market before having a glass of mulled wine in a pub. She then went home from Bank and I walked through the city back to the Barbican and the Waitrose in Whitecross Street. When we lived in Cromwell Tower, there were no supermarkets in the area. But it was a pleasure to be in an area with so many happy memories. Luckily we were away for the weekend when the Moorgate tube crash, which killed nearly fifty, happened.
The Waitrose there though is in some ways more homely and much less crowded than those at the Angel or the Holloway Road, but it had everything I needed and it was only a short walk away from the bus home, which ran on a much less crowded route to a stop just a hundred metres from my home.
So thank you London! Thanks also go to my charming companion for a lovely couple of hours in the afternoon.
Giving Away My Gluten-Free Cookery Books
Over the years I’ve been given a lot of gluten-free cookery books, as people think that these are an easy present for a man who lives alone, who is a coeliac.
Most have gone into the cupboard and have never been used more than once. If I need a recipe it’s usually because I’ve got some ingredients and want to cook all of them together, so I just use Google. That’s how I found the recipe for Dundee lamb chops.
So now all those I’ve never used more than once are going down the Oxfam shop in Dalston.
One thing I am going to do is put a pad computer on the kitchen wall.
Ginger Chicken with Lemongrass
This recipe was published in The Times yesterday. It is one of Lindsay Bareham’s and I’ve used hers before, as they are simple, quick and delicious on the one hand and often gluten-free on the other.
The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve two.
- 20g ginger
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 onions, 145g in total
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 4 chicken thigh fillets
- 300g potatoes
- 2 tsp lemongrass paste or 1 large lemongrass
- 300 ml water
- 100g frozen petits pois
The method is as follows.
- Peel and thinly slice the ginger into scraps the size of shirt buttons.
- Slice the garlic into thin rounds.
- Finely slice the onions.
- Heat the oil in a lidded pan, stir in the onion, ginger and garlic.
- Cook, stirring often, over a medium-low heat, encouraging it to soften without browning.
- Slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces and stir into the semi-cooked onions.
- Peel and slice the potatoes into 50p-size pieces. Quickly rince and add to the pan.
- Stir in the lemongrass paste or buised lemongrass, then add the water.
- Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, semi-cover the pan and cook gently for 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender, the chicken cooked through and the liquid slightly reduced.
- Season to taste.
- Add the peas, bring to the boil, immediately reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes until the peas are tender. Serve in bowls with crusty bread and butter.
I think I’ll give it a try this week.
The Milk Has Gone Off
I don’t think it is the milk, as two cartons; one of goat and the other of cow have both turned in the night. Now I know that a carton of Waitrose goat’s milk usually lasts about two weeks, so being two days past its sell by date wouldn’t be the problem. But the date on the cow’s milk was the 25th December.
So it doesn’t to me seem to be the milk, but the fridge. As various shelves have been broken by the tenants and there are no instruction manuals, it seems this is another chapter in the cooker saga, but with a different piece of equipment.
But this is not so serious, as I have a reliable wine fridge, which is not full, so I can use that instead for the milk. That fridge is also by Baumatic, so it isn’t their products that are a problem.
Whilst I had my shower I got thinking about this. As an Innocent smoothie was also solid, it could be that the fridge was too cold and just froze it solid. But the fridge was on a low setting, so I suspect that it’s gone kaput! It’s a Siemens, but then so was the train home on Saturday.
Snuggling Down
Today, I’d intended to do a lot more, but the cold weather was against it.
So I met my new cleaner and got her instructions on to what I needed to buy to do the cleaning! I then went to Maplins to get a long HDMI cable, so that I could watch the football on a large screen. I’ve actually mounted the television on a swivel, so that I can watch it either from the living room or the kitchen off it.
I’ll watch the football, whilst having supper of a microwaved cod Mornay from Marks and then get over the electric blanket and under the duvet. I’d like to wake a bit later, but hopefully still early enough to see the eclipse of the moon.
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Cooking is Easy
I finally cooked something properly last night. It was one of my version of a Jamie Oliver fish pie.
It was actually easier than in my previous house, but mainly because the work surfaces were laid out better with respect to the sink and the cooker.
The only problem I had was getting the oven to work, as I have no instruction manual and I couldn’t find the type of Baumatic cooker, I have on their web site. There is no indication on the front of the cooker what model it is either. Incidentally, I have the same problem with an old television. It should be law that the model number is easily found and that manuals are on the Internet. It perhaps in one thing with a television, but cookers can be dangerous things, so perhaps they are a totally different matter.
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Carluccio’s Offer
Carluccio’s are now giving out vouchers for a two for one offer on main courses to customers. There are a few conditions, but none would seem to apply to the gluten-free menu. They must be used between the 4th January and the 13th of February next year. I suspect that won’t be a problem for me, as I’m now well known in the Upper Street branch and eat there at least twice a week with my son.
Rear Window
I took this picture, through the rear window of a 277 bus yesterday.
Through the Rear Window of a 277 Bus
I then walked round Highbury Corner and had lunch in Carluccio’s in Upper Street, before getting my provisions in Waitrose at the Angel.
Snow in Upper Street
Home was just a walk to Upper Street, with my backpack loaded with veetables and the other heavy stuff and one of Waitrose’s Quick Check carriers with all the other stuff. Once on Upper Street, a 38 bus took me to within a hundred metres of home.
It was all so easy. And yet there were people still driving around looking for parking spaces.
I’m Moving Today
Or should I say, that the removers are picking up everything today. Tonight, I’ll be in a sleeping bag in my new house, ready for them to turn up on Wednesday. This may seem a bit silly, but last time we moved here, we were in a hotel and it was a disaster. So perhaps to prove to myself, I’m not a wreck, I’ll sleep on the floor. But it is a heated floor!
The other point is that I’d sooner spent the £100 or so for the hotel room on something nice for the house or a good meal. At least breakfast tomorrow is sorted, as there’s a Carluccio’s in Upper Street.
The Anonymous Widower 