Skip to main content

A New Year, A New Resolution, A New Rule


Well the day has finally come to begin the diet and we are not as prepared as it would be nice to be. eg we have a random assortment of allowable items in the house and we haven't decided all the rules yet. But we are making a start, and even if its a bit shaky its already proving interesting.

It started with a new years day trip to a chinese restaurant in Richmond with a friend who was staying. We quickly had to come up with the first rule, which is for eating out:

*************************************************************************
Rule One - Eating Out

We aren't foregoing eating out altogether because it is an important social activity. We will avoid it where it wont affect social relations, and we will use it as an opportunity for finding out about food and raising discussion with co-eaters.

The rule is we have to ask where the ingredients come from and choose the most local item available on the menu.

*************************************************************************

Day One, Continued

I duly asked the somewhat taciturn waitress where the chicken and beef from the Szechuan Spicy Chicken of Beef came from. She didn't know, and seemed nonplussed. It being New Years Day she said the chef wasn't in and when pressed she said it probably came from "the supermarket".

I concluded that probably all the food on the menu came from the Supermarket and this was suitably indeterminate not to prevent me from choosing whatever I liked. I extended this principle to include the sake, which almost certainly came from japanese rice, or at least from somewhere in Asia, but I figured I needed the heat and since everything else was from the supermarket - ie all over the world - it was kind of too late anyway.

The conversation centred for a while on deciding whether the waitress' quiet, get-it-over-with manner was due to a hangover, or incredible shyness. We flirted briefly with the idea that she was offended by our enquiries, but it seemed unlikely that she had any personal interest in the matter since she didn't know much about it in the first place.

This inauspicious start was followed by an evening of using up everything left in the fridge and cupboard with help from some friends, so we can begin properly.

Fortunately my brother and his girlfriend have given us a hamper of local food to keep us going for a bit until we get organised enough to go to a shop.

Life After Tea

Living without tea is going to be very tough for me as it is my cheerful companion and warming consolation throughout the day. I am not relishing the problem and although I've spotted some lemons growing locally and am plotting to find a mole to help me get at them, I haven't any hopes yet of finding a locally grown tea bush.

We do however have some Hawthorn tea (well actually its just some dried out hawthorn bush with tea-making potential) collected from an estate in Oxfordshire and donated by a colleague. Its actually delicious (although it smells pretty bad when you make it) and there is a satisfying pleasure in sitting and picking all the leaves off the prickly stems - one of those wholesome old fashioned activities that helps to clear the mind and make room for soothing, nourishing meditiations. So much more interesting than Tele. Apparently hawthorn tea is good for something but I can't recall what. Watch this space for an update. I think it might be for the lungs, or maybe the blood.

In fact so many friends and family have shown an interest in the 100-mile project and given us goodies that I have decided I can stay in and needn't worry about the food until the saturday farmers market when things all get much easier. So to all you generous and helpful contributors, many thanks and I hope we can provide you with some interesting stories and results over the coming year.

xx
s
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life Returns to Notment - and my soul

It has been such a long time, we had so much cold and rain and snow this winter that I have hardly been down to the notment at all. A couple of weeks ago I did go, and collected some baby Alexanders , which went down very well with the family. They are very herbal, like fennel, aniseed or celery but stronger and with a distinct flavour. They work very well chopped up with mashed potato or in an omelette. Then yesterday I went back for a propoer look at the spring life. Many of the fragile little seedlings planted last year in their fleece-poo blankets are still alive if not exactly thriving - including a sage, some fennel cuttings, a feverfew and calamint. Sadly though, the huge ants nest has gone since the breeze blocks were sold to alocal builder who has been able to reuse them. I had been hoping to provide a new home for the ants, but failed to act in time and so now just have to wait and see if they managed to survive or not. I am fairly ignorant about the habits of ants, but
5 comments
Read more

Water, Water, Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Drink

Water, water, everywhere, and it's all a lot of poncey crap from Italy and France, beautifully packaged and carefully marketed, that wends its way into the receptacles of Londoners who use it as prop to help them make believe their city is chic like Paris when it is nothing of the sort, it is just the grubby old capital of a country that obtains its water from across the sea. The point I am trying to make, through this un-dignified rant, is that water is indeed everywhere and it all tastes the bloody same. Perrier, for instance, though I could have easily picked out Badoit, Barisart or Pellegrino, arrives on the shelves of our abundant supermarkets in sexy looking, stylish bottles that are pleasing to the human eye. There is little wrong with this, beauty has its place. The home should be filled with gorgeous things. But it's the human tongue that counts here and mine says the only dissimilar thing its buds can gauge between the continental waters and our very own mountain spri
3 comments
Read more

Snow and Honey

Monday was a day famous for Snow, but for me it was also about honey. I visited Linda who has recently started keeping bees. We processed some honey and she very kindly gave me a pot of golden sweetness at the end. I learnt about mites, and deaths, and bee dancing and pollen and nectar and propolis (the red stuff in the pot - very sticky and it stains the hands, the bees make it from tree resin), and how the bees tenderly care for the grubs and feed them bees milk, and how the worker bees come out of the growing chambers and do housekeeping first for a few days, and then nursing, and then they guard the entrance, and then they start foraging only after all that. The pics show how we scraped the honey out of the combs, avoiding letting pollen and nectar into the honey, and let it drip through a net to separate it from the wax - collecting the was crumbs for melting down and further separation from the honey that is left; propolis; and the honey pots that were filled. 20 in total, from a
4 comments
Read more