A New Toy

On Tuesday we had a new toy delivered, a food dryer. There is probably a fancier name for it but it dries food so it's a food dryer for me. As with various other purchases in the same line it will take a long time to get the monetary value (£56 delivered) back in terms of food shopping saved - the apple press a case in point - but it's fun, we get to have a store of free food, and when civilization comes to an end we are the ones looking smug just before the Morlocks come and grab our stuff.

I dried some apple rings yesterday and enough bay leaves from our tree to see us through a winter of casseroles, likewise sage leaves. My wife loves the apple rings in her packed lunch, Joe as a snack including for his upcoming DoE hike - all the goodness only 1/10th the weight.

If any damsons have survived the hurricane-lite a few days back I may try a few of those to see if they work when re-hydrated (in vodka left over from reviews?) as the basis of crumbles or dry in cakes.

The sell-by-date changes currently mooted have brought up the issue of food waste again, an annual figure of 5 million tonnes mentioned for Britain. I doubt this includes the vast quantities of fruit never picked from garden trees and little lost orchards. Maybe the third way politicians keep trying to claim they are following should be not throwing so much away: our personal budgets would benefit, and so too would the world's poor.

Damson Ice Cream

There is little of the weekend's cheaty damson ice cream left, for which thank the brilliant recipe of Nigel Slater, simultaneously our most interesting and annoying cookery writer, at least of those to whom I offer house room. I lifted the recipe, if something so simple merits the term, from Tender II. Buy a tub of decent supermarket custard (the cheaty bit), pick twice its weight in damsons, wash them then simmer with sugar to taste for about 10 minutes, leave to cool (eventually in the fridge) then sieve and combine the puree with the custard and whirl it in the ice cream maker. Fantastic colour, sharp fresh taste, lovely.





The annoyance part comes from a) calling too many things favourites and comfort food; b) his often prissy writing style, (reflected in the font used in the book). As a pastiche: Take 500g damsons. Nice ones the size of a sparrow's egg. Their blush as pure as a novice nun's thoughts. And sugar. Introduce the damsons in a pan to a bustling heat.





So I will buy his next book for the excellent ideas. And grit my teeth while reading it. And make more damson ice cream. Lots. Aargh, it's catching.