For those of you who’ve found their way here via the Radio New Zealand show “Summer Nights”, welcome. And, indeed, kia ora. This blog isn’t updated much these days, so here are a few highlights.
If I was updating this blog on a regular basis, it would be far to claim that it’s been an ongoing part of the web’s digital fabric for exactly ten years, today. But I haven’t been. So I’m not going to do anything of the sort.
Blimey. It’s close to 3000 hours since my last post. What a fucking shambles.
So, what have I not reported on?
1) My holiday to France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran and Syria. It was great, although eight days on a train for a man of my advanced years isn’t something I’d recommend lightly. Highlights included the cross-eyed hotelier in Tehran, the racist, permy-haired light entertainer in Romania, and a visit to the World’s biggest restaurant. Pictures are below.
2) My trip to Iceland, doing my best to save their ravaged economy. Highlights? Eating puffin, swimming in the Blue Lagoon on a blisteringly cold night, and that exhilarating Arctic wind. Photos follow.
3) Finishing my animal eating A-Z for The Observer. The full list of articles is contained in one nifty package here. I’m especially fond of ‘Y’, for yak.
4) Drinking lots of ginger beer. Ginger beer is ace. Especially the Bunderberg variety.
5) Cooking my finest ever meal: roast venison with parsnip puree, parsnip crisps, demi-glace and red wine sauce, braised red cabbage, beetroot fondant and creamed autumn mushrooms, followed by a chocolate and vodka parfait pyramid with mango and passionfruit coulis. I’m the white Ainsley Harriott, I tell you.
6) Buying an internet radio, listening to weeks of pre-election build-up on C-Span, and realizing that the most dangerous part of democracy is the bit where ordinary folk are allowed to vote.
7) The Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings box-set. To draw a parallel, this is like finding five previously unheard Beatles albums, all better than the original releases. Literally country & western-tastic. The Kittenwar 2009 Wall Calendar! Available from Amazon now!
9) The Kittenwar 2009 Daily Calendar! Available from Amazon now!
10) Getting to review the new AC/DC album for the mighty WORD magazine. This is one of life’s checkbox moments, like visiting the Grand Canyon, eating at the Fat Duck, or sharing a bed with two of Girls Aloud.
11) Realizing, finally, that Bjork is never going to leave her husband for me. Or Lila Downs. Or Yma Sumac. Mind you, she’s dead, and when she was alive she was really old and stuff and probably smelt of ointment, so that’s possibly a good thing.
12) Realizing that I obviously have a bit of a thing for foreign ladysingers.
I’ve written up a roundup of my short-lived stab at vegetarianism over at The Observer’s Word of Mouth blog. It’s actually a pro-vegetarian entry, in the sense that I think they’re often short-changed with regard to the meat alternatives I sampled and the lack of options available at many restaurants, but you’d never know it from the vitriol that rained in. C’est la vie. I do wonder, though, if a column written by a vegetarian bemoaning the same lack of choice would have been received in a similar way. Perhaps the image I used to decorate the piece gave people the wrong idea.
Lunch: A very interesting pesto pasty from Deli de Luca, a Norwegian cross between Pret a Manger and a 7-Eleven.
Dinner: The hotel menu doesn’t appear to have any vegetarian options (the £15 salad includes cured sausage), so I nip across the road for a falafel kebab. It’s not bad, although anything in pita bread is difficult enough to eat as it is, so why you’d want to add sweetcorn into the equation is beyond me.
One of the things I don’t like about some vegetarians is the continual bleating about the lack of choice for vegetarians on restaurant menus. You know what? I really don’t care:
a) You’ve made your choice. Presumably you factored in this kind of ‘hardship’ when you made that decision. Now live with it. Don’t bitch about a situation you knew you were getting yourself into.
b) Eat somewhere else. I just did. It wasn’t difficult.
I’m writing this on the morning after Day Seven. I’ve just been down for breakfast. In true Norwegian style, it came with meat. Lots of it. Sausages, bacon, various hams and salamis. None of it was particularly good quality, but I piled my plate high and ploughed through the lot. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve eaten in a while (Thursday’s couscous gets that honour), but it wasn’t bad, and some time in the next couple of days I’ll eat something that’ll top anything I’ve enjoyed during World Vegetarian Week. It may well be fatty. It might contain blood. It might quite possibly be to the detriment of my long-term health. I may feel the veins around my heart tighten or swell as I eat. And yet, it will be quite delicious in a way that nothing I’ve had over the last few days has been.
Breakfast: Cheese & pickle sandwich, chocolate croissant and mango smoothie from Pret a Manger, Stansted Airport.
Lunch: Not wishing to pay about nine million pounds for a cardboard sandwich that looks like the remnants of an ill-judged autopsy, I decline the cuisine on offer from Ryanair and settle for a late snack at my hotel – the apple that’s been left on my pillow, and a bar of Kvikk Lunsj, the Norse Kit Kat.
Dinner: Pizza. My friend Anja, who I’ve known for close to a decade but only just met, takes me to a pizza joint. My pizza features many aubergines, and lots of olives. I like pizza. After dinner it’s off to a cheap (by Oslo standards – the booze is only £4 a pint) bar on Grønland for multiple lagers, where the jukebox alternates between Metallica, Pink Floyd, and Norway’s infamous Eurovision ‘nul points’ entry from Jahn Teigen, and the drinkers sing along to each with equal gusto.
Then it’s quick midnight whizz round the new Opera House, which may well be the most beautiful modern building I’ve ever had the privilege of walking onto the roof of, before retiring for the night.
And when I wake up, my pee is a vivid orange. I blame the aubergines.
Lunch: Toasted mini-pita breads with houmus. That’s what vegetarians eat, isn’t it? Or is it students? I can never remember…
Dinner: A suggestion from Mike – Couscous with dried apricots and butternut squash, taken from the pages of the Ottolenghi cookbook. Best thing I’ve eaten all week. Thank’s Mike. And thanks Mr Ottolenghi.
I know they obviously mean well, but I’ve been getting lots of suggestions for recipes from vegetarians, almost as if removing meat from my menu has automatically reduced my cooking skills to those of a porpoise. You don’t have to! I can still cook! And I have lots of recipe books! There’s really no need!
Tomorrow, I test what it’s like to be a vegetarian abroad, as I travel to Norway, land of Gravlax and Smalahove. So if you’re in Oslo, I’ll be the one eating lingonberries and looking forlorn.
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