All of which went through my mind yesterday when I realised with dismay, halfway through marinating it for a stir fry, that I had accidentally bought turkey breast rather than chicken. Oh well, I thought, the beloved will enjoy it even if I don’t. And, feeling rather saintly, I continued marinating it in walnut oil, garlic, ginger, chillies and chives.

(The walnut oil and chives are a little unorthodox, I know: it’s just that unless there’s a compelling reason not to, I put walnut oil and chives in everything, because they are two of my favourite things.)

Later on, with the addition of cashew nuts, mange tout, egg noodles and a splash of soy sauce, I fried it all up and served it with a wrinkled nose and a feeling of resignation. And you know what? It was amazing. The turkey had a richness and a smokiness that I’ve never got from chicken, but was still light enough to carry all the flavours of the marinade without overwhelming them. It tasted almost more like pork than like chicken, and contrasted beautifully with the lightness of the mange tout and the noodles. It was also, contrary to expectations, not in the least dry, but juicy and succulent, even where I’d burned some of it at the edges when I left the kitchen briefly and then forgot to go back until I smelled the smoke.

So there you go: turkey isn’t as horrible as I thought, and it’s worth experimenting with methods other than the full Christmas roast version, because now I have a whole new ingredient to start playing with.

I am still right about jacket potatoes, though.

]]> http://gladallover.net/2011/11/03/lets-talk-turkey/feed/ 1 elsiem http://gladallover.net/2011/05/24/play-the-bassoon/ http://gladallover.net/2011/05/24/play-the-bassoon/#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 11:10:03 +0000 elsiem http://gladallover.net/?p=1632 ]]> In honour of a ten-day visit to these shores by Alice, who is the only bassoon player I know, and because I still haven’t got time to write a proper blog post, here’s my highlight from Dark Roasted Blend‘s latest collection of unlikely signs:

Full post here.

But water does funny things to me. I can’t watch movie scenes filmed underwater without starting to feel nervous, and the anxiety I start to feel whenever I’m out of my depth is not nearly proportionate to the actual risk, although that must be a commoner reaction than I thought, or we wouldn’t use the term “out of one’s depth” to mean “in trouble”. I’m not a very strong swimmer, but I can float and bob around quite happily for forty-five minutes or so without needing to touch the ground, so it’s a psychological problem rather than a physiological one.

The problem is, most pools – especially serious, unheated outdoor pools like the Brockwell Lido – aren’t really designed to be bobbed and floated in. They’re designed for people who want to swim lengths. Frankly, I never want to swim lengths. I want to do star jumps and dolphin leaps and handstands. But if it’s a choice between swimming lengths and any other form of aerobic exercise, I will happily go for the lengths. I have no desire to lose weight (I feel compelled to say this in the light of my second New Year’s resolution, which was not to be bridezilla: I feel quite strongly that I don’t want to be one of those women who suddenly shoot down to a size eight in the weeks before their weddings, and as it happens this sits very happily with the fact that I have no plans to stop eating and drinking exactly what I want, whenever I want it), but I would like to be fitter and I would like to sleep better, and Pilates only offers small consolation in these departments. I need to do something that makes me tired.

So I think I’m going to sign up for a Swim London pass, which is cheaper than gym membership and covers forty pools across London. It doesn’t include the Lido, which is a shame since Brockwell Park is less than thirty seconds’ walk from home, but it does include Brixton and Crystal Palace, both a brisk walk or bus ride away, as well as the Oasis centre in Covent Garden which is two minutes from my office AND has a heated rooftop pool. I may not be able to bob and float there, but at least I’ll be able to swim a length without my lungs closing up in protest at the cold.

Because the thing is that as well as being afraid of the water, I love it. My two most vivid memories of pure physical pleasure in the last year are of swimming, once here:

And once here:

The first is a pool in Cyprus, the second Lake Huron. In Cyprus I swam twice a day, in a pool that was never deeper than I am tall. In Lake Huron I went out of my depth because the water was warm and soft and tasted of minerals and it wasn’t frightening. Actually there is an undertow in the lake, even though there are no tides, and the bottom has sharp rocks along it – a fact that scars on my right hand and knee will attest to. But you see, I wasn’t scared of injuring myself when I injured myself, so I didn’t mind. And when you’re out there bobbing and floating and spinning, with nobody to watch you except a few water birds and the occasional butterfly, there’s nothing in the world like it.

What do you suppose are the chances that swimming at the Oasis sports centre in Covent Garden will be more like Lake Huron and less like Brockwell Lido? Yeah, me too. But I’ll give it a go.

Talking of nature, we spent a couple of hours last Sunday afternoon in the back garden of the Crown and Greyhound in Dulwich Village, where we were protected from a brief bout of rain by this monster, whose branches extend so far across the garden that nobody got wet at all:

I think it’s a horse chestnut, but I would be happy to be corrected.

But it was the promise of Paul McCartney which had me eagerly pressing the “refresh” button on my browser the morning tickets went on sale. I tried to get tickets to see him at the Dome back in December, but the good seats were insanely expensive and anyway, it sold out before I could buy any. Day tickets to Hard Rock Calling are £60 and you get to sit anywhere you like and see lots of other acts, so this was a much better choice.

Well, it was great and the photos are here, but in the long minutes between acts I found myself fascinated by what people choose to wear when it’s hot and they’re going to be outside all day, because if you live in or near London (or any British city), neither of those things is very often true. It’s hot today, but I am spending eight hours of it inside an air-conditioned office, so I am wearing a dress with sleeves. On Sunday, we were all exposed to bright sun and 30C temperatures for about the same amount of time. In those circumstances, deciding what to wear can be quite tricky. So I inspected the choices of some of my fellow revellers, and have come up with some guidelines, which I now present to you for free, with nothing in mind but your welfare and happiness:

1. As in so many areas of life, I agree with Baz Luhrmann. Rule number one is wear sunscreen.

2. With no shade and barely a cloud in the sky, hats are the order of the day:

3. Be careful with straps. Straps are good, but ill-fitting or competing straps are bad. However, if you have no choice but to show off your bra straps, do it with chutzpah, so it looks like you meant it:

4. It’s better to wear too many clothes than too few. You recover faster from being hot than you do from being burnt (I have tried both, so I can say this with certainty). And if you wear light, loose clothes you probably won’t be much hotter than you would have been in a bikini. I liked this outfit very much:

5. Do not, under any circumstances, wear a bikini. Bikinis are strictly for the beach.

I should come clean at this point and tell you that I was wearing a jumpsuit.

In many ways they are ideal hot-weather outdoor wear: they are durable, you can sit cross-legged without risking your modesty, and they keep all the ungainly bits covered while allowing arms and legs unfettered access to the air. However, they can be tricky to go to the toilet in. I think the answer to this is to wear a baggy-ish one with no complicated fastenings, and to stay on the fuzzy side of sober. You’ll be pleased to know that I more or less managed both.

However, based on extensive research I have decided that the IDEAL festival-going hot-weather outfit is a strapless top, elasticated shorts, a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and a wrap which you can sit on when your legs get tired and put around your shoulders after the sun goes down.

Shoes are more problematic: you need something sturdy and comfortable which you won’t get sweaty in. I wore Crocs, but I am the only person I know who looks good in Crocs, and the only reason I think I look good in them is that I never on any account look at them once they’re on. I just revel in the squish of the tread and the swish of the air as it cools my toes. The real answer is probably flip-flops on soft grass and light plimsolls on rough grass. But I will leave that to your discretion.

Sorry for only talking about girls’ clothes. I have no advice for boys, although the hat and sunscreen rules are unisex. If you are a boy, I suggest you dress like this:

I have left the most important rule, not including the sunscreen one, until last. The most important rule, not including the sunscreen one, is:

6. Wear whatever you like. It’s a festival! Go wild.

Also, this:

(via Zooborns)

I never used to like Bromley. If you lived in Beckenham, Bromley was the place you went to at weekends because it had a slightly better range of shops, and a McDonald’s, and pubs where you wouldn’t bump into your parents’ friends who knew you were fourteen. Tell someone you’re from Bromley, and they look at you sympathetically. The beloved and I had a drink recently with a friend who introduced us to her new-ish boyfriend, who lives in Bromley, and we spent most of the evening commiserating with one another. Bromley isn’t a place, it’s the punchline to a joke.

But, you know what? Bromley’s kind of OK. The high street is mainly pedestrianised, so market stalls have sprung up, and in the sunshine today it looked like somewhere you might want to go and have a look at:

The introduction of PAYG to South Eastern trains didn’t make my journey as easy as it should have done. I forgot to touch in at Herne Hill, so when I got to Bromley South, where there are barriers, I asked the guard if I could buy a paper return ticket to Herne Hill, which would both retrospectively cover the journey I’d just made and allow me to get back again later. Although it wasn’t strictly within the rules, she could see that it was the simplest solution, and fortunately was not of the breed of train guard who lives for being able to charge people a fine for being idiots. So I queued up and bought my return ticket, forgetting that I’d already arranged to go and see my parents after visiting Koto, so I wouldn’t be making the return journey by train. So I queued up and paid for a journey I’d already made, and a journey I was never going to make. These are the ways I fill my time.

I have a hen weekend to go to tomorrow. There will be games. I will post photos next week, if I survive the experience.

The problem with this is the 140 character limit. In the day-to-day run of things it’s fun and interesting to compose whichever thought you want to convey in such a way that it will fit into a single tweet, but it’s almost impossible to persuade someone to follow someone they’ve never heard of in the same amount of space.

So here, extended for as many characters as I need to explain them, are my Follow Friday recommendations for today. The only thing they have in common is that they’re all prolific tweeters: it’s no good being hilarious and insighful if you only do it once a month.

If you’re on Twitter, follow these people immediately, and if you’re not you can sign up here.

Richard Madely has only been on Twitter for a couple of months, but has already posted more times than I have. And every post is so boundlessly, enthusiastically, Tiggerishly Richard that it’s a constant charm. He is genuinely interested in everything!

Sample tweet:

Newsflash (now THAT takes some of us back) – Soy Sauce in gravy works! Big time! Makes it more savoury with nice backtaste. Just a teaspoon.

I don’t really know who Sali Hughes is, except that she’s a writer, and I can’t remember how I found her, but she’s witty and self-deprecating, and was very funny about her family Christmas. She also chats a lot, so she’s a good way of finding even more people to follow.

Sample tweet:

I’ve just noticed someone’s put me on a twitter list entitled CARBS. I didn’t come here to be insulted. *puts down baked potato sandwich*

Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and magician who uses Twitter more creatively and ingeniously than anyone else I’ve come across. He uses his audience as a giant research panel, constantly asking questions and setting challenges and suggesting things for people to try and report back to him on. He also sets a weekly logic puzzle, and for that alone he makes the list.

Sample tweet:

Starting new book today. Will open with the best sentence submitted on Twitter.

Julia Irving is a Geordie mother of two who enjoys food, reality TV and travel. She also has a terminal cancer diagnosis, but you’d rarely know that from her tweets. She is relentlessly upbeat, has a good word for everyone (even Heather Mills!) and finds joy in the smallest of things. If I ever start to feel weedy and sorry for myself, a healthy dose of Jools brings me back to my senses.

Sample tweet:

OMG this new dessert I have made for tonight is just WOW FABBY DELISH ) Its honeycomb and chocolate mouse pots YUMMMMYYYYYYY

Finally, I am giving a joint spot to Adam Kay and Suman Biswas, the singing doctors of London Underground fame, because their funniest tweets are often to each other. Pleasingly, the element of “he didn’t really just say that, did he?” which is so prevalent in their songs is also present in their tweets, though I’ve deliberately chosen mild examples here to put you off your guard.

Sample tweet (Adam):

Ever since Alistair Cooke stopped presenting Letter from America and died I’m nervous when he’s mooted to captain England.

Sample tweet (Suman):

Am teaching my cat about Communism. (I assume he wants to learn, he’s always asking about Mao).

And really truly finally, I wouldn’t give them a Follow Friday mention because there can’t be anyone left on Twitter who doesn’t already, but if you’re new to it then you must make sure to follow David Schneider, Mrs Stephen Fry, Samuel Johnson, Derren Brown, Phillip Schofield and shitmydadsays; especially that last one.