Robin Ellis's Blog, page 9
March 8, 2018
Cauliflower and Leek Soup
A report came out recently–another report, I know!
It said a more effective way to keep our weight stable is by taking care with the way we eat–not be stuck counting the calories.
The recipe below is an example of how one can eat simply, healthily, deliciously and inexpensively.
Each to his/her own, of course, but for me, the dish would be COLD before I’d finished counting calories–and that’s assuming I could figure out HOW to count them.
Caulis are looking handsome at the moment with their big, open faces urging you to take them home.
When I checked the price, I didn’t need any persuading and bought a large organic one for just under three euros.
It stretched over two nights.
A simple gratin with juicy black olives one night…
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Not much left!
and this equally simple soup with leeks, the next.
I had steamed the florets for the gratin–but hadn’t used them all. So I only had to soften the leeks before adding the cauliflower and the stock. (If you’re starting the soup from scratch, just add the raw cauliflower florets.)
Meredith was on a long internet conference call, so this made a perfect light supper for her in front of the computer.
She grew up thinking that cauliflower was the biggest DUD vegetable of all. Fortunately, she has had a conversion!
Cauliflower happens to be good for us–like its close relatives, broccoli, brussel sprouts and cabbage.
According to Mr. Google, one serving contains 77 percent of the recommended daily value of vitamin C. It’s also a good source of vitamin K, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, fiber, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, potassium and manganese.
So there!
We eat it because we LIKE it!
INGREDIENTS
1 cauliflower–florets separated into medium sized bits
3 leeks–outer parts removed, cleared of dirt and sliced thinly
1 oz butter
3 tbs olive oil
2 bay leaves
1 liter organic vegetable stock (I use stock cubes.)
salt & pepper
Melt the butter and oil in a large saucepan.
Add the leeks and sweat them gently, covered, until soft.
Add the cauliflower and bay leaves and mix well.
Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, then turn the temperature down.
Simmer until cauliflower is tender–not much more than ten minutes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Lift out a few small florets and liquidize the rest.
Drop a few of the whole florets in each bowl when you serve the soup.
February 25, 2018
My toes–tiddely pom…
We awake to the heaviest frost of the year.
The burgeoning green of an early Spring was covered in a hoary white.
I had gone to bed feeling foolish–wearing an extra warming layer of long-sleeved t-shirt–because the heating tank was EMPTY–the radiators resolutely cold. No hot water either!
I took my eye off the gauge!
The gods were laughing–it was Friday afternoon–NO delivery over the weekend.
Our plan for the evening had been to see I, Tonya—the new biopic about the American figure skater, Tonya Harding, first American woman to land a triple axel in competition (1991):
She’s not only remembered for that, however.
Anyway we stuck to our plan–warm cinema and–post film, a welcoming bistro. We snuggled down in the cosy fug of Salle 4.
The irony–ha ha–was we’d come to see a film largely played out on ICE.
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The real Tonya Harding with the actress who portrays her, Australian Margot Robbie.
It was a good watch–but a constant reminder of what we’d be returning home to–an icy cold house.
Back in the fifties, in leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb, I grew up in an icy cold house–no central heating.
Coke boiler in the kitchen, a coal fire in the living room–and keep the doors closed and stay close to the hearth.
Electric heaters upstairs–but careful with them–they are expensive! Better just one bar.
When it turned FREEZING–which seemed often back then–every possible layer went onto the bed.
I remember tensing my whole body as I climbed between the covers, gradually relaxing, as the human hot-water bottle heated up the ice cold sheets.
Che–ooooh!
Meredith grew up near Chicago–a city famous for its wind chill and snow. BUT–and it’s a big BUT–with central heating.
However, no …upmanship–last night we both stiffened the lip, filled the hot water bottles and piled on the layers.
This morning we get our reward–the first baby daffodils and crocus are showing their faces to a brisk but sunny world.
Fluffernut (aka Midnight) doesn’t seem too sure it will last.
The Oil Man Cometh tomorrow–we trust!
The more it snows (Tiddely pom),
The more it goes (Tiddely pom),
The more it goes (Tiddely pom),
On snowing.
And nobody knows (Tiddely pom),
How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),
How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),
Are growing.
from the little song originally created by AA Milne in the book The House at Pooh Corner
February 20, 2018
Talking Turnips with my Doctor
First question–before I even sit down in my doctor’s office to discuss my annual comprehensive test results:
“What did you do with that turnip?”
Shows where my priorities lie!
Flashback: We’d bumped into each other at the vegetable stall in Lautrec a few days earlier.
I’d not seen Michel there before. Usually he’s on the road doing his rounds at that hour, making house calls.
He had bought a single medium size turnip–the beautiful purple and cream variety.[image error]
It was the singularity of the purchase that intrigued.
And turnips were on my mind.
The day after the Lautrec meeting, a stall-holder in Castres market had tucked two black turnips into the brown paper bag holding my other purchases from him.
“Cadeau!” he’d said [Gift!]–a generous gesture, as I hadn’t spent more than five euros.
Ungenerously, I could speculate that this variety is be more difficult to sell on its looks.
Nonetheless, an encouragement to return the following week to his excellent stall.
Michel, the GP–bucked by the way our rendezvous had kicked off–and delighted by the diversion from yet another routine examination, launches into a detailed account of what he did with his beautiful cousin of my navet noire [black turnip].
The test results are shoved firmly onto the back burner–while he regales me with how he made his ravishing “poisson au sauce de navet” [fish with turnip sauce]. (!!!)
A pause, while we both metaphorically digest this delicacy.
We then both get up– as a gesture to getting on with the real purpose of the visit–and edge towards the examination couch.
The turnips will not lie down though.
Happy for further delay, I ask Michel about what to do with my navet noire.
The upshot being not too different from what to do with his purple-cheeked cousin.
As he finally gets to listen to the interior workings of my chest through his stethoscope, I mention that to describe someone as a turnip in England is not polite.
“Oui, it has other less-than-complimentary meanings in French too,” he says.
Then he chuckles as he indicates the weighing machine.
“Natalie [his wife] will be amused when she hears about our meeting–be sure to tell Meredith, too!”
We resume our seats at his desk and he writes out my quarterly prescription; leafing through my results, he gives me the thumbs up.
Just before I leave he says:
“You bought a cabbage last Friday. I love cabbage. What did you do with it?”
January 4, 2018
New Year advice for the writer from Muriel Spark–I realize I have a head start!
Happy and productive New Year à tout le monde!
And–as they say here in France–surtout Bonne Santé—above all, good health!
There was a piece in The Guardian yesterday puffing a new book of hints on writing by well-known authors.
It caught my eye, because I’ve been feeling the need of bit of a push to get started again.
Four days into 2018 seems as good a time as any to re-launch with this my 700th post—spurred on by advice from Muriel Spark:
GET A CAT
If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially on some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat.
Alone with the cat in the room where you work….The cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle under the desk lamp.
The light from a lamp…gives the cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding.
And the tranquillity of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impeded your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost.
You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, and very mysterious.
Ben, our mercurial black-as-black-can-be cat, has taken to snoozing on some papers to my left on the desk.
Nothing much disturbs him, as Ms Spark observes, and he is a reassuring, friendly presence.
So I realise I’m ahead of the game. I already have a cat and replacements if–heaven forbid–I should need them.
No excuse then.
To paraphrase John Cleese’s less-than-polite encouragement to the diners at Fawlty Towers Hotel: Get on with your writing!
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Just checking!
Wish me luck!
Filed under: other sides to this life
December 12, 2017
My granny’s bloomers
Last night I sat unknowingly on the small piece of 90% cacao chocolate.
I have it after meals–along with 2 dried apricots–the untreated, darker ones–and a dried fig.
When I rose from the sofa, Meredith thought I’d had a heavy nose bleed–thinking the dark material on my face and hand was blood.
She was greatly relieved when she realized it was chocolate—but dismayed that there was a substantial stain on the sofa cushion.
She told me not to panic and cooly wiped the chocolate off the sofa.
When I got up a second time, OH calamity, there was the stain—restored!
I wiped my hand across the seat of my black sweat pants–and realized that the wretched piece of chocolate had stuck like a limpet to my nicely warmed-up bottom, and was still a threat to cushions everywhere I sat.
I cursed–upset by my stupidity–and annoyed that I’d missed out eating the chocolate.
Meredith calmly came to the rescue, a second time.
The trousers went in the wash basket.
This morning I put on a second pair of sweats/trousers that are very comfortable–but have no pockets to keep a handkerchief.
I had to tuck my hanky in the chorded belt that keeps them up.
This triggered a memory:
It transported me to Eastbourne in the 1950s where my beloved grandmother (Granny) lived in a room at a seafront hotel. She used to stand with her back to the gas fire, whip up her skirts, exposing a large amount of pink silk and warm herself, sometimes retrieving the hanky she kept in the elastic round her knickers.
Knickers is not an accurate description–undergarments would be nearer the mark.
I remember…Ahh! could they have been bloomers?
The arrangements, as one might delicately call them, were such that there was nothing in the least shocking about this course of action–even to a seven-year-old.
Not shocking–more surprising to witness.
I had never seen mother do anything like this.
So not knickers exactly–but good old-fashioned bloomers.
I was more careful with the chocolate tonight.
.
Filed under: other sides to this life
November 28, 2017
Road to Lautrec–Radio play on BBC4 Nov 30 14h15 GMT
Road to Lautrec–a 45-minute play for radio–is broadcast this Thursday 30th November at 2.15pm on BBC Radio 4.
You can also listen on line: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gkcsm)
We spent two delightful days earlier in October rehearsing and recording this play under the guidance of one of the Beeb’s most famous radio directors, Jane Morgan.
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The cast (l to r): Bronte Tadman, Pierre Elliott, Jane Morgan (Director), Nigel Anthony (wonderful comic relief), me, Emma Cunniffe and Cheryl Campbell.
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At the Acton studio recording with Emma Cunniffe, recently seen in the West End in Queen Anne.
Radio 4 describes the play this way: Three oddly-assorted people from a London cookery course visit the village of Lautrec in southwestern France during its annual pink garlic festival, staying with a local ex-pat [me! A.k.a. Colin].
What follows is a comic romance of gastronomy, lost love and prodigious amounts of garlic and rosé wine–played out in an extraordinary place, under the shadow of Brexit.
“Ah, Lautrec, I remember it well,” says Mary (Cheryl Campbell) as she recalls a memorable trip to southwestern France as a student decades earlier–and a certain French boy….
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It was a joy to work with Cheryl Campbell–winner of both a BAFTA and Olivier Awards.
The production team all travelled to Lautrec (my home for over 18 years) in August, to record the real sounds and ambience of the garlic festival, which form the backdrop for the drama.
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The village dinner is a high point, and about one thousand visitors and residents attend. The radio crew includes (on the left) Matt Peaty, the sound recordist; (our friend Marc Urquhart); Frank Stirling, the producer on the back right; Jane Morgan, the director and veteran radio director; and Douglas Livingstone, the author who had to come up with a drama about all this!
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I meet the village Mascot.
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L’ail rose de Lautrec–Pink Garlic from Lautrec–the signature crop of our village and famous throughout France.
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The longest strand of Garlic in the world–over 23 meters!
Here is the winning strand being paraded down the road in Lautrec to the village outdoor dinner:
Somehow Douglas made a touching story about all this….Hope you’ll tune in!
Filed under: other sides to this life
September 16, 2017
Jersey, me and Diabetes–EVENT! OCTOBER 11th and 12th at the Merton Hotel, Jersey
You’re invited to the Channel Island of Jersey, just off the Brittany coast–to a special charity event for Diabetes Jersey at the Merton Hotel, Oct 11 or 12, 2017 (it’s repeated Wednesday & Thursday evenings).
Recipes and Recollections–A Delicious Night with Robin Ellis
Here’s the info from the Merton Hotel’s website.
(My books.)
On stage with me will be Robert Hall, a senior BBC correspondent, who will pepper me with questions while I season various demonstration dishes.
We’ll talk inevitably about Poldark, cooking, diabetes, France and Fawlty Towers perhaps…[image error][image error]
(Robert was John Cleese’s “co-star of choice” when he appeared at the Opera House for his sell-out Audience with John Cleese evenings.)
The one vegetable I will not be cooking sadly is a Jersey Royal potatoes.
I remember my mother preparing these jewels of the potato family back in the fifties, when we’d enjoy a feast of “Jersey Royals” with a piece of white fish from the Macfisheries shop at the entrance to the Golders Green Tube Station.
They needed little addition–white sauce would have been an insult to the delicate taste. Perhaps a knob of butter and a sprinkle of parsley. Ma used to serve them unpeeled.
Delicious–but not a goer for me now.
Potatoes are one of the “whites” I avoid as a type 2 diabetic; their concentrated carbohydrate puts them off-limits.
Others are: white rice, white pasta, white bread and white flour—refined carbs.
Don’t lose heart though–I shall be cooking up a storm…BROWN basmati rice is fine occasionally, as is wholewheat pasta, certain whole wheat and rye breads and chick pea flour.
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Cooking school in Lautrec always started with a glass of bubbly.
I’ll be preparing the most popular recipe in my entire repertoire: No-potato fishcakes:
Also planning on preparing no meat, too-simple-to-believe Red Bean Chili:
A delicious black olive dip from Provence called Tapinade:
And a lovely cold summer soup–Chilled Cucumber, gifted to me by my old friend and fellow Poldark alumnus, Donald Douglas (the fiery and thoroughly untrustworthy Captain McNeil, who pursued me as Ross Poldark, up hill and down dale, with no success–so finally gave up–and settled in a house an hour north of us here.
Stuffed peppers are also an easy favorite I’ll be demonstrating:
Dinner is included in the event– and the kitchens of the Merton hotel are putting on a banquet with recipes from my cookbooks–so you can try them out!
I’ll be autographing books too, of course.
Here’s further info for reservations and tickets.
I’m looking forward to my first visit to Jersey and so is Meredith, my wife.
On va se voir bientôt, j’espère!
See you there…!
Filed under: Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Poldark, Recipes, Robin Ellis
September 15, 2017
The key to the church…
…is in our hands!
Signed and sealed–the deal is done, completed; the church next to our rectory is ours.
I find this an astonishing thing to write.
Owning a church was never an ambition–I have no allegiance–not since spending three hours on my knees at St Jude’s Church Hampstead Garden Suburb (High Anglican) for Good Friday service in the late 1950’s.
An act of pure exhibitionism–no wonder I became an actor.
In 1990 we fell in love with this house, a presbytère (the priest’s residence) with its church just next door–and a cemetery (could come in handy later).
The church is close–a few steps from our front gate.
A benign presence in our fairy tale since 1990–and an everyday one since moving here permanently in 1999.
Twice a year–on Easter Monday and at All Saints (November)–the curé of Lautrec came to say mass to a dwindling number of parishioners.
Funeral services were held from time to time, before burial in the cemetery à coté.
Our neighbors, Alice and Pierrette, made a terrible racket ringing the bells on Christmas Eve–frightening Père Noel out of his wits. The reindeer bolted!
About 15 years ago, a small piece of the vaulted ceiling fell–and the church was closed permanently–and essentially abandoned.
There is a slowly widening fissure in the outer walls one of the side chapels. Birds and bats took up residence inside.
Nonetheless it withstood whirlwind and tempest–and still stands–almost intact.
We are proud of our modest church–not old by French standards–built around 1860.
But three years ago the fairy tale took a less than benign turn.
Our newly-elected Mayor, a local garlic farmer whose parents are buried in the cemetery, announced he was keen to sell it!
All churches in France have been the property of the state since 1905–when an act separating Church and State became law in France.
(Would it were true in the UK–what are the bishops doing in the House of Lords?)
Lautrec needed the money and the now-derelict church was a burden, according to Monsieur le Maire. He was well within his rights.
Several buyers were interested in converting it to a domestic space–and thus becoming our cheek-by-jowl neighbors.
Our hackles were roused.
After an anxious year, we agreed to the asking price and shook hands with the Mayor.
Whoopee, we thought.
That was over two years ago!
French bureaucracy is a world beater–the notaire and the mayor wholeheartedly agreed on Thursday morning, as we both signed the final act of sale and shook hands again.
He wants the cash to improve the primary school and other good works around the village.
Felicitations to him, felicitations to Lautrec and finally–felicitations to us!
Thus opens a new chapter….
Filed under: other sides to this life
August 28, 2017
Ratatouille
Ratatouille came into my mind as I was walking this morning–must have been the sun coming up.
A classic vegetable stew and the culinary face of summer! Looking at it makes you smile and forget–for a second– the state of the world.
Memories of holidays in Southern Europe drift into view.
Elizabeth David calls it Ratatouille de Nice–“a sunny place for shady people“–according to Somerset Maugham–in her definitive tome, French Provincial Cooking.
Haven’t made it for years–got distracted by spicier recipes in the repertoire for sweet pepper, aubergine and tomato.
Shakshuka for instance–which features in my latest cookbook, Mediterranean Cooking for Diabetics, p. 41—with a couple of eggs melting into the surface.
Ratatouille is gentler–relying on herbs for its flavor enhancers–rosemary, bay, thyme, marjoram.
We’ll have it for lunch, with pork chops and rosemary, cooked in a cosy nest of aubergine slices.
3 tblsp olive oil
1 medium onion–roughly chopped
3 sweet peppers–red and yellow makes a pretty picture
1 medium aubergine–halved and quartered lengthwise and then sliced into square inch pieces
3 tomatoes–skinned and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves–pulped
1 tsp coriander seeds–crushed
Sprigs of thyme, rosemary and bay–all added with the toms
1 medium courgette–prepared as the aubergine
Heat 2 to 3 tbsp olive oil in a medium pan and add the onions.
Cook over a gentle flame until they soften–about five minutes.
Add the chopped peppers, aubergine and garlic to the pan and turn everything over in the oil.
Cover the pan and cook on a low flame for about 35 minutes–until the vegetables soften nicely.
Add the tomatoes, courgette, the herbs and the coriander seeds and turn it all again–being careful to preserve the shape of the veggy pieces, remembering that it’s the face of summer!
Cook for a further half hour–uncovered.
A dollop of tapinade (black olive dip–recipe also in my cookbook), enhances the feeling of being in Europe du Sud.
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Can’t resist showing it again…
Filed under: other sides to this life
August 16, 2017
Walking again…
Our friend Romaine was here for a few days and took her daily short walk up the road with Meredith.
“Robin not walking anymore?”
“Seems not at the moment….”
This comment was duly reported back to the sometime walker who was busy watching others exert themselves impressively in the World Athletic Championships–enjoyable.
No immediate reaction then from the “no-longer” walker.
The comment, however, left its mark–like a nagging truth one’s been trying to ignore.
At supper last night prompted by Ben, our sleek, fleet of foot, black cat–mercury on the move–agitating for a postprandial forage, the subject came up again.
“You’ve given up walking?”
“Uhm…”
I had just eaten–I say it myself–a delicious plate of Mellanzane Parmigiana (aubergine in tomato sauce with parmesan)* and simple tomato salad–and was feeling benign–not like walking exactly, at that moment you understand, but positive towards the idea of walking again.
I heard myself saying:
“I should walk at 6am at this time of year–before the sun gets up and it gets too hot.”
My relationship with the sun changed a few years ago, after a small operation to remove a squamous cell carcinoma close to my nose.
The fiery beast has become like a friend you’ve fallen out with–and cross the road to avoid.
I spend my time dodging the ultra-violet.
Sad paranoia.
Silly too, as I have hats–effective ones–and sunblock.
The former I enjoy, the latter I don’t.
The remark at dinner was well-timed and I resolved to get up at 6am and walk.
I didn’t commit to this publicly at the time, which meant that this morning it was with a glow of virtuousness that I delivered Meredith her hot drink at 7.30.
“You went for a walk?!”
Yes–and as I left the “precincts,” I saw a small figure approaching out of the darkness, as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
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Beau takes his duties seriously
Our head cat–Beau–was out on his early morning walk–patrolling the perimeter.
We greeted–and went our ways….
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Beau, night work completed, takes a break.
see page 176 of my book Mediterranean Cooking for Diabetics
Filed under: other sides to this life, Poldark
