In a Pickle

Preserving food. Yum. This year I was hoping to experiment a bit with different preserving techniques. I have had some success with pickling, freezing and drying and I have made an exceedingly large amount of chutney.

In fact, a comedy amount of chutney. So much so that people will probably be getting chutney for Christmas and it will be forming a substantial part of my winter diet. But I can live with that.

So far I have made chutney with green tomatoes, regular tomatoes, tomatillos and aubergines - many featuring plenty of apple too and other bits and pieces. I think beetroot may soon be on the list too.

Tomatillos are fun. They have probably been in the UK forever, but seem to have become popular again recently. I have mentioned them before and they are another popular Latin American speciality - tasty in fresh salsas etc. I haven't got around to making salsa yet which is a shame, but chutney? Oh yes.

This year I grew an organic variety called Violet - apparently so-called because of the colour they ripen into:


Anyhow, here's a quick run through of some green tomato chutney I made back in September. I adapted the recipe from this one one by Keith Floyd from the BBC website. Most chutneys work along very similar lines though it seems. Firstly, of course, green tomatoes:


A big preserving pan is fairly essential when making chutneys and jams etc. Pop in the tomatoes and onions:


Followed by the apples, raisins, sugar, a little salt and a nice muslin bag full of chopped chillies and crushed ginger:


Lastly, pour in the vinegar and bring to the boil:


After a good long simmer things start to break down a bit and I gather you can just keep going as long as you like really depending on the final consistency you want:


The finished product needs to go in jars of course. Here is some of this year's stock:



Interestingly, I had some jars already although I quickly realised I would need some more. Looking on the internet and in shops I realised that one pound jars with lids cost anything from 40p upwards to buy new. In a perfect example of how crazy this world is, I quickly realised it would be cheaper to buy jars of something cheap and re-use them. Enter Tesco value pasta sauce at 27p a jar. Even bigger than a pound jam jar size and you can do something creative with the pasta sauce too! A good wash out and with the labels removed they are just the job.

It's been really satisfying making things using produce from the garden - especially knowing everything has been grown as organically as possible. As I mentioned earlier, I am now thinking of creative things to do with beetroot. I had no idea beetroot was so good for you. Chocolate beetroot cake is definitely on the list!

Just Sick

Blimey, I have been proper poorly this week. Not even sit in front of the computer poorly, I mean just don't bother getting out of bed poorly. My head is now feeling somewhere near half-sensible (I often can't hope for a lot more) and therefore I'll get on with the posts I've been trying to do. Tomorrow. I promise. Yeah, right, I hear you say. I will try. ;-)

Yet More Blog Slackness

Wow. I forgot how busy it can get at this time of year - rushing to sort out all of those jobs one hasn't got round to before the weather gets too bad. Things have suddenly got very wet and windy here in Dorset - we're getting almost tropical rain showers - still not properly cold, but absolutely torrential.

My garden is looking somewhat different now and is firmly entering autumn mode. I will hopefully be able to catch up with some nice illustrative posts in the coming week...

Blog Slackness and a Return to Waterloo Please

Incidentally, apologies for the lack of posts recently. I have no idea what has been taking up so much of my time when I do actually have things I want to write about but, hey ho. Perhaps the onset of colder weather will improve things. I guess I should be grateful that work ties me to a keyboard less than it used to...

Also, I was standing in the station this morning when a well dressed/well spoken chap in front of me in the queue asked for a return to London Waterloo, with the Underground, coming back tomorrow. "Whereabouts in London on the Underground?" asked the ticket issuer. "Oh... central," the guy said, obviously a little irritated that he couldn't just have what he asked for - and I kind of knew where he was coming from - it seemed a reasonable request. The ticket guy then went into something about zones and the other guy said to leave the Underground stuff off - he'd just have a return to Waterloo.

"That's £73.00 please."

The bloke did a such a classic "How much?!!?" I had to stifle my snigger with a cough.

The Art of War

It was a fine sunny day...

When I look back at my childhood I remember that an occasional factor was that kids liked to be evil. I'm sure kids all over the world like to indulge in a bit of fighting or nastiness and where we grew up, here in Wareham, it was no different - apart from the fact I think we felt privileged somehow to have our own Anglo-Saxon battlements to act out our power struggles upon. There was no real harm intended at the heart of it I don't think - it was always a laugh, just like little foxes or badgers scrapping and learning with their kin. Although in retrospect you can probably pick out the moments where people took the piss too much or wounded people for life mentally or physically.

My friends and I grew up in the height of the first-wave of BMX fever. Choppers were becoming a little passé and even Raleigh Grifters with that Sturmey-Archer gear-shift were being laughed off in favour of cycles that were lighter (in some cases), smaller and generally meant you could be really stupid on. These crazy looking bikes meant that kids got together to prove themselves by being competitive doing jumps and wheelies - and on the whole it was often painful but fun. For our generation, getting a BMX was like a coming of age - it even meant we could legitimately go the the cinema and fawn over Nicole Kidman.

Apart from the bikes though we fought a lot. We made 'camps' in the woods and defended them with our lives. In fact, the Saxon walls of Wareham naturally led to groups of us - all mates normally - splitting up into teams to stand at the top or the bottom and have the traditional ritual of the 'stone fight'.

This involved an initial stone-gathering session and once battle had commenced, further more or less successful ammo-collection 'ceasefires' could be negotiated by shouting a lot or just running further away.

These fights often became insanely dangerous. Especially once some had become old enough or crafty enough to obtain catapults. Sure, there was the occasional injury, but how nobody was maimed for life I don't know. Normally things just degenerated into hysteria after a multitude of close calls or some especially amusing ricochet, occasionally off somebody's head.

Guns weren't far behind of course. I remember there was a tree at the end of the road and one day whilst someone was climbing it somebody else shot them with an air rifle. They fell out. That's just humiliating isn't it? I mean, one minute you are up a tree, probably minding your own business with not a care in the world, the next you're thinking, "Oh look, I've been shot," quickly followed by, "Oh look, I've been shot and I'm falling out of a tree... Ouch." Fortunatley they recovered well.

It's amazing what acts of madness people used to get up to - and on the whole it's pretty quiet round here, really... I have occasionally mentioned this 'stone fight' activity to people and they think it seems utterly bonkers - which of course it was - and apparently did nothing similar in their youth.

How about you, any interesting stories of youthful battles?

Iraq For Sale - Buy the movie, watch the movie, tell your friends...

You may remember me mentioning 'Iraq For Sale' - the movie blowing the lid on the amount of cash those with power, in the US, have made out of the war.

Well, with the movie about to be released, this update from director Robert Greenwald:

In the months of work on IRAQ FOR SALE, one of the most shocking and troubling discoveries was how CACI INTERNATIONAL profiteered by torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. Specifically, J.P. (Jack) London, the head of CACI, took home over $22 million!

The film has former employees, military interrogators, and reporters tell this infuriating story. CACI sent us a nasty 'cease and desist' letter trying to stop word of their involvement in this obscenity from spreading. Of course, we're not stopping anything, and put together a short film you can pass around in your emails and blogs instead. Be warned, it's about torture and not suitable for children. (or our country for that matter)



This story and others moved and affected people all over the country. As I went from DC to Philly, St. Louis, Denver and Portland, I was truly overwhelmed by people's response to the film and the outpouring of energy to get the word out and take action.

There is a great deal to be done NOW. Only 10 days remain until the Patriotism Over Profit week of screenings start. This is our opportunity to mobilize, activate and energize as many people as possible around the issue of profiteering. We had an impact on Wal-Mart with all our efforts, and we can do the same here.

Host a house party, buy a dvd, buy one for friends, give a dvd to a school, library or community center. But most importantly, get involved.

Buy DVDs: http://iraqforsale.org/buy.php
Host Screening: http://iraqforsale.org/screenings.php

Most of the screenings listed on the website are filling up very quickly and this will only intensify, so please help make sure there are plenty of screenings available to meet the demand.

As we have learned with each film, this is an opportunity to get up in the morning and do something, not just be pissed off. And with the election only 40 days away, there has never been a better time to reach people, to make sure we help stop this obscene profiting by letting those in Washington know they can't keep protecting the profiteers who fill their campaign coffers.

We don't have Paramount or Universal Studios, and we certainly don't have Fox Studios, but we have all of you and it's worth so much more. Your energy and smarts are what have made every brave new film a success, and we turn once again to the best.

See you at a screening,
Robert Greenwald