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Archive for the ‘other sides to this life’ Category

Teeth!

Posted in Diabetes, other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , , on October 24, 2011| 14 Comments »

I remember Judy Geeson (who played Caroline Penvenen in the second series of Poldark) once asking me how long I took cleaning my teeth!

Such a question! It must have been nerves—anxiety provokes strange conversations.

We were standing around waiting to record a scene at the BBC’s Studios in Birmingham, in 1977.

She was shocked when I told her it usually took me about 20 seconds and that I once had to have 22 fillings after not seeing the dentist for 3 years.

“You must spend at least 3 minutes and floss every time, beforehand.” she told me sternly.

Duly admonished I have followed her advice ever since.

This exchange came to mind when Meredith sent me the link to a website that describes in detail what can happen to a diabetic’s teeth when glucose  levels are unchecked.

It also has useful tips about how to keep your mouth healthy:

People with diabetes are at risk for mouth infections, especially periodontal (gum) disease. Periodontal disease can damage the gum and bone that hold your teeth in place and may lead to painful chewing problems. Some people with serious gum disease lose their teeth. Periodontal disease may also make it hard to control your blood glucose (blood sugar).

By controlling your blood glucose, brushing and flossing every day, and visiting a dentist regularly, you can help prevent periodontal disease.

I brush and floss three times a day.

Thanks Judy!

(We quickly got our teeth into the scene!)

Toothsome threesome--Angharad, Robin and Judy!


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Jabs…

Posted in Diabetes, other sides to this life, tagged , , on October 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

Just had my flu shot in the nurses office in Lautrec this morning.

Here in France those of us of a certain age (over 60) or in high risk groups–like diabetics–get the shot free.

The paperwork comes in the post. I take it to the pharmacist, who supplies the vaccine and then drop by the nurse’s office and she gives me the dreaded jab.

Good system for me.

Our French neighbour, Robert (fellow type-twoer and the same age) was in the pharmacy too today. He told me he never takes up the offer. He’s an independent spirit and looks hail and hearty, so “chacun a son choix” [to each his own]!

My wife, Meredith, chooses to go down a homeopathic route–which has worked for her these past few years.

Madame l’Infirmiere (the nurse) told me that flu was already on the prowl in the district.”Without the jab there’d be an epidemic,” she claimed, as she stuck the needle in my upper arm–doubly demonstrating how good she is at her job–first by distracting me from the shot then by reassuring me I was doing the right thing!

Diabetes Health is giving out this advice to pharmacists:

How Pharmacists Can Help Diabetes Patients During Cold and Flu Season

Patients with diabetes are six times more likely to be hospitalized and three times more likely to die from flu-related complications. With cold and flu season upon us, be sure to spend extra time advising your patients with diabetes on the importance of keeping up-to-date on their vaccinations, what to do if they do become sick, and how to self-treat with over-the-counter (OTC) medications when needed.


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Gentle lentils–revisited

Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , , on October 19, 2011| 11 Comments »

This was published a couple of years ago.

It has been a favorite for over thirty years and is a tasty standby for a rainy grey day when going anywhere for supplies is the last thing you feel like doing.

Meredith on her detox for a week mentioned it this morning and we’ll have it tonight, as below, with some of the broccoli I bought yesterday and brown basmati rice.

A Dal-–otherwise known as Comfort Lentils in our house.

This is from my book Delicious Dishes for Diabetics–-out in the UK and officially launched November 1st in the USA.

Our Sikh friend, Tari, affectionately known as the “Carefree Cook”, is an example to all us worry guts.

He never panics when people turn up unexpectedly and have to be fed.

He looks to see how many extra guests are coming through the door and adds more water to the dal accordingly!

We’ll eat these lentils tonight with broccoli, simply steamed, drizzled with a little olive oil (maybe a squeeze of lemon?) and a some brown basmati rice.

[If there’s any dal left over, save it for another occasion! Form the cold dal into little burger shapes, coat with some chickpea or whole wheat flour and fry lightly in some hot oil.]

for 4

500 g/1 lb red lentils

1 litre/1¾ pints/4 cups stock (I use an organic vegetable stock cube per 500 ml of water)

4 tbsp vegetable oil (I use olive oil.)

1 medium onion – chopped

1 tsp coriander seeds – pounded in a mortar and pestle

1½ tsp cumin seeds – pounded in a mortar and pestle

1 tsp garam masala

½ tsp chilli powder

  • Rinse the lentils very thoroughly – until the water shows clear.
  • Put them in a saucepan with the stock and bring gently to the boil.
  • Turn the heat down to low and let them simmer, covered, stirring from time to time.
  • They are done when a small puddle floats on the top.
  • Turn them off.
  • Heat the oil in a small frying pan.
  • Add the onion and fry gently until it colours nicely.
  • Add the spices and mix them in well.
  • Cook for a couple of minutes longer to release the aroma.
  • Add the cooked spices and the onion to the lentils and mix in thoroughly.
  • Heat through and serve.

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“Guilty” fingers!

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, tagged , , , , , , , on October 17, 2011| 12 Comments »

It’s a peculiar year for a walnut hunter.

Normally now, in mid-October, the ground would be thick with freshly released clean-looking nuts–asking to be collected. After rainfall is an especially good time–the raindrops knocking the nuts out of the tree.

It’s a pleasing pastime–with rich pickin’s!

Not this year.

There’s no lack of walnuts but they are falling late–often after the leaves, giving the trees a rather spooky look.

When they fall the nuts are staying untidily in their casings.

I come home from walnuting with tell-tale fingers–stained brown from trying to prise out the nuts.

A give-away–if I were doing something wrong.

This reminds me of  a mulberry tree in Delphi, Greece in 1961!

The summer of that year my school friend Chris Fordyce and I were hitching round Europe for nine weeks before going to university.

We’d been dropped on a corner just outside the then unspoilt town (the youth hostel was half built!)–under the shade of a mulberry tree laden with berries–ripe for the picking. We were hungry and given the setting–decided it was a gift from Apollo.

We reached up to feast on this glorious fruit but soon realised as the mulberry juice ran over our outstretched fingers and up our arms, staining them red, that if challenged by the owner of the tree we would find it impossible to deny the self-evident truth–that we’d been stealing his fruit.

Fast forward to the present and local wisdom has the lack of rain’s to blame for this unusual walnut year.

Not enough moisture rising in the tree to pop open the casing cleanly and push the nuts out for me to scoop up gratefully.

It’s taking the fun out of it.

None the less–I shouldn’t be complaining!

"It's that man again--collecting his nuts!"

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Autumn faces in the garden…

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , on October 15, 2011| 6 Comments »

… lifting the spirits.

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“Serendipity” Soup with leek, onion and fennel

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on October 13, 2011| 4 Comments »

The last few days have been unbelievably beautiful — warm, with soft golden light, and the leaves which have just begun to color slowly drifting to the ground. More of the same is predicted for tomorrow and the next day. Not really soup weather at all. However, cold and rainy weather is out there somewhere in our not too distant future and I look forward to making this again.


Exactly how I’m feeling–I found this quote by chance on a lovely looking site called Kitchenography– Life in my Kitchen.

SERENDIPITY! 

Soup is what I’m feeling like tonight.

The days are summer days–the evenings and nights are autumn.

So that’s why I have a yen for soup–I understand–often you have to put it into words and then it becomes clear.

I’d bought some leeks and fennel and I’m starting with an onion.

for 2

1 medium onion–peeled and chopped

1lb/450 gms leeks–cleaned and chopped

1 medium fennel bulb–cleaned and chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pint/525 ml vegetable stock–I use an organic stock cube

  • Sweat the onion for a couple of minutes.
  • Add the leeks and fennel and sweat all three for ten minutes, covered, until they soften.
  • Season well with pepper and a little salt.
  • Add a pint of vegetable stock.
  • Simmer gently for twenty minutes.
  • Liquidise the soup and check the seasoning.
  • If you feel the soup is to thick add a little extra water.
  • Serve hot.

I topped it tonight with sautéed onion:

1 tablespoon olive oil

Half a medium onion–peeled and sliced thin

  • Sauté the onion in the oil until it is nicely browned.
  • Twirl a little on each bowlful of soup.

I put a sweet potato in the oven and we  had a half each after the soup with some new season broccoli.

[Which makes it a five vegetable meal to boot!!]

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“Run rabbit, run rabbit, run! run! run…!”

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , , , on October 12, 2011| 7 Comments »

POP!–POP!–POP!

This rabbit's a hare!

I’m reminded of the song*–[see the title above]–as I swerve and slow down on my way to the market in Realmont, avoiding baby rabbits and several pheasants who are risking their lives coming out on a Wednesday here–of course they don’t know that.

The countryside seems alive with game.

Last week four or five leaping deer–little ones–arched across a field to the safety of  a thicket–I’d never seen that here before.

It’s the hunting season again.

Each Sunday and Wednesday the shots ring out–sometimes so close they make me jump.

Two at a time in quick succession from the double barrelled shotguns favoured by the hunters.

“Run rabbit run rabbit run! run! run!”–though it’d be better to hunker down in the burrow, they don’t know any better.

I’ve never seen a hunter with treasure in his pouch, though.

Is it the “thrill of the chase” that keeps them coming out or simply a walk across the fields with their dogs, in the early autumn sunshine?

Perhaps the truth is they’re hunting for a connection with a disappearing past.

Twenty odd years ago, when we were London townies down for the weekend, we’d be woken on Sunday morning by a barrage of gunfire and the barking of gun dogs.

The noise is much diminished these days–and “walnutting” [ my version of “La chasse”!] not such a dangerous Sunday morning sport.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Goes the farmer’s gun.

Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run.

* The song[1939] is sung by Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen–two Music Hall stars who teamed up between the wars, and were also members of The Crazy Gang .

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Allez les Bleus!

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2011| 8 Comments »

The Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand.

The man behind me at the checkout in Monoprix early this morning said to the cashier in almost a whisper: “L’Irlande a perdu–Le Pays de Galle a gagné, you heard?”  [Ireland lost, Wales won!]. The cashier gave a Gallic shrug.

(Everyone else this morning–those who were in the open air market that is–a much diminished crowd compared with a normal Saturday–was on tenderhooks.)

“France and England next,” he said, hardly daring to mention the game that was starting in half an hour in Auckland.

The anticipation of this quarter final between the old rivals (enemies!) has been intense; the view pretty pessimistic for the chances of the French team–who have been underperforming for most of the competition. They lost to Tonga, for heavens sake, last Saturday–an unprecedented national humiliation!

“Le Roogby” is an obsession here in southwestern France.

Back in 1998, after watching France beat Brazil in the soccer World Cup on a giant screen at the café in Place Jean Jaurés in Castres, we went round the corner for coffee in a nearby bar.

We enthusiastically congratulated the proprietor on the magnificent achievement of being champions of the soccer world.

“Oh, c’est pas grand chose,” he said, amazingly unimpressed. [No big deal!]

” Le vrai Coupe du Monde se passe l’an prochain–celle du Roogby!” [The REAL World Championship happens NEXT year–at rugby!]

I played soccer as a kid and have never got to grips with the arcane rules of “rugger”.

A big game though, like this morning’s, can be thrilling.

I settled down with a breakfast bowl of oats, walnuts and yogurt to watch.

I soon wished I’d stayed in the market–the French were playing out of their skins and the excitement in the square would have been palpable.

The unexpected was happening–the national team that had disappointed up to now looked like they were going to win–and not just win –but whip L’Angleterre, the old rival.

Whip them they did–despite an England rally in the second half.

The man in Monoprix may not be whispering now and next week for the semi-final I shall be in Place Jean Jaurés joining in the general cry–Allez les bleus!”

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“If a job’s worth doing…”

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , on October 7, 2011| 7 Comments »

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple has died, aged 56. In an early interview with Playboy magazine he is quoted as saying:

We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” (my italics)

This put me in mind of John Bloomfield, the costume designer on the first series of Poldark.

I remember once seeing John sitting on a dry stone wall in Cornwall while we were filming, sewing a button onto a part of a costume that would never be caught on camera, but was an authentic period detail.

It didn’t matter to him that it probably would never be seen, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep well that night if his costume had been incomplete!

We had worked together “B.P.” (Before Poldark!) on an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s social satire, Bel Ami.

He made me 17 stunning suits for the five-part serialisation, all of which he would sketch out beforehand in an original way.

John's pasted paper sketch for a George Duroy suit

With pieces of coloured paper–cutting like a tailor–he would build a patchwork portrait of the outfit.

Attention to detail from the start!

Rest In Peace– Steve Jobs.

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“Indian Summer”

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , , , on September 29, 2011| 7 Comments »

A puff of warm air strokes my face, as I walk the ridge ten minutes from home soon after eight this morning.

There are mornings in August when I realise I should have left home fifteen minutes earlier to avoid the fast rising heat, but this is the penultimate day of September!

We’re closing the shutters again in the afternoon. It’s an “Indian Summer” everyone is saying–and there’s no end in sight. We’re grateful but a little perplexed.

The countryside has a pale arid beauty–fields are barren, the last crops lifted; trees are turning brown and losing their leaves.

I look up the expression “Indian Summer”.

“Indian”–it says–is a reference to native Americans and has nothing to do with the sub-continent.

That disabuses me–I had always assumed the other!

But is this–strictly speaking–an Indian summer?

Apparently there has to be a frost before you can call it such, which is why they usually occur in October or early November.

Anyway–in terms of weather, it is clearly a gift—to be enjoyed for as long as it lasts.

There is another–metaphorical–meaning of the phrase: a late blossoming, a rebirth, a renaissance and that can occur at any time of the year!

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