recipes

Aversions

Ocean Bream The Story of Lenny Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

I am off coffee. Off standing in a little coffee bar in some obscure coffee shop somewhere in Italy, ordering an espresso with whipped cream and one of those triangular pastries that are a hundred layers of thin crusty sweetness filled with a delicate custard. Off an iced spanish latte on a hot day. Off a hot Americano in a paper cup from a self-dispensing coffee machine which, for the equivalent of £1.75 in this country’s currency, is actually pretty spectacular. Warm, roasted, hints of dark chocolate and a tiny whiff of berry, nutty and slightly butterscotchy, gives you just enough shakes for a one hour weightlifting session during which you gulp down 1.5L of water and after which you have a high protein avocado, cottage cheese and egg toast. Balance.

I am off a small cappuccino with the perfect medium roast espresso, milk whipped till just creamy froth, not bubbly like they always manage to do in the UK. UK coffee is awful. my jet-setting self has learned. But nobody does tea like the UK. A solid mug of English Breakfast with the right splash of milk and on the side, chocolate chip shortbread. ASDA does a great version, and so does Tesco. But if you’re feeling fancy you’ll get the Walkers one because that, my friends, is the original. Custard creams, Fox’s Golden crunch creams – delicious! A digestive if nothing else avails itself. My husband introduced me to his post-gym snack which I fear is heavily Americanised but I cannot fault it. A plain digestive – McVities of course, nobody does it like them – with a smearing of peanut butter and a little dollop of jam. A PB&J digestive! Horror of horrors, but horrifically good.

Anyway I am also off tea.

Speaking of tea, nobody does sweet tea like the Pakistanis. Sweet black tea, I mean. Boiled with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, peppercorns, milk, a generous heap of sugar. Some people use evaporated milk and now that is fancy! Chai. Not a chai latte although I am partial to that. But chai, cooked in a pan, strained into a flask and taken to the top of Mow Crop on a cold and icy Christmas day in Cheshire. That is where we were last Christmas. We had homemade pasties to go with it and we saw one other family and the icy wind bit our faces and fingertips but our bodies were warmed with the rich spicy sweetness of chai.

I am off all of it, folks. Because when my body is preparing to grow a child, I become averse to my favourite beverages. And that is what is happening.

Am I OKAY?

No. I am shocked, scared, confused. Crying, screaming, throwing up – literally to the latter. I am not prepared, physically nor mentally. Why, I thought to myself this morning as I walked my two children into school, I only have two hands by which to hold my current kids. Do I have enough love for three?

Of course I do. Of course I do. I have enough love for as many children as I may have. Just right now I miss feeling well. I miss feeling okay. I am just tired and sick. But it will be okay. We will be okay.

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Ocean Bream NanoPoblano2025 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I made a jar of cookies, the kind you see in pretty little illustrations. A glass jar my son chose in a crockery store sits on the counter, and I often hear his little voice in my mind clamouring to fill it for him.

My cookies are usually really good. I make these exceptional ones using browned butter and all sorts of delicious mix-ins, resulting in a nutty, almost toffee-like taste with a hint of savoury from sea sat and a dash of hazelnut coffee. Mouthwatering, moreish – irresistible.

But lately my mind has been harboured on an island. The seas surrounding this island are stormy and tumultuous. No information or knowledge reaches me but that it has undergone the most ferocious of challenges, and when information does reach me, I find it hard to process, because the wind whips so at my face and tears pages from my hands, soaking them with rainwater and the foamy spray of the roaring sea. And oh, the sound. The wailings and screechings and thunderous groans of nature, so wholesome when you’re warm by the hearth, so tormenting when you’re stranded and loose for it to buffet at you as it pleases.

For these cookies, I was floating in a haze. I mixed flour and sugar with sweetenend condensed milk and almond slices, vanilla and old chocolate from the back of my cupboard and threw the lot into the oven. They took ages to bake, their bottoms browning severely but their tops as pale as clouds. And my husband, he who has the biggest sweet tooth I have ever seen in my life, took a bite and couldn’t eat any more. My kids have nibbled at these cookies, at best.

So they sit in this pretty glass cookie jar looking for all the world like a pile of deliciousness waiting to be grabbed at, but it’s an illusion.

I find myself searching on the internet now to see whether one can freeze freshly baked cookies, because let me tell you that batch isn’t going anywhere in any sort of hurry.

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On Tantrums and Chicory

Ocean Bream marriage, musings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 16 Comments

I had a terrific tantrum with my dearest husband the other day. He emptied my jar of chicory into the coffee jar, saying ‘it took up too much space’ and ‘it tastes the same anyway’.

It most certainly does not.

He did it, too, after I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to mix the two, when he suggested it a night prior to the event. He said the result of mixing the two was a creamier coffee, but I begged to differ. Coffee is coffee and chicory is decaffeinated, child-friendly, and the pleasant accompaniment of a cold wintry walk in a flask. When you boil chicory with milk and a little honey, it’s a delicious drink that all members of the family can partake in.

But when you have a jar full of coffee mixed with chicory – it’s an abomination. I can’t do anything with it. I can’t drink it because it’s disgusting and I can’t serve it to my kids because it contains caffeine.

I can’t go out and buy a new jar of chicory because my frugal, non-wasteful nature forbids it, and I can’t buy a new jar of coffee because we HAVE some, even though it is mixed with chicory.

But it wasn’t only that, it was the blatant disrespect of my wishes. He did it just because he wanted one less jar on the shelf, no other reason. That man would happily munch on mashed paper if I served it to him and told him it was food. He eats to live, not the other way around, and does not care for the taste of things, as long as it provides him nourishment and stops him from passing out with hunger. Which he is often close to because that man… forgets to eat. I wish I bloody forgot to eat.

So, when one does not care much for the taste of food, one is not bothered if his coffee is mixed with his chicory, because to him it’s just a hot beverage.

TO ME, it’s an energy-boosting drink on cold dark mornings when I don’t want to haul myself out of bed to serve my family and educate my children. TO ME, it’s a delicious drink I serve to my children to keep us warm when the wind is biting. TO ME… it’s comfort.

So yes, I had a colossal tantrum.

First world problems, ey?

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Cooking Italian

Ocean Bream Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I am a sucker for food. All kinds of food. I was brought up eating a variety of foods from a variety of cultures. My mother cooked Pakistani, Mediterranean, English, European, Indian and Arab. She called us mongrel children because our heritage is so mixed, but I can honestly say that this experience taught me one important thing about food; there is nothing you can’t try. Food is an experience. It is to dabble in the senses, the sense of smell and sight and taste. They are all intertwined, and each culture in the world has its own unique taste, based, of course, on the climate and crops which dominate the area in which the culture presides.

I got myself a few things from Italy, sundried tomatoes, a sprig of fresh oregano, and a packet of pasta seasoning which contained dried herbs, salt crystals and dried garlic chips.

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I decided to cook something Italian, loosely based on the simple recipe on the back of the pasta seasoning packet. The recipe called for some olive oil, two tablespoons of seasoning, and some cooked pasta.

I added the tomatoes and fresh garlic, and topped with a few sprigs of oregano.

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I heated up the oil with the herbs and fresh garlic, and gave it a little fry. I then added my chopped tomatoes and tossed them around a little until their skins started to wrinkle and they began to get hot and slightly soft.

I also seasoned some pieces of chicken breast with salt, pepper and some thyme and a squeeze of lemon, and stir-fried in a little olive oil.

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The entire process took about ten minutes, during which I boiled some spaghetti until it was just past al dente.

I then tossed the tomatoes together with the chicken into the spaghetti, coating the pasta with the sauce and herbs, and dished it out!

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Voila! A very delicious, simple meal.

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