Seahorse dreams

I have a day off today and am enjoying taking it easy. There will be some more coffee drunk later and a wander into Helsinki.

I've been meaning to post for a little while on a completely unrelated food topic - the as yet untitled 3rd album project from Pebble. I know the working title is Olympic 52 at the moment but that just sounds like a giant Hollywood movie giving itself a fake name so as to avoid attention.

This project has been a long time in the works, the move to Norway and now Finland have delayed any real work but now I have a nice space here in Helsinki all I need is some time and some inspiration!! What I know is this:

*Seahorse
This is a sad song and yet hopeful for the future. I am always struck over and over again how people can get themselves in all sorts of emotional knots and yet one day spring out of them and face the future with renewed hope. I have a few nice chords so this should be a keeper.
*Captain Jessica Fantastic
This one has some killer chords and a bright upbeat style of early REM but (damn that 'but') I've used the old trick of taking two songs and compacting them together to make a single more interesting song and the joins are a little too obvious right now and I haven't solved it...yet.
*Victoria
This one was originally started in 1997 and not finished until a few weeks ago. I have always loved the first line, "I crashed and burned with an actress in a pub on Drury Lane." I really did crash and burn when I tried to chat her up and that was the start of a wild, wild night. The rest of the song doesn't deal with that evening at all. It's done as a song.
*Untitled
Beautiful riff, goes in all sorts of interesting directions. Absolute no idea what is going on. I think I'll have to record it and hope some words arrive.

They are the songs with something real going on. There are a few other chord sequences and melodies floating around including a stray line about the Cat who used to live next door to us in Malvik, Norway which are too good to drop but still homeless.

*****

"It began without words, they came later and made things worse, not better."

This is the first line from my new novel. The problem is this is the only thing I remember from my dream last night. What is the book about? Why can't I remember?

When you're big in Japan

It's a beautiful morning and the coffee is good and I am in an uncharateristic manner blogging twice in as many days and I haven't even got round to writing about how the songwriting is going.

This morning's post is about food so read on and please begin to drool discretely.

My boss is coming round for dinner on Sunday en familie and I promised Japanese food. This was OK until he mentioned his wife doesn't eat fish and he loves sushi. Here in the kitchen we love sushi and enjoy making it, it's one thing we're quite good at (souffles are something I am bad at but that is another post!). So I know I can make a few old favourites using avocado and cucumber. I also have begun to understand the battleship principle so have bought some fish roe to experiment with. However in an act of imagination I want to create some kind of courgette battleship where grilled julienne strips of courgette replaced the seaweed. The filling would then be some cream cheese with fresh dill. My challenge is to get the rice and the courgette to bond like the seaweed does. Finally we're employing the principle of lots of little dishes to make a balanced meal. So here is the menu for tomorrow's food:


Miso soup (made with home made dashi stock)
Inside out avocado rolls
Salmon nigiri
Fish roe battleships
Grilled courgette battleships with dill and cream cheese
Hijiki seaweed balls
Red and yellow cherry tomatoes in a soy dressing
Carrot salad
Mushrooms and pickles
Leeks in sweet chilli sauce
Pickled plums

Dessert
Green tea cheesecake

Drinks
Sake
Beer

The kitchen is open for reservations!!

Thursday night movie club

I first moved to Bristol in 1999 for a job. The company rented a house for the 5 or 6 people working on getting the Bristol Store opened. We had a house virtually opposite a lovely pub called The Hope and Anchor. On most evening we could be found in there enjoying a pint (or two) and some cheesey chips. It was then that my friend Mike and I founded the Thursday night movie club. It lasted a few years and was a pretty mainstream affair, I had to keep my art house tastes hidden like a dirty secret, and it was fun.

Now in Helsinki we seem to have stumbled across another Thursday Night Movie Club which is excellent and we have been to the movies more in the last few months than in the last year.

It is very civilised to meet for a beer beforehand and then just enjoy the dark room and the big picture. I wish there was time afterwards to sit and talk about the films but that will come in time.

So last night was Ang Lee's Lust, Caution which I experienced through the prism of Swedish subtitles. The film has received almost universal praise in almost everything I've read and attracted additional publicity for being critisiced by the Chinese authorities for it's gratuitous sex scenes. So where to begin...certainly not with a precis of the plot.

First of all it looks beautiful (and this is the first time I can actually understand what that overused term means) and while it appears to be a love story (on many different levels between many different characters) it is at heart a story about power and often an unflinching one. The sex scenes seemed more brutal than passionate and appeared positively painful to all those involved. The plotting was good, well paced and the 2 hrs plus running time never dragged. Yet I left the cinema saddened by the movie. The overwhelming impression I had was that every character held power over another at various points and all it gave them was an empty taste as a reward.

*****

The week before was My Blueberry Night which saw me inducted into the Helsinki chapter of the Jude Law fan club by my fellow movie goers (you know who you are and I thank you for the honour!). It was the film that was offered by "the club" that night and I had no expectations of it other than it appeared to be dangerously close to being in chick flick territory and being a "real man" (Please please please note the irony there and do not take that seriously I would be mortified) that I would hate it.

So my advice to all you guys out there - go and see it.

A week on I'm having the idea that it is somehow related to "It's a wonderful life". In that movie Clarence has to show Jimmy Stewart what the world would have been like if he hadn't been born. In MBN Norah Jones' character is a kind of Angel connecting with various dispossessed characters so that somehow she can help Jude Law. I think I should stop now before I start waffling....the point is I thought it was a nice bit of fluff at the time and then the next day driving to work I was struck by how it had made me happy as a movie and that is a good thing.

There is a list of things I'm supposed to post on relating to the Kitchen so hopefully will get those up this week.

In the meantime waste nothing and watch art house movies.

I'm not there

A movie I saw last night. A movie that I really enjoyed. It wasn't an easy movie and it did open itself up to the charge of being overlong and over clever but as a movie that sought to celebrate the enigma (rather than expose it to the light) of who/what/why Bob Dylan is/has been/should have been it did well. I am, by my own admission, a fan but only one with a working knowledge of his best known songs, a rudimentary knowledge of his biography, an earlier viewing of Martin Scorcesses documentary from 2 years ago and I've read Biograhies vol 1 once.

Cate Blanchett was stunningly androgynous (I'm going to regret not checking the spelling of that word in the dictionary before publishing) and as asexual as her role as Galadriel in Lord of the Rings. Which, given my opinion that she is a beautiful woman makes me worry about myself slightly...does any of the above count as a recommendation to see this movie?? I think so.

*****

So the Kitchen has been closed forever. Maybe it was the dark Finnish winter or something but I didn't feel I had a lot to say. However earlier this week I managed to get excitied about a quick stir fry I did.

Serves 2 (with left overs for a lunch)
Ingredients
Vegetable oil
Seasame seed oil
Soy sauce
Garlic
Ginger
Sambal Olek (or crushed chillies)
Chinese Cabbage
Celery
Half a pepper
Mushrooms
Asparagus
400g Udon Noodles
Poppy seeds (to garnish)

Do these tasks before you begin cooking:
Chop up a few cloves of garlic and a good knob of ginger. Put in a ramekin.
Shred cabbage
Cut up celery - I halved it lengthway and then cut across it at an angle - I wanted ot to look different to the cabbage
Slice the pepper thinly
Chop mushrooms

Heat the vegetable oil and add a drop of the seasame seed oil. When hot hot hot add half the garlic and ginger and fry the cabbage so it wilts. Take out of the pan and put in a bowl.

Put the noodles in boiling water.
Check oil in the wok is hot enough and add the rest of the garlic, ginger plus chillis to tast. Stir fry the remaining vegetables. Add the noodles once cooked so they are coated in the chilli, garlicky goodness.

To serve put noodles and vegetables in a bowl and sprinkle with poppy seeds (or seasame seeds if you prefer). Top with the cabbage. Season with soy if needed and enjoy.

Should be leftovers for one good lunch portion as well.

*****

We have some basil that is desperate to be used today so I will be making some Pesto later. It is simple to do and tastes divine and even if you're pushed for time and everything else is ready made, a bit of home made pesto can elevate your meal. Try it.

*****

Until next time. Waste nothing.

A quick update

Apologies for the lack of entries recently but here is a recipes that was made this evening.

Guacomole

Ingredients:
1x avocoda
1x dried chilli
2x garlic cloves
1x half lime
Salt
A sprinkling of finely chopped red pepper

Finely chop the chilli, garlic and put them in a bowl, squeeze over the lime and add the avocado. Mush up with a fork and add salt. Check for taste - there are those who will say add the lime later but you can correct the taste balance with salt. Add the pepper and serve.

"Real" guacamole should probably have fresh coriander leaves and tomatoes instead of pepper but this one was created out of necessity because we didn't have everything needed in the fridge.

*****

Top tip...we made lamb shanks at the weekend and had loads of lovely juice left over...it went into a chilli tonight so all that lovely juice wasn't wasted.
When we made the lamb shanks we served up some vegetables but we set out to make some stock...the vegetables were an additional bonus...I know they're going to make a nice risotto soon.

Sunday Morning Musings

Vignette time.

*****
It's snowing outside. It's snowed all night and now it is light enough to see the world is silent and white. Yet I am only 7km from the centre of Helsinki, 400m from a busy arterial road and maybe 150 from a main railway line and yet all I hear is silence.

*****

Today the Kitchen will be making some home made sausages, cooking some roast beef and experimenting with some evil Finnish alcohol. I'm reasonably happy about the first two because they're old hat. The third is preparation for Christmas and as I don't know what I'm making tastes like...I'm blind.

*****

Finland isn't a cold land. -4 or -5 is surprisingly OK when you're out an about. However there is a wind that comes off the Baltic that cuts you. It isn't what we call a lazy wind back home. It is a cruel wind. Woe betide you if you are not ready for it.

*****

While out in the cruel wind last week we found a lovely little Italian restaurant. The risotto was passable but the pizza was very good. The Kitchen seemed Italian so they should know what they're doing. Bit odd sitting in the middle of Finland trying to remember holiday Italian.

*****

Had spaghetti carbonara for tea last night. Simple version with cream, cheese and egg. The bacon we bought was lovely. Almost green and almost fresh, it cut beautifully and fried well in the cast iron pan. If only all bacon was like that. I had sharpened my kitchen knife earlier and had sliced a tomato to see if it was sharp enough. In true Kitchen fashion the tomato was not wasted but added to tea.

*****

Until next time and hopefully not so long

The (Finnish) Kitchen re-opens

So here we are a week or so later safely settled into Helsinki and the Kitchen is in action once again. We were lucky that our stuff only arrived one day behind us as we were able to live quite well quite quickly again. Helsinki has been a bit of a revelation after Trondheim in terms of getting the Kitchen going again. Within a few days some chicken had been roasted which really laid the path for some damn find chicken stock to be on hand when the time comes to make a decent risotto.

I am massively excited to have discovered a japanese shop in town which seems to have every ingredient you could wish for if a Japanese meal is on your menu plan. So far we've made a little mackrell with it's skin salted and then grilled served on some sticky rice...who said food needed to be high and fancy to be good. It was never written here and the kitchen does not subscribe to such nonsense.

I must admit that the finnish language poses some challenges but today I learnt what bread and butter is. I know what meat is so it's only a matter of time before we are getting to the good fancy mushrooms down in the market and talking with the stall owners like old pros.....hahaha.