We Bought The Farm

See You Next Year

Well, as the long winter nights close in (sun-up to sun-down is less than eight hours today), it's time to switch into holiday mode. It's been a hectic month, but tomorrow's my last working day and after that we're off for a couple of weeks, a week in Scotland for Christmas with family and then a week up in Norfolk for some time in the country and New Year with good friends. All of this will be far from broadband, probably far from the Internet, as it should be.

2006 is looking bright. I have news I want to share but can't (no, we're not having another baby), so I'll hope to be able to report back in early January.

Until then, radio silence around here. Wishing you all the most joyous of holidays. May we not lose sight of the reason for our celebrations.

Tasting Notes

We went last night for a Slow Food event at a new-this-year Swedish restaurant called Glas. The menu for the night was billed as a 'grazing menu', and the dishes were all surprises, although we were promised gravadlax and venison. Enjoyable evening...unsurprisingly, Slow Food is full of foodie people and the conversations were wide-ranging. I like the convivial table; you show up, knowing few if any of the people there (there are about 600 Slow Foodies in London), and the common thread and atmosphere holds the whole group together.

If I have complaints, well...for a foodie event, I would have expected more presentation of the dishes. An explanation of what we were eating, how Swedish it really was (being right in Borough Market, the owner told us that her chef wanted the freedom to experiment with the high-quality ingredients on offer)...you know, a little more context. The owner did answer all the questions we had one to one, and I suppose a presentation might have interrupted the conversations, so all was definitely not lost. Another grumble is that the waitstaff didn't know the dishes, which reflects a bit poorly on restaurant organisation, especially if these were regular menu items.

On the plus side, the food was delicious. Herring, roast salmon and the gravadlax, some spaetzle-like noodles made with mustard and served with mushrooms, guinea fowl with bacon, the venison in a licorice sauce that had only the slightest aftertaste of licorice over a berry sweet coulis. No faults there. Plenty of food with the grazing menu shared out among small groups of people. A shot of snaps (or aquavit) and a Finnish lager were included in the prix fixe, as was a tasty little morsel of soft gingerbread served with ice cream and a good cup of coffee.

With two small kids, we haven't really made the most of our membership this year, but it was definitely a special treat to get out and have some grown-up time, especially ahead of the holidays.

Also on the tasting front, I just thought I'd report back on the homebrews. The blonde, now that it's settled a bit, is tasting really lovely. It's a struggle not to drink it all up! It's got a grapefruit nose, which is what I was after and which Cascades are known for. I might try another US hop for the next batch of this one. Drinks very easy; not a citrus taste, and that nose dissipates quickly into a beerier flavour. The Poor Richard is more complex. Very grainy. Not corny, so it's probably the load of brown malt. It has what I would call a 'soy sauce' taste; sweet, but soy-ey. Not unpleasant. I am curious to know how this one is going to develop. I guess there will be some left in the barrel come Christmas, so it should have a good stand, which it probably warrants given its complexity.

Still giving some thought to brewing this weekend, but it's hard to get motivated with the cellar full. Still, would be worth it come January to have another vat ready to tap, if the resolutions don't get the better of me. I have Friday off, which means I could get to the brew shop and be ready to start early on Saturday.

Three Little Beers

Here they are, my babies.

The one on the left is my blonde ale. 4.6% or thereabouts. I made this batch with Fuggles and Challenger hops for bittering and then Cascades for aroma. I tasted it at barrelling last night. Finally some complex citrus. Great nose, but chewy...that would be the yeast.

In the middle is the Poor Richard's Ale. FG of 1014, so about 5% by volume. It's nutty, malty. The hops weren't in strong evidence (Kent Goldings). It was tasty and full bodied; it's hard to get a real feel when it's so yeasty. I totally missed the OG on this one, so it might be a bit out of balance. I'm tempted to go for a bigger mash tun by sticking a valve in a larger picnic cooler we have so I can do bigger beers.

And on the right is my porter, just for comparison. 5.6%. Bottle conditioned. This is a lovely drink - possibly my best ever beer. The judges at the competition said it drank thin for its gravity. To each his own, I guess. It's complex, hoppy, beautifully conditioned and has a hint of the molasses I added.

I guess the two new beers will be drinking in a few days...I force carbonated them manually, so they're a bit turbid at the moment. But the last batch of the blonde cleared beautifully by the time I got down to the last few pints.

Looking ahead, the fermenters are empty again. I might get something on I can get through the primary and then leave over the holidays in the secondary. Maybe another go at the porter.

Oxtails

One thing I love about winter is the return of hearty fare. I can dust off my coq au vin, my cassoulet (which actually had a command performance summer airing this year) and my boeuf bourguignonne recipes, heat up the kitchen, fill the house with the wonderful smell of long stewing meat and slosh plenty of red wine around. It makes the weeks pass faster to imagine what comes next weekend.

This week memory took me back to Brazil, and the taste of lovely rabada, an oxtail stew served with watercress. We used to have it at work about once a month, a slithery plate of succulent meat stew glistening with a pool of, well, fat. But it's absolutely delicious. The cress, especially the Brazilian kind, is stalky and spicy and a perfect addition to the thick soupy stew.

Google took me to this recipe, which sounds reasonably like what I am aiming for. The recipe omits a temperature for cooking, but I'm going to stick this in the over for 3 hours at 150C (300F).

Rabada with Cress

Serve with white rice dabbed with a bit of butter.

How could this not work?

And now, if you'll excuse me, my kitchen awaits!

Advent

So, with the coming of December, thoughts turn to Christmas. It's pretty unavoidable with the little ones, especially with C at school. She's been cast as an angel in the school play, and she's been working on her songsheet.

I have to say I admire the choice of music. Some non-Christmas stuff (a variation on Twinkle, Twinkle, and "If You're Happy And You Know It"), Away in a Manger (the English melody), and... Negro Spirituals! They're doing "This Little Light of Mine" and "Go Tell It On The Mountain").

That latter just takes me right back to my childhood, with the old Christmas LPs, stacked on Dad's old portable stereo with the disc changer, played so many times we knew exactly where the skips were. It takes me back to Mahalia Jackson, bolt out of the blue. If you're going to sing "Go Tell It On The Mountain", you've got to sing it with soul. I cringe to think what the schoolkids will do with it, but at least one little girl will know how it's meant to be sung.

And thanks to iTunes, we're now listening to one of Mahalia's Christmas records. I didn't know anything about her; she was just a part of the soundtrack of my childhood, but a quick look reveals her star is still shining more than 30 years after her death. And the torch is passed to another generation.

And if you're going to have the house full of that beautiful music, well, it's pretty hard to resist the Christmas spirit. We're going to be in Scotland over Christmas, so we're not planning to get a tree, but we do have some decorations on the go; the advent calendars are in full swing, and thanks to last month's long cold snap, I am already in the mood. Hurry, Christmas, hurry fast. Isn't that what those Chipmunks sang?