Salamongundi, Feasts and Big Lunches

The Big Lunch I really wanted to set this up in my street, like the Jubilee street parties of my childhood, where we played catch the egg and had slowest bicycle races. I am not really sure where my priorities lie at the moment so maybe I shouldn't start this new thing. LOADS of good ideas on this site, which inspires Big Lunches up and down the country on July 18th this year. http://www.thebiglunch.com/ideas-and-inspiration/ I also want to make a mental note to myself to research feasts and feasting from an anthropological point of view....many have done this, see below. I just want to put some time aside to go back to more academic studies of the world and food and how we relate to it. RADIO BBC radio 4's Food Programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3 (episode on Feasts:Last broadcast on Mon, 12 Oct 2009, 16:00 on BBC Radio 4 (see all broadcasts). Synopsis: Feasts have been a feature of human life since humans first mastered fire and climbed out of the trees, but what function do feasts have in today's largely urban society? Sheila Dillon visits the Thames Festival Feast, a modern urban harvest festival, bringing food back into the heart of the city and recreating a sense of community. Grape treading, sacred mayonnaise making and mobile food gardens make a vivid modern feast. Central to it a table spanning Southwark Bridge, its tablecloth printed with collections of Londoners' food stories. The traditional feast has been disappearing from rural areas, but the Welcombe community in Devon some years ago introduced a Christmas Salamongundi to bring the community together to celebrate. Poet and author John Moat explains how it came about. Sir Roy Strong, author of Feast outlines the social, political and religious subtext of historical feasting and, with Rev Richard Coles, comments on the dining TV reality show, Come Dine With Me. BOOKS Feast: A History of Grand Eating by Roy Strong, published by Jonathan Cape Ltd; ISBN-10: 0224061380,ISBN-13: 978-0224061384 Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham, published by Profile Books,ISBN-10: 1846682851, ISBN-13: 978-1846682858 Food: The History of Taste, edited by Paul Freedman

Food Waste

Following on from my Bloody Well Smell It post, I want to investigate how food outlets and restaurants in my local area deal with their waste. Here's a professional service for food waste collection and composting, but it's based in Essex. I wonder if anything similar exists in Brent. I need to get a campaign going under the Transition umbrella... and then tie it to free compost for our gardens... Juniper Food Waste Run by a team of dedicated and experienced professionals, our sole purpose at Juniper is to provide a food waste collection service that is cost effective and efficient, that addresses corporate social responsibility and regulatory requirements, in a manner that is environmentally sound.

Coconut water - miracle food number 1

Our miracle food for the week is: Coconut Water ! The natural electrolyte! Coconut water happens to be one of the purest liquids known to man, and the health benefits of coconut water are numerous. Don't bother with those sachets of manmade electrolytes when you have a runny tummy; this is what you should be drinking as it's packed with organic electrolytes, sodium, potassium, magnesium. When you need rehydrating, or a sports drink - THIS is the one to pick, don't let any of that fake artificial Lucozade stuff go near you. Drinking coconut water helps in breaking down and eliminating all forms of kidney and bladder stones. It is also known to calm nervous and emotional imbalances. Coconut water aids in flushing the liver, since it contains lauric acid, which gives it anti-microbial properties and makes it suitable for treatment of some liver ailments like hepatitis. And it contains glucose, which acts as sugar for energy in the body when taken, vitamin B's, for  replenishment of worn out cells and tissues, and vitamin c, for the immune system
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etc. Of course, Polynesians, Asians, Brasilians, etc have known this for centuries. And now Madonna & Demi Moore and co are investing in the Vita Coco brand. If I had any money and knew how to invest, I would too! Although - I have to say - it's far nicer out of  a chilled and freshly macheted coconut on the beach than out of my fridge in freezing London. see more on electrolytes and why they could be the key to understanding your body under the tag "electrolyte" .

Amazing dairy-free milk

Hurray! I've finally discovered a non-dairy milk I actually like the taste of! Kara Coconut milk - it's drinking milk, not the coconut milk you'd use for Thai curries. And, it's better than soya and rice milk as it's even healthier. It only got released on the market recently - it's cholesterol and lactose free, and contains the richest source of Lauric Acid of any kind of milk. Lauric Acid is a medium chain fatty acid, which is healthier than saturated animal fats and also helps control cholesterol. http://karadairyfree.com/ Coconut milk is from the coconut flesh, not the same as the coconut water, which sits in the middle of the fruit, which is also full of electrolytes - a natural isotonic beverage. (see other posts) http://www.talkingretail.com/products/product-news/14219-kara-dairy-free-the-...

Cleaning the colon - what I did in Thailand

The word detox used to make my heart sink, because I knew there was no way I'd have the will power to do it - even just the idea of eating salads for a week, delicious as they might be, made me cross! Cross because I knew if I had the desire to eat the chocolate cake, I would, because I lacked any will power to resist it. I didn't really believe that silly old herbal concoctions would work and it annoyed me that detox packages would be on sale for huge amounts of money in pharmacies 'cos I thought they're probably just a rip-off. Why did I feel I even needed to detox? Quite simply, years of over-indulgence and lots of niggling, sometimes screaming, health problems. It was like a last hope, a wiping-the-slate clean idea but I just never got around to it, and just put up with the status quo. So in 1998 I discovered a rather good value place in Koh Samui, probably I'd seen it on TV, and I stuck it in my brain section entitled Things I Will Definitely Do One Day. This place attracted me a) because it was cheap and b) something about the hard-core nature of fasting for 7 days AND giving yourself an enema twice a day - made me believe that this was the best method I'd seen yet for wiping the slate (colon) clean,  kickstarting a new way of living. However part of me remained extremely sceptical - these things only work for other people not me, I won't be able to do it, I'll just go back to my old ways. So it took me 10 years to get round to going there. Since this post is just a summary, I'll skip the gory details and just explain that it's very controlled; you take a special juice every 3 hours, herbal pills every 3 hours, (but not at the same time as the juice) and you give yourself two coffee enemas every day, morning and evening, all for 7 days. You eat nothing. It's all very strange at first. It's not pleasant giving yourself enemas, but there's a video and books to teach you and experts on hand (NOT with you in the bathroom) to ask; you learn as you go along, talking to fellow-guests in minute detail and picking up handy hints... you get a bit weak, you can do gentle yoga, chi-gong, steam rooms, massages, beach etc. Not as cheap as the rest of Thailand but all affordable - massage £6, yoga class £5.  The aim, in a nutshell, is to give your body a rest from being stuffed with food, so that it can concentrate on getting the gunk out of you, helped by herbs and enemas. You can hear more about this in other posts but suffice to say... EVERYONE has this, (unless they've been vegan and only eaten raw fruit and veg all their life), it's yuk, and you need to get it out of you, because it clogs up the colon and leads to other, potentially serious problems. Of course, I took photos - every time I did a colema. I emailed a couple of them to my father upon my return; he said he was almost sick and he promptly gave me strict instructions never to show these to any of my boyfriends. (Of course I wouldn't!) (well, not during courtship period anyway!) Honestly, why are some people so SQUEAMISH!? People are just not getting the fact that this stuff is inside THEM too and surely it's better out than in!! It's funny to see different peoples' reactions. There is one end of the scale, my father and brother, who shut me up loudly and almost hysterically if I even opened my mouth to say the word "enema"; and there is the other end of the scale, my friends B, P and E for example who were fascinated, examining pictures of mucoid plaque, and immediately decided they might want to do this themselves. If you are more the latter, then good for you! Follow your intuition - you KNOW that cleaning your colon is the way forward! I did mine at the Spa Village, Spa Samui in Koh Samui, Thailand.  www.thesparesorts.com I am currently investigating UK options for the same cleanse; there aren't many so maybe I will start one myself. Once you have done it and you know what you are doing, you can use www.ariseandshine.net to buy the herbs and psyllium husks and www.cleanse.net, find a colema board and do it at home, but I wouldn't advise if you don't know what you are doing. Yes, you need to take the herbs and drinks, and yes, you really should do the enemas,  (no point cleaning your house without emptying the rubbish bin) and no, you really shouldn't eat anything except drink coconut water, carrot juice, wheatgrass juice, a liver flush, vegetable broth. I've gone into more depth in other posts.
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Khmer Chicken from Cambodia

Khmer Chicken with Bok Choi (serves 2, or 1 hungry man) Chop these thinly and keep separately in piles: 2 cloves garlic 1 shallot (Onion if you can’t be bothered to buy shallots, but only a very small amount (1/5 th of an onion) 3 small lemon grass stalks but exclude the outer skin first – chop these as finely as you can! 2 pieces of fresh turmeric (hard to get it fresh in the UK?) 1 and a half kaffir lime leaves – roll them up first then chop thinly Galangal 1 inch square, or ginger if no galangal
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Mix and smash these in a pestle and mortar (or cheat with a blender) But they must go into it in the following order.. lemon grass, kaffir, galangal/ginger : smash a LOT to a pulp THEN the rest except shallots; smash smash smash, and the shallots must go in last, more smashing.
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Now you're ready to spread this mixture onto the chicken - a large organic piece of deboned thigh preferably. On to the chicken, which you have slathered in this yummy bright yellow spicy mixture, add 2 tablespoons of coconut milk, half a teaspoon of chicken stock. Here you are supposed to add 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce, but I say either add 1 only or none at all - I am suspicious that this is the Cambodians over-doing it a bit, making it far too salty. Over this add a couple of tablespoons of crushed peanuts - you should seriously think about keeping a jar of these in your larder - crushed to the point where some are powdery and none are left whole. (beware of using salted, but roasted should be ok) Now, heat some oil in a pan - by the way, the healthiest oil to cook with is coconut oil - if not, then olive oil, but you do not need any other oil in your kitchen - and make sure the pan has a lid or at least something you can improvise as a lid. When the oil's hot, fry the chicky with all of its yellow mixture  but don't toss it around too much, you want it to go a bit crispy so leave it in place, turning it over once or twice. When it's gone much browner, possibly 10 minutes, it's ready!
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You can serve with steamed rice and bok choi. The bok choi can be literally steamed with a bit of water, lemon juice and oil in the bottom of a pan or wok. Remember the lid!! If you want to be more elaborate, you can toss over it a bit of crushed garlic, palm sugar, fish sauce, a ladle of vegetable stock and some black pepper. The Cambodians like to add cornflower mixed with water at this point too but I thing this makes it look gloopy, you want it fresh and green. Don't oversteam, you don't want it to lose colour.
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Day 4 Fast and detox in Koh Samui

So it's Day 4 and I'm wondering why I feel fine - you're supposed to feel a bit sick by this point. I am going to have to show you a photo of what's been coming out of me because otherwise you are missing the point. Look away now if you don't want to see! Actually no, I've chickened out. I'll tell you what, I'll upload them to a - post, and you can ask me for the password - or guess it! Here it is!>> Meanwhile, I'm realising that my nails are stronger and whiter and growing really fast. And every night I'm going crazy for all their instructive videos - some of which I've seen before, some not - you can see a list of films here>> . But I'm learning about how the colon really works, and why I've had the ailments I've had. And it makes sense, reading Dr Jenson's book and reading Rich Anderson's book - that 90% of human diseases would come from a dirty colon. There'll be more on this later. so day 4, and getting used to this yellowy brown mucoid plaque come out...and wierd white bits are coming out of me too- the size of baby's teeth, and the twisted patterns of presumably the intestine wall on one side, with smooth surfaces on the other. You can see photos here, if you want to ask me for the password, (or guess it).  After much discussion with various expert fasters and cleansers, we think these are made of cholesterol. This is I think proved later - 3 weeks later - when the white bits that I have stored in a little plastic bag, seemed to have melted into fats. Later, I find out that they look very like polyps. Did I have polyps in my colon??Are there more? By the way, I have lost a pound a day so far on this fast. Doesn't sound like much compared to my companions, and TV presenter Jessica from Real Hustle who says she's lost 9 lbs, but it's promising! Down from 142 lbs on wednesday to 138 lbs today - hurrah!

Local supermarkets and what to do with them

I wish people would use their local shops more and not go to supermarkets so much. And I don't mean the posh new shops, I mean the ones that have been there all along. Living near the Harrow Road, we've got the Jamaican corner shop or the Indian or the Lebanese and I can get 20 times the amount of fennel seeds I could get in a supermarket, for 1 fifth of the price, or yoghurt, for half the price of Sainsbury's, or waaaaaay better value vegetables, or nuts and seeds, or honeyed baklava, or olives, or yam with the shopkeeper telling me what to do with it, and the shopkeeper knowing me. Perhaps when I've got time I could start an awareness campaign as part of our local transition movement. (www.ttkensaltokilburn.ning.com) Or I could film a portrait of the local shopkeepers and their lives here. Or get them to demo their family recipes on camera in their homes.

Finally finishing my kitchen

After 2 years of dilemma-ing I wish there was a course I could go on to learn about how to acheive different finishes on wood because it might be very satisfying to restore my old bits of furniture... On wood types and how to finish them: http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/blog/ http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/project-guides.htm