Bad news from The Farmer’s Market

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

I am going to have to make some room in the freezer.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We have been living here in Birkenhead for almost 16 years and for almost as long as that every second Saturday of the month I have made my way down to New Ferry for The Wirral Farmer’s Market.

There are plenty of good things there: Welsh Black Beef, Organic Lamb, home-made chocolate, veal if you want it, off cuts of bacon and good vegetables including potatoes and carrots still thick with dirt from the ground they have come from.

But the big constant as far as I am concerned is the stand selling chickens that is just on the right hand side as you go in. To my mind they are the best chickens you could ever ask for. When Simon Hopkinson wrote “Roast Chicken and other stories” it is chickens like these that he had in mind. There is nothing pale and easy about them. There is an earthy smell about them that tells of time spent outside and there is a gaminess to their taste. And they come with giblets. Is there anyone reading this now who knows where they can get a chicken with giblets?

I buy one of their chickens every month when I go and invariable we have it roasted for Sunday lunch although their have been variations.

Today they had a sign up to say that due to oncoming retirements they are downsizing and won’t be able to make The Farmer’s Market after April. I won’t be here in April so there is just one more chance after this month for me to buy one of their chickens. I might even stock up and stash a few away in the freezer.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

For lunch we had some of their thighs cooked in oil and shredded and then stuffed in a baguette with salad, tomato and onion and a good dollop of hot sauce.

Music to make grown men cry – only a few words on John Grant

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

Sunday night was the fourth of perhaps fifth time I have seen John Grant in concert.

I first came across him in a review of a Czars album in Uncut magazine from more years ago than I can now imagine. It was effusive enough to send me out to buy it and I have been a fan ever since. The album was Goodbye and I can remembering it coming like a shot out of the blue. I don’t know what type of un-pleasant loud beat music I was listening to at the time but this was something else. Songs of heartbreak and soft, delicate breakdown. After that there was a album of cover versions which was made up from off-cuts and b-sides and included a bit of Abba, Neil Sedaka and Song for the Siren.

And then nothing.

Over the next few years I would get out the albums and play them usually late on a Sunday afternoon when it was time for some blue notes in the air. I even managed to pick up a couple of the earlier Czars albums. Through them all there was an amazing voice and lingering melancholy.

So when news started to circulate that their singer, John Grant, had sorted himself out and was ready to make new music I was more than excited.

We missed him when he first played in Liverpool supporting Midlake and the following year he played we missed him again. But on that second occasion we told others to go and they came away converted.

The Queen of Denmark came out and it was brilliant and then we finally got to see him at Latitude Festival. He played on the main stage in the middle of the afternoon. There wasn’t a huge crowd but he was good playing the new songs.

Later that year we saw him again playing with just a piano to back him up in Halifax Minster – 900 years of history suited the songs. He played some new songs that had been written in Iceland and finished with Little Pink House.

Two years later there was a new album, Pale Green Ghosts, and we finally got to see him play in Liverpool at The East Village Arts Club. It was rammed to the ceiling and as the dance squelches of synths played out over the sweaty room it at times felt we were all in some HNG New York disco from a lost time in the mid 1970’s.

We saw him again in the Phil in Liverpool playing with a full orchestra. The songs were still magnificent but they were constrained by the need to keep within the discipline of playing with the orchestra.

There was none of that on Sunday night when he played the Phil again. He played fast and loose with the songs and if we had been close enough to see I am fairly sure he was smiling the whole way through. Sometimes the noise took us back to the HNG Disco we saw in The East Village Arts Club and other times he was just sat back with his piano taking us through the slow desolation of Queen of Denmark and then Glacier. Sometimes the dirty bass was so loud it felt as if the concrete under our seats was vibrating with the music.

Through it all there was his voice – rich and human – riding above the noise of the music. Ideally he would have played all the songs from all three of his albums and then thrown in some old Czars’ songs as well but there wasn’t time for that. if there was a disappointment it was that he didn’t play Where Dreams Go to Die. But I will be seeing him again and there will be time enough for that.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We have Pinchos

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

People were going to coming over the course of the evening so it seemed sensible to have a roll out of dishes – some hot and some cold.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Part of the morning was taken up with a hunt for quails’ eggs. I was told that they don’t lay this time of year but that didn’t stop me having a go trying to find some. I thought I had struck lucky when I found three boxes in The International Store but it transpired they were all past their best before date and so they were not for sale.

I got some prawns instead and in the grocers I picked up rocket, three different types of mushroom and bag of multi-coloured cherry tomatoes.

The rest of the day was taken up with a bit of cooking and a lot of assembling.

We had the following:-

Gilda – peppers, anchovies, olives and small cocktail onions on a stick
Blue cheese and membrillo (quince cheese)
Pale white sheets cheese with parsley and and beetroot
Crostini with rocket and walnut pests
Crostini with a cannelloni spread
Crostini with mushrooms – they had marinaded all afternoon in olive oil, lemon juice and garlic
Prawns fried with garlic and cayenne pepper
Sliced chorizo
Padron peppers fried with salt
Cherry tomatoes with giant capers and olive
Cherry tomatoes with mozzarella and basil and dressed with truffle oil
Tortilla
and lots of rolls

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Come the morning it had all gone and our recycling bin is full of empty bottles of Prosecco and I am hoping that there is some one out there with a sore head after they finished off my bottle of rhubarb flavoured vodka.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Chic was played along with Sister Sledge and the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever is still on the turntable although it has stopped going round. I also spent 2o minutes tearing the attic apart trying to find Earth, Wind & Fire’s Greatest Hits.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Getting ready for a big birthday

Posted on February 6, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

We are celebrating an upcoming birthday this weekend. There will be fair amount of Prosecco and good food drunk. There is a danger that some of the Prosecco will be coloured with some dark pink rhubarb flavoured vodka that has been lurking in the cellar these last few months.

The food will include hunks of toasted bread smeared with bright garlicky green rocket and walnut pesto. I have just made it now in readiness. Bags of rocket from the grocer mixed with walnuts, garlic, good cheese and plenty of olive oil.