Nibbles #44
Cooking for comfort, if re-heated rice and sushi-grade fish are actually safe to eat, and four fantastic books I read in January.
Welcome to Nibbles where once a month I share everything brilliant I’ve been reading on the web as well as some general updates from my kitchen, my vegetable garden during the growing season, and other miscellaneous ‘you really need to know about’ updates.
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Emiko, on why we now need cookbooks more than ever:
Anna has some great tips for cooking for people who are going through illness, bereavement, or new parenthood:
Ibrahim investigates if reheated rice is really safe to eat?
Marc has written a slightly terrifying, but none the less very informative piece on why “sushi grade” is actually a myth:
Stefan shares with us the roots of Gibraltan cuisine:
Uyen has written a brilliant essay on immigrant identity focused around California’s Little Saigon:
She’s also written an excellent piece on the place pho takes in Vietnamese culture:
For my Macknade residency this month, I created this vibrant Herby Beetroot & Spelt Salad recipe which is perfect for lunchboxes, or as a side for grilled fish or halloumi.
Over on my blog, I’ve posted a super-cosy, unapologetically brown recipe for Slow Cooked Pork and Butter Beans with Sherry, and another colourful lunchtime / side dish number, this time in the guise of my Blood Orange and Black Olive Salad.
Also, in the category of ‘other people’s recipes I’ve tried and loved’ this month can I highly commend this Venison Barbacoa from Modern Farmhouse Eats?
January has been a red letter month for excellent reads. I picked up The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable in the Audible sale and it was an exceptional, sweeping historical novel set in 18th-century Venice within the walls of the Pietà orphanage where Vivaldi was a tutor, told through the eyes of one of his favourite pupils. It’s a story of friendship, ambition, and exploitation, as a young girl with no one in the world becomes a woman of fame born through her exceptional talent. Beautiful writing is what carries what is already a fascinating story - the narration was also excellent, if Audiobooks whilst you’re cooking are your thing, like they are mine.
Philippa Gregory and her novels chronicling the women of the Wars of the Roses and the eventual Tudor court have been amongst my favourites since I was a child, but I’ll admit as her formula became popular some of the books became a bit same-y, like she was picking the next historical women because she had to, not because they would make a good subject for a novel. She stopped writing them for a while moving onto other topics (and with good results: Tidelands is utterly exceptional) but last year returned with Boleyn Traitor, the story of Anne Boleyn’s ill-fated sister in law Jane. For the first 100 pages I did think perhaps we were falling into predictability again, but it just turns out I knew that part of history too well: it then came alive into a vivid, heartbreaking rendering of a lesser chronicled part of Tudor history painting probably more accurate view of Henry VIII as an insane tyrant puppeting his court on pain of death than Philippa Gregory has presented before. It may be a Tudor novel, but it is also a very modern one.
The Forgetting was another Audible sale find, and I’ve now added the rest of Hannah Beckerman’s books to my wish list. A psychological thriller following two women as their lives change for ever, one by motherhood and the other by a car accident that loses her her memory. You think you know what is going on, you think you’ve realised the truth about their husbands, but I’m telling you you really, really don’t. I love a book with a good ‘oh my god’ moment I’ve not realised was creeping up on me!
I’ve loved all of Felicity Cloake’s cycling adventures around various countries on the hunt for food (One More Croissant For The Road saw me through a sunny weekend under the walnut tree outside my parent’s old home in Brittany, and Red Sauce Brown Sauce took me on a tour of the UK’s culinary delights whilst I suffered bumpy roads driving through Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula - also Completely Perfect is an recipe book essential for any kitchen big or small) I but I think her tour of America, Peach Street to Lobster Lane is my favourite so far as she cycles across the country trying to define ‘American’ cuisine showing us it is fundamentally something completely different to what most of us outsiders expect.
Just a note that all of the above are affiliate links, so if you order one of the books I get a few pence back. Thank you!
Shocking I know but I actually have something new on Netflix to recommend, rather than something very old I’ve recently discovered. After ‘Safe’, as the next few instalments of American crime author Harlen Coben’s 14-book adaptation deal have ranged from average to not worth finishing, but ‘Run Away’, the latest is actually excellent. So do watch it if you like many layered story lines with families who find it impossible to be honest with each other, leading to disastrous consequences!