Denniblog

Last week my sister was visiting, and on Saturday the sun peeked through the clouds just about long enough for us to attempt our once-a-year BBQ cook-out.

The occasion—aside from her visit—was our 19th wedding anniversary. John’s workmates had given him a bottle of champagne which would probably have gone undrunk until our silver jubilee, if it was just the two of us. (Well, I would have drunk it, but that’s not really the idea…). So, with the strawberry season at it’s peak, the starter was a no-brainer:

With just three people attending, it was hard to restrain myself when it came to the prep. I reluctantly gave up on humous, seeing that I was out of tahini anyway. I also didn’t have any aubergines, but we needed a Mediterranean influence so I made mini lamb köfte balls:

500g lamb mince; 4 spring onions; 1 batch ras-el-hanout (Waitrose does an authentic mix. Failing that, it’s 1 pinch allspice, 2tsp nutmeg, 20 threads saffron, 1½tsp black pepper, 1½tsp mace, 1tsp cinnamon, 1½tsp cardamom, 2tsp ginger, 2tsp salt. Really, this also ought to have rose petals in there. Waitrose’s does, but it doesn’t have saffron. Use 2-4 tbsp.); 2 cloves garlic; handful chopped coriander; 10(!) tbsp sesame seeds, slightly toasted.

This mixture freezes well. Make walnut-sized balls, roll in (corn)flour and thread onto soaked bamboo skewers (these give better hold than metal skewers). Serve piled into miniature pita pockets lined with lettuce leaves and drizzled with tzaziki (full fat yoghurt with cucumber—peeled, grated and squeezed—spring onion, garlic, lemon juice and fresh mint).

They also go well with vegetable skewers: peel 2-3 mushrooms per skewer, score the caps cross-wise and marinade for an hour or so in balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, oil, fresh thyme and black pepper. Toss in a few thick, halved courgette slices and roll some cherry tomatoes in oil. Thread the lot onto skewers and throw it on the BBQ until the tomatoes are soft. Olives, stuffed jalapeños and salad make nice sides.

Naturally, there had to be an Asian influence as well. It’s always good to have some Chinese chilli oil at hand (veggies, note that this contains fermented fish or shrimp). I tried my hand at chicken satay again, after spotting some free range chicken breast at the butcher’s. This dish is better if the meat is cut into very small pieces and threaded onto thin skewers. The chilli oil was needed to liven up the saus kachang which was a bit weak (a strong Thai chilli would fix this). This is derived from my favourite Asian Street Food cookbook:

8tbsp peanut butter; 2tsp jaggery; ½tsp garlic salt; 3tbsp soy sauce; 1tsp blachan (shrimp paste); 1 finely chopped chilli; 100 ml coconut milk; 1tsp lime juice. Heat in sauce pan to combine and add water to desired consistency.

The satay chicken is marinated in a pinch each of cinnamon and tumeric; 1tsp each of ground coriander, cumin and jaggery; 1tbsp crushed salted peanuts; 6 minced spring onions; 2tbsp oil and the grated rind of 1 lime (lemon grass would be better, if any was to be had in Tadley).

The book also provided the base recipe for the enduring classic Indonesian barbecued spare ribs, although I must say that I haven’t come across anything like it in Indonesia. These ribs are usually pre-cooked in the wok or oven and finished on the BBQ, basting frequently. Since I didn’t have enough notice, I stuck the ribs directly on the BBQ. They have to be grilled for a long time over a low heat to cook through. Keep brushing on the sauce with a pastry brush:

2-3 chillies, chopped; 2 cloves garlic; 2cm ginger, sliced; small onion, grated (or 4 spring onions)—mince all this.
1 good slug kecap manis or 1tbsp jaggery; 2tbsp soy sauce; 1tsp nam pla (fish sauce); 1tsp tamarind concentrate; 1tsp tumeric; 1tbsp ketchup; 1tbsp oil.
Coat the ribs with the mix and toss them on the BBQ. There’s no need to marinade.

This was it for the year, or so experience tells me.

We’re unlikely to go abroad this summer (John hasn’t renewed his passport), but we’re off to Scotland next week. Perhaps—just perhaps—we’ll have another BBQ there, if I can dissuade the guys from landing me with 3 (!) assistants when cooking. The current rota spells chaos.

Well, we’ll see.

You can’t help wondering what direction your life might have taken, had things been different.

I still wonder sometimes, even after all these years.

I also wonder how history is recorded.

The current occasion that caused me to wonder is the image of a woman scientist posing in her drysuit in Antarctica.

Search as I may, I can’t find any reference as to when women were allowed to work as equals among men with the British Antarctic Survey. Up until well into the nineties, ads for research positions which were permanently based in the Antarctic stipulated that applicants must be male and physically fit (and—so the joke went—must have a beard).

My entire cohort was denied the opportunity to work in the Antarctic, at least with BAS. I remember that one of the scientists at the Millport marine lab had to start up a collaboration with the Australian Antarctic Survey so that he could allow his female PhD candidate to carry out essential fieldwork there.

And yet, look at the BAS website or at wiki entries and you find no reference that such discrimination ever existed. I can understand that they don’t want to bang on about it, but I believe that my generation of Zoologists is owed an explanation, and an apology. I think that current and future generations are owed the same if they are ever to make sense of their own history.

Whitewashing isn’t the answer and ‘positive discrimination’ is right out. Discrimination, no matter what motives lie behind it, is never positive.

Phew, I’m literally just back from flood defence duty.

We got away with it, this time. The sandbags arrived just as the brook was starting to recede.

We had to bail out the backyard though, and call the plumber for emergency assist before the kitchen and lounge flooded by stealth, thanks to a blocked-up drain.

Internet is creepingly slow when it works, yesterday we had a power outage for five hours and today we have a(nother) flood alert.

Where is this place?

Bangkok?

No: Tadley, England.

I’m in the process of writing up the Greece entries. They’ll be backdated and can be found in the Greece category, for ease of navigation.

The write-up proper starts here, then follow the right-hand link above the entry to get to the next one, etc.

Hm, I see: an entry I wrote while still in Greece has not been posted. That is because of the crappy Wordpress layout. For most blogs, a highlighted ’save’ option means the entry is published. Wordpress saves it as draft. I doubt that I’ll ever get used to it, but it sure drives havoc with the order of my entries.

Then again, since this was the only entry I have written while actually on the road, it doesn’t matter. The rest of the entries will follow over the next week or so, once I’ve sorted out my pictures and whenever I get some spare time.

In other news, this blog has been hit by hundreds of spam comments. Since I get so few genuine comments I’ll just delete them all unread (being unpopular can have its advantages ). Sorry for anyone who’s posted a genuine remark.

[EDIT: comments should now be turned off. If anyone wants to contact me, you know my email, or try via my LJ.]

I wish I could finish on a good note, but nothing went right once we got onto the bus to Heraklion.

The journey took longer than expected, and there was no stopover. A shared spanakopita from the bus station was all we had to sustain us while I fantasised about our Last Supper at the ‘to Xania’ Tavern.

The bus drove past endless beachside developments for what seemed like an hour before we finally got to town.

“There are no door trees here,” John said sadly.

Indeed not. Just a few sad potted saplings and row upon row of concrete.

We had about an hour in the centre of town, and that wasn’t enough to try and find a reasonable taverna. I had to forget about eating lunch in the shade of a plane tree, dithering about what wine to choose, having one final cigarette with my legs stretched under a table.

Instead we quarrelled and spat while we flitted from one kiosk to another, buying up cigarettes and tobacco. When we got onto the bus we had forgotten to also buy tickets, but thankfully the driver accepted change. And at the airport it turned out that the snackbars across the street were closed.

Over two hours to kill and no place to eat except for the truly vile, sole catering franchise which sold the worst cardboard pies I have ever encountered on my travels. With hundreds of people milling around and the restaurant likewise closed (missing out on an opportunity to print money, the stupid cunts), I wished for a Mac Donald’s for the first time since Eastercon.

But the two hours would go past faster than we counted on.

The check-in opened on time, even if it took another twenty minutes or so to sort out the logistics. Then the passengers were sent on, one-by-one, with their suitcases in tow.

“Go to counter 31 to check in your luggage,” the woman said.

Counter 31 was a sight to behold. About 300 people and their luggage were gathered in a queue that stretched from the corner of the hall to the entrance at the opposite side before doubling back on itself, and the sign above the counter read ‘Hamburg check-in’. There wasn’t any point in even trying.

I left John guarding the bags and went looking for answers.

The lady at the information counter sent me to the offices of Goldair Handling which, according to a sign that covered nearly the entire door, is considered by Lufthansa (among others) to be the best.

There I was ignored by another woman who typed boredly on a keyboard until I aroused her attention. She sent me on to the Duty Manager with a few succinct words: “It’s not my problem.”

“Trust me, it is your problem!”

I left with her still staring open-mouthed at my back, but the duty manager must have been notified because when I got back, five or six counters were open and the original queue was much diminished. John had almost reached the desk where people were still ostensibly waiting to check in for their flight to Hamburg.

“Some German bloke came up to me when you were gone,” he said. “He was almost in tears. He said he’d been waiting for 2 hours and his flight to Hamburg was about to depart, whether he could go in front.”

“And?”

“I said no.” A shrug. “Well, I sent him to the managers’ office.”

That’s right: pass on the love.

With that, we had reached the head of the queue. The backpacks had barely left our hands—and we had barely lit a cigarette—when Easyjet invited its special assistance passengers to board the plane.

Several people in the queue began to twitch.

We made our way to security.

There was a tiny grocer’s in the alley of Chania Old Town where we stayed, and since we had decided to get very drunk on our last night, this was the place to get some refreshments before facing the glare of the morning sun.

I was pleased when I handed over the money to the grandmother behind the till: 1.30€. That was cheap.

But wait a minute, that couldn’t be right. The orange juice had a price sticker on it. It was 1 euro. The coke couldn’t just be 30 cents, it’s not even that cheap at Lidl.

I looked at the woman’s wrinkly, smiling eyes and wrestled with my conscience. Difficult as it was, I would have to explain. Otherwise she’d lose out on her livelihood.

So I shook my head and pointed at the receipt. “No, no, no. That is not right. I give you more!”

And was met with blank look.

Thinking myself clever, I went back to the fridge, but of course the coke wasn’t priced. I took out a can of iced tea. That was 80 cents, so I carried it back to the till, pointed at the price sticker on my juice, then at the one on the can and wrote:

€1.80 - 1.30 = €0.50

Then I pointed at the receipt for €1.30 and made the gesture of giving her some money.

Then I searched for—and couldn’t find—my wallet.

Now it was the grandmother’s turn to shake her head. Apparently she now thought that I thought she’d overcharged me. She waved away the iced tea, pointed to the coke and wrote on the receipt:

1.00
  70
1.70

So the coke was only 70 cents. Whatever.

I finished fumbling through my rucksack and discovered the wallet in the juice bag. I fished it out triumphantly and saw that it contained no change.

With her questioning eyes on me, I turned the receipt around and wrote: 0.50€ (a gesture from me to her), 4.50 (a gesture from her to me) and handed over 5 euros.

She shook her head emphatically, turned the receipt over and scribbled in decisive strokes:

1.00
  70
1.70

Then she took the fiver and gave me €2.30 change.

Our guidebook, so the blurb on the back cover claims, is like ‘having a local friend’.

If only.

I always thought it would be great to have a local friend: to get an insight into people’s day-to-day life, to have somebody to guide you around town or teach you about food.

I had forgotten that the trouble with travelling is that you have to leave the local friend behind.

We’re missing Yanis, although I doubt that he’ll miss us as much. He has many friends; he makes new ones every day, and those who meet him are lucky people indeed. The Cosmogonia Bar is one of those rare places I won’t forget. It will stay with me as I grow old, alongside fading memories of a shisha house in Cairo, a beach off Dar es Salaam, a table in a shady village square in the then Zaïre where a man with flashing eyes and ebony skin seduced me and I contemplated eloping for the first time until, panicked, I hurried on.

These are all sites of passing acquaintances. Moving on left a little pang and a lasting—but hazy—memory. There were closer friendships as well. People I felt sure I would meet again one day, and perhaps with the age of the internet there will be a truly global community of ‘local friends’: travellers and those who reciprocate and come to visit them in London, Sydney or New York.

Ironically, for all the friends that Yanis has made in Europe, Australia and the US, he has yet to travel anywhere. He’s too busy.

One Cretan speciality I wanted to try as soon as I spotted the main ingredients piled up in net bags in wicker baskets at the greengrocer’s were snails.

I refrained from purchasing one of those bags (about 7€ per kg.), remembering my promise about not bringing fish, fowl or other creatures into the homestay kitchenette. Besides, I didn’t have the first idea how to set about preparing the things.

None of the lower-end tavernas had snails on their menu. I wished for access to a kitchen with a friendly chef who could teach me about them.

Enter Yanis.

We had asked him whether the Cosmogonia Bar does food. To be honest, late evenings the place is plenty busy serving beer (each order is accompanied by different nibbles), and the bar is surrounded by cafés and restaurants that do. Yanis said he serves breakfast and lunchtime snacks in the season, and yes, mezedhes might be a good idea to stimulate business during early evenings. After all he did have a kitchen.

So we talked about Cretan food, and we talked about snails and Yanis said: “Why don’t I make some for you tomorrow? Come at about eleven, then you can taste them.”

And I said: “Oh, can I watch you and learn how to prepare them?”

It was early in the evening of the fateful night that almost ended in a bar fight. As predicted, the following morning my head was nearly killing me and the tension hadn’t worn off. I was in two minds about going to see Yanis, but I was damn glad that I did, even if I was a bit monosyllabic. He had been expecting me.

We spent almost the entire afternoon in the kitchen, batch-processing a kilogram of snails, with Yanis nearly forgetting about the customers who trickled into the bar every now and then.

All in the name of friendship.
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