Lavender blue, lavender green....

We are going to become lavender farmers! A bold statement (to join many others, I make everyday) I realise but this one may just come to fruition.
Jim spent most of the week end shoveling cow poo onto grass, fruit trees and anything else that did not run in fear from the smell. We have been talking about manuring and composting the whole garden for some time but it took a long weekend with 2 free days to get it happening.
Early on Sunday morning Jim took the pick up down to a Maasai boma near our friend Dave's plot and filled it - about 1 tonne of cow poo for 2,000/= (about $25). The compost bins were finally lifted and the lovely mush mixed with manure.
It was on Monday evening when I was out surveying the results especially the hole being prepared for the transplanting of a citrus tree, I commented that the rosemary bush probably should be moved as well as it never flowers being under a very large grevillia tree. Well as the conversation rolled on from too many trees to the condition (or not) of our soil, I made a random statement about how lavender loves harsh conditions - rocky soil, dry heat - and we had the perfect conditions right here on our plot. So of course, Jim's comeback was something like 'well why don't we grow more and can we make money out of it?' Well I just happen to know the answer to the second part of the question having just read my latest edition of Country Living magazine which features a woman growing lavender commercially on the hillsides of Wales. '2-3 acres and we need a stil to get the oil, sell it for a fortune or make our own soap' I come back with!
Surprisingly, unlike many of my suggestions, this one seems to have sparked an interest - as have the cows, geese and chickens being kept in the top shed - in Jim's brain. All we have to do is have enough land - we have 2.5 acres now, and find the right variety to give the oil. Other things we can learn whilst the lavender grows. I can imagine nothing more amazing than waking up to acres of mauve and the scent of lavender on the air. I am not sure what the buffalo or the baboons will make of it but I know the bees will be in heaven. We can put the hives amongst the bushes and have litres of lavender honey, lavender ice cream, make our own soap and other toiletries, and maybe even serve teas to people coming to buy......
not just a dream, I am going out next weekend to buy several more bushes at my favourite road side nursery and I am going to start now. Even if we never reach commercial production, I will have my own little corner of Provence here in Nairobi.

The world of luxury private jet travel or how to stress yourself to the max whilst appearing calm and organised!

I am sitting at our kitchen table making a list for the next few days

 Thurs

2 crew b’fast
2 crew lunch

Sat

3 crew b’fast
3 crew lunch
Client champagne, juice, wine, water, coffee and petit fours etc

 You may well ask ‘why is a Medical Coordinator of an Air Ambulance outfit making such a list –

 A couple of months ago we did a flight on our executive jet that required fine dining catering (Michel Roux Junior style) – so of course I put my hand up and, it was quite a success, if I do say so myself (smoked salmon, pate, chocolate strawberries). The next day our accounts manager asked me if I would like to put in a quote for doing the crew breakfasts and lunches and other catering for the flights going out of Nairobi.

So here I am with 2 flights in 3 days. You may not think that is not so bad but I usually don’t get home until after 6pm, after having been shopping for the ingredients and then spend the evening boiling eggs, making sandwiches and some sort of loaf cake whilst still cooking dinner; up at 0500 to make the fresh coffee and hot milk, throw everything into the car and whiz down to the airport for a 0700 departure!  

 Thursday is going to be a bit of a challenge. Pilots to be fed with a 0500 departure from the international airport – a logistics nightmare! I am certainly not going to be delivering picnic bags at 0400 in the morning. Luckily one of the pilots lives not too far from us so I will deliver late on Wednesday night.

 The list is growing. Only am I slightly panicking about getting food done and ordering the drinks in, I am also putting the progress of the flight on paper to make sure nothing is forgotten…..

Nairobi to Malindi – 3 crew breakfasts is the easy part.

I then have to organise for the coffee and tea to be restocked in Malindi; hot towels, table linen, cutlery, china, on and on and on. Even when everything looks perfect Irene has to be able to prepare and serve without fault within full view of the clients. The cabin is not large by anyone’s estimation. There is no way of reheating, so everything has to be packed to stay hot or cold and never the twain shall meet until they are on the plate.

I remember watching my friend Lissy in the 1^st Class galley of a Qantas plane years ago when I was flying from London to Australia. It was a tiny space and she had to get freshly cooked dishes out but at least she was out of sight of the passengers and had space to stand up and turn around.  

Tomorrow will be a frantic run around town to pick up all the last minute bits and then back to the hangar to go through a test run in the plane with Irene.

 For now, Jim has just arrived home, dinner is in the oven and my dried fruit is soaking in hot tea for my Bara Bryth for the pilots’ morning tea on Thursday. A few minutes sit down and then I have to get the flight bags out to go through and make sure all the extra bits such as sugar boxes, cups and juice bottles have all made it home from their last outing.

I know I will not sleep on Friday night for fear of not hearing the alarm in the morning and the whole thing being a disaster, but for some reason I do love this part of the job – variety and a bit of stress to keep me on my toes!  

 

Oh gosh - must remember fresh flowers for the bud vases.....

The scent of tomatoes is in the air!

I am sitting at my desk and have just looked down to see that my beautiful white linen shirt has pinky-red splodges all down the front. My finger nails and cuticles have also take on a pale red hue, despite being scrubbed before leaving the house. I feel like the poor girl on MasterChef last week who got into trouble for being covered in chocolate (at least she got changed before she left the building!).
My condition is due to the fact that this week in the kitchen has been focusing on tomoatoes. On our way back from the weekend in the Abadares National Park last week I made Jim do our usual road side shopping stop and I filled the back of the pick up with tomatoes. Bought for a fraction of the price we pay in Nairobi, even from the markets.
The green and not so ripe tomatoes went into my Auntie Norma's Whistle Stop Cafe Green Tomato Chutney - a delicious mix of tomatoes, dates, raisins, chillies and other spices that goes well with meat or cheese. It also makes a great emergency pasta sauce when nothing else is available. We had 'the bit that never fits in the last jar' with lamb sausages on Wednesday evening, still warm from the pot - yum!

This morning I decided to get started with bottling the rest of them. All lovely dark red specimens that are going to go whole into the jars, with tomato juice and we will not have to buy tinned tomatoes for months. Hence, my clothes being covered in tomato juice! I thought I would get a head a bit whilst I had some time and spent an hour peeling the tomatoes. The problem when they are so ripe AND you have had then in boiling water to loosen the skins, they tend to slip and slide all over the place.... and squirt when you try to hold them steady! Anyway, job complete and they are in the fridge waiting for the remainder to be cooked and blitzed into juice for the packing, which will happen tonight when I get home.
Although the end results are very satisfying, the one problem with cooking tomatoes on a large scale is the smell that tends to permiate the whole house. As I had the chutney on the cooker for 3-4 hours earlier in the week I remembered something my cousins always used to say when we visited them at the farm each holidays. There was a large canning factory in town and everyone always used to say 'never go into town the day they are doing tomatoes'.  The smell was overwhelming and not at all reminiscent of freshly picked sun drenched produce! Apparently it could be smelt for miles around. This week I have had a nasal glimpse of what they had to put up with.

However, the big difference being that I know the end results will be not only delicous but also saving us money (5 kgs of tomatoes for the price of a 400gm tin) and the satisfaction of knowing that I am such a clever girl filling the pantry myself instead of having to rely on commercial producers! The only down side is that they are not our own home grown, but who knows maybe we will get a big enough crop this season - if we can keep the bugs and the mouse birds out of the veggie garden.  

 

Christmas Spice and all things nice!

 

Hurrah! the internet is much faster today so I am able to upload photographs of my latest culinary achievements.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago I got my act together this year to start preparing for Christmas well ahead of time.Not only does it prevent the last minute kitchen panic but it also allows the time for all the flavours to develop and make everything so much more delicious.

Last year I attempted a 'cooked' fruit mince but did not find it particularly tasty so this year I vaguely followed a basic recipe for a bung it all together variety.

I used every type of dried fruit I had in the cupboard - sultanas, raisins, currants (purchased in UK in May as they are difficult to get here), red and green cherries, and mixed peel being the regulars. I then added some dried apricots, pineapple, mango, figs and a couple of glace clementines and citron which I had left over from a visit to Paris, and some glace ginger. You can add what ever is your favourite to give it the personal touch. In the end I had approximately 2 kgs of chopped fruit. I then added 2 grated apples and a bottle of brandy  - Yes! the whole bottle, - cinnamon, nutmeg, clove powder, ginger powder, and all spice (about a tablespoon of each but do this to your own taste), and about 500 gms of muscovarda sugar (you can use normal brown sugar if you cannot get this), popped the lid on the specially purchased pink bucket and it sat on the kitchen bench for about 2 weeks. I opened it up eevery 3-4 days for a stir. At the end of two weeks I added the syrup from the glace ginger jar, 250gms of suet and 250gms of slivered almonds.

 

Make sure the suet is clean when you get it from the butcher, it is not so easy to do this at home. If you dont want to use suet you can use melted butter but I would not add it until you are ready to use the fruit mince. You can also use half brandy/half orange juice if you prefer. I have had special requests for vegetarian and non-alcoholic mince in past years and it is just as delicous.  



 

 

I sterilised my jars by submerging them in boiling water for about 20 minutes. Put the mince in the jars whilst they are still hot, fill right to the top and seal asap. To get a good seal I then put the jars back in a large pan and filled with water (about half way up the jars) and boiled them for about 10 minutes.

Lift the jars out carefully and place upside down to cool. This will give you the seal needed to store the mince for several months. Check that the 'buttons' on top of the jars have been 'sucked in'; they should not move when you press down on them. The suet will have melted and then reset. (I have not worked out how the commercial varieties manage to do this sealing process without the suet melting)

Dont worry. When you use the mince and cook it at high heat in pies the suet will melt and mix in properly.



 

 

 

My mince is now in the cupboard under the stairs waiting for December.

Next week I am preparing to regroup and start preparing the Christmas pudding and cake. I first have to ask Jim to fix a hook in the basement so I have somewhere to hang the pudding out of harms way (and the inquisitive eye of the bush babies!).  



Would you ever go on MasterChef?

Well the internet is so slow today, the uploading of photographs for a step by step gnocchi lesson is just not going to happen!
So, I though I would tackle this thought provoking question.

I love watching MasterChef, the UK version (I have only seen the Australian version once of twice and was not so taken with the style, it does not seem to have that real competitive streak). 
We have been watching this week as the competition heats up with only a handful of contestants left. Of course, like anyone watching football or gameshows we have all the moves and answers as the contestants struggle through. Giving our oh so professional opinions on their efforts! Can you imagine being in that studio kitchen knowing there are millions of people sitting at home critisising every slice, dice or stir you make?
Unfortunately, for them, this week the loosers have been so obvious, that even Jim, has said 'they have to be the one to go'. Tuesday evening was a test of classic European cuisines - Spanish, Italian and French. The contestants spent the day with one of three specialist chefs and then had to return to the kitchen to give their own interpretation. The ones who chose the Spanish and Italian were great - I could have licked the television screen (if I was that way inclined!). But I was so disappointed with the French offerings. I know there is lots of stress and pressure to perform but how can you mess up French cuisine, especially when you have just spent the day learning the basics. Instead of chosing to do something simple and perfect 2 contestants chose to do patisserie neither of which worked at all - if I had been Greg or John I would have booted them both out. I mean, have you ever had banana and milk chocolate together in France?
So last night they all had a go at making the best of the produce of Scotland - some great food, no puddings and not a haggis in sight! But the one who got the boot was the poor Scottish lass whose tart fell apart so she could not even present it, and whose beef was not cooked properly (personally we both though the whisky and fish combination would be the one to go but he has done some very nice food up to this point). Next challenge was off to Cumbria to cook lunch for 20 in a barn using the produce from the estate and forraged from the surrounding fields and woodlands. All completely yummy. We have to wait to see tonight who leaves but our money is on the very sweet little Japanese girl with goggly fish eyes but she does tend to put too much of a Japanese twist on everything. In the process of making her brownies, which features absolutely nothing from the produce offered she managed to get herself covered from head to toe with chocolate and at the end looked like a child who had been playing in a mud puddle.

I have not made my final choice in this group yet but I must confess on more than one series I have picked the winner with 4-5 episodes to go! (I also used be very good at picking the murderer in the first half hour of an Agatha Christie movie).

Several people have said to me over the years 'Oh you should go on MasterChef'. After watching the stress and pressure these people go through, no thanks! They are all good, some great cooks and I am sure, although they go off saying how much fun they have had, it takes some courage to get back in the kitchen after having your food critisised by some of the best in the business.
I also hate time pressure in the kitchen (any other place I am better with a deadline), this is my relaxation time and I treasure every minute. I love slow cooking, as you know from my 24 hour Boeff  Bourgignon.
For now family and friends are my favourite customers and they are happy to wait for their food. The thought has often crossed my mind of having my own cafe but I have always said it would be fashioned around a place that my friend Remi took myself and a couple of friends during a visit to Paris. From the outside it was an old terraced house, I dont even think there was a sign board. Inside, it was nothing fancy but it the tiny room was packed. Menu? A choice of 2 items on a black board and a jug of house wine!  My friend Kathy had the vegetarian option, the rest of us had the house specialty which I am not going to attempt to spell! It was the intestines stuffed with all sorts of delicious bits and it was soooo good!   I probably would not have many customers either here or in Australia dishing up intestines but a couple of choices which I had spent the day cooking, no flustering in the kitchen at the alst minute but being able to enjoy serving and chatting with whoever came through the door that evening - no bookings of course, just come and take your chances and like all good cafes in France, if you have to wait, you just have to wait - and people do, sometimes with lines going out the door and down the street even in the winter - a sure sigh of fantastic food!

Hopefully the internet will be better tomorrow and we can dream of Butternut gnocchi with burnt butter and crispy sage.

The Kitchen Table

Jim and I were sitting at our kitchen table one morning this week having breakfast and, for some reason, it got me thinking about the subject. Our table is tiny, more of a desk really, however we do spend a significant amount of time at it; chatting, eating, planning.

As I mentioned way back in post number … the kitchen has always been my favourite room in the house and somehow everyone seems to feel much more comfortable and relaxed there than sitting formally on sofas or at the dining room table. In these days of the open plan kitchen/dining/living space I find I miss the intimacy that the kitchen with the table as the centre piece offers. Although everyone is within view of each other there is that separation whether physical (an island bench) or psychological (the cook is ‘in the kitchen’).

As a family we spent most of our ‘social’ time at the kitchen table – meals, homework, birthday parties as small children, my father would do his monthly accounting there after we had eaten in the evening. The dining room was saved for special occasions or dinner parties, until we were old enough not to break anything or drop food (although the dog still sat under the table expectantly).  

When we were children the kitchen table was laminex, pale yellow with black and grey star-like pattern and fitted into an alcove with a ‘box seat’ along one side that my younger brother and I sat on. After we all left home our parents down sized to a timber version.

The student house that I shared with three girl friends, in Sydney during our nurse’s training had the typical terrace house kitchen at the back and the table sat under the window sandwiched between the back door and the door through to the bathroom/laundry. It was the only table we had so all our dinner parties took place there, something I know Nigella Lawson for one would approve of, -  no chance of the cook being left alone!

For most of my adult life I have lived in places with tiny kitchens, more like alcoves or nooks than actual kitchens – hardly room to stand let alone sit at a table. Although our kitchen in Brixton was large and airy with pink and white stripped wall paper and a small kitchen table. One of the main events, I remember, at this table was my friend Hilary’s birthday breakfast when she was visiting from up north.

The kitchen table seems to be significant in other’s lives as well. Put ‘my table’ into Google or Amazon search and you will get a good number of results, mostly cook books including one contribution from Australian cook Donna Hay. Elizabeth David was a big fan of the kitchen table and even in a tiny London kitchen managed to fit in a large scrubbed pine table. She is photographed sitting at it on the cover of her biography and a posthumous collection of her best know recipes is titled At Elizabeth David’s Table.

 With our kitchen renovation plans we are considering a bench arrangement which will divide the sink area from the cooking area but still provide a place for 4-5 people to eat comfortably, and bench space where anyone lurking can be pressed into service with a chopping board or just to perch, with a glass of wine and snacks to keep the cook company.

 This past weekend I did actually spend Saturday in the kitchen and the table was pressed into service as I bottled the Christmas fruit mince and turned 6 butternut squashes into gnocchi. Photos and recipes to follow later in the week!

I did contact my mother and a girl friend from the student house days to get photographs to include here but unfortunately they have not arrived yet so you will have to be content with a walk through a few of the kitchens with and without tables that I have known.

The kitchen of the only house I have actually owned (it was in Darwin) at least the becnh had space for stools so it felt being at a table.

 

My kitchen 'space' in Bogani Road, Karen. The cottage was so tiny I did not even have a dining table we used to sit on the kilims and carpets on the floor, Arabian Nights style.

My friend Louise (in green) in the kitchen renovation she waited years for. Of course it is girls in the kitchen, Irene in pink, and boys, Matt and Rob looking on with a beer in hand!

Probably my favourite kitchen so far! A tiny nook but so well planned and spacious. I rented in Darwin for 18 months from friend Jenne Roberts who did all the renovations and I got to enjoy it whilst she went abroad to work.

The table sat in the walk through between the living area and the hall way. That is a few of the 250 cook books and my elephant tea cosy from Singapore.