Kısır

Luanda is the most expensive city in the world for ex-pats to live in 2010. Tokyo is just nudged into second place. The annual Mercer study takes New York as the base measure for prices, comparing over 200 items, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment, in 143 cities across the globe. It is around $11 for a cup of coffee in Moscow. Glowering barrista at no extra charge.

In Budapest, Culinaris deli is probably the only place to snaffle a pomegranate out of season. I saw some for around $9 each in June. No dice. Roll on October, and you can pick them up in the big markets for less than $1. “Seasonal” has become an oft trotted out phrase of trend watchers, but it assuredly makes economic and environmental sense. Plus, stuff tastes best in season. I'm just prostrate, hands clasped in fervid supplication, glad tears garnishing the gouty feet of Aristaios (the rustic god of shepherds and cheese-making), that cheese is a year round phenomenon.

Kısır with pomegranate and celeriac tops

This fresh, substantial Turkish salad can be eaten warm or at room temperature. I ate it with the chicken recipe in the next post.

Sweat an onion in a little olive oil. Once it begins to colour, add a handful of quartered cherry tomatoes, 1 tsp tomato purée or harissa and a small bunch of celeriac tops (beet or celery tops, or parsley can be substituted) and cook for 2 minutes. Now add 250g bulgur wheat and 100ml water. Bring to the boil, remove immediately from the heat, and add the following: 1 tbs pomegranate molasses (turksvye stroop works just as well if you're reading this on the stoep in Putsonderwater, peach mampoer in an enamel mug within easy reach of your beefy paw), a glug of verjuice, 1 chopped fresh chilli, 2 chopped spring onions, 1 tsp ground cumin, and seasoning to taste. Put a lid on the pan and stand for 20 minutes for the bulgur to soften and soak up the water. Stir in 1 tsp of dried mint or dill, and scatter over the seeds of 1 pomegranate and a drizzle of olive oil.

Be Grateful

Pregnant

Another neato sky, around sunset, between Stuttgart and Strasbourg.

So it's come to this

Was there ever a term more pejorative than goodie bag? This little treat was doled out at the end of the Budapest Half Marathon yesterday (the buff Mrs. FAI and the soft, yielding FAI shared duties in a relay, enabling Team Voertsek to romp home in 2H:04M:47S, way off our personal bests - the normally energetic Mrs. FAI being somewhat put out by the recent shift away from clement in the weather, resulting in a leash-straining reluctance to do any exercise). It tasted nothing like I'd imagine a Mexican might, being notable more for the texture of antebellum teddy bear stuffing than the “flavor”, a sort of bland, claggy, freeze-dried onion soup powder earthiness, strained through a grey sock.

This is why I can never become an astronaut. This, and the bad math grades.

Soup of the evening

Soup, the food that gives you the energy to eat other foods.

I know it's not much to look at (Mrs. Inspector vouchsafed "slime"), but it is an absolute treat.

Lamb, chickpea and spinach soup

This is enough for 2 people with leftovers.

Place 500g lamb neck in a small oven proof dish. Add enough water or good quality stock to cover. If using water, add a bouquet garni, some whole black peppercorns, 1 roughly chopped carrot, ditto 1 celery rib and 2 bay leaves. Cook in a slow oven (140°C) for 2 hours until the meat is falling off the bone. Remove the meat from the stock, and pick off the bone once cool enough to handle. Keep the stock for the soup.

Peel and dice 2 medium sized potatoes. Fry in a tsp olive oil until translucent and almost cooked, around 10 minutes. Add 1 finely chopped spring onion, 200g chopped spinach (or an equal quantity defrosted frozen spinach purée, which works just as well) the stock, a small glass of white wine, an equal one of water, 1 tin of drained chick peas, half a finely chopped preserved lemon and 1 tsp chilli flakes (only a pinch if you have the temerity to use cayenne rather than flakes). Bring to a boil and simmer until the potato has cooked through. Add the meat and 1/2 tsp dried mint or dill, taste for seasoning, and serve.

This hearty soup partners equally well with a light, fruity red or a gutsy white wine. I had the tail end of a bottle of Aegerter Chablis 2008. It was delicious.

Noosphere

There is this
and then there is another place outside inside everything
where all the rivers in our hearts empty out
a hummingbird at dawn
a shooting star
in the desert, the bleached bones of a long-dead thing

Leave the glass floor with a gentle push of your bare feet and send yourself into a watercolour cosmos

the most beautiful skies as a matter of fact

Interviewer: "What were the skies like when you were young?"

Jones: "They went on forever – They - When I w- We lived in Arizona, and the skies always had little fluffy clouds in 'em, and, uh... they were long... and clear and... there were lots of stars at night. And, uh, when it would rain, it would all turn - it- They were beautiful, the most beautiful skies as a matter of fact. Um, the sunsets were purple and red and yellow and on fire, and the clouds would catch the colours everywhere. That's uh, neat 'cause I used to look at them all the time, when I was little. You don't see that. You might still see them in the desert."

Singing nose flute Rickie Lee Jones recalling picturesque images of her childhood. This was later appropriated without her consent by ambient house troupe The Orb as a sample on dance noodle Little Fluffy Clouds.

Apricots

I like apples. Apples rarely disappoint. Apples are the Ivan Lendl of the fruit world. Sure, there are some more exciting flavours out there, but are there any that are so consistent? Sure, they can get a bit mealy (they like to be kept in the fridge), and like any tennis players, respond badly to bruising. Most apples are within touching distance of the best apples I've ever eaten (a particularly succulent, crisp and perfumed batch of Spartans which heralded autumn some years back).

Not all fruit are as dependable. There is a massive difference between an early ripening stone fruit, and a full blown mid-summer job, almost ready to explode it is so lusciously ripe. Apricots especially. They can be polite and unassertive, or moderately spectacular. I like dried apricots because they concentrate the sweet sour tang that defines the best of this fruit.

In South Africa, an unusual preserve called mebos is made from ripe, but firm, apricots which are brined, stoned, pressed flat, salted, and dried in the sun for several days. This produces a complex tangy, sticky puck of apricot, which is popular in the Cape as a lunch box staple. I was lucky enough to take delivery of an aid parcel from some friends in London (thanks R&R!), full of South African treats for the homesick, wan soutie, including a much coveted pack of mebos. I have adapted the following recipe from ice cream supremo David Lebovitz's book, The Perfect Scoop.

Mebos and Pistachio Ice Cream

Quarter 120g dried apricots and chop 2 mebos finely. Put the pieces into a small saucepan with 180ml white wine, dry or sweet as the mood takes you. Simmer gently for 5 minutes, cover and stand for 1 hour to allow the fruit to soak up all the juice. Coarsely chop 70g unsalted pistachio nuts.

Pour the apricot/mebos/wine mush into a blender with 130g sugar, 500ml single cream and a few drops of lemon juice. Blend until smooth, and chill thoroughly in the fridge before freezing the mixture in an ice cream maker. During the last few minutes of churning, add the pistachio nuts.

Socca

This is a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe, from his fantastic new book Plenty. The recipe can also be found here. I commend it to you. It makes a very tasty light supper. I'm posting a photo of my effort, because I was very proud of pancake # 4, which had a shape that almost certainly occurs in another dimension's version of nature, and hardly any burnt bits.

In The Pink

Since my arrival in landlocked Hungary, most of my intake of Class Pisces has been of the tinned variety. I come over all excited when Mrs. Inspector gets the tin opener out of the drawer, and am reduced to rubbing up against her leg in anticipation. I've also had a rather tasty fisherman's soup, or halászlé, at a dingy bistro at the top end of Paulay Ede Utca. And one day, I'm set on purchasing a whole live carp from a market and smacking its head on the kerb to send it to Fishalla before doing all sorts of unspeakable things to its carcass. But what I really miss, is a spanking fresh bit of sea fish. So, it was with lightened wallet that I returned home earlier this week with 2 chunky salmon fillets, procured from Culinaris, where etiolated ex-pats can be seen staring hungrily at the various imported wares like dissolute vampires.

This is a pretty dish, the rose sauce and the gentle pink of the poached salmon contrasting with the autumn hues of the salad

Poached salmon fillet with pink sauce and warm lentil salad

Allow one salmon fillet per maw. In a snug saucepan just large enough to accommodate the fillets in a single layer, add an equal mix of white wine and water to cover. Add 6 peppercorns, some chopped green herb stems (I used parsley and dill), a bay leaf, a chopped celery rib, and a small chopped onion or shallot.

Bring this slowly to a simmer, and cook gently for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the stock.

To make the lentil salad, put 80g Puy lentils per person in a saucepan, and add enough of the strained stock from the salmon to cover by a finger's width. Top up with water if necessary. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and cook, uncovered, for around 35 minutes until the lentils are cooked. Watch the stock level, but ideally the liquid should have mostly evaporated by the end of cooking. Drain.

While the lentils are cooking, make a mirepoix of 1 carrot, 1 celery rib and 1 onion. Sweat gently in 2 tbps olive oil for 10 minutes until softened. Add ½ tsp chili pepper flakes, a handful of finely diced button mushrooms, and cook gently for a further 10 minutes until the mushrooms give up some of their liquid. Now add the cooked lentils, a bunch of finely chopped parsley, a tsp of finely chopped sage leaves, 1 crushed garlic clove, a little crumbled feta and 1 tomato, also finely chopped. Season generously, add a glug of olive oil.

To make the pink sauce, mix 1 heaped tsp Erős Pista with 1 tbsp tejföl. You poor foreigners can substitute these for harissa and crème fraiche accordingly.

To serve, place a piece of salmon atop a mound of lentils. Spoon a good heaped teaspoon of pink sauce over the salmon.

Born up a tree.