Peeling Potatoes
Would anybody describe this as a go0d exercise for someone who has had a stroke? But I’m making one of Jamie Olivers’s fish pies and that needs a kilogram of potatoes to be peeled.
I peel potatoes with the potato in my left and the knife in my right, but then I’m right-handed. I also tip the potatoes into a largew bowl of cold water and in fact just retrieving the next potato is quite soothing. But the action of holding the potato and then twisting it so that the next bit of peel is removed, seems to be a good exercise.
It’s also rewarding to yourself, as you see your naked creations gradually filling the saucepan.
I think though that peeling potatoes is one of those mundane jobs, which because a knife is involved, you concentrate about to get done well and then get a large degree of satisfaction, when you complete it.
I found the same satisfaction, when I cleaned my shoes on Saturday. Perhaps stroke recovery is all about getting back to normal and that means doing all those day-to-day tasks.
Roasted Duck Fillets with Marmalade and Chilli Glaze
This recipe is from Waitrose and it follows a pattern of meat with a sweet sauce, that are gluten-free.
The ingredients I used were :-
- 1 tsp Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients A Dash of Sherry Vinegar – I used Aspall Cyder Vinegar
Pack of 2 Waitrose Skinless Free Range Duck Breast Fillets
1 orange
4 tbsp Waitrose Organic Seville Orange Marmalade – I used Tiptree
Pinch of dried red chilli flakes
These quantities make enough for two.
The method is as follows :-
- Preheat the oven to 190°C, gas mark 5. I used the top of the bottom oven on the AGA, Cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice from one half into a small bowl. Cut the remainder into 4 wedges.
- To make the glaze, combine the marmalade, chilli flakes and sherry vinegar with the orange juice and season lightly.
- Place the duck fillets in a porcelain dish and score the flesh in a crisscross pattern, then spread the glaze liberally over the top of each one. Arrange the orange wedges around the duck and place in the oven for 30-35 minutes (or a little less time if you prefer the duck slightly rare). Baste the duck and orange wedges with the glaze a couple of times during the cooking time.
- Transfer the duck and orange wedges onto 2 plates, drizzle with the glaze and serve with lightly steamed kale or green vegetables.
It does suggest that if you have time,that you allow the duck to marinate for 10-15 minutes to help the flavours develop and that this recipe would also work well with chicken fillets.
But I would prefer duck.
Felixstowe Ferry
As a child, I spent a lot of time at Felixstowe Ferry. Yesterday, I was going to the dentist in the town, so before, we went to have lunch and a stroll there. We also had an excellent lunch in the Ferry Boat Inn.
Ferry Boat Inn, Felixstowe Ferry
The pub looks very similar to how I remember it as a child, but then it was a Tolly Cobbold pub, and now it serves mainly Adnams. But the lettering on the wall is still the same.
Inside is rather different, as the barrels of beer are no longer stacked behind the bar and there is a restaurant. But I have a feeling that the clock on the wall is the same, as I can remember sitting there with my father and Pete, who was an usher at my weeding to C in 1968.
Today, we had a glass of Aspalls each, with sea bass for me and proper fish and chips for my companion. Note that the sea bass was wild, not farmed, and apparently landed at Colchester
Lunch at The Ferry Boat Inn, Felixstowe Ferry
They knew their gluten rules too!
It does seem that this part of East Suffolk is doing its best to fight its way out of the recession, by doing things well.
A Coeliac-Friendly Pier
As I walked down Southwold Pier, I saw this notice.
A Coeliac-Friendly Pier
If you can’t read it, it says that on the first Saturday of evry month, gluten-free fish and chips are served in the restaurants. I went to investigate and found that they had Aspalls on draught, coeliac-friendly crisps and that they always have gluten-free cakes available.
If you check the Pier’s web site, they have a Coeliac-UK logo on the front smd here‘s details of their fish and chips.
Perhsps we’re not so silly here in Suffolk.
The Brewing Capital of the World
Milwaukee in Wisconsin claims, this but they don’t produce beer, but some form of pasturised chemical fizz, that has about as much in common with real beer, as CAMRA would know it, as petrol has with the finest Scotch or Irish Whisky.
I should say though that a Suffolk friend, once claimed that the sign on the outskirts of Milwaukee, proclaiming the city to be the brewing capital of the world, had been painted with a Chad and the phrase “Wot About Southwold”. I suspect, if it had, he’d done it himself.
Southwold is a sleepy seaside resort on the Suffolk coast, with a pier, a nice beach,a lighthouse, proper beach huts, restaurants and pubs and of course Adnams brewery.
After Dunwich, we travelled a few kilometres up the coast and parked by the pier, before walking along the front and having a coffee.
The Butley Oysterage
In life, evreything chnges, except at the Butley Oysterage in Orford.
The Butley Oysterage at Orford
The decor is still the same, the menu is just a development of what C and I probably had, when we first ate in the restaurant in the early 1970s. Even the staff are related to those who served in those far-off days.
One thing that has changed is that I am now a coeliac, but no problem as they can accomodate that! I had Dover Sole with new potatoes.
It was good to eat my first meal in a restaurant since the stroke and there was no better place.
Lazy Day Foods
Just trying some of Lazy Day‘s ginger biscuits dipped in Belgian chocolate. Gluten-free of course! Obtainable from Waitrose.
Delicious! Extremely so!
It would seem that all their products are gluten-free, wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free and vegan.
Talk about one size to fit all to everybody’s advantage.
The Juice Carton Spanner
I have a weak left hand due to a stroke and find opening the plastic cartons for things like Innocent smoothies, a little difficult. But I’m getting better and I had no trouble a few minutes ago. However, there must be many others who do, as perhaps their hands are worse than mine because of arthritis or missing fingers.
But all the caps are the same and it should be possible to create a small plastic ring spanner that mates with the cap perfectly. Companies like Innocent might even give them away free with an advert on them, as they’d only cost a few pence each to make.
There are still so many things that need inventing!
I always remember my father had a wonderful pair of round-jawed pliers, that were always being used to open difficult bottles at home. I’v never seen anything like them since.
Ethnic Cooking
With my problems over the Digestive biscuits and their codex gluten-free wheat starch, it is worth looking at ethnic or traditional cooking around the world.
Indian – Thickened with chick-pea flour.
Chinese – Rice-based and often unthickened. My local and very safe and goodChinese restaurant uses potato flour, but what do they use in China.
Provencal – Everything is thickened by reduction.
Italian – Take out the bread, pasta and pizza and most Italian cooking is about pure and fresh ingredients.
Fish – Traditionally cooked plain or smoked. Look at some Scottish, Greek, Spanish and Italian traditions.
Sausages and cooked meat – Proper ones are usually just meat in Europe.
English – My mother and her generation used corn-flour. Didn’t we always have meat and two veg. It could also be argued that traditional English food is what is in season in the garden or has been trapped or killed, like rabbit or chicken.
So if you take out bread, a lot of traditional food is gluten-free.
We were all and I don’t just mean coeliacs, a lot healthier.
Costa at Addenbrookes
Costa in the Food Court used to have little packets of two Doves Farm cookies. Excellent and reliably gluten-free. Not any more though, but they have a gluten-free chocolate macaroon, which wasn’t bad, but not as good.
Surely in hospital they should cater for all!
The Anonymous Widower 