One of the reasons that I still enjoy journalism so much is that occasionally one gets to go to places, do things and meet people you might otherwise not get the chance to do. I'm not talking here about terrorist bombings or disasters but more personal things. Watching a visiting shoal of dolphins from a Greenpeace boat on a bright morning in the middle of the Channel, testing out a new interactive art installation at the Tate or ploughing through an autumnal New Forest in search of mushrooms in the company of a slightly mad, but highly entertaining mushroom expert are just three of the many moments that spring to mind. On those occasions I feel lucky and privileged to be a journalist and it makes me think that, after more than three decades, its still something I want to carry on doing, at least until I get a proper job.
Today was one of those moments when I was asked by the Evening Standard to go to the memorial service for the late great Sir John Mortimer at Southwark Cathedral. Now Sir John was someone I have admired for many years - from when he defended the publishers of Schoolkids Oz at the Old Bailey, through the Rumpole and Leslie Titmus years, right up to his wheelchair bound old age, when, surrounded by a bevy of admiring young women, quaffing his daily glass of champagne, he remained full of opinions, anecdotes, jokes and life generally. He was, as one speaker put it today, a perfect example to us all of how to grow old properly.
I rang him up a couple of times over the years, as did many journalists, to seek his views on matters legal or literary and he was always fun to talk to, always full of good quotes - and knew exactly what he was saying - and always seemed to have plenty of time to talk, despite his busy life entertaining his female friends and lunching. The last time was in the spring of last year when I called to ask his views on plans to modernise the bar. After being instructed by his secretary to call his direct line in two minutes, that familiar, croaky, distinctive voice came on the line, now though terribly wheezy. We spoke for a few minutes and he was as entertaining, friendly and quotable as ever.
Unfortunately, I think he then got me on the redial of his phone and I had about three more calls from him over the next couple of hours when he clearly called me by mistake. I felt terrible about the fact that I had to tell one of the great raconteurs and conversationalists of the age - someone who, it was said today, preferred 'an amusing fib to a boring fact' - that I really didn't have any more questions for him - and was up against a deadline.
So it was with some of these thoughts going through my mind that I sat in Southwark Cathedral today. Not only was it a privilege to be there anyway, alongside many of the great and good from the arts world like Alan Rickman, Sir Peter Hall, Alan Yentob, Richard Eyre and Tom Stoppard, but also to listen to some spellbinding readings - Sir Derek Jacobi, Patricia Hodge and Edward Fox all delivered passages from Sir John's work, while Joss Ackland read from the Bible and Jeremy Irons from Thomas Hardy. There was also some lovely music: Thomas Tallis, one of my favourite arias from the Marriage of Figaro and some classical pieces by Jon Lord, the former member of Deep Purple who became a friend of Mortimer.
I'm like Sir John himself, who, Lord Kinnock said, was a 'devout unbeliever' and an 'Atheist for Jesus,' but cannot deny that the soaring arches of Southwark provided a stunning and moving backdrop to such fine words and music in honour of a great man. As I said, something of a privilege....
Here's the piece I wrote:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23770782-great-gather-for-a-voyage-round-sir-john-mortimer.do
And now for my daily glass of champagne...
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Tomorrow, I'm off to the hospital for my check-up following the stomach problems I had during the summer and I'm happy to say that since having a tube poked around my stomach in September, I've felt perfectly fit and fine, without a trace of the terrible pains that dogged me in July and August. Which is a good job, because I've been so rushed off my feet over the past weeks by a combination of work and socialising, I haven't had time to be ill again...
Some of the socialising was, happily, combined with work, because I had to stage dinner parties for people coming over to help me test wines for two pieces for the Independent - one on red wines for autumn and the other on low alcohol wines. Well, you can't invite people over to taste wine without giving them something to eat, can you? (I am reminded of a comment I once read about a particularly garrulous and disputatious well known media couple, who it was said, would invite people around for an argument and then, almost as an afterthought, throw some food at them....)
Well I cant resist throwing some food at people, given the opportunity. So it was stuffed squid, spiced mackeral and roast poussin and quail for the red wine night, which was following by, for me, the highlight of the evening, the spectacular cheese board prepared by my friends Angela and Jeremy. Angela had been in Paris the night before and visited a fromagerie on her way back to the Eurostar and they arrived with Jeremy bearing a vast board, laid out with chevres, soft, blue and hard cheese and all manner of other things like grapes, nuts, dates, crackers and breads. Such style. I'm glad some of the wines stood out as well - here are the ten best for the Indy..
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-ten-best-autumn-reds-1810923.html
There were several other very good wines which just failed to make the cut, but I'll post on them later.
On October 31, there were more people around to taste low alcohol wines and, of course, a vaguely Halloween themed meal. I agonised over this for some time - not wanting to be silly (ghoulish masks for everyone and tomato 'blood' sauce were both immediately ruled out) but also relishing the challenge of sticking to certain rules. Everthing had to be orange and black or white, more or less the colours of Halloween. So it was pumpkin soup, morcilla sausages with apple and celariac puree and Portugese Feijoada, made with black beans, pork and chorizo as a main course, followed by black plums in white port. Well, it sort of stuck within the rules. And was fun. I was going to do a cuttlefish ink paella, but one guest, Nick, doesnt do fish at all, so that was out...
The Feijoada was, out of necessity, a cross between the original Portugese version, which uses Red kidney beans and the Brazilian one, with black beans and a more varied selection of meats. A dish I had always wanted to cook. It also led me to an interesting chat with the lady who runs a little Portugese cafe in north Finchley, where I had gone to seek peri peri, the Portugese tabasco like sauce, used to give the dish greater heat. She didn't have any to sell me, but took sympathy on my plight and eventually gave me a bottle of her own, firmly refusing payment. I promised to return to eat her own Feijoada one Saturday night - it looked an interesting place, with Portugese football on the tv and families scoffing hearty food, kids running around. My kind of cafe.
Anyway, Glenda (who I hadn't seen for some time and on whom motherhood has cast a kind of beauteous glow) asked for the recipe, so here it is:
Ingredients: for about 6-8 people:
Two/three large onions, thin sliced.
A whole bulb of garlic, chopped.
Two dried chillies, soaked in warm water until soft and chopped, water reserved.
Six or eight cooking chorizo, depending on size, cut into thirds. They have to be cooking ones, not the salami type.
Or use a chorizo/morcilla combination
About 2lbs pork shoulder, in bite size pieces
A packet of pancetta
Sliced red and green peppers (sort of optional)
Black beans, soaked overnight
Cup of tomato passata or sauce
Two pints at least chicken or vegetable stock.
You need a big casserole dish for this.
Season the meats and fry in olive oil in casserole until well browned. Remove with slotted spoon. Do not throw away the oil.
Gently soften onions, then garlic and chopped chillies in the oil, for about 20 minutes.
When they are soft, add the tomato passata, peppers if you want, and cook for another 15 minutes to get a rich, thick sauce. Season. Add more chilli if you want it hot.
Return the meats, add the drained beans and the chicken stock. Bring to the boil and simmer over a high heat for about ten minutes.
Then put it in the oven on a very low heat, gas mark four, covered, for about 2-3 hours, so it just bubbles away. You will almost certainly need to add more water/stock to keep it moist.
Serve liberally garnished with coriander and lime slices (This is Portugal, not Spain), copious amounts of rice (or fried potatoes) and that peri-peri on the side. It needs a really robust wine and any of the Ten Best I mentioned earlier would do fine, apart from the Pinot Noir, which might be a little overwhelmed. For authenticity, I'd suggest the Portugese Touriga Nacional 2007, made from the grapes used for port and just £6.99 from M&S.
The wines I certainly would not recommend with such a full flavoured dish were the low alcohol wines we tried earlier the same evening, which simply left us craving for the real thing...here's what we thought....http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/how-low-can-you-go-do-reducedalcohol-wines-pass-the-taste-test-1818842.html
Must go, have a son who needs the computer and a couple of pheasants to stuff....
Some of the socialising was, happily, combined with work, because I had to stage dinner parties for people coming over to help me test wines for two pieces for the Independent - one on red wines for autumn and the other on low alcohol wines. Well, you can't invite people over to taste wine without giving them something to eat, can you? (I am reminded of a comment I once read about a particularly garrulous and disputatious well known media couple, who it was said, would invite people around for an argument and then, almost as an afterthought, throw some food at them....)
Well I cant resist throwing some food at people, given the opportunity. So it was stuffed squid, spiced mackeral and roast poussin and quail for the red wine night, which was following by, for me, the highlight of the evening, the spectacular cheese board prepared by my friends Angela and Jeremy. Angela had been in Paris the night before and visited a fromagerie on her way back to the Eurostar and they arrived with Jeremy bearing a vast board, laid out with chevres, soft, blue and hard cheese and all manner of other things like grapes, nuts, dates, crackers and breads. Such style. I'm glad some of the wines stood out as well - here are the ten best for the Indy..
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-ten-best-autumn-reds-1810923.html
There were several other very good wines which just failed to make the cut, but I'll post on them later.
On October 31, there were more people around to taste low alcohol wines and, of course, a vaguely Halloween themed meal. I agonised over this for some time - not wanting to be silly (ghoulish masks for everyone and tomato 'blood' sauce were both immediately ruled out) but also relishing the challenge of sticking to certain rules. Everthing had to be orange and black or white, more or less the colours of Halloween. So it was pumpkin soup, morcilla sausages with apple and celariac puree and Portugese Feijoada, made with black beans, pork and chorizo as a main course, followed by black plums in white port. Well, it sort of stuck within the rules. And was fun. I was going to do a cuttlefish ink paella, but one guest, Nick, doesnt do fish at all, so that was out...
The Feijoada was, out of necessity, a cross between the original Portugese version, which uses Red kidney beans and the Brazilian one, with black beans and a more varied selection of meats. A dish I had always wanted to cook. It also led me to an interesting chat with the lady who runs a little Portugese cafe in north Finchley, where I had gone to seek peri peri, the Portugese tabasco like sauce, used to give the dish greater heat. She didn't have any to sell me, but took sympathy on my plight and eventually gave me a bottle of her own, firmly refusing payment. I promised to return to eat her own Feijoada one Saturday night - it looked an interesting place, with Portugese football on the tv and families scoffing hearty food, kids running around. My kind of cafe.
Anyway, Glenda (who I hadn't seen for some time and on whom motherhood has cast a kind of beauteous glow) asked for the recipe, so here it is:
Ingredients: for about 6-8 people:
Two/three large onions, thin sliced.
A whole bulb of garlic, chopped.
Two dried chillies, soaked in warm water until soft and chopped, water reserved.
Six or eight cooking chorizo, depending on size, cut into thirds. They have to be cooking ones, not the salami type.
Or use a chorizo/morcilla combination
About 2lbs pork shoulder, in bite size pieces
A packet of pancetta
Sliced red and green peppers (sort of optional)
Black beans, soaked overnight
Cup of tomato passata or sauce
Two pints at least chicken or vegetable stock.
You need a big casserole dish for this.
Season the meats and fry in olive oil in casserole until well browned. Remove with slotted spoon. Do not throw away the oil.
Gently soften onions, then garlic and chopped chillies in the oil, for about 20 minutes.
When they are soft, add the tomato passata, peppers if you want, and cook for another 15 minutes to get a rich, thick sauce. Season. Add more chilli if you want it hot.
Return the meats, add the drained beans and the chicken stock. Bring to the boil and simmer over a high heat for about ten minutes.
Then put it in the oven on a very low heat, gas mark four, covered, for about 2-3 hours, so it just bubbles away. You will almost certainly need to add more water/stock to keep it moist.
Serve liberally garnished with coriander and lime slices (This is Portugal, not Spain), copious amounts of rice (or fried potatoes) and that peri-peri on the side. It needs a really robust wine and any of the Ten Best I mentioned earlier would do fine, apart from the Pinot Noir, which might be a little overwhelmed. For authenticity, I'd suggest the Portugese Touriga Nacional 2007, made from the grapes used for port and just £6.99 from M&S.
The wines I certainly would not recommend with such a full flavoured dish were the low alcohol wines we tried earlier the same evening, which simply left us craving for the real thing...here's what we thought....http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/how-low-can-you-go-do-reducedalcohol-wines-pass-the-taste-test-1818842.html
Must go, have a son who needs the computer and a couple of pheasants to stuff....
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