Category Archives: health

Macrobiotic Bologna

Posted on August 10, 2008 | 4 comments

This was the macrobiotic meal I ate in Bologna before catching the overnight couchette to Paris. A classic balance of grains (brown rice and millet) with pulses (pinto bean stew) and a medley of fresh local vegetables, steamed and raw, it came with a dish of deep-fried vegetable tempura.

Un Punto Macrobiotico offers only one choice. I like that. It’s like eating at home, “you’ll get what you are given”, and no endless agonising choice and “I wish I’d had that”.

(Macrobiotic note: the restaurant and shop is inspired by visionaries, George Ohsawa and Mario Pianesi).

Any austerity was softened by the home-made peach ice-cream, sweetened with rice malt, which releases its sugar slowly so is better for the body.

I strode off for the ten-minute walk back across the bridge to the station, feeling quite the international traveller. I like trains. Slower than planes but far more civilised, it’s no sacrifice taking the green option.

(Foodie warning: Trenitalia and Eurostar serve rubbish and pricey food, so take your own. The waiter kindly parcelled up my tempura to take-away).

Bologna station was the scene of a horrifying terrorist attack in 1980. We witnessed a moving memorial (see flag below) on the day we travelled to the Adriatic coast, August 2nd. This is the date now designated in Italy as a memorial day for all terrorist massacres.

In the sauna-like heat on the Adriatic, we arrived at our stunningly stylish apartment, with its high ceilings, wooden shutters, IKEA furniture, Virago books, essential oils. So, I am sitting there glancing idly through the welcome file when I realise: crikey, it belongs to a friend of mine!

Ingrid Rose had booked it on the web (“I chose it because it was the only one saying you could walk – not drive – to the beach” she said). And then I find out I know the co-owner! A journalist who, 30 years ago, had given me encouraging and enduring advice – to “break up long sentences into short ones” – and whom I had recently met up with again because (another crazy coincidence) she is a dear friend of a dear friend.

Six degrees of separation, indeed!

Below is a picture of my sister gazing down from the apartment at the spectacular view below. Real food lover that she is, she patiently answered all my questions about Italian food.

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Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, recipe idea

Tagged Bologna, Cupra Marittima, Eurostar food, George Ohsawa, Macrobiotic restaurant, Mario Pianesi, rice malt, Trenitalia food

Starhawk and pot luck

Posted on July 31, 2008 | 5 comments

It’s not every day you meet a witch. The American pagan peace activist and writer Starhawk was giving a workshop on a nearby farm. We all bought a vegetarian offering for the shared lunch (see above).

Food brings people together and if everyone brings a dish, it’s not hard work to feed 30. The tastes may be pot luck but they miraculously get on well.

Starhawk shared with us some magical methods for keeping our spirits up while saving the world. She said, try to be in nature every day for fifteen minutes. Take time to wonder at how that leaf falls or green shoots burst out of a cracked pavement, and use your physical senses to ground you.

Radford Mill Farm was the perfect setting. We closed our eyes and heard the wind in the trees and the birds, calling. We opened them and walked barefoot on the wet grass. We felt the sun on our backs and saw the sky. I felt like a cooped-up chicken allowed to go free range.

Green activists live with the doom-reality of an impending environmental crisis but they are remarkably upbeat, probably because they are doing something to make the world a better place.

Starhawk’s talk was organised by Sarah Pugh, the Transition Bristol maven. Transition Culture is about getting self-sufficient so when supermarket shelves are empty and petrol pumps are dry, we have by this time learnt to grow our own veg (and guard our allotments from the marauding hordes?).

Our vegetables will have to be organic when oil is scarce. Non-organic farming relies on oil to make chemical fertiliser in factories. As oil prices rise, so does the cost of food. Organic farming has no need for gallons of oil. It makes its fertiliser on the farm, courtesy of the sun.

Radford Mill Farm is converting to organic and is set on making it a community affair. The official term is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA for those in the know). Originally from the US, it’s about sharing a farm’s responsibilities – and rewards. You commit in advance, with cash or in kind, and in return get a share of the harvest.

When the going gets tough, we will need our family farms more than ever. Adopt one now!

Below is a picture of Starhawk listening to Siobhan, a co-founder of Tribe of Doris, the UK’s most prestigious cultural festival. Here’s a tip for keeping cheerful: if you want to learn to dance or play music and can live under canvas for a convivial few days over the Bank Holiday weekend, then that’s the festival for you. (And don’t forget Climate Camp next week).

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Posted in food, health, organic, producers, rant, recipe idea

Tagged Climate Camp, organic, peak oil, pot luck, Radford Mill Farm, Starhawk, Transition Bristol, Transition culture, vegetarian

Buddhafield festival 2008

Posted on July 23, 2008 | 3 comments

Healthy camping breakfast of raw oats, nuts and dried fruit

I ate the above every morning – a perfect no-cook nutrition-packed camping breakfast. From now on I will never travel without a spoon, a bowl, and bags of organic jumbo oats, dates, sunflower seeds, sultanas and pecan nuts. All dried so easy to store – just add water to bring them to life (plus a slice of apple or two).

I don’t know why people bother with expensive foreign holidays when they can go to a five-day long Buddhist festival in a Devon field. Its rigours test you, its strange culture intrigues while all around fellow festival go-ers are shaking off their everyday constraints.

Chapatti cooking on open fire at Buddhafield festival 2008

Lots of interesting food to try such as the chapatti (above) cooked on an open fire and stuffed with homemade basil pesto and split-pea houmous (a must-try because quicker than soaking chickpeas).

And every cafe served fresh homemade chai, for me and the other two thousand people milling around in four fields.

Buddhafield cafe (above) was always busy, while other cafes such as the Organic Fallafel tent and the Indian Food tent did equally brisk business. As did Padma Pancakes which featured live music (including the unmissable The Wraithes who put classical poems to music).

Even the compost loos had their charms, with wooden steps as if unto a throne.

You could not do a thirtieth of what was on offer.

At night, there were live bands in every cafe, a cinema, DJs. A packed daily programme included talks on climate change, workshops in kung fu, lessons in Indian dancing, skilful flirting and sacred chanting. There were saunas in wooden huts, impromptu cabarets and Buddhist rituals with a butterfly on stilts (below).

And, just like the end of an exotic holiday, it was a culture-clash returning from Buddhafield to civvie street.

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Posted in food, health, organic, recipe idea

Tagged Buddhafield festival, chapatti, raw oats soaking with dried fruit

Beetroot, chocolate (and raw cocoa) brownies

Posted on July 16, 2008 | 9 comments

Beetroot, (chocolate and raw cocoa) brownies

I read about this recipe in the riveting Riverford Farm Cook Book I have been raving about, only I have customised it somewhat.

I have never thought about beetroot in cakes until I read Riverford’s recipe and then it was an “of course” moment – beetroot cake is the new carrot cake. The beets are sweet-tasting, easy to mush when cooked and not too watery. And plentiful, seasonal and grown-locally.

I used half the sugar the recipe called for, and also omitted its cocoa powder and baking powder. This was after eating the most wonderful date-and-walnut cake at Saturday’s party, baked by the Great Cake Company. Great, indeed. Cakemaker, Chris, generously shared her secret: rice flour, loads of butter and eggs. And no raising agents. Not necessary, she said.

Instant liberation! No more raising agents – just eggs. Yippee.

Going slightly off piste, I also added soaked prunes and raw cocoa nibs.

And here, thanks to the Riverford Farm Cook Book, is how I did it.

I melted a 150g bar of Green & Black’s cooking chocolate with 200g of butter, cubed, in a bowl, over a pan of boiling water.

The recipe calls for 250g but a 150g bar seemed to do it, plus I added 150g of raw cocoa nibs which are a natural stimulant and highly nutritious. Raw cocoa stays wildly crunchy and feels terribly healthy.

I had cooked the 250g beetroot the day before and now I whizzed the peeled purple beauties (and about 12 soaked prunes) in my trusty food processor, dating circa 1980s. The recipes calls for three eggs, but I whizzed-in four eggs (organic and free range of course), one by one. Then more whizzing with 100g of rapadura sugar (instead of the recipe’s 200g caster sugar).

Then with a large spoon, I folded in 50g of rice flour (which is gluten-free) and 100g ground almonds. All ingredients were organic, naturellement.

I miraculously found a baking tin of roughly the right proportions (28x18cm), greased it with butter and lined it with foil as I had no baking parchment. And placed it in the preheated oven at Gas 4/180 degrees C. It took half-an-hour. But don’t overcook it!

Omigod, were those brownies yum. Not too sweet, with crunchy bits and mousse-like lightness.

9 Comments

Posted in food, health, organic, recipe

Tagged beetroot, brownies, chocolate, raw cocoa, Riverford Farm Cook Book, the Great Cake Company

Andy’s vegan curry and a coincidence

Posted on July 13, 2008 | 5 comments

$Andy\'s veg vegan curry$

When you are partying in a field, a warming bowl of aromatic vegan veg curry on a bed of rice is most reassuring. The field had been transformed overnight into a human encampment with dance tents, music and smoking fires. And a kitchen under canvas to which I gravitated.

Andy was catering. He had borrowed pots, hired gas rings and an urn, and was cooking at a trestle table. I have a gypsy fantasy of being a festival cook but it’s bloody hard work.

Anyway, we chat about food and he mentions a friend studying at the Slow Food university called Henry.

“Henry who?” I ask, thinking of Henry Hoffman

“Henry Hoffman,” says Andy.

This is the one and the same Henry who commented about my pics from Italy saying, quite rightly, my header pic needs serious attention.

The sages say there is no such thing as a coincidence. Here I am in a Somerset field meeting someone who was schoolboy pal and is fellow foodie with the unknown stranger-person who commented on my blog.

If I am to extract a deeper meaning, I would say I need a new header pic asap. And possibly help from Henry Hoffman himself.

5 Comments

Posted in food, health, recipe idea, vegan

Tagged Henry Hoffman, Slow Food university, vegan curry

Beetroot tops

Posted on July 11, 2008 | 4 comments

Beetroot tops

I confess there was a time when I did not know that you could eat the leafy tops of raw beetroots. Now I have that knowledge, the next trick is to eat them when they are still dark green and fresh-looking.

I shredded the leaves and cut up the purple bits into a frying pan where I had heated olive oil and garlic. Cooking them in melted butter works well too. I fried spices but that is optional. Cook the leaves slowly enough until soft. No need for water. I also chucked in chunks of mushroom and served this nutritious dish with brown rice.

(It is pictured on my copy of the Guild of Food Writers‘ new-look magazine, Savour, where I learnt that Japan was a Buddhist vegetarian country until the 19th century.)

Whether you eat the leaves or not, do cut them off otherwise they draw out moisture from the beetroots. I learnt that fact from reading The Riverford Farm Cook Book – what a fab book, that is.

Written by iconoclastic farmer, Guy Watson, and the chef of Riverford Farm’s restaurant, Jane Baxter (who trained at the Carved Angel and the River Cafe), it’s a useful, informative and entertaining read.

Guy started farming organically in 1985 on the family farm in South Devon. Thanks to his brilliant idea of forming a cooperative with other local farmers, Riverford is now one of the UK’s largest organic growers with a veg box scheme that delivers all over the country.

I think cooperatives are the way to go, and especially for small family farmers – there’s strength in numbers especially when you are competing against agribusiness.

Guy says what he thinks, which is very refreshing. Quite rightly, he says the term “organic movement” sounds like everyone agrees with each other when in truth there is (healthy) debate.

The book is way-not pretentious. Clearly, Guy and Jane think the media-darling aspect of organics sucks.

Instead their voices are…well, down-to-earth. They give you a real grasp of how and when organic vegetables are grown, and basic yet tempting ways to cook them.

You know where you are with this book. I recommend it. Big time.

4 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, producers, recipe idea, restaurant

Tagged beetroot, beetroot tops, Guy Watson, Jane Baxter, organic, organic veg, organic veg box, Riverford farm cookbook, Riverford veg scheme, veg box scheme

Roast organic chicken from Sheepdrove farm, half price!

Posted on July 7, 2008 | 10 comments

A Merrier World inspired this blog, to raise awareness for chickens. Poor things. Prisoners on a factory-production line, they have turned into commodities. An organic chicken seems expensive in comparison because it gets to lead an ordinary life.

A cheap chicken is cheap because it does not lead a normal existence. Bred to quickly gain weight, it is sometimes too heavy to walk, and, kept indoors in a noisy shed with 40,000 other birds, it is denied its natural behaviour such as feeling the sun on its back, perching or stretching its wings.

“Poor people must have cheap healthy protein,” say the chicken-factory defenders. Hello? Cheap chicken is not exactly healthy – it is full of fat, antibiotics and is a food-poisoning risk, which is why it must be cooked so carefully. A false economy, if I’ve ever heard one.

Here are ways to eat organic chicken on a budget. Buy a whole chicken and serve it as a once-a-week treat. Use its carcass for soup and leftovers for future meals. Serve it with a plateful of other goodies as I did yesterday (see the above pic with its Better Food organic salad leaves, carrots and potatoes, kamut grain and non-organic broccoli) so a little goes a long way.

My chicken came from the Sheepdrove organic farm butcher shop in Bristol, belonging to Sheepdrove organic farm in Berkshire. Master butcher, Graham Symes, picked one out for me. “See its beautiful heart shape?” he said. “That’s the way a chicken should look with the breast falling over the legs (see pic below).”

Instead of £18 for 2.6 kilos, it was half-price because of a current surplus. You can get your half-price beauties here. Hurry while stocks last!

Sheepdrove organic farm is owned and run by the kind and visionary Peter and Juliet Kindersley. Peter has put his publishing profits to a good cause, developing top animal welfare systems. My favourite Sheepdrove fact: their chickens peck at healing herbs to self-medicate. Chickens are clever creatures when allowed to be their natural chicken-selves.

The Kindersleys have recently developed a terrific new safe way of feather-plucking on its on-farm abattoir. Usually the feathers are loosened by dunking the dead birds in a bacteria-infested hot bath. The new Sheepdrove method of steaming could dramatically reduce the number of bacteria for non-organic and organic poultry alike.

Our chicken was delicious. “It tastes like chicken should taste,” said my sister who is a regular Sheepdrove shopper.

Here’s how to roast a (preferably happy) chicken: allow 20 minutes of cooking time for every pound/500 grammes – and then 20 minutes extra. I smeared the breast and legs with olive oil, rubbed in paprika and salt, and slithered slices of garlic under the skin. I simmered the giblets in wine and water for stock, and made gravy with this and the cooking pan’s juices, thickened with my new discovery: an ounce of rolled oats.

A tip for the absent-minded cook: do not put a chicken – in a plastic bag – in the oven to get to room temperature, then forget it’s there and switch the oven on. Getting melted plastic off a hot oven is no fun. Trust me.

10 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, organic, producers, rant, recipe idea, sustainable

Tagged Bristol butcher, Half-price organic chicken, organic chicken, organic on a budget, roast chicken, Sheepdrove organic farm

Quick lettuce soup

Posted on July 5, 2008 | 4 comments

It was buy one, get one free at the organic supermarket in Bristol.

The Better Food assistant pointed out the bargain gem lettuces, fresh from the company’s Walled Garden.

I thought: oat-thickened lettuce soup. The perfect opportunity to share the quickest healthy-soup recipe I know. You basically boil water with butter, add oats to thicken and then the lettuce which takes seconds to cook.

Boil 1 pint of water with 1 ounce (30g) of butter. Add 1 ounce of rolled oats. Bring the water, butter and oats to the boil. Simmer for five minutes to cook the oats. Add a lettuce, chopped. Season with lots of black pepper but a little salt. Turn off the heat after several minutes as lettuce cooks quickly. And will carry on cooking in the water.

I think blending this soup makes it more unctious. I blended mine (see pic).

I came across it the other day. My mother was cooking it when I got back from the Guild of Food Writers Awards. Appropriately, the recipe came from the pen of one of our best food writers, the late Jane Grigson (mother of Sophie).

I love Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, which has recipes for every veg from artichoke to yam. My mum made hers with spinach, but the Grigson original is Irish Nettle Pottage.

I have had this book since 1980 so why, oh why, did I not think to delve in, in my nettle-soup phase?

On the subject of mistakes, I broke one glass within ten minutes of leaving the charity shop with five (for a fiver). When I photographed the damage, it had beauty (see below).

I feel a moral coming on.

Mistakes are like jewels in the crown because we can learn from them.

4 Comments

Posted in celebrity chefs, eating well on a budget, food, health, organic, producers, recipe, recipe idea

Tagged healthy, Jane Grigson, lettuce soup, organic

Tofu smoothie offering

Posted on June 22, 2008 | 3 comments

Tofu smoothie

I lay on my bed, as heavy as a stone. How to eat when your energy deserts you? Gazing up at my lampshade reminded me of the yellow-themed photo competition in aid of Bri, the young food blogger who has breast cancer.

Here is my offering. A tofu smoothie in a recycled glass held up against my yellow lampshade (with yellow scarf draped over the door).

Tofu is a miracle food because it’s protein-rich but incredibly light and easy-to-digest. Made from bean curd, it’s a great invalid food because meat and dairy can be a bit hardcore when you are feeling weak.

Even chewing can be hardcore. So I blended everything and all you have to do is sip this creamy smoothie, gently.

I whizzed up 225g tofu, 2 tablespoons of ground almonds (or same amounts of peanut butter/almond butter), one sliced banana, 300 mls (half pint) rice milk and a teaspoon of cinnamon (and the same of turmeric for yellow-colour and its fabulous health properties).

Below, I pictured the half-empty tofu packet as well as a Tibetan mandala puja ceremony I went to at the Pierian centre today. The monk had spent the last week (it was Refugee week) making a mandala from rainbow-coloured sand but today he dismantled it, prayerfully.

We followed him to Bristol’s river Frome where he cast the sand grains into the water, a reminder of both life’s impermanence and the eternal and reviving now.

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Posted in food, health, recipe, recipe idea, vegan

Tagged healthy smoothie, The Power of Now, Tibetan mandala puja, tofu, tofu smoothie, vegan

Red lentil soup

Posted on June 11, 2008 | Leave a comment

My friend Sheila said, “come over,” and I said, “shall I bring something to eat?” With only an hour and a half to spare and no time to shop, soup made with split red lentils was the only answer.

Without much ado, I soaked 125g red lentils for half an hour in about 4 mugfuls of water. The little dried red things (a storecupboard-must!) absorbed some water and softened – then I applied the heat. As I brought the pan to the boil, I chopped one onion and chucked it in.

You can see the uncooked onion pieces and some lentils floating on the surface as the soup begins to boil (above).

The strange naked beast in the picture is a peeled turmeric root from Marshford organics. I have never seen turmeric’s root root before, only its powder. It is closely related to ginger, but unlike that root, turmeric stained my hand yellow as I sliced it.

I also added sliced organic carrots that had overstayed their welcome at the bottom of my fridge and quarter of a dried chilli, not enough to bite.

Once the soup had come to the boil, I simmered it for half an hour until it was a soup-y mush. To make sure of its mushiness, I gave it a quick whizz with my handheld electric blender.

I got the soup safely to Sheila’s and we ate in the garden (see below).

I first met Sheila when, pregnant, I wandered into the Birth Centre circa 1977 to find out more about natural childbirth. On impulse, Sheila offered me a job wo-manning the Birth Centre ‘phone. She was a signpost in my life, putting me on track for the start of my new career as an ante-natal teacher and writer.

Sheila is a natural pioneer. Ahead of her time, Sheila brought the French obstetrician, Frederick (birth without violence) Leboyer to the UK, and changed our views of birth forever.

I see parallels between real food and natural birth; both aim to understand and work with nature rather then supplant it with risky and often unnecessary intervention.

$yellow flower in Sheila\'s garden$