This one’s pretty special

 

I don’t read a huge amount of fiction; but a fictional account built round people and events I can enjoy.  On another forum I confirmed an analysis of authors read over a two year period.  Only one third female, which this one was.  I was reading it in translation.

In essence it was Boy-Meets-Girl, which I wouldn’t normally go anywhere near.  But it was much more than that.  For it related to a subject I’ve read often.

The reading involved some lengthy sessions – can’t put down; then some short ones as the end approached; short, but frequent – don’t want it to end.

I’m not going to tell you too much.  They meet in 1964, in Frankfurt.  She was a translator; he a witness.  She was from Danzig, long Prussian ancestry, but had moved to Switzerland in childhood.  He was from Vienna, which had been Austrian.

Just out of boyhood he was given a field-grey uniform and sent to the front.  A few years later he had another uniform.  And another name.

She was 15 years younger.  In time they settled, in Germany.  Martial law in Poland took them back, in a truck, laden with relief.  Tower blocks co-ordinated lights at certain windows.  S.  Solidarnosc.  Friends were met.  Old haunts visited.  Memories.

They moved house; further north; into old age.  How do you live with it?

This is one astonishing tale, superbly put together.  This Place Holds No Fear.  Monika Held.

 

Moles of Kabul

Never since those heady days of Roberts of Kandahar (no relation) has the name of an Englishman been on so many Afghan lips – let’s leave aside any dishonourable mentions of a certain Blair of Westminster and get back on topic, for it’s a grand tale and does not deserve to be tarnished.

Dunedin is about as far as you can get from here, but about as close to a home game as a Scots team abroad could find.  It is where the diaspora of Jocks Abroad have found themselves these past 170 years or so; a real hame from hame, for there are mountains and sheep, and it rains.  Mind you there is a bit of a drought at the moment, and that’s never been a topic for discussion back in the Old Country.

I pen these notes with bleary eyes, after another night where sleep was an absent bedfellow.  I have dim memories, from the wee, sma’ hours, of consciousness seeping in as through the headphones someone shouted Caught, no dropped it.  And from then I was gripped.

Scotland had batted first, troubled, stuttering.  Eventually they set something of a total, back from the brink.  211 to win.  The Afghans got off well, 85 for 2, which may not mean much to some but bear with me.  Five wickets fell and the score still under a hundred.  Surely they could win from here.

Two teams had taken the field, both with expectations of leaving it eight hours later with their first World Cup secured.  The tie could have scuppered that, but surely improbable.  Or was it?

But that dropped catch.  Catches win Matches.  I can hear it now.  Shenwari had scored 20, barely settled in his game.  Scotland’s Haq put the catch down.  Hours later, flashing past in no time, and he’s added 58 more runs.  But Scotland had it to win.  38 more runs; only 24 balls left.  Surely.

And Haq was bowling; the last of his ten overs.  Shenwari had to do something.  And he did.  It’s on the roof of the stand!  32 needed.  Then he hit another six, and one more.  Less than one run from every ball left.  But Haq wasn’t finished.  Shenwari went for glory, four runs short of a magnificent hundred, and found a safe pair of Scots hands deep in the field.  Gone.  96 and out.

Last two at the wicket.  One good ball would do it for Scotland.  The Afghan bowlers had to find some skill with the bat; surely beyond them.

Now at this stage sleep is not going to return.  And I relive all those horrors which see Scotland snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, no matter the shape or size of the ball.  It’s in the DNA.  Past masters.

And so it had to be.  Instead of the good ball we found some poor ones.  Into the last over.  Less than one a ball.  One hit would do it – one blow over the ropes; or one hit on the stumps.  And the Scots slumped, again.

So it is that today in Kabul I guess rifles are being fired in the air.  Celebration time.  For the team that was born in the refugee camps of Peshawar had a first win at the World Cup.  At our expense.

In a post match interview coach Andy Moles talked of humility in victory, as his players whooped and hollered all around.  It’s not in their DNA, but they’ll learn it.  And who could grudge them, after such tension.  The ebbs and flows; the game there for the taking, then lost, then won at the last gasp.

And in Dunedin, the man who once coached New Zealand; the Englishman who is the toast of Kabul, savoured his moment, with humility.  For he had a previous job, in lands familiar to South Island.  That was when he was Scotland’s coach.

Catches win Matches.  I can hear it yet.  Not Boycott on the box, but Janice Broun, shrill across the ground, forty years ago.  Another of her reasons to withdraw marital favours.  If Claud didn’t score on the pitch, well…

What a great game.  Sleep’s over-rated you know.

One From The Bible

We’ve been dipping into The Bible, but only in a bid to find some variety for the weekly soup pot.  The Bible in question is one of the favourites on the kitchen book shelf, Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible.  The recipe in question though, is credited by Ms Day-Lewis to Nelisha Wickremasinghe.  We have the flavours of Sri Lanka to enjoy this week, and in particular Nelisha’s Spiced Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Soup.

As always, first here’s what you need:

1 tsp cumin seed; 1 tsp coriander seed; 1 tbsp sesame seed; 1oz butter, or 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 red onion, finely chopped; 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped; thumb fresh ginger, peeled and chopped; 1-2 green chillies, seeded and chopped; zest and juice of a lime; 2 pints vegetable stock; 1 tsp honey; 12oz sweet potato, peeled and diced; 12 oz pumpkin, peeled and diced; handful coriander leaves, chopped.  And for the garnish 120ml live yoghurt or coconut milk; and olive oil.

First off lightly roast the cumin, coriander and sesame seeds separately for a minute or so, then grind them together.  Faint at aromas rising as you pummel pestle round mortar.  Heat the oil (or butter) in a heavy-bottomed pan and cook the onion and garlic without browning, until softened.

Add the ground spices, ginger, chillies and lime zest and stir through.  Cook for a minute or so to amalgamate the flavours.  Add the stock, half the lime juice, honey, sweet potato and pumpkin with the coriander leaves and bring to the boil.

In a cold West of Scotland February pumpkin may be elusive.  It’s the butternut squash option at Grasshopper Towers.

Reduce to a simmer and cook until the vegetable are tender (about 20 mins).  Liquidise until very smooth, adding more stock to achieve preferred consistency if need be.  Add the rest of the lime juice and seasoning to taste – that’s a spoonful of coarse-ground black pepper in these parts.

Serve with a swirl of yoghurt or coconut milk and a few drops of olive oil.  A crumbled oatcake adds a textured topping.  Some fresh-from-the-oven onion bread provides and ideal dip-in.  Enjoy.

We might be back in The Bible before long, for Tamasin has some other tempting offerings, and has never let us down yet.

Tales within tales

A debut work; a new name.  Familiar themes, intertwined.  Katharine Norbury’s The Fish Ladder is a worthy addition to my current year list.  She promised much of what I like to read – a slice of travel; a dollop of nature; memoir and heart-break, with a touch of genealogy.  There is a mountain top, a name that has meant much to me for decades, engrained from favourite books.  She even manages to meld it all with Celtic myth, and to write of familiar places.

The title of the book is a weel kent attraction at Pitlochry; a break on the long road north.  Travel is not the major part of the journey here, though we manage to get from Barcelona to London, in pretty dire circumstances, and then to wilder parts of North Wales and the Highlands.

The first little journey has me puzzled, for I’m sure I’ve read that section before and can’t place where.  We head for Spurn Point, where the Humber plunges into the North Sea, after a drive across the Penines through the night.  A walk across to the sands, and a burrow in the dunes for an hour’s sleep before dawn.  I’ve done this before.  And I’ve come across the deflated tyres on returning to the car.  But where and when?  I don’t know.

At risk of having these notes peppered with the *Spoiler Alert* klaxons I’m going to spare you much of the detail; to leave you teased perhaps.

There is a cottage on the Llyn Peninsula, an impulse buy years before.  From there our guide and her daughter follow the burn, aiming for the source.  Following rivers takes her further afield, up the A9, and a loch, eventually a well from a much-loved Neil Gunn tale.  These are day walks; occasional peat bog bivvys overnight with the midges; solitary times, then together with her daughter.

But to bring it all together there is an inner quest; burbling in the background all her life, and rumbling to the surface by chance; pushed to the fore by tragic need.

In her wanders with mother and daughter Katharine happens across a convent hospital.  She meets the nuns who know her story, visits the grave of the Sister whose name she was given.

From a comfortable life in the Spanish sun, Norbury’s writer husband falls victim to harsh times, his latest novel rejected by his publishers.  They pack for London squalor.  But that at least means more time on the Llyn, more time with family, more time to follow quests to river sources.

Then life takes another bleak turn, and the convent and the Sisters spark another quest, an urgent one.  And the book delves deeper, hauls you in.  The cottage makes sense now.  Families.  It could be you.

Moorish, and very more-ish

This is a dish that is filled with memories of magical moments in Marrakech; a memento from Moorish Andalucía.  It is filled with the aromatics and the spices of the souks.  But it is done with a Persian twist, the biggest of which, is to use chicken rather than the traditional pigeon.  Let me give you Chicken Bastilla, a variant of Pigeon Pastilla.

First you will need, and these portions are generous even for a large extended family, so cut them back to suit:

1kg onions, diced; olive oil; 3″ piece root ginger, finely grated; heaped tsp cinnamon, plus extra for garnish; half tsp mace; half tsp nutmeg; 1 tbsp caster sugar; large handful dates, pitted and finely chopped; I med pre-roasted chicken, about 2kg, meat finely shredded; 75g pine nuts, toasted; 6 hard boiled egs, roughly chopped; 1 egg separated, the white lightly beaten; flat-leaf parsley, leaves and stems finely chopped; coriander, leaves and stems finely chopped; 2 tbsp clear honey; sea salt and freshly ground black pepper; 6 sheets filo pastry; icing sugar to dust; and there’s more…

Pre-heat the oven to 180/gas 4.  Line a large baking sheet with baking paper – you might need two if you use the full volume above.

Fry the onions in a generous amount of olive oil over a medium heat, stirring regularly to caramelize without burning.  Once brown and sticky add the ginger, dry spices, caster sugar and dates.  Stir the mixture well.  Cook until liquid absorbed; remove from heat and set aside.

Put the shredded chicken into a large bowl with the pine nuts, chopped egg, parsley and coriander and mix together.  Add the fried onion mixture and honey and give everything another good mix.  Season generously with salt and fresh-ground black pepper.

Cut each filo pastry sheet in half to make two squares.  Take both squares and overlap them to make a star shape.  Divide the mixture into six portions, then pile one portion into the centre of the pastry star.  Pat it down to form a flat round disc, (not too wide, so that you can still seal the pastry edges around the stuffing), then brush the exposed edges of pastry with the beaten egg white.  Bring the points of the pastry in towards the centre one by one and brush each overlap of pastry with a little beaten egg white as you go to secure, until the final flap closes the pastry parcel.

Brush with a little more egg white to seal the parcel.  Turn the bastille over and place on the baking sheet.  Repeat with the remaining pastry squares and stuffing to create six bastilla.  Brush the tops and sides with egg yolk, bake for 20-22 mins, or until golden brown.

Remove the bastilla from the oven and, while still hot, dust with icing sugar and a sprinkling of cinnamon.  For special ones a scattering of rose petals is more than deserved.

And the verdict?  Well if my clumsy fingers can cope with filo sheets, for the first time, anyone can pull this together.  We had two clean plates, after seconds; one I’m full, after dissecting the contents to look for foreign bodies whilst scoffing the chicken and the egg; and one very predictable I don’t like that whine, which is just as well I’d kept back some unadulterated chicken.  Dreams of Elsewhere.  Enjoy.