Going Italian

We’re going Italian tonight. The Fox is going to make some meatballs in tomato sauce. I’m in charge of the pasta.

So it is this morning I’ve been making some tagliatelle rose. It’s a while since I last made pasta. In fact I think I’ve only made one lot of pasta since we had the bathroom redesigned into a wetroom. And that’s four years ago.

I’m not quite sure why I’ve not made much pasta of late. We’ve certainly had plenty of pasta meals, but so often it’s been spaghetti or using the short forms of pasta & they’re just as easy, & more economical to buy dry, or even fresh these days.

Part of the reason I’ve not been making fresh pasta has been the disappearance of my normal stockist of 00 flour. Finally Morrisons has decided to stock it so I’ve hastily bought some. Using ordinary plain flour, even strong plain flour, doesn’t give the right consistency.

Anyhow the pasta is now hanging up on the towel rail to dry.

I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to make fresh pasta. First there’s the kneading of the dough  – and getting rid of any angst in the process – to make it silky smooth. As I knead I rock back & forward in a steady regular rhythm. Then there’s the gentle rolling and cutting.

Now I’ve just got to pick & bag the pasta & put it in the fridge ready for this evening. It will only a take a quick couple of minutes to cook this evening. Hopefully it will be delicious & more satisfying than the shop made variety.

I just want to pay the bills!

I’m slowly going bonkers! Despite my best endeavours I can still not pay for the care I’ve received from Linda, my care-worker.

As you will know from some of my previous blogs, the system has changed. In previous years the Council has sent card vouchers which I’ve exchanged every fortnight for the care received. Now they have issued a pre-payment card instead. The card finally arrived here a couple of weeks. We immediately activated it. An e-mail was supposed to be sent to tell us we could now pay. No e-mail arrived. We could see how much had been deposited in the account but couldn’t actually access the account to pay the bills without the special coding which would be in the e-mail.

So we went into the office to pay there, but apparently they are not allowed to have a card-reading machine. Instead the transaction has to be done on-line, direct to their bank – they provided the details – or by phone. Home we went.

We heard again from the Council. The letter informed me they would still need to visit me at some time & I needed to keep an account of what work I received & had paid for. We assumed the e-mail must be dependent on that visit.

Yet another bill arrived at the weekend. So on Monday I rang the Council yet again. They’ve now opened up a line specifically to deal with payment problems, which just goes to show how many other people must be having similar problems with payment. They assured me they would get onto the card company & I should get the replying e-mail within 24 hours.

Today, 48hours later, I’ve once more got on line. Still no e-mail. I ring up the Council yet again. Apparently they’ve received the confirming e-mail even though I haven’t. He reckons I should now be able to pay. I try but cannot work out how. I’ll see if the Fox is wiser than I am – he usually is in matters concerning computers. Otherwise it’s back to the phone yet again.

Meanwhile a small care providing business patiently waits for payment. I just hope they don’t end up going out of business due to the lack of money coming in. From what I’ve been told it sounds as though most of their work is through the Council rather than private. They’ve still continued to provide the care & are having to cover the wages & other overheads without the money coming in to pay them. As it is I’ve got 4 months’ worth of bills & I’m sure I’m not the only one by any means. I just hope it all gets settled soon.

The changing world of food

I’m cooking fresh tuna today for dinner. I can’t help being struck by the change in the culinary scene since I’ve been cooking.

For us,  real tuna still comes out of tins. It wasn’t until this century that you could even buy tuna in any other way. But today we're having the other sort for a change.

The north of England tends to be a bit of a backwater when it comes to new food items reaching us. I remember my stepbrother had some friends move from Manchester into a nearby Cumbrian village. They couldn’t believe how difficult it was to locate peppers & aubergines. I remember having such difficulty in Manchester in the late 1960s/early 1970s but this was the 1980s. They obviously hadn’t located the right shops because I hadn’t any difficulty in those days when we lived in Cumbria.

I was reminded of this as I roasted & skinned some red & yellow peppers to make a sort of side salad/salsa to accompany the tuna we’re having later today.

Even now it is very difficult to find some things. Recipes blithely advise you to get fresh figs – I think I’ve only seen them once here – or passion fruit – a similar number of times.

But all this exotica wouldn’t have been found anywhere in this country in my youth. Even now I await to see the arrival of plantains for example.

The discovery of an Asian foodshop in Lancaster has revolutionised our cooking. At last we can add item things like Shaoxing wine (rather than dry sherry), chilli bean sauce, dried shrimp paste, mirin etc. to our stir-fries.

Other less exotic items have become so much more available as new production methods have appeared. So fish farming has made salmon an affordable delight whereas in my youth you had to be very rich or be an angler. Game was the same. Seasons have gone out. Now strawberries, asparagus & new potatoes are for sale all year round, although British in season do tend to have the best flavour.

I revel in the range & variety on offer. I love to try new tastes, new experiences.