Do we need a Kitchen Revolution...?

The new buzz around town seems to be The Kitchen Revolution, published by Ebury soon. It claims that you can save money, reduce your food miles and basically rescue your slightly tarnished halo by learning to live with leftovers. The basic premise is it gives you a menu plan that starts with your big Sunday roast, then gives you menus to follow throughout the week to use up the leftovers, interspersed with the odd seasonal recipe, a bit of (no doubt well-stocked) larder raiding and bulk-cooking. Sorry, but does any of this sound terribly familiar? Haven't people been banging on on this theme for some time now and isn't it what might be known as 'common sense'? And have we really become so far removed from our kitchens that no-one even has leftovers any more.. (ready meals don't leave a lot, i grant you, but are we really just throwing that food away - it seems so). I suspect that, for a lot of people who only buy neat and tidy chicken breasts, lamb chops, pork fillet, etc, the idea of using leftovers from the shoulder of pork might send them into a flat spin, but have we really forgotten how to make bubble and squeak, soup, hash, sandwiches, for God's sake? (I'm quite cross now - people are happy to rant food prices are climbing, but apparently they can't quite see their way clear to reducing their own food waste). Anyway, if you have any great leftover ideas, not only for all those people out there who are au fait with frying up leftover roast potatoes, but for those who do need a kick-start, let me know. I, for one, love Elizabeth David's favourite recipe for leftover roast lamb with rice - Suleiman's Special, I think - but I always struggle with roast pork.

Farm Shops -what should they sell

Yesterday I received an interesting piece of research from Speciality Food Magazine's news alert. Farm shops - according to the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society - are growing at 15 to 20% over the past year, the fastest rise of all sectors. Now I suspected this to be true if for no other reason than farm shops are one of the highly searched for terms on my website http://www.foodloversbritain.com/ and of course I'm jolly pleased. But it does raise the question - What is a farm shop? Is it just a shop on a farm (in other words it could be anywhere) or must it offer some connection to the land and sell produce from that farm? Sometimes when I visit a farm shop it has nothing to do with where it is, it could be anywhere - in fact no difference from a corner shop, it just happens to be on a farm. This I think isnt on - our expectations are that a farm shop should offer own produce, then some local and some from the area - otherwise why bother. What do you think? Is it important? And when you come across these farm shops do they put you off the real thing?

Honey......as sweet as.......

Just reeling from a honey tasting courtesy of Rowse Honey. I have, literally, gone into sugar overload but in spite of that, it was an interesting experience. I learnt two things in particular that I want to "share". One that honey is a mixture of fructose and glucose and the more glucose a honey contains, the more likely it is to crystallise (i.e. set). Secondly that as bees travel a certain distance - some say a radius of two, others up to six miles from the hive - I thought it it was where the hive was placed that determined what the honey was called. So if it's put in an orchard, it's a blossom honey; in other words a bit of hit-and-miss guesswork but, apparently not so. Pollen has a different shape according to the fruit or flower or crop it comes from and it shows under a microscope - so you can actually tell scientificially. Interesting huh.......

Pick Your Own

This weekend I spent a happy, bright Sunday afternoon picking my own fruit and vegetables for the week from a Pick Your Own in Worthing, West Sussex with my family. Our intention was just to pick strawberries for jam making, but with fresh peas, broad beans and onions ready for harvesting, it was impossible to walk away. Searching through the tumbling pea plants for pods plump with peas, I secretly popped some. My first experience of freshly picked peas was a massive surprise, their sweetness never experienced before... and one to be repeated before the season is out. Making our way from the fields, laden with an abundance of strawberries, peas, spinach, and onions I spotted a sign for rhubarb. It's the only polarising food in our house, but I love rhubarb and could not miss the opportunity pick it straight from the field. Pulling the long red stalks from the plant, the popping sound gave an indication of how stringy it could be. A thoroughly satisfying time resulted in a more bountiful crop than planned prooving a somewhat over ambitious amount for breakfast. So, I am currently planning the next trip to a PYO to coincide with some of my seasonal favourites, and I am particularly looking forward to the blackcurrants coming later this month!