A MONSTER. (14/03/14)

All the photographs I’ve seen of the Loch Ness Monster…Nessy….have been of such poor quality that I refused to believe the beast exists. On Wednesday the fish van came round and I bought a small monster. It’s tail fell off in the back of the fishmongers van, thank heaven. They sell these by weight and nobody I know eats fish tails. It isn’t a monster at all but is an Arbroath Smokey. I find them the finest of hot smoked fish. The Haddock is gutted, salted overnight, dried for a day then hot smoked for about an hour. They tie them in pairs by their tails, hang them on a stick in big tubs with smouldering wood chips underneath then seal the lid with wet sacks. You can enjoy them cold with bread and butter. I like them hot with basmati rice flavoured with lime juice.

Today I’m going to make Cullen Skink. Boil some potatoes in milk and a bit of water, chop an onion in, then as the potatoes start to dissolve into the cooking liquid add a few more cut into lumps. When these are half cooked about ten minutes later, the liquid and potatoes should be like thinish porridge or very thick soup, add cream, I don’t, I add crème frais or Greek Yoghurt. If you live in Spain the Creme Cocina is brilliant, you can boil it without it seperating. Flake the fish in being careful you don’t get the skin or bones and the result is a meal fit for a king.

Kings and Queens are a stupid lot. Hereditary power and inbreeding must be the daftest way of ensuring success in anything. Don’t blame me if yours tastes disappointing. My brother was a superb chef, it’s not my fault if it isn’t in the genes.

I woke this morning to the sad news that Tony Benn died in the early hours. In the seventies he was part of an era of entertaining politicians. I miss conviction politicians.

The weather here is warm, windy and wet. Even the night temperature last night was 9^oC it’s got to eleven today. The wind is gusting 40mph and the rain is being blown along with it….Not nice.

I wish I knew what causes this steam to rise from Pine forests in rainy weather. I used to think it was mist caused by inversion. This morning it looked more like low cloud being caught in the tops of the trees.

This is in colour. I see there isn’t any, ‘By Gum’ it’s ‘ard up ‘ere.

    I think this is Hard Fern. The brown bits under the leaves are sorris, spill chucker couldn’t help, they may be soris; they send out seeds for new ferns. It’s far too complicated for me.

    Gorse, my first flower of the year. It is invasive but it grows almost anywhere that other plants don’t like.

Have a wonderful weekend.