A feast of burbot 04 February

Sunday is called “laskiaissunnuntai” i.e the Sunday before Shrove Tuesday. The word “laskiainen” is derived from the word for descend in Finnish and refers to the descent into Lent. Nowadays it is taken rather more literally and the day is spent coming down hills on sledges and then home for bowls of steaming pea and ham soup.

We dispensed with tradition on both counts because

a. there was no snow

b. we had pea soup two days before

Instead we had the burbot we bought the day before.

For starters we ate the roe with blinis and the main course was what I thnk in French would be called au blanc.

All washed down with Bernard Massard sparkling wine from Luxembourg.

Absolutely gorgeous!

A cure for the common cold?

For this you need1 bottle of vodka

a piece of fresh ginger (the size being in proprtion to the bottle of vodka. I only had one of thos 200ml flasks so I only needed a small piece, length about 5cm)

Cut the ginger into small strips, open the bottle of vodka, put strips of ginger into vodka. Taking into account what Archimedes found out in the bath, first take a big swig out of the bottle so as not lose any of the precious liquid when you stuff the ginger into the bottle. Let the ginger soak in the vodka so as to impart its flavour to the liquid (in this case five minutes but I recommend longer).

To drink cold, a measure of the vodka and the juice of one lemon – down in one

To drink hot, vodka, lemon juice, a spoonful of honey and boiling water, in a mug

Repeat as necessary until all cold-like symptoms disappear. Actually a feel a little flu coming on just now!

Red snapper, please 02 February 2008

One of my favourite bands from my hometown is “HalfMan HalfBiscuit” who managed to sum up the trials and tribulations of growing up with clever lyrics and dreadful tunes. The one that comes to mind now, as I sit in front of the Tv tonight is,

There is nothing better in life

than writing on the sole of your slipper with a biro

on a Saturday night

instead of going to the pub

This, in the early eighties was a favourite hobby of mine. I was too young to go to the pub, or anywhere else for that matter, on a Saturday night. You probably can’t even get anymore the leatherette slippers with slippery soles which leant themselves so perfectly for writing on. I have however been out for beer and Thai food tonight so I am feeling quite satisfied even though I have no slippers to write on.

The day started early as always. I felt particularly drained of energy this morning which I will put down to an oncoming cold although my patent cold remedy might also have something to do with it. (see separate post on the subject).

I was going off to the market to buy a bit of burbot, which is in season at the moment, and to stock up at the Asian grocer.

Surprisingly Daisy wanted to come along too so off we went together to the market picking up my mum on the way. When I explained that we were going to buy fish Daisy said, “Oh? Red snapper for me please”. My daughter, for whom there is nothing better than a plate of fish-fingers, wants red snapper! If I would have found red snapper, I would have bought her red snapper and cooked it for her any way she liked (deep-fried in breadcrumbs most probably). However red snapper, along with most exotic types of fish, is hard to come by here where the mainstays are salmon, rainbow trout, herrings and vendace. Vendace are about the lake version of whitebait and equally delicious dredged in flour (rye) and fried . It happens to be one of Daisy’s and Minnie’s favourites and my mother-in-law makes then every time they visit.

So, we got our burbot (a freshwater member of the cod family), spotted some big salmon and small vendace and bought enough chili pickle and hoisin sauce to get us through the next few months.