Porn with the Q sounds Quorn

What's (a) waste? When the light turns green for the pedestrians, you feel you are wasting time if you do not rush to reach the opposite side of the street: this is a silly automatism, unless you are Italian and then you are used to a more flexible idea of where to cross what. Kidding. Yet, the same situation changes if you are kissing your girlfriend: in this case all the time passed is not wasted is invested, stopped, treasured. Today I witnessed this scene: I was crossing next to the Meadows and a couple hesitated at the traffic-light.

Jimeny Criket, in his Disney sweetened version,
in Collodi's Pinocchio he does suffer a much more
severe treatment.

A Jimeny-Criketish-voice, inside me, was yelling to make them notice to haste longer. The first and misleading impression, was that they were spoiling the chance to pass on the other side. But then, suddenly, unfairly - with no red signal anticipating this very eventuality – they kissed: naturally, without a particular emphasis or tenderness, but with a certain undeniable grace. 

Kissing at the traffic light

From that new angle, my solitary crossing appeared - along with the inner yelling voice - even more miserable: quite pathetic, honestly. Once at home I doubled the quantity of spaghetti for my lunch and chocolate was my final shell, my fireplace, and my oblivion! Maya Gold organic dark chocolate provides that righteous amount of happiness. It is so ravishing that if you seed it in a graveyard you are going to awaken zombies. Don’t try!

Worth trying but quite expensive, over 2,30£ each bar.

Then, while gurgling on the sofa, sipping my holy-after-lunch-moka-coffee, I was pondering how could we deal better with what we consider wasting. How should we define wasting? Why waste is also a synonym for rubbish? What's rubbish then? Let's start from the end! Rubbish, in abstract terms, is what we reject because we cannot conceal it with any of our good or evil purposes. In this sense rubbish is something completely useless: this conception links on one side the innocuous discard in a table game to the dregs of society, which – sadly - are those human beings we fail to recognize anymore as “thy neighbour”:

Polystyrene cases and glasses, obtained during the oil refinement

Another example might be the walkman (or the i-pod): these devices make us listen to what we wish while we are on our way to what we think is our goal: to Uni, to the job, to the gym, to the restaurant, toward home etc, but is that really wasted time? If we walk in a park, for instance, aren't we missing the sound of Nature, of the seagulls digging out prays from the mud, of the simple emotions conveyed by a sunset? Once, also the “voyage” was part of one’s experience:

Sunset in the Meadows

If rubbish is something irrecoverable, what we waste is, instead, more redeemable, and it is linked more to sloth.

Tenderly sleeping sloth

Sloth - in a biblical sense - makes us buy rubbish-ready-meals wrapped in rubbish-packaging; takeaway drinks in depressing paperboard holders; junk food devoured in the street and served in polystyrene dishes. This appears to be insane and ludicrous: with few worldly wisdom actions it is actually possible to cut down the production of garbage (for instance investing really some minutes on the packet-lunch):

Slim Line Quaddi Blue lunch box:
made from lead-free virgin material

A handy idea: although they could have chosen a different liquid for the bottle

Wasting is slightly different: wasting is a problem much more related to self-organizing. For instance a lunch box will provide a suggestive approach. I’ll list only three of them but there are loads out there:

Fake moulded bag to avoid office stealing

http://www.muji.eu/

Steel lunch box from Muji

Another bento/lunch box by Muji

My bento box, by Muji

Today, I had to throw away some turkey breast - belonging to Andrew, a dear friend, landlord, and flatmate - who had been very busy lately: a deep sorrow caught me for this squandering of animal flesh, I found it unacceptable. I never condemn the sinner, only the sin! Yet the sacrifice of an animal is something sacred for me – not for religious principles but on a logic assertion: the life you take from the animal becomes your nutrient, your same life, so to say. It would be better then to avoid this sort of omissions - to avert the slaughter happening in vain. It is irrational because you would never throw away banknotes & quite offensive for all those people, who struggle to knock up lunch and dinner every day. Do not let your conscience sleep:

Do not let your conscience sleep

As a conclusion, my aim, tonight, was that of cooking with what I had in the fridge in 12 minutes (square-bracket numbers indicate when to add the ingredients):

http://www.quorn.co.uk/recipes/

START

• 2 tbspn of Tesco Finest* Extra-virgin olive oil [1];
• an old pak choi [2];
• two Tesco Finest* sweet mini peppers [2];
• half a bag of Quorn pieces [2];

Sweet mini peppers

Pak choi

LET IT GENTLY FRY FOR 5 MINS the juice of ½ lime [3]; a light spring of Maldon smoked salt [3] a sprinkle of black pepper [3] 2 tbspn of tab water [3]; 1/3 of tspn of British mustard [3]

Smoked Maldon salt

PUT A LID ON, LET GO FOR 6 MORE MINS

• a new light spring of Maldon smoked salt [4];

STIR FOR 1 MIN AFTER HAVING ADDED THE BEANS

• 2 tbsp of Heinz organic baked beans [5] …

DONE

The final dish: 12 minutes and a perfect second course

...in a way all there ingredients were leftovers, castaways condemned to a slow agony into the fridge forgetfulness. What came out was sensational and rich of intensity, an excellent second course delivering character and revenging the poor wasted turkey. The moral learning then is “buy what you are going to eat and consume to the end what you bought”. Don’t trust momentary urges. It’s easy, wise, intelligent and helps saving extensively.

Back to Italy (9) – Remnants with Doisneau and Yerka

What will remain of all this? Even after more than one month from the end of these rendezvous, even if life in Edinburgh went on pretty fast and well (and many other experiences had stratified themselves on top of the Italian small Tour), the holiday in the homeland left a durable furrow in my memory. To phrase it in a more poetical way: in the concrete jungle that entangles individual existences, there is still space for a sort of marvel, which ploughs through our recognitions of naked events and surprises us as red poppies from a cement rifts:

Poppy in the concrete loneliness

I am pretty much obsessed by poppies. This is a fake crispy poppy I made for a friend:

My first (and perhaps last) attempt with the decoupage technique:
old lady preaching to a kitten,
the poppy,
a random chick!

Poppies possibly evoke an imaginary of sensual beauty, carelessness
and reduction of the Self: in May when Nature seems so powerful
the struggle of the Winter appears distant 

The image of the poppy in the concrete is also a visual portrait of the efforts a couple has to suffer (and undergo) because of a distance. The absence of the beloved person is more understandable for the reason, less workable for the heart. This summer I was deeply surprised to find another plat, which reminded me of poppies: a tomato plant in Blackwood crescent, a side road in the Newington area. I always wondered if this part of Edinburgh once was a lush forest: Blackwood is a pretty shadowy name. However, what attracted my attention was that the tomato plant, perhaps stemmed from a casually dropped (or more likely spitted) seed had been able to survive for weeks. Then the zealous effort of some garbage operator mowed it out:

Before the first yellow blossom could reveal themselves,
unfortunately the unkind sickle of tidy-streets weeded it out!

I had to put down in black and white this epiphany, because all the time I passed next to that spot, I was stressing my flatmate Frederick with this tearful stream of reminiscences: I could not accept the fact that an emotional-plant was gone forever. Similarly, what I have understood from this trip to Italy is perhaps banal: I was possibly used to pay too much attention to the places, I was complaining too much that the abandonment of a place meant also the loss of what that place gave me. Now, instead, I came across a different pattern of appreciation. I understood that sites and moments are there somewhere, and are interacting with me. Yet the people determine the most important factor: especially what they mean to us. Moreover, affection takes different shapes, as Robert Doisneau have been so able to immortalize: 

Brothers' affection 

Musician's affection

Lovers' affection

At the same time, being the filter - which screens all these solicitations and stimuli - makes me actually the real hotchpotch where all the mental processes spring up: so my perception of the voyage or of the distance is mainly buried in the sensibility of my mind, not solely in the actual happenings. The new perspective is not that of having lost a chance, but on the contrary that of having the opportunity to live each new moment differently, with a re-built awareness: we - the person I love and I - perhaps suspended some moments as a mist in the air, but there is still space to the hope of catching up again from the former instant. Only death does not allow a U turn:

An image of sidereal distance.

All the rest are just distant locations, yet distant in relationship to what we think is the centre of our sentimental life: otherwise, as the Cheshire cat points out “you’ll surely get somewhere” if it does not matter where you wish to get:

Cheshire cat's smile..."as you can see, I am not all there!"

In the end, I was always trying to compensate the Italian environment momentary loss with mechanical gratifications – as chocolate for example or expensive goods. Enacting according to this manner, I was actually only postponing the moment of resilience. Writing the blog, on the contrary, helped me to keep those memories vibrant, to let them stay with me, to go through the lost tastes and chats and kisses and make of them a living monument of my highest spirits. So, as an instance, if I take into consideration unexpected treasures, I have to account both the artichoke and the melon blossom:

Melon blossom, yellow coloured.

While the melon blossom was a real plant: the artichoke is actually a bread artichoke, a Sicilian recipe, which imitates the vegetable. You lay an incredibly thin round pastry, almost transparent as a veil, then you stuff it with provolone cheese, oregano, black pepper and extra-virgin olive oil, subsequently you fold it as a winged book then you roll it onto itself on the shorter side, like a duvet. Finally, you make a cross cut on the top, so that the layers will open up during the cooking time. This is the mouth-watering result:

Alluring, elegant, tasty and crunchy...somehow greasy, but
in a good sense.

Here are the ingredients for two bread artichokes.

Ingredients:

• 500 gr semolina (durum wheat), Waitrose sells it at 89p;
• 240 ml warm tab water;
• 2 teaspoons of dried yeast;
• 20 ml extra-virgin olive oil;
• elbow grease!

Tesco Finest* Extra-virgin olive oil, from the Iblean region Sicily,
intense, lightly peppery, and sweet as a dream,
it does cost a bit (6,99£), but it is worth trying:
(soon I will devote a page to extra-virgin olive oils)

Similar procedure for something even more tantalizing: you can call them saccottini (bundles) or tommasini (from the Ancient Greek témno, to cut) or rolls and they are conceptually close to a pain au chocolat, but filled with sausage and ricotta cheese. You can make them big, but I prefer them as morsels, so they immediately become finger food and they move from a rural food identity to a more glamorous and thrilling modernity. The pastry has to be rolled out as thin as possible, them you dig out the sausage from its tube, you distribute it on the pastry along with ricotta (previously mixed up with some alt, some grated Parmigiano and black pepper) and you drizzle the all with extra-virgin olive oil. Then you roll up the pastry with its filling and you cut this newborn snake into two centimetres sections, and then you dispose them onto an oven plate, and you let them bake until they will be medium brown. 

THIS IS THE PROCESS for Tommasini making:

1. roll out;
2. distribute the filling
(sausage and ricotta);
3. roll up;
4. cut the roll like you would do with sushi.

THIS IS THE FINAL RESULT:

This were probably 3x2 centimeters (1 inch),
they basically are savory pains au chocolat:
check The Ordinary cook (blog)
http://theordinarycook.co.uk/2011/01/23/croissants-and-pain-au-chocolat/

This E.T. pain au chocolat gives the idea!

In the end, these last nine posts that summarized my Italian holiday are over and they ferried me onto a now shore. Solidly again in Edinburgh, I kept making experiments, confronting myself with new ingredients and new suggestions. I feel myself as a roamer of tastes, cautious as a cat in a brand new setting…

LIKE THIS CAT, MAKING A COLAZIONE ITALIANA

http://www.fotoseite.petuhoff.com/inhalt/colazione.php

OR

Jacek Yerka, Between the hell and heaven, Poland, 1952...
...an example of
magical realism.
I kinda like this idea of human existence as a form of cooking Purgatory,
a sort of uncertainty suspended between bliss and damnation.
Yerka's inspirations are
Jan van Eyck, Jeronimus Bosh, Rober Campin,
and surrealist like Magritte.

Back to Italy (8) – Indoor picnic, arancine, lemon tree

Cuisine is not just cooking. Cuisine is love for the food you buy, attention for the shops you go, pleasure of enjoying it with those people who are able to appreciate it. This does not mean that a dish cannot be shared with everyone but it only implies that each dish has a story and the explanation of the story makes it understandable. So to make an example, my grandmother, who is an excellent chef of Sicilian regional preparations, was sceptical toward Porcini mushroom risotto. I asked her to watch me doing it and she suddenly find a closeness between risotto and the preliminary process that brings to arancine (the balls of rice, stuffed with meat and cheese), which start becoming very popular even out from Sicily:

A Spartan army at Thermopile, 300 arancine.

French style picnic

Michelle and I made them for the 2^nd of June, the Italian national day, during with we celebrate the newborn Republic and the end of the Fascist regime. It is better to say a giant national excuse to have a picnic. In early June, Nature is actually in her best shape: still parks are exceptionally emerald-like and the drought of August is far from the mind. The most difficult achievement to accomplish is to find the right spot, which is to say a place with enough shadow, but also the sun, for those who wish to gain a little colour, it should be comfortable and also wild, perhaps with fruit trees and a plain area where to lie down your woollen covers. We are desperately exigent! Here there are four ideas to make you picnic even more alluring:

My picnic set, a true marvel.

Classic picnic	Picnic table cloth - skirt
Auguste Renoir picnic style, Le déjenuer des canotiers	How the picnic really came out: the dress code was to wear a striped cloth, but few people accepted the challenge.

Nanny McPhee (2005) final scene:
although this wedding was meant to be is very elegant,
but share all the features of a picnic...it is loud! Written and played
by Emma Thompson in the rule of the nanny, and
with murder-she-wrote Angela Lansbury.
I chose this pic, cause the scullery made, Evangeline,
played by Kelly Macdonald
an exemplary and radiant sample of Scottish beauty,
she is from Glasgow.
She also was the voice of Merida, in Diseny-Pixar Brave:

Kelly Macdonald & Merida: the film was entertaining,

but could have exploited better the founding myths of Scotland.

My most secret wish, in terms of picnics, is that of recreating the perfect location in your own room, a sort of June hidden in the winder, so it cannot be improvised. You need three elements to recreate the magic: a greenhouse with some plants, pillows and the proper food. Despite you are close to your kitchen you have to pretend to ignore it: even tab water has to be banished, solely the restroom is allowed... The new mindset is that recreated by the atmosphere…so you have to close your eyes and by hook or by crook “act” as if you were in an open space. It might help calling the occasion “piquenique sans l’herbe” (grassless picnic), with that touch of French adorability that no other population has. So, which is the best suiting plant for this occasion? I would say citrus trees and bonsai:

The early stage of my lemon tree, from a seed!

The medium stage: growing in a bigger vase

Here it was reasonably tall: "I wonder how,

I wonder why" sang a Fool's Garden song Lemon Tree...
...I was less than a teeager

Just to have an idea of how the bonsai might appear,

but they are not just cute and ornamental, they are plants

and I am not entirely convinced this small habitat does not make 

them suffer. To know something more:

http://www.bonsai-italy.com/what-is-an-apple-bonsai-tree

Of course, a bonsai is not only fun: you have to follow it and cut it when necessary, which means often, regularly and with a certain degree of expertise. But where to buy a cute - yet not enormous - greenhouse? IKEA Socker is a truly valid option:

The IKEA catalogue:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70186603/

Socker, a portable greenhouse I could not resist presenting to Michelle: her birthday had just passed by and I came across this idea. Two dear mutual friends, Isabel and John, where thinking of a blueberry plant. I thought it would have been marvellous, to combine both the leaving plant and the symbol of winter care. This greenhouse is manageable and simple…the true protagonists will be the plants you are going to choose. It is perfect either on a desk, on a window large fence, or on a balcony table: it is white so the neutrality of the paint makes it exceptionally versatile. It will keep your cactuses warm and make you grow basil so it will be able to look the snow from its warm cage. If you think is bad to rely on a major company and you are a handy person, why don’t challenge your ability building a personalised greenhouse?

Portable greenhouse with seasoning herbs

Greenhouse bag: an hilarious alternative  to conventional bags

So, what actually remains is the nourishment. What’s more proper for Fall-wintery picnic? I can say sandwiches, cold pasta, some kind of meatballs or veggie balls, but this time my effort will be devoted to arancine (tiny oranges), globes of rice from the Sicilian tradition, conceptually close to Japanese onigiri, but widely tastier:

First wash the rice, put it into cold water and let it boil
at low gas for approximately 10 mins. Let it cool down
and make onigiri.

This is just the end of the procedure before frying: only to give an idea
of how you can make arancine from scratch.

Because in the Sicilian vernacular it is not always said that the name of a fruit is feminine - as in Italian - you may found some western areas of the island where this dish is called arancini. They were the perfect meal for farmers and voyager, since they are gracefully nutrient and particularly handy:

The dark side of the moon

Fried arancina with her meaty-peas-cheesy interir

Unfortunately, I took only a feasible picture of the picnic, but yesterday, with a couple of amazing friends from nearby Rome and Portugal we had a multi course dinner, including again arancine and Quorn sausages with green peppers. The atmosphere was jovial but never juvenile: Caroline (a professora), Frances (the macabre artist), David (the global-warming lawyer) and Frederick (an astonishing flatmate) contributed each with some special token: finocchiona (salami with fennel seeds), Parma ham, multi-seeded bread, DINO Sangiovese di Romagna Superiore wine and a banoffe-cake. The Deluxe line of Lidl products has several titbit such as bresaola, Parma ham, smoked ham, and Mortadella only at 1,99£. Worth trying! Here is the evening outcome, the only so-to-say aftermath where the dirty dishes: Quorn sausage (a true alternative to meat) with green peppers in a wine and balsamic vinegar reduction.

The final presentation: two arancine in the middle, finocchiona salami, Parma ham, multi-seeded bread, peppers and a date

Banoffe-cake