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.

Rare "I'm not dead" update was nicked from on Blogjam on December 2, 2008.

Blogjam.com, as it appears in Iran. I must be in league with the Great Satan.

Banned was nicked from on Blogjam on July 25, 2008.

By train.

Off was nicked from on Blogjam on July 12, 2008.

Photo by Peter Hill.

Will Smith, Superhero was nicked from on Blogjam on June 18, 2008.

Vegetarian: Final Round-up was nicked from on Blogjam on May 27, 2008.

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.

It’ll be made of meat, and I will love it.

Vegetarian: Day Seven was nicked from on Blogjam on May 25, 2008.

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.

Vegetarian: Day Six was nicked from on Blogjam on May 24, 2008.

Breakfast: Cherry danish

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.

Vegetarian: Day Five was nicked from on Blogjam on May 22, 2008.

Breakfast: Apricot Danish

Lunch: A lovely Indian meal at Roburoo. Not sure quite what is was (I had a platter of various vegetable dishes not listed on the evening menu), but no complaints, and reaonable value for money at a single crisp fiver.

Dinner: A delightful plate of freshly-made potato gnocchi at the brilliant Pane Vino In Kentish Town. My enjoyment of this luscious vegetable bounty was tempered slightly when I went to collect my dining companion to discover his wife wolfing down a delicious plate of blood-rare beef, but hey, these are the temptations us vegetarians face every single day. It’s never easy, I can tell you.

Here’s a question: If I go to the Quality Chop House in Farringdon, there are vegetarian options on the menu. When I eat at the Hawksmoor Steak House, I can dig into a Leek and Endive Gratin. Even at the temple of meat, St Johns, the Stinking Bishop & Potatoes will do the job if I’m crazy enough not to order the Roast Bone Marro. Why is it, then, that vegetarian restaurants NEVER offer a meat option?

P.S. This isn’t really a serious question.

Vegetarian: Day Four was nicked from on Blogjam on May 22, 2008.

Breakfast: Fake Bacon Sandwich: There’s nothing better than the taste of bacon in the morning unless, of course, it’s manufactured by our old friends at Redwood Foods. Having sampled a few different items in their ‘cheatin’ range, Im beginning to wonder what the point is. These rashers look like they’ve been moulded out of play dough, even down to the fake fat, and they taste dreadful, like some kind of vaguely savoury, slightly salty crepe paper. I’m not going to dispute for second that vegetarian cuisine isn’t capable of throwing up wondrous combinations of texture and flavour, but why anyone would want to include this godsforsaken alternative is genuinely beyond me. If you’re vegetarian and care for a moment about the pleasure food can provide, why would you settle for a seriously flawed, faux-version of a food you’ve already decided to give up, when there’s so much else on offer? Worst of all, it keeps repeating on me, even after lunch.

Lunch: Fake ham sandwich: My final attempt at fake meat is another failure. Redwoods are responsible again, this time for some forlorn circles of water and wheat protein masquerading as ham but performing like a tasteless, stale approximation of cheap spam. I manage three mouthfulls before gagging and tossing the whole sorry mess in the bin, then made my way to Pret to pick up an egg and cress sandwich and a slice a banana cake. Never again.

Dinner: Met up with my good friend Amardeep to get to grips with the raw food movement, courtesy of the good folks at Saf, London’s premier ‘botanical fine-dining restaurant’.

It’s an interesting experience. The waiting staff are wonderful: very friendly, attentive without being overbearing, and happy to explain how everything works. In a nutshell, the idea is that food should be plant-derived, uncooked and unprocessed. We’re told that the food remains uncooked because at temperatures of 48°c and above the beneficial enzymes naturally present begin to break down, and the nutritional value and flavour of the food decreases. Now I’m no scientist, but this does sound reasonable, and while there’s plenty of ciritcism of the concept, it does make for an adventurous meal.

My starter is ‘caviar’, a cheerful combination of chive pearls, sweet potato latkes, apples and sour cream that somehow manages to taste like none of its ingredients. It’s nice enough, though, and beautifully presented. The main course is a ‘lasagne’ made of courgette bolognese, sage pesto, olive relish, pine nut parmesan and pepper coulis. It’s very tasty, and Amardeep’s croquette of truffle alfredo, wild mushroom and rosemary even better. Things are rounded off with a truly delicious ganache tart with drunken cherry sorbet, berry compote and balsamic cocoa.

By the end, I’m not really sure what I make of it all. The food looks lovely, but there’s nothing on the savoury side of the menu that makes your tastebuds tingle with joy or your stomach demand seconds. Many would argue the latter is a boon, and I’m willing to be convinced that occasional forays into raw food cuisine are not necessarily a bad thing, but once again the idea of food being something to take serious pleasure from seems to have been neglected. There’s nothing here to salivate over – where’s the tingle of anticipation? The bliss? The thrill? The smell? Despite the presentation, the food still feels no more than functional. Instead, you leave the restaurant unsatisfied, and (at least in my case) keen to wrap your gob round something more substantial. Like a kebab.

Suffice to say, I resist.

Until tomorrow, here’s some alternative wisdom from the great Jeffrey Steingarten:

Vegetarian: Day Three was nicked from on Blogjam on May 20, 2008.