Shambala festival 2008

“Camping is like having a baby – you forget the pain and do it again,” said a woman at Shambala festival.

As the rain dripped, we wondered why we had left our warm dry homes to live in a field. Not even a quiet one because this was Festival Land where sounds pound night-and-day from eight different music tents. The chaos was offset by the healing area with its chimes dinging in the wind, and therapists offering massage or reiki or any manner of soothing restoration in calm tents.

I was helping the family crew welcome parents and children to the family yurt, a wondrous place of sanctuary. It was a pleasure seeing the children run free. And when dark descended, you could promenade in the anarchic carnival atmosphere.

Circus-huge tents were  themed from The Kamikaze tent and Geisha Palace to The Aloha beach with sand and pretend palm trees. My favourite was the Bollocks tent, a surreal lounge with sofas serving vodka shots and  impromptu jazz from top musicians dropping by.

There was always somewhere to have a cup of tea even at two in the morning such as Granny’s Gaff (granny looked manly and used tea-cosies).

Back at the family site, its boundaries not the usual walls but canvas, we took turns cooking the evening supper. On Sunday it was mine.

Two gas rings in a busy field kitchen and 18 adults and 12 children to feed. Mike was graceful about being my commis.

We served 500g split peas (soaked overnight and simmered for an hour) with juice squeezed from 10 fresh lemons, tahini and ground almonds; 400g of aduki beans (soaked overnight and simmered for an hour) with yogurt; mashed sweet potato; and pan-fried beetroot and carrot. I wanted to roast the beetroot and carrots but – no oven – so I experimented by cooking them for an hour in oil. They retained more sweetness than mere boiling.

We camped until the festival had truly ended. It was a privilege seeing the illusion dismantled like being backstage.

I watched the Posh Wash showers being loaded on to a truck and the mobile solar-powered cinema drive off. The circus was leaving town.

We slept the last night in an empty field where an owl hooted above the faraway sounds of the festival crew’s last party.

Celebrity to market

I had to set an organic challenge for Hardeep Singh Kohli of Celebrity Masterchef fame: become 100% organic in two weeks. See how the comedian fared in olive, on sale now. It was a tall order because, in truth, going organic happens gradually.

I was mad-keen for Hardeep to visit a farmers’ market but he stuck to supermarkets. Farmers’ markets only set up stall once a week (or less), so I can see why they are not convenient. But the difference in quality between local organic food grown, made – or reared – within 50 miles, and the much-travelled organic food in supermarkets, is beyond compare.

Buying organic food from the person who grew it (from farmers’ markets or veg box delivery) adds a new dimension to shopping – you know where your food is from. Price-wise, buying direct is cheaper than supermarkets – no middleman to add costs.

Last Thursday at noon, catching a lift with Mike to Exeter train station, we unexpectedly passed Exeter’s farmers’ market.

“Stop the car,” I said. I had ten minutes to gather dinner (see above). Everything was organic apart from the fish, which was wild. With only a short season, the sprats, caught in Dorset , are special. And cheap. I got six portions-worth for £5. Sprats are sustainable to fish and healthy to eat. Grill without oil – they are naturally rich in must-have omega-3.

I fried the above darlings, eating them with Rod and Ben’s salad and Emma’s homemade bread, fresh from Exeter’s Farmer’s Market.

As well as shallow-frying the fish, I slathered oil on the salad and butter on my bread – what am I like?

The next day my pal and child came round. We ate the fried sprats whole, crunchy heads and all. I was surprised a four-year old would enjoy them but he did.

This time I served them with organic mash potatoes grown at Radford Mill Farm 30 miles away, and sold at its inner-city organic farm shop luckily on my flight-path.

How do you access local organic produce? Do you find it hard like Hardeep?

Mackerel, summer fish

I went for a walk with Mike and his friend Alan on the coast of north Cornwall, down a farmland path to the secluded beach of Tregardock where the sea is wild against the looming rocks. The nearest town is Port Isaac where this Cornish mackerel came from, landed that day.

Alan baked it for 20 minutes in the oven with butter and served it with steamed broccoli and asparagus. Opportunistically, it dawns on me that Alan was serving up a dish fit for a blog competition on seasonal eating.

Mackerel, said Alan, is a summer fish, while broccoli is also in season. But asparagus? Feeling like the Seasonal Police, I quizz Alan about its provenance. Oh dear, has seasonal-awareness turned me into an officious and impolite guest? He assures me Cornwall’s warm climate allows asparagus a longer season, and is not offended. Nevertheless this moment sums up the fine balance I tread between being a real food lover – and a prig.

Alan serves the dish with a leek-and-cheese sauce which adds a luxuriousness to everything and soon all thoughts of seasonal-criteria fade as I give myself to the pleasure of eating. It was delicious, tasty and went down a treat. What more do I want?

Macrobiotic Bologna

This was the macrobiotic meal I ate in Bologna before catching the overnight couchette to Paris. A classic balance of grains (brown rice and millet) with pulses (pinto bean stew) and a medley of fresh local vegetables, steamed and raw, it came with a dish of deep-fried vegetable tempura.

Un Punto Macrobiotico offers only one choice. I like that. It’s like eating at home, “you’ll get what you are given”, and no endless agonising choice and “I wish I’d had that”.

(Macrobiotic note: the restaurant and shop is inspired by visionaries, George Ohsawa and Mario Pianesi).

Any austerity was softened by the home-made peach ice-cream, sweetened with rice malt, which releases its sugar slowly so is better for the body.

I strode off for the ten-minute walk back across the bridge to the station, feeling quite the international traveller. I like trains. Slower than planes but far more civilised, it’s no sacrifice taking the green option.

(Foodie warning: Trenitalia and Eurostar serve rubbish and pricey food, so take your own. The waiter kindly parcelled up my tempura to take-away).

Bologna station was the scene of a horrifying terrorist attack in 1980. We witnessed a moving memorial (see flag below) on the day we travelled to the Adriatic coast, August 2nd. This is the date now designated in Italy as a memorial day for all terrorist massacres.

In the sauna-like heat on the Adriatic, we arrived at our stunningly stylish apartment, with its high ceilings, wooden shutters, IKEA furniture, Virago books, essential oils. So, I am sitting there glancing idly through the welcome file when I realise: crikey, it belongs to a friend of mine!

Ingrid Rose had booked it on the web (“I chose it because it was the only one saying you could walk – not drive – to the beach” she said). And then I find out I know the co-owner! A journalist who, 30 years ago, had given me encouraging and enduring advice – to “break up long sentences into short ones” – and whom I had recently met up with again because (another crazy coincidence) she is a dear friend of a dear friend.

Six degrees of separation, indeed!

Below is a picture of my sister gazing down from the apartment at the spectacular view below. Real food lover that she is, she patiently answered all my questions about Italian food.

Italy, land of real food

I nearly sobbed when we stepped inside this treasure trove of a delicatessen in Cupra Marittima, a small seaside town on the Adriatic coast. Italy is the land of real food so it is hard not to feel deprived when back in Blighty. This delicatessen was no self-conscious foodie experience for the cognoscenti, but the real thing.

Britain’s dismal food situation is linked with its early adoption of the industrial revolution. As poor people flocked to cities two centuries ago for work, they left behind the land, and home-grown food, signing up instead for a diet of mass-produced cheap fillers, such as adulterated white bread and jam.

Industrialisation came later to the Continent whose food is all the better for it.

Listen, this delicatessen served nothing but fish. Ready-cooked dishes such as spicy fish stews with calamari, potatoes and chick peas; the regional speciality of olive ascolana (fish balls cradled in an olive and fried); fish carpaccio, paper-thin slivers of marinated raw swordfish and tuna with parings of orange peel; and minced fish balls (like gefilte fish) but served in a delicate tomato sauce.

Talking of tomatoes, the local food store stocked many varieties, all different shapes, sweet and tasty (not watery and sad). And talking of gefilte fish, a Jewish speciality from eastern Europe, Italians, like Jews, like talking about food: they want to know what you ate, what you are eating and what you will eat.

Last Monday, we went to Anita’s, where the locals dine. We had hot and cold antipasti, razor clams in tomato sauce, cockles in garlic, mussels in wine, followed by tagliatelle and seafood, and a main dish of fried sole. Can you believe it?

Oh, beam me up to the land of real food!