Tuesday 28 August 2012

Couldn't Be More Caribbean If It Played Cricket

Got an exciting recipe book for Christmas: Gregg Wallace's Favourite Puddings. Before I went to the kitchen and got my rolling pin out I had to ask the obvious question...
So who is Gregg's favourite pudding?
Motivated by the desire to do something with a bag of dessicated coconut and ripening bananas I picked up the book and stumbled upon the perfect solution: Coconut and banana tart. Gregg points out that with coconut, bananas and rum, it is a very Caribbean desert.


Yet another tart based desert.
There were flaws, my pastry was quite thick round the edges and my syrup glaze stuff went a bit hard. But I can't complain for a first attempt.

You might have thought I would be more interested in "The Great British Bake-off". (BBC2 on Tuesday evenings) It ticks all the boxes: a food based competition with "Great British" in the title. But for some reason I haven't really got into it. It probably would have been good material for my blog. Including, as it does, lines like
"Release the tarts"
Sounds like something the Chief Inspector might say the morning after his police force had raided a den of inequity.

Sunday 12 August 2012

Sports, Games and Entertainment

So, even before this Olympics thing took over every information medium I use, I had been thinking a bit about E-sports. It is a perennial pub topic: the relationships and crossover between sports and games, and why various specific sports are or are not in the Olympics. It all seems to stem from the fact that some sports (most notably archery and shooting) don't require a great deal of physical exertion, although they obviously require physical skill. So, if they are represented at these events, then what about others, for example motor-sports.

I think it inevitable that we will see e-sports at the Olympics in the future. Not all computer games are suitable, obviously. We wouldn't want it to turn into button bashing, or to be decided by luck. But competitive gaming is a growing area, and so is it's following. There are games that are sufficiently "deep" so as to allow you to improve indefinitely.

Here's a nice and not unrelated quote that I like. Sean Plott:
Starcraft requires the keyboard skill of a virtuoso pianist, the mind of a chess grandmaster and the dedication of an Olympian.
 Maybe we could update the events in the heptathlon again. I think it is reasonable that there is a mix of sprinting and endurance, throwing and jumping. But what about even more variety - in no particular order.
  1. 110m hurdles.
  2. 3000m run, or maybe 1500 or some other long distance.
  3. Cricket ball throwing. Why isn't there just a ball throwing event?
  4. High jump
  5. Swimming - don't care how far. Just get them in the pool.
  6. Archery - let's have some skill as well as physical power
  7. Go - my personal favourite. Why not use the power of computers to let the competitors play against each other in and around the other events. It's going to take 2 or more days anyway, right. So I don't think it is too much to play 5-10 consecutive games over those days.
Maybe putting go (or chess) in a heptathlon is a bit like chess boxing. You're going to be tired from all the running and what not, but still have to use your brain and think critically. I guess the problem would be to ensure there is no cheating. Like you can't really keep the competitors locked down for two days.

My other idea is even crazier. You get your athletes to sign up for the heptathlon, but nobody knows what the events are going to be. Then on the first morning they are announced - and they could be any of the individual events going on in the Olympics. Maybe track cycling, maybe boxing, maybe the marathon. It's like my approach to exams - preparation should be thoroughly understanding the subject rather than cramming facts and formulas. Surely the best man would win. Instead of "javelin is one of her weaker events" you might hear, "she has never picked up an épée in her life".


Man vs Bush

I cut the hedge yesterday

or

Man's crusade to eradicate women's pubic hair

I like pizza, and unlike some people I don't know of any single ingredient you could put on a pizza that I would object to. Pizza now far transcends the original dish the Italians once made (maybe they still do). It has become a canvas for expression. You want meat, have a meat feast. You don't want meat, have a veggie supreme. You want something salty, put anchovies on it. Or maybe you just want pineapple, whatever, put it on your pizza. Really fancy a curry? Put is on your pizza. You get the idea.

Of course you shouldn't be limited to having savoury pizza. Pudding pizza is great fun for the kids and tasty too. Just replace cheese and tomato sauce with chocolate spread and marshmallows and decorate with whatever sweeties you like.

In an unrelated event, I recently got reading about pubs. I was mostly drawn in thinking it was a discussion of bars vs pubs, but found it was quite funny and actually talked about pubs more generally. If you don't want to read the whole thing, let me present some highlights.

The Italians are as familiar with the idea of a pub as they are with the concept of personal space.
And on the topic of crisps in pubs:
Various flavours on offer, and the bar staff are fluent enough in drunkese to know that Zoltan Finger means Salt and Vinegar.

Another food canvas waiting for the imaginative chef to make his own, is the humble pie case. You could go for apple, or apple and blackberry. Or maybe lemon goo and meringue. Instead, for some reason I am not aware of, I resurrected a recipe from my childhood: Manchester tart.

The story goes that I came back from school one day (age 6 maybe) and, like usual, my mother asked me what I had eaten for lunch. I said, "turkey in custard". Which bemused her for days until she eventually found out (presumable from a conversation with another parent) that the turkey was actually banana, and I was talking about Manchester tart. Needlesstosay, even if I thought it was turkey, I still loved it. Only freaks don't like cold custard.


Step 1. Blind bake a pie crust
Step 2. When cool, spread on a layer of red jam and add sliced banana.
Step 3. Fill with custard and allow to set.
Apparently traditional Manchester tart is covered with dessicated coconut and had some sort of red fruit in the middle - possible a cherry. I have only recently become aware of this, but this is what my pudding could have looked like.
Step 4. Serve and enjoy!
Maybe I could put more exciting traditional recipes ideas on my blog. It's easier than writing considered opinions on a topical and controversial topic.

[You see what I did there, purposefully used the root "topic" twice in the same sentence to make it a rubbish sentence. Demonstrating how much effort I am putting into my blog. On the other hand I put extra into that self-referential sentence. Oh Epimenedes...]