The perfect Christmas

The book

Chapter 22 of Moby Dick by Herman Melville is titled Merry Christmas and is one of the most touching ones, because drenched into a deep sadness, sarcasm and true sense of belonging to the ship community. Captain Ahab does not show up on the deck. Captain Bildad and Captain Peleg are licensed at the end of the chapter and they take a boat to move ashore, while tears twinkle in their eyes and voices. Ismaele, the narrating voice, remembers:

“At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows”.

Bildad, while at the wheel, intonates what sounds like a Psalm, but is a ballad by Isaac Watts, A prospect of Heaven makes Death easy. The winds bring his words to the crew: the first line quoted by Melville says “sweet fields beyond the swelling floods”, which portraits the stated on peril the ship is going to undergo now that Bildad and Peleg won’t tame anymore Captain Ahab.

http://www.classicreader.com/book/309/22/

How different my yesterday Christmas was? Let's have a glance:

Moby Brie-k: I could not restrain myself, but I apologise.

The people

Not many people stayed in Edinburgh for Christmas. So, I decided to create a Doodle to see if those here, were interested in a Christmas’ lunch. What happened was pure magic: only a person, a dear good friend of mine, Andrew, responded to the invitation. He involved and brought along two exceptionally nice friends, who I didn’t have the pleasure to met. Stephanie and Emily proved to be fascinating guests: elegant, nice and talkative. My brilliant office-mate Mara came just after the opening with her brother and her sister-in-law and that was it. Everything would have been magnificent if only Michelle was there with us! Alas, the sun blessed us casting a bunch of rays onto the Leopard Lily (I still have a to find a name for it):

Leopard Lily in the gentle December sun

This has been the first Christmas away from my family: a strange feeling to process. Yet I must tell the novelty was not just surprising, but indeed a revelation. Perhaps because everyone was new to each other, the conversation was lubricated, alive and fizzy. The reduced number of guests made everything easier (also in terms of dish cleaning). We were three Italians, three Germans and one Australian: this milieu favoured the use of English as conversational language and we were occasionally switching to German or Italian when needed. This “natural” selection of outstanding guests was the first step in order achieve the perfect event.

Moreover, we were from different university backgrounds, law, tourism, linguistics, literature and architecture. This fueled the conversation, making the reciprocal exchange of informations even more interesting. Different reasoning brought us together to the same place: in a way we are all finding distinct patterns in the same maze. I happen to realize that sharing a city shapes your way of thinking and approaching problems: you are "forced" to meet new people, adapt yourself, cede something you had for something new and unknown. Those how keep being stuck to their past end up creating a city in the city, a fake reproduction of what they feel they lost: and that is the moment in which it is lost forever. I like intensely the image of people abroad as these Green and Blacks chocolate into a Martini glass:

These are "conversational" chocolate, because each label has a question,
and these questions contribute ease in small and big talks!
Green and Blaks is organic and fairtrade chocolate...both ethic and taste.

The place

Perhaps, the purple tents, perhaps a serious Christmas three, perhaps the red dishes with the white rime – after which this blog is named – made of my flat the perfect location to appoint. We discovered that in Australia every fancy meal might be called dinner. Recently, I attended a tea in Edinburgh, yet the tea, in reality, was a full-scale dinner. I am particularly amused by this regional acceptation given to meals in the English-speaking-world!

Our synthetic Christmas tree makes a lot of atmosphere,
the spirit of all the possible Christmas dwells here.

The food

As soon as the crew was elected, it was necessary to establish a menu. Everyone was asked to contribute to the meal according to her/his culinary skills. This is why Andrew opted for two platters of mixed salami and one international cheese, so to prevent himself from poisoning us. Stephanie brought with her a splendidly revised recipe of Tiramisu and Emily an extraordinary Lamington cake, introducing us to the sweet delicacies of the Austral hemisphere. I basically made a broth. I also discovered that the stock is derived from bones, broth instead from meat:

Select carefully the ingredients:
Gressingham duck poussin (promotion 2 x 5£);
9 chutney carrots;
3 small potatoes;
2 cherry tomatoes;
1 onion;
1 coast of celery.
ALL THESE VEGETABLES THEN WERE RE-UESED
TO MAKE VEGETABLE BALLS IN THE OVEN ON
ST. STEPHEN'S DAY

The early stage, when the water was dusted in white pepper.
On the bottom of the casserole one tea-spoon of Maldon salt
was already dissolving.
At the beginning I thought duck toxins might have been
poisonous, but then I discovered it is even better than chicken.

Yet here is the complete and exhaustive (and exhausting) menu:

      Starters

·      Tesco Finest* platter of ham, salami and three cheeses (Brie, Mancego, Wanslaydale with cranberries);

·      Duck titbits with dates, rolled in pancetta and served with steamed asparagus' tips. 

Main course

·     Tortellini in duck broth.

Second course & side dishes

·      Duck salad with Modena balsamic vinegar gravy reduction

·      Roasted potatoes with mustard seeds and rosemary

·      Salad (apple, lettuce gems, rocket salad, celery, sweet pointed peppers)

Desserts

·      Tiramisu and Lamington cake

·      Green and Blacks chocolate assorment

·      Twinings nettle and sweet fennel infusion

Deli platter

The cheeses

Steamed asparagus and sprouts
with morsels of duck thighs' meat, dates and pancetta

Tortellini in duck broth: because of the size it would be wiser to call them
cappelletti, and you can find them in Waitrose for 1,99£ (250gr pack).
Mine were bought in Paris, but his is a different story!

Clockwise: from the left, the duck breast with the balsamic gravy,
mustard seeds and rosemary roasted potatoes,
and the extravagant salad, dressed in lemon and extra-virgin olive oil.

Lamington cake (pic taken from Google images):
admittedly they were irresistible! 

Stephanie's tiramisu was looking different, but the taste was an A.

The wine

Wines have been a genuine crescendo of tannins and joy: a French Tesco Finest* Muscadet for the appetizers, an Ogio’s Primitivo from Puglia and The chocolate lover’s wine, aromatised with chocolate notes, a symphony: this wine is sold in Sainsbury’s and Co-operative.  

Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur Lie, Tesco Finest* 7,27£.
Produced and bottled by Vignerons du Pallet in Brétagne, France.

http://www.chocolateshopwineuk.co.uk/

The games

When all the food was gone, Mara had to leave, and Stephanie proposed us to play Pictionary. Not the table version, but the online generator of words and categories. This was hilarious, challenging and cheerful. 

Pictionary word generator: 

 http://www.wordgenerator.net/pictionary-word-generator.php

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.

Guidelines to solar system into a shell: poached, fried, scrambled eggs

When I think about eggs, the first detail that strikes my mind is not size anymore, but numbers: on each egg produced in Europe, UK included of course, you should notice the egg origin and his pedigree, that is to say how genuine this egg is. Here I am providing a key of understanding, so to decode this huge egg-world. Nonetheless there are also other parameters that can be taken into account, as this Canadian site clearly shows:

http://eggs.ab.ca/about-eggs/quality-grades

I am more interested in enlightening the scale of four numbers from 0 to 3, which states what kind of egg you are about to buy and eat:

0 organic
1 free range
2 barn
3 caged

For more informations visit:

http://www.lioneggfarms.co.uk/information/egg-codes/

Although it may sound a bit snobbish, I won't discuss here the label 2 and 3, because I think that every person is able to see that keeping an animal inside a barn or a cage is cruel and irrespecutful, even if the egg will cost far less than an organic one: perhaps the quality of the egg itself suffers less than what we may think [http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2002334,00.html] BUT the life-quality of the animals kept free is, in my view, highly preferable. 

In this picture I am showing in a progression of images

how different appear the environment of the animals kept 

in captivity.

This instead is an interesting "Organic" blogger: 

http://www.myessentia.com/blog/blog/tag/organic-chicken/

The essential difference between Organic and Free range is that "the conditions in which certified organic eggs are laid are verified by third parties, which reduces the likelihood of fraudulent labelling" [http://suite101.com/article/egg-labels-free-range-organic-and-omega3-a186883]. 

Now let's provide three appealing serving suggestions to stimulate the tasty side of life as well: 

Poached egg in lyonnaise salad

Fried egg with chili, sided by cherry tomatoes 

and a good slice of bread

How to start with scrambled eggs:

a night sprinkle of black pepper, 

the scent of chives, 

the velveting effect of butter.

Before serving add a spoon of crême fraiche,

or a drop of milk (lighter version),

and season with a pinch of salt (tip: putting the salt too early

makes the egg become more watery)

Serve with a 1/3 brown wheat loaf, 

and a mixed salad:

reddish, carrot, iceberg, lettuce gem, Parmigiano flakes

dressing: sesame oil 

Have a look to Gordon Ramsey tricks and suggestions:

Mr Ramsey suggests scrambled eggs as a perfect breakfast, yet I like very much to have eggs in the evening, as a perfect light dinner, because eggs are practically carbs-free.