Saturday 25th October
500g potatoes
250g beetroot
a small lettuce
half a bunch of rather muddy radishes
ditto carrots
a handful of cherry tomatoes
a few stalks of swiss chard (exchanged for potatoes)
Saturday 8th November
500g potatoes
250g beetroot
two big handfuls of lambs' lettuce (mache)
a small leaf lettuce
half a bunch of carrots, increasingly mutant
3 large apples
samedi 25 octobre 2008
mardi 21 octobre 2008
So here we are singing the Scorpions (and bird)
Ok, how cute is this? when it's not being totally sinister that is.
Chook : spéciale dédicace :)
Chook : spéciale dédicace :)
samedi 18 octobre 2008
So here we are in Africa again
Ooooh, it's getting cold in Paris. The heating is on, and I want to snuggle with Chook under the duvet. So it seems like a good time to get back to the heat and dust of the Africa diary. Another extract is here.
This extract from the African diary recounts most of Olivia's and my experience in Djenné, a village in the middle of Mali famous for its Mosque and considered the most beautiful in black Africa by LP.
8.07.04 The day we go to Djenné
We had arranged to meet the Americans at 9.30 at Sévaré’s bank to share a car to Djenné as the bus there doesn’t leave until Monday. Woke up with a thumping hangover and poisonous guts from the toxic whisky. Luckily, omelette sandwiches are a great morning-after food. It was already getting hot when we piled off with our huge rucksacks and many bags, and we were sweating heavily at the end of our two kilometer hike to the bank. By the time we arrived, the crisp looking Americans, Ted and John, had already changed money and found a car to take us. 10000 each for a 140 km drive! It was wonderfully fast; a couple of times we picked up some people and dropped them off at various villages. After barely two hours, we reached the Carrefour de Djenné. From there we took a small car ferry over a stretch of river in which men were washing down their donkeys.
There are two hotels in Djenné: one is expensive, one is cheap. We opted for the latter, Baba’s, and our room is very basic, with a couple of straw mats and no electricity. It’s on the top floor and overlooks the lively street on one side and the courtyard on the other. We slept most of the afternoon away from the baking heat while Ted and John visited the town; they left before we got up. Around 9 we went to get something to eat, following two children to a cheap restaurant. We had couscous grains with a pile of skinny chicken bones. There is no light in Djenné after dark, so we went back to bed.
9.07.04 The day we get settled in
I had promised Ousman, the elder of the two kids that I would look at the necklaces he sells. He arrived at 7, and I allowed myself to be ripped off, knowing that at least he wouldn’t spend it on booze. I made my way to the loo, which is behind a wooden door in the corner of the terrace at the top of the stairs. It is a sit down bog, but as there is no plumbing you just crap in to a pit below. In this heat, the smell hits you like a concrete block. As I went in I saw a cat- sized rat dive down the hole.There’s no way I’m going in that. Time to explore the hotel. Djenné, like Mopti, is built of grey mud but is famous for still being a small, functional village with many of the original traditions still going. Unlike Mopti, it has never grown beyond 20000 or so in population, cannot take cars in its narrow winding lanes, does not have electricity except for a couple of private generators. It is also famed for its buildings, which have stood in place for hundreds of years despite being made of a mud the dries and crumbles in the sun. Talking of which, it’s 8.15 and stunningly hot.
After breakfast, Olivia and I decided that we needed a loo. We walked around town looking for the nice hotel, away from the centre where the mosque and the wide market square are, and deeper in to the maze of streets. Everything is made of the usual grey mud, the colour and texture of elephant, dusty and cracked. The tiny little alleys are open sewers full of sand and rubbish. We quickly got to the end of the village and went round the edge, one side a dense race of people, the other side deserted countryside dotted with pools of water from the recent rains. It is boiling hot and cloudless today though. Back in the labyrinth kids started following us shouting “toubabs!”. This town is strange, much smaller and narrower than I expected, much more littered and unkempt too. We found the hotel and allowed ourselves to use a sparkling bog in exchange for a second, overpriced, breakfast.
For lunch, sick and tired of stringy chicken we went to a guide book restaurant on the square in front of the mosque. Everything was off except bloody chicken so we tried “tion-tion”. It was just horrible: sticky clumps of rice with a bit of chicken leg smothered in dried-fish sauce and onions. It’s awful to complain about the food in such a poor country but it really is a nightmare. Nothing keeps in this weather and fridges are rare; provisions come only once a week on market day. We were choking on our tion-tion when the sweet young waiter came over and asked us if we would like to pre-order a pizza for tomorrow. Would we hell?! “What’ve you got? Sure!”, we drooled, “Cheese and tomato?”. He looked amused. “Oh no! you can’t get cheese around here, and tomatoes are hard to find, but we’ve got aubergine.” Aubergine it shall be then.
It was almost time for Friday afternoon prayer so we decided to get close to the mosque, which is as always forbidden for us. The little boy we had seen the night before told us we could go up on to someone’s roof to get a look over the wall. Only two stories high, and practically next door to the enormous mosque, we mainly got a good view of the surrounding neighbourhood. From here we can see the village, made of mud and the odd wooden beam. Back at the room we took care of laundry and have been sitting up on the roof since the late afternoon. Olivia is crimson. It’s rapidly getting dark, a single light is flashing from the top of the mosque which looks increasingly like a elaborate square sandcastle, with three buckets of sand at the front and a low outer wall around it, and pieces of wood scaffolding sticking out of it. It’s absolutely beautiful..
A man we had met the day before (the Americans’ guide) and who called himself “l’historien” came up to our room to see if we wanted a tour of the town. As we did, we decided to see Djenné properly again tomorrow with him as well as nearby Djenné Djenno. We’d arrange to go to a nearby Peul village the day after. It was time to work out a price; he let it slip that the Americans had given him 6000 an hour. Everything was about to work out very expensive indeed and we negotiated for an hour before he suddenly changed his mind and told us that as friends we could have it for free. Now we’re just confused. We also need to find a donkey and cart for our Sunday visit to the village. As the two little boys are sulking because they wanted to be our guides we could try and sort something out with them. Though to be fair the little boys seem to know nothing about their town, and l’historien is a teacher.
For supper, tired of chicken bones, we got ourselves a coal stove and a saucepan and made some of my emergency powdered minestrone in mineral water. With a candle, two spoons and some chewy white bread we had a very atmospheric meal under the stars. Despite this I am in a bit of a state. I just don’t know whether this not-paying-the-historien-thing is going to turn out to be a nightmare. He says he’ll be our guide for free, but why? What does he want? Nothing is free over here, only more-or-less explicitly sold whether for money or otherwise.
The hotel bog is now clean but still scary and the rats are scurrying in the rubbish filled streets. Christ, if this is the most beautiful town in sub-Saharan Africa…
10.07.04 The day we learn about Djenné
We met l’historien for breakfast at 8.30 and after omelettes and coffee started our tour. We had convinced him to take 1000 off us over our meal. First we set off to the “quartier marocain” where he showed us three taller houses that had intricate window screens carved with stars. These allowed the women to look out but not the men to look in. They houses date from the 8th century when Moroccan merchants from the other side of the desert started trading with Djenné. At the top of the house are little turrets and windows that represent penises and vaginas; the number of turrets says how many kids there are in the family. If one dies or is born, a new one can easily be destroyed or added. Next we saw a mound of ruined, 9th century cottages on which goats were grazing. They were destroyed because their inhabitants hadn’t carried out the “crépissage”, the annual adding of a new coat of fresh mud on the building’s walls. This is done after the rainy season which we should be in the middle of, when the rains wash away the top layers of the walls. L’historien then took us to the village chief’s house which is a little wider and taller than the others. In the surrounding streets, we met some women who weave and sell blankets to raise money for local projects, mostly weddings it seems. Olivia liked the indigo blankets and said we would return later.
The oldest school in the Mopti region was nearby (4th oldest in Africa), and was built on the site of an ancient mosque. In a town of 16000 people, there are six secular schools and over 40 coranic ones, some of which we passed. Small boys sat outside scratching verses of the Koran in to their wooden tablets. The final thing we saw on our tour was a roofless mud room built by the side of the town. In one of its walls is the body of a 8th century 15 year old Bozo virgin who was walled in alive as a sacrifice, a town protection dreamt up by some marabout when the walls of Djenné kept collapsing. She had screamed until her father told her to stop dishonouring him. A toothless old crone looks after the place- she is the direct descendant of the poor girl. A man stopped l’historien in the street and gave a brief speech before walking off. It turned out he went from person to person giving them the Muslim equivalent of thought for the day. Our guide then went on to say, rather bizarrely, that he wanted to convert and be a Protestant. The population of the area is 100% Muslim, usually with a bit of animism and ancestor worship thrown in. He believes that there are too many rules in Islam that aren’t respected, he wants a religion that can impose its laws. After this very odd speech, he took us to one of his students whose uncle could loan us a donkey and cart tomorrow morning.
Uninspiring lunch of semolina and green beans. Nevermind, pizza tonight. We were surrounded by copulating lizards during our whole meal. The males are really extraordinary- the size of Coke bottles with bright blue bodies and orange heads and tails.
When the sun had dipped a little we set off for the archaeological site of Djenné Djenno which is just outside the town, and which is the site of oldest town in Africa.
Once we got out of the tangle of Djenné’s dusty streets we found ourselves in luxuriant green countryside and crossed a bridge. Lots of people including small children and old women were busy carrying mud bricks from the riverbank up the steep banks to the town. Apart from a dead donkey lying bloated in a field, the view as we got further away from the village was just stunning, waving green grass and flowery trees either side of the road. The air got cleaner. Rather than going to the actual site of Djenné Djenno which is closed to visitors, we stopped at the Museum, waiting for the curator, Samaké, to finish with another pair of toubabs. We sat under a tree in the courtyard, next to a man reading the Koran. Another man appeared, a drunk rasta who reminded me of Max back in Dakar.
The museum is small, a couple of rooms and a corridor full of pictures and photos. The first room gave information about the archaeological site. The first pottery found dates from 250BC and there is evidence that the inhabitants lived off fishing, hunting and farming. Iron work from the same age wrecks the theory that the iron age was imported from Asia Minor. The second room is about Djenné today. It confirmed what we saw this morning: the Moroccan houses are the taller ones with wooden shutters, the original Sudanese-Berber ones have open courtyards and split level-terraces, and the colonial ones are ugly little shoeboxes. We saw pictures of the mosque, the largest mud building in the world, and learnt about its crépissage, when hundreds of volunteers both local and international come to help every year. We also learnt why non-Muslims were not allowed in. Fifteen or so years ago some crazed Italians got caught having sex in it, which understandably enraged the local population. I felt deeply ashamed of my fellow Europeans. Some old pictures showed Djenné in the late 19th and early 20th century. Without the town’s plastic litter and sewage problem the beauty is startling. The packed buildings around the huge central square and the imposing, grey mosque look like a smooth sandy rock formation and blend in with the countryside. Samaké told us that an NGO and a team of Germans had decided to install running water in Djenné. Traditionally the population walked 300 meters down to the river and only those too old and sick had water brought to them. The Germans installed a tap outside practically every house, hence the presence all over town of stinking stagnant puddles, miniature swamps full of mosquitoes and open sewers. The NGO is now looking in to providing an underground evacuation system, but because of Djenné’s UNESCO World heritage status, no sewers can be dug. Samaké was a fabulous guide. Thanks to his obvious love of Djenné, I began to see how this isolated town dominated by its incredible mosque could be considered the most beautiful in black Africa.
The sun was setting as we walked back to Djenné, the fields were green and damp and the village glowed beige against the soft blue sky. People seemed more brightly clothed than usual in shades of indigo and blue. Felt peaceful and content, and rather sad that the place had ever been discovered by white men, who had enslaved it, colonised it, and now were melting it by trying to bring it up to some kind of international comfort standard. I don’t think Mali is compatible with global influences. Things here are based on family and sharing, everyone is part of a huge, explicit network. Huge amounts of time are spent strengthening status in order to look after one’s community; how is this compatible with frenzied individualism and competition?
Pizza time! We went back to the restaurant. Certainly an interesting if not particularly authentic effort: a pastry case with a very salty onion filling inside -a change at least! Tonight we are going for tea at l’historien’s.
Have just had one of the most traumatising experiences of my life. After the pizza, I felt my guts shifting uncomfortably and decided it was time to vanquish my fear of the loo. All the stodge we had been eating made me want to it down with a good book for a couple of days but this, not least because it was dark, was impossible. I took the torch and saw the rat leap in to the loo. “Dammit”, I thought as I went to fill up the water bucket, “it’s more scared of me than I am of him. The rat does not exist, the rat does not exist.” I was mid-shit in the dark when I heard something in the room with me. Before I could get the torch back on (it’s important to save batteries), the creature had jumped on my leg, scuttled up my thigh, and dived in between my legs. I just screamed and instinctively ran for it. Olivia wept for laughing after I had run back in to the room, trousers round my ankles, and told her what had happened. I’m never going to the loo again. It’s one thing if the rat lurks about, another if it’s tame.
This extract from the African diary recounts most of Olivia's and my experience in Djenné, a village in the middle of Mali famous for its Mosque and considered the most beautiful in black Africa by LP.
*
8.07.04 The day we go to Djenné
We had arranged to meet the Americans at 9.30 at Sévaré’s bank to share a car to Djenné as the bus there doesn’t leave until Monday. Woke up with a thumping hangover and poisonous guts from the toxic whisky. Luckily, omelette sandwiches are a great morning-after food. It was already getting hot when we piled off with our huge rucksacks and many bags, and we were sweating heavily at the end of our two kilometer hike to the bank. By the time we arrived, the crisp looking Americans, Ted and John, had already changed money and found a car to take us. 10000 each for a 140 km drive! It was wonderfully fast; a couple of times we picked up some people and dropped them off at various villages. After barely two hours, we reached the Carrefour de Djenné. From there we took a small car ferry over a stretch of river in which men were washing down their donkeys.
There are two hotels in Djenné: one is expensive, one is cheap. We opted for the latter, Baba’s, and our room is very basic, with a couple of straw mats and no electricity. It’s on the top floor and overlooks the lively street on one side and the courtyard on the other. We slept most of the afternoon away from the baking heat while Ted and John visited the town; they left before we got up. Around 9 we went to get something to eat, following two children to a cheap restaurant. We had couscous grains with a pile of skinny chicken bones. There is no light in Djenné after dark, so we went back to bed.
9.07.04 The day we get settled in
I had promised Ousman, the elder of the two kids that I would look at the necklaces he sells. He arrived at 7, and I allowed myself to be ripped off, knowing that at least he wouldn’t spend it on booze. I made my way to the loo, which is behind a wooden door in the corner of the terrace at the top of the stairs. It is a sit down bog, but as there is no plumbing you just crap in to a pit below. In this heat, the smell hits you like a concrete block. As I went in I saw a cat- sized rat dive down the hole.There’s no way I’m going in that. Time to explore the hotel. Djenné, like Mopti, is built of grey mud but is famous for still being a small, functional village with many of the original traditions still going. Unlike Mopti, it has never grown beyond 20000 or so in population, cannot take cars in its narrow winding lanes, does not have electricity except for a couple of private generators. It is also famed for its buildings, which have stood in place for hundreds of years despite being made of a mud the dries and crumbles in the sun. Talking of which, it’s 8.15 and stunningly hot.
*
After breakfast, Olivia and I decided that we needed a loo. We walked around town looking for the nice hotel, away from the centre where the mosque and the wide market square are, and deeper in to the maze of streets. Everything is made of the usual grey mud, the colour and texture of elephant, dusty and cracked. The tiny little alleys are open sewers full of sand and rubbish. We quickly got to the end of the village and went round the edge, one side a dense race of people, the other side deserted countryside dotted with pools of water from the recent rains. It is boiling hot and cloudless today though. Back in the labyrinth kids started following us shouting “toubabs!”. This town is strange, much smaller and narrower than I expected, much more littered and unkempt too. We found the hotel and allowed ourselves to use a sparkling bog in exchange for a second, overpriced, breakfast.
For lunch, sick and tired of stringy chicken we went to a guide book restaurant on the square in front of the mosque. Everything was off except bloody chicken so we tried “tion-tion”. It was just horrible: sticky clumps of rice with a bit of chicken leg smothered in dried-fish sauce and onions. It’s awful to complain about the food in such a poor country but it really is a nightmare. Nothing keeps in this weather and fridges are rare; provisions come only once a week on market day. We were choking on our tion-tion when the sweet young waiter came over and asked us if we would like to pre-order a pizza for tomorrow. Would we hell?! “What’ve you got? Sure!”, we drooled, “Cheese and tomato?”. He looked amused. “Oh no! you can’t get cheese around here, and tomatoes are hard to find, but we’ve got aubergine.” Aubergine it shall be then.
It was almost time for Friday afternoon prayer so we decided to get close to the mosque, which is as always forbidden for us. The little boy we had seen the night before told us we could go up on to someone’s roof to get a look over the wall. Only two stories high, and practically next door to the enormous mosque, we mainly got a good view of the surrounding neighbourhood. From here we can see the village, made of mud and the odd wooden beam. Back at the room we took care of laundry and have been sitting up on the roof since the late afternoon. Olivia is crimson. It’s rapidly getting dark, a single light is flashing from the top of the mosque which looks increasingly like a elaborate square sandcastle, with three buckets of sand at the front and a low outer wall around it, and pieces of wood scaffolding sticking out of it. It’s absolutely beautiful..
*
A man we had met the day before (the Americans’ guide) and who called himself “l’historien” came up to our room to see if we wanted a tour of the town. As we did, we decided to see Djenné properly again tomorrow with him as well as nearby Djenné Djenno. We’d arrange to go to a nearby Peul village the day after. It was time to work out a price; he let it slip that the Americans had given him 6000 an hour. Everything was about to work out very expensive indeed and we negotiated for an hour before he suddenly changed his mind and told us that as friends we could have it for free. Now we’re just confused. We also need to find a donkey and cart for our Sunday visit to the village. As the two little boys are sulking because they wanted to be our guides we could try and sort something out with them. Though to be fair the little boys seem to know nothing about their town, and l’historien is a teacher.
For supper, tired of chicken bones, we got ourselves a coal stove and a saucepan and made some of my emergency powdered minestrone in mineral water. With a candle, two spoons and some chewy white bread we had a very atmospheric meal under the stars. Despite this I am in a bit of a state. I just don’t know whether this not-paying-the-historien-thing is going to turn out to be a nightmare. He says he’ll be our guide for free, but why? What does he want? Nothing is free over here, only more-or-less explicitly sold whether for money or otherwise.
The hotel bog is now clean but still scary and the rats are scurrying in the rubbish filled streets. Christ, if this is the most beautiful town in sub-Saharan Africa…
10.07.04 The day we learn about Djenné
We met l’historien for breakfast at 8.30 and after omelettes and coffee started our tour. We had convinced him to take 1000 off us over our meal. First we set off to the “quartier marocain” where he showed us three taller houses that had intricate window screens carved with stars. These allowed the women to look out but not the men to look in. They houses date from the 8th century when Moroccan merchants from the other side of the desert started trading with Djenné. At the top of the house are little turrets and windows that represent penises and vaginas; the number of turrets says how many kids there are in the family. If one dies or is born, a new one can easily be destroyed or added. Next we saw a mound of ruined, 9th century cottages on which goats were grazing. They were destroyed because their inhabitants hadn’t carried out the “crépissage”, the annual adding of a new coat of fresh mud on the building’s walls. This is done after the rainy season which we should be in the middle of, when the rains wash away the top layers of the walls. L’historien then took us to the village chief’s house which is a little wider and taller than the others. In the surrounding streets, we met some women who weave and sell blankets to raise money for local projects, mostly weddings it seems. Olivia liked the indigo blankets and said we would return later.
The oldest school in the Mopti region was nearby (4th oldest in Africa), and was built on the site of an ancient mosque. In a town of 16000 people, there are six secular schools and over 40 coranic ones, some of which we passed. Small boys sat outside scratching verses of the Koran in to their wooden tablets. The final thing we saw on our tour was a roofless mud room built by the side of the town. In one of its walls is the body of a 8th century 15 year old Bozo virgin who was walled in alive as a sacrifice, a town protection dreamt up by some marabout when the walls of Djenné kept collapsing. She had screamed until her father told her to stop dishonouring him. A toothless old crone looks after the place- she is the direct descendant of the poor girl. A man stopped l’historien in the street and gave a brief speech before walking off. It turned out he went from person to person giving them the Muslim equivalent of thought for the day. Our guide then went on to say, rather bizarrely, that he wanted to convert and be a Protestant. The population of the area is 100% Muslim, usually with a bit of animism and ancestor worship thrown in. He believes that there are too many rules in Islam that aren’t respected, he wants a religion that can impose its laws. After this very odd speech, he took us to one of his students whose uncle could loan us a donkey and cart tomorrow morning.
Uninspiring lunch of semolina and green beans. Nevermind, pizza tonight. We were surrounded by copulating lizards during our whole meal. The males are really extraordinary- the size of Coke bottles with bright blue bodies and orange heads and tails.
*
When the sun had dipped a little we set off for the archaeological site of Djenné Djenno which is just outside the town, and which is the site of oldest town in Africa.
Once we got out of the tangle of Djenné’s dusty streets we found ourselves in luxuriant green countryside and crossed a bridge. Lots of people including small children and old women were busy carrying mud bricks from the riverbank up the steep banks to the town. Apart from a dead donkey lying bloated in a field, the view as we got further away from the village was just stunning, waving green grass and flowery trees either side of the road. The air got cleaner. Rather than going to the actual site of Djenné Djenno which is closed to visitors, we stopped at the Museum, waiting for the curator, Samaké, to finish with another pair of toubabs. We sat under a tree in the courtyard, next to a man reading the Koran. Another man appeared, a drunk rasta who reminded me of Max back in Dakar.
The museum is small, a couple of rooms and a corridor full of pictures and photos. The first room gave information about the archaeological site. The first pottery found dates from 250BC and there is evidence that the inhabitants lived off fishing, hunting and farming. Iron work from the same age wrecks the theory that the iron age was imported from Asia Minor. The second room is about Djenné today. It confirmed what we saw this morning: the Moroccan houses are the taller ones with wooden shutters, the original Sudanese-Berber ones have open courtyards and split level-terraces, and the colonial ones are ugly little shoeboxes. We saw pictures of the mosque, the largest mud building in the world, and learnt about its crépissage, when hundreds of volunteers both local and international come to help every year. We also learnt why non-Muslims were not allowed in. Fifteen or so years ago some crazed Italians got caught having sex in it, which understandably enraged the local population. I felt deeply ashamed of my fellow Europeans. Some old pictures showed Djenné in the late 19th and early 20th century. Without the town’s plastic litter and sewage problem the beauty is startling. The packed buildings around the huge central square and the imposing, grey mosque look like a smooth sandy rock formation and blend in with the countryside. Samaké told us that an NGO and a team of Germans had decided to install running water in Djenné. Traditionally the population walked 300 meters down to the river and only those too old and sick had water brought to them. The Germans installed a tap outside practically every house, hence the presence all over town of stinking stagnant puddles, miniature swamps full of mosquitoes and open sewers. The NGO is now looking in to providing an underground evacuation system, but because of Djenné’s UNESCO World heritage status, no sewers can be dug. Samaké was a fabulous guide. Thanks to his obvious love of Djenné, I began to see how this isolated town dominated by its incredible mosque could be considered the most beautiful in black Africa.
The sun was setting as we walked back to Djenné, the fields were green and damp and the village glowed beige against the soft blue sky. People seemed more brightly clothed than usual in shades of indigo and blue. Felt peaceful and content, and rather sad that the place had ever been discovered by white men, who had enslaved it, colonised it, and now were melting it by trying to bring it up to some kind of international comfort standard. I don’t think Mali is compatible with global influences. Things here are based on family and sharing, everyone is part of a huge, explicit network. Huge amounts of time are spent strengthening status in order to look after one’s community; how is this compatible with frenzied individualism and competition?
Pizza time! We went back to the restaurant. Certainly an interesting if not particularly authentic effort: a pastry case with a very salty onion filling inside -a change at least! Tonight we are going for tea at l’historien’s.
*
Have just had one of the most traumatising experiences of my life. After the pizza, I felt my guts shifting uncomfortably and decided it was time to vanquish my fear of the loo. All the stodge we had been eating made me want to it down with a good book for a couple of days but this, not least because it was dark, was impossible. I took the torch and saw the rat leap in to the loo. “Dammit”, I thought as I went to fill up the water bucket, “it’s more scared of me than I am of him. The rat does not exist, the rat does not exist.” I was mid-shit in the dark when I heard something in the room with me. Before I could get the torch back on (it’s important to save batteries), the creature had jumped on my leg, scuttled up my thigh, and dived in between my legs. I just screamed and instinctively ran for it. Olivia wept for laughing after I had run back in to the room, trousers round my ankles, and told her what had happened. I’m never going to the loo again. It’s one thing if the rat lurks about, another if it’s tame.
So here we are playing snake
On a lighter note! anybody who had a mobile phone in the late 90s remembers "Snake", a very simple game where you control a line (snake) in such a way that it eats the blobs on the screen without ever running into itself. It also gets bigger as it eats the blobs, and therefore gets harder as the game progresses.
God knows how long it took students to set this up.
God knows how long it took students to set this up.
So here we are losing €600million
Hoooowl!!!! The tears are pouring down my face from the fits of hysterical laughter! Moralisation of the banking system! Hoooooooooowl!!! There must be a God, only a superior, omnipotent being with the cruellest sense of irony could have done this.
So, Sarkozy and Lagarde, the finance minister, go on TV making srious noises about moralising the system. 360billion of the State's money have been poured into the banks to give them liquidities and to guarantee new debts. In exchange, the State is now the boss and a whole plethora of new rules and regulations have been introduced, from the amount of bonusses bankers can hope for and, crucially, how much risk can be taken when investing. No more crisis for us sir!
So one can only hoooooowl!! Two days after declarations of Sarkozy to the French, to the Europeans, to the Americans, to the entire World, what happens? Three idiot traders from the Caisse d'Epargne, one of France's leading banks go and lose 600million, having failed to take the slightest bit of notice of the new rules.
This is only the first example that IMHO shows that if you simply bail these fuckheads out, they will not see the opportunity to clean up their act, simply extra money to play around with and, let's face it, despite the government's reassurances if banks do this, we taxpayers are going to have to pay for it.
So, Sarkozy and Lagarde, the finance minister, go on TV making srious noises about moralising the system. 360billion of the State's money have been poured into the banks to give them liquidities and to guarantee new debts. In exchange, the State is now the boss and a whole plethora of new rules and regulations have been introduced, from the amount of bonusses bankers can hope for and, crucially, how much risk can be taken when investing. No more crisis for us sir!
So one can only hoooooowl!! Two days after declarations of Sarkozy to the French, to the Europeans, to the Americans, to the entire World, what happens? Three idiot traders from the Caisse d'Epargne, one of France's leading banks go and lose 600million, having failed to take the slightest bit of notice of the new rules.
This is only the first example that IMHO shows that if you simply bail these fuckheads out, they will not see the opportunity to clean up their act, simply extra money to play around with and, let's face it, despite the government's reassurances if banks do this, we taxpayers are going to have to pay for it.
So here we are veg boxing and cooking indian food
Saturday 18th october
500g potatoes
half a bunch of spectacularly mutant carrots
250 g beetroot
a large handful of cherry tomatoes
250 g monstrous yellowing spinach leaves
a tiny, beautiful aubergine
half a head of brocoli
a radiccio salad
a long skinny red pepper
beetroot à la Madhur Jaffrey (serves 2)
Heat some oil in a pan, medium hot. Add 1 tsp of cumin seed and a few seconds later a finely chopped clove of garlic. Soften for about a minute. Add one roughly chopped onion and stir for a minute or two. Add a tsp of flour, a half tsp at the most of red chili powder (cayenne pepper) and stir for another minute. Add 3 medium chopped beetroots, cut into chunks, half a tin of tomatoes (or equivalent of fresh peeled ones) and 250ml water. Bring to simmer, put on lid and let simmer for about 1/2 an hour, or until beetroot is softish. Take of lid and boil until sauce has reduced. If beetroots are still hard, add water and repeat until they have lost their crunch.
500g potatoes
half a bunch of spectacularly mutant carrots
250 g beetroot
a large handful of cherry tomatoes
250 g monstrous yellowing spinach leaves
a tiny, beautiful aubergine
half a head of brocoli
a radiccio salad
a long skinny red pepper
beetroot à la Madhur Jaffrey (serves 2)
Heat some oil in a pan, medium hot. Add 1 tsp of cumin seed and a few seconds later a finely chopped clove of garlic. Soften for about a minute. Add one roughly chopped onion and stir for a minute or two. Add a tsp of flour, a half tsp at the most of red chili powder (cayenne pepper) and stir for another minute. Add 3 medium chopped beetroots, cut into chunks, half a tin of tomatoes (or equivalent of fresh peeled ones) and 250ml water. Bring to simmer, put on lid and let simmer for about 1/2 an hour, or until beetroot is softish. Take of lid and boil until sauce has reduced. If beetroots are still hard, add water and repeat until they have lost their crunch.
mercredi 15 octobre 2008
So here we are in a financial crisis
Aaah, Armageddon. It's a strange day when you think for the first time that you are witnessing a moment whose handling will determine the course of history. Stuff the great grandkids might have to revise for their exams. The financial crisis is turning out to be a lot more than that : an economic but also a moral one. Sarkozy said while he was presidential candidate that international capitalism needed to be moralised, and it seems that it is not only desirable but crucial if the system is not to implode. So what are the causes of and the reactions to this shit creek situation?
As usual, it seems easy to blame it on the Americans, but they do rather deserve it. That said, it is impossible to pinpoint a first day of the crisis. Do we refer to the day that world stock markets crashed in historic unison? Or do we creep up the calendar to the symbolic day that Lehmann brothers went bankrupt? Or should it be when subprimes became an everyday word? Do we go further back to the first tremble of butterfly wings a quarter of a century ago when world leaders, led by Thatcher and Raegan, laid the groundwork for the liberalisation of international finance?
I think 9/11 is a good place to start as it was less than a year after the beginning of GWB's first term and smacks of the "before and after". 9/11 was an obvious blow to Amerian morale, and in Economics, a good way to cheer people up is to send them shopping, which also boosts consumption and gives the economy an adrenaline rush, whereas low morale turns the economy sluggish. So when the biggest morale crusher in American history devastated Manhattan, the Fed, or its governor Alan Greenspan, decided to cut interest rates, just as it had after the dotcom crash or Y2K angst. With historically low interest rates it became easier for the average American to borrow money and, more importantly, spend it. In contrast, many European countries had been nagging the independent ECB to significantly cut rates for years, which it didn't. The ECB's main reason for keeping interest rates high was to fight inflation but ultimately its decision might prevent Europe from sinking too far in the quicksand of an economy running on credit.
With lower interest rates (IR) the Americans started spending money they didn't have and, crucially, couldn't afford, courtesy of a banking system that lent money regardless of whether it could ever be paid back. This attitude was tied to the belief that house prices, which had been soaring for years, would continue to do so. Thus, anybody owning or planning to own a house was considered 'safe' as the value of their capital/house would surely increase. With low and sometimes negligible IR, through the irresponsibility of the banks and the property bubble, Americans stocked up on houses and cars and other consumer goods, living off trillions of dollars of credit to finance the American dream.
There was of course a catch to all of this. The IR were not fixed and by 2006 they had soared up. Soon, people who had been paying close to 1% interest on their loans found they had to pay five times that. Monthly repayments exploded. In three years the Fed's IR went from 2% to 5,75%, and the variable interest rates fluctuated accordingly. When repayment was impossible, banks seized the houses and put them on the market. All over America, as "for sale" signs were nailed to porches, the sound of the property bubble popping could be heard. The banks, far from being richer thanks to the sales of the houses, found themselves with a load of properties in a flooded market and they had to sell them for a fraction of their estimated price. They lost huge amounts of money and started going bankrupt. This is the subprime crisis.
So how did this very American problem (because linked to American banks and American loans, culminating in an American property crash) become a world crisis? To understand this, it is crucial to remember how investment portfolios are constituted and the importance of confidence and expectations on the market.
Concerning investment portfolios, while the details may be hideously complicated the general idea is pretty basic. Imagine you are a bank called Rippoff and co. You have lent vast sums of money to people and to show for it you have a load of virtual receipts saying that people owe you money. Like all banks you do not keep these virtual scraps in a vault, rather you chop them up, repackage them and sell them to a bigger or different bank who now "own" the money that Rippoff is owed. The new bank, Fukkem inc, will then do the same. It will take a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of Rippoff and muddle it all up and sell it on to another bank, Skruya International which is based in 30 different countries and on 5 continents. Do this enough times and by the end it is obvious that nobody has a clue what they are buying and a bank the other side of the world will have a bit of Fukkem, Rippoff and Scruya in it. All they know is that the package, constituted of a million molecules of different companies, is worth roughly this at this time and is expected to increase or decrease in value.These packages are also border-blind and are thus present all over the world.
So all of a sudden, with the property market crash, Fukkem, Rippoff and Skruya find themselves broke (Lehmann Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in the States notably, though the US bailed out the last two.) When that happened, packages in banks droppped in value because of the drop in value of what made them up. This is not the most dire consequence, though. Worse to come was the drop in confidence that led onto the stockmarkets crash seen all around the world, especially in the last couple of weeks.
Banks do not have a pile of banknotes locked in the cellar, and when you take out a loan they do not go to a backroom and peel off a sheaf of them. Most of this money is virtual. For example, in France, if someone wants a hundred euro loan, the bank need only have nine euros of its own. So imagine a bank (Arssfuk ltd) has 27 euros in the kitty and has granted three 100 euro loans : it can't give anymore. The way around this is the interbank lending system. Arssfuk borrows money from Sookmidic Bank and in return Soomidic's guarantee is, yup, in those little packages which contain bits of Rippoff, Fukem and Skruya. Or not. That's the problem, paranoia takes over and the banks no longer want to lend. This is the liquidity crisis. If everybody were to panic and run to the banks with an empty suitcase asking for their savings, there would not be enough in any of them. This is why leaders are saying DO NOT PANIC!!!!! And why the Central banks are pouring money into the system and/or promising to guarantee the loans, ie, if a bank can't pay back its loans the State will step in.
So banks no longer want to lend to each other, each thinking that the next is going to land them with a worthless package contaminated with bankrupt bank components. As a result, banks must be more careful with the loans they give (not necessarily a bad thing). This has however gone to extremes, where even small profitable companies now have difficulty borrowing money for investment, which is ultimately disasterous for the economy, giving lower growth and higher unemployment among others.
The most spectacular aspect of the crisis for most people has been the drop on the world's stockmarkets, sometimes double figure drops or close to them. This is due to the lack of confidence on the stock market which translates as people either selling wildly or reluctant to buy or a combination of both. Thus shares in France for example in some companies such as Renault or St Gobain fell by over 70%. This is the stockmarket crash which shows that despite money pouring in to the system from the Central banks investors are wary and specualtors less enthusiastic.
So what responses have there been on an international level?
There have been two interesting reactions (many more, but not in this post), one from the Amricans, the other rom the Europeans, and most notably the British. Sarkozy, much as I hate to admit, deserves a medal.
In America the Paulson plan aimed to simply buy back, for a trifling 800 billion dollars, the dodgy loans. This is intervention on an incredible scale and for the socialists among us, a certain amount of glee is felt, these people having aid for yars that the market "regulates itself" and does not need any kind of State intervention (which is true, if you don't mind a few million Americans becoming homeless). Any presidential candidate who promises even consiudering a tax cut in the future is either mad or lying.
In Europe, Gordon Brown made jaws drop. After the Thatcher/Major years where pretty much everything except the State was privatised, and after the Blair/Brown years where England produced an economic miracle based on the deregulated financial sector, first Northern Rock was nationalised, and in the last few days the State has become the main shareholder in eight major banks. Sarkozy, currently head of the EU, organised a meeting with all European leaders (no small feat) and has suggested the same on a continent wide basis. Despite (notably) Ireland and Germany's reluctance to participate in EU-wide measures, Sarkozy is somehow holding it all together. All European countries are now buying shares in the biggest banks and are thus guaranteeing any dodgy loans by pledging to bailout any lenders that default.
In France specifically, Sarkozy is producing 360billion euros to save the situation, including €320 billion in guarantees for new bank debt and a €40 billion fund for recapitalizing lenders. In exchange the State wants to have its say on how the banks are run and how bankers are paid, which is not unreasonable given the circumstances. Moreover, this will not be free for th banks who will have to pay interest. The blurb from the government is that this will not cost the taxpayer anything as a) the banks have to pay interest and b) the banks will be privatised again ASAP. Of course this is only true if the situation gets better. If not, the State will bail out and citizens get the bill.
In the next few days, Sarkozy and others are meeting Bush (god!!! why him?!) for the second "Bretton woods" this century. What lust come out of it is a complete upheaval and, yes, even if th word has been overused, moralisation of the international financial system. In the meantime I suggest you invest in gold.
As usual, it seems easy to blame it on the Americans, but they do rather deserve it. That said, it is impossible to pinpoint a first day of the crisis. Do we refer to the day that world stock markets crashed in historic unison? Or do we creep up the calendar to the symbolic day that Lehmann brothers went bankrupt? Or should it be when subprimes became an everyday word? Do we go further back to the first tremble of butterfly wings a quarter of a century ago when world leaders, led by Thatcher and Raegan, laid the groundwork for the liberalisation of international finance?
I think 9/11 is a good place to start as it was less than a year after the beginning of GWB's first term and smacks of the "before and after". 9/11 was an obvious blow to Amerian morale, and in Economics, a good way to cheer people up is to send them shopping, which also boosts consumption and gives the economy an adrenaline rush, whereas low morale turns the economy sluggish. So when the biggest morale crusher in American history devastated Manhattan, the Fed, or its governor Alan Greenspan, decided to cut interest rates, just as it had after the dotcom crash or Y2K angst. With historically low interest rates it became easier for the average American to borrow money and, more importantly, spend it. In contrast, many European countries had been nagging the independent ECB to significantly cut rates for years, which it didn't. The ECB's main reason for keeping interest rates high was to fight inflation but ultimately its decision might prevent Europe from sinking too far in the quicksand of an economy running on credit.
With lower interest rates (IR) the Americans started spending money they didn't have and, crucially, couldn't afford, courtesy of a banking system that lent money regardless of whether it could ever be paid back. This attitude was tied to the belief that house prices, which had been soaring for years, would continue to do so. Thus, anybody owning or planning to own a house was considered 'safe' as the value of their capital/house would surely increase. With low and sometimes negligible IR, through the irresponsibility of the banks and the property bubble, Americans stocked up on houses and cars and other consumer goods, living off trillions of dollars of credit to finance the American dream.
There was of course a catch to all of this. The IR were not fixed and by 2006 they had soared up. Soon, people who had been paying close to 1% interest on their loans found they had to pay five times that. Monthly repayments exploded. In three years the Fed's IR went from 2% to 5,75%, and the variable interest rates fluctuated accordingly. When repayment was impossible, banks seized the houses and put them on the market. All over America, as "for sale" signs were nailed to porches, the sound of the property bubble popping could be heard. The banks, far from being richer thanks to the sales of the houses, found themselves with a load of properties in a flooded market and they had to sell them for a fraction of their estimated price. They lost huge amounts of money and started going bankrupt. This is the subprime crisis.
So how did this very American problem (because linked to American banks and American loans, culminating in an American property crash) become a world crisis? To understand this, it is crucial to remember how investment portfolios are constituted and the importance of confidence and expectations on the market.
Concerning investment portfolios, while the details may be hideously complicated the general idea is pretty basic. Imagine you are a bank called Rippoff and co. You have lent vast sums of money to people and to show for it you have a load of virtual receipts saying that people owe you money. Like all banks you do not keep these virtual scraps in a vault, rather you chop them up, repackage them and sell them to a bigger or different bank who now "own" the money that Rippoff is owed. The new bank, Fukkem inc, will then do the same. It will take a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of Rippoff and muddle it all up and sell it on to another bank, Skruya International which is based in 30 different countries and on 5 continents. Do this enough times and by the end it is obvious that nobody has a clue what they are buying and a bank the other side of the world will have a bit of Fukkem, Rippoff and Scruya in it. All they know is that the package, constituted of a million molecules of different companies, is worth roughly this at this time and is expected to increase or decrease in value.These packages are also border-blind and are thus present all over the world.
So all of a sudden, with the property market crash, Fukkem, Rippoff and Skruya find themselves broke (Lehmann Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in the States notably, though the US bailed out the last two.) When that happened, packages in banks droppped in value because of the drop in value of what made them up. This is not the most dire consequence, though. Worse to come was the drop in confidence that led onto the stockmarkets crash seen all around the world, especially in the last couple of weeks.
Banks do not have a pile of banknotes locked in the cellar, and when you take out a loan they do not go to a backroom and peel off a sheaf of them. Most of this money is virtual. For example, in France, if someone wants a hundred euro loan, the bank need only have nine euros of its own. So imagine a bank (Arssfuk ltd) has 27 euros in the kitty and has granted three 100 euro loans : it can't give anymore. The way around this is the interbank lending system. Arssfuk borrows money from Sookmidic Bank and in return Soomidic's guarantee is, yup, in those little packages which contain bits of Rippoff, Fukem and Skruya. Or not. That's the problem, paranoia takes over and the banks no longer want to lend. This is the liquidity crisis. If everybody were to panic and run to the banks with an empty suitcase asking for their savings, there would not be enough in any of them. This is why leaders are saying DO NOT PANIC!!!!! And why the Central banks are pouring money into the system and/or promising to guarantee the loans, ie, if a bank can't pay back its loans the State will step in.
So banks no longer want to lend to each other, each thinking that the next is going to land them with a worthless package contaminated with bankrupt bank components. As a result, banks must be more careful with the loans they give (not necessarily a bad thing). This has however gone to extremes, where even small profitable companies now have difficulty borrowing money for investment, which is ultimately disasterous for the economy, giving lower growth and higher unemployment among others.
The most spectacular aspect of the crisis for most people has been the drop on the world's stockmarkets, sometimes double figure drops or close to them. This is due to the lack of confidence on the stock market which translates as people either selling wildly or reluctant to buy or a combination of both. Thus shares in France for example in some companies such as Renault or St Gobain fell by over 70%. This is the stockmarket crash which shows that despite money pouring in to the system from the Central banks investors are wary and specualtors less enthusiastic.
So what responses have there been on an international level?
There have been two interesting reactions (many more, but not in this post), one from the Amricans, the other rom the Europeans, and most notably the British. Sarkozy, much as I hate to admit, deserves a medal.
In America the Paulson plan aimed to simply buy back, for a trifling 800 billion dollars, the dodgy loans. This is intervention on an incredible scale and for the socialists among us, a certain amount of glee is felt, these people having aid for yars that the market "regulates itself" and does not need any kind of State intervention (which is true, if you don't mind a few million Americans becoming homeless). Any presidential candidate who promises even consiudering a tax cut in the future is either mad or lying.
In Europe, Gordon Brown made jaws drop. After the Thatcher/Major years where pretty much everything except the State was privatised, and after the Blair/Brown years where England produced an economic miracle based on the deregulated financial sector, first Northern Rock was nationalised, and in the last few days the State has become the main shareholder in eight major banks. Sarkozy, currently head of the EU, organised a meeting with all European leaders (no small feat) and has suggested the same on a continent wide basis. Despite (notably) Ireland and Germany's reluctance to participate in EU-wide measures, Sarkozy is somehow holding it all together. All European countries are now buying shares in the biggest banks and are thus guaranteeing any dodgy loans by pledging to bailout any lenders that default.
In France specifically, Sarkozy is producing 360billion euros to save the situation, including €320 billion in guarantees for new bank debt and a €40 billion fund for recapitalizing lenders. In exchange the State wants to have its say on how the banks are run and how bankers are paid, which is not unreasonable given the circumstances. Moreover, this will not be free for th banks who will have to pay interest. The blurb from the government is that this will not cost the taxpayer anything as a) the banks have to pay interest and b) the banks will be privatised again ASAP. Of course this is only true if the situation gets better. If not, the State will bail out and citizens get the bill.
In the next few days, Sarkozy and others are meeting Bush (god!!! why him?!) for the second "Bretton woods" this century. What lust come out of it is a complete upheaval and, yes, even if th word has been overused, moralisation of the international financial system. In the meantime I suggest you invest in gold.
dimanche 12 octobre 2008
So here we are laughing at the students
As I quite like working as an English language teacher at EL, a language school in Paris, I shall not give the usual scathing review of my current job's stupidity. For that I will have to wait until December, when my contract runs out. Still, it does not say anywhere that I cannot mock my students. In a nutshell, my employer is a language school that specialises in one week intensive courses aimed at corporate employees. The greatness of the method is debatable, but the students seem to like it and actually learn something.
That said, I hear a lot of bloopers : mispronunciations, misunderstandings, false friends (when a word exists in two languages but means something quite different) and so on.
Here are three I have heard so far.
Me - So, Jean Pierre, present perfect, do you have any pets?
JP- Yes, I had a rabbit.
Me- Tense! Jean Pierre, is your rabbit dead?
JP - Yes, I ate it.
Me- Ok! Véronique. Exercise : present simple. Tell me how you make crudités.
V: You take salad.
Me- Article! Véronique. In front of salad.
V- Ah. You take the salad. You boil the eggs. You cut the tomato. You rape the carrot.
Me- Véronique! No, that's false friend. We say grate the carrot.
V- Grate? You scratch the carrot?
Me- No! Véronique. That's french. Rape is grate.
V- Ah. OK. So you rape the carrot.
Teacher - What plant does wine come from?
JP- La vigne.
T- In English. Vine.
JP- Vine (vin is french for wine)
T- And the fruit?
V- The raisin (raisin is french for grape)
T- No. It's grape (grape is french for bunch)
T- And what do we call a collection of grapes?
V- Muesli.
That said, I hear a lot of bloopers : mispronunciations, misunderstandings, false friends (when a word exists in two languages but means something quite different) and so on.
Here are three I have heard so far.
Me - So, Jean Pierre, present perfect, do you have any pets?
JP- Yes, I had a rabbit.
Me- Tense! Jean Pierre, is your rabbit dead?
JP - Yes, I ate it.
Me- Ok! Véronique. Exercise : present simple. Tell me how you make crudités.
V: You take salad.
Me- Article! Véronique. In front of salad.
V- Ah. You take the salad. You boil the eggs. You cut the tomato. You rape the carrot.
Me- Véronique! No, that's false friend. We say grate the carrot.
V- Grate? You scratch the carrot?
Me- No! Véronique. That's french. Rape is grate.
V- Ah. OK. So you rape the carrot.
Teacher - What plant does wine come from?
JP- La vigne.
T- In English. Vine.
JP- Vine (vin is french for wine)
T- And the fruit?
V- The raisin (raisin is french for grape)
T- No. It's grape (grape is french for bunch)
T- And what do we call a collection of grapes?
V- Muesli.
lundi 6 octobre 2008
So here we are veggie boxing
Chook and I have been going to the AMAP for a year now. AMAP, or Association for the maintain of peasant farming (or loose translation from the french)is a general term for the people who do veggie boxes. The idea is that you pledge to buy fruit and veg from one producer near where you live for six months and in return every saturday you go and collect your organickish produce. The AMAP is mainly a bobo,token conscience-gesture towards sustainable farming. In reality it is usually a rather dull and soggy bag of alien vegetables.
For 7euros50 a week (that's 187 euros for "half a basket" every week for six months)we usually get about 4 kilos of fresh, mostly edible, very seasonal vegetables (very rarely fruit) and of course the odd slug.
So, in the spirit of seasonal food, here is what we get:
Saturday 4th october
500g potatoes, watch out for the slimy/split/full of holes.
Half a big bunch of carrots, mutant, usually shaped like male genitalia/mandrake roots.
one green pepper, long and skinny.
One fat small lettuce, good.
500g tomatoes
1 large raw beetroot
1 large turnip
A big bunch of lovely , gorgeous baby leeks, thickness ranging from little finger to flower stalk.
leek and potato mash (serves 2):
Leeks : finely chopped white parts in to discs (should have around a soup bowl full), melt in butter at very low heat, salt and pepper and a splash of milk.
Potatoes, cut potatoes (3 medium ones) into small cubes, boil in salty water till almost decomposing. Drain, mash with fork, add butter, add milk and a bit of creme fraiche.
Combine leeks and potatoes and serve with lamb chops.
Saturday 11th october
500 g potatoes
500g tomatoes
250g turnips
half a big bunch of carrots
250g spinach leaves, huge, tough, half eaten by bugs and yellowing at the edges
a big beetroot
a small leaf lettuce
a long skinny red pepper
Red early autumn soup (serves 2):
Finely chop half a large onion and put it at low heat in some olive oil till soft. Add 4 or 5 chopped tomatoes and let them decompose. Add a chopped red pepper, then a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tsp of paprika and let simmer on low heat.
Fry bacon or lardons (upto 200g) making sure you drain away the white salty liquid. Once browned, throw into red mixture. Let flavours combine and add more paprika to taste.
Blitz til smooth, the more bacon you have the less smooth it will be.
When ready to serve stir in a tablespoon of creme fraiche into each bowl and add some chopped chives and basil (optional)
For 7euros50 a week (that's 187 euros for "half a basket" every week for six months)we usually get about 4 kilos of fresh, mostly edible, very seasonal vegetables (very rarely fruit) and of course the odd slug.
So, in the spirit of seasonal food, here is what we get:
Saturday 4th october
500g potatoes, watch out for the slimy/split/full of holes.
Half a big bunch of carrots, mutant, usually shaped like male genitalia/mandrake roots.
one green pepper, long and skinny.
One fat small lettuce, good.
500g tomatoes
1 large raw beetroot
1 large turnip
A big bunch of lovely , gorgeous baby leeks, thickness ranging from little finger to flower stalk.
leek and potato mash (serves 2):
Leeks : finely chopped white parts in to discs (should have around a soup bowl full), melt in butter at very low heat, salt and pepper and a splash of milk.
Potatoes, cut potatoes (3 medium ones) into small cubes, boil in salty water till almost decomposing. Drain, mash with fork, add butter, add milk and a bit of creme fraiche.
Combine leeks and potatoes and serve with lamb chops.
Saturday 11th october
500 g potatoes
500g tomatoes
250g turnips
half a big bunch of carrots
250g spinach leaves, huge, tough, half eaten by bugs and yellowing at the edges
a big beetroot
a small leaf lettuce
a long skinny red pepper
Red early autumn soup (serves 2):
Finely chop half a large onion and put it at low heat in some olive oil till soft. Add 4 or 5 chopped tomatoes and let them decompose. Add a chopped red pepper, then a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tsp of paprika and let simmer on low heat.
Fry bacon or lardons (upto 200g) making sure you drain away the white salty liquid. Once browned, throw into red mixture. Let flavours combine and add more paprika to taste.
Blitz til smooth, the more bacon you have the less smooth it will be.
When ready to serve stir in a tablespoon of creme fraiche into each bowl and add some chopped chives and basil (optional)
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