The songs they played at some of those gigs

There is I suspect some schizophrenia about this blog as it veers from the cooking of an ox’s heart, to trying to keep children happy with food, to the slaughter of mackerel and lobster all the way to slightly wayward conversations with dodgy men with black beards in Arundel’s Pub and onto the odd digression into the music I like listening to whilst slicing my onions.

Maybe I should be writing at a number of different blogs keeping the music and food separate with there being one special blog for the man with a black beard but that slightly defeats the point. It is all part of what I want to write about and if my list of favourite gigs is not that interesting well…

So this evening the ox heart has been cooked and sliced and is now in the fridge ready for my sandwiches tomorrow. It tastes as good as last time, like slightly liverish full flavoured roast beef.

The list of gigs got some response so I thought I would follow it up with the songs at some of those gigs (and one or two others). So here goes:-

Tom Waits at The Dominion Theatre singing Burma Shave

REM in the Mandela Room at Leicester University coming on stage for their encore and singing Moon River and then crashing into Pretty Persuasion

Van Morrison and the Chieftens doing Carrikfergus

Ella Guru in the strange club in Liverpool singing This is my Rock’nroll – the album is still out there on Amazon. Get it now. if you have not heard it you are in for treat.

Mark Eitzel singing Patriot Heart with someone playing a piano in Liverpool in November 2011

Richmond Fontaine singing Western Sky at any time

Flaming Lips doing Screen Test in Liverpool and I had no idea what was going on or what to expect. Along with Ella Guru the best gig I have been too were I knew none of the music and was blown away.

Dexy’s and This is What She’s Like with Kevin Rowland going round the back of the Phil and then climbing up on to the balconies still singing ‘this is my story this is my story..’

Anytime Mark Eitzel sings Western Sky

…that will do. I will be back in the pub next time.

 

Gigs

Well this evening I have made another bowl of pesto sauce and there is another Ox heart slowly roasting in the oven. I have written about these things before so it might get boring if I do it again. Next month at The Farmer’s Market I will get the ox tongue. Last Saturday the tongue,  at £3.50 it was £1.00 more than the heart, so I left it behind. I have a vague memory of having to eat it at school.  That probably came out of tin.

I have in the back of my mind that cooking tongue involves some soaking and then a grisly stripping away of the skin. We shall see.

So instead of food I thought I could give a quick run through of best ever gigs. A large part of supper this evening was taken up with talk of the tickets for Beyonce in a few months time and how good that is going to be. I tried without success to install some perspective but I got them fixed for myself. There were about ten best ever gigs in no particular order

1. Ella Guru with Pete in Liverpool

2. REM at Warwick University, the Airport lounge 1984 – that was the evening I told Pete Buck I loved him. He ignored me.

3. Van Morrison with the Chieftens in The Hammersmith Odeon

4. Tom Waits at The Dominion Theatre

5. Flaming Lips in Liverpool

6. Prince on the Alphabet St tour

7. REM at The Royal Court in Liverpool

8. Dexy’s in Liverpool last year

9. Mudhoney in a very small place in Edinburgh

10. John Grant in a field in Suffolk with about 20 other people.

Dexy’s are playing again in Liverpool in May so they may get two entries soon.

 

Pink hummus from Lunya

DSCN3849

We had lunch at Lunya yesterday, me and the two girls, out shopping for Mother’s Day. Once we had sat down a small pot of dirty pink sauce was put on the table with some mini bread sticks. We were invited to tuck in as we ordered our drinks.

DSCN3848

Speaking to Peter he said it was a type of hummus made with piquillo peppers. He desribed how the peppers were roasted and then peeled by hand and then squeezed into their small glass jars. No oil was added and they kept themselves in their own natural oils with the help of a pinch of salt.

DSCN3850

I bought a jar so I could make some of the hummus myself. As always it was very easy. A tin of drained chick peas went into the magimix with a small chopped onion, some garlic, a small dried red chilli and a good pinch of ground coriander and cumin. I then added half a dozen of the peppers and the juice and  zest of a lemon. That was all mashed to a pulp and spooned out.

DSCN3851

We will have it later before we start on our late lunch

Trying to feed the family

There is a challenge in cooking for the family sometimes and sometimes a temptation to go for the lowest denominator which can then be had with great gobs of tomato ketchup. There are a number of different mouths to feed; two red blooded eaters, one vegetarian (who will eat fish) and two who really just want to eat chips. There is a temptation to end up cooking two or three different meals in an attempt to keep everyone happy.

This evening I was determined to do just the one meal for everyone. It would have to be fish and I figured on some sort of stew (courtesy of Moro) with a sauce that could be soaked up by rice.

A fish stew with sauce required some stock to be made and Wards provided a particularly disgruntled looking hake head that was perfect for the jopb. It was so big that I was half minded to roast it and then sit down quietly by myself to pick out the small nuggets of meat. As it as it got stuffed into a pan that was too small with the rest of the fish ends and made into a delicious stock.

The rest of the stew was a building up of flavours. Cooking a copped onion in olive oil until it started to give of its sweetness, adding some chopped fennel and letting that cook down and then garlic and two bay leaves and allowing that to cook until there was a sticky pale mess at the bottom of the pan.  The stock was then added and brought to a very slow simmer whilst rice was cooked.

The rice had been standing in water for half an hour or so before being poured into a pan of boiling water. There was only a few minutes before it was done, drained and rinsed with more boiling water. Butter was put in the bottom of the pan with seeds from a cardamon  and the rice poured lightly on top. A wrong end of a wooden spoon as used to make some holes. Rather than a tea towel I put a double layer of kitchen paper over the top to absorb the steam under the lid.

As the rice was settling I added the fish to the stew. Monkfish first, left for ten minutes then finely sliced quid and then shelled prawns.

It was more oir less a success. he chip eaters did not eat much of the fish but the said the sauce was great and mopped up the rice just right.