How to be a vegetarian and actually enjoy it

or “Ten fun things to do with brown rice.”

I believe that most people who choose to become a vegetarian do so due to some very strong ideal, be it a religious conviction, a wish to avoid cruelty to animals, exploiting the world’s resources or to improve their health. I have however, not met anyone who became a vegetarian for the sheer gastronomic joy of the experience. And herein probably lies the reason why so many backslide and give up on vegetarianism. A high-minded ideal might nourish the soul and guarantee a place in heaven but an entrecote steak grilled on a wood fire is heaven on earth. And who wants jam tomorrow when you can have it today? If it doesn’t taste good then you’re not going to eat it and you won’t get to save the earth or attain nirvana or whatever it was you were setting out to do when you set out to achieve.

Against this promising backdrop I’ve decided to take up the challenge of eating vegetarian and i’m determined to make food that I actually want to eat out of choice and not obligation. I do not have any strong religious or ethical conviction to carry me through but I’m not doing it for the sheer gastronomic joy of it either. I don’t think I’ve ever called myself a vegetarian but I have gone through periods of not eating meat and have felt better for it. However, I have always gravitated back to meat – not because I dislike vegetables but because I love meat. And wine. And bread. And good food. And junk food. Well, food in general actually.

I had my epiphany yesterday morning. I woke up with a dull head. My blood pressure has been a little high lately and I have been thinking of what to do to lower it. I got out of bed, noticed my head was aching, went to the kitched took a blood pressure pill and an ibuprofen. Then, bam! My eyes were being gouged out, my head split with an axe, my stomach churned and heaved. I spent the next couple of hours waiting to call the health centre with my head in my hands or down the toilet. When I got through to the health centre I was directed to the nurse as they reckoned I was just another stomach bug patient.

New year, new goals, let’s see how long it lasts

Happy New Year! Ok, I know even this is a bit late, but what the heck, its been a loong time since I wrote anything and I guess no-one’s going to read this so does it really matter? I wonder how long this spurt of literary enthusiasm lasts. I started this blog when I started my “staying at home taking care of kids” leave. As with the leave, my blogging started with energy and enthusiasm. as it went on and I got more tired, my enthusiasm waned to the point that I ‘ve managed two posts in the last two years. Now, the much-planned and much awaited re-birth of the blog with a whole new direction and stuff. Here goes….

Buzzing

Not drinking coffee for a week and then having a cup at 5pm is guaranteed to keep you up all night- which is why such things as blogs have been invented so we have something to do while we wait for our eyelids to droop. For me this is actually productive. Usually when confronted with a situation like this I don’t have a mug of hot milk or even listen to a whale song ambience mood cd or whatever. No, I prefer crap telly and chicken and pickle sandwiches, preferably with a large dollop of mayonnaise.   I don’t bother with the shop bought stuff anymore- I really don’t understand why, when you put the stuff in a glass jar, you need  E this and E that and guar gum and God knows what else when, in far less time than it takes to pop down the local supermarket I can whizz up a jug of the stuff with a food blender using only oil, eggs, vinegar and salt. And a bit of garlic, or mustard powder, or a bunch of herbs…whatever.

Having said that, I shouldn’t be eating mayonnaise at all because I have a weight problem with my feet. And those with the Knowledge will know the punchline to that.

The missus´birthday tomorrow, roast goose and trimmings, cake, the full monty. Got her a bottle of single malt as a present. Only fair, seeing as I drank the one I gave to her for Christmas the other night.

As the reason I set up this blog was because of the kids I guess I should mention them too. They don’t have grow up quick. Don’t need me for putting dvds on for them, or for logging on the computer, its all routine for them now. Both of them converse fluently in English now, which is more than can be said for their father. Daisy was really touching today, gave me half of the half of the chocolate bunny she had left over from Easter. We had a bit of a scare with her a few weeks ago when we thought she had diabetes. She had all the tests, all of which were negative thank goodness, but of course her mum explained why. So now she’ll say things like ” I won’t eat all of this because it has too much sugar”.

Enough productivity for one night and on with the crap telly!

The long, dark teatime of the soul

Happy Easter!

As this is the season of rebirth and regeneration then what better way to celebrate than to start writing my blog again. Nothing majorly symbolic, just suffering from what Keith Floyd termed “a creative hangover” without actually drinking hideous amounts of alcohol. Maybe that´s the key. The family is up at my in-laws, eating chocolate eggs and making snowmen. Yes, at Easter, no joke, snowmen. That´s the kind of place I live in. They are there and I’ve been at a training camp for the national teams of iaido (my thing), jodo and kendo. And a lot of fun it was too.

Arrived there at 1pm, started training- I was the instructor around two, about one hour behind schedule which I wasn’t too happy about but made up for it by continuing until 9pm. Then a sauna and liquid refreshment in the form of very cold beer. Lively discussion and a movie called “Balls of Fury” took us to 2am when we decided to call it a night. Didn’t see the end of the movie but if you liked Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” then watch this, fantastic piss-take. “Enter the Dragon” was one of the first martial arts movies I ever watched and the very first one I got out from our newly opened video library and played on our brand, spanking new video recorder. Yes I’m a child of the eighties but its only now in the new millenuium that it looks like I’ll be joining Maggie´s millions. “Always look on the Bright Side of Life” as they sang in one of the movies we also watched on the Ferguson VHS VCR. And the bright side here is that at least now I’ve got plenty of time to keep my blog updated:) Though its not a lack of time that is actually the problem but the lack of verve, get up and go, motivation, whatever you like to call it to park my bum in front of the computer and start tapping away.

Back to the weekend and up at the crack of 7 for breakfast and a full day of training. Competition practice in the morning and a thing called kazunuki in the afternoon. This is basically non-stop training which we managed for three hours. The guys had done 5 hours last summer so this was a walk in the park for them-except that quite a few ducked out as they didn’t have fond memories of that achievement. In the evening we enjoyed the traditional local pleasures of alternately sitting in a small dark and very hot room and throwing ourselves into the very cold water of a lake still covered, for the most part, in ice. And then more beer. We had filmed the competition practice and in the evening we watched ourselves and checked out our performances.  Very educational.  Tried to watch Kurosawa´s “Hidden Fortress” but it was much too high brow for that time of evening so gave up and went off to bed.

Sunday was rather low-key and we headed home after lunch and I went to my mum’s where dinner was waiting. Roast lamb washed down with Jumilla, the taste of the old country and of the Easters of my childhood and youth.

And after all that I’m now sitting in front of the screen, sipping Glenlivet and writing.  Nearly midnight and the family is back tomorrow and our house is a disaster area so the wise thing would be to go to bed and get up bright and early. I will probably finish off the bottle of Glenlivet and watch the first series of the Fast Show- Suits you sir! G´night!

Christmas is coming….

And the goose is getting fat,

Please put a penny in the old man’s hat,

If you haven’t got a penny

A ha´penny will do

And if you haven’t got a ha´penny

Then your windows go through!

Traditional Carol, the Scouse version

Its been a long time coming..

but here it is! Sorry, sorry x 1000 for neglecting all of you and not keeping my blog up to date!

Truth is, the telly was so good that I haven’t done anything since the last entry except watch TV!

Ok, the potted highlights of the last few months

May

Daisy´s birthday, big bash, rented the local equivalent of a church hall and had loads of screaming kids smearing ice cream all over the place and smacking each other on the head with assorted objects

June

The sun shone

July

The holiday month here in Finland. Sun stops shining and rain begins.

Went to spend time with the in laws. Rained everyday but still managed to have a good time.

Went to the amusement park designed by my brother in law. Check it out here

http://www.hoksopoli.fi/

Went to a small, animal park where Daisy and Ines harassed, amongst other animals, kittens and lambs.

Visited the local museum, the prize exhibit of which is a woolly mammoth. Unfortunately the experience proved so overwhelming that Daisy refused to go in the mammoth room. Minnie wouldn’t even go on the same floor.

Then the visit to the water park (indoor thank goodness) and off to the countryside where we did all those countryside things, swimming, fishing, grilling sausages on the ends of sticks, picking mushrooms and berries.

Oh yeah, went to a wedding too where Daisy actually spoke English to a little American girl. This was quite a breakthrough after 6 months at home with every English word uttered being a hard fought battle (as was every single garment of clothing every single morning)

End of July my sister came over with her daughter and we had some days of absolutely scorching weather which we spent at the outdoor pool with about 100 other kids.

August in the next instalment!

Telly’s back 23.04.08

The TV free lifestyle experiment ended yesterday when, fed with the constant whingeing about wanting to watch this, that, or the other; I bought a new digital tv box. No expense spared, I bought it from the fleamarket next to the dentist’s I visited. 

World Food Program 16.04.08

While my computer still works I thought I’d write something a little bit more serious than usual. No doubt you have all noticed that food prices have been creeping up and you mat even have seen on the news the riots and unrest caused by this. As food is something close to my heart I have been following the debate on BBC World and last weekend decided to do my bit. I went to the World Food Program’s website and learnt that for what I pay for a cup of coffee here in Finland they could feed a kid for two weeks. It astounds me that by doing so little as foregoing a cup of coffee in a café every now and again I can keep a child alive that it seems almost ludicrous not to. So I’ve decided to contribute to the WFP but erm… I haven’t actually done so as of yet. Why, well I haven’t worked out so far. If you think its easy then go and visit their website

www.wfp.org

I know that it says Donate Online in big letters but thats for credit card payments and what if you don’t have a credit card, what then? Or a cheque book for that matter? I’m going to contact my bank tomorrow and see if I can make a bank transfer without it costing me the earth and I will tell you how I got on.  

Saturday night 12.04.08

Just got a text message from my old chum the Bignose. He’s down at my favourite pub, the Swan in Wood Street, Liverpool,supping Guinness and listening to loud, thumping rock’n’roll music from the juke box before going out for a curry (you grammatically correct people out there will have spotted here a great opportunity to use semi-colons but its Saturday night and I just can’t be bothered) . That´s the way to spend Saturday night, not at home hunched over your laptop! Just to make up for it, I’ve just opened a can of lager which I am drinking out of a ridiculously large Ikea glass. So big in fact that the missus uses them as flower vases.  Don’t worry, I take the flowers out before pouring the beer in!

So, just after I wrote saying that my computer was working again it packed in again. The new battery works fine but the power socket is buggered so the battery isn’t recharging.. The only way I am able to write now is that I have wedged the latest paperback I have read (The Raw Shark Texts- great little read, a bot like the Da Vinci Code but with fish). It sjust typical, this happens just after I spend a fortune buying the new battery, decide against nuying a new laptop even though there was a ridiculously cheap one on offer last week and two nights before I need to hand over a translation. Ok, I know I’ve had three months to do it but I work on the JOT principle or in my cast JINT (just in  the nick of time). Luckily I worked out the paperback trick last night and while I snored on the sofa my wife typed up the text and converted into the kind of Finnish that is actually used by Finnish people. Exploitation! Male chauvinist pig! I hear the indignant feminists cry. Not so, for today she reaped the benefits of this work and got a massage. I do get some weird assignments. The translation was for a cure for cancer (I kid you not) from Spanish into Finnish for a masseur. We settled on bartering our services and this is how my missus got a massage. Now, although  I have plenty to write, I must say goodnight because my back is killing me!

Mum’s birthday 06.04.08

I was recently paid a compliment about my blog (it was the the other one of you who reads this). He said that every time he read my posts he got hungry. So here´s more of the same for you!

Today was my mother´s birthday and we celebrated it with lunch at my house.

In the morning we went to church there being a family service. Daisy was up at the front singing hymns with the afternoon club choir and Minnie was at the back having her own communion of rye crispbread and milk. 

The menu for lunch was as follows:

Starters: duck paté flavoured with armagnac, toasted French country bread

To drink: Marques de Monistrol Cava

Main course: Slow Honey-Roast Duck, Potatoes roasted in duck fat, carrot and turnip, green beans

To drink: Chateau Haut-Lavignere Saint Emilion Grand Cru 2005 (Yes, I am showing off but its not every day we have wine like this!)

Dessert: Chocolate Birthday Cake

To drink: coffee

Lunch was throughly enjoyed by all, my daughters fighting over the last of the roast potatoes being proof enough for me.

The recipe for the duck I got from this guy: 

http://nicholasclee.blogspot.com/2007/01/slow-honey-roast-duck.html

I will be writing to him to inform him of the success of his recipe and I will no doubt try some others too.

Now that I am on the subject, the paté I bought in Paris and it was good so making two good things to come out of my trip there last October, the food shopping I did and the name of this blog which is the title I attained whilst there. The trip was so full of aggravation that its taken me half a year to bring myself to eat the paté;)

The red wine was a Christmas present from my chum Jerome from France who was over in December. A thoroughly nice chap who restored my faith in Frenchmen, but then he is half German!

The duck was from Germany, bought from Lidl at a fraction of the cost that they normally sell duck for here. And very good it was too!

The beans were frozen and not very good. The only frozen green beans that have been good in my opinion are a Belgian brand, Dujardin.

Chocolate cake made by my wife and decorated by my daughters who, in their enthusiasm for licking the utensils used (including the spoon for measuring out the flour) also licked the cake, but we didn’t mention that.