Category: blog

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yellow savoury rice

This rice dish has a sort of Indian theme, using turmeric, curry leaves and cumin for flavour and colour. Instead of beans, you could substitute peas or soya beans. Great with baked or grilled chicken, maybe some meaty white fish. And green tabasco. Enjoy …

Serves six.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 red onion
1 white onion
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp turmeric
12 frozen curry leaves
2 cups basmati rice
4 cups boiling chicken stock
17 string beans

Method:
The turmeric stains pretty much everything it comes into contact with, so be warned.

Peel and chop the onions and garlic, fry in a heavy pot in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the cumin seed, rice and turmeric and coat everything. Then add the 4 cups of hot stock, add the rest of the ingredients and bring back to a simmer. Cover with a lid and cook very gently for about 20 minutes until all the stock is absorbed.

I suppose if you wanted to make a meal of it, you could add in some finely cut carrots at the onion stage or maybe some courgette. And a few cardamom pods or cloves.

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photo: booth redux

Photo Booth has transcended its child friendly remit and has now extended its appeal to the older generation (me). Hugo and myself having a little face-pulling furlough in Mallorca a couple of weeks ago.

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tech: MobileMeh

The launch of this service hasn’t been Apple’s finest hour and I would caution anyone who is thinking of either trialling or signing up to it to make a reliable backup of everything before taking the plunge. Try reading David Pogue’s article in the New York Times and then reconsider if you want to take the risk.

My experience (laptop, iMac, no iPhone) is that it mostly works except for a few oddities with calendars in the web interface. However, there is a problem on my MacBook in that every time it syncs with the server, it hangs for about 15 seconds – as in everything locks out or stops (Mail, Safari, iTunes). So I’ve switched off that option and only sync manually. Not good. I do not have the same problem with the iMac at home.

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music: sceptimysticism

My friend and fellow editor Derek Holland emailed me about ten days ago to see if I was going to see Jim White at the Sugar Club on Tuesday last. Needless to say I was blissfully unaware that it was on and immediately thanked my lucky stars and Derek that I had been made aware of the gig. Long-standing friend Klaus Harvey had introduced me to Jim White about three years ago with “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Anyhoo, I ordered up some tickets and rallied the Dublin-based members of d’Squad for a meet at the Sugar Club.

It was flippin’ brilliant. After a good support session from Tadhg Cooke, we were confronted by Jim White and his band – a guitarist named Patrick Hargon [1] and a new sheet-music-reading bassist called Christian who’d only met the other two for the first time the day before.

Jim White’s gigs aren’t so much concerts as a mixture of music, story-telling and being there. A fantastic night’s entertainment altogether, including a few new words in the lexicon like sceptimysticism – you know there’s a 5th dimension out there but you just don’t believe it.

I’m not a reviewer so I won’t try, suffice to say that it was one of the most enjoyable gigs I’ve been at for a long time and I hope that those folks going to the Tom Waits gig (I’m not) enjoy that as much with its attendant price tag. Brilliance altogether. I’m so glad that he played Still Waters, my favourite of his songs.

There was a kind of folksy vibe after the gig and Jim patiently greeted and spoke to many of the attending gigsters afterwards, including us. He volunteered that reading Pedro Paramo might be a clue to the lyric:

Yes and there are projects for the dead
And there are projects for the living…
Thought I must confess sometimes
I get confused by that distinction…

from Still Waters.

I’ll let you know after I’ve read it.

 

[1] Patrick is an interesting guy – he’s a fine guitarist, and he also teaches English to special needs kids in Omaha. We were wondering if the fact that he plays in a band give him exxtra kudos amongst his students. Probably does. He uses the word eschew.

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floater

So, I think I’m over the viola pictures, although I like ’em a lot I think I need to move on to pastures different. I’ve just had an accident with the Nikon on holidays – the status LCD was broken – although it’s still working I need to get it fixed for a trip planned for September. So there may not be too much new stuff round for a bit.

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for sale: three quarter size violin

So, since we have a plethora of stringed instruments at home and we don’t use them all, here’s your chance to buy a beautiful three quarter size violin for your budding Kennedy or Cora Venus. If that’s not your bag, instead you can buy a fabulous framed print of the violin by clicking the button above. Either way, your life will be enriched, so go on, do yourself a favour …

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Hoisin Pork

Hoisin Pork, Linda Reid stylee.

Ingredients:
2 x pork fillet steaks
5 cm fresh ginger, chopped very finely, pulped even
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp Hoisin sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp light soft brown sugar
1 tsp five spice powder
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp honey

Method:
Trim any fat off the pork, leave them whole but flatten them a little. Place the pork and marinade ingredients in a plastic bag or sealable box and make sure everything is completely mixed and covered. Leave in the fridge for at least two hours or preferably overnight. Remove from marinade and cook over a medium heat until cooked through. Don’t pierce the meat unless you want to lose your juices.

If there’s marinade left over, I stick it in a pot and cook it up, possibly adding a little chopped tomato to make a pouring sauce.

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food: Hoisin Pork

Hoisin Pork, Linda Reid stylee.

Ingredients:
2 x pork fillet steaks
5 cm fresh ginger, chopped very finely, pulped even
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp Hoisin sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp light soft brown sugar
1 tsp five spice powder
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp honey

Method:
Trim any fat off the pork, leave them whole but flatten them a little. Place the pork and marinade ingredients in a plastic bag or sealable box and make sure everything is completely mixed and covered. Leave in the fridge for at least two hours or preferably overnight. Remove from marinade and cook over a medium heat until cooked through. Don’t pierce the meat unless you want to lose your juices.

If there’s marinade left over, I stick it in a pot and cook it up, possibly adding a little chopped tomato to make a pouring sauce.

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digital IR: custom white balance

A mate on boards.ie gave me a tip on achieving better digital infrared photography. Darren Greene suggests taking a custom white balance from a patch of grass with the Hoya r72 fitted. This will reduce the overall red-ness from the picture and will allow some blues through. He suggests f/8 for about 1 to 2 seconds in bright daylight.

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time-lapse: Bullock Harbour

A blissful evening as the tide comes in a Bullock Harbour, near Dalkey, south of Dublin. An idyllic place to spend a few hours watching the world go by.