Make that salt mine

It would be easy to think, based on general media coverage, that salt was one of the biggest enemies you can face in the search for a healthy diet.

Funnily enough, my mother – who, as a physiotherapist, had first to undertake basic nursing training – has always found the advice on cutting salt to be contrary to what they were told.

The thinking then was that you would consume as much salt as your body required.

Of course, that was at the end of the 1940s and was before these halcyon days of vast amounts of processed foods stuffed with hidden salts and sugars.

Indeed, a few years ago, I read comments from a GP who was visited by a lady who was worried about her husband.

He apparently put what she thought was a lot of salt on his meal at dinner.

The doctor stressed that that was not a problem: the problem was those hidden salts.

Now I eat very little processed food. And I’m careful about how much I use in cooking – some in, say, casseroles etc, and some in potatoes, pasta or rice, but little else. I’d rather add later – sometimes as a specific garnish, as the French do with fleur de sel.

However, in the last week, there have been no starchy carbs – the weather ensures I have no inclination for them. So, a pretty much perfect diet from the perspective of salt advice.

Yesterday, an hour or so after a light lunch – some left-over boerevors and salad – I felt exhausted; really shattered.

The germ of an idea occurred to me.

I’d had no caffeine for several days, as a measure against dehydration in this hot weather (and I am not complaining about the weather, by the way).

I’d also been making more than usually sure that I was drinking plenty of water – probably little less than two litres by that stage yesterday afternoon.

So, all-round sensible stuff, combined with not spending too much time in the direct sun.

The inkling was really quite simple, although on the surface, slightly less sensible. I suddenly had the sense that I wanted – no: that I needed – salt, so I picked up a bag of ‘salty and sweet’ popcorn, into which I tossed extra salt, together with a can of diet Pepsi for the zip of some caffeine.

Half an hour later, I felt restored.

It seems that, in being so careful, I’d probably flushed away vital salts and minerals over the course of a few days, and not replenished these.

It’s easy to forget, given media coverage of health issues, that salt is essential to our good health.

We need it. It is not an optional extra. We don’t need sugar. But we do need salt.

And perhaps, because I usually have some caffeine in a day, my body was objecting to none.

So today, some caffeine, and a pot of cottage cheese for lunch, to which could be added salt – indeed, it’s bland enough that it benefits fro that, and a twist of pepper. Fruit to follow and plenty more water – this should be more balanced.

In the evening, Nigel Slater’s quick version of that Moroccan classic, chicken with lemons and olives. No rice, but a little salt in the cooking of this, plus, of course, the natural saltiness of the olives.

And at 8pm, I'm still feeling quite lively.

I can’t help but wonder, though, how many other people are experiencing anything similar.

A thought occurs. Some years ago, we were in Barcelona and The Other Half got a mild case of sun stroke. We only really realised when, later that day, he was exhausted and without an appetite, but found himself licking salt off his finger in a restaurant.

Somehow, he realised, with a salt cellar in front of him, that he needed it - and he's not a salt head.

My mother's tutors were probably right. What has changed, I suspect, is simply that the quantity of salt shovelled into processed foods has changed the equation. We need salt. Our bodies know it - and processed food exploits that.

Doesn't make the behaviour of the food industry any nicer, does it?

Cook – there's a caterpillar in my salad!

Chicken salad with orange and tarragon

This weather is glorious and, after a poor summer last year and a lengthy, demoralising winter that pretty much consumed the spring, nobody should be grumbling.

But, unaccustomed as we are to such soaring temperatures, it can make eating a little more difficult. After all, this is hardly meat-and-two-veg weather.

In which case, it seems the perfect opportunity to look toward the Mediterranean – not simply for holidays to come, but for culinary ideas for the here and now.

Wondering what to start the day with on Sunday, having seen The Other Half off to sunny Castleford for the Rugby League, I came up with a bit of an experiment: feta and strawberries. And it works.

It doesn’t need anything with it – the saltiness of the cheese gives seasoning. The textures are a nice contrast and the sweetness of good strawberries is always a joy.

What I’ve mentioned in the last week about vegetables and simplicity could hardly have been more timely.

For lunch on Sunday, some fine beans and late-season English asparagus, served with a piece of smoked mackerel and gooseberry terrine (Waitrose), and a drizzle of thick Balsamico – I opted for this over virgin oil, as it cuts through the natural sweetness of most of the other ingredients.

Dinner was back to Bruno Loubet terrain and his new book.

This time, a chance to try the grilled mackerel with salted, pressed watermelon and a lime mayonnaise.

I probably over-salted the watermelon, but the dish as a whole was light and fresh – perfect for this weather.

Mind, nothing in this weather, can lay a hand to a fresh gazpacho. There must be plenty of variations – every cook will have their own tweak – but the result is refreshing, nutritious, tasty and, well, simply perfect.

I was introduced to it one summer some years ago, when I was whinging about not knowing what to eat, by m’friend George, whose wife is Spanish. So it’s the real McCoy.

He wouldn’t give people the recipe unless decent tomatoes were available. In those days, I wondered why. Now, I have no doubts. It is a dish that needs good incidents – and a dish that is designed for exactly when they will be available.

It is, in other words, an icon of seasonal eating.

Smoked mackerel terrine and seasonal vegetables

You need properly ripe tomatoes – even better if you are growing your own and can pick them just as you need them. But otherwise, stick some on a plate and under the sun for a short while. That’ll help.

Take six or seven really ripe ones and blitz them. Follow that with a small cucumber – preferably one of those with a rough skin, which you peel first. This is also where using organic, if you can get it, is worth it too.

Next into the blender goes a handful of breadcrumbs.

Then a small onion – or as yesterday, a large shallot – followed by a clove of garlic (or two).

After that, it’s four tablespoons of wine vinegar. Actually, when making this yesterday, I realised that at the back of my great vinegar collection, I had a small bottle of raspberry champagne vinegar, with just about exactly the right amount left, so I used that.

Next, in goes a cup of olive oil and then salt to taste.

Chill. To serve, dilute to taste with either iced water or ice cubes.

And so thanks again to George for Gazpacho Doña Luisa.

It says everything about last summer that I never reached a point of wanting gazpacho: in the last few days, it’s been one of the things that was automatically on my mind.

I’d love to be able to make it in Collioure next month, given the divine tomatoes I can get there, but I don’t know whether there’ll be a blitzing facility. Fingers crossed.

What there will be, however, is a pan and a knife – and that’s all I’ll need for a ratatouille to make the most of local produce that I can find at the village market.

But back to the here and now.

On Sunday, I also roasted a chicken – my preferred River Café method; three and a half hours.

Set the oven to 80˚C (fan).

Stuff your bird – I can’t recall what the book says, as I just use what’s available. In this case, one and a half lemons and half a dozen cloves of garlic, crushed.

Pop the bird the usual way up in the tightest-fitting dish you’ve got. Pour in around 100ml of water and give it an hour. Then turn it over and give it another hour. Then turn it back to how it started – and give it a third hour.

There a caterpillar in here somewhere

Take it out and ratchet the heat up to 170˚C (fan). Message butter into the bird and season. At this point, you can add 200ml of vermouth, but it’s not essential. More water will do. And so give it a final half hour’s cooking.

The flesh will be tender and moist, and the skin will be crisp and brown.

It’s not really roast dinner weather, though, so the bird was then allowed to cool.

Yesterday’s first task was to strip the meat off it and make stock – easy enough, but rather hot for the weather!

The bulk of the stock has gone into the freezer, but a small jar was then further reduced, with the addition of the juice of half an orange and some tarragon leaves.

Strain and allow to cool, and then add some white wine vinegar, some olive oil and seasoning to taste.

Serve as a dressing over cold chicken, on a bed of leaves and garnished (if you feel so inclined) with an odd slice or segment of orange, and some fresh tarragon leaves.

The leaves on my plate were a combination of watercress and young lettuce leaves – the latter, the first crop from the potager.

Lesson one, though: rinse thoroughly before putting them in the salad spinner. That way, you’ll be able to rinse off any insect life that is too large to fall through the basket when you’re spinning it.

Mind, that small green caterpillar must have been dizzy.

The lettuce was a delight and the chicken was spot on.

Light dining that’s just perfect for these wonderful, hot days.

Easy peasy

It’s easy to think, when hearing the words ‘processed food’, of the sort of additive-laden ready meals that you can buy and pop into the microwave, to be ready in a matter of moments.

But processed food also has saving graces, from tinned pulses – a magnificent timesaver – to tinned tomatoes. For the latter, we have one August Escoffier to thank.

Frozen vegetables have a role to play too. Is there a freezer anywhere that doesn’t contain at least a packet of frozen peas?

But as good as frozen veg are and as good as frozen peas are in particular, they’re not the same as the fresh version.

Podding peas goes along with scraping new potatoes as two of summer's kitchen jobs that I find thoroughly pleasant. And the aroma that follows that first pop, before you even start flicking the perfect, emerald spheres into the pan, is wonderfully redolent of growth and plant life.

The taste and texture are different too. And as with so much other spring and summer produce, you don’t need to do much with them. Frankly, you won’t want to most of the time.

It’s simply a question of three to four minutes (depending on size) in boiling water and they’re ready. They’re undemanding in other ways too, only needing a bit of seasoning and some good butter.

As such, they demand equally simple ingredients to make a perfect meal: simple, but the best quality possible.

Since there’s nothing wrong, in culinary terms, with the obvious – there’s usually a reason it is – then today’s pan of peas was served with ivory smooth Jersey Royals and lamb chops, with the meat cooked under a hot grill for around six minutes a side, until the skin was crisp and golden.

The potatoes benefit from a slick of butter too, while whatever the French may say, mint is a wonderful accompaniment to lamb cooked this way.

It was a day for such simplicity.

I was late out for the shopping and, by the time I got home, it was hot and sweaty. The realisation that I’d forgotten a vital ingredient for tomorrow saw me spit a hair or two before heading back up the road.

With the street now utterly rammed, it was hopeless to try to rush. Musing that some good water biscuits would also be nice, I revisited La Bouche, leaving not just with biscuits, but also one of a batch of Saint-Marcellin cheeses that had melted so much that Max had had to put them each in a plastic container and, in entrepreneurial fashion, was offering at a cut price. Although even that wasn't enough for many people, who looked with suspicion on them, as though that state of ripeness was indicative of something bad.

A ciabatta was then sourced before I headed back home and began tearing the bread and scooping up the creamy liquid with it. Utterly gorgeous.

It was an afternoon when the flimsiest of clouds rippled across the sky like the sand on a damp beach. My first melon of the season was perfect refreshment. Just plain slices cut from the globe – another wonderful scent – and consumed greedily, as the juice trickles down the chin.

Food really doesn’t have to be complex to be as voluptuous as this.

A soggy day in London town

You could be forgiven for thinking that summer ended on these God-forsaken islands about a fortnight ago. Because the weather since then has been piss poor – as in pissing it down with rain. Okay, interspersed with occasional and all-too-brief sunshine and, in the last few days, sudden strong gusts of wind.

The Met Office has even issued a warning of flash flooding over the next few days. You could be forgiven for thinking that it must be the August bank holiday weekend!

In a superb example of the triumph of optimism over reason, The Other Half and I had looked at the weather forecast last weekend and decided that we could just manage one final braai of the summer.

So I returned from shopping on Saturday morning with substantial amounts of meat to put on the fire, only to spend the day watching as it became ever more evident that the cloud was not going to shift or think enough to make such a proposition pleasant.

Since then, we’ve been working our way through the meat in dishes that I would never usually contemplate until autumn.

Last night, when it was the turn of the steak, I even bought a parsnip and two little turnips in the shop; in August! The compensation was the pleasure of cooking something without needing to go to any book or recipe, though – something I would not have felt able to do 10 years ago.

So, cut the meat into pieces and brown in a mix of olive oil and butter. Remove to a plate.

Chuck in a diced onion and soften. Add some chopped garlic and then some flour. Let the flour cook for a couple of minutes, and then start adding wine slowly, deglazing as you go.

Pop in some stock, a couple of bay leaves and any other herbs you have around and fancy adding. Add a squeeze of tomato purée for a little added flavour. Put the meat back in the pan.

Add your peeled and diced veg – in this case, the parsnip, turnips and a couple of potatoes. Stick the lid on and leave to simmer on a low heat, stirring occasionally, until everything’s as cooked as you want it.

I love the fact that I can cook like that now – it seems so easy these days, but in the past, it might as well have been rocket science.

At around 2.13pm yesterday, I hit demob happy state. My work almost done – or everything that could be done, while I await a couple of phone calls and emails done – I found myself on the cusp of screaming: 'Let me out of here! Have mercy and let me into civilisation!'

"Civilisation" is around an hour away by train and will be reached, after 20 minutes of darkness in the tunnel, at approximately 9.30am, British Summer Time, tomorrow morning.

Dr Johnson apparently observed that: "He who is tired of London is tired of life." There are times when I feel very tired of London: the dirtiness, the constant noise, the fastness and impatience of everything. I suspect that, if the good doctor was to see London now, he'd agree.

Right now, I want to hear myself think. There was brief few minutes last year, when we were in the gardens of Sanssouci, Frederick the Great's palace just outside Berlin, when I could hear nothing but the birds, the breeze and the insects. It probably says something that, 15 months on, I remember that time with such clarity.

Collioure will not be quite as quiet, although when the French season ends this weekend, it does get a lot quieter. And the street that we’re staying on, just one street back from the seafront, always seems quiet: you’re not woken in the morning by constant noise and you go to sleep at night with the sound of the sea lap lap lapping at the shore. Instant chicken soup for the soul.

Packing awaits this evening, of course, although I’ve already got quite a few things well on the way to being sorted.

I’ll make sandwiches for tomorrow’s journey – we have breakfast on the first leg aboard the Eurostar, but will picnic on the train on the second leg. It might be France, but train food is not better than in the UK.

So, soft rolls with German meat for The Other Half, soft rolls with very good French paté for me; hard-boiled eggs; a little crème brûlée and a pot of berries for each of us; an apple for him and a banana for me. All accompanied by a bottle rosé from the Languedoc. There’s more than a little of the ‘coals to Newcastle’ about this part of the trip!

The books have already been stacked up, ready for the case this evening. I’ll pick up a pad and some pastels this afternoon, as I want to give that a go. And I have a dongle so that I can – if I get around to it – blog from our holiday home.

But if you don’t hear from me again until I return to soggy London town, adieu and have a good time.

Thoughts on the cusp of a new season

It's a funny old time of year. August is, traditionally, the hottest – and certainly the most humid – month in Britain. It's the height of the summer season; of the school holidays.

And yet the new football season, which seems one of the major harbingers of autumn, is almost upon us. Today, I forked out a crazy £51 for a ticket to see Manchester City's opening Premier League fixture at Tottenham (at least the travel will cost me next to nowt!).

Since the season is so near, and the transfer window remains open for less than a month, gossip is rife.

Actually, it's quite funny. Until the 2007 close season, City rarely featured in such gossip. The fact that now, with rich owners, we're never out of it, is amusing for someone who has spent the best part of 35 years supporting a team that, by and large, has been regarded fondly, but also as something of a laughing stock.

I cannot imagine what I'd be like if we actually won something serious – I went bonkers enough when we won the Division II play-off final against Gillingham in 1999 – but there are things that I can see as unpleasant side effects of any success.

• bandwagon jumpers. I had a colleague at one time who had been a Liverpool fan throughout the 1980s. Then, in the 1990s, he became a Manchester United fan. I do not look forward to the idea that, if we actually become successful, we'll start getting bandwagon jumpers;

• humour. I really hope we don't lose our sense of humour. Usually, it's been gallows humour. I remember a Saturday afternoon match at Bramall Lane, the home of Sheffield United. They were chanting: "We hate Wednesday, we hate Wednesday", referring to their local rivals, Sheffield Wednesday. We piped up: "We hate Saturday, we hate Saturday."

Or on another occasion, having lost 6-0 in a midweek cup game to Liverpool, we found ourselves getting trounced 4-0 by them in a league game at the weekend. Our response? "We'll score again, don't know where, don't know when, but we know we'll score again some sunny day", to a familiar Vera Lynn tune.

Perhaps surprisingly to many, having very rich owners hasn't meant that the club suddenly feels that it's not ours any more. The Peter Swales era, when we owned by a local businessman, taught me long ago that local does not equal good. It was a great day when we got old shredded wheat head out.

Rebuilding has taken time. Even given the vast improvements since 2007, I've still seen more dross on the pitch over the years than otherwise. But what happened in the summer of 2007 was that suddenly, the close season ceased to become a break from the torment of being a City fan, but a time of excitement and speculation and hope.

And yes, it was the first time in years when we'd started to dream again. And dreaming is what it's all about. Until – just perhaps – those dreams start coming true.

Getting in the swing of summer

It feels – finally – as though summer is really here. Glorious sunshine, headily azure skies and heat to warm the marrow of the bones – there's no mistaking it any longer.

With the signs set for a hot weekend, The Other Half and I forewent the pleasures of an evening in the staff bar on Friday and pottered down to John Lewis for a bit of seasonal retail therapy. Specifically, a pair of metal-framed 'deckchairs' and a new braai, since the previous one had started to collapse. still, it had only cost around £20 from a local Turkish shop and had lasted us some years.

All that meant some work in our garden. I suppose it's roughly 15' by about 12' – can't be much more than that – but it's such a precious space. The Other Half spent Saturday de-cluttering it. First, the old braai – a tin box on legs – went out. Then he finally got around to bashing a garden bench into pieces so that we could carry it out and decant it into the communal bins.

We've had that bench for years, having bought it from a small shop on Hackney Road and, when we got it home and mostly errected, found out that it was missing two struts. It was one of those affairs with cast iron ends and wooden slats. For whatever reason, we never got around to going back to the shop and either demanding the struts or our money back.

So it has occupied space against once fence for years: always wobbly and getting wobblier with every passing season. It was long past our being able to sit on it. We talked of getting rid of it some years ago, but Trickie, one of our cats at the time (and as neurotic a cat as we've had) loved it, so we left it there.

But Trickie is long gone. And in the last week, one of the wooden slats fell off. It was a rallying call.

We'd also had a little table and two folding chairs in our tiny space, but both chairs had finally given up the ghost. So we have now simply shoved the table out of the way, leaving the patio clear for the new 'deckchairs'.

And once that was sorted, the plan for the rest of the weekend was really rather obvious. Sitting in the sun with plenty of chilled water and a book.

And then there was food. Obviously a braai was arranged – that was for Sunday.

But for Saturday, I picked up salmon fillets to poach, plus good new potatoes (still Jerseys), fresh garden peas and fine beans.

And then I made the first aioli of the season to serve with it.

This Catalan version of mayo is an utter delight. When I'd made it, I had a struggle to stop myself scoffing the stuff by the spoonful as it set off an orgy of flavour in my mouth.

Don't believe all the stories about emulsions being difficult – all you need to do is take your time.

So, take one – or more – garlic cloves. Peel and crush, then blend with some coarse salt until you get a paste.

Pop that into a large jug and add the yolk of a very fresh egg. Then whisk until you've got a lovely, stiff mixture.

Now, here's the only real trick: as you keep whisking, start adding some good virgin oil – very, VERY slowly: you really need to just drip it in at first. If anything, your mix should stiffen even further. Okay, it takes a few minutes, but keep going – slowly. When you've eventually got something that looks like a really good, stiff, golden mayo, you can add the oil a little faster until you get the consistency that you want.

Decant it into a pot and stick in the fridge – it'll keep for up to a week, although that's only if you can resist the temptation to use it much much quicker!

When you don't know what you want to eat

One of the things that seems to happen at this time of year is that I get bored with food.

No, actually, that's not quite right. I just find it difficult to know what I want to eat. And my appetite seems to go belly up, if you will, so that eating becomes an effort on many occasions – particularly when we hit August and it can traditionally get quite humid in the UK.

Fortunately, a few years ago, a friend and fellow gourmet gave some good pointers and now, even when I feel least like eating, they guide my thoughts back to some good stuff.

George has given me loads of recipes over the years – and taught me things like how to tell if a melon or a Camembert is ripe – but a few years ago, when I was suffering one of those periods of no appetite and little motivation, he introduced me to gazpacho.

This Spanish tomato-based soup, which is served very chilled and needs to be made from the very freshest ingredients, is incredibly refreshing and tasty – and healthy too. Which can’t be a bad combination. He was prepared to share his mother-in-law’s recipe – and it’s easy and very, very good.

And then there is a gem of a herring salad too, using matjes or sweet herring fillets, mixed with some sour cream or crème fraîche, and some thinly sliced apples and/or some diced beetroot. Again, really, really fresh and refreshing.

But I do occasionally find some little gems from elsewhere – and last week was one such occasion.

Some people don’t like Tamasin Day-Lewis, but she was already in my good books for her formula for cooking steak, which makes it a doddle:

if you want it done rare, cook for a minute, turn over and cook for another minute, then rest in a warm place for eight minutes.

If you want it medium rare, cook for two minutes, turn and cook for a further two minutes and then rest in a warm place for six minutes.

If you want it medium, cook for three minutes each side and rest for four.

If you want it well done, cook for four minutes a side and rest for just two.

And if you want it cremated, cook for five minutes a side and serve.

Brilliant – this makes it easy to do several steaks at once to different states.

However, browsing the other week on uktv.co.uk/food, I came across a stunning simple summer dish from the lady.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan until it’s good and hot. Thinly slice some courgettes. Pop them in the pan and cook briefly. You want them to caramelise a bit at least.

Turn them over. Add some slivers of garlic, plus some lemon juice and some pine nuts. Cook for another few minutes. Season with good salt and pepper and serve.

Lovely tastes – the lemon juice just keeps it really fresh.

Because I wanted a bigger lunch (and two portions of my fruit and veg for the day), I added a couple of halved artichoke hearts. And the next time I did it, I toasted the pine nuts and garnished the dish with them at the very end. But it’s a corking idea.

So thanks for that idea, Tamasin. And thanks, as always, to George too.

Summer with the City

It’s the summer. No, really it is. The rain is entirely predictable given that we are now less than a fortnight from Wimbledon – and even if the centre court has a new retractable roof (thus saving us from the chance of singalongs with Sir Cliff) precipitation is as key an ingredient of an English summer as strawberries and cream.

One of the other key ingredients is football gossip and transfer speculation. There are usually even a few actual transfers.

As a long-suffering fan of a club that has spent much of the last 30 years yo-yoing between divisions (I have actually lost track of how many times I’ve seen them relegated), and becoming a laughing stock on and off the pitch, this time of the year has not usually held much attraction – apart from a respite from watching us lose.

“Us”. That’s Manchester City for the uninitiated. The Citizens. The Blues. Citeh. The last one is a send-up of how Mancunians apparently pronounce ‘City’.

I can’t claim to be a Mancunian myself, but the longest period in my childhood and youth spent in any one place was just outside the city, so it’s as near to having a place where I feel rooted as anywhere else.

I don’t know why I opted for City as a team – I was already in love with football by the age of seven – but it happened at some point and hasn’t changed since.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been days when I’ve wanted to change it. But those usually occur in the following manner after yet one more disastrous City event.

‘That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m not supporting them any more.’

Pause.

‘Hurrumph. So who shall I support now?’

Another pause.

‘Arsenal? Nah. They always beat us. Aston Villa? No chance – they beat us the first time I saw us play.’

You notice that little “us”? It always gets in the way of my being able to hop on the bandwagon of some other team. Somehow, I now have blue blood. I can’t shake it off.

But summers have been getting much more interesting of late.

It all started two years ago when the club was bought by former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who installed Sven-Göran Eriksson as the new coach and gave him a nice big transfer pot to play with.

The mighty Swede took us to tenth in the league, playing some of the best football we’ve seen in years – and most importantly, beating Man United, home and away, for the first time since 1969-70. But it wasn’t good enough for Thaksin, who sacked him and employed Mark ‘Sparky’ Hughes in the post – before selling the club to the Abu Dhabi United Group and disappearing.

Now Abu Dhabi United Group have even more financial muscle that Thaksin ever had – and showed it with the signing of Brazilian star Robinho, to be followed by an up-and-down season that did see us reach the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup.

And now we can realistically contemplate more quality players arriving at the club before the new season starts in August.

But when Thaksin took over, I realised something with a short time. It was like learning to dream again.

Finally, we might actually achieve something – the only question will then be: will it still feel like my club? But I tell you what – I’m prepared to find out!