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July 30, 2004
visit the switzerland of England
Last weekend I happened to be in London, and some friends (under the auspices of mapclub) went to visit St. Pancras Chambers. It's in a pretty sad state, due to civil service malaise and industry innovation. Others have chronicled the Chambers in pictures and words, but two things stood out for me.
The first were letters written from management in the Midlands to the stations, train staff and hotel catering department. They implored use of new ingredients, and deplored falling standards. I can only imagine what this daily/weekly flow of memoranda from faceless managers did to kitchen morale.
Here are some of the memos:
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I have lately been very disappointed with the quality of the thick soups supplied at our Stations and Hotels, and I shall be glad if you will pay special attention to this in future, taking care that the soups are not made too floury, and that very strong herbs and spice are not used too freely. Please see that the calves head and oxtail are well cooked and that a nice piece of the meat is given with each basin of calves head, and a nice succulent piece of Oxtail with this soup. I am sure if you pay a little more attention to the cooking of the soup you will improve the quality of the soup, and also please our customers.
I have also noticed lately that the Scotch Broth is often washy, and that the stock is not sufficiently good and the barley not cooked enough. I hope to see an improvement in these matters.
Midland Grand Hotel.
London. Oct 16th 1895
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I think you ought to be able to sell a good number of potted meat sandwiches during the winter time,if they are made fresh for the customers. These sandwiches require to be made with fresh soft bread,well buttered,and it is essential that they should be sold while they are fresh. You will of course take care not to have more than one tip open at a time. If you have a neat card on the dish of sandwiches I think you should sell a lot of them.
From this time pleasse keep a record of what potted meat sandwiches you sell at your station,and send a return in each week to Derby. Acknowledge receipt.
Miss Wilson.
1st Class.
Mar.2nd 96
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I am sending a small box of capsules of Maggi's Consommé which I personally think very highly of. I am anxious for you to give it to a few of your customers to give opinion about it. These capsules can be supplied at 3d each or 6d per basin which includes bread and the use of a napkin. Will you please make an experiment so as to get a reliable opinion for me as to whether the thing would be a success at our stations.
Miss Hartshorn.
Chesterfield.
FROZEN SALMON.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Please note that as frozen salmon is dangerous food, it must on no account be purchased or supplied in our Hotels, Refreshment Rooms or Dining Cars.
There are more in my rather extensive photo gallery.
The second thing that caught my eye is the details of the St. Pancras redevelopment; part of this detailed maps of various cities with the development site outlined. As though King's Cross was walled; a medieval fieftown dropped into world cities.
One final thing - go visit the Midlands, the Switzerland of England.
St. Pancras Chambers is open for public viewing on tours at weekends, and the entrance hall and coffee lounge only from 9-5 weekdays.
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July 26, 2004
london food
A weekend of much digestion: Portuguese, English, Greek, Portuguese, English.
There really is nothing closer to an addiction for me than properly grilled chicken and extra hot peri-peri sauce.
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July 22, 2004
quark
Someone was a bit enthusastic with the canteen quark.
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my bakery
This bakery is on the street corner next to my block of flats. Being July, it's closed at the moment, but come August, this could be dangerous.
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fruit + nut
This is my bin at work. I think an angry fruitarian squirrel has been sitting at my desk.
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July 20, 2004
on knives
This is a really great innovation in knives - for bread, and for certain other foods, a sawing action is far more appropriate than the lancing action of a normal knife. This (cheap Ikea) knife has a redesigned handle, allowing far easier slicing
It's turning into unofficial food week here on anti-mega...
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July 18, 2004
for starters
Last night I cooked for some friends (a proper housewarming will take place when the Finns get back from holiday). I love cooking, but I'm a slow cook, and I enjoy it most when cooking for myself - no pressure, you can experiment, and you can take your time. Cooking is a flow activity for me, and normally I'm eating the dish as it gets made - just to check it's ok, of course.
I haven't cooked for others in a long while (years if you discount boyfriends); I hate trying to coordinate many courses, plus side dishes. Timing of veg is always a problem. However, I think I've discovered the secrets: pre-prep *everything* (I had little baggies and bowls containing every part of the dishes), don't cook more than one course (unless one can, say, put it in the oven and forget about completely), and don't make more than two courses (which tends to break down into 'buy dessert - professionals will always be able to do it better than you'). A stopclock is a great idea too; one that counts up works best for my mind.
I'm a big Nigel Slater fan - honest quick food using good ingredients, and I was going to do a simple pasta for starters, and turkey saltimbocca for main. However, I then worried that the starter in particular would be a bit oily, especially with the sauce I was making.
Not my style of cooking, but very inspirational, is Heston Blumenthal and the molecular gastronomists. Cooking is a lot like interaction design: there's lots of science to understand (and all too often ignored), but it's an art. The molecular gastronomists are trying to revive the science of taste. The end results tend to be quite finicky, and certainly more restaurant food than home cooking. It plays a lot with unexpected contrasts, and using extremes to create a balance - this is similar to cocktails, which tend take a base, then sweeten, then sour.
The original starter was going to be pasta with a tomato and olive oil sauce (which I thought was by Nigel Slater originally, but I cannot find the recipe anywhere now). The thought popped into my head - what if I froze the sauce? The original plan was to have the contrast of hot hot pasta and cold cold sauce, but this would probably end up with lukewarm everything. So cold cooked pasta was decided upon.
There wasn't time to make an ice cream, but a granita is simple - freeze the liquid, forking occasionally.
From there, the idea bloomed. What other contrasts could be introduced? Pasta is quite bland and moist, so I tried to introduce a particular taste - salt, as this is distinct and quite different to the rest of the dish. A low-carb recipe I remembered for cheese crisps introduced crunch, and also makes for interesting presentation. Sweet and sour is provided by a standard chef trick, reduced balsamic vinegar. A little bit of extra presentation was small cubes of frozen tomato.
This was all very prissy for my style, but the main benefit was that it could all (had to be) cooked well before, and just plated at the last minute. It's also good to cook outside your safety zone once in a while.
So here's the recipe:
Penne pasta with tomato and olive oil granita
(the day before)
Granita:
small cup of olive oil (60ml? - more than you'd think is healthy)
6-8 tomatoes, quartered (remove stem)
a tiny spoon of sugar, especially if the tomatoes aren't too flavourful
a dash of Balsamic vinegar
salt - a little more than normal
pepper - probably quite a lot more than normal
Throw everything into a saucepan. Put over a medium heat (be careful the boiling sauce will burn and spatter everywhere if you use too high a heat). Cook for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. The tomatoes should break down almost completely, apart from the skins.
Strain/sieve the liquid into a freezable container. Try to pass as much through the sieve with a fork.
The liquid should contain a thick tomato layer, with quite a lot of orange-coloured oil floating on top.
Put in freezer.
After half an hour, check the mixture, and mix as much as possible. Try to get the layers to mix.
Repeat every 20-30 mins until it is frozen. When frozen, keep forking the mixture every hour so that it forms small crystals - if there are any large lumps (> 1cm), break them with a fork.
After a few hours, if it seems to keep stable as crystals (and not freezing together in a lump), it's ready, and you can leave it in the freezer until plating.
Frozen tomato:
Cut a tomato into quarters, remove stem, and all seeds and jelly. Cut remaining tomato into 5mm cubes, put in a bowl and freeze.
(at least three hours before)
Pasta:
Boil water. Add salt. More than you do normally. You never put enough in. Add pasta (preferably, good quality hard durum penne - not fresh!); about 10-15 pieces per person. Start trying the pasta after about two-thirds the time they recommend. You want the pasta to be really quite firm and toothsome.
Drain, run under cold water to stop the pasta cooking. Put in a bowl, add a little very good olive oil, and quite a lot of good salt (Maldon or Fleur de Sel de Guerande). Mix thoroughly. Put in fridge.
(If I had a sous-chef, I'd get them to roll the oiled pasta in whole salt grains just before serving rather than adding now - this would give unexpected crunch and intense saltiness.)
Cheese crisp bowl:
Grate a block of Parmesan cheese (about 200g for 4) as fine as possible. Heat oven to 350°F, or gas mark 4. Line baking sheet with parchment, or use a non-stick baking sheet. Spoon grated parmesan into the tin, crating a circle about 15cm/5 inches in diameter. Put in oven, and cook for 6 minutes. The cheese will melt, become lacy, bubble, and gradually harden, especially at the edges. Remove from oven, let cool for just a second, and then remove from tray with pallet knife or suitable implement. If you want to turn the crisp into a bowl shape, manouvre the crisp onto an upturned bowl before it cools and hardens, and press down gingerly at the sides (be careful, hot cheese is HOTT!). It doesn't have to be a perfect bowl, just something to hold the pasta. Place onto kitchen towel to absorb some of the oil.
Repeat for as many crisps as you need.
Store somewhere cool and dry - not the fridge.
Balsamic reduction:
Take good (i.e. expensive) Balsamic vinegar. Put in a small saucepan, and heat slowly. It will start to boil, don't let it go too fast. When reduced, probably by about half, and seemingly slightly thickened, pour into a glass, or if you have one, a squeeze bottle (another chef trick). Refrigerate - it will get considerably thicker when cold. Note the saucepan will be covered in thick Balsamic goo that will not pour - scoop it up and enjoy it yourself!
(on the day)
To assemble -
Put cheese crisp bowl on plate, add a small amount of pasta, spoon over granita, pour a couple of small circles of Balsamic on top, and finish with a few cubes of frozen tomato.
No, I can't believe I did all that either. Seemed to go down well, though.
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July 13, 2004
my favourite weblogs are written by cartoon cats
Last week, Metafilter linked to the weblogs run by several of the regular characters in the cartoon Achewood, and also Chris Onstad, official recorder and artist.
Nothing that special about diversifying the media output, but they became special when they'd integrated into my RSS reader. During the day, betwixt the regular feeds of protocol specifications, weather, and Japanese gadgetry, random posts started making me laugh, and wonder who the hell I was reading (it's hard to remember the real identities behind the 500ish feeds). They tended to be Achewood characters.
Even stranger was that you'd get several views of an event, and all the inner thoughts, plotting and scheming. Quite often they'd also be read in a random order.
Take for example this. A few minutes later I got the whole picture. It's a new form of drama, where the author has no idea how, when or even if the complete story is being read. Remember all those hypermedia literature experiments, jumbles of Director, Hypercard and VRML? Transpires it's just text and mental connections that's needed.
Achewood can take a bit of a while to tune into, but you're not too late. You've missed a potential printer upgrade, there's a pool war brewing, and remember: never ever complain about being served risotto. There's also been thoughts on meats, camping, and errr, hymens.
I just can't wait until they start reading each other's blogs!
Maybe I should get out more.
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July 12, 2004
moving again
Not content with trying to move myself, I have just moved my digital self to a new server. It's lagging a bit behind, after many years in sunny Fremont, California, it's now in Telehouse in London, thanks to the lovely Bytemark people, who came recommended from all and sundry. I now have a proper box, so I can realise some more heavy-duty ideas.
Anyway, if you can see this, it's probably working. Still got a few things to sort out, email may be a bit broken for a couple of days (human error in the DNS wielding), and I've upgraded to Movable Type 3. If you see anything wrong with this site, or any of the projects, please let me know.
UPDATE: *seriously* broke email - if you need to contact me, grab me on IM, or email chris dot heathcote ampersat gmail dot com.
UPDATE 2: think it's fixed - deaddodo dot com should be working again for email
UPDATE 3: (i know people hate these changing entries but)
ok, all links to the archives have changed. Can't see a way round this one...
With the proviso of Update 3, I can wholeheartedly recommend TypeMover - makes moving MT from one server to another very easy. Found via Hammersley.
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July 07, 2004
bloglines
Bloglines has redesigned, and added some more functionality. It has replaced NetNewsWire as my RSS reader of choice, mainly due to speed reasons (NNW couldn't cope with my 500ish feeds), and the fact I need access on several computers (and not just Mac OS).
A new interesting feature is blog recommendations. For me, it recommends myself (which is nice), some friends, and several sites that either didn't have RSS when I last looked, or got lost in the move. It doesn't clean the list for feeds you already subscribe to, though, so probably only half of these are new.
Like the delicious tag exploder, this provides machine-generated introspection of yourself.
Here's today's recommendations - if I'm meant to like them, you will do too:
Bloglines | News
Gizmodo
Scientific American
Lessig Blog
IA? EH.
Quotes of the Day
Creative Commons: weblog
textually.org
Ftrain.com
urlgreyhot blogs
IDblog
ia/ - information architecture news
Information Design And Data Visualization
Design by Fire
DonnaM
BBC News | Technology | UK Edition
Engadget
PC Magazine: New Product Reviews
Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
social beasts
BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition
Haddock Directory
A List Apart: for people who make websites
Tom Watson - Labour MP
Wired News: Top Stories
Jeffrey Veen
The Morning News - Features
my secret blog
anti-mega
Neat New Stuff
The Ideas Bazaar
Slate Magazine
Techdirt
CNET News.com
Making Light
cityofsound
MacRumors
Boxes and Arrows
ABCNEWS: SciTech
Chris Heathcote's Bookmarks
Instapundit.com
SIGNAL VS. NOISE
The Doc Searls Weblog
MacMerc.com
Games * Design * Art * Culture
A Fistful of Euros
Beyond the Beyond
Belle de Jour
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July 03, 2004
flickr
I've always loved Flickr (I've always loved everything that Ludicorp has done), but it didn't integrate well with my photo taking - they get sucked into iPhoto, and uploading via the web one by one isn't an option. Well, there's now beta uploaders for Mac and PC, and as you'd expect, it's just drag and drop.
So this explains the Flickr photostream over on the side. We'll see how comfy I get with it. I can't find a way to create albums at the moment (it may be there, but 'hidden'), other than searching for a keyword in my photos. Maybe I'm just clinging onto the old ways of doing things.
In some ways the time element means that it can do the same as this Microsoft Research project, without the need for over the top visualisation.
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July 02, 2004
Oulu
1am in Oulu, 200km from the Arctic Circle. This is as dark as it gets for a month or two. Let's just say Ouluans make the most of it, for they know come winter, there's no daylight at all.
