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Monday, February 6th, 2012

What I Talk About When I Talk About Cycling

What I Talk About- Running

“Sometimes it strikes me as an intricate form of torture. In his book the triathlete Dave Scott wrote that of all the sports man has invented cycling has got to be the most unpleasant of all. I totally agree.”

- Haruki Murakami “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”

I needed to cross the busy A6 and slightly misjudged the timing, causing a van driver to toot as I shot in front of him. But he wasn’t satisfied with a toot and chased me down a lane and deliberately rammed me from behind, throwing me into a hedge and breaking my arm. I had to walk half a mile with my broken bike and arm to the nearest house, where I called an ambulance. Haruki Murakami, in his brilliant book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, which is mainly about running, but also about cycling, says that his dominant feeling when he’s on his bike is fear. He tells of the time when he hit a metal post and was only saved from serious injury by his helmet. It took me a while to get over my run in with Mr Angry, but now I’m on the road whenever I can, and I manage to do a forty minute ride four times a week on average. What do I think about when I’m cycling? Nothing at all. There’s no time to think because my mind is totally focussed on what’s happening around me. The fear is always there and that feeling of fear adds to the adrenalin, which may explain why I always feel absolutely great at the end of the ride and can’t wait for for the next round of torture.

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Sunday, September 18th, 2011

Why the bumper crop?

Runner Beans

It’s been announced today that this summer is officially the worst on record. Well, I take that with a big dose of salt not least because it seems odd that the worst weather should go hand in hand with the most bountiful harvest. We’ve had a better crop of fruit and veg in our kitchen garden this year than ever before and from what I hear, we’re not alone in that. Why should this be so when the summer has been so cold and damp? One theory has been put forward by Ian Bell who is a biodynamic farmer from Dorchester. He argues that it’s to do with last winter’s heavy snowfall. This is what he says:

“Nitrogen joins with carbon and minute quantities of arsenic, lead and mercury, all of which are held fast in the crystalline structure of the snow and carried to our soils: an infinitely more powerful mediator of fertility than anything you can buy from the garden centre”.

He’s undoubtedly right on the latter point – you won’t find many garden centres listing “arsenic, lead and mercury” among their list of ingredients, and I’m not sure that I want them leaching into my veg.

Whatever the merits of Ian Bell’s argument, there is no doubt at all that the increase in carbon dioxide in the air improves crop yields. It’s common practice for horticulturalists who grow crops under glass to use air enriched with carbon dioxide to improve growth rates. When the increase in carbon dioxide in the air was first recorded, about 70 years ago, it was noted that this could prove of great benefit to humanity because of the effect on crop yields. They have been proved right, but this is a fact which is barely mentioned nowadays, when the increase in carbon dioxide is portrayed as being wholly evil. If the prediction of warmer weather ever turns out to be true we’ll have a double benefit, because there’s nothing crops like better than a little extra warmth.

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Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

What’s in a McDonald’s Hamburger

holstein-cows-holstein-cow

When I took the plunge and bought a dairy cow, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a Holstein.  Holsteins are the black and white cows that you see in the fields everywhere and they are popular with dairy farmers because they have been bred for one purpose and one purpose only – to produce as much milk as possible.  So much milk that when their udder is full it’s grotesquely distended.  I went for a honey coloured Jersey instead even though they produce half the milk of a Holstein, but at least I could bear to look at the thing.

Holsteins produce good milk, but poor meat, which is why they are never used for meat production. But this causes a problem because cows need to have calves in order to keep on making milk and half of the calves are male which, for obvious reasons, are hopeless at making milk.  So it’s the normal practice to shoot male calves when they are five days old. Farmers don’t like doing this, but they’ve no alternative as Holstein meat is unsaleable.  Until now that is. The marketing guys at McDonalds have ridden to their rescue.  They know the value of letting their customers know that they sell only British beef.   They also know that their customers aren’t at all fussy about the quality of what they eat.  Why not, then, sell them meat that no self-respecting butcher would touch, but which they can truthfully call British.  A dairy farmer on Farmer Today gave away the story when he explained that it costs him £800 to feed a male calf for a year, but McDonalds will pay him £900 for the carcase and even a paltry £100 profit makes it worthwhile. I was amused to hear the farmer add that McDonalds’s aren’t alone in this racket – his other customer is Tescos.

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Thursday, September 8th, 2011

The Cottage in the Wood

Cottage in the Wood 2

Nowadays every restaurant worth its salt proclaims that they are passionate about using local produce. Most of them lie. As a matter of fact 70% of all the food that restaurants use is imported, so there are a lot of porkies being told. But one restaurant which is true to their word, I’m sure, is the lovely Cottage in the Wood and tonight the food was not only local but, for a good part, foraged by hand by the owners, Liam and Kath Berney. The Cottage in the Wood is in the middle of the Whinlatter Forest, overlooking Skiddaw – in other words prime foraging country. I was there for a “Cumbria on a Plate ” dinner, hosted by the fabulous Annette Gibbons and I’m sure that I wasn’t alone in getting a sinking feeling when Annette announced that the menu would revolve around ‘foraging’.

I couldn’t have been more wrong – the meal was delightful – delicious, inventive and just plain different. As an example, a dish of home smoked mackerel was served with foraged herbs and hogweed “capers”. Hogweed is that poisonous plant which grows 18ft tall and which you are supposed to report to the authorities if you see it. But, as Annette pointed out (we were glad of the reassurance), it’s only poisonous if the sap gets on your skin and Liam had collected the berries to create the capers. Another inventive dish was game terrine, made from grouse, pigeon, pheasant and partridge, which was served with damson gin sorbet (damsons are found in the hedgerows in these parts) and hot bon bons. Because wine wouldn’t go with a gin sorbet this was accompanied by Loweswater Gold Beer.

When my elderly mother ate at L’Enclume she proclaimed in a loud voice, so that all the stern, solemn waiters could hear, that the meal was “pretentious rubbish”. There’s nothing pretentious about the Cottage in the Wood. Liam and Kath are enjoying themselves too much and their infectious enthusiasm make an evening there just plain good fun.

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Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Miso Paste- The World’s Slowest Food

Miso paste

On the day that Slow Food finally reached the Oxford English Dictionary (definition- “food that is carefully produced or prepared in accordance with local traditions”) it’s time to celebrate the slowest of slow foods: Miso paste. Miso paste is a staple of Japanese cooking- it’s the basis for Miso soup, which most Japanese have for breakfast every morning, and many other dishes. Every Japanese household will have some Miso paste at hand, and yet it takes between six months and a year to prepare. When I was told this I googled “Miso paste recipe” and was surprised to find that Google was completely useless- there were plenty of recipes using miso paste but none which showed you how to make the paste itself- they all assumed that you bought it ready made from the supermarket. So I emailed my friend Makiko in Tokyo who, as it happened, was just in the process of making a batch. She kindly sent me her recipe, here it is:

Ingredients
1kg whole soybeans
3ltr water
1kg dried rice koji
400g Salt

Method
Rinse the whole soybeans with water then soak them in 3litres of water overnight.
The next day, boil the soaked beans with the soaking water. Remove scum.
You need to boil them for about 4 hours to obtain soft soybeans.
Crumble the koji, then add salt and mix them well.
Mash the soft beans while they are hot (about 35-40 degrees, any higher will deactivate the koji culture), using a potato masher.
Add malt with salt into the mashed beans. Shape the mixture into balls, then throw them into the container. This process prevents the mashed beans from containing air.
Level the surface and sprinkle 2 teaspoons of salt over the top to prevent mould growth. Cover the surface of the mashed beans with cling film and put a weight (about 3kg) on top.
The fermentation will start immediately. The container should be place in a clean room with moderate temperatures (15°C – 25°C). The miso will be ready after 6 to 12 months fermentation. During the fermentation some liquid (=tamari) will rise to the surface. If no liquid tamari is seen on the surface then the pressing weight must be increased.
Each time you want to inspect the fermentation process you will lose quality, so only do it when necessary and no more than once every 2 months. This miso can be kept in the container for a few years.

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Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Cycle Mania

bike_lane_cartoon

“If you go any slower Mister, you’ll be going backwards”. This jibe was thrown at me by a ten year old boy as I wearily cycled home from my office in the City. That was 20 years ago and in those days I would cycle to work every day. Why then, now that I live in the countryside do I go to work by car? I’ve often thought about it, but the fact is that the roads are too dangerous and the hills too steep. I’m still a keen cyclist and go out on my bike several times a week, but now only for pleasure and the exercise.

These thoughts came to mind when I picked up a brand new leaflet, aimed at the tourist trade, giving details of cycle rides in and around Kendal. The leaflet is a glossy affair and boasts that it’s funded by the “EU Regional Development Fund”. I’m sure that it will be welcomed, and appreciated by all, except perhaps those commercial operators who produce similar guides for profit, who won’t be able to compete with a free leaflet. It will be valuable for those government departments who need to show that they are doing something sustainable. This is just one of those initiatives relating to “sustainable transport”, for which a grant of £5m has recently been announced. Another is a scheme to provide charging points for electric cycles. . Meanwhile the things that really matter to tourism in the Lakes, for which funding is desperately required, such as decent car parks and public toilets, are neglected or underfunded. When a visitor arrives in the Lakes there may be nowhere to park and nowhere to pee, but at least there’ll be somewhere to re-charge your electric bike.

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Monday, May 16th, 2011

Free range Eggs

We don’t keep hens any more, so I have to buy my own eggs and there’s no better place for this than Low Sizergh Farm Shop. Until a few months ago Low Sizergh Farm was organic, a status they had to relinquish when grain became too expensive, but that decision has had no effect on the quality of the eggs.

There are four categories of eggs- battery, pretend free range, real free range and organic. Nearly all eggs sold in supermarkets fall into the battery and ‘pretend free range’ categories. The difference between pretend free range and real free range is that the former are kept indoors permanently, just like battery hens, but have a theoretical access to the great outdoors, which they don’t use. I’ve seen one of these pretend facilities on a farm not far from Low Sizergh Farm, and it made me resolve never to buy another egg which is described as “free range” unless I could be certain that the hens really do go outside. There’s no problem at all with Low Sizergh Farm. Any visitor can see the hens pecking contentedly outside. They may not be organic anymore, but they are the genuine article.

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Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

#The Hotel

Anything over a million viewers would have been acceptable, but Channel 4 were ecstatic to hear that 2.3 million viewers watched the first episode of The Hotel – and that it was the most viewed programme on Channel 4 in the entire week. I got a call not long after the programme ended to say that I must log on to #thehotel on Twitter. It was amazing to see the torrent of tweets – most of them favourable. Two things were obvious – all of the girls loved Amos and everyone loved Wayne, except for the girls who thought that he had been mean to Amos. For a while on Sunday ‘The Hotel’ trended No1 in the UK on Twitter and No2 Worldwide. The video shows an interview with Wayne shown on Granada Reports on Monday evening.

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Friday, February 25th, 2011

How to be a Cumbrian Farmer

farmer
I well remember my grandfather describing a conversation between two rather dour wool merchants in Bradford:
“How’s business?” asked the first
“Terrible” came the reply
“How terrible?”
“Why, hardly better than last year”
“How was last year?”
“Best we ever ‘ad”.

When it comes to dourness Bradford wool merchants have got nothing on Cumbrian farmers. I’ve been fascinated to watch them at livestock auctions in the past and to see that they are on no account to show any signs of happiness, let alone contentment. If you ask a Cumbrian farmer, who has just sold an animal for a record price, how the sale went, his reply is likely to be “It’ll have to do”. I’m told that a farmer may, after making a spectacular profit, allow himself a private smile in the car on the way home, but that will be it.
As a Yorkshireman, I’ve never quite got the hang of it, which is no doubt why I’ll never make a farmer.

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Monday, February 14th, 2011

Valentine’s Day in Japan

valantines
A good friend called as I was driving back from the airport with the exciting news that she’s engaged. Her boyfriend had proposed in the most romantic way while they were on a skiing holiday by writing “Will You Marry Me” in the ice on a lake. That’s some precedent for him to live up to.

The prize for the least romantic proposal goes to the Scot who took his girl to the family tomb and asked her whether she would like to have her named engraved on it. I thought this a good joke at the expense of the Scots until I leant that in Japan a traditional way of proposing marriage is to ask “Will you share my grave?” A variation on the theme is to say “Let’s grow old together”, although the most common way of proposing marriage in Japan is to ask “Will you make my miso soup?”. Japanese girls despair of finding a romantic streak in their men. Valentine’s Day is big in Japan, but the presents (which are usually chocolates) all come from the women. Once married, however, the women will invariably insist on separate beds. It seems that its all right to share the same grave, but never the same bed.

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