About fish
Apparently, we're surrounded by all
sorts of great, fresh fish. Yet we eat just cod, haddock and prawns,
in the main. They account for a huge percentage of the fish sold, and
it's little wonder that certain species are over fished, stocks are
falling, and there's a load of perfectly tasty stuff thrown back into
the sea because no-one wants it.
BLISS has her own fish rules: no heads,
no tails, no bones, and definitely no faffing about.
I've never resolved to cook my way
through a cookbook before. Mostly because the very first recipe gets
thoroughly mangled before the list of ingredients is completed:
“Don't have any of that or those.
I'll use these and this instead. Don't much like that, I'll change it
for one of these, and we'll skip the salt and / or sugar and double
the vinegar / lemon / lime” and so on.
But I've decided to slowly work my way
through Rick Stein's seafood lover's guide. I love seafood, and the
book is geographically based, on a trip around the coasts of the UK.
There's a couple of rules: (A) I won't slavishly follow the recipes,
but will try to stick to them as far as is reasonable (I don't weigh,
(unless it's flour for bread or pizza) and I don't measure (unless
it's water and yeast for bread or pizza)), and there'll have to be
some substitution of unavailable ingredients; and (B) so that BLISS
and DLL can at least try everything to see if they like it, there'll
be no meat, so cod with bacon and parley cream (say) will become cod
with parsley cream.
Almost forgot. (C) never shop for
recipes. Shop for what's in good nick and the best value and in
season and local (and all that worthy stuff) and make the recipe fit.
Mad Dogs
The concluding episode of series one.
More loose ends than something riddled with loose ends, on loose end
Tuesday, in The International Year of the Loose End. My turn to hide
my head behind my hands, because I hardly dared to glance at BLISS.
Loose ends are not her thing.
Her favourite series conclusion was to
Six Feet Under, where the future of every major character was
summarised in the closing montage. Surety. Closure. She approved. In
spades.
Loose ends and cliffhangers? Not the
way to her heart. There was some laughter, but of the nervous
variety, as we awaited the potential explosion. Naturally, series two
episode one has been postponed, in protest.
The TV awards...
...just confirmed my point of view,
that there's an infinite number of better ways to spend your time.
Among the winners were:
- The ever punchable Ant and Dec (with endorsements from: their mothers, Robbie Williams, Simon Cowell, and Alan Shearer – the lowest value endorsements since some poor soul called Mad Frankie Frazer as a character witness);
- Dr Who (a revived children's programme) – best drama?
- Strictly Come Dancing – I'd rather squirt lemon juice into my eyeballs than watch a millisecond;
- Coronation Street – a soap opera, the equivalent of doing jigsaw puzzles or staring aimlessly into space;
- Best entertainment? I'm a celebrity...get me out of here! I think just about sums things up.
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