St Werburgh’s City Farm Café, Bristol

Lucky me. To get to this Observer ethical award-winning café from my home, all I have do is walk ten minutes through the allotments.

Here is chef, Paul Burton, holding my lunch – the aioli is homemade, with fennel from the next-door city farm and smoked mackerel from Cornwall. Paul used to work at Café Maitreya (another Bristol award-winning eaterie) and now he is a business partner in St Werburgh’s city farm café.

Note its hippy-trippy Hobbit-like décor, courtesy of artisan builders, Bristol Gnomes.

I wish I had a photo of the café’s owner, Leona Williamson, because she too has an ethereal quality – but like all fairies, she has power too.

When cooking in the Local Food Hero competition, she came up with a new concoction, with one hour to spare.

She made goat and beetroot sausage with a three-root mash (celeriac, potato and Jerusalem artichoke), and wowed the judges, Jay Rayner, Xanthe Clay and Gary Rhodes. The goat came from the city farm.

So impressed was Jay that he put her forward for the Observer’s ethical awards.

It was Leona’s idea to use the animals on the city farm for food.

I totally approve.

Far better to be a conscious meat-eater that respects the animals than not give a thought to how they fared when alive.

These darling creatures currently living on the city farm may well end up in one of Leona’s famous goat stews. Reader, is this OK with you?

Tofu smoothie offering

I lay on my bed, as heavy as a stone. How to eat when your energy deserts you? Gazing up at my lampshade reminded me of the yellow-themed photo competition in aid of Bri, the young food blogger who has breast cancer.

Here is my offering. A tofu smoothie in a recycled glass held up against my yellow lampshade (with yellow scarf draped over the door).

Tofu is a miracle food because it’s protein-rich but incredibly light and easy-to-digest. Made from bean curd, it’s a great invalid food because meat and dairy can be a bit hardcore when you are feeling weak.

Even chewing can be hardcore. So I blended everything and all you have to do is sip this creamy smoothie, gently.

I whizzed up 225g tofu, 2 tablespoons of ground almonds (or same amounts of peanut butter/almond butter), one sliced banana, 300 mls (half pint) rice milk and a teaspoon of cinnamon (and the same of turmeric for yellow-colour and its fabulous health properties).

Below, I pictured the half-empty tofu packet as well as a Tibetan mandala puja ceremony I went to at the Pierian centre today. The monk had spent the last week (it was Refugee week) making a mandala from rainbow-coloured sand but today he dismantled it, prayerfully.

We followed him to Bristol’s river Frome where he cast the sand grains into the water, a reminder of both life’s impermanence and the eternal and reviving now.

Guild of Food Writers awards 2008

The Guild of Food Writers’s annual awards party is a glittering must-go, this year held at Tamesa in the Oxo tower on the South Bank of the Thames. I was a judge of one of the awards but, shhhh, that’s all I can say about it.

Sustainability was a strong theme, from sponsors, the Alaska Seafood marketing institute and Bonterra organic wines, to the winners.

Listen, I rate the Observer’s ethical eco-hero, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for his animal welfare work. But he endeared himself further by making sure (see pic 1) that his fellow author, Nick Fisher, shared the award for The River Cottage fish book. (If you click on that link, read the Amazon review by Henrietta Green of Food Lovers Britain.)

I loved Jill Dupleix’s wise words on accepting (pic 2) the Miriam Polunin prize for Work on healthy eating. She said: “I look forward to the time when there isn’t a special category for healthy eating and all food writing is healthy.” Yeah, sister, bring it on!

The sustainability theme continued with Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook, which addressed food miles and provenance.

It’s always nice when you agree with the judges. Hattie Ellis won for Planet Chicken. It is a beautifully-written easy-read on a hard subject: how we treat intensively-reared chickens.

Then Bill Buckley announced that the winner (taratara) of the Lifetime achievement award was…Katie Stewart. I took this award personally (again) – The Times calendar cookbook with its seasonal recipes has been a favourite for decades. (See my beat-up food-stained version in pic 5).

An awards ceremony is such an emotional event, I was starving by the end. My hunt for food took me to a quiet part of the room where Katie stood with friends. I am afraid I could not resist asking to be photographed with her (pic 3). She said the Times cookbook was her daughter-in-law’s favourite too because people nowadays want the classics, like toad in the hole.

Then Hugh approached – clearly another Stewart devotee. (I must admit Katie looks happier with Hugh than with me but hey, that’s show biz).

Prue Leith OBE presented the awards. She explained how she gave up cooking to campaign. A champion of real food in schools, she is a woman after my own heart.

This became more evident later. There was a queue for the ladies’ and on Prue’s advice, I used the (empty) gents’ while she stood guard. I liked that – the way she encouraged an unconventional route to get results.

Red lentil soup

My friend Sheila said, “come over,” and I said, “shall I bring something to eat?” With only an hour and a half to spare and no time to shop, soup made with split red lentils was the only answer.

Without much ado, I soaked 125g red lentils for half an hour in about 4 mugfuls of water. The little dried red things (a storecupboard-must!) absorbed some water and softened – then I applied the heat. As I brought the pan to the boil, I chopped one onion and chucked it in.

You can see the uncooked onion pieces and some lentils floating on the surface as the soup begins to boil (above).

The strange naked beast in the picture is a peeled turmeric root from Marshford organics. I have never seen turmeric’s root root before, only its powder. It is closely related to ginger, but unlike that root, turmeric stained my hand yellow as I sliced it.

I also added sliced organic carrots that had overstayed their welcome at the bottom of my fridge and quarter of a dried chilli, not enough to bite.

Once the soup had come to the boil, I simmered it for half an hour until it was a soup-y mush. To make sure of its mushiness, I gave it a quick whizz with my handheld electric blender.

I got the soup safely to Sheila’s and we ate in the garden (see below).

I first met Sheila when, pregnant, I wandered into the Birth Centre circa 1977 to find out more about natural childbirth. On impulse, Sheila offered me a job wo-manning the Birth Centre ‘phone. She was a signpost in my life, putting me on track for the start of my new career as an ante-natal teacher and writer.

Sheila is a natural pioneer. Ahead of her time, Sheila brought the French obstetrician, Frederick (birth without violence) Leboyer to the UK, and changed our views of birth forever.

I see parallels between real food and natural birth; both aim to understand and work with nature rather then supplant it with risky and often unnecessary intervention.

Spinach soup thickened with couscous

I would be useless in a post-peak oil world. What would I do without my electric blender?

My teeth are troubling me so I made this spinach soup soothing with the help of the handheld machine. Its on-grid whirls fashioned the soup into a luxury item.

Here’s how I got there. The washed organic spinach leaves, stalks and all, went in a large pan. Spinach cooks in the water it is washed in (no need to add more) but do put a lid on to retain that moisture.

Once the spinach was cooked soft and waterless (drain to make sure), I added butter and immune-boosting garlic to frazzle in the meltedness.

But how to thicken it? I could have used flour but what is life without risk? So for the first time I sprinkled a smattering of couscous (I used organic kamut) to thicken a soup. I let it cook for a while then added a mugful of water, slowly, stirring all the time.

Reader, it worked. The couscous made it creamy.

Encouraged, I snipped in organic sprouted snow peas as a garnish.

The organic produce came from Bristol’s organic supermarket, Better Food, which is well-pleased, I imagine, with Sunday’s announcement as a finalist in the Observer Ethical Awards 2008.

Fluttering in the background is the Tibetan flag. Apparently it is illegal to fly in its home country, so it’s getting a workout on my balcony.

Chicken goes far

Isn’t it a treat to be fed? I am always filled with gratitude when someone else cooks. Praise be to Paul for the aromatic chicken he served last night to my sister and me.

The surprise ingredient was the lemon peel which Paul added (after searing the chicken), with the chicken stock, parsley and celery. The peel (and juice) was fresh and tangy, while chilli added an undernote of fiery bite.

My sister and I much admired Paul’s precision and patience for he cut both lemon peel and carrots into long rectangle matchsticks, julienne-style.

We ate in the garden, sitting long after June’s hot sun had faded.

My sister quoted her colleague, Jess, who says: “It’s less rude to say you are a vegetarian than ask whether the meat was happy or battery.”

Paul’s chick was free range, from Sainsbury’s.

I was fascinated by the price issue. Paul had originally wanted four chicken breasts but the cost was not much different from two whole chickens (about £6.50 each).

From two chickens he made the following: teriyaki chicken breasts for four (one breast each); chicken noodle soup from both carcasses; two fried wings for salad; our aromatic chicken (two legs and two thighs). And he still had two legs, two thighs and two wings left over.

But are people put off by butchering a carcass, I pondered? We agreed you need a good pair of scissors and a sharp knife (plus no squeamishness).

Paul was recycling his newspapers and I grabbed the Guardian’s June 4 supplement before it went to paper-pulp heaven.

Appropriately, G2 (how I love the supplements more than the news) had a review by witty Zoe Williams about the just-released, The Kitchen Revolution.

It’s is all about saving money by not letting the food you buy waste away at the back of your fridge. It is about eating well and saving food miles by cooking from scratch.

In other words it is about reversing the horrors of a junk food culture to return to everything real food lovers care about passionately.

Viva la revoluzione!

Food waste? Bless compost

I admit the contents of the plastic box (above) – with its stalks, stale bread, peelings, torn-up cardboard (more later) and discarded tea bag – is not a pretty sight.

But don’t be deceived by its appearance. The present detritus of our kitchens is the future fertiliser of our food.

Sensitive souls often feel guilty about wasting food. Guys, your instinct is correct – those scraps are meant to be put to good use.

When my eco-friend Chris showed me how to compost, my life changed. Instead of throwing old food in the landfill, I became a guilt-free fertiliser queen.

Compost is a basic principle of organic farming, and hence a friend of real food. It replenishes the soil with an amazing array of nutrients – for free.

(Chemical fertiliser is not a patch on the real thing. Plus its production is oil-guzzling, polluting and greenhouse-gas causing).

You start the composting process by collecting kitchen scraps (including cooked food). Then you need to find a covered bin (preferably outdoors) where the waste can compost down in peace.

Anything which lived can be composted. The smaller it is, the quicker it breaks down so it can go from waste to ‘black-gold’ in nine months.

I added cardboard (which used to be a tree) for dryness, and tore it up, making it easier for the worms and bugs to munch it down in the garden compost bin.

What if you have no garden? Check out the Bokashi system for indoor or balcony composting (see mine below). Brave people keep wormeries in their kitchen. The waste-turned-to-crumbly-soil or fertiliser juice (yum) can be added to plant pots or a friend’s garden.

If indoor composting does not appeal, scour your vicinity – any outdoor space to be pressed into service?

What stands in your way to happy composting? Let’s break it down…

Tamarind and green tea noodles

Cooking is like dancing – to keep it fresh you need to learn new steps.

Thanks to Mallika’s Quick Indian Cooking, I have added curry leaves and tamarind to my repertoire.

I had to improvise with the other ingredients.

Tonight was cold and misty so instead of eating grated organic carrots as a salad, I fried them in olive oil. In this bold mood, I also fried organic alfafa sprouts, the first time ever.

At the carrot stage, I also fried ten dried curry leaves, which wilted aromatically – not scary at all. Then mustard seeds and a teaspoon of tamarind paste.

I could not resist adding a quarter of a tin of coconut milk and snippets of dried chilli for spicy creaminess.

I finished off a packet of organic cha sob green tea noodles that had been lurking in my store cupboard – they only took three minutes to cook.

It was a quick supper to make and delightful to eat, while the tamarind emparted a tart lemony-lusciousness – my new exciting dance step, definitely.

Brown rice, chives – and chewing

When all else fails nothing beats a bowl of brown rice. It is a soothing superfood. With its husk still intact, brown rice brings strength – more vitamins and fibre than its denuded sister, white rice.

My brown rice is organic – what’s the point of eating a superfood if sprayed with chemicals?

I added chopped chives (and its mauve flower), olive oil and a tiny smattering of Atlantic salt to the cooked rice.

Organic brown rice a store cupboard-must because it’s nutritious, economical and sits there Buddha-like till needed.

It requires little attention while cooking. One mug of rice does for two, generously. Add to a pan with twice the amount of water (2 mugs of water for one of brown rice) and bring to the boil. Simmer for 30-40 minutes with the lid on. Brown rice is soft and chewy when cooked.

The macrobiotics swear by brown rice and so do I. It’s so yang, it relaxes the digestion and detoxifies.

If you really want to be macrobiotic, you stay in the moment while eating it. Spiritual warriors aim for 50 chews a mouthful to calm their mind and their digestion.

I can manage about four mouthfuls of conscious chewing before my natural impatience takes over.

How many chews do you give a mouthful?