Dimensions matter, especially during Lent

Don’t be afraid of the title, I’m still running a food blog and I only wish to explain three concepts today, moving from this provocative statement. Two are actually good news and achievements I came across in the past few days. The last one, instead, is a horrifying and frightful evidence that shocked me deeply. Moreover, Lent was just kicked off by this reluctant February, which assisted the pope’s abdication. I always find stimulating that even for non-religious beings, as me, this moment of the year is invested by a higher sense of dignity: it is very likely that Lent coincides with the re-birth of the spirit and we feel a natural desire of purification. This is indeed more anthropological than religious, but at the same time Lent works as the taming of an inner dragon:

Saint George and the dragon in Stockholm 

Anyways, he fizzy promises of Christmas somehow demand a fulfilment at Lent. Elena, a friend with the most inspiring andalusian eyes, turquoise as the skis of May and radiant as her own non-encompassable intelligent, introduced me to the laic dimension of Lent. Indeed, lent gives us a concrete occasion to stick to a precise commitment: no sweets (yes it includes chocolate and donut), no meat (yes it includes Parma ham), no carbs (pizza where are you when I’m in desperate need? Why you did abandon me?), no cheese (can men actually survive without Brie?), no beer, no coffee (doesn’t the brain switch off without?), no naps (how incredibly long an afternoon can possibly be?) etc. And now the visual TEMPTATIONS:

Home made pizza: finally I found the recipe	A cheese stack
As Freud would put it: chocolate!	"To strive to seek to find and sometimes nap"
Again chcolate	Prosciutto crudo di Norcia, a must

Whatever might be the causes of our little transgressions, during Lent we can prove to ourselves something: we possess the know-how to overpower not just our small forgivable vices, but also the reasons beneath our irresponsible self-indulgence. We can study our reactions and desires: we could understand where about yelling yearns come out from and which is the best strategy to take arms against them. This is not a will power wrestling against our happiness: it is only a self-denial that corroborates our knowledge; so to avoid that terrible vicious circle called compensation.

Compensation produces a lot of not-really-wanted goods

Mass production is something affecting every segment of the industrial chain. Mass production as a unique aim: selling more, perhaps at lower prices. To sell more we customers have to buy more and in the most likely of the cases consume more. This whirlpool is literally destroying the world and the despicable images you are going to see are a tangible example of the side effect of this immature life-philosophy centred only on the Present. We have to grow up: so let’s see what shocked me. I only anticipate it was a rumour I heard but I never believed it was THAT bad! Watch MIDWAY BY CHRIS JORDAN, 4 MINUTES THAT SHALL CHANGE YOUR LIFE:

After this video, nothing seems to be able to cheer you up and instead there are two commitments: one is called smaller portions the other, at least in Edinburgh, is called responsible consumption. Paying attention to our life style allegedly is the answer to stop the ecosystem holocaust we are perpetrating day by day. I took my resolution, or - at least - one of many resolutions in a long chain of thoughts. In 2007, I stopped eating at chains: no more McDonald’s, no more Burger King, no more Subways, no more Greggs, no more Pizza Hut, no more Chinese restaurants, no more Starbucks etc. I recognize that there are thousands of people working in these places, but I also see how easily these multinational food companies could orientate a better ingredients finding and finer food offer, BUT they aren’t simply bothered to enact this changing.

He's not me, btw :)

In 2011, I started sticking to respectful produces, mainly organic (nowadays Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury propose a wide range of products belonging to the organic family). Nonetheless, from now on, I wish to stick entirely to the organic philosophy, trying, according to my student wallet, to server myself at Real Food, Peckham’s, Waitrose, Farmers’ market and Earthy. For many friends, this may sound a choosy, snobbish and perhaps foolish battle: as Don Quixote, I found my giants, my wind-mills! 

I won’t become a fanatic, I won’t turn the tables, I’ll just try to celebrate Lent throughout my life. Today I stepped into Earthy for the first time, after Giulia suggested it to me: the elegance of her person is actually mirrored by the loveliness of the place. Food is tremendous and the wooden shelves, so relaxing and warm, reminded me of the golden age when Mother Earth was a sort of self-producing garden. Thank you Giulia, thanks of this discovery, for letting flowers blossom where your feet just shuttled.

Earthy food

My freshly established life conduct somehow resembles Madam Mirbel in Maudit soit l’amour by Hermine Oudinot Lecomte Du Noüy, a stunning novel:

Sans être ni belle, ni jolie, madame Mirbel produisait sur les hommes une impression ineffaçable, tant la finesse satinée de sa chair faisait ressortir la délicatesse de ses traits, tant son élégance accusait une science admirable de la toilette, tant son attitude aristocratique, la fierté exprimée par certains de ses geste, révélaient la pureté de race et la noblesse d'âme. Elle était harmonieuse et captivante (chap. I)

The author Hermine Oudinot Lecomte Du Noüy

Madame Mirbel, albeit she was neither beautiful nor even pretty, happened to provoke on men an indelible impression; so much the delicacy of her silky skin exalted her features. Her elegance witnessed an admirable mastery over make up. Her aristocratic attitude and the dignified essence of some gestures of hers disclosed the purity of her class and the nobility of her spirit. She definitely was agreeable and fascinating.

So, in the end, I have to speak in defence of the argument “dimensions matters”! Well, indeed they do, but I find particularly hilarious that cuisine overturns love-rules and suggests as more exquisite those indulgencies, which have smaller portions. In Italy we call them peccati di gola, gluttonous sins so to say, but they aren’t really sins, let’s consider them as naval tilts to avoid the sea-rocks of monotony:

A titbit with Peckams' delicacies: matured cheddar, smoked oat-biscuits,
Wilkin & sons ldt Essex strawberry jam

The size of a tart I baked for Roberta...

...she loves strawberry jam and so here we go,
with a strawberry tart!

Peckhams' chocolate tart (1,59£ each)