Atmosphere

Joy Division's Atmosphere, while beautiful was never an easy listen and for me is forever linked with Rick Slater's suicide.

I know there are some people who knew Rick better than me and were more deeply affected by the absolute abruptness of his death. Yet listening to that song tonight I have been taken back to those days from long ago. I still remember that morning, sitting bored in my class looking out the window to the train line and wondering why the train had stopped where it had. When we were finally gathered and could feel the bad news in the chapel (because these kind of gatherings never happened if everything was normal) the worst thing was the sheer helpless fear that overtook me when I realised it had to be Rick before the headmaster said his name because his seat next to mine was empty.

I couldn't listen to Atmosphere for a long time after that and yet I had loved it as a song before that tragic event and I have always kept some Joy Division in my CD collection. Depending on where I am I have been able to listen to it or have needed to avoid it.

Last night was a second late night on the trot with some very good people, silliness abounded, we laughed and the beer flowed. We went and saw Hallam Foe at the cinema and retired to a bar for a good night. Today has been quiet and pleasant. Some food is being prepared as I type and I will write about it on Monday. So it was quite a surprise to be in such a good place and suddenly to find Atmosphere pop up randomnly on my iPod. It was a bittersweet tug that pulled me without hesitation into my own past. It may sound strange to say so but that it can do that is a very good thing.

Hanko

The Kitchen relocated over the weekend to the Finnish seaside town of Hanko. Well to a small 20m2 hut on a beach about 6km out of Hanko. It was fantastic to just relax for a few days, cook some nice food, drink some good wine (and a few Finnish beers) and indulge in crazy activities like swimming in the Baltic in March, naked.

This was our fist experience of a Finnish Möykki and it was excellent to cook in what the tourist office described as a well equipped "Kitchenette" which the rest of us understand to mean very basic! As I have mentioned before on this blog (here) that these holiday cottages can be good for cooking and so it proved here. Our menu was

Lingunie puttanesca a la Hanko
Beef curry with jasmine rice and naan bread
Steak and crispy baked potatoes with cream cheese

Needless to say the point here is that you never know what you are going to find in the way of cookware and utensils and you just have to enjoy improvising on the spot. Once again we came up trumps with a cast iron frying pan that did the steaks proud. The lack of running water or sink didn't seem to hamper the operations and the curry turned out to be the winner of the weekend in terms of flavour in return for the most basic cooking.

Cubed beef
Garam Masala
Coriander seed ground
Cumin seeds
Tumeric
Red Chillis
Garlic
Ginger
Courgette
Pepper
Spinach
Tinned tomatoes
Beer
Rice.

Heat the oil in the pan.
Brown the onions and then add the beef. Cook for a minute or two and add the garlic, chilli and ginger.
Add the vegetables (except the spinach) and continue to cook. Add the tinned tomatoes and a good dash of beer.
Bring to the boil.
Add spices. I have to say that as this point I used my judgement. I had some home made garam masala so I used that as the main spice and added lesser amounts of Coriander seed, cumin seed and tumeric (getting less with each one).
Reduce to a simmer and leave for as long as possible.
This is the perfect time go for a sauna, swim in the sea (if mad enough) and then have a beer on the veranda before going back to the kitchen and
Add spinach
Cook rice and Naan.
Serve.

We also had some kiwi fruit with ricotta for breakfast which was divine.

(Please note that not all the items behind the plate were used in making the dish!!!)
The best bit here was the kiwis have been begging to be eaten at home and somehow always managed to get overlooked. Here nothing was wasted and all leftovers came back to Helsinki to be turned into a lunch this week.

*****

It was also a chance to read a bit and while I continue with Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune I am not gripped by it. Yes it is well written but it seems to be a story trying to be fantastical rather than something fantastical been told as a story. Maybe my next book will be something special, I've had a run of duds recently so my luck is due to change.

*****

Until next time, waste nothing...I'm off to make the left overs from the Hanko trip into something interesting....pasta, cabbage and ham...where to begin??

Hee Haw!!

Another week has passed in snowy Helsinki and the days are getting longer which makes me happy. However my workaholic tendencies seem to be getting more extreme and not less. I have been doing crazy things like agreeing to extra meetings at both ends of the day and then bringing work home and carrying on. I'm not happy with this and spoke to my boss yesterday about it and while it is up to me to sort out at least I'm not sitting on it and letting it fester. Off to Sweden today with work and back on Wednesday morning, found out yesterday that one place we're going to visit is 4hrs drive each way from where we are staying. Time to pack the iPod and a good book I think.

Having basically said "oh woe is me" in the paragraph above I must confess to being a glass half full kind of person. Therefore it should not surprise anyone that after an excellent movie, a beer (or two) and a good night's sleep this boy's view of the world is back to super positive. I'm all boyscouty this morning and ready for whatever insane challenges may come. I have a worrying tendency to spout positive claptrap in English and unsurprisingly most of the Finnish I seem to be learning seems to be in this vein as well. Time to seek professional help!!! I digress, so back to the beer and movie. Unfortunately I didn't make the Thursday Night Movie Club this week but am definately going next week. Instead the boss and I settled back and watched "It's a wonderful life" instead. It's not one I would watch everyday but once in a while it's excellent to let it's magic work on your tired bones.

*****
Pad Thai Noodles a la Monkey House Kitchen.

This week I managed to get into the Kitchen and make a Pad Thai Noodles my style (for this week at least). I hope you try it and that it tastes good.

If I have never spelt it out before I do believe that recipes are guidelines only. They are there to be adapted, pushed, pulled, bullied, loved but not necessarily obeyed. So never be afraid to wing it. After all, that way you will waste less and things will be tastier.

Garlic
Chilli
Thai fish sauce
Lime Juice
Palm Sugar
Mushrooms
Dried prawns (in boiling water)
Onion (or spring onions)
Vermicelli noodles
2 beaten eggs
Bean sprouts
Unroasted peanuts crushed in a pestle and mortar

Make sure everything is prepared before you start this - you will not have time to do it once the cooking starts!

Soak the noodles in boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain and have ready.
Put some oil in a wok
When hot add some of the chilli
Fry the prawns and mushrooms and set aside
Put in the rest of the chilli plus the garlic, onions, dried prawns (and water), fish sauce and palm sugar and lime juice.
After a short while add the noodles, mushrooms and prawns
Mix well
Add the beaten egg and leave for 2 minutes or so for the egg to set
Serve
Garnish with peanuts and bean sprouts

Until next time waste nothing and have fun!

Sushi, spaghetti and sleep

I love sushi. I like the idea of it. Something so simple and so, well, small can be fulfiling tasty and complex. So I dabble. I make no claims for expertness but I dabble and here are some photos from my latest play.

The much heralded courgette and cream cheese nigiri didn't really work because when the courgette is cooked it goes very thin and moist which isn't good for sticking to the outside of the rice.

*****

In other news we have had some great success in roasting fresh beetroot and jerusalem artichokes which we made into a simple spaghetti supper.

Serves 2
1 large beetroot
250g jerusalem artichokes
Olive Oil
Spaghetti
Garlic
Mushrooms
Thyme

Put the oven on at 200C
Skin the beetroot and then chop into thin wedges
Wash and chop up the artichokes into small pieces
Place both in the roasting tin, season with salt pepper and herbs and cover with olive oil.
Put in the oven for 20 minutes and then turn them over.
Leave for a further 30 minutes.
Chop the mushrooms and garlic.
Fry gently.
In the last ten minutes put the spaghetti into boiling water and cook until al dente.

Mix together and eat!

I actually used some garlic that I had roasted before and put that in with the mushrooms and it was really good but it doesn't matter if you have any!


*****

"My candle burns at both ends
It gives a wondrous light
But oh my friends my enemies
It will not last the night."

This poem was one of my sister's favourite when we were growing up. I forget the author but it has stuck with me. Last week was such a week although rather than been a libertine I was burning both ends at work. I had no sense of the balance needed and felt dog tired for more than a few parts of the week. Even though I was being a sad work monkey I went to see "There will be blood" as part of the Thursday Night Movie Club and it was amazing. I was so glad to have made the effort to go and see it but the point is that I need to be better at enjoying life as well as working hard at it.

Finally I have to confess to loving the song "When do I get some sleep?" by Bic Runga and am going off to play it at high volume.

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.