When I was first discovering the joys of cooking in the 1980's, Keith Floyd was my idol, hero and guru. I loved his chaotic, over the top style on television, his flamboyant bow ties ( I took to sporting one myself on occasions) his shunning of any kind of apron in the kitchen, the way he permanently flaunted a large glass of wine. I devoured his books like Floyd on Fish and Floyd on Spain. Browsing through them again now, I realised that there are dishes there I still cook and influences that are still on my cooking, even though I've long forgotten the source. I felt immediately inspired to rush into the kitchen and start cooking, my taste buds going strong. And that doesnt usually happen before I've had my first cup of coffee.
Floyd was a million miles away from the starched and stiff approach which, and its hard to remember it now, was the norm among television cooks until he came along. He was, as all the obituaries have made clear, the first television celebrity chef. But he was more than just an amusing drunk -as people like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fernley Whittingstall, both inheritors his style - have made clear, he was enormously influential on them and on in helping to create the wider acceptance of the importance of everyday good food and cooking. He made cooking fun and casual, he demystified recipes, he made it all seem to so easy. It was, of course, very sad to see his decline in recent years - the failed marriages and restaurants, the health problems - and he must have looked slightly enviously (although I suspect with a healthy amount of realism) on the easy fortunes being made by his successors. But such a lust for life, for tastes, for indulgence. You had to admire it. And it was at least good to know that he died in his own chair, as the Indy reported yesterday, after a very good lunch of cocktails, roast partridge and a nice bottle of Cotes Du Rhone. The story is here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/cocktails-and-a-slurp-or-two--keith-floyds-final-day-1787742.html
So, was it the drinking that did for him? Or the smoking? Or the inevitably rich diet? He wasn't really a salad and mineral water kind of guy. Probably a bit of everything really - he had bowel cancer, but died from a heart attack. If one thing doesn't get you, another will, I think.
These things have been much on my mind recently. I learnt of Floyds death on the radio of the taxi that was taking me to my appointment at the hospital for the ERCP procedure that was designed to end the agonising stomach cramps that have been dogging me since early July. Well, I had the procedure - a tube shoved down my throat and into my stomach, a 3mm snip of the bottom of my bile duct and what they call a 'ductal clearance' designed to remove a stray gall stone that had, doctors thought, been growing there since my gall bladder was removed in April, together with what they termed 'sludge.' The thing is, they didn't find anything, even though my consultant believed that a stone was almost certainly the cause. What the doctors who did the ERCP did say was that the 'snip' should be enough to relieve pressure on the bile duct and stop the cramps. Since they have been occurring at intervals of between 5 and 14 days - although the intervals did appear to be shortening - then only time will tell whether they are right. I've been fine since the ERCP - just some residual soreness from the procedure itself. And my last attack and longest attack of cramps was 11 days ago.
But - and here's the slight connection with Floyd - one thing that does intrigue me is the connection between diet and the gall bladder and subsequent problems. Did Floyds bowel cancer stem from his imaginative diet? At no time have any of my doctors suggested there was any diet connection with my propensity for growing gall stones - it just happens, mostly in women rather than men. Neither was I given any post-operative diet advice, so carried on eating and drinking as normal. I have a varied, but I hope relatively healthy diet and certainly dont want to give any of it up. Some gall bladder removal patients do find they have to de-fat their diets (and take drugs for life) to prevent seriously loose bowels after eating - a common side affect. Thankfully, that hasn't happened to me, although my fat content is quite low. I do think there was some correlation between my consumption of dairy and spicy (specifically Indian) foods and the earlier gall stone attacks and later cramps. Its an unproven theory - some of the attacks came after I'd eaten the blandest of foods, but most occurred on a more or less empty stomach. What this does suggest to me is that there are many things we still dont know about connections between diet and disease.
Although I tended to avoid spicy or dairy foods over the past few weeks, I'm not going to bother now. And, I can drink alcohol again. So, its now just a matter of waiting to see if I get another attack. And getting on with the cooking. Tonight, I think it will be one of Floyd's finest- hake and potatoes from Floyd on Spain. I wont be getting out the bow tie, but I will be raising a large glass of rose in memory of a flawed, but rather endearing man.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Eating out
I enjoyed the England football team's victory over Croatia the other night, which I watched at the home of Marion, my ex-wife, together with our sons, for particularly personal reasons. I'd strolled around there earlier and cooked some pasta - farfalle with a puttenesca sauce that I knocked up in about ten minutes - for all of us, which we ate while watching England demolish the Croatians. Marion had bought some sweetcorn the previous weekend from a pick your own farm and we had them as an utterly delicious starter - simply boiled for a few minutes, and eaten with butter or olive oil and salt and pepper. After the pasta, we had some ripe white nectarines, grapes and a dollop of ice cream for pudding. It was a very pleasant meal - although starters and pudding arent always necessary for midweek suppers - and i savoured every normal, home-cooked mouthful much more than usual. The good football was simply an added bonus. And the reason why? Well, after the match was over, I left the house and walked briskly for ten minutes up the Holloway Road to the Whittington Hospital, returning to my bed in Bridges ward, where I had spent the last five days.
By the time I got there, the lights were already dimmed and the ward quiet. Although my night out had been happily sanctioned by the nurses, I felt a bit like a guilty soldier returning late from a evening pass in town, a prisoner on day release or a boarding school abscondee. But at least soldiers prisoners and boarders get televisions and gyms - nothing like that in Bridges ward at the Whittington.
I'd been in the hospital since the previous Thursday evening when I checked into casualty, desperate for pain relief to ease the agonising stomach cramps that, by then, had lasted for three hours. I was given a big shot of morphine and admitted for the night. The source of the problem was a rogue gall stone in my bile duct - or so I had been told - which had been left behind when my gangrenous gall bladder (and up to fifty stones) had been removed in an emergency operation in April. Now this remaining gall stone had grown, was rumbling around in my bile duct and had been causing me intermittent but worsening pain for several weeks: I'd lost a whole day of holiday in Turkey to this pain and had spent an agonising and sleepless night the previous weekend before the Thursday attack. By the time I admitted myself to the Whittington, I was already being seen as an outpatient and had been told that the way of dealing with this was a ERCP - basically, they send a tube down my throat with a camera and a scalpel on the end of it and cut the bottom of the bile duct to release the gall stone. Its relatively simple procedure, done under local anaesthetic.
To cut a long story short, after my admittance I was told the next morning that I had the choice of staying in hospital, which would accelerate the process, so I might get the ERCP within a few days. If I discharged myself, then I was back to being an outpatient, with an ERCP possibly a few weeks away. It was also pointed out that, should another attack occur - which it did, with 12 hours of pain on Sunday, alleviated only by two morphine shots - I was in the best possible place. I was also suffering from mild jaundice because of the damage to my liver and I needed treatment for that.
I did ask for a weekend pass - I had a full social programme lined up, including a party on the Friday night given by one of my Goldsmiths' colleagues for our outgoing MA class that I had been really looking forward too- and had been in the middle of cooking for when I was overcome by the pains. But was told that if I left then they would have to give the bed to someone else and I would be discharged. As it happens, I wasn't feeling top notch - the day after each attack I always feel a bit battered - and could not have drunk anyway - so it was probably the best thing.
So, I decided to stick it out, hence my five days on Bridges ward. Well, it was supposed to be shorter, but the NHS being what it is, things kept getting delayed. And, once I recovered from the Thursday attack, I felt reasonably ok and determined not to be confined by the hospital routine any more than necessary. Between these attacks, I've been feeling fine, going to the gym etc. So, I nipped home from the hospital a couple of times over the weekend for clothes and other supplies and to eat decent food - I didnt want to waste what was left in the fridge. And I made use of a little internet cafe near the hospital to keep in touch with friends and work. I regret I didnt manage to get my running gear brought in.
I also went for a stroll down the Holloway Road to the Saturday morning organic market near St Johns Way. This is a small market - only about half a dozen traders on a wide bit of pavement - but included an excellent farm fruit and vegetables stall, from which I bought some lovely early season apples and Victoria plums; the rest of the produce looked terrific and I felt disappointed I couldn't take it away to cook with. There were also a great looking cheese stall, someone selling huge loaves of fresh bread, a sushi stall and a woman offering hot sausages in ciabatta. All very promising and certainly brightens up the often tawdry and traffic choked Holloway Road. . As in the way these things seems to grow, someone had also set up a second hand bookstall, which was attracting several browsers. The market is also outside a wonderful shop selling Iranian foods - a good selection of fruit and veg and massive bunches of fresh herbs, together with real Middle Eastern pastries, home made humous and other delights worth investigating. Long may such ventures prosper.
If anything needs the same treatment that Jamie Oliver meeted out to school meals, its hospital food. Even more than school meals, it is self evident that hospital food should be healthy, vibrant, balanced, attractive to eat. So why do they offer white sugar with the already over sweet breakfast cereals? 'It's because people ask us for it,' said the orderly. Why do they only offer white bread for toast (actually they don't offer toast, just bread. You have to plead for toast) Why is there only full fat milk with the tea and coffee. Why do they insist on plonking heavy, overcooked meat and watery veg meals in front of people at noon and at five? Most people seem to leave the majority of food on their plates. The menu seems stuck in the dark ages - more white bread sandwiches, pre-historic ideas of salads, stews and pies, endless nursery food. The waste incredible. And dont start me off on the almost entire absence of recycling in the hospital anyway. I despaired. If you want your food brought in, there wasn't even a microwave for heating stuff up - and, I learnt in my earlier stay, patients aren't allowed to use themselves anyway - its that health and safety thing.
While I caught up on my sleep and reading (Margaret Attwood's The Handmaids Tale and Dylan's Chronicles Vol 1) I survived by a combination of having some cold food brought into me ( I'm a not a massive fan of M&S, but thank heaven for their substantial salads) buying sandwiches and coffees at or the High Street-style food court in the hospital complex (a bit pricey, but a lifesaver in many ways) and nipping out on two evenings to local places - pasta one night, pizza the next - as well as the Wednesday night stroll down the Holloway Road to Marions. And the fruit from the Saturday market. Okay, a cost a bit, but not much more than normal food buying and I wasnt' spending much on anything else. What I really felt sorry for were those who were unable to wander around the hospital as I was or unable to afford the cost of a ham and cheese panini downstairs.
I was discharged late on Thursday night, without having had the operation - they couldnt get me on the list that day - and feeling I had largely wasted a week of my life. But I've got a bag full of painkilling drugs in case of another attack (statistically speaking, I'm overdue for one) and an outpatient appointment for it to be dealt with at another hospital next week.
And best of all? I'm back in my kitchen.
By the time I got there, the lights were already dimmed and the ward quiet. Although my night out had been happily sanctioned by the nurses, I felt a bit like a guilty soldier returning late from a evening pass in town, a prisoner on day release or a boarding school abscondee. But at least soldiers prisoners and boarders get televisions and gyms - nothing like that in Bridges ward at the Whittington.
I'd been in the hospital since the previous Thursday evening when I checked into casualty, desperate for pain relief to ease the agonising stomach cramps that, by then, had lasted for three hours. I was given a big shot of morphine and admitted for the night. The source of the problem was a rogue gall stone in my bile duct - or so I had been told - which had been left behind when my gangrenous gall bladder (and up to fifty stones) had been removed in an emergency operation in April. Now this remaining gall stone had grown, was rumbling around in my bile duct and had been causing me intermittent but worsening pain for several weeks: I'd lost a whole day of holiday in Turkey to this pain and had spent an agonising and sleepless night the previous weekend before the Thursday attack. By the time I admitted myself to the Whittington, I was already being seen as an outpatient and had been told that the way of dealing with this was a ERCP - basically, they send a tube down my throat with a camera and a scalpel on the end of it and cut the bottom of the bile duct to release the gall stone. Its relatively simple procedure, done under local anaesthetic.
To cut a long story short, after my admittance I was told the next morning that I had the choice of staying in hospital, which would accelerate the process, so I might get the ERCP within a few days. If I discharged myself, then I was back to being an outpatient, with an ERCP possibly a few weeks away. It was also pointed out that, should another attack occur - which it did, with 12 hours of pain on Sunday, alleviated only by two morphine shots - I was in the best possible place. I was also suffering from mild jaundice because of the damage to my liver and I needed treatment for that.
I did ask for a weekend pass - I had a full social programme lined up, including a party on the Friday night given by one of my Goldsmiths' colleagues for our outgoing MA class that I had been really looking forward too- and had been in the middle of cooking for when I was overcome by the pains. But was told that if I left then they would have to give the bed to someone else and I would be discharged. As it happens, I wasn't feeling top notch - the day after each attack I always feel a bit battered - and could not have drunk anyway - so it was probably the best thing.
So, I decided to stick it out, hence my five days on Bridges ward. Well, it was supposed to be shorter, but the NHS being what it is, things kept getting delayed. And, once I recovered from the Thursday attack, I felt reasonably ok and determined not to be confined by the hospital routine any more than necessary. Between these attacks, I've been feeling fine, going to the gym etc. So, I nipped home from the hospital a couple of times over the weekend for clothes and other supplies and to eat decent food - I didnt want to waste what was left in the fridge. And I made use of a little internet cafe near the hospital to keep in touch with friends and work. I regret I didnt manage to get my running gear brought in.
I also went for a stroll down the Holloway Road to the Saturday morning organic market near St Johns Way. This is a small market - only about half a dozen traders on a wide bit of pavement - but included an excellent farm fruit and vegetables stall, from which I bought some lovely early season apples and Victoria plums; the rest of the produce looked terrific and I felt disappointed I couldn't take it away to cook with. There were also a great looking cheese stall, someone selling huge loaves of fresh bread, a sushi stall and a woman offering hot sausages in ciabatta. All very promising and certainly brightens up the often tawdry and traffic choked Holloway Road. . As in the way these things seems to grow, someone had also set up a second hand bookstall, which was attracting several browsers. The market is also outside a wonderful shop selling Iranian foods - a good selection of fruit and veg and massive bunches of fresh herbs, together with real Middle Eastern pastries, home made humous and other delights worth investigating. Long may such ventures prosper.
If anything needs the same treatment that Jamie Oliver meeted out to school meals, its hospital food. Even more than school meals, it is self evident that hospital food should be healthy, vibrant, balanced, attractive to eat. So why do they offer white sugar with the already over sweet breakfast cereals? 'It's because people ask us for it,' said the orderly. Why do they only offer white bread for toast (actually they don't offer toast, just bread. You have to plead for toast) Why is there only full fat milk with the tea and coffee. Why do they insist on plonking heavy, overcooked meat and watery veg meals in front of people at noon and at five? Most people seem to leave the majority of food on their plates. The menu seems stuck in the dark ages - more white bread sandwiches, pre-historic ideas of salads, stews and pies, endless nursery food. The waste incredible. And dont start me off on the almost entire absence of recycling in the hospital anyway. I despaired. If you want your food brought in, there wasn't even a microwave for heating stuff up - and, I learnt in my earlier stay, patients aren't allowed to use themselves anyway - its that health and safety thing.
While I caught up on my sleep and reading (Margaret Attwood's The Handmaids Tale and Dylan's Chronicles Vol 1) I survived by a combination of having some cold food brought into me ( I'm a not a massive fan of M&S, but thank heaven for their substantial salads) buying sandwiches and coffees at or the High Street-style food court in the hospital complex (a bit pricey, but a lifesaver in many ways) and nipping out on two evenings to local places - pasta one night, pizza the next - as well as the Wednesday night stroll down the Holloway Road to Marions. And the fruit from the Saturday market. Okay, a cost a bit, but not much more than normal food buying and I wasnt' spending much on anything else. What I really felt sorry for were those who were unable to wander around the hospital as I was or unable to afford the cost of a ham and cheese panini downstairs.
I was discharged late on Thursday night, without having had the operation - they couldnt get me on the list that day - and feeling I had largely wasted a week of my life. But I've got a bag full of painkilling drugs in case of another attack (statistically speaking, I'm overdue for one) and an outpatient appointment for it to be dealt with at another hospital next week.
And best of all? I'm back in my kitchen.
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