desperance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
desperance) wrote2015-02-10 05:17 pm
desperance) wrote2015-02-10 05:17 pm
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A long slow simmer in my favourite pot
I had actually been considering a rare political post, because if there is one thing that baffles me about the whole Geoffrey Dickens paedophiles-in-high-places missing-dossier saga, it is why on earth the man would have given such a document to Leon Brittan in the first place. Any such dossier drawn up in the '90s would have had to address the rumours about Brittan himself, which were current to my certain knowledge ten years earlier ("Leon Brittan fucks chicken" was a common graffito: unsupported by evidence but widely believed in my circles, and much discussed). If it didn't, then the dossier itself was an act of dishonesty and bluster; if it did - well. "Conflict of interest" is hardly strong enough, and the dossier's disappearance is hardly surprising.
However! I was two hundred miles away and not directly involved in any of that; and the plural of anecdote is not data, however many anecdotes stack up. So obviously I decided not to post about any of that. Instead of which, let me tell you about the sauce I have barely blooping in my cast iron pot (thanks, Aliette!). I would call it Bolognese (or if I were feeling Frenchier, bolognaise without the capital; we English do it both ways indiscriminately), but here in America I guess it would just be spaghetti sauce. I am making it because it's easy at base, requiring no thought, and it's easy to eat, ditto ditto, and we are both of us having a hard day; and because once it's blooping away, I have hours and hours to play with the flavours while it just gets better and better. (It is a matter of profound faith with me that you can't make a decent bolognaise in less than four hours, and eight would actually have been better.) Bacon, ground beef, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, mushroom, check. Then a tin of tomatoes, and the last bowlful of onion soup because that was essentially brilliant beef stock with added onion, so why not? And then the herbs: bay leaves from a friend as my own tree is still barely more than a twig, oregano from the garden, pesto that I made myself. And then I was opening a bottle of wine and about to add a glassful when I remembered that gorgeous bottle of '87 vintage port we drank a couple of weeks back, that still had the crunchy bits in the bottom waiting for a chance to use them. So that, and lots of black pepper, and the salt will be next up once it's broken down a little more, and then we'll see if there's any obvious hole in the flavour palette. (I am resisting the urge to add chillies, because I understand from other people that not everything needs to contain capsaicin. Hunh. Who knew?)
However! I was two hundred miles away and not directly involved in any of that; and the plural of anecdote is not data, however many anecdotes stack up. So obviously I decided not to post about any of that. Instead of which, let me tell you about the sauce I have barely blooping in my cast iron pot (thanks, Aliette!). I would call it Bolognese (or if I were feeling Frenchier, bolognaise without the capital; we English do it both ways indiscriminately), but here in America I guess it would just be spaghetti sauce. I am making it because it's easy at base, requiring no thought, and it's easy to eat, ditto ditto, and we are both of us having a hard day; and because once it's blooping away, I have hours and hours to play with the flavours while it just gets better and better. (It is a matter of profound faith with me that you can't make a decent bolognaise in less than four hours, and eight would actually have been better.) Bacon, ground beef, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, mushroom, check. Then a tin of tomatoes, and the last bowlful of onion soup because that was essentially brilliant beef stock with added onion, so why not? And then the herbs: bay leaves from a friend as my own tree is still barely more than a twig, oregano from the garden, pesto that I made myself. And then I was opening a bottle of wine and about to add a glassful when I remembered that gorgeous bottle of '87 vintage port we drank a couple of weeks back, that still had the crunchy bits in the bottom waiting for a chance to use them. So that, and lots of black pepper, and the salt will be next up once it's broken down a little more, and then we'll see if there's any obvious hole in the flavour palette. (I am resisting the urge to add chillies, because I understand from other people that not everything needs to contain capsaicin. Hunh. Who knew?)