Some of us went to see John Grant last night.

Have I mentioned John Grant before? He used to be in a band called The Czars. They released three or four albums of bruised brilliant music before splitting up amidst the usual recriminations. Three years ago he re-surfaced with the help of Midlake and produced the album of 2010 in The Queen of Denmark. It was more bruised music overlaid with lush 1970’s soft rock.

I saw him play at the Latitude Festival that year. It was early/mid-Saturday afternoon and I was relaxed with my beer. He was on the big stage with a small band in front of a vast empty field. Later that summer he played in a small club in Liverpool and we missed it because we were in Ireland. But Kevin went and he still has on his phone a short video of John Grant singing Chicken Bones with the audience helping out with the words.

September 2011 we say him play in Halifax Minster. There was good beer again. He played a few new songs that evening and notwithstanding all the swearing the music suited the vaulted ceiling of the Minster.

So we saw him last playing in Liverpool at The East Village Arts Club. The last time I had been inside the building it was called The Masque and we were there to see Ella Guru. There were probably only a hundred people there.

It was a lot busier last night. The place had been given a paint job. It must be an old theatre with steep tiers for standing rising up from the stage. There were about three or four hundred people there and with the heat the walls were perspiring.

Given the somewhat conflicted nature of some his music the audience was made up of all sorts although there was a preponderance of the usual men of a certain age with beards.

I had read that some of the more out there electronic music was putting people off but that didn’t happen last night and when the big beats kicked in and the lasers the place started to get the feeling of a large club.

There were a number of highlights including all the different people singing along to the chorus of GMF. But for the swearing you could imagine the song taking on a life like Everyone Hurts and being played at funerals. Maybe it does anyway. I hope so.

Lunch today was pitta stuffed with lamb, cucumber, green chilli, tomatoes and yogurt listening to more John Grant the kids singing along.

There is nothing like some Biblical weather to scare the cats. The morning started off badly with a queer pink sky that seemed to be made up from a light reflecting back up off the ground into grey clouds.

`halfway through the morning I could see it starting to rain and a wind started to whip up. I tried to go out over lunch and was beaten back inside by thick heavy rain that tried to soak down into the skin.

The weather seemed to ease off this evening until about 10.30 when there was a flash of lightening that took the kitchen by surprise. The cats had been supine up till then on the kitchen floor enjoying our inability to work out the controls on the underfloor heating. As the thunder cracked they were up and about one of them hiding down in a cupboard behind a pile of plates.

I opened a door to listen. I could hear the wind quickening through the trees and then the sound of rain against the trees drawing closer in a rush of sound until it was down upon. This was a deluge and I found myself walking through the house checking for leaks.

Earlier in the evening I ate the last of the food from The Farmers Market – two lamb steak from Wales. I cooked them in a frying pan with a dash of cayenne pepper and ate them with fried potatoes and rocket. They were giving and delicious.

We had more of the remains of the large chicken this evening as promised in a Vietnamese stir fry with Nuoc Cham.

Nuoc Cham is a hot pungent bright red sauce made with red chillies and garlic pounded with sea salt to a paste in a heavy pestle and mortar. The recipe suggested taking the seeds out of the chillies but as it was only going to be me who would be eating the sauce there didn’t seem much point. Once the chillies and garlic were ground down to a rough paste I stirred in some lime juice, caster sugar and fish sauce. That was put to oner side.

rice was cooked in some of the chicken stock I made on Sunday evening. I put with the water as it came to the boil a large chunk of ginger and a stick of lemon grass. These were fished out once the rice was cooked and a lid was put on so it could steam gently in on itself.

For the sir fry I heat oil in the bottom of the wok. I then threw in a finely sliced onion and some cooked green beans and cooked them on a high heat until the onion was on the cusp of browning. I then added the chicken and gave that a few minutes on the high heat.

By now it was time to start shouting at kids to clear the table and get out the forks and plates and whilst they were at it fetch me a beer from the basement.

Once the chicken was cooked through I stirred in the rice with some sliced spring onion and mint leaves.

The stir fry was then piled into bowls and eaten with forks. I ate mine slathered in spoonfuls of the red Nuoc Cham.

The recipe came from Diane Henry’s Food from Plenty. I must cook some more Vietnamese food. I really enjoy the pungent with the hot and the sweet and the sour.

Back in The Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning I spotted an enormous chicken on the stall on the right hand side as you walk in. The chickens I normally buy for Sunday lunch cost about £8.00. This was almost £17.00 and was the size of a small turkey. The man behind the stall saw me looking at it and suggested I could have it for £15.00. That was too good to resist. Mum & Dad were coming for lunch on Sunday and this would feed us all and as the man said it would keep us in sandwiches for the week.

Midday on Sunday I took it out of the fridge and gave it a rub down with olive oil, salt pepper and paprika and shoved an onion up its backside. I didn’t get round to looking at how much it weighed but reckoned on it needing a good couple of hours to cook.

It was going to be a late lunch so just after 3.00 I put the oven on high and slipped it in. It was cooking fiercely after an hour and I piled up potatoes around it turning them in the fat and lowering the heat.

Five o’clock and one of the legs pulled away easily. I took the bird out of the pan and put it on a large plate to rest covered with a piece of tin foil and a tea-towel.

The oven went back to high and I put the potatoes back in stirring into them some chopped red pepper, red onion and garlic. Fifteen minutes later the potatoes had started to crisp up and the peppers were soft. I piled them around the chicken. We ate it with thick carrots that had been cooked with butter crushed cumin seeds and honey.

For a pudding I was determined to make use of some of the large apples from the garden. I peeled and quartered six large ones and put them into the hot oven covered with a thin layer of brown sugar. By the time we had finished on the chicken the apples had started to collapse in on themselves.

I poured whipped cream in a large flat whit bowl and spooned the apples on top. Rather to my surprise the kids ate it as well.  Probably all the sugar.

There was plenty of chicken left. Stock has been made and this evening I had a chicken salad all to myself. I used up the last ten tomatoes from the greenhouse and the last padron pepper which had turned red. These were chopped and stirred into the chicken together with half a sliced onion, mint, parsley and half a tub of Greek yogurt.

There is more chicken left for a pungent Vietnamese stir fry tomorrow night. We will see how the kids do with that.