blogjam

I never like to apologise for any absences between posting, as doing so would be an assumption that a) anyone cares and that b) those who do are feverishly awaiting whatever it is I have to say. This is a touch arrogant for my liking, so I don’t bother.

However, having swapped the leafy environs of Kilburn, NW2 for the no-less salubrious surroundings of Holloway, N7 (yep, I’ve finally gone and bought myself a flat), and having waited the best part of a month for BT to attach a phone-line so I can connect to Mr & Mrs Internet (I’m still waiting, by the way), while at the same time attempting to finish a book, I feel as though leaving notice here to confirm that I’m not yet dead might not be considered inappropriate.

At least I’ve been cooking in my absence. My latest triumph involves plenty of blood, hair, and some earwax. Reports and photographs will follow once I’m back online.

Just a few months ago, quadruple-Emmy Award nominee Stephen Colbert was the featured entertainer at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. And now? Well, he’s bigging up Kittenwar on national TV. Crazy.

Generally, I’ve been pretty lucky with my health. I’ve never had a headache. Or suffered a nosebleed. Or broken a bone. And until quite recently, I’d never experienced a hangover, despite spending most of my twenties and much of my thirties determined to advance the onset of chronic liver damage.

Within the last few years, however, things have changed. For a start, I drink a lot less, but even when I do I still don’t suffer as most seem to – no pounding skull, no nausea, no sensitivity to loud noise – but the night before definitely makes its presence felt on the day that follows. I suffer from a kind of mental lethargy, staring at my computer screen for considerable amounts of time, before realizing with a start that I haven’t actually done anything for ten minutes. And then there’s the digestion issue. Without being too graphic, visits to the toilet become more frequent, more urgent, more painful and, to be frank, more… liquid. It’s not pretty.

So the search for a hangover cure has become paramount. I need something to ease my mind back into the day, something to tighten up the valves downstairs, and several years of intensive trial and error have led me in the direction of two remedies.

Stage one is ice cream, which I believe works for me for two reasons. Firstly, the coolness of product helps to counteract the inevitable post-alcohol sweat. Secondly, both dairy products and eggs are a valuable source of Vitamin B₁₂, a deficiency of which is normal in hangovers – my body is telling me it needs more, and ice-cream delivers.

Stage two is the imbibing of Pepto-Bismol, that remarkable, vibrantly pink remedy for bowel anguish. This stuff is weird, but it does the trick. Years ago, when I worked for outlandishly hirsute rockers The Cure, the band wouldn’t tour without stocking up first. I’d be at my desk, and the call would come in. “Fraser? We’re in Rio, and we’ve run out of Pepto. Can you Fedex us a crate?” And so I would.

Ice cream. Pepto-bismol. Pepto-bismol. Ice cream. After a while, it became obvious. I should combine the two. So I wrote to Proctor & Gamble, manufacturers of the liquid, and asked their opinion:

I am a long-time user of Pepto-Bismol. I like the fact that it is extremely pink, and find it very useful for coping with alcohol-induced bouts of digestive trauma.

But can you cook with Pepto-Bismol? I am thinking of making some Pepto-Bismol ice-cream, and want to know if there are any dangers involved.

Thanks in advance,

Fraser

With the kind of wild efficiency you’d expect from such a vast organisation, a response swiftly arrived.

Hello and thanks for your e mail.

Pepto-Bismol is a strictly controlled medicine and should only used as a remedy to relieve the symptoms of an upset stomach.

Kind regards,

Christine

Consumer Relations

Well, I’m none the wiser. No information. I guess there’s nothing to do but experiment; this is, after all, how advances in medical science are made. And so I gather together the ingredients.

Eggs (6 yolks). Vanilla pods (2). Milk (250ml). Pepto-Bismol (1 bottle). Cream (250ml). Sugar (50g). Simple. We start by splitting the vanilla pods and scraping out the tiny seeds.

The seeds get added to the cream, sugar and eggs as I rustle up a classic crème anglaise, the foundation of all good ice creams. This custard is taken off the heat as soon as it’s close to boiling (the point at which the liquid can curdle), and rapidly cooled over a bowl of iced water. Eagle-eyed readers will notice the tiny specs of vanilla in the picture below.

Gingerly – I’m not sure why, perhaps I expect some kind of unholy fusion – I pour in the medicine. Nothing happens. No chemical reaction. No-one dies.

Stirring the ingredients together, however, does reveal a serious problem. The passionate Pepto pink has diminished somewhat, leaving behind a more anaemic imitation.

Thankfully, help is at hand. In the far reaches of the blogjam pantry I’m able to score an ancient bottle of scarlet food dye, and add a capful to the brew.

Finally, I pour the compound into my trusty Panasonic Ice Cream Maker, light the blue touch paper, and retire.

While I’m waiting for the mixture to freeze, I revisit the Pepto-Bismol website, where a glance at the FAQ section reveals a previously unheralded paragraph:

Some people feel refrigerating makes the dose more pleasing to take, and that’s OK. However, you shouldn’t freeze the product.

Whoa! Waddya mean no freezing? I’ve just made ice-cream! I need to clarify the situation immediately, and write back to Proctor & Gamble.

I’ve just noticed that the FAQ on the Pepto-Bismol website says that while refrigerating the product is OK, one shouldn’t freeze it. Can you shed any light on why this might be?

This time, Penny responds.

We do not have any information about freezing Pepto-Bismol….we can only stress that as a controlled medicine it should only be used as directed on the bottle.

Kind regards,

Penny

Consumer Relations

What a quandary! Obviously the girls can’t endorse my ice-cream adventure, but they won’t give me any clues as to why it’s a bad idea either. Penny doesn’t have this information to hand, but P&G must have tested the theory, otherwise the warning on the website wouldn’t be there. What to do?

Eat it, of course! In my book, food without danger is like sex with a condom: it goes in the same entrance, but the experience is altogether less thrilling, less memorable, indeed less satisfying. I fetch the ice cream from the freezer, scoop out a chunk, and admire its pinky goodness.

The taste? Actually, it’s quite nice. The vanilla and sugar temper the metallic bitterness of the medicine, giving the end result a flavour not too dissimilar to black cherry. And as a hangover cure? Initial studies are encouraging, with no negative side-effects experienced as yet. A mild mid-week drinking session provided the first test, and while my cross-breed concoction certainly didn’t eliminate the suffering altogether, the benefits did not go unnoticed.

Obviously, if I’m to suggest to P&G that they approach Ben & Jerry’s to produce a commercial version, there will have to be proper clinical trials, with control groups and placebos and suchlike, but I’m hopeful. It’ll sit nicely on the shelves next to my paracetamol bacon roll.

Small-print: As as a controlled medicine, Pepto-Bismol should only be used as directed on the bottle. If in doubt, consult your pharmacist.

I have a theory about cookbooks, that publishers deliberately insert mistakes into the copy in order to give themselves ammunition in the battle against counterfeiters. Sir! I accuse you of ripping off my recipe for apple strudel! Only an imbecile would have followed my directions and used gravel in place of lemon zest! Your honour, I rest my case! And so on.

A perfect example is the case of Antony Bourdain’s recipe for clafoutis, in which temperature and oven-time directions are suggested that would make a pyromaniac blanch. More evidence for this theory can be found on page 455 of Hugh Fearnley’s Mammoth Meat Manual, in which our hippy-headed hero claims that 250 grams of minced pork is sufficient when constructing a sweetbread terrine. 250g? Not in my loaf tin, that’s for certain.

Anyway, let’s go back to the beginning. What is a sweetbread? Although it sounds like a delicious treat for children, some kind of wondrous, sugary bun, in reality it’s entirely made of meat, the kind of meat you get on the inside of animals. There are two kinds of sweetbreads, the thymus gland – whose primary function is the production of cells used by the immune system to battle infection – and the pancreas, which secretes the various enzymes that allow the body to break down digestible foods. The precise location of the pancreas is demonstrated by our model below.

The pancreas I managed to procure came not from a female human, sadly, but from a Dutch calf, courtesy once again of the artisan butchers at Kent & Sons, St John’s Wood. Fully aware that these kinds of innards are of a highly perishable nature, I rushed home to examine my freshly-slaughtered bounty. As you can see from the picture below, it’s not nearly as yellow as suggested by the diagram above.

First up, the pancreas is soaked overnight. This removes any traces of blood from the tissue, leaving our mucilaginous friend all pristine and ready for action.

Next, we simmer the pancreas in boiling water for five minutes, which tightens up the flesh and makes the next part of the procedure easier: once the meat has cooled, any cartilage, connective tubes and tougher pieces of membrane are carefully picked off, leaving behind only the finest, most delectable tissue.

And this is where I think Hugh gets it wrong. Lining my rather lovely Le Creuset Silicone Cook ‘n Bake 24cm Rectangular Loaf Mould (bought for me last Christmas by Blogjam reader Alex in America – and don’t forget, kids, I do have a Wishlist) – with slices of streaky bacon and a layer of pork spiced with sage, thyme, salt, pepper and port, I carefully lay the first sweetbread layer down.

If I had taken Hugh’s recommendation to use 250g of minced pork seriously, I’d be struggling right now. In fact, I’d have virtually none of this so-called “forcemeat” left to complete the next layer. Thankfully, however, I’d decided in advance that such a paltry amount wouldn’t be sufficient, and prepared 750g of the stuff. And guess what? It turned out to be precisely the right amount. I swear, someone should give me a cottage and some cows.

After ninety minutes in the oven and a night in the fridge (carefully weighed down by a house brick wrapped in silver foil), my terrine is ready to be turned out. Here’s an aerial photograph:

I cut a slice and serve it up with a spoonful of Mrs Bridges spicy apple chutney. Hugh recommends his broad bean puree but, to be honest, I fear it’s a little bland. Stick to the meat recipes, HFW, that’s what I reckon.

And the taste? Well, it was exquisite; a saliva-inducing symphony of succulence, a tapestry of taste, as it were. And so I took it to work, to share amongst my friends and colleagues.

But virtually no-one wanted any.

Here’s a question: where in London can I buy kosher salt? This, for the uninitiated, is the type of salt that’s used to extract blood from animal flesh during kosher butchery. It’s not kosher in the sense that its production has adhered to the guidelines laid down in Torah’s Book of Leviticus, because in that sense, nearly all salt is kosher, even the ordinary table stuff.

I hope that’s clear. Anyway: if anyone knows, let me know.

Thank you.

Two interesting things happened to me this week.

1. On the roof opposite my window at work, I watched as a seagull ate a dead pigeon. If this were already not a startling enough example of Mother Nature at her most macabre, the seagull was adding to the sense of dementia by gleefully ripping strips off the dead bird and flailing them around in the air, blood and sinew spraying out in an arc. Lovely. Bon appetit.

2. I became a proper author. Not that I have anything published yet, of course, apart from a brief paragraph on the unlikely use of special-needs children as entertainment at last year’s super-bowl, but I still feel I can safely make the claim. Why? Because alongside P.D. James, Martin Jarvis, Bill Bryson and Hugh Fearnley Whatshisname, I’ve been given my very own author’s page on the website of esteemed literary agents Greene & Heaton Ltd. G&H describe their authors as being “prominent in their field”, which I figure must make me an expert in the ways of kitten cuteness.

But then you probably knew that already.

Dans Le Noir is a restaurant that serves food in the dark:

Experience the unique interaction between clientele and guides as your food and wine are served in total darkness. Awaken and train your senses as you enjoy the tastes, aromas, flavours and textures of our exquisite creative cuisine.

I like the idea of my senses being awakened. It sounds vaguely erotic. So I book a table.

The Restaurant in the dark. In the dark.

The first thing you notice when entering Dans Le Noir are the reviews. In the manner of all good high street curry houses, the walls are lined with the framed excerpts of favourable reports, in this case a series of searingly pretentious quotes proclaiming the restaurant’s lack of pretension. It’s not a good start, and neither is the wine list, which features both roman alphabet and braille listings. This is a nice touch, except that the Braille is printed on the page, not embossed. In other words, a blind person couldn’t read it.

After ordering a bottle of wine in the well-lit bar, we select our meals. One can choose either specific courses from the a la carte menu, or asked to be ‘surprised’ for a few pounds more. Given that every review I’ve seen of the restaurant leads me to the conclusion that the surprise choices are taken from the same menu as the non-surprise selections, I opt for the former: three tastes of foie gras start the ball rolling, fricassae of chicken in riesling sauce, smoked potato mash, buttered leeks and vegetable crisps provide the bulk of the meal, while chocolate truffle pavé and Baileys ice cream round everything off. Sounds lovely.

And then it’s into the darkness. We meet our ‘guide’ (they’re not called waitresses, of course) and are led, though a series of thick black curtains, into the dining room where, like it says on the tin (printed in braille, no doubt), it’s absolutely pitch black. You have no idea where your fellow diners are sitting, how many are at the table, how big the room is, or indeed if the guy in the next seat has stripped naked and is rubbing asparagus spears into his groin. It’s genuinely disconcerting. Pouring wine becomes a Krypton Factor-style test of nerve and dexterity, and despite inserting three fingers into the glass to gauge the level, I still manage to soak the tablecloth. Luckily enough no-one can see this, of course, although our guide notices straight away. Pretty soon our first course arrives.

Three tastes of fois gras

It’s not easy, guiding foie gras into your mouth when you can’t see it, the cutlery or your plate, and pretty soon I’ve abandoned any kind of manners and am shovelling the stuff onto my fork with my fingers, scrabbling round the plate to locate any stray morsels. If you could see it, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. But you can’t, so it probably doesn’t matter.

Fricassae of chicken in Riesling sauce, smoked potato mash, buttered leeks and vegetable crisps

It’s about this time that I begin to get suspicious of the entire experience. A fricassae is either poultry or meat cut into pieces and stewed in gravy, but why has it been chosen for the menu? I suspect the answer has little to do with culinary adventure and everything to do with texture. It’s mushy, so is the mash, the leeks are soft and the vegetable crisps are nothing of the sort. The starter was pretty much the same, and the desert that follows is also a single-texture non-event. I suspect that the restaurant’s keenness to avoid performing Heimlich maneuvers in pitch darkness has something to do with this, so everything has the texture of baby food.

Dans Le Noir is a truly interesting experience in sensory deprivation, but the grub is underwhelming and bland. The restaurant would probably argue that because you’re denied sight, your other senses compensate and you appreciate the food in new and pleasurable ways, but this simply isn’t true: your senses are jumping all over the place, trying to adjust to an environment they’ve not experienced before, and it becomes altogether impossible to concentrate on the flavour.

In the end, this is probably what the restaurant want: the food is indubitably poor and the waitress guide claims to “know nothing about wine” when queried about getting a new bottle. The experience is the event, the food is very much an afterthought, and the fact of the matter is that many punters will be so wrapped up in the former that they neglect to notice the impotence of the latter.

I was bored, so halfway through a delicious packet of chocolate minstrels I wrote an e-mail to Masterfoods, the company who manufacture not only the aforementioned, but also M&Ms, the Mars Bar, and all sorts of other examples of classic British confectionery.

Hello.

I have a great idea for a new chocolate product. You should produce some white chocolate minstrels and some dark chocolate minstrels and combine them in one packet.

The name? Black & White Minstrels.

I would buy them, and so would all all my friends.

What do you think?

All the best,

Fraser

Before too long, they got back to me.

Thank you for contacting us regarding GALAXY Minstrels,

We receive many letters from the general public suggesting new and interesting ideas, together with lots of feedback and comments on our current product ranges. However, all our ideas are generated in house and through our agencies, often many years in their planning. Not all ideas are feasible due to technology restraints, and may be shelved until a future date.

We continually carry out research into the needs and requirements of our consumers and we record all the comments received on our products.

If you need any further information or advice please contact our Consumer Careline on the telephone number below and one of our Consumer Care Advisors will be more than happy to help you.

I’d be lying if I didn’t report that this e-mail didn’t make me slightly angry. While the speed of response is to be commended, the text is obviously a copy and paste job, designed to react to the widest possible range of customer suggestions without ever properly addressing an individual’s specific idea.

Honestly. The very minimum a company should do, when someone has spent literally minutes tailoring an e-mail designed explicitly to waste their time, is to respond in similar fashion.

This country is going to the dogs.

So I’m at a pagan spring party in South London, talking to the nice doctor lady. For some reason or other I mention kittenwar, and her eyes light up. She tells me that the only reason that hospital staff are able to stay awake during marathon shifts is because they’re playing on the site.

Then she asks for my autograph.

I marked my 40th birthday by cooking up a couple of gargantuan pork pies. These meaty beasts each contain fifteen pounds worth of prime English pork and Spanish pancetta, plus the usual smattering of herbs and spices (sage, thyme, peppers white and black, mace and a smidgen of chili powder).

The most interesting thing about the celebrations, however, was how neatly pigeonholed people have me. Of the 15 birthday cards I received, 11 featured pictures of cats and kittens, while the bulk of my presents were food related, apart from the two cat-a-pult sets I received from completely different people: scorpion vodka, weasel coffee, foie gras, several very nice bottles of wine (including one of 1966 vintage) a personally signed copy of HFW’s River Cottage Diary, a lovely set of crockery, and a wonderful chocolate recipe book from Green & Blacks.

Am I really that predictable?

Given that today I seriously considered spending £85 on a sandwich, then probably.

Given that tomorrow I’m going to eat in a pitch-black restaurant with blind waiters, then definitely.

Maybe.