Apologies for lack of bloggage recently, usual excuse.
However, for those in the Plymouth area (I know this somewhat limits the relevance), you might like to know I got a call from Radio Devon at lunchtime asking if I'd be willing to go on the Gordon Sparks breakfast show, talking about what it's like being A Pilgrim Abroad (Becky's suggested re-title for this blog which I still haven't got around to sorting out). I said 'that's a bit bleddy early' but I suppose fame has its costs. Must be a slow news day over there.
So anyway, it's not (as far as I know) available for 'listen again' on the internet because Sparksy's show is the Plymouth opt-out rather than the main Radio Devon stream, which is the one carried online. Therefore it's a case of blink and you'll miss it, and indeed I was on around 7.30am for a few minutes (I write this just after being on), discussing things ranging from Argyle's hopeless season (the highlight being the Barnsley match where it was abandoned with Argyle 4-1 down, and had to be replayed from the start) to the Indianapolis Colts and Kokomo's gas tower (I guess Sparksy had been reading up on the place). Didn't manage to get a word in for Allie's books (sorry sis), but in case you missed it, she's up for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance for her first book.
In other news, the new Doctor Who is excellent (except for the Daleks episode), 4Store is to start handling reasoning to some extent, Pompey still haven't been wound up, we're no closer to finding a name for the baby girl due in August, the local health food store in Kokomo have started stocking Traderspoint milk (meaning you can now buy unhomogenized milk in Kokomo), I've damaged my achilles tendon so no Indy half-marathon for me this weekend (boo) and it's time to make more bacon and sausages, as I've finished off the last lot and barbecue season approaches.
Bacon on a barbecue? Yes. Best way to cook it. High up, nice and slow. Fan-blooming-tastic.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
19 April 2010: Relegation
It's a sad day when Argyle get relegated, especially from this division.
It's happened twice before in my lifetime: once in 1977 when I was too young to care and once in 1992 when I was there to see it. In 1977 a rising star striker named Paul Mariner left halfway through the season to go on to bigger things with Bobby Robson at Ipswich and then England, leaving the rest of Tony Waiters' team to flounder, going down on the last day of the season away at Sheffield United. In 1992 the culmination of two years of dreadful team-building by David Kemp (putting together a series of starting 11s who never again played league football after leaving Argyle - they were that bad) was an unsurprising 3-1 home defeat by Blackburn Rovers, who were promoted as a result and who within two years had won (bought) the Premier League title.
And today was the third. As high as fourth in the table a couple of seasons ago when Ian "hollow-words" Holloway left after promising to stay forever, and old favourite Paul Sturrock coming in to take over where he left off in 2004. But it was never the same, and despite having a team that in all actuality wasn't too bad in terms of absolute quality (for which read: they're better than David Kemp's team was and may indeed continue to play league football in their careers) they never gelled, and so many players had personal issues of some sort or another (Graham Stack, Simon Walton and thumbs-up boy Marcel Seip spring to mind even before we start getting into the Scottish contingent) that the side never settled, and probably never could. Mariner's return as coach and then manager certainly brought some life to the team - they actually won a game after going behind, which they'd not done in 2 years - but it was still too inconsistent, and too late.
So today, on a warm spring evening in Plymouth, Newcastle United came to town, needing a point to ensure their position as division champions, and happy to take a win if it came their way. Two soft goals later, that was that. Newcastle will be in the Premier League next year, snapping at the heels of the big clubs I'd wager, while Argyle will head back to obscurity for another dozen or so years. They'll think about bouncing straight back of course, and may even challenge for a year or two, but the investment isn't there (the new Japanese owners have failed to provide any money at all and indeed haven't even shown up for a single game) so maybe back down to the fourth tier we'll go.
And it doesn't seem long ago that we were celebrating two promotions in three years, with Sparksy getting cakes in the press box and Trigger and Friio making him proclaim the unforgettable: "TWO nil. THAT'S it. Argyle are UP." Now that work has gone away, phase two never happened (what a surprise) and there's little reason to hope for much for Argyle, in all honesty. Things can always change - there was little reason to hope in the Fat Dan Years - but maybe it's for the best. As John Cleese once wisely opined: I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
Surely there can't be a better quote for a Plymouth Argyle fan.
Postscript: Having said that, Rob just sent me a ringtone version of a Dalek saying "would-you-care-for-some-tea" from Saturday's Doctor Who, and that's not a bad quote either. Solves everything, PG Tips.
It's happened twice before in my lifetime: once in 1977 when I was too young to care and once in 1992 when I was there to see it. In 1977 a rising star striker named Paul Mariner left halfway through the season to go on to bigger things with Bobby Robson at Ipswich and then England, leaving the rest of Tony Waiters' team to flounder, going down on the last day of the season away at Sheffield United. In 1992 the culmination of two years of dreadful team-building by David Kemp (putting together a series of starting 11s who never again played league football after leaving Argyle - they were that bad) was an unsurprising 3-1 home defeat by Blackburn Rovers, who were promoted as a result and who within two years had won (bought) the Premier League title.
And today was the third. As high as fourth in the table a couple of seasons ago when Ian "hollow-words" Holloway left after promising to stay forever, and old favourite Paul Sturrock coming in to take over where he left off in 2004. But it was never the same, and despite having a team that in all actuality wasn't too bad in terms of absolute quality (for which read: they're better than David Kemp's team was and may indeed continue to play league football in their careers) they never gelled, and so many players had personal issues of some sort or another (Graham Stack, Simon Walton and thumbs-up boy Marcel Seip spring to mind even before we start getting into the Scottish contingent) that the side never settled, and probably never could. Mariner's return as coach and then manager certainly brought some life to the team - they actually won a game after going behind, which they'd not done in 2 years - but it was still too inconsistent, and too late.
So today, on a warm spring evening in Plymouth, Newcastle United came to town, needing a point to ensure their position as division champions, and happy to take a win if it came their way. Two soft goals later, that was that. Newcastle will be in the Premier League next year, snapping at the heels of the big clubs I'd wager, while Argyle will head back to obscurity for another dozen or so years. They'll think about bouncing straight back of course, and may even challenge for a year or two, but the investment isn't there (the new Japanese owners have failed to provide any money at all and indeed haven't even shown up for a single game) so maybe back down to the fourth tier we'll go.
And it doesn't seem long ago that we were celebrating two promotions in three years, with Sparksy getting cakes in the press box and Trigger and Friio making him proclaim the unforgettable: "TWO nil. THAT'S it. Argyle are UP." Now that work has gone away, phase two never happened (what a surprise) and there's little reason to hope for much for Argyle, in all honesty. Things can always change - there was little reason to hope in the Fat Dan Years - but maybe it's for the best. As John Cleese once wisely opined: I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
Surely there can't be a better quote for a Plymouth Argyle fan.
Postscript: Having said that, Rob just sent me a ringtone version of a Dalek saying "would-you-care-for-some-tea" from Saturday's Doctor Who, and that's not a bad quote either. Solves everything, PG Tips.
Monday, April 12, 2010
12 April 2010: Proxy
Back from holidays and it's probably time to update the blog, seeing as the last entry was getting all excited about a midweek chart show from two weeks ago.
So Delirious ended up at number 4 for the week overall, which is pretty good considering their previous highest position in the singles chart was number 16 back in early 1999. Even better considering the band no longer exists. But I couldn't buy a copy since I was abroad, and my many attempts to use UK iTunes accounts all seemed to be found out. I need a nice UK proxy.
Talking of proxies... seems Mr Brown has asked Mrs Queen to dissolve parliament and have a general election, and she presumably agreed with a big sigh, thinking "here we bleddy go again". (Seriously, how many elections has she seen now? She must be bored of them.) I've looked into voting from here and it's curious: mainly because of the constituency system but also partly because it's badly designed. I am eligible to register to vote in the last constituency in which I lived (Southampton Test as I recall) BUT when it comes to actually voting, there are two options: (1) postal ballot and (2) proxy vote. Number 1 isn't an option because they require a turnaround time of five days from start to finish - and it normally takes a week to get stuff from the UK by normal post, so that would mean I'd receive my ballot paper some two days after the election took place, let alone sending it back again. Leaving us with number 2, the proxy vote, and it seems to me that while it's ok for me to waste my time performing my usual vote (click here for details from the last UK election - have I really been blogging that long? Sheesh) it's a little unfair to ask someone else to perform the task on my behalf.
Sidenote on the spoiling thing: Before anyone goes off on one about rights, duties and privileges, I ask you to consider (1) the purpose of having an election with no actual, real choice (they had elections in the USSR, remember), (2) the purpose of representative democracy (am I represented?) and (3) Lord Hailsham's seemingly timeless remark on the UK as an "elective dictatorship", or a place which is a democracy, but only for one single day every five years.
May be different this time, due to the possibilities of a hung parliament (despite its promising name, this doesn't involve the execution of politicians, but instead means no single party has overall control of our unseparated powers). Andy has some interesting thoughts on the runners and riders from the minor parties so that's something to consider if you'd like your vote to count. But don't forget, it's first past the post in each constituency so for your Green/UKIP/Reptile vote to count, you'd need that candidate to win in your constituency before they get around to being king-makers in any minority government. Still, if just one percent of the population protest...
No, hang on, that was Doctor Who, not the actual election. Is it just me or did 'The Beast Below' fit in very nicely with the overall election theme? What is your choice: to protest about the system and thus bring about the collapse of a corrupt, unfair system or choose to forget about it for another five years and carry on in ignorance like nothing is wrong? Steven Moffat would have known broadcast dates some time in advance, and it wasn't difficult to predict the timing of this election...
No need to say much more on the first two Moffat episodes of Doctor Who, though. They were great, just great, thoroughly enjoyable, fun, deep, everything the RTD stories promised to be and rarely delivered. And Matt Smith is better that I thought he'd be too. They could do with changing the title sequence and music, though...
Finally, if you have any doubts about corrupt politicians, check out recent history of the island of Grand Turk, where I found Cadbury's Whole Nut last week. Now there is a seriously corrupt story... it must be bad when the British government wades in, dissolves the constitution and takes over control from London. We don't do that kind of thing any more... do we? Elections to be held there by mid-2011, say the leaflets from the supermarket.
Wonder if it'll be PR or first past the post?
So Delirious ended up at number 4 for the week overall, which is pretty good considering their previous highest position in the singles chart was number 16 back in early 1999. Even better considering the band no longer exists. But I couldn't buy a copy since I was abroad, and my many attempts to use UK iTunes accounts all seemed to be found out. I need a nice UK proxy.
Talking of proxies... seems Mr Brown has asked Mrs Queen to dissolve parliament and have a general election, and she presumably agreed with a big sigh, thinking "here we bleddy go again". (Seriously, how many elections has she seen now? She must be bored of them.) I've looked into voting from here and it's curious: mainly because of the constituency system but also partly because it's badly designed. I am eligible to register to vote in the last constituency in which I lived (Southampton Test as I recall) BUT when it comes to actually voting, there are two options: (1) postal ballot and (2) proxy vote. Number 1 isn't an option because they require a turnaround time of five days from start to finish - and it normally takes a week to get stuff from the UK by normal post, so that would mean I'd receive my ballot paper some two days after the election took place, let alone sending it back again. Leaving us with number 2, the proxy vote, and it seems to me that while it's ok for me to waste my time performing my usual vote (click here for details from the last UK election - have I really been blogging that long? Sheesh) it's a little unfair to ask someone else to perform the task on my behalf.
Sidenote on the spoiling thing: Before anyone goes off on one about rights, duties and privileges, I ask you to consider (1) the purpose of having an election with no actual, real choice (they had elections in the USSR, remember), (2) the purpose of representative democracy (am I represented?) and (3) Lord Hailsham's seemingly timeless remark on the UK as an "elective dictatorship", or a place which is a democracy, but only for one single day every five years.
May be different this time, due to the possibilities of a hung parliament (despite its promising name, this doesn't involve the execution of politicians, but instead means no single party has overall control of our unseparated powers). Andy has some interesting thoughts on the runners and riders from the minor parties so that's something to consider if you'd like your vote to count. But don't forget, it's first past the post in each constituency so for your Green/UKIP/Reptile vote to count, you'd need that candidate to win in your constituency before they get around to being king-makers in any minority government. Still, if just one percent of the population protest...
No, hang on, that was Doctor Who, not the actual election. Is it just me or did 'The Beast Below' fit in very nicely with the overall election theme? What is your choice: to protest about the system and thus bring about the collapse of a corrupt, unfair system or choose to forget about it for another five years and carry on in ignorance like nothing is wrong? Steven Moffat would have known broadcast dates some time in advance, and it wasn't difficult to predict the timing of this election...
No need to say much more on the first two Moffat episodes of Doctor Who, though. They were great, just great, thoroughly enjoyable, fun, deep, everything the RTD stories promised to be and rarely delivered. And Matt Smith is better that I thought he'd be too. They could do with changing the title sequence and music, though...
Finally, if you have any doubts about corrupt politicians, check out recent history of the island of Grand Turk, where I found Cadbury's Whole Nut last week. Now there is a seriously corrupt story... it must be bad when the British government wades in, dissolves the constitution and takes over control from London. We don't do that kind of thing any more... do we? Elections to be held there by mid-2011, say the leaflets from the supermarket.
Wonder if it'll be PR or first past the post?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
31 March 2010: Curious?
No, this isn't an April Fools thing. Delirious really are at numbers one and two in the Amazon singles chart this morning.
This despite not getting past number 16 in their previous chart attempts (and that was eleven years ago), and also despite the fact they finished at Christmas and are no longer touring or recording. Somewhat bouyed by the effect of Rage Against The Machine's Facebook-driven Christmas number one, a few fans convinced the band and their publisher to release the 1996 song History Maker - never one of their singles before - as an Easter special. And so here we are, halfway through the week, with a midweek chart position of six and an Amazon position of numbers one and two.
Can't buy it from here, even with UK pounds, due to the geographical IP address thing and my lack of a decent UK proxy. But for 49p it's a good deal for anyone with access over there, especially given that it probably is their best song ever. (Cue controversy: I actually prefer 'Investigate' from the Glo album but for a purely inspirational song, History Maker has to be it).
The irony is that they still won't be on Top of the Pops. Pops somewhat infamously overlooked them on four occasions when they made the top twenty, and now that they're sufficiently high that they can't be overlooked, Pops no longer exists. Ah well. Sunday afternoon chart show on Radio 1 will have to do.
Except I won't be able to listen to that as we're about to head out on holidays, probably for the last time before the baby arrives. For those who don't follow Gloria's facebook, the baby is due Aug 17th or so and, according the the ultrasound on Monday, is a girl. (No names yet, and we're not telling until the baby comes out anyway). So we're heading out tomorrow evening and returning on Sunday 11, by which time Delirious will be long gone from the charts, probably for the final time.
And for those of us who remember those Cutting Edge Saturday nights down at Central Hall (two pounds to get into church??), this week feels the tiniest bit like it used to, back when Deeper first made number twenty and we all realised this was just a little bit bigger than we thought. All together now... "I'm gonna be..."
Footnote: What are the Wurzels doing in there at number six? Alicia Keys must be feeling miffed at being outsold by a bunch of scrumpers.
Footfootnote: Just been informed that the Wurzels are up there as a similar Facebook campaign, this time as a protest against the upcoming 10p rise on the price of cider. Bizarrely, in the official midweek chart, they're not present at all. Not sure what the message to the Chancellor is: "if you put up the tax on cider, we'll force them to play scrumpy'n'western music on the radio, then you'll be bleddy sorry."
Friday, March 05, 2010
5 March 2010: Cure
Here's how to dry-cure your own bacon. This one's been requested by a number of correspondents and finally I remembered to take photos of the final stages, so here it is...
On top (not literally on top) of the clotted cream, pasties and sausages comes the requirement to be able to make back bacon over here in sunny Kokomo, because you can't buy it. (Actually you can buy it from here via overnight frozen air-shipping and you can also get that rubbish Galtee stuff from Jungle Jim's for which you pay $6 for half a pound. So, effectively, you might as well learn how to make it.)
The thing about bacon is this: it's easy, but it takes ages. I was first led to think about the possibilities of curing bacon myself back before we moved here: on a visit to London we went to one of those tiny overstocked bookshops on Charing Cross Road and found in the basement a cookbook from 1946. Generally it wasn't expected that the housewife had a refrigerator back then, so it contains a lot of now-forgotten techniques including how to make clotted cream (from the evening delivery rather than the morning one, of course) and, bizarrely, how to make toast. Also of course how to make the most of everything available, so there are plenty of recipes in there for sheep's brains and the like. Yum.
But this is my favourite page:
So taking this text as inspiration rather than a direct instruction set, I also went to a US supplier of saltpetre equivalent (you don't need much but if you have none it will all go brown and look grim). Saltpetre itself (Potassium Nitrate) is used to make explosives, apparently, and also fertilizer, so getting hold of food-grade saltpetre isn't simple. Sodium Nitrite, however, will do as a substitute, and I found out that sausagemaker.com is a US supplier who will sell you a small bag of "Cure #1" that is 6.25% sodium nitrite and the rest is salt for a reasonable price. So, a quick internet order later, and delivered to our door was the following bag of pink granules:
Once you have that, the rest is simple. You essentially mix one part brown sugar to two parts salt, and throw in a little pink stuff for good measure. As an example, the most recently-cured bacon weighed 2.4kg before starting the process, which meant 60g of salt (sea salt or kosher salt is best), 30g of soft brown sugar and 8g of Cure #1. Some recipes call for pepper too, but I found that didn't add anything. So, throw all that in the bowl...
... and mix it up. Next, go to your friendly butcher and ask for some pork loin. Or wait until there's a good one on sale at the supermarket so you can boast about the overall price per pound. Anyway, get your loin and clean it off, then dry it with kitchen roll. It needs to be as dry as possible before you start, because essentially the curing process is entirely about forcing out water. Less wet to start with = better overall result.
Then get your mix and rub it on to the pork. All over. Don't miss a spot. Some of the mix will end up on your hands, some on the board/plate/tub you're using for the process... but make sure the pork is covered. If it's not, then that little uncured bit will go off during the long curing process and then the rest of it might go off and you'll have to start again.
Once you're happy that the cure mix is into all the nooks and crannies, including the sides and the ends, then put it in a resealable bag.
Then stick it in the fridge. Check it every day - you'll find a surprising amount of water in the bag, especially the first few days. This is the salt forcing out the water, and 'curing' the meat of food poisoning possibilities. (I'm assuming that's why this process is called curing? I don't really know). In theory, once the process is complete, you should be able to eat it raw with no danger of getting ill. I haven't tried that, to be honest... but think about Parma ham, which is the same process, only with a different cure mix and done for longer.
You should turn the meat every day when you check it, so the bit that's been sitting in the water has some time on top. I've read conflicting reports on whether to drain the water out daily. My most recent attempt did NOT drain it out, just turned the meat every day, and it was the most successful attempt to date.
How long in the fridge depends on the thickness of the meat. I've typically found pork loins here to be about 2.5 inches thick. The rule is 2 days per inch plus 2 days, which works out as a week. If you're doing streaky bacon using the belly, you'll find that it's thinner - maybe just an inch, leading to a three-day stay in the fridge.
I have read that if you're curing meat with the skin (rind) on, the cure mix doesn't go through the tough skin, so you have to ensure there's enough time for the mix to get through the whole thing from the other side: in other words, double your estimate. I haven't tried this: it's not easy to get these cuts here. However, I'll also say this - the '2 days per inch plus 2 days' is not a hard and fast rule: there's nothing wrong with leaving it longer, it won't do any harm, it'll just probably get a little more salty and ham-like. The most recent one we did was left in for three or four days longer than expected (due to me being in Australia and forgetting to ask Gloria to take it out of the fridge) and it turned out really well.
OK - so once the time is up, take it out of the bag, rinse it thoroughly and then it's time to hang it. The purpose of this is so that the outside of the meat can perform some drying process to form a protein layer called 'pellicle' ... that means it's less likely to go bad, and also it helps with smoking the bacon if you want to do that - the salt does something or other and so protects the meat inside. And traditionally, you do this by hanging in a cool place (and, according to that 1946 cookbook, by using muslin to keep the flies off)... with a drip tray underneath or a dedicated section if you're going to do it in a fridge. We don't have a hook, so I use a wire rack from a roasting pan and put the bacon on it, alone in the cheese drawer of the fridge. Leave it to 'hang' for two to three days.
At this point, however, I need to introduce you to Alton Brown. He's a TV chef over here who for over 10 years has presented a Food Network show called 'Good Eats'. His sensibilities for good, real food match those of Jamie, Hugh etc over in the UK, and his show is not so much about food or recipes as about the actual scientific processes involved with cooking. To cut a long story short, he did a show about bacon (in which he cleverly paid homage to Iron Chef and Scrapheap Challenge) and he actually made bacon (streaky bacon in this case). And he said - and demonstrated - that actually the best, quickest way to perform the hanging process is to stick your bacon on top of a fan and let the fan do the work for an hour or so. The relevant section of this show is YouTube'd here, and I advise you to watch it, along with every other episode of his show.
Alton Brown then goes on to talk about how to cold-smoke meats such as bacon. I don't do that because I prefer unsmoked bacon, and also I'd have to get/build a cold smoker. So once it's dried and happy, I cut it up into three or four chunks and freeze them all but one. The one that stays out will be used immediately...
It actually looks a little more like the right colour for bacon now. So then you slice it as thick as you like:
Another side note: Alton Brown says that trying to slice streaky bacon when it's at room temperature is like trying to shave a ferret: no matter how hard you try, someone is going to get hurt. Much higher fat content = much more wibbly wobbly = put it in the freezer for an hour to make it solidify a bit before trying to cut. Back bacon doesn't have this issue, as the photo above shows.
Finally, cook and eat. Yum yum. So it takes about a week and a half all told, of which the initial effort is about 20 mins, maybe 1 min a day checking and turning, a little time to do the drying/hanging/fan thing and that's it. Really easy. And thus we have proper bacon.
And a quick word on curing: there are many types of cure, as you'll know from visiting Waitrose.
On top (not literally on top) of the clotted cream, pasties and sausages comes the requirement to be able to make back bacon over here in sunny Kokomo, because you can't buy it. (Actually you can buy it from here via overnight frozen air-shipping and you can also get that rubbish Galtee stuff from Jungle Jim's for which you pay $6 for half a pound. So, effectively, you might as well learn how to make it.)
The thing about bacon is this: it's easy, but it takes ages. I was first led to think about the possibilities of curing bacon myself back before we moved here: on a visit to London we went to one of those tiny overstocked bookshops on Charing Cross Road and found in the basement a cookbook from 1946. Generally it wasn't expected that the housewife had a refrigerator back then, so it contains a lot of now-forgotten techniques including how to make clotted cream (from the evening delivery rather than the morning one, of course) and, bizarrely, how to make toast. Also of course how to make the most of everything available, so there are plenty of recipes in there for sheep's brains and the like. Yum.
But this is my favourite page:
So taking this text as inspiration rather than a direct instruction set, I also went to a US supplier of saltpetre equivalent (you don't need much but if you have none it will all go brown and look grim). Saltpetre itself (Potassium Nitrate) is used to make explosives, apparently, and also fertilizer, so getting hold of food-grade saltpetre isn't simple. Sodium Nitrite, however, will do as a substitute, and I found out that sausagemaker.com is a US supplier who will sell you a small bag of "Cure #1" that is 6.25% sodium nitrite and the rest is salt for a reasonable price. So, a quick internet order later, and delivered to our door was the following bag of pink granules:
Once you have that, the rest is simple. You essentially mix one part brown sugar to two parts salt, and throw in a little pink stuff for good measure. As an example, the most recently-cured bacon weighed 2.4kg before starting the process, which meant 60g of salt (sea salt or kosher salt is best), 30g of soft brown sugar and 8g of Cure #1. Some recipes call for pepper too, but I found that didn't add anything. So, throw all that in the bowl...
... and mix it up. Next, go to your friendly butcher and ask for some pork loin. Or wait until there's a good one on sale at the supermarket so you can boast about the overall price per pound. Anyway, get your loin and clean it off, then dry it with kitchen roll. It needs to be as dry as possible before you start, because essentially the curing process is entirely about forcing out water. Less wet to start with = better overall result.
Then get your mix and rub it on to the pork. All over. Don't miss a spot. Some of the mix will end up on your hands, some on the board/plate/tub you're using for the process... but make sure the pork is covered. If it's not, then that little uncured bit will go off during the long curing process and then the rest of it might go off and you'll have to start again.
Once you're happy that the cure mix is into all the nooks and crannies, including the sides and the ends, then put it in a resealable bag.
Then stick it in the fridge. Check it every day - you'll find a surprising amount of water in the bag, especially the first few days. This is the salt forcing out the water, and 'curing' the meat of food poisoning possibilities. (I'm assuming that's why this process is called curing? I don't really know). In theory, once the process is complete, you should be able to eat it raw with no danger of getting ill. I haven't tried that, to be honest... but think about Parma ham, which is the same process, only with a different cure mix and done for longer.
You should turn the meat every day when you check it, so the bit that's been sitting in the water has some time on top. I've read conflicting reports on whether to drain the water out daily. My most recent attempt did NOT drain it out, just turned the meat every day, and it was the most successful attempt to date.
How long in the fridge depends on the thickness of the meat. I've typically found pork loins here to be about 2.5 inches thick. The rule is 2 days per inch plus 2 days, which works out as a week. If you're doing streaky bacon using the belly, you'll find that it's thinner - maybe just an inch, leading to a three-day stay in the fridge.
I have read that if you're curing meat with the skin (rind) on, the cure mix doesn't go through the tough skin, so you have to ensure there's enough time for the mix to get through the whole thing from the other side: in other words, double your estimate. I haven't tried this: it's not easy to get these cuts here. However, I'll also say this - the '2 days per inch plus 2 days' is not a hard and fast rule: there's nothing wrong with leaving it longer, it won't do any harm, it'll just probably get a little more salty and ham-like. The most recent one we did was left in for three or four days longer than expected (due to me being in Australia and forgetting to ask Gloria to take it out of the fridge) and it turned out really well.
OK - so once the time is up, take it out of the bag, rinse it thoroughly and then it's time to hang it. The purpose of this is so that the outside of the meat can perform some drying process to form a protein layer called 'pellicle' ... that means it's less likely to go bad, and also it helps with smoking the bacon if you want to do that - the salt does something or other and so protects the meat inside. And traditionally, you do this by hanging in a cool place (and, according to that 1946 cookbook, by using muslin to keep the flies off)... with a drip tray underneath or a dedicated section if you're going to do it in a fridge. We don't have a hook, so I use a wire rack from a roasting pan and put the bacon on it, alone in the cheese drawer of the fridge. Leave it to 'hang' for two to three days.
At this point, however, I need to introduce you to Alton Brown. He's a TV chef over here who for over 10 years has presented a Food Network show called 'Good Eats'. His sensibilities for good, real food match those of Jamie, Hugh etc over in the UK, and his show is not so much about food or recipes as about the actual scientific processes involved with cooking. To cut a long story short, he did a show about bacon (in which he cleverly paid homage to Iron Chef and Scrapheap Challenge) and he actually made bacon (streaky bacon in this case). And he said - and demonstrated - that actually the best, quickest way to perform the hanging process is to stick your bacon on top of a fan and let the fan do the work for an hour or so. The relevant section of this show is YouTube'd here, and I advise you to watch it, along with every other episode of his show.
Alton Brown then goes on to talk about how to cold-smoke meats such as bacon. I don't do that because I prefer unsmoked bacon, and also I'd have to get/build a cold smoker. So once it's dried and happy, I cut it up into three or four chunks and freeze them all but one. The one that stays out will be used immediately...
It actually looks a little more like the right colour for bacon now. So then you slice it as thick as you like:
Another side note: Alton Brown says that trying to slice streaky bacon when it's at room temperature is like trying to shave a ferret: no matter how hard you try, someone is going to get hurt. Much higher fat content = much more wibbly wobbly = put it in the freezer for an hour to make it solidify a bit before trying to cut. Back bacon doesn't have this issue, as the photo above shows.
Finally, cook and eat. Yum yum. So it takes about a week and a half all told, of which the initial effort is about 20 mins, maybe 1 min a day checking and turning, a little time to do the drying/hanging/fan thing and that's it. Really easy. And thus we have proper bacon.
And a quick word on curing: there are many types of cure, as you'll know from visiting Waitrose.
- The expensive one is 'dry cure' (that's the exact process I described above) - weirdly, because for the small-time individual bacon maker, it's pretty much the easiest way to make it. Commercially, however, it's a little more labour-intensive than the others because you can't make a machine do it all.
- Then there's Wiltshire Cure, which is a wet cure where you mix up your salt mixture as a water-based solution (don't use sea water - you don't know where it's been) and soak the pork in there for a while. Same idea, slightly different medium.
- Finally there's wet cure, which is generally the commercially-standard method for making bacon: they get the saltwater solution as described in Wiltshire Cure, add a bunch more nitrates to it and other preservatives, put it in a syringe and inject it into the middle of the pork, from where it spreads out through the meat and cures from the inside very quickly. This is quick, easy, can be mass-produced but requires a bunch of additives along, of course, with all that additional water that is going in there. If you get white stuff and water coming out when you cook your bacon, now you know what it is. Makes it heavier too having all that added water (don't forget, dry curing forces water out, making it lighter) so you can charge $6 per pound and have 20% of that weight being water. As Alton Brown would say "good business, but not good eats".
- Beyond that, the variations generally come down to the smoking options, although you can add flavour by adding items to the cure mix: herbs, spices, pepper etc. I did it with pepper and found the flavour almost identical.
So there you are - dry cure bacon, very easy if a little time-consuming. Make it yourself. I challenge you.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
24 February 2010: Pompey
Back in Kokomo now.
On the import side of things, Melbourne's Safeway supermarket (no, it's not Morrison's) (and it's actually owned by Woolworths, which is even weirder) (and no, it's not THAT Woolworth's, it's a different company of the same name) (sheesh)... anyway, said Safeway carried plenty of Cadbury items, including things you can't get easily in the UK any more such as 'Picnic', along with their own special Aussie choccy bars such as 'Cherry Ripe' (guess which fruit features in that chocolate bar) and something called 'Moro' which appears to be a Mars bar made by Cadbury. The Aussie version of 'Heroes' happily contains little bite-size versions of Turkish Delight, which was excellent. Couldn't find any M&S style swiss rolls though. Maybe Nigel Kennedy ate them all.
Also it seems they understand Crunchy Nut Cornflakes over there, so our cupboard now boasts an international range of Crunchy Nut boxes, none of which are from the devoid-of-Crunchy-Nut USA. No Alpen, but we can get that imported from Canada so no major loss there. Apart from that though, the range of imported items was generally restricted to confectionery. Absolutely no Vegemite was brought in.
Back here though, and the jet-lag is weird this time. Go to bed around 10pm, wake up an hour later and stay awake until 4am? Then up as usual at 6 or 7 and head to work... so I'm not on Australia time, it's just something weird and in-between. Feel like a zombie, to be honest. (And why are there no zombies around any more, by the way? Answer: life insurance policies - they don't cover being undead, so in order to ensure payout zombies have to go into hiding and never be seen. Just thought I'd share that observation.)
Finally, Portsmouth FC (otherwise known as the Pompey Skate Scummers or other equally-rude words) are on the verge of going under. The question is, how far and how quickly? Unlike Saints last year who approached it in a relatively sane and legal manner, Pompey have spent most of this year buying players and getting loan players in who they flat-out can't afford and only now, when the tax people are saying "hang on, why haven't you payed any tax for the last 3 years?" did a court case come, and now (well, Friday) administration. Opinion seems divided on whether even the administration is legal. Rumours abound that actually there's a lot going on below the surface that's even more dodgy, and words such as money-laundering by the four owners they've this year continue to be bandied around.
The thing is, the Premier League don't want bad publicity, and therefore the illegalities will probably be swept under whatever carpets can be found. Let's be honest: if they (and the police) had really investigated illegal goings on, Tottenham Hotspur wouldn't be riding high in the Prem right now because Harry would be in prison. Possibly multiple times. So whether anything will happen beyond a 9-point deduction and subsequent relegation remains to be seen. Don't hold your breath.
On the other hand, don't be surprised if the current and past owners, in some guise or other, miraculously come up with a 'rescue package' to take the club out of administration in the next week or so. Into admin, clear the debts, take the points hit, and off we go again. You'd think HMRC might have something to say about that, wouldn't you?
Once again, don't hold your breath.
On the import side of things, Melbourne's Safeway supermarket (no, it's not Morrison's) (and it's actually owned by Woolworths, which is even weirder) (and no, it's not THAT Woolworth's, it's a different company of the same name) (sheesh)... anyway, said Safeway carried plenty of Cadbury items, including things you can't get easily in the UK any more such as 'Picnic', along with their own special Aussie choccy bars such as 'Cherry Ripe' (guess which fruit features in that chocolate bar) and something called 'Moro' which appears to be a Mars bar made by Cadbury. The Aussie version of 'Heroes' happily contains little bite-size versions of Turkish Delight, which was excellent. Couldn't find any M&S style swiss rolls though. Maybe Nigel Kennedy ate them all.
Also it seems they understand Crunchy Nut Cornflakes over there, so our cupboard now boasts an international range of Crunchy Nut boxes, none of which are from the devoid-of-Crunchy-Nut USA. No Alpen, but we can get that imported from Canada so no major loss there. Apart from that though, the range of imported items was generally restricted to confectionery. Absolutely no Vegemite was brought in.
Back here though, and the jet-lag is weird this time. Go to bed around 10pm, wake up an hour later and stay awake until 4am? Then up as usual at 6 or 7 and head to work... so I'm not on Australia time, it's just something weird and in-between. Feel like a zombie, to be honest. (And why are there no zombies around any more, by the way? Answer: life insurance policies - they don't cover being undead, so in order to ensure payout zombies have to go into hiding and never be seen. Just thought I'd share that observation.)
Finally, Portsmouth FC (otherwise known as the Pompey Skate Scummers or other equally-rude words) are on the verge of going under. The question is, how far and how quickly? Unlike Saints last year who approached it in a relatively sane and legal manner, Pompey have spent most of this year buying players and getting loan players in who they flat-out can't afford and only now, when the tax people are saying "hang on, why haven't you payed any tax for the last 3 years?" did a court case come, and now (well, Friday) administration. Opinion seems divided on whether even the administration is legal. Rumours abound that actually there's a lot going on below the surface that's even more dodgy, and words such as money-laundering by the four owners they've this year continue to be bandied around.
The thing is, the Premier League don't want bad publicity, and therefore the illegalities will probably be swept under whatever carpets can be found. Let's be honest: if they (and the police) had really investigated illegal goings on, Tottenham Hotspur wouldn't be riding high in the Prem right now because Harry would be in prison. Possibly multiple times. So whether anything will happen beyond a 9-point deduction and subsequent relegation remains to be seen. Don't hold your breath.
On the other hand, don't be surprised if the current and past owners, in some guise or other, miraculously come up with a 'rescue package' to take the club out of administration in the next week or so. Into admin, clear the debts, take the points hit, and off we go again. You'd think HMRC might have something to say about that, wouldn't you?
Once again, don't hold your breath.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
13 February 2010: Violin
I'm in Melbourne. The one in Australia.
So to break up an unexciting Saturday afternoon alone in a city where I've previously visited for two days and, indeed, previously made curry, I decided to go for a walk along the south bank of the Yarra river and see if there were indeed the promised Botanical Gardens a short distance upriver.
And to further set the scene, I had my Southampton shirt on, given that Saints are playing Pompey (who, by the way, are trading while insolvent, and yet even the High Court doesn't seem to mind - how does THAT work?). And walking along I saw several Liverpool shirts (presumably they're playing as well today). Then under a bridge and towards the gardens and there was a bloke jogging towards me in an Aston Villa shirt.
Jogging slowly. With quite a belly. And a young kid by his side riding a bike slowly, keeping pace, and the two of them talked. And the man had stubble, and grey hair spiked up as if he was twenty and it was the late 1980s.
And as I passed them, I heard him lisping out a relatively high-pitched effeminate English accent. And I realised it was Nigel Kennedy.
OK, so twenty years ago it would have been more cool to say "I saw Nigel Kennedy jogging" but a quick Google reveals he is indeed in town this week playing three concerts and getting the interesting of the local newspapers.
The Botanical Gardens, meanwhile, were quite a disappointment (I mean, they were ok, but no better than the ones at Southampton University and let's face it, Melbourne gets more tourists than the back of the SU building on the Highfield Campus) so I went back to the hotel. Saints-Pompey takes place around midnight here and nobody is televising it live (the company who have the rights, Setanta Australia, are showing it in full at 9.15am tomorrow morning, urgh) so I'll just wait and catch up on the internet in the morning.
Rumour is Saints are going to play 'Summer Afternoon' by The Kinks as the teams run out. Why? First line:
The taxman's taken all my dough...
Mwa ha ha ha. (No, I have no sympathy. They had none for Saints last summer and at least we we didn't flagrantly break insolvency laws).
Postscript: For those who don't keep track of Gloria's Facebook, the news is that we're expecting a new arrival to our family on or around August 17th. Out of first trimester now, so time to tell people. We haven't figured on names yet but we like the idea of names that might make for some fun initials: for example, a girl might be Aribella Renee McRae-Spencer. ARMS. Or if it's a boy, we're probably looking to avoid something like Bartholomew Uriah McRae-Spencer. Hours of fun...
Postpostscript: For those who don't know who Nigel Kennedy is and who can't be bothered to type his name into Google, he's a very good classical violinist who actually hit the mainstream album charts around 20 years ago with his interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (as opposed to Frankie Valley's Four Seasons). He had trademark spiky hair and a lisp, but was generally regarded as cool, and the everyone liked him because he brought classical music to the attention of everyone, including young people with spiky hair and who supported Aston Villa.
Postpostpostscript: He did look pretty chubby though. I don't think he goes jogging all often, or if he does he prepares for it by eating chips.
So to break up an unexciting Saturday afternoon alone in a city where I've previously visited for two days and, indeed, previously made curry, I decided to go for a walk along the south bank of the Yarra river and see if there were indeed the promised Botanical Gardens a short distance upriver.
And to further set the scene, I had my Southampton shirt on, given that Saints are playing Pompey (who, by the way, are trading while insolvent, and yet even the High Court doesn't seem to mind - how does THAT work?). And walking along I saw several Liverpool shirts (presumably they're playing as well today). Then under a bridge and towards the gardens and there was a bloke jogging towards me in an Aston Villa shirt.
Jogging slowly. With quite a belly. And a young kid by his side riding a bike slowly, keeping pace, and the two of them talked. And the man had stubble, and grey hair spiked up as if he was twenty and it was the late 1980s.
And as I passed them, I heard him lisping out a relatively high-pitched effeminate English accent. And I realised it was Nigel Kennedy.
OK, so twenty years ago it would have been more cool to say "I saw Nigel Kennedy jogging" but a quick Google reveals he is indeed in town this week playing three concerts and getting the interesting of the local newspapers.
The Botanical Gardens, meanwhile, were quite a disappointment (I mean, they were ok, but no better than the ones at Southampton University and let's face it, Melbourne gets more tourists than the back of the SU building on the Highfield Campus) so I went back to the hotel. Saints-Pompey takes place around midnight here and nobody is televising it live (the company who have the rights, Setanta Australia, are showing it in full at 9.15am tomorrow morning, urgh) so I'll just wait and catch up on the internet in the morning.
Rumour is Saints are going to play 'Summer Afternoon' by The Kinks as the teams run out. Why? First line:
The taxman's taken all my dough...
Mwa ha ha ha. (No, I have no sympathy. They had none for Saints last summer and at least we we didn't flagrantly break insolvency laws).
Postscript: For those who don't keep track of Gloria's Facebook, the news is that we're expecting a new arrival to our family on or around August 17th. Out of first trimester now, so time to tell people. We haven't figured on names yet but we like the idea of names that might make for some fun initials: for example, a girl might be Aribella Renee McRae-Spencer. ARMS. Or if it's a boy, we're probably looking to avoid something like Bartholomew Uriah McRae-Spencer. Hours of fun...
Postpostscript: For those who don't know who Nigel Kennedy is and who can't be bothered to type his name into Google, he's a very good classical violinist who actually hit the mainstream album charts around 20 years ago with his interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (as opposed to Frankie Valley's Four Seasons). He had trademark spiky hair and a lisp, but was generally regarded as cool, and the everyone liked him because he brought classical music to the attention of everyone, including young people with spiky hair and who supported Aston Villa.
Postpostpostscript: He did look pretty chubby though. I don't think he goes jogging all often, or if he does he prepares for it by eating chips.
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