The silk purse

You can't, as Aristotle once said, shine a shite. If a piece of fruit is rotten, let it rot; if a piece of meat has gone off, throw it away; and if you are Prime Minister and not a naturally handsome or smiley sort, well then so be it - wearing make up and a grin that makes you look like a bipolar Shrek is only going to frighten the children. But we are a nation of turd polishers, locked in interminable attempts to rebuild that which should be knocked down, tippex that which should be erased, justify that which should be forgotten about. Betjeman was dead right.

Or was he? A particularly successful bit of poo polishing has happened only recently in my home town of Ripon. The area behind Philip Hall, "Ripon's very own department store" (and somewhere that has to be seen to be believed), was, until a couple of years ago, the most desolate, depressing piece of land imaginable. Walking into that car park from the aforementioned retro (not in a good way) Philip Hall was like walking through the back of a wardrobe, but instead of walking into Narnia, you found you'd walked into Warsaw, c.1940. To say there were potholes would suggest that there were also areas of flat, solid concrete. Instead, the entire surface of this sump-cracking wilderness undulated with boulders and fractures, the aftermath of an earthquake so artfully recreated, if only it were intentional. Dead trees lined crumbling walls, cats scratched around the bins for last night's pizza from the eternally moribund Italian restaurant, and the smell of smoke and nicotine drifted across the wasteland from the lung of William Hill in the south-east corner. It was an abject disgrace.

Fast forward to June 2009 and the years of closed roads, diversions and drilling seem worth it. The car park, for one, now has real bays and everything, and is flat and concreted and really rather smart. The seemingly recession-proof Philip Hall is somehow, impossibly, still there (though Ripon wouldn't be Ripon without it), but across the concourse now stand our two newest imports - an Argos, that most surreal of shopping experiences, and the uber-fancy, up-yours-Waitrose northern supermarket, Booths. And it is super. Sure, it's expensive, but it's big and light, and the jars are all shiny and contain stuff you'd want to eat. Even the ready meals look good. And - AND - the basket check out actually says "10 items or fewer". A grammatically accurate upmarket supermarket is exactly what we've been waiting for up here. I give it 6 months.

Perhaps a more elegant way of phrasing Aristotle's somewhat crude version is the old adage "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". Well I disagree. I mean, you can't literally do this, sure, but the implication that a sow's ear is a lost cause is a foolish one, a proclamation by somebody who clearly had no interest in food. The only bit of a pig that you can't eat is its oink. A pig's head, in all its various permutations, is utterly delicious - ears, tongue, cheeks, brain, snout, they all play an important role in the gastronomic tapestry and history of the world. One of the better things I've eaten lately was fried pig's head in the Albion in Bristol, a breaded and fried pig cake of the most tender meat, singing with gribiche, topped by a less apologetic manifestation of pig's head (in that it was just the meat, unadorned, unfussy, unbelievable), and then finished with a poached duck egg. It was perfection, and anyone squeamish about the idea of eating pig's head would do well to try that dish.

Yesterday it was the ears I was after. Two quivering, pink, waxy (I know), hairy (yep), ears that I had swiped from Martin and Rachel (who run a forest garden at home) before they embarked upon their day's butchery.



I started by trimming the hair with a pair of kitchen scissors before singeing off the remaining stubble with a cigarette lighter (a blowtorch would have been considerably more effective). Next job was to get the ears clean. You'd be amazed at the nooks and crannies that wax finds its way into. The best method is to wrap a couple of pieces of kitchen roll around a sharpening steel and working it into all the gaps until you have two clean ears.

Pop the ears in a medium saucepan, cover with water and add some peppercorns, a bay leaf, and a handful of thyme. You might also add a few crushed juniper berries and a clove or two, though considering the end product I'm not sure there's much point. Cover the saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer for 3 hours, maybe more. My final product was crisp, though still had a strip of cartilage running through the middle that had the look and texture of calamari. I'm not convinced it's possible to get rid of this.

After three hours, remove the ears, shake dry and place on separate plates. Flatten them out as best you can, and pop one plate on top of the other, then a final plate on top of that with something to hold it down. The idea is to press the ears so that when you come to roasting/frying them they won't curl up. Once thoroughly weighed down, refrigerate for a couple of hours.



Preheat the oven to 250C.

Remove the ears from the fridge and place on a roasting tray. Season generously on both sides with sea salt and olive oil, and pop in the oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make the tartare sauce:

2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons mustard
A pinch of salt
200ml olive oil
juice of half a lemon
2 tablespoons chopped gherkins
1 tablespoon chopped capers
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

Whisk the egg yolks with the salt and mustard, then slowly whisk in the olive oil. You want to start with the merest of trickles. Then as you see the mixture emulsifying (ie coming together) you can start being more bold, by which I mean a gentle, steady stream, never more forceful than a little cream being elegantly poured over a duchess's dessert. When you have a lovely, thick, wobbly mayonnaise (for this is indeed what you have), whisk in the lemon juice, gherkins, capers and parsley. Taste and adjust the acidity of necessary. Ideally the tartare sauce needs to be, well, tart.

Now, when the half hour is up, turn the pig's ears over and roast for a further 5 minutes, just to ensure the underside is crispy. Remove from the oven and rest for 5 minutes, before slicing and serving with the tartare sauce. It's up to you whether or not you tell people what they're eating. I like to see people's faces when I tell them what it is, and silently judge them if they refuse to at least try a little. Though you might prefer the more cruel method if offering your guests 'crackling' before revealing the truth.

Either way, it's silly for people to be squeamish about these things. The pig we ate was a happy little thing, free range and as good as organic (though Martin and Rachel, quite rightly, see no need to fart about jumping through hoops in order to be 'certified' - 'organic' means nothing these days). Compared to the kind of pork one finds in a supermarket (yes, even Booths) a nibble on this little piggie's ear is far less abhorrent than a budget pork chop. And just tell me, what on earth is the difference between eating a pig's ear and a pig's arse?

The unbearable wetness of sweating

It's blinkingly hot outside. I'm up north for a week doing a cooking job at a rather wonderful 13th century house just south of Ripon, and while cranking out endless lemon polenta cakes (or 'lemon placenta cake' as one of my brother's friends once called it when waitering for me) is just about bearable on a drizzly day, when the weather is like this it is not much fun. I want to be swimming in the river, or fishing, or, ideally, sitting with a book and a beer. Even sitting in the window writing this has given my forehead a light sheen - us northerners just aren't built for the heat. I'm dreading my return to London and my stuffy bedroom. There it's a toss up between the unbearable wetness of sweating and the excruciating noise that greets me when I open my window onto the Hackney Road. It's like trying to get some kip on the hard shoulder of the M1. Industrial earplugs and an industrial fan are probably the only ways to get through this heat wave. But I'm not complaining. Last summer was utterly miserable, and I vowed never to complain about good weather again. Bring it on.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, pot-roast chicken, as I discovered a couple of nights ago, is a better summer feed than your standard roast chicken, which is associated with root vegetables, bread sauce and a roaring fire. This pullet, juicy in its light broth and perky with the accompaniment of broad beans and peas, was just the ticket.

Pot-roast chicken



Serves 4

A little groundnut oil
6 rashers of streaky smoked bacon, sliced finely
2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
4 sticks of celery, trimmed and roughly chopped
A handful of whole and unpeeled garlic cloves
200ml white wine
A chicken, 2kg in weight or so
A bouquet garni
As many new potatoes as you think you can eat - they are fantastic cold the next day with a little Maldon sea salt
Salt and pepper

In a large saucepan (one large enough to house your fowl), heat the groundnut oil over a medium heat and add the bacon. Fry until golden, then add the butter, onions, celery and garlic, season, stir, cover and soften for 5-10 minutes, giving them a poke occasionally.

Slosh in the white wine and scrape up all the bacon bits from the bottom of the pan. Season the chicken generously, inside and out, and place on top of the vegetables. Add enough water to come halfway up, along with the bouquet garni and potatoes, and bring to the boil. Put a lid on and gently simmer for 1 hour.

After 45 minutes or so, preheat the oven to 220C. When the hour is up, remove lid and potatoes (keep them warm somewhere - they don't need to be stinking hot), and put the pan in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the skin on the chicken has crisped up (you made need to add a little oil to help it along).

Rest the chicken for 15 minutes, during which time prepare any other vegetables you want to accompany - broad beans/peas are perfect, sauted courgettes would be lovely too. Serve with the spuds and green veg, with a generous ladleful of broth.

Summertime eating

The best kind of cooking, I don't need to tell you, is the kind that uses a few excellent ingredients well. This is by no means a revelation. Chefs and cookery writers have been trying to drum this into us for years. The 'old guard', if you will, by which I mean Simon Hopkinson, Rowley Leigh, Nigel Slater, Alastair Little - all the Elizabeth David acolytes - pioneered the mantra of 'less is more', inspired by the Franco-Italian attitude towards food. The phrase 'a few good ingredients, cooked with love' has become something of a cliche, but with good reason. Don't get me wrong, I love the Hestons of this world, but in my view that kind of cooking should remain firmly in the professional kitchen. This isn't to say don't experiment - if you find yourself cooking the same things week after week then maybe it's time to start being a bit more ambitious - but ultimately the emphasis should always come down to the ingredient.


With this in mind, I'd like to champion summer as the Queen of Seasons. 'Summer', in the gastronomic sense (or at least my gastronomic sense) stretches from early May until late-September, lavishing on us the heavenly asparagus, spinach, beetroot and broad beans from the off, and tumbling with tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes (it's like ratatouille was some wonderful and pre-ordained September Slut), and the last of the new potatoes as Autumn approaches. And let's not forget the wonders that come and go in this period - strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, gooseberries, and currants; french beans, salads, sweetcorn, radishes, and artichokes. It's all so fresh, so lively. God bless the parsnips and swedes of this world - I truly love you - but by March I've had just about enough.

Notwithstanding item 2 of 'Restau-rant' (see below), these are the ingredients that need the least attention. A radish, plucked warm from the earth and given a cursory scrubbing with the shirt before being popped in the mouth, is close to perfection (though brought closer by being dipped into soft, salty French butter). Courgettes are a joy sliced paper thin and eaten tossed with olive oil, lemon juice and shaved parmesan. Boiled artichokes need little more than a pot of melted, salty butter, the leaves plucked off, dipped, and stripped of their flesh. This stage is really just the build-up to the final event when, having removed the 'choke', you can devour the heart, dripping with butter.

It's also a season for toast - sourdough rubbed with garlic and olive oil and grilled on a barbeque, its crunchy chewiness working so well with smashed broad beans and mint, or asparagus and parma ham. Mediterranean eating at its very best.

And that's exactly where I'm going at early o' clock tomorrow - flying to the south of France for a week's post-exam celebration with 30 friends. I will, most likely, be off air till next weekend. Until then...

Fridge slut

slut n. a slovenly or promiscuous woman.

fridge slut n. any dish that is fashioned from various and usually unconnected ingredients found in the fridge. Most often encountered in student digs or my grandmother's kitchen.

I am moving to London this week, and so as a flat we have taken it upon ourselves to eat the entire fridge and freezer. It's a gargantuan task, and one that is not free of surprises. Some things should have been chucked out long ago - the indiscernible mayonnaisey thing that appears to have anchovies in, though I don't remember having used anchovies in the last 3 months (alas! fussy flatmates); the handful of tiramisu, saved with good intentions but that, realistically, was never going to get eaten unless by someone ravenous yet miraculously lucid at 4am, tucked as it was at the back of the fridge behind a jar of gherkins; the thai green curry paste that ought really to be edible still, yet whose odour is ever-so-slightly rancid, the coriander discoloured and the fish sauce just a little higher than is desirable.

The freezer houses further delights - a small zip-lock bag of crumble mix left over from Lydia's (10/10) rhubarb crumble a while back, hanging in there optimistically but with little chance of employment (ah, the poetic similarities between myself and that little bag of crumble); a plastic bag full of rhubarb from home, whose marriage to the crumble would have proved so perfect, so serendipitous, and yet whose consummation was just a bridge too far during exams; another zip-lock bag of burgers, purloined furtively from the freezer at home - wasted, it transpires.

Last night's supper did manage to make a dent, if only a small one, in the vast quantities of food that we have somehow amassed over the last couple of weeks. A Caesar Salad made with some roast chicken legs, baby gems, tomatoes, frozen peas, basil, and parsley, and humming with tabasco and English mustard, was a good, light Sunday night supper after sitting in the sun all day - Lydia had put on a Bollywood festival, a joyous end to the year, and so we'd spent the afternoon idling on the grass, drinking cider, watching some magical outdoor theatre, and wolfing down curry from Bristol's Thali Cafe.

I ambitiously defrosted some fish stock that I had made with some crab shell swiped from the Albion - it seemed to be the last thing that would get eaten, and yet I was adamant that it would. We had so many wonderful green vegetables, some leftover noodles, and, controversially (for the Asian purists), some smoked bacon from home. There was only one thing for it - fridge slut. And quite a slut it was too - spring onion, celery, courgette, pak choi et al were hoyed into a saucepan and simmered for a matter of minutes in the stock before being slurped up greedily for lunch.

Fridge slut soup

Serves 4-6

Some smoky bacon - 8 rashers or so
A bunch of spring onions, finely chopped
4 sticks of celery, sliced
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
A pinch of chilli flakes
25g butter
2 large courgettes, diced
White wine, a glass or so
1 1/2 litres of hot fish stock (chicken stock would do)
2 pak choi, sliced, the smaller ones left whole
Some noodles (optional)

Slice the bacon into thin strips and fry in a little oil until crispy - you'll need to stir them every now and then. Remove with a slotted spoon into a bowl, and pour off most of the excess fat. Return the pan to a moderate heat and add the onions and celery. Season with salt and pepper and soften for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, while you crush the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar. Add these, along with the cayenne and chilli flakes, to the onion and celery, and stir for another minute. Increase the temperature and add the butter, stirring it until it coats the vegetables and they start to think about changing colour. Add the white wine and boil for 30 seconds, then add the stock. Bring to the boil and add the pak choi, most of the bacon, and noodles if you're using them. Simmer for 3 minutes and serve sprinkled with crispy smoked bacon.

Restau-Rant

I never set out to be a ranter, I really didn’t. I think it’s a bit of a cop out, a little bit lazy – a biased, subjective way of addressing something while being vaguely amusing and controversial at the same time. Kick off with an exasperated intro à la Jeremy Clarkson – Can you believe the state of the bloody underground? I literally can’t believe it, can you believe it? (Note use of rhetorical question to draw the reader in). Then develop the theme with some highly topical and highly predictable similes that contain some awfully shocking profanity or other – those tube drivers are as lazy as an MP that employs a Pole to feed their ducks and then charge it to their bl**dy expense account. Then rant, rant, rant, send to sub, and go to pub (where there is no doubt something else to whinge about).
But some things do need saying. Spleen needs venting; bees need releasing from bonnets, ants from pants, snakes from boots. As a sort of precursor to my upcoming comprehensive, and somewhat valedictory, guide to eating in Bristol, there are a few things about restaurants that I need to get off my chest, mainly because I simply do not have the balls to make a fuss at the time. I don’t personally think there is any superciliousness here, nor do I think these are complaints that I alone have. But let me know if you think I’m way off the mark here, and I’ll retreat back into my nest of simmering resto-resentment.

1) How often do you receive a fairly passable burger or sandwich or whatever, perhaps with some decent chips, but accompanied by the most depressing pile of dry salad you’ve ever laid eyes on? Way too often. Dress. The. F**king. Salad. Please. Surely it is obvious to whoever has produced this leg-side dross that this is a culinary abomination. If you, Monsieur le Chef, can come into the dining room, look me in the eye, and say “I think salad is nicer undressed” then fine, I’ll let this one slide. But come on, there is more chance of Gordon Brown resigning than there is of you believing that, and your refusal (and I am talking to a large percentage of cooks/chefs of the café/pub/bistro ilk) to try to make this sorry heap of iceberg lettuce, sliced pepper and tinned sweetcorn taste at all edible simply shows that you do not care. It’s a very small thing, I know, but if a chef is firing something out of his kitchen that he is not 100% happy with then something is seriously wrong.
2) Vegetables suffer from the same ignominy in these places, pubs in particular. If I’ve just paid £12 for roast lamb, how dare you send it with a soggy roast potato that’s been sitting in the warming oven for hours, and a few lame pieces of carrot, broccoli and cauliflower that have been cooked with about as much love as, oh I don’t know – Ronaldo for Fergie? Gordon for Hazel? Morrissey for a big ol’ T-bone? Just a little salt and pepper please chef, maybe some melted butter – would a sprig of parsley be too much to ask? If the answer to this is ‘yes’, then you should take off your toque, hang up your jacket and throw in the tea towel, because you do not belong in a kitchen. You clearly do not understand food.
If you, reader, can name one vegetable that is not improved by a little salt and pepper, or a little oil and vinegar, then I’ll take you out for dinner. But I think my money is safe. Such a miraculous thing does not exist.
3) ‘Discretionary 12.5% Service Charge’. All too bloody discreet most of the time. A A Gill has already had a pretty big go at this one, so I’ll leave this particular flag in his very capable hands. I do not possess the minerals to send the bill back when restaurants do this, like he does, but I do now insist on paying the bill to the penny, maybe even a penny short. That’ll show ‘em.
4) Menu spelling. Real head in hands stuff, this. For one thing, you run the risk of sounding like an absolute arsehead if you are going to insist on using the French or Italian name when the English one will suffice. Spell it wrong, however, and you are in the running for ‘Arsehead of the Year’. I’m pretty happy not to correct a restaurant that offers ravioli (plural) and then appears with a single raviolo, because in English that’s pretty much what it has come to mean. Ditto on the panini front (though some horribly pedantic part of me always insists on ordering a panino – I mean, you’d chuckle if you heard an Italian asking for a sandwiches, wouldn’t you?), but I just can’t help but make a kneejerk judgement about a place that serves pollo alla parmiggano, or confit de cannard. Come on. Oh, and if you ever correct my pronunciation of bruschetta (hard ‘k’) and tell me it’s bruscetta (soft ‘sh’) I’ll rip your tongue out. It’s one thing to get it wrong yourself, it’s quite another to try and correct somebody’s already correct pronunciation.
5) Water. If you bring a bottle of mineral water when the patron has asked for a jug, you’re liable to find that bottle smashed over the back of your head. It is daylight robbery, pure and simple, and underhand at that. If they ask for a glass of Prosecco is it acceptable to bring a bottle of Bollinger? Clearly not. If they order the vegetarian risotto and a side salad, is it OK to bring lobster and chips? Hell no! (Well, I probably wouldn’t complain too vehemently). But seriously, why the frig do people let this go so often? It’s abominable behaviour, and must stop.

Oh God there are hundreds of others, but most of them petty and pernickety. The five above are the main offenders, on the whole, and ones that I think most people will sympathise with. That said, I’d love to hear others, and specific stories too, because there are some real corkers. Not a complaint in the slightest, but amusing nonetheless, was the time I went into a Bristol pub during one of my (frankly idiotic) Lenten, beer-free fasts, and asked what wine they had. A befuddled look was followed by the hesitant riposte – “red… and white”.
I hate to come across as a snob, inevitable though it probably is. I would argue that my views are actually far from snobbish or patronising. These aren’t complaints about restaurants that claim to serve foie gras when it’s really only chicken liver pâté, or sommeliers who bring the ’83 instead of the ’82, or waiters who serve from the wrong side (does anyone even care about this anymore?). No, ultimately all of these gripes come down to apathy – the fact that someone in the kitchen staff simply does not care enough to make the infinitesimally small effort to do the even smaller things well, and more importantly, with love. And frankly, if you’re one of these people, you’re in the wrong profession mate. Go and be a tube driver. Apparently they don’t give a fuck.

The end is in sight...

After 15 years, in three different corners of the country, I am now 3 days away from finishing my education. Give or take, that's 3,750 days of schooling, approximately 22,500 different lessons (can this be right?), 7,500 school dinners (only one of which I can actually recall ralphing, though I'm sure there were more), and a few pieces of paper with various letters on them denoting generally underwhelming grades. And I still feel pretty ignorant. This might be because I was more interested in playing cricket or going to the pub than studying, or that I was so easily seduced by the work-shy notion that grades were meaningless, or because I am prattling on about poor work ethic when I ought to be revising for two exams tomorrow - I'm not really sure which.

Whatever the reason, without wanting to drift too close to cliche (though I fear that is inevitable), you never really stop learning. I learned a great deal at cookery school, but nothing compared to what I have picked up since then. Every split custard or mayonnaise, every loaf of over-risen bread, every poorly-executed sorbet, every piece of overcooked fish - they have all taught me something. Life is, after all, one big lesson, man, and the world is one big mutha-effin kitchen.

Unfortunately for me, at least as far as Italian grammar goes, I never quite started learning, so the last few weeks have been a semi-frantic rush to try and get through tomorrow without humiliating myself too much, hence lack of postage. The nice thing about working hard is that you feel you can treat yourself at the end of the day - nothing fancy, but it's lovely to be able to put the books to one side for an hour or two and get cooking. What follow are a couple of the things we've eaten lately.

Thai green prawn curry



You can certainly use jarred curry paste, but the flavour is incomparable to what you get if you make it yourself...

Serves 4

For the curry paste
A big handful of fresh coriander, stalks and leaves
2 cloves garlic
2 green chillies, seeds in
1 stalk lemongrass, outer layer removed
A few Kaffir lime leaves (you can find them in big supermarkets)
A thumb of ginger
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tablespoons coconut milk
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
For the rest of the curry
1 large red onion, peeled and sliced
1 aubergine, roughly diced
1 tin coconut milk
200ml fish stock
200g raw prawns

Coriander to serve

Make the curry paste by blending the ingredients together.

Heat some oil in a saucepan or wok and add the onions. Season with salt and pepper and stir over a medium heat for a couple of minutes until soft. Whack up the heat and add the paste. Endeavour not to choke on the fumes that kick up and keep the stuff moving for a minute or so before adding aubergine, coconut milk and stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or so until the aubergine is cooked.

Add the prawns and simmer for a further two minutes. Serve immediately with some chopped coriander and rice.

Lamb kebabs with tomato and mint salad



Serves 4

One shoulder of lamb, bone removed and diced into 2 inch chunks
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil

A good handful of tomatoes
Good olive oil
A handful of fresh mint
Salt, pepper and sugar

Mix spices, garlic, rosemary, lemon juice and olive oil and toss through the lamb with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for as long as possible.

Prod the pieces of lamb onto skewers, cover and leave out of the fridge for a decent hour.

Preheat the oven to 230C, and stick the lamb kebabs in for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes into hearty and uneven sized chunks. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar, toss through some good olive oil and shredded mint and serve with the lamb kebabs and some couscous.

Saturday lunches

Why is Sunday lunch so revered as a mark of Britishness, while Saturday lunch tends to be swept under the carpet somewhat? True, a good roast is something we Brits do extremely well - nomenclature alone attests to that, with Yorkshire puddings being a staple of a roast lunch, and even the usually anglophobic French deigning to name custard crème à l’anglaise. Sunday lunch is undoubtedly a huge contribution to the gastronomic tapestry.

But what of Saturday lunch? You barely ever hear of the notion, yet I think it's something that ought to be celebrated, embraced, indulged in. Let's imagine, for a second, that we don't live in a Godless country, and that some people do actually go to church on Sunday (or, for the sake of argument, let's put this in the context of Christmas Day when everyone really should go to church, if only to give abstract thanks to the possibly less abstract man who gave us an excuse to spend an entire day shitfaced once a year). Trying to cook lunch around churchgoing is a complete nightmare, especially if you have demanding and habitual grandparents who insist on sitting down for lunch at 1. On Saturday, however, there is no such problem (unless you are observing the Sabbath, in which case cooking anything is pretty much out of the question). It is a wonderful day, especially at this time of year.

For students it's a good day to get stuck in to an essay or revision without the interruption of lectures. For young professionals, it's a day to have a lie in, watch Soccer A.M. or Friends repeats in your dressing gown before spending the afternoon in a beer garden. For parents, you can take the kids round the park, to the zoo or a city farm (probably avoiding the pig section), and stick 'em in front of Britain's Got Talent while you do the crossword with a hefty glass of wine. Whatever it is you get up to, what I am getting at, is that it is also the perfect day for cooking. I have, of late, been using my Saturdays to bake bread using a sourdough starter (indeed, the latest batch is rising at the moment). It works well - I feed the starter on Tuesday, build it up for baking on Friday, and bake on Saturday. The method (which I will write about, I hope, in the not too distant future), requires your effort every couple of hours for about 3 minutes at a time, and by 6 you have a couple of beautiful sourdough loaves, ideal for bruschetta for supper, or toast on Sunday morning. It's an incredibly therapeutic process.

Lunch ought to be similarly reparative. While a Sunday roast requires a pretty large amount of work and washing up, Saturday lunch is at its best when mediterranean in feel. Breads, salads, cheeses - that kind of thing. Today I bought (though next Saturday I will make and tell you about it) a wedge of focaccia from the deli, a ball of mozzarella, a few slices of parma ham and some tomatoes. Between two of us (and it could have fed more) it cost £3 each. Less than a sandwich and coke from the library cafe, much less than a pub lunch. The recipe follows. Beer essential.

Focaccia pizza

Serves 2-4

1 good hunk of focaccia bread (home-made version to follow in the next week or so)
1 small red onion
4 sage leaves
150g mozzarella
1 tomato
A few slices of Parma ham
A few mint or basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 240C.

Peel and slice the onion and scatter over the bread. Finely chop the sage, tear up the mozzarella and slice the tomato. Spread out over the bread, season with salt and pepper, and put in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until the mozzarella is starting to colour. Remove from oven and plonk the Parma ham on here and there, with a few torn mint leaves. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with a green salad.