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...]